Sufis and Sorcerers
by longsword on Wed 11 Feb 2009
I've been absent from TDAB for a spell. I've been on a quest.
The quest in question arose following my reading of a book called The Sufis of Andalusia, an old book which I picked up a couple of weeks back at a used bookstore during one of my trips into Big City. It is a partial translation, by R.W.J. Austin, of some of the biographical works of the notable (and prolific) 12th century Sufi Muhyi al-Din ibn 'Arabi. These brief biographical sketches are of Sufi "saints", inhabitants of what is now present-day Spain and Portugal, who were contemporaries or companions of ibn 'Arabi. They are particularly sketches of those who possessed "miraculous powers".
Reading through the sketches, I was struck by ibn 'Arabi's sometimes strange idiom of description of these saints, "the brethren", their devotions, and their "miraculous powers". One, abu Madyan, he describes mysteriously as "the Pole of his time". In connection with the Pole of the time, he also refers to others as being among the "four Supports" or of the seven "Substitutes" all of whom kept their identities and spiritual station secret from others. Ibn 'Arabi, a seer or clairvoyant apparently possessed of the gift of direct insight, saw their spiritual rank and the mark of their station. Upon confronting them with his knowledge of their station it was impressed upon him that he was not to reveal to anyone the knowledge he had gained by such insight. Each guarded their spiritual station as a secret never to be revealed.
Of the mystery of the Pole of his time, his "four Supports" and the "seven Substitutes", Austin does not reveal much at all except in a footnote, where he explains that "this relates to the teaching that God maintains each cosmic sphere through the instrumentality of some appointed being whose function is usually of an entirely spiritual nature which is rarely, if ever, apparent to the senses. Each sphere as also each period has its own hierarchy of divine agents. At the head of each is the Pole (qutb) who has under him Supports (awtad), Substitutes (abdal) and others who aid him in his work of preservation. Abu Madyan was widely regarded as the pole of his time".
My attention was hooked on the seeming parallels of this structure of relationships with "the nagual's party" or "warrior's party" described by Castaneda in his books: a "coven of sorcerers", if you will, and the apparent correspondence of the Pole, his four Supports and seven Substitutes with the Toltec description of the relationship of the Nagual, the Stalkers, and the Dreamers. The "four Supports" reminded me of the four Atlanteans at the ruins of Tula, Mexico. What particularly impressed me about this possible correspondence was ibn 'Arabi's description of those he called "the Substitutes", who apparently had command over their double, seemingly capable of being in two places at once or of transporting themselves instantaneously over vast distances. Ibn 'Arabi describes Musa abu 'Imran al-Sadrani, a Substitute, as having paid a visit to ibn 'Arabi even though, physically, he was forty-five days journey away at the time at Bugia with abu Madyan. Austin, in a footnote to the strange story, adds "The visit described here must have been of a spiritual nature". Shaikh Abu 'Imran is described by ibn 'Arabi as "formerly a rich man, but had renounced his wealth. Eighteen days after his renunciation God inspired him with great spiritual knowledge. He became one of the Substitutes and could locate himself in any place on earth he wished to be in". Abu 'Imran was apparently possessed of extraordinary powers, including the ability to simply vanish from locked rooms and reappear elsewhere.
That is the description of a dreamer and of the "dreaming body" as described extensively in Castaneda's books. Or, what we would call a "doppelgänger". In other words "Substitute" would appear to mean "Double" -- the power to substitute an image of himself for his actual physical presence, or to act in this capacity as a courier for the Pole of the time -- men or women, in other words, who have acquired a degree of command over their double or "dreaming bodies". Today, we might call this "lucid dreaming" or "out of body experiences" (OOBE).
This strange recurrent parallelism in ibn 'Arabi sent me back to Castaneda's books. Unfortunately, since his books are not indexed I had to re-read all of them and additionally took a little extra time to mark places and passages in order to create my own index at some future date.
There is little real doubt to my mind that the Sufis that ibn 'Arabi describes were what Castaneda's don Juan would have described as "sorcerers" and that ibn 'Arabi was himself what would be described as a "seer" also in the sense of don Juan's usage -- having the capacity to see into the essence of things and not just touch upon their surfaces; that is, looking. The difference between seeing and looking, in this context, is as between insight and sight, for which reason of course the wise have been called "seers" through the ages.
By "sorcerers" here, I don't mean witchcraft per se. Don Juan himself did not think much of that kind of sorcery. A sorcerer may indeed be capable of "miraculous powers", as ibn 'Arabi put it, but for don Juan a sorcerer was essentially a warrior of the spirit and "sorcery" was the active pursuit of "total freedom" that comes with learning to unfold "the wings of perception" in order to realise the infinite possibilities of awareness.
