Chapter 12: The Essential Human Creative Irrational
The nature of our inquiries links prehistoric and historic literature with psychoanalysis and modern day economics leading to the field of self-study and human development in an attempt to move towards the highest levels that we might attain[1]. It may be difficult at first to reconcile the rational scientific and medical concepts of personal development with the irrational concepts found in mystical, philosophical and religious thought; but there is certainly overlap – if not direct connection among them. And which of these human traits is more important to our development, both personal and societal? Rather than the question of which is more important, perhaps it is a question of engendering enantiodromia to strive for a proper balance between the two? In the end, what is it that the creative irrational has taught us about ourselves and what is needed for a proper life as a human?
Societal Implications of the Creative Irrational
From animal behavior studies we infer that animals are basically rational. Animals act for the purposes of food, shelter, procreation and immediate pleasures. Humans act for these basic needs as well, but additionally as we have shown, ever demonstrate an irrational side. This is a side that operates, if not in opposition to the immediate rational needs, certainly operates in a manner that has very limited immediate benefits. Yet, these irrational impulses seem to have played a key role in the evolution and eventual success of modern day Homo sapiens. As the only species to truly physically dominate the present day world, we are unique. We are more creative in our approach to life, imagining unseen scenarios, ranging from the first control of fire, to the immense power of the nuclear warheads to chasing down exoplanets. What is missing from modern day human perspective is the importance of our irrational side, especially that concerned with our spiritual nature. We are so busy building and breaking things, including other human beings, that we seem to have lost our connection with the power that moved the early hunter gatherers to build Göbekli Tepe or the ancient Egyptians to produce the earliest pyramids with their enclosed literature. These are just two examples of human irrationality at work in history. It has even been questioned whether our highly valued conditions of statehood as the pinnacle of civilization is a reasonable, e.g. rational, expectation from what we know of the history of human development[2]. Ariely from his modern behavioural economics research states “We have an irrational compulsion to keep doors open. It’s just they way we’re wired.[3]” What was the original reaction of early humans when one of them struck two rocks together to create a spark and blew such sparks into a flame? Was it horror or amazement? We can’t say if the megalithic structures of the Göbekli Tepe site were initiated by a single human with a creative irrational question. Nor can we say how that person might have so engaged the interests of the creative irrational of his/her fellow hunter gatherers that they could be distracted from their perceived valuable time and effort with their regular activities and been enticed towards cutting, hauling and erecting huge rocks? But without a doubt their interests did get engaged and the constructions did get finalized.
The literature discussed here, treated as symbolic expressions for our internal, direct perceptions, leads us to wonder how we could so completely have lost touch with what appear as distinct and subtle but welcome dimensions of potential experience. For the Egyptian civilization, the outcome of the remarkable insight that individuals can live more fully may help to explain the fact that it was maintained over such a long period, up to 3,000 years. Similarly, Platonic thought continues to influence modern-day Western culture and has done so for 2,500 years. But in spite of such longevity and influence, how is it possible that the general population in the modern Western culture has so totally lost touch with such critical knowledge? Our present Western World based as it is on the concept of competition, is so very new on the timescales of human evolution. While there have been wars through the last millennium, it is only a little over a couple of hundred years since Darwin’s generation formalized the concept of “survival of the fittest” to underscore “progress” as the prime cultural driver. As early as the Ancient Egyptian culture there was a contrast between the mutuality of these many different levels of existence such as between humans, the Pharoah, the neters and Ra. Such mutuality has been replaced in what we call “modern civilization” with a false sense that humans can operate without concern for the other aspects of the World such as clean water, fresh air and other living beings! This may be the reason that our present world seems relatively purposeless. We may be seeing a state of serious degradation; one that might well lead to a general loss of a sense of both personal and collective values in our whole society. Can “over-rationality” have led us astray from our initial creative irrational human condition?
