Reply #3: Not stupid. Unhappy. Remember the medieval islamic assassins? [View All]

[soothsayer]

A rich dude would drug these poor fellows with hashish, then take them up to a mountaintop or a beautiful, immaculate garden where they were provided with many pleasures (wine, women, song, feasts) so that they believed themselves to be in paradise. Then they drugged them again, and took them back to their dull lives where they were told that if they wanted to get back to paradise, they had a special mission to complete (i.e., murdering the rich dude's enemies). The name assassin is said to derive from the drug hashish which they imbibed during their supposed sojourn in paradise.