Mytho-Mystic Literature
Year:2009 | Volume:5 | Issue:16|Papers Count:7

In the north of Iran, the province of Mazandaran, there is a rite called "Lale-Shish-zan". In this rite, in the middle of summer, a person in the role of a dumb (lal), enters the houses and beats barrens, girls of marriageable age and fruitless trees with a wood (shish). Some mythologists believe that it is rooted in old Persian myths and the wood is a symbol of bow of A`rash-e Kama`ngi`r, Arash the Archer. The present article is to analyze this rite with respect to the mentioned Persian mythology.

Mirza- Muhammad-ali Sa-eb (1601/02-1677) also called Sa-eb Tabrizi, is the celebrated Persian poet whose reputation is based primarily on some 300,000 couplets. His “Indian style” verses reveal an elegant wit, a gift for aphorism and proverb, and a keen appreciation of philosophical and intellectual exercise. Even though mystical symbols and ideas are prevalent in his poetry, it has not received enough attention. This article tries to study the mystical concepts, like annihilation, oneness of being, as well as death, in his poetry.

Almost all religions and schisms believe that man has extrasensory powers, but the most important question is how it can be obtained. Islamic mystics, especially Mohammad Lahiji (d. 912/1506), commenter of Shabestari's Golshan-e Ra-z, offer a way to obtain this power and mystical state (maqa-m). They want the holy travelers (salek) to purify their hearts and, as a result, acquire the Divine grace (karamat).Carl Gustav Jung, A Christian psychiatrist, with respect to notions of conscious and unconscious, also, proposes the possibility of achieving extrasensory powers.In this paper, the ways of gaining extrasensory powers in order to acquire Divine grace will be discussed from psychological and mystical points of view.

In the works of Fari-d ud-Di-n Atta-r of Ni-sha-pu-r (1145-46–1221), Persian poet and mystic, there is a kind of narration that we can call "musical fable". It is a moral narration intended to enforce a truth, especially one in which animals or inanimate objects speak and act like human beings. The musical fable has a musical structure, and is useful for expressing mystical thoughts. There are nine musical fables in Ela-hi-Na-meh, and six in Tazkerat al-Awli-ya. The aim of this article is to study the themes of these narrations.

In ancient Persian mythology water is the symbol of life and fertility. Water or rain clouds appear in the figure of a woman or a cow, and a dragon (Symbol of drought) imprisons them and prevents the nature from being productive; then a hero kills the dragon. Based on the role of water in ancient Persian mythology, the present article tries to compare Persian myths, Zahha-k, Goshta-sb and Esfandiya-r, with Indian myths, Ra-ma-yana- and Indira-, with regards to the story mentioned above.

The unconscious is a means of understanding truths as it is in direct contact with the human nature; but the human reason and rationality is an obstacle to reaching the truth through unconscious. In some areas of human life, like sleep and dream, the unconscious manifests itself in a much better way than reason. Surrealists, like mystics, use the unconscious and believe that it is a means for discovering the truths. In spite of the differences, comparing surrealism and mysticism and showing how the surrealists and mystics regard the unconscious and use its possibilities for the knowing of the world is revealing.

Symbolism is the art of representing something by symbols and symbol is an outward sign of an inward meaning. In the case of Sufism, it is a series of linguistic figures which express the relation of man and God, a collection of images that are God's objective manifestation. The present article shows the relationship of rhetoric figures (irony, metaphor and etc.) to symbol and the place of symbol in epic and lyric poetry, and tries to indicate the role of symbol and symbolism in mystical poetry.