Arts and the Man

Reflections on the Challenge

When encountering an artist or artwork in the media, consider your emotional response and whether it touches you deeply. Reflect on why that is. Then, draw a shape in the air with your finger.

• Experiences

  L had encountered three pieces of art during the month. He described a large sculpture with a hole in the middle that one could walk through, a shepherd with three sheep where the shepherd lacked character or personality, and a tea party of animals meant to raise awareness for species threatened by climate change. Though L appreciated some aspects of the artworks, they didn't touch him deeply. He often forgot to draw a shape in the air with his finger as part of the challenge.

  T had visited an art gallery the previous week after recovering from COVID. She encountered a painting by Morandi, an Italian artist known for his simple table still lifes. T became transfixed by the soft tones and felt as if she were viewing a natural garden. Startled by an optical illusion in which one painted object seemed to change position, she became fascinated with the animation of the painting. Remembering the challenge, T realised she was experiencing a work of art. Despite feeling self-conscious about drawing a shape in the air in front of others, she overcame her resistance and did so. As she drew the circle, she was surprised to see her palms lit up by the overhead lighting, creating a sharp contrast with the muted colours of the painting.

  N watched a film called "The Priest of Love", which depicted the life of D.H. Lawrence, a renowned novelist and artist. He found the film interesting and was moved by Lawrence's extraordinary intellect, artistic abilities, and the amount of accomplishments in his short life. The portrayal of Lawrence's life and relationships was engaging, and N appreciated the accurate casting of the actors. After watching the film and being inspired by Lawrence's life, N drew a tick shape in the air as part of the challenge.

• Responses

  T expressed surprise at learning that D.H. Lawrence had died so young, at the age of 45. She recalled Lawrence's controversies and the lawsuits against him due to his novel, Lady Chatterley's Lover. She expressed an interest in seeking out the film N had mentioned.

  N responded to T's experience, discussing the process of appreciating art and how it took time to truly understand a painting. He suggested this approach could also be applied to life and appreciating others, avoiding making quick judgments. He highlighted the importance of spending time with a piece of art to gain a deeper understanding of the artist's intentions and to experience the painting from different perspectives.

  L said the interplay of the two shapes in the painting T had described reminded him of Gurdjieff's concept of lawful inexactitudes. He suggested the artist might have intentionally incorporated this element as a way to challenge viewers and draw them into deeper observation.

Beelzebub’s Tales, Chapter 30 cont.

With acknowledgements to Harold Good

• Passage

  These enumerated consequences are particularly conspicuously and strongly crystallized in just those contemporary ‘representatives-of-art’ who are the ‘manipulators’ of the contemporary theaters there, and they are particularly strongly crystallized in them because, always performing the roles of beings similar to themselves, whose Being and significance in the process of their existence are ordinarily far superior to their own, and also, as I have already said, being themselves really almost nonentities, they with their already wholly automatized Reason, gradually acquire false notions about themselves.

  With such an already quite automatized ‘consciousness,’ and completely ‘nonsensical feelings,’ they feel themselves to be immeasurably superior to what they really are.

  ... when these newly arisen types taking part in the process of ordinary being-existence on the basis of equal rights with the other three-brained beings there happened to get into the field of the reception of my sight with their already exaggerated, inner, abnormal, what is called ‘being-self-appreciation,’ then they served as a shock for the beginning of the arising in me of the impulse of pity, not only for them themselves, but also for all these unfortunate favorites of yours in general.

• Discussion

  L said the text was saying that somebody who played a heroic figure in a movie could identify with that, and think they were that big deal, even though they might have a stuntman who executed the more dangerous escapades. It might be that they conflate the role with their own being, and think they are that hero. T said it was very damning of actors. L said it might be true sometimes, for example if you thought of the award ceremonies, the BAFTA's and the Oscars. They may think they are so important that they can cast judgement on the world and what needs to be done. He was not sure he understood the final paragraph.

