Magic as Poetry, Poetry as Magic: A Fragment of Arabic Spells Emily SeloveMagic, Ritual, and Witchcraft, Volume 15, Number 1, Spring 2020, pp. 33-57(Article)Published by University of Pennsylvania PressDOI:For additional information about this article[ Access provided at 20 Oct 2020 14:36 GMT from University of Exeter ]https://doi.org/10.1353/mrw.2020.0013https://muse.jhu.edu/article/760680Magic as Poetry, Poetry as Magic:A Fragment of Arabic SpellsE M I LY S E L O V EUniversity of ExeterThis essay is written by a medievalist but is partly about the modern world.It begins in the special collections of an Ivy League university and ends ina disreputable corner of the internet. It addresses a topic usually in thedomain of historians of science and philosophy using the methods of liter-ary analysis. It is therefore appropriate to use the term “magic,” which ErikDavis defines as an inherently ambiguous term that “flicker[s] between”dualities.1 Davis uses the liminal quality of the term to explore the relation-ship between magic and science, while this essay is primarily concernedwith explaining the relationship between magic and poetry, in Arabic andbeyond. This relationship pertains to the status of man as microcosm, andto the power of language to change the world. The comparison also helpsus understand why both magic and certain types of poetry can sometimesfeel like a dirty little secret.THE LANDBERG FRAGMENTYale University’s Beinecke Library is in possession of a mysterious six-foliofragment of Arabic spells.2 This beautiful fragment, complete with an illustra-tion and rubrics, contains love spells addressed to the moon, a method ofcontacting a jar-dwelling spirit, and instructions for invoking a powerful“king of the jinn.” The manuscript, titled Landberg 35a, was apparently partof the collection of Count Landberg (1848–1924), a Swedish scholar of the1. Erik Davis, “Babalon Launching: Jack Parsons, Rocketry, and the ‘Method ofScience,’ ” in Magic in the Modern World: Strategies of Repression and Legitimization, ed.Edward Bever and Randall Styers (University Park: Penn State University Press,2017), 122.2. I am grateful that Travis Zadeh drew my attention to this fragment.PAGE 33Magic, Ritual, and Witchcraft (Spring 2020)Copyright 2020 University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.................. 19460$ $CH2 06-23-20 12:54:26 PS34 Magic, Ritual, and Witchcraft Spring 2020Arabic language.3 At this stage, the authorship and dating of this fragmentremain a mystery. The manuscript is labeled Risālah fı̄ l-azāim (Epistle ofSpells) in pencil by a modern cataloguer. It consists of three folded sheetsresulting in six unbound folios that have apparently fallen out of a largerwork. The paper is brown, thick, rough, and pulpy—seemingly a low-qualitymachine-made paper showing tight, straight laid lines of about 1 mm. Thereare large margins of about two inches on each side.The ink is black with rubrics, and the hand is clear; the overall impressionis of a very tidy, well presented manuscript. The script could be described asan idiosyncratic kind of naskh, with the most unusual feature being a final kāfthat sometimes looks like a medial kāf. There is a red and black illustration ofa talismanic image to be used in one of the spells (see figure), and there arecatchwords on the bottom of the recto of each folio.It seems probable that this manuscript is a late-nineteenth-century hand-written text produced by Dār al-Kutub in Cairo, and collected by CarloLandberg during his travels to Egypt at that time.4 Landberg was keen tocollect as many significant manuscripts during his travels as possible, and waswilling to accept more modern copies when older originals were not avail-able.5It is probable that Abd al-Fattāh. al-T. ūkhı̄, the author of many popularbooks of occult knowledge, and self-identified in his works as the “Directorof the Astrological Institute” of Egypt, drew from the same source as thismanuscript.6 Little is known of al-T. ūkhı̄’s biography, though his publicationsinclude his photograph in a tie and thick plastic-rimmed glasses, with a poembeneath the image reading:3. “Near and Middle Eastern Books and Manuscripts,” Yale University BeineckeRare Book and Manuscript Library, https://beinecke.library.yale.edu/collections/curatorial-areas/near-and-middle-eastern-books-and-manuscripts.4. This guess was based partly on the immediate instinctive reactions of two schol-ars with much greater experience with manuscripts as physical objects than the pres-ent author, namely Bink Hallum and Lucia Raggetti, whom I thank for theirgenerosity and utterly absolve from any errors considering that they based their claimon a spur of the moment inspection of a color printout of a digitized copy of themanuscript. Their guess certainly gels with the known manuscript collecting habitsof Carlo Landberg.5. William Johnston Dawson and Isadore G. Mudge, Special Collections of Librariesin the United States (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1912), 89.6. Remke Kruk, “Harry Potter in the Gulf: Contemporary Islam and the Occult,”British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies 32, no. 1 (2005): 49. Kruk discusses the preva-lence of such books throughout the Arabic-speaking world, and mentions the worksof al-T. ūkhı̄ in this regard. I thank my anonymous reviewer and Matthew Melvin-Koushki for drawing my attention to al-T. ūkhı̄’s work.PAGE 34................. 19460$ $CH2 06-23-20 12:54:26 PS35Selove Magic as Poetry, Poetry as MagicFigure 1. Landberg 35a, folio 5a, Yale University Beinecke LibraryPAGE 35................. 19460$ $CH2 06-23-20 12:54:54 PS36 Magic, Ritual, and Witchcraft Spring 2020Man is a guest of life; and I, likewise a guest of the passage of time.While I’m here, I’ll be one among you, and when I’m gone, leave this photobehind.7One of his publications, Kitāb Sih. r al-kuhhān fı̄ h.ud.ūri l-jānn (The Soothsayer’sSorcery to Summon the Jinn), presents nearly the same collection of spells inalmost the same order (as detailed further below). His publications are gener-ally undated, though a quick search through world catalogues shows thatmost are thought to originate from the 1960s, which is to say, after the deathof Carlo Landberg (d. 1924). So it seems unlikely that al-T. ūkhı̄ is himself theoriginator of these spells, one of which has been attributed (almost certainlyfalsely) to the world-famous philosopher Ibn Sı̄nā (Avicenna, d. 1037).8Al-T. ūkhı̄ himself gives a vague hint of his sources in the introduction ofhis book, which I translate here:I gathered here what I’ve stumbled across from the ancients and came upon from thewise—both men and women, which is no surprise, given that the lower practices arethe specialty of women more than of men. And how many strange things I haveheard from women and witnessed them do myself ! I have explained all of that in thisbook, so everything I gathered in my writings was plucked from the peak of wisdom,and everything that could be wished for is provided, with nothing more to be desired.For I have mentioned all of the sciences, high and low, and I ask God for myself andfor you to let us know His subtle benevolence and to inspire our right conduct, andto grant us success, Amen.Despite the “old” appearance of this manuscript and al-T. ūkhı̄’s reference tothe “ancients,” most of these spells can be found in a very modern medium,that is, in bits and pieces circulating in Arabic-language internet blogs dedi-cated to occult matters.9 Though it is possible that al-T. ūkhı̄’s works are the7. Abd al-Fattāh. al-Sayyid al-T. ūkhı̄, Kitāb Sih. r al-kuhhān fı̄ h.ud. ūr al-jānn (Beirut:Al-Maktabah al-Thaqāfiyya, 196?), 2. / / 8. This is the spell to summon the jinn Abū Aryāh. , a version of which can befound in Abū Alı̄ Ibn Sı̄nā (attributed), Majmūat Ibn Sı̄nā al-kubrā fı̄ al-ulūm al-rūh. āniyya (Casablanca: Maktabat al-Wah.da al-Arabiyya, date unknown), 65.9. Alireza Doostdar discusses similar Persian websites in the context of modernIran in his The Iranian Metaphysicals: Explorations in Science, Islam, and the Uncanny(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2018); he relied on the contact made throughsuch websites to identify many of his interview subjects (especially on the websiteAsrār [“secrets”] which, he says, had 2,296 members in 2010 [p. 262 n1]). His bookdescribes the complex relationship of piety and faith, scientific rationalization, meta-PAGE 36................. 