Magic comes in many forms, including ones you wouldn’t expect, such as the Magic Square. From the famed Chinese mathematician Yang Hui, to Corneluis Agrippa, whose work is so well known that he’s mentioned in the Harry Potter book series, to the musings of Benjamin Franklin, Magical Squares of varying kinds have been found in many cultures throughout the years. Many of them appear to be riddles of varying kinds, and may implement the use of numbers as a form of math game, letters for word puzzles, and some even use colors! The square you see here was recorded by a Jewish German, Abraham Von Worms, after learning a magical system from an Egyptian. His work has two separate English translations, and now little ol’ American me has, in the course of my lycanthropic studies, done a bit of artwork based upon it. If that isn’t a neat mix of culture, I don’t know what is.

Regardless, pictured here is the Diseebeh Square, which is said to allow a properly prepared magician to transform a person into the visage of a wolf. To do so, the person must be shown the paper upon which the square has been drawn, and that square must then be brought into sudden contact with the person’s body, causing instant transformation. To reverse this, the square is to be placed on the head, and then struck with a wand.

The word Diseebeh is possibly derived from the Arabic word Zabh, which, depending on what you read, can be equated with the wolf. This, it appears, may not be entirely accurate. It seems that it is actually a word indicating the slaughter an animal in the name of God, by slicing the throat, either for food or necessity. Interestingly enough, when watching wolves hunt, once the prey is hindered by pack members slowing the animal down, wolves will often go for the throat. (However, wolves generally don’t just straight-up slice or rip the throat out; they clamp down on the trachea and suffocate their meal. But the similarity remains.)

You may be wondering why I am depicting the Diseebeh Square tilted to the left, thus making it into a diamond. The reason for this is simple: Patterns of varying kinds seem to be rather important in the construction of magical squares, and should you rotate this square widdershins (counterclockwise) 45 degrees, the square has bilateral symmetry. This is the same kind of symmetry that you find in many fauna, including the human and wolf.

To read more on what I have to say on this, please see my Deviantart posting: http://nashoba-hostina.deviantart.com/art/The-Diseebeh-Square-470796479