Paper Submission
All and Everything Conference 2020
A Neurologist’s Perspective
Over the twenty-seven years that have passed since I began my neurology residency in New York, I have read numerous articles and texts, listened to lectures by a multitude of professors and other experts, reviewed countless MRI and CT studies of the brain and nervous system and, in the past few years, instructed young residents in my specialty. In my field, we are tasked with the evaluation, diagnosis and occasional treatment of disorders of the nervous system, inclusive of the brain, the spinal cord, nerves and muscles. Not once, however, in all these years, throughout interaction with professors, colleagues, residents and students has anyone ever posited the question as to the inherent nature of the human nervous system and for what purpose was it designed to serve.
I suggest that the answer to this unasked question, at least unasked by the aforementioned “learned beings of new formation,” is buried within the text of Gurdjieff’s Beelzebub’s Tales to his Grandson and that the answer is not theoretical but real, tangible and verifiable.
In the chapter, THE HOLY PLANET PURGATORY, Gurdjieff states: “And so, the three brained beings of the planet Earth are not only, as we also are, apparatuses for the transformation of the cosmic substances required for the Most Great Trogoautoegocrat with the qualities of all the three forces of the fundamental common-cosmic Triamazikamno, but also, themselves absorbing these substances for transformation from three different sources of independent arisings, have all the possibilities of assimilating besides the substances necessary for the maintenance of their own existence, also those substances which go for the coating and perfecting of their own higher-being-bodies.’ (1)
If, as Gurdjieff asserts, the “three brained beings” residing on the planet Earth are “apparatuses” for the transformation of cosmic substances, then how are we, as three brained beings, constructed to serve this purpose? Where, anatomically, in the planetary body of an ordinary human being are the three centers… moving, emotional and intellectual centers located? How are they connected in an ordinary human being and how could they be connected in a properly functioning and awake human being? What are the consequences of the abnormal connections and improper use of these centers and their effect on morbidity (disease) and the duration of existence of ordinary human beings. And, in contrast, what can be considered as normal? In The Oragean Version, purportedly summarizing the teachings of Gurdjieff as reported by Orage, King states that “the normal is that which functions in accordance with its inherent design” and “when, and only when, such harmonious functioning is present, can the organism be said to be normal; when it is absent, the organism is abnormal.” (2)
In multiple sections of BBT, Gurdjieff describes the localizations of the three centers or “brains” in the human organism. He further states that these being-brains are found in the same parts of the planetary bodies of the three brained beings arising on the planet Earth just as are found in the planetary bodies of three brained beings throughout the megalacosmos, including the three-brained beings of Karatas, “namely:
Regarding the localization of the being-brain representing the third holy force, he states that this “said being-brain was localized in the same part of their planetary body as in us and had an exterior form exactly similar to our own… but that, “Great Nature was compelled little by little to regenerate this brain and to give it the form which it now has in contemporary beings.” (4) Implicit in this statement is that we are not as we should be and that the human organism perhaps was, but is no longer, constructed to readily serve its higher purpose.
He states that this being-brain, representing the emotional center or third holy force in the contemporary three-brained beings there is not localized in one common mass, “but is localized in parts, according to what is called ‘Specific Functioning,’ and each such part is localized in a different place of their whole planetary body”. But even though this being-center has variously placed concentrations, “its separate functionings are correspondingly connected with each other, so that the sum total of these scattered parts can function exactly as in general it is proper for it to function. They call these separate localizations in their common presence, ‘nerve nodes’”. (5)
These ‘nerve nodes, he goes on to say, were initially localized in beings of the planet Earth, “just in that place of their planetary body where such a normal being-brain should be, namely, in the region of their breast, and the totality of these nerve-nodes in their breast, they call the “Solar Plexus.” (6) The solar or celiac plexus is a complex of ganglion and radiating nerves of the sympathetic nervous system located in the abdomen, primarily in the pit of the stomach.
