Hazard: The Risk of Realization by J.G. Bennett

SeekinTruth

The Living Force
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Hazard: The Risk of Realization by J.G. Bennett

I recently read this book and found it fascinating and full of insight. It is part of The Dramatic Universe Series and is compiled by A.G.E. Blake from Bennett’s unpublished writings and talks.

Originally published in 1976, the edition I read was published in 1991 with added material: The Prologue and Forewords, Appendix 4, the bibliography of J.G. Bennett, and the Index.

Contents:

Editor’s Prologue
First Foreword by A.G.E. Blake
Second Foreword by A.G.E. Blake

Chapters:
1. Beliefs: Ancient and Modern
2. The Moment of Choice
3. The Uncertainty of Virtue
4. Living Toward the Center
5. Risk into History
6. The Universe and God
Part 1. Objective Reality
Part 2 Subjective Reality
Part 3 Divine Reality

Appendixes:
1. Existence
2. Will
3. Transformation
4. Uncertainty in Scientific Thought

Bibliography of J.G. Bennett
Index

Quote before First Foreword:
"If man is not a pawn in the hands of an omnipotent and omniscient chess player, then he may be something much more significant: a being upon whom rests real responsibility for taking his own part in the universal task." ~ J.G. Bennett, The Dramatic Universe Vol. 1, The Foundation of Natural Philosophy : p. 20.

First Foreword: (I’ll include it because it’s so short and a good summary)
This is a book about the risk of realization. It does not tell you how to succeed but encourages you to see that the chance of failure is what makes things real. Whether you are playing a game or trying to improve yourself, the risk involved is the sacrifice you make to be "in the game." It is in conditions of hazard that you can become intelligent. All the things we claim to value, such as friendship, beauty, and love, are impossible without hazard.

This is so because the universe is so. It is no mere human aberration, and there is no perfect state that becomes free of this interplay of uncertainty and will. It is God who takes the greatest risks.

The idea does not require much explanation because everyone understands that it is true. It is very strange, therefore, that hardly anyone has noticed this. J.G. Bennett did notice it and spent a great deal of his life pointing it out to people.

Here are some of the things that he said about hazard. We have put in a long Foreword for those who like a lot of references and tie-ins with other thinkers. Those who do not like that sort of thing can skip it and go straight to the first chapter.

The thing about hazard is that it is so obvious, you will kick yourself. ~ A.G.E. Blake

Quote before Second Foreword:
"A situation is dramatic when there is a need accompanied by the uncertainty as to whether it will be satisfied. The greater the need and the more impressive the scale on which it is experienced, the greater is the dramatic content. When we contemplate the destiny of the galaxy, we find a dramatic situation upon so vast a scale that we can scarcely feel its significance. We may picture to ourselves an ant heap disturbed when the Cross was planted upon the field of Calvary and ask if the ants could understand the drama of the Crucifixion. The relationship of the ant to the Crucifixion is many million times closer in the scale of magnitude than our place in the destiny of the galaxy. Nevertheless, the role of individual being is such that we are given the possibility of contemplating not only the galaxy but the whole of existence in which it is but an atom. We must either turn aside from this contemplation with no hope of understanding the universe or believe that we are not alone.

"Though immeasurably removed in scale and in cosmic significance, man and the galaxy are joined by the bond of suffering and compassion." ~ J.G. Bennett, The Dramatic Universe [Unpublished version, 1952]: From Chapter 23, "The Role of Individuality."

Quote before Chapter 1:
"No one who has observed human affairs and human history can doubt that uncertainty and hazard are as real as order and completeness. No account of man and his world would be worth much that did not give full weight to the reality of uncertainty, and show the way beyond it." ~ J.G. Bennett, The Dramatic Universe. Vol. 3, Man and His Nature: p. 64.

From the beginning of Chapter 1 – Beliefs: Ancient and Modern
Few people who have read my book, The Dramatic Universe, have seen that the suggestion that there is a fundamental uncertainty in the very existence of the universe, including ourselves, is entirely revolutionary and undermines beliefs that have been taken for granted equally by religious and scientific people. As the years go by, I become more and more convinced that the doctrine of universal hazard must, before long, replace our belief in absolutes of any kind. That is why I have decided to speak about this doctrine at this particular stage of my life. [In 1967, Bennett was 70 years old.]

I do not believe that the doctrine of hazard is entirely new; there is plenty of evidence that its importance was understood and grasped thousands of years ago. It has since been lost, and only now is it due to reenter human thought as a guiding principle in understanding what the world is all about. For this reason, I propose to start by going back about 4,700 years, that is, to about 2800 B.C., when the Sumerian culture was at its peak. This was an extraordinary period in human history. Some of you may have seen in the museum in Baghdad examples of the games that were played by the Sumerians at the height of the glory of Sumer and Akkad. One of the games they played will introduce my theme.

Why should we start with a game? Nowadays, games are devised in any old way just to amuse people or give them opportunities for trying their skills, but in ancient times, games had a quite different role: They were invented by specialists to express and preserve certain knowledge. These specialists knew that people would continue to play a good game – and, in fact subsequent history has proved how farsighted were those inventors of games in the remote past. Games that were invented in Sumerian times – and many of our modern games indeed have their origin as far back as that – have preserved certain insights that were subsequently lost.

