Original Magic: The Rituals and Initiations of the Persian Magi - Stephen E. Flowers Ph.D. 2017

Mythology
The History of Iranian Magic

As we have seen, the mythology of the Zarathustrans structurally reflects that of the Indo-Europeans, albeit reformed and reinterpreted in light of philosophical and magical insight. Compared, for example, to the mythology of the ancient Greeks, the Zarathustran mythology that has been left to us may seem rather sparse and lacking in narrative tales. But does this situation reflect a shortcoming or an advancement? The gods of the Greeks acted with all the foibles of humanity and reflected rather poor examples for humans to follow. This is why the historical record of the Greeks, contrary to the schoolboy image of them, is actually rather barbaric. Zarathustran mythology, on the other hand, reads like a thinly disguised philosophical treatise—which it is.

Rather than a quasi-human drama filled with stories of anger, jealousy, and violence, Zarathustran mythology is concerned with the abstract interactions of moral, philosophical, and scientific principles. These beneficial principles interact with one another and are in constant conflict with detrimental forces, according to a paradigm of increasing individual and collective perfection. The mythology is important to practicing magicians, because it allows us to understand the character of the afflictions against which we struggle and the pathways to the possibilities of our perfection and the aiding of the environment in a powerful way.

1. CREATION

Essential to the creation myth is the idea that at first the realms of Ahura Mazda and Angra Mainyu, the realms of light and darkness, were entirely separated by a great void (Phl. tuhîgih). Ahura Mazda, as the sentient being, was aware of the existence of Angra Mainyu, but as the manifestation of ignorance, Angra Mainyu was unaware of the realm of light until he actually saw it. Angra Mainyu’s reaction to this encounter was to go on the attack. John R. Hinnells summarizes what followed.

Ahura Mazda offered Angra Mainyu peace if he would only praise the Good Creation. But Angra Mainyu, judging others by himself, believed that an offer of peace could only be made from a position of weakness, so he rejected the offer and sought to destroy what he saw. Ahura Mazda knew that if the battle were to last forever, Angra Mainyu could, indeed, keep his threat, and suggested a fixed period for the battle. Angra Mainyu, being slow-witted, agreed and thereby ensured his own downfall. The point behind this idea seems to be that if evil is allowed to operate quietly, steadily and unobtrusively it can disrupt and destroy, but once it is drawn out into the open, engaged in battle and shown for what it is, it cannot succeed.¹

At this point Ahura Mazda recited the sacred formula of the Ahunvar, and the effect of this manthra hurled Anga Mainyu into a state of inert stupefaction for three thousand years. It was at this point that Ahura Mazda began to create the Seven Creations and thus give material shape to the cosmos. Ahura Mazda is both the mother and father of the universe. As its mother, Ahura Mazda conceives the spiritual prototypes (menog); as the father, he gives these spiritual prototypes material shape (getig). All of this was done as a way to preemptively counterattack the coming onslaught by Angra Mainyu, which, Ahura Mazda knew, would follow. This original world order was perfect and happy. All of the created emanations of Ahura Mazda functioned as they were designed to function. There the cosmic tree; the cosmic human, Gayomart; and the cosmic ox all lived in a perfect state.

2. SECOND ATTACK BY EVIL

As Ahura Mazda had foreseen, Angra Mainyu began to make a counterattack against the good creation after the appointed time had lapsed. This occurred under the influence of the female arch-daeva, Jahi or Jeh, dwelling in the darkness. Although other daevas had tried to rouse Angra Mainyu from his slumber with vows of how they would help him engender sickness and unhappiness in the world, nothing worked. Angra Mainyu, who is envisioned to be in the form of a serpent, continued to be in a stupor, but Jahi awakened him with a kiss on his head and promised to help him in his efforts to poison the environment and destroy life everywhere (GBund. IV, 19ff). At noon on Nowruz (New Year), Angra Mainyu entered into the world through a hole in the sky in the form of a serpent and tried to drag the sky down to the earth and break it; he polluted the water below the earth and poisoned the cosmic tree, which began to wither; he let loose greed, disease, hunger, illness, lethargy, and all sorts of destructive patterns on the body of the cosmic cow and man. The cow became sick and died; the man took thirty years to die. The seeds of the cosmic plant, cow, and man were, however, saved for future redevelopment. Angra Mainyu even mixed bad elements into the fire, and thus there was a transformation into duality, opposition, and combat in the world as there was a mingling of the high and low (GBund. XIV, 1—38; IBund. XV, 1—26).

