The Cs and Gurdjieff

Painter said:

I've bolded and underlined parts of the quote above because I wish to emphasize something which is commonly overlooked in the Gurdjieff ideas, especially by those who do not have access to a direct connection to the work. And that is, as stated, self-observation rightly conducted itself is the beginning of growth and change.

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22 June 2002
Q: We have recently been working with some material from Boris Mouravieff. We can see many relationships. I would like to ask about some of his political views, his ideas about creating some elite corps to help the world graduate to what he calls the cycle of the Holy Spirit. How accurate are those views of Mouravieff?

A: Mouravieff, like many who have protected and passed on the "tradition" are merely carriers and not interpreters of the capacity of a Master. The True Master understands the nature of the "worlds" in terms of real, Hyperdimensional Interpenetration. Thus Mouraveiff and others misunderstand and misinterpret, thinking in 3rd density Hierarchical terms which simply do not apply.

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13 July 2002

Q: We have recently been working with some material from Boris Mouravieff. We can see many relationships between that work and so many of the clues and hints scattered throughout the C's transmissions. What seems to be important is his information about the Centers - three lower and three higher that are not "seated" in the body. Then, he talks about the difference between "A" influences and "B" influences, and the necessity for assimilation of "B" influences in order to fuse the "magnetic center" which then enables the soul - or higher centers - to "seat" in the body. Is the information from Mouravieff about these matters fairly accurate?
A: Not just fairly. It has been preserved from the time of the "Fall."
Q: Mouravieff states clearly that this teaching is a "thin thread" of an oral tradition, and that the monks themselves - in various locations - admit that it has not only not been put into writing, but has not ever even been "gathered together" in a single place. This is, of course, problematical, but it seems that Mouravieff has made a sincere effort to present the material of the Tradition itself, even if he has spent an inordinate amount of time trying to weave through it some of the occult traditions of Europe that have been so very popular for so long, particularly the synarchic views of Guenon and so forth. In seems that, in this respect, Mouravieff has interpreted many things in an "A influence" sort of way. And then, there is Mouravieff's presentation of the "worlds." It seems to be very similar to the teaching about "densities," though without the balance of STS and STO.
A: If it is understood in the original context of hyperdimensional realities. Also, there are some distortions and gloss on the subject of the "worlds" and
"notes." But even this is only minor.
Q: Mouravieff says that there are two kinds of humans - he calls the "pre-Adamic" and "Adamic," (discussed in book III). The idea is that pre-Adamic human types basically have no "soul" nor any possibility of growing one. This is a pretty shocking idea, but there have been recent scholarly discussions of this matter based on what seems to be clinical evidence that, indeed, there are human beings who are just "mechanical" and have no "inner" or "higher self" at all. [See: "Division of Consciousness"] Gurdjieff talked about this and so did Castaneda. Are these ideas Mouravieff presents about the two basic TYPES of humans, as far as they go, accurate?
A: Indeed, though again, there is a "Biblical Gloss."
Q: Mouravieff says that the "pre-Adamic" humans do not have the higher centers, nor the possibility of developing them in this cycle - which we assume to be the Grand Cycle you have previously described, the length of which is around 300,000 years. Is this an accurate representation of "pre-Adamic" beings?
A: Yes, they are "organic" portals between levels of density.
Q: Based on what Mouravieff has said, it seems to be so that any efforts to try to raise the consciousness of such individuals is doomed to fail.
A: Pretty much. Most of them are very efficient machines. The ones that you have identified as psychopaths are "failures." The best ones cannot be discerned except by long and careful observation.
Q: (V) Have I, or anyone in this room, ever encountered any, and if so, can you give us an example for reference?
A: If you consider that the population is equally distributed, then you will understand that in an ordinary "souled" person's life, that person will encounter half as many organic portals as souled individuals. BUT, when someone is in the process of "growing" and strengthening the soul, the Control System will seek to insert even more "units" into that person's life. Now, think of all the people you have ever met and particularly those with whom you have been, or are, intimate. Which half of this number would YOU designate as being organic portals? Hard to tell, eh?
Q: (BT) Is this the original meaning of the "pollution of the bloodline" that the Bible talks about?
A: Yes.
Q: (L) This certainly gives a whole new meaning to all the experiences we have had with people like "Frank" and Vincent Bridges and Terri Burns, Olga and the rest of the gang! What this means is that the work of discerning these organic portals from souled human beings is CRUCIAL to the so-called ascension process. Without the basic understanding of transformation of, and conservation of energies, there is no possibility of fusing a magnetic center. No wonder the Bridges gang and the COINTELPRO types went bananas while I was publishing the Adventures Series! And sheesh! They will go bonkers with this organic portal stuff! (V) In thinking back over my life, it seems to me that my father is certainly one of these organic portals.
A: Now, do not start labeling without due consideration. Remember that very often the individual who displays contradictory behavior may be a souled being in struggle.
Q: (L) I would say that the chief thing they are saying is that the really good ones - you could never tell except by long observation. The one key we discovered from studying psychopaths was that their actions do not match their words. But what if that is a symptom of just being weak and having no will? (A) How can I know if I have a soul?
A: Do you ever hurt for another?
Q: (V) I think they are talking about empathy. These soulless humans simply don't care what happens to another person. If another person is in pain or misery, they don't know how to care.
A: The only pain they experience is "withdrawal" of "food" or comfort, or what they want. They are also masters of twisting perception of others so as to seem to be empathetic. But, in general, such actions are simply to retain control.
Q: (A) What does having a soul or not having a soul have to do with bloodline?
A: Genetics marry with soul if present.
Q: Do "organic portals" go to fifth density when they die?
A: Only temporarily until the "second death."
Q: (V) What is the "origin" of these organic portal human types? In the scheme of creation, where did they come from?
A: They were originally part of the bridge between 2nd density and 3rd density. Review transcripts on the subject of short wave cycles and long wave cycles.
Q: (A) Now, I was reading in the transcripts that sleep is necessary for human beings because it was a period of rest and recharging. You also said that the SOUL rests while the body is sleeping. So, the question is: what source of energy is tapped to recharge both the body and the soul?
A: The question needs to be separated. What happens to a souled individual is different from an organic portal unit.
Q: (L) I guess that means that the life force energy that is embodied in Organic Portals is something like the soul pool that is theorized to exist for flora and fauna. This would, of course, explain the striking and inexplicable similarity of psychopaths, that is so well defined that they only differ from one another in the way that different species of trees are different in the overall class of Tree-ness. So, if they don't have souls, where does the energy come from that recharges Organic Portals?
A: The pool you have described.
Q: Does the recharging of the souled being come from a similar pool, only maybe the "human" pool?
A: No - it recharges from the so-called sexual center which is a higher center of creative energy. During sleep, the emotional center, not being blocked by the lower intellectual cener and the moving center, transduces the energy from the sexual center. It is also the time during which the higher emotional and intellectual centers can rest from the "drain" of the lower centers' interaction with those pesky organic portals so much loved by the lower centers. This respite alone is sufficient to make a difference. But, more than that, the energy of the sexual center is also more available to the other higher centers.
Q: (L) Well, the next logical question was: where does the so-called "sexual center" get ITS energy?
A: The sexual center is in direct contact with 7th density in its "feminine" creative thought of "Thou, I Love." The "outbreath" of "God" in the relief of constriction. Pulsation. Unstable Gravity Waves.
Q: Do the "centers" as described by Mouravieff relate at all to the idea of "chakras?"
A: Quite closely. In an individual of the organic variety, the so-called higher chakras are "produced in effect" by stealing that energy from souled beings. This is what gives them the ability to emulate souled beings. The souled being is, in effect, perceiving a mirror of their own soul when they ascribe "soul qualities" to such beings.
Q: Is this a correspondence that starts at the basal chakra which relates to the sexual center as described by Mouravieff?
A: No. The "sexual center" corresponds to the solar plexus.
Lower moving center - basal chakra
Lower emotional - sexual chakra
Lower intellectual - throat chakra
Higher emotional - heart chakra
Higher intellectual - crown chakra
Q: (L) What about the so-called seventh, or "third eye" chakra?
A: Seer. The union of the heart and intellectual higher centers.
[Laura's note: This would "close the circuit" in the "shepherd's crook"
configuration.]
Q: (V) What about the many ideas about 12 chakras, and so forth, that are currently being taught by many new age sources? [Barbara Marciniak, for one.]
A: There are no such. This is a corrupted conceptualization based on the false belief that the activation of the physical endocrine system is the same as the creation and fusion of the magnetic center. The higher centers are only "seated" by being "magnetized." And this more or less "External" condition [location of the higher centers] has been perceived by some individuals and later joined to the perceived "seating" locations, in potential. This has led to "cross conceptualization" based on assumption!
Q: Are the levels of initiation and levels of the staircase as presented
by Mouravieff fairly accurate?
A: Yes, but different levels accessed in other so-called lives can relieve
the intensity of some levels in "another" life.
Q: (L) So work on the self in different incarnations - assuming one is not an organic portal - can be cumulative? You can pick up where you left off if you screw up?
A: Yes. To some extent.

