Intersubjectivity and Multiple Realities in Zarathushtra’s Gathas

Abstract The Gathas, a corpus of seventeen poems in Old Avestan composed by the ancient Iranian poet-priest Zarathushtra (Zoroaster) ca. 1200 B.C.E., is the foundation document of Zoroastrian religion. Even though the dualistic axiology of the Gathas has been widely noted, it has proved very difficult to understand the meaning and genre of the corpus or the position of Zarathushtra’s ideas with regard to other religious philosophies. Relying on recent advances in translation and decryptions of Gathic poetry, I shall here develop a philosophical interpretation of the Gathas, including, as shall be discussed here in detail, explication of the revelation he reports in the poem known as Yasna 30. I argue that, similarly to Marx, Henry, and Schutz, Zarathushtra connects social criticism with an original philosophy of (inter)subjectivity and existential reflection, placing his account in the context of a fully developed metaphysics which includes the human-divine sharing of mental properties. I show that in order to accommodate this complicated problematic, Zarathushtra uses the vehicle of multiple realities. Reflecting the spontaneity of life, the dynamics of various ontological modes in the text create a reference to subjectivity. A description of the dream in Yasna 30 is sufficiently within the limits of possibility for a dream experience, and thereby delivers three original phenomenological reductions. The reductions initiate a genetic account of the phenomenalization of invisible impulses which give rise to moral choices, and define the human-divine relationship. The opposing moral choices open into a reverse axiological intentionality in the sphere of intersubjectivity, and are said to plot life for the rightful and lifelessness for the wrongful. It can be concluded that Zarathushtra’s theism and views of the social world are “the first philosophy”, with a unique and original phenomenological ontology of intersubjectivity at its core.

have been made by Schwartz, who set forth the distinctive theology introduced by Zarathushtra2, and explained the highly intellectual esotericism of the text. Relying on this promising advance, I develop a philosophical interpretation of the Gathas.
I argue that, similarly to Marx, Henry, and Schutz, Zarathushtra connects social criticism with the unique philosophy of subjectivity and with existential reflection while placing this account against the backgrounds of a fully developed metaphysics which includes a human-divine sharing of mental properties. In order to accommodate this complicated problematic, Zarathushtra describes multiple realities via dynamic ontological modes which reflect the spontaneity visible in life and implicate a reference to subjectivity. As I will show, the description of the dream in Y30 also meets the limits of possible description of a dream experience. Keenly using the differences between the consciousness of the everyday and the consciousness of a dream, Zarathushtra in effect delivers three original phenomenological reductions. These reductions generate an access to the phenomenalization of two invisible impulses which give rise to moral choices and define the human-divine relationships. These opposing moral choices open into reverse axiological intentionalities in the sphere of intersubjectivity, and "plot" life for the rightful and lifelessness for the wrongful. I conclude that in their relation to the givenness of life, the Gathas can be rightly compared to an erste Philosophie as it is understood by Husserl, with the caveat that the logos of Zarathushtra's distinctive phenomenological ontology of intersubjectivity is more in line with the ethical investigations in Levinas. These ties to the givenness of life in the text of the Gathas are possible to identify because of the recent proof that Zarathushtra is the real and sole author of the Gathas3. Zarathushtra did not just "speak"4, but, as per Schwartz5, composed and recited complex, esthetically sophisticated metrical poetry with intentionally enigmatic lexical and syhtactic ambiguities, coded alliterations, a technique of scrambling key words, ring-compositional generation of poems out of the sequential vocabulary of preceding poems, and quasispatial compositional patterns. "In poetry, wonder is coupled with the joy of speech", says Bachelard6. Wonder means reduction: a poet singles out pre-phenomenal experiences, reflects on their objects and intentionalities, and releases their phenomenality by poetic speech7. The internal compositional unity of the Gathas makes it possible to link them to the events of the unified life they reflect, in a time perspective of the first five poems which were composed in succession8.
While clearly grounded in the events of Zarathushtra's life, with multiple references to suffering and joy, the Gathas are reducible neither to an autobiographical account, nor a subjectivistic philosophy in a common sense of the term. As stated by Boyce, an acknowledged authority in Iranian Studies, Zarathushtra (Zoroastros in Greek mediation, whence Eng. Zoroaster) created a "profoundly coherent theology with doctrinal and ethical systems whose strength has enabled his religion to last some three thousand years"9.
By "his" religion, Boyce means Zoroastrianism, the religion which started with Zarathushtra's Gathas, his central if not only creation. What was revealed to Zoroaster in the dream of Y30 defined the highly intellectual and esoteric character of his theology which, being at the same time a theology of subjectivity and a theology of the social world, has no analogues in the history of religion10.
