Alternative Theory of the Illuminati

The historical Illuminati, whose actual name was the Order of Perfectibilists, was a secret society of radical secular humanists formed in Bavaria, Germany for the "express purpose of rooting out all religious establishments, and overturning all the existing governments of Europe."  It is theorized that the real Illuminati, however, was founded after the Council of Nicea in 325 A.D., after the Roman Emperor Constantine declared Christianity to be official state religion and heretics were persecuted. With their roots in secret mystery religions, the Illuminati, or Gnostics, found it easy to go underground. Harboring a deep hatred for the Catholic Church, they vowed to destroy it and spread their own beliefs.

The Illuminati, through ruse, money and discrete violence, gathered immense fortune and power, rearing its head publicly as the Knights Templar, a religious order that was destroyed by the Pope and the King of France in the Middle Ages; the French and American Revolutions, acting through the Freemasons, which they'd infiltrated; the Nazi overthrow of the Weimar Republic, which went awry when Hitler went insane with paranoia; and the Bolshevik Revolution, producing Communism, another one of their experiments that failed.