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The Scientific Dimension: Reading Thoughts Through the Method of Modern Science
Science has long sought to understand how human beings read one another's thoughts and intentions. In cognitive neuroscience, the concept of Theory of Mind stands out. It refers to the human capacity to infer the mental states of others, their intentions and thoughts, through rational inference. This capacity begins early in childhood, and it is what enables us to anticipate what another person may be thinking or intending on the basis of our knowledge of their behavior and our previous experience with them. At the level of the brain, research has identified regions associated with Theory of Mind, such as the superior temporal gyrus and the junction between the parietal and temporal lobes. These regions become active when we reflect on another person's intentions or try to sense what is going on in their mind. These brain processes represent the neural basis of the ability to “read” the mental state of others, even though in reality they work through implicit inference rather than any literal reading of thought.
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From another angle, body language and facial expressions provide scientific tools for reading emotions and whatever may be stirring within a person. Psychological studies have established that there are universal, shared expressions of the basic emotions (such as joy, sadness, anger, fear, surprise and disgust) that appear on faces spontaneously in all cultures. More important still are what are called microexpressions: extremely fleeting facial signals that last fractions of a second and reflect genuine emotions the person is trying to conceal. For example, “A microexpression is a facial expression that lasts only a brief moment, and it arises innately from the interference of the involuntary emotional response with the voluntary one when a person tries to hide a feeling.” These microexpressions originate in the activity of the amygdala (the center of emotion) before a person is able to suppress them, which makes them a scientific window onto what is going on inside a person. The psychologist Paul Ekman laid the foundations for the study of these expressions, showing that they sometimes betray hidden intentions or feelings, such as lying or tension, even when a person tries to keep a blank face. Perhaps the well-known saying of Imam ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib, «ما أضمر أحدٌ شيئًا إلا ظهر في فلتات لسانه وصفحات وجهه» “No one conceals anything but that it appears in the slips of his tongue and the expressions of his face.”
embodies this psychological truth, voiced centuries ago. Attempts to hide what is in the heart often fail to suppress small signals in the tone of voice or the features of the face, and modern science confirms this through the concept of microexpressions and subtle body language.
At a more advanced level, scientists have sought to use modern techniques such as functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to capture mental activity related to thoughts and intentions directly. Remarkable achievements have been made over the past two decades: in some cases researchers have been able to determine what a person is thinking by analyzing the patterns of their brain activity. For example, in a pioneering experiment, volunteers were shown short films and then asked to recall scenes from them while inside the MRI scanner. The scientists were able to identify, from neural activity, the specific scenes each volunteer's brain was recalling. Studies like this hold out the prospect of developing an automatic “mind-reading machine” that could reveal what is going on in a person's mind through the patterns of their brain activity. In another, more recent study (2023), a research team used artificial intelligence to decode thoughts. They were able to capture the general idea of what an individual was thinking by analyzing their brain waves, though they could not read the details with complete accuracy. This sparked an ethical debate about “mental privacy” should these technologies develop further. In addition, other scientific teams have used neuroimaging techniques to read a prior intention before the act is carried out. A famous experiment by (Haynes and colleagues, 2007) showed that while a person was making a free decision to perform one of two tasks, algorithms could detect from activity in the frontal lobe which of the two options the person intended to choose, seconds before they announced it. Such results suggest that intentions leave a distinctive imprint on the brain that can be inferred statistically. Our scientific ability to “read thoughts” is still in its early stages and faces numerous challenges, including the complexity of the brain itself and the variation of patterns between individuals. Even so, steady progress points to unprecedented possibilities.
Despite these developments, it must be stressed that the scientific reading of thoughts differs fundamentally from the fictional image of mind reading. Under controlled experimental conditions, current neural technologies can distinguish certain patterns or guess limited content, such as an image a person is imagining or a simple idea they intend. They do not yet come close to knowing the full range of a person's thoughts or deep intentions, as happens in science-fiction films. Science also relies heavily on indirect signals: facial expressions, changes in pulse and sweating (as in traditional lie detectors), eye movement and tone of voice. All of these are clues that guide us materially to what another person may be thinking or intending. They are tools that harness the method of experiment and observation to provide material evidence of what passes through the human mind.
