What is the relationship between the Illuminati and Freemasonry?

The Bavarian Illuminati was not a Masonic Rite, though it borrowed its organizational structure and degree system from Freemasonry 1. Its founder, Adam Weishaupt, was initiated into a Munich lodge in 1777 and used Masonic form as a blueprint for his own society 1. He was aided by Baron von Knigge, an active Freemason who joined in 1780 and assisted in shaping the Order's system of ten degrees 1.

The Illuminati incorporated Craft Freemasonry directly into its structure as its second class, titled Symbolic Freemasonry, and built intermediary degrees upon Scottish Rite chivalric grades 12. In the degree of Scottish Knight of Illuminism, candidates were asked to declare that the leaders of the Illuminati were also the unknown, lawful superiors of Freemasonry 2. The Illuminati also introduced symbols to Masonic practice, including the square character used to denote a lodge 1.

Arthur Edward Waite observes that the Illuminati sought to acquire the wider Masonic institution to press established lodge networks into the service of its own political and philosophical goals 2. The Order used Freemasonry merely as a vehicle for propagation, leaving no lasting positive influence on the Craft during its existence, nor causing structural harm to it upon its dissolution by Bavarian edicts in the 1780s 1.

The primary historical impact of the Illuminati on Freemasonry was reputational. Anti-Masonic writers, most notably John Robison and the Abbé Barruel, conflated the two organizations, publishing claims that Freemasonry was a covert political conspiracy aimed at overturning religion and government 1. Albert Mackey characterizes the Illuminati as a major misfortune for European Freemasonry precisely because this enduring confusion turned Weishaupt's underground movement into a permanent pretext for anti-Masonic attacks 1.