Bergson noted that one can express the internal life in two ways, "one clear and precise but impersonal, and the other personal but ever-changing and inexpressible"11. If a subjectivistic philosophy overcomes this divide, it faces yet another problem, which is constraints that the focus on the ego imposes on criticism of the social world12. But life per se doesn't have a difficulty of switching between and combining different planes of consciousness. By introducing switches between planes of consciousness in his poetry, Zarathushtra made the eidetics of subjectivity predominantly, if not exclusively, intersubjective, and gave this subjectivistic eidetics a passionate social character.
In order not to distract the reader from the flow of my argument, I have placed the background information on Zarathushtra's poetry, and a sample of analysis showing the breadth of his problematic, in Appendix 1. The text of Y30, the dream, is in Appendix 2. In the body of the paper, I make, and prove, two claims: first, I show that Zarathushtra's metaphysics, theology, and overall philosophical presentation contain a continuous reference to subjectivity. This should not be mistaken for an insistence than Zarathushtra describes first-person religious experiences; in fact, he avoids self-referencing which one finds, e.g., in Vedanta, Buddhism, or Christian mysticism. Rather, I argue that at least three aspects of Zarathushtra's concept of the Deity are presented in the modes overlapping with the selective modes of the human mind (Section 1), and that the idea of multiple realities was well known in Zarathushtra's culture (Section 1) and therefore, was utilized by Zarathushtra in organizing themes of the Gathas (Section 2). By showing this ongoing reference to the life of subjectivity, I open a possibility that Y30 can be an account of experiential revelation.
In what sense one should understand the experiential character of Y30, and the term "revelation"? Referencing Ricoeur, Dahl states that "the most acute problem for phenomenology of religion is not intentionality and its alleged exclusion of what exceeds adequate comprehension, but the immediacy of religious phenomena, or rather, the recognition of impossibility of such immediacy"13. In other words, are religious phenomena, including revelation, a result of interpretation, or are they primary presentations? In Steinbock's view, this would be defined by the conditions of possibility for the givenness in question14. For Y30 to serve as a revealed core of Zarathushtra's moral theology, its mode of givenness should match conditions of possibility for such a mode. As in Marion's "so much reduction, so much givenness", revelation depends on the presence of reductions. In Section 3.2, I explicate Zarathushtra's reductions, and show that placing the revelation in the dream state exactly serves as condition of possibility for these reductions. But in order to do so, I need first to confirm that the account in Y30 is within the limits of possibility for an actual dream state-which I do in Section 3.1.
Even within the limited scope of five poems (approx. 2000 words), the breadth of themes and density of Zarathushtra's philosophical reflection is overwhelming; I hope that my clarifications of his thought adequately reflect at least a small part of his magnificent intent.

Psychological and theological antecedents of the dream in Y30
By the time of Y30, Zarathushtra already introduced a new vision of the Deity in Y29. The Deity, who is addressed in both single and plural forms15, incorporates at least three aspects, Wisdom the Lord or the Wise Lord (Mazdā Ahura, with Mazdā, ultimately from mazdā-, 'to think' or 'to reason', Old Avestan), Good Mind (Vohu Manah), and Best Rightness (Asha Vahishta) (Y29; Y28; also in Y46). The aspects talk between themselves and to lower aspects such as the Fashioner of the Cow (Y29), and also to Zarathushtra; each aspect carries its own regulatory, performative, and eschatological functions. Notably there is an overlap between God's aspects and the human mind (Table 1). Intention or impulse, arguably a form of ontological protointentionality 16 .
Axiological intentionality, i.e. intentionality of moral choice; also, a pure invisible intention which is actualized as in the human choice.
Good Mind, Vohu Manah, one of the three chief aspects of the deity, who also either presides over, or is himself the House of Paradise (along with other aspects).
A mind informed by commitment to truth and ethically good choice, i.e., a moral mind.
Referenced as good mind in the humans, especially with regard to Zarathushtra's mind.
Best Rightness, Asha Vahishta, is definitely an also shared property, but identifying its psychological correspondent needs further research. The whole schematic immediately reminds Schutz's description of the planes of reality/finite provinces of meaning, bounded and at the same time interpenetrating through communication17. This overlap of human and divine properties is even more interesting because of the difference in their ontological modes. The corpus doesn't provide any evidence that Zarathushtra imagines natural cosmos as an analogue of the human mind18. On the contrary, similar to the relationship between the Kantian formal and regulatory ideas, eidetic abstractions of Zarathushtra's theology are "duplicated" in the concreteness of human subjectivity19: e.g., Good Mind is also a particular kind of mind in humans, and vice versa. Similarly, Zarathushtra's portrayal of suffering in Y29, initially abstract, becomes more personal towards the end of Y29, and the first part of Y46. Consequently, this is not an analogy or metaphor, but an abstraction of certain empirically given properties of the living consciousness. Further into the corpus, the reference to subjectivity becomes more psychologically explicit, with mention of the faculties such as the mind, utterances (speech), intellect, choices, words (statements), deeds (actions), envisionments, the soul (in Y45.2), etc.
