A Psychological Approach to Zoroastrian Cosmogony
Donald Kalsched’s theory on the traumatized Soul in the battle of Ohrmazd and Ahriman
By Farânak Mirjalili
First published in Journal for the Academic Study of Religion (JASR) Special Issue: New Perspectives on
Religions and Traditions, JASR 37.1 (2024) 1–2
https://doi.org/10.1558/jasr.28862
Abstract
Creation stories at times intertwine cosmogonic narratives of both creation and destruction, grounding the human psyche in its origins and providing cultural or faith-based meaning to the workings of the universe. The Zoroastrian creation story stands out with its unique dance between opposites, reflecting the stark dualities in Zoroaster’s teachings. Noteworthy is the place of ‘evil’ as Ahriman, the Zoroastrian evil twin of the truthful God Ohrmazd is not only destructive but becomes the catalyst for the transfiguration and regeneration of earthly life. The present paper explores a new perspective on this cosmic drama by drawing on the insights from Analytical Psychology (psychoanalysis of C. G. Jung) and its symbolic and introverted approach to ancient mythology. The work of Donald Kalsched (b.1943), a contemporary Jungian author and clinician, offers a compelling psychological lens for interpreting these archetypal dichotomies that have captivated humanity for millennia through integrating recent studies on trauma and developmental psychology.
Keywords
Zoroastrian cosmogony, Ahriman, Ohrmazd, Donald Kalsched, Analytical Psychology, psychoanalytical theory, Carl G. Jung
1. Introduction
The nature of creation stories often has within itself a narrative woven of both creation and destruction as it roots the human psyche into its origins and the workings of the universe in a way that gives meaning to the culture, or faith, to which it belongs.
The Zoroastrian creation story, however, has an interesting narrative of creation and destruction woven throughout the entire creation of the elements, nature, animals and humankind. Through the stark binary oppositions in the doctrine of Zoroaster’s teachings, we can find a dance between opposites that is unlike many other creation stories. From an eschatological perspective, it is also important to study Zoroastrian thought as in this ‘final destruction and resurrection’ we find the eschatological roots of the later faiths of Jews, Christians and Muslims (Boyce 1975: 246). There is however, an important differentiation between the Zoroastrian final age and those of the later faiths, which calls upon the works of the ordinary man in aiding the battle of God. This element of ‘work’ we also find embedded in the creation story, where the forces of evil are a catalyst for the transfiguration and regeneration of life on earth. From a psychological lens, this ‘aid to God’ in the final battle brings with it an introverted (meaning from the lens of an inner psychic reality) responsibility towards redemption. Carl Gustav Jung (1875-1961) was a Swiss psychiatrist and psychoanalyst whose work profoundly helped bring a new perspective to ancient mythology and religious symbols by looking at the archaic motifs and sacred texts as a psychological inner reality. He was one of the most innovative psychiatrists of the 20th century, who brought a layered understanding of the psyche and the differentiation between the personal unconscious and what he termed the ‘collective unconscious’. This was partly the result of his early work with patients in deep psychosis who frequently had past traumatic experiences. His work and legacy found interesting intersections with new studies on trauma and developmental psychology, which finds its fruition in the work and writings of American Clinical Psychologist and Jungian Psychoanalyst, Donald Kalsched (b.1943). In this paper, I will make a first attempt at applying Kalsched’s theory to one of the oldest creation myths which lends itself well to a new perspective on the study of religion. This can be valuable since the Zoroastrian cosmogony has one of the starkest dualities we find in the history of mythology and religion. This new perspective on the destructive force of ‘evil’, which is prominent in the Zoroastrian creation story, can shine a new light on our understanding of this force, giving us a psychoanalytical, trauma-informed and deeply compassionate view on the workings of these forces within the human psyche.
First, I will briefly introduce Zoroastrianism and the psychoanalytical theory with which I will be working. Then I will elaborate on the Zoroastrian creation story and apply the psychoanalytical ‘Kalschedian’ perspective to each part of the myth.
2. Introduction to Zoroastrianism
Zoroastrianism (also known as Mazdaism), an ancient religion originating from Iran around 1000 BCE, holds a significant position among the world’s major religions. Zoroastrianism centers around the teachings of the prophet Zoroaster, or Zarathustra, whose revelations are compiled in the sacred texts called the Avesta, which was orally composed roughly between 1500 – 500 BCE (see Salzman and Sweeney 2018: 102). The Avesta is a repository of oral texts, which were only written down around 600 BCE, many centuries after Zoroaster lived, although no scholarly evidence has yet been found on when he exactly lived. Very little is known about the people who composed these texts, but scholarly research agrees that the oldest part of the Old Avesta, the Gathas (‘Songs’), directly originates from Zoroaster’s teachings, which were preserved in the strict oral tradition (Boyce 1975: 19).
