Qutb: We are also watchful of the culture in general, and teach indirectly though many aspects of the arts, both popular and of the more elite.

Noor: Popular arts? Can you give an example?

Qutb: Well yes. Matt Groening is a Blaketashi, for example, and The Simpsons is currently one of the most important Sufic projections now ongoing in the West.

Noor: The Simpsons a Sufic projection? It is ….. abominable.

Qutb: You were too immature to understand its significance prior to your current conditioning, and your current conditioning is to consider it an abomination. You have neatly avoided something which might have benefited you.

Noor: You can’t be serious.

Qutb: Is not the seriousness of the Blaketashis absolutely apparent, my dear?

(fumbling….rustling. sounds of tape recorder being shut off, turned on…)

Noor: Can you tell me something about the different branches and factions within the Blaketashi Darwishes? How many other Qutbs are there?

Qutb: Branches? Factions? The Blaketashi Darwishes are a universal expression. There are no branches. There are no factions. There is only one pole-star, and I am he.

Noor: Other branches of Sufism are also Universal, and yet have many different branches and conflicting leaderships. Are you telling me that you are immune from this?

Qutb: You might notice that the word ‘Universal’ has the word ‘uni’ or one in it. How can anything with many branches and leaders, which deny the integrity of other branches and leaders possibly be called ‘universal?’

Noor: Still, many such organizations call themselves that. But have you never had any challenges to your authority?

Qutb: No. It is unthinkable. You must understand, that the Blaketashi Darwishes have avoided many of the errors of our fellow Sufis.

Noor: Yes?

Qutb: As I mentioned, there is only one link in any Blaketashi chain of transmission, so our histories do not divide us. Once one of our colleagues has tenure, he or she has complete academic freedom, so there is nothing possible to rebel against. And as to my role of Qutb, there is no possible questioning of that role. So we are in fact insulated from strife.

Noor: How is it you, as Qutb, were selected, that such a selection is incontrovertible?

Qutb: Well, I am not at liberty to say. But it shares certain similarities with how the Dalai Lama is selected, and other similarities to the Pope.

Noor: Not at liberty to say? I thought you were Qutb:

Qutb: I was being polite. Not at liberty to say is a courteous way of saying that it is none of your business.

Noor: There is a speculated relationship between the Blaketashi Darwishes and Idries Shah.

Qutb: That is so.

Noor: What was the nature of that relationship?

Qutb: Idries, or Milton, which was his given Blaketashi name, encountered Blaketashi Sufism when he was a student at Oxford. The dramatic impact which it had on his thinking can clearly be seen by examining the thread of his written works. The relationship between Idries Shah and the Blaketashis is one of long-standing, and I feel a great sympathy with him. In fact, I often discuss matters with Shah that I discuss with no other.

Noor: Shah is dead, isn’t he?

Qutb: The discussions to which I refer are in dream.

Noor: Are you saying that you are a Uwaysi of Shah?

Qutb: That is a freighted term for some simple conversations.

Noor: So you consider Shah a Blaketashi?

Qutb: Shah was a man of the universe, and is beyond concise formulations. But when some student expresses a desire to learn in the Blaketashi way, I tell him or her, that if they wish to become a Blaketashi, they must recite Blake, and Whitman, and Eliot, read Emerson and Thoreau. But that if they wish to understand the context of their desire, to read Shah.

Noor: How would you say that the Blaketashis stack up against other forms of Sufic expression available to people around the world?

Qutb: The Blaketashis are a Sufic expression appropriate to the West. It is not meant to supplant Sufic expressions in the East.

Noor: I hardly think you need worry about that.

Qutb: Exactly my point. A fundamental realization of the Blaketashi is that, first, spiritually-worthy works of other languages lose their effectiveness in translation. And second, that the English and other Western languages contain gems of spiritual instruction, not usually recognized as such.

Noor: Works like the Mathnavi or Attar’s Conference of the Birds lose their effect in translation?

