Podcast episode
May 14, 2025
Episode 206: Seventh-Century History for Students of Western Esotericism
[Corrigendum: Late in this episode we discuss the death of Muḥammad as having taken place in the year 362; we of course meant 632, but mixed up the first numbers]
Momentous events occurred during the seventh century in the eastern Mediterranean region. The Roman and Sassanian empires fought each other to exhaustion, while Jerusalem was taken by the Sassanians and then retaken by the Romans. Cue the Sefer Zerubbabel, a Hebrew apocalypse foretelling the end of days and rebuilding of the Temple. Then the Arab invaders quickly conquer the near east and take Jerusalem from the Romans. Cue the Apocalypse of the Pseudo-Methodios, a Christian Syriac apocalypse foretelling the end of days, in which a final Roman emperor will return to prepare the way for Christ’s coming. The Sassanian empire is taken over by Muslims. Cue the entry of Mazdaism, the native Persian religion, into the West, with many esoteric consequences. Then the young Believers’ polity plunges into two civil wars. Cue the rise of Shi‘ī Islām, the motor for the first, rich flowering of proper Islamic esotericism.
Works Cited in this Episode:
Ehsan Afkande and Hamidreza Pashazanous. The Last Sasanians in Eastern Iran and China. Anabasis: Studia Classica et Orientalia, 5:139–54, 2014.
Peter Brown. The World of Late Antiquity. Thames & Hudson, London, 1971; we quote p. 165.
On genetic analysis of the plague of Justianian: Michaela Harbeck, Lisa Seifert, Stephanie Hänsch, David M. Wagner, Dawn Birdsell, Katy L. Parise, Ingrid Wiechmann, Gisela Grupe, Astrid Thomas, P. Keim, L. Zöller, B. Bramanti, J.M. Riehm, and H.C. Scholz. Yersinia pestis DNA from Skeletal Remains from the 6th Century AD Reveals Insights into Justinianic Plague. PLOS Pathogens, 9(5), 2013. doi: 10.1371/journal.ppat.1003349. PMID: 23658525.
Michael Stausberg. Faszination Zarathushtra: Zoroaster und die Europäische Religionsgeschichte der Frühen Neuzeit. De Gruyter, Berlin, 1998.Faszination Zarathushtra: Zoroaster und die Europäische Religionsgeschichte der Frühen Neuzeit.
Recommended Reading to Follow
Themes
Apocalyptic, Dualism, East Rome, Esoteric Christianity, Islam, Ja‘far al-Ṣādiq, Jewish Messianism, Jews, Justinian, Magic, Manichæism, Mazdaism, Sacred Kingship, Shi‘ī Esotericism, Shihab al-Dīn Suhrawardī
E C J Williams
May 14, 2025
Wonderful history.
Harrison Hunt
May 17, 2025
Very informative, thank you for this! I want to point out that at 44 minutes in you cite Muhammad’s death as 362 CE instead of 632 but I’m sure we all know what you meant lol
Earl Fontainelle
May 18, 2025
Thanks, Harrison. Whoopsie!
Shalom Leaf
June 3, 2025
Regarding the returning Roman emperor, your friend John Crowley rings some characteristically weird changes on this theme in Little, Big.
Earl Fontainelle
June 3, 2025
Oooh, I can’t remember! What does he say about the Emperor, please remind us!
Shalom Leaf
June 4, 2025
Frederic Barbarossa, asleep for 800 years, is promised a return to empire by the fairies and awakened by them to serve as their Champion. Under the name Russel Eigenblick, he becomes POTUS, the Tyrant, whose assaults on liberty trigger civil war and the breakup of the country. These events seem, in some way, to enable the Parliament of the Fairies and the movement of the Drinkwater family et al into Faerie that concludes the novel. Meanwhile, Eigenblick/Barbarossa mysteriously disappears. According to Crowley, he’s also Brother North Wind and the Fool of the tarot. Trusting it’s all clear now.
Earl Fontainelle
June 4, 2025
Riiiiiight, now I remember. Definitely a returning king — we’ll be seeing Arthur, Charlemagne, and Frederic among probably others on the podcast — but not exactly the Roman emperor. Although what is the POTUS if not the Roman emperor?
Shalom Leaf
June 4, 2025
“Well: my contention is, gentlemen, that the Holy Roman Empire did not pass away then either. It continued to exist. It continued, like an amoeba, to shift, crawl, expand, contract; and that while Russell Eigenblick slept his long sleep (exactly eight hundred years by my reckoning)–while, in effect, we all slept–it has crept and slid, shifting and drifting like the continents, until it is now located here, where we sit. How exactly its borders should be drawn I have no idea, though I suspect they may be identical with this country’s. In any case we are well within it. This city may even be its Capital: though probably only its Chief City.”