A HISTORY OF MAGICAL, MYSTICAL AND

MURDEROUS ORGANIZATIONS

HE %
WM
This book examines and describes some of the
world's most significant arcane cults which have
been, throughout history, associated with
atrocities which have often involved the use of
magic, mysticism and secrecy. Terror and violence
became their unmistakable hallmark. Each of
these secret groups is looked at separately,

enabling direct comparisons to be made between

them. Uniting them all was a common philosophy
of extreme violence and murder.

There have been few periods in history, few

civilizations or regions of the world that have not
seen the rise of some obscure and close-knit cult.

This book focuses primarily on the ancient and

medieval worlds, and illustrates how the fanatical
cult members often mirrored the world they
inhabited, and how the establishment reacted to
- and eventually destroyed - these organizations.

The systematic use of terror and murder always

requires stealth to conceal such activity from the
prevailing forces of 'law and order'. Thus secrecy
became a crucial factor in the survival of these
cults and was intrinsically linked with the violent
acts of the warrior cults and magical groups
described in the book. These range from the
mystery cults of classical Greece, the secret

religion of Mithras and other Roman cults, the

sinister Knights Templar and the Middle Eastern
Assassins, who were active during the Crusades,
up to the nineteenth century with the Indian
Thugs, the Japanese ninja clans and the Triads.

Wherever and whenever they flourished, these

warrior cults had their own strict codes and

rituals, and today they provide a fascinating and
disturbing insight into the perennial desire to
unite for a single purpose. When combined with
murderous and bloodthirsty compulsions, these
groups become feared and reviled. In the modern
world, with its equivalent proliferation of
religious, political and criminal sects and
organizations, Warrior Cults is a timely and
intriguing source of reference and comparison.
Warrior Cults
Warrior Cults
A HISTORY OF MAGICAL, MYSTICAL AND
MURDEROUS ORGANIZATIONS

Paul Elliott

BLANDFORD
BR BR
HS1 26
E55
1995*

A BLANDFORD BOOK
First published in the UK 1995 by Blandford
A Cassell Imprint
Cassell PLC,
Wellington House, 125 Strand,
London WC2R OBB
Text copyright © 1995 Paul Elliott

The right of Paul Elliott to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by
him in accordance with the provisions of the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act
1988.

All rights reserved.No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any
form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording
or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from
the copyright holder and publisher.

Distributed in the United States by Sterling Publishing Co., Inc.

387 Park Avenue South, New York, NY 10016-8810

Distributed in Australia by Capricorn Link (Australia) Pty Ltd

2/13 Carrington Road, Castle Hill, NSW 2154

A Cataloguing-in-Publication Data entry for this title is available from the British
Library

ISBN 0-7137-2531-1
Designed by Kathryn S.A. Booth
Typeset by Litho Link Ltd, Welshpool, Powys. Wales
Printed and bound in Great Britain bv Hartnolls
Contents

Introduction 7

1 The Greek Cults of Magic 13

2 Cults of the Roman Empire 37

3 The Order of the Knights Templar 59

4 The Assassins - Political Killers of the

Medieval Middle East 91

5 The Thugs - India's Dark Angels 115

6 Ninja and Ninjutsu - Japan's Secet

Warrior Cult 133

7 The Boxers - The Fists of Righteous

Harmony 155

Further Reading 184

Index 187
Introduction

There can be few periods in history that have not witnessed the rise
of one cult or another. However, what defines a cult is rarely easy to
agree upon. A cult can be said to be a religion, or at least a set of
beliefs; to be followed by a small minority; to have practices or
teachings that are to some extent secret, and generally to allow only
those people who have been initiated to join in its practices. This
rough definition covers most of the organizations described in this
book, but we can go further. Each cult has a focus, whether it be the
gratification of lust, as with the Victorian cult of the Agapemonites,
the austere but childlike devotion of the Hare Krishnas or the
spiritualism that characterized the Theosophists. There have, in
fact, been almost as many different types of cult as there have been
cults themselves - cults of love, cults of Christianity and of Islam,
Eastern cults of mysticism, occult and magical cults, cults of politics
and cults ofmurder and death.
In this book it is the growth of cults in the ancient world that
interests us, and how the forces outside those cults reacted to, and
persecuted, them. As in the handy blueprint above, the cults often
required initiation of their membership, found themselves in the
minority, and had secret beliefs that set them apart from the
establishment. These beliefs often concentrated on the furtherance
of the particular group's goals through violence and murder,
whether that goal was the worship of the goddess Kali or the
overthrow of the ruling dynasty of the day. The use of murder and
terror almost always requires a great deal of secrecy to conceal these
activitiesfrom the forces of law and order, so secrecy usually went
hand in hand with violence. This separated the Roman legions (who
had initiation ceremonies, were a minority sect with established
beliefs and customs, and practised the art of war), for example, from
the Middle Eastern Assassins. The latter cloaked themselves in
secrecy, while the former were an open organization and part of the
establishment. The Assassins were a secret cult; the legions were an
army. On occasion this distinction has become blurred, as when, in
modern times, special units of the armed forces have sometimes
taken on the trappings of secrecy in order to carry out covert
operations against the enemy. In so doing, these special forces are
WARRIOR CULTS

merely harking back to the warrior cults of the ancient world. They
have tapped into a tradition of fighting against their enemies with
elite troops using guile, surprise and secrecy, a tradition that has
been in existence for thousands of years.
Magic also figured strongly in the cults of the ancient world, but
it was not the everyday, extrovert ritual magic of the large religions

(worship of such gods as Zeus, Apollo and Ahura-Mazda, for

example) that they practised but the private and secret teachings of
arcane traditions. Occult groups reached new heights of popularity
in Greek and Roman times, and, mixed as they were with mysticism
and religion, they formed a personal link between initiates and their
deity through the cult's individual practices. All of the organizations
discussed in this book were intensely secretive, and to retain their
secrets most employed the method of initiating members, cutting
them off from the mundane world, placing them in a new one where
new rules of behaviour, new standards and new ideas held sway.
Such social isolation made initiates utterly dependent on the cult for
even the smallest of things, and it is this total dependence that bred
such loyalty. Members of the Assassin sect were fanatics, induced as
much by fear as by religious fervour - no doubt of the Grand Master
and the austere regime over which he presided. Most cults today use
fear in this way, and by crushing the individual's ego and forcing
him or her to rely on the group, loyalty is guaranteed.
The Children of God cult, which still exists today, forces members
to channel their worship through its enigmatic leadership; the head
of the cult is both their spiritual link and their physical crutch.
When women and children accused the male hierarchy of sexual
abuse in the 1970s, they found that they could not leave the cult of
their own free will. Some were unable to drive a car and had no idea
how to go about getting a job, getting to the local supermarket, etc.
Even the concept of turning to the local authorities for justice was
alien, since the cult had convinced its members that the world
outside was a den of iniquity.
Feelings of fear and isolation must have been far stronger in
previous centuries, when the mass media did not exist to provide
people with a broader outlook on life. The narrow-minded view of
the world that members were fed became practically the only view
they ever experienced, making the practice of mind control that
typifies the majority of cults so much easier. The ubiquity of a
magical tradition in past ages goes some way towards explaining the
preponderance of occult ceremony within the secret cults of the
time, but such is the reliance on magical formulae and ritual that
another explanation is equally valid. They helped both to reinforce
the idea that the cult was 'special', that it had access to unique and
secret traditions, and to bind the initiates into the workings of the
 INTRODUCTION

organization. Oaths, duties, curses and the fantastic powers oi Cult

adepts kept initiates in line, and perhaps even eager to reach the
dizzy heights of illumination themselves.
As with many cults past and present, including such august
bodies as the Freemasons, a mechanism of advancement was often
employed that kept newly initiated members lacking certain
knowledge, and a great (or not-so-great) ladder of secrets
underpinned the rank structure within a cult. The initiate stood on
the bottom rung of the ladder and the cult leader - Grand Master,
Chief Priest or whoever - occupied the very top. Military
organizations divide the lowest ranks from the highest by the gulf of
responsibility between them, and a traditional religion divides its
priesthood from the lay membership by the former's preferential
access to God. But cults employ secrets to invisibly separate the
hierarchy from the lay cultists. Not all the groups discussed here are
organized quite like this, but wherever esoteric magic or a policy of
covert violence exists, a layer of secrets will often be in existence to
cover it up and cloak it from the world at large.
Warrior Cults looks at some of the most significant violent and
arcane cults of ancient history. The intention is not to introduce new
arguments as to the nature or origins of these cults, disconnected as
they are in time and space, but to study each organization separately,
allowing direct comparison. Generally held academic views on the
cults are preferred where controversy exists, and there is no attempt
to synthesize the history of those included into the grand conspiracy
so beloved of the writers of 'para-polities', where cults such as these
are held to be the true arbiters of humankind's destiny. The featured
groups are (in the main) clandestine fighting forces using magic and
mysticism to achieve their goals, but the occult groups that seemed
to flourish in early Greece are included because of the heavy
emphasis they placed on secrecy, and on their dark and
unwholesome rituals. The first chapter also takes a cursory glance at
the society of ancient Sparta, geared as it was to war and the forcible
suppression of its own farm workers in an attempt (not always
successful) to prevent revolution. Sparta's 'warrior cult' did not
involve magical ritual but is a fascinating example of a secret society
of aristocrats jealous of their position and ever fearful of rebellion.
Other warrior cults at other times existed on the battlefield,
glorifying in some elite status or supposed supernatural power. Two
such mystical fighting groups were the Viking Berserkers, known to
whip themselves into violent frenzy and unleash their unbridled
fury upon the enemy, and the Celtic Riastarthae. Members of this
latter class of warrior were said to be touched with the 'warp-frenzy',
which turned them into twisted and distorted monsters capable of
great feats. It is likely that the Riastarthae were thought of as gifted
WARRIOR CULTS

troops capable of 'psyching' themselves up into a state of frenzy,

much like the Berserkers. Neither, however, qualify as a secret cult,
with the organization that that entails and the secrecy that is the
central theme of the groups studied in Warrior Cults.
The chronological cut-off point for this study of ancient cults is
purely arbitrary, since the rise of industrialized society that
effectively brought an end to arcane^ warrior cults reached some
nations later than others. But in general the existence of cult
activities is not earnestly charted much past 1900. The Indian
thuggee cult had been crushed by then, the ninjas had been reined
in by the Meiji Restoration that brought Western civilization to
Japan, and the Chinese Triad Society had by then abandoned its
guerrilla war against the imperial throne and moved into organized
crime.
Other societies have since been reworked and given a new lease of
life in the twentieth century, but these 'museum cults' are mere
parodies of the earlier groups, re-creating the titles and ceremonies
but empty of both belief and meaning. The Order of Bards, Ovates
and Druids that was established in 1964 is almost pure fabrication,
based as it is on a Druidic organization that flourished before the
First World War. By 1911 this previous order numbered some
300,000 and was led by the Archdruid William McAuliffe, but it
lacked both authenticity and real meaning, since few of the
gentlemen practitioners can have actually believed in the rituals that
they were performing. The famous Order of the Knights Templar
was later reborn in Germany at the start of the twentieth century as
the Order of the New Templars, but again the name was chosen more
for its mystical connotations than for the existence of any real
pedigree.
This not to say that warrior cults have not existed this century,
is

for sporadic outbursts of violence and magical fervour have shocked

the world. From 1952 the British authorities in the crown colony of
Kenya were faced with a tribal uprising of serious size and sinister
intent. One tribal group, the Kikuyu, were the main protagonists in
this unrest,and a Kikuyu secret society, the Mau Mau, began a
campaign of murder and mayhem against the British regime and its
supporters. The Mau Mau were not simple terrorists but active
members of a crude magical cult that used the supernatural as
another weapon of fear in its guerrilla war. In their turn, the
government used magic as a defence, paying witch doctors to
remove the Mau Mau oaths that had been placed on captured
cultists. The Kenyan Emergency ended in January 1960, by which
time the cult had been effectively suppressed.
One secret society that revels in terror and violence and has been
in existence for over a century is the Ku Klux Klan. Originally a

10
 INTRODUCTION

racist 'secret army', with its origins in the defeat of the Confederate
South in the American Klan has reorientated itself to
Civil War, the
the modern climate and now preaches Christian
social
fundamentalism and post-nuclear survivalism. To this end it has
ominously invested in paramilitary training camps and secret
weapons caches.
Some of the more recently established Western cults have been led
by disturbed 'messiahs' offering a dedicated group of followers the
true way through violence and bloodshed. The most famous and the
most shocking of these have been Charles Manson's 'family'; the
gun-toting followers of David Koresh's apocalyptic cult, the Branch
Davidians, who perished in the Waco siege of 1993; and the Order
of the Solar Temple, which came to a bloody end with the
simultaneous death of its members in Switzerland and Quebec in
1994. Other equally desperate and disturbed groups have appeared
briefly in the last forty years, to be put down by the authorities, and
undoubtedly more will follow. It is plain that the capacity of men
and women willingly to isolate themselves from the established
society around them and live out some theological fantasy is as great
as ever. In addition, it is feared that the opportunities for such cults
to perpetrate the kinds of mass murders of their ancestors (such as
the Thugs and Assassins) are shockingly ever-present, as the recent
use of nerve gas by the Japanese Aum Shinrikyo Cult attests. The
need to 'belong' and the need for life to have a purpose are the most
pressing causes of cult recruitment among today's disenchanted
youth.

Paul Elliott,
Canterbury, Kent

11
CHAPTER 1

The Greek Cults of Magic

Perhaps the best known of all the cults in the ancient world is the
Mystery cult at Eleusis in Greece. However, many students of the
period may not have realized that the Mysteries were only one of
many covert religious cults in existence at the time. This emphasis
on the Eleusian cult is mainly due to the fact that it was neither a
criminal organization nor a proscribed religion. It flourished under
the patronage of Greece's pre-eminent city state, Athens, and its
existence and outward rituals are well known to historians today;
only the cult's inner ceremonies were hidden from the uninitiated.
Since the religion contained this secret element in its practice, it is
almost universally referred to as a 'cult'. The theme of secrecy is one
that runs through almost every cult described in this book, and those
of ancient Greece were no exception.
Without doubt, the Greeks had a great capacity for superstition
and for combining fear with the occult. Although often thought of as
supremely rational - as architects, poets, philosophers and
scientists - the Greeks were just as obsessed with magic as other
ancient peoples. It was the elite class of writers and teachers who

tended tooppose such thinking, but to little avail. The politician

Nikias, who led Athenian troops in battle, was notoriously pious
and a believer in oracles and omens. During the Sicilian expedition
that sailed from Greece in 415 bc, he was to lead the defeated
Athenian soldiers out of danger but delayed when a sudden eclipse
of the moon was taken as a bad omen for a night march. The
resulting massacre cost Athens dear and the heeding of the omen by
Nikias was one of the main causes of the disastrous outcome of the
expedition. Generally, though, the Greeks did not allow the secret
cults to play any part in politics or war. For many Greeks, the cults
were low-key affairs, remnants of an older kind of worship and, for
the most part, innocuous. The Greek practice of witchcraft was just
such a cult, a minor religion with mysterious and occult ceremonies
practised by a handful of initiates.

Witches and Werewolves

The gods of ancient Greece were thought to touch on every aspect of
life and death, and for the witch with her mastery of the physical

13
WARRIOR CULTS

world through the use of spells and enchantments, this remained

true.Every witch in Greece sacrificed to Hecate, goddess of death
and sterility, sorcery and the moon. Magicians do not traditionally
recognize the power of deities, for, as Sir James Frazer argues
strongly in The Golden Bough, they consider themselves the
initiates of a magical science capable of achieving fantastic things
without any need for divine intervention. Throughout history
witches and sorcerers have been hounded by the religious
establishment, as much for their staunch opposition to organized
religion as for their illicit practices. Witchcraft in Greece was not the
evil cult that it later became in medieval times, however, for Hecate
was a recognized goddess in the Greek pantheon, and both she and
her followers had a place in Greek life. But the initiates of Hecate
did form a diffuse cult of magicians, cut off from the mainstream of
Greek (and Roman) life. There was no organized and hierarchical
cult in the sense that there was with Druids, for example, but
witches perpetuated a tradition that was despised and frowned
upon by their contemporaries. Hecate was the black sheep of the
Olympian pantheon, and witches from Thessaly to Crete, from Rome
to Ptolemaic Egypt, were her priestesses.
Almost all magical (as opposed to religious) rituals in Greece
called on Hecate for help and guidance. She was believed to harness
the powers of darkness and to rule the night with her army of living
dead. The cult originated in Asia Minor in the worship of a moon
goddess, and her early character was in fact quite benevolent. She
watched over flocks and navigators; she granted men and,
especially, women their desires: wealth, victory and knowledge. The
Greeks worked her into their pantheon, but were never in agreement
as to her lineage. Some traditions said she was the daughter of the
Titans Perses and Asteria, both of whom were deities of light; others
gave her parents as Zeus, king of the gods, and Hera, his wife, but*
explained that she fell out of favour with her mother when she stole
rouge from her to give to Europa. The young goddess fled from
Olympus to the world of humans, where she hid within a house, and
while she hid, a woman living there gave birth, ritually
contaminating the goddess. Hecate sought ritual purification and
found help among a cult of magicians called the Cabeiri, who
immersed her in the enchanted River Acheron that flowed in the
Underworld. From that moment on she became a deity of the
Underworld and received all of the trappings with which she was
later associated.
The Cabeiri are commonly connected with the god of
metalworking, Hephaestus, as well as the goddess of the
Underworld. They were an order of magical spirits who were
recognized throughout the Aegean, and may have been an actual

14
 Till: GREEK CULTS OF MAGIC

magical cult ID early Greek history, associated with fire and

metallurgy. There were other legendary orders of magicians that in
later times became established religious cults, and may equally have
been descended from actual magical colleges. The Dactyls were
skilled metalworkers and were supposed to have lived within the
forests and caves of Phrygia and Crete, while the cult of the
Telchines, also based on the island of Crete, as well as the island of
Rhodes, had a more malign character. Not only were the Telchines
formidable smiths but they were also able to control the weather, put
the evil eye on their enemies and blight both crops and herds with
sulphur and the waters of another river of the Underworld, the Styx.
Enchantments and black magic were the true province of Hecate,
and she was able to cast such spells because although she dwelt in
the Underworld as the Invincible Queen alongside Hades, she also
travelled to the world of humans at night. She was called upon
during purifications, expiations and all manner of magical rituals.
Hecate was often thought of as one aspect of a triple goddess, an
aspect that emphasized the goddess's destructive, negative powers.
Not only did she reign supreme in the Underworld but as Artemis,
the goddess of hunting, she held sway on earth, and she also became
Luna, the moon, who commanded the night sky. As these aspects
became more firmly established, the Greeks began to elaborate the
dark goddess's malign and supernatural character. She also became
intricately associated with the goddess Persephone, who was
abducted by Hades and ruled as queen of the Underworld, a living
symbol of the cycle of the seasons.
The number three played a prominent part in the worship of
Hecate, and her character and representations altered according to
the moon's three main cycles. With the new moon she was
sometimes given a lion's head, with the full moon the head of a dog,
and the old moon saw her depicted with the head of a horse. Typical
statues of Hecate also show her to be triple-bodied: as a woman with
a single head and three bodies, or as three women standing back to
back against a pillar. The commonest statues of Hecate were
columns with three faces ('triple Hecates') and these were to be
found at crossroads throughout Greece. Her magic at these holy
places was believed to be very powerful, and offerings were left at
the bases of her statues on the eve of a full moon. As a triple-faced
deity, Hecate looked in all directions at once, reflecting her strong
association with the crossroads. Offerings of food were made at
crossroads either to beg Hecate for arcane knowledge or to protect
individuals from her nightly visits to earth. Every mortal feared the
witch goddess at night, for she was believed to journey across the
land clutching two burning torches and accompanied by a pack of
hellhounds. A legion of the living dead made up her terrible retinue.

15
WARRIOR CULTS

Hecate's favoured places to visit were the scenes of violent crimes

and burials and, as already mentioned, crossroads. All things of
death - tombs and ghosts, blood and terror, fear and the night - were
associated with the goddess, and as she passed by mortals in the
darkness, she was believed to remain utterly invisible; only dogs,
with their intimate connection to Hecate, could detect her presence.
The Romans also adopted Hecate as their deity of witchcraft and
dark magic, and, like the Greeks, they believed that witches who
sacrificed to her were capable of real-world effects, such as the
destruction of crops, the causing of illness or death, and the bringing
of storms, floods and other calamities. These sorcerers were believed
to gather together to practise their rituals, often at places that Hecate
herselfwas supposed to frequent at night: crossroads, tombs and the
scenes of murders. The Roman writer Lucan, in his work Pharsalia,
dating from around the time of the Emperor Nero, provides a
detailed description of the activities of a witch of Hecate. A Roman
general approached the witch to ask her what fate had in store for
him, and the woman, named Erichtho, consulted the dead in an
attempt to help him. Her powers of communication with the
Underworld were heightened by her custom of living in tombs and
surrounding herself with items of the macabre and cadaverous: the
grave clothes of corpses, the bones and flesh of children's funeral
pyres, human skin robbed from corpses, and human eyeballs,
tongues and fingernails. To summon the dead to appear before her,
Erichtho called upon Hecate and Persephone, as well as the
ferryman of Hell, Charon, and Hermes, who was the god who led the
newly dead to their final resting place in the Underworld. Among
those also invoked were the River Styx and the Kindly Ones, the
Furies, the feared demons of retribution who tormented wrongdoers
for their crimes.
The River Styx was invariably invoked by all who wished to
converse with the dead, by those who wished to harness the dark
and mysterious powers of the Underworld and by those who wished
to murder by poison. Its waters were so potentially magical that a
single drop of Styx water would supposedly kill someone instantly.
One authority claimed that the world-conquering Greek general
Alexander the Great, who died so suddenly in 323 bc, had been
poisoned by Styx water.
When Hecate became recognized in Rome as a divinity of the dead
and of the dark terrors of the Underworld, she was renamed Trivia'
because of her triple-aspected statues, and also perhaps because of
her three-part nature: as Selene (the moon), Diana (the huntress) and
Hecate (the witch goddess). As Trivia, she was 'Goddess of the Three
Ways' and was invoked in Virgil's epic tale of Roman history, The
Aeneid. A female oracle, the Sibyl, prepares to contact the spirits of

16
 THE GREEK CULTS OF MAGIC

the Underworld on behalf of Virgil's hero, Aeneas, and in doing so

she calls on Hecate, who originally gave the Sibyl her powers.
Hecate is referred to as 'mighty in Heaven and mighty in Hell', and
even though, as an oracle, she is a priestess of the god Apollo, she
must still call upon Hecate when interacting with the Underworld.
In another of Virgil's works, his Eighth Eclogue, a witch spins a
thread around the small wax and clay figure of her would-be lover
to entwine him in love for her. But the magic of real-world witches
was not always so innocent or harmless. A Graeco-Egyptian ritual
has been discovered that was supposed to reanimate a grave corpse,
and this living-dead zombie was to be sent through the streets to the
house of a woman with whom the magician desired sex. At his
command the corpse would kidnap the woman and return her to the
magician. Love and sex seem almost inseparable from the rituals and
rewards of Greek and Roman witchcraft, although Hecate was never
associated with such erotic pleasures, only with the power to
achieve them.
Intimately bound-up in the stories and rumours of ancient
witchcraft was the belief in a breed of seductive demons who preyed
upon the sexual energies of men and women. The Empusae, as they
were known, were the daughters of Hecate and were ass-haunched
and brazen-hoofed. Prowling around at night, they descended upon
travellers and terrified them, often transforming themselves into
dogs or cows. They were most feared, however, when they took the
shape of beautiful and seductive maidens, for in this disguise they
were thought to lay with men and suck out the life force from within
them. They were greedy and rapacious, hungry and evil, and their
name meant 'forcers-in'. Other demonesses called Lamiae were also
regarded with equal fear, while the Romans had a tradition of fearful
demons called Lemures, who pounced on victims and drank their
blood.
These demons never existed, of course, but the belief in them did,
and it shaped attitudes towards witches in general until by medieval
times the witches of the Sabbat were thought to be living examples
of these cannibal vampires. Referred to as 'night-riders', the early
medieval witches were feared both for their ability to fly through the
night sky to rendezvous with the goddess and for their unearthly
desire to suck the warm blood from still-living victims before
devouring them. These beliefs were directly descended from the
folk-tales of the Greek Empusae and Lamiae, and also the Roman
Lemures.
But it was not just Hecate's children who survived the downfall of
Graeco-Roman civilization; the goddess herself re-emerged in the
early Middle Ages to lead her macabre band of night-riders to their
nightly covens. She did not survive unchanged. The post-Roman

17
WARRIOR CULTS

witch cult elevated the goddess's earthly aspect until the character
of Hecate was eclipsed. Now Artemis, under the Roman title of
Diana, became the witches' occult mistress. When a demon was
exorcized from a young girl in France by St Caesarius during the
sixth century, it was specifically named as 'the demon whom the
peasants call Diana'. In some instances, too, the goddess became
confused with a species of demoness called Dianae, and a number of
these were said to have slept with magicians at the court of Pope
John XXII when he launched an investigation into scandalous
goings-on in 1318. According to Burchard, the eleventh-century
Bishop of Worms, Diana was also well known as Herodias. Herodias,
wife of Herod Antipas named in the Bible, had been virulently
denounced by John the Baptist, since she had previously been the
wife of his half-brother. For this sin the princess was personified as
a minion of the Devil, another embodiment of Diana. The name of an
ancient Teutonic goddess, Holda, was also sometimes connected
with the pagan goddess.
Religious men across Europe found the stories of Diana, or Hecate,
and her train of seductive, cannibalistic vampire demonesses not
just believable but genuinely frightening. Hecate's night-time prowl
across the Greek countryside attended by a horde of animated
corpses and spectral hounds was transferred, in almost every detail,
to the paranoid mind-set of medieval Europe. Women were prime
suspects for this kind of activity, since Diana had a long tradition of
loyal female followers in Roman and Greek times. That they were
said to be able to fly must be put down to the goddess's close
association with the night-riders. For the religious authorities, the
women accused of witchcraft became the ghostly night-riders that
flew with Diana each night. Every magical power that had
previously been ascribed to the classical demonesses was now
attributed to the witches. They flew to arcane meetings by the light
of the moon on animals, broomsticks or by the use of magical
ointments; they ate babies; they drank human blood; they seduced
morally upstanding menfolk; they worshipped the evil she-demon
Diana and renounced Christ; they partook of a great feast; and they
were rewarded or punished by the goddess as they deserved.
Burchard once quoted a passage from a ninth-century tract called
the Canon Episcopi, which was often repeated by religious writers.
In it the night-time flights were described as fantasies and delusions
inspired by the Devil. Other persecutors quoted the passage,
although it was eventually ignored by later inquisitors, who
considered it a hindrance to successful persecution, torture and
execution of the witches. However, blind faith and a belief in the
guilt of the accused women was strong, even if not total. Fifteenth-
century writers on demonic matters actually recognized that the

18
 THE GREEK CULTS OF MAGIC

•living ointments' sometimes mentioned by suspected witches could

cause the hallucinations described by the Canon Episcopil Recipes
for the flying ointment often included the same herbal Ingredients,
hemlock, hellebore root, belladonna and aconite, all of which arc
poisonous plants and capable of inducing hallucinogenic
experiences. Again, the tradition of a flying ointment was not a
medieval creation but has its origins in the witch cult of Hecate. The
Roman writer Apuleius wrote in The Golden Ass of one witch
smearing her body with a type of cream that transformed her into a
bird, giving some credence to the view that the medieval witch
phenomenon did not exist in a vacuum, and was not a fiction of the
Church but an ancient tradition.
Many pagan cults had weathered the arrival of Christianity by
transforming their deities into benign saints or local folk-heroes, but
only Hecate seems to have seen her worship (or her traditions, for it
is not clear how much 'Hecate worship' actually took place after the

fall of Rome) persist, to be crushed centuries later. It was Margaret

Murray, in her book The Witch-Cult in Western Europe, who first

postulated the theory that the practice of witchcraft from the Middle
Ages onwards was only a survival of the pagan cult of Diana.
In fact, any true lineage from the witch cult of Hecate was not to
survive for long. In 1458 the French inquisitor Nicholas Jacquier
identified a new cult of witchcraft that differed from the earlier
night-riders. This assumption may primarily have served to side-
step the comments of delusion and drug-induced fantasy that the
earlier Canon Episcopi made about the night-riders. From now on,
witches were depicted as minions of the Devil, a distinctly male
figure, and the Invincible Queen faded from the public
consciousness. This new Devil presided over the twisted ceremony
of the witches' Sabbat, while at the same time the witch lost all of
her obviously magical powers. No longer did she harbour a thirst for
blood or have the ability to appear as a beautiful temptress to kill a
man by sapping his life energy during sex.
Witches and sorcerers may no longer have been tied to Diana,
goddess of the moon, but their mystical relationship with that
heavenly body continues up to the present day. The Lunacy Act of
1842 clearly linked the moon's phases with the mental afflictions of
the lunatic. The very word 'lunacy' is derived from 'luna', Roman
for the moon, and it was only as recently as the late nineteenth
century that the authorities decided the moon was no longer the
prime cause of madness. Of course, in modern mythology also the
phases of the moon have a profound effect on that familiar
supernatural creature the werewolf. From Lon Chaney to Jack
Nicholson, the half-man, half-wolf is always depicted by Hollywood
as a creature whose life is a slave to the cycles of the moon, with the

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WARRIOR CULTS

cursed victim involuntarily becoming a fully fledged wolf during

periods of the full moon. But the creatures have a much more
ancient lineage than modern cinematic fiction and the folk-legends
of Europe suggest.
The ancient Greeks had a cult of werewolves that practised its
rituals high up in the mountain wilderness of Arcadia. The legend
of its origins recounts how the second king of the Arcadian region,
Lycaeon, fathered fifty sons, who went forth to establish Arcadia's
towns and cities. Healso founded the cult of Lycaeon Zeus ('Zeus of
the She-Wolf), but was unimpressed when the god actually visited
his house one day, dressed as a traveller. Zeus declared his divinity
to Lycaeon, who decided to test the god by cooking up one of his
own sons as a dish! As a punishment for this blasphemous gesture,
the king of the gods transformed Lycaeon into a wolf and called
down lightning upon his house, destroying it. But, the legend
continues, Lycaeon's sons continued the practices of sacrifice and
cannibalism in an effort to halt the slaughter of their sheep and
cattle by roaming wolves.
To attempt the eradication of the cult a second time, Zeus
unleashed a flood upon the world, but many people survived,
including the inhabitants of Parnassus. After they were woken from
their sleep by the howling of nearby wolves, some of these survivors
made their way into Arcadia and revived the werewolf cult yet
again. Mount Lycaeus in Arcadia was known as the Sacred Peak
because it was held to be the site of the birth and infancy of Zeus,
and a precinct for the worship of Lycaeon Zeus was established
there. Such was its holiness that any mortal who set foot within the
precinct would die within the year. No living creature on the Sacred
Peak was supposed to cast a shadow. Lycaeon established several
altars on the summit dedicated to Zeus the She-Wolf, and the
Arcadians were said to perform secret rites on the mountain of
Zeus's birth, even into classical times.
The traveller and writer Pausanias learned that the Arcadians still
sacrificed to Lycaeon Zeus. A young boy was killed and his entrails
mixed with those of animals in a soup. This concoction was
presented to the congregation of shepherds present at the sacrifice
and whichever one ate the flesh of the boy became a werewolf. The
man howled like a wolf and, after leaving his clothes under an oak
tree, swam across the stream that ran beside the crowd to leave
civilization behind. As a wolf he ran with other wolves and fed on
the prey killed by his pack. Only if the werewolf was able to refrain
from eating the flesh of humans for eight years would he be allowed
to return to his former life. Pausanias even goes as far as to name
such a reformed werewolf, Damarchus the Parrhasian, who went on
to win the boxing contest at the Olympic Games after his stint as a

20
 THE GREEK CULTS OF M VGIC

werewolf. Such a ritual may have had its origins in the need tor a
local scapegoat,someone who was chosen as a living sacrifice to tin;
Arcadian wolves. In return the farmers and shepherds of the villages
would remain unmolested by the animals.
The cult of Lycaeon Zeus does not seem to have been unique. A
tribe of horse-nomads called the Neuri in southern Russia were
reported by the respected historian Herodotus to have werewolves
of their own. Herodotus travelled extensively, learning about the
customs of many different tribes, and discovered that the Neuri
believed that every member of the tribe became a werewolf for a few
days each year before returning to human form again.
The ancient Romans were also concerned with wolves and wolf-
men, making animal sacrifices to wolves as a means of guaranteeing
protection from them. A ceremony was held in the Lupercal, a cave
near the Porta Romana that was associated with the she-wolf who
suckled Romulus and Remus (the twin brothers who were the
mythical founders of Rome). The festival that took place in the grotto
was actually devoted to Faunus, the god of plants and animals, and
was called the Lupercalia. Held on 15 February each year, it was in
essence a fertility rite and may have involved the cult initiates
taking on the role of wolf-men and carrying out magical rituals
which kept the herds and flocks safe from the wolves of the
countryside. Traditionally a human victim was led around the cave
of the Lupercal and was then sacrificed. In later imperial Rome,
these wolf-men became a respected caste of priests called the
Luperci, and they dispensed with the human victim altogether,
sacrificing dogs and goats instead.
When the Indians of Nootka Sound in North America initiated
their young men into the tribe's secret wolf cult, called Tlokoala, the
candidate feigned death as werewolves abducted him. These
creatures were in fact men dressed up as wolves, with skins and face
masks made from the hides of the animals. After being returned to
the tribe by the werewolves, the initiate would then be 'reborn' as a
wolf-man and adult member of the tribe.
Obviously, none of these werewolves existed in reality, but the
persuasive aura of magic that surrounded these ancient ceremonies
would have guaranteed that most of the participants believed they
did. For example, the account given by Herodotus concerning the
Neuri werewolves also mentions that it was not just the local
tribesmen who told the werewolf story but also Greeks who lived in
the area. It is likely that, as with the Luperci, the wolf-men were just
that: men acting out the role of a local wolf deity as an act of
propitiation.
A scapegoat for the community's ills (in the examples above, the
threat from wolves) was a familiar concept to the ancients. The

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WARRIOR CULTS

Athenian government kept several ne'er-do-wells at its own

expense, feeding and clothing them and providing them with
shelter. When a disaster befell the city, such as famine or plague, two
of these pitiful victims were brought forward, one to represent the
men women. After being led
of Athens, the other to represent the
around the they were taken outside the walls and publicly
city,
stoned to death, thus expelling the evil from the city and hopefully
bringing an end to its woes. According to Sir James Frazer, the
Athenians performed this ritual annually, as a matter of course,
during the May festival of Thargelia. Other Greek cities also carried
out expulsions or the murder of scapegoats - an indication that the
enlightenment associated with the classical Greeks went hand in
hand with primal terror and a desperate belief in the occult.

The Eleusian Mysteries

Exactly how strong the Athenian fear of the dark and mysterious
forces of the occult actually was can be judged by accounts of the
disastrous Sicilian expedition in 415 bc.As already noted, one of the
Athenian force's two generals was devoutly superstitious, leading
the army into disaster after the omen of the lunar eclipse. The other
leader of the expedition, Alcibiades, did not make it as far as Sicily,
since he faced serious charges of impiety that threatened if not his

life,then his career. As a result, Alcibiades jumped war galley as the

expedition sailed from Athens to Sicily, and he became both an
international adventurer and a political survivor. The charges laid
against him were not clearly substantiated, but their grave nature
had shocked and disturbed the entire city, much as rumours of a
Member of Parliament engaging in a Black Mass would do today.
As the vast Athenian fleet prepared to set sail for Sicily and
engage in war with the island's chief city, Syracuse, a great
desecration of the city's Hermae took place throughout Athens.
Hermae were little phallic statues of the god Hermes that stood at
crossroads and other public places as symbols of good fortune, and
comprised a quadrangular pillar surmounted by the bearded head of
the god. From the pillar's centre an erect phallus protruded. On the
eve of the fleet's departure, all the Hermae were mutilated, which
would have been a great sacrilege and bad omen at any time, but as
the city was poised to send the vast majority of its young men to war,
the outrage assumed gigantic proportions. Who could have done
such a thing? And why? What could have been hoped for from such
a venture? Alcibiades was immediately implicated because of
certain rumours that were circulating about his conduct regarding
the Eleusian Mysteries. No one could see exactly why he would
want to carry out such an act, since it could only lower morale and
have detrimental effects on the forthcoming expedition, and

22
 THE GREEK CULTS OF MAGIC

Alcibiades was actually responsible for persuading the Athenian

voters to launch this war fleet against Syracuse in the first place.
It is likely that he was in fact guilty of the charges, but he was not
An aristocrat called Andokides was arrested on a
the initial suspect.
charge of defacing the statues but could shed no light on the
mystery. Alcibiades's association with the mutilation of the lermae, 1

however, came as a gift to his political opponents, who lost no time

in exploiting the rumours. Also implicated was his drinking club (or
symposium), called the Kakodaimonistai. Athenian symposia were
aristocratic dining and drinking clubs that came together through
friendship, religious ties and politics. It seems that the mutilation
had been discussed at a symposium several days before and so the
affront may have been nothing more than an aristocratic dare, a
youthful attempt to defy authority. Whichever secret and political
symposium was actually responsible for the mutilations, it may have
been attempting to prevent the Athenians from sailing, and this
thought terrified the citizenry. Both the mutilation and the rumours
of blasphemy concerning the Eleusian Mysteries gave rise to a
tangible fear that the next step would be the fall of democracy and
the rise of an oligarchic tyranny inspired by the totalitarian
government of Sparta. There were in existence many oligarchic
symposia, and the possibility of a conspiracy was ever-present.
Whether one of the secret oligarch clubs actually carried out this
piece of symbolic vandalism as a prelude to a revolution or not, an
oligarchic revolution did actually occur four years later, in 411 bc.
Alcibiades was forced to sail with the Sicilian expedition with the
situation unresolved, much to his annoyance. When Athens
requested that he return to the city to stand trial for the Hermae
incident, he fled to the enemy state of Sparta and became a double-
agent. It is clear that the revolutionary symposia played an
important part in the later coup of 411 bc, but whether they were
directly responsible for the mutilation of the sacred statues is not
known. Alcibiades had the right kind of temperament for such an
elaborate 'joke' and had flouted authority all his life. The city's
greatest religious festival, the Mysteries of Eleusis, was parodied by
Alcibiades and other members of the Kakodaimonistai. If, as is
likely, he participated in, or even orchestrated, the desecration of the
Hermae, one could see in that act the undertakings of a devil-may-
care rogue in the mould of Sir Francis Dashwood. Unlike Alcibiades,
Dashwood was no politician, but much like the Greek aristocrat, he
had an infatuation with the occult and a great desire to appal his
peers.
Sir Francis Dashwood was owner of West Wycombe Park, near
High Wycombe in Buckinghamshire, and some time around 1755 he
founded an occult society called the Knights of St Francis. A

23
WARRIOR CULTS

wealthy man and a dilettante, he became the group's Grand Master,

organizing elaborate parodies of Christian rituals at nearby
Medmenham Abbey. Like the ancient Greek Kakodaimonistai, the
Knights of St Francis earned themselves a terrible reputation, soon
becoming known as the Hellfire Club, and their scornful motto was
'Do what you will'. The Hellfire Club had a passion for the arts and
was made up of intelligent and welt-educated men, but it had an
unhealthy fascination with Satanism and the erotic. Both Alcibiades
and Dashwood were known to be as much obsessed with men as
with women.
It was the blasphemous parodies of the Mysteries that so
scandalized the Athenians, but Dashwood's intended 'audience' was
less susceptible to such parody. The days of witch-hunts were over
and the full force of the Enlightenment and the Industrial
Revolution had already humbled established religion. The shock
was not quite so great. Every Athenian, on the other hand, saw the
Eleusian Mysteries as the very heartbeat of Athenian life. It was
politically, socially and spiritually the most important festival of the
many that Athens undertook during the year. Quite why Alcibiades
chose to parody the Mysteries rather than any other religious
occasion, and why the Athenians took such offence, are questions
that cannot be answered without a closer look at the Mysteries
themselves. For 2,000 years their home, Eleusis was one of the
greatest sites of the Greek world and its contribution to the shaping
of the Greek mind was significant. The Mysteries were just one
aspect of Greek religion; specifically they were the annual
celebrations of the elaborate, private ritual of the earth goddess,
Demeter.
The religion of ancient Greece was rich and diverse, with a vast
array of gods and goddesses, demi-gods and heroes to be
worshipped. Each divinity had its own religious cult, with attendant
devotees, priests and temples, and in this the cults were very much
alike. Only the details differed; the actual structure and rationale
behind each religious cult varied very little. The exception,
however, was the cult of Demeter. This goddess presided over the
fertility of the earth, over the development of crops and plants. Her
particular duty was to guard the annual wheat and barley crops, the
lifeblood of ancient Greek society. Thus her role was a vital one, for
the goddess of the harvest symbolized in many ways the cycle of
life.

Demeter's importance meant that she was a popular goddess and

she was worshipped throughout Greece. Some of her most important
cult sites were at Delos, Crete, Arcadia and the Argolid, but her
greatest centre of worship was in Attica. In this part of Greece the
greatest religious festivals of the Greek world took place and they

24
 THE GREEK CULTS OF MAGIC

were devoted to the goddess. Athens lay at the centre of the Attic
community and was deeply involved in the worship of the earth
goddess. In Attica, and in particular at Eleusis, Athens's close
neighbour, the cult of Demeter was practised in a unique way th.it
set it apart from the other religions of Greece. A distinct air of
mystery and secrecy shrouded the cult. At the same time as it
accepted people cut off from the usual religions, it limited worship
to those initiated into its secrets. Worshippers were brought into a
personal relationship with the goddess and perhaps secured for
themselves some preferential role in the afterlife. The Eleusian
Mysteries stand out in the study of Greek religion as a paradox.
The foundation of Eleusis was recorded in the Homeric 'Hymn to
Demeter', written about 600 bc, and it is likely that the Mysteries
were practised even then, though in exactly what form is unclear.
The goddess Demeter journeyed to the little town in the guise of an
old woman as she scoured the land looking for her daughter,
Persephone. Persephone had been kidnapped by Hades, King of the
Underworld, with the sanction of her own father, Zeus, king of the
gods. As Demeter sat by one of the town's wells, the daughters of the
king came across her and invited her into the palace. Engaging in
idle conversation, the goddess let slip her identity and so ordered
the king of Eleusis to build, below the citadel, a temple to her. When
the king had done this, Demeter hid away within it, cutting herself
off from the world, and she declared that she would remain within
the temple until she again beheld Persephone.
Such was her universal importance that her absence immediately
had profound effects on the earth: grain would not grow and all the
Greeks were threatened with hunger and starvation. With the future
of the human race resting on the matter, Zeus capitulated and
allowed Persephone to visit her mother for two-thirds of every year,
as long as she returned annually to the Underworld. Demeter then
allowed the land to bloom and prosper once more, and before she
returned to Olympus with her daughter, the goddess instructed the
king of Eleusis in the practice of her secret rites.
Such is the mythical story concerning the origin of the Mysteries,
not repeated here out of idle interest in mythography but because
the story behind the Mysteries mattered. Many other Greek myths
were fables - stories designed to explain natural phenomena, the
state of contemporary society or the lineage of important families.
But the cult of Demeter and the ritual of the Mysteries explained
something that occurred every year, that was vital for life, that
perhaps explained much more than just why agriculture was
dependent on the seasons. Just as Christianity was to do 600 years
after the Homeric 'Hymn', the Eleusian Mysteries retold a story
about the child of a god and related the emotional and philosophical

25
WARRIOR CULTS

aspects of the relationship to the worshipper's everyday life. It was

more than a legend or a parable; it was a reason for living.
The priest Eumolpus became the initiator of the cult of Demeter
and the organizer of her Mysteries. As time passed, Eleusis was
drawn into conflict with its powerful neighbour Athens, and
Eumolpus led the Eleusians to waj against King Erechtheus of
Athens. The priest of Demeter died in the fighting, as did his sons.
Eleusis was totally defeated and became an Athenian vassal some
time around the writing of the 'Hymn to Demeter'. The victor
quickly amalgamated its own Demeter cult with that of Eleusis,
but Eleusis was able to retain independent control over the
Mysteries.
Of course, it goes without saying that we know little of the actual
ceremonies and rituals of the Mysteries. By definition, they were a
mystery to the uninitiated. But there was more to the cult than secret
rituals. The Mysteries had two aspects, one public and processional,
the other highly secret and personal. Exactly how secret can be
gauged by the fact that the famous Athenian playwright Aeschylus
was forced to seek sanctuary at the altar of Dionysus during the
performance of one of his plays, because the audience was
convinced he had revealed parts of the Mysteries. To do so was
punishable by death. Even into Roman times this discipline was
upheld. The writer Livy remarks in the History of Rome that in about
200 bc two young men from another part of Greece were in Eleusis
on the day of the initiations and, unfamiliar with the strict policy
against outsiders witnessing the Mysteries, wandered into the Hall
of Initiation (called the Telesterion) with the crowds. Their talk soon
betrayed them as uninitiated and, after being questioned by the
officers of the temple, their mistake was brought to light and they
were executed. So harsh was the law, and so jealous were the
members of the cult of their beloved Mysteries.
The Telesterion was unlike other classical religious buildings.
Normally, a statue of the god or goddess stood within a temple and
all ceremonies took place at the front of the building around an altar
within the temple's precincts. But at Eleusis all ceremonies took
place inside the huge building. The precinct of Demeter was located
on the eastern slope of the ancient citadel of Eleusis, but inside the
city walls. Two gateways or propylaea, built in Roman times, led in
succession into the precinct, which was dominated by the square
Telesterion. The building had been constructed some time in the
sixth century bc and its roof was supported by over twenty columns.
Tiers of steps were built into the four walls to seat the congregation
of some 3,000 initiates and at the centre of the hall was a separate
building called the Anaktoron, or storehouse, which held the sacred
objects used during ceremonies.

26
 THE GREEK CULTS OF MAGIC

The two festivals at Athens that incorporated the Mysteries of

Eleusis were the Lesser and the Greater Mysteries, The Lesser
Mysteries were celebrated annually in Athens during February.
Candidates for the Eleusian cult had first to be initiated into these
Mysteries, and then seven months later initiation into the Greater
Mysteries followed. However, the Greater Mysteries took place only
every five years, so initiations also took place every five years, rather
than at each Lesser Mysteries. The Greater Mysteries were
celebrated in September and began in Athens.
Two days before the festival of the Mysteries began, a great
procession of epheboi (youths) from the city marched to Eleusis and
brought back the sacred objects from the Telesterion to Athens with
much ceremony and celebration. A temple called the Eleusinion had
been constructed at the base of the Acropolis in Athens to house the
relics when they arrived in the city. Whatever the sacred relics were,
the eyes of the uninitiated could not look upon them, and so they
were conveyed to Athens in round boxes tied with purple ribbons.
The objects were small enough to have been carried in their boxes
by the priestesses of the cult, and both they and the sacred objects
were transported by wagon on the journey, paid for by the Athenian
government.
Upon arrival at Athens on the first day of the Mysteries proper
(called the 'Gathering'), the candidates for initiation (the mystai)
assembled in the Agora at a place called the Painted Portico. They
may have come from as far away as Thessaly, Crete, Asia Minor and
even the Greek colonies overseas, such as Alexandria or southern
Italy. So important to the Greek world was the festival that heralds

were sent out demanding a truce to allow candidates for initiation to

travel to Eleusis. There, a holy proclamation was read to the
candidates; also present were the Mysteries' two clans of priests, the
Hierophantes and the Diaduchos. Entry fees for the cult were
probably paid here, and the amount was quite high: at the cult's
peak the initiation fee stood at 15 drachmae, which was roughly
equivalent to about ten days' wages for a skilled labourer. Each
initiate had to declare that he was fit to enter the Mysteries, that he
harboured no evil, that he had not committed any crimes of violence
and that he had lived a just life. The word 'he' is used here, but
women were as welcome as men, and even slaves were admitted
into the Mysteries. Both these underclasses were usually repressed
and cut off from normal Greek society, but the Mysteries were
refreshingly different. However, the Greeks still retained their
loathing of non-Greeks - 'barbarians' - and banned them from entry
into this cult. Only the Romans in later times were able to flout this
rule. Every step of the way, an initiated cult member guided the
candidate through each part of the Mysteries. These mystagogoi

27
WARRIOR CULTS

could be friends, relatives or business associates, and for some were

total strangers, but they provided an essential human element in the
enrolment, something other religions could not do, and indeed had
no need of, since traditional Greek religions had no human element.
The second day of the festival was called 'Seaward, Initiates!', and
during it the initiates of the cult gathered together and drove on carts
to the nearby harbour-town of Piraeus. There they waded into the
sea with pigs (the sacrificial animal of Demeter) which were to be
bathed and purified in saltwater. After returning to Athens, the pigs
would be sacrificed to Demeter and a pork feast would be held by all
the initiates. One must have cut the throat of his pig while still in
the sea, for it is reported that in 339 bc a shark attacked one of the
mystai and bit off his legs. This was seen as a bad omen for Athens.
The third and fourth days of the Mysteries were taken up with
sacrifices and the initiates' personal preparation for the rituals, no
doubt helped by their mystagogoi. On the fifth day the festival
reached a climax, with the sacred objects journeying back to Eleusis,
accompanied by the mystai and their mystagogoi, the epheboi and
all the priests of the cult. Also travelling with the procession was a

large statue of the young god Iacchus, who quickly became

assimilated with Dionysus, the god of fertility. Iacchus even had a
priest of his own for the journey, called the Iacchagogos. What part
the god played in the Mysteries is still unclear.
The sixth and finalday of the festival took place within the
Telesterion. Sacrifices were made and the initiates fasted, just as
Demeter had done while mourning the loss of her daughter. This fast
was broken with a ritual drink called kykeon, which was composed
of water, flour and the herb pennyroyal (wine was prohibited to
members of the cult). At some point during this day the mystai were
initiated fully into the Mysteries of Eleusis and the true nature of the
sacred objects was revealed to them. Formulae were probably
repeated, dramas and plays were probably performed that re-
enacted the life of Demeter, and the 'meaning of life' would have
been shared with the mystai. It is likely that the Hierophantes
entered the Anaktoron at the centre of the Telesterion and, re-
emerging with the sacred objects, were bathed in a bright light that
contrasted with the darkness of the hall. Such a highly visual
display may have rested at the heart of the initiation; indeed the
very highest grade of initiation was called the Epoptai (or 'those who
have gazed at something').
The Hierophantes were different in many ways from traditional
Greek priests. They wore very elaborate, holy robes of a type found
only in Greek tragedies, whereas priests elsewhere wore ordinary
clothing. The effect was the transformation of the caste into a kind
of royalty; later changes forbad the use of personal names, just as the

28
 nil-: GREEK CULTS OF mack:

Japanese emperor eschewed his personal name in favour of a ritual

title.Athenian priests were temporary officiants, members of the
congregation drawn by lot to lead the ceremonies for the respect i\ e
god or goddess, but the Hierophantes were a hereditary caste chosen
from the Eleusian family of Eumolpidai, which traced its ancestry
back to the early kings of the city. Athens did nothing to change this
arrangement, but instituted a new level of priesthood called the
Diaduchos ('torch-holder'), who were recruited from an Athenian
family in Eleusis called the Kerykes. By not replacing but instead
supplementing the official priesthood, the Athenians retained the
loyalty of the Eleusian worshippers but were also obviously able to
gainsome controlling interests.
The reasons why the Mysteries played such an exceptional part in
Athenian as opposed to Eleusian life, and why Alcibiades could
scandalize the city with his behaviour, were to do with the powerful
status of Eleusis in the Athenian-controlled Delian League. This was
actually an enforced hegemony of allied statesowing almost feudal
obligations to Athens, and the city flourished under financial,
religious and honorific contributions. For the Delian League, and for
Athens especially, the absorption of Eleusis (complete with its
Mysteries) was of great significance. The Mysteries had become
almost pan-Hellenic and attracted a vast number of potential
initiates and other visitors. Athens took for itself much of the praise
heaped upon the cult, since the city had effectively hijacked it as its
own. Athens may have considered the cult a valuable tool in uniting
the Greek world around Athens and the Delian League, but it was
also a showcase for the best that the city had to offer. All Greeks
could witness the spectacle and drama of the vast procession, and
participate in the mystery and secrecy surrounding the cult. The
Mysteries stood as a symbol of the unity and strength of the Delian
League.
This fully explains the hostility which Alcibiades provoked when
he parodied the inner rituals of the Mysteries. He was committing an
act of treason as well as blasphemy, and in fifth-century-BC Greece
the distinction between the two was almost completely blurred. No
doubt an attempt to transfer the Mysteries to Athens was made soon
after Eleusis came under the city's control, but the attachment of
Demeter to the region was too great for this to succeed, and so the
great city had to be content with the visit of the sacred objects during
the Greater Mysteries. This was a symbol of the new relationship, of
the vassal acknowledging its suzerain.
King Kleomenes of Sparta had invaded Attica in the early fifth
century bc to ravage the city of Eleusis and destroy the cult centres
of Demeter and Persephone. When he later killed himself in an
insane fit, the Athenians blamed his madness on divine retribution

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WARRIOR CULTS

for his blasphemous attack on the Mysteries. Other states saw it

differently,which illustrates how much importance Athens placed
on, and how it protected, its adopted cult. Xenophon, the general
and writer, praised the Mysteries and their unifying role in the local
Attic community; it was at once a religious and a political element
in Athenian life, a shared 'secret' that bound the disparate elements
of Greece and Athens together. The cult failed to spread its
membership across the entire Greek peninsula, however, and
Athens failed to achieve the goal of creating a Greek superstate
around the Delian League. This ambition was effectively dashed for
ever when Greece was torn apart by the devastating Peloponnesian
War that saw the Delian League shattered and Athens's status in
Greece severely reduced.
However, the Mysteries were not extinguished just because
Athenian power in the world was a shadow of its former self. The
Roman Empire of later times fully recognized the special role that
the Mysteries played in the religious life of the Greeks and the
festival began to be attended by Roman citizens. Two Roman
emperors, Hadrian and Marcus Aurelius, were initiated into the
Mysteries and the Christian emperor Valentian allowed them to
continue even after he had suppressed all other pagan cults and
Mystery religions. The cult finally came to an end during the reign
of Theodosius I in the last decades of the fourth century ad.
And Alcibiades? Whether or not he truly wanted to create
disharmony in Athens and the Delian League by parodying the
Mysteries, and whether or not his drinking club was partaking of a
drunken dare, he felt the wrath of an indignant Athens. But on his
return to the city in 407 bc, he more than atoned for his sin by
reinstituting the procession to Eleusis, which had been abandoned
during the Peloponnesian War due to Spartan incursions. He did
this by sheer force, sending out scouts and posting hilltop guards,
and surrounding the priests and mystai with an armed guard of
hoplite troops. The Eleusian Mysteries had never been treated in
such a serious manner, contrasting utterly with the scandal of eight
years previously. So short a memory did the Athenians have of
Alcibiades's impiety that it was decided to refer to his generalship
as a 'hierophantship' or a 'leadership-of-the-mystai'!