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31 July 2002

(L) Okay, I want to ask a question. What is the energy behind this Zulu guy and his little contingent? {I was very disturbed that this group of people came to see me and wanted to "worship" me as the representative of the Divine Mother on Earth.}
A: He has a valid connection, however there is a lot of static around him.
Q: (L) Is the static coming from {the people} with him?
A: No! They follow his lead.
Q: (S) What does a valid connection mean?
A: His source.
Q: (S) Is that Credo Mutwa?
A: Yes
Q: (I) So all his theory about this Light Warrior thing may have some kind of credibility?
A: In a sense, but not precisely in the way thought. Groups of people represent energy portals in cosmic rather than global terms.
Q: (S) Does that mean that we are seeing him as a force that was a representative...
A: Light warriors are "connectors" on a cosmic level.
Q: (L) Connectors between what and what?
A: Transducers of energy of transition rather like capacitors!
Q: (L) What's a capacitor? (M) It's an electrical way of collecting and dumping a flowing charge; a way of accumulating charge and releasing it later in a sudden burst of energy. You can send enormously strong pulses from capacitors by putting in small amounts of energy over a long period of time. They used to be called accumulators. (J) What transition?
A: Transition of your sector of space/time.
Q: (I) So are they accumulating energies and is it at a particular point that we may need help to transition they...(S) Give us the energy necessary, is that what you mean?
A: Partly. It will depend on how much awareness you manage to generate to direct the energy.
Q: (I) It's like he was right. (A) So for these capacitors (J) Partly. (L) Zulus, Light Warriors. Is this a genetic function?
A: More or less.
Q: (I) What do we want to say on this? (L) You know they throw you something you don't expect and what do you do? You have all your little preconceived notions and you have it all figured out and you think you're going to get a little confirmation and then they toss you something that says uh-uh. (S) Well this is a whole new concept...well not really. (I) Well they are more in tune with the Earth so, and they say it's the awareness they manage to generate. So if we don't generate this awareness they're going to transduce a different kind of energy? (L) They'll tranduce into STS I guess. The energy is free it's just...(S) It just depends on our awareness. (I) Yeah because STS needs light also. (S) So should we ask does it...(I) Depend on how much awareness we generate?
A: They can be "food for the moon" or food for the soul.
Q: (I) Well, God they've been food for the Moon for a long time. (L) So has everybody else. (S) It's the same for all of us though, so is there anything special about them or different than anybody else?
A: Absolutely.
Q: (J) So their genetics...it's a function of genetics... (A) I would ask if there is any other say nation or tribe of similar make-up? (S) Yeah, maybe there's a tribe in every section of the world, or something.
A: There is a "spectrum" as Mouravieff suggests, however the Zulu compose a sort of "drone" tone.
Q: (S) So is this something they do deliberately or is it something unconscious?
A: It is a function of the 4th density energies they "represent."
Q: (A) Okay, so it is a drone tone. That is the main tone which is foundational to the harmonics. You build the music on this infrastructure, so to say. (L) There's the drone, there's the bass, there's the melody. (I) Listen to his voice, what does his voice sound like to you? I don't know...(J) Yeah, there is a resonance. (I) Yeah, in his voice. (J) They said a spectrum as in Mouravieff, the spectrum of the genetics able to carry light or to act as a light for transition. I'm not really sure on how that...(L) I think they're talking about a soul tone. (I) That singing that they do, that special kind of singing is it symbolic of that drone tone.
A: Indeed, as is all of reality symbolic of things at other levels and "depths" of being.
Q: (I) Okay, think of the Lion King and that singing and what it induces and when you hear that humming. (A) I would ask if there is anything we should pay specific attention to important with these guys, if there is some caution?
A: Be sincere and direct and see what transpires.
Q: (S) I guess that would mean that you would say that you're a little nervous about the whole thing and you're not sure what's up. (L) Yeah.
A: Also tell them that "yes, the ancestors are also the future selves." Those are specfic terms that carry meaning unfamiliar to your cultural context.

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14 September 2002

Q: (L) Okay, now we have a couple of questions we want to get to here. You said before that OP's were originally intended as a bridge between second and third densities and that they were used. Is Mouravieff right about the potential for OP's to advance being dependent upon souled beings advancement to STO at the end of this cycle?
A: Not exactly. A soul imprint can grow independent of the cycle. However, it is more likely for a soul to "grow" when interacting with 4th Density STO. STS tends to drain energy for its own use.
Q: (L) The question came up about the remark as to the numbers of OPs and you said something about encountering half as many OP's as souled humans. It was pointed out that, in mathematical terms, that would work out to encountering or interacting with more souled humans than OPs. So, you said the population was evenly distributed, when you say the population was evenly distributed does that mean that there are half organic portals and half souled humans, more or less?
A: Yes
Q: (L) So when you say encountering 'half as many,' what does that mean?
A: It means that "souls" run in families for the most part. Thus a souled, and we mean "potentially fully souled, individual is likely to encounter and interact more with other souled humans. However, when awakening, they may encounter even more OP's.
Q: (L) So they tend to run in families so they can have aberrations. Or a family that's mostly OP's could have an occasional souled human, which they don't know what to do with. And, in the same way, a family of mostly souled people could have an occasional OP, or a line of them that pops up in the family every now and then. But for the most part, people with souls marry people with souls unless there is some danger of them awakening in which case there's special situation where they insert OP's into their lives. But I would say that in a general sense what they're saying, and y'all can correct me if I'm wrong here, is that, what, water seeks its own level, so to speak.
A: More or less.
Q: (L) So in other words, the people who noticed that remark were right, and the way I took it was wrong. Okay, another question, are there other types of soulless beings more than those reanimated or remolecularized dead dudes and OP's? Is there such things as holographic projection beings running around on the planet at this point and time?
A: In a sense, you are all "holographic" projections. But to answer the question, it is rare.
Q: (L) So, there are holographic projection type beings or there can be, but there's not too many of them. Alright, on to the next question. Are there any particular clues that we could have about identifying OP's?
A: Is it necessary to have more clues? Remember some things are to be learned.

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23 October 1994

Q: (L) I would like to know if the teachings of Gurdjieff
were in any way accurate or near the truth?
A: Open.

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4 March 1995

Q: (L) Georges Gurdjieff
proposed the idea that the earth is, in a sense, food for
the moon. What he meant was, what he had learned from
these ancient teachers was that earth was a food source
for some level of being, and that possibly these beings
had encampments or bases on the moon, but that earth was
eventually to become a star and that then the moon would
become an inhabited planet as the earth was, and so on...
Is this a fairly...
A: Close.

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7 May 1995

Q: (L) One of the persons who talks of the ocatave cycle is
Gurdjieff, the Sufi teachings, several of the great
philosophical teachings talk about the octave effect.
There is the cycle of seven and the next cycle is at a
higher level and is called an octave like the segments on
the musical scale.
A: Who are we?
Q: (L) The Cassiopaeans.
A: Yes, now, we have volunteered to assist you in your
development, yes?
Q: (L) So, throw all that other crap out the window?
A: If there were a level eight, do you think we would have
failed to mention it at this point?!?
Q: (J) Good point. (SV) They forgot! (J) Oh, by the way,
did we mention level eight?! (T) Well, maybe these other
people are perceiving the recycling as moving into another
octave rather than just doing it all over and over. They
just haven't got the information straight yet. A: There
are many who speak, and some who speak the truth! Q:
(J) Yeah, but which ones are speaking the truth? (L) The
truth is out there! But why Seven? What is the
significance of the number seven?
A: Why not?
Q: (T) Could there as easily have been eight or nine or six?
A: Is there "significance" to anything?
Q: (L) Only the significance we give it, I guess.
A: And if so, what is that?
Q: (T) Well, it is interesting to me because it means there
was a structure to the way things were set up. There must
have been a reason it was selected this way as opposed to
another way.
A: Really?
Q: (T) It didn't just happen. Nothing just happens! (J)
Now, hold on a second, base 10 is because we have 10
fingers.
A: Who says?
Q: (T) You did.
A: Oh yeah?
Q: (L) Are you saying, essentially, that it is the way it is
because things are just arbitrarily that way?
A: No, we are trying to teach you how to complete the puzzle.
Q: (T) So the reason it is what it is and why is something we
have to figure out.
A: And you have to figure out what is reason?
Q: (T) The reason for what? (J) For the seven.
A: No. No. No. Pay attention, please. What is reason?
Q: (J) As in reasoning?
A: Much of your learning to this point is based upon
assumption of definitions of reality.
Q: (L) And, all of our assumptions are completely wrong?
A: Not all.
Q: (J) Anything that is rooted in 3rd density doesn't apply
in most of these things and that's where we have to let
go.
A: Logic is subjective.
Q: (L) Is symbolic logic as is used in mathematics
subjective?
A: No.
Q: (L) But you always come up with different things using
math than mentation. Okay. Well, we opened a can of
worms here. (T) We do that every time. (J) Worms are us!
[Laughter]
A: Ongoing project.
Q: (T) Teaching us is an ongoing project. (J) We are a can
of worms. (L) Is there any point in time when these
communications will end?
[Tape ends abruptly and snaps off to surprised laughter at
the synchronicity.]

Q: (L) Was that a symbolic answer to that question?
A: Open.

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3 July 1999

Q: (A) Okay, if it is sincere, then it means I should answer him. Last question: I was thinking about what is the most important for me at the present, and I think that I want to understand and implement this concept of densities; to implement it into physics and mathematics. But, it seems to me that I am completely alone with that. I would like to know where should I look, because certainly other people have already tried to do it. I don't want to start from scratch if there is something that I can look at or study before I really jump into this difficult project. Were there people, scientists... where to look?
A: Study the works of Gurdjieff and Jung, for starters. Also, Vallee is on a similar path, and a little ahead of you. He would be most approachable, if you can convince him of your sincerity.
Q: (A) Vallee? Okay, I finished my questions...
A: Okay, so until the next, goodbye.

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10 July 1999

Q: (A) Now, the two main concepts that we are using are dimensions and densities. Again, you use the concept of dimension in not quite the way physicists and mathematicians use it. {...} (L) Define dimension. (A) I have tried to guess what you mean by dimensions from all the things that you have said about it...
A: Our "meaning" is closer to that of the general public definition.
Q: (A) Very good, yet you have said certain things in a context that was more related to the structure of the universe. And we were talking about dimensions also in the context of Kaluza-Klein theories. At one point, you said there are infinitely many dimensions, and at another point it was implied that different dimensions meant different universes, which would mean that there are infinitely many universes. I would like to represent these dimensions in some mathematical model. My idea was that these dimensions were like slices; and each slice is a universe and, indeed, there are infinitely many possible slices. So, that was my idea of dimensions: slices. Is it correct?
A: That is good.
Q: (A) There are infinitely many dimensions because there are infinitely many slices. Now we come to densities. There are not infinitely many densities, there are only seven. Or, are these seven just for the general public and there are really infinitely many of them as well?
A: No.
Q: (A) Good. So, there are seven densities. Now, how come, there are seven, and not three or five, or eleven? Does it follow from some mathematics?
A: What form of mathematical theory best describes the concept of balance?
Q: (L) Algebra. (A) So, I had the idea that these seven densities were related to what Gurdjieff relates to the number of laws that apply in the various densities; the higher the density, the fewer the laws that apply, which means there is more freedom?
A: That is very close. Consciousness is the key here.
Q: (A) Yes, so my question relates to the geometric model of gravity and consciousness.
A: Picture an endless octagonal... in three dimensions.
Q: (A) A lattice, you mean?
A: Okay.
Q: (A) Are these densities related to the mathematical concept of 'signatures of the metric?' I would like to model densities with slices of different geometric properties, in particular slices with different properties of the distance.
A: Yes...
Q: (A) There are several people who essentially think the same direction as we have been discussing... they are almost on the same track. Matti Pitkanen is one of them and Tony Smith is the other. How can these two guys have these similar ideas without having access to channeling?
A: Who said they they have no access to channeling? Some channel without knowing it.
Q: (A) Today, on this list there was a guy by the name of Boyd who talks about his shamanistic experiences in talking to rocks. He doesn't sound whacko, but he talks to these stones on a daily basis and these stones talk to him, and these rocks have consciousness, they have memories. I wrote to him, but I would like to know if his experiences are authentic and not just his imagination?
A: That is a very broad question, which assumes limits or barriers where none may exist.

