Abdullah Dougan

Shaikh Abdullah Isa Neil Dougan was born in New Zealand in 1918. Christianity claimed his attention from an early age; later he realised the urgency of finding a method of channelling energy into inner development. This led him first to the Gurdjieff movement and then to Sufism. He was initiated as a Naqshbandi Sufi in Afghanistan and in the subsequent nineteen years, until his death in 1987, expanded his teaching to acknowledge the Gnostic basis of all true spiritual teachings.

Abdullah taught a practical fourth-way method of self-development for Westerners, initially drawing on the ideas of G.I. Gurdjieff, Hazrat Inayat Khan and Sri Ramdas of Kerala, among others. Increasingly his own inner development informed his teaching.

Abdullah’s main aim was to wake people up so they might find their psychological and spiritual potential. To this end he instructed individually, held regular question-and-answer sessions for groups of pupils and conveyed his ideas in written, graphic art and musical form.