illuminati

(i-li-mi-na’ti), n. pl. [L., pl. of i- lum in at us, enlightened: see illuminate, a.J 14. Eiccles., persons who had received baptism, in which ceremony a lighted taper was given to them as a symbol of spiritual enlightenment. —2. [cap.] A name given to different religious societies or sects because of their claim to perfection or enlightenment in religious matters. The most noted among them were the Alumbrados (the Enlightened) of Spain in the sixteenth century, an ephemeral society of Belgium and northern France (also called Guérinets) in the seventeenth century, and an a ociation of mystics in southern France in the eighteenth century, combining the doctrines of Swedenborg with the methods of the freemasons. 38. [cap.] See Order of the Illuminati, below.— 4. In general, persons who affect to po e extraordinary knowledge or gifts, whether justly or not; persons who lay claim to superior knowledge in any department: often used satirically. Any one can see that the book which forms the centre of the group is not a Bible, and the t/wminati know that it is a photographic album. NV. and Q., 7th ser., VI. 283. The great arcanum [the secret of futurity] can be mastered only by the very few who have the requisite intellectual capacity. Let Sir John Herschel say what he pleases, astronomical problems are amere bagatelle to the problems our t/wminatt have to solve. H. Rogers. Order of the Illuminati, a celebrated secret society founded by Profe or Adam Weishaupt at Ingolstadt in Bavaria in 1776, originally called the Society of the Perfectibilists. It was deistic and republican in principle, aimed at general enlightenment and emancipation from superstition and tyranny, had an elaborate organization, was to some extent a ociated with freemasonry, and spread widely through Europe, though the INuminati were never very numerous, The order excited much antagonism, and was suppre ed in Bavaria in 1785, but lingered for some time elsewhere. [