Assassins and Templars?

Question by Dean: Assassins and Templars?
I would like to know if Assassins and Templars exist today, or at least speculations of their existence. Give me anything and everything you know, i’d love for realistic and truthful answers, not answers that make fun of the fact that i want to know of their current day existence,

I would appreciate any and all knowledge that everyone has, thank you.

Best answer:

Answer by gee bee
Active in Persia and Syria from the 8th to 14th centuries, the original Assassins were members of the Nizaris, a Muslim group who opposed the Abbasid caliphate with threats of sudden assassination by their secret agents. Other populations of the area regarded the Nizaris as unorthodox outcasts, and from this attitude came one of the names for the group, an, a word originally meaning “hashish users,” which had become a general term of abuse. Reliable sources offer no evidence of hashish use by Nizari agents, but sensationalistic stories of murderous, drug-crazed an or Assassins were widely repeated in Europe. Marco Polo tells a tale of how young Assassins were given a potion and made to yearn for paradise as their reward for dying in action by being given a life of pleasure. As the legends spread, the word an passed through French or Italian and appeared in English as assassin in the 16th century, already with meanings like “treacherous killer.”

They do not exist in that form today, having evolved into ‘terror groups.’

I read of another group of psychopaths called ‘Beserkers’ from Scandinavia during the time of The Vikings. They too fired themselves up with hashish before battle.

Knights Templar:
The Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon (Latin: Pauperes commilitones Christi Templique Salomonici), commonly known as the Knights Templar, the Order of the Temple (French: Ordre du Temple or Templiers) or simply as Templars, were among the most famous of the Western Christian military orders. The organisation existed for nearly two centuries during the Middle Ages.

Officially endorsed by the Catholic Church around 1129, the Order became a favoured charity throughout Christendom and grew rapidly in membership and power. Templar knights, in their distinctive white mantles with a red cross, were among the most skilled fighting units of the Crusades. Non-combatant members of the Order managed a large economic infrastructure throughout Christendom, innovating financial techniques that were an early form of banking, and building fortifications across Europe and the Holy Land.

The Templars’ existence was tied closely to the Crusades; when the Holy Land was lost, support for the Order faded. Rumours about the Templars’ secret initiation ceremony created mistrust and King Philip IV of France, deeply in debt to the Order, took advantage of the situation. In 1307, many of the Order’s members in France were arrested, tortured into giving false confessions, and then burned at the stake. Under pressure from King Philip, Pope Clement V disbanded the Order in 1312. The abrupt disappearance of a major part of the European infrastructure gave rise to speculation and legends, which have kept the “Templar” name alive into the modern day.

Answer by Gawain of
The best source I’ve found about the Templars and the myths that sprung up almost immediately after they were destroyed by the king of France, is _The Murdered Magicians: The Templars and Their Myth_, by Peter Partner. (That guy who wrote _The Da Vinci Code_ has a lot to answer for.)

Know better? Leave your own answer in the comments!

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