There is a very close relationship as well between the elements of the Sufi "Way" and the warrior's path as described in Castaneda. The Way is made up of spiritual stations (maqamat) and states (ahwal). The stations are grades indicating achievement of virtues, merits, divine qualities. Seven are listed: Repentance (tawbah), Self-restraint (wara'), Abstinence (zuhd), Poverty (faqr), Patience (sabr), Reliance (tawakkul) and Acceptance (rida). Once attained, these remain permanent conditions of the soul. The spiritual state is regarded as a temporary phenomenon along the Way. Some states are: Self-vigilance (muraqabah), Proximity (qurb), Love (mahabbah), Fear (makhafah), Hope (raja), Lodging (shawq), Intimacy (uns), Tranquility (itmi'nan), Contemplation (mushahadah) and Certainty (yaqin). There are precise correlates for each of these in don Juan's description of the warrior's path -- those elements or characteristics that pertain to what he calls "impeccability".
What is different between the Way and the teachings of don Juan here is simply the context and idiom of description. Even this word "impeccable", a practice which in don Juan's world plays such an important role in the disciplined life of the warrior in pursuit of knowledge and freedom, is the negation of peccatum - sin, transgression. Nonetheless, don Juan insists that the practice of "impeccability" has nothing to do with morality per se, but is the pragmatic exercise of attracting, preserving, and enhancing the energy or "personal power" needed to unfold the wings of perception and free awareness from self-importance and from our fixation on "the mirror of self-reflection".
That "mirror of self-reflection" you may recognise as what is called in TDAB the human condition -- narcissism.
There are so many other, interesting correspondences that I am satisfied that the Sufis of Andalusia were the equivalent of don Juan's "sorcerers" or warriors. If you are familiar at all with Castaneda's works, you may recall frequent mention and description of the "allies", or what in other words might be called a witch's "familiars". The allies are amorphous inorganic awarenesses or "beings of a subtle nature" that cohabit the earth with organic awareness, but whose presence in our environment we censor out of our perceptual field through the use of various "shields", even though our myths, legends, and fables abound with tales of such beings which were once, it seems, within our field of perception. The jinn (or "genies") of the Qur'an are these beings also, and they don't fail to make an appearance in ibn 'Arabi's works either. (The words "jinn" or "djinn" -- genie -- is related to our word "genius"). I will relate one particularly interesting tale regarding a Jinn as it appears in ibn 'Arabi's sketches of the Sufi masters -- in this case a sketch of the Sufi master Abu Ja'Far Al-'Uryani.
Al-'Uryani was, for some reason, driven from his village and ended up in Seville amongst ibn 'Arabi's peers. Ibn 'Arabi narrates the consequences as follows:
This tale, and a few others in The Sufis of Andalusia, is so consistent with the description of the sorcerer's "allies" that we must conclude that the ally and the Jinn are the same being. And, in fact, in older English literature, we often find the word "genius" used in exactly the same way, as referring to a being of a subtle nature presumed to be the guardian or inhabitant of particular places, or as tutelary spirits and totemic beings of the gens -- the tribe. What is also interesting in this particular tale is that the Jinn appears to have no physical form. He is simply a voice.
This particular correspondence between Jinns, genii, or allies, though, doesn't particularly interest me except as confirming a universal feature of the human experience or perhaps as suggestive of some historical change in the nature of perception. The persistence of stories even today about strange beings, "aliens amongst us", of sasquatch, manitous, and so on and so forth attest also to the occasional crack in the field of censorious perception and in our "shields". Otherwise, that kind of knowledge doesn't strike me as being particularly useful.
But what does strike me as being of immense pragmatic value is the elements of the Way or the Path -- the common or shared elements leading towards "impeccability" and thus to "total freedom". These very pragmatic elements and practices have deteriorated into a sloppy, rootless, irrational moralism that finds no justification for itself except as the set of divine commandments issued by a stern and jealous God for some reason that nobody can understand at all. As "the wings of perception" became clipped, so did the source of "morality" become lost in the fog until morals appeared like divine commandments. They have very human and pragmatic roots, however, which is something I'ld like to draw out in my next post. (...)
by longsword on Wed 11 Feb 2009
I've been absent from TDAB for a spell. I've been on a quest.
The quest in question arose following my reading of a book called The Sufis of Andalusia, an old book which I picked up a couple of weeks back at a used bookstore during one of my trips into Big City. It is a partial translation, by R.W.J. Austin, of some of the biographical works of the notable (and prolific) 12th century Sufi Muhyi al-Din ibn 'Arabi. These brief biographical sketches are of Sufi "saints", inhabitants of what is now present-day Spain and Portugal, who were contemporaries or companions of ibn 'Arabi. They are particularly sketches of those who possessed "miraculous powers".
