Gi Gurdjieff Quotes

Multiple experiments with spirit contact transmitted the name Matthew Edward Hall on several occasions. I predict this to be a very important future individual in humanities development. Possibly the second embodiment of Christ on Earth.

Without self knowledge, without understanding the working and functions of his machine, man cannot be free, he cannot govern himself and he will always remain a slave.

Practice love on animals first; they react better and more sensitively.

Conscious faith is freedom. Emotional faith is slavery. Mechanical faith is foolishness.

It is very difficult also to sacrifice one's suffering. A man will renounce any pleasures you like but he will not give up his suffering.

Awakening is possible only for those who seek it and want it, for those who are ready to struggle with themselves and work on themselves for a very long time and very persistently in order to attain it.

You are in prison. If you wish to get out of prison, the first thing you must do is realize that you are in prison. If you think you are free, you can't escape.

Two things in life are infinite; the stupidity of man and the mercy of God.

There is a cosmic law which says that every satisfaction must be paid for with a dissatisfaction.

I ask you to believe nothing that you cannot verify for yourself.

The greatest untold story is the evolution of God.

If you want to lose your faith, make friends with a priest.

Remember you come here having already understood the necessity of struggling with yourself — only with yourself. Therefore thank everyone who gives you the opportunity.

Common aim is stronger than blood.

I will tell you one thing that will make you rich for life. There are two struggles: an Inner-world struggle and an Outer-world struggle...you must make an intentional contact between these two worlds; then you can crystallize data for the Third World, the World of the Soul.

Love without knowledge is demonic.

To know means to know all. Not to know all means not to know. In order to know all, it is only necessary to know a little. But, in order to know this little, it is first necessary to know pretty much.

Only super-efforts count.

an honest being who does not behave absurdly has no chance at all of becoming famous, or even of being noticed, however kind and sensible he may be.

Man must use what he has, not hope for what is not.

As long as our ideas are the same, we will never be apart.

You must learn not what people round you consider good or bad, but to act in life as your conscience bids you. An untrammelled conscience will always know more than all the books and teachers put together.

The only type of sexual relations possible are those with someone who is as advanced and capable as oneself.

Life is real only then, when "I am".

Man has no individual i. But there are, instead, hundreds and thousands of separate small "i"s, very often entirely unknown to one another, never coming into contact, or, on the contrary, hostile to each other, mutually exclusive and incompatible. Each minute, each moment, man is saying or thinking, "i". And each time his i is different. just now it was a thought, now it is a desire, now a sensation, now another thought, and so on, endlessly. Man is a plurality. Man's name is legion.

The one great art is that of making a complete human being of oneself.

Live a life of friction. Let yourself be disturbed as much as possible, but observe.

From looking at your neighbor and realizing his true significance, and that he will die, pity and compassion will arise in you for him and finally you will love him.

Knowledge can be acquired by a suitable and complete study, no matter what the starting point is. Only one must know how to 'learn.' What is nearest to us is man; and you are the nearest of all men to yourself. Begin with the study of yourself; remember the saying 'Know thyself.

Wish' is the most powerful thing in the world. Higher than God.

Time in itself does not exist, there is only the totality of the results issuing from all the cosmic phenomena present in a given place.

Let us take some event in the life of humanity. For instance, war. There is a war going on at the present moment. What does it signify? It signifies that several millions of sleeping people are trying to destroy several millions of other sleeping people. They would not do this, of course, if they were to wake up. Everything that takes place is owing to this sleep.

Consider everything belonging to another as if it were your own, and so treat it.

With thorns in the inner world there will always be roses in the outer world, in law-able compensation.

Now everything that you do is written in red or black in Angel Gabriel's book. Not for everyone is this record kept, but only for those who have taken a position of responsibility. There is a Law of Sins, and if you do not fulfil all your obligations, you will pay.

Meat is necessary when there is hard physical work to be done, or in a very cold climate, or when edible plants cannot be found...Animal flesh provides all the substances we need, both for the intensive working of our organism and for maintaining a normal temperature in cold climates.

All who have come to me must have enema each day.