19460$ $CH2 06-23-20 12:54:57 PS37Selove Magic as Poetry, Poetry as Magicactual source of these posts, many of the websites cite al-Shaykh al-Rūh. ānı̄al-Maghrabı̄ (“the spiritual Moroccan shaykh”).10 The spells themselvesmostly belong to a certain genre of magic called shabshabah, which is associ-ated especially with folk practitioners in Morocco and Egypt. The Hinds-Badawi Dictionary of Egyptian Arabic defines the verb shabshib, yishabshib as “tocast a spell, specifically by beating the genitals with a slipper while pronounc-ing a magic formula (to jinx, e.g., an inattentive husband or a female rival).”11This type of spell is apparently associated with uneducated female prac-titioners,12 although the spell attributed to the great Ibn Sı̄nā (mentionedabove) is designated as a shabshabah in al-T. ūkhı̄ and in his falsely attributedMajmūah (I think it is safe to guess that Avicenna did not beat his genitaliawith a slipper in order to summon the jinn).Given that the spells are also circulating on the internet, the magicdescribed could be considered a kind of communal property or “folk magic,”insofar as this is a useful distinction. This seems to chime with what al-T. ūkhı̄claims about his male and female sources, and the association of female prac-titioners with “low” magic, where “low” (sufliyya) refers here in part to thosejinn who live under or on the earth, as opposed to the angels or planetaryspirits, who would be invoked by “high” magic. Nevertheless, one of theinvocations to the jinn mentioned here instructs the practitioner to grasp hispenis, and in general the text appears to be addressed to both male and femalepractitioners. As for the Landberg fragment, it gives the appearance of beinga thing of “elite” or “learned” knowledge (partly due to its location in theYale special collections) while still employing some colloquial expressionsthat give the opposite impression. In summary, the lines between “high” and“low,” male and female magic, are hopelessly blurred in this liminal text.This article will provide a full transcription and translation of this fragment,while also offering an analysis of some of its contents that takes seriously thecommon Arabic designation of poetry as sih. r (sorcery or magic).13 It was myphysical speculation, aesthetic enjoyment, and skepticism surrounding the modernmanifestation of these practices with ancient roots (in Iran, but it could be illuminat-ing in considering how such websites are used in modern Egypt as well as in themodern Western world).10. Morocco has a reputation for being a hotbed of magic.11. Martin Hinds and El-Said Badawi, A Dictionary of Egyptian Arabic (Cambridge:International Book Centre, 1987), 449–50.12. This is specifically mentioned in “Al-Shabshabāt,” last modified April 2010.Accessed January 7, 2018. Try-magicc.blogspot.co.uk, but it is also implied by theHinds-Badawi definition mentioned above.13. Like the term “magic,” which is often used to render it in English, sih. r is asomewhat open-ended term with sometimes negative connotations. It has beenPAGE 37................. 19460$ $CH2 06-23-20 12:54:57 PS38 Magic, Ritual, and Witchcraft Spring 2020surprise at finding a text so apparently “old” (handwritten on a manuscriptin the basement of a library) circulating in a format so vital and new, namelyin blogs and internet discussions, that led to me to take this approach, whichcenters on the embarrassment often occasioned by the mention of the word“magic” among self-consciously “modern” people. This will be addressedprimarily with the aid of Jonathan Culler’s discussion of embarrassment whenconfronted with (English-language) poetic apostrophe (that is, where thepoet addresses an entity with an exclamatory “O!” as in Shelley’s “O WildWest Wind!”); the Landberg fragment is full of similar apostrophes. But Iwould first like to clarify the connection between poetry and magic in theArabic context.SIH. R H. ALĀLJohann Bürgel’s 1988 monograph, The Feather of Simurgh: The “Licit magic”of the Arts in Medieval Islam, argues that “the magic of arts is the influence thatthey exercise on man’s soul and spirit. The ‘licit magic’ of poetry was itscapacity to transmute reality”:14The licit magic of poetry in Islam had many aspects . . . it extended from word-juggling and rhetorical artistry to the skillful and meaningful establishment of har-monies comparable to the procedures of the sorcerer. It wielded the power of praiseand imprecation, of changing a man’s moods, emotions, and situations. It alloweditself a fanciful play with the universe, based upon the analogies between macrocosmand microcosm, and attained the highest form of “licit magic” that we can conceiveof in Islamic Poetry: the transmutation of the visible world into a mirror of the invis-ible.15So poetry is “licit magic” (sih. r h.alāl), and this is more than a metaphor. Bürgelexplains that the ability of man as microcosm to embody the cosmos allowshim to reflect the creative powers of God in his creative imagination.16largely agreed among scholars of the field that in the context of Islamic magic,“occult” is a good translation of the Arabic ghayb or khafı̄y, a subject discussed, forexample, in the March 2017 workshop at Yale University, “Magic and the Occult inIslam and Beyond.” This article will usually use the term “magic” as the term mostevocative of the power of language in poetry under discussion here, as well as forits ambiguity, as mentioned above. Problems with defining these terms are usefullyintroduced by Emilie Savage-Smith in her “Introduction” to Magic and Divination inEarly Islam (Burlington, Vt.: Ashgate Publishing, 2004), xiii ff.14. Johann Bürgel, The Feather of Simurgh: The “Licit magic” of the Arts in MedievalIslam (New York: New York University Press, 2006), 2.15. Ibid., 84.16. Ibid., 17–18.PAGE 38................. 19460$ $CH2 06-23-20 12:54:58 PS39Selove Magic as Poetry, Poetry as MagicComparing definitions of language found in the famous tenth-centurywork of magic Ghāyat al-h.akı̄m (The Ultimate Goal of the Wise),17 to thatfound in al-Jurjānı̄’s even more famous eleventh-century work of literarytheory, Asrār al-balāgha (The Secrets of Eloquence),18 Bürgel shows that bothworks argue that language has the power to influence and change people. Hetranslates the following poem, quoted by al-Jurjānı̄, in regards to this subject:Rhymes exercise a subtle sorcery,poetry is like smokeless fire.Though worthy of the highest praise,musk becomes carcass through satire.Some syllables and letters slighthave overthrown many a sire.19This poem especially singles out the power of satire to destroy its object.Robert Elliott’s book The Power of Satire: Magic, Ritual, Art focuses on whathe claims are the magical origins of satirical verse in pre-Islamic Arabia aswell as in Ancient Ireland and Greece. He shows that what became the poeticgenre of satire in later, more enlightened times emerged from an ancientbelief in the power of language to curse and even kill an enemy.20 In portray-ing these beliefs as ancient relics of a bygone era, however, he implies thatthey do not survive in more modern ages, and indeed claims that by the timeof Horace and Juvenal these “primitive” ideas had more or less dissipated,and that satire “now kills in a metaphorical sense only.”21 This is often the17. Written by Maslama l-Qurt.ubı̄ (d. 964), though often erroneously attributedto Maslama l-Majrāt.