They invited only wealthy, powerful, and/or intellectual men to join their ranks. The Illuminati or “Perfectibilists” of Bavaria were carefully policed by a structure of “internal discipline and a system of mutual surveillance” established to maintain order and secrecy. Occultism involves “various theories and practices” regarding “supernatural forces or beings” which “centre on the presumed ability of the practitioner to manipulate natural laws for his own or his client’s benefit.” Members sought to “replace Christianity with a religion of reason” while their beliefs share more in common with occultism than with the Enlightenment. They considered Christianity irrational yet were influenced by the mystical Jewish Kabbalah, freemasons, Egyptian Hermeticism, alchemy, and more. The Illuminati, like others at the time, did not believe in the Christian God. Their organization was known as the “ Illuminati.” Although contemporary with the Enlightenment of Rousseau, Diderot, and Voltaire, they wanted more than wisdom the Illuminati strayed into the realms of the occult while establishing a secret, hierarchical society. In 1776, a group of educated Bavarian gentlemen began an organization bent on “illumination” and propagating a “new kind of reason” in response to the restrictions of Catholicism.

To illuminate meaning