ARIMAN I LITERATUREN
"In Persian theology the opposing spirit
would have been identified as Ariman/Arimanius. According to the ancient
Persian religion of Zorastrianism, Arimanius was the Death-dealer--the
powerful and self-existing evil spirit, from whom war and all other evils
had their origin.
Arimanius was the chief of the cacodaemons, or fallen angels,
expelled from heaven for their sins. After their expulsion, the cacodaemons
endeavored to settle down in various parts of the earth, but were always
rejected, and out of revenge found pleasure in destyroying the inhabitants
of the earth.
Arimanius and his followers finally took up their abode in the
space between heaven and earth and there established their domain called
Ariman-abad. From this location, the cacodaemons could intrude upon and
attempt to corrupt human governments, especially those hostile to God's
people. "
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"In
addition, in both cases, Arimanes/Ariman proves his power by summoning up a
female form: his supernatural agency is exercised in relation to femaleness.
Manfred goes to Arimanes to speak to his dead sister, Astarte, and only Arimanes
can raise her phantom from the dead. Schreber's delusion parodically rescripts
this scene. His Ariman, like Byron's Arimanes, also summons a woman, but in
Schreber's case, the woman is Schreber himself. From early in Schreber's
Memoirs, we learn that Ariman wants to turn Schreber into a woman. This
metamorphosis will take place through the special quality of Ariman's rays,
which he sends into Schreber's body: "The rays of the lower God (Ariman) have
the power of producing the miracle of unmanning" (p. 61). (24)
As Freud explains, Schreber initially understands this transformation as a form
of soul murder, but eventually comes to see it as a glorious destiny through
which he will be able to redeem the world by bearing children after an
apocalyptic disaster.
Schreber's Memoirs
elaborately subdivides his version of God into different parts. He splits the "posterior"
part of God into a lower God (Ariman) and an upper God (Ormuzd). In the first
chapter of his Memoirs, when he introduces Ariman, he adds in a footnote
that "the name Ariman occurs by the way in Lord Byron's Manfred in
connection with a soul murder."(9) In the section of Freud's
essay outlining Schreber's delusions, Freud cues his reader to this footnote: "A
passage in Byron's Manfred may have determined Schreber's choice of the
names of Persian divinities. We shall later come upon further evidence of the
influence of this poem upon his mind."(10) Freud pumps up
anticipation and even suspense around the appearance of his more complete
discussion of Byron's poem. Far from dismissing Schreber's allusion, he goes out
of his way to draw attention to Byron's significance for his analysis. "
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"Almqvist,
Carl Jonas Love, ORMUS OCH ARIMAN. Upps. 1979.
I "Drottningens juvelsmycke" sjunger Tintomara - hon som
vandrade ut i livet med visdomen hur lika varandra, kanske i en spegel, oskulden
och arseniken är - sin visa:
Mig finner ingen, ingen jag finner.
"Två ting äro vita, Tintomara - oskuld och arsenik". ... den
om de bägge persiska prinsarna Ormus och Ariman: Den ene är godheten, den
andre är ondskan.
Och en av hans nyckelberättelser, den om de bägge persiska prinsarna Ormus
och Ariman: Den ene är godheten, den andre är ondskan; betydelserna förskjuts,
börjar flyta, allt eftersom berättelsen fortskrider (två ting äro som bekant
vita); det goda befinns tämligen ont och det onda ganska gott, och Almqvist
sammanfattar:
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"The prince of earth and air," and the fountain-head of evil.
... mythology, introduced into Grecian fable under the name of Ariman'nis.
Byron introduces him in his drama called Manfred"
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Eva Ibbotson, December 31, 2004 ROMAN
Ariman The Awful must marry. He holds a competition so that the witches of
Todcaster will gather at a hotel and present their powers. The witch with the
blackest powers will marry him. The witches competing are Mother Bloodwort,
Nancy Shouter, Nora Shouter, Madame Olympia, Mabel Wrack, Ethel Feedbag, and
Belladonna. Read the book to find out who ends up marrying Ariman.
