Knowing How to Know : A Practical Philosophy in the Sufi Tradition

by Idries Shah

Contemporary esoteric systems almost invariably play on the desire of mankind to seek or acquire knowledge. Almost universally neglected in such systems are the--often-unrecognized--barriers that prevent knowledge and understanding. Before learning can take place, certain conditions and basic factors must be in place, in the individual or the group. Building on the foundations laid in Learning How to Learn and The Commanding Self, Idries Shah illuminates those factors in Knowing How To Know. Like an ultra-violet light shone onto the petals of flowers, it reveals concealed patterns, normally invisible to our customary modes of thought. "This would not be a book by Shah if it were not often very funny. In short, those who know Shah's work will not need to be told it is a cornucopia of very various delights; those who do not may find it a fascinating introduction to the Sufi view of life." --Doris Lessing, The Sunday Telegraph

Genres: Philosophy, Nonfiction, Islam, Spirituality, Education

343 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1998

About the author

Idries Shah (Persian: ادریس شاه), also known as Idris Shah, né Sayed Idries el-Hashimi (Arabic: سيد إدريس هاشمي), was an author and teacher in the Sufi tradition who wrote over three dozen critically acclaimed books on topics ranging from psychology and spirituality to travelogues and culture studies.

Born in India, the descendant of a family of Afghan nobles, Shah grew up mainly in England. His early writings centred on magic and witchcraft. In 1960 he established a publishing house, Octagon Press, producing translations of Sufi classics as well as titles of his own. His most seminal work was The Sufis, which appeared in 1964 and was well received internationally. In 1965, Shah founded the Institute for Cultural Research, a London-based educational charity devoted to the study of human behaviour and culture. A similar organisation, the Institute for the Study of Human Knowledge (ISHK), exists in the United States, under the directorship of Stanford University psychology professor Robert Ornstein, whom Shah appointed as his deputy in the U.S.

In his writings, Shah presented Sufism as a universal form of wisdom that predated Islam. Emphasising that Sufism was not static but always adapted itself to the current time, place and people, he framed his teaching in Western psychological terms. Shah made extensive use of traditional teaching stories and parables, texts that contained multiple layers of meaning designed to trigger insight and self-reflection in the reader. He is perhaps best known for his collections of humorous Mulla Nasrudin stories.

Shah was at times criticised by orientalists who questioned his credentials and background. His role in the controversy surrounding a new translation of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, published by his friend Robert Graves and his older brother Omar Ali-Shah, came in for particular scrutiny. However, he also had many notable defenders, chief among them the novelist Doris Lessing. Shah came to be recognised as a spokesman for Sufism in the West and lectured as a visiting professor at a number of Western universities. His works have played a significant part in presenting Sufism as a secular, individualistic form of spiritual wisdom.

Idries Shah's books on Sufism achieved considerable critical acclaim. He was the subject of a BBC documentary ("One Pair of Eyes") in 1969, and two of his works (The Way of the Sufi and Reflections) were chosen as "Outstanding Book of the Year" by the BBC's "The Critics" programme. Among other honours, Shah won six first prizes at the UNESCO World Book Year in 1973, and the Islamic scholar James Kritzeck, commenting on Shah's Tales of the Dervishes, said that it was "beautifully translated".
The reception of Shah's movement was also marked by much controversy. Some orientalists were hostile, in part because Shah presented classical Sufi writings as tools for self-development to be used by contemporary people, rather than as objects of historical study. L. P. Elwell-Sutton from Edinburgh University, Shah's fiercest critic, described his books as "trivial", replete with errors of fact, slovenly and inaccurate translations and even misspellings of Oriental names and words – "a muddle of platitudes, irrelevancies and plain mumbo-jumbo", adding for good measure that Shah had "a remarkable opinion of his own importance". Expressing amusement and amazement at the "sycophantic manner" of Shah's interlocutors in a BBC radio interview, Elwell-Sutton concluded that some Western intellectuals were "so desperate to find answers to the questions that baffle them, that, confronted with wisdom from 'the mysterious East,' they abandon their critical faculties and submit to brainwashing of the crudest kind". To Elwell-Sutton, Shah's Sufism belonged to the realm of "Pseudo-Sufism", "centred not on God but on man."

Doris Lessing, one of Shah's greatest defenders,stated in a 1981 interview: "I found Sufism as taught by Idries Shah, which claim

Reviews

[Ramsay Wood · Rating 5 out of 5]

Knowing How to Know – Octagon Press, 1998

Is 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.

