The Picatrix and ibn Khaldun’s ‘Dream Word of the Perfect Nature’

In doing research on the history of magical dreaming, I’ve gone down some fascinating rabbit holes, but recently came across in an interesting conundrum in medieval Islamic discussions on magic and dreams. In his influential Islamic history, The Muqaddimah, ibn Khaldun mentions magical ‘dream words’ that when “mentioned on falling asleep…cause the dream vision to be about the things one desires,” a standard form of incantatory dream incubation (called istikhara in the Sufi tradition). But then, curiously he says:

“In the Ghâyah, Maslamah mentioned a dream word that he called ‘the dream word of the perfect nature’. It consists of saying, upon falling asleep and after obtaining freedom of the inner senses and finding one’s way clear (for supernatural perception), the following non-Arabic words: tamâghis ba‘dân yaswâdda waghdâs nawfanâ ghâdis. The person should then mention what he wants, and the thing he asks for will be shown to him in his sleep.”

While these words sound like the kinds of barbarous names used for procuring dreams in the Papyri Graecae Magicae, the only other references to Khaldun’s ‘dream words’ I’ve found are from religious historian Kelley Bulkeley’s Dreaming in the World’s Religions, an online mention by Australian shamanic dreamworker Robert Moss, and the fact that William S. Burroughs quoted Khaldun’s passage and used the words as the names for the oneiric cities in his Cities of the Red Night trilogy. No one, however, seems to have looked for Khaldun’s reference in the actual Ghayat (despite the fact that Khaldun seems to have been responsible for the assumption that Maslama ibn Ahmad al-Majriti was the grimoire’s author).

The Ghayat al-Hakim, or Picatrix as it is now better known from it’s Latin title, is a well-known medieval Islamic grimoire, but from prior readings I hadn't noticed it containing any mention of ‘dream words.’ My first assumption is this might be due to differences in translations, as most modern versions are translated from the Latin text rather than the original Arabic. This could make sense, as these Latin translators would have been Christian, and predominant theological scholars since the founding of the Church such as Jerome and Augustine had tried to de-legitimize the popular pagan use of dreams for divine revelation. Were the ‘dream words’ excised from the Latin version of the Ghayat? However, after asking John Michael Greer (who alongside Cristopher Warnock did a recent translation of the Picatrix) if he had any insight from translating the text, I went through Hasham Atallah’s translation from the Arabic and found it to be remarkably similar to the translations from Latin.

I did however determine that Khaldun was referencing the Picatrix passage on the spirits of Perfect Nature (in Book 3, Chapter 6): 

“These wise men called the hidden secret of the complete inborn spiritual nature; Tamaghees Baghdiswad Waghidas Nufanaghdees and these four names are the names of these spirits and they used to call them when they needed them and it is also a sign for the perfect nature.” 

 The names of the spirits are phonetically similar to Khaldun’s ‘dream words’ (more similar than when they’ve been translated from the Latin), but this chapter in general is less about dreams than instructions for communicating with one’s Perfect Nature (in other words, one’s Daimon or Holy Guardian Angel). The Picatrix does go on to say, though, that Hermes was given these names in a dream by his Perfect Nature, and quotes Socrates that the perfect nature “opens for him all the locks of wisdom and teaches him in his sleep and while he is awake.”

While it is useful to know that one can communicate with one’s HGA through dreams, to ask for knowledge in dreams, this still doesn’t explain Khaldun’s ‘dream words.’ Did he simply generalize this passage from the Picatrix without understanding its import? Or was he connecting it to a tradition of incantatory dream incubation in Islamic magick that could be traced back to the PGM, perhaps from the Kitab al-Istamatis (Liber Antimaquis) mentioned in the Picatrix? Given Khaldun’s broader discussions of dreaming and Sufism in the Muqaddimah, it seems likely he was aware of medieval Islamic discussions on dreaming as a means of apprehending spiritual reality.

The most influential Islamic theory of dreams as a spiritual reality comes from the renowned Sufi metaphysical scholar ibn ‘Arabi, whose conception of dreams as a preeminent means for acquiring spiritual knowledge has been called “the most profound ever expounded on the subject.” Unfortunately, like many Islamic medieval and magickal texts, it is difficult to find English translations—especially as ‘Arabi wrote over 700 treatise—and the passages I’ve found from his al-Futūḥāt al-Makkīyya do not mention intending dreams through specific incantations (even if, according to Peter Lamborn Wilson, asking to be shown what you wish in dreams was a key part of the istikhara Sufi dream incubation practices that developed out of Ibn ‘Arabi’s work).

And that’s as deep as this rabbit hole goes for the time being; thanks for jumping down it with me. And if you have any interesting dreamwork practices of your own I’d love to hear about them!