Some questions on Struggle Of The Magicans

[Mr. Premise]

Word Association Football (Monty Python):

Tonight's the night I shall be talking about of flu the subject of word association football. This is a technique out a living much used in the practice makes perfect of psychoanalysister and brother and one that has occupied piper the majority rule of my attention squad by the right number one two three four the last five years to the memory. It is quite remarkable baker charlie how much the miller's son this so-called while you were out word association immigrants' problems influences the manner from heaven in which we sleekit cowering timrous beasties all-American speak, the famous explorer. And the really well that is surprising partner in crime is that a lot and his wife of the lions' feeding time we may be c d e effectively quite unaware of the fact or fiction section of the Watford Public Library that we are even doing it is a far, far better thing that I do now then, now then, what's going onward christian Barnard the famous hearty part of the lettuce now praise famous mental homes for loonies like me. So on the button, my contention causing all the headaches, is that unless we take into account of Monte Cristo in our
thinking George the Fifth this phenomenon the other hand we shall not be able satisfact or fiction section of the Watford Public Library againily to understand to attention when I'm talking to you and stop laughing, about human nature, man's psychological make-up some story the wife'll believe and hence the very meaning of life itselfish bastard, I'll kick him in the balls Pond Road.

 

[Argonaut]

Ok, but I should have made my point clearer (my apologies). Along with deep, relaxing breathing techniques, the word association thing works better if it comes from your imagination. It helps to put you back in that reflective state of mind if you think it all up yourself (your own game) because it requires creativity and spontaneity. Fumbling around with it may give you a good laugh as well. :D

Ah, ok. That sounds like a fun way to tune the mind. I'll try it. :)

 

[Mrs. Peel]

I found the "Struggle of the Magicians" excellent. I would be interested to hear what other members here think, but I would recommend reading this early on in a study of Gurdjieff and the Work, as it gives a very good backround to many of the people involved in the Work. It is also interesting to have this framed on the historical backround, which gives further insight to some of the external challenges the groups and people faced. It shows the battles that each of the students faced, particularly Ouspensky and Orage. Also quite amazing are the challenges Gurdjieff himself seems to face. For me, it was a fascinating read and showed me many of the dangers along the way. However, I also think it is important to question Patterson's position too and where his information comes from. He comes across as quite balanced and neutral in his writing, but it's hard to tell since I haven't read too much on the biography of people involved in the Work.

Well, it's been a while since I read it but I remember a few places were he said some less than favorable things about Mouravieff. I thought it was a good read tho.

 

[go2]

Well, it's been a while since I read it but I remember a few places were he said some less than favorable things about Mouravieff. I thought it was a good read tho.

William Patrick Patterson wrote Talking With The Left Hand in 1998. The work discusses various deflections from Gurdjieff’s Fourth Way teachings, and Gurdjieff’s anticipation of these deflections. I have read Mouravieff’s Gnosis and Ouspensky’s Search For The Miraculous, and found these works resonant with my over developed thinking brain, at least relative to my emotional and motor-instinctive centers. Patterson discusses the Mouravieff "Phenomenon" in detail, in an attempt to set the record straight from his third generation Fourth Way perspective, for those who have question's arising from their own Fourth Way Work. Talking With The Left Hand has been helpful for my Work, adding focus and context.

If he could not establish the teaching in his own time, he would send it into a future time. But how to safeguard its integrity, its momentum? Powerful counter currents were inevitable, each carrying the threat of a descending deflection, a diminution and distortion of the teaching. Ingeniously, Gurdjieff decided to create a Legominism, an esoteric vehicle for transmitting genuine knowledge to remote generations. The Sphinx, the Great Pyramid, Chartres, chess, and the tarot are all examples of Legominisms. Though he was the consummate man of action, one who abhorred what he called the “bon ton literary language,” Gurdjieff forced himself to become an author.

His Legominism was a series of three books entitled All and Everything, which contain the whole of his esoteric teaching, as much of it as can be set down in this medium, and which, in accord with his intention, most people find virtually unreadable. Gurdjieff well understood that unless one has been properly prepared to receive higher knowledge, it means nothing or, worse, becomes its opposite---higher knowledge used in the service of egotistic ends.