In Zarathushtra's thinking, metaphysical abstractions carry pragmatic relevance: faulty metaphysics leads to false worship, e.g., in the Haoma cult, to corruption of the social order, and to the suffering of the self20, while true metaphysics leads to the opposite. Hence, he pleas of God for teachings (Y29; 32) which would dispel suffering by revealing the true status of things. By virtue of his own good mind, he is chosen by Vohu Manah, Good Mind who is a member of Divine triad, to transmit God's teachings (Y29). In accord with the ancient Iranian idea of hospitality-reciprocity, Zarathushtra now seeks patronage which would enable him to perform the above priestly functions (Y29; 46)21. Winning patronage (which he reports in the second part of Y46) causes him envy and attacks from the rival priests (Y32); in Y32 Zarathushtra gives a brilliant rebuttal of their subversion and lies. Revelation in Y30, the dream, comes on the heels of this problematic, bringing the abstractions of good and bad to their origin in the concreteness of the subject22. Consequently, Y30 provides the next step in the development of an already established problematic in which the account of a dream can disclose a reference to the internal contents of consciousness, by showing the phenomenological roots of mental faculties which would double as metaphysical abstractions and would correspond to distinctions between good (truth or reality of things) and bad (deceit, wrongness) in previously engaged planes of reality.
Schutz, Bergson, James, and Barber maintain that consciousness constantly shifts between "an indefinite number of different planes" in which it constitutes its modes of reality. Another constitutive feature of these modes is "tension of consciousness", that is, intensity of attention directed at a particular aspect of life23. This is why Schutz's Consociates (members of a social group who share each other's bodily presences) display a shared social typification: the latter depends not just on the transaction of ideas, but on attunement of attention in pairing, bodily transfer, and other constitutive processes related to embodiment. Zarathushtra maximizes this effect by tethering the attention of his listeners to the shifts, whereby each new plane of consciousness tells us something new about his characters. Schutz writes: Attention à la vie, attention to life, is… the basic regulative principle of our conscious life. It defines the realm of our world [province of meaning] which is relevant to us; it articulates our continuously flowing stream of thought; it determines the span and function of our memory; it makes us -in our language -either live within our present experiences, directed toward their objects, or turn back in a reflective attitude to our past experiences and ask for their meaning24.
Schutz saw switching planes of reality as ongoing self-reductions in the life of consciousness25. Reductions imply crossing a boundary26, a leap: for example, entheogenic plants can cause crude, chemically mediated shifts from the experience of the everyday into religious experience. In Zarathushtra's time, there existed a commonly known Haoma ritual in which such shifts were said by its adherents to help attaining bliss27. Zarathushtra did not like the Haoma cult both for the bodily repercussions of entheogen intake and because he criticized its priests for obfuscation, cruelty, and ignorance. However, the presence of such a cult meant that a reference to a shift in the state of consciousness would be legitimate. Consequently, using a dream state as a platform for supra-mundane knowledge would be in character with Zarathushtra's culture, as well as the means to engage direct attention to subjective experience in ways which could engender longterm constitutive changes in one's experience of the self and the world28.
The dream presents two invisible Spirits who enact two completely opposite processes of internal ethical decision-making while being simultaneously present in the dream. This situation becomes a ground for philosophical and theological reflections (see Appendix 1). If the dream as described by Zarathushtra is phenomenologically possible, that is, if the dream meets conditions of possibility for being consciousness of a dream state , we would understand how Zarathushtra's thinking about God and life was related to such an experience, regardless of whether this was an actual or invented experience, but an experience as such29.
Going to the origin of thought in the life of consciousness, the Gathas would count as the "first philosophy" in Husserl's sense. I will argue in favor of this possibility in two ways, by showing a correspondence between the organization of the Gathas and multiple realities in the givenness of life (Section 2), and by phenomenological analysis of Y30 (Section 3).

