The division of the human being into a triad is more or less consistent across the board irrespective of tradition, where a dyad division is spoken of it is usually a result of degradation of knowledge.

The Hebrew terms mentioned are a Kabalistic division
Neshamah, Ruach, and Nefesh

Nefesh is not flesh, it is derived from the word relating to breath. Nefesh is the same as the Aramaic Naphsha

The three corresponding terms in Arabic terms, in Islamic thought are
Nafs - Soul (from breath)
Ruh - Spirit (from wind)
Jism - Body / Flesh

Ruach in modern Hebrew is the same as Ruah which is a direct Hebrew cognate of the Arabic Ruh Nefesh is obviously the Arabic Nafs.

The Nafs / Nefesh is the animal soul, the Latin "Animus" which is the set of modalities composed of the vital energies of the being, its most sublime prolongations touch the Ruh which includes the "heart" or "qalb" the heart being the subtle center in one's being that is the seat of the soul, and the spiritual organ by which one knows God. It is roughly equivalent to the Heart Chakra though in middle eastern traditions the Heart is a "latifa" - or subtlety that encompasses larger aspects of one's being than the Heart chakra.

Basically the heart chakra is a portion of the "heart" par excellence. The Heart is the seat of the intellect or 'aql which is NOT the source of reason, as modern Western thought surmises, rather it is the reflection of the spirit itself.

The Nafs is also equivalent to the psyche, thus it is an intermediate zone of one’s reality and being between pure spirit and corporeal incarnated flesh.

That which “astral projects” is a specific modality of the Nafs, of the soul, depending on whether it is a “real time zone” projection, and etheric projection or a “higher astral” projection, different modalities of our being are involved, the discussions on this board on Astral projection versus “phasing” reflects this matter, the psyche is a continuum, the soul is a continuum, even the body is, all are modalities of the same being and can experience consciousness in different modes.

Regarding Christian fears of “demons” and “demonic realities” relating to astral projection – I am not Christian. However these fears are not without grounding, the very nature of the world in which the energies of the psyche, the nafs, are most at home is what the ancient Greeks called “Daemonic” and the world of the Daemons is NOT evil, however it is ambiguous, highly so, in flux, subject to change depending on one’s thoughts and the thoughts of other beings with which one interacts, and the intelligences that are at home in the Daemonic world can be, like human beings in the flesh, benevolent and kind, as well as capricious and cruel, and above all highly misleading.

The Ancient Celt’s legends of the Fairy world related to this level of reality.

Magic deals with this level of reality.

There is a “glamour’ a sort of entrapping beauty that characterizes this world, which is why in some spiritual traditions like certain schools of Yoga, Buddhism, as well as Islamic Sufism, the practitioner is generally steered away from this world and “projecting” into it as a cultivated skill due to their tendency to “become stuck there”

Such people are tended to be called “space cadets” in modern parlance, and every New Age scene has its few.

And there are highly spiritual entities in this world, but there are also highly dangerous, and malevolent ones as well and then general pleasant received wisdom that such beings are only in the “lower astral” and not the “higher” one is a partial truth, at best, and in all of this it demands a clarity of will, vision, and intent that is apart from “psychic joyriding”

So your Fundie Christian isn’t completely off the mark, he is expressing a partial truth poorly understood.

Certain types of meditation and techniques produce a partial dislocation of modalities of our psyche, almost as a side effect, they can be isolated and cultivated into the point that this side effect is made into a primary effect and certain aspects of the world may be explored and experienced in this state in a more profound degree than in ordinary waking consciousness.

But one must always keep one’s wits about one, no matter in what neighborhoods one wanders And idle wandering isn’t spiritual seeking, it is sightseeing.

And it is best to walk on some streets in the light of day, and best to avoid certain alleyways in the dark.

Hello Mustardseed, Ambientsound, and others. Thank you for the cogent replies to my post. While I prepare (and try to trim down to size) my post on abrogation I will try to briefly answer the question posted below - without straying too far into another thread of discussion.

Mustardseed, you ask:

1. "Do you as an individual, have a moral standard for yourself, any other than what can be derived from and understood in the Koran?."

The reason I ask this is: If you accept actions and ethics as they are laid out in the Koran ONLY, and do not judge behavior based on human rights, we could be talking in vain."

After this question you laid out the example of the classical Sunni ruling of death for apostasy - a topic that is highly nuanced and best saved for a later response to your older questions. For now I confine my answer to this:

- I believe assuming that a discourse is in vain, when the two sides of the discourse do not share particular fundamental axioms or all aspects of a common worldview, is at  worst a "cop-out", and at best a well-meaning but TRAGIC expression of regrettable despair.

This is because, invariably, both sides usually share something essential in common
that may transcend narrow contested axioms, and this attitude denies the essential humanity of the other because it assumes that the other is so distant from one as to preclude effective conversation, this is a dehumanizing act. It is a type of sublimated violence, in a sense.

- I accept certain sources of knowledge as having binding authority on my moral, ethical,
social, and spiritual behavior, decisions and transactions

These sources are consistent with classical Islamic views as expressed by our men of knowledge. There may be differences here and there regarding one or two sources, or their ordering, but their being privileged as sources of information is fully in line with Classical Islamic worldviews.

They form an epistemological hierarchy in which some forms of knowing are regarded as ontologically superior, and thus possessing a greater priority, than others.

1. The Quran and its meanings - as the revealed Word of God.

2. The Sunnah - or normative wont - of the Prophet Muhammad, as either expressed
in textual transmission (Hadith) or in the living patterns of the normative behavior
of his earliest community in Madina. This second source is primarily esteemed by the Malikite school, which I follow, and may in cases trump recorded Hadiths.

3. Logic, analogy, intellection and reason - "mantiqu", "qiyas", "'aql" respectively in Arabic.

4. "Firasat" or perspicacity and intuition.

5. Inner Illumination, Gnosis - known as "marifa" or "irfan" in Arabic, it is non-discursive direct knowledge "by taste" (bi'dhawq) by presence in which, to varying degrees, the object known is experienced as a form of union with the knower and thus becomes, in a sense, a subject: in this mode MEANINGS are more or less EMPOSSED
on the heart of the knower, the images and forms before her are simply loci in which meanings are apprehended and behelden.

No Muslim, of any significant degree of education, would ever say that the Quran alone is the sole source of knowledge, though she may say that the Quran contains in itself a synthesis of all possible knowledge in an implicit way. This is an esoteric matter, regarded by the people of unveiling and gnosis, and is simply mentioned in passing.

I believe that you are mixing up modes of knowing and priorities. You mention a legal judgment in conjunction with a private moral stance, and assimilate the two together. I think this is, with all due respect, a muddling of things. This is inevitable, perhaps, without a clear criterion and set of inward principles.

You make a moral stance on the notion of “human rights” but can you clearly define these “rights” define their source, and their locus, from whence they come, and by what they are conditioned? Or do you simply accept the notion in a vague and hazy way?

-I note that the very notion of "human rights" itself is particular to a certain worldview, betraying certain Historical origins and influences. There is no judgement in any of this stated below, these are observations made upon culture and civilization.

Here is an observation: I have Canadian friends who view universal dental coverage as "a human right", most Good 'Ol Boys in Kansas would certainly not view this as being the case. This is not frivioulsy, universal dental coverage may well be a highly important right, health care (as anyone who has watched Michael Moore’s “Sicko would attest) is important, highly so, and one can argue that a responsible civilization invests in its citizen’s healthcare. One can indeed argue that this is a right we have, to be protected medically. However this is a debate, which indicates that we are in the realm of the relative and historically conditioned, not absolutes.

Here too is an observation, again in the realm of the relative and historically conditioned, we see in one generation Gay rights and Gay marriage, more or less on the margins of the civil and human rights discourse until the 1980's, have become pressing issues of human rights today. 100 years ago the very phrase "human rights" barely existed, 100 years ago the British Army, the most civilized Army in the world, had the death penalty for homosexual officers. Really, it is a historical fact look it up.

No one questions the essential foundations of Anglo-American society due to historically embarrassing treatment of homosexual Army Officers. Such treatment was seen as right and just, a RIGHT of the state and society, 100 years ago. Today it is seen as unjust and wrong, and a violation of the RIGHT of the individual. 50 years from now no one here has any idea what will or will not be considered a right in Anglo-American culture (or global monoculture)

What is or is not considered to be a human right has changed considerably in our lifetimes, several times. None dispute this. Some attribute it to progress, the notion of progress itself I regard as an absurdity founded upon a gross type of dialectical materialism and evolutionism. Today there are, in sheer numbers, more Slaves alive than in 1900, or in 1800 for that matter. Proportionately who knows, globally. Ottoman Sultans no longer have slave girls and concubines, but a lot of imporverished raped and coerced girls from Belarus and the Ukraine walk the night in the most progressive European cities as sex-slaves, facing HIV, beatings, and murder and selling their sex and souls as commodities…

Not much has changed, there is no progress, there is only change.

Spanking one's children is a violation of their human rights in some Nordic countries. 100 years ago this was not the case, it is NOT the case in Ohio though if some goody-two-shoe policy wonks had their way it would be

With this in mind some thoughtful persons, who truly, honestly, reflect on the issue, must acknowledge that "judging behavior based on human rights" is contingent to the notion of human rights held by the ones doing the judging and their unique cultural context.

Many such thoughtful persons have reflected on the issue, in absence of a transcendent core principle in their being, and this tends to leave them in some existential angst when doing so….

Others who do not lack transcendent reference points may have different reactions.
With this in mind I increasingly reject the discourse of "human rights" as being a cynical manipulation of the idealistic by the jaded for the purposes of social engineering or maintain a certain useful social order...

This is why I regard the idea of Universal Human Rights as laughable.

Human rights do exist, but the particular expression of “human rights” articulated by some sectors of modern Western society are entirely particular, historically conditioned, and far from general or universal.

This is not an excuse for evil and oppression, it is a fact.

When this is pointed out some have a tendency to react, emotionally, and make veiled insinuations concerning fascism and such like. I trust that the readers here are more honest, and more sophisticated.

Social order is highly useful, but it is far from ultimate truth.

A man who possesses principles that are immutable and regarded by him as superior would fain set them aside for the passing progressive whims of the general populace.

Human beings DO have rights, some of these rights are immutable, but some are contingent and contextual and are mutable, it is a matter of which rights, and what the context is.

Human beings also have duties and mutual responsibilities, and indeed their rights are rights upon others, which indicates a reciprocal analog which are DUTIES, and duty is the dirty four-letter-word that our generation is uncomfortable with because a duty requires effort. And it requires obligation, and no one wants to feel obliged, because feeling obliged makes our egos feel bad.

You are obliged.

You are obliged to treat your neighbor with justice, to feed and clothe and nurture your child. This is obligation, it is also their right; you SHOULD do it out of love and tenderness, however at its root it is still an obligation and I question the maturity of an outlook that rejects this, or persists in a certain discomfort here. Grow up. I OWE you something, and you OWE me something, and these things we owe to each other are rights and duties depending on which side of the fence we sit upon.

The Quran lays out certain obligations, duties, describes certain rights and attitudes to be taken. In that my soul recognizes the Quran as the word of Allah I would be a fool not to take them seriously.

- I believe that the Quran is the world of Allah, not to be taken literally as the English phrase "word of God" may imply, it is a highly nuanced and context driven matter, but in general however the words of the Quran are loci of meanings communicated to humanity by its existential source of being - Allah - and in itself is a Symbol, of the archetype of
Divine speech itself, the Logos, and as such its statements, prohibitions, commands, encouragements, riddles, and similitude are to be regarded with a certain primacy.

