“ ….Should you seek might, power, false honor, excess — seek that we would work for you to provide your temporal advantages — we will bring you as close to the throne as you wish, and then turn you over to the consequences of your folly, but our inner sanctuary remains closed to such.

But should you want to learn wisdom — want to learn to make mankind more clever, better, free and happy — then be thrice welcomed by us….. ”

– Adam Weishaupt, founder of the Bavarian Illuminati

“an Enlightenment-era secret society founded on May 1, 1776. The society’s goals were to oppose superstition, obscurantism, religious influence over public life and abuses of state power.”