In my opinion, what will be troublesome for you in all this is chiefly that in childhood there was implanted in you—and has now become perfectly harmonized with your general psyche—an excellently working automatism for perceiving all kinds of new impressions, thanks to which “blessing” you have now, during your responsible life, no need to make any individual effort whatsoever.

Never will he understand the sufferings of another, who has not experienced them himself, though he have divine Reason and the nature of a genuine devil!

Everything existing in the world “falls to the bottom.” The “bottom” for any part of the Universe is its nearest “stability,” and this stability is the point toward which all the lines of force from all directions converge.

If you are working inwardly, Nature will help you. For the man who is working, Nature is sister of charity; she brings him what he needs for his work. If you need money for your work, even if you do nothing to get it, the money will come to you from all sides.

What you took as yourself begins to look like a little prison-house far away in the valley beneath you.

The Work is about making personality passive, a servant rather than a master.

Every - real - happiness - for - man - can - arise - exclusively - only - from - some - unhappiness - also - real - which - he - has - already - experienced.

Men have their minds and women their feelings more highly developed. Either alone can give nothing. Think what you feel and feel what you think. Fusion of the two produces another force.

And indeed, the mind of contemporary man, of whatever level of intellectuality, is only able to take cognizance of the world by means of data which, whenever accidentally or intentionally activated, arouse in him all sorts of fantastic impulses.

Until you stop being governed by your emotions you cannot be impartial.

Do everything quickly and well.

This shift from automatic living to awakening parallels Carl Jung's Individuation, Dada Bhagwan's Self-realization, Dr. Abraham Mazlow's Self-Actualization, G.I. Gurdjieff's Self-Work and other related approaches to differentiating the innate being from the unconscious complexes we have mistaken for identity.

When my grandmother—may she attain the Kingdom of Heaven—was dying, my mother, as was then the custom, took me to her bedside and, as I kissed her right hand, my dear grandmother placed her dying left hand on my head and said in a whisper, yet very distinctly: “Eldest of my grandsons! Listen and always remember my strict injunction to you: In life never do as others do.” Having said this, she gazed at the bridge of my nose and, evidently noticing my perplexity and my obscure understanding of what she had said, added somewhat angrily and imperiously: “Either do nothing—just go to school—or do something nobody else does Whereupon she immediately, without hesitation and with a perceptible impulse of disdain for all around her, and with commendable self-cognizance, gave up her soul directly into the hands of His Faithfulness, the Archangel Gabriel.

Se io è presente in me non contano più né Dio né diavolo.

The man who has the disease of tomorrow is the most unfortunate man in the world.

Real art is knowledge not talent.

To love work for work’s sake and not for its gain.

Essence is the truth in man; personality is the false.

I have already told you that certain fragments of this knowledge happened to remain intact and passed from generation to generation through a very limited number of initiated beings there.

To awaken means to realize one's nothingness, that is, to realize one's complete and absolute mechanicalness, and one's complete and absolute helplessness... So long as a man is not horrified at himself, he knows nothing about himself.

I also very well remember that on another occasion the father dean said: ‘In order that at responsible age a man may be a real man and not a parasite, his education must without fail be based on the following ten principles. ‘From early childhood there should be instilled in the child: Belief in receiving punishment for disobedience. Hope of receiving reward only for merit. Love of God—but indiference to the saints. Remorse of conscience for the ill-treatment of animals. Fear of grieving parents and teachers. Fearlessness towards devils, snakes and mice. Joy in being content merely with what one has. Sorrow at the loss of the goodwill of others. Patient endurance of pain and hunger. The striving early to earn one’s bread.

Prolonged instruction, prolonged training, is necessary to be able to turn the cheek. And if this training is mechanical - it is again worth nothing because in this case it means that a man will turn his cheek because he cannot do anything else.

In order to destroy the lies in oneself as well as lies told unconsciously to others, 'buffers' must be destroyed. But then a man cannot live without 'buffers'. 'Buffers' automatically control a man's actions, words, thoughts, and feelings. If 'buffers' were to be destroyed all control would disappear. A man cannot exist without control even though it is only automatic control. Only a man who possesses will, that is, conscious control, can live without 'buffers'. Consequently, if a man begins to destroy 'buffers' within himself he must at the same time develop a will.

