The Illuminati was founded to get rid off religions within the governments and to begin revolutions to take down the ruling monarchies.

They were looked looked at as satanic worshipers because of this. Like the freemasons, the Illuminati focused on gaining knowledge from ancient Civilizations on philosophy mathematics and sciences to help build modern democracy.

But something went wrong along their way. Either they realized the common people were too easy to manipulate in democracies or someone pissed them off.