It is noteworthy that the recognition of different levels of Being is dependent on the esoteric interpretations of the Ancient Egyptian written words. A proper understanding of the texts must have been intentionally introduced throughout their society through their teachers. The full society seems to have marked the creative forces of the world during its experiences of the annual celebrations held during the many seasonal festivals, which helped to highlight and distinguish these “higher” aspects from the vicissitudes of their daily lives. How is it possible that we have so totally lost touch with all knowledge of the mysteries that seem to have been absorbed by the general populace of Egypt? Without an open acknowledgement of the esoteric sensitivity of humans to such influences as are represented in the gods or neters, it is difficult to imagine how such a circular mechanism of cause and effect could have been discovered, or could continue to operate.
Now that we can blast our way into space, split the atom, rewire the genetic code and identify distant planets that might sustain life, we seem to have lost our way. Not that we should start running around willy-nilly irrationally jumping off cliffs, but maybe there is a need to work directly on exploring the proper balance between our two sides – rational and irrational. Maybe the works of the artist and the shaman need to be valued more than that of the engineer or the sports hero. We have only a limited physical world, in spite of the great dreams of establishing colonies on other planets while the truly human world of the spiritual remains untapped and for the most part “unexplored”, perhaps neglected, by modern day Western societies.
On a species level we separate Homo sapiens from all other species based on the creative irrational. But what has given rise to human success measured in our survival in all spaces on Earth? To quote from Thaler’s book, “Amos (Tversky) used to joke that there once were species that did not display the endowment effect, but they are now extinct.”[4] The endowment effect is the irrational human tendency to overvalue what they already possess over what they might possess[5]. We showed it earlier in Figure 41, but we need to consider it more fully.
Personal Implications of the Creative Irrational
The whole of our life’s journey is a most personal one in which each of us must find his/her own way. It is obvious from the many, many unnoticed moments in our lives that we spend most of it asleep. We lack attention to ourselves. Walking, talking, eating and thinking are all done “unnoticed” by us. Yet for many of us, there are those moments of awakening that permeate many of our memories, especially in childhood, and enable us to actually see ourselves as we are. Rightly so! Such moments leave us hungry for more. They drive us with our weak and untrained attention to wish to encounter moments of awakening again. We are drawn to Be. It is something that separates us from other primates and animals. It is inherently human. We call it our creative irrational.
In a previous chapter we presented the highly detailed representation of the Ancient Egyptian’s understanding of the various human bodies. It is part of the first known literature written by humans. What we found was a range from the lower “filth” up to the ever-present Ra. What emerged is a concept of our real and continuing existence that relies on an exchange amongst the chain of bodies – most of which do not exist until we undertake the necessary work of preparation and attention. We discover in these teachings that the Egyptians detected and expressed the necessity for the mutuality of relations between physical and spiritual worlds. That is, the creators of the Egyptian literature developed it as a realization that the purpose of humans on earth is that our presence is necessary at all levels to elicit a sense of aim in relation to the entire story of existence. These interactions may thus be taken to represent the primary basis for their beliefs about the different ways a person can live life.
But it must be made clear that we still can connect with the various bodies within us. To make this explicit we present another personal experience of one of the authors (PRB). This effort and the resultant experience from a year-long experience of training to qualify for a Boston- marathon (Figure 44) has been a vivid reminder for him about the ways we live as opposed to the ways we could live.
Figure 44. Author upon finishing his Boston Marathon – and a year of counting.
We describe it as follows:
“Having run training exercises for a decade without success in achieving the speed required to qualify for the Boston marathon, it became evident that I needed to focus my attention better on being present to the running effort - the beginning, the middle and the end. As an experiment I undertook the task of counting every third footfall, each minute of each run. For every minute run, for every beep of my watch, the count would go from 1 to 90 repeatedly - all summer long. From a running point of view, this ensured that my speed would be consistent no matter what the external conditions were - from feeling fresh at the beginning to being bored in the middle to being exhausted at the end. It meant that running up hills required shorter strides and downhill longer.
“On a mundane level, the counting exercise worked well to keep my attention in the present of my running. On a more spiritual level, it gave rise to great clarity with respect to my many “I’s”. For several moments in that summer of running, there was an “I” who was running, an “I” who was counting, and an “I” who was feeling self-satisfied with the success and an “I” who was complaining about almost everything - the running, the counting, the thirst, the tiredness - everything.
