Hashishins - The Order of Assassins

Originally posted by DenyAllKnowledge
I came across an article a short while ago about the "Order of Assassins" (a fascinating subject and one that I've read an awful lot about) and found a titbit that I hadn't heard before:

The secret order that Hasan bin Sabbah created had a significant impact on all subsequent cults and secret societies. During the Crusades, the Hashishins fought both for and against the Crusaders, whichever suited their agenda. As a result, the Crusaders brought back to Europe the Assassins' system, which would be passed down and mimicked by numerous secret societies in the West. The Templars, the Society of Jesus, Priory de Sion, the Freemasons, the Rosicrucians, etc. all owe their organizational efficiency to Hasan. In fact, the Illuminati had their origins in the mystical aspect of the Hashishin order, although most equate the Illuminati with the Bavarian Illuminati, which was a revised version of the Hashishin system¡¦ (Tim O'Neill analyzes, in-depth, the influence of the Assassins in Adam Parfrey's Apocalypse Culture)

Now, I'd known that the Templars had links with them but it hadn't really occured to me that their influence was so wide ranging.

How come the Assassins don't tend to feature much on the conspiracy front when we know there are serious adherents still around today? After all, their current leader the Aga Khan is widely praised for his philanthropy and progressive, globalist rhetoric seems just the sort of decent honorable fellow that tends to get demonised into a shape shifting lizard, child sacrificing lunatic, etc.

I thought it could be interesting to have a thread where people could post their theories about the Order and what their long term goals may be, altruistic or something more sinister?

The Assassins are the philosophical fathers of all secret societies and the Templars? Seriously?

It is so sad to see so many modern conspiracy theorists suffering from the great delusion of taking all the secret societies and throwing them into one pot and creating some kind of secret society jambalaya, when in fact the intricate and complex philosophies and goals of the many secret societies are actually fairly complex when people actually bother to begin cracking open history books, and read the writings of the secret societies and their founders themselves.

First of all the templars are contemporaries of the assassins, they existed prior to their contact with them and the historical evidence actually contradicts any cooperation between the two groups, let alone the templars adopting and carrying the philosophy of the assassins to europe.

For one they openly fought against the assassins for much of the crusades and even at one point the old man of the mountain, met with the templars and offered to convert himself and his order to Christianity and also to fight along side the templars, in exchange for the templars granting him some of the land for his own personal kingdom. Of course the templars refused and the assassins continued to fight them for the rest of the crusade. Kind of hard to imagine that the assasins were either a great influence on or even busom buddies of the templars and yet the templars refused to fight with them. But, I guess truth be damned in modern conspiracy. lol

Another, ludicrous assertion is that the illuminati were also associated with the assasins, wieshapt according to his own writings wanted to free mankind from the twin yokes of government; the european monarchies and organized religion, the churches. He and the illumanti actually envisioned freeing mankind from those shackles and allowing everyman to be their own king and priest and every woman their own queen and priestess. Those ideas hardly seem to fit well with the assassins, who basically were a self serving organization, mainly empowering it's leader the old man of the mountain and a group which demanded blind obedience from it's members to the point of them sacrificing themselves for the old man if commanded.

Anyway, if people really want to study the secret societies, it's not as hard as people think their are mountains of books written on the subject going all the way back to those societies foundings, but I guess it's easier for many modern conspiracy theorists to simply lump them all together and alluding that they are the same or just copying each other...much easier then actually having to do research and read books. lol

And I am not knocking you OP. I actually think it's an awesome idea for a thread. Just, knocking the excerpt of the article you sited.

This is what happens when you get your history from games, movies, and worse online. Going to a library might shed light on this quite a bit, as it's no big secret now, nor was it any big secret then. The Templars on numerous occaisions sided with the Isma'ilites (Hashishins). For the name Isma'ilites is what they called themselves, the opium nonsense is the tales said by their enemies. Most of the myths about them were created more on stories told by their enemies the Sunni who feared them, and the Templars who had a rather mixed relationship. The Isma'ilites were a Shiit sect of Islam that was heavily persecuted by the Sunni as they still are today. The war between Sunni and Islam is about disagreement in the succession of religious leaders after Mohammad. The Sunni leaders considered them to be more dangerous to their power then the Crusaders, so they would attack them over even Christians...and the old saying "my enemies enemy is my friend" does start in the middle east after all! So on numerous occaisions the Isma'ilites and the Templars saw fit to ally themselves with each other against their common foes that were usually Sunni....of course, more then a few times Templars and other Christian groups came to blows with the Shiites as well. People often think the Crusades was a "neat" little affair with Christians on one side and Muslims on the other. ..but NOT SO! In fact other then in the War of the Roses, and Feudal Japan there's not many other eras with as much political intrigue, backstabbing and fickle alliances. Christians also fought Christians, Muslims fought Muslims, and at times yes Muslims and Christians allied either against Muslims or even sometimes other Christians.....all to gain power in the middle east. The reality of it was there wasn't much "Christian" being practiced by the majority of crusaders once they set up there, and they still saw other European lords of new holy lands as their main rivals...A Christian lord'ss domain in the middle east would be attacked and he'd send for help to fellow Christians, ony to find them cheering the Muslims, as they had considered him a rival anyway....

The Templars were rather unique in that they more then the secular Crusader armies really did walk the walk, and took their faith seriously and were very devout. Also they admired other men who took their faith more seriously and came to respect certain Muslims, and Jewish groups swho kept their word.... The Isma'ilites were Shiites who lived very strict religious lives themselves, and as modern terrorists have proven it takes no opium to instill fanatical violence ir to strap on a suicide bomb in terroristst today. So ther Isma'ilites needed NO fantasy drug, and orgy mountain to induce them to protect themselves at all costs when they were being persecuted by the Sunni.....I think both orders never really trusted each other after all the other side was the "Infidel" but they found it novel that each other's Orders were the only ones in the area who more often then not actually kept a promise and showed honor....I think that kindred value allowed them to see benefits in working together.....or at least for awhile, until enemies were put aside and they could get back to killing each other as well.......

Lastly the Ninja as someone mentioned have nothing to do with any of this. Most of the more fantastical ninja myths are based on that of the Yamabushi who are much more interesting when you come to realize what ancient religion they encompass possibly and the origins of Shinto...if anything their link would be more likely to be Jewish, as the yamabushi's Shugendo buddhism borrows much from ancient Shinto. And Shinto and Judaism have so much in common that there numerous conspiracy theories that Shinto came about from one of the lost tribes of Israel...........Also those that people refer to as "Ninja" historically were not some army on one side fighting Samurai on the other....now you're getting your history from bad movies, and cartoons......rather there were "assassins" for hire just one more weapon for the Samurai lords to use against one another.....but the mystical stuff and special abilities given them come from the Yamabushi, NOT the assassins used by the Samurai.....that's another long topic.

If your interested in all of this really get out of movies and games, and pick up a book!!!! There's Tons of them on the Crusades. Dungeon Fire and Sword is a good one.