Tomberg criticizes Gurdjieff’s aims in Meditations on the Tarot as being without grace, and aimed at building a resurrection body apart from Initiation-from-above, although he freely admits the possibility of doing such, tacitly. In Ouspensky’s The Fourth Way, we are given a more detailed, in depth treatment of Gurdjieff’s views, which Ouspensky turned into a “system” (as he called it). Ouspensky makes especial reference to “esoteric Christianity”, which Gurdjieff once famously called his system, “if you like” or “if you prefer”. Here is a relevant article by/on Gurdjieff over giving up unconscious suffering, in reference to Biblical teaching. More of his ideas in relation to Christianity are found here.
Ouspensky is more direct than Gurdjieff; in answer to questions about a “personal God” (rather than the Absolute of the “System”, which operates by increasingly less mechanical Laws the higher one is), he admits that the System may allow for the grace and personalism of God, since, in the Ray of Creation, the last two notes of Si and Do we have no actual spiritual experience of, but rather experience merely the mechanical operations of earlier notes, which mechanically create the bio-film on Earth and “feed the Moon”. This is a rather startling admission: I am not quite certain what to make of it. Although it sounds like “God of the Gaps”, I suppose it also reminds me of Godel’s incompleteness theorem.
In any case, this is a moment of humility and meditation from Ouspensky, who otherwise is adamant about what is “known”, certainly, and how it is utterly separate from “faith”.
Ouspensky says the “system” teaches knowledge, never faith. However, this “knowledge” begins with a complete deconstruction of the spiritual “I” and false personality or “general feature”. The reason we don’t make progress is because “we” or even “I” don’t exist. There are multiple I beings which compete, and seamlessly masquerade as “One”. There is not even a “magnetic center” of dominant I beings which are in concord and can direct as “deputy steward”, the rest of the useless, neutral, or rebellious I beings (Religion is a vehicle to create “magnetic center”, in happy circumstances, in those of faith). This center will then begin to “act” (as it can) in response to the B (higher) influences which exist throughout the world of mechanical A influence (which continually eats up B influence). Possibilities are enlarged, but growth remains slow. C influence will manifest for those with magnetic personality, typically only once. (This is a huge point for him to make: what it means is that the Tradition you are born with has a very strong possibility of being “your train out of town”). Those who follow C influence in a “school” can actually begin to become Man Type 5,6, or even 7. This, however, comes much, much later: first, the “Self” has to be ruthlessly torn apart and deconstructed by the “Self”. This allows one to “know thyself” – there is no need of faith, when one “knows”.
We know from the journey with Peter and Clement that a “Gnostic” named Anubion actually came to Peter’s defense, and was not an antagonist of the apostle. Part of the mission of Gornahoor has been stated as “preparation for initiation”. In the Fourth Way “system”, this is known (variously) as remembering one’s self, paying attention, attaining consciousness, or awakening from sleep. At first, one can “do” nothing – except give up false suffering – that is, one can only remember that one does not remember (this of course links esoteric work with the classical Western tradition of Socrates, who “knows only that he does not know”).
What is important to realize is that whether one comes by way of a “Semitic sense of sin”, or whether one realizes that the “I” is a fake I, one begins by being able to “do” almost nothing, other than reject one’s false states of being. Power comes after desolation. This is an important point – all Tradition is in agreement here on man’s estate [with the exception of the “mystery of the just” (which Tomberg refers to)].
What justification, then, for Tradition and “group work”, for working on the culture, for any collective political action? Ouspensky has an answer for this – if one “works” solely on one’s self, apart from “group work”, the spiritual laws which govern the universe will guarantee that at a certain point in the musical progression of energetic notes (the Ray of Creation, which Mouravieff also discusses), there are two natural “gaps”. One can be filled “naturally” (although not really so), but the other one has to be filled from outside – the “lone ranger” cannot accomplish it. However, if one has begun self work, and if one works in groups, and also “for the system”, there are three lines of progress; when one falters, the energy from the other fills the “gap”, and work continues. This sounds a lot like what “Church” or “the Faith” should be.
And this, by the way, is the missing justification that all New Age groups overlook for “Traditional” metaphysics/politics/ecclesiology. For if we apply this principle to Christianity, one can see immediately why a Traditional political arrangement, a Traditional ecclesiology, and a Traditional culture are desirable. They represent (and in old Christian Europe did represent) the “third path” which can sustain the naked individual when the inevitable deviation on individual lines occurs. They do not create righteousness – quite right – but they impel the individual in a trajectory towards it, and provide the missing nudge that is built into the laws of Creation.