Central to Zoroastrianism is the dualism conceived through a cosmic conflict between the supreme deity Ohrmazd (the Wise Lord), also known as Ahura Mazda, and the destructive force of Ahriman (the Evil Spirit, or Deceit/Corruption), also known as Angra Mainyu. Zoroastrians believe in a continuous struggle between Good and Evil. There is a moral framework that emphasizes the importance of individual responsibility and work, collective community engagement, and the pursuit of righteousness (i.e. the Good) in life. This ancient Iranian religion is known to be the origin of dualism in its purest form, and with it, the root of the transition of the world religions from pagan worship of animism, (human) sacrifice and the appeasing of the wrath of nature deities to the worship of the ‘good’ and one Deity; a transition that contributed to the beginnings of civilization in the world.
The origins of the world in Zoroastrian and Vedic cosmogony are the closest scholars have come to understanding the archaic, pagan Indo-Iranian beliefs (see Boyce 1975; Lincoln 1975). There are many parallels in the Avesta with the Vedic texts; however, they also tend to diverge significantly. This work has been preserved and well-articulated in the Pahlavi work called Bundahishn (Primal/Primordial Creation), from which I will mostly draw the narrative of the creation myth, in combination with passages from the Avesta.
3. Introduction to Jung and his Theory
Carl Jung’s work and theory profoundly shaped our understanding of the human psyche. Beyond the field of psychology, Jung's ideas have permeated into literature, pop-culture, and religious and social studies, influencing a broad spectrum of disciplines. He is considered one of the founders of depth psychology, the field of psychology that delves into the exploration of both conscious and unconscious dimensions of the human psyche. His career started as a close student of Sigmund Freud (1856-1939), but it was his departure from Freudian psychoanalysis that led him through a dramatic break-up with both his mentor and his colleagues that plunged him into a period of crisis–to develop depth concepts and approaches to the psyche, emphasizing the importance of the collective unconscious, archetypes, mythology, religious symbols which all led to a process he came to coin as individuation.
At the core of Jung's theory is the idea that beyond the personal unconscious (which houses complexes) lies a shared reservoir of universal symbols, patterns, and images, known as the collective unconscious (Jung 2014b: paras 88–90). This collective layer of the psyche houses archetypes (Jung 2014b: paras 1–86), what primordial cultures experienced as gods, goddesses and deities and which Jung describes as fundamental, recurring symbols that shape human experiences across cultures and epochs. Jung's theory on archetypes emphasizes his understanding of a shared human (and non-human) heritage, that weaves a collective narrative that transcends individual stories and is the connective tissue between past and present, and across cultures. Individuation, a central concept in Jungian psychology, describes the process of coming into wholeness that comes from the withdrawal of impersonal projections, i.e. the differentiation, integration, and synthesis of unconscious contents of the psyche. This involves integration of what Jung coined as the shadow (Jung 1953: paras 13–19) and the anima (‘soul’) or animus (‘spirit’) (Jung 2014a: para. 664), the inner female or male counterpart of the individual, based on the gender in which they are born. The individuation process finally leads to coming closer and living in relationship with the center of the psyche, that is the God or Christ-image within wo/man, which he called the Self (see Jung 1953: paras 43–60). The Self, as an archetype, is important to differentiate from the ego which “is related to the Self as part to the whole” (Jung 2014b: para. 315). While the ego is the centre of one’s consciousness, the Self represents the whole personality, both conscious and unconscious, light and dark and ultimately the force behind individuation itself.
4. Donald Kalsched and a Psycho-spiritual Approach to Trauma
The past decades have been fruitful to the field of psychotherapy and psychoanalysis with regards to understanding trauma, its roots, its physiology, and its myriad of treatment methodologies. Donald Kalsched is a clinical psychologist, Jungian psychoanalyst and author of several books and publications on the traumatized psyche that include The Inner World of Trauma: Archetypal Defenses of the Personal Spirit (1996) and Trauma and the Soul: A psycho-spiritual approach to human development and its suffering (2013). His work and theory are of particular interest to those interested in a mythopoetic approach to understanding and working with trauma as well as scholars of religion who are interested in a contemporary understanding of mythology through the lens of psychology. What is unique about Kalsched’s approach is his ability to shine a psychological light on the ancient, religious, and mythic figures and stories without losing touch with their religious dimension. Rather, his theory seems to be able to bridge psychology and religion through an analytic and compassionate understanding of the traumatized soul. It is the latter that makes his work a continuation of Jung’s theory as Jung himself was interested in bridging these two fields but did not have the advantage of our contemporary understanding and studies on trauma (especially on the infant-psyche) that have developed over the past decades.
