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There came into the world a blue-gray wolf
whose destiny was Heaven’s will.
His wife was a fallow deer.
They travelled across the inland sea
and when they were camped near the source of the Onon River
in sight of Mount Burkhan Khaldun
their first son was born, named Batachikan.

The seventh generation after Batachikan was Kharchu.
Kharchu’s son was named Borjigidai the Clever,
and Mongoljin the Fair was his wife.
Their grandsons were the two brothers,
Duua the one-eyed and Dobun the Clever.
In the middle of Duua’s forehead there was one great eye.
With this eye Duua could see a place so far away
it could take three days to reach it.

the opening paragraph of the Secret History

The Secret of Eurasia: The Key to Hidden History and World Events
By MEHMET SABEHEDDIN

Beneath the broad tide of human history there flow the stealthy undercurrents of the secret societies, which frequently determine in the depths the changes that take place upon the surface.
— A.E. Waite1

Have secret societies and occult brotherhoods been active behind the scenes of world events for thousands of years? Do these guardians of secret wisdom shape the growth of human consciousness and influence the destiny of nations? Are hidden masters of occult knowledge empowering and infiltrating certain political, cultural, spiritual and economic movements, in fulfilment of an ancient plan? Could it be that man’s great upheavals, wars, and revolutions, as well as his pioneering discoveries in science, literature, philosophy and the arts, are the result of a ‘hidden hand’? Can we decode history and find the mysterious interface between politics and occultism, thereby uncovering the real movers and shakers in our modern world?

The German philosopher Oswald Spengler warned of a “mighty contest” between groups of men of “immense intellect” who the “simple citizen neither observes nor comprehends.” Back in 1930 Ralph Shirley, the editor of the London Occult Review, Britain’s leading journal of esoteric sciences, endorsed “the suspicion that the ranks of occultism are secretly working for disintegration and revolution. Positive proof in the shape of a group of occultists working with this objective in view recently came under the notice of the present writer.”

Major-General Fuller, a former disciple of Aleister Crowley, who had links to British military intelligence, wrote about an insidious force using “Magic and Gold” striving “to gain world domination under an avenging Messiah as foretold by Talmud and Qabalah.” Fuller’s former chief Crowley worked as a secret agent for both Britain and Germany, although his British handlers noted his ‘unreliability’ warning he should only be used in espionage operations with the utmost care. During the First World War the German Foreign Office secretly requested the occultist Gustav Meyrink to write a novel blaming the Freemasons of France and Italy for the outbreak of war.

Madame Blavatsky believed the Catholic society of Jesuits had transferred their headquarters from the continent to England where they plotted to plunge man into passive ignorance and institute “Universal Despotism”. The founder of the Theosophical Society, a woman of immense intellect and first hand experience of secret societies, warned:

Students of Occultism should know that while the Jesuits have by their devices contrived to make the world in general, and Englishmen in particular think there is no such thing as Magic and laugh at Black Magic, these astute and wily schemers themselves hold magnetic circles and form magnetic chains by the concentration of their collective WILL, and when they have any special object to effect or any particular and important person to influence.2

The French Revolution, one of Europe’s most important political upheavals, was largely the work of Masonic lodges dedicated to the overturning of the monarchy and an end of the established Catholic religion. In Proofs of a Conspiracy (1798), John Robison showed that the political clubs and correspondence committees during the revolution, including the famous Jacobin Club, sprang from these Masonic lodges.

The influence on history of mysticism, the occult and secret societies is generally dismissed by Western academics. Mainstream historians choose to ignore this aspect because they believe it has no real significance to world politics. In fact it is only through acknowledging the role and influence of the ‘occult underground’ that important world events can be fully understood and placed in their real historical perspective.

Atlantism Verses Eurasianism

Secret societies and the teachers of occult wisdom consistently trace their origins back to the very dawn of civilisation. Within Judeo-Christian culture, the secret schools speak of Adam, Seth, Moses and the Patriarchs as initiates of a divine wisdom carefully passed from one generation to the next. Other occult groups look back beyond ancient Egypt and the Mystery schools of Greece, to the lost continent of Atlantis. Still others trace their lineage to Sumeria or Babylon and the mysterious plains of Tartary.

Examining mankind’s myths, legends and arcane stories we encounter countless references to a vanished primordial civilisation. The brilliant French metaphysician Rene Guenon wrote of a great Hyperborean culture that flourished around the Arctic Circle and of its outposts Shambhala in the East and Atlantis in the West. Plato wrote of Atlantis, describing it as the heart of a great and powerful empire which, due to the indiscriminate mixing of “the sons of God” with “the children of men,” suffered “violent earthquakes and floods” and “disappeared beneath the sea”. According to occult tradition, Atlantis came to an end after a lengthy period of chaos and disaster brought about, in the words of Madame Blavatsky, because the “Atlantis-race became a nation of wicked magicians.” Atlantis was destroyed by a conspiracy of evil magicians who had seized control of the mighty continent.

Long before the final end of Atlantis, great migrations took place to different centres of the earth. In one legend we are told of a righteous remnant journeying from the Arctic Circle to Shambhala, in the remote fastness of Central Asia. Other legends suggest Atlantean survivors established the ancient Egyptian civilisation.

Victoria LePage, the author of one of the most comprehensive studies of Shambhala explains how Atlantis and Shambhala are more than mere geographic locations:

In folklore Atlantis and Shambhala are implicitly linked together as charismatic images of heart’s desire, two shining mirages that lie on the farthest horizon of human longing, unattainable, always receding as we reach for them; at best no more than ideal states of consciousness never realized. But their association seems to have a far more real and historically concrete basis than that. Initiatic tradition affirms they have both genuinely existed, one in the western sea, the other in the eastern mountains, as lynchpins of what was once a network of Wisdom centers located on a great power-grid extending around the globe. Further, Shambhala still exists within a framework that awaits reactivation.3

In order to identify the historical activities of secret societies we need to appreciate the origin of a most powerful idea. Occult lore speaks of Shambhala as the positive centre of the Brotherhood of Light, and Atlantis the negative centre of the evil magicians, the Brothers of the Shadow. Wherever we look we see the division of secret societies and occult endeavours into these two opposing ‘Orders’. All occult movements and teachings inevitably serve either the “Order of Eurasia” or the “Order of Atlantism”, with their respective symbolic centres of Shambhala and Atlantis. Concealed behind a multitude of different forms and represented by an array of unsuspecting agents of influence, these two centres – Shambhala and Atlantis – represent two different impulses in human evolution.

Viewed from the perspective of sacred geography, in our present historical cycle, Atlantism is the triumph of the most destructive and diabolical elements in the civilisation of the West. One modern authority on sacred geography and geopolitics observes:

Sacred geography on the basis of “space symbolism” traditionally considers the East as “the land of Spirit”, the paradise land, the land of a completeness, abundance, the Sacred “native land” in its fullest and most perfect kind. In particular, this idea is mirrored in the Bible text, where the eastern disposition of “Eden” is treated.

Precisely such understanding is peculiar also to other Abrahamic traditions (Islam and Judaism), and also to many non-Abrahamic traditions – Chinese, Hindu and Iranian. “East is the mansion of the gods”, states the sacred formula of the ancient Egyptians, and the same word “east” (“neter” in Egyptian) meant at the same time “god”. From the point of view of natural symbolism, East is the place where the sun rises, Light of the World, material symbol of Divinity and Spirit.

The West has the opposite symbolical meaning. It is the “country of death”, the “lifeless world”, the “green country” (as the ancient Egyptians called it). West is “the empire of exile”, “the pit of the rejected”, according to the expression of Islamic mystics. West is “anti-East”, the country of decay, degradation transition from the manifest to the non-manifest, from life to death, from completeness to need, etc. West is the place where the sun goes, where it “sinks down”.4

Russia & the Magical Universe

Russia, geographically the largest country on earth, occupies a unique position in the study of human history furnishing us with a window into the world of secret societies, occult teachers, and subterranean political currents.

Ideas and practices drawn from magic and the occult have always been a part of Russian life. In the sixteenth century Tsar Ivan IV consulted magicians and was aware of the occult significance of the precious stones set in his staff. His reign was the culmination of the dream of building a prophetic, religious civilisation in the Eastern Christian tradition of Byzantium. Surrounded by secret orders of apocalyptical monks, Ivan saw himself as heir to the Israelite kings and attempted to transform Russian life in accord with his magical view of reality. Ivan was convinced the Russian nation had a special mission to accomplish, nothing short of the redemption of the world.

In 1586, Tsar Boris Godunov offered the huge salary of 2000 English pounds a year, with a house and all provisions free, to John Dee, the English magus and spy master, to enter his service. Dee’s son Dr. Arthur Dee, who like his father was an alchemist and Rosicrucian, went to Moscow to work as a physician. Mikhail Romanov, the first Tsar of the Romanov dynasty, allegedly ascended the throne with the help of Dr. Arthur Dee and the British Secret Service. Before their rise to power the Romanovs were accused by their enemies of practising magic and possessing occult powers.

The legendary Count of Saint Germain, described as an alchemist, spy, industrialist, diplomat and Rosicrucian, became involved in several political intrigues in Russia and was, according Nicholas Roerich, “a member of the Himalayan brotherhood.” In 1755 he traveled throughout Eurasia to study occult teachings, and may even have visited Tibet. It is said that while studying occultism in Central Asia the Count was introduced to the secret rites of Tantric sex magic which provided him with a technique to prolong his youth. He also engaged in spying operations against the notorious British India Company. Saint Germain founded two secret societies called the Asiatic Brethren and the Knights of Light. As early as 1780 he warned Marie Antoinette that the French throne was in danger from an international conspiracy of ‘Brothers of the Shadow’. Rumours continued to circulate for many years after his alleged death that Saint Germain was still alive working behind the scenes in European politics or studying occult doctrines in Central Asia.

West Meets East

Occult powers seem to be a matter of national temperament… Russia tends to produce mages – men or women who impress by their spiritual authority; no other nation has a spiritual equivalent of Tolstoy and Dostoevsky, or even of Rozanov, Merezhkovsky, Soloviev, Fedorov, Berdaev, Shestov. Certainly no other nation has come near to producing anyone like Madame Blavatsky, Gregory Rasputin or George Gurdjieff. Each is completely unique.
— Colin Wilson, The Occult

The process of synthesis of the occult traditions of East and West is seen in the work of Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, founder of the Theosophical Society and the author of the magnus opus The Secret Doctrine. Born Helena von Hahn, the daughter of a Russian military family and cousin to the future Russian Prime Minister Count Witte, she is a true emissary of the Eurasian Order. Nevill Drury says of the Russian occultist:

Her main contribution to mystical thought was the manner in which she sought to synthesise Eastern and Western philosophy and religion, thereby providing a framework for understanding universal occult teaching.5

Madame Blavatsky traveled throughout Asia and Europe, joined Garibaldi’s national revolutionary militia, fighting in the battle of Mentana, in which she was severely wounded. In the late 1870s, shortly after the publication of her first book Isis Unveiled, a compelling indictment of contemporary Western religion as spiritually bankrupt, she moved from the United States to India where the headquarters of the Theosophical Society remains until this day.

In 1891 the future Tsar Nicholas II, in the company of the mystic Eurasian scholar Prince Ukhtomsky, visited the headquarters of the Theosophical headquarters at Adyar. Prince Ukhtomsky’s description of the society is revealing:

At the insistence of H.P. Blavatsky, a Russian lady who knew and had seen much, the idea sprang up of the possibility, and even the necessity, of founding a society of theosophists, of searchers for the truth in the broadest sense of the word, for the purpose of enlisting adepts of all creeds and races, of penetrating deeper into the most secret doctrines of oriental religions, of drawing Asiatics into true spiritual communion with educated foreigners in the West, of keeping up secret relations with different high priests, ascetics, magicians, and so on.6

Madame Blavatsky wanted to unite Central Asia, India, Mongolia, Tibet and China, in order – with the involvement of Russia – to create a grand Eurasian power able to oppose British ambitions. Traveling across India Blavatsky agitated against British rule and found herself accused by the colonial authorities of being a Russian spy. Prince Ukhtomsky saw support for Eurasia in the “readiness of the Indians to group themselves under the banner of the strange northern woman.” He believed Madame Blavatsky had been forced to leave India by “the suspiciousness of the English.”

As early as 1887 H.P. Blavatsky had become a topic of debate in “mystic Petersburg” and received the prestigious support of Ukhtomsky’s friend the mysterious Tibetan Dr. Badmaev, soon to become notorious for the favour he received at the Russian imperial court and his relationship with Rasputin. Madame Blavatsky’s sister insisted that the Russian Orthodox Metropolitan of Kiev had recognised the young Helena’s psychic gift, and admonished her to use her powers with discretion, as he felt sure they were given her for some higher purpose.

Dr. Stephan A. Hoeller, a scholar of comparative religion and a Gnostic Bishop, reminds us that Blavatsky,

was a true daughter of Mother Russia. Some feel that her life and character correspond strongly to the archetype of the traditional Russian wandering holy person, known as the staretz (literally ‘old one’), denoting a wandering, non-clerical ascetic, or pilgrim, who travels about the countryside, exhorting people concerning spiritual matters, sometimes in a decidedly unorthodox manner.7

After H.P. Blavatsky’s death in London in 1891, the Theosophical Society came under the firm control of the English occultists Annie Besant and C.W. Leadbeater, a confirmed British imperialist. The Eurasian orientation given to early Theosophy by H.P. Blavatsky was compromised by the influence of British Masonry and Leadbeater’s esoteric High Anglicanism. In the great struggle of the magicians the Eurasian impulse found new historical agents in the West, among them the celebrated French magus Papus.

