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Reviewed by:
  • Witches, Whores, and Sorcerers: The Concept of Evil in Early Iran by S.K. Forrest Mendoza
  • Edgar Francis IV
Keywords

Middle East, Iran, Zoroastrianism, Magic, Avesta, Ritual

S.K. Forrest Mendoza. Witches, Whores, and Sorcerers: The Concept of Evil in Early Iran. Foreword and other contributions by Prods Oktor Skjaervø. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2011. Pp. xi + 231.

In Witches, Whores, and Sorcerers: The Concept of Evil in Early Iran, S. K. Mendoza Forrest has examined the Avesta to determine how Zoroastrian [End Page 92] priests of ancient Iran understood threats and rituals that we might call “magic.” This is especially appropriate, since the English word “magic” is etymologically related to those Zoroastrian priests—the Magi. In short, Forrest’s analysis of the Avesta has brought the Magi back into discussions of magic.

The Avesta is not a single book but rather a collection of different Zoroastrian sacred texts. Different texts gathered in the Avesta were composed orally as far back as the second millennium BCE and written down sometime around 1000 CE. As Forrest herself points out, the study of the Avesta has largely been in the hands of linguists and historians up until now. In Witches, Whores, and Sorcerers Forrest examines this material with the eye of a religious studies scholar, and in the process she also seeks to make this understanding accessible to the historian or religious studies scholar who is not intimately familiar with the Avesta, Zoroastrianism, or pre-Islamic Iranian history.

Witches, Whores, and Sorcerers consists of an introduction plus twelve chapters. While there are no formal subdivisions, the chapters break down into three main groups. Chapters 1 through 3 provide basic background information on the texts under study, the ancient Iranians, and premodern Zoroastrian practice. Chapters in the second section describe the various kinds of spiritual and physical evils presented in the Avestan texts (including the eponymous witches, whores, and sorcerers). Chapters 8 through 11 describe the different Avestan rituals to combat and protect against these evils, while Chapter 12 is the book’s conclusion.

In the introduction and conclusion, Forrest explains clearly how she intends to apply the term “magic” with respect to the Avestan literature. Specifically, she defines magic as “words and rites meant to produce a desired result by the coercion or supplication of forces beyond the realm of humans” (3). She further distinguishes magical words and rites as being intended for practical ends and usually “carried out in nonpublic settings” (3). Finally, she notes that magical rites are distinguished by special language or references to myths (3). She also makes it clear that she is not using this as a derogatory or derisive term. Rather, she argues that in the Avestas we see a focus on magic that is not that different from that in other societies. At the same time, Forrest acknowledges that definitions of magic are always contentious. She frequently returns to these themes in the body of the Witches, Whores, and Sorcerers by comparing materials from the Avesta with some of the most prominent scholarship on magic (e.g., Mauss, Malinowski, Tambiah, Evans-Pritchard, and Versnel).

Throughout Witches, Whores, and Sorcerers Forrest makes a strong case that magic (as she has defined it) is especially important in the Avestan literature because of the way the texts presented important magico-religious ideas such [End Page 93] as good, evil, purity, pollution, and ritual. The composers of the Avesta divided the entire temporal and spiritual world into two camps—good and evil—each with their ranks of gods and demons. According to this schema, all good things came ultimately from the Good Spirit (A.K.A. Ahura Mazdā, or Ohrmazd) while all bad things—including old age, disease, demons, menstruation, and other curses and difficulties—came from the Evil Spirit (A.K.A. The Lie, Angra Mainyu, or Ahriman). Humans were seen as agents with free choice who could take actions that would aid either the good or the evil.

This dualistic cosmology had a direct impact on the understanding of pollution, evil, and ritual. Corpses, menstruating women, and other sources of pollution were considered to be literally possessed by demons of the Evil Spirit and...

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