Gurdjieff's Emissary in New York: Talks and Lectures with A. R. Orage 1924-1931

© Book Studio 2020

All rights reserved.

Hardback ISBN: 978-0-9954756-4-9

Acknowledgement is gratefully made to A. R. Orage and Leeds University Library; Charles Sumner Greene and University of California, Berkeley; Jean Toomer, Muriel Draper, Blanche B. Grant, Lawrence Morris, Carol Brown, Margaret Anderson, Kathryn Hulme and Yale University. Special thanks to Frank Brück for assistance with the text, to Matthias Buck-Gramcko for redrawing the illustrations, to David Kherdian for encouragement, support and the foreword, to Gert-Jan Blom for generously sharing photographs from his archives, and to Neil Rhodes for photo restoration.

Front cover photograph of the bookshop in the Yale Club building, East 44th Street, reproduced with the permission of Special Collections, Leeds University Library. Classmark: BC MS 20c Orage/54

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CONTENTS

Foreword

Introduction

Tuesday, 1 January 1924

January 1925

Monday, 5 January 1925

Monday, 12 January 1925

Tuesday, 27 January 1925

Tuesday, 3 February 1925

Sunday, 8 February 1925

Tuesday, 17 February 1925

Tuesday, 24 February 1925

Tuesday, 3 March 1925

Tuesday, 10 March 1925

Tuesday, 17 March 1925

Wednesday, 23 March 1925

Monday, 30 March 1925

Tuesday, 7 April 1925

Tuesday, 14 April 1925

Tuesday, 21 April 1925

Tuesday, 28 April 1925

Wednesday, 6 May 1925

Tuesday, 12 May 1925

Sunday, 17 May 1925

Monday, 25 May 1925

Second Year — Monday, 9 November 1925

Monday, 16 November 1925

Monday, 23 November 1925

Monday, 14 December 1925

Monday, 21 December 1925

Monday, 28 December 1925

Orage to J. Wednesday, 14 January 1925

Questions to Orage, Monday, 23 February 1925

Friday, 20 March 1925

Sunday, 19 April 1925

Orage to J. Tuesday, 19 May 1925

Orage to J. Monday, 25 May 1925

Orage to J. Monday, 8 June 1925

Orage to J. Tuesday, 16 June 1925

Orage to J. Wednesday, 24 June 1925

Orage to J. Thursday, 29 October 1925

Orage to J. Wednesday, 25 November 1925

Orage Meeting, Thursday, 25 June 1925

Orage meetings, Monday, 4 January 1926

Monday, 11 January 1926

Monday, 25 January 1926

Tuesday, 9 February 1926

Monday, 22 February 1926

Monday, 1 March 1926

Monday, 8 March 1926

Monday, 15 March 1926

Monday, 22 March 1926

Monday, 29 March 1926

Monday, 26 April 1926

Monday, 12 April 1926

Monday, 19 April 1926

Letter from Orage to Toomer

Orage to J. Tuesday, 6 April 1926

Discussion on Good and Evil

Orage Meeting Notes of Carol Brown

Tuesday, 19 November 1929

Wednesday, 4 December 1929

Tuesday, 15 October 1929

Tuesday, 22 October 1929

Wednesday, 15 January 1930

Monday, 20 January 1930

Tuesday, 10 September 1929

Notes Taken By Blanche B. Grant

Monday, 7 October 1929

Monday, 14 October 1929

Monday, 21 October 1929

Monday, 28 October 1929

Monday, 4 November 1929

Monday, 11 November 1929

Monday, 18 November 1929

Monday, 25 November 1929

Monday, 2 December 1929

Will and Wish

Consciousness, Individuality and Will

Monday, 12 May 1930

Sunday, 25 May 1930

Monday, 23 June 1930

Tuesday, 6 May 1930

Tuesday, 13 May 1930

Our present state of consciousness

Monday, 14 November 1927

Monday, 21 November 1927

Friday, 25 November – Monday, 28 November 1927

Monday, 28 November 1927

Tuesday, 13 December 1927

Orage Lectures in Carmel

Monday, 13 August 1928

Wednesday, 15 August 1928

Friday, 17 August 1928

Wednesday, 22 August 1928

Date uncertain

Carmel 1928

Tuesday, 29 April 1930

Talks and Lectures with A. R. Orage

Monday, 9 December 1929

Monday, 16 December 1929

Monday, 13 January 1930

Monday, 20 January 1930

Monday evening, 3 February 1930

Monday evening, 10 February 1930

Monday, 17 February 1930

Monday, April 1930

Monday, 11 May 1930

Discussion — 7 January

Discussion — 14 January

Discussion — 21 January

Discussion — 4 February

Tuesday, 11 February 1930

18 April

22 April

25 April

13 May

Parables

Good and Evil

Tuesday, 12 November 1929

Tuesday, 19 November 1929

Monday, 14 April 1930

Tuesday, 23 April

World

Wednesday, 1 May, 1929

Man Considered Chemically. Man Considered Physiologically.

Thursday, 31 October 1929

Carmel Talks

Orage Method

Mrs. Hares Notes

5 January

Undated

Time. The Fourth Dimension.

Lecture 6

Lecture 7

Lecture 8

Lecture 9

Lecture 10

Lecture 11

Lecture 12

Lecture 13

Lecture 14

Lecture 15

Lecture 18

Lecture 20

Lecture 21

Lecture 22

Lecture 23

Lecture 24

Lecture 25

Lecture 26 and 27

Lecture 28

Lecture

Final Lecture, Tuesday Group

Letter From A. R. Orage to Israel Solon

Beginner-Group Meetings

Tuesday, 7 April 1931

Tuesday, 14 April 1931

Tuesday, 21 April 1931

Tuesday, 28 April 1931

Tuesday, 5 May 1931

Tuesday, 12 May 1931

Tuesday, 19 May 1931

Tuesday, 26 May 1931

Conscious or Objective Morality

Second series commentary

48 Questions

Beyond Behavior

Further Reading

Foreword

The disciples of Gurdjieff each brought their own essential and indispensable gift to the Work: de Hartmann — The Note, de Salzmann — The Foot, Ouspensky — The Pointed Finger, Bennett — The Voice, Nicoll — The Cross, and Orage — The Pencil. Orage was not only a writer and thinker, but an editor, a developer of talent, and more important than any of these, he was Gurdjieff’s brilliant translator. He sculpted Gurdjieff’s opus into its final shape and form as no one else could have done: P. L. Travers saying of it upon publication that it resembled a great, lumbering flying cathedral.

This was Orage’s greatest contribution to the Work, and also, very importantly, his exegesis of the Tales, as recollected from talks to his pupils, published in great part by C. S. Nott in his book, Teachings of Gurdjieff: The Journal of a Pupil, later published as a single volume by Two Rivers Press, and more recently, and definitively, by Book Studio, under the title, Orage’s Commentary on Gurdjieff’s Beelzebub’s Tales to His Grandson: New York Talks 1926–1930.

Although America would become one of the growing points of the Work, following its start in Fontainebleau, France, there were none inside Gurdjieff’s magic circle who were American born. One has to wonder if there would have been an American presence if it weren’t for the man who was in essence himself an American — Orage, who was able to make a blossoming of the Work in America because of his spirit, which found its correspondence there, where he formed his first group, that became for him a family in ways he had never experienced before. Orage claimed he had left the life he knew behind, in order to find God. With his American family he found love, which must have come to him as a resounding answer to his striving for God. Not surprisingly, he married an American woman, with whom he fell in love at their first meeting upon his arrival in New York.

It was a case of mutual recognition: these were his people and he would be their leader. This occurrence, this birthing, this episode in time, was captured brilliantly by Louise Welch in her book, Orage with Gurdjieff in America.

Gurdjieff had said of Orage that he was his brother. America might have said the same.

David Kherdian

Introduction

Alfred Richard Orage (1873–1934), whom G. B. Shaw declared the most brilliant editor of the past century, suddenly laid down his pencil in 1922 and sold his famous journal The New Age to work with the mystic G. I. Gurdjieff. The lifelines of these two exceptional men crossed at a time when Gurdjieff was at the height of his powers and Orage was desperately looking for a more fundamental understanding of the human species. Even before the First World War and the following events, he was disillusioned by Western civilization. He saw that it lacked, in spite of all its achievements, both knowledge and methods, and, what was even more frustrating, the intellectual integrity and will necessary to come to a comprehensive understanding of human nature. And without this understanding, no further development was possible. But without something really new and promising, and attractive, he was convinced that the very will to live would decline. So it was no surprise when he wrote in 1915: Anything that inspires to the practice of Mysticism is all to the good, since it is certain in my opinion that with the faculties we already possess Man has come to the end of his tether. Progress must continue, if at all, horizontally instead of perpendicularly, until a new faculty is developed to apprehend the world in a new way.¹

Gurdjieff was moving along the same line, but claimed to have found a way to develop new and even higher faculties trained in the necessary methods, with knowledge that has its sources in the hidden wisdom of the East. His claim was supported by his behavior, which was so deeply rooted in reality that some people called him no longer a man but a natural phenomenon.

When Orage encountered Gurdjieff, he was accustomed to dealing with famous men and gurus. He was never distracted by them, since he was able to penetrate quite simply and unpretentiously—according to T. S. Elliot—to the heart of the moral rottenness or intellectual dishonesty of the most acclaimed man. Hence, there is reason enough to proceed on the assumption that Orage was not simply charmed by Gurdjieff’s powerful personality. He must have recognized something eminently authentic in Gurdjieff and his teaching, including a practical method with a hitherto unknown degree of vitalizing sanity and coherence. Certainly he was aware that working with a man like Gurdjieff was an unique opportunity, a chance that was offered only to a few, but once in a century, that would never come again in his lifetime. Hence he gave up everything for it—his career, fame, social and material security. For more than a year he worked intensively with Gurdjieff in his Institute for the Harmonious Development of Man, and it seems that Orage had finally found what he had sought.

Gurdjieff, on the other hand, found in Orage someone that he considered a brother in spirit. A spirit that was defined by Orage some years before as: . . . displaying itself in disinterested interest in things; in things, that is to say, of no personal advantage, but only of general, public or universal importance. ² To find a man of such spirit in the West must have been a joyful surprise to Gurdjieff. And after the disappointing performance of Ouspensky, who, impelled by self-importance, separated from Gurdjieff to establish a sort of rival school with himself as its headmaster, he needed someone who would formulate the teaching for western ears. So when Gurdjieff expanded his activities into the New World, it was only consequent that Orage became his emissary there.

When Orage arrived in New York in December 1923, he was fifty years of age. According to Gorham Munson,³ he gave no sign of middle age. No hint of grey in the dark hair, and only a slight recession of the hairline near the part on the left. His first impression of Orage was that this man’s note was intelligence. The hazel eyes, alive and challenging, were intelligent. The strong nose was intelligent. The mouth, ready to smile at paradox, was intelligent. He had never met a man before who struck it with as much clarity. A thought came to his mind: that Orage was a Pico della Mirandola of the twentieth century.

Munson was not the first one who was so eminently affected by Orage’s presence. Some years before Holbrook Jackson, an early friend of Orage, has given a similar and more detailed description of the personal impressions that Orage made upon his contemporaries:

In appearance Orage was tall, and, at that time, slim and dark-haired, and he dressed conventionally…. His hair was straight and worn short except for a long tuft which sometimes strayed over his forehead. His eyes were hazel, lively, and challenging, and in moments of excitement they seemed to emit a red glint. It was a feline face and there was something cat-like in his movements. He walked as though he were going to pounce on something, much as his mind pounced upon an idea or an opponent. His expression was earnest, without being solemn. There was wit in his poise and manner and he was good to look at without being good-looking. But he did not impress by his features so much as by that which was outside and beyond his features. You were conscious of his aura; you felt his presence so much that you forgot details, even the vague birthmark which broke into his complexion like an irregular sunburn, and seemed to become deeper when he was bored or out of humour. This appearance, so lively and so earnest, was a perfect background for his conversation. You expected a man who looked like that to talk well, and I am not alone in thinking that his better genius expressed itself in talk. Even his small talk was fascinating. The odd remarks and unpremeditated sallies, often trivial, were always amusing and sometimes something more.⁴

Without doubt, Orage’s charismatic aspect was one of the reasons why the Gurdjieff-Teaching found a way to take root in America’s intelligentsia. But another aspect was his ability to elucidate Gurdjieff’s ideas in such a manner that his listeners found the teaching more and more essential to their lives. Orage was interested in every member of his group as an individual and so his answers to their questions were individual. He never lost himself in esoteric generalizations. At the same time, he could show them the bigger picture of which they were a part, and out of this new perspective, they could find a solution to their problems by themselves. Orage never expected blind faith or obedience, on the contrary, he always encouraged scepticism—neither believe nor disbelieve.

In 1925, Orage was talking to a growing group of interested people from different professions. They met once a week in the barnlike quarters of Muriel Draper at 24 East 40th Street. Members were, among others, the short-story writer Israel Solon; the literary critic Van Wyck Brooks; businessmen Stanley Speidelberg and Sherman Manchester; the rich heiress Blanche Rosette Grant; detective-novel writer and psychologist C. Daly King; music reviewer Muriel Draper; actor Edwin Wolfe and actress Rita Romilly; architects Claude Bragdon and Hugh Ferris; poets Melville Cane and Edna Kenton; and the author of Cane, Jean Toomer; painters Boardman Robinson and Claire Mann; publishers Amos Pinchot and C. S. Nott; writers Waldo Frank, Carl Bechhofer Roberts, Gorham Munson, Lawrence Morris, Scuyler Jackson, Lawrence S. Hare, T. S. Matthews and his sister Peggy (son and daughter of the Bishop of New Jersey); editors Carl Zigrosser, Herbert Croly, John O’Hara Cosgrave, Margaret Anderson and Jane Heap; concert pianists Carol Robinson and Rosemary Lillard; physician Dr. Louis Berman; Helen Westley of the Theater Guild; historical novelist, Mary Johnston; mathematician John Riordan, and chemist Willem (Wim) Nyland. Of the legal profession were Reese Alsop and Allan Brown; impresario Lincoln Kirstein; the Swiss consul in New York, Robert Schwartzenbach and his wife Marguerite, and Katie Powys, sister of John Cowper Powys.

Unlike Gurdjieff, Orage encouraged his students to make notes of his lectures, and many did. The present volume is based on the papers of Jean Toomer, Muriel Draper, Charles Sumner Greene, Blanche Grant, Lawrence Morris, Carol Brown, Kathryn Hulme and Margaret Anderson. We are grateful to the notetakers and their prudence to leave their papers to the universities of Yale, Berkeley and Leeds, who guaranteed the survival of these papers in their archives. Without all this combined effort they would otherwise be scattered all over the world and largely unknown and upon the verge of being irrecoverably lost as C. Daly King once wrote. Along with the commentaries on Beelzebub, this edition completes the record for Orage’s meetings, talks and lectures on Gurdjieff’s teaching.

The notes have been edited with an emphasis on readability. Illegible words, missing or wrong punctuation and grammatical errors have been corrected. Missing letters and words have been reconstructed using the context where possible. In cases where no meaning could be deduced, no changes have been made.

Frank Brück

Weyhe near Bremen, June 2016

¹ The New Age, 15 July 1915

² The New Age, 31 October 1918

³ Gorham Munson, The Roaring Twenties

⁴ Phillip Mairet, A. R. Orage A Memoir

Clockwise from top left: Muriel Draper, Boardman Robinson, Amos Pinchot, C. Daly King, Carl Zigrosser, T. S. Matthews, Hugh Ferris, Margaret Anderson, Carol Robinson, Willem Nyland, Waldo Frank, Gorham Munson, Philippa Powys, Lincoln Kirstein, Rita Romilly, John O’Hara Cosgrave, Mary Johnston, Jane Heap, Charles Sumner Greene, Jean Toomer, Claude Bragdon, Melvin Cane, Helen Westley, Herbert Croly, and A. R. Orage.

Tuesday, 1 January 1924

orage

First you must understand that the story I have to tell you can never be told in the ordinary sense of the word.

Mysticism, I said — Then you have been in the East?

Science, he replied. Yes, I have been in the East.

There was a long silence. We apparently gave our whole attention to our cigars and our drinks.

Science, I mused, facts, then. Why cannot it be told if it deals with facts?

Perhaps you have eyes yet ye see not, ye have ears yet ye hear not.

Ah, religion then, I said.

Well, if you could properly call Jesus religious — perhaps.

You might employ the words Christian science as an accurate designation possibly, I speculated.

Christian science, he said, is our ignorant brother.

Oh, I finally murmured. Another silence.

You see it, but probably I had best tell you how I got started on this quest? He looked at me quizzically, smiling that rare and lovely smile, which lights up his saturnine features, yet indicates no abandon, being thereby rare and lovely.

I melted instantly. Please, I said, making appropriate gestures, with glasses and fresh cigars.

It began with a dream. I was spending the summer eight years ago, wasn’t it? At Woodstock. It is a beautiful little village near the Hudson River in the foothills of the Catskill Mountains. One night returning from a party in the Maverick, the musicians’ colony there, I felt a queer restlessness. It was nearly dawn so I walked on past my studio, turning up a country road which leads to a favorite spot of mine. It is a hill top from which there is a view in all directions. Off one side the distant Hudson was dimly visible through the mist, and beyond, the high hills, blue against a pale gold sky. On the other hand there were the Catskills, dimly outlined, massive, huge. Between these ranges are valleys, streams, grain fields, houses, roads, stone walls, and always great trees in groups around the houses, in lines along the roads, and streams and lanes, occasionally a giant standing alone. Reaching the summit of the hill I sat down. There on clear days one can see all manner of men moving about in any means of locomotion — steamers on the Hudson, automobiles, wagons, horses, even ox teams and carts on the roads; men riding horses and men walking idly and or briskly.

