Secret Societies: The Templars and the Assassins A Lecture given at the Masonic Reading Room November 8, 2006

Copyright 2006 James Wasserman

Good evening. Turn on a TV or open a newspaper in any country on earth today, and you will be faced with the i did not end in 1290. Western civilization and Islam are now fully engaged in what I believe can only be understo began with the Muslim invasion of Spain in 711. It continued with the attack on France in 732. In 1095, the Mus close to Constantinople (modern Istanbul). The Byzantine emperor approached the West and vowed to abandon t Roman Catholic assistance in the defense of Christendom. The medieval Crusades were an act of self-defense.

The politically correct version of this story attributes the Crusades to an outbreak of religious fanaticism and agg the author of the Song of Roland, the classic ninth century account of the defense against the Muslim invasion of would the many thousands who lost their lives in that campaign. A similar interpretation of the modern Crusades might be equally rejected by the three thousand people who died here on September 11.

It is important to place the political situation in context because it hints at the primary theme of tonights discussi two groups of warrior monks from the Crusades secret societies vowed to the extension and defense of their r the roots of their mystical doctrines.

One unexpected consequence of the medieval Crusades was the end of centuries of control of Europe by the Rom military defeat of Christian armies, there were three primary spiritual causes for the fall of the Churchs political flowering of the Renaissance beginning at the end of the 14th century. That burst of religious and cultural creativ movements, of which Freemasonry may be considered the crown jewel. The Knights Templar

The first of these influences was of course the Knights Templar. They were founded in Jerusalem in 1118 or 111 themselves to poverty, holy obedience, and chastity under the leadership of Hughes de Payens. Hughes had spent Crusader. His wife died leaving him with no ties to this world other than his faith. Of late, he had despaired of fig throes of a spiritual crisis. The Patriarch and King of Jerusalem suggested that Hughes and his men serve God by the sites of the Christian faith, and walk in the very footsteps of Christ and the Apostles.

The pilgrimage had become especially popular in the tenth and eleventh centuries as the dreary conditions of the were drained, forests cleared, houses, castles and towns constructed, roads improved, and a more positive mindse the dark expectations of a fervently anxious and superstitious people passed. Think back to our own reaction to th medieval mind, St. Johns description of the Beast of the Apocalypse and his thousand year reign of evil was eve worldwide computer breakdown.

Survival brought hope, and tentative steps were made toward the modern world of which the pilgrimage was a opportunity to scholars, students, religious devotees, wanderers, merchants, even criminals punished by exile, to

Europe. (During the period from 6th through 10th centuries we call the Dark Ages, most people never traveled m

Travelers discovered that the Holy Land of their dreams and aspirations was occupied by an alien populace, who sharp contrast to their own. The biblical sites of Bethlehem, Sinai, and Jerusalem were controlled by those who d unleash bands of brigands against people they considered infidels, and who had erected mosques and madrassas w Constantinople, Roman Catholic pilgrims learned that the burial shroud of Christ, fragments of the True Cross, a in the hands of unrecognizable Christians who claimed to worship Jesus, but who did so in strange languages, and no allegiance to the pope.

The pleading of the Byzantine emperor for help against the invading hordes of Islam aligned perfectly with the st

After a stunning series of hard-won victories at Nicaea, Antioch, and Jerusalem in which Gods assent to the p period of European civilization developed in the Palestinian region. Construction of castles and fortifications, chu government, farming, commerce, and military readiness proceeded.

At the same time, pilgrims continued to visit in increasing numbers. Yet travel was still difficult. Muslim robbers caravans. A particularly horrific assault took place in 1119 in which 300 pilgrims were killed and another 60 cap

It was in this setting that Hughes and his friends approached the Patriarch and King. And they assumed the oblig Christianity as protectors of the Holy Land.

The Order of the Poor Knights of Jesus Christ was awarded lodgings on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem at the si Aqsa mosque. Thus they were known as the Knights of the Temple, or Knights Templar. Their vow of poverty ca clothing of the faithful, while their lodgings were described by a contemporary visitor as shabby. Yet something (later King of Jerusalem) is believed to have become an associate member. A castle was donated to the Order in t One of the original nine knights was the nephew of Bernard of Clairvaux, an enormously influential Cistercian ab

In less than a decade, the Order was catapulted into prominence and history. The Patriarch wrote to Bernard aski regularized by the Church, and in drafting a Rule for their conduct. Bernard was captivated with the idea of an or and His Church. He worked to get them papal sanction and proselytized on their behalf throughout Europe. The T of Troyes in 1128. Bernard helped draft a Rule, based on the fourth century monastic Rule of Saint Benedict. In 1 Payens, In Praise of the New Knighthood, that hymned the ideal of the Holy Warrior.

