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Henry Corbin - Spiritual Body and Celestial Earth - Zoroastrian Intelligence hierarchy
Identifier
022298
Type of Spiritual Experience
Background
A description of the experience
Spiritual Body and Celestial Earth – Henry Corbin [translated by Nancy Pearson] 1977
Now it is a characteristic feature of the Zoroastrian view that the Lord Wisdom should always appear surrounded by six powers of Light with which he himself (as the first, or as the seventh) forms from the supreme divine Heptad.
On the pretext that what is in question is a so called ‘primitive’ thought, there have been occasional attempts to reduce these powers to ‘aspects’ of the supreme divinity, without taking into account that such a modalism would, on the contrary, imply highly developed theological speculation, and that in any case the impulse of piety has nothing to do with these subtle abstractions and distinctions, but is directed toward heavenly Persons, the fascination of whose beauty has been experienced and whose power has been acknowledged as effective.
These are the Seven powers who are designated as the Amahraspands (the Avestan Amerta Spenta), a name that is currently translated as ‘the Holy Immortals’; their holiness is understood not as a canonical attribute, but as a transitive, active and activating Energy that communicates being, establishes it, and causes it to superabound in all beings. These are the Seven powers who are also generally designated as the Zoroastrian Archangels