Grand Battle of the Magicians

When the 19th century will have come to an end, one of the Brothers of Hermes will come from Asia to unite humanity again.
— Nostradamus

Papus, together with Oswald Wirth and De Guaita, dreamed of uniting occultists everywhere into a revived Rosicrucian brotherhood, an international occult order in which they hoped the Russian Empire would play a leading role as the bridge between East and West.

Papus was the pseudonym of Dr. Gerard Encausse (1865-1916), a disciple of Joseph Saint-Yves d’Alveydre (1842-1910), an initiate of the French Gnostic Church and often the instigator of many of the occult groups of his time. One of the most famous turn-of-the century occultists, he was the founder of the Hermetic School in Paris, which attracted many Russian students, and directed the leading French occult review, L’Initiation. Papus was also the head of two secret societies, the L’Ordre du Martinisme and the L’Ordre Kabbalistique de la Rose-Croix.

When the Russian Tsar and Tsaritsa visited France in 1896, it was Papus who sent them a greeting on behalf of “the French Spiritualists,” hoping that the Tsar would “immortalise his Empire by its total union with Divine Providence.” This greeting was reminiscent of the hopes of mystics at the time of Tsar Alexander I’s Holy Alliance.

Papus made his first visit to Russia in 1901 and was introduced to the Tsar. He quickly set up a lodge of his Martinist Order in St. Petersburg with the Tsar as the president of the “Unknown Superiors” who controlled it. The historian James Webb says Papus “was merely reviving a devotion to a philosophy that had flourished in Russia at the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries before being suppressed.”

As the foremost student of Saint-Yves d’Alveydre, Papus knew of the key role to be played by Russia in unifying Eurasia and her occult destiny as the Empire of the End, the outward manifestation of the enigmatic power of ‘Northern Shambhala’.

Through Papus the Imperial family became acquainted with his friend and spiritual mentor Master Philippe (Nizier Anthelme Philippe). A sincere Christian mystic, he was given rank and honours by the Russian Tsar, and maintained contact with the imperial court until his death in 1905.

Papus returned to St. Petersburg in 1905 where it was rumoured he, in the presence of the Imperial couple, evoked the spirit of the Tsar’s father, Alexander III, who offered practical advise on handling a political crisis.

Both Master Philippe and Papus played an important political role at the Russian court. They not only advised the Tsar on affairs of state but maintained contact with influential Russian initiates of the Martinist Order, among them two of the Tsar’s uncles and numerous relatives. The German occultist Rudolf Steiner, who had his own disciples among the German General Staff, followed the mission of the two Frenchmen, disturbed by Papus’ “extensive influence in Russia”. A strong advocate of the alliance between France and Russia, Papus warned the Tsar of an international conspiracy aimed at world domination.

He believed that the vast Russian Empire was the only power capable of thwarting the conspiracy of the ‘Shadow Brothers’. He also urged the Tsar to prepare for the coming war with Germany, then being engineered by sinister forces in Berlin. According to one account, he promised the imperial family that,

the Romanov monarchy would be protected as long as he, Papus, was alive. When the news of his death reached Alexandra in 1916, she sent a note to her husband (at the time commanding the Russian armies at the front in World War I) containing the words ‘Papus is dead, we are doomed!’8

Papus promoted his Martinist Order as a counter to the Masonic lodges which, he believed, were in the service of British imperialism and the international financial syndicates. From his papers it is known that he furnished documentation to the Russian authorities about Masonic activities in Russia and Europe. Papus condemned Freemasonry as atheistic in contrast to the esoteric Christianity of the Martinist Order. He castigated “our epoch of scepticism, adoration of material forms, so vitally in need of a frankly Christian reaction, independent of all priesthoods.” Shortly after returning from his first visit to Russia in 1901, a series of articles appeared in the French press for which Papus was largely responsible. They warned of a “hidden conspiracy” the existence of which the public was totally unaware and of the machinations of a sinister financial syndicate trying to disrupt the Franco-Russian alliance. The public is blind to the real forces of history:

It does not see that in all conflicts whether arising within or between nations, there are at the side of the apparent actors hidden movers who by their self-interested calculations make these conflicts inevitable….

Everything which happens in the confused evolution of nations is thus prepared in secret with the goal of securing the supremacy of a few men; and it is these few men, sometimes famous, sometimes unknown, who must be sought behind all public events.

Now, today, supremacy is ensured by the possession of gold. It is the financial syndicates who hold at this moment the secret threads of European politics…

A few years ago there was thus founded in Europe a financial syndicate, today all-powerful, whose supreme aim is to monopolise all the markets of the world, and which in order to facilitate its activities has to acquire political influence.

The Papus inspired articles in Echo de Paris revealed the role of the British Secret Service, which was exposed as being behind British Freemasonry, to isolate and weaken Russia. In France British agents concentrated on anti-Russian propaganda, while in Russia they used “financial trickery” to infiltrate all levels of society. Every effort was required “to preserve the Russian Emperor – so loyal and so generous – from the evils… [of ] the syndicate of financiers… which at present controls the destinies of Europe and the world.”

The Mysterious Tibetan

St. Petersburg… in 1905 was probably the mystical centre of the world.
— Colin Wilson, The Occult

Shamzaran (Pyotr) Badmaev was a Buriat Mongol who had grown up in Siberia and converted to Russian Orthodoxy with Alexander III acting as his godfather. He gained considerable influence at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Tsar granted him the title of Privy Councillor. Badmaev was renowned as a doctor of Tibetan medicine, herbalist, and healer, who treated high society patients at his fashionable ‘Oriental Medicine’ clinic in St. Petersburg. Described by a Russian historian as “one of the most mysteries personalities of the day,” and a “master of intrigue”, Badmaev enjoyed a close association with the mystic healer Rasputin.

Known as ‘the Tibetan’, Badmaev dreamed of the unification of Russia with Mongolia and Tibet. He involved himself in endless projects aimed at the creation of a great Eurasian empire. Russia’s historic mission, he believed, lay in the East, where she was destined to unite the Buddhist and Muslim peoples, as a counter to Western colonialism. Badmaev outlined his vision in a 1893 report to Tsar Alexander III entitled ‘The Tasks of Russia in the Asiatic East’. His considerable political expertise secured the support of the Mongol tribes in the Russo-Japanese War.

In a letter of 19 December 1896, Badmaev wrote to Tsar Nicholas II: “…my activities have the aim that Russia should have greater influence than other powers upon the Mongolian-Tibetan-Chinese East.” Badmaev expressed particular concern over the influence of England in the East, stating in a special memorandum:

Tibet, which – as the highest plateau of Asia – rules over the Asiatic continent, must without doubt be in the hands of Russia. By commanding this point, Russia will surely be able to make England more compliant.

Badmaev knew of the legend, popular in Mongolia, China and Tibet, about the ‘White Tsar’ who would come from the North (from ‘Northern Shambhala’) and restore the now decadent traditions of true Buddhism. He reported to Tsar Nicholas II how “Buryats, Mongols and especially lamas… were always repeating that the time had come to extend the frontiers of the White Tsar in the east….”

Badmaev had a close association with a highly placed Tibetan, the lama Agvan Dordzhiyev, the tutor and confidant of the 13th Dalai Lama. Dordzhiyev equated Russia with the coming Kingdom of Shambhala anticipated in the Kalachakra texts of Tibetan Buddhism. The lama opened the first Buddhist temple in Europe, in St. Petersburg, significantly dedicated to the Kalachakra teaching. One of the Russian artists who worked on the St. Petersburg temple was Nicholas Roerich, who had been introduced to the legend of Shambhala and Eastern thought by lama Dordzhiyev. George Gurdjieff, another man of mystery who had a tremendous impact on Western esotericism, knew Prince Ukhtomsky, Badmaev, and lama Dordzhiyev. Was Gurdjieff, accused by the British of being a Russian spy in Central Asia, a pupil of the mysterious Tibetans?

“I am training young men in two capitals – Peking and Petersburg – for further activities,” Dr. Badmaev had written to Tsar Nicholas II.

Mystical Anarchism

The sway of ‘the Tibetan’ reached beyond the Imperial court into the Russian intelligentsia and further still to the subterranean world of espionage and revolutionary politics. One of the intellectual movements at the time of the 1905 political upheavals was called “Mystical Anarchism”. Two of its leading exponents were the poet and writer Viacheslav Ivanov and George Chulkov, both associates of Dr. Badmaev. Chulkov, like ‘the Tibetan’, is described as an unconscious medium transmitting mysterious forces.

A radical political doctrine aimed at reconciling individual freedom and social harmony, Mystical Anarchism drew on the ideas of Friedrick Nietzsche. This is not surprising when we consider Nietzsche’s positive view of Russia as the antithesis of the decadent West, and the German philosopher’s appreciation of Buddhism and Oriental culture.

According to the historian Bernice Glatzer Rosenthal, Mystical Anarchists, convinced “that unseen forces are guiding events here on earth, believed that political revolution reflected realignments in the cosmic sphere, and that a new world of freedom, beauty, and love was imminent.”

Advocating the abolition of all external authorities and all constraints on the individual – government, law, morality, social custom – they were indifferent to legal rights as merely “formal freedoms” and opposed constitutions and parliaments in favor of sobornost’. By sobornost’ they meant a free community united by love and faith whose members retain their individuality (as distinct from individualism, self-affirmation apart from or against the community)….

They grounded this ideal in their notion of the “mystical person,” the soul or the psyche, which seeks union with others and recognizes itself as a microcosm of the macrocosm, as distinct from the “empirical person,” the I or the ego, which asserts itself apart from or against others. Evoking and developing this “mystical person” would make feasible a “new organic society” united by invisible inner ties of love (eros, not agape), “mystical experience,” and sacrifice – the very opposite of liberal society, based on the social contract and mutual self-interest and characterized by rational discourse.9

Mystical Anarchism is a thoroughly Eurasian sociopolitical idea. Here we have a most arcane motif in a modern form: The great struggle of the empirical, plutocratic Western civilisation, against the mystical, sacrificial culture of Eurasia. In occult terms it is the conflict of the impulse of ‘Shambhala’ with the renegades of ‘Atlantean civilisation’. The Brotherhood of the Northern Light battling it out with the Brothers of the Shadow, external manifestation of the long war between the agents of Being and Non-Being.

Nicholas Berdyaev, Dmitri Merezhkovsky, Zenaida Hippius, Valerri Briusov, Mikhail Kuzmin, Alexandre Blok, Vasili Rozanov, along with a host of other Russian poets, writers and artists, transmitted different aspects of Mystical Anarchism and the Eurasian vision. When in the years before the Revolution the Sufi Master Inayat Khan visited Russia, he found much to commend in “the Eastern type of discipleship which is natural to the nation.”

Merezhkovsky saw the possibility of evolving a “new religious consciousness” from the two peculiarly Russian types represented by Tolstoy and Dostoievsky. Tolstoy stood for a pantheistic mysticism of the flesh, and Dostoievsky for the more ascetic spiritual values. “In this Russia the ‘Man-God’ shall be manifested to the Western world, and the ‘God-man’ for the first time to the Eastern, and shall be, for those whose thinking already reconciles both hemispheres the ‘One in Two.’”

After the Bolshevic Revolution, Blok contrasted the new Russia with the West. He called Russia the “Scythian,” i.e., the young, fresh nation whose destiny it was to challenge the decaying West:

We are the Scythians, we are the Asians… Centuries of your days are but an hour to us, Yet like obedient slaves, We’ve held a shield between two hostile races – Europe, and the Mongol hordes… From war and horror come to our open arms, The embrace of kin, Put the old sword away while there’s time, Hail us brothers… Ah, Old World, before you have perished, join our fraternal banquet.

The poet Nikolai Kliuev and his young friend Sergei Esenin featured occult images and Eurasian themes in their work. At the end of 1917 Kliuev (1887-1937), a prophet and emissary of Eurasia, wrote:

We are the host of sunbearers.
On the hub of the universe
we will erect a hundred-story, fiery house.
China and Europe, the North and the South
Will come to the chamber in a round-dance of playmates
to match together Abyss and Zenith.
Their godfather is God Himself and their Mother
is Russia.

Kliuev’s protege, Esenin (1895-1925), longed for the end of the old world and its replacement by a new one, and even proclaimed a new religious trend called “Aggelism,” with clear roots in Russian Gnosticism. He hailed both Christ and Gautama the Buddha as geniuses because they were men of “word and deed”. In a letter to a friend, Esenin wrote:

People, look at yourselves, did not Christs emerge from you, and can you not be Christs? Can I with will-power not be a Christ…? How absurd all our life is. It distorts us from the cradle, and instead of truly real people some kind of monster emerges.

He warned the United States, to him the symbol of all non-Russian and rationalist sources, not to commit the mistake of “unbelief” and ignore the new “message” from Russia, as the way to the new life is only through Russia. A friend wrote how Esenin and his fellow ‘Scythian’ poets wanted a “deepening of the political revolution to the social” and came to regard Russian Marxism as “coarse”. Before his death Esenin became convinced ‘evil forces’ had usurped the Revolution and the Bolshevics betrayed Russia’s mission.

