Disputed Statements

Thomas Rudd, Historical Figures

Standing Scholarly debate

Concerns Lifespan or Floruit End Year

Currently States 1656

His death is conventionally dated to around 1656, the year commonly given in accounts of the manuscript tradition that later carried his name; as with the manuscripts themselves, which are compilations rather than a single authored work, the surviving record leaves the exact year an inference rather than a documented fact drawn from a parish burial register.

Source The Goetia of Dr Rudd (Harley MS 6482 and related manuscripts), Thomas Rudd tier 1

Thonmi Sambhota, Historical Figures

Standing Scholarly debate

Concerns Historicity

Currently States Historicity debated

Sam van Schaik's Tibet: A History (Yale University Press, 2011) sets the Tibetan tradition's account of Thonmi Sambhota as a historical minister who devised the Tibetan script against the documentary evidence available to check it, and finds the earliest witnesses to his story date from around four centuries after the events they describe, with the specific works of grammar traditionally ascribed to him unable to be independently dated to his own era at all. Van Schaik's historical method draws the careful distinction the tradition's late attestation supports: the late and undatable evidence undermines confidence in the specific traditional account of his role, without going so far as to conclude that no such minister existed at all.

Source Tibet: A History, Sam van Schaik tier 1

Thonmi Sambhota, Historical Figures

Standing Scholarly debate

Concerns Lifespan or Floruit

Currently States Seventh century, by the tradition that names him. No dates are recorded.

Sam van Schaik's Tibet: A History (Yale University Press, 2011) notes that Thonmi Sambhota's traditional dates are derived entirely by placing him at the court of the Tibetan king Songtsen Gampo, whose own reign dates are used to back-calculate Thonmi's lifespan. Because that placement at Songtsen Gampo's court is itself the disputed historical claim, resting on the same late, undatable hagiographic tradition examined for his historicity generally, van Schaik's method treats the lifespan dates as dependent on, rather than independent evidence for, the traditional account of his role, which is why they cannot be used to corroborate it.

Source Tibet: A History, Sam van Schaik tier 1

Thonmi Sambhota, Historical Figures

Standing Scholarly debate

Concerns Office Held

Currently States Sam van Schaik's Tibet: A History (Yale University Press, 2011) records the traditional account crediting Thonmi Sambhota as a minister at the court of Songtsen Gampo, sent to India in the seventh century to study writing and returning to devise the Tibetan script; van Schaik notes no source contemporary with Songtsen Gampo's reign names such a minister, the story appears only in Tibetan histories from about the eleventh century onward, and scholarship treats the man himself as an uncertain rather than a documented historical figure.

Source Tibet: A History, Sam van Schaik tier 1

Thonmi Sambhota, Historical Figures

Standing Scholarly debate

Concerns Place of Origin

Currently States Later Tibetan tradition places him within Tibet, in the Nyang region, before he was sent to India to study Sanskrit and devise the script; this rests on the same non-contemporary sources that supply his traditional dates and cannot be independently verified.

Source Tibet: A History, Sam van Schaik tier 1

Thor's Hammer Pendant, Sacred Objects & Ritual Items

Standing Scholarly debate

Concerns Scholarly Note

Currently States Whether the pendant was worn in answer to Christian cross-wearing, or is an older practice that becomes visible in the conversion period, is argued both ways; a mould from Trendgarden in Jutland that cuts a hammer and a cross in one block is cited in support of each

Thor's hammer pendants, worn as amulets across the Viking Age Norse world, are read by some scholars as straightforward devotional objects invoking Thor's protection and by others as objects whose wearing became a deliberately visible response to the spread of Christian cross pendants in the same period, a pagan counter-symbol rather than an older, unselfconscious custom. John Lindow's Norse Mythology: A Guide to the Gods, Heroes, Rituals, and Beliefs (2001) records that a soapstone mould found at Trendgarden, Denmark, capable of casting both a hammer and a cross pendant from the same workshop, is claimed as evidence by both readings, read either as evidence of a syncretic milieu supporting the counter-symbol reading or as evidence that both symbols were simply available consumer forms without ideological charge. The method is archaeological and art-historical, examining the distribution, findspots and manufacturing context of surviving pendants. Because the same physical evidence supports both readings depending on the interpretive frame, both retain active advocates.

