[Der persische Feuerkultus]
Translation from the German by Robert Hütwohl.[1]
From time immemorial the Persians’ “worship of fire” has given offense to the ignorant. But through more recent research in the occult field we are now able to understand how the worship of the holy fire — which also played a role in the cult of other peoples — could assume such large proportions among the Persians.
Above all we must free ourselves from the notion that the sacred fire was the ordinary profane fire. It is not so. Fire, Light and Sun are the visible expressions of the great cosmic entity which we call the Logos of our solar system. The Sun Logos or “the word” animates our world, is its Soul. Together with the Elohim (“the seven Great Spirits,” who created the world according to the first verse of Genesis), it forms the center of the Spiritual Sun of the cosmos. He appeared to the Indians as Indra, to the Jews as Jahwe, to the Persians as Ahura Mazda, the great Solar Aura.
Zarathustra saw a god in the sun, just as the Peruvians saw him or the Egyptians. These three peoples were linked in their aristocratic parts. This Solar Logos was the later Christ who descended to earth.
So if the Persians worshiped Ahura Mazda, or his aspect as Mithras, they worshiped the “Son” as well as the Christians. Since they recognized the sun in their spiritual part as its seat, it was natural that they worshiped the “eternal male” in it. That is why Jesus’ birthday was shifted to Christmas, the festival of the “undefeated sun god.” This was worshiped through the Mithraic mysteries as far away as Germany. But the sun was male among all ancient peoples (including us in the past).
The ancient sages, however, who were clairvoyant, recognized in the sun not only the source of all life, but also the sustainer from whom streams of life constantly emanate. The seven spirits on which it is based separate into seven sub-spirits each, so that (according to the Upanishads of the Indians) 49 different sunbeams or fires arise. Each of the different rays has its own power. The seven creative hierarchies or “the Lords of the Flame,” the Agnishvātta Pitris, Kumāras, Dhyan Chohans, emanated from the primordial fire. They are the mothers of all spiritual powers. The fire, the masculine principle, signifies Spirit, as does the light, the feminine, signifying love.
Matter is woven from light. The further we pursue the problem of matter, we cannot go any further than the result that it is originally primeval light. The deity, the Logos, dresses in a garment of light. That is why God is also called the father of light, and Christ is invoked in the Catholic Mass as “lumen de lumine”, light from the light.
But fire is the original phenomenon, it is the creative principle. “I have kindled a fire, says Christ, and I want it to burn.” But light is knowledge, the beatific, loving, feminine, devoting, illuminating, passive.
If the devils are involved with fire, it is because the active, personal, masculine principle has gone to the extreme in them. They lack the light, the love. Despite the fire, darkness reigns in “Hell.”
It is therefore understandable that Atar, the fire, was regarded as a powerful helper of Ormuzd. One recognized in him the creative power which arises quite purely from the primal spirit, when a pure human being with his pure will draws down the atmospheric fire in the right faith — as Zarathustra managed to do. Not the earthly, contaminated fire, but the pure spirit fire was worshiped, as it is in the lightning. Therefore, even among the ancients, a bolt of lightning sometimes used to kindle the wood on the altar through the zealous prayer of the priests, and even today it is said that fire comes down from heaven at Easter in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem.
Agni, the god of fire among the Indians, is the true representative of this phenomenon. We might call the great forces fundamental to physical nature magnetism and electricity. The former is more spiritual in nature, the latter more material. “Magnetism is the quiet, still, reserved, fleeting force; its light is dull, diffuse, scattered, cool, phosphorescent. Electricity is the loud, active, energetic, warm, constructive force, it has an electric, lightning and thunder-like effect, as its name suggests, its rays are straight, shiny, have a heating effect. (David Ammann “The Mental Powers of Man, Monotheism and Dualism in the “Mazdaznan,” December 1912).
These two forces pervade space and the human body, enabling them to shape will into accomplishment. One understands then how a seer, observing the workings of the life force, could come to trace those workings back to their origin and then come to the worship of the two great cosmic powers, Light and Fire. The male and female principle goes to the depths of divinity and permeates the whole universe, where it loses itself in thousands of channels.
But the Persians wanted to go back to the source in their worship of God. What the Indians called the “kundalini fire” (the serpent-fire) they wanted to incorporate into the human body in order to be able to do “good thoughts, good words and good works.” That is why “purity” is the first and highest duty of the Persians. Only a pure-feeling person can absorb the sun’s rays in such a way that he attains “rebirth,” i.e., that the pure spirit-fire penetrates the body by means of “Prana.” But the sacred fire had to be ritually produced in a very complicated way if one wanted to benefit from it.
Consider that the Aryan wanted to bring the lower ego under his control through breathing exercises. The Bhagavad Gita speaks of prāṇāyāma, controlling the inflow and outflow of the breath, which creates occult abilities. This breathing had to be brought into harmony with the breathing of the cosmos. Inner harmony is only achieved by rhythmically bringing in the vibrations of the ether and letting the fire breath through nerves and ganglia (“the lotus flowers” [cakras] of the inner body) with the fullest inner meditation until one achieves “Samadhi.” In this exalted state one stands before the throne of God.
