Zarathushtra

'Nietzsche's Flowers' was presented under the title 'The Poison Garden: Nietzsche's Flowers', at the Australasian Society of Continental Philosophy (ASCP) Conference held at Deakin University, Melbourne, Australia, on 7-10 December 2016. I spoke alongside Amy Ireland and Suzi Elhafez on a themed panel concerning Nietzsche and the Eternal Return.

Partiendo de la idea de "El Gran Mediodía" expuesta por Nietzsche en su obra "Así habló Zaratustra", se reflexiona sobre la posibilidad de que el proceso de humanización entre en una fase de salto cualitativo que nos lleve "más allá de lo humano", hacia una posible "Transhumanización", del mismo calado que la transformación de los seres presumamos en humanos.

Resumen

Se abordarán las bases del perspectivismo de Nietzsche, así como uno de sus supuestos fundamentales: el carácter ficcional de la realidad. De igual forma se profundizará en la concepción antropológica según la cual el hombre es un animal de ficciones para el cual conocer es simplemente trabajar con su metáfora favorita, siendo así la construcción de metáforas el instinto fundamental del hombre. Asimismo, siguiendo a Nietzsche, se intentará demostrar el carácter ficticio de la noción de sujeto, con las consecuencias epistemológicas que esta tesis comporta para el método genealógico.
Dr. Adolfo Vásquez Rocca

The Gathas, a corpus of seventeen poems in Old Avestan composed by the ancient Iranian poet-priest Zarathushtra (Zoroaster) ca. 1200 B.C.E., is the foundation document of Zoroastrian religion. Even though the dualistic axiology of the Gathas has been widely noted, it has proved very difficult to understand the meaning and genre of the corpus or the position of Zarathushtra's ideas with regard to other religious philosophies. Relying on recent advances in translation and decryptions of Gathic poetry, I shall here develop a philosophical interpretation of the Gathas, including, as shall be discussed here in detail, explication of the revelation he reports in the poem known as Yasna 30. I argue that, similarly to Marx, Henry, and Schutz, Zarathushtra connects social criticism with an original philosophy of (inter)subjectivity and existential reflection, placing his account in the context of a fully developed metaphysics which includes the human-divine sharing of mental properties. I show that in order to accommodate this complicated problematic, Zarathushtra uses the vehicle of multiple realities. Reflecting the spontaneity of life, the dynamics of various ontological modes in the text create a reference to subjectivity. A description of the dream in Yasna 30 is sufficiently within the limits of possibility for a dream experience, and thereby delivers three original phenomenological reductions. The reductions initiate a genetic account of the phenomenalization of invisible impulses which give rise to moral choices, and define the human-divine relationship. The opposing moral choices open into a reverse axiological intentionality in the sphere of intersubjectivity, and are said to plot life for the rightful and lifelessness for the wrongful. It can be concluded that Zarathushtra's theism and views of the social world are " the first philosophy " , with a unique and original phenomenological ontology of intersubjectivity at its core.

RE: Facades, illusions & ideological concepts created & promoted by ancient royalty out of necessity; effective creation of an alternate version of reality. It is only by knowing this information that the true nature of ancient texts may be understood correctly. Not knowing, means making incorrect assumptions & conclusions. Important!

This study of Greek time before Aristotle’s philosophy starts with a commentary on his first text, the Protrepticus. We shall see two distinct forms of time emerge: one initiatory, circular and Platonic in inspiration, the other its diametrical opposite, advanced by Aristotle. We shall explore this dichotomy through a return to poetic conceptions. The Tragedians will give us an initial outline of the notion of time in the Greek world (Fate); we shall then turn to Homer in order to better grasp the complex relations between time and the religious sphere (the Hero); the work of the great theologian Hesiod will confirm this initiatory vision, later set out in remarkable fashion by Nietzsche (Myths); we shall then dive deep into Pythagoreanism to complete our account (Mysteries). Having understood this current of thought, powerfully influenced by the Iranian theogony, we shall be able to discern its clear differences from the so-called “Ionian” current, and thus to move away from Plato (Ideology). Lastly, we shall return to the early Ionian thinkers Thales and Anaximander to analyse whether this really was the vision of the world that Aristotle adopted in developing the first model of time (Science). In the second volume we shall see the return of the thought of the theologoi within the Aristotelian corpus itself, and will question our distinction between the being and existence of time.

