Robert Charles Zaehner

Theistic mysticism is common to Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Hinduism also includes its own traditions of theistic worship with a mystical dimension. Ramanuja (11th-12th century) articulated this theological schema, Vishishtadvaita, which departs from the Advaita Vedanta of Sankara (see above section).

Zaehner worked at the university until his death on 24 November 1974 in Oxford. "[A]t the age of sixty-one he fell down dead in the street on his way to Sunday evening Mass." The cause of death was a heart attack.

In his last three books, Drugs, Mysticism and Makebelieve (1972), Our Savage God (1974), and City within the Heart (1981) [posthumous], Zaehner turned to address issues in contemporary society, drawing on his studies of comparative religion. He further explored the similarities and the differences between drug-induced experiences and traditional mysticism. As an academic he had already published several books on such issues starting in 1957. In the meantime, a widespread counterculture had arisen, often called New Age, which included artists, rebels, and youth. Their psychedelic experiences were often self-explained spiritually, with reference to zen and eastern mysticism. Consequently, Zaehner wanted to reach this "wider public". During the late 1960s he was "very often invited to talk on the BBC."

In his 1971 book Evolution in Religion, Zaehner discusses Sri Aurobindo Ghose (1872–1950), a modern Hindu spiritual teacher, and Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881–1955), a French palaeontologist and Jesuit visionary. Zaehner discusses each, and appraises their religious innovations.

In addition to the two titles below, other works of Zaehner are comparative or have a significant comparative element. Among these are: Concordant Discord (1970), and Our Savage God (1974).

As its title indicates, the book addresses a range of contemporary issues. It was expanded from three talks he gave on BBC radio in 1970, which were printed in The Listener [9]. Although admittedly it repeats some material from his prior books, it is "aimed at a wider audience" (p. 9).

In his appraisal of LSD the psychedelic drug and its relevance to mysticism, Zaehner discussed the drug's popular advocate Timothy Leary and his 1970 book. Zaehner comments that, to the inexperienced, "most descriptions of Zen enlightenment, and some of LSD experience would appear to be almost identical." What Leary calls the "timeless energy process around you" (pp. 113–114 quote; 70 & 112 quote). Yet Zaehner refers to Krishnamurti of India, and zen abbot Zenkei Shibayama of Japan. Apparently each describes a crucial difference between meditation and such experiences as LSD (pp. 114–116).

His delivery in Scotland of the Gifford Lectures led him to write perhaps his most magisterial book. Zaehner traveled twice to the University of St. Andrews during the years 1967 to 1969. The subject he choose concerned the convoluted and intertwined history of the different world religions during the long duration of their mutual co-existence. He described the interactions as both fiercely contested and relatively cross-cultivating, in contrast to other periods of a more sovereign isolation. The lectures were later published in 1970 "just four years before his death" by Oxford University as Concordant Discord. The interdependence of faiths.

Zaehner gave the Gifford Lectures in Scotland during the years 1967–1969. In these sessions he revisits comparative mysticism and Bucke, focuses on Hinduism and Buddhism, Yudhishthira and later Job, discusses Taoist classics, Neo-Confucianism, and Zen. He doesn't forget Jung or Zoroaster, Marx or Teilhard. The result is a 464-page book: Concordant Discord. The Interdependence of Faiths.

In his Hindu Scriptures (1966) Zaehner translates ancient sacred texts, his selections of the Rig-Veda, the Atharva-Veda, the Upanishads, and the entire, 80-page Bhagavad Gita. He discusses these writings in his short Introduction. A brief Glossary of Names is at the end. "Zaehner's extraordinary command of the texts" was widely admired by his academic peers.

The 1964 book, following its introduction, has four parts: India, China and Japan, Islam, and The Catholic Church. Throughout Zaehner offers connections between the self-understanding of 'other religions' and that of the Judeo-Christian, e.g., the Upanishads and Thomas Merton (pp. 25–26), Taoism and Adam (p. 68), Sunyata and Plato (p. 96), Al-Ghazali and St. Paul (p. 119-120), Samkhya and Martin Buber (pp. 131–132).