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20 August 2001

Q: (L) What is the general approach that all of us should take to Vincent? Should we try to explain anything to him?
A: No.
Q: Will he ever get it?
A: Most likely not.
Q: That's a shame. (A) We don't know. It's "most likely not." (L) Well, I know, but "most likely not" it would really, really take a big event in his life to... does he WANT to get it?
A: No.
Q: Well. (A) It's not the right question because it assumes there is a "he" and there are 20 of "he's." He's not an "I." He's a typical example of what Gurdjieff said, there is no Master, there are several of them, and they want to serve different gods. We ask about "he, " but there is not even a major "he." There is "he" on Thursday and "he" on Wednesday. There is "he" in the night and "he" in the day. That's it.
A: True.

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26 February 2002

Q: (A) I have a question because when I was asking about quantum jumps, the answer was, I don't know if I will be able to read because it is in cipher, it's coded. I cannot decode okay. Reads With respect to ummm... (Ark and Rickard are reading from a paper) (R) "With room for alterations, the way to quantum jumps the key to quantum jumps is always in discovering new mathematics." My first question is about this 'room for alterations' which sounds very suspicious - like hinting. 'Room' here is a strange word. I suspect that it has hidden meaning like for instance Hilbert space. It is my guess that the room here has a double meaning correct?
A: Di/bi/double.
Q: (L) Di like dipole, bi like a bipole and double, which is triple meaning.
Q: (A) Now this new mathematics was the answer I was given when I was asking about the p-adic numbers, which relates to the prime numbers. So I got a book on p-adic numbers. And I am ready to jump into this new mathematics, but I don't want jump into the wrong thing, okay? So the question is: what is this 'new mathematics?' Can it be related to quantum jump?
A: In this respect you are going to have to put the puzzle together from many pieces.
Q: (L) So there is no one form of mathematics that's going to cover everything. (R) We have fractals, we have p-adic numbers, primes, rings, and groups. Ah! Should we ask if the Benzene Ring was also related to group and ring algebra, not just algebra, is that a good question? (A) Yeah, we know that algebra is important, we know that algebra is the main math, so that if we ask about algebra the answer would certainly be 'yes,' so it is not specific enough. (R) Okay. Should we ask whether it is ring algebra in combination with prime numbers? (A) Yes, certainly the answer is 'yes' because when we study prime numbers it automatically comes with the rings. There's no way to avoid it. (R) I have only one question left on that and that is whether the detectors are consciousness interface points, is that where consciousness is interfacing with reality?
A: Frequency awareness boundaries.
Q: (L) What are frequency awareness boundaries made of? Whose awareness? (R) But it makes sense. (L) Yeah, but whose awareness is it a boundary of? (R) I guess ours. (A) Who is 'ours'? Whose awareness? Universal? (R) General, for any awareness I suppose.
A: 7th density nature/divisions.
Q: (A) Okay, so there is this general -what Gurdjieff calls worlds - he had a very good description. (R) Okay so my question would be if consciousness, for example us three in this room, are we interacting with reality through 7th density which uses these frequency awareness boundaries? Right so it's kind of a middle step. I'm not sure how to phrase it.
A: 7th density interacts with divisions through you.
Q: (R) Ah! So it is not us interacting with reality through 7th density it's the other way around. 7th density is interacting with the concept of divisions through us. It makes sense to me in a strange kind of way. (A) That is how it works. (L) We're it. (R) We are the interface. (R) Of course, duh! (L) We could've had a V-8.

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30 March 2002

Q: (V) Okay. I was going through some of the transcripts and reading, and I found the statement in there that said "consciousness is the half-life of energy" and I thought this was just so interesting. Let me ask this: is that half-life, because with chemistry and chemicals they know exactly what the half-life is of certain, say uranium, that it has so many years until it changes into what ever it changes into...(L) But it is statistical. (V) Statistical. Okay. What is the time span or frame of reference where its energy degenerates, morphs, whatever the word is, into consciousness?
A: You are assuming that physical understanding applies. In this case the better question would be: What is energy?
Q: (L) What is energy? [asking Ark] (A) Don't know. (L) What do you mean, "don't know?" (A) Nobody knows. (L) Oh! I see what they're saying. Energy can't be compared to a physical process such as the half-life of an atomic element or something. (V) Alright, and also maybe this is my assumption as I am relating energy to thought processes.
A: How do you know that "thinking" is energy?
Q: (V) Well, I don't think that I know that it is, I'm just postulating and thinking about it.
A: How about "utilization?"
Q: (V) Okay, what is energy? I know the atom and the nucleus, and I basically understand the physics of energy, but is that what you're talking about?
A: Take an example: Light is an energy expression of gravity. Utilization of gravity "generates" light.
Q: (A) The point is that we can't define concepts. We can show simply how they work in certain, how you say...(B) Framework. (A) Okay: framework, by relating them to other concepts and by pointing out that this is the correct use of this word and this is the incorrect use of this word. And this is not mathematics. In mathematics everything is defined in terms of primitive concepts. Here, we don't know what are the primitive concepts. So we say" now here is light and it's an expression of energy. Now what is so particular about light? You can think about what you learn from physics. From physics you know that light has no mass, it is pure quantum of energy. What it means, we really don't know. We know that when light is absorbed, it has a physical effect, but in the meantime where does it go? It is not mass. It's something that can hit you like energy; but not a piece of a solid something; it is pure energy. And then we know something from the Theory of Relativity, that when light travels a distance from one point to another point in the 4th dimensional Einstein space, the distance measured in this 4th dimension is zero. If you sit on a ray of light you are instantaneously everywhere. Time does not flow for light which travels. That's energy. For a mass, time flows. Mass understands what is time. For light everything is instantaneous. So we learn a little bit of what energy is even if we can't seem to define it, right?
A: And, as you already guess, consciousness "precedes" light as an energy expression. So the question is: How do your quantifications apply?
Q: (A) Which is true of the following two possibilities: a) In certain circumstances energy can create consciousness. b) In certain circumstances consciousness can create energy.
A: B: consciousness can create energy.
Q: (V) And isn't light also information?
A: Light is utilization.
Q: (V) Okay, light is utilization. How is that done? Is this a process? Maybe I would understand it better if it said "the utilization of light."
A: What would you utilize light for?
Q: (V) Well, to raise consciousness. To raise awareness.
A: How would light raise consciousness?
Q: (V) If light is energy, I mean, if light is information...(A) Light is not information. It's not what you learn in physics. You can use light to send information. (V) Why does it have to be about physics? (L) What else can it be about? Physics is concerned with the most fundamental questions of reality. (A) What is light? What do you know about light? What is light for you may be another definition of light. (L) This is what they've said before: They've said that light is produced by utilization of knowledge. That light is an energy expression of gravity. They've also said that light is an expression of the utilization of knowledge. So we come to the idea that knowledge is gravity in a certain sense. In other words knowledge consists of all things that could or could not be in all contexts, in all realms, in all dimensions, in all universes, that the sum total of everything is like this non-existent, non-dimensional point of everything that could ever exist. It's almost like this zero point from which all potential could erupt given the proper circumstances. We're getting into something where there's not many words to describe it. There's a huge limitation here that if you don't know math, your words can only take you so far because as precise as you can get with your words, you can't get as precise as you can get with numbers. Numbers say things that words cannot, and they say it in a way that communicates directly to some part of the mind that bypasses this word processing organ. Well I don't want to say bypasses, I mean it goes to a place that's higher than a word processing organ, so to speak. Another interesting thing is all the knowledge that we can gather is like gravity, and collecting gravity is like becoming heavier. But then when you utilize it, you share it and there is a burst of light and this is the utilization. In other words utilizing your knowledge is doing something with it. And that goes back to that thing that Gurdjieff said that for those in the higher esoteric circles, at that inner level their understanding is immediately expressed as action. Understanding and action are like two sides of the same coin. And then of course there's other levels where they have understanding but they have no action. We've all seen that in the gurus who sit around and contemplate their navels saying they understand everything but they're not doing anything. They just sit there contemplating their navel. Until one can do and act based on their understanding it is not utilized and they then have not produced light unto the world. A simple example is - We can sit here and collect 700 pages of gravity of information, or knowledge and until we utilize it, until we do something with it, until we share it, it's not light... we've just collected it and it's gravity. But the minute we start writing it, the minute we start processing it through us into our reality in some way, we write web pages or we do some activity or we do as the C's say, "You will do what you will do" and that's entirely a function of your understanding. (V) Of light as utilization. (A) Light when it stops it becomes matter. Maybe it is so that, at another level, when consciousness hits something, it becomes light. (V) What is it hitting? (A) For instance a consciousness is hitting another consciousness. So, there is a reaction. And as a result of this reaction, light is created which carries somehow the information, the knowledge of the interaction. (L) So we end up almost coming around in a circle. (V) So what you're saying then is light is not the first. (A) No we know already that consciousness creates light. We've got this answer, consciousness is more primitive. There are these levels of matter/reality I would say, okay? (V) Okay. I had it backwards in my head. I thought light was more primitive than consciousness. (A) Light is very close to matter, you stop light and you get matter. (L) Matter is nothing but congealed light. Another thing: light is an energy expression of gravity. It's an energy expression. That suggests that gravity is energy unexpressed. And when it expresses it's light. And when it expresses here and then it expresses there we have these units of consciousness which are unexpressed energy prior to light. When gravity is expressed it is consciousness - perhaps manifesting as some other range of the EM spectrum - and then the next level of the expression is when one consciousness energy and another consciousness energy interacts with each other and then light is produced. Possibly. (A) Another possibility is that consciousness is the organizing principle. Light is something that is already organized. (L) What if consciousness is an unstable gravity wave. (A) We don't know what that is. We don't even know what are gravity waves. (L) The bottom line is, we're probing into realms that have been probed and probed and probed for ages with no definitive results. (A) Oh, we'll find out. (B) The sad thing about it is this whole process is cluttered with so much misdirection and semantics. (L) Yeah, and the battle factor.

