Persian and Median Mages in the Ancient Greek World

The Faravahar is one of the symbols of Zoroastrianism, as well as of the Median Empire.

A lot of sorcerers in the Graeco-Roman literary tradition are portrayed as hailing from the lands of

Egypt and the Near East, carrying the wisdom of these cultures. This characterization of sorcerers

as outlanders may be due to the Greeks' habit of projecting less desirable attributes among free

Greeks onto foreign peoples. In other words, if he acts weird, he is probably not Greek.

From the dawn of the classical period forward, the Greeks viewed the Persians as the originators of

alien magical knowledge. Other Oriental races looked probably 'less magical' to them. In the

Odyssey, we encounter a wide spectrum of magical practices, yet it must have assumed its final

form well before the Greeks became aware of the Persians. So the Odyssey doesn't count.

The mages (Greek magos, Persian maku) were the wise men of the Persian empire, whose

expertise extended beyond religious matters. The Babylonians were associated with astronomy and

astrology among other forms of magic. The Syrians were added to the mix in the Seleucid period

when the Seleucid kings, who had their seat in Syria, conquered vast portions of land from the

former Persian empire.

Nero employed an Armenian mage named Tiridates in the A.D. period and Arabs, most notably the

figure of Lucian’s amulet-monger, were also ideal candidates, being both remote and conveniently

poised between the Orient and Egypt. Much of the transfer of Near Eastern magical culture to the

Greek world occurred in the Orientalizing period, the 8th century B.C., via the medium of itinerant

religious technicians.

Basilica of Sant'Apollinare Nuovo in Ravenna, Italy: "The Three Wise Men"

Source: Nina Aldin Thune

Persian Mages and their Habits

Aeschylus writes that Atossa, the widow of King Darius and mother of the current king, Xerxes,

experienced dreadful dreams that suggested she should make offerings to her dead husband. The

Persian elders performed a ritual to call up Darius' ghost who then delivered prophecies of the doom

of Xerxes’ military campaign against Greece.

In other Hellenistic sources, Persian mages are directly associated with necromancy. The offerings

made to the ghost don't involve blood sacrifice, because it is either not essential, or inappropriate.

Xanthus of Lydia, in his book Magica, writes that the mages had sex with their mothers, daughters

and sisters, and the women were held in common. These unions were public knowledge and were

readily consented to by both parties, when a man wished to marry someone else's woman.

According to Xanthus, 6,000 years passed from the time of Zoroaster to Xerxes’ invasion of Greece.

Zoroaster was followed by a succession of many mages called Ostanes, Astrampsychus, Gobryas,

and Pazates, until Alexander the Great’s destruction of the Persians. Pliny, in his Natural History,

corroborates this notion of a line of Persian mages throughout the history of Persia.

The Dream of Astyages

Source: Unknown

Median Mages and the Story of Astyages

Deioces united the Median race in one nation and ruled over them. The names of the tribes of the

Medes were Bousai, Paretakenoi, Strouchates, Arizantoi, Boudioi, and Magoi (Mages).

Herodotus tells the story of Astyages and the Persians. Astyages's daughter was called Mandane.

He had a dream in which she produced so much water that the entire city, then, the whole of Asia

was flooded. The Median dream-interpreters among the mages told him a terrifying story, so when

Mandane has come of age to be wedded to a man, Astyages, fearing the fulfillment of the vision,

gave her to a Persian named Cambyses, a wealthy man, however, far below even a middle-class

Mede.

Soon after this, Astyages saw another dream in which he saw a vine grow from his daughter’s

genitals, covering all Asia. The dream-interpreters told him to summon his daughter, who was

pregnant with a child, keep her locked up, and when the child is born kill it. Because Astyages

trusted the mages and because he feared that his daughter’s child would rule over his city, he did

what he was instructed to do. Except he couldn't bring himself to kill the baby.

The young Cyrus lived in the country where the boys of his village called him king. He did what real

kings do, commanding the guards, door-keepers, messengers and all else. The mages interpreted

this as the vision coming to a trivial conclusion and told Astyages to be cheerful and send the boy to

the Persians and his parents.

When Cyrus had grown to be a man, he destroyed the Median army in battle. Astyages cursed his

grandson and impaled the mages that interpreted his dream. He proceeded to arm the remnants of

the Medes in the city, young and old alike, with whatever weapons he had, and marched them out

into battle with the Persians. They were crushed by the enemy and Astyages was taken hostage.

Reconstitution of a prehistoric tomb containing two young women possibly buried alive.

Source: Rama

Herodotus on Persian Mages and Sorcerers

Herodotus writes that upon reaching the River Scamander, the Persian King Xerxes walked up to

the Pergamos, the citadel of Troy, because he desired to see it. When he had seen it and found out

all about it, he ordered the sacrifice 1000 oxen to Athene, while the mages poured libations to the

heroes, which planted fear in the hearts of the encamped troops during the night, because they

believed that the mages conjured up the souls of the dead heroes of the Trojan war buried there.

Later, into the River Strymon, the mages sacrificed white horses to acquire good omens. Having

done this, they ventured to pass over the river at the Edonian city of Ennea Hodoi. Because they

found out that this city was called Ennea Hodoi, meaning "Nine Ways," they buried alive there nine

boys and nine girls, all local children.

Persian custom dictated that they should bury people alive. In order to stop a storm, Amestris,

Xerxes' wife, buried seven boys and seven girls of distinguished Persian descent to honor the god

believed to be under the earth. The storm went on for three days, then the mages offered sacrifices

to the dead and sang an incantation to calm the wind. They were helped by sorcerers (goêsi).

Sacrifices were also offered to Thetis and the Nereids and the wind stopped the next day.

The same story is told by Philostratus in his Heroicus that tells the account of Apollonius’s

necromancy of Achilles' ghost.

All four extant species of hyenas. Book Plate Illustration from Johnson's Book of Nature, 1880.

The Hyena, Most Magical of All Creatures

Of all animals, most highly revered by the mages was the hyena. They have credited magical skills

to it, especially the ability to make man go insane. They believed that the hyena changed sex

annually. Hyenas or objects made from their skin repulsed panthers that would run away upon

spotting them. If the pelts of both animals are hung up back-to-back, the panther’s hairs supposedly

fall off.

When hunted, the hyena veers rightward attempting to put the hunter in front. If successful, the

hyena causes the hunter to lose his mind and fall off his horse. The mages require that the hyena be

caught when the moon is in the constellation of Gemini, and that every last hair be kept intact.

When you try on the skin of the hyena's head, it cures headache, while the gall, placed on the

forehead, cures eye inflammation. To cure dim sight or cataracts, one needs to decoct the gall with

three ladles of honey and an ounce of saffron. If allowed to mature in a copper container, the

medicine induces clear vision even more effectively.

One can get rid of glaucoma by anointing the eyes with the gravy of the fresh roasted liver with

honey added and the foam skimmed off. The hyena’s teeth alleviate toothache when brought into

contact with human teeth. Worn as amulets in the right order, the hyena's teeth cure pains in the

arms and shoulders.

If extracted from the left side of its muzzle, bound up in sheep- or goatskin, the teeth help get rid of

severe stomach aches. Hyena lungs, when eaten, cure coeliac pains. Their ashes, mixed with olive

oil and massaged into the skin, cure belly pain. And the list goes on endlessly!

Pliny (Gaius Plinius Secundis) the Elder (23 – 79 A.D.) Roman historian, scholar, and writer.

Pliny on the History of Magical Practices in Greece

In Natural History, Pliny writes that the influence of magical practices is probably due to the fact that

they encompassed and incorporated the three disciplines that exercised the strongest control over

the human mind. They first began in medicine, were gradually introduced in healthy living, and

added the blinding power of religion to desirable promises by meddling in the art of astrology, since

everyone was eager to know his or her future.

According to Pliny and other writers, magic was first invented in Persia by Zoroaster. Eudoxus, a

great proponent of magical practices, as well as Aristotle, suggested that Zoroaster lived 6,000 years

before the death of Plato, Aristotle's teacher. Hermippus wrote that Zoroaster had been instructed by

Azonaces who had lived 5,000 years before the Trojan war. It is amazing how the memory of the art

should have lived on over such a long period of time without any intervening commentaries or

distinguished line of successors.

From historical records, we are aware of names such as Apusorus, Zaratus, Marmarus,

Arabantiphocus, and Tarmoendas, but we know virtually nothing of their lives. Interestingly enough,

Homer kept silent about these practices in the Iliad, which documents the Trojan war, while his other

significant work on the wanderings of Odysseus was loaded with tales of magic.

Pliny believed that the first man to have composed an extant treatise on magic was Osthanes, who

escorted the Persian king Xerxes in his military campaign into Greece. He spread the seeds of the

magical craft along the way. Pythagoras, Democritus, Empedocles, and Plato traveled abroad in

self-imposed exhile to learn or learn about the craft. Upon returning, they expounded it, promoted,

and included it daily life. Around the time of the Peloponnesian war in Greece, Hippocrates promoted

medicine, while Democritus promoted magic.

