What The Illuminati Eye Symbol Really Means

Anyone who's stared at the back of a $1 bill knows the greenback stares back at you with an eerie-looking "Illuminati" eye inside a shining triangle that forms the top of a pyramid. Business Insider notes that the eye also appears on the back of the Great Seal of the United States, which features an eagle on the front. Perhaps not-so-coincidentally, the front of the Great Seal appears on the back of the $1 bill. If money talks, is that symbol George Washington's way of saying, "Eye cannot tell a lie?" No, because that eye isn't inside a cherry tree, and the tree-chopping story was a lie about honesty. 

Some say symbol is basically the Illuminati's way of saying, "I spy with my eagle eye on everything you do." What does the $1 bill have to do with this? How Stuff Works explains that people associate the "Illuminati" eye with Freemasonry, which supposedly overlaps with the Illuminati, long held to be a secret, possibly supernatural society that has ties to celebrities and has its sights set on world domination. President Franklin Roosevelt, who added the Great Seal to the $1 bill, was a Freemason. He also approved the text beneath the pyramid: Novus Ordo Seclorum, which is Latin for "a new order of the ages." Conspiracy theorists tout this as proof of the Illuminati's sinister plans to "impose a new world order." 

The "Illuminati eye" or evil eye theory has some glaring flaws. The Federal Reserve says that FDR chose the cryptic Latin phrase because he wrongly thought it meant, "A new deal for the ages." Presumably, this was meant to allude to his New Deal legislation. Illuminati truthers would obviously have reservations about the Fed's explanation, but they might also have a hard time explaining why a supposedly secret organization would broadcast its evil plans like an incompetent villain. More importantly, the eye is actually rooted in Christianity.

Eye-ronically, the symbol that some people now associate with some sort of a satanic covenant between Jay-Z and the Illuminati is actually the eye of providence, a metaphor for "the all-seeing eye of God." It first appeared in the 1525 painting, "Supper of Emmaus," which predates the founding of the Illuminati Society by about 250 years. The triangle stands for the Holy Trinity (the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit), and it shines with divine light. Furthermore, "the pyramid is a sign of strength and survival." Tellingly, it has 13 steps to represent the 13 colonies that birthed the United States and captures the notion of an enduring nation.