An independent research foundation
The Foundation of Asha publishes sourced, tier-honest scholarship on the history of religious ideas — and on the Persian and Zoroastrian substrate beneath concepts Western religion presents as original: Satan, Hell, the rapture, the resurrection. Open access. Real citations. No fabrication.
AshaAvestan
Truth — the right order of reality. It is the single standard the Foundation's work answers to, including how it judges itself. Its opposite is Druj, the Lie. We name the institution after the standard so the standard is never optional.
Our work
The Foundation's seriousness is measured by what it puts on the record. Our flagship reconstruction is freely available, openly licensed, and permanently archived with a citable Digital Object Identifier.
Flagship monograph
A book-length inquiry into how Persian and Zoroastrian thought shaped the moral architecture the West inherited — written under the discipline of constructive comparative theology, with every load-bearing claim tier-labelled and every source real.
Method & standards
The Foundation works in the tradition of constructive comparative theology (Francis Clooney, Keith Ward, Robert Neville). What makes that work answerable is a single discipline: every load-bearing claim carries a tier label, so a reader always knows whether they are standing on bedrock or watching us take a wager.
Bedrock
Fact or near-consensus. Stand on it without hedging.
Contested — grounded
Defensible and sourced, but genuinely disputed by serious scholars.
Reconstruction
A reasoned rebuilding from fragmentary evidence, marked as such.
Construction
An owned wager — our interpretive move, not a finding.
Bracketed
A question held open. We refuse to pretend it is settled.
Real sources, real citations, no invented authority. Nothing in the Foundation's work — no quotation, reference, fact, or institutional claim — is fabricated to lend weight. Where a claim cannot be sourced, it is tiered honestly or bracketed, never dressed up. Asha is the standard; Druj, the Lie, is the one thing this work will not commit.
The Reading Room
A library of twelve short explainers — each answering one question the flagship work raises, held to the same tier standard as the research itself, and free to read.
Programs
Work is published under distinct programs, each with its own author and remit. All share the same standard of sourcing and the same tier discipline.
Asher Wilder
The Foundation's flagship line: the Persian and Zoroastrian roots of the moral imagination the West inherited. Home to the published monograph and a growing library of sourced explainers.
Enter the program ForthcomingA second line of inquiry
A second research program under the Foundation, currently in preparation. Its first works are not yet published; when they are, they will appear to the same open-access, fully sourced standard as everything here.
About the programOpen access
The Foundation exists to put rigorous work into the commons, not behind a wall. Everything it publishes is openly licensed and archived so it can be cited, checked, and built upon by anyone.
Contact
For correspondence, citation queries, corrections, or scholarly engagement, write to us directly. We read every message and we welcome being checked.