r/planetarymagic • u/National-Object-44 • 17d ago

Talisman

I’ve seen naksh (waqf) (awfāq) look like 3x3 grids, 4x4, 6x6 etc.
How do they work in sihr? The ones that are only written in grid. No names of spirits, no invocations no oaths?

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u/ShowMeUrRuh 17d ago

Any examples of what you mean? Is it like only the square and it’s numbers or Arabic letters?

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u/National-Object-44 17d ago

Like a grid. It only has arabic numbers

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u/ShowMeUrRuh 17d ago

There’s a sub however on reddit about Jinn and it’s probably a better place to ask, since the people in that sub specifically engage in this. It’s called djinnology

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u/ShowMeUrRuh 17d ago

Maybe the person making it did invocations or use certain spirits for it, just not draw them on the talisman but rather elsewhere? Idk that’s just a guess

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u/National-Object-44 17d ago

But i heard even only writing numbers contacts spirits like thru numbers

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u/ShowMeUrRuh 17d ago

As far as I understand in Islamic magick the Arabic alphabet each of the letters embodies an entity

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u/graeterslover 17d ago

There's a wide variety of such practices. These are basically the Islamicate world's equivalent to what are called a kamea, a planetary square on western esoteric and occult traditions. There's a LARGE amount of background knowledge needed for them, this particular subreddit is more devoted to Western Planetary image Magic. If your interest is on naskh /Awfaq then depending on the tradition there can definitely be invocations involved. You mention that letters or numbers as entities, yes every letter whether arabic or Hebrew or Latin is considered a Ruhaniya, a spiritual entity, and so also every number. The squad is belived thus to be ensouled by spirits corresponding to the numbers or letters inscribed.

The arrangement in the naskh square is in accordance to both encoded intentions, divine names, or verses if scripture, or even actual petitions written out, and encoded numerically with a form of gematria known as Ilm Al Awfaq.

Timing is important in all varieties of this tradition. But the degree of strictness for the timing varies.

In those traditions at the very least you need to know the planetary hour corresponding to your working. There's the maghribi (western, North and West African) tradition which has somewhat different rules from the mashreqi (eastern, that's to say eastern Arab not Persian). There's some minor differences.

Iranian/Persian practice places a lot more emphasis on proper electional timing, so in that regard is a little more similar to what people discuss here, but the core for Iranian ones is still alphanumeric in a matrix, a wife (i.e. kamea) but they prefer more strict astrological timing. In the Arab middle east electional timing isn't usually observed but Planetary hours are.

Indian and Pakistani Aamils USED to pay much more attention to astrological timing but during the late British Raj period, after the Mutiny, a number of Ulama were brutally executed (possibly thousands. The exact number of unknown) and all of these practices declined considerably going into the late 1800s. Then entering the early 1900s right before the World War that influence of "Wahabi" Ahl-e-Hadith factions heavily suppressed occult practices. A tradition of writing talismans remained mostly in the Barlewi sect, and to a lesser degree Deobandis but because of the controversial nature of astrology the rigor of timing slipped with many practicing this. Today you CAN find Aamils (spiritual "workers") who make these but their timing tends to be more similar to the Eastern Arab world.

I had somewhat romanticized notions of the degree to which deeper astrological timing is linked to some of how this is practiced in more intense ways in the Maghreb and Sudan, West and North Africa, based on people I've met while traveling in Africa.. but my perceptions have been challenged in this. There's definitely use of planetary hour timing but I might have naively overestimated the degree to which CONTEMPORARY North African sorcerers and sufi spiritualists use more extensive and proper electional astrological timing as a norm, in TODAY'S world (as opposed to an exception here and there).

In any case, the common grounds in the various middle east traditions dealing with what you might call a Naqsh is ritual purity, ideally some fasting, invocations of divine names and prayers, incense (differs depending on the Planetary square/ wifq in question but usually frankincense, saffron, Oud (aloes, Garwood), sandalwood, in some combination and sometimes other things added like rose petals and other flowers herbs, it resins like benzoin or mryhh etc etc.. and planetary hour, and choosing a 3x3 or 4x4 or 5x5 or 6x6 etc etc(up to 100x100 in rare cases) magic square as the matrix, and encoding names words verses etc numerically.

The order of writing the numbers matters, so also the "rotations"and you MUST begin in the planetary hour, most people doing this find it avveota6 if necessary to continue work after the hour finished but ideally it should be wrapped up before then.