As to Gurdjieff's power to renew his own energies, its essence had been understood by psychologists of the nineteenth century, decades before the age of Freud and Jung. William James speaks about it in an important essay called ‘The Energies of Man’.

The well-being of a man is that everyone be his slave.

The highest aim and the meaning even of human life is to strive to do your best for the wellbeing of your neighbour, which is only possible by renouncing your own self-interest.

Truth is that from which conscience can be at peace.

If we force ourselves to press on, a surprising thing happens. The fatigue gets worse, up to a point, then suddenly vanishes, and we feel better than before.

On this piano the vibrations of each ‘whole tone’ and of each ‘half tone’ of any octave pass from one to another strictly according to the law of the sacred Heptaparaparshinokh and thus their vibrations, as occurs always and everywhere in the Universe, mutually help one another to evolve or involve.

Everyone is familiar with the phenomenon of feeling more or less alive on different days. Everyone knows on any given day that there are energies slumbering in him which the incitements of that day do not call forth, but which he might display if these were greater. Most of us feel as if a sort of cloud weighed upon us, keeping us below our highest notch of clearness in discernment, sureness in reasoning, or firmness in deciding. Compared with what we ought to be, we are only half awake. Our fires are damped, our drafts are checked. We are making use of only a small part of our possible mental and physical resources. In some persons this sense of being cut off from their rightful resources is extreme, and we then get the formidable neurasthenic and psychasthenic conditions, with life grown into one tissue of impossibilities, that so many medical books describe. Stating the thing broadly, the human individual thus lives far within his limits; he possesses powers of various sorts which he habitually fails to use. He energizes below his maximum, and he behaves below his optimum. In elementary faculty, in co-ordination, in power of inhibition and co ntro l, in every conceivable way, his life is contracted like the field of vision of an hysteric subject — but with less excuse, for the poor hysteric is diseased, while in the rest of us, it is only an inveterate habit — the habit of inferiority to our full self — that is bad.

Every one of those unfortunates [human beings] during the process of existence should constantly sense and be cognisant of the inevitability of his own death as well as of the death of everyone upon whom his eyes or attention rests. Only such a sensation and such a cognisance can now destroy the egoism completely crystallised in them that has swallowed up the whole of their Essence, and also that tendency to hate others which flows from it.

On Sunday, namely the day dedicated to music and song, the learned beings belonging to this group produced every kind of ‘melody’ on various ‘sound-producing instruments,’ as well as with their voices, and then explained to all the other learned beings how the knowledge they wished to transmit was indicated in these works of theirs.

All this teaching given in fragments must be pieced together, and observations and actions must be connected to it. If there is no paste, nothing will stick.

I teach that when it rains the pavement gets wet.

If you meditate and the Devil comes, make the Devil meditate.

I repeat, if the strings of this piano are tuned correctly, and the required vibrations are evoked in the corresponding strings, the resulting blending of vibrations coincides almost exactly, even mathematically, with the law-conformable totality of vibrations of the substances issuing from corresponding cosmic sources, according to the sacred Heptaparaparshinokh.

All this and much else besides is merely a form of identification. Such considering is wholly based upon ‘requirements’. A man inwardly ‘requires’ that everyone should see what a remarkable man he is and that they should constantly give expression to their respect, esteem, and admiration for him, for his intellect, his beauty, his cleverness, his wit, his presence of mind, his originality, and all his other qualities. Requirements in their turn are based on a completely fantastic notion about themselves such as very often occurs with people of very modest appearance. Various writers, actors, musicians, artists, and politicians, for instance, are almost without exception sick people. And what are they suffering from? First of all from an extraordinary opinion of themselves, then from requirements, and then from considering, that is, being ready and prepared beforehand to take offence at lack of understanding and lack of appreciation.

What I said was this: ‘Good. You have a religion, a faith in something. It is very good to have faith in something, whatever it may be, even if you don’t know exactly in whom or in what—even if you have not the least idea of the significance and the possibilities of what you have faith in. To have faith, whether consciously or even quite unconsciously, is very necessary and desirable for every being. ‘And it is desirable because it is by faith, and by faith alone, that there can appear the intensity of being-self-consciousness necessary for everyone, as well as the valuation of one’s own personal being as a particle of everything existing in the Universe. ” ‘But what has the destruction of the existence of another being to do with this faith—above all when you destroy it in the name of its Creator? Does not that “life,” which He created as He created yours, have the same value as your own? ” ‘Making use of your psychic strength and cunning, that is, those data with which our Common Creator has endowed you for the perfecting of your Reason, you take advantage of the psychic weakness of other beings and destroy their existence.

