Idries Shah

Condensed from more than three million words, these conversations involve housewives and cabinet ministers, professors and assembly-line workers, on the subject of how traditional psychology can illuminate current human, social, and spiritual problems....

First published in 1957, The Secret Lore of Magic contains within it a series of major source books of magical arts. Many of them translated into English for the first time, these works are annotated....

When it first appeared in 1964, The Sufis was welcomed as the decisive work on the subject of Sufi thought....

Traditionally known as The Hundred Tales of Wisdom, this collection comprises excerpts from the life, teachings, and miracles of the Sufi teacher Jalaluddin Rumi, together with certain important stories from his works....

Contemporary esoteric systems almost always play on the desire of mankind to seek or acquire knowledge. All but universally neglected in such systems are the often unrecognized barriers which prevent knowledge and understanding....

The Commanding Self, in Sufic terminology, is that mixture of the primitive and conditioned responses, common to everyone, which inhibits and distorts human progress and understanding....

Oriental Magic is recognized as a brilliant study of how, what and why people think, in territories extending from North Africa to Japan....

Thinkers of the East is a collection of anecdotes and "parables in action" illustrating the eminently practical and lucid approach of Eastern Dervish teachers....

The Way of the Sufi presents an unparalleled cross-section of material from Sufi schools, Sufi teachings, and classical writings as a basic course of Sufi study....

A serious, yet entertaining, look at the impediments in current thought which prevent certain forms of understanding between people. The title story was made into an award-winning film....

The Idries Shah Anthology is a special collection of previously published work by Idries Shah, and was edited by Saira Shah....

In December of 1979, Soviet tanks rolled across the borders of Afghanistan, beginning a period of barbaric aggression that triggered a turning point in modern history. Idries Shah's brilliant novel chronicles the courageous 10-year resistance of the Afghan people....

Caravan of Dreams distills the essence of Eastern thought in a feast of Sufi stories, sayings, poems, and allegories collected by one of the world's leading experts in Oriental philosophy....

According to the Sufis, human faculties, although perceptive, are limited: Like a radio set, which can receive only certain electromagnetic waves and not other parts of this band. The inability to transcend the barrier of limited senses explains human subjectivity....

In a darkened room, a group of men once sought to examine an elephant. Taking hold of a different part - an ear, a leg, the tail - each one mistook his particular part for the whole....

The appeal of Nasrudin is as universal and timeless as the truths he illustrates. His stories are read by children, by scientists and scholars, and by followers of philosophy....

In three definitive volumes, Shah takes us to the very heart of this mysterious mentor, the Mulla Nasrudin....

Although enormously attractive as sheer entertainment, Dervish tales were never presented merely on the level of a fable, legend, or folklore....

A treasure house of teaching materials, assembled in the Sufi manner. Seeker After Truth contains both traditional tales and stories gleaned from contemporary sources, and snippets of table talk, discussions and teachings, letters, and lectures by Idries Shah....

How can it be that the same story is found in Scotland and also in pre-Columbian America? What can account for the durability and persistence of tales? These questions and more are answered in Idries Shah’s remarkable volume World Tales. Listen to learn more....