The famed poet Nikolai Kliuev knew both Dr. Badmaev and Grigory Rasputin, and like the latter had been initiated into a secret school of Christian sexual mysticism with similarities to Tibetan Tantra and Indian Shivaism. “They called me a Rasputin,” Kliuev wrote in a 1918 poem. Kliuev’s spirituality was deeply rooted in the tradition of the Russian religious dissidents like the Old Believers, the Khlysty and Skoptsy, who formed a veritable subterranean river among the common people. Kliuev admitted how challenged by a Khlyst elder to “become a Christ,” he was introduced to the secret community of “Dove brethren”. With the help of “various people of secret identity”, Kliuev traveled all over Russia participating in secret rituals and imbibing the occult traditions of the Russian East.

In his poems Kliuev sought to convey the mystic spirit of Eurasia. He was a prophet of Belovodia, the name given by Russian Old Believers to the awaited earthly paradise similar to Shambhala. Kliuev envisioned a radical transformation of Russia that would bring about a classless society where peasant culture would triumph over industrialism, capitalism, and the general mechanisation of life. He expressed his concern about the dangers of soulless Western civilisation in a 1914 letter to a friend:

Every day I go into the grove – and sit there by a little chapel – and the age-old pine tree, but an inch to the sky, I think about you… I kiss your eyes and your dear heart… O, mother wilderness! Paradise of the spirit… How hateful and black seems all the so-called civilised world and what I would give, what Golgotha I would bear – so that America should not encroach upon the blue-feathered dawn… upon the fairy tale hut.

The Russian philosopher Nicholas Berdyaev articulated the vision shared by pre-revolution Russian thinkers as well as the cultural elite, when he wrote of the end of Western rationalism and the birth of a new era of the spirit which would witness the struggle of Christ and Antichrist. He saw the popularity of mystical and occult doctrines as proof of the approach of this New Era, and called for a “new knighthood”. “Man is not a unit in the universe, forming part of an unrational machine, but a living member of an organic hierarchy, belonging to a real and living whole.” Berdyaev’s attacks on Western materialist values only reflected a view widely held by Russian society. Writing in exile in the early 1930s he observed:

Individualism, the ‘atomisation’ of society, the inordinate acquisitiveness of the world, indefinite over-population and the endlessness of people’s needs, the lack of faith, the weakening of the spiritual life, these and other are the causes which have contributed to build up that industrial capitalist system which has changed the face of human life and broken its rhythm with nature.

Journey to Shambhala

Nicholas Roerich was a man who brought glory to our [Russian] people; he is a representative of our civilisation and of its culture, one of its pillars.
— Mikhail Gorbachev

Nikolai Konstantinovitch Roerich (1874-1947) had been introduced to the idea of Shambhala while working on the construction of the first Buddhist temple ever to be built in Europe. Personally acquainted with Russia’s pre-revolution intelligentsia, Roerich became a highly respected and prolific artist. A student of Madame Blavatsky’s works, Roerich believed in the transcendent unity of religions – in the notion that one day the Buddhist, the Muslim, and the Christian would realise their separate dogmas were husks concealing the truth within. Between 1925 and 1928, Roerich undertook five remarkable expeditions through Central Asia, focusing on the mysterious region between the Urals and the Himalayas, the area regarded as the heart of Eurasia. The traditions and legends encountered by Roerich in his travels are described in the books Altai-Himalaya, Heart of Asia and Shambhala.

In the tradition of Tibetan Buddhism, Shambhala is the hidden land in which the teachings of the Kalachakra (‘Wheel of Time’) Tantric school are kept in their purest form. Roerich discovered that the Shambhala of Tibetan Buddhism is not too different from the legend of Belovodia preserved by Russian Christian mystics. An elder of the Old Believer sect confided to Roerich:

In distant lands, beyond the great lakes, beyond the highest mountains, is a sacred place where all truth flourishes. There one may find the supreme knowledge and the future salvation of mankind. And this place is called Belovodia, meaning the white waters.10

Nicholas Roerich wrote how on a visit to the Mongolian capital Ulan-Bator in the 1920s, he heard soldier-revolutionaries singing:

The war of Northern Shambhala.
Let us die in this war
To be reborn again
As Knights of the Ruler of Shambhala.

By ‘Northern Shambhala’ is meant Russia-Eurasia. In his book Heart of Asia, Roerich defined Shambhala not so much as a coming kingdom but an event – a new epoch for humanity of which Shambhala and Belovodia are timeless symbols:

You have noted the concept of Shambhala corresponds to the aspirations of our most serious Western scientific research…. In their striving, the Eastern disciplines of Shambhala and the best minds of the West, which do not fear to look beyond the outworn methods, are uniting.

Roerich never doubted the crucial role Russia would play in bringing together the noblest wisdom of both the East and the West. In Russia a new synthesis would emerge and a new day dawn for humanity, neither exclusively Western nor wholly Eastern, but truly Eurasian. In 1940, as the world found itself plunged into war, Roerich discerned the first glimpses of a New Era and wrote:

The Russian people have piled together great stones. To the admiration of everyone they have built no tower of Babel but a Russian tower. A Kremlin of Sun-bearers with a hundred towers!… Listen – that is the future, and how radiant it is!”

A year later in 1941 he commented:

The whole world is rushing towards Armageddon. Everyone is confused. Everyone is unsure about the future. But the Russian people have found their course and with a mighty flood are streaming towards their radiant future.

‘You Must Pay Attention to Me, In Order to See Me’

Humanity’s radiant future, like Shambhala, stands at the threshold. An invisible college of men and women in every age and nation have glimpsed it and responded to the impulse. Living in the first years of a new millennium we are witnessing the unfolding of an ancient plan. Just as there is no day without night, so too there is no authentic New Era without its counterfeit. And as the darkness must give way to the new dawn, so our present Dark Era will pass away in the great light of ‘Northern Shambhala’.

Behind the tangle of present day events the ancient battle is being concluded. “In wartime,” said the emissary of Atlantism Winston Churchill, “truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies.” Empowered by the wicked Magicians of Atlantis, Western secret societies are in a state of occult warfare with the Order of Eurasia.

We await the arrival of the New Era of Shambhala, the casting out of the Brothers of the Shadow from the governmental and financial centres of the earth, and the end of the evil karma inherited from the darkness of Atlantis.

Alice Bailey, who described Shambhala as “the vital centre in the planetary consciousness” and related it to the Second Coming of the Christ, also prophesied Russia’s special role in bringing in the true New Era:

Out of Russia… will emerge that new and magical religion about which I have so often told you. It will be the product of the great and imminent Approach which will take place between Humanity and the Hierarchy. From these two centres of spiritual force, in which the light which ever shineth in and from the East will irradiate the West; the whole world will be flooded with the radiance of the Sun of Righteousness. I am not here referring, in connection with Russia, to the imposition of any political ideology, but to the appearance of a great and spiritual religion, which will justify the crucifixion of a great nation and which will demonstrate itself and be focused in a great and spiritual Light which will be held aloft by a vital Russian exponent of true religion – that man for whom many Russians have been looking, and who will be the justification of a most ancient prophecy.11

Footnotes:

1. Arthur Waite, The Real History of the Rosicrucians

2. Letters of H. P. Blavatsky as quoted in The Occult Establishment by James Webb

3. Victoria Le Page, Shambhala: The Fascinating Truth Behind the Myth of Shangri-la

4. Alexander Dugin

5. Nevill Drury, Dictionary Of Mysticism And The Esoteric Traditions, 1992

6. As quoted in The Harmonious Circle by James Webb

7. Stephan A. Hoeller, “H.P. Blavatsky: Woman of Mystery and Hero of Consciousness,” The Quest, Autumn 1991

8. Stephan A. Hoeller, “Esoteric Russia”, Gnosis Magazine, No.31, Spring 1994

9. The Occult in Russian And Soviet Culture, edited by Bernice Glatzer Rosenthal

10. Nicholas Roerich, Heart of Asia

Alice Bailey, Prophecies by D.K.

The above article appeared in New Dawn No. 68 (September-October 2001)

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Storm from the East: From Genghis Khan to Khubilai Khan, Univ of California Press, 1993.
Robert Marshall
Chapt. 5, selections, pp. 118-121: FROM PRESTER JOHN TO CULTURAL STRANGERS

MORE THAN 700 YEARS AFTER THE EVENT it is still difficult fully to appreciate the massive geographical scale upon which the Mongols had fought their campaign; how, with such extraordinary precision, they coordinated so many separate army corps, developed and maintained long and complicated supply lines, operated communications systems over hundreds of kilometres, and then fought with courage and imagination against an enemy defending its own territory. The Asian armies Mongol, Chinese and were unquestionably the masters of the art of war during the medieval period. Europe could barely comprehend what had happened, and was left in thrall as to what would follow.

Europe's first military encounter with the Mongols had been no more onesided than that of the armies of China and Persia during the first half of the thirteenth century. However, the psychological impact was in every sense far more traumatic and longlasting. Civilizations in both China and Persia had a long history of encounters with nomadic armies, whereas Europe had lived in blissful ignorance of the rest of Asia and nothing had prepared them for the Mongols. Europe in the thirteenth century w as completely ignorant of the lands to the east of the Urals. Although there had been trade with the East dating back to the preChristian era, this had always been conducted through merchants who plied between the Latin world and China without ever enlightening the one about the other.

The best-known product from the East was of course silk, which the Romans were convinced had been combed from the leaves of trees. India was a country that was only vaguely known, and even this chiefly because of Alexander's legendary march into the great subcontinent and the many weird and wonderful tales that had been spun about his exploits there. These tales, probably invented by merchants to enhance the exotic quality of their wares, were taken up by historians and had been perpetuated right up until the time of Marco Polo (1256-1323). India, which was then synonymous with most of what we call Asia, became a land occupied by men with the head of a dog (Cynocephali), or a single foot (Monopodes), or whose feet pointed backwards with their heels facing the front (Antipodes). There were creatures with neither neck nor head, but with a face set into the middle of their chest. There were wild hunters who lived on the mere smell of flesh. And there were curious pygmies who were supposed to live a thousand years, Satyrs, Amazons, Brahmans and Gymnosophists, enchanted mountains, unicorns, griffins and ants that dug for gold. It was also the land of rare jewels, pearls, aromatic woods and spices.

All these fantastic creatures became a feature in medieval art and literature, and their likenesses were carved in perpetuity on the exteriors of Gothic churches. We know them today as gargoyles, but 700 years ago they were imaginative stone likenesses of the inhabitants of the East.

Europeans were not unique in depicting such fantastic creations; the Chinese had a remarkably similar pantheon of creatures which they believed inhabited the unknown West. These included the creatures with the head of a dog, the singlefooted beings and the headless beasts with their faces in their chests. The Chinese also had fanciful notions about the origins of cotton, a commodity they imported from western Asia, and which was supposedly clipped from the fleece of 'water sheep'.

The reasons why these curious fantasies survived for so long was the complete lack of cultural exchange between the two hemispheres. The Roman empire had never extended further than the River Euphrates, beyond which were fierce nomadic horsemen, rugged mountain and deserts; a realm the Romans failed to penetrate. It is claimed that the Chinese made a number of attempts to contact the civilizations in the West, though there is a record of only one: Kan Ying, an envoy despatched in AD 97. He reached the Persian Gulf but was warned by his Arab hosts, keen to maintain their privileged position as international go-betweens, that the rest of his voyage would take two years and that most who ventured into those uncharted lands perished. Kan Ying turned back. By the seventh and eighth centuries, with the rise of Islamic power in the Middle East, both land and sea routes had fallen under the control of the Muslims. Islam's inevitable confrontation with the Christian West led to Europe becoming even more isolated; though trade in silks and spices continued at higher and higher prices through Arab middlemen.

It was not just ignorance that sustained ideas of a land populated with monsters and fantastic beings; they were also given credence by the writings of early Christian scholars. St. Augustine had written about the existence of monsters, declaring their creation to have been an important part of God's great plan, so that man would not be perplexed by the birth of the malformed or insane. Under the authority of Christian teaching the regions to the east also became associated with certain biblical localities, like Terrestrial Paradise and the land inhabited by Gog and Magog; the latter being the land beyond Alexander's Gate (the Derbent Pass in the Caucasus Mountains) where Alexander is said to have imprisoned the two foul giants, Gog and Magog. According to the Book of Revelations, they would be released by Satan to destroy Jerusalem and bring destruction upon the world. It is hardly surprising, therefore, that contemporary chroniclers, reporting the Mongol attacks, laced their accounts with fleshdevouring monsters, and that congregations were told to expect the imminent apocalypse. The tall tales of travelling merchants became part of the Christian view of the real world.

But there was another Christian fantasy, a far more recent one, that both disarmed and confused European monarchs about the origins and purpose of the invader. This had its origin in the story of the Magi; the three wise men from the East invested with the dignity of kings, as described by St. Matthew. This was supported by stories which claimed that St. Thomas had journeyed to India, where he had preached the gospel, met the Magi and baptized them. Out of these stories developed the conviction that, somewhere in the vast uncharted Orient, ruled a number of Christian kings. Add to this rich brew the great literary tradition that developed around the heroic exploits in India of Alexander, who had become an important figure in the world of chivalry and courtly love, and you soon have a medieval picture of Asia as a land inhabited by grotesques, and in some part of which there reigned heroic Christian kings who performed romantic deeds.

