The Fravartis pt.9

Daena II
Who is this Daena?
We can inspect the soteriology of souls according
to the Mazdeans, to receive a hint
(Note:I paraphrase Corbin.. he admittedly looks at the ancients
through eyes tinted with Sufism,Ismailism,Neo-Platonism and
Gnosticism..among other things):


At the Dawn of the third day, the Soul on its Journey arrives to The Bridge of Chinvat. Here it either meets with Daena, who is its celestial “I”; or on the contrary – it
confronts a terrible apparation, a monster, reflecting nothing but an “I”; it is mutilated and disfigured by every kind of ugliness, since it is cut off from its celestial Archetype.
This monster drags its victim down with itself to the
depths from which it never escapes, where it has ever dwelt, where it has forced the Soul in its life of degradation to live and dwell in thought and deed. The Perfected Soul however, crosses the Bridge of
Chinvat (over our “River Styx”) by the impetus of Spiritual flight and the power of its purity in thought and action:
It moves on towards the stars, then to the Moon, then
to the Sun, and then to the infinite Lights.


Remember the story of the Advocate? It is a variant of
this account.
The “mutilated face” confronting the “erring” Soul on this “third day” – puts me in mind of the “miscarriage” of Sophia which resulted in the Demiurge. If we read that particular component of myth as a
parable of the soul, it is suggestive. If I have eyes to see, when I surrender the life of this body – what shape will my image, my person be in? What in life, have I “produced”?