The Owls of Minerva are a secret group of high-placed and wealthy individuals. They focus on government, trade, and espionage.

Politics often looks like chaos. Bumbling leaders can make stupid mistakes that risk the safety and security of entire nations, and too often choices seem to be made based upon the most short-term goals. There is little wonder, then, that people might dream about a world where this is not so. Rumors of shadowy organizations that pull the strings of power for good or (more often) ill have persisted for centuries. We are drawn to such beliefs as they give us a sense that there is structure underlying seeming chaos (and, for the conspiracy theorist, a feeling of importance in being let in on the secret), even if that secret truth can seem hostile. Like someone solving a puzzle, there is a sense of pleasure in putting together pieces that seem to fit… even if, in truth, the pieces never quite fit just the way we would like them.

Many of these conspiracy theories arose around the time of the Enlightenment. As new ways of thinking swept over Europe, they clashed with church and royal authorities. New groups of people (men, almost always) formed with the stated goals of applying rational thought to what had been unquestionable before. These groups – the Freemasons, the Illuminati (a Bavarian group), and others – were often made up of powerful but non-noble men: merchants, landowners, and others. They were often victims of repression by reactionary forces, as church and crown both found themselves less than thrilled about having their legitimacy questioned by a bunch of “free thinkers.” After the French Revolution – when a king was not only deposed, but executed, the panic over secular political/philosophical societies grew profound, and in the course of the 19th century, reached a fever pitch, especially when combined with the rise of Communist and Socialist groups. It was a tension that was to persist, with these societies challenging traditional authority and in turn facing accusations of treason, impiety, and the like. The Owls of Minerva here – named after the Bavarian Illuminati – seek to represent not the historical intellectual societies, but its popular culture referent: this feared cabal of powerful men lurking behind the scenes of temporal politics.