ı̄ (d. c. 1008) (see Liana Saif, “From Ghāyat al-h.akı̄m to Shams al-maārif : Ways of Knowing and Paths of Power in Medieval Islam,” Arabica 64, no.3–4 (2017): 299. Its (loose) Latin translation is called the Picatrix. I eagerly anticipatea new edition of the influential Arabic text by Liana Saif.)18. This work was extremely influential on Sirāj al-Dı̄n Al-Sakkāki’s (d. 1229)Miftāh. al-Ulūm (Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ilmiyya, 1971), mentioned below.19. Bürgel, The Feather of Simurgh, 65.20. Elliott is not an Arabist, but the same idea can be found in Toufic Fahd’s LaDivination Arabe: Études Religieuses, Sociologiques, et Folkloriques sur le Milieu Natif del’Islam (Leiden: Brill, 1966) with all the relevant citations to satisfy the curiosity ofscholars of the field (see especially p. 117).21. Robert Elliot, The Power of Satire: Magic, Ritual, Art (Princeton: PrincetonUniversity Press, 1960), 119, 129. Others have noted that this very embarrassmenthas led scholars to misinterpret the work of poets who were influenced by theirinterest in the occult, because these scholars considered this occult influence on mod-ern literature too embarrassing to take seriously. See Leigh Wilson, Modernism andPAGE 39................. 19460$ $CH2 06-23-20 12:54:58 PS40 Magic, Ritual, and Witchcraft Spring 2020attitude adopted when discussing magic; it is assumed that belief in magicwas an antique folly that man grew out of when he discovered science, anda discussion of magic is therefore an occasion for embarrassment.WHY ARE WE EMBARRASSED?Jonathan Culler describes a similar feeling of embarrassment surrounding thephenomenon of poetic apostrophe; his chapter on the subject is specificallyabout poetry and does not mention magic, but it is nevertheless useful to ourargument here. Why do we find these poetic outbursts embarrassing (“OWild West Wind!”), and is it for the same reason that we would find itsimilarly embarrassing to hear a magician addressing the wind? For, the poetand the magician are probably two of the most likely professions to shout atand cajole forces of nature. And the statements “I am a poet” and “I am amagician” are probably equally likely to excite embarrassment in, at least,some self-consciously “modern,” “Western” contexts. Culler argues thatapostrophic poetic utterances are in fact embarrassing in part because, inevoking language associated with the speech of ancient times, they seem infact to declare that “I am a poet!” (or, in our case, “I am a magician!”). Andthis is “the pure embodiment of poetic pretension.”22Magic: Experiments with Spiritualism, Theosophy, and the Occult (Edinburgh: EdinburghUniversity Press, 2012), 9, and Timothy Materer, Modernist Alchemy: Poetry and theOccult (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1995), xiv, 3. Wilson also extensivelyexplores the (false) association of magic with anti-scientific “primitivism.” But Wilsonargues in Modernism and Magic that it was precisely the modernist poets’ serious striv-ing to harness the transformative powers of mimetic speech that link these efforts tomagical speech (18–20). I have tried to show elsewhere that a similar concern withthe power of mimesis (h. ikāyāh/muh. ākah ), not only to imitate but also to transformthe world, can be found in medieval Arabic literature (Emily Selove, H. ikāyat Abı̄ al-Qāsim [Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press: 2016], passim). Bürgel notes a similartransformative power in the manneristic/mimetic aspects of poetic magic, noting “thetransmutation of objects within and by means of a poem” in the poetry of al-Ma’mūnı̄, who “sees the scissors as a loving couple . . . the pencil box appears as apregnant woman . . . a basket it turned into a reliable, never complaining servant”;see The Feather of Simurgh, 71.22. “If we think of what the vocative represents in this process, we can see whyapostrophe should be embarrassing. It is the pure embodiment of poetic pretension:of the subject’s claim that in his verse he is not merely an empirical poet, a writer ofverse, but the embodiment of poetic tradition and of the spirit of poesy. Apostropheis perhaps always an indirect invocation of the muse. Devoid of semantic reference,the O of apostrophe refers to other apostrophes and thus to the lineage and conven-tions of sublime poetry”; Jonathan Culler, The Pursuit of Signs: Semiotics, Literature,Deconstruction (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2002), 143.PAGE 40................. 19460$ $CH2 06-23-20 12:55:00 PS41Selove Magic as Poetry, Poetry as MagicOn the subject of embarrassment, Culler first quotes Keats’s “embarrass-ing” poetic claim:“The charioteer with wondrous gesture talksTo the trees and mountains; and there soon appearShapes of delight, of mystery, and fear.”23And Culler goes on to explain:This Keatsian claim makes apparent the connection between apostrophe and embar-rassment. Readers temper this embarrassment by treating apostrophe as a poetic con-vention and the calling of spirits as a relic of archaic beliefs. What is really in question,however, is the power of poetry to make something happen.24So we are at first tempted to dismiss belief in the power of the voice to callon spirits as an archaic relic, but this dismissal underestimates the true powerof words to affect the world. Thus Culler suggests that our embarrassment atpoetic apostrophe is misguided because the poet indeed has the power tomake things happen; for example, it is widely believed that “poetry trans-mutes the temporal into the eternal, life into art.”25 Can this be related toBürgel’s “transmutation of the visible world into a mirror of the invisible?”As Rainer Maria Rilke (d. 1926) apostrophizes:“Earth, isn’t this what you want? an invisiblerearising in us? Is it not your dreamto be one day invisible? Earth! Invisible!What is your urgent command if not transformation?Earth, you darling, I will!”26To prove this power of poetry to transmute time and space, Culler invitesus to consider Keats’s chilling deathbed poem, in which he immortalized hisdying hand, which reaches across the years to raise the hairs on the backs ofour necks today:“This living hand, now warm and capableOf earnest grasping, would, if it were cold23. Ibid., 140. From Keats’s “Sleep and Poetry” (1816).24. Ibid., 140.25. Ibid., 152.26. Ibid., 145. From Rilke’s ninth Duino Elegy.PAGE 41................. 