Since I view morality as an ontological matter, and not rooted in social respectability or judgments, but in the nature of Being itself, that moral laws are natural and supernatural, in turn, laws reflecting The Real, “al-Haqq” (being one of the 99 names of Allah) the Quran's statements are moral injunctions par excellence.

It does not follow, however, that the Quran is alone top be regarded as a source of moral
injunctions. But as a Muslim I must give it primacy.

I may not understand certain of the Quran’s positions, and to reflect on them is to understand them in greater depth, and they may or may not make uncomfortable due to my social conditioning, but this social conditioning is contingent, derivative, and unique to particular times and conditions.

The Quran, being the Word of Allah, possesses a dimension that is a-historical, and stands outside the flux of history. If one examines it carefully, many of its laws and injunctions are very similar to, or identical with, injunctions and divine laws in other past archaic traditions from the most ancient of the Romans and Greeks, the most ancient Hebrews, or Indians or Persians, or Mayans – modern eyes tend to gloss over these things and see only what they WANT to see in ancient law, ancient Dharma.

The notion of sacred Law is found in all of the earliest traditions, or a sacred way of being and acting in which acting in accordance to it brings felicity, and in opposition to it brings abasement. This is expressed in metaphysical and naturalistic terms in some traditions, like the Ancient Chinese Tao or some ancient Indian teachings, or in theomorphic or deistic terms in other traditions such as Judaic, Christian, or say the European Paganisms.

Regarding the specific issue of the classical judgment of Death for an Apostate, this is extra-Quranic, in any case, is not found in the Quran, though it is possible that certain ayats (verses) may be interpreted as alluding to such. This judgment is a matter of fiqh (sacred law) derived from the understanding of the Prophet's Sunnah by the earliest scholars of the community.

In making this derivation they did not rely on the Quran alone and thus their "moral standard" in this matter was not restricted to "what can be derived from and understood in the Koran.."

Neither is mine.

Not quite a nutshell, but this is a complex question.

These are serious questions, and meant as challenges. One who is weak or who is not a true seeker will simply fall back on what she, or he, wants to believe to be true. The one who is a true seeker may or may not appreciate the intent behind my asking these questions but willc certainly be able to rise to the challenge.

How do you know and verify that the entity channeled is, indeed, "Saint Germain"?

How do you know that, if this entity is Saint Germain, the messages were channeled with a useful degree of fidelity and that what you have before you is the actual message intended by this entity - after all a message is modulated by its medium, and the channeler is literaly the medium through which a message is transmitted.

Assuming perfect fidelity of the message and that the channeled entity is indeed Saint Germain, how do you know of the entity's beneficial intent, or given his beneficial intent how do you know it is actually a useful message?

In this vein there is a Pollyanna type of Spirituality that tends to assume that anything from "the other side" is indeed useful, in particular if their "intuition feels" a certain way about the message. If I walk down a street I may run into Bob who tells me a message out of love and good faith but there is no explicit assurance here that Bob is, indeed, even a useful source of information. If Bob's messages simply confirms my pre-set beliefs or inclinations I may be prone to give more due to Bob's information than I would to, say, Sanjeeb around the corner.

Does this make any sense? There is no attack here, only a sincere challenge and set of questions that you are free to disregard, or engage, as you will.

[- Do you believe that in order to fully understand the content of the Koran and the Hadith one must understand Arabic (CA - Classical Arabic)?]

Mustardseed, you asked a number of questions, scattered through a few different threads, some in reply to replies to previous questions of his.

My replies are simply my best efforts to the extent of my capacity; spiritual and intellectual; to the extent of my limited knowledge and understanding.  To better deal with this mass of interlocking questions, I will confine myself to dealing with one question at a time, and its implications.

These are matters far greater men than I spent years exploring, in some cases lifetimes. None are simple topics, to adequately explain Islam’s stance on a certain question it is necessary to put it in a wider context. Moreover since your explicit aim seems polemical; your questions of Islam are to buttress your views, rooted in your understanding of Christianity, it is necessary for me to reference Christianity in my answers. In many cases a normative Christianity (or at least historically predominate expression of the faith) really doesn’t differ from Islam greatly in some of these matters.

What unites essentially may be greater than what divides, and what some think divides us may simply be a matter of a limited perspective.

I have to admit; I agreed to answer with certain unspoken reservations and suspicions lacking overt proof. I suspect no matter what answer I give, fault will be found with them. Indeed you expressed frustration that none of your questions were answered – but it should be noted that in actuality your questions were answered, copiously, by others – simply none were answered to *your* satisfaction, or perhaps in accordance with what you expected, or desired, the answer to be. When I look back through these threads plenty of questions have been answered and replied to.

So I ask of you three things; one comprehension, that you encounter my words, read them thoroughly, and comprehend them to the degree of your capacity, before you reply; two honesty, that you examine your assumptions to the same degree that you examine ours; and three, etiquite, no insults, no barbed statements, I expect you to engage my words with rigor – it is obvious that you find Islam to be highly distasteful and that you believe it to be a false religion.  You need not hold your pen or tongue here, but I do expect maturity and that such is expressed in a rigorous and responsible manner. We are meeting on the plane of ideas and when we clash, we should do so in the best of manners, and not the lowest.

I seek not only honest exchange of ideas and knowledge, but honest engagement; not polemics. It is clear by being a Muslim, Christian, or neither, one finds fault with essential points within another’s view.

iT IS MY BELIEF that one should question one’s own assumptions as ruthlessly as one questions the other, that it is possible that while you have issues of grave concern with Islam, a Muslims may you’re your concerns trivial due to his knowledge or belief; and vice versa those issues a Muslim finds enormous with Christianity, a Christian may find trivial based on his knowledge or belief.

Fundamentally we will reach a point where we must agree that we disagree. But it is possible that we may find a greater degree of harmony between our views than before, or perhaps not. It is ok to disagree, conflict is ok.

We should always have humility in the face of seeking knowledge, the probability of one being seriously wrong in one’s worldview is enormous, Muslim, Christian, New Ager, Pagan, Jew; and the reason is that Perception is NOT reality, to disagree with post-modern thought. Perception is the illusion of reality, beneath all perception, beneath all illusion, is a fundamental matrix of Being that alone can be called The Real. All of our attempts to apprehend its being are contingent on the finite natures of our manifest corporeal beings. 

These are answers according to my knowledge; the questioner can not reply that “his questions are not being answered” because frankly they are being answered here; he can only reply that they are not being answered to his satisfaction, or that he suspects the intent of the answerer (Mustardseed’s offensive barb at “taqiya” for instance) -  which is really a function of the questioner’s comprehension. I can’t be responsible for how the questioner takes the answer given, I can only give the answer to the best degree of my capacity.


Question 1 asked by Mustardseed:

- Do you believe that in order to fully understand the content of the Koran and the Hadith one must understand Arabic (CA - Classical Arabic)?


My answer – with NO dissimulation, and a straight face, is that it depends on what you mean by “fully”

It depends on what you mean by “Understand”.

And it depends on what you mean by “content”.

This is not a dissimulation nor an evasion, it’s a statement of reality. Many modern readers approaching these problems have a HIGHLY simplistic understanding of language, religion, and what is at stake with such questions.

There is Essential understanding and ADEQUATE understanding. I argue that a reader, believer or non-believer, can arrive at an adequate understanding of the meaning of a text, say the Quran, if it is translated into another language.

This is a matter of contention amongst Muslim scholars so there is no consensus, regarding adequate ranges of meaning. Almost all scholars of knowledge will agree that full and comprehensive understanding of the meanings of the Quran is impossible without a THROUGH knowledge of Classical Arabic, in its 7 main dialects, its rare dialects (including the Southern ones of Yemen), vocabulary, syntax, and grammar, as well as a good deal of gnosis (‘irfan and ilham) and a pure heart.

Obviously this is a tall order.

I believe, and many Muslims would agree with me, that Allah doesn’t expect this full depth of understanding, we believe that the Quran “gives” to each his or her capacity as long as he or she approaches it with the right attitude.

As for adequate understanding, I say “YES” contingent on the skill of the translator, the skill of the reader (for reading and comprehension are skills), and the degree of adequacy we seek.

A good deal depends on one’s receptivity to the text and openness to what it says, that is an OPENESS TO ENCOUNTER IT ON ITS OWN LEVEL without imposing one’s own agenda and limited understanding.

Frankly this is what should be expected when one approaches ANY text in ANY language.

In every act of translation there will always be depths of meaning lost, however.
Few who possess command over multiple languages, and who have a superior degree of literacy, will disagree with this.

In other words, anyone with any degree of linguistic sophistication.

To “fully” understand the Quran and Hadith, it is necessary to read them in their original language as well as possess some degree of spiritual aptitude.

To “fully” understand the Quran and Hadith is an act of several lifetimes.

JUST AS to fully understand the Baghvad Gita, or the Old Testament, or Shakespeare, it is necessary to be conversant in the original languages of these discourses, in generalities and particulars. Shakespeare is MODERBN English, in fact Shakespeare almost invented modern English since he has the largest set of neologisms of any English writer in history (a more contentious claim is that Chaucer all but established middle English in a similar manner)

By that reasoning any dolt who graduated high school should be conversant with Shakespeare and 4 or 5 generations ago this was the case. It is not the case today.

The bible is far more important than Shakespeare. There are very few I have seen who really understand the King James Bible in spite of its being one of the foundational texts of High Modern English. Some do, which is why lots of little black church ladies in the deep south pepper their speech unconsciously with Tudor English. The secular bulk of modern Anglo-American society, however, is utterly un-conversant with the King James Bible and hence the constant requirement that its language be "dumbed down" into an increasingly vulgar and crude parlance.

Instead of raising people in understanding, what you regard as the word of God is being debased along an increasingly downward trajectory.

I argue that few in the traditional pre-modern world would have seriously disagreed with my claims, prior to the rise of Protestantism. I am open to criticism on this point, but I suspect that few will find any solid grounds to critique this point. I argue that it was taken for granted in most societies, and I am being generous, that to fully understand a religious text it was necessary to read it in its original language… and to understand that language in great depth.

This is why all religions have had liturgical languages as opposed to lay languages. Why do you think Orthodox Churches still preserve Old Slavonic and Greek? Why not just make the liturgical languages Russian or Serbian?

Why is it that until Vatican II (And many Catholics STILL contest this) Latin was the language of liturgy?

Why is it that Parsis and Zoroastrians still preserve one of the oldest Indo-Aryan languages known to man, the language of the Avesta that pre-dates or at least shows more archaic features than even the Oldest forms of ancient Persian? And the Hindus preserved Sanskrit, a dead language based on a re-ordering of the languages of the Vedas (the Vedas were not written in Sanskrit, rather a more ancient Indo-Aryan dialect VERY similar to the language of the Persian Avesta)

Why do the Jews still preserve Biblical Hebrew?

Because in spite of our vast theological gulfs they all agree with the Muslims on one superficial point and that is the utter importance of understanding a text in its original language.

On a secular level; it is impossible to fully understand any poem outside of its language since the very act of translation is a selective filtering process, reliant on human judgment as to what apparent or subtle meanings in a text to render literally, or figuratively.

And most religious texts are, in essence, akin to sacred poetry. If Goethe can not be fully understood in English (and English is a very close language to German) only one who has not considered the question fully, one who is ignorant of the issues, or one who is downright obstinate would insist that what characterizes the  inferior (secular poetry) does not characterize the superior (sacred poetry and scripture).

I contend that there is immense loss of meaning in even a responsible act of translation: that anyone who truly knows Latin or Greek can look at the King James Bible and see leagues of distance in the loss of subtle meaning; subtle allusions, word plays, and the internal non-overt correspondences between words and passages.