Another magical tradition derived from Moses, Jannes, Iotapes, and the Jews, but this was

introduced thousands of years after the time of Zoroaster. All the more recent was the Cyprian

magical tradition. There was a man whose story is similar to that of Osthanes, but whose name

remains unknown, that traveled along with Alexander the Great and added no small influence to the

magic of his time.

Magic of the Egyptians and ChaldeansThe magic and magicians of the pagan antiquity

All pagan antiquity speaks of magic and magicians, of magical operations, and of superstitions, curious, and diabolical books. Historians, poets, and orators are full of things which relate to this matter: some believe in it, others deny it; some laugh at it, others remain in uncertainty and doubt. Are they bad spirits, or deceitful men, impostors and charlatans, who, by the subtilties of their art, make the ignorant believe that certain natural effects are produced by supernatural causes? That is the point on which men diner. But in general the name of magic and magician is now taken in these days in an odious sense, for an art which produces marvelous effects, that appear above the common course of nature, and that by the operation of the bad spirit.

The author of the celebrated book of Enoch, which had so great a vogue, and has been cited by some ancient writers as inspired Scripture, says that the eleventh of the watchers, or of those angels who were in love with women, was called Pharmaeius, or Pharmachus; that he taught men, before the flood, enchantments, spells, magic arts, and remedies against enchantments. St. Clement, of Alexandria, in his recognitions, says that Ham, the son of Noah, received that art from heaven, and taught it to Misraim, his son, the father of the Egyptians.

In the Scripture, the name of Mage or Magus is never used in a good sense as signifying philosophers who studied astronomy, and wore versed in divine and supernatural things, except in speaking of the Magi who came to adore Jesus Christ at Bethlehem. Everywhere else the Scriptures condemn and abhor magic and magicians. They severely forbid the Hebrews to consult such persons and things. They speak

with abhorrence of Simon and of Etynias, well-known magicians, in the Acta of the Apostles; and of the magicians of Pharaoh, who counterfeited by their illusions the true miracles of Moses. It seems likely that the Israelites had taken the habit in Egypt, where they then were, of consulting such persons, since Moses forbids them in so many different places, and so severely, either to listen to them or to place confidence in their predictions.

The Chevalier Marsham shows very clearly that the school for magic among the Egyptians is the most ancient ever known in the world; that from thence it spread amongst the Chaldeans, the Babylonians, the Greeks and Persians. St. Paul informs us that Jannes and Jambres, famous magicians of the time of Pharaoh, resisted Moses. Pliny remarks, that anciently, there was no science more renowned, or more in honor, than that of magic: Summam litterarum claritatem gloriamque ex ea scientia antiquitus et pene semper petitam.

Porphyry says that King Darius, son of Hystaspes, had so high an idea of the art of magic that he caused to be engraved on the mausoleum of his father Hystaspes, "That he had been the chief and the master of the Magi of Persia."

The embassy that Balak, King of the Moabites, sent to Balaam the son of Beor, who dwelt in the mountains of the East, towards Persia and Chaldea, to entreat him to come and curse and devote to death the Israelites who threatened to invade his country, shows the antiquity of magic, and of the magical superstitions of that country. For will it be said that these maledictions and inflictions were the effect of the inspiration of the good Spirit, or the work of good angels? I acknowledge that Balaam was inspired by God in the blessings which he gave to the people of the Lord, and in the prediction which he made of the coming of the Messiah; but we must acknowledge, also, the extreme; corruption of his heart, his avarice, and all that he would have been capable of doing, if God had permitted him to follow his bad inclination and the inspiration of the evil spirit.

Diodorus of Sicily, on the tradition of the Egyptians, says that the Chaldeans who dwelt at Babylon and in Babylonia were a kind of colony of the Egyptians, and that it was from these last that the sages, or Magi of Babylon, learned the astronomy which gave them such celebrity.

We see, in Ezekiel, the King of Babylon, marching against his enemies at the head of his army, stop short where two roads meet, and mingle the darts, to know by magic art, and the flight of these arrows, which road he must take. In the ancients, this manner of consulting the demon by divining wands is known -- the Greeks call it Rhabdomanteia.

The prophet Daniel speaks more than once of the magicians of Babylon. King Nebuchadnezzar; having been frightened in a dream, sent for the Magi, or magicians, diviners, aruspices, and Chaldeans, to interpret the dream he had had.

King Belshazzar in the same manner convoked the magicians, Chaldeans, and aruspices of the country, to explain to him the meaning of these words which he saw written on the wall: Mene, Tekel, Perez. All this indicates the habit of the Babylonians to exercise magic art, and consult magicians, and that this pernicious art was held in high repute among them. We read in the same prophet of the trickery made use of by the priests to deceive the people, and make them believe that their gods lived, ate, drank, spoke, and revealed to them hidden things.

I have already mentioned the Magi who came to adore Jesus Christ; there is no doubt that they came from Chaldea or the neighboring country, but differing from those of whom we have just spoken, by their piety, and having studied the true religion.

We read in books of travels that superstition, magic, and fascinations are still very common in the East, both among the fire-worshipers descended from the ancient Chaldeans, and among the Persians, sectaries of Mohammed. St. Chrysostom had sent into Persia a holy bishop, named Maruthas, to have

the care of the Christians who were in that country; the King Isdegerde having discovered him, treated him with much consideration. The Magi, who adore and keep up the perpetual fire, which is regarded by the Persians as their principal divinity, were jealous at this, and concealed underground an apostate, who, knowing that the king was to come and pay his adoration to the (sacred) fire, was to cry out from the depth of his cavern that the king must be deprived of his throne because he esteemed the Christian priest as a friend of the gods. The king was alarmed at this, and wished to send Maruthas away; but the latter discovered to him the imposture of the priests; no caused the ground to be turned up where the man's voice had been heard, and there they found him from whom it proceeded.

This example, and those of the Babylonish priests spoken of by Daniel, and that of some others, who, to satisfy their irregular passions, pretended that their God required the company of certain women, proved that what is usually taken for the effect of the black art is only produced by the knavishness of priests, magicians, dinners, and all kinds of persons who impose on the simplicity and credulity of the people; I do not deny that the devil sometimes takes part in it but more rarely than is imagined.

This article is from Augustine Calmet's book called The Phantom World: The History and Philosophy of Spirits, Apparitions, etc, etc

The Chaldean Magi: A Library of Ancient SourcesWisemen of the East

Made famous by the account of the New Testament, by which the were said to have followed a start to the birth of the Christian

Messiah, the Magi were priests of the Persian empire, who were renowned throughout antiquity for their knowledge of magic,

astrology and alchemy. Thus, our own word for magic refers to the occult arts of the Magi

In truth, though, the Magi known to the Greek and Roman world, were not the same as the official priests of the Persian religion

of Zoroastrianism, said to be founded by Zoroaster. For, when we compare the ideas that were attributed to the Magi by ancient

writers, we find that they differed widely from what we know of the mainstream version of the religion, as found in its sacred

scriptures, the Avesta.

Rather, it would appear that the Greeks had come into contact, not with priests of Zoroastrianism, but the notorious Magussaeans

of Asia Minor, in what is now Turkey. These Magussaeans were Persian emigres that found their way to the region after it had

come under Persian domination. Speaking the language of Aramaic, rather than Palahvi, they were unable to read their own

scriptures in their original tongue, and thereby deviated from the faith.

 

Babylon

Basically, the cult of the Magussaeans was a combination of heretical Zoroastrianism and Babylonian astrology. When Cyrus the

Great conquered the great city of Babylon in the sixth century BC, the Magi came into contact with the teachings of the city's

astrologers, known as Chaldeans. According to Diodorus of Sicily, a Greek historian of 80 to 20 BC, and author of a universal

history, Bibliotheca historica:

...being assigned to the service of the gods they spend their entire life in study, their greatest renown being in the field of

astrology. But they occupy themselves largely with soothsaying as well, making predictions about future events, and in some

cases by purifications, in others by sacrifices, and in others by some other charms they attempt to effect the averting of evil things

and the fulfillment of the good. They are also skilled in the soothsaying by the flight of birds, and they give out interpretations of

both dreams and portents. They also show marked ability in making divinations from the observations of the entrails of animals,

deeming that in this branch they are eminently successful.

Though astrology has often been regarded as representing an ancient form of knowledge devised by the Babylonians, scholars

have now determined that its development was impossible, before the eighth century BC, due to the absence of a reliable system

of chronology, and that, more properly, astrology was a product of the sixth century BC. This transformation, according to Bartel

van der Waerden, was the result of the influence of Zoroastrianism, with its doctrine that the human soul originated in the stars.