19460$ $CH2 06-23-20 12:55:00 PS42 Magic, Ritual, and Witchcraft Spring 2020And in the icy silence of the tomb,So haunt thy days and chill thy dreaming nightsThat thou wouldst wish thine own heart dry of bloodSo in my veins red life might stream again,And thou be conscience-calm’d—see, here it is—I hold it towards you.”27This is a poem which, we fear, may actually be a magic spell. It believablythreatens to be. As Culler writes, in reading it, we:fulfill [his] icy prediction, not by seeking actually to sacrifice our lives that Keatsmight live, but by losing our empirical lives: forgetting the temporality which sup-ports them and trying to embrace a purely fictional time in which we can believethat the hand is really present and perpetually held toward us through the poem. Thepoem predicts this mystification, dares us to resist it, and shows that its power isirresistible.28By addressing that which is absent the poet alters our perception of time andspace, Culler explains. With power like that, the question of whether theactions of the poet/magician are all in our heads or not is irrelevant. Toinfluence the mind is to influence matter.MAKING MENTAL CONTENTIt may be that our (post-)modern scholarly suspicion of the ability of languageto relate to reality or to touch “truth” muddles our understanding. This per-spective might prevent us from entering into the world of the medieval Arabswhence the roots of the Landberg fragment grow. Throughout his Languagebetween God and the Poets, Alexander Key disentangles our modern preoccu-pations about the relationship of language to reality (or lack thereof ) fromthose of the eleventh-century Arabic writers that he studies. “[W]hether lexi-cal accuracy relies on divine precedent or human reasoning, the lexicon isstill the place that connects specific vocal forms to mental contents, therebyenabling us to understand what God meant,”29 he writes. With the phrase“mental contents,” he translates the Arabic word manā (more commonlytranslated as “meaning”); he also describes manā as “a set of ontological and27. Ibid., 153. From Keats’s “This Living Hand.”28. Ibid., 154.29. Alexander Key, Language between God and the Poets: Manā in the Eleventh Cen-tury (Oakland: University of California Press, 2018), 94.PAGE 42................. 19460$ $CH2 06-23-20 12:55:01 PS43Selove Magic as Poetry, Poetry as Magiccognitive pigeonholes.”30 These “pigeonholes” and their study are inextrica-bly linked to a reverence for the language of the Qur’an and of poetry. AsKey explains, although we may have “false cognition[s]” of manā,31 accurateaccounts provide a way to understand God and his creation, and this is “the-ology,” or ilm al-kalām (“ ‘the science/discipline/knowledge of speech’ ”).32In this eleventh-century world of Arabic writers, not only theologians butalso poets may discern the hidden connections of God’s creation in theirlanguage. This formulation is not too distant from the theories of Culler’sRomantic poets. As Colin Falck explains in Myth, Truth, and Literature,33“Both Keats and Shelley see art as visionary (Shelley says that poetry ‘laysbare . . . the spirit’ of the world’s forms [Defence of Poetry, p.109]).”34Moreover, Falck writes, “Literature is concerned with the creation of termsrather than with the manipulative handling of them.”35 In this he might agreewith al-Jurjānı̄ (d. 1078 or 1081, and mentioned above). In his chapter onthis influential scholar of language, Key explains how through the process ofreading a poem, and reasoning through its metaphors and the connectionsthat they make between mental images, new forms of mental content arecreated. The poem therefore has the power to create; “a thing that does notexist is being reasoned into existence.”36 Indeed the power of the poem cancreate another world with its own internal logic, and Key focuses on thismanneristic tendency of Arabic poetry in his analysis, thereby allowing him-self to suggest that “Within the triad of language, mind, and reality, poetry isconcerned only with language and mind.”37 He quotes, however, al-Jurjānı̄’s30. Ibid., 134.31. Ibid., 147.32. Ibid., 111.33. This exploration of poetic power sets itself in opposition to Derridean andSaussurian theories of language, and associates Culler himself with such theories. ToFalck, the beginnings of language are the gestures of the infant, and therefore presup-pose a relationship between the speaker and the world mediated and enabled by thesegestures or linguistic acts.34. Colin Falck, Myth, Truth and Literature: Towards a True Post-Modernism (Cam-bridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), 64. The Romantics were by no meansalone in assigning a visionary function to the poet; this is a major theme of PatrickLepetit’s The Esoteric Secrets of Surrealism: Origins, Magic, and Secret Societies, trans. JonE. Graham (Rochester, Vt.: Inner Traditions, 2014), which provides quotations onthe subject from Victor Hugo, Hegel, and Rimbaud on p. 117, as well as from manysurrealists throughout the book.35. Falck, Myth, Truth and Literature, 62.36. Key, Language between God and the Poets, 209.37. Ibid., 197.PAGE 43................. 19460$ $CH2 06-23-20 12:55:01 PS44 Magic, Ritual, and Witchcraft Spring 2020description of the function of the definite article as “the ineffable magic ofclarity” (min sih.r al-bayān), for the word sih. r (sorcery) is rarely absent from afull discussion of Arabic poetry. And it seems that al-Jurjānı̄ is interested notonly in the new forms of mental contents that poetic metaphor creates, butin the way that these changing forms can affect real life situations.38 Thus themagic of poetry that al-Jurjānı̄ repeatedly refers to is the power not only tounderstand and reimagine God’s creation but to interact with and influencereality, and in much the same way that a magician does—through makingmicrocosmic connections and analogies in charismatic speech.TALKING TO THE MACROCOSMBoth poetry and magic are concerned with analogies and similarities betweenthings, which provide links that can be manipulated to powerful effect. Onefamous scholar of the Arabic language, Sirāj al-Dı̄n al-Sakkākı̄ (d. 1229) wasalso remembered as a powerful magician. When reading his seemingly drybook of language Miftāh. al-ulūm (The Key to Knowledge) in this light, histheory of simile and metaphor take on a more occult appearance, and we seehow he charts the currents of power and influence that lie hidden betweenthings. Likewise, his accounts of poets who mysteriously guess their rivalpoets’ verses before they are written39 suggest that masters of language areable to perceive the unknown, the hidden connections between things, andthe hidden order of the macrocosm reflected in the microcosm of man.In his exploration of poetic apostrophe, Culler explains that when address-ing and commanding elements of nature (praying to them?), the poet recog-nizes in some sense that man, as a microcosm, is reflected in and connected38. Ibid., 229. See also J. Landau, “Nas.ı̄r al-Dı̄n al-T. ūsı̄ and Poetic Imaginationin the Arabic and Persian Philosophical Tradition,” in Metaphor and Imagery in PersianPoetry, ed. Ali Asghar Seyed-Gohrab (Leiden: Brill, 2012), which explains the Aristo-telian and Avicennan philosophical background behind this idea of the power ofpoetry to cause human action. Landau concludes his explanation by saying, “Fortu-nately, the rational dimension of imaginative discourse allows us fully—and shame-lessly—to enjoy the enchantment of sih. r-i h.alāl, the licit magic of poetry” (57).39. Sirāj al-Dı̄n al-Sakkākı̄, Miftāh. , 701–2, specifically in reference to the earlyIslamic poets Jarı̄r and al-Farazdaq, commonly said to have shared the same inspiringdemon. See William Smyth “Some Quick Rules Ut Pictura Poesis: The Rules forSimile in Miftāh. al-Ulūm,” Oriens 33 (1992): 215–29 for an analysis of Sakkākı̄’stheory of simile and metaphor. I am currently engaged in a Leverhulme-fundedresearch project that aims to produce a critical edition and translation of Sakkākı̄’slesser known book of spells, Kitāb al-Shāmil wa-l-bah. r al-kāmil, as well as a completeaccount of his theory of language, which I will not, therefore, provide here. It is clearthat Sakkākı̄’s linguistic interests were related equally to his magical and rhetoricalPAGE 44................. 