A girl had been playing strange music on the piano that night. She had said the pieces were accurate transcriptions of temple music, ritualistic dances, dervish dances brought out of the Far East from Afghanistan, Tibet, the Gobi desert, China, Hindustan.

They had affected me strangely. What was it that held me, the music or only another girl, I wondered. I closed my eyes. A queer, vivid person this girl. Mysterious, yes, and that is always alluring. A friend and guest of Schlayter (Schweitzer?), famous organist and teacher. She wore a turban, I remembered, of strange color — orange.

Here I must have fallen asleep. I saw a strange man come striding up the hill — wearing an identical turban. He came straight to me and sat down crossing his legs in Hindu fashion.

What the devil! I thought and stopped abruptly. For he looked more like the devil than the devil himself. A great head, yet not out of proportion to his great figure. A high wide forehead over heavy black brows, deep set black lustrous eyes, prominent cheek bones and strong cleft chin. A thin nose with strong nostrils; a wide mouth, guarded by vertical lines and a black mustachio, sweeping left to right above it.

He spoke:

First there is the sun he said. Then the earth, the planets, the moon, the infra-moon, mankind, animal, vertebrates, invertebrate, vegetable, mineral, metal.

Quite comprehensive, I said politely.

Words are really fun, aren’t they? he said and smiled so brightly it was like looking into the sun itself.

Apprehension versus comprehension. Asleep versus awake. Dullness and ecstasy. Apathy and sustained elation. Sickness and health. You and a complete human being. Futility and fulcrum. Three and six. That was my music, he added.

It was extraordinary, I said, again quite politely.

It might be equally well said that all other varieties of music are extraordinary. Music is held to be the best of the arts, for it expresses in its scales the cosmic law.

So does the fish, I said very politely.

Quite right, he replied, beaming a smile down at me, as though I were a child who had unwittingly said something quite profound. I felt abashed, even a bit fearful.

Sorry, please go on with the tale, I said.

The fishes of yours, he inquired, they are really much the same, you know.

The musical scales, please, I spoke very, very politely.

In the scale we have eight so-called whole notes and two half notes: do, re, mi — then a missing half note — fa, sol, la, si — then a missing half note again. The millennium, so to speak, is just over that half note. All history shows that civilization after civilization has progressed to a certain level, where a millennium seemed to be the very next step. Then without exception each lapses into a period of retrogression. Do, re, mi, re, mi, re, mi, re, do, etc. This is not to say that mankind may not sometime cross this line and become as far above the men of today as the men of today are above the animals.

Certainly not, I exclaimed with polite emphasis.

He regarded me with a sort of glowing amusement which made me quite uncomfortable.

"Man is the product of two forces — biological and sociological, and reacts automatically exactly as any other automaton. The Behaviorists have amply demonstrated that from conclusive studies made of animals and infants. But man differs from animal; he possesses potential power for real thought. The animal is a two-centered being — instinctive center and emotional center. Man is composed of instinctive, emotional, and intellectual centers. To be sure, the intellectual center in most men is hardly discernible, but every man possesses the possibility of developing a third or lower intellectual center, whereas this is invariably lacking in the animal. These centers may be said to be contained within the instinctive center, though this is not strictly accurate. The body is the physical structure of the instinctive center. It is only through the instinctive center that the emotional and intellectual centers can be manifested. Of course, each man or animal has a different emotional content, deposited at the time of his conception by the planets and determined by their configuration."

Of course, I interjected politely.

Though men of the same race may be structurally much the same there never is any essential identity. Brothers, even twin brothers, possessing practically identical physical structures at birth immediately begin to display essential differences which in maturity have often brought about marked differences both external and internal. For the essence of man is not determined by his ancestry either immediate or remote. Nevertheless, since we are so nearly or always automatons, and since each one inherits his physical structure, it may be said that the sins of the father or mother may affect the sons or daughters even through the third or fourth generation. By that time it will have been washed out.

So that’s a wash out, too, I commented courteously.

Everything in these three centers is a washout eventually.

Eventually? Why not now? I inquired mildly.

Because mankind serves a cosmic purpose, of course. Take food. It goes up the scale, solid, liquid, gas, i.e. do, re mi. Then it is carried by the blood from the stomach to the lungs where it is transmuted into life energy by the shock of its contact with air and is distributed through one’s body and runs itself up the scale fa, sol, la, si. So we grow and live. In the same way mankind provides the shock which transmutes the sun’s energy into food for the earth, the moon, and the infra moon.

Exactly, I concurred with exceeding politeness.

How politely you speak, he remarked, eying me obliquely. Except for misunderstandings, politeness would never be necessary. For if I understand my friend, politeness between us is never necessary, i.e. of course if he understands me. But if we do not agree through a lack of understanding we must be polite to each other or fight. And since few people like to fight and few of these are evenly matched, everyone must be polite to his neighbors. Thus the degree of politeness proper and necessary to employ depends always on the extent of the lack of understanding involved. We are particularly polite to the ladies.

Perhaps you are right, I remarked without emphasis.

Perhaps, he said, and was silent for a while.

Presently he motioned toward the next hilltop where a flock of sheep were grazing and from which the sheep bells occasionally sounded. But still he said nothing.

At last Sheep? I queried idiotically.

Yes, sheep he said.

"Suppose those sheep were to discuss their purpose and their relation to the cosmos. Such a speculation would no doubt arouse most of them to fear and wrath by its impious tendency.

" ‘How can you ask such a question’, they would bleat angrily. ‘Isn’t the evidence sufficient for you? Don’t the men-gods give us a warm shelter in the winter, good food from their stock, when the earth is covered with snow, sheer our heavy coats in the spring when otherwise we should be too unbearably hot, and constantly take the righteous away into the Promised Land?’

