Thread by @MaslamaQ

Thread: In one of ‘Abd al-Fattāḥ al-Tūkhī’s books entitled “The Magic of Hārūt and Mārūt”, he explains the optical illusion of the “Talking Head” placed on a plate surrounded by clotting blood. People ask it questions and it answers. 1

The secret: mirrors placed strategically that hide the body of the person. This reminded me of the ritual of the Talking Head attributed to the Harranians. /2

In the Fihrist, Ibn al-Nadīm tells us that when the Caliph al-Ma’mūn visited Harran, he accused the inhabitants of being ''Adherents of the Head,'' who had lived in the days of his father, Hārūn al-Rashīd (786- 809 C.E.). /3

Image: by the fantastic photographer Darragh Mason @spiritbox3 . Click this link for a full set of beautiful photos he took of Harran darraghmason.com/index/G0000tRV…

In Ibn al-Nadīm’s account, the head is that of a man who resembled Mercury. The man was seized and was placed in a solution of oil and borax, until his joints are relaxed enough to pull his head off without tearing. The head would tell the future and respond to questions. /4

Image: Mercury from al-Qazwini's "Marvels of Creation", Isfahan 1632.

Al-Dimashqī gives a similar account of a "prophetic head," but this time the man shares attributes with Mars. /5

image: Mars from Kitab al-Mawalid attributed to Abu Ma'shar al-Balkhi. BnF, Arabe 2584.

Of course, there is the Ghāya’s account, though this time it is attributed to the “Brahmans” (II.12): “Belonging to them are many strange things... Among these is the head, in which fortune-tellers from among them believe. /6

They set it up under caput draconis. They find a hairy dark-skinned, blue-black eyed man with knotted eyebrows. They lure him with whatever he wants until they bring him to the house of the temples. He is stripped and seated in a trough filled with sesame oil up to throat. /7

It is then sealed at the top just from where the head stretches out. They fasten the cover with nails and seal it with lead in such a way that his head remains outside and his body in the oil. Then they feed him dried figs soaked in sesame oil each day. /8

They suffumigate his nose and face with an incense they call the incense of amazement. They recite invocations [special] to them and they keep doing this for 40 days without giving him water while the effect of the oil takes place until his nerves are softened, /9

his joints are relaxed, his veins break, and he becomes pliable as wax. On the appropriate day, they congregate and recite special invocations, and suffumigate with an incense. They grab his head and pull it from the first vertebrae. /10

It is pulled out along with the veins attached to it until they all exit from the vertebrae, and the body remains in the oil. Then they seat him in an embrasure over sifted ash that they make from olive ash, containing a little ash from the remains of [burnt] bodies. /11

They wrap him with some fluffed cotton and suffumigate him with an incense of theirs and the head would tell them about the rise and drop of prices, the alteration of states, and what happens in the world, while his eyes are still seeing but not blinking. /12

If perhaps they ignore planetary devotions, he would demand them, chastise them, and tell them about what goes on in their very selves, and if they perhaps should ask him about the sciences and arts, he would answer." /13

A specific form of necromancy involving talking heads is found in rabbinic sources. In a well-known biblical passage, Rachel steals the teraphim of her father, Laban, and flees from Harran together with Jacob (Gen 31:19). /14

In an article entitled “Talking Heads: Necromancy in Jewish and Christian Accounts from Mesopotamia and beyond”, Emmanouela Grypeou tells us, “Later rabbinic tradition offered some very intriguing explanations of the nature and function of these somewhat mysterious teraphim. /15

Image: Plastered Skull, c. 9000 BC Israel Museum, Jerusalem.

In Pirqe de Rabbi Eliezer (PRE) we read: “God came to Laban the Aramaean in a dream … [and Laban says to Jacob]: “yet wherefore hast thou stolen my Teraphim, which I worshipped? “What are the Teraphim? They slay a man, a firstborn, and he is red (in colour). /16

And they pinch off his head, and salt it with salt (and spices), and they write upon a golden plate the name of an unclean (spirit), and place it under his tongue, and they put it in the wall, and they kindle lamps before it, and bow down to it, and it speaks to them. /17

Whence do we know that the Teraphim speak? Because it is said, “For the Teraphim have spoken vanity” (Zech. X.2)… The practitioners of this “occult” knowledge will be punished in the Gehenna.” /18

Speaking of Talking Heads /19

Euphonia