“The complainer was as devious a devil as one could imagine! In some instances he argued for the end of the counting discipline because - “we" had done enough counting, “we” were successful enough with the counting - it was helping but it wasn’t worth the effort. The complainer knew all the phychological buttons to push - and he pushed them.
“While the active observation of the complainer was shocking enough, more importantly, there was clearly an observing “I” who existed on a higher level than the others. This “I” could observe all the other “I’s”, without interfering with them. This “I” was in touch with the runner, the counter, as well as the complainer. This “I” didn’t judge or try to change them, this “I” just participated in the moment. The moment of observation was calm and focused.
“Of course those brief moments of connection passed quickly; my attention not sufficiently well developed to stay with any such moment for long. In an instant it was back to the struggle to run, count and breathe; yet, for a precious instant there were the many “I’s” right there to be seen.
“In the end the counting exercise did get me properly trained for a well-executed Boston marathon. But of the thousands of kilometres run and the hundreds of thousands of steps counted, the few moments of being aware of the many “I’s” and their different levels of existence remain the most memorable and powerful moments that continue to be remembered to this day.”
This story highlights two aspects of the creative irrational and the spiritual spectrum. The first is the fact of many "I's and their levels. The second is the need for a determined attention over long periods of time. In regards to many I's, the story makes it evident that there is much more going on within us than is generally accepted as "me". It is amazing that we have a single contained image of ourselves that is rarely challenged. While this running anecdote can’t been seen as evidence for enlightenment, it certainly points the way to the existence of multiple levels of ourselves that are rarely appreciated in our day-to-day rational lives.
The second aspect that this example highlights is the difficulty in making such observations and the requisite attention. The summer of counting followed decades of running – and disappointments at not being sufficiently skilled at running marathons. Between runs the overall intention required repeated remembering and focusing of attention. It was also a time of life when the runner was fully involved in writing and thinking about higher consciousness[6]. What is it that kept the runner in this case in touch with his aim to count - even when exhausted from long hot training runs in the summer heat? What or who was there, reminding the runner to keep trying, to keep counting, to keep to his objective even in the winter cold? This attention plays a critical role in self-study. It is difficult not to get lost in the internal and external distractions of life. Attention is the only tool we know that can address this. Jung's term “individuation” seems to allow one to use a selection of tools towards self-development. Whether it is the “counting/running” exercise of the story, “meditation” or as “incubation”, all these methods seem to be based on self-guided attention. The creative irrational is there to be experienced.
In spite of all of this effort and the unexpected irrational results, we can’t espouse this particular effort as a recipe for others – it just happened to work in this particular situation for one specific person. Yet it undeniably worked and confirms that such an experience of the levels of existence are accessible to modern day humans. It confirms a shared experience with insights from others such as presented in Table 2.
For the individual in daily life it is apparent that many of these levels of Being are never fully perceived. It likely required special preparation and venues for the Pharaoh to be fully initiated into the highest levels of Being. Later in the Platonic tradition it required something to make the chained prisoners refrain from turning their head. In the Gurdjieff teaching it is a life of constant “conscious labours and intentional suffering.” Nevertheless, they all highlight the various levels of Being that allow us as individuals to be open to more of ourselves than our day-do-day hungers, moods and fleeting desires reveal. They lay out a framework for connection through our higher bodies to greater awareness and consciousness.
Our study here connects our present observations with the notable insights throughout the history of modern humans. Although the allegories and words used in the attempts to present the more-than-merely physical aspects of our life vary in time and tradition, they all capture key attributes of human existence that relate to ourselves as individuals with essential creative irrational traits:
· Ancient Egyptians: to become one with Ra
· Plato: to perceive “the Sun” and return
· Plotinus: “striving to give back the Divine in myself to the Divine in the All”
· Gurdjieff: “gaining one’s horns”
· Jung: Individuation.