"Neither does he bear the sword in vain, for he is Gods minister for the punishment of evildoers and for the prais is not a mankiller, but, if I may so put it, a killer of evil. These men are appointed by God and searched out by honorable men of Israel to guard faithfully and protect vigilantly the tomb, which is the bed of the true Solomon, skillfully trained to battle."

Yet within two hundred years, these heroic warrior/monks would be arrested, tortured, and executed slandered worshipers, sexual libertines, and traitors to Christianity. The Assassins

While images of a Crusade to reclaim Jerusalem were inspiring European Christians, a Persian visionary was me his flock could maintain their independence, pursue their religion, and spread the doctrines of pure Islam. For Ha

understood the secret of the true line of succession from the Prophet Muhammad, and the proper direction for the

When Muhammad died in 632, most Muslims (known as Sunnis) believed he had endorsed his father-in-law Abu successor, is not the spiritual equal of the Prophet. Rather, he is charged with leading the flock and enforcing reli government is a theocracy, the Caliph is a combination of Pope and King.) An alternate contemporary faction (kn had actually appointed his son-in-law and cousin Ali as his heir. They asserted that the genetic stamp of righteou Prophets bloodline by his sole surviving child, his daughter Fatima. Leadership should be reserved for descende of Fatima and Ali.

The 1400-year-old conflict over succession between Sunnis and Shiites has produced rivers of blood. In Iraq toda executioners whose daily antics are reported with such tedious regularity by our breathless media.

As early as 680, the Prophets grandson Husayn, and a group of his Shiite followers, were brutally murdered at K commemorated today by Shiite self-flagellants mourning their inability to have protected him.

After Husayns murder, Islam was widely perceived by Sunnis and Shiites alike as having taken a wrong turn. Sh movement. On a religious level, it sought for a rebirth of spiritual purity. As a political movement, it was allied w themes continue to play themselves out in the social programs of such Iranian-backed militant groups as HizbAl

In 686, a leader named Muktar arose to revenge Husayns murder. His army enjoyed military success, but he die Shiism with two crucial concepts. He elucidated upon the identity of the Imam a kind of highly spiritualized C Mahdhi was that unique Imam who would appear at the End of Time and bring forth the Day of Righteousness. A and the Prophet. (In a very under-reported story, Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad invoked this apocalyp the UN.)

Eighth century Shiism hosted an eclectic and radical mix of beliefs. Heretical strains were contributed by new co Gnostics, Sufis, Christians, Manichaean dualists, and Jewish kabbalists. Doctrines of the purity of the bloodline o absorbed. Beliefs in metempsychosis, reincarnation, magick, astrology, and numerology were common. The conc something closer to what Western occultists describe as Inner Plane Adepts, or members of the Great White Brot representatives, were accorded near-divine status and viewed to possess miraculous powers.

In 749, the Abbasids came to power in Baghdad where they would reign for five hundred years. Their political as Shiites. But the Abbasids abandoned their Shiite base the moment they seized the throne declaring themselves

This caused a terrible crisis among Shiites. They were forced once again to question their movement. They concl accepting claims to spiritual leadership. Lineal descent from Muhammad through the marriage of Fatima and Ali standard.

Yet in 765, a dispute arose concerning the identity of the seventh Imam. Which of two brothers (both lineal desce the spiritual mantle to lead Shiites? The supporters of one became known as Ismailis. While they were a minority successful Shiite government in 909. The Fatimid Caliphate ruled Egypt and beyond for over two hundred years.

In 1095, during the decline of the Fatimid Caliphate, another schism occurred that is central to our story. The Fat Nizar to succeed him. Yet the Turkish general who had seized control of Egypt decreed a different successor, Niz half-brother. Nizar led a revolt, but despite some early success, was captured and killed.

Hasan-i-Sabah was the leader of the Fatimid Ismaili mission in Persia. He had been born near Tehran about 1055 seventeen, he was exposed to the Ismaili doctrine. He experienced an illness and a religious conversion, and trav Ismaili missionary. He was arrested by the military ruler of Egypt, and escaped under marvelous conditions. The collapsed. He sailed on a boat that survived a fierce storm, miraculously quelled by the intensity of his prayers. H Iran, preaching the doctrines of the Fatimid Imam.

He supported the succession of Nizar, and organized a resistance movement when that succession was usurped. W killed, he declared Nizars son the true Imam, and founded the Nizari Ismailis. The sect remains flourishing to th of the Aga Khan. Hasan built a community of believers in the northernmost regions of Iran near the Caspian Sea. the Eagles Teaching. It was a secluded mountain fortress where he reigned for 35 years fortifying his defense working on the Nizari doctrine, training religious teachers, and sending forth missionaries as far away as Syria. H murder to eliminate military threats to his community led to the Nizari Ismailis becoming known as Assassins.

Hasans most illustrious successor was the fourth leader at Alamut named Hasan II. Although he was killed with throne, he presided over a spiritual revolution.

