When people see these ambiguous sources of information, they will often find a way to construe the evidence in a way that supports their belief. For example, there was a clip of Beyonce at a basketball game where she was zoned out for 30 minutes and moving her head from side to side. This was an ambiguous source—Beyonce could have simply been zoned out and moving her head because her eyes were tracking the movement of the game of basketball she was watching.
However, illuminati conspiracists interpreted this video to mean that Beyonce is a part of the illuminati and she was glitching. When every piece of ambiguous information shown to you is interpreted by you to be evidence for the illuminati, this reifies the strength of the belief you hold. Another cognitive contribution is the issue of logic. This fits into an issue with logic because while the premises may be true, the conclusions do not follow from the premises.
One characteristic is conservative beliefs. As mentioned above, the illuminati and conservatives share the critical belief that the government is heavily involved in the lives of its citizens. Another characteristic that stems from right-wing extremism is anti Semitism. The Illuminati conspiracy is inherently anti Semetic because a large part of the population of believers think that Jews control the world similar to the propaganda touted during Nazi Germany.
To believe that any one group controls the world is in line with the idea of the illuminati and the New World Order. Finally, I would say that generally, Illuminati proponents are people that have a great deal of cynicism and mistrust of the world around them.
To believe in conspiracies is to believe that what you see around you is not objective reality, but rather a reality created to somehow dupe you. The social influences that help sustain their beliefs involve a sense of community. When you have a deep mistrust of the world around you, this ideology goes against our major beliefs of reality. This may isolate you from the larger community, but when you find people who are like you and who believe what you believe, this justifies your commitment to the belief.
If you were alone in your belief, you might give into the pressure of societal norms. But with a strong community of believers, you have people to back up your point of view. Whether you believe in the Illuminati or not, you cannot deny that it is one of the most popular conspiracies out there currently.
The problem with this belief is that it reifies stereotypical beliefs of Jews controlling the world, and it creates a sense of fear and panic in society to propose that we will all be controlled in an authoritarian government some day. The psychological explanations for the belief system, including confirmation bias, logic errors, stereotype heuristics, and herd mentality help to create a more holistic view of this conspiracy theory.
By understanding why people have this belief and how it is maintained psychologically, we can attempt to educate the world to think more critically about unverified conspiracy theories, as well as analyze the world around us in a more scientific way. Bergara, R. Hahn, J. Are the Illuminati real? Engraving from The French Connection.
Charles Theodore, Duke-Elector of Bavaria The Ascent to Illumination. The Christian Eye of Providence as shown on the great seal of the U. Initiate 2.
Novice 3. Minerval 4. Apprentice 6. Fellow 7. Master 8. Illuminatus Major 9. Illuminatus Dirigens Third Class The highest degree of philosophical illumination. Priest Prince Magus Editor's note: This article originally presented Mayer Amschel Rothschild as a funder and member of the Bavarian Illuminati. Upon further research, we have found no historical evidence to back up that claim and have corrected the text.
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In the panic caused by the anti-Illuminati books and sermons, Thomas Jefferson was baselessly accused of being a member of the group. Though these early Illuminati panics fizzled out, they gave the group a patina of legitimacy that, later on, would help make a centuries-long conspiracy seem more plausible.
Conspiracy theories have always been popular in the United States, but for centuries, the Illuminati were less feared than the Freemasons. The Anti-Masonic Party was based on an opposition to the Freemasons, and though the party died out, Freemasons remained a focal point for paranoia in America.
Because the Illuminati recruited many members in Europe through Freemason lodges, the two groups are often confused for each other. To some degree, Freemason paranoia grew out of the Freemasons' influence in the United States. Many Founding Fathers were members, after all. And some key American symbols may have been derived from the Freemasons: There's a strong argument that the floating eye on the dollar, the Eye of Providence above a pyramid, comes from Freemasonry.
There's also an argument that it was meant as a Christian symbol; the only thing we know for certain is that it has nothing to do with the Bavarian Illuminati.
That early Freemason paranoia can help us understand the conspiracy theories about the Illluminati today. The Illuminati never completely disappeared from popular culture — it was always burbling in the background. But in the mids, the Illuminati made a marked comeback thanks to a literary trilogy that gave the group the simultaneously spooky and laughable image it holds today.
This trilogy became a countercultural touchstone, and its intermingling of real research — Weishaupt, the founder of the real Illuminati, is a character — with fantasy helped put the Illuminati back on the radar. You can be both a serious conspiracy theorist and joke about it. From there, the Illuminati became a periodic staple of both popular culture — as in Dan Brown's massively popular novel Angels and Demons — and various subcultures, where the group is often intermingled with Satanism, alien myths, and other ideas that would have been totally foreign to the real Bavarian Illuminati.
Uscinski clarifies that most Americans today don't actually believe in the Illuminati. In a survey of conspiracy theories he conducted in , he says zero people claimed that groups like Freemasons or Illuminati were controlling politics.
Even so, the Illuminati seem to persist in our collective consciousness, serving as the butt of jokes and the source of lizard people rumors explained here. We contacted Kanye West and Jay Z's spokesmen, but they did not return our request for comment.
Jay Z has previously said that he thinks rumors of his membership in the Illuminati are "stupid. In a broader sense, rumors about the Illuminati and celebrities speak to their place in our culture. Fenster sees the half-ironic, half-serious accusations of Illuminati membership as the latest expression of an old American phenomenon.
Instead everyone just got very excited about the Illuminati, and the myth spread worldwide. Yes, the music industry in fact controls the planet, via, we must assume, the rise of free music-streaming services, which are rapidly causing their own demise. Alternately, none of these people are in the Illuminati, because, rather than sending hooded figures to deal with pesky internet writers who put it about, they deliberately encourage the rumours.
Something to ponder. This article is more than 3 years old. Martha Gill.
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