Chapt. 7: MONGOL CRUSADERS

WITH THE ENTHRONEMENT OF MONGKE, the empire was once again in the hands of an expansionist. The motivating force behind the empire had lain dormant since Ogedej's reign and during that time it had shown distinct signs of decadence and internal decay. Mongke Khan was set to change all that. this new sense of purpose moved through the Mongol capital, the Pope and his advisers struggled to decipher the confusing signals their envoys had delivered on the intentions of the 'Tartar hordes'. Louis's experience had been a bitter lesson.

However, though Europe waited to see what the fates delivered, this did not mean the end of European contact with the Mongol court. Among King Louis's entourage was a young Flemish monk by the name of William, who was soon to find himself at the very heart of the great empire just as it was about to make another stride on the world stage. Very little is known of young William, except that he was born in the French town of Rubruck around 1217, that he lived for some time at a friary in Paris, that he was passionately devout and that he had been in Louis's service at least since his departure for Egypt in 1248.

SPY AND EVANGELIST IN THE LAND OF THE MONGOLS

William of Rubruck enters the story because of his remarkable account of life and customs at the Mongol court. Far more detailed than previous accounts, it describes the workings of the empire's capital at a critical time for both the empire and the rest of the world.

Friar William turned up at the Mongol court because of his own personal mission to preach the gospel among the pagans. He had been inspired by the stories of Andrew of Longjumeau and the writings of Carpini, amongst others, which described Mongol tolerance towards foreign religions. Rubruck had become concerned in particular about what he presumed was the pernicious influence of the 'Nestorians'. He had also been greatly moved by accounts of German slaves who were apparently labouring for one of the Mongol princes. This passionate friar saw it as his calling to travel the breadth of Asia, bring succour to the European slaves and, during this time of great evangelical fervour, convert the Mongols to the true Christian path.

Naturally Louis was reluctant to offer much encouragement to Rubruck's plan. He insisted that the friar should make quite clear to all Mongol officials the unofficial nature of his mission, in case they mistook his presence as an indication of Louis's submission to the Great Khan. However, in return for an account of Rubruck's observations from within the empire, Louis was prepared to give the monk a letter of introduction to Prince Sartaq, one of Batu Khan's sons and a recent convert, requesting safe conduct for the monk to fulfil his mission.

Rubruck set off from Acre at the beginning of 1253 with a party that included the Italian Franciscan Bartholomew of Cremona, a royal secretary named Gosset who brought with him gifts for the Khan, and a Syrian named Omodeo who was to act as guide and interpreter. They travelled by way of Constantinople, across the Black Sea and into Mongol territory, which Rubruck described as like 'stepping into some other world'. They arrived in July at Sartaq's camp, where the locals immediately presumed they were emissaries from King Louis; they were then sent on to Batu Khan's camp, three days' journey away. Batu also found Rubruck's explanations of a religious mission less than convincing' and he too sent them on to the seat of the great Mongke Khan himself, at Qaraqorum.

During the three and a half months it took to get there, Rubruck made careful notes on the landscape and people he observed along the way. His extremely detailed account became one of the most important descriptions of Central Asia ever recorded by a European. Fascinated by the customs and beliefs of all the peoples he encountered, he was forever making enquiries of the whereabouts of the monsters and other strange creatures that were supposed to inhabit these lands. The friar was constantly astonished to find no evidence of such beings anywhere.

By October Rubruck and his party were south of Lake Balkhash where he recorded that large numbers of villages had been destroyed 'so that the Tartars could feed their flocks there, for it is very fine pasturage'. Clearly old habits died hard. As with all journeys across me Asian steppe, the going was hard and gruelling. At times they were close to starvation, forced to eat raw mutton because of the lack of fuel. They kept on, driven by Rubrick's obsession to penetrate deep into this heathen wasteland and transform it into the new Eden. However, this proved more difficult than he had ever imagined especially as his guide and interpreter, Omodeo, was more of a liability than an asset, having virtually none of the local languages.

Just before Christmas they arrived at Mongke's camp, a few miles west of Qaraqorum, and almost immediately the friars were granted an audience with the Great Khan. Once again the Mongols found it haul to swallow William's declaration that he simply wanted to live at court and preach the gospel. It seems that Mongke was untroubled by the lack of precious tribute and accepted that they were not royal emissaries from Louis. However, given the Mongols' own heavy reliance upon spies and informers, they were naturally suspicious of someone from Europe requesting permission to wander about the countryside. For the next two months William and his party were regularly interrogated by the Great Khan's misters, who were never entirely satisfied with their explanations. Mongke, on the other hand, treated his guests with great courtesy. He granted them many audiences and listened intently to William's sermons.

Some of the eastern Christians at court even maintained that it was simply a matter of time before the Great Khan was baptized; after all, his mother, Sorghaghtani Beki, a niece of the Kereyid King Ong Khan, had been a Christian all her life. Be that as it may, Sorghaghtani had nevertheless always practiced the traditional Mongol policy of religious impartiality, and had instilled these virtues in her son. Although a Christian, she was also remembered for having founded a richly endowed Muslim college in Bukhara.

Rubruck was sufficiently observant to notice that Mongke Khan paid equal attention to all the venous foreign religions represented in his realm, making certain to attend all the important ceremonies. In a conversation with Rubruck, he was once reported to have explained his religious impartiality thus: 'We Mongols believe there is but one God, by Whom we live and by Whom we die, and towards Him we have an upright heart.... But just as God gave different fingers to the hand so has He given different ways to men.' Despite Mongke's highly sophisticated views on religion, the fact is that he remained fundamentally a shamanist, dependent upon fortunetellers who burnt the shoulderblade of a sheep to divine the future.

At the beginning of April the Great Khan moved his court to Qaraqorum and Rubruck and his party followed, thus becoming the first Europeans ever to visit the capital of the largest empire that the world had ever seen. He was not impressed. After spending time in Batu's capital, he wrote: 'I was overcome with fear, for his own houses seemed like a great city stretching out a long way and crowded around on every side by peoples to a distance of three or four leagues.' Qaraqorum, on the other hand, had not flourished to quite the same degree, and Rubruck declared that he found it no bigger than the village of Saint Denis to the north of Paris. Nevertheless, he was impressed by the uniquely international population; there was not another city like it anywhere. According to Rubruck it was divided up into various quarters: one for artisans, one for clerics, another for builders and engineers, and so on. There was a 'European colony', which apparently comprised craftsmen, merchants and scribes from Germany, Poland, France and Hungary, and even an Englishman called Basil, all of whom mingled with artisans, scientists and builders from Persia and China. Within its confines there were no fewer than twelve Buddhist temples, two mosques and a church. Along the many highways that linked the far reaches of the empire with Qaraqorum there flowed an unlikely traffic of priests, ambassadors, mystics and charlatans, come to beg indulgences or to take advantage of the Mongols' legendary superstitious nature. In the midst of this cosmopolitan society Rubruck and his entourage set about preaching the gospel.

Even by his own account Rubruck found his mission something of a struggle. Part of his problem was his own overzealous approach. His teaching was shackled with academic dogma, and his arguments often reduced to threats of hellfire. Eventually even the local Christian community began to tire of him, especially after he threatened the Great Khan himself with eternal damnation. It is reported that Mongke responded to Rubruck's haranguing with the wisdom of a sage:

The nurse at first lets some drops of milk into the infant's mouth, so that by tasting its sweetness he may be enticed to suck; only then does she offer him her breast. In the same way you should persuade Us, whom you claim to be sototally unacquainted with this doctrine, in a simple and rational manner. Instead you immediately threaten Us with eternal punishments.

Rubruck succeeded in converting just one Nestorian to the Church of Rome, and baptized six children. He did, however, take part in a debate between all the religions at the court, presented before an amused Great Khan and his courtiers. In a remarkable atmosphere of religious freedom, the representative of each creed was expected to challenge the others while at the same time presenting a rational explanation of the virtues and benefits of his own doctrine. In any other regime it would have been an exercise fraught with dangers; at the Mongol court it was an event of some entertainment. As might be expected, William took up the spirit of the debate and immediately launched into an attack against the Buddhists. In the meantime the eastern Christians took on the Islamic representatives, who were not much interested in a debate and refused to respond; so the eastern Christians rounded on the Uighur Buddhists instead. The Taoists seemed to have escaped unscathed; however, the proceedings soon dissolved into a raucous carouse, leaving a disillusioned Rubruck to record that his arguments had captured not one single convert. With his Christian work a complete failure, Rubruck resigned himself to the secondary aspect of his mission, that of gathering intelligence on behalf of King Louis.

If he was not well suited to the role of evangelist, he was even less well equipped to be a spy. Apart from his valuable observations of Mongol life, which were never properly appreciated until they were rediscovered by scholars in the nineteenth century, Rubruck gleaned little of Mongol policies or plans that they were not willing for him to know. The most obvious development taking place throughout his stay at Qaraqorum was the preparations being made for a massive military undertaking. Rubruck learned that, at a qariltai held in 1252, Mongke Khan had set out the objectives of his reign: a campaign against the Sung in China and, at the same time, a separate and even larger expedition into Persia and Syria, 'as far as the borders of Egypt', which was to be led by his younger brother Hulegu.

PLANNING THE MIDDLE EASTERN CAMPAIGN

The decision to extend the empire deep into Persia would have tremendous political ramifications in western Asia. Ever since Genghis Khan had swept through Transoxania and Khurasan, the Mongols had maintained no more than a partial military presence. Under the first military commander, Chormaghun, the remnants of the Khwarazm Shah's empire had been swept away and with it all civil administration. During Batu's great expansion to the west the land between the Caspian and the Black Seas, Azerbaijan, came solidly under Mongol control; the next military governor of the area, Baiju, pushed Mongol influence into Rum, now Turkey, and crushed the Selluks. When Baiju was replaced by the devious Eljigidei there was talk of a campaign against Baghdad, but nothing came of it. With the accession of Mongke, Elligidei was swept away with the old regime and Baiju was reinstated as governor. However, Baiju made no sign of any move upon Baghdad, being fully occupied quelling uprisings in Asia Minor and Georgia. Throughout this period there were no substantial Mongol forces garrisoned further south than Azerbaijan and the Araxes valley, so control remained sporadic and chaos reigned.

From the Mongol perspective, a campaign into Persia and Syria was the logical pursuit of their philosophy of world domination. But the essential point behind Mongke's objectives was that further expansion in She west was going to happen in the Middle East, not in Europe. For centuries the Mongols had been familiar with the great influence chat Muslim merchants from Persia and the Gulf area enjoyed throughout Asia. More significant was the reputation of Persian scientists, astronomers, astrologers, mathematicians and technologists, who were without equal anywhere in the world. Apart from the sciences, there were also the arts: painting, carpetmaking, music and poetry. The Islamic Middle East was by any standards a vastly sophisticated, wealthy and advanced civilization, and the Mongols could hardly allow it to flourish outside of their sphere. Mongke's objectives were obvious: by invading both She Sung empire in southern China and Persia, he was attempting to place the two great civilizations of the era under Mongol control. It stands as one of She most grandiose plans for world domination ever conceived.

One obvious conclusion that can be drawn from Mongke's decision was that the Mongols appeared to have lost interest in Europe. Indeed, there is no evidence that after Batu's withdrawal from eastern Europe the Mongols ever saw Europe as a prize worthy of the effort it would have taken to conquer it. Although the pronouncements of the Great Khans continued to reiterate the conviction that it was the Mongols' God-given right to rule the world, and that all kings were obliged to offer tribute to the Great Khan, the reality was that in global terms Europe really did not matter that much.

Rubruck never imagined that the proposed expedition to the Middle East would benefit the cause of the crusaders In Palestine; on the other hand the eastern Christian community had become convinced that the Mongols were about to unleash a holy war against their ancient enemies, the Muslims. The Mongols' prime objective was the Caliph of Baghdad, but before confronting him they meant to eliminate the other major power in the region, the Ismailis or Assassins. They had emerged because of a schism in the Shia Muslim sect and established themselves in northern and eastern Persia by taking and controlling a series of mountain fortifications. Behind their walls they lived a contemplative life, producing beautifully wrought paintings and metalwork, but beyond their retreats they terrorized those civilizations they deemed heretical and so earned the enmity not just of the rest of the Islamic world but eventually of Europe. The local Ismaili leader had done little to enhance their reputation. Rather than confront his enemies in open combat he preferred to sponsor a campaign of political murder, usually executed with a dagger in the back, as the means to his end.

The Mongols had their own reasons for launching a campaign against the Assassins. First, they had received a plea of help from an Islamic judge in Qazwin, a town near the Assassins' stronghold at Alamut, who had complained that his fellow citizens were forced to wear armour all the time as protection from the Assassins' daggers. According to Rubruck, another reason that determined Mongol attitudes was the discovery of a plot to send no fewer than 400 daggerwielding Assassins in disguise to Qaraqorum with instructions to murder the Great Khan. The Assassins had encountered the Mongols once before, during Chormaghun's terror raids through northern Persia in 1237, which led them to send an envoy to Europe begging for help.

