I’ve been reading ‘Montesgur and the Mystery of the Cathars’ by Jean Markale. I’m really out of my league on if what he says in the book has any worth since this is my first book on the Cathars and the regions of France that he is describing, but besides being interesting reading this passage struck me as interesting in that Zervan seemed to equate to 7 th density to me. Markale is trying to find the roots of the Cathar dualistic beliefs.
So I did some searching round on Zervanism and found the below page. The page is very long and I’ve provided some quotes below because it seems to describe a lot of what the C’s have described in terms of 7 th density (Zurvan), 6D STO (Ohrmazd) and 6D STS (Ahriman). What is also interesting is that Zervanism relates that this world has been under the control of Ahriman for 9 thousand years. The reason I’m quoting in length is that it really struck me as worth digging into.
http://www.cais-soas.com/CAIS/Religions/iranian/zurvanism.htm
A variant of Mazdaism developed parallel to Mithraism: Zervanism, whose name came from the Persian world for the Greek Chronos, Zervan. It is possible to see in Zervanism the development of an earlier strain of Mazdaism that was not influenced by Zoroaster. In any case, we are attempting to resolve a dualism that was not always very clearcut in Zoroastrain thought due to Ahura-Mazda’s essential superiority. In Zervanist conception, Ahura-Mazda and Ahriman were equals, at least at the beginning. One was the principle of goodness and light, the other of evil and darkness. These two figures were in perpetual combat, which explained all the upheaval that took place in the world. But Ahura-Mazda and Ahriman were not the supreme gods; they were emanations of a higher principle, Zervan, which meant “time” in the Zend language – or, more precisely, Zervan Akanara, “infinite time.” Some comparisons can be drawn between his Persian Zervan and he Greek Chronos: Both were creator and devouring gods. But Zervan is interesting to the extent that he gave birth to the two principles of good and evil. He therefore contained them both. Thus Zervan was the god of good and/or evil; whether he was one, the other, or both depending on the choice made by those who addressed him. Dualism was resolved in Zervan by the harminous synthesis of the two antagonistic principles.
In fact, in the absolute meaning, when the supreme good, in this instance Zervan, had not yet created or manifested himself, good and evil coexisted within him in a kind of nirvana where there was no activity but simply passive contemplation. Relatively, however – meaning from the moment the world creatd by Zervan began to become active – activity was possible only if the two principles were separated from each other so they could collide, somewhat like electricity that does not exist except where there is confrontation between positive and a negative current. Prior to this confrontation, electricity existed only as a potentiality.
The absolute Zervan was of course a supreme god before the world’s creation because there was nothing opposing him, but primarily he was a potential god. And his potentiality served no purpose, according to the Hegelian priniciple. But when potentiality became action, the two components began to move and produced the events of history. These two components, completely antagonistic to each other, were obviously good and evil. According to Zervanism, the world existed thanks only to the perpetual conflict between these two principles. The dualism of Zervanism was resolved by the highest dialectical reasoning. In fact, Zervanism was not dualism at all, for the forces of good and evil were intrinsically nothing but manifestations of a unique totality. Had the proponents of Zervanism given any thought to the ontological conclusions to which their system would naturally lead?
Regardless, Zervanism spread throughout the Greek world. Plutarch, who alluded to Mazdaism, presented it in its Zervanist form. This doctrine also left a strong imprint on Mithraism and on those other religions that succeeded it, including Christianity. Zervanism is the origin of what would later be called mitigated dualism, in which the principle of good and evil essentially do not exist because they are not independent of each other and both derive from a single earlier, sovereign principle. But from the perspective of all those who have professed mitigated dualism, the tangible world, matter, and physical beings are always the world of evil, otherwise known as Satan. This is again what we find in Catharism. But it should be recognized that the Zervanist doctrine was a very skillful compromise between monism and dualism proper, and was, in the final analysis, the recognition of an absolute monism provoking the appearance of a relative dualism.