It means nothing if I say yes or no. If I say yes, you cannot verify it, if I say no, you are none the wiser. You have no business to believe me. I ask you to believe nothing that you cannot verify for yourself.

Only he will deserve the name of “man” and can count upon anything prepared for them from above, who has already acquired corresponding data for being able to preserve intact both the wolf and the sheep entrusted to his care.

Most of the contemporary beings acquire in their presence a very strange need to evoke the expression in others of the being-impulse 'astonishment' regarding themselves, or even simply to notice it on the faces of those around.

Sunday “Well then, as I have just told you, they devoted each day of the week to productions in one or another special branch of knowledge—either works of their hands, or some other form of consciously designed being-manifestation “Thus, Monday was devoted to the first group, and this day was called the ‘day of religious and civil ceremonies’, “Tuesday was allotted to the second group, and was called the ‘day of architecture’, “Wednesday was called the ‘day of painting’, “Thursday, the ‘day of religious and popular dances’, “Friday, the ‘day of sculpture’, “Saturday, the ‘day of the mysteries’ or, as it was also called, the ‘day of the theater’, “Sunday, the ‘day of music and song

And so I went with her to the Tambov province. She stayed with the prince's sister, who became very fond of her and took her abroad where they lived for long periods, particularly in Italy. Little by little, under the influence of the prince's sister and the prince himself, she grew interested in their ideas, which soon became an integral part of her essence. She began to work on herself in earnest, and anyone who met her, even if only once, could feel the result of that work.

In fact, this method – of deliberately seeking out stimulation, excitement, even crisis – is one of our favourite human devices for escaping that sense of ‘a cloud weighing upon us’. A depressed housewife goes and buys herself a new hat. A bored man gets drunk. A discontented teenager steals a car or takes his knuckledusters to a a football match. Generally speaking, the greater a person's potentiality for achievement, the greater his or her objection to that feeling of being ‘cut off from one's rightful resources’.

different forms. “The verbal intercourse of these raven-beings of the planet Saturn is somewhat like our own. But their way of speaking is the most beautiful I have ever heard. “It can be compared to the music of our best singers when with all their being they sing in a minor key. “And as for the quality of their relations with each other—I don’t even know how to describe it. It can be known only by existing among them and having the experience oneself. “All that can be said is that these bird-beings have hearts exactly like those of the angels nearest our Endless Maker and Creator. “They exist strictly according to the ninth commandment of our Creator: ‘Consider everything belonging to another as if it were your own, and so treat it.’ “Later, I must certainly tell you in more detail about those three-brained beings who arise and exist on the planet Saturn, since one of my real friends during the whole period of my exile in that solar system was a being of that planet, who had the exterior coating of a raven and whose name was Harharkh.

how there are never crystallized in them any subjective being-convictions formed by their own logical deliberations—as in general is proper to three-brained beings—but instead, only those convictions are crystallized that depend exclusively upon the opinions of others.

On the planet Earth also, three-brained beings are formed, and they too contain all the data for higher being-bodies to be coated in them. “But in ‘strength of spirit’ they do not begin to compare with the beings breeding on the little planet I just mentioned The external coating of the three-brained beings of that planet Earth closely resembles our own, except that their skin is a little slimier than ours Moreover, they have no tails, and their heads are without horns But the worst thing about them is their feet, for they have no hoofs

