The Fravartis part 11

Daena-Sophia has sisters.
Among them is the
Angel Chisti, which is celebrated in Yasht XVI (the
Avestan hymn-cyclus), which is specifically dedicated to
Daena.


“Her name .. conveys the idea of an active Light which
illuminates and reveals a Form of Light. It is she who
confers on each being the faculty of vision, particularly on the participant in the liturgy, who by her is enabled to see and penetrate the meaning of the words and gestures of the Ritual. As it is recalled in the Yasht:
“Zarathustra sacrificed to her, saying: “Rise from thy throne, come from the Abode of Hymns, O most upright Chisti, created by Mazda and
holy..”

In the liturgy consecrated to Daena, it is therefore
Chisti who reveals her presence in mental vision as mediatrix for her “sister” and as the performer of this liturgy. She carries the oblations, she is the priestess in person. Since it is she who confers vision, she herself therefore is the vision, that defines the features of her iconography: tall and slender, clothed in
white and herself white.”


Henri Corbin, Spiritual Body and Celestial Earth, pp.43.

Zharathustra petitions Chisti to rise from her throne, to greet him and assist him in his liturgy, which is devoted to his divine Daena, his Sophia, his direct anchor into the
deep of Spenta Armaiti´s mysteries. She is the Angel of the liturgy – she is the sight which sanctifies the text, words pronounced, sounds emitted, gestures performed, oblations consecrated and ingested, the mixing of the cup of Hoama, the burning of incense..the
activity of the Active Imagination in transforming mere visual data into a vision of the Transfigured Earth, and standing at its borders, the Persona of the Knight (among whom we must surely account Zarathustra to be) Transfigured.
Each of the inheritances from Primal Man, in each
transmission, in each version; as we can find in Manichaean and
Mandaean sacramentology – we encounter “the spirit of the
Ritual”. Marcus the Valentinian (2nd century Gaul) called
upon the name of “Charis” (Grace), and prepared the
eucharist so that she may “descend upon the chalice” as
well as filling the “inner man” of those who had
communed under her. This Charis is a Sophian presence,
just as the Paraclete and Mani´s own celestial twin.
I´d like to add that it is my understanding that
either of these are *more* than personifications of
abstract “powers”; they are approached as presences whose
place is to stand in front of the thin veil which
stands between “our world” as administered through the
senses, and the Pleroma of the divine worlds. Just as
they guard the gate, they also assist in transmutation
of the souls who pass between them. To the ancients,
each >Ritual occasion represented a specialy
prepared “space” where the discerning could interact with
the spiritual reality from which they claim actual
origin. Persephone is another “Priestess” of Mysteries – as she
mixes the cup of Kykeon whose aroma is both bitter and
sweet. Hoama, which is a counterpart to it – imparts
“immortality” as well as “death swift and certain”. The vision
of Daena at the bridge is apparently prefigured in
Zarathustra´s encounters with Daena´s sisters..he sees them all
and do them due honour, but he knows his Daena in the
same way our Dante knows his Beatrice.