AFTER DARK · NO. 1

<h2><em>The bookstore stays open.</em></h2><p><em>Welcome to the first</em> <em><strong>After Dark.</strong></em></p><p>I have never quite known what to do with everything that accumulates while making <strong>Spiritual Relief</strong>.</p><p>There are translations that only become a paragraph in a film. Books I find because of a footnote and then spend three days reading. Quotations copied into notebooks. Old photographs and manuscripts. Pieces of music. Unfinished essays. Sources that lead somewhere unexpected.</p><blockquote><p><em>Sometimes something wonderful that has no obvious place to go at all.</em></p></blockquote><p><strong>After Dark is going to be that place.</strong></p><p>Ten times a year, I’ll open the door and put out whatever has accumulated on the desk.</p><p>I don’t know exactly what this will become yet.</p><p><em>I rather like that.</em></p><p><em><strong>James</strong></em></p><div><hr></div><h3><strong>The Hidden Heart</strong></h3><p><em>From SpiritualRelief Records</em></p><div><figure><a href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/%24s_!nBrH!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fc8d8feb3-fe7a-4181-b0ae-cab82d8ef717_1672x941.png"></a><div><a href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/%24s_!nBrH!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fc8d8feb3-fe7a-4181-b0ae-cab82d8ef717_1672x941.png"></a><source type="image/webp"><a href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/%24s_!nBrH!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fc8d8feb3-fe7a-4181-b0ae-cab82d8ef717_1672x941.png"><img src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!nBrH!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fc8d8feb3-fe7a-4181-b0ae-cab82d8ef717_1672x941.png" width="1456" height="819" alt=""></a></source><a href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/%24s_!nBrH!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fc8d8feb3-fe7a-4181-b0ae-cab82d8ef717_1672x941.png"></a><div><a href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/%24s_!nBrH!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fc8d8feb3-fe7a-4181-b0ae-cab82d8ef717_1672x941.png"></a><div><a href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/%24s_!nBrH!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fc8d8feb3-fe7a-4181-b0ae-cab82d8ef717_1672x941.png"></a></div><a href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/%24s_!nBrH!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fc8d8feb3-fe7a-4181-b0ae-cab82d8ef717_1672x941.png"></a></div><a href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/%24s_!nBrH!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fc8d8feb3-fe7a-4181-b0ae-cab82d8ef717_1672x941.png"></a></div><a href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/%24s_!nBrH!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fc8d8feb3-fe7a-4181-b0ae-cab82d8ef717_1672x941.png"></a></figure></div><div></div><p><em>From the original soundtrack to</em> Every School of Sufism Explained · 2026</p><h2>From the <em>Futūḥāt</em></h2><h3>Ibn ʿArabī on the Pilgrimage</h3><p><em>Al-Futūḥāt al-Makkiyya, Chapter 72 — On the Pilgrimage (Ḥajj) and Its Secrets</em></p><p><strong>Translated by James Fleming for SpiritualRelief from the critical edition of ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz Sulṭān al-Manṣūb (Cairo)</strong></p><p><em>The chapter opens not with an explanation, but with these verses.</em></p><blockquote><p>The Pilgrimage is a divine obligation upon humanity<br>From the time of our father [Adam], raised up from the dust.</p><p>An obligation upon us — yet we do not fulfill it<br>As the obligatory due demands: to be met head-on.</p><p>If you enter the iḥrām stripped bare,<br>From every state, in poverty and insolvency —</p><p>The rites will lead you, naked and clothed,<br>Through every mirror as a shaven one.</p><p>In it is the response to the Real from the depths;<br>In it is the sounding of church-bells for the bishop and deacon.</p><p>In it are the acts of worship: fasting and connection,<br>And prayer, and the ruling of generosity and might.</p><p>In the standing [at ʿArafāt] are meanings nothing resembles<br>Except the trodden floor of the Lord of jinn and humankind.</p><p>If I heard the jingling of anklets, I was made passionate by them<br>While standing — and the earrings and bracelets!</p><p>In al-Muḥaṣṣab, a supplication — the unique one makes it his own:<br>The casting of pebbles at the whisperer who whispers.</p><p>God singled it out, in the belly of His earth,<br>On the Day of Standing — in abasement and dejection.</p><p>Gather with the scattering at Muzdalifa:<br>No harm shall touch you from that scattering.</p><p>When you remember matters through Him,<br>Be like the seeker of refuge — beware of Isāf and Nāʾila!</p><p>In it, one who offers the sacrificial victim becomes, in a quality,<br>Called by that offering: “the Hard One” [al-Qāsī].</p><p>The Essence is beheld — no ambition reaches it,<br>Guarded between protectors and watchmen.</p><p>Great of affair, its seeker bewildered,<br>Surrounded by the garden of meadows and myrtle.</p><p>Wounded by what afflicted it in my youth —<br>What weeping when that wound has no healer!</p></blockquote><div><figure><a href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/%24s_!DOEa!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fdaad8c60-59f7-47af-8d87-b4226122717c_1200x862.jpeg"></a><div><a href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/%24s_!DOEa!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fdaad8c60-59f7-47af-8d87-b4226122717c_1200x862.jpeg"></a><source type="image/webp"><a href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/%24s_!DOEa!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fdaad8c60-59f7-47af-8d87-b4226122717c_1200x862.jpeg"><img src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!DOEa!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fdaad8c60-59f7-47af-8d87-b4226122717c_1200x862.jpeg" width="1456" height="1046" alt=""></a></source><a href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/%24s_!DOEa!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fdaad8c60-59f7-47af-8d87-b4226122717c_1200x862.jpeg"></a><div><a href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/%24s_!DOEa!