Newspaper mentioning the NWO

Does the Illuminati secret society exist?

According to the more rabid conspiracy theorists, this shadowy group is responsible for everything from the French Revolution to 9/11 and probably John Terry's penalty miss in last year's Champions League Final.


In the film, they are hell bent on destroying the Vatican with unbelievably powerful antimatter - a tiny grain has the destructive potential of a nuclear bomb.


In fact there was a real group called the Illuminati, Italian for "the enlightened", a sect founded in 1776. It was a brotherhood made up of freethinkers, intellectuals and politicians.


They had the aim of overthrowing the Roman Catholic and conservative Kingdom of Bavaria, which they felt restricted their freedoms.


The first incarnation of the brotherhood didn't last long though - within a decade it had been banned by the kingdom for plotting to overthrow the king.


In Angels and Demons, the Illuminati returns from a 200-year "hiatus" to take up arms once again against their sworn enemy the Catholic church. Conspiracy theorists believe that the "brotherhood" never really went away but that it was simply forced further underground. They believe it is behind attempts to form a New World Order - a totalitarian global dictatorship made of the world's most powerful people. And, er, the EU.


Different theorists believe that the Illuminati has included Winston Churchill and Tony Blair, it has infiltrated the British Parliament (might explain those expenses) and the US Treasury, to have formed an alliance with the Freemasons and is even affiliated with Satanic cults.


Some also argue that the Illuminati have infiltrated schools, colleges, the media and the banks.


It's all nonsense of course (unless the Illuminati are telling us to say that...) But there is a real group with some shadowy similarities to the Illuminati. The Bilderberg Group is a secret selection of politicians and financiers, that has met annually since 1954.


The latest assembly, in Athens, ends today.


In the past, Margaret Thatcher, Alec Douglas Home, Bill Clinton, Henry Kissinger, Gerald Ford, Peter Mandelson and Tony Blair are reported to have attended..