The only way out of this bind is to claim that a given translator is acting by divine inspiration or a superior degree of illumination and intuition. This is an act of intellection, par excellence; what Catholic theologians and the philosophers called intellectual intuition. By this one can argue that the ancients translated the Tanakh into perfectly adequate Greek and this translation was by divine inspiration, and the Greek texts of the New Testament (many of whom may possibly have originally been written in Aramaic) were perfectly adequately rendered into Latin.

To argue that an English translation of a Latin Translation of a Greek Translation or an Aramaic or Hebrew original perfectly preserves the fidelity of the original is, frankly, teetering on the edge of the abyss of perfect absurdity.

As for a translator’s illumination in his translation, a non-believer is free to reject such a one’s claims to possessing this degree of intuition and illumination in his or her translations unless evidence or superior authority merits otherwise. A believer will tend to take this on faith, I regard faith ungrounded in knowledge to be inferior.

Since Protestant protests regarding translation of the bible arose 1600 years after Christ - I can safely dispense with its protest that the bible can be translated with full fidelity into any language.

Since the ONLY Christians I’ve met who take Islam to task for the requirements of Arabic are by and large Protestants or Catholics under the influence of the thoroughly modernistic Vatican II conference, and in EVERY case I have encountered anyone with significant knowledge and erudition in these matters do not make such theological broadsides against Islam (they sensibly choose easier stones to throw at us) my first instinct is to simply not take such protests seriously.
 
MOREOVER I doubt that Calvin or Luther would have fully intended that the Bible, or any inspired text, could be COMPLETELY understood in translation – again what we are probably considering is adequate meaning: does God lay burdens upon us greater than we can bear? The Quran says no, so as a Muslim I regard this as an existential fact – since most of the world is not ‘Arab, Allah does not expect us to know Arabic with full fidelity, Allah expects us to follow what we know and have been taught or learned. We are held accountable to the degree of our knowledge, and god knows best.

As for as I know the scholars of Islam do not claim that learning Arabic perfectly is incumbent upon all Muslims, it is not “Fard ‘ayn” it is only incumbent on a collectivity to have some  people able to understand the sacred texts and TEACH their ESSENTIALS and fundamentals to the collectivity, this it is “Fard Kifiyyah” – or obligatory on the collectivity to the degree that if a few possess this degree of knowledge the majority are exempt and excused.

But anyone seeking the heights will seek the heights, and those who are content with the depths fall to the depths, and Allah lays not upon ANY of us more than what we can individually bear.

“Fully understand” is a boundless oceans since traditional Muslims believed (based on the statement of Ali Ibn Abi Talib) that here are 7 meanings to every verse of the Quran, and the Sufis believed that the words of the Quran are a boundless ocean of esoteric and inward meaning. Even the external legalists realize that many of the words in Arabic have multiple harmonizing meanings conveying different shades of meaning.

And why should this be a surprise since even modern English possesses multiple meanings to most words, and middle English possessed a greater degree of complexity and ancient Anglo-Saxon an even greater degree of internal complexity even while possessing a smaller actual vocabulary.

Every truly sacred text is an ocean. I believe that only one who is ignorant can believe that he understands the essence of the Tanakh without knowing ancient Hebrew.
Every learned Jew would laugh at this,

Biblical scriptures’ verses have outward meanings and subtle implications to them and frequently engage in word-play and various rhetorical devises that convey meaning on levels of depth  (Beth on this forum wrote a book on this.)

As to whether I speak “CA” this is a simplistic question, I am LEARNING Quranic Arabic, modern Standard Arabic (the Arabic of newspapers and general business discourse) is based on “CA” entirely though is a bit less complex in its vocabulary and syntax. As for “CA” Classical Arabic is a misnomer, there is the “Fusha” which tends to be the dialect of the tribe of Quraysh. Any serious Islamic scholar will possess facility with multiple dialects of ancient Arabic, the corpus of Pagan Arabic poetry, and the Quran. A non scholar is not expected to possess this but there are still many alive today – in particular in Yemen -  who natively speak an Arabic incredibly close to ancient Arabic, and anyone who is educated and went to college speaks Modern Standard Arabic with perfect fluency and thus can read the Quran with a high degree of comprehension.

Your question on Abrogation is one best suited for a scholar, I am not a scholar, so I will simply repeat the well known (“Jumhur”) views on the issue noting of course that there is NOT total consensus on the range and degree of abrogation. It is an issue that can not be dumbed down for an internet forum given that people spend years researching and studying just this one issue. And that will have to wait for another day

Hello Mustardseed.

Fair enough, I'll have a go at your questions, keeping in mind I am one Muslim, with his own conditioning, education, and emotions, trying to make hermeunetics of a text that predates all of us and emerged in a very different world, just like the Bible, just like the Talmud, just like the Baghvad Gita.

Some of my replies may make muslim and non-Muslim alike uncomfortable and should not be seen as absolute truth in any way, I think that my replies will be informed by a real and honest exploration of Islam's tradition, but at the end of the day I am a layman, and not a scholar, and thus none of my replies should be taken as authoritative in any way.

I'll give it a shot

Much of this is controversial and may be contrary to the beliefs of many people – one is free to accept it or reject it as one wills. Some may take this as “a load of hooey” or think it is misleading.

Take it or leave it as you will; Rejection entails consequences as does acceptance, “You can’t have my tea without emptying your cup” as Bruce Lee used to say

I do recommend that before blasting it in criticism, one reads it thoroughly, and contemplates it – really. Consider it and where you find truth follow it, where you don’t then leave it…

So posted in the hope this is helpful….

Avoiding a “spiritually Poly-Anna” mentality is important… everything is “sweetness and light” but sometimes.. there really are bad guys who want you dead

Naïveté can be a shield of sorts, just as crude disbelief in anything of a psychic nature – really - but “manifesting light and love” can occasionally result in someone manifesting a club over your head – in a metaphorical way. The path of the “spiritual warrior” is one that is full of common-sense precaution, and a lack of precaution is naïve to the point of  vice..

Hence people who are often VERY nice, and VERY compassionate, occasionally find themselves attacked in nasty ways, physically as well as spiritually. Which results in their physical and psychic wounds, which is a sad thing.

Expect good from all, and be open, but also able to defend oneself, without animosity, is the best attitude.

Check out Robert Bruce's book on Psychic Attacks, really it is the best, the best, I've seen on the subject.

For the VERY astute person Julius Evola’s “Introduction to Magic” will contain advice that can be used along with Mr. Bruce’s material with a degree of efficacy.

Lastly, for a conceptual framework to see HOW this can all be integrated see Guenon’s chapter on “Sorcery and Shamanism” in his “Reign of Quantity” and his chapter “On Ceremonial Magic” and “On The Powers” in his “Perspectives on Initiation”.

Lastly, with GREAT discretion and care, I recommend the first three books of Carlos Castaneda’s “Don Juan” series. For reasons I really don’t care to go into now, I do not recommend later books. The first three have real efficacy especially when integrated into a perspective informed by the above sources.

One thing that MUST be remembered is that these attacks MAY NOT even be conscious… really. Certain basic human emotions, in one with a latent predisposition or ability to manipulate the psychic, may tend to produce certain results without their even being aware of it.

This was VERY well known in ancient civilizations, modern Westerners make fun of the concept of the “evil eye” without stopping for a moment to examine the possibility that it may have some real basis in fact…

“The Eye” is usually an unconscious form of psychic attack generated through intense envy by an individual with a natural and unconscious possession of certain unchanneled psychic abilities. “It just happens” and they may consciously be HORRIFIED to know that they may be “attacking” someone. Other emotions, types of neediness, etc. may generate this. So this person may be unaware he or she is hurting you.

Traditional protections against the evil eye in Chinese culture, Christian European culture, and Islamic middle eastern culture, may have some benefit. A good deal of “Fung Shui” in its native original form consisted of recognizing adversarial flows and nexuses of subtle forces, and taking sensible protections to neutralize their effects or redirect them.

Approaches:
You can fight it on its own level – sorcery to sorcery / magic to magic. Etc. (not recommended)

You can try to redirect such attacks as alluded to above, or strengthen and armor yourself on the psychic level.

You can betake refuge in “the Pure Spirit”, if you have access to such. This is the traditional “religious” approach and for someone with a truly religious soul may have great efficacy.

Last two first

The next two approaches increase in subtlety and are contingent upon making certain lifestyle changes Robert Bruce’s book has surprising good advice on this point, and though such matters were not chief in Evola’s aims. “Tightening up your life” is the key

Visualizing shields and such may have relative degrees of efficacy, but the more one pulls one’s life together, the more useful such techniques may be.

Watching how you spend your energy in all things is a good exercise, most of us are used to many thing sin our environment draining our energies in small and subtle ways, plugging up the "holes" in your life, tying up your "loose ends" (it is VERY interesting these metaphors, they point to operative knowledge that was once commonplace and even mundane but has become very rare in today's world), living a "tight" life is one step. It's not about being A--l Retentive :=) it is about knowing when where and how to expend your energies and when where and how to conserve it.

These sort of daily practices indirectly strengthens your subtle nature, increasing the general amount of energy you retain... and lessening attachments that can be attacked by others. Keeping track of your loose ends, consolidating them, bringing yourself “together” in increasing focus.

One who floats on every sundry wind, who does not stand firmly grounded and rooted and make herself manifest a principle without ambiguity or wavering, such a one has an open being that is subject to attack to a greater degree than some others.

“Standing up for yourself” in your day to day life is a materialistic every-day reflection of something far more profound.

Strengthening your will and "hardening yourself" selectively…. Cultivating the ability to bend when bending is needed, and to remain firmly rooted when firmness is needed – these are internal attitudes that conditions and strengthens your self. Developing increased focus of will…. It's hard to explain exactly what I mean by this without just doing it...

A trick, perhaps, is that when around this person, try visualizing a strong mirror shield around you.

Another matter is taking weapons from a superior domain: by this I mean symbols. Symbols are misunderstood and commonly viewed as reflecting archetypes in our “collective unconsciousness” – in reality a symbol is a prolongation of a distinct aspect of the divine reality itself. In this manner everything is a symbol, you and I included, because everything represents and reflects a divine reality.

By knowing how to manipulate images and symbols in the subtle domain one can manipulate things in other realms. By operating on things in a “higher” (and the terms higher and lower are problematic, but are also easily understood and have some utility here) realm one can operate on things in realms lower than that…

This is a controversial point, not often accepted in today’s world; but the spiritual, and the psychic, cane really be seen as ontologically distinct realms just as the physical and the subtle/psychic realms are. They overlap, and are in a sense simply part of a spectrum or a continuum, but they can be viewed as distinctive from one another from a certain perspective – in that one realm is "higher" than another.

Certain religious symbols from an intact religious tradition may be charged with a good deal of subtle force as well as spiritual force, because the spiritual uses the psychic and subtle realms as "supports" just as your physical body is at once simply one modality of one being in one realm, as well as a support for the manifestation of that principle and being in a particular realm, so to is the Soul and psyche a "support" for the spiritual.

Such Symbols from a spiritual tradition that is living may be bridges to spiritual forces THROUGH the psychic realm.

Sacred words, mantras, prayers, and the like are symbols in their own right possessed on an ontological status beyond their formal manifestation. “Om” is a word, a syllable, a word, a sound. “Allah Hu’ is word, sound, syllables…

“Ti’en (“Heaven” in Chinese) is a word, is a sound, is a syllable…

But this is the FORM that manifest an ESSENCE that ESSENECE being the inward reality, the meaning, of that symbol.

