Esotericism Addendum
In part 2 of this diatribe I meant to talk about something vaguely different but seemed to go off on a bit of a rant. I’ll try again.
I was inspired by Terry’s comment on the original ‘abandoning’ post where he talked about the reputed curious make-up of the Shah groups and why this might be. It got me thinking because I have had several experiences that touch on this. I’ll share one aspect.
Many years ago I wrote to Shah several times and to the Sufi Trust also. This was over a period of years and In addition to the usual ‘no replies’ which I fulminated against previously I also got a phone call and one response which I believe was from Shah though it was signed by the rather witty pseudonym ‘Guy Adamson’.
Now you need to know some background: when I was a teenager (and beyond) I was what you might call a ‘drug experimenter’ and someone who saw things in terms of a political subculture that was virtually enlightened (chemically) and whose imagined purpose was to overthrow the bastards in control by fomenting revolution and insurrection by all means possible. (Ok, note: I no longer think this).
Now this is the curious thing: I first read the Sufis in some drugged out haze in a friend’s toilet. They were hot on ‘finding a teacher’ because they were heavily into Gurdjieff and couldn’t stand the London Gurdjieff groups and somehow I got infected with this and joined a Naqshbandi circle which was the UK group of a Sheikh in India. I kept reading the Sufis throughout this time even Shah was persona non grata in this circle. In spite of this - in fact, more likely actually because of this - when I started to suspect this Naqshbandi group was less than the real deal I wrote to Shah asking if he knew of any others I could join!!!! All the time of course it was me who was not the ‘real deal’ and I was continuing in my debauched excesses of all natures and generally being as ‘unspiritual’ as it is possible to be. I won’t go into details but I’m not exaggerating for once.
Anyway, under these circumstances, i received my first and only response from Shah outlining what it would be necessary to do to join a study group. Of course I was too out of it to follow it up and I wasn’t serious anyway. It meant nothing to me, the writing or the response. But that’s my point: in that state (ie what I would say is the furthest away from ‘the path’ that I have ever been) I wrote one of the stupidest letters I have ever written to anyone and got a response. It really only takes on it’s full significance in the light of all the other letters I wrote subsequently when I thought I had progressed and ‘learnt something’ but which received no reply at all. Of course the two things could be cause and effect but there is definitely a lesson here.
And then it happened again - this time telephonically and this really was horrible. This was years later and I had once again descended into drug hell after a period of restraint - perhaps because of this (I was living a pretty hellish existence at the time, having recently got divorced and wallowing in misery and self-indulgence with my water friends) I was looking for a ‘way back’ and so I fired off another letter. It was a pretty half-assed attempt and I can’t remember what I said and I forgot I wrote it shortly after.
Anyway, to my unending horror, I must have put my number on the letter because one evening thereafter I was sitting around getting totally wasted with a bunch of losers in my front room (as you do) when the phone rang. It wasn’t Shah (as far as I can tell) but an associate and I had to attempt a conversation. I won’t go into details of this nightmare which went on for some time as I recall but it ended with me being told “I would be contacted soon”. If I was I never noticed but that’s beside the point. I certainly would never have contacted the me of that time in a million years.
The point is that it is a strange phenomena that in states which seem unsuitable (from my viewpoint) I was able to make approaches where responses were forthcoming while conversely, in states that I define as far ‘better’ the opposite holds true.
I guess from one perspective it shows how little we are able to judge on these things although I think there may be more to it and the parallels with Terry’s observations are fairly obvious. I often wonder how things would have gone if I’d followed through on these contacts but then again, if I was able to do that then maybe I wouldn’t have got a reply?
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