BlackAngel said:
I don't like your practice to characterize people, to "put them into boxes". That's sure that many things can be an evidence of depth of esoteric understanding, that's sure that we are machines, but in my opinion, we are complicated machines. I think we cannot set someone in the box of "full self-importance people" after reading few of his messages. Moreover, there are many things which can lead someone to give the impression of "full self-importance people", or so I think.
Your messages, Tigersoap and anart, surprised me. You are elaborating a theory based upon your supposition (may be a bit simpleton and intinsctive, or so I think) that Jsf is a full self-importance person, or so I think. In my opinion, this is a way of manipulation. Giving a logical theory can convince everyone you are alright, even if the theory's roots are wobbly (root= Jsf is a full self-importance person). But this is just my opinion. I'm not trying to manipulate or convince anyone, I'm just giving my opinion about reactions which surprised me.
Sorry, BA, but you misunderstand the purpose and function of this forum. Let me explain for you.
This forum is a laboratory. It is a lab where members of QFS practice certain skills that many of them have been learning for years. It is also a classroom where QFS members teach these skills to others. The primary skills needed to do esoteric work are 1) Know yourself; 2) Know others so as to conserve energy. The Cs call it "seeing the unseen." This process includes separating "A" influences from "B" influences, but that is actually very primitive activity to what we do and teach.
Now, as I have written elsewhere in this forum, it seems quite obvious that any individual who wishes to pursue esoteric studies ought to have a clean and fully functional and most of all HEALTHY psyche before he goes wandering off into unknown realms. After all, if your psychological state is such that you cannot deal effectively with your everyday life, how can you possibly trust such a psychological state not to mislead you in studies where you have fewer solid landmarks or feedback mechanisms to guide you?
And so, the very FIRST order of business in any esoteric work is to get psychologically healthy. That's basically what the Gurdjieff "self-remembering" and Mouravieff "introspection" and Castaneda "recapitulation" is all about.
Sure, it can be referred to in nebulous ways such as "the work of sorcerers" and "recapturing energy" and so on, but it can also be talked about in very practical, scientific, modern terminology with definite examples and techniques for accomplishing this important work of knowing your machine, cleaning and adjusting it so that it works properly, and preparing oneself for more "interesting" esoteric work.
Ark has over 30 years as an educator and working with Fourth Way materials; I spent 25 years doing hypnotherapy and raising 5 children; there's not much in the way of games and manipulations that slips past us. The Cs material built on these experiences, and we have learned a great deal more in the past 13 years with the Cs and working with online groups.
For the most part, until a person is able to balance their centers, which is where we concentrate our initial work, almost nothing else can proceed at ANY level without danger of contamination by the wrong energy in the wrong center at the wrong time, etc. In other words, working within the network in an absolutely sincere way is crucial to "tuning the instrument" and having the ways and means to accommodate reading errors. Without that, a person simply cannot know whether or not they are completely colinear" and whether or not their views are not the result of reading errors.
Let me try to give an example.
Imagine a group of people all working together and trying to learn and practice access to higher realities. The hypothesis they have is that there IS another level of reality and they know that the signals of this reality are very, very subtle and not measurable in the ordinary way. There is no mechanical device they can build to detect or measure them. Yet, they know from experience and spontaneous phenomena that there ARE such signals. And they theorize about this other reality based on what they can discern from these signals.
And so, they conclude that the "instrument" that they need to work with is the most complex of them all: their own "being" which includes not only their physiology, but also the theorized "soul" and its theorized "organs of perception."
And so, they decide that the best way to approach the experiment is to first study everything about their own "instrument," i.e. the body and psyche and all its "feelings" and impulses, etc, and compare one to another in order to begin to
find and establish a baseline.
Once they have a baseline they can then begin to assess the myriad signals that enter the system.
How are they going to do this?
They MUST have feedback. If a signal comes in, there must be some way set-up so that they can check the signal against a "fact."
Using the example of telepathy, if someone gets an "impression" or a "feeling" or "sees a vision" or whatever the signal might be, they MUST have someone or something to either confirm or falsify it.
If it can be confirmed as being accurate because there is feedback (the person about whom the signal comes can give this), then they know what the signal is and that it is an accurate reading.
If, on the other hand, they find that their interpretation of the signal is wrong, then they have to go back and find out if it was a misreading, a false signal, or whatever.
Only in this way will they be able to build a solid, repeatable basis for interpreting signals from the environment first, and the theorized higher reality second.
It's rather like learning a completely new language. There are many aspects to a language that are important. There is the alphabet, there are the rules for how the letters may go together, how words may go together, pronunciation, inflection, syntax, grammar and so on.
All of this has a relationship to the work of a network as described above.
Such work, as you can see, can NOT be done alone. And secondly, if there is anyone at all involved in the network who is "holding back" or not being forthcoming, does not know their machine, or have pathological deficits, it can throw everyone's "reading mechanism" off. They will be getting signals that they cannot interpret because someone is not being sincere.
And this description I have just given you is exactly what we do.
We have been doing it for quite some time, also. We have a baseline, we have spent years practicing with very good results, and we have now created a laboratory for practicing and teaching a wider group.
When the moderators of this forum, and many of the regular members, make assessments, they are not just talking through their hat. Their evaluations are based on a tried and tested method - a 4th way concept of "The Mirror."
The Mirror can certainly be a "socially unpleasant" ordeal, but it is necessary to clean the machine. It is also a very good way to find out what "stuff" an individual is made of.
Your response to the practice of the mirror is quite typical of an individual who is not familiar with the deeper levels of 4th way work. As Gurdjieff points out, a man will be good to you as long as you are good to him, so it is necessary to "scratch" him a little to see what is hidden behind the mask.
If you read the rules of the forum you will note what this forum is for and how we work. If you are unfamiliar with those ideas, concepts, and practices, perhaps you are simply not ready for real Work. And do not think that it is not Work. It is very hard work, and as Mme. De Salzmann wrote, "But you will see that it is not easy. And it is not cheap. You must pay dearly. For bad payers, lazy people, parasites, no hope. You must pay, pay a lot, and pay immediately, pay in advance. Pay with yourself. By sincere, conscientious, disinterested efforts. The more you are prepared to pay without economizing, without cheating, without any falsification, the more you will receive."
So far, all we have seen is laziness, insincerity, cheating, falsification, and lies. And, as Jimi Hendrix said, "We are experienced."
