Moore,Cults and Detractors
Elias Ibrahim
I have been noticing the reaction to the article by James
Moore. Several years ago I read a great book by Arthur Deikman called
"The Wrong Way Home" on the psychology of cult formation
Deikman states that we are all prone to this at one level
or another. One indicator is the readiness to discard any detractors as
being not worthy of being heard because they are outside the accepted
inner circle or they disagree.
If one thinks objectively , Moore asks several pertinent
questions and I have yet to see an answer in an objective manner issue
from the Shah camp as to these valid questions.
Moore is obviously a Gurdjieffian with pertinent
questions to ask , and was alarmed at the readiness with which Shah was
accepted by Bennett. If any of us a members of a group and a non member
approaches and takes over a significant section of the group we would
all ask questions too .
Shah's writings are held in very high regard by myself. I
do not think he would have asked that I blindly accepted him as a
messenger from the Inner Circle of Humanity just because he or anyone
else said so. My contact is through his writings and they are very
useful and transformative . So are Gurdjieff's and other 4th Way authors
.
My concern is that some other commenst border on a cultic
attitude of disparaging Moore for asking intelligent questions and then
discard his questions as those of a fool . I wonder what Idries Shah
would have thought of that ?
Just my 0.02 worth
Elias
franko...@my-deja.com
Elias Ibrahim <eibr...@ozemail.com.au> wrote:
My concern is that some other commenst border on a cultic
> attitude of disparaging Moore for asking intelligent questions and
then discard his questions as those of a fool . I wonder what Idries
Shah would have thought of that ?
Hello Elias
Perhaps you could take the trouble to post those intelligent questions
to which you refer ?
The following quotes, from JM, would seem to suggest that it is in fact
he who discards some of Shah's pupils as fools:
> "Summing Up" closes with some thoughts as to Shah's accomplisments,
for example, "his dervish anecdotes and Mulla Nasruddin
stories"....."But their spiritualising action on middle-brow European
readers is surely nil."
This may be a foolish question: how does JM guage the level
of 'spiritualising action'?
But, if I have created the impression that I disparage Moore's
scholarship, then that is regretable; and I apologise.
Frank O'Riordan
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.
Elias Ibrahim
Thanks for your response. One of the questions re Shah that
Moore poses in his article is the sudden transformation of Shah initially
from an author of a couple of good books on magic and the occult ( Oriental
Magic , and Secret Lore of Magic ) to the highest leader of the only
authentic Sufi group working in the West.
I have a similar concern after having read "Destination
Mecca" , where I got the feeling that Shah had just started his
investigations in these areas - he makes a rather adolescent statement
after having witnessed some phenomenon that he had really wished he had his
camera. This is at odds with the later mythos of his having been trained in
Central Asia for his highly important role in the work . Also why is
Destination Mecca so hard to obtain these days ( my question ).
Then there is also the matter of Robert Graves and how he
was treated by Shah when the academic community demanded to see the family
owned copy of the Omar Khayyam text and Shah refused , with the efffect of
destroying Graves credibility in academic circles.
As for the Dervish stories and Mulla Nasrudin - the
effect of these stories is admittedly subtle and even by Shah's admission
they may take years to germinate - if ever depending on the "soil" on which
they fall. I suppose that Moore is asking from the point of view o someone
who worked in Fourth Way groups where even the preliminary exercises of
Sensing and Self Remembering have immediate and apparent results by
comparison. I really got to appreciate the "mechanics" of the story telling
technique after I read material on NLP, Milton Erickson and Therapeutic
Metaphors.
But I think the first two points are quite
relevant. I hope you realize that I am wrting as a person deeply interested
in Shah's work , for which I have a high level of respect. I think that all
systems and teachers have their limitations , as do pupils , myself
included. My previous comments I hope are taken as dispassionate
observations on the phenomena of criticising an outsider to Shah's system .
Blessings
Elias
jva...@my-deja.com
In any feild of work Science, Philosophy or Carpentry etc one can
normally find as many people sing praises of someone as there are
defaming that same person, whatever side you choose to join the reality
remains the same however it will be you who has changed and then
perhaps 3 months and further exposure to the other sides propoganda
will persuade you to join there team, What does this prove? has reality
changed? One must percieve reality not simply agree with whoevers
argument suit's our limited view at the time, or engenders feelings of
'Oh yes I was right all along!'.
As Lita Alexander said in Babyon 5, after allowing someone to see the
truth she was asked 'how did you do that!' Lita repied 'The Truth
speaks for itself I am only the messenger'
Who Are You ? What do you Want?
'The truth is a three edge sword, their way, your way and the truth'
Kosh
es...@my-deja.com
jva...@my-deja.com wrote:
> To Elias Ibrahim
>
> As Lita Alexander said in Babyon 5, after allowing someone to see the
> truth she was asked 'how did you do that!' Lita repied 'The Truth
> speaks for itself I am only the messenger'
>
> Who Are You ? What do you Want?
>
> 'The truth is a three edge sword, their way, your way and the truth'
> Kosh
>
A neighbor went to Nasrudin, asking to borrow his donkey.
"It is out on loan," said the Mulla.
At that moment the donkey was heard to bray, somewhere in the stable.
"Bur I can hear it bray, over there."
"Who do YOU believe," said Nasrudin; "ME or a DONKEY?"
Eric Twose
Regarding Robert Graves:
Can you recall the approximate date on which Shah first took Robert Graves
on-board and on which Graves' request was allegedly denied by Shah?
I note that The Sufis was originally published in 1964 and in that edition
Graves introduces Shah to key Western circles as representing 'the Eastern
parent of Freemasonry'. However, at some point between then and 1977, this
introduction was removed. Was this at Graves' request, at Shah's, or because
its Sufic use-by-date had by then expired? (Writing the two early books on
magic would surely tie-in with his early work in establishing contact with
certain key circles of people; which was followed, I am told, by a
multi-billion dollar cultural-initiative?)
Certainly Amina Shah's rendition of 'The Tale of the Four Dervishes' (c)
1975 and *perhaps* therefore written one or two years earlier, (which bears
the benediction 'Who hears this story will, by divine power, be restored to
health') also carries a prominant dedication, that: 'This book is dedicated
to Robert Graves in gratitude.'
Regarding Shah's alleged election as Supreme Guide:
Shah's election is documented in 'The Mystics Choose A King' by Martin
Brackett, an associate of the then Rector of the University of Deobund in
India. This article is featured in Leonard Lewin's 'The Diffusion of Sufi
Ideas in the West' (c) 1972.
Are there any witnesses who can verify that the Grand Conference in 1865
actually took place? Can anyone verify that 'after the death of the Aga Khan
... the over-running of Tibet ... a war in the Yemen and in the summer of
the year in which two men descended from the heaven, having left the world
completely' a meeting was convened in Izmir to elect the Supreme Guide? Can
anyone verify that 41 years before this meeting several candidates had been
selected, some of them only newly-born babies, to receive special training
in expectation of that latter meeting?
In this same book, 'Raoul Fischer' talks of visiting this 'Supreme Guide of
the People of Truth at a palace five miles from Damascus; and Anthony
Archer-Forbes was admitted to a Dargah (Royal Court) in Afghanistan whose
Chief (standing-in for 'The Great Khan' since he was abroad) spoke of
Masters operating in Europe'.
When was 'Destination Mecca' first published? I seem to recall it being
included as part of another Octagon publication, too. Has it been removed?
'Earnest Scott' reportedly got around a bit, too; as did 'H.M. Dervish' and
Omar Michael Burke; Tahir and Saira Shah must have clocked-up a good few air
miles; and I seem to recall someone mentioning that Lefort?, who wrote of
'The Teachers of Gurdjieff', had been his tutor/supervisor.
If what Shah and his early followers claim is true, then there should be
oodles of people around who can substantiate these claims. Or point us to
a-friend-of-a-friend. Or simply point out that the 'furore academicus was
fought and won years ago'. Or even inform us that Shah worked as a car
mechanic in some-or-other distant garage and send us, too, off on yet
another wild-goose chase. (As you might send an apprentice off for a long
stand, a tub of elbow grease and the like).
Best Wishes,
Eric.
"Elias Ibrahim" <eibr...@ozemail.com.au> wrote in message
news:3A3382E3...@ozemail.com.au...
> Hi Frank
> Thanks for your response. One of the questions re Shah that
> Moore poses in his article is the sudden transformation of Shah initially
> from an author of a couple of good books on magic and the occult
franko...@my-deja.com
One of the questions re Shah that
> Moore poses in his article is the sudden transformation of Shah
initially from an author of a couple of good books on magic and the
occult ( Oriental Magic , and Secret Lore of Magic ) to the highest
leader of the only authentic Sufi group working in the West. <
These things do happen; a friend of mine has recently undergone a
sudden transformation; he's gone from being seen as an ordinary civil
servant on a low wage, to being the newly elected General secretary of
a British trade union. This is what the Guardian had to say:
Surprise Poll result (Guardian 6/12/00)
The future of the Public and Commercial Services Union was
thrown into confusion last night when a hard left candidate
won an election to become next general secretary.
Persons, intimately acquainted with this friend of mine, might be
puzzled to see him described in print as 'hard left'; but few, I bet,
would be surprised at the result of the election; his opponents,
however, and their backers in the press, are quite astonished at
him 'coming from nowhere'.
Similarly, those who perceived Idries Shah as being 'an author of a
couple of good books on magic and the occult' were not necessarily
privileged in their assessment of him, in the first place.
>I have a similar concern after having read "Destination Mecca" , where
I got the feeling that Shah had just started his investigations in
these areas - he makes a rather adolescent statement after having
witnessed some phenomenon that he had really wished he had his camera.
This is at odds with the later mythos of his having been trained in
Central Asia for his highly important role in the work . >
Well, as far as I'm concerned, all that 'wish I had my camera' stuff is
typical of the sort of understatement beloved of the genuine
aristocrat; these people love to "dress down" and much prefer to be
mistaken for a dustman than be recognised as a Duke. If, during the
early part of his public career, Shah had announced that he had 'been
trained in Central Asia, for his highly important role in the work', he
would not have gone down at all well with the people he sought as
readers.
>Also why is Destination Mecca so hard to obtain these days ( my
question ).
A good question; but not one that I can answer; are you suggesting that
it is, for some reason,being suppressed ? Several other books by Shah
are also out of print; and if I recall correctly, 10 years or so ago,
Octagon were giving copies of DM away to regular customers
>Then there is also the matter of Robert Graves and how he
> was treated by Shah when the academic community demanded to see the
family owned copy of the Omar Khayyam text and Shah refused , with the
efffect of destroying Graves credibility in academic circles.
If you read the various biographies of Robert Graves, it is clear that
Idries was dead set against Graves' collaboration with Omar Ali Shah.
That Graves chose to ignore Idries' wise counsel ( as he also did on
other occasions)is one thing; to expect to be bailed out at great cost,
when events proved the advice to be right, is quite another. Besides,
the suggestion that 'Graves' credibility in academic circles' was
destroyed by the Khayyam text controversy, is a gross exaggeration. If
anything, Graves gained a wider readership by his association with
Idries Shah, than the converse.
I hope you realize that I am wrting as a person deeply interested
> in Shah's work , for which I have a high level of respect. I think
that all systems and teachers have their limitations , as do pupils ,
myself included. My previous comments I hope are taken as dispassionate
> observations on the phenomena of criticising an outsider to Shah's
system .
>
> Blessings
> Elias
They are indeed.
Best wishes
Bob
Eric Twose wrote:
> Hello Elias, Frank et al,
>
> 'Earnest Scott' reportedly got around a bit, too; as did 'H.M. Dervish' and
> Omar Michael Burke; Tahir and Saira Shah must have clocked-up a good few air
> miles; and I seem to recall someone mentioning that Lefort?, who wrote of
> 'The Teachers of Gurdjieff', had been his tutor/supervisor.
Ernest Scott was either a psuedonym for Shah or Colin Wilson and for the
most
part the book served to filter out occultists of various stripes from the
legitimate
seekers. If you look at the sources used to create it and erroneous
statements
in it. It becomes quite obvious. Not a book to be taken seriously at all,
especially when you consider that one of the references used was written as
a prank by the author who was pissed off at a Gurdjieff group and wanted
to get back at them.
The Teachers of Gurdjieff was written by Shah as a recruiting device aimed
at FouthWay students during Shah's early years when he was actively
recruiting
them. The information is useful but quite misleading as to who were G's
teachers
and sources. Which BTW nowadays assumed to be a syncretic mixture of
Naqsbandi
Sufism, Buddhism, Yoga and Hermetic elements to name a few. Rafael Lefort is
a anagram for "Real Effort" btw.
Journey with a Sufi Master is a odd one. Part teacher worship part filtering
device?
It's oddly familiar in that you'll find such works written by overly
devotional
students of most gurus/teachers. Bit of a botched work. It is not a good way
to
introduce the newly interested in Shah to.
If what Shah and his early followers claim is true, then there should be
> oodles of people around who can substantiate these claims.
The problem with some of Shah's history is similar to that of finding
Gurdjieff's real
teachers, sources and lineage . Next to impossible.
> Best Wishes,
> Eric.
franko...@my-deja.com
Bob <Nob...@nowhere.com> wrote:
>Ernest Scott was either a psuedonym for Shah or Colin Wilson
Ernest Scott was actually a psuedonym for Edward Campbell.
Frank
Eric Twose
> [ET] 'Earnest Scott' reportedly got around a bit, too; as did 'H.M.
Dervish' and
> Omar Michael Burke; Tahir and Saira Shah must have clocked-up a good few
air
> miles; and I seem to recall someone mentioning that Lefort?, who wrote of
> 'The Teachers of Gurdjieff', had been his tutor/supervisor.
[Bob] Ernest Scott was either a psuedonym for Shah or Colin Wilson and
for the
most part the book served to filter out occultists of various stripes from
the
legitimate seekers. If you look at the sources used to create it and
erroneous
statements in it. It becomes quite obvious. Not a book to be taken seriously
at all, especially when you consider that one of the references used was
written as a prank by the author who was pissed off at a Gurdjieff group
and wanted to get back at them.
[ET] My source may be mistaken, or pulling my leg, but I'm told that the
'People
of the Secret' [TPOTS?] was written by Edward Campbell, who was a journalist
for the Daily Mail, hence the nom de plume 'E[a]rnest Scot[t]' which was
apparently something of an 'in-joke'.
[Bob] The Teachers of Gurdjieff was written by Shah as a recruiting
device aimed at FouthWay students during Shah's early years when he was
actively recruiting them. The information is useful but quite misleading as
to who were G's teachers and sources. Which BTW nowadays assumed to be a
syncretic mixture of Naqsbandi Sufism, Buddhism, Yoga and Hermetic elements
to name a few. Rafael Lefort is a anagram for "Real Effort" btw.
[ET] Perhaps Shah was teaching us the difference between going off on a
'fool's
errand' in search of the fabled "Tub of Elbow Grease" and applying this Real
Effort?
[Bob] Journey with a Sufi Master is a odd one. Part teacher worship part
filtering device? It's oddly familiar in that you'll find such works written
by overly devotional students of most gurus/teachers. Bit of a botched work.
It is not a good way to introduce the newly interested in Shah to.
> [ET] If what Shah and his early followers claim is true, then there should
be
> oodles of people around who can substantiate these claims.
[Bob] The problem with some of Shah's history is similar to that of finding
Gurdjieff's real teachers, sources and lineage . Next to impossible.