The Orgiastic Cult of Dionysus

Dionysus has already been mentioned in connection with the
Eleusian Mysteries, but the god had a strange and mysterious cult of
his own. Like Demeter, he became a god of vegetation and of fertility
in general, and for this reason his worship took on a similar aspect
to hers at Eleusis. The cult was not originally Greek but came from
Thrace. It always remained strongest there, and also in Greek Asia

30
 nil: GREEK CI lis OF mack:

Minor across the Aegean Sea. hut it eventually won popularity

throughout ancient Greece. As the cult grew in size and changed in
outlook, the nature of the god also changed. From a god of wine and
simple pleasures, Dionysus became a vegetation deity, a god of
civilization in general, and was finally regarded as a supreme god by
a Dionysiac subcult called Orphism. The Orphic Mystery religion
based its worship around Dionysus, just as the Eleusian Mysteries
focused on the trials of Demeter. But there were other aspects and
other types of worship of the god.
In Greece, Dionysus's worship originally centred on the region
called Boeotia, and his female devotees were supposed to sacrifice a
boy to him each year. Later, this festival was known as the Agrionia
and the sacrificial victim became a foal rather than a human being.
From its earliest days the cult had a sordid reputation, presided over
as it was by priestesses called Maenads who engaged in boisterous
and emotionally charged worship out in the wilderness. Typically,
the Maenads, with their fawn-skins and crowns of ivy, led the
female devotees into the countryside. Their arms and faces were
often ritually painted and many of the Maenads carried a thyrsus, a
sacred wooden wand topped with a pine-cone and entwined with
ivy. Others carried burning torches with which to light the way,
since their frenzied ceremonies took place at night under the
influence of wine and (probably) the intoxicating effects of chewing
laurel leaves. During the Maenads' rituals they tore apart sacrificial
animals with their bare hands and ate the flesh raw to commemorate
the dismemberment of their god Dionysus at the hands of the Titans.
No wonder the cult was shunned and feared by the ancient Greeks!
The Athenians worshipped Dionysus annually at a festival called
the Lenaia, named, one theory has it, after an alternative title for the
Maenads. This festival took place in January, during midwinter, and
may have been an attempt to magically revive the plant spirits.
Maenads existed in Athens as an organized body, and travelled each
year to the sacred city of Delphi, where they met up with other
Maenads to carry out their wild orgies. Depictions of these Maenad
priestesses can be found on various red-figure vases from the fifth
century bc, complete with thyrsus, torches, tambourines and flutes.
The absence of mythical satyrs or men of any kind (such as heroes
or cult members) indicates that these scenes are depictions of real-
life worship, as opposed to legendary fancy. The head of Dionysus

sometimes appears atop a pillar, and the phallic symbolism is

obvious.
This midnight revelry of drunken women outside the city during
the Lenaia continued into the fifth century and beyond, but was
overshadowed by a more sedate grand procession and a festival of
plays dedicated to the god. Plutarch, a writer of ancient times, tells

31
WARRIOR CULTS

of a group of Maenads (also called the Thyiades) who carried out

their orgiastic celebrations on Mount Parnassus, but were caught in
a blizzard and had to be rescued by an expedition from Delphi.
Like the Eleusian Mysteries, the orgiastic rites of Dionysus did not
wane with the fortunes of Greece, for the cult gained in popularity
following the expansion of the Greek world by Alexander the Great
and his successors. It later found acceptance in Republican Rome,
reaching the city from the Greek communities of southern Italy by the
middle of the second century bc. The Roman Dionysus was called
Bacchus, his female worshippers Bacchantes, and his orgiastic
ceremonies Bacchanalia. Like the rites of the Maenads, the
Bacchanalia was originally an annual festival for women alone, but it
began to be celebrated for five days every month, and men were soon
admitted, turning the Bacchanalia into a drunken sexual orgy. With
rumours that crimes and government-toppling conspiracies were
being discussed at these night-time rendezvous, the Senate took
action. It ultimately feared a threat to the order of Roman society, along
with a breakdown of the moral fibre so vaunted by the authorities. But
although measures were taken, the cult was able to establish itself as
an acceptable Mystery religion by the time of Julius Caesar.
Death and thoughts of the afterlife figured prominently in the
cult's rhetoric, and elements of Bacchic thought appear on cult
tombs of the period. A classic Mystery religion, the cult appealed to
both men and women, even accepting children into its ranks. Like
the Eleusian Mysteries, it focused on emotions and the tribulations
of life, paying infinitely more attention to the personal lives (and
deaths) of its worshippers than to that of Bacchus himself. As the
cult became more refined, its appeal to the upper classes, and to the
material needs that they treasured, increased. The highly charged
emotion of the earlier days had been subsumed within a cult of
sexual gratification, drunkenness and debauchery. The afterlife was
often seen as nothing more than this in perpetuation, and thus the
cult of the Bacchae failed to provide the spiritual nourishment
sorely needed in the dark days of the Empire's decline. It lost out to
more exciting and more fulfilling Mystery cults, such as those of
Mithras and Cybele, and ultimately to Christianity.
But that is not the end of the story. The traditional medieval Devil,
with cloven hoofs, horns protruding from the forehead and forked
tail, has its origins in the classical representation of Dionysus. And

despite the survival of the 'civilized' aspect of Bacchus to the end of

the Empire, the primitive goat-man was the original representation
of the god. He was nature incarnate and was associated not just with
Pan and the Satyrs, fertility and wine, but also with the dark winter
months and the Underworld. The witches' Sabbat may owe as much
to Dionysus as to Hecate, since it resembled in many ways the

32
 THE GREEK CULTS OF MAGIC

orgiastic rites of theMaenads, with a female congregation, frenzied

dancing and the presence of a goat-god.
Even more remarkable is the fact that many medieval witches
spoke during their confessions of a 'dark man' or 'black man' present
at the Sabbat - a description fitting the Prince of Darkness. Little
known is the fact that the ancient Greek Dionysus was given the
name of Melanaegis or 'he with the black goatskin' at his shrine at
the town of Eleutherai. Worship of the animal god was seen as an
essential part of ancient religious life, since it allowed cult members
to express emotionally what their human minds could not.
Wholeness was believed to be the marriage of the wild and
emotional with the civilized and rational.

Elite Warrior Cults

Not of the Greek cults were purely mystical in nature. The strictly
all

limited citizenry of the Greek kingdom of Sparta in some way

qualifies it as a 'warrior cult', as does the Theban Sacred Band of
elite warriors who fought in the vanguard of Thebes 's citizen army
during the fourth century bc. Neither has the religious or magical
focus that typifies the other cults in this chapter, but there are
rewards in taking a closer look at these two groups.
Spartan citizenship was limited to only a handful of families.
They formed a noble elite, known as the homoioi (the 'equals'), who
indulged in physical sport and preparation for war. Their number
varied: in 480 bc, at the peak of Spartan power, there were perhaps
8,000 Spartiate citizens; in 371 bc, following humiliating and costly
defeats, the number had fallen to 1,500 and the concept of an elite
Spartan citizenry was in crisis. While the homoioi retained their
tenuous hold on power, the agricultural and industrial work was
carried out by an oppressed group called the helots. This was a
population of state slaves, bound to the Spartan government and
working on estates to support individual Spartan families.
The helots had been physically conquered and enslaved, and were
ready to revolt at the first opportunity; in order to prevent this, the
whole of Spartan society was geared for war. Education, politics,
eatingand sleeping habits, the role of women and the state all
combined to maintain a tiny section of society ready to act against
the very people supporting it. And each year the Spartan
government declared war on the entire helot population, thus
absolving in advance any Spartan citizen who murdered a member
of this slave caste. In fact the murder of helots became a method of
state terrorism, designed to instil fear into the hearts of the slaves
and dissuade them from attempting rebellion. Just as a secret cult
adopts violence and secrecy to protect itself, the Spartans defended
their puny minority with guile in one hand and force in the other.

33
WARRIOR CULTS

A had evolved may have begun

tradition called the krypteia that
as a form of initiation youths into the Spartan citizen cult, but it
for
degenerated into a night-time slave-hunt. Adolescents who had
completed state-regulated education were afterwards required to
prove their fighting skills and their dedication to the survival of
Sparta. They would go out into the night on their own and move
covertly across the countryside, hoping to encounter a helot who
had broken the curfew. When they found one, they were fully within
their rights to kill him. This nightly curfew was in all probability a
measure designed to prevent slaves conspiring against the state. But
curfews had other uses: when a Spartan army assembled to march to
war, it left the city during nightfall, thus hiding its size from the
helot population, which might be tempted to revolt if it knew how
few Spartans had been left to guard the city.
Fresh youths eager to prove their manliness by going forth into the
night were not the only executioners of suspect helots; many slaves
were also subjected to organized execution by the state. One such
incident is related by the Greek historian Thucydides, who, in his
History of the Peloponnesian War, relates how the Spartan government
proclaimed that the helots should choose from among their own
number individuals who had best served Sparta, with the implication
that these slaves would be set free. Around 2,000 helots were selected,
and the Spartans, realizing that the most adventurous and high-
spirited would be the ones to nominate themselves, murdered all of
them, though no one ever found out how. Thus the Spartans rid
themselves of individual helots most likely to foment rebellion.
Deception and intrigue were the basic building blocks of Spartan
home affairs. In many ways the state resembled one of the security-
obsessed Eastern European governments before the collapse of
Communism or the China of today. Foreigners were closely watched
and freedom of movement was often curtailed; occasionally
their
these unwelcome visitors would be forced out of the country in a
mass expulsion. The repression and murder of its own labour force
took place on a daily basis, and lies and propaganda were the only
forms of freely distributed information. Xenophon recorded two
cases (there were undoubtedly more) of a Spartan general who, upon
hearing of a defeat for the Spartans, declared the lost battle a victory
to his troops in an effort to sustain morale. Such was the
preoccupation of the Spartan hierarchy with the covert that it
developed a method of secret communication: the scytale. This was
a stick of a pre-determined length and breadth, around which a
leather ribbonwas wrapped; a message, such as orders for a general
out on a campaign, would be written on the length of leather and
could be read only if rewound again on a stick of exactly the same
length and breadth to that which the general carried with him.

34
 THE GREEK CULTS OF MAGIC

Spartan citizens trained constantly for war and were forbidden to

take up any other occupation. All were soldiers, even at mealtimes,
when they joined their syssitia, or military-style 'mess'. Every
Spartan, including the two kings that ruled over the state, were
forced to attend a syssitia. Each was a small communal dining group
from which a Spartan chose both his friends and his lovers, for the
Spartans believed strongly in homosexual partnerships, perhaps as
an aid to morale on the battlefield. This calculated manipulation of
its members' emotions again reminds us of a modern religious cult

that conditions its adherents into accepting a set series of beliefs and
behaving in a set way. While the Spartans were as much
'brainwashed' as members of, say, any modern fanatical cult, they
accepted the conditioning through a basic need to see the survival of
the Spartan homoioi, not because of any promised religious or
mystical inner teachings. In this they differed from the Triad society,
the Knights Templar, the Druids and all the other cults of this book;
the Spartan government had more in common with Stalinist Russia
than the deadly Assassins.
Eclipsing Sparta's hegemony over much of Greece in the fourth
century bc was the city state of Thebes, and crucial to this city's
military dominance was the nature of its elite fighting unit. Called the
Sacred Band, its troops were all homosexual lovers. As in Sparta, it
was thought that warriors who fought beside past and present lovers
possessed an almost infinite loyalty to their brethren and would
willingly die for them. This bizarre group of men received both the
respect and the admiration of other Greek armies, and the nature of
the cult earned it a fearsome reputation. Little can be related
concerning the rituals of initiation or the customs of the Sacred Band,
but it is thought the appellation 'sacred' was derived from the Greek
word used in connection with citadels, and that the Sacred Band
originally began life as a castle guard. In fact, the unit was garrisoned
at the Kadmeia, the heavily fortified citadel of Thebes.
Whatever its origins, the organization had become fully
established by the time of the battle of Leuctra, and boasted 300
well-trained hoplite troops led by an elected commander. The
inspiration that was supposed to derive from fighting beside one's
lover was something remarked on by the philosopher Plato, while
Xenophon, who, unlike most Greeks, disliked the concept of
homosexuality, could only pour scorn on the idea. But the Sacred
Band had a legendary ancestry, for Homer's Iliad, the bible of the
Greeks, featured the exploits of the warrior-hero Achilles and his
lover, Patroclus. Indeed, in the Iliad Patroclus dies for the honour of
Achilles, spurring the great fighter to battle. It was this 'mythic'
quality that elevated the Sacred Band beyond the level of a veteran
but still mundane fighting force.

35
WARRIOR CULTS

When the Sacred Band suffered severely at the hands of King

Philip of Macedon during the battle of Chaironeia in 338 bc, it
ceased to be a functioning unit and its troops took their mythic
status with them to the grave. Each of the homosexual warriors had
refused to give any ground and they fought the Macedonians until
they dropped. The victorious king, touched by their valour, is said
to have wept openly for them.

36
CHAPTER 2

Cults of the Roman Empire

Religious life in the Roman Empire was awash with cults, state gods,

hero-worship, exotic mysteries and philosophical colleges. Some of

the greatest religions of Roman times were in fact imported from the
lands that its armies conquered. The most successful were carried to
the very top of the social ladder and would be represented by the
emperor himself. As the reigning emperors began proclaiming their
own divinity, their role in a favoured cult became more that of an
avatar, the living embodiment of a god, than a religious leader. Not
all foreign cults were warmly welcomed. Those of Bacchus, Isis and

Cybele were at first strongly resisted by the Senate and popular

sentiment. Eventually, though, they became part of the diverse
tapestry of Roman religious life, successfully overcoming prejudice
or suppressing the sanguinary rites that they practised. One cult that
never made it as far as Rome, and would never have been accepted,
despite its contemporary associations with philosophy, was
Druidism.

The Druids
In the year ad 64 a great fire swept through the city ofRome, causing
untold death and damage. The emperor Nero, suspected by some of
starting the fire himself, was under considerable pressure to prove to
the people of Rome that other forces were at work. Nero's 'sinister'
forces were the Christians of the city; they were to be his scapegoats.
Quickly and efficiently, free-speaking and self-proclaimed
Christians were arrested, torturedand forced to name others. These
too were rounded up. The Christian prisoners, without trial, or any
evidence with which to conduct one, were executed for the pleasure
of the citizens of Rome. Some were publicly crucified, others were
dressed up in the skins of wild animals and torn apart by dogs,
while the truly unfortunate were burned alive after dark, lighting up
Rome as human torches. Such inhuman barbarity was almost
unrivalled in Rome, but would be equalled and even surpassed in
the centuries to come.
Far off on the fringes of the Empire, the newly conquered province
of Britannia was proving something of a headache for Nero and his
advisers. The local tribes, warlike and hot-headed, were led by a

37
WARRIOR CULTS

caste of fugitive priests called Druids - fugitive because Rome had

sought to abolish their cruel and inhuman practices. One of their
most spectacular ceremonies involved incarcerating prisoners of
war, along with a variety of sacrificial animals, in huge wicker cages
constructed in the form of giant men. The wicker men were set
alight, burning to death the captives, within. These prisoners had
become sacrifices to the gods of the Druids, and such a major
sacrifice would be made at a time of great need, to appease the gods
or call for rainfall, healthy crops or an end to disease. Why had Nero
and his predecessors decreed the total suppression of a religion that
carried out acts equal to Rome's own? The people of Rome lived to
a curious double-standard. They relished flagrant displays of
violence in the amphitheatre, as well as the summary deaths of
enemies of the state. Death for justice or entertainment, and
preferably both, was seen as morally defensible. But to kill a person
in the name of a god was considered an abhorrent act, a sinful thing.
In Nero's time, the Druidic elements of Celtic religion had already
been forced out of Gaul. At first, the emperor Augustus had
forbidden Roman citizens to join the cult, but his successor,
Tiberius, went further and expelled the Druids and their rites from
the whole of Gaul. Many, it would seem, fled to Britain - at that time
unconquered and free. A later Roman emperor, Claudius, totally
suppressed the cult in Gaul and it was at his instigation that the
Roman army invaded Britain in ad 43. Some modern writers have
speculated that the invasion sought to stamp out Druidism once and
for all. In fact, the earlier Roman general and adventurer Julius
Caesar believed that Britain was the cradle of Druidism, and had
spread the practice to Gaul. From there, Druids wishing to be taught
the great secrets of the cult travelled back to the British Isles for
tuition.
But there was more to Rome's hatred of the Druids than the
practice of human The caste of priests constituted a threat
sacrifice.
to the stability of the Empire in the western provinces. Caesar
claimed that the Druids in Gaul met every year at a shrine among the
Carnutes tribe and that a single Druid (an 'Archdruid') presided over
the meeting; it is likely that equivalent bodies of Druids gathered in
Britain and in Ireland. Although the Celtic tribes were distinct and
autonomous, the Druidic cult that operated within them was almost
pan-Celtic, as though the cult had made itself independent of any
individual king or tribal chief. The Druids took care of themselves
and accepted only portable gifts, rather than lands that would tie
them down to a specific tribal area. The frequent journeys and
meetings fostered a spirit of Celtic kinship and resistance, and may
have acted as a system of intertribal communication and perhaps,
Caesar feared, co-operation, especially in matters of war. Caesar was

38
 CI ITS OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE

constantly assessing the threat posed by the Druids, since they were
a force he had to contend with in his conquest of Gaul and his later
expedition to Britain.
Druids, although exempt from taxes and military service, were
often involved in warfare to some extent. They had previously been
the arbiters of Celtic feuds and battles, and were able to stop
opposing armies from engaging even while they lined up to fight
with weapons poised. This obedience in war (and in other matters)
is spoken of by the Roman author Diodorus Siculus. Caesar, in his

writings, explicitly targets the Druids as political activists,

fomenting revolt and organizing anti-Roman resistance. Some
writers treat the Roman leader's remarks sceptically, as mere
propaganda with which to scare the Roman Senate and exaggerate
the Druid threat. Caesar would indeed have stood to gain from such
slanderous statements. By giving the impression of Druidism as a
high-level resistance movement operating from unconquered Britain
and with active members in Gaul, he could get the Senate's approval
for a raid across the Channel. He needed the prestige of such a raid
and the spoils of war that would come with it. But if Julius Caesar
was engaged in a mere propaganda battle, the later invasion of
Britain by Emperor Claudius in ad 43 and the persecution of British
Druids that followed are harder to explain.
Caesar does reveal another side to the Druids, and gives some
indication of the power that they wielded within their tribes. They
were the political advisers to the Celtic kings and had considerable
judicial power in criminal cases. The writer Dio Chrysostom credits
the priests with great authority, and not just as advisers. At a tribal
assembly, every king had his Druid with him but, it is related, the
king could not have his say until his Druid had spoken first. Such
was the authority of the Druid! The cult may even have been able to
influence the appointment of the Celtic rulers, since Caesar relates
how the Druids of the Aedui elected the ruler Convictolitavis and
goes on to say that such an election had happened before. The
source of their power may have sprung in part from the education
and great learning that they received, and was also in part due to
their hereditary origins. Apprentice Druids were taken from the sons
of the warrior aristocracy, and this would have legitimized the
sharing of wealth and power with the tribal nobility.
Caesar may again have been exaggerating the influence of the cult
in the tribal hierarchy, but this is unlikely since he was on personal
terms with a Druid collaborator called Diviciacus. Also a ruler of the
Aedui, Diviciacus had travelled to Rome and had met and talked
with the famous Roman politician and writer Cicero; from there he
returned to Gaul to aid Caesar in his struggle to pacify the Gallic
tribes. The Roman general used Diviciacus as a go-between to

39
WARRIOR CULTS

mediate with kings and the Druid certainly helped speed Caesar's
conquest of the country. Caesar does not explicitly refer to
Diviciacus as being a member of the Druid sect, but Cicero certainly
does, and also speaks of his powers of divination. That the Roman
commander used a turncoat Celt as a mediator between rival tribes
is perhaps evidence enough that Diviciacus was no ordinary

warrior-chief, but a man skilled in "diplomacy and someone who

could act as an arbitrator.
The writer Posidonius gives an altogether different account of the
priests, not as politicians but as scholars and teachers. Classical
philosophers saw in Druidism a system of thought that mirrored
aspects of their own, and the Druids were given the status of wise
men and 'Magi of the West'. The word 'Druid' as we know it derives
from a Latin form of the Celtic original, which in Old Irish is Drui.
The meaning equates to 'Wise Men' or perhaps 'Knowledge of the
Oak', a tree constantly mentioned in connection with the cult.
Comparison of the word 'Druid' with the Greek word for oak tree
was made by the writer Pliny and he also associates the Druids with
the oak tree during their mistletoe-cutting ceremonies.
Strabo, another of Rome's pre-eminent writers, categorizes the
Celtic priests as the Vates (or Ovates), who conduct sacrifices, study
natural philosophy and foretell the future; the Bards, who are the
poets and keepers of tribal lore; and the Druids, who study moral
philosophy - that is, the laws and customs of the tribe. It is unclear
whether these professions make up a single 'Druidic caste', but it
seems likely that both Bards and Ovates were of lesser rank than
Druids, and to reach that rank a candidate had first to officiate as an
Ovate and a Bard. This would explain both the extraordinarily long
apprenticeship and the overlap in role between Druids, Ovates and
Bards. Druids (specifically) are recorded as both composers of verses
and satires (which could kill a man) and conductors of augury. The
classical writers found it difficult to discuss the role of the Druids
without superimposing their own ideas on to the priests. Scholars
were more interested in classifying and comparing the philosophies
of the Druids with those of other priesthoods in Persia, Egypt and
elsewhere. Little attention was paid to their important role within
Gallic and British life.

One of the reasons that philosophers showed such an affinity with

the Druids was the The Druids
latter's belief in life after death.
taught that the soul was immortal and upon death would go on to
another body in the afterlife. Diodorus compared this belief with the
teachings of Pythagoras and the 'transmigration of the soul' from
body to body on this earth. Although Posidonius states that the
Druids had assimilated Pythagoras's teachings, there is little
evidence for this. But the similarities existed nevertheless, both

40
 CI l IS OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE

Pythagoreanism and Druidism cherishing calendrical and

mathematical skills, according women a status unheard of in
contemporary cultures, and believing strongly in the existence of
another world in which life was regulated by the performance, in
this life, of good deeds. On the battlefield the Celtic warrior's
courage and blatant disregard for death was attributed by Julius
Caesar to this belief that the soul is reborn in the afterlife.
Much of Druidic learning has been lost to us. Secrecy within the
cult was paramount and the Druids believed it was taboo to commit
to writing any of the order's rituals or teachings. Instead, an oral
tradition had evolved and was used by the Druids to teach what they
knew to others, especially the sons of nobles. Novitiate Druids,
according to Caesar, could undergo training for nineteen years (the
Celtic Great Year, which was the time it took for the lunar and solar
calendars to coincide). This teaching included tribal history and
law, the stories of creation and the gods, astrology, divination (or the
reading of omens) and healing. This latter skill encompassed the use
of herbs as well as of magic, for in his writings Pliny the Elder makes
a reference to 'the Druids and that race of prophets and doctors',
which indicates that these priests were always close to the
supernatural. A late Irish source specifically refers to the Druids as
magicians, as does Pliny, who also depicts them as tribal medicine
men who conduct strange magical rituals.
The true nature of Druidism may never be fully known. Were its
practitioners resistance leaders, diplomats, philosophers, academics
or magicians? Each writer of the time put his own emphasis on the
Druids. What is clear is that the Druid cult played an important role
in both the mundane and the spiritual world of the Gauls and
Britons. The Druids' activities as priests were paramount, giving
them both secular and theological power, as well as knowledge of
the supernatural.
Central to Druidic practice were the rituals of worship that the
Celtic gods demanded. In pre-Roman days, such worship took place
in the open air at numerous natural spots that had become sacred to
the Celts, and especially sacred were the magical groves deep within
and ceremonial symbols could be found
the forests. Altars, effigies
there, and although animals were routinely sacrificed, occasionally
only a human being would do, and prisoners of war or criminals
were the usual victims of these rites. The god Esus demanded that
human sacrifices be hanged (presumably on a tree within the grove),
while Taranis demanded death by fire and Teutates, death by
suffocation. Tacitus, whose father-in-law was governor of Britain for
a time, relates how the soldiers of Suetonius Paulinus discovered
Druidic groves on the island of Anglesey. The altars there were
soaked in human blood. Such groves, called by the Celts nemeton,

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were used by Druids across Britain and Gaul. In Lucan's Pharsalia,

Caesar stumbled upon an ancient sacred grove deep within the
forests around Massilia. His army was laying siege to the city and
had entered the forests in search of timber with which to build a
huge encircling wall. The branches above the grove were
interwoven, creating an eerie darkness, and trees all around were
splashed with human blood. The legionaries were frightened by the
presence of hostile gods, images of which were primitively carved
on logs. Their terror increased as strange magic enveloped the
clearing. The earth shook, snakes slid across the ground and the
trees seemed to burn with a magical fire. Only Caesar, in typical
fashion, stood firm as his troops quaked. He took an axe and hacked
at a tree,shouting out his defiance of the spirits. His loyal soldiers
carried on
their work, but with understandable trepidation.
Just as the ban on writing hid the thoughts and ideas behind
Druidism, the nemeton hid its ceremonies. Of all fears, fear of the
unknown is perhaps the greatest, and Romans must surely have felt
uneasy about such a clandestine religion. The knowledge that
human sacrifice also occurred only strengthened this unease.
Besides the burning of the wicker man, there are many other
accounts of human sacrifice among the cult. Female prisoners of war
suffered cruelly in the holy groves, and Dio Cassius reports that their
breasts would be sliced off and put over their mouths to honour the
Celtic goddess Adastra. Their bodies were then impaled on stakes
and hung in the nemeton. Some of the first-born of Celtic families
are also reported as victims of the priests, especially in Ireland,
where the attendant associations with fertility would bring blessings
to the people. The Dindsenchas records that the god Crom Cruaich
received a sacrifice of 'the firstlings of every issue and the chief
scions of every clan'.
Buildings, too, were the objects of sacrifice, a human victim being
interred within the foundations to watch over it in future years, or
perhaps to placate the local earth spirits. Just as Roman governors had
suppressed these practices in Gaul and Britain, St Patrick and other
Christian missionaries attempted to put a stop to them in Ireland.
The Roman writers Strabo and Tacitus wrote of a ritual murder
carried out by Druids that was not technically a sacrifice. The man's
death, as his body reeled from a fatal sword blow, enabled the priests
to predict the future, using as a guide the way he fell and convulsed
and how the blood seeped from his body. As would happen with a
sheep or a goat, his entrails were then scrutinized by the Druids for
further omens.
If most Roman rites and political machinations were held in
secret, the rituals of Celtic warriors were not. Roman legionaries will
have witnessed with their own eyes the Celtic custom of head-

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hunting that took place after (or sometimes during] a battle. The
head of one's enemy was a powerful magical talisman that not only
acted as a trophy but also bound the dead man's spirit to his killer.
In addition, magical symbolism credits the head with great potency.
Specially shaped niches in the walls of some Celtic sanctuaries have
been found that were used as 'skull niches' to display the heads of
vanquished enemies, and the human head featured prominently in
Druidic art as an object of great reverence and arcane power.
Presumably this is why some warriors in Roman accounts also drank
the blood of an enemy from his skull. Irish warriors had a similar
custom, drinking an enemy's blood after washing in it. African
magicians used to eat the heart of a lion to gain that animal's
strength and ferocity, and it would seem that Celtic blood-drinking
reflected a similar belief. But it purportedly went further. The enemy
dead were actually eaten by one tribe, according to a report by
Diodorus, presumably for the same magical reasons as drinking
blood. None of these practices survived in Gaul under the Romans,
although head-hunting by Gallic cavalrymen (after they had joined
the Roman legions as auxiliaries) was not entirely stamped out. The
practice must have been frowned upon.
It is not known exactly what role Druids played during battle. Irish

evidence seems to indicate that they bore arms, but there is no record
of them joining the fighting ranks. If it took as many as twenty years
to fully educate a Druid, then it seems unlikely that he would be
wasted in warfare. But the influence of the cult on the battlefield was
very strong. The last bastion of Druidism in Britain, following the
victories of Suetonius Paulinus, was the island of Anglesey (or Mona).
Here there must have been a sanctuary for refugee Druids from British
tribal centres across the country, and this cult centre organized a
resistance campaign against the Roman invaders. Suetonius Paulinus
moved against them, but his troops balked at the prospect of entering
combat with warriors who had the support of such a magically adept
priesthood. He forced his troops to cross the Menai Strait and begin
destroying the nemeton on Mona. A large hoard of offerings was
thrown into the waters of the lake Llyn Cerrig Bach by the Druids to
propitiate their gods. Modern examination of the treasure shows the
full extent of the influence of the Druid cult on Anglesey. Items had
come from all over Britain. If Britain had its Druidic centre and
regular meeting place, then Anglesey must surely have been it. The
island had become a religious refuge as well as an important supply
base, and it was crucial to Rome that it should be neutralized.
The account in Tacitus of the island's invasion gives us a clear
indication of the Druids' ability to organize revolt, as well as instil
fear in the enemy by the mere reputation of their magical powers.
The Druidic practice of augury has already been mentioned, but they

43
WARRIOR CULTS

were formidable magicians as well as prophets. Pliny stressed the

practice of the magical arts in Britain and rivalled it to the arcane
traditions of Persia. As we have already seen, woods and groves
played a part in their ceremonies, and oaks and mistletoe were
particularly special. Both were highly revered, and the growth of the
mistletoe on any tree, but especially an oak, was seen as a gift from
Heaven. The plant was considered essential in fertility and
medicinal magic. Although Strabo dresses the Druids in
embroidered gold and scarlet robes, Pliny says that they donned
white robes when cutting mistletoe. This ceremony was conducted
on the sixth day of the Moon and a golden sickle was used; as the
mistletoe was cut from the tree, it was caught in a white cloth. Two
white bulls were then sacrificed. Such a ceremony is likely to have
occurred, judging by the Celts' veneration for mistletoe, but it is
unthinkable that white robes would have been worn. Surely this is
Pliny's way of indicating the magicians' status, with toga-like robes.
Similarly, the golden sickle must be a fabrication, since it is doubtful
a golden blade would be sharp enough to cut through anything;
bronze or even iron are far likelier materials.
Magical powers ascribed to the Druids include all kinds of
elemental spells, from raising storms to causing magical fires, floods
and blizzards. Day could be transformed into night and sunshine
and rain could be commanded at will. The Druids of Cormac created
a drought across the land but were foiled when a rival fired an arrow
into the ground, fresh water flowing from the spot. Even trees and
rocks could be transformed into armed warriors. There were other
powers available to the priests: one often mentioned is that of shape-
shifting into an animal; another was invisibility. And the magical
sleep said to be induced by Druids may have been a form of
hypnosis, if it existed at all. As the priests cast their spells, they
often adopted the ritual stance required of the Celtic magic user:
balancing on one leg with one arm outstretched and one eye closed.
When the Christian missionaries attempted to 'do battle' with the
pagan gods of the Celts, they needed magic as powerful as that of the
Druids, and constantly pitted their magic against that of the cult. St
Columba in Scotland and St Patrick in Ireland were endowed by
their chroniclers with extraordinary powers; one could even say
from such descriptions that they employed Druidic magic at least as
skilfully as the Druids they fought. The early Christian writers did
not depict this battle as holy faith against pagan sorcery, but as
Druidic magic against Christian miracle magic.
As the Romans suppressed the Druids by force, they also cut off
the social links that the cult had always depended upon. Roman
schools were set up to teach the children of nobles, when they
would previously have gone to the Druids for education. The

44
 i i I is OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE

judicial and systems the Romans installed also isolated the

political
Celtic priests, they were an out-of-touch and redundanl
until
organization. But where Rome had not penetrated, there Druidism
still flourished. The religion was not crushed. Sacrifices were still

offered, but now they were symbolic, involving the drawing of blood
from a human victim rather than murder. Rome made no real
attempt to prevent the worship of Celtic gods, just as the British did
not outlaw the worship of the goddess Kali in nineteenth-century
India. The ritual practice can be banned, but a god is only an idea, a
thought, and can never be fully suppressed.
Perhaps this was the case with the Druid cult as well. Lewis
Spence in The Mysteries of Britain puts forward the theory that
Druidism survived as a radical Christian sect in the wilds of Britain.
The priests of this new were antagonistic to any Roman
cult
authority and were totally independent. They were the Culdees,
who were active in parts of Scotland, England and Ireland from the
late sixth century. Culdee clerics occupied hereditary positions and
were free to marry, just as the Druids had been. In addition they
practised music as well as theology, and celebrated Easter a month
before their cousins in Rome. Condemned as heretics in ad 813, the
Culdee colleges were continually harangued by Christian scholars.
Rather than merely differing on points of doctrine, they had adopted
an entirely different doctrine. They condemned the Mass, refused to
recognize holy relics or saints, and would not pray for departed
souls. The Culdee church was not quickly suppressed but continued
to worship in York until ad 936. In Fife, the Culdee sect shared the
Priory at St Andrews with the established clergy up until 1124! The
cult's Scottish headquarters were on the island of Iona, the Celtic
name of which was Inis Druineach ('the Island of the Druids').
It was strange that the polytheistic Roman Empire, which was so

willing to absorb and adopt the religions that it came into contact
with, clashed so violently with Druidism. One could have expected
the wholesale sanctioning of their worship. However, Rome was
never tolerant when it encountered cults that dealt as much with
political as with theological and philosophical issues. The practice
(or merely even rumour) of human sacrifice simply added weight to
the argument for a policy of suppression. But if the Roman Senate
disliked the political interference of the Druids, the Druids in turn
despised Rome's self-imposed imperial cult. As a religion, this state-
controlled emperor-worship aimed to unify scattered kings, tribes,
towns and cities across a cosmopolitan empire.

The Imperial Cults

The popular worship of a living sovereign was a peculiarly oriental
practice that Republic Rome found quite disturbing. The Egyptian

45
WARRIOR CULTS

Pharaoh had been worshipped as the son of the god Ra for thousands
of years, and Alexander the Great, always fascinated with the East,
shocked the Greeks by declaring his own divinity. The Roman state
would not stomach living god-emperors for centuries, but the cult
began innocently enough with Julius Caesar, who was first deified
after his death. This gave his successors a precedent and Augustus,
Rome's first emperor, was also made a god upon his death. Such an
honour seemed to be the next logical step from the extensive
honours bestowed upon the emperors in life.
It was during the reign of Augustus that appeals were made by one

of the provinces to raise a shrine to the emperor as he still occupied

the seat of power. Whether or not this appeal was actually inspired
by Augustus himself is still unclear, but he at least made a pretence
of refusing the request before capitulating and agreeing that a dual
cult should be created for the worship of Rome and Augustus. The
cult became established in the provinces, including Gaul, very
quickly; at Lugdunum in12 bc the Roman general Drusus
consecrated an altar for the new religion. This imperial cult
eventually extended to Rome's empresses, and participation in it
became a test of loyalty and obedience for every province. The cult
was essentially a fabricated religion, designed for obvious political
reasons.
In Britain, the last bastion of Druidism, the imperial cult was not
the popular expression towards Roman benevolence it was in the
eastern provinces. Following the death (and deification) of Emperor
Claudius, the construction of a great temple was begun. According
to Tacitus, the temple became a symbol to the British of the Roman
conquest and pacification of the country, and was seen as a 'citadel
of eternal domination'. In fact, it became more than just a symbol,
since wealthy Britons were required to donate large amounts for the
temple's upkeep. This imposition on a province only recently
conquered and despoiled was seen by another commentator on
politics, Dio, as a major factor in the great Boudiccan revolt of ad 60.
The Britons were obviously not happy participating in a cult that
required worship of one's oppressors.
Even more strongly opposed to the imperial cult were the Jews in
Roman Judaea, who were not only oppressed but also openly
monotheistic. The constant tension in that land erupted into violent
revolt in ad 66, when the priests of the Temple in Jerusalem refused
to carry out the daily sacrifices for the emperor and Rome. The
sacrifices were an with the priests'
act of loyalty that conflicted
devotion to God. Fighting broke out between Jews and Romans in a
war that lasted until the destruction of Jerusalem in ad 70. Thirty
years before, the Roman emperor Caligula had also attempted to
violate the temple in Jerusalem but was assassinated before his

46
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orders could be carried out. Probably insane, Caligula had declared

his own divinity and loyal gentiles in the town of [amnia had
erected an altar to him.When the altar was summarily destroyed by
Jews, Caligula became enraged and ordered a gianl gilded statue of
himself as Zeus to be constructed and placed within the Temple.
The desecration, had it gone ahead, would have certainly resulted in
rebellion against the imperial cult, the Empire and the emperor. It
was only in provinces where the memory of conquest had faded and
prosperity under Rome had flourished that the imperial cult found
loyal supporters.
During the late Roman Empirereligion in Italy and throughout the
imperial provinces was undergoing change. Mystery cults had never
been more popular, monotheism had taken root and the imperial
throne had been split in two. In ad 286 the reigning emperor,
Diocletian, appointed Maximian as his colleague and co-regent, and
both assumed the title of 'Augustus', indicating possession of almost
sacred power derived from the first emperor of that name. These co-
emperors chose 'Caesars' who would act as lieutenants and ease the
governing of the Empire, but the shift in power had influences on
the imperial cult, which became eclipsed by whatever god an
emperor seemed to favour. Aurelian had previously proclaimed
himself the living embodiment of the Unconquered Sun, and
Diocletian followed his lead by adopting Jupiter as his patron god.
Diocletian's co-emperor, Maximian, became Hercules; both rulers
considered themselves avatars of their patron gods.
The choice of Jupiter as one's alter ego was obvious - Jupiter was
king of the gods and the ultimate power in the universe. One
appellation declared him 'Optimus Maximus' (Best and Greatest). A
previous emperor, Alexander Severus, who ruled from ad 225 to
235, had also associated himself with Jupiter, but under the guise of
the Romano-Syrian deity Jupiter Dolichenus. Such a fusion of
religions was common everywhere in the Empire. Local gods would
be equated with a similar Roman deity, and their respective cults
would merge. This happened in Syria, where Rome encouraged
natives to see Jupiter as a version of their own Baal, or ruling god.
So successful was Jupiter Dolichenus with Rome's soldiers that they
carried his cult to every corner of the Empire.
Syria was a source of labour (slaves and soldiers) for a thriving
Empire and these two classes were probably responsible for the
spread of the cult to the West, where it soon became the most
popular of the Syrian cults. Jupiter Dolichenus first originated in the
small town of Doliche in Commagene, and Roman depictions of the
god show him standing on the back of a bull in full military regalia,
carrying a double-axe and bolt of lightning. His consort, Juno
Dolichena, stands on a hind whenever she is depicted with him.

47
WARRIOR CULTS

Sometimes the deity is shown driving a chariot that is being pulled

by those two beasts. The cult's sacred animals were the Roman eagle
and the Syrian bull, and the twin heroes of Greece and Rome, Castor
and Pollux, were holy figures that accompanied the god.
Dolichenus's greatest attribute by far was his martial prowess, and
his appeal to legionaries as a god of war was great. But Jupiter
Dolichenus also found adherents much higher up the social scale,
among the Roman nobility. Senators and equestrians joined the cult,
and, as we have already seen, the emperor Alexander Severus
identified himself with the god. Not only did the cult have a large
sanctuary at Baalbek (Heliopolis) but its biggest temple in Rome was
actually on the Aventine Hill. Inscriptions there indicate that the
religion was organized into separate dining clubs, which may be
derived from worship originally in legionary messes. Alternatively
it could point to a Mystery-style organization, with small groups of

worshippers sharing the secret rituals of the cult. However, entire

units often dedicated themselves to Jupiter Dolichenus, which
contrasts with a rival Mystery cult of Mithras, whose members
offered up sacrifices on an individual basis. This suggests that
Jupiter Dolichenus was not interested in the personal and mystic but
favoured an extrovert and open religion.
The worship of Hercules by the co-emperor Maximian was just
one step in the sudden rise of a cult that boasted very humble
beginnings. The hero-god embodied all the classical military virtues
and found favour with emperors and soldiers alike. To the legionary,
Hercules was a mortal man who excelled in war; he was a hero
engaging in ceaseless tasks and courageous struggles. And for his
labours Hercules was welcomed on to Olympus as a god. Of course,
Maximum wanted to be associated with this hero. Hercules was a
man of action, half-man and half-god - exactly the traits that another
emperor, Commodus, saw in himself. This emperor encouraged the
growth of the cult as an alternative to the many Eastern Mystery
cults current in Rome, and considered himself a reincarnation of the
god. A statue of Commodus in the Capitoline Museum depicts him
dressed as Hercules, complete with lion-skin and giant club. His
obsession with the divine strongman went further. Commodus was
killed just as he was about to enter the gladiatorial arena in a test of
his Herculean fighting prowess! When paganism surfaced briefly
under Emperor Julian, who tried in vain to suppress Christianity as
the imperial religion, he was actually hoping that Hercules would
take Christ's place. There were definite similarities: Hercules was
born semi-divine and performed many miraculous deeds during his
lifetime; following an agonizing death, his soul went to the
Underworld, but the gods raised him up to Heaven, from where he
guided and watched over his worshippers. But the cult had no

48
 CULTS OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE

interest in mysteries or revelations, and its emphasis was on

surviving the here-and-now.
Originally Hercules was an Argive folk-hero, with a tradition that
encompassed almost every town and village in Greece. As each
locality claimed an association with Hercules, the list of his
adventures continued to grow. Among his most famous are the
Twelve Labours given to him by the mythical King Eurystheus. The
worship of heroes like Hercules differed from worship of the gods,
and instead they were paid elaborate funerary rites in the hope of
gaining their protection. When colonists settled in southern Italy.
they took their heroes with them and it was at the beginning of the
third century bc that the cult of Hercules reached Rome. At first it
caught the imagination of philosophers and scholars, as well as
more humble folk. Pythagoreanism and Stoicism focused on
Hercules as an example of moral fortitude and strength of character,
a figure worthy of admiration and imitation rather than worship.
This aspect of personal sacrifice would be echoed in the Persian cult
of Mithras, the sun god who also found favour among the legions.
Syncretization with the Unconquered Sun god was a future that
several popular Roman cults, including that of Hercules, looked
forward to. Roman philosophers regarded Hercules as a devotee of
Apollo, the Greek god of light. Some even believed he was an actual
incarnation of that god.
It was the emperor Aurelian who first established a cult of the

Unconquered Sun in ad 274 and elevated him almost to the rank of

Rome's foremost deity. Aurelian had been inspired by Rome's
emperor of some fifty years before, the Syrian boy-priest Elagabalus,
who reigned briefly from ad 218 to 222. The youth had so attracted
the Syrian legions that they made him an emperor and took him to
Rome, where he immediately established the cult of his native sun
god, Elagabal. This was the sun god from Emesa who originally
began as a Syrian Baal but followed the trend for the growth of sun
cults. The sun had commonly come to be appreciated as the most
powerful of the heavenly bodies, and the supreme symbol of
divinity.
While he reigned, Elagabalus had little grasp of imperial politics,
throwing open the Senate to all races and describing the members of
that august body as mere slaves. The fourteen-year-old priest even
imported to Rome from Emesa the god's sacred black stone, which
was associated with Elagabal's worship. With theology uppermost in
his mind, he began the process of usurping all other religions and
placing at the Empire's head a single god and a single unifying faith.
Two temples were built for Elagabal in the imperial capital, but
young Elagabalus was assassinated before the cult could really take
root. However, the idea of a single, all-powerful deity that

49
WARRIOR CULTS

encompassed every other and was represented on earth by a god-

emperor would not go away.

Mithras, Lord of Light

It would be Christianity in the end that became the official religion

of the Roman Empire, but the pagan sun gods did not give up
without a fight. Constantine, the first Christian emperor, had
previously been a devotee of the Unconquered Sun, Helios. He had
replaced the head of the huge statue of the god Helios in the Forum
with his own, and his associations with the sun god were numerous.
Constantine repeatedly equated Christ with the pagan Helios; he
saw a great similarity between the two religions.
There was one sun god in the later centuries of the Roman Empire
who seriously challenged Christ for state recognition. The Persian
sun cult of Mithras competed with Christianity, and lost just. . . .

Contemporary writers sometimes thought of Mithras as a mere

shadow, a pagan copy of Christianity. There were definite
similarities, if not links, between the two religions, and this
relationship remarkable, since Mithras was primarily a cult of
is

warriors not pacifists.On many levels, in fact, the worship of

Mithras stands out from that of both the traditional Latin gods and
the many imported Mystery cults. It was a Mystery religion with
massive appeal, a religion made for the traveller and soldier, a
religion thatseemed to capture the very essence of the imperium.
Mithraism was the state religion that should have been.
The cult, like many in the late Empire, was an import from the
East. Mithras is commonly depicted wearing a forward-swept
'Phrygian' cap, which identifies him as coming from Asia Minor,
Rome's major contact point with the East. It was a land long familiar
with Mithras. In the first century bc his name was popularly taken
up by local kings, such as Mithridates of Pontus, as well as those in
Commagene and Cappodocia. The god also appears on a relief on the
mausoleum of Antiochus I (king of Commagene) at Nemroud Dagh.
It was during the military campaign against the pirates of Cilicia in

the mid-first century bc that Romans first encountered this god.

Plutarch records in his Life of Pompey that the pirates made
gods on Mount Olympus, one of
sacrifices to several of their oriental
which was Mithras. In the first century ad, in his poem Thebais, the
poet Statius mentions Mithras and his famous struggle with the
mythological bull from which it would seem that the name of
Mithras was common knowledge at about this time.
When worshippers of Mithras began establishing temples in the
city of Rome, there was little public outcry and no senatorial
condemnation or fuss. Unlike several other Mystery cults, such as
those of Isis, Bacchus or Cybele, Mithraism became accepted almost

50
 CULTS OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE

overnight. It had been carried to Rome by the vast population

movements occurring on a daily basis throughout the Empire. Most
of this population was enslaved, and much of the traffic was from
east to west. As the slaves travelled, their faith came with them, for
as slaves they had nothing else. When large concentrations of slaves
were put to work together in Italy on the large state-owned farms or
in workshops, it is hardly surprising that old religions from
homelands far away were re-established and worship began once
more. So it was, too, with those provincial legionaries forced to
leave their native soil and spend a lifetime marching from one end
of the Empire to the other.
The old Roman frontiers have been the source of many
inscriptions and dedications from soldiers to Mithras, and the
movements of these troop units can often be tracked back to a station
in the East. Mithras travelled with these people, and temples were
eventually to be found around the entire Mediterranean. Many were
clustered in the ports and cities on important trade routes; it was
there that slaves, soldiers and other converts would meet and
establish a local temple for worship. In Rome, forty-five temples of
Mithras (Mithraea) were in use; similarly, at the great cosmopolitan
centres of Alexandria, Carthage and London Mithraea were in
abundance. The ports of Piraeus, Puteoli and Ostia also had temples
of Mithras. Although the god's name originally meant 'light', it later
came to be associated with the word 'contract' and Mithras became
popular with traders and merchants as a deity of oaths and
obligations. Undoubtedly the greatest spread of Mithraea was
throughout the legionary forts and camps of the Roman army. Only
a small proportion of these have survived to be identified, but the
soldiers of the Empire were the most numerous worshippers of the
god. And his appeal was strong.
Imperial acceptance of the god was never very significant. The
first to acknowledge Mithraism was Nero, who invited Tiridates, the

king of Armenia, to Rome. According to Pliny the Elder, the king

(who was also a high priest of the cult) was accompanied by
members of a Persian priesthood called Magi. They initiated the
emperor into magic banquets, which must have been the
sacramental meal that was eaten by worshippers of Mithras.
In some ways, Mithraism and the plethora of other Mystery cults
were attempts to rekindle something that had been lost in Roman
religion. The traditional gods of Rome when it was no more than a
single city state had at first been local, the worshippers members of
the same tribe or district, and the rituals personal. The rise of the
vast Republic had turned these religions into state organizations that
appealed to Roman citizens and subjects far and wide. They became
impersonal, extrovert and very public. Perhaps it was the sheer size

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of these official religions that allowed the Mysteries to gain a

foothold. In addition, they provided worshippers with answers -
about the universe and life itself. Some, such as the cult of Bacchus,
offered immortality to the faithful and divine punishment for the
uninitiated. The establishment feared them, not least because they
promoted licentiousness and an emotional emphasis to worship.
Mithraism was certainly one of these Mystery cults, but it was at the
same time remarkably different. The initiates were bound to follow
the god's moral guidelines of truth and chastity. Mithras himself was
not just a spiritual force but had a detailed life history, beginning
with his birth from the rock and culminating in his heroic struggle
with the sacred bull. This is the most common depiction of Mithras,
standing astride a bull with a dagger plunged deep into its neck. It
is the Tauroctone, the god's sacrifice of the cosmic bull for the

benefit of humankind. From the animal all life and fertility flowed.
With sadness, the hero carried out the duty given to him by Ahura-
Mazda, supreme god of light. Mithras's trials and labours were all
well known, but none of his life had been ritualized, as was usual
with the Mysteries. Unusually, there was no annual drama
celebrating the birth, death or life of Mithras. Perhaps an important
factor in the lack of a rebirth drama lay in the fact that Mithras didn't
die each year, like Adonis or Bacchus or Persephone in the Eleusian
Mysteries. He had died once and been reborn as a god; he had
become immortal and, with perseverance and sacrifice, so would his
initiates.
The Mithraic aspect of sacrifice and asceticism did appeal to
Rome's soldiers, and much of Mithraism mirrored army life. With its
emphasis on austerity, toil and struggle, the cult spoke directly to
the tough legionary. He could identify with its ideals, as opposed to
the self-consuming and contemplative cults of the intellectuals.
Mithras was not a god of violence and killing, but of soldiering in
general. For the soldier, Mithras was the unconquerable god; one of
his later titles was 'Sol Invictus', the Unconquered Sun. The god had
struggled through many adversities, but his courage and
determination guaranteed him success. For initiates of Mithraism,
life itselfwas seen as a battle between good and evil, angels and
demons, and his worshippers could easily have seen in the great
wars of their time some cosmic significance. The cult was able to
elevate the warrior from apologist for his crimes to fighter on the
frontline for the destiny of the universe. And for initiates this
conflict continued even in death.
The cult's military-style organization revolved around seven ranks
that a worshipper could pass through; the membership was all-male
and the emphasis was on ordeals and initiation trials. Initiates had
tomatch Mithras's toughness and austerity, especially during the

52
 CT i
rS OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE

ritual tests forentrance and promotion. It is difficult to say whether

Mithras "the Warrior' was worshipped in Asia Minor, from where he
originated, or whether this aspect of the god was an invention l>\ the
Romans, but the martial nature of Mithras certainly flourished and
developed with the legions. One of the ranks, attainable by passing
a test, was actually called 'Soldier'. The worshipper had to push a
crown from his head so that it fell to his shoulder. As he did this he
would state, 'Mithras is my crown.' Other ordeals tested the
initiate's courage and determination and allowed him to prove
himself to his god. One test involved the aspirant's hands being tied
behind his back with chicken guts, then he would be thrown across
or have to jump a water-filled pit while blindfolded. At the
Mithraeum excavated at Carrawburgh a pit used for this purpose has
been found. Other horrible rites took place in the temples, including
ritual brandings and tortures. Bloody swords are reported and
depicted, to be used in a ritualized mock murder. But rumours were
circulated of actual human sacrifices during ceremonies. Whether
true or false, the emperor Commodus insisted that an actual
execution be carried out during his initiation. The emperor's
extravagance was a blasphemy; the ordeals and staged murder were
an invention to create fear for fear's sake, not to enact a Mithraic
fable. The ordeals would have helped the new member to feel a
sense of personal achievement and a bonding that was far stronger
than that created by mere attendance. Again, this was a military
reinforcement, somewhat similar to the harshness of basic army
training, seemingly so cruel, pointless and brutal, but for a purpose.
The titles of the initiation levels were all masculine, which
reflects the restriction of membership to men, and their meanings
were astrological, each rank representing one of the planets. These
levels, in ascending order, were:

Raven The Raven was Ahura-Mazda's messenger and represented Mercury. On

frescos and mosaics the initiate holds a cup and the caduceus (the winged staff with
two serpents entwined around it).
Bride Since the congregation was all-male, this title had a masculine ending. The
Bride carried a lamp, and wore a diadem and yellow veil, representing Venus.
Soldier Unsurprisingly, the rank of Soldier was equated with Mars, and initiates at
this level are depicted in brown clothes and carry a spear and legionary's pack.
Lion The Lion represented Jupiter and he clutched a lightning bolt in one hand and
a rattle in the other. He was associated with fire. Since water was hostile to fire, honey
was used to wash with during Lion initiations. It was commonly regarded as a
magical substance that preserved and sweetened, cleansed and purified.
Persian Initiates who had attained this rank are depicted in grey clothing and wield
the implements of agriculture: a scythe, a sickle and ears of corn. Astrologically, the
Persian was the moon.
Messenger of the Sun As the title would imply, this rank was associated with the
sun. In mosaics the emblems of a crown radiating light, a burning torch and a whip
are featured. The whip was used to drive the sun's chariot across the sky each day.

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WARRIOR CULTS
Father This was the highest rank in Mithraism. The Father was usually chosen by
the worshippers of that temple and he presided over worship, initiations and the
astrological destiny of the cultists. He is represented as a red-robed figure wearing a
Phrygian cap and holding a sickle and a staff. He is Saturn.

It is tempting to think that during ceremonies worshippers would

have donned the clothing and paraphernalia appropriate to their

rank, but for that there is no evidence. Together the congregation
would gather in the small Mithraeum and conduct its sacred rituals.
Few excavated temples could hold more than 100 worshippers;
most were much smaller. The oblong temples were symbolic caves,
imitating the mythical cave in which Mithras slew the sacred bull.
To this end a Mithraeum was usually of a sunken design or a
converted cellar. Long benches lined the sides of the tiny room, and
at the far end stood a statue of Mithras wrestling with the sacred
bull, flanked on either side by his retainers, the dadiphori. These
torch-bearers accompanied Mithras in much of the cult's artwork.
Reliefs and altars also decorated the end of the Mithraeum and the
room would have been filled with the sweet smell of pine-cone
incense. Mithraism actually practised baptism and the members ate
a sacramental meal. Other ritual acts included the imitation of
animals sacred to the god - initiates flapped their arms like the
raven and growled like lions. Reliefs in Mithraea that have been
excavated show worshippers wearing animal and bird masks to
support these reports. It is likely that some of the ceremonies ended
with the sacrifice of a bull to the god. Much as Mithras enriched the
world with the life-giving fertility of the dying bull, so too his
worshippers would kill a bull, not for the benefit of the god but for
the benefit of mankind.
The Tauroctone was the central event of Mithras 's life and
provides the theme for much of his worship. He was given the task
to capture the first living creature - the sacred bull - by the Persian
supreme deity, Ahura-Mazda, who sent the order via his Raven
messenger. Both Mithras and Ahura-Mazda fought on the side of
good against evil, represented by Ahriman, Lord of Darkness, and
his army of demons. The entire basis for Mithraism is the dualism of
light and darkness: the eternal fight between good and evil. When
Mithras had captured the bull, he dragged it into a cave and, against
his wishes, he slew it. Many statues and paintings preserve this
moment, often with the sun and moon flanking the struggle,
sometimes along with the two torch-bearers, Cautes and Cautopates.
Mithras's faithful hound accompanies the god, while Ahriman's
demons, Snake, Ant and Scorpion, attempt to poison the dying bull
and prevent this miracle of life taking place. Mithras is dressed in
typical 'Persian' costume, with long trousers, tunic and pointed
Phrygian cap. There is a look of sorrow on his face. To the cult, this

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 CULTS OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE

event has as much importance as the Crucifixion - from death Life is

born. Although there were several concurrent interpretations as to
the meaning of the Tauroctone, the central idea is that all life flowed
from the bull. To release it, the bull must be killed. Some
representations of the bull depict corn-stalks flowing from the knife
wound, or give the bull three stalks of corn where his tail should be.
This symbolizes the fertile nature of the bull and illustrates its
importance in agrarian societies. Mythologically, bull's blood is
magically potent, even poisonous. An inscription in the Sancta
Prisca Mithraeum in Rome reads: 'And you saved us by having shed
the eternal blood.'
The death of the sacred bull allowed all life to flourish, including
the first human couple. Mithras protected them from the ravages of
Ahriman and then made ready to depart the mortal world. He
brought together his disciples, Cautes and Cautopates, and ate a
celebratory Last Supper. This event was remembered in Mithraism
by a ritual meal of bread and wine. Then Mithras ascended to
Heaven in the sun god's chariot, and from Heaven he continued to
watch over his followers. Some accounts tell of his eventual return
to destroy the world in fire and lead the faithful to Heaven.
The cult had an interest in astrology, no doubt brought from its
origins in Persia. The advancement of initiates from planet to planet
and further into the Mysteries was seen as the ascent of a ladder up
which the soul travelled. The ultimate goal was Heaven. Ladder-
shaped amulets of bronze have been discovered in tombs, along with
incriptions bearing the names of the planets.
There are two opposing accounts of Mithras 's birth into the world.
Usually he springs from the Generative Rock, fully armed with knife
and torch and ready for action. His alternate birth is from the Cosmic
Egg (often surrounded by the zodiac circle, in Mithraic iconography).
This account clearly indicates some Greek influence in later
Mithraism. Greek influence in the religion began almost as soon as the
West learned of its existence. Mithras as bull-slayer is also not a
Persian artistic idea, but may have been directly copied from a Greek
Victory sculpture at Pergamum in Asia Minor. The cult never did have
a unified mythology, since there was no unified cult. Each Mithraeum
carried out its worship independent from the rest. The different
monuments and inscriptions show little consensus of symbolism,
although the character and nature of the cult seem to have remained
geographically uniform. It would appear that some Fathers of Mithras
did not understand what their artisans were painting or carving. For
example, in some instances Mithras is put in opposition to the sun, in
others he is the sun. As to his birth, is he born of rock or egg?
At the time of the emperor Commodus, who ruled from ad 180 to
192, Mithras was becoming increasingly associated with the sun.

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WARRIOR CULTS

The god's solar aspect went back over two centuries, and his
increasing popularity had led to his assimilation of Ahura-Mazda.
To the Romans now he was Mithras the Warrior, and also Mithras
the Lord of Light and Supreme God. As we have already seen, other
sun gods would also find popularity in the Empire, merging to
become the single 'Sol Invictus' that was championed by Elagabalus,
Aurelian and Licinus. The sanguinafy interest of Commodus with
the cult did not dissuade potential initiates; rather, the religion
expanded further, becoming ever more popular. One definite
advantage for Mithraism was the religion's relaxed approach to the
worship of other gods. Mithras was not a jealous god. In fact,
sculpture and reliefs devoted to other gods, such as Aion, Cybele
and Serapis, have been discovered in Mithraea.
Some scholars have likened Mithraism's non-alignment, coupled
with its secrecy, to that of Freemasonry. It crossed social, political
and religious borders, yet bound together the initiates with both fear
and camaraderie. Like the Masons, devotees of Mithras pledged to
help each other no matter what, forming a close-knit brotherhood.
Whether a worshipper was a senator or the lowest legionary, he had
a chance of reaching the rank of Father and leading the rituals. Even
educated slaves and freedmen were among the initiated. Women,
however, could never join the cult, but it is doubtful that a Roman
female would find the god appealing. The Mystery cult of Cybele,
which had close links with Mithraism, will have instead catered for
Roman women. As an alternative, Christianity also welcomed
women into its congregation.
Christianity offered the same cross-class equality as Mithras. It,

too, required its worshippers to live morally upstanding lives. But,

unlike Mithras, it welcomed women, who were attracted by the
religion's tenderness. This was a trait that was denied by Mithraic
worship. By the third century ad both cults found themselves in
competition with one another for the status as the major religion of
the Roman Empire.
The similarities between Christianity and Mithraism may not
seem significant, until certain aspects of the warrior god's mythic
past are examined. Mithras was born on 25 December and, one
account has it, shepherds were present at his birth. Throughout his
life he strove to help humankind, and constantly fought on the side

of light against the evil forces of darkness. His greatest deed was a
cosmic sacrifice - a murder carried out so that all life could prosper
- and before he ascended to Heaven with the aid of his master, he
ate a sacramental meal with his followers. When the end of the
world is close, Mithras will return to engulf it in fire and he will lead
his worshippers to immortality. Only those loyal to him in life will
join him on this journey. The similarity is quite striking. Did Mithras

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 CULTS OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE

borrow from Christianity or was Mithras the inspiration for the

worship of Jesus Christ? Ancient writers also asked this question,
and came up with few answers. In Celsus's True Discourses (dating
from c. ad 178-180) the writer directly compares the two religions.
Justin Martyr believed that the pagans had copied the Christians and
incorporated myth and ritual into their own worship. More modern
thought favours the reverse, particularly in connection with the Last
Supper and the practice of baptism. In addition, early Nativity
scenes depict the Magi in 'Persian' costume, with Phrygian cap and
long trousers, rather than as kings. It is unlikely, however, that
wholesale plagiarism occurred. As Christianity grew, it obviously
took its converts from other religions, and these were most probably
(since they had much in common) other Mystery cults, of which
Mithras was one. It was not difficult to imagine ex-Mithraists taking
with them ideas about the universe, and how this could be
translated into ceremony, across to Christianity. In the eyes of the
ancient world, Christianity must have seemed to be just another
Mystery cult, offering some of the same comforting rituals and
beliefs as the others.
To support this idea, it is an interesting fact that the Christian
apologists, so virulently anti-pagan, bitterly attacked the Mysteries
and thoroughly condemned them. This may at first not seem to be
proof that many early Christians had connections with the Mystery
cults, but it was the resemblance of Mystery rituals with Christianity
that frightened and disturbed these writers.
In the end the religion of Mithraism could not compete with
Christianity. As paganism battled with its rival, Mithras was
syncretized with the other sun deities, namely Apollo, Helios and
the Syrian Baals. Aurelian's newly fashioned Unconquered Sun, or
'Sol Invictus', and its cult became virtually monotheistic, absorbing
the characteristics and attributes of the other pagan gods. When the
Roman emperor Constantine, a staunch devotee of the Unconquered
Sun, became a Christian, the demise of the traditional gods and of
Mithraism as the prospective state religion was final.
This is not to say that some elements of the cult's beliefs and
teachings did not survive. Christianity absorbed much from the
pagan West, including the cosmic struggle that was Mithras 's raison
d'etre. The concept of the opposed forces of light and darkness
provides Christianity with its basic moral theme, the defeat of the
Devil.One of the early Christian scholars, Augustine, reflected this
dualism in his City of God and City of the World. In addition, it was
taken up not as a theme but as a definitive religion in its own right
by the heretic Christian cult of the Gnostics. The Gnostic teachings
penetrated deep into the heart of Christianity and were important in
the thoughts and beliefs of later medieval groups such as the

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Cathars, Bogomils, Waldensians and the Knights Templar. This latter

group were, much like the warrior initiates of Mithras, dedicated to
soldiering as well as to God. And it is strange to think that, although
separated in time by over 700 years, they, may have shared some
common beliefs and traditions.

58
CHAPTER 3

The Order of the Knights Templar

The greatest military adventure of the Middle Ages, the Crusades,

had by 1099 culminated in the defeat of hostile Arab forces and the
capture of Christendom's most holy city, Jerusalem. From there
other realms were carved out by the knights and lords until a loose
chain of Crusader territories existed in Syria and Palestine. The Holy
Land was an important prize for the Christian nobles who were
settling there and beginning to raise families. But the Crusader states
were never to be permanent kingdoms and were constantly menaced
bv the Muslim states surrounding them. Crucial to their defence was
a group of pious knights, small in number but highly disciplined
and skilled in combat. They were the Knights Templar.
This knightly order constitutes a medieval conundrum. Its origins,
its activities and beliefs, and finally its ignominious demise are all

shrouded in mystery. Much has been written about these warrior-

monks who fought in the Crusades to defend Jerusalem from the
marauding Arabs. Few of the questions asked have been
satisfactorily answered. In fact, views of the order have varied
throughout history. Nineteenth-century writers often depicted the
Order of the Knights Templar as a satanic brotherhood dedicated to
Devil-worship and the practice of heretical and blasphemous
ceremonies. More recent scholars have tended to look upon the
order with some sympathy, seeing in its persecution and fall the
machinations of European power politics. A more radical theory
contends that the Knights Templar were involved in an age-old
conspiracy to discover and guard the Holy Grail, not an actual cup
or chalice but some secret concerning the real events surrounding
Jesus's death and the survival of his bloodline into medieval times.
Whether occult practitioners or holy warriors, the Knights
Templar were indisputably extremely powerful. No other body or
individual equalled or exceeded them in authority apart from the
Pope. Blessed by this pre-eminent Bishop of Rome, the order was
also destroyed by the Pope's own Inquisition. Rumours and stories
circulated of a vast Templar treasure, of a planned Templar state, of
high-level diplomacy between European kings, as well as attempts
at reconciliation between Jews, Muslims and Christians. These
stories have a firm basis in truth; yet the order began most humbly.

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WARRIOR CULTS

The Knights Templar were inspired by an already existing

knightly order, the Knights Hospitallers. These were performing
generous and charitable services for the thousands of pilgrims who
were flocking from Europe to the new Christian Jerusalem. Many,
however, did not make it to the city, but were attacked and robbed
or even killed on the roads. Arab bandits were proving a constant
threat to travellers, and in response the French nobleman Hughes de
Payens formed a group of knights to ensure the safety of Christian
pilgrims. At first only nine men strong, the tiny order called itself
the Soldiers of Christ. It may have been active from as early as 1111,
but by 1118 the group was granted part of the king of Jerusalem's
palace for use as its headquarters. The part given over had
previously been a mosque of great significance and was thought to
be the site of the Temple of Solomon. Because of this latter
association, the order became known as the Order of the Knights of
the Temple of Solomon in Jerusalem, or the Knights Templar. Why
King Baldwin II should have given over a portion of his palace to
nine bedraggled knights on a mission to make safe the roads of the
Holy Land is still a mystery.
The great strength of thisnew order was its permanence. Local
soldiers were part-time warriors fighting to defend the land that had
become their home. Other knights and their vassals from Europe
fought for a short period and then returned to their estates. But
Jerusalem needed a standing army of devoted soldiers if it was to
survive, and it seemed that the Knights Templar were to be that
force. But only nine men? The Holy Land covered a vast area, much
of it inhospitable wilderness, criss-crossed by ancient travel routes.
How could nine men defend such an area or watch over the
thousands of pilgrims making their way to Jerusalem?
However they performed their avowed task, the Templars were
eminently successful, mixing martial ardour with vows of poverty,
chastity and obedience. Such morality was unequalled among
knights of the period, who seemed to favour ostentatiousness and
competition. A measure of the order's poverty and brotherhood is
signalled by a seal of the Temple which depicts two knights
mounted on a single horse. Clothing worn by the order during the
first few years was second-hand, and nothing that could encourage

pride was allowed; humility and obedience were the central tenets
of the cult. Frequent references to 'the poor fellow soldiers of Christ'
are made in official Templar documentation, as if to emphasize the
order's humble philosophy. Other self-imposed restrictions existed,
all revolving around the unique loyalty that the order owed to the

Church. Hughes de Payens visualized his knights as a body of

warrior-monks, devoted to God and the Church, as well as to the art
of warfare.

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 THE ORDKR OF THE KNIGHTS TEMPLAR

Funding for the fledgeling order was quickly forthcoming. King

Baldwin II had already granted part of his palace to the Templars,
and various sections of the Church in the Holy Land followed his
generous lead. When Hughes journeyed to Europe, he was warmly
met by members of the clergy there. The founder of the Cistercian
Order, St Bernard, the Abbot of Clairvaux, was an immediate
supporter of the Templars and continued to be so until his death. In
fact. Bernard's uncle, Andre de Montbard, was one of the group's
founder members. Bernard ranked as perhaps the most influential
ecclesiastic in Christendom, being able to advise (and even make
nominations for) the Pope. It is this man's considerable influence
with the papal authorities that gained the Knights Templar such
close links with Rome. Western nobility, too, paid generously to
support the activities of the order. All thought the cause a worthy
one, since by funding the Templars, they were helping further the
cause of the Crusaders in the Holy Land and could be ranked among
the friends of the monastic order without actually going as far as to
join it. The practice of religious orders depending on the charitable
donations of influential patrons was a common one in medieval
times,and gifts of territory and money were readily forthcoming. It
seemed that every influential lord wanted to display his piety,
wealth and commitment to the fight against the infidel by making a
donation.
By far the greatest gift that was bestowed upon the Order of the
Knights Templar was papal blessing, first from Pope Honorius II and
then from Pope Innocent II. In the twelfth century, all nations, all
kings, looked to the papacy as the ultimate authority in
Christendom, and to have the Pope's blessing meant a great deal.
The ties with established religion would grow as the order itself
grew. At first, the knights had followed the Rule of the Order of St
Benedict, but the rapid development of the order required that a
separate and specific rule be created to cater for the order's unique
mission. King Baldwin II encouraged Hughes de Payens, as the
leader of the knights, to approach the papacy and seek a new rule.
The mediator was to be Bernard of Clairvaux. His influence with
Pope Honorius II was strong, but the Pope was already well disposed
to the knights and saw in them great potential for the Church, both
in the newly conquered Holy Land and in Europe. If the papacy
were to take the Templars under its wing, it would at last have a
fighting force independent of the feuding kings and princes. The
Templars had already shown themselves an effective and popular
force in Jerusalem, and one that could support the development of
papal authority in Syria. Honorius may even have seen in the
warrior-monks the flowering of a papal army capable of marching
against any secular opposition.

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WARRIOR CULTS

1128 the Knights Templar received their rule. The Council of

In
Troyes, which decided the matter, was attended by the most
influential men in France, with the exception of St Bernard, who
was ill. The Abbot was involved in the drafting of the new
constitution, however, and the rule incorporated much of what was
already in the Benedictine Rule. Hughes de Payens was pronounced
the first Grand Master of the orderfand a say in the order's affairs
was granted to the Patriarch (or Bishop) of Jerusalem, as well as to
the Pope. The rule was long and its seventy-two articles covered
every aspect of daily life. Of paramount importance was the
emphasis on monastic matters. The order would be entirely
communal, sharing food and material goods; even personal letters, if
received, were to be read aloud before the Master of the order.
Prayers were to be said several times each day, as in any other
monastic order, and meals were to be eaten in strict silence. New
articles were later added. In fact, modifications were made several
times and hundreds of new articles were eventually added to the
rule. The Master of the order was fully authorized to modify the
Rule of the Temple.
With the recognition by the Pope of the Knights Templar as a
monastic order, the power and wealth of the group grew rapidly. The
Council of Troyes had given a seal of approval to the order and the
number of recruits and donations of both money and land increased.
Hughes de Payens donated all his lands to the cause, and new
recruits, the young nobility of Europe, were expected to do likewise.
Almost immediately the Templars changed from a tiny group of less
than a dozen knights and hardly any land to an international
organization with estates, lands, officials and a capital in Jerusalem.
Hughes de Payens and other influential knights of the order
travelled to all the major European kingdoms to drum up support.
They were very successful.
By the middle of the twelfth century, the Knights Templar were one
of the most wealthy and influential bodies in Europe. They owned
large tracts of land in England, Scotland, France, Spain, Portugal,
Germany and Austria. estates were sources of revenue vital for
These
were not simply donations of land but of
the order's survival, for they
farms, animals, bondsmen, mills and other elements of the rural
economy. While the Temple of Solomon site in Jerusalem became the
order's headquarters, these European territories were its money-
making colonies, providing not just financial help but food, political
support and personnel. Only the papacy itself could boast more
extensive international connections. Preceptories were established as
local bases from which to administer the Temple's lands and admit
new recruits. The order's first preceptory was founded at Troyes on
land donated by one of the councillors.

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 THE ORDER OF THE KNIGHTS TEMPLAR

Some of the distinctive hallmarks of the Temple were not adopted

immediately but came to the order some time later. The white robes
worn by the Cistercians were copied as a symbol of the purity of life
that was expected of the knights, and the famous emblem of the red
cross came during the start of the Second Crusade. This may have
served a dual purpose, as much to differentiate themselves from the
Cistercian monks as to advertise the knights' special relationship
with the Church. In 1162 this relationship became even more special
with the issuing of a papal bull by Pope Alexander III that granted
the Knights Templar freedom from all tithes and taxes and awarded
them the unique judicial position of being unable to be tried in a
court of law. Knights of the order were legally responsible only to
the representatives of the Pope. This edict set up the Temple as
virtually a church within a church. It even possessed its own burial
grounds and chaplains, and was able to receive tithes from its
estates, just as the Church did.

The Growth of Templar Possessions

Jerusalem became the headquarters of the Knights Templar from the
moment they moved into the king of Jerusalem's palace. It became
the first of many Templar possessions and a base from which others
could be founded. The portion of the royal residence granted to
them had, prior to the conquest of Jerusalem in 1099, been the Al-
Aqsa mosque. This in turn was built on the presumed site of the
great Temple of Solomon, centre of ancient Israel. The king's palace
was dominated by the distinctive Dome of the Rock, and this latter
building featured on the seals of the order's Master. The Dome of the
Rock influenced the Templars both architecturally and symbolically,
since it was built by Islamic architects with eight interior walls
designed to hold up the famous golden dome. The octagon within
the circle became an important geometric symbol to the order, and
octagonal chapels were constructed in imitation throughout Europe
on Temple grounds.
Preceptories, the local headquarters of the order, sprang up in
every region where there were estates to be managed. These land-
holdings were organized into large Templar provinces, each
commanded by a Master who was appointed by the order's Grand
Master. This latter position at the very head of the cult was
automatically given to the Master of Jerusalem, the region which
was, after all, the most powerful and influential of the Temple's
provinces. By far the most productive province was France, but good
relationswere not always maintained with the French throne. In the
end it was the French King Philippe who pounced on the Templars
in 1307 and utterly destroyed them. The reaction of other nations to
the sudden growth of this wealthy military and monastic order was

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varied. Spanish Templars were well liked by their government,

principally because of the need in that land for a well-armed fighting
force to challenge the Muslim armies of the south. Attacking
originally from North Africa, the Arab invaders had been a thorn in
the Spanish side and the defence of Christian lands had constituted
a ready-made crusade. The Templars there were rarely shipped out
to the Holy Land or elsewhere; after all, there were infidels in
abundance to be killed right there in Spain. That each Spanish
Templar swore an oath of fealty to his king gives some measure of
the degree of co-operation between the two.
During Hughes de Pay ens 's visit to England in 1128 to advertise
the existence of the order, he was warmly welcomed by King Henry
I. Two preceptories were conferred upon the Grand Master at this

time, one at Dover and another at Shipley, in Essex. An English

Master was also established to oversee the new (and rapidly
widening) territories being donated. Hugh d'Argentein was the first
Master. He was followed by Osto de St Omer and he in his turn by
Richard de Hastings. In Britain, as in other European countries,
power was secured at the very highest levels, ensuring that the order
was well connected and in a position to get what it wanted. The
English Master of the Temple was given the right to sit in on the
government's Parliament, mainly due to his position as one of the
major landholders of the realm, and he was also head of all the
nation's orders, not just his own.
Henry I's successor, Stephen, was even better disposed towards
the Knights Templar, since his father had been one of the leaders of
the First Crusade. King Stephen allowed the organization to spread
across the entire country and preceptories were established on lands
donated by such august personages as the Earl of Derby, the Earl of
Warwick and even Stephen's wife, Mathilda. London became the
centre of Templar operations in England, with the first headquarters,
the 'Old Temple' at Holborn, forming a self-sufficient community. It
was quickly replaced by the 'New Temple'. Today this is known as
Temple Bar, and the original round church used by the order still
stands. The Master of England assembled the country's chief officers
here for an annual meeting, and the Templar precinct was important
not just for the Templars but for London as a whole. It was the
presence of the Temple and its wealth that helped the city become
an international centre of finance.
The next king, Henry II, remained on good terms with the knights,
and they in turn tried their best to defuse the ecclesiastical row with
his archbishop, Thomas a Becket. But the close association between
the Temple and the English monarchy reached a peak during the
reign of Richard I, known as the Lionheart. He took the throne in
1189 and spent much of his life in the Holy Land, as a prominent

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 THE ORDER OF THE KNIGHTS TEMPLAR

participant in the Third Crusade to recapture Jerusalem from the

Muslim leader Saladin. It would have been unusual, then, if Richard
had not been familiar with, and strongly allied to, the Knights
Templar. In fact, he seems to have been something of an associate
member, able to make use of the order's facilities and ships, but not
required to take the obligatory monastic vows. When the king fled
from the Holy Land, accused of plotting the murder of a Christian
ally, he wore the uniform of a Templar and travelled incognito with
members of the order. The assassination had been connected to
Richard via a mercenary sect of Muslims called the Assassins, who
were thought to have been commissioned by the king, and the
Templars had relations with this group too. Chapter 4 tells the story
of this strange cult and the way in which it could have been linked
to Richard. The king had numerous dealings with the Knights
Templar, and after he had captured the island of Cyprus, he sold it
to the knights for use as a base. For a time, the island did become a
Temple stronghold and the centre of its eastern operations.
Extensive properties across England were the source of the order's
power in the country rather than special political affiliations with
the government and the crown. Such relationships existed and were
closely bound, but they were based on real power in the towns and
villages of the land. The holdings of the Temple are impossible to
calculate today, encompassing as they did hundreds of farms,
churches, villages and small estates. Modern estimates suggest that
therewere seventy-four major Templar possessions, and there were
thirty well-established preceptories in England. But the knights did
not depend on land-ownership alone for their income. Their need to
transport knights, horses, supplies and arms to the frontline in the
Holy Land had meant the development of an entire Templar naval
fleet. With the tremendous business acumen that characterized their

existence, the Templars employed the large vessels as cargo ships for
exporting wool sheared on their lands. Pilgrims wanting safe
passage to Jerusalem put their faith in the military might of the
Templars and sailed with them, but were required to pay
handsomely for it. La Rochelle was the centre of Templar naval
activities on the Atlantic coast, and it saw much traffic both to and
from the Holy Land. The last leg of the journey to England ended at
either the Thames wharf of the London preceptory or at Bristol. At
this latter port, the Temple dominated much of the local economy,
since it based the greater part of its naval strength there while it sat
in English waters.
While Bristol depended on the Knights Templar for a great deal of
its prosperity, there were other, smaller, towns that owed their very

existence to the order. Baldock, a village in Hertfordshire, was

founded by the order and derives its name from the Old French for

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'Baghdad', reflecting the single-minded obsession of the

organization. The common occurrence of the word 'temple' as a
place-name even today testifies to the prevalence of their
possessions in England. There were tracts of Templar land and
Templar buildings in Scotland and Ireland also. The major Scottish
preceptory was near Edinburgh, at the modern village of Temple,
and another preceptory is known to have existed at Maryculter, near

Aberdeen. In Ireland there was a preceptory at Dublin and at least

five others existed elsewhere. The details of many other holdings in
both Scotland and Ireland are now lost to modern historians.
In England the Templars were able to gain unprecedented powers,
the most fundamental being the ability to receive tithes while being
immune from the tax-collector. Metal Templar crosses adorned all
their buildings, warning away the collectors. Unfortunately for the
crown, some enterprising city-dwellers also mounted the Templar
crosses outside their own houses in an attempt to avoid paying
taxes. However, the subterfuge did not go unnoticed and Henry III
tried to put a stop to it. Exemption from taxes was not the only
privilege enjoyed by the knights. They were not liable to pay tolls on
roads and rivers, they created their own local law courts and ran
Templar fairs. Such power had never been seen before, and the
Knights Templar obviously wielded considerable high-level
influence to be able to ignore such basic laws of the land.

Power and Prestige

The Church during the Middle Ages had developed considerable
prestige and extraordinary authority, but it did not possess a
physical presence with which to back up its power, lacking troops,
commanders in the field and a fleet. It was primarily due to the
Church that the Knights Templar were able to receive all of these
things. That a small body of worldly knights would devote their
lives to the way of God was seen as a spiritually uplifting
phenomenon. But the hard political facts behind the theological
trumpeting were stubbornly secular. The Pope had seen in the first
glimmerings of Hughes de Pay ens 's order a thoroughly loyal fighting
force, divorced from petty national squabblings and dynastic
conflict. Like the established Church, the Temple took on some of
the former's money-making powers and, coupled with its own
formidable military might, it became an international banking
organization, creating wealth for the sole purpose of keeping its

troops in the field. It had no subjects to feed in times of famine, no

cities to maintain or duties other than to itself. The order existed to
fight for the freedom of Palestine, and the profits from every
farmstead, orchard, tithe, court fine or sale of wool were poured into
this endeavour. Money became such an important aspect of

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 THE ORDER OF THE KNIGHTS TEMPLAR

supporting a permanent Crusader army that it seems to have blurred

the order's focus later on. Greed and the tendency to avoid open
conflict became a characteristic of the knights who vowed to remain
poor and suffer hardship.
One of the greatest paradoxes of the Knights Templar was the
initiates' vows of poverty and their abandonment of all material
comforts while at the same time joining the richest organization in
the world. Their wealth was legendary, as was their haughtiness and
pride. The phrase 'to drink like a Templar' was current in medieval
times, and it is unlikely that they stopped at drink, despite initiates'
vows of celibacy. Such wealth was not a fleeting thing, gained in a
flurry of donations and spent on failed Crusades. The Templars may
have been responsible for the financial institutions that we know
today, since they took the creation of wealth deadly seriously, even
establishing a type of international medieval bank with the ability to
lend money and grant credit. In fact, the sophistication of the system
was such that a depositor could take away with him a letter of credit
from one Templar preceptory and present it at another. There, if the
secret codes used to identify the depositor were validated, he would
be able to withdraw the sum on the note. Only a well-established
and highly competent international group could have run such a
system.
Many other financial dealings were undertaken; loans were made
not just to merchants and minor property-owners but to lords and
kings. In theory this practice was forbidden to the Knights Templar,
since usury was not allowed by Church law. But the compulsive
desire to make money, coupled with clever wording in the definition
of money-lending, overrode this obligationand the Temple began to
dominate medieval Jewish occupation. English
this traditionally
kings often made use of the order's copious funds. King Edward I
borrowed and repaid Templar money, as did King John and King
Henry III. The latter got so heavily in debt as a result of the constant

warfare during his reign that he actually pawned the crown jewels
to the Knights Templar for a period of six years. This indicates great
trust in the order's security - so much trust, in fact, that part of the
French royal treasury was based at the order's Paris preceptory; the
knights there guarded their own treasures as well as those of the
French crown. A similar arrangement was established in England,
with the London preceptory serving for a time as one of the
country's treasuries. The order's immunity from taxes has already
been mentioned, but as if that were not enough, the Temple also
collected the taxes and donations due to the Pope, as well as a
portion of those due to the crown. In fact, along with more mundane
debt-collection, the Temple seems to have been involved in virtually
every type of financial transaction. Trust funds, pensions, dowries

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and inheritances allconcerned the cult, and anyone with money

entrusted it to the Temple.
Investors could deposit sums of money and be sure that it would
remain untouched for years to come, even after their death. Such
monies were inviolable. Even kings, who tried on occasion to lay
their hands on the funds of disgracedjords, were rebuffed. As well
as being secure, the Temple preceptories were discreet, allowing
nervous nobles to hide there. King John spent quite some time in
one or other of the order's preceptories, and so did Richard the
Lionheart. Other dignitaries, from diplomats and minor lords to
archbishops and representatives of the Pope, were welcome guests
of the Knights of the Temple of Solomon. One Templar who sought
the protection of the preceptory in Sidon did not enjoy its security
for long, for he was kidnapped by soldiers acting for the king of
Jerusalem. The knight, one Walter of Mesnil, had broken a treaty
with the sect of Muslim fanatics called the Assassins and the secure
preceptory was not secure enough to save him.
As the Temple grew in power and strength, and as kings entrusted
both their kingdoms' wealth and their own lives to the order, the
knights became arrogant about their place in the world. They
realized that few individuals or organizations could challenge their
financial might. Unlike other knights or rich landowners, the
Templars lived the frugal lifestyle of monks. According to the rule,
members of the order possessed few items of value besides their
arms and armour, their horses and riding tack; and those who
undertook agricultural work, usually the sergeants, also had the use
of farm implements. But nothing was above the sturdy and practical,
and even food was basic and bland, with a little wine and some
salted meat. The Knights Templar sought not to squander the vast
revenues that they were accumulating. The ever-spiralling costs that
resulted from the maintenance of a permanent army in Palestine had
to be met. By hard toil in the rural areas of Europe, by trade and
commerce, by a multitude of tithes and taxes, and by the generous
donations of lords, kings and archbishops, the Temple was able to
meet this cost.

Soldiers of Christ
What service had the Knights Templar promised to perform that
prompted such largesse? The cult's original directive was to protect
all pilgrims in the Holy Land. This in itself was a worthy cause, but

with an initial membership of only nine knights for the first nine
years, it would seem to have needed a force of new members more
than an abundance of gifts. There are two mysteries surrounding the
foundation of the Templars: the first concerns the exact date that this
occurred. The Crusader historian Guillaume de Tyre, writing

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 THE ORDER OF THE KNIGHTS TEMPLAR

decades after the event, declared that the order was founded by
Hughes de Payens in 1118, and goes on to say that the Templars
accepted no new members for nine years. However, other sources
state that a handful of knights had joined the cult in the years before
1126, the earliest being the Count of Anjou in 1120. If Guillaume de
Tvre is correct in his assertion that nine years passed before new
recruits joined the fledgeling order, then the KnightsTemplar may
have moved into the king of Jerusalem's palace in 1111 or before.
The second mystery is the fact that Guillaume wrote of the
Templars' activities in around 1180, but King Baldwin II's own
chronicler, Fulk de Chartres, who wrote about all minor and major
events in the Holy Land at the very time of the order's inception,
fails to mention it at all. Hughes de Payens, his holy knights and
their much-lauded mission to protect the pilgrims against Muslim
raiders go unrecorded. Why?
The Order of the Knights Templar began as a secret organization,
but upon emerging into the limelight of the Second and Third
Crusades became a small cadre of elite warriors engaging in both
military conflict and negotiation with the Muslims. What set the cult
apart from other Christian forces was not their martial skill (they did
lose battles as well as win them) but their discipline, esprit de corps
and independence from greater powers. Charges of collusion with
the infidel were brought against the Temple in the last years of its
existence and these charges helped precipitate the order's downfall.
Unlike some of the other charges wielded like swords by the
Inquisition, these had a definite foundation in truth. The Knights
Templar may have set themselves up as champions of Christendom
and the protectors of Palestine, but did in fact have little
compunction about dealing with the enemy, co-operating and
allying with the Muslims, and even fighting other Holy Orders.
By the time that the Temple had become well established in
Palestine and Europe, rumours began to circulate of pacts made with
Saracens and of unholy practices. Even the Pope began to doubt the
order's commitment to the Church. The rumours became fact when
the Templars allied themselves with the Emir of Damascus in 1259
against their arch-rivals, the Knights Hospitaller. Other pacts were
formed. The order became familiar with the communities of Muslim
fanatics called Assassins that occupied fortresses close to Templar
territory and it eventually forced them to pay regular tribute.
Unfounded rumours were current that even accused the Templars of
hiring the sinister cult to commit political murders. The death of
Conrad Montferrat at the hands of the Assassins, and the way in
which King Richard I, an associate member of the Templars, was
implicated in the murder turned rumour into plausible speculation.
IfRichard had paid the Assassins to kill his rival, would he not have

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negotiated such a deal through the Knights Templar, who were not
justneighbours of the sect but regular extorters of money from them?
Deals, alliances and diplomacy in general became the order's trade
far more often than their skill in battlefield carnage. The Templars in
Palestine were often well disposed towards the neighbouring states,
whether Christian, Muslim or Jewish. Part of the answer to the
order's tolerance of its sworn enemies must have been the regular
contact that it had with Arabs and Jews. The latter's domination of
scholarly and financial institutions brought them into regular
contact with the order, and in Jerusalem Masters of the Temple often
took Arab secretaries into their employ. Many knights actually
learned Arabic, sometimes as a result of being held as prisoners of
war, and all Templars wore beards in the fashion of the Muslims -
the only Christians in the HolyLand to do so. One story of a visiting
Arab Temple indicates this close relationship between the
to the
order and the Muslims. The Arab wished to pray at a small shrine
that had survived the Templar takeover of the Al-Aqsa mosque and
was freely allowed to do so by the knights; however, a new Templar
recruit saw the man and tried to stop him praying to Mecca,
insisting he pray as Christians do. Several times other knights tried
to hold back the recruit, until he was eventully removed from the
area and the Muslim continued to worship.
It is not impossible to envisage this tolerance as one of the initial

ideas behind the Knights Templar, for it is unlikely that the avowed
purpose of the Templars, to defend the Christian pilgrims as they
travelled, was seriously pursued. But as guides and scouts, the
Templars may well have played a crucial role. The cult was a
permanent force and was well placed to learn much about the nature
of the terrain, the enemy and the politics of the region. The close
proximity of the Muslims and the long-standing relationship that
the order had with them, while other Christian forces came and
went, testify to a new kind of strategy. In its secrecy, low
membership and sometimes questionable alignment, a picture is
painted of an armed diplomatic mission rather than an elite fighting
force. There are modern-day examples of well-trained soldiers
becoming so deeply involved with the natives of the land they have
invaded that they prefer their ways to those of their fellows. The war
in Vietnam provides us with an analogy. Elite Special Forces
personnel from the American army were sent to live and work
alongside the primitive mountain tribes on Vietnam's border in an
effort to train them to resist the invading North Vietnamese. These
Special Forces often saw in the tribesmen's tough fighting spirit and
plain, uncluttered way of life something that had already been
instilled into them during training. In comparison, the conventional
US Army soldiers were thought of by many Special Forces as crude

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 THE ORDER OF THE KNIGHTS TEMPLAR

and ignorant of local ways. And the elite forces of any war, not just
those in Vietnam, are taught to fight like their enemy to be victorious
- to become accustomed to the terrain, the Language, the clothing
and lifestyle of the enemy to such an extent that when fighting
occurs, the elite troops are forearmed with local knowledge and an
understanding of the enemy's methods.
As a fighting force, the Knights Templar were far superior to any
other Frankish (i.e. Christian) army in the Holy Land. Such strength
came not from numbers, for the Temple never had a large standing
army, but primarily in determination and discipline. Each knight
was forbidden to retreat from a foe unless he was outnumbered by at
least three to one. The knights' tenacity in battle was legendary, their
courage unswerving. It was as though they had adopted the Spartan
system of preparation for war almost wholesale. Like the Spartan
men, the Templars lived in enforced poverty, away from women,
constantly training for the battlefield and loyal to their brothers unto
death. Templar castles and strongholds were the most impregnable
known at the time, for war was their trade and the order never
lacked for opportunities to practise it.
Newly arrived in the Holy Land, the Templars joined King
Baldwin II in his attack on the Muslim city of Damascus in 1129, but
victory for the Frankish forces was not forthcoming. The Order of
the Templars was not seriously damaged by the defeat, however, and
the disastrous Second Crusade some years later gave the knights the
opportunity to really show their mettle.
Both King Conrad of Germany and King Louis VII of France set out
from Europe to restore the Crusader kingdoms after the Christian
state of Edessa had fallen to the Arabs. After an abortive march to the
Holy Land, the two kings launched an attack on Damascus in 1148.
It did not go well. At first the Franks seemed in an ideal position for

a siege and wore down the defenders inside Damascus until victory
seemed likely. Suddenly a command was given to shift a large
portion of the siege army to the south-west, under the guidance of
(so some rumours purported) the Knights Templar. No food, water or
shade was to be had in the new position and the Franks began to
complain bitterly, eventually striking camp and marching
unvictorious from Damascus. Charges were later levelled at the
Templars, accusing them of taking bribes from the besieged in
Damascus and advising the change in position while knowing full
well that, as a permanent and knowledgeable force in Palestine,
their suggestions would be heeded.
Despite such sinister accusations of complicity and bribery, the
Knights Templar had pledged to obey every command of their own
Master and vowed never to retreat in battle. For this, and for their
steadfast courage, King Louis commended them. He wrote that he

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could never have 'existed even for the smallest space of time in
these parts' without the aid of the Temple. seems that the Frankish
It

cause in Palestine would have come to a dismal end there and then
had it not been for the heroic efforts of the Templars. But the
rumours that circulated concerning the order were kept alive despite
King Louis's praise, and they were to follow the Temple to its
destruction. In 1153 the Egyptian port of Ascalon was blockaded by
the Frankish army of Jerusalem and an impressive force of Knights
Templar that had been mustered especially for the siege. The city
was successfully captured but not without incident. Part of the city's
walls had collapsed due to mining operations undertaken by the
Franks, and the Christians rushed forward to enter Ascalon.
However, according to one account, the Templars passed through
the wall first and prevented their allies from joining them. Bernard
de Tremelai, the Master of the Knights Templar, led thirty-nine other
knights into Ascalon, intent on securing the richest booty for
themselves. Greed turned into disaster as the Egyptians rallied their
forces and turned on the tiny force of Templars, killing them all.
Other eyewitness chroniclers only praise the work of the Temple in
securing Ascalon, which suggests that the story just told may have
been yet another rumour - an alternate version of events believed by
few and remembered by many.
Not every military incident was followed by accusations and bad-
feeling towards the Temple. Jerusalem had always been the very
heart of the Crusader kingdoms and in 1152 was in serious danger
of being captured by a surprise force of Saracens, who had advanced
in a series of forced marches to camp in secret on the Mount of
Olives. The daring plan was well timed, for King Baldwin III of
Jerusalem and the Master of the Knights Templar, Bernard de
Tremelai, who had not yet led his troops to their death at Ascalon,
were away fighting other Muslim armies. Baldwin III was at Tripoli
and Bernard was at Nablus with a contingent of knights. Fortunately,
the Muslim army was spotted and the remaining Templars at
Jerusalem joined with knights of the Hospitallers and a hastily
raised citizen force to ambush the Saracens at night while they slept.
The Christians were able, by dint of a surprise attack of their own,
to rout the Muslim forces and crush them as the fleeing soldiers
tried to cross the River Jordan. Again the valiant Templars had saved
the Crusaders from a catastrophic defeat.

The Templar Ritual and Religion

Every aspect of within the Order of the Knights Templar was
life
carefully regulated and controlled. The rule by which its members
lived followed closely that of the Cistercian Order, led by St Bernard
of Clairvaux, who was so prominent in championing the virtues of

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 THE ORDER OF THE KNIGHTS n MPLAR

the Templars in the first place. Both Cistercian and Templar orders
grew in wealth and importance at a prodigious rate, and it is quite
possible that their fortunes were linked by such powerful
personages as Andre de Montbard (who was also St Bernard's
nephew) and the Count of Champagne. When a Templar desired to
leave the order he had but one option open to him, to enter an oxen
stricter monastic order, and the Cistercian monasteries accepted
many Knights of the Temple of Solomon, including an ex-Master,
Everard de Barres. He had secured many benefits for the Templars
but did not wish to live out his entire life in Palestine.
Unfortunately, the position of Master of the Temple required that the
leader do just that and no exceptions to the rule could be made.
The rule touched on every aspect of life, from daily work to
prayers and punishments for misdeeds, and also to details of
organization and the obligations of rank. The members of the Order
of the Knights Templar were roughly divided into three 'castes':
knights, sergeants and chaplains. The knights were all of noble birth,
warriors and men of deep commitment to the cause who brought
with them to the Temple their lands and property. Sergeants were
members of the middle classes and formed a fully fledged infantry
force that accompanied the mounted knights into battle. Some
estimates put the number of sergeants to knights as high as nine to
one, and unlike the knights, who wore white mantles, the sergeants
wore tunics of black. The sergeants also acted as a kind of rear-
echelon group, preparing the knights for war and carrying out a
wide range of tasks within the order, being also farmers, grooms and
stewards. Sergeants formed bodyguards for important Templars and
were able to reach positions of importance; they were not a despised
underclass. The governor of the port of Acre was always a sergeant,
and a member of this rank carried the order's famous standard into
battle. Fear was struck into the hearts of the Saracens when they saw
the half-black and half-white standard called Beauseant unfurled.
Across the standard were written the words: 'Not unto us, O Lord,
not unto us, but unto Thy Name give the Glory.' Beauseant also
became the war-cry of the charging Templars.
Knights were allowed up to three horses, while the sergeants,
ranking below the knights, had only one mount each. Charged with
the non-military aspects of the organization were the Templar
chaplains, who were the official priesthood, ministering to knights
and sergeants alike. The chaplain's role also included the non-
military tasks of administration.
At the very head of the Knights Templar was the Master of the
Order of the Temple of Solomon of Jerusalem, to give him his full
title. Later historians often, and erroneously, refer to him as the
order's Grand Master. In his tasks and powers the Master of the order

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WARRIOR CULTS

played much same role as an abbot would in a traditional

the
Christian order. As the pre-eminent member of the most powerful
international empire in existence, he was extremely influential, but
his decisions were not always fully his own, for in some matters the
Master consulted a small chapter of knights. Knights also formed
part of his personal entourage: there were two champion knights on
his staff, a cook and a blacksmith, a secretary, a chaplain and an
interpreter. In addition, a sergeant and two servants attended to the
Master's safety and other needs. An officer titled the Seneschal was
the Master's executive officer, deputizing for him in times of need.
Below the Seneschal was the Marshal, responsible for military
matters first and foremost. The burden of this position was great,

encompassing as it did the distribution and maintenance of horses,

weapons and armour, the supplying of the order's knights, and the
formulation of battle plans and overall strategy. When the Templars
rode into the fray, the Marshal was expected to be at the very front
of the charge. These three offices in essence formed the hub of the
order, the heart of a web of command and control that spread
commercial and feudal links out from Jerusalem to other Holy Land
cities, to Eastern Europe, Germany, France and beyond.
A second tier of ranks administered this sprawling empire,
beginning with the Commander of the City of Jerusalem. The
Commander had very little to do with politics but was primarily
concerned with the day-to-day needs of the Templars in the Holy City.
As the Templars expanded, the Commander's duties widened too, and
he became responsible for the protection of pilgrims along the
highways of the Holy Land. It is strange that the single raison d'etre of
the Templars was now a side-mission delegated to a local commander.
What was now the basis for the Master's grand strategy? What
single objective drove the order onwards and justified the lavish
donations? Rumours of the Templars as guardians of the Holy Grail
were rife during the Middle Ages. Whether they did in fact possess
this object is a matter of pure speculation, but the order did own a
fragment of the True Cross upon which Christ was Crucified. It fell
to the Commander of the City of Jerusalem to safeguard this holy
relic, perhaps the most valuable object in Christendom at the time.
Other regional commanders lacked the prestige of the Commander
of Jerusalem but in their own territories were highly influential
people. The Holy Land boasted two very powerful local Knights
Templar, the Commander of Antioch and the Commander of Tripoli.
These were virtual Masters in their own regions, and in Europe their
equivalents were actually called Masters, so there was a Master of
England, a Master of France, etc. The Templar structure was also
duplicated in each province, so there was a provincial Seneschal
and a provincial Marshal, and every Master had an officer called a

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 THE ORDER OF THE KNIGHTS TEMPLAR

Draper who undertook to organize the clothing and bedding of the

knights in his care. With the vast revenues thai originated in Europe,
the Masters of these provinces were responsible for immense sums
ofmoney and the fortunes of entire kingdoms. Only if the Master of
Jerusalem entered the country did the provincial Master relinquish
his control.
Parts of the province, divided up into castles, estates, farms and
other holdings, were properly called 'houses'. There were several
offices concerned with administering these houses - the
Commanders of theHouses who were responsible in all matters to
the Master, and the Commanders of the Knights who were in their
turn subordinate to the Marshal of the province as lieutenants of the
warrior-knights. The knights themselves formed the cutting edge of
the Templars on the battlefield, but were little more than simple
monks when out of their armour. They were drawn from the sons of
European nobles, a class that continually trained for war, using
tournaments and jousts as a substitute for battle. A noble wishing to
dedicate himself to the Knights Templar brought to the order not just
his warrior skills but also all of his lands and estates. In this way the
order forced the recruit to 'burn his boats', by making it almost
impossible for him to return to the life he had known before.
Glory and pride were the central ideals that every recruit had to
abandon if he were to adhere to the rule and become a Knight of the
Temple. By relinquishing his lands and his wealth, the noble would
enter the cloistered world of poverty, humility and obedience.
Without money, he had to rely on his fellows and on the order itself.
Becoming a Templar set the knight above all others, but the price he
had to pay was that of personal glory, for there was little that the
outside world had to envy in the lifestyle of the warriors. Like all
monks, the Templars rose early and put on a simple robe over their
underclothes. The knights neither ate nor washed, but went directly
to prayer. Because expeditions, training or other tasks would take
them away from the preceptory's chapel, it was common for the
knights to say all of the morning's prayers in one session (unlike
traditional monks, who prayed frequently during the entire day).
Daily chores were exceptionally un-monastic, with military training,
lessons in tactics and the regular maintenance of weapons and body
armour, horses and riding gear. Typical Templar gear included a full
coat of chainmail, with a surcoat carrying the red Templar cross, a
shield, a spear and a long sword. Other weapons found their way
into the knights' employ, ranging from hideous forms of poleaxes to
maces and flails.
It was not until late morning or even midday that the knights had

their first meal of the day, and it was always plain but filling, and
eaten at long wooden tables. Every man provided his own cup,

75
WARRIOR CULTS

knife, spoon and bowl and no conversation was permitted during

the meal, just as in other monastic orders. Instead, passages from the
Holy Book were read out to the diners and any conversations that
took place at the dinner table were via sign language. Meat, when
available, was rarely served more than three times in a week. As the
heart of the order, the knights ate first, followed by their comrades-

who carried out the

in-arms, the sergeants, and then the lay servants,
menial tasks within the preceptories and houses but were not
actually members of the order. The last to eat were the native
mercenary warriors who joined in the escapades of the Templars
without enduring the severity of full membership. A second meal
would follow the afternoon's activities and the second period of
prayer, which was then followed by even more prayers as the
knights prepared for bed.
When the knights gathered together in an assembly to discuss
matters, usually occurred on a Sunday in the chapel during a
it

weekly chapter. Here members were encouraged to confess any

misdemeanours that they may have committed that week. Those not
owning up to a crime who were then challenged by the preceptor or
commander suffered severer punishments than those who owned up
when given the chance. On a greater scale, and with far more
important matters to discuss, general chapters would be convened.
These were rarely scheduled and involved high-level officers of the
Temple in discussion about policy, strategy and the organization and
running of the order.
Templar chapters allowed the concerns of the order to be
addressed and must have had mixed agendas, for at one and the
same time the Temple was a church, a business and an army, with
none of these elements dominating. Between daily worship and
military practice, the knights gave alms to the poor and sold wine,
wool and grain from their farms.
The Templars were notorious for their seeming disregard for
traditional Christian beliefs. Charges levelled against them by the
Inquisition continually referred to satanic rites, and the rituals of
initiation were said to involve repudiating Christ and spitting or
urinating on the Crucifix. What brand of theology the order followed
has perplexed historians from the time of the Crusades to today. Did
their shadowy rites and ceremonies hide nothing more sinister than
the Freemasonry of modern times, or were they specifically
designed to hide secret and abhorrent rituals? There is reason to
suspect that the order had links with a powerful schism that had
developed in the Church and had its centre in southern France. This
heresy of Catharism predated the Order of the Knights Templar and
may have 'infected' the latter during the twelfth and thirteenth
centuries. As the Cathars were being systematically wiped out by a

76
 THE ORDER OF THE KNIGHTS llAll'I.AK

Papai Crusade, numerous survivors found refuge in the Order of the

Temple, and Cathars played a prominent part in the running of the
Temple in the Languedoc region.
The Templar Stephen de Staplebrugge, who confessed the crimes
of the order in 1311, said that the Knights Templar had picked up
their heretical beliefs from the Agen region of southern France. Agen
had been one of the Cathar strongholds during the Albigensian
Crusade and was part of the Templar province of Provence. In fact,
one of the Temple's Masters of Provence, Roncelin de Fos, had for a
time been the Master of England, and may have spread Cathar
theology to that country. During the Inquisition, the Preceptor
Geoffrey de Gonneville alleged that the heresies that so afflicted the
Knights Templar were introduced by just one man, referred to in the
testimony as Brother Roncelin. Was this Roncelin de Fos? If indeed
it was, then it may date the influx of heretical practices to 1248

(when Roncelin became Master of Provence). Some of the order's

other senior officers were actually from well-established Cathar
families, including one Master of the order, Bertrand de Blanquefort,
and both Cathars and Templars were rumoured at different times to
be the guardians of the Holy Grail. Finally, both incurred the wrath
of orthodox Christendom and were harried and persecuted by the
forces of the Pope.
Nestled in the fertile lands of the Languedoc region in southern
France is the small town of Albi, and it was here in 1165 that a
council of eminent clergy condemned the Cathars for their heretical
beliefs. The established Church had reason to fear the Cathar sect,
which had virtually displaced Catholicism from southern France. It
had to be stopped, and with this in mind Pope Innocent III declared
a Crusade against the Cathar strongholds - subsequently known as
the Albigensian Crusade after the town of Albi. The military
expedition marched into Languedoc in 1209 and began a campaign
of destruction that would last for forty years. The 30,000 troops
waged a war as fanatical as any against the infidel Muslims, because,
according to the Pope, the Cathars were 'infidels'. All came under
the sword, men, women and children, Cathar and Christian alike.
When one Crusader asked how he should distinguish Cathars from
Christians, he was told by papal officers: 'Kill them all. God will
recognize His own.' Cities were put under siege, captured, sacked
and despoiled, among them Beziers, Narbonne, Carcassonne and
Toulouse.
What was it about the Cathar faith that persuaded knights from
across northern Europe to march into Languedoc and exterminate it
utterly? Besides the intrinsic power that the Cathar 'Church' had
gained at the expense of Catholicism, the heresy was slowly
spreading northwards into Champagne and Germany. It harboured

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WARRIOR CULTS

plans to revise orthodox Christianity and remodel it according to the

Cathar system.
Both the Cathars and the Knights Templar were influenced by the
Persian doctrines of Manichaeanism as well as by early Christianity.
It seems likely that Catharism grew from the traditions of
Manichaean schools that had long been established in Spain and
southern France. The Manichees were a Christian sect that had been
established by a Persian mystic called Mani in the late Roman
Empire. Mani had absorbed the Gnostic teachings of his father and
created a fusion of Christian and Persian ideas. The new cult
incorporated elements of Persian Zoroastrianism and the far-
reaching warrior religion of Mithras. He taught that faith should be
replaced by personal illumination, and that light and darkness were
in eternal conflict for the human soul. Mani was executed in 276,
skinned and beheaded, but his cult survived and spread across
Europe, to the south of France in the west and to China in the east.
Among the Cathar priests (or Terfecti') was a belief that flesh was
intrinsically corrupt and that the purpose of life was the elevation of
the human spirit. Cathar theology claimed there were two equal and
opposite gods representing good and evil, light and darkness. The
good god held sway over the immaterial, the spiritual and the
emotive, while his opposite ruled over the material world and the
universe as a whole. The battle between these two deities involved
the struggle for human souls, and the renouncing of the material
world for the principles of love. The great stumbling block with
Christian orthodoxy was the fact that Jesus claimed his own divinity
while manifesting in a physical body. Cathars rejected the material
as evil and so too rejected that Jesus was the son of God. By the same
token, the Perfecti renounced the materialistic Catholic Church,
with its wealth, influence, property and elaborate ritual. It aimed to
replace the established Church (and society in general) with one
modelled on the Cathar cult, with its emphasis on personal worship
and knowledge of God rather than pure faith. This radical and
revolutionary concept threatened the secular world just as much as
the theological, and provided the Pope with the arguments he
needed to galvanize European nobility against the Cathars. As with
the Crusades to liberate Jerusalem, it was not high-minded piety that
convinced the knights and their lords to spend years away from
home, risking life and limb; it was the material gain to be had. As
well as ridding Languedoc of the Cathar heresy, the rich territories
of the region would be available for plunder and annexation.
Rituals that were supposedly carried out by the Cathars and that
were confessed during torture often matched closely the testimony
of Templars sixty years later. This may indicate a similarity of beliefs
between the two organizations, but any evidence originating from

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 THE ORDER OF ME KNIGHTS TEMPLAR

the barbaric and horrific torture chambers of the Pope's Inquisition

must be suspect. Even so, alleged rituals, such as spitting on the
Cross, denying the divinity of Christ and wearing the 'little cord'
[cordula), and the practice of the obscene kisses of initiation, hen
witness to a degree of identity between the two. Crucial evidence to
any connection was the testimony of Brother John of the Order of St
Benedict, which stated that the Templar, at his initiation, was
presented with the 'little cord' which he then wore at all times over
his mantle. Brother John may not have recognized the meaning of
this evidence and its heretical nature, for the cordula was the Cathar
badge of faith.
It was aspects of the initiation ritual which so disturbed the
investigating medieval Inquisitors, but how much was actually
fabricated by them provide material with which they could
to
prosecute the order is not known. Knights confessed to holding
initiations in candlelit chapels at the dead of night, behind locked
doors and under guard. The recruit was forced to deny his faith, to
spit, trample or urinate on the Crucifix and hear the leader of the
ceremony denounce Christ as a false prophet. If true, the act of
defiling the Cross may have directly reflected the Gnostic and Cathar
belief that, as the symbol of Christ, it was inherently evil,
representing the death of a mortal Jesus and the evil machinations of
the materialist God, called by the Cathars 'Rex Mundi'.
More mundane elements of the initiation included the taking of a
vow of obedience by the candidate following a serious discourse in
the stringent requirements of the order; the hardship, the chastity,
the poverty and the obedience that were expected of all Templars
were bluntly described. In return the candidate was asked if he had
already taken vows to other orders or a vow of marriage, or had an
outstanding debt that required paying. Even the existence of any
diseases had to be disclosed to the examiners. It seems that most
Templars were illiterate and depended upon their examiners for full
administering of the rule. Even some chaplains lacked a full
knowledge of Latin and required that the rule be translated into
French - this occurred in 1139 under the Master Robert de Craon.
Interestingly, a strange amendment was made to the rule during
translation. The Council of Troyes's original rule stated that a knight
who had been excommunicated from the Church could not join the
order; in the new rendering the rule stated explicitly that the Temple
was to actively seek out excommunicated knights! This hardly
seems to be a translator's or copyist's error, but a distinct policy
change (the Master did have the authority to rewrite the rule at any
time he so wished). By accepting men who the Church had rejected,
the Temple was asserting its almost total independence and setting
itself up as a rival.