There is even a beautiful illustration of this in the Psalms. Asaph has been studying the world, and he realizes that God’s truth is garbage : the good always goes under, the wicked triumph, the righteous die like dogs, etc., etc. He is in a bad spiritual state that will become permanent, and must become so, because he has no reserve to fill in the energetic gap that has faltered in his “journey of faith”. In Psalm 73, we are given the “answer”; he goes into the tabernacle. What happens? Asaph has the decency not to speak of his inner revelations to the faithful – he does what he can, but that is all, and it is not enough to save his faith. However, because he is silent in the cathedral, God saves him through the “culture” around him. Like Job, he sees the beauty of God.
11 And they say, How doth God know? and is there knowledge in the most High?12 Behold, these are the ungodly, who prosper in the world; they increase in riches.13 Verily I have cleansed my heart in vain, and washed my hands in innocency. 14 For all the day long have I been plagued, and chastened every morning. 15 If I say, I will speak thus; behold, I should offend against the generation of thy children. 16 When I thought to know this, it was too painful for me; 17 Until I went into the sanctuary of God; then understood I their end.
18 Surely thou didst set them in slippery places: thou castedst them down into destruction.
19 How are they brought into desolation, as in a moment! they are utterly consumed with terrors.
20 As a dream when one awaketh; so, O Lord, when thou awakest, thou shalt despise their image.
21 Thus my heart was grieved, and I was pricked in my reins.
22 So foolish was I, and ignorant: I was as a beast before thee.
23 Nevertheless I am continually with thee: thou hast holden me by my right hand.24 Thou shalt guide me with thy counsel, and afterward receive me to glory.25 Whom have I in heaven but thee? and there is none upon earth that I desire beside thee. 26 My flesh and my heart faileth: but God is the strength of my heart, and my portion for ever. 27 For, lo, they that are far from thee shall perish: thou hast destroyed all them that go a whoring from thee. 28 But it is good for me to draw near to God: I have put my trust in the Lord God, that I may declare all thy works.
Asaph saw something which explained everything, but it came from outside himself (or the impulse/energy originated there, awakening something he could not awake “himself”).
This explains why TS Eliot’s work on culture was important, for instance, or why Cologero has recommended taking steps to assist “the work” here.
There are many other startling insights in The Fourth Way, which is recommended. In the beginning, one starts at an incredibly “low level” : everything to “do” is miniscule – maybe just trying to “stop thoughts” 3 times a day – observing yourself and categorizing your inner states – refusing to express (rather than suppressing) negative emotion (this plugs energy leaks). This is “payment” and gains energy – with enough effort (or preparation), moments of being more awake occur. If one responds rightly when one is awake for a short time, more energy is gained – the seeker advances. But group and system work can start in parallel with this inner work, although it can never replace it (one cannot mix categories).
Esoteric Christianity, which comes from Noah, Enoch, and Adam, and which existed in Egypt (for “out of Egypt have I called my son), which was embodied later in the Tarot tradition called Hermeticism, could discipline itself and utilize “the Fourth Way” for some of its initiates for which it is suited. It has unique advantages for the modern age, and appears to have maintained its traditional purity, albeit in an understated form, which could be made more explicit in useful ways.
There is a lot of promising material in this work.
Perhaps Gurdjieff’s choice of phrase (“if you like”) was an invitation to Christians to utilize the System to attain the kingdom of heaven.
As above so below. Logres, as the Poles shift and the World of Physis is change, it has even been the Lord’s Providence that makes it so that the Terrestrial North and Celestial North align.
{Beautiful for situation, the joy of the whole earth, is mount Zion, on the sides of the north, the city of the great King.}—Psalm 48:2
{One day Apollo will return, and this time for ever.}—says the last prophecy of a Delphian pythoness in IV century A.D.
Apollo is another name for Him.
{Behold, he cometh with clouds; and every eye shall see him, and they also which pierced him: and all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of him. Even so, Amen}—Revelation 1:7
{Lo! A new angel has come to spread his wings,
a great swarm of plagues to collect our sins,
even now shall they surrender…
to the power of the dog}
[P.K.Dick:]{From Ikhnaton this knowledge passed to Moses, and from Moses to Elijah, the Immortal Man, who became Christ. But underneath all the names there is only one Immortal Man; and we are that man}
https://www.google.is/search?q=dog+star+sirius+666
GOD/DOG = Union of Opposites
VIRGIN/WHORE = Union of Opposites
HEAVEN/EARTH
ABOVE/BELOW
GOD/SATAN
DEATH/ANTIDEATH
https://www.google.is/search?q=kalki
Christ in armor. The First Manifestation of the Ineffable.