So I did some searching round on Zervanism and found the below page. The page is very long and I’ve provided some quotes below because it seems to describe a lot of what the C’s have described in terms of 7 th density (Zurvan), 6D STO (Ohrmazd) and 6D STS (Ahriman). What is also interesting is that Zervanism relates that this world has been under the control of Ahriman for 9 thousand years. The reason I’m quoting in length is that it really struck me as worth digging into.
http://www.cais-soas.com/CAIS/Religions/iranian/zurvanism.htm
The Zandiks mentioned in Karter's great inscription, therefore, probably included both Manichees and materialists, and the 'commentary' or 'Zand' that at least the latter followed was probably to be found in those writings deriving from the Byzantine world which treated of movement, time, space, etc., and which were incorporated into the Avesta by Shapur I. In the Zoroastrian writings themselves these Dahris or Zandiks, who are equated with the Sophists, were felt to be un-Iranian. They must have constituted a hellenizing party which still claimed to be Zoroastrian, and which could defend its orthodoxy by saying that it was following authentic teachings of Zoroaster which, though lost in their original from when Persepolis was sacked by Alexander, had miraculously survived in a Greek translation; these translations had now been restored to their rightful place in the canon of the Avesta by the action of the king of kings.
Al-Jili, one of the later Muhammadan mystics, tells us that these same Dahris refrained from all acts of worship because, believing in the eternity of Time, they venerated it as God in his essence, as pure potentiality, and not as an actual creator. Jili, then, would have it that, beneath the materialism of the Dahris, there was a mystical element of pure contemplation of the Godhead in its essence; and, as we come to examine some of the more abstruse texts of the Denkart, we shall perhaps be disposed to agree with him. From the side of orthodox dualist Zoroastrianism, Mardan-Farrukh attacks the Dahris, but makes no allowance for any mystical element there may have been in their beliefs. For him they are out-and-out materialists.
'Different [from the atheists proper],' he says, 'are the atheists called Dahris. They give up their religious duties and make no effort to practise virtue: [rather] they indulge in endless discussion....They believe that Infinite Time is the first Principle of this world and of all the various changes and [re-]groupings to which its members and organs are subject as well as of the mutual opposition that exists between them and of their fusion with one another. [They believe too] that virtue goes unrewarded, that there is no punishment for sin, that heaven and hell do not exist, and that there is no one who has charge of [the rewarding of] virtue and [the punishment of] sin. [They believe too] that all things are material and that the spiritual does not exist.'
These were the 'Zandiks' or 'Dahris' whom Karter persecuted. This seems certain because Karter makes a point of affirming the very doctrines that the Zandiks deny. In no uncertain terms he bids the passer-by to remember that 'heaven exists and hell exists, and whoso is virtuous will go to heaven, and whoso is vicious will be cast into hell'. Since the Zandiks saw in Infinite Time the one ultimate and changeless principle from which all else proceeds, they must be considered as Zurvanite materialists. Their doctrines were almost certainly derived from those 'scientific' works which Shapur I had incorporated into the Avesta from Byzantium and India. Indeed, the idea that Time is the source of all things is perhaps derived from India rather than from the Hellenistic world. Already in the Maitri Upanishad (c. 500 BC?) we find Time identified with the supreme principle; and Time has two forms, the 'timeless', which is without parts, the eternal 'now', and time which is visible into parts as it is normally understood: the first is 'Time without form', the second the 'form' of Time.
From Time do contingent beings flow forth,
From Time too do they advance to growth;
In Time too do they return home.
Time, for the Indians, was not simply time as we understand it. As the Infinite it is the raw material, the materia prima, of all contingent being. As Being it is the source of all becoming: it is Infinite Time-Space and it becomes embodied in the universe, and 'this embodied Time is the ocean of creatures'. Ideas not unlike these reappear in the Denkart, and efforts, often not very successful, were made to adjust them to the exigencies of a dualist theology.
It would seem certain that at the time of this influx of Greek and Indian ideas into Sassanian Zoroastrianism, Zurvanism in its mythological form already existed; otherwise Mani's choice of Zurvan rather than Ohrmazd to represent his own 'Father of Greatness' would be inexplicable. Zurvan, then, already conceived of as infinite Time-Space, the whole intelligible universe from whom a good and an evil daemon proceed, or who gives birth to light and darkness before these-Zurvan, already referred to in the Avesta as the 'Infinite'-must inevitably have coalesced with the more abstract concept of infinite Time-Space as primal matter, the ultimate source of all things, which the Iranians probably derived from India, and which they combined with the Aristotelian key concepts of matter and form, potentiality and actuality.