The Psychological Dimension: Psychoanalysis, Emotional Intelligence and Communicative Intuition
From the perspective of psychology, reading intentions and thoughts depends on a deep understanding of the human psyche and of the mechanisms of conscious and unconscious perception. The classical schools of psychoanalysis assume that much of what stirs in other people's minds can be discerned through slips of the tongue, dreams and even bodily symptoms, all of which are gateways to the unconscious. Sigmund Freud, for example, pointed out that a slip of the tongue or a spontaneous action may reveal a buried intention or a repressed desire in a person. In this way, the psychoanalyst is in effect “reading the mind” of the patient by interpreting the symbolic clues through which the unconscious discloses itself unintentionally. Transference also occurs during psychotherapy, when the patient projects feelings toward other people onto the therapist, and it allows the therapist to understand the patient's hidden intentions and emotions through the emotional interaction between them. The psychoanalytic school therefore holds that intentions can be read implicitly by analyzing the patterns of behavior and expression an individual produces spontaneously, on the view that the “unconscious” always finds a way to express itself, even when the conscious mind tries to hide it.
Emotional intelligence, for its part, is a relatively recent concept that focuses on a person's ability to understand their own emotions and those of others and to manage them skillfully. People with high emotional intelligence have an innate or acquired ability to read the emotional state and emotional intentions of those around them. They pick up the subtle cues in facial expression, tone of voice and body posture that indicate what the other person feels or thinks. That is why one of the most prominent signs of low emotional intelligence is “having difficulty reading people”: being unable to tell when someone is upset or anxious, or what exactly is bothering them. Conversely, as emotional intelligence develops, a person becomes more sensitive to the feelings of others and better able to distinguish latent anger, hidden sadness and anxiety concealed behind a false smile. This ability allows them to respond in the best way: they know when to give the other person space and when to offer support. Understanding the emotional intentions of others is the essence of emotional intelligence, for example noticing that a colleague intends to withdraw from a discussion because they are frustrated, or that a friend harbors anxiety despite appearing calm. This intelligence can be developed through training and through attention to emotional details.
There is also the factor of intuition, or what might be called “psychological firāsa” (intuitive perspicacity), in some individuals. We notice that some people have a special gift for anticipating others' reactions or guessing their intentions without clear evidence, as though it were a social “sixth sense.” Psychologists explain this as the subconscious mind's ability to process an enormous amount of partial information about the situation and the person in front of us, such as a passing glance, a faint tremor in the voice or a slight facial expression, and then to arrive at a conclusion in the form of an intuitive feeling. In his book “Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking”, Malcolm Gladwell pointed to the concept of “rapid inference” [CHECK: Gladwell's own term is “thin-slicing”]. We perform this inference in fractions of a second on the basis of our stored experience, and it allows us to form an accurate judgment or expectation about someone from a fleeting first impression. This kind of advanced intuition is in fact the product of the unconscious, which connects patterns with astonishing speed without our being aware of the thought process itself. For example, you may feel that someone does not inspire trust or that their intention is bad merely by shaking their hand, and your intuition later proves correct. Here your subconscious has picked up subtle cues, such as a limp grip or avoidance of direct eye contact, and linked them to previous experiences, giving you an inner “advice” about that person. This intuition is sometimes an effective tool for reading intentions, but it is of course not infallible, as personal biases can interfere with it.
Another psychological aspect is the influence of the collective unconscious and the mechanisms of neural empathy. The discovery of so-called mirror neurons in the brain has shown how we understand others' actions and feelings through unconscious internal simulation. When a person sees someone else in an emotional situation (such as pain or joy), cells become active in their brain that resemble those active in the person actually in that situation. These neural mechanisms explain our immediate feeling of empathy, and sometimes our knowing in advance what the other person feels, as though we were reading their heart. Each of us has experienced, for example, the sense that “tension is contagious” in a crowded room, or that laughter is contagious, or knowing that a friend is troubled merely from hearing their tone of voice, even if they say “I'm fine.” All of this stems from automatic psychological/neural processes through which we pick up emotional states and even certain intentions (such as the intention to withdraw or to confront) without the need for explicit words. It is the language of the shared unconscious that lets us “read” one another through common human experience. Modern humanistic and cognitive schools of psychology regard this ability as part of empathy, which allows us to understand another person's intentions from within, as human beings who share many feelings and ways of thinking.
