Hello,
I'm new here and would like to ask a question. I read the Sandman series back in the early nineties with fond memories. Recently I read the following book:

Al-Ghazali on the Remembrance of Death and the Afterlife : Book XL of the Revival of the Religious Sciences (Ghazali Series) (Paperback)

Here are some links, etc.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/094662113...213-5684716?v=glance
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/alghazali.html

I'm sure there are many works that inspired Neil to write his classic, but my question is does anyone know whether he took inspiration from any sufi mystical works?

I've no axe to grind here in regards to Islam (sorry just feel I have a need to say that?!) but just saw connections between Death and Remembrance and the Sandman and wondered if anyone else thought the same.

He took inspiration from all different kinds of religions. Not even just the religions but from different kinds of cultures as well. Something tells me the man either reads a lot about various cultures on his own, or perhaps he studied anthropology. But don't quote me on that.

quote:

Originally posted by Trista:
He took inspiration from all different kinds of religions. Not even just the religions but from different kinds of cultures as well. Something tells me the man either reads a lot about various cultures on his own, or perhaps he studied anthropology. But don't quote me on that.

He reads alot, and when it comes to writing an idea, he researches the fuck out of it.

I figured as much. Which is pretty much what you need to do if you are going to write about something based on fact. Well...not to say that religions are factual, but their history and culture are indeed all too real. You can't be inaccurate about that stuff or else you lose all credibility in your writing. Kudos to him for researching it. I do the same when I write...

quote:

Originally posted by Trista:
I figured as much. Which is pretty much what you need to do if you are going to write about something based on fact. Well...not to say that religions are factual, but their history and culture are indeed all too real. You can't be inaccurate about that stuff or else you lose all credibility in your writing. Kudos to him for researching it. I do the same when I write...

He made some of it up, like the whole Nada thing, that he tells like its an old folk tale from ancient nubian tribes, he made that up.

Well yeah. I knew that. And he made up a lot of other things dealing with Norse mythology. I'm pretty into that kind of stuff. When I was an undergrad I used to study different religions, and then I transitioned from that over to studying different cultures. I took quite a few classes on Egyptians, Greeks, Native Americans, Asians, and Africans. It's all very wild stuff. Of course, I didn't major in any of it. It was just a hobby of mine. (Anthropology = not a very lucritive career. Isn't that sad?)

Disclaimer- Not that I expect anyone to know what I'm talking about, but:

I was struck by some really obvious references to Neo-Paganism in A Game of You. First, Thessaly performs the well-known ritual of "drawing down the moon," and Foxglove has this exchange with her:

Foxglove: We did this. Or something like this. We had water and salt, not blood. And white candles. We invoked the Goddess in her aspect as the moon. We called down her power...

Thessaly: Did she answer you?

Foxglove: Well, it felt good at the time. Empowering.

Thessaly: Hmph.

That's too insightful and funny to be something he made up. "Goddess protect us," Foxglove says at another moment in the story. And of course, there's the whole "Triple Goddess" theme that comes up again and again throughout the series. There is definitely a Triple Goddess archetype found in Pre-Christian (or Paleo-Pagan) religions, but the interpretation of the Triple Goddess as "Maiden, Mother and Crone" is a Neo-Pagan one, I believe.

Makes me wonder about who he was hanging out with when he wrote in those references. I considered asking him about it on his blog, but it seems like an interview question that I should be paying him money for.

And, what do you know, a tiny red spider is crawling across my keyboard. An omen?

I can't speak to whether the troika of "Maiden, Mother and Crone" is considered neo-pagan, but if I recall correctly it has deeper mythological roots tying it to the classical fates.

Oddly - and I'll say oddly, since he's most widely known for Xanth (shudder) - Piers Anthony had an interesting approach to telling the story of the Fates in "Incarnations of Immortality". (The first book, "On a Pale Horse", tackles Death - a rather different Death than the one to which Sandman readers became accustomed...).