That's a good point. I noticed that as well. I can't be sure that actual "exercise" books exist (in that way) for Sufism, but some of their practices (dzikr) are uncovered by a little digging.

I might recommend Idries Shah, a major contemporary author of Sufi texts in English. Check out Tales of the Dervishes, Learning How to Learn, and The Sufis.

Also check out Coleman Barks' Rumi translations.
Kabir is another good poet, and the work of Ib'n al Arabi.

for sufi stories,,, well the one bob mentions... see idries shah, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idries_Shah, he writes stories about a guy called Mulla Nasrudin, i've never come across any of his works, so i don't know much about his writing style, but i think he's bobs favourite sufi writer.

Actually, Bob refers specifically to Sufi writer Idries Shah several times in the original Cosmic Trigger. He mentions both Shah's The Dermis Probe (which he calls "a book of strange parables") and Shah's first book on the Sufis titled -- what else? -- The Sufis (to which Robert Graves wrote the introduction).

Mr. Shah, who died in 1996, was undoubtedly the highest profile and most prolific popularizer of Sufism and Sufi stories in the English language. Rather prolific, he produced many other collections of stories, almost all of which are in still in print and, if not, were popular enoungh to be easily available used.

Some people apparently considered Shah, rather extravagantly, "the Teacher of the Age" and others were equally convinced that he was a charlatan and a con man. He seemed bright and thougtful to me, and I find it hard to dislike someone who liked to quote the Sufi dictum that "He who has no sense of humor has no soul"!

As for exercises, although I'm sure you could find some described in print somewhere, Sufis generally seem to discourage the dissemination of specific exercises to the public at large. They believe, as I understand it, that exercises should be assigned to people on an individualized basis and that those individuals then need to be supervised by someone who knows what they are doing.

Also, at least according to Shah, they believe that the stories themselves are meant to be absorbed and to have an impact -- rather than being read simply for intellectual stimulation or entertainment value -- and that one should not come and ask for more without first taking advantage of that which has already been provided.

If one accepts the proposition that these exercises might have the effects that they are purported to -- and given the number of folks that can be found wandering around who do not seem to have gained much if anything from their years of "spiritual practice" -- this seems like a reasonable policy.

Once, when asked his opinion of self-appointed Sufis, Shah replied "We object not so much to the method of appointment as to the quality of the appointees!"

"Death is a circuit three symbol for fear." Timothy Leary

The discussion about whether Bob might be dead or not may be irrelevcant. Knowing Bob when I did, I'm pretty sure he would have wanted the memes he frontiered to continue propagating like Harvey's bunnies in fertile minds everywhere, ad infinitum. I think it was the novel ideas he developed and transmitted that he would want to be most remembered for, rather than his corporeal mortal coil.