On August 8, 1164, Hasan II proclaimed the Qiyama, the Resurrection, the Day of Judgment, the immanence of all outward observances of Islam in favor of a Gnostic enlightenment, a heaven on earth. He declared that Nizari in which the experience of God within was an ascertained reality. Traditional Islam was heresy. The Ramadan fa direction of Mecca to pray was irrelevant for all the earth had been illumined by the Light of Allah. Dietary re some Assassins were said to have overturned sexual propriety.

The Qiyama heresy was promulgated in Syria by the charismatic Assassin leader Sinan. He was a contemporary Richard the Lionhearted. The Syrian Assassins were the channel by which the Ismaili Gnostic current entered the The Cathars

The third influence in the Templar Esoteric Revival was the Dualist Christian sect of southern France known as t

Dualism posits the existence of Good and Evil in balance. Radical dualists believe the world is equally divided b stronger. Moderate dualists believe that the balance of Good and Evil is the Will of God, and that Good will trium aspect of the Gnostic movement of the second through fifth centuries in the Mediterranean region, including Gre century, the Gnostic academies of the Roman Empire were closed. Scholars and mystics fled East and were welc dualist heresies fused with Hebrew and Sufi mysticism, and indigenous shamanic traditions. A rich spiritual teach the West in isolated pockets of clandestine worship. It would also migrate into the Ismaili and Assassin mysteries

The Cathars of the eleventh century were the spiritual descendants of that heritage. They would soon face dire co challenged the primacy of orthodox Roman Catholic doctrine.

In 1233, Pope Gregory IX presented the definitive Roman Catholic view of the heresy of the dualist Cathars. He casting Lucifer out of Heaven. They expected Lucifer to return in triumph. Gregory described a Cathar initiation of a monstrous toad. This was followed by an ice-cold pale man whose kiss would suck away all traces of Christ worship of a black cat (from which their name is probably derived). He wrote that congregants offered the cat an which included homosexual congress. Accusations were leveled that babies born of such orgies were sacrificed, a Hell.

Within 80 years, nearly identical charges would be hurled against the Knights Templar. The campaign of vilifica many hundreds to be imprisoned, tortured, and burned at the stake.

The Cathars were, in reality, a group of Christian Gnostics. They believed in the New Testament teachings of Ch They believed the materialism of the Roman Catholic Church was in direct opposition to the rejection of this wor They regarded matter as intrinsically evil and incapable of redemption. They viewed the human soul as an angel that one could reunite with his celestial identity through rigorous spiritual practices.

They believed sex was the means whereby the soul had been lost, that birth was the gateway of material imprison should be shunned as the product of sexual union. Cathars rejected the idea of Hell, believing the world itself to b

They believed Jesus was an emanation of God sent from love of humanity, but that He was not a human being, a They despised the Cross as a symbol of materiality. Similarly they rejected the Mass as a false worship of the ma

Charges of denying the orthodox interpretation of Christ, defiling the Cross, and subverting the Mass were amon against the Knights Templar.

Cathar clergy wandered through the Languedoc region of France. They lived in simplicity, demanding little from The clergy included women. They sought no tithes, no ecclesiastical opulence, and no political power.

Pope Innocent II launched the Albigensian Crusade against the Cathars in 1209. In 1233, the Inquisition was form the Cathar heresy. The Inquisitions long battle against heresy would continue into the eighteenth century. Catha The Connection

After two hundred years of battling the heathen as heroes of the Christian faith, the Knights Templar in France w Accusations of devil worship, demonic intercourse, spiritual heresy, sexual impropriety, and political treason we admired warriors. In a drama that would play itself out in agonizing detail over the next seven years, the Templar

The Knights Templar, the Assassins, and the Cathars were all hunted down and destroyed by the orthodox power were assaulted by an unholy alliance of Church and State, the Cathars by the Church which perceived them as its Sunni and Shiite majorities of Islam. These three groups were rebels with a cause.

And I believe that cause was later embraced by Masonry, and that it has infused all spiritual secret societies since Rosicrucians to the Alchemists, to the O.T.O.

The cause is Gnosis. The reality of direct personal experience of God while in life and within the body. The very intercessors between Man and God. Gnosis is thus at odds with all power structures.

I also believe that Gnosis is at the core of Masonic political values such as those that helped shape America throu cherished principles include individual rights, freedom of thought and worship, universal tolerance and brotherho open inquiry, equality before God and the law, and the consent of the governed.

Spiritual secret societies of both yesterday and today proclaim the inherent dignity of the individual, and his righ

those who arrogate to themselves the exclusive right to determine such dignity for others, members of Gnostic se heretics and subversives. Yet to lovers of Freedom, including, I hope many in this room, they will remain Light b continues to ring forth the clarion call of Human Liberty. Thank you.