1. See LArcbange empourpre, quinze traitis et ricits mystiques, Documents spirituels 14 (Paris: Fayard, 1976), 6: 201-213. For the entirety of the themes discussed here, see our book En Islam iranien: Aspects spirituels et philosophiques, new ed. (Paris: Gallimard, 1978), vol. 4, bk. 7, "Le Douzieme Imam et la chevalerie spirituelle."

2. See L'Archange empourpre, 7: 227-239.

3. See our Histoire de la philosophic islamique (Paris: Gallimard, 1964), 1: 222 ff., 317 ff.

4. That is why the representation of the Sphere of Spheres in Peripatetic or Ptolemaic astronomy is only a schematic indication; it continues to be of value even after this astronomy is abandoned. This means that regardless of how "high" rockets or sputniks can reach, there will not be a single step made toward Na-koja-Abad, for the "threshold" will not have been crossed.

5. Regarding this idea of presence, see particularly our introduction to Molla Sadra Shirazi, Le Livre des penetrations metaphysiques (Kitab al-Masha'ir), edition and French translation (Bibliotheque Iranienne, vol. 10), Paris: Adrien-Maisonneuve, 1964, index under this term.

6. See our work Spiritual Body and Celestial Earth: From Mazdean Iran to Shi'ite Iran (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1977), especially the texts of the eleven authors translated for the first time, in the second part of the work. The notes here refer to the second French edition, Corps spirituel et Terre celeste: de l'Iran mazdeen a l'ran shi'ite (Paris: Buchet-Chastel, 1979).

7. Corps spirituel, p. 147.

8. For what follows, ibid., pp. 103, 106, 112 ff., 154 ff.

9. Ibid., pp. 156 ff., 190 ff.

10. Ibid., pp. 112 ff., 154 ff.

11. Ibid., p. 155

12. Ibid., p. 112.

13. Ibid., p. 113.

14. Emanuel Swedenborg, Heaven and its Wonders and Hell, trans. J. C. Ager (New York: Swedenborg Foundation, 1900), �� 191 to 195. Swedenborg returns repeatedly to this doctrine of space and time-for example in the short book Earths in the Universe. If there is not rigorous awareness of this, his visionary experiences will be objected to by a criticism that is as simplistic as it is ineffective, because it confuses spiritual vision of the spiritual world with what relates to the fantasy of science fiction. There is an abyss between the two.

15. See our article "La place de Molla Sadrda Shirazi (ob. 1050/1640) clans la philosophie iranienne," Studia Islamica (1963), as well as the work cited above, note 5.

16. See our work L'Imagination creatrice dans le souftsme d'Ibn 'Arabi, 2nd ed. (Paris: Flammarion, 1977), p. 139. (First edition translated as Creative Imagination in the Sufism of Ibn 'Arabi [Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1969].) Regarding the theory of the Angeli caelestes, see our book Avicenne et le Recit visionnaire, vol. 1, Bibliotheque Iranienne, vol. 4 (Paris: Adrien-Maisonneuve, 1954; 2nd ed., Paris: Berg international, 1982). English translation of the first edition: Avicenna and the Visionary Recital (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1960).

17. For more details, see En Islam iranien, vol. 4, bk. 7; and our Histoire de la philosophic islamique, pp. 101 ff.

18. See En Islam iranien, vol. 4, bk. 7, pp. 346 ff.

19. Ibid., pp. 361-362.

20. Ibid., p. 373.

21. Ibid., � 3, pp. 367 ff.

22. Ibid., � 4, pp. 374 ff.

23. Villiers de L'Isle-Adam, L'Annonciateur (epilogue).