Book Reviews

Peacock Angel: The Esoteric Tradition of the Yezidis

Peter Lamborn Wilson
Rochester, Vt.: Inner Traditions, 2022: 272 pp., paper, $22.99.

One of the strangest and most misunderstood religions is the Yezidis, a sect of alleged devil worshippers in Kurdistan in the Middle East.

As one might expect from their reputation as devotees of the Evil One, the Yezidis have been subject to intense persecution from Muslims, particularly in recent decades.

In Peacock Angel, Peter Lamborn Wilson delves into the lore and thought of the Yezidis to cast some light on this much-maligned faith.

The first question is, are the Yezidis in fact worshippers of the Devil? That has to do with how you view their principal deity, Melek Ta’us, the Peacock Angel. Defenders of the Yezidis say that he cannot be identified with the Devil as understood in the Abrahamic faiths. But Wilson writes,

Nowadays, it is fashionable to deny that the Yezidis are “devil worshippers,” either out of pious political correctitude, or to shield them from the wrath of Sunni extremists. I will take issue with denial, first because I will argue that the Yezidis . . . worship daevas [devas]; and second, because I am convinced that Melek Ta’us “is” Azazel or Lucifer, the character sometimes known as Satan, the fallen (arch) Angel, who in the Yezidi telling is pardoned and restored by God to his viceregal position. He is certainly Lord of the World, and bestower of all good, but is himself beyond good and evil.

Wilson explains, “The Yezidis say they believe in one God, but that He is a deus absconditus [an “absconded god”] who has left the work of the universe to his viceregent Azazel” or Melek Ta’us.

Like Lucifer, Melek Ta’us fell but has been forgiven and restored to a high position.

The Yezidis have many other curious features. They are a closed group: you simply cannot convert to Yezidism; to that extent, they are an ethnic group of their own. Furthermore, although they have written texts, their tradition is fundamentally oral. Yezidism is not what Islam would call a “religion of the Book”; in fact “Yezidism . . . rejects the Book. It opposes the Book,” Wilson writes. It even prescribes illiteracy for most of its believers.

Indeed the Yezidi sacred texts did not appear till the late nineteenth century, created, Wilson suggests, as a way of deflecting persecution from the Muslims. But these books do not have the authority of the oral tradition.

Where did Yezidism come from? Wilson suggests that it is descended from Indo-Iranian groups that held out against Zoroastrianism in the first millennium BC, continuing to worship the daevas condemned by Zoroaster.

More recently, Wilson traces Yezidism to one Sheikh Adi ibn Musafir al-Hakkari, born into a noble Arab family, who died c.1162 at around the age of ninety. Like certain heterodox Sufis, he claimed to be one with God (blasphemy in Muslim eyes) and picked up another heretical Sufi idea: that Shaytan (Satan) had been redeemed. Wilson believes that these fringe Muslim sources merged with survivals of the old pre-Zoroastrianism daeva worship to create what is now known as Yezidism.

Many other elements went into this mélange of teachings, one being the doctrine of the seven spirits governing the cosmos, an idea that appears everywhere from the book of Zechariah to the old Orphic mysteries. Whether these gods are beneficent or malign (as the Gnostics, for example, taught) is a subtle question that raises the issue of what is good and what is bad. Many fringe traditions (none of them ever granted mainstream legitimacy in their associated religions) believed in a reversal of good and evil—like a Sufi sect called the Ahl-i Haqq (“people of the truth”), who despised the conventional Muslim sharia (law) to the point of roasting pigs and drinking wine.

Both in his own person and through his alter ego Hakim Bey, Wilson has been holding up the black banner of antinomianism and anarchy for decades, so of course the Yezidis would have an almost irresistible appeal for him.

Nevertheless, an attempt at a sober analysis suggests that Wilson’s portrayal of this mysterious and rejected religion is fundamentally accurate. He does full justice to the differences between the Abrahamic Satan and Melek Ta’us, noting that the latter has both been granted full restoration after his fall and that the deus absconditus has given him the rulership of the world.