  T was worried about Gurdjieff throwing the baby out with the bathwater, as there would be some genuine actors and actresses of the type described by N in The Priest of Love.

  N said that despite the behaviour and pretensions of the actors, there was a sense of pity for them. While there might have been some judgment, there was also sympathy for their state of being, as it seemed they might have been incapable of moving beyond their current circumstances in life.

Arts and Craft

Reflections on the Challenge

When you encounter an intolerant conversation, act as devil's advocate and express a contrary view. Observe and be aware of your physical movements, emotions and resistance to doing so. Evaluate the reactions from others and the impact on your own experience.

• Experiences

  L had tried to do the challenge but found it difficult to take up a contrary view as he valued honesty. On one occasion, he was having a conversation with the staff behind the counter at a Turkish takeaway about the recent earthquakes. He asked after their families, and they were all upset about the news. He found he was only able to communicate with honesty and sincerity. He was unable to donate anything as since the pandemic he no longer carried change.

• Responses

  Responding to L, N said the question arose whether one's difficulty with this was due to a mechanical reality or a lack of free will. In other words, was one consistently honest in all situations or did honesty vary depending on the circumstances? This raised a deeper question about the nature of honesty and whether it was a fixed characteristic or a fluid quality that could be influenced by external factors. Lawyers often had to play the role of a contrarian and argue both sides of a case to anticipate and uncover potential arguments. People could become too emotional in arguments, which could interfere with the process of clear thinking, and he thought the Gurdjieff Work was about keeping different parts of ourselves separate and not letting emotions interfere with intellectual arguments. L agreed that taking a contrarian view in law was not about lying or being difficult, and rather a quest for the truth, as grandmasters pursued in chess.

Beelzebub’s Tales, Chapter 30 cont.

With acknowledgements to Harold Good

• Passage

  But if various women noticed that she had begun to manifest toward her children with a weakening of her maternal impulses, then under the same conditions those around her condemned her to go about everywhere, also for a definite term, with the left half of her face made up and painted white and red.

  And a woman who attempted to violate her chief what is called ‘wifely duty,’ that is who deceived or who only tried to deceive her legal husband or who attempted to destroy a new being conceived in her, was obliged by the same procedure to be always and everywhere, also for a definite term, made up and painted white and red, this time over the whole of her face...

• Discussion

  J said this was like what had happened to some women in France after World War 2.

  L asked if there was a symbolic part that was being overlooked. An earlier paragraph had spoken of a committee of seven women, and four parts of the head which might be shaven. As Gurdjieff often spoke of a sevenfold-sequence, perhaps there were psychological connotations.

• Passage

  You must know that those beings who are assumed to be the adepts of this contemporary art which is adorned with a false halo are not only put on their own level by the other three-brained beings there of the contemporary civilization, particularly during the several latter decades, and imitated by them in their exterior manifestations, but they are always and everywhere undeservingly encouraged and exalted by them; and in these contemporary representatives of art themselves, who really in point of their genuine essence are almost nonentities, there is formed of itself without any of their being-consciousness a false assurance that they are not like all the rest but, as they entitle themselves, of a ‘higher order,’...

  Just in regard to such unfortunate three-brained beings the surrounding abnormal conditions of ordinary being-existence are already so established that there are bound to be crystallized in their common presences and to become an inseparable part of their general psyche those of the consequences of the organ Kundabuffer which they now themselves call ‘swagger,’ ‘pride,’ ‘self-love,’ ‘vanity,’ ‘self-conceit,’ ‘self-enamoredness,’ ‘envy,’ ‘hate,’ ‘offensiveness,’ and so on and so forth.

• Discussion

  

  Cecilia Vicuña: Brain Forest Quipu

  L said the comments about contemporary art seemed very relevant to the present time. He had recently been to the Tate Mod to see the Cézanne exhibition. To get to it, everybody was forced to walk past a very tall exhibit, which had pride of place in the entrance hall, and was suspended from about 100 feet up in the ceiling. In contrast, at the entrance to the Cézanne exhibition, which was sublime and of the highest quality, there was a warning notice that it might disturb some people.

