What is Zoroastrian Esotericism? Towards an Ontological Approach

Between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, different interpretations of Zoroastrianism began to emerge among the Parsis of India. Some of these interpretations were based on ideas that Parsis defined as “esoteric.” This article examines the participation of Parsis in Freemasonry, the Theosophical Society, and Ilme Kṣnum (“Science of Bliss”) in modern India. The analysis of primary and secondary sources, combined with the examination of ethnographic data, leads to a definition of “Parsi esotericism” as a heuristic category. This proposal is in discontinuity with the deductive approach that has characterised the study of esotericism in Zoroastrianism and has been largely inspired by a Western conceptualisation of esotericism.