Mazdaznan, Eugenics and the Future of the “White Race”

Abstract

This article examines the reception of eugenic thought among the followers of the Neo-Zoroastrian Mazdaznan movement primarily in North America and Britain, with respect to their ideas on “race”, the role of women in eugenics, and the question of environment versus heredity in eugenic thought. It focuses on the work of Dr. Otoman Zar-Adhust Ha’nish, the movement’s founder, and some of his supporters in the first four decades of the twentieth century. The article argues that Mazdaznan, when explicit about eugenics, held much in common with other “radical” or “life reform” movements of the time. It also examines how Mazdaznan connected with movements that favoured the purification and exaltation of the “white race” as the maximum expression of human and spiritual attainment. Finally, it examines the role of women in the production of this “regenerated” “race” as part of the eugenic project.