Open Questions

Open Diloggun

Why It Is Open Lucumi houses transmit liturgy and divinatory material in handwritten notebooks copied between godparent and godchild. They were never intended for publication, they vary by lineage, and no census of them exists. The published record is therefore of unknown completeness against a body of text nobody has counted.

What Would Settle It A provenanced survey of surviving libretas in institutional and family holdings, undertaken with the consent of the houses concerned, establishing dates, lines of copying and the extent of overlap between them.

Expertise Needed Afro-Cuban religious studies; manuscript studies; archival ethnography

Question posed in Sixteen Cowries: Yoruba Divination from Africa to the New World, William Bascom.

Open Western Astrology

Why It Is Open The table reaches us as a table. Vettius Valens transmits it in the Anthology and Claudius Ptolemy records it in the Tetrabiblos, and Ptolemy is himself the source of the complaint: he objects that the Egyptian writers set out no proof and no ordering principle for the boundaries they give, which is his stated reason for offering a set of his own. Nothing in the surviving sources states the rule that produced the sequence of rulers or the width of each of the sixty stretches. Modern scholarship has not established one either. This is not a disagreement between camps with positions a reader could go and weigh; it is a gap nobody has filled, which is why the atlas records the sixty figures as transmitted and supplies no rationale behind them.

What Would Settle It A Greek or demotic astrological papyrus that gives the bounds together with any statement of how they were arrived at would settle it directly. Failing that, a securely dated table earlier than Valens showing the boundaries in an intermediate state would show whether they were computed or inherited. A third route is arithmetical rather than documentary: the five planetary totals in this table are Venus 82, Jupiter 79, Mercury 76, Mars 66 and Saturn 57, summing to exactly 360, and a systematic comparison of those figures and of the individual widths against the planetary period numbers used in Babylonian and Hellenistic astronomy would show whether the table is derived from them or independent of them.

Expertise Needed History of ancient astronomy and astrology; Greek and demotic papyrology; Babylonian mathematical astronomy

Question posed in Tetrabiblos, Claudius Ptolemy, Tetrabiblos, Book I.

Open Kabbalah

Why It Is Open Posed by glyph-ceremonial-w5, 2026-07-25. At least three mutually inconsistent sigil sets exist for these 72 angels: the Wellcome Ms.4662 seals, Eliphas Levi's 36 double talismans, and the Golden Dawn's own seals as compiled by Lazare Lenain. None of the source images were fetchable as precise stroke data with the tools available this run (a 403 on the Wellcome material via academia.edu). Choosing one tradition and drawing it from memory would be fabrication presented as attested fact.

What Would Settle It Owner guidance on which tradition to follow, plus visual access good enough to trace that tradition's seals faithfully.

Expertise Needed Practical Kabbalah

Question posed in Divinity Atlas Open Questions Register, First Edition.

Open Reflexology

Why It Is Open The Sixth Dynasty relief at Saqqara is very widely cited by reflexology sources as evidence of ancient Egyptian practice. Egyptological readings of the same scene as ordinary manicure, pedicure or medical care exist. Engy El-Kilany has published a survey of foot care scenes in Egyptian tombs which secondary reports quote as calling the nature of the therapy depicted still debated, but that paper could not be obtained, and no Egyptological analysis settling the question either way has been found.

What Would Settle It A published Egyptological analysis of the Ankhmahor relief addressing the reflexology claim directly, either way.

Expertise Needed Egyptology and the history of medicine.

Question posed in Reflexology: Panacea or Placebo?, Hylton B. Menz, Paragraph on the tomb of Ankhmahor.

Open Naturopathy

Why It Is Open Regulation differs sharply by state, province and country, and the licensing picture changes. Summary figures circulate but could not be verified against primary regulatory sources at the time of writing.

What Would Settle It A jurisdiction-by-jurisdiction check against the regulators themselves, with the date of the check recorded, since the answer decays.

Expertise Needed Health policy and comparative regulatory law.

