Origins of sufism
Comment on Burton on Sufism
James said,
21.03.09 at 8:44 am
After reading through several books, I’m guessing that there aren’t any reliable historical accounts of Sufism. Apparently, its beginnings can’t be traced back any further than the late tenth century and without the doctrines that would become associated with it in later times:http://books.google.com/books?id=nYOh6T-sw9IC&printsec=frontcover&dq=julian+baldick#PPA35,M1
It is an unpromising subject, given the contemporary disinformation and the fact that most sufis are themselves victims of this system. As with Gurdjieff the set of lies involved is too much to penetrate.
Good to stay away from it unless you have some real angle on it.
We went through this at length over at Darwiniana in the ‘sillykitty’ period, and the only safe assumption is that self-styled sufi sheiks like e.j. gold are pathological liars. I am not aware of their having uttered a true statement! let alone a statement that is reliable about sufi history.
Gurdjieff shows signs of having ditched ‘sufism’ and moved towards his preoccupations with more ancient spiritual systems. But there again the hidden agenda behind the disinformation makes it a worthless path.
The later point is open to great hostility from followers, but it is a truth known to those who have wasted a few decades to these lies.
We can begin to repursue this question again.
I need to take up the suggestion to get Burton’s book.
New Man, New Age, New Socialism 