The Great Year

Be Nâme Khodâvandeh Jân-o Kherad

[In the Name of the Lord of Life and Wisdom]

Preliminaries

(*) In general terms, this essay aims at a Traditionalist ‘exegesis’ of Chapter 6 (‘Aryan Empire’) of Jason Jorjani’s work World State of Emergency. More specifically, it aims at elucidating the ‘Aryan Archetypes’ that Jorjani has unearthed from the older strata of Persian Tradition by expanding on their meta-historical context and by re-viewing them through the prism of Traditionalist symbolic hermeneutics.[1] In this context, it is important to note that the term ‘Aryan’ is not used in any narrow bio-ethnic sense: rather, it is used to refer to the initial (existential, vocational, transcendental) orientation and original (natural, cultural, spiritual) quality of the ancestral ‘race’ from which all contemporary Indo-European peoples have sprung. These are the indigenous peoples of the Indo-European language sphere, which geographically includes most of Europe, much of Central Asia and part of the Indian subcontinent, as well as significant parts of European-settled America and Oceania. The Traditionalist perspective, as applied by the author of this essay, implies an emphatic rejection of the primary definition of ‘race’ as a ‘biological’ phenomenon: rather, Traditionalism views the material (phenotypic, genetic) attributes of ‘race’ as secondary, viz. as physical reflections of (i.e. preceded and determined by) meta-physical archetypes.

(**) It is important to precisely define the terminology used throughout this essay:[2] (1) The Indo-European peoples are defined linguistically as the peoples that speak Indo-European languages. (2) The Aryan Tradition is defined as the oldest - largely pre-historic but scientifically reconstructable - shared ethno-cultural ‘root tradition’ of the Indo-European peoples. Throughout recorded history, this originally unified Aryan Tradition has developed into three separate branches: the Indian, Persian and European Traditions. Each of these three branches has been subject to various degrees of (phenotypic, religious, linguistic) ‘hybridization’. The European Tradition has largely lost its original (Pagan) religious heritage by adopting (specialized forms of) a non-Indo-European religion (Abrahamic Christianity), but it has largely preserved its original phenotypic and linguistic heritage. The Indian Tradition, on the other hand, has preserved its original religious and linguistic heritage (in dominant Hinduism and literary Sanskrit), but it has ‘phenotypically’ absorbed a large non-Indo-European substrate population. The Persian Tradition, finally, has adapted ‘compromise forms’ in all three areas: its phenotypic, religious and linguistic root identities remain - marginally - recognizable (as remnant phenotypes, Zoroastrian residues and core lexicon) but they have been extended to include (rather: absorb) a thick layer of Turco-Mongol migrant populations, Islamic religious concepts and Arabic loan words. (3) The European peoples are defined as the agglomerate of the - phenotypically white - indigenous peoples inhabiting the European subcontinent at the time of the formal establishment of Christian religious hegemony over Europe, i.e. around 1100 AD. Thus, the term ‘European peoples’ applies not only to the Indo-European language speakers of Europe: it also includes a number of smaller - phenotypically white - groups that speak other languages (the Basque people, most Finno-Ugric peoples and some Caucasian peoples). It also includes the peoples of recognizably (phenotypically white, religiously Christian) European descent overseas, most prominently those of the overseas Anglosphere. (4) Western civilization is defined as that part of the European Tradition that developed along separate cultural lines after the Great Schism of 1054 (roughly the present ‘EU’ and ‘EEA’ areas, excluding Romania, Bulgaria, Greece and Cyprus) plus its overseas (settlement) colonies. From the late 15^th Century onwards, the specific developmental trajectory of Western civilization has caused it to transform into the ‘ground zero’ of Modernity.

(***) The transcription of Iranian languages into English is complicated by the fact that, in the course of their many developmental phases, they were written in various non-Latin scripts.[3] Old Persian, one of the official languages of the Achaemenid Empire (550-330 BC) and the oldest sourced Iranian language, was written in semi-syllabic Old Persian cuneiform, which is a simplified version of Babylonian cuneiform. Parthian and Middle Persian, the official languages of the Parthian and Sassanid Empires (dated, respectively, 247 BC-224 AD and 224-651 AD), were written in the mixed abjad (semi-consonantal) and logographic (heterogrammic) Pahlavi script based upon the earlier abjad of Imperial Aramaic. Avestan, an Old Iranian language closely related to Vedic Sanskrit and Old Persian, gained the status of sacred language of Zoroastrian scripture and is written in another, purpose-designed alphabetic version of Pahlavi since the 4^th Century AD - in this form, it continues to be in liturgical use among the remaining adherents to the Zoroastrian religion till today. After the Arabic conquest of the Sassanid Empire (633-651 BC), the use of the Pahlavi script was marginalized in the public sphere:[4] the spoken Iranian languages were heavily ‘arabized’ and the Arabic script became the standard medium of administrative and literary production throughout the New Persian language sphere. In this essay, Iranian-language words are preferentially rendered in conventional phonetic spelling, except in direct quotations from Jorjani’s original text. Another exception is made in the ‘calendar chart’ appendix: there, the month names are rendered in a transcription system that reflects the formal (Arabic-derived) spelling of New Persian.

(****) Effective from Now Ruz 1935, Reza Shah Pahlavi, Emperor of Persia from 1925 to 1941, requested foreign diplomats to henceforth refer to his empire by its ancient endonym ‘Iran’, enforcing a replacement of the historic exonym ‘Persia’. After the overthrow of the monarchy in 1979, this official designation was retained by the new republican government - it is still part of the official title of the Persian state till today: the Islamic Republic of Iran. It should be noted that throughout the Iranian Diaspora, which includes a large number of political dissidents, the self-designation ‘Persian’ has since regained currency in a somewhat counter-intuitive manner. As a Neo-Imperialist - and as is his native right - Jorjani has chosen the opposite strategy: he retains the use of the endonym ‘Iran’ - and even goes one step further by re-activating the term Iran-Shahr, which has the etymological charge of ‘Aryan Empire’. This essay, however, will preferentially use the term ‘Persia’ (except in quotations and linguistic designations): because the essay’s author writes from a European as well as Traditionalist perspective, he wishes to retain the ‘magic’ resonance associated with the ancient ‘Orientalist’ designation ‘Persia’ - an association that was treasured by many generations of European thinkers.  

Prologue: Ex Oriente Lux

An instant of yesterday may for me be less significant, less recent,

than something that happened a thousand years ago.

- Sadegh Hedayat[5]

To fully grasp the implications of Jason Jorjani’s Archaeo-Futurist concept of Iran-Shahr, or ‘Aryan Empire’, it is necessary to sketch the Sitz im Leben of that concept, i.e. its ontological setting. In fact, a proper understanding of its essentially dynamic nature requires nothing less than an etic re-construction as well as an emic re-imagination of the meta-historical force field covered by the term ‘Aryan’, a term of self-designation originally applicable to all indigenous Indo-European peoples. But, due to the historical-materialist conditioning of the European peoples, particularly in the West, this term has been pushed into the sphere of cultural-historical ambiguity and psycho-historical trauma. Since the defeat of the self-styled ‘Aryan’ Third Reich, explicit references to any aspect of the ‘Aryan’ force field tend to trigger ‘Pavlov’ reactions and ‘Social Justice Warrior’ reprisals. In fact, Jorjani’s himself has been subjected to a sustained campaign of persecution (dismissal, censorship, harassment) aimed at enforcing the obligatory silence on the subject - such is the price of speaking Truth to Power. The effective result of this de facto ‘taboo’ on ‘Aryan affairs’ is to cut the Western peoples off from the deepest roots of their identity; this result is reflected in the implosion of their core institutions and social structures. These institutes (Kingship, Knighthood, Priesthood) and structures (Nation, Community, Family) were shaped and animated by the archetypes of their ‘Aryan’ identity. Collectively, the Western peoples are now denying themselves their own root identities. They are replacing them with the trauma-shaped, self-mutilating and self-destructive ‘counter-identities’ that are embedded in the ‘deconstructive’ discourse of Cultural Nihilism. Elsewhere, the author of this essay has defined this discourse as a ‘counter-cultural’ complex of militant secularism, unrestricted social-darwinism, collective narcissism and culture relativism.[6]

