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From: tyagi@houseofkaos.abyss.com (nagasiva)
Newsgroups: alt.sufi,alt.islam.sufi,alt.magick.tyagi,alt.consciousness,talk.religon.misc,talk.religion.newage,alt.satanism,alt.pagan,alt.magick
Subject: Magick, Miracles and Sufism
Date: 27 Jun 1996 02:18:58 -0700
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[from tariqas elist: majordomo@world.std.com]

49960601

assalam alaykum, my kin.


Jabreil Hanafi:
|>There are many questions regarding what is and what is not Islam.  
|>What does it mean to follow in the ways of the Prophet, peace be upon him.  
|>I question wheather much of what is prescribed is not much more than empty 
|>ritual.

these questions/comments imply one answer for all, which I'm not sure will
suffice.  even some of my Muslim friends indicate that a variety of methods
are available to the varying types of people across the globe.  what is the
straight road for one may be a winding course for another and vice versa.


Richard Romanowski <logician+@andrew.cmu.edu>:
|...if one can use such relics to accomplish obviously useful ends (e.g. 
|healing the sick, raising the dead, parting any inconvenient seas which 
|happen to be in your way) why not do so?

the danger is spoken of with reference to 'siddhis' (powers) in yoga and 
to 'sihr' (sheikh-approved magic), 'mu'awanat' (thaumaturgy), 'karamat'
(wonders), and 'mujiza' (miracles), in sufism (Shah*).  the danger is that 
we shall take the source of these powers as ourselves and abuse the gifts 
through self-indulgence.  often those who have a connection to the ascetic 
and religious have built-in safeguards against such traps (in terms of
submission and dedicated humility to at least the sheikh, if not to Allah).


|Idries Shah... _The_Sufis_,... "occultist" was originally a derogatory 
|term, and ironically it is used for self-identification by those who 
|"wander in darkness."  

this is an old pathway, though it is so dissipated that it takes a long
look backward with squinted eyes to see it arightly.  see how the 
Christians of old identified as the persecuted Jesus against the Romans,
how the people of Europe identified with persecuted Satan against the
Christians (now the establishment), how the mystics of Europe identified
with the Witch that had been outlawed prior to 1950s, how mystics in
America identified with the persecuted Satanists prior to the 1960s.  

new religious take on the names of the persecuted in the past as a 
revolution of consciousness against the establishment (as 'pagan' is 
today meaning something different than the 'country bumpkin' it was 
originally intended by Romans), intentionally distancing themselves
from moral restrictions they felt unimportant to them (as compared
to their parents and the society in which they matured).

in some measure I directly represent this path, since I codify it as
the Great Martyrdom Cult: personal and social psychoanalysts whose
intuitive mechinations effect the individual and cultural dance with
what psychoanalysts name 'the shadow' (repressed psychic contents).


|So it may be that there is some Sufi reason why magic (i.e. employment 
|of subtle natural forces to change the physical world) should not be done.  

I'm sure it typically has to do with the differences between 'religion' 
and 'magick' generally, in that the former usually is sanctified by the 
society while the latter is typically performed on the account and for the 
benefit of the individual.

this has heretofore been thought a DANGEROUS pathway and in some measure
devoid of value when linked to an obsession with gratification of personal
desire (usually at another's expense).  I would suggest that the 'other'
should not only include humans but all the natural world which we are
charged to care-take and treat with respect and by which we are sinning
mightily.

when the meek and shallow ask for power, those who see the dangers of
providing this typically direct them elsewhere.  the dedicated shall
come in their purified consciousness to its revelation in any case.  


barzakh@idola.net.id:
|Prophets and sufis do miracles only by God's order,
|they are not allowed to use this power freely.
|They are persons who had totally submitted themselves to God,
|they only do what God told them to do.

see also the differences between 'theurgy' and 'thaumaturgy'.

 
Richard Romanowski <logician+@andrew.cmu.edu>:
|...are miracles ever performed using such things as relics or other 
|elements normally associated with magic?  

any object *may* be used in the performance of miracles.  I am not aware
if there are stories of theurgists using such objects, since I am ignorant
of the history of miracles in the world.


|If not, then we can clearly delineate the difference between good miracles 
|and evil magic.  

this is the fallacy of the appearance equalling the essence and is the
disgrace of Allah.


|...if we are sinful and we persecute a good guy who is doing miracles 
|by God's order, well, tough luck for everybody...

one might say that Al Hallaj performed such a miracle and was subsequently
persecuted.  I'm unsure that *any* action which might manifest as 
persecution is *ever* in line with submission to Allah.  it is the same
when jihad (some say the sixth pillar of Islam) is taken too far.


