Hossein and Mustafa are incredibly helpful in going with me to the police and I visit the embassy several time to sort things out. I meet Karina again. Our ways parallel. We met in Tblisi, Yerevan and Tabriz before. We spend an evening in good company with Bijan an actor, Bahram a film director, Boris, another visiting couchsurfer from France and numerous further young men and women.
I meet Soroush Parsi, a friend of Rasoul from Tabriz, and talk to him about Zoroastrianism and Iranian society in general. Soroush directed and produced a film about Zoroastrian society nowadays, which follows some families on their yearly pilgrimage from Yazd to a cave temple in the desert. This was a principal refugee for Zoroastrians during the Arabian invasion in the middle-ages. They preferred to face the harsh conditions of the desert to preserve their religion and way of life, than to lose their heritage and adopt an alien system of values. Hence Yazd and Kerman are the cities in which most Zoroastrians are found today. I learn that their principal precepts are essentially those of the 'Bhagavad Gita': The personal self is unified with the eternal flame, Ahoura-Mazda, the Universal Self, or the Hindu Brahma, by means of goodness: Goodness in thought, goodness in speech and goodness in deed.
At a later date Hossein and me meet with Akbar in a student dormitory. Akbar proceeds to elucidate three principles on which all acts that we might call 'magic' are based upon, and asks me which one of these I am most interested in.
"None of them for the sake of physical or psychic phenomena" I reply "It is knowledge of existence that concerns me. I am well aware though, that the first principle, that of Will, is most intimately tied with this." After a long discussion Akbar agrees that a religious life is not a requisite for the dawning of such knowledge, that a critical and curious intellect, intuition and conscience may suffice, without the frames of any particular religion.
"What do you think is the role of love?" Mehdi asks
"We talk much of knowledge, consciousness and understanding, but all that we learn and read, all inner awakenings and flashes of light may be seen as containers. That which fills these, which gives these their living quality, their color, is Love. It is the dynamic power, which makes these profoundly positive to an individual, which fills these with emotional reality" I reply.
Mehdi talks of his own relation with 'supernatural' phenomena. His mother took part in a group working in seances, evoking and contacting spirits. She wanted to introduce her daughter, Mehdi's younger sister, to the group and their work, but Mehdi protested vehemently and repeatedly. One night he was away from home and woke up in the night being completely unable to move. It was as if a horrifying force was holding him down to his bed, inhibiting the slightest of his movements. He was lying thus in absolute horror for the rest of the night, unable to escape, until the first rays of the sun shot forth from the horizon and the Muezzin started to sing the morning prayer. In that instant the barrier vanished. The following night he returned home. At night he woke up to his mother wreathing and mumbling in her sleep and recognized in this exactly the horror he experienced last night. He wrenched his mother out of sleep and while she was trying breathlessly to explain to her son what she had dreamt, he was finishing her sentences for her. She was amazed at how he knew so precisely of her dream and Mehdi told her he had experienced just this state the night before. Mehdi's mother immediately left the seance group and never involved her daughter in it.
Hossein arranges a meeting with Asgher, who is attending a lecture at the US Embassy. The man lecturing is famous for his lectures on Zionism and Freemasonry. Freemasonry nota bene is banned in Iran. The walls of the embassy grounds are covered in artworks portraying rockets, bombs, the stripes of the American flag fading into barbed wire over a map of Iran or the skeleton of the statue of liberty. Only now do I remember that the embassy was closed some 30 years ago. It is now used for other purposes but is still commonly called the 'spying house'. The lecture is in Persian, there are no accompanying graphics and the content is too dense for Hossein to translate, so I exit, sit in the sun in the yard and learn Hindi. I am approached by first one, then two, then three men, evidently trying to tell me in Persian that I am not allowed to be here. They seem somewhat unsure of their cause, but I finally follow them to the front yard of the embassy grounds, where I am told to sit. The gatekeeper chats with me, telling me that it is simply a law stating that no foreigners are allowed on the inner grounds. I sit on the bench outside for some time, it is getting cold and I wonder if there is a paragraph in the law about foreigners freezing their bones off while waiting for friends inside. I stroll back to the lecture hall. On exiting again after the lecture with Hossein and Asgher the gatekeeper is already waiting for me in front of the door, visibly upset by the fact that I went back inside. He calms down after exchanging a few words with the two and mentions that I was the first foreigner inside the US Embassy since Islamic Revolution in 1979.
Asgher equally had out of body experiences, but as the state commenced, he was able to move about freely by his own will. He tells me of how he visited the University in this state once, seeing students and lecture halls.
"But this is not what interests me. I'm interested in the phenomena of parapsychology in politics" Asgher says.
At his apartment he portrays the history and alleged origin of Freemasonry and elaborates on the modes of psychic attack and deffence. I remind him that most information about such societies and psychic practices point in the opposite direction of Self-Reliance, Goodness, Truthfulness and Philosophy:
"It is essential to be informed about all good and bad there is, but nothing should occupy our minds to such an extent that we loose sight of our essential duty: the duty to be happy, to feel good."
