Using the powerful approach of classical teachers, Shah has crafted a contemporary teaching tool that blends a fastpaced look at today's world with the timeless teachings of the Sufis. The book brings into sharp focus the conditioned behavior and self-deception that are common in Western minds. Far more than a literary tool for breaking loose old mental habits, it is a blueprint for a process of self-development that precludes self-deceit. Truly a book among books, A Perfumed Scorption is treasured the world over for its clarity of wisdom and forcefulness of insight.

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.

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.

A 'Veiled Gazelle', as the great mystic Ibn Arabi explains in his Interpreter of Desires, is a subtlety, an organ of higher perception. Sufi experientialists refer to the activation of these centres of awareness as the awakening of real knowledge of Truth beyond form. A Veiled Gazelle considers the symbolic and instrumental employment of its literature in Sufi studies. Seldom didactic, and never meant only as entertainment, such works are regarded as some of the world's greatest and most important writing.

Shah deals here with aspects of Sufi material, and the psychology of his readership, which underline the unique way in which Sufi studies should be approached.

A remarkable conspectus of philosophical contacts between East and West through the ages. This important monograph constitutes the whole text of Idries Shah's Seminar at Sussex University, fully annotated, indexed and with a bibliography and notes. It knits together the available knowledge about Sufi thought and literature in its passage through many deforming influences, such as the development of cults, the misinterpretation by literalist scholars, and the fallacious comparisons of committed "e;specialists"e;.

Here, Nasrudin's anecdotes are seen to be parallel to the mind's working, designed to amuse the tea-house, but also intended for use on other levels.