Psychic Cultivation in Sufism

Sufism [From Chapter Two of Psi Development Systems]

Insights as to the practices of the Sufi orders that relate to psi training may be gleaned from Trimingham (1971), who states, "In the ordinary way the stress is on the allocation of prayer-tasks, the times and modes of recitation, participation in other forms of devotion, pursuance of a course of ascetic discipline, fulfilment of the order's material obligations, and acceptance of the spiritual experiences, supra-normal exploits, and continuing power of the saints."

Von Grunebaum (1966) emphasizes the role of dikr in Islamic procedures associated with parapsychological phenomena. Dikr is found in almost all Islamic sects and involves varying procedures that have in common the chanting of a formula containing one or more of the names of God along with rhythmic movements accompanied by songs or other music.



Crapanzano (1973) has provided extensive documentation of one Moroccan Sufi sect, the Hamadsha, which traces its ancestry to two saints in the late 17th and early 18th centuries, Sidi ‘Ali ben Hamdush and Sidi Ahmed Dghugli. As distinguished from the more sophisticated Sufi orders "who consider their founding saint as a spiritual master who has provided them with a path to God," the Hamadsha sect is a more popular movement whose members "consider their saint as an object of devotion in his own right and the source of power for their miraculous feats."

The Hamadsha specialize in the dramatic healing of a variety of symptoms including paralysis, mutism, sudden blindness, severe depressions, nervous palpitations, paraesthesias, and "possession." Crapanzano notes that they are superb diagnosticians and always avoid organic ailments, preferring to deal with those of psychological origin. While Crapanzano ignores possible parapsychological interpretations of his data, he acknowledges that the Hamadsha healers attribute their abilities to baraka - the miraculous power of saints that is both transmissible and contagious. The most frequent explanation of a cure is the passing of baraka to the patient.

Generally the framework by which the Hamadsha diagnoses symptoms involves the conception of a spirit, or jinn, which has attached itself to the patient. The purpose of the seer is to identify the jinn and learn the demands the jinn wishes to make of the patient. It is then necessary to satisfy these demands if the patient is to be cured of his symptoms. Crapanzano states: "It appears that cure is effected by the establishment of a relationship between the patient and his named jinn. The patient becomes a follower of the jinn and remains always dependent on it. This relationship is ... by no means a negative one. The jinn is a support for the patient."

When an ill person seeks the aid of the Hamadsha, the first stage of the process is consulting a seer who diagnoses the disease and prescribes a traditional remedy. According to Crapanzano, the seers usually ask no questions. "They simply tell the patient what is wrong." Puzzled by this, Crapanzano comments as follows: "It is difficult to determine whether or not these seers believe completely in what they are doing. I...am only able to suggest that even the least sincere are, while performing a divination, convinced of its efficacy and its truth. They appear to put themselves into an extraordinary psychic state, perhaps one of partial dissociation, in which they give, not totally free reign to their associations, but limited reign."

Crapanzano does not dismiss self-interest as a motivating factor in Hamadsha behavior. In fact he speaks of "their well recognized greed." A typical healing treatment, for which the Hamadsha are paid, is known as a hadra. This is a ritual, lasting from four to twelve hours, consisting of singing, dancing, feasting, and self-mutilation under trance conditions. Crapanzano notes that while most Moroccans consider the Hamadsha to be charlatans, they "will not hesitate to use them in time of crisis." Crapanzano adds that their healing process is often highly successful and can hardly be dismissed as ineffective. He also emphasizes the importance to the Hamadsha of becoming, from the conceptual point of view, both male and female.

A more sophisticated Sufi order is the Bektashi, with an estimated membership of over seven million. This order was founded about 1250 by Haji Bektash Veli; manuscripts of the order date back to 1409. However, the actual practices of the Bektashi still remain somewhat of a mystery (Birge 1937/1965). There is no public service of worship; the rituals are kept secret; and the teachings of the order can only be learned from a living teacher or mursit. Complete obedience to the mursit is required. Birge notes that Bektashi practice involves a composite, eclectic system of faith and practice with associations ranging from Primitive shamanism to neoplatonism. Different types and intensities of practice are associated with different degrees of attainment. Furthermore, Birge notes, "Truths have to be imparted bit by bit.... Revealing a new truth before the novitiate is prepared to receive it is to the Bektashi a sin."

The Bektashi recognize "four gateways to knowledge." The fourth and highest way of knowledge, which appears to incorporate elements of psi, is called hakikat and means "the immediate experience of the essence of reality." The first, seriat, is Orthodox Sunni Moslem religious law. This is the starting point for Bektashi initiates and is generally regarded with an attitude Of witty criticism. The second way of knowledge is tarikat or the teachings and practices of the secret dervish order itself. The third way of knowledge is marifet or the "mystical knowledge of god."

A unique figure in the history of Sufi studies is Idries Shah who fills the dual role of scholar and Sufi teacher. Through numerous publications of "Sufi stories," he has brought the folklore and "teaching stories" of Sufi culture to a vast Western audience. His authoritative history The Sufis (1964) is a standard in the field-although it is undoubtedly colored by his own perspective on the nature of Sufism. In 1974, a symposium titled Sufi Studies: East and West (edited by L. F. Rushbrook Williams of All Soul's College, Oxford) was published "in honor of Idries Shah's service to Sufi studies." The 24 contributors, representing colleges and universities throughout Asia and Europe, praised both Shah's scholarship and his contribution to the contemporary live tradition of Sufism..

