When Hieroglyphs Became Alchemy: Abū al-Qāsim al-ʿIrāqī and the Book of the Seven Climes
A thirteenth-century Egyptian alchemist opened an older book, looked at images he believed contained the secret wisdom of ancient Egypt, and tried to read them…
Esoteric Study
The Mithras Liturgy Before the Mithraic Ritual Myth: PGM IV, Immortalization, and the Visionary Ascent
Roman Mithraic tauroctony relief, public-domain ancient artwork via Wikimedia Commons. Archaeological Mithraism is essential context, but it should not automatically be equated with the PGM…
Mani’s Lost Book of Pictures: How Manichaeism Turned Cosmic Light into Sacred Art
Manichaeism is often remembered through a single adjective: “dualistic.” That description is not wrong, but it is radically incomplete. The religion founded by Mani in…
Ars Notoria Before the ‘Instant Knowledge’ Myth: Solomon, Sacred Diagrams, and Medieval Ritual Learning
A complex notory diagram from Yale Mellon MS 142, ca. 1225. Public-domain manuscript image via Yale Library and The Public Domain Review. In medieval Europe,…
Oracle Bones Before the I Ching Myth: Shang Diviners, Ancestors, Cracks, and the Birth of Written Divination
Inscribed oracle bone fragment, Shang dynasty, ca. 1600–1046 BCE. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Open Access, Public Domain. Oracle bones are among the most important…
Mo Before Tarot: Tibetan Dice Divination, Mañjuśrī, Mipham, and the Ritual Logic of Uncertain Futures
A six-sided die looks almost trivial beside the monumental imagery of Tibetan Buddhism. It has none of the visual drama of a wrathful deity, a…
Chöd Before the “Demon Feeding” Myth: Machig Labdrön, Prajñāpāramitā, and the Ritual Art of Cutting
Machig Labdrön, the Tibetan yogini associated above all with Chöd, in a nineteenth-century Tibetan painting now in the Rubin Museum collection. Public-domain reproduction via Wikimedia…
Defixiones Before the “Black Magic” Myth: Curse Tablets, Binding, and Divine Justice in the Greek and Roman World
Lead curse tablet X 14470 from Athens, dated 345–335 BCE, National Archaeological Museum of Greece. The tablet was wrapped and pierced before deposition. Image courtesy…
Etruscan Haruspicy Before the “Fortune-Telling Liver” Myth: The Piacenza Liver and the Sacred Science of Sig ns
The Liver of Piacenza, a bronze model of a sheep’s liver divided into divine regions, late second to early first century BCE. Photograph by Shonagon,…
Tonalpohualli Before the “Aztec Horoscope”: Day Signs, Diviners, and the 260-Day Ritual Count
Page 1 of the Codex Borgia, a pre-Hispanic divinatory manuscript organized around the 260-day ritual count. Public-domain facsimile via Wikimedia Commons. The 260-day ritual count…
Homeromanteion Before Bibliomancy: How Homer, Apollo, and Three Dice Became an Oracle
Greek papyrus fragment with lines from Homer’s Odyssey, ca. 285–250 BCE. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Open Access, Public Domain. Homer was not only read….
Oil on Water Before Scrying: Babylonian Lecanomancy, Omen Science, and the Divination Bowl
Old Babylonian oil-omen tablet fragment in the British Museum. The text records divinatory interpretations based on how oil behaved on water. Ancient Mesopotamian divination is…