an assassin staring at the sufi stars

While doing some research on the spiritual beliefs of the Hashshashin I stumbled upon this in the wiki's sufi entry.

"Although there is no consensus with regard to Sufi cosmology, one can disentangle various threads that led to the crystallization of more or less coherent mythic cosmological doctrines. The first is based on purely Quranic notions of the Afterworld (Ahiret), the Hidden (Ghayb- sometimes associated with “hidden” or “invisible” dimensions of human existence, but, more frequently with the state of God before creation or Unmanifest Absolute. Another term for the latter is “Amma”, ie. Divine Darkness) and seven-storeyed Universe explicitly referenced in the Qur’an (and cherished in Prophet Mohammad’s “Miraj” or ascent to the God’s face -- the powerful spiritual motif that inspired generations of later Sufis and ordinary believers). However, these relatively simple Quranic concepts that gave basic structure to Islamic worldview had soon become exposed to Neoplatonist and Gnostic influences, as well as Zoroastrian religious imagery. As a consequence, Sufism developed a welter of frequently contradictory cosmological doctrines."

The article goes on from there to describe several key notions of sufism and thethe six lataif in more detail, creating quite a similair map to the eight layered one I've been working with to chart a path through the subtleties between us and the divine. Mentions of Aalam-e-Misal (the Allegorical realm - reflection of knowledge of the preserved Scripturum), Nuqta-e-wahida (point of unity), Tajalliat (Beatific visions), and Rooh-e-azam (the great soul), sure sound like some of the more remarkable places I have found myself on this long strange trip, but more poeticly described. "It is a bright ring of light in which all the information pertaining to the unseen & seen cosmos is inscribed..."

Peter Lamborne Wilson gives perhaps a more liberatory slant to their spirituality. "For the Sufis, the road to spiritual knowledge - to Certainty - could never be confined to the process of rational or purely intellectual activity, without sapiential knowledge (zawq, "taste") and the direct, immediate experience of the Heart. Truth, they believed, can be sought and found only with one's entire being; nor were they satisfied merely to know this Truth. They insisted on a total identification with it: a "passing away" of the knower in the Known, of subject in the Object of knowledge. Thus, when the fourth/tenth century Sufi Hallaj proclaimed "I am the Truth" (and was martyred for it by the exoteric authorities), he was not violating the "First Pillar" of Islam, the belief in Unity (tawhid), but simply stating the truth from the mouth of the Truth."

But still the question of whether the Assassins were indeed a heretical sect hiding within the heretical sect of sufism remains to be answered, though Wilson's notes on their spiritual beliefs certainly paint them in a similair light.