Symbols from traditions that have died are much like corpses or shells, they may be charged with psychic forces but are no longer subject to an ordering principle and will “from above” – they are egregores in the intermediate “astral plane” but ones that can be used, manipulated, “possessed”, etc. because they no longer are tied to that which is “above” it.

Talismans and protective incantations from within those traditions may have some efficacy BEYOND the psychic.

On the psychic, look at chaos magic, one can make the name Bugs Bunny into an egregore with specific images and charge “Bugs Bunny” with force and direct him to do such and such… Jumping above the psychic to the spiritual entails entirely different attitudes of the self, and by in large many people today are incapable of it due to a lingering creeping materialism in our souls… it is easier to conceptualize the psychic world, for a post-religious, post-modern Westerner, than to really conceptualize and be open to “the Spirit” in its most rigorous sense...

Someone within a reasonable intact spiritual and religious tradition may be able to take refuge to the principle that that tradition manifests. The method: “invocation” and “prayer” of the heart.

The metaphysics here seem complex at first, but they start to make a good deal of sense… symbols that are “holy” by a large segment of humanity are holy because they manifest a superior principle in this world, and people recognize it – this is the opposite of Jung’s view, it’s not that people make up symbols and they become part of the collective unconsciousness, rather it is that we INTUIT symbols and perceive them and their power exists outside of our recognizing them..

A “true” symbol or system of symbols may confer great protection for one if it is still tied into its “heavenly origin” and forms a portal, of sorts, through the intermediate psychic world, through which a superior force can descend.

A system of symbols from a civilization or tradition that has “died”  - that is its heavenly archetype withdrawn, leaving a psychic shell – again, an egregore or “thought form” lingering behind, sometimes for centuries or longer. All corpses undergo dissolution, some just take a longer time to lie down and rot….

And LASTLY this leads to the “first” suggestion, which I really don’t recommend anyway, and that is… fighting fire with fire.

Fighting fire with fire has risks. People are welcome to disagree with this as they will… the Wiccan understanding of “karma” and “threefold law” is, in reality, a crude approximation and somewhat of a pious platitude.. but like all crude approximations does reflect some truth.

A being can take certain actions within a certain realm if she is strong enough to resist the consequences and forces evoked, or better to USE the consequences and ride the forces evoked … riding the lightning so to speak.

This is equal to a person’s strength, and a person’s strength isn’t like a Japanese anime cartoon of psychic dudes blasting each other, it is partially a matter of self knowledge – or as one of the responders to this thread pointed out “being aware of how strong you already are” Just as your PHYSICAL body is far stronger than you realize, so too is your subtle body..

HOWEVER just as your physical body has limits according to what it is conditioned to doing, so too does your soul. Fight someone stronger than you on their own level and, they have an advantage.

I don’t recommend responding to psychic attack with counter attack - from a certain perspective it’s rather stupid. I suspect that some people can get away with it, in a sense, or at least “delay” the counter-effects for some time…. But why bother? For ego? To feel like a “powerful magus”?

Magic for most people is ineffective at best, auto-suggestion and self-delusion, or actually ends up compromising them to further attacks at worse, and a good deal of it is ego tripping, a “service to self” focus.

Someone who is a trained magician may be able to redirect such attacks and even use them, himself…. Frankly you are better off just tightening up your life, sincerely praying, and doing some common sense “fung shui”

A good start may be confronting the person in question with beauty, approaching him or her and letting them know that you perceive there may be some difficulties in your relationship, you can’t put your fingers on it, but have you offended them or have they any reason to be offended by you? Is there anything you can set right? DO THIS FROMA  POSITION OF STRENGTH, and confidence, and be open to what they say. It may simply be a result of unconscious anger and frustration at you or something close to you…

Speak softly, and have your stick

As someone who has refrained from contributing to such threads for a while (2 years? I ferget) I need to point out a few things..

The respect needs to go both ways and be mutual, I'm willing to engage anyone here in an air of mutual respect.

Something else:

EVERYONE has conditioned world views that are poorly examined. The spiritual quest concerns

The person who is truly open enough to truly examine other belief systems in their totality is rare, it is contingent on a degree of spiritual MATURITY that makes many such questions irrelevant.

As for arrogance and such, well, everyone who has posted to these threads - Muslim and non-Muslim alike - should really re-read their replies and think about them.

People like Mistardseed are, I am convinced, sincere but rarely take the log out of their eyes and are really convinced that Muslims are utterly wrong, which isn't a "bad" thing it is their world-view, but their complaints would impress me more if they truly addressed the subjective nature of their complaints. It is hard for the arrogant one to notice her own arrogant and more easy for her to notice the equal arrogance of another she argues with, OR MORE SERIOUSLY to PROJECT her arrogance onto another.

I am a Muslim, I am convinced in the deepest part of my being of the truth of the teachings of my faith. To a non-Muslim this may appear as confidence, to another non-Muslim it may appear as rank and offensive arrogance. Now what these teachings are is a different matter; for Islam is highly nuanced, there are MANY schools of thought, ranges of opinion, and such teachings are COMPLEX and HIGHLY nuanced, and whose interpretation has unfolded and evolved in history.

There is a continuum and spectrum of beliefs and ideas and teachings that form the Sufi path and Islam in history. Specific aspects of the Islamic tradition have often been, and often are, questioned by Muslims internally. The range of debate and discussion isn't seen by non-Muslims who are unfamiliar with Islam, but it exists. At the same time, ANYONE who takes an absolute position in today's world is seen often as arrogant, and this is because the modern West's mind-scape reflects a real discomfort with the idea of the absolute, and insists on a sort of relativism that, I believe, is a bane to any real sense of the sacred and spiritual.

But this world-view in itself should be questioned as rigorously as Islam is questioned.

No one with awake eyes and hearts can stand in front of a mountain and not see reflected in it the absolute.

No honest debate between Muslims and non-Muslims can take place without both coming to the table with respect, without being disingenuous.

It is not arrogance for one who knows something to say "I know this" - the word Iman, "faith" or "belief" in Arabic, has a dimension to it that is epistemological in nature. The mindset behind the word is not easily translated into English and since language shapes world-views this is a stumbling block. The Muslim with "Iman" doesn’t just "believe" in the English sense, there is a degree of certitude involved that may SEEM like arrogance to one who is unsure of his or her principles, but this more reflects on their state. I am a Muslim who seeks and follows truth and when my soul recognizes truth, it embraces it with a totality. The absolute is the principle, th erelative may be the way in which my subjectivity understands principial reality, but in the mindset of the Muslim is no room for wavering once one has recognized a principle to be true.

If this seems dangerous, or arrogant, I submit with humility that this may reflect more the mindset of the person who thinks he perceives such...

After all, Religion is a man made concept.

No offense is meant by this, but this subject is important enough not to mince words about.

I personally find this concept to be puerile and somewhat superficial.

Have you examined all religious beliefs, in depth, to arrive to this conclusion?

Just as in all sweeping and blind generalizations there is, of course, some real element of truth to it. But the element of truth is accidental, whereas the element of absurdity is essential here.

It is demonstrably obvious that a good deal of what people consider "religion" has an artificial socially generated aspect to it, of course. But there are principles and there are manifestations and to simply state without justification that the entirety of religious phenomena are man made is simply ignorant. Religion and spirituality consist of a good deal more than what you may perceive, particularly in the pre-modern world. The social aspects of a spiritual ecumen organized around the principles of a formal religion are secondary to the actual principles involved.

The principles of religion itself are of non-human origin, they are not man made, and the only segment of humanity that persistently asserts otherwise has done so much damage to the world in the name of their non-religion that a reasonable person can safely dismiss the view.

...and most of those who make such statements simply assume as such on the basis of a secular world-view whose very axioms they rarely question.

Ever. Really.

The idea that in 40,000 years of the history of homo sapiens, mankind has been not only so profoundly dimwitted, but also so profoundly delusional, as to be unaware that that which all pre-modern traditional non-Western human beings valued highest above all things, the rites and beliefs that tied them, they believed, to their god or gods; that such beliefs were the results of human invention… this is a severe indictment of the intelligence and spiritual sense of all of humanity

The one making this claim should bring for real evidence of her own; and the idea that “all religions contradict each other” is not proof for it is demonstrably essentially false, and shown thusly by the sheer commonality of certain beliefs, symbols, and fundamental principles. It is true that exoteric expressions of specific historical faiths often contradict each other to degrees but is one so blind as to miss those things in which they are all in agreement? Or so superficial as to be unable to examine how such contradctions are often simply contingent on historical processes of decay and involution, and how many religions in their earlier primal phases resemble each other more closely?


That idea also reflects a form of muddle thinking; and expressed on a forum full of people attempting to find an operative spirituality in the middle of the wasteland of modern Western materialism… is troublesome, and disturbing.

The mindset behind this statement is the same mindset that has led to the destruction of our natural environment, of a good deal of the spiritual treasures of humanity (hence people here are on a web forum dedicated to rediscovering that which 12 year old primal aborigines can do without effort), and the invention of the nuclear bomb.

The ability to do neat astral tricks is on a different order than understanding, truly understanding, metaphysical principles and seeing to the essence of finitie religious forms. One can have a good deal of psychic development while being spiritually undeveloped. I argue that anyone who can not see the eternal principles in a religious form has a lot of good-natured self-work to do on themselves.

These are also sweeping generalizations on my part, of course, but I trust my point is taken. These sort of statements about "the flaws in religion" reflect a massive arrogance typical to secular modern and post-modern westerners that is not grounded


A question, and a well meant and well intentioned one. Have you ever read any Rene Guenon? I recommend it, his writings do challenge some worldviews but have a rigor to them. Anyone who rigidly holds the party line that "religion is a man made concept" should at least challenge that view of theirs by reading articulate arguments to the contrary.

I am appalled by the poor examples of spiritual evolution that I have seen in recent postings concerning Islam, where hatred and insults were flung back and forth between two verbally warring parties, of which I was part.

No, I will not let this go. I am determined to achieve UNCONDITIONAL peace, respect, and common ground. Can it be achieved? What is required for this to happen? We are stuck on this world together with no sign of interstellar travel technology in sight. Before we end up nuking each other or blowing ourselves up, we ought to AT LEAST make an ATTEMPT at peace.

Anyone who has been following my posts in the matters concerning Islam will see that nearly ALL of my attempts at peace and common ground have been largely ignored........
I am extending an offer of peace and good will to all who wish to participate in this, to all who strive to find this common ground and achieve peace. ......

So, who is going to give this a try, and who isn't? I'm a non-Muslim, so if no Muslims respond then I will simply promote peace with whoever responds regardless.

As a Muslim I am game, so to speak. I've had a long absence from this forum (2 years... I think) and I itch to step back in.

There are a few things to note, which is that a good deal of negative emotion is fundamentally based in ignorance and selective vision, on the part of non-Muslims and Muslims alike. Frankly, many non-Western born Muslims have a lack of knowledge of many aspects of Western cultures and religions that affects their reactions.

SO TOO, and on a greater scale, is there massive ignorance among Westerners (Americans in particular) of the range of opinions, views, and teachings in the Islamic world.  People have a mutually narrow vision of the other, and like all narrow visions, such is fundamentally grounded IN FACT, but in a narrow range of facts and a nuanced picture is lost.

Adding to this is the ignorance of many Western non-Muslims of many aspects of their own religious history, AS WELL AS the very real ignorance of many Muslims of aspects of our religious history.

Knowledge is the first antidote.