[ET] I wholeheartedly agree, Bob. And yet again: perhaps Shah was teaching
us the
difference between going off on a 'fool's errand' in search of the fabled
"Tub of Elbow Grease" and applying Real Effort?
Eric Twose
Rafael Lefort is an anagram for "Real Effort" btw.
Applying the same amount of licence (as tradition allows), it is also an
anagram of
'all for free', and 'free for all'.
Maybe what you find is depends on what you're looking for?
Eric
Obo Vajrin
the article. My presenting and quotes from the article, if it gave the
impression of dismissing Moore as a fool, was a failure.
Actually, it was one of the few things I've read recently which drove me to my
dictionaries to try to fully appreciate what the man was saying. As to where I
personally sit on the Gurdjieff/Shah fence let me say that(to my surprise) I am
currently part of a group reading "Beelzebub's Tales to His Grandson" out loud
(talk about a book you want a dictionary for- won't it be interesting when DVD
technology and concept comes to books.) I also recently had the experience,
doing some web searches, of coming across these quotes at two different web
sites within thirty minutes of each other " Gurdjieff is for people who aren't
ready for Sufism" and "Sufism is for people who aren't ready for Gurdjieff."
Whatever, as was mentioned in an earlier post on this thread the important
thing is to attempt to find and recognize Truth by what ever donkey you may
have. As to the dangers of cult behavior, they are certainly everwhere. Some
of the value I find in Alt.Sufi and other web sources is to try to limit the
impact of being a cult of one. Back to Moore's article and the issues he
raises, they should not be dismissed merely because he is biased (IMO). Some
of the controversies can be researched or info ferreted out, some may simply
not be important out side of a small circle. For example, to me, whether his
is the oldest recorded lineage, whether his is senior male line or if he's
second generation immigrant don't really matter. I know its terribly important
to some people and that blood and genes are terribbly important to each of us
in our individuality and who we are, but it is what we do and accomplish in/for
reality which ultimately matters.
Take care, obo
Al
Could someone post Moore's article so that we could know what is being
discussed... It would fall under fair use - a rather specialized obscure
text brought to the fore. Maybe it would lead to some people purchasing
Moore's book later, thus bringing him royaltie$.
sab...@mindspring.com
>I was an early respondant to this thread, having recently been the one to read
>the article. My presenting and quotes from the article, if it gave the
>impression of dismissing Moore as a fool, was a failure.
>Actually, it was one of the few things I've read recently which drove me to my
>dictionaries to try to fully appreciate what the man was saying. As to where I
>personally sit on the Gurdjieff/Shah fence let me say that(to my surprise) I am
>currently part of a group reading "Beelzebub's Tales to His Grandson" out loud
>(talk about a book you want a dictionary for- won't it be interesting when DVD
>technology and concept comes to books.) I also recently had the experience,
>doing some web searches, of coming across these quotes at two different web
>sites within thirty minutes of each other " Gurdjieff is for people who aren't
>ready for Sufism" and "Sufism is for people who aren't ready for Gurdjieff."
===========================
Neither statement is 'true", on many levels.
First...there IS no "Sufism", and no "Gurdjieff" either.
There is just you, and some other person (or group of people)
trying to help you to realize that fact.
Second...one person may be genetically, biochemically inclined
towards one way; another person may be more naturally inclined towards
another way.
Third...if you aren't "ready"...you just aren't ready.
Period.
======================
>Whatever, as was mentioned in an earlier post on this thread the important
>thing is to attempt to find and recognize Truth by what ever donkey you may
>have.
============
Yup.
=================
> As to the dangers of cult behavior, they are certainly everwhere.
================
Also the dangers of NON-cult behavior.
I'm not trying to be a wiseguy here...avoiding study because of the
fear of "cult" behavior is a major excuse for seekers who do not
really wish to seek.
A WONDERFUL copout.
Careful...
S.
---snip---
Jerry layman
In the introduction to one of Sayed Omar Ali Shah's books, I believe it is
"Sufism for Today", there is a recital of Sayed Idries Shah taking over part
of the Gurdjief group. As part of his early efforts he is reported to have
stopped them from reading any more of Gurdjief's writings. From my
experience the most interesting of the Ouspensky-Gurdjief series is
"Glimpses of Truth". Some of the writings of Orage and Nichol are also
interesting. It seemed to me that Gurdjief was sent to bring a Sufi message
to the west, and he certainly influenced many brilliant and important
persons, but his students, including Ouspensky, Nichol, Orage and the French
contingent, did not have a valid "charter" to continue the "work".
Regards,
Jerry
"Obo Vajrin" <obov...@aol.com> wrote in message
news:20001211094435...@ng-fz1.aol.com...
sab...@mindspring.com
>Dear Obo,
>
>In the introduction to one of Sayed Omar Ali Shah's books, I believe it is
>"Sufism for Today", there is a recital of Sayed Idries Shah taking over part
>of the Gurdjief group. As part of his early efforts he is reported to have
>stopped them from reading any more of Gurdjief's writings. From my
>experience the most interesting of the Ouspensky-Gurdjief series is
>"Glimpses of Truth". Some of the writings of Orage and Nichol are also
>interesting. It seemed to me that Gurdjief was sent to bring a Sufi message
>to the west, and he certainly influenced many brilliant and important
>persons, but his students, including Ouspensky, Nichol, Orage and the French
>contingent, did not have a valid "charter" to continue the "work".
>
>Regards,
>
>Jerry
=================
And who GIVES these "charters"?
If they did not have the power of G. (and it appears from afar as
if they didn't) it was not for lack of a "charter"...they just weren't
as heavy as he was.
One thing G. said was that knowledge was a finite substance...it
could be concentrated into one or a few, or dispersed over and among a
larger group in smaller (and therefore weaker) amounts.
This explains the apparently universal phenomenon of one strong
teacher or achiever...music, various "spiritual" paths,
sports,literature, you name it, all the same...and succeedingly weaker
generations of copyists, until someone ELSE is filled w/ another
version (connects w/the mainstream of) that "knowledge", at which
point the whole process repeats itself.
"Ouspensky, Nichol, Orage and the French
contingent" weren't lacking a "valid 'charter' to continue the
'work' "...they just (I'm assuming this from the available
evidence...I knew none of them first hand) apparently never directly
RE-discovered what they had been taught by G., and thus had less
power. (Some Sufis call it " baraka".)
Idries Shah...???
Could be...
S.
franko...@my-deja.com
I should like to do what you ask but, since I am seven hundred miles
away from home right now, am unable to. I agree that it ought to be
posted.
jaye...@my-deja.com
Isn't it to some extent fallacious to concentrate on the individuals,
and their relative merits, rather than on that which is expressing
itself through them?
J.
Obo Vajrin
<<
Isn't it to some extent fallacious to concentrate on the individuals,
and their relative merits, rather than on that which is expressing
itself through them?
J.
>>
This is certainly worth saying twice or as often as needed. A large part of my
experience in reading the said article was a "decideing" again what seemed to
me to be important in the means/ends debate (how many of the teaching
stories are about just such dilemas). There was a request for the article
being posted, it is three full pages with three pages of notes (the most
interesting IMO). My typing is slow and I have no scanner (My understanding of
computers is also limited, but I assume someone who knows what they are doing
could scan the article and get it posted to this newsgroup) if someone wants
to do this contact me and I will snailmail you a photo copy for you to post.
If interests continues and enough feel it important, I will attemp to type out
the article if necessary.
I also appreciate the warnings against the continued reading of Gurdjieff
material. I had made my decission over thirty years ago as to where the
thread of truth may continue for me. I mentioned my current reading of
"Beelzebub" in the hope of showing that I was not against Gurdjieff as Moore
seems to be against Shah. We are two sessions away from finishing the first
series, and I will reflect upon wether or not I continue after the New Year.
Take care, obo
sab...@mindspring.com
==============
Yes, no, and maybe. (Always that pesky third option to spoil the
pretty picture !!)
Yes...the cult of personality that is often expressed, the
"comparing" of individual teachers in this thing can tend to obscure
and take over the real aim.
No...this thing is always and everywhere expressed by an individual
and a school that grows up around that individual. The relative power
and influence of that person and school can often be a good guideline
to ascertain the truth or effectiveness of a particular style of
teaching.
Maybe...there are of course quite famous and influential false
teachers and schools, as well as forms of valid teachings that have
either degenerated or are in a form that is not really proper or
available to certain individuals...forms that are from a culture or
time to which one in ANOTHER culture or time has trouble relating,
forms that simply are not effective for certain types of
individuals...
Ideally, one looking into this thing should find a living teacher
who is available to them in the flesh, one who couches the teaching in
terms that are readily understood culturally and in a language in
which the student is really fluent.
This thread is about Idries Shah and his detractors (and
supporters), about the relative merits of his teaching and the
possibility that he may or may not be a charlatan. For these questions
I have no answers. I have read some of his books and heard him speak,
but did not attempt to study w/him.
Why ? I had already been in contact w/another teacher of this thing,
Jan Cox, who appeared (and still appears ) to me to be one who more
completely shares my own culture and who was more accessible.
He is STILL more accessible today, 20 years later.
Check out his website,
<http://www.jancox.com/JansDailyFreshRealNews.htm>
where he posts new (and very interesting) thoughts daily. Also a
newgroup where many of his recent posts are available,
alt.consciousness.jancox.
Idries Shah is at the very LEAST a scholar of the classical "Sufi"
teachers, writing book after book that includes lovely translations
from Arabic, Persian, and other languages of the words of long dead
masters and interesting surveys of their various ideas.
. Perhaps he is more than that, I do not know. He and his work are
certainly relatively popular.
Jan Cox speaks English, lives today,and compared to Shah is
relatively unknown.
Check him out.
S.
eart...@my-deja.com
>
> Why ? I had already been in contact w/another teacher of this thing,
> Jan Cox, who appeared (and still appears ) to me to be one who more
> completely shares my own culture and who was more accessible.
If he is incompetent to run Mc Donalds (and wow look what they have made
of cultural restrictions) or Kentucky Fried Chicken (last time I
checked the Colonel was indeed dead), I hope you have more than luck to
cling on to in following this Cox fellow's ministrations to get you
across the interdimensional realms of reality...But then if you were
really certain you would not be trolling these woods looking for fresh
gristle to sustain that lagging morale, eh?
‰
‰
sab...@mindspring.com
eart...@my-deja.com
a hint is there waiting to be found.
'<:-`)~~~~‰
eart...@my-deja.com
a hint is there waiting to be found.
'<:-¬)~~~~‰
eart...@my-deja.com
Look at that story about the poor blind mao wailing for his sight back,
a hint is there waiting to be found.
'<:-`)~~~~‰
Eric Twose
I don't know what this thread's like via any other ISP, but earthfly's reply
below is tagged onto Frank's which rather appropriately states:
'These things do happen; a friend of mine has recently undergone a
sudden transformation....' (as has this thread on Freeserve).
At ******, I spent many a sleepless night, going into finance houses'
systems using pcAnywhere from home and rebuilding the linked lists in their
databases ready for the offices to open first thing in the morning. And if I
didn't get it right (which required calculating and filling-in any missing
transactions), the phone would be red-hot at the month-end [im]balance.
Thank God these are only words and that I don't work in support for a major
ISP.
Eric
<eart...@my-deja.com> wrote in message news:9167qu$6ll$1...@nnrp1.deja.com...
Eric Twose
> difference between going off on a 'fool's errand' in search of the fabled
> "Tub of Elbow Grease" and applying Real Effort?
When the Sufis do something, they don't dispense half-measures - though what
they do dispense may have too subtle a flavour for our jaded palates.
The name Rafael Lefort is perhaps also reminiscent of folk like Israel
Regardie (or Dion Fortune) of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn?
And when the average person thinks of the quest for the Grael, s/he most
likely conceives of it as a search for a "tub of magic Elbow Grease".
There is little doubt that 'Gurdjieff was a man who *personally* himself
could awaken a sense of life and action in his associates'. Without 'G',
however - the presence of an equivalent real, living Source of Teaching -
people will continue to scour the lands for that mythical Elbow Grease and,
not applying Real Effort, they will not fully benefit from the Real
transformative power of the 'Grael'. The Legend of the Pointing Finger
provides a similar referential framework.
Eric
sab...@mindspring.com
eart...@my-deja.com
It never is about me or even that fellow, Jan Cox. It is only about ???
Good luck, and you will be needing oodles of it too.
`<;-'))~~~~~‰
Eric Twose
<;-)3D=
Eric
<eart...@my-deja.com> wrote in message news:916g67$dl6$1...@nnrp1.deja.com...
Bob
Eric Twose wrote:
Perhaps, but I doubt in this case for numerous reasons. Shah's early
prosyletizing
among the Gurdjiffians is well documented and when one considers all the
misleading
information about Gurdjieff and the promotion of himself indirectly as a
successor of
of G.. It's not a bit of a reach to say that his motives were less than
honest.
All in all it reads like a recruiting manual for Shah's organization at
the expense
of G and tasawwuf in general.
Eric
Bob
Eric Twose wrote:
> > [ET] And yet again: perhaps Shah was teaching us the
> > difference between going off on a 'fool's errand' in search of the fabled
> > "Tub of Elbow Grease" and applying Real Effort?
>
> When the Sufis do something, they don't dispense half-measures - though what
> they do dispense may have too subtle a flavour for our jaded palates.
>
Giving out misleading information about people, time and place is not
subtle. More like a dropping a brick on your foot. Not to mention highly
unethical.
>
> And when the average person thinks of the quest for the Grael, s/he most
> likely conceives of it as a search for a "tub of magic Elbow Grease".
>
The spiritual quest is not as it was 30-50 years ago. You can find
legitimate
spiritual teachers in almost most major metropolitan areas. When G was
around it was not the case. Outside of some very esoteric paths most
can be found with a modicum of effort.
Now whether or not one is up to the committment that a spiritual path
demands
is another question altogether.
>
> There is little doubt that 'Gurdjieff was a man who *personally* himself
> could awaken a sense of life and action in his associates'. Without 'G',
> however - the presence of an equivalent real, living Source of Teaching -
> people will continue to scour the lands for that mythical Elbow Grease and,
> not applying Real Effort, they will not fully benefit from the Real
> transformative power of the 'Grael'. The Legend of the Pointing Finger
> provides a similar referential framework.
G could do a lot of things and inspired some very fine minds. He didn't have
to write books under a alias. Nor tear down others to build himself up or
attack other spiritual paths as inadequate.
One also has to consider that G had no successor. Shah could no more
claim this man's mantle than he could be the Pope.
> Eric
Eric Twose
news:3A39B9E0...@nowhere.com...
>
> Eric Twose wrote:
>
> > > [ET] And yet again: perhaps Shah was teaching us the
> > > difference between going off on a 'fool's errand' in search of the
fabled
> > > "Tub of Elbow Grease" and applying Real Effort?
> >
> > When the Sufis do something, they don't dispense half-measures - though
what
> > they do dispense may have too subtle a flavour for our jaded palates.
> [Bob] Giving out misleading information about people, time and place
is not
> subtle. More like a dropping a brick on your foot. Not to mention
highly
> unethical.
[ET] Do you feel Shah has caused genuine grief? Are you angry about this
matter, Bob - do you feel that you, personally, were the subject of
manipulation, abuse, rejection? Now that side of it does concern me.
In fairness, however, if Shah's operation was as you say 'as subtle as
dropping a brick on someone's foot', then in a sense could it not be argued
that Shah did you a service in filtering out the grossly insensitive;
creating a situation requiring real effort (and hence new possibilities of
progress) from some of these students? And thus also provided a model lesson
to those students with real potential who were witnesses to all this but who
were not so naive as to be taken in by his skullduggery?
