Remember the story of the Three Wise Men? Did you ever wonder, how wise were they, anyway? I do not know if it will help our cause any, but here is the real skinny on those Magi dudes.
(I wish to thank everyone who slogged their way through my first post. I promise that if I ever feel like posting anything that dense again, I'll drop it on Cheney's toe first.)
The Magi were the priests of the Avesta, the holy book of the religion of Zarathustra, or as he is known in Greek, Zoroaster. His family were members of the ruling Farsi hegemony whose capital was at Susa.
But his politics were too progressive and he was forced to flee the Farsi court and seek refuge with an uncle, King Vishtapa (Grk., Hystapes) in the Eastern Mountains, i.e., Afghanistan.
He had an epiphany. He told the king that there were not lots of Devas and Ahuras, the two classes of Gods among the Indo-Aryan tribes. Those in India thought the Devas (Indra, Mithra, Varuna et al} were the "good guys" and the Asuras (=Persian Ahuras} were the "bad guys". In Persia, it was the reverse. They exalted the Ahuras, and except for Mithra, the Sun God, they thought all the Devas were bad. It is why our #1 bad guy is the Devil.
But Zoroaster said, "Uh-uhn. There is only one God and he is called Ahura Mazda, i.e., the Greatest Ahura. He made everything in the "good creation". He had a twin brother, Ahriman, who made everything bad, like snakes and lying. Man's job was to help Ahura Mazda defeat Ahriman and his evil world. Later Christians called them dualists. (If you want to know more, put the Avesta, Ahura-Mazda, Zarathushtra, and fire temples into Google and go where they take you.)
The rest of the gods' names were only epithets to describe this great Ahura. It was possible to know what God wanted, or what was right, by worshipping Him through Haoma (skr., Soma), His messenger between Himself and His Creation. (Too many capitals for you?) This worship took place in a fire-temple, a large windowless room, like a kivu, hogan, or yurt.
Well, it convinced old Hystapes, whose son, Darius I, gathered an army and marched down to Susa and defeated his Mithra worshipping cousins and made the Mazdaen religion the religion of the Persian Empire. He then conquered Medea, Babylonia and most of the world from Egypt to India.
The Pax Persiana lasted longer than any other Empire ever has (700 yrs.). Once they got your little nation to surrender, they quickly made nice-nice and told you where you were supposed to pay your taxes. If your little satrapy (viz., province or state) attacked another little satrapy, the big Persian Army would come and move your whole city far enough away from your enemy that you could not still make war. Enlightened, one might say.
They used to say, "The enemy of my enemy is my friend." When the Persians conquered Babylonia, the Jews had been enslaved there for 78 years (i.e., the Babylonian Captivity). The Persians were good to everyone. To the Babylonians they said, "Rebuild your temple to Marmaduke. Just pay your taxes." And to the Jews, "This Jehovah of yours is a lot like Ahura-Mazda." They bonded. Until the Ayatollah Khomeini changed the equation, skads of Jews had lived in Iran for thousands of years. One of these Jews, a man named Boas married a Persian woman named Ruth. Two Hebrew prophets, Ezra and Nehemiah, studied at the Persian Court. They convinced the Emperor to let them return to Jerusalem and rebuild the temple that had been destroyed by the Babylonians. This is the 2nd Temple whose only remains is the Wailing Wall.
Boas dies before his family can leave Persia. But his mom, Naomi, takes Ruth and her kid back to Jerusalem, where Zerubabel organizes the rebuilding efforts. What is important here is that Ruth's kid turns out to be King David. Jesus, moreover, is later born into this same Kingly tribe (Koins, Kahanes, or Cohens) and when He returns, He will again be born from out of this tribe. How this will happen if Christians or Muslims kill all the Jews, has never been satisfactorily explained to me.