Overlapping multiple realities, and time-perspective in the Gathic lifeworld
Below in Table 2, I show the unities of sense represented by the Gathic characters in provinces of meaning which were introduced in the poems which were composed before Y30, i.e. Y29, Y46, Y28, and Y3230, and therefore contextually precede Y30. I extracted these layers of the lifeworld from the Gathas in two ways, following Husserl's idea of the ontological modes, and following Schutz's account of the planes and tension of consciousness and assumptions which characterize the corresponding provinces of meaning. This includes the existence of the world, a form of spontaneity, quality of self-experience, sociality, and most importantly, time-perspective31. For example, the social world (as well as a corresponding sphere of intersubjectivity in the transcendental phenomenological attitude) includes other genuine subjects32, while the immanent-psychological sphere represents only one's internal life. Divine ideas are self-subsistent and transtemporal, while humans have a beginning and end, and conditionally extend into the afterlife, etc.

Character
The existential realms The "real" social world The mind, that is, the immanentpsychological sphere Each province in Table 2 is distinguished by the above mentioned features, and has its own set of hierarchically organized relevances. Divine characters cross over the planes, and participate in more bounded existential regions; on the contrary, the mortal humans are bound to bodily existencies within existential, social, and psychological realms. The Gathas offer no descriptions of the characters (except for the mythological person Yima and his father); this maximizes tension of consciousness until a gradual explication of the characters via performances and relationships in different regions of the Gathic lifeworld causes a relaxing insight33. Relatedness, otherness is central to the Gathas: the divine person, Mazdā Ahura, is not a monad, that is, not the Levinasian totality of the same34. Zarathushtra doesn't hypostasize the "I am". The Deity announces itself in Y29 in a directedness at the other, in a lively dialogue between the Soul of the Cow, the Fashioner of the Cow, Best Rightness, and Good Mind, which Zarathushtra himself joins. Mazdā Ahura is invited into this conversation because of his being vīdvā vafiīš viiānāiia ("knowing in His foresightful awareness the (cosmic) designs"35).
Of course, poets talk to gods: e.g. Ibn al-̒ Arabī visits the Divine Names and talks to Salma who is pure awareness-wisdom36, Śvetaketu has a nice little chat with Death37, etc. However, divine ideas in these cases are mere eidetic abstractions devoid of relationship to living human subjectivity38. Hence Ibn al-̒ Arabī's exasperated: "Would that I were aware whether they [divine ideas as Divine Names] knew what heart they possessed! And would that my heart knew what mountain pass they threaded!"39. By contrast, in the Gathas divine ideas carry a reference to the living human mind. In fact, the human subject is the Godhead's modus operandi in the Gathas, as in the case of Good Mind choosing Zarathushtra as an interlocutor due to Zarathushtra's own good mind, i.e., via his own presence in Zarathushtra's mind. When the time-perspective of two realities, human and divine, bifurcates in confrontation with the eschatological terminus, this shared engagement endures: Good Mind becomes a house of the afterlife for those who have partaken in him during this life40.
In contrast to Vedantic or Buddhist texts, the Gathas do not associate suffering with living per se, and do not associate the cessation of suffering with the cessation of existence. For Zarathushtra, life is benign, and suffering comes only from corruption in the social world (cf. Y29, Y32, Y46 etc.). His specific innovation in religious understanding was not only the reconfiguring of the idea of God, but taking the origins of evil outside of Godhead's domain and into the purview of two primodial "spirits", or impulses, which creates the basis of Zoroastrian dualism41. In Iranian religious thought before Zarathushtra, there was a sharp opposition between right and wrong. Zarathushtra converted this idea into an origin myth, gave it metaphysical grounding, and elevated human choices to the level of escatological and doctrinal significance. Since before Zarathushtra, there was no systematized commonly shared theological authority, his own experience was his only platform for introducing his ideas. The reports of his own revelation clearly had lasting and powerful impact; using Husserl's framework, one can suggest some resonance between Zarathushtra's vision and the unity of motivation in his listeners at that particular moment in history42.