Wilson has traveled for decades in the Middle East, making friends and acquaintances among heretical Muslims of all kinds, and his account reflects a deep knowledge of the area and its people, while supplying amusing and instructive anecdotes. His take on the Yezidis is learned, convincing, and enjoyable, and is no doubt the best introduction to this vexed subject.

Richard Smoley

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Rose Paradise: Essays of Fathoming: Gurdjieff, the Mahatmas, Andreev, the Emerald Tablets, OAHSPE, and More

FRANKIE PAULING HUTTON
Murrells Inlet, S.C.: Covenant Books, 2022. 224 pp., paper, $16.95.

Of the symbols appearing throughout history, few have rivaled the rose in prominence. No other flower (except arguably the lotus) has been so celebrated in diverse cultures throughout the world.

In this engaging and wide-ranging encomium, Frankie Pauling Hutton acknowledges the influence of the rose and explores its esoteric and metaphysical aspects. At the outset, she writes, “Careful review and reflection of rose-embracing literature and poetry reveals that the flower in all its perfection is a direct link to the Source of all and everything. For those who have eyes to see, it comes into focus as one of the most long lasting, widely used and beautifully powerful symbols of all time.”

An ongoing contemplation of the rose in its beauty and its symbolic and metaphorical glory leads to spiritual growth and a shift in consciousness which few fully develop in one lifetime, Hutton argues. This growth is possible through deep, disciplined work, as exemplified in the teachings of G.I. Gurdjieff, of which Hutton is a student.

Rose Paradise consists of an introduction and five chapters, the first three of which are drawn from Rose Lore: Essays in Cultural History and Semiotics (2012), a collection of essays by Hutton and others.  Hutton traces the rich history of the symbolism of the rose from the Bible to the writings of Dante, Yeats, Eliot, and others, in social movements and spiritual teachings including Theosophy and Rosicrucianism, and in the writings of Gurdjieff. The first chapter, “Dying Laughing: The Rose from Yeats to Rumi,” explores the rose in the great poetry and literature of the past, using Barbara Seward’s The Symbolic Rose as a starting point.

In the second chapter, “Rose Vignettes: Black Plague to Gulag,” Dr. Hutton surveys familiar names such as Mozart and Nostradamus and introduces us to a diverse group of little-known individuals: German-Jewish poet Rudolf Borchardt developed the garden as a metaphor for spiritual growth. Following World War II, Japanese physician Tomin Harada treated atomic bomb survivors. Introduced to roses by a British officer, he became a rose breeder and peace activist. New Jersey composer Charles Austin Miles wrote hundreds of hymns but is known chiefly for “In the Garden.” Russian writer and mystic Daniil Andreev criticized state power and technology and wrote of world peace in The Rose of the World while imprisoned by the Soviet regime. The vignettes of these individuals, who were aware of the symbolic power of the rose, are among the most moving passages in the book.  Hutton goes on to explore the symbolism of the rose in the developing movement to abolish female genital mutilation, a practice regrettably still common in a number of cultures worldwide.

The third chapter, “Blossom as the Rose in OAHSPE, The Emerald Tablets, and the Holy Bible,” introduces rose symbolism in the obscure work OAHSPE, the Hermetic Emerald Tablet, and Bible passages, notably Isaiah and the Song of Songs. The author compares OAHSPE, a “new Bible” channeled by the nineteenth-century clairvoyant John Ballou Newbrough, with H.P. Blavatsky’s Secret Doctrine.

The final two chapters, “Gurdjieff’s Third World Rose and ‘Okidanokh’” and “Spectre of a Rose . . . Gurdjieff’s Last Teaching,” stress the importance of doing spiritual work through methods including balance, self-remembering, self-observation, and sitting and sensing meditations. We gradually become aware of and overcome our programming and our karma as we progress to higher consciousness through multiple lifetimes.

Hutton discusses Gurdjieff’s major works, including Beelzebub’s Tales to His Grandson and Life Is Real Only Then, When “I Am,” the I Ching, and the Sufi poem, Attar’s Conference of the Birds, as well as the Mahatma Letters. She also cites other sources and concepts, some familiar to spiritual seekers, others more obscure, and some that are not without controversy.

