A History Of Secret Societies

Arkon Daraul

• Publisher: Normanby Press
• Year: 2015
• ISBN:
  9781786256133
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Indian & South Asian History
• Index: History

Almost every social system throughout history has produced its secret societies. Here is a unique study of such societies from earliest recorded times to the present, along with an analysis of their forms, rituals, and beliefs. The author has traveled extensively to gather documentation. The Charcoal Burners of Italy, the Castrators of Russia, the Old Man of the Mountains, and the Gnostics are but a few of the many described.

1—THE OLD MAN OF THE MOUNTAINS

TWO men in the year 1092 stood on the ramparts of a medieval castle—the Eagle’s Nest—perched high upon the crags of the Persian mountains: the personal representative of the Emperor and the veiled figure who claimed to be the incarnation of God on earth. Hasan, son of Sabah, Sheikh of the Mountains and leader of the Assassins, spoke. “You see that devotee standing guard on yonder turret-top? Watch!”

He made a signal. Instantly the white-robed figure threw up his hands in salutation, and cast himself two thousand feet into the foaming torrent which surrounded the fortress.

“I have seventy thousand men—and women—throughout Asia, each one of them ready to do my bidding. Can your master, Malik Shah, say the same? And he asks me to surrender to his sovereignty! This is your answer. Go!”

Such a scene may be worthy of the most exaggerated of horror films. And yet it took place in historical fact. The only quibble made by the chronicler of the time was that Hasan’s devotees numbered “only about forty thousand.” How this man Sabah came by his uncanny power, and how his devotees struck terror into the hearts of men from the Caspian to Egypt, is one of the most extraordinary of all tales of secret societies. Today, the sect of the Hashishin (druggers) still exists in the form of the Ismailis (Ishmaelites), whose undisputed chief, endowed by them with divine attributes, is the Aga Khan.

Like many another secret cult, the Assassin organization was based upon an earlier association. In order to understand how they worked and what their objectives were, we must begin with these roots.

It must be remembered that the followers of Islam in the seventh century A.D. split into two divisions: the orthodox, who regard Mohammed as the bringer of divine inspiration; and the Shiahs, who consider that Ali, his successor, the Fourth Imam (leader), was more important. It is with the Shiahs that we are concerned here.

From the beginning of the split in the early days of Islam, the Shiahs relied for survival upon secrecy, organization and initiation. Although the minority party in Islam, they believed that they could overcome the majority (and eventually the whole world) by superior organization and power. To this end they started a number of societies which practised secret rites in which the personality of Ali was worshipped, and whose rank and file were trained to struggle above all for the accomplishment of world dominion.

One of the most successful secret societies which the Shiahs founded was centred around the Abode of Learning in Cairo, which was the training-ground for fanatics who were conditioned by the most cunning methods to believe in a special divine mission. In order to do this, the original democratic Islamic ideas had to be overcome by skilled teachers, acting under the orders of the Caliph of the Fatimites, who ruled Egypt at that time.

Members were enrolled, on the understanding that they were to receive hidden power and timeless wisdom which would enable them to become as important in life as some of the teachers. And the Caliph saw to it that the instructors were no ordinary men. The supreme judge was one of them; another was the commander-in-chief of the army; a third the minister of the Court. There was no lack of applicants. In any country where the highest officials of the realm formed a body of teachers, one would find the same thing.

Classes were divided into study groups, some composed of men, others of women, collectively termed Assemblies of Wisdom. All lessons were carefully prepared, written down and submitted to the Caliph for his seal. At the end of the lecture all present kissed the seal: for did the Caliph not claim direct descent from Mohammed, through his son-in-law Ali and thence from Ismail, the Seventh Imam? He was the embodiment of divinity, far more than any Tibetan lama ever was.

The university, lavishly endowed and possessing the best manuscripts and scientific instruments available, received a grant of a quarter of a million gold pieces annually from the Caliph. Its external form was similar to the pattern of the ancient Arab universities, not much different from Oxford. But its real purpose was the complete transformation of the mind of the student.

Students had to pass through nine degrees of initiation. In the first, the teachers threw their pupils into a state of doubt about all conventional ideas, religious and political. They used false analogy and every other device of argument to make the aspirant believe that what he had been taught by his previous mentors was prejudiced and capable of being challenged. The effect of this, according to the Arab historian, Makrizi, was to cause him to lean upon the personality of the teachers, as the only possible source of the proper interpretation of facts. At the same time, the teachers hinted continually that formal knowledge was merely the cloak for hidden, inner and powerful truth, whose secret would be imparted when the youth was ready to receive it. This ‘confusion technique’ was carried out until the student reached the stage where he was prepared to swear a vow of blind allegiance to one or other of his teachers.

This oath, together with certain secret signs, was administered in due course, and the candidate awarded the first degree of initiation.

The second degree took the form of initiation into the fact that the Imams (successors of Mohammed) were the true and only sources of secret knowledge and power. Imams inspired the teachers. Therefore the student was to acknowledge every saying and act of his appointed guides as blessed and divinely inspired. In the third degree, the esoteric names of the Seven Imams were revealed, and the secret words by which they could be conjured and by which the powers inherent in the very repetition of their names could be liberated and used for the individual especially in the service of the sect.