Source Norse Mythology: A Guide to the Gods, Heroes, Rituals, and Beliefs, John Lindow tier 1

Thoth, Deities

Standing Scholarly debate

Concerns Origin Account

Currently States Egyptian sources disagree about Thoth's origin. Hermopolitan cosmogony describes him as self created at the beginning of time, another theological tradition credits him as a son of the sun god Ra, and the Osirian myth cycle as recounted by the Greek writer Plutarch has him born from the forehead of Set after Set swallowed the god Horus's seed. Egyptologists read the discrepancy as evidence of competing regional and temple traditions rather than a single settled genealogy.

Source The Oxford Encyclopedia of Ancient Egypt, Donald B. Redford (ed.) tier 1

Thoughtography, Psi Phenomena

Standing Scholarly debate

Concerns Notable Exposure

Currently States Photographers and amateur magicians Charlie Reynolds and David Eisendrath, in Popular Photography (October 1967), described how Serios could have concealed a miniature optical device inside his "gizmo" tube to produce a trick-lens effect.

Jule Eisenbud, a psychiatrist, documented more than four hundred Polaroid sessions with Ted Serios between 1964 and 1966, published as The World of Ted Serios (1967), the work that carried the English term thoughtography, after Tomokichi Fukurai's earlier Japanese term nensha of around 1910, into wide use. Charles Reynolds and David Eisendrath, writing An Amazing Weekend with the Amazing Randi (1967) and working with stage magician James Randi, examined a session and argued Serios used a small optical device concealed in the handheld tube he required for the images to project an image onto the Polaroid film. Eisenbud disputed that this specific trickery had actually been caught on camera during the sessions in question, maintaining the device was not demonstrated in use rather than merely alleged. The method on the exposure side was direct physical and photographic scrutiny of Serios's equipment and technique under conditions Serios himself set. Serios's output declined markedly after this and subsequent scrutiny intensified, which each side reads differently, keeping the exposure debated rather than settled.

Source An Amazing Weekend with the Amazing Randi, Charles Reynolds, David B. Eisendrath tier 2

Thracian Religion, Religions

Standing Scholarly debate

Concerns Origin Period Start Year

Currently States -800

The Thracians themselves left no religious literature, so nothing fixes when their religion began; their earliest outside literary attestation is Homer's Iliad, conventionally dated to around the eighth century BCE, where Thracian warriors already appear as an established people. 800 BCE marks that earliest outside glimpse, not the religion's actual origin, which is undocumented and almost certainly older.

Source The Thracians (Hoddinott), R. F. Hoddinott tier 1

Throat, Chakras

Standing Scholarly debate

Concerns Attributed Author / Compiler

Currently States Its date is given as 1526 in some reckonings and 1577 in others

According To Sat-Cakra-Nirupana (1577)

Kurt Leland's Rainbow Body: A History of the Western Chakra System from Blavatsky to Brennan (Ibis Press, 2016) traces the composition date of Purnananda Yati's Sri-tattva-cintamani, the Sanskrit source text behind the seven-chakra system as it reached the West, and finds two dates still in circulation among catalogers and translators, converted from the Hindu Saka calendar: Saka 1448 (1526 CE) and Saka 1499 (1577 CE). Leland compares the manuscript colophons and the catalogue entries recording each date and reports neither has driven out the other in the secondary literature, which is why this atlas's own separate article on the text gives 1577 as a working date while this property records the dispute rather than silently picking one figure.

Source Rainbow Body: A History of the Western Chakra System from Blavatsky to Brennan, Kurt Leland tier 1

Throat, Chakras

Standing Scholarly debate

Concerns Attributed Author / Compiler

Currently States The Sat-Cakra-Nirupana is the sixth chapter of his Sri-tattva-cintamani

According To Sat-Cakra-Nirupana (1577)

Kurt Leland's Rainbow Body: A History of the Western Chakra System from Blavatsky to Brennan (Ibis Press, 2016) traces the composition date of Purnananda Yati's Sri-tattva-cintamani, the Sanskrit source text behind the seven-chakra system as it reached the West, and finds two dates still in circulation among catalogers and translators, converted from the Hindu Saka calendar: Saka 1448 (1526 CE) and Saka 1499 (1577 CE). Leland compares the manuscript colophons and the catalogue entries recording each date and reports neither has driven out the other in the secondary literature, which is why this atlas's own separate article on the text gives 1577 as a working date while this property records the dispute rather than silently picking one figure.

