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Mandaeans / Mandaean Religion & Culture

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dandare29

Gone But Not Forgotten
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... {There} is at least one dualist Gnostic religion of ancient origin that still exists in the world. I am thinking of the Mandaeans, the largest number of whom live in Iraq and Iran. there are Mandaeans scattered about the USA, and there are some in Europe. it appears that there are quite a few in Australia. i believe that the Mandaeans outside of Iraq & Iran are emigrants from those countries.

they are of pre-Christian origin, and don't identify themselves as Christians or Muslims. i had read on the Australian Mandaean website that they do not proselytize or accept converts (i couldn't find the note about not accepting converts today -- the site has been revised since i last looked at it a few years ago.) here are some links:

http://www.infoplease.com/ce6/society/A0831487.html
(from the Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, a brief sketch about them & their religion )

http://www.mandaean.com.au
(the Australian Mandaean website. alot of photos and alot of information. click on the icons to watch Iranian & Iraqi satellite TV, or to listen to Iranian & Iraqi radio! ya just gotta watch, and ya just gotta listen! of course, it helps if you speak Arabic or Farsi. but don't blame me if your government becomes suspicious of you for listening/watching these stations! :))

geocities.com/usamandaean/who.html
Link and website are dead. The MIA webpage can be accessed via the Wayback Machine:
https://web.archive.org/web/20021218123004/http://www.geocities.com/usamandaean/who.html
(this site too has a good deal of information about them, including a discussion of the Mandaic language and alphabet. it also has pages called "Kids' World" and "Teen World.")

geocities.com/Athens/Thebes/8522/mandaeanworld.html
Link and website are dead. The MIA website is at least partially archived at the Wayback Machine:
https://web.archive.org/web/2002120...ies.com/Athens/Thebes/8522/mandaeanworld.html
(this site may be related to or an earlier or later version of the USAMANDAEAN site noted above. it has some different info, and from this site you can access sites on "Uroboros: The Gnostic Ring.")

good luck!:)
 
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Yahoo had this interesting look at an ancient religion - does anybody know much about them? I sure hadn't.
Old Religion Survives on Banks of Tigris
By Khaled Yacoub Oweis

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraqi devotees of an obscure religion perform virginity tests on their brides and take a dip in the murky Tigris river every Sunday to purify the soul.

"It is OK if the bride has lost her virginity. Only the ceremony would be different," Sheikh Asaad Fayyad of the Sabea Mandean Nation, a relic of the ancient Gnostic religions, said at a wedding for five couples at the sect's compound in Baghdad.

John the Baptist, New Testament forerunner to Jesus Christ, is the central figure for the world's 20,000 or so Mandeans, most of whom live in southern Iraq and southwestern Iran.

The Mandeans, forbidden to marry outside the sect, are dwindling in number. Their scholars trace the religion's roots to Adam, who they say lived 980 million years ago -- pushing mankind's origins far earlier than those proposed by science.

Apart from a now-tiny Jewish community, the Mandeans form the smallest group on Iraq's religious spectrum, which ranges from majority Shi'ite and Sunni Muslims to minority Christians and Yazidis, an offshoot of Shi'ism.

Mandeans are secretive, wary of revealing their rites for fear of antagonizing their compatriots, especially after the U.S.-led invasion that ousted Saddam Hussein in April.

The former Iraqi ruler did not interfere with them and allowed an Arabic edition of their holy book, Kanz Irba (Great Treasure), to be published two years ago.

Prayer and ceremonies are conducted in Aramaic, the language Jesus spoke. The Mandean ethic is similar to the Judeo-Christian tradition. They regard Jesus with suspicion, saying he added nothing to the message of John the Baptist and prophets before him.

The Mandeans encourage procreation and prefer mass weddings.

WEDDING RITES

The women examine brides before they are baptized in a pool. The grooms are baptized separately.