In addition, the sixth century BC is also known in Jewish history as the Exile, when their entire population was located in the

city, having been removed to there by Nebuchadnezzar, at the beginning of the century, after he had destroyed Jerusalem. Having

become substantial citizens, with some achieving minor administrative posts, it is possible the Jews also contributed to this

development. In fact, in the Book of Daniel, Chapter 2:48, Daniel is made chief of the "wise men" of Babylon, that is of the Magi

or Chaldeans. In any case, scholars have certainly recognized that the later teachings referred to collectively as the esoteric

Kabbalah, seem to have been a combination of Magian and Chaldean lore.

Astrology was not a component of mainstream Zoroastrianism, and those who incorporated its concepts into their version of the

faith seem to have been regarded as heretical. As Edwin Yamauchi describes, "the relationship of the Magi to Zoroaster and his

teachings is a complex and controversial issue." Ever since the early days of the Persian Empire, there had existed an antagonism

with the proponents of true Zoroastrianism and the Magi. And, according the French Assyriologist Lenormant, "to their influence

are to be ascribed nearly all the changes which, towards the end of the Achaemenid dynasty, corrupted deeply the Zoroastrian

faith, so that it passed into idolatry."

 

Bel

It is believed that Zoroaster was a monotheist but that it was the Magi who had sought to re-introduce the paganism of their

ancient Iranian heritage. According to Herodotus, the Persians had learned the worship of "Mitra" from the Babylonians. Mitra,

or Mithra was an ancient Iranian deity, which the Magi assimilated to Bel, the chief god of the Babylonians. Bel, or Marduk, was

a species of dying god worshipped throughout the ancient Middle East. Every year, corresponding to our Easter, his death and

resurrection was celebrated, believed to symbolize the fertility cycle of nature. He was a god recognized as the Sun, and often

symbolized by the bull, but also as a ram or a goat.

In imitation of the Babylonian triad of Bel, Shamash, and the goddess Ishtar, Mithras was recognized as one of three chief deities,

along with Ahura Mazda and Anahita, as the Sun, Moon and Venus. The Persians also worshipped the "four elements".

Therefore, according to Strabo Greek geographer of the first century AD:

Now the Persians do not erect statues or altars, but offer sacrifice on a high place, regarding the heavens as Zeus [Ahura-

Mazda]; and they also worship Helios [the Sun], who they call Mithras, and Selene [Anahita or the Moon] and Aphrodite, and

fire and earth and winds and water [the four elements]

As he was believed to descend there in winter, this dying god was also associated with the Underworld. It was through him that

sorcerers were required to consult in order to confer with the departed spirits that dwelt there. Thus, the Magi acquired their

renown as necromancers, or the power of summoning of evil spirits. Demon worship was thoroughly forbidden in orthodox

Zoroastrianism. This would mean that the Magi known to the west were those condemned in numerous instances in Zoroastrian

texts as a "daeva" or demon worshipping sect of the faith. Therefore, in Lucian,, when one of his characters wishes descend to

underworld, he describes: as I was puzzling over these matters, it occurred to me to go to Babylon and ask one of the Magi,

Zoroaster's disciples and successors. I had heard that they could open the gates of the underworld with certain spells and rites and

conduct and bring back up safely whomever they wished.

 

Zurvanism

Judging by the fourth century BC accounts of Eudemus of Rhodes, a pupil of Aristotle, and Greek historian Theopompus, these

Magussaeans were adherents of the Zurvanite heresy. Borrowing from the conceptions of the Chaldeans, Zurvan Akaran, or

Boundless Time or Fate, was seen as the father of twin sons, Ahura Mazda and Ahriman, the evil spirit. These two battle each

other for twelve thousand years, divided into four cycles of three thousand years, with each millennium governed by a sign of the

Zodiac.

During the first three thousand, ruled by Aries, Taurus and Gemini, Ahura Mazda created light, patterned after the celestial light.

The second three, Cancer, Leo and Virgo, is the period of the creation of life in the material world: vegetation, fire, the primeval

bull, and Gayomart, the primordial man. In the third period, Ahriman, who has been imprisoned in darkness, is revived by the

Whore, and renews his assault on Ahura Mazda and his creation.

Prior to the end, Ahura Mazda now brings about the resurrection, and from the corpse of the Bull the land is fertilized, and from

the Primordial Man, known as Gayomart, he creates the ancestors of mankind. The earth then become filled with evil until the

coming of Zoroaster, whose advent begins the final period to last until the Day of Judgment, with the coming of the saviour,

when a flood of molten metal shall burn the wicked, while the righteous will pass unharmed, and good and evil are finally

separated from one another.

 

Asia Minor

Persian emperor Cyrus, had attacked Croesus, king of Lydia In 546 BC, defeated him, and annexed Asia Minor to his realm,

followed by the gradual conquest of the small Greek city-states along the coast. Cyrus' son Cambyses, added Egypt in 525 BC,

and after him, in 522, Darius came to power and set about consolidating and strengthening the Persian empire. From 521 to 484

BC, Darius expanded the empire further with conquests in India, central Asia and European Thrace.

With Cyrus came the settlement of many Medes and Persians accompanied by their Magi. The fact that the Greeks knew of

Zoroaster and of the Magi is enough assure us of some degree of contact. The first among the Greeks to actually mention

Zoroaster by name was Xanthus of Lydia, in the fifth century BC. Empedocles left an unfinished poem on the Persian wars, in

which it was suspected that he spoke of Zoroaster, and Herodotus spoke of the Magi as a tribe of the Medes, though without

mentioning Zoroaster. In the fifth century BC, Ctesias, makes Zoroaster a king of Bactria surrounded by Magi. Theopompus,, in

the fourth century BC, spoke of the relation of Ahura Mazda and Ahriman in the Zurvanite context. Finally, in the fourth century

BC, Dinon, the historian of Persia, connected Zoroaster etymologically with the stars, showing that already from an early date

Zoroaster was erroneously connected with astrology.

As a result, all the early ideas of the pre-Socratic philosophers would suggest that they had come into contact with Magi in Asia

Minor. Thus we find among them the recurring presence of the typical Magian or Chaldean doctrines of dualism, pantheism,

astralism, the four elements and the belief in reincarnation. The influence of the Magi on Greek philosophy has been proposed by

some the twentieth century's foremost scholars. In Early Greek Philosophy and the Orient, M. L. West has suggested that the

introduction of Persian and Babylonian beliefs into Greece was attributable to Magi fleeing west from Cyrus' annexation of

Media. In Alien Wisdom : The Limits of Hellenization, Arnoldo Momigliano affirms:

Those who have maintained that Pherecydes of Syros, Anaximander, Heraclitus and even Empedocles derived some of their

doctrines from Persia have not always been aware that the political situation was favourable to such contacts. But this cannot be

said of Professor M. L. West, the latest supporter of the Iranian origins of Greek philosophy. He certainly knows that if there was

a time in which the Magi could export their theories to a Greek world ready to listen, it was the second half of the sixth century

BC. It is undeniably tempting to explain certain features of early Greek philosophy by Iranian influences. The sudden elevation of

Time to a primeval god in Pherecydes, the identification of Fire with Justice in Heraclitus, Anaximander's astronomy placing the

stars nearer to the Earth than the moon, these and other ideas immediately call to mind theories which we have been taught to

consider Zoroastrian, or at any rate Persian, or at least Oriental.

According to Pliny, it was Osthanes, a supposed disciple of Zoroaster, known as the "prince of the Magi", said to have

accompanied Xerxes on his campaign against Greece, who "was chiefly responsible for stirring up among the Greeks not merely

an appetite but a mad obsession for this art." It is said that Osthanes became the teacher of Democritus, born in 460 BC.

Democritus apparently also visited Babylon and summed up the results of his investigations in a Chaldean Treatise, and On the

Sacred Writings of Those in Babylon. As a result of his visit to Persia, he wrote Mageia.

 

Orphism

Heraclitus, a Greek philosopher of the sixth century BC, equated the rites of the Bacchants with those of the Magi, and

commented: if it were for Dionysus that they hold processions and sing hymns to the shameful parts [phalli], it would be a most

shameless act; but Hades and Dionysus are the same, in whose honor they go mad and celebrate the Bacchic rites, and of the

Nightwalkers, Magi, Bacchoi, Lenai, and the initiated, all these people he threatens with what happens after death: for the secret

rites practiced among humans are celebrated in an unholy manner. A papyrus from Derveni, near Thessalonika, belonging to the

fourth century BC, we read about "incantations" of the Magoi that are able to placate daimones who could bring disorder...

Therefore, the Magoi perform this sacrifice as if they would pay an amend, and initiates of Dionysus, first sacrifice to the

Eumenides, like the magoi.

According to the Orphic Theogonies, Kronos, or Time, is described as a serpent having heads growing upon him of a bull and a

lion, and in the middle the face of a god; and he has also wings upon his shoulders, and is called ageless Time, and Herakles the

same. In Orpheus and Greek Religion, Guthrie remarked that, the depicting of ageless Time himself in this form shows

correspondences with Oriental, and in particular with Persian religion, which are too detailed and exact to be passed over.