[Clement:]{…fear the Divine Being: to love Him as gentle and benign to the pious; to fear Him as inexorably just to the impious; for the sphinx shows the image of a wild beast and of a man together.}
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3BwfuFuYOWE
[Nietzsche]{…this time however I come as the victorious Dionysus, who will turn the world into a holiday…Not that I have much time.}—from his last letter to Cosima Wagner
[P.K.Dick:]{The physician has come to us a number of times under a number of names. But we are not yet healed. The Empire identified him and ejected him. This time he will kill the Empire by phagocytosis.}
The Antichrist? Christ is spirit. What is anti? The opposite of something. The Antichrist is the opposite of the Christ in Heaven, which is The Lord of the Earth. Fools, behold; the antichrist is simply Christ manifested on Earth — He is Now.
{Guenon finds Manu and his deputy the Lord of the World reflected in the Shekinah and Metatron of Kabbalistic mysticism, the latter being similarly styled “Prince of the World,” and the “celestial Pole.”
However, it is the shadowy figure of Melchizedek that both connects the Judeo-Christian tradition with Agartha, and brings Guenon’s work right up to the present in relation to one of today’s most controversial phenomena of popular psychology.
Melchizedek, the supposed ancient king of what is now Jerusalem, appears a number of times in the Old and New Testaments.
Guenon writes:
“Melchizedek, or more precisely Melki-Tsedeq, is none other than the title used by Judeo-Christian tradition to denote the function of the “Lord of the World.” We have hesitated before publishing this information which explains one of the most enigmatic passages of the Hebrew Bible, but, having decided to treat the issue of the Lord of the World, concluded it could hardly he passed over in silence…”
Melki-Tsedeq is thus both king and priest. His name means “king of justice” and he is also king of Salem, that is of “Peace,” so again we find “Justice” and “Peace” the fundamental attributes pertaining to the “Lord of the World.”}
[Logres:]{rebellious I beings (Religion is a vehicle to create “magnetic center”, in happy circumstances, in those of faith). This center will then begin to “act” (as it can) in response to the B (higher) influences which exist throughout the world of mechanical A influence (which continually eats up B influence). Possibilities are enlarged, but growth remains slow. C influence will manifest for those with magnetic personality}
[P.K.Dick:]{The psyche of hyperuniverse I sent a micro-form of itself into hyperuniverse II to attempt to heal it. The micro-form was apparent in our hologramatic universe as Jesus Christ. However, hyperuniverse II, being deranged, at once tormented, humiliated, rejected and finally killed the micro-form of the healing psyche of her healthy twin. After that, hyperuniverse II continued to decay into blind, mechanical, purposeless causal processes. It then became the task of Christ (more properly the Holy Spirit) to either rescue the life forms in the hologramatic universe, or abolish all influences on it emanating from II. Approaching its task with caution, it prepared to kill the deranged twin, since she cannot be healed; i.e. she will not allow herself to be healed because she does not not understand that she is sick.
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iaJ4wzDO5fA]
This illness and madness pervades us and makes us idiots living in private, unreal worlds. The original plan of the One can only be realized now by the division of hyperuniverse I into two healthy hyperuniverses, which will transform the hologramatic universe into the successfull teaching machine it was designed to be. We will experience this as the “Kingdom of God.”
Within time, hyperuniverse II remains alive: “The Empire never ended.” But in eternity, where the hyperuniverses exist, she has been killed—of necessity—by the healthy twin of hyperuniverse I, who is our champion. The One grieves for this death, since the One loved both twins; therefore the information of the Mind consists of a tragic tale of the death of a woman, the undertones of which generate anguish into all the creatures of the hologrammatic universe without their knowing why. This grief will depart when the healthy twin undergoes mitosis and the “Kingdom of God” arrives. The machinery for this transformation—the procession within time from the Age of Iron to the Age of Gold—is at work now; in eternity it is already accomplished.}
{The wine of Sodom, Gomorrah’s fields, come
spill now forth the poison of dragons in the name of God.