Introduction to Kalsched’s theory
Kalsched’s theory is rooted in both relational theory and depth-psychology with a focus on the Jungian understanding of the deeper archetypal layers of the unconscious. His theory is deeply influenced by psychoanalyst and pediatrician Donald Winnicott (1896—1971) whose work on objects-relation theory and developmental psychology greatly influenced later studies on child psychology and the understanding of early attachment trauma in infants. Through this ‘binocular view of early trauma’ (Kalsched 2013a: 491) that brings together the mythopoetic dimension of Jung’s work with trauma-informed developmental psychology, Kalsched gives contemporary psychotherapy a greater understanding of the archetypal forces within the human psyche, with a special focus on the darker forces of the mythopoetic realm, what is considered evil in the study of religion.
In his books, Kalsched shows, through both theory and casework, that the soul or ‘personal spirit’ of the trauma-victim falls into the depths of the archetypal world when the traumatic injury happens before the constellation of an ego, i.e. in early childhood trauma when the child is given too much to bear before it can experience it consciously (Kalsched 2020: 137). Due to the immaturity of the psyche and/or the brain, the child is ill-equipped to metabolize their experience: ‘An infant or a young child who is abused, violated or seriously neglected by a caretaking adult, is overwhelmed by intolerable affects that are impossible for it to metabolize, much less understand or even think about’ (Kalsched 2013b: 10–11). Trauma, then, for Kalsched is an injury to the capacity to feel, an insight which he adopts from the late Paul Russell (1934-1996) (Teicholz and Kriegman 1998: 24).
This rupture to the psyche brings about a shock to the psychosomatic unity of the child that is so extreme that it can threaten the very core of the child and extinguish its ‘vital spark’, what Kalsched refers to as the ‘imperishable personal spirit’ or ‘soul’ (Kalsched 1996: 3). Instead of this total annihilation and shattering, a life-saving mechanism of splitting comes into play: dissociation. This dissociation shatters the unbearable affects, as it were, by dismembering the experience into various aspects of the felt experience and distributing them to different parts of the psyche, thereby preventing the experience of the annihilating affect as a whole. This allows life to go on, albeit at a costly price, i.e. the vitality of life-force that was available before the trauma (Kalsched 2013b: 11). Here, Kalsched argues that due to the not-yet-developed ego, the forces from a deeper, archetypal layer of the psyche (what Jung called the Self) come to the rescue of what is left of the personal essence of the child. These forces can be either light or dark, and while they are each other’s opposites, both serve as the ‘protector’ of the personal spirit and, in some cases, an archetypal drama and battle between the two forces occurs. He calls these defenses of the personal spirit the ‘self-care system’. While the ‘light angel’ protects [against overwhelming affect] through imagination or illusion and fantasy, the ‘dark angel’ is the violent ‘persecutor-protector’ who attacks and severs the connection between head (memory/image) and body (affect): ‘I have found such violent imagery to be common in the dissociated psyche. When we get such images of murderers or killers in dreams, I have come to realize that they are almost always defenses against underlying affect and against consciousness of this affect. So the killer is a killer of consciousness’ (Kalsched 2020: 144–45). What these forces have in common, whether they are perceived as light or dark is a daimonic quality, that is a certain transpersonal and not yet personalized imagery.
Recognizing and understanding the self-care system of a client has therapeutic significance. In the therapeutic process the exploration and acknowledgment of these inner protectors become essential for facilitating the healing process, which he emphasizes lies in the power of facilitating in-the-moment affect and somatic awareness as here is where the traumatic injuries are stored and can be healed (Kalsched 2020: 139–40). Kalsched’s work stresses the importance of creating a safe therapeutic container where these internal figures can be understood, engaged with, and dismantled. Rather than ‘exorcising’ the dark force in the psyche, he argues that it needs to be released from their ‘vocation’ which is protection against vulnerability and ultimately life itself (Kalsched 2020: 145).
Blake’s “Good” and “Evil” angels fighting over the child is Don Kalsched’s favourite depiction of what he calls the self-care-system.
Dark Angel, Light Angel and an Interpretation of Dante’s Dis.
Throughout his writing, Kalsched amplifies the notion of the ‘light and dark angel,’ which he chose to illustrate on the cover of his second book, Trauma and Soul, with William Blake’s Good and Evil Angels Struggling for the Possession of a Child (1793-1794). The battle between the two angels is a reality of the inner world of the traumatized child, in whose psyche a real war of opposites is taking place between the will to live life fully and a hostile force that wants to destroy the new emerging life spark at all costs. He describes the symbolism in the painting:
On the left side of Blake’s image we see a dark angel, Lucifer in his fallen condition, known as the Devil, shackled to material reality and to the body – his eyes glazed over in a kind of trauma‐trance. As an archetypal figure, he would represent pure evil or pure hatred or pure violence or pure negation – the death‐drive, the Adversary, the Anti‐Christ, the Terrorist, the Tyrant, the Accuser, the Critic. [….] On the right, with the child in its arms, is a bright angel untethered and free, moving toward the light and, we might surmise, up into the head, away from affect in the body. As a Spirit‐being s/he is associated with the celestial or upper regions of the psyche/cosmos, including those aspects of the mind which allow us to transcend our impossible feelings‐in‐the‐body and our physical limitations […]. As an archetypal figure this angel would represent essential goodness, abundant life, contentment, safety, redemption, bliss, transcendence, protection (Kalsched 2017: 478).