In the other two major spheres of the Indo-European world, India and Iran, there exists no equivalent taboo on ‘Aryan’ discourse - this natural ‘innocence’ is undoubtedly one of the reasons that Jorjani, who is of partial Persian extraction, has run afoul of the Western academic and journalistic establishment. It should be remembered, however, that Jorjani has achieved his radical break-out of the ‘ontological deadlock’ of Western philosophy precisely through his re-appraisal of the Aryan Archetypes. Jorjani’s sustained work on breaking the glass ceiling of ‘postmodern philosophy’ (a contradictio in terminis if ever there was one) and his principled effort at breaking the psycho-historical taboo on the Aryan Archetypes deserves the full support of the entire intellectual avant-garde of the West. Recently, Guillaume Faye (7 November 1949 - 7 March 2019), French political philosopher and pioneer of the Archaeo-Futurism movement, departed this world - the leadership mantle of the Archaeo-Futurist Revolution has now passed to the ostensibly unlikely figure of a Persian philosopher in Manhattan: Jason Reza Jorjani (born 21 February 1981).

If this essay will clarify anything, however, it is this: that there is nothing unlikely about the juxtaposition of the most ancient Aryan philosophy and the most modern Western science, a juxtaposition that pervades Jorjani’s intellectual universe. The fact that he has achieved to break-out from the post-Heideggerian ‘dead-end’ of Western philosophy through recourse to Persian philosophical imagery should not surprise anybody: the Persian Tradition is characterized by a highly holistic approach that leads to a synergetic, ‘cosmological’ fusion of the science, art and spirituality. In fact, this unitary character of the Persian Tradition is quintessentially ‘Aryan’. Throughout Western history, its Aryan Archetypes have always been traced back to - and recovered from - the East: ex oriente lux.[7]

The puzzle pieces that link the ancient Aryan East and modern West, and by which the Aryan Archetypes underpinning Western civilization may be re-covered, can be positioned - and ‘re-framed’  - by applying Traditionalist hermeneutics. By adopting the modern scientific method of formal and structural analysis, the masters of the Traditional School - René Guénon, Julius Evola, Seyyed Husayn Nasr (to name only its dawn, its zenith and its sunset) - were able to ‘weaponize’ the Perennial Philosophy of the pre-Modern world and achieve an intellectual counter-deconstruction of Modernity itself.

These ‘updated’ Traditionalist hermeneutics can now be ‘operationalized’ in support of Jorjani’s Archaeo-Futurist re-construction of the West’s lost Aryan Archetypes. This essay aims at investigating some of the basic avenues that the Javidan Kherad - the Classical Persian title of the Perennial Philosophy - can provide for the re-construction and re-imagination of the Aryan Archetypes that must precede their Archaeo-Futurist re-enactment. To this purpose, this essay will let the Javidan Kherad roll back the curtain of time and indicate some of the Deep History contours of the Aryan Archetypes. Various disciplines - (a) archaeo-astronomy, (b) structural anthropology and (c) comparative mythology are most directly relevant - will have much to contribute to the future scientific exploration of these archetypes. For now, a few preliminary remarks relevant to these disciplines (a, b, c) will have to suffice: these remarks will point to the scientifically reconstructable meta-historical reality of the Aryan Archetypes. Pre-modern thinkers understood this literally transcending reality as deeply embedded in the cosmic cycle of the Great Year. It should be noted that archaeo-astronomy, cultural anthropology and comparative mythology have found a number of ‘building blocks’ (logical structures and elemental equations) that tend to recur in the archetypes of all cultures. These, however, do not diminish the fact that, as ‘custom-designed’ Häuser des Seins, culture-specific archetypes are always ontologically differentiated. Thus, an Archaeo-Futurist re-birth of the West, as philosophically pioneered in Jorjani’s work, is only possible by a determined re-appropriation of the ancient Aryan Archetypes of Western civilization. It is from this non-relativist position, that this essay will investigate the ‘coding’ of these archetypes in the cosmological vision of the Great Year.

The Great Year

Slumber, watcher, till the spheres, six and twenty thousand years
Have revolv’d, and I return, to the spot where now I burn.
Other stars anon shall rise, to the axis of the skies;
Stars that soothe and stars that bless, with a sweet forgetfulness:
Only when my round is o’er, shall the past disturb thy door.

- Howard Phillips Lovecraft, ‘Polaris’

(a) Astronomically, the Little Year refers to the regular, seasonally-marked time cycle of the Sun’s path across the background of the (fixed-star) ‘celestial sphere’ as seen from the orbiting Earth. This path takes the Sun through the night-sky area known as the Zodiac (Greek, ξωδιακός κύκλος, ‘circle of little animals’), which is conventionally divided into twelve month-duration ‘houses’ or ‘signs’ named after their characteristic ‘animal shaped’ star constellations[8] - the conventional use of Zodiacal signs in reference to calendar calculations dates back to Babylonian astronomy, but their formal definition most likely took place during the First (Achaemenid) Persian Empire. Originally, the ‘Little Year’ was dated as starting at the astronomical (Northern Hemisphere) Spring Equinox (Latin aequinoctium, ‘equal night’, i.e. the day that daytime and nighttime are of equal duration when the Sun passes the equator northward in spring) - at that time, the Spring Equinox took place under the sign of Aries. The Great Year, on the other hand, refers to the full-time cycle of the - ever so slightly - shifting equinoctial point around the ecliptic, i.e. around the exact plane of the Sun’s path across the background of ‘celestial sphere’ as seen from the orbiting Earth. Due to the Earth’s (gravity induced) axial precession the equinoctial point is not fixed: it very slowly ‘slips’ in an apparently retrograde (‘westward’) cyclical movement. This movement, which by modern calculations is completed approximately every 25.772 years, is now conventionally described as the ‘precession of the equinoxes’ - in pre-modern times it was simply known as the Great Year.[9] Thus, in the same manner that the Little Year can be chronologically divided into twelve ‘star sign houses’ with an average of just over 30 days, the Great Year can be divided into a twelve ‘eras’ with an average of just over 2.100 years. Or, as Jorjani puts it elsewhere, [t]he signs of the Zodiac turn backwards so that the Sun rises into a different one on the Spring Equinox, [on average,] every 2,160 years. A ‘zodiacal age’ is marked by which constellation the Sun rises into around March 21. From the standpoint of the average lifespan of a civilization, let alone that of an individual human being, this change in the stars is nearly imperceptible.[10] Despite a certain degree of conventional artificiality (as in the ‘symmetric’ 30 day-month and 2000 year-era count for the irregularly spaced zodiacal houses of the Little and Great Years), there is, in principle, nothing ‘un-scientific’ or ‘superstitious’ about this zodiacal division. In fact, the continued use of zodiacal terminology in the contemporary Western pseudo-science of ‘astrology’, is merely a last - highly distorted - reflection of ancient astronomical knowledge that has been largely lost and that is now partially outdated. An example of the ‘outdated’ nature of Western - as opposed to, for example, contemporary Vedic - astrology is the found in the fact that its divinatory horoscopes (Greek: ὡρόσκοπος, ‘hour-watcher’) are still using the zodiacal houses (‘star signs’) of by-gone era: while the precession of the equinoxes has shifted the Spring equinox to the house Pisces, Western astrology still positions its (0^o) starting point in Aries. With regard to the degraded ‘unscientific’ status of Western astrology, however, this anachronism is of relatively minor significance: its real ‘cognitive deficit’ results from the deep sediment of superstitions that have distorted in the wake of the scientific decline of the Dark Ages, i.e. since the scientific stasis imposed by early Christianity and Islam. Even so, recent archaeo-astronomical research has determined that, in terms of its mathematical precision, the ‘proto-scientific’ knowledge of the Indo-European civilizations that came to an end with the Dark Ages (as represented by the Roman, Sassanid and Gupta Empires) was astoundingly accurate. The modern reconstruction of this knowledge is significantly complicated by the loss of the ‘language’ in which it was encoded: the cosmologies of the ancient Indo-European civilizations of Europe, Persia and India relied on graphic, symbolic and logical categories that must be painstakingly reconstructed across long-suppressed and half-forgotten pathways. Jorjani’s pioneering work on the Aryan Archetypes can only be understood against the background of - and as part of - this ongoing reconstruction.