Footloose

Reflections on the Challenge

When you feel the need for entertainment, intentionally seek out a movie, with the intention of examining your experience and what you take away from it. While watching try to be aware of your feet, and observe how this awareness alternates with forgetfulness.

• Experiences

  N had gone to the cinema several times during the past month, and observed the fluctuation of his consciousness while watching films. He had found it hard to remain conscious and bring his awareness back to his feet, and to to maintain an independent and non-reactive state, as he often got pulled into the experiences of the films. Despite this, he also discovered moments of heightened awareness, during which he gained deeper insights into the films, and his level of non-identification sometimes allowed him to see things he would not otherwise have noticed.

  

  Theatre of Dionysus

  T had attempted the Challenge while watching a serious movie about an artist. Despite her best efforts, she was only able to focus on her feet for brief intervals and found herself getting emotionally invested in the film and its characters. The film was about the awkward relationships between family members and the tensions between siblings. She found herself empathizing with the characters and the effects of a self-centered family member, who was driven by his interest in his art instead of family relationships.

  L had found he would drift in and out of awareness, sometimes focusing on his feet and sometimes getting emotionally affected by the films. However, he also noticed that his appreciation for the films was more acute, and he was able to think about them from a more detached perspective. He found that the challenge was relevant to his life, helped him become more aware of his surroundings in real life. Sometimes he would drift into a "dream state" while walking or during other activities, and becoming aware of his feet would help him become more truly awake for a while.

• Responses

  Responding to T, N acknowledged the emotional impact of the films and how they challenged the individual's ability to split their attention. He also related this challenge to Gurdjieff's teachings on consciousness and how one could maintain focus while being emotionally affected. He shared a personal experience of how he responded to a recent shock in his life and how it related to the challenge of dividing one's attention during the films which he believed had benefits in other life situations, and was a good way to increase consciousness.

Beelzebub’s Tales, Chapter 30 cont.

With acknowledgements to  Harold Good
Watch this on YouTube

• Passage

  Namely, when they receive a large number of accidentally corresponding shocks for stimulating the shocks already fixed, and previously perceived and automatized in a series of impressions, and when they reflex these with the functioning of what are called ‘organs-of-digestion-and-sex,’ then, in consequence, obstacles arise in their presences for the proceeding even of those pitiable conscious being-associations which have already somehow become automatized to produce in them a more or less correct tempo for the transformation of the substances required for that passive existence of theirs, during which there must be transformed substances required for their active existence.

  In other words, when they happen to be in these theaters, they are not entirely in that passive state in which the proceeding of the transformation of substances required for their usual waking state has somehow become automatized in them also, with the result that these contemporary theaters of theirs have come to be for them only an additional maleficent factor for the destruction, as I said, of the ‘need-for-real-perceptions.’

  Among many other aspects of the maleficence of this contemporary art of theirs, ... is the radiations of the representatives of contemporary art themselves.

  ... they are always most maleficent in those mentioned contemporary artists or actors who mime in these contemporary theaters of theirs. …

• Discussion

  J took Gurdjieff to be largely referring to the fact that the mere accumulation of experiences tended to blunt the vividness of them, so that we became automatized in our general reactions to life. Whereas if you went to the theatre, you would suddenly be pushed into a different world altogether, and the shock value might be more effective. However, J did not understand why Gurdjieff went on to say that this was maleficent, and would have thought it actually helped your understanding of real life experience and coming out of your normally automatized reactions.

  L said that if somebody had lots of sweet foods, they would lose their appetite for real food. He thought Gurdjieff was saying likewise, that theatre, and movies might be used as a substitute for real experience, and diminish and atrophy the appetite for real experience.

• Passage

  Namely, in former centuries such artists or actors were everywhere relegated by other beings to the lowest caste and were regarded with contempt. And even at the present time there, in many communities, for instance on the continent Asia, it is not proper to shake hands with them, as one almost always does when meeting beings similar to oneself.