Meanwhile, the Persians owned the whole world except for Greece. Xerxes, the son of the emperor, sails over to Greece to bring them into the program. But, somebody saw 'em coming. He ran from Marathon to Athens (26.3 miles) and dropped dead. But not before he told the citizenry that "the Persians are defeated" and forever began Marathon racing. (In case you don't remember, Archimedes set up a big lens at Pireus and proceded to burn up half the Persian fleet before they could land, by training the rays of the sun onto their sails. Xerxes turned tail, really pissed, vowing to come back and exact revenge.
Before the celebratory logs had cooled, Phillip, the barbarian king of Macedonia marches into Athens and takes the place over. Athens was pooped. They had just defeated Sparta in a really grueling war. Phillip soon dies. His fifteen year old kid, Alexander, takes over. He decides not to wait for Xerxes return. He marches out of Athens with 10,000 troops. He arrives at Persepolis with over 125,000 troops (another great story, but not for now), surprises the Persian Army, burns down the capital and ends the 1st Persian Empire.
Alexander's conquest brought back into prominence the Mithra cult that had been displaced by the Mazdaens. The Mithraists consolidated their power. They fought the Romans more than a few times over more than six centuries. The Romans brought back the orgiastic bull-sacrificing drunken worship of the Sun God to Rome. It became the religion of the Roman Legions. The people who crucified Jesus were Mithraists. Bacchantes, followers of Bacchus, the Roman God of wine became attached tp this cult.
The Zoroastrians, banished from their country, became wandering holy men. They also probably began the Essene communities. They preached that one day a Messiah (a Persian word) would come and He would return the world to the peace and prosperity it had known during the Pax Persiana. The Persian words paradise, hell, messiah and the devil begin appearing in Latin and Hebrew forms. A dozen Magi are alleged to have died at Masada defending Israel from the Romans, whom the Mazdaens considered followers of the Druj, or Lie, and their enemy, as well as the enemy of the Jews.
The apocryphal story of the Three Wise Men visiting the infant Jesus in the manger was meant to convey the idea that all men looking for a Savior had found Him in Jesus. Of course, it is a Christian story, but the original Messiah search was begun by the Persians. (Today's Gabars, remnants of the old Zoroastrians living in Iran, are still looking for Shah Bahram, or the Messiah.)
And now, the really cool part. The Zoroastrians worshipped God through Haoma, his messenger. A good man could approach Haoma who could make their good mind, a better mind with which to commune with the Best Mind (Vahishta Mainyu) an epithet for Ahura-Mazda.
They communed with Haoma in their fire-temples, where their fires were never allowed to go out (Cf., menorahs in the Temple; Chanukkah). Hoama is believed to have manifested himself on Earth as a plant. This plant was smoked and/or decocted and drunk (i.e., bhang). When archaeologists dig up these sites, the fire pits are lined with skads of petrified pot seeds. Clay pots unearthed, contain traces of what is believed to be Hom-juice. Various analyses show this Hom-juice to be cannabis, cannabis and ephedra, or cannabis and opium.
Think about it. Those who want us to return to the truly old time Christian spirit do not realize that the original communion was through the medium of "good herb". Somebody tell O'Reilly.
Now, I have tried to discover who it was that swiped our stash and left us a half-empty bottle of Mad Dog 20/20. Whoever it was, he is probably walking through the woods, right now, giggling his silly ass off!
It is Christmas. Traditions are great; celebrate it the way He would want you to. Shun the commercial version of X-mas and have a traditional holy day. Give someone a clay chilom that, perhaps, you make yourself. Make some majoun to pass around after the goose. Or, just smoke a big blunt in honor of the new-born King.
NOTES:
- R. Gordon Wasson, "The Divine Mushroom of Immortality", reviewed many of these details and concluded that Haoma was the amanita muscaria mushroom. Now, if I remember the 60's, mushroom eaters and pot smokers would not exactly kick each other out of bed. But the Persian prayers refer to leaves and stems, shoots and flowers, i.e., not a mushroom. But Wasson did not have all the information and he was a mycologist.
- While you are smoking your Haoma think: communion wine (untaxed) was still legal for the Church even during prohibition. Think you might want to be a Magi someday?
A democracy that is fixed, is broken.