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Previously published only as separate essays, Sufi Thought and Action - assembled and introduced by Idries Shah - covers an extraordinary diversity of Sufi ideas and activities in many countries and cultures. Included in the volume are papers on Sufi principles and learning methods; ritual, initiation, and secrets in Sufi circles; and key concepts in Sufi understanding.

Traditionally known as The Hundred Tales of Wisdom, this collection comprises excerpts from the life, teachings, and miracles of the Sufi teacher Jalaluddin Rumi, together with certain important stories from his works. As well as being part of the bedrock of classical Persian literature, these tales, anecdotes, and narratives are believed, by Sufis, to aid in the development of insights beyond ordinary perceptions. Here, they are translated and presented by Idries Shah.

Condensed from more than three million words, these conversations involve housewives and cabinet ministers, professors and assembly-line workers, on the subject of how traditional psychology can illuminate current human, social, and spiritual problems. More than 100 tales and extracts from Sufi lore, ranging from the eighth century (Hasan of Basra) to the modern Afghan poet Khalilullah Khalili, are woven into Shah’s narratives of how and why the Sufis learn what they learn and how spiritual understanding develops and deteriorates in all societies.

Orphaned John Trenchard grows up in the village of Moonfleet with his aunt, entranced by the local legend of the ghostly Blackbeard, who rises each winter night to search for his lost diamond. While conducting his own hunt for the treasure, John is trapped in the church crypt and discovers the true secret of the village: smuggling.

How can it be that the same story is found in Scotland and also in pre-Columbian America? What can account for the durability and persistence of tales? Was the tale of Aladdin and his wondrous lamp really taken from Wales (where it has been found) to the ancient East and, if so, when and by whom? These questions and more are answered in Idries Shah’s remarkable volume World Tales, which is subtitled “The extraordinary coincidence of stories told in all times, in all places.”

Read by David Ault, this unabridged recording of Idries Shah's Reflections is a collection of Sufi fables, aphorisms, and statements that challenge the conditioned mind. The audiobook confronts the listener with unaccustomed perspectives and ideas in an attempt to set the mind free, to see how things really are.

Oriental Magic is recognized as a brilliant study of how, what and why people think, in territories extending from North Africa to Japan. The book is the product of years of research and fieldwork in a dozen different cultural regions. Its scholarly accuracy and genuine contribution to cultural understanding have made it a key text for anyone interested in informal beliefs and esoteric practices. 

Thinkers of the East is a collection of anecdotes and "parables in action" illustrating the eminently practical and lucid approach of Eastern Dervish teachers. Distilled from the teachings of more than 100 sages in three continents, this material stresses the experimental rather than the theoretical - and it is that characteristic of Sufi study which provides its impact and vitality.

Here, in three definitive volumes, Shah takes us to the very heart of this mysterious mentor, the Mulla Nasrudin. They're comprised of skillful contemporary retellings of hundreds of collected stories and sayings bringing the unmistakable wisdom, wit, and charm of the timeless jokester to life.

Caravan of Dreams distills the essence of Eastern thought in a feast of Sufi stories, sayings, poems, and allegories collected by one of the world's leading experts in Oriental philosophy and Sufism. Idries Shah builds up a complete picture of a single consciousness, relating Eastern mythology to reality, illuminating historical patterns, and presenting philosophical legends in this unique anthology.

Although enormously attractive as sheer entertainment, Dervish tales were never presented merely on the level of a fable, legend, or folklore. They stand comparison in wit, construction, and piquancy with the finest stories of any culture, yet their true function as Sufi teaching stories is so little-known in the modern world, that no technical or popular terms exist to describe them. The material in Tales of the Dervishes is the result of a thousand years of development, during which Dervish masters used these and other teaching stories to instruct their disciples. The tales are held to convey powers of increasing perception unknown to the ordinary man.

The "perfuming of a scorpion", referred to by the great Sufi teacher Bahaudin, symbolizes hypocrisy and self-deception: both in the individual and in institutions. In A Perfumed Scorpion, Idries Shah directs attention to both the perfume and the scorpion - the overlay and the reality - in psychology, human behavior and the learning process. Crammed with illustrative anecdotes from contemporary life, the book is nevertheless rooted in the teaching patterns of Rumi, Hafiz, Jami, and many other great Oriental sages. It deals with the need for and the path to knowledge and information.

In Idries Shah's Wisdom of the Idiots, the "idiots" are Sufis, called this because their wisdom penetrates to a depth which renders it inaccessible to the merely intelligent or academically knowledgeable. The stories of the Sufis are tools prepared for a specific purpose. On this level the movements of the characters in a story portray psychological processes, and the story becomes a working blueprint of those processes.

Special Illumination is a term used by the great poet and mystic, Jalaluddin Rumi, to stress the importance of humor in metaphysical experience. Of it, Idries Shah says, "Rumi directly contradicts such numerous sour-faced religionists as, in all persuasions, find that humor disturbs the indoctrination which is all that they usually have to offer."

Many of Idries Shah's books are comprised of tales and teaching stories taken from both written and oral sources, which illustrate the instructional methods employed by Eastern wise men for thousands of years. The Magic Monastery differs from its predecessors in that it contains not only traditional tales - mostly unpublished - but also stories specially written by Shah to complete the book as a "course in non-linear thinking".

Deep in the jungles of India, nature lived as the Creator intended. Yes, there were those who were predator and those who were prey. But balance was maintained, and the symmetry of life's plan would take your breath away. Then Man came to the jungle. Tiggra, a white Royal Bengal Tiger, and his family must find a way to survive in a world where human and animal fight over dwindling natural resources. But this is a world where Man is king of the beasts and the gun of the killer rules over all.

A serious, yet entertaining, look at the impediments in current thought which prevent certain forms of understanding between people. The title story was made into an award-winning film with script by Idries Shah, and chosen as an Outstanding Film of the Year.

Based on university lectures at the New School for Social Research, New York, and the University of California, San Francisco, Neglected Aspects of Sufi Studies deals with many of the problems of Sufic methods of study and those which militate against its effective progress in the modern world, notably the unrecognized assumptions which we make about ourselves and about learning and its process.

First published in 1957, The Secret Lore of Magic contains within it a series of major source books of magical arts. Many of them translated into English for the first time, these works are annotated. The book’s title in itself signaled the fact that the bulk of material in this bibliographical study had never been published openly before.

In a darkened room, a group of men once sought to examine an elephant. Taking hold of a different part - an ear, a leg, the tail - each one mistook his particular part for the whole. In the darkness each of the men became convinced that the elephant was the object he had felt - a fan, a rope, a pillar, and so on. With this ancient fable, first described by the Sufi Master Jalaluddin Rumi, Idries Shah presents the Sufi perspective that Christianity and Islam stem from one inner origin.