Fantastic Metropolis

Their name comes from the word hashish, the narcotic which, according to the crusaders, induced a trance which made the killers oblivious to danger. The Shia were originally a political faction who believed that Ali, Muhammad’s son in law, was his true successor; but after the death of Ali in 661 it had developed into a radical Islamic sect dedicated to the overthrow of the Sunni caliphate in Baghdad. Persecuted for their beliefs, the Shia developed mystical notions, revolutionary methods and messianic aspirations, and split into further factions, the most radical being the Ismailis who ‘elaborated a system of religious doctrine on a high philosophical level and produced a literature which, after centuries of eclipse, is only now once again beginning to achieve recognition as to its true worth.’... However, in the Elburz Mountains in Northern Persia, overlooking the shore of the Caspian Sea, a group of intransigent Ismailis under Hassan-Sabbah established themselves in the impregnable fortress of Alamut.

—Piers Paul Read, The Templars

It hardly even bears mentioning that northern Persia is the home turf of the Magi, but I’ll do it anyway. Now, imagining that such lore translated and transmitted itself almost virally through the cultures it touched is hardly difficult… we see signs of it in the very method the Ismaili used to train their agents, the drug induced vision by means of the hashish. This by-now bastardized rite (long different from the original mysticism of the cocaine mummies, depending on chemicals not available in Europe or Africa by this time) still produced effective assassins, mystics and transgressives, waging war on their own culture and working alongside Templars to do it. Now, one of the places where this lore would have concentrated in Europe before the Templars was in Sicily, invaded and held by Islam for many years (where perhaps Giordano Bruno could have been exposed to it… Naples lying due north of Sicily, many people, some my own ancestors, made the trip back and forth fairly frequently) and the other was the Islamic kingdom of al-Andalus, known to us as Spain, where for many years Islam, Judaism and Christianity all rubbed shoulders. Some claim that Moses de Leon first invented the Zohar here, in this mixing bowl of cultures (others claim it goes back to Simeon, and from him back to Abraham, of course…) and it is the Zohar that tells us “He said to the woman, ‘With this tree God created the world—the world of Assiyah, which is the lowest world. If you eat of it, you will surely become like God, knowing good and evil, and you too will be able to create worlds.’” Is this a kernel of the ancient message of the Magi, the union of opposites that gains power?

Despite the popular grade school depiction, there is a great deal of evidence that Columbus was not actually Italian, but a Spaniard who had assumed the identity of a young wool merchant, whom the Spaniard had once met, and who had died at sea. By coincidence, the young Italian wool merchant from Genoa had the same name as himself (at least in translation). Cristóbal Colón, known to us as Columbus, was by some evidence a Spanish Jew. For this reason he decided to conceal his identity. Also he was in possession of several maps that showed the coasts and islands of North and South America… Says the Turkish Admiral Piri Reis in a handbook for sailors called the Kitab i Bahriye, Columbus was inspired by a book containing information about these lands, which were claimed to be rich in all sorts of minerals and gems. “This man Columbus tried with the book in his hand to convince the Portuguese and Genoese that an expedition would be very worthwhile. His ideas and so he turned to the Spanish bey. Here to his first request was not granted, but was later on accepted after the matter had been pressed.”

—W.R. Anderson, The Columbus Mystery