Eye of the heart": Mazdaism, ancestor of archetypal psychology

Campbell, A. (1997). Eye of the heart: Mazdaism, ancestor of archetypal psychology (Doctoral dissertation, Pacifica Graduate Institute, 1997). UMI no. 9837030

This thesis traced one of the roots of archetypal psychology to Persian theosophy and to its earliest origins in Mazdaism (Zoroastrianism).
James Hillman has stated that one of the fathers of archetypal psychology is Henry Corbin, who was a scholar of the form of Islamic mysticism that appeared in Shi'ite Iran. In his writings, Corbin noted the connection between the Mazdean teachings of ancient Persia (1400-1200 BC) and the resurgence of similar themes in the poetry of Shi'ite Iran in the post-Islamic era (+12th century AD). This paper made those connections explicit.
The central focus was a series of three Persian poems dating from the 12th, 18th, and 20th centuries AD, together with their more ancient precursors in Mazdean angelology dating from 1400 BC. A translation into English was made and the poems were viewed from a post-Cartesian, phenomenological perspective.
This author, through her translation of the poetry, demonstrated the gap between Cartesian consciousness and the cultural reality which produced this poetry. Relevant connections were made with archetypal and Jungian psychology.
Through this author's translation and commentaries, the modern reader is brought closer to an ancient, non-Cartesian encounter with the imaginal, the numinous and the mystical.
Archetypal psychology was shown to have deep historical antecedents which are not only Greek and Western--but Persian.