Régis Laurent is a philosopher and member of the association Kairos Kai logos (Centre for the study of ancient philosophy). This book is the first part of his doctoral thesis in philosophy, undertaken under the aegis of three French universities (Grenoble, Clermont-Ferrand and Rennes). In addition to his philosophical training, the author is also qualified to Masters level in linguistics and in general psychology, and studied theology at the Thomist University in Paris (ULSH) and at the CEJ of the EHESS.
Trad Trista SELOUS of the book of Régis LAURENT : METAPHYSIQUE DU TEMPS CHEZ ARISTOTE - I - Recherches historiques sur les conceptions mythologiques
et astronomiques précédant la philosophie aristotélicienne, villegagnons-plaisance, 2009/04/16, Paris, www.editions-villegagnons.com

Disgusted with ISIS, some Kurds turned away from Islam following the fall of Mosul in 2014. Many became atheists, while others sought comfort in Zoroastrianism. Zoroastrianism, according to converts, was the “original” religion of the Kurds before they embraced Islam. In 2015, two Zoroastrian centers opened in Sulaimani, both of which are recognized by the Kurdish Regional Government in northern Iraq. Notably, neither has tried to recreate Zoroastrianism the way it is currently and has been historically practiced in Iran and South Asia. Instead, they have created their own versions of Zoroastrianism, which is nationalist, postmodern, and liberal. Kurdish Zoroastrians argue that the reason Kurds are “backward” is Islam. They seek to rectify the present situation through a Kurdish “authenticated” and “original” form of Zoroastrianism. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork at these two centers, the present article examines this new religious movement in Sulaimani, an important city in the Kurdish region of northern Iraq. It analyses the rise and distinctiveness of Kurdish Zoroastrianism looking at how Zoroastrian Kurds articulate their views on Islam, women’s rights, human rights, and Kurdish independence.

Thus Spoke Zarathustra expresses a revolt against the quest for “afterworlds.” Nietzsche is seen transferring rationality to the body, welcoming the many in a kingdom of the un-unified multiple, with a burst of enthusiasm at the figure of recurrence. At first, he values an acceptation of suffering through reconciliation with time, and puts the onus on the divine to refute the dismembering of the oneness of meaning and unity of the soul’s quest for joy in eternity. Then confronting Christianity, he sees its refusal to sacrifice anyone, at the cost of making all sick with a unique healer, and rejects it as incompatible with his ideal of plenitude. In the absence of an ontology of the person, the affirmation of the individual and his value, opposed to the antagonistic affirmation of the many put in front of the one God and destroyed by him, ends up dislocating the reality of the self. The Nietzschean option resisted any leveling down—this is its merit—yet the mystery of the Trinity needs to be brought into the reflection to respect Nietzsche’s own terms in defining the final problem which is also the one option: Dionysus or the Crucified?

BAHA’U’LLAH AS ZOROASTRIAN SAVIOUR (1998)

Christopher Buck, “Baha’u’llah as Zoroastrian Saviour.” Baha’i Studies Review 8 (1998): 14–33. 

https://www.academia.edu/4332699/_Baha_u_llah_as_Zoroastrian_Saviour_1998_

ABSTRACT

This paper explores theoretical tensions between modern scholarship and modern messiahship. Messiahs, typically, advance truth claims and adduce proof texts. Prophecies foretell; messiahs fulfill. But what if the proof texts are other than what they purport to be? What if a prophecy turns out not to be genuine? How might this affect the truth claim? An ideal case-study is that of Bahā’u’llāh, whose claim to multiple messiahship is unusual in the history of religions, paralleled only by the second-century world-prophet, Mānī (d. 276).

Bahā’u’llāh’s truth-claims were anchored in several apocalyptic traditions, interpreted as convergent. Bahā’u’llāh’s claim to be Shāh Bahrām Varjāvand, the Zoroastrian messiah, is a case in point. A theoretical problem arises once it is shown that Zoroastrian apocalypses that foretell the advent of Shāh Bahrām are primarily medieval texts, lamenting the Byzantine, Arab and Turkish invasions of Iran. These texts are hardly prophecies, but are cast in the form of prophecies, through use of a literary device known as “vaticinium ex eventu” (prophecy after the event). 