The selection of traditions and approaches to the question of the creative irrational that we explore in Table 2 provides a consistent supporting conceptual model of a “spirituality spectrum” of individual self-awareness and being, from naiveté or “asleepness” to the highest personal objectives of our self-study. This schematic acts as an aid for marshalling our attention towards a single common theme rather than arguing the distinguishing differences between traditions. The various descriptions help direct our efforts towards studying ourselves in a way that may not be evident individually, but they all point to the key human question of “Who am I?” It is an attempt to bring together the past work of others to more fully appreciate the possibilities of what life offers. It allows us to share our thoughts and to delve together into the cultural significance of what has taken place in the past. Together the various representations of our Being presented in this schematic provide a consistent view of possible levels of this Being that spans the full written history of humankind.
Of course, we might be mistaken to accept our present state as the pinnacle of our development. But we can also be motivated to strive for the higher in ourselves that many searchers have experienced and described before us. Plotinus perceived and understood something of the task; pointing out that this striving is a love of the Higher Intellectual Principle that one can detect in oneself and that emanates from an Intellectual Principle that always dwells in us. We find the best summary of all of this effort in the words of Plotinus who states “I am striving to give back the Divine in myself to the Divine in the All.”[7] The whole question about what is divine, what is spiritual seems to have dogged us since humans started differentiating from other hominin species. But one major challenge in learning from our history remains how to connect endeavors of art and constructions by early humans with the refinements that we can appreciate in the written Pyramid Texts and Greek literature. We develop the creative irrational concept to capture a common shared human motivation that has driven us to address the more-than-physical, spiritual, real life available to human beings since the beginning of time. Once humans began to fully express their thoughts in written language we became able to see their understanding in much more detail. But the limitations of written language for dealing with the more-than-merely physical continue to challenge us. For individuals who have had the privilege of experiencing moments of life on the scale of the anecdotes that we present in this book we can easily imagine powerful moments of experiencing occurring without the need for written language. Whether on a natural mountain top or in the created spaces of a Göbekli Tepe Stone circle or the experiencing of myself in the Hypostyle Hall of the Ancient Egyptian temple of Karnak, moments of awakening beyond the physical still occur in our lives. The challenge is to bring the memory of such experienced events to the reading and study of the present moment so as to make the most of both written and “unwritten” knowledge.
It is only through a sensitivity of humankind to the opportunities afforded by our higher centers that the whole system can persist. Such a conclusion implies that the present exoterically oriented world of humankind is not capable of long-term self-promulgation. That is, it appears that the knowledge expressed in these higher bodies is the essential discovery. It is necessary for a continuation of this sense of need. It may initially be expressed in our too-vague longings for a wholeness or “Oneness” based on the obscure innermost longings of humans as individuals within the species. Without this ultimate individual sensitivity to our individual natures that can rise above our continued insistence on personal, rational self-interest, we are condemned by our all too often state of disregard to entropy and eventual destruction of that society. Our present-day lack of perception of this basic need, can only lead to inevitable disaster. Without the injection of some unknown influence that can fill the place left by our current ignorance of the need for a more complete appreciation of ourselves, and that can help us re-experience what constitutes the wisdom of the ancients, it is difficult to see how our civilization can survive on the basis of our present technical sophistication alone.
The realization that the experience of Ra in us is the goal of our work on ourselves is at the highest level of all possibility to which our lives may aspire. Plato carried forward the Ra metaphor of the sun into his Allegory of the Cave. The Sun itself dazzles the one who after much effort and determination climbs out of the Cave of ignorance into the light of knowledge of what truly exists. For Plotinus it was the Monad or The One. For Gurdjieff it was expressed as our Common Endless Creator. All of these traditions are indebted to the Ancient Egyptians and their representations of Ra. Their representation of our participation in the highest level of possible existence constitutes for us the goal of our study, our search for meaning in life, our creative irrational. We still have much to learn from them about our creative irrational and ultimately our spiritual needs and possibilities. This book is about how we can understand and encourage this striving and work on this highest of aims: that of striving toward the Divine in oneself.
