On that very point and think not of this as original research It is rather an open invitation to seek relevant existing information that has not hitherto been identified in this article The biographical article on Antoine Galland probable creator of Aladdin suggests that his extensive compendium of information about Islamic culture influenced William Beckford in his oriental tale Vathek There are some allegorical similarities between Vathek and Aladdin in particular which indicate that their authors shared a common attachment to esoteric concepts that were only starting to surface in Europe during their lifetimes The Plot Summary for Vathek begins by relating that the Caliph Vathek renounces Islam and engages with his mother Carathis in a series of licentious and deplorable activities designed to gain him supernatural powers then Vathek is addicted to the pleasures of the flesh and He is intensely thirsty for knowledge Corresponding to those details in the earlier tale of Aladdin the magic lamp and magic ring must each be rubbed to invoke the djinn genie concealed within First Aladdin trapped in a dark cave rubs the ring whereupon a genie appears and takes him home still holding the lamp to his mother Next when his mother rubs the lamp to clean it a second far more powerful genie appears These details too imply an equivalent incestuous relationship between mother and son The ring and the dark cave represent the mother s womanhood while the slender lamp having an inflammable wick at its tip is Aladdin s manhood The fact that the genie of the lamp is far more powerful than that of the ring is no more than an affirmation of the subservient role of women in Islam as indeed in many societies of the period And the requirement to rub the ring and the lamp to stimulate their genies to emerge simply reflects the circumlocuitous language of say Gnostic Christianity and Dualism Note the incongruous similarity between Carathis the name of Vathek s mother and the Catharis who were a Dualist sect in 12th and 13th Century Europe However the new movement for Hermeticism would take an opposing view with a growing emphasis on the positive benefits of Sex magic as with Vathek s aim of gaining supernatural powers My question is this Does anyone know of sources that have not previously been recognised as linking the hitherto obscure references by Galland and Beckford to sex magic with its soon to emerge formal incorporation into organised Hermeticism If so then the main article may benefit from some surprising enhancements