"And no doubt they would ostracize and even butt and kick such questioners. Yet if these agnostics persisted, and by determined investigation, would find that man kept them solely for mutton and wool — that would be considered as a cruel and impossible conclusion.

Yet it is the law of life that every living thing must live by the death of other living beings. You yourself as a man cannot live without going through the same process. Why then should you suppose that you do not yourself further the life purpose?

It is so, I admitted.

Perhaps, he said.

Yet there is this purpose, I remarked. The life of a sheep is without purpose and utterly futile. Whereas, men are constantly improving themselves and their environment.

Oh, are they really? he asked with great politeness.

Hm, you do not understand it that way, I perceive by your manner.

He smiled, and despite my valiant effort I was pleased, thrilled and stimulated by that smile.

You happen to be living, shall we say, in a state of society that is just approaching its zenith. The war represented the first signs of the wave breaking, just as the white crest of the wave appears when it is near the shore. Presently it will touch the beach, its limit, and come tumbling crashing down — as it always has done in the past. Even in your conception of history you can see this. Various so-called civilizations have achieved a high point of development, only to lapse into a retrogression which took them down to the lowest point from which they had risen. From that point there would be an upward turn and so on over and over. Even this has only the appearance of upward or downward trend since all things are in constant balance.

From this maelstrom of futility then, I said, my only escape would be self annihilation?

Suicide is sometimes possible, he replied, but self annihilation not.

Then I live forever? I queried? And must live forever?

Can a fire extinguish itself? Yet it does not burn forever. The life of a piece of radium is estimated to be fifteen thousand years. Your span of individual life may be fifteen thousand years or centuries but unless it is replenished and sustained by your own successful efforts and by the addition of outside accidents, such as my talk with you this morning — your being at the Maverick last night, your accidental equipment resulting in your reaction to my music etc. — even with these factors given you will probably eventually reach the vanishing point and vanish. Though you cannot by choice either vanish or not vanish.

But how? I interjected.

By hearing me, he continued.

Choice is not possible to three-centered or four-centered man. For every one of your thoughts, feelings, and acts are predictable in any circumstances. The fact that you are unable to predict them and that you have never met anyone able to predict them does not mean that they are not definitely and actually predictable.

But look here, I interrupted angrily, thrusting out my arm.

Undisturbed he continued.

Obviously you either will or will not, he remarked. What will be the cause of your extending your arm if you do? Obviously the act will have been motivated by your reaction to the idea of automatism. It will be apparent to you that you could not act except as that act is the result of your own limitations. Unless, of course, you become perchance a complete human being.

A complete human being? I exclaimed.

He was silencing me with a glare.

The cosmic man, he continued, differs from the world man in that he has developed his three higher centers. For as you know, food is transformed into life-energy through processes that are gratuitously provided for the world man. However, every man has three higher centers — higher instinctive, higher emotional and higher intellectual — e.g. potentially. Also there is food for the growth of the higher centers available but it is rarely or never absorbed.

"But how know?" I stammered angrily.

He continued serenely.

"The harmonious development of men — that is the nectar and ambrosia of life. First one must realize that he knows only one or two things actually. For example that there are two thousand million people on this earth and that all of them will die. Second that man is the only interesting object of study, and that you can only truly know one man — yourself. To learn about yourself, first you must establish your identity in the higher intellectual center and from this point of view observe your behavior. Not with disapproval nor with approval. Simply observe. You must be simultaneously aware of your complete state of mind, emotions, and body. You must be aware of them but not identified with them. This is not impossible.

"You can, by an effort of real imagination, conceive yourself coming up the hill now toward our two figures seated here. You can from that point of view perceive certain aspects of Orage, whom you have always mistakenly considered to be yourself. He is only one possible phase of you.

"You will most easily observe at first, five things about him: the posture of his body, the expression of his face, the tone of his voice the gestures of his hands, arms, or other members of his body, and his carriage as he moves through life. Those are the external things about a man which others can see. But one must be simultaneously aware of them and of a score more of internal aspects are only to be known by you.

"Then your emotions must be observed — not directly, for this is not possible. But one can and must observe the physical evidences of one’s emotional states. Then one must add to this an awareness of one’s intellectual processes.

"All of these observations will narrow down eventually to the study of your habits. Gradually it will become possible to vary one’s behavior by changing one’s physical states or by placing one’s self in new circumstances or by supplying a new stimulus by means of mood. Now the key, if there be one, particularly at the beginning, will be the realization of simultaneous awareness of as many as are possible.

"The memory film must be rolled back — first for an hour, then a day, a week, a year, until it may be possible to go back to one’s virgin state and discover one’s real essence. For it will be increasingly evident that we are more conditioned in actions, feelings, and thoughts, than we have supposed.

"An immoral act, thought, feeling or life is one that fails to produce simultaneously profit, pleasure, and understanding. The difference between right and wrong is determined by whether or not, whatever it may be, is agreeable to you. This means if it really agrees with you, in the sense that some foods happen to agree with one person and perhaps not with another.

"When you were an infant you could not use your hand for any of the useful things you now do so deftly and easily. Suppose you could use your whole equipment, mind, emotions, and body as deftly and easily as you now use your hands? This you can do if you can establish your identity in your higher intellectual center and develop the potential powers in your higher emotional and instinctive centers. There is food incessantly available for anyone under all conditions.

You will find that it is easier to observe yourself when you are doing something you do not automatically wish to do or when you are engaged in gratuitous effort.

Still, I objected, such a course would seem to make one obnoxiously self-conscious?

No. Not if one says: ‘I am not that man. I will observe this mechanism, but not with approval nor with disapproval, but with an impartial unprejudiced external attitude.’

Silence.

Since this man is entirely automatic and merely a product of say two forces — biology and sociology — and nevertheless is one phase of the real ‘I’ then I will observe him and all his actions and reactions. I shall study him because man is the only mystery in the world and since I have a specimen, myself, I am content. Absorbing experience in the process which will provide food for the higher centers. I must go.

