The term Illuminati starts with Adam Weishaupt, a Bavarian who founded and organization in 1776 called the Perfectibilists.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_Weishaupt
The original intent was to form a New World Order free of monachies and to shape the future of political thought in the world.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_Weishaupt
Debates about Weishaupt and his organization’s continued survival continue to this day. Most people who know about it place it dutifully the term in the conspiracy theory category of tin foil hattery.
http://people.csail.mit.edu/rahimi/helmet/
The basis of the word Illuminati means the belief that world events, governments, businesses, medicine and science are influenced by a myriad of organizations working in a co-ordinated effort. Kind of like the Matrix movie series “normal” people simply dismiss the matter as something far too grandious a scheme to ever be real. Well I refer again to my tin foil hat link and thousands of easily searchable web pages on the subjects. Webster Tarpley, John Coleman and Wes Penre are several authors on New World Order and the Illuminati.
http://www.svpvril.com/nwo.html
My observations were only arrived at by an ex-pat assignement and the completion of a business degree.
Embrace the concept, even the possibilty that an organized elite bunch of powerful men organized over generations might affect world events. Have we not moved to a more globalized world? Are organizations like the CFR, world bank, WTO gaining power which superceeds nations? Has John Edwards not spent much of his time sucking up to organizations with global agendas?
http://www.cremationofcare.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bohemian_Grove
http://www.thegeorgiaguidestones.com/Message.htm
The subject is even in German.
http://www.das-gibts-doch-nicht.info/frame1.php
So in short I look above left and right politically. The Olberman’s and the Bill OReilley’s of the world are all foolish, merely puppets dancing on the strings of their masters.
The last six years though I think has and will continue to garner interest in the subject as the US decends further into someplace more in line with Communist China.