The Birth Of Conspiracy

Much of what we talk about here on Mysterious Societies revolves around conspiracy theories, the thoughts that governments, or secret organizations controlling governments are either keeping something from the public at large, or using secrets to control the public at large towards their own gains. Much of this is contained within the idea of an "Illuminati" which could be described as a very secret organization of powerful people intent on taking control of the world, by controlling governments and religions and therefore anything and everything else.

The Illuminati, who some say was formed in the 1700's by a man named Adam Weishaupt, who is known as the founder of the Bavarian Order of the Illuminati. On the surface, Weishaupt does not appear to have been overly effective, and one could imagine that he was actually somewhat a minor figure in the grand scheme, which is quite possible.
On the other hand, it could be the Weishaupt was more than a lesser player, or was only the 'public face' of an organization that ran far deeper than it looked on the surface.

However, at the end of the 1700's  a well known scientist, John Robinson, who was a Professor of Natural Philosophy at Edinburgh University, an expert on mathematics and optics, and a contributor of merit to the third edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica was releasing information through books and articles that would change, or at least 'enlighten' people's understanding of what the Illuminati were doing. The book that blew the lid off the secrets was entitled,  Proofs Of A Conspiracy: Against All the Religions and Governments of Europe With this book, John Robinson created something that endures to this day, the idea of a vast Masonic-Illuminati conspiracy that was bent on controlling all the structure of civilization, including governments and religions......

There is an excellent article by Mike Jay posted at  Brainwaving.com about Robinson and the The Birth of the Illuminati Conspiracy