Siraj al-Din al-Sakkaki was a court magician in 13th-century Central Asia—a time and place of notorious unrest. I will read his Arabic book of magic in dialogue with Jung’s “Concerning Rebirth,” and its treatment of Faust’s bargain with the devil. Like Sakkaki, Marlowe’s Faust struck a deal with the devil in a magic circle, mastering his fear, and binding the demon with sacred oaths before signing a contract. But like Faust, Sakkaki’s shadow-work did not end well; he died in jail after losing a battle of magic in the court of a paranoid khan. Though we may read his magic as a work of failed nigredo—an alchemical experiment gone fatally awry-Sakkaki’s hands-on approach to the problem of evil provides an instructive example to our own troubled age.
JUNGIAN.DIRECTORY