The consciousness of the dream in Y30
Y30 states that twin Manyu-s ("spirits") are heard in a dream (x v afna-'dream' or 'sleep', resp. in Y30 and Y44) making their respective choices, the beneficent one deciding rightly, and the maleficent one wrongly43. The Manyu-s appear "in the beginning" (30.4) but they are invisible and serve as a causal force44; their choices determine life and lifelessness, the "final existence" in the afterlife, and success or peril in this life. In 30.7, the poem also refers to Mazdā Ahura, who is not mentioned directly by can be identified by 42 "The unity of motivation arises when 'certain objects or states of affairs, of whose reality one has actual knowledge, indicate to him the reality of certain other objects or states of affairs, in the sense that his belief in the reality of the one is experienced (though not at all evidently) as motivating a belief or surmise in the reality of the other". Husserl, Logical Investigations, 270, quoted in Allen, "What is Husserl's First Philosophy?". 43 For the full text of Y30, see Appendix 1 with Schwartz's translation of the poem, quoted from "Dimensions". Stanzas 5-9 were translated in personal communication July 10, 2018, Berkeley. The reader must keep in mind that the translation alone doesn't transmit all the layers of meaning which are mediated in Zarathusthra's poetry by encryptions and other poetic devices. Such encryptions etc. can be appreciated only in the Old Avestan text. To access the meaning of encryptions, see Schwartz, "Revelations", and Schwartz ,"Dimensions". For SCRIM patterns, see Schwartz, "A Preliterate Acrostic". 44 Schwartz, "Revelations". a company of his two aspects, Good Mind and Rightness, and another aspect, Dominion. Mazdā Ahura is emerging from, or appears as the result of, the better one45. For mortals, the same one, i.e., Spenta Manyu, creates the link to Good Mind, in this life and therefore, in afterlife.
The central metaphysical theme of Y3046, which is the appearance of two opposite manyu-s, is a part of a template for Y31, 45, and in increments throughout the corpus47. Notably the manyu-s are invisible and devoid of any form of perceptual phenomenality, i.e., known only through their acts, such as making themselves heard, plotting life and lifelessness, and making choices. When the better one, i.e. Spenta Manyu, becomes visible, he doesn't appear as a some form of manyu, but becomes "clad" into existence as Mazdā Ahura, that is, in a different identity which is genetically connected with that of the Spenta Manyu; in other words, in Zarathushtra's view, the metaphysics of good and bad precedes manifestation.
A reference to a dream state is consistent with both strategies of Zarathushtra's teaching, which are the use of shifts between multiple senses of reality, in this case, from the everyday to a dream, and an ongoing reference to subjectivity. Placing revelation into a dream presupposes a dream experience which by default is an experience of the interiority of consciousness. The dream event is the one in which the invisible is phenomenalized; the post factum account of the dream in Y30 presents this phenomenalization under the first order of reflection. In a posterior Y31 and 45, when Zarathushtra shifts the context of revelation from dream (x v afna-) to something seen in the eye (cašman-, Old Avestan) "the beginning" becomes associated with Mazdā Ahura (Y45. [3][4], i.e. the Deity and not the invisible manyu-48. In other words, Y30 carries a descriptive fidelity to the alleged experience of a dream, while Y45 presents a second-order reflection on this experience and converts it into theological ideas. Both posterior Y31 and 45 represent a second order reflection, whereby the phenomenalized event of insight-revelation becomes a doctrine in which Zarathushtra explicitly connects the two manyu-s to the themes of social justice and injustice, eulogy of Mazdā Ahura, a plea for patronage, and his advocacy for the oppressed. In other words, Zarathushtra derives moral theology and social and existential philosophy out of the "first" metaphysics in Y30. A distinction between description of experience (Y30) and the second order reflection (Y45) establishes the limits of possibility for the kind of philosophizing which takes place in both accounts. For example, the "beginning of things" in the experience of the dream, i.e. in the narrative which is given from the firstperson standpoint of an individual dreamer, the only possibility for the "beginning" is a shift from the limbo of the dreamless sleep to a dream state-which shift is the beginning of things, in the dream and for the dreamer. By contrast, since Y45 describes "how things are" in a theological sense, the beginning of things (31. 8; 43.5; 45.2) is interpreted from a larger perspective, as a prerogative of the Absolute who is not available for immediate perception but only in an abstract thinking, through communication, and for worship. A difference between Y30 and Y31/Y45 is due to two different standpoints of the respective texts, Y30 being the first person description of a real dream that had a predominantly existential and moral significance, and Y31 and Y45, being eidetic reflections, express a coherent, logically consistent theology. Such subtle intellectual distinctions and literary skill is astounding to find in the oral poetry dated ca. 1200 B.C.E., but in light of the Gathas' fidelity to life, are not surprising: and following this line of thought, we now need to examine conditions of possibility for Y30 being an account of a dream as such.