…it can be seen that Gurdjieff and his language is multidimensional, Mouravieff’s understanding linear and literal. Never having been a student of Gurdjieff’s or initiated into his teaching, Mouravieff interprets and judges from, at best, an exoteric point of view. As Philip Sherrard, the highly regarded Christian intellectual, has pointed out: “If a man merely ‘thinks’ of the Truth with his mind, then all his logic is useless to him because he starts with an initial fallacy, the fallacy that the Truth can be attained by the unaided processes of human thought.” This fallacy he calls “the philosophical mentality.”

Philosophical mentality….these words so characterized Mouravieff that when his name came up thereafter I paid no attention.

I had attempted to read Gurdjieff’s Legominism, All and Everything, twice before, and failed to get beyond a few pages. It simply cannot be read with the intellect alone. My small effort on this forum and EE made it possible for me to read Beelzebub’s Tales with an increasing attention and wish to understand in October and November of 2009.

I bought Talking With The Left Hand in Field’s Book Store in San Francisco over the Christmas holiday when I noticed it had a section on “The Mouravieff ‘Phenomenon’. It clarified many of my questions concerning my experiences reading the above mentioned books in the mentioned sequence. Gurdjieff, seeing into the future, may have run Mouravieff, the literal man, into a ditch, when he told Mouravieff he “stole” the teachings, in response to Mouravieff’s inquiry.

The Mouravieff ‘Phenomenon’

Though never taken seriously during his lifetime, and rarely mentioned in Gurdjieffian literature, the name Boris Mouravieff has in recent years threatened to become more than a footnote, thank to a diligent campaign by his latter-day followers. A friend of Ouspensky’s, Mouravieff first met Gurdjieff in l920 in Constantinople and later moved to Paris. He never joined the Work, but was never quite able to get Gurdjieff and the teaching out of his system. He forever remained on its periphery, gleaning what information he could, always criticizing, casting doubt, standing between two stools. He kept up his friendship with Ouspensky and oversaw the editing and translation of In Search of the Miraculous. After that, little more was heard from him. It was a surprise then in 1961, twelve years after Gurdjieff’s death, that Mouravieff published a massive three-volume work, Gnosis, which claimed to be “the complete” exposition of the exoteric, mesoteric, and esoteric tradition of Eastern Orthodoxy.

*Even more surprising was the fact that his book was a direct and unmitigated appropriation of the ideas of the Fourth Way as Gurdjieff had presented it during his Russian period(1912-1919), and which Ouspensky reported in Search. Essentially what Mouravieff did was to strip Gurdjieff’s teaching of its mooring in sacred science and coat it with Eastern Orthodoxy, adding some peculiarities of his own making. There was a glaring problem. The two teachings simply didn’t fit together. Eastern Orthodox Christianity was mystical and monastic. The Fourth Way was scientific and rooted in ordinary life. Mouravieff surmounted this by inventing what he called “the Fifth Way”—a worldly celibacy of platonic courtly love between man and woman, “polar beings” whom he called “The Knight and the Lady of his Dreams.” After Mouravieff’s death in 1966 his book soon went out of print and the institute he founded in Switzerland, The Centre for Christian Esoteric Studies, came to nothing, closing its doors within two years.

What must be recognized is that Mouravieff, never having been a pupil of Gurdjieff’s, bases his understanding of the teaching on that of Ouspensky---not Gurdjieff. And so, Mouravieff’s understanding can only be intellectual and therefore partial.

Anyway, Talking With The Left Hand, gave me insight into the origin and line of force of the Fourth Way’s evolutionary impulse, and its crucial role in the cosmic effort to save mankind’s three brained potential consciousness from devolutionary destruction in a world ravaged by war, slavery, lies, and ignorance. I hope some will find my experience useful and search out the book if interested. I want to credit Cassiopaea Forum for what little headway I have made in “paying for my existence” and in being able to gain a little understanding.

Edit: *paragraph for easier reading

 

[Azur]

There was one thing in the back of my mind whenever I read Patterson's writings: what was HIS line of force?

He's certainly good at detailing but that wasn't enough for me to accept any of his staccato conclusions as a given.

I'm not discrediting him here, I just don't have enough to go on to accept what he says at face value. I guess what I'm trying to say is that although he brings interesting intellectual bits, I'm not quite sure he's anything more than an historical accountant on this "subject".



Maybe I'm just not seeing it.

 

[anart]

There was one thing in the back of my mind whenever I read Patterson's writings: what was HIS line of force?