The game that I am going to talk about is the game we call backgammon, which in the Middle East is called "tric-trac." This game consists of moving a number of disks of wood or ivory from a starting point to a goal and depends upon finding a hole into which it is possible to move. The player is not permitted to move at will into the available holes; this is left to the arbitration of the dice, which in Sumerian times stood for the chance that enters into every natural process. This game is really a representation of a cosmic doctrine that has been lost, rediscovered, and lost again. It was lost in the nineteenth century and is being rediscovered in the twentieth century. The principle of the game of backgammon is that one has a certain path to traverse, and one traverses this path by moving from available hole to available hole, however, one does so under the control of an uncertain factor introduced by the throw of dice.

The word "die" in the old Akkadian language was zar, which was retained, and appears in Arabic and Turkish with the prefix al, that is the definite article "the." It became azzar, which simply means "the die." When, during the Crusades, the French picked up this game (learning to play it during the siege of one of the cities of Syria), they called the game by the name the Saracens used, "azzar." Thus, the word became "azar" in the Spanish language; it came into our Enlgish language as the word "hazard." I have chosen the word "hazard" for my title partly for this historical reason and also as a reminder of the way in which this knowledge about the place of hazard in our lives has been handed down for thousands of years.

This fundamental knowledge disappears from time to time because there is something in man that is both terribly attracted by hazard and at the same time terrified of it. We are driven to seek ways of denying the reality of hazard and of looking beyond chance to something that is free from chance. Man has always tended to project onto his conceptions of God the notion of a being that is beyond hazard, a supreme power that is secure from the chance and the uncertainty that we see in this world. Conversely, when people have seen the evidence that there is nothing exempt from hazard, they have been led to deny the god who was to offer them a safe refuge from hazard. To identify God with safety, though, is not necessary for our religious sense, and this is one of the important ideas I will discuss. We need not say more about it at this point except to note that it is vital to realize that we have this ambiguous attitude toward hazard and we are very ready to run after anything that proclaims certainty – just as they ran in the nineteenth century after the certainty that appeared to be offered by the laws of nature. [...]

Quote before Chapter 2 The Moment of Choice:
"The Law of Hazard tells us that any process directed toward a definite aim is bound to be deflected by reactions it produces, and if these deflections are not compensated, the process will either come to a stop or change direction so completely as to 'become its own opposite.' It also tells us how the compensation can be achieved. This is basically by the cooperation of processes of independent origin.

"Timing is critical. The impact of the world must not come too soon or too late and it must not be too weak or too strong. The rightly timed impact is what Gurdjieff called a 'shock,' and he formulated the Law of Hazard in terms of a musical octave that goes by tones and semitones from do to do. The semitones at mi-fa and si-do correspond to the points at which other processes must make their impact. Gurdjieff went so far as to call this the 'first primordial cosmic law.'" ~ J.G. Bennett, Transformation: pp. 87-88.

Quote before Chapter 3 The Uncertainty of Virtue:
"I have seen again and again how close people have been to a wonderful step forward and have missed their chance. Often these very people have been convinced that they were ready to make any 'reasonable sacrifice' to make a real step forward and yet could not see that what was required of them was not only reasonable but obviously necessary for their own good." ~ J.G. Bennett, Transformation: pp. 123-124.

Quote before Chapter 4 Living Toward the Center:
"Our ordinary 'understanding' takes hazard as something to be avoided by care and foresight. In reality, it is overcome only by taking more risks. Help seldom consists in making things easier but rather in creating what seem to be gratuitous and even absurd difficulties.
... Only the interaction of conflicting processes can break the vicious circle of repeating what is no longer serving any purpose. At the fourth stage, everything is new and unrehearsed and the 'creation of conditions' is a special art which no one can master without the help of a very high energy." ~ J.G. Bennett, The Dramatic Universe. Vol. 4, History: p. 59.

Quote before Chapter 5 Risk into History:
"We are coming to know a world that is neither a clockwork mechanism wound up ab initio to work out a predetermined program nor a blind, meaningless chaos that, by sheer chance happens to have thrown up complex physicochemical structures with capacity for thought and feeling. It is a world that is through and through dramatic, and therefore through and through interesting. There can have been few moments on this earth more dramatic and interesting than the offering of Pandora’s gift of creativity." ~ J.G. Bennett, The Dramatic Universe. Vol. 4, History: p. 259.

Quote before Chapter 6 The Universe and God:
"The true place where we can begin to be aware of the presence of God is in the center of the self-hood. The realization of one’s own nothingness, makes possible [a grace] that is experienced as a state of beatitude in which tensions of existence are, for the moment, transformed into the realization of essence.