(b) Through his Neo-Zoroastrian exegesis, Jorjani demonstrates that the symbolic ‘language’ by with the Aryan Archetypes are encoded in the Persian Tradition has not been entirely lost: this ‘language’ may be retrieved and reconstructed by means of philosophical and symbolic enquiry. Thus, ...the formal structures of knowledge in any culture [can be re]construct[ed] from out of the deeper substratum of folklore by translating this lore into principles and precepts. [But such reconstruction through anthropology,] sociology and social psychology, [which are] rationalistic sciences, can never encompass folklore in a purely reductive and eliminative manner. (p. 3-4) Such a reconstruction requires the holistic approach to knowledge that is encompassed by the discipline of Philosophy, as defined by its original - and Traditionalist - meaning. Elsewhere, Jorjani defines an authentic Philosopher as ...someone whose thought engages with fundamental questions concerning Truth, Beauty, and Justice, in a way that leads to the discovery of concepts with a potential to catalyze scientific and political revolutions. The [P]hilosopher’s ethics and politics must be grounded on his ontology and epistemology, and... this integral thought has to be guided by an aesthetic intuition comparable to that of the most extraordinary geniuses in literature and the arts.[11] In this sense, true Philosophy transcends the highly artificial boundary between ‘astronomy’ and ‘astrology’, a boundary that merely indicates a momentary delineation between the infinitely flexible and ever-shifting ‘arts and sciences’. The ‘fact’ that one degree of the scientific Great Year of 25.772 years of today’s astronomers very nearly matches the philosophical ‘model’ human life span of 72 years divided into age ‘phases’ according to the planetary spheres around the solar origin) of antiquity’s astrologers is but one of many markers of this boundary. From this perspective, pre-modern cosmologies can be understood as ‘lost codes’ of an ancient lingua franca that is heavily reliant on archetypal symbolism. Thus, notions such as Hesiod’s ‘Golden Age’, Euclid’s ‘Golden Ratio’, Plato’s ‘Perfect Cycle’ and Aristotle’s ‘Harmony of the Spheres’ can be re-visited with renewed insight into their original epistemological context, where they appear as ‘wheels within wheels’. A full reconstruction of this larger cosmological ‘clockwork’ context, however, is of mere ‘academic interest’: as Jorjani rightly points out the ‘reconstructive’ task of Philosophy is merely a function of its larger aim, which is to achieve an ontological break-out. In this regard, Nietzsche’s recovery of the principle of the ‘Eternal Return’ and Heidegger’s juxtaposition of Gestell and Poiesis, constitute mere preparations. Jorjani’s work reaches beyond this stage.

(c) In his earlier work Prometheus and Atlas, Jorjani has already explored the mythological aspects of the Aryan Archetypes: there, he has pointed out that a direct re-engagement with these still ‘veiled’ force fields will allow the Indo-European peoples to overcome their collective postmodern existential crisis. Here, it is important to additionally mention that explicit expressions of Aryan mythology are still directly accessible through contemporary celestial cosmology. The names of most visible star constellations, including those of the zodiacal houses, are directly relevant to the oldest layers of Indo-European mythology. In terms of the astronomical Great Year human history is currently unfolding under the aegis of the Pisces (Venus and Cupid), the zodiacal house of the ‘Fish’ through which the equinoctial point passes from the year 67 BC to the year 2597 AD (these are its current ‘official’ astronomical boundary points - earlier conventions allow for slightly different year counts). The Christian Tradition of Europe expressly incorporates this knowledge in various symbols, e.g. in the use of Greek ιχθύς, ‘fish’, as an acronym of the Christ[12], in the commission of His disciples as ‘Fishers of Men’[13] and in the dating of His Return at the starting point of the subsequent house of Aquarius.[14] References to the larger Great Year in which the Age of Pisces constitutes merely a passing phase are encoded in Indo-European mythology at various levels. Thus, the end of the Age of Taurus, the ‘Bull’, (1865 BC) is preserved in the Mithraic ‘Tauroctony’ (the religious mystery of the ‘killing of the bull’ by the supra-temporal force of Mithra that was explained to its initiates), and the end of Age of Aries, the ‘Ram’, (67 BC) is preserved in the Christian ‘Paschal Lamb’ (the religious mystery incorporated by the supra-temporal force of ‘Eucharist’ that offers its initiates life everlasting). Indo-European mythological lore does not only preserve clues to the ancient astronomical calculus of the zodiacal ages, but also to their metaphysical interpretation. Thus, the approaching (or ‘ongoing’) transition to the Age of Aquarius may be symbolically interpreted as involving a dominance of the water element. This pre-dicted qualitative ‘colouring’, arguably visible in a gradual shift to ‘fluidity’ and ‘instantaneity’ (‘democratized’ politics, ‘electrified’ technology, ‘digitalized’ community), was already re-cognized in the ’60s ‘New Age’ movement.[15]

The passage of the ‘age boundaries’, which is literally ‘written in the stars’, marks existential threats not only on the individual level, i.e. on the level of the biological life cycle, but also on the collective level, i.e. on the level of the cultural life cycle. Each civilization and each culture has its own ‘coping mechanisms’ to deal with these existential threats: Indo-European civilizations have their Aryan Archetypes to fall back on. The fear of facing these Archetypes, which involves facing up to death, rebirth and transcendence, are likely to increase as the next ‘turning point’ approaches. From this perspective, the dominant cultural discourse of the postmodern West, Cultural Nihilism, may be interpreted as an anti-intellectual regression into infantile denial: it aims at a systematic (self-)censorship of all substantial consideration of collective long-term future prospects. It aims at ignoring - and, in as far as possible, delaying the many departures and transformations facing Western civilization. At a formal level, this collective ‘state of denial’ is enforced through a (legal, cultural, psychological) taboo on the Aryan Archetype that is symbolically represented by the Tetragammadion, which represents the Unmoved Mover, i.e. the celestial pole as represented by the (Guard of the) Pole Star’ (Alpha Ursae Minoris), in the Cycle of Time, i.e. the four seasonally squared positions of the Little Bear (Ursa Minor) Wagon.[16] In the Persian Tradition, it is represented by the four-horse chariot of Mithra, racing the fixed pole in a clock-wise fashion.[17] In the Indian Tradition, it is termed the Swastika (Sanskrit, ‘Auspiciousness’) - this is the name by which it has been ‘banned’ in the West after the failure of the Third Reich. Till today, the Third Reich remains the most formidable threat faced by proto-globalist Modernity since its decisive World War I victory over Tradition. The awesome power of the Third Reich, clearly out of proportion to the modest material resources of its German ‘carrier nation’ on the stage of superpower geopolitics, was partially due to its ability to harness some of ‘psychic’ perpetuum mobile force that is built into this Aryan Archetype. The Third Reich may have been misdirected and abused this force, but its palpable reality was never doubted by anybody at the time: the continuing strength of the taboo surrounding the ‘spirit’ of the Third Reich attests to its original power - even now that almost living witnesses to it have departed this life. The systematic ‘cultural dis-appropriation’ program to which victorious globalism has subjected defeated Europe has resulted in an important symbolic inversion in the collective mind of the Western peoples: the originally positive (dynamic, forward) charge of Swastika archetype has been artificially replaced by a negative (static, backward) charge. Even so, it has not been erased: it has merely been occulted. It is important to remember that all Aryan Archetypes will fully retain their potential force as long as the Indo-European peoples continue to exist. The long survival of the Indo-European Tradition in Persia and India, even after centuries of brutal and systematic repression and replacement, bears witness to this reality. The ‘totemic’ force of the Aryan Archetypes, no matter how deeply they are repressed and how grossly they are misinterpreted, remains fully available as a powerful antidote to political usurpation and cultural distortion. In this sense, Hindu Renaissance proposed by Vivekananda in the late 19^th Century and the Iranian Renaissance proposed by Jorjani in the early 21^st Century may eventually come to prefigure a European Renaissance. Western civilization now faces its gravest threat ever: globalist socio-cultural deconstruction and wholesale ethnic replacement - it may benefit from a re-assessment of the Aryan Archetypes on which it was founded long ago.