I guess what I'm trying to say is that although he brings interesting intellectual bits, I'm not quite sure he's anything more than an historical accountant on this "subject".

I think that's probably fairly close to the truth, as has been suggested previously on the forum.

 

[Keyhole]

There was one thing in the back of my mind whenever I read Patterson's writings: what was HIS line of force?

He's certainly good at detailing but that wasn't enough for me to accept any of his staccato conclusions as a given.

I'm not discrediting him here, I just don't have enough to go on to accept what he says at face value. I guess what I'm trying to say is that although he brings interesting intellectual bits, I'm not quite sure he's anything more than an historical accountant on this "subject".



Maybe I'm just not seeing it.

I am currently half way through this book, and it is certainly a fascinating read. Its astonishing to see the different characters that G plays and how sometimes he can really seem as if he is just being harsh. Yet when you put it into context, he is merely adjusting himself to the needs of each pupil and ultimately does it to benefit their growth. However I am also beginning to question Patterson's perspective of some of the interactions that went on between the students. In the foreword it is said that the Patterson documents without any personal bias. Unless he was himself conscious and able to see things objectively, is writing without personal bias even possible? I am not sure.

I also must add that while reading this book I have observed strong a emotional identification with Gurdjieff and can feel certain emotions evoked within me in reaction to Ouspensky and Orage's dissent from their teacher. Feelings of betrayal, and a protectiveness over G which admittedly colours my perception of both pupils. I can also feel a dislike growing for Mouravieff which is leading to a reluctance to read the last two volumes of Gnosis because of this - which I understand is not in anyway conducive to my growth, however its hard to battle with at this moment.

Its very interesting to see this happen

 

[obyvatel]

[quote author=Keyhole]
I also must add that while reading this book I have observed strong a emotional identification with Gurdjieff and can feel certain emotions evoked within me in reaction to Ouspensky and Orage's dissent from their teacher. Feelings of betrayal, and a protectiveness over G which admittedly colours my perception of both pupils. I can also feel a dislike growing for Mouravieff which is leading to a reluctance to read the last two volumes of Gnosis because of this - which I understand is not in anyway conducive to my growth, however its hard to battle with at this moment.

Its very interesting to see this happen
[/quote]

Indeed, it is interesting. You are possibly "identifying" with Patterson's views. This is common while reading books. The author may ostensibly be just giving "facts", but the way the information is arranged and expressed, as well as what is left unsaid can lead the reader to make "meaning" which is more than what just the facts portray. It is good that you noticed it happening.

Patterson seems to worship G. As far as I understand, G did help out a lot of people but his aim was more to "get certain things done" rather than attending exclusively to the development of students. The two of course are not mutually exclusive but the line of force can diverge when these two are no longer aligned. In other words, the Work that G tried to establish is not about "self development" or "self improvement" for his students but about meeting certain needs of a cosmic nature. He played different roles with people and situations to get closer to his goal.

Mouravieff was more academic in nature and his contribution was providing a report on ancient knowledge and practices connected to Gnosis. His view, to an extent, is the view of an observer who studies a tradition from outside and provides a descriptive account of it. It is more pedagogic than participatory. While G lived the Work, M studied it. M was also offended by some of G's actions when the theory he knew did not match with some of the practices of G. Personal egos as always also play a role in the dynamics.

So overall, there is value in reading both and synthesizing the contents based on your own understanding and experiences augmented with networking. OSIT.

 

[Keyhole]

Patterson seems to worship G. As far as I understand, G did help out a lot of people but his aim was more to "get certain things done" rather than attending exclusively to the development of students. The two of course are not mutually exclusive but the line of force can diverge when these two are no longer aligned. In other words, the Work that G tried to establish is not about "self development" or "self improvement" for his students but about meeting certain needs of a cosmic nature. He played different roles with people and situations to get closer to his goal.

When you say the line of force, are you speaking of the Law of three or are you referring to the Law of seven?

My understanding from what you have said is that when the two were not aligned, the Aim was more likely to diverge at an interval in the octave where a "shock" was required - but was not produced. And this resulted in certain things not being accomplished, such as the Work at the Priure. Please correct me if I have misunderstood however...

Were the "certain needs of a cosmic nature" preparatory to this work? G mentioned that the "All and Everything" series was not for anyone in his lifetime, but in order to transmit his ideas for the future.