Contemporary man, owing to certain, almost imperceptible conditions of ordinary life which are firmly rooted in modern civilisation and which seem to have become, so to speak, " inevitable " in daily life, has gradually deviated from the natural type he ought to have represented on account of the sum-total of the influences of place and environment in which he was born and reared and which, under normal conditions, without any artificial impediments, would have indicated by their very nature for each individual the lawful path of his development in that final normal type which he ought to have become even in his preparatory age.   Today, civilisation, with its unlimited scope in extending its influence, has wrenched man from the normal conditions in which he should be living.   It is, of course, true that modern civilisation has opened up for man new and vaster horizons in different technical, mechanical and many other so-called " sciences ", thereby enlarging his world perception, but civilisation has, instead of a balanced rising to a higher degree of development, developed only certain sides of his general being to the detriment of others, while, because of the absence of an harmonious education, certain faculties inherent in man have even been completely destroyed, depriving him in this way of the natural privileges of his type. In other words, by not educating the growing generation harmoniously, this civilisation, which should have been, according to common sense, in all respects like a good mother to man, has withheld from him what she should have given him ; and, it appears, that she has even taken from him the possibility of the progressive and balanced development of a new type, which development would have inevitably taken place if only in the course of time and according to the law of general human progress.   From this follows the indubitable fact, which can be clearly established, that, instead of an accomplished individual type, which historical data would show man to have been some centuries ago and one normally in communion with Nature and the environment generating him, there developed instead a being that was uprooted from the soil, unfit for life, and a stranger to all normal conditions of existence.

I have already said before that sacrifice is necessary. Without sacrifice, nothing can be attained. But if there is anything in the world that people do not understand it is the idea of sacrifice. They think they have to sacrifice something that they have. For example, I once said that they must sacrifice "faith", "tranquility", or "health." All these words must be taken in quotation marks. In actual fact, they have to sacrifice only what they imagine they have, and which in reality they do not have. They must sacrifice their fantasies. This is difficult for them, very difficult. It is much easier to sacrifice real things. Another thing that people must give up is their suffering. It is very difficult also to sacrifice one's suffering. A man will renounce any pleasure you like but he will not give up his suffering. Man is made in such a way that he is never so attached to anything as he is to his suffering. And it is necessary to be free from suffering. No one who is not free from suffering, who has not sacrificed his suffering, can work. Nothing can be attained without suffering but at the same time, one must begin by sacrificing suffering. Now, decipher what this means.

Before going further, I consider it necessary to explain exactly the expression ‘a remarkable man’, since like all expressions for definite notions it is always understood among contemporary people in a relative, that is a purely subjective, sense. For example, a man who does tricks is for many people a remarkable man, but even for them he ceases to be remarkable as soon as they learn the secret of his tricks. As a definition of who may be considered and called remarkable, I will simply say, for the present, to cut a long story short, to what men I personally apply this expression. From my point of view, he can be called a remarkable man who stands out from those around him by the resourcefulness of his mind, and who knows how to be restrained in the manifestations which proceed from his nature, at the same time conducting himself justly and tolerantly towards the weaknesses of others.

Namely, to learn why and in what manner my suffering in this instance could assist in the increase of my labor-ability. The beneficent result for me from this “Inner-World Revolution” occurring within me was that from that moment on I could freely, without influence of partial feelings, again think in my habitual way.

The Christian church, the Christian form of worship, was not invented by the fathers of the church. It was all taken in a ready-made form from Egypt, only not from the Egypt that we know but from one which we do not know. This Egypt was in the same place as the other but it existed much earlier. Only small bits of it survived in historical times, and these bits have been preserved in secret and so well that we do not even know where they have been preserved. It will seem strange to many people when I say that this prehistoric Egypt was Christian many thousands of years before the birth of Christ, that is to say, that its religion was composed of the same principles and ideas that constitute true Christianity. Special schools existed in this prehistoric Egypt which were called 'schools of repetition.' In these schools a public repetition was given on definite days, and in some schools perhaps even every day, of the entire course in a condensed form of the sciences that could be learned at these schools. Sometimes this repetition lasted a week or a month. Thanks to these repetitions people who had passed through this course did not lose their connection with the school and retained in their memory all they had learned. Sometimes they came from very far away simply in order to listen to the repetition and went away feeling their connection with the school. There were special days of the year when the repetitions were particularly complete, when they were carried out with particular solemnity—and these days themselves possessed a symbolical meaning. These 'schools of repetition' were taken as a model for Christian churches—the form of worship in Christian churches almost entirely represents the course of repetition of the science dealing with the universe and man. Individual prayers, hymns, responses, all had their own meaning in this repetition as well as holidays and all religious symbols, though their meaning has been forgotten long ago.

