Original Magic: The Rituals and Initiations of the Persian Magi - Stephen E. Flowers Ph.D. 2017
Glossary
âfrînigân: 1. A multipart ceremony of blessing. 2. The prayers recited during that ceremony. 3. The vessel in which the sacred fire is tended.
Ahunvar: Name of the holiest prayer or manthra of the Mazdan faith, it begins with the phrase “yatha ahu vairyo . . .”
Ahura Mazda: Literally “Lord Wisdom,” more conventionally “the Wise Lord,” and philosophically the principle of focused consciousness or wisdom. This is the one and true godhead of all humanity, first recognized as the universal divinity by Zarathustra though his insight (daêna).
âlât: Array of consecrated ceremonial implements used in a specific ritual.
amal: Ritual power generated in the performance of ritual and manthras.
Amesha Spentas: Avestan for “Immortal Bounteous Ones” and is the title of the six archangelic beings created by Ahura Mazda (see Y. 47.1) to effect creation.
Aryan: A self-designation for the Indo-Europeans of an eastern branch of that linguistic and cultural group. Vedic Indians and Iranians share this designation. The root of the word is also found in Celtic Éire (Ireland) and Germanic Irmen. A Romantic synonym for “Indo-European.”
asha: A basic concept of the Good Religion. There is no adequate English translation. It connotes a synthesis of world order, truth, right, righteousness, and holiness. Compare to Sanskrit rita.
Ashem Vohu: One of the most sacred manthras which praises asha, and begins, “ashem vohu . . .”
Atash: Consecrated Fire.
Âtar (Av.), Adar (Phl.): 1. The consecrated fire. 2. The yazata of Fire.
Avesta: Holy scripture of the Mazdan religion.
Avestan: The archaic Indo-European language in which the earliest scripture is recorded. It is similar in structure to Rigvedic Sanskrit.
baresma: A bundle of twenty-one pomegranate twigs (or metal wires) carried by the magician in advanced ritual work. It is symbolic of the connection made in ritual between getik and menog.
chamach: A flat round ladle used to lift incense into the ritual fire.
charkh: A “wheel” or epicenter of psychic force manifest in the human body.
chipyo: Metal tongs used in ritual to arrange elements in the ritual fire, also used as a conductor of amal between and among objects of the âlât.
daêna: 1. Religion. 2. Conscience, insight, inner consciousness of self. 3. A part of the soul which stores the faculty of insight or self-awareness.
daeva: A demon, or pattern of destructive or ignorant thought or action, in the inner or outer worlds.
divo: An auxiliary flame (candle, floating wick lamp, etc.) used as a source of flame to light the ritual fire.
Eranshahr: The whole of the Iranian or Aryan world. It encompasses the lands where the Iranian gods were worshipped and includes all branches of the family of Iranian cultures, the south, north, and east.
fravashi: Often referred to as a “guardian angel,” the fravashi is the heavenly archetype of the individual soul. It is that part of humanity which actually chose to take up the struggle of the Wise Lord against the forces of destruction.
gâh: 1. One of the five watches or times of the day when practitioners of the Good Religion pray. 2. A place or area for religious activities.
Gahambar: One of the major seasonal celebrations usually celebrated communally. There are six major Gahambars in addition to Nowruz.
Gathas: The seventeen hymns composed by Zarathustra himself which are contained in the Avesta. They are in the most archaic dialect of Avestan and date from around 1700 BCE.
getig: The world; material existence.
haoma: Ritual consecrated drink consumed in rites of the Good Religion. Compare to Sanskrit soma.
Indo-European: Academic term for the common ancestral culture and language that is the source for most of the European cultures as well as those of the Iranian peoples and those of northern India. The more Romantic and perhaps antiquated term Aryan can be considered an equivalent.
Iranian: Tehnically an adjective refering to elements within Eranshahr, language, cultures, etc. Can be used synonomously with “Persian.”
khwan: 1. A ritual table or altar. 2. Stone slab table used for rituals that stand on four feet.
khvarenah: Avestan word which denotes the “glory” of an individual. It is the divine empowerment and/or luck attached to an individual. It is increased by ethical and heroic action. This is depicted in Iranian art as a nimbus, and is the origin of the “halo” in Western depictions of religious figures.
kundi: A metal vessel to hold water to be consecrated.
kusti: The white thread or string that is tied around the operator’s waist that helps in the connection with, and maintenance of, ritual power.
magavan: Iranian term for a priest (“man of power”), from which the term “magician” was developed.
Magian: A popular term denoting priests and followers of the Zoroastrian religion especially in the western part of the Persian Empire.
magic: The art and science of the magavans. A system whereby individuals can effectively communicate their wills in the universe in order to modify or qualify events or states of mind and consciousness.
manthra: Holy Word (5). Many passages in the Avesta with specific spiritual qualities serve as mantras. These are verbal formulas which link the human and divine minds. Compare to Sanskrit mantra.
Mazdan: 1. (noun) A follower of the Good Religion in the new tradition of the Occidental Temple of the Wise Lord. 2. (adjective) Pertaining to the religion of the Wise Lord.
menog: The spiritual world and the prototype of the material world.