Source Rainbow Body: A History of the Western Chakra System from Blavatsky to Brennan, Kurt Leland tier 1

Throat, Chakras

Standing Scholarly debate

Concerns Attributed Author / Compiler

Currently States Purnananda, a sixteenth-century Bengali tantric author

According To Sat-Cakra-Nirupana (1577)

Kurt Leland's Rainbow Body: A History of the Western Chakra System from Blavatsky to Brennan (Ibis Press, 2016) traces the composition date of Purnananda Yati's Sri-tattva-cintamani, the Sanskrit source text behind the seven-chakra system as it reached the West, and finds two dates still in circulation among catalogers and translators, converted from the Hindu Saka calendar: Saka 1448 (1526 CE) and Saka 1499 (1577 CE). Leland compares the manuscript colophons and the catalogue entries recording each date and reports neither has driven out the other in the secondary literature, which is why this atlas's own separate article on the text gives 1577 as a working date while this property records the dispute rather than silently picking one figure.

Source Rainbow Body: A History of the Western Chakra System from Blavatsky to Brennan, Kurt Leland tier 1

Throat, Chakras

Standing Scholarly debate

Concerns Origin Period Start Year

Currently States 1919

According To The Western chakra system, from Blavatsky to Brennan

Kurt Leland's Rainbow Body (Ibis Press, 2016) dates the London publisher Luzac and Co.'s first printing of Arthur Avalon's (John Woodroffe's) The Serpent Power, the work that fixed the seven-chakra scheme for Western readers, to 1919, based on the publisher's own catalogue record; some other library catalogues, and the Chakra 1 article elsewhere in this collection, instead give 1918. Leland does not adjudicate the one-year gap, which most likely reflects the ordinary difference between a book's printing date and its public release date, a common source of catalogue disagreement for this period. The atlas records 1919 as the publisher-attributed year and flags the alternative rather than asserting either flatly.

Source Rainbow Body: A History of the Western Chakra System from Blavatsky to Brennan, Kurt Leland tier 1

Throat, Chakras

Standing Scholarly debate

Concerns Origin Period End Year

Currently States 1919

According To The Western chakra system, from Blavatsky to Brennan

Kurt Leland's Rainbow Body (Ibis Press, 2016) dates the London publisher Luzac and Co.'s first printing of Arthur Avalon's (John Woodroffe's) The Serpent Power, the work that fixed the seven-chakra scheme for Western readers, to 1919, based on the publisher's own catalogue record; some other library catalogues, and the Chakra 1 article elsewhere in this collection, instead give 1918. Leland does not adjudicate the one-year gap, which most likely reflects the ordinary difference between a book's printing date and its public release date, a common source of catalogue disagreement for this period. The atlas records 1919 as the publisher-attributed year and flags the alternative rather than asserting either flatly.

Source Rainbow Body: A History of the Western Chakra System from Blavatsky to Brennan, Kurt Leland tier 1

Thumb, Fingers

Standing Scholarly debate

Concerns Planetary Rulership

Currently States Venus, by the Mount of Venus, which is the ball of the thumb

According To Western chiromancy

Johannes ab Indagine's 1522 chiromancy text, printed by Johannes Schott, Strasbourg, one of the foundational printed works of Western palmistry, sets out planetary rulership for the four fingers as a symmetrical four-part scheme, but the thumb sits outside that scheme from the start: its own mount at the base of the palm is assigned to Venus, while a separate Mount of Mars lies just above it within the life line. Later manuals, including the palmist Cheiro's, go further and set the thumb apart from the planetary fingers altogether rather than assigning it a fifth planet. Comparing the 1522 text against these later mounts shows the inconsistency is structural, not a later corruption: a four-finger, four-planet correspondence never had a built-in fifth slot for the thumb, which is why different sources in the tradition assign it differently and the atlas records the thumb under Mars while noting the mount at its base belongs to Venus.

