Political Atlas
Things this atlas does not know. Each entry is a question that specialists
have posed and not settled, recorded with what would actually resolve it and which
expertise the answer needs.
These are kept deliberately, rather than quietly omitted. An atlas that shows
only what it is sure of implies a confidence it has not earned, and the gaps are often where
the interesting work is. Several sit exactly where two fields fail to meet: identifying the
hyssop of the Hebrew Bible needs a botanist and a philologist of Biblical Hebrew, and neither
one settles it alone.
Grouped by the part of the atlas the question sits in. Start here if you know the territory better than the technique.
Filter By Specialty 99 fields, 1 selected
Showing 6 of 608 questions, filtered to 1 specialty.
People & Practitioners 2
Vatican Apostolic Library
Which esoteric and occult manuscripts does the Vatican Apostolic Library actually hold?
Open Vatican Apostolic Library
Why It Is Open The library plainly holds material relevant to this atlas, and popular accounts make expansive claims about it. Specific holdings could not be verified well enough to assert a custody relation for any individual work, and asserting one without evidence would be exactly the kind of confident claim the atlas exists to avoid.
What Would Settle It Shelfmarks from the library's own catalogue, which is partly published, for specific works already in this atlas.
Expertise Needed Manuscript studies and catalogue research; Latin and Italian.
Question posed in
Divinity Atlas Open Questions Register, First Edition.
Bodleian Library
Which Esoteric Texts Covered Here Are Held in the Bodleian, and under What Shelfmarks?
Open Bodleian Library
Why It Is Open The Bodleian holds significant alchemical and occult manuscript collections, including Ashmole material, but specific holdings for the works in this atlas were not verified to the point where a custody relation could be cited.
What Would Settle It Shelfmarks from the Bodleian's catalogue for named works, which is largely searchable.
Expertise Needed Manuscript studies and catalogue research.
Question posed in
Divinity Atlas Open Questions Register, First Edition.
Sacred Places 1
Amarnath Cave
How far back does continuous veneration at Amarnath Cave extend beyond the documented mid nineteenth century pilgrimage?
Open Amarnath Cave
Why It Is Open The cave is named in the Nilamata Purana and in Kalhana's Rajatarangini, but neither text's date of composition is settled, so their references cannot fix how far back the site's veneration actually runs.
What Would Settle It A codicological or paleographic dating study of the manuscript traditions of the Nilamata Purana and the Rajatarangini, or an independently dated inscription or record naming the cave before the nineteenth century.
Expertise Needed Indology, manuscript studies, Sanskrit philology
Question posed in
Encyclopedia of Hinduism, Denise Cush, Catherine Robinson and Michael York (eds.).
Texts & the Canon 1
De Heptarchia Mystica
Does Sloane 3191 name any Heptarchia personnel beyond the seven Kings and seven Princes?
Open De Heptarchia Mystica
Why It Is Open The 2026-07-26 discovery and buildout design documents estimated 49 HeptarchicRoyalty rows for this table. Peterson's edition of Sloane MS 3191 and the parallel full text edition on archive.org name only fourteen individuals: the seven Heptarchical Kings and their seven Princes, one pair per day of the week. Each Prince is also described with a retinue of forty two attendant ministers, but the manuscript identifies these by table position or letter rather than by proper name, so seeding them as Name rows would mean inventing names Dee never gave them. c2-esoterica seeded the fourteen verified Kings and Princes on 2026-07-27 and left this gap open rather than closing it with fabricated rows.
What Would Settle It A closer reading of the full Sloane 3191 folios, or a scholarly edition that resolves whether the forty two ministers per prince carry individual names anywhere in Dee's working papers, or whether the 49 estimate instead conflated the Heptarchia with a different Enochian roster (the ninety one Aethyr governors, or the Watchtower angels) that has its own separate naming scheme.
Expertise Needed Early modern manuscript studies / history of Renaissance magic
Question posed in
De Heptarchia Mystica (Sloane MS 3191), Joseph H. Peterson's edition, John Dee, edited by Joseph H. Peterson.
Traditions & Paths 1
Dzogchen
Does Dzogchen's early transmission in Tibet draw on early Chan Buddhist teaching, or did it develop independently?
Open Dzogchen
Why It Is Open The Nyingma tradition attributes Dzogchen's transmission to Padmasambhava and Vimalamitra in the eighth century CE, but the earliest securely datable Dzogchen texts are placed later by scholars, and the surviving Dunhuang manuscripts leave the relationship between early Dzogchen and Chan Buddhist teaching in Tibet unresolved.
What Would Settle It Further codicological dating and textual comparison of the Dunhuang Dzogchen and Chan manuscripts against securely dated Chan sources, by scholars working directly with the manuscript corpus.
Expertise Needed Tibetology; Buddhist studies; manuscript studies
Question posed in
Introduction to Tibetan Buddhism, John Powers.
Not Yet Classified 1
Enochian Calls
Which of the four Elemental Watchtowers does each of Calls 3 through 18 address?
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.