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WARRIOR CULTS

According to the testimonies of many Templars under

interrogation, the induction climaxed with a series of obscene
kisses. The candidate kissed his initiator on the mouth, navel, penis
and anus (or alternatively in the case of the latter, with deference to
magical symbolism, the 'base of the spine'). For many modern
historians, the accounts of the kisses are purely the product of a
desperate Inquisition constantly forced to fabricate more and more
un-Christian acts with which to pillory its enemies. Others see in the
kisses an occult tradition stretching back to Zoroastrian and Sufi
lore. According to various Eastern schools of mysticism, the navel,
genitals and perineum (the area at the base of the spine between the
anus and the genitals) are the chakras or psychic centres of the
human body. Could the Templars have absorbed aspects of Eastern
philosophy during their stay in the Holy Land? A further practice
was alleged to take place during initiation, namely an act of sodomy
with the officiating chaplain, but it is impossible to ascertain the
truth of this and other aspects of the rituals. Between the elitist
affectation of secrecy and mystery (compare the strict anonymity of
the British Army's Special Air Service elite troops, even when
appearing in the courtroom) and the virtual psychopathic fantasies
of the Inquisition, the real truth behind the theology and beliefs of
the Knights Templar may never be known.
The most bizarre accusation made by the Inquisition, based on
the accounts of many Templars, was that members of the order
worshipped a false idol named Baphomet. Too vague and abstract
to be the invention of the Church, Baphomet was real, a Templar
belief that defies explanation, although many have tried. The
Inquisition could make no sense of the matter either, but
established that some sort of 'cult of the head' had existed and that
Baphomet was part of it. Although tortures produced confessions
that referred to Baphomet, similar information was extracted
without such radical measures and the name was also encountered
by agents of the king of France, who had secretly infiltrated the
order to obtain incriminating evidence. References to holy idols in
the form of heads repeatedly occur in the testimonies of knights,
and it is thought that Baphomet was a skull or the image of some

symbolic head worshipped by the order. Apparently it was believed

that the head was able to make the land fertile, enrich the people
and secure prosperity in general. This echoes almost exactly the
properties prescribed to the head of the Celtic war hero Bran the
Blessed, as well as the famous Holy Grail, legends of which were
contemporary with the Knights Templar. What exactly was this
supposed The head of Jesus Christ? The head of the
to represent?
cult's Hughes de Payens? An interesting theory put
founder,
forward by Ian Wilson speculates that the head could have been the

80
 [HE ORDER OF Till KNIGHTS iiaiim.ak

Turin Shroud, the funerary cloth that covered Christ after he was
taken from the Cross and which bears an image of him. Folded and
displayed as the face of Jesus, it may well have been an objecl of
worship for the Templars, who would not conceive of their
veneration as heresy. It is known that the Templars took pride in
collecting holy relics, and the Shroud could have come into the
order's possession following the sack of Constantinople. By a
strange coincidence the Turin Shroud appeared in France long after
the dissolution of the Temple in the possession of the family of
Geoffrey de Charnay, the Preceptor of the Temple in Normandy,
who was burned at the stake, along with the last Master of the order,
Jacques de Molay.
The origin of the word 'Baphomet' is shrouded in mystery and
speculation. One more commonly suggested theories is that it
of the
is a rendering of the phrase 'Prophet Muhammad', and is an allusion
to the Templars' dealings and suspected sympathies with the
Muslims. Far more likely is a derivation from the Arabic word
abufihamat (which in Moorish Spanish becomes bufihamat), which
can be translated as 'Father of Wisdom'. Such is the title of a Sufi
master, an Arab religious mystic. In fact, the venerated fount of all
wisdom for the Arab cult of Assassins with whom the Temple had
so many dealings was the Imam, the living embodiment of God's
wisdom on earth. Not all Templars came from Europe. The Master of
Jerusalem, Philippe de Milly of Nablus, was born a Syrian who was
elected to lead the Temple in January 1169; he and other local
knights may have brought into the order facets of the Sufi teachings
that remained hidden beneath the order's cloak of secrecy.
It was not
just the Temple's beliefs and initiation rituals that were
kept secret, but even the rule of the order was only known in its
entirety to the higher ranks. Such subterfuge was an unnecessary
trapping of the cult, one that would give the Temple's enemies more
than ample fuel to destroy it. But something was needed to set the
knights apart from the secular warrior nobles, something other than
stringent duties and high-quality training. As has already been
noted, modern-day elite units, like the British SAS, the American
Special Forces and Russian Spetsnaz troops, revel in the mystique
granted to them. Such troops wear uniquely coloured berets, often
remain anonymous on operations and are allowed simple freedoms
denied to the rank and file. Elite units have always required some
special ceremonies or practices to set them apart from the traditional
soldiery. What worked against the Knights Templar was their
constant emphasis on their own legendary status, as sorcerers and
alchemists, and on their position as guardians of the mysterious
Holy Grail. In The Perlesvaus, a medieval Grail romance, the
Knights Templar are depicted as the mysterious and occult initiates

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WARRIOR CULTS

charged with the protection of the fabulous object. The Knights had
little reason to suppress this propaganda.

The Downfall of the Order

As mysterious as the sudden rise of the Temple is the obscure
demise that it suffered at the hands of King Philippe IV of France. It

is impossible for historians to pinpoint the exact reasons behind the

persecution of the Knights Templar. Several theories have been put
forward, and it is likely that it was not just one but the sum total of
these reasons that persuaded Philippe to act. A major turning point
in the life of the order was the retaking of Jerusalem by the Saracens
in 1291. This was soon followed by the expulsion of all Crusaders,
including the Templars, from the entire Holy Land. A last stand at
Acre failed to create the centre of resistance that was hoped for, and
the order found itself without a home, without an enemy, without a
cause. The security of Palestine and the Crusader states had been the
Templars' very reason for existence, and with that gone the massive
fund-raising efforts throughout Europe became the pursuit of wealth
for the sake of wealth itself. Other orders weathered the storm. The
Teutonic Knights, for example, had gained territories in Germany
and established themselves there, away from the great powers of the
age. The Hospitallers, always rivals of the Knights Templar, were
able to fall back on their public service of healing the sick and caring
for the old and infirm. Similarly, the Cistercian and Franciscan
monastic orders had a place within the communities that they
served, unlike the Temple, which had set itself outside the
community, and above all laws but the Pope's. With no Crusades on
the horizon, the nobles and monarchs who had given so much to the
Temple began to ask what it had all been for.
For a time the order retreated to the island of Cyprus, but this
proved wholly inadequate as a place from which to attack the
Muslims. So the Temple looked back towards its rich hinterland in
western Europe with the idea of creating for itself an independent
Templar kingdom. This is what the Teutonic Knights had done in
the harsh wilds of northern Europe, but the Knights Templar were
not willing, as the Teutonic Knights had been, to live on the fringe
of Christendom. Their power and wealth lay in England and France,
and in particular in the south of France, in Languedoc. Here the
Cathars had held out against the forces of the Pope, and it seemed
that the Templars found the region both economically and culturally
to their liking. The connection of the Knights Templar with the
Cathars has already been mentioned.
King Philippe IV of France, known as Philippe le Bel (the 'Fair'),
was not predisposed towards the idea of an independent kingdom
being carved out of his territories and ruled by arrogant, haughty

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 THE ORDER OF THE KNIGHTS TEMPLAR

knights who were still extremely wealthy and also formidable

opponents in battle. The Templar arrogance and greed bad
previously been tolerated, since the order was the most powerful
fighting force in Palestine, and perhaps the only thing that stood
between the Saracens and the fall of Jerusalem. Hut now that the
order had been humbled by its losses, the continued arrogance and
secrecy of the knights provoked angry reactions from the Western
kings. Philippe in particular saw the Temple as a part of his groat
strategy for European domination, and unlike previous kings, who
would not challenge the Pope's favoured knights, he had
successfully subverted the papacy with his own candidate. If he
chose to fight the Knights Templar, no one would stand in his way,
for now that the Pope was his, the Order of the Knights Templar had
no friends willing to support it.
No other king had ever gone as far as to plot the downfall of not
one but two Popes and effectively create his own papacy. Pope
Boniface VIII had been in constant conflict with the French crown,
with charges being constantly levelled at each other. A kidnap
attempt by the king failed, but Boniface died in mysterious
circumstances soon after. So too did his short-lived successor,
Benedict XI. In 1305 the king was able to force his own papal
candidate on Rome, Bertrand de Goth, who became Pope Clement V;
Philippe also ensured his survival by transferring the papacy to the
French city of Avignon. This unheard-of move created the so-called
Avignon Captivity and produced both a string of rival Popes and a
papal schism that lasted for sixty-eight years. Philippe had shown
himself to be ruthless and ambitious, and his plan to dominate the
European kingdoms had moved one step closer. He had secured the
papacy; now he needed to secure the downfall of the Knights
Templar.
Not only were the Templars themselves plotting to create their
own state on French soil, which may have been reason enough to
oppose them, but they had personally snubbed Philippe. Several
nobles had been honoured by the order by special lay membership,
conferring upon them the use of preceptories, Templar bodyguards
and suchlike. Perhaps the most important lay member had been
Richard I, king of England. Philippe's bold initial plan revolved
around becoming a member of the Templars and, as a warrior-king
with the order at his side, attempting to unify the European
kingdoms into one Christian super-state. But the Templars were not
willing to play along and snubbed the king's request for honorary
membership. If he needed any other excuse to destroy the order,

then the vast wealth guarded by the knights could provide it. The
king was approaching a financial crisis. He owed the Templars vast
amounts of money and risked bankrupting the country. In addition,

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WARRIOR CULTS

he had seen for himself the vast wealth that the Templars had
accumulated when, in 1306, he was forced to seek shelter in the
Paris preceptory from a rampaging mob. The wealth of the Temple
was legendary and proved too much of a temptation for King
Philippe.
When two fugitive members of the Knights Templar approached
the king in 1307 looking for protection from the order, Philippe
granted it on the condition that they provide incriminating evidence

with which he could charge their fellows. The king got his damaging
testimony and proceeded to plan a mass arrest of all Templars in
France. He prepared charges against the knights using the reports of
the two fugitives and the information supplied by royal spies within
the order. The king struck suddenly and without warning on Friday,
13 October 1307. His officers around the country opened sealed
orders simultaneously and marched on preceptories to seize both
the knights and the treasures they found there. However, the great
treasure of the Templars seems to have slipped through Philippe's
fingers and the Paris preceptory, the great prize of the order, yielded
little for the greedy king. Rumours circulated of the preceptory's
treasurer fleeing France in the company of a bodyguard. Later
confessions by knights confirmed the story and reported that the
treasure of the Templars had been loaded aboard eighteen Templar
galleys bound an unknown destination. Somehow the Temple
for
had foreknowledge of the king's actions and thwarted his attempt to
capture Templar treasures.
Almost immediately, knights of the order were put on trial and
interrogated. Torture was a popular tool of the prosecution, and was
used openly and without mercy. As the testimonies of the knights
were collected, the secrets of the order became apparent: the
worship of the strange head called Baphomet, the obscene
initiations, homosexual practices, the denunciation of the divinity
of Christ . the list grew longer, incited by the agents of King
. .

Philippe. Somehow, the king had to arrange matters so that none of

the knights could re-form the order back at him, and to
and strike
this end he had to convince his royal cousins abroad also to begin
persecuting the Templars. Pope Clement V was quickly brought in
on the Templar scandal and forced to back up the accusations made
against them. This fuelled persecutions outside France, as the
governments of other countries saw that it was possible to attack the
Knights Templar without papal retribution. Everywhere the
temptation of the order's treasures was too great to ignore. For close
on 200 years the Order of the Knights Templar had stood firm as one
of the immovable pillars of medieval Christendom. It had become a
permanent fixture in the economy of every European land and one
of the most distinguishing features of the Crusades.

84
 THE ORDER OF THE KNIGHTS TEMPLAR

With the papal authorities involved in the scandal, serious

pressure was put on the gaoled knights. A papal bull was issued thai
attempted to force the kings of Europe to follow King Philippe's Lead
in arresting the Templars and confiscating their estates and
properties. Full legal proceedings were begun that lasted for several
years. In this time many of the imprisoned knights died, either from
the terrible conditions in which they were kept or the wretched
agonies of torture. The trials proper began in April 1310, and in the
French town of Vienne many of the knights, having confessed to the
acts already mentioned, recanted and were burned at the stake for
their change of mind. Many other knights who had confessed their
sins and stuck by their testimonies were allowed to walk free. In
several instances the freed knights were allowed to draw a pension
to sustain themselves, since from March 1312 the Order of the
Knights Templar had been disbanded by the Pope. Part of the
Inquisition's twisted psychology was to burn only those Templars
who refused to confess to the charges laid against them and to set
free those who openly As the trials dragged on,
admitted their guilt.
the plundering of the order's lands was pursued vigorously by
Philippe and the Knights Hospitaller, who had always been rivals of
the Templars. At the trial's end, no verdict was satisfactorily
reached, since the trial was, after all, only a weapon of execution. It

mattered by 1312 whether the verdict had been guilty or

little

innocent; the strongest of the Templars had been burned alive, the
weakest made dependent on pensions, and the order's material
assets seized by greedy nobles. It was as if a suspect had been
summarily executed midway through his trial.
An air of utter finality settled over the last of the trials two years
later in 1314. The Master of the Order, Jacques de Molay, was now
on trial with the Preceptor of Normandy, Geoffrey de Charnay. Both
recanted previous confessions, De Molay claiming that he had
willingly admitted his and the order's guilt but 'out of fear of
horrible tortures'. Both Jacques de Molay and Geoffrey de Charnay
were tied to stakes on the tiny He de la Cite, in the middle of the
River Seine. There they were slowly roasted alive, and as they died
it is said that De Molay uttered a prophetic curse on those who had

brought the order to its ignominious end. He cursed both Philippe

and Pope Clement V, that they should follow him to his death within
the year. Adding to the growing mystique of the Temple, Clement
was overcome with a fatal illness before the month was out, and
Philippe died mysteriously within the year that De Molay had
predicted. Whether supernatural or not, these sudden deaths fuelled
the image of the Temple as an occult coven and highly secret band
of magical initiates. By the time of the French Revolution, almost
five centuries later, when Paris was awash with secret societies, the

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WARRIOR CULTS

legacy of the Temple again surfaced. As King Louis XVI's blood-

spattered head dropped unceremoniously into the basket below the
guillotine in 1789, a member of the vast crowd climbed on to the
scaffold and dipped hand into the dead king's still-warm blood.
his
He flicked it out over the crowd and shouted 'Jacques de Molay, thou
art avenged!' There is no need to see in this tale any survival of the
order down the ages, but just the absorption of the Templar mystique
into the French Freemasons, a member of whom the man on the
scaffold is likely to have been. However, some historians have
sought links between the refugee Knights Templar, fleeing from
papal 'justice', and the first Freemasons.
Across Europe the Order of the Knights Templar had been
destroyed and its members killed or persecuted to varying degrees.
But nowhere were the knights as brutally treated as in France. In
odd places, in fact, the authorities actually aided the escape of the
knights rather than follow the dictates of the papal bull which called
for their immediate The German Templars marched fully
arrest.
armed into the courts where they were to stand trial and intimidated
the judges by a show of force into pronouncing their innocence. In
Germany, Spain and Portugal the knights disbanded the order and
either joined others, such as the Knights Hospitaller or the Teutonic
Knights, or formed new orders with different titles. In Lorraine, then
part of Germany, the Preceptor gave orders to his knights to mingle
into the local population and keep their identities hidden. For this
task they had to shave off their distinctive beards and abandon their
white robes for more mundane costumes.
Trials in England were proving so fruitless that the Pope actually
sent representatives of the Inquisition to extract confessions. Arrests
had been carried out with little energy, prisoners had been kept in

degrees of comfort or quickly released, and most with access to any

resources had made their escape. On 9 January 1308, the Master of
England, William de More, was arrested and held at Canterbury
castle in some luxury, but was soon released. Only at the end of the
year was he rearrested and subjected to a harsher custody. As in
other countries, most knights either joined different chivalrous
orders, hid among the population as civilians or tied the country.
When the Inquisition arrived in England, it found that the Knights

Templar who were being held prisoner by King Edward II in the

Tower of London and the castles at Lincoln and York were mainly
old men, retired knights of pensionable age. The body of the order
still roamed free, and the king himself wrote of knights in secular

garb living in the towns and villages. Some were even marrying into
the populace, blending perfectly into ordinary medieval life. The
Pope made repeated complaints to the king and the Archbishop of
Canterbury, but little action was taken against the renegades. Those

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unfortunate enough to be imprisoned were eventually tortured by

the Inquisition, which was becoming frustrated by the lack of
progress, but still confessions were not forthcoming. By L310 the
papal legates were pressing [unsuccessfully] for the transportation
of the incarcerated Templars to France, where professional torturers
could be set to work on them.
In 1311 the papal representatives were able to gather a solid
confession from a member of the order. Torture had no part to play,
however, since the confessor spoke of his own accord, claiming to be
a renegade Templar. The knight was Stephen de Staplebrugge, and he
confessed to having been forced to deny Christ during his initiation
into the order, but Stephen claimed he had spat only near the
Crucifix, not at it, when directed to do so. Although he had admitted
to almost all of the charges laid before the Temple, Stephen appealed
to the mercy of the Church. A second knight and a previous Master
of England, Thomas Tocci de Thoroldsby, came forward soon after to
assert that he too had spat near a Crucifix during his initiation. He
also told his examiners that the Templars had often favoured the
Muslims in the Holy Land rather than the Christians, and that the
Master of the order had often spoken of Christ's mortality. A third
man, John de Stoke, who had been the Temple's treasurer in London,
joined in the attacks on the Knights Templar. John's testimony carried
some degree of weight since he would have known personally both
King Edward I and King Edward II, as the London preceptory
doubled as one of the royal treasuries. Soon, other knights were
offering up similar confessions, often as part of arrangements made
before the trials, when punishments had already been decided upon.
There were no mass executions in England, and those who confessed
were mostly forced to join monasteries.

The Temple Survives

In Britain most of the able-bodied knights were able to make their
escape, just as they had in Spain and Germany. The French surprise
raids precluded the escape of the Templars in that country, but even
there, as we have seen, the Paris Preceptory (housing Philippe's
treasury) was empty when his bailiffs arrived. The treasure, so
coveted by the king, had been smuggled to the coast and not one of
the Temple's ships was ever captured, despite the existence of a vast
fleet. The fleet had been put to use transporting military supplies

and pilgrims to and from the Holy Land, and, as already noted,
exporting wool from the houses of England for sale elsewhere. It was
a mercantile as much as a naval force and was supported by private
wharfs and ports. How could this fleet just disappear? If it was
involved in a desperate attempt to ferry the remaining Templars to
freedom, where would it have sailed to?

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The authors of The Temple and the Lodge, Michael Baigent and
Richard Leigh, have proposed that the Templar fleet, laden with
men, materials and money, sailed around Ireland and to the Argyll
region of Scotland. Here Robert the Bruce, already excommunicated
by the Pope, had begun a guerrilla war against Edward Fs armies in
1306. Such a state of affairs may have been to the order's liking;
Bruce's Scotland was a region cut off from established authority, free
from papal bulls, and in need of a well-trained cadre of knights. One
of the English Knights Templar did indeed state that members of the
order had fled to Scotland, and Bruce would surely have welcomed
fugitive knights from England, Ireland, France, Germany and Spain.
The remaining Templars could have formed a training cadre, passing
on their valuable experience in warfare, their discipline and their
tactics to the Scottish rebels. When the forces of Edward II and
Robert the Bruce met in battle at Bannockburn in 1314, the English
were soundly defeated, in part due to a mysterious 'fresh force' that
appeared on the battlefield to save the day for the Scots. Baigent and
Leigh contend that this 'fresh force' may have been composed of, or
at least led by, a number of Knights Templar.
Some other Templar survivors also put their formidable military
good use and established their own warrior bands. One such
skills to
knight, Roger Flor, founded a ragged band of warrior-mercenaries,
called the Catalan Company, who waged war in southern Italy on
behalf of the kingdom of Aragon. Most members of the company
were either Catalan, Aragonese or Navarrese soldiers. The small
force later fought against the Turks while in the service of
Byzantium, but eventually turned to outright robbery and
brigandage in Greece.
The Portuguese Templars also formed a new order, but one
eminently more successful than the short-lived Catalan Company.
The Order of the Knights of Christ, an organization that lasted well
into the sixteenth century, was built on the foundations of the
Temple's experience in naval and navigational matters. Its vessels
began a series of exploratory voyages that culminated in the
expedition around Africa by a Knight of Christ called Vasco da
Gama. The order even sailed under the famous red cross formerly
attributed to the Knights of the Temple. When Columbus sailed
across the Atlantic Ocean and into the history books, he too sailed
under this cross. He was married to the daughter of a former Grand
Master of the Knights of Christ and it is quite likely he was able to
make much use of his father-in-law's documents. There is
speculation, and some evidence to support the idea has been put
forward, that the Knights Templar were in league with the Venetian
sailors of the period to explore the North Atlantic coastlines of
Greenland and Nova Scotia. The order was intent on establishing an

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independent state following their defeat in Palestine, and the u riter

Andrew Sinclair has suggested that the remains of two Failed
colonies on the American continent were the tentative first

beginnings of such a state.

There is convincing evidence that what became modern
Freemasonry derived in part from the survival of Templars in
Scotland. Similarly, in Germany, where the Templars had infiltrated
the Teutonic Knights in great numbers, the famous secret society
called the Illuminati may have had its origins in the remnants of the
Order of the Temple. As the memory of the political power
squabbles of the day faded, the Templars became an object of
emulation: both the Jesuits and the Scots Guard (the personal
bodyguard of the French king) were founded on Templar principles
of combining military strength with high-powered diplomacy and
an elite status.
More recent connections to the long-dead Knights Templar have
been made, most ominously at the turn of the twentieth century,
when the activities of the Order of the New Templars were bound up
in the future of Aryanism and the growth of the German Nazi Party.
An outgrowth of the volkischen cults, which glorified the history
and mythology of the German race, the New Templars were anti-
Semitic and dedicated to the eradication of Jews in the German
Fatherland. The order's founder was Adolf Lanz, a former Cistercian
novice who once met Adolf Hitler and recognized in him the spirit
needed for Germany to gain a formidable position in the world. It
seemed as though any occult or mystical society could not be taken
seriously without at least some allusion to the Knights Templar.
The last Templar incarnation (quite literally) was the Order of the
Solar Temple, a Swiss-based religious cult that involved itself in
magical rites and financial double-dealing. While other Templar
societies claim a ritual heritage from the original medieval order,
Joseph Di Mambro, the cult leader, actually claimed to be the
reincarnation of a Knight Templar. His followers were respectable
professionals, not naive and easily-led youths, and they joined Di
Mambro in carrying out the cult's rituals.
During these ceremonies they would don the costume of medieval
knights, while Di Mambro wielded a holy sword that he claimed had
been given to him during his time in the Crusades. His daughter
Emanuelle, he boasted, had been conceived without sex and was the
'cosmic child', a crucial part of his grand design. Also part of his
plan was the order's Centre For The Preparation For The New Age,
but Di Mambro had doomed the Templar cult to destruction.
According to a senior member of the Solar Temple: 'Death can
represent an essential stage of life', and in October 1994 some 53
members of the cult committed suicide simultaneously. The

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enigmatic Di Mambro was rumoured to have faked his own death at

one of the two mass suicides, ensuring that his order would, like the
original Knights Templar, be forever associated with controversy,
impropriety and mystery.
Such is and powerful legacy of the order that in 1991
the alluring
one of commanderies in Britain was re-established in the
its

revivalist spirit that had previously seen the modern foundation of

the Order of Bards, Ovates and Druids. The commandery of the
Knights Templar in Templecombe has its headquarters in the
village's manor house, the very site used by the original knights as a
base and training centre. Four years after its official re-inauguration,
the Prior of South England, Major General Sir Roy Redgrave, led the
official investiture inSherborne Abbey of the Templars' first-ever
Knights and Dames since the order's dissolution at the start of the
fourteenth century. This new organization, without the motivation
or the aims of the original, is a modern link with the past, and an
attempt to recapture something of Britain's lost heritage.
The ideological and eponymous survival of the Order of the
Temple in later historical movements and pseudo-religious cults
(even today) is testament to the real power of the Templars. As a
medieval organization they involved themselves in every aspect of
life, from politics to religion and finance. Their story was one of

intrigue and mystery, and their demise was made all the more
shocking by the Templars' seemingly permanent and indestructible
nature. Despite the order's size and power, nothing could harm it, or
so it seemed. But, like the Assassins with whom the knights had
such close contact, when the knights lost their focus and
determination to fight for the objectives set at their foundation, then
the order became vulnerable.
The charges of collusion with the Muslims deeply wounded the
order, but they were well-founded accusations, for the Temple had
discovered that no amount of force could vanquish the armies of the
infidel. Divide and rule, and a policy of conciliation, had been the
strategies of the order, rather than the rash, bludgeoning approach of
the early Crusaders. Since the cult of the Assassins had been feared
as much by the Arabs as by the Christians, it may have been the
Temple's plan to encourage and develop links with this schism,
allowing the fanatical murderers to create chaos and terror among
the enemy. The Inquisitors who brought the Temple to its knees
never forgot the order's numerous connections with the Arab world,
and would always remember that their first headquarters had been
one of the most pre-eminent mosques in Palestine. It was the
Temple's unique approach to the fight for the Holy Land that
provided the weapon with which the order's enemies at home were
finally able to destroy it.

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CHAPTER 4

The Assassins -
Political Killers of the Medieval Middle East

The Crusades had given many Frankish nobles the chance to

establish themselves in a land far from the squabbles of Europe. But
the newly conquered lands were only a tenuous acquisition, gained
by force of arms and held by constant preparedness for war. Exactly
how fleeting such gains were was brought home to the Crusaders
when the Muslims made a series of significant military gains that
culminated in the fall of Jerusalem in 1187 to the army of Saladin,
the Sultan of Egypt.
This Arab general was the third in a line of powerful Muslim
leaders dedicated to driving the Christian 'infidel' out of Syria and
Palestine. He was born in Baalbekand ruled over Egypt, where he
consolidated his power and from where he began to harry and
threaten the Christians. Saladin was a pious Sunni, a follower of the
established Islamic faith, but he commanded an army and a country
that had followed a heretical offshoot to orthodox Islam. The
Fatimid Shiites in Egypt had often been at odds with the rest of the
Islamic world and had always resisted the religious decrees coming
from the city of Baghdad - the heart of Sunni Islam. However, by
Saladin's time the Fatimid Caliphate had lost most of its power and
ability to stand against the forces of orthodox Islam. The new Sultan
of Egypt had plans for the country and began an attempt to unite the
Muslim world under his leadership; from 1184 he started to
proclaim himself 'Sultan of Islam and the Muslims'. Only two things
stood in the way of his becoming the undisputed leader of an
Islamic Middle Eastern empire. First, there were the European
Crusader states along the coast of the Mediterranean, and then there
was a heretical Shiite sect that had originated in Egypt but taken root
in the mountains across the Muslim world. This vehemently anti-
Sunni sect was called the Nizari Ismaili, more popularly known as
the Assassins.
Saladin had personal experience of this cult and of its fanaticism.
Itsmembers opposed the established Islamic faith with a will and
for them Saladin embodied this establishment. In 1175, when
Saladin was putting the city of Aleppo under siege, the city's ruler,
Sa'ad ad-Din Gumushtakin, hired the Assassins to murder Saladin
and so bring an end to the siege. Members of the cult entered the

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Sultan's camp in disguise and prepared to kill him, but an Arab emir
who had himself dealt with the Assassins recognized them. As he
foolishly approached the cult members to question them about their
presence in Saladin's camp, the Assassins killed him, giving away
their presence. The ensuing struggle to capture the Assassins ended
bloodily, with a multitude of dead, including every one of the
Assassin cult members. Saladin himself was unharmed.
It was during the siege of Azaz, just over a year later, that the

Assassins attempted to kill Saladin a second time. Again they had

entered the general's camp in disguise, this time dressed as soldiers
in his own army. The disguise seems to have been surprisingly
successful, since Saladin was physically attacked by the knife-
wielding cultists. By a stroke of luck his armour protected him from
any harm and the Assassins were eventually killed by Saladin's
companions. As before, several of the Sultan's defenders died in the
fight. Saladin now realized how vulnerable he really was to this
fanatical and unrelenting cult. His well-founded paranoia resulted
in the adoption of several measures against assassination: he would
allow only people with whom he was familiar to approach him, and
he took to sleeping inside a specially constructed wooden tower.
Being a soldier, he also decided to bring about the end of the cult by
marching against the most important Assassin citadel, Masyaf. The
siege of Masyaf was not decisive, and Saladin quickly withdrew his
forces. One story, told to explain this strange reversal, has it that
during the siege he woke one morning to find a poisoned dagger on
his bed along with some hot cakes of a type only baked by the
Assassins and a piece of paper on which a threatening verse was
written. It was obvious to Saladin that an Assassin had been into his
tent, if not the Assassin Grand Master himself, Rashid al-Din Sinan.
Understanding the awesome power that the cult had over his own
followers, he wisely chose to leave Masyaf and the other Assassin
castles in peace.

Old Man of the Mountains

This episode illustrates perfectly the mystique possessed by the
Assassin leader; his reputation as a sorcerer and conjuror had spread
to every kingdom, both Christian and Muslim. Sinan was considered
able to charm any man or woman and was said to possess the
powers of telepathy and clairvoyance. To contemporaries, Rashid al-
Din Sinan was a magical evil genius leading a cult of fanatical
killers: a 'medieval Moriarty'. He was thought of as presiding over a
sinister web of informants and agents, bound together by dark
conspiracies and evil schemes.
Sinan, as Grand Master of the Syrian Assassins, was known as the
'Old Man of the Mountains', a term used to describe many Syrian

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Grand Masters, as well as some of the Persian Assassin leaders. Bui

the properly belongs to Sinan, who took control of the Syrian
title

cult in 1162 and held it until his death in 1193. When the
chroniclers of the time (both Muslim and Christian) mention the
'Old Man of the Mountains', Sinan that they refer. The origin
it is to

of this fascinating appellation ambiguous, but it may be connected

is

with the name 'Mountain Chief (or Sheikh'l-Jabal), which became

translated as 'Old Man of the Mountains' by Western writers like
Marco Polo. Alternatively, it may have been a title used to signify the
great knowledge and wisdom of the Grand Master, the 'old' referring
to a long and well-established tradition.
With his skill and cunning, Sinan took the Assassins to the peak
of their success and notoriety, and in part this meant they were
constantly defending their castles from Muslim armies as well as
Crusaders. Under his leadership, the Syrian Assassins created a
small but unified 'state' and fortified the castles that they held.
Although their territory was always fairly limited and their numbers
few, the cult was well placed to negotiate with all the major powers
in the Holy Land.
The power of the Assassin cult did not lie in troop numbers or
wealth, but in the unique form of warfare that they waged. They
were masters of infiltration and surprise, and their members were
cold, calculating killers incapable of being bought or warned off by
their targets. The strength of purpose that drove the Assassin
'devoted-ones' [fidais] was so overwhelming that the deadly
retribution which always followed a successful murder was actually
welcomed. The families of the fidais thought it an honour that their
son be killed on a mission; consequently it was considered a great
dishonour when a son returned home from a suicidal mission on
which his colleagues had perished. This single-mindedness served
to fire the imaginations of European writers and Crusaders when
they arrived in the Holy Land. Initially there was very sparse contact
between the Crusader states and Sinan's Assassins, but dealings
became gradually more commonplace. This hesitancy can be put
down to the Assassins' obsessional hatred of the Sunni faith and
their belief that the Europeans seemed to offer little threat to their
brand of Islam. Such mutual ignorance came to a sudden and bloody
end in 1152, when Assassin devoted-ones murdered the Christian
Count Raymond I of Tripoli.
Medieval Europe would never forget the word 'assassin', mainly
because of Count Raymond's death, and the Crusaders fought with
the Assassins interminably from that point on. The cult began to lose
prestige and fighting effectiveness due to pressure from the
Christians, so much so that they were obliged to pay tribute to the
most powerful of the knightly orders, the Knights Templar. Although

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it seemed not to help the Assassin cause in any way, the attempts to
assassinate Crusaders continued. In 1192, Conrad of Montferrat, the
Prince of Tyre, was walking through that city on his way home after
a visit to the Bishop Beauvais. As he turned a corner he was met by
two youths known to him, who pulled out concealed knives. In the
attack that followed Conrad was mortally wounded, while his
bodyguard was able to kill one of the Assassins in retaliation. One
source says that Conrad was carried to a nearby church as he clung
to life, but that the very same church had been the second Assassin's
refuge! This devoted-one emerged from hiding to administer the
final blow to Conrad. Unlike the murder of Count Raymond, which
had no real benefit for Sinan and his gang of Assassins, Conrad of
Montferrat was influential and ambitious and was seen as the ideal
man to oppose Saladin. It was thought at the time that he might have
been able to lead the Christians back into the city of Jerusalem,
which had been in Muslim hands since Saladin's conquest of 1187.
Christian and Muslim sources differ on the supposed financier of
Conrad's demise. According to some, the Sultan Saladin approached
Sinan with an offer of 10,000 gold pieces and a request to assassinate
both the immensely successful Richard the Lionheart and also
Conrad of Montferrat. The story goes that Sinan accepted, but only
in the case of the latter nobleman. Unfortunately for King Richard,
he was suspected by public opinion in the Crusader states of hiring
the Assassins himself to kill Conrad. Charges against Richard were
laid after he had left the Holy Land in secrecy, and he did that
dressed in the white robes and armour of a Knight Templar. That
such conspiratorial rumours were current indicates the degree of
complicity that had developed between the Syrian Assassins and all
the powers and territories around them. Much of the gossip and
rumour may have been put about by Richard's arch-rival, King
Philippe Augustus of France. Whether true or not, the connection of
the king of England with the Syrian Assassins became one of many
legends that were woven around the cult and still survive to this
day. One French poet immortalized this connection in a poem that
has Richard teaching English boys the murderous techniques used
by the Assassin cult.
The regular contact between the Assassins and the Knights
Templar has already been mentioned in Chapter 3. The growth in
power of this knightly body into the foremost military force in the
Holy Land meant that the threats of the Assassins held few terrors
for them. In fact, as we have seen, following Raymond's murder the
Knights Templar were able to force the Assassins to pay a regular
tribute of 2,000 gold byzants to them. This arrangement rankled with
the cult until Sinan decided to negotiate with the kingdom of
Jerusalem to try and stop the tribute. His envoy, Abdullah, was

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dispatched to the court of King Amalric 1 with an offer of an alliance.

As a sign of good faith. Abdullah promised that the Assassins would
convert to Christianity in return for the Lifting of the Templars'
tribute. King Amalric was perhaps not thoroughly convinced by
such an offer, but he was delighted at the prospect of having such a
band of killers standing at his side rather than behind his back.
Abdullah was sent back to Sinan in 1173 with full acceptance of an
alliance, but he never made it to the cult's castles. On the dusty road
back, his party came face to face with armed and armoured
horsemen, complete with footmen: Templars! The knights attacked
the Assassin group and one of them, wearing an eyepatch, struck
down Abdullah, killing him. This knight was Walter of Mesnil,
acting for the Templars to ensure that the tribute they received from
the cult continued.
King Amalric was greatly displeased and, in contravention of the
Templars enjoyed, called for Walter's arrest.
judicial privileges that
The Templar Chapter in Sidon, where Walter was hiding, refused to
give him up, claiming (rightly) that only the Pope could pass
judgement on him. But the king's soldiers attacked the building and
kidnapped the knight, whom they then imprisoned in the city of
Tyre.
Although both orders were at odds in this episode of Crusader
history, there were times when Assassins and Templars had similar
goals. The two groups seem alike in many ways, and this fact was
not lost on the papal Inquisition that put the Knights Templar on
trial over a century later. Both the groups followed a similar system
of organization, with three lower ranks: lay brothers (the Assassin
lasiq), sergeants (fidais) and the knights (rafiq - a word, like 'knight',
which means 'companion'). Again both sects had three upper ranks:
the Templars had priors, grand priors and the Master; the Assassins
had the dai, dai'l-kabir and dai'd-duat (who was the Grand Master).
Like the Christian Templars, the rafiq cult members, too, wore robes
of white with red trim.
The Templar castles of Chastel Blanc and Tortosa were among the
closest to the Assassin territories, and they used them in a classic
Assassin strategy. The castles were not the basis for a feudal
kingdom, but only armed forts used as jumping-off points for raids
and campaigns. For example, little effort was wasted on denying
enemy movement between Templar castles. Assassin citadels were
employed in exactly the same fashion. The proximity of Assassin
and Templar 'states' only adds to the numerous points of similarity
between the two organizations. Inevitably, questions of interaction
and influence have been asked, but none have yet been satisfactorily
answered. As permanent residents of the Holy Land, with an armed
presence that continued as long as the Crusaders remained there, the

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Knights Templar must surely have absorbed aspects of the culture

around them. It was natural that the pious warrior sect saw in the
Assassins something of themselves.
The Templars were also involved in perhaps the most remarkable
encounter of Assassins with the West, when the king of France had
several meetings with prominent Assassin members. The meetings
were spread over several years and began when the Syrian 'Old Man
of the Mountains' sent two trusted fidais to assassinate King Louis
IX in Paris. News had reached him that the king was planning a new
Crusade, with the usual help from the French Knights Templar. The
Templars and Louis were on good terms with each other, which may
explain why the 'Old Man' then changed his mind and sent two
more senior Assassins to stop the murder. Had the Temple
convinced the Assassin Grand Master to call off the killing? When
Louis prepared for a Crusade in 1244, seven years later, the Templars
did indeed organize a great deal of the financial aspects. In the
event, the two high-ranking Assassins caught up with their brethren
at the French port of Marseilles; legend has it that a grateful King
Louis sent the Assassins back to the Holy Land with extravagant
gifts and peace offerings.
Not all of King Louis's dealings with the cult were resolved so
easily, for he was met in Acre by three Assassins in 1250, just after
he had been released from captivity by a later Sultan of Egypt. These
Assassins exploited the king's vulnerable position to the best of their
abilities, hinting at the dreadful fate awaiting him if he should not
decide to pay a tribute to the cult. They emphasized that some of the
other European nobles were already paying tribute and were now
immune from the deadly knives of the Assassins. Among those
paying protection money, they claimed, were the emperor of
Germany and the king of Hungary. King Louis wisely promised to
reflect on their threats. At the following meeting the king made sure
that he was well supported by Masters of the Knights Hospitaller. It
was not their physical presence which may have intimidated the
Assassin envoys but rather their acquaintance with the ways and
methods of the cult.
The knights were great rivals of the Knights Templar and, like
them, established a castle close to Assassin territory in 1142. The
immense fortress of Krak des Chevaliers lay just a single day's ride
from the Assassin stronghold of Masyaf, and this intimidation paid
off, since they too were able to demand (and receive) a tribute from

the Arab sect. The Assassins, now the ultimate mercenaries of the
Holy Land, were once caught between the rival knightly orders in
1213. The Knights Hospitaller had hired the Assassins to murder the
son of Prince Bohemond of Antioch. In return the prince marched
against the offending Assassin castle with a force of Knights

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 mi ASSASSINS

Templar. As usual when under siege, the wily Assassins negotiated

an end to the conflict.
King Louis's final meeting with the persistent Assassins ended
peaceably for both sides, although it began badly when the envoys
were threatened with being thrown bodily into the sea! The
indignation of the king's advisers seems to have had unexpected
results: gifts were exchanged and King Louis sent a cleric, Brother
Yves, to visit the 'Old Man of the Mountains' and learn the
philosophies and beliefs of the sect. The idea that the Assassins
actually had a theological doctrine of their own will have seemed
unbelievable to the Crusaders, who considered them despicable
mercenaries and rogues intent on doing evil and spreading terror. In
that belief, the Crusaders were probably correct, but they knew little
of the cult's origins, its inner beliefs or raison d'etre.

A Policy of Murder
The Assassins, more properly known as the Nizari Ismaili, were a
dissident religious sect that formed a heresy within the Islamic faith.
The first and greatest schism in Islamic religion was between the
established Sunnis and the opposing Shias. The Sunnis believe
absolute power and authority rest with the Koran as presented by
the Prophet Muhammad. The Shias, on the other hand, believe that
each age has its own great leader and that this leader, or Imam, is the
voice of God on earth. His wisdom is God-given and he possesses
almost superhuman powers. Beginning as a small but growing
heresy, Shiism resorted to secrecy to survive and as the Shiite
movement started to fragment, an array of subcults and related
religious sects were created. One of these was Ismailism. The Ismaili
secret sect was named after Ismail, the son of an Imam, and his
father's supposed successor as the seventh Imam - the rightful heir
to the wisdom and authority passed down since Adam. Both Sunnis
and Shias regarded Ismail as a criminal, unfit for the Imamate and
rightfully passed over by the succession. For following Ismail the
sect was persecuted by the established Arab world, although for
some time the Ismaili heresy did become the official religion of
Egypt during the Fatimid Caliphate (ad 909-1171).
At that time, Cairo was the centre of Ismailism and the heart of
opposition to the Sunni faith. It was to this capital that students
flocked, receiving instruction in the whole range of academic
subjects, as well as Ismaili doctrine. Under the banner of Ismailism,
the Fatimid Caliphate made enormous political gains, conquering
Syria, North Africa and areas in Arabia. By the end of the tenth
century, Ismailism seemed set to conquer the Muslim world. Its
greatest obstacle was the Seljuk Turks, who had quickly come to
dominate the Muslim states of the Middle East. They ruled Persia

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and gave supportto the heart of the Sunni religion: the Caliphate of
Baghdad. Egypt's role as the great champion against the Sunni
Muslims soon declined, and the country was effectively run by the
army. The activities of the military in the affairs of state would
eventually be responsible for yet another, final, schism. Before the
Caliph Al-Mustansir died in 1094, he had nominated his son Nizar
to succeed him. The Caliph's general had other ideas and placed on
the throne Nizar's brother, whom he had married to his own
daughter. This tore apart the loyalties of faithful Ismailis. Those in
the sect who had settled in Persia refused to acknowledge the new
Caliph, and established their own breakaway sect called the Nizari
Ismailis. They declared their allegiance to the ousted Prince Nizar
and, under the leadership of a dynamic and wily revolutionary
named Hasan-i-Sabbah, this Persian cult flourished as the
Assassins!
who had studied Ismailism
Hasan-i-Sabbah was a religious leader
in Cairo. There, a 'Hall of Wisdom' was attended by Hasan and
others who wished to acquire academic knowledge and learn the
intricacies of the faith. Hasan had been raised as a Shia, in the
Persian city of Rayy, but in his early years he had met an Ismaili
missionary (or dai) called Amira Zarrab. This man was also known
as 'the Coiner' from his disguise as a tradesman - all secret
missionaries adopted disguises. Little by little he undermined
Hasan's faith and introduced him to the tenets of Ismailism. It was a
subtle conversion, a process whereby the missionary encouraged the
convert to question his own faith, while simultaneously providing
answers. Only when he had come to agree with and understand the
new way of thinking did the missionary reveal his Ismaili origins.
Hasan later studied under the dai Abu Najim Sarraj ('the Saddler')
and began to learn the deeper secrets of the sect. The young Hasan
was soon compelled to leave Rayy, perhaps on a spiritual journey to
Egypt, perhaps because the heretical beliefs he preached were
frowned upon.
Hasan travelled extensively, always learning, teaching and forging
contacts, and he spent three years in Cairo studying at the Caliph's
court. There he gave his support for the Caliph's eldest son, Prince
Nizar. After his return to Persia at the start of the 1080s, the skilled
Hasan-i-Sabbah began to put down roots that would support his
secret sect in the years to come. As an Ismaili dai he found support
among the local Persian Ismailis and immediately made an impact.
Hasan had a keen mind, the c/ai's grasp of oratory and theology,
knowledge of philosophy and a rigid moral code that impressed
those he spoke with.
His missionary work in the remote mountains of Persia proved
fruitful and Hasan began to look for a permanent headquarters from

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 THE ASSASSINS

which to operate. The land he and his converts travelled was the
inhospitable mountain district of Daylam, in the north-west of
government to control vet perfect for
Persia, a region difficult for the
the type of guerrilla war
Hasan had in mind. For ten years he
that
organized the Persian Ismailis and promised the overthrow of tin?
Seljuk Turks who ruled the land. The long-term goal was the
destruction of the centre of Islamic religious authority, the Suniii
Caliphate in Baghdad. Hasan chose as a base the isolated but
impregnable castle of Alamut, north-east of the Persian city of
Qazvin in the Elburz Mountains. But first he had to seize it.
Alamut (from aluh-amut, the 'Eagle's Nest') was more than just a
castle; it was a fortified village and the centre of the Alamut valley

and its villages. The Alamut River drains into the Shahrud River and
thence into the Caspian Sea. In fact the Elburz range, and therefore
the citadel of Alamut, occupied a strategic position between the
Persian plateau and the route down to the Caspian. Alamut had
virtually impregnable natural rock defences that made it an ideal
location for the secret cult Hasan was establishing. The fort was
originally built as a hide-out, some time around ad 860-61, by
religious refugees from the Abbasid Caliphs. It had not only
formidable defences but an array of outlying forts and look-out posts
across the valley.
The castle of Alamut was occupied by Hasan-i-Sabbah in 1090,
using the guile and cunning that were to characterize both his later
thinking and that of his cult. Rather than lay siege by traditional
force of arms, Hasan sent out his own dais one-by-one to convert the
inhabitants of the villages in the Alamut valley. Soon his
missionaries were able to preach Ismaili doctrine inside the castle
itself, making numerous converts to the faith. At one point Hasan

was smuggled into Alamut and lived there in disguise under the
name Dihkhuda. When the castle's ruler discovered the subterfuge,
there was he could do about it since by then the residents were
little

almost all Hasan allowed the Alamut's former ruler to

loyal Ismailis.
leave and stepped into his place as lord of the valley and its people.
This first success would be repeated many times as Hasan sent out
his dais to infiltrate and take control of towns, villages and castles
near and far. Such a strategy would become a standard of guerrilla
warfare for centuries to come. Slowly and surely the provincial
population is overcome by a combination of propaganda and anti-
government sentiment. Mao Tse-tung used these tactics in China in
1949 and Ho Chi Minh used them against the Americans during the
Vietnam War. The persuasive dais preached politics and religious
doctrine in the same breath.
New castles force and a few were built by the
were taken by
Assassins themselves. Following successes in Daylam, the south-

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WARRIOR CULTS

eastern district of Quhistan came under the influence of the

Assassins; rebellious elements there were inspired to riseup against
the Turks and Quhistan became the second centre of Ismailism in
the country. The third area was centred on Girdkuh, south of
Damghan. The spread of the cult throughout Persia was inexorably
carried along on a wave of revolution and defiance of Seljuk
authority. The Seljuks would not turn a blind eye to the dissident
sect for long, though, and Hasan prepared for the day when their
armies moved against him. He implemented a policy of
strengthening the defences of Alamut and other castles that the cult
had recently occupied. In 1092 the Seljuk Vizier Nizan al-Mulk sent
armies against the two Ismaili strongholds of Alamut and Quhistan,
but neither could dislodge the cult. The besieged Ismailis had used
their local influence to good effect and called on help from the
surrounding population. Those at Alamut were able to rout the
Seljuk army by carrying out a successful ambush against it. This
small victory spurred Hasan-i-Sabbah to formulate new and more
adventurous plans for the overthrow of the Seljuks. Rather than
continue a policy of fostering popular support in the outlying
districts of Persia, Hasan-i-Sabbah began instead a campaign of
terrorism. This entailed the use of systematic assassinations for
political purposes and would eventually propel Hasan's up-to-now
minor sect into the consciousness of the entire world.
The shift from a guerrilla war to a terrorist campaign was one that
was eventually to ensure the cult's failure. Rather than gain territory,
the loyalty of whole villages or representatives in the government
power structure, terrorists, then as now, inspired terror and crudely
eliminated individuals standing in their way. Not only were their
attacks haphazard but the randomness and brutality of them served
to alienate the population. People felt frightened and powerless, cut
off from making any difference themselves. Hasan's Assassins and
their methods would have been scorned by the Russian
revolutionaries Lenin and Trotsky, who, like all successful guerrilla
leaders, realized that to overthrow an oppressive dynasty (be it the
Seljuk Turks or the Romanovs) the loyalty of the people actually
under subjugation was needed. At the most basic level the local
villages and towns could be used as hide-outs for members. Not so
with the Assassins; there were few places they could show
themselves without being arrested and executed. Terrorism (even
international terrorism) can be said to have started with Hasan-i-
Sabbah and his firstmurder victim.
This first target was to be a man with whom
Hasan had reputedly
been good friends before his conversion He was Nizam
to Ismailism.
al-Mulk, the Vizier to the Turkish Sultan. Legend says that Nizam
and Hasan had originally been old friends and associated with

100
 THE ASSASSINS

Islam's most famous poet and astronomer, Omar Khayyam. The story
is apocryphal, but it is interesting because of the light in which it
casts Hasan. The three men were students together and it was
suggested that whosoever achieved fame and fortune first would
promise to share them with the other two. This was agreed, and after
some time had passed Nizam al-Mulk became the first to achieve the
honours of high office in 1073. He had managed to find a position at
the Turkish Sultan's court. As agreed, his two schoolfriends soon
came - Omar Khayyam was presented with a pension and a
to visit
quiet place to study, but Hasan asked for power and Nizam foolishly
granted him a place in the Sultan's court. It was not long before
Hasan incurred the displeasure of the Vizier; perhaps Hasan desired
even more power and began to plot against his friend to gain Sultan
Malik Shah's favour. The man who would later be the leader of the
Assassins was forced to flee from the court and was hunted by
Nizam al-Mulk for many years.
Whether true or not, the story tries to explain the enmity that
existed between the two men in the following years. Nizam hunted
high and low for his old friend in an attempt to catch and kill him.
This obsession with Hasan-i-Sabbah ended in 1092, with the sudden
demise of Nizam al-Mulk at the dagger-point of an Assassin. Hasan
had achieved power of his own devising and, with the murder of
Nizam, he showed that he was not afraid to use it. This first cult
assassination had all the hallmarks of later murders: the Assassin,
Bu-Tahir Arrani, dressed in disguise as a Sufi holy man and carried
out the killing during the holiday of Ramadan. Immediately after he
had committed the deed, Bu-Tahir was cut down by Nizam's
bodyguards. This use of disguise and deception, the exploitation of
religious festivals or buildings, and the suicidal attack with a knife
all echo down the corridors of Middle Eastern history until the very
lastdays of the cult in the thirteenth century.
Two
years later the Ismaili Caliph of Egypt died and was replaced
by his commander-in-chief's preferred choice. The legal claimant
(and spiritual leader of Hasan-i-Sabbah), Prince Nizar, was arrested
and later killed, prompting Hasan to break away from the Ismaili
religion that centred on Fatimid Egypt. He announced that his
Persian Ismailis would recognize the late Nizar as Imam and rightful
heir to the Ismaili leadership. From then on Hasan's Ismaili cult
became the Nizari Ismaili, a secret sect within a secret sect!
After 1094, Hasan-i-Sabbah consolidated both his territorial gains
in the Persian wilderness and the doctrines of his theological
teachings. His sect was now isolated, both religiously and
politically, and the path he chose togo down was that of a policy of
murder to achieve his aims. We cannot say that Hasan invented
political assassination, but he institutionalized the act and created

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WARRIOR CULTS

from the usual murder for power, greed or revenge a systematic

policy of assassinations on a strategic scale that aimed to overthrow
not just an oppressive dynasty but an entire religion.
In the years to come, the leader of the Syrian Assassins, Sinan,
was known and feared as the commander of a gang of killers. His
men carried out their grisly trade for financial gain. Not so Hasan
and the original Nizari Ismaili - their assassinations were a battle
royal with the Islamic establishment. Hasan was no wheeler-dealer
either,but a stoic thinker and philosopher who gained his converts
not with money or threats but by the force of his personality and his
persuasive arguments. The Syrian Assassins, when they began to
operate in the twelfth century, achieved a notoriety and a mercenary
reputation that was not truly deserved of their Persian brothers.
The very name 'assassin' was never used of the Persian Nizari
Ismaili by contemporary writers. The title was used only of the
Syrian branch of the cult when it became established at the opening
of the twelfth century. Most historians agree that the modern
etymology of the word 'assassin' is derived from the drug hashish,
used exclusively by the Syrian Assassins. Because of the popularity
of this drug with the Assassins, they were also called the 'hashishin'.
Known also as cannabis, marijuana and ganja, the drug was used by
the Assassins for the sense of spiritual uplift and enlightenment it
can bring. Hasan's austerity and inhibited way of life would have
precluded its use by his Persian followers. The leader had both of
his sons executed; one of them, Muhammad, was put to death after
accusations were made that he had drunk wine. Liberal drug use,
therefore, would have been highly unlikely.

