Talisman
A talisman is any object ascribed with religious or magical powers intended to protect, heal, or harm individuals for whom they are made.
Talismans are used for a wide array of functions, such as: the personal protection of the wearer, loved ones or belongings, aiding in fertility, and helping crop production.
For example, Muslim Ibn al-hajjaj instructed military commanders to inscribe Quran 54:46 on a cloth with rosewater, musk, and amber when Libra is rising and in the hour of the sun, and to carry it to the battlefield to prosper over oppressors and nonbelievers.
[9] According to the 12th century translator John of Seville and Limia's version of ibn Qurra's Arabic text, De imaginibus, he saw talismans and astronomy to be more crucial for gaining wisdom than the studies of geometry and philosophy.
In Adelard of Bath's translation of the same text, it is stressed that extensive knowledge of both astronomy and astrology is needed for creating a talisman.
[9] Adelard's translation specifies that to make a talisman which could earn love from a king, family member, or peer, one should use lead, iron, bronze, gold, or silver.
To make a harmful talisman for creating conflicts between others, receiving money, defending or destroying a place, or winning a legal battle, one should use pitch and tar, bitumen, and aloes.
Next in the process is to take a piece of unused parchment or cloth that has been purified with musk, ambergris, and camphor, and draw the ‘rings' of the lords of the ascendant and eleventh place.
[9] In the Islamic world, talismans were regularly employed for personal, social, political, and ideological reasons at both popular and elite levels.
They function as a conduit for divine protection, which can involve both the attraction of positive energies to the wearer and the deflection of disease, danger and the evil eye.
They may also be referred to as a hafiz, (protector) as well as a himala (pendant) often affixed to or suspended from the body, for example as a necklace, ring, talismanic shirt, or a small object within a portable pouch.
He describes the process of producing this kind of talisman as "...writing words, some uninterruptible, some biblical, on a parchment to be hung around the neck of the man or woman during intercourse.
[citation needed] The Pseudo-Aristotelian Hermetica, a series of closely related Arabic texts attributed to Hermes Trismegistus and perhaps dating to the ninth century CE,[14] explores the concept of ruhaniyyat, i.e., angels from spiritual force/realm in the natural world, and how an individual can gain access to those forces.
Text between Alexander the Great and Aristotle explore a variety of instructions of how to harness these spiritual forces through talisman, concoctions, amulets, and more that are each used for a designated purpose.
It tells that when there are certain astrological marks, a ruby red stone should be carved on a Thursday with a man with wings and a crown riding a lion with a flag, while six other hairless men bow under his hands.
In India, China and Japan, its three angles represent Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva, who are considered in Hindu doctrine as the Creator, Preserver, and the Destroyer respectively.
The early cultures that contributed to Western civilization believed that the Seal of Solomon was an all-powerful talisman and amulet, especially when used with either a Cross of Tau, the Hebrew Yodh, or the Egyptian Crux Ansata in the center.
Length ratios that the designer, the astrologer and alchemist Tycho Brahe, worked into the building and its gardens match those that Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa associated with Jupiter and the sun.