The female worshippers of Dionysus, called Maenads, were supposed to re-enact the a myth of the tearing and eating of

Dionysus, by whipping themselves into a frenzy, and tearing a live bull to pieces with their bare hands and teeth, for the animal in

some sense was an incarnation of the god. Similarly, Nigosian, in The Zoroastrian Faith, has pointed out that according to a

Zoroastrian text, titled the Yasna, Yima was the instructor of the bull-sacrifice, condemned by Zoroaster, which were nocturnal

and orgiastic rites, accompanied with shouts of joy, and combined with the haoma, an intoxicating drink prepared from the sacred

plant of Zoroastrianism.

The Orphics worshipped Phanes, a beautiful figure with wings on his shoulders, four eyes and the heads of various animals, is

born from an egg. Similarly, according to Plutarch, the twenty-four gods created by Ahura Mazda were placed in an egg, but

those created by Ahriman pierced their way through it and made their way inside, and hence evil is now combined with the good.

Zeus swallows Phanes, taking all that exits within himself, a myth that gave rise to the dualism typical of the Orphics, whereby

the soul of man is seen as created by the true god, while matter is created by the evil god.

Though Orphic dualism did not borrow the simple dualism of Zoroastrianism, being an opposition between a Good and Evil god,

it may have been elaborated from Zurvanism. Theodore bar Konai and Eznik, Zurvan says to Ahriman, "I have made Ormazd to

rule above thee," meaning, as Zaehner has shown, that Ahriman rules the material world, while Ormazd is appointed over the

world of spirit. Likewise, according to the Orphic Theogony, Phanes made the world in its primeval state, but Zeus swallowed

Phanes and then produced the world known to humanity. Thus, Phanes was interpreted as the creator of the spiritual realm, while

Zeus gave rise to the cosmos of matter.

 

Pythagoras

According to Apuleius, Pythagoras was captured by Cambyses during his invasion of the country, and taken back to Babylon

along with other prisoners. In Babylon, maintains Porphyry Pythagoras was taught by Zaratas, a disciple of Zoroaster, and

initiated into the highest esoteric mysteries of the Zoroastrians. Aristoxenus, friend and pupil of Aristotle, who came originally

from Pythagorean circles, had also maintained that Pythagoras had been a student of Zaratas.

According to Iamblichus, Pythagoras traveled to Phoenici, where he conversed with the prophets who wer descendants of

Moschus, or Moses, the physiologist, and with many others, as well as with the local hierophants. OF his ideas, maintained

Hermippus, a Greek writer who lived about 200 BC, Pythagoras practiced and taught these in imitation of the beliefs of the Jews

and the Thracians, which he had appropriated to himself. Josephus also believed in Pythagoras' affinity for Jewish ideas: Now it

is plain that he did not only know our doctrines, but ws in very great measure a follower and admirer of them. For it is very truly

affirmed of this Pythagoras, that he took a great many of hte laws of the Jews into his own philosophy.

Pythagoras propounded a doctrine known as the Music of the Spheres, whereby the distances and speeds of the planets' orbits

were thought to create a musical harmony that was inaudible to humans. The doctrine, which presupposed that the distances

between the planetary spheres have the ratios of simple whole numbers, was originally Babylonian a theory. Iamblichus

explained that it was in Babylon that Pythagoras learned mathematics, music, and all other sciences. According to Philo of

Alexandria:

The Chaldeans appear beyond all other men to have devoted themselves to the study of astronomy and of genealogies; adapting

things on earth to things sublime, and also adapting things of heaven to things on earth, and like people who, availing themselves

of the principles of music, exhibit a most perfect symphony as existing in the universe by the common union and sympathy of the

parts for another, which through separated as to place, are not disunited in regard of kindred.

Scholars have not been able to account for the provenance of the belief of reincarnation among the Greeks. Herodotus maintained

that the belief was adopted from the Egyptians, but no such doctrine is found among them. Some have thought to suggest a

transmission from India, but it is improbable, as the belief in reincarnation emerged there quite late. Though reincarnation is not

found in orthodox Zoroastrianism, it would have been an important tenet of the Magussaeans, for as Porphyry reported, the Magi

divided themselves into three classes, "of which the uppermost and the most wise do not eat nor kill any living creature and

persevere in the old abstinence from flesh," the second do not consume wild game, nor domestic animals, and even the third only

of certain species, because all three classes believe in metempsychosis.

 

Plato

According to Momigliano, it was Plato who made Persian wisdom thoroughly fashionable, though the exact place of Plato in the

story is ambiguous and paradoxical. A fragment of Aristotle's Peri philosophias associated Plato's teaching with the dualism of

the Magi. In the Laws he suggests the necessity of two souls to govern the universe: that which does good, and that which has the

opposite capacity, an idea which Prof. Werner Jaeger regards as ultimately Zoroastrian. Plato's philosophy further incorporates an

Orphic dualism, evident in a number of his dialogues, including the Timaeus, Phaedo, Gorgias and Cratylus. He defines a divine

part and a mortal part of the human soul, the mortal part being attributed to the "titanic nature" within man.

The man considered most responsible for introducing Magian tenets to Plato was one of his friends, an Ionian mathematician and

astronomer, Eudoxus of Cnidus, who seems to have acted as head of the Academy during Plato's absence. Eudoxus is said to

have traveled to Babylon and Egypt, studying at Heliopolis, where he learned the priestly wisom and astronomy. According to

Pliny, Eudoxus wished magic to be recognized as the most noble and useful of the schools of philosophy.

The great exposition of Magian thought in the Greek language is the Timaeus, where Plato treated the common Magian themes of

Time, triads, pantheism, astrology, and the four elements. Similar ideas were expounded in the Epinomis, and though it may not

have been his work, we should expect that he at least would not have denied the origin of his new-found religion, which the

author acknowledges as belonging originally to the Egyptians and the Syrians, from when the knowledge has reached to all

countries, including our own, after having been tested by thousands of years and time without end.

Most common to the tales or motifs borrowed from the Magi were those dealing with visits to the Underworld. Plato concluded

his Republic with such an account, known as the myth of Er. Colotes, a philosopher of the third century BC, accused Plato of

plagiarism, maintaining that he substituted Er's name for that of Zoroaster. Clement of Alexandria and Proclus quote from a work

entitled On Nature, attributed to Zoroaster in which he is equated with Er. Quoting the opening of the work, Clement mentions:

Zoroaster, then, writes: "These things I wrote, I Zoroaster, the son of Armenius, a Pamphylian by birth: having died in battle,

and been in Hades, I learned them of the gods." This Zoroaster, Plato says, having been placed on the funeral pyre, rose again to

life in twelve days. He alludes perchance to the resurrection, or perchance to the fact that the path for souls to ascension lies

through the twelve signs of the zodiac; and he himself says, that the descending pathway to birth is the same. In the same way we

are to understand the twelve labours of Hercules, after which the soul obtains release from this entire world.

 

Zoroastrian Pseudepigrapha

Greek interest in Oriental teachings during the Alexandrian period resulted in the production of a curious set of

pseudoepigraphical works, written in Greek, and attributed to Zoroaster, his disciple Osthanes, and to his patron Hystaspes.

However, as Bidez and Cumont have sought to demonstrate, in The Hellenized Magi, these documents held nothing of orthodox

Zoroastrian content, but reflected the magical and astrological notions of the Magussaeans. Momigliano described that, these

"new-fangled speculations gained prestige from the Academic and Peripatetic admiration for the wisdom of Zoroaster and, no

doubt, mixed Platonic ideas with those alleged to be Oriental." Though no such works survive, ancient authors make mention of a

number of them. Celsus maintained that "Zoroaster and Pythagoras formulated their doctrines in books" which were conserved

until his time, while the scholiast of the Alcibiades affirms that Zoroaster left philosophical writings. The Clementine

Recognitions assert that books of magic under the title of Zoroaster circulated in large number. Proclus, a Greek philosopher of

the fourth century AD, knew of four books on Nature by Zoroaster dedicated to King Cyrus. Hermippus, who lived about 200

BC, wrote a book on the Magi and believed in the Oriental origins of Greek thought. According to Pliny, he "commented upon

two million verses left by Zoroaster, besides completing indexes to his several works." Pliny also knew of a work ascribed to

Osthanes, and Philo of Byblos, refers to a work attributed to him titled Octateuch. Christian writers Justin and Lactantius quoted

a prophecy under the name of Hystaspes, the protector and first convert of Zoroaster, sometimes identified as the father of

Darius.

 

Stoicism

At the beginning of the Hellenistic Age, Greek philosophy at this time was divided into fairly definite schools, of which the most

important were the Cynics, Sceptics, Epicureans and the Stoics. Of these, the most influential was that of the Stoics. The Stoics

adopted a pantheistic philosophy, believing that all reality is animated by a rational principle that was at the same time both the

law of the universe and of the human soul, calling it either Logos, Zeus, or even God. Like the Magi, they equated it with fire.

