The present book's suggestion- Alamout black, an almost pure hashish with a few pinches of belladonna and stramonium- is based on:
(1) the strong etymological evidence that the Hashishim Were somehow involved with hashish;
(2) the unlikelihood that wine, opium, mushrooms, or any combination thereof could account for the etymological and historical association of Hassan with hashish;
(3) the reasons previously given for doubting that hashish alone is the answer;
(4) the capacity of stramonium and belladonna (in small doses) to create intensely brilliant visual imagery, beyond that of even the best grades of hashish;
(5) the fact that these latter drugs were used in both the Elusinian Mysteries and in the European witch cult contemporary with Hassan (see R.E.L. Masters, Eros and Evil).
Since it is not the intent of this book to confuse fact with fancy, it should be pointed out that these arguments are strong but not compelling. Many other alternatives can be suggested, such as hashish-belladonna-mandragora, hashish-stramonium-opium, hashish-opium-belladonna, hashish-opium-bufotinin,* etc., etc. All that can be said with certainty is that Hagbard Celine insists the correct formula is hashish-belladonna-stramonium (in ratio 20:1:1), and we believe Hagbard- most of the time.
* Medieval magicians knew how to obtain bufotinin. They took it, as Shakespeare recorded, from "skin of toad."
The exact link between the Assassins and the European Illuminati remains unclear. We have seen (but no longer own) a John Birch Society publication arguing that the alliance between the Hashishim and the Knights Templar was consummated and that European masonry has been more or less under Hashishim influence ever since. More likely is the theory of Daraul (op. cit.) that after the Hashishim regrouped as the nonviolent Ishmaelian sect of today, the Roshinaya (Illuminated Ones) copied their old tactics and were in turn copied by the Allumbrados of Spain and, finally, by the Bavarian Illuminati.
The nine stages of Hashishim training, the thirteen stages in Weishaupt's Iluminati, the thirty-two degrees of masonry, etc., are, of course, arbitrary. The Theravada Buddhists have a system of forty meditations, each leading to a definite stage of growth. Some schools of Hinduism recognize only two stages: Dhyana, conquest of the personal ego, and Samadhi, unity with the Whole. One can equally well posit five stages or a hundred and five. The essential that is common to all these systems is that the trainee, at some point or other, is nearly scared to death.*
* An interesting account of a traditional system used by quite primitive Mexican Indians, yet basically similar to any and all of the above, is provided by anthropologist Carlos Castaneda, who underwent training with a Yaqui shaman, and recounts some of the terrors vividly in The Teachings of Don Juan, A Separate Reality, Journey to Ixtlan, and Tales of Power. Don Juan used peyote, stramonium, and a magic mushroom (probably psilocyble Mexicana, the drug Tim Leary used for his first trip).
The difference between these systems is that some aim to liberate every candidate and some, like Sabbah's and Weishaupt's, deliberately encourage the majority to remain in ignorance, whereby they may with profit be endlessly exploited by their superiors in the cult. The same general game of an illuminated minority misusing a superstitious majority was characteristic of Tibet until the Chinese Communist invasion broke the power of the high lamas. A sympathetic account of the Tibetan system, which goes far toward justifying it, can be found in Alexandra David-Neel's The Hidden Teachings of Tibetan Buddhism; an unsympathetic account by a skeptical fellow mystic is available in The Confessions of Aleister Crowley.
Another word about Alamout black: It is not for the inexperienced psychedelic voyager. For instance, the first time Simon Moon tried it, in early 1968, he had occasion to use the men's room in the Biograph Theatre (where he had gone to see Yellow Submarine while under the influence). After his bowel movement he reached for the toilet paper and saw with consternation that the first sheet hanging down off the roll was neatly stamped
OFFICIAL
BAVARIAN ILLUMINATI
EWIGE BLUMENKRAFT!
On ordinary marijuana or hashish, such illusions occur, of course- but they are not true hallucinations. They go away if you look 'at them hard enough. No matter how hard Simon looked at the toilet paper, it still said
OFFICIAL
BAVARIAN ILLUMINATI
EWIGE BLUMENKRAFT!
Simon went back to his seat in the theater badly shaken. For weeks afterward he wondered if the Illuminati had some sinister reason for infiltrating the toilet paper industry, or if the whole experience were a genuine hallucination and the first sign, as he put it, "that this fucking dope is ruining my fucking head." He never solved this mystery, but eventually he stopped worrying about it.
As for Hassan i Sabbah X and the Cult of the Black Mother, the authors have been able to learn precious little about them. Since they are clearly related somehow to the Assassins and the cult of Kali, Mother of Destruction, one can consider them part of the Illuminati, or Podge, side of the Sacred Chao; since they seem to be businessmen rather than fanatics, and since Kali might be a version of Eris, one can consider them part of the Discordian or Hodge side. Amid such speculation and much mystery, they go their dark way, peddling horse and preaching some pretty funky doctrines about Whitey. Perhaps they intend to betray everybody and run off with the loot at an opportune moment-and, then again, maybe they are the only really dedicated revolutionaries around. "Nothing is too heavy to be knocked on its ass, and everything is cool, baby" is the only summary of his personal philosophy that Hassan i Sabbah X himself would give us. He's a studly dude, and we didn't press him.
APPENDIX TZADDI: 23 SKIDOO
Linguists and etymologists have had much exercise for their not-inconsiderable imaginations in attempting to account for this expression. Skidoo has been traced back to the older skedaddle, and thence to the Greek skedannumi, "to disperse hurriedly." The 23, naturally, has caused even more creative efforts by these gentry, since they are unaware of the secret teachings of Magick. One theorist, noting that Sidney Carton in Dickens' Tale of Two Cities is the twenty-third man guillotined in the final scene,* guessed that those playgoers who were eager to get out of the theater before the crowd counted off the executions and skidoo'd toward the exits numbered 23. Another eminent scholar assumes that the expression has something to do with men hanging around the old Flatiron Building on Twenty-third Street in New York City- a notoriously windy corner- to watch ladies' skirts raised by the breeze; when a cop came, they would skidoo. Others have mused inconclusively about the early telegraph operator's signal of 23, which means (roughly) "stop transmitting," "clear the line," or, to be crude, "shut up," but nobody claims to know how telegraphers picked 23 to have this meaning.
* A literary reference which Simon Moon, with his modernistic bias, overlooked.