ABSTRACT
Unlike the other chapters of this volume, this chapter moves beyond the frames of established Zoroastrianism(s). The texts that will be considered here were not written or composed by people born into any ethnic Zoroastrian community, nor were the groups/movements that will be outlined here started by persons born into Zoroastrian communities. Accordingly, they are not generally recognized as legitimate offshoots of institutional Zoroastrianism by established Zoroastrian organizations. Nevertheless, in one way or the other, they raise a claim of ‘Zoroastrianness’, and unlike Zoroastrian institutions in charge of religious boundary-maintenance the History of Religions is in no position to simply deny such claims. Quite the contrary, this chapter proceeds from the assumption that the history of religious ‘memes’ (representations, ideas, names, artifacts, etc.) beyond the communities that may be claiming to legitimately ‘own’ them is a significant (albeit generally neglected) subject area for the non-confessional study of religions (which is itself part of that process of memetic extensions). The present volume provides a good context for delineating this sort of a study since the phenomena described here (in seven sketches) can be fuzzily characterized as ‘memetic migrations’, if not ‘diasporas’.