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18 August 2002

[Planchette is recognized by Laura and Terri to just be "bouncing" around the board.]
Q: (L) Alright you trade off, see what happens.[Terry removes his hand from planchette.]
Q: (L) Hello, hello, anybody?
A: Give rest to Terry.
Q: (L) What do you mean "Give rest to Terry?"
A: He is detuned due to long absence.
Q: (L) What's this about ill?
A: Ill fitting energy resonance. Terry needs to regroove.
Q: (L) How does Terry regroove? (T) Yes, how do I regroove? (L) How does a person regroove?
A: First by spending time in learning to the same level as others in
resonance.
Q: (T) It moves quick yet. (L) So in other words, umm...well I don't know. (A) We are not talking to Cassiopaeans, we are talking to someone unknown.
A: Yes Cassiopaea.
Q: (L) Why was it spelled funny the first time?
A: Lack of resonance.
Q: (T) Well I guess I'm out of resonance. (L) Why is Terry out of resonance?
A: Too long absence and cares of life.
Q: (T) Too much 3rd density?
A: Yes.
Q: (T) It's been a busy summer. (J) There's been a lot happening. (L) Yeah really, I know. Alright so, tell us what to do about it, do you want to know what to do about it? (T) What do we do about it?
A: Interaction is highly desirable. Even if only he is in contact via email.
Q: (T) Email? Do they have email at 6th density? (J) No.
A: Grooving is long process.
Q: [Terry looks at Laura inquiringly] (L) Well ask. Grooving is also a process of asking. (T) So being away too long is a loss of the groove, frequency? (L) I don't think it's a loss. (T) A change? (L) I don't think it's a change, you ask. (T) Well if it's a long process what is required to start it?
A: Not loss, failure to keep with pace of rapid advancement of process of network.
Q: (T) Well, that could be. (L) Well you didn't lose anything. (T) I just
haven't gained anything. (J) We haven't been keeping up with the story because we've been focused on other things. We've been away for four years. But I think up until maybe the past whatever, he still kept in touch and kept involved in it. But I think with everything that's been happening he hasn't had time. (L) Well too damn busy. (T) Gotta survive here too.
A: He is holding steady.
Q: (T) Well steady's better than nothing I guess. At least I can be considered steady. (L) That's funny. (T) Can I touch this again? (L) Try it, just keep kicking in. (T) Well I'm asking them if I can touch it.
A: Yes keep signalling.
Q: (T) Hello. Hello. (L) We've been doing a lot of thinking about it and it's
a noise to signal thing and then of course...(J) It's almost like tuning in a radio station. (L) Yeah.
A: Cow.
Q: (Laughter) (L) Okay, I've got to find out what cow means. (T) Are you
calling me a cow? Moooo (Laughter).
A: Sacred cows.
Q: (T) I'm a sacred cow? (L) Do you have sacred cows? (T) I've got cats, there sacred cats. We've got cows down the street. What kind of sacred cows? (L) Sacred cows to the group is like when we hang on to certain ideas that we ought to let go of and we're hanging on to assumptions and ideas...(J) They're holding you back...(L) Right. In fact did you see our little refrigerator magnet--No Sacred Cows, NO BULL. (L) Are you saying Terry has sacred cows?
A: Somewhat.
Q: (T) Well doesn't everybody? (L) We don't. Not anymore. We learned how to get rid of them, very painfully. It hurts. (T) They always hurt. And me I always considered myself a sacred cow buster.
A: Terry needs to get in the groove.
Q: (T) How do I get in the groove?
A: Networking works.
Q: (T) Does that mean I need to post on the message board occasionally? (L) I don't know do you read the messages? Even if you don't post. (T) For the most part. I'm not there every day. I try to keep up with what you're writing. That in itself is a lot of work. (L) I can't even do that! I forgot it all already.
A: Attention is a bi-directional signal. It works best in an exchange.
Q: (J) So where just reading the posts doesn't keep the energy up as much as participating, is that what you mean? (A) That's kind of like when you learn something and you do not do exercises, it's not the same. Exercises flow from you to answer, only when you answer it really gets some help processing. If you just read without answering it is different processing. Maybe that's it. (T) It very well could be. How well did the board work with everybody else when they were all here? People who never touched the board before? (L) Well, nobody ever touched it. We just do it and everybody sits around the table. I guess resonance or whatever. We just got used to working it by ourselves. (A) But in the beginning we had trouble. (J) How often is there someone other than just the two of you on the board? (L) Never. We don't anymore, we just don't even do it anymore. (J) So it's always just the two of you? (L) Yeah, that's the resonance I guess. (J) So that it's as much the fact no one else has been involved in it and it's grooved to the two of you... (A) Yes, this is probable. (J)...coupled with the fact that Terry's been away and maybe not as grooved into the energy because of everything that's been going on. (T) Can it be the energy itself has changed? Or that each person brings different energy? (J) Well we know that.
A: Resonance that is pure is a property of co-linearity. It can resonate thereby to a stronger signal of similar purity.
Q: (A) Co-linearity essentially means going in the same direction. (J) Running along the same lines in similarity. (L) So when you become co-linear...(J) You guys are co-linear right now, you have been since you've connected, you've always been co-linear. So that's how it's grooved to your resonance to each other. (L) Yeah. (J) That's how I take that, whether it's right or not, I don't know. (T) Does that mean we're co-linear, with more twists maybe (to Jan)? (J) Well I think we are. (L) Well the one thing that I think happened or is happening with the group because of the interaction is that everybody is becoming more or less co-linear. It's like increasing, it's like everybody is...their all coming to the same...I don't even know how to say it. It's not the same because everybody has their own particular perspective, it's like they contribute to it. It's like a whole bunch of different people in a circle looking at something, and they're all describing their particular perspective of it... (T) Like their describing an elephant. (L)...and the whole elephant is growing out of it. (J) In other words it's building upon everyone's concentration and their particular focus. It's like everyone's bringing their...(L)...And contributing ...(J)...focus to the table and it's all building from that. (L) Yeah, that's the only way I can describe it because everybody has individual perceptions, but what we're learning is something in the middle that's growing out of everybody's contribution. And then of course this person over here, by contributing their view, that person over there is able to have access to it, to know it. (J) Well if it's building as you go along, everyone's perception of it changes as it builds because it's changing. And they are looking at it, and as they're seeing it and keep contributing different things as it changes. (L) Yeah, and then the very act of that exchange links...(T) That makes sense. I've always felt that by having the material out on the net, the more people read it the more they become attuned to it. Those who fight it don't get anywhere. Those who don't do. (L) Well, what do you think about that?
A: Terry has much of value to contribute as well as much to gain.
Q: (T) Okay, what are my sacred cows somewhat?
A: Your opinions.
Q: (T) My opinions are sacred cows? Which opinions, I have too many of them. My opinions on what?
A: Many issues that might be opened to greater awareness by the act of networking with many perspectives. It is important to not close any doors.
Q: (T) True, but then my opinions are extremely outrageous and I offend a lot of people with them. (J) Or are you closing doors. (T) Am I closing doors by not expressing my opinions?
A: Doors are closed by not working with the challenges to opinions of equal "strangeness."
Q: (T) But opinions are opinions and offending someone is a totally different thing and I don't have any interest in offending people with my opinions. (L) I don't think that was the point. You only talk to people who don't have strange opinions. (T) Umm, well I talk to people with really strange opinions that make me look almost normal. (J) It says, "Doors are closed by not working with the challenges to opinions of equal strangeness." (A) Normally the point is that when you have a strong opinion and the opinion clashes with someone else's opinion there's a conflict and the question is: you can say I don't care or you can try to resolve the conflict by analyzing and being open to changing your opinion; not necessarily agreeing with someone else's opinion. But by analyzing the two different things you can make a step to see how changing your opinion in a certain completely new direction is possible. You see, this is black, this is white. Okay, what can we make of this? Well, we may find out that there is a whole spectrum of colors that we can discover a rainbow, you see. Oh my god, huh, a rainbow! (J) When I did not see your white to my black neither of us saw the stuff in between. (L) Well, one of the things we've seen that happens with the group is somebody will have an opinion, I'll have an opinion, anybody can have an opinion, but they'll say we don't really like to talk about opinions too much, you've seen this, you can say you have an opinion and somebody will say 'On what do you base your opinion, explain it.' And usually, in the course of explaining an opinion, they'll say 'Oh, huh, okay let's think about this opinion,' and then everybody will talk about the opinion. And then, in the end, we may still have the same opinion but for a different reason than we had when we started out. Or, we may change it. (A) But I think the main point is probably that people learn that this exchange or this networking is not just the obstruction of difficult discussion, but that it has direct application to their lives. They want to do something like to be free of programming or to see to some internal line or to see the matrix working on everyone of them; to note, to see, to interpret things that happen to them in terms of the general framework and better understand their own place. And then it becomes a practical thing and that's why people learn that being open to what is new, you can notice things that are useful.
[Further discussion]
Q: (T) So are there any particular opinions that you can begin with that can point out that I can work on? (L) Oh Terry you know you're not supposed to ask that, you know better! (laughter)
A: He is trying to fool Mother Cassiopaea. Not today!
Q: (T) Nice try, no cigar (laughter).
A: No short cuts!
Q: (T) Well I have a lot to work with don't I? I have opinions on everything. (L) Don't we all. (T) Which one...(L) Just start throwing them out there. (T) How do I throw them out there without being offensive? I just try very hard to not be offensive to people...'cause I have no reason...
A: Ask questions!
Q: (A) It's very simple, if I have just opinions and my thing is just to express my opinion to other people it's a signal that I don't want to learn anything. I know all, so how to change? Just suspend all opinion and just be curious and ask questions and see if you can learn. Just do--'I am suspending all opinions. Even if have one, I'm not going to express it.' Because sooner or later if you ask questions people will start asking:'Well, tell us what you think.' Right? 'It's suspicious he is just ask question and he is not giving anything from himself' (laughter). (T) That's good. Okay, do you have anything to...
A: Networking works!!!
Q: (T) Actually since we've been doing the antique shows I've been talking to more people than I have in a long time; people I've never met you know; people just all over the place out there. Boy, some of them have opinions that make me feel good!
A: Are they co-linear?
Q: (L) Co-linear. Co-linear means going in the same direction. (T) In other words, do they have the same opinions I have? (A) No. No. Going in the same direction. (L) You don't have to have the same opinions, but you want to go in the same direction. What are their goals? (T) I don't know, for the most part they're just people I talk to passing through on the shows. I'm only talking to them for a few minutes. (J) There's no co-linearity there. (A) They are not even co-linear in interest; except for commercial. (T) Well, it doesn't hurt to try and express the STO philosophy to them as they pass by; be nice and friendly. (A) Yeah, sure. (T) Show them that the whole world doesn't hate them. (J) Were not quite up to pulling people off the street yet. (T) Do you have any more to say on this?
A: First you must choose your goals. Then you network with others with similar goals to achieve them. What do you want? Graduation or repeating the grade?
Q: (T) Oh well graduation is always the best. (L) Well you know what Gurdjieff said - 'No one can escape alone. You have to have a group and you have to have a plan, and you have to work.' Nobody can do it alone and you have to do it with the help of somebody's who done it before. It's a very important thing he said about that. He said first you have to understand you're in prison and then you have to learn about the prison and you havet to learn about how to get out, and you can only learn about that from somebody who's already gotten out. And you can't do it alone because it takes a whole team. (T) To get out? (L) Yeah, that's what he said, and it's so true. Because the minute you start wiggling around in the matrix, it comes down on your head. (T) Well the matrix is programmed to keep us here. And keep us stupid. (L) Yeah. Okay, are we done with you Terry? (T) I think so! But I have a question. What happened to Ark and Laura's computer system this weekend?
A: Mainly it is a psychic signal of impending quantum shift.
Q: (T) Just because the computers went down? Uh, can you expand on that a little bit?
A: Fluidity of reality affects such "hardware" which is sensitive to such flux.
Q: (A) So something is going to shift, reality is fluid, hardware is affected, and all kinds of things happen probably due to the interaction of what is outside us and the hardware. It's hard to find the real prime reason, see. (L) I think what happens sometimes is the reality starts fluxing, that you're psychically aware of it and the psychic energy in your own system then affects those things in your environment that are attuned or sensitive to your psychic energy, and then depending upon your fluxing of your psychic energy it can signal you. I guess, it's like the black cat walking by twice, that would be one way of putting it. (A) I think it&#