Qutb: Have you ever read The Conference of the Birds in translation? My goodness, I hope the poetry value of the original was a significant improvement on the translation I read! The translation reads like it was assembled by committee, written by some Junior high-school class.  Idries Shah talks about how any Arabic word has the same root values as forty-seven other words, and the nest of meaning proceeds through this similarity of root value.  All this meaning is lost in translation. Now, talented translators such as Barks and the Helminskis manage to stuff some of the light back into their translations, but is it the same light as the author intended? One wonders.

Noor: But how can this situation be rectified?

Qutb: It is rectified by turning one’s attention from one foot to the other. English contains the equal to the Arab and Persian poets. And it is poetry which is as it was when it left the voice of the poet, without veil.

Noor: Poetry then is important?

Qutb: Poetry operates in the space between mind and spirit, in the dark place which connects us to God. The best poetry is like a Zen koan, and tugs at us in ways we do not understand. The spiritual men and women of all ages have expressed their realization in poetry, because only poetry as overt language has the capacity to convey and even amplify this realization. This is why it is important that the poetry be good poetry, and not simply an adequate translation.

Noor: Who are important Blaketashi poets?

Qutb: Well, of course Blake, who in his Marriage of Heaven and Hell forms the spiritual underpinnings of the entire Blaketashi mode of thought. Then there is Whitman. Ah, Whitman! If they ever to open his grave, he will be found to be incorrupt. TS Eliot. Wordsworth.  Emerson.  Coleridge on a good day.

Noor: But these are poets. They do not provide spiritual direction.

Qutb: Of course they do. You have never looked at the materials without preconception.

Noor: Can you give me an example?

Qutb: If I might quote from TS Eliot’s Four Quartets

Imagine trying to translate that into Turkish! Do you not see spiritual instruction therein? In truth, an understanding of those line is adequate to enlightenment.

Noor: So you’re saying that Blaketashi Sufism is superior in the West to other ‘imported’ Sufism?

Qutb: Well, to be frank, it’s a mixed bag. We Blaketashis have materials directed at the culture which we are trying to reach, composed in the language of those people, by spiritual masters. Also, we find many aspects of the popular culture of the West to be a fruitful source of spiritual growth, unlike our Eastern brethren, who, coming out of a more traditional cultures, who find everything Western suspect.  Like Blake, we revel in matters which the Easterners use as evidence against us.  So that is an advantage.  But Blaketashis, how shall I say this? …..have a somewhat primitive understanding of the Lataif.  The subtle spiritual centers.  There was a break with the more occultist amongst us as the twentieth century began, who wandered away to Rosicrucianism or the Golden Dawn.  So the Blaketashi has historically had a low regard for the more esoteric aspects of spiritual development, and in that regard we have perhaps thrown out the baby with the bath water.

Noor: Do you have plans to rectify that?

Qutb: We are awaiting the person who may achieve that reconciliation. For a while, we had believed it was Idries Shah. Then considered were persons such as Vilayat Khan, and the Helminskis, or Robert Bly, or even Vaughn-Lee. But all of them, unfortunately, either died before achieving their goals, or were unable to free themselves sufficiently from the muck to achieve what we now term ‘launch velocity’. But the Blaketashis are in the process of rectifying that matter.

Noor: How is that?

Qutb: I am not at liberty to say.

Noor: Well, our time is about through. Can you share any ongoing plans about near-term Blaketashi activities?

Qutb: Well, we are currently in discussion with Shambala, Omega, Kripalu and others, in regards to sponsoring a Blaketashi expression of spiritual tourism.

Noor: Spiritual tourism? What is that?

Qutb: It is the taking of holidays to exotic locations, while convincing oneself of its spiritual merits. Such as spending a week doing yoga in Nepal, or the cook’s tour of the Middle East.

Noor: And what are your plans?

Qutb: We have proposed a trip to various spiritual locations in the mysterious West. We are planning to visit the turbe of William Blake.  Stonehendge.  The ashes of TS Eliot in Westminster. A meeting with the Anglican bishop of York.  And daily symposia about the high points of Western culture. Poetry recitations. $3,995.99 from New York, flight and dinners each evening included. Plus, a free tee-shirt.

Noor: And you think that will be of benefit to people?

Qutb: It will provide as much benefit, I am confident, as doing a week of yoga in Nepal.

Noor: Thank you for the interview.

Qutb: Via con Dios.

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