The subject matter we are dealing with comes from historical, psychological and cultural factors that are very broad and deep within us, and deserves a much broader perspective than we could hope to have given in a single book. Yet, the foregoing quote of Plotinus refers us to some insights into how great minds have attempted to deal with the alluring question of the irrational more-than-merely personal. The purpose of this chapter is not to convince readers that we have the answer to what is possibly the most challenging of human questions, but to point out that recognizing and trying to understand this “beyond” is a necessary component of any study aimed at perceiving and coming towards Being – and that there exists some guidance that may assist us in our struggles towards understanding our human nature. It is an essential part of our personal search: that we find those aspects in ourselves that are not superficial ephemeral things. Personally this requires a strong, intentional action. One that can lead us towards a new level of existence: no longer weak and vacillating but one that is both higher and independent of our usual mechanical level of consciousness. It depends on being able to transcend ordinary thought, feeling and sensation, towards a unified level of perception of that state that Plotinus recognized as the union with the Spiritual level of Being – the Monad. We believe that this need for a higher level of consciousness is captured in the concept of the essential creative irrational. We wish in this book, to make our concept of “Being” clear enough to others and especially our readers, that we can jointly discuss it and elaborate on it. It requires that there be no misunderstanding of this need for a transcendence of ordinary thought.
This new concept of the creative irrational is certainly tied to the thoughts of Edward de Bono’s[8] and what he calls a “creative pause” where a stopping of the flow of directed thoughts can result in the answer to one’s questions. Certainly this is similar to Einstein’s efforts at “stuffing the goose” and Jung’s appreciation for the importance of dream content in accessing our hidden psyche.” It may also be related to the predictive dreams of Dunn[9].
An example given by Jung as a portrayal of what he believed are problems with our individual understanding of our situation in this world, is included in his discussion of the importance of Gnosticism and its influence on our view of ourselves[10]. In a commentary on what is expressed in the Gnostic tradition on the psychology underlying our sense of self, he wrote:
“…. its obviously psychological symbolism could serve many people today as a bridge to a more living appreciation of Christian tradition….if we wish to understand the Gnostic figure of Christ …[who] symbolizes man’s original unity and exalts it as the saving goal of his development. By ‘composing the unstable’, by bringing order into chaos, … consciousness is reunited with the unconscious, the unconscious man is made one with his centre which is the centre of the universe.”
In this single statement, Jung expresses the profound desirability of this intuition towards unity on the part of the individual. He emphasizes later that it is also “exceedingly dangerous, for it presupposes a coherent ego-consciousness capable of resisting the temptation to ‘identify with the self.’” He goes on to point out moreover, that while this situation may be relatively rare, if it occurs it can lead to an ego inflation that distorts the view of oneself - a condition that may itself demand professional treatment in order to re-establish a sense of proportion! We are required to exercise great care and judgement alongside our best efforts of Attention..
To follow the paths suggested by these expressions, we believe that our main aim now must be to follow those that lead us towards understanding the powerful idea of what Jung termed “individuation”. Jung used the word to describe an important phenomenon of man’s personal development that has been aptly defined and dealt with at length by him in a number of his writings. It demands our full attention if we are to appreciate its central place in probing the real breadth and depth of this delving into the nature of the process of personal development. We promised an elaboration of ideas underlying this term in our discussions of the investigative activities of early 20th century psychologists in Chapter 8. We are here undertaking part of the process of making good on this promise.
This discussion on individuation raises the question of how we are to understand what is meant by our creative irrational that we can use in discussing this whole philosophy of self- development. Is this awakening of consciousness a specific act in our state of being that leads us to comprehend stages within what the ancients called “Form”? If so, how is it possible for us to distinguish the degrees of consciousness in our concepts of change such as we presented in Table 2above? Are we not either awake or asleep? Is there really any “in-between”? Before we get to such questions we feel a need to fully explore the “why” of this awakening. The answer to this “why” helps us to understand the “what” of the awakening that can arise from it.
