Secret Societies: Inside the World's Most Notorious Organizations (3 page)

Henry was appalled. The two young men had been content and physically fit, yet they had died at the whim of their master without hesitation.

“If you wish,” the Dai-el-Kebir said, “I shall order the rest to do the same. All the men atop my towers will do likewise at a signal from me.”

Henry declined with thanks, shaken at the sight of the senseless waste of life.

“Could any Christian prince expect such obedience from his subjects?” the Dai-el-Kebir asked.

The count replied that no Christian leader he knew could exert such power over his men. His own warriors, like the warriors of other leaders, would march into battle drawing bravery from their dedication to honor, devotion and loyalty, willing to sacrifice themselves for a greater good. They would die, if necessary, defending themselves and their honor, with the opportunity for victory and glory. But none would act with such apparent delight in the manner that the two young men had, responding to a simple wave of their master's hand.

“By means of these trusty servants,” the Dai-el-Kebir said with an attitude of unmistakable superiority, “I rid our society of its enemies.”

Henry, Count of Champagne, had encountered the organization that had murdered his predecessor and would terrorize lands from Persia to Palestine for more than a hundred years. He had met the Assassins.

The Assassins were neither among the earliest of secret societies nor the most widespread and enduring. Their actual power lasted little more than a hundred years, waning with the advance of the Mongol hordes, and by the fourteenth century they were no longer a viable force in Middle East politics. Yet so terrifying was their reputation for ruthlessness that many European nations believed the killers were responsible for political murders well into the 1600s, and some evidence suggests that descendants of the Assassins remained active in India as late as 1850. Their legacy extends down to this day in two significant measures.

One is their name. In English,
assassin
identifies the killer of a prominent individual, usually in a violent manner. The other provides a timely motive for probing their origins, because the methods and motivations of the Assassins, initiated almost a millennium ago, serve as the model for the most deadly and prevalent terrorist group at large today. Spiritual descendants of the Dai-el-Kebir and the smiling white-robed men who joyfully threw themselves to death have formed a small secret society
that terrorizes the globe. Its members scurry among the hills and waddis of Afghanistan, meet in clandestine cells from Karachi to Cologne, and threaten the world's only remaining superpower. It is called
Al Qaeda
.

The Assassins grew out of a seventh-century schism among Muslims that produced two warring factions, Shiites and Sunnis. No event in any other religion, even the Christian Reformation, produced the enmity created by this division following the death of Mohammed.

Born in ad 570, Mohammed is believed by Muslims to be the last messenger of God, following Adam, Abraham, Moses and Christ. His visions and teachings, acquired in a cave near Mecca around 610, form the basis of the Koran and represent the foundations of Islam. Driven from Mecca for his beliefs, he fled to Yathrib, now called Medina (City of the Prophet) in 622, returning to conquer Mecca on behalf of Islam in 630. Muslims date their calendars from the Prophet's arrival in Medina. At the time of Mohammed's death in 632, Islam had spread across Arabia and into Syria and Persia.

With Mohammed gone, his followers had to deal with the question of naming his successor. Sunnis, who take their name from the Arabic phrase
ahl as-sunnah wa-l-ijma
(People of the Sunnah and the consensus), are considered today as the orthodox branch of Islam. They believed authority should be handed down to the Prophet's closest and most trusted advisers, or caliphs. Shiites (“Followers of Ali”) insisted that the bloodline must be rigorously sustained and proposed Mohammed's cousin Ali, who was also his son-in-law, as the Prophet's successor.

It is impossible to overstate the impact of this rift among Muslims, for it extends beyond the question of legitimate succession. Each group disagrees about numerous social and cultural mores, including the date and meaning of sacred ceremonies, the legitimacy of temporary marriages, and the use of religious compromise to escape persecution and death (Shiites accept it, Sunnis consider it apostasy).

Christianity's Reformation wars were mere skirmishes compared with battles between Shiites and Sunnis—battles that usually ended in defeat for the Shiites, who have always been outnumbered about ten to one. Not long after the death of Ali, his grandson Husayn and every member of his family were brutally murdered by the Umayyads, an opposing faction. All Muslims were horrified by this event, which further solidified the split between Sunnis and Shiites; it also provided the Shiites with a sense of tragedy and persecution that colors their beliefs and inspired their melancholy mood down to this day. In Western vernacular, Shiites see themselves as underdogs, an oppressed minority willing to sacrifice themselves if necessary for their convictions. And, as current events demonstrate, they often do.

In the period leading up to the Crusades, individual Shiites living among Sunnis risked death upon discovery. Forced to live in a clandestine manner to survive, they became adept at maintaining secrecy and demanding that members be totally obedient to instructions from their leaders. With time, Shiites arranged themselves into factions, scattered throughout the Middle East, to promote their beliefs and protect their adherents, and while the differences between the factions may appear inconsequential, they fueled enmity and suspicion that helped spawn the Assassins.

Two of the most significant splinter groups were the Twelvers and the Ismailis. The Twelvers believed only twelve true imams (the word means “leader” in Arabic) existed in the Muslim faith and the twelfth imam has remained alive and in hiding for the past thousand years. The Ismailis are further split into various segments including the Seveners, who believe in only seven imams, and the Nizaris, who insist that the imams will never vanish from the earth and identify the Agha Khan as their imam. While the Twelvers are substantially larger in numbers than the Ismailis, comprising 90 percent of the current population of Iran and perhaps 60 percent of Iraqis, the Ismailis have tended to be more violent in response to their minority status within a larger minority.

These divisions, unfamiliar and confusing to non-Muslims, grew insistent upon even the smallest distinction between actions and philosophy, often to the point of violent dissent. In preparation for prayer, for example, purification rituals must be performed. Shiites accept wiping the feet with wet hands to be sufficient, but Sunnis insist that a total cleansing is necessary. In the standing position of prayer, Shiites believe that hands must be held straight down; Sunnis (with the exception of the Malikis group) insist that the hands be folded. Minor concerns? Not to sincere Muslims. These and dozens of other issues remain contentious today; in the Islamic world of a millennium ago, they led to enmity that was often resolved in pitched battles to the death, a fact that must be understood in order to appreciate how the Assassins developed and maintained their ruthless character.

Around ad 1000, a group of Ismailis in Cairo founded the Abode of Learning and began attracting acolytes with promises of secret techniques that would enable believers to carry out divine missions on behalf of Allah. The movement became known as Ismailism, and teachers in the Abode of Learning acted under direct orders of Egypt's ruler, the Caliph of the Fatimites, a direct descendant of Mohammed.

Much of the faculty at the Abode of Learning was drawn from the caliph's own court, and included the commander-in-chief of the army and various ministers. To ensure the Abode's success, the caliph bestowed on it a collection of advanced scientific instruments and an annual endowment of a hundred thousand gold pieces. In its early stages, the group welcomed both men and women into its movement, although the genders remained segregated.

Along with opportunities to acquire an education, students of the Abode were promised that elevations to the highest degrees of learning would earn them a similar level of respect as their teachers. In a culture where government officials and teachers were drawn from the same class, this opportunity held enormous attraction for young people eager to rise above their lowly state, and the prospect of improving their lot while
learning to strike back at their Sunni tormentors must have been especially exciting for hot-headed young men.

Whatever goals the caliph may have had for the Abode of Learning, it failed to achieve them directly. Nothing within the Muslim world was altered by the Abode's existence. Its impact, however, continues to resonate to our present day, and the structure it pioneered and implemented became a model employed, with minor variations, by secret societies through the centuries.