In the fourth degree, the succession of the Seven Mystical Law-givers and magical personalities was given to the learner. These were characterized as Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, Jesus, Mohammed and Ismail. There were seven mystical ‘helpers’: Seth, Shem, Ishmael, Aaron, Simon, Ali, and Mohammed, the son of Ismail. This last was dead, but he had a mysterious deputy, who was the Lord of the Time: authorized to give his instructions to the People of Truth, as the Ismailis called themselves. This hidden figure gave the Caliph the power to pretend that he was acting under even higher instructions.

The fifth degree named twelve apostles under the seven prophets, whose names and functions and magical powers were described. In this degree the power to influence others by means of personal concentration was supposed to be taught. One writer claims that this was done merely by the repetition, for a period of three years to train the mind, of the magical word AK-ZABT-I.

To obtain the sixth degree involved instruction in the methods of analytical and destructive argument, in which the postulant had to pass a stiff examination. The seventh degree brought revelation of the Great Secret: that all humanity and all creation were one and every single thing was a part of the whole, which included the creative and destructive power. But, as an Ismaili, the individual could make use of the power which was ready to be awakened within him, and overcome those who knew nothing of the immense potential of the rest of humanity. This power came through the aid of the mysterious power called the Lord of the Time.

To qualify for the eighth degree, the aspirant had to believe that all religion, philosophy and the like were fraudulent. All that mattered was the individual, who could attain fulfilment only through servitude to the greatest developed power—the Imam. The ninth and last degree brought the revelation of the secret that there was no such thing as belief: all that mattered was action. And the only possessor of the reasons for carrying out any action was the chief of the sect.

As a secret society, the organization of the Ismailis as outlined above was undoubtedly powerful and seemed likely to produce a large number of devotees who would blindly obey the orders of whomever was in control of the edifice. But, as with other bodies of this kind, there were severe limitations from the point of view of effectiveness.

Perhaps the phase of revolt or subversion planned by the society did not in the end get under way; perhaps it was not intended to work by any other means than training the individual. Be that as it may, its real success extended abroad only (in 1058) to Baghdad, where a member gained temporary control of Baghdad and coined money in the Egyptian Caliph’s name. This sultan was slain by the Turks, who now entered the picture, and the Cairo headquarters was also threatened. By 1123, the society was closed down by the Vizier Afdal. The rise of Turkish power seemed to have discouraged the expansionist Cairo sect so strongly that they almost faded out, and little is heard of them after that date.

It was left to Hasan, son of Sabah, the Old Man of the Mountains, to perfect the system of the ailing secret society, and found an organization which has endured for nearly another thousand years.

Who was Hasan? He was the son of a Shiah (Ali-worshipper) in Khorasan, a most bigoted man, who claimed that his ancestors were Arabs, from Kufa. This assumption was probably due to the fact that such a lineage bolstered up claims to religious importance, then as now, among Moslems. The people of the neighbourhood, many of them also Shiahs, stated very decisively that this Ali was a Persian, and so were his forebears. It is generally thought that this is the truer version. As the Governor of the Province was an orthodox Moslem, Ali spared no efforts to assume the same guise. This is considered to be completely permissible—the Doctrine of Intelligent Dissimulation. As there was some doubt as to his reliability in the religious sense, he retired into a monastic retreat, and sent his son Hasan to an orthodox school. This school was no ordinary one. It was the circle of disciples presided over by the redoubtable Imam Muwafiq, about whom it was said that every individual who enrolled under him eventually rose to great power.

‘Tree of Life’ design embroidered on the altar-cloth and robes of a modern secret society. This design is Assyrian, and seen in mystery-cult use in places as far apart as India, Syria and Germany.

It was here that Hasan met Omar Khayyám, the tentmaker-poet and astronomer, later to be the poet laureate of Persia. Another of his schoolmates was Nizam-ul-Mulk, who rose from peasant-hood to become prime minister. These three made a pact, according to Nizam’s autobiography, whereby whichever rose to high office first would help the others.

Nizam, the courtier, became Vizier to Alp-Arslan the Turkish sultan of Persia, in a relatively short time. He helped Omar, in accordance with his vow, and secured him a pension, which gave him a life of ease and indulgence in his beloved Nishapur, where many of his Rubá’iyát poems were written. Meanwhile Hasan remained in obscurity, wandering through the Middle East, waiting for his chance to attain the power of which he had dreamed. Arslan the Lion died, and was succeeded by Malik Shah. Suddenly, Hasan presented himself to Nizam, demanding to be given a place at court. Delighted to fulfil his childhood vow, the vizier obtained for him a favoured place, and relates what transpired thus in his autobiography:

“I had him made a minister by my strong and extravagant recommendations. Like his father, however, he proved to be a fraud, hypocrite and a self-seeking villain. He was so clever at dissimulation that he appeared to be pious when he was not, and before long he had somehow completely captured the mind of the Shah.”

Malik Shah was young, and Hasan was trained in the Shiah art of winning people over by apparent honesty. But Nizam was still the most important man in the realm, with an impressive record of honest dealing and achievements. Hasan decided to eliminate him.