By way of an initial example, we insert here the recollection of a vivid moment which is a moment of seeing in the presence of Being that is at the base of our personal experience of our creative irrational. Although it happened many years ago it is an example of the direct experience and memory that constitutes a milestone along the path. It took place at a special mountain retreat that was maintained by Dr. Michel de Salzmann at a special place in the Swiss Alps to which I (LMD) had been invited. He welcomed visitors from various places to attend meetings that he conducted there. The guests were all interested in the “Gurdjieff Work”. All other participants were from backgrounds similar to mine, some from North America, others the British Isles, or the countries of Scandinavia. Meetings, discussions and intense physical work took place there during the summer period for about a week for each attending group[11]. In the course of one such period the following exchange took place between Michel and me:
“I had gone to work on a particularly, steep hill-side project down-hill from the main house when someone told me that Michel was looking for me to come to see him. I was rather glad to have a break from the pick-and-shovel project on which I was working. So I wiped off the sweat, took a few deep breaths, and went happily up to the area where he was and sat down heavily on a nearby bench. He looked at me with a faint smile at my state, and asked me what I was thinking about? I said only that I had wanted to ask him, why it seemed to me that I always understood what he was talking about, whether he was speaking to me personally or to others around us. He thought for a moment, looking at me, then with an amused smile said, ‘Because we are the same type, of course’.”
For some reason, the remark completely satisfied me, and I asked no more questions. It seemed perfectly clear at that moment that I again knew exactly what he was talking about! Afterward, when I was by myself I realized that there were many ways of interpreting what he had said. What were the types? In particular what are the types in the context of Gurdjieff’s teaching? How well did I really understand them? Was he even referring to Gurdjieff types? Certainly he was a trained psychiatrist. He practiced professionally when he was not at this summer hilltop setting. Patients came to him from many areas to his office in Paris. There were many possibilities of interpretation of his use of the term “types - none of which I had overtly explored either then or on my own. But the momentary experience left a lasting memory of the direct experience of a connection with Michel.
The memory of being in the presence of my “Being” as something much greater than my everyday life continues to persist today. Memories of such states, and this instance is only one example of many experienced in the lives of the authors, lie at the base of a continuing desire for something more. They support an ongoing striving for a fuller life. They are key to what we feel as our own personal creative irrational. By use of this phrase we are able to direct our attention to both the ellusive state of Being that we aspire to as well as to the more “ever present” effort required to experience it. By using the word “will” we capture both the desire as well as the internal movement required over time to make progress towards it. We know through experience that daydreaming about past states is useless. We need to cultivate an internal drive that maintains a connection with those past precious moments of our lives and moves us usefully forward and upward to what we know is necessary.
What more is there to say, about either then or now? The best one can do after such an experience is to try to remember it within oneself. Can I recall it when I speak about it? Does not much come flooding back to me, given a moment to be quiet and come inside myself? Is there then not a moment when what I call “I” actually exists as an individual that is additional to, and apart from those I call “I” in my daily life? It is only then that I feel within myself a kind of separation from my customary self and can move inside to someone who is palpably apart from this usual “me”. It is as though I have within myself a capacity to exist at these two different levels of my “Being” at the same time. There is the one that I have always known about, who is now experienced as a natural part of what I call “I”, but there is also this one who is experienced as another being that is seen and felt to be separate from that usual Being. Thus one is clearly seen to be separate while existing in this same body, with all the contained thoughts, feelings and sensations that are natural to it.
The personal stories that we have presented here are meant to open both our own and others awareness to the fact of such experiences. We and others like us, who have a significant sense of inquiry, need to notice and remember such experiences, and to realize that their appearance always requires efforts of what we understand as “presence” from us: a requirement to give to them a requisite living attention.
Bringing it all together – Who am I?
In this book we have collected many different examples of how our attention can be drawn to our own direct experience. We have used a number of self-study tools to explore the role of direct experience in experiencing and encouraging our creative irrational. We have found common lessons and guidance from:
1) stone megalithic structures from the early days of hunter gathers;
2) stories from Ancient Egypt at the beginning of human writing;
3) stories and teachings from Ancient and Classical Greece;
4) modern-day studies of psychology and economics;
5) 20th Century searchers (Gurdjieff and Ouspensky); and most importantly,
6) our own personal anecdotes of our direct experiences.