19460$ $CH2 06-23-20 12:55:02 PS45Selove Magic as Poetry, Poetry as Magicto the macrocosm in such a way that the manipulation of one may occasiona transformation in the other. Though Culler does not use the word “micro-cosm,” he sees the apostrophizing poet’s identification of the self with theworld, or vice versa, as essential to his poetic act. For Culler, this might allhappen in the poet’s and listeners’ minds; he writes that the poetic apostrophe“parcels out the self to fill the world, peopling the universe with fragmentsof the self . . . or else it internalizes what might have been thought external.”40Thus when a poet addresses the wind, he is actually addressing a part ofhimself, or as Wordsworth writes of poetic addresses to “ ‘ye birds,’ and ‘yefountains, meadows, hills, and groves,’ ” that, “Brought together by apostro-phes, they function as nodes or concretizations of stages in a drama ofmind.”41As for our embarrassment when confronted with such poetic or magicalattempts, perhaps it also stems in part from our inability to determine if suchutterances do indeed harness the power of Man as Microcosm, or ratherreflect the altogether more pathetic impulse of the first man who, accordingto Coleridge, called the Nightingale a melancholy bird,“And so, poor wretch! filled all things with himself,And made all gentle sounds tell back the taleOf his own sorrow.”42In either case, these poetic apostrophes, like those of the magician, explodea narrow and restricted concept of individuality. As Bever and Styers writein the introduction to Magic in the Modern World: “When magic is embraced,the self is seen in far more expansive terms as organically interconnectedwith—and permeated by—various aspects of the external world; the capaci-ties of the self are understood as participating in a broad network of materialand spiritual forces.”43 Ibn Sı̄nā explains the efficacy of Islamic prayer(duā) (whose language echoes in the spells of our Landberg fragment) bysaying that such prayer “acts upon . . . the celestial Spheres according toscholarly pursuits, but it may be that a feeling of embarrassment surrounding thesubject of magic has led some modern readers to neglect the magical side of the man.40. Culler, The Pursuit of Signs, 146.41. Ibid., 148.42. He continues: “And many a poet echoes the conceit.” Samuel Taylor Cole-ridge, “The Nightingale: A Conversation Poem,” in Coleridge: Select Poetry and Prose,ed. Stephen Potter (London: Nonesuch Press, 1971), 90.43. Edward Bever and Randall Styers, “Introduction,” in Magic in the ModernWorld: Strategies of Repression and Legitimization, ed. Edward Bever and Randall Styers(University Park: Penn State University Press, 2017), 4.PAGE 45................. 19460$ $CH2 06-23-20 12:55:03 PS46 Magic, Ritual, and Witchcraft Spring 2020all the laws of the microcosm, as inevitably as man’s imagination acts uponhis own body.”44Shelley defines the poem thus: “the creation of actions according to theunchangeable forms of human nature as existing in the mind of the creator,which is itself the image of all other minds.”45 Here Shelley, to the ears of amedieval Arabist, links the microcosm to the macrocosm within the creativeimaginative faculty of man; the poem is a location in which the personal andthe universal are connected, and the lofty and archetypal are brought intodirect relation to the everyday passions of the human heart. We might imag-ine a sorcerer calling upon the winds and causing a storm with his magicalpower; the difference between this imagined magician and Culler’s apostro-phizing poet is that Shelley, for example, in addressing the “Wild WestWind,” does not seek to influence the wind itself, but rather the listener or,perhaps, himself. And as is often (though not always) the case in occult texts,a love spell addressed to the moon in our Landberg fragment does not seekto change the course of the celestial orb, but rather the heart of a singlebeloved human, as shown below.46A LOVE SPELL TO THE MOONNor is the implied comparison with love poetry intended to psychologizethe practice of magic, or depict it as a set of merely symbolic rituals. After all,love poetry, broadly defined, can fuel the fires of physical passion and therebyhave effects as undeniably “real” as the creation of new human life! It is clearfrom this spell cited and translated below that real effects are expected; thephrase here translated as “and that is tried and true,” (wa dhālika mujarrab), isfound throughout the history of magical texts, and links them to the type ofexperimental proof associated with the practice of science.47 But the powerbeing tested here, as in the rest of this fragment, is chiefly that of poeticapostrophe.44. L. Gardet, Duā in: Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition, ed. Bearman, et. al.(Leiden: Brill, 1960–2007).45. Culler, The Pursuit of Signs, 149.46. I would like to thank Hunter Bandy and my anonymous reviewers for theircomments on a previous version of this edition and translation, intended for a plannedspecial issue of Mizan that was never meant to be.47. Erik Davis’s fascinating account and analysis of the life of rocket scientist andMagister Templi of Thelemic Magick, Jack Parsons, provides an instructive explora-tion of a scientist’s instrumental usage of ceremonial magic, thus “probing the gap . . .between magic as expression and magic as manipulation, between rationalism andromance”; Davis, “Babalon Launching,” 144.PAGE 46................. 19460$ $CH2 06-23-20 12:55:03 PS47Selove Magic as Poetry, Poetry as Magic !" #$%& ' () *+, -.& 0! 1 23% 4845 67 %5 83 (" 19$ (" :1 ; %< < :>', ?@ ABC 1C D [1b] ; E 1) %#! ?!+ %%F ?@@G 1C H ; %5 64 1 ?C 5 IG$ J0$ %+ K, 4& ; $ LH+# % 2 14 () M90 (N %$ 64 O.%$ 8D# N %+ < 25 P%H4 %H, 3 %Q E 19$ (" % Q % R9# +D# %0.S (" ;9D %@$S #4 ,+$ ?9N %5 83 (" 1" %+ P%< < 1+Q 2C Q 64 1+ B P%H 9.H %+ %', U9 *+, %H4 >3 H+" (Upon the arrival of the full moon look at it and say fourteen times . . .).50. One is meant to insert the name of the beloved here.PAGE 47................. 19460$ $CH2 06-23-20 12:55:05 PS48 Magic, Ritual, and Witchcraft Spring 2020Moreover, the frequent comparison of the beauty of the beloved to that of the full moon in Arabic poetry adds heft to the logic of the spell. Simi-larly the bodies of gazelles, and perfumes like musk, saffron, and rose water, are both the most common implements of Arabic love magic and the most common “metaphors” for the beauty of the beloved in Arabic love poetry.51 The fact that these poetic metaphors for beauty are employed to powerful effect in magic suggests that they are not mere metaphors, but rather hints of the hidden connections between things.A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE POWER OF POETRY AND RHYMED PROSEIn this particular spell we see a fine example of apostrophe coupled with a powerful use of rhymed prose (saj) (which rhyme is not reflected in the translation). It is not poetry in the classical Arabic sense, which would imply monorhyme and a strict adherence to a meter. It merely couples non-metrical rhyming phrases in a vaguely rhythmic fashion. “The ancient connection between poetry and religious ritual suggests a natural link between poetry and occultism,” writes Materer in his Modernist Alchemy: Poetry and the Occult; “[Prose] [f ]iction is not only less ancient but less marked by this ritual function.”52 Although the same is true to a degree in early and medieval Arabic literature, rhymed prose has obvious connec-tions to magical speech. Like poetry, it has been linked to pre-Islamic, divinatory, inspired speech. In La Divination Arabe, Toufic Fahd (citing the Count Landberg, former owner of our Landberg 35a), posits that this form of rhymed speech predated all or most metrical forms of Arabic poetry.53 On the subject of the pre-Islamic soothsayer (kāhin) and his rhymed prose, he writes that the root of the word implies a state of trance-like rage, and cites a hadith of the prophet Muhammad which warns, “Beware the rhymed prose of the soothsayers!”54 According to the anti-occultist Ibn Khaldūn (d. 1406), “the soothsayer can achieve the disregard of the senses with the help of rhymed prose, a distinguishing characteristic of soothsaying, but the 51. I have found many such examples in my study of al-Sakkākı̄’s grimoire, men-tioned above (Kitāb al-shāmil wa-ba․hr al-kāmil. London: British Library, Delhi Arabic 1915b; London: School of Oriental and African Studies, MS 46347; Manchester: John Ryland’s Library, MS 372 [404] [catalogued as Mus.haf al-zuharah]).52. Materer, Modernist Alchemy, xiv.53. Fahd, La Divination Arabe, 153–54, 73. He specifically cites Ignaz Goldziher as saying that it is more ancient than any previous meter, and Landberg as arguing that it is, rather, equally ancient with the first Arabic meter, rajaz, to which it is related.54. 