Doctrine of the Three Times
The Doctrine of the Three Times is the Zoroastrian model of creation/evolution. It proposes three creative/evolutionary stages, stage one creation, stage two mixing, and stage three separation.[1]
Terms
Zoroastrianism > Asha, Doctrine of the Three Times, Drug, Druh, Final Ordeal, Frashokereti, Gathas, Mithra, Mixture, Separation, Vohu Manah, Zoroaster, Zoroastrian Creation
Related LP Terms
Doctrine of the Three Times > Evolution, Good versus Evil, The Great Work, Zoroastrian Narrative
Non-LP Related Terms
Notes
According to the Zoroastrian doctrine of the Three Times, creation emanates from Ahura Mazda linearly, and passes through three stages, these being Creation (where the world is created), Mixture (where oppositional forces (too often conceptualized as good and evil) fight, and finally Separation (where creation is transformed and perfected). According to Zoroastrian faith, we are currently in the Mixture phase (or, as some readers might prefer to refer to it, the checkboard/chessboard phase). In the Zoroastrian faith, the Mixture is not necessarily seen as a bad thing because it leads, in the end, to a better, more varied, creation. According to the Zoroastrian faith, the period of Creation is seen as simplistic, static, and undesirable, whereas the eternal period of separation, which follows upon the mixture, is characterized by a desirable variation and complexity, a complexity and variety derived from the “mixing” that goes on in the Mixture. Boyce (2011, p. 27) notes that the linear and staged nature of creation is also a break with earlier, cyclical cosmological frames
Footnotes
- ↑ Boyce, Mary. A History of Zoroastrianism: Volume One The Early Period. New York: E. J. Brill, 1996.