Kalsched continues elaborating on the light and dark angel in this book through amplifications in myth and fairy tales with clinical vignettes. One of the mythic figures he works with thoroughly is the devil figure of Dis in Dante’s Divine Comedy (1308-1321). As a ‘lord of dissociation’ Dis (Latin for ‘divide’ or ‘negate’) is the ultimate black angel in Kalsched’s reading of Dante’s descent into Hell, which he explains is an excellent psychological analogy as the poet undertakes this arduous journey into the pit of hell as he is looking for the root cause of his suffering (Kalsched 2013b: 86–90). This ‘lord of dissociation’ is for Kalsched also an ‘anti-embodiment’ force, as it is in the somatic body that the overwhelming affect of the trauma is stored (Kalsched 2013b: 114–16).
5. A ‘Kalschedian’ Perspective on the Zoroastrian Creation Story
The first time I thought about the application of Kalsched’s theory to the Zoroastrian creation story was when I was sitting in a lecture by him, listening to the characteristics of these opposing forces of protection/persecution in the ‘self-care system’ of the psyche. I began a short discussion with Dr. Kalsched, who was intrigued to hear about this ancient myth that seemed to illustrate his theory quite viscerally. I consider this a first attempt to apply his theory to this creation myth, which could be further elaborated, especially in a wider interpretation for the collective psyche and the experiences of collective human trauma that people have undergone throughout time.
Part 1: The Beginning of Time
Thus, it is revealed in the good dēn:
‘Ohrmazd was on high, in omniscience and goodness, for eternity in the light.’
That light is the throne and place of Ohrmazd; some call it “endless light”. And that omniscience and goodness and eternity existed just like Ohrmazd, his throne, his dēn, and time.
Ahriman was in darkness, afterthought, and aggression, down deep. Aggression was his nature and darkness his place; some call it “endless darkness”’. – Bundahishn (Shaked and Stroumsa 2020: 6) remove the italics from the parenthetic citation.
Before the creation of the material cosmos, the Bundahishn tells us that there was in the beginning Ohrmazd and Ahriman. These two spirits exist together before creation and between them was a void, a Way that led into the primordial Mixture (the Aeon of Good and Evil). While Ohrmazd knew of the existence of this shadow, Ahriman did not. During this time of the oblivion of Ahriman, Ohrmazd was able to create a defense against the future evil attacks of the evil twin by ‘fashioning the creatures spiritually with the necessary instruments.’ However, at this time all of creation is still in a spiritual state (mēnōg, translating as ‘invisible, immaterial’) (Williams 2009, 55).
‘For three thousand years, the creatures were only spiritual; that is, they were unthinking, unmoving, and intangible.’ – Bundahishn (Shaked and Stroumsa 2020: 6).
It was only after Ahriman rose up from the darkness toward the ‘body of Ohrmazd’ that he was confronted with the light and all the creatures of light: ‘When he saw Ohrmazd’s light, intangible and blazing, because of his aggression and jealousy he attacked to destroy it.’ He then went down to his abyss again and started his mirror-creation: creatures of darkness, aggression, and death. And thus, the creation of the cosmos was set in motion as for each creation, stars, planets, plants and animals, Ahriman created an opposite or polluted the element with his essence.
‘When these two spirits first met, they created Life and Not-Life.’ – Yasna 30.4
Psychoanalytical Application
The immediate and most apparent comparison one can make is the polarity of light and dark, Ahriman, who represent destruction, deceit, and ignorance while Ohrmazd represents wisdom, light, and truth. From a psychoanalytical perspective, it is perhaps interesting to know that in Zoroaster’s teachings it is written that these two primal twin spirits of good and evil were revealed to him ‘through a dream’ (Yasna 30.3).
The first period of existence/creation? is a rather smooth one, when Ahriman is not yet ‘activated’ and all of life is still in a spiritual, transcendent and non-material state (‘the creatures were only spiritual’). This spiritual state and the ‘oblivion’ of Ahriman is an interesting one as, on the other side, Ohrmazd is conscious of the evil spirit and starts his defense against him by creating benevolent beings of light and goodness. This form of dualism, i.e. ‘radical dualism’ (see Williams 2009, 63) is more challenging to interpret psychologically as the split of good and evil is present at the origins of the cosmos before the creation of the material world, i.e there is no unity in the cosmogenic origins.