Gradually the new imperial army took shape. It would be the grandest expedition since Batu's invasion of Europe. Mongke Khan allocated one-fifth of the entire Mongol force to Hulegu's command. One thousand 'teams' of Chinese engineers were recruited to manufacture and operate the siege machines, while fifthcolumnists were sent ahead to prepare the way. This meant appropriating vast tracts of grazing land for the herds, stockpiling reserves of flour, grain, wine and other stores, building roads and bridges and then organizing a massive round-up of the thousands of horses that grazed across the steppes of western Asia. In the spring of 1253 the first contingents left Mongolia, and in the autumn Hulegu rode out at the head of an enormous army which then moved gradually across central Asia to the outskirts of Samarqand, where it made ready for the final march.

As preparations continued throughout 1254 and 1255, the Eastern Christian community became ever more enthusiastic for a war they believed would soon return them to their original home, the lands of Mesopotamia, from which they had emigrated to escape persecution under the Muslims. Soon contingents of Eastern Christians arrived from Batu's Golden Horde; there were Georgians, Turks and Alans; all wanted to ride with Hulegu's tumens. It also happened that Hulegu's most senior commander, Ked-Buqa, was a Christian Naiman, while Hulegu's chief wife, Doquz Khatun, was renowned for her Christian convictions. To a community that had suffered under the Muslims for centuries, Hulegu's campaign had all the hallmarks of a Christian holy war; however, Rubruck knew better. His observations of the Mongol court told him a religious war was as alien to the Mongol generals as were the concepts of mercy and forgiveness. Although the character of Hulegu's army was, in parts, heavily Christian, the commander himself was a Buddhist.

RUBRUCK'S RETURN

While the great army was encamped near Samarqand, Rubruck finally began his long journey home. Mongke gave the friar a letter for Louis in which the Great Khan repudiated the earlier diplomatic missives sent by Guyuk Khan and his regent Oghul-Ghaimish. He explained to Louis: 'How could that wicked woman, more vile than a dog, know about matters of war and affairs of peace?' Mongke goes on to describe his visions of a united world 'from sunrise to sunset' under Mongol rule, and, although he urged Louis to send peace envoys, he did not make any demands for tribute. It was a far more conciliatory letter than previous communications, and one might speculate that perhaps Mongke could see some advantage in trying to win Europe's trust.

Rubruck delayed his departure as long as possible, in the hope that he might glean a clearer signal of Mongol attitudes towards Europe. He had heard that King Hayton, from Armenia, was travelling secretly to Qaraqorum in order to see the Great Khan in connection with the planned expedition, and Rubruck imagined he might learn more of the expedition's real objectives from a fellow Roman Christian. However, by the beginning of July he had tired of waiting and decided to leave. Friar Bartholomew remained behind. Too ill to travel, he remained in Qaraqorum; it is presumed that he died there, the first Italian to die in the Far East.

A few months after Rubruck's departure, King Hayton finally arrived at Qaraqorum. Having heard of the planned campaign, Hayton had immediately realized that an flout war against the main Islamic powers would have tremendous advantages fur Christian Asia. He was received by Mongke and eventually spent five days at the capital, during which time he convinced the Great Khan that the entire expedition would be assured of allies in Palestine if it was made clear that Hulegu's expedition was nothing less than a Christian Crusade. Hayton then returned with a yarligh, an edict that, in effect, enfranchised the Christian Churches throughout the empire and in those areas not yet conquered. He returned to Armenia, and made preparations to join Hulegu's force.

Had Rubruck managed to encounter King Hayton, he might have delivered a completely different report to Louis. In the event, his was yet another depressing account of Mongol intransigence. His mission both as an evangelist and as a spy had been a failure. He brought no accounts of fabled monsters, nor of Prester John. He bitterly regretted not having managed very many conversions and railed against the 'pernicious influence' that the Church of the East, in preference to Rome, enjoyed at the Mongol court. He did, however, confirm that a massive army was currently advancing upon Persia and Syria, but he made no recommendation of an alliance, quite the opposite. He had become so disenchanted with the Mongols that he saw only one policy for Europe. 'Were it allowed me,' he wrote, 'I would to the utmost of my power to preach war against them throughout the whole world.' Rubruck's report had a tremendous influence, not just on the French King, but on the rest of the courts of Europe. It dealt another blow to the Prester John legend; but, perhaps more significantly, it was a great discouragement to those who still imagined the possibility of an alliance with a great eastern Christian king against the Muslim nations.

ACROSS THE OXUS INTO PERSIA

On 1 January 1256 Hulegu's army crossed the Oxus River and brought into Persia the most formidable war machine ever seen. It possessed the very latest in siege engineering, gunpowder from China, catapults that would send balls of flaming naphtha into their enemy's cities, and divisions of rigorously trained mounted archers led by generals who had learnt their skills at the feet of Genghis Khan and Subedei. As news of Hulegu's army spread he was soon presented with a succession of sultans, emirs and atabaks from as far apart as Asia Minor and Herat, all come to pay homage. lit sheer presence brought to an end nearly forty years of rebellion and unrest in the old lands of Khwarazmia, but to the inhabitants of Persia and Syria it was the dawn of a new world order.

The Mongols made first for the Elburz Mountains, where the Assassins lay in wait behind what they believed to be their impregnable fortresses. With extraordinary ingenuity the Mongol generals and their Chinese engineers manoeuvred their artillery up the mountain slopes and set them up around the walls of the fortress of Alamut. But before the order was given to commence firing the Assassins' Grand Master, Rukn ad-Din, signalled that he wanted to negotiate. Hulegu countered that he must immediately order the destruction of his own fortifications; when Rukn ad-Din prevaricated, the bombardment commenced. Under the most devastatingly accurate artillery fire, the walls quickly tumbled and Rukn ad-Din surrendered. Hulegu took him prisoner, transported him to every Assassin castle they confronted, and paraded him before each garrison with the demand for an immediate surrender. Some obliged, as at Alamut; while others, like Gerdkuh, had to be taken by force. Today the spherical stone missiles fired by the artillery teams at the walls still litter the perimeter of the ruins. Whether each 'eagle's nest' surrendered or was taken, the Mongols put all the inhabitants to the sword even the women in their homes and the babies in their cradles.

As this slaughter continued, Rukn ad-Din begged Hulegu to allow him to go to Qaraqorum where he would pay homage to the Great Khan and plead for clemency. Hulegu agreed, but when he got to Qaragorum Mongke Khan refused to see him. It was effectively a sentence of death. On the journey back his Mongol escort turned on the Grand Master and his attendants, who were 'kicked to a pulp' . The Persian historian Juvaini commented that 'tine world has been cleansed'. Five hundred years later Edward Gibbon echoed those sentiments, claiming that the Mongols' campaign 'may be considered as a service to mankind'. It took two years for the Mongols to dislodge over 100 'eagles' nests', but in the process they virtually expunged the Assassins from Persia.
The Destruction of Baghdad

In 1258, the first objective accomplished, Hulegu turned his army to the west into Mesopotamia and began the march on Baghdad. Since Hulegu had received the submission of all the petty warlords in Baiju's territory, the military governor was free to lead his tiumensoverland to link up with the main army. With further reinforcements from Christian Georgia, keen to be part of an attack upon Baghdad, Hulegu's force was virtually doubled. Demands for surrender were sent to the Caliph and refused.

The young man who currency reigned as the thirtyseventh commander of the faith was an unfortunately incompetent and cowardly individual by the name of Mustasim. His weaknesses were exploited by ruthless officials who had got used to running the city while Caliph Mustasim concentrated on spiritual affairs. As leader of the entire Sunni community he could have tried summoning Muslim armies from as far away as Morocco to defend Baghdad; instead he preferred the advice of his chief minister, Ibn al-Alkami, who assured him that the danger was not great and that the Baghdad defences were adequate. Ibn alAlkami was at the same time sending secret messages to the approaching army, urging them to attack and describing the pitiless state of the Baghdad defences. Persian accounts of this treachery explain that the chief minister, a Shia Muslim, had been motivated by his resentment of the Caliph's persecution of his Shia brethren. In the meantime ambassadors rode back and forth, offering to pay tribute to Hulegu but refusing to surrender, while behind the city walls there was growing fear and confusion.

When Mustasim finally gave the order that the city should be defended properly, the Mongols were just a day's march away. A contingent of some 20,000 of the city's garrison rode out to confront the enemy, but as they camped in the fields in sight of the city walls the Mongols surprised them by smashing the dams and dykes nearby and flooding the encampment. Those who did not drown were cut to pieces by the Mongol heavy cavalry.

Meanwhile Baiju's tumens had occupied the western suburbs which, once filled with vast warehouses, had been the great commercial heart of the city. On the opposite side, in the eastern Shia suburbs, Hulegu's engineers were constructing a ditch and a rampart that eventually surrounded the city. On 30 January the bombardment of Baghdad began. Events had moved so swiftly that the bullock carts bringing up ammunition, hewn from the Jebel Hamrin Mountains, were still three days away. So the artillery units improvised with stumps of palm trees and foundations from the occupied suburbs. Seven days later the Mongols stormed and took the east wall. There they remained, as gradually the city surrendered. As the garrison filed out, laying down their weapons, they were led away and slaughtered one by one. The Caliph eventually emerged with his family and 3000 courtiers. On 13 February, the sack of Baghdad began.

Though the city had lost its commercial importance, it remained an important cultural, spiritual and intellectual centre. Within the city's walls were magnificent mosques, vast libraries of Persian and Arabian literature, the greatest university in the world, plus numerous palaces belonging to the Caliph and his family and perhaps one of the greatest personal treasures to be found anywhere. It was the greatest city the Mongols conquered in the Middle East, and into this oasis of civilization they brought sword and torch. None of the invaders set about their task with more relish than the Christian contingent from Georgia. The Eastern Christian community hiding inside their churches were spared, but the Muslim population, Shia or Sunni, were ruthlessly dispatched. Most of the women and children were herded together and transported to Qaraqorum, as was the wealth of the Caliph's treasure house.

As the mosques and palaces burned and the cries from the street echoed into the night, the Caliph and his family were treated to a banquet with Hulegu. Afterwards they were sewn up in the customary Mongol carpet and then trampled to death under the hooves of Mongol horses, and so ended the dynasty of the Abbasid caliphs that had survived for 500 years. The treacherous chief minister, Ibn al-Alkami, was rewarded by being allowed to retain his position under the Mongol rule. Persian accounts claim between 800,000 and 1 million killed within the city walls. At any rate, the stench from rotting corpses was so great that, not for the first time, the Mongols had to evacuate their campsites. Nevertheless, Persian historians tend to exaggerate the slaughter of Baghdad, for commercial evidence shows a thriving economy just two years later.

EXPEDITION TO SYRIA

Hulegu marched his army north-east towards Tabriz, where he planned to make his base in Persia. He paused briefly by the shores of Lake Urmiyeh and was impressed by the rugged beauty of a rocky island crag that loomed out of its waters. On Shai Island, a largely barren monolith heavily pock-marked with ancient rock tombs, Hulegu built a treasure house where he stored his portion of the spoils. He set up his encampment near Tabriz and waited as news of the fall of Baghdad swept through Syria and Palestine. It was one of the greatest catastrophes that had ever befallen the Islamic world. But the impact was felt far beyond Islam, for the virtual obliteration of one of the greatest cities of the world sent shock waves right across all civilization. The Mongols were again on the march.

Soon the eastern Christians who had lived under the Muslim yoke for five centuries were hailing Hulegu as a latter-day saviour, for the enemies of Christ were about to be thrown into the sea. An Armenian chronicler declared: 'During the time of Baghdad's supremacy like an insatiable bloodsucker she had swallowed up the whole world. Now she has been punished for all the blood she has spilled and the evil she has wrought, the measure of her iniquity being filled.'

As Hulegu marched into Syria, there appeared a long procession of princes come to offer rich tribute and their submission to the new lord. The Prince of Mosul presented Hulegu with a set of gold earings, amongst other treasures, which he placed in the Mongol's ears himself. It was by way of a private joke between his ministers and himself, for he had once boasted that the Mongols would be no threat and that one day he would take the upstart Hulegu by the ears. Another who came with gifts, Prince Kai-Kawus, presented Hulegu with a pair of slippers painted with the prince's own portrait on the soles, so that the Mongol might walk on his face.

In return the princes were being offered the privilege of becoming vassal lords to Hulegu and providing him with soldiers to augment his already massive host, and soon there was barely a single Muslim prince east of the Tigris who ruled without Mongol approval. There were exceptions, of course; the Prince of Mayyafarakin, Kamil Muhammad, had sworn allegiance to the Great Khan in Qaraqorum but had also provided soldiers to help defend the Caliph. When Hulegu learned of Kamil Muhammad's treachery, and that he had recently crucified a Christian priest travelling through his city on a Mongol passport, he commanded that the prince and all the inhabitants of Mayyafarakin be made an example of, a task he gave to some of the Christian contingents. King Hayton's 16,000 Armenians plus a large number of Georgians were despatched to take Mayyafarakin, which they did with some efficiency. The Christian commanders then dealt with Prince Kamil Muhammad with particular relish, first trussing the unfortunate victim like a chicken and then slicing off pieces of his flesh and feeding them to him until he was dead.;

Before Hulegu set out to invade Syria the Sultan of that country, al-Nasir, sent his son to negotiate with the Mongol commander. He came claiming that his father wanted to make peace and to offer tribute to the Great Khan in Qaragorum. Hulegu's reply, written in the most eloquent and flowing Persian prose, simply informed Sultan al-;Nasir that he was 'doomed to fall'. Submission would not be enough; Hulegu meant to rule Syria. The Sultan's resourcesThen, around February 1260, just as Hulegu and his generals were calculating the next stage of their campaign, the march on Jerusalem, a rider entered the Khan's camp with news from China. Since autumn the year before messengers had been making their way along the great Mongol Yam,the system of highways and staging posts that embraced the breadth of Asia, to bring the news to the farthest outposts of the empire. While engaged in the campaign against the Sung, Mongke Khan had contracted dysentery and died. In an uncanny repetition of history, Mongke Khan's death saved Islam from certain extinction just as Ogedei Khan's demise had saved Europe from Batu's hordes, for upon hearing the news Hulegu immediately withdrew the bulls of his forces from Syria and regrouped around Maragheh, where he sat and pondered the situation.