The Assassin Strength of Faith

The cult that Hasan-i-Sabbah now presided over was an ascetic one
to say the least. But the very austerity of such sects is what at times
can prove most appealing, as the modern-day popularity of cults like
Hare Krishna attests. All forms of drugs, including alcohol, seem to
have been banned from the Assassin castles, and absolute and
unquestioning loyalty was expected from all of the sect's members.
Such devotion was a requirement of a movement that had been
continually harassed and persecuted, as the Nizari Ismaili had.
Hasan refined this faith to turn members who would stick by the
cult through adversity into members who would murder for it, even
if in the process they would be killed themselves. In part this loyalty

was fuelled by devotion to Hasan as a charismatic leader and in part

also by the nature of the cult as a secret body of initiates that
inspired a feeling of comradeship and group loyalty.
The basic doctrines of the Assassins were derived almost wholly
from the parent Ismaili sect and comprised a fusion of Greek thought

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 THE ASSASSINS

[mainly Neoplatonic and Pythagorean) with various Semitic ideas.

The known as the Rasa'il, were the authoritative
fifty-one epistles,
text of the and
Ismaili, may have constituted current Ismaili
theology at the time. It is known that the Syrian Grand Master Sinan
studied the Rasa'il in depth, which suggests that it did indeed plaj
an important role in Assassin thinking. Part of this thinking was the
concept of 'levels' of knowledge that could be attained by passing
through seven grades of initiation. The number seven had an
important significance within the cult: there were seven ranks of
initiation as well as seven Imams.
The seven grades in the Nizari Ismaili began at the lowest level
with the rank of fidai (devoted-one), who had taken the oath of
loyalty to the Grand Master and Imam, but knew nothing of the
cult's inner secrets. Members of this grade were the rank and file of
the sect and performed the assassinations that gave the Assassins
their notoriety. Above the fidai was the lasiq (adherent), who may
have had more duties and responsibilities than the fidai. Neither
was properly initiated. The members who were had the title of rafiq
(comrade) and knew something of the mysteries and doctrines of the
organization, but still lacked the full understanding and authority of
the next three grades: the dais. Above the first of these, the dai
(missionary), there was the dai'l-kabir (superior missionary) and
dai'd-duat (chief missionary). This last rank was that of a Grand
Master, an ultimate leader who controlled the entire Nizari Ismaili
cult from the fortress of Alamut. Hasan-i-Sabbah was the first
Assassin dai'd-duat. He commanded his superior dais and they, in
turn, commanded their own village or fortress. The dais were the
fully initiated members of the Assassins, capable of preaching the
doctrines of the cult and spreading the Ismaili faith. In them was
vested the spiritual health of the Assassin communities.
At the pinnacle of this organization stood the Imam, the Shia's
legitimate heir to the teachings of Ali and Prince Nizar. These
teachings of the cult were referred to as the da'wa and they
official
replaced the previous da'wa of the Ismailis. Hasan-i-Sabbah was the
arbiter of the knowledge and acted as the Assassins' link with God;
such a one-man priesthood exaggerated the Assassins' loyalty to
him. Faith and belief went unchallenged and kept alive the cult's
spirit of absolute dedication and self-sacrifice. Western writers went
to great lengths to try and explain this mesmeric grip that the 'Old
Man of the Mountains' was supposed to have on his followers. The
most popular explanation was the use of hashish to instil the calm
killing mind and cold-blooded obedience, but the drug actually has
the opposite effect. Hashish created intoxication and a feeling of
quiescence. It is unlikely to have been used by Assassins just about
to murder someone. Faith was likely to be a stronger drug.

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WARRIOR CULTS

Chroniclers of the Crusades also attributed Assassin fanaticism to

the magical powers of their Grand Masters. It was thought that both
Hasan-i-Sabbah and Sinan dabbled in the occult. Sinan, in
particular, was given power over men's minds and skills in alchemy
and magical practice. It is highly likely that both branches of the
Nizari Ismaili performed alchemy, astrology and magical ritual. In
the world of medieval Islam, such" practices were entering the
scientific sphere and Hasan the thinker and philosopher was also
reputed to be an expert alchemist. Few today would accept the view
that the Grand Master of the Assassins held sway over his cult
through occult means. As history and the other cults in this book
attest, fanaticism is most powerful when an inner belief overrides
the cult member's own social or moral conscience.
Two stories often repeated by European writers in connection
with the Assassins illustrate why people were fascinated by this
sinister and unfathomable group. The first maintains that when the
Grand Master had selected a group of fidais to perform an
assassination, he had them drugged with hashish and then carried
into a secret garden. The young men would awaken to find
themselves in a beautiful paradise, with splashing fountains,
pavilions and well-watered trees and flowers. Every need was
catered for by attractive maidens - music, wine, delicious foods and
love. This Garden of Paradise was supposed to be a foretaste of the
Paradise in the afterlife that awaited the fidais upon their death.
Once drugged again and transferred from the garden back into the
harsh realities of the Assassin castle, they were told that to die in the
service of the Grand Master would mean they would be borne back
to Paradise by angels. Such a subtle form of mind control may well
have taken place, and its brainwashing effects are illustrated by the
story of the Death Leap. Count Henry of Champagne had visited the
Assassin citadel of Kahf to accept the apology of the Grand Master
there for the cult's murder of Conrad of Montferrat. While he was
there, Henry was walking with the Grand Master and was told by the
Assassin leader that no Christians were as loyal to their masters as
his devoted-ones were to him. To prove the point he made a signal
to a group of fidais high on a battlement. Without hesitation, two of
them threw themselves off the edge and plunged to their deaths.
Obedience was everything to the Assassins.

The Grand Masters

Hasan-i-Sabbah had been the first dai'd-duat, or chief dai, of the
Nizari Ismaili from the point the legitimate Ismaili Imam
when
Prince Nizar was deposed and murdered. That year, 1094, was the
official beginning of the Assassins as an independent organization.
For the next thirty years Hasan worked to extend his state by

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infiltrating and occupying castles, by sending dais to new areas of

unease and by the strategic application of assassination. The
Alamnt valley became the centre of this state, anil Hasan's home
right up to the time of his death. It was said th.it until that day he
Left the confines of his house only twice, and thai was to go on to

the roof! His work involved fasting, praying, reading and analysing
the reports of his spies. The regime was tough. One Assassin was
exiled from Alamut for playing the flute, and, as already noted,
both his sons were executed. One was accused of the murder of a
dai and was summarily killed; it is not known what Hasan's
reaction was when he discovered that his son had in fact been
innocent. Only the spread of Nizari influence concerned him; the
control of towns and castles would eventually provide a solid base
for future rebellion.
The identity of many of the smaller Assassin citadels has been lost
to us, but the greatesthave been located and explored. Crucial to
Hasan's tiny mountain empire were the castles of Samiran,
Lammassar, Maymun Diaz, Shah Diz and the lesser strongholds of
Damghan, Turshiz and Girdkuh. The valley of the Assassins held the
cult's three most important castles: Alamut itself, Lammassar and
Maymun Diaz.
Samiran, which occupied an important military position in a
valley further north, and the impressive Shah Diz were the two other
notable Assassin sites. This latter castle was located far from the
Alamut valley, eight kilometres from the city of Esfahan. Shah Diz
was not long in Assassin hands, though; following a siege in 1107,
it was lost to the Sultan Muhammad. The Sultan had fought with the

Nizari Ismaili all across Persia and destroyed Shah Diz when he
eventually took it, probably to deny the place to the Assassins in the
future. Of course, the Assassin commander of the castle, the dai ibn-
Attash, used every bit of his sect's skill and cunning to end the siege.
One story says that he negotiated with the Sultan of Persia and
secured the withdrawal of the army, but carried out an ambush
against the soldiers as they marched away. Another records that he
volunteered to surrender the castle after his plan to assassinate
Sultan Muhammad ended in failure.
Hasan-i-Sabbah died on 12 June 1124. His place as Grand Master
of the Assassins was taken by his own nominee, Buzurgumid, the
loyal and experienced commander of the Lammassar fortress. Hasan
had the foresight to choose a successor before he died, thereby
preventing the Nizari Ismaili fragmenting, just as the original Ismaili
religion had done. Buzurgumid proved to be an able and skilled
Grand Master, fending off Seljuk armies sent against his Assassins.
The great Seljuk Empire of the Turks now encompassed a large
portion of the Middle East and the Sultan was dedicated to

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WARRIOR CULTS

eradicating the Assassin 'state-within-a-state' that existed in Persia.

A new Sultan had by now succeeded Malik Shah. Sanjar, who ruled
the Seljuks from 1117 to 1157, proved to be a bitter opponent of the
cult afteran initial truce. But the Assassin dais were still being
dispatched on their missions and ominous threats against Sanjar
were made. Eventually the Sultan sent his armies against
Buzurgumid's strongholds. The commander of the force assaulting
Quhistan was the Vizier Muin al-Mulk. He quickly fell to the knives
of two fidais who had disguised themselves as stablehands. Other
murders were to follow; the Assassins no longer needed Hasan to
provide them with the motivation to kill.
When Sanjar's brother asked for an Assassin envoy to negotiate a
peaceful settlement to the fighting, the envoy was killed. In a frenzy
of revenge, the cult murdered 400 people in the town of Qazvin,
close to Alamut. Other murders, rather more politically motivated,
were also carried out. The most important murder of Buzurgumid's
reign took place in 1138, the year he was to die himself. The arch-
enemy of the Assassins, the Caliph of Baghdad, had been captured
in battle by one of Sanjar's commanders. The Caliph had joined a
coalition opposing Seljuk power in the region and for his crime he
was placed under arrest in the Seljuk camp. Such a sitting target was
hard for the Assassins to resist and the camp was easily infiltrated
by fidais, who then murdered the Caliph.
Like Hasan, Buzurgumid was also able to nominate his successor
as lord of Alamut, and he chose his son, Muhammad ibn
Buzurgumid. This Grand Master ruled until 1162, facing a
conspiracy against him at Alamut. The religious direction begun by
Hasan and continued by Buzurgumid seemed to have waned during
the third Grand Master's rule. The teachings of the cult took second
place to a defensive campaign of military raids aimed at
consolidating Alamut's hold on the local area. Territories away from
the Alamut valley were left to fend for themselves and the aggressive
preaching and murdering that characterized the Assassin campaigns
lapsed. Murders were still carried out - most importantly, the son of
the Caliph who Buzurgumid had ordered murdered in 1138 was
killed - but reconciliation not revolution characterized the cult's
relationship with the Seljuks.
A growing body of Assassins became disenchanted with
Muhammad ibn Buzurgumid's approach and looked to the Grand
Master's son, Hasan II, for a return to the old ways. Unlike his father,
this Hasan was young, personable and persuasive. He studied the
work of earlier Ismaili writers (including Hasan-i-Sabbah) and at
some point became convinced that he was the next Imam who
Hasan I had prophesied in his writings. As the young Hasan's
popularity increased, that of Muhammad ibn Buzurgumid declined.

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 THE ASSASSINS

Drastic measures were taken. His son's supporters were tortured and
killed. In one murderous rage he had 250 of Hasan ll's supporters
executed and 250 more exiled from Alainut. forcing them to march
down the mountain carrying their dead comrades on their hacks.
When Hasan II did take the throne at Alamnt. it would be only lor
a brief four years, but he would totally transform the theology of the
Nizari Ismaili during that time. He declared himself an Imam and
radically changed the cult doctrines, declaring that a Resurrection
would take place that involved the returning to life of all the dead.
Only those who truly believed would rise again to immortality. He
instituted his own deeply heretical rituals, which flouted many
fundamental tenets of Islam. Contemporary Muslim writers began to
refer to them as the Malahida (the Heretics). In fact, the new
Assassin religion introduced by Hasan can barely be called Islamic
at all. Much like the witches' Sabbat, the cult 'reversed' many
aspects of orthodox worship to create an anti-Islam. For example, in
the middle of Ramadan, the Islamic month of fasting, Hasan
established a Festival of the Resurrection that included a feast with
music and wine. As if that were not enough, the worshippers prayed
to God with their backs to Mecca.
Hasan II's enthusiasm seemed boundless, and although
Muhammad ibn Buzurgumid had allowed Alamut to become
isolated and cut off from the other Assassin regions, Hasan sent out
dais to preach the Resurrection and teach the new ceremonies. It is
surprising that Hasan II was able to get so far with his audacious
reforms in such a short period, but they seem to have been accepted
by the majority of the Nizari Ismaili. Some cult members loyal to the
memory of Hasan-i-Sabbah left Alamut, never to return, forced out
by the newly established death penalty for continuing the old
teachings. Perhaps the Assassins had resigned themselves to the
utter futility of converting the vast Sunni population of the Islamic
world and were happy to hear that a reward for their struggles was
not far away. The doctrines of Resurrection that characterized Hasan
II's reign at Alamut would outlive him. Hasan died in 1166, at the

hands of his brother-in-law, but his son, Muhammad II, quickly

assumed power, thus ensuring the survival of the new religion. He
was a more loyal son than Hasan II himself had been, and he carried
on and consolidated the teachings of the Resurrection for another
forty years. He proclaimed the existence of the divine spirit in
himself and his successors, transforming the leader of the cult from
the dai'd-duat (chief missionary, or Grand Master) to Imam. In other
matters Muhammad II seems to have played almost no role in
Persian politics. Assassinations were rare and Alamut was again cut
off from the other Assassin citadels. The limelight was now shifting
to the Assassin colony in the Syrian Jabal Bahra mountains. As we

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have already seen, these Nizari Ismaili were achieving great fame for
their skulduggery against the Christians and Muslims.
From the reign of Muhammad II, the Persian Assassins became an
insular and introverted sect continually on the defensive, lacking
clear objectives and with many deadly enemies. In some ways they
resembled the heretical sects of the Christian West, such as the
Cathars or the Bogomils, but without their popular support. Life was
becoming difficult for the heretics, which may have explained why
Muhammad's son Hasan III made another dramatic series of changes
to the Assassin doctrine. From his succession in 1210, Hasan III
transformed Nizari thought and perplexed the Muslim world by
converting to Sunni Islam. The very object of Assassin hatred was
embraced wholeheartedly by them. The defeat of the Sunni faith
was, after all, their raison d'etre, but Hasan III was perhaps more
politically astute than either of his two predecessors. The Assassins
were coming under pressure from the Caliph of Baghdad in the west
and Muhammad Khwarazmshah in the east. Perhaps Hasan III was
tempted to move to orthodoxy for the security that it provided.
Whatever his reasons, the Nizari Ismaili now became just another
Sunni faction, complete with newly built mosques and traditional
ritual practices. The Resurrection was never totally abandoned,
though, and when the reforming Hasan III died, his son Muhammad
III continued to support it, alongside the practice of the cult's Sunni

teachings.
Muhammad III became lord of Alamut as a young boy in 1221 and
as he grew to maturity he began to move the Assassins back to the
Ismaili faith. The Resurrection still figured in this doctrine but
began to play a lesser role. In fact, the Assassins seem
have lost
to
their missionary zeal altogether under Muhammad and their
III,

powerful position within Persian society had evaporated. The cult

still had its divine authority and clung to its independence, but the

end of the Assassins was in sight. The Mongol hordes were massing
on the steppelands to the east and attacks on the Middle Eastern
realms were becoming more common. Muhammad seems to have
been an unstable ruler, determined to stand up to the military might
of the Mongols, although many Assassins, including his son
Khwurshah, disagreed with him.
Like Hasan II before him, Khwurshah found support among the
Assassins at Alamut, who suggested that he reign as regent while his
father was placed under arrest. The cult needed a strong, clear-
headed leader in this moment of crisis and Muhammad III was not
to be it. He was an ill-tempered drunkard who flew into violent
rages on receiving bad news. Such a ruler was effectively cut off
from events in the real world and the decisions he made were almost
useless. In the end, the Grand Master of the feared Assassins was

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killed by his homosexual lover. Khwurshah succeeded his lather in

1255. and became the last Grand Master of the cult. His
in doing so
chief inheritance was to be the impending destruction of the
Assassin strongholds by the Mongol Hulegu, brother of the Khan
Mongke. His vast armies had invaded Persia and, like the other
Mongol armies on the march to the north, would stop at nothing less
than total world domination.
The Great Khan had received news that the Assassins would be a
terrible thorn in the Mongols' side, a ready-made guerrilla army,
fierce and fanatical. His troops, through warfare and the open threat
of a display of military might, were able to force the surrender of
most states, and the majority of Persia was conquered in this way by
Hulegu 's armies. Within a year Khwurshah and his Assassins faced
the Mongols on their doorstep. Like his predecessors, the Grand
Master at first attempted negotiation, since the cult lacked any sort
of military power. However, the tactic of stalling for time only
frustrated the Mongol leader, and the siege of the Assassin citadels
began. Until now no army had succeeded in taking an Assassin
castle in the Alamut valley, but the Mongols had such immense
resources that they were able to rain constant fire down on the first
of the doomed castles: Maymun Diaz. Catapults, crossbows and
siege engines were used in the assault, and as the defences of the
great castle wavered, a band of fanatical Assassins refused to
surrender and continued the fight to the end. Finally Maymun Diaz
fell. The vast army then moved to encircle Alamut and the terrified

Assassins surrendered almost immediately. By the end of 1256, the

Persian Assassins were broken. Alamut was sacked and its library of
Ismaili texts (including Hasan-i-Sabbah's autobiography) was
pilfered and then summarily burnt by the Mongol historian
Juvayani.
The young Khwurshah had an ignominious end, although his life
seemed to indicate some kind of favoured status.
in captivity at first
This last lord of Alamut was married to a Mongol wife and received
presents from Hulegu. He then began to accompany the Mongols on
their conquests. It is almost certain that the Mongol leader first
bribed and then used Khwurshah to help him negotiate the
surrender of the remaining Assassin citadels. As the last bastions of
the Nizari gave out, there were stories of Khwurshah's heir being
spirited away to live a life in exile, thus preserving the Imamate.
Perhaps in order to save himself as well, or to preserve something of
the Ismailis, the Assassin leader travelled to the Mongol capital at
Karakomm, where he was to meet with the Great Khan. When the
Mongol chief learned of Khwurshah's presence in the city he
ordered his removal, probably because stories of the ease with
which Assassins murdered heads of state still carried great force.

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And even though the cult was now smashed, there had been
rumours that Assassins had entered the city on a mission to kill the
Great Khan only two years before.
Rebuffed, Khwurshah made his way back to Persia, but without
the status and authority he had up to now enjoyed, he was grimly
beaten and murdered by his own travelling companions. But the
Assassins were not dead yet. The Syrian Nizari Ismaili were held up
in the mountains of the Holy Land, struggling with a foe even greater
than Hulegu. But within twenty years of the fall of the Assassins in
Persia, the last of the Syrian castles fell to the all-conquering Sultan
Baibars.

The Cult in Syria

The Syrian Assassins had made quite an impact on both the Western
and the Muslim world, and they reached their height under the
leadership of Rashid al-Din Sinan during the Crusades. Sinan had
been one of those eager devotees of the divinely inspired Hasan II,
who introduced the radical doctrine of the Resurrection. It was this
young Grand Master who sent Sinan to Syria to spread the new
teachings there. In 1162 Sinan became the independent Grand
Master of the Syrian Assassins and the legendary 'Old Man of the
Mountains', initially establishing himself at the castle of Kahf. A
different account tells how Sinan was one of the supporters of young
Hasan II during the reign of his jealous father, Muhammad ibn
Buzurgumid. In one of the purges of his son's friends, Muhammad
forced Sinan out of Alamut and from there he fled to Syria. When
Hasan eventually usurped his father, he made use of Sinan by giving
him control of all the Nizari Ismaili in the Holy Land.
It is known that the doctrine of the Resurrection was received at

the Syrian branch of the cult, and that the Assassins altered their
theological teachings accordingly. But Sinan seems to have finely
judged his loyalty to Alamut - at least once Assassins were
dispatched to kill the Syrian Grand Master. Sinan ignored much of
what Hasan II's son and heir, Muhammad II, decreed, causing an
almost unbridgeable rift between the two Assassin communities. In
fact, he may have
thought of himself as Hasan II's legitimate
successor, perhaps even as an Imam, especially once relations with
the next Alamut lord broke down.
Sinan was not, of course, the first Assassin lord in Syria: there
were Assassins established in the region soon after Hasan-i-Sabbah
took control of Alamut. Other Ismailis had been hiding away there
for centuries and this relative isolation among the mountains
provided the Nizari Ismaili with some measure of security. Ismaili
influence in Syria had waxed and waned with the fortunes in Egypt
of the Fatimid dynasty, who for a while had held Jerusalem.

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At about the time that Hasan-i-Sabbah was consolidating his hold

over the Alamut region, Seljuk power in Syria was divided. The
fragmented politics of the region meant instability and a degree of
lawlessness that would last for almost 200 years. It was this
internecine fighting that allowed the Assassins to prosper Later in
the history of the Holy Land, and also to gain their initial foothold.
One Seljuk lord actually invited the Assassins into his realm,
ostensibly to fight other Seljuks(commanded by his brother, Duqaq).
The lord was Ridwan, ruler of Aleppo, and a supposed [small]
convert. He may have feared the killers almost as much as he valued
their presence, especially when they began to flaunt their power in
the streets, arguing, robbing and murdering with impunity. The first
Assassins from Alamut to settle in the city of Aleppo in about 1103
were led by the dai Al-Hakim al-Munajjim.
Murders carried out by the sect for payment began early in Syria,
almost as a necessary method of survival in such a war-torn land.
The local rulers who called on their grisly services could also
provide shelter and patronage. Of course, the real mission, to
acquire castles and communities of their own and use them in a
guerrilla war against the Seljuk Turks, would always drive the
Assassins onwards. But first the cult had to gain a permanent base
and hang on to it. More immediately, the mercenary Assassins
earned their keep quickly enough by murdering an enemy of
Ridwan. The rival who required killing was the ruler of Horns, and
he was set about during prayers by Assassins dressed as Sufis. As
often happened, the killers had absolutely no chance of escape and
were themselves killed.
Aleppo was used as a base from which to expand. Under a new
leader, Abu-Tahir as-Saigh, the cult managed to occupy castles in
the local area. These gains were not to last, however, and the
Assassins were forced from them by a combination of Crusader and
Seljuk attacks. Simultaneous with these depredations were the
Sultan Muhammad's assaults on the Assassin territories in far-off
Persia. The weakening of the cult and the loss of prestige that this
had caused resulted in a mass killing of Assassins on the streets of
Aleppo. Abu-Tahir, Assassin leader of the Syrian branch, was also
arrested and executed during the massacre. But even after Ridwan 's
death the cult was not totally expunged. His successor, Alp Arslan,
allowed the Assassins free rein in Aleppo until the pressure from
Sultan Muhammad to force the cult members out of the city became
overwhelming. The round of arrests and murders, however, meant
that from then on Aleppo was to see little of the Nizari Ismaili.
A new centre of operations sprang up under a new Persian leader
called Bahram, in the mountain range of Jabal as-Summaq, to the
south-west of Aleppo. Missionaries went out from this area to search

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for other potential sites, and eventually the ruler of Damascus,

Tughtugin, invited them into his city and allowed them to build a
'House of Propaganda', much like the one they had established at
Aleppo. Like Ridwan, this Arab leader wanted to use the Assassins
as a fighting force in battle rather than as an assassination unit.
Tughtugin, as their new patron, called on the cult and its fidais to
join his army against the Crusaders in 1126. This marks the first use
of hired Assassins in wartime, but it was not to be a common
occurrence. Soon, the events of Aleppo repeated themselves in
Damascus, with the Assassins being forced from the city in 1128,
following Tughtugin's death. The cult also had to give up Banyas, a
single castle that they had acquired and held for only a short time,
but that Crusader forces demanded as the price for allowing the
Assassins to leave the region unharmed.
After thirty years of mercenary work, the Syrian Assassins still
had neither an established base nor a haven from persecution. But
that would all change in 1132, when the cult actually bought the
castle of Qadmus from the emir of Kahf. Territory here, to the north
of the Crusader county of Tripoli, was often untenable and
opportunities for conquest were ripe. The Assassins needed only a
handful of castles to establish themselves, where other states
required land, a rural population and so forth. The emir, for his part,
was glad of a buffer between Muslim and Christian lands - castles
owned by anti-Sunni Muslim fanatics were better than castles
standing empty and waiting for Christians to occupy them. Other
castles were taken one by one, and by a variety of methods. Within
three years the Nizari Ismaili had also purchased the citadel of Kahf
and could begin to make claims of an Assassin 'state', tenuously
strung out among the Jabal Bahra mountains. The years from 1140 to
1160 were a period of consolidation and strengthening of the newly
acquired castles. From now until the end of their existence in Syria,
the cult occupied, on average, ten castles, and manned them with a
total population amounting to something like 60,000 people. It was
from these bases that the Assassins began the mission first put into
motion long ago by Hasan-i-Sabbah in 1090, and in doing so they
used their infamous tactics against the Muslim and Christian forces
surrounding them.
These Syrian Assassins were forced to make frequent pacts and
alliances with Crusaders and Arabs alike. They were caught in
dangerous crossfire, and on occasion even acted as the weapon! In
part they were protected by their reputation as well as the defences
of their castles. The greatest of the Syrian castles was Masyaf; others
included Banyas (for a short period), Kahf, Khawabi, Mainakah,
Rusafah and Ullaikah. No one castle served as the cult's Syrian
headquarters in the way that Alamut did for the Persians. The Grand

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Master moved around, from locale to locale. This would enable him
to receive intelligence directly, as well as dramatically reduce the
risk of hisbeing assassinated by an outside state.
It was at this period, following the recent settling of the Assassins

into Syria on a permanent basis, that Rashid al-Din Sinan arrived

from Alamut. Without a doubt his immense skill shot the Nizari
Ismaili to unprecedented heights and worldwide fame. It is thanks
to Sinan and his exploits that we know anything at all of the hist on
of the Assassins. The Muslim writers considered the cult a heretical
and therefore undocumented religion, but the Crusaders found the
Assassins in the Holy Land a fascinating and mysterious subject. It
is through Sinan and his adventures that the word 'assassin' entered

both the imagination and the vocabulary of European nations. His

successors, however, did not lead the Syrians as effectively. There
are few documented Grand Masters and few notable events in which
they are involved. Each leader was sent directly from Alamut, and
his rule reflected the current thinking of the Persian Grand Master.
For example, when Hasan III declared the reversal of Assassin
doctrine and acceptance of the Sunni faith, the same religious policy
was implemented among the Syrian Assassins.
The decline of the Assassins in Syria was swift and decisive.
Power struggles within the Mameluke Empire had ended with the
murder of the Sultan Kutuz and the rise of his killer and successor,
Baibars, in 1260. This leader was a tough and thorough man who
quickly defeated his Muslim rivals and spread the recently formed
Mameluke Empire across the Holy Land by defeating the Crusaders
and driving them out for good. The Sultan Baibars governed his
territories from Egypt and his conquests began to form the basis of a
new Islamic Empire. There was no place in this empire for the cult
of Assassins tucked away in the mountains of Syria. The might of
Baibars can be judged by the fact that he soundly defeated the
Mongol army of Hulegu, who had just utterly destroyed the Assassin
population in Persia. How could such a tiny cult effectively defend
itself against such a ruler? The answer was plain. It could not, and
Baibars tested the Assassins' resolve by first taking away land that
was theirs and then demanding taxes from them. In the early 1270s
Sultan Baibars occupied several Assassin castles, and by 1273 he
had conquered all of their strongholds, including Kahf, one of the
most indomitable of them all.
Sultan Baibars had demolished what was left of one of the most
widely respected and feared organizations of medieval times. The
Knights Templar, too, fell to the Sultan, and so the two sects that
seemed to have so many similarities were destroyed by a single
Muslim general. In that same year, the Venetian explorer Marco Polo
visited Alamut and saw the mighty citadel exactly as the plundering

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Mongols had seventeen years earlier. He took away with him

left it

several stories of how the Assassins had operated in times past,

including the account of the Garden of Paradise.
The organization of the Assassins could not have survived past
the end of the thirteenth century, but its memory certainly did. The
modern-day Ismaili leader the Aga Khan claims a direct bloodline to
Buzurgumid, via the last Alamut Grand Master Khwurshah, whose
heir was supposedly spirited away during the siege of Alamut. In
this way the memory of the bloodthirsty Assassins lives on in the
present decade. As we have seen, the tactics of the cult have also
found supporters in later times. Although no direct connections
exist, it is a strange coincidence that modern-day Shiite fanatics
craving Paradise have been dispatched from Iran (the Persia of
medieval times) to carry out suicidal executions in other countries.
The infamous suicide car bombs, packed with explosives and driven
into a target by faithful Shiites, made headlines in the early 1980s.
The young bombers, both men and women, first made relaxed video-
tapes of themselves before they carried out the mass murders. In
them they proclaimed their devotion to God and their hatred of the
enemy. One of the most spectacular results of these suicidal attacks
was the destruction of the US Marine barracks in Beirut on 23
October 1983, in which 241 soldiers were killed. Assassin doctrine,
it seems, has been re-created by the people who invented it to

begin with.

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CHAPTER 5

The Thugs -
India's Dark Angels

When the Europeans took up residence in India and began the task
of administration and governorship, they little knew that below the
surface of Indian society lay a murderous cult that took thousands of
innocent lives each year. The pilgrimage season was a time of travel
for many, and the Thugs preyed upon these pilgrims along the roads
of India. Unlike many grisly cults and organizations that engage in
murder on a large scale and in a secretive manner, the Thugs had no
obvious purpose. The religious nature of the huge cult meant that
wealth and political power were rare by-products of this
unwholesome group, not its prime motivation. They killed for their
goddess. The fact that thuggee was a religious practice partly
explains why the group's motives were so unfathomable. But as a
religion it was one of the most bloodthirsty in human history.
The terrible crimes of the Indian Thugs were so seemingly
random, so pointless and so well camouflaged, that few Indians
knew of their existence. Those who did know kept the secret well
guarded, as was in their best interests. It took the extraordinary skills
of deduction and methodical investigation of one Briton, William
Henry Sleeman, to bring the cult into the open and there extinguish
it - killers, accomplices and instigators all.

Sleeman worked for the East India Company in the first half of the
nineteenth century, a time when the Company was the only real
representative of British rule on the Indian subcontinent. As a local
magistrate working in Jubbulpore, he first came face to face with
Thug killers, about whom, so far, he had heard only rumours. Scant
documentation by earlier European travellers had fuelled his
imagination and he very much wanted to learn more. At his posting
in Jubbulpore in the early 1820s, a large group of travellers carrying
suspected stolen items had been detained. Since no one would come
forward to claim any of the items, they were allowed to be on their
way. But one of the group lingered to talk with Sleeman. By bluff,
Sleeman tricked the guilt-ridden Indian into admitting that, indeed,
the men were robbers. More than that, he said that they were Thugs.
For his own safety this first turncoat, called Kalyan Singh, was
locked away, and Sleeman rode off in pursuit with a column of
troopers. The travellers were soon surrounded and false claims of

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brigandage were put before them. It was gambled that they would
co-operate to prove their innocence and they gladly returned to
Jubbulpore. Once there, they were accused of thuggee and locked
away. Kalyan Singh's brother, Moti, was also a member of the gang
and freely joined Kalyan in giving Sleeman the evidence he needed
to convict the murderers. This evidence was abundant - and
shocking. Moti led Sleeman and his soldiers to a well-concealed
grave among a grove of mango trees. There the freshly buried bodies
of three men and a boy were uncovered. All had broken necks. Many
more corpses were to be unearthed . . .

Among the killers who were hanged wasa police officer and even
a government courier. seemed that the cult stretched into all parts
It

of society. In fact, thuggee was much like a sinister web of silence

that had trapped the rich and poor, important and not-so-important.
Sleeman had twenty-eight of the gang hanged and seventy
imprisoned. From this first incident he had created a starting point
in his investigation; he had exposed a tiny branch of this vast cult
and it could lead him further into the secret world of thuggee. His
two informants (or 'approvers') would be the first of many, and they
would be the key to exposing the cult and whoever controlled it at
the organization's centre. When England learned of these bizarre yet
murderous gangs, the word 'thug' gained a permanent place in the
language.

The Practice of Thuggee

In the 1820s very little had been heard
of the Thugs. European
travellers in India knew well that robbers (dacoits) infested the
full
roads and travel was always dangerous because of them. It was only
when the British expanded into India that the society of assassins
was exposed. Even then, the early investigators had no inkling that
the stranglers they heard about were part of a vast organization
operating across India. Only one or two writers had mentioned such
a deadly secret society before Sleeman. Perhaps the earliest was a
Frenchman named Thevenot, who visited India in the seventeenth
century. He recorded that the most cunning robbers in the world
could be found on the road from Delhi to Agra. They would
sometimes use a beautiful woman as bait, who would, once up on a
traveller's horse behind them, either strangle him or knock him
down for the rest to murder. These robbers were expert stranglers,
employing improvised garrottes of knotted scarves.
A British account had also been made of a sect of killers called
Phansigars. Dr Richard Sherwood was a surgeon at Fort St George in
Madras and had written the document in 1816. His study of the cult,
which strangledits victims, was lengthy and quite accurate. He had

discovered several names for the assassins, including Thugs.

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 THE Tin GS

Phansigars, Ari lulukar, Tanta Kalleru and Warlu Wahndlu - all

words that denoted death by strangulation. The first encounter with
Thugs may have taken place, according to Sherwood, in L799. A
gang of about 100 killers was arrested near Bangalore, hut there were
accounts of the crimes of these stranglers from across the Land. Also
included in the doctor's notes were several Thug words, part of a
secret language that Sleeman termed Ramasi. With his aptitude for
languages. Sleeman mastered Ramasi, helped by Sherwood's notes
and Moti's guidance. He even printed a Ramasi booklet for the use
of his officers in their work against the cult.
When this evil secret society of assassins was brought to the
attention of the East India Company, the official response was one of
non-intervention. The Thugs boasted a religious calling and were
devoted to a Hindu goddess called Kali. Despite the atrocities
committed, the Company did not want to be seen to be persecuting
one of India's many religious groups. Sleeman remained at odds
with this opinion and was able to convince the Company to act only
when the sheer scale of the cult at last came to light.
Because the Thugs were killing to please their goddess and to
carry out a sacred act, there was always a pattern to their murders.
Rituals and ceremonies dominated almost every aspect of this grisly
trade and each person had his own part to play in the murders.
Usually a small group of Thugs out in front would meet a party of
pilgrims or other travellers. These deceivers (sotha) would try to
endear themselves to the travellers with conversation, song and
even music. Often these scouts would ask if they might travel
alongside the pilgrims for mutual protection. Once the suspicions of
the group had been allayed, secret signs would be left for the rest of
the Thugs to let them know that a party of victims had been
infiltrated. These Thugs would then join the travellers with the same
requests for protection. The stranglers had the patience to wait many
days until the entire Thug gang had joined the group. At this point
there were usually more Thugs than victims! When a suitable
opportunity arose, two of the Thugs called beles, or grave-diggers,
would walk ahead of the main party and select the location for the
killings. Nearby they would dig the graves with magical pickaxes.
Soon the pilgrims and their Thug companions would arrive and set
up camp for the night. Beds would be made, food cooked and fires
lit. As the travellers relaxed and were entertained by the sothas, the

Thugs got into position for the mass murder, three to a traveller if
there were enough. Suddenly the leader gave the jhirni, the death
call, and the Thugs were upon their victims.
The strangler (bhartote) whipped his yellow scarf, or rumal,
around the victim's neck and strangled him. Helping him was a
second Thug, the chamolhi, who grabbed the victim's legs and

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forced him on to his face. A third tried to incapacitate him in any

way he could, by kickinghim between the legs, seizing his hands or
sitting on him. The scarf was knotted at either end and would not
slip from the bhartote's Across the camp site every traveller
fingers.
was being similarly dealt with. Within seconds it was over.
When the intended victims were in postures that made it difficult
for the bhartotes to carry out their work, the sothas had to get them
to bare their necks. Most often they would encourage a sing-song
and when the travellers were in full flow with heads thrown back,
the stranglers attacked. Most sothas were skilled in the use of
musical instruments and knew many songs for just this situation. If
the pilgrims were all asleep or lying down, then one of the sothas
would scream that he had seen a snake or scorpion. The reaction of
most of the sleepy-headed victims was to jump up out of bed - and
into the rumals of waiting bhartotes.
Once the murders had been committed, the bodies had to be
disposed of. It was only then that the gang could pray to Kali and
offer up the human victims as a sacrifice. Occasionally the
preparations for burial would be interrupted by other travellers. In
this case sheets were thrown over the recently strangled bodies and
the thugs claimed they were companions who had just died from
disease. This hopefully dissuaded the newcomers from getting too
close! Thugs took as much care with the burial of their victims as
they did with their selection and murder. It was the meticulous way
in which they covered up their crimes that allowed the Thugs to
continue to strangle year after year without being discovered. When
ritual graves (or beles) were located by Sleeman and his approvers,
they sometimes contained more than 100 bodies, going back
centuries. When the British began travelling the land, Thugs were
never tempted to strangle them. All Europeans were traceable and
were important enough to warrant an investigation should they go
missing. To attack such targets was anathema to Kali's Thugs.
Usually the dead littering the ground after a kill would be
dismembered by ritual butchers [lughas); if time was pressing, then
the legs only would be hacked off, or the victims would just be
doubled up. The corpses were often mutilated beyond recognition to
prevent later identification. This would also undoubtedly speed up
the rate at which the bodies decomposed. Repeated stabbing of the
corpses was carried out to stop them from swelling and disturbing
the topsoil. The possessions would be pilfered from the victims and
their bodies would then be carefully placed into the grave dug
earlier by the beles. Once covered with earth and vegetation, the
morning sun would dry the soil. Camping over the bele further
destroyed any traces of freshly dug ground. It was at this camp over
the grave that Kali was venerated in a ritual feast.

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 THE THUGS

This feast was the Tuponee, the climax of the divine mission the
gang had undertaken. Inside a tenl the Thugs spread out a cloth and
sat upon it. gathered around their Leader. The younger initiates sal
outside this circle. The gang's consecrated pickaxe [kussee] was
placed on the cloth before the leader. With it was a piece of silver
(an offering to Kali) and a special communion sugar [goor] held in
reverence by the Thugs. The gang leader then dug a small hole in the
ground and as he prayed to Kali he poured in some of the goor. Holy
water was then sprinkled into the hole and over the sacred axe as tin;
gang joined in the prayer to the goddess. All who had killed that day
were allowed to taste the goor. If by chance a young untested Thug
tasted it, he had to leave the camp and strangle someone.
Was the goor drugged? The Thugs believed that a man who had
eaten the goor had given his soul to Kali and that she owned him.
He was a Thug for life; indeed, the goor gave men the overwhelming
desire to strangle and brought them closer to their gang. It banished
remorse, human compassion and guilt. The taking of the goor
became a communion, with all participants revelling in their grisly
profession. The Grand Master of all Thugs, Feringheea, told
Sleeman: 'If I were to live a thousand years I should never be able to
follow any other trade.' Thuggee was, at once, a religious calling, a
career and a pastime.
The magic pickaxe used by the beles to dig the graves and by the
leader during the Tuponee had supernatural powers. It was imbued
with all the mystery of the Crucifix and was worshipped every
seventh day. Experienced Thugs were reputed to be able to call the
pickaxe and at once cause it to fly into their hand. Such fantasies
could lend credence to the theory of the goor as a drug.
To join a Thug expedition and murder innocent travellers a cult
member did not first have to reject all the principles of virtue, moral
correctness and justice. It was the paradox of the religion that Thugs
believed themselves to be honest and pious men. They were
convinced that all benefited from their evil deeds: their victims were
sacrificed to Kali and went straight to Paradise; Kali herself
benefited from the sacrifice; and the Thugs had the patronage of the
goddess and would go to Paradise. This aspect of the Thug mentality
again made the detection of cult members difficult. When the
pilgrimage season ended after the winter, the Thugs melted back
into everyday life. Most retired to a peaceful existence, sometimes
with great status or responsibility. Policemen, government agents,
doctors and even nurses to white families were Thugs. Their
religious nature meant they were trustworthy and honest. The word
'thug' (properly pronounced 't'ug') actually means deceiver, a
reference to their veil of integrity. Most gang members spent their
summer months at regular jobs, or lived off the spoils in

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unemployment. To cover their tracks further when the East India

Company started to take an interest, the Thugs had to take up cover
jobs as farmers, either for themselves or on the land of a sympathetic
noble willing to take a bribe.
Before a Thug gang set off for its annual season's killing, it paid its
respects to Kali and asked for good luck. A multitude of omens were
observed before, and during, the Thug's hunt for human prey. The
severed head of a sheep was examined; how the mouth and nostrils
twitched when liquid was poured over them determined what kind
of fortune the gang would enjoy. The theft of this sheep's head by a
dog meant bad fortune for many years to come. Other signs from
nature told the gang how they would fare. The sounds and actions
of lizards and birds along the intended route were important; so
were donkeys and jackals. Bad omens meant that the road was
unlucky. The omens were then read on others until an auspicious
path was found. Numbering anywhere from ten to fifty-plus men,
the gang set off to locate travellers for sacrifice to Kali. Every man
hid his true nature and the gang masqueraded as pilgrims or other
travellers with elaborate stories and identities.
Kali told the gang not only which road to follow but also which
victims to select. The gangs merely carried out her wishes. Some
bands of pilgrims would remain unmolested by Thugs because one
of their members was seen as a bad omen. Women were not to be
strangled because Kali was female, although the Hindustani Thugs
(thought of as violators of many of the cult's taboos) would kill men
and women. Cripples, lepers and blindmen would not be touched,
nor would craftsmen such as metalworkers, masons, potters,
carpenters, laundrymen and shoemakers. Indians of the Kamala
caste would be allowed to live and so would anyone driving a cow
or female goat. Many people must have unwittingly escaped almost
certain death as a result of having one of these 'charmed' individuals
travelling with them. By the time Sleeman had begun his crusade
against thuggee, many of these taboos were being regularly broken,
and the Thugs attributed his victories to this.
The killing of a tiger by a Thug was taboo. The tiger was thought
to be of special significance to the cult, and members considered
themselves tigers, preying on men as the great cat does. Fate and the
universe impelled both creatures to hunt humans. It is the way of
nature; the victims of thuggee had their own death 'written on their
foreheads'. Killing a tiger inevitably brought death to the Thug.
Sleeman's greatest weapons against thuggee were the turncoat
Thug, gaoled and threatened with the gallows, and the ordinary
Indian who came forward with evidence. Such witnesses were very
rare initially, as no one wanted to face reprisals from freed Thugs or
to have to travel across India to give evidence. Thug gangs rarely

120
 THE THUGS

carried out their religious duties close to homo, journeying .it leasl
100 miles from home so that the killings would not be connected
with them and there was no chance that the victim's relatives would
recognize them. To combat these fears, Sleeman arranged for written
evidence to be used in court and made association with thuggee
punishable by either life imprisonment or death. But he also had to
contend with a conspiracy of complicity. Rich landowners and rajas
sanctioned local Thugs, as long as the gangs hunted elsewhere and
returned with enough loot to buy their silence. This patronage of the
cult had kept it sheltered and hidden for 500 years. All Sleeman
could do was pay informers to identify these rich patrons.
There is little evidence that Thugs killed only for the treasures it
brought them, but it cannot be denied that the wealth of a particular
caravan or party would have made it especially attractive. It must
have been very frustrating to see one of these rich groups go on its
way because it contained a woman or a carpenter. Greed may have
resulted in the breaking of age-old taboos, and been indirectly
responsible for the cult's downfall. The hasty murder of rich and
prominent people may have made the gangs clumsy. In one such
incident, a Thug gang was able to trick a group of travellers into
leaving a larger party to travel with them (for lower cost). The grove
they camped in that night was all ready for the murders to follow.
But the group included women and children. All but the two
children were strangled to death. These young survivors were
instantly adopted by two of the Thugs, but one continued to cry for
his mother. To shut him up, this boy was grabbed by the legs and
had his head smashed against a rock. His body lay undisturbed till
morning, but was then found by the local landowner, who organized
an armed pursuit of the careless Thugs. Catching up with the gang,
his riflemen forced the Thugs to flee, leaving behind their spoils.
The second boy was raised as a Thug strangles Usually, the sons
and nephews of Thug members were initiated into the cult at an
early age. At first they were groomed for membership and assessed
to see if they could follow the holy trade and keep it a secret. They
would be trusted only to keep watch and carry messages, not
watching their first killing until the gang could be sure that they
would agree to join the stranglers. On reaching his eighteenth
birthday a novice Thug was able to take the goor and murder in the
name of Kali.
It was not just rich and powerful landlords who kept thuggee a
secret. The nature of Indian society meant that travel for many was
time-consuming and dangerous. Wild or poisonous animals, disease
and traditional robbery were ever-present threats; relatives rarely
investigated the disappearance of a family member for this reason.
Victims of thuggee would not be reported missing for weeks or

121
WARRIOR CULTS

months, due to the slow speed of travel in medieval India. The peace
and security that the British brought to the country, along with new
roads, was a double-edged sword. More people ventured out in the
pilgrimage season, providing the Thugs with many more
opportunities for murder. It must be remembered, too, that the secret
society went out of its way to conceal its murders. The idea of using
a rumal was to prevent bloodshed, and no other weapon was used,
except for the swords sometimes carried by the Thug sentries who
guarded the edge of the killing area. These would cut down any
fleeing victims 'lucky' enough to escape death by strangulation.
The Thug gangs did not avoid rich travellers; neither did they
favour them particularly. Any marked for death by Kali were simply
killed. But rich victims were especially desired and a gang would go
to some lengths to see that a wealthy traveller fell victim to the
charms of the sothas. When the omens of the goddess favoured a
party of poor travellers, the Hindustani Thugs would let it pass and
use the good luck to trap a richer group. The Deccan Thugs
disagreed with this reasoning, believing that once pilgrims had been
marked by Kali, they must die. To do otherwise was to court the
anger of the goddess of destruction.
One gang displayed particular ingenuity and determination in the
pursuit of a Muslim nobleman, or Mogul. The Mogul was travelling
on horseback, accompanied by several servants, and was well
armed. Although he seemed to have little to fear on India's open
roads, he refused the request of a group of Hindus to travel with him.
He had heard of Thugs and was well enough armed not to need the
protection of other travellers. These Hindus were in fact members of
a Thug gang and no amount of persuasion would allow them to join
the Mogul's party. They had no choice but to let this rich nobleman
pass. But they did not give in so easily, and arranged for several of
their number to meet up with the Mogul the following morning.
These Thugs were Muslims who again asked for the Mogul's
protection, especially since they shared the same faith. But again the
noble refused and threatened the Thugs with violence, and again the
Thugs had to let the Mogul continue his journey.
Stillundeterred, the Thugs arranged for members of their gang to
lodge for the night at the same roadside inn (sarai) as the Mogul.
Rather than approach him again, they engaged his servants in
conversation and became friends. When the sun rose, the Thugs left
the inn and set out on the road. Later that morning the Mogul's party
overtook these clever Thugs and the Deceivers again struck up
conversation with his servants in an attempt to join them. When
their lord ordered the Thugs away, his own servants spoke in their
favour and asked for the Mogul to grant them his protection. But the
Mogul insisted, driving the Thugs away yet again. It seemed that this

122
 THE mi i.s

rich prize was to slip through the Thugs' fingers, but they had one
last rust 1
to try.
Five more Thugs, dressed as Muslim sepoys, set out ahead of tin-
Mogul and on an open plain in the wilderness got read} to meel the
Mogul's party. They had strangled a lone traveller and sat weeping
over his body as if he were a dear friend who had succumbed to
exhaustion. When the Mogul came across this scene, he enquired
about the dead man and was told by the Thugs that they were poor,
uneducated men who knew little of the Koran, and thus could not
bury their comrade with the proper funerary rites. They appealed to
the Mogul to carry out this religious service for them and, being a
good Muslim, he agreed. Readying himself for the burial, he
dismounted from his horse, removed his sword, pistols, bow and
arrows, for he could not carry out this holy ritual with them on.
After washing, he began the solemn rites. Two of the sepoys flanked
him, the others stood among his servants. In a flash the Thugs
strangled the Mogul and his servants! The five stranglers were
efficient and quickly had the bodies ready for burial in the grave
they had prepared for their 'comrade'.
There are practically no other groups in history that have carried
out systematic murder using the highways of the land as both a
place to select their victims and their killing ground. Only the
irregular warfare of the Vietnam conflict can provide a comparison.
Project Delta, devoted to in-the-field patrols that penetrated deep
into the heart of Communist territory, organized specialized
'Roadrunner' teams. These were staffed by indigenous Vietnamese
soldiers who disguised themselves as Viet Cong guerrillas and
travelled up and down the trails and tracks in the hope of coming
across an enemy unit. Once the Roadrunners had successfully
infiltrated a Communist unit they would stay with them, eating at
rice stations, moving through villages and avoiding American
troops. Their mission was to either leave the guerrillas after as much
intelligence as possible could be gathered or lead the Communists
into a fatal American or South Vietnamese ambush. Such a strategy
called for agents with great cool and an ability to pass themselves off
convincingly as regular Viet Cong, but for the worshippers of Kali
theremay have been no feelings of guilt or fear of discovery. Their
actions were divinely inspired, the natural methods of worship for
the savage cult.

Origins of the Cult

The great mystery of thuggee is not how it remained virtually
undetected for 500 years, but how it began. What were its
first

origins? With no written Thug evidence, the beginnings of the secret

cult are obscure. Perhaps the most bizarre fact is that Kali is a Hindu

123
WARRIOR CULTS

goddess, yet the Thugs were mainly Muslims. Kali is not mentioned
anywhere in the Koran, but the cult may have identified her with
Fatima, the murdered daughter of Muhammad. Some Thugs
believed that Fatima taught the cult members how to use the scarf as
a murder weapon. The mixing of religion in the formation of the
Thugs is noteworthy in a land where religious intolerance raged
between Hindus and Muslims. The Islamic conquest of India put
large parts of the country under domination and began the long-
running enmity. Thuggee was a cross-breed religion, where Muslims
recognized the Hindu gods and rituals. However, they paid little
heed to the Hindu taboos that are part of that worship.
Kali is the Hindu goddess of death and is the wife of Siva. She is
also known as Kali Ma, the Black Mother, Bhowani or Devi. The
goddess was responsible for the defeat of Raktavija, the demon-king.
As he led his demon army against the gods, he realized that they
w ould be defeated. Raktavija attacked Kali himself and almost
r

overcame her, since every drop of blood that spilled from his body
became 1,000 giants who joined the fight. In a frenzied attack, Kali
drank Raktavija's blood, killing him and preventing the birth of
further giants. Her dance of victory was ecstatic, causing
earthquakes across the earth and her husband, Siva, attempted to
calm her, but in her frenzied state she threw him down and trampled
him to death. Only later did she realize her crime.
The goddess of the Thugs is depicted as a black-skinned woman
with four arms. In the first hand she carries a sword, in the second
Raktavija's severed head, while her third hand is raised in a gesture
of peace. The remaining hand is grasping for power. This echoes the
two sides to the worship of Kali: her right side as mother and
saviour, and her left as uncontrollable monster. The left hand has
always signified ill-fortune and bad luck. She dances through space
on the body of Siva, her tongue hanging out of her mouth and her
eyes blood-red. Kali's jewellery is indeed grisly: a necklace of
severed heads adorns her neck, while her girdle is composed of a
row of hands. Each skull in her necklace represents a letter of the
Sanskrit alphabet, which Kali had invented. Both of Kali's earrings
are human corpses. It is plain to see why the Thugs chose her as
their divine figurehead. She seems to have been an early Hindu war
goddess with an appetite for blood, terror and disorder.
Why the Thugs believed that they honoured Kali by slaughtering
innocent travellers is unclear. There is no established origin legend
for their hideous practice, but Kali does feature in some Thug
mythology. One tradition has her as the Thugs' protector, devouring
the corpses of the victims they have murdered to obliterate any trace
of them. A young Thug looked around one day to see the terrible
goddess eating a body they had left for her. From that moment, she

124
 THE THUGS

Let the cult members dispose of their own dead bodies, but she first

presented them with tools with which to carry out their murders.
One of her teeth became the magical pickaxe (icussee), one of her ribs
became a dagger and the hem of her garment became the rumal used
to strangle travellers. Since white and yellow were Kali's colours,
the rumal was always either white or yellow.
Another Thug legend has it that, as Kali paused during her
struggle with Raktavija, she brushed the sweat from her arms and
created two men from it. To these she gave the rumal and ordered
them to begin killing Raktavija's demons. After they had done so,
they brought back the strangling cloth but the goddess insisted that
they keep it, using it in the future to kill all strangers who crossed
their path. The noose as a killing weapon is known in early Hindu
mythology as the naga-pasa ('dragon noose'). It was used by demons
as they fought with the Hindu gods.
The historical origins of this murderous cult are just as obscure
and riddled with conflicting theories. Most writers do, however,
agree that thuggee is very old and dates back at least 500 years. The
earliest mention of Thugs in Indian literature is in Zia-ud-Barni's
history of Firoz Shah. This records that 1,000 Thugs were captured
at Delhi in 1290 and the Sultan in power refused to let them be
executed. The gang was given its freedom in Lakhnamut in Bengal
and Sleeman thought this might have accounted for the trouble with
Thugs that this area had in the future. Zia-ud-Barni's work was
written in 1356 and it was not until the late sixteenth century that
thuggee was mentioned again. Some 500 Thugs were captured in the
Etawah district during the reign of Akbar, which lasted from 1556 to
1605.
Earlier references have also been discovered, but these may or
may not refer to thuggee. One connects the stranglers with an
ancient tribe called the Sagartians. These Persians were nomadic
and were forced to give a levy of 8,000 cavalry to the army of King
Xerxes. Herodotus mentions that they carried no weapons of bronze
or iron except daggers; the special weapon upon which they relied
was a lasso made of plaited strips of hide. This they used to strangle
their enemies.The descendants of the Sagartians may have come to
India with an Islamic invader and settled around Delhi. If indeed
these are the first Thugs, then the cult dates back to at least 500 bc,
a history some 2,200 years long!
The village of Ellora in north-east Bombay province may also hold
clues to the age of the Thug sect. Great temples there point to the
village being a site of special religious significance; there are Jain,
Buddhist and Hindu temples in the area. Ancient caves near Ellora
are decorated with eighth-century carvings, and some Thugs believe
that every ritual and activity of their profession is recorded

125
WARRIOR CULTS

accurately there. They also believe that the carvings were made
divinely, since no Thug would ever depict his crimes for all to see,
or instruct a mason to do so either. In his book Things Indian,
written in 1901, Crooke describes one of the Ellora carvings: 'We
have a Thug represented strangling a Brahman who is worshipping
the emblem of Siva, whereupon the God comes to his rescue and
kicks down the Thug.' Whether or not the Ellora caves depict Thugs
is a matter of conjecture. Feringheea told Sleeman that no Indian

outside the cult ever recognized that Thugs were depicted in the
carvings, but every Thug who visits Ellora sees his own trade
recorded there. Many went to satisfy their curiosity; the Ellora caves
were never a place or worship for the sect. Perhaps Ellora should be
taken as another piece of Thug mythology, especially since only one
of their number could actually identify the Thug representations.
If the first Thugs were immigrant Muslims, could they have been

connected with Hasan's refugee Assassins? Some writers believe

there is a connection. Members of both were almost exclusively
Islamic and both groups dedicated themselves to the practice, and
perfection, of assassination. Since major Islamic conquests took
place after ad 1000, it is likely that refugee Assassins did indeed
enter central India at about this time. Delhi was captured by
Muhammad of Ghur in 1192 and Thugs are mentioned in the age of
Firoz Shah, a century later. Ismailis, fleeing their homeland
following the fall of Alamut, may have arrived in India and
discovered the Hindu worshippers of Kali carrying out their terrible
rites. The penetration of the Kali cult by ex-Assassins would
certainly go some way towards explaining the worship of a Hindu
deity by Muslims. In fact, we can suggest that the worship of Kali
may have been entirely respectable until the domination of the
Assassins. Such a small but widely spread cult would have made a
good cover for their operations. What exactly the Assassins could
gain from the ritual murder of travellers and the dedication of those
murders to a Hindu goddess is beyond speculation. However, as
Chapter 4 has indicated, the Assassin community at Alamut never
enjoyed a permanent religion, but had to adapt and alter their beliefs
according to the philosophy of the Grand Master at the time. Was the
Hindu Kali just another stage in the development of the Assassin
religious psyche?
Historians will never know for sure how thuggee began or who
began it - Sagartian mercenaries, resettled Assassins or native
Indians with a taste for blood. Like the bloodline of a people, the
answer is probably a mix of each, the combination of ritual, custom,
intent and accident making up the first Thug murders.
Tracing the origin of the cult is made more difficult by the
existence of other secret gangs of murderers. These generally had no

126
 THE THUGS

connection with the Thugs, but followed their own horrible agendas
on the roads of India. One sect operating in the Burdwan district was.
however, a branch of thuggee that had taken to water. The Pungus
worshipped Kali and had the same beliefs and rituals as their land-
based cousins. Rather than haunt the roads for their victims, they
took to the many boats that carried cargo and passengers along the
rivers. One of the gang kept a careful look-out for the all-clear and
then gave the jhirni by striking the boat's deck three times. At this
signal the crew and passengers would be strangled and their bodies
thrown overboard. If blood was seen in the water coming from the
bodies, then the Pungus had a tradition that they must return the way
they had come and carry out another floating murder. They also
differed from the usual Thugs in their Ramasi language, which was
very unlike the one Sleeman had learned.
An Irishman called Creagh was the founder of one robber gang
that turned to secret murders. The Tasma-Baz began as a gambling
outfit atCawnpore, with Creagh and a few Indians taking bets on a
Hindu version of the shell game, Tasma-Bazi. The game used a
folded leather strap and soon became a lucrative source of income.
His followers started up Tasma-Baz gangs of their own and began
paying off local policemen to keep away from their scams. With a
growing underworld presence, the Tasma-Baz turned to murder and
robbery. There were no religious overtones to these gangs. Members
were outlaws and rogues and liked to kill with drugged sweetmeats
given freely to players. The drug most used was taken from the
datura plant and usually knocked out the victim. It was more
commonly used in less lethal quantities smoked in the traditional
hookah.
Datura was also used by the killers known as Daturias, who
travelled India poisoning for profit. They fed people the drug in
other foods and, when the victims lay unconscious, were free to
murder and rob. The lucky few who recovered from the drug were
sometimes able to help the authorities track down the gangs.
Resembling the Thugs most in their methods were the
Megpunnites. These gangs lived from the sale of children to the
slave trade, and were forced to kill many parents to get to them.
Megpunnaism is an Anglo-Indian word formed from mekh (a peg)
and phansa (to hang). Like the Thugs, these gangs employed nooses
Once they had murdered the adults, they
to strangle their victims.
stole the surviving children and either used them for sex or sold
them on. Girls were obviously the most popular and many stayed
with the gang, and, in some cases, even going as far as to help other
members in their murders.
It seems incredible that these secret societies knew nothing of
each other's existence. But their disguises and clandestine

127
WARRIOR CULTS

behaviour meant that few Indians were aware of any of them until
they were exposed and crushed. As was the case with the Thugs.