  ... But the contemporary beings of that continent, which at the present time is the chief place of what is called their ‘cultured existence,’ not only put these contemporary actors on a level with themselves in their inner relations, but even largely imitate their appearance, and at the present time do so pretty thoroughly. ...

• Discussion

  N said this was stating that actors had been elevated into positions of great public importance, which they did not have during ancient Greek or earlier times.

• Passage

  I recall a very sensible what is called ‘measure-of-justice’ of the three-brained beings of the epoch of the ‘Tikliamishian civilization’ connected also with the shaving of the hair, but in this case with the hair growing on the heads of the beings there.

  A law was then established and strictly enforced that those petty criminals among them who, after trial and sentence by seven elderly beings of the given district, had been assigned to one of the four already previously established categories of ‘immorality’ and ‘crime’—with which beings all of what are called their ‘prisons’ are now usually crowded—should for a definite term go about always and everywhere with one of the four corresponding sides of their heads shaved; and, furthermore, any such convicted being was obliged to uncover his head whenever he met or spoke with others.

• Discussion

  J thought Gurdjieff was talking about the cruelty of naming and shaming people, but wondered how he made this the parallel towards the shaving of the heads.

  L thought Gurdjieff was developing a new line of analysis by talking about four different areas of the head with just one of them being shaved, and then when the person met somebody, they would have to remove their hat, and display and be aware of which part of them was deficient.

Acting out

Reflections on the Challenge

When you are walking and a car goes past, try to become aware if you are acting at that moment. If you think you are, dramatise whatever you are doing a bit more. If you think you are not acting, then start acting. As you walk, swagger for a while. Examine how your emotions change. If they do not change, try to consciously make them change accordingly.

• Experiences

  As T was walking briskly along the road to get to the station, a car passed and she remembered the challenge. She became aware of her intent, and how that was what she was presenting to the street and any passersby. She started to exaggerate the swing of her hips and shoulders as she walked. This changed the intent, and the focus, which had been outside of her body and away ahead of her, as if she was already at the station. She began to enjoy the ridiculousness of the swaggering and smiled. Remembering to swagger seemed to help her to connect up her thinking, feeling and physical, as though before these parts were acting separately at the behest of what she wanted to happen, and not what was presently happening. She felt more real acting than she did before when she was supposedly not acting, and she remembered the feeling of playing as a child, the game Let's pretend, and then getting into something more real than before.

  

  N said that when he remembered the challenge from cars going past, he found that most of the time he was not acting. When he was more present, and was walking down the street, he then exaggerated his movements and tried to walk with a bit more swagger. Internally, it made him aware that he sometimes walked in a habitual way.

• Responses

  Responding to T, L said he shared her thoughts about acting making people feel more real. It was interesting that this appeared to differ from Gurdjieff's view in the Reading, which suggested that there was something wrong with people who were acting. L said it was possible he was misunderstanding Gurdjieff's view.

Beelzebub’s Tales, Chapter 30 cont.

With acknowledgements to  Harold Good
Watch this on YouTube

• Text

  ... And these contemporary actors there first reproduce this work themselves alone ,,, and when finally their reproduction proceeds without the participation of their own consciousness and feelings and these contemporary actors themselves are completely transformed into what are called ‘living automatons,’ then and then only, with the help of those among them who have not yet become entirely living automatons—for which reason they later acquire the name of ‘stage managers’—they do the same thing under their direction, but already now in the presence of other ordinary beings assembled in these contemporary theaters.

  All the same, it must be admitted that from their theaters and from these contemporary actors of theirs they obtained, of course accidentally, for the processes of their ordinary being-existence one not-bad-result.’

• Discussion

  T said the part about actors becoming "living automatons" because they followed scripts and directions, gave her the impression of parents and children, or teachers. Children could become living automatons because of all the directions and education they had been told, rather than being allowed to be creative with their thinking and imagination.