"It is probably true that without hazard there could be no experience of the presence of God – for faith is the work of the reconciling impulse in the core of man’s three-fold nature that enables the impossible to become possible. Since existence is spiritualized by faith, hazard must be accepted as a fundamental necessity of existence – as the very condition of [the transformation of existence.] Hazard is the condition of faith and, when we apprehend it rightly, this makes it also the precursor of freedom. It is through hazard that death and resurrection are made possible. The self-hood, by accepting the hazards of the essence, permits the birth in its own center of [an independent and complete will.]" ~ J.G. Bennett, The Dramatic Universe, Vol. 2, The Foundations of Moral Philosophy: p. 329.

From the Back Cover:
Hazard and the Art of Living
"All opening is a hazard. You arrive at a crossroad. If you can see which way, if it is clearly labeled, that the road on the left is the one that leads to your destination, then choosing that way is not an opportunity. If the way is not labeled at this crossroad – and in life our ways are not labeled – then when we come to the crossroad, there is an uncertainty and a suspense and, with that, an opportunity. How to recognize it? This is really the art of living." ~ J.G. Bennett

"Bennett’s aim in talks like these is to create an image in the mind, in the light of which we can learn to understand our experience. He is concerned with understanding, and not just with being right. It is in this spirit that these talks should be read." ~ P.H. Bortoft Author of Goethe’s Scientific Consciousness


All in all it was a very interesting read. It’s only 112 pages including Notes to the (Second) Foreword and Editor’s Notes to Appendix 4 (and excluding the bibliography and index), so it is also very concise. It is full of fascinating insights into the way Creation works. He touches with real power and compactness on the nature of a Free Will Universe and how there must be a definite additional "dimension" through which Choice is effected. Bennett is very well versed with scientific and mathematical concepts, and past and (at that time) present prevailing scientific thought and problems. (From the Notes to the Second Foreword: Note 7. Bennett, who was related to and an admirer of the mathematician Arthur Cayley, produced [in 1918] a "calculus of imaginary rotations" that was encouragingly received by Professor Hobson at Cambridge University in England. This was developed years later, with the help of the physicists Thring and Brown, into a scheme for a five dimensional metric of space, time and "eternity" and published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society in the 1950’s. At present, on of Bennett’s pupils, K.W. Pledge, is working on this geometry and its extension into six dimensions.)

The only mild criticism I have is that he seems in certain questions (of the current limits of SCIENTIFIC understanding of the workings of the universe – especially in Chapter 6: The Universe and God and the Appendixes and the relationship of causality, ideas of determinism and free will, etc.) to limit the approach to a strictly conventional physical explanation of WHAT IS and thus falls short of the mark of getting a clearer picture of the dramatic and wonderful universe. This even though he was thoroughly familiar with Gurdjieff’s cosmic ecology concept and System of (7) Cosmoses (and its relation to the Rays of Creation) which I would have thought Bennett, in conjunction with his scientific knowledge, would have emphasized more to come much closer to having a clearer scientific picture of the universe. In my humble opinion (admittedly too ignorant for my own comfort) anything that will get us closer to a "Unified Field Theory" must take into account the 7 levels of density and consciousness / awareness explained by the C’s. It seems to me that there will never be a full theory of how the Universe works without this idea that we use here as our working hypothesis that there are 3 physical densities and 3 ethereal ones and an intermediate one that is a mixture of the two, physical and ethereal – variable physicality – a sort of transition point between the physical and the strictly ethereal; added to the 7 densities, the two paths of STS and STO and their interactions seems to be the key to a full picture of the Macro-Cosmos containing everything in existence, or so I think.

If you found some of what I included interesting you may want to read this book if you can fit it in.
 
This is a wonderful review, I'd like to read this book now. :D

I've got a copy of Bennett's last book written before he died, "The Masters of Wisdom" which I was reading last night before going to bed, partly due to this review. I'd recommend that as well.

Bennett was a bit of an enigma, I recall C.S. Nott writing that he didn't hold him in very high esteem as he hadn't spent much time with Gurdjieff. This may be a case of sour grapes, as Bennett was put in charge of the London group after Ouspensky's death.

And then there was the deal with the Idries Shah whom he gave away his own institute, Shah promptly sold the institute which was bulldozed for housing development.

Bennett definitely marched to the beat of a different drum.
 
Johnno said:
I've got a copy of Bennett's last book written before he died, "The Masters of Wisdom" which I was reading last night before going to bed, partly due to this review. I'd recommend that as well.

I may look into that book. I have a friend here that has a large library of Bennett, Gurdjieff, Nott, Nicole, etc. and he gave me these to read recently as he does occasionally (here I mean What Are We Living For? as well which I also reviewed recently). I do have a whole lot of other books to read before that, however.

Johnno said:
Bennett was a bit of an enigma, I recall C.S. Nott writing that he didn't hold him in very high esteem as he hadn't spent much time with Gurdjieff. This may be a case of sour grapes, as Bennett was put in charge of the London group after Ouspensky's death.

Yeah, he definitely was a bit of an enigma. I’ve had mixed feelings about him since reading his autobiography "Witness" a couple of years ago. But my recent readings are slowly changing that. His background in intelligence immediately after the First World War had made me wary, as well as, a certain "new agey flavor" I had gotten. Also he kept going back and forth from Ouspensky to Gurdjieff and back again. I see all of this in a different light now (rather than a lack of commitment or discernment as to who is the real teacher). But he is a really fascinating character. He shows more respect toward Gurdjieff and retained more integrity in their relationship than many of the other English and North American students. And he kept visiting Gurdjieff in France right to the end.