Aryan Foundations: Four Royal Stars

Wo aber Gefahr ist,

Wächst das Rettende auch

- Friedrich Hölderlin

In re-assessing the Aryan Archetypes that are the common heritage of the Indian, Persian and European Traditions, Jorjani benefits from a quite unique perspective: a ‘middle ground’ position that results from his own mixed Persian and European roots and from his own native Zoroastrian background. He points to the originally unified worldview - the tribally shared Haus des Seins - of these historically related traditions: Emanating from a homeland that it seems increasingly likely was located somewhere between Ukraine and the Caucasus, or between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea, a single ethnic group speaking a single language branched out in westward and eastward migrations in the course of which they gradually became differentiated from one another. Greek, Latin, German, Persian, Sanskrit, and the numerous later languages that have evolved from these classical languages, share deep structures and numerous cognates in their vocabulary that attest to their having branched out from a single trunk that scholars refer to as Proto Indo-European. ...The various Indo-European civilizations, ...[as founded by] the European, Iranian, and north Indian peoples, ... were all world-colonizing, whether in a military sense or in a cultural one. Taken together they eventually brought our entire planet under their dominion, with the most vast colonial structures being the [pre-modern] Persian Empire and the [classical-modern] British Empire. The former was the largest Indo-European superpower in terms of population (including nearly half of the Earth’s denizens at its zenith), and the latter was the most extensive colonial realm in geographical terms. ...The Indo-Europeans originated nearly all of the exact sciences and the technological innovations based on them, the rich artistic and literary traditions of Europe, Persia, and India, as well as major philosophical schools of thought and religious traditions such as Platonic and Germanic Idealism, Enlightenment Progressivism, Zoroastrianism, Hinduism, and Buddhism. This heritage is exclusionary,... [which provides the necessary] constitution of a[ny] properly political state... (p. 154-5) As the Age of Discoveries and Enlightenment resulted in a renewed exchange of knowledge between the Europe, Persia and Persia, great European thinkers recognized old common heritage. The deep organic connection between European and Persian culture is re-explored in Anquetil-Duperron’s discovery of the Avesta, Goethe’s exploration of Hafez and Fitzgerald’s reading of Khayyam. During the 19^th Century, this artistic and philosophic reconnection resulted in powerful reactivations of shared archetypes, as in Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde (which has its ultimate Vorlage in Gorgani’s ‘Vis and Ramin’) and Nietzsche’s Also Sprach Zarathustra. Subtle lines to the Persian Tradition extend far back from Voltaire’s Deism, Emerson’s transcendentalism, Hegel’s dialectics and Heidegger’s hermeneutics (p. 193-4). During the 20^th Century, the Traditional School recognized the crucial importance of the Persian Tradition as an antidote to the unfolding ‘Crisis of the Modern World’: the prime example of this recognition is Corbin’s validation of ontological reality of creative imagination - an insight that he arrived at through the prism of Sohrawardi’s Philosophy of Illumination.[18]

In Jorjani’s view, the Indo-European Traditions of India, Persia and Europe not only share a common root in their ancient past but also a common enemy in the unfolding present, viz. in ‘Abrahamic usurpation’ or ‘culture distortion’. At this point, it is important to emphasize that the Traditionalist diachronic analysis of the Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Christianity and Islam) as subject to regression and inversion in the course of the Modern (Dark) Age, is fully compatible with the Archaeo-Futurist synchronic analysis of their contemporary residues as effective ‘demonic antitheses’ to all that is still authentic, valuable and beautiful in the world.[19] From a Traditionalist perspective, Jorjani’s ‘activist’ Archaeo-Futurist deconstruction of these - formally ‘Abrahamic’ - ‘demonic inversions’ may be understood as a last-minute philosophic ‘emergency surgery’. Indeed, in the wake of the decline of European global imperialism, the old danger of Abrahamic ‘culture distortion’ has metastasized into a direct existential threat: physical ‘islamicist’ deconstruction now threatens the Western heartland. The reactionary theory of ‘Political Islam’ that arose at the height of 19^th Century European imperialism may be intellectually shallow and culturally regressive in itself, but it has an important mobilizing functionality: it serves to ‘weaponize’ (justify, represent, direct) the demographic inundation of the Western heartland by the exponentially proliferating barbaric masses of the Third World. The globalist hostile elite, committed to a maximally exploitable new world order, is deliberating facilitating this inundation process in order to eliminate the main qualitative restraints on its ‘reign of quantity’, viz. Western civilization and the Western peoples. Thus, the globalist hostile elite is deliberately exposing the historic carriers of Western civilization, i.e. the Western peoples, to direct ‘demographic warfare’ in their homelands. In the same way that Cultural Nihilism serves as a self-annihilation ‘model’ for the indigenous peoples of the West, so ‘political pseudo-Islam’ serves as a bio-evolutionary ‘model’ for the barbaric colonists that are taking their place. Both of these ‘models’ are based on the systematic misrepresentation and blasphemous abuse of Abrahamic religious Traditions: Cultural Nihilism is based on denaturalized (hyper-altruistic, emasculated) Christianity and ‘islamicism’ is based on denaturalized (neo-primitive, debased) pseudo-Islam.

Jorjani points to the fact that this current islamicist assault on Western civilization, somewhat euphemistically known as the ‘clash of civilizations’ (‘all against the West’ would be a more realistic term), is not the first Abrahamic assault on an Indo-European civilization. Indian civilization has been subject to all-out assault by militant Islam for centuries: in 1947, after the liquidation of the British Raj, the Islamic conquest of part of the Indian subcontinent was confirmed through by the secession of ‘Pakistan’ from ‘India’ - a boundary that has since been enhanced through nuclear stand-off. Persian civilization has been subject to even more drastic Abrahamic usurpation through total occupation and full-scale colonization. The remarkable staying power of the Persian Tradition, which has survived centuries of (Arabic, Turkic, Mongol) foreign occupation and (Abrahamic, imperialist, secularist) culture distortion, is proven by the fact that it has managed to create its own specialized form of Islam: Shia Islam, which preserves - either exoterically or esoterically - some of the key elements of the older Persian Tradition. These include the Aryan Archetypes of the Sacred Kingship, as incorporated in the Imamate (i.e. divinely ordained and infallible leadership in worldly as well as spiritual affairs), Hereditary Monarchy, as incorporated in the Ahl al-Bayt (Arabic: ‘the People of the House’, i.e. the descendants of the Prophet Muhammad),[20] and the Anointed Priesthood, as incorporated in the Shia clerical caste of maraji-e taqlid (which act as stewards of the highest judiciary in the absence of the Twelfth Imam,[21] their authority is based on a special license to engage in ijthad, ‘autonomous judicial reasoning’). From a Traditionalist perspective, Shia Islam has the same meta-historic functionality in Persia as Christianity has in Europe: it represents an ‘evolutionary adaptation’ of an Abrahamic doctrine to a usurped Indo-European Tradition. Obviously, the survival of Aryan Archetypes within these hybrid adaptations is a matter of etic (cultural-historical) reconstruction rather than emic (ideological) doctrine, but the lack of emic intentionality does not invalidate etic factuality. In fact, the value of Jorjani’s philosophical analysis - and explicit rejection - of Abrahamic culture distortion and political usurpation must be sought in its intended fusion of etic (Western, scientific) and emic (Persian, cultural) discourse. He is able to ‘square the circle’ through a ‘bottom-up’ re-appropriation of the Persian Tradition: Jorjani re-views it from its Zoroastrian roots upwards, tracing it various continuities, discontinuities and transformations.

