Seems more like a placeholder. I think George Carlin got it right in his stand-up, you don’t need a secret society when multiple individuals desires naturally converge. Wealth and power typically dissipates after a few generations so for a family to stay wealthy and powerful drastic measures must be taken. So if you have a wealthy family who has substantial control over media and one over political processes and another over manufacturing or refining their goals to maintain wealth and power naturally align without any rituals needed.

Back in ancient times when libraries were the natural source of information, a friend had recently learned about The Illuminati and taken it at face value. I’d already dipped my toes in conspiracies and counter culture and I had read The Illuminatus Trilogy and more but I joined him on a visit to the largest city library.

The librarian was amused by my friends request on books about the Illuminati and grew quite engaged trying to find some rare material for him. Then he struck gold with an old book about the Bavarian Illuminati and the supposed continuation in the shadows. He tried to order it from storage, then went “hmm that’s strange” and went on a journey to locate it through the systems and looked honestly dumbstruck and had to announce that it didn’t exist anywhere.

I made spooky noises at my friend’s when we left.

TL;dr OP, Now you too are on the list.

No we’re not

I believe the “original” Illuminati hasn’t been operating for quite a long time. However, I’m sure there are plenty of groups who claim the namesake, with different beliefs, practices, etc.