It seems that he also had a deeper understanding of the teachings and Gurdjieff probably recognized this. He was in no way less in intellectual stature than Ouspensky, but Bennett was much more balanced. Ouspensky had an immense intellect and an ego to match, but his emotional center seemed to be petrified and he could not overcome this problem. Ouspensky decided to leave Gurdjieff (and "separate the teaching from the man") in 1918, way too early to be able to continue on his own and teach. So he became one of the first "imitation" 4th Way teachers from Gurdjieff’s line. He was just unable to surmount the smallest obstacles set up by Gurdjieff. Just before his decision to leave Gurdjieff, he had that experience for a whole night where Gurdjieff communicated with him telepathically. Ouspensky himself describes the experience as predominantly emotional, and I think it totally freaked him out. It seems Gurdjieff had figured out what his main problem was and tried to give him the kind of help to be able to propel him past it, but it had the effect of pushing Ouspensky past the limit he was able to go.

Then he began to project onto Gurdjieff his own faults and shortcomings, trying to justify his decision to leave, parting ways with his teacher. He blamed Gurdjieff for making sudden changes in plans during their escape from the revolution and civil war in Russia through the Caucuses. He insinuates that this was what finally made up his mind, implying that Gurdjieff was somehow acting irresponsibly toward his students. But as those of us who know the details from different sides understand, Gurdjieff always did what needed to be done for that large group of people that he was responsible for.

Later, during WWII, Ouspensky himself abandoned his students in London when it became too dangerous during the bombing of London. Meanwhile, Gurdjieff remained in Paris during the whole war and Nazi occupation, helping people not only by continuing to teach smaller groups, but by materially supporting others, and not just his students either, as he’d always done. I saw a documentary on Gurdjieff by Michel de Salzmann where they were showing footage of Gurdjieff’s apartment in Paris during the war years and all the artwork in his apartment. Gurdjieff is speaking over the scene saying that he is always told by people that he has the strangest and worst taste in art. He laughs and says that these people put their hearts and souls into these works, and when he can, he supports them so that they can eat; he really doesn’t care about the quality of the art or other people’s opinions of them.

Mouravieff gives me similar impressions as Ouspensky (and they knew each other), seeing Gurdjieff in a very bad light, projecting the worst onto him, etc. Mouravieff hung around Gurdjieff’s groups for years from around 1920 without ever joining the work, and then wrote his three volumes of Gnosis books later presenting it all as if he was the real authority of the teachings and the complete system that was only presented in fragments by Ouspensky. And of course, as many have said, including Bennett, Gurdjieff never tried to set these things straight in a simple way, but used them as lessons for himself and others who could grasp their significance and benefit; he used it all as fuel for the heat that decreases with the friction that lessens as one becomes less and less mechanical. As one makes real progress in the work, he needs more friction from outside for a while to continue the process of transmutation.

In fact, Bennett writes in the Postscript: Who Is Gurdjieff in "What Are We Living For?": "This brief account of Gurdjieff’s teaching and his work would not be complete if I did not make some reference to the extraordinary rumors with which he has been surrounded. He is a man who is entirely indifferent to the friendly or hostile opinion of other people toward him. Not only this, but for reasons very often incomprehensible at the time even to those closely in contact with him, he has apparently gone out of his way to arouse antagonisms and cause misunderstandings. It has often happened that only very much later have the reasons that required that such action be taken become apparent. To those who understand that his teaching contains something that is indispensable for their own welfare, and without which they cannot hope to attain the aim of their existence, the difficulties that he places in the way of approach represent a small price that is easily paid. To those who find them a formidable deterrent I can only say that every great teaching, in its inception, has appeared at once as a stumbling block and a foolishness."

All of this is not to say that Mouravieff did not contribute a great deal to our knowledge of the 4th Way; he definitely did, as did Ouspensky by writing "In Search of the Miraculous: Fragments of an Unknown Teaching." In fact Gurdjieff, after reading the manuscript, said that Ouspensky had a very good memory of the very early teachings during WWI, and approved its publication. I just suspect that the gist of the teaching was brought out of several real esoteric schools by Gurdjieff during the turn of the century (19th to 20th) and Mouravieff just filled in and emphasized things Gurdjieff chose not to because at that time he felt it would serve no useful purpose. (Just as Laura suspects this to be the case with Castaneda).

Johnno said:
And then there was the deal with the Idries Shah whom he gave away his own institute, Shah promptly sold the institute which was bulldozed for housing development.

I didn’t know that. That’s interesting.

Johnno said:
Bennett definitely marched to the beat of a different drum.

Yeah, that’s what I think too. Also he seems to have a deeper appreciation and understanding of Gurdjieff and his teaching than many others. He spent his life traveling, gathering more data, and years after Gurdjieff’s death, teaching and writing, bringing new insights in a broader framework without overly focusing on narrow parts of Gurdjieff’s methods (while ignoring or diminishing others, just as important – not relating the parts to the whole or taking some parts AS the whole) as Ouspensky and others did.
 
