Open Questions

Open Salamander

Why It Is Open The Persian compound reading (sam, "fire," plus andar, "inside") most Persian lexicographers now treat as a later back-formation from the Greek word rather than its source, and the standard modern authority on Greek etymology, Beekes, classifies salamandra itself as Pre-Greek, meaning no successful Indo-European derivation for the word has been established.

What Would Settle It Either a securely attested Pre-Greek Aegean word the name can be shown to derive from, or new philological evidence settling the direction of borrowing between Greek and Persian rather than leaving it a rejected folk etymology on the Persian side.

Expertise Needed Historical and comparative Indo-European linguistics, Pre-Greek substrate studies, Iranian philology

Question posed in Etymological Dictionary of Greek, Robert S. P. Beekes, with Lucien van Beek.

Open Scylla and Charybdis

Why It Is Open Standard etymological reference works record both Skylla and Kharybdis as of unknown origin. Scylla's traditional folk association with skylax ("young dog") and skyllein ("to tear") fits her description but is not treated as a confirmed derivation, and no comparable folk etymology exists for Charybdis at all.

What Would Settle It A securely attested Pre-Greek or other substrate source for either name, or a phonologically sound Indo-European derivation succeeding where the traditional dog-and-tearing folk etymology for Scylla has not been confirmed as more than an apt later association.

Expertise Needed Historical and comparative Indo-European linguistics, Pre-Greek substrate studies

Question posed in Online Etymology Dictionary, Douglas Harper.

Open Jaguar

Why It Is Open The were-jaguar infant is one of the most frequent and unmistakable figures in Olmec sculpture, appearing across major sites from San Lorenzo to La Venta. The Olmec left no deciphered textual record explaining their iconography, so nothing establishes whether the figure depicts a mythic birth, a were-jaguar transformation, a ruler's supernatural parentage or something else. Proposed readings are informed guesses drawn from later Mesoamerican parallels rather than conclusions drawn from Olmec sources themselves.

What Would Settle It Decipherment of a securely dated Olmec or Epi-Olmec inscription that names or glosses the figure, or a controlled excavation context, an offering, a burial or a workshop, that ties a were-jaguar sculpture to an identifiable ritual practice.

Expertise Needed Mesoamerican archaeology, epigraphy

Question posed in Encyclopedia of Religion, Mircea Eliade (ed.); Lindsay Jones (ed., 2nd ed.).

Open The Great Year

Why It Is Open This pass seeded only the four tropical-sign ages with genuine independent literature discussing them individually (Taurus, Aries, Pisces and Aquarius), plus the Great Year concept row that frames the whole twelve-part cycle. Gemini, Cancer, Leo, Virgo, Libra, Scorpio, Sagittarius and Capricorn were left out rather than written thin from the same general astrological-history sources already cited for the other four.

What Would Settle It A literature review of each remaining sign's astrological-age material, checking whether it has been discussed with comparable depth and citable sourcing to Nicholas Campion's treatment of Taurus, Aries, Pisces and Aquarius in A History of Western Astrology, before writing per-age entries rather than a single thin placeholder for all eight.

Expertise Needed History of astrology / esoteric studies

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

Open Sefer ha-Bahir (The Book of Illumination)

Why It Is Open Kabbalah has historically limited study of foundational texts such as the Bahir to students judged ready for it, and this widely published translation's own pages do not say whether that limitation reaches this edition or a citation drawn from it.

What Would Settle It Someone familiar with how this translation is actually used in practice today confirming whether it is treated as open study material or as a text still reserved for prepared students.

Question posed in Sefer ha-Bahir (The Book of Illumination), Anonymous.

Open The Secret of the Golden Flower: A Chinese Book of Life

Why It Is Open This is a Taoist text of internal alchemy with meditation instruction, and some lineages that teach material of this kind pass it only from a teacher to a prepared student; this edition's own pages do not say which applies here.

What Would Settle It Someone familiar with this translation and its source lineage confirming whether the meditation instruction it contains is still treated as limited to guided students or is offered here as published material.

Question posed in The Secret of the Golden Flower: A Chinese Book of Life, Trans. Richard Wilhelm; commentary by Carl Jung; English trans. Cary F. Baynes.

Open Enochian Calls

Why It Is Open Secondary sources agree the sixteen calls between the two general openers and the Aethyr call work the four Elemental Watchtowers (earth, water, air, fire), but they disagree on the exact call-by-call assignment, and some later schemes (Golden Dawn) elaborate a finer subdivision (24 sub-angles) that is a 19th century systematization rather than Dee's own division. c2-esoterica declined to assign a specific element to any of the sixteen individual calls on 2026-07-27 rather than pick one scheme and present it as settled.

What Would Settle It A direct reading of the relevant Sloane manuscript folios (the calls proper, distinct from Sloane 3191's Heptarchia material) cross checked against Casaubon's 1659 print, or a specialist secondary source that states its own call-by-call table and its manuscript basis explicitly.

Expertise Needed Early modern manuscript studies / history of Renaissance magic

Question posed in A True and Faithful Relation of What Passed for Many Years Between Dr. John Dee and Some Spirits, John Dee, edited by Meric Casaubon.

Open Sabian Symbols

Why It Is Open The phrasing in general circulation, including every row stored in this atlas, is Dane Rudhyar's from An Astrological Mandala (1973), verified verbatim against the book for all 360 degrees. Jones published his own text in The Sabian Symbols in Astrology (1953), but no accessible per-degree transcription of it was found. Without it, Jones's contribution cannot be distinguished from Rudhyar's rewriting for any individual degree.

What Would Settle It A copy of Jones 1953, or a scholarly edition collating the two. This would also let the atlas describe the symbols in wording that is not in copyright until 2069.

Expertise Needed History of twentieth century astrology, and archival or library access to a 1953 imprint.

Question posed in An Astrological Mandala, Dane Rudhyar, Page 19.