The Destruction of the Cult

William Sleeman's first collected notes and reports were to form the
basis of a system for the destruction of the evil Thug cult.
Methodical investigation and careful cross-referencing was to lead
to the exposure of cult members and gangs. It was Sleeman who
began these investigations, at first as a pastime or hobby, but later in
an official capacity, charged by the East India Company with the
cult's destruction.
Beginning slowly, with interviews of the first Thugs he had

caught, he began his records. Included in them were names and

dates, the locations of gang villages and well-used beles. He
expanded his system as his work grew, and found himself mapping
out some vast family tree of interconnected Thug gangs and gang
members.
The search for an end to the terrible activities of the gangs became
an duty for Sleeman in 1826. The East India Company had
official
shifted its position and decided to back the suppression of thuggee.
By 1830 he had free rein to investigate the ritual murders over the
whole of central India. Already, in the four years prior to his official
position as chief investigator, Sleeman had convicted hundreds of
gang members. The East India Company could not brush aside such
gains and had little choice but to back him. The size of the problem
was too vast to ignore.
Equally, Sleeman was now becoming too important and
troublesome to the gangs for them to ignore. Several assassination
attempts were made on his life, but all failed.
The captain had suspicions that some master Thug, an arch-
criminal of great power and villainous intent, lay at the centre of the
family tree he was slowly creating. But no proof could be found. His
diligent researchers hinted at the existence of some shadowy
kingpin, and in the process earned Sleeman his nickname of
'Thuggee', for his single-minded obsession. His trees were of
immense value in connecting one Thug to another and one gang to
another. Differences in the cult from region to region were noted, as
were new words of Ramasi, hunting grounds, beles and
collaborating nobles. This tree of linkages grew larger each year and
was accompanied by a map showing areas of historical Thug
activity. Sleeman hoped (and was eventually able) to predict the
attacks of gangs, their size and possible base of operations, as well
as suggest the names of prominent members or leaders. These family
trees were mainly created using the testimony of ex-Thug approvers,
who also helped him catch fellow stranglers or local gangs. Only

128
Witches dance widdershins (counterclock-wise) around the Devil who, in the form of
a goat,is being kissed on the buttocks by a witch. This medieval myth derives largely
from earlier Roman and Greek witch cults. (The Bodleian Library)
Vase detail showing a frenzied worshipper of the Greek cult of Dionysus tearing apart
an animal. (Mansell Collection)
Relief of a wheatsheaf from Eleusis. Wheat and barley were sacred to the Greek
goddess Demeter and feature regularly in depictions of the Eleusian Mysteries. (Sonia
Halliday Photographs)
Bacchanalian festivities were often depicted as shown in this relief, accompanied by
a dancing satyr and ecstatic Maenad. The god Bacchus held sway over the emotions
of his cultists and whipped them into an orgastic frenzy (Mansell Collection)

Right: Modern-day Druids celebrate the

summer solstice at Stonehenge. This
monument pre-dates the original
Druids by over a thousand years, but
Boman desecration of Stonehenge
suggests that the cult may have held its
rituals on the site. (Hulton Deutsch)

Left: Statuette of the deity

Celtic
Taranis. whom the Bomans
associated
with Jupiter. He holds a wheel and a
thunderbolt, and the Druids may have
sacrificed to him by burning human
victims alive.
 >

., c

Statue of Mithras, the popular but mysterious Roman god, slaying the cosmic bull in
order to benefit mankind. An ear of corn, symbolizing life-from-death, springs from
the wound, while Ahriman's servitors, Scorpion and Snake attempt to poison the
dying animal. (Mansell Collection)
Bust of Commodus, the Roman emperor who identified himself with the demi-god
Hercules. Here he is dressed in the Nemean lion-skin, clutching Hercules' club.
(Mansell Collection)
A medieval manuscript depicting the fiery execution of Jacques de Molay, the last
Master of the Knights Templar, and one of his lieutenants. (The British Library)

Left: One of many

seals used by the
Knights Templar, the order that
depended on a reliable and efficient
system of communication. (The British
Library)

Right: The Assassin castle of Masyaf.

near Hamain modern-day Syria, the
western headquarters of that infamous
cult. (David Nicolle)
Thug carpet weavers. These rehabilitated Thug killers had previously joined other
members of the cult in terrorizing nineteenth-century India. Their carpets later
became much valued. (The British Library)

Caught completely by surprise, a traveller is dragged from his horse by eager Thugs.
Within hours his body, his belongings and even his horse would have vanished
without trace. Such was the fate that welcomed the unwary. (The British Library)
Left:Book illustration which depicts
an intruder being stabbed through
a wall. The Japanese shogun
Tokugawa Ieyasu employed ninja
warriors as his palace guards. As
this picture shows, they were as
skilled in defence as they were at
attack. (Japan Archive)

Below: An accurate and atmos-

pheric photograph of a ninja clan
member at work. (Japan Archive)
Attacking without warning, from behind his victim, this ninja shows why members of
the cult were experts at assassination. (Japan Archive)

Book illustration of an agile ninja penetrating the outer defences of Fushimi Castle.
All the hallmarks of a classic ninja mission are here: the solitary agent in black garb,
using stealth and cunning to enter a building. Note his sheathed sword and abun-
dance of equipment. (Japan Archive)
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Plan of Peking, 1900, battleground for the Boxer Uprising.

1 German Legation, 2 Belgian Legation, 3 British Legation, 4 French Legation.

5 Italian Legation, 6 Japanese Legation, 7 Spanish Legation, 8 United States

Legation, 9 Tsungli Yamen, 10 American Mission (Hulton Deutsch)

Illustration of allied troops coming under attack from Boxer cultists during the siege
of the British legation. Peking. 1900. (Hulton Deutsch)
Above: Mao Tse-tung before the fear-crazed years of the Cultural Revolution. His
revolutionary thinking harkened back to the Boxer Uprising. (Robert Hunt Library)
Following the relief of the Peking legations came the reprisals. Here a captured
member of the Boxer cult has met his end at a formal execution. (Hulton Deutsch)

"Lest We Forget". A corner of the British legation in Peking is being visited by Chinese
officials following the Boxer Uprising. (Hulton Deutsch)
 mi lines
when the maps and
family trees were distributed to other officers
working bring down the Thug conspiracy would enough
to
information be amassed to bring down the entire organization,
That it was a single organization (a single 'tree'), Sleeman was
convinced. Occasionally references to the head of the murderous
secret society would be encountered, but they were never complete
enough upon. Once he was able to act, he knew thai the cult
to act
would not long. Eliminating the master Thug would be
last
analogous to beheading a dangerous snake; it would din soon after
the fatal blow was inflicted. His identity continued to remain an
enigmatic secret, but Sleeman's ever-growing and carefully kept
records would sooner or later pinpoint him.
Each morning began with an update of the latest information and
Sleeman matched new data with old to try to piece together the
identity of the Thug's master strangles On one unforgettable
morning, Sleeman believed he had this leader's name: Feringheea.
Born of noble blood, Feringheea was handsome and bold, charming
and persuasive, intelligent and cunning. He had been born during
the siege of his father's estate by government troops and survived the
destruction of his father's property. Writing the name on a piece of
paper was far removed from actually capturing the man himself,
however, but now the campaign had a focus and a definite goal.
Capture the Thug Feringheea and the five-century cult of mass
murder would dissolve around him.
The mountain of records was of great value to Sleeman and his
officers. Many times they were instrumental in the capture of gangs.
One of Sleeman's men, Captain Borthwick, was able to correctly
pick out a gang of Thugs from his records based on the location of
several murders and eyewitness testimony. The murders had been
committed in 1829 in Rutlam State by what at first appeared to be
Bhil aboriginal tribesmen. When he examined the remains,
Borthwick was convinced that Thugs were responsible, not Bhils.
The locals gave him a description of a large group of travellers who
had come that way recently. They were apparently returning from a
pilgrimage to a holy place in Gujarat. Using his records, Borthwick
was able to guess which gang was responsible and told the Rutlam
police chief to pursue them, accompanied by only three horsemen!
When the chief caught up with the pilgrims, he had to convince
them to return with him to Bhulwara. Cleverly he pretended to be an
opium inspector.The government monopoly of opium trafficking
meant that had troops posted along the roads to apprehend
it

smugglers. With the threat of pursuit by these troops, the chief

persuaded the pilgrims to turn back. The Thugs hiding among the
travellers were happy to go along with the policeman; they knew full
well they were innocent and it would do them no harm to be given

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the all-clear by the government! At Bhulwara, Borthwick's records

identified a Thug who, once confronted, became an approver. He
turned in his entire gang to Borthwick and owned up to
participating in the strangulation of eighty people so far that year.
The time was not far off when the king of Thugs himself,
would turn to approving to save his own life. In 1830
Feringheea,
Sleeman seemed to be getting closer~to this leader, but Feringheea
kept slipping from his grasp. His investigations in southern India
were proving fruitless, even though a large part of Sleeman 's
resources were directed at this one aim. The use of approvers, as
spies and deceivers, would be the weapon used to catch the arch
Thug. It was ironic that thuggee fell due to the subterfuge of these
double-agents; the cult had trained its members well.
Feringheea had wandered into the centre of Sleeman's territory. At
a village near Jubbulpore the cult leader organized a meeting to
discuss the next season's activities. It was at this village that the
government struck, capturing Feringheea 's family but failing to take
the leader. Sleeman moved them to Saugor, hoping to use them to
catch Feringheea. A second attempt also failed, and the head of the
Thugs escaped alone. The remnants of his gang joined up but were
now so few and so dispirited that Feringheea abandoned them in
favour of a new group of Thugs. These he would recruit at the village
of Kisrai. Unknown to the leader, two approvers at Kisrai were ready
to turn him in. He was caught there in December 1830.
The meeting between Sleeman and Feringheea took place the
following month. The Thug was given just one minute in which to
switch sides and become an approver. Rather than face a fitting
execution by hanging, Feringheea chose to inform on his own
organization. This act of clemency was not a popular one. To let the
orchestrator of this abominable cult live while countless thousands
had died seemed too much. The injustice was compounded by
Feringheea's admission that his gang had strangled 100 men and five
women on their last expedition. Sleeman saw, however, that a
willing general can disband his troops. This general proved very
willing indeed; if he had regrets or loyalties to Thugs still practising
their trade, he did not show them. Feringheea was pardoned and be
began the task of locating the beles full of dismembered travellers
that had been used by his gang. Close by, the local village had been
a sanctuary for Thugs, under the protection of a conniving
landowner. A second alarming revelation was that one of the cult's
greatest burial places was located right under Sleeman's nose in
Narsinghpore, where he had been a magistrate in the 1820s. Sizeable
bands of Thugs from all across India used the nearby groves as
meeting places and stopping points during their campaigns.
With the head of the evil cult behind bars, the days of thuggee

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 THE nit GS

were numbered, Feringheea told Sleemaxi ever} secret of the

religion,including beliefs, techniques, past activities, present
members. Thug bases and other information. Anything the wear}
investigator wished to know was explained to him by bis ea
approver.
Convicted Thugs or those awaiting trial were placed in a specially
built prison at Saugor. Those found guilty of thuggee were hanged
and their cells given to the fresh inmates arriving daily. Others
associated with the cult but not themselves murderers were
sometimes deported or gaoled for life. The executions numbered in
the thousands and the Thugs died without remorse or guilt, man)
throwing themselves from the gallows. They believed that Kali had
assured them a place in Paradise and were eager to join her.
Doubtless, too, they disdained execution at the hands of a chamar
(skin-curer), who was of the lowest caste.
By the middle of the nineteenth century the cult of thuggee was
almost non-existent. Sleeman saw the destruction of the evil society
through to the very end. He was made General-Superintendent for
the Suppression of Thuggee and brought many more of the
stranglers to trial. By 1840 3,689 Thugs had so far been tried, with
only 466 of those executed. Over 1,100 were imprisoned (usually for
life), and ninety-seven were acquitted. Many Thugs were
transported for life or died before verdicts could be passed.
Approvers who helped to expose the cult and its members
numbered fifty-six. Between 1840 and 1850 another 531 Thugs were
brought to trial, the last of their kind. Untold thousands of Thugs,
safe in anonymity, never came to trial, or even under suspicion.
The cult reappeared briefly in the Punjab throughout 1853 but was
quickly and easily suppressed by Captain James Sleeman (William's
nephew). Murders in the name of thuggee were also reported as late
as the 1940s, but it is doubtful that any real links existed. From
Jubbulpore Sleeman directed his men in the last operations against
the surviving Thug gangs, and from this town he attempted to re-
educate the sons of Thugs. His aim was to give them a trade to
follow, and in this he was highly successful. His craft schools taught
would-be stranglers the arts of weaving, building, brick-making and,
most famously, carpet-weaving. Thug carpets were renowned in
Victorian England, the Queen herself ordering one. It was delivered
to Windsor Castle for display in the Waterloo Chamber. Huge and
seamless, the carpet measured 24 by 12 metres and weighed around
2 tons. This gift can be seen as the end of the campaign against the
cult. The carpet was almost a peace-offering by the sons of Thugs as
reparation for the sins of their fathers. No Thug would, of course,
view it like this. According to Thug philosophy, all those Thugs who
were put to death by the East India Company now dwelt in Paradise.

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Estimates have put the total death toll at the rumals of Thug
somewhere near 12 million! This very rough figure is
stranglers at
based on 40,000 murders each year across India for 300 years. Who
knows how many dismembered corpses lie under Indian soil even
today? Not even the Thugs themselves could guess the age of their
profession, and no gang was foolhardy enough to keep written
records of its murders. As a guide to numbers, one gang of twenty
Thugs caught by the East India Company boasted an average of 256
murders each during their lives as Thugs!
The true horror of thuggee lay in its inherent amorality. Its
adherents truly believed they were righteous devotees of a goddess
who promised Heaven in return for human sacrifice. Their actions
were ultimately evil, though such a term is very subjective. No Thug
considered his actions anything but pious. The existence and
prosperity of the cult is a testament to the dark, fanatical side of
religion. It is possible that Thug gang members considered themselves
the moral arbiters of God's judgement, India's 'dark angels'.

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CHAPTER 6

Ninja and Ninjutsu -

Japan's Secret Warrior Cult

In the minds of modern media audiences, the ninja are superheroes.

Are superheroes, because to the average person the ninja never went
away. Countless movies depict the modern ninja as a deadly black-
clad practitioner of an arcane but effective oriental martial art.

Operating alone, the ninja is a masked wrong and

hero, a righter of
settler of scores. As if to reinforce this view of the ninja as a modern
phenomenon, exponents of the ninjutsu martial art in Japan and the
USA today claim direct descent from the ancient Japanese ninja ryu,
or schools. Their teachings hinge on the idea of the ninja as hero and
spiritual guru, as if to vindicate the existence of a cult of assassins in
the modern world. For what the ninja were: a hereditary
this is truly
cult of murder, arson and most ninja clans
deceit. Like the Assassins,
were mercenary groups killing generals and aristocrats for money.
Even children in Japan and most of the western world are familiar
with the ninja, especially since the explosive popularity of the
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle cult at the start of the 1990s. Now ninja
turn up regularly at fancy-dress parties, in toyshops and comics.
They have gone the way of the western gunfighter, the Druids and
Robin Hood. All have been mythologized to such an extent that any
'bad' elements associated with these characters have been eclipsed
by their more heroic and commendable qualities (for example, the
gunfighters robbed and murdered, and the Druids carried out human
sacrifice). This process began some time ago, around the start of the
seventeenth century, when depictions of the ninja in Japanese books
began to feature black-clad men of mystery able to kill someone
without being detected. The ninja was already becoming endowed
with the formidable and magical powers that would later turn the
character into a superhero. This transformation from assassin to
warrior-magician coincided with the decline of the ninja as a
fighting force in Japanese warfare and politics. As memory of the
real-world ninja faded, their skills of stealth and trickery were
elevated and transformed into magical powers and the ninja himself
became a folk-hero.
The role of the faithful and honourable Japanese warrior - the
samurai - also fell into decline. Samurai were roughly equivalent to
the knights of Western medieval history, operating in a feudal

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society and owing allegiance to their master (the daimyo). Not only
were the samurai deadly battlefield fighters, heavily armed and
armoured, but they dedicated their lives to the pursuit of their
master's goals. If disgraced, the ritual suicide of seppuku (more

commonly known as harakiri) would be performed. Even samurai

wives would follow their husbands to the grave in this manner.
Obligation, honour, loyalty, face - alhwere the cornerstones of the
feudal society in Japan from early medieval times. And in the
shadows lurked the ninja, flourishing in this noble climate even
though the ninja ignored such codes of conduct. He was a state
terrorist, a guerrilla fighter and a spy. Ethical considerations played
no part in the ninja mind-set; there was never any such thing as a
'fair fight' with the ninja. No ninja, for example, would ever allow

an opponent to retrieve a dropped sword, as a samurai would

automatically do. So, who would have use of such men? Why were
they allowed to exist at all?
In the strictly defined nature of samurai warfare and society
certain options were just not available, and sometimes these options
were sorely needed. Modern military strategy countenances such
techniques as assassination, surprise commando raids, the targeting
of specific command posts, intercepting messages and the use of
misinformation. But no daimyo could ask his honourable samurai to
perform these deceptive and underhand deeds. Instead, he made use
of the unconventional mercenary warriors, the ninja, who occupied
this niche. Only when Japan settled into a long period of peace did
the use of ninja decline, but for most of Japanese history warfare and
the interminable feuding of rival daimyo racked the islands. Both
the Japanese emperor and the supreme war-leader, the shogun, were
mostly figureheads, especially during the chaotic civil wars between
1450 and 1615.

The First Ninja

The concept of unconventional warfare was probably introduced to
Japan from China. The Chinese general Sun Tzu, one of ancient
history's greatest military minds, compiled The Art of War some
time between the sixth and fourth centuries bc. Much of his book
stressed that war was the final card to be played during a political
struggle, and that other methods should also be used to defeat an
opponent; physical force was only one of many techniques. His
thirteenth chapter addresses the use of espionage to achieve one's
objectives, and is considered by many to have inspired the growth
of ninja in Japan during later centuries. Sun Tzu countenances the
use of spies whenever possible, explaining that foreknowledge of
the enemy's situation will ultimately bring victory. He identifies
several categories of spy, including double-agents and suicide-

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 NINIA WD \l\|l TSl

agents, but he praises most of all the spies who penetrate enem}
encampments or castlesand return with up-to-date intelligence. To
the Japanese of later times, these were ninja.
Shonshi was the Japanese name for Sun Tzu, and a Japanese text
called Shonshi Nihongi quotes Sun Tzu many times. It is thought
that The Art of War reached Japan around ad 700 and the book was
readily accepted and figured prominently in the development of
warfare in the islands. By ad 800 the tactics that would later become
associated with the ninja appeared in Japanese warfare with the start
of the Heian period, and the establishment in the islands of a new
sect of Buddhism called Shingon. Both were to have a profound
influence on the development of the ninja cult.
The Heian period (ad 794-1192) saw the emergence of a great
series of splendid and powerful families that dominated politics and
society. Families such as the Minamoto, Sugawara and Taira fought
each other for the highest positions in the land. With much to gain
(and much to lose), the great families began to resort to the
underhand methods of Sun Tzu, sending out the first ninja against
each other. Now, one antagonist could strike at another without a
fully fledged war in progress: a cold war. At the centre of these
devious operations was the tiny mountain province of Iga, close to
the imperial capital of Kyoto. During the Heian period this province
came under the sway of the Hattori family, who hired out their
highly unconventional warriors to feuding families. These 'men of
Iga' were saboteurs, spies and assassins - in short, the first of a long
tradition of ninjas.
The tumultuous Heian period saw the growth of the secret
Shingon sect, which had its origins in Chinese Buddhism. It is
thought to have been introduced in ad 806 by the monk Kukai and,
unlike traditional Buddhism, which opened its temples to all
people, it initiated members and refused entry to those it thought
unsuitable. As a defence against established Buddhism, the cult
made its home in the Japanese mountains, specifically Mount Koya
and the mountains of Iga. This new sect was also known as mikkyo,
the 'secret knowledge' or the 'true word', and this mysterious aspect
gave the initiates of the Shingon cult the status of mystics. Through
their secret devotion, it was believed that each initiate would be able
to achieve Buddhahood. Adept Shingon members were magicians of
some skill, using finger magic (called kuji-kuri), examples of which
are commonly found on Buddhist statues today. Different signs
could be created by twisting the fingers together in different
combinations, and the Shingon initiates used these finger signs to
enhance the power of their ritual words. One Shingon book lists
almost 300 different signs! Legendary exploits featuring Shingon
magicians were often coloured by their use of many different types

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WARRIOR CULTS

of magic, and initiates seemed to specialize, so there are examples of

fire magic, toad magic and spider magic. Other types, too, will have
been practised.
Coinciding with the influx of Shingon Buddhists into the Iga area
was the arrival of Chinese warrior-monks and warlords with the
remnants of their armies, following the collapse of the Tang
dynasty. The warrior-monks (or yanTabushi) settled in the region,
and journeyed regularly on hard pilgrimages from shrine to shrine
through the mountains. Yamabushi were later associated with the
ninja, perhaps because the latter often disguised themselves as the
warrior-monks and were able to roam the region freely. Both were
fighters; indeed, the yamabushi were involved in the guerrilla
struggles of early Japanese history, when both Buddhism and
Shintoism vied for imperial favour. Like members of the mystical
Shingon cult, the yamabushi were also known for the magical
abilities that they acquired through the suffering and hardships that
their travels brought them.
No doubt the ninja clans were deeply influenced by the
independent nature of both yamabushi and practitioners of
Shingon. The kuji-kuri finger magic of the Shingon wizards also
impressed itself on the culture of the Iga families, and was later used
by ninja. This magical association cloaked the ninja profession with
an aura of mystery, and to many the practitioners of the ninja art
were at once cunning warriors and subtle magic-users. Just as
Shingon wizards had mastered magical themes such as fire and
spiders, the ninja may have practised a form of stealth or warrior
magic, inherited directly from the Buddhist sect.
In the early years, what would later fall to the ninja to carry out on
the battlefield was undertaken by a small number of exceptional
samurai. During the Gempei War (1180-85) two powerful families
fought each other, and two samurai brothers, Kawara Jiro and
Kawara Taro, performed a night-time raid against the Minamoto in
true ninja style. In the end, however, it was this latter noble clan that
claimed victory, and it did so with ninja activity of its own.
As individuals, ninja warriors are mostly unknown to us, unlike
their glory-seeking opposites, the samurai. Only occasionally were
names recorded: for example, when the military leader Yoshitsune
fled across Japan from his brother Yoritomo, he was accompanied
by several loyal companions, among whom was Ise Saburo
Yoshimori, a ninja from the province of Kozuke. What's more, the
group at one point travelled as yamabushi, a common disguise for
ninja. Other ninja 'heroes' infrequently break the surface of
obscurity, often to meet a horrible fate by being boiled in oil by the
authorities. No wonder, then, that the ninja were reluctant to
advertise their achievements!

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 N1N|A AM) \l\|l I'M

Although the ninja clans operated all over [apan, the Strongest
concentration of families was in the province of [ga and the Koga
region of Omi province, south of the imperial capital, Kyoto. This
mountainous area provided both a training ground for the clans and
a safe haven from the forces of the daimyos who they might anger in
their work. Such security meant that the Iga/Koga clans could
operate in isolation as mercenaries. The virtual impossibility of
successfully attacking the ninja clans rendered them politically
neutral, in much the same way that Switzerland was neutral dining
the Second World War (indeed, the Swiss were also noted for their
mercenary armies in earlier times). The Japanese clans living in [ga
and Koga formed the ninja 'cult' that through loyalty and military
excellence survived the wrath of powerful daimyos. Eventually it
was a long and relatively undisturbed era of peace that was to signal
the end of the cult, but until then the ninja held on to their freedom
tenaciously.
Dominating the ninja organizations in Iga were the families of the
Hattoriand Oe, but there seems to have been little direct rivalry
between them, since the clans co-operated in a way unique in feudal
Japanese society. Various schools or traditions of ninjutsu (the art of
the ninja) developed in the Iga/Koga regions, and one estimate has
put the number of clans following the Koga school at around fifty.
These schools flourished during the power plays of the Kamakura
period (1192-1333), hiring out their special guerrilla methods to
first one lord and then another. One family in particular, the Wada,

who were in possession of a whole string of hilltop forts, were so

powerful that they were able to provide a bolt hole for the shogun-
to-be, Yoshiaki, in the late sixteenth century. And yet the Kawai Aki-
no-kami family had fought for a shogun a century earlier during the
chaotic civil wars of that period. For centuries the sheer
invulnerability of the ninja clans seemed assured, and ninjutsu
reached height during the so-called sengoku-jidai, or 'Age of the
its

Countryat War', which ran from 1450 to 1615. But a harsh warning
was to sound in the year 1579, when the great warlord Oda
Nobunaga sent his forces into Iga to crush the ninja once and for all.

The Shadow Art

Although the clans did not follow the honourable and chivalrous
codes of conduct that the samurai clans had universally adopted,
they were not uncivilized and lawless. A ninja clan organized itself
in much the same way as a samurai family, with a web of obligations
and loyalties, but it cloaked itself in secrecy and mystery. Not only
were the identities of the main clan members secret, but the very
skills and traditions of ninjutsu were equally shrouded in mystery.
These skills were grouped into schools, or ryu, that systematized the

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clan techniques and formalized the training of young members. A

ryu had its own combat methods and philosophy, and differed in
weaponry, the types of mission that it undertook and the favoured
equipment or techniques that it employed. Some writers claim that
at least one ninja clan had high-minded ideals and accepted only
defensive or punitive commissions, but if so, it must have been the
exception.
Ninja in different geographical regions established their own ryu,
so that there was the Iga ryu, the Koga ryu and so on, as well as
schools named after their founders, such as the Nakagawa ryu of
Nakagawa Shoshunjin. The secrets of each were closely guarded and
the special techniques passed down from father to son or from a ninja
master to his pupil. When the ninja of the Nakagawa ryu practised in
one corner of the castle where they trained, no one was allowed near
them for fear they would see the secret techniques of the cult.
Daimyo Tsugaru benefited from the ryu during the mid-seventeenth
century, since its founder, Nakagawa Shoshunjin, was one of his own
samurai. All aspects of their training, according to the writer
Watatani, were highly secret, and only the daimyo himself could
order the ninja agents into the field. Anyone who disseminated ninja
techniques to others was immediately executed by the clan, but this
did not stop writers of the period committing the art of ninjutsu to
paper. During the years of the ninja decline, books that listedsome of
the amazing techniques previously employed by the stealthy
assassins became popular as curiosities. The most authoritative of
these surviving works is the Bansen Shukai, a handbook of ninjutsu
written by Fujibayashi Yasutake in 1676.
At the head of a ninja clan sat the jonin. He was the overall leader
and directed political policy and strategy, approving commissions
and directing the clan towards certain goals. Usually the jonin had a
cover that hid his real identity from even his own staff. Some jonin
were able to support two or more separate families in the course of
their hidden life, without one knowing of the other's existence.
Below the jonin were the chunin, or clan middlemen, who oversaw
the day-to-day running of the clan. These officers were responsible
for training the actual field agents (the genin), setting up contracts
and missions and supervising the clan's affairs. Most would be
retired genin or even ninja who were now unfit for fieldwork
(through accident or combat), which meant that they added their
own experience of ninjutsu to the corpus of secret knowledge passed
down to the students. The lowest rank in the ninja organization was
genin, or ninja proper. Genin conducted operations and carried out
the hazardous missions that earned them their fearsome reputation.
Trained in the use of weaponry, unarmed combat, and survival
and infiltration techniques, the ninja genin were espionage agents

138
 NINJA AND NINIUTSU
and commandos well ahead of their time. Ninjutsu, the science ol
ninja, became codified by each practising rvir. te< hniques proved to
work were retained, while others were discarded. Today these
techniques are practised by only the elite fighting forces of the
world, skilled in cross-border infiltration as well as counter
terrorism. When SAS troops stormed the Iranian embassy in London
in 1980, the parallels that could have been made with the ninja were
numerous. Black-clad experts, with faces continually hidden,
entering the building via windows, using high-tech flash-bang
grenades to stun and disorientate, and wielding the best weapons
available with considerable skill. SWAT teams, special forces and
counter-terrorist units are all the true descendants of the ninja cult,
although they have internationalized and updated both techniques
and approach.
The great modern misconception about ninjutsu is that every
mission involved the agent dressing up in black, penetrating a castle
or other building, committing his murder and then making off
without ever having been detected. But there are several accounts of
different approaches. In the first instance, the ninja often operated
in teams, and secondly they would attempt to mimic the uniforms
of the defenders if it were at all possible. When Tokugawa Ieyasu
hired over eighty ninja in 1562 to carry out a night-time raid on the
castle Kaminojo, the deadly agents dressed as the castle guards and,
once inside, pretended to be traitors, which caused confusion and
chaos within the walls. At this point they set fire to the buildings
and made their escape. These ninja were from Koga and were led by
Tomo Yoshichiro Sukesada. Ieyasu was greatly impressed with their
abilities. When he later became shogun, he hired both Koga and Iga
ninja as his palace guard, a role similar to that of the mercenary
Swiss Guard at the Vatican.
Kaminojo was not an isolated episode, and similar ninja attacks
were commonplace. In 1560 the rebellious Dodo, vassal of the
daimyo Rokkaku Yoshitaka, found himself under siege from his
lord. Unable to take the castle, Yoshitaka hired the services of ninja
from Iga. By penetrating the castle on his own, the leader of the ninja
band was able to steal a chochin, or paper lantern, that bore the mon
(heraldic badge) of Dodo's forces. With this in their possession the
crafty ninja fabricated more of them and, dressing as the defenders,
walked up to the castle gates and were simply allowed in. Once
inside, they used their standard tactic of setting fire to buildings.
This caused confusion, destroyed property and tied up the
defenders with fire-fighting duties, allowing the ninja to make their
escape or carry out their assassination.
Rokkaku Yoshitaka also found himself the target of ninja from Iga,
this time hired by another of his opponents, the Asai family. This

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WARRIOR CULTS

gives some indication of the truly mercenary nature of the ninja.

Three ninja chiefs from Iga were hired by the daimyo Asai Nagamasa
to infiltrate the castle of Futo, held by the Rokkaku samurai clan. In
this instance, the ninja force was a raiding party, with the objective
of starting fires within a castle as a signal for the rest of the Asai
army to attack. Again, the combination of the confusion caused and
the drain on manpower, with people -needed simultaneously to put
out the fire and man the defences, must have been an effective one.
Training for a ninja began early, perhaps as young as five or six,
and the regimen was almost impossibly tough. The children
concentrated on co-ordination and flexibility, only learning the
basics of weaponry when they had reached the age of twelve.
Exactly which weapon and fighting styles were taught depended on
the individual ryu, and as the trainees mastered the martial arts day
in and day out, they also built up their strength and stamina. Long
runs were made and physically demanding exercises, such as
hanging for extended periods from the branches of trees, were
carried out. Stamina, patience and strength were all valued by the
ninja ryu. Some ninja were even reputed to be able to travel up to
160 kilometres in one day!
Some ryu specialized in supplying female ninja agents for
missions. Called kunoichi, these seductive women would seem
unlikely candidates as spies, which enhanced their effectiveness.
Men would let down their guard more easily in front of a woman
and, with a poison-tipped hairpin in the kunoichfs elaborate
coiffure, thismight prove a fatal mistake . . .

Not exponents of ninjutsu were born to it, however. Some were

all

warriors from a very traditional background who had joined the

ninja cult. One such man was Tsukahara Bokuden, the son of an
expert swordsman who joined the Iga ninja when his family was
ruined by the machinations of Oda Nobunaga. Another samurai-
turned-ninja was Yagu Jube'e Mitsuyoshi. The famous Ishikawa
Goemon, who was more outlaw than ninja, became a folk-hero in his
lifetime; he began his career by robbing his master and then
murdering the men sent to arrest him. Goemon, who was reputed to
have studied ninjutsu with the Iga ryu, could not evade the
authorities for ever and was eventually captured and executed in
1595. Like all robbers (and many ninja), Goemon was put to death
by the nightmarish method of being boiled slowly in oil.
Many ninja techniques seem questionable, although several
modern ninja profess their authenticity. As with other cults in this
book, it is almost impossible to verify a statement about a particular
cult, since by their very nature cults are secretive. This is especially
so with the ninja, since membership of a ninja clan would bring
almost inevitable death if that membership were to be revealed to

140
 NINJA AND NINU'TSU

the authorities. Seemingly Impossible or magical teats credited to

the ninja could only enhance their reputation and create an
atmosphere of awe and superstition, thus helping to ensure their
survival.
Central to the ninja philosophy (if there truly was such a thing)
was the concept of disguise. For the purposes of travelling incognito
through the countryside or in populated areas, a ninja could adopt a
variety of disguises, known as shichi ho do, the 'Seven Ways of
Going'. Most ninja (like the jonin who supervised the clan
operations) lived under a nom de plume for much of their lives, and
the Seven Ways of Going provided a number of distinct and very
useful false identities for the genin. The seven were:

Sarugaku actor or entertainer

Ronin masterless samurai, wandering warrior
Shukke Buddhist monk
Komuso wandering priest
Yamabushi mountain warrior-monk
Akindo merchant
Hokashi musician

Some of these disguises were useful in that they allowed a

concealed weapon to be carried, ready for immediate action. A
musician's flute could be weighted and used as an effective club, the
yamabushi could carry a staff with a concealed blade, and both the
ronin and the yamabushi could wield a sword openly. Any ninja
traveller could carry a staff that was specially fashioned to hold a
secret chain weapon. Against an unarmoured or surprised foe, any
of these weapons would be highly effective, and surprise was almost
guaranteed if the ninja could play out his adopted role well enough.
The night-time commando missions usually required a copy of the
costume that the soldiers guarding the target castle were wearing.
Or, more infamously, the ninja would don a head-to-toe black
garment that rendered him almost invisible. Such a costume
included a hood that left only the eyes uncovered. It is said that
ninja even had access to white versions of this suit for concealment
in snow, and a camouflage version for woods and forests. There is
some evidence that agents wore a light chainmail suit under their
forbidding black costume, or, more intriguingly, chainmail sleeves
with which a desperate ninja could attempt to parry the sword
blows of an opponent.
Use of disguise was just one aspect of the ninja art, but illustrates
its main emphasis: that it was better never to have to deal with an

enemy than to face him. Everything possible was to be done to avoid

encountering guards, soldiers, servants or whoever. Deception and
invisibility were the primary weapons of the cult; swords and other
martial tools were considered a back-up. Young ninja were taught

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different methods of deception, called kyojutsu ten-kan-ho, which

included such simple tricks as throwing a stone into a moat or
leaving a door ajar to trick the enemy into thinking the ninja had fled
in a certain direction. A brave agent could even approach a guard
directly and attempt to bluff his way past with a tall tale. Perhaps
the most enduring feature of the ninja's medieval reputation was his
ability to become were circulated of successful
invisible; stories
political assassinations, butno intruder was ever seen and no
method of infiltration was discovered. Again, special attention was
paid to the art of moving silently and invisibly during training, since
the agent's survival often depended on never being detected. Nuki-
ashi was one technique of walking silently, but frightened nobles
and warlords devised many ways of trying to catch the dark agents
out. A simple string of bells might signal the ninja's presence, as
might a loose board; in fact, this latter notion was successfully
developed into 'nightingale flooring', specially constructed so that
however one stood on it, it squeaked loudly and alerted palace
guards to the ninja's presence. A working example of a nightingale
floor still exists in Nijo castle at Kyoto, installed for Tokugawa
Ieyasu in 1600. It is a modern-day memorial to ninjutsu.
The grounds of a palace or castle had often to be negotiated first
before a ninja could enter the buildings and commit his crime.
Whether he was to carry out murder, arson, theft or just
reconnaissance, the agent had to negotiate grounds that were usually
well guarded. But here also the ninja came prepared. Training was
given in camouflage and concealment among vegetation or rocks,
and in the shallow waters of moats or ponds the ninja was able to
hide while he breathed through a snorkel - a hollow piece of
bamboo could be used for this, as could a specially made hollow
scabbard. This technique could even be attempted under soil!
To gain entrance to a building, lockpicks or small crowbars were
sometimes carried, along with a bewildering array of other gadgets.
Again, how many of these instruments were used by the
practitioners of ninjutsu impossible to decide. Some items (such
is

as a Ferris-wheel machinefor launching an army of ninja over a

wall) are of recent invention, and others (such as the two dummy
heads strapped to a ninja's shoulders) are probably derived from
ancient Japanese myths. A variety of collapsible ladders were
known to have been used to scale castle walls, and so too were ropes
and grappling irons". Exceptional physical skill was needed for the
climbing of walls, battlements and roofs, and early training was
invaluable here. Not only were agility and balance taught to young
ninja, but also the ability to dislocate one's own joints. If a ninja was
bound and left unattended, the dislocation of a shoulder may have
allowed him to wriggle free (the same technique was used by Harry

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Houdini. the famous American escapologist). Such control over the
body required an iron will and a mastery of pain. One trap was
proving impossible for a ninja to master; lie had caughl his loot
while he prowled the corridors of an enenn castle and now
discovery by guards was becoming an increasing danger. The man
decided to cut off his foot and make good his escape, thus saving his
life.

During his escape from buildings he had penetrated, the ninja ran
an increasing risk of detection. The evidence of his unlawful entry,
whether a fire, a dead body, a stolen document or whatever, would
quickly be discovered. Exfiltration is the technical term for an
agent's escape from an enemy area, and the ryu paid as much
attention to this aspect of the mission during training as they did to
all the others. Sometimes pursuit by guards was almost inevitable,

and to distract them or hinder their chase small multipronged spikes

called tetsu-bishi could be thrown on to the ground. Common
footwear, even for samurai guards, was straw sandals that were
easily pierced by these nasty devices. More bizarre pieces of
equipment are also reputed to have been in use, including 'blinding
powder' cast into a pursuer's eyes from a blowpipe, and 'flash
bombs', made up of reactive chemicals inside an egg or fragile pot.
Both could give a ninja vital seconds in which to make his escape,
or alternatively to conceal himself within the castle or palace
grounds.
Hiding in the moat or the grounds was one thing, but sometimes
closets, chests and would become impromptu hiding
false ceilings
places. A very was to remain at the scene of a crime,
effective tactic
knowing that the samurai would probably search just about
everywhere else! Ice-cool nerve was required, but such nerve more
than once enabled a ninja to remain in the very room, near the
freshly dead corpse, where he had carried out the murder. The
supple and agile ninja was even able to squeeze himself up into the
corner of a room over a doorway, remaining invisible to someone
checking the room from the door. But secreting oneself in the rooms
of the target had its dangers, as the ninja Yamoto found out in 1478.
His mission was to kill the high-ranking samurai Herrito; he planned
to remain hidden in the roof beams of his victim's bedroom and then
drop down into the room to murder the sleeping man, but the plan
went awry. Herrito entered the room in the company of two
companions, and the men sat down to play a game of go only 3
metres from Yamoto! For five hours the three men played their game
and the ninja was forced to stay silent and motionless so as not to be
discovered and executed. Eventually the samurai climbed into bed,
and within an hour Yamoto had crept down from the rafters and
murdered him. The murder of a sleeping victim might not go as

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planned if he were only feigning sleep, so the Bansen Shukai

explores at length the different types of snores that exist, and details
the differences between light and deep sleep, the snores of men and
women, and whether or not a sleeper was faking a snore. Such a
person would probably be killed by the ninja immediately.

The Fighting Art

Although the ninja spent years training to avoid detection and
consciously went out of their way to avoid combat in the field, they
have gained the reputation as master-warriors and martial-art
experts. No doubt the ninja benefited from superior and prolonged
training, but it is doubtful that a typical ninja could match the
martial excellence of a skilled samurai. Why else would agents such
as Yamoto go to such excruciating lengths to avoid combat? Samurai
armour was of excellent quality; the twin samurai swords, the long
katana and the short wakizashi, were sharp, durable and expensive.
The samurai, from an early age, received constant instruction in
hand-to-hand combat, swordfighting and archery. No ninja could
hope to stand up to a samurai in a fair fight which is why the
. . .

ninja never fought fairly.

Their martial art was ju-jutsu, which was adopted by all Japanese
warriors of the day. It was a system of self-defence with 'no holds
barred'. Useful in offensive and defensive situations, the art used the
maximum force to achieve its ends and was less a systematized

martial school than a label for a broad range of armed and unarmed
Japanese fighting styles. By the late nineteenth century, classical (or
traditional) ju-jutsu was little practised outside the underworld.
Peace may have settled over Japan, but the Yakuza gangsters still
resorted to violence to achieve their ends, and ju-jutsu was the
fighting style that they used. Debt-collectors, minders in brothels
and the fighters in fairground-style challenges all kept the ancient
samurai and ninja fighting art alive. Today ju-jutsu has been revived
as a sport following the abandonment of its less savoury techniques.
Some of the more violent techniques were honed and refined by
different ninja ryu. The Iga and Koga ryu incorporated martial
techniques called the muscle-and-organ-tearing method (koshijutsu)
and the bone-breaking method [koppojutsu).
While the Assassins of the Middle East, founded and perfected by
Hasan-i-Sabbah, were content to rely on the dagger and the scimitar
to carry out their suicidal murders, the ninja are well known for the
wide array of weapons they had available. Most of ninjutsu's
extraordinary variety of deadly implements often had a dual use,
reducing the amount of equipment that the ninja had to carry with
him. Most agents would carry the ninja sword, or ninjato. This sword
was shorter than the samurai's katana (roughly 60 centimetres, as

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opposed to the katanas 70-90), and not only that, but was also of
it

much poorer quality, far below the standards of workmanship that a

samurai expected of his blade. Partly this was the result of infrequent
use, but it was also because the sword was made blunt enough to be
grasped and used to pull a man up a wall, using the guard as a hook.
Alternatively, the ninjato could be jammed into the ground and used
as a step-up, and an attached cord enabled the ninja to pull up the
sword after him. As already mentioned, the scabbard could be made;
with a hole at the end, permitting its use as an emergency snorkel or
an improvised blowpipe.
Few weapons were actively discarded by the ninja clans:
everything had a use at some point, from daggers and spears to
bows, blowpipes, bo staffs and even early examples of the arquebus
(a primitive hand cannon). Compare this with the modern-day
armouries of the elite commandos, complete with silenced sub-
machine-guns, handguns, night- vision goggles, stun grenades, tear
gas, sniper rifles and laser sights. Special equipment combined with
intensive training produced a warrior with a highly specialized
mission: infiltration, murder and sabotage. His weapons reflected
this role. The bo staff was commonly about 1.5 metres in length, and
when made of bamboo was able to conceal a long knife or weighted
chain. A bo with attached chain was referred to as a shinobi-zue, and
since most holy men carried a staff as a matter of course, a ninja
disguised as such could carry a very effective weapon around with
him. Another chain weapon was the kusarigama, a long chain
attached at one end to a sickle. Either the chain or the sickle could
be used offensively on their own, or they could be combined, the
sickle to attack an opponent while the chain tripped and entangled
him. Alternatively, a dagger could be attached to the chain's end and
the weapon would become a kyoketsu-shogei, to be employed in a
similar fashion to the kusarigama. The manriki-gusari dispensed
with an attached weapon and was simply a metre-long chain
weighted at either end. It had the advantage that it could be
concealed and was both a flexible club and a method of
entanglement. The jo stick was a heavy club just over half a metre in
length and was useful both in defence and in attack. Combining the
concept of chain weapon and club was the infamous nunchaku,
composed of two small but heavy rods connected by a short length
of rope or chain; the chain was supposed to give power and speed to
the blows of the nunchaku.
Perhaps the most frightful weapons in use by some of the ninja
clans were the shuko, or 'tiger claws'. These were metal bands that
strapped over the hands and mounted iron claws on the palmside.
These had obvious uses in combat, but also served as valuable aids
in climbing; they made trees, posts and wooden walls far easier to

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climb, as well as stone walls with discernible cracks. A version for

the feet was also known of, called ashiko.
More popularly associated with ninjutsu are shuriken, small iron
throwing stars that were never really designed to kill but could
injure severely if thrown in the face or else distract a guard. The

small stars were thrown either overhand or Frisbee-fashion and may

have been given enhanced potency by the addition of a contact
poison. Poisons were also sometimes smeared on the testu-bishi
already mentioned.
Poison suited the ninja way of fighting. Its use was never
considered an honourable method of killing someone by the
samurai, but the ninja did not recognize a fair fight anyway. One of
the most effective blade poisons that was both cheap and in ready
supply was human excrement. As a poison, this would not kill a
victim outright but would aggravate any wound, causing infection,
perhaps gangrene and death. It was a tactic never forgotten in the
Orient. The Viet Minh nationalists used similar tactics in Vietnam
against the Japanese invaders during the Second World War,
smearing sharpened punji sticks with human excrement and then
lining a concealed pit-trap with them. Both the French and US
forces who later occupied Vietnam discovered the use of this poison
the hard way, losing many men because of it.
Murder by more traditional poisons was also carried out by the
practitioners of ninjutsu, and the range of natural poisons from
which they could choose was wide. Cyanide was manufactured
from the seeds of apples, apricots, almonds, cherries and plums,
although huge amounts of seeds were first required. Even the leaves
of some seemingly innocuous plants, including tomato and rhubarb,
are poisonous and under the right supervision become powerful
poisons. By far the two most lethal poisons were taken from the
deadly death-cap mushroom and the even deadlier blowfish. This
latter is, even today in Japan, considered a great delicacy, but if it is
not prepared correctly it is fatal, since the fish's gall-bladder
contains a lethal poison. Now and then in Japan, diners are
accidentally killed as a result of eating blowfish. No wonder, then,
that it was a very popular poison with the ninja clans! A tiny piece
of the blowfish gall-bladder needed only to be slipped into the food
of a victim and the chances of its being detected were remote. Death
would have followed soon after.

Ninja were reputed to be able to heal as well as kill and were

equipped with some sort of first-aid kit. would be
In the field, this
used for the treatment of wounds, snakebites and suchlike. There
were herbal concoctions used to banish hunger and thirst while a
ninja was out on a mission, and also lightweight preparations of
food that could be carried without unduly encumbering the agent.

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 N1N|A AND NINU 1SI

Like their modern-day special forces descendants, ninja were taughl

a whole range of wilderness survival skills, including tin ability to
4

cook rice without a pot of any kind. The rice was soaked m water,
wrapped in cloth and buried in a shallow pit. A fire, lit over the rice,
would cook it. Less useful skills were also passed on, and these add
to the bizarre lore of ninjutsu that was more superstition than
science. For example, it was believed that the analysis of tree rings
gave an accurate indication of the points of the compass, and. just as
bizarre, that the changing eyes of a cat were held to tell the time.
One interesting survival technique for cold Japanese nights was
the use of a doka, a small iron box in which a burning coal was kept.
This kept the agent himself warm, thawed his chilly fingers before
conducting delicate operations such as lockpicking and could be
used to light a fuse.
The Bansen Shukai gives an account of ninja techniques of water
travel that seems rather far-fetched. One is the use of wooden 'water-
shoes' for walking across water, and another variant substitutes large
airtight pots called ukidara, which were supposed to serve the same
purpose. An inflatable skinwas put to use in crossing moats and
lakes, and this would have been more than a buoyancy aid, since it
would also keep the ninja's equipment dry for the mission ahead. A
sophisticated and very modern concept in marine operations was
embodied in the shinobi-bune, a prefabricated little scout boat that
could be carried into the field within a large box and then unpacked
to be used by a single ninja.

Triumphs and Tribulations of Ninjutsu

Not all ninja were from Iga and Koga; neither were all ninja
mercenaries. Outside these two provinces, there were ninja who
acted as an adjunct (albeit a secret adjunct) to the established
military forces of several dairnyo. These agents were in effect the
elite force of the army, performing hazardous castle-raiding
operations during wartime. These loyal ninja forces were first
recorded in the 1540s, during the fierce war between the samurai
families of the Amako and the Mori. The war outlasted several
daimyo and as the Mori fought for territory, the Amako were slowly
destroyed. Ninja entered the field of battle during the fight for
Yoshida no Koriyama in 1540, acting as a military raiding party.
Thirty-five years later, the Hojo family, who would soon rise to
prominence on the Kanto Plain (upon which sits modern Tokyo),
would also suffer the ravages of covert ninja operations. The family's
dangerous rival, the Satake, did not just send the traditional ninja
against the Hojo, but developed an interesting new tactic. Mounted
scouts as well as ninja foot patrols were a danger to any commander,
since they were able to report the size and position of his camp back

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to the enemy. What the Satake did was to send out kusa ('grass' agents)
into the surrounding area. As Hojo scouts approached, the kusa would
ambush them and prevent the family from discovering the strength of
the Satake. The kusa were less ninja than anti-ninja ninja!
In 1580 the Hojo family was in a position to use its own ninja
against a new foe, the Takeda clan, and the raids they made were
classic ninja operations. When the leaders of the two samurai
families, Hojo Ujinao and Takeda Katsuyori, came together to do
battle, Ujinao had at his command a unit of ninja called the rappa,
who were commanded by the fearsome Fuma Kotaro. During the
battle, the rappa made repeated night-time raids on the Takeda
camp, creating havoc and serious damage by setting fires and even
kidnapping people. By imitating the Takeda war-cry during these
attacks, the enemy became confused and dispirited, and as each
night fell on Katsuyori 's camp his men quaked in fear of what the
darkness would bring. They knew what ninja were capable of, for,
like most samurai families, the Takeda had ninja of its own.
Although feared and respected, occasionally these shadow
warriors performed more humble tasks. In 1566, when the Takeda
military commander, Iidomo Hyobu, marched to war at the battle of
Wari-ga-toge, he inadvertently forgot the Takeda battle standards,
which would not only prove demoralizing for his own forces but
would make it almost impossible to control the various elements of
the Takeda army. Fortunately, a young Takeda ninja named
Kumawaka volunteered to make his way back to the Takeda fortress
and return with the standards. But although he arrived at the castle
in good time, he found it on full alert and impregnable, fearful of
attack. As a skilled and crafty ninja, Kumawaka did not let this
minor inconvenience delay his mission and was able to penetrate
the Takeda defences using his training. The standards were retrieved
and sent hurriedly back to an anxious Iidomo Hyobi.
If the dark agents were most useful as elite siege commandos, they

were most feared as invisible assassins, and it is this aspect of their

profession that has left the longest-lasting impression of the ninja.
Every daimyo feared silent death hands of these expert killers.
at the
Many high-ranking officials, daimyos and others, would go to
extreme lengths to avoid this danger. Fugasiti, a daimyo living in Iga
province, was ever alert to the threat of murder and was always
accompanied by a guard of samurai. His castle was well constructed,
with a wide moat and easily defended and patrolled halls. Samurai
guarded every possible entrance and one warrior was even left to
guard Fugasiti 's bedroom at night. All to no avail, for the daimyo
was found dead one morning with his throat slit. The lone samurai
guarding him had been similarly dealt with, yet no one at the castle
had reported any signs of an intruder.