This book by Bennett raises some interesting questions about the nature of reality. Bennett's assertion that hazard - which he defines as significant uncertainty - is an intrinsic component of reality has profound implications. Information theory partially corroborates Bennett's views in my opinion. Loosely speaking, the "uncertainty" portion is studied and exploited in information theory. But the significance of the uncertainty makes "hazard" an interesting concept. It is not "just chance". Significance of an event needs to be evaluated with a combination of feeling, thinking, sensing and intuition - the 4 functions in Jungian psychology - or with the thinking/feeling/moving-instinctive centers in 4th Way terms. Bennett states

[quote author=Hazard]
Hazard only arises when there is a real gain or loss involved that is inseparable from the event itself. It is only possible to talk about hazard when there is a separation of potentialities—and this does not come from the laws that bring the event about.

Of course, in the great majority of cases, when something of this sort happens, the lines change, go up and down, so that things are more or less as they were before. This produces loops. There is something that opens new possibilities, but it is reabsorbed into the average. Only when someone is able to hang on to the dramatic moment is there real change. There is only something significant when there is an upward or downward path, a possibility in that moment of gaining or losing something in terms of potentialities.

This cannot be verified externally; it is only verifiable by the inner experience and then, later on, by results that appear outwardly . By that time, very few people have seen how it all happened. In a situation where there is a separation of potentialities, some people are untouched by it and move along as if nothing happened. People who live at a critical moment continue to exist along the horizontal line and, for them, nothing significant has happened . However, there really are different worlds; there is a real possibility of a hazardous and dramatic existence. Our feeling that life is like that is not an illusion.
[/quote]

It is common experience that life contains risks and uncertainty. Even though we all "know" this, we have an ambivalent attitude towards uncertainty. If things become too certain and predictable, our lives appear to be boring and we go seeking some "excitement" to perk us up. Games, drama, movies etc provide us with safe uncertainty and entertain us. We can tolerate some uncertainty in our lives - but beyond a point it becomes scary and produces anxiety. So, most of our effort in life is spent on making things more certain and less risky for ourselves. We admire virtues like courage, we talk about faith and hope. But would the virtues we hold in esteem as well as the ideas of faith and hope have much meaning if there was no hazard? Bennett argues that they won't.

Courage is more obviously connected with hazard. What about trust and honesty?

[quote author=Hazard]
Let us take one of the most widely recognized virtues: honesty. First of all, it is, of course, quite obvious that no one can tell whether a man is honest or not until he has been tempted. If someone has never been put in a position of trust, then there is no means for him to manifest his honesty and no temptation to behave dishonestly . What does it mean to be put into a position of trust? If we are to be honest with possessions, we can only be so when we are trusted with possessions. If we are to be honest about ideas, honest in the way we use thoughts that have been suggested to us, again, I think it is clear that this is the same situation as before. How can anyone be put in a position of trust unless there is some risk involved?
[/quote]

This is true and worth remembering when we talk about trusting someone.

Here is a discussion on intelligence in connection with hazard.

[quote author=Hazard]
Now let us just take one more illustration of the place of uncertainty and hazard in our experience, and that is its connection with intelligence. There is something to which we can give the name intelligence: It is a very important something but at the same time not at all easy to understand. Such rigid and inadequate definitions of intelligence are given that people can even ask whether there can be intelligent machines and answer that intelligent machines exist and will become more and more intelligent, or more and more intelligent machines will be built.

What kind of intelligence are we speaking about here? It is quite true that machines can solve problems, even today, that man himself could not solve, and not only because he could not possibly have the time to do the necessary calculations but because he could not possibly store in his memory all the data required for solving them. That is undoubtedly true, and because of that, people are inclined to think that there is evidence that an intelligent machine is intelligent in the same way that man is intelligent. Something in us knows that this is wrong, but it is not so easy to put our finger on this or say why it is that this kind of capacity for solving problems, for performing very complicated tasks successfully, is not what we mean by intelligence.

Intelligence is a mysterious quality. Other powers of man seem to develop, but there is certainly a meaning in speaking about "native intelligence." The youngest children are intelligent, and their intelligence does not depend upon the development of their bodies nor of their perceptions nor of their thinking powers nor of their memory nor of their knowledge. What is this intelligence, if we are talking of something that we will not allow to be the ingenuity of a problem-solving machine, that we will not allow to be a well-trained and well-conditioned mind, perhaps that we will not allow to be just good native common sense?