[Toni · Rating 5 out of 5]

Revelatory... I am attempting to re-read it. The Octagon Press, description says: 'like an ultra violet light shone onto the petals of flowers, it reveals concealed patterns normally invisible to the customary modes of thought.' To my mind, it ushers in the new world we are currently experiencing. Intimations of the future, intimations of morality, intimations of mortality. It is NOT devalued currency. Thanks to C.J. Mezza for the typescript. Thirteenth of March 2013
'Apart from certain natural proclivities, what are the factors which produce such problems among people who are often otherwise quite sensible? 'There is, interestingly enough, only a single reason. We have found it to be a constant wherever we have come across the peculiarities which I have been describing. The reason is, quite simply, that the people involved have failed to stick to a single curriculum. They have collected all kinds of esoteric, religious and similar fragments from all kinds of sources, and try to link them; or, at all events, to include them in their thinking. In other words, they have attempted to do the reverse of what any lucid teaching system requires.
'Sufi studies do not differ from any other purposeful and acceptable teaching in any area. It requires the student to follow a series of carefully selected and graded steps, without incorporating imagination, assumptions, materials from elsewhere, or concepts originating with other times, places and people. In a word, it is a complete system whenever projected.
'This approach does not appeal to those who, while imagining that they want to learn or to progress, in reality merely want to spin on their own axes. They have, effectively, removed themselves from any real teaching or learning.' From "Real and Imaginary Sufi Groups", in Knowing How to Know, I. Shah, p. 38-39' There are some good reviews of this book on Amazon UK.

[Aubrey Davis · Rating 5 out of 5]

Knowing how to Know shines light on “eastern” traditional and “western” scientific concepts unfamiliar or misunderstood in our culture. Best read with an open mind, it’s loaded with clear thinking; common and uncommon sense. It presents a rare opportunity to observe and familiarize yourself with the obstructions to and preconditions for learning & personal growth. It reveals what we might otherwise miss including our own reactions to the book itself. Here’s a tiny taste:

“...the general public should absorb the facts of mind-manipulation. Failure to do so has resulted in an almost free field for the cults which are a bane of Western existence. In both East and West, the slowness of absorption of these facts has allowed narrow, political, religious and faddish fanaticism to arise, to grow and to spread without the necessary 'immunization'. In illiberal societies it is forbidden to teach these facts. In liberal ones, few people are interested: but only because mind-manipulation is assumed to be something that happens to someone else,

[WJ · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book came out after Shah’s 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…”

It’s 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: this book is for you.” I don't normally look for "handling qualities" or "bulk" in a book (or know what those terms mean). And yet, that’s why Shah is worth reading. What seems ordinary on a quick read - generally isn’t. The Amazon (US) page refers to the Sufi Teacher of “the Age”. This may be as a matter of course. And yet, perhaps the extent of meaning is not apparent.

Beyond the Preface, the book has a myriad of short pieces, impossible to summarize, and two memorable longer stories, The Fish-Eating Monkey and The Story of the Fool. It has pieces on Sufi attitudes to religious and other cults, on indications of an authentic Sufi school, the use of initiatory texts, the hidden current in man and the nature of Sufi study. The back cover refers to the barriers that prevent knowledge and to concealed, normally invisible patterns. A curious, always interesting mixture of pieces, it's worth reading for the puzzle that is the Preface alone.

[Ita Marquess · Rating 5 out of 5]

'With the Sufis, the address or other initiative by the teacher is based on his perception of the needs of the individual and collectively in the audience. In other words he casts a net to find out how people are thinking and then stimulates them in such a way as to develop their consciousness.'
In 'Knowing How to Know' we can clearly see a Sufi teacher at work.

[Sashko Liutyj · Rating 5 out of 5]

8 місяців читалося.
бо треба дуже дозовано.

[Ronald Tailor · Rating 5 out of 5]

Neil Gaimen's novel _American Gods_ provides the readers of this grippingly realistic and modern fantasy novel with a useful concept: that there is a "backstage" to what we currently see as reality: a place behind the scenes we act out in our daily lives, a messy sort of place where "other stuff," realer stuff, goes on.

When thinking about what to write about this massive (although its author calls it, in an introduction, "small") and wide-ranging book by Idries Shah, it occurred to be that if you view his books the way he asked readers to view them, as pieces of a comprehensive and preparatory educational course of study, with different books representing parts of an interdisciplinary whole, then books like _The Sufis_ or _Way of the Sufi_ could be seen as providing the history of this great tradition: why it is important, how it greatly influenced many cultures (including our modern Western one) and helped them to grow with an infusion of practical and philosophical concepts. _Tales of the Dervishes_, _Wisdom of the Idiots_, and other books comprised mainly of stories primarily speak to and educate the unconscious part of our minds, the parts that live in wordless worlds of symbology and imagery. The Mulla Nasrudin corpus of jokes and anecdotes provides...well, that would be telling! (And to be truthful, I also haven't figured them out!) There is another category of book Shah writes that initially appeals to those who like order, logic, and rational explanations (although the books often tend to confound these preferences as much as they feed them, so I guess the reader also has to have a little "Charlie Brown" taste for having the football pulled out just as he is about to kick it). _Learning How to Learn_, _The Commanding Self_, and _Knowing How to Know_ are representative of this type of book. While they all contain plenty of stories and anecdotes, the emphasis seems more on explaining why stories, jokes, and accounts of things that allegedly happened very long ago and very far away are effective and also what students of Sufism can do to increase their effect on their consciousness: how they can use these accounts to learn about themselves. These books provide explanations for why Sufis historically (and in my observation, currently) do such baffling things. There is always a method to the "madness" but seeing that fully may require one to become a little mad oneself, at least by outward standards.