What we have attempted to do is to collect all of this experience under the unifying concept of what might be termed our creative irrational. What has often been treated as unconnected or competing insights are brought together into a common focus of our own personal desire and progress towards higher Being. In doing so we see a resultant benefit of coalescing our various interests and distractions into a single field of experience that supports and can guide our internal striving for more from our lives.
The tools that we have presented are meant as supports for appreciating our individual direct experiences. The many experiences that we present have often been treated in isolation from one another. Some are considered scientific, such as in the work of the psychoanalysts. Some are considered magical, such as the Egyptian. Some are considered interesting and entertaining stories from the distant past, such as the stories of Parmenides, Plato and Plotinus. By bringing them together within the single creative irrational as a bracket for self-study, we are enabled to see much more in common amongst them than we have seen before.
We see them all as looking at the challenges to individual development from different points of view. In spite of the cultural differences that underlie different myths, they all support a common goal of understanding our lives in the present world: The philosophers we include in our study are from the lineage of Ancient Egypt and Ancient Greece. We link them with the ancient Greek writers Parmenides and with the later writings of Plotinus in the early Christian period. We feel that linked together in this way they provide a unified body of knowledge that is critical to individuals living in the primarily Christian cultures of the Western World. Their thoughts and ideas are well represented in the various forms of Christian belief and can be useful to individual study – whether or not from within the strict observances of an established “church”. Bearing in mind that one cannot rely on anyone else to help us “find the way”, it is incumbent on us as individuals to make use of the sign posts available that enable us to work to hold on to the paths that we do find.
We have drawn on the experience of the development of psychology in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s from Nietzsche to Jung. While much of the work of the early psychologists revolved around the challenges of helping individuals who had debilitating health problems originating neurologically, there is much that their work has done to enable individuals to see their own psychological operation at various levels. Jung worked to describe the higher levels of individual development in his concept of individuation.
In this summary of the topics covered, we end with the contributions of the 20th Century searcher: Gurdjieff who travelled the world in the early 20th Century and experienced the intersection of many of the World’s mysteries and the development of truly modern science. Brunton’s tales of his personal experience of snake charmers and his clear and detailed “scientific” observations of fakirs doing amazing things in the modern world, are attempts to distinguish the action of charlatans from individuals working legitimately in ways that are truly amazing. In Gurdjieff’s writings there are many insights into what is required if we are to be truly open to the unexpected – in the world and in oneself.
Of most value to us personally, are the experiences in which we were drawn away from our usual scattered awareness into situations where both the time of awareness and the depth of experience were greatly altered. We all have access to moments of direct personal experience of the levels of existence. Building on these moments we have possibilities for a self-awareness in support of our higher levels of Being. The examples that we present in this book are meant to remind readers of their own experiences and lead them to work at crystalizing their insights from their own lives.
Noticing and remembering these glimpses of our Self that are made available to us through our “direct experience” are acts of “learning to be fully present in a moment of seeing”. From all accounts, however, experiencing the bodies of higher centres named at the right end of the lines in Table 2 requires something else beside the lifetime of work that hardly needs mention. Guidance can be provided by individuals who have learned to act as teachers. We are often aided by some instances of good fortune in our life situations. But we each have to eventually find our own way towards them and learn how to use the guidance provided by both Gurdjieff and his main early pupil, Ouspensky, to continue with our efforts. There must, in fact, be as many ways as there are beings. We need to avoid problems by paying close and frequent attention to the guidance that such authors have provided in their books and others have offered from their direct personal experiences.
It is hardly necessary to point out once again that while one must essentially work for oneself alone, one does not have to pursue this whole undertaking without making use of any help that can be made available from others, both directly and indirectly. In fact, while we must not lose touch with the reality of our own experiences, we need as well to make use of influences that can only be recognized and marshaled in the presence of others.