  J argued that the good actor does not simply become an automaton, but throws himself into his role and imagines how he would act if he himself were that person. The process of acting was more about being influenced and trained. No actor would want to come across as artificial.

  N found the assertion that actors become "living automatons" strange. For example, the Stanislavski method of acting, which was current in Gurdjieff's time, was an interior process in which actors tried to understand and embody the emotions of the characters they were playing. Gurdjieff's statement that there was a "not-bad-result" from the bad form of production was also strange.

  J believed Gurdjieff's idea that actors become "living automatons" was a narrow interpretation and not accurate. Over time, acting had become more personalized and individualized.

• Text

  ... And why these contemporary theaters of theirs with their contemporary actors have become useful for improving the quality of their sleep was due to the following circumstances.

  After the need to actualize being-Partkdolg-duty in themselves had entirely disappeared from the presences of most of them, and every kind of association of unavoidably perceived shocks began to proceed in the process of their waking state only from several already automatized what are called ‘series-of-former-imprints’ consisting of endlessly repeated what are called ‘impressions-experienced-long-ago,’ there then began to disappear in them and still continues to disappear even the instinctive need to perceive every kind of new shock vital for three-brained beings, and which issue either from their inner separate spiritualized being-parts or from corresponding perceptions coming from without for conscious associations, for just those being-associations upon which depends the intensity in the presences of beings of the transformation of every kind of ‘being-energy.’

• Discussion

  J said this suggested previous experiences may have become so entrenched that they have taken over people's reactions, making them less conscious now than they formerly were.

  N said the text may also highlight the difference between real, spiritually aware acting and modern, associative acting, which can come across well but was not the real thing.

• Text

  Well then, when your favorites, existing in such a manner in their ‘daily life,’ go to these contemporary theaters and follow the senseless manipulations of these contemporary actors, and receive ‘shocks’ one after the other from every kind of reminiscence, already previously perceived, of not less senseless and absurd notions, then during this waking state of theirs, they willy-nilly obtain more or less tolerable being-associations, so that when they go home and go to bed they sleep much better than usual.

  Although indeed these contemporary theaters with all that proceeds in them happen to be in this way—but of course only ‘for today’—an excellent means for the better sleep of your favorites, nevertheless the objectively evil consequences of these theaters for beings, and particularly for the rising generation, are incalculable.

  The chief harm for them from these theaters is that they are an additional factor for the complete destruction in them of all possibilities of ever possessing the need, proper to the three-brained beings, called the ‘need-for-real-perceptions.’

• Discussion

  J said that receiving art in a semi-comatose or semi-wakeful state and learning from conscious shocks were not mutually exclusive. Both could play a role in the learning process and he wondered why they were set up in opposition.

  L suggested the function of modern movies or plays was to help people sleep. In contrast, in ancient Greece, the choros and every part of the theatre probably had a symbolic meaning and might have had a purpose to wake people up.

  N said that much of modern theatre had been experimental and that many plays, such as those by Beckett, Pinter and Stoppard, had been trying to wake people up, rather than maintain them in the sleep that they were used to.

Echoes of the Past

T said there were different cultures living in the same community and talking to each other using a common language, but the same words meant different things leading to miscommunication and discord. Her thoughts were that free speech was a legal term and possible if everyone was singing from the same song sheet. Free meant that there were no legal consequences, but now there were social consequences and loss of livelihood through forced resignations or cancellations of events. Her emotions were horror at the changes, every time she heard the instances in the media. Even dictionary definitions were being changed.

When you come across words in conversation or the media, that have changed their meaning from a time earlier in your life, make a note of them. Open and close your mouth. Consider what the original and new meanings represent and how that affects you emotionally. Choose which one you prefer.

