booknetsaWebster-secretSocietiesAndSubversiveMovements

policy. A system which, with no other aim than the gratification of an insatiable lust for domination, instead
of seeking the highest of human objects, precipitates itself into the abyss, and mangling itself, is buried
amidst the ruins of thrones and altars, the wreck of national happiness, and the universal execration of mankind.(5)
The Druses
The terrible Grand Lodge of Cairo before long became the centre of a new and extraordinary cult. Hakim
sixth Fatimite Khalifa and founder of the Dar ul Hikmat-a monster of tyranny and crime whose reign can
only be compared to that of Caligula or Nero-was now raised to the place of a divinity by one Ismail Darazi,
a Turk who in 1016 announced in a mosque in Cairo that the Khalifa should be made an object of worship.
Hakim, who " believed that divine reason was incarnate in him," four years later proclaimed itself a deity,
and the cult was finally established by one of his viziers, the Persian mystic Hamza ibn Ali. Hakim's cruelties,
however, had so outraged the people of Egypt that a year later he was murdered by a band of malcontents,
led, it is said, by his sister, who afterwards concealed his body-circumstance which gave his followers
the opportunity to declare that the divinity had merely vanished in order to test the faith of believers, but
would reappear in time and punish apostates. This belief became the doctrine of the Druses of Lebanon,
whom Darazi had won over to the worship of Hakim.
It is unnecessary to enter into the details of this strange religion, which still persists to-day in the range
of Lebanon; suffice it to say that, although the outcome of the Ismailis, the Druses do not appear to have embraced
the materialism of Abdullah ibn Maymn, but to have grafted on a primitive form of Nature-worship
and of Sabeism the avowed belief of the Ismailis in the dynasty of Ali and his successors, and beyond this an
abstruse, esoteric creed concerning the nature of the Supreme Deity. God they declare to be " Universal
Reason," who manifests Himself by a series of " avatars." Hakim was the last of the divine embodiments,
and " when evil and misery have increased to the predestined height he will again appear, to conquer the
world and to make his religion supreme."
It is, however, as a secret society that the Druses enter into the scope of this book, for their organization
presents several analogies with that which we now know as " masonic." Instead of the nine degrees instituted
by the Lodge of Cairo, the Druses are divided into only three-Profanes, Aspirants, and Wise-to whom
their doctrines are gradually unfolded under seal of the strictest secrecy, to ensure which signs and pass
words are employed after the manner of Freemasonry. A certain degree of duplicity appears to enter into
their scheme much resembling that enjoined to the Ismaili Dais when enlisting proselytes belonging to other
religions: thus in talking to Mohammedans, the Druses profess to be followers of the Prophet; with Christians,
they pretend to hold the doctrines of Christianity, an attitude they defend on the score that it is unlawful
to reveal the secret dogmas of their creed to a "Black," or unbeliever.
The Druses are in the habit of holding meetings where, as in the Dar ul Hikmat, both men and women assemble
and religious and political questions are discussed; the uninitiated, however, are allowed to exercise
no influence on decisions, which are reached by the inner circle, to which only the "Wise" are admitted. The
resemblance between this organization and that of Grand Orient Freemasonry is clearly apparent. The
Druses also have modes of recognition which are common to Freemasonry, and M. Achille Laurent has observed:
" The formula or catechism of the Druses resembles that of the Freemasons; one can learn it only
from the Akals (or Akels = Intelligent, a small group of higher initiates), who only reveal its mysteries after
having subjected one to tests and made one take terrible oaths."
I shall refer again later in this book to the affinity between the Druses and Freemasons of the Grand Orient.
The Assassins
It will be seen that the Druses, distinguishing themselves from other Ismaili sects by their worship of
Hakim, yet retaining genuine religious beliefs, had not carried on the atheistical tradition of Abdullah ibn
Maymn and of the Grand Lodge of Cairo. But this tradition was to find in 1090 an exponent in the Persian
Hasan Saba, a native of Khorasan, the son of Ali, a strict Shiah, who, finding himself suspected heretical
ideas, ended by declaring himself a Sunni. Hasan brought up in this atmosphere of duplicity, was therefore
well fitted to play the Machiavellian rôle of an Ismaili Dai.
Von Hammer regards Hasan as a mighty genius, one of a splendid triad, of which the two others were his
schoolfellows the poet Omar Khayyám and Nizam ul Mulk, Grand Vizier under the Seljuk Sultan, Malik
Shah. Hasan, having through the protection of Nizam ul Mulk secured titles and revenues and finally risen to
Nesta H. Webster — Secret Societies and Subversive Movements — Part I
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