0@ 6D 3, Fahd, La Divination Arabe, 152.PAGE 48................. 19460$ $CH2 06-23-20 12:55:07 PS49Selove Magic as Poetry, Poetry as Magicrevelation he receives is inspired by devils or affected by foreign notions (tas.awwur).”55A similar suspicion of the (pseudo-)prophetic powers of poetry is found throughout the Qur’an, and especially at the end of the Sūra of the Poets: “As for poets, the erring follow them. Hast thou not seen how they stray in every valley, and how they say that which they do not?”56 This sūra begins with an account of Moses besting Pharaoh’s sorcerers with the power of God. As Liana Saif explains, these sorcerers were thought to have used a power called sı̄miyā’, which “according to Ibn Arabı̄ . . .is the knowledge of letters and names that have power over the senses of the observer, causing illusions without any essential transformations.”57 This is to be contrasted with the power of the “true lettrist . . . to [generate] essences” or “[produce] beings.”58 It is significant that the sūra opens with these deceptive magicians and ends with a warning against deceptive poets. Poetry itself was com-monly believed to be inspired by the jinn, fiery beings who are often invis-ible or have the deceptive power to change shape, and whom sorcerers frequently invoke. An apostrophic spell in the Landberg fragment translated below provides instructions for contacting such a being.59 As Culler writes of poetic apostrophe, “Apostrophe is perhaps always an indirect invocation of the muse.”60 The difference between being inspired by the jinn or a muse and being inspired by God is the difference between poetry and prophecy.Both poetry and rhymed prose were of course also used throughout the history of Arabic literature for not-explicitly magical purposes of all sorts, including the most light-hearted humor, but they were often attributed to the inspiration of some form of “genius,” and always associated with the force of eloquent speech and the power to sway the spirit or bewitch the listener, a power to be both feared and esteemed. Even ordinary love poetry had the power of causing t.arab, an ecstasy that could cause the listener to tear his clothing and fall on the floor.55. Paraphrased by Michael Dols in Majnūn: The Madman in Medieval Islamic Society (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992), 419. 56. Q 26:224–26, translated by Marmaduke Pickthall.57. Saif, “From Ghāyat al-․hakı̄m to Shams al-maā rif,” 335. Ibn al-Arabı̄ (d. 1240) was a hugely influential Sufi thinker native to al-Andalus.58. On the subject of lettrism, see the essays of Matthew Melvin-Koushki.59. This is the spell found falsely attributed elsewhere to the venerable Ibn Sı̄nā in Majmūat ibn Sı̄na, 65.60. Culler, The Pursuit of Signs, 143.PAGE 49................. 19460$ $CH2 06-23-20 12:55:08 PS50 Magic, Ritual, and Witchcraft Spring 2020And some poems were indeed explicitly magical. Al-Būs.ı̄rı̄’s (d. 1294–1297) famous “mantle ode,” a poem of love and praise for the prophet Muhammad, which he wrote after a healing dream about the prophet drap-ing him with a cloak, is famously believed to have healing and protective powers. Particular verses have been used for a range of purposes including calming nervous animals, promoting marital love and fidelity, and improv-ing mental acuity.61 In her book The Mantle Odes, Suzanne Stetkevych explains the metaphorical images of the verses that she believes link them to these powers. She also offers an explanation of the power of the praise poem that applies to the apostrophic addresses in our Landberg fragment. Accord-ing to Stetkevych, the poem of praise is a performative speech act with pre-Islamic roots that institutes a contract between the poet and the patron (a “ ‘panegyric pact’ ”).62 The poem itself represents the first gift in a ritual-ized gift exchange that creates a bond of mutual obligation between the poet and the patron, who could be human or divine. Furthermore, the praise poem includes a duā (prayer or invocation) that calls God’s blessing down on the patron. This act, which she characterizes as the opposite of a curse, is a powerful ingredient in an effective act of poetic apostrophe.63 Elliott is therefore correct in his Power of Satire (mentioned at the begin-ning of this essay), that the roots of the magical power of poetry are ancient and pre-Islamic. He went wrong only when he argued that these powers have disappeared in the modern day.BETWEEN ANCIENT AND MODERN MAGICThe apostrophic speech in the spell translated above evokes ancient formu-lae (for example, the word “8D#” “swift” is used to call upon beings in many medieval occult texts). For the definition of the accompanying word N (here translated as “hie,” an archaic word meaning “come”), I initially had to turn to the same modern magic websites mentioned above in con-nection to this manuscript,64 until I saw that Canaan in his “Decipherment of Arabic talismans” (in Magic and Divination in Early Islam) had explained 61. Suzanne Stetkevych, The Mantle Odes: Arabic Praise Poems to the Prophet Mu․hammad (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2010), 86–87.62. Ibid., 91.63. Ibid., 146.64. And one of these websites claims to have infected my computer with a virus!: “Mawd․u fı̄ ghāyat al-ahmiyya kalimāt al-wah․ā,” last modified November 2011. Accessed December 12, 2017. Mohamed396.yoo7.com. This website also unconvincingly suggests that the origin of this word, used especially to address the jinn, is wā․hah (oasis).PAGE 50................. 19460$ $CH2 06-23-20 12:55:09 PS51Selove Magic as Poetry, Poetry as Magicthat this word is “unknown to the Arabic dictionaries” and comes from a root that means “to send a messenger, to hasten, to urge . . . to rouse.”65 Although the shabshaba spells that use these words are, according to one blogger, an ancient form of rhymed prose magic,66 the texts as they appear in the medium of internet discussions naturally do not give the appearance of being very ancient.67 I stumbled upon these internet discussions only when failing to find the definitions of the words I needed in the venerable old dictionaries I typically consult in my work as a medievalist.Here we return to the question mentioned above, which is why do we today, with embarrassment, often associate magic with the ancient and medieval world, when it remains pervasive in our modern world, whether in the so-called East or West? Peter Pels argues that magic persists precisely because it was made the other of modernity, and is consequently necessary to define its borders.68 Its persistence is evident not only online, but also in modern print culture; few bookshops of the world are bereft of at least a few volumes of spells, or “New Age” pastiches of these ancient traditions, although we might approach such shelves as surreptitiously as we would shelves of erotica. Perhaps our insistence that “modern” people do not believe in magic is a cover-up for another fear that would cause us to hide its practice, namely, that like the erotic, magic harnesses dangerous powers that can affect the body in sometimes damaging and frightening ways, and that are sometimes associated with satanic beings and impulses. In the spells translated below, the genitalia are presented as a hidden source of power, to be exposed and manipulated like a magic wand. Elsewhere in occult texts (Arabic and oth-erwise), the genitalia are a site of vulnerability, whose prowess can be enhanced or depleted by magic. Indeed, the genitalia are an appropriate synecdoche for the entire genre, as they are hidden in shame but also trea-sured, and associated with primitive behavior but as powerful as ever in driving our modern behavior. 