Although the history of the Illuminati started back with the founding of the Babylonian Magi

Cult, and its Kabbalistic and Mithraic beliefs in the sixth century BC, according to Gershom

Scholem (1897-1982) (as quoted in Livingstone), the modern version started with t Lurianic Kabbalah (or New Kabbalah) around AD 1630-40 (Scholem 1974:245). As outlined by Livingstone, this was followed by Shabbetai Zevi, in 1666, proclaiming himself to be the Jewish Messiah

[emphasis added]

(known as the Shabbatean heresy, Frankists, Zoharists, or the Illumined). This was then followed by the leader of the Zoharists, named Jacob Frank (“originally named Jacob Leibowicz, who regarded himself as a reincarnation of Zevi”). Frank taught a “Religious Myth of Nihilism,” or “the way to Esau or Edom”; that the only way to “true

life” or liberation was through the “overthrow and destruction of society”; and to “abolish all

laws, but to be accomplished in secret.” Frank was imprisoned by the Inquisition in 1760. He

was freed by “the conquering Russians in 1773, though, he eventually settled in Offenbach, Germany, dubbing himself baron” (Rosenthal and Dubnow, “Frank, Jacob, and the Frankists.”

Jewish Encyclopedia; Antelman, To Eliminate the Opiate, http://www.geocities.com/