Quotessence
Home / Authors / Peter Lamborn Wilson

Peter Lamborn Wilson Quotes

Author

Filter quotes by topic

AllHakim BeyPeter Lamborn WilsonSufismAnarchismMoorish ScienceSufiAnarchistHeterotopiaLiberationSufi QuotesFreedomIslamic QuotesMysticismSufi PoetryAttarBeat GenerationGreen KnightInsurrectionJusticePeace

Famous Peter Lamborn Wilson Quotes

“When you say the name of Khezr (or Khadir) in company you should always add the greeting "Salaam aliekum!" since he may be there - immortal and anonymous, engaged on some mysterious karmic errand. Perhaps he'll hint of his identity by wearing green, or by revealing knowledge of the occult and hidden. But he's something of a spy, and if you have no need to know he's unlikely to tell you. Still, one of his functions is to convince skeptics of the existence of the marvelous, to rescue those who are lost in deserts of doubt and dryness. So he's needed now more than ever, and surely still moves among us playing his great game.”

MysticismSufismSufiThe Green KnightGreen ManHakim BeyPeter Lamborn WilsonGreen KnightKhidr
Book:Sacred Drift: Essays on the Margins of Islam
Create image

“Among the sufis, one attains purity not by ritual ablution, not by faith and worship, not by deed or merit, but by direct knowledge, experience, certainty, the drunkenness of ecstatic realization. Only this intoxication truly purifies the soul, because with this "wine" one becomes lost, and finds oneself, within the heart. One loses all separative delusions, the dirt of a muffled consciousness, and attains the One. This is to wander nude in the bazaar, like a naked Qalandar. But if the bazaar is shocked, then scandal belongs to the bazaar, not the dervish. Like a drunkard, the suf loses his reputation in the world because the world has lost its reputation with him. The petty bazaar stands accused of hypocrisy; the naked man stands before God.”

MysticismSufismSufi QuotesSufi PoetryOccultismHakim BeySufism QuotesQalandarIslamic MysticismQalandar Quotes
Book:Scandal: Essays in Islamic Heresy
Create image

“Metaphysical truth is scandalous; that is, it violates all the accepted modes of perception, all the ordinary, epistemologically neutral expectations of the sleeping soul. It tears open a curtain and reveals the occult; it unveils a beauty which is "forbidden" only because we ignore it in our stupor.”

SufismIslamic QuotesSufi QuotesHakim BeyAnarchism QuotesIslamic MetaphysicsPhilsophical Sufism
Book:Scandal: Essays in Islamic Heresy
Create image

“As for me, I admire above all Noble Drew's aesthetic, his unique and special blend of Afro-American, Native-American, High Magical, and Oriental symbolism and imagery - as well as his courage, his martyrdom, and his revolutionary stance against "Pharaoh." By Americanizing the prophetic spirit he injected our culture with a kind of folk Sufism. On the esoteric level, anyone who loves Love, Truth, Peace, Freedom, and Justice is a member of the "Asiatic race" and the Lost/Found Moorish Nation of North America.”

SufismHakim BeyMoorish ScienceMoorPeter Lamborn Wilson QuotesAmerican IslamNoble Drew Ali
Book:Sacred Drift: Essays on the Margins of Islam
Create image

“If modern dervishes are no more than "traditional hippies," still I feel that the world has a secret but absolute need for the presence of such wild free spirits, just as it needs the presence of some wilderness, unplanned, unmanaged, apparently profitless, chaotic as God first made it. (And both of these needs seem to fall under the patronage of the master traveler, Khezr himself).”

SufismHippieFree SpiritBeat GenerationHakim BeyPeter Lamborn WilsonGreen KnightQalandar
Book:Sacred Drift: Essays on the Margins of Islam
Create image

“Divinity in Its Transcendence, the Absolute before any Self-manifestation, cannot be contemplated, for contemplation implies a subject and an object, and the Absolute is beyond all duality, all "place" and all knowing. It is the Mystery, the utterly inscrutable secret in the deepest part of Being, veiled behind all the inmost veils, yet somehow luring and teasing the lover. And the lover waits outside the door, ready to surrender his life at a sign.”

PoetrySufismSufiSufi PoetryAttar
Book:The Drunken Universe: An Anthology of Persian Sufi Poetry
Create image