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Laura said:

Painter, perhaps it would help if you read "The Wave" so that you could understand that our beginning point is NOT Gurdjieff, it is rather direct initiation via the Cassiopaean Experiment . We find Gurdjieff's work to be very full of rich and helpful concepts, but it is not the foundation here. You could say that it is more the layout of the rooms. We also utilize concepts from Mouravieff who, we clearly understand didn't have the whole cheese (neither did Gurdjieff, but he was a lot closer than Mouravierr), and Castaneda who, it is clear, borrowed a lot of his ideas from Gurdjieff and re-worked them. We also find many clues in modern psychological research.

In general, we have observed that a "direct connection to the work" can be a hindrance rather than a benefit. We do, in fact, have several members of QFS who have been long-time members of various Gurdjieff groups around the world and have discussed and analyzed how they operate. In The Wave, you will come across a discussion of my husband's meeting with Henri Tracol years ago and the result of their discussion. You might find it interesting.

The bottom line is: Gurdjieff's work is only part of the puzzle, though it is a large part.

Let me share a few comments from the Cs - who are, as I mentioned, the foundation, the frame of the puzzle, and the filler inner of many obscure details that would otherwise not be clear - on the subject of Mouravieff and Gurdjieff. The following excerpts are all which discuss either, or mention them in an interesting context. You may find some of these discussions with the Cs to be interesting - or not.

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When you have been stripped of all your illusions, when you have nothing left to believe in, there is no one there at all but yourself. It felt rather like falling endlessly in icy, black, meaningless space. No rhyme nor reason, no truth or beauty, no anything that I had ever believed in could be seen anywhere. I had peeled away the layers of all the warm, fuzzy, comforting beliefs and found that it was all a lie, a deception, a mask for "feeding and manipulation." And by believing the lies, I had participated in the feeding and manipulating to so great a degree that my grief and regret became an ocean in which I was drowning. No wonder we resist giving up our beliefs! Without them, we have to face the truth about ourselves! And, as much as we think we are loving, caring, giving beings, when we see the TRUTH, when we see that most of our ideas about loving and caring and being have been manipulated to deprive us of our free will and to pass the infection on to those we love the most, it is like looking into the pit of Hell.

And when you look into the pit of Hell and realize that you have been feeding that black and bloody, sucking and gaping and gore filled maw waiting to swallow you, and that you have taught those you love to feed it as well, the horror of the realization is enough to drive you mad with grief and despair. And you search for a meaning, some little point of illumination, and there is no light anywhere, not even a single candle to dispel the darkness.

But, while falling in this dark, empty space, something begins to form inside you. In the beginning it is very small, but it catches your attention and, since it is the only thing that is "different" in the sucking, feeding darkness, you become riveted on it. You cannot be sure exactly what it is at first, but your attention gives it energy and it begins to grow inside you.

What you have found is your will.

And once you have found your will you SEE "the CHOICE." Choice is a function of will. Where Will exists, Choice comes into being. You CAN choose.

What you see is that you can choose the ORIENTATION of your soul.

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And so, the choice comes, you are face to face with what you truly ARE, in the blackness of the abyss, and you choose. I saw that, in terms of any action I might take in this reality, I had NO Free Will EXCEPT in terms of my RESPONSE. I could CHOOSE HOW I RESPONDED. I could choose my Frequency. That was it. In my case the thought came: "I will offer myself as one who has CHOSEN to BE this light, love, truth and beauty. By BEing it, I am GIVING it to God. I will strive for as long as I am present on this Godforsaken planet, as long as I am separated from my Source, drifting in the darkness, to BE as much of love and truth beauty as I can manage to manifest. I no longer cared whether that made me a prime piece of meat for the Lizzies; I didn't care if they were going to eat me tomorrow - or even if they ate everybody I loved and the whole Universe ended in a Bang and I was blotted out of existence for eternity! I figured that for whatever it was worth, which may have been absolutely nothing, when it was all over and the stars all blinked out, there was going to be that one little memory in the Physical Universe's brain; the memory that one person RESPONDED with Love to the right of the Universe to BE exactly as it IS, even if what it IS is nothing but a dark, devouring mouth that consumes its creatures as soon as they are created, including me. My response to SEEING was to sound the tone of Love Beauty and Truth so that it would have existence IN me.

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painter said:

In the section where you introduce Ark's journal in Chapter XXVIII you say this meeting with Tracol occurred in 1986. Then the first journal entry is dated 1966. The second journal entry is dated 1996. I'm assuming that two of these dates are typos.

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painter said:

I will point out, however, that derisive comments such as "contemplating one's navel" as in the above transcript and said on the second Gurdjieff podcast may utterly miss the mark. That a man (or group) may be sitting and doing 'nothing' outwardly that can be perceived by the physical sense does not mean that he isn't doing something. Perhaps he is asleep and only dreaming -- that is certainly one possibility -- but it is not the only possibility. Given all I've read from you (individually and collectively) so far it astounds me a bit that you would even hold this attitude.

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painter said:

I need to stop reading, writing and thinking now and just let this begin to sink in....

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T.C. said:

Hi painter.

I think it's important to remember the context in which Laura presented the correspondence with the member of the Gurdjieff group.

Gurdjieff's aim was to wake up the world. These modern groups believe they are continuing G.'s work, but who really benefits from their activities?

Whenever Laura talks about the new age, "oooohhhmmm" or whatever, it's always an analysis of how those things fit into the aim of waking up the world.

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During one conversation with G. in our group, which was beginning to become permanent, I asked: “Why, if ancient knowledge has been preserved and if, speaking in general, there exists a knowledge distinct from our science and philosophy or even surpassing it, is it so carefully concealed, why is it not made common property? Why are the men who possess this knowledge unwilling to let it pass into the general circulation of life for the sake of a better and more successful struggle against deceit, evil, and ignorance?

This is, I think, a question which usually arises in everyone’s mind on first acquaintance with the ideas of esotericism.

“There are two answers to that,” said G. “In the first place, this knowledge is not concealed; and in the second place, it cannot, from its very nature, become common property. We will consider the second of these statements first. I will prove to you afterwards that knowledge” (he emphasized the word) “is far more accessible to those capable of assimilating it than is usually supposed; and that the whole trouble is that people either do not want it or cannot receive it.