_Knowing How to Know_ provides all of those sane, well-written, brilliant explanations that comfort and reassure our rational minds that we're not wasting our time with some nonsensical pseudo-mystical humbo-jumbo, but, more than any of the other books of Shah's that could be placed in the category that provide explanations, background, and instructions, it takes the reader behind the scenes and displays what is really going on. Like the "backstage" in _American Gods_, this place is more than a little baffling, but unlike American Gods, there seems to be a stream of coherence running through it, a stream we can follow, if we want to.

It's impossible to pull out a representative example of this because what strikes one person as extremely valuable and insightful "backstage info" is not going to help or even seem relevant to other people with different experiences and backgrounds. Even passages that seemed very important to a single individual five or ten years ago may now strike that reader as banal or completely irrelevant as other passages take precedence. (That's partly due to the learning process, I suspect. Once one has learned something, the mind moves on to others things.) Please take that caveat in mind when I tell you that a passage that hit me very hard this time around was called "Constant Exhortation." It's on page 67 of the ISF Foundation's version of the book. (I know, some of you who bother to look it up and read are going to be saying to yourselves--or even to me, "Randy... Come On! What's the big deal?" Lol, Is OK...Is OK!) For me, this wasn't exactly a wake-up call as life has recently sent me some extreme examples of this trait to observe (walking human cautionary tales), but it put me on the alert to a common human tendency I share with most of the rest of humanity: something that could get in the way of greater understanding. It's a mistake I'd really rather I not just read, forget about, and then unconsciously commit: maybe that's why I found it important. I don't want to become like those miserable cautionary tales I have met.

By the way, most of Shah's books, including this one, have been republished by the Idries Shah Foundation and can be read for free on their website. A few are still awaiting publication, and, when so, the site tries to link you up with another free source, like Google Books. You can also buy paper versions in all the usual places.

[Stuart Bathgate · Rating 5 out of 5]

Published two years after Shah's death, this book looks at - among a host of other things - the barriers that prevent us from seeing the world as it really is. Many of those barriers, he argues, come from within - for example, characteristics such as greed, impatience and egotism.
The format is similar to other works of Shah's such as Learning How To Learn and Seeker After Truth: short anecdotes or explanations, some of them answers to specific questions. The tone is conversational, never didactic. Read it slowly, over a couple of weeks or so, and you'll have time to reflect on how its themes operate in everyday life.

[Julian Hadlow · Rating 5 out of 5]

Having just re-read this book, I'm amazed how much different this time around it seems. Every time there is something new to be gleaned. For those who sincerely seek Truth in their lives.

[Robs · Rating 5 out of 5]

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.

[Ulrika Eriksson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Idries Shah writes about us humans with insight and absolutely no flattery, with the wish that we start our conscious evolution. It is high time, being as we are on the eight day of the week, as he says. Read about: Attention, Boredom, Charity, Duty, Emotion, Fear, Greed, Humour, Ignorance, Judgement, Knowledge, Laziness, Meditation, News, Observation, Patience, Qualitative perceptions, Reviews, Specialists, Thought, Unwitting knowledge, Vanity, Walking, You and Me.

[John Bell · Rating 5 out of 5]

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.

[Greg M · Rating 5 out of 5]

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!

[Lenny Hall · Rating 5 out of 5]

His last book and my favorite.

[RM · Rating 5 out of 5]

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.

[Leonard Robichaud · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another masterpiece by Shah on the subjects of Sufism, esoteric knowledge, learning, and human psychology in general. It is best appreciated as part of his whole corpus of work, although it is well-worth reading in its own right. Like his other books, it is no mere dry exposition, but an adventure in learning!

[Garry Thornton · Rating 5 out of 5]

At the end of this book, there is a request to review it if you enjoyed it. Enjoy is the wrong term for this book. If you are interested in Sufi thought and action essential would be a better one. This book is a landmark and essential reading.

[Kevan Bowkett · Rating 4 out of 5]

In this more recent book Idries Shah returns to themes he has addressed in many of his earlier writings, particularly that of 'knowing how to know,' or knowing how to remove barriers to perception and learning -- barriers in our assumptions, our behaviour, our craving for emotional stimulus, our group dynamics, and other areas. The volume helps us catch some of our thinking and behaviour that makes us less effective than we would like. This book is well worth the effort of reading. As a short summary I cannot do better than echo the words on the back: 'Like an ultra-violet light shone onto the petals of flowers, it reveals concealed patterns, normally invisible to our customary modes of thought.'

[Susan Josephs · Rating 5 out of 5]

No one writes about spirituality more practically, more coherently or more eloquently. There is no “oogah boogah” or mindless gibberish in Shah’s writing. He always says he is “here to clear away the brushwood” to help us understand what is and what is not beneficial to those who are seekers after truth. Shah’s writing is the perfect blend of left brain intellectual explanation and right brain illustration. Since “you cannot send a kiss by messenger” I simply encourage readers to read Knowing How To Know.

[Peter · Rating 5 out of 5]

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.