Zaehner counsels that the reader not "neglect the witness" of Hinduism and Buddhism, as they teach inner truths which, among Christians, have withered and faded since the one-sided Reformation. The Church perpetually struggles to keep to a "perfect yet precarious balance between the transcendent... Judge and King and the indwelling Christ". Writing in 1964, Zaehner perceived "a change for the better" in the increasing acceptance of the "Yogin in India or Zen in Japan". Nonetheless, a danger exists for the 'unwary soul' who in exploring other religions may pass beyond the fear of God. Then one may enter the subtleties of mystical experience, and "mistake his own soul for God." Such an error in distinguishing between timeless states can lead to ego inflation, spiritual vanity, and barrenness.

Accordingly, for his primary orientation Zaehner chose from among the active participants: Christianity in its Catholic manifestation. Yet the academic Zaehner also employed a type of comparative analysis, e.g., often drawing on Zoroastrian or Hindu, or Jewish or Islamic views for contrast, for insight. Often he combined comparison with a default 'modernist' critique, which included psychology or cultural evolution. Zaehner's later works are informed by Vatican II (1962-1965) and tempered by Nostra aetate.

The resulting treatise Hinduism (1962) is elegant, deep, and short. Zaehner discusses, among other things, the subtleties of dharma, and Yudhishthira, the son of Dharma, who became the King of righteousness (dharma raja). Yudhishthira is the elder of five brothers of the royal Pandava family, who leads one side in the war of the Mahabharata. Accordingly, he struggles to follow his conscience, to do the right thing, to avoid slaughter and bloodshed. Yet he finds that tradition and custom, and the Lord Krishna, are ready to allow the usual killing and mayhem of warfare.

The book's title is somewhat misleading. It attaches well, however, to its first chapter, "Rot in the Clockwork Orange", about the putative rationale of then contemporary episodes of mayhem and murder. About the hippie psychotic fringe, it made world headlines. Zaehner's focus is not on usual criminality but on hideous acts claiming a religious sanction, that with sinister cunning fakes the 'new age' (p. 12). The chapter's title refers to the 1962 novel by Anthony Burgess and the 1971 film by Stanley Kubrick (p. 35). Portrayed therein is crazy, soul-killing violence.

In his The Dawn and Twilight of Zoroastrianism (1961), Zaehner adopted a chronological dichotomy. He first explores origins, the founding of the religion by its prophet Zoroaster. He notes that the Gathas, the earliest texts in the Avesta, make it obvious that "Zoroaster met with very stiff opposition from the civil and ecclesiastical authorities when once he had proclaimed his mission." "His enemies... supported the ancient national religion." On moral and ecological grounds, Zoroaster favored the "settled pastoral and agricultural community" as against the "predatory, marauding tribal societies". His theological and ethical dualism advocated for "the followers of Truth the life-conserving and life-enhancing forces" and against the "destructive forces" of the Lie. For the dates of the prophet's life, Zaehner adopted the traditional 6th century BCE dates.

In the 1960s, MI5 counterintelligence officer Peter Wright questioned Zaehner about floating allegations that he had doubled as a spy for the Soviet Union, harming British intelligence operations in Iran and Albania during the period following World War II. Zaehner is described as "a small, wiry-looking man, clothed in the distracted charm of erudition." In his 1987 book Spycatcher Wright wrote that Zaehner's humble demeanor and candid denial convinced him that the Oxford don had remained loyal to Britain. Wright notes that "I felt like a heel" for confronting Zaehner.

His innovative 1960 book compares the mystical literature and practice of Hindus and Muslims. He frames it with a theme of diversity. On experiential foundations, Zaehner then commences to explore the spiritual treasures left to us by the mystics of the Santana Dharma, and of the Sufi tariqas. Often he offers a phenomenological description of the reported experiences, after which he interprets them in various theological terms.

His translations and the Hinduism book "made Zaehner one of the most important modern exponents of Hindu theological and philosophical doctrines... . The works on mysticism are more controversial though they established important distinctions in refusing to regard all mysticisms as the same," wrote Prof. Geoffrey Parrinder. For Zaehner's Hindu and Muslim Mysticism (1960), and like analyses, see "Comparative Mysticism" section.