J spoke of the words perfect and awesome. which used to be used in a rather reserved sense. When you said perfect, you really meant something that was, in every way, perfect. Now perfect was almost a way of saying yes, I agree with that. If somebody said, Yes, I'm good, it would normally have implied something to do with their moral stance, but it did not mean that any more. It was draining the words of their previous full blooded meaning. As to his emotional reaction to them, he thought it was good. It demonstrated a level of youthful enthusiasm. The word meditation had changed its meaning and become very specialised and connected with all manner of usually Eastern-orientated cults. He thought that was a change that needed unpacking. It did not have much of an emotional charge with him. Generally speaking, he thought the changes of the meanings of the words were in line with the changes in society.

The first instance that occurred to L was the use of the word coffee to refer to decaffeinated coffee, which was not coffee, as there was only a minute amount of caffeine in it. He decided to stop buying decaffeinated coffee. Then he recalled the word policeman, who used to be somebody who walked the streets, looking for disturbances, creating a secure environment. Policemen now no longer walked the streets. Another time, he heard a very noisy car. That used to denote a powerful engine, but now it was often an artificial noise put in by the manufacturer to add some panache to the vehicle. So again, that was a kind of fakery. Then he saw a quote from Robert Conquest. The simplest way to explain the behaviour of any bureaucratic organisation is to assume that it is controlled by a cabal of his enemies. One way to attack an organisation was to change the meaning of words.

During the period allocated to responses, nothing was said about specific instances of doing the challenge.

The reading then continued from Chapter 30 of Beelzebub's Tales.

        

With acknowledgements to Harold Good
Watch this on YouTube

From the very beginning of the arising of those theaters of theirs, they assembled and now assemble in them for the purpose of watching and studying the reproductions of their contemporary ‘actors’; no… they assemble only for the satisfaction of one of the consequences of the properties of the organ Kundabuffer, a consequence which had been readily crystallized in the common presences of the majority of them, and called ‘Oornel,’ which the contemporary beings now call ‘swaggering.’

You must know that thanks to the mentioned consequences of the properties of the organ Kundabuffer most of the contemporary beings acquire in their presence a very strange need to evoke the expression in others of the being-impulse called ‘astonishment’ regarding themselves, or even simply to notice it on the faces of those around.

The strangeness of this need of theirs is that they get satisfaction from the manifestation of astonishment on the part of others regarding their appearance, which exactly conforms with the demands of what are called ‘fashions,’ that is to say with just that maleficent custom of theirs, which began there since the Tikliamishian civilization and which has now become one of those being-factors which automatically gives them neither the time nor the possibility to see or sense reality.

This maleficent custom for them is that they periodically change the external form of what is called ‘the-covering-of-their-nullity.’

N said that he had met a few actors in his time, and some of them did adopt this kind of swagger because, as the text says, it creates astonishment in other people. Then Gurdjieff builds on this by talking about fashion, and how people wanted to look great and resplendent on the outside and be appreciated as something extraordinary, but they were just covering up their nullity. L said that actors were like clowns, but their productions were dressed up with background stories, in which they would  fall over, swagger, shout and sing. N said some were carried to this extreme, of becoming hellraisers, like Richard Harris, Richard Burton, Peter O'Toole, and Oliver Reed, they wanted to go to extremes to show off in front of people. T said the paragraph was alluding to the actors, not in their roles, but outside of acting, almost to make up for the fact that they weren't being themselves in the characters that they were portraying. They were being other people all the time. It was about that difference between being in the play and out of the play. N said they kept on acting, even when it was not required by the circumstances of their lives. L thought the word for what N was describing was overdramatisation. Dramatisation in itself was like making an illusion, but overdramatisation was typified by the actors N had mentioned, or when violence was enacted in a movie.

Fubar

L had received an email asking if he knew somebody of a particular name who had been at Cambridge at the same time, and was a musician and also a creator of cryptic crosswords. L had not known him, but used to know someone of the same surname who had a friend while at Oxford who was also a musician and an authority on creating puzzles. So there was a connection with the surname. A few days later, L had come across a saying from Malaysia: Where there are no eagles, the grasshopper will say "I am an eagle." The next day, a Facebook friend put up a big picture of an eagle. So there was a connection with the eagle, and there was also a link with the previous synchronicity, since the first name of the Facebook friend was also the name of L's friend who had been at Oxford. More recently, he had been talking about a visual metaphor. The next day, he looked up the name of an artist whom he knew 15 years before. She had done a painting of precisely that metaphor.

