Religions, Cults and Power

A study from the LSN library

From Zoroaster and Mithra to the Singularity

How belief and power grew together: the Indo-Iranian roots, Zoroastrianism and Mithra, Judaism, the Greco-Roman mysteries, Christianity and Islam, India and East Asia, the esoteric West and Freemasonry, Satanism, the modern cults, religion and politics, and the teachings of Mehran Keshe and Mitchell Heisman. Every claim is attributed to the source that makes it.

  • 17 parts
  • 174 chapters
  • 1,064 library works cited
  • Revision 2 · 24 October 2026

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Cite this work: Lișneanu, D.-C. (2026). Religions, Cults and Power: From Zoroaster and Mithra to the Singularity (Revision 2). LSN – Local Sovereign Network. DOI 10.5281/zenodo.23623218 · CC BY-SA 4.0

Contents

Part 1 · chapters 1–8

Foundations: Prehistory and the Indo-Iranian World

Part 1 lays the ground the rest of the study stands on. Chapter 1 sets out the method: the comparative tradition from Müller, Tylor and Frazer to Durkheim, Weber and Eliade, the criticisms made of it, and the rules this study follows for insider and outsider sources, for dating and for arguments about influence.

8 chapters
  1. Method and Sources: How This Study Reads the Library
  2. Before Scripture: Prehistoric, Shamanic and Archaic Religion
  3. Mesopotamia: Gods, Temples and Kings
  4. Egypt: Maat, Pharaoh and the Afterlife
  5. Canaan, Ugarit and the Levant
  6. The Indo-Iranian Inheritance: Steppe Religion Before Zarathushtra
  7. The Vedic Gods: Mitra, Varuna, Indra and the Asura-Deva Split
  8. Soma, Haoma, Entheogens and Sacred Kingship

Part 2 · chapters 9–18

Zoroastrianism

Part 2 begins with the problem that frames all Zoroastrian studies: when Zarathustra lived. The dates offered run from the Greek "6,000 years before Xerxes" to the Parsi 660-583 BC and the modern philologists' Bronze Age steppe.

10 chapters
  1. Zarathustra: The Prophet and the Problem of His Date
  2. The Gathas and the Avesta: Scripture, Transmission and Canon
  3. Ahura Mazda, the Amesha Spentas and Angra Mainyu: Monotheism or Dualism?
  4. Good Thoughts, Good Words, Good Deeds: Ethics, Law and Ritual Purity
  5. Fire, Magi and Temple: The Priesthood and Its Rituals
  6. The Achaemenid Kings and Ahuramazda: Religion and Empire, 550-330 BC
  7. Throne and Altar: Parthian Tolerance and the Sasanian Church-State
  8. Zurvan, Infinite Time: Heresy, Orthodoxy and the Sasanian Theological Dilemma
  9. The End of Time: Pahlavi Literature, Judgment, Saviours and the Making-Wonderful
  10. After the Conquest: Gabrs, Parsis, Iranis and the Afterlives of an Ancient Faith

Part 3 · chapters 19–27

Mithra and Mithraism

Part 3 follows one god across nearly two millennia. Mitra appears in the Hittite-Mitanni treaty and the Rigveda as a god of the contract, and becomes the Mithra of the Mihr Yasht. His place inside Zoroastrianism is disputed. He then becomes a god of kings in Achaemenid, Parthian, Armenian, Pontic and Commagene royal cult.