The Spiritual and Gnostic Dimension: Kashf and Firāsa in the Islamic Tradition
In the Islamic spiritual tradition, especially among the ʿurafāʾ (gnostics) and the Sufis, we find a belief in the possibility of “reading what is in hearts” through purity of soul and its connection with Allah. This domain is known by the term “kashf” or “mukāshafa” (unveiling), a kind of direct perception of inner realities without the usual sensory or rational intermediaries. The gnostics believe that when the heart is purified of the stains of caprice and becomes clear, it becomes like a polished mirror on which knowledge is reflected as an effusion from Allah the Exalted. In this state Allah grants the gnostic ʿilm ladunnī (knowledge bestowed directly from Allah's presence), which reveals to him what others cannot perceive. He then sees with his baṣīra (inner sight), by Allah's leave, the intentions and thoughts that lie in people's breasts. The Noble Qur'an indicates that Allah has sincere servants whom He taught special knowledge from His presence (such as the story of al-Khiḍr with Moses, peace be upon him, in Sūrat al-Kahf), and this laid the foundation for the concept of direct gnostic knowledge.
Muslim gnostics affirm that faith-based firāsa (perspicacity) is real. For this they rely on the well-known prophetic hadith «اتقوا فراسة المؤمن فإنه ينظر بنور الله» “Beware the perspicacity of the believer, for he sees by the light of Allah.”
Although the hadith scholars regard its chain of transmission as weak, it spread through Sufi literature, and the Sufis adopted it as a symbol of a clear meaning: Allah may grant the believer who is marked by purity of heart and inner sight the ability to know what is in people's souls through a light He bestows upon him. Ibn ʿArabī, the imam of the gnostics in the seventh century AH, gave a thorough explanation of the concept of the “station of firāsa” in his book al-Futūḥāt al-Makkiyya. Ibn ʿArabī divided firāsa into two kinds. The first is natural, philosophical firāsa, which relies on indications drawn from natures and temperaments and resembles reading bodily form and features to infer character. The second is divine, faith-based firāsa, a light that Allah casts into the heart of the believer by which he becomes aware of hidden matters. Ibn ʿArabī says that divine firāsa is “a divine light in the eye of the believer's inner sight by which he knows what has occurred from the person observed, or what will occur from him, or what his affair will come to.” In other words, the possessor of this inner sight may know a person's past, present or future (the outcome of his affair) through a flash of divine unveiling. Ibn ʿArabī adds that this lordly firāsa extends even to knowing a person's final end (blessed or wretched) and to knowing which deeds are pleasing to Allah and which are not. He gave a famous example in what happened with the third caliph, ʿUthmān ibn ʿAffān. A man came in to him, ʿUthmān perceived something in him through firāsa as he entered, and said: «سبحان الله! ما بال رجال لا يغضّون أبصارهم عن محارم الله؟» “Glory be to Allah! What is the matter with men who do not lower their gaze from what Allah has forbidden?”
It turned out that this man had just looked at what was not lawful for him. The sign of it appeared in his eyes and bearing, and ʿUthmān recognized it by the light of firāsa. This example shows how the gnostic endowed with firāsa picks up hidden signs that ordinary people do not perceive, because in his heart is a light by which he discerns those inner signs. Similar incidents are related in the biographies of some of the Companions and the Successors. ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb, for example, is said to have called out from the pulpit of the mosque in Medina to his army commander Sāriya in a distant land, warning him of an enemy ambush, so that his army was saved (a story the Sufis cite as a karāma (grace-gift or saintly marvel) of ʿUmar). Whether or not these reports are authentic, they have become symbols in gnostic literature of the possibility that inner realities may be unveiled to some of the people of piety.
Among the sayings and conduct of the eminent Muslim gnostics we find a wealth of allusions to reading intentions through purity of spirit. Imam ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib (may Allah ennoble his face), whom the Sufis regard as the imam of the saints, is himself credited with the eloquent maxim we referred to above: «ما أضمر أحد شيئًا إلا ظهر في فلتات لسانه وصفحات وجهه» “No one conceals anything but that it appears in the slips of his tongue and the expressions of his face.”
Although its outward sense is ethical/psychological, the gnostics extended it to affirm that the possessor of inner sight can see a person's hidden depths through those glimpses. ʿAlī is likewise reported to have said: “المؤمن ينظر بنور الله” “The believer sees by the light of Allah.”