Some of this is UNAVOIDABLE and any attempt at meaningful mutual discourse (which I favor) has to acknowledge this fact. Much of what contributes to mutual ill will and animosity in this topic is, frankly, the burden of history. Certain things have happened throughout history that conditions our modern emotional and intellectual responses. We exist in history, not floating around in the astral plane perpetually, that is to say that we are embodied beings perceiving time in a linear manner with a finite survey of the world. We try to stretch these boundaries, push the envelopes of perception, but fundamentally we exist here, now, and this conditions our perceptions.

So GOOD WILL IS NOT ENOUGH, and indeed it has to be truly good will with an openness to "the other", to the differences of "the other" with a willingness to learn.

Each side needs to realize, truly realize, that the reactions of the other may often be based in real pain, and real suffering, that was experienced by the other in history.

For example, just as many non-Muslim Americans were profoundly psychically wounded by 9/11, many Muslims have been profoundly psychically wounded in similar traumas whose history and existence many Americans are simply unaware of. The historical sense of being betrayed, conquered, subjugated, these feelings are very real and failure to understand how someone from a part of the world whose mother was raped, village was bombed, and sister blown up by shrapnel, in a conflict in history that you are unaware of, failure to understand that person's rage will prevent mutual communication.

All of us have been conditioned into certain worldviews, educated in certain ways, and the inability to examine our OWN subjective conditioning will affect our abilities to meaningfully discourse. I submit also that some differences can not be overcome on the plane of discourse and ideas. That at the end of the day, honest discoursers may find much in common, but also must have the honesty to respect the irreconcilable differences of the other. And some differences are irreconcilable.

However many are very reconcilable. It is a choice, spiritual and intellectual maturity is in part an ability to accept the way things are, and the way things are is that non-Muslims and Muslims can come to agree on many things, but will also disagree on many things, and that is ok if we can disagree, and agree, in an air of honor and respect.

Our pilgrim takes up residence among his own, but he notices in the course of his walks that there is no sown field in the area. Where do the inhabitants obtain their food? He learns that food comes to them from "the Green Island situated in the White Sea," which is one of the islands belonging to the sons of the Hidden Imam. Twice a year, a flotilla of seven ships brings it to them. That year the first voyage had already taken place; it would be necessary to wait four months until the next voyage.The account describes the pilgrim passing his days, overwhelmed by the kindness of the inhabitants, but in an anguish of expectation, walking tirelessly along the beach, always watching the high sea, toward the west, for the arrival of the ships.

We might be tempted to believe that we are on the African coast of the Atlantic and that the Green Island belongs, perhaps, to the Canaries or the "Fortunate Isles." The details that follow will suffice to undeceive us. Other traditions place the Green Island elsewhere-in the Caspian Sea, for example-as though to indicate to us that it has no coordinates in the geography of this world.

Finally, as if according to the law of the "eighth climate" ardent desire has shortened space, the seven ships arrive somewhat in advance and make their entry into the port. From the largest of the ships descends a shaykh of noble and commanding appearance, with a handsome face and magnificent clothes. A conversation begins, and our pilgrim realizes with astonishment that the shaykh already knows everything about him, his name and his origin. The shaykh is his Companion, and he tells him that he has come to find him: together they will leave for the Green Island.

This episode bears a characteristic feature of the gnostic's feeling everywhere and always: he is an exile, separated from his own people, whom he barely remembers, and he has still less an idea of the way that will take him back to them. One day, though, a message arrives from them, as in the "Song of the Pearl" in the Acts of Thomas, as in the "Tale of Western Exile" by Sohravardi. Here, there is something better than a message: it is one of the companions of the Imam in person. Our narrator exclaims movingly: "Upon hearing these words, I was overwhelmed with happiness. Someone remembered me, my name was known to them!" Was his exile at an end? From now on, he is entirely certain that the itinerary cannot be transferred onto our maps.

The crossing lasts sixteen days, after which the ship enters an area where the waters of the sea are completely white; the Green Island is outlined on the horizon. Our pilgrim learns from his Companion that the White Sea forms an uncrossable zone of protection around the island; no ship manned by the enemies of the Imam and his people can venture there without the waves engulfing it. Our travelers land on the Green Island.

There is a city at the edge of the sea; seven walls with high towers protect the precincts (this is the preeminent symbolic plan). There are luxuriant vegetation and abundant streams. The buildings are constructed from diaphanous marble. All the inhabitants have beautiful and young faces, and they wear magnificent clothes. Our Iranian shaykh feels his heart fill with joy, and from this point on, throughout the entire second part, his account will take on the rhythm and the meaning of an initiation account, in which we can distinguish three phases. There is an initial series of conversations with a noble personage who is none other than a grandson of the Twelfth Imam (the son of one of his five sons), and who governs the Green Island: Sayyed Shamsoddin These conversations compose a first initiation into the secret of the Hidden Imam; they take place sometimes in the shadow of: mosque and sometimes in the serenity of gardens filled with per fumed trees of all kinds. There follows a visit to a mysterious sanctuary in the heart of the mountain that is the highest pea on the island. Finally, there is a concluding series of conversations of decisive importance with regard to the possibility or in possibility of having a vision of the Imam.

I am giving the briefest possible summary here, and I must pass over in silence the details of scenery depiction and of an intensely animated dramaturgy, in order to note only the central episode. At the summit or at the heart of the mountain, which is in the center of the Green Island, there is a small temple, with a cupola, where one can communicate with the Imam, because it happens that he leaves a personal message there, but no one is permitted to ascend to this temple except Sayyed Shamsoddin and those who are like him. This small temple stands in the shadow of the Tuba tree; now, we know that this is the name of the tree that shades Paradise; it is the Tree of Being. The temple is at the edge of a spring, which, since it gushes at the base of the Tree of Paradise, can only be the Spring of Life. In order to confirm this for us, our pilgrim meets there the incumbent of this temple, in whom we recognize the mysterious prophet Khezr (Khadir). It is there, at the heart of being, in the shade of the Tree and at the edge of the Spring, that the sanctuary is found where the Hidden Imam may be most closely approached. Here we have an entire constellation of easily recognizable archetypal symbols.

We have learned, among other things, that access to the little mystical temple was only permitted to a' person who, by attaining the spiritual degree at which the Imam has become his personal internal Guide, has attained a state "similar" to that of the actual descendant of the Imam. This is why the idea of internal conformation is truly at the center of the initiation account, and it is this that permits the pilgrim to learn other secrets of the Green Island: for example, the symbolism of a particularly eloquent ritual.19 In the Shi'ite liturgical calendar, Friday is the weekday especially dedicated to the Twelfth Imam. Moreover, in the lunar calendar, the middle of the month marks the midpoint of the lunar cycle, and the middle of the month of Sha'ban is the anniversary date of the birth of the Twelfth Imam into this world.

On a Friday, then, while our Iranian pilgrim is praying in the mosque, he hears a great commotion outside. His initiator, Sayyed, informs him that each time the day of the middle of the month falls on a Friday, the chiefs of the mysterious militia that surrounds the Imam assemble in "expectation of joy," a consecrated term, as we know, which means: in the expectation of the Manifestation of the Imam in this world. Leaving the mosque, he sees a gathering of horsemen from whom a triumphal clamor rises. These are the 313 chiefs of the supernatural order of knights always present incognito in this world, in the service of the Imam.

This episode leads us gradually to the final scenes that precede the farewell. Like a leitmotiv, the expression of the desire to see the Imam returns ceaselessly. Our pilgrim will learn that twice in his life he was in the Imams presence: he was lost in the desert and the Imam came to his aid. But as is an almost constant rule, he knew nothing of it then; he learns of it now that he has come to the Green Island. Alas, he must leave this island; the order cannot be rescinded; the ships are waiting, the same one on which he arrived. But even more than for the voyage outward, it is impossible for us to mark out the itinerary that leads from the "eighth climate" to this world. Our traveler obliterates his tracks, but he will keep some material evidence of his sojourn: the pages of notes taken in the course of his conversations with the Imam's grandson, and the parting gift from the latter at the moment of farewell.

The account of the Green Island allows us an abundant harvest of symbols: (1) It is one of the islands belonging to the son of the Twelfth Imam. (2) It is that island, where the Spring of Life gushes, in the shade of the Tree of Paradise, that ensure the sustenance of the Imams followers who live far away, an that sustenance can only be a "suprasubstantial" food. (3) It situated in the west, as the city of Jabarsa is situated in the we of the mundus imaginalis, and thus it offers a strange analogy with the paradise of the East, the paradise of Amitabha in Pure Land Buddhism; similarly, the figure of the Twelfth Imam suggestive of comparison with Maitreya, the future Buddha; there is also an analogy with Tir-na'n-0g, one of the worlds the Afterlife among the Celts, the land of the West and the forever ever young. (4) Like the domain of the Grail, it is an interworld that is self-sufficient. (5) It is protected against and immune to any attempt from outside. (6) only one who is summoned there can find the way. (7) A mountain rises in the center; we have noted the symbols that it conceals. ( Like Mont-Salvat, the inviolable Green Island is the place where his followers approach the mystical pole of the world, the Hidden Imam, reigning invisibly over this age- the jewel of the Shi'ite faith.

This tale is completed by others, for, as we have mentioned, nothing has been said until now about the islands under the reign of the truly extraordinary figures who are the five sons of the Hidden Imam (homologues of those whom Shi'ism designates as the "Five Personages of the Mantle"20 and perhaps also of those whom Manichaeism designates as the "Five Sons of the Living Spirit"). An earlier tale21 (it is from the middle of the twelfth century and the narrator is a Christian) provides us with complementary topographical information.

Here again it involves travelers who suddenly realize that their ship has entered a completely unknown area. They land at a first island, al Mobaraka, the Blessed City. Certain difficulties, brought about by the presence among them of Sunni Muslims, oblige them to travel farther. But their captain refuses; he is afraid of the unknown region. They have to hire a new crew. In succession, we learn the names of the five islands and the names of those who govern them: al-Zahera, the City Blooming with Flowers; al Ra'yeqa, the Limpid City; al-Safiya, the Serene City, etc. Whoever manages to gain admittance to them enters into joy forever.

Five islands, five cities, five sons of the Imam, twelve months to travel through the islands (two months for each of the first four, four months for the fifth), all of these numbers having a symbolic significance. Here, too, the tale turns into an initiation account; all the travelers finally embrace the Shi'ite faith.

As there is no rule without an exception, I will conclude by citing in condensed form a tale illustrating a case of manifestation of the Imam in person.22 The tale is from the tenth century. An Iranian from Hamadan made the pilgrimage to Mecca. On the way back, a day's journey from Mecca (more than two thousand kilometers from Hamadan), having imprudently gone astray during the night, he loses his companions. In the morning he is wandering alone in the desert and placing his trust in God, Suddenly, he sees a garden that neither he nor anyone else has ever heard of. He enters it. At the door of a pavilion, two young pages dressed in white await him and lead him to a young mar of supernatural beauty. To his fearful and awestruck astonishment, he learns that he is in the presence of the Twelfth Imam The latter speaks to him about his future Appearance and finally addressing him by name, asks him whether he wants to return to his home and family. Certainly, he wants to do so.

The Imam signals to one of his pages, who gives the traveler a purse, take him by the hand, and guides him through the gardens. The, walk together until the traveler sees a group of houses, a mosque, and shade trees that seem familiar to him. Smiling, the page asks him: "Do you know this land?" "Near where I live in Hamadan'' he replies, "there is a land called Asadabad, which exactly resembles this place." The page says to him, "But you are in Asadabad. "Amazed, the traveler realizes that he is actually near his home. He turns around; the page is no longer then he is all alone, but he still has in his hand the viaticum that ha been given to him. Did we not say a little while ago that the where, the ubi of the "eighth climate" is an ubique?