Essentially, the Stoics appropriated their pantheistic and fatalistic view of the universe from the Chaldeans, of whom Philo of

Alexandria mentioned:

These men, then, imagined that this world which we behold was the only world in the existing universe, and was either God

himself, or else that it contained within itself God, that is, the soul of the universe. Then, having erected fate and necessity into

gods, they filled human life with excessive impiety, teaching men that with the exception of those things which are apparent there

is no other cause whatever of anything, but that it is the periodical revolutions of the sun, and moon, and other stars, which

distribute good and evil to all existing beings.

The Stoics believed that the divine "fire," or God, generated the universe, and at the end of the Great Year, took it back into itself

through a great conflagration. Eventually the Fire would die down to Air, and finally to a Watery condition in which the seed for

the next cycle of would be. This cycle repeats itself eternally. The idea of recurring conflagrations was attributed by Nigidius

Figulus, prominent Roman philosopher and astrologer of the first century BC, to the Magi, and the notion that the world would be

destroyed by fire is found in the Bundahishn. It may have been from the Magussaeans that Heraclitus learned the same doctrine.

Also, in the Republic, Plato made use of the Babylonian Sar, where it appears as the numerical equivalent of the period between

global catastrophes outlined in the Timaeus, when the stars and seven planets are aligned with each other exactly as they were at

the Creation.

Dio Chrysostom recorded a hymn sung by the Magi of Asia Minor on account of its resemblance to the Stoic theory of

conflagrations. In the hymn, which Dio claimed was sung by Zoroaster and the children of the Magi who learned it from him,

Zeus is portrayed as the perfect and original driver of the most perfect chariot, drawn by four horses representing the four

elements. The hymn ends at the moment that the Divine Fire, having absorbed all the substance of the universe, prepared for a

new creation.

 

Mithraism

In the early part of the twentieth century, Franz Cumont, who founded the study of Mithraism, considered the Mysteries of

Mithras to have evolved from the Magussaeans of Asia Minor. However, believing they have refuted his hypothesis of a

Zoroastrian origin of the cult, modern scholars of the subject tend towards the opinion that it was entirely a Roman creation.

However, according to Plutarch mysteries dedicated to Mithras were practiced by pirates of Cilicia in the early first century BC,

who "offered strange sacrifices of their own at Olympus, where they celebrated secret rites or mysteries, among which were those

of Mithras. These Mithraic rites, first celebrated by the pirates, are still celebrated today." Similarly, Lactantius Placidus, tells us

that the Mithraic cult passed from the Persians to the Phrygians, and from them to the Romans.

However, on the authority of Bardasenes, a Syrian Christian of the late first and early second century AD, the Magussaeans,

wherever they were found, observed "the laws of their forefathers, and the initiatory rites of their mysteries." Though we have no

information as to the exact nature of these mysteries, we should presume that they were dedicated to Mithras, and like many of

the other cults of the Roman period, would have been largely influenced by a combination of Magian and Chaldean doctrines.

The longest tractate in the Nag Hammadi find is Zostrianos. The Gnostics attacked by Plotinus also possessed apocrypha

attributed to Zoroaster, as did certain Gnostics, the disciples of Prodicus, mentioned by Clement of Alexandria. According to the

Pseudo-Clementine Recognitions and Homilies, a Gnostic doctrine fought by the apostle Peter, supposed Zoroaster to have been

sent to combat the invading influence of evil demons in the world, and through his triumph over them, to bring in a golden age.

The government of the world was thought to have been divided by two Aeons, one identified with the god of the Old Testament,

a vengeful demon, the other with the Christ, the god of light.

According to Numenius, thought to have been the main influence behind the thought of Plotinus, the founder of Neoplatonism, to

explore the nature of God, Numenius insisted, one had to look back beyond the wisdom of Plato, or even of Pythagoras, to

everything that the Brahmins, the Jews, the Magi and the Egyptians have established. In the Life of Plotinus, Porphyry reported

of his teacher that:

At twenty-seven he was caught by a passion for philosophy. He was directed to the most highly-reputed professors to be found at

Alexandria; but he used to come home from their lectures saddened and discouraged. A friend to whom he opened his heart

divined his temperamental craving and suggested Ammonius, whom he had not yet tried. Plotinus went, heard a lecture, and

exclaimed to his comrade, "This was the man I was looking for!" From that day he followed Ammonius continuously, and under

his guidance made such progress in philosophy that he became eager to investigate that practiced among the Persians and that

perfected by the Indians.

Neoplatonists regarded the Chaldean Oracles, a work attributed to Zoroaster, that combined Platonic elements with Persian or

Babylonian creeds, as a sacred text, sometimes, even above Plato himself. Proclus would have withdrawn all books from

circulation except the Timaeus and the Chaldean Oracles, to prevent them from harming the uneducated. Referring to the

Chaldean Oracles, the emperor Julian mentions the following, in what is generally regarded as one of his few allusions to the

doctrine of the Mithraic Mysteries, And if I should also touch on the secret teachings of the Mysteries in which the Chaldean,

divinely frenzied, celebrated the God of the Seven Rays, that god through whom he lifts up the souls of men, I should be saying

what is unintelligible, yea wholly unintelligible to the common herd, but familiar to the happy theurgists.

Zoroaster, explained Zosimus of Panopolis, of the end of the third and beginning of the fourth century AD, and probably the most

important of the Alexandrian alchemists, agreed with Hermes that men could raise themselves above Fate, but he took the way of

magic, while Hermes, on the other hand, took the way of philosophy. The founder of the alchemical art was thought to have been

Osthanes, to whom several works on the nature of plants and minerals were ascribed. One of the first alchemical works, written

by a certain Bolos of Mendes in the second century BC, was attributed to Democritus, the reputed student of Osthanes.

Upon closer examination of the fundamental beliefs of these major mystical schools, it becomes apparent that, though they

appear outwardly eclectic, their underlying theology was essentially the same. All were founded on a ritual of death and rebirth,

the belief in a divine triad, Orphic dualism, pantheism, magic, astrology, and the belief in reincarnation. The one element which

cannot be traced back to the Magi though is the doctrine of the ascent through the seven planets to union with the divine. This

component may have been a later addition, and may have its origins in Merkabah mysticism.

Essentially, Merkabah mysticism is a method of astral magic, identical to that of the Mysteries of Mithras, that so pervaded

Hellenistic mysticism, a similarity that may be the result of Roman soldiers coming into contact with Jewish mystical doctrines

during their invasion of Palestine. Having first been sent to the Euphrates in 63 BC to fight the Parthians, from 67 to 70 AD, the

Fifteenth Apollonian Legion took part in suppressing the uprising of the Jews in Palestine, when 97,000 Jews, according to

Josephus, were taken captive. This legion accompanied Titus to Alexandria, where they were probably reinforced by recruits

from Cappadocia in Asia Minor. It seems to have been a curious mix of these several elements, after the Legion had been

transported to Germany, that erected the first temple dedicated to Mithras on the Danube.

According to Kaufman Kohler, in an article on Merkabah mysticism in the Jewish Encyclopedia, in light of evidence and the

Mithras Liturgy, the rites of Mithraism "bear such a striking resemblance to those by means of which the Merkabah-riders

approached the Deity that there can scarcely be any doubt as to the Mithraic origin of the latter." In Merkabah, the mystic ascends

through the seven planets through the aid of a mediator god named Metratron, the equivalent of Enoch. This Metratron is the

archetypal man that became a common doctrine of not only Philo of Alexandria but of Gnosticism as well.

The doctrine of the Primordial Man, was known to the Zoroastrians as Gayomart, or as Anthropos to the Chaldeans, who,

according to the Christian Father Hippolytus, "say that this Adam is the man whom alone earth brought forth. And that he lay

inanimate, unmoved, (and) still as a statue; being an image of him who is above, who is celebrated as the man Adam, having

been begotten by many powers, concerning whom individually is an enlarged discussion." Similarly, according to Plutarch,

Zoroaster:

...declared that among all the things perceptible to the senses, Ahura Mazda may best be compared to light, and Ahriman,

conversely, to darkness and ignorance, and midway between the two is Mithras; for this reason the Persians give to Mithras the

name of Mediator.

Merkabah-riders sought to have a vision like that described in the first chapter of Ezekial, of God upon his chariot. Supporting

the chariot, were four "creatures", each with a human body, two sets of wings and cloven feet like that of a calf. Each creature

had four faces, of a man, lion, ox and eagle, understood esoterically to represent the four seasons and elements. Not only is this

image redolent of Kronos of the Orphics, it is also similar to the Leontocephalus of Mithraism, depicted standing on a globe, on

which there are two circles intersecting each other, which Celsus explained, is a symbol of the two orbits in heaven, the one being

that of the fixed stars and the other that assigned to the planets.