It's just a thought, that's all, Bob.
BTW: Why is Anne-Marie Schimmel apparently so anti-Shah? I seem to recall a
note in one of her books referring to his kindergarten, and someone else in
a UK Channel 4 documentary talking of Shah as 'flotsam and jetsum, washed up
on a beach'; detritis?What's their beef?
> > [ET] And when the average person thinks of the quest for the Grael, s/he
most
> > likely conceives of it as a search for a "tub of magic Elbow Grease".
> [Bob] The spiritual quest is not as it was 30-50 years ago. You can
find
> legitimate
> spiritual teachers in almost most major metropolitan areas. When G was
> around it was not the case. Outside of some very esoteric paths most
> can be found with a modicum of effort.
>
> Now whether or not one is up to the committment that a spiritual path
> demands
> is another question altogether.
>
> >
> > [ET] There is little doubt that 'Gurdjieff was a man who *personally*
himself
> > could awaken a sense of life and action in his associates'. Without 'G',
> > however - the presence of an equivalent real, living Source of
Teaching -
> > people will continue to scour the lands for that mythical Elbow Grease
and,
> > not applying Real Effort, they will not fully benefit from the Real
> > transformative power of the 'Grael'. The Legend of the Pointing Finger
> > provides a similar referential framework.
>
> G could do a lot of things and inspired some very fine minds. He didn't
have
> to write books under a alias. Nor tear down others to build himself up
or
> attack other spiritual paths as inadequate.
>
> [Bob] One also has to consider that G had no successor. Shah could no more
Eric Twose
> He didn't have to write under a alias.
> Nor tear down others to build himself up or attack other spiritual paths
as inadequate.
> - Giving out misleading information about people, time and place is not
> subtle. More like a dropping a brick on your foot. Not to mention
highly
> unethical. Shah could no more claim this man's mantle than he could be
the Pope.
If Shah had read this e-mail, what do you think he might have said? And how
would you perceive his response? As an astute observation, as something
to reflect on, something which may provoke learning, or as a personal
attack, Bob?
This is just an observation, by the way - not an attack.
ALl the Best,
esoteric w ;)
whome
without the shell there be no pearl
woe to those who bite the seed and curse the fruit
without the seed there be no fruit
a lost tooth is indeed a small price to pay
go spit it out and start again to play
He knows, He knows, He knows...
With apologies to OQ...ooooooOQ:::QOoooooo...
Eric Twose <er...@anchor92.freeserve.co.uk> wrote in message
91g9pg$6ho$1...@news7.svr.pol.co.uk...
azo charif
> subtle. More like a dropping a brick on your foot. Not to mention
highly
> unethical.
hi Bob
the above describes more of G's behaviour(you got only to open any of his
books in any page to see that)than Shah's..iamnt saying that Shah is
innocent in this respect but comparing to G's 'porkies', Shah's are
'microporkies'..
regards
azo
Chris Belcher
<er...@anchor92.freeserve.co.uk> wrote:
> Regarding Robert Graves:
>
> Can you recall the approximate date on which Shah first took Robert Graves
> on-board and on which Graves' request was allegedly denied by Shah?
>
> I note that The Sufis was originally published in 1964 and in that edition
> Graves introduces Shah to key Western circles as representing 'the Eastern
> parent of Freemasonry'. However, at some point between then and 1977, this
> introduction was removed.
Perhaps it was only that Octagon did not hold a coyright on Graves's
introduction? Anchor Doubleday continues to publish (to my best
knowledge) the version with the Graves introduction.
Obo Vajrin
knowledge) the version with the Graves introduction. >>
Yes this is true, I have a paper back copy of 'the Sufis" purchased recently.
There are a few interesting rearrangments of some of the material and the
number of pages differ from my old copy. I'm going to try and see if maybe
I've worn out my old copy with a read of a fresh book after the New Year. Take
care, obo
William F. Zachmann
Really? It isn't, though. For "a real effort" perhaps, but certainly not
for "real effort". "Real effort" has but one A. "Rafael Lefort" has two.
(The devil is in the details, y'know <g>).
All the best,
will
"Eric Twose" <er...@anchor92.freeserve.co.uk> wrote in message
news:912khu$ojb$1...@newsg1.svr.pol.co.uk...
> "Bob" <Nob...@nowhere.com> wrote:
>
> > [ET] 'Earnest Scott' reportedly got around a bit, too; as did 'H.M.
> Dervish' and
> > Omar Michael Burke; Tahir and Saira Shah must have clocked-up a good few
> air
> > miles; and I seem to recall someone mentioning that Lefort?, who wrote
of
> > 'The Teachers of Gurdjieff', had been his tutor/supervisor.
>
> [Bob] Ernest Scott was either a psuedonym for Shah or Colin Wilson
and
> for the
> most part the book served to filter out occultists of various stripes from
> the
> legitimate seekers. If you look at the sources used to create it and
> erroneous
> statements in it. It becomes quite obvious. Not a book to be taken
seriously
> at all, especially when you consider that one of the references used was
> written as a prank by the author who was pissed off at a Gurdjieff group
> and wanted to get back at them.
>
> [ET] My source may be mistaken, or pulling my leg, but I'm told that the
> 'People
> of the Secret' [TPOTS?] was written by Edward Campbell, who was a
journalist
> for the Daily Mail, hence the nom de plume 'E[a]rnest Scot[t]' which was
> apparently something of an 'in-joke'.
>
> [Bob] The Teachers of Gurdjieff was written by Shah as a recruiting
> device aimed at FouthWay students during Shah's early years when he was
> actively recruiting them. The information is useful but quite misleading
as
> to who were G's teachers and sources. Which BTW nowadays assumed to be a
> syncretic mixture of Naqsbandi Sufism, Buddhism, Yoga and Hermetic
elements
> to name a few. Rafael Lefort is a anagram for "Real Effort" btw.
>
> [ET] Perhaps Shah was teaching us the difference between going off on a
> 'fool's
> errand' in search of the fabled "Tub of Elbow Grease" and applying this
Real
> Effort?
>
> [Bob] Journey with a Sufi Master is a odd one. Part teacher worship part
> filtering device? It's oddly familiar in that you'll find such works
written
> by overly devotional students of most gurus/teachers. Bit of a botched
work.
> It is not a good way to introduce the newly interested in Shah to.
>
> > [ET] If what Shah and his early followers claim is true, then there
should
> be
> > oodles of people around who can substantiate these claims.
>
> [Bob] The problem with some of Shah's history is similar to that of
finding
> Gurdjieff's real teachers, sources and lineage . Next to impossible.
>
> [ET] I wholeheartedly agree, Bob. And yet again: perhaps Shah was teaching
Eric Twose
news:91gejg$k8j$1...@news6.svr.pol.co.uk...
Dear azo,
I recall someone saying recently: 'I don't see the Internet - there are
bound to be anti-Shah people - nothing to be done. I think reading and
re-reading Shah is a way of keeping up contact. Only one trip to the
States - I don't buzz about as I did.'
'Tick tock', indeed, Jonathan: half way through the message, this person's
pen began to run out and the writer had to complete the remainder with
another, in a different hue, which was gushing ink. And I'm fighting back a
tear right now. Because this is a person who could show one something merely
by the position of a stamp, the size of an envelope, the way the wet ink of
a message may be transferred from one piece of paper to the next, by
contact.
Eric
G.V.
>>
>>Author: Elias Ibrahim <eibr...@ozemail.com.au>
>>>
>>
> I have been noticing the reaction to the article by James
Moore. Several years ago I read a great book by Arthur Deikman
called "The Wrong Way Home" on the psychology of cult formation
Deikman states that we are all prone to this at one level or another.
One indicator is the readiness to discard any detractors as being not
worthy of being heard because they are outside the accepted inner
circle or they disagree.
>> If one thinks objectively , Moore asks several pertinent
questions and I have yet to see an answer in an objective manner issue
from the Shah camp as to these valid questions.
>> Moore is obviously a Gurdjieffian with pertinent
>questions to ask , and was alarmed at the readiness with which Shah
was accepted by Bennett. If any of us a members of a group and a non
member approaches and takes over a significant section of the group we
would all ask questions too .
> Shah's writings are held in very high regard by myself. I do not
think he would have asked that I blindly accepted him as a messenger
from the Inner Circle of Humanity just because he or anyone else said
so. My contact is through his writings and they are very useful and
transformative. So are Gurdjieff's and other 4th Way author.
> My concern is that some other commenst border on a cultic attitude
of disparaging Moore for asking intelligent questions and then discard
his questions as those of a fool . I wonder what Idries Shah would have
thought of that ?
Just my 0.02 worth
> Elias
I have not seen this article (nor the reactions) -- just prior mention
of the piece on this NG. Offhand, it sounds similar to the "pseudo-
sufi" articles and so forth that seem to crop up regularly in 4th-way
networks (& elsewhere) in regards to Shah -- about every 6 months it
seems. Personally, I rather enjoy reading these pieces from time to
time just like the Nat'l Enquirer or the Daily Mirror. One can't help
but run into them; after awhile, one feels that one has learned to
recognize the trail of crumbs they leave.
Without knowing these "pertinent questions" the author supposedly
raises, my responses here are perhaps, like Gurdjieff's driving, "a
shot in the dark." However, answering "pertinent questions" may not
always be the most useful course in some endeavours, not that all valid
questions are such. People, and perhaps Moore here, sometimes aren't
looking for any answers at all. Often, esp. if they're writers, they
have an agenda more than questions, or are, at least, "very full
glasses."
It's all very nice to champion earnest inquiry, or to claim allegiance
to "clarifying facts and ferreting out discrepancies." Despite not
having read Moore (except for skimming one online interview), so far
I've never found at best more than a hint of smoke in these types of "3
alarm" efforts. Or perhaps, to be current, they resemble the recent PR
photos of George W's gang at his ranch that the Modern Greek Chorus
(the media) dubbed: "a lot of hats but no cattle."
Not to throw water on any discussion in this forum... in fact, I
say, "Bring on the empty horses!" (to quote a movie director known for
his fractured English and high action episodes).
My experience is usually that these pieces reflect more of the
authors and the tendencies in people to see conspiracies and dastardly
motives where there are none. For some, there will always be
"a second chad on a grassy knoll", not because of fact or "truth,", but
because their equilibrium depends on it.
GV
franko...@my-deja.com
Elias Ibrahim <eibr...@ozemail.com.au> wrote:
>Then there is also the matter of Robert Graves and how he was treated
by Shah when the academic community demanded to see the family owned
copy of the Omar Khayyam text and Shah refused , with the efffect of
> destroying Graves credibility in academic circles.
Hello again, Elias,
I thought the following extracts might be of interest to people not
familar with the Graves_Omar Ali-Shah controversy; they are from: "In
the Irish-Sufic Tradition": Robert Graves and Idries Shah; by Michael
Pharand (1997)Gravesiana Vol 1, No 3, pub Oxford UK.
Frank O'Riordan
"I'm a Sufi, aren't we all?
Goofy Sufi on the ball
In our mystic dreams it seems
That wisdom comes to call." (Robert Graves)
"Graves was still under the Sufic spell when, in October 1966, while in
London recovering from a gall-bladder operation, he began translating
into English verse the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, a work whose most
popilar English version thus far had been the nineteenth-century verse
translation of Edward Fitzgerald. It was not Idries this time but his
brother, Omar Ali-Shah, who became Shah's guide. He provided Graves
with a literal crib of a twelfth-century Persian manuscript--the so-
called 'Jan Fishan-Khan' manuscript, after Shah's great-great-
grandfather--belonging to his family. This text, Omar claimed in his
introduction, was "of uncontradictable authority", and "Khayyam's Sufi
connections form part of the oral tradition which has been handed down
in my family for the last nine centuries". As he had done earlier for
Idries, Graves specified in his own introduction that Omar's family
connections could be traced all the way to the Prophet Mohammed.
However,most classical Persian scholars were skeptical: J.C.E.Bowen
eventually made the claim (in 1973) that "Omar Ali Shah has no more
than a nodding acquaintance with the Persian language, and knows very
little about Persian literature,".
Much controversy followed publication of 'The Original Rubaiyyat of
Omar Khayyam (1966. There was even a Columbia University doctoral
dissertation (1969) written about the Graves-Shah translation that
expressed doubt about the reliability of the Shah manuscript and the
identification of Omar as a Sufi. Much of it arose because Graves and
Omar Ali-Shah had asserted in their introductions that the Chester
Beatty (AD 1259) and Cambridge University Library (AD 1207)manuscripts
were probably late copies, and that the Shah family manuscript--which
Graves had never seen--was authoritative. When he finally did ask to
see the manuscript, Idries Shah refused, telling Graves that it was not
in his possession, that excellent forgeries were produced in Iran, and
that in any case radio-carbon dating was useless on such ancient
parchments. Moreover, even if he possessed it, "I would have no
hesitation at all in refusing to show it to anyone under any
circumstances at any time whatever." Even Shah's father, the Sirdar
Ikbal Ali-Shah, wrote to Graves in Morocco asking that the manuscript
be produced. Although Graves sent that letter to Omar, it was never
received, and unfortunately Omar's father died in a car crash in
Tangiers a few days later. ( (c) 1997 Michael Pharand)
Eric Twose
> >> Rafael Lefort is a anagram for "Real Effort" btw.
>
> Really? It isn't, though. For "a real effort" perhaps, but certainly not
> for "real effort". "Real effort" has but one A. "Rafael Lefort" has two.
> (The devil is in the details, y'know <g>).
>
> All the best,
>
> will
Way too subtle, Will.
Why waste good wine when there's J's INDUSTRIAL STRENGTH at-hand?
Led Zeppelin is an analgram of "Deep Zen Pill", btw.
Take Care,
Eric
G.V.
franko...@my-deja.com wrote:
> In article <3A3382E3...@ozemail.com.au>,
> Elias Ibrahim <eibr...@ozemail.com.au> wrote:
>
> >Then there is also the matter of Robert Graves and how he was treated
> by Shah when the academic community demanded to see the family owned
> copy of the Omar Khayyam text and Shah refused , with the efffect of
> > destroying Graves credibility in academic circles.
>
> Hello again, Elias,
> I thought the following extracts might be of interest to people not
> familar with the Graves_Omar Ali-Shah controversy; they are from: "In
> the Irish-Sufic Tradition": Robert Graves and Idries Shah; by Michael
> Pharand (1997)Gravesiana Vol 1, No 3, pub Oxford UK.
>
> Frank O'Riordan
>
Yes, thanks very much. I meant to post the following before but will
include it here.
> In regards to Graves and the "Rubaiyyat" controversy, I'd also
recommend reading the collections of his letters, since biographers put
in an extra "spin" and weave their own warp into material. Graves
didn't seem too concerned with "stooping to answer" the critics (as to
the manuscript et al) and cited the death of Ikbal Ali-Shah in a car
accident at that time (1969) as one reason he ceased to bother with the
whole thing. The poet was no stranger to controversy, esp. in the UK,
and turning his back on the clamour that he found distasteful seemed
consistent with his style.
>If memory serves me correctly, the revered manuscript in the UK that
Graves vehemently asserted was a forgery (which riled up the critics to
begin with) did turn out to be so, but at the time it was not
considered polite to actually state the suspicions many had about it.
Perhaps we'll have to wait for the screenplay by Oliver Stone to
eventually get the full rundown on this particular story...