65. Tewfik Canaan, “The Decipherment of Arabic Talismans,” in Magic and Divination in Early Islam, ed. Emilie Savage-Smith (Burlington, Vt.: Ashgate Publishing, 2004), 150. He also mentions the word al-ajal in this discussion.66. “Al-Shabshabāt.” Try-magicc.blogspot.co.uk.67. “Li-l-jalb wa-l-tahyı̄j,” last modified September 2011. Accessed December 6, 2017. Sheikhmaghreb.com; “Was.ifāt najh․ū liyā,” last modified November 2014. Accessed January 7, 2018. https://esrar.7olm.org/t93712-topic.68. Bever and Styers, Magic in the Modern World, 3.PAGE 51................. 19460$ $CH2 06-23-20 12:55:10 PS52 Magic, Ritual, and Witchcraft Spring 2020The question of authorship also presents itself here. This authorless frag-ment of a manuscript contains texts that now circulate among bloggers who often hide behind their online avatars. And there is something unsavory about many of the sites I visited, several of which threatened to infect my computer with a virus. The sites presenting these spells are ephemeral, often disappearing, only to be replaced by other similar sites presenting the same spells, cut and pasted. But their anonymity is perhaps preserved not out of embarrassment alone, but for the same reason that two of the Romantic poets mentioned above, Wordsworth and Coleridge, published their vol-ume Lyrical Ballads anonymously: because in imitating the anonymous ancient ballads of the salt of the earth, they sought to harness language’s ancient, natural, primordial power. And like the Neoclassical poetry that preceded that of the Romantics, Lyrical Ballads derives its authority from the intellectual legends of the ancient world. Indeed, many English poets turned to the very sources of inspiration that lay behind so many occult manuals, namely, to the Hermetic corpus.69 The magical power of the Landberg fragment comes from its having swum in a sea of ancient wisdom, both “elite” and “common,” and its authority is derived not from its authorial voice but from the “tissue of cita-tions” which Barthes calls the text in his famous essay, “The Death of the Author.”70 This text is almost like a fragment of a cookbook. One could argue that a magic spell is something in between a recipe and a poem, with the efficacy of both relying partly on the words and knowledge of those who went before, as well as on the skill of the current practitioner. They could also be compared to a sex manual, which couples aphrodisiacal reci-pes with dirty stories that have the same physical power to arouse as the recipes themselves. Both cookbooks and sex manuals are, of course, associ-ated with private use in the home, often by women. Blend all this with the power of poetry, and you have a book of magic spells.LANDBERG 35A TRANSLATION AND TRANSCRIPTION CONTINUEDI will conclude this essay with a transcription and translation of the remain-der of Landberg 35a, with its blend of spices, genitalia, and apostrophe (the first section of this manuscript, a spell addressed to the moon, was provided above). It is evident that the text is sometimes corrupt, a feature reflected in 69. Materer, Modernist Alchemy, 90.70. First appearing in a translation by Richard Howard in Aspen, 5-6 (1967). http://www.ubu.com/aspen/aspen5and6/threeEssays.html#barthesPAGE 52................. 19460$ $CH2 06-23-20 12:55:12 PS53Selove Magic as Poetry, Poetry as Magican occasionally disjointed-sounding translation. The footnotes detail points of departure between the texts as presented in the Landberg fragment, the text provided in two editions of al-T. ūkhı̄’s Soothsayer’s Sorcery, and the texts found circulating on the internet (seemingly all cut and pasted from an unknown source). In these footnotes, Y here refers to the fragment in Yale’s special collections, T refers to al-T. ūkhı̄’s version, and W refers to the ver-sion circulating on the internet, in which the spells are presented separately from one another. It is clear from the tangle of dissimilarities between these texts that all three stem from different branches of textual transmission and have a somewhat distant genetic relationship to one another. Al-T. ūkhı̄ does provide the spells in roughly the same order and grouping as the Landberg fragment, with some additional spells in between, and with the spell to summon Abū Aryāh․ preceding the spell to summon the spirit of the jar.71 Where differences occur between texts, al-T. ūkhı̄ agrees with the Landberg fragment in twelve cases, but with the internet in only five cases. Landberg agrees with the internet against al-T. ūkhı̄ in ten cases. They all provide a different reading in thirteen cases. It is difficult to draw conclusions from this complicated picture. I do not include a similar comparison of the love spells to the moon above because several versions of these spells appear together in al-T. ūkhı̄ and the resulting picture was too absurdly baroque. Establishing the authorship or genetic relationship of these texts is not the goal of this paper, which instead has sought to illuminate the power of its language. Although I strove to capture some of this power in my transla-tion, unsurprisingly it proved as difficult to translate a magic spell as it is to translate a poem, a final item of proof that poetic and magical language are intimately related.QH" [2b] 85 %H< (" 0! ; !" #$% 9 A, M990 W& 2X 2D C ' :T $ >Q #[ 8% LC '< 1.$ 0" \E 1+ 90! ]$ LCF 9+ ' 0& >', (0. .LCF %+ ; 0 \@ #4 $ L%Q4 # U$ 1+9, E () ED# WE5"Another chapter of names of the moon, which is also to attract the absent and to excite. You recite it on the fourteenth night of the month in propor-tion to the numerical value of the name of the desired one. You say: O bright and shining moon, give my regards to your alluring one and tell her 71. The spells to the moon are in ․Tūkhı̄, al-Si․hr, 79–80, the spell to summon Abū Aryāh․ on 83–84, followed by the spell to the spirit of the jar also on 84, and the white sand spell on 85.PAGE 53................. 19460$ $CH2 06-23-20 12:55:14 PS54 Magic, Ritual, and Witchcraft Spring 2020that I am anxious, sleepless, hair unkempt.72 Lead hastening, hurrying So-and-so, bringing him to me quickly, immediately, by the right of your seven noble names and their wealth of shining light. The end., 73943% [3a] (" : ^ >4< _D, U$ 8# ?Q%& ) M990 2D C & 4!4[ $ 8+ LQ 8` LQ 6, . 76>" %V4 F 27V, -. 75% _D, % O', 74J3 2 ;9 %V4 % 2D ; H, U+ 27 \QV %N E" U.& " F 8Q 1' $& [3b] : ^ :>', F# ABC 773 4 aN 1.3 3 84+ 1+9b $43 99X, J 1" 1GV E 1. 1+ " 1c 25 '# d9! e9[ 78',%S # 2Nb @3 1 @3 ![ 1 ![ 69D 1+5 8@ 69+ ' 69 H0# 6 S$ J"Q 1N [4a] 9 #$ 1" ;+ 1$4 1 25 9Y 80>#T 2Nb 799C 9 9 G[+ G7V Ja. D I$ 829#4, 1# 9[ 811,^" -< % JV$ %V4$ % :$ .& 85(" 1+9 T BC 1 8# 84E O'! ;9$ >^. 94@ 9Xa 1< F 83: 9C H.