The anatomic structures that comprise the three centers or “brains” referred to in the Tales are recognized in intricate detail by contemporary neuroscience and the understanding of the function and causes of dysfunction of these structures increases exponentially each year. Yet, this knowledge and understanding occurs in the absence of recognition of the concept of the three centers, the law of Triamazikamno, the actual and potential connections of the centers, and by extension, their anatomic correlates to work in harmony and according to the Fulasnitamnian principle.
The function of the head brain, the localization of the Holy-Affirming or intellectual center, including the structures and connections between structures that sub-serve language, memory, decision-making, learning, problem solving, etc. have been exhaustively studied. Indeed the structure and function of the human head-brain or cerebrum can be appreciated as a marvel of evolutionary biology yet, in the absence of conscious awareness, it is no more than what Gurdjieff has referred to a “typewriter” (7), a “machine” (8) or an “apparatus.” (9) Today, he would likely refer to the head-brain as a computer.
The intellectual or thinking center resides within the skull and is comprised by the cortical structures of both hemispheres as well as subcortical and basal or deep structures. The functions of the head-brain are well delineated in contemporary neuroscience and include language, memory, executive function or decision-making, interpretation of sensory or emotional input and the initiation of movement and automatic human activity. This paper will not address the specific functions of the multiple structures of the thinking center in the cerebrum or head-brain other than to describe the connections and potential connections with the moving and feeling centers. Note, however, that the abnormal functioning of the thinking center includes activities common to each of us including fantasy, considering, identification and daydreaming—like an errant typewriter—and that efforts to struggle against these can lead to the harmonious connections between the centers.
The spinal cord or “spinal marrow,” as Gurdjieff refers to it, conducts messages to and from the head-brain or the cerebrum regarding the sensations and movements of the head, trunk and limbs. The motor and sensory tracts or pathways of the spinal cord and the connections to the head-brain have been illustrated in minute detail in the neuroscience literature. As the localization of the second holy force of the Sacred Triamazikamno, the Holy-Denying or passive force, it is constructed to execute a myriad of tasks and functions automatically, that is without thought, feeling or awareness; again, an example of an elegantly complex biologic mechanism that carries sensory input of multiple types from the face, trunk and limbs to structures deep in the head brain for processing and to the corresponding cortical structures for recognition and interpretation. The associated movements of the face trunk and limbs originate in the deep structures of the brain and follow distinct pathways through the spinal cord to peripheral nerve pathways to corresponding muscles or muscle groups. All automatic unconscious human activity occurs due to the activation and process of these neurologic structures and seemingly trivial activities such as picking up a glass of water and bringing it to one’s lips or buttoning a shirt involve numerous neurologic structures and precise connections that are typically performed in the apparent absence of involvement of the thinking center and, of course, conscious awareness. Each of these unconscious, automatic activities which the ordinary human being perform is a learned activity, now habitual, that at first required the involvement of cerebral structures or the head-brain to develop. An apt example, shared and understandable to most of us, would be the process of learning to ride a bicycle, drive an automobile or type. What at first was difficult because of the involvement of the head-brain as the motor/sensory function was learned and mastered, is now, for most of us and automatic and largely unconscious activity that involves the transport and processing of sensory input, i.e. visual, auditory, tactile and proprioceptive stimuli and corresponding motor responses resulting in gross and fine dexterous movement choreographed through large and small muscle groups.
Regarding the localization of the emotional center, in the chapter THE HOLY PLANET PURGATORY, Gurdjieff states: “Concerning the place of concentration of this localization which serves the common presences of terrestrial three-brained beings as a regularizing or reconciling principle, it must be noticed that in the beginning these three brained beings of the planet Earth who have taken your fancy, also had this third concentration, similar to us, in the form of an independent brain localized in the region of what is called ‘breast.’” (10)
But as the process of human existence began to change for the worse, “… nature there, by certain causes flowing from the common-cosmic Trogoautoegocratic process, was compelled, without destroying the functioning itself of this brain of theirs, to change the system of its localization” and gradually dispersed the localization of the being brain “into small localizations over the whole of their common presence, but chiefly in the region of what is called ‘the pit of the stomach.’ The totality of these localizations in this region they themselves at the present time call the solar plexus or the ‘complex of the nodes of the sympathetic nervous system.’” (11) The sympathetic nervous system, with its antagonist, the parasympathetic nervous system, comprise the autonomic nervous system. Although it is known for stimulating the body’s ‘fight-or-flight’ response, it is constantly active in maintaining hemodynamics or blood circulation, which is intricately involved in emotion and changes in emotion. The Holy-Reconciling or emotional center includes the dispersed sympathetic and parasympathetic nodes of the autonomic nervous system localized primarily in the chest and abdomen as well as corresponding deep structures in the head brain including the hypothalamus, brainstem and limbic system. The limbic system has many connections outside of itself through which it influences the hormonal, autonomic, motor and psychological function of the brain. Emotions such as fear, anger or love are experienced in the chest and abdomen. The skin flushing associated with fear or anger are products of the autonomic nervous system, including the regulation of the circulatory system. The circulatory or vascular system, in brief, enables the flow of blood and, by extension, the transport of oxygen, hormones and nutrients to all the organs and tissues throughout the body. This is under direct control of the sympathetic component of the autonomic nervous system. According to Dr. Keith Buzzell, “the ‘dispersal’ of the emotional center into the sympathetic nerve nodes is a correct and powerful image of our ordinary state and lack of a balanced and coherent reconciling force in our lives.” (12)
Note that even with the dispersal and displacement of the anatomic correlates of the third holy force of the Sacred Triamazikamno, “three-brained beings have the possibility personally to perfect themselves, because in them there are localized three centers of their common presence or three brains, upon which afterwards, when the process of Djartklom proceeds in the Omnipresent-Okidanokh, the three holy forces of the Sacred Triamazikamno are deposited and acquire the possibility for their further, this time, independent actualizings.” (13)
Through the conscious and intentional fulfilling of Being-Partkdolg duty by beings of the three-brained system they can “utilize from this process of Djartklom in the Omnipresent-Okidanokh, its three holy forces for their own presences and bring their presences to what are called the ‘Sekronoolanzakian-state’; that is to say that they can become such individuals as have their own sacred law of Triamazikamno and thereby consciously taking in and coating in their common presence all that ‘Holy’ which, incidentally, also aids the actualizing of the functioning in these cosmic units of Objective or Divine Reason.” (14)
In attempting to understand the anatomic connections of the three brains or centers in a human being whom, through being-Partkdolg-duty has perfected himself, we need to understand the connections of the same three brains or centers in the unperfected or ordinary human being. Indeed, although each center has been described as localized in either the head, spinal column or solar plexus, each center includes structures in each and connections with each other within the planetary body in accordance with the principle ‘Itoklanoz.’
As the concept of the three distinct centers in the Gurdjieffian Canon can be understood, to some degree, on an anatomic and physiologic basis, so can the concepts of the misuse or substitution of one center’s functioning for another. Anatomically, the three centers—thinking, feeling and moving—are connected and physically intertwined in the ordinary human being. The mechanical behavior of any particular human being can be attributed to a lack of conscious awareness and centers that are not functioning properly and in harmony, as the connections were made unconsciously. Recall that Gurdjieff, as reported by Ouspensky in Fragments of an Unknown Teaching stated that “A modern man lives in sleep, in sleep he is born and in sleep he dies,” (15) and it is the state in which “they walk the streets, write books, talk on lofty subjects, take part in politics, kill one another…” (16)
So, if the three centers in an asleep human being are connected yet not functioning harmoniously, how then should they be connected and functioning harmoniously in an awake and normal human being?