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fdaad8c60-59f7-47af-8d87-b4226122717c_1200x862.jpeg"></a><div><a href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/%24s_!DOEa!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fdaad8c60-59f7-47af-8d87-b4226122717c_1200x862.jpeg"></a></div><a href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/%24s_!DOEa!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fdaad8c60-59f7-47af-8d87-b4226122717c_1200x862.jpeg"></a></div><a href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/%24s_!DOEa!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fdaad8c60-59f7-47af-8d87-b4226122717c_1200x862.jpeg"></a></div><a href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/%24s_!DOEa!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fdaad8c60-59f7-47af-8d87-b4226122717c_1200x862.jpeg"></a></figure></div><h2>The Tavern-Haunters</h2><blockquote><p>The tavern is the abode of lovers,<br>The place where the bird of the soul nests,<br>The rest-house that has no existence<br>In a world that has no form.</p><p>The tavern-haunter is desolate in a lonely desert,<br>Where he sees the world as a mirage.<br>The desert is limitless and endless,<br>For no man has seen its beginning or ending.</p><p>Though you feverishly wander for a hundred years<br>You will be always alone.<br>For the dwellers there are headless and footless,<br>Neither the faithful nor infidels,</p><p>They have renounced both good and evil,<br>And have cast away name and fame,<br>From drinking the cup of selflessness;<br>Without lips or mouth,</p><p>And are beyond traditions, visions, and states,<br>Beyond dreaming of secret rooms, of lights and miracles.</p><p>They are lying drunken through the smell of the wine-dregs,<br>And have given as ransom<br>Pilgrim’s staff and cruse,<br>Dentifrice and rosary.</p><p>Sometimes rising to the world of bliss,<br>With necks exalted as racers,<br>Or with blackened faces turned to the wall,<br>Sometimes with reddened faces tied to the stake.</p><p>Now in the mystic dance of joy in the Beloved,<br>Losing head and foot like the revolving heavens.</p><p>In every strain which they hear from the minstrel<br>Comes to them rapture from the unseen world.</p><p>For within the mere words and sounds<br>Of the mystic song<br>Lies a precious mystery.</p><p>From drinking one cup of the pure wine,<br>From sweeping the dust of dung-hills from their souls,<br>From grasping the skirts of drunkards,</p><p>They have become Sufis.</p></blockquote><p><em>Mahmud Shabistari, Gulshan-i Raz (The Secret Rose Garden), “Tavern-Haunters.” Translated by Florence Lederer, 1920.</em></p><div><figure><a href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/%24s_!v_V1!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Feb1719e3-1b36-4dff-bf80-53da9ff4935f_1670x941.png"></a><div><a href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/%24s_!v_V1!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Feb1719e3-1b36-4dff-bf80-53da9ff4935f_1670x941.png"></a><source type="image/webp"><a href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/%24s_!v_V1!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Feb1719e3-1b36-4dff-bf80-53da9ff4935f_1670x941.png"><img src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!v_V1!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Feb1719e3-1b36-4dff-bf80-53da9ff4935f_1670x941.png" width="1456" height="820" alt=""></a></source><a href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/%24s_!v_V1!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Feb1719e3-1b36-4dff-bf80-53da9ff4935f_1670x941.png"></a><div><a href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/%24s_!v_V1!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Feb1719e3-1b36-4dff-bf80-53da9ff4935f_1670x941.png"></a><div><a href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/%24s_!v_V1!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Feb1719e3-1b36-4dff-bf80-53da9ff4935f_1670x941.png"></a></div><a href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/%24s_!v_V1!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Feb1719e3-1b36-4dff-bf80-53da9ff4935f_1670x941.png"></a></div><a href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/%24s_!v_V1!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Feb1719e3-1b36-4dff-bf80-53da9ff4935f_1670x941.png"></a></div><a href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/%24s_!v_V1!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Feb1719e3-1b36-4dff-bf80-53da9ff4935f_1670x941.png"></a></figure></div><h2>The bookstore stays open a little longer.</h2><p>Beyond this point, members will find:</p><p><strong>The complete </strong><em><strong>Every School of Sufism</strong></em><strong> soundtrack</strong><br>Twelve tracks to listen to and download.</p><p><strong>A rare Sufi lecture from the 1970s</strong><br>Moulana Fazlur Rahman Ansari on the creation of the universe, returned from the SpiritualRelief archive.</p><p><strong>From my ongoing translation of Ibn ʿArabī’s </strong><em><strong>Futūḥāt</strong></em><br>The House, the Heart, and the Throne, and the extraordinary passage in which the Divine Names themselves perform the pilgrimage to the human heart.</p><p><strong>A paper from the research desk</strong><br>Okasha El-Daly on medieval Arabic attempts to understand Egyptian hieroglyphs, with the complete PDF to keep.</p><p><strong>More from the old books</strong><br>Shabistarī on the Beloved’s curl, and Ibn ʿArabī on the treasure hidden in the heart.</p><p><strong>And one film from the archive</strong><br>Professor Seyyed Hossein Nasr reading Rumi in Persian and English. Forty-one minutes, no longer on the YouTube channel, and one I have wanted to give a home again.</p><p><em>Come through the other door.</em></p> <p> <a href="https://spiritualrelief.substack.com/p/after-dark-no-1"> Read more </a> </p> <p><a href="https://spiritualrelief.substack.com/p/after-dark-no-1" target="_blank">- Enlace a artículo -</a></p> <p>Más info en https://ift.tt/58Rld46 / Tfno. & WA 607725547 Centro MENADEL (Frasco Martín) Psicología Clínica y Tradicional en Mijas. #Menadel #Psicología #Clínica #Tradicional #MijasPueblo</p> <p>*No suscribimos necesariamente las opiniones o artículos aquí compartidos. No todo es lo que parece.</p>