Government organizations and large corporations traditionally organize themselves in a pyramid configuration, with one individual at the apex. Immediately below is a small, generally cohesive group of advisers—think of the cabinet in a democracy, and a board of directors in a corporation. From the summit down, in steadily decreasing levels of influence and authority, layers of bureaucracy extend towards the wide base, which consists of the lowest-paid and least-recognized workers. This common means of corralling and controlling power remains familiar and understandable to us today. It is not the only method of structuring an organization, however, and in the case of secret societies it is far from the most appropriate.

Instead of pyramids, many secret societies and religious cults tend to be organized at the epicenter of a series of concentric circles, with the ultimate power residing somewhere in the hub. Circular organizations are not nearly as easily understood or penetrated as pyramid structures are because their internal mechanism remains concealed. In addition, the number of circles can vary, meaning that outsiders are never aware of how close they may be to the actual center of power. From the foot of a pyramid, you can see the summit, but from anywhere within a circular organization you can never accurately measure your proximity to authority. In this manner, circular organizations conceal and protect their centers more effectively than pyramid structures.

The circular configuration of the Abode of Learning, copied by religious-based secret societies over the years, began
with study groups called Assemblies of Wisdom, designed to discard candidates lacking sufficient dedication.

Successful graduates of the Assemblies of Wisdom entered a nine-stage initiation procedure built upon the characteristic circle structure. This initiation process represents a classic method of securing allegiance to a group's cause and building a foundation of unquestioned obedience.

In the first initiation stage, doubts were planted in the minds of students about the values and concepts they had been taught to respect throughout their lives. Applying false analogies, teachers began to dismantle their students’ entire system of beliefs and any who were unable to deny their beliefs and values were dismissed. Those who accepted the teachings—essentially emptying their minds—were warmly congratulated by their instructors. Today, we refer to this technique as
brainwashing
. With no value system in place, students were forced to rely upon their teachers as a source of knowledge and the means to apply it. The most dedicated students swore a vow of blind allegiance to their masters, elevating them to the second degree.

Students who reached the second degree were informed that seven great imams represented the source of wisdom and knowledge delivered by the prophet Mohammed, and these imams had personally communicated that knowledge to the teachers. Teachers in the Abode of Learning were all highly placed officers in the caliph's administration, meaning that students could trace divine inspiration directly from the Prophet to the very people who were passing His wisdom to them. With this awareness, the students moved through the second degree with enthusiasm.

In the third degree of initiation, the names of these seven imams were revealed, along with secret words to summon them for assistance and protection.

Revelations continued through the fourth degree, when the teachers added the names of the Seven Mystical Law-givers to the seven imams, along with magical properties attributed to each. The names of the Mystical Law-givers were Adam, Noah,
Abraham, Moses, Jesus, Mohammed and Ismail, and they had seven mystical helpers: Seth, Shem, Ishmael, Aaron, Simon, Ali and Mohammed, son of Ismail. Through further lessons other names were revealed, including those of the twelve apostles under the seven prophets, along with their individual functions and magical powers. Finally, students learned the existence of a mysterious deputy known as the Lord of the Time, who spoke only through the caliph.

Qualifying students moved to the initiation's fifth degree, where they acquired the ability to influence others through the power of personal concentration. Documents suggest this was actually a form of deep meditation, with students required to repeat, for endless periods of time, a single word: ak-zabt-i. Meditation can be an effective means of relaxation because it effectively blocks the thinking process. Extend the technique long enough and intensely enough, however, and it severely damages the ability of individuals to think for themselves, which was the goal of the fifth degree.

The sixth degree consisted of instruction in analytical and destructive arguments, precisely the technique used by teachers to disarm students in the first degree. Successfully passing an examination qualified students for the seventh degree, where they were informed that all humanity and all creation were one, including both positive and negative powers. Students could use their power for either creativity or destruction, but the power was available only from the mysterious Lord of the Time.

Now they were prepared to accept the teachings of the eighth and ninth degrees even though, to our eye,
the teachings appear in total contradiction to the spiritual values that motivated the movement in the first place
.