Theos-Talk Archives (March 2003 Message tt00063)

Hi all of you,

Here is part 3 of the article "The Sufi Tradition" by Elizabeth Hall on Idries Shah.

Article originally published in Psychology Today, July 1975
Copyright Elizabeth Hall


Part 3 - with about 2 pages:

EH: What is the Sufi attitude toward mysticism and the ecstatic experience?
IS: Sufis are extraordinarily cautious about this. They don't allow a 
person to do spiritual exercises unless they are convinced that he can 
undergo such exercises without harm and appreciate them without distraction. 
Spiritual exercises are allowed only at a certain time and a certain place 
and with certain people. When the ecstatic exercises are taken out of 
context, they become a circus at best and unhinge minds at worst.
EH: So the ecstatic experience has its place but only at a certain time at a 
certain stage of development?
IS: Yes, and with certain training. The ecstatic experience is certainly 
not required. It is merely a way of helping man to realize his potential.

They(Sufis) don't allow a person to do spiritual exercises unless they are 
convinced that he can undergo such exercises without harm and appreciate them 
without distraction.





Hall: Many of the great Sufi teachers seem to regard the ecstatic 
experience as only a way station.

Shah: Oh, yes. The ecstatic experience is absolutely the lowest from 
of advanced knowledge. Western biographers of the saints have made it 
very difficult for us by assuming that Joan of Arc and Theresa of 
Avila, who have had such experiences, have reached God. I am sure 
that this is only a misunderstanding based on faulty stories and 
faulty retrieval of information.

Hall: Sufis also seem to take extra-sensory perception as a matter of 
course and as not very interesting.

Shah: Not interesting at all. It is no more than a by-product. Let me 
give you a banal analogy. If I were training to be a runner and went 
out every day to run, I would get faster and faster and be able to 
run farther and farther with less fatigue. Now, I also find that I 
have a better complexion, my blood supply is better, and my digestion 
has improved. These things don't interest me; they are only by-
products of my running. I have another objective. When people I am 
associated with become overwhelmed by ESP phenomena, I always insist 
that they stop it, because their objective is elsewhere.

Hall: They are supposed to be developing their potential; not 
attempting to read minds or move objects around. Do you think that 
researchers will one day explain the physical basis of ESP or do you 
think it will always elude them?

Shah: If I say it will elude the scientists, it will annoy the people 
who are able to get enormous grants for research into ESP. But I 
think, yes, a great deal more can be discovered providing the 
scientists are prepared to be good scientists. And by that I mean 
that they are prepared to structure their experiments successively in 
accordance with their discoveries. They must be ready to follow and 
not hew doggedly to their original working hypothesis. And they will 
certainly have to give up their concept of the observer being outside 
of the experiment, which has been their dearest pet for many years. 
And another thing, as we find constantly in metaphysics, people who 
are likely to be able to understand and develop capacities for ESP 
are more likely to be found among people who are not interested in 
the subject.

Hall: Is that because disinterest is necessary to approach the 
subject properly?

Shah: Something like that. Being disinterested, you can approach ESP 
more coolly and calmly. The Sufis say: "You will be able to
exercise these supernatural powers when you can put out your hand and 
get a wild dove to land on it." But the other reason why the
people who are fascinated by ESP or metaphysics or magic are the last 
who should study it is that they are interested in it for the wrong 
reasons. It may be compensation. They are not equipped to study ESP. 
They are equipped for something else: fear, greed, hate, or love of 
humanity.

Hall: Often they have a desperate wish to prove that ESP is either 
true or false.

Shah: Yes that's what I call heroism. But it's not
professionalism and that's what the job calls for.

Hall: You've also written a couple of books on magic: Oriental
Magic and The Secret Lore of Magic, an investigation of Western 
magic. Today there's an upsurge of interest in astrology and 
witchcraft and magic. You must have speculated somewhat about magic 
in those books.

Shah: Very little. The main purpose of my books on magic was to make 
this material available to the general reader. For too long people 
believed that there were secret books, hidden places, and amazing 
things. They held onto this information as something to frighten 
themselves with. So the first purpose was information. This is the 
magic of East and West. That's all. There is no more. The second 
purpose of those books was to show that there do seem to be forces, 
some of which are either rationalized by this magic or may be 
developed from it, which do not come within customary physics or 
within the experience of ordinary people. I think this should be 
studied, that we should gather the data and analyze the phenomena. We 
need to separate the chemistry of magic from the alchemy, as it were.

Hall: That's not exactly what the contemporary devotees of
witchcraft and magic are up to.

Shah: No. My work has no relevance to the current interest whatever. 
Oh, it makes my books sell, but they were written for cool-headed 
people and there aren't many of those around.

Hall: Most of the people who get interested in magic seem to be 
enthusiasts.

Shah: Yes, it's just as with ESP. There's no reason why they 
shouldn't be enthusiasts, but having encouraged them-which I
couldn't help-I must now avoid them. They would only be
disappointed in what I have to say.
You know, Rumi said that people counterfeit gold because there is 
such a thing as real gold, and I think that's the situation we
are in with Sufi studies at the moment. It is much easier to write a 
book on Sufism than it is to study it. It is much easier to start a 
group and tell people what to do than it is to learn first.
The problem is that the spurious, the unreal, the untrue is so much 
easier to find that it is in danger of becoming the norm. Until 
recently, for example, if you didn't use drugs in spiritual
pursuits, you were not considered genuine. If you said, "look,
drugs are irrelevant to spiritual matters," you were considered a
square.
Their attitude is not at all a search for truth.

Hall: Many people seem to use drugs as an attempt to get instant 
enlightenment.

Shah: People want to be healed or cured or saved, but they want it 
now. It's astonishing. When people come here to see me, they want
to get something, and if I can't give them higher consciousness,
they will take my bedspreads or my ashtrays or whatever else they can 
pick up around the house.

Hall: They want something to carry away.

Shah: They are thinking in terms of lose property, almost physical. 
They are savages in the best sense of the word. They are not what 
they think they are at all. I am invited to believe that they take 
bedspreads and ashtrays by accident. But it never works the other 
way; they never leave their wallets behind by mistake. One thing I 
learned from my father very early: Don't take any notice of what 
people say, just watch what they do.



Part 4 of 6 follows shortly. 

from
Sufilight with peace and love...



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