From the purified seed of the cosmic plant, all sorts of plants were made manifest; from the purified seed of the cow, all sorts of animals were evolved; and from the seed of the cosmic man, Gayomart, purified by the light of the sun, two-thirds of this seed were guarded above, while one-third was entrusted to the earth. After forty years a one-stemmed rivas plant with fifteen leaves grew, and from this plant emerged the first man and woman. Ahura Mazda caused the light to enter their souls, breath went into them, and Ahura Mazda spoke to them: “You are the seed of man, you are the parents of the world.” The Wise Lord then imparts the essence of wisdom: “think good thoughts, speak good words, and do good things.” The last thing said was: “Do not worship the daevas.” This last injunction was given because Ahura Mazda knew that Angra Mainyu would try to entice humanity into believing a program of lies: that the daevas created them, that they were bad, that they were mortal, and so on. And this is what happened; Angra Mainyu rushed in to their minds and made them believe that the forces of coercion, anger, and fear had created them and all the world. This is the great Lie (druj).

3. THE ORIGIN AND NATURE OF HUMANITY

One of the most powerful and meaningful myths in the Mazdan tradition relating to the character of humanity and the purpose of our work here in the world is contained in the Bundahishn (II.10—11). It relates how Ahura Mazda gives the fravashis of men a choice between fighting for the good and Ahura Mazda in the battle against Angra Mainyu and be assured of a final paradise and life eternal, or to have to fight evil forever and eventually die. The mythic text reads:

10. Ahura Mazda deliberated with the consciousness [bôd] and guardian spirits [ fravashis] of men, and the omniscient wisdom, brought forward among men, spoke thus: “Which seems to you the more advantageous, when I shall present you to the world? That you shall contend in bodily form with the fiend [druj], and the fiend shall perish, and in the end I shall have you prepared again perfect and immortal, and in the end give you back to the world, and you will be wholly immortal, undecaying and undisturbed; or that it be always necessary to provide you protection from the destroyer?”

11. Thereupon, the fravashis of men became of the same opinion with the omniscient wisdom about going to the world, on account of the evil that comes upon them, in the world, from the fiend [druj] Angra Mainyu, and their becoming, at last, again unpersecuted by the adversary, perfect and immortal, in the future existence, for ever and everlasting.²

This is the Mazdan answer to the same question posed in the myth of Adam and Eve in the Book of Genesis in Hebrew mythology: Adam is given the choice to obey the commands of God or rebel. The choice of Adam and Eve condemns humanity for all time as damnable sinners; whereas the choice made by the spirit of Mankind in the Mazdan tradition ensures the ultimate salvation of all individual human beings. This myth and its understanding are important to the practicing magician, because it emphasizes the good nature of human beings. If your image of yourself, in your very core, is one of wisdom, strength, and health, you will be closer to happiness than if you think of yourself as a “damned sinner.” It is ironic that the Hebrew myth of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Paradise is actually based on an Iranian model, but that model was twisted to indicate something contrary to the original meaning.

For purposes of individual self-transformation today, it is of paramount importance to realize the truth that humanity is a good creation and remains as good as the day we were created but that we are subject to being polluted by the Lie. This pollution is responsible for all our unhappiness, sickness, and poverty.

Although humanity has been polluted by the Lie, each man and woman is armed with the fravashi and all of the other good faculties bestowed by the Wise Lord. By making use of these faculties, each human can fight back against the Lie and thus through training and initiation into wisdom make him- or herself a magavan (person of power) and an âthravan (person of truth). This is the aim of magic individually and of daêna (religion) collectively.

4. MYTHS OF THE END

Because time was created by Ahura Mazda, everything that has a beginning will eventually come to an end. Living beings, individuals, and the whole world itself will go through cycles of birth, life, and death. When they do, certain mythic paradigms will ensue. When the individual human being dies, the soul and fravashi are separated from the body. The body is seen as dead and inert, as it has been separated from life. For three nights the soul remains close to the body and contemplates its past life. The first night, it dwells upon its past words; on the second night, upon its past thoughts; and on the third night, upon its past actions. The soul desires reunification with its body and is subject to attacks by evil forces. Rituals are performed by the living, as well as by the soul of the dead person, so as to protect the soul from being deceived by lies and trickery. Then the soul ascends to the upper dimensions of the earthly sphere where it approaches the Chinvat Bridge. This bridge forms the link between our immediate cosmic environment and the supernal realm. It is at this bridge that the soul is judged: if the thoughts, words, and deeds of the individual are weighed and judged to be more good than bad, the bridge becomes wide and the soul passes easily. The yazatas present at this judgment are Mithra, Rashnu, and Sraosha, who actually assess the soul; daêna, the embodiment of one’s deeds and one’s conscience; along with a group of dogs, who ward off evil. If the soul is judged to be more bad than good, the bridge becomes razor thin and the soul falls into a hellish realm to be purified. It must be remembered that these are myths, poetic presentations of processes, which could otherwise be presented in more technical or scientific terms.

