The earliest Zoroastrians did not believe in Evil or Darkness being co-eternal with Good or Light, and they give the same interpretation.
Ahriman is the manifested shadow of A HURA-MAZDA (Asura-mazda), himself issued from Zeruana Akerne "boundless (circle of) Time" or the Unknown Cause.
"Its glory," they say of the latter, "is too exalted, its light too resplendent for either human intellect or mortal eye to grasp and see." Its primal emanation is eternal light, which, from having been previously concealed in D ARKNESS was called to manifest itself and thus was formed Ormazd, the "King of Life." He is the "first-born" in BOUNDLESS TIME, but, like his own antitype (pre-existing Spiritual idea), has lived within darkness from all eternity.
The six Amshaspends (seven with himself, chief of all), the primitive Spiritual Angels and Men are collectively his Logos.
The Zoroastrian Amshaspends create the world in six days or periods also, and rest on the Seventh; whereas that Seventh is the first period or "day," in esoteric philosophy, ( Primary creation in the Aryan cosmogony).
It is that intermediate AEon which is the Prologue to creation, and which stands on the borderland between the uncreated eternal Causation and the produced finite effects; a state of nascent activity and energy as the first aspect of the eternal immutable Quiescence.
In Genesis, on which no metaphysical energy has been spent, but only an extraordinary acuteness and ingenuity to veil the esoteric Truth, "Creation" begins at the third stage of manifestation.
"God" or the Elohim are the "Seven Regents" of Pymander.
They are identical with all the other Creators.
But even in Genesis that period is hinted at by the abruptness of the picture, and the "darkness" that was on the face of the deep.
The Alahim are shown to "create" -- that is to say, to build or to produce the two or "double heaven" ( not Heaven and Earth); which means, in so many words, that they separated the upper manifested (angelic) heaven, or plane of consciousness, from the lower or terrestrial plane; the (to us) eternal and immutable AEons from those periods that are in space, time and duration; Heaven from Earth, the unknown from the KNOWN -- to the profane.
Such is the meaning of the sentence in Pymander, which says that: " T HOUGHT, the divine, which is L IGHT and L IFE (Zeruana Akerne) produced through its W ORD, or first aspect," the other, operating T HOUGHT, which being the god of Spirit and Fire, constructed seven Regents enclosing within their circle the world of Senses, named "fatal destiny." The latter refers to Karma; the "seven circles" are the seven planets and planes, as also the seven invisible Spirits, in the angelic spheres, whose visible symbols are the seven planets,* the [[Footnote(s)]] ------------------------------------------------- * Another proof, if any were needed, that the ancient Initiates knew of more than seven planets is to be found in the Vishnu Purana, Book II ., ch.
xii., where, describing [[continued on following page]] [[Vol.
2, Page]] 489 THE ONE PASSIVE DEITY.
seven Rishis of the great Bear and other glyphs.
As said of the Adityas by Roth: "they are neither sun, nor moon, nor stars, nor dawn, but the eternal sustainers of this luminous life which exists as it were behind all these phenomena." It is they -- the "Seven Hosts" -- who, having "considered in their Father ( divine Thought) the plan of the operator," as says Pyrnander, desired to operate (or build the world with its creatures) likewise; for, having been born "within the sphere of operation" -- the manifesting Universe -- such is the Manvantaric L AW.
And now comes the second portion of the passage, or rather of two passages merged into one to conceal the full meaning.
Those who were born within the sphere of operation were "the brothers who loved him well." The latter -- the "him" -- were the primordial angels: the Asuras, the Ahriman, the Elohim -- or "Sons of God," of whom Satan was one -- all those spiritual beings who were called the "Angels of Darkness," because that darkness is absolute light, a fact now neglected if not entirely forgotten in theology.
Nevertheless, the spirituality of those much abused "Sons of Light" which is Darkness, must be evidently as great in comparison with that of the Angels next in order, as the ethereality of the latter would be, when contrasted with the density of the human body.
The former are the "First-born"; therefore so near to the confines of pure quiescent Spirit as to be merely the "PRIVATIONS" -- in the Aristotelian sense -- the ferouers or the ideal types of those who followed.
They could not create material, corporeal things; and, therefore, were said in process of time to have refused to create, as commanded by " God " -- otherwise, TO HAVE REBELLED.
Perchance, this is justified on that principle of the Scientific theory which teaches us about light and sound and the effect of two waves of equal length meeting.
"If the two sounds be of the same intensity, their coincidence produces a sound four times the intensity of either, while their interference produces absolute silence." Explaining some of the "heresies" of his day, Justin Martyr shows the identity of all the world religions at their starting points.
The first beginning opens invariably with the unknown and PASSIVE deity, from which emanates a certain active power or virtue, the Mystery that is sometimes called W ISDOM, sometimes the S ON, very often God, Angel, Lord, and L OGOS.* The latter is sometimes applied to the very first emanation, but in several systems it proceeds from the first androgyne or double ray produced at the beginning by the unseen.
Philo depicts this wisdom as male and female.
But though its first manifestation [[Footnote(s)]] ------------------------------------------------- [[Continued from preceding page]] the chariots attached to Dhruva (the pole star), Parasara speaks of "the chariots of the NINE planets," which are attached by aerial cords.
* Justin: "Cum.
Trypho," p.
284.
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 490 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
had a beginning, for it proceeded from Oulom* (Aion, time), the highest of the AEons when emitted from the Father, it had remained with him before all creations, for it is part of him.** Therefore, Philo Judaeus calls Adam Kadmon "mind" (the Ennoia of Bythos in the Gnostic system).