I know how many commentaries can be applied to these tale depending upon whether we are metaphysicians, traditionalist or not, or whether we are psychologists. But by way of provisional conclusion, I prefer to limit myself to asking three small questions:

1. We are no longer participants in a traditional culture; we live in a scientific civilization that is extending its control, it said, even to images. It is commonplace today to speak of a "civilization of the image" (thinking of our magazines, cinema, and television). But one wonders whether, like all commonplace this does not conceal a radical misunderstanding, a complete error. For instead of the image being elevated to the level of a world that would be proper to it, instead of it appearing invested with a symbolic function, leading to an internal sense, there is above all a reduction of the image to the level of sensory perception pure and simple, and thus a definitive degradation of the image. Should it not be said, therefore, that the more successful this reduction is, the more the sense of the imaginal is lost, and the more we are condemned to producing only the imaginary?

2. In the second place, all imagery, the scenic perspective of a tale like the voyage to the Green Island, or the sudden encounter with the Imam in an unknown oasis-would all this be possible without the absolutely primary and irreducible, objective, initial fact (Urphanomen) of a world of image-archetypes or image-sources whose origin is nonrational and whose incursion into our world is unforeseeable, but whose postulate compels recognition?

3. In the third place, is it not precisely this postulate of the objectivity of the imaginal world that is suggested to us, or imposed on us, by certain forms or certain symbolic emblems (hermetic, kabbalistic; or mandalas) that have the quality of effecting a magic display of mental images, such that they assume an objective reality?

To indicate in what sense it is possible to have an idea of how to respond to the question concerning the objective reality of supernatural figures and encounters with them, I will simply refer to an extraordinary text, where Villiers de L'Isle-Adam speaks about the face of the inscrutable Messenger with eyes of clay; it "could not be perceived except by the spirit. Creatures experience only influences that arc inherent in the archangelic entity. "Angels," he writes, "are not, in substance, except in the free sublimity of the absolute Heavens, where reality is unified with the ideal.... They only externalize themselves in the ecstasy they cause and which forms a part of themselves."23

Those last words, an ecstasy ... which forms part of themselves, seem to me to possess a prophetic clarity, for they have the quality of piercing even the granite of doubt, of paralyzing the "agnostic reflex," in the sense that they break the reciprocal isolation of the consciousness and its object, of thought and being; phenomenology is now an ontology.

Undoubtedly, this is the postulate implied in the teaching of our authors concerning the imaginal. For there is no external criterion for the manifestation of the Angel, other than the manifestation itself. The Angel is itself the ekstasis, the "displacement" or the departure from ourselves that is a "change of state" from our state. That is why these words also suggest to us the secret of the supernatural being of the "Hidden Imam'' and of his Appearances for the Shi'ite consciousness: the Imam is the ekstasis itself of that consciousness. One who is not in the same spiritual state cannot see him.

This is what Sohravardi alluded to in his tale of "The Crimson Archangel" by the words that we cited at the beginning: "If you are Khezr, you also may pass without difficulty through the mountain of Qaf."

March 1964

111. TOPOGRAPHIES OF THE "EIGHTH CLIMATE"

We ought here to examine the extensive theory of the witnesses to that other world. We ought to question all those mystics who, in Islam, repeated the visionary experience of the heavenly assumption of the Prophet Muhammad (the mi'raj), which offers more than one feature in common with the account, preserved in an old gnostic book, of the celestial visions of the prophet Isaiah. There, the activity of imaginative perception truly assumes the aspect of a hierognosis, a higher sacral knowledge. But in order to complete our discussion, I will limit myself to describing several features typical of accounts taken from Shi'ite literature, because the world into which it will allow us to penetrate seems, at first sight, still to be our world, while in fact the events take place in the eighth climate-not in the imaginary, but in the imaginal world, that is, the world whose coordinates cannot be plotted on our maps, and where the Twelfth Imam, the "Hidden Imam," lives a mysterious life surrounded by his companions, who are veiled under the same incognito as the Imam. One of the most typical of these accounts is the tale of a voyage to "the Green Island situated in the White Sea."

It is impossible to describe here, even in broad terms, what constitutes the essence of Shi'ite Islam in relation to what is appropriately called Sunni orthodoxy. It is necessary, however, that we should have, at least allusively present in mind, the theme that dominates the horizon of the mystical theosophy of Shi'ism, namely, the "eternal prophetic Reality" (Haqiqat mohammadiya) that is designated as "Muhammadan Logos" or "Muhammadan Light" and is composed of fourteen entities of light: the Prophet, his daughter Fatima, and the twelve Imams. This is the pleroma of the "Fourteen Pure Ones," by means of whose countenance the mystery of an eternal theophany is accomplished from world to world. Shi'ism has thus given Islamic prophetology its metaphysical foundation at the same time that it has given it lmamology as the absolutely necessary complement. This means that the sense of the Divine Revelations is not limited to the letter, to the exoteric that is the cortex and containant, and that was enunciated by the Prophet; the true sense is the hidden internal, the esoteric, what is symbolized by the cortex, and which it is incumbent upon the Imams to reveal to their followers. That is why Shi'ite theosophy eminently possesses the sense of symbols.

Moreover, the closed group or dynasty of the twelve Imams is not a political dynasty in earthly competition with other political dynasties; it projects over them, in a way, as the dynasty of the guardians of the Grail, in our Western traditions, projects over the official hierarchy of the Church.

The ephemeral earthly appearance of the twelve Imams concluded with the twelfth, who, as a young child (in A.H. 260/A.D. 873) went into occultation from this world, but whose parousia the Prophet himself announced, the Manifestation at the end of our Aion, when he would reveal the hidden meaning of all Divine Revelations and fill the earth with justice and peace, as it will have been filled until then with violence and tyranny. Present simultaneously in the past and the future, the Twelfth Imam, the Hidden Imam, has been for ten centuries the history itself of Shi'ite consciousness, a history over which, of course, historical criticism loses its rights, for its events, although real, nevertheless do not have the reality of events in our climates, but they have the reality of those in the "eighth climate," events of the soul which are visions. His occultation occurred at two different times: the minor occultation (260/873) and the major occultation (330/942).17 Since then, the Hidden Imam is in the position of those who were removed from the visible world without crossing the threshold of death: Enoch, Elijah, and Christ himself, according to the teaching of the Qur'an. He is the Imam "hidden from the senses, but present in the heart of his followers," in the words of the consecrated formula, for he remains the mystical pole [qotb] of this world, the pole of poles, without whose existence the human world could not continue to exist. There is an entire Shi'ite literature about those to whom the Imam has manifested himself, or who have approached him but without seeing him, during the period of the Great Occultation.

Of course, an understanding of these accounts postulates certain premises that our preceding analyses permit us to accept. The first point is that the Imam lives in a mysterious place that is by no means among those that empirical geography can verify; it cannot be situated on our maps. This place "outside of place" nonetheless has its own topography. The second point is that life is not limited to the conditions of our visible material world with its biological laws that we know. There are events in the life of the Hidden Imam-even descriptions of his five sons, who are the governors of mysterious cities. The third point is that in his last letter to his last visible representative, the Imam warned against the imposture of people who would pretend to quote him, to have seen him, in order to lay claim to a public or political role in his name. But the Imam never excluded the fact that he would manifest himself to aid someone in material or moral distress-a lost traveler, for example, or a believer who is in despair.

These manifestations, however, never occur except at the initiative of the Imam; and if he appears most often in the guise of a young man of supernatural beauty, almost always, subject to exception, the person granted the privilege of this vision is only conscious afterward, later, of whom he has seen. A strict incognito covers these manifestations; that is why the religious event here can never be socialized. The same incognito covers the Imam's companions, that elite of elites composed of young people in his service. They form an esoteric hierarchy of a strictly limited number, which remains permanent by means of substitution from generation to generation. This mystical order of knights, which surrounds the Hidden Imam, is subject to an incognito as strict as that of the knights of the Grail, inasmuch as they do not lead anyone to themselves. But someone who has been led there will have penetrated for a moment into the eighth climate; for a moment he will have been "in the totality of the Heaven of his soul."

That was indeed the experience of a young Iranian shaykh, 'Ali ibn Fazel Mazandarani, toward the end of our thirteenth century, an experience recorded in the Account of strange and marvelous things that he contemplated and saw with his own eyes on the Green Island situated in the White Sea. I can only give a broad outline of this account here, without going into the details that guarantee the means and authenticity of its transmission.18 The narrator himself gives a long recital of the years and circumstances of his life preceding the event; we are dealing with a scholarly and spiritual personality who has both feet on the ground. He tells us how he emigrated, how in Damascus he followed the teaching of an Andalusian shaykh, and how he became attached to this shaykh; and when the latter left for Egypt, he together with a few other disciples accompanied him. From Cairo he followed him to Andalusia, where the shaykh had suddenly been called by a letter from his dying father. Our narrator had scarcely arrived in Andalusia when he contracted a fever that lasted for three days. Once recovered, he went into the village and saw a strange group of men who had come from a region near the land of the Berbers, not far from the "peninsula of the Shi'ites." He is told that the journey takes twenty-five days, with a large desert to cross. He decides to join the group. Up to this point, we are still more or less on the geographical map.

But it is no longer at all certain that we are still on it when our traveler reaches the peninsula of the Shi'ites, a peninsula surrounded by four walls with high massive towers; the outside wall borders the coast of the sea. He asks to be taken to the principal mosque. There, for the first time, he hears, during the muezzin's call to prayer, resounding from the minaret of the mosque, the Shl'ite invocation asking that "Joy should hasten," that is, the joy of the future Appearance of the Imam, who is now hidden. In order to understand his emotion and his tears, it is necessary to think of the heinous persecutions, over the course of many centuries and over vast portions of the territory of Islam, that reduced the Shi'ites, the followers of the holy Imams, to a state of secrecy. Recognition among Shi'ites is effected here again in the observation, in a typical manner, of the customs of the "discipline of the arcanum."

This is the reason that we can no longer avoid the problem of terminology. How is it that we do not have in French [or in English] a common and perfectly satisfying term to express the idea of the 'alam al-mithal? I have proposed the Latin mundus imaginalis for it, because we are obliged to avoid any confusion between what is here the object of imaginative or imaginant perception and what we ordinarily call the imaginary. This is so, because the current attitude is to oppose the real to the imaginary as though to the unreal, the utopian, as it is to confuse symbol with allegory, to confuse the exegesis of the spiritual sense with an allegorical interpretation. Now, every allegorical interpretation is harmless; the allegory is a sheathing, or, rather, a disguising, of something that is already known or knowable otherwise, while the appearance of an Image having the quality of a symbol is a primary phenomenon (Urphanomen), unconditional and irreducible, the appearance of something that cannot manifest itself otherwise to the world where we are.

Neither the tales of Sohravardi, nor the tales which in the Shi'ite tradition tell us of reaching the "land of the Hidden Imam," are imaginary, unreal, or allegorical, precisely because the eighth climate or the "land of No-where" is not what we commonly call a utopia. It is certainly a world that remains beyond the empirical verification of our sciences. Otherwise, anyone could find access to it and evidence for it. It is a suprasensory world, insofar as it is not perceptible except by the imaginative perception, and insofar as the events that occur in it cannot be experienced except by the imaginative or imaginant consciousness. Let us be certain that we understand, here again, that this is not a matter simply of what the language of our time calls an imagination, but of a vision that is Imaginatio vera. And it is to this Imaginatio vera that we must attribute a noetic or plenary cognitive value. If we are no longer capable of speaking about the imagination except as "fantasy," if we cannot utilize it or tolerate it except as such, it is perhaps because we have forgotten the norms and the rules and the "axial ordination" that are responsible for the cognitive function of the imaginative power (the function that I have sometimes designated as imaginatory).