These prophecies are a type of inverse history, where recent history (the calamity of conquest) is recounted, followed by a scenario expressed in the future perfect tense (prophecies), which more or less narrates what should have been, in the name of what shall be. It will be shown that Bahā’u’llāh’s appeal to the Shāh Bahrām tradition circumvents this problem by radically reinterpreting the Zoroastrian prophecies themselves, thereby reinventing the figure of Shāh Bahrām.

I devote this article, which aims systematically to prove that Y(asna) 33.2c 1 contains an oral acrostic, to the commemoration of our dear late colleague Hanns-Peter Schmidt, a great Indo-Iranist whose close studies of the Gathas were both innovative and highly reliable. I'll begin with Schmidt's (1985: 53) insightful summary of 33.2 (seq.): " If man treats his fellow-men according to their allegiance to truth or deceit, if he follows the rules of hospitality and if he overcomes the strife existing in society…, he then pleases God and reaps the benefits of the restoration of the original paradisical life, a state in which man totally communes with God and His entities. " Schmidt's overview will be borne out by the independent analysis to be given in the course of the present article. It was under the stimulus of Schmidt 1966 and 1985, with their attention to various lexical-semantic linkages between stanzas of Gathic poems, that I produced an account of the systematically concentric ring composition which governs each of the completed Gathic poems, 1 The two-digit numbering of the seventeen Gathic poems refers to to the traditional numerations of the seventeen Gathic poems, whereby eachGathic poem has a Yasna-number in accord wth placement in the post-Gathic sequence of Yasna-s, i.e. heterogeneous compositions (most more recent than the Gathas and not authored by Zarathushtra) which were to be recited in the course of the Yasna liturgy. The seventeen Gathic poems are thereby numbered as This numbering is based chiefly on a pentadic grouping of the seventeen poems according to metrical and stanzaic criteria. The numbers have nothing tio do with the original order of composition. Thus for example, the Gathic poem Yasna (= Y) 32 need not at all have been composed before (Yasna) 46, and indeed my SCRIM charting shows that the reverse is true. The Yasna number followed by period and one-or two-digit numbers indicate the stanzas of that poem, and the letters sa to e the lines in that stanza, and single or double quotation mark after those letters specify whether the citation is respectively from the first part or the second part of a line with regard to the obligatory metrically-based breakage (caesura) in each line. Thus 33.2c means '(the Gathic poem) Yasna 33, second stanza, third line; 33.2c' refers to the first part of that line, and 33.2c" to the second part of that same line. In the SCRIM charts in this article, the first (leftmost) columns of Gathic words represent words from poems whose composition is theorized as earlier than that of poems from which are given the related words in the second columns. The most important discussions of the SCRIM principle are given in

This chapter shall adduce and address striking poetic aspects of the seventeen Old
Avestan religious hymns comprising the five poems called the Gathas, whose authorship
is here accepted as that of the historical Zarathustra (for his historicity, see Schwartz
2007: 54–56).

Langer, Robert. "Schreine Und Wallfahrtsstätten Der Zarathustrier: Zur 'Sakralisierten Topographie' Irans [= Shrines and Pilgrimage Places of the Zoroastrians: The 'Sacralised Topography' of Iran]." In Heilige Orte in Asien: Räume Göttlicher Macht Und Menschlicher Verehrung. 1. Aufl., edited by Angelika C.; Messner and Konrad Hirschler, 219-56 (m. 30 Abb.). Hamburg, Schenefeld: EB-Verlag (ebv) Dr. Brandt, 2006.

For centuries, Xenophon's Cyropaedia has proved a puzzling document, as the work's literary genre is absolutely original and provokes questions about its relationship to (Persian) historical realities. My view is that the author had reliable information on Persian and even Zoroastrian facts and ideas, but turned them into fancies in order to be understood by his audience. Therefore, within a debate on education, for instance, one suddenly finds the story of a 'teacher' who lived in the time of the ancestors and instructed the children on good and evil. Normally, classicists tend to identify this enigmatic teacher as Lycurgus of Sparta, or else as some sophists known by Xenophon. Through a close examination of some Avestic texts, it is possible to suggest that his identity rather matches the mythical figure of Zarathustra, and the content of his message, at least, some parts of it.