Question posed in Divinity Atlas Open Questions Register, First Edition.

Open Iridology

Why It Is Open The owl story is repeated in nearly every account of iridology's origin and is presented as its founding moment, but the accounts trace to later iridological literature rather than to anything Peczely wrote. It has the shape of a foundation legend.

What Would Settle It A statement by Peczely himself, or a contemporary account, describing the observation. Absent that, the earliest attestation of the story would at least date the legend.

Expertise Needed History of medicine, and Hungarian-language archival sources.

Question posed in Ignaz von Peczely, Inventor of Iridology, Edzard Ernst, Chapter 19, abstract.

Open Sefer HaRazim (Book of the Mysteries)

Why It Is Open The text presents itself as angelic revelation rather than the work of a named human author, and it survives in no single complete manuscript, only later medieval copies and Cairo Geniza fragments assembled into a modern critical reconstruction, so neither its compiler nor a precise date can be read directly off any single witness.

What Would Settle It An earlier or more complete manuscript witness, or an external contemporary reference to the text, would help fix its date and origin; comparative philological work situating its Greek-influenced Hebrew more precisely within the late antique Jewish magical corpus could narrow the range further.

Expertise Needed Jewish studies and late antique magical and esoteric textual studies

Question posed in Sefer Ha-Razim: The Book of the Mysteries (Michael A. Morgan), Michael A. Morgan, translator, based on Mordecai Margalioth's critical Hebrew reconstruction.

Open Arbatel de Magia Veterum

Why It Is Open The 1575 Basel edition names no author, and no signed manuscript or contemporary attribution has surfaced. Modern critical editions have examined the question without reaching a settled candidate.

What Would Settle It A documentary link, a printer's record, a contemporary letter or an internal stylistic match tying the Latin text to a named figure in the Basel printing or physicians' circles of the 1570s.

Expertise Needed History of science / early modern book history

Question posed in Arbatel de Magia Veterum (Robert Turner's 1655 translation), Anonymous, first printed Basel 1575; English translation by Robert Turner, 1655.

Open Brihat Parashara Hora Shastra

Why It Is Open The tradition attributes the text to the Vedic-age sage Parashara, but no surviving manuscript is reliably datable earlier than the medieval period, and the text shows internal evidence of compilation over time rather than single authorship.

What Would Settle It A critical, manuscript-stemma edition comparing the major recensions, dating their strata by internal astronomical references and cross-checking against securely dated citing texts such as the Phaladeepika.

Expertise Needed Indology / history of science (Sanskrit textual criticism)

Question posed in Brihat Parashara Hora Shastra, Sage Parashara (attributed).

Open Vedanga Jyotisha

Why It Is Open No independent record of Lagadha survives outside the text's own attribution. Nothing about his identity, period, or historical existence can be checked against any other source, which is a gap rather than a live scholarly disagreement: no camp holds a documented rival candidate.

What Would Settle It A securely dated independent reference to Lagadha in another Vedic-era or classical Indian text, or manuscript evidence tying a specific historical figure to the Vedanga Jyotisha's composition.

Expertise Needed Indology / history of Vedic literature

Question posed in The Vedanga Jyotisha of Lagadha, in its Rigveda and Yajurveda Recensions, Translated and critically edited by T. S. Kuppanna Sastry.

Open The Bahir (Book of Illumination)

Why It Is Open Scholem argued that the Bahir is an edited compilation rather than a single composition, and that some of its material is older than its Provencal setting and eastern in origin. He could not reconstruct what that material was or how it travelled, and neither has anyone since. The manuscript tradition begins after the book was already circulating in Languedoc, so there is no witness to the stage before editing.

What Would Settle It A manuscript or a citation predating the Provencal circulation, or a securely dated eastern text sharing the Bahir's distinctive images and its fragmentary form. Comparative work on the Gnostic and Merkavah parallels Scholem noted, done against dated witnesses rather than against reconstructions, would narrow it even without a new manuscript.

