Conspiracy: History’s Greatest Plots, Collusions and Cover-Ups by Charlotte Greig Read Free Book Online Page A

along with the Knights Templar, the Rosicrucians and, as his book title suggests, the Jacobins. In the following year a Scottish professor of natural history named John Robison published the first part of a book with the unwieldy title of
Proofs of a Conspiracy Against all the Religions and Governments of Europe, Carried on in the Secret Meetings of Free Masons, Illuminati, and Reading Societies, Collected from Good Authorities
. Robison's thesis was that an Illuminati conspiracy was planning to replace all religions with humanism and nation states with a single world government.
    This linking of the Illuminati with Freemasonry and the further linking of the combined institutions with the sinister manipulation of society began to gain credence. However, not everyone was convinced. No less a person than Thomas Jefferson declared that he could quite understand why the Illuminati had been driven to secrecy:
    As Weishaupt lived under the tyranny of a despot and priests, he knew that caution was necessary even in spreading information, and the principles of pure morality... If Weishaupt had written here, where no secrecy is necessary in our endeavours to render men wise and virtuous, he would not have thought of any secret machinery for that purpose.
    Of course the conspiracy theorists saw this as proof that Jefferson himself was one of the Illuminati. And, indeed, it was not long before rumours of Illuminati involvement in American affairs began to circulate. The symbol of the all-seeing pyramid in the Great Seal of the United States was cited as being a secret sign, painted by high-ranking members of the Illuminati whose intention was to show how the Illuminati's ever-present watchful eye surveyed the Americans. It has also been suggested that the Yale-based secret society Skull and Bones was founded as the American branch of the Illuminati.
    In recent times, conspiracy theories involving the Illuminati have become ever more bizarre. Books and internet sites explain that the Illuminati are responsible for almost everything, whether it be the assassination of President Kennedy or the foundation of the Jehovah's Witnesses. The fact that there is no evidence of the group is always presented as conclusive proof of its secret existence.
    E XTRA-TERRESTRIAL REPTILES
Perhaps the most extraordinary of all the Illuminati-linked theories is that put forward by a former British soccer player and sports commentator named David Icke. According to Icke the Illuminati are indeed the secret rulers of the world but they date back a lot further than the Bavaria of the 1780s. In fact, says Icke, the Illuminati are reptilian extra-terrestrials who have controlled the world for thousands of years, and have been operating from the fourth dimension (which explains why we have not noticed them yet).
    One-time goalkeeper and sports presenter David Icke, now a conspiracy theorist of the first order, and scourge of reptilian aliens wherever they may be hiding.
    While Icke's theory has not attracted a huge following, but there are still many who believe that the Illuminati – while not reptilian aliens – do exist. And it may well be true that the world's powerful people do talk discreetly to each other within secret organizations. However, the suggestion that they are linked by membership of the Illuminati, a quasi-Masonic group that is devoted to republican freethinking, seems more than a little unlikely. Or is that just what our reptilian overlords want us to believe...

S ECRETS OF THE C ATHOLIC C HURCH
    T HE K NIGHTS T EMPLAR
The Christian Church has been a natural target for conspiracy theorists throughout almost the whole of its existence. In centuries past, these theorists would have been called heretics and burnt at the stake. In these more enlightened days they post their ideas on the internet and write bestselling novels.
    Two subjects that appeal to conspiracy theorists are the Knights Templar and the Holy Grail. The Knights Templar were an