In this connection, it is interesting to remark that I, as well as many others, noticed that when he himself used these sayings in conversation, it always seemed to every hearer that they could not have been more apt or better put, but that if anyone else made use of them, they seemed to be entirely beside the point or improbably nonsense.

As I wrote in the last chapter of the first series, I had given myself my word that during the whole of this time I would do no writing whatsoever, but would only, for the well-being of the most deserving of these subordinate parts, slowly and gently drink down all the bottles of old calvados now at my disposal by the will of fate in the wine-cellar of the Prieuré, and specially provided the century before last by people who understood the true sense of life. Today I have decided, and now I wish—without forcing myself at all, but on the contrary with great pleasure—to set to work at my writing again, of course with the help of all the corresponding forces and also, this time, with the help of the law-conformable cosmic results flowing in from all sides upon my person from the good wishes of the readers of the first series.

In accordance with that definite property of the ‘common integral vibration,’ or the ‘white ray,’ during the process of its transformations about which I have just spoken and which was already familiar to the learned Babylonian painters, each of its ‘center-of-gravity vibrations’ or one of the separate colors of the ‘white ray’ always ensues from another and is transformed into a third, for example, the color orange is obtained from red, and in turn passes into yellow, and so on and so forth.

the human individual thus lives far within his limits; he possesses powers of various sorts which he habitually fails to use. He energizes below his maximum, and he behaves below his optimum. In elementary faculty, in co-ordination, in power of inhibition and control, in every conceivable way, his life is contracted like the field of vision of an hysteric subject – but with less excuse, for the poor hysteric is diseased, while in the rest of us, it is only an inveterate habit – the habit of inferiority to our full self – that is bad.

it was customary in long-past centuries on Earth for every man bold enough to aspire to the right to be considered by others and to consider himself a “conscious thinker” to be instructed, while still in the early years of his responsible existence, that man has two kinds of mentation one kind, mentation by thought, expressed by words always possessing a relative meaning, and another kind, proper to all animals as well as to man, which I would call “mentation by form.” The second kind of mentation, that is, “mentation by form”—through which, by the way, the exact meaning of all writing should be perceived and then assimilated after conscious confrontation with information previously acquired—is determined in people by the conditions of geographical locality, climate, time, and in general the whole environment in which they have arisen and in which their existence has flowed up to adulthood. Thus, in the brains of people of different races living in different geographical localities under different conditions, there arise in regard to one and the same thing or idea quite different independent forms, which during the flow of associations evoke in their being a definite sensation giving rise to a definite picturing, and this picturing is expressed by some word or other that serves only for its outer subjective expression. That is why each word for the same thing or idea almost always acquires for people of different geographical localities and races a quite specific and entirely different so to say “inner content.” In other words, if in the “presence” of a man who has arisen and grown up in a given locality a certain “form” has been fixed as a result of specific local influences and impressions, this “form” evokes in him by association the sensation of a definite “inner content,” and consequently a definite picturing or concept, for the expression of which he uses some word that has become habitual and, as I said, subjective to him, but the hearer of that word—in whose being, owing to the different conditions of his arising and growth, a form with a different “inner content” has been fixed for the given word—will always perceive and infallibly understand that word in quite another sense.

When Peters first came to the apartment, he looked tired – ‘I have never seen anyone look so tired.’ He made an effort that drained him even further, transmitting vitality to Peters. And then, within fifteen minutes, was completely renewed and refreshed. The implication seems clear. Gurdjieff himself had forgotten that he had the power to renew his own energies, until the exhaustion of Fritz Peters forced him to make an enormous effort. Before Peters came, Gurdjieff had been taking his own fatigue for granted, as something inevitable. Pouring energy into Peters reminded him that he had the power to somehow call upon vital energy. This is why he told Peters that this was a fortunate meeting for both of them. This story enables us to see precisely why Kenneth Walker's wife thought Gurdjieff a magician.