Jorjani points to fact that his new - fused emic-etic - perspective has important philosophic repercussions for the whole of the contemporary Indo-European world, which is facing a common enemy in a lethal combination of Abrahamic culture distortion, islamicist political usurpation and Third World demographic inundation. The globalist hostile elite has recently shifted these three mechanisms into their highest gear: the final assault on the last bulwarks of Indo-European civilization has started. Its primary aim is nothing less than the complete socio-cultural deconstruction and wholesale ethnic replacement of the Western peoples. Since, as Samuel Huntington understands, Islam is playing the most catalytic role in the clash of civilizations, from out of the entire Indo-European community Iran is the nation whose role in [the region now known as the] Third World... will be the most decisive for our common future. In addition to being the cross-cultural nexus of the Indo-European world for more than 3,000 years, Irân-Shahr or ‘the Aryan Imperium’ offers the West principles and values that have already deeply influenced its own and that can catalyze a cultural revitalization beyond the failure of modern concepts such as liberal democracy and universal human rights. ...It is profoundly significant... that the Persians and Kurds are the first of the Aryan peoples to have gone through the entire Abrahamic religious tradition and come out the other side. Europe is now on the verge of being conquered by Islam, whereas the Iranians are finally overcoming 1,400 years of oppressive Arab-Islamic colonization that parasitically misappropriated the Persian genius in the arts and sciences. (p. xix-xx)

Jorjani aims at an Indo-European counter-mobilization through a deliberate re-appropriation of the foundational principles of Indo-European civilization: the Aryan Archetypes. His World State of Emergency is invaluable in this regard: properly understood, it is nothing less than a ‘final boarding call’ for Western thinkers: the time has come for them to reclaim their rightful heritage - and to break out of the postmodern philosophical deadlock by ‘squaring the circle’.

A universally recurrent theme in all pre-modern cosmologies is the geometric balance of the ‘four foundations’ of Earthly realm, i.e. the four ‘fixed points’ that underpin the human life-world and that contain its various life-cycles. At the lowest (grossly material) level, these are the Four Great Elements (Earth, Air, Water, Fire) and the Four Cardinal Points (North, East, South, West). At the highest (transcendentally defined) level, these are the spiritual guards of the Earthly Realm (the Four Noble Truths of Buddhism, the Tetragrammaton of Judaism, the Four Evangelists and the Four Living Creatures of Christianity). Abstract analyses of humanity’s positioning between these two ‘squares’ can be found in Aristotle’s ‘Four Causes’ and Heidegger’s Raum des Gevierts. The great Traditions of the pre-modern Near East incorporated the ‘four foundations’ principle in the practice of statecraft: the legitimate ruler was charged with the ‘humanization’ of the ‘Middle Earth’ and was therefore entitled ‘Lord of the Four Heavenly Corners’. In the ‘magic’ (Greek μάγος, ‘magician’, from Old Persian magush, ‘specialist’, i.e. a Zoroastrian ‘court philosopher’) governance model of the three ancient (Achaemenid, Parthian, Sassanid) Persian Empires, the authority of the legitimate ruler was directly based on the ‘four foundations’ principle. After the Abrahamic (Islamic) usurpation of last of these empires (i.e. the Arab Conquest of Persia between 633 and 651 AD), this principle was ‘occulted’, but it is symbolically preserved in the icon of the ‘Four Royal Stars’: Regulus (Latin: ‘Little King’; constellation Leo) in the north, Aldebaran (Arabic ‘Follower’, as in ‘following’ the Pleiades; constellation Taurus) in the east, Fomalhaut (Arabic: ‘Mouth of the Fish’; constellation Pisces) in the south and Antares (Greek: ‘Anti-Ares’; constellation Scorpio) in the West. Thus, a ‘magic’ reference to the higher order of the Aryan Archetypes remains literally ‘written in the stars’. The destiny of the Indo-European peoples is inextricably bound up with the realization of these archetypes. As Jorjani points out, this realization involves nothing less than the establishment of ‘Paradise Earth’.

Aryan Strivings: Project Paradise

One morn a Peri at the gate
Of Eden stood disconsolate...

She wept to think her recreant race
Should e’er have lost that glorious place!

- Thomas Moore, Lalla-Rookh

From a Traditionalist perspective, the essence of the ‘Crisis of the Modern World’, currently centred on the ‘ground zero’ of Western Cultural Nihilism, is (qualitative) loss. This loss is most clearly visible in the civilization that has most to lose, i.e. Indo-European civilization. This loss is most pronounced in the highest and most rarefied sphere of that civilization: the sphere of true philosophy. In    Zoroastrianism this sphere is characterized by an explicitly numinous quality, conjuring up an experience akin to mystical awe. The term Mazda Yasna, ‘Wisdom Worship’, indicates its transcendental character; the closed contemporary equivalent in the West is the notion of Perennis Sophia, which is the central theme of the Traditional School. Its numinous quality derives from its (re)creative potential: it allows for the (re)creation of order out of chaos through the application of universal principles of order, limit, and proportion at all levels. These principles derive their effectiveness from eternal archetypes, known in Greek philosophy as εἶδος: a luminous - literally shining - pre-existing form. The Persian equivalent of this primordial form is the fravashi. Both represent ‘specialized being’ in the pure and ideal form that it has before being subjected to earthly space-time and before being diminished by darkness, chaos and deceit. It is universally worthy of worship as representative of creative intelligence, even if it is only truly accessible to a handful of philosophical minds. The gradual abolition of this worship and the increasing inaccessibility of this wisdom are the true ‘causes’ of the ‘Crisis of the Modern World’. In Traditionalism, the spatial-temporal process of abolition and closure of Wisdom Worship is described as the ‘Dark Age’ and its negative charge is described as ‘Modernity’.

In the contemporary West, the fulfilment of the Crisis of the Modern World is enacted through the globalist project of a liberal-normativist New World Order ...based on... the destruction of distinct cultures and the deracinating unification of all peoples and nations on the basis of the lowest common denominator. [But a] handful of ideas or ideals integral to the structure of Iranian Civilization could serve as constitutional principles for an Indo-European [led alternative] world order: the reverence for Wisdom; industrious innovation; ecological cultivation; desirable dominion; chivalry and tolerance. (p. 155) Jorjani envisions this alternative Indo-European world order as based on a definition of civilization that is diametrically opposed to that of the liberal-normativist New World Order of the globalist hostile elite, viz. as ...a super-culture that demonstrates both an internal differentiation and an organic unity of multiple cultures around an ethno-linguistic core, one which roughly corresponds to Alexander Dugin’s concept of the narod. (p. 155) This Indo-European world order would aim at idealistic stewardship instead of imperialist rule over the Earth - and at humanization instead of humanism. Jorjani points to the archetypal foreshadowing of such an Indo-European world order in the universal empire projects for which ancient Persia served as a carrier nation. These imperial projects were not guided by any narrow-minded nationalist agenda of subjugation of other nations, but rather aimed at the establishment of civilizing protectorates over them. They were characterized by a subtle balance of power devolution and super-visionary hegemony. Regional indigenous autonomy was supervised by Persian governors to assure basic human rights, the efficient collection of taxes and a steady supply of army recruits. This administrative supervision and the creation of networks of canals, roads and post stations were based on a philosophical commitment to a cosmological Good defined by the Aryan Archetypes.[22] Thus, the ‘humanistic cosmopolitanism’ characteristic of the ancient Persian empires was based on absolute values. It involved calibrated statecraft: an intelligent and determined balancing act that rejected the oppressive doctrine of ‘might is right’ as well as ‘social justice warrior’ resentment. It rejected democracy as a tyranny of the majority in favour of a true aristocracy, i.e. a meritocracy aimed at government by the wisest and most cultivated people. It aimed at a true charity, i.e. the eradication of poverty, indebtedness and slavery as breeding grounds for criminality and deceitfulness. This ‘enlightened socialism’ involved equitable resource distribution and guaranteed standards of living, in other words for creating the optimal conditions for ...cultivating human excellence to the maximum given... potential. (p.166)