In addition, I wouldn't be sooooo concerned over someone being "left
high and dry" (as to Graves being left alone to face the critics) who'd
survived leaping from a third-story window as his way of rescuing his
lover who'd leapt from a second-story window. (Thereafter he and Ryder
promptly left England -- she was deemed deportable -- upon which Graves
immediately wrote "Goodbye to All That.")
G.V.
G.V.
franko...@my-deja.com wrote:
> Elias Ibrahim wrote:
>
> One of the questions re Shah that
>
> > Moore poses in his article is the sudden transformation of Shah
> initially from an author of a couple of good books on magic and the
> occult ( Oriental Magic , and Secret Lore of Magic ) to the highest
> leader of the only authentic Sufi group working in the West. <
>
(FOR) those who perceived Idries Shah as being 'an author of a
> couple of good books on magic and the occult' were not necessarily
> privileged in their assessment of him, in the first place.
>
(EI)> >I have a similar concern after having read "Destination Mecca" ,
where I got the feeling that Shah had just started his investigations in
> these areas - he makes a rather adolescent statement after having
> witnessed some phenomenon that he had really wished he had his camera.
> This is at odds with the later mythos of his having been trained in
> Central Asia for his highly important role in the work . >
>
(FOR)> Well, as far as I'm concerned, all that 'wish I had my camera'
stuff is typical of the sort of understatement beloved of the genuine
> aristocrat; these people love to "dress down" and much prefer to be
> mistaken for a dustman than be recognised as a Duke. If, during the
> early part of his public career, Shah had announced that he had 'been
> trained in Central Asia, for his highly important role in the work',
he would not have gone down at all well with the people he sought as
> readers.
>
Responding to a few of the points raised above (or somewhere)...
As for Shah's previous writing (on magic or travel), probably those
works were aimed for general audiences for publishers to target. Their
purpose may be different from other books, although they have very
useful information and seem to be trying to further a less hysterical
consideration of some subjects. The ones on magic would seem a
natural outgrowth of IS's work at the time with Gardner.
>> As to the matter of Bennett and his "ready acceptance" which so
alarms the author, this is the usual "Bennett was duped and then
fleeced of money" theme that echoes through certain resentful circles.
(Interesting too that many of those who fervently keep up this lament
never even met any of these men.) This viewpoint always struck me as
condescending toward Bennett to not give him the benefit of the doubt
as to having any capacity to judge -- suddenly the man just took total
leave of his senses or was "tricked" -- this is the assessment by some
of his students who otherwise had valued his judgment? But then there
are some 4th way factions which do not "accept" Bennett at all -- along
the lines of his not meeting certain criteria, namely a "minimum time
requirement" (measured in days and hours "not-spent" with Gurdjieff),
which (naturally) compromised Bennett's "committment", making it thus
much less pure and shining than that of others.
Irregardless of Bennett, there were many members from other related
circles at that time -- those under Daumal and such -- whose members
left to study elsewhere, whether this was with Shah or not. If these
folks left the fold due to ... whatever, perhaps easier to target some
dastardly "conman" than face the inadequacies at home. Of course,
Gurdjieff was quite a trickster with a very tangled bio, but, of
course, that must be different...
GV
franko...@my-deja.com
"Al" <al_...@my-deja.com> wrote:
>
> Could someone post Moore's article so that we could know what is being
> discussed...
I had hoped to post the Moore article during the holidays; problem is:
we have guests sleeping here, there, and everywhere! (I consider it
impolite to go poking for papers in rooms where other folk's clothes
are hanging).
As I'm away again tomorrow, it will be another couple of weeks before
we can proceed with this debate (unless someone else can post the
article).
Best wishes to everyone here
Frank
Al
Obo Vajrin
matters the last few weeks (we burried my father last wendsday) and I had
little time to pay attention to most matters here at alt.sufi. I also
reciently saw some old material that reminded my about the importance of
condittioning.. How we can be conditioned for or against something, how we can
be conditioned to think or feel that we are not under the influence of
conditioning, or just how deep and fundamentally conditioning may reside in our
very bodies. So perhaps there is some value in all us here reading Moore's
words and seeing our responses and responses of those gathered at this thread.
I'll probably enter the article in instalments, so bear with please.
First I wish I could enter in the picture on the first page (an image of
Idries Shah's head wearing sun glasses with the article's title in the lens of
the glasses "Neo-Sufism ^ The Case of Idries Shah". The image has been
processed to look weird, reminds me of Andy Warhol's Marilyn Monroe, actually
its kinda cool.
The backwater where modern sensibilities are impinged on by a refurbished
Sufism is a vexed and peculiar one; erudition sits uneasily with
popularisation; spiritual leaders of a stature almost forgotten in the West are
jostled by impudent careerists; and the erratic pattern of translation lends a
disproportionate influence to the towering minds of Ibn Arabi (AD 1165-1240)
and Jalaluddin Rumi (AD 1207-1273). Our contemporary British scene affords few
more sucessful figures than Idries Abutahir Shah---and few more pitiful.
For twenty-five years Shah [ Shah died in 1996-ed. note] has been lit, as
by St. Elmo's fire, with a nimbus of exorbitant adulation: an adulation he
himself has fanned, an adulation which has not failed to arouse--in quieter
Islamic,literary, academic, and Gurdjieffian circles-- a largely unheeded
contradiction. The coterie of serviceable journalists, editors, critics,
animators, broadcasters, and travel writers, which gamely choruses Shah's
prase, is entitled to enjoy understurbed its special value-judgement. Where
however, more eminent apologists have made debatable assertions of 'fact,' and
where the traditional orientation of Sufism and indeed the canon of truth have
suffered distortion, certain caveats concerning Shah must be refreshed.
In 1975 Doris Lessing brought to a climax her long years of enthusiam in a
GUARDIAN article of reckless ardour, appropriately entitled, 'If you knew
Sufi...' In this hagiography-no other noun will serve- Shah was advertised as
a saintly but genial polymath, who had attended several Western and Eastern
universities; commanded 60 million adherents; and quite disinterestedly
dispensed the 'Secret Wisdom': Idries Shah is one of these (great Sufi
Masters), and from his birth has been prepared for the specific task of
establishing this teaching here in the West.
An elitist spiritual eduation is one of Shah's two main planks: the
second-echoed below by Robert Graves- adduces SILSILA the Sufic initiatic
chain: Idries Shah Sayed happens to be in the senior male line of descent from
the prophet Mohammed, and to have inherited the secret mystries from the
Caliphs, his ancestors. He is, in fact, a Grand Sheikh of the Sufi Tariqa..
Such claims by such claimants deserve the compliment of attentive
scrutiny, and necessarily invite discreet interrogation of Shah's antecedents.
SHAH"S ORIGINS
Idries Shah's pretension to be a Sayyid (in common incidentally with a
million or more putative descendants of Muhammad's younger grandson Husain)
may be conceeded GROSSO MODO, without its conferring on him the spiritual
authority he implies. But the wilder boasts of his posterity- that he springs
from Abraham's loins and from the last Sasanid kings- belong to the melancoly
area of creative genealogy; and indeed in so far as they rely on his vaunted
place in the 'senior male line of descent from... Mohammed,' they labor under
the unconsidered difficulty that all three sons of the Prophet died in infancy.
Shah's traceable paternity places him within an obscure Afgan clan from
Paghman, a resort fifty miles from Kabul. Ironically enough, his
great-great-grandfather Muhammad Shah was awarded the title 'Jan Fishan Khan'
(The Zealot) in 1840, for supporting Brittish interests against his Muslim
co-religionsts. If it is over-censorious to call him (as I.P. Elwell-Sutton
has) a 'ruffian,' it is preposterous to call him (as Idries has) ' chief of the
Hindu Kush Sufis.' The specific Sufic link claimed by Idries is first defined
and rendered remotely plausible in the person of his grandfather Amjed Ali
Shah, the self-styled 'Nawab of Sardhana' and 'Naqshbundi Pugmani.' The
Naqshabandiyya were an important central Asian Sunni tariqa, associated with
the name of Baha'ad-Din Naqshband (AD 1318-1389). Yet Amjed Ali's religious
dedication is less well attested that his dissipation of the family's estates
at Sardhana near Delhi.
Ikbal Ali Shah (1894-1969), the son of Amjed Ali and father of Idries,
settled in Britain before the first world war, only to meet rebuffs. Behind
his compensatory inventions of private conversations with King George V lay his
failure at Edinburgh Medical School and -equally predictable- his ignominious
treatment as a son-in -law. Charming and personable, Ikbal was a lifelong
suffer from Munchhausen's syndrome- a condition first diagnosed in 1929, when
he tried to compromise the P.M. Ramsay Macdonald, and Foreign Office
investigation revealed there ' was hardly a word of truth in his writings.'
Towards Sufism, Ikbal's stance was ambivalent. He did write one innocuous
popularisation, ISLAMIC SUFISM (Rider&Co., 1933). However, he dipped his pen
in the inkpot of Voltaire when alluding to the Rifa'i, Mevlevi, and Ansariyya
tariqas; and he positively applauded Mustafa Kemal's abolition of the fez and
the Turkish dervish orders on 2 September 1925. As to orthodox Islam, Ikbal's
conduct over the notorious HALAL meat scandal in Buenos Aires in 1946, provoked
the British Ambassador to describe him as 'a swindler.' However powerful and
unusual were the influences to which Idries Shah was innocently exposed in his
formative years, they were hardly Sufic.
To be continued (it gets juicier), take care, obo
Obo Vajrin
thought. In any disagreement it may be safe to assume that there are at least
three points of view; your point of view, my point of view, and what we both
don't know about it.
A YOUTHFUL TOURIST
Idries Abutahir Shah was born in Simla on 16 June 1924. Before long, he
was brought to England where he grew up-a timid child- at 'Northdene,' Brighton
Road, Belmont, Sutton. His boyhood with his brother Omar Ali Shah was
uneventful-though, even in Belmont, not entirely insulated from pockets of
inexcusable prejudice against Anglo-Indians. In August 1940, when German
bombing began in earnest, the family evacuated from London to Oxford, where
Idrie's two or three academically undistinguished years at the City of Oxford
High School, in New Inn Hall Street, evidently crowned and concluded his formal
education. To the decade 1945 to 1955 Idries assigns his WANDERJAHRE,
assidously cultivating the impressions of far-flung and audacious travels in
Asia as a 'student of Traditional Sufi sheikhs.' He may indeed have used his
father's oriental contacts. Incongruously enough however, it was to Uruguay
that he went in the winter of 1945, as secretary of his father's HALA meat
mission, and to England that he returned in October 1946. All that is cerain
apropos this period is that Shah has made portentous, and inherently improbable
claims, without elucidating (and indeed largely clouding) the biographical
record.
Our subject emerges somewhat from the shadows with the publication of his
first book, which are important in indicating the voltage and orietation of his
mind, before he gained support from literary agents and research assistants,
and, crucially important in situating him vis-a-vis Islam and Sufism, before he
had furbished his 'Sufic' persona. Shah's first book ORIENTAL MAGIC (Rider,
1956) will survive, if at all, as the prototype of his recourse to antecedent
writing, and of his pretensions as a mystery figure. It finds him, at 32,
primarily concerned with matters like 'Mungo' the ectoplasmic force, garters
for distances, and Himalayan leopard powder. Only chapter 7, "The Fakirs and
their Doctrines,' approaches the sufic theme, and it is replete with errors.
His ensuing travel memoir DESTINATION MECCA ( Rider, 1957), although
intrinsically slight, is certainly more important for its unconscious
self-depiction.
What do we find?
Regrettably, we find a tourist who (Shah's own words) 'had lived for years
in the west'; a mind embararrassingly superficial and banal, lacking the least
resonance of religious feeling; a photographer obsessed with his Robot f/2.8
rapid action camera, exultant at his furtive and sacrilegious snapshots of the
Kaaba; a materialist repelled by the 'unhygienic bodies' of the Muslim Brethren
but intrigued by Mecca United football team; a man meeting his first practising
Sufis around the age of 30, only to find their sacred books unfamiliar: 'These
were the actual Dancng Dervishes-of the Bektashi Order- in action! I would
have given anything to have had my camera with me.' Alike in his conflation of
the Bektashi and Mevlevi tariqas and in his voyeuristic reaction- the real
Idries Shah exposes himself.
Marketing Sufism
The opening of the 1960s found Shah veering towards occultism, and acting
secretary-companion to Dr. Gerald Gardner, Director of the Musuem of Magic and
Witchcraft in the Isle of Man. However, a nouvella orientalism was in the air
(articulated amongst others by Daisetz Suzuki, Pak Subuh, and the Maharishi);
and the Sufi niche was temptingly unfilled. 'Peolpe must have labels,' Shah
concluded. 'The scramble is to get the right one and then hold on to it....' A
scramble certainly- for the assiduous revisionism which yielded him his 'Grand
Sheikh' lable generated a corpus of pseudonymous literature, unparalleled in
our century for its magnitude, coherence, and ignobility. Shah has conceded
his own recourse to pen names (v. REFLECTIONS, p.88), without devulging
details; many of his disciples emulate him. Given this obfuscation, it is
problematic which of the score or more queerly named authors stylistically and
thematically assignable to the 'Shah-School' (e.g. Omar Michael Burke Ph.D.,
Arkon Daraul. Rafael Lefort, Hadrat B.M. Dervish and so on) have indepedent
physical existence? Pending investigation it perhaps suffices that none show a
scintilla of independent philosophical existence. Shah-School productions date
from May 1960, and through them Shah receives- ostensibly from disinterested
third parties- intemperate prase: he is 'Prince Idries Shah'; 'King Enoch';
'The Presence'; 'The Studious King'; the 'Incarnation of Ah'; and even the Qutb
or 'Axis.'
Someone deeply impressed by the idealised Shah was the former Marxist Doris
May Lessing (b.1919) who, while writing THE GOLDEN NOTEBOOK, underwent a sort
of Darmascene conversion. For 20 years she has remained the spearhead of
Shah's defence, again and again pitting 'half-truth, irrelevancy, double think,
misquotation and invention' against the scholarship and deadly fairness of
Shah's redoubtable critic Laurence Elwell-Sutton, Reader in Persian at
Edinburgh University. Innocent of any oriental tongue, she has plunged deep
into debates which turn on a command of mediaeval Persian; lacking any
indigenous Sufic experience, she has set her judgement against that of profound
Sufi thinkers like Professor Seyyed Hossein Nasr. Beyond all exasperation, it
is impossible not to feel for the loyal Quixotic Mrs. Lessing something akin to
regard.
Where's a good Mushkil Gusha story when you need one. I'll try to
finnish the article tomorrow night, take care, obo
jva...@my-deja.com
Ronfet dominique
Arrêtons les passions.
Saviez-vous que Gurdieff avait un laissé pas mal d'enfants 'naturels'
(children) sur son chemin ?
Not disciple, real children.
<jva...@my-deja.com> a écrit dans le message news:
92hjbk$us4$1...@nnrp1.deja.com...
Al
michel
obov...@aol.com (Obo Vajrin) wrote:
> Where's a good Mushkil Gusha story when you need one. I'll
try to
> finnish the article tomorrow night, take care, obo
>
Thanks, I'll be waiting for it.
Michel
Jerry layman
You do us a service by providing us with the article, but there is a danger
that one doing a search on newsgroup discussions, or merely lurking on the
edges of the n.g., would pull up you posts and conclude that you vouch for
the criticism of Sayed Idries Shah.