Intelligence builds on the past, looks toward the future, and acts within the present. It builds beyond the present, but it has to act within the present. A great intelligence can embrace great regions of space and time and also of the invisible world, the world of imagination, the world of potentialities. How is it, though, that this kind of power should exist? An intelligence is an independent power in the world. If it is only a form of perception, without a power of action, I think we would not want to use the word intelligence for that. How can there be independent intelligences within a world that is governed by laws? What room is there for an independent intelligence to do anything at all? Obviously, no room, if this world is wholly predetermined and governed by laws that allow no possibility of selection or choice. Is it enough that the world should be indeterminate and uncertain? Can we picture to ourselves an intelligence working in a world that is simply partly determined and partly indeterminate, as people suppose the physical world is, and can be conveniently represented that way for many purposes? One must see for oneself. I put it to you that there could be no place for intelligence except in a world of hazard, and intelligence is really the power of adaptation to hazard. In my understanding, this definition is true for small instances of intelligence and also for very great, enormous instances of intelligence, such as the whole appearance and evolution of life on this earth.
[/quote]

I have found that Bennett's definition of intelligence holds good in a practical way in different situations that I have directly experienced or can relate to.

The above may not be too controversial - at least so it seems to me. We may not have had thought exactly like that but when we read about it, it seems self-evident or common sense like. Simple yet profound stuff usually has that nature.

But what happens if we take the step of extending this further? Like higher realities and conception of God? There we will most likely come across some discomforting implications. Almost every major religion talks about an omnipotent, omniscient God who has supreme intelligence and is perfect (whatever that means), There are of course more and less sophisticated versions of this doctrine. Sometimes, we scoff at the less sophisticated versions but accept the more sophisticated ones - but the idea that there is an all powerful all intelligent all perfect creator is perhaps quite deeply conditioned in us.

[quote author=Hazard]
I have always felt an intense need to understand how it is possible that the world should be constructed like this, yet it is just this kind of world in which there is hazard that nobody ever describes in philosophy or in religion, where hazard is very seldom taken seriously. Nearly always it is assumed that there is a superior power, exempt from hazard and also, in a sense, guaranteeing the world against hazard. The doctrine of the omnipotence and the omniscience of God is certainly incompatible with the reality of hazard in Creation; if one is to believe in hazard, one has to cease to believe in the omnipotence and infallibility of the Creator. Again, it is almost taken for granted by people who believe in a higher power and divine providence that everything in the end is bound to come right. This coming right of everything is guaranteed by the transcendent power of God.

There are some obscure sects, particularly in Asia, one or two of which I have met, who do not have this belief in the inevitable coming right of the world or in the inevitable coming right of anything at all. For example, the Yezidis are of this persuasion. They are admirable people who live more virtuous and better- organized lives than most people I have met. Their belief is that we are involved in a drama, the outcome of which is uncertain, and we have to choose our side in this drama without the guarantee that the good power has the means to impose itself on the evil.
[/quote]

Towards the end of this book, there is this

[quote author=Hazard]
What I have been putting before you is really a conception of a world that is primarily a world of hazard and of a divine will that is primarily a spirit of love. If you will reflect upon it deeply, I think you will be bound to see that love and hazard are inseparable, and the greater the hazard, the greater can be the manifestation of love. Without the one, the other is impossible. Without hazard, there can be no love, but without love, hazard itself would collapse into meaningless chance. If the love of God is to have any real significance , then God must be subject to hazard not merely as we are but to an incomparably greater degree.
[/quote]

Bennett, imo, not only clarified some of the more obscure parts of Gurdjieff's cosmology as expressed in "Beelzebub's Tales" but also refined it. He had a strong grasp of science and technology which helped him take a more practical rather than a theoretical approach to the deep and difficult questions he studied - and has been a more useful read for me compared to all other 4th Way authors I have happened to read. If this kind of topic interests you, I would recommend reading Bennett's works and see how it fits together with what you have experienced in life, what you have read from different sources, and what you relate to.
 
Thanks, Obyvatel, for the succinct review and for resuscitating this thread. I missed it when it appeared. Bennett's view makes a lot of sense.
 
Mr. Premise said:
Thanks, Obyvatel, for the succinct review and for resuscitating this thread. I missed it when it appeared. Bennett's view makes a lot of sense.

I want to add my thanks! Somehow I missed it too. It makes so much sense. I have put the book on my wishlist...at the top.
 
Certainly some plain truth spoken here by Bennett, that appears to be missing from common knowledge these days. I think the law of three applies here. Hazard in a simple form can be good and bad - opposites - with no sure way to know which will prevail. But then there is the third force, that which determines which is which, and that third force can be "intelligence" as he discusses, the "power to adapt to hazard" but is "adapting" the only thing possible? Could there not be a human consciousness, if largely passive, interaction with those forces of hazard, that, if only in a small way, influences the outcome?

His discussion of god vis a vis hazard is interesting, although I don't agree with his statement that "if one is to believe in hazard, one has to cease to believe in the omnipotence and infallibility of the Creator". From a broad (and I mean VERY broad) perspective, a 'creator' could simply be much more aware of the ebb and flow of hazard and the knock on effects etc. and interact with it in such a way that a certain outcome or goal is achieved by working with 'hazard'.
 
Thank you obyvatel for this post, very interesting!

obyvatel said:
[quote author=Hazard]
What I have been putting before you is really a conception of a world that is primarily a world of hazard and of a divine will that is primarily a spirit of love. If you will reflect upon it deeply, I think you will be bound to see that love and hazard are inseparable, and the greater the hazard, the greater can be the manifestation of love. Without the one, the other is impossible. Without hazard, there can be no love, but without love, hazard itself would collapse into meaningless chance. If the love of God is to have any real significance , then God must be subject to hazard not merely as we are but to an incomparably greater degree.