This aim of the deliberate cultivation of humanity underpins the ancient Persian ideal of Javanmardi, ‘Chivalry’ - a concept that gradually filtered through into Europe at various historical junctures. Jorjani points to a number of transmission points that are well known as historical facts but little understood in their cultural impact. These include the migration of the Scythian (northern Iranian) tribal elements, such as the Sarmatians and the Alans, which came to the Roman Empire as raiders, traders and auxiliaries.[23] Specific themes of Western mythology, including the ‘Sword in the Stone’, the ‘Once and Future King’, the ‘Knights of the Round Table’, the ‘Holy Grail’ and the ‘Lady of the Lake’ can be traced back to the attendant cultural transmission that took place during this (pre-)formative stage of Western culture. Another important point of transmission is found in the cult of Mithras, which was prevalent in the Roman military, functioning as a cult of military loyalty. The Persian cult of Mithras first came to the West through ‘converted’ Roman soldiers who had fought on the eastern frontier against the then-Persian Empire of the Parthians. The formal cultic aspects of Mithraism, which emphasize unconditional for its ‘knights’ as oath-taking initiates, survived into the Medieval Occitan - and even into the Modern West. Jorjani points to the survival of various Javanmardi-based ritual forms in Western rituals: the handshake in friendship and business (emphasizing trust with the release of the weapon hand), the salute of soldiers (shielding the eyes in recognizing of the ‘Invincible Sun’ as Supreme Commander). As Jorjani points out, all the specific elements of Scythian culture and cultic Mithraism that found their way into the Western Tradition should be seen as isolated parts of the larger Persian Tradition from which they originate. Jorjani also points out that the outward ‘ripple effect’ of cultural transmission from Indo-European ‘gravity centre’ (Persia) reached not only the Indo-European West (Europe) but also the Indo-European East (India). Again, the role of Scythian (northern Iranian) migration is important to note: in India the Scythian Kushans appropriated the Buddha’s teachings and interpreted them in accordance with their own ‘empire style’, as typified by the codifications of Kanishka the Great (ca. 127-150 AD). Thus, the formative power of the more subtle philosophical elements of the Persian Tradition came to be incorporated not only in Europe-based (Catholic, Orthodox) Christianity but also in Indian-derived (Mahayana, ‘Greater Vehicle’) Buddhism. This incorporation accounts for the simultaneity and juxtaposition of exoteric utopianism and esoteric transcendentalism that recur in the highest forms of European and Indian Tradition. Thus, there is an organic relation between the three Indo-European imperial forms at their highest ‘ideal’ level: the Persian Arya Shahr, the European Respublica Christiana and the Indian Dharma Raja. As Jorjani states, ...the legal and socio-political philosophy of the Indo-Europeans... is radically utopian. (p.160) The highest level of these three visions proposes the worldly realization of perfect illumination and utopian transformation: it affirms human development, it inspires artistic exploration, it encourages knightly chivalry and it rejects effeminate pacifism. In its most pure (because most original), however, it remains preserved in Zoroastrianism. The roots of the greatness of European civilization are inextricable from the ancient Zoroastrian heritage of Iran. ...The reverence for Wisdom was at the core of Zarathustra’s teaching. The most fundamental constitutional principle of the Indo-European worldview is the supreme value that it places on the reverence for, the pursuit of, and the adherence to, Wisdom. Zarathustra speaks of Ahura Mazda or the ‘Titan of Wisdom’ as the deity who is supremely worthy of worship. (p. 156-7)

Jorjani points to the catalytic role that the original vision of Zoroastrianism may yet come to play for the Indo-European peoples as they struggle to overcome the ‘Crisis of the Modern World’. He points to the fact that Zoroastrianism encapsulated a world view that is uniquely suited to a new Indo-European Modernity: it rejects narrow-minded religious dogma in favour of expansive techno-philosophical exploration, but it also preserves non-secularized rationalism. These features are uniquely fitting to the ‘maximal trust society’ of total interpersonal transparency and organic social hierarchy of a post-post-modern society. Such a society is currently creating itself through the sheer impetus of Western Techne, i.e. by the technological and bio-evolutionary forces that have been unleashed by Western science. Jorjani points out the need for an ethic and moral code that can match and master this development: ...only in a society wherein the value of truthfulness is... deeply rooted will the inevitable, [i.e. technologically imminent,] total loss of privacy be something that we can cope with. [Likewise, only an] emphasis on industrious pursuit of progressive self-perfection will encourage the best uses of neo-eugenic biotechnologies. While the values of chivalric charitableness and respect for the free choice of the individual, will assure that genetic engineering is accessible to all and is not abused in a way that spawns a specialized slave race or a caste system reinforced by genetic design. [Finally, t]he ecological dimension of Zarathustra’s teaching would also obviously have a deep and broad impact on the way in which the Indo-European [vision] guides us through the [imminent crisis of the] technological singularity. (202-3)

Thus, Javanmardi idealism is a key element of the existential attitude required for a surpassing the Crisis of the Modern World. Its rigorous implication would result in a civilizational synthesis of unsurpassed ‘added value’ in terms of human development. It is this existential attitude that once created the very first world empire, Achaemenid Persia, where it ...had real consequences in terms of the kind of industrious innovation that one is enjoined to embrace in order to further... the Spirit of Innovation and Development. Iranians invented a technology... to channel water across hundreds of miles so as to make gardens bloom in the middle of deserts... and conduct water from aquifers to land that would otherwise be impossible to irrigate. The gardens that were created as a consequence of this engineering marvel were referred to as Paridaezâ, which is where the word ‘paradise’ in the European languages originally comes from. (p.160)

Jorjani’s World State of Emergency antidote to the Crisis of the Modern World is based on an Archaeo-Futurist re-appropriation of the Aryan Archetypes that are philosophically accessible through Zoroastrian idealism. Zarathustra’s metaphysics conceives of this in terms of an alchemical transformation of the human condition that takes place at the end of history. This teleological - rather than [merely] cyclical - conception of time and world ages was eventually adopted by German [philosophers] such as Schelling and Hegel, who become expositors of its most developed version... On the whole, [Zoroastrianism posits a] progressive... and innovative improve[ment of] the human condition throughout successive epochs. After a final apocalyptic conflict, referred to as ‘the event of great choice’ (namely of choice between the two [opposing] spirits [of good and evil purpose]) and also as the Frashgard or the ‘renewal of existence’, all of those who have chosen rightly to be champions of Truth and Justice attain their archetypally perfect form. [This form is symbolized in the] farvahar, [which] acts as one’s guardian angel during one’s life, enjoining us to become who we are. ...[T]he actual exteriorization of one’s inner conscience or daenâ that one embodies after the apocalypse is feminine in form; ...she looks like a Valkyrie. (p.159) From a Traditionalist perspective, the Archaeo-Futurist Revolution that Jorjani proposes in World State of Emergency represents nothing less than a ‘reset’ of history itself. Jorjani’s Archaeo-Futurist Revolution would augur in the Golden Dawn - his World State of Emergency is nothing less than ‘Project Paradise’.

Aryan Archetypes: Twelve Pillars of Wisdom

In Zoroastrianism there is a notion that Man is a Friend of God

and that God requires the friendship of Man

in order to unfold the plan of righteousness in the world.