Using Husserl's Cartesian Meditations as a frame of reference, I examine conditions of possibility for the " reversal " of transcendental reduction. Genetic phenomenological analysis of a textual fragment from the existential philosophy of consciousness in Zarathushtra's Gathas shows that by reducing out the sphere of ownness, it is possible to access the pure sphere of intersubjectivity. Zarathushtra sees the mind as primarily ethical, and originating from the sphere of intersubjectivity, as opposed to being constituted by intentionalities of the ego. The paper provides an overview of the Gathas as an alternative to philosophies of consciousness absolutizing constitutive role of the ego-pole.

Zarathushtra is one of the most influential people in human history. But on the other hand, his worldview and philosophy is unknown to many. In his message he emphasizes individual and human responsibility, as he considers the human being a creature with freedom of choice.
He teaches us, the wise one makes the right choice and unwise, does not. Therefore, Zarathushtra wants people to be transformed to the Wise Ones. According to him, human wisdom has its root in the wisdom of the Wise Creator of the Universe.
In his philosophy, Wisdom is that which gives us the ability to choose constructive choices instead of destructive ones. Considering human beings, this constructiveness/ destructiveness begins with our thoughts, and leads to constructive/ destructive words and actions.
For example, Equal rights for genders, taking care of the environment, constantly developing the earth to make it a happier and more comfortable place to live for all existences, supporting righteous leaders, supporting peace and avoiding war; all of these are important points in the teachings of Zarathushtra.
These days that environment, human rights, management and leadership, are taken more seriously into consideration under the topic of Corporate Social Responsibility; making ourselves familiar with the teachings of Zarathushtra, may open new windows for us. This book aims to go through the concept of Corporate Social Responsibility in Zarathushtra’s message, while focusing more on the Environmental, Social, and Organizational aspects.

In het recent verschenen Ainsi pensait Zarathoustra. Une philosophie avant la lettre (Paris, Non Lieu, 2017), onderzoekt Ann Van Sevenant de filosofische vooronderstellingen van het gedachtegoed van de Perzische Zarathoestra. Dit boek vormt het voorlopig laatste in een rij met zeer uiteenlopende onderwerpen: geschiedenis van de wijsbegeerte (Het verhaal van de filosofie, Hadewijch, 1992), esthetica (Il filosofo dei poeti, Mimesis, 1994), filosofie in het computertijdperk (Ecrire à la lumière, Galilée, 1999), zorgethiek (Philosophie de la sollicitude, Vrin, 2001), filosofie van het vrijen (Sexual Outercourse. Philosophy of Lovemaking, Peeters, 2005), etc. Judith Wambacq ging haar opzoeken voor een gesprek.

Eighteen binary polymorphisms and 16 multiallelic, short-tandem-repeat (STR) loci from the nonrecombining portion of the human Y chromosome were typed in 718 male subjects belonging to 12 ethnic groups of Pakistan. These identified 11 stable haplogroups and 503 combination binary marker/STR haplotypes. Haplogroup frequencies were generally similar to those in neighboring geographical areas, and the Pakistani populations speaking a language isolate (the Burushos), a Dravidian language (the Brahui), or a Sino-Tibetan language (the Balti) resembled the Indo-European–speaking majority. Nevertheless, median-joining networks of haplotypes revealed considerable substructuring of Y variation within Pakistan, with many populations showing distinct clusters of haplotypes. These patterns can be accounted for by a common pool of Y lineages, with substantial isolation between populations and drift in the smaller ones. Few comparative genetic or historical data are available for most populations, but the results can be compared with oral traditions about origins. The Y data support the well-established origin of the Parsis in Iran, the suggested descent of the Hazaras from Genghis Khan’s army, and the origin of the Negroid Makrani in Africa, but do not support traditions of Tibetan, Syrian, Greek, or Jewish origins for other populations.

Langer, R. (Mai 2012). "Myrtenzweig und Zuckerhut: Ein Sāl-Ritual im Zarathustrierviertel von Yazd. Blumen und Süßigkeiten: Festschrift für Seyfeddin Najmabadi zu seinem 90. Geburtstag." In J. Zimmermann (Ed.). Heidelberg, Seminar für Sprachen und Kulturen des Vorderen Orients: 13 S.