9 chapters
  1. Mitra and Mithra: The Indo-Iranian God of the Contract (Vedic Mitra, the Mitanni Treaty and the Mihr Yasht)
  2. Mithra Inside Zoroastrianism: Exclusion, Reintegration and Mihr the Judge
  3. The God of Kings: Mithra in Achaemenid, Parthian, Armenian, Pontic and Commagene Royal Cult
  4. The Roman Mysteries of Mithras I: Myth, Mithraeum and the Bull-Slaying
  5. The Roman Mysteries of Mithras II: Seven Grades, Soldiers, Merchants and the Politics of a Brotherhood
  6. Where Did the Mysteries Come From? Cumont and His Critics (Hinnells, Gordon, Beck, Ulansey, Widengren)
  7. Sol Invictus, the Emperors and 25 December: Mithras in Imperial Politics and His Fall
  8. Mithras and Christ: Parallels, Polemics and the Question of Borrowing
  9. After Rome: Mani's Mithra, Mehregan and Yalda, Armenian Mher, and Modern Claims of a Mithraic Root of All Religions

Part 4 · chapters 28–37

Israel, Judaism and the Second Temple

Part 4 starts inside the West Semitic world of El, Baal and Asherah, where John Day and Mark S. Smith place the emergence of Yahweh. It sets the biblical founding stories beside the archaeological record and follows the monarchy and the Deuteronomic revolution of Josiah.

10 chapters
  1. Out of Canaan: El, Baal, Asherah and the Emergence of Yahweh
  2. Patriarchs, Exodus and Conquest: The Biblical Story and the Archaeological Record
  3. Kings and Prophets: Monarchy, the Two Kingdoms and the Deuteronomic Revolution
  4. By the Rivers of Babylon: Exile, Cyrus and the Persian Imprint on Judaism
  5. Athens and Jerusalem: Hellenism, Antiochus IV and the Maccabean State
  6. The Four Philosophies: Pharisees, Sadducees, Essenes, Zealots and the Qumran Scrolls
  7. Under Rome: Herod, the Great Revolt, the Fall of the Temple and Bar Kokhba
  8. The Oral Law Written: Yavneh, the Mishnah and the Two Talmuds
  9. Mystics, Messiahs and Moderns: Kabbalah, Sabbateanism, Hasidism, Reform and Orthodoxy
  10. Who Is a Jew? The Khazar Debate, Jewish Identity and the Road to Zionism

Part 5 · chapters 38–47

The Greco-Roman World: Mysteries, Philosophy, Gnosis

Part 5 describes Greek religion as a civic system that had, in Seltman's words, "no priestly caste ... neither dogma nor missions ... no Sacred Book". It then turns to the initiation cults: Eleusis and the entheogen hypothesis, Dionysus and Orpheus, and the Pythagorean-Platonic theology of the soul.

10 chapters
  1. Gods of the City: Olympian Religion, Civic Cult and the Politics of Piety
  2. The Two Goddesses: The Eleusinian Mysteries
  3. Dionysus and Orpheus: Ecstasy, Orphic Asceticism and the Bacchic Threat to Order
  4. Number, Soul and the Good: Pythagoras and Plato on Immortality and God
  5. Philosophy as Religion: Stoics, Epicureans and the Gods of the Philosophers
  6. Gods from the East: Cybele and Attis, Isis and Serapis, and the Mystery Cults of Rome
  7. The Divine Emperor: Ruler Cult, State Religion and the Politics of Worship in Rome
  8. Thrice-Great Hermes: The Corpus Hermeticum and Hermetic Spirituality
  9. Gnosis and the Demiurge: Nag Hammadi, Sethians and Valentinians
  10. The Last Philosophers and the Last Pagan Emperor: Neoplatonism, Theurgy, Julian and the End of the Old Gods

Part 6 · chapters 48–57

Early Christianity and the Empire

Part 6 opens with the historical-Jesus debate, from Dunn's "Jesus remembered" to the mythicists, Atwill, Heisman and Keshe. It follows James and the Jerusalem community, Paul, the making of the canon and the persecutions together with the dispute over their scale. The apologists and their pagan critics come next.