The phenomenology of Zarathushtra's dream
A dream is always an experience of the first-person perception, with predictable options in terms of its structure, and always reflects some inner dimension of subjectivity49. A transition from the dreamless sleep to a dream state is always an interruption in the flow of consciousness, and according to Schutz, can be 45 Schwartz, "Dimensions"; Schwartz, "God(s)". 46 For the outline of all themes in Y30, see Appendix 2. 47 For more on connections between Y30, Y45, and Y31, see Schwartz "Revelations",[6][7] For the detailed analysis of manyu-, see Schwartz, "Indo-Iranian Manyu-". 49 Kahan and Claudatos, "Phenomenological Features" ; Pringuey, "Phenomenology"; Windt, "Dreams". understood as a reduction. A reduction to dream discloses the aspects of intentionality which are not visible in other provinces of meaning, and the aspects of perception which likewise are absent in the wakened state50. A dream state brackets out the world including the awareness of the body (i.e., the environment51), replacing them by the dream body, dream perception, an imaginal and/or symbolic world, and in some situations, by reflective awareness of the inner structures of consciousness. Some aspects of the wakened state, such as, e.g., self-awareness, dissociation52, or modification of attention, can carry over into dreams, but come with a modification of the sense of reality and therefore in a normal consciousness will be recalled as "I had a dream", as opposed to memory of the wakened state. In Vedanta or Tibetan Dream Yoga, dreams are often equated with meditative states, that is, with the internal self-perception of consciousness53. Dreams can be auditory54; auditory mental imagery has a better rate of recollection55. Dreams can deliver new eidetic knowledge (e.g. Mendeleev's discovery of the periodical table of the elements; the dream preceding Einstein's articulation of the theory of relativity; Loewi's discovery of neurotransmission; Kekule's discovery of benzine rings etc.) Consistent with all of the above, Zarathushtra meets conditions of possibility for a dream state, but gives the latter a specific character. Most often, dreams are a "presentification"56, that is, have a representationalsymbolic character related to something other than the dream itself. By contrast, Y30 looks more like a descriptive account which explicates the structures of subjectivity, that is, an account of internal perception of consciousness in which visibility is replaced by the phenomenalization of the invisible. For example, in 30.1, Zarathushtra begins with the "bliss amidst the lights", which can be understood as light and bliss appearing in absorption57, that is, as a phenomenological characterization of consciousness.
In 30.3, Zarathushtra moves away from the inner visible contents of subjectivity to the invisible manyus. Manyu-, generally translated as "spirit", serves as an origin and cause of a fully developed mental act. Zarathushtra connects this ancient Indo-Iranian idea with the ontological dualism, and this leads to postulating two different kinds of the manyu-s: in 30.3, the better one, i.e. Spenta Manyu, makes choices which lead, in 30.4, to the rise of Good Mind in the mind of the dreaming subject. Thereby, a) the Manyu-s are reinterpreted as the origins of foundational to all mental acts axiological intentions58, b) good axiological intentionalities participate in a human-divine sharing of properties, and c) a dialectic relationship of the visible (i.e., audible, because the Manyu-s are heard and not seen) to the invisible is established.
A phenomenological interpretation of Y30 follows. Describing the Manyu-s as the origins of intentionality, Zarathushtra uses the passive voice, "were heard" (30.3), as opposed to more conventional "I saw" (e.g. in 43.5) in description of a dream. According to Husserl, intentionality is constituted out of protointentionality within the sphere of passive synthesis59, which would fit the conditions of the appresentative mindset of dreams as a passive mode of the ego. Zarathushtra's emphasis on passivity would fit with Husserl's understanding of dreams60, but not the concept of proto-intentionality, because a) the "real" hyletics involved in shaping proto-intentionality is eliminated in the dream state, and b) proto-intentionality is a rudimentary form of intuition which is phenomenal and not invisible. So, the Manyu-s are not proto- intentionalities, but rather, conditions of possibility for intentionality, invisible in themselves61. Henry associates the invisible with the fundamental mode of appearing, which is the self-appearing of appearing. This mode precedes intentionality and must "be non-intentional and, since intentionality is tied to visibility in the general sense of perception (or representation), invisible"62. We can admit that Zarathushtra's dream is not an exercise in imagination, but aims at immediate intuition of this foundational horizon, in which the Manyu-s serve as a transition to the horizon of visible intentionality.63 There remains the question, how is the good differentiated from the bad? Since Zarathushtra doesn't name any specific values, does he succumb to abstract contentless metaphysics64? Not so. In 30.4, the choices of Spenta Manyu are associated with life, and of the wrongful, with lifelessness. Through the choice of life, Mazdā Ahura comes into existence, i.e., enters manifestation, in 30.765, that is, the ordination of things is engaged (cf. Y29, a reference to Mazdā's regulatory mind, in Section 2). In 30.10 (see 30.8 for the opposite) Good Mind is introduced as the mind whose acts are in correlation or adequacy with the givenness of life, metaphorized as a chariot race. Correlation is an idea resembling Husserl's criterion for truth in the Cartesian Meditations; thereby, ethical normativity will be a normativity of the acts possible in the direct intuition of really existing objects, also connected with the valuation of such mental states, e.g., the mind as the good mind.66