Expertise Needed Medieval Jewish intellectual history, Hebrew and Aramaic codicology, and the study of late antique Jewish esoteric literature

Question posed in Origins of the Kabbalah, Gershom Scholem, translated by Allan Arkush.

Open The Heptameron (Elementa Magica)

Why It Is Open The ascription to Pietro d'Abano is rejected on chronological grounds, which removes an author without supplying one. The text first appears in print in 1559 appended to the pseudo-Agrippan Fourth Book, and no manuscript witness earlier than the sixteenth century has been identified for it. Its angelic hours and weekday conjurations resemble material circulating in fifteenth-century ritual manuscripts, but resemblance is not descent.

What Would Settle It A dated manuscript of the text or of a recognisable portion of it from before 1559, or a securely dated source that the printed text can be shown to be copying. Collation of the Heptameron against the surviving fifteenth-century angel magic manuscripts, done systematically rather than by impression, would establish whether it is compiled from them.

Expertise Needed History of the book and early printing, Latin palaeography, and the study of late medieval ritual magic manuscripts

Question posed in Grimoires: A History of Magic Books, Owen Davies.

Open The Sworn Book of Honorius (Liber Juratus)

Why It Is Open The Sworn Book of Honorius names Honorius of Thebes as the magician who compiled it at the direction of an assembly of masters. No document outside the Liber Juratus tradition itself mentions such a person, no Theban connection is corroborated, and the framing assembly of eighty-nine masters reads as a legitimating device rather than a record. The name may belong to a real compiler, to a deliberate pseudonym, or to a confusion with one of the popes named Honorius, to whom a separate grimoire was later ascribed.

What Would Settle It A datable manuscript, charter, university record or inventory naming a magician of that name independently of the Sworn Book, or a codicological study of the surviving manuscript families that placed the attribution earlier or later than the text it introduces.

Expertise Needed Medieval Latin palaeography and codicology, with the history of learned magic.

Question posed in Grimoires: A History of Magic Books, Owen Davies.

Open De Heptarchia Mystica

Why It Is Open The 2026-07-26 discovery and buildout design documents estimated 49 HeptarchicRoyalty rows for this table. Peterson's edition of Sloane MS 3191 and the parallel full text edition on archive.org name only fourteen individuals: the seven Heptarchical Kings and their seven Princes, one pair per day of the week. Each Prince is also described with a retinue of forty two attendant ministers, but the manuscript identifies these by table position or letter rather than by proper name, so seeding them as Name rows would mean inventing names Dee never gave them. c2-esoterica seeded the fourteen verified Kings and Princes on 2026-07-27 and left this gap open rather than closing it with fabricated rows.

What Would Settle It A closer reading of the full Sloane 3191 folios, or a scholarly edition that resolves whether the forty two ministers per prince carry individual names anywhere in Dee's working papers, or whether the 49 estimate instead conflated the Heptarchia with a different Enochian roster (the ninety one Aethyr governors, or the Watchtower angels) that has its own separate naming scheme.

Expertise Needed Early modern manuscript studies / history of Renaissance magic

Question posed in De Heptarchia Mystica (Sloane MS 3191), Joseph H. Peterson's edition, John Dee, edited by Joseph H. Peterson.

Open Splendor Solis

Why It Is Open Splendor Solis is attributed to Salomon Trismosin, described in the alchemical literature as the teacher of Paracelsus. Nothing outside that literature attests him. Paracelsus, who names many of his sources and quarrels with most of them, never mentions such a teacher. The name itself reads as constructed, joining Solomon to a Hermetic epithet, which is a common pattern in alchemical pseudonymity.

What Would Settle It An archival trace independent of the alchemical corpus, such as a matriculation record, a guild or civic register, a will, or a correspondence naming him, or conversely a manuscript study showing the attribution was added to an already circulating text at a datable point.

Expertise Needed Early modern German archival history and the philology of the alchemical manuscript tradition.

Question posed in Grimoires: A History of Magic Books, Owen Davies.