Bennett, imo, not only clarified some of the more obscure parts of Gurdjieff's cosmology as expressed in "Beelzebub's Tales" but also refined it. He had a strong grasp of science and technology which helped him take a more practical rather than a theoretical approach to the deep and difficult questions he studied - and has been a more useful read for me compared to all other 4th Way authors I have happened to read. If this kind of topic interests you, I would recommend reading Bennett's works and see how it fits together with what you have experienced in life, what you have read from different sources, and what you relate to.
[/quote]

The bold part reminded me of God as the "Cosmic Trickster" mentioned somewhere on the forum - meaning that God "tricks" us into learning and growing. As it reads in Laura's signature: "And in our own despair, against our will, Comes wisdom to us by the awful grace of God." So as I understand it, let's say a STO-being from a higher density, is subject to more hazard, to even heavier "tricks", but also to more love/knowledge/light. Thanks again for the very interesting summary and comments!
 
Thank you for this thread, very interesting! Will have to put Bennett on the reading list :)
 
I second that! Thank you for starting this thread with the brilliant review SeekinTruth and for Obyvatel for adding more important and relevant quotes and comments.
Certainly a book I would not do without. Also I am very grateful for the clarification on many points.
Hazard makes a LOT of sense to me, and is something I will do my best to keep in mind. It certainly lends itself to understanding the Laws of 7 and 3 - a very helpful 'navigator'.
Important for me at this time too.

Had my very first therapy session today - I was very lucky as found a very similar minded, highly qualified Dr who also knew about Gurdjieff, Ouspensky and Mourrieff as well as studied parapsychology!

He said that I was very intelligent (I have no proof of that, only what people have said, nor do I personally believe it). So I will copy the quote on what real intelligence is - which IF I had it, I would not, most probably be needing to visit him!!! :D :lol: :cool2:

Another appropriate quote that was mentioned by him for me was:

Intelligence builds on the past, looks toward the future, and acts within the present. It builds beyond the present, but it has to act within the present.

This was said to me not in the context of intelligence but what I need to 'DO'.

So all very topical for me today and tremendously helpful - thank you again.
 
Just ordered it from Amazon. Seems like it will be a great addition to the knowledge base I have so far. Thanks for the reviews!
 
Perceval said:
His discussion of god vis a vis hazard is interesting, although I don't agree with his statement that "if one is to believe in hazard, one has to cease to believe in the omnipotence and infallibility of the Creator". From a broad (and I mean VERY broad) perspective, a 'creator' could simply be much more aware of the ebb and flow of hazard and the knock on effects etc. and interact with it in such a way that a certain outcome or goal is achieved by working with 'hazard'.

I think that's definitely possible. But then, God still wouldn't necessarily be 'omnipotent' in the way that term is usually understood. An omnipotent God would be able to put a halt on any of the laws or principles of the cosmos whenever God wants, i.e., to eliminate hazard as a condition of action. Then again, God WOULD be omnipotent if s/he COULD obviate the presence of hazard, but just chose not to, because using hazard eventually reaches the same result. But that leads to other philosophical/theological problems...

An alternative view, similar in many respects to Bennett's, is process theology (A.N. Whitehead, David Ray Griffin and others), where God is simply NOT omnipotent, and hazard is a basic feature of the cosmos. In other words, the world is neither deterministic (whether determined by physical laws or by God's will) nor random, but indeterminate in the sense that things can go well or poorly depending on choices.

In process theology, God is not separate from creation; rather God is in creation and we are in God. All power is shared by all creation, and the outcome of our actions (and the cosmos, by extension) is a result of our ability and willingness to choose the best course of action. God doesn't and can't coercively force anyone (or any thing) to do anything; God only presents the options, as aims/goals/teloi/possibilities, which can then be manifested or not based on the individual and whether or not they can 'grasp' them.

This would be God's love and grace, in theological terms: God always makes the best course of action available, for every individual in every situation, but it's up to us to recognize it. And that's the 'act of intelligence' Bennett describes: building on the past, looking towards the future (i.e., possibilities), and acting in the present. And it's a lot harder to hear 'God's call' without knowledge.

The presence of evil is the result of creatures being deaf and blind to this divine action in the world, i.e., not grasping the aims that would benefit others/creation. In other words, being ignorant in various ways and for various reasons, and not realizing that God acts THROUGH creation, that 'God's will' is effected through our own. The Blues Brothers got it right: "We're on a mission from God." :halo:

I think this way of looking at things meshes well with the Ibn Arabi quotes Altair has been putting up here: http://cassiopaea.org/forum/index.php/topic,13425.msg572958.html#msg572958

For example,

Man faces a predicament as real as himself, and he is forced by his own nature to choose between the straight path which leads to balance, harmony and felicity and the crooked path which lead to imbalance, disequilibrium, and wretchedness.

At root the creatures are immutable entities dwelling in nonexistence, which is evil. God in respect of His all-embracing mercy gives them existence in order to bring them from evil into good. Man hangs between good and evil...