'Classical' and Materialist Zurvanism
The two types of Zurvanism, however, were originally quite distinct and derived from quite different sources. Mythological Zurvanism starts as an attempt to explain what Zoroaster could have possibly meant when he said that the Holy and Destructive Spirits were twins. It picks on the Infinite (Time or Space) as being the only possible 'Absolute' from which the twins could proceed: it is the source of the good in the one and the evil of the other, of light and of darkness in which they respectively have their beings. It elevates Zurvan or Infinite Time to the status of father of the spirits of good and evil, the father of light and darkness. It thereby makes Ohrmazd, now identified with Zoroaster's Holy Spirit, subordinate to Zurvan-Zurvan himself remaining a shadowy figure over against which the cosmic drama plays itself out.
Materialist Zurvanism, the religion of the Zandiks, however, is quite different from this. Its leading idea, namely, that infinite Time-Space which is itself without form, though the source of all that has form, is probably of Indian origin, but the philosophical development of the idea is worked out along Aristotelian lines. The whole thing, as the Denkart says, is un-Iranian. Both types of Zurvanism, however, present a direct challenge to the orthodox dualism, and both challenge it where it is weakest-in its conception of a godhead which, though perfectly good, is nonetheless limited by a positive power of evil. Zurvanism brings a new dimension into Zoroastrianism-the dimension of an eternity which is not simply infinite duration, but a condition that is beyond space and time, and which, being itself a state of perfect rest, must also be the source from which all movement and all action proceed. Orthodoxy tried to wrestle with this problem and offered not one but many solutions. The result was that in the end their rigid dualism gave way to an unsure 'trialism' in which there were not to principles only, but three-Ohrmazd, the good God, Ahriman, the Devil, and a neutral principle of primal matter, infinite Time-Space which is beyond good and evil and possessed of neither intelligence nor will.
[…]
Matter, however, can neither be created nor destroyed; hence, primal matter, which is one, devoid of parts, and lacking all form, is also called ras, the 'wheel'. Itself eternal, it is the source of all becoming. It is infinite Time-Space, the Zurvan Akarana mentioned in the Avesta. Space is the pre-condition of matter, and Time is its eternity, and without infinite Time-Space there could have been no creation. The word 'creation', of course, implies a creator and in most of the cosmological passages in the Denkart Ohrmazd appear as the creator who fashions forth his creation from primal matter; he gives form to the formless Time-Space continuum. There are, however, two passages in which no reference at all is made to a creator; the whole process of creation is represented as an authomatic process of 'becoming' from a unitary, infinite and eternal Time-Space. Time-Space is the primal 'matter' from which all 'becoming' proceeds. 'Becoming' is perhaps not the best translation of the word bavishn which seems to stand for a state of indeterminate being from which the whole evolutionary process starts, for it is also called the 'seed' and the 'seed of seeds'. Even so it is posterior to Time-Space and originates from it. The whole process of evolution from primal matter (Time-Space) to the fully developed universe is seen as taking place in four stages. These are called 'becoming', the 'process of becoming', the 'stabilization of becoming', and finally the 'world', geteh. This scheme of things, which makes no mention of a creator God is, of course, wholly un-Zoroastrian; it is a purely materialistic and mechanistic interpretation of the universe, yet it lays claim to scriptural authority, for it uses phrase 'as is said in the Religion'. This 'Religion' is obviously not the Avesta as we know it; it can only refer to the Graeco-Indian writings imported into the Sassanian Avestan by Shapur.
[…]
Zurvan and the Pact between Ohrmazd and Ahriman
This pact is also mentioned by Zatsparam; and his introduction of the figure of Zurvan into the cosmic drama is even odder. Zatsparam starts with the classical dualist account of the creation -Ohrmazd is above in the light, and Ahriman below in the darkness, and between them is the Void. Yet when Ohrmazd begins to fashion forth his creation, he has to beg Time to aid him, for all things have need of Time; and once he has completed his creation, he is quite unable to set it in motion, for Time alone has the power to do this; and it is Zurvan-Time again who settles the terms of the pact between the two Spirits.
'Pondering on the end, [Zurvan] delivered to Ahriman an implement [fashioned] from the very substance of darkness, mingled with the power of Zurvan, as it were a treaty, resembling coal(?), black and ashen. And as he handed it to him he said: "By means of these weapons, Az (Concupiscence) will devour that which is thine, and she herself shall starve, if at the end of nine thousand years thou hast not accomplished that which thou didst threaten- to demolish the pact, to demolish Time."'