A number of ancient Jewish historians had equated Zoroaster with Ezekial, an identification which seems to have been replicated

in the Mithraic mysteries. In the pseudepigraphic writings attributed to Dionysius the Areopagite, the convert of St. Paul,

reference is made to a miracle by which the day was lengthened three-fold, and said to have occured in the time of Ezekiel. He is

purported to have claimed, Accordingly of this the sacred records of the Persians make special mention, and to the present day

the Magians celebrate the memorial rites of the triple Mithras. Similarly, Cosmas Indicopleustes, claimed that, it is reported that

to the present time the Persians keep the festival of Mithras, that is of the Sun, in memory of the miracle of the time of Ezekiel.

According to Zosimus, the alchemical process is the Mithraic Mystery, the incommunicable Mystery. Thus we are able to

understand the Mithraic system as explained by Celsus. Converting lead into gold, implied the purification of the soul by

removing successive levels of impurity, beginning with lead, which, according to the Mithraic system described by Celsus, is the

first gate, the planet Saturn, then ascending through the six other planets, culminating in the Sun, symbolized by gold.

Plato the KabbalistThere is little that should impress you in the writings of Plato, who is supposedly the greatest philosopher in history. On the

contrary, there is much that should concern you, as Plato has been the founder of many of the totalitarian doctrines that have

plagued the twentieth century. Rather, the only reason he has achieved the reputation he has is that, throughout the history of the

Western and Eastern occult tradition, Plato has been regarded as the godfather of its doctrines, and as the great representative of

those ancient traditions associated with the Kabbalah.

Among the prominent Kabbalists of the Renaissance, for example, was Leone Ebreo, who saw Plato as dependent on the

revelation of Moses, and even as a disciple of the ancient Kabbalists. While Rabbi Yehudah Messer Leon, criticized the

Kabbalah's similarity to Platonism, his son described Plato as a divine master. Other Kabbalists, such as Isaac Abravanel and

Rabbi Yohanan Alemanno, believed Plato to have been a disciple of Jeremiah in Egypt.

On the similarity of the teachings of the Greek philosophers and the Kabbalah, Rabbi Abraham Yagel commented:

“This is obvious to anyone who has read what is written on the philosophy and principles of Democritus, and especially on

Plato, the master of Aristotle, whose views are almost those of the Sages of Israel, and who on some issues almost seems to speak

from the very mouth of the Kabbalists and in their language, without any blemish on his lips. And why shall we not hold these

views, since they are ours, inherited from our ancestors by the Greeks, and down to this day great sages hold the views of Plato

and great groups of students follow him, as is well known to anyone who has served the sage of the Academy and entered their

studies, which are found in every land.”

While these claims may seem novel to the average reader, there is a great deal of evidence to substantiate it. In fact, Greek

philosophy can be demonstrated to be merely an appropriation of the ideas of the Babylonian Magi, who in turn were influenced

by early Jewish Kabbalistic ideas.

Ancient Babylon

The subject of Persian or Babylonian influences had been a contentious one in the earlier part of the twentieth century. The

subject currently continues to receive attention from several leading scholars, including Walter Burkert, and M.L. West.

On the whole, however, the idea has yet to penetrate into mainstream circles, because of a xenophobia which insists on the

unique “genius” of the Greeks.

The most detailed examination of the matter had been conducted by the greatest of the last century’s scholars, Franz Cumont. His

work, Les Mages Hellenisees, or the Hellenized Magi, a compendium of ancient sources on the subject, has received little

attention in the English world, due to the fact that it has not been translated. This continues to mar criticism of his theories, as

most critics have not read the brunt of his work.

Scholars have usually dismissed the possibility of Persian influence in Greece, because of the lack of similarity between

Zoroastrian and Greek ideas.

However, what these scholars have failed to see, as Cumont has pointed out, is that those Magi the Greeks came into contact with

were not orthodox, but heretics. The only way to reconstruct their doctrines is by accumulating the numerous remnants of

comments about them in the ancient sources.

By reconstructing these pieces, we find that Magian doctrines are far removed from, or even inimical, to orthodox Zoroastrian

ones.

Cumont discovered that these Magi practiced a combination of harsh dualism with elements of Babylonian astrology and magic,

which composed a Zoroastrian heresy known as Zurvanism. It is in this strange recomposition of ideas that we find the first

elements that characterized Greek philosophy.

Another component which Cumont failed to identify though, was that of Jewish influence. The Magi cult of astrology and magic

emerged in Babylon in the sixth century, precisely that era during which a great and prominent part of the Jewish population was

there in exile. We cannot ascertain who was responsible for the introduction of these ideas, but the Bible itself identifies Daniel

with one of the “wisemen”. Whatever the case may be, these ideas do appear in a recognizable Magian form initially among the

Essenes, and more particularly in Merkabah mysticism, which scholars identify as the beginnings of the Kabbalah.

There is little to examine the character of Jewish literature prior to the third century BC. Before that, it is in Greece were we find

the elaboration of these ideas.

The Greek Magi

Greek philosophy first emerged in the Greek speaking cities of Ionia, in Asia Minor, which were then under Persian occupation.

And yet, we continue to categorize it as “Greek” philosophy.

The first clear example of the penetration of these ideas were in the emergence of the Mysteries of Dionysus, which, according to

Heraclitus, a philosopher of the fifth century BC, “were in imitation of the Magi”.

The legendary founder of the rites of Dionysus was known to have been Orpheus. Artapanus, a Jewish philosopher of the third

century BC, declared of Moses that, “as a grown man he was called Musaeus by the Greeks. This Musaeus was the teacher of

Orpheus.” Aristobulus, another Jewish philosopher from the same century, claimed that Orpheus was a follower of Moses, and

quoted the following from an Orphic poem: “I will sing for those for whom it is lawful, but you uninitiate, close your doors,

charged under the laws of the Righteous one, for the Divine has legislated for all alike. But you, son of the light-bearing moon,

Musaeus (Moses), listen, for I proclaim the Truth.”

Orphism’s greatest exponent was Pythagoras, who then influenced the thought of Plato. Therefore, according to Momigliano, in

Alien Wisdom, “it was Plato who made Persian wisdom thoroughly fashionable, though the exact place of Plato in the story is

ambiguous and paradoxical.” i

Throughout the remaining centuries, Plato continued to be identified by Jewish mystics and Kabbalists as a student of their

doctrines. According to Aristobulus:

“It is evident that Plato imitated our legislation and that he had investigated thoroughly each of the elements in it. For it had

been translated by others before Demetrius Phalereus, before the conquests of Alexander and the Persians. The parts concerning

the exodus of the Hebrews, our fellow countrymen, out of Egypt, the fame of all things that happened to them, the conquest of the

land, and the detailed account of the entire legislation (were translated). So it is very clear that the philosopher mentioned above

took many things (from it). For he was very learned, as was Pythagoras, who transferred many of our doctrines and integrated

them into his own beliefs.”

Plato: Architect of the New World Order

It was in his Republic that Plato articulated the basis of the future totalitarian state, ruled by the elite, or “philosopher kings”, or

“guardians”, instructed in the Kabbalah. Essentially, The Republic provided the basis for all future Illuminati projects, including

communism, the elimination of marriage and the family, compulsory education, the use of eugenics by the state, and the

employment of deceptive propaganda methods.

According to Plato, “all these women shall be wives in common to all the men, and not one of them shall live privately with any

man; the children too should be held in common so that no parent shall know which is his own offspring, and no child shall know

his parent.” ii This belief is associated with a need for eugenics, as “the best men must cohabit with the best women in as many

cases as possible and the worst with the worst in the fewest, and that the offspring of the one must be reared and that of the other

not, if the flock is to be as perfect as possible.” More pernicious still is his prescription for infanticide: “The offspring of the

inferior, and any of those of the other sort who are born defective, they will properly dispose of in secret, so that no one will

know what has become of them. That is the condition of preserving the purity of the guardians’ breed.”

It is for this reason that Plato has been at the center of all esoteric philosophy ever since, and been extolled by all the leading

philosophers of the Illuminati, for whom he articulated the vision of a New World Order, like Kant, Hegel, Nietzsche, and

recently, Leo Strauss, the guru of the neo-conservatives that have embarked America in proxy wars in the Middle East on behalf

of Israel.

Strauss, like Plato, taught that within societies, some are fit to lead, while others only to be led. But for Strauss, it was

Machiavelli who initiated the Enlightenment, by rejecting the purely theoretical world of Plato, in favor of a more practical

interpretation of reality, thus creating political science. For Strauss, in accordance with Machiavellian thinking, virtue would not

be applicable, because no regime could meet its standards. Rather, a new regime should be created, by accepting, understanding,

and harnessing man’s tendency for self-interest, or “human nature”.

Strauss thought that those who are fit to rule are those who realize there is no morality. Therefore, Strauss believed the world to

be a place where policy advisers may have to deceive their own publics, and even their rulers in order to protect their countries. If

exposed to the absence of absolute truth, the masses would quickly succumb to nihilism or anarchy. They “can’t handle the

truth”. Thus, according to Strauss, it is necessary to maintain these “pious frauds”, or “the Noble Lie”, as Plato would have

referred to it.