"The mind, let it be named Adam.*** As the old Magian books explain it, the whole event becomes clear.
Divine archetypal beings or eternal attributes dwelling within the Pleroma, often arranged in male-female syzygies.
The Amshaspends are explicitly called 'primitive Spiritual Angels and Men' who are collectively the Logos, and the passage directly uses the term 'AEons' to describe the eternal, immutable periods contrasted with those in space and time.
Ahura-Mazda is the central figure of the Zoroastrian section, described as the 'King of Life,' 'first-born in BOUNDLESS TIME,' whose primal emanation is eternal light — embodying the divine ordering principle of truth and light.
Ahriman is explicitly discussed but reinterpreted as 'the manifested shadow of Ahura-Mazda' rather than a co-eternal principle of disorder, and the 'Angels of Darkness' are revealed to be 'Sons of Light' whose darkness is 'absolute light.'
Narratives or doctrines of cosmic origin — how heaven, earth, and the primordial deities first came into being. The Kojiki's deities born alone on the Plain of High Heaven, Voluspo's Ginnungagap, Genesis's tohu wa-bohu, the Timaeus's Demiurge fashioning the Receptacle, the Hesiodic Theogony, the Kalevala's egg-cosmogony, Egyptian Nun-and-Atum. Distinct from emanation_hierarchy (structural-ontological cascade), letters_of_creation (mechanism of creation), and apocatastasis/frashokereti (end-state restoration); cosmogony is temporally-narrative beginning.
The entire passage is a comparative cosmogonic analysis: Zoroastrian creation from Zeruana Akerne, Genesis's creation beginning at the third stage, Pymander's THOUGHT producing the world through its WORD, and the Manvantaric Law — all narratives of cosmic origin.
The uncreated luminous quality of the divine, sometimes experienced directly in mystical states; illumination as revelation.
'Its primal emanation is eternal light,' 'THOUGHT, the divine, which is LIGHT and LIFE,' and 'that darkness is absolute light' — divine light is a central quality of the emanating principle throughout the passage.
A chain of divine beings or principles flowing downward from a single transcendent source (the One or the Father), each level less perfect than the one above.
The passage traces a clear cascading chain from Zeruana Akerne (Unknown Cause) through Ahura-Mazda, Ormazd, the Amshaspends/Logos, down to the material world, and repeats this structure in the Pymander passage (THOUGHT → WORD → Seven Regents → world of Senses).
Augustinian and Plotinian doctrine that evil has no positive being of its own but is a lack, distortion, or absence of the good — denying ontological dualism while preserving moral seriousness.
Ahriman is 'the manifested shadow' (not an independent being), the 'Sons of Light which is Darkness' are 'merely the PRIVATIONS — in the Aristotelian sense — the ferouers or the ideal types of those who followed,' and evil is denied co-eternality with good.
The Hermetic doctrine that a masculine-feminine generative principle operates on every plane of being, not only the biological — present at all times as a structural feature of creation itself. Distinct from divine_marriage (a specific reunification event or symbol) and aeons (paired divine beings arranged in syzygies, not a universal structural claim).
'Philo depicts this wisdom as male and female' and 'the first androgyne or double ray produced at the beginning by the unseen' explicitly state that a masculine-feminine generative principle operates at the highest level of creation.
The doctrine that the cosmos unfolds as a structured descent of spirit into matter — a directional process traced stage by stage from an unconditioned principle down through successive planes to full materialization — complemented by its own eventual return ('evolution'). Distinct from emanation_hierarchy (the static structure of the resulting levels of the cascade) and cosmogony (a single originating event rather than an ongoing staged process) in naming the directional cosmic PROCESS of descent itself, paired with its own complementary ascent.
The passage describes a directional descent from 'the eternal immutable Quiescence' through 'nascent activity and energy' (the first aspect) through the Amshaspends/Logos down to the material world, naming the intermediate AEon as 'the Prologue to creation' on the 'borderland between the uncreated eternal Causation and the produced finite effects.'
The divine reason, word, or ordering principle through which the universe was created; mediates between the transcendent God and the material world.
The Logos is explicitly identified as the collective Amshaspends, as the 'WORD, or first aspect' through which THOUGHT produces the operating thought, and as the name sometimes applied to the first emanation — it is the central mediating principle of the entire passage.
The Hermetic doctrine that THE ALL is Mind, and the Universe is mental in nature — a created thought held in the mind of THE ALL. Distinct from unity_of_being in specifying WHAT the underlying oneness is (mind, not an unspecified single substance), and from logos (a mediating ordering word BETWEEN a transcendent God and a separate material world) in collapsing that mediation entirely — under mentalism there is no world outside mind to mediate to.
THOUGHT is identified as divine, as LIGHT and LIFE, and as the producer of the world through its WORD; Adam Kadmon is called 'mind' (the Ennoia of Bythos) — suggesting the universe is fundamentally mental in nature.
The 1 Enoch narrative in which a class of originally-good angelic beings (the Watchers) descends, mates with women, and teaches forbidden arts — the substrate that Gnostic archons inherits and inverts: archons are born malevolent, the Watchers fall through transgression.
The passage explicitly references the 'Sons of God' of whom 'Satan was one,' who 'refused to create, as commanded by God — otherwise, TO HAVE REBELLED,' directly engaging with the Watchers narrative and reinterpreting the fall as an ontological inability rather than moral transgression.