A long-bearded priest wearing a five-piece white robe with a turquoise sheet wrapped along his waist knocks the heads of the bride and groom together and makes them circle kitchen utensils and other household goods wrapped in white sheets.

The groom wears a small crown made of yannis, a tree that bears no fruit. The newlyweds are forbidden from seeing anyone from the community for a week after their wedding day.

The couple are handed raisins to eat from clay tablets that seem to evoke the ancient civilizations of Mesopotamia, the fertile lands between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers.

The Mandeans are not sure of their geographical origin. Some say they first lived in Mesopotamia and were persecuted by the Sumerians, who lived nearly 5,000 years ago. Others say they came from Palestine.

Mandean secrets, such as how the Earth's population grew to billions from one couple despite a ban on incest, are known only to their elders.

Almost every ceremony involves water and baptism is regarded as the means to ask for forgiveness of sin.

"Jesus would not have spread his message if John had not baptized him," said Sheikh Khalaf Abedrabbo, a senior cleric.

"John died normally and left children. Anything else is fiction," he said, dismissing the Biblical account that says John was beheaded on the orders of King Herod.

Ideally, baptism should be conducted in a river, the flow of which from source to sea symbolizes life's continuity.

DECAPITATING DUCKS

As part of the wedding ceremony, the five couples were baptized in a pool at the Mandean compound.

Not far away, another group of Mandeans arrived at the banks of the Tigris in a minibus. Men and women changed into white robes before descending into the water.

They dipped live ducks in the river before holding them aloft and slicing off their heads with knives.

The ducks were then barbecued for a picnic, at which discussion turned to physics and parapsychology.

The wedding music and dancing at the nearby compound made it easy to forget for a moment the distress that Baghdad has endured under Saddam and since the U.S.-led invasion.

But the Mandeans remain focused on survival.

"We are a Semitic people who were persecuted much earlier than Jews. The persecution continues, but our peaceful ethic prevents us from talking about it," said Sheikh Abu Raba.

Many Mandeans are craftsmen, especially goldsmiths, and their skills have helped keep them better off than most Iraqis, but Iraq's steep economic decline during the last decade of U.N. sanctions has taken its toll. Many want to emigrate.

Maha al-Majid is preparing to join her husband in Norway.

"There are strangers occupying our land. We have been leaving Iraq constantly. Separated from each other we will become extinct," she said during the wedding celebration.

"I wish Norway could take all 20,000 of us."
Click to expand...
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=572&ncid=811&e=9&u=/nm/20030619/lf_nm/iraq_sect_dc
 
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I like the Mandaeans. Their religion is very interesting. I think I mentioned elsewhere that they call Jesus 'Christ the Betrayer'. We really ought to do something before their whole religion is wiped out. Put them in a museum, or something...:err:
 
A Mandaean World website:

http://www.mandaeanworld.com/mandaeanworld.html

from that sites "Who are the Mandaeans" page:

The Mandaeans are a religious sect of great antiquity that still exists in limited numbers in the border territories of southern Iraq and Iran. Neither Christian, Moslem, Jewish nor Zoroasterism, the Mandaean religion contains a variety of ancient elements that attest to their antiquity. Adherents to the faith can be found in the cities and villages in the lands of the lower Euphrates, the lower Tigris, the rivers that surround the Shatt-al-Arab, and in the adjacent Iranian Province of Khuzistan (once called Arabistan).

Their religion is a proto-religion in which they descended from Adam who was the first to receive the religious instructions of the Mandaeans. Their last great teacher and healer was John the Baptist. The origins of both the people and of the religion are one of the continuing mysteries of Mandaean research.

Below is a very simple list (using English terminology) of the Mandaean belief system. I hope this helps in further understanding.

1)--A monotheistic belief system

2)--No founder to the religion

3)--Adam was the first Mandaean who received the religious instructions directly from God.

4)--Only God may take a life--no Mandaean may ever take a life

5)--The Mandaeans do have an elaborate baptism ritual system.