Through study, effort, and contemplation, the rose blossoms as a profound metaphor, connecting the seen and the unseen, the lower and higher planes, who we are and what we can become. The spiritual path is arduous, “steep and thorny,” and yet must be traveled. Through her unique perspective, Hutton beckons us to continue on this path, stating, “As a symbol, the rose continues to be a marker on the pathway.” Thus appreciated and honored, it becomes our guide and companion as well as a symbol of our higher selves.

Joel Sunbear

The reviewer, a member of the TSA, has also studied and practiced New Thought and other spiritual traditions. A retired counselor and advocate for persons with disabilities, he is a student of sacred geometry in art and architecture.

 

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Vajrakilaya: A Complete Guide with Experiential Instructions

Kyabje Garchen Rinpoche
Boulder, Colo.: Snow Lion, 2022. xx + 479 pp., paper, $34.95.

Few esoteric traditions have aroused such fascination, and proved so impermeable to investigation, as the secret tantras of Tibetan Buddhism.

Fortunately, the immense outpouring of Tibetan knowledge in print form over the past generation has made this tradition somewhat less opaque.

For many people today, the word tantra evokes tantric sex (usually involving some delay of orgasm so as to heighten ecstasy). But Tibetan tantra is something quite different.

This comprehensive new work, Vajrakilaya, gives some glimpse into what the secret tantras are all about. They involve, at least in part, an intense practice of deity yoga. In Tibetan Buddhism, not all gods are the same. Some are beings caught in the wheel of reincarnation like all others, except that they happen to have been reborn in realms of exquisite happiness. These gods are of little use in helping one gain enlightenment. “What worldly god, himself also bound in samsara’s prison, is able to give protection?” as a text quoted in this volume says.

The deities involved in tantric practice are quite different: elaborate thought-forms embodying some aspect of enlightened mind, usually in either peaceful or wrathful form. No matter how menacing or ugly the wrathful deities may look, they are simply manifestations of mind, and working with them enables the practitioner to absorb that quality of mind.

The deity in question in this book, Vajrakila, is one of the wrathful deities. As pictured, he is a winged, bearded figure with a flaming headdress, copulating with his equally wrathful female consort in something that resembles rough sex. At the same time, he is trampling on the squashed bodies of some unfortunates. Because wrath is just another form of energy, contemplating and uniting with this deity is a way of gaining enlightened mind.

Here is my understanding of the basic tantric practice: One begins by cultivating bodhicitta—compassion and a devout wish to liberate all sentient beings. Then at first, one approaches the deity as an external god, making offerings and prayers in a more or less familiar fashion. In the next phase, the student engages in an intense visualization of the deity, to the point where it becomes a quasi-autonomous figure—rather like a moving animated character in the mind. The practitioner imagines himself or herself as the deity and finally unites with it. As both image and self dissolve, the practitioner’s mind unites with the form of enlightened mind embodied by the deity.

This is an intense project, and although this volume does contain instructions for practitioners, it is very hard to imagine that a person could go very far with this practice purely individually. Indeed the text repeatedly highlights the need for group practice.

Nonetheless, the details for practice are minutely described: the mantras to use, the hand positions, the texts to chant. Many of these are not for the weak-hearted, such as, “In every pore of myself and the Foremost Prince are tiny blue-black wrathfuls the size of barley grains. With gaping mouths, bared fangs, one face, and two arms, they wield diverse weapons. As Kilaya’s sound is resoundingly proclaimed, they fill us without interstice.”

Although these specifications are hair-raising, they point to one of the basic doctrines of Tibetan Buddhism: all phenomena, no matter how alluring or repellent, are mere manifestations of mind.

Even apart from its more exotic qualities, this book is not for beginners. It presupposes knowledge of basic Tibetan Buddhist doctrine and does not always explain even relatively unfamiliar terms or provide a glossary. It will be hard to make much use or sense of this volume without such a background.

Even so, this book is an extremely valuable embodiment of Tibetan Buddhist wisdom, which has been in danger of perishing in the years since the Chinese conquest of Tibet. Like many texts of its kind, it reflects the devotion to this tradition not only of Tibetan lamas but of their American students.

Richard Smoley

           

           

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Breakfast with Seneca: A Stoic Guide to the Art of Living

David Fideler
New York: W.W. Norton, 2021. 265 pp., hardcover, $26.95.

