Abstract: Chartres Cathedral is a bridge joining ancient knowledge with the Christian world. It’s an embodiment of "esoteric Christianity," a term Gurdjieff himself used to describe his teaching. Thanks to insight provided by Agnes Hidveghy in her talk at the 2004 A&E Conference and a rich Roman Catholic upbringing, when we viewed Chartres after the Conference, I had an epiphany which set off a chain reaction linking many concepts which I had been studying separately, and which ultimately gave for me indubitable meaning to some fundamental sacramental elements of the Christian Church, and insight into our three bodies. In this talk, I will discuss highlights of these links, among them:

• Several examples of esoteric Christianity in Chartres and their link with Gurdjieff's teaching.

• Depictions of multiple bodies in art.

• Maps of Cosmic Law for inner development which incorporate multiple bodies.

• The relevance of the meridian system to the bodies, to certain often overlooked elements found in the Cathedral, and to Gurdjieff location exercises.

• The relevance of tone retention in the music of Chartres Cathedral to sensation retention in Gurdjieff location exercises.

• The relationship of certain orthodox prayers and the "Sign of the Cross" to Self-remembering.

 

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I AWAKENING TO ESOTERIC ART

 

II AWAKENING THROUGH ESOTERIC ART

 

III OUR THREE ‘BODIES’

 

IV OUR ETHERIC BODY (PERSONALITY, YOGA AND GURDJIEFF)

 

VI CHARTRES CATHEDRAL AND MUSIC

 

VII SRM EXERCISES

 

I’d like to ask your help. I’ve been working on this paper for a year. It’s just a little longer than some, but if you bear with me, I promise to make it worth your while. No one here has seen it all yet. Afterwards, please take a copy of the entire paper with many color images and lots more information than I can give in this talk.

I AWAKENING TO ESOTERIC ART

The work of a great many people precedes this paper and it could not have been written without it. The author is also indebted to Dr. Keith Buzzell, Agnes Hidveghy, and Toddy Smyth for their insights and guidance.

 

Gurdjieff begins Beelzebub’s Tales:

 “AMONG other convictions formed in my common presence during my responsible, peculiarly composed life, there is one such also--an indubitable conviction--that always and everywhere on the earth, among people of every degree of development of understanding and of every form of manifestation of the factors which engender in their individuality all kinds of ideals, there is acquired the tendency, when beginning anything new, unfailingly to pronounce aloud or, if not aloud, at least mentally, that definite utterance understandable to every even quite illiterate person, which in different epochs has been formulated variously and in our day is formulated in the following words:  "In the name of the Father and of the Son and in the name of the Holy Ghost, Amen."”

 

On page 751, Gurdjieff gives the related concise  formulation:

 “ . . . the higher blends with the lower in order to actualize the middle ...”

 

When I first saw the Mary window in Chartres Cathedral, I felt an electric shock, perhaps something akin to what Gurdjieff must have felt when he saw the map of pre-sand Egypt.

 

"The priest went to a chest and took out a roll of parchment. When he unrolled it I could not at first make out what it was, but when I looked at it more closely . . . My God! What I experienced at that moment! I shall never forget it. I was seized with violent trembling, which was all the more violent because I was inwardly trying to restrain myself and not show my excitement. What I saw—was it not precisely what I had spent long months of sleepless nights thinking about! It was a map of what is called 'pre-sand Egypt'.” [Meetings P101]

 

Because of what I thought I saw in the Mary window, I immediately looked for something in a Christ window, and there it was! I then knew that I had before me a key to the esoteric Christianity hidden in Catholicism which had eluded me as a child and young adult.

 

Both windows comprise one octave. The Mary window has a definite split between steps 3 and 5, the symbolic division between the material and spiritual worlds. As expected, the Christ window has no such split.

 

ss MARY WINDOW

Here is what stained glass artist Sarah Hall says: "Another Romanesque Mary is found in Chartres Cathedral. This is perhaps the best known window in the world. Notre Dame de la Belle Verriere, was created in the 12th Century, and as an indication of its popularity, it was rescued by the devout people of Chartres when the original [wooden] Romanesque cathedral went up in flames. It was subsequently installed in the choir of the new [stone] Cathedral at Chartres. and because the new window opening was larger, 13th-Century angels were placed around the original 12th-Century piece."

 The monumental central image of Mary in this window measures seven feet tall, and both she and the Christ Child on her lap are richly symbolic. Mary, as the Queen of Heaven, sits on a throne, and the infant Christ in her lap raises his right hand in blessing, while his left holds a book showing a quotation from Isaiah, "Every valley shall be filled." Although the figures are formal, they are beautiful. The ethereal quality of the coloration of this window has never been duplicated. It uses a luminous and unbelievable blue, set off by ruby and rose-colored glass. Even today, when printed and televised images infuse every aspect of our lives, viewing the window is a spectacular and transcendent experience; imagine its effect in the Middle Ages."

 

The fire was in 1194. Only "the large windows at the west end" [including the Christ windows] and this window  were saved. The modern location of the Mary window (Bay 14), is just above the right cross member, makes a straight line through the original location of the altar (now in the choir) over to just above the left cross member, the site of the chapel of the "Black Virgin".

 

 

The Mary and Christ windows represent what we call the Kesdjan and Soul bodies, also called the 'Emotional' and 'Higher Intellectual' bodies. I do not doubt that Gurdjieff, Orage, Willem Nyland, and many others whom we know studied with Gurdjieff in France, must have also seen these windows.

 

Let’s take a closer look:

 

Before describing them in more detail and explaining how I ken them, let me paint a picture of what it must have been like for a member of the 'faithful' to attend Mass in Chartres.