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 ninia wi) \i\u rsu

As the Assassins of Syria had already discovered, perhaps the

most effective wa\ to murder a well-guarded notable was to
infiltrate his staff and personal bodyguard. When the victim fell safe
and secure, and when his guard was down, then the infiltrator
would strike; but the Assassin was assured of his own instant death.
The ninja never performed assassinations by this met hod. preferring
to subtly penetrate the many layers of defence that the frightened
samurai lords wrapped around themselves. In fact, the co-opting of
enemy guards on to the ninja side was an almost Impossible task.
given the strict obedience and profound loyalty owed by even the
lowest samurai to his daimyo.
Oda Nobunaga, Takeda Shingen, Uesugi Kenshin and Toyotomi
Hideyoshi, some of Japanese history's greatest leaders, all survived
ninja assassination attempts. With wealth and power came the
elaborate methods of protection needed to stay alive to enjoy them.
Daimyo began carrying personal weapons, and many of them had
vast numbers of bodyguards in tow. Takeda Shingen had over 6,000
household warriors for defensive purposes, but even these were no
guarantee against attempts on his life. He was the target of a lone
ninja dispatched to murder him by Oda Nobunaga, but the assassin
fouled up and was pursued by Takeda soldiers to a nearby wood.
There the ninja concealed himself in a pre-dug hole in the ground
and successfully evaded the daimyo's troops.
Hideyoshi became a bitter enemy of Tokugawa Ieyasu, and sent a
ninja into his palace, whereupon the agent skilfully hid himself under
the floor, waiting for an opportunity to emerge and kill Hideyoshi. But
the ninja was somehow detected and skewered through the floor by a
guard's spear. To finish him off, a ninja was brought in to try and
smoke the would-be killer out with an early type of flame-thrower.
The most remarkable demise of a Japanese daimyo is attributed to the
aforementioned Uesugi Kenshin, who took such precautions against
assassination that he could be killed only when a ninja concealed
himself in the sewage pit of the daimyo's lavatory. As Kenshin seated
himself there, the ninja is said to have impaled him through the anus
with a spear. He did not die immediately, but staggered out to die in
silent agony several days later. Controversy and speculation still
surround Kenshin's ignominious demise, and it is now generally
thought that he did in fact suffer a stroke while at his toilet.
Oda Nobunaga was fully aware of the power of the ninja. Like
many a daimyo before him, he not only employed ninja against his
rivals but had them sent against him. One is reminded of the adage,
'He who lives by the sword, dies by the sword.' Nobunaga did not
die at the hands of enemy ninja, however, although several
concerted attempts were made. One agent of ninjutsu, called
Sugitani Zenjubo, ambushed the warlord as he rode with his retinue

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through the Chigusa Pass. Unusually, he attempted the assassination

from a distance, using two readied hand-cannons (the medieval
arquebus) with whose use he was highly skilled. Zenjubo hit the
daimyo with both shots, but fortunately for Nobunaga his body-
armour saved his life. Unfortunately for Zenjubo, although he
escaped the wrath of the daimyo's guards, he was arrested several
years later and executed for the crime.
In 1573, two years later, an attempt was made to stab the daimyo
to death in his castle, but the intruder, sent by his rival, Manabe
Rokuro, and unlikely to have been a ninja, was captured and
committed suicide. The penultimate assassination attempt on
Nobunaga (the last, by one of his generals, succeeded) was again
carried out with firearms. Three ninja fired a large cannon at
Nobunaga and his staff during a visit to Iga province, which
Nobunaga had recently invaded and despoiled. The daimyo again
evaded death, but seven of his staff were killed in the indiscriminate
murder attempt.
Nobunaga had become one of the foremost warlords of his time
and vied for supreme control of the whole of Japan. As part of his
conquests, the daimyo declared war on the tiny province of Iga, the
heartland of ninjutsu. Its neighbour, Ise, had been captured by the
daimyo and his son had been installed as commander. The defeated
samurai family, the Kitabatake, fled from Ise to the mountainous
safety of Iga and called on one of Nobunaga's greatest rivals for help.
Once these renegade samurai had been identified by Nobunaga as a
continued threat, the daimyo's son, Oda Nobuo, was charged with
the destruction of the Kitabatake rebels, as well as the formidable Iga
ninja who sheltered them.
Never before had the Iga clans been forced to defend their
homeland from an enemy marauder, and in 1579 what was to
become known as the Iga Revolt was to be a supreme test of the
clans' military skill. The initial battle for Iga was won by the ninja
in the unconventional style typical of ninjutsu. The Oda general,
Takigawa Saburohei, had rebuilt an old fort in Iga called Maruyama,
with the aim of using it as a jumping-off point for further raids. He
had his own ninja scout out the local terrain and establish the size
of the enemy but the ninja of Iga, not to be outdone,
forces,
infiltrated their own
agents into the workforce charged with the
castle's reconstruction. With this advantage, the Iga clans decided to
move against the fort and were eminently successful, driving out
Saburohei to a nearby village. After Maruyama had been captured by
the men of Iga, it was destroyed, thus depriving Oda Nobuo's armies
of use in any follow-up campaigns.
its

A
second attack on Iga would be launched by Nobuo from
neighbouring Ise, but as the army entered the mountains of Iga it

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 N1NIA AND NINU I'M

became the ambushes and was forced to retreat. The

target of ninja
guerrilla tactics employed against were favoured l>\ the
it

mountainous terrain, enabling the ninja to achieve total surprise and

conceal themselves in local settlements once thr battle was over, It
is a form of warfare that has troubled generals for millennia, from
the Hittites in Asia Minor to the Roman legions in Scotland and the
SovietUnion in Afghanistan. Wisely, Nobunaga suggested that
Nobuo should use ninja himself in the execution of his military
raids on Iga.

In 1581 a renewed offensive on the ninja heartland was aided by

the use of traitors, and quickly Nobuo, at the head of six large and
independent armies, marched inexorably into Iga. As they moved,
the armies carried out a 'scorched earth' policy, destroying farms,
crops, villages and towns in an attempt to stifle the ninja's support
and deny them safety and resupply. Military leaders through the
ages have learned that such a tactic is one of the only effective ways
to defeat guerrilla armies. Forced to fight on the enemy's terms, the
ninja families retreated to isolated fortresses and were put under
siege. Invariably these sieges ended in disaster for the men of Iga,
even though classic anti-siege operations were occasionally carried
out by them.
Finally, the outcome of the Iga Revolt rested on a single siege, at
Hijiyama. Many ninja survivors had retreated from Oda Nobuo's
forces until, at Hijiyama, they were left with nowhere else to run. A
powerful ninja family, the Hattori, were in command at the castle
and organized a last stand of the refugee Iga warriors, but the massed
troops of the attackers proved too much for the wily ninja and
Hijiyama fell. From Iga, the ninja who survived the military
decimation by the Oda forces fled to other parts of Japan, many
establishing ninja ryu of their own. Iga would no longer be the centre
of ninjutsu; its day was done.
It is thought that most (but not all) of the ninja ryu established in

Japan were created by refugee ninja from Iga following the Iga
Revolt. This theory not only emphasizes a continuity of tradition
and learning but also explains why Iga ninja turn up, for instance, as
Tokugawa Ieyasu's palace guard twenty years later. His province of
Mikawa provided a haven for many Iga ninja fleeing Oda Nobuo's
deadly armies, probably because the daimyo already had firsthand
knowledge of the ninja's usefulness in eliminating rivals.
Ieyasu had sent a ninja (unsuccessfully) to kill his rival Toyotomi
Hideyoshi. A further link existed, since Hattori Hanzo, one of his
'Sixteen Generals', originated from Iga province. These links, being
tentatively formed in 1581 as refugee ninja were being accepted into
Mikawa, would save the daimyo's life in the year that followed.
Ieyasu had allied himself with Oda Nobunaga, but the old daimyo

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was murdered by Akechi Mitsuhide, one of his generals. Tokugawa

Ieyasu, cut off from his home province and without substantial
forces, felt vulnerable and threatened by the general. From Sakai, the
daimyo travelled overland and took the unorthodox route through
the mountainous terrain of Iga, recently devastated by Nobunaga's
son. Bandits and the elements could have wiped out his small force,
but locals assisted Ieyasu with guides to accompany him through the
province. The families in Iga who had seen relatives flee to Mikawa
were grateful to the daimyo and showed their gratitude by helping
him avoid the robber gangs.
Perhaps because of this episode, Tokugawa Ieyasu later took 300
men permanently into his castle guard, and in this way ensured the
continued loyalty of the Iga and Koga ninja. By employing a large
contingent of the region's ninja and by securing the loyalty of others,
Ieyasu deftly neutralized the danger from this formidable corps of
assassins. No rival could now benefit from their deadly skills, and
Ieyasu could monopolize ninja tactics and expertise. From this point
onwards, the cult of ninjutsu was inextricably linked with the rising
fortunes of the Tokugawa family. With the number of daimyos in
competition for Japan's ultimate position of power dwindling away,
leaving fewer, more powerful contenders, Ieyasu would find his
household ninja army of considerable use.
With the death by murder of Oda Nobunaga at the hands of one of
his generals, one of the Nobunaga family supporters rose to
prominence. This great war leader was Toyotomi Hideyoshi, who
was able, in a relatively short period, to become the master of Japan.
Hideyoshi had become Japan's military dictator (or kwampaku),
since he lacked connections to the Minamoto family line and could
therefore not become shogun. From 1583 Hideyoshi began a
campaign of reprisals against those nobles who had plotted against
his late lord. Among his more influential allies was the wise
Tokugawa Ieyasu, who became ever more powerful in the new
political climate. Ieyasu stayed at home during Hideyoshi's
extravagant scheme for the conquest of Korea and China. In 1592 the
warlord's vast army crossed to the mainland and began the invasion
of Korea. Along with the massed ranks of cavalry, infantry and
samurai elite was a unit of ninja, hired specially for the occasion. It
is likely that Hideyoshi was able to hire ninja who still roamed free,

ninja who had not been absorbed into the Tokugawa family military
and who continued to offer their services. The castle Chiguju, at the
great city of Seoul, was put under siege by Hideyoshi's forces and
the ninja were able to infiltrate the fortress and start fires, causing
confusion and panic in classic ninja style. A second invasion of
Korea, begun in 1597, ended in disaster for the Japanese forces when
Hideyoshi was killed the following year.

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 NIN)A AND NINU IM
The way, it would seem, was now wide open for Tokugawa [eyasu,
with his ninja force, to take complete command of [apan, But
Hideyoshi had left an infant heir, the young Toyotomi [ideyori, who
1

acted as a rallying point for opposition forces determined not to

allow [eyasu to seize power. At the battle of Sekigahara in 1600, the
fortunes of Japan were decided. Ieyasu defeated his enemies and
was proclaimed shogun three years later. In this last decisive armed
confrontation between rival claimants for command of the country,
ninja played no part, which is significant, since it also initiated .1

period of decline for the Assassins, culminating in their

disappearance.
They did appear briefly on the battlefield against Toyotomi
Hideyori, when the lord, now grown to maturity, rallied every
renegade samurai in the land who would fight against the shogun.
Masterless samurai (many of them survivors of Sekigahara) flocked
to Hideyori 's banner and the massive Osaka castle became their base
of operations. Although the rebel army made no move against
Ieyasu, the growing power within the walls of the fortress could not
be ignored for ever. In 1614 the castle was put under siege and
Tokugaw^a employed his contingent of ninja (from both Iga and
Koga) very successfully. A band of his ninja did enter Osaka castle
on a mission to destabilize relations between the different rebel
factions, but the outcome of this attempt is not known. Was it mere
coincidence, however, that one of the rebel generals took his own
life at around this time?

Perhaps the very last use of Tokugawa ninja in Japan was during
the Shimabara Rebellion of 1638. Tokugawa Iemitsu was the
reigning shogun at the time and he was forced to step in and break
up the revolt when local forces failed to suppress the
revolutionaries. Initially just the angry protests of oppressed
farmers, the Shimabara Rebellion exploded into a full-scale military
conflict when the Christians (at that time severely persecuted)
became involved and used the revolt as a means to fight back.
Christianity had entered Japan from the mid-sixteenth century
onwards but had always been a secret religion. On the island of
Kyushu the Christians had taken up arms to defend their faith and
their lives. But however cruel and oppressive the local Kyushu
daimyo had been, such overt displays of defiance to Japanese
authority could not be tolerated. To dislodge the rebels from their
fortress on the Shimabara peninsula, a force of samurai troops was
dispatched, along with a unit of ninja.
Members of the Tokugawa ninja unit carried out scouting missions
around the castle and each night made daring raids inside the
castle's perimeter. Because the defenders' food supplies were at such
a low level, attempts were made by the ninja teams to smuggle out

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food from the castle. A variety of useful intelligence was gathered by

the shadow warriors, including a layout of the fort, the strength of
the enemy force and the special passwords used by guards and
officials. To gain entry on one occasion the technique of deception
strategy, or kyojutsu ten-kan-ho, was used: friendly troops opened
fire on defenders with and
their arquebuses in doing so forced them
to extinguish their lights. In the fear1 filled darkness that followed,
the ninja were able to sneak undetected into the castle grounds. On
one mission into the castle the ninja captured a rebel banner in an
attempt to lower the defenders' morale - a tactic that had been used
effectively by ninja in the past. Eventually the Shimabara Rebellion
came to an end as the defenders' provisions ran out and parts of the
castle defences fell to the shoguris ninja. As a result of the rebellion,
the sporadic persecution of Christians in Japan turned into nothing
less than a total ban of Christian practice in Japan.
From 1640 until the end of Japanese feudal society proper in 1868,
the role of the ninja declined rapidly, as did that of their gallant
antithesis, the With no opposition and therefore no
samurai.
warfare, the shogun's need for highly trained warriors and elite
assassins faded. Today, martial arts ryu purporting to practise and
teach the skills and the fighting arts of ninjutsu have little direct
connection with the ninja schools of old. Skills and techniques may
well be inherited from authentic ninja teachings, but the essential
reason for the existence of these groups has radically changed. Gone
is the mercenary attitude, the adaptation of the latest weaponry and

the employment of murder, terror and arson to further political

careers. Modern
ninja seem to find the history of the cult distasteful
and a embarrassing, and have left the real-life legacy of
little

ninjutsu to the twentieth-century commandos and SWAT troops.

Around the world, these modern-day shadow warriors employ all
the cunning and adaptability of their medieval Japanese ancestors,
and enjoy a similar aura of mystique, admiration and fear.

154
CHAPTER 7

The Boxers -
The Fists of Righteous Harmony

For many people, theCommunist Revolution in China thai resulted

in the accession to power of Mao Tse-tung in 1949 was the country's
only great revolution, and certainly its most famous. But this greal
land, vast in both size and population, has been rocked by a Long
series of revolutions that will doubtless continue into the future.
Perhaps something about the nature of the Chinese people, or
it is

the construction of their monumental government structures, that

invites such frequent change. There is little evidence to show that
China has given up the preoccupation with social change. The pro-
democracy supporters who perished in Tiananmen Square during
the summer of 1989 were martyrs to a cause that has continued to
flourish despite persecution. Any future revolution in China will
surely centre on the defiant and covert pro-democracy activists who
remain.
Such isthe obsession with revolution and rebellion that these
activities have even become intertwined, at times, with Chinese
government policy. In 1966 Mao Tse-tung instituted the Cultural
Revolution, a political concept as bizarre as it was frightening. It
involved the formation of an 'army' of supporters across the whole
of China who were loyal to Mao Tse-tung alone. Mao had
increasingly found himself isolated in Chinese politics, revered as a
wise statesman but practically ignored in the running of the country.
His enemy, the Chinese Communist Party, had become dominated
by university graduates and Communist revisionists under Mao's
successor, Liu Shao-ch'i. Supporters of Mao, called 'Red Guards',
were encouraged to attack the government, as well as all the
established institutions. Intellectuals, members of the middle
classes and landowners were often dragged into the streets, publicly
humiliated and even killed. Youths denounced their parents and
their teachers, and for over three years the nation was paralysed by
fear and hatred. Soon, the Red Guards were fighting each other in
the name of Mao and no one was sure which group of Red Guards
truly represented the Communist leader. In truth, none did, since
Mao had lost control of his fanatics soon after their formation.
The revolution had taken a popular and violent hold, and the
principal targets of Mao's Red Guards - his rivals in the universities,

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the Politburo and local government - were systematically removed.

Chaos and anarchy reigned until Mao, disturbed by the extent of the
destruction that he had unleashed, began the movement's
suppression in 1968. Fading away by the summer of 1969, the
Cultural Revolution had had nothing to do with art and literature,
but everything to do with political survival and unbridled revenge.
It had been a runaway revolution, 'resulting in perhaps 400,000

deaths, established by the head of state while being directed at the

state itself.
Chinese history is replete with similar political movements with
equally violent results. One such movement is known in the West as
the Boxer Uprising or Boxer Rebellion, which took place in 1900.
Almost forgotten now by modern Westerners, the uprising involved
most of the important European powers, a secret and war-like
magical cult, and an empress dowager reigning on behalf of her
nephew.
Like Mao Tse-tung, the empress dowager who ruled China at the
close of the nineteenth century commanded fanatical loyalty. Her
name was Tsu Hai, and she had become the sole ruler of the
sprawling Chinese Empire in 1898 by deposing the legitimate ruler,
Emperor Kuang Hsu. This stubborn and determined matriarch had
already ruled China from behind the scenes for forty years. She had
been the concubine of a previous emperor and had had the tenacity
to hang on to power ever since. Unlike Mao Tse-tung, the empress
dowager had no immediate rivals, either equals jealous of her
position or underlings eager to see her toppled. But there did exist
in China enemies ready to eat away at her power and crush her
authority. These enemies had forced their way unwanted into the
country as traders and missionaries. To the Chinese they were
gweilos, 'white ghosts', but these representatives of the great
industrialpowers were all too real.
Along with the European traders came Christians, and resentment
against these zealous missionaries soon erupted. Roman Catholic
churches preached without respect for local Chinese traditions or
customs. Unwilling to offend the foreigners, the government had
also granted concessions to missionaries, giving the clergy
substantial authority. This, coupled with the fact that local people
blamed the coming of the foreigners, especially the Christians, for
many of their ills, meant that anti-Western feeling was running high.
Mao Tse-tung had created his Red Guard organization, but the
empress dowager was able to co-opt an already existing secret
society to do her bidding, the I Ho Ch'uan, known in English as the

Fists of Righteous Harmony, or 'Boxers'. Throughout 1899 and 1900

the Boxers rose up against anything that symbolized Western
society. Churches, trading posts, railways and telegraph poles were

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 Till BOXERS

destroyed; ministers, Chinese Christians,

members of the European
Legations and Western sympathizers were murdered, The Boxer
Uprising was a wholehearted attempt to kick the Europeans out <>l
China.
Where did the Fists of Righteous Harmony originate? This
question, though difficult to answer, important, because the cult
is

seemed to emerge suddenly from the shadows and then fade awa)
just as spectacularly in 1900. The Boxers did not exist in isolation;
a complex tapestry of secret cults and sects has existed throughout
the history of China, many dedicated to the revolutionary mission of
overthrowing the established government. What made the Boxers so
unique was that the empress dowager, like Mao Tse-tung after her,
was able to redirect this anti-government zeal against a personal
enemy, in her case the representatives of the invasive Western
powers. But it was not to be Mao's artificial Red Guard that became
the direct descendant of the Boxers and its related secret societies,
but the globe-spanning criminal conspiracy known today as the
Triads. Now infamous as one of the world's most ruthless and
impenetrable criminal syndicates, the Triads feature prominently in
the story of China, the Boxer Uprising, and the 2,000-year revolution
to overthrow the Chinese emperor. The story of these shadowy
societies features political manoeuvring and rebellion across one of
the largest empires in the ancient world.

A Mandate from Heaven

The Chinese imperial throne was founded in 221 bc with the
establishment of the Ch'in dynasty. China had by this time become
a centralized and unified state, composed of many large provinces
often located far from the imperial capital. Administering these
provinces could not be done by the divine emperor himself, and so
each province had its own government, that was forced to act almost
independently of the imperial throne. The emperor's position as
ruler of China (known as the 'Middle Kingdom' by those who dwelt
there) and Son of Heaven was as much religious as it was political.
He had the Mandate of Heaven through his compassion, moral
strength and righteousness, and this gave him absolute authority
over every Chinese subject. But if the emperor were to overstep the
Mandate of Heaven and act in a way unfitting for the ruler of the
Middle Kingdom, then he no longer had the right to rule. Heaven
itself was the judge of the emperor's conduct and would
occasionally give a sign that change was required. A comet,
earthquake, flood or famine often signalled to the masses that the
emperor had fallen out of favour with Heaven. At such a time an
uprising against imperial authority would place on the Dragon
Throne a new emperor.

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WARRIOR CULTS

Revolution, then, seems to have played a great part in the

psychology of the Chinese right to rule since the nation's inception
over 2,000 years ago. The secret societies that sprang up all across
China during the early years of Chinese history provided a stable
community-within-a-community and a protection against harsh
provincial governments. Secrecy was paramount when confronted
by a government that would resort to torture and death to suppress
its enemies. This need for subterfuge meant that members were

required to remain loyal to the secret society on pain of death, and

the mechanism used to enforce this loyalty was ritual initiation.
Mixing Confucian and Taoist thought with Buddhist theology, the
initiation became a religious ceremony. Cult members were bound
by the sacred oaths that they made at their initiations. They pledged
loyalty to their brothers and promised to keep secret the mysteries
of the society. In return for their devotion to the cult, members
received its protection against the oppressive forces of the Chinese
Empire.
Each society had originally provided a local service that benefited
the community in some way. Many were trade guilds protecting
markets, or guilds of craftsmen or farmers. These early beginnings
formed the basic foundation upon which the later Triad societies
were built. When the provincial governments carried out their
corrupt and harsh practices against the local Chinese, it forced the
local societies to fight back, using secrecy and subversion to protect
their interests. Retaliating, the local administration outlawed the
offending society, which in turn resorted to deeper levels of secrecy
and more aggression in its opposition to the government. As a secret
society grew in size and power, it would begin to challenge not just
the provincial government, acting on behalf of the Chinese emperor,
but the emperor himself. Thus each of these proscribed sects became
a government-in-waiting. Some writers consider them to have been
groups ready and waiting to pay heed to the omens and unseat the
current emperor at Heaven's call.
The first emperor to wage war against a secret society engaged in
insurgency was the military leader Wang Mang, who had trouble
with the rebellious Red Eyebrows sect. The peculiar name of the cult
was derived from its members' practice of painting their eyebrows
red when in battle. They played a part in the uprisings during the
emperor's reign, but were not responsible for his eventual death by
assassination in ad 23. Succeeding Wang Mang was the highly
successful Eastern Han Dynasty (ad 25-250), and the Red Eyebrows
now had no further role to play since their revolutionary mission
had been successful. Their reward for playing an active part in the
power struggle would be annihilation. The new dynasty had no use
for rebels who had since turned to robbery to sustain themselves and

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 THE BOX] RS

troops were sent against them. Such an effective guerrilla force was
too dangerous to remain alive. By an ingenious ruse of painting their
own eyebrows red, the government troops infiltrated the cull and
caused chaos wherever they struck. The Red Eyebrows were thus
successfully eradicated.
The Han Empire reached a cultural peak in the second centurj \i>.

It Roman Empire and spread its authority even

traded silk with the
further into Asia. Many more secret societies were ready to take up
the struggle against the newly established Han dynast v. however.
Problems of succession provided ample opportunity for the groups
to foment revolt. Among the sects were the Iron Shins and the
Copper Horses, the Green Groves and the Big Spears. Robber-heroes
like these became legendary figures, valiantly fighting corruption
and oppression on behalf of the Chinese people.
The greatest threat to the stability of the Eastern Han dynasty was
the society known as the Yellow Turbans. For ten years the mystic
leader, Chang Chueh, plotted and organized his secret cult and, by
ad 184, he had a substantial following of loyal revolutionaries.
Chang taught the Yellow Turbans his own brand of Taoist magic,
called t'ai p'ing-tao, and this included the power of healing through
the practice of penitence. Sickness was attributable by the Yellow
Turbans to sin, and penitent members would publicly confess their
wrongdoings and wash in the cult's magical waters to cleanse
themselves. A greater vision was pursued by Chang: namely, the
replacement of the Azure Heaven that gave the emperor his mandate
with a Yellow Heaven. This belief accounts for the origin of the
society's ritual colour.
To guard against the evil influence of demons on cult members,
magical Taoist amulets were worn by the cult, a practice that was
echoed fifteen centuries later by the White Lotus sect, who wore
amulets to protect themselves against the more up-to-date danger of
bullets! But the Yellow Turbans were more than just a religious cult;
they were organized, military-style, into thirty-six fang, a great fang
being 10,000 men and a lesser fang consisting of 6-7,000 men. Each
was led by a general who took his troops into battle, and with this
magical army the cult succeeded in taking large areas of northern
China.
These gains transformed the Yellow Turbans from a revolutionary
and magical secret society opposed to imperial rule to a provincial
government in its own right. But Chang Chueh (or his generals)
mismanaged the new-found territories, rewarding the loyal Yellow
Turban members expense of those not initiated into the cult.
at the
Eventually the society was crushed by the armies of the emperor and
the gains made were all lost. Despite the defeat of the Yellow
Turbans, however, the Han Empire collapsed and split into several

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smaller kingdoms. Three great generals (out of the thirty-six) may

have survived the Yellow Turbans to establish themselves as
powerful rebel leaders. One of the surviving warlords, Liu Pei,
became emperor of the kingdom of Shu, and he, like his compatriots
Kwan Yu and Chang Fei, entered the halls of Chinese legend. The
trio had sworn a blood oath in a peach garden, an act that folk-
legend and secret-society tradition would never forget. The
significance of the peach garden and the taking of an oath would
later figure in cult initiations. So too would Kwan Yu, who was later
deified as the god Kwan Ti, after being murdered by an enemy of Liu
Pei. Kwan Ti was the god of literature, warfare and also of the blood-
oaths taken by secret societies.
Centuries of division and reunification followed the fall of the
Han Empire, until a vibrant and rich civilization established itself.
The T'ang (ad 618-907) was one of China's greatest dynasties, and
the era was significant for secret societies, because although the
Buddhist religion increasingly influenced art and literature, it was
also periodically suppressed. When this occurred, its adherents
went underground and joined with the secret societies for survival,
passing on elements of Buddhist worship, symbolism and ritual.
Modern Triad societies can trace their Buddhist rituals back to this
point in history, when Taoist and Confucian sects became infused
with Buddhist ceremony.

The White Lotus Society

Perhaps one of the most influential of China's historical secret
societies was the White Lotus Society. Like others, it was forced
from time to time to change its name in order to conceal its identity.
Government authorities of the Sung dynasty (ad 960-1279), which
came to power some time after the fall of the T'ang, were never well
disposed towards the cult. Both Confucian and Buddhist authorities
had banned it and would have destroyed it if they could. It became
the White Lily Society, the White Yang Society and also the Incense-
Smellers. This very powerful new sect was associated with other
prominent societies at the time, especially the Eight Trigrams
Society, the Heaven and Earth Society and the Nine Mansions
Society.
Religion played a large part in the society's and some Chinese
life,

writers have detected a strong influence of Manichaeism in the

White Lotus. This is of some interest, since Manichaeism was a
Christian sect established by a Persian mystic in about ad 240. As
previously mentioned, Mani had absorbed the Gnostic teachings of
his father and created a fusion of Christian and Persian ideas. The
new cult was heavily influenced by Persian Zoroastrianism and a
religion we have already met: Mithraism. As previously discussed,

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 THE BOXERS
the cult of this dualist ic: god influenced several medieval Christian
heresies, including the Cathars and the Knights Templar. The mystic
taught that faith should be replaced by personal illuiniii.it ion, and
that light and darkness were in eternal conflict for the human soul.
Mani was executed in ad 276, skinned and beheaded, but his cult
survived and spread west across Europe to the south of France, and
to China in the east. Such a broad appeal may be traced to Mani s
declaration that he was the successor of the teachings of Jesus.
Buddha and the Persian holy man Zarathustra.
The Buddhists were opposed to Manichaeism, perhaps on the
grounds that it claimed to supersede their own faith. It was not until
the Sung period that the sect received strong attention from tin?
government. With persecution its followers went underground to
practise their faith covertly and in smaller, unconnected groups. The
White Lotus Society in the north of China began as one of these
Manichaean sects, and it flourished to become a revolutionary group
of great importance. Of course, the original beliefs brought
eastwards by the first Manichaeans were gradually reinterpreted or
replaced with current Chinese thought, particularly in regard to
Taoism and Buddhism. Although proscribed by the Sung emperors,
the White Lotus played a part in the rebellion against their
successors, the Mongols, who had toppled the Sung and established
their own Yuan dynasty (1279-1368). For a time the White Lotus
Society became known as the Red Turbans and its leader, Han Shan-
tung, fought determinedly against the Mongol administration. This
and other uprisings eventually helped to destabilize the occupying
Yuan government, and the Mongols were driven from China. Han
Shan-tung claimed to descend from the rightful Sung dynasty, but
both he and his son died before a new dynasty could be founded to
replace that of the Mongols. His place as head of the White Lotus
Society and rightful emperor of the succeeding dynasty was instead
taken by Han's fellow rebel and Buddhist monk Chu Yuan-chang.
This man assumed full imperial powers in 1368 under the title of
Hung Wu ('Extensive and Martial').
The emperor Hung Wu was, according to the writer Jerome Ch'en,
a Manichaean, and this is a likely proposition considering the role
played by the White Lotus in helping him to power. Later secret
societies revered Hung Wu above all other historical figures and
pledged their allegiance to the Ming dynasty that he founded
centuries after its demise. The veneration of Hung Wu may have
been due to this link with Manichaeism. In fact, the sect believed
that darkness stole some of the cosmic light and hid it within the
human soul, establishing the 'divine spark', or 'luminous self, as it
was called; perhaps this was one reason why Hung Wu
named his
dynasty the Ming ('Bright'). Mani himself played on the connection

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WARRIOR CULTS

of light with power, goodness and truth, calling himself the

Illuminator and his cult's inner circle the 'illuminated elect'. A
separate tradition states that the White Lotus Society gave the Ming
dynasty its name because of its belief that there were two prophets
sent to earth by Buddha on a mission of peace; both of these
prophets were called Ming Wang.
It was the pure Chinese blood of "Hung Wu, together with his

achievement of expelling foreigners from China, that the secret

societies respected, for as a ruler he was more feared than revered.
Terror and despotism were refined by the Ming dynasty, and torture as
an instrument of government practice was commonly employed. For
three centuries, certain secret societies (among them the White Lotus)
played no part in dynastic history, although they were proscribed in
1394 and their members threatened with execution. This was their
reward for supporting a successful rebellion and it was a pattern
repeated time and again, from the era of the Red Eyebrows onwards.
When rebellion did eventually break out in the Ming Empire
during the 1620s, the White Lotus Society was involved and active.
This decline accelerated when the last Ming emperor abolished the
imperial postal service in 1629. As communication with parts of the
empire broke down, rebels and bandits in northern China, led by the
unemployed postal couriers, began to seize territory. In the wars that
followed, the Manchu people to the north-east, who had menaced
the Chinese Empire for decades, sought to exploit the chaotic
situation. A Manchu army marched into China in 1644 and entered
Peking that summer. Once more a foreign people had claimed the
Dragon Throne, but the Manchus would be far more successful than
the Mongols, and their rule would remain unbroken up until the
early years of the twentieth century.

'Overthrow the Ch'ing and restore the Ming!'

From the establishment of the Manchu dynasty, known as the
Ch'ing, the secret societies were united in a common purpose. Every
effortwould be expended on overthrowing the Ch'ing emperor and
replacing him with one of Ming lineage. Hung Wu became a heroic
symbol and reminder of what could be achieved through revolution.
He had defeated the foreign Mongols and founded a truly Chinese
dynasty. Now the secret societies aimed to repeat his victories. The
second Ch'ing emperor, the tough K'ang Hsi, made firm attempts to
suppress the revolutionaries, as well as both Taoists and Buddhists.
Proscriptions began in 1662 and targeted by name such sects as the
White Lotus, the White Lily, the Origin of Chaos, the Incense-
Smellers, the Origin of the Dragon and the Hung Society. This last
sect seems to have assimilated elements of the White Lotus Society,
a sect that is heard of less and less following the edict of 1662.

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 mi BOXERS
The societies shifted their attentions south, where Ming
sympathies were strongest and theCh'ing bold was weakest. Pukien
and Kwantung. China's two most southerly provinces, became the
revolutionary heartland for these groups, and for the Hung So< ietj
in particular. Like the White Lotus thdt bad influenced it. the Hung
Society used a variety of aliases, including the Heaven and Earth
Society and the Three United Society, under the latter of whit h it
became more popularly known in English as the Triad Society. Shu e
the Triad Society has managed to survive into the present day, much
is known of its inner rituals and organization that is mere
speculation with many of the other historical cults. It is known, for
example, that Kwan Ti, the god of secret oaths, was recognized by
the Triad Society as a patron deity, and his worship was taken up by
the other secret societies. Religious belief and mysticism played a
great part in all of the cults, mainly due to the influence of Taoism
and Buddhism in their practices.
Many offices within the Triad societies (there are now many
autonomous Triad groups, sometimes with their own sub-branches
or lodges) possessed ritual names, such as Dragon Head, Incense
Master and White Paper Fan. The hierarchy of each Triad
headquarters was always rigidly defined and ritualistic, being
headed by the society's overall leader, the Shan Chu. Acting as
deputy and stand-in for the Shan Chu was the Fu Shan Chu, a
position that still carried considerable power, as did the ceremonial
offices of Heung Chu (Incense Master) and Sin Fung (Vanguard).
These latter members were responsible for the ritualand religious
practices of the cult, organizing initiations and being able to demand
punishments for wrongdoers. A council of department heads came
next in the hierarchy and these various officers dealt with day-to-
day, mundane activities of the criminal organization, such as
discipline, education of the young, intersociety diplomacy,
propaganda, recruitment, finance and the welfare of the current
membership.
Other positions of note were the Pak Tsz Sin (White Paper Fan),
Cho Hai (Messenger), Hung Kwan (Red Pole), Chu Chi (Lodge
Leader), and the fairly infrequent Cha So (Treasurer). Similar to the
Mafia consigliere, the White Paper Fan was an educated man and a
trusted Triad adviser, discussing tactics and policy with the Shan
Chu. Members of the office often moved up into the Incense Master's
position, since the White Paper Fan seems to have been more of a
specialization than a formal rank.
This is also true of the Messenger, who liaised between the various
lodges of the society (if any existed). He would, in addition, act as
the cult's link with the outside world, and be responsible for the
collection of money owed to the Triad. Perhaps the most sinister

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rank in the Triad cult was the Red Pole, holders of which were often
department heads. Red Poles were the enforcers, the disciplinarians
and hit men of the Triad Society. Often skilled in the martial arts
(traditionally Ta'i Chi Ch'uan, but today including pistols and sub-
machine-guns), the Red Pole planned and led attacks on rival
societies, the government or victims of the society's criminal
enterprises.At one time the Red Poles led up to fifty armed Triads
on crime raids, but today numbers are smaller. In a similar position
to the Triad leader (the Shan Chu) were the leaders of other Triad
lodges affiliated to the main organization. Known as the Chu Chi,
they usually had their own deputies, called Fu Chu Chi. At the very
bottom of the Triad organization was the Sze Kau, the initiated rank-
and-file.
Numerology, the magical significance of certain combinations of
numbers, was certainly held in high regard by these early societies
and is an essential element in Triad ritual, even today. Obviously the
number 3 is of great significance to the Triad Society, denoting
Heaven, Earth and Man; Creation is mystically associated with the
number 3, and everyone has three souls. Number symbolism (and in
particular the number 3) was applied to the Triad rank structure, so
that each position within the organization had a ritual number).
The Shan Chu was known as the 489, or 21 (since 4+8+9 is 21, as
is 3x 7; the number 3 is Creation, the number 7 is both Luck and
Death). Other mystical connections abounded, though many have
now been The Deputy Leader, Incense Master and Vanguard
lost.
were all equal in rank and all 438s, the White Paper Fan was a 415,
the Messenger a 432 and the Red Pole a 426. The ordinary Sze Kau
was a 49.
Initiation was often a long and complex process, lasting in its
entirety for three days, and it took place within the society's
headquarters. Candidates for membership were required first to
procure a sponsor already within the organization, to whom was
paid a fee. A further payment was made to the society's coffers. To
guard against infiltrators, both the Incense Master and Vanguard
checked the initiate's credentials.
Each Triad hall was set out to symbolize the mythical Triad city of
Muk Yeung (the City of Willows) with a symbolic 'gate' on each of
the four walls. The initiation ritual took place within this hall and
involved the drinking of blood taken from all the prospective
initiates, followed by a long series of questions and answers, and the
crucial swearing of the thirty-six oaths. Headbands and ceremonial
costumes in a Buddhist style were worn by all, and there were
several symbolic acts of death and murder, as an illustration of the
fate that awaited traitors. All the officers of the Triad attended these
initiations, giving the ceremony an air of authority and tradition.

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Constant references to the Triad values of obedience, Loyalty and
secrecy were made, often in the Form of vague (or not so vague)
throats. Much of this traditional initiation
ceremony has now been
abandoned by the and the three-day initiation rite can now
societies
be rushed through in just one hour.
The emphasis is still on the swearing of oaths, however, and the
maintenance of absolute secrecy. Part of this Triad secrecy involved
the learning and use of covert hand-signals, similar to those used l>>
the Freemasons or the ninja. The way in which a man held his
chopsticks or offered money to a stranger contained identifying
signals that another Triad member would immediately recognize.
Regional differences between the northern and southern societies
existed but were mainly the result of differing cultures and
language. While the White Lotus in the north evolved into new
sects, such as the Eight Trigrams, the Torch-Bearers and the Red
Fists, in the south it became assimilated primarily with the Hung (or
Triad) Society. Because secret societies have a habit of cloaking both
their operations and their origins in mystery, not much is known
about the foundation of the Triad Society. What is certain about the
early Hung Society was the power of their slogan, 'Overthrow the
Ch'ing and restore the Ming!' It gave the society a physical enemy, a
reason for existence and a method whereby it could begin to unite
anti-government feeling throughout southern China. Whether or not
the Hung Society existed before the rise of the Manchu dynasty, it
certainly received its greatest impetus after that point. Modern Triad
members claim that their brotherhood came into existence during
the siege of a semi-legendary monastery called Shao Lin.
Every culture has its great martyrdom, a point in space and time
where brave ancestors struggled heroically against an evil force
intent on their destruction. Great Britain's little Expeditionary Force
was almost wiped out on the beaches of Dunkirk, the Texans fought
desperately against the Mexicans at the Alamo, and the ancient
Spartans always remembered how 300 of their number died to save
the rest of Greece. To the Triad Society, the attack on the monks of
Shao Lin is of equal importance, and part of a pattern of resistance
that swept through south and west China from 1673 to 1681. A
general uprising of Ming supporters against the Ch'ing had begun,
but could not stand against the Manchu armies. Hundreds of
thousands of people were killed in the fighting or were executed.
Among the patriots were 120 warrior-monks well versed in the
arts of war, from strategy to the deadly T'ai Chi Ch'uan martial art
known today as kung m. Legend has it that their monastery of Shao
Lin, somewhere in the mountains of Fukien, became a rallying point
for anti-Ch'ing forces. Such a thorn in the side of the Empire could
not be left unchecked, and in 1674 a great army was sent against it.

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For three weeks the warrior-monks defended the monastery against

Ch'ing attacks, but a traitor in their midst allowed a few of the troops
to enter, disguised as coolies. From within, the soldiers' task was
made much easier; the monastery was set alight and the monks,
caught by surprise, were massacred. The legend maintains that only
eighteen of the original 128 monks from Shao Lin escaped the
blazing monastery. Of these, only five survived the ensuing hunt
that the Manchu forces embarked upon, and these five are known in
Triad lore as the First Five Ancestors of the society.
Every detail of the Five Ancestors' wanderings and their founding
of the society is remembered in the elaborate rituals of the Triad
Society. Events have special significance and lessons to teach the
initiateand help explain why the cult operates as it does. For
example, each Triad lodge was laid out as a representation of the
mythical City of Willows. It was there that the Five Ancestors first
began recruiting society members, and where they made their
headquarters at the Yee Hop Tim fruit stall in the city's Taiping
market. Initiates for centuries after would pass through the 'entry of
the fruit-seller' during their enrolment into the society. This was
probably an attempt to link the first initiations with those taking
place years later.
A fiery and desperate beginning to the cult helped establish the
Triad Society as a revolutionary group dedicated to battling the
Ch'ing dynasty at every turn. Members pledged their loyalty to the
Triads and that loyalty superseded any other; even death in the
service of the society was expected to be given if asked for.
Rebellions against the Ch'ing always involved the cult, prompting
the ruling dynasty to proscribe it. Among the rural peasantry,
especially in the south, the rebel society achieved a heroic status
somewhat similar to that of the French Maquis fighting against the
occupying German forces during the Second World War.
An enduring fame and almost mythical reputation were heaped
on the rebellious Triad members in the eighteenth-century novel
Shui Hu Chuan. Better known to the West as The Water Margins, the
book was banned by the Ch'ing as subversive in 1799. It featured a
large force of bandits and fugitives from government justice who
lived in a marshy wilderness away from civilization and waged
guerrilla war against provincial despots. The novel must have had
some basis in fact. Ch'ing policy had been to match every Chinese
official in the vast government bureaucracy with a Manchu overseer,
totally undermining any feeling of responsibility the Chinese people
had for their own destiny. The resulting corruption, coupled with
injustice, drove a deep rift between the people and their rulers. It
was said that during the rule of the Ch'ing, the army protected the
emperor while the secret societies protected the people. Of course,

166
 nil: BOXERS
the inference was that the people required protecting from the
emperor.
As the gap between the Ch'ing and the peasantry grew, the Triad
Society expanded to fill it. Where the Manchn administration was

often unreliable or even antagonistic to its citizens, the cult became

a shadow government, meting out justice, resolving disputes and,
one assumes, collecting taxes. Consolidating these gains meant that
the time for national uprising to overthrow the Ch'ing was
a
approaching ever nearer, and as time passed several attempts were
made. From 1787 up until the middle of the nineteenth century
several revolutions were launched, but all met with failure. Many
survivors of these abortive attacks fled to parts of South-East Asia,
What was needed was a
Australia and the west coast of America.
nationwide mobilization of anti-Manchu forces that could assault
government troops on all fronts.
An opportunity presented itself in 1850, when a fanatical holy
man attempted just such a strategy with his Society of God-
Worshippers. China was plunged into civil war for fourteen years
while the unbalanced Hung Hsiu-chuan proclaimed himself the
brother of Jesus Christ and emperor of China. How deeply the
Triads were connected with this uprising, known as the Taiping
Rebellion, is not known. That the legendary Triad market Taiping
is mentioned by name points to some involvement, as does the

instigator's name, Hung being both the name of the first Ming
emperor and the alternative title of the Triad Society. This peculiar
man originally entered the examinations for the imperial civil
service and, on failing, began his holy war against the Ch'ing
bureaucracy. Much of his theology was a poor reworking of the
Christian doctrine that he had already encountered, but it was
illogically amalgamated with elements of Taoism and Buddhism.
During the cult's ceremonies Hung would read aloud from the
Bible and then make food offerings at family ancestor shrines in
the Taoist way, but he (conversely) believed in the Eighteen Hells
of Buddhism. However mixed up Hung Hsiu-chuan 's theology was,
it attracted a great number of avid followers and instilled a
fanaticism that engendered the destruction of temples and shrines,
and the murder of holy men of whatever theological persuasion.
Perhaps if the movement had spent less energy attacking Buddhist
and Taoist religious institutions it might have made greater
political gains. As it was, the Taiping Rebellion shook the Chinese
Empire to its core. In only one year Hung was strong enough to
proclaim a Taiping state (Kingdom of Great Social Harmony). Other
military success followed with the capture of a series of cities and
in 1853 Nanking was seized, becoming the Taiping capital of
Tianjing (Celestial Capital).

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Anti-Buddhist behaviour must have only alienated the majority of

Triad Society members from participating fully in the Taiping
Rebellion, since the Triad was most influenced by Buddhism in its
hidden rituals and beliefs. But this did not stop it exploiting the
anarchic situation in southern China, or stop individual Triad
members joining the ranks of the God- Worshippers. Ming supporters
may have welcomed the opportunity to Throw off Ch'ing overlordship,
but the established Triad organization seems to have played little or no
part in helping the Taiping Rebellion achieve this goal. Had the Triad
Society given up its avowed mission of 'overthrowing the Ch'ing and
restoring the Ming'? The lack of substantial gains over the past 200
yearshad pushed the society into criminal activities as a method of
economic survival, and the simple fact that the Triad was so vast
meant it had become the only underworld culture. In this way it
resembled the equally patriotically motivated Irish Republican Army
of modern-day Northern Ireland. The IRA has in the past indulged in
armed robberies to bolster its finances, and it has found drugs just as
easy to smuggle into the Province as explosives or firearms. Additional
revenue has been forced out of Ulster businesses, both large and small,
in a very effective system of extortion, and IRA activists have also been
known to dispense summary justice to wrongdoers in the community,
particularly in the form of 'kneecapping' both informers and such
apoliticals as young car thieves. Triad sources of revenue most
commonly revolved around prostitution, gambling, protection money
and the cultivation and sale of opium; all were considered immoral
and illegal by the God-Worshippers.
However unimpressed the Triad was with Hung and his cult, the
secret society took advantage of the fact that imperial troops were
thoroughly engaged across China. Rebellions on a much more
cautious scale were carried out throughout 1853, the first of which
saw the Triad assume the name of the Small Knife Society during the
capture of the port of Amoy. Some 2,000 Triad members held the
city for three months, spurring the society on to greater successes.
Later that year Shanghai was captured by Triads from Fukien and
Kwantung and held for a year and a half. When the cult was
eventually forced out of the city, the Manchu troops sacked and
despoiled it, just as the Triads had done before them. Other
successes were achieved, most notably at Canton (where the Triad
took the name of the Red Turbans) and the profitable trade route of
the Pearl River; both came under Triad influence for some time.
Such gains were not fully exploited, however, for although together
they were considerable, there seems to have been little overall
control surrounding the Triad revolt.
As the Taiping Rebellion foundered, the Triads lost any advantage
they might have gained. Hung Hsiu-chuan committed suicide, while

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his followers were rounded up and executed. Communisl Chinese

today look on the
rebellion as an abortive attempt at a social
revolution that was
directed against the upper classes, but in reality it
resembled a religious uprising, with the Manchu rulers forming part
of the religious establishment By the end of 1864 something like 20
million lives had been lost through the monumental folly of the
Taiping Rebellion. More were to die at the hands of the vengeful
Manchu authorities, and horrible tortures and death awaited the
rebellious Triad members who had pointlessly risen up in the south.
Over 1 million captured Triad members were executed in Kwantung
province alone, either by decapitation, live burial, whippings of 1 ,000
lashes or agonizingly slow strangulation. Such a massive retaliation
forced many members of the society to flee the country. Hong Kong
became a popular refuge for Triads, as did the goldfields of California.
New secret societies were established in central China, perhaps
encouraged by some of the successes of the Taiping Rebellion. Two
of the most important of these Triad splinters were the Green Group
and the Red Group. One other sect, the Elder Brother Society, was
composed of veterans from the Manchu armies, and it established
itself during the years of the Taiping unrest. There are no details of
the society's goals or beliefs, but there were contemporary reports
that the sectwas intent on revolution. The Elder Brothers spread all
over central and western China and came to government notice in
1870. A further attempt at revolution in 1891 amounted to nothing
when the leader of the veterans' society was arrested, along with a
British citizen, C.W.Mason, a customs official in Shanghai, who had
smuggled in firearms and explosives for the conspirators.
What remained of the rest of the Triad Society after the Taiping
Rebellion was still an active force in the southern provinces. Indeed,
the Sunning area of China, to the south-west of the Pearl River, rose
up in rebellion at the instigation of the secret society in 1892. Like
previous Triad attempts, the gain proved ephemeral. It seemed that
the Triad revolution, kept alive and simmering for two centuries,
would never come to fruition.
A major social upheaval and numerous sporadic coups had not
been exploited by the society. The increasing reliance on criminal
activities for a sense of purpose may have had something to do with
this state of affairs, and so too might the slow but steady exodus of
members from China to the safe havens of Hong Kong and South-
East Asia. The mainland, even in the south, had become a dangerous
place for cult members, since there seemed little sign of Ch'ing
weakness. The spectacular victory of the emperor's forces against
the massed armies of Hung Hsiu-chuan can only have served to
demoralize the Triad Society and its associate cults. In the north,

however, the story was a different one.

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WARRIOR CULTS

Great Swords and Righteous Fists

North of the Yangtze River, the White Lotus Society had been in its
heyday strongly connected with the Eight Trigrams Society. With the
waning of the former, the Eight Trigrams had blossomed and by 1786
had eventually grown to become probably the greatest secret society
in northern China. This year marked the eruption of a Trigram-
backed rebellion during which thousands of cult members ran
amok, until they were suppressed two years later. A measure of the
danger that they presented to the Manchu dynasty can be gauged by
the 1788 government decree that ordered the total extermination of
the Eight Trigrams. It is clear that the imperial authorities
considered this sect highly dangerous, mixed as it was with
remnants of the White Lotus Society. Other cult connections later
became apparent, but of particular importance was the one that
existed with the Fists of Righteous Harmony (known to Europeans
at the end of the nineteenth century as the 'Boxers').
This branch of the White Lotus was to do what the Taiping
Rebellion failed to achieve: namely, successfully unseat the Manchu
government. But in doing so, the Fists of Righteous Harmony were
destroyed themselves during the uprising in 1900, and it was left to
other secret societies, in particular the Triad Society, to exploit the
situation that had been created.
How the Eight Trigrams Society came to develop into the Fists of
Righteous Harmony is unclear. There is little direct evidence to link
the two, but a great deal of similarity. Perhaps the most conclusive
indication of a connection between these two sects is the fact that
the Eight Trigrams is mentioned in the famous and most ancient
Chinese divinatory text, the / Ching [Book of Changes). There the
Trigrams are divisions of the universe in relation to eight cardinal
points. Each division is known as a kung or mansion, and the eight
are arranged around a ninth, central area. These nine mansions
provide the society with its alternative name, the Religion of the
Nine Mansions. In accordance with its origins, the Eight Trigrams
Society was organized into eight groupings, each representing a
mansion and commanded by a cult leader. One of these mansion
chiefs assumed the leadership of the entire religious society. Much
the same organization was used by the later Fists of Righteous
Harmony, although only three mansions were mentioned by name
during the uprising of the society in 1900: Heaven (Ch'ien), Water
(K'an) and Earth (K'un).
The basic subdivision of a kung in the Boxer organization was a
t'uan, which was responsible for the spiritual and physical welfare
of its members. Each rural t'uan controlled a single village from its
central temple, and was led by a Boxer official called the Ta Shuai.
Boxers in the cities rallied around a headquarters temple that

170
 THE BOXERS
probably controlled part of the city, as .1 gang would today, Altars.
religious statues and tablets often adorned the insides of the8e
temples, and many possessed an adjacent boxing ground. Beneath
the Ta Shuai was an official responsible for basic administration and
another for the induction and training of new Boxer recruits. The
leaders of the Fists of Righteous Harmon)/ were not strong, able
commanders of efficient local fighting forces but prominent Boxers
who survived the early skirmishes. One such Leader who rose from
obscurity to fame was Li Wen-ch'ing, who took the name of an
earlier Chinese revolutionary and was also known as Red Lantern
Chu. The lantern in his title may refer to the symbolic 'Lamp of Ten
Thousand Years' which features in Taoist magic.
Where the two cults overlapped in organization, they also
overlapped in geographical location. The primary region of the Eight
Trigrams was the area north of the Yellow River that encompassed
the provinces of Shantung, Chihli and north-east Honan. In 1774,
1786 and then again in 1813 the Eight Trigrams rose up in rebellion
against the authorities. In 1899 and 1900 the Fists of Righteous
Harmony also began their rebellion in this region. A further point of
connection between the two societies existed. Under the name of the
Religion of the Pattern of Heaven, the Eight Trigrams' rebellion of
1813 was led by the aforementioned Li Wen-ch'ing and it ended in
abject failure. Almost eighty-five years later, the Boxer Uprising was
led by another Li Wen-ch'ing. Was this later society an independent
group in some way related to the Eight Trigrams or a direct
descendant? Indeed, was it the same organization after a simple
name change?
The complex network of intermingling cults and sects in imperial
China makes such assertions unworkable. There is no practical way
to prove conclusively whether groups were related and contiguous
or just adopting aliases designed to confound the authorities. The
best that can be done is to compare customs, rituals and
organization. In this respect, and with the supporting evidence of
the same locality and replication of the leader's name, it seems likely
that the Boxers who fought against Christians in northern China in
1900 were the same as the Eight Trigrams of well over a century
before. Two Boxer leaders, Wu Hsiu and Ta Kuei, captured by
government forces at different locations, both admitted belonging to
the Eight Trigrams Society; some of the lower-ranking Boxers also
declared themselves members of both.
The Chinese writer Lao Nai-hsuan, who lived through this chaotic
period, regarded the Boxers as part of, or closely, related to, the Eight
Trigrams sect, the Red Fists and the previously mentioned White
Lotus Society. His study, called I Ho Chu'an Chiao Men Yuan Liu
K'ao [The Historical Origins of the Fists of Righteous Harmony),

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WARRIOR CULTS

appeared in print in 1899. The Fists of RighteousHarmony were

specificallymentioned by name in the 1727 within a
year
government edict that accused them of instigating riotous behaviour
among the uneducated masses. Also mentioned was their strange art
of mystical boxing. Further government reports in 1818 make a
similar assertion, and also chart the spread of the cult into Shantung
and Chihli. Members were usually executed when the authorities
discovered them, an indication that the cult harboured serious
opposition to the Manchu establishment. Criminal activities typical
of most Chinese secret societies also characterized the Fists of
Righteous Harmony in the early years of the nineteenth century.
Protection rackets, and an involvement in gambling dens and
prostitution, caused government concern. What may have caused
even more concern was the complicity of local officials with the
society, and Lao Nai-hsuan asserted that members performed a kind
of local police service, giving them the power to carry out their
criminal activities almost unhindered. Such a situation could not
continue unchallenged, and the society was not
although
eradicated, it was made more law-abiding.
significantly
The crucial aspect to the survival of the cult was its practice of
T'ai Chi Ch'uan, or Supreme Ultimate Boxing. Also known as Shen
Ch'uan, or Spirit Boxing, the practice kept the society alive
throughout the nineteenth century, when government pressure had
forced it to adopt a lower criminal tone. This martial art followed a
tradition that went back at least as far as the First Five Ancestors and
the monks of the Shao Lin monastery. There is some incongruity
here, with Buddhist monks practising a fighting art, but the Japanese
Buddhists had long countenanced the existence of the sohei, or
warrior-monk, dedicated to defending Buddhism by force of arms. In
fact, H. A. Giles, writing before the First World War, argued that the

Japanese ju-jitsu fighting art (ju-jitsu is the modern rendition of the

original ju-jutsu) that found employ among the samurai and ninja on
the battlefields of Japan was derived from the T'ai Chi Ch'uan of the
Boxers, Eight Trigrams and Shao Lin monks. The Japanese imported
several aspects of warfare from China - the basis for ninjutsu, we
have seen, can be traced back to the works of China's greatest
general, Sun Tzu. The T'ai Chi Ch'uan of the Boxers was first a
martial art, but it survives up to the present day as a system of
exercises designed to improve the body. In the nineteenth century it
was also capable of endowing the practitioner with magical abilities.
What these abilities might have been can be deduced from the
alternative title for the art: Spirit Boxing.
One of the most remarkable claims of the Boxers was that they
could render themselves impenetrable to bullets. This was achieved
by the use of T'ai Chi Ch'uan during a special ceremony that was

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 nil BOXERS
conducted on the boxing ground adjacent most Boxer lodges \
to
specific incantation was taught warrior which might
to the potential
take just a day to learn correctly or it might take many months. Mr
would then go to the boxing ground at an appointed time and begin
his special exercises. While he did so. he recited the spell of
invulnerability three times, and hoped by this method to summon a
spirit to possess his mortal body. If all went well, the man would

enter a fit-like state, frothing at the mouth, twitching and rolling his
eyes, and by this witnesses would observe his possession, shouting
out. 'God descends!' From that moment on, the cult member was
thought to be invulnerable to sword blows and bullets. (A similar
magical cult also appeared briefly on the plains of North America as
Native Americans fought with primitive weapons against the US
army.)
When it became only too obvious to the Boxers that members were
being seriously injured or killed while supposedly invulnerable, the
individual was deemed to be an infiltrator of the cult who had got
what he deserved, or it was thought that the ritual had not been
performed correctly. As the magic began to fail more times than it
worked, the Boxers, like the Thugs of India, blamed the lax attitude
of many cult members to the strict rules laid down by the society.
Strangely, though, the Europeans who faced the Boxer warriors were
often disconcerted to find them hard to kill. Sublieutenant M. E.
Cochrane of HMS Centurion wrote:

They work themselves into an extreme state of hypnotism and certainly do not for the
moment feel body wounds. We have all learned that they take a tremendous lot of
killing and I myself put four man-stopping revolver bullets into one man before he
dropped.