One extremely important thing to keep in mind is that because all humans were initially created as good beings, it is the will of the Wise Lord that all of them will be “saved”—made immortal and perfect. However, those who have been judged to have committed more bad than good in their lives will be subjected to a protracted and painful ordeal of being immersed in a mass of molten metal. This is just a poetic way of saying that, as the pagan Stoics tell us in the West, there will be a future state of rewards and punishments. No good goes unrewarded, and no bad goes unpunished. The punishment is not carried out by any yazata or by any force of good; such things are just natural and unavoidable consequences of bad thoughts, words, and deeds. It is said in mythic terms that daevas are the patterns of negative consequences and that in fact certain yazatas intercede to be sure that no soul is treated in an excessively cruel way for any misdeeds. This ideology shares the same root as the Hindu doctrine of karma and the Germanic idea of ørlög. But in the end, all will be perfected.

The logic of the ideas of the final bodily resurrection and the renovation of the whole world follows from the basic premise that the divinity is good and wise (knowing) and all-powerful with the help of the coworkers whom the deity created. If the soul is good and the body is equally good, then the ideal is a reunification of the body and soul in a perfect and immortal physical/spiritual form. The individual attains to the level that Ahura Mazda wants for him or her. The same is true of the cosmic order.

Just as the individual meets an end, so too will the whole cosmic order. The doctrine of Zarathustra introduced the idea of a final end to time, a final end to history—an end resulting in an ultimate perfection.

To perfect the world, Ahura Mazda created Time (Zurvan) so that certain Ages of Time could be segmented, and thus events could be more easily controlled and guided. An end-time was set by Ahura Mazda to limit the power of destruction and chaos, just as you might set certain goals and deadlines in life, or on a given day, so that things are accomplished in a timely manner. The goal is for consciousness to rule time, not for time to overwhelm consciousness. Eventually, the world will mature into a perfected state through a combination of the innate patterns established by the Creator, Ahura Mazda; the functions of the Amesha Spentas; the yazatas; and the efforts of the fravashis of humanity consciously working toward the perfection and permanence of the good world order.

An important and influential myth emerging from the Mazdan and Zarathushtran tradition is that of the advent of world-saviors. This myth holds that various human heroes have been born and will be born into this world who have helped, and who will help, guide Mankind toward the final perfection of the world, the Frashokereti, or “Making Wonderful.” They are called saoshyants, and there have been several of these in history, chief among them Zarathustra himself. In the final time of this cycle, the ultimate saoshyant will perform certain rites and accomplish certain things to complete the perfection of the world. Of course, the relationship of humanity to these saoshyants is not passive; Humankind is not supposed to merely await action to occur from above. The works and workings of individual human beings are actually necessary to invoke the change-making force. In other words, magic is necessary.

In the fulfillment of time, everything that has ever been created by Lord Wisdom will be remanifested in an immortal and perfect form, individuals and true nations will be reconstituted in their ideal forms. This is a testimony to the high regard the Mazdan tradition has for the world of matter and of the flesh. Humans will be immortal not only in spirit but also in body. The logic of this is that whatever Lord Wisdom created in the spirit and matter was originally perfect, and it is this state of perfection, spiritual and material, that it is logically destined to manifest.

These and other myths of the Mazdan tradition are alluded to throughout the commentaries on the texts of the manthras (spoken hymns) and sîrôzahs (spoken formulas), and it is best to discuss them in that context. The major myths about the world—its creation and shape, the nature of humanity, and the character of the struggle of the human spirit against the Lie—are essential to the practice and work of magic.

The worst thing that can befall human beings is that they believe the Lies: that they were created by a daeva, that they are mortal, and that the world is a bad place. These are some of the things that the daevas try to make man believe, when in fact the opposite is true. Learning the truth and coming to know it are among the most important aims of magic. This understanding does not come from faith alone but rather from the knowledge and experience of working with magic in a practical way. It is the Mazdan destiny of Mankind to be a co-creator with Ahura Mazda. For this to happen, individuals must learn to be effective magically.