Criticisms of a bibliographic nature, that contain no references for
authority, just bald statements, have no weight. A man may criticize the
ideas of another, and the ideas must stand or fall on their intrinsic merit
or the reputation of the author. It is a different matter to assert
slanderous accusations as if they were fact, with no reference to proof.
Idries Shah never presented the ideas in his Sufic writings as his own. If
someone wishes to attack the Tradition, the debate should center on the
validity of the ideas.
Regards,
Jerry
"Obo Vajrin" <obov...@aol.com> wrote in message
news:20001228202721...@ng-fr1.aol.com...
franko...@my-deja.com
"Shah's traceable paternity places him within an obscure Afgan clan
from Paghman, a resort fifty miles from Kabul. Ironically enough, his
great-great-grandfather Muhammad Shah was awarded the title 'Jan
Fishan Khan' (The Zealot) in 1840, for supporting British interests
against his Muslim co-religionsts."
Moore is apparently referring to this sort of behaviour, on the part of
the Shah clan:
Modern History Sourcebook:
Elisa Greathed:
An Account of the Opening of the Indian Mutiny at Meerut, 1857
------------------------------------------------------------------------
" Sunday, the 10th of May, dawned in peace and happiness. The early
morning service, at the Cantoment Church, saw many assembled together,
some never to meet on earth again. The day passed in quiet happiness;
no thought of danger disturbed the serenity of that happy home. Alas!
how differently closed the Sabbath which dawned so tranquilly. We were
on the point of going to the evening service, when the disturbance
commenced on the Native Parade ground. Shots and volumes of smoke told
of what was going on: our servants begged us not to show ourselves, and
urged the necessity of closing our doors, as the mob were approaching.
Mr. Greathed [her husband], after loading his arms, took me to the
terrace on the top of the house; two of our countrywomen also took
refuge with us to escape from the bullets of the rebels. Just at this
moment, Mr. Gough, of the 3rd Cavalry, galloped full speed up to the
house. He had dashed through the mutinous troops, fired at on all
sides, to come and give us notice of the danger. The nephew of the
Afghan Chieftain, Jan Fishan, also came for the same purpose, and was,
I regret to say, wounded by a Sepoy. "
------------------------------------------------------------------------
-
Source: http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1857greathed.html
Elisa Greathed, "Introduction," in Letters Written During the Siege of
Delhi by H. H. Greathed, Esq., Late of the Bengal Civil Service,
Commissioner and Political Agent of Delhi, edited by his widow.
(London: Longman, Brown, Green, Longmans, & Roberts, 1858)
Scanned by Jerome S. Arkenberg, Dept. of History, Cal. State Fullerton
Bob
Jerry layman wrote:
> Dear Obo,
>
> You do us a service by providing us with the article, but there is a danger
> that one doing a search on newsgroup discussions, or merely lurking on the
> edges of the n.g., would pull up you posts and conclude that you vouch for
> the criticism of Sayed Idries Shah.
>
> Criticisms of a bibliographic nature, that contain no references for
> authority, just bald statements, have no weight.
Could you please tell us specifically what you think is wrong with
Mr. Moore's article?
My own take on this is whole scene is simple:
Moore's article is more of compilation criticisms against Shah's
supposed Sufi lineage. The people who have made the criticisms
like Seyed Nasr, Elwell-Sutton among others are no lightweights.
Seyed Nasr especially. Their criticisms are known and detailed.
With Shah's predilection for self-aggrandizement and
deconstructionist attacks against Buddhism, Christianity(see
Lessing's forward in Learning How to Learn), Traditional
Sufism, and the Fourth Way, It's easy to see how he could
earn the scorn of scholars and those who followed other paths.
Step on a ant hill and you are bound to get stung.
> Idries Shah never presented the ideas in his Sufic writings as his own. If
> someone wishes to attack the Tradition, the debate should center on the
> validity of the ideas.
>
No one in the article is attacking Sufism per se, but they were questioning
the legitimacy of Shah as a Sufi given his rather conflicting past.
Were his teachings truly valid? Maybe. However anyone who has read
Gurdjieff, and studied basic psychology and some works on education
could pretty much recapitulate Shah's psychological teachings.
Obo Vajrin
http://www.vgernet.net/diogenes/ex/shah.html
A sense of balance
>>
Thanks jvarty, yes balance, 'if the string is too tight it will break, and if
it is too loose it will not sound'
This will be the third installment of an article writen by James Moore (I
believe that it first appeared perhaps ten to fifteeen years ago). Most
probably they are not my views nor of most of the visitors to alt. sufi, I
offer the effort only because I believe it possible to learn as much from a
man's (or thing's) detractors as those who prase him.
Gurdjieffians Wanted
No single element in Shah's whole life has proved more materially
advantageous- or psychologically revealing- than his stratagem concerning the
philosopher-savant George Ivanovitch Gurdjieff (c 1866-1949). Hardly had
Shah-School productions appeared, that they began to belittle Gurdjieff- adding
in coded language the perposterous rider that Shah (who never met him) had
assumed his mantle. This campaign reached apogee in 1966. First came the
distasteful fabrication THE TEACHERS OF GURDJIEFF by Rafael Lefort (a botched
anagram of 'A Real Effort'). Here young 'Lefort' pretends to have sought out
Gurdjieff's teachers in Asia (a chronological absurdity), who demeaned their
former pupil and pointed towards Shah. Next, extrapolating from Gurdjieff's
references to a certain ' Sarmoung Brotherhood,' Shah- School productions
impudently claimed that the Sarmoung were extant and had one emissary in
Europe- a figure strangely redolent of Shah himself. At last, in SPECIAL
PROBLEMNS IN THE STUDY OF SUFI IDEAS, the reborn 'Naqshbandi' venture an
explicit and attributable statement:
G.I.Gurdjieff left abundant clues to the Sufi origins of virtually every point
in his 'system'; though it obviously belongs more specifically to the Khagjagan
(Naqshbandi) form of dervish teaching.
But why Gurdjieff and why 1966? To explore this we must briefly advance
the singular figure of J.G. Bennett.
John Godolphin Bennett (1897-1974) was a complex, gifted, sincere, and
indefatigable eclectic searcher-strangely deficient in common sense. Having
been successively the pupil of P.D.Ouspenshy, Gurdjieff himself, Jeanne de
Salzmann, H.H.Lannes, Emin Chikou, Abdullah Daghestani, Pak Subud, The
Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, and the Shivapuri Baba, and even received into the Roman
Catholic Church, he wondered at age 69 if he was making sufficient headway.
His predicament was compounded because he himself had accumulated a numerous
and serious following and a prestigious house at Coombe Springs. Bennett, with
his Messianic and millenarian promptings, was that RARA AVIS, a guru in search
of a guru; and from 1962, when Shah-School began propagating its Gurdjieffian
allusions, the hook had been temptingly bated for him.
How Bennett took that bait; how the older man became persuaded that Shah
had come direct from Gurdjieff's 'Sarmoung Monastery' with a 'Declaration of
the People of The Tradition'; how Shah pressed Bennett (' The caravan is about
to set out') to give him Coombe Springs outright; how Bennett agonised, and in
January 1966 complied; how Shah promptly repudiated Bennett, and sold the
establishment for L100,000; how Coombe Springs with its sub-Goetheanum
Djamichunatra {nine-sided three story building of wood copper and stone-obo}
passed under the bulldozers; how Shah with the proceeds founded the Society for
Organising Unified Research in Cultural Education (SOURCE) and the Society for
the Understanding of the Foundation of Ideas (SUFI) and established himself at
Langton House, Langton Green, near Tunbridge Wells-all this defied both precis
and belief, but is indelibly recorded in Bennett's autobiography WITNESS.
ROBERT GRAVES STUNG
Within two years 'The People of the Tradition' had claimed an even older,
more vulnerable, more eminent victim: the poet Robert Graves. His ill-fated
work THE RUBAIYYAT OF OMAR KHAYYAM - A NEW TRANSLATION with critical
commentaries (Cassell 1967) was written with, and at the instigation of,
General Omar Ali Shah, but in aid of Idries Shah's highly tendentious thesis
that Khayyam's was ' the Sufi voice.' Entering the spirt of the thing, Ikbal,
who had dismissed Khayyam in 1928 as 'the Bacchus with the mind of a Rabelais,'
now felt happy to endorse his piety. As for poor Graves, his book was exposed
by academics as a nullity cubed; a 'translation' (which was not a translation
but a copy of a Vicorian commentary); of the twelfth century'Jan Fishan Khan
MS' (which did not exist); of a composite stanzaic poem by Khayyam (which he
did not write). As Graves laboured hopelessly to defend himself, Idries twice
promised to produce the elusive MS 'from Afghanistan,' only to renege finally
on 30 Ocober1970. No MS, no photocopy, no detail of format of location, no
substantive text, no colophon ever transpired- and Graves like Bennett reaped
the harvest of his credulity.
SUMMING UP
With Shah now over 60 it is not too early to take stock.
Yes he has made a contribution of sorts in popularising his invertebrate,
humanistic 'Sufism,' and in pleasing the Mrs. Lessings of this world. It is
not nothing. But consider the cost: the rearing of an unsavoury pseudonymous
literature; the clouding of Graves's reputation; and the injection into the
world's biographical dictionaries of a false prospectus of Gurdjieff. Yes Shah
is affluent and famous now and a member of the Athenaeum: but Baha'ad-Din
Naqshband sough only spiritual riches, and forbade his followers to record the
least word about him. Yes, Shah has brought energy and resource to his
self-aggrandizement; but where is the evidence of conscience or real DASEIN?
Then is not Shah's life- all in all- as opaque in terms of genuine Sufism, as
it is transparent in terms of Adlerian psychology?
Beyond this ad horminem critique, inescapable as an antidote to Shah's
personality cult, what of his work? Many people will enjoy his dervish
anecdotes and Mulla Nasruddin stories unaware how cavalierly they lean on
unacknowledged and out-of copyright sources. But their spiritualising action
on middle-brow European readers is surely nil. Plucked from their true
cultural, linguistic, and didactic context, and from the rich oral tradition
which gave them life, they have been ignobly reduced to the level of 'The
Hundred Best After-Dinner Stories.' And if they are truely exemplary tales,
they are marvelously at variance with Shah's own example.
Idries Abutahir Shah and his Sufism await judgement immeasurably beyond
the competence of RELIGON TODAY: the judgement of history, if not the judgemet
foretold in Surah LXXVIII. But some provisional comment may be ventured
without malice: that his is a 'Sufism' which Baha'ad-Din Naqshband would find
unrecognisable and repugnant; without self-transcendence, without the
aspiration of gnosis, without tradition, without the Prophet, without the
Quran, without Islam, and without God. Merely that.
---James Moore
This article first appeared in RELIGION TODAY. Moore is the author of
Gurdjieff: A Biography, Gurdjieff and Mansfield, and is current working on his
memoirs. Email: james...@gurdjieff.org.uk
The article continues with a few pages of notes which I'll work at
entering next week, if interest continues. If I may add a comment or thought
of my own at this time. I have been told (but have not seen it for myself)
that the inscription on the tomestone of Sayid Idries Shah reads: "Look not at
my outward form, but take what is in my hand"
A Blessed New Year to all, obo
Jerry layman
To equate the writings or teachings of Gurdjieff with those of Shah
demonstrates a lack of sufficient knowledge of either.
The argument, as to Sayed Idries Shah's qualifications to teach Sufi
studies, was put to rest in 1974 with the publication of "Sufi Studies East
and West, a symposium in honor of Idries Shah's services to Sufi studies by
twenty four very learned, respected and qualified contributors.
For the benefit of those who might not have the book, the following is a
list of some of those who authorized the use of their names by the
publishers as having contributed to the publication of the volume. A
detailed bibliography of the author contributors is given in appendix II of
the book.
"Dr. Abdel-Azis el-Sayed (Director-General, the Arab Scientific, Cultural
and Educational Organization); Professor Dr. Abdel-Rahman el-Sadr
(Vice-Rector for Graduate Studies and Research, University of Alexandria);
Hazarat Sahib-al-Siyada Abdul-Hadi Shah, Janfishani; Hazrat Sahib-Siyada
Ally Mohamed Shah (quondam Nazim of the Ajmer Dargah; Mussoorie); Dr. Mulk
Raj Anand (Bombay); The Sardar Aqil Hussain Khan, Barlas (Trustee of the
Waqf of the Nawab Saiyed Amj Ali Shah);Professor John Bowman (Head of the
Department of Middle East Studies, University of Melbourne); Dr. Tara Chand
(Emeritus Professor, Allahabad University); Professor Saros Cowasjee
(University of Saskatchwan); His Excellency Dr. Kazem Naguib El-Daghestani
( The Presidency Council, Damascus); Hadrat Ali Dajani (Amman); Lt. Col.
M.K. Durrani, G.C. (Multan); Sir Colin Garbett, K.C.I.E., C.S.I., C.M.G.,
F.R.S.A., M.A., LL.B., (South Africa); Professor A.W. Halipota (Head of the
Department of Comparitive Religion, University of Sind); Dr. Sami Hamarneh
(Smithsonianl Institutionm, Washington); Hazrat Sahib-al Siyada Major
Ibsn-e-Hasan Shah (Peshawar); Professor Chafic Jabri (Damasacus); Professor
Majid Khadduri (Director, Research and Education, Middle East Institue, The
Johns Hopkins University); Professor Aquila Khanum Kiani (University of
Karachi); Riyadh Kokache Effendi (Beirut); Professor G.M. Meridith-Owens
(Department of Islamic Studies, University of Toronto); Professor Khosrow
MOstofi (Director, Middle East Center, University of Utah); Shaghali Haidar
Nayssan (Kabul); Dr. Sayed Nofal (Assistant Secretary General, League of
Arab States; Sayed Khalifa Abbas El Obeid (former Undersecretary of State
for Foreign Affairs, Khartoum); Professor Heikki Palva (Gothenburg); Aghai
Aardalan Panahi-Azar (Tehran); Quadi Zain-alabidin Sajjad (The Quadi of
Meerut) Jami Millia, Delhi; Professor M. Shafi'i (Professor of Persdian
Literature, Pehlavi University, Shiraz); Dr. Ahmed Soussa (Baghdad); The
Nawab Sultan Yar Khan; Sheikh Mahmud Zayid (Department of Islamic History,
American University of Beruit); His Excellancy Dr. Hassan Abbas Zaki
(Advisor to His Highness, Abu Dhabi); The Mufti Ziaul Haq of Delhi (Jamiyyat
al-Ulema); The Sardar Faiz M. Khan, Zikria (former Minister of Education,
Afganistan).
"Bob" <Nob...@nowhere.com> wrote in message
news:3A4D8B07...@nowhere.com...
>
Regards,
Jerry
azo charif
regards
azonews:20001230114024...@ng-bj1.aol.com...
azo charif
>
> > Dear Obo,
> >
> > You do us a service by providing us with the article, but there is a
danger
> > that one doing a search on newsgroup discussions, or merely lurking on
the
> > edges of the n.g., would pull up you posts and conclude that you vouch
for
> > the criticism of Sayed Idries Shah.
> >
> > Criticisms of a bibliographic nature, that contain no references for
> > authority, just bald statements, have no weight.
>
> Could you please tell us specifically what you think is wrong with
> Mr. Moore's article?
>
> My own take on this is whole scene is simple:
>
> Moore's article is more of compilation criticisms against Shah's
> supposed Sufi lineage. The people who have made the criticisms
> like Seyed Nasr, Elwell-Sutton among others are no lightweights.