For the world into which our witnesses have penetrated-we will meet two or three of those witnesses in the final section of this study-is a perfectly real world, more evident even and more coherent, in its own reality, than the real empirical world perceived by the senses. Its witnesses were afterward perfectly conscious that they had been "elsewhere"; they are not schizorphrenics. It is a matter of a world that is hidden in the act itself of sensory perception, and one that we must find under the apparent objective certainty of that kind of perception. That is why we positively cannot qualify it as imaginary, in the current sense in which the word is taken to mean unreal, nonexistent. Just as the Latin word origo has given us the derivative "original," I believe that the word imago can give us, along with imaginary, and by regular derivation, the term imaginal. We will thus have the imaginal world be intermediate between the sensory world and the intelligible world. When we encounter the Arabic term jism mithali to designate the "subtle body" that penetrates into the "eighth climate," or the "resurrection body," we will be able to translate it literally as imaginal body, but certainly not as imaginary body. Perhaps, then, we will have less difficulty in placing the figures who belong neither to "myth" nor to "history," and perhaps we will have a sort of password to the path to the "lost continent."

In order to embolden us on this path, we have to ask ourselves what constitutes our real, the real for us, so that if we leave it, would we have more than the imaginary, utopia? And what is the real for our traditional Eastern thinkers, so that they may have access to the "eighth climate," to Na-koja-Abad, by leaving the sensory place without leaving the real, or, rather, by having access precisely to the real? This presupposes a scale of being with many more degrees than ours. For let us make no mistake. It is not enough to concede that our predecessors, in the West, had a conception of the Imagination that was too rationalistic and too intellectualized. If we do not have available a cosmology whose schema can include, as does the one that belongs to our traditional philosophers, the plurality of universes in ascensional order, our Imagination will remain unbalanced, its recurrent conjunctions with the will to power will be an endless source of horrors. We will be continually searching for a new discipline of the Imagination, and we will have great difficulty in finding it as long as we persist in seeing in it only a certain way of keeping our distance with regard to what we call the real, and in order to exert an influence on that real. Now, that real appears to us as arbitrarily limited, as soon as we compare it to the real that our traditional theosophers have glimpsed, and that limitation degrades the reality itself. In addition, it is always the word fantasy that appears as an excuse: literary fantasy, for example, or preferably, in the taste and style of the day, social fantasy.

But it is impossible to avoid wondering whether the mundus imaginalis, in the proper meaning of the term, would of necessity be lost and leave room only for the imaginary if something like a secularization of the imaginal into the imaginary were not required for the fantastic, the horrible, the monstrous, the macabre, the miserable, and the absurd to triumph. On the other hand, the art and imagination of Islamic culture in its traditional form are characterized by the hieratic and the serious, by gravity, stylization, and meaning. Neither our utopias, nor our science fiction, nor the sinister "omega point"-nothing of that kind succeeds in leaving this world or attaining Na-koja-Abad. Those who have known the "eighth climate" have not invented utopias, nor is the ultimate thought of Shi'ism a social or political fantasy, but it is an eschatology, because it is an expectation which is, as such, a real Presence here and now in another world, and a testimony to that other world.

This is a long text, but one of some importance. Forgive the multiple postings and bear with me.

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The most exact formulation of all this, in the theosophical tradition of the West, is found perhaps in Swedenborg. One cannot but be struck by the concordance or convergence of the statements by the great Swedish visionary with those of Sohravardi, Ibn 'Arabi, or Sadra Shirazi. Swedenborg explains that "all things in heaven appear, just as in the world, to be in place and in space, and yet the angels have no notion or idea of place or space." This is because "all changes of place in the spiritual world are effected by changes of state in the interiors, which means that change of place is nothing else than change of state.... Those are near each other who are in like states, and those are at a distance who are in unlike states; and spaces in heaven are simply the external conditions corresponding to the internal states. For the same reason the heavens are distinct from each other. . . . When anyone goes from one place to another . . . he arrives more quickly when he eagerly desires it, and less quickly when he does not, the way itself being lengthened and shortened in accordance with the desire.... This I have often seen to my surprise. All this again makes clear how distances, and consequently spaces, are wholly in accord with states of the interiors of angels; and this being so, no notion or idea of space can enter their thought, although there are spaces with them equally as in the world."14

Such a description is eminently appropriate to Na-koja-Abad and its mysterious Cities. In short, it follows that there is a spiritual place and a corporeal place. The transfer of one to the other is absolutely not effected according to the laws of our homogeneous physical space. In relation to the corporeal place, the spiritual place is a No-where, and for the one who reaches Na-koja-Abad everything occurs inversely to the evident facts of ordinary consciousness, which remains orientated to the interior of our space. For henceforth it is the where, the place, that resides in the soul; it is the corporeal substance that resides in the spiritual substance; it is the soul that encloses and bears the body. This is why it is not possible to say where the spiritual place is situated; it is not situated, it is, rather, that which situates, it is situative. Its ubi is an ubique. Certainly, there may be topographical correspondences between the sensory world and the mundus imaginalis, one symbolizing with the other. However, there is no passage from one to the other without a breach. Many accounts show us this. One sets out; at a given moment, there is a break with the geographical coordinates that can be located on our maps. But the "traveler" is not conscious of the precise moment; he does not realize it, with disquiet or wonder, until later. If he were aware of it, he could change his path at will, or he could indicate it to others. But he can only describe where he was; he cannot show the way to anyone.
 
II. THE SPIRITUAL IMAGINATION

We will touch here on the decisive point for which all that precedes has prepared us, namely, the organ that permits penetration into the mundus imaginalis, the migration to the "eighth climate." What is the organ by means of which that migration occurs-the migration that is the return ab extra ad intra (from the exterior to the interior), the topographical inversion (the intussusception)? It is neither the senses nor the faculties of the physical organism, nor is it the pure intellect, but it is that intermediate power whose function appears as the preeminent mediator: the active Imagination. Let us be very clear when we speak of this. It is the organ that permits the transmutation of internal spiritual states into external states, into vision-events symbolizing with those internal states. It is by means of this transmutation that all progression in spiritual space is accomplished, or, rather, this transmutation is itself what spatializes that space, what causes space, proximity, distance, and remoteness to be there.

A first postulate is that this Imagination is a pure spiritual faculty, independent of the physical organism, and consequently is able to subsist after the disappearance of the latter. Sadra Shirazi, among others, has expressed himself repeatedly on this point with particular forcefulness.15 He says that just as the soul is independent of the physical material body in receiving intelligible things in act, according to its intellective power, the soul is equally independent with regard to its imaginative power and its imaginative operations. In addition, when it is separated from this world, since it continues to have its active Imagination at its service, it can perceive by itself, by its own essence and by that faculty, concrete things whose existence, as it is actualized in its knowledge and in its imagination, constitutes eo ipso the very form of concrete existence of those things (in other words: consciousness and its object are here ontologically inseparable). All these powers are gathered and concentrated in a single faculty, which is the active Imagination. Because it has stopped dispersing itself at the various thresholds that are the five senses of the physical body, and has stopped being solicited by the concerns of the physical body, which is prey to the vicissitudes of the external world, the imaginative perception can finally show its essential superiority over sensory perception.

"All the faculties of the soul," writes Sadra Shirazi, "have become as though a single faculty, which is the power to configure and typify (taswir and tamthil); its imagination has itself become like a sensory perception of the suprasensory: its imaginative sight is itself like its sensory sight. Similarly, its senses of hearing, smell, taste, and touch-all these imaginative senses-are themselves like sensory faculties, but regulated to the suprasensory. For although externally the sensory faculties are five in number, each having its organ localized in the body, internally, in fact, all of them constitute a single synaisthesis (hiss moshtarik)." The Imagination being therefore like the currus subtilis (in Greek okhema, vehicle, or [in Proclus, Iamblichus, etc.] spiritual body) of the soul, there is an entire physiology of the "subtle body" and thus of the "resurrection body," which Sadra Shirazi discusses in these contexts. That is why he reproaches even Avicenna for having identified these acts of posthumous imaginative perception with what happens in this life during sleep, for here, and during sleep, the imaginative power is disturbed by the organic operations that occur in the physical body. Much is required for it to enjoy its maximum of perfection and activity, freedom and purity. Otherwise, sleep would be simply an awakening in the other world. This is not the case, as is alluded to in this remark attributed sometimes to the Prophet and sometimes to the First Imam of the Shi'ites: "Humans sleep. It is when they die that they awake."

A second postulate, evidence for which compels recognition, is that the spiritual Imagination is a cognitive power, an organ of true knowledge. Imaginative perception and imaginative consciousness have their own noetic (cognitive) function and value, in relation to the world that is theirs-the world, we have said, which is the 'alam al-mithal, mundus imaginalis, the world of the mystical cities such as Hurqalya, where time becomes reversible and where space is a function of desire, because it is only the external aspect of an internal state.

The Imagination is thus firmly balanced between two other cognitive functions: its own world symbolizes with the world to which the two other functions (sensory knowledge and intellective knowledge) respectively correspond. There is accordingly something like a control that keeps the Imagination from wanderings and profligacy, and that permits it to assume its full function: to cause the occurrence, for example, of the events that are related by the visionary tales of Sohravardi and all those of the same kind, because every approach to the eighth climate is made by the imaginative path. It may be said that this is the reason for the extraordinary gravity of mystical epic poems written in Persian (from 'Attar to Jami and to Nur 'Ali-Shah), which constantly amplify the same archetypes in new symbols. In order for the Imagination to wander and become profligate, for it to cease fulfilling its function, which is to perceive or generate symbols leading to the internal sense, it is necessary for the mundus imaginalis--the proper domain of the Malakut, the world of the Soul-to disappear. Perhaps it is necessary, in the West, to date the beginning of this decadence at the time when Averroism rejected Avicennian cosmology, with its intermediate angelic hierarchy of the Animae or Angeli caelestes. These Angeli caelestes (a hierarchy below that of the Angeli intellectuales) had the privilege of imaginative power in its pure state. Once the universe of these Souls disappeared, it was the imaginative function as such that was unbalanced and devalued. It is easy to understand, then, the advice given later by Paracelsus, warning against any confusion of the Imaginatio vera, as the alchemists said, with fantasy, "that cornerstone of the mad."16

Technically, again, our thinkers designate it as the world of "Images in suspense" (mothol mo'allaqa). Sohravardi! and his school mean by this a mode of being proper to the realities of that intermediate world, which we designate as Imaginalia.10 The precise nature of this ontological status results from vision any spiritual experiences, on which Sohravardi asks that we rely fully, exactly as we rely in astronomy on the observations of Hipparchus or Ptolemy. It should be acknowledged that forms and shapes in the mundus imaginalis do not subsist in the same manner as empirical realities in the physical world; otherwise anyone could perceive them. It should also be noted that the) cannot subsist in the pure intelligible world, since they have extension and dimension, an "immaterial" materiality, certainly, in relation to that of the sensory world, but, in fact, their own "corporeality" and spatiality (one might think here of the expression used by Henry More, a Cambridge Platonist, spissitudo spiritualis, an expression that has its exact equivalent in the work of Sadra Shirazi, a Persian Platonist). For the same reason, that they could have only our thought as a substratum would be excluded, as it would, at the same time, that they might be unreal, nothing; otherwise, we could not discern them, classify them into hierarchies, or make judgments about them.