“But first of all another thing must be understood, namely, that knowledge cannot belong to all, cannot even belong to many. Such is the law. You do not understand this because you do not understand that knowledge, like everything else in the world, is material. It is material, and this means that it possesses all the characteristics of materiality. One of the first characteristics of materiality is that matter is always limited, that is to say, the quantity of matter in a given place and under given conditions is limited. Even the sand of the desert and the water of the sea is a definite and unchangeable quantity. So that, if knowledge is material, then it means that there is a definite quantity of it in a given place at a given time. It may be said that, in the course of a certain period of time, say a century, humanity has a definite amount of knowledge at its disposal. But we know, even from an ordinary observation of life, that the matter of knowledge possesses entirely different qualities according to whether it is taken in small or large quantities. Taken in a large quantity in a given place, that is by one man, let us say, or by a small group of men, it produces very good results; taken in a small quantity (that is, by every one of a very large number of people), it gives no results at all; or it may give even negative results, contrary to those expected. Thus if a certain definite quantity of knowledge is distributed among millions of people, each individual will receive very little, and this small amount of knowledge will change nothing either in his life or in his understanding of things. And however large the number of people who receive this small amount of knowledge, it will change nothing in their lives, except, perhaps, to make them still more difficult.

“But if, on the contrary, large quantities of knowledge are concentrated in a small number of people, then this knowledge will give very great results. From this point of view it is far more advantageous that knowledge should be preserved among a small number of people and not dispersed among the masses.

“If we take a certain quantity of gold and decide to gild a number of objects with it, we must know, or calculate, exactly what number of objects can be gilded with this quantity of gold. If we try to gild a greater number, they will be covered with gold unevenly, in patches, and will look much worse than if they had no gold at all; in fact we shall lose our gold.

“The distribution of knowledge is based upon exactly the same principle. If knowledge is given to all, nobody will get any. If it is preserved among a few, each will receive not only enough to keep, but to increase, what he receives.

“At the first glance this theory seems very unjust, since the position of those who are, so to speak, denied knowledge in order that others may receive a greater share may seem very sad and undeservedly harder than it ought to be. Actually, however, this is not so at all; and in the distribution of knowledge there is not the slightest injustice.

“The fact is that the enormous majority of people do not want any knowledge whatever; they refuse their share of it and do not even take the ration allotted to them, in the general distribution, for the purposes of life. This is particularly evident in times of mass madness such as wars, revolutions, and so on, when men suddenly seem to lose even the small amount of common sense they had and turn into complete automatons, giving themselves over to wholesale destruction in vast numbers, in other words, even losing the instinct of self-preservation. Owing to this, enormous quantities of knowledge remain, so to speak, unclaimed and can be distributed among those who realize its value.

“There is nothing unjust in this, because those who receive knowledge take nothing that belongs to others, deprive others of nothing; they take only what others have rejected as useless and what would in any case be lost if they did not take it.

“The collecting of knowledge by some depends on the rejection of knowledge by others.

“There are periods in the life of humanity, which generally coincide with the beginning of the fall of cultures and civilizations, when the masses irretrievably lose their reason and begin to destroy everything that has been created by centuries and millenniums of culture. Such periods of mass madness, often coinciding with geological cataclysms, climatic changes, and similar phenomena of a planetary character, release a very great quantity of the matter of knowledge. This, in its turn, necessitates the work of collecting this matter of knowledge which would otherwise be lost. Thus the work of collecting scattered matter of knowledge frequently coincides with the beginning of the destruction and fall of cultures and civilizations.

“This aspect of the question is clear. The crowd neither wants nor seeks knowledge, and the leaders of the crowd, in their own interests, try to strengthen its fear and dislike of everything new and unknown. The slavery in which mankind lives is based upon this fear. It is even difficult to imagine all the horror of this slavery. We do not understand what people are losing. But in order to understand the cause of this slavery it is enough to see how people live, what constitutes the aim of their existence, the object of their desires, passions, and aspirations, of what they think, of what they talk, what they serve and what they worship.

Consider what the cultured humanity of our time spends money on; even leaving the war out, what commands the highest price; where the biggest crowds are. If we think for a moment about these questions it becomes clear that humanity, as it is now, with the interests it lives by, cannot expect to have anything different from what it has. But, as I have already said, it cannot be otherwise. Imagine that for the whole of mankind half a pound of knowledge is allotted a year. If this knowledge is distributed among everyone, each will receive so little that he will remain the fool he was. But, thanks to the fact that very few want to have this knowledge, those who take it are able to get, let us say, a grain each, and acquire the possibility of becoming more intelligent. All cannot become intelligent even if they wish. And if they did become intelligent it would not help matters. There exists a general equilibrium which cannot be upset.

“That is one aspect. The other, as I have already said, consists in the fact that no one is concealing anything; there is no mystery whatever. But the acquisition or transmission of true knowledge demands great labor and great effort both of him who receives and of him who gives. And those who possess this knowledge are doing everything they can to transmit and communicate it to the greatest possible number of people, to facilitate people’s approach to it and enable them to prepare themselves to receive the truth. But knowledge cannot be given by force to anyone and, as I have already said, an unprejudiced survey of the average man’s life, of what fills his day and of the things he is interested in, will at once show whether it is possible to accuse men who possess knowledge of concealing it, of not wishing to give it to people, or of not wishing to teach people what they know themselves.

“He who wants knowledge must himself make the initial efforts to find the source of knowledge and to approach it, taking advantage of the help and indications which are given to all, but which people, as a rule, do not want to see or recognize. Knowledge cannot come to people without effort on their own part. They understand this very well in connection with ordinary knowledge, but in the case of great knowledge, when they admit the possibility of its existence, they find it possible to expect something different. Everyone knows very well that if, for instance, a man wants to learn Chinese, it will take several years of intense work; everyone knows that five years are needed to grasp the principles of medicine, and perhaps twice as many years for the study of painting or music. And yet there are theories which affirm that knowledge can come to people without any effort on their part, that they can acquire it even in sleep. The very existence of such theories constitutes an additional explanation of why knowledge cannot come to people. At the same time it is essential to understand that man’s independent efforts to attain anything in this direction can also give no results. A man can only attain knowledge with the help of those who possess it. This must be understood from the very beginning. One must learn from him who knows.”

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"These modern groups believe they are continuing G.'s work, but who really benefits from their activities?"

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Whenever Laura talks about the new age, "oooohhhmmm" or whatever, it's always an analysis of how those things fit into the aim of waking up the world.

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painter said:

As I say, I understand now in a way that I did not before this morning that you have a channel to a source and that channel is independent of Gurdjieff and his students. Whether there is some relationship to that of Gurdjieff's is beyond my ability to grasp at this point.

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Amazing Grace said:

The child I was carrying at the time my grandmother died was born in the Spring of 1985. The entire pregnancy was spent mourning for my grandmother. This was especially poignant because she would be the first baby I could not bring home and put directly in Grandma's arms for her to love and rock and sing to. She was the main member of my "support team," and the organizer and leader of the "baby fan club" in our house. My babies were wonderfully enriched by her devotion to each of them.

It was an extremely difficult delivery for me and the new baby. My heart ached for my poor little one who had been injured in the birth process. When she was finally laid in my arms, right away I noticed her incredible little hands - exactly like my grandmother's. In fact, so much like them that I felt this was almost like a message from her.

Not only that, but the baby had a strawberry hematoma on her left ankle. My grandmother had broken her left ankle when I was a child, and it had required surgery to repair it. Ever afterward, it was swollen and red in exactly the same place that my baby's hematoma was situated.

My baby had also suffered a broken left collarbone during delivery which made it impossible for her to use her tiny arm for several weeks. My grandmother had undergone a radical mastectomy on the left side that made it impossible for her to use her left arm.

Grandma had died of lung cancer (she never smoked), which meant that she essentially drowned in her own lung fluids. At birth, my baby had been unable to breathe or cry because her lungs were full of a thick, sticky fluid. It was a couple of very tense minutes while the hospital staff worked frantically to clean out her lungs and get her to breathe. Her lungs were so weak that her cry was like a little kitten mewing for months after her birth.

At about the same time, the collar bone healed, the strawberry hematoma disappeared, and her lungs improved, so I no longer sat up all night making sure she was breathing. And today, her hands are her own. But for that time, when I was most desperately grieving that my grandmother was no longer present to greet the new baby, I had received some small comfort from these "signs" of Love that never dies.

Was my grandmother reincarnated into my fourth child? I don't know. Yes, they are very much alike in many ways - most notably in the desire to care for and see to the comfort and happiness of others - but I don't think about it any more. She is who she is, a wonderful and extraordinary young lady with brains, talent, beauty and, most important of all, a loving soul.

As a result of the injuries I had received during the delivery, I was bedridden for many months. There I was, living in the woods, isolated from family and friends; I had four little children to care for and I couldn't even walk. My oldest child was only six, and the responsibility for the care of her brother and sister, as well as her mother and the new baby, fell on her. She was smart, talented, and a real trooper, but it was clearly not a healthy situation.

On top of this soul deep grief I was still unable to resolve, I was frustrated and irritable at not being able to do anything about my physical condition. Not only had I lost nearly everything I loved, I had now lost my health.

Since I could no longer maintain my very active participation in life in a physical way, I was forced, by the universe, as it were, to find other outlets for my energy. I decided this would be the perfect time to master the art of meditation. Prompted by the little "signs" that appeared during this birth, I felt compelled to investigate this question of Eternal Life. I decided the only way I could accomplish this objective was to be able to truly open my heart to God, so he could infuse me with this "something" that obviously I so desperately lacked. Thus, the idea grew in me that I must still my own voice, both internal and external, so that I could hear daily the voice that betokens God's presence within.

I searched the Bible for clues. Having taught meditation, self-hypnosis, and other relaxation techniques, I knew all of these were ways many people claim to make contact with their "higher self" or what-not. But, being on the "faith trip," whatever I did had to be within the "guidelines" I had accepted for my life. I found a reference in Psalms: "Let the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be acceptable unto thee, Oh Lord."

Well, that clinched it for me! There it was, right in the Bible! I began to meditate using that very phrase as my mantra, since that seemed to be the acceptable way to do it by the rules. And it was at this point that things began to really "happen".

Several years earlier I had found a book on a "bargain table" in a book store entitled "In Search of the Miraculous" by P.D. Ouspensky. The blurb on the cover said: "The noted author of Tertium Organum combines the logic of a mathematician with the vision of a mystic in his quest for solutions to the problems of Man and the Universe." Since it was a bargain and promised to reveal secrets about our world, naturally, I bought it immediately. When I got home with it and tried to read it, it proved to be rather dry, and I gave it up. It had lain on the shelf ever after.