In the chapter THE HOLY PLANET PURGATORY, Gurdjieff refers to the food cycle and describes how “…the further completing process of the transformation of the substances of the first being-food proceeds in the presences of ‘beings-apparatuses.’ And so, …the ordinary first being-food is thus gradually transmuted into definite substances called ‘being-Tetartoehary,’ which have in beings, just as of course in your favorites, as the central place of their concentration both of what are called the ‘hemispheres of the head-brain.’” (17)
He goes on to say, “Further, a part of this being-Tetartoehary from both hemispheres of their head-brain goes unchanged to serve the planetary body of the given being, but the other part, having in itself all the possibilities for independent evolution, continues to evolve without any help from outside; and mixing again by means of the process Harnelmiatznel with previously formed higher substances already present in the beings, it is gradually transmuted into still higher definite being-active elements called ‘Piandjoehary.’ And these substances have as their central place of their concentration in beings the, what is called, ‘Sianoorinam’ or, as your favorites call this part of the planetary body, the ‘cerebellum,’ which in beings is also located in the head.” (18)
From the cerebellum, a part of these definite substances also goes to serve the planetary body itself, but the other part, passing in a particular way through the “’nerve nodes’ of the spine and breast, is concentrated in the beings of the male sex what are called ‘testicles’ and in the beings of the female sex in what most of your favorites call ‘ovaries,’ which are the place of concentration in the common presences of beings of the ‘being-Exiohary,’ which is for the beings themselves, their most sacred possession.”(19)
The cerebellum or ‘little brain’ is a fist-sized structure located in the inferior posterior aspect of the head-brain and is known to be involved with motor control influencing posture, gait and voluntary movements. Disease processes affecting the cerebellum can result in decompensation of the activity of movement such as dysarthria (slurred speech), incoordination or gait ataxia (difficulty with walking). These abnormalities of cerebellar dysfunction can be readily understood by anyone who has experienced alcohol intoxication or witnessed another under the influence. Yet, in the ordinary human being, some two-thirds of the enormous nerve impulse output of the cerebrum disappears into the cerebellum via the cerebro-pontine-cerebellar tract but nothing emerges. (20)
Over the course of my career as a neurologist, I have seen many patients with injury or insult to the cerebellum, whether due to ischemic stroke (lack of blood flow), hemorrhage, tumor or inflammation. The gross neurologic functions usually attributed to this structure are often largely preserved with appropriate treatment, even if surgery is required to evacuate a hemorrhage or decompress attendant edema (swelling). Implicit in this preservation of function is an apparent redundancy of tissue or capacity or, perhaps, a lack of understanding of the complete innate function of the structure. In The Oragean Version, King contrasts the neural output of the cerebrum or head-brain involved with the basic functioning of the organism (one-third) with that which proceeds into the cerebellum (two-thirds) before “vanishing” and questions why such a degree of neurologic activity would be designed to enable minimal reflexes of posture and equilibrium before asserting “…that potential cerebellar functions exist of an impressive degree and scope…to twice the amount of cerebral functions.” (21) In Paris Meetings 1943, Gurdjieff states that the impressions and waste from the third food accumulate in the cerebellum. (22)
In Meetings With Remarkable Men, Gurdjieff asserts that“ there was not a single book on neuropathology or psychology in the library of the Kars Military Hospital that I had not read, and read very attentively…” (23) Perhaps as a result of this interest and persistent pursuit he introduces the concept of the death of individual centers and “dying by thirds.” (23)
Returning to the concept of being localization and actualization, he states that “The chief particularity of existence according to this principle Itoklanoz is that in the presences of beings existing according to it…there are crystallized in their ‘being-localizations’ which represent in beings the central places of sources of actualization of all the separate independent parts of their common presence or, as your favorites say, in their brains –what are called ‘Bobbin-kandelnosts,’ that is to say, something that gives in the given localizations or brains a definite quantity of possible associations or experiencings.” (24)
Gurdjieff goes on to compare the Bobbin-kandelnosts to the springs of various mechanical watches that may be wound for twenty-four hours, a week or longer. “As mechanical watches can act as long as the spring has ‘what is tension of winding,’ so the beings in whose brains the said Bobbin-kandelnosts are crystallized can experience and consequentially exist until these Bobbin-kandelnosts formed in their brains…are used up.” (25) This statement echoes the aphorism posted on the study house wall at the Prieure which states “Man is given a definite number of experiences. Economizing them, he prolongs his life.” (26)
In the chapter FRUITS OF FORMER CIVILIZATIONS, he names the three Bobbin-kandelnosts as follows, the first, the Bobbin-kandestnost of the ‘thinking center,’ the second of the ‘feeling center’’ and the third of the ‘moving center.’ “Even the fact, which I have recently repeated, namely, that the process of the sacred Rascooarno is actualized for these favorites of yours in thirds—or as they themselves would say, they begin to ‘die-in-parts’--proceeds also from the fact that, arising and being formed only according to the principle Itoklanoz and existing nonharmoniously, they disproportionately use up the contents, namely, their Bobbin-kandelnosts of these three separate independent brans, and hence it is such a horrible ‘dying’ as is not proper to three-brained beings frequently occurs to them.” (27)
Despite the death of one center due to the contents of one of the Bobbin-kandelnosts having been “used up,” the beings would occasionally continue to exist for quite a long time. So, for instance, if the contents of one of the Bobbin-kandelnosts may be used up in one of them, and “ if it is of the moving-center, or as they themselves call it, the ‘spinal brain,’ then although such a contemporary three-brained being continues to ‘think’ and to ‘feel,’ yet he has already lost the possibility of intentionally directing the parts of his planetary body.” (28)
“Such deaths by thirds, there on the planet earth…have occurred particularly frequently during the last two centuries, and they occur to those of your favorites who, thanks either to their profession, or to one of their what are called ‘passions’ arising and acquired by the beings belonging to all large and small communities there, on account of the same abnormally arranged conditions of their ordinary being-existence, have during their being-existence lived through in a greater or smaller degree of the Bobbin-kandelnost of one or another of their being-brains.” (29)
Accordingly, with the one-third death on account of the Bobbin-kandelnost of the moving-center or spinal brain often occurs among those terrestrial beings who give themselves up to that occupation which the beings belonging to the contemporary community England now practice, thanks owing to the maleficent invention of the ancient Greeks, and which maleficent occupation they now call sport.” (30) Since Gurdjieff’s time, the enhanced identification with amateur and professional sports, along with the passion or obsession among many people with physical fitness including that of extreme endurance, body building and body “sculpting” can be seen as potentially shortening rather than extending the duration of existence of the ordinary human being.
“And a one-third death through the premature using up of the Bobbin-kandelnost of the feeling- center occurs for the most part among those terrestrial beings who become by profession what are called ‘representatives-of-Art.” (31) Further, as anyone who has attended a professional or amateur sporting event, or for that matter, a rock concert, can attest, the mass expenditure of emotional energy on display would serve to compromise the harmonious development of the emotional center and often represents the misuse of the energy of the sex center.
“And concerning the premature partial death through the Bobbin-kandelnost of the thinking-center –the deaths of this kind among your favorites occur in recent times more and more frequently… chiefly among those favorites of yours who try to become scientists of new formation, and also among those who during the period of their existence fall ill with the craze for reading what are called ‘books’ and ‘newspapers.’” (32) In the internet age, the overabundance of brief bits of information and disinformation devoid of context and resistant to introspection and deliberation as well as such electronic distractions as fantasy sports and violent video games serve to accelerate the potential for intellectual death in individuals and large swaths of humanity. Ironically, the internet provides a continuous platform for wiseacring about all topics great and small including the Work of Mr. Gurdjieff.
“In the common presence of every being existing merely on the basis of Itoklanoz ‘something’ similar to the regulator in a mechanical watch is present and is called ‘Iransamkeep’; this ‘something’ means: ‘not-to-give-oneself-up-to-those-of-one’s-associations-resulting-from-the-functioning-of-one-or-another-of-one’s-brains.” (33)
In the chapter DESTRUCTION OF ASHIATA SHIEMASH’S LABORS, Gurdjieff states that the process of the sacred Rascooarno begins in the ordinary three-brained being during his planetary existence and “proceeds in parts, that is, one by one there gradually cease to participate in his common presence, the functioning of one or the other of his separate independent spiritualized ‘localizations’ – or as your favorites would say there, in such a being, first of all, one of his brains with all its appertaining function dies; later on , the second one dies, and only then does the final death of the being approach.” (34) As Gurdjieff cautioned us in the chapter THE ARCH-ABSURD: “Always guard against such perceptions as may soil the purity of your brains.” (35)
Since the “dying by thirds” is the result of the incomplete or lack of connection of the centers as the ordinary human being is constructed, then the proper connections – obtained only through being-partkdolg duty – should result in a prolonged duration of existence and the proper localization of the emotional or feeling center to the chest in the region of the breast and heart.
As Gurdjieff tells us in the chapter FROM THE AUTHOR, “the point is, that just as the separate independent parts of a ‘hackney’ are connected – namely the carriage to the horse by the shafts and the horse to the coachman by reins – so also are the separate parts of the general organization of man connected with each other; namely the body is connected to the feeling-organization by the blood, and the feeling-organization is connected to the organization actualizing the functioning of mentation or consciousness by what is called Hanbledzoin, that is, by the substance which arises in the common presence of a man from all intentionally made being efforts.” (36)
As in the “hackney” that Gurdjieff describes above, the three centers and their anatomic correlates are connected in the ordinary human organism. The thinking or intellectual center resides in the head-brain or cerebrum in the skull and connects with and directs the moving center, localized, in large part, in the spinal cord, via the frontal lobes (decision making) to the motor cortices in the posterior frontal lobes through the corticospinal tracts in the basal ganglia and brainstem to the spinal cord. Nerve roots exiting at the various levels of the spinal cord transport electrical messages through peripheral nerves to muscles and muscle groups of the head, trunk and limbs.
The sensory nerves and nerve endings throughout the body conduct electrical signals regarding pain, pressure, light touch, proprioception and vibration back to the brain through the afferent tracts of the same peripheral nerves to alternate tracts in the same nerve roots and to the ascending sensory tracts of the spinal cord, brain stem and deep structures of the brain, including the thalamus, to the sensory cortices where the signals are processed and analyzed and coordinated with and modify the movement of the body. The moving center, then, comprises both sensory and motor function in a persistent feedback loop capable of functioning on a high level without conscious awareness. Most exercises that utilize awareness and observation focus on this feedback loop with the possible and intended result of developing awareness of the automatic function of the organism.
The emotional or feeling center, although localized primarily in the solar or celiac plexus, has deep intracerebral connections with the hypothalamus and the limbic system. Visual, auditory, tactile, olfactory or other impressions, as well as random mental associations may trigger emotional responses by activating the autonomic nervous system, specifically the parasympathetic nerves adjacent to the spinal cord. In the average or ordinary human being, thought, feeling and action occur without awareness or consciousness. Indeed, the overwhelming majority of human activity occurs mechanically in this way, influenced, as Mr. Gurdjieff states, by mechanical associations such as “mother-in-law, John Thomas and cash.” (37)
The process of work on oneself, i.e. self-remembering, self-observation, non-identification and the struggle against negative emotions result in physiologic changes and connections between and among the centers. Efforts to awaken quiet the constant chatter of the associative head-brain and serve to reign in mechanical and automatic emotional responses. The substances of the food cycle are transmuted by these efforts or being-Partkdolg-duty into Piandjoehary in the cerebellum via the cortico-pontine-cerebellar tract. Center four, located in the cerebellum is activated as is center five, the higher emotional center, localized in the heart. The lower centers located in the cerebrum, spinal cord and solar plexus continue to function but with new connections and are thus subservient to the higher centers.
Approximately 90% of neural volume and connections in the ordinary human being are present by the age of six. From the point of view of a human being who is endeavoring to awaken, the neurologic structures necessary for awakening already exist and have existed since early childhood. The connections forged by efforts to awaken serve to connect the lower and higher centers and provide the prospect of fulfilling the true nature of the human being according to the fulasnitamnian principle and are not theoretical, but real, tangible and verifiable.