- Jason Reza Jorjani (p.171)

The Persian calendar system, currently applied in the Persian Solar Hejri Calendar that was adopted by Pahlavi Dynasty in 1925, is the most scientifically (astronomically) accurate in the world: its Now Ruz, ‘New Year’, starting point is fixed on the exact equinoctial point of 0^o ecliptic longitude. This spring equinox New Year was also common throughout pre-modern Europe: the introduction of January 1^st as the start the year was simply a bureaucratic measure, comparable to the contemporary use of the ‘tax year’. The administrative use of January 1^st as New Year’s Day in the West dates back to 153 BC when the Roman Republic synchronized its bureaucratic and consular years. The true first month in all Indo-European Traditions was March, named after the war god Mars (originally in the appropriate zodiacal house of Aries, ‘Ram’) because it marks the start of military campaign season. The Persian calendar preserves this original ‘Triumphal March’ New Year. Although entirely scientifically accurate and astronomically ‘up to date’, the Persian calendar also encodes archaic knowledge that reaches back into lost realms of esoteric knowledge and transcendental experience. Thus, it is consistent with a cosmological vision in which time represents ...not a dimensionless and homogenous Eternity, but [where it encapsulates] heterogeneous archetypal events that endow certain periods of time with personal aspects, each having a cohesive unity... [characterized by] the unique spirit of a fateful hour... Months and days of the Persian calendar are named after these kinds of celestial events.[24] Some of these ‘ideal forms’ found in the Persian calendar represent the Amesha Spenta, the ‘Holy Immortals’: these are the ‘divine sparks’ that emanate from the supreme creator, Ahura Mazda, the ‘Lord of Wisdom’ - their creative power operates through the Spenta Mainyu, the ‘Holy Spirit’ which is also the Spirit of Innovation and which relates to Ahura Mazda as the Holy Spirit relates to God in Christianity. In Zoroastrianism, all twelve Aryan Archetypes that are indicated by month names of the Persian calendar, including those indicating the Amesha Spenta, fall in the larger category of the Yazata, the ‘Venerable’, i.e. a benign ‘spirit power’. This category includes the Fravashi, or ‘Projecting Spirit’, of the deceased and opposes the category of the Daeva, the ‘Devil’, i.e. an evil ‘spirit power’. Thus, for Indo-Europeans, any substantial study of the Persian calendar necessarily involves a re-visiting of Aryan Archetypes. Jorjani does not systematically provide such a calendar study, but he does revisit most of the archetypes involved - this paragraph will list the ‘month spirits’ in their right order and, where applicable, add the commentaries provided by Jorjani. It is important to note that this listing concerns exoteric (immanent, activist) rather than esoteric (transcendental contemplative) principles. Due to its Dark Age ‘guardian’ functionality, Traditionalism has tended to focus on the latter, but the Golden Dawn envisioned by Jorjani’s Archaeo-Futurist Revolution will depend on the former.

(1) Farwardin - Fravashi, ‘Projecting Spirit’ - Curiously befitting the first month of the Little Year, this term indicates a key concept and a key symbol of Zoroastrianism - as such, it deserves prioritized consideration. The middle Persian word fravarti or fravashi is derived from the Avestan concepts of farvahar (modern Persian forouhar) and frashgard. The former is the depiction of the soul in a winged disk, holding a ring of promise in one hand and pointing the way forward with the other. It is ubiquitous in ancient Persian ruins, has been misidentified in folk culture as a depiction of Ahura Mazda, and has even come to symbolize Zoroastrianism itself. The second concept, that of frashgard, is the world’s purification, or literally its ‘re-freshening’, (frash is an Indo-European cognate of ‘fresh’, and gard means ‘turning’) at the end of time through a molten fire, in the heat of which all abiding beings are forged into their spiritually perfected forms. So the fravarti is that aspect of the soul which runs ahead of itself as one’s own perfected form or archetype, drawing one’s earthly self towards union with its celestial counterpart.[25] Jorjani’s summary statement is consistent with the Traditionalist presupposition of macro-cosmic ‘ethereal’ archetypes, i.e. supra-temporal ideal forms that shape the physical universe and micro-cosmic reality through specific temporal-spatial instantiations or manifestations - including those found at the level of human individuality. These ‘crystalline’ forms ‘pre-exist’ in an ‘other-worldly’ realm of order and light and they are, eventually, bound to ‘de-construct’ and ‘re-construct’ their degenerate counterparts in the ‘this-worldly’ realm of chaos and dark. They also act as the larger categories of - and structural constraints on - all forms of creativity - they are, as such, impervious to ‘magic’ manipulation by ‘lower’ deities: [c]osmic order is not the product of arbitrary divine decree. (p. 157)

(2) Ordibehesht - Arta Vahishta, ‘Best Righteousness’ - This term indicated the above-mentioned principle of a rationally (abstractly and mathematically) comprehensible cosmic order.

(3) Khordad - Haurvatat, ‘Wholeness’ - This term indicates ...the spirit of health or wholeness... [that] is associated with the element of water. The Iranian cult of Anahita, the Lady of the Lake and Virgin mother of Mithra - who gives birth to him on the long night of the Winter Solstice - included baptism rituals with holy water that were intended to make one hale and confer a cleansing spiritual perfection. The idea here is not only that health follows from the intellectual discipline of Bahman (cf. 11 below) and the serenity of Sepandârmah (Spenta Armaiti - cf. 12 below), so that a disordered mind and a volatile life are unhealthy, but also that proper attention to bodily health and well being is a prerequisite of success in seeking enlightenment. (p. 158-9)

(4) Tir - Tishtrya, ‘Rainfall’ - This term, which has a direct European equivalent in the divinity known as Thor (and the Germanic rune Tyr), indicates the spirit of martial virility and ‘holy war’, as symbolized by the thunderbolt and the arrow. The Persians were famous for archery, and... Arash, the[ir mythological great] bowman, ...lets loose a magical arrow that defines the scope of the rightful realm of Aryans (Irân) in distinction from the non-Aryan (Anirân) world. In Greek... Arash becomes Ares, the god of war referred to by the Romans as Mars, [often] conflated [by] Roman Mithraists [with Mithras].... [His] rune symbol is the arrow, the one loosed by the bow of Arash... (p. 190)

(5) Amordad - Ameretat, ‘Immortality’ - This term indicates the principle of divine inspiration in its most concrete form (as in the Biblical ‘breath of life’ by which God animated Adam). Iranians conceive of the attainment of Enlightenment in terms of Amordâd... This... literally means un-deadness, in the sense of vitality. Intellectual excellence, justice, chivalry, serenity, and health ultimately lead one to this superhuman or supremely human condition. ...But Armordâd does not only refer to personal immortality. It also has another meaning that connects it more closely to the...  ecological principles of Zarathustra’s message in order to form the trio of serenity, health, and vitality. In this sense Amordâd is associated with the element of vegetation - the lush greenery of trees, plants, fruits, and vegetables. It was considered a sacred duty to propagate agriculture so as to participate in the divine creation and make the living world more bountiful. (p. 159)

(6) Shahrivar - Kshatra Vairya, ‘Desirable Dominion’ - This term ...could also be translated as the Most Choice-worthy Kingship. In other words, it is the ideal form of government, that which one would choose if only one could see it. Shahrivar comes into being when Ordibehesht is not only discerned by Bahman on an individual basis and embodied by a single person, but when an entire political order is rightly guided to bring society as a whole into harmony with cosmic order and the creative divine intellect. Shahrivar is elementally associated with metal. This has alchemical significance. Imagine the metal sword of the just ruler being forged in the fire of Ordibehesht. (p.160-1)

(7) Mehr - Mithra, ‘Sympathy’ - This term refers to the divinity that Classic Greece and Rome knew as... Mithras, or Mehr in contemporary Persian, [where it] means ‘Light’, ‘Love’, and ‘Friend’. He was born of his virgin mother [Anahita] in the middle of the night from December 24^th to 25^th, which (by the reckoning of ancient calendars) is the [recognizable] Winter Solstice - the rebirth of light from out of the most encompassing darkness. This is celebrated at Yaldâ (an Indo-European cognate of Yule Day), one of the four most sacred Zoroastrian holidays still commemorated in Iran. Mithras was the ‘lord of the green pastures’ and the evergreen tree represented Truth, evoking his status as the god of trustworthy Oaths and Contracts... Mithra[s] wears a red Phrygian cap, evoked by the Mitre of the Pater (Persian Pedar, ‘Father’ or Pir in Sufism), as well as a white belted red cloak and trousers - a distinctly Iranian garment of Parthian and Scythian riders... Are you reminded of Santa Claus? Devotees of Mithra celebrated holy communion, with wine and loaves of bread that were impressed with the symbol of an equilateral cross inside of a circle - a reference to the equinoxes and solstices of the Invincible Sun (Mehré Jâvedân in Persian, Sol Invictus in Latin. Baptism was also practised, since Anahita is the goddess of holy waters and the Lady of the Lake. ..The similarities of Mithraism to Christianity frightened the Christian writers who became aware of them, and they resorted to claiming that the devil, who had the demonic power to attain foreknowledge of the coming of Christ, had imitated elements of what would become Christianity and introduced them in the world [earlier] in order to denigrate them and to misguide people. Obviously, Zarathustra would have seen it the other way around: the Great Deceiver distorting Mazda’s World Saviour. (p. 178-9)

(8) Aban - Apas, ‘Waters’ - This term indicates a plurality of simultaneously life-giving and life-threatening female ‘aquatic spirits’, including those known in Greek mythology as ‘Oceanides’ and ‘Nymphs’.

