Talismanic ἀλήθεια, ἀγαθός, and the Sign of the Times
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For years I have observed an unexamined utilitarian bias running rampant throughout virtually every spiritual, religious or occult group I have ever witnessed. Internet and social media has reinforced it although its origins lay elsewhere. This bias knows neither east nor west, north nor south, neither black or white, neither yellow, red or brown, neither gay or straight and what is between them, neither woman or man, etc. The bias is that if something possesses no immediately discernible utility, it has no value in the eyes of many. I take this as a manifestation of the materialist and materializing zeitgeist of capitalism, esp. in the uber-technocratic and neo-feudal form it has taken under neoliberalism with its order of corporatocracy. Marxists would call it the universalization of bourgeois middle-class [false] consciousness that seeks the commodification of everything under the sun, attaching a dollar sign thereunto. Platonists would observe this phenomenon as being the inversion of Aletheia, which (post-)modernism exemplifies, because it seeks to reduce all manifestations of the Good that is Beauty (to agathon) to its own level rather than to rise to Its level. In other words, everything needs to be dumbed-down and quantified by dollars in order to be appreciated and understood.
Our ancestors -- even some near, immediate ancestors -- appear to have operated by a different ethic, a different episteme and Dasein (being-there) altogether whereby a thing held value by virtue of what it disclosed of the Truth and Beauty (which is the Good) and not necessarily what practical utility it may or may not have possessed. As such Marxists are correct in claiming that such contemporary attitudes are the universalization of the bourgeois ethic.
Now, where magic and the occult are concerned, the attitudes and episteme once possessed by our ancestors is the only correct approach to things, AFAIC. Why? Because this is the domain of the Spirit and not the domain of the material bazaar. So when, for example, a talisman is displayed or shown, the contemporary attitude that immediately reacts by asking "what is it for; what is its use" is in fact the incorrect attitude and approach.
All talismans are by definition mandalas. A mandala is, as it were, capturing a moment of eternity in the form of geometry and design. This "moment" Reveals the Truth cum Beauty of that eternal moment. In other words, it is capturing in geometry and form the self-disclosure of Theophany (which literally means the revelation of divine light as the suffix 'phanein' in Greek means to show or reveal light, the proper noun for 'light' being 'phos'). This is precisely what the Arabic word Tajallī (تجلّي) means and it is exactly how it is used in the Qurʾān as well, meaning the Revelation of Light.
Given this, until one operates first by a contemplative consciousness and has the ability to discern the To Agathon (the Good which is the Beautiful) without asking "what is it for," venturing into the world of Theurgy and white sorcery -- and the occult in general -- has little value (and in fact can be dangerous and extremely counter-productive). This is why in previous ages this material was never put in front of just anyone. But now that we are living in an age where all the 'secrets' are being published, a responsibility (and burden) arises, especially for those who walk such paths; and that is, to decontaminate the mind from the materializing utilitarian paradigm with its (false) bourgeois consciousness. This is not to say that all talismans do not possess that practical element. What it says is that unless one possesses what Henry Corbin called "the eyes of fire" (i.e. gnosis) then the practical element of such things cannot be properly discerned and so the thing-in-itself becomes devalued, as it were. So where the Hayākil (pentagrammic-talismans) are concerned, let us begin here, and let us also internalize all that which Henry Corbin says in *Alone with the Alone: Creative Imagination in the Sufism of Ibn ' 'Arabi* regarding Theophanic Prayer because it is here where the true practical utility of these mandalic devices can be fully understood, appreciated and realized.
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The pic above is a Timurid era depiction of the Prophet Muḥammad (ص) during His ascent to the highest Heaven when He beheld with His blaze-flux (i.e. the Eye of His Heart, viz. فؤاد) the All-High at "two bows length or nearer" (53:9).