> Seyed Nasr especially.
well of hossein nasr ...
Their criticisms are known and detailed.
>
> With Shah's predilection for self-aggrandizement and
> deconstructionist attacks against Buddhism, Christianity(see
> Lessing's forward in Learning How to Learn), Traditional
> Sufism, and the Fourth Way, It's easy to see how he could
> earn the scorn of scholars and those who followed other paths.
> Step on a ant hill and you are bound to get stung.
>
>
> > Idries Shah never presented the ideas in his Sufic writings as his own.
If
> > someone wishes to attack the Tradition, the debate should center on the
> > validity of the ideas.
> >
>
> No one in the article is attacking Sufism per se, but they were
questioning
> the legitimacy of Shah as a Sufi given his rather conflicting past.
>
> Were his teachings truly valid? Maybe. However anyone who has read
> Gurdjieff, and studied basic psychology and some works on education
> could pretty much recapitulate Shah's psychological teachings.
some great authorities on human behaviour admired and adopted IS ideas ..to
mention a few : Bob Ornstein stephen Laberge, Charles Tart. Desmond Morris,
prof Fromm etc................is Moore more intelligent and more
knowledgeabe than them?
regards.....
azo
azo charif
regards
azo
Jerry layman <lay...@attglobal.net> wrote in message
news:3a4e1...@news1.prserv.net...
Elias
than a passing resemblance to Monsieur Gurdjieff.
"Ronfet dominique" <d.ro...@noos.fr> wrote in message
news:92i34s$258e$1...@news6.isdnet.net...
Bob
Jerry layman wrote:
> Dear Bob,
>
> To equate the writings or teachings of Gurdjieff with those of Shah
> demonstrates a lack of sufficient knowledge of either.
I doubt you know nothing about Gurdjieff given your answer.
BTW this is excellent redirection tactic you are employing. Instead of
answering my question you dismiss it. You have Shah's tactic of
abolishing critics down pat.
>
> The argument, as to Sayed Idries Shah's qualifications to teach Sufi
> studies, was put to rest in 1974 with the publication of "Sufi Studies East
> and West, a symposium in honor of Idries Shah's services to Sufi studies by
> twenty four very learned, respected and qualified contributors.
>
I had the opportunity to read it some years ago. Some of the
comments were not exactly flattering. Not to mention rife with historical
revisionism in regards to Sufism and Shah. It would be interesting to track
down
some of the contributors and see if they really exist especially the ones
in the far east. Given Shah's propensity for self-promotion and writing
under aliases it would not suprise me if they did not exist.
I shall give you one example. In the book it is claimed that the Sufis were
responsible for the idea - apprenticeship in the west. Patentedly false.
The
master/apprentice mode of teaching existed thousands of years before
Islam and hence tassawaf came into existance. Anyone who has studied
the the history of crafts knows this. But I guess you can peddle any kind
of
lie if you package it right to the ignorant.
Bob
azo charif wrote:
> Bob <Nob...@nowhere.com> wrote in message
> news:3A4D8B07...@nowhere.com...
> >
> >
> > Moore's article is more of compilation criticisms against Shah's
> > supposed Sufi lineage. The people who have made the criticisms
> > like Seyed Nasr, Elwell-Sutton among others are no lightweights.
> > Seyed Nasr especially.
> cud you please teelus about these criticisms as all i know is that IS spoke
> well of hossein nasr ...
Seyed Nasr considered Shah a fraud and a occultist. See his book on
Sufism for a more detail criticism of Shah - though not named. Nasr
is a Traditionialist and as such would consider any bastardization of
spiritual teaching - which he considers Shah to have done as wrong
and perhaps evil.
>
> > Were his teachings truly valid? Maybe. However anyone who has read
> > Gurdjieff, and studied basic psychology and some works on education
> > could pretty much recapitulate Shah's psychological teachings.
>
> some great authorities on human behaviour admired and adopted IS ideas ..to
> mention a few : Bob Ornstein stephen Laberge, Charles Tart. Desmond Morris,
> prof Fromm etc................is Moore more intelligent and more
> knowledgeabe than them?
Wrong phrasing and wrong question.
It's my question and proposition Azo not Moore's.
1) Tart was and is heavily influence by Gurdjieff and Tibetan Buddhism. Not
Shah.
I have his works and he DOES NOT use Shah's work outside of a few stories.
2) Ornstein excluding for the time being Shah's Kalif. And having read a
majority
of his books says nothing that has not been known before. Having been
exposed
to Gurdjieff, NLP, Ericksonian hypnosis, among other fields. Shah has nothing
that was not known before and some groups definitely surpass him in their
depth of understanding of human beings and what they can do.
3) Morris is a zoologist. He knows animals not people. Though if you want to
reduce
people down to animals he may be of some use. Typical western secularist.
4) Fromm. Don't know him/her?
Also it has nothing to do with Moore though he did put Shah in the same
club as Ichazo, E.J. Gold(noted 4th way prankerster and fraud), Naranjo,
Palmer, Burton. People who used Gurdjieff's name to build a empire for
themselves. Yes Moore did not like Shah at all - given his behavior
towards the Gurdjieff people and how he bashed their teacher to make
himself look good(Teachers of Gurdjieff) and set himself up as
G's successor.
Bob.
>
> regards.....
> azo
Eric Twose
> 4) Fromm. Don't know him/her?
Fromm, Erich (1900-1980), psychoanalyst, best known for his application of
psychoanalytic theory to social and cultural problems.
Born in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, Fromm was educated at the universities
of Heidelberg and Munich and at the Psychoanalytic Institute in Berlin. He
emigrated to the United States in 1934 when the Nazis came to power.
Fromm was recognized as an important leader of contemporary psychoanalysis.
According to his views, specific personality types are related to specific
socio-economic patterns. He broke away from biologically oriented theories
to see human beings as products of their culture and contributed important
theories on mass psychology and the origins of fascism. He also felt that
attempts should be made to create harmony between the drives of the
individual and the society in which the individual lives. Fromm's many
publications include The Fear of Freedom (1941), Man for Himself (1947), The
Forgotten Language (1951), The Sane Society (1955), The Art of Loving
(1956), Sigmund Freud's Mission (1956), Beyond the Chains of Illusion
(1962), The Heart of Man (1964), and The Anatomy of Human Destructiveness
(1973).
"Fromm, Erich," Microsoft(R) Encarta(R) 98 Encyclopedia. (c) 1993-1997
Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
Hope this information helps, Bob.
Eric
Obo Vajrin
James Moore "Neo-Sufism the Case of Idries Shah" which recently appeared in
TELOS, was first published in RELIGION TODAY some ten to fifteen years ago, and
conserns people and events of at least 25-50 years ago. Perhaps there is
still some usefull information contained in it, and/or our responses to
questions raised, of value today. I'll now start entering the notes that
followed the article.
AUTHOR'S NOTE
This article constitutes a footnote to L.P.Elwell-Sutton's magisterial
'Sufism & Pseudo-Sufism'(ENCOUNTER Vol.XLIV No. 5,May 1975,pp9-17). which in
certain sectors it augments and corrects. My 25-year-plus interest in Idries
Shah has been enlivened by correspondence with Elwell-Sutton, Elizabeth
Bennett, Edward Campbell, Martin Seymour-Smith, K.E. Steffens, Richard Thomas,
and Colin Wilson; by contact with Professors James Dickie (Yakub Zaki),Seyyed
Hossein Nasr, and Annemarie Schimmel; and by collarboration fron the PRO, the
Doris Lessing Society and the Society of Genealogists. Of Shah's apologists I
have listened most attentively to Ahmed R. Bullock. I am especially grateful to
J. I. Somers, archivist of The Gurdjieff Society and director of Fine Books
Oriental. For reasons of typography and disparate provenance respectively, I
make no attempt here at scholary or consistent transliteration from Arabic or
Persian.
Notes
"Contemporary British scene." Contemporary neo-Sufism presents three
ideological backcloths---Sunni, Shi'ite, and 'gnostic.' The traditions of
Alawiyya, Chisti, Halveti-Jerrahi, Mevlevi, and Nimatullahi dervishes are
variously articulated by strongly contrasted figures like Hasan-Lutfi Shushud,
Frithjof Schuon,('Isa Nuruddin'), Suleiman Hyati Dede, Dr. Sufi Aziz Balouch,
Sheikh Muhammad Muzaffer-eddin Ashki, Pir Vilayat Khan, Dr. Javad Nurbaksh, and
Bulent Ratif.
"Coterie of serviceable journalists..... Among the more notable are
Edward Campbell, Geoffrey Gregson, Desmond Morris, Isabel Quigley, Ted Hughes,
Pat Williams, and Richard Williams.
"Brought to a climax." Doris Lessing's admiration of Shah first emerged
on 18 September 1964 with her review 'An Elephant in the Dark,'SPECTATOR
213:373. The personal context is briefly evoked in her interview by Nissa
Torrents for the Spanish journal LA CALLE (No. 106 April 1-7 1980) pp. 42-44.
"Secret Wisdom." Doris Lessing, 'If you knew Sufi...' THE GUARDIAN 8 Jan.
1975, p. 12.
"His ancestors." Robert Graves, Introduction to the Sufis by Idries Shah
(New York: Doubleday 1964).
"Sons died in infancy." Muhammad's line of course descends through his
daughter Fatima and son-in law Ali; of his two gradsons the elder was Hasan
(whose progeny bear the title SHARIF) not Husain (whose progeny bear the title
SAYYID). See Philip K. Hitti, HISTORY OF THE ARABS (Macmillian & Co.1953)
p.440n.8.
"Ruffian." L.P. Elwell-Sutton, Letter, 'Sufism and Pseudo-Sufism'
ENCOUNTER, Dec.1972, p. 92. For the basis of this condemnation, see inter alia
Sir John William Kave. HISTORY OF HE INDIAN MUTINY 1857-58 (Vol II), p.145.
"Chief of the Hindu Kush Sufis." Idries Shah, THE SUFIS, p. 168.
"The Naqshabandiyya." Shah's claim to lead the Naqshbandi Order is
baseless. For the historical background see J. Spencer-Trimingham, THE SUFI
ORDERS IN ISLAM (Oxford: Claredon Press 1971). For some cryptic pointers
towards the authentic modern SILSILA, see 'THE NAQSHHBANDI ORDER: A PRELIMINARY
SURVEY OF ITS HISTORY AND SIGNIFICANCE' (Berkely, California, 1977) pp.123-52
by Hamid Algar, the world authority on this tariqa. For Naqshbandi
encroachment into certain contemporary political arenas, see for example
Turkish literature surrounding the National Salvation Party led by Mr. Erbakan.
"Failure at Edinburgh Medical School." During World War 1, Ikbal avoided
military service by attaching himself as a volunteer to the Indian General
Hospital at Brighton. In 1933 his frustrated medical and social aspirations
dominated his unintentionally hilarious novel AFIRIDI GOLD, whose hero Colonel
Francis Challenger of the Indian Medical Service, would 'devote the same
remitting (sic) care and attention to a black body as a white' (p.9).
I'll continue with the notes at another time, take care , obo
Eric Twose
===*===
Many thanks for your sterling efforts, obo.
It does indeed raise important issues, imo: though don't be surprised by yet
more twists and turns as the plot unfolds.
In Documents on Contemporary Dervish Communities, a symposium coordinated by
Roy Weaver Davidson and published by 'The Opposition',
(www.octagonpress.com), there is an article entitled 'Study of Specialised
Techniques in Central Asia by Ja'far Hallaji. He
describes a clinic in Afghanistan, run by Naqshandis, which used
hypnotherapeutic techniques and the invocation of Baraka, to bring about
healing.
The article states that 'the mandate to teach the technique is still held by
the Hashemite family (of which Mohammed was a member), and the [then]
present chiefs who maintain this mandate are the three senior male members
of the family: the Princes Ikbal Ali Shah, Idries Shah, and Omar Ali Shah.
Their hypnotic knowledge and power thus can be seen [it is said] as deriving
from three
sources: that they are Sufi practitioners which gives them the curative
powers of Bahauddin, that they are tribal chiefs, and that they are Sayeds,
descendants of Mohammed.'
Is anyone here (overtly or covertly) able to offer conclusive evidence to
either substantiate or repudiate the reality of these claims; to re-nail the
lid on the coffin; and to finally - and H~O~N~E~S~T~L~Y - lay such issues to
rest?
Whose coffin is this, by the way -- Shah's? Moore's? Mine? Ours? Yours?
'We have a duty to perform, imo. We may do anything else, do any number of
things, occupy our time fully, and yet, if we do not do this task, all our
time will have been wasted.'
I think. Maybe. Perhaps. Maybe not.
Eric
azo charif
>
>
> azo charif wrote:
> > > Moore's article is more of compilation criticisms against Shah's
> > > supposed Sufi lineage. The people who have made the criticisms
> > > like Seyed Nasr, Elwell-Sutton among others are no lightweights.
> > > Seyed Nasr especially.
spoke
> > well of hossein nasr ...
>
> Seyed Nasr considered Shah a fraud and a occultist. See his book on
> Sufism for a more detail criticism of Shah - though not named. Nasr
> is a Traditionialist and as such would consider any bastardization of
> spiritual teaching - which he considers Shah to have done as wrong
> and perhaps evil.
nasr is an orhodox shiite muslim apologetic, as such he won't tolerate
anyone teaching sufism to nonmuslims and according to
your Nasr, Gurdjieff's system which you seem
to follow is the worst bastardization of authentic sufism .. ....
btw he has used 'iqbal ali shah' works as references
see the back of his 'essays on sufism' ...
>
> >
> > > Were his teachings truly valid? Maybe. However anyone who has read
> > > Gurdjieff, and studied basic psychology and some works on education
> > > could pretty much recapitulate Shah's psychological teachings.
> >
> > some great authorities on human behaviour admired and adopted IS ideas
..to
> > mention a few : Bob Ornstein stephen Laberge, Charles Tart. Desmond
Morris,
> > prof Fromm etc................is Moore more intelligent and more
> > knowledgeabe than them?
>
> Wrong phrasing and wrong question.
>
> It's my question and proposition Azo not Moore's.
>
> 1) Tart was and is heavily influence by Gurdjieff and Tibetan Buddhism.
Not
> Shah.
> I have his works and he DOES NOT use Shah's work outside of a few
stories.
Tart mentioned Shah by name in his 'ASOC' and praised him for his
role in transmitting the sufi lore to the west ..in his 'waking up' he
recommends the reading of Shah's works and hints to the role of his 'dervish
stories' in his own self-development.....
> 2) Ornstein excluding for the time being Shah's Kalif. And having read
a
> majority
> of his books says nothing that has not been known before. Having been
> exposed
> to Gurdjieff, NLP, Ericksonian hypnosis, among other fields. Shah has
nothing
>
> that was not known before and some groups definitely surpass him in
their
> depth of understanding of human beings and what they can do.
> 3) Morris is a zoologist. He knows animals not people. Though if you
want to
> reduce
> people down to animals he may be of some use. Typical western
secularist.
we are basically animals(and in words of Gurdjieff, we are
mere -biological-machines) and the only apparent major advantage we have
over the rest of the great apes is the extra billions of neurons in our
cortex....
to paraphrase Darwin there is more knowledge about human nature
which could be found in the findings of the ethological studies
than in all the great theories of the philosophers and so-called experts on
human nature....
the basics of human behaviour can be caught in action in the
behaviour of our animal ancestory...
it may be lack of humility that prevent us from learning from it.......
you are right both Ornstein and Morris are 'materialistic scientists' or
in your words typical western secularists(as opposed to cartesian dualists)
but in no way reductionists ..they are and so was G who admit it in his
own
words (and so are the sufis ,have you read ibn arabi?) ..
