Idries Shah
Paperback | Pages: 356 pages Rating: 4.68 | 113 Users | 13 Reviews
Identify Regarding Books Knowing How to Know: A Practical Philosophy in the Sufi Tradition
| Title | : | Knowing How to Know: A Practical Philosophy in the Sufi Tradition |
| Author | : | Idries Shah |
| Book Format | : | Paperback |
| Book Edition | : | Deluxe Edition |
| Pages | : | Pages: 356 pages |
| Published | : | March 1st 2000 by Octagon Press, Limited (first published 1998) |
| Categories | : | Philosophy. Spirituality. Nonfiction. Religion. Islam |
Narrative Concering Books Knowing How to Know: A Practical Philosophy in the Sufi Tradition
Knowing How to Know – Octagon Press, 1998Is there really an applied science of spirituality? For over forty years Idries Shah claimed so in over three dozen books, although never loudly.
In keeping with traditional Sufi techniques of scattering information over a wide range, three of his topics include the use of humour as a process towards enlightenment; the technical employment of teaching stories to release conditioned minds; the sociology of delusive cults – which, he asserted (citing the still vibrant cargo cults of Melanesia) hopelessly and heroically imitate a wrongly perceived sliver of truth.
Furthermore he claimed the bulk of our institutions, including political systems, modern business, religion, science, art and education – in short most of the tribal artifacts and rituals which make us so proud – take an ultra-pessimistic view of humanity. Why? Because rather than educate people, we train them – we condition the individual to respond to a pre-determined grid of stimuli. We treat people as the cheapest commodity there is. Even worse, most of us believe nothing else is possible for humanity: indoctrination is equivalent to education, social engineering is learning. Bleak reductionism rules OK.
On the other side of this equation lies the rampant suggestibility of the emotionalists, those who believe that subjective arousal amounts to the voice of God. Here Shah is at his most forceful, insisting that so-called spiritual perception has nothing to do with emotional excitement. In fact, being crude and primitive – linked to our most ancient reptilian brain centers, emotionalism drives out the more subtle perceptions possible to the more developed man or woman.
Indeed, as psychologists confirm, it is emotional arousal which is at the root of indoctrination and conditioning, of the conversion process so beloved of true believers in anything – from the sublime to the trivial. This is how, nearly 70 years ago, US military prisoners in the Korean War were neatly switched into zealous communists.
Shah continues his doughty exposition of what he sometimes termed (as any modern cosmologist would comprehend) “extra-dimensional reality”. For him the question has always been How do we learn to apprehend it? - assuming that we accept it exists. On this last point he has this to say:
“Politically-minded people harp on about the right to know what, for instance, their government is doing. This may be all very well. But what about the abolition of the concept that there is anything at all to know? In the case of certain enslavers of the human mind, there are those who literally say: 'A right to know about man's potential: about say, mysticism? Why, THERE IS NOTHING TO KNOW…' They have prevented even the idea that there is a right to know by denying that there IS anything to be known. Thus, centuries before the Orwellian concept of a people denied the right to know, there was the discovery that cleverer and more effective than denying any right to know is the claim that there IS nothing to know...” (pg 135)
Knowing How to Know opens with a 29 page preface insisting that human learning only occurs through a proper balance of inclusion and exclusion. Include too much excitement and entertainment value in studies of any kind and you will be excluding both content and a subtler approach. Conversely include an over-abundance of seriousness and obsessive application and you exclude equally subtle elements, as in the tale of the small boy who tried to understand what made a fly tick by systematically pulling off its legs and wings.
The remainder of this book expands and contracts around this central theme – optimal human learning can only occur if the operational elements are present and the dysfunctional ones kept at bay. While not essential, familiarity with the traditional psychology called Sufism as found in Shah's earlier books could help some readers, as it certainly did this one, make what are very unexpected connections. These often have an astringent, cleansing quality, shocking the mind with what have been termed 'the Sufi blow'. Here's one example:
“Circumstances have over-taken man. His old languages are not sufficient to describe what is happening, and what is about to happen. To think in terms of a millennium or such tame concepts as 'the eleventh hour' is ridiculous.
