: All MAGIC - Black or White - is "forbidden" to
: Muslims.
As it is forbidden to Christians, Jews, you name the sect. If your aim is to obscure the source of the vision in order to rewrite it for political ends (i.e., control of the masses), you have to declare "magic" taboo.
A Sufi fable tells of a young lout who presents himself to an Adept. "I wish only to serve you," says the boy. After a year the boy asks to speak with the Adept. "I have served you for a year. I now ask that you tell me the Secrets of Life."
"I will send for you," says the Adept. Later he calls the boy to his tent and hands him a covered bowl. "Take this across the river to the hermit who lives on the other side, and he will tell you the secrets of life."
The boy takes the bowl and wades into the shallow river. About halfway across curiosity makes him lift the cover of the bowl. A rat jumps out and swims away.
The boy crosses the river and presents the covered bowl to the hermit who lives on the shore. "My master," says the boy, "told me to deliver this to you, and that you would tell me the secrets of life."
The hermit takes the lid off the bowl, discovers it empty, and says, "how can you possibly expect to learn the Secrets of Life, if you can't even keep a rat in a bowl?"
One of the many morals of this fable is that the blueprint for a new religion is never given to fools or louts. I could ask you, Aladdin, to tell us how it was that Mohammad received the Koran, and you would doubtless tell a tale something like this: that a simple cameldriver or a boy curing Latakia tobacco fell asleep in some desolate place, and Allah spoke to him in coherent sentences, which the boy was capable of recording faithfully.
It does not happen like that. Messages from God are given to those who prepare themselves to receive them, via yoga, meditation, ritual--all those practices we would lump under the general heading of "Magic." The messengers have always been practitioners of "Magic."
Occultists.
Their followers end up with the task of recording the teachings of the Master. At this point the Agents of Control intervene as editors, in order to co-opt the original message.
How many "Christian" Lambs of God does it take to blow up an abortion clinic, how many Palastinians does it take to fragment a pizzeria in Jerusalem, before people begin to realize that organized religion of any stripe is more of a barrier between God and humankind than it is an avenue?
oliver