The sun peeping over the rim of the horizon seemed to kindle a hundred fires in his lusterful black eyes.

It will here become apparent to the real ‘I’ that the behavior of your organism is absolutely automatic, and that it is most undesirable to be at the mercy of the chaos produced by the almost constant quarrel of the three centers among themselves. They constantly fight, agitate, and trick each other, to their equal discomfiture.

But damnation, I shouted, will you listen?

Yes? he said, pleasantly.

But I had forgotten what it was I wanted to say.

After a short silence, he proceeded.

"Take your own case for example, and let us discuss your organism between us. The real ‘I’ in your organism and myself. At the moment your instinctive center is weary and it is tired of reclining against that rock and it is hungry and thirsty.

"Those states are known to the emotional center which is agitated by them. The intellectual center is however able and willing a participant in this conversation and resolutely ignores the other centers endeavoring to give its whole attention to our ideas. It is not strong enough as you can see and is caught by the emotions and made to turn to angry shouts. Meaningless, dangerous, and actually injurious.

It will be evident to you, i.e. to the real ‘I’ in you, that this is an inevitable and undesirable state, which nevertheless cannot be changed by an effort of will. Thus we say a world man has no free will or power to choose, and that he never will and never can have.

Unless? I said.

Unless you observe and study your organism without identifying yourself with its three centers. It is possible and necessary however to make real effort, to realize every thought, feeling, and action. To accomplish this, a kind of fire is necessary. This fire will be present whenever you are, so to speak, awake. That is whenever the real ‘I’ is conscious and aware of, though entirely void of identity with your thoughts, feelings, and actions simultaneously. The effort necessary may now be made by you, for you have heard the truth. It will be difficult if not impossible, for all your organism is so much dead weight. And every current and phase of life as you have hitherto known will be counter to these ideas and will present itself so to you in future.

But are there no absolute moral values? I asked. Thoughts and emotions were seething within so that I was powerless to formulate even one question. I finally stammered: For the love of God don’t go!

For the love of God I go! he answered.

His expression seemed to me to be a divine blending of truth, beauty, love and laughter.

He rose, faced the rising sun for an instant then strode away down the hill. His figure moved swiftly and gracefully but instead of diminishing with distance it seemed to take on greater dimensions, though its outlines were less and less visible. I did not exactly lose sight of him, but I could no longer discern any details. He seemed to have merged with the hills and streams, the mist and sunlight, the gold and blue of the sky and the green and brown of the earth.

I rose; my body was cramped and cold but I was nevertheless glowing with the warmth of celestial ecstasy.

Orage ceased speaking and sat regarding the embers of the fires with a curious absence of concentration that was the exact opposite of dreaming. He seemed extraordinarily at ease yet completely alert and alive in a way hardly comprehensible to me.

Have you met that man since? I asked.

Oh, yes, he replied.

In a dream? I demanded.

In a recurrent dream, he replied, Life.

There are twelve physical types — but essence is not the same in the same types.

Behavior is the result, usually if not always, of biology and sociology. Do not commit yourself to any wish or ambition of today. It almost surely will not last. A pianist went to the Institute — became and is now a farmer in New Zealand.

Do, re, mi of the emotional center is related to emotions, impressions, sex of the instinctive — so, la, si of the astral or emotional center is related to do, re, mi of the intellectual. See if in your actual experience you have had an emotional experience of greater intensity than sex — i.e. so, la, si, of the emotional scale.

Fa — is earth in E (emotional?) scale.

Do, re, mi — is moon.

So, la, si — is sun.

So every time my fa, i.e. I falls into do, re, mi it is contributing something to moon — and when by an effort I goes into so, la, si, it is contributing something to the sun. If I comes to have a separate existence, responses will be so, la, si, (of the emotions) but the organism always has the reaction do, re, mi (of the emotions).

Suppose you find yourself in a negative emotional state (hitherto we have said observe etc.) now you can turn your mind to one of these ideas:

Order of the Cosmos.

Relation of sun and moon.

Cosmic scale.

Enneagram.

Any cosmic ideas, i.e. to think in terms of cosmos.

Objective morality.

The fact is, we can have no higher emotions in the presence of negative emotions.

We do not hold these ideas in suspense — that is a passive attitude. We are experimenting with these ideas — a positive attitude.

Words are difficult to employ. We must take words and find out what they really mean, out of our present experience.

Higher emotion — what does this mean? The organism can never experience a higher emotion.

Appetites are not wishes. Appetites are in the emotional sub-center of the instinctive center.

Wishes only come from the emotional center. I am not hungry yet I wish to eat. This is from the emotional center. Will is the power to change attitudes.

We have a choice at the present moment of choosing another image than the one now held in the cerebral system which now determines attitude (i.e. emotional rest). Same result achieved by contemplating something purely reasonable — taking a walk is retreating into the instinctive center.

First shock is self-observation. Second, contemplating the rational of the universe or of existence.

If you can non-identify with all organisms — you do not have an emotional approach to mankind (i.e. how terrible everyone’s life is etc.) you will take an intellectual attitude. You will study your own organism and that of others. But you must not expose this attitude to others. You have to behave as if you were a reasonable being. But if you become a reasonable being you have to play a role again — this time as if you were not a reasonable being.

Emotions are always responsive to ideas, but these ideas are not compatible with the emotion common to man.

To do more and more, and better and better, and to think less and less of it (i.e. in the sense of estimate) will be the result. (I.e. to be less and less satisfied by the results.)

Unless your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees you shall by no means enter into the kingdom of heaven.

We must know:

1. Ourselves

2. The world

3. Our station in the world.

We wish to know, in order to be, in order to do. In groups we can learn to know — in life we can learn to be — then we can learn to do.

Three tests — thinkable, feelable, sensible.

If I can co-ordinate my three centers — thinking, feeling, and doing, perhaps I can do something.

Self-observation, participation and experiment will develop this ability.

