Bavarian Illuminati

Banned in 1785. The paperwork says it died. The theory says it merely submerged.

The documented order lasted nine years: founded 1776 by a Bavarian law professor, infiltrated the lodges, banned 1785 when the letters were seized. That should be the end. But the seized correspondence — insinuation, front organizations, members who don't know their masters — read like a manual, and the manual has felt applicable ever since. The theory's real claim was never that Weishaupt survived. It's that the method did.