The enlightenment was caused by a lot of things, but some of the major reasons included new ideas from Asia, as well as the separation from the Catholic Church in the middle ages. Martin Luther( not King Jr) , saw the Catholic Church as wrong for several new practices , and so he started Lutheranism, as well as several other breakoffs, which started to encourage reading the Bible for yourself and other ideas that kick-started the enlightenment. As people began to read, they learned for themselves and started to become "enlightened". Ideas from Asia only helped spread this practice, such as Buddhism.