Each day, look out for coincidences or synchronicities. Try to work out and write down what they might mean and what the connections are, as if it had happened in a sleeping dream. Even if you don't see a connection, if something happens to you, think about what it symbolises. When you see a connection, touch your head with your hand, as if to say, I got it!

N had a friend who was studying literature, who told him about an essay she had to write on the Chartists and Thomas Carlyle, about which she unfortunately knew very little. N replied that he knew even less. About an hour later, he went into a secondhand bookshop in St John's Wood, and they had a book by Thomas Carlyle on the history of the Chartists, which he bought. It was such a rare book, you did not come across many books by Thomas Carlyle anymore.

T had been waiting for the car recovery service because of a punctured tyre. She had had to change plans and stay at home. So she got out the personal computer and was faced with a recovery window that asked her to restart or see advanced repair options. Or if you did not know which option was right for you, to contact someone you trusted to help. And she touched her head with her hand. Another case was on the seventh of October. Her phone had a display which showed her at what time the sun rises, and she noticed it was at 07:10. Also, she had noticed that the car tire had been punctured with a screw. She reflected that the best case scenario for the cause was carelessness by an inconsiderate workman in the road, and the worst case scenario was deliberate criminal behaviour for political or evil intent, or a prank. She concluded that there was a spectrum from carelessness to criminality. Later she was reading Beelzebub's Tales, and reached the part where Gurdjieff described the midwife as demonstrating criminal carelessness. She had never thought of criminality and carelessness together until this time, so that really struck her. Usually, during the month, the Challenge cropped up a few times, but this time it happened again and again, there were so many instances. That in itself was an interesting thing.

Responding to N, L said he found the incident about the book by Thomas Carlyle striking.

The reading then continued from Chapter 30 of Beelzebub's Tales.

        

With acknowledgements to Harold Good
Watch this on YouTube

And it was the basis because it appeared in the word by which the learned mysterists were designated and also in the word which stood for a personality invented by the ancient Greeks, with whose name, as I have already said, one of the schools-of-art then existing had been connected; and the result of this was that the mentioned representatives of this terrestrial art of that time, with their already now quite bobtailed reason, thought that it was nothing more than the word indicating ‘the-followers-of-this-historical-personality-Orpheus,’ and as many of them did not regard themselves as his followers, then instead of the mentioned word they just invented the word artist.

... and they wished and succeeded in substituting for the already long-existing definite expression ‘Orpheist’ the new word artist.

T noted that the word artist was derived from another word, Orpheist, rather than from something actual. N said that at that time an artist might have been more like a shaman character, who was almost able to go into the underworld and do things and create extraordinary situations. Maybe that reduced to becaming someone who was just an artist who could not do those things, but could do some pretty things. L thought Gurdjieff was talking about gradual decline in in the meaning of words. So the word artist came to mean less than what the word Orpheist used to mean. Even in ancient time, the meaning of the word had declined, and this had continued in our period, with changes in usage of the words artist, musician and composer.  The previous day he had looked at a YouTube video while researching what was coming up at Alexandra Palace. They were advertising an event where a band called Bicep was going to perform. They performed a kind of trance music, which had absolutely no tune, but the YouTube video had thousands of comments and they were all saying it was a masterpiece. So they had changed the meaning of the words masterpiece, and music. Many of the comments said they would come back and listen to it week after week. Would they be as enraptured by a Bach fugue? N said this was a type of inflation. It happened to money, and also happened to words, language, and artistic endeavours, probably over the centuries. B said you needed to have a child to unravel it, to say the emperor was not wearing any clothes. It was about knowledge - people could be manipulated to believe anything. L said it was also about effort, because it took effort to appreciate classical music. It took no effort to sit down and hear a hypnotic beat, and very loud noise. B said that hypnosis also had a purpose of getting people into a particular state. T said it was called trance music. N said it was there to put you to sleep rather than wake you up.

