Traditional curing in the modern world: A case study Mantra Therapy among Zoroastrians

Abstract

Health, illness, and therapeutic practices are cultural components, so the meaning of these concepts varies throughout different cultures. There are different ethnic and religious groups in Iran, and this diversity makes the different meanings of these concepts. In this paper, we focused on the Zoroastrians of Yazd using the ethnographic method such as participant observation, interview and documents to understand how they construct health, illness, and therapy concepts. We used the conceptual lens of healing, the sacred phenomena, and cultural symbols to analyze our findings. Our study showed that Zoroastrians believed AngraMainyu create illness in the past but nowadays their belief have changed AngraMainyu has no external truth and is only in the human mind, and if human follow AngraMainyu, illness creat. we can try to follow teachings Zoroaster like wisdom, truth and we can overcome the illness by following them. Zoroastrians also perform ritual curing, herbal curing, and Mantra therapy.

Keywords

• traditional curing
• mantra therapy. illness
• health
• zoroastrians