User talk:JohnBuuseue
ISF web site issues[edit]
Hi John, thanks again for reporting the issues with The Idries Shah Foundation's web site. They're looking into this, and they ask if you could possibly get a screenshot to show what's wrong, if that's possible. Something to show messages about insecure content or it being a fake site.
You can do this by pressing the [Prt Sc] (print screen) key, then opening up a paint program and selecting Edit -> Paste. Maybe crop out any private information from the screen. Then save and attach to an email.
If you could email this to idriesshahfoundation@gmail.com, that would be a great help. Thanks. Regards, Esowteric+Talk 15:02, 28 February 2017 (UTC)
- Hi Esowteric, I sent ISF some more details from the automatic response. I will also see if I can find out anything from my provider. The last time I looked (successfully) at the ISF site was perhaps a month ago.JohnBuuseue (talk) 20:27, 1 March 2017 (UTC)
- Hi Eric, Just to let you know that I can now access the ISF website and it's been this way for awhile. I think the first time I noticed this was when ISF started sending out email notices about new blogs being posted.JohnBuuseue (talk) 20:04, 10 September 2018 (UTC)
Philosopher's Stone[edit]
He JohnBuuseue, I have reverted your edit to Philosopher's Stone because the term is not mentioned in either of the articles that you linked to. If you feel that the chapter titles are important, you could add them to the article The Sufis and then re-list the book on Philosopher's Stone. Leschnei (talk) 14:06, 21 March 2019 (UTC)
Ended up finding what seems to be a better place in this article for the information you added recently - I also edited this a little, hopefully without changing your meaning. All the same, your comments would be very welcome! --Soundofmusicals (talk) 22:51, 29 September 2019 (UTC)
- Idries Shah lived most of his life in England and published in English for a Western audience, including collections of tales such as World Tales. The inclusion of the text under the sub-title "In Arab culture" is thus quite inaccurate. The text concerns the origin and intention of the Arabian Nights stories. I can see no more appropriate place to include it than the history section where I placed it.JohnBuuseue (talk) 06:28, 1 October 2019 (UTC)
- This speculative theory of Idries Shah's, based on Arab numerology, seems to me to be very much an example of the modern tendency of Eastern thought that simply would not have occurred to anyone in the days when eastern critics seem to have thought of the Nights (if they thought of it at all) as vulgar and shallow. It only has anything to do with the textual "history" of the Nights in the context of an acceptance of the work of a single (albeit eminent) critic, writing in an Arabic/Islamic (specifically Sufi) context. However interesting and persuasive this may appear it certainly does not represent a scholarly consensus. Idries Shah's Wikipedia article describes him as "an author and teacher in the Sufi (Islamic mystical) tradition" - certainly the work described here obviously fits this very Islamic/Arab context rather than being a collection of tales, compiled largely for a western audience. In short, it really did not fit very well where it was, in fact I was initially very confused about exactly what it had to do with the topic of the article. The basic argument of the section I moved it to is something like "historically, Arab/Islamic thought did not take the Nights very seriously (to put it mildly) but following on its widespread influence in the west this has changed". It fits perfectly here as a very interesting example of exactly what we are discussing. --Soundofmusicals (talk) 08:05, 1 October 2019 (UTC)
- I don't agree, but will will leave what you have done. Your decision is based on (albeit widespread) ignorance of Shah and the Sufis. JohnBuuseue (talk) 08:52, 11 January 2020 (UTC)
- This speculative theory of Idries Shah's, based on Arab numerology, seems to me to be very much an example of the modern tendency of Eastern thought that simply would not have occurred to anyone in the days when eastern critics seem to have thought of the Nights (if they thought of it at all) as vulgar and shallow. It only has anything to do with the textual "history" of the Nights in the context of an acceptance of the work of a single (albeit eminent) critic, writing in an Arabic/Islamic (specifically Sufi) context. However interesting and persuasive this may appear it certainly does not represent a scholarly consensus. Idries Shah's Wikipedia article describes him as "an author and teacher in the Sufi (Islamic mystical) tradition" - certainly the work described here obviously fits this very Islamic/Arab context rather than being a collection of tales, compiled largely for a western audience. In short, it really did not fit very well where it was, in fact I was initially very confused about exactly what it had to do with the topic of the article. The basic argument of the section I moved it to is something like "historically, Arab/Islamic thought did not take the Nights very seriously (to put it mildly) but following on its widespread influence in the west this has changed". It fits perfectly here as a very interesting example of exactly what we are discussing. --Soundofmusicals (talk) 08:05, 1 October 2019 (UTC)