We cannot pretend, only wonder, at the possibility of an unrealistic belief that we can utilize the surprising resources that the world offers without much personal preparation and effort. Special awareness is undoubtedly necessary if we are to outstrip the power of the reactivity that has become such an unrecognizable concomitant of the attitudes that are an inevitable part of our every-day adult lives.
Use of the words, “wonder” and “surprise” may actually be indicators of an incipient awakening to a new level of Consciousness in us, one that will remain obscure to the mechanical mind that has had an unseen control of us and our functions for much too long. We have stated this general purpose of transcending our own limitations repeatedly, and we hope that our readers might for themselves also find or return to moments of this strange, seemingly unacceptable level of comprehension, simply because it seems at first encounter to be beyond us.
In Gurdjieff’s major work, “Beelzebub’s Tales to His Grandson” we are presented with an allegorical description of a strange final ceremony, conducted in front of his grandson.[12] Gurdjieff has tried to make this process understandable to us in the form of a description of a ceremony in which the main character named Beelzebub, after his many ventures and adventures in our world, achieves recognition of his full development. The scene described is the undertaking of a strange ceremony designed to allow the perception of all observers to the achievements of Beelzebub’s development. That is, it becomes apparent that these strange beings have a capacity to awaken within the Being of our hero, Beelzebub, his own unknown capacity to increase his own levels of consciousness. It is all conveyed in a metaphor that describes the sprouting of the number of projections on his “horns”! Consistent with the many other representations that we have presented here, such as the Ancient Egyptian human-headed birds, Plato’s shadow puppets and the like, we need to recognize the existence of the various levels of consciousness within ourselves in order to appreciate what may be possible for a fully developed “consciousness”. The image of Beelzebub growing horns is definitely shocking as are the glowing haloes on the saintly Christians. Whether with horns or halos, there is always more to see in ourselves.
In the chapter entitled “Becoming Aware of Genuine Being Duty” Gurdjieff says:
“.... so in the meantime, exist as you exist. Only do not forget one thing, namely, at your age it is indispensably necessary that every day, at sunrise, while watching the reflection of its splendour, you bring about a contact between your consciousness and the various unconscious parts of your general presence. Try to make this state last and to convince the unconscious parts – as though they were conscious – that if they hinder your general functioning, they, in the period of your responsible age, not only cannot fulfill the good that befits them, but your general presence of which they are a part will not be able to be a good servant of our COMMON ENDLESS CREATOR and by that will not even be worthy to pay for your arising and existence”.
Perhaps it will be this very morning that we will actually perceive what seems to be a real sunrise.
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[1] de Salzmann, J. 2010. The Reality of Being: The Fourth Way of Gurdjieff. Shambala. Boston or London. 312 pp.
[2] Scott, J.C. 2017. Against the Grain: A Deep History of the Earliest States. Yale University Press.
[3] Ariely, D. 2010. Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces that Shape our Decisions. Harper Perennial. New York. Page 194.
[4] Thaler, R.H. 2015. Misbehaving: The Making of Behavioral Economics. W.W. Norton & Company. New York. Page 261
[5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endowment_effect
[6] Dickie, L.M. and P.R. Boudreau. 2015. Awakening Higher Consciousness: Guidance from Ancient Egypt and Sumer. Inner Traditions. Rochester, VT.
[7] MacKenna, S. 1992. Plotinus The Enneads. Larson Publications. pp 2.
[8] https://creativesomething.net/post/380010225/pause-for-creativity
[9] Dunne, J. W. 1939 (original 1927). An Experiment with Time. Faber and Faber, London. 256 pp.
[10] Jung, C.G. 1958. Psychology and Religion: West and East. Vol. 11 The Collected Works of C.G. Jung. Bollingen Foundation. p. 292.
[11] Shaw, F. 2010. Notes on The Next Attention. Chandolin. Indications Press. New York. 360pp.
[12] Gurdjieff, G.I. 1950. Beelzebub’s Tales To His Grandson. All and Everything Third Series. Penguin Putnam Inc. 375 Hudson St., New York.