The Fists of Righteous Harmony were not the only Chinese secret
society to boast indestructibility through the use of magic. During
the White Lotus rebellions of the eighteenth century one cult leader
was found dead on the battlefield with a small mirror worn as an
amulet next to his heart. The man's intention was that the magical
mirror should deflect the bullets, arrows and sword blows of the
government troops. Contemporary with the Boxers was the Great
Sword Society, which also practised martial arts and rituals of
invulnerability. When the Boxer Uprising gathered pace, most of the
Great Sword members joined either the Fists, the militia or the
Chinese army in the fight against the foreigners.
Ch'ing edicts warned of the dangers of the Boxer sect on their re-
emergence into the open in 1898, highlighting its involvement in
gambling, riotous behaviour, extortion, swindling and the public
demonstration of martial arts. New members were being recruited,
initially as yen fa, which was the lowest rank of the cult, but a

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second level [shang fa) also existed for those Boxers who came
'under the spell'. Women
were also welcomed as participating
members of the sect, and they had their own mysterious society
called the Red Lanterns, as well as the more mundane Cooking-Pot
Lanterns, which performed the services of commissary. Again, the
Taoist lantern symbol featured as a title of the cult. The distinctive
feature of the Fists of Righteous Harmony was the colour red; socks,
sashes, turbans and caps could be this colour, and often the battle-
ready Boxer decorated his sword or spear with scarlet ribbons.
At first initiation into the Boxers was very strict. The name of a
candidate was written on a piece of paper and the paper was then
burnt. If name could afterwards still be read among
the candidate's
the ashes, then he became a Boxer. As the uprising gained strength,
this rite was abandoned to allow as many young men as possible to
be recruited. This may have been difficult (especially during the
early years of the Boxers' existence), since the cult laid down strict
rules of behaviour for members, including total abstinence from
its

sex, tea and meat. No moral laws were to be broken and the Boxer
had to embrace austerity. It is doubtful if such measures were
upheld during the height of the Boxer Uprising, since the veteran
Boxers familiar with the ritual and history of the cult would have
been outnumbered by newly initiated farmers with a grievance and
an opportunity to display that grievance.
Ruling China at the end of the nineteenth century was the Manchu
dynasty, dominated by the emperor's aunt Tsu Hai, the empress
dowager. She had ruled the country from behind the scenes for forty
years and was not about to hand it all over to 'barbarians'. Although
she knew of their great power, the empress dowager cannot have
fully understood the size and potentially overwhelming force of the
European nations. China had already been humiliated in the Opium
Wars and the ceding of Hong Kong to Britain, and was now being
mapped out for commercial conquest by foreign powers, with
separate 'spheres of interest' all clearly delineated. But Britain's
colonial problems with the Boer farmers in South Africa, for
instance, may have suggested to the Chinese that the great powers
could be successfully threatened. On this basis, some vague strategy
may have been concocted by the empress dowager and her staff at
the beginning of 1900. It would seem that naked force was not
considered an option in forcing foreign powers out of China;
perhaps violent retribution was both expected and feared.
The Fists of Righteous Harmony Society had originally espoused
the slogan, 'Overthrow the Ch'ing and destroy the foreigner!' By
virtue of the pacts and treaties that both parties were signatory to,
the foreign powers were as iniquitous in the eyes of the cult as the
Manchus, and were part of the establishment. For some reason in

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 111! BOXKKS

1899, the direction of the Boxers' angei changed; now the slogan
was, 'Support the Ch'ing and destroy the foreigner! This switch
1

from an anti-dynastic to a pro-dynastic policy is impossible to

explain. Perhaps the Boxers changed the cult's direction of their
own accord, deciding to attack a target thai they actually had a
chance of defeating (remember that the Manchu dynast} had been
securely in power for two and a half centuries). But tin; more
intriguing possibility exists that the empress dowager was somehow
able to reverse the cult's orientation, and turn an enemy into a
friend. This was part of a sophisticated 'anti-foreigner'
programme
that she had and the support of the Boxers was to be if not
initiated,
the ultimate goal, then the result. Her reasons were obvious. The
Boxers were not connected to the Chinese government in any
way and were 'deniable assets' in modern terminology, yet they
could rid the land of the Europeans' profiteering, religion and
industrialization.
Boxer activity first came to official notice in the province of
Shantung during May 1898. The provincial governor, Li Ping-heng,
sent a report to Peking concerning the cult's influence in riots and
other disturbances that were breaking out between the local Chinese
population and the Christians (both foreigners and Chinese
Christian converts). In spring the following year, this governor was
replaced by Yu Hsien, who approved of the Boxers to such an extent
that activity in Shantung actually began to increase. More Christians
were beaten and murdered, homes were burnt and the symbols of
foreign powers, such as railways, mines and telegraph poles, were
attacked. German representatives put pressure on the emperor
dowager to remove Yu Hsien, and she obliged them, only to grant
him the governorship of Shansi province. At his new posting it
seems he had little need of Boxers to pursue his aims, executing
forty-five Christian missionaries and their families in a single day!
When the new governor of Shantung began a campaign to
suppress the Boxers, he was warned against it by the empress, and
in early 1900, as the uprising began to gain definite momentum, she
gave her public support to the Boxer cult. When the attacks
increased in tempo and ferocity, the European powers petitioned the
empress to suppress the cult, but she answered that she was unable
to stop the depredations of the Boxers. She was, like others,
captivated by the thought of a mystical army preparing to drive out
the 'foreign devils'. The sinister and supernatural cult would be
infinitely more effective than her own army and, more than that, it
would cost the government nothing.
With such august support, the Boxers became ever more daring in
their harassment of Christians and Europeans. Outlying
communities were attacked and settlements razed to the ground;

175
WARRIOR CULTS

churches, missions and farms were dealt with in a similar fashion.

No resistance was offered, for these targets were the undefended
homes of women, children and men of God. Whites were killed or
savagely treated, white Catholics especially so, since their colonial
regime seems to have been all the more authoritarian. The local
Chinese converts to Christianity were likewise murdered. Torture
often preceded death at the hands of the ferocious cultists. Hatred of
the Christians spurred on the cult to greater atrocities, but the hatred
was neither irrational nor misplaced. All of the colonial powers had
carved out pieces of the empire for their own use and towns were
taken by force on occasion. On a more personal scale, local disasters
were often blamed on the Christians, often because their monstrous
churches, chapels and cathedrals violated all the laws of feng-shui,
the rituals that surrounded the location and design of buildings so
as not to offend the all-powerful spirits of earth, wind and water.
What action the government army took against the anti-foreign
marauders was half-hearted and ineffective, and within only a short
space of time the Boxers had turned their attentions to the northern
provinces and the imperial capital, Peking.

The Boxer Catastrophe

The greatest concentration of white settlers lived around the city of
Peking, where they could interact more freely with the great
population there as well as with the imperial government. Apart
from traders and missionaries, Peking was also home to the
diplomats of foreign powers. These government representatives
lived together in a single area of the citywhere their legations were
located. There were eleven such legations: British, American,
Japanese, German, French, Austrian, Russian, Spanish, Belgian,
Dutch and Italian. The ministers, their official staff and all of their
families felt increasingly threatened by the Boxers, and this fear was
communicated to the outside world. The fanatical cult that had
originated in Shantung had spread slowly over the months from
village to village until it had reached the province of Chihli, at the
centre of which was Peking. By the last week of May in 1900, the
Fists of Righteous Harmony had reached the many gates of the
imperial city.

The empress dowager's foreign office, the Tsungli Yamen, did

little to protect the legations from danger, promising armed guards
but not providing them in adequate numbers. Rather than have to
depend on unreliable Chinese protection, the foreign powers began
building up a small garrison of soldiers, much to the displeasure of
the anti-foreign faction of the Chinese government. In addition, the
allied naval fleet that was anchored at the mouth of the Pei Ho River
in the Gulf of Chihli decided, after some prevarication, to send

176
 II iv. BOX] RS

reinforcements to Peking. This 2,000-strong expedition was

commanded by Admiral Seymour, and it Left on 10 [une by train.
The first leg of the journey took it to the port of Tientsin, and .is it
rolled further north it had to garrison stations and settlements so as
not to have its line of retreat cut off. But at Tang T'su, on the w.i\ to
the capital, this was exactly what happened. Boxers made several
fanatical attacks on the trains and succeeded in Isolating the
expedition by destroying rails, bridges and water-tanks. During their
attacks the Boxers cut the throats of their wounded, hoping to deny
the allies any prisoners. What had set off as a relief force now found
itself faced with the prospect of having to fight its way back to
Tientsin through Boxer-infested country. It eventually retreated
southwards along the Pei Ho River and reached Tientsin by 26 June.
During the desperate retreat of the expedition, the allied fleet at
the Taku Bar at the mouth of the river moved to attack the imposing
Taku forts which guarded access to the river and could prevent the
fleet moving upstream to Tientsin. Nine ships of the fleet
approached the forts and, when their ultimatum to the Taku forts to
surrender had almost expired, came under fire. Landing parties were
able to take the Taku forts by 17 June, but the empress had managed
to learn of the fighting there and mistakenly assumed that the
victory was a Chinese one. Flushed with false success, she declared
the whole of China at war with the foreign powers and summoned
the Chinese army to join with the Boxers. China's Grand Army of the
North was ordered to enter the legation area of Peking and slaughter
every European it found, but the tough defenders were able to put
up stout resistance.
Peking was experiencing panic: there were lootings, fires and
other disturbances, murders were carried out on the streets, and
several times guards from the barricaded legation quarter entered
the streets to rescue endangered Christians. On 20 June the German
minister,Klemens Graf von Kettler, was murdered on the streets of
the imperial capital by a Chinese army corporal. Soon after this
disturbing event, a mob of Boxer fanatics attacked the Austrian
legation, but they were driven back by machine-gun fire. Trenches
were hastily dug and barricades were built; the legation was now
under siege. The tiny allied force within the confines of the legation
area was hard-pressed, and it used ingenuity and skill in defending
the other Europeans. Peking was now totally isolated from the rest
of China, the allied fleet, the Seymour expedition and the allied
garrison at Tientsin, which itself had come under attack from Boxer
cult members. Everywhere Europeans and Christians were being
attacked by the cult and now also by the Chinese army.
The foreigners at the port of Tientsin had to defend a five-mile
perimeter from the massed attacks of the fanatics and the soldiers.

177
WARRIOR CULTS

All kinds of merchandise were employed as material for barricades,

including expensive bales of silk! A courageous mining engineer
called Herbert Hoover was able to help in the construction of
Tientsin's defences; this man would later become president of the
United States. Being so close to the fleet off Taku, those besieged at
Tientsin were the first to be relieved by_the timely arrival of an allied
army on 23 July. Once Tientsin had been secured, more troops were
assembled in the shattered city for a second attempt to reach Peking
and the foreign legations, from where no word had come since the
beginning of June. No one knew whether the besieged were dead or
still struggling valiantly against the Boxers. When the multinational
forcehad collected, it began the journey to Peking on 4 August.
Following the line of the river and the railway inland, it
encountered pockets of Chinese resistance, usually from rogue
elements of the army, since the Boxer cult members were now
becoming a rarity. Either they were low in numbers from their
fanatical attacks on allied positions or they were abandoning their
cause to fade back into the population. From the start of August, the
Boxers no longer feature in the uprising as a credible military force,
but only as lone murderers and criminals to be hunted down.
In Peking the different foreign legations had pulled together in
this desperate struggle for survival, sharing food and water and
combining their tiny troop numbers in an attempt to defend the
legation area. The head of the British legation, Sir Claude
MacDonald, led the defence of the 3,000 civilians with only 389
men, seventy-five volunteers and twenty officers. By far the greatest
military asset the legations possessed was Colonel Goro Shiba. Both
the colonel and his twenty-five Japanese soldiers fought valiantly
against a far greater number of Boxers and Chinese troops. All knew
that a single lapse in the defence would bring about the certain
death of everyone within the legation area, and this tense drama was
the source of much heroism, tinged as it was by the lack of any
information whatsoever about the state of the allies elsewhere. Had
they fled China? Was a relief column just outside of the city? Did
anyone know they were still alive? The siege of Peking was to last
an agonizing fifty-five days.
The empress dowager and her close advisers within the Forbidden
City palace complex at the heart of Peking had grown alarmed by the
reports of the allied victory at Tientsin and so the Tsungli Yamen re-
established contact with the beleaguered legations. Their tone was
now one of desperation, and the legations were repeatedly offered
safe passage to Tientsin. Guardedly, they declined to attempt the
hazardous journey, fearing a trap. Further half-hearted attempts
were made to resolve the awful siege. Flags of truce appeared one
day, to enable the Chinese to bury their dead, who littered the streets

178
 mi. iu)\i rs

surrounding the legations. Sir Claude Mai Donald even met with our
of the Chinese chiefs during another truce, and Further
communications resulted in a cart of fresh fruit being delivered to
the thirsty and hungry defenders. But these sporadic overtures often
ended as quickly as they had begun, the empress dowager being
swayed sometimes by the moderate influence of Prince Ch'ing and
at other times by the hardline anti-foreigner Prince Tu.in.
One can imagine an old woman who, having placed bei faith in
the sinister forces of a secret cult, was forced to listen in shocked
amazement to reports of the Boxers being cut down by gunfire just
men. Her hopes of expelling the 'foreign devils'
as easily as mortal
by supernatural means had been dashed and she was now
tentatively looking for some way to resolve the dangerous situation.
The international consequences of annihilating the legations were
too horrible to contemplate, and with well-trained and well-armed
troops on theirway to lay siege to Peking, some kind of compromise
was necessary. Her army had modern rifles, a stock of machine-guns
(which remained in their packing crates) and the massed manpower
to easily overcome the legation defences in just a few concerted
assaults.But still the siege dragged on.
Following a large battle to the south of Peking with government
troops on 5 and 6 August, the international relief force marched on
the city. It had already numbers of men as battle
lost considerable
casualties and, since they were low on water and blistered by heat,
the severe hardships of the march had taken their toll. The polyglot
army, including Russians, Japanese, French, Americans and British
(mainly Indian levies), prepared to attack Peking, relieve the
legations (if anyone were left alive there) and depose the empress

dowager in the Forbidden City. As the armies assembled for the

agreed start of the attack, it soon became clear that the Russians had
sent in an advance party that had not only prematurely moved
against Peking but also cut diagonally across the battlefield to attack
the American objective, one of the massive gates. Whether the
Russians had sent just a scouting party or actually desired the glory
of breaching Peking's walls first is not known, but the planned
assault on the city was abandoned and all of the armies moved into
battle immediately. This combined effort, with each army charged
with seizing different objectives, managed to throw back the Chinese
defenders, and on the afternoon of 14 August the legations were
relieved.
Little a mile from the legations stood the imposing edifice
more than
of the P'ei Tang Cathedral, which had been under siege for as long as
the legations but was somehow overlooked during that first frantic day
of liberation and on the second. On 16 August a small force was
. . .

dispatched to take the cathedral. In the tiny compound were 3,000

179
WARRIOR CULTS

Chinese converts in desperate circumstances. They had suffered the

horrors of Boxer raids and highly destructive mines that had been
exploded underneath the compound. The defenders knew little of
what was happening elsewhere, and the brave scouts that the forty
French and Italian marines dispatched never returned, their heads and
carefully flayed skins being displayed on poles by the Boxers. After an
abortive assault on the main gates of the Forbidden City by the
American contingent, Pe'i Tang Cathedral was eventually secured.
Ironically, during the cathedral's reconstruction by Chinese
labourers following the siege, Bishop Favier was certain that most of
the coolies had been active participants in the Boxer cult and were
responsible for many of the horrors that he had witnessed during the
days of the siege. But the bishop held no grudge. The first the
defenders had seen of Boxer cult members was on 15 June, when a
party of Boxers, all clad in red, assembled near the Pe'i Tang's south
entrance. With ritual movements and magical signs, they began to
advance on the cathedral slowly and ominously, brandishing
burning torches and swords. The cultists then knelt to pray and, as
they did so, the defenders opened fire on them, forcing them to flee.
Nothing could stop the allied armies now from despoiling Peking
and taking their revenge on the Chinese who had caused all of them
so much suffering. On 28 August the Imperial Palace within the
Forbidden City was taken and during the following months the
Russians occupied parts of Manchuria in northern China, while the
German troops, led by Field-Marshal Waldersee, conducted sadistic
and brutal revenge attacks on the peasantry around the capital. The
empress dowager herself had fled after the fall of Peking, but she
negotiated a surrender from the regional city of Sian on 26 December
1900. There was little that she could do now to prevent the foreign
powers from taking whatever they desired and imposing upon the
Chinese people and its government any measure, however unfair. In
September 1901 the Boxer Protocol was signed, guaranteeing to the
foreign powers very substantial reparations for the folly of the
empress dowager's political adventure.
Old and wily, and a survivor until the end, the empress dowager
died in mysterious circumstances on 15 November 1908, the day
after the death of Emperor Kuang-Hsu himself. These two deaths are
still unexplained, and highly suspicious, but they paved the way for

the accession to the Manchu throne of the last emperor, two-year-old

P'u-i, who reigned as Emperor Hsuan-t'ung until the revolution of
1911 brought to an end over 2,000 years of imperial rule.

The Triads Have Their Day

As it had done during the Taiping Rebellion, the Triad Society failed
to exploit the anarchy that the Boxer Uprising created. This was

180
 IHI MUM K.s

partly due to the political passivity of mam southern provincial

governors who did not take steps either to support or to hinder the
Boxer movement. Thus the Triads did not participate in the
weakening of the Manchu dynasty that had hern a thorn in their side
for a quarter of a millennium. But someone was active in Chinese
politics who would change for ever the fortunes of the Triad S<>< i.u ;

his name was Dr Sun Yat-sen. He would enable the secret societj not
just to attempt another coup but also to replace the hated Manchu
dynasty with something other than a replacement emperor. Sun Vat
sen would break the mould of Chinese revolutions, and while he
worked and studied overseas, he was constantly planning the
structure of what would become China's first democratic republic.
At the Alice Memorial Hospital in Hong Kong, where he took up
a position in 1887, Sun Yat-sen joined the Triad Society and hold a
variety of offices in several different Triad groups. One of these was
the Hong Kong-based Chung Wo Tong Society, which helped to raise
funds for and co-ordinate the activities of the Chinese Republican
Party. Following a failed coup in 1895, Sun Yat-sen was forced to
flee overseas, and travelled extensively among the Chinese
communities in Hawaii, Hong Kong, mainland America and Europe.
Expatriates across the globe rallied to his cause, from students and
dissidents to businessmen and local Chinese leaders. Many lent
their support to the Republican Party, and their assistance gave the
movement a solid base of support, something earlier secret-society
revolts had never really enjoyed. The Triad Society was to become
both his strongest ally and his main political weapon in the
forthcoming revolution.
With Triad support, Sun Yat-sen staged a successful revolution in
the Chinese province of Canton, and this revolt spread quickly
throughout the rest of the country, until the Manchu grip on China
had been lost. The avowed purpose of the Triad Society had been
fulfilled at last, and with the establishment of the Chinese Republic,
the Triad found itself, just as other societies had before it, without
an obvious purpose or objective. Previous secret societies, like the
Red Eyebrows, found that the regime they had helped to establish
considered their continued existence embarrassing, if not downright
threatening. The Triad Society, on the other hand, was actually
incorporated into the new government, becoming a semi-legal and
recognized entity. Although Dr Sun Yat-sen dropped out very early
on as China's president, he continued to urge the Triad Society to
join the government as a legitimate organization, but he was flatly
refused on the grounds that if the new-born Republic should fail for
any reason, then the Triad would still be well placed to carry on the
underground fight. Undoubtedly the real reason the Triad Society
w anted to retain its secrecy and anonymity was to secure its
r

181
WARRIOR CULTS

criminal activities. While the Taiping and Boxer Rebellions had

come and gone, the Triad Society had played only a minor role in
the upheavals, and organized crime had instead provided a more
reliable (and lucrative) way of life.

The greatest concentration of Triad members was now overseas.

Continual harassment from the Manchu dynasty had forced tens of
thousands of Triad members out of China and into Chinatowns from
Australia to London, San Francisco to Singapore. Wherever Chinese
people settled, the Triads would gain a foothold and exploit it.
These settlements were initially familiar with the Triad and other
secret societies as beneficial and quite legitimate local
organizations, but revenues were gained increasingly by illegal
methods, until by the end of the nineteenth century the Triad
Society was a wholly criminal body devoted to the pursuit of wealth
and its own
survival. With the money raised abroad, the society in
the past had been able to finance the secret struggle at home against
the Manchus. As profits increased, it abandoned any political
purpose and instead put all of its efforts into making money.
High-ranking Triad members featured prominently in China's new
government, and for someone to achieve any sort of office within the
civil service, connections with the Triad Society were essential.
From 1911, it became less of a secret society and more of a society
with secrets; it had become a powerful lobby group with influence.
The cult now also had a free rein to extort, bribe and bully its
favourites, while eliminating its rivals. Bankers, businessmen and
even army generals made use of their Triad connections to further
their own aims. Politicians in the new Republic often paid for Triad
aid with rewards of exclusive rights to criminal activities within a
particular locality, which further strengthened the society's hold on
the criminal underworld.
From 1911 Second World War, the Triad Society
to the start of the
reached its heights in China, but with the rise of
greatest
Communism here was a force that could be neither forcibly subdued
nor bought off. For some time General Chiang Kai-shek employed
the Triad Society as his own irregular terror force in his war against
the Communists, who were led by a political revolutionary called
Mao Tse-tung.
At the close of the Second World War the bloody and bitter feud
between the Triad Society and the flourishing Communist Party
came to an inevitable head, and Chiang Kai-shek mobilized as many
Triads as possible in his fight to save China from another revolution.
Thousands were brought swiftly into the Triad army, but as the tide
turned and Mao Tse-tung's troops took more and more ground,
members old and new attempted to escape overseas, mainly to Hong
Kong, Taiwan, Malaya, Laos and the soon-to-be divided Vietnam.

182
 I Hi BOXERS
With the complete Communist takeover of China in L949, the Triads
became again a persecuted sect, and disappeared completely from
Chinese politics soon after that date. Man's Beizure ol all the
country's opium-growing land by the start of the 1960s had totally
cut off Triad drug revenue, shutting down the society in China for
good.
However, as modern law-enforcement agencies around the world
are aware, the Triad Society (or more specifically Triad societies,
since the organization has splintered and divided)
is not dead, but

flourishes wherever Chinese people have settled and established

communities. The days of the Triads as revolutionary groups are
done, but the revolutionary spirit still smoulders among Chinese
was cruelly but cunningly harnessed by an ageing
people. This spirit
Mao when he found his power waning before younger and more
radical members of the was the violent and
Politburo; the result
destructive spasm of the Cultural Revolution.
Today the conspiratorial spirit is still embodied in the pro-
democracy movement, whose members fight for the overthrow of
the present totalitarian regime. Many of those demonstrating in 1989
wore headbands daubed with defiant slogans - a tangible link with
the earliest secret Chinese societies, the Red and Yellow Turbans.
Like the persecuted leaders of past revolutions, the prime movers
have either gone into hiding or fled to sympathetic communities
overseas. It seems that although both the Chinese government and
the secret societies are forever changing, the two forces are locked in
a struggle without end.

183
Further Reading

Readers may find material on some of Frazer, J. G., The Golden Bough,
the cults included in this book fairly London: Macmillan, 1959.
difficult to locate. Included here is a Goodwin, J., Mystery Religions in the
general list of sources that have proved Ancient World, London: Thames &
useful in researching Warrior Cults, Hudson, 1982.
together with other works that seem Graves, R., The White Goddess, London:
highly suitable as a stepping stone for Faber, 1948.
more in-depth study. From the outset Graves, R., The Greek Myths (two
the intention of Warrior Cults was to volumes), Harmondsworth: Penguin,
collect together widely dispersed 1955.
accounts of ancient cults and present Hanzang, T., Sun Tzu: The Art of War,
them in a single volume. Naturally the Ware: Wordsworth, 1993.
reading list that follows will reflect this Hatsumi, M., and Stephen K. Hayes,
diverse approach. Ninja Secrets from the Grandmaster,
Chicago: Contemporary Books, 1987.
Hayes, S. K., The Ninja and Their Secret
Adams, A., Ninja: The Invisible Fighting Art, New York: Charles E.
Assassins, Burbank: Ohara, 1973. Tuttle, 1981.
Baigent, M.,and Richard Leigh, The Howard, M., The Occult Conspiracy,
Temple and the Lodge, London: Cape, London: Rider & Co., 1989.
1989. Howarth, S., Knights Templar, London:
Baigent, M., Richard Leigh and Henry Collins, 1982.
Lincoln, The Holy Blood and theHoly Idries Shah, S., The Secret Lore of
Grail,London: Cape, 1982. Magic, London: Muller, 1957.
Barber, M., The Trial of the Templars, Jones, P. V. (ed.), The World of Athens,
Cambridge: Cambridge University Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1978. Press, 1984.
Booth, M., Triads: The Chinese Criminal Keown-Boyd, H., The Fists of Righteous
Fraternity, London: Grafton, 1990. Harmony, London: Leo Cooper, 1991.
Burman, E., The Assassins, King, J., The Celtic Druids' Year,
Wellingborough: Crucible, 1987. London: Blandford, 1994.
Campbell, G. A., The Knights Templar: Lethbridge, T. C, Witches: Investigating
Their Rise and Fall, London: an Ancient Religion, London:
Duckworth, 1937. Routledge, 1962.
Cartledge, P. A., Sparta and Laconia, Lewis, B., The Assassins: A Radical Sect
London: Routledge, 1979. in Islam, London: Weidenfeld &
Cavendish, R., The Magical Arts, Nicolson, 1967.
London: Arkana, 1984. MacCulloch, J. A., The Religion of the
Chesnaux, J., China from the Opium Ancient Celts, London: T. & T. Clark,
Wars to the 1911 Revolution, New 1910.
York: Random House, 1976. Murray, M. A., The Witch -Cult in
Fleming, P., The Siege at Peking, Western Europe, Oxford: Clarendon
London: Rupert Hart-Davies, 1959. Press, 1921.

184
 11 Kill! K Kl \|)1\(,

Posner. G. L., Warlords of Crime: Spence, l... The Mysteries oj Britain,

Chinese Secret Societies - The New London: studio Editions, 1993
Mafia, London: Macdonald & Co., stark. K. riie Valley oj the Assassins,
1978. and Other Persian Travels, London:
Powell. C. A., Classical Sparta: MiiiTdv. L936
Techniques Behind Her Success, Trevor-Roper, ii k
The European
.

London: Routledge. 1989. Witch-Craze oj and t7th

the 16th
Purcell. V.. The Boxer Uprising, Centuries. Harmondsworth: Penguin,
Cambridge: Cambridge University 1969.
Press. 1963. Turnbull. S.. Ninju: The Stor) OJ Japan's
Rhodes. H. T. F.. The Satanic Mass, Secret Warrior Cult, Poole: Firebird
London: Arrow, 1964. Books, 1991.
Roberts, J. M., The Mythology of the Warry, J., Warfare in the Classical
Secret Societies, London: Seeker & World, London: Salamander. I960,
Warburg. 1972. Webster, C, The British Celts and Then-
Robertson, R, Triangle of Death: The Gods Under Borne, London: Batsfonl.
Inside Story of the Triads, London: 1986.
Routledge, 1977. Weiss, A., and Tom Philbin, Ninju: Clan
Runciman, S., A
History of the Crusades of Death, London: W. H. Allen, 1981.
(three volumes), London: Peregrine, Willey,P., The Castles of the Assassins,

1965. London: Harrap, 1963.

Scullard, H. H., From the Gracchi to Wilson, I., Evidence of the Shroud,
Nero, London: Routledge, 1988. London: Michael O'Mara Books,
Sinclair, A., The Sword and the Grail, 1986.
New York: Crown, 1992.

185
Index

Abu-Tahir as-Saigh 111 Aurelian, Roman emperor 47, 4<)

Achilles (Greek hero) 35
Aechvlus, Athenian playwright 26 Baals (Syrian god) 57
afterlife 32, 40-1 Bacchus, cult of 32, 52
Agen region, France 77 Bahrain, Persian leader 111-12
Agrionia festival 31 Baibars, Sultan 113
Ahriman (Lord of Darkness) 54, 55 Baldock, Hertfordshire 65-6
Ahura-Mazda (god of light) 52, 54, 56 Baldwin II, King of Jerusalem 60, 61,
Alamut, Persia 99, 100, 105, 106, 107, 69, 71
109, 113-14 Baldwin III, King of Jerusalem 72
Albigensian Crusade 77 Bannockburn, battle of 1314 88
Alcibiades, Greek general 22-3, 24, 29, Baphomet (Knights Templar idol) 80-1
30 Bards, Ovates and Druids, Order of 10
Aleppo, Syria 91, 111 Bards (poets) 40
Alexander the Great 16, 46 Barres, Edverard de 73
Alexander III, Pope 63 beles (Thugee graves/gravediggers)
Alexander Severus, Roman emperor 47 117, 118, 119, 128, 130
Amako samurai family 147 Bernard of Clarivaux, St 61, 62, 72-3
Amalric I, King of Jerusalem 95 Berserkers cult 9
Amoy, China 168 bhartote (Thugee strangler) 117, 118
Andokides, Athenian aristocrat 23 black magic see witches and witchcraft
Anglesey, island of 41-2, 43 blowfish 146
Apollo (Greek god of light) 49, 57 Boetotia region, Greece 31
approvers (Thug turncoats) 120, 130, Bohemond of Antioch, Prince 96
131 Boniface III, Pope 83
Arabs see Muslims Borthwick, Captain 129
Argentein, Hugh d' 64 Boxers 156-7, 170-83
Arrani, Bu-Tahir 101 Bristol 65
Art of War (Sun Tzu) 134-5 Britain 46
Artemis see Diana; Hecate and China 174, 178, 179
Asai samurai family 139-40 the Druids 37-8, 41-2, 43-4
Ascalon, Egypt 72 and the Knights Templar 64-6, 67,
Assassins 68, 91-2, 101-2, 126 68, 86-7, 88, 90
doctrines and faith 102-4 Buddhists and Buddhism 135-6, 160,
as independent organization 161, 162, 168, 172
104-110 bull, the sacred 52, 54-5
and Knights Templar 69-70, 81, 94-6 Buzurgumid, Assassin Grand Master
origins of Persian 97-101 105, 106
Syrian 92-7, 102, 103, 110-14
astrology 55 Cabeiri cult 14-15
Athens 13, 22, 31 Caesar, Julius 38-9, 41, 42, 46
and the Eleusian Mysteries 23, 24, Caesarius, St. 18
25, 26, 27-30 Cairo, Egypt 97, 98
Attica, ancient Greece 24-5, 29 Caligula, Roman emperor 46-7
Augustus, Roman emperor 38, 46 Canton province, China 168, 181

187
WARRIOR CULTS
Catalan Company 88 dais (Ismaili missionaries) 98, 99, 103,
Catharism 76-8, 82 105, 106, 107
Cautes and Cautopates (Mithras' torch- Damarchus the Parrhasian 20-1
bearers) 54, 55 Damascus, Syria 71, 112
Celts 9-10, 38, 39, 42-3 Dashwood, Sir Francis 23
see also Druids Daturia gangs 127
Chaironeia, battle of 338 bc 36 Daylam, Persia 99
Champagne, Count Henry of 73, 104 Delian League 29, 30
Chang Chueh, leader Yellow Turbans Demeter (Greek goddess) 24, 25
159 see also Eleusian Mysteries
Chang Fei, Chinese warlord 160 demons 17
chaplains (Knights Templar) 73 Devil, the 19, 32, 33
Charnay, Geoffrey de 81, 85 Di Mambro, Joseph 89-90
Chartres, Fulk de 69 Diaduchos (priest clan) 27, 29
Chiang Kai-shek, General 182 Diana 16, 18, 19
Children of God cult 8 see also Hecate
Ch'in Dynasty, China 157 Diocletian, Roman co-emperor 47
China 134, 155-6 Dionysus 28, 30-3
early secret societies 158-60 Diviciacus, Druid collaborator 39-40
White Lotus Society 160-2 Dome of the Rock, Jerusalem 63
south China societies in Ch'ing Drapers (Knights Templar) 75
dynasty 162-9 Druids 38-45
Boxers 156-7, 170-83
after the Boxer Rebellion 180-3
East India Company 115, 117, 128
Chinese Republican Party 181
Eastern Han Dynasty (25-250) 158-9,
Ch'ing dynasty, China" 162-3, 165,
159-60
166-9, 170, 173, 174, 181
Edward King of England 67, 87
I,
Ch'ing, Prince 179
Edward King of England 86, 87, 88
II,
Cho Hai (messenger Triad society) 163 Egypt 91, 98, 101
Christians and Christianity
Eight Trigrams Society 160, 170, 171
in China 156, 175-6
Elagabalus, Roman emperor 49
and Druids 44
Elder Brother Society 169
in Japan 153-4
Eleusian Mysteries 22-3, 24-30
and Mithraism 50, 56-8 Eleusis 24, 25, 26, 27, 29
and Roman Empire 37, 48
Eleutherai, Greek town 33
see also Knights Templar
Bombay province 125-6
Ellora,
Chung Wo Tong Society 181 Empusae (demons) 17
chunin (ninja clan middlemen) 138
England see Britain
Cicero, Roman writer 39, 40
Erichtho, Greek witch 16
Cistercian Order 61, 72-3, 82
Eumolpus, priest 26
Claudius,Roman emperor 38, 39, 46
Clement V, Pope 83, 84, 85
Columba, St 44 Fatima, daughter of Muhammad 124
Columbus, Christopher 88 Feringheea, Thug Grand Master 119.
Commanders (Knights Templar) 74, 75 126, 129, 130-1
Commodus, Roman emperor 48, 53, 56 fidais (Assassin 'devoted-ones') 93, 95,
Communist Party, Chinese 155, 169. 96, 103, 104, 106
182-3 First Five Ancestors (Triad lore) 166,
Conrad, King of Germany 71 172
Constantine, Roman emperor 50, 57 Fists ofRighteous Harmony see Boxers
Crusades, the 59, 65, 69, 71, 91, 110 Flor. Roger 88
Culdee sect 44 flying ointments 19
Cultural Revolution, China 155-6 Fos, Roncelin de 77
Cybele, cult of 56 France and the Knights Templar 63. 67.
Cyprus 65, 82 82-6, 87
Freemasonrv 56. 86. 89
Fu Shan Chu (Triad deputy leader) 163.
Dactyl cult 15
164
daimyos (samurai masters) 134, 137, Fugasti, a daimyo 148
138, 147, 148-9
Fukien province, China 163. 165. 168

188
 1 )

I\DI A
Puma Kotaro, ninja commander 148 human sacrifli m 20, 38, .'
1. i 1 •

Hung Hski chuan, Chinese rebel L87

Gama. Vasco da 88 168
Gaul 46
38, 39, 42, 43,
Hung Kwan (enfbn ers Triad km let]

Gempei War 180-85) 136

(1
163 A

genin (ninja Bold agents] 138-9. 14 Hung Society 162, 163

Germany 86. 89 Hung Wu. Chinese emperoi 161 .
162
Gnostic cult 57-8. 78
Gonneville, Geoffrey de 77
/ Ching (Book of Changes) 1 70
goor (Thugee communion sugar) 119, Ho
l
( Sh'uan
Boxersset-
121 i.K ( bus (Greek god] 28
Goro Shiba. Japanese colonel 178 Iga province, fapao 135, 137, L50 1

Grand Master (Knights Templar) 62, 63. L52

74-5 Iidomo Hyobi, military commander
Great Sword Society 173 148
Greece and the Greeks 13 Illuminati secret society 89
the cult of Dionysus 30-3 Imam (Muslim leader) 81. 97, 103
Elsusian Mysteries 22, 23, 24-30 Imperial cults 45-50
scapegoats 21-2 India see Thugs
warrior cults 33-6 initiation 8
and werewolves 19-21 Boxers 174
and witchcraft 13-17 cult of Mithras 52-3
Green Group 169 Elusian Mysteries 27-8
groves, sacred 41-2, 43, 44 Knights Templar 79-80
Triads 164
Hades (King of the Underworld) 15, 25 Innocent III, Pope 77
Han Shantung, White Lotus leader 161 Inquisition, the 59, 79, 80, 85, 86, 87
Hasan 106-7, 110
II, Iona, island of 44
Hasan 108, 113
III, IRA (Irish Republican Army) 168
Hasan-i-Sabbah, First Assassin Grand Ireland 43, 66
Master 98-102, 103, 104-5 Ise province, Japan 150
hashish 102, 103, 104 Ise Saburo Yoshimori 136
Hastings, Richard de 64 Ishikawa Goemon, ninja 140
Hattori ninja family 135, 137, 151 Ismailism 97, 98, 100, 101
headhunting 42-3 see also Assassins
Hecate (Greek goddess) 14, 15-16,
17-18, 19
Japan see Ninjas and Ninjutsu
Helios (Greek sun god) 50, 57
Jerusalem 46, 59, 91, 94-5
Hellfire Club 24
and Knights Templar 60, 63, 72, 82
helots (slaves of Sparta) 33-4
Jews 46-7, 70
Henry I, King of England 64
John, King of England 67, 68
Henry King of England 64
II,
jonin (head of ninja clan) 138, 141
Henry King of England 66, 67
III,
ju-jutsu martial art 144, 172
Hercules, cult of 48-9
Jubbulpore, India 115, 130, 131
Hermes (god) 16, 22
Julian, Roman emperor 48
Herodias, wife of Herod Antipas 18
Julius Caesar see Caesar
heroes 49
Jupiter Dolichenus cult 47-8
Hierophantes (priest clan) 27, 28-9
Hijiyama, Japan 151
Hindus 124 Kali (Hindu goddess) 117, 119, 120,
Hojo samurai family 147-8 123-5, 127, 131
Holy Grail 59, 74, 77, 81-2 K'ang Hsi, Chinese emperor 162
Holy Land 59, 60, 68, 71, 74, 82 Kawai Aki-no-kami ninja family 137
homoioi (elite of Sparta) 33, 35 Kawara Jiro and Taro, samurai 136
homosexuals 35 Kenya 10
Honorius II, Pope 61 Kettler, Klemens Graf von 177
Hoover, Herbert 178 Khayyam, Omar 101
houses (Knights Templar) 75 Khwurshah, Assassin Grand Master
Hulegu, Mongol general 109, 113 108, 109-10, 114

189
WARRIOR CULTS
Kitabatake samurai family 150 Manichaeism 78, 160-1
Kleomenes, King of Sparta 29-30 Mao Tse-tung 155, 182, 183
Knights of Christ, Order of the 88 Marshals (Knights Templar) 74
Knights Hospitaller 60, 69, 82, 85, 96-7 Maruyama fort, Japan 150
knights(Knights Templar) 73, 74, 75-6 Mason, C.W. 169
Knights of St Francis 23-4 Masters (Knights Templar) 63, 64, 73,
Knights Templar, Order of the 59, 113 74
foundation 60-3, 68-9 Masyaf, Assassin citadel 92, 96, 112
growth of Templar possessions 63-6 Mau Mau cult 10
power and prestige 66-8 Maximian, Roman co-emperor 47, 48
soldiers of Christ 68-72 Maymun Diaz, Assassin castle 105, 109
and the Assassins 69-70, 94-6 Megpunnite group 127
ritual and religion 72-82 Melanaegis (Dionysus) 33
downfall of the order 82-7 Mesnil, Walter of 68, 95
after the downfall 87-90 Messenger (Triad Society) 163
Koga region, Japan 137, 139 mikkyo sect 135-6
Korea 152 Milly, Philippe de 81
krypteia (a Spartan tradition) 34 mistletoe 44
KuKluxKlan 10-11 Mithras (sun god), cult of 48, 49, 50-8,
kuji-kuri (finger magic) 135, 136 78, 160
Kukai, monk 135 Molay, Jacques de 85, 86
Kumawaka, ninja 148 Mongols 108, 109, 161
kungfu 165, 172-3 Montbard, Andre de 61, 73
kunoichi (female ninja agents) 140 Montferrat, Conrad 69, 94
kussee (Thugee pickaxe) 117, 119, 125 moon 15, 19-20
Kwan Yu, Chinese warlord 160 More, William de 86
Kwantung province, China 163, 169 Mori samurai family 147
kykeon (ritual drink) 28 Muhammad ibn Buzurgumid 106-7,
kyojutsu ten-kan-ho (ninja deceptions) 110
142, 154 Muhammad II 107-8, 110
Muhammad III 108-9
La Rochelle, France 65 Muhammad, Sultan of Persia 105
Lamiae (demons) 17 al-Mulk, Vizier Muin 106
Languedoc region, France 82 al-Mulk, Vizier Nizam 100-1
Lanz, Adolf 89 al-Munajjim, Al-Hakim 111
lasiq (Assassin rank) 95, 103 Muslims 69, 70, 81, 124
Lemures (demons) 17 see also Assassins
Lenaia festival 31 Al-Mustansir, Caliph 98
Leuctra, battle of 371 bc 35 Mystery cults 50, 51-2
Li Ping-heng, provincial governor 175 see also Elusian Mysteries; Mithras
Li Wen-ch'ing, Boxer leader 171
life after death 32, 40-1 Nakagawa Shoshunjin, ninja 138
Liu Pei, Chinese warlord 160 Narsinghpore, India 130
Liu Shao-Ch'i 155 nemeton (Druidic groves) 41-2, 43
Louis IX, King of France 96, 97 Nero, Roman emperor 37, 51
Louis VII, King of France 71-2 Neuri tribe 21
Luna see Hecate New Templars, Order of the 10, 89
Lupercalia Festival 21 Nikias, Greek politician 13
Lycaeon Zeus cult 20-1 Ninja and Ninjutsu 133-4
the first 134-7
McAuliffe, William 10 the fighting art 144-7
MacDonald, Sir Claude 178, 179 the shadow art 137-44
Maenads (priestesses) 31-2 triumphs and tribulations 147-54
Magi (Persian priesthood) 51 ninjato (ninja dagger) 144-5
magic and magicians 8, 14-15, 17, 43, Nizar, Prince of Baghdad 98, 101
104, 135-6, 173 Nizari Ismaili see Assassins
see also Druids; witches and Nootka Sound, North America 21
witchcraft
Manchus 162 oak trees 40, 44
see also Ch'ing Dynasty occult 8, 22, 23-4, 104

190
 i\ni \

Oda Nobunaga, a doimyo 137, u^). sa< i-itii aa jo. 21, 38, i i. 42
149-50. 151- 2 Sagartian tribe 125
OdaNobuo 150-1 St Omer, Osto de M
Oe ninja family 137 Saladin, Sultan ol Eg] pi 65, 91
'Old Maoof the Mountains' sec Sinan, samurai 133 4, L36, L44, 14 I i

Rashid al-Din Sanjar, Sultan of Turks 106

Orphism 31 Sarai ens 69, 72. B2
Osaka castle, japan 153 Sarraj, Abu Najim 98
Ovates (Celtic priests) 40 Satake samurai Familj L47 8
scapegoats 21 2. :\7
Palestine 59. 66. 69. 70. 72. 82 Scotland 66, Hi\. 89
Patrick. St 44 scytalc (Spartan code) 34
Patroclus (lover of Achilles) 35 Sekigahara, battle of 1600 153
Paulinus Suetonius 43 Seljuk Turks 97-8, 99, LOO, 105 8,111
Pavens. Hughes de 60, 61, 62, 64, 69 Seneschals (Knights Templar) 74
P'ei Tang Cathedral, Peking 179-80 sergeants (Knights Templar) 73, 74, 70
Peking. China 176, 177, 178-80 Seymour, Admiral 177
Persephone (Greek goddess) 15, 16, 25 Shah Diz, Assassin castle 105
Persia 97-8. 109 Shan Chu (Triad leader) 163, 164
see also Assassins Shanghai, China 168
Phansigar sect 116 Shantung province, China 175
Philippe IV, King of France 63, 82-5 Shao Lin monastry, China 165-6, 172
poisons 127, 146 Sherwood, Dr Richard 116-17
Portugal 86, 88 shichi ho do (ninja disguises) 141
preceptories 62, 63, 64, 67, 68 Shiites 91, 97, 114
Pungu sect 127 see also Assassins
Punjab, India 131 Shimabara Rebellion 1638 153-4
Pythagoreanism 40-1, 49 Shingon sect 135-6
shuko (ninja weapon) 145-6
rafiq (Assassin rank) 95, 103 shuriken (ninja weapon) 146
Raktavija (Hindu demon-king) 124, 125 Sibyl (female oracle) 16-17
Ramasi (secret Thug language) 117, 127 Sinan, Rashid al-Din 92-3, 94-5, 96,
Rasa'il (text of the Ismaili) 103 97, 102, 103, 104, 110, 113
Raymond I of Tripoli, Count 93 Singh, Kalyan and Moti 115
Red Eyebrow sect 158-9, 181 Siva (Hindu god) 124
Red Group 169 slaves 33-4, 51
Red Guards 155 Sleeman, William Henry 115, 117,
Red Lanterns society 174 120-1, 128-9, 130-1
Red Poles (enforcers, Triad society) Small Knife Society 168
163-4 Society of God-Worshippers 167
Redgrave, Sir Roy 90 'Sol Invitus' see Mithras
Riastarthae cult 9-10 Solar Temple, Order of the 89-90
Richard I, the Lionheart, King of sorcerers see witches and witchcraft
England 64-5, 68, 69-70, 94 sotha (Thugee deceivers) 117, 118, 122
Ridwan, ruler of Aleppo 111 Spain 64, 86
Robert the Bruce 88 Sparta and the Spartans 33-5
Rokkaku Yoshitaka 139-40 spies 134-5
Roman Empire and the Romans 16-17, Staplebrugge, Stephen de 77, 87
21, 30, 32 Stephen, King of England 64
cult of Mithras 50-8 Stoke, John de 87
and the Druids 37-45 Styx, River 15, 16
Imperial cults 45-50 Sugitani Zenjubo, ninja 149-50
rumal (Thugee scarf) 117, 118, 122, Sun Tzu, Chinese general 134-5
124, 125 Sun Yat-sen, Dr 181
Rutlam State, India 129 Sunni Islam 91, 97, 98, 108
ryu (ninja schools) 137-8, 139, 140, symposia (Athenian drinking clubs)
143, 144, 151, 154 23
Syria 47, 59
Sabbat, witches' 19, 32-3 see also Assassins
Sacred Band of Thebes 35-6 syssitia (Spartan dining group) 35

191
WARRIOR CULTS
Ta Kuei, Boxer leader 171 Tsu Hai, Chinese empress dowager 156,
Ta Shuai (Boxer official) 170 174, 175, 177, 178, 179, 180
Tai Chi Ch'uan (Supreme Ultimate Tsukahara Bokuden, ninja 140
boxing) 165, 172-3 Tsungli Yamen (Chinese foreign office)
Taiping Rebellion 167-8, 168-9 176, 178
Takeda samurai family 148 t'uan (division of Boxers) 170
Takeda Shingen, a daimyo 149 Tuan, Prince 179
Takigawa Saburohei, general 150 Jughtugin, ruler of Damascus 112
Taku, Pei Ho river China 177, 178 Tuponee (Thugee feast) 119
Tasmaz-Baz sect 127 Turin Shroud 81
Tauroctone (sacrifice of sacred bull) 52, Turks see Seljuk Turks
54-5 Tyre, Guillaume de 68-9
Telchines, cult of the 15
Telesterion (Hall of Initiation) 26, 27, Uesugi Kenshin, a diamyo 149
28 Unconquered Sun see Mithras
terrorism 100 Underworld, the 14, 15, 16, 25
Teutonic Knights 82, 86, 89
Thargelia festival 22 Valentian, Roman emperor 30
Theban Sacred Band 35-6 vampires 17
Thoroldsby, Thomas Tocci de 87 Vates (Celtic priests) 40
three (number) 15, 164 Vietnam 146
Thugs 115-16 Vietnam War 70-1, 123
origins of the cult 123-8
practice of Thugee 116-23 Wada ninja family 137
destruction of the cult 128-32 Waldersee, Field-Marshal 180
Thyiades (priestesses) 32 Wang Mang, Chinese emperor 158
Tiberius, Roman emperor 38 warrior-monks 136, 165-6, 172
Tientsin, Chinese port 177, 177-8 Water Margins, The 166
tigers 120 weapons, ninja 144-6
Tiridates, king of Armenia 51 werewolves 19-21
Tlokoala cult 21 White Lotus Society 159, 160-2, 163,
Tokugawa Iemitsu, shogun 153 165, 170, 171
Tokugawa Ieyasu, a daimyo 139, 142, witches and witchcraft 13-19, 32-3
149, 151-2, 153 Wu Hsiu, Boxer leader 171
Tomo Yoshichiro Sukesada, ninja 139
Toyotomi Hideyori 153 Yagu Jube'e Mitsuyoshi, ninja 140
Toyotomi Hideyoshi, a daimyo 149, yamabushi (warrior monks) 136
151, 152-3 Yamoto, ninja 143
trade guilds 158 Yellow Turbans society 159-60
Tremelai, Bernard de 72 Yu Hsien, provincial governor 175
Triad Society 157, 158, 160, 163-9,
170, 180-3 Zarrab, Amira 98
Trivia see Hecate Zeus (king of the gods) 14, 20, 25
Troyes, Council of 62, 79 Zoroastrianism 78, 160

192
 P B L,C LIBRARY
?l2?KW.U. .

3 9999 02946 524

Brighton Branch Library

40 Academy Hiil Road
Brighton, MA 02135-3316
 1 HH MM
Paul Elliott was educated at University Coll.

Cardiff, from which he graduated with an

honours degree in Ancient History. I lis fascination
with the world's lost civilizations, their secrets

and mysteries is combined in Warrior Cults with his

other interest - military history. He has written
articles on military themes and is currently
collecting material for a book on the Vietnam
War. His work was Atomic Horror, a look at the
first

sci-fi genre of the fifties. He is a Yorkshireman, but

currently lives in Canterbury, Kent.

Other titles of interest:

THE CELTIC DRUIDS' YEAR

Seasonal Cycles of the Ancient Celts
John King

SECRETS OF ANCIENT AND SACRED PLACES

Paul Devereux

SECTS, CULTS & ALTERNATIVE RELIGIONS

David V. Barrett

SAMURAI WARRIORS
Stephen Turnbull

SAMURAI WARLORDS
The Book of the Daimyo
Stephen Tumbull

MEDIEVAL WARLORDS
Tim Newark

CELTIC GODS, CELTIC GODDESSES

R. J.
Stewart

KING ARTHUR'S BRITAIN

A Photographic Odyssey
John Matthews & Michael J.
Stead

Front cover illustration by Steinar Lund.

Back cover, Romano -- Celtic image of Taranis,

identified with Jupiter, He carries a wheel and a

thunderbolt.

PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN

 :V "

ISBN 0-7137-2531-1
*V

9 780713"725315 >

ui -*'-- — -=-