(0. " 8D#86 N ' f gF#$ 9C 9C 94@ 9Xa Chapter of another slipper spell, namely to attract and excite.If you want to accomplish this, sit on your knees in front of a jar of water and grasp your penis and alternate standing and sitting while addressing the jar while the incense is working. When you hear a buzzing sound like the buzz of bees inside the jar, you will know that it is a sign of the presence of the servant. So ask him what you want to attract and manifest.The incense is myrtle, mahaleb, Chinese cubeb, spikenard, Kermani cumin, and olibanum.72. Or perhaps, “Send Shaar” (the name of a spirit or jinn?).73. 9@$% ("] Y and T: omitted in W.74. J3] Y and T: J3^ W.75. % _D, % O',] Y: Omitted in W and T.76. >" %V4] Y and W: Omitted in T.77. 3 4 aN 1.3 3 84+ 1+9b $43 2 ;9 %V4] Y and W: %V4 1.3 3 1+9b $43 ;9 T.78. ',%S] Y and W: hG,%S T.79. 9C] Y and W: omitted in T.80. >#T] W and T: >#G Y.81. 1,^"] W and T: 1,F" Y.82. 9#4, 1# 9[] Y: 9<%& 1# 9[& 9@[& CH.& W. 9'$ (# 9[ T.83. :] Y and W: \H T.84. E O'!] Y and T: ( E, OG! W.85. (" 1+9] Y: 8'" ( ;9 W. (" (+4 T.86. (0. " 8D# N ] Y: B3 4 () B3 ( 25) W. ' f gF#$ T.PAGE 54................. 19460$ $CH2 06-23-20 12:55:16 PS55Selove Magic as Poetry, Poetry as MagicAnd this is the spell, you say: O jar of water, O father of piety, O host of highness and ascent, O shaykh of shaykhs and Amalekites,87 answer my demand and give me what I desire; the change of my condition is not unknown to kings. I call you by the swift name and the lofty pact and the impregnable oath against every afflicted jinn, Shalshala in Shalshala and Kalkala in Kalkala88 the Rapacious the Hardened the Passionate the Pro-tected, Come, O Master of the Pleasing Deeds, attract my beloved to me and grant me the gift, while I with water quench you and with incense perfume you and charm you, and in my time of need I will carry you with me and follow you and with the spirit of the body make you victorious and redeem you. Come, O water of the jar, O water-bearer to small and large, O dweller among the pots, to the prick do for me this deed and give me power over the small and the great. Come, Come, by God’s certain decrees, hie swiftly now. The End.; I% $& 908#, . U$ 8# ?Q% ) 89.I% $& [4b] 1 HH[ " C I% $& 25 $JHN 931 @ 1 @, 92%# i!@ 91H4 " -.& UH< O', 0 1 U#Y, j%3 C >" %V4 95U& U$ 2D$ 83, 94;!" HN F# &',I%$& %a j% jN 98N [5a] U. 97Lb+, L5 3 4 aN 96$F3100:, 3 %3B I% $& %b ABC WYN H ;9$ 8` 99 87. I.e. giants.88. “Trickle in a trickle and a callosity in a callosity,” or rather, a phrase that ideophon-ically expresses swiftness.89. I% $] Y: I%$ W. I $ T. Abū Riyāh․, one of the alternative names for this jinn, means “weathervane.”90. 8#, .] Y: 8" W and T.91. H4] Y and T: omitted in W.92. %#] Y and W and Majmūat Ibn Sı̄nā: k& in T, which then omits everything up to the recitation of the spell. 93. 1] Y: N W. 94. ;!" HN] Y and T, W: 10. 95. U& U$ 2D$ 83,] Y: H, ; $ 83, W. 96. $F3] Y: 43 W. 97. T instead gives incense at end of spell and they are different: 4+ 1+9b $43 %V4 3 The version in Majmūat Ibn Sı̄nā, 65, is roughly similar to Y and W version.98. N U.] Y: U+X W. 99. ] Y: JH9$ AH W. 100. , 3 %3B I% $& %b] Y: W omits this line and the following image. T pro-vides only the image.PAGE 55................. 19460$ $CH2 06-23-20 12:55:17 PS56 Magic, Ritual, and Witchcraft Spring 2020[5b]I 29E@ 8N 102I% $& 9" -<& >', 101. ;!" HN 0$ \F#, 1 F# ABC :1D H+" PI4a : 1 103L' f HD, I 4 L%4 1 g IE i9$ H' 1041.C$ 1 0l 1.[ 1 mb PIEa 2, b& ;D J I 6V 8C& ?+4 I 1., D 'G 0 1 9 1051.@ () ."& 25 1.Q L%V$ [ N [6a] n# (" ;N 0 jE7$ \X 108_4 + 1072 ; %H'$ 106L 1$ 0# 8D# N V $ JET LD 9 1V 109e9Q d0 d. d+$ d.& 893 #. f +4N 11189G3 J& (" f [6b] m9 110& 83 8# m 2Nb A chapter on summoning Abū Aryāh․, who is a powerful helper known as Abū Aryāh․. If you want to work with him, make yourself an Abū Aryāh․ from paper and put it in the pit and stand in front of it naked with genitals exposed in a secluded place by yourself and recite the spell twenty-one times and the attraction of the desired one by his name and the name of his mother is guaranteed.And the incense are cumin and coriander and olibanum and tanās.irı̄ ben-zoin. And he will appear, so when he appears, burn the paper with the picture of Abū Aryāh․, and the desired one will take shape in front of you, present. And this is the picture of Abū Aryāh․ that was mentioned, as you see:112This is the spell that you recite twenty-one times. Say, “I swear on you O Abū Aryāh․, O bearer of the hooks and the lances, O girded with swords and arms, O wayfarer in deserts and plains, you praise God Almighty in the evening and the morning, at the coming and the going, for the daughters of the free and easy people, kings of the Jinn, masters of rank and righteousness, arrange my affairs and show me my proof and come and smell my incense and my smoke and attract your assistants to my place, flying in the air and 101. ;!" HN 0$ \F#, 1] Y: omitted in W and T.102. I% $&] Y: I% $ W. I% $ T.103. L' f] Y and T: o W.104. 1.C$ 1 0l] Y and T: omitted in W.105. 1.@ () ."& 25] Y and W. @ ( ." 25 T. 106. L 1$ ] Y and T: 1$ 1$4 W.107. 2 ] Y and T: ;D W.108. _4] Y and T: 4 W.109. e9Q] Y: e W. eQ T.110. & 83 8# m 2Nb 8D# N V $ JET LD 9 1V] Y: omitted in W. T has all as in Y except 8D# N.111. 89G3] Y : 89'3 W. T had 89G7 J ("112. See picture at the beginning of this article.PAGE 56................. 19460$ $CH2 06-23-20 12:55:18 PS57Selove Magic as Poetry, Poetry as Magictearing through the sky and bringing to me my desired one straight from the power of the dawn of love and desire and containing the vapors by the dis-charging of the whim of the Merciful on the throne I stand upright, Enoch Banūkh Sarnākh Mahlūkh Damālı̄kh Melchi director of clouds and flowing of celestial spheres by the order of the speech, hie swiftly O master of the wind, do every pleasing deed with God guaranteeing your action and we trust to God and how excellent a trustee He is.”U9" 114, 1'+ "+ p9$T 8 ; !43 (" 113p4', . U$ 8# ?Q% ) .8 4!4[ $ (" 8 %H4, () U5, 1173 4 aN LQ5 $F3 %V4 116;9#4 115F# 1218b (N 120K90 ; U 8a LB 119L%H, 1!,118 A0lA chapter on a slipper spell using sand. If you want to work with this, then you take a handful of pure fine white sand and you recite the spell seventy times. The incense are coriander, benzoin, olibanum. You approach the desired one and throw the sand on his back while you are walking and you won’t perceive the stimulation that has happened to him until he has intercourse . . .113. p4', .] Y and W: p4< T. 114. ,] Y: 1, W. , T.115. F#] Y and T: F# ABC W.116. p4', . Y and W: qr T. 117. 3 4 aN LQ5 A$F3 %V4] Y: G[. $F3 3 4 %V4 (provided at end of text in W). Not found in T.118. A0l ("] Y and T: U$$ (" A0l (" W.119. L%H,] Y: , W. L%H. T.120. K90] Y: D90 W. K90 1 T.121. 8b] Y: ( HN 8 0& 9" -<& :>', :F# 1C ABC ..U$4 () 8b (@4 (N (@$ U@, 09V, U.E +$& E (" J%+$ >F+, & (X >E ; mb 83 (D+ :1[ 83 9*" % \9< \ $ 9D ; f #+ 9 \F^ 8% ; f #5 (N -9 83 H+" Q ("9*# (# o$ S) < S >N S .T, 85: 83 (+ :1[ 83 ( HN$ 8 0 9" -<& :>', F# ABC U$4 8b N ; f #+ \F^ 8% ; f #5 1N -9 83 (" J%+$ >F+, (X >E 1 mb 1# o$ S < S 9*" \9< \9< \Q \Q $ 9D %..This spell can be found on the following websites: “Bāb fı̄ shashabat al-raml al-abyad․,” last modified February 2012. Accessed January 7, 2018. Afaratelgn.3oloum.com; “Bāb fı̄ shishibat al-raml al-abyad․,” last modified October 2015. Accessed January 7, 2018. http://magiccure.0wn0.com; “Shashabat al-raml al-abyad․,” last modified April 2008. Accessed January 7, 2018. http://falk.ahlamontada.com (this last website also threatened to infect my laptop with a virus).PAGE 57................. 19460$ $CH2 06-23-20 12:55:19 PS

An Occult and Alchemical Library

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An Occult and Alchemical Library

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