In a way, fire forms the transition from the visible world to the invisible. As the flame rises to heaven, so the human soul rises to God.
There are three grades of sacred fire among the Persians, who have different rites of consecration and also different rituals for the daily prayers for the five hours of the day when they are fed with fresh wood by the priests.
The Vendidad gives the ritual (VIII, 81-96) and stipulates that the fire of the first degree is to be gathered from 16 different fires, e.g. of the fire that a coppersmith uses, a goldsmith, a silversmith, a steelsmith, a baker, shepherd, soldier, etc. When these 16 fires are gathered, there follows the purification of them, then their consecration, then their union into one fire, then the consecration, finally the consecration of the room, the holy of holies, the fire temple, and finally the setting up of the fire. Of course, all these operations require a lot of time; but it is clear that such pure fire, purified by prayer and mantrams, must have magical power.
In any case, the Persian seeks to make use of it. When he sees it, he must make the following observation:
“If this fire, though pure in itself, though the noblest creation of God and the best symbol of divinity, must undergo certain processes of purification, and must, so to speak, draw out its essence, even its quintessence of purity, in order to be worthy, its exalted position how much more necessary and important is it for me, a poor mortal, who so easily commits crime and sin, and who comes into contact with hundreds of evils, both physical and spiritual, to undergo the process of purification by washing my thoughts, putting words and deeds through a sieve of purity and piety, virtue and morality, so to speak, and in this way separate my humata, hukhta and hvarshta (good thoughts, good words and good deeds) from my bad thoughts, bad words and bad deeds, so that I, for my part, will be qualified to hold a higher position in the future?”
As the fires are gathered from the houses of different persons, the Parsee must think that all men, whatever their social class, are equal provided they have purified their souls.
When the Parsee goes to the sacred fire in the temple, the priest who attends gives him ashes from part of the fire. With this he touches his forehead and says to himself: “Dust to dust. The fire, all lustrous, shining and luminous, spread around itself the sweet smell of sandalwood and incense as it burned. That’s how it should be with me. I must finally depart from this temporary life and my body will turn to dust. Let me do my best before my death like this fire, to sow the seed of love and good works, and to hold up the torch of righteousness and truth before others.”
The priest must solemnly renew the fire five times a day. He feeds it with fragrant sandalwood. Of course, he must never blow into it with his mouth to fan it, as this will contaminate it. He can only fan with his hands. The 6 pieces of wood are stacked in the form of a throne. During the ceremony the priest must constantly murmur sacred words. The meaning is something like this: “O God! We praise you through your fire. We praise you with offerings of good thoughts. We praise you through your fire. We praise you with offerings of good words. We praise you through your fire. We praise you by offering good deeds. We do so to enlighten our thoughts, to enlighten our words, and to enlighten our actions.”
The consecrations of the sacred fires of the second and third degrees are similar to those of the first, but simpler and requiring fewer fires.
In conclusion, I would like to add a prayer that the priest always speaks to invoke the blessing of God upon the princes of the land.
“O Ahura Mazda! I ask for courage, victory and glory for my king. I pray for his rule, for obedience to his throne, for longevity of his reign, for long life and strength of his body. I pray that he may have victorious courage, divine success, and far-reaching sovereignty, that he may oppress those who are ill-tempered, hostile, ill-advised, and contentious. I ask that our King be mighty over all those who think evil thoughts, utter evil words, and do evil deeds, over vengeful enemies and vile people. I pray that our king may be victorious by his good thoughts, good words and good deeds. May he strike down all his enemies, all evildoers! May he be rewarded with these gifts for his good life. May all this bring him glory and may all this increase the piety of his soul!
O ruler, may you live long, may you live happily, to help the righteous and to punish the wicked. May the best, brightest life of the righteous and the pious be your lot!”
Of course, one could also apply these beautiful words to the king within us, the Higher Self. Ultimately, all ceremonies have the actual purpose of elevating the soul. But all the heavenly beings behind the scene serve this purpose. If the Parsee believes that there are guardian spirits (farohar, fravashi) that animate animate and “inanimate” every being and protect it from decay, this assumption coincides with the occult views of all seers from Plato (in his doctrine of ideas) to Blavatsky and [von] Hartmann. These “angels” are also behind each of us, and when people come together voluntarily to hold a service, they form a chain and give good thoughts. The justification of religious rites is essentially based on this. But the fire, whose holy flame is nourished by the feelings of the living, then rises as a pure burnt offering to the godhead and burns up all impure thoughts of the heart. May the holy fire that blazes in our heart always find a clean vessel on our body, so that its spiritual flame can marry that of the holy spirit, which emanates eternally from the Father and the Son to enlighten mankind and save them!
Notes:
[1] The Persian Fire-cult. [Der persische Feuerkultus. Franz Hartmann, M.D. Neue Lotusblüten 6, no. 1-2 (January-February 1913), 38-49] {This article was reformatted from the original, but with the content unchanged other than fixing minor typos. Translation from the German by Robert Hutwohl, ©2025}