There are "researchers" out there (in the loosest sense of the word) peddling the myth that discussions on the elite families and the 'illuminati' is a recent thing, and that up until 15-20 years ago, no one had ever spoken about it publicly.
This is obviously nonsense, and the 'conspiracy movement' can be very easily documented back a few hundred years.
I may even continue on with the thread in a similar vein, but may have to get one of the mods to adjust the title to reflect any changes.
Anyway, here is an exert from a book written in 1971. (page 151-152, Our Haunted Planet, John A. Keel)
Like many major myths, the Illuminati legend began in the Orient. Around 275 B.C., Asoka, the Emperor of India, is supposed to
have founded the supersecret society of the Nine Unknown Men. This group was founded to collect, study, and protect the secrets
of the occult, science, alchemy, astrology, and psychology. As late as 1927 Talbot Mundy, a specialist in Oriental lore, was
writing about the mysterious Nine, implying that the society still existed and was still running things from far behind the scenes.
In the tenth century young men were enticed into Persia's cult of the assassins by drugs and beautiful young ladies. Pounded by
Sabah, the old man of the mountains who was purportedly one of the mystic Nine, the cult conducted a reign of terror which con-
tinued into this century. It may in fact still exist. They had tremendous political influence during various periods of history. The
brainwashed, drugged members of the cult carried out their orders blindly, even when those orders were suicidal.
A similar cult appeared in Afghanistan in the sixteenth century. This was known as the Roshaniya - the Illuminated Ones. like the
Hashishim assassin cult of Persia, the Roshaniya appears to have been inspired by a prophet in communication with the
ultra- terrestrials. It began as a mystical order which quickly degenerated into a band of blind, drugged, mentally controlled murderers.
They raised a lot of hell in Afghanistan for several generations, and their secret teachings spread into Europe. The Alumbrados -
the Illumi-nated Ones of Spain - appeared around 1600, In France the Gueri-nets, another branch of the Illuminati, caused some
excitement in 1654. A professor of canon law at Ingolstadt University in Bavaria, Adam Weishauptj founded the German
Illuminati in the eighteenth century.
One of the stated purposes of the Illuminati was to take over the world and establish a New Order that was basically anti-religious.
They wanted to get rid of the archaic god-king system and all the tyranny that went along with it. This was naturally a very un-
popular concept with the established authorities, and great efforts were made to track down and execute the members of the cult.
By the late 1700s the movement had been effectively crushed.