It is true neither text even hints that Zurvan is the father of Ohrmazd and Ahriman, or that the two Spirits are twins (Zatsparam even going so far as to affirm his belief in the two Principles through the lips of Zurvan!), yet it is Zurvan to whom Ohrmazd has to appeal for help, it is he who settles the terms of the combat, and he again who arms Ahriman with the one weapons which is certain to destroy him. No Pahlavi text, indeed, ever speaks of Zurvan's paternity of Ohrmazd and Ahriman, but they all agree that Zurvan-Time is co-eternal with them. Zurvanism, indeed, appears to have started simply as an attempt to make sense of Yasna 30.3 in which the two Spirits appear as twins, and to provide them with a father. Under Shapur I the situation is complicated by the fact that the Zandiks -Zurvanite materialists- jettisoned the whole of the ancient tradition and thought to explain the universe as emerging from an undifferentiated One -Infinite Time, which is at the same time Infinite Space and undifferentiated matter. Both doctrines were finally rejected by the orthodox, but orthodoxy itself remained unaffected by neither, and the efforts that it made to assimilate what was assimilable in these two strands of Zurvanism will be occupying our attention in the following chapters.
[…]
Water is the moist element par excellence, fire the hot, the quality of cold being subsidiary in the case of water, that of dryness in that of fire. Ohrmazd, who is described as being 'hot and moist', derives, then, from the primary qualities of the sacred elements, Ahriman, moreover, cannot create any material thing because cold and dryness are the qualities of death. Ohrmazd, on the other hand, can do so because his qualities are the qualities of life. So we find in the Denkart that the menok or invisible and intangible principle of light and the menok of darkness emerge from a single, uncompounded menok elsewhere identified with ras, the 'Wheel', itself identical with primal matter or infinite Space-Time. 'The menok of light, because it has the properties of the hot and the moist, that is, the very nature of life, can evolve from a state of uncompounded menok existence (bavishn) to a state of compounded existence which is material (geteh)...while the menok of darkness, because it is cold and dry, the [very] substance of death and meet for damnation, cannot develop into compounded existence or take on material form.' This is pure Zurvanism in philosophical rather than mythological form. Ohrmazd and Ahriman, the Spirit of light and the Spirit of darkness, emerge from the simple, uncompounded One, the one taking on the qualities of heat and moisture which are the positive side of the elements, fire and water, and the source of life, the other receiving only the negative, cold and dryness, the ingredients of death. Seen in this light Ahriman is not only the source of death: he is the very substance of death -and what is dead cannot be said to be. Hence it is possible to say that sub specie aeternitatis 'Ahriman is not': 'he was not eternally nor will he be'.
This would appear to be a far cry from orthodoxy which maintained that both Ohrmazd and Ahriman are substances that exist from the beginning. Philosophically, however, it can be justified in this way: Ohrmazd is eternal being and therefore must exist in actu, not merely potentially. Ahriman, on the other hand, can only attain the semblance of being in finite time since in eternity he is not. His actualization depends on the nature of eternal being itself. This being is the simple, uncompounded One, in other words, Zurvan, who, as infinite Space-Time, contains all potentialities within him. Zurvan's doubt in the myth is the mythological representation of an etential flaw in the godhead: the birth of Ahriman represents the actualization of that flaw, and with the actualization of Ahriman, Time and Space too assume a finite form, for finite space and time are in a sense a lapse from the perfect state of infinitude; and it is therefore logical that Ahriman should be lord of the temporal world for as long as it lasts, and it is logical it is logical that Ohrmazd who, as eternal Being, is one with Zurvan, but who is greater than he in that he is also eternal Wisdom, should be separated out from him as soon as Zurvan's inherent defect makes itself manifest. This gives new meaning to the myth of Zurvan and also explains how two versions of it persisted side by side. For beside the myth of Zurvan and the twin Spirits that proceed from him we have that other story in which it is Ohrmazd, in this context, simply called Yazdan, 'God', who has an evil thought, that it is to say, he considers the possibility of what it would be like to have an adversary, and from this unworthy thought Ahriman, the Adversary, is actualized.