Chasm from chasm, Armageddon, Armageddon, Armageddon,
A thousand angel jubilation, and upon this rock I will build my church
…And the sun of falsehood shall shine with trust,
from the depths of Satan in the name of God.}
So it was prophesied. So it is. Now. Amen.
This means, stop feeding the moon, which means kill your idealism and then you will actually see what is happening in God’s World. So, BEHOLD!
http://www.gornahoor.net/?p=5694
Thanks for the correction; looking back over the text, I see I was careless with my memory, although there are some interesting references to the North in Clement:
“North of the altar of incense was placed a table, on which there was “the exhibition of the loaves;” for the most nourishing of the winds are those of the north. And thus are signified certain seats of churches conspiring so as to form one body and one assemblage.”
I’m a little suspicious of “the South” = always bad, “the North” = always good. Aren’t we speaking of a spiritual North, rather than a purely geographic one? Once the degeneration sets in, the light may come “from the South”. This certainly occurred in Jewish history.
“Therefore also the Egyptians place Sphinxes before their temples, to signify that the doctrine respecting God is enigmatical and obscure; perhaps also that we ought both to love and fear the Divine Being: to love Him as gentle and benign to the pious; to fear Him as inexorably just to the impious; for the sphinx shows the image of a wild beast and of a man together. ”
Clement in the Stromata
Yes, h.ontologia. This is most representative of the reply I was looking for. It began in the Arctic Cycle of the Golden age, then there was a shift and Atlantis was the next seat. Again, after the fall of Atlantis the post was in the mysterious megalithic antiquity of Sumer, Egypt, Mexico, and towards the east Japan and the Vedic civilization (which claims northern origins) – the original founders of each are all long lost to us – yet each carrying some form of the Hermetic, perennial, primordial Tradition.
It’s not just about whether a proven fact or theory supports the claim to the south, as civilizations progress they get more mongrelised and thus origins change – due to the law of degeneration. However my concern is over polarity of orientation. Sparta’s kings trace themselves to Heracles – the Olympian slayer of chthonic monsters – whom in turn was a derivative of Zeus, the sky god of solar origins. They considered Athens degenerate. Both Greece and Rome’s higher originary myths flare to the Northern seat of light and their spirituality founded against the south. Its founding peoples were Aryans, and the same is with Egypt among others of remote vestiges lost to the putrefying contamination of southern pestilence.
Essentially, if we are to point south to Eygpt why not go further and point to a more primordial northern origin which has always been the truer throne, both spiritually, metaphorically and symbolically.
This use of the word “Pythagorean” for people who had no knowledge of the Greek Pythagoras is suggestive, especially as it is here associated with aniconism, which Evola considered Traditional. The Celtic Druids were also said to be Pythagoreans by their Roman contemporaries.
I don’t think so, Logres, or that is a simplification, as barbarian is simply non-Greek. The full identity of those barbarians in the Stromata are identified:
An interesting list, to say the least, not to mention the allusion to the occult name of Rome.
Evola said Egypt was a post-Atlantis outpost. Atlantis itself was a post-Hyperborean outpost.
Best regards,
Postapocalyptocrat.
Pickman, Clement of Alexandria actually explains some of this in the Stromata. Greek myths were derivative, from what he called “barbarian” sources, basically “the North”. So there was an issue, at the root of Greece, that they didn’t understand their own mythology (in a sense). However, as Cologero points out, the mystery religions were actually rooted in Egypt. So Greece was a confluence between Hyperborea and Egypt. And Clement may have meant (by barbarian), “non-Greek”, as well.
Athens believed they were founded by King Cecrops of Egypt. Pythagoras went to Egypt to be initiated. The roots of Greece are found deep in Egypt.
“Asaph has been studying the world, and he realizes that God’s truth is garbage : the good always goes under, the wicked triumph, the righteous die like dogs, etc., etc.”
Unfortunately Asaph’s study of the world proves most accurate and the question should be (other than the poor analogy of “free will”) why is this? Other factors are at play in the cosmos. Simply to philosophize a more poignant end through a group shared helplessness cannot be a satisfactory explanation.
“Esoteric Christianity, which comes from Noah, Enoch, and Adam, and which existed in Egypt (for “out of Egypt have I called my son), which was embodied later in the Tarot tradition called Hermeticism.”
We should guard our zest for southern origins without fully considering Hermeticism’s widespread influence from both North and Eastern civilizations. Did Greece or Rome (at their peak) consider themselves Egyptian, Etruscan or Semitic?
Powerful stuff!