/lit/ - Literature

>>21306390
Here is a specific traditional Sufi “teaching story,” recorded by Idries Shah in a collection of said teaching stories, in his book “The Dermis Probe” (1970, p. 51), entitled by him “The Light-Taker” and having to do with this same aforementioned faculty of telepathy or mind-reading. The Sufi “teaching story” (as Shah labeled it, averring it fulfilled a function never before fully understood and explicitly named in much of Western or Islamic scholarship, but nonetheless having existed for centuries) is something like a synthesis between a Japanese Zen koan and a parable found in the scriptures of Jews, Christians, and Muslims. Its major function, according to a Shah, is to represent certain psychological and spiritual processes or truths typically disregarded or ignored by most, and, in its very recounting or reading, meant to lead to an illumination or flash of higher insight in the listener or reader. These teaching stories overall occupy a liminal space between allegory/mythology, and being reputedly real historical accounting — sometimes they are in the vein of hagiographies (biographies of saints, with an especial focus on their miracles and sanctity) and therefore held to be literally true, sometimes obviously meant to be fantastical allegories, and sometimes even fusing both. This story is a perfect answer to the question of skeptics, “If magic and miraculous abilities are true, why don’t those with these capacities, publicly make it known, as well as use it to make themselves wonderfully rich, powerful, successful in every endeavor, famous, beloved and well-known by all, or demonstrate it to scientists and scholars and the masses at large to gain such new-found fame?”

The Light-Taker

>A certain dervish was called Nourgir — “light-taker” — because he had a clay pot which took in light from the day, even from a candle, and gave it out when he wanted to.

>He was asked by a scholar:

>”If you can indeed perceive people’s characters and potentialities, how is it that someone has just sold you a melon which proved to be tasteless?”

>Nourgir said:

>”Would you care to come with me and undertake an experiment?”

>The scholar refused, and spread the word that Nourgir was a charlatan. But, after many months of this defamation, they both found themselves at the court of the king of the time, and the king showed interest in the dispute.

>The king said:

>”It has been conveyed to my ears that this scholar has challenged this dervish, but that he will not allow the dervish to demonstrate his capacities. Such an attitude is a menace to good order and a threat to the general tranquility of men. The scholar will stand condemned as a jackal, so pronounced by me, unless he agrees to stop talking about facts, and allows himself to be exposed to realities.