In September 1981, Steve Jackson and his regular freelance cover artist Dave Martin discussed their shared admiration of the Illuminatus Trilogy, and the latter suggested a game. Steve Jackson decided against adapting the novel because of the expense of game rights, and the difficulty of adapting a novel with such convoluted plots. He decided “a game about the secret-conspiracy idea behind Illuminatus!” was doable.

After doing research on the Illuminati and conspiracy theories, and “extensive and enthusiastic play-testing” it went on the market in July 1982 in the Pocket Box format, which was at the time the usual for SJG. Over the next few years, three expansions for the Pocket Box Illuminati game were published-the first two were substantially incorporated into the deluxe edition, while the third was an earlier version of what would become Illuminati: Brainwash.

The players take role of Illuminati societies that struggle to take over the world. The Pocket Box edition depicted six Illuminati groups: The Bavarian Illuminati, The Discordian Society, The UFOs, The Servants of Cthulhu, The Bermuda Triangle, and The Gnomes of Zürich. The deluxe edition added the Society of Assassins and The Network, and the Illuminati Y2K expansion added the Church of The SubGenius and Shangri-La.Robert Shea provided a four-paragraph introduction to the rulebook for the Illuminati Expansion Set 1 (1983), in which he wrote, “Maybe the Illuminati are behind this game. They must be-they are, by definition, behind everything.”

Despite it’s tongue in cheek humor and references to Conspiracy Theories, there are a few select cards within the Illuminati card game deck that could be construed as predicting future disasters and current world events.issued well before 9-11,theTerrorist Nuke card showed the twin towers being taken down is one of the most shocking of all, especially in light of the fact that this game first hit the specialty stores in 1995! Could Steve Jackson know that the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center were going to be attacked? Or is it strictly coincidence?

Likewise with the card titled The Pentagon:­ Unless one had advanced knowledge of the Illuminati Plan, there is no way on earth that they would have been able to create pictures in 1995 that accurately depict the unfolding events of 9/11! The Pentagon is shown on fire; we know that a plane allegedly flew into a section of the Pentagon and nearly burned that section completely. However, the rest of the Pentagon was undamaged to the point where its functions continued unimpeded. Is this the situation depicted here?

As with any Fiction, it’s completley subjective. And for those who’ve read the Illuminatus trilogy there is a lot of inside humor mixed with real historical facts of conspiracy. So are these accurately depicting the world controllers true intentions or is it all pure coincidence?

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