In Search of Zarathustra: Across Iran and Central Asia to Find the World's First Prophet by Paul Kriwaczek
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The Ideology of the Future

The talented amateur lives! Paul Kriwaczek has been an international car smuggler, a dental surgeon, a BBC radio producer, and a television film-maker before he wrote this book about the obscure but powerfully influential Persian religious figure, Zarathustra. Because Kriwaczek is not caught up in established disciplinary puzzles, he can make interesting connections that the professional historians of religion largely ignore or overlook. That he is often wrong in his judgment doesn’t diminish the importance of his creativity. Kriwaczek thinks that Zoroastrianism (the Greek version of Zarathustra’s religion) is the “ideology of the future.” He may well be right. But it is also the ideology of the past, one that has caused immense harm to humanity and the planet. It is therefore not an ideology to be seriously recommended.

There’s a good argument to be made that the Persian prophet Zarathustra, like the Sanskrit in which his thoughts are written down, is a primary source of Western culture. He invented monotheism (the one, invisible, entirely spiritual, God, Ahura Mazda), established the metaphysical and ethical dualism which is the foundation of Jewish, Christian and Muslim religious sentiment (Ahriman, the Power of Evil, as Mazda’s opponent who tempts and traps us), and created much of the spiritual symbolism and ritual which permeate Western culture (the halo representing the light of Mazda, angels as divine messengers, heaven, the virgin birth, the advent of a spiritual saviour, resurrection of the dead, final judgment, baptism, the mystical meal among worshippers, among others)

Zarathustra’s ideas were carried out of Central Asia by the Greeks of Alexander’s army, whence they were eventually incorporated into Greek philosophy (Pythagoras) and even the devotions of the subsequent Roman military (Mithraism). These same ideas leaked into the existing religions of Judaism (Satan) and emerging Christianity (the Magi), and eventually into the culture of Islam (the Divs or demons). Their message is that the battle between good and evil is “the essential wheel in the working of things.”

And despite its frequent suppression as contrary to official religious teaching, the Zoroastrian idea of a cosmic battle between good and evil has re-asserted itself continuously in the modern world in various forms. The Gnostics, the Manacheans, the Bogomils, the Cathars, strict Calvinists and Jansenists, the Mormons, and ultimately fundamentalisms of every type are direct descendants of Zoroastrian religious cults.

Yet the dominant official metaphysical ideology of the last two thousand or so years has been that the world is essentially good despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. The Jewish, Christian, and Islamic Scriptures claim the goodness of the world explicitly (Genesis 1:31; Surah An-Nisa, 4:40).* Zoroastrianism acts as a hidden but pervasive bedrock for much of Western culture. As Kriwaczek says,

“We have only to look around us at the prevailing myths of the twentieth century—in books and films—to see how strongly Zarathustra’s ethical dualism, the eternal battle between good and evil, continues as a constant theme in the human imagination.”

Western religions have always had a problem reconciling their doctrine of essential goodness with the obvious and ever-present existence of great evil. In order to maintain their metaphysical presumptions they have chosen to employ a sort of metaphysical hack and define evil theoretically as an ‘absence of God’ rather than a force in itself.

We know through experience that this is merely a theological rationalisation, a spiritual dream world. Our optimism about spiritual progress, the importance of reason and rationality, faith that faith will prevail has been shown to be obvious nonsense. The official explanation just doesn’t hold water. Perhaps this is a reason for the decline in participation among main stream sects.

In any case, in practice all Western religions support the cosmic Zoroastrian battle between good and evil. This is presented by them as the central drama of human life and is the clear residue of Zoroastrian ethical dualism. John Milton’s Paradise Lost is perhaps the most compelling example of the cultural penetration of the Zoroastrian metaphysic. Technically heretical, the ideological violence depicted in the poem is the source of not just Christian attitudes but also of general Western sentiment.

And the metaphysical background radiation of Zoroastrianism has very real consequences. For example, the American conception of its national existence as ‘a house on the hill’ confronting the Evil Empire of the day is a typical Zoroastrian political trope. As is Vladimir Putin’s crusade to re-instate the Russian empire, with the help of the Orthodox Church, as a bulwark against cultural degradation. For these folk, the good must not be compromised whether one is discussing abortion or armed invasion.

Like all metaphysics, the presumption of permanent conflict between good and evil itself, taken as a matter of implicit belief, is a self-fulfilling prophecy. It demands arbitrarily defining the good to be defended, taking sides, and purposely eliminating the possibility of negotiation and compromise. Zoroastrian ideology is therefore inherently divisive, the cause of secular war as well as religious strife. The growing cost of this metaphysic to democracy is becoming clear.

This is what Kriwaczek misses in his bouncing historical/travelogue narrative which shifts quickly from the splendour of the desert ruins of Central Asia to the musical genius of Mozart and the 18th century decipherment of Zoroastrian texts. His lack of systematic argument is evocative, enjoyable and informative but it carries no punch when it comes to reaching a credible conclusion.

So when Kriwaczek claims, for example, that Nietzsche, the philosopher who dedicated himself to overthrowing Zoroastrian dualism in his Beyond Good and Evil “was actually preaching a form of Zarathustra’s philosophy after all,” I begin to have my doubts about his perspicacity. And when he goes on to suggest that…

“… Zarathustra had such a clear vision of humanity’s moral choices that his counsel—good words, good thoughts, good deeds—is as applicable to our times as it was to his own...”

… I hit an intellectual wall. It seems as if Kriwaczek has become so enamoured of his subject that he is incapable of good judgment about it. Like the diehard Communist who thinks that the Soviet State just wasn’t given enough time to complete its mission of liberating the proletariat, Kriwaczek wants us to try harder with Zoroastrian dualism.

I agree with Kriwaczek that Zoroastrian Gnosticism is intellectually superior to any religious commitment to cosmic benignity. It is a coherent (and poetic) metaphysics which fits with the facts of existence as we know them. But this doesn’t make it truer or more beneficial for humanity or other living things. It is just another ideology which has shown itself to be as vulnerable to corruption as all others through the rationalising talents of human beings. Substituting one ideology for another is not an advance but a temporisation. See here for an alternative account: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

*The obvious contradiction between the sentiment of Genesis and that of the Book of Revelation is perhaps evidence of the substantial Gnostic impact on the emerging Jewish sect of Christianity.

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