However, this radical split is strangely echoed in the dissociative psychology of trauma survivors where an extreme splitting prevents the personality from embodying or ‘incarnating’ in time and space reality, keeping the patient in a state of perpetual dissociation (Kalsched 1996: 38). In the creation story, it all goes relatively smoothly in the time of Ahriman’s ‘oblivion’ but it is when Ohrmazd starts the process of creating the material world (i.e. embodiment), that Ahriman radically ‘activates’. As we will see below, Ahriman’s continuous attacks during the period of ‘the Assault’ on Ohrmazd’s creations echoes the ‘repetition compulsion’ of the dark angel in the psyche, the archetypal defense system that continuously attacks any possibility for a new life opportunity. This kind of ‘defense league’ or ‘tyrannical caretaker’ is far more powerful than a personal shadow as it comes with an archetypal power to completely overwhelm the ego and its agency, many years after the traumatic injury has occured (Kalsched 1996: 3-4). Ahriman embodies this aspect of the dark angel in his relentless obsession to destroy every lifeform Ohrmazd creates, from the elements to the plant, animal, and human realms. Known as the creator of druj (lie, deceit), Ahriman veils the truth, casts doubt and creates ignorance in the psyche, erasing, hiding, or veiling the truth about past traumatic memories and affects. He is, indeed, an anti-consciousness force, while Ohrmazd would represent consciousness itself, albeit the transcendent light side of the God-image (or Self).
For Jung, the Self (and God) had both a light and dark side which the human being had to grapple with (see Jung and Shamdasani 2012:?). This idea comes closer to Zurvanism, a branch considered heresy in orthodox Zoroastrianism. In the Zurvanist version of the myth, Ohrmazd and Ahriman do not exist in the beginning but are born from a common source called Zurwān (or? Zaman, which translates as ‘Time’) (see Zaehner 1972). Zurwān desired offspring and thus started a period of sacrifice so as to ‘create heaven and hell and everything in between’. When he had done this for a thousand years, he had a moment of doubt about the efficacy of sacrifice. It is in this moment that creation was conceived. Ohrmazd stood for sacrifice (the sacred, life) and Ahriman for doubt. The two are not metaphorical brothers here but cosmic twins interlinked through their origin and birth. (Skjærvø 2011: 124) In both versions of the myth, however, Ahriman embodies the compulsive force and desire to destroy, pollute and kill every new life-form that Ohrmazd brings into being.
One interesting clinical vignette Kalsched describes, Mrs. Y and the Shotgunner, well illustrates this ‘repetition compulsion’ of the dark angel’s workings in the psyche (Kalsched 1996: 19-28). Summarized, the case revolves around an accomplished 60-year-old woman seeking analysis due to generalized depression and a realization that some part of her was withheld in her relationships. The patient recognized a root cause in her childhood, of which she had only a few memories. Her history unveiled a childhood in a home of material luxury and emotional poverty, with a narcissistic mother and an often absent father whom she adored. He passed away after a challenging illness when the patient was 8 years old. Mrs. Y's emotional memories as a child were mostly with nannies and nurses, while her relationship with her mother remained distant and untouchable, especially compared to her other two siblings. The younger sibling was the favorite of both parents, while the older brother, brain-damaged and symbiotically tied to the mother, left this middle child emotionally abandoned. During the course of analysis, these narratives of her past were discussed, but not yet experienced emotionally. One day, the client uncovered old video tapes of her as a 2-year old, crying desperately, chasing one pair of legs after the other, pleading for help without success, until she was finally overcome by grief and rage and consequently was picked up by the nanny and dragged off kicking and screaming with volatile emotions. However, when she was narrating this Kalsched noticed that there was no real accompanying affect, and so he suggested to watch the film together in a special ‘movie-session’. She accepted and soon they sat side by side in the consulting room watching this short clip where both she and her analyst, Kalsched, were overcome with tears. The session continued with windows of both grief and compassion as well as resistance and defenses against this new vulnerability. However, the next session she confessed that she was deeply touched because Kalsched had now ‘become a human being’ to her. In fact, she was so touched that she wrote in her journal all night of how she had ‘affected him' and that ‘he cared about her’. This emotional break-through, however, woke up the defenses and that same night she had a terrible nightmare. In the dream there is a ‘long awaited joyful reunion between two women’ that was violently interrupted by a violent male shotgunner who shoots one of them in the face and the other, looking out from the balcony, falls over in grief while vomiting blood. The shocking and violent imagery evoked horror and revulsion and in the next session they uncovered why the psyche had responded with such a destructive force as a response to a tender, vulnerable opening. It appeared that, indeed, her self-care system had kicked in by trying to protect her through ‘telling her’ (inwardly) that he didn’t really care about her and that it was all ‘just a technique and part of the business’. This self-attack on her emerging vulnerability and ‘neediness’, Kalsched argues, is the result of a split in her inner world where her rage towards her neglectful parents was used to repress the neediness about which even now she had grown intolerant. And so the aggressive energies of the psyche are turned back upon the dependent aspects (Kalsched 1996: 23). The self-care system turns into a ‘self-destruct system’ gone mad as it perceives every new possible vulnerable situation as a threat and violently attacks it, turning the inner world into a nightmare of continuous persecution and self-attack, imaged in dreams often as these diabolical inner figures.