Better that he should realize that he is in an era which might be more accurately described as 'the eighth day of the week'.” (pg 152)
And here's another, perhaps flummoxing readers both aware and unaware of Shah's lifetime exposition of what he claimed as a living and technical integration of modern and traditional psychology, including rigorously tried-and-tested developmental methods and practical demonstrations. There is nothing airy-fairy or nebulous here, nothing weird or smacking, as he once said in a famous phrase, 'of hairy-footed metaphysicians':
“I have said and written so much about Sufism and the Sufis that some people imagine that I am trying to influence them to join a cult or a religious grouping. It is in fact not possible for me to mount such a campaign, as I will now explain to you.
Hearing and reading what I have had to say about the Sufis has caused the religious-minded to flow towards the theologicised versions of Sufism in the East. It has also, with equal force, caused the curious and greedy to flock around the guru-ist cults of the West.
This leaves those who are uninformed, those who want to learn more of what Sufism is, and those who are unconcerned.
This operation has been highly successful, but it has had no higher function for the majority than any other instrument which sorts things – or people – out.” (pg 125)
It is difficult to find any other 'ism', past or present, describing so cooly and forthrightly the centrifugal action that deliberately produces its own schisms and deviations. For those with an interest in the measurable, technical and sociological aspects of spiritual education – and the inevitable re-definition – or at least broadening – of our current scientific paradigm, this remains a book of the future.
Describe Books Toward Knowing How to Know: A Practical Philosophy in the Sufi Tradition
| Original Title: | Knowing How to Know : A Practical Philosophy in the Sufi Tradition |
| ISBN: | 0863040764 (ISBN13: 9780863040764) |
| Edition Language: | English |
Rating Regarding Books Knowing How to Know: A Practical Philosophy in the Sufi Tradition
Ratings: 4.68 From 113 Users | 13 ReviewsAssessment Regarding Books Knowing How to Know: A Practical Philosophy in the Sufi Tradition
I had just finished a book on Japanese martial art when I read Knowing How to Know, so jujitsu became a metaphor for this book. Shah produces material that looks both magical and easy, but just reading it isn't sufficient for the reader to reproduce those effects. Practise in the world is required. This is a wonderful book but it doesn't begin to produce its real effects until we are able to do it.Knowing How to Know Octagon Press, 1998Is there really an applied science of spirituality? For over forty years Idries Shah claimed so in over three dozen books, although never loudly. In keeping with traditional Sufi techniques of scattering information over a wide range, three of his topics include the use of humour as a process towards enlightenment; the technical employment of teaching stories to release conditioned minds; the sociology of delusive cults which, he asserted (citing the
This was a most excellent book! Helped me understand in a delightful way methods to clear up my own thinking and understanding of the world. A very refreshing approach to dealing with our contemporary world...corona virus and all!
This book came out after Shahs death. It is (fortunately) not like other books on Sufism; not a semi-religious tract, no nostril breathing, not a vaguely uplifting discourse, but a curious conglomeration, 343 pages long, with a Preface that begins with - A book of 200 pages may contain nothing of any value at all Its a strange piece, this Preface. For example it ends with - If you can take its message and apply it, while benefiting from its handling qualities, bulk and unspoken communication:
The author commences this absorbing book with an easy entitled 'Inclusion and Exclusion - a prologue' - those who take more than a passing interest in his work should definitely include reading it.
Full of very interesting ideas and information on learning in Sufism, barriers to learning, human behaviour and psychology from the Sufi perspective, group behaviour and more. A great book.
This book is heavy duty in the sense that it possibly represents the deepest and most comprehensive tome of Shah's work. It's the jewel in the crown of a massive corpus focussed on the potentially most key aspect of our existence: knowing.
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