The 1990s card game that ‘predicted’ 9/11, Donald Trump, Covid and the Capitol riot
An out-of-print multiplayer card game that first appeared in 1994 is continuing to attract interest and unease online over its apparently eerie ability to “predict” major global events, from 9/11 to the election of Donald Trump, the coronavirus pandemic and the failed insurrection at the US Capitol on 6 January 2021.
Illuminati: New World Order was released by Steve Jackson Games and cast the player as a puppet-master pursuing world domination on behalf of their chosen mythic secret society, the game offering a choice of the Bavarian Illuminati, the Discordian Society, the UFOs, the Servants of Cthulhu, the Bermuda Triangle and the Gnomes of Zurich.
The goal of - spun off from the same company’s 1982 board game that was in turn (1975) fantasy novels by Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson – is to develop and consolidate a power structure through which to rule the globe from the shadows on behalf of your chosen order, manipulating society and dealing out apocalyptic blows to your opponents as you go.