The king had asked in that year, 1078, for a complete accounting of the revenue and expenditure of the empire, and Nizam told him that this would take over a year. Hasan, on the other hand, claimed that the whole work could be done in forty days, and offered to prove it. The task was assigned to him. And the accounts were prepared in the specified time. Something went wrong at this point. The balance of historical opinion holds that Nizam struck back at the last moment, saying “By Allah, this man will destroy us all unless he is rendered harmless, though I cannot kill my playmate.” Whatever the truth may be, it seems that Nizam managed to have such disparities introduced into the final calligraphic version of the accounts that when Hasan started to read them they appeared so absurd that the Shah, in fury, ordered him to be exiled. As he had claimed to have written the accounts in his own hand, Hasan could not justify their incredible deficiencies.

Hasan had friends in Isfahan, where he immediately fled. There survives a record of what he said there, which sheds interesting light upon what was in his mind. One of these friends, Abu-al-Fazal, notes that Hasan, after reciting the bitter tale of his downfall, shouted these words, in a state of uncontrollable rage: “If I had two, just two, devotees who would stand by me, then I would cause the downfall of that Turk and that peasant.”

Fazal concluded that Hasan had taken leave of his senses, and tried to get him out of this ugly mood. Hasan took umbrage, and insisted that he was working on a plan, and that he would have his revenge. He set off for Egypt, there to mature his plans.

Fazal was himself later to become a devotee of the Assassin chief, and Hasan, two decades later, reminded him of that day in Isfahan: “Here I am at Alamut, Master of all I survey: and more. The Sultan and the peasant Vizier are dead. Have I not kept my vow? Was I the madman you thought me to be? I found my two devotees, who were necessary to my plans.”

Hasan himself takes up the story of how his fortunes fared after the flight from Persia. He had been brought up in the secret doctrines of Ismailism, and recognized the possibilities of power inherent in such a system. He knew that in Cairo there was a powerful nucleus of the society. And, if we are to believe the words of Fazal, he already had a plan whereby he could turn their followers into disciplined, devoted fanatics, willing to die for a leader. What was this plan? He had decided that it was not enough to promise paradise, fulfilment, eternal joy to people. He would actually show it to them; show it in the form of an artificial paradise, where houris played and fountains gushed sweet-scented waters, where every sensual wish was granted amid beautiful flowers and gilded pavilions. And this is what he eventually did.

Hasan chose a hidden valley for the site of his paradise, described by Marco Polo, who passed this way in 1271:

“In a beautiful valley, enclosed between two lofty mountains, he had formed a luxurious garden stored with every delicious fruit and every fragrant shrub that could be procured. Palaces of various sizes and forms were erected in different parts of the grounds, ornamented with works of gold, with paintings and with furniture of rich silks. By means of small conduits contained in these buildings, streams of wine, milk, honey and some of pure water were seen to flow in every direction. The inhabitants of these places were elegant and beautiful damsels, accomplished in the arts of singing, playing upon all sorts of musical instruments, dancing, and especially those of dalliance and amorous allurement. Clothed in rich dresses, they were seen continually sporting and amusing themselves in the garden and pavilions, their female guardians being confined within doors and never allowed to appear. The object which the chief had in view in forming a garden of this fascinating kind was this: that Mahomet having promised to those who should obey his will the enjoyments of Paradise, where every species of sensual gratification should be found, in the society of beautiful nymphs, he was desirous of it being understood by his followers that he also was a prophet and a compeer of Mah...

Table of contents

• Title page
• TABLE OF CONTENTS
• LINE ILLUSTRATIONS
• KEY TO SYMBOLS IN THE TEXT
• FOREWORD
• 1-THE OLD MAN OF THE MOUNTAINS
• 2-THE LATTER DAYS OF THE ASSASSINS
• 3-THE RISE OF THE KNIGHTS TEMPLAR
• 4-THE FALL OF THE KNIGHTS TEMPLAR
• 5-THE PATH OF THE SUFI
• 6-THE SECRET RITES OF MITHRA
• 7-THE GNOSTICS
• 8-THE CASTRATORS OF RUSSIA
• 9-THE CHARCOAL-BURNERS
• 10-THE GARDUNA: HOLY WARRIORS OF SPAIN
• 11-THE CULTS OF THE ANCIENT MYSTERIES
• 12-FALSE CULTS AND SOCIETIES
• 13-THE HIGH PRIESTHOOD OF THEBES
• 14-THE DECIDED ONES OF JUPITER THE THUNDERER
• 15-THE ORDER OF THE PEACOCK ANGEL
• 16-THE MASTERS OF THE HIMALAYAS
• 17-THE SECRETS OF THE WITCHES
• 18-THE CULT OF THE BLACK MOTHER
• 19-THE ROSICRUCIANS
• 20-THE HOLY VEHM
• 21-DEVOTEES OF THE GUARDIAN ANGEL
• 22-THE ILLUMINATED ONES
• 23-TONGS OF TERROR
• 24-PRIMITIVE INITIATION SOCIETIES