Source Introductiones apotelesmaticae elegantes in chyromantiam, physiognomiam, astrologiam naturalem, complexiones hominum, naturas planetarum, Johannes ab Indagine (Johannes Rosenbach) tier 3

Thumb, Fingers

Standing Scholarly debate

Concerns Planetary Rulership

Currently States Mars, by the lower Mount of Mars, which lies above the thumb inside the curve of the life line

According To Western chiromancy

Johannes ab Indagine's 1522 chiromancy text, printed by Johannes Schott, Strasbourg, one of the foundational printed works of Western palmistry, sets out planetary rulership for the four fingers as a symmetrical four-part scheme, but the thumb sits outside that scheme from the start: its own mount at the base of the palm is assigned to Venus, while a separate Mount of Mars lies just above it within the life line. Later manuals, including the palmist Cheiro's, go further and set the thumb apart from the planetary fingers altogether rather than assigning it a fifth planet. Comparing the 1522 text against these later mounts shows the inconsistency is structural, not a later corruption: a four-finger, four-planet correspondence never had a built-in fifth slot for the thumb, which is why different sources in the tradition assign it differently and the atlas records the thumb under Mars while noting the mount at its base belongs to Venus.

Source Introductiones apotelesmaticae elegantes in chyromantiam, physiognomiam, astrologiam naturalem, complexiones hominum, naturas planetarum, Johannes ab Indagine (Johannes Rosenbach) tier 3

Thyme, Plants

Standing Scholarly debate

Concerns Origin of the Name

Currently States From Greek thymon, generally connected to thyein, "to burn as sacrifice" or "to make a burnt offering", from the herb's ancient use as incense, though some etymologists derive it instead from a root meaning courage or spirit.

According To A Modern Herbal

The sacrificial burning derivation of thymon is the more commonly repeated account, but an alternative connection to a root meaning courage or spirited energy has also been proposed, and the two have not been reconciled.

Source A Modern Herbal, Maud Grieve tier 2

Thysia (Greek Animal Sacrifice), Rituals

Standing Scholarly debate

Concerns Standing as a Comparative Category

Currently States Used, but its validity as a comparative category is disputed

The first position, from Karl Meuli to Walter Burkert, reads the rite as the preserved structure of a hunting kill, with the hidden knife, the staged consent of the animal and the collective scattering of grain distributing the guilt of the killing among the whole company present. The second, associated with Jean-Pierre Vernant and Marcel Detienne, sets guilt aside and reads it as a system of cooking and distribution that fixes the human place between gods who take only smoke and beasts that eat raw flesh, with the division of meat marking the political shape of the community. A third position, argued by Gunnel Ekroth from the evidence of hero cult and already recorded in this atlas's own article on the rite, attacks the handbook opposition between Olympian sacrifice, eaten, and sacrifice to heroes and chthonic powers, burned entire, on the ground that the two shade into each other far more than the two-camp framework allows. Walter Burkert's Greek Religion, cited here, supplies the first position and the described structure of the rite itself. None of the three readings has displaced the others, which is why thysia's standing as a comparative sacrificial category is recorded as debated rather than resolved.

Source Greek Religion, Walter Burkert tier 1

Thysia (Greek Animal Sacrifice), Rituals

Standing Scholarly debate

Concerns Scholarly Standing Detail

Currently States Walter Burkert's Greek Religion (Harvard University Press, 1985), the standard modern account of thysia, the normative Greek animal sacrifice in which the beast's consent is staged by sprinkling water so its head nods, records that what the rite ultimately means remains one of the field's long running disputes: readings include Burkert's own guilt-centred account tracing sacrifice to hunting anxiety, a communion reading emphasising the shared meal, and a reading treating the killing chiefly as a mechanism for distributing meat and civic standing, three positions still held rather than one having displaced the others.

Source Greek Religion, Walter Burkert tier 1

Thysia (Greek Animal Sacrifice), Rituals

Standing Scholarly debate

Concerns Purpose

Currently States Contested. Read as the preserved structure of a hunting kill that distributes the guilt of taking a life (Meuli, Burkert), as a system of cooking and distribution that fixes the human place between gods and beasts (Vernant, Detienne), or, on Ekroth's critique, as a rite whose sharp line between sacrifice eaten and sacrifice burned entire does not hold up against the evidence of hero cult.

Source Greek Religion, Walter Burkert tier 1