Mantle

the shaikh identifies himself mentally with the state of perfection he wishes to communicate. When he has effected this identification, he takes off the mantle he is wearing at the moment of achieving this spiritual state, and puts it on the disciple

Corbin presents the Sufi investiture rite in which the mantle functions as the physical medium for transmitting an achieved inner spiritual state from master to disciple, making the garment a vessel of theophanic communication.

Corbin, Henry, Creative Imagination in the Sufism of Ibn Arabi, 1969thesis

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To become Khidr is to have attained an aptitude for theophanic vision, for the visio smaragdina, for the encounter with the divine Alter Ego, for the ineffable dialogue which the genius of Ibn 'Arabi will nevertheless succeed in recounting.

This passage establishes the figure of Khidr as the archetypal source of initiatic transmission — the mystical authority behind the mantle investiture rite — grounding the ritual in the capacity for theophanic vision.

Corbin, Henry, Creative Imagination in the Sufism of Ibn Arabi, 1969supporting

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one's mantle lying on a couch will come under a different category from that of the mantle covering the person. If the ownership o

Plotinus deploys the mantle as a philosophical test case for the category of Possession, exposing how the same object changes ontological category depending on its relation to a body, raising questions about identity and belonging.

Plotinus, The Six Enneads, 270supporting

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Odysseus hints for a mantle

In the Homeric text, Odysseus's desire for a mantle marks the hero's vulnerability and displaced identity — the wanderer stripped of protective covering seeking shelter through social bonds.

Lattimore, Richmond, Odyssey of Homer, 2009supporting

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The term 'folded in garments' (muzzamil), which is one of the titles of the Prophet, is to be understood in several senses. Literally, it refers to the physical state of the Prophet in his arduous moments of trance-ecstasy, when, according to tradition, he would lie or sit, wrapped in a blanket

Campbell notes that Mohammed's epithet 'folded in garments' carries multiple layers of meaning, connecting the wrapping of the body in cloth to states of prophetic trance and divine reception, an indirect cognate of the mantle as sacred covering.

Campbell, Joseph, Occidental Mythology: The Masks of God, Volume III, 1964aside

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