[…]
The Emergence of Consciousness and the Genesis of Evil
So much, then, for the evolution of the world of nature -the material cosmos- from infinite Time-Space into a finite mode of exisyence, its passage from potency into act. What of the order of intellect and will? How does consciousness arise? The Denkart gives the answer, and it is so interesting that we must quote it in full:
Of knowledge (lit. 'the condition of being a knower') thus is it taught. By the Creator's marvellous power, in infinite Time and by its power knowledge came to know (the immutability of Ohrmazd's essence depends of Infinite Time). From this [act of knowing] resulted the rising up of the Aggressor, unwilled [by Ohrmazd], to destroy the essence [of Ohrmazd] (i.e. his immutability) and his attributes, by means of false speech. The immediate result of this was that [Ohrmazd]'s essence and attributes turned back [into themselves] in order to [come to] know their own ground. So much knowing was necessary for the Creator [himself] to rise up for the creative act. The first effect of this rising up was the Endless Light. From the Endless Light is the Spirit of Truth which derives from Wisdom (knowledge) because it has the potentiality of growing into the knowledge of all things. By knowing all things he has power to do all he wills. Thence creation and the Aggressor's deafeat thereby, the return of creation to its proper sphere of action, and the eternal rule of Ohrmazd in the perfect joy; for it is he who is the origin of good things, the source of good, the seed and potentiality (or power) of all that is good. All good creatures are from him as a first effect by creation or by emanation, as sheen is from shining, shining from brilliance, brilliance from light.'
Ohrmazd, in this passage, is conceived of primilarily as 'Wisdom', that is, the faculty of knowing. He is also immutable being in virtue of the fact that his habitat is Infinite Time, the Absolute. As Wisdom and the knowing faculty he is latent and potential only: he is not yet actualized. This groping awareness seeks an object outside itself, and, finding none, an object generates itself without God willing it, and this self-generated object is none other than Ahriman, the Aggressor, whose object now is to destroy God's essence which is his immutable being. He seeks to imprison the infinite in the finite, the eternal in the temporal, God in the world. His aim is nothing less than to do away with unconditioned being. Thus Ahriman originates in Ohrmazd's accession to consciousness: in Jungian terminology, the dim dawn of consciousness from the unconscious engendered the 'shadow' or dark side of the divine personality. The awakening of the divine consciousness in Ohrmazd is the equivalent of Zurvan's doubt in the Zurvanite myth, and this initial failure to reach full self-consciousness puts Ohrmazd into mortal peril; he risks the loss of his very essence, eternal being which he now sees to be identical with eternal knowing or eternal Wisdom. Hence he makes an effort of total introspection -his 'essence and attributes turned back [into themselves] in order to [come to] know their own ground'. In order to eliminate the destructive element engendered by incomplete knowledge Ohrmazd must first know himself as he is: he must do what Mardan-Farrukh said no one, not even God, could do-he must know himself as infinite and as possessed of infinite knowledge, and this self-knowledge alone will enable him to 'rise up for the creative act'. This saving knowledge engenders endless light, for light, as always, is the symbol of spiritual illumination or insight. This is the light of Wisdom which is proper to the nature of Ohrmazd, that same Wisdom which 'descends from the light on to the earth and by which [men] see and think well', and this Wisdom is identical with the Good Religion. From this Light of Wisdom proceeds the Spirit of Truth which enables Ohrmazd to know all things as they are. By knowing himself and knowing his Adversary too he knows he must create or emanate the universe, if his Adversary is to be defeated; but he also creates because he knows himself as good, and the 'definition of goodness is that which of itself develops'; so God himself must develop and 'grow into the knowledge of all things'.
The whole of this remarkable passage is Zurvanite rather than Mazdean, first because the 'Endless Light' is here originated, not eternal as it is in all the strictly orthodox texts, and secondly because the divine personality is composed not of God, Time, Wisdom, and Light (=Ohrmazd), but of God, Time, potential Wisdom, and Space, from which alone the Endless Light can originate; and all this adds up not to Ohrmazd, but to Zurvan.
