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

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 here: