Neglected Aspects of Sufi Study : Beginning to Begin

Traditionally categorized as a form of mysticism largely centered in the Middle East, Sufism has intrigued Eastern and Western scholars for many centuries. Powerful traces of its ideas have been found in the ideas of such diverse people as Dante, the Troubadours, Shakespeare and Spinoza.

Recently, however, attention has shifted to the literary and psychological heritage of the Sufis. Idries Shah has shown, to the widespread approval of modern scholars, the affinities of Sufi sages with the sociologists, psychologists and anthropologists of today.

Based on lectures at the New School for Social Research, New York, and the University of California, San Francisco "Neglected Aspects of Sufi Study" deals with many of the problems of Sufi methods of study, especially those which militate against its effective progress in the modern world: notably the unrecognized assumptions which we make about ourselves and about learning and its processes.

In this essential book, Shah examines the psychology of his readership - our demand for cults, the consumer society, and prevailing cultural responses, East and West.

This book provides a companion to the twenty volumes of Sufi studies and literature which Shah has extracted from the literature and practice of Sufis over the past one thousand years.