 

[obyvatel]

Patterson seems to worship G. As far as I understand, G did help out a lot of people but his aim was more to "get certain things done" rather than attending exclusively to the development of students. The two of course are not mutually exclusive but the line of force can diverge when these two are no longer aligned. In other words, the Work that G tried to establish is not about "self development" or "self improvement" for his students but about meeting certain needs of a cosmic nature. He played different roles with people and situations to get closer to his goal.

When you say the line of force, are you speaking of the Law of three or are you referring to the Law of seven?

I was referring to (my general and incomplete understanding of) aims in this context.

[quote author=Keyhole]
My understanding from what you have said is that when the two were not aligned, the Aim was more likely to diverge at an interval in the octave where a "shock" was required - but was not produced. And this resulted in certain things not being accomplished, such as the Work at the Priure. Please correct me if I have misunderstood however...
[/quote]

Not knowing specifically what G's aims were, I cannot put things in an enneagram (or octaves). G's actions were not easy to decipher. We have the option of adopting the view that he was a "superman" who had precise and exact knowledge about everything that he did and it was the failure of his students which led to his aims not being realized. Another view is G was experimenting with several methods of working with people and went by trial and error. He was an extraordinary man man but not "superman". Also he had superior being and great abilities of the mind - but he was not the most successful of teachers. If one reads detailed accounts of his faithful students and see what he demanded of them and how they struggled to meet those demands, it would become clear that these students were not lazy or lacked loyalty or effort or caliber. However, every person has his breaking point. When that point is crossed, he would not be able to continue. It is easy to rationalize such human failures by saying " he could not give all because he was too self-important or ....." in hindsight, putting all responsibility on the student while keeping the image of the teacher unblemished. I personally do not subscribe to such a view but feel that responsibility for failure is shared between the student and teacher to varying degrees depending on the specific context, as well as the ubiquitous uncertainty factor or "hazard" which pervades the fabric of our reality. However, such a view may well be in the minority and so please take it with a "large grain of salt".

[quote author=Keyhole]
Were the "certain needs of a cosmic nature" preparatory to this work? G mentioned that the "All and Everything" series was not for anyone in his lifetime, but in order to transmit his ideas for the future.
[/quote]

I do not know. I do not see any obvious problem with making that assumption if it provides energy and motivation for work. However, "All and Everything" has not been the driving factor for this forum afaik. It is drawn from several sources outside of G's Work, and as far as G's Work goes, it is ISOTM by Ouspensky rather than "All and Everything" that is more widely used and quoted here.

 

[Keyhole]

Not knowing specifically what G's aims were, I cannot put things in an enneagram (or octaves). G's actions were not easy to decipher. We have the option of adopting the view that he was a "superman" who had precise and exact knowledge about everything that he did and it was the failure of his students which led to his aims not being realized. Another view is G was experimenting with several methods of working with people and went by trial and error. He was an extraordinary man man but not "superman". Also he had superior being and great abilities of the mind - but he was not the most successful of teachers. If one reads detailed accounts of his faithful students and see what he demanded of them and how they struggled to meet those demands, it would become clear that these students were not lazy or lacked loyalty or effort or caliber. However, every person has his breaking point. When that point is crossed, he would not be able to continue. It is easy to rationalize such human failures by saying " he could not give all because he was too self-important or ....." in hindsight, putting all responsibility on the student while keeping the image of the teacher unblemished. I personally do not subscribe to such a view but feel that responsibility for failure is shared between the student and teacher to varying degrees depending on the specific context, as well as the ubiquitous uncertainty factor or "hazard" which pervades the fabric of our reality. However, such a view may well be in the minority and so please take it with a "large grain of salt".

Thanks for explaining obyvatel, I clearly misunderstood. With regards to the Ouspensky... G purposefully humiliated him in front of his own group members, and the same for Orage. This seemed like it could have been the "breaking point" for both of these pupils. Perhaps G made the faulty assumption that this would provide a necessary "shock" to enable them both to truly see themselves and it backfired. Then after Orage left for good, none of his promising students were around any longer (according to Patterson). One part of me thinks that this doesn't seem like an effective way to promote the Work and to aid individuals in the Work at the time. And then another part is thinking that G may have merely been separating the 'wheat from the chaff' so to speak, and that if Orage and Ouspensky could not utilize this shock - they were not suitable for the Work.