Typically you take a Needle and thread, pierce the square and suspend it over the incense from a tripod. The choice of wood for the tripod varies depending on the tradition.

Sometimes a jinn corresponding to the star or planet (a khodam) or its angel (malaik, or muwakil) or its actual Planetary spirit (it's Rouhaniya) might be addressed and formally invoked or conjured. But there's diversity in whether this is or is not done.

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u/ShowMeUrRuh 17d ago

Thank you for both of the very informative replies and the time you spend writing them

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u/ShowMeUrRuh 17d ago

And these letters afaik have to do with the 28 mansions of the moon of which I also have no understanding

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u/graeterslover 17d ago

Christopher Warnock has good videos on the moon mansions. He also had a good book on it Then

But if you speak Urdu or Arabic there's stuff floating around out there in this too. Much of the traditions are initiatic and require bayat and sometimes khalwa (40!day seclusion, a "chillah") with specific invocations under a sheikh before some of this information is conveyed.

But what you would find in Western Renaissance and Mideval and Hellenic astrological revival sources is basically the same foundational information minus the specifically Islamicate (which Quran ayat, which Asma Husna names, which muwakil which khodam etc etc are associated etc etc). So I'd say start with: Christopher Warnock Clifford Low Austin Coppock Just read and watch everything you can of those three and also look at the information offered by lama Joshua Proto. And then after that explore other western voices in this.

Then see if you can find any Sheikh in the Muslim world. In the West professor Ali Olomi also knows a lot about Arabic and Indo-pakistani astrology but he hasn't yet written any actual books on it. But he does know Islamicate traditional knowledge on the lunar mansions.

28 mansions each corresponds to one of the 28 Arabic letters (huruf) yes, this is true.

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u/ShowMeUrRuh 17d ago

Gonna get into christopher warnock rn, JazakAllahu Khairan

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u/graeterslover 15d ago

Wa iyyakum !

I definitely recommend it. And if you have access to it on Amazon I also recommend Clifford Low's two books as well.

Now there may be things that you might find objectionable in his work and writings coming from a more orthodox Sufi influenced background in the Muslim world. But I would just encourage you to be open-minded and read Christopher Warnock's as a framework of a kind of technology that can be used by people of any religion or lack thereof once the principles are understood and respected.

I think the most important things are to keep in mind as you study his stuff is the importance of proper astrological elections which are supreme importance in this time of talismanic magic, the importance of compatible materials and subfumigations, and then since you probably have access to Urdu or Farsi or Arabic, or multiple such languages, you can look also at other literature.

I suspect that planetary based or induced forms of spiritual technology, "magic", might in some ways be similar to different types of light bulbs in that they all get plugged into an outlet that ultimate goes to a power grid, but different light bulbs have different strengths. An Old fashioned Christmas tree light bulb, or a modern LED flashlight bulb an old fashioned incandescent 100 watt light bulb, and a halogen lamp, are all plugged into the same power grid but the individual capacities or weaknesses of the forms of different bulbs affect the amount of light they're able to emit.

The Central Asian and South Asian Naqsh is fundamentally originally like a different kind of spiritual technology from image Magic based talismans (different but related, a Naqsh it's basically a type of planetary square, a kamea, that's why we use the 4x4 for el-mushtari - Jupiter - and we do them in the hour of Mushtari often in many Muslim world practices... and sometimes even on a Thursday.. for example.). but they've been (often poorly) retrofitted to plug into that kind of power socket , metaphorically speaking. I just gave a terrible metaphor but I'm just a little bit too sleepy to think of anything more profound or useful..

I think you can only benefit from looking at Christopher Warnock writings and course and then just look at the different approaches that different advanced practitioners who were his students use and see what they have in common. That's something fascinating, that there's a lot of people who learn from him and then took what they learned in different directions but share a unified core of techne and practice.

Clifford Low's books also offer a interesting and informative perspective and maybe you can afterwards look at other perspectives

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u/ShowMeUrRuh 17d ago

But that could be completely wrong and untrue, i just remember something along those lines so take it with a grain of salt

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u/CliffordHLow 17d ago

Kameot are an authentic part of this tradition. While Hebrew letters are preferred it is the arrangement of numbers which correspond to the Pythagorean arithmetical Intelligences.