I had continued, to a great extent, my reading habits through the past few years, though there had been considerable restriction on the time I was allowed to give to it. Larry resented the fact that I liked to read before going to sleep, and there were many nights when I sat up alone, shivering in the cold, to read what I considered to be my necessary daily allowance of intellectual input.

But now that I was bedridden, the door was wide open to reading as much as I liked. In that sense, it was a blessing. So, I remembered this book that I had put aside; it seemed that a book that promised insight to the issues I was struggling with - even a very dry book - didn’t seem like such a bad idea when I could do nothing else. I asked for it, and soon it was located and brought to me.

I realized pretty quickly that this book would go to the top of the list of "forbidden works" according to the elders of our church, but I didn't care. After my experiences with the church over the past few years, the teachings were rapidly declining as the standard by which reality ought to be measured. I was still "on guard" against "evil ideas," but I was sure that I could filter out anything too "dangerous" in a work that promised insight on the issues for which I was seeking answers.

Everything was fine for about 17 pages, and I was getting "into" the style of writing and found it to be deeply interesting and then - well - then this mysterious "G" (about whom I knew nothing), made a remark that completely knocked the wind out of my still mostly Fundamentalist sails. In response to Ouspensky's speculation that, in the industrial age, humans were becoming more "mechanized" and had stopped thinking, Gurdjieff said:

"There is another kind of mechanization which is much more dangerous: being a machine oneself. Have you ever thought about the fact that all people themselves are machines? ...Look, all those people you see are simply machines - nothing more. ...You think there is something that chooses its own path, something that can stand against mechanization; you think that not everything is equally mechanical."

At this point, Ouspensky raised the very argument that was forming in my own mind:

"Why of course not! ...Art, poetry, thought, are phenomena of quite a different order."

Gurdjieff replied: "Of exactly the same order. These activities are just as mechanical as everything else. Men are machines and nothing but mechanical actions can be expected of machines."

I was so enraged that I snapped the book shut and threw it against the wall!

How dare he say such a terrible thing about human beings! How dare he deny the reality of the spirit, the sublimity of music and mysticism and the salvation of Christ! I'm surprised that steam didn't issue from my head. I was hot with outrage!

But, it had been said. The seed of the thought had been planted in my mind. After awhile, my curiosity about such a concept came to the fore. I began to mull over the issue in an attempt to find ways to disprove it.

I mused over my own life, all my interactions with other people, and gradually, I began to realize that there was, indeed, something mysteriously "mechanical" about the interactions between human beings. I thought about the many people I had worked with therapeutically using hypnosis, and how "mechanical" the therapy was, and how the roots of most of their problems were rather like "mechanical" and conditioned reactions to their perceptions and observations. Generally, it seemed, these perceptions were erroneous, and it was the error of this "mechanical" thinking that created the problems in the first place.

But, over and over again, their problems and the ways they formed and operated, as well as the therapeutic solutions themselves, were, essentially, mechanical. It was like a formula. With just a few "hints" from the person, I could almost immediately see the whole dynamic of their past and the formation of their problem, as well as the "mechanical" way to solve it. I applied the technique, and just like changing the wires and spark plugs in a car, it made them start "firing on all cylinders" again.

Okay, so the guy has a point. But clearly, those people who were "saved" were saved from being mechanical, right? I wanted to find out if he had anything to say about that! I called one of the children to retrieve the book for me and I continued to read. The question was asked: "Can it be said that man possesses immortality?"

Gurdjieff's reply was fascinating:

"Immortality is one of the qualities we ascribe to people without having a sufficient understanding of their meaning. Other qualities of this kind are 'individuality,' in the sense of an inner unity, a 'permanent and unchangeable I,' 'consciousness,' and 'will.' All these qualities can belong to man, but this certainly does not mean that they do belong to him or belong to each and every one.

"In order to understand what man is at the present time, that is, at the present level of development, it is necessary to imagine to a certain extent what he can be, that is, what he can attain. Only by understanding the correct sequence of development possible will people cease to ascribe to themselves what, at present, they do not possess, and what, perhaps, they can only acquire after great effort and great labor.

"According to an ancient teaching, traces of which may be found in many systems, old and new, a man who has attained the full development possible for man, a man in the full sense of the word, consists of four bodies. These four bodies are composed of substances which gradually become finer and finer, mutually interpenetrate one another, and form four independent organisms, standing in a definite relationship to one another but capable of independent action."

Gurdjieff's idea was that it was possible for these four bodies to exist because the physical human body has such a complex organization that, under certain favorable conditions, a new and independent organism actually can develop and grow within it. This new system of organs of perception can afford a more convenient and responsive instrument for the activity of an awakened consciousness.

" The consciousness manifested in this new body is capable of governing it, and it has full power and full control over the physical body. In this second body, under certain conditions, a third body can grow, again having characteristics of its own. The consciousness manifested in this third body has full power and control over the first two bodies; and the third body possesses the possibility of acquiring knowledge inaccessible either to the first or to the second body. In the third body, under certain conditions, a fourth can grow, which differs as much from the third as the third differs from the second, and the second from the first. The consciousness manifested in the fourth body has full control over the first three bodies and itself.

"These four bodies are defined in different teachings in various ways. The first is the physical body, in Christian terminology the 'carnal' body; the second, in Christian terminology, is the 'natural' body; the third is the 'spiritual' body; and the fourth, in the terminology of esoteric Christianity, is the 'divine body. In theosophical terminology the first is the 'physical' body, the second is the 'astral,' the third is the 'mental,' and the fourth the 'causal.'

"In the terminology of certain Eastern teachings the first body is the 'carriage,' (the body), the second is the 'horse' (feelings, desires), the third the 'driver' (mind), and the fourth the 'master (I, consciousness, will).

"Such comparisons and parallels may be found in most systems and teachings which recognize something more in man than the physical body. But almost all these teachings, while repeating in a more or less familiar form the definitions and divisions of the ancient teaching, have forgotten or omitted its most important feature, which is: that man is not born with the finer bodies. They can only be artificially cultivated in him, provided favorable conditions both internal and external are present.

"The 'astral body' is not an indispensable implement for man. It is a great luxury which only a few can afford. A man can live quite well without an 'astral body.' His physical body possesses all the functions necessary for life. A man without 'astral body' may even produce the impression of being a very intellectual or even spiritual man, and may deceive not only others but also himself.

"When the third body has been formed and has acquired all the properties, powers, and knowledge possible for it, there remains the problem of fixing this knowledge and these powers. Because, having been imparted to it by influences of a certain kind, they may be taken away by these same influences or by others. By means of a special kind of work for all three bodies the acquired properties may be made the permanent and inalienable possession of the third body.

"The process of fixing these acquired properties corresponds to the process of the formation of the fourth body.

"And only the man who possesses four fully developed bodies can be called a 'man' in the full sense of the word. This man possesses many properties which ordinary man does not possess. One of these properties is immortality. All religions and all ancient teachings contain the idea that, by acquiring the fourth body, man acquires immortality; and they all contain indications of the ways to acquire the fourth body, that is, immortality."

The book went flying again!

I was outraged. But this time, my indignation lasted only a very short time. Again, in thinking over the many clues about human beings I had been collecting all my life, including those derived from observing myself, I saw something very deeply true being said here. As much as I might not like it, I could not deny the fact it was certainly a hypothesis supported by observation.

Hints of these matters did occur in the Bible, though they were among the most obscure references. Preachers and theologians generally tended to leave them strictly alone. At least 17 times in the New Testament, it's noted that Jesus taught his disciples in "secret". The teachings of Jesus in the Bible itself consists only of his purported public discourses. There was a lot missing, and Gurdjieff spoke as one with authority. What's more, it rang of truth.

The book was retrieved again. I was curious to see what further remarks might be made about Christianity. Ouspensky asked the same question I would have asked myself:

"For a man of Western culture, it is of course difficult to believe and to accept the idea that an ignorant fakir, a naïve monk, or a yogi who has retired from life may be on the way to evolution while an educated European, armed with 'exact knowledge' and all the latest methods of investigation, has no chance whatever and is moving in a circle from which there is no escape." Gurdjieff answered:

"Yes, that is because people believe in progress and culture. There is no progress whatever. Everything is just the same as it was thousands, and tens of thousands, of years ago. The outward form changes. The essence does not change. Man remains just the same. 'Civilized' and 'cultured' people live with exactly the same interests as the most ignorant savages. Modern civilization is based on violence and slavery and fine words.

"...What do you expect? People are machines. Machines have to be blind and unconscious, they cannot be otherwise, and all their actions have to correspond to their nature. Everything happens. No one does anything. 'Progress' and 'civilization,' in the real meaning of these words, can appear only as the result of conscious efforts. They cannot appear as the result of unconscious mechanical actions. And what conscious effort can there be in machines? And if one machine is unconscious, then a hundred machines are unconscious, and so are a thousand machines, or a hundred thousand, or a million. And the unconscious activity of a million machines must necessarily result in destruction and extermination. It is precisely in unconscious involuntary manifestations that all evil lies. You do not yet understand and cannot imagine all the results of this evil. But the time will come when you will understand."

And Gurdjieff was right. He was speaking at the beginning of the First World War, in the opening rounds of a century of unprecedented warfare.

My copy of "In Search of the Miraculous" flew across the room at least a dozen more times. I fumed and raged inside each time I was confronted with an idea that, upon reflection and comparison to my observations and experiences, seemed a far better explanation of the dynamics of human existence than anything I had ever read in my life.

As for this "unconscious evil" that Gurdjieff mentioned, he explained in the Tale of the Evil Magician:

"A very rich magician had a great many sheep. But at the same time this magician was very mean. He did not want to hire shepherds, nor did he want to erect a fence about the pasture where his sheep were grazing. The sheep consequently often wandered into the forest, fell into ravines, and so on, and above all they ran away, for they knew that the magician wanted their flesh and skins and this they did not like.

"At last the magician found a remedy. He hypnotized his sheep and suggested to them first of all that they were immortal and that no harm was being done to them when they were skinned. On the contrary, it would be very good for them and even pleasant. Secondly he suggested that the magician was a good master who loved his flock so much that he was ready to do anything in the world for them. In the third place he suggested to them that if anything at all were going to happen to them it was not going to happen just then, at any rate not that day, and therefore they had no need to think about it. Further, the magician suggested to his sheep that they were not sheep at all; to some of them he suggested that they were lions, to others that they were eagles, to others that they were men, and to others that they were magicians.