With Hulegu's withdrawal the military landscape was transformed. He had left his redoubtable commander, Ked-Buqa, in Damascus with a small fragment of the once great army to stand at the frontier of his empire. The first to test the Mongols' strength were two crusader lords, Julian of Sidon and John of Beirut, who led raids into Mongol territory. Ked-Buqa's retaliation led to the sack of Sidon and the total destruction of an army of Templars led by John of Beirut. The crusaders reeled in fright. But the Mongol action had fully revealed their strength, or, more to the point, their weakness, and news soon spread. As the Mamluks were pondering Hulegu's demand for surrender, sent before his withdrawal from Syria, they learned that a muchdepleted contingent was all that held the Mongol frontier. Having assumed they would soon have to defend their capital, the Mamluks now decided to throw caution to the wind and march out to meet the Mongols on their own territory. There would never be a better opportunity to throw back the invader, and they signalled their intentions by executing the Mongol envoys and impaling their heads on the spikes of one of Cairo's gates

The Mamluk commander, Qutuz, had become fired with what he saw as his mission to save Islam and civilization. In an audacious move he sent emissaries to the crusaders, asking for an alliance against the Mongols. Barely able to believe this token from Islam, the crusaders struggled to produce a response. Despite the recent Mongol raids, there were still Christian voices arguing that an alliance with the Mongols was the best chance of ridding the Holy Land of Islam. Whether they realized it or not, as they debated the merits of an alliance with either the Mongols or the Muslims the crusaders were in fact weighing up the future of Christianity and Islam in the Middle east. In the event, the memories of Sidon were too fresh for the proMongolists to have prevailed, and while the crusaders found it impossible actually to fight with the Mamluks, they did eventually send word to Qutuz that they would at least not impede his army's journey north into Syria. It was an absolutely crucial decision.

Qutuz led his army north through Gaza, where they encountered and destroyed a small Mongol force out on a long-range patrol. Encouraged, the Mamluks moved further north, passing through Christian-held territory where they received supplies and fresh horses. While Qutuz and his generals were enjoying crusader hospitality at Acre, Ked-Buqa led his two tumens, perhaps no more than 15,000 men, out of Damascus and headed south-west. Amongst his army was a large contingent of native Syrian conscripts. On 3 September 1260, Ked-Buqa crossed the River Jordan and began his final march towards the Mamluk army.

Qutuz in the meantime had also advanced, and the two forces drew up in the valley where legend held that David had slain Goliath. At Ayn Jalut, Goliath's spring, the Mongols finally encountered the Mamluk vanguard. KedBuqa ordered a charge, and the Mamluk vanguard turned and Bed. But the Mongols had fallen for one of their own tactics, for they were led straight into the main Mamluk force spread thinly across the 6 km (4 mile) wide valley. Accounts vary about the sizes of the two forces, but what is known is that at some point in the proceedings, possibly as the Mongols discovered they had charged into a trap, the Syrian contingent broke ranks and fled the field. From that moment the Mongols were at a great disadvantage.

Realizing that he was now committed to engaging the entire Mamluk force, Ked-Buqa ordered his ranks to charge the Mamluk Bank. This they did, turning it and eventually destroying the Mamluk wing. Qutuz despaired at the lost advantage as the battle swung first one way, then the other. For either side it was a fight to the death, and for most of the day the result might have gone either way. But then two events occurred that decisively turned the tide. As the Mamluk ranks appeared in danger of being routed, Qutuz is reported to have thrown his helmet to the ground and implored his troops to regroup and renew the fight. He reminded them that they were fighting not simply for their lives, but for the very future of Islam. Fired by his call, the Mamluks regrouped and charged the Mongols' ranks. At the same time, fortune struck against the Mongols as their commander Ked-Buqa fell in combat. There is a conflicting report that he was actually captured by the Mamluks and executed on the battlefield; but whatever the case, the result was the same. Against overwhelming odds the Mongol generals finally lost their nerve, turned the army and retreated. They were pursued for 12 km (8 miles) to the town of Beisan, where they drew up to face the Mamluk cavalry. But they had already lost the momentum, and the resulting clash decimated the Mongol ranks. Within days a Mamluk messenger, bearing Ked-Buqa's head on the end of a staff, returned to Cairo to spread the news. Qutuz was about to enter Damascus in triumph.

What had happened in the valley of Ayn Jalut was one of the most significant battles in world history. Although the battle itself was not conclusive - it did not sweep the Mongols from the Middle East - it nevertheless utterly smashed the myth of Mongol invincibility. They were just as fallible as any other army, and subject to the same twists of good and bad fortune. Ayn Jalut also marked the end of any concerted campaign by the Mongols to conquer that part of the world. After Damascus was taken by the Mamluks, and soon afterwards Aleppo, the Mongols sent contingents back into Syria to conduct revenge raids but there was no sign of a coordinated reconquest. All this was not, however, due to Mamluk hegemony alone. The Mamluks had not encountered the full weight of the Mongol force, and never would. There were other reasons for Hulegu's reticence reasons related to events that were unfolding on the other side of Asia.

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You don't seem to get it. do you? This stuff does NOT belong in this forum. This is a political forum. Ya know for politics?

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The Magog Identity
by Chuck Missler

And the word of the LORD came unto me, saying, Son of man, set thy face against Gog, the land of Magog, the chief prince of Meshech and Tubal, and prophesy against him. . .And I will turn thee back, and put hooks into thy jaws, and I will bring thee forth, and all thine army, horses and horse-men, all of them clothed with all sorts of armour, even a great company with bucklers and shields, all of them handling swords: - Ezekiel 38:1-4

So begins this classic passage in which Gog and Magog, with their allies, are drawn into an invasion of Israel only to have the God of Israel use the occasion to show Himself strong by intervening on behalf of His people and destroying the invading forces. The apparent use of nuclear weapons1 has made this passage appear timely and perhaps on our near horizon.

To understand this passage, it is essential to first determine who the players are. Despite the many controversies, these participants are surprisingly well identified. Just who are the people represented here by these ancient tribal names?

Why Such Weird Names?

Have you ever wondered why the Biblical prophets always seem to refer to various peoples by such strange names? It's actually our fault! We keep changing the names of things. There once was a city known as Petrograd. For many years it was known as St. Petersburg. Then it was changed to Leningrad. Now it's St. Petersburg again. What will it be named a few years from now? (My friends in Russia say that in Russia, even the past is uncertain!) The capital of the old world, Byzantium, was renamed Constantinople. Now that city is known as Istanbul. This occurs even in our own country. How many of you remember when "Cape Canaveral" was renamed "Cape Kennedy"? Ten years later it became "Cape Canaveral" again.

But we do not change the names of our ancestors! So, if you were the prophet Isaiah and were called upon to speak of the Persians over a century before they emerged as an empire, how could you refer to them? You would speak of them as the descendants of Elam, the forebears of the Persians.2

The Table of Nations

Did you realize that you and I are related? All of us are descendants, not only from Adam, but from Noah. Noah and his three sons repopulated the entire Earth after the flood. Thus, we are all descendants of Noah's three sons: Ham, Shem, and Japheth. We are all relatives. (Perhaps that's why we don't get along any better!) The genealogical records of Noah and his three sons are listed in Genesis 10, and the 70 original tribal groups described there are often called by Biblical scholars, The Table of Nations. Specifically, to understand the prophecies of Ezekiel 38 - 39, we need some background on Magog and his allies.

Magog was one of the sons of Japheth3 and his descendants are often referred to by their Greek name, the Scythians. 4 One of the earliest references to Magog was by Hesiod, "the father of Greek didactic poetry," who identified Magog with the Scythians and southern Russia in the 7th century B.C.5 Hesiod was, in effect, almost a contemporary of Ezekiel. Another of the major sources on the ancient history of the Middle East is, of course, Josephus Flavius, who clearly identified Magog:

Magog founded the Magogians, thus named after him, but who were by the Greeks called Scythians .6

Another first century writer was Philo,7 who also identified Magog with southern Russia. But most of our information comes to us from Herodotus, who wrote extensively in the 5th century B.C.

The "Father of History"

Herodotus of Halicarnassus is known as the "Father of History." He wrote the earliest important historical narrative, in which he described the background and the course of the great war between the Greeks and the Persians in the 5th century B.C. Numerous archeological discoveries have clearly confirmed Herodotus' reports in general, and his Scythian accounts in particular.8

The tortuous path from the horseback archery of the early Scyths to the nuclear missiles of the Russian Federation includes many centuries of turbulent history. The various descendants of Magog terrorized the southern steppes of Russia from the Ukraine to the Great Wall of China.

The "Steppes of History"

The earliest origins of the area settled by the descendants of Magog, the extreme north and east, are clouded by the passage of time and war. Only faint traces remain, but enough to establish the critical identities. Our indebtedness extends from writers predating Ezekiel to the energies of the Russian archaeologists in more recent years. In the 9th century B.C. a number of nomadic tribes created a new state in the region of Lake Van in present-day Turkey, which immediately became a competitor of Assyria. The Assyrians called this state Urartu. The Urartean state quickly became powerful, and in the first half of the 8th century B.C. extended its rule over a wide area.

Assyria could not stand by indifferently as Urartu expanded and grew more powerful. During the reign of Argishti's son, Sarduri II (764-735 B.C.), the Assyrians undertook two campaigns against Urartu, in 743 and 735 B.C. In the second, they reached and besieged the Urartean capital of Tushpa. Two groups are frequently referred to in Urartean and Assyrian texts: the Cimmerians and the Scythians. Both will figure prominently in subsequent identifications.

The Cimmerians

The Cimmerians are the oldest of the European tribes living north of the Black Sea and Danube, and whom we know by the name they used for themselves. The Cimmerian period in the history of southern Ukraine began in the late 11th century B.C. The Cimmerians were the first specialized horse-nomads to make their name in history.9 The earliest osteological evidence of the domestication of the horse occurs south of Kiev about 2500 B.C.10 Their nomadic lifestyle, including mounted warriors, fully developed between the 10th and 8th centuries. 11

They are first mentioned in secular literature in The Odyssey and The Iliad of Homer (8th century B.C.), and in Assyrian cuneiform texts from the 8th century B.C. (before Ezekiel), and of course, in Herodotus (5th century B.C.). Herodotus indicates that the whole North Pontic steppe region, occupied in his time by the Scythians, belonged earlier to the Cimmerians. 12 Homer13 associated the Cimmerians with a fog-bound land, perhaps the Crimean peninsula on the north shore of the Black Sea. Some scholars derive the name of "Crimea" from the Cimmerians.14 The Cimmerians surged into Asia Minor in the late 7th century B.C. They annihilated the Phrygian kingdom after destroying and looting its capital, Gordium. In 652 B.C. they captured Sardis and plundered the Greek cities of the Aegean coast and Asia Minor. In the early 7th century, Cimmerian forces were checked and routed by the Assyrians who came to the aid of the Scythians. By the 6th century B.C. the name of the Cimmerians disappeared from the historical scene.

In the 5th century B.C., Herodotus15 related that the Cimmerians were driven south over the Caucasus, probably through the central Dariel Pass, by the Scythians in a domino-like effect as the Scythians themselves were pushed westward by other tribes. This can be correlated with Chinese records.16 The numerous references in the Talmud has left little doubt that these descendants of Gomer then moved northward and established themselves in the Rhine and Danube valleys 17

The Scythians

We know the descendants of Magog by their Greek designation as the Scythians (depicted in their legends as descending from Scythes , the youngest of the three sons of Heracles, from sleeping with a half viper and half woman). 18 The name Scythian designates a number of nomadic tribes from the Russian steppes, one group of which invaded the Near East in the 8th and 7th centuries B.C. After being repulsed from Media, many of the later Scyths settled in the fertile area of the Ukraine north of the Black Sea. Other related tribes occupied the area to the east of the Caspian Sea.

Herodotus describes them living in Scythia (i.e., the territory north of the Black Sea). He describes Scythia as a square, 20 days journey (360 miles) on a side. It encompassed the lower reaches of the Dniester, Bug, Dnieper, and Don Rivers where they flow into the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov. 19

The Scythian language belonged to the Iranian family of the Indo-European languages.20 The Ossetian dialect of central Caucasus appears to be a survivor.21 The original area in which Iranian was spoken extended from the mid-Volga and the Don regions to the northern Urals and beyond. From here, Iranian-speaking tribes colonized Media, Parthia, Persia, Central Asia, and as far as the Chinese border.

In the 7th century B.C. the Scythians swept across the area, displacing the Cimmerians from the steppes of the Ukraine east of Dnieper River, who fled from them across the Caucasus.22 It is provocative that even the name "Caucasus" appears to have been derived from Gog-hasan, or "Gog's Fort."23

The hippomolgoi ("mare-milkers") mentioned in Homer's Iliad 24 were equestrian nomads of the northern steppes and several authorities also identified these with the Scythians. 25 [One of the delicacies I was presented with when I was being hosted by the Deputy Chairman of the Soviet Union was fermented horse milk! These traditions may have a deep history, indeed.]