"Evil" is failure to reach one's individual desire and what is agreeable to one's nature. It stems from the fact that the thing's possibility does not prevent it from becoming connected to to nonexistence. To this extent evil becomes manifest within the cosmos. Hence it only becomes manifest from the direction of the possible thing, not from the direction of God.
 
hmmm interesting more and more it seems the most important thing is to be present, courageous and backed by knowledge and reason
 
Perceval said:
Certainly some plain truth spoken here by Bennett, that appears to be missing from common knowledge these days. I think the law of three applies here. Hazard in a simple form can be good and bad - opposites - with no sure way to know which will prevail. But then there is the third force, that which determines which is which, and that third force can be "intelligence" as he discusses, the "power to adapt to hazard" but is "adapting" the only thing possible? Could there not be a human consciousness, if largely passive, interaction with those forces of hazard, that, if only in a small way, influences the outcome?

Per my understanding, adapting in this context implies adjusting the course of a directed process subjected to the deviations arising out of hazard so that the original goal can be maintained. This is the same as what you wrote next referring to the Creator.

In Bennett's scheme, intelligence is inseparable from understanding which in turn is linked intimately to doing. While not explicitly mentioned in detail in "Hazard", Bennett put a high value on human agency and conscious action. This is in accordance with Gurdjieff's "law of reciprocal maintenance" (or trogoautoegocrat).

For those not familiar with G's "Beelzebub's Tales", the law of reciprocal maintenance - or "one hand washes the other" - is considered to be a fundamental law which brings out the interdependence between higher realms and human realms. In other words, in this view, human actions do have an effect on the larger scheme of things in the universe.

[quote author=Perceval]
His discussion of god vis a vis hazard is interesting, although I don't agree with his statement that "if one is to believe in hazard, one has to cease to believe in the omnipotence and infallibility of the Creator". From a broad (and I mean VERY broad) perspective, a 'creator' could simply be much more aware of the ebb and flow of hazard and the knock on effects etc. and interact with it in such a way that a certain outcome or goal is achieved by working with 'hazard'.
[/quote]

Questioning of God's omnipotence and infallibility enters if we admit uncertainty in realizing the goal of any directed process in all aspects, irrespective of how rigidly the process is controlled or the level and quality of the intelligence directing the process.

In Bennett's scheme, the "proof" of the lack of God's omnipotence is brought out through the method of induction - as far as I can understand. One instance of this is in the discussion of virtues. It is shown that virtues in action in the world are inextricably linked with the existence of hazard. In other words, we cannot speak of real-ized virtues if there is no hazard. Now God is considered by all religions as the ultimate source and embodiment of virtues. So, God must be subject to hazard to an incomparably greater degree than humans since His virtues are incomparably greater than that of humans.

In this context, I think it is important to distinguish between the world of space-time reality and the world of potentiality. By space-time reality I do not mean the Einsteinian reality - but an extended form of it with added dimensions which has the "space" to include values as well as facts, the psyche as well as matter, the will as well as forces and fields. Such extended space-time realities are conditioned and they arise from the unlimited and unconditioned world of potentiality. The world of potentiality includes all possibilities, only some of which are real-ized in the conditioned space-time reality. I would consider "our" universe as well as parallel universes as different manifestations of conditioned space-time reality arising out of the world of potentiality. Will this hold for densities too? I would provisionally consider it so. Such a space-time reality (or the part of existence that human mind can fathom) involves interactions. Such interactions are subject to hazard - which means that all aspects of the outcome of a process arising out of these interactions is never completely certain, no matter how rigidly the process is controlled or the level of intelligence guiding the process.

In this theological scheme, God is the Creator of all possibilities in the unconditioned world. In that sense He would be omnipotent and not subject to hazard in this world of potentiality, the source of all universes, dimensions and densities. In the conditioned space-time worlds however, hazard enters the picture. There is no omnipotence in the conditioned worlds. God is perhaps an observer in all such conditioned worlds. Like AI mentioned, He creates the possibilities and then watches as an observer how the various possibilities are realized or not in the various universes. Thus His omnipotence is preserved in the transcendent unconditioned world while He is in an immanent observer state in the conditioned worlds.
 
Approaching Infinity said:
I think that's definitely possible. But then, God still wouldn't necessarily be 'omnipotent' in the way that term is usually understood. An omnipotent God would be able to put a halt on any of the laws or principles of the cosmos whenever God wants, i.e., to eliminate hazard as a condition of action. Then again, God WOULD be omnipotent if s/he COULD obviate the presence of hazard, but just chose not to, because using hazard eventually reaches the same result. But that leads to other philosophical/theological problems...

Well the way omnipotency is understood is pretty monotheistically simplistic. Surely "all powerful" would suggest not just being able to control everything but BEING everything. In that case "all powerfulness" is not an active force per se but a natural function of that kind of Being and the exercising of it in a creative way, i.e. changing oneself at will and thereby effecting all of creation. Which if practiced enough would start to look like hazard. :D

God's like "I'll be the opposing forces, and y'all can be the deciders". So maybe Dubya Bush was right!!? :shock:
 
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