Hi chette,
I've been hearing some teaching along these lines lately myself, and as I understand it the Illuminati are human beings, highly influential and wealthy people who trace their family lines and associations back a few centuries. They are supposedly in a position to influence political, social and scientific affairs and they have satanic religious affiliations, by which they've arrived at their version of "enlightenment" which is basically witchcraft. The idea seems to be that they control pretty much everything on the planet, determining who we will elect for President among other things. I have no idea what to believe about any of this, some of it could be true, but it seems to me that God oversees everything including our elections and nobody can interfere with His judgments.

I'm not offering the links as anything I agree with but for information about what some people believe:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illuminati
http://www.the7thfire.com/new_world_...illuminati.htm

What you are actually describing is not the Illuminati but fallen angels or demons that are usually called The Ascended Masters, or at least called that by a particular line of witchcraft that goes back to Madame Blavatsky and Alice Bailey, and yes, the idea is that they are now masquerading as extraterrestrials who will come to earth at some point and convince many that they have much to offer us -- and in fact that they originated the human race. Anyone who believes such a story will certainly be under the strong delusion that scripture says God will bring upon the whole earth in the very last days.

As I understand it, Lord Maitreya is supposedly a "highly evolved" human being who has been alive for centuries and living on the earth right now, in London I believe. He's promoted as the true Christ or above Christ, and the fulfillment of all the Messianic expectations of all religions, the Imam Mahdi of Islam, the Messiah of the Jews, the Maitreya of Buddhism and so on.

If any of this is true, he's no doubt possessed by Satan himself, and is a strong candidate for the final Antichrist. There is a website all about him welcoming his worldwide appearance at some time in the near future, that has connections to the United Nations. The site is probably not hard to find but I haven't researched it and it kind of gives me the creeps so I'm not eager to find it either.

You are certainly right that we should be preparing for some such supernatural shenanigans in the near future. The church is going to be caught by surprise if we don't have some idea of the extent of the devil's power to produce dazzling signs and wonders "to deceive even the elect." And we are certainly in the very last of the last days.