GooferMan

Hello

I dropped you a note on the hoodoo page, but just wanted to come by and thank you for all the work you are doing on that article. It is looking very good. For reasons of WP:COI i have limited my involvement with it, trying only to keep it from veering into total fiction and weirdness. You've really put a shine on it. cat yronwode Catherineyronwode 04:59, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Study at UW

Comment moved from user page. -- Gogo Dodo (talk) 07:40, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

Hi! I'm part of a group at UW in Computer Science trying to make editing in Wikipedia easier. I'd love to talk to you and other Wikipedians in the Seattle area about your practices. You can find my webpage at [1] and email me from there or you can post on my talk page. Kayur (talk) 22:56, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

Islamic Magical Texts

Hello! I have a question regarding existing writings on Islamic magic. I'm not sure if you can help me, but I thought it was worth a shot, since you seem very knowledgeable on the subject. So here goes:

During the Golden Age of the eighth to thirteenth centuries, scientists and magicians consumed any information they could get their hands on in order to study and understand the world that they lived in. A big part of this was astronomy and astrology, which led to astral magic. (Since time was of the essence in many rituals and the creation of certain magical objects like talismans.) I haven't read any of the texts I'm about to mention, but I've read a little bit about them, and it piques my curiosity. (Please excuse any misspellings; my knowledge of Islamic spelling and sentence structure is nonexistent.)

1. Al Madkhal Al Kabir Al Na-jam (The Great Book of Introduction to the Judgements of the Stars, Abu Ma'shar Al-Balkhi, 787-886)

2. Rasail Ikhwan Al-Safa (The Epistles of the Brethren of Purity, 10th century)

3. De Radiis (On Stellar Rays, Ya'qub Ibn Ishaq Al-Kindi, 801-873)

4. Ghajat Al-Hakin (The Picatrix, Maslama Al-Majiriti, 11th century)

5. De Imaginibus (On Images, Thabit Ibn Qurra, 836-901)

OKAY! My question is: Is it true that many of these sorts of books were written in code, especially later on? (So that the writer could avoid persecution by the church, or, like the Christian Illuminated Texts, to guard against "unworthy" people gaining access to the knowledge held within?) I always wonder, if that's true, how they can be certain they deciphered it correctly, and how much knowledge may have been lost to the ages as a result?

I hope you can help; I've performed the best Google-fu I can muster, and the only search results I get cover Islamic views on magic as a whole (usually contemporary views, not ancient ones), and a few anonymous writings that survived (which does not speak for the average). None of the sites I've found describes how the authors of these texts went about writing their work, or if there was anything special they did to keep it/themselves safe.

Anyway, thank you for taking the time to read and consider my comment!

Allotrios

de.allotrios@gmail.com

Allotrios (talk) 21:11, 27 March 2008 (UTC)