“In Yasht XIX we hear celebrated the creatures

who are to come from the world of light and , in the

form of the Saoshyants, renew earthly existence,

making it an existence in the nature of Fire, when all

creatures will possess an incorruptible body of luminous

Fire. But that is an event toward which all creatures

of light are working now, in the present. This work

and this event were the very reason, from the beginning, for the choice and battle of the Fravartis. The creatures of light receive their capacity to fulfill or to anticipate this metamorphosis thanks to the victorial Fire whose radiance embodied in beings is called by the personal name of the Angel Arshtat.”

Henry Corbin:Spiritual Body and Celestial Earth…pp.45

“This tranfiguring energy of which the Imago Gloriae is the source and organ, envelopes the whole soul. Perception of the Fire of earthly Flory proclaims the radiance of a spiritual Fire bringing the soul to incandescence, to the Light of saving knowledge (gnosis) introduces the soul to the Earth of Light, and to all the beings composing its own world, the world for which it

is answerable. That is why the figure of Daena, the light of knowledge and the Imago Animae, is sometimes

substituted for that of the Angel Arshtat.

And that is also why at the “judgement” which is the confrontation of

the soul with the celestial archetypes for which it had to answer on earth, the Angel Arshtat stands at the side of Zamyat, the Dea terrestris, at the

“weighing” of the soul, both of them assisting the archangel

Amertat.For this confrontation causes the soul to ask: with what “weight” did it weigh its own Xvarnah which was

for the transformation of being? To what degree was it itself a Saoshyant, thus fulfilling the vow of its own prayer: “May we be among those who are to bring about the Transfiguration of the

Earth”..” Henry Corbin: Spiritual Body and Celestial Earth..pp.45-46

“In Eran-Vej, close by the mountain of Hukairya <Hugar, the very High – a mountain as high as the stars, from which the spring of life,the Heavenly Waters of Ardvi Sura Anahita. More about the conncection between Hukairya and Ardvi Sura Anahita later. TDB>, there is a mountain of the dawns (Ushidarena). The Liturgical chant to the Angel Zamyat opens with a strophe in praise of this mountain of the dawns. it is made of ruby of the substance of heaven: It is situated in the middle of the cosmic sea Vourukasha, into which it pours the waters it receives from Hukairya.It is the first mountain to be lighted up by the auroral fires; for this

reason, it is the receptacle, the treasury of the dawns,

and likewise (by homophony) that which gives Intelligence to men. It is said that “the mountain first lighted up by the rays of the dawn also enlightens the intelligence, since dawn and intelligence are one (Usha and Ushi).
Finally, the ritual affirms the connection which is essential here between the mountain of dawn and

eschatology; it prescribes that an offering be made to the

Angel Arshtat at the hour of Aushahin ( between

midnight and dawn), and the reason given is that the mountain of dawn is mentioned in order to propriate the Angel Arshtat.And now the connection becomes clear: It is at the dawn that rises after the third night following death that the soul has to face the ordeal of the Chinvat Bridge. Thus,the mountain of dawn is invested

with the Light of Glory <Xvarnah> at the same exact hour when the soul is called upon to testify concerning its earthly existence in the presence of the Angel Arshtat and Zamyat, the Angel of the Earth, both of whom assist the Amahraspand Amertat in the

“weighing of the souls”.” Henry Corbin: Spiritual Body and Celestial Earth, pp.27

The Ritual and Liturgy opens up a landscape, a pattern which is a habitation of spiritual presences in confrontation with earthly destiny and attainment. It is event (a dawn, in both the

literal and symbolical sense) and space (in the case of

“the mountain of dawn“): event and space are both

biographical in relation to the greater context of The Soul on

Its Journey and its fateful weighing on the third day after the bond of the body is loosened. Transfiguration occurs on a Mountain. Transfiguration represents the outpouring,a libation, of supernatural and celestial light which “disturbs” the forms and structures which is

delineated by the senses. This we may compare well and good with the New testament gospel account of the Transfiguration of Jesus at the “Mount of Vision“, the Mountain Tabor. The “threeformed” spiritual presence of living intelligence is also typified in the early christian tradition by assigning the identities of Jesus as Christ with Moses and Elijah on his right and left hand. Do we

have, in the west, a ritual comparable to the splendour of the “Ritual of Dawn (Aushahin)”?

Yes, the ritual is a reminder and an “opening” into the event of

final dissolution of fate (!), the union with the celestial self, the heavenly “I”, the Daena – it typifies death,resurrection and transfiguration.

What could contain these codes, these images, of our western heritage? The Eucharist celebrated in the sacramental churches. The

Eucharist is prefigured by several antecedent archetypes practised in many cultures and in many different mythos, but its internalization and direct relevance to the “Soul on its Journey” were never more clear than within the Christian Gnosis, lost to almost all who today

profess to be Christians.