I meet Soroush Parsi, a friend of Rasoul from Tabriz, and talk to him about Zoroastrianism and Iranian society in general. Soroush directed and produced a film about Zoroastrian society nowadays, which follows some families on their yearly pilgrimage from Yazd to a cave temple in the desert. This was a principal refugee for Zoroastrians during the Arabian invasion in the middle-ages. They preferred to face the harsh conditions of the desert to preserve their religion and way of life, than to lose their heritage and adopt an alien system of values. Hence Yazd and Kerman are the cities in which most Zoroastrians are found today. I learn that their principal precepts are essentially those of the 'Bhagavad Gita': The personal self is unified with the eternal flame, Ahoura-Mazda, the Universal Self, or the Hindu Brahma, by means of goodness: Goodness in thought, goodness in speech and goodness in deed.
At a later date Hossein and me meet with Akbar in a student dormitory. Akbar proceeds to elucidate three principles on which all acts that we might call 'magic' are based upon, and asks me which one of these I am most interested in.
"None of them for the sake of physical or psychic phenomena" I reply "It is knowledge of existence that concerns me. I am well aware though, that the first principle, that of Will, is most intimately tied with this." After a long discussion Akbar agrees that a religious life is not a requisite for the dawning of such knowledge, that a critical and curious intellect, intuition and conscience may suffice, without the frames of any particular religion.
"What do you think is the role of love?" Mehdi asks
"We talk much of knowledge, consciousness and understanding, but all that we learn and read, all inner awakenings and flashes of light may be seen as containers. That which fills these, which gives these their living quality, their color, is Love. It is the dynamic power, which makes these profoundly positive to an individual, which fills these with emotional reality" I reply.
Mehdi talks of his own relation with 'supernatural' phenomena. His mother took part in a group working in seances, evoking and contacting spirits. She wanted to introduce her daughter, Mehdi's younger sister, to the group and their work, but Mehdi protested vehemently and repeatedly. One night he was away from home and woke up in the night being completely unable to move. It was as if a horrifying force was holding him down to his bed, inhibiting the slightest of his movements. He was lying thus in absolute horror for the rest of the night, unable to escape, until the first rays of the sun shot forth from the horizon and the Muezzin started to sing the morning prayer. In that instant the barrier vanished. The following night he returned home. At night he woke up to his mother wreathing and mumbling in her sleep and recognized in this exactly the horror he experienced last night. He wrenched his mother out of sleep and while she was trying breathlessly to explain to her son what she had dreamt, he was finishing her sentences for her. She was amazed at how he knew so precisely of her dream and Mehdi told her he had experienced just this state the night before. Mehdi's mother immediately left the seance group and never involved her daughter in it.
Hossein arranges a meeting with Asgher, who is attending a lecture at the US Embassy. The man lecturing is famous for his lectures on Zionism and Freemasonry. Freemasonry nota bene is banned in Iran. The walls of the embassy grounds are covered in artworks portraying rockets, bombs, the stripes of the American flag fading into barbed wire over a map of Iran or the skeleton of the statue of liberty. Only now do I remember that the embassy was closed some 30 years ago. It is now used for other purposes but is still commonly called the 'spying house'. The lecture is in Persian, there are no accompanying graphics and the content is too dense for Hossein to translate, so I exit, sit in the sun in the yard and learn Hindi. I am approached by first one, then two, then three men, evidently trying to tell me in Persian that I am not allowed to be here. They seem somewhat unsure of their cause, but I finally follow them to the front yard of the embassy grounds, where I am told to sit. The gatekeeper chats with me, telling me that it is simply a law stating that no foreigners are allowed on the inner grounds. I sit on the bench outside for some time, it is getting cold and I wonder if there is a paragraph in the law about foreigners freezing their bones off while waiting for friends inside. I stroll back to the lecture hall. On exiting again after the lecture with Hossein and Asgher the gatekeeper is already waiting for me in front of the door, visibly upset by the fact that I went back inside. He calms down after exchanging a few words with the two and mentions that I was the first foreigner inside the US Embassy since Islamic Revolution in 1979.
Asgher equally had out of body experiences, but as the state commenced, he was able to move about freely by his own will. He tells me of how he visited the University in this state once, seeing students and lecture halls.
"But this is not what interests me. I'm interested in the phenomena of parapsychology in politics" Asgher says.
At his apartment he portrays the history and alleged origin of Freemasonry and elaborates on the modes of psychic attack and deffence. I remind him that most information about such societies and psychic practices point in the opposite direction of Self-Reliance, Goodness, Truthfulness and Philosophy:
"It is essential to be informed about all good and bad there is, but nothing should occupy our minds to such an extent that we loose sight of our essential duty: the duty to be happy, to feel good."
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