Try to imagine a circle of chairs, one for each year of your life. Try to imagine yourself in the first chair for one year than in the second for the second year. The same person, but in a different form, then in each chair the same person, but in different forms. The same person is at any given time all those things he has been and all those things that he will become. Call these chairs birthdays.

Those figures that we see in passing around this succession of chairs must be regarded as the inevitable result of potentialities. What is it that passes around through those successive molds or figures? I. But I am identified with each figure at that given moment. When I am at any given point it is, so to speak, illuminated. Last year is only memory. To me there seems to exist only the present instant. A present doomed to recur, i.e. actualize the same things over and over again, from birth to death. There is also an I potential attached, so to speak, to animals (re), vegetables (do), men (mi). No suggestion from anyone in the circle is of any value to I.

The trick of getting out of this circle or maze is self-observation, participation, and experiment. Unfolding the pentagon, realizing the enneagram, I is the actualizing principle relative to itself. Essence is the source of all possible bodies — the physical body, the astral body, and the mental bodies are essence.

Simultaneity is the second dimension of time. The first is succession; the third, recurrence; then eternity.

The first center of I is individuality; the second, consciousness; the third, will.

The order of development of centers is number one, then a piece of number two, then the completion — do, re, mi, of number two.

To non-identify would be to be indifferent to any forms actualized. Buddha (it is supposed) passed from the state of human being as we know it to all degrees of actuality in the universe.

The etheric body, composed of what we call magnetism, principally can after death be sometimes materialized by some varieties of incense. But this body is no part of I but of the organism. The difference between being stimulated or drained is due to the types of etheric bodies of two individuals in contact. If a positive etheric body contacts in conversation or other association with a negative etheric body — naturally the positive body will be drained, unless he knows how to protect himself.

The actual home to I is in the sixth dimension. It lives (or should live) in do, re, mi and fa, so, la, si, but I is not now able to be conscious in do, re, mi. In one second after death, before recurrence, I sees his past and future lives.

Except for prejudice or habit we could see our whole past lives at a glance.

Plato said our aim is to learn how to die every day, i.e. to see back and foresee at a glance the whole of our lives.

Potentialities are imperceptible, but determine the form of the result of positive and negative elements. We see the positive and negative elements but see only the result — not the significance.

As far as we are concerned, neutralizing force is always psychological — i.e. not susceptible to sense perception.

There is no phenomenon without significance but we can seldom know or realize it.

We exercise all three forces, positive, negative and neutralizing. When we exercise consciously only positive and negative forces we are in the world of phenomena only, it is our work to realize the significance of the world of phenomena.

The neutralizing force is always the silent partner to positive and negative forces.

(carl) zigrosser: How is it that the neutralizing force in going up and down the scale is always different?

orage: The neutralizing force going down, is to the negative absolute — in going up, to the positive absolute.

Be aware plus questioning attitude as to significance, be expectant of a meaning to appear.

Try to make every little episode in your daily life meaningful. Always have a reason if you are walking on one side of a street and if someone should tap you on your shoulder and ask why you are walking on this side of the street, you should be able to give a reason for it.

• Self-observation — trying to be aware of all your phenomena with non-identification.

• Participation is observing and acting purposively still with non-identification, i.e. as if one were choosing to go.

• Experiment = awareness to phenomena plus participation plus having a reason, still with non-identification.

We wish to identify significance in its cosmic relation. We wish to regard our organism as being a cosmic machine for the transmutation of energies to which I is attached.

Children are more in essence than grown-ups. But children are unfortunately very corruptible.

We wish to become incorruptible children, having known sin and rejected it. Chief feature is a pretence that you have now the development that you wish to have.

Chief feature is the relation between essence and personality. The idea is ultimately to detach I from personality. An ulterior motive in this work is one identified with the organism held for its welfare against that of I.

All lower emotions are those we share with animals — all those peculiar to man are higher emotions. Lower emotions come from response of the organism to the external world. Higher emotions come from response of I to the organism. There are negative higher emotions, for example remorse.

This method is directed toward regularizing what has occasionally already occurred. Higher emotions for example have occurred. We wish to regularize them — to evolve a science of living.

Orage said Jesus Christ used this method; perhaps Saint specialized. The conversion of water into wine means — we now run on water — but by this method we run on wine.

The miracle of the loaves etc. means the scientific use of all the energies of food and of all foods.

Do = God. Si = the sum of all milky way’s — i.e. all possibilities.

Three forms of reason dealing with objects.

Dealing with concepts of objects.

Dealing with potentialities.

Objective reason sees what must be if it ever actualizes.

Orage working on the Study House at The Prieuré.

January 1925

theory

Man is a product of heredity and environment and hence is a mechanical organism determined by these two factors. All that comes through heredity is called essence. While that which is the result of the interplay between essence and environment is termed personality. Essence and personality constitute what man takes to be "I. In man there is not as assumed one but three I’s. These different I’s are the product of three different centers in man, any one of which may be temporarily in control of the organism. The real I is potential and it may be imagined as existing some distance behind the biological and social product. The effort must be made at present to conceive the I" as outside the organism. This effort is the effort made to achieve non-identification. The effort to non-identify and the effort to self-observe are to be made together. These two constitute the alpha and omega of the system.

self-observation

A new psychological function existing in none of the now recognized faculties of man. It is the function of a potential I which may become actual by virtue of its operation. Its object is the so called shell. Since the I exists only potentially it is hardly to be expected that this faculty should immediately begin. Hence it would seem necessary to make an effort with some existent faculty to this end. In this method, and particularly in this point, the effort to observe must be emphasized, not result of observation. This shell is threefold, consisting of the following centers:

1. The Instinctive.

2. The Emotional.

3. The Intellectual.

These differ in their degrees of sizeableness. The instinctive being the most sizeable. In fact, the only one that can at first be sized at all, hence one begins with an observation of the instinctive center. That the observation of this center may proceed, it is necessary to divide the instinctive center into two classifications:

