Secret societies existed in the world long before Hasan ibn al-Sabbah became the master of the castle on the top of Mount Alamut. In the same way, the law of obedience, which is usually associated with assassins, did not begin with them, nor did it end with their order. Much later that day, when the Assassins threw themselves into the abyss in front of the shocked envoy of the King of France, at a sign from Hassan, representatives of the Jesuit Order and the Order of Augustinians gathered for a theological debate. Suddenly the Jesuits offered to decide the outcome of the dispute between them in a different way, by testing. The order will win, whose person is more willing to fulfill any command of his head. The theologians chosen to resolve the dispute agreed.
The seal of the "Triad" - a secret society, whose history goes back many centuries, and possibly even millennia
“Brother Mark,” the Jesuit leader said to one of the silent figures who stood along the long wall of the hall. - Our guests are frozen. In the name of the vow of holy obedience that you have brought,”he raised his voice,“I command you to remove the burning coals from the hearth with your bare hands and hold them in front of our guests so that they can warm themselves.
The monk rolled up his cassock sleeves and, going up to the burning fireplace, plunged his hands into the flaming coals. There was a crackling sound, and the sweetish smell of burnt meat spread through the hall. Scooping up two full palms of hot coals, he went up to those present. Everyone was numb. Meanwhile, the monk slowly walked around the guests, stopping for a long time in front of each and holding out coals in his blackened and hissing fingers, from which a strong heat emanated.
The opposing side was unable to respond to the challenge and admitted to being defeated.
Unquestioning obedience and secrecy. All secret societies and orders are based on these two foundations, two pillars. And there is no leniency, no mercy to anyone who breaks any of these rules.
There is information that Socrates accepted death precisely because he had the imprudence to reveal the secrets of the mysteries of Osiris to the uninitiated. And Aristotle paid for the same imprudence with exile. That is why the little that we know about secret societies today is only a little that lies on the surface, these are crumbs that have become the property of the "outside". But even from these crumbs, from individual general features and facts, one can guess about a certain unified chain, a certain common thread, which through all centuries has connected these orders and secret societies.
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First of all, this is the number "seven" - the number of degrees of initiation. Assassins have seven degrees. Seven for the Rosicrucians. Seven Masonic degrees. The same number of initiations was in Ancient Persia among initiates in the mystery of Mithra. And in Ancient Egypt in the highest priestly initiations. Where are the origins of this community? Seven levels of initiation - aren't these the seven steps that once led to the sanctuaries of the ancient temples of the East?
One and a half thousand years ago a secret society "Triad" arose in China. The initiation ceremony into it was solemn and complex: a story to the neophyte about the history of society; his symbolic washing and putting on a white dress, which meant death; the passage of the neophyte through three doors, after which those present mixed their blood in one bowl and drank from it; learned answers of the neophyte to ritual questions - from them it followed that he had been on the road for a long time … And so on. But isn't it strange - this whole ritual and in exactly the same sequence is reproduced today at initiation into one of the highest degrees of Freemasonry! And again, we can only ask the question: what connections or common source could these secret societies, so far apart in space and time, have?
But not only with them. As in the Chinese "Triad" and among the Freemasons, the initiation ritual of each secret society invariably includes the symbolic death of the neophyte. Death - and return to life. The Roman writer Apuleius, who was initiated into the cult of Isis, wrote about this experience of his: “… I entered the abode of death, stepped over the threshold of Proserpine …” The mysteries of Osiris and Adonis, Dionysian rites, today's secret societies - they are all connected by this ring of ritual: symbolic passage through death and resurrection.
Perhaps it wasn't always just symbols. Among the Druids (this order still exists), the border between symbolic and real death at initiation is very conditional. The neophyte is placed in a coffin, which is placed in a boat without oars, and allowed into the sea. Whether the sea is stormy or calm, whether the wind rises or not - it depends on whether it remains alive or dies. And if he dies, then it will happen for real, not symbolically. If he remains alive, he will take away from this the memory and experience of real closeness to death.
The experience of death … Now, in recent decades, it has become the property of many - those who have been brought back to life from a state of clinical death by the efforts of resuscitators. What do they remember from their posthumous life? When some of the researchers decided to interview such people, it turned out that their memories, if preserved, coincided in an amazing way. These are not so much direct memories as the language of symbols, some signs through which consciousness tries to express an experience unknown to us in our ordinary life. The reanimated told: it seemed to them that they were flying for a long time through a long, dark tunnel, at the end of which a light awaited them, often a door or something like a door, and behind it a light. After that, in front of them was what they perceived as water - a river or canal. All those who were brought back to life - those who were reanimated - did not have time to "go over"cross this line.
These symbols of dying consciousness are reproduced precisely in this sequence in the ancient mysteries and initiation rites of secret societies. Moreover, the further into the past, the more clear they are. The closer to the present day, the more they are blurred. As if from century to century, from generation to generation through the rite of passage, a certain unified tradition was transmitted, the initial meaning of which was later forgotten and lost.