What's in a Name?

N found the om vibrated parts of his body that had not been vibrated before through sound, and the more he did it, the more vibratory and deeper the sound went into his whole body. Emotionally, he thought it was a stabilising thing to do. It had been a month of extraordinary news - the loss of the Queen who was such a symbol for this country. His feeling was that it was very useful to have a discipline like doing the om every morning, as it enabled him to become more stabilised.

Every morning, soon after rising, hum the mantra om for one minute. Afterward, make a written note of any effects it had on you, physically, emotionally and intellectually, trying to be as honest and brief as possible.

First of all T had remembered Winnie the Pooh, doing the humming, because we were humming the om, which was a nice recollection. She had experienced the sound in her neck connect and travel by its resonance into her sternum, and the top of her belly, her stomach. It made her think that the food went in the mouth and then travelled down the connecting tube, the pipe, to the stomach, and that inspired the thought that we ate food for nourishment, and maybe sound was nourishment too, and she could produce it and nourish herself, but she rarely did. When she was talking to someone, the sound went out into the world, and she did not feel it or experience it for the resonance that it was, and perhaps she was not nourished by it as a consequence. The other question was, what might the sound be nourishing, and was that aspect of her starving on some level? All the words she uttered, she had been taught to say from an early age, like everybody, too early to choose what to learn, but an open vessel to fill with sounds, to communicate personal needs, etc. - being fed, watered, protected from harm. She had thought about the resonance. She was a musical instrument, which she did not play.

During the period allocated to responses, nothing was said about specific instances of doing the challenge.

The reading then continued from Chapter 30 of Beelzebub's Tales.

... when at the beginning of the contemporary civilization certain beings there began to decipher them ‘from-a-bit-here-and-a-bit-there’ and realized that they could not sound or pronounce many of these definite letters, they then invented what is called a ‘written compromise.’

This mentioned written compromise was that instead of the signs or letters which they could not pronounce, although they understood the sense of this pronunciation, they decided to employ a slightly similar letter of their alphabet at the time, and in order that everybody should understand that it was not that letter but quite another, they always wrote by its side a letter of the ancient Romans, now existing but already meaningless, called in English ‘h’ and among the contemporary French ‘ahsh.’

From then on, all the other of your favorites began doing the same; they added to each of these suspicious letters this Roman ‘inheritance.’

When this written compromise was invented, they had about twenty-five of these suspicious ‘letters,’ but in the course of time, as their ableness to pronounce deteriorated with the increase of their wiseacring, the number of the letters they specially invented for such a ‘being-ableness’ diminished, and by the time the word artist was invented they had already only eight of these letters; and in front of this notorious ‘h,’ they wrote letters, partly ancient Greek and partly ancient Latin, which they indicated in the following way: ‘th,’ ‘ph,’ ‘gh,’ ‘ch,’ ‘sch,’ ‘kh,’ ‘dh,’ and ‘oh.’

        

With acknowledgements to Harold Good
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L said that in English versions of the Old Testament, the Hebrew letter Chet (which had no equivalent in the English alphabet) was shown by following a C with an H, hence the spelling of Rachel. N said Gurdjieff was also saying that language had lost a lot of its connection with the meaningfulness of words. B thought that it was in the shift between the pronounciation and the written that something happened. T said that as soon as you wrote a sound, it just became a sign, not the thing itself. So the more it was written, the more it had to be learned from the writing and not from the making of the sound. Young children, who learnt language as soon as possible, were given the letters to look at. B said the word had three components, one was the written, one was the way it sounded, and the image of the thing it represented.

L said this was like Lacan's distinction between the real, the imaginary and the symbolic. N said it was interesting that in religion, there was the concept of holiness of some words. The word for the name of God was not meant to be casually uttered or written down, and was for use only in specific ceremonial contexts.