Zaehner contributed other work regarding Zoroaster and the religion began in ancient Iran. The article "Zoroastrianism" was included in a double-columned book he edited, The Concise Encyclopedia of Living Faiths, first published in 1959. Also were his several articles on the persistence in popular culture of the former national religion, "Zoroastrian survivals in Iranian folklore". Chapters, in whole or part, on Zoroastrianism appeared in a few of his other books: At Sundry Times (1958), aka The Comparison of Religions (1962); The Convergent Spirit, aka Matter and Spirit (1963); and Concordant Discord (1970).

In his 1958 book At Sundry Times. An essay in the comparison of religions, Zaehner came to grips with "the problem of how a Christian should regard the non-Christian religions and how, if at all, he could correlate them into his own" (p. 9 [Preface]). It includes an Introduction (1), followed by chapters on Hinduism (2), on Hinduism and Buddhism (3), on "Prophets outside Israel", i.e., Zoroastrianism and Islam (4), and it concludes with Appendix which compares and contrasts the "Quran and Christ". Perhaps the key chapter is "Consummatum Est" (5), which "shows, or tries to show, how the main trend in [mystical] Hinduism and Buddhism on the one hand and of [the prophetic] Zoroastrianism on the other meet and complete each other in the Christian revelation" (Preface, p. 9, words in brackets added).

In 1958, Zaehner presented a general analysis of the range of mystical experience in the form of a typology. Dasgupta was a source, which Zaehner modified, truncated and refashioned. The resulting schema of the typology aimed to reflect both the mystic's report of the experience itself and the mystic's personal 'explanation' of it. Commentaries by others found in traditional spiritual literature (spanning centuries) were also referenced. The 'explanations' usually drew the mystic's religious heritage. Of the various typologies suggested by Zaehner, the following has been selected here.

In his influential 1957 book Mysticism Sacred and Profane, Zaehner discussed this traditional, cross-cultural spiritual practice. Based on mystical writings, he offered an innovative typology that became widely discussed in academic journals. He also analyzed claims that mescalin use fit into this spiritual quest. His conclusion was near dismissive. Yet he revisited his harsh words on the naïveté of drug mysticism in his 1972 book Zen, Drug and Mysticism. His warnings became somewhat qualified by some prudent suggestions. He carefully distinguished between drug-induced states and religious mysticism. Then the BBC began asking him to talk on the radio, where he acquired a following. He was invited abroad to lecture.

After Zaehner's initial works on Zoroastrianism, Mysticism. Sacred and Profane (1957) was his first published on another subject. It followed his assumption of the Spalding chair at All Souls College, Oxford. The book's conversational style delivers clarity and wisdom on a difficult subject, and along the way are found many illuminating digressions and asides.

Nature mysticism is a term used to catalogue generally those spontaneous experiences of an oceanic feeling in which a person identifies with nature, or is similarly thrown back in awe of the unforgettable, vast sweep of the cosmos. Such may be described philosophically as a form of pantheism, or often as pan-en-hen-ic. Nature mysicism may also include such a state of consciousness induced by drugs. Like Aldous Huxley he had taken mescalin, but Zaehner came to a different conclusion. In his 1957 book Mysticism. Sacred and Profane. An Inquiry into some Varieties of Praeternatural Experience, there is a narrative description of the author's experience under the influence of mescalin.

The Teachings of the Magi (1956) was Zaehner's second of three book on Zoroastrianism. It presented the "main tenets" of the religion in the Sasanid era, during the reign of Shapur II, a 4th-century King. Its chief sources were Pahlavi books written a few centuries later by Zoroastrians. Each of its ten chapters contains Zaehner's descriptive commentaries, illustrated by his translations from historic texts. Chapter IV, "The Necessity of Dualism" is typical, half being the author's narrative and half extracts from a Pahlavi work, here the Shikand Gumani Vazar by Mardan Farrukh.

Initially Zaehner's reputation rested on his studies of Zoroastrianism, at first articles mostly on philology in academic journals. He labored for many years on a scholarly work, his Zurvan, a Zoroastrian dilemma (1955). This book provides an original discussions of an influential theological deviation from the Zoroastrian orthodoxy of ancient Persia's Achaemenid Empire, which was a stark, ethical dualism. Zurvanism was promoted by the Sasanian Empire (224–651) which arose later during Roman times. Until the Muslim conquest, Zurvanism in the Persian world became established and disestablished by turns.

