"The Yezidi: The Angelick Cultus in the Middle East" -

Since the turn of the last century, travelers have brought back sinister tales of pagan natives performing dark rites paying homage to the Devil. From Pilgrimage to Lalish and Nineveh and its Remains to The Satanic Rituals, western writers have contributed to the mythical impression of shamagh-bedecked heathens gathered around bonfires, adoring a brass sanjak. The most notorious are the Yezidi, a Kurdish subgroup in northern Iraq, although there are strong parallels with the Ahl-i Haqq or Yarsani of Iran (who include the Shaitan-parastiyyan, Satan-worshippers) and the 'Alevis (or 'Alawis) of Syria, Turkey and Kurdistan. These three groups make up Yardanism, an angelick cult that is various parts Sufism, crypto-Zoroastrianism, and pre-Islamic indigenous belief.

The problem with the myth is that it contains more Hollywood than history. In their haste to fashion a convenient gloss with which to categorize the adherents, these accounts have created an inaccurate picture of a complex and fascinating metaphysical system. Indeed, the basis for Yezidi studies for the past hundred years - the "holy books" Kitab al Jilwah and >Meshaf Resh - inspire amusement or shock when assessed by modern Yezidi religious leaders. Probably created by a non-practicioner familiar with the fundamental symbols and phrases of the sect, these texts have been convincingly debunked in the last decade. Anton LaVey's fanciful chapter on a Yezidi homage to Satan has been acknowledged with a terse characterization of "stupid and wrong informations (sic)" by modern adherents and as a "put on" by the leading scholar of the religion. [5]

In the end, we are left with another "Order of Assassins": a crypto-culture that owes its existence in the minds of the "educated" to deliberate misinformation, Christian or Muslim fundamentalist propaganda and inflammatory archetypal legerdemain. The truth about the Yardanists is that they have a rich heritage worth studying on their own individual merits and interrelated metaphysical paradigms that are far more robust and intricate than even present-day occultists and magicians have explored - of either the left or right hand path.

The central historical figure associated with the Yezidi is their patron saint, Shaykh 'Adi. For much of the early Yezidi studies he remained unidentified and some considered him a legend or made various attempts to tie the myth to one or another historical personage. A French political officer in northern Iraq around the turn of the century was able to correlate the Yezidi saint to the Sufi 'Adi ibn Musafir, a well-known Muslim who had been researched in other circles and about whom much was known. The fact that he was a Sufi explains a number of interesting features in Yezidi spirituality.

Although Meshaf Resh (the "Black Book") is probably a spurious attempt to collate their belief system, it does not mean there are no textual transmissions among the Yezidi. They have a collection of qewls, or hymns, which set forth their tenets in some detail. An intriguing note is that Sufism possesses a similar body of recitatory lore in Urdu called qawwals. Authenticated by Kreyenbroek, who translated them from Kurdish, these verses lay out the structure and process of Yezidi practice and cathexis.