Reading through the sketches, I was struck by ibn 'Arabi's sometimes strange idiom of description of these saints, "the brethren", their devotions, and their "miraculous powers". One, abu Madyan, he describes mysteriously as "the Pole of his time". In connection with the Pole of the time, he also refers to others as being among the "four Supports" or of the seven "Substitutes" all of whom kept their identities and spiritual station secret from others. Ibn 'Arabi, a seer or clairvoyant apparently possessed of the gift of direct insight, saw their spiritual rank and the mark of their station. Upon confronting them with his knowledge of their station it was impressed upon him that he was not to reveal to anyone the knowledge he had gained by such insight. Each guarded their spiritual station as a secret never to be revealed.
Of the mystery of the Pole of his time, his "four Supports" and the "seven Substitutes", Austin does not reveal much at all except in a footnote, where he explains that "this relates to the teaching that God maintains each cosmic sphere through the instrumentality of some appointed being whose function is usually of an entirely spiritual nature which is rarely, if ever, apparent to the senses. Each sphere as also each period has its own hierarchy of divine agents. At the head of each is the Pole (qutb) who has under him Supports (awtad), Substitutes (abdal) and others who aid him in his work of preservation. Abu Madyan was widely regarded as the pole of his time".
My attention was hooked on the seeming parallels of this structure of relationships with "the nagual's party" or "warrior's party" described by Castaneda in his books: a "coven of sorcerers", if you will, and the apparent correspondence of the Pole, his four Supports and seven Substitutes with the Toltec description of the relationship of the Nagual, the Stalkers, and the Dreamers. The "four Supports" reminded me of the four Atlanteans at the ruins of Tula, Mexico. What particularly impressed me about this possible correspondence was ibn 'Arabi's description of those he called "the Substitutes", who apparently had command over their double, seemingly capable of being in two places at once or of transporting themselves instantaneously over vast distances. Ibn 'Arabi describes Musa abu 'Imran al-Sadrani, a Substitute, as having paid a visit to ibn 'Arabi even though, physically, he was forty-five days journey away at the time at Bugia with abu Madyan. Austin, in a footnote to the strange story, adds "The visit described here must have been of a spiritual nature". Shaikh Abu 'Imran is described by ibn 'Arabi as "formerly a rich man, but had renounced his wealth. Eighteen days after his renunciation God inspired him with great spiritual knowledge. He became one of the Substitutes and could locate himself in any place on earth he wished to be in". Abu 'Imran was apparently possessed of extraordinary powers, including the ability to simply vanish from locked rooms and reappear elsewhere.
That is the description of a dreamer and of the "dreaming body" as described extensively in Castaneda's books. Or, what we would call a "doppelgänger". In other words "Substitute" would appear to mean "Double" -- the power to substitute an image of himself for his actual physical presence, or to act in this capacity as a courier for the Pole of the time -- men or women, in other words, who have acquired a degree of command over their double or "dreaming bodies". Today, we might call this "lucid dreaming" or "out of body experiences" (OOBE).
This strange recurrent parallelism in ibn 'Arabi sent me back to Castaneda's books. Unfortunately, since his books are not indexed I had to re-read all of them and additionally took a little extra time to mark places and passages in order to create my own index at some future date.
There is little real doubt to my mind that the Sufis that ibn 'Arabi describes were what Castaneda's don Juan would have described as "sorcerers" and that ibn 'Arabi was himself what would be described as a "seer" also in the sense of don Juan's usage -- having the capacity to see into the essence of things and not just touch upon their surfaces; that is, looking. The difference between seeing and looking, in this context, is as between insight and sight, for which reason of course the wise have been called "seers" through the ages.
By "sorcerers" here, I don't mean witchcraft per se. Don Juan himself did not think much of that kind of sorcery. A sorcerer may indeed be capable of "miraculous powers", as ibn 'Arabi put it, but for don Juan a sorcerer was essentially a warrior of the spirit and "sorcery" was the active pursuit of "total freedom" that comes with learning to unfold "the wings of perception" in order to realise the infinite possibilities of awareness.
