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A talk by Dr Markus Meumann, visiting professor from the Gotha Research Centre of the University of Erfurt, Germany.

"From Secrecy to Celebrity: The Public Unveiling of the Illuminati Order in 1787"

It is usually claimed that the Illuminati disbanded as a result of their suppression in Bavaria in 1785. However, the Bavarian ban, which did not apply to the rest of the Holy Roman Empire, had little effect on the Order's other provinces. As the talk will show, it was only the public exposure of the Order through the publication of secret documents found during house searches two years later that led to its final dissolution – and at the same time served as a starting point for the Illuminati conspiracy legend to emerge a few years later.