|...if the good guys sometimes resemble the bad guys, things get
|a lot murkier... at least for Moslems.  

for everyone, and this is today the case.  we watch films where the good
guys where white and the bad guys black and think we can then tell the 
evil by seeing who wears black (or sports horrid nickname) and carries 
around symbols of evil.  and yet are we watching their heart, the fruits 
of their dedication?  no, we are only once again judging a book by its 
cover rather than its content and foiling the Creator's workings.

yet today's movies sometimes reverse the roles.  the bad white-wearer,
the good black-wearer.  it challenges our notions of how to distinguish
quickly the evils of the world.  perhaps distinguishing quickly is
itself an evil.


|...something in Idries Shah that didn't encourage my conversion to Islam 
|much.  It was the story of a minister who betrayed his ruler and gave 
|secrets to a foreign conqueror.  The conqueror had him executed, since a 
|man who betrays his ruler could not be trusted.  

conversion is merely a turning around to look at Allah behind us instead
of Allah before us.  when we take the Allah previous and betray it to
the Allah present we betray ourselves and our integrity.  if we can honor
all of the divine, then we have true shariah.


Hugh Talat Halman <hthashq1@acpub.duke.edu>
|...Khizr, the Green One, discovered the water of life, in all places, 
|in the Land of Darkness.

the most extreme discipline is needed to practice in the Land of Darkness,
so Allah placed the greatest sources of inspiration and power there, both
where they would not be found by any except those who need them and where
they were closest to those who had no other refuge.


Richard Romanowski:
|>Note:  I don't claim to *understand* the Koran. 

|...if you recognize God as the God of Unity, Compassion, and Justice 
|embodied in the world (nature), revelation (prophets and messengers) 
|and knowledge --- and our *din Allah* (religion or obligation [dayyan]) 
|to make these virtues or attributes of God realities of our socio-economic 
|and interpersonal life [then], according to your commitment, and God's 
|Guidance & Will you have understood greatly.

I have seldom seen such beauteous words in Tariqas Elist.


|...Islamic legal scholars (fuquha') rule that saving life outweighs Pork 
|deprivation and medically-unsustainable fasting.

we must presume this means 'saving human life' and it is very important. 
yet to some the very life of humans (not as a group of individuals but 
as a species, in the context of our world) depends on measures such as 
vegetarianism and the refraining from meat-eating entirely so as to 
preserve our living kin (as well as other disciplines, such as consuming
less generally and promoting a girdling of human reproduction).  

different contexts yield different necessities, and seldom do we focus 
upon these necessities until our OWN lives are at stake.  Allah help 
the creatures apart from humans who have no voice in either religion or 
politics, let alone the children who rarely do either.  


|>...the Rosicrucian maxim to serve God in the station to which it has 
|>[pleased] Him to call you.

|How do we know that station. 

through the mechanism of our hearts (qalb) and the whisperings of the
One (Allah) and Hir Glory (Muhammad).


|Is birth the final call? Did Augustine (Manichean convert to Christianity) 
|St Paul, Rabi'a (Christian convert to Islam), Hazret 'Ali, Malcolm X etc., 
|betray their call? How should we judge? 

for ourselves and ourselves only, respecting the right of others to judge
for themselves what is their call and what becomes self-betrayal.


|I agree with this Rosicrucian maxim, but how do we live it and practice it.

to live it we must first determine what is the call of Allah, and this is
no easy matter.  first we must in some way turn down the call of all others,
entering into the cave of repose so that we may hear the faint rumblings
in response to our entreaty, leaving a place for the divine to take up
residence in the foundation of our hearts.

once we have heard this call, we must be sure that it is that of Allah and
not some deceiptful djinn, our mere desires, or the echoes of our parents
and society.  it is at these two points that a sheikh is very valuable,
and for some a necessity.

when we are sure that the call we hear is of Allah, then we listen to it
with the entirety of our being, casting ourselves before it like the
recently told story in Tariqas (beauteous!) of the man who cast himself
down as the testament of faith (shahadah).

from here there is no telling where we will go, just as when the sheikh
takes us as his disciple and instructs us hither and thither, wearing
away our nafs and demonstrating to us how low and immature we truly are.


|Let us listen to the Signs of God which the Qur'an relates from Nature, 
|Humanity, History, and Revelation and listen for the resonance in our hearts.

Allah is Great!!!!  let this ring from our very bones and fill our hearts
with such joy that ten-thousand condemnations of our pathway do not sway
us, that we need never say a word in defense of Hir Glory, that we need 
never try to persuade another except through the perfection of our deeds 
in the path of true compassion and wisdom.  yea, in the path of true 
compassion and wisdom.

Peace be with you, my kin.

Haramullah
tyagi@houseofkaos.abyss.com