"And after this all his cares and worries about the sheep came to an end. They never ran away again but quietly awaited the time when the magician would require their flesh and skins.

Ouspensky wrote that theoretically, a man could awaken. But in practice this is almost impossible. As soon as a man awakens for a moment and opens his eyes, all the forces that caused him to fall asleep in the first place begin to act on him with tenfold energy. He immediately falls asleep again, very often dreaming that he is awake.

When I read this I immediately thought of the pastor who conducted that farcical effort to get me to speak in tongues, and the so-called "exorcism," the same pastor who'd been taken in by [previously described] manipulations. Could it be possible that he was one of those described in Gurdjieff's tale as being hypnotized into believing that he was a magician? How many other people had I met who claimed to "know" things, but the evidence of their lives, their actions, did not support their claims?

I also thought about my study of the history of man in my search for the justification of God, and how I had come to see it as the biography of Satan. I was beginning to realize that something was very wrong with the picture of the world that we are taught from the moment we are born, and that is further implemented in our culture, our society and most especially our religions.

I thought back over my life and realized that all the events that had gradually maneuvered me into my present position could most definitely be perceived as the "forces that act to keep a person asleep". It was a certainty that some tremendous pressure had been applied to stop me from observing, from analyzing, and most of all from thinking and learning.

The question was: who or what was the true nature of the "Evil Magician?"

Reading this book sort of "jump-started" my thinking processes, which had lain fallow for some time now. Unconsciously, I was establishing a regimen of deep and intense thinking, alternating with the stopping of thinking that was achieved during meditation. My meditations seemed to progress quite rapidly. I had heard that achieving just a few minutes of deep contemplation was difficult and often took years of practice, but it seemed that I rapidly achieved that point, and soon was able to enter a rather "timeless" state for what proved to be somewhat extended periods of time.

After my regular meditation exercises, I would sit up in bed, surrounded by piles of books and notebooks, reading and writing notes on what I read. As I did so, I would stop and think about questions that occurred to me as I read. The instant these questions were framed in my mind, thoughts would simply pour into my head so fast that I was mentally leaping and jumping just to follow them. These thoughts always and only came in response to the questions that I would pose mentally about whatever I was considering at the moment in my studies. The urge to write these thoughts down was so overwhelming that I spent literally hours a day, filling page after page in longhand, until I felt completely drained mentally and physically. I still have these notebooks. Because these questions had little to do with matters of faith or religion, it didn't occur to me that I was "channeling" at the time. I was just "thinking".

But, there was a curious thing about this "thinking". If I didn't write the thoughts down, they would stay there, backing up like dammed-up water. As soon as I started to write again, it was as if there had been no break in the flow of thoughts whatsoever. They picked up right where they left off.

At some point, I decided that I must find out if these ideas that were coming to me had any basis in fact whatsoever. I most definitely needed more input! So the answers that "came to me" pointed me in the direction of certain studies that otherwise might not have been part of my experience. I was compelled by my rational and reflective nature to research each concept to discover if there was any way it could be supported scientifically and objectively.

I subscribed to a library service by mail, and soon began ordering and reading book after book on subjects that ranged from geology to physics, from psychology, to theology, from metaphysics to astronomy. As I read, I found many pieces that fit in the framework of the information that was pouring into my head relating to these very subjects. I was both surprised and energized to find that the ideas I was getting weren't so crazy after all!

While assembling my notes and ideas, I included notes from more "mainstream" sources that supported what I had written, or expanded the idea, or, at the very least, gave it plausibility. If the "idea" I had was not supported by observation or scholarly opinion, if only indirectly, it had to be discarded. As it happens, the whole series of information streams did turn out to have a wide array of support, and I was forced to severely limit what I included for the sake of brevity.

During the entire time I was working on this project, Larry repeatedly criticized and ridiculed my efforts. He decided that if I could sit up and read and write I was clearly able to do everything else. He was openly vocal in this way, in front of the children, telling me that it was obvious that I didn't want to be a wife and mother anymore or I would get well faster! This, naturally, led to terrible interactions between us, leaving me in a state of helpless frustration and terror that he would walk out and never come back. And it wasn't so much the idea of his absence that made me afraid as it was the consequences of his absence: I knew that I was unable to take care of myself, much less the children. If Larry left, I would lose them, too.

At this point, I was still struggling to work within my faith, with a strong Christian perspective. I wasn't quite yet able to let go of the crutch of the church. That was soon to change, however.

One Sunday, after I had recovered most of my mobility, I was sitting in church during the Pastoral prayer. I was praying hard along with the minister that God would send the Holy Spirit to me to help me understand all that I needed to understand. Suddenly, I heard a buzzing noise, or a crackling sound, similar to the sound of bacon sizzling in the pan. The voice of the pastor and the resonant "Amens" from the congregation became very far away and metallic sounding, exactly as if I were hearing them broadcast from a loudspeaker under water.

This shocked me and my eyes snapped open to see if my vision was impaired. I thought I might be having a stroke or something. I was completely dismayed to see the minister, standing at the podium, gripping the stand with both hands, eyes closed and head thrown back in the profound drama of his praying, was overlaid with a shimmering, living image of a WOLF!

The image of the wolf, in full color, was a sort of alter ego. All the expressions of the pastor were corrupted and twisted by the matching expressions of the wolf. When the minister moved his hands or shook his head, so did the wolf. Every move of the minister's mouth was exactly matched by the gaping jaws of the toothsome figure from Hell! Not a solid figure, it seemed more like a "projection of light," so to speak.

I quickly looked around the sanctuary to see if this was a complete delusion, and was shocked to see similar "overlays" on all the people there. Many of them were sheep, but there were also pigs and cows and other creatures represented.

I was HORRIFIED! Considering the fairly recent experiences with the haunting and the demoniac woman at church, I was sure that the Devil had me now! Here I was, in the middle of church, seeing our beloved Minister in the guise of a WOLF!

This was damnation for certain!

I closed my eyes and prayed harder. The sound anomaly continued. I opened my eyes to peek again. The wolf was still there, dramatizing the mellifluously intoned pastoral prayer.

I squeezed my eyes tightly shut and prayed and rebuked Satan and finally began to just repeat the Lord's prayer to drive this image from my reality. Soon, it began to taper off and die away. When I opened my eyes again, the wolf was gone.

I was extremely relieved to win this battle with Satan.

A couple of Sundays later, we arrived a little late, expecting the services to be already started. We were surprised to see the congregation all gathered outside the church door, milling about like lost sheep. We discovered that our beloved pastor, the shepherd of the flock for a number of years now, the respected and erudite minister of the golden voice, along with his musically talented family had done a "midnight flit," so to speak. Not only that, but they had left the church in a bad way, having embezzled a huge amount of money from funds to pay the bills. There was even a bill for dock rent for a rather large yacht that the church was also paying for, unbeknownst to all. The expensive furnishings of the luxurious parsonage were gone, the mortgages on both buildings were on the verge of foreclosure, the electricity was about to be shut off... and the pastor and his family were gone to parts unknown.

I was stunned. I realized that my "vision" was exactly what I had been praying for: the Holy Spirit revealing the "truth" to me. I had rebuked it and cast it away!

The implications of this event were profound. When I put it together with all the other things that had occurred over the past few years, I saw a picture that was not pleasant to acknowledge.

There are those who would say that it didn't matter about the pastor being a fraud, that it is the faith of the individual and their own interaction with God through Jesus that really counts. And, I will agree. That is, in fact, my point. Because, in the end, following the prescribed pathway of a "standard" religion, praying in sincerity and faith, conducting my life in all the ways predicated upon being "born again," I was given a certain mandate to "learn". In the process of trying to implement this mandate within my faith, I was then given a vision that proved correct. It was only reasonable to think that I was moving in the right direction.

This resulted in shift in my faith in my own ability to be "in touch" with God, or whoever was in charge of this Universe. Clearly, I had been shown the truth under the surface, and my self-doubts and belief in the authority of others had interfered with my communion with Holy Spirit. This gave my studies a little boost. I understood an essential thing: if you truly pray for guidance, deeply and sincerely, that guidance will come. But it may not be what you want to hear or believe and may go against what others say or teach. And in later years, this ability to "see" the reality of individuals, the force behind them, has saved me from terrible mistakes, even if very often, I am "fooled" at the beginning. I have accepted many people at their word, and when certain observational discrepancies begin to appear, I will "ask the question," and always, what I see proves to be correct. But it only works when the question is asked. At this point in my life, the time of writing, I am finally learning to "ask the question" before I become involved with wolves in sheep's clothing.

I had faith, I prayed diligently and fervently, I struggled and strove for that love, that subsuming of all other emotions into an all-pervasive, comprehensive Love of God - and it surely did something!

But this, of course, raises another question: If a number of people are claiming that the Holy Spirit is giving them revelations, and these revelations are contradictory to one another, how do we know who is being misled and who is truly receiving Divine Revelation?

Again, the answer was "Learn!"

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PepperFritz said:

painter said:

I need to stop reading, writing and thinking now and just let this begin to sink in....

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I think that is the most important realization you came to you in your post.

Your response to Laura's work and the Cassiopaea material reminds me of my own reaction, when I first encountered it about three years ago. There was much about it that was very jarring to me, that I could not accept; yet I kept being drawn back to it, and felt compelled to read the material again and again and again. I went back and forth, back and forth; one day seeing something radically new and important, the next dismissing it as just too "out there". This happened over a period of about two years. With each reading came a little more understanding, a little more breaking down of my preconceived ideas and defences. During that time I did not participate on the Forum, concentrating only on Laura's work until such time as I could come to terms with it. Then, at some point I reached "critical mass" and felt ready to start discussing the material with others who had also spent a long time with it, and I finally joined the Forum. That was about a year ago.

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in answer to the question you ask, the answer is: I, MYSELF. I have benefitted tremendously from my participation in a group under the direction and influence of students of Gurdjieff.

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