Part 2: The Creation of the Material World
Ahura Mazda is now not alone as he has created many creatures of light and forces of good. Amongst them are the fravasis who can best be described as ‘pre-souls’ or ancestral spirits (Yasna 26.7). The fravasis help Ohrmazd weave and ‘stretch out’ the created universe (macrocosm; sky, Heavenly River Anâhita and Earth) as well as the microcosm; the creation of humanity (Yasht, 13:2.). One of the fravasis’ functions was to help ‘weave’ the cosmic tissue of creation by helping Ohrmazd ‘stretch and hold out’ (wi-dāraya-) these tissues of creation (Salzman and Sweeney 2018: 112).
The first created thing is the sky (asmân), which was like a perfectly round, empty shell, made of stone. This sphere, sometimes described as egg-shaped, enclosed everything, passing beneath the earth, and framing the space above it. The idea that the sky is made of stone is an archaic one, dating back to the Indo-Iranians, and in the Iranian languages the various words rooting back to asmân simply mean stone. In the Avesta (Yasna 30.5) Zoroaster himself referred to the sky as the ‘hardest of stones’, a kind of rock-crystal (Boyce 1975: 131).
It looks like a palace, that stands built of a heavenly substance, firmly established, with ends that lie afar, shining in its body of ruby over the three-thirds (of the earth); it is like a garment inlaid with stars, made of a heavenly substance, that Mazda puts on, along with Mithra and Rashnu and Spenta-Armaiti, and on no side can the eye perceive the end of it. – Yasht 13, paragraph 3
The sky has strong, warrior-like qualities to protect creation from Ahriman: ‘It accepted its role to be an enduring fortress against the Evil Spirit, preventing him from scurrying away in retreat’ (Boyce 1975: 131).
Second, Ahura Mazda fashioned water, from the essence of the sky [this includes the stars] the Bundahishn says. Water comes down from the sky [stars] in the form of the Angel-Goddess Aredvi Sura Anâhita, who, upon Ohrmazd’s request, brings herself down to the Earth. Water fills the lower part of the sphere and flows everywhere beneath the Earth, the third created element. From the surface of the earth then grew the first mountain, which can be seen as the cosmic mountain in the Zoroastrian cosmogony. The mountain is called Harâ Berezaiti (Pahlavi Harburz, Persian Alborz), the ‘lofty Watchpost’. The Bundahishn describes it as the first mountain which has ‘roots’ that hold in potentiality all the other mountains on Earth. The fourth creation is that of the plant, one simple plant that sprouted at the top of Harâ :
‘Fourth, he created the plant. It sprouted up initially in the middle of the earth several feet tall, without branch, bark, or thorn, moist and sweet. Its nature contained all the species and vital force [seeds] of all plants.’ – Bundahishn (Shaked and Stroumsa 2020, 13).
During what is known as the period of ‘the Assault’ (Skjærvø 2011: 96–102), the first plant is attacked and destroyed by the evil spirit Ahriman who poisons this first green plant of Ohrmazd and makes it wither (Shaked and Stroumsa 2020, 30). In the Bundahishn the plant is not the first creation to be attacked; the sky and water were attacked by Ahriman? burrowing through the middle of the Earth and polluting both the earth and all the waters that flow underneath it.
However, an interesting motif appears with the attack on the first plant: ‘…the Immortal Deity (or Angel-Goddess) who cares for plants, Spenta Ameretât, pounded it [the withered plant] small, and its essence was scattered over the earth by rain, and from it grew all plants; and it was from the seeds of these, its first descendants, that the Tree of All Seeds grew up in Vourukaša [cosmic ocean].’ This, according to Boyce, seems to be an artificial marrying of old popular myth with less picturesque priestly doctrines. ‘Thereafter every year Tistrya takes up the seeds from the Tree with the waters, so that he may “rain [them] upon the world with the rain” and renew the life of plants everywhere’ (Boyce 1975: 138). A similar transmutation happens to the fifth creation, the Primordial Cow, or Uniquely-Created-Cow, named Gavaevodata [gav-aēvō.dātā], who is said to be ‘white, bright like the moon, and three measured poles in height’. This most beloved animal is also slain by Ahriman, upon which Spenta Ameretât takes its ‘seed’ [cithra] to the moon and has it purified by its waters, from which then are derived all the beneficent animals of the earth and a number of grains and medicinal plants (Boyce 1975: 139; Shaked and Stroumsa 2020: 70–71). In one version it is the light of the moon that purifies and ‘ensouls’ the seed from where all the good animals, birds and fish are born (Skjærvø 2011: 100).
