Mazdaznan

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article may require cleanup to meet Wikipedia's quality standards.
Please discuss this issue on the talk page or replace this tag with a more specific message.
This article has been tagged since February 2006.

Mazdaznan is a syncretistic religious health movement based on Zoroastrianism and Christianity ideas with special focus on breathing exercises, vegetarian diet and body culture. It was founded at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century by Hanish.

1 Founder
2 Movement
3 Teaching
4 Literature
5 External links

[edit] Founder

Otoman Zar-Adusht Ha'nish as he called himself, was born in 1844 to Russian diplomat in Teheran according to his followers. He was sent as a child to a secret society of Zarathustrians in the Iran mountains due to his serious congenital heart defect. There he was trained to master this hypoxic condition with control of breathing. After two decade Hanish left the Inner Temple Community of El-Kharman to bring this training system to the world. He had an aristrocratic attitude but never revealed his true origin. Dr. Otoman Zar-Adusht Ha'nish, earned a degree in medicine in Chicago in 1900. The pseudonym Otoman Hanish was probably used after foundering of the ship on his first sea voyage. The word Mazda(ya)znan is as well artificial build from the Zend Avesta dialect for worshiping the divine thought Mazda.

Due to the weak biographic data there are much speculations. For instance one article in Chicago newspapers speaks of a German immigrant named Otto Hanish, who resided in Mendota, Illinois, was a grocery boy reputed for "herding sheep, setting type, preaching prestidigitation, mesmerism, and spiritualism," who had contacts with the Mormon Church and claimed to be Christ returned. Hanish is alleged to have set himself up in Chicago as a Persian Magus, teaching yogic breathing exercises and sex-studies to the "elegant society ladies of the pork-packing metropolis." Hanish published a magazine and several books including Health and Breath Culture and Inner Studies. As well much critical speculation on the life and work of Hanish comes from Upton Sinclair's book The Profits of Religion (1918).

At least since the regular publication of the Magazine of his teachings named Mazdaznan in 1902 he operated under the name Otoman (Zar-Adusht) Ha'nish. He died in Los Angeles on 29 February 1936 disappointed about the misconceiving of his message of an ancient breathing system. The anticlimax of his movement with thousands of followers worldwide followed.

[edit] Movement

The first centers were established in Chicago in 1890 and New York in 1902. Since 1917 Hanish settled mainly in California, Los Angeles. Several scholars brought his teachings to other countries. In the 1930s Mrs. Gloria Gasque, a wealthy follower of the movement, went to Bombay intending to restore the 'true' message of Zoroaster to the Parsis. Though met with hostility, she remained there for a number of years before she returned to the United States. In 1980 Mazdaznan's headquarters moved to Encinitas, California. In 2001 the last successor and manager of this headquarters disappeared and the movement ceased to exist in USA. There may still be some isolated followers or practitioners of his teachings in the United States.

There exists still Mazdaznan groups in Europe, especially in Germany. There the movement was spread by the former Californian farmers David and Frieda Ammann since 1907. Hanish visited Europe in 1911 and after the death of David Ammann in 1923 regularly until 1932. David Ammann was expelled from Leipzig, Germany in 1914 due to the publication of the book Inner Studies in which pure tantric sexual intercourse was described. He established a settlement Aryana in Herrliberg, Switzerland that provided a solid base for an influential school in Zürich. One of Mazdaznan's most famously devout followers was the abstract painter Johannes Itten who taught at the Bauhaus. Under Itten's tutelage, many of the Bauhaus students practiced Mazdaznan, meditated regularly, and maintained a vegetarian diet. The Nazis forbade Mazdaznan starting in 1935, a ban that remained in Germany until Mazdaznan's approval by the Western Allies in 1946. Today the movement has several thousand German followers.

[edit] Teaching

Mainly promoted as dietary (vegetarian) movement with breathing, vowel and glandular exercises for physical, spiritual and mental development. In some way similar to Yogic and Ayurvedic teachings.

Besides emphasizing the importance of the individual decision, the personal responsibility for one's own fortune is proclaimed. The Cosmology rest upon three historical characters: Ainyahita, Zarathustra and Jehoshua. Ainyahita daughter of the god created couple (may be related to Anahita) lived 9000 years ago and is the origin of the white Aryan race (which includes the Jews and therefore Jesus of Nazareth). This latest race didn't attend to one's duties. Therefore people in this race must be trained especially. Ainyahita parted her knowledge with Zarathustra the first to teach monotheism and the principle: good thought - good word - good deed. History is mostly a decay of the first principles (especially Paulus as falsifier of Jesus). The future religion and world peace order can only be created with endeavor of the individual and not through social reformations. (According to Hanish it should be achieved until 1960).

[edit] Literature

Hanish, Otoman Zar-Adusht: Inner Studies: A Course of Twelve Lessons, 1902
Hanish, Otoman Zar-Adusht: Ainyahita in Pearls (articles 1907-1909)
Hanish, Otoman Zar-Adusht: Mazdaznan Dietetics and Cookery Book, 1913
Hanish, Otoman Zar-Adusht: Mazdaznan Health and Breath Culture, 1914
Hanish, Otoman Zar-Adusht: Jehoshua the Nazir, (describes mystical eastern sources on Jesus of Nazareth).
Hanish, Otoman Zar-Adusht: Ever Creative Thought, 1931