> 4) Fromm. Don't know him/her?
>
> Also it has nothing to do with Moore though he did put Shah in the same
> club as Ichazo, E.J. Gold(noted 4th way prankerster and fraud), Naranjo,
> Palmer, Burton. People who used Gurdjieff's name to build a empire for
> themselves. Yes Moore did not like Shah at all - given his behavior
> towards the Gurdjieff people and how he bashed their teacher to make
> himself look good(Teachers of Gurdjieff) and set himself up as
> G's successor.
there is a sufi saying :'' before you become a gnostic you have to be an
agnostic''.
and trying to substitute the lack of knowledge with a belief may be a major
obstacle to finding the truth ,be this a belief in usefullness of sufism or
a belief in a genuinness of a certain teacher..
let us just say what all sufis agree on : that only a sufi or a 'genuine'
sufi seeker could 'see' if someone is a 'genuine' sufi teacher or
not..concerning Shah my advice to everyone interested in sufism is this:
forget about what others said or wrote about him ,read what the guy had to
say ,and if you 'feel' or 'see' that he may benefit you
try to learn from what he's written, if not then just shun him ,very
simple ,in'it?...
and only Allah knows best
and praise due only to Her ,Source of all Being
regards
azo
>
> Bob.
>
>
> >
> > regards.....
> > azo
>
jayen466
.freeserve.co.uk> writes
>In Documents on Contemporary Dervish Communities, a symposium coordinated by
>Roy Weaver Davidson and published by 'The Opposition',
>(www.octagonpress.com), there is an article entitled 'Study of Specialised
>Techniques in Central Asia by Ja'far Hallaji. He
>describes a clinic in Afghanistan, run by Naqshandis, which used
>hypnotherapeutic techniques and the invocation of Baraka, to bring about
>healing.
>
>The article states that 'the mandate to teach the technique is still held by
>the Hashemite family (of which Mohammed was a member), and the [then]
>present chiefs who maintain this mandate are the three senior male members
>of the family: the Princes Ikbal Ali Shah, Idries Shah, and Omar Ali Shah.
>Their hypnotic knowledge and power thus can be seen [it is said] as deriving
>from three
>sources: that they are Sufi practitioners which gives them the curative
>powers of Bahauddin, that they are tribal chiefs, and that they are Sayeds,
>descendants of Mohammed.'
>
>Is anyone here (overtly or covertly) able to offer conclusive evidence to
>either substantiate or repudiate the reality of these claims; to re-nail the
>lid on the coffin; and to finally - and H~O~N~E~S~T~L~Y - lay such issues to
>rest?
Don't be taken in by all this talk of authentication. It's just a red
herring.
When Schumacher became world champion, did you go to your driving
instructor and ask him if he thought the bloke knew how to drive?
You'd only think of doing that if you'd never watched him race.
Still, why watch if you can discuss ... in fact, we could convene a
panel of driving instructors to discuss Schumi's shortcomings ... yawn
...
J.
Eric Twose
news:Wn$7EJAzr...@aktranslations.demon.co.uk...
Thanks, J. I guess right now I'm just feeling 'all revved up - and nowhere
to go'.
They say the Roman Empire wasn't built in a day (wholly or otherwise) ....
[therefore this, that or the other]....
That patience is a virtue....
That we should leave this, that or the other to 'The Powers That Be'....
Or engage in table-talk about talks about talks about the recipe for duck
soup....
*This* is conditioning ....zzzz....
Well, bollocks to that - I fancy helping tear down some walls, for a
change --- while I've still got the vitality.
Eric
Jerry layman
Why not contact the publisher or some of thpersons listed in my post
regarding Sufi Studies East And West? It is 26 years since such
publication, and there may be few still alive, but their existence and
official positions in government and foundations could be verified. For me
the writings of the brothers and the father speak for themselves. I am
interested in the ideas, not the lineage.
Regards,
Jerry
"Eric Twose" <er...@anchor92.freeserve.co.uk> wrote in message
news:9328e1$8bb$1...@news6.svr.pol.co.uk...
Obo Vajrin
article. I'll try to finish over the next few days. Does some one out there
have the techonolgy to string togeather all six entries (I've recieved a
request to repost the article)? When it comes to this technology, I'm barely
down out ot the trees.
Notes to James Moore's 'Neo-Sufism The Case of Idries Shah'. First
published in RELIGION TODAY, recently in TELOS.
"Ignominious treatment." Ikbal Ali Shah's wife (mother of Idries and Omar)
assumed on marriage the title Sharifa Saira Khanum, her maiden name being
usually cited as 'Elizabeth Louis MacKenzie.' Questionable rumours- which
Idries appears neither to confirm nor deny- have circulated that Ikbal in fact
married into Scotland's premier family the 'haughty Hamiltons'- the bride, to
Ikbal's chagrin, feeling obliged to register pseudonymously to circumvent
parental obstruction. Suggestions that her father was actually 'Chief of Clan
Hamilton' seems particulary extravagant: neither the 12th nor 13th Dukes of
Hamilton had daughters available to Ikbal; nor is such a liason mentioned by
Lt. Col. George Hamilton in A HISTORY OF THE HOUSE OF HAMILTON (Edinburgh,
1933). The connection, if any, was more plausibly through the eccentric Sir
Abdullah Archibald Hamilton, formerly Sir Charles Edward Archibald Hamilton,
who embraced Islam on 20 December 1923. Incongruous Scottish allusions
permeate Shah-School productions e.g. in Destination Mecca Idries appears as
'Laird....of the Fatimite Family' returning to his 'native Afghan glens.' He
himself is married to Bibi Kashri Khanurn (ne'e Kabraji) by whom he has a son,
Tahir, and two daughters.
"Hardly a word of truth." 'Notes on Sirdar Ikbal Ali Khan.' (PRO,FO
371,129, N.3024/2824/97): a detailed and condemnatory report on Ikbal's
integrity and veracity. (Damaging material on Ikbal abounds throughtout FO 371
and FO 395 from 1926 to 1950).
"A swindler." Gordon Vereker (British Ambassador Montevideo) letter of
17 July 1946 to Victor Perowne. (PRO, FO 371, 1946, AS/4439/46). For the
basis of this condemnation see FO, 371 Piece 52194.
"Undistinguished years." Although its headmaster was entitled to attend
The Headmaster's Conference, the school was evidently in decline by Shah's day,
and is now defunct. Its most famous old boy, decades earlier, was T.E.
Lawrence- a powerful allusion ironically denied Shah, because his English
childhood sat so uneasily with Sufic and Sarmoung Brother-hood allusions.
"Returned to England." Sailing on the SS DARRO out of Buenos Aires on 26
September 1946.
"Lived in the West." Idries Shah, DESTINATION MECCA (Ryder, 1957) p. 48
"Dancing Dervishes." Ibid.p.177.
"Scramble." Ibid.p.11.
" 'Shah-School' productions." A thematically and stylistically,
homogeneous literary oeuvre, eulogising Shah and/or his 'Sufism'- promulgated
by Shah's Octagon Press. Four categories emerge:
i Overt writing by Shah e.g. THE SUFIS (New York; Doubleday, 1964).
ii Pseudonymous writings reasonably ascribable to Shah himself e.g. work
by 'Arkon Daraul' (see. Note 20) and by 'Rafael Lefort' ( see Note 25).
iii Overt writing by Shah's admirers e.g. Doris Lessing's 'If you knew
Sufi...'(THE GUARDIAN 8 Jan.1975) p.121.
iv Pseudonymous writing by Shah's admirers e.g. THE PEOPLE OF THE SECRET
(Octagon Press, 1931){ I believe this to be the wrong date-obo} by'Earnest
Scott' (reputedly Edward Campbell, former literary editor of THE EVENING NEWS).
Given the peculiar motivation for this genre, there seems a persuasive case
for detailed investigative and stylometric research, to extend firm knowledge.
of authorship beyond Shah, his literary agent, and The Registar of Public
Lending Right.
"Arkon Daraul." Arkon Daraul, SECRET SOCIETIES YESTERDAY AND TODAY
(Frederick Muller Ltd.,1961). Material from Chapter 5 'The Path of the Sufi'
(giving a risible account of initiation into a 'Nakshbandi Lodge' in a country
house in Sussex, all too identifiable by the 'Arms of the Princes of
Paghman'p.72) is excerpted in Davidson's 'Symposium' promulgated by Shah (see
Note 21).
"Date from May 1960." W. Foster, 'The family of Ilashirn,' CONTEMPORARY
REVIEW Vol.197.No. 1132, May 1960)pp.269-71. A convenient anthology of ensuing
Shah-School productions in the vigoroulsy expansionist period Jan.1961-Dec.1965
is DOCUMENTS ON CONTEMPORY DERVISH COMMUNITIES, ed. Roy Weaver Davidson
(SOURCE, 1966). A more recent and unintentionally piquant producion is THE
DIFFUSION OF SUFI IDEAS IN THE WEST (more accurately subtitled AN ANTHOLOGY OF
NEW WRITTINGS BY AND ABOUT IDRIES SHAH) ed.L. Lewin (Boulder, Colorado, Keysign
Press, 1972).
"Spearhead of Shah's defence." See Paul Schlueter. 'Lessing and Sufism'
a checklist compiled for the Doris Lessing Society: English Dept., Old Dominion
University. Norfolk, VA 23508, USA.
"Half-truth., irrelvancies...." L. Elwell Sutton. Letter 'Sufism and
Pseudo-Sufism,' ENCOUNTER (Dec 1972) p.91.
"Against that of profound Sufi thinkers." See for example Nasr's review
of Shah's THE SUFIS in ISLAMIC STUDIES (1964) For their part Shah and his
School display a patronisig, even dismissive attitude towards scholars like
Arberry, Corbin, Massignon, Nicholsom and Rice- while simultaneously leaning on
their work.
"Distasteful fabrication." The persistent rumour (and reasoable
inference) that Shah himself is 'Rafael Lefort' was first publicly bruited by
Nicholas Saunders in ALTERNATIVE LONDON (Nicholas Saunders, 1970) p.109.
Whew, I'll take a break here. If I may add something of my own opinion. I
think that it would be important to keep in mind the following advise (pointed
at ourselves as well as whom we may incounter)
"If a man is in pain, or is in a fantasy world, you do not love him nor do
you hate him, for that. You do not take very great notice or pay unbalanced
attention to what a certain kind of sick person is saying or doing; because he
is not capable of understanding you, and therefore you are in a false position
if you react emotionally or even intellectually to his behavior. It is very
important to remember that. Remain calm, above all. KHTK, by IS p.10
PS, ditto, above all, remain calm. Take care, obo
jaye...@my-deja.com
It seems to me that Shah made sure that certain people *couldn't ever*
lay these issues to rest.
> >
> > Don't be taken in by all this talk of authentication. It's just a
red
> > herring.
> >
> > When Schumacher became world champion, did you go to your driving
> > instructor and ask him if he thought the bloke knew how to drive?
> >
> > You'd only think of doing that if you'd never watched him race.
> >
> > Still, why watch if you can discuss ... in fact, we could convene a
> > panel of driving instructors to discuss Schumi's shortcomings ...
yawn
> > ...
> >
> > J.
>
> Thanks, J. I guess right now I'm just feeling 'all revved up - and
nowhere
> to go'.
Good place to be!!
>
> They say the Roman Empire wasn't built in a day (wholly or otherwise)
....
> [therefore this, that or the other]....
> That patience is a virtue....
> That we should leave this, that or the other to 'The Powers That
Be'....
> Or engage in table-talk about talks about talks about the recipe for
duck
> soup....
> *This* is conditioning ....zzzz....
Yep. I'm tired.
>
> Well, bollocks to that - I fancy helping tear down some walls, for a
> change --- while I've still got the vitality.
Even if they don't really exist?
J.
Eric Twose
Monsieur, incredible as it may sound, I can assure you they do - having been
strung up by them a time or two.
Eric
Obo Vajrin
"Neo-Sufism The Case of Idries Shah" by James Moore. For me, it has been an
interesting experience (my typing can always use the practice -it's hard for me
to not look at the keys). And it affords one the opportunity to become, say,
more intimate with the writen material. By the way, by a quick show of raised
hands, how many of you caught the typo's in the last entry of notes. I
pointed out the one I was sure of:<< iv Pseudonymous writing by Shah's
admirers e.g. THE PEOPLE OF THE SECRET
(Octagon Press, 1931){ I believe this to be the wrong date-obo} by'Earnest
Scott' (reputedly Edward Campbell, former literary editor of THE EVENING NEWS).
>>
but also:
<< "Hardly a word of truth." 'Notes on Sirdar Ikbal Ali Khan.' (PRO,FO
371,129, N.3024/2824/97): a detailed and condemnatory report on Ikbal's
integrity and veracity. (Damaging material on Ikbal abounds throughtout FO 371
and FO 395 from 1926 to 1950). >>
was not the father of Idries, Ikbal Ali Shah.
and:
<< "Date from May 1960." W. Foster, 'The family of Ilashirn,' CONTEMPORARY
REVIEW Vol.197.No. 1132, May 1960)pp.269-71. >>
perhaps Hashim ?
there were also a few puncuation errors. I point this out to one; take
myself off the hook ( I did the best I could at reproducing what was on the
writen page I had before me- spelling errors I am sure I am guilty of) and two;
to say that perhaps the typos or mistakes occured not in Moore's origional
article, but only the reprinted copy I have.
I do not bring this up to either be a 'wiseass' or to 'test' the august
company gathered here today. The first two times I read the Article I did't
see them either.
Notes
"Sarmoung Brotherhood." Space precludes consideration of the complex
literary, historical, geographical, and etymological questions posed
byGurdjieff's purported contact with a 'Sarmoung Brotherhood' in Cebtral Aisa
c. 1899. Independent and trustworthy corroboration of the Order's existence is
thus far lacking, and the self-serving exploitation of the name, both by the
Shah-School and Irv Garv B. Chicoine, the egregiously self styled 'Chief
Sarmouni,' hinders serious investigation.
"Khwajagan (Naqshbandi) form of dervish teaching." The 11th-13th century
Khwajagan Masters were protagonists both of the Naqshbandi and Yesevi tariqas.
See Trimingham op. cit. p.62ff. and Algar loc. cit.pp.131-134. For more
problematical formulations see the work of Hasan Lutfi Shushud, e.g. 'Masters
of Wisdom in Central Asia" SYSTEMATICS Vol VI p. 310 (Coombe Springs Press);
and J.G.Bennett, GURDJIEFF: MAKING A NEW WORLD (Turnstone Books, 1973) Chap 27
'The Masters of Wisdom'; and J.G.Bennett THE MASTERS OF WISDOM(Turnstone books
1977).
"Bennett." J.G.Bennett was fluent in 10 languages: his mathematical paper
(written with R.L.Brown and M.W.Thring)'Unified Field Theory in a
Curvature-Free Five-Dimensional Manifold' was published in THE PROCEEDINGS OF
THE ROYAL SOCIETY in July 1949: his major opus THE DRAMATIC UNIVERSE conveys,
despite its opacity, his colossal intellect.
"Shah pressed Bennett." Idries Shah q. J.G.Bennett, WITNESS (Turnstone,
rev.ed.1975) p.361.
