Looking for a good book to read about the legends surrounding the illuminati?

Question

Obviously, I'm not looking for perfect facts, as these likely don't exist, but all these secret societies fascinate me and I want to read more (the books aren't just to be limited to the Illuminati, I just primarily want to know about that one) Basically the book should contain the most widely accepted folk lore/urban legend type material and preferably each book should focus only on one secret society, or maybe limited at, oh, say 4. Unless of course it's four inches thick and tells every detail about every secret society ever. The target audience should be college aged to maybe a little bit older. Thanks!

Answer 1

I second BadBeast, both on Robert Anton Wilson and on Holy Blood, Holy Grail (which if you didn't know "inspired" the DaVinci Code).  Wilson was an erudite and cosmopolitan man writing mainly in the seventies and eighties who was involved in the Neo-Pagan movement (Margot Adler profiled him in Drawing Down the Moon: Witches, Druids Goddess-Worshippers and other Pagans in America Today.  He left a profound corpus of Modern Occultist lore mostly disguised as Science Fiction Novels.  The place to start would be his Illuminatus trilogy written with Robert Shea.  He died in January 11, 2007 but his personal website is still up.  I've got the URL in sources.

Holy Blood, Holy Grail was the result of some research and speculation by a former writer for the TV series Dr. Who (Henry Lincoln).  It was chiefly amusing because as near as we could make out when it was first published, there was this confidence man who had apparently forged links to the Old Aristocracy, using among other things the Priory of Zion, who, far from fooling anybody had charmed and amused his "victims" into supporting him while only paying lip service to what they apparently knew wasn't true.  When Lincoln turned up this material which he and his collaborators published, everyone had to disavow everything quickly.  EDIT: Some of these alleged victims were Old Aristocracy who were vulnerable to the accusation of plotting treason if this man was prepared to assert his claim to be rightful King.  Nevertheless it is not a well-written book and really goes nowhere because Lincoln does not want to take his speculations to any logical conclusion, other than that this man may be a descendant of Jesus and the Rightful King of France.

The material in it on the Illuminati is minor and not worth reading.

There are articles all over the Internet about it.  I have enjoyed the Mystica since the early days of the WWW, but their article is very short.  This is one topic I do recommend consulting your search engine for.  I said internet advisedly, I first found occult material on the 'Net in 1991 using the programs gopher, ftp and telnet.  The topic has been covered broadly and sometimes deeply on-line since before there was a web.

Answer 2

The Illuminatus trilogy By Robert Anton Wilson.

or the Cosmic Trigger,same Author. There is also the Historical Illuminatus Trilogy R.A.Wilson.

Funny, ( hilarious) informative, historically accurate, well written, never mind Holy Blood, Hloy Grail,thats an awfully dull book, and it goes nowhere.

Also try The Secret History of Almost everything, by Manly P. Hall. Thats good too.

But anything by Robert Anton Wilson. Hes the Dogs c**k for Illuminati Literature.    

Answer 3

Holy Blood, Holy Grail.

The daddy of all illuminati books & the basic idea for The Da vinci Code, no matter what the courts think!

Answer 4

Hope of the wicked by: Ted Flynn

this book will change the way you think about everything you thought you knew! Read it. I beg you. You wont be sorry.

-Sarah