[www.sufi-spiritual-abuse-recovery-assistance.org]

This remarkable site was created by an Islamic Sufi. (The Islamic affiliation is mentioned because the reader who visits this site will encounter quite a few Islamic terms and may wish to keep a pen and notebook at hand to assist learning their meanings. This effort will be worth it because the essays in the spiritual abuse section are rich reading, detailed, full of substance. You may not agree with all the material but you'll work your mental and emotional muscles, like a good session at the gym.)


The author does not provide a list of specific groups or culprits and offers an interesting reason: tactics used by counterfeit teachers constantly change and serious spiritual crookeness never follows rules. Only real remedy is to become as wise and discerning as possible.

At the same time, the author is clear that it is wrong to blame people for suffering spiritual abuse; he has seen crookedness that was so subtle, so patient, and so devious that even wise and cautious persons were seduced.

Though written by and for persons who profess and practice Islam, much of the material applies to other traditions.

The moderator studied with a genuine Sufi master, then later on was very skillfully recruited into the circle of a manipulative master. (see the essay 'Canadian Wilderness)

[sufi-spiritual-abuse-recovery-assistance.org]

and describes his own recruitment here:

(excerpt)

Those who have honed their expertise in the ways of spiritual guile, however, are often very difficult to expose. Such individuals are very aware - at least, on a certain level - about the nature of the game in which they are engaged, and, consequently, they are quite adept at disguising their intentions, motives, and purposes.

One such person infiltrated my life. The way in which this was done was so patient and so subtle that normal defenses concerning the new and unknown had long, since, been put to rest.

A woman called me on the phone. She asked if I was the person who was conducting a weekly discussion group about the Sufi Path at the university.

I said: "yes". She said she would come to the next meeting, and she did.

She came to those meetings for an extended period of time. Occasionally, but only very occasionally, she would make passing, oblique references to her shaykh, but, for the most part, she remained quiet.

Over time, a friendship developed with the woman and her family. There was a gradual transition from discussion group participant, to social acquaintance, independent of the group, to my becoming a part-time Islamic tutor for her two children, to being asked to say weekly Fatihas for the family.

Apparently, the woman's spiritual guide had told the woman to find me and attend the weekly meetings. In addition, the phantom shaykh had told the woman to have me serve as a tutor for her children and to read Fatiha for the family.

Nearly two years later, the shaykh enters, stage left. I, along with a number of other members of the university discussion group (which usually consisted of from four to eight people), meet with the shaykh who has been away in Pakistan, India, England, and other locations throughout this period of time that I have been becoming friends with the woman who had been sent to locate me - although I never knew any of this prior to my initiation.'

The rest of this account can be read here:

[sufi-spiritual-abuse-recovery-assistance.org]