Castaneda and Idries Shah
Comment on S.C.
mybrainisafleamarket said,
07.12.09 at 3:27 pm ·
Two others are on the ‘beware/proceed at own risk’ list:
Carlos Castaneda and Idries Shah.
Regarding Idries Shah, there is new and highly valuable material concerning the alleged Fishan Khan MS of Omar Khayyam’s Rubaiyat supposedly older than the one used by Fitzegerald.
The fracas apparently did great harm to Robert Graves’ reputation.
Dont go by me. One can read the relevant chapter in superb book,
‘A Book of Verse: The Biography of Omar Khayyam by Gary Garrard.
Among the vast range of material uncovered by Garrad, he refers to a long journey to Paghman, Afghanistan by a journalist who interviewed the current head of the clan from whom Idries Shah claimed descent and whose illustrious scion, Jan Fishan Khan, according to Idries had owned the MS of the Rabaii.
The head of the clan had never heard of Omar Khayam.
Get and read this whole book. Among other things, Garrad contends that Omar K was not himself a Sufi, but a rationalist and skeptic, far more renowned for his mathematics than his poetry. Garrard tells us that Sufis such as Attar even cited Omar K as a person whose stance was an obstacle to mystical attainment…cough.
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=a+book+of+verse+garrard&btnG=Search&aq=f&oq=&aqi=
New Man, New Age, New Socialism 