1. The body as a three-dimensional body.

2. The body in terms of inner sensation.

There are about ten classifications in each group. These are to be observed at first singly and then combinations of two, three, four, etc., are to be made, the being made to achieve simultaneity of observation. The practice of self-observation should lead from isolated to simultaneous observation. After simultaneity has been achieved in the instinctive center, it is then necessary to achieve simultaneity in the observation of the emotional and intellectual centers. The final purpose of observation is to obtain simultaneous observation of all three centers.

attachment

The real I is attached or stuck on to the organism (that is three centers or sub-centers of these centers). The degree of attachment usually varies in the individual, that is, I may be more stuck on to the intellectual than on to the emotional or instinctive centers, and vice versa, and it varies with individuals, hence the variety of attachments. According to the degree of attachments you will find it difficult to non-identify. In the process of achieving non-identification, the total difficulty is equal for all. For, by way of example, if one finds it relatively easy to non-identify with the instinctive center, for the reason that the I is stuck on to it rather loosely, it usually follows that the I is stuck more tightly to either the emotional or intellectual centers and hence, one will find it relatively difficult to non-identify in these cases. (Phase difficulties vary — difficulties are equal.)

the organization of man

Man has three centers, each sub-divided in three:

Relationship between three centers:

1. They are imitative.

2. They are successive in action, giving the illusion of simultaneity.

3. No single center in man can function without the successive functioning of the other two centers. (Example of beads on a string.)

4. The instinctive is the only center that has reached the human level, the other centers are relatively undeveloped.

Man is a microcosm within the macrocosm. Therefore man has his own scale — the first three notes are the three centers.

Difference between first three and second three centers: first three are filled in life without man’s effort.

a. Man is born with the instinctive partly filled.

b. Two other centers empty at birth.

Second three centers only filled by man’s conscious effort. It is only possible to develop these higher centers by a special method (Gurdjieff system or such as this). This effort to develop the I by formulation, self-observation, and non-identification leads to the awakening of these three higher centers. These three centers become the emotional, intellectual and instinctive centers of the I. This development of higher centers raises the focus of consciousness.

attitudes

1. Attitudes — mental images — induce corresponding emotions, and the emotions in turn cause actions.

2. Each one of us has some dominant attitude toward life. The attitude placed in us by education, reading, conversation, etc., must be found. The act of finding it, trying to find it, may be called the peeling of the onion. For we have many attitudes that are superficial to the basic one. When found, this attitude will be seen to be childish and not corresponding to the facts of the real world. It is usually the product of fancy, and it is fancy. For even the scientific and philosophic attitudes are fanciful. Because it is childish, our emotions must necessarily be immature, and our behavior in line with our emotions. The method then is to change the attitude. But not merely change it; change it strictly in accordance with the real world. The cosmogony given by the Gurdjieff system is an inscription of this world.

3. Hold in the mind, among other things, these facts, the fact of death, the fact that there are two thousand million people on the earth today.

energy

All energy is one. The various manifestations of energy are merely modifications of this one. Sex is the central energy of man. The instinctive, the emotional and intellectual centers of man are the transforming stations of this energy. Man is the sex cell of nature. All living forms are screens through which energy passes.

man’s function in the universe

Man is a transmitting agency of energy from the planets to the moon. The moon needs an aid which is human pain.

the formulatory center

The intellectual or formulatory center is the driver, the emotional center the horse, and the instinctive center the cart pulled by the horse and directed by the driver’s reins.

miscellaneous

1. The sense of time for us is produced by our breathing.

2. One plane is all planes. Such things as inclined planes, etc., are subjective determinations. In particular, we derive the conception of an inclined plane (in fact all inclines) from what we call inclination, from a psychological (subjective) state.

3. Potentialities are actualities. Whatever is to be, exists now. A thing is potential solely in reference to our (limited) consciousness.

4. Most emotion and thought, instead of coming from the emotional and intellectual centers respectively, are but projections from the instinctive center.

5. Man may be seen in terms of the triangle, each center being a side. But no one side or combination of sides can see and comprehend the entire figure. For this, it is necessary that a fourth center existing outside of the triangle act. This center is the I.

essence

Essence is that part of us with which we are born. It contains all particles of planetary matter corresponding to all planets by which we are affected at the time of conception or at the time of birth. Since the planetary influences are never the same, it follows, that each person in essence is constituted differently.

the limits of the solar system

Is defined by the extent of the suns influence. Sunlight is energy, therefore matter. Twenty tons are deposited by the sun on this globe each day. Sunrays deposit matter in us. In like manner the substance of other planets whose influence reaches us deposit matter in us.

There are two assumptions —

1. That experience is good in itself.

2. That it teaches.

In fact, however, experience may prove harmful to the extent that something is damaged beyond repair. And though we may learn from experience, it, being passive, teaches nothing.

the octave

The scale is a symbolical expression of the relationship that exists throughout the universe — do, re, mi, fa, sol, la, si, do.

Fa and si are half tones — the rest are whole tones. A half tone indicates a difficulty or that the original impulse is diminished, exhausted or slowed down at that point. The scale is composed of two tetra cords, composed of tone, tone and semitone.

Each note in the scale may be considered as the note of a new octave. Between any two notes there is another and innumerable inner octaves. Do is at once the end of one octave and the beginning of another. Can do therefore be isolated to any one octave? No. An impulse has no sooner struck do than it passes on to re. Energy can run either up or down the scale. Does the impulse descending the scale travel through the identical notes as the one ascending?

1

. the great octave — aum — om

The earth is mi.

The moon is re.

The planet forming behind the moon is do.

The planets are fa.

The sun is sol.

The milky way is la.

All the milky ways are si.

The entire universe is do.

(Our sun is a planet to the sun of the milky way.)

The moon is younger than the earth. As the earth moves up the scale to the position of planets, the moon becomes earth, and the planet behind the moon becomes moon to the present moon. (Their earth.)

2

. the natural octave

(Something lower than metals still unknown, really do.) Or fa not existing would complete the scale with metals at 1.

Man is the mind of nature.

the human octave

Man’s three centers are the first three notes of the