The sixth creation is that of the primordial Man, Gaiia-marətanm, which literally translates as ‘life-mortal’ [Pahlavi Gayōmart, Persian Kayumart]. He is described as being ‘bright as the sun, and his height was four measured poles, and his breadth just as much as his height’. Since Gayōmart was given the Xvarnah [Persian Farr], the Glory of Ohrmazd, he was immortal. But Ahriman brings doubt in his mind upon which the Xvarnah flies out of him toward the sun in the form of a bird. Then, Ahriman strikes him dead and part of his body becomes the source of all metals. His seed, after being purified by the sun, for one part is guarded by Nēryōsang [the messenger of Ohrmazd, and the other part was entrusted to the earth deity Spenta Ameretât, or rather ‘enveloped by her as a mother’ (Skjærvø 2011: 203). From this, after 40 years, sprang the rhubarb plant that grew slowly into Mašya and Mašyāne, the first human couple. They populated the earth with many other twins and thus humanity was born.
Psychoanalytical Application
The ‘seed’ that is rescued or transmuted in the destruction of the primordial cow and man could be seen as the ‘essence of the personal spirit’ in Kalsched’s theory. The bodies of
Gayōmart and the Cow are both said to have been created out of earth; but their seed was from fire, not water, which otherwise is the source of all life (Boyce 1975: 140). This ‘fiery
seed’ is an interesting analogy for the ‘personal spirit’ or ‘divine’ essence of the personality which at all costs must be protected. It is the light angel (Earth-Angel Spenta Ameretât) that saves this essence and can re-integrate it back into the body of the earth, that is to midwife the embodiment of this personal essence. However, with the primordial man, Gayōmart, we see a splitting occur: part of this seed is kept by Ohrmazd’s messenger, in a transcendent, archetypal, and disembodied realm away from the ordinary incarnated human. On the other hand, we could argue that Spenta Ameretât holds a unique position between the two angels of light (Ohrmazd and his transcendent beings of light) and the dark angel Ahriman (with his own evil creations). Spenta Ameretât is given a ‘safeguarding’ role by Ohrmazd (while assisted by other benevolent beings) during the time of the ‘Assault’.
Another interesting amplification is the meaning of this earth deity’s name: ‘Life-giving Humility’ (Skjærvø 2011: 14). As both daughter and consort of Ohrmazd, she brings forth with him a good deity called ‘Wholeness’ [Haurwatāt] (Skjærvø 2011: 14). Psychologically, we could say that this earth mother holds a kind of ‘mediating third’ position that sweeps in after the effects of dismemberment and fragmentation have occurred to heal and mend the fragmented self and help the process of embodiment and incarnation into the earth body, bringing forth wholeness in the experience of life. This is done through alchemical operations in fire or water, and as ‘traveler between worlds’ and ‘threshold deity’ she can mediate the divine and earthly realms (for a case study on this see Kalsched 1996: 38–40). I would like to argue here that Spenta Ameretât, more than a transcendent light angel alone, embodies a third ‘middle space’ as the positive or conscious and developed side of the trickster archetype, while Ahriman represents the diabolical negative pole of the same force. Her acts of ‘destruction’, i.e. the pounding of the herb, the dissolution of the body of the cow and the preserving of the seed of the primordial man are redemptive in nature: they help regenerate life instead of the purely anti-life and anti-consciousness force that Ahriman represents and enacts. She, as a psychopomp figure or ‘transitional object’ (see Kalsched 1996: 132, 142–45) mediates worlds and fragmented realities and echoes the positive role of the psychotherapist who enters the story after the attack of the traumatic injury has taken place, when starting the alchemical process of healing and transformation.
The Sacrifice Motif
One of the important points made in the scholarly discussion of the creation myth, is the underlying pagan motif of sacrifice, which most likely lay at the foundation of the rituals of sacrifice practiced by the pagan Iranians for the regeneration of all good creatures and plants. At the center of it was the bovine sacrifice, as a re-enactment of the creation myth of which we can find remnants in the Mithraic tradition, where as has been suggested, it was the prototype of the yearly sacrifice made at the autumn feast of Mithra, offered to renew life the following spring in pastures and herds (Boyce 1975: 139). The importance of the cow in this creation myth can be understood in the historical pastoralist context of the Indo-Iranian people, whose very existence and life was centered around this animal and all it brought to the community, which is more than it brought to the agriculturalist. Later, the act of destruction, the killing of the first plant, animal, and man, became an act of the evil force Ahriman, however, was? still necessary [and accepted] for the renewal and multiplication of life on earth: ‘In a very sophisticated way, the act of killing is condemned, while the beneficial results of that killing are accepted. Thus, the creation is understood in almost ironic terms, as an indication that Ahriman's destructiveness will always be turned to good ends by the superior power of Ohrmazd’ (Lincoln 1975: 136).