Another feature from the practice of secret societies that binds them together. In Sparta, there was a secret terrorist organization - the crypt. The initiate accepted into it had to commit a grave crime, murder, which, as it were, “burned the bridges behind him,” deprived him of the way back. This practice is the secret of the secrets of closed groups and societies. It existed, for example, in the personal guard of Genghis Khan, in African secret societies, and in modern times it was adopted by the SS. Psychologists call this "complicity in a crime that generates the effect of solidarity."
What was once a real murder, in today's rituals of initiation of secret societies, remains only as a symbol, a ceremony. The neophyte is ordered, for example, to stab a human figure with a dagger. He does it. The dagger plunges into the "body", a red liquid pours out, which should mean blood. In other cases, he is led to what appears to be a lying person. Part of the veil is lifted, and the initiate sees a section of the naked body. He must, with all his might, thrust a dagger into this place. He does this and feels the blade go into living flesh, sees blood, real blood, which begins to gush from the wound. But this is not a man - this is a sheep, which, having shaved its side, is put under a blanket in advance. "Substitution murder", like the symbolic death of the initiate himself, is a memory of the realities that once stood behind it.
There is one more feature that is characteristic of various secret societies and also suggests a certain commonality that binds them together.
This is the doctrine of "two truths".
Like others in general, this principle goes back to the distant past.
…Ancient Egypt. Everyone - from the plowman, who all day walking along the furrow after the ox, and to the highest dignitary, close to the pharaoh, tremblingly believed in the entire pantheon of gods. There were temples of the god Ra and the goddess Ptah, the temples of Amun, Osiris, Isis, the temples of the earth god Hebe and the sky goddess Nut. They were offered hymns and sacrifices. They were all worshiped. But to those who reached the main degrees of priestly initiations, another, higher truth was revealed.
“There are no many gods,” said the priests, the bearers of the secrets of secrets, to the initiate. - There is no Osiris, no Amun, no Ra. There are no different gods. God is One.
Assassins, as Ismaili Muslims, adhered to the basic tenets of Islam - belief in Allah, traditional moral norms and religious rituals, dividing everyone into Muslims and infidels. But these were truths only for those who stood on the lower levels, these were truths "for the profane." For those who had attained the highest initiations, something else was revealed, the exact opposite: faith does not exist at all and all religions are false; religious prescriptions, as well as moral laws, can be followed or forgotten. It does not matter. It doesn't matter if someone is Muslim, Jewish or Christian. There are no differences between people.
Sign language is familiar to members of secret societies
Only one of the leaders of the Assassins, Hasan II, had the imprudence to reveal to the uninitiated a part of this secret doctrine. He announced that all religions are imperfect and false, that there is neither good nor evil, and that everything is permissible. And if so, if everything is permitted, why not kill him, the supreme ruler, Hassan? And the leader of the Assassins fell under the knives of those whom he himself had freed from all bonds of conscience and morality.
The Templars followed the same principle of "two truths" - for the "external" and for the initiates. For the “outsiders” they were devout people - they worshiped the cross, attended church, and resorted to confession and communion. For the initiates themselves, there were other, dark truths: contemporaries claimed that during their secret gatherings they spat on the cross, trampled it under their feet, worshiped a strange idol covered with human skin, practiced witchcraft and tried to summon the dead.
The cult of the cruel Indian goddess Kali was terrible. She was not content with hymns, prayers, incense burning. She was not satisfied with the flowers and slaughtered animals placed on her altar. The goddess demanded human sacrifice.
The path of the worshiper of Kali was difficult - one who decided to devote his life to comprehending the secrets of the cruel goddess. But when this path - spiritual perfection, the most difficult psychological exercises, ecstasy - when this path was traversed, the guru revealed to the initiate the highest truth: the Goddess Kali does not exist. This word only means a kind of energy. And there is neither good nor evil in the world …
The doctrine of "two truths" - for the "external" and for the initiates - is not just a general technique, it is a kind of password that unites secret societies into a kind of single chain.
"Two Truths" is one of the methods of concealing the ultimate goals that secret societies set themselves. Those who are just entering the Illuminati society, for example, are taught in every possible way the need to follow good, the norms of high morality, etc. When he reaches the highest initiations, he hears the opposite. “Do you know,” he is told, “what secret societies are? What great importance do they have in world events? Do you think that they are temporary and indifferent? Oh my brother! God and nature use them as means to achieve tremendous, otherwise unattainable results. Listen and be amazed: all the morality and law of secret societies is based on the desire to achieve these results. Our previous concepts of morality, law or legality receive their correct definition only through secret societies. " In other words,moral is everything that leads to victory, which corresponds to the goals of the secret society.
So, two truths, two morals. Open - and the other, the one that is kept secret.
But who said that the count is only up to two? Who can assert that behind and above these two there is not one more - a third truth? Truth equal to the opposite of these two. Or containing them.
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The conversation about the secret societies of the past and the present cannot be concluded if nothing is said about the largest of such organizations existing today. It is an organization that combines the assassin's propensity for murder, the Templar's commitment to commerce, and the massiveness that only Freemasons can rival, with the greatest conspiracy that has characterized all secret societies at all times. This organization is a mafia.
Julian Semyonov. "Closed pages of history"