(9) Azar - Atar, ‘Fire’ - This term indicates the perhaps best-known symbol of Zoroastrianism in the West: the eternal flame, as it is kept burning in the few remaining Zoroastrian Fire Temples around the world. ...Heraclitus adopt[ed] fire - an undying and everlasting fire - as the symbol of cosmic order. This idea of cosmic order, which he refers to in terms of the interpretation of cosmos and logos, is identical to Ȃrtâ in Persian thinking, which is associated with the element of fire in the Gathas of Zarathustra. The metaphorical eternal fire of Lord Wisdom’s mind becomes the central sacred symbol of Zoroastrianism. Such fires are perpetually tended at Zoroastrian temples to this day. (p.168)

(10) Dey - Dadvah, ‘Creator’ - This term is the epithet of the highest deity Ahura Mazda: it indicates the foundational equivalence between Wisdom and Creation.

(11) Bahman - Vohu Manah, ‘Good Purpose’ - This term can be understood through the conceptual relation between Avestan Vohu-man and English ‘human’: it points to the principle of disciplinary (self-)humanization rather than sentimental ‘humanity’. In the Aryan worldview a truly human life is devoted to the cultivation of Bahman, the best thinking or intellectual excellence that can discern and bring one into harmony with the cosmic order so that one may contribute to the great work of the creative spirit. (p. 157-8) A thorough grasp of the principle of ‘humanization’ explains its permanent association with the animal kingdom: ...how we treat animals is a reflection of our own humanity. There were extremely severe laws against cruelty to animals in the first Persian Empire. ...In northern India, under the reign of the Kushans, who were Scythian [i.e. Indo-European] converts to Buddhism, there were even more wide ranging laws against cruelty to animals. (p. 158)

(12) Esphand - Spenta Armaiti, ‘Holy Devotion’ - This term still has direct equivalents in the Indo-European West (Europe) and the Indo-European East (India). In the Yoga Tradition of India, and the Buddhist psychology that developed from out of it, this is referred to as samadhi. The Greek philosophers, such as Plato and Aristotle, refer to it as sophrosyne. In the older Iranian tradition, this abiding calm that comes over a contemplative and conscientious person is associated with the element of the Earth, and in this regard it is one of three closely related principles that demarcate the ecological dimension of Zarathustra’s message. Among the Bounteous Immortals of Zoroastrianism, [this principle] is depicted as a feminine figure - a kind of Mother Earth goddess. (p. 158) It is this last principle, that is served by all the others.

These are the ancient Twelve Pillars of Wisdom on which a future Indo-European civilization of self-surpassing splendour can be founded. A reference for Wisdom, cultivation of the intellect and the contemplation of cosmic order as the criterion of humanization, ferocious truthfulness, aristocratic meritocracy and the unequivocal rejection of mob rule, chivalry and charitable free spiritedness, joyousness and an ecstatic self-overcoming of need and greed, industriousness and divinization of our own creative potential, and at the same time a recognition that respect for the Earth’s ecology is a precondition for bodily health, vitality, and spiritual wholeness - these are some of the archaic Indo-European core values of a future, united Aryan world society. When I say future, I mean future. (p. 202)

Postscript: ‘Project Arrowhead’[26]

...Zarathustra hat mehr Tapferkeit im Leibe als alle Denker zusammengenommen.

Wahrheit reden und gut mit Pfeilen schiessen, das ist die persische Tugend.

[...Zoroaster embodies a courage superior to that of all other thinkers combined.

To speak the truth and masterful archery - that is Persian virtue.]

- Friedrich Nietzsche[27]

By ruthlessly applying his own special brand of ‘Neo-Zoroastrian’ hermeneutics, Jorjani has deconstructed the cosmological idols of the past (the ‘anthropomorphic’ divinities of the dead ancient world) as well as the present (the atavistic idols of ‘un-dead’ modern ‘humanized religion’). He has exposed them as convenient masks for Ahriman, the ‘Spirit of Destruction’, which incorporates absolute - and therefore in-human - evil and automatically rules whenever Wisdom and Light are lost. Ahriman is the ruler of the Dark Age and he is served by the spirit of the lie: the trickster, liar and thief, symbolized by the deceitful messenger type ‘Hermes’. In exposing a centuries-thick deposit of tricks, lies and thefts, Jorjani has added a new Archaeo-Futurist deconstruction to the long-standing Traditionalist deconstruction of the many regressive worldviews that underpin ‘contemporary religion’ (‘inverted-modernized’ Judaism, self-annihilating ‘Christianity’ and ‘weaponized’ pseudo-Islam) as well as their secular substitutes in historical-materialist ideology (state-worshipping Fascism, lowlife-worshipping Communism, usury-worshipping Liberalism). His highly original approach is valuable in and of itself - it represents an intellectual achievement of the first order and may be considered the final philosophical nail in the coffin of Culture Nihilism - and of ‘modernity’ itself. Jorjani has effectively wiped away the whole philosophical foundation of modernity, leaving its self-appointed pseudo-clerical ‘intelligentsia’ to face the shattering truth of total cultural catastrophe and total existential crisis. They may indulge in ostrich-policy self-censorship, politically-correct ‘peer reviews’ and scoffing insult, but nothing can save them now. To them, there remains little to say, except perhaps to quote two maxims: let the dead bury their dead (Matthew 8:22) - and: history does not solve problems - it buries them (Nicolás Gómez Dávila).

Jorjani has already moved on - and moved beyond the defensive stage of ‘cognitive warfare’: he has embarked on a full-scale counter-offensive to regain control of the philosophical levers of Indo-European civilization. The first result of this epic undertaking - which ultimately aims at nothing less than a philosophical reconquista of the entire Indo-European life-world - has been the recovery of key Aryan Archetypes from an ‘Atlantean’ depth that seemed to preclude their salvaging. The Archaeo-Futurist movement owes Jorjani an immense debt of gratitude - and full support for his further philosophical and meta-political projects: it wishes him good hunting in pursuit of the ultimate price. This essay will conclude by honouring Jorjani as the bowman of Archaeo-Futurism. As he has said it himself: the name of the Greek goddess of the hunt, ‘Artemis’ has no clear sense in Greek, but if you read it through the lens of Persian linguistics you get a contraction of the compound Ȃrtâ Ameshâ... [which] means ‘Immortal Truth’... - a hypostatization of Ashâ somewhat in the style of the later European ‘Nuda Veritas’. The chief symbol of Artemis is the archer’s bow and arrow, the ancient Persian symbol of Truth referenced by Nietzsche when he puts this maxim into the mouth of his returned Zarathustra: ‘To speak the truth and shoot well with arrows, that is Persian virtue.’ (p. 169-70) In his World State of Emergency, Jorjani has hit the rose - may his be the ultimate reward.

Joy, joy for ever: my task is done -
The Gates are past and Heaven is won

- Thomas Moore, Lalla-Rookh

Appendix: the Persian Calendar

Notes