Tombs That Tell Tales

The fact that the Scythian culture extended more than 2,000 miles east from the Ukraine was demonstrated by the sensational discovery of tombs in the Chilikta Valley of East Kazakhstan, published in Russian in 1965:

...prove that Scythian material culture had spread to the Mongolian border as early as the 6th century B.C. 26

Countless Scythian burials, ranging from the 6th - 2nd century B.C., have been uncovered in the areas to the north and east of the Black Sea, in many cases beyond the limits of what Herodotus demarcated in his day as "Scythia" proper. Soviet scholars have, of course, worked broadly in this region. 27 More than 1,200 graves were investigated by A. Leskov in the Crimean area between 1961 and 1972. Aerial surveys also have been employed.28 Hundreds of Scythian graves from the 4th and 3rd centuries have been discovered since the 1930s by B. Grakow, A. Trenoschkin, and E. Tschernenko, in the Ukraine. One of the many implications of the Soviet finds is the authentication of the reliability of Herodotus as a source of knowledge of the Scythians. The leading authorities on the Scythians, T. Rice, T. Sulimirski, and others, all regard Herodotus as thoroughly vindicated.29

Remarkable circumstances led to the preservation of otherwise perishable materials. The frozen conditions marvelously preserved textiles, remains of horses, human skin and hair, entrails, undigested food, etc., for more than 2,300 years! In July 1995, Russian archaeologists found a 2,500 year old Scythian horseman under more than seven feet of ice in Siberia near the Chinese and Mongolian borders. More than 6,500 feet above sea level, the Ukok Plateau is blanketed by a thick layer of rocks that keeps the ground frozen year round. The horseman had been given his ceremonial burial in his fur coat and high leather boots, alongside his horse in a log-lined chamber in the Altai Mountains. He also had his ax, quiver, and dagger.30

According to Herodotus and archaeological evidence, the Scythians occupied territory from the Danube to the Don. The northern boundary extended beyond the latitude of Kiev. Near Olbia lived the Callipidae and Graeco-Scythians, and farther north, the Alazones.

Defense in Depth

One reason Herodotus gave so much detailed information about the Scythians was that he wanted to describe the people who had succeeded in defeating the Persian king, Darius. This was a most important element in the history of Scythians, and the memory of it remained with them for many years. In resisting the Persians, a provocative strategic tradition was born: Defense in Depth. This unique strategy also would characterize these descendants of Magog in more recent times against both Napoleon and Hitler.

Darius I crossed the Bosphorus and invaded Scythia. The Scythians, however, had devised an unusual tactic for conducting warfare. The Persians expected to crush the Scythians in a decisive engagement, but the Scythians avoided such a battle. They retreated deep into their own territory, laying waste the region and wearing down the enemy by means of small raids. In pursuing the Scythians, Darius soon came to appreciate the cunning of these "partisan" tactics. Reaching the Volga, Darius, acknowledging defeat, had to retreat from Scythia in shame.

As every student of military history knows, Napoleon and Hitler, each, in more modern times, encountered the same tactics from the Scythian descendants and yielding similar results. When Napoleon entered Russia in 1812, Field Marshall Kutuzov's similar strategy, including the sacrifice of Moscow itself, resulted in reducing Napoleon's Grande Armée from 453,000 to less than 10,000, and yielding the ignomious defeat now commemorated in Tchaikovsky's Overture of 1812. In 1941, Hitler suffered a similar defeat from the same Scythian strategy: allowing a quick advance deep into the Russian interior only to have his Wehrmacht swallowed up in the harsh winter.

Decline

Greater Scythia disintegrated in the late 3rd century B.C., and the territory extended only from the Lower Dnieper to the Crimea. There were several causes; the main one was apparently ecological. Evidently the natural and climatic conditions of life on the steppe were changing. According to some experts there was a "desertification" of the steppe. 31 The population moved to more favorable areas, in particular southwards to the southern Dnieper. The Scythians finally succumbed to attacks from the Goths.

Scythians in the New Testament

The word Scythian occurs once in the New Testament. Paul stresses the fact that people from the most diverse backgrounds can be one in Christ:

Where there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision, Barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free: but Christ is all, and in all.
- Colossians 3:11

These unsavory associations mean nothing to readers today but would have aroused a strong emotional response from Paul's audience. According to this passage, not only were all classes of society, civilized and uncivilized, one in Christ, but even those cruel, barbaric Scythians - the epitome of savagery in the ancient world 32 - were eligible for redemption through the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. [Even as you and I are. No matter how barbaric or cruel our own history is, His redemption is available for the asking.]

More to Come

The background that has endowed these vibrant people with the beauty of Pushkin, Dostoyevsky, and Tchaikovsky has also given them the cruelty of Ivan IV,33 the intensity of Lenin, and the brutality of Stalin. In our next installment, we will review more of the stormy events from their colorful but violent past, from the invasion by the Huns into the European steppes, the fall of the Western Roman Empire, the appearance in Asia and Europe of the Turks, Avar and Khazar Khanates, and the invasion by the armies of Genghis Khan and the Golden Horde. See: The Roots of War

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THE SECRET DOCTRINES OF THE ASSASSINS
compiled by Richard Shand

Origins of the Nizari Isma'ilis

(1) The Schism in Islam

"...in the year the Christian calendar calls AD 632, a schism even greater than the Reformation was to produce engulfed Islam. Its two great forces, the Sunnis and the Shi'ites, became irrevocably divided. The Shi'ites insisted that the leadership of Islam should have remained in the Prophet's family and, upon his death, they had pledged their support to Mohammed's cousin, Ali, who became Caliph or successor to the Prophet."
- Gordon Thomas, Journey into Madness

"...Legend has it that Mohammed's son-in-law Sidina 'Ali, the ideal warrior, once became so caught up in the frenzy of killing that he began to kill his own people after finishing off the enemy. His frenzy had to be cooled down before he could stop."
- An Encyclopedia of Archetypal Symbolism

"Ali was murdered in AD 661. But, in the Shi'ite theology, Ali and his descendants were Imams - divinely guided leaders and mediators between God and Man, Christ-like figures on earth. There were twelve Imams before the last disappeared in AD 940. It is a fundamental Shi'ite belief that he is hiding in one of the vast Arabian deserts, awaiting the right moment to re-emerge and establish a purified Islamic government of justice...The Imam, on his return, would launch a jihad, a holy war, more violent than any before fought over the centuries by his Shi'ite disciples."
- Gordon Thomas, Journey into Madness

"One of the most successful secret societies which the Shi'as founded was centered 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."
- Arkon Daraul, Secret Societies

"The fundamental doctrine of the Shi'a is based upon the ta'lim, or authorized teaching. The imam was responsible for this teaching, from which no deviation at all was possible. This is the basis of the authority of the Shi'ite imams, and informs their role as descendants of Ali..." "The essential division between Shi'a and Sunni is based upon the dispute between the mutually exclusive notions that authority may be explained by ta'lim or that it may be explained by means of reason and analogy."
- Edward Burman, The Assassins - Holy Killers of Islam

"Much of the well-known mystical symbolism of Sufism, often best known through the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, was taken over by the Isma'ilis. They joined Sufism and Shiism in a peculiar and unique blend, often appearing as a particular group of Sufis with their own Shaykh....It would not..be surprising if the use of hashish and other drugs for achieving mystical ecstasy was also carried over from the Sufis."
- Edward Burman, The Assassins - Holy Killers of Islam

(2) Old Man of the Mountains

In 1074 "the Armenian general Badr al-Jamali traveled with his army from Syria to Cairo and took effective control. From that moment, the power of the caliph was extremely limited and the real ruler of the state was the commander-in-chief of the army. the last caliphs were little more than figureheads."

"On the death of the Caliph al-Mustansir in 1094, the new commander opposed the Caliph's own designation of his son Nizar as caliph and placed Nizar's brother al-Musta'li on the throne... The Isma'ilis in the East [Persia] refused to acknowledge al-Musta'li and broke off relations with the dynasty in Cairo."

"The dissenting group proclaimed their allegiance to the by-passed Caliph Nizar, and it is for this reason that members of the sect which became known to history as The Assassins were first known as the Nizari Isma'ilis."
- Edward Burman, The Assassins - Holy Killers of Islam

"'Assasseen' in Arabic signifies 'guardians', and some commentators have considered this to be the true origin of the word: 'guardians of the secrets'."
- Arkon Daraul, Secret Societies

"Hasan-i Sabbah was a revolutionary of genius who devised and put into practice the 'new' preaching or da'wa of the Nizari Isma'ilis, which was to replace the 'old' da'wa of the Fatimid Isma'ilis at Cairo... It is likely that he was born around 1060 in Qom, one-hundred-and-fifty kilometers south of modern Tehran."

"He had a fine mind, an excellent knowledge of theology, and evidently possessed the phenomenal strength of will necessary to pursue his ideal for so many years... We can imagine him converting the people of Daylam just as he had himself been converted, by patiently digging away at a potential proselyte's religious doubts until they were strong enough to admit the possibility of an alternative."

"Hasan-i Sabbah had managed through careful theological argument and relentless logic applied to the Shi'a doctrines, to create a powerful sectarian sense of community based on the traditional secrecy and conspiratorial nature of Isma'ilism."

"The Alborz Mountains, which rise to a maximum height of over six-thousand meters in the volcanic Mount Damavand, constitute a natural barrier between the Caspian and the vast gently tilting plateau which constitutes Central Iran. Although not distant as the crow field from Tehran, this mountainous area has always been and still is remote. It was presumably for this reason that many shi-ite sects and fleeing Isma'ilis and other Moslem heretics had... for many centuries taken refuge in the mountain kingdom of ancient Daylam."

Within a high mountain valley stands "the castle of Alamut, the fortress retreat of Hasan-i Sabbah, which became almost legendary after the supposed 1273 visit of Marco Polo and his description of the 'Old Man of the mountains' and the 'Ashishin'..."
- Edward Burman, The Assassins - Holy Killers of Islam

"The Old Man kept at his court such boys of twelve years old as seemed to him destined to become courageous men. When the Old Man sent them into the garden in groups of four, ten or twenty, he gave them hashish to drink. They slept for three days, then they were carried sleeping into the garden where he had them awakened."

"When these young men woke, and found themselves in the garden with all these marvelous things, they truly believed themselves to be in paradise. And these damsels were always with them in songs and great entertainments; they; received everything they asked for, so that they would never have left that garden of their own will."

"And when the Old Man wished to kill someone, he would take him and say: 'Go and do this thing. I do this because I want to make you return to paradise'. And the assassins go and perform the deed willingly."
- Marco Polo - on his visit to Alamut in 1273

"That Hasan-i Sabbah and other early Assassin Masters had gardens seems likely since the garden is such an important part of Persian noble life and of mysticism. The water channels and meticulous care to ensure regular water supplies at Assassin castles echo the care which Persian and Arab villages and country houses today give to the presence of running water. So the legend of the garden in which Assassins were taken probably has its origins in fact."

"Many scholars have argued, and demonstrated convincingly, that the attribution of the epithet 'hashish eaters' or 'hashish takers' is a misnomer derived from enemies the Isma'ilis and was never used by Moslem chroniclers or sources. It was therefore used in a pejorative sense of 'enemies' or 'disreputable people'. This sense of the term survived into modern times with the common Egyptian usage of the term Hashasheen in the 1930s to mean simply 'noisy or riotous'. It is unlikely that the austere Hasan-i Sabbah indulged personally in drug taking."

"There is no mention of that drug [hashish] in connection with the Persian Assassins - especially in the library of Alamut ('the secret archives')."

"Once established in a secure and permanent base, Hasan sent da'is [missionaries] out from Alamut in all directions, At the same time he pursued a policy of territorial expansion, taking castles either by means of propaganda or by force, and building others... Life at Alamut, and we may suppose in the other fortresses at this time, was characterized by extreme asceticism and severity."

"Political assassination was not unknown in Islam before Hasan-i Sabbah. Earlier sects had used murder as a political technique, and there is evidence that Mohammed himself disposed of his enemies by suggesting that they did not deserve to live - and hoping that faithful followers would take the hint. There had even been an extremist Shi'ite group known as the 'stranglers' after their preferred method of assassination."

The word assassin "definitely entered the literary vocabulary when it was used by Dante." In The Divine Comedy: Hell, Book XIX, "Dante describes himself as 'like a friar who is confessing the wicked assassin':

'Io stava come il frate che confessa
Lo perfido assassin...'

"Here the strongest possible noun is required since the criminal being confessed is being buried alive head down, thus denoting a sin of particular horror. The connection of assassin with wickedness reinforces the clarity and precision with which Dante used the word, and it was in this sense that 'assassin' then passed into other European languages."
- Edward Burman, The Assassins - Holy Killers of Islam

(3) Fate of the Isma'ilis

"After the destruction of Alamut by Hulegu in 1256, many members of the Nizari Isma'ili sect are thought to have fled to Afghanistan, the Himalayas and above all Sind... Several of them had traveled to India as early as the eleventh century, but the founder of the branch of the sect known as the Bohras was probably a certain Abdullah who traveled from the Yemen and arrived in Cambay in about 1067. He traveled and teached extensively in the province of Gujerat, where still today the Bohras are a powerful and secretive presence."