This affirms the meaning of faith-based firāsa. The heritage of later Shiʿi gnostics also contains accounts of remarkable conduct. Āyatullāh the gnostic Shaykh Muḥammad Taqī Bahjat (d. 2009 CE) was known for many instances of kashf. Among the most famous is an account his students relate about his visit to a scholar who had been constant in the night prayer. The scholar was confined by illness for a short period and grew lax in the night prayer after his recovery. Bahjat came to see this formerly ill scholar without anyone having told him the details of his state. During the conversation, however, he reminded him twice, in a seemingly passing way, of a narration from one of the Imams that says: «انّ الوصول إلى اللّه ( عزّ وجلّ ) سفر لا يدرك الّا بامتطاء الليل» “Reaching Allah (Mighty and Majestic is He) is a journey that can only be accomplished by riding the night.”
He also reminded him of the verse: ﴿إِنَّ ناشئةَ الليل هي أشد وطئًا وأقومُ قيلًا﴾ “Indeed, rising by night is firmer in impression and more upright in speech.”
At first the host did not notice that Shaykh Bahjat meant him personally by this reminder. Then he realized from the Shaykh's insistence and repetition that the point was to prompt him to return to the worship of the night prayer, which he had abandoned after his illness. It was a gentle indication that the Shaykh was aware of the state of his heart without stating it outright. This is a pattern of mukāshafa among the gnostics carried out with gentleness and discretion: they let the other person understand that they know his inner state, with the aim of reforming him, not exposing him. In the biography of the great gnostic Sayyid ʿAlī al-Qāḍī (the master of the gnostics in Najaf al-Ashraf, d. 1957 CE [CHECK: al-Qāḍī's death is usually dated 1947 CE]) and others like him, there are numerous stories related by their students about their knowledge of their disciples' intentions and secrets, though the disciples had not voiced them. For example, it is reported that one of Sayyid al-Qāḍī's students thought to himself that his master knew nothing of his state. In the next lesson Sayyid al-Qāḍī came to him and told him, word for word, the substance of what he had thought, indicating that he knew the passing thoughts of his heart. Whether or not such stories are historically established, the people of ʿirfān (gnosis) use them to show that kashf and inner witnessing can be realized.
We also find in the books of the gnostic philosophers, such as Mullā Ṣadrā al-Shīrāzī (d. 1640 CE) and his students like al-ʿAllāma al-Fayḍ al-Kāshānī and others, an affirmation that truthful kashf and divine inspiration are a valid source of knowledge. Mullā Ṣadrā himself based his method on reconciling rational demonstration, gnostic unveiling and the revealed text, holding that the true gnostic is one who combines the light of the intellect with the light of the heart. In his view, existential realities can be grasped by the intellect, but complete certainty is attained when unveiling corresponds with demonstration. In several places in al-Asfār al-Arbaʿa (The Four Journeys), Mullā Ṣadrā refers to states of witnessing in which he reached philosophical conclusions through spiritual illumination. For him and for other gnostics, this kind of knowledge of the heart enables the wayfarer to see beyond the veil of matter. Hence they hold that some of the saints may become aware of intentions and purposes because their souls have connected with a higher world (ʿālam al-malakūt, the realm of the unseen dominion, or the world of souls) in which realities are unveiled without ambiguity. One of the gnostics says: “That world is the inner world unveiled to the people of unveilings, and the concrete world that is not seen with this eye…” In other words, the possessor of kashf sees with the eye of inner sight what cannot be seen with the physical eye.
Among the important terms here are the station of “kashf” and “gnostic intuition.” The gnostics distinguish between explicit unveiling (direct spiritual witnessing) and mere psychological feeling or guesswork. In their view, true kashf is certain and does not err if it is born of genuine spiritual purity. Gnostic intuition, by contrast, is a lower degree that may be mixed with conjecture. Even so, it remains an intuition that transcends ordinary rational thinking and rests on the light of the heart. Ibn ʿArabī and others also explained the concept of the “station of firāsa” as a state the wayfarer reaches in which, with divine support, he becomes able to discern inner realities. Ibn ʿArabī says that the one who knows Allah relies on none but Allah in his knowledge. He relates that Shaykh Abū Yazīd al-Bisṭāmī said to the scholars of outward knowledge: “You took your knowledge dead from dead, and we took our knowledge from the Living One who does not die.” The point is that gnostic knowledge comes from a direct lordly source (the Living One who does not die) rather than from narration and transmission from perishable human beings. This sums up the gnostics' view of the sciences of kashf: they are a light cast into the heart through purity of the inner self, and a divine favor with which Allah singles out some of His servants.
