Mark Durie has pointed out reskins of real religion, such as the Voudoun. I was wondering now about people just sort of making up a religion as they go along. I don't think the Haitians did this, so much as translate their West-African orthodoxy. But the Romans assuredly did a LARP, to the religion of Mithra. How much does any of that "Mithras" stuff have to do with the Iranians - or even with the Pontians and Armenians? Not much I think.
So: the Dabistan in its third English volume. The first page caught my eye. The author, more interested in the Parsees himself, noted a cult of Musaylima in India in his days. They called their sect "Sadiqiya". Well that is interesting. Is this like the Oyo or the various paraMuhammadan saint-followers who dispersed around North Africa?
David Shea the translator notes that the "Sadiqiya" has overlapping names, a sect of Ismaili Shi'a calling themselves by this name, to boast their descent from Imam Ja'far. Shea also notes that no Shi'ite would ever associate himself with Musaylima considered an archeretic in Islam.
We also must consider the Asatru and Wicca. And the second group of "Sabaeans" who sprung up at Harran. And the "Gospel of Judas" maybe most of all. In all that space between Iraq and India we can read Crone's Nativist Prophets for the Yezidis.
Sometimes a dissident will aim to shock the establishment. What better way than to appropriate the establishment's ancient nemesis, or at least one claimed as a nemesis. If the nemesis no longer has any actual followers then - well, that just makes it even MORE difficult for anyone to contradict you.
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