Finally, like Thomas Hobbes, Strauss believed that the inherently aggressive nature of human beings could only be restrained by

a powerful nationalistic state. In other words, Fascism. “Because mankind is intrinsically wicked, he has to be governed,” he once

wrote. “Such governance can only be established, however, when men are united – and they can only be united against other

people.” iii According to Shadia Drury, in Leo Strauss and the American Right, “Strauss thinks that a political order can be stable

only if it is united by an external threat.” Ultimately, as Drury clarifies, “following Machiavelli, he maintained that if no external

threat exists then one has to be manufactured.” iv

i Alien Wisdom: The Limits of Hellenization, p. 142

ii Plato and Totalitarianism

iii Lobe, Jim. “Strong Must Rule the Weak, said Neo-Cons' Muse”, Inter Press Service

iv Ibid.

THEOSOPHY, Vol. 52, No. 6, April, 1964 (Pages 175-182; Size: 22K)

THE CHALDEAN LEGEND(1)Of the dead sciences of the past, there is a fair minority of earnest students who are entitled to learn the few truths that may now be given to them.

--H. P. BLAVATSKY

THE Chaldean religion is entirely lost to the world now, except in its disfigured Sabeanism as rendered by archeologists. It is the outcome of three great religions, the Indian, the Mazdean, and the Egyptian, and bears direct relationship to all of these. The Chaldean Book of Numbers was derived from the "Book of Dzyan" described in theosophical literature. And of the Chaldean works which are translated into Arabic and preserved by some Sufi initiates, it is asserted that the public knows nothing. The Sabeans were astrolaters, so called; those who worshipped the stars -- or rather their "regents." Sabeanism was thus the religion of the ancient Chaldees. They believed in one impersonal, universal deific Principle, although they never mentioned It, but offered worship to the solar, lunar, and planetary gods and rulers, regarding the stars and other celestial bodies as their respective symbols. The Chaldeans, or Kasdim, were at first a tribe, and then a caste of learned Kabbalists. They were the savants, the magians of Babylonia, astrologers and diviners. The famous Hillel, the precursor of Jesus in philosophy and ethics, was a Chaldean.

In every cosmogony, behind and higher than the creative Deity there is a superior Deity, a planner, an architect, of whom the Creator is but the executive agent. And still higher, over and around, within and without, there is the UNKNOWABLE and the unknown, the Source and Cause of all these Emanations. In Chaldea the great First Cause as the ONE, the primordial germ, the unrevealed and grand ALL, existing through himself -- was Ilu. This was the Kabbalistic En-Soph (No-thing). Whenever the Eternal awakes from its slumber and desires to manifest itself, it divides itself into male and female. It then becomes in every system the double-sexed Deity, the universal Father and Mother, the Anu-Anata (male-female) of the Chaldeans. From the union of the two a third, or creative Principle -- the SON, or the manifested Logos -- is the product of the Divine Mind. In Chaldea the Son was Bel. Moreover, every such system has a triple male trinity, each proceeding separately through itself from one female Deity. In Chaldea the trinity of Anu, Bel, and Hea, blend into One who is Anu (double-sexed) through the Virgin Mylitta.

To place it still clearer, the Babylonian system recognized first the ONE (Ad), who is never named but only acknowledged in thought, as the Hindu Swayambhuva. From this he becomes manifest as Anu, the one above all -- Monas. Next comes the Demiurge (the "Builder" or executive Architect of the Universe) called Bel, who is the active power of the Godhead. The third is the principle of wisdom, Hea, who also rules the sea and the underworld. Each of these -- Anu, Bel, and Hea --has his divine consort, giving us Anata, Belta, and Davkina. These, however, are only like the Shaktis, the "forces" of Nature. But the female principle is denoted by Mylitta, the Great Mother, called also Ishtar. With the three male gods we have the Triad, or Trimurti. "The fact is, that all the three 'persons' of the Trimurti are simply three qualitative attributes of the universe of differentiated Spirit-Matter; the self-formative, the self-preserving, and the self-destroying, for purposes of regeneration and perfectibility." With Mylitta added to the Trimurti we have the Arba or Four (Tetraktys of Pythagoras), which perfects and potentializes all.

Bel was the oldest and mightiest of the gods of Babylonia, one of the earliest trinities. He was "Lord of the World," father of the gods and "Lord of the city of Nippur." Hea was the maker of fate, Lord of the Deep, God of Wisdom and esoteric Knowledge, and Lord of the city (i.e., Mysteries) of Eridu. Anu was the earliest god of the city of Erech. The "doctrine of the Trinity" is first met northeast of the Indus; and, tracing it to Asia Minor and Europe, one recognizes it among every people who had anything like an established religion. It was taught in the oldest

Chaldean, Egyptian, and Mithraic schools. The Chaldean Sun-god, Mithra, was called "Triple" and the trinitarian idea of the Chaldeans was a doctrine of the Akkadians who, themselves, belonged to a race which was the first to conceive a metaphysical trinity. According to the archeologist Rawlinson, the Chaldeans were a tribe of the Akkadians who lived in Babylonia from earliest times; but according to others they were Turanians who instructed the Babylonians into the first notions of religion. But these same Akkadians, who were they? The only tradition worthy of credence is that these Akkadians instructed the Babylonians in the Mysteries, and taught them the sacerdotal or Mystery language. These Akkadians were then simply a tribe of the Hindu-Brahmans -- now called Aryans -- and their vernacular language, the Sanskrit of the Vedas; and the sacred or Mystery language, that which, even in our own age, is used by the Hindu fakirs and initiated Brahmans in their magical evocations. They were emigrants on their way to Asia Minor from India, the cradle of humanity, and their sacerdotal adepts tarried to civilize and initiate a barbarian people.

The Babylonian civilization was neither born nor developed in that country. It was imported from India, and the importers were Brahmanical Hindus. Whether the latter were Brahmans from the Brahmanic planisphere proper (40° north latitude) or from India (Hindustan), or again from the India of Central Asia, we will leave to philologists of the future to decide. Science has discovered enough to inform us that Sanskrit originals of Nepal, were translated by Buddhist missionaries into nearly every Asiatic tongue. Likewise Pali manuscripts were translated in Siamese, and carried to Burma and Siam; it is easy therefore to account for the same religious myths circulating in so many countries. But Manetho tells us also of Pali shepherds who emigrated westward; and when we find some of the oldest Ceylonic traditions in the Chaldean Kabbala and Jewish Bible, we must think that either Chaldeans or Babylonians had been in Ceylon or India, or the ancient Pali had the same traditions as the Akkadians, whose origin is so uncertain. Suppose even Rawlinson to be right, that the Akkadians did come from Armenia, he did not trace them farther back. As the field is open to any kind of hypothesis, we submit that this tribe might as well have come to Armenia from beyond the Indus, following their way in the direction of the Caspian Sea -- a part of which was also India once upon a time -- and from thence to the Euxine. Or they might have come originally from Ceylon by the same way.

Genesis is purely a reminiscence of the Babylonian captivity. The names of places, men, and even objects can be traced from the original text to the Chaldeans and the Akkadians, the progenitors and Aryan instructors of the former. The garden of Eden as a locality is no myth at all; it belongs to those landmarks of history which occasionally disclose to the student that the Bible is not all mere allegory. In the Chaldean Book of Numbers the location of Eden is designated by numerals, and in the cipher Rosicrucian manuscript left by Count St. Germain it is fully disclosed. The Elohim may be accepted in one sense for gods or powers, and taken in another one for the Aleim, or priests; the Hierophants initiated into the good and evil of the world. For there was a college of priests called the Aleim, while the head of their caste, or the chief of the hierophants, was known as Java Aleim. In the Chaldean as well as in every exoteric scripture, Beings who refuse to create, i.e., who are said to oppose thereby the Demiurge, are denounced as the spirits of Darkness. The "Fallen Angels" and the legend of the "War in Heaven" is purely pagan in its origin and comes from India via Persia and Chaldea.

The fable of the Deluge -- both the Hindu and the Chaldean account -- has been considered by orthodox commentators to have been borrowed from the Mosaic scriptures. But surely if such a universal cataclysm had ever taken place within man's memory, some of the monuments of the

Egyptians, of which many are of such tremendous antiquity, would have recorded the occurrence. But till now there has not been found the remotest allusion to such calamity. On the other hand the Chaldeans preserved the tradition, as we find Berosus -- a priest of the temple of Belus -- testifying to it, and the ancient Hindus possessed the legend as given by Vaivasvata. Now, there is but one explanation of the extraordinary fact that of two contemporary and civilized nations like Egypt and Chaldea, one has preserved no tradition of it whatever, although it was the most directly interested in the occurrence -- if we credit the Bible -- and the other has. The deluge noticed in the Bible, in one of the Brahmanas, and in the Berosus Fragment, relates to the flood which, about 10,000 B.C., according to Bunsen, and according to Brahmanical computations of the Zodiac also, changed the whole face of Central Asia. Thus the Babylonians and the Chaldeans might have learned of it from their mysterious guests, christened by some Assyriologists Akkadians, or what is still more probable, they, themselves perhaps, were the descendants of those who had dwelt in the submerged localities. The Jews had the tale from the latter as they had everything else; the Brahmans may have recorded the traditions of the lands which they first invaded, and had perhaps inhabited before they possessed themselves of the Punjab. But the Egyptians, whose first settlers had evidently come from Southern (Dravidian) India, had less reason to record the cataclysm, since it had perhaps never affected them except indirectly, as the flood was limited to Central Asia.

