[dennisw]

Part 1: The Prototype of Terror

http://www.weirdload.com/hasan.html

The evil that is terrorism is not new.
Today’s killers have their roots in an ancient plague that has long bedevilled the Middle East, epitomized in the deadly cult of Hassan-i Sabbah.

 

The Old Man kept at his court such boys of twelve years old as seemed to him destined to become courageous men. When the Old Man sent them into the garden in groups of four, ten or twenty, he gave them hashish to drink. They slept for three days, then they were carried sleeping into the garden where he had them awakened.

When these young men woke, and found themselves in the garden with all these marvelous things, they truly believed themselves to be in paradise. And these damsels were always with them in songs and great entertainments; they received everything they asked for, so that they would never have left that garden of their own will...............http://www.weirdload.com/hasan.html

[xJones]

Dennis, I've also read that Old Man of the Mountain, Hassan, would sometimes send his *assassins* on long missions. They could remain for years as sleepers, waiting for the opportunity to kill his designated target. Also, he would impress visitors with his men's devotion by pointing a finger at one or more, who would then jump to their deaths down the mountainside. Fanatics then, and fanatics now.