If we look at the sacrifice motif from a psychological level, we find some parallel in the importance of the development of the ego. Jung, throughout his work, amplified the symbol and life of Christ as the ultimate sacrificial act a human being would go through on the individuation journey (Jung 2012). Psychiatrist and Jungian analyst Edward Edinger (1922-1998) explains this in Jungian thought as the ‘emptying of the self’ from divine and immortal God-self to incarnate fully into the human realm. This sacrificial act is also echoed in the story of Gayōmart, who, as a result of Ahriman’s attack and spellcasting, loses his Farr [‘Light of Glory’] that made him perfect and immortal. He becomes a mere mortal and, vulnerable to the forces of death, he is struck dead. It is, in fact, this birth of mortality in the ‘perfect created Man’ that brings forth humanity, as the primordial brother and sister, from his seed. This moment of the loss of the divine light is key to understanding a gradual ego-development in which the child’s inflated ego is gradually confronted with the cycle of limitations of parental discipline [and unification through love], which gradually crafts a differentiated ego, able to hold the opposites (Kalsched 1996: 194–95). In the trauma-victim, this process of healthy ego-development has been disrupted and a much more stormy and arduous process later occurs in the consulting room. In both cases, the goal is the full incarnation of the divine Self into the earthly realm:
This is an incarnational motif similar to the early Christian concept of ‘kenosis’ (from the Greek meaning ‘to empty’) whereby Christ, identified with the all-pervading oneness of the Godhead, without definiteness, ‘emptied himself’ of his all-embracing plenitude to become man - to become definite. Jung thought he saw in this voluntary sacrifice a glimpse of the psyche’s telos or ultimate goal, which was not just the ego's goal but transformation of the whole personality. The Self does not seem to want unlimited expression (discharge). It seeks human limitation in order to transform itself (Kalsched 1996: 171).
What this ancient creation myth can mirror psychologically, then, is the meaning of incarnation and humanity’s confrontation with the stark duality of light and dark, good and evil, which ultimately can serve, when the ‘third transitional space’ is present, the full incarnation of the divine Self into a fuller scope of the human experience of what it means to be vulnerable and alive to the dual cosmic play of life and even the cosmos itself.
Conclusion
Zoroastrianism centers on cosmic dualism, featuring a perpetual struggle between Ohrmazd (the Wise Lord) and Ahriman (the Evil Spirit). This ancient Iranian religion emphasizes the ongoing battle between Good and Evil, urging human participation in upholding righteousness. Zoroastrianism has been known to be influential for the evolution of world religions, marking a transition from pagan practices to the worship of a singular Deity and the ‘pursuit of goodness.’ However, this duality has also caused much split and polarity in the human experience. Jung’s depth-psychological theory and view on myth and religion has shed a new light on these ancient symbols and motifs from a modern psychological and introverted perspective, helping the secular West with a renewed experience in the study and interpretation of religion. Donald Kalsched’s recent development in Jungian theory has brought new perspectives to the study of evil and the figure of the devil or ‘dark angel,’ as he names it. Through a synthesis of? the archetypal psychology of Jung, developmental psychology and the study of trauma and its effects in infants, he gives a renewed perspective on the archaic forces of ‘good and evil’ that seem to constellate in the psyche and dream material of some patients. He applies his theory of the ‘archetypal defenses of the personal spirit’, also called the ‘self-care system’ to various religious and mythological narratives. This paper applies his theory for the first time to the creation story and the cosmic battle between Ohrmazd and Ahriman.
Ahriman, akin to the dark angel in the psyche, persistently attacks any potential for new life, embodying an anti-consciousness force constellated in the traumatized psyche while the Earth-Angel Spenta Ameretât represents a mediating third, or psychopomp figure that mediates between the opposites and is able to help integrate the intense affects that overwhelm the developing ego. Through successive destruction, loss and re-integration, new life gradually emerges with the ultimate and lasting ‘loss’ of the divine light of Gayōmart, the primordial Man. This loss of the Farr (Light of Glory), which brings forth the birth of mortality, could psychologically symbolize humanity’s goal of full incarnation and embodiment into limited time-space reality, i.e. a ‘descent’ from the transcendent light into matter by confronting the stark duality of light and dark. This confrontation then results in a voluntary sacrifice and emptying (kenosis) of the Self in order to fully experience the human condition.
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