It was Berosus who wrote for Alexander the Great the history of the Babylonian cosmogony, as taught in the temples, from the astronomical and chronological records preserved in the Temple of Belus. The only guide to this cosmogony may now be found in the fragments of the Assyrian tablets, evidently copied almost bodily from the earlier Babylonian records which -- say what the Orientalists may -- are undeniably the originals of the Mosaic Genesis, of the Flood, the tower of Babel, of baby Moses set afloat on the waters, and of other events. As the Babylonian accounts are restored from hundreds of thousands of broken fragments, the proofs here cited are comparatively scanty; yet such as they are, they corroborate almost every one of our teachings, certainly three at least. These are (1) That the race which was the first to fall into generation was a dark race (Zalmat Gaguadi), which they call the Adami or dark Race; and that Sarku, or the light Race, remained pure for a long while subsequently. (2) That the Babylonians recognised two principal Races at the time of the Fall, the Race of the Gods (the ethereal doubles of the Pitris) having preceded these two. These "Races" are our second and third root-races. (3) That the seven (primeval) Gods, each of whom created a man, or group of men, were "the gods imprisoned or incarnated." All these gods or "Lords" collectively "who bestow Intelligence" are our incarnating Dhyan Chohans, connected as well with the Elohim, and the seven informing gods of Egypt, Chaldea, and every other country. Hea, their synthesis, the god of Wisdom and of the Deep, is identified with Oannes-Dagon, at the time of the fall, and called (collectively) the Demiurge, or Creator.

Our races, all cosmogonies show, have sprung from divine races, by whatever name they are called. The Chaldeans had their ten and seven Anedots, which was the generic name for their Dragons of Wisdom. The name of the Dragon in Chaldea was not written phonetically, but was represented by two monograms, probably meaning, according to the Orientalists, "the scaly one." We find the priests assuming the names of the gods they served, the "Dragons" held throughout all antiquity as the symbols of Immortality and Wisdom, of secret Knowledge and of Eternity. The allegory of Oannes, the Anedot, reminds us of the Dragon and Snake-Kings; the Nagas who in Buddhist legends instruct people in wisdom on lakes and rivers, and end by becoming

converts to the good Law and Arhats. Musarus Oannes, the Anedot, known in the Chaldean "legend," transmitted through Berosus and other ancient writers as Dagon, the "Man-Fish," came to the early Babylonians as a reformer and an instructor. Appearing from the Erythraean (Red) Sea, he brought them civilization, letters and sciences, law, astronomy, religion, teaching them agriculture, geometry, and the arts in general. There were Anedoti who came after him; but Musarus Oannes was "the first to appear, and this he did in the reign of Ammenon, the third of the ten antediluvian Kings whose (divine) Dynasty ended with Xisuthrus, the Chaldean Noah." The meaning of the allegory is evident. The "fish" is an old and very suggestive symbol of the Mystery-language, as is also "water;" Hea was the god of the sea and Wisdom, and the sea serpent was one of his emblems, his priests being "serpents" or Initiates. The hidden meaning becomes clear to the Occultist once he is told that "this being (Oannes) was accustomed to pass the day among men, teaching; and when the sun had set, he retired again into the sea, passing the night in the deep, for he was amphibios," i.e., he belonged to two planes, the spiritual and the physical. ... Oannes is dimly reflected in Jonah, and even in John the Precursor, both connected with Fish and Water. Layard showed long ago that the "fish's head" was simply a head gear, the mitre worn by priests and gods, made in the form of a fish's head, and which in a very little modified form is what we see even now on the heads of the high Lamas and Romish Bishops. Osiris had such a mitre. The fish's tail is simply the train of a long stiff mantle as depicted on some Assyrian tablets, the form being seen reproduced in the sacerdotal gold cloth garment worn during service by the modern Greek priests.

What is known of Chaldean Moon-Worship, of the Babylonian god Sin, is very little, and that little is apt to mislead the profane student who fails to grasp the esoteric significance of the symbols. As popularly known to the ancient profane philosophers and writers (for those who were initiated were pledged to silence) the Chaldees were worshippers of the moon under her (and his) various names, just as were the Jews who came after them. Lunar magnetism generates life, preserves and destroys it, psychically as well as physically. The worshippers of the Teraphim (the Jewish Oracles) "carved images and claimed that the light of the principal stars (planets) permeating these through and through, the angelic VIRTUES (or the regents of the stars and planets) conversed with them, teaching them many most useful things and arts." Seldenus explains that the Teraphim (idols) were built and composed after the positions of certain planets, and according to figures that were located in the sky and called the tutelary gods. With the Chaldeans the moon was Sin, and Nannak or Nannar, the son of Mulil, the older Bel. It is Mulil (Bel) who caused the waters of the Flood to fall from heaven on earth, for which Xisuthrus would not allow him to approach his altar. Behind the lunar "worship" was the secret teaching that the first race of men, the images and astral doubles of their Fathers, were the pioneers or the most progressed Entities from a preceding though lower sphere, the shell of which is now our Moon. But even this shell is all-potential, for having generated the earth, it is the phantom of the Moon which, attracted by magnetic affinity, sought to form its first inhabitants, the pre-human monsters. "While the gods were generated in the androgyne bosom of Mother-space, the reflection of Hea's Wisdom became on earth the woman Omoroka, the Deep or the Sea, which esoterically or even exoterically is the Moon. It was the Moon (Omoroka) who presided over the monstrous (purely physical) creation of nondescript beings which were slain by the Dhyanis.

Traditions about a race of giants in days of old were universal; they exist in oral and written lore. Chaldea had her Idzubar (Nimrod), a hero, shown in all the tablets as a mighty giant who towered in size above all other men as the cedar towers over brushwood -- a hunter, according to

cuneiform legends, who contended with and destroyed the lion, tiger, wild bull, and buffalo, the most formidable animals. The Babylonian Venus was called Ishtar, "the eldest of heaven and earth" and daughter of Anu, god of heaven. The legend is that Ishtar, the beautiful goddess, descended into Hades after her beloved Tammuz, and found that this dark place of the shades had seven spheres and seven gates, at each of which she had to leave something belonging to her. Any Occultist who reads of her love for Tammuz, his assassination by Idzubar, the despair of the goddess and her descent and final liberation from the dark realm, will recognize the beautiful allegory of the soul in search of the Spirit.

Birs Nimrud is believed by the Orientalists to be the site of the tower of Babel. This great pile of Birs Nimrud is near Babylon. Rawlinson and several Assyriologists examined the excavated ruins and found that the tower consisted of seven stages of brick-work, each stage of a different color, which shows that the temple was devoted to the seven planets. Even with the three higher stages or floors in ruins, it still rises now 154 feet above the level of the plain. The Chaldeans, with the Egyptians, were among the most ancient votaries of Astrology. Egypt claimed the honor of its invention; the Chaldees taught the science to other nations.

The Akkadians and Chaldeans kept a Sabbath day of rest every seven days, they also had thanksgiving days, and days of humiliation and prayer. The number seven was especially sacred. The great temple of Babylon existed long before 2250 B.C. Its Holy of Holies was within the shrine of Nebo, the prophet god of Wisdom (Mercury).

The Chaldeans, whom Cicero counts among the oldest magicians, placed the basis of all magic in the inner powers of man's soul, and by the discernment of magic properties in plants, minerals, and animals. The magic of the ancient Chaldeans was but a profound knowledge of the powers of simples and minerals. By the aid of these they performed the most wonderful "miracles." Magic with them was synonymous with religion and science. It was only when the theurgist desired divine help in spiritual and earthly matters that he sought direct communication through religious rites, with pure spiritual beings. With them, even, those spirits who remain invisible and communicate with mortals through their awakened inner senses, as in clairvoyance, clairaudience, and trance, could only be evoked subjectively and as a result of purity of life and prayer. But all physical phenomena were produced simply by applying a knowledge of natural forces, although certainly not by the method of legerdemain, practised in our days of conjurers. There was a vast difference between the true worship taught to those who showed themselves worthy, and the state religions.

To Humanity With Love...

AN INTRODUCTION TO THE

"BODY OF KNOWLEDGE"

KNOWN AS THEOSOPHY (AN UNDISTORTED VERSION OF IT)

AND THE WORLDWIDE

THEOSOPHICAL MOVEMENT