What then, are the possibilities of higher function and their anatomic and physiologic correlates? As noted previously, Gurdjieff states, in the chapter The Holy Planet Purgatory that “the three-brained beings of the planet Earth are… apparatuses for the transformation of cosmic substances required for the Most Great Trogoautoegocrat …but also have the possibilities of assimilating …those substances which go for the coating of their higher being-bodies.” (38)
Dr. Christian Wertenbaker, in his book, Man and Cosmos, GI Gurdjieff and Modern Science addresses the anatomic correlates of the three centers and suggests that “if the body’s electromagnetic activity is organized and functional on a macroscopic level, a realm of possible interactions unknown to current scientific thinking may exist.” (39) Could the proper alignment and integration of the anatomic structures comprising the three lower centers result in accruing powers or changing the influences under which a normal, completed human being may be subject to? Ouspensky relates in Fragments of an Unknown Teaching that Gurdjieff stated that by freeing oneself from various orders of mechanical laws, one would come under the influence of the planetary world, the sun and the starry world and that “the possibility for man thus gradually to free himself from mechanical law exists.” (40) Or, as Gurdjieff suggests in Beelzebub’s Tales to his Grandson, becoming a Polormedekhtian being. (41)
In the chapter BEELZEBUB’S FOURTH SOJOURN ON THE EARTH, Gurdjieff introduces the concept of a Teleoghinoora which he describes “a materialized idea or thought which after its arising exists almost eternally in the atmosphere of that planet in which it arises… and the sequential series of being ideas, materialized in this way, concerning any given event, are called ‘Korkaptilnian thought tapes.’” These Korkaptilnian thought tapes could be accessed and the texts cognized by any being who has acquired the ability, through their efforts to perfect the Reason of a higher being, to enter into the “being-state called ‘Soorptakalknian contemplation.’” (42)
In Life is real only then, when, I am, Gurdjieff claims that “I could attain almost anything within the limits of man’s possibilities, and in some fields attained even to such a degree of power as not one man, perhaps not even in any past epoch, had ever attained.
“For instance, the development of the power of my thoughts had been brought to such a level that by only a few hours of self-preparation I could from a distance of tens of miles kill a yak; or in twenty-four hours, could accumulate life forces of such compactness that I could in five minutes put to sleep an elephant.” (43)
In his book, Gurdjieff Remembered, Fritz Peters describes desperately seeking out Gurdjieff in Paris, exhausted physically, emotionally and psychically from the war and, after being served a cup of hot coffee by Gurdjieff, “began to feel a strange uprising of energy within myself – I stared at him, automatically straightened up, and it was as if a violent electric blue light emanated from him and entered into me. As this happened, I could feel the tiredness drain out of me, but at the same moment his body slumped and his face turned grey as if it was being drained of life.” (44) This transfer of energy restored and rejuvenated the war weary Peters. Yet Gurdjieff lamented his inability to use this same power and accumulation of life force to cure his wife of cancer as he needed all his strength and powers to recover from what were likely life-threatening injuries from his motor vehicle crash. The extent of his traumatic brain injury is unclear although reports vary. It was reported that he was unconscious for days and he reported to be without memory for three months and bedridden for five.
In the Oragean Version, King “cannot fail to suppose that the serious head injuries that the latter (Gurdjieff) then sustained, very greatly altered his later activities and his whole approach to task to which he devotes his energies…one difference too obvious for anyone to miss is that previously he conducted an institute and that later he has altered his chief occupation to writing books.” (45) King conceded, however, that Gurdjieff had a quality “that he possessed to a degree not merely superior to that of any other man I have ever encountered but to a degree greater than it would have ever occurred to me could exist had I not met Mr. Gurdjieff. It is the quality not of mind or of feeling; or of successful accomplishment, but simply of being.” (46) Notwithstanding King’s speculation regarding the extent and effects of Gurdjieff’s injuries, it would appear that Gurdjieff had tapped into some higher powers through his efforts and the proper integration of his centers despite these presumably extensive injuries sustained in the crash to write, by force of will, All and Everything and pass on his ideas and teaching in the form of a legominism for generations to come.
