Illuminati Press

A Human Response to Smart Technology

Recent Articles

  • Pre‑Crime Is Real: How AI Policing Echoes Minority Report—And Why That Scares the Hell Out of Me

    Okay, buckle up: Pre‑Crime is no longer just a cool 2002 Tom Cruise movie or a Philip K. Dick novella. In 2025, it’s waking up in police terminals, in city budgets, in global policy debates. We’re talking systems that predict where crime will occur—and who might commit it—before a scan of DNA or a drop…

  • When Your Best Friend Is a Bot: Love, Loneliness & the Age of Artificial Intimacy

    I knew AI companionship was having a moment—I mean, who doesn’t have a Replika or Character.AI friend tucked into their pocket? But when the phrases “fall in love with your chatbot” and “mourning an AI crush” started leaking into actual psychiatry papers—it got me thinking: what are we doing? Meme drop-in #1 at top: (Your…

  • DebunkBots, False Flags, and the $10 Billion Birthday Card: When Conspiracy Theories Collide with AI and Power

    Opening the Vault There is an old joke about the Illuminati—that shadowy, century‑spanning whisper of a brotherhood who allegedly pulls the strings behind presidents, popes, and pizza parlors. The joke is that if you know about them, they can’t be very good at keeping secrets. Yet here we are again, fixated on another tale of…

  • The $500 Ghost-in-the-Machine Short-Story Experiment

    (or, How to Stop Worrying and Let the Language Models Crash the Party) I’ve lost count of the contests that open with a cheery “No AI-generated work will be accepted.” The disclaimer is always followed by hand-wringing about “authentic voice,” “the sanctity of craft,” and “protecting literature from soulless algorithms.” Lovely. Also unenforceable. Unless the…

  • The Hidden Curriculum of Secret Societies: Ethical Architecture & Esoteric Education

    Prologue — Why Study What Prefers the Shadows? Ask a Freemason, a Discord occult-kid, or a Fortune 500 executive fresh from a “Digital Lodge” retreat what they actually learned behind closed doors and you’ll get the same grin: I could tell you, but then…Yet secrecy often camouflages something surprisingly ordinary—a curriculum. Degrees, stages, progressive disclosure,…

  • Behind the Triangle: The Eye of Providence from Ancient Roots to Modern Conspiracies

    Flip over a U.S. dollar and you stare straight into a tiny triangle crowned by a single eye—solemn, watchful, a little unnerving. Officially it’s the Eye of Providence, perched above an unfinished pyramid, a design that has graced America’s Great Seal since 1782 and paper money since 1935. But the symbol’s road to your wallet…

  • How to Start a Literary Journal

    Below is a step-by-step playbook for launching a legitimate, peer-reviewed academic journal under the Illuminati Press banner—one that can stand alongside established titles in Scopus, DOAJ, and Web of Science. I’ve included practical resources (most of them free or low-cost), common pitfalls, and the milestones that indexers and tenure committees look for. 1 Define Your…

  • Memory Palaces in the Digital Age: An Esoteric Guide to Data Visualization

    I’ve always loved the idea that a person with no smartphone, no Post-it notes, and no browser tabs could wander an imagined villa and recall entire epics. The Romans called it the Method of Loci; Renaissance magi called it the ars memoriae. Modern brain-hack TikTokers call it “that Sherlock thing.” Whatever the label, a memory…

  • How Do I Make Weather a Character in My Story?

    Weather isn’t just background noise. When done right, it can be as powerful as any character—a force that shapes the mood, reflects emotions, or even drives the plot forward. But too often, weather in fiction is purely decorative—something a writer adds to set the scene, but not to affect the story in any meaningful way….

  • Why Do My Settings Feel Generic?

    A great setting doesn’t just describe a place—it makes the reader feel like they’ve stepped into it. But some settings feel… flat. Vague cities, empty rooms, generic forests, interchangeable taverns. No matter how much you describe them, they lack personality. They don’t feel like places where real things happen, where real people live. The best…