A treasure trove of teaching materials, assembled in the Sufi manner.

Seeker After Truth contains both traditional tales and stories gleaned from contemporary sources, as well as snippets of table talk, discussions and teachings, letters and lectures by Idries Shah. Taken together, it constitutes a handbook of materials designed to provoke a different mode of thinking.

Shah’s book invites readers to re-examine the assumptions of their culture, which are responsible for their conditioning and outlook on life. It is because of the unreliability of human perception and memory, and the distorting influence of induced beliefs and wanting to believe, that the Sufis say that an objective perception must be acquired before even familiar things can be seen as they are.

Seeker After Truth provokes us into seeing the hidden motivations and patterns that normally go unnoticed. Like all of Shah’s works it transports the reader to new ranges of perception, according to his or her capacity.

‘... the beginnings of a short course on changing your mind.’

Robert Ornstein and Paul Ehrlich, in New World New Mind

1 Tales of the Classical Masters
Praying for Rain
The One without the Other
The Disobedience of Moses
Sting into Remedy
Weapons
Elephant-meat
Generosity
Grouping
Scent and Reality
The Heretics
Neighbour
Teaching
The Four Types
The Fires of Today...
The Law of Reverse Effect
Treasure
Permission to Expound

2 Questions and Answers
Not their Way, but their Way
Prayers and Rituals
The True and the False Sufi
A Ruse
Instrumental
Vicissitudes of a Teaching
Present and Absent
Ancient Traditions
The Mother of Opposition
Science and Omniscience
Keeping People Away
Parable of the King and the Youth
Biographers and Saints
Fox and Lion
The Effect of Mystical Knowledge
Museum-keeping
Subjective Behaviour
Cause and Effect
Attraction and Importance

3 Sufi Stories
Rich and Poor
Played Upon
The Dervish and his Wish
Do as your Friends Wish
Hypocrite
The Monster
Asleep and Awake
The Greater World
The Lost Jewel
The Magician’s Dinner
The Astrologers
In the Desert

4 Master and Disciple
Answers
Present and Absent
Take Care...
Measurement of Loyalty
Poisoning the Untutored
The Promise
Idolatry
Understanding
How the World Aids the Sufi
The Loaf of Bread
Intelligence and Obedience
How to Make Them Hear
Hypocrisy
Whispering
Self-obsessed
Alternative View
Disguise
Follower
The Ignorant
1001 Days
Classical Encounter
The Doorways
Wishing to be Wise
Bound Hand and Foot
Value of Parables
Heeding and Unheeding
Disputation

5 Anecdotes and Narratives
Relevance
Emotion and Drink
Ghalib and Qalib
Virtually Unknown Principle of Human
Organisation: Group Studies Paradox
How to Learn What is Already Known
Poor Donkey
Nail or Screw?
Washerwomen
Knowledgeability of the Audience
What They Are Like
Samples
The Road to Khorasan
Service
As Rich as You...
A Word can be One of Three Things...
Croaker
Wealth of Satisfactions
The More the Better
Who is at Fault?
Pleasant and Unpleasant

6 In Western Garb...
Sufis in the West
Reasons
Folk-memory
‘Men are not Rats!’
Science
Reality and Imagination
Confusion of Superficial and Perceptive
Real and Unreal
Disreputable
What it Really Meant...
Who Can Learn?
What do you Really Know?
Human Nature
New Knowledge from Old
Floor Covering
Economics
Invention versus Development
Deterrent
Cause and Effect
False Masters
Troubadours

7 Remarks at the Dinner-meetings
Satisfaction
Bases and Essentials of Sufi Knowledge
Who is the More Spiritual?
Recognising It
The King and his Son
Definitions
The Guru
Critiques of Sufism
Side-effects
According to the Best Advice
Sweets for the Wise
Alarm
A Basic Pattern
Impact

8 The Skill that Nobody Has: Twelve Tales
The Skill that Nobody Has
The Man who Went in Search of his Fate
The Greed for Obstinacy
Milk of the Lioness
The Spirit of the Well
The Princess of the Water of Life
Fahima and the Prince
Salik and Kamala
When the Devil Went to Amman
The Robe
The Magic Pocket
The Son of a Story-teller
Finding the Teaching

Idries Shah was born in India in 1924 into an aristocratic Afghan family. He was an author and teacher in the Sufi tradition and is considered one of the leading thinkers of the 20th century.

Shah devoted his life to collecting, translating and adapting key works of Sufi classical literature for the needs of the West. Called by some 'practical philosophy' - these works represent centuries of Sufi and Islamic thought aimed at developing human potential. His best-known works include the seminal book The Sufis, several collections of teaching stories featuring the ‘wise fool’ Nasrudin, Reflections and Knowing How to Know.

Shah's corpus - over three dozen books on topics ranging from psychology and spirituality to travelogues and cultural studies - have been translated into two dozen languages and have sold millions of copies around the world. They are regarded as an important bridge between the cultures of East and West.