10 chapters
  1. The Quest for the Historical Jesus: Sources, Methods and the Mythicist Challenge
  2. James, Peter and the Jerusalem Community: Jewish Christians and the Ebionites
  3. Paul and the Gentile Mission: The "Second Founder" of Christianity
  4. Gospels, Gnostics and Marcion: The Making of the Canon
  5. Persecution and Martyrdom: From Nero to Diocletian
  6. Apologists and Church Fathers: Justin, Irenaeus, Tertullian, Origen and the Pagan Critics
  7. Constantine: Vision, Edict and the Imperial Church
  8. Nicaea and the Arian Controversy: Defining God by Council
  9. Theodosius and the Christian State: Edicts, Temples, Hypatia and the End of Paganism
  10. Christological Councils and the Oriental Churches: Ephesus, Chalcedon and the Great Schisms of the East

Part 7 · chapters 58–69

Christianity: Schisms, Reform and Divisions

Part 7 traces the divisions of Christendom: East against West and 1054, the papal monarchy, the Crusades, and the dualist chain of Paulicians, Bogomils and Cathars, which links back to the Gnostic and Manichaean material of Chapters 27 and 46.

12 chapters
  1. Two Romes: Papal Primacy, Byzantine Caesaropapism and the Schism of 1054
  2. The Papal Monarchy: From Canossa to Avignon, the Western Schism and the Borgias
  3. Holy War: The Crusades from Clermont to the Sack of Constantinople
  4. The Dualist Dissent: Paulicians, Bogomils and Cathars
  5. Enforcing Orthodoxy: The Inquisitions and the Trial of the Templars
  6. Morning Stars of Dissent: Wycliffe, the Lollards, Hus and the Council of Constance
  7. Luther: Indulgences, the Ninety-Five Theses and the Princes' Reformation
  8. Zurich, Geneva and the Radicals: Zwingli, Calvin, Servetus and the Anabaptists
  9. Crown, Conscience and the Sword: the English Reformation, the Wars of Religion and the Puritan Revolution
  10. From Trent to Vatican II: Counter-Reformation, the Jesuits and Modern Catholicism
  11. The Third Rome and the Orthodox East: Russia, the Old Believers and the Romanian Case
  12. Fire in the Heart: Pietists, Methodists, the Great Awakenings, Pentecostalism and the Prosperity Gospel

Part 8 · chapters 70–81

Islam: Revelation, Empire and Divisions

Part 8 begins with Arabia between Byzantium and Sasanian Iran and Muhammad's union of revelation and rule. The Quran, hadith and the problem of sources follow. The succession disputes, the Kharijites and Karbala produce the great divisions of the faith.

12 chapters
  1. Before the Prophet: Arabia between Iran and Byzantium
  2. Muhammad: Revelation in Mecca, State in Medina (570-632)
  3. The Book and the Tradition: Quran, Hadith and the Problem of Sources
  4. Succession and Civil War: the Rashidun, the Fitnas, Kharijites and Ibadis
  5. Karbala and the Imamate: the Birth of Shi'ism
  6. Caliphal Empire: Umayyads, Abbasids and the Persian Inheritance
  7. Law and Theology: the Madhhabs, Mutazila, Ash'ari, Hanbali and the Philosophers
  8. Esoteric Shi'ism: Ismailis, Fatimids, Nizari 'Assassins', Druze and Alawites
  9. The Mystical Path: Sufism, the Orders and Their Western Afterlife
  10. Gunpowder Empires: the Safavid Twelver State, the Ottomans, the Mughals and the End of the Caliphate
  11. Revival, Reform and Revolt: Wahhabism, Salafism, the Muslim Brotherhood and the Islamic Republic
  12. After the Seal: Babism, the Baha'i Faith, Ahmadiyya, Black American Islam, and Keshe's 'True Koran'

Part 9 · chapters 82–93

India: Hinduism, Jainism, Buddhism, Sikhism

Part 9 returns to the Indo-Iranian root from the Indian side. It opens with the Indus cities and the Aryan question, on which philologists, colonial administrators, Hindu nationalists and Dalit organisations have each built a narrative. Vedic sacrifice, the Upanishads and caste and dharma lay out the Brahmanical order.

