OCTOBER 2022

CULTURE continued from page 36
most Mandeans, never mind people
outside the community.
But the Mandeans’ alternative
view has periodically attracted popular
interest. In the 19th century, their
most important sacred text, the Great
Treasure, or Ginza Rba, was translated
to Latin. That is believed to have
contributed to the heightened interest
in esoteric mysticism and spirituality
in that era, although contrary
to popular belief, Mandaeans do not
practice magic of any form.
The Mandaean religion entrusts
priests with the responsibility of keeping
religious knowledge and performing
extremely complex rituals which
help souls through this life and into
the next. Few lay Mandaeans have
any religious knowledge and there is
a shortage of priests, whose number is
believed to be fewer than 50 worldwide.
John the Baptist
The Mandaean community reveres
John the Baptist, whom they call Yehyea
or Yohanna, along with water’s
purifying force. Baptism, or Masbuta,
is the key ritual of this gnostic faith.
Unlike Christians who receive the
sacrament of Baptism once, the Mandaeans
may be baptized hundreds of
times over their lifetime.
John the Baptist, who was born in
the 1st century BC and died between
28-36 AD, was a Jewish prophet of the
Jordan River region, celebrated by the
Christian Church as the forerunner
to Jesus Christ. He emerged from the
wilderness preaching a message of
repentance for the forgiveness of sins
and offered a water baptism to confirm
the repentant person’s commitment to
a new life cleansed from sin.
John the Baptist is one of the most
significant and well-known figures in
the Bible, described to be a “lone voice
in the wilderness” as he proclaimed
the coming of the Messiah to a people
who desperately needed a Savior.
Baptism
The Mandaeans’ central ritual is baptism:
immersion in flowing water,
which is referred to in Mandaic as “living
water,” a phrase that appears in
the Bible’s New Testament as well.
Baptism in the Mandaean faith is
not a one-time action denoting conversion
as in Christianity. Instead, it is
a repeated rite of seeking forgiveness
and cleansing from wrongdoing in
preparation for afterlife. The purpose
of the baptism is to contact the healing
powers of the World of Light and
to purify believers from sin. Without
baptism, there is no hope of ascending
to the Great Life.
Unlike Christian baptism, which is
only done once, Mandaeans are baptized
when they are born, before marriage,
after marriage and frequently
in between, but always in fresh water.
The fresh and flowing water symbolizes
that life is always flowing. This is also
the reason why many Mandaean temples
are built next to rivers. Most temples
also have a pool in their courtyard.
Baptisms take place every Sunday
and the performing priests are dressed
in special white garments like those
worn by the Levite priests. The ritual
includes prayers, triple self-immersion,
triple immersion by the priest, triple
signing of the forehead with water, triple
drinking of water, investiture with
a myrtle-wreath, blessing by the priest
laying his right hand on the head of the
initiate, hymns, and formulas.
Mandaean priests are dressed completely
in white, considered pure and
representing faith and the cleansing of
the soul. After the ceremony, Mandaeans
return to their homes for 36 hours,
marking the time it took for God to create
the world and the first man, Adam.
Within those hours they teach Adam’s
stories and continue in his path.
Fasting is also key to this experience,
but the word means more than abstention
from food. Fasting does not mean
fasting food and water, but real fasting
is the great fast that includes fasting of
the mouths (“shall not lie”), fasting of
the eyes (“shall not see the wrongdoing”),
and fasting of the legs (“we shall
not walk into the wrong path”).
An archived photo of a Mandaean man from the Library of Congress.
Survival
Since the outbreak of Iraq’s violence
in 2003, most Sabean-Mandaeans
have either fled the country or been
killed. Today, there are fewer than
5,000 remaining in Iraq. As their small
community is scattered throughout
the world, the Sabean-Mandaeans’
ancient language, culture and religion
face the threat of extinction, much like
the Chaldeans’.
In 2006, UNESCO listed the Sabean-Mandaean
language in its Atlas
of the World’s Languages in Danger of
Disappearing. The departure of many
Sabean-Mandaean religious leaders
from Iraq also threatens the ability of
the remaining community to retain
their rituals.
Sabean-Mandaean families have
also been affected by the rise of ISIS in
Iraq since 2014. In Baghdad, they were
targets for attacks and kidnappings.
They also experience discrimination
and negative stereotyping in all aspects
of public life, with some reporting that
other Iraqis will refuse to share food or
drink from the same glass as a Sabean-
Mandaean. These factors, combined
with the effects of the ISIS advance,
continue to drive them to leave Iraq.
Like Chaldeans, Mandaeans nowadays
live all around the world. It’s estimated
there are between 60,000 to
70,000 Mandaeans worldwide. Australia
is home to 10,000, around half of
whom live in or near Sydney’s western
suburbs. The UK, the community is tiny
and has no priest to serve it. In Europe
and the United States, they number in
the thousands but in the Middle East,
especially Syria, they now face a highly
uncertain future in a context of civil war.
This scattering, combined with
Mandaeans’ dwindling numbers, has
made it much harder for them to preserve
their identity and pass their traditions
along to the next generation.
My desire to write about our Mandaean
cousins and brethren is driven
by a need to communicate, to stimulate,
to comfort ourselves in the dark
and to reflect on what it means to exist.
This was a short summary of a people’s
struggle to survive loss and an outline
of the unfolding tragedy of an ancient
Mesopotamian community. It is part of
our sad and shared history in scope and
human scale. Many, including this author
consider the genocide of Iraqi minorities
to be the most significant event
of the twenty-first century.
You can help keep family and
friends informed by sharing this article.
There is a reasonable chance
that Mandaeans may be among your
neighbors, whether you live in Sterling
Heights, Warren, Rochester,
West Bloomfield, Oak Park, or Southfield.
Look for them, and you may
get a chance to do more than catch a
glimpse of living history.
Sources: Wikipedia, Saad Salloum,
Habib Hannona, Bashar Harbi, E. S.
Drower, Siobhan Hegarty, Matthew
Bell, James F. McGrath, Jimmy Joe,
Valentinas Mite, and The Monitor.
Special editing by Jacqueline Raxter
and Rand Isaq.
COURTESY OF MATSON (G. ERIC AND EDITH) PHOTOGRAPH COLLECTION, LIBRARY OF CONGRESS
38 CHALDEAN NEWS OCTOBER 2022