Open The Book of Abramelin

Why It Is Open The Book of Abramelin is narrated by a Jewish traveller of Worms who writes for his son. The narrative frame is circumstantial enough to look autobiographical and conventional enough to be a device. Proposals identifying him with a known figure of the period have been made and none has carried the field, and the surviving German and Hebrew witnesses do not agree closely enough to settle whether the persona belongs to the earliest layer of the text.

What Would Settle It A stemmatic study establishing the relationship of the German and Hebrew witnesses and which of them carries the frame narrative first, or an archival identification of a Jewish traveller of Worms matching the biography the text gives.

Expertise Needed Yiddish and Hebrew manuscript studies, with the social history of Ashkenazi Jewry in the late medieval Rhineland.

Question posed in Grimoires: A History of Magic Books, Owen Davies.

Open Picatrix (Ghayat al-Hakim)

Why It Is Open The Picatrix has long circulated under the name of Maslama al-Majriti, the Andalusi mathematician and astronomer who died in the early eleventh century. The ascription has been challenged in favour of Maslama ibn Qasim al-Qurtubi, a different Andalusi scholar of overlapping name and period with a documented interest in the occult sciences. The atlas records the attribution as it circulates and does not treat either identification as settled.

What Would Settle It A comparative study of the Arabic Ghayat against the securely attributed works of each candidate, on vocabulary, sources cited and technical practice, or a manuscript colophon earlier than the ones currently known.

Expertise Needed Classical Arabic philology and the history of science in al-Andalus.

Question posed in Picatrix: A Medieval Treatise on Astral Magic, Dan Attrell and David Porreca (trans.).

Open Ransom Theory of the Atonement

Why It Is Open Patristic writers who named the devil were answered inside their own century by Gregory of Nazianzus, who held that paying the devil was an outrage and that paying the Father was scarcely better. Anselm denied that any claim existed to be bought out. No formulation of the recipient has ever obtained general assent, and the ransom vocabulary is used today by Christians who reject every mechanism proposed for it.

What Would Settle It Exegetical work establishing whether the ransom sayings were ever intended to carry a recipient at all, or whether the metaphor names a condition of captivity without implying a transaction. A finding either way would decide whether the recipient question is a real gap or a question the sources never posed.

Expertise Needed New Testament exegesis; patristics; the study of biblical metaphor

Question posed in The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd revised edition, F. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds.).

Open Christus Victor

Why It Is Open Aulen argued that a unified dramatic view ran through the patristic period and through Luther, and was obscured by the scholastic and liberal accounts. Specialists in patristics have objected that victory language sits alongside sacrificial, medicinal and pedagogical language in the same writers, and that sorting the material into three types flattens the evidence. The theological position and the historical claim are frequently defended and attacked as though they were one thing.

What Would Settle It A survey of the atonement language in the principal patristic writers that counts and contexts each register separately rather than assigning each writer to a type. This would establish whether the dramatic language is dominant, co-ordinate, or one register among several.

Expertise Needed Patristics; historical theology

Question posed in Christus Victor: An Historical Study of the Three Main Types of the Idea of the Atonement, Gustaf Aulen.

Open Penal Substitution

Why It Is Open Anselm framed punishment and satisfaction as alternatives and chose satisfaction, while the Reformed doctrine makes the satisfaction consist in the punishment being borne, and moves the setting from a court of honour to a criminal one. Both a continuity reading and a discontinuity reading are argued by serious historians of doctrine, and each has a stake in the answer: continuity supports the claim of an unbroken Western tradition, discontinuity supports the charge of a sixteenth century innovation.

What Would Settle It A study of the sixteenth century Reformed texts tracing exactly where the penal vocabulary enters, which medieval sources those writers were reading, and whether they understood themselves to be restating Anselm or correcting him. Their own statements about what they were doing have not been collected in one place.

Expertise Needed Historical theology; Reformation studies; medieval intellectual history

Question posed in The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd revised edition, F. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds.).