6)--Marriage and children are held in great esteem

7)--There are strict dietary requirements

8)--The Mandaeans have no symbols, no idols, and no images that can be used to pray to

9)--Sunday (with the exception of specific religious holidays) is their holy day

10)--Please refer to Mandaean values pages to get a learn about their moral belief system

11)--Their language is called Mandaic and Modern Mandaic is still spoken in Iran among the laypeople. Also all the priests still speak Mandaic

12)--Population figures run about 30-50,000 in or from Iraq and 5 to 10,000 in or from Iran
Click to expand...
 
This book about the Mandaeans is accessible via limited / searchable preview mode at Google Books:

The Mandaeans: ancient texts and modern people
By Jorunn Jacobsen Buckley
Oxford University Press, 2002

Available online at Google Books:

http://books.google.com/books?id=I9G-zLZRMLQC&dq
 
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An amulet (one of the few Mandaean artifacts from the religion's early era) has been deciphered. It's hoped this and the deciphering of other amulets will aid in shedding light on the religion's evolution.
Magical amulet decoded. It protected owner from blood-sucking spirits.

A newly deciphered magical amulet claims to stop evil spirits "who eat flesh and drink blood," archaeologists have found.

About 1,600 years ago, the Mandaeans, who have lived in southern Iraq and Iran for millennia, wrote the incantation onto a lead amulet in their language Mandaic. When unfolded, the amulet looks like a long thin piece of lead.

The discovery could shed light on the Mandaean religion, which is complex and blends together several beliefs. Both John the Baptist and archangel Gabriel are both important figures who practiced the religion. Modern-day Mandaeans often ritually immerse themselves in water as a form of purification, and they follow a pacifist philosophy in which violence cannot be used even in self defense. ...

According to the deciphered text, the amulet was meant to protect a man named Abbiya from blood-drinking spirits and a demon. ...

The amulet is about 8 inches long and 1.7 inches wide (20.3 by 4.4 centimeters) and contains 62 lines of writing ...

Because the amulets are so old, they can provide clues as to how the religion of Mandaeanism evolved over time, the researchers said. "The only thing we have from the early period are these magical implements" ...
Click to expand...

FULL STORY: https://www.livescience.com/magical-amulet-stops-blood-drinking-spirits.html
 
Fascinating. Had not heard of them.
 
All that remains on their Aussie website is this:
​
Mandaeans are followers of John the Baptist. Their ancestors fled from the Jordan Valley about 2000 years ago and ultimately settled along the lower reaches of the Tigris, Euphrates and Karun Rivers in what is now Iraq and Iran. Baptism is the principal ceremony of the Mandaean religion. Mandaean Baptisms are administered by a ganzevra (bishop) with the assistance of tarmidi (priests) and ishkandi (deacons).​
​
Baptism may only take place in a free-flowing fresh-water river. All Mandaean ceremonies are conducted in the Mandaean Aramaic language in accordance with the Mandaean canonical books, with the most Holy one being the Ginza Raba.​
http://www.mandaean.com.au/welcome/

I am not surprised that they prefer to keep to themselves. In this day and age, it is very unusual to want to stay out of the public eye. Everything and everyone is so commodified today. It's refreshing to note that this community reject that, unlike virtually any other organisation you care to mention. Good on 'em.
 
This sounds a lot like Manicheanism, the early Christian sect that St. Augustine belonged to before he became St. Augustine. You wouldn't recognize it as Christian by just looking at it, and in its time it had many adherents from North Africa as far as western China. Robin Lane Fox discusses it at length in his biography of Augustine.
 
There were multiple and quite varied christianities prior to Nicea. The corporation did for most of them and others went to ground. This community is about the best known survivor. Not too sure why they see Jesus as a traitor to The Baptist’s cause, but … that’s Gnosticism I guess. I’m going to try to find out.
 
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