The existence of this intermediate world, mundus imaginalis, thus appears metaphysically necessary; the cognitive function of the Imagination is ordered to it; it is a world whose ontological level is above the world of the senses and below the pure intelligible world; it is more immaterial than the former and less immaterial than the latter.11 There has always been something of major importance in this for all our mystical theosophers. Upon it depends, for them, both the validity of visionary accounts that perceive and relate "events in Heaven" and the validity of dreams, symbolic rituals, the reality of places formed by intense meditation, the reality of inspired imaginative visions, cosmogonies and theogonies, and thus, in the first place, the truth of the spiritual sense perceived in the imaginative data of prophetic revelations.12
In short, that world is the world of "subtle bodies," the idea of which proves indispensable if one wishes to describe a link between the pure spirit and the material body.

It is this which relates to the designation of their mode of being as "in suspense," that is, a mode of being such that the Image or Form, since it is itself its own "matter," is independent of any substratum in which it would be immanent in the manner of an accident.13 This means that it would not subsist as the color black, for example, subsists by means of the black object in which it is immanent, The comparison to which our authors regularly have recourse is the mode of appearance and subsistence of Images "in suspense" in a mirror. The material substance of the mirror, metal or mineral, is not the substance of the image, a substance whose image would be an accident. It is simply the "place of its appearance." This led to a general theory of epiphanic places and forms (mazhar, plural mazahir) so characteristic of Sohravardi's Eastern Theosophy.

The active Imagination is the preeminent mirror, the epiphanic place of the Images of the archetypal world; that is why the theory of the mundus imaginalis is bound up with a theory of imaginative knowledge and imaginative function--a function truly central and mediatory, because of the median and mediatory position of the mundus imaginalis. It is a function that permits all the universes to symbolize with one another (or exist in symbolic relationship with one another) and that leads us to represent to ourselves, experimentally, that the same substantial realities assume forms corresponding respectively to each universe (for example, Jabalqa and Jabarsa correspond in the subtle world to the Elements of the physical world, while Hurqalya corresponds there to the Sky). It is the cognitive function of the Imagination that permits the establishment of a rigorous analogical knowledge, escaping the dilemma of current rationalism, which leaves only a choice between the two terms of banal dualism: either "matter" or "spirit," a dilemma that the "socialization" of consciousness resolves by substituting a choice that is no less fatal: either "history" or "myth."

This is the sort of dilemma that has never defeated those familiar with the "eighth climate," the realm of "subtle bodies," of "spiritual bodies," threshold of the Malakut or world of the Soul. We understand that when they say that the world of Hurqalya begins "on the convex surface of the supreme Sphere," they wish to signify symbolically that this world is at the boundary where there is an inversion of the relation of interiority expressed by the preposition in or within, "in the interior of." Spiritual bodies or spiritual entities are no longer in a world, not even in their world, in the way that a material body is in its place, or is contained in another body. It is their world that is in them. That is why the Theology attributed to Aristotle, the Arabic version of the last three Enneads of Plotinus, which Avicenna annotated and which all of our thinkers read and meditated upon, explains that each spiritual entity is "in the totality of the sphere of its Heaven"; each subsists, certainly, independently of the other, but all are simultaneous and each is within every other one. It would be completely false to picture that other world as an undifferentiated, informal heaven.

There is multiplicity, of course, but the relations of spiritual space differ from the relations of space understood under the starry Heaven, as much as the fact of being in a body differs from the fact of being "in the totality of its Heaven." That is why it can be said that "behind this world there is a Sky, an Earth, an ocean, animals, plants, and celestial men; but every being there is celestial; the spiritual entities there correspond to the human beings there, but no earthly thing is there."

PART 2
The word Na-koja-Abad does not designate something like unextended being, in the dimensionless state. The Persian word abad certainly signifies a city, a cultivated and peopled land, thus something extended. What Sohravardi means by being "beyond the mountain of Qaf is that he himself, and with him the entire theosophical tradition of Iran, represents the composite of the mystical cities of Jabalqa, Jabarsa, and Hurqalya. Topographically, he states precisely that this region begins "on the convex surface" of the Ninth Sphere, the Sphere of Spheres, or the Sphere that includes the whole of the cosmos. This means that it begins at the exact moment when one leaves the supreme Sphere, which defines all possible orientation in our world (or on this side of the world), the "Sphere" to which the celestial cardinal points refer. It is evident that once this boundary is crossed, the question "where?" (ubi, koja) loses its meaning, at least the meaning in which it is asked in the space of our sensory experience. Thus the name Na-koja-Abad: a place outside of place, a "place" that is not contained in a place, in a topos, that permits a response, with a gesture of the hand, to the question "where?" But when we say, "To depart from the where," what does this mean?

It surely cannot relate to a change of local position,4 a physical transfer from one place to another place, as though it involved places contained in a single homogeneous space. As is suggested, at the end of Sohravardi's tale, by the symbol of the drop of balm exposed in the hollow of the hand to the sun, it is a matter of entering, passing into the interior and, in passing into the interior, of finding oneself, paradoxically, outside, or, in the language of our authors, "on the convex surface" of the Ninth Sphere--in other words, "beyond the mountain of Qaf The relationship involved is essentially that of the external, the visible, the exoteric ( Arabic, zahir), and the internal, the invisible, the esoteric (Arabic, batin), or the natural world and the spiritual world. To depart from the where, the category of ubi, is to leave the external or natural appearances that enclose the hidden internal realities, as the almond is hidden beneath the shell. This step is made in order for the Stranger, the gnostic, to return home-or at least to lead to that return.

But an odd thing happens: once this transition is accomplished, it turns out that henceforth this reality, previously internal and hidden, is revealed to be enveloping, surrounding, containing what was first of all external and visible, since by means of interiorization, one has departed from that external reality. Henceforth, it is spiritual reality that envelops, surrounds, contains the reality called material. That is why spiritual reality is not "in the where." It is the "where" that is in it. Or, rather, it is itself the "where" of all things; it is, therefore, not itself in a place, it does not fall under the question "where?"-the category ubi referring to a place in sensory space. Its place (its abad) in relation to this is Na-koja (No-where), because its ubi in relation to what is in sensory space is an ubique (everywhere). When we have understood this, we have perhaps understood what is essential to follow the topography of visionary experiences, to distinguish their meaning (that is, the signification and the direction simultaneously) and also to distinguish something fundamental, namely, what differentiates the visionary perceptions of our spiritual individuals (Sohravardi and many others) with regard to everything that our modern vocabulary subsumes under the pejorative sense of creations, imaginings, even utopian madness.

But what we must begin to destroy, to the extent that we are able to do so, even at the cost of a struggle resumed every day, is what may be called the "agnostic reflex" in Western man, because he has consented to the divorce between thought and being. How many recent theories tacitly originate in this reflex, thanks to which we hope to escape the other reality before which certain experiences and certain evidence place us-and to escape it, in the case where we secretly submit to its attraction, by giving it all sorts of ingenious explanations, except one: the one that would permit it truly to mean for us, by its existence, what it is! For it to mean that to us, we must, at all events, have available a cosmology of such a kind that the most astounding information of modern science regarding the physical universe remains inferior to it. For, insofar as it is a matter of that sort of information, we remain bound to what is "on this side of the mountain of Qaf What distinguishes the traditional cosmology of the theosophers in Islam, for example, is that its structurewhere the worlds and interworlds "beyond the mountain of Qaf that is, beyond the physical universes, are arranged in levels intelligible only for an existence in which the act of being is in accordance with its presence in those worlds, for reciprocally, it is in accordance with this act of being that these worlds are present to it. What dimension, then, must this act of being have in order to be, or to become in the course of its future rebirths, the place of those worlds that are outside the place of our natural space? And, first of all, what are those worlds?

I can only refer here to a few texts. A larger number will be found translated and grouped in the book that I have entitled Spiritual Body and Celestial Earth.6 In his "Book of Conversations," Sohravardi writes: "When you learn in the treatises of the ancient Sages that there exists a world provided with dimensions and extension, other than the pleroma of Intelligences [that is, a world below that of the pure archangelic Intelligences], and other than the world governed by the Souls of the Spheres [that is, a world which, while having dimension and extension, is other than the world of sensory phenomena, and superior to it, including the sidereal universe, the planets and the "fixed stars"], a world where there are cities whose number it is impossible to count, cities among which our Prophet himself named Jabalqa and Jabarsa, do not hasten to call it a lie, for pilgrims of the spirit may contemplate that world, and they find there everything that is the object of their desire."

These few lines refer us to a schema on which all of our mystical theosophers agree, a schema that articulates three universes or, rather, three categories of universe. There is our physical sensory world, which includes both our earthly world (governed by human souls) and the sidereal universe (governed by the Souls of the Spheres); this is the sensory world, the world of phenomena (molk). There is the suprasensory world of the Soul or Angel-Souls, the Malakut, in which there are the mystical cities that we have just named, and which begins "on the convex surface of the Ninth Sphere." There is the universe of pure archangelic Intelligences. To these three universes correspond three organs of knowledge: the senses, the imagination, and the intellect, a triad to which corresponds the triad of anthropology: body, soul, spirit-a triad that regulates the triple growth of man, extending from this world to the resurrections in the other worlds.

We observe immediately that we are no longer reduced to the dilemma of thought and extension, to the schema of a cosmology and a gnoseology limited to the empirical world and the world of abstract understanding. Between the two is placed an intermediate world, which our authors designate as 'alam al-mithal, the world of the Image, mundus imaginalis: a world as ontologically real as the world of the senses and the world of the intellect, a world that requires a faculty of perception belonging to it, a faculty that is a cognitive function, a noetic value, as fully real as the faculties of sensory perception or intellectual intuition. This faculty is the imaginative power, the one we must avoid confusing with the imagination that modern man identifies with "fantasy" and that, according to him, produces only the "imaginary." Here we are, then, simultaneously at the heart of our research and of our problem of terminology.

What is that intermediate universe? It is the one we mentioned a little while ago as being called the "eighth climate." For all of our thinkers, in fact, the world of extension perceptible to the senses includes the seven climates of their traditional geography. But there is still another climate, represented by that world which, however, possesses extension and dimensions, forms and colors, without their being perceptible to the senses, as they are when they are properties of physical bodies. No, these dimensions, shapes, and colors are the proper object of imaginative perception or the "psycho- spiritual senses"; and that world, fully objective and real, where everything existing in the sensory world has its analogue, but not perceptible by the senses, is the world that is designated as the eighth climate. The term is sufficiently eloquent by itself, since it signifies a climate outside of climates, a place outside of place, outside of where (Na-koja-Abad!).

The technical term that designates it in Arabic, 'alam a mithal, can perhaps also be translated by mundus archetypus, ambiguity is avoided. For it is the same word that serves in Arabic to designate the Platonic Ideas (interpreted by Sohravardi terms of Zoroastrian angelology). However, when the term refers to Platonic Ideas, it is almost always accompanied by this precise qualification: mothol (plural of mithal) aflatuniya nuraniya, the "Platonic archetypes of light." When the term refers to the world of the eighth climate, it designates technically, on one hand, the Archetype-Images of individual and singular things; in this case, it relates to the eastern region of the eighth climate, the city of Jabalqa, where these images subsist preexistent to and ordered before the sensory world. But on the other hand, the term also relates to the western region, the city of Jabarsa, as being the world or interworld in which are found the Spirits after their presence in the natural terrestrial world and as a world in which subsist the forms of all works accomplished, the forms of our thoughts and our desires, of our presentiments and our behavior. It is this composition that constitutes 'alam al-mithal, the mundus imaginalis.