sort after and may have provoked the fascination that Spirtualism, Mesmerism, Hypnosis, etc. has been held and discarded throughout the centuries.
Sufi and Ishmaeli concepts therefore, whilst overlapping in obvious ways are independent and the former is an attitude or training like priesthood and the latter a a schismatic movement of possible Christian origins with Muslim affiliation. How this curious amalgam came about, is a world all of its own but suffice it to say that it can easily identify with one, two or a variety of faiths with equal ease and find its feet in many camps all at the same time. In fact this is something that not only the Hashishim could do with impunity and dangerously, but was a basic concept of the Ishmaelis who were different things to different people. Service with a smile, gave their cloak and dagger methods the sinister meaning it has today. This form of removal of the enemy was entirely based on self survival knowing that only one or the other could survive in the same space.
Sufism or the cult of knowledge was the mainspring of the revolution that took Europe out of the Dark Ages and it was therefore no coincidence that the 12th.century re-instators of the Order of the Temple were among them in those early years of the first century of the second millenium. In fact, it was not just knowledge but a startling combination of artefacts and revelations that were to foster the enormous power that the so called Poor Soldiers of Christ unleashed in Europe. The political committment, to the official Church, despite the contradictory knowledge the knights had obtained in Syria, was due to the enormous influence that St. Bernard had over the founder knights and who, at