Muslim gnostics are often reticent about displaying these gifts, considering them inner karāmāt that should not be boasted of. Thus we find them hinting at what they know of the inner nature of things without stating it outright, so as to preserve the covering Allah has placed over people's faults. A gnostic may tell his disciple about the hidden aspects of his soul as a means of discipline. It is also reported that one of them said: “لو كُشف الغطاء ما ازددت يقينًا” “Were the veil lifted, I would not increase in certainty.”
This indicates the strength of his inner sight even regarding knowledge of the unseen, though this saying is also attributed to Imam ʿAlī, expressing confidence in Allah's knowledge. In general, the Islamic gnostic tradition is unanimous that one who has purified the heart may witness intentions and that inner realities may be unveiled to him. It cites sayings and karāmāt that reinforce this belief within the bounds of the doctrine of tawḥīd (the oneness of Allah), meaning that this happens through Allah and for Allah, not through the gnostic's own independent power. The gnostics are careful to distinguish this noble knowledge from charlatanry and superstition, as we shall show.
Distinguishing True Gnostic Knowledge from Psychological Tricks (such as “Cold Reading”)
It is of great importance to distinguish between what the gnostics regard as a truthful unveiling of the intentions of hearts and the tricks for reading personalities practiced by certain charlatans, or even by certain psychologists. Some people claim to know what is in people's souls and to extract their thoughts secretly. In reality they use ruses and techniques based on behavioral psychology and body-language reading to dupe people and lead them to believe in supernatural abilities. Among the most prominent of these techniques is what is known as “cold reading”** [CHECK: stray escaped asterisks in the source]. Fortune-tellers and charlatans use this technique to convince a person that they know private information about them, when in fact they are drawing it out of that person. Cold reading is based on making general, high-probability guesses that could apply to most people, and observing the person's reaction to them. For example, a fortune-teller may say to the person sitting with him a flexible statement such as: “I sense that you went through the loss of someone dear to you in the past.” This sentence applies to almost everyone. If the fortune-teller notices from facial features or body language that the statement has struck a sensitive chord, he begins to amplify it and make it more specific. If it is met with denial, he quickly recovers by adjusting his words or moving on to another guess. The secret of cold reading is that the targeted person is usually cooperative without realizing it. He interprets the general statement as specific to himself, and his unconscious mind begins supplying additional information through his reactions and comments. The skilled fortune-teller picks up these hidden threads, from microexpressions and changes in tone of voice, to build on them and infer more. Specialists call gathering information through the victim's reaction “hot reading”, in which the claimant adjusts his tactics during the session based on what he perceives from the person himself [CHECK: in standard usage “hot reading” means using information gathered beforehand; the source's definition describes cold reading itself]. Through this deceptive method, the person comes away astonished, “How did he know all that about me?”, without realizing that he himself laid his cards on the table under the weight of psychological influence.
Superficial personality analysis is another trick, less organized but widespread. It resembles what some practitioners of neuro-linguistic programming or astrologers do: they gather preliminary information about the client in various ways (sometimes online or through overt observation), then weave from it a reading that appears profound. They also exploit what is called the Barnum effect, offering a general, positive description that the listener believes because he thinks it is unique to him, while it applies to most people. Examples include “You are sometimes introverted and sometimes outgoing depending on your mood” or “You have great ambition that you have not yet fully realized.” These vague statements make the person believe that the psychic reader has penetrated his inner depths, whereas in truth they fit everyone. The difference between the truthful gnostic and the lying charlatan, then, is this. The former does not rely on tricks or generalities, does not trade in this ability, and does not err if his unveiling is genuine. The latter uses well-known psychological techniques and mixes them with intuition and guesswork. He may be right or wrong, and his aim is usually gain or an unjustified claim to karāma.
Even the ancient science of physiognomy (ʿilm al-firāsa), on which books were written to decipher temperaments from facial features or bodily form, largely falls today within the domain of pseudoscience when it is stripped of an objective basis. It is true that there are some correlations between certain traits and personality (for instance, an athletic build may indicate boldness). Muslim scholars such as Mullā Mahdī al-Narāqī pointed to this in Jāmiʿ al-saʿādāt, saying that “the people of firāsa rely on bodily forms in knowing the noble qualities of the soul.” Physiognomy in the historical sense, however, such as reading a person from the size of his nose or the curve of his eyebrows, has no solid scientific basis. The faith-based firāsa of the gnostics is something else, founded on a spiritual light rather than on analyzing appearances. For this reason the gnostics criticize reliance on mere outward firāsa, seeing it as a pale shadow of the true insight that lordly unveiling can bestow.