Idries Shah (1964) states that psi training does not exist in Sufism so much as psi phenomena form a part of Sufi training. Shah refers to a story in Rumi's Mathnawi somewhat parallel to Hans Christian Andersen's tale of the Ugly Duckling. "Rumi tells his hearers that they are ‘ducks, being brought up by hens.' They have to realize that their destiny is to swim, not to try and be chickens." Likewise, Shah suggests that most of us are ducklings, looking at psi phenomena from the standpoint chickens. The Sufi view of such powers, according to Shah, neither one of theological justification nor scientific skepticism. Rather, psi events are seen as part of a larger developmental process. Shah quotes the Sufi teacher Kamalluddin as "The miracle is a foretaste of the power of the group, which is developing organs capable of attaining miracles. Two things are developing simultaneously "the right attitude toward miracles and the harmonious yoking of the Seeker with the miracle factor." Shah suggests that the Sufis regard psi abilities as an evolutionary birthright of humanity. Furthermore, the Sufis maintain that all miraculous events have their own purpose and function, even if they are not apparent to us. Generally speaking, this purpose is to further the evolution of humankind.

Shah claims that the Sufis have developed psi training to proficient level. "The Sufi's task is to so organize himself as to make it possible for the meaningful operation of an organ of perception and action which will have a continuing effect. This, Shah distinguishes from other more visible systems which he states are deteriorated versions of the Sufi system "The magician who seeks to develop powers in order to profit by certain extraphysical forces is following a fragment of a system." If the psi training system fails to reconstitute the entire individual then, from the Sufi standpoint, it is a failure: "The seer and magician, like many of the Christian mystics, are not wholly regenerated or reconstituted by the process. The Yogi is altered but not made any more meaningful. The Buddhist contemplative may have attained what he was striving for; but this has no connotation of usefulness or dynamism in the sense of activity, particularly for the community."

For the Sufi, according to Shah, the development of psi abilities is meaningless in itself, and represents "merely the struggling on of a partial methodology which will simply reproduce its own pattern." This is in contrast to the Sufi ideal of "forward-reaching" or "the human movement toward, among other things, civilization, toward progress, toward more knowledge." Thus Shah reveals the futility of attempting to dissect Sufi training procedures into such components as ritual, use of hypnotic techniques, and beliefs. These things, Shah maintains, are bound to change with the circumstances of cultural conditions: "Magic and miracles, for the Sufi, have a similar, active function. They apply for the time and place and other conditions. Since they are both the product of the time and the means of a development, they have to be considered as limited in one respect and continuing in another. While people persist in trying to examine them by other criteria, they will continue to convey a bizarre and useless aspect."

Shah has published a number of "teaching stories" from the Sufi oral tradition that offer further insight into Sufi attitudes regarding psi training. One particularly insightful story is attributed to the Sufi Emir Hamza who died in 1710. In his early travels in the Hindu Kush, he encountered a hermit called Shah Firoz who was able to read his mind. Emir Hamza was amazed and also uneasy and ashamed that his secret thoughts could be understood. He asked Shah Firoz to teach him; however, Shah Firoz refused, saying: "You are uneasy because you have come so far and at the end of your journey have found someone who can read your thoughts. And you feel that perhaps you could learn this power, and then use it to your heart's content. I seem acceptable to you, as people sometimes think of doctrines as being acceptable to them. But are you acceptable to me?. .. You are still too raw for a teacher to develop" (Shah 1968, p. 100). Shah Firoz suggested that Emir Hamza first increase his desire to serve, in order to ripen himself for further teachings, which he eventually gained.

A tale entitled "The Glance of Power" tells of a dervish named Sheikh Abdurrazaq Lajawardi of Badakhshan, who had developed the psychic power to kill a bird with his thought. Before he could develop sufficiently as a Sufi teacher, even after this attainment, he was required to spend a period of time as a servant to a scavenger in order to learn the lessons of humility and duty (Shah 1971).

Another tale, "The Man with the Inexplicable Life," is derived from a 17th century manuscript of Lala Anwar called Hikayat-i-Abdalan ("Tales of the Transformed Ones"). Idries Shah maintains that this story was a favorite of the 11th century Sufi shiekh Ali Farmadhi because it illustrated the Sufi view of the "invisible world" interpenetrating ordinary reality at various places. The tale describes a man named Mojud who attained miraculous healing powers by following the teachings of Khidr, "the mysterious Guide of the Sufis." The instructions simply involved leaving his current occupation and following various professions through the years. The story states that Mojud's biographers simply could not believe that he had attained his miraculous powers in this way and therefore constructed an exciting, but false, hagiography of Mojud "because all saints must have their story, and the story must be in accordance with the appetite of the listener, not with the realities of life" (Shah 1970). In concluding the story, Shah states that it is not true because "nobody is allowed to speak of Khidr directly." However, he maintains that the story is actually a "representation" of the life of one of the greatest Sufis. The story embodies Shah's notion of the Sufi view of the futility of attempting to logically dissect psi development.

Birge, J.K. The Bektashi order of dervishes. London: Luzac and Co., 1965. (Originally published, 1937.)

Crapanzano, V. The Hamadsha: A study in Morrocan ethnopsychiatry. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1973.

Shah, I. Caravan of dreams. Baltimore: Penguin, 1974, (Originally published, 1968.)

Shah, I. Oriental magic. New York: Philosophical Library, 1957.

Shah, I. The Sufis. New York: Doubleday, 1964.

Shah, I. Tales of the dervishes. New York: E.P. Dutton, 1970.

Shah, I. Wisdom of idiots. New York: E. P, Dutton, 1971.

Trimingham, J.S. The Sufi orders of Islam. London: Oxford University Press, 1971.

von Grunebaum, G.E. von. The place of parapsychological phenomena in Islam. International Journal of Parapsychology, 1966, 8, 248-263.

Williams, L.F.R. (Ed.), Sufi studies: East and west. New York: E.P. Dutton, 1974.