Teachings are endless; we vow to learn them all.
—Zen promise

Let us prepare our minds as if we’d come to the very end of life. Let us postpone nothing. Let us balance life’s books each day.
—Seneca

One never knows when and where and under what situations we come across teachings that transform our lives. David Fideler had a crisis of unspeakable grief, and his help came from the writings of the Roman philosopher Lucius Annaeus Seneca (c.4 BC‒AD 65). Seneca’s Stoicism presented to him “a steady stream of reliable and practical advice about the human condition, human psychology, and how to live a happy flourishing life.”

Later in Fideler’s life, a perfect morning was having breakfast with Seneca—a cup of fresh coffee, an e-reader with Seneca’s complete letters, and an omelette to go with it. I am indeed tempted to adopt the same routine, be it with ancient teachings like Seneca’s, or even a Zen koan.        

Fideler discovered that “nothing significant has changed in human nature over the last two thousand years.” What Seneca said through his letters is still very much alive for us in today’s world (the journey is not taken alone). Overcome stress, live a life with purpose and cultivated excellence, overcome grief, and contribute to society with our actions—how can one go wrong following these teachings?

Fideler’s book fills a void. It explains Seneca’s teachings to a general reader through various chapters addressing specific topics. One can be inspired to host one’s own breakfasts with Seneca, Fideler hopes.

The popular meaning of being a stoic has to do with keeping a stiff upper lip or holding your emotions in check. But Seneca’s stoicism comes with a capital S. The ancient Stoics never taught the repression of emotions. Their goal was to transform them through understanding. The fundamental question was, “What is needed to live the best possible life?” They believed that one could indeed do that regardless of the obstacles and turmoil of the world. Philosophy was the true art of living, not an abstract pursuit. Seneca called his own teachings “medical remedies.”

Fideler’s book delves deeper into the eight main ideas of Stoic thought using Seneca’s letters. They are:

Live in agreement with nature to find happiness.

Virtue or excellence of one’s inner character is the only true good.

Some things are up to us or entirely under our control, while other things are not.

While we can’t control what happens to us in the external world, we can control our inner judgment and how we respond to life’s events.

When something negative happens, or when we are struck by adversity, we shouldn’t be surprised by it, but see it as an opportunity to create a better situation.

Virtue, or possessing an excellent character, is its own reward. But it also results in eudaimonia or happiness—a state of mental tranquility and inner joy.

Real philosophy involves “making progress.” It’s essential that we as individuals should contribute to society.

Fideler gives us also an insight into Seneca’s life of adversity. He lived under the horribly corrupt reigns of the emperors Caligula, Claudius, and Nero. The adversity did not deter Seneca. He transformed it into something profoundly positive. Seneca used his own death (he was forced to commit suicide by Nero) to give a final talk to his friends.

Fideler’s book is a treasure. It gives the readers gems from Seneca’s letters on various topics and provides commentaries to help put them in practice.

Discussing why you should never complain, Seneca wrote, “Nothing needs to annoy you if you don’t add your annoyance to it.” We all know about the glass half full and the glass half empty. A complainer would worry about a smudge on the glass that could be carrying a virus. A Stoic would view it with gratitude, as a gift from the universe, and would be grateful for its life-giving properties.

I was drawn to the chapter on “Give Grief Its Due.” Seneca wrote, “Tears fall, no matter how we try to hold them back, and shedding them relieves the mind.” Seneca took grief seriously. He wrote five separate works consoling friends and family members. He gave advice on how to grieve well. Yes, we feel the loss, but we must acknowledge the happy memories of those we have lost. He knew that everything given to us is but on a loan.

It has been said about the Bhagavad-Gita that it would be enough even to experience only one verse. I am tempted to say the same thing about Seneca’s teaching. Just take one, and incorporate it in your life.

One never knows which saying a reader would take to. My wife, reading this book, looked at “Value your time: Don’t postpone living” and encouraged me to finish the pending house projects!

Dhananjay Joshi

The reviewer, a professor of statistics, has studied Hindu, Zen, and vipassana meditation for forty years. He reviews regularly for Quest and works as a volunteer in the archives department of the TSA.

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