A Bold Claim

One of my imaginary PhD dissertation topic is the converging of sufism, anarchism and psychoanalysis in their formulation of a fulfilled human being. Now this might sound strange and I cannot write of such a broad idea in a few sentences but one way in which psychoanalysis is helpful to sufism is by examining sufism's insistence on the necessary relationship between teacher and pupil. Although I consider sufism as the most refined and perfected mystical tradition in all religions, this necessary relationship is open to human error, especially in the danger of an interpersonal relationship that might turn to a narcissistic exploitation on the part of the teacher. No matter how learned and "enlightened" the teacher may be, as a human being he is volatile to say the least. Submission to any human being is swimming in dangerous waters and I believe psychoanalysis may serve in keeping unconscious motives at bay in both parties. Of course both will have to tweak many a knobs to agree to converge but hey in theory at least, many things are possible...

Then again, psychoanalysis at times can use the example of the pupil that asks a zen master whether or not the tao exists and the master whacks him hard with his walking stick.
The same way my dad once responded when I was telling him about Lacan's mirror stage: "..sometimes guys like this need a good slap to come back to earth!" (whacking motion with right hand accompanies).