Although composing this paper has provided me with an intellectual exercise in the sense that I have approached it through the lens of my purported field of expertise and have sought to “fathom the gist” of the Tales in some small way, it has been an opportunity to work and to learn. Work on oneself does not require a detailed understanding of the neuroscience of consciousness, but rather a persistent effort to remember, observe, struggle and embrace the impulses of Faith, Hope and Love.
© Copyright 2020-TJ Clark-All Rights Reserved
Notes
1 GI Gurdjieff, All and Everything, First Series, Beelzebub’s Tales to his Grandson, (New York, E.P. Dutton &Co., 1964) p.780
2 CD King, The Oragean Version, (Unpublished 1951) p.83
3 Gurdjieff, Beelzebub’s Tales, p.146
4 Ibid, p.146
5 Ibid, p.147
6 Ibid, p.147
7 GI Gurdjieff, Paris Meetings 1943, (Toronto, Dolmen Meadow Editions, 2017) p.176
8 Ibid, p.262
9 Ibid, p.176
10 Gurdjieff, Beelzebub’s Tales, p.779
11 Ibid, p.779
12 Buzzell, Explorations in Active Mentation, (Salt Lake City, Fifth Press 2006) p.29
13 Gurdjieff, Beelzebub’s Tales, p.145
14 Ibid, p.145
15 PD Ouspensky, In Search of the Miraculous, Fragments of an Unknown Teaching, p.66
16 Ibid, p.141
17 Gurdjieff, Beelzebub’s Tales, p.790
18 Ibid, p.791
19 Ibid, p.791
20 King, The Oragean Version, p.78
21 Ibid, p.147
22 Gurdjieff, Paris Meetings 1943, p.34
23 GI Gurdjieff, Meetings with Remarkable Men, (New York, E.P. Dutton 1963) p.70
24 Gurdjieff, Beelzebub’s Tales, p.441
25 Ibid, p.439
26 Ibid, p.440
27 Aphorisms from the Study House Wall, Gurdjieff International Review
28 Gurdjieff, Beelzebub’s Tales, p.441
29 Ibid, p.442
30 Ibid, pp.442-443
31 Ibid, p.443
32 Ibid, p.443
33 Ibid, p.444
34 Ibid, p.444
35 Ibid, p.144
36 Ibid, p.1200
37 Ibid, p.343
38 Ibid, p.780
39 C. Wertenbaker, Man and Cosmos: G.I. Gurdjieff and Modern Science, (Codhill Press, 2012) p.182
40 Ouspensky, In Search of the Miraculous, p.84
41 Gurdjieff, Beelzebub’s Tales, p.770
42 Ibid, p.294
43 G.I. Gurdjieff, Life is real only then, when “I am,” (New York, Elsevier-Dutton, 1975) p.20
44 F. Peters, Gurdjieff Remembered (New York, Samuel Weiser, 1971) p.82
45 King, The Oragean Version, p.22
46 Ibid, p.27
Gurdjieff’s Neologisms referenced in The Sacred Neuroscience of Gurdjieff’s Beelzebub’s Tales to his Grandson
Page from BBT
Being – Exhiohary 791
Being – Partkdolg duty 103
Being – Tetartoehary 788
Bobbin – Kandelnosts 439
Djartklom 139
Fulasitamnian (Foolasitamnian) Principle 130
Harnelmiatznel 785
Iransamkeep 445
Korkaptilnian thought tapes 293
Most Great Trogoautoegocrat 753
Omnipresent – Okidanokh 140
Piandjoehary 790
Polormedekhetian being 770
Sekronoolanzakian – state 145
Sianoorinam 790
Soorptakalnian contemplation 294
Teleoghinoora 293
Triamazikamno 138