“Tales of the Dervishes,” compiled by Idries Shah
In the 20th century, there were many events one would be curious to witness personally. Some might wish to be at the Yalta Conference, where the world maps were redrawn; others would give much to attend the Paris dinner in 1923 dedicated to the performance of Stravinsky’s Les Noces attended by Picasso, Diaghilev, Cocteau, and Tristan Tzara. Many would prefer to be guests at the White House party in 1985 in honor of Diana and Charles, where Diana danced with Travolta under the approving gazes of the Reagans, Eastwood, Neil Diamond, and other birds (the Americans served chicken for dinner :).
I dream of being transported to Mallorca in January 1961, when Idries Shah — writer, thinker, and proponent of the neo-Sufi tradition — met with English poet, writer, and historian Robert Graves. Shah had previously written to Graves, whom he did not know, urgently requesting a meeting. He mentioned that he was currently studying ecstatic religions and had participated in Wiccan experiments with mushrooms, touching on topics of long interest to Graves. Shah also informed Graves that he was “intensively engaged in promoting ecstatic and intuitive knowledge.” Graves and Shah met and soon became close friends and confidants. Graves supported Shah’s literary career and urged him to publish a work on Sufism for a Western audience, providing funding; thus, the book “The Sufis” was born.
In 1964, “The Sufis” was published by Doubleday, the American publisher of Robert Graves, with a lengthy introduction written by Graves. The book describes the influence of Sufism on the development of Western civilization and traditions since the seventh century through figures like Roger Bacon, Ramon Llull, Chaucer, and others. In “The Sufis,” Shah avoided terminology that might associate his interpretation of Sufism with traditional Islam. Initially, the book sold poorly, and Shah invested a significant amount of his own money in advertising it. Graves told him not to worry; though he had some doubts about the text and was upset that Shah did not allow him to proofread the book before publication, he declared that he was “very proud to have helped its publication” and assured Shah that it was “an extraordinary book and will soon be recognized as such. Let it find its readers who will hear your voice.”
Idries Shah perceived Sufism as a form of eternal wisdom that existed long before Islam. He emphasized that the nature of Sufism is living, not static, and that it has always adapted to new times, places, and people: “Sufi schools are like waves crashing against rocks: they come from one sea but take different forms for the same purpose.”
The collection “Tales of the Dervishes” includes stories, parables, legends, and fables gathered from classical Sufi texts and oral sources from the 7th to the 20th centuries. In the afterword to each story, the author briefly discusses its origin, usage, and place in the Sufi tradition. The book was published in 1967 and was well-received by critics and the public. Stanford University professor Robert E. Ornstein, in his review for “Psychology Today,” called it “an incredibly well-edited multifaceted collection of diamonds that will endure like the Quran and the Bible.” “The Observer” noted that the book “challenges our intellectual assumptions.” Desmond Morris on the BBC program said that “Each decade of our lives will reveal new meaning in each story.” And I wholeheartedly agree with this statement. 20 years ago, it seemed to me like a collection of dull children’s tales, the most amusing of which were related to Nasreddin Hodja. 10 years ago, a few stories struck me with their ahistorical nature, applicable to any situation in life.
Here is the most amazing story, “The Madness of the Water”:
“Once Khizr, the teacher of Moses, addressed humanity with a warning.‘There will come a day,’ he said, ‘when all the water in the world, except that which has been specially collected, will disappear. Then new water will replace it, and people will go mad from it.’Only one man understood the meaning of these words. He collected a large supply of water and stored it in a safe place. Then he waited for the water to change. On the predicted day, all the rivers dried up, the wells went dry, and that man, withdrawing to his refuge, began to drink from his supplies. But after some time, he saw that the rivers had resumed their flow; and then he descended to other human beings and found that they spoke and thought quite differently than before, that they had suffered the fate foretold, but they did not remember it. When he tried to speak to them, he realized that they took him for a madman, showing him hostility or compassion but no understanding. At first, he did not touch the new water, returning to his supplies every day. However, eventually, he decided to drink the new water, because his distinct behavior and thinking made his life unbearably lonely. He drank the new water and became like everyone else. And he completely forgot about his other water supply. The people around him looked at him as a madman who had miraculously recovered from his insanity.”
The older I get, the closer and more understandable the tales of the dervishes become. And the less I believe exclusively in a rational way of knowing the world, as reason implies one singular correct reality, while the Sufis warn: “In the crooked mirror of your mind, an angel may appear to you as a devil.”
If you decide to delve into this amazing collection, try to slow down. There are two ways to slow down: cannabis (suitable for the accustomed and those with normal blood pressure, others and those with low pressure may simply fall asleep). Or Amanita muscaria. The first was highly favored by the Sufis for connecting with the divine; they knew nothing about the second, but Idries Shah and Robert Graves knew a lot about it. Both engaged in both micro and macro dosing, and Graves asserted that ambrosia was not wine at all, and in his book “What Did the Centaurs Eat?” (1958) suggested that satyrs (tribes with goat totems), centaurs (tribes with horse totems), and their women-maenads used these drinks in their mysteries to wash down a much stronger drug: raw (yes!) mushrooms such as Amanita muscaria. This was confirmed by DNA analysis of shards from Eleusis and other temple structures dedicated to Dionysus 65 years later.
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