"The other major branch of the Isma'ilis in the East today are known as the Khojas, who are particularly strong in what was once the Punjab but is now part of Pakistan. Their tradition relates that a missionary known as Nu(r) Satagut, which means literally 'teacher of true light', was the first to arrive in India. He is thought to have traveled to north-western India some time between 1160 and 1242. It was the Khoja sect which descended directly from the Nizari Isma'ilis or Assassins, and on whose support the Aga Khan's leadership of the Isma'ilis today is based."

"The present Aga Khan, correctly known as Prince Karim El Husseni, Aga Khan IV, is recognized as the forty-ninth hereditary imam of the Isma'ilis and claims direct descent from the Prophet Mohammed. He is recognized as head of the world-wide Isma'ili sect, today estimated at between four and twenty million in number. His income from voluntary contributions was estimated by Mihir Bose [The Agha Khans] in 1985 to be seventy-five million pounds a year."

"The theology and politics of the revolutionary of genius Hasan-i Sabbah can in fact be seen as the first original creation - both religious and political - of a specifically Persian ethos after the conquest of the country of the Arabs and consequent conversion to Islam. In this wider sense the thought and doctrines of the inventor of the 'Assassins' may be said to have an enduring influence in the religious and political life of the Middle East. This legacy is shared both the Aga Khans and by contemporary revolutionary groups in Lebanon and Persia."
- Edward Burman, The Assassins - Holy Killers of Islam

The Secret Doctrines of the Assassins

(1) Schools of Thought

"The real problem of the Isma'ilis in general, and the Nizari Isma'ilis or Assassins in particular, is that they were always considered heretical and persecuted by official Islam, except for the period in which Isma'ilism was the official religion under the Fatimid caliphs of Egypt. The consequence of this is that no comprehensive formula of the Assassins' creed was ever generally recognized. Their doctrines were maintained in secrecy by the Assassins themselves, while their enemies were content to dismiss them as heretical without studying or reporting them."
- Edward Burman, The Assassins - Holy Killers of Islam

Hasan-i Sabbah "prevented ordinary persons from delving into knowledge; and likewise the elite from investigating former books, except those who knew the circumstances of each book and the rank of the authors in every field. With his partisans, in theology he did not go beyond saying, our god is the god of Mohammed."
- Shaharastani

"Islam is not a messianic religion and has no room for a saviour-messiah. Nevertheless, there gradually developed--probably under Christian influence--the notion of an eschatological restorer of the faith, identified as a descendant of the Prophet or as the returning 'Isa (i.e., Jesus). He is usually referred to as the mahdi; i.e., the '[divinely] guided one'. After the appearance of 'Isa, the last judgment will begin: the good will enter paradise; the evil will fall into hell. Heaven and hell possess various goals and steps of recompense for good and evil. The time before the end is viewed pessimistically: God himself will abandon the godless world. Ka'bah (the great pilgrimage sanctuary of the Muslim world) will vanish, the copies of the Qur'an will become empty paper, and its words will disappear from memory. Then the end will draw near."
- Encyclopaedia Britannica

"In the Koran Jesus is mentioned no less than thirty-five times, under a number of impressive appellations - including 'Messenger of God' and 'Messiah'. At no point, however, is he regarded as anything other than a mortal prophet, a forerunner of Mohammed and a spokesman for the single supreme God. And like Basilides and Mani, the Koran maintains that Jesus did not die on the cross, 'they did not kill him, nor did they crucify him, but they thought that did.' The Koran itself does not elaborate on this ambiguous statement, but Islamic commentators do. According to most of them, there was a substitute - generally, though not always, supposed to have been Simon of Cyrene. Certain Muslim writers speak of Jesus hiding in a niche of a wall and watching the Crucifixion of a surrogate as is described in the Nag Hammadi Scrolls."
- Baigent, Leigh & Lincoln, The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail

The doctrine of rebirth, or more correctly transmigration was "widely accepted in Persia, and evolved in the particular Moslem form of belief in the Mahdi, the 'one guided by God to the truth'. The Isma'ili version of these ideas consisted of two schools of thought: first, a belief in Ismail himself as immortal, and consequently that he is the Mahdi; second, some believed that Mohammed, son of Ismail, was the Mahdi who would not die until he had conquered the world."

"The Druzes accept reincarnation as one of the chief distinguishing principles of their religion: their founder and apostle Hakim is held to have possessed the soul of the twelfth imam, and it is from this fact that his authority derives. Druzes, about whom we have more information than the Assassins and whose doctrines are usually almost identical, believe that all human souls were created together and that their number is fixed... Souls progress though a series of transmigrations to a higher degree of excellence."
- Edward Burman, The Assassins - Holy Killers of Islam

(2) Haqa'iq - The Esoteric Truths

"The religious revolution of man was considered to have taken place in seven years under seven Messenger Prophets, the first six of whom were Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, Jesus and Mohammed. Each of these messengers revealed a religious law in esoteric form, which was readily interpreted even by the uninitiated: this is the zahir or external aspect. But each of these messages also contained an inner, esoteric truth which required interpretation by the small number of initiates capable of receiving them: this the batin, or esoteric truth."

"The esoteric truths themselves, haqa'iq, were explained by a successor of each of the Messenger Prophets known as the wasi (Legates) or by the sami (Silent One) whose task was to explain the batin of the Scriptures and Law. Each Legate was in turn followed by a series of seven imams, the seventh of whom became the next messenger Prophet in the series. The last era would be marked by the Mahdi, who would make the inner doctrine public and inaugurate an era of pure spiritual knowledge."

"Isma'ili theology was thus revelationary in character. The haqa'iq transcended human reason and ultimately derived from gnostic doctrines, considering the principles of spiritual and physical worlds in Neoplatonic terms. The Gnostics held that the physical world had been created by an inferior deity, the Yahweh of the Old Testament, who was allowed a certain lassitude until God decided to send His son to inhabit the body of Jesus and free the world from false teachings. Certain Gnostic notions passed into Islam when Mohammed adopted the gnostic idea that the body which was crucified was only a phantom which the Jews and Romans could not harm."
- Edward Burman, The Assassins - Holy Killers of Islam

"The heart of the Isma'ili haqa'iq, which consists in their denial of rationalism and forms the basis of their 'heresy', lies in the denial that God is the first cause. For them, the first cause is the Order or Word of God, which became united with the Universal Intellect. Hence the idea of the Order is at the heart of their esoteric doctrines, and achieves their synthesis of Neoplatonic philosophy and Islam."

"The power of Hasan-i Sabbah himself, and the fanatical devotion of the fida'i, ultimately derived from this categorical insistence on the transcendental nature of God. Such an absolute God, and absolute imam, demands absolute faith and obedience."

Group A: descended from Ali and Nizar
1 Imam

Group B: fully initiated
2 Da'i 'd-Du'at (Chief Da'i)
3 Du'i 'l-Kabir (Superior Da'i)
4 Du'i (ordinary Da'i)

Group C: partly initiated
5 Rafiq (comrade)

Group D: uninitiated
6 Lasiq (adherent)
7 Fida'i (self-sacrificer, the destroying angels)

"Although the details of the stages of initiation... derive from a historian writing around 1332 about the Druzes... the major difference is that the degrees have... been increased from seven to nine, perhaps to agree with the nine celestial spheres."
- Edward Burman, The Assassins - Holy Killers of Islam

(3) The Nine Degrees

"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."

"Students had to pass through nine degrees of initiation."

First Degree

"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."

Second Degree

"The neophyte is taught to believe that God's approval cannot be won by observing the prescriptions of Islam, unless the inner Doctrine, of which they are mere symbols, be received from the Imam to whom its guardianship has been entrusted."

Third Degree

"The neophyte is instructed as to the nature and number of the Imams, and is taught to recognize the significance in the spiritual and material worlds of the number Seven which they also represent. He is thus definitely detached from the Imamiyya of the Sect of the Twelve, and is taught to regard the last six of their imams as persons devoid of spiritual knowledge and unworthy of reverence."

Fourth Degree

"The neophyte is now taught the doctrine of the Seven Prophetic Periods, of the nature of the Natiq, the Sus or Asas and the remaining six Samits ('Silent' imams) who succeed the latter, and of the abrogation by each Natiq of the religion of his predecessor. This teaching involves the admission (which definitely places the proselyte outside the pale of Islam) that Mohammed was not the last of the Prophets, and that the Qur'an is not God's final revelation to man. With Mohammed b. Isma'ili, the Seventh and Last Natiq, the Qu'im ('He who ariseth'), the Sahibu 'i-Amr ('Master of the Matter'), an end is put to the 'Sciences of the Ancients' (Ulumu 'l-awwalin), and the Esoteric (Batini) Doctrine, the Science of Allegorical Interpretation (Ta'wil), is inaugurated."

Fifth Degree

"Here the proselyte is further instructed in the Science of Numbers and in the application of the ta'wil, so that he discards many of the traditions, learns to speak contemptuously of the state of Religion, pays less and less heed to the letter of Scripture, and looks forward to the abolition of all outward observances of Islam. He is also taught the significance of the number Twelve, and the recognition of the twelve Hujjas or 'Proofs', who primarily conduct the propaganda of each Imam. These are typified in man's body by the twelve dorsal vertebrae, while the seven cervical vertebrae represent the Seven Prophets and the Seven Imams of each."

Sixth Degree

"Here the proselyte is taught the allegorical meaning of the rites and obligations of Islam, such as prayer, alms, pilgrimage, fasting, and the like, and is then persuaded that their outward observance is a matter of no importance, and may be abandoned, since they were only instituted by wise and philosophical lawgivers as a check to restrain the vulgar and unenlightened herd."

Seventh Degree

"To this and the following degrees only the leading da'is, who fully comprehend the real nature and aim of their doctrine, were initiated. At this point is introduced the dualistic doctrine of the Pre-existent and the Subsequent, which is destined ultimately to undermine the proselyte's belief in the Doctrine of the Divine Unity."

Eight Degree

"Here the doctrine last mentioned is developed and applied, and the proselyte is taught that above the Pre-existent and the Subsequent is a Being who has neither name, nor attribute, of whom nothing can be predicted, and to whom no worship can be rendered. This Nameless Being seems to represent the Zerwan Akanana ('Boundless Time') of the Zoroastrian system, but...some confusion exists here, and different teachings were current amongst the Isma'ilis, which, however, agreed in this, that, to quote Nuwayri's expression, 'those who adopted them could no longer be reckoned otherwise than amongst the Dualists and Materialists'. The proselyte is also taught that a Prophet is known as such not by miracles, but by his ability to construct and impose in a kind of system at once political, social, religious, and philosophical...He is further taught to understand allegorically the end of the world, the Resurrection, Future Rewards and Punishments, and other eschatological doctrines."
- Arkon Daraul, Secret Societies

Ninth Degree

"In this, the last degree of initiation, every vestige of dogmatic religion has been practically cast aside, and the initiate is become a philosopher pure and simple, free to adopt such system or admixture as may be most to his taste."
- Edward Granville Brown, in St Bart's Hospital Journal (March 1897)

"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 Isma'ili, 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 fulfillment 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."
- Arkon Daraul, Secret Societies

The basis of these steps of graded knowledge was derived from the "Brethren of Sincerity".

(4) The Occult Tradition

"Khadhulu is the Arabic word meaning 'abandoner' or 'forsaker'... Khadhulu is a type of spiritual force that powers the practices of Tafrid and Tajrid. These are exercises that are used to transcend (abandon) normal cultural programming. The idea is that by transcending (abandoning) Dogma and fixed beliefs a person can see reality as it is. Khadhulu is stimulated by the Nafs (breath or soul). The stimulated 'abandoner' then causes the Hal or spiritual state. Khadhulu appears in the Quran (25:29)... The verse translates as 'Mankind, Shaitan is al khadhulu'. They have explained two orthodox interpretations of this verse to me the first is that Shaitan will abandon man. The other is that Shaitan causes men to forsake Islam and its culture. You'll note that this second interpretation is fairly consistent with the spiritual meaning the ancient Muqarribun give Khadhulu . (Obviously an orthodox Muslim would think Muqarribun practices Sinful.) This verse in the Quran is important because it links the 'abandoner' Khadhulu with Shaitan the Old Dragon, Lord of the Abyss."
- Parker Ryan, The Necronomicon and Ancient Arab Magick

"At least part of the veneration of Sinan was based on his well-attested powers of telepathy and clairvoyance, such as the cases reported by Abu Firas of him answering questions thought outside his window. Hasan-i Sabbah himself was renowned in his own day as an alchemist. That the Assassins engaged in what would now be described as occult practices seems therefore to be beyond doubt. The 'sciences' of alchemy and astrology were then part of philosophical studies."
- Edward Burman, The Assassins - Holy Killers of Islam

"From the Isma'ilis the Crusaders borrowed the conception which led to the formation of all the secret societies, religious and secular, of Europe. The institutions of Templars and Hospitallers; the Society of Jesus, founded by Ignatius Loyola, composed by a body of men whose devotion to their cause can hardly be surpassed in our time; the ferocious Dominicans. the milder Franciscans - may all be traced either to Cairo or to Alamut. The Knights Templar especially, with their system of grand masters, grand priors and religious devotees, and their degrees of initiation, bear the strongest analogy to the Eastern Isma'ilis."
- S. Ameer Ali

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