Having said all this to my friend, the priest Abdil, I went on: ‘And the most deplorable thing is that every man who destroys the existence of other beings in honor of his revered idols does so with all his heart, convinced beyond any doubt that he is doing a “good deed.” ‘If any one of them should become aware that in destroying the existence of another being he is not only committing an evil deed against the true God and every real saint, but is even causing them, in their essence, sorrow and grief that there should exist in the Great Universe such monsters made “in the image of God,” who can manifest themselves so ruthlessly and without conscience toward other creatures of our Common Father—I repeat, if any one of them should become aware of this, he would certainly agree with all his heart never again to destroy the existence of beings of other forms for sacrificial offerings.

Before going on with this first chapter, which serves as an introduction to all that I plan to write, I wish to inform your so-called “pure waking consciousness” of the fact that, in the chapters following this warning, I shall expound my thoughts intentionally in such a sequence and with such logical confrontation that the essence of certain real ideas may pass automatically from this “waking consciousness,” which most people in their ignorance mistake for the real consciousness, but which I affirm and experimentally prove is the fictitious one, into what you call the “subconscious”— which in my opinion ought to be the real human consciousness—in order that these concepts may mechanically bring about by themselves that transformation which in general should proceed in the common presence of a man and give him, by means of his own active mentation, the results proper to him as a man and not merely as a one- or two-brained animal I decided to do this without fail so that this introductory chapter, intended as I have already said to awaken your consciousness, may fully justify its purpose and, reaching not only your, in my opinion, “fictitious consciousness” but also your real consciousness, that is to say, what you call your “subconscious,” may compel you for the first time to reflect actively. In

During the latter three centuries the process itself of their existence has become such that in the presences of most of them during their daily existence those 'being-confrontative-associations' almost no longer arise, which usually proceed in three-brained beings thanks to every kind of new perception, and from which alone can data be crystallized in the common presences of three-brained beings for their own individuality. 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 better sleep, 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 three-brained beings, called the 'need-for-real-perceptions.

During these uninterrupted peregrinations of mine from place to place, and almost continuous and intense reflection about this, I at last formed a preliminary plan in my mind.   Liquidating all my affairs and mobilizing all my material and other possibilities, I began to collect all kinds of written literature and oral information, still surviving among certain Asiatic peoples, about that branch of science, which was highly developed in ancient times and called " Mehkeness ", a name signifying the " taking away-of-responsibility ", and of which contemporary civilisation knows but an insignificant portion under the name of " hypnotism ", while all the literature extant upon the subject was already as familiar to me as my own five fingers.   Collecting all I could, I went to a certain Dervish monastery, situated likewise in Central Asia and where I had already stayed before, and, settling down there, I devoted myself wholly to the study of the material in my possession.   After two years of thorough theoretical study of this branch of science, when it became necessary to verify practically certain indispensable details, not as yet sufficiently elucidated by me in theory, of the mechanism of the functioning of man's subconscious sphere, I began to give myself out to be a " healer " of all kinds of vices and to apply the results of my theoretical studies to them, affording them at the same time, of course, real relief.   This continued to be my exclusive preoccupation and manifestation for four or five years in accordance with the essential oath imposed by my task, which consisted in rendering conscientious aid to sufferers, in never using my knowledge and practical power in that domain of science except for the sake of my investigations, and never for personal or egotistical ends, I not only arrived at unprecedented practical results without equal in our day, but also elucidated almost everything necessary for me.   In a short time, I discovered many details which might contribute to the solution of the same cardinal question, as well as many secondary facts, the existence of which I had scarcely suspected.   At the same time, I also became convinced that the greater number of minor details necessary for the final elucidation of this question must be sought not only in the sphere of man's subconscious mentation, but in various aspects of the manifestations in his state of waking consciousness.   After establishing this definitely, thoughts again began from time to time to " swarm " in my mind, as they had done years ago, sometimes automatically, sometimes directed by my consciousness,—thoughts as to the means of adapting myself now to the conditions of ordinary life about me with a view to elucidating finally and infallibly this question, which obviously had become a lasting and inseparable part of my Being.   This time my reflections, which recurred periodically during the two years of my wanderings on the continents of Asia, Europe and Africa, resulted in a decision to make use of my exceptional, for the modern man, knowledge of the so-called " supernatural sciences ", as well as of my skill in producing different " tricks " in the domain of these so-called " sciences ", and to give myself out to be, in these pseudo-scientific domains, a so-called " professor-instructor ".

The cause of every anomaly can be found in woman.