The profane side is first addressed with regard to the use of mescaline. Zaehner himself carefully took this natural psychedelic drug. He discussed in particular Aldous Huxley, especially in his popular 1954 book The Doors of Perception (pp. 1–29, 208–226). Next, the subject of nature mystics is described and appraised, including two examples from literature: Proust and Rimbaud (pp. 30–83). 'Madness', it is also pointed out, may sometimes result in mental states that accord with those of the mystics (p. 84-105).

In 1952 Zaehner was elected Spalding Professor of Eastern Religions and Ethics to succeed the celebrated professor Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, who had resigned to become vice-president (later President) of India. Zaehner had applied for this position. Radhakrishnan previously had been advancing a harmonizing viewpoint with regard to the study of comparative religions, and the academic chair had a subtext of being "founded to propagate a kind of universalism". Zaehner's inaugural lecture was unconventional in content. He delivered a strong yet witty criticism of "universalism" in religion.

Since 1952, however, he had turned his primary attention further East. "After my election to the Spalding Chair, I decided to devote myself mainly to the study of Indian religions in accordance with the founder's wishes." He served Oxford in this academic chair, while also a fellow at All Souls College, until his death in 1974, and never married.

Zaehner discusses Carl Jung and his 1952 book Answer to Job (pp. 163–170).

Zaehner publicly held the rank of Counsellor in the British Embassy in Tehran. In fact, he continued as an MI6 officer. During the Abadan Crisis he was assigned to prolong the Shah's royal hold on the Sun Throne against the republican challenge led by Mohammed Mossadegh, then the Prime Minister. The crisis involved the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company which had been in effect nationalised by Mossadegh. Zaehner thus became engaged in the failed 1951 British effort to topple the government of Iran and return oil production to that entity controlled by the British government. "[T]he plot to overthrow Mossadegh and give the oilfields back to the AIOC was in the hands of a British diplomat called Robin Zaehner, later professor of Eastern religions at Oxford." Such Anglo and later American interference in Iran, which eventually reinstalled the Shah, has been widely criticized.

It drew controversy. Prof. Michael Dummett opines that what concerned Zaehner was "to make it clear from the start of his tenure of the Chair that he was nobody else's man." Zaehner continued an interest in Zoroastrian studies, publishing his Zurvan book and two others on the subject during the 1950s.

Zaehner continued in Iran until 1947 as press attaché in the British Embassy, and as an MI6 officer. He then resumed his academic career at Oxford doing research on Zoroastrianism. During 1949, however, he was relocated to Malta where he trained anti-Communist Albanians. By 1950 he had secured an Oxford appointment as lecturer in Persian literature. Again in 1951–1952 he returned to Iran for government service. Prof. Nancy Lambton, who had run British propaganda in Iran during the war, recommended him for the Embassy position. Journalist Christopher de Bellaigue describes Robin Zaehner as "a born networker who knew everyone who mattered in Tehran" with a taste for gin and opium. "When Kingsley Martin, the editor of the New Statesman, asked Zaehner at a cocktail party in Tehran what book he might read to enlarge his understanding of Iran, Zaehner suggested Alice through the Looking Glass."

During World War II starting in 1943, he served as a British intelligence officer at their Embassy in Tehran. Often he was stationed in the field among the mountain tribes of northern Iran. After the war he also performed a more diplomatic role at the Tehran embassy. Decades later another British intelligence officer, Peter Wright, described his activities:

During the 1940s spent in Iran he returned to the Christian faith. Decades later he published The Catholic Church and World Religions (1964), expressly from that perspective. As an objective scholar, he drew on his acquired insights from this source to further his understanding of others. Zaehner "did not choose to write to convince others of the truth of his own faith," rather "to frame questions" was his usual purpose.

Zaehner enjoyed "a prodigious gift for languages". He later acquired a reading knowledge of Sanskrit (for Hindu scriptures), Pali (for Buddhist), and Arabic (for Islamic). In 1939 he taught as a research lecturer at Christ Church, Oxford. During this period, he read the French poet Arthur Rimbaud, and the Sufi poet of Iran Rumi, as well as studying the Hindu Upanishads. Zaehner came then to adopt a personal brand of "nature mysticism". Yet his spiritual progression led him a few years later to convert to Christianity, becoming a Roman Catholic while stationed in Iran.