"Djamichunatra" The nine-sided Djamichunatra ( or Djameechoonatra) at
Coombe Springs was designed and build by J.G. Bennett and his pupils, notably a
dozen architects led by Robert Whiffen; the bulding was begun on 23 March 1956,
completed on 29 October 1957) and demolished by 'developers' in 1966. For its
inspriation see G.I. Gurdjieff BEELZEBUB'S TALES TO HIS GRANDSON (RKP,1950)
p.1160; for Bennett's vision of it see his WITNESS (Hodder and Stoughto, 1962)
p.323f and 348f; for futher technical details see A.G. Blake A HISTORY OF THE
INSTITUTE FOR THE COMPARATIVE STUDY OF HISTORY, PHILOSOPHY AND THE SCIENCES LTD
AND THE INFLUENCES UPON IT (Daglingworth: privately circulated, 1981) p.5; for
Frank Lloyd Wright's aesthetic critism see Anthony Bright Paul STAIRWAY TO
SUBUD (Coombe Springs Press, 1965)p.116; and for its wanton destruction see
WITNESS (rev.ed.1975) p.362.
"All this defies belief." J.G.Bennett, WITNESS (Turnstone, rev.ed.1975)
pp. 355-62. Bennett's introduction to his limited edition of WITNESS (Coombe
Springs Press, 1971) had enthusiastically announced a forthcoming Bennett-Shah
paper elaborating both men's motivation. This eludes researchers.
"Khayyam." Iries Shah, THE SUFIS (New York:Doubleday, 1964)
"The Bacchus with the mind of a Rabelais." Ikbal Ali Shah, WESTWARD TO
MECCA (H.F.&G. Witherby, 1928) Chap IX 'Omar and Shakespeare,' p.181. Cf p.
184.
"Exposed by academics." Between 1968 and 1973 virtually every eminent
Persicologist in Britian, America, and Iran pronounced against the 'Jan Fishan
Khan MS' and the Graves-Shah 'translation': none for it. Credit for first
exposing the hoax goes first to L.P.Elwell-Sutton for his 'The Omar Khayyam
Puzzle' (RCAJLv/2, June 1968.pp.167-79); credit for burying it to J.C.E. Bowen
for his 'The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam: A Critical Assessment of Robert Grave's
and Omar Ali Shah's 'translation' ( IRAN:JOURNAL OF PERSIAN STUDIES VolXI 1973,
pp. 63-73). Idries Shah went to ground throughout the debacle but his major
role became apparent with the publication ofBETWEEN MOON AND MOON: SELECTED
LETTERS OF ROBERT GRAVES 1941-1972,ed. Paul O'Prey (Hutchinson, 1984)
pp.281-83.
"Renege finally." See O'Prey op. cit. p.281ff.
"False prospectus of Gurdjieff." Thanks to Shah and Bennett, the
misconception of the preponderantly Sufic provenance of Gurdjieff's ideas has
now a tenacious hold in works of reference e.g. ENCLYCLOPAEDIA BRITANNICA 15th
ed. (1985) Vol.5 of MICROPAEDIA. For a more balanced- though somewhat
superfical- anallysis, see James Webb, THE HARMONIOUS CIRCLE (Thames and
Hudson, 1980) Part 3, Chap.1 'The Sources of the System' pp.499-543. It needs
emphasis that Shah did not, as mistakenly conveyed by Elwell-Sutton, fall heir
to the mainstream Gurdjieff movement in Britain, which in fact under H.H.Lannes
held fastidiously aloof.
"Mulla Nasruddin stories." In BEELZEBUB'S TALES TO HIS GRANDSON (RKP,1950)
G.I.Gurdjieff gave significance to the 'incomparable Mullh Nassr Eddin,' the
mediaeval wise fool of Turkish folklore. Shah, in the expansionist year 1966
(see text), almost predictably published THE EXPLOITS OF THE INCOMPARABLE MULLA
NASRUDIN ( Jonathan Cape); this was shortly followed by NASRUDIN'S PLEASANTRIES
(1968), both books evidently aimed at capturing a specifically Gurdjieffian
readership and allegiance. In this Shah failed. By 1973, with publication of
NASRUDIN'S SUBTLETIES and the incorporation of Mulla Nasrudin Enterprises Ltd.,
proselytism had become secondary to normal commercial motive. Although,
characteristically, Shah fails to specify the origin of his Nasrudin stories,
their provenance is transparent to scholars familiar with the enormous out of
copyright Nassr Eddin literature (dating back to 1937 in Turkish and 1857 in
European languages). For an authoritative review of this literature and of
Nass Eddin's historicity, see Fehim Bajraktare- vic's entry in ENYCLOPAEDIA OF
ISLAM Vol. 3.pp.875-78.
As a famous cartoon character once said "that's all folks".
Email: james.moore@ gurdjieff. org. uk Also the reprint wich I have appears
in TELOS, which is put out by William Patrick Petterson who studied under Lord
John Pentland of The Gurdjieff Foundation NYC. I've read his "Eating the 'I'"
(a rather good account of traveling the fourth way) and "Taking with the Left
Hand" (an expose of a few fourth way cults.) When I can get to it, I plan to
read his "Battle of the Magicians" (a study of teacher/pupil relationship-
Gurdjieff/Ouspenski). TELOS&all can be reached at
http://www.gurdjieff-legacy.org/
I give this information (all of it) not to promote or detract from anyone
or anyone's way, but because I am confident in my understanding that God is an
equal opportunity employer. Take care, obo
Eric Twose
I passed on the text of the article to someone who spent time on the Langton
Estate, has been involved with the ICR and indirectly with the Octagon Press
about the time that POTS was published. This was the response:
'Thanks for this. I didn't find very much that I didn't already know in
it. My only response is to suggest that you might find the following
references from "Knowing How to Know" of interest:
Page 5, Inclusion and Exclusion - a prologue
Perhaps particularly relevant, the section running from Page 21, starting
with "On a visit to India...." up to Page 22, ending just before "Now we
will return....".
Page 185, Labels & Ancestry'
Sorry, my brother has my copy of KHTK, so I can't be more specific at the
mo'.
Wos Hael,
Eric
"Obo Vajrin" <obov...@aol.com> wrote in message
news:20001227214207...@ng-fo1.aol.com...
> Friends, especially Al (thanks for your patients.) I was occupied with
family
> matters the last few weeks (we burried my father last wendsday) and I had
> little time to pay attention to most matters here at alt.sufi. I also
> reciently saw some old material that reminded my about the importance of
> condittioning.. How we can be conditioned for or against something, how we
can
> be conditioned to think or feel that we are not under the influence of
> conditioning, or just how deep and fundamentally conditioning may reside
in our
> very bodies. So perhaps there is some value in all us here reading
Moore's
> words and seeing our responses and responses of those gathered at this
thread.
> I'll probably enter the article in instalments, so bear with please.
> First I wish I could enter in the picture on the first page (an image
of
> Idries Shah's head wearing sun glasses with the article's title in the
lens of
> the glasses "Neo-Sufism ^ The Case of Idries Shah". The image has been
> processed to look weird, reminds me of Andy Warhol's Marilyn Monroe,
actually
> its kinda cool.
> The backwater where modern sensibilities are impinged on by a
refurbished
> Sufism is a vexed and peculiar one; erudition sits uneasily with
> popularisation; spiritual leaders of a stature almost forgotten in the
West are
> jostled by impudent careerists; and the erratic pattern of translation
lends a
> disproportionate influence to the towering minds of Ibn Arabi (AD
1165-1240)
> and Jalaluddin Rumi (AD 1207-1273). Our contemporary British scene affords
few
> more sucessful figures than Idries Abutahir Shah---and few more pitiful.
> For twenty-five years Shah [ Shah died in 1996-ed. note] has been
lit, as
> by St. Elmo's fire, with a nimbus of exorbitant adulation: an adulation
he
> himself has fanned, an adulation which has not failed to arouse--in
quieter
> Islamic,literary, academic, and Gurdjieffian circles-- a largely unheeded
> contradiction. The coterie of serviceable journalists, editors, critics,
> animators, broadcasters, and travel writers, which gamely choruses Shah's
> prase, is entitled to enjoy understurbed its special value-judgement.
Where
> however, more eminent apologists have made debatable assertions of 'fact,'
and
> where the traditional orientation of Sufism and indeed the canon of truth
have
> suffered distortion, certain caveats concerning Shah must be refreshed.
> In 1975 Doris Lessing brought to a climax her long years of enthusiam
in a
> GUARDIAN article of reckless ardour, appropriately entitled, 'If you knew
> Sufi...' In this hagiography-no other noun will serve- Shah was
advertised as
> a saintly but genial polymath, who had attended several Western and
Eastern
> universities; commanded 60 million adherents; and quite disinterestedly
> dispensed the 'Secret Wisdom': Idries Shah is one of these (great Sufi
> Masters), and from his birth has been prepared for the specific task of
> establishing this teaching here in the West.
> An elitist spiritual eduation is one of Shah's two main planks: the
> second-echoed below by Robert Graves- adduces SILSILA the Sufic initiatic
> chain: Idries Shah Sayed happens to be in the senior male line of descent
from
> the prophet Mohammed, and to have inherited the secret mystries from the
> Caliphs, his ancestors. He is, in fact, a Grand Sheikh of the Sufi
Tariqa..
> Such claims by such claimants deserve the compliment of attentive
> scrutiny, and necessarily invite discreet interrogation of Shah's
antecedents.
> SHAH"S ORIGINS
> Idries Shah's pretension to be a Sayyid (in common incidentally with
a
> million or more putative descendants of Muhammad's younger grandson
Husain)
> may be conceeded GROSSO MODO, without its conferring on him the spiritual
> authority he implies. But the wilder boasts of his posterity- that he
springs
> from Abraham's loins and from the last Sasanid kings- belong to the
melancoly
> area of creative genealogy; and indeed in so far as they rely on his
vaunted
> place in the 'senior male line of descent from... Mohammed,' they labor
under
> the unconsidered difficulty that all three sons of the Prophet died in
infancy.
>
> Shah's traceable paternity places him within an obscure Afgan clan
from
> Paghman, a resort fifty miles from Kabul. Ironically enough, his
> great-great-grandfather Muhammad Shah was awarded the title 'Jan Fishan
Khan'
> (The Zealot) in 1840, for supporting Brittish interests against his Muslim
> co-religionsts. If it is over-censorious to call him (as I.P.
Elwell-Sutton
> has) a 'ruffian,' it is preposterous to call him (as Idries has) ' chief
of the
> Hindu Kush Sufis.' The specific Sufic link claimed by Idries is first
defined
> and rendered remotely plausible in the person of his grandfather Amjed Ali
> Shah, the self-styled 'Nawab of Sardhana' and 'Naqshbundi Pugmani.' The
> Naqshabandiyya were an important central Asian Sunni tariqa, associated
with
> the name of Baha'ad-Din Naqshband (AD 1318-1389). Yet Amjed Ali's
religious
> dedication is less well attested that his dissipation of the family's
estates
> at Sardhana near Delhi.
> Ikbal Ali Shah (1894-1969), the son of Amjed Ali and father of
Idries,
> settled in Britain before the first world war, only to meet rebuffs.
Behind
> his compensatory inventions of private conversations with King George V
lay his
> failure at Edinburgh Medical School and -equally predictable- his
ignominious
> treatment as a son-in -law. Charming and personable, Ikbal was a lifelong
> suffer from Munchhausen's syndrome- a condition first diagnosed in 1929,
when
> he tried to compromise the P.M. Ramsay Macdonald, and Foreign Office
> investigation revealed there ' was hardly a word of truth in his
writings.'
> Towards Sufism, Ikbal's stance was ambivalent. He did write one innocuous
> popularisation, ISLAMIC SUFISM (Rider&Co., 1933). However, he dipped his
pen
> in the inkpot of Voltaire when alluding to the Rifa'i, Mevlevi, and
Ansariyya
> tariqas; and he positively applauded Mustafa Kemal's abolition of the fez
and
> the Turkish dervish orders on 2 September 1925. As to orthodox Islam,
Ikbal's
> conduct over the notorious HALAL meat scandal in Buenos Aires in 1946,
provoked
> the British Ambassador to describe him as 'a swindler.' However powerful
and
> unusual were the influences to which Idries Shah was innocently exposed in
his
> formative years, they were hardly Sufic.
> To be continued (it gets juicier), take care, obo
Obo Vajrin
instalment of the Moore article, I remembered the passage in KHTK about
"Remain Calm, above all" and thought it would be usefull to end with. I pull
KHTK off the shelf, open it to the front thinking that the reference I'm
looking for is there and bump into your rock passage<<
with "On a visit to India...." up to Page 22, ending just before "Now we
will return....".
>>
But upon finding the passage I was looking for (page 10), decided to go with
it. I haven't watched much of the "X files" in the last few years, but do
still believe "The Truth is out There". Mostly a matter of paying attention
when it taps you on the shoulder. Take care, obo
Eric Twose
'I' am the root of all 'evil'
~ Anon, 'While My Sitar Gently Weeps', unpublished works, Akashic Records.
The Truth is in Here.
~ ditto.
Lots of Love.
Eric
Eric Twose
O. U SONG BY Beatles
I look at you all see the love there that's sleeping
While my guitar gently weeps
I look at the floor and I see it needs sweeping
Still my guitar gently weeps
I don't know why nobody told you how to unfold your love
I don't know how someone controlled you
They bought and sold you.
I look at the world and I notice it's turning
While my guitar gently weeps
With every mistake we must surely be learning
Still my guitar gently weeps
I don't know how you were diverted
You were perverted too
I don't know how you were inverted
No one alerted you.
I look at you all see the love there that's sleeping
While my guitar gently weeps
Look at you all...
Still my guitar gently weeps.
chau...@my-deja.com
"azo charif" <a...@chari.freeserve.co.uk> wrote:
>
> some great authorities on human behaviour admired and adopted IS
ideas ..to
> mention a few : Bob Ornstein stephen Laberge, Charles Tart. Desmond
Morris,
> prof Fromm etc................is Moore more intelligent and more
> knowledgeabe than them?
> regards.....
> azo
azo,
I have read some of the writings of all of the above cited persons with
the exception of Desmond Morris. Could you please post specific works
that show the adoption of some of Shah's ideas? Ornstein's excluded.
In particular any work
by Professor Fromm. Thank you. Chauncy
azo charif
for Tart see his 'waking up''
for Laberge see his'exploring the world of lucid dreaming'
for Morris see Shah 's 'the perfumed scorpion' where he is quoted
expressing the effect of sufi stories on his own cognition.
for Fromm i only come across a quote of his about his admiration of Shah's
works
somewhere on the back of one of his books..
i personnaly see the works of Morris such as 'the naked ape' , 'man
watching' 'the human zoo' and 'the human animal' as sufic in that they treat
human behaviour in a large EVOLUTIONARY context......
regards
azo
<chau...@my-deja.com> wrote in message news:93ubtq$tn2$1...@nnrp1.deja.com...
Eric Twose
Shows a circle (fu = 6 = point of return) depicting injection of soul?,
evolution --> involution --> back to Source. Moira Timms.... as I recall.
????
Excellent news.
Eric
"azo charif" <a...@chari.freeserve.co.uk> wrote in message
news:93vu4l$7ar$1...@news8.svr.pol.co.uk...
azo charif
Eric Twose
Thanks to you!
"azo charif" <a...@chari.freeserve.co.uk> wrote in message
news:93vvd2$3oi$1...@news6.svr.pol.co.uk...