The Changelessness of Created Being
From the One, then, finite time and finite space, which together add up to the material world, are actualized in the order of nature, consciousness, thought, and a sense of purpose in the order of intellect and will. The conditions of creation are now fulfilled, and Ohrmazd creates heaven and earth as his first line of defence against the Aggressor. Finite time is destined to last twelve thousand years, at the end of which it merges again into its source which is the Infinite, and action merges into rest from which it sprang. But the universe created by Ohrmazd in all its infinite variety does not revert to its own source which is the undifferentiated One or primal matter. All creation is dependent on Infinite Time, and as such it must partake of eternity. So it can be confidently stated that 'those things which Ohrmazd created at the original creation do not change'. For Ohrmazd, in creating finite beings to do battle with Ahriman, who can only exist and operate on the finite level, gives them an infinite dimension; and just as Time, Space, Wisdom, and Ohrmazd himself are eternal and immutable, so is all that he creates out of them. All the good creation, then, has an eternal substrate which will be realized at the end of time as eternal well-being and bliss. This constitutes the 'Final Body'- the body of a universe renewed and perfected because finally purged of the malice and corruption of the Aggressor. This 'body' continues to exist in all its variety, and within it exist in harmony the resurrected bodies, now once again united to their souls, of all men reconstituted and transfigured. It is true that every material thing was elicited from the potentiality of matter and every spiritual thing from the potentiality of spirit, but in the end 'possessed of image and body (adhvenakomand ut karpomand) they will be reunited to their souls, all undefiled, and together with their souls they will be made immortal, reconstituted as eternal beings in perfect bliss'. The end of the cosmic drama, then, is not just a return to the status quo ante, a reversion to a state of pure undifferentiated being, it means rather that every separate creature has grown and developed to its highest capacity, it has become its final cause, the sum-total of all its good thoughts, words, and deeds, what the Iranian call its Khwarenah, or Khwarr as it is now called in Pahlavi. This glorious state it achieves on its own account certainly, but also in full union and harmony with the whole human race which itself is transfigured in the beatific vision of God. Life in Infinite Time is thus a life of union and communion both with God and with the whole of his creation now finally released from all the torments inflicted on it by the Fiend. He and his entire creation will be utterly destroyed. This constitutes the purpose of life for the Zoroastrian, whether he be, in his mythology and philosophy, an orthodox dualist or a Zurvanite.
All this is, indeed, a long way removed from Manichaeanism, but there are, as in Manichaeanism, distinctly Buddhistic overtones, for not only are the spiritual worlds of Ohrmazd and Ahriman at war with each other, but the temporal and eternal orders also seem to be mutually contrasted and opposed. Ohrmazd's original creation was wholly static, 'without thought, without movement, intangible', and it is only the disorderly movement (oshtap) that is Az that sets the temporal process going. The temporal process is the Buddhist samsara, the ebb and flow of physical life regarded by the Buddhists as being evil simply because it is impermanent and therefore void of lasting value. In Zurvanism, Infinite Time represents eternal and timeless existence and this is the realm of Ohrmazd; finite Time is temporal existence as lived on earth, subject to birth and death, coming to be and passing away, and it is not only the kingdom of Ahriman, but also the very food on which the demon Az thrives. Yet finite Time is not evil of itself; it is the locus of evil and the food by which it lives. When it 'dies' by being reabsorbed into the Infinite, evil, like a cancer whose life is sustained by the thing it kills, must itself perish with it. The world-process, then, is God's struggle to rescue temporal, conditioned existence from the very powers which seem to make its continuance possible -hunger and thirst and sexual desire. The result, however, is not the escape of the individual or of the universe into a featureless and timeless Nirvana, but the subsuming of the material world into spirit in which time merges back into the timeless; but the timeless is now no longer the simple, undifferentiated One from which all existent things originally issued forth, but a timeless world in which all created things share in the plenitude of their khwarr, their consummated personality finally delivered from the toils of concupiscence. Ahriman had foolishly threatened to 'demolish the pact, to demolish time', and by this he meant that he would put an end to eternal existence as such and drag all creation down to a purely temporal and therefore mortal level, thereby depriving men for ever of any hope of immortal life; but in the end he himself is vanquished by Az, the seed of corruption he was fool enough to choose as his weapon against the radiant creation of Ohrmazd. Ohrmazd, on the other hand, once his enemies are annihilated, elevates the whole material creation into the spiritual order, and there the perfection that each created thing has as it issues from the hand of God is restored to it at the final Rehabilitation, the Frashkart or 'Making Excellent' when everything that was excellent in time will be excellent in eternity.