Robert Charles Zaehner (1913–1974) was a British academic whose field of study was Eastern religions. He understood the original language of many sacred texts, e.g., Hindu (Sanskrit), Buddhist (Pali), Islamic (Arabic). At Oxford University his first writings were on the Zoroastrian religion and its texts. Starting in World War II, he had served as an intelligence officer in Iran. Appointed Spalding Professor at Oxford in 1952, his books addressed such subjects as mystical experience (articulating a widely cited typology), Hinduism, comparative religion, Christianity and other religions, and ethics. He translated the Bhagavad-Gita, providing an extensive commentary based on Hindu tradition and sources. His last books addressed similar issues in popular culture, which led to his talks on the BBC. He published under the name R. C. Zaehner.

Born on 8 April 1913 in Sevenoaks, Kent, he was the son of Swiss–German immigrants to England. Zaehner "was bilingual in French and English from early childhood. He remained an excellent linguist all his life." Educated at the nearby Tonbridge School, he was admitted to Christ Church, Oxford, where he studied Greek and Latin, and also ancient Persian including Avestan, gaining first class honours in Oriental Languages. During 1936–37 he studied Pahlavi, another ancient Iranian language, with Sir Harold Bailey at Cambridge University. Thereafter Zaehner held Prof. Bailey in high esteem. He then began work on his book Zurvan, a Zoroastrian Dilemma, a study of the pre-Islamic religion of Iran.

Aurobindo at age seven was sent to England for education, eventually studying western classics at Cambridge University. On his return to Bengal in India, he studied its ancient literature in Sanskrit. He later became a major political orator with a spiritual dimension, a prominent leader for Indian independence. Hence he was jailed. There in 1908 he had a religious experience. Relocating to the then French port of Pondicherry, he became a yogin and was eventually recognized as a Hindu sage. Sri Aurobindo's writings reinterpret the Hindu traditions. Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, later President of India, praised him. "As a poet, philosopher, and mystic, Sri Aurobindo occupies a place of the highest eminence in the history of modern India."

His critique challenged the thesis of Richard Bucke, developed in his 1901 book, Cosmic Consciousness. Bucke describes certain lesser facilities, followed by accounts of the prized 'cosmic' state of mind. Fourteen exemplary people of history as presented, shown as each reaching a somewhat similar realization: the plane of cosmic consciousness.

In the introduction, Zaehner laments the "very checkered history" of the Church. Yet he expresses his admiration of Pope John (1881-1963), who advanced the dignity that all humanity possesses "in the sight of God". Zaehner then presents a brief history of Christianity in world context. The Church "rejoiced to build into herself whatever in Paganism she found compatible" with the revelation and ministry of Jesus. Her confidence was inferred in the words of Gamaliel (pp. 7–9). While Europe has known of Jesus for twenty centuries, 'further' Asia has only for three. Jesus, however, seemed to have arrived there with conquerors from across the sea, and "not as the suffering servant" (p. 9). As to the ancient traditions of Asia, Christians did "condemn outright what [they had] not first learnt to understand" (pp. 11, 13). Zaehner thus sets the stage for a modern review of ancient traditions.

The book opens with a lucid statement of his own contested hermeneutic: "with comparative religion," he says, "the question is who's to be master, that's all" (p. 9). He starts by saluting E. O. James. Next Zaehner mentions Rudolph Otto (1869-1937) and al-Ghazali (1058-1111) as both being skeptics about any 'reasonable' writer with no religious experience who expounds on the subject. Here Zaehner acknowledges that many Christians may only be familiar with their own type of religion (similar to Judaism and Islam), and hence be ill-equipped to adequately comprehend Hindu or Buddhist mysticism (pp. 12–15).

Along with other authors, Zaehner writes of the mystics' marriage symbolism and erotic imagery. He quotes an exemplary passage of François de Sales (1567-1622), then continues:

Across centuries and continents, mystics have used erotic metaphors and sexual analogies in descriptions of Divine love. The special states of consciousness they recorded have become the subject of modern psychological studies, e.g., by the school of C. G. Jung (often favored by Zaehner). Among Christian mystics Teresa de Jesús (1515-1582) employed the spiritual marriage metaphor in writing about her experiences. Mechthild von Magdeburg (c.1208-1282/1294) provides a special example of the woman mystic.