Happy Birthday, Illuminati!

It's May Day again, when Communists everywhere take to the streets and celebrate the Russian Revolution. It's also the birthday of the Bavarian Illuminati, formed as the "Order of Perfectibilists" by Adam Wieshaupt on May 1, 1776, in Ingolstadt, Bavaria.

We'll celebrate today by quoting the late Robert Anton Wilson in his 1977 comic novel, Cosmic Trigger I: Final Secret of the Illuminati:

"The Illuminati have been credited with managing the French and American revolutions behind the scenes, taking over the world, being the brains behind Communism, continuing underground up to the 1970s, secretly worshipping the Devil, and mopery with intent to gawk. Some claim that Weishaupt didn't even invent the Illuminati, but only revived it. The Order of Illuminati has been traced back to the Knights Templar, to the Greek and Gnostic initiatory cults, to Egypt, even to Atlantis. The one safe generalization one can make is that Weishaupt's intent to maintain secrecy has worked; no two students of Illuminology have ever agreed totally about what the "inner secret" or purpose of the Order actually was (or is . . .).

"There is endless room for spooky speculation, and for pedantic paranoia, once one really gets into the literature of the subject; and there has been a wave of sensational "ex-poses" of the Illuminati every generation since 1776. If you were to believe all this sensational literature, the damned Bavarian conspirators were responsible for everything wrong with the world, including the energy crises and the fact that you can't even get a plumber on weekends."