Zalmoxis and his Gnostic teachings

The Getae (“Goths” according to some medieval historians) or "Dacae" (Dacians) are actually Sarmatian by origin – hence their Sarmatian "dragon banners". They were Scythian tribes, partly Thracianized in the Balkans, who, as a result of an internecine conflict around the middle of 2nd millennium B.C.A., split from their Indo-Aryan relatives in Central Asia –  Massagetae ("Great Getae") beyond the Oxus River and/or Dahae in Bactria, known also from the Chinese chronicles as Yue-zhi (Old Chinese: *(n)Gu-tie – “Getae”) and Da Xia (“Bactrians”). Herodotus (IV; 11) wrote about this migration of the Scythinas, but he didn't make the connection with the Getae, since he thought them to be Thracian.

"Zalmoxis" is indeed an Indo-Aryan name – Jālamokśi, which means "Liberated from the Net", that is from the "Indra's Net" (Skt. Indrajāla – hence "Darzalas", as they called the demiurge), which is synonymous with Māyā (the illusion of reality). The epithet "Gebeleizis" from other hand means "Cave Dweller" (Skt. Gehabilaji or Gehabailaji), referring to his cave, where he lived for three years, coming out in the fourth one (Herodotus, IV; 95), which represents the cycle of cultivating of the "immortal embryo" in the internal alchemy, symbolized in the calendar by the five days, added to every fourth year of 13 months. This is not a religion, but a spiritual way of liberation from the material world of the "Great God" Darzalas or the demiurge, whose cult the Dacae (Skt. Dakśā - "intelligent or able ones") rejected and despised, thus being essentially opposed to the Druidic religion of Orpheus and the Judaeo-Christianity. Zalmoxianism was about achieving the "immortality", i.e. the eternal state of the spirit, completely liberated from matter, space and time, life and rebirth, which was called metaphorically "bird" or "walker in the emptiness" (Skt. khaga) (cf. Plato’s myth in “Phaedrus” about the souls, becoming “birds”, while following their divine guides, and thus transcending the material world “beyond the sphere of the stars”). Hence this school was named "the Way of the Birds" (Skt. Khagāyana), which gave the name of the sacred mountain and river “Kogaionon”, where Zalmoxis have lived according to Strabo (VII; 3.5). Zalmoxis taught the mystical "Language of the Birds", expressed through the sacred dance and song, which were also called "zalmoxis", according to the information of Hesychius (“Salmoxis: Kronos, dance and song”). Those were spiritual practices, guided by immortal spirits (Skt. "khagā" or Gk. "daimones") – the daemons, serving as mediators to the god Kronos, who sleeps in a cave of golden rock on an island in North Atlantic, as wrote Plutarch (De Faciae, 26) – and Zalmoxis was traditionally identified by the ancient authors with Kronos or also with Heracles (as the ancestor of the Scythians, coming with Geryon’s cattle from the island Erytheia in the Atlantic Sea – Herodotus, IV; 8-10).

It is possible thus, that Socrates has been initiated in this tradition by a Thracian healer, as it is alluded in Plato's dialogue "Charmides" (he was given an incantation, i.e. a mantra to use together with herbs for “healing the soul” together with the body) and hence most likely came the mystic relation with his famous personal "daimon" (daemon), talking about which cost him his life by the false accusation of introducing a "foreign cults" (Zalmoxianism?) amongst the Athenian youth (false, because Zalmoxianism is not a dogmatic cult, but a spiritual method, which not requires to be a “Zalmoxian” in order to practice it, so it wouldn’t be correct to define Socrates as such – he was just initiated, not believer or follower of some religion). Plato in his turn maybe was also initiated by Socrates himself, but he was prudent enough to keep his mouth shut about those things, so they remain a mystery (the “unwritten doctrines”), only alluded vaguely in some of his Epistles. Still, his inspiration, which was coming from the same source, made his quasi-Pythagorean school similar to the teachings of Zalmoxis and so this fact contributed to the legend, that Zalmoxis allegedly had learned from Pythagoras.

See also:

http://www.sokaisi.ro/Zalmoxis_Initiations_files/Zalmoxis%20Initiations%20Manual%20January%202011.pdf

Tradition of the Magi

Tradition of the Magi

Perhaps few people today are aware that the word “magic” comes from the name “Magi” of the ancient Persian priestly cast. The Magi are reported by Herodotus as clergymen of the Pre-Zoroastrian religion of Achaemenid Persia (it is also a name of one of the Median tribes, but whether they were related is not clear). They oversaw the sacrifices to the seven deities (Sky, Sun, Moon and the Four Elements) made on the summits of the mountains and other high places. The Magi are mentioned in the gospel of Mathew as “sages from the East” (Gr. magoi apo anatolōn) and also in “Mahābhārata” as a cast of priests of the solar cult (Skt. magāḥ)  in Śākadvīpa (the “Scythian continent” north-west of ancient India).

