Throughout the twentieth century, various instantiations of the Nimatullahi Sufi Order of Iran adhered to a policy of “secrecy” in regard to the dissemination of their ideas, done largely to protect against the “misunderstanding” or “misappropriation” of mystical concepts by the uninitiated. This policy, dating back to the medieval origins of the order, was made evident in the contemporary era through such practices as closed meetings, lengthy initiation practices, secret handshakes, the circulation of weekly “secret” words, and the safeguarding of any written work from non-members. Regarding the latter, such careful maintenance and preservation of textual materials by individual members—materials including hagiographies and other stories of prominent members of an Order’s silsilah (chain of succession), medieval poetry collections, personal notes taken during sermons, handwritten advice from sheikhs, and more—led to the development of what I am calling here a “personal” or “private” archive. Rather than trace the socio-political history of a Sufi Order from the perspective of the reigning governing body, it might be argued that such archives emphasize the intellectual and organizational history of a group instead. In addition, while the entire Order followed a single quotb (highest spiritual authority or, literally, axis), each city’s chapter possessed a number of Sufi sheikhs and it was ultimately these figures who delivered the weekly sermons and shaped the discourses and debates of the specific order. Thus, through the examination of such personal archives, the local histories of individual chapters may also be revealed, compared, and contrasted. As a group who attempted to remain as distant from the socio-political realm as possible, much of the activities of the Nimatullahi Sufi Order go undocumented within national and municipal archives. In addition, the majority of any official documentation remains in the hands of prominent Sufi elders and family members, and thus outside of the reach of most scholars. What exists instead are these smaller, more scattered archives which ultimately offer a form of local history based more on poems and sermons than facts and figures. Based on ethnographic, archival, and literary research, this paper will hence explore the contents of such collections, the relationship between mystical practices of secrecy and the cultivation of private archives, and finally the use of such archives as an alternative source for local history.