TIM BOUCHER RAW!

A post on Fantastic Planet has really fired up my imagination. It explores in some more detail this idea of the divine twin (that I brought up earlier in relation to tulpas) across a variety of religious traditions. I highly recommend checking this out. Anyway, I thought I’d pick up the baton and run with it a little ways myself.

One of my first encounters with the divine twin concept comes through the Egyptian and Persian religion, but by way of Philip K. Dick. In his book, the Divine Invasion, part of this theme is explored:

Zina told Emmanuel about an early identity that she had once had. Thousands of years ago, she said, she had been Ma’at, the Egyptian goddess who represented the cosmic order and justice. When someone died his heart was weighed against Ma’ at’s ostrich feather. By this the person’s burden of sins was determined.

The principle by which the sinfulness of the person was deter- mined consisted of the degree of his truthfulness. To the extent that he was truthful the judgment went in his favor. This judgment was presided over by Osiris, but since Ma’at was the goddess of truthfulness, then it followed that the determination was hers to make.

“After that,” Zina said, “the idea of the judgment of human souls passed over into Persia.” In the ancient Persian religion, Zoroastrianism, a sifting bridge had to be crossed by the newly dead person. If he was evil the bridge got narrower and narrower until he toppled off and plunged into the fiery pit of hell. Judaism in its later stages and Christianity had gotten their ideas of the Final Days from this.

The good person, who managed to cross the sifting bridge, was met by the spirit of his religion: a beautiful young woman with superb, large breasts. However, if the person was evil the spirit of his religion consisted of a dried-up old hag with sagging paps. You could tell at a glance, therefore, which category you belonged to.

The “sifting bridge” is also more commonly referred to as the Chinvat Bridge. A variant of it pops up in Western mythology in the legend of Lancelot crossing the Sword Bridge. In the passage above, the woman who represents the “spirit” of a man’s religion is (I think) called the Daena. In one sense, she is a double, a mirror reflection of a man’s conscience. Classically she is said to be the daughter of Ahura Mazda. (Find out more about this from a Theosophical angle)

In Zoroastrianism, there is another figure who plays a sort of “divine twin” role: the Fravashi. According to this, each person is made up of three parts:

(1) Tanu is the body or physical self made of flesh, blood and bones.
(2) Urvan is the soul, the nature of every human. It is the decision maker for it controls the body and is responsible for all the decisions and actions done by the humans in this world.
(3) Fravashi is the spiritual guide, the active presence of Ahura Mazda in every human being. It guides and helps the soul but does not interfere in the decision making. The soul is free to choose what it wants to do with its life on this earth and the Fravashi is that inner voice that warns the soul of evil and guides it away from spiritual danger.

The Fravashi is thus essentially a guardian angel. The Fravashi is separated from the soul at death, when the body is destroyed. The Fravashi leaves the soul standing alone before the judges at the Chinvat bridge. Aside from the obvious usage of that term in the West, you’ll also find that it was extremely important to the magical workings of Aleister Crowley. The Thelemapedia has a great entry on this. Crowley termed it Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel. Some Crowley quotes on the topic:

It should never be forgotten for a single moment that the central and essential work of the Magician is the attainment of the Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel. Once he has achieved this he must of course be left entirely in the hands of that Angel, who can be invariably and inevitably relied upon to lead him to the further great step—crossing of the Abyss and the attainment of the grade of Master of the Temple.

And…

As was said at the opening of the second chapter, the Single Supreme Ritual is the attainment of the Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel. It is the raising of the complete man in a vertical straight line…Any other operation is black magic…If the magician needs to perform any other operation than this, it is only lawful in so far as it is a necessary preliminary to That One Work.

And my favorite:

It is impossible to lay down precise rules by which a man may attain to the knowledge and conversation of His Holy Guardian Angel; for that is the particular secret of each one of us; as secret not to be told or even divined by any other, whatever his grade. It is the Holy of Holies, whereof each man is his own High Priest, and none knoweth the Name of his brother’s God, or the Rite that invokes Him.

Here’s a Robert Anton Wilson essay about Crowley and his various attempts to contact his HGA. Some interesting stuff in it. Going back to the Zoroastrian Fravashis, we find a quote from somebody named Jivanji Mody that says “Man becomes perfect when his soul realizes and reaches his Fravashi.”

The Fravashis also seem to be closely related to the divine spark that we spoke about earlier:

Fravashis are the divine, spiritual essence and guarding sprits and represent the omniscience and omnipresence of Ahura Mazda. They are the proto-types of mankind, the active presence of Ahura Mazda in everyone of us.

[...] The term Fravashi is made up of two parts, Fra which has been interpreted as “to go forward” and, vashi which comes from the root vaksh, meaning “to grow”. So Fravashi is that power in a substance which enables it to move forward i.e. to progress. The Avesta tells us that the Fravashi is inherent in every animate and inanimate object of Nature and helps in its development.

This is also very closely connected to an idea from Rupert Sheldrake, who is a sort of outsider scientist. He talks a lot about something called morphic fields. As I understand it, a morphic field (or morphogenetic field) is sort of like an area of “potential” which draws together the necessary elements to fulfill it’s potential. Another way of talking about this in Western tradition is the word “entelechy.” It means something like “inborn purpose.” And you would say that the entelechy of an acorn is to become an oak tree. The idea is important because it places causes in the future, rather than just in the past. Anyway, I’ve also heard people suggest that a morphic field is sort of like your guardian angel. It’s purpose is to bring you into existence, like an oak from an acorn. As such, it has a vested interest in maintaining your survival, and helping you fulfill your ultimate purpose.

The other “divine twin” reference I want to pull in is something I read in Michael Talbot’s “Mysticism and the New Physics” last night:

It Tales of Power Castaneda sees his double, a spectral image of himself and asks don Juan whether he was dreaming it or not. Such a question becomes meaningless in a self-reference cosmology. As don Juan replie, “…if you had not gotten lost in your indulging, and you could have known then that you yourself are a dream, that your double is dreaming you, in the same fashion that you dreamed him last night.”

Crazy shit. More on this soon. Anybody else who wants to pick up the baton and run with it, go wild!

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