The ancient Iranian philosophy considered the universal process as interplay of two dialectical opposites of Light (raocaŋh) and Dark (təmaŋh) overseen by the regulating principle of Time (Zrwān) – an abstraction of becoming. From this primordial duality evolved all beings -gods, elements, plants, animals and humans - with their spiritual (mainyu) and material (gaētha) dimensions.

The Magian discipline has influenced the common Persian education which according to Herodotus consisted of three parts – horse-riding (Gr. hippeuein), arrow-shooting (Gr. toxeuein) and truth-saying (Gr. alēthizesthai). The first one refers to the art of controlling the breath or life-energy symbolized by horse (cf. Tib. lung-ta, Mong. hiimori – “wind-horse” meaning vital breath), from where the metaphor “to rein in” (کردن افسار = to master or control) derives. The second is the mental concentration (= Skt. samādhi) – bow and string usually symbolize life (var. will) and soul respectively, while the arrow represents the one-pointedness of mind (= Skt. ekāgraha). The third means saying the “true word” or mantra (manthra-spənta or “sacred word”) and we know that even today the “spell-casting” is considered essential part of every magic. This included a special technique of chanting the mantras which allowed the mage to produce sounds not only through the throat but also from the abdomen, chest and top of the head thus activating his subtle energy centers (the chakras). Even now in Central Asia can be found persons who can sing at least in two voices - coming from the abdomen and from the head. Thus the major parts of the magic were considered: (1) self-control, (2) concentration and (3) mantra-practice. Herodotus wrote that those disciplines were taught to boys from 5 to 20 years old, so it took 15 years to master them.

This tradition was carried through the centuries and integrated in many other religions – Zoroastrianism, Mithraism, Bon (Pre-Buddhist religion of Tibet and Mongolia), Gnosticism, Manicheism, Bogomilism, Catharism, Illuminism etc. The name of the Magi became a byword meaning sorcerers, astrologers, fire-worshippers or dualists and give rise to words like “magic”, “magician”, “magical” etc. Echoes from their essential philosophy can be found amongst the Ishrāqi (Illuminist) and Sufi tradition, and even in the works of philosophers like Goethe and Hegel. At his time the great scholar Omar Khayyam wrote a rubayi:

If I am drunk from the wine of the Magi – I am,

and if I am infatuated, lax and idolater – I am.

Everybody judges by his own notion,

but I myself know: whatever I am – that I am!

Why Gnosis?

Common folks often ask why one should pursue knowledge. They don’t see immediate purpose and assume something is useless if it doesn’t serve their petty mundane needs and interests. However a pneumatic knows that behind questions like those underlies a hidden urge to control others – to set a purpose for them or to define what they should or shouldn’t do in their opinion. The real benefit from knowledge however is exactly the opposite because it makes one aware of such stealthy attempts and thus allows the person to choose for oneself.

Our mind is able to recognize the emerging patterns from the kaleidoscopic chaos of experience and then to select some of them as repeating and so predictable to constitute the base of cognition. The mind always seek to divine the ever changing panorama of experience standing on such acquired and/or imposed by environment frameworks of concepts. Thus in its attempts to free itself it actually builds its own prison called “reality”.  The conventional “truths” of common sense are meant to keep us inside.  The fools are content to live in herd serving someone other’s purpose. That is why in every “proper” society existential conformism is considered the norm of being. 

But there is another option – Gnosis! It is for those few who cannot stand to exist in such a way - for those who seek true freedom. Gnosis is the basic experience which underlies every true philosophy. 

Philosophy is the poetry of thought based on feeling the resonance of ideas and concepts and recognizing their intrinsic structural isomorphism. Following the intuition and logic it aligns them in all-pervading metaphors allowing to make sense from different symbolic frames of reference. Philosophy seeks the truth which is not some “objective reality” as totalitarian authority wants us to believe, but that invariance under transformations linking different subjects and sign systems. But now Gnosis is made unavailable to humans and thus modern philosophy becomes no more than blabbering. It resembles a verse composed by machine. Thus in order to glimpse the whole picture again we should re-invent Gnosis. We will search for new paradigm combining the ancient wisdom with modern knowledge.  

The only goal worth of pursuing is freedom. And Knowledge is the mean for it. In this quest “nothing is true and everything is permissible” (Hassan-i Sabbāh).

The Labyrinth has no beginning. But hopefully it has an end. We will follow the logical consecution of thought between intuitive insights - the faint thread of Ariadne (who – let me remind - is also consort of Dionysus!). Prejudices – both old and modern – are not allowed to stay in our way. Because getting out is our primary and only goal.