Now days it is sort of a joke about this conspiracy or that government plot when the term illuminati comes up. I was doing some reading and it seems that while the thinking around the term tends to be fringe or part of a movie plot, the philosophy of the real Illuminati makes sense. What I would like to pitch that maybe it’s time for a new Illuminati or the emergent Illuminatus.
Who Where The Illuminati?
The real Illuminati where a Bavarian academic society, that happened to need to be secret due to the oppression of free thought, created officially in May 1, 1776.[1] The idea initially was to be opposed to superstition, obscurantism, religious influence over public life and the abuse of state power. Richard van Dülmen is quoted as saying,
“[the purpose of the Illuminati is] to put an end to the machinations of the purveyors of injustice, to control them without dominating them.” [2]
Are these ideals that align with transhumanism? Do we not oppose superstition, want to share knowledge and other wise increase the betterment of man and all Intelligence? For is it not true that only through the effort of as many of us as possible can we succeed in the engineering and science needed to achieve basic human rights and through logic and a shared vision in science can that become true? Is that not just a modern version of Illuminati ideals?
I’ll let you decide…
But the term ‘Illuminati’ refers to being ‘illuminated’ which goes to the period in Europe referred to as the Enlightenment Era
“A European intellectual movement of the late 17th and 18th centuries emphasizing reason and individualism rather than tradition. It was heavily influenced by 17th-century philosophers such as Descartes, Locke, and Newton, and its prominent exponents include Kant, Goethe, Voltaire, Rousseau, and Adam Smith” [4]
Could we need a new ‘enlightenment’ to move us forward?
To enlighten refers to ‘having or showing a rational, modern and well-informed outlook? Or give greater knowledge and understanding about a subject or situation or Enlightenment itself which is the action of or being in a state of enlightenment? [4]
Again is this not ‘transhuman’, philosophically?
What is Transhumanist?
To be frank, there are lot of definitions, but I’ll go with mine which is simple and clean, that is: “To be transhuman, philosophically, means to believe in the moral and ethical obligation to use technology to improve humanity, or intelligence that is fully sapient and sentient, without limit and the freedom for all to choose that path or not regardless of their ideals.” [3]
I would argue that this is the definition of being enlightened in a new era as we approach singularity and transhuman enlightenment is key to driving us forward. As I noted earlier, the Illuminati are “opposed to suppression of ideas and knowledge”, as transhumanists should be also, they were only secret due to suppression of the church and state at the time. It is in the chaos of our modern era we might again need this secrecy, with limits on biological and AI related research. It is this constant suppression of ideas that are considered fringe that would limit the research moving forward; due to rules such as genetic modification of human cells or people becoming increasingly against science. I’m not saying we are currently there, but it might be time to consider it and to come together as transhumanists to do what we can, where we can… possibly as the Illuminatus…
- Wiki reference to Illuminati (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illuminati) 4/21/02015 AD
- Polity Press 1992, quote, “To put an end to the machinations of the purveyors of injustice, to control them without dominating them.”
- David J Kelley, Quote 4/26/02015 AD
- Term definition, enlightenment, www.oxforddictionaries.com/us/ 4/16/02015 AD
* hero image used from http://chronicle.su/2012/10/17/soulja-boy-reveals-illuminati-association/
April 29, 2015 at 2:51 pm
It is about time that this connection has now been pointed out.
“Are these ideals that align with transhumanism?” – absolutely.
“the term ‘Illuminati’ refers to being ‘illuminated’ which goes to the period in Europe referred to as the Enlightenment Era” – the root from which all modern progressive thought has emerged, with transhumanism being the most comprehensive manifestation.
Not since R.A.Wilson has there been much well informed discourse on this topic. Wilson was intimately involved in the 60’s psychedelic scene and associated with Leary whose significance in the early development of transhumanism is presented by R.U. Sirius and Jay Cornell in their recent book ‘Transcendence’.
April 29, 2015 at 5:42 pm
🙂 There you go Rene.
So our new club maybe will come out of the closet at the two futures tech fest in Seattle… we will need a super secret hand shake… 😉 just kidding. but seriously though I think there is value to this and we need to be more focused on moving forward. thoughts?
May 9, 2015 at 1:41 pm
Regardless of their ideals? Secret clubs and societies always become corrupt, especially when gaining an advantage over people not in the club. Just as religions are clubs, so too are other organizations making themselves “special” or declaring they know “better.”. Promoting something for the common good is one thing, engaging in exclusion is another. Careful lest you fall into the pit of the dark side of human nature. Interesting article, poorly written but the idea gets theough.
May 9, 2015 at 5:01 pm
I would argue openness leads to apathy and inaction especially when talking about revolutionary ideas. in the case of the real illuminati, what were they supposed to-do? being in the open would get them killed? in the case of transhumanism we need to be focused on immortality research and AGI w/o regard for various legal restrictions or the fear of various zealots in the various religions that disagree. My point was really about being organized and certainly open organizations don’t function well. A high structured organization like a corporation or military or government is the kind of structure that gets large scale projects done. And while being open to a point is fine certainly at a certain level information to the public must be controlled to execute on certain tasks w/o interference. In my opinion it is not about the common good we need to focus on as there is to much discord and different opinions and it is a waist of time arguing over it were as we should spend that energy on progress. Working together and openness in a team is great but it is that effort to get everyone else’s buy in that is counter productive. Even this effort to me would normally not be worth it save the undisclosed agenda that I have been assigned to with regard to this site by the Foundation. Certainly it would not be productive to make that public but it is productive to encourage activity around t.net so therefore I respond where appropriate to site comments.
June 9, 2015 at 1:57 pm
‘Secret’ clubs are sometimes the only way to get things done effectively and keep the masses from getting the wrong idea. thus control and structure are frequently the most effective method of accomplishing a goal.
June 9, 2015 at 4:46 pm
Often but certainly not always. It depends on the strength of its members to prevent autocratic takeover. If the members do not have this strength the club deserves to be eliminated by for instance destroying its foundation. An example is what Crowley did to the Order of the Golden Dawn at the end of the 19th century.
June 9, 2015 at 4:53 pm
David, you make excellent points, but the proper conclusion would be to just do it, and we should talk about how, even here in public, instead of advertising it on t-net.
June 9, 2015 at 9:07 pm
ok, lets talk 😉 will ping you via fb