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disappeared, by these Arabic collections. It was also through these Arabic sources that
knowledge of alchemy was re-introduced to the west.
We have already mentioned Jabir, an 8th century collector and interpreter of Gnostic
alchemical texts, but of perhaps even more significance is the treatment given to the
Hermetic arts in the great 10th century Arabic encyclopedia, Kitab-Fihirst. Several pages are
devoted to various Hermetic subjects, including mentions of the Egyptian Chemes, the pre-
catastrophe founder of alchemy, Hermes Trismegistos, Mary the Jewess, Cleopatra and
Stephan of Alexandria. The Arabs, at the close of the 10th century, created a perspective on
alchemy that colored its subsequent development down to the 20th century.
Moslem Spain served as the transmission point between Islam and Christianity. As the tide
of conquest receded, pockets of Christianity remained and slowly formed into Christian
kingdoms. Along with the religious and political struggles, this close contact provided a
convenient means of communication. After the Fatimids conquered North Africa in the 10th
century, Arab Spain found itself even more isolated from the centers of Moslem life. The
Spanish caliphs of the late 10th and early 11th centuries were concerned with staying even
with or ahead of their Fatimid rivals, particularly in terms of culture and learning. It was
from Spain, then, that Europe drew the energy and knowledge needed to re-animate its
civilization.
* * * * *
Largely as the result of the efforts of one individual, Pope Sylvester II, by the early years of
the 11th century things had begun to change. Fueled in part by the apocalyptic yearnings
centered around the thousand year anniversary of Christ's death (popularized by Sylvester's
student, Rodulphus Glaber), the Christian west began to stir itself. The Church of Rome
tried a few reforms, driven by the new and growing monastic and Peace of God movements.
But most significant of all, waves of pilgrims took the long and dusty road to Jerusalem.
Pilgrimage, journeys of repentance and spiritual seeking, had long been an important part
of popular Christianity. But, before the middle of the 11th century, pilgrimages to the Holy
Land were rare. Starting around the magical year of 1033 (one thousand years after Christ's
death) and continuing in an ever-increasing wave for the next 40 years, Jerusalem became
the pilgrimage destination of choice. In 1071, the Seljuk Turks conquered Palestine,
wrenching the Holy Land from the control of the Egyptian Fatamids who were sympathetic
to the Christian pilgrims. The Turks however, were not so accommodating. By the early
1080's, pilgrimage to Jerusalem had all but stopped. The few pilgrims that were allowed to
visit the Holy City were harassed, robbed and generally treated as unwanted outsiders.
Most authorities tell us that this was the motivating factor behind the crusading movement
that would burst over Europe after Pope Urban II's call in 1095. The pilgrim impulse, by
some sort of religious transformation, turned into a Holy War. While there is a core of truth
in this simplification, the real causes of the First Crusade are shrouded by the secrecy of
deep political intrigue. From our thousand year distance, these shadows are almost
impenetrable. However, like the sudden appearance of a star through the murk of a cloudy
midnight, certain events and personalities shed an uncertain light on the outlines of the
Crusades' political intrigues.
The most important of these events were the political conjunctions between east and west
begun by the Pope, the Emperor and the Caliph one hundred years before the First Crusade
was announced. While it is true that the First Crusade was a pilgrim movement with
Jerusalem as its focus, it was also much more. It was part of a vast plan conceived and
carried out by a group of secret societies for the purpose of creating a world state in the
Holy Land and thereby bring on the Chilaist millennium of peace.
At the core of all the intrigue, the secret at the heart of the secret societies, lies alchemy.
The Arab scholars and scientists had preserved the ideas and some of the basic texts, but
the re-discovery of the secret of how to make it work was the main result of the First
Crusade's conquest of Jerusalem. To tell this deeply hidden story we must go back a few
hundred years and trace the tale of the Emperor, the Pope and the Caliph and the true
origins of the crusades.
* * * * *
The political and religious processes that led to the First Crusade actually began three
hundred years before, with the rise of the Ismaili sect of Shi'ite Moslems. Within the Shi'ite
community, each generation of Ali's descendants was headed by an Imam, or incarnation,
who was the holder of the family secret, the secret of time at the heart of Mohammed's
revelations. In the mid-eighth century, the sixth Imam, Jafar al-Sadiq, appointed his son
Ismail to succeed him. Ismail however was not saintly enough (he reportedly had a taste for
wine), and his father rescinded his appointment and named his other son Musa as Imam.
To some, this was unacceptable. They believed that once an Imam always an Imam, and
therefore Ismail was the seventh and last true Imam of the Shi'ites or adherents of the [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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