12 chapters
  1. From the Indus Cities to the Vedic Hymns: Origins and the Aryan Question
  2. Sacrifice and Its Masters: Vedic Ritual, the Brahmanas and the Priestly Order
  3. The Upanishadic Turn: Atman, Brahman, Karma and the Renouncers
  4. Varna, Caste and Dharma: The Social Order and Its Contestation
  5. Jainism: Mahavira, the Tirthankaras and the Ethic of Absolute Non-Violence
  6. The Buddha and the Early Sangha: Life, Teaching and the First Schism
  7. Ashoka and the Dhamma State: Buddhism as Imperial Ideology
  8. The Great Vehicle and the Diamond Vehicle: Mahayana, Vajrayana, Tibet and the Decline of Indian Buddhism
  9. The Epics and the Bhagavad Gita: War, Duty and the Avatar
  10. Shiva, Vishnu and the Goddess: Sectarian Hinduism and the Tantric Current
  11. Systems of Liberation: The Six Darshanas and the Vedanta Schools
  12. Bhakti, the Sants and the Sikh Panth: From Devotional Revolt to the Khalsa and Its Politics

Part 10 · chapters 94–103

East Asia

Part 10 starts from Shang divination and the Mandate of Heaven. It then covers Confucian state orthodoxy, Daoism from Laozi to the Celestial Masters, Chinese Buddhism, State Shinto, Japanese Buddhism, the Dalai Lama institution, and Korea from shamanism to Juche.

10 chapters
  1. Heaven, Ancestors and Spirits: The Foundations of Chinese Religion
  2. Confucius and the Making of a State Orthodoxy
  3. The Way and Its Power: Laozi, Zhuangzi and the Birth of Religious Daoism
  4. The Dharma Comes East: Chinese Buddhism, Chan and Pure Land
  5. The Way of the Kami: Shinto, the Imperial Myth and State Shinto
  6. Buddhism in Japan: From Nara Temples to Zen, Pure Land, Nichiren and the Shamans
  7. The Roof of the World: Tibetan Buddhism and the Dalai Lama Institution
  8. Korea: Shamans, Confucian Kings, Christians and the Kim Dynasty
  9. Mandate and Revolt: Secret Societies and Millenarian Rebellions from the Yellow Turbans to the Boxers
  10. New Religions and the Party-State: Falun Gong, Soka Gakkai, Aum, Cao Dai and Keshe's China

Part 11 · chapters 104–115

The Western Esoteric Tradition and Freemasonry

Part 11 follows the hidden-knowledge current from Kabbalah through Renaissance Hermetism, read with Yates's thesis, alchemy and astrology, the Templar history and legend and the Rosicrucian manifestos.

12 chapters
  1. Kabbalah: From the Bahir and the Zohar to Lurianic Safed
  2. Hermes Trismegistus, Christian Kabbalah and Renaissance Magic: Ficino, Pico, Agrippa, Dee
  3. The Royal Art: Alchemy and Astrology in the Western Esoteric Tradition
  4. The Knights Templar: History, Trial and the Templar Legend
  5. The Rosicrucian Manifestos and the "Rosicrucian Enlightenment"
  6. The Origins of Freemasonry: Operative Lodges, the Scottish Evidence and the Grand Lodge of 1717
  7. Degrees, Symbols and Rituals of the Craft
  8. The Scottish Rite and Albert Pike: Morals and Dogma on Religions, Zoroaster and Mithra
  9. Morals and Dogma II: Kabbalah, Lucifer, the Templars and the Secret of the High Degrees
  10. Lodges in Conflict: Grand Orient, Continental versus Anglo-American Masonry, the Papacy and the Bavarian Illuminati
  11. Freemasonry in Revolutions and Politics: America, France, Latin America and Romania
  12. The Occult Revival: Martinism, Theosophy, the Golden Dawn and Anthroposophy

Part 12 · chapters 116–124

Satanism, Luciferianism and Modern Occultism

Part 12 traces the Adversary from Angra Mainyu to Satan, Lucifer and Iblis. It follows the witch hunts through the primary documents, and then the pacts, Black Masses and Hellfire Clubs, where alleged and documented Satanism diverge most widely.