Reductions and inverse intentionality in Zarathushtra's dream
"The kind of phenomenology that can be useful to theology will be…a phenomenology of inverse intentionality, one in which the constituting subject is constituted by the look and the voice of another." Merod Westphal67 Now it remains for us to see how Zarathushtra reaches the intuition of the two opposing Spirits. In the Second Meditation, Husserl argues that phenomenological reductions are lived by the subject68. When consciousness interrupts itself, the field of consciousness changes perceptually, perspectivally, hyletically; in other words, in its givenness. However, this change in the structures of consciousness is not constitutive, but has the character of revealing the modes of existence which already and always operate in the constitution of consciousness. Bringing out of anonymity the original positing of existences, reduction makes it possible to explicate such existences in the mode of certainty. According to Schutz, reduction is natural to consciousness; spontaneous switches between different planes of consciousness are reductions69. Dream is one of the planes that consciousness leaps into70; further leaps can happen within the dream itself. Using a reference to planes of consciousness throughout the Gathas, Zarathusthra uses the dream state in lieu of ontologically focused reductions. 61 Cf. "…every actual and potential phenomenality first becomes a phenomenon, and it is only on the condition of a prior realized and given phenomenality that any phenomenon whatsoever can be become a phenomenon in it". Henry, Material Phenomenology, 22. 62 Seyler, "Michel Henry". 63 An empirical awareness of such transition is possible, e.g., in savikalpa samādhi, see Śaṅkarācārya, Bhāratītīrtha, and Mādhava, Drg̣ -Dṛśya-Viveka; also, in personal meditative experience of this author. 64 For "primitive" nature of such abstractions, see Macbeath, "Experiements"; for naturalistic ethics declaring that one acts in accordance with one's nature, see Liu, "Elevating Human Being". 65 Cf. an experience of prayer, in which good intention resolves in a feeling of God's response as "I am here", empirically, or as described e.g. Ibn al-ʻArabī, The Wisdom, 21: "Ask me and I will answer you!", and " 'I am present' (which is always immediate)".  de Warren, "The Inner Night". In the preceding poems, Zarathushtra placed human existence and the existence of the Absolute in a partially overlapping mode. The dream state, which is certainly a state owned by the subject, is immanent to the ego, and this is where Zarathushtra begins, suspending, for a time being, his theological agenda till a reference to supernatural entities in 30.6. 30.5 serves as a bridge between the immanence of the psychological sphere of the dream to this internally transcendental sphere of religious principles. God's presence emerges in 30.7, as transcendence within the sphere of immanence71. Zarathushtra creates a discourse in which he can suspend the ontological spheres and bring them back, in the style of reduction. In the account of the dream, his reductions are first and foremost aimed at suspension of what Husserl termed the "ego's sphere of ownness".
Fink viewed dreams as an activity of the dreaming ego which continues living and experiencing its world in the dream state72. However, as already mentioned, Zarathushtra has absolutely no interest in the monadic ego or any of its modes which can be uncovered by reduction to the sphere of ownness73. Paraphrasing Levinas, one can say that Zarathushtra focuses on "an interpretive, phenomenological description of the rise and repetition of the face-to-face encounter, or the intersubjective relation at its precognitive core; viz., being called by another and responding to that other"74. For Levinas, the alterity in such encounter remains always invisible, hidden behind the face, but Zarathushtra's dream is not a visual one. Visuality is suspended by Zarathushtra along with the wakened mode of consciousness, as a condition of accessing the fundamental mode of appearing. Visuality returns to the interpretations of the dream only in Y31, Y43.5, and in Y45.
Zarathushtra combines suspension of visuality with the direction of reductions towards the sphere of intersubjectivity. The grammatical passive voice "were heard" in Y30.3 serves both purposes; it is only later, in Y31, Y43, and Y45, that Zarathusthra replaces the passive "were heard" by the active "I saw". The passive voice augments the default passivity of a dream state by determinately removing the ego-pole75, and the dialogue of the Manyu-s takes the whole scenario into the sphere of intersubjectivity and otherness. In the beginning of the Fifth Cartesian Meditation, Edmund Husserl states: "…the stream of my pure conscious processes and the unities constituted by their potentialities and actualities …are inseparable from my ego and therefore belong to its concreteness itself"76. Zarathushthra, if not removes, then certainly weakens the ego's presence, going in the direction opposite to transcendental reduction. The situation of dream/sleep not only purifies consciousness by removing the world together with all of its existences and related a priori-s, but eliminates the ego-pole's sphere of ownness. What remains is the purified sphere of intersubjectivity.
