John G. Bennett - Idries Shah

Idries Shah

While the educational work was progressing, Bennett learned of Idries Shah, an exponent of Sufism. When they met, Shah presented Bennett with a document supporting his claim to represent the 'Guardians of the Tradition'. Bennett and other followers of Gurdjieff's ideas were astonished to meet a man claiming to represent what Gurdjieff had called 'The Inner Circle of Humanity', something they had discussed for so long without hope of its concrete manifestation.

Bennett introduced "teaching stories" to his groups on Shah's instructions. These are now widely published and recognized as important teaching materials containing the essence of Sufi knowledge and insight.

It remained unclear as to what the future relationship between the Institute, Bennett and Shah could become. Eventually Bennett decided to put Coombe Springs at Shah's disposal to do with as he saw fit. In October 1965 at an extraordinary General Meeting of the Institute, Bennett persuaded the membership to take this step.

Shah originally indicated that he would take Bennett's psychological groups under his own wing. Bennett welcomed this, as it would allow him to concentrate on research and writing. However, he again found himself unpopular - not only with conservatives within the Institute, but also with other followers of Idries Shah and members of his organisation SUFI (Society for the Understanding of the Foundation of Ideas).

In the spring of 1966, The Institute for Comparative Study donated Coombe Springs to Shah, who promptly sold it for a housing development. The Djamee was destroyed. About half the people who had studied under Bennett were integrated into his groups while the rest were left 'in the air'. The Institute was left with the educational research work as its main focus. The work with the Hirst Research Laboratories of G.E.C. bore fruit in the new teaching machine, the 'Systemaster', and Bennett organised various young people around him to write and develop teaching materials that followed the structural communication method.

Bennett and some of the Coombe Springs residents had moved into a nearby house in Kingston upon Thames, where the family (the Bennetts now had two sons and two young daughters) would live quietly for four years before Bennett embarked on his last great project - an experimental school for passing on techniques for spiritual transformation.