9 chapters
  1. The Adversary Takes Shape: From Angra Mainyu to Satan, Lucifer and Iblis
  2. The Hammer of Witches: Demonology, the Malleus Maleficarum and the Great Witch Hunts (c. 1300-1750)
  3. Selling the Soul: Faustian Pacts, the Black Mass and the Hellfire Clubs
  4. Lucifer Rehabilitated: The Gnostic Serpent, Romantic Satan, Eliphas Levi and Baphomet
  5. Do What Thou Wilt: Aleister Crowley, Thelema and the Ordo Templi Orientis
  6. The Black Pope: Anton LaVey and the Church of Satan
  7. Schisms of the Left-Hand Path: Temple of Set, Order of Nine Angles, Theistic Luciferianism and The Satanic Temple
  8. The Old Gods Return: Wicca, Neopaganism, Ásatrú, Rodnovery and Chaos Magic
  9. Satanic Panic: Ritual-Abuse Fears, Law Enforcement and the Politics of Fear (1980-Today)

Part 13 · chapters 125–136

New Religious Movements and Cults

Part 13 opens with the contested vocabulary of "cult" and "brainwashing". It quotes Willis's caution that "one person's cult is another person's religion" and sets the Lifton-Singer-Hassan model against its academic critics.

12 chapters
  1. What Is a Cult? Sect, Cult, New Religious Movement and the Brainwashing Debate
  2. The American Prophet: Joseph Smith, the Book of Mormon and the Latter-day Saint Kingdom
  3. The Principle Lives On: Mormon Fundamentalism and the Polygamous Offshoots
  4. Counting the Days: Millerites, Seventh-day Adventists, Jehovah's Witnesses and Christian Science
  5. Voices from Beyond: The Spiritualist Movement and the Mediumistic Century
  6. From Dianetics to the Sea Org: L. Ron Hubbard and the Church of Scientology
  7. Messiahs of the Cold War and the Jesus Revolution: The Unification Church and the Children of God
  8. Jonestown: The Peoples Temple, Political Power and the White Night of 18 November 1978
  9. Waco: The Branch Davidians, the Federal Government and the Legacy of Rage
  10. Apocalypse Enacted: Aum Shinrikyo's War on Japan and the Transits of the Order of the Solar Temple
  11. Gods from the Sky and Masters of the Inner Planes: Heaven's Gate, UFO Religions, the New Age, Channeling and the Ascended Masters
  12. High Control in the Twenty-First Century and the Counter-Movement: NXIVM, Rajneeshpuram, the Anti-Cult Movement and Deprogramming

Part 14 · chapters 137–148

Religion and Politics

Part 14 draws together the political thread of the whole book. It runs from sacral kingship and divine right and the papacy against the emperor down to Westphalia, to missions and colonialism, the Enlightenment and laïcité, and Marxist state atheism.

12 chapters
  1. From God-King to Divine Right: The Sacral Theology of Rule
  2. Pope and Emperor: Investiture, the Papal Monarchy and the Road to Westphalia
  3. Cross, Crown and Conquest: Religion, Colonialism and the Missions
  4. Reason Against the Altar: The Enlightenment, the French Revolution and Laïcité
  5. 'The Opium of the People': Marxism, State Atheism and the Persecuted Churches
  6. One Nation Under God: American Civil Religion, the Masonic Founders and the Christian Right
  7. Zion and Palestine: Zionism, the Balfour Declaration, Israel and the Palestinian Question
  8. The Guardianship of the Jurist: Iran from the 1953 Coup to the Islamic Republic
  9. Petro-Islam and Global Jihad: Wahhabi Export, Afghanistan, al-Qaeda and the Islamic State
  10. The Vatican as a Power: Concordats, Cold War Diplomacy, the Vatican Bank and Gladio
  11. Faith and Empire Today: Religion in the Geopolitics of Russia, China, Iran and the United States
  12. Hidden Hands? Secret Societies, Elite Forums and Power as Claimed in the Sources

Part 15 · chapters 149–158

The Keshe Knowledge Seekers Workshops

Part 15 presents Mehran Tavakoli Keshe's teaching almost entirely from the Foundation's own transcripts. Chapter 149 states the governing caveat: the library holds no independent biography or study of him.