It is also important to distinguish gnostic unveiling from astrology. The Imams of the Ahl al-Bayt (the Prophet's household) and the godly scholars took care to reject the claims of astrologers and soothsayers who link events to the stars or who wrongfully use jafr (an esoteric science of letters and numbers) and geomancy. The true gnostic may use jafr (as knowledge of jafr is attributed to the Imams), but with understanding and divine guidance, not in the manner of those who manipulate it. The gnostics stressed that kashf is a divine gift conditional upon taqwā (God-consciousness), not a craft that anyone who trains in it can master. In their view, astrology, geomancy and the like are superstitions or conjectures that do not rise to the certainty of kashf. False divination sometimes rests on appeasing the jinn or on conjectural calculations, whereas spiritual unveiling rests on purification of the soul and on lordly gifts. This is an essential difference. The gnostics attribute all inner knowledge to Allah and do not claim knowledge of the unseen independently; rather, they regard it as a karāma and a confirmation from Allah. Their inner knowledge also accords with the aims of goodness and truth. You will not find a truthful saint using his unveiling to harm people, to blackmail them or even to spy on their private lives. Rather, he uses it for counsel and guidance, within the limits permitted by the Sharia. Modern claimants to the paranormal, such as mind readers in magic shows, exploit people's fascination to achieve fame or profit, without scrupulousness or moral commitment.
In sum, true gnostic knowledge is a light that Allah casts into the heart after refinement and spiritual striving. It is rare and precious, and it does not bend to curiosity or whims. Psychological tricks such as cold reading and superficial analysis, by contrast, are acquired human skills based on close observation and on exploiting people's credulity, and they can be both exposed and learned. Truthful saints throughout history knew secrets about their surroundings without the use of their senses because they were connected to the source of divine wisdom, whereas charlatans claimed this through sleight-of-hand games. One should therefore cultivate a spirit of critique and discernment. On the one hand, one should not deny the possibility of karāma and the truthfulness of the firāsa of some of the righteous. On the other, one should not surrender one's mind to everyone who claims to read thoughts. Modern science itself has demonstrated the limited human ability to read one another through signals and techniques, but it has also exposed the methods of swindlers. In the end, a person's breast remains the vessel of his secret, which none truly knows but Allah the Exalted. Whatever knowledge He has granted to some of His elect servants is both a favor and a test: a favor so that they may give thanks, and a test so that they may grow in humility and in keeping the secret of the gift. True knowledge of intentions has its place in the pure heart and the lordly gaze, not in the charlatan's sleight of hand nor in the mere calculations of the outward mind.
References used:
The Qur'anic texts and noble prophetic hadiths mentioned in context.
Current Biology, Haynes et al. 2007 (a scientific study on decoding intentions from brain activity).
Al Jazeera Net report on the mind-reading experiment using fMRI.
Al-Quds Al-Arabi report on the use of artificial intelligence in reading thoughts (2023).
Arabic Wikipedia – article “Microexpression” (definition of microexpressions).
Nahj al-Balagha Sciences Foundation website – commentary on Imam ʿAlī's maxim (“No one conceals anything but that it appears…”).
Shezlong mental health website – article on the signs of low emotional intelligence.
The book “Jāmiʿ al-saʿādāt” by al-Narāqī – chapter on the science of firāsa.
Yahya Muhammad website (Understanding Religion) – article “Kashf and the Domains of Gnostic Vision” (citing Ibn ʿArabī and al-Bisṭāmī).
The book “al-Futūḥāt al-Makkiyya” by Ibn ʿArabī – Chapter 148, on the station of firāsa.
Al-Muttaqin website – the book “Maʿrifat al-Imām, vol. 14” by Sayyid Muḥammad Ḥusayn al-Ḥusaynī al-Ṭihrānī, the story of Āyatullāh Bahjat.
Thmanyah platform – article “Cold Reading and What Fortune-Tellers Do”.
And other sources referred to in the footnotes of the quotations above.
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