There is a very close relationship as well between the elements of the Sufi "Way" and the warrior's path as described in Castaneda. The Way is made up of spiritual stations (maqamat) and states (ahwal). The stations are grades indicating achievement of virtues, merits, divine qualities. Seven are listed: Repentance (tawbah), Self-restraint (wara'), Abstinence (zuhd), Poverty (faqr), Patience (sabr), Reliance (tawakkul) and Acceptance (rida). Once attained, these remain permanent conditions of the soul. The spiritual state is regarded as a temporary phenomenon along the Way. Some states are: Self-vigilance (muraqabah), Proximity (qurb), Love (mahabbah), Fear (makhafah), Hope (raja), Lodging (shawq), Intimacy (uns), Tranquility (itmi'nan), Contemplation (mushahadah) and Certainty (yaqin). There are precise correlates for each of these in don Juan's description of the warrior's path -- those elements or characteristics that pertain to what he calls "impeccability".
What is different between the Way and the teachings of don Juan here is simply the context and idiom of description. Even this word "impeccable", a practice which in don Juan's world plays such an important role in the disciplined life of the warrior in pursuit of knowledge and freedom, is the negation of peccatum - sin, transgression. Nonetheless, don Juan insists that the practice of "impeccability" has nothing to do with morality per se, but is the pragmatic exercise of attracting, preserving, and enhancing the energy or "personal power" needed to unfold the wings of perception and free awareness from self-importance and from our fixation on "the mirror of self-reflection".
That "mirror of self-reflection" you may recognise as what is called in TDAB the human condition -- narcissism.
There are so many other, interesting correspondences that I am satisfied that the Sufis of Andalusia were the equivalent of don Juan's "sorcerers" or warriors. If you are familiar at all with Castaneda's works, you may recall frequent mention and description of the "allies", or what in other words might be called a witch's "familiars". The allies are amorphous inorganic awarenesses or "beings of a subtle nature" that cohabit the earth with organic awareness, but whose presence in our environment we censor out of our perceptual field through the use of various "shields", even though our myths, legends, and fables abound with tales of such beings which were once, it seems, within our field of perception. The jinn (or "genies") of the Qur'an are these beings also, and they don't fail to make an appearance in ibn 'Arabi's works either. (The words "jinn" or "djinn" -- genie -- is related to our word "genius"). I will relate one particularly interesting tale regarding a Jinn as it appears in ibn 'Arabi's sketches of the Sufi masters -- in this case a sketch of the Sufi master Abu Ja'Far Al-'Uryani.
Al-'Uryani was, for some reason, driven from his village and ended up in Seville amongst ibn 'Arabi's peers. Ibn 'Arabi narrates the consequences as follows:
"As a result of their action God sent to the people of that place one of the Jinn called Khalaf, who occupied the house of the above-mentioned [village] leader and forced him out. This Jinn stayed in the house and called the people of the place to come to him, which they did. When they had come to the house they heard the voice of the Jinn asking one of their number if something had been taken from his house and whether he suspected anyone of taking it. Having answered in the affirmative to both questions the Jinn told him that he was wrong in his suspicions and that the name of the real culprit was so and so who was in love with his wife and had committed adultery with her. The Jinn then bade him go and see for himself and he found all that the Jinn had told him to be true. In this way the Jinn continued to expose their hidden evils and vices to them and their children until he drove them to despair. When they begged him to leave them alone he replied that he had been inflicted upon them by 'Abdallah (al-'Uryani). He remained with them for a period of six months, after which time they came to al-'Uryani and begged him to return to the town, imploring him to forgive them for what they had done to him. The Shaik relented and returned to that place to relieve them of the Jinn. The affair became famous throughout Seville..."
This tale, and a few others in The Sufis of Andalusia, is so consistent with the description of the sorcerer's "allies" that we must conclude that the ally and the Jinn are the same being. And, in fact, in older English literature, we often find the word "genius" used in exactly the same way, as referring to a being of a subtle nature presumed to be the guardian or inhabitant of particular places, or as tutelary spirits and totemic beings of the gens -- the tribe. What is also interesting in this particular tale is that the Jinn appears to have no physical form. He is simply a voice.
This particular correspondence between Jinns, genii, or allies, though, doesn't particularly interest me except as confirming a universal feature of the human experience or perhaps as suggestive of some historical change in the nature of perception. The persistence of stories even today about strange beings, "aliens amongst us", of sasquatch, manitous, and so on and so forth attest also to the occasional crack in the field of censorious perception and in our "shields". Otherwise, that kind of knowledge doesn't strike me as being particularly useful.
But what does strike me as being of immense pragmatic value is the elements of the Way or the Path -- the common or shared elements leading towards "impeccability" and thus to "total freedom". These very pragmatic elements and practices have deteriorated into a sloppy, rootless, irrational moralism that finds no justification for itself except as the set of divine commandments issued by a stern and jealous God for some reason that nobody can understand at all. As "the wings of perception" became clipped, so did the source of "morality" become lost in the fog until morals appeared like divine commandments. They have very human and pragmatic roots, however, which is something I'ld like to draw out in my next post. (...)