10 chapters
  1. Mehran Tavakoli Keshe and the Keshe Foundation: Origins, Self-Account and Corpus
  2. The Knowledge Seekers Workshops: Format, Phases and Community
  3. Plasma Science as Presented: Magravs, GANS, Reactors and the Spaceship
  4. Soul of the Man, Soul of Physicality, the Creator and the Universal Council
  5. Mitra as Root of All Religions: 21 December, the Ethos of Mitra and the Children of Mitra
  6. Keshe on Zoroaster, Persia and the Abrahamic Lineage: Judaism and the Torah
  7. Christianity Reread: Cross, Resurrection, Ascension and the Vatican
  8. Islam, Shia Iran and the Ayatollahs: Keshe's Islamic Critique and Iranian Politics
  9. One Nation, One Planet: World Peace Treaty, Governments, China, Finance and the Keshe Coin
  10. Prophecies, Timelines, Reception and Critique; Keshe Compared with the Mainstream Accounts

Part 16 · chapters 159–166

Singularity: Mitchell Heisman and the End of God

Part 16 treats Heisman's Suicide Note, catalogued as "a ~1900-page philosophical treatise interrogating reason, meaning, free will, God, and self-destruction". It follows his thesis that "God is Technology" and that monotheism was a proto-Singularity.

8 chapters
  1. The Last Testament of a Rationalist: Mitchell Heisman's Suicide Note as a Work, Its Architecture and Its 'Experiment in Nihilism'
  2. 'God is Technology': Monotheism as Proto-Singularity and the Genesis of God
  3. The Jewish Question as Heisman Presents It: Judaism as Sociobiological Technology, Chosenness and Survival
  4. 'The Seditious Genius of the Spiritual Penis of Jesus': Christianity, Kin Selection and the Christian Origins of Modern Liberalism
  5. 'Absolute Purity': Nazism, Auschwitz as Secularised Hell, and the Death of God after Nietzsche
  6. A Vendetta Called Revolution: Heisman's Sociobiology of Liberal Democracy, Secularisation and Political Order
  7. Creating God: The Singularity, Transhumanism and AI as God-Making from Heisman to Kurzweil
  8. Ends of the World Compared: Heisman, Keshe and the Traditional Eschatologies from Zoroaster to the Singularity

Part 17 · chapters 167–174

Comparisons and Synthesis

The final Part compares the material directly. Its chapters set side by side cosmologies and world-ages, the one, the two, the three and the none in conceptions of the divine, the saviour figures from Saoshyant to Kalki and Mitra, the afterlife, and sacred time, including 21 December, 25 December and Nowruz.

8 chapters
  1. In the Beginning: Cosmologies, Creation Narratives and the Cycles of World-Time Compared
  2. One, Two, Three or None: Dualism, Monotheism, Trinities and Nondualism Across the Traditions
  3. The Awaited One: Saoshyant, Messiah, Christ, Mahdi, Maitreya, Kalki and Mitra Compared
  4. After Death: Bridge, Scales, Resurrection, Rebirth and Their Rivals
  5. Sacred Time and the Initiate: Ritual, Mysteries, Initiation and the Calendars of 21 December, 25 December and Nowruz
  6. Law, Clergy and Power: Ethics, Priesthoods and the Organisation of Belief Compared
  7. Five Thousand Years of Gods and Rulers: A Master Timeline (3000 BCE to Today) and the Co-Evolution of Religion and Politics
  8. The View from Outside: Keshe and Heisman Measured Against the Whole Study, and the Open Questions