Witches, Whores, and Sorcerers: The Concept of Evil in Early Iran by S.K. Mendoza Forrest provides an overview of important elements of evil in Zoroastrianism through the lens of looking at some of that religion’s most important preserved texts. The texts include selections from and incorporate a new English translation of the Avesta by Prods Oktor Skjærvø.
Zoroastrianism in general is a religion that only began to be studied with any academic rigor in the West in the eighteenth century, even though it predates and may have influenced Christianity and other monotheistic beliefs. Witches looks at Zoroastrianism via its major texts including selections from the Yasna, Gathas, and Yashts of the Avesta. Because of the general lack of investigations into the particulars of Zoroastrianism in English, Witches provides a particularly illuminating study focusing solely on issues of evil in that religion.
The book as a whole is an encyclopedic presentation of material from the Avesta with a particular focus on elements of evil within it. These elements are regarded here as being interesting for what they tell us about what Avesta authors and priests were particularly alarmed about. As such Witches is a very focused study of specific passages of these texts and does a great job at maintaining its overall message – we have much to learn about that which makes the creators of organized religions nervous. The book importantly stresses that those spoken about—in particular homosexuals, witches, sorcerers, and prostitutes—have no voice themselves and hence a study of texts like this one should conclude that the writer must have been particularly anxious about the influence of certain behaviors and persons in that society (and that these people must have existed in some form then and there).
There are twelve chapters in the book. Most individual chapters cover a particular category of evil or evildoers, and the book takes into account the changing nature of Zoroastrian texts over time. The elaborations of evil in the religion, a religion itself based on the existence of both good and evil, cover magic, natural evils, sorcerers, witches, whores, menstruating women, corpse-abusers, demon worshippers, and more. The book also includes a section not on the demonization of these characters but on Avestan incantations of avoidance.
Many of the chapters are particularly illuminating and cover fascinating aspects of a religion that, like any religion, was very concerned with the preservation of order. Chapter 6, “Sorcerers, Witches, Whores and Menstruating Women,” for example, investigates the levels of alarm over certain groups of people for their abilities to disrupt an important sense of stability. The whore, for example, “was not a simple prostitute for the authors of the Avesta. Rather she was a sorceress intent on using her powers to harm any ‘man who sustains Order’.” She was a person bent on disrupting harmony and the word “whore” could seem to mean any number of things, including a prostitute, “a woman in a ritually polluted state who had sex with a man,” a demon, or even a woman attempting to enter into the religion without having undergone certain initiations. A sorcerer, one who chose to be evil, was especially committed to the destruction of tradition. Yasht 3.11 is quoted here and outlines the sorcerer as being able to take on many forms including “a brood of snakes,” “wolves,” “despisers,” “distraught minds,” “slanderers,” and “ones with the evil eye.”
This book as a whole adds to and builds upon the growing scholarship of Zoroastrianism in English, and the notion of ideas of evil in religion in general. It is succinctly written and adheres to presenting factual information, rather than delving into theoretical or speculative readings. It is important for its very clear focus on evil. This is a focus Witches maintains and allows for a very close investigation of without trying to encapsulate every aspect or historical detail of Zoroastrianism. As such it makes an important contribution to our understanding of pre-Islamic Iran and is a provocative piece of scholarship on notions of good and evil. The book ensures that the reader will be aware of the limitations of our understanding of this time period, due to fragmentary and changing religious texts. Witches also seems to sympathetically hint that the outsiders referred to in the Avesta are voiceless, which could make space for an interesting further study on the history of women, homosexuals, and alternative religions and their treatment in this place and time.
My criticisms of this book are minor in nature and do not detract from overall benefits. For one, the author chooses terms like the ones in the title and yet admits that we are not completely certain what constituted a “witch” or a “whore” for the Avesta, or why, given the seemingly flexible nature of the term, this particular word was chosen as a translation. The book as a whole also seems uncertain about its argument, and the author often points out how little we can really understand about this time period or set of beliefs. It seemed like the author was wary about making any strong statements. This lack of a strong voice seems apologetic to the point that this reader was often left wondering what could be taken away from studying such an old and uncertain grouping of texts. In addition, the book fails to incorporate a theoretical framework and lacks a thesis that could hold it together and provide a historical background of some elements of evil in Zoroastrianism. These lacks do not, however, detract from the encyclopedic presentation of the information in the book. Nor are these criticisms meant to suggest that the book is lacking in academic rigor and scholarship, because it clearly is not.
What the book is recommended for, therefore, is as an encyclopedic collection of instances of evil in very old Zoroastrian texts, providing an interesting analysis of pre-Islamic Iranian religious thought. Witches, Whores, and Sorcerers makes for a very stimulating and significant addition to our understanding of the development of religion, civilization, and morality.
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[Review length: 1006 words • Review posted on March 5, 2014]