Persian: Adjective originally referring to a specific tribal region in south-western Iran from which the Achaemenid Empire emerged. Later used to designate the whole country of Iran. Can be used synonomously with “Iranian.”
saoshyant: A (World) Savior, one who has incarnated to bring and teach a new level of salvation to Mankind. There are to be several of these throughout history, culminating in the final saoshyant who will usher in the “Making Wonderful,” or final Renovation.
sîrôzah: Literally means “thirty-day (formula).” This is a list of manthras used to invoke yazatas for each day of the month.
sudreh: A thin white garment worn on the upper body of the operator, which acts as a breastplate for protection against negative forces.
topi: A white cap worn during prayers and rituals.
Truth: See asha.
Wise Lord: See Ahura Mazda.
Yashts: These are twenty-one hymns in Younger Avestan that praise and invoke specific divinities or concepts.
Yasnas: Avestan texts arranged in seventy-two chapters, which are recited in the ritual of Zoroastrianism, also called a yasna, or “worship.” The Gathas are embedded in the Yasna texts. Most of them are in the slightly older dialect of the Avestan language.
yazata (Av.): Literally meaning “One worthy of worship,” yazata it is a technical term designating abstract principles and a variety of old Indo-European gods and goddesses who were incorporated into the pantheon of the Good Religion under Ahura Mazda. They are widely referred to as “angels” as they are transmitters of the will of the divine godhead. It is from this tradition that the doctrine of angels was developed in the Judaic, Christian, and Muslim religions.
Footnotes
*1. Words or word roots preceded by an asterisk represent forms that are otherwise unattested but which have been reconstructed by historical linguists.
*2. This is not the place to enter into the whole vast subject of Magian astrology, which deserves and requires an extensive study unto itself. For a basic presentation of this, refer to Dr. Eduljee’s site at zoroastrianastrology.blogspot.com.
*3. Is it just this “stone”—the night sky—that Wolfram von Eschenbach refers to as the “Holy Grail” in his medieval German epic Parzivâl? He describes the holy grail as a stone upon which “heathen writing” appears as a way of sending mysterious messages to the Grail Knights who are in charge of guarding it. See Wolfram von Eschenbach, Parzival: A Romance of the Middle Ages (trans. Mustard and Passage), 237—48.
*4. Discover your birthday according to the Zoroastrian calendar using the perpetual calendar found at www.heritageinstitute.com/Zoroastrianism/calendar/page2.htm. Use the Fasli-Bastani form of the calendar, as it has been corrected for certain astronomical changes.
Endnotes
CHAPTER 1. IRANIAN MAGIC AS THE ANCIENTS SAW IT
1. Pliny the Elder, Natural History, XXX, 2.3.
2. Herodotus, Histories, 1.101, 1.32.
3. Zaehner, The Dawn and Twilight of Zoroastrianism, 163.
4. Pliny the Elder, Natural History, XXX, 2.8—10.
5. Hone, The Lost Books of the Bible, 40; Gilbert, Magi, 18—19.
6. Wilson, The Occult, 186.
CHAPTER 2. THE HISTORY OF IRANIAN MAGIC
1. Hinnells, Persian Mythology, 59.
2. Based on the translation of E. W. West from Pahlavi Texts, Pt. 1 (Sacred Books of the East, vol. 5), 14.
3. For a study of Zoroastrian ritual as a total work of art, see Williams and Boyd, Ritual Art and Knowledge: Aesthetic Theory and Zoroastrian Ritual.
CHAPTER 3. THEORIES OF MAZDAN MAGIC
1. West, trans., Pahlavi Texts, Pt. 1 (Sacred Books of the East, vol. 5), 32—33.
2. See Watkins, ed.,The American Heritage Dictionary of Indo-European Roots, under *ner.
3. Mistree, Zoroastrianism, 43.
4. Zaehner, The Dawn and Twilight of Zoroastrianism, 268.
5. Iamblichus, On the Mysteries, 184.1—10.
6. Available online at www.zarathushtra.com/z/article/chakras.htm (accessed April 1, 2017).
7. Shahriari, “Amesha Spentas and Chakras,” www.zarathustra.com/z/article/chakras.htm (accessed May 10, 2017).
CHAPTER 4. INITIATION INTO MAGIC
1. A resource for the timing of these cycles is found at www.cafeastrology.com/monthlycalendar.html (accessed April 13, 2017).
2. Available online at www.avesta.org/ritual/rcc.htm (accessed April 13, 2017).
3. Online at www.sacred-texts.com/zor/index.htm or at www.avesta.org/ka/index.html (accessed April 13, 2017).
4. The Zend-Avesta, pt. 1, trans. Darmesteter, lxix.
5. See Thorsson, “An English Runo-Wôdenic Survival in the Middle Ages,” in Green Rûna, 49—50.
6. The Zend-Avesta, pt. 2, trans. Darmesteter, 83.
7. Ibid., 84.
8. Ibid., pt. 1, 240—41.
9. Hinnells, Persian Mythology, 31.