Idries Shah - The Dermis Probe

Sufi Studies and Middle Eastern Literature

The Sufis

Caravan of Dreams

The Way of the Sufi

Tales of the Dervishes: Teaching-stories Over a
Thousand Years

Sufi Thought and Action

Traditional Psychology,
Teaching Encounters and Narratives

Thinkers of the East: Studies in Experientialism
Wisdom of the Idiots

The Dermis Probe

Learning How to Learn: Psychology and Spirituality
in the Sufi Way

Knowing How to Know

The Magic Monastery: Analogical and Action Philosophy

Seeker After Truth

Observations

Evenings with Idries Shah

The Commanding Self

University Lectures

A Perfumed Scorpion (Institute for the Study of
Human Knowledge and California University)
Special Problems in the Study of Sufi Ideas
(Sussex University)

The Elephant in the Dark: Christianity,
Islam and the Sufis (Geneva University)

Neglected Aspects of Sufi Study: Beginning to Begin

(The New School for Social Research)

Letters and Lectures of Idries Shah

Current and Traditional Ideas

Reflections

The Book of the Book

A Veiled Gazelle: Seeing How to See

Special Illumination: The Sufi Use of Humor

The Mulla Nasrudin Corpus

The Pleasantries of the Incredible Mulla Nasrudin

The Subtleties of the Inimitable Mulla Nasrudin

The Exploits of the Incomparable Mulla Nasrudin

The World of Nasrudin

Travel and Exploration

Destination Mecca

Studies in Minority Beliefs

The Secret Lore of Magic

Oriental Magic

Selected Folktales and Their Background

World Tales

A Novel

Kara Kush

Sociological Works

Darkest England

The Natives Are Restless

The Englishmans Handbook

Translated by Idries Shah

The Hundred Tales of Wisdom (Aflakis Munaqib)

Idries Shah

Copyright The Estate of Idries Shah

The right of the Estate of Idries Shah to be identified as the owner of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved
Copyright throughout the world

ISBN 978-1-78479-053-0 (ePub)

First Published 1970
Published in this edition 2016

No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical or photographic, by recording or any information storage or retrieval system or method now known or to be invented or adapted, without prior permission obtained in writing from the publisher, ISF Publishing, except by a reviewer quoting brief passages in a review written for inclusion in a journal, magazine, newspaper, blog or broadcast.

Requests for permission to reprint, reproduce etc., to:

The Permissions Department

ISF Publishing

The Idries Shah Foundation

P. O. Box 71911 London NW2 9QA

United Kingdom

In association with The Idries Shah Foundation

The Idries Shah Foundation is a registered charity in the United Kingdom Charity No. 1150876

A man once wanted to observe goldfish. His aim was to see whether some of their peculiarities could help scientists to understand certain human nervous conditions.

He found a patron to support the work and traveled to a far country to carry out his research.

Soon after he started his goldfish-watching, however, the authorities discovered that he lacked the necessary licenses and certificates. By watching goldfish he had broken the law.

Although a university graduate and an expert on the psychology of fish, this man was unaware of the local regulations and the mentality of those who made and interpreted them.

In this book you can find illustrated some of the peculiarities of thought in the country which is todays world, seen by its inhabitants and by those who call themselves visitors.

If you think, incidentally, that a scientist is allowed to watch goldfish without permission, read the Report of the Home Office under the Cruelty to Animals Act, published in 1968, where the offense is officially recorded.

O VER EIGHT HUNDRED years ago, the philosopher Hakim Majdud Sanai of Ghazna (Afghanistan), in his Walled Garden of Truth, published this tale in a form corresponding to the needs of his time. His pupil and fellow-countryman, Jalaludin Rumi, immortalized his version in the incomparable Mathnavi, toward the end of the thirteenth century. In 1965 this adaptation was filmed by the celebrated producer-director Richard Williams on the basis of a twentieth-century version by Idries Shah.

The film won a citation as an Outstanding Film of the Year, being chosen for exhibition at the London and New York Film Festivals.

M EMBERS OF THE Commission of World Scientists gaze at a bewildering sight, brought to us by television, using cameras equipped with close-up lenses of inordinate power.

The picture pans across a greyish, striated surface, a vista of solid in space, broken here and there by fissures, sometimes curving, sometimes obscured by flat shadows. Nothing moves, nothing grows on the barren area. The harsh roughness of the sight hints at a silent, empty mass, an outer skin as of a larva or a pachyderm, gnarled as though with immemorial age.

As we watch, the American commentators voice sets the scene of this documentary report:

From the beginning of time, man has consistently and untiringly explored his environment, he has striven to extend the threshold of his knowledge, even driving probes deep into outer space

The British voice of the Chairman of the Commission is now heard, as the pictures of the object alternate, the angles varying, to give as complete a view as possible of the intimidating, silent bulk:

What we are considering here is the, er, topography of the outer husk, as it were, the skin of the, er, bulk of a mass whose characteristics are

Now fades in the matter-of-fact report of the laboratory astrophysicist, giving a fragment of his results:

Microscopic sections of this undoubtedly organic material betray a cellular structure strikingly akin to Dermic tissue.

The viewers can hear sounds corresponding with the laboratory operation. The astrophysicist continues:

Staining the section with Von Glaubens Fluid

He is interrupted, for this is a democratic discussion.

The German Scientists rejoinder is clearly heard:

Von Glaubens Fluid? May I point out that this was found to be a totally arbitrary method in early nineteen hundred and sixty-three, when it was superseded by Kauffer and Blakmanns Traumatic Method. It is totally out of date.

The Chairman, like all good chairmen, switches the discussion to bring in another constructive scientist: