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Agathist

Agathists strive to be a force for good in the world.

By preference they put their trust in the powers of the mind to understand a situation and chart the best way forward. Thus they focus their attentions on developing Eunoia or 'right-mindedness'.

Nevertheless a good Agathist also needs humility - the willingness to consider that they may currently fall short in their own understanding of things - and to give space to other sources of wisdom.

Agathon

Agathon is the Greek word for 'the Good'. Agathism is the conscious pursuit of the Good.

Agathists believe there is such as things as 'the Good' and that we should make an effort to connect with it, to achieve it, to make it manifest in the world in which we live. Agathists believe that only the Good itself is unarguably and perfectly Good and everything else is for us to judge as to how good it is.

Agathists trace the origins of their tradition to the religious philosopher Zoroaster who lived about 3000 years ago in the territory of the Iranians. He composed a text known as the Songs of Zoroaster which expressed his understanding of the workings of Good and Evil. This text has been passed down to us and forms the foundation text of Zartian Agathism.

In addition the Greek philosopher Plato wrote about Agathon the Good and from him we get the name Agathism.
The Agathist path includes efforts to change ourselves and to change the world beyond us for the better. There are lots of potential ways that we might do this and Agathists strive to find the most useful paths for them to follow from whatever source it comes.

Zartus

Zartian means Zoroastrian from Zartus a shortened spelling of the name Zarathustra (Zoroaster). It indicates that Zoroaster is the founder of our school of Agathism. It also indicates an ethically dualistic Agathism where Agathon (Good) is considered to have an active opponent Kakon (Bad/Evil). This is different from Platonic Agathism where only the Good is considered real and the Bad is thought of just as an absence of the Good.

Eunoia

Eunoia is right-mindedness. It is considered the most important value in Agathism. Eunoia is clear-thinking, the ability to see the world unclouded by misleading assumptions or emotions. Eunoia is seeing what is of value and assigning each thing of value its appropriate weight with regard to others things of value. Eunoia is knowing what is the best course of action to take to get the best result.

Gnosis

Gnosis is deep knowledge. Gnosis is the ability to see things clearly in their fundamental nature, rather than in their surface manifestation.

There is overlap between the concepts of Eunoia and Gnosis, however Eunoia can be satisfied if a person has sufficient understanding to take the right action in the situations they face. This doesn't always require the deep knowledge of Gnosis. Second-hand knowledge which is accurate is sufficient for Eunoia. Gnosis by contrast means a direct personal understanding of things.

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