Applied to the cusp of dreamlessness and dream, and going toward the sphere of intersubjectivity, elimination of the ego-pole shows the constitution of intersubjectivity by the invisible ethical gravities and originating from them inverse intentionalities77. In contrast to the Cartesian Meditations in which reduction proceeds from the sphere of ownness (it is the ego which "does" the reduction)78, Zarathushtra's reduction hints at its transcendental origin: in the preceding poems, he pleaded God for the teachings of truth, and as one knows, dreams are not programmable. The dream comes as a gift of revelation for "those who seek" (Y30.1). 71 Cf. Lacoste, Experience. 72 De Warren, "The Third Life"; Iribarne, "Contributions". 73 My thesis of the absence of focus on the ego in the Gathas is further supported by the fact that Zarathusthra references the individual self only in the context of one's relationship with the human, animal, or divine others. At the very first mention of himself in Y29, he already uses the mode of advocacy and dialogue with the Deity. The Deity is also not a monadic one, but a dialogical triad (and there may be other aspects) who exists in relationship. This is a very certain difference between Zarathusthra's approach to subjectivity, and monistic monadic-ego orientation of Vedanta or Christian mysticism. 74 Cf. Bergo, "Emmanuel Levinas". 75 For more on dreams as a continuation of the passive synthesis under interruption of the ego-centered intentionalities, see de Warren,  "[T]he beginning" (30.4), i.e., beginning of the mind in a dream, takes place as the sphere of intersubjectivity, by two inverse axiological intentions which imply a possibility of choice. However, the choice is not made by the ego, but generated by two "others" as a condition originating within the intersubjectivity. In context of metaphysics, these ethical choices are neither a mere "layer" of the unties of sense, nor do they cover some primordial ontological ground of being, but are in themselves a metaphysical foundation of "life and lifelessness" which is extending into the afterlife79. Thereby, in Y30, Zarathushtra's intuitions break through the limitations of direct intuitional access to pre-phenomenal/non-phenomenal contents, and overcome the difficulties of descriptive access to the origin of inverse intentionalities. Both limitations become inapplicable because there is no positing of "being" at the root of inverse intentionality (and of the mind) or of any other monistic horizon, but only axiological duality which is correlated with the givenness of life. This is shown by targeted reductions and in a definitive absence of any hermeneutics80.
This limited "phenomenology of phenomenology" which I performed on Zarathushtra's reductions shows how a small step in the right direction can bring a large gain: a use of the dream state and passive voice in lieu of reductions go long ways in terms of the knowledge they deliver81. We see three reductions, to the sphere of immanence, by dream; towards intersubjectivity, by weakening the presence of the ego; and further towards the origin of inverse intentionality, as " the levels of experience which were not described by either Husserl or Heidegger", and arguably, by any phenomenologist82. For phenomenology, these reductions show that phenomenalization of the invisible phenomenality happens not as an independent teleological process, but via an actualization of relationship. For theology, they explain the relationship between the human and Divine modes of existence, the limits of possibility for well-being and suffering, and the conditions of possibility for self-revelation of the Deity.
As is well known, the axiological horizon serves as a major a priori in the formation of the unities of sense. Spenta Manyu is an analogous concept, and theologically, serves the same function, as a condition of possibility for self-revelation of the deity. In 31.21, 33. 6, 33.4, 43.16, 44.2, one aligns oneself with God by tethering attention and thinking to Spenta Manyu. In 30.4, 7, Spenta Manyu serves as a precursor of the appearance of Good Mind, which is one of the Divine Triad appearing in 30.7. and 30.10. In 31.7; 33.12; 43.6; Mazdā Ahura is not only conceptually associated with the Spenta Manyu, but "rises" or "grows" out of it83; and according to 31.9, the Holy Spirit (Spenta Manyu, i.e. the better one from Y30) is owned by Mazdā Ahura. This corresponds with how, in personal experience, a presence of God "grows" out of one's good choices. Ascribing of the revelation to the intersubjective sphere and to inverse intentional consciousness distinguishes Zarathushtra's theology from religious philosophies which establish the sameness of the human being and the Absolute via pure subjectivity (e.g. Vedanta), as well as from various monistic mysticisms84.
It has been rather recent in the course of history that intersubjectivity came into the focus of philosophical investigations. I would like to suggest that if Zarathushtra's philosophical message in the Gathas had not been aborted by interruptions in the tradition, but continued in its authentic form, the philosophies of consciousness could have developed in the manner of philosophies of intersubjectivity, and modern day thinking would have had a very different history and outlook.