The Idries Shah Podcast | Practical Psychology for Today

Welcome to the Idries Shah Foundation podcast, practical psychology for today. This weekly podcast features selections from Idries Shah books, as well as original recordings. It has been made available by The Idries Shah Foundation, and is voiced by David Ault. This episode features a selection of World Tales, by Idries Shah. 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’. In his introduction, Shah remarks, ‘Working for thirty-five years among the written and oral sources of our world heritage in tales, one feels a truly living element in them which is startlingly evident when one isolates the "basic" stories; the ones which tend to have travelled farthest, to have featured in the largest number of classical collections, to have inspired great writers of the past and present.'

Welcome to the Idries Shah Foundation podcast, practical psychology for today. This weekly podcast features selections from Idries Shah books, as well as original recordings. It has been made available by The Idries Shah Foundation, and is voiced by David Ault. This episode features a selection of Sufi Thought and Action, by Idries Shah. 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. The volume stands as a clear and simple handbook to many facets of Sufi study and thought. Shah’s introduction begins, ‘The object of Sufi spiritual teaching can be expressed as: to help to refine the individual’s consciousness so that it may reach the Radiances of Truth, from which one is cut off by ordinary activities of the world’.

Welcome to the Idries Shah Foundation podcast, practical psychology for today. This weekly podcast features selections from Idries Shah books, as well as original recordings. It has been made available by The Idries Shah Foundation, and is voiced by David Ault. This episode features selections of The Secret Lore of Magic, by Idries Shah. 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 and fully illustrated. The book’s title in itself signalled the fact that the bulk of material in this bibliographical study had never been published openly before. Together with Oriental Magic which appeared in the preceding year, it provided a complete survey of fundamental magical literature, and thus a comprehensive reference system for psychologists, ethnologists and others interested in the rise and development of human beliefs.  Both books also introduced the general reader to dependable information about what was a shadowy and confusing subject.

Welcome to the Idries Shah Foundation podcast, practical psychology for today. This weekly podcast features selections from Idries Shah books, as well as original recordings. It has been made available by The Idries Shah Foundation, and is voiced by David Ault. This episode features selections of Seeker After Truth, by Idries Shah. A treasure house of teaching materials, assembled in the Sufi manner. Seeker after Truth contains both traditional tales and stories gleaned from contemporary sources, and 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 kind of thought.

Welcome to the Idries Shah Foundation podcast, practical psychology for today. This weekly podcast features selections from Idries Shah books, as well as original recordings. It has been made available by The Idries Shah Foundation, and is voiced by David Ault. This episode features selections of The Englishman's Handbook, by Idries Shah. The Englishman’s Handbook is the third book in Idries Shah’s best-selling trilogy on why the English are as strange as they are. He examines the ‘baffling phenomena of the British and Britishness’, presenting a manual of handy tips on how to muddle through while visiting English shores. An illuminating and often hilarious read, the book is just as valuable to the British as it is to foreigners. It contains all sorts of extraordinary information on how to confuse foreigners with sheer Englishness, if any do manage to break through the barriers.

Welcome to the Idries Shah Foundation podcast, practical psychology for today. This weekly podcast features selections from Idries Shah books, as well as original recordings. It has been made available by The Idries Shah Foundation, and is voiced by David Ault. This episode features selections of The Natives are Restless, by Idries Shah. The Natives Are Restless chronicles some of the amazing, amusing, and thought-provoking adventures of the Afghan traveller and writer, Idries Shah, among members of what he calls the ‘English tribe’.  It is an enthralling sequel to his bestselling Darkest England, the narrative illustrating his practised eye as an anthropologist. Shah observes how the English see themselves, and contrasts it with how the rest of the world views this eccentric island race.  He also speculates on the likely continuing effect of Englishness on the future development of global society, offering unsuspecting parallels between English attitudes and Oriental wisdom.

Welcome to the Idries Shah Foundation podcast, practical psychology for today. This weekly podcast features selections from Idries Shah books, as well as original recordings. It has been made available by The Idries Shah Foundation, and is voiced by David Ault. This episode features selections of Darkest England, by Idries Shah. In his best-selling Darkest England, Idries Shah asserts that the English hail from a little-known place called ‘Hathaby’, but their roots go back much farther, perhaps to the distant Asian realm of Sakasina. Once a nomadic tribe of warriors, the English fled westward, bringing with them epic tales, traditions, and an Oriental way of thought. Shah charts the genius of the English in adopting and adapting ‘almost anything spiritual, moral or material’ for their own use – a faculty that has transformed them from warrior nomads into successful diplomats, businessmen, thinkers and scientists.

Welcome to the Idries Shah Foundation podcast, practical psychology for today. This weekly podcast features selections from Idries Shah books, as well as original recordings. It has been made available by The Idries Shah Foundation, and is voiced by David Ault. This episode features selections of Knowing How to Know, by Idries Shah. Contemporary esoteric systems almost always play on the desire of mankind to seek or acquire knowledge. All but universally neglected in such systems are the – often unrecognised – barriers which prevent knowledge and understanding. Before learning can take place, certain conditions and basic factors must be in place; in the individual or the group. Building on the foundations laid in Learning How to Learn and The Commanding Self, Idries Shah in Knowing How to Know illuminates those factors.  Like an ultra-violet light shone onto the petals of flowers, it reveals concealed patterns, normally invisible to our customary modes of thought. 

Welcome to the Idries Shah Foundation podcast, practical psychology for today. This weekly podcast features selections from Idries Shah books, as well as original recordings. It has been made available by The Idries Shah Foundation, and is voiced by David Ault. This episode features selections of The Idries Shah Anthology, by Idries Shah. The Idries Shah Anthology is a special collection of previously published work by Idries Shah, and was edited by Saira Shah. This title includes an Introduction by Saira Shah, as well as comments and annotations throughout the text. Each chapter includes a selection from the works of Idries Shah on topics such as Sufism, Nasrudin, fables, poetry, proverbs, and teaching stories.   It includes methods of the masters and themes for study and contemplation. This new compilation of excerpts from the classic texts of Idries Shah will leave you with a new perspective on his work.

Welcome to the Idries Shah Foundation podcast, practical psychology for today. This weekly podcast features selections from Idries Shah books, as well as original recordings. It has been made available by The Idries Shah Foundation, and is voiced by David Ault. This episode features a selection of The World of Nasrudin, by Idries Shah. Nasrudin is the greatest of all Arab folk heroes, and is found across the Islamic World, from Morocco to Pakistan, and beyond. He is said to have been the wisest fool who ever lived – that is if he ever did live at all. Stories of Nasrudin’s many incarnations are studied by Sufis for their hidden wisdom, and are universally enjoyed for their humour. Sometimes Nasrudin is an impoverished itinerant or stallholder, and at others, he is the mayor, judge, vizier, or even the King. The World of Nasrudin is the fourth book in the corpus written by Idries Shah, and is the last to be published by the celebrated Afghan author.