Rameau: Zoroastre
By Peter Branscombe
Mark Padmore (tenor) -- Zoroastre; Nathan Berg
(bass) -- Abramane; Gaëlle Méchaly (soprano) -- Amélite; et al;
Les Arts Florissants/William Christie.
Rameau Zoroastre. New
Mark Padmore (tenor) Zoroastre; Nathan Berg (bass)
Abramane; Gaëlle Méchaly (soprano) Amélite; Anna Maria
Panzarella (soprano) Érinice; Matthieu Lécroart (bass)
Zopire/ Vengeance; François Bazola (bass) Narbanor;
Éric Martin Bonnet (bass) Oromasès/Ariman; Stéphanie
Révidat (soprano) Céphie; Les Arts Florissants/William
Christie.
Erato 0927-43182-2 (full
price, three discs, 3 hours 43 minutes). French libretto and
English/German translations included. Website
www.warner-classics.com/erato. Producer Arnaud Moral.
Engineers Didier Jean, Bénédicte Roy. Dates Live
performances at the Théâtre de Poissy, Poissy on August
28th-September 10th, 2001.
There have been recordings of Zoroastre in the past,
including a complete one from Sigiswald Kuijken and La Petite
Bande (1988, released by Harmonia Mundi Germany and subsequently
reissued on Deutsche Harmonia Mundi) and excerpts from the opera
done by Richard Kapp and the Hamburg Chamber Orchestra (1971,
Turnabout LP); currently there is nothing beyond an orchestral
number in the catalogue, so a new version of this splendid score
is very welcome. Zoroastre was written in 1749, towards
the end of Rameau's series of tragédies en musique, and
revised so thoroughly seven years later (this is the version
that William Christie has chosen) that three-fifths of it are
barely recognizable from the 1749 score. Historically, it was
the first French opera to replace the traditional prologue with
a three-section orchestral overture. Its complicated plot
concerns the struggle for supremacy — in love as well as in
power — between Zoroastre, founder of the Magi, and the sorcerer
Abramane, High Priest of Ariman (whose subterranean voice booms
forth at a crisis-point). There are battles,
transformation-scenes, religious ceremonies, necromancy, storms.
Beneath the surface, there looms the spirit of Freemasonry — in
which sense, Zoroastre is a forerunner of Die
Zauberflöte. Rameau may or may not have been a mason; his
librettist, Cahusac, certainly was, and called for frequent
contrasts between darkness and light, to which the composer
responded with superb orchestration and a subtle ear for effect.
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PERSIAN
At the time when the Assyrian kings of the neo-Babylonian epoch were
publishing the Babylonian mythological cycles, and when Egyptian and Greek
mythologies were flourishing, the original Persian or Iranian mythology was
being stopped in its growth; afterwards nearly all records of it were destroyed.
This happened in the reign of Darius (sixth century B.C.), through the rise of
the Mazdean or Zoroastrian dualism which, accepted by the king and the governing
classes, had the effect of depriving the old mythology of all value and
significance.
The Zoroastrian dualism represented a religion that was on a higher level
than the religions of Egypt and Babylon. Says Professor Rostovtzeff :
Like the Hebrew prophets, Zoroaster reached the conception of
a single spiritual god, Ormuzd or Ahura Mazda, in whom the principle of good is
personified, while the evil principle is embodied in Ariman or Angra Mainyu. The
two principles strive eternally in life and nature, and in the struggle men take
part. Man is responsible for his actions, good and bad; he is the master of his
fate; his will determines his line of conduct. If he struggles against evil,
confesses God, and cares for the purity of his body and soul, then, after four
periods, of three thousand years each, in the world's history, when the time
shall arrive for final victory of good over evil and of Ormuzd over Ariman--the
general resurrection of the dead and the last judgment will assure him his place
among the saved and the righteous. 9
"behold I am the spawn of
downcast Ariman
awakened, yet I am no longer human"
http://www.worthynews.com/news-features/prince-of-persia.html