 

The cathedral itself represents a step-down in the Ray of Creation. It blends the old world of astrological symbols, a dolmen, a sacred well, telluric geological forces, a labyrinth, and an early Christian icon of Mary and Child, with a new world of technology: stained glass windows with Mary and her Son, buttressed stone construction, pipe organ, polyphonic music, and, by 12thC standards, a modern liturgy.

 

A churchgoer would be expected to learn many things by sermons, such as: the new testament gospels, the lives of the saints, sayings of Jesus, and parables of Jesus.

 

SHe would know all about the 7 days of creation, 7 Holy Days of Obligation to go to Mass and receive Sacraments: Sunday, Christmas, Circumcision, Ash Wednesday, Good Friday, Easter, Ascension, Pentecost, and All Saints. Also the 7 Sacraments as rites of passage: Baptism, Confession, Communion, Confirmation, Matrimony, Holy Orders, Extreme Unction. For Confession, SHe would be able to recite and understand the 7 Deadly Sins and their Contrary Virtues: Humility against pride, kindness against envy, abstinence against gluttony, chastity against lust, patience against anger, generosity against greed, diligence against sloth.

 

SHe would know the The Seven Heavenly Virtues: faith, hope, charity, fortitude, justice, temperance, prudence, and the Seven Corporal Works of Mercy: feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, give shelter to strangers, clothe the naked, visit the sick, minister to prisoners, and bury the dead.

 

SHe would have heard of the 7 sorrows of Mary, and recognize them in the art of the cathedral: the prophecy of Simeon, the flight into Egypt, the loss of the Child Jesus in the temple, the meeting of Jesus and Mary on the Way of the Cross, the Crucifixion, the taking down of the Body of Jesus from the Cross, and the burial of Jesus.

 

As a member of the 'faithful', a churchgoer would also be expected to believe many things, such as the typical miracles of Jesus like "the wedding feast at Cana", "feeding the multitude", "curing the sick", "raising Lazarus from the dead", etc. SHe would believe the dogma that Jesus is God, that Mary, like Jesus, was conceived 'immaculately' (more about this later), the doctrines of 'original sin', 'mortal and venial sins', 'Jesus' redemption of sin',  indulgences, limbo, purgatory, heaven, hell, 'the intercession of the saints' in our lives, etc.

 

SHe would be expected to do many things: pay a tithe, genuflect, make the sign of the cross, beat the breast, respond correctly to the Mass and litanies, participate in processions, recite the Nicene Creed, the Kyrie Eleison, the Gloria in Excelsis Deo, the Pater Noster, the Ave Maria, the Doxology, and so forth. SHe would not be encouraged to dance!

 

The Mass was 'said' in the secret priesthood language of Church latin. The priest, assisted by male acolytes, blended an unchanging sequence of prayers and readings with a daily changing set of Biblical tracts. A High Mass would be mostly sung by priest and choir. Liturgical music incorporated recent innovations, unknown in the secular world of most parishioners: Gregorian chant, polyphony, a capella choirs, and organ music.

 

Entering the doors of the church, SHe would leave outside it a culture of disease and early death, with its beliefs of magic, masons, alchemy, tarot, devils, angels, witches, werewolves, vampires, ghosts, and its entertainments of popular songs, historical ballads, mystery plays and puppet shows.

 

With this hypnotic blend of superstition, astonishing beliefs and dogma laundry lists stewing in her unconscious, the overriding contract was that a 'good' person, who did and believed what SHe was told by the church would go to not to hell when SHe died, but (eventually, by passing through Purgatory for a difficult to determine length of time) to heaven, where SHe would be reunited with God, and be HEALTHY and HAPPY, which probably seemed like a lot to hope for in those days.

 

Let us pause to briefly contrast this with Gurdjieff's system, in which we are encouraged to verify for ourselves and not simply believe what we are told, but that we can 'help God' and possibly reunite with God. We are guided by 'strivings' and 'aphorisms', and learn to sense ourselves, self-re-member, create or uncover an "I", to 'intentionally suffer' and ‘consciously labor’. To assist us, we receive special music, participate in movements, and our Purgatory seems to have some similarity to that of Catholicism, except that we think it's here and Catholics do not. Our cathedral (and laboratory) is our own organism, and our goal is to achieve ‘love of mankind’ while building higher being bodies with the attributes of conscientiousness, consciousness, being, and will.

Let’s take a closer look:

II AWAKENING THROUGH ESOTERIC ART

The Mary and Christ Windows at Chartres Cathedral

 

[ISM P102]

What is the relation of the teaching you are expounding to Christianity as we know it?" asked somebody present.

"I do not know what you know about Christianity," answered Gurdjieff, emphasizing this word. "It would be necessary to talk a great deal and to talk for a long time in order to make clear what you understand by this term. But for the benefit of those who know already, I will say that, if you like, this is esoteric Christianity. We will talk in due course about the meaning of these words. At present we will continue to discuss our questions.”

 

Whereas earlier in our lives we may have been preoccupied with the architecture of the cathedral, with it's flying buttresses, spires, transepts, apses, vaulted ceilings, labyrinth, crypt, etc., all of which we may take as a ladder map representing the physical body as in the Temple of Luxor in Egypt, or the icon of Christ suffering on the cross, today we are more interested in the internal message of its art.

 

 

In particular, Chartres' Mary window instructs me in the nature of my Emotional Body; that it bridges the natural and spiritual worlds within me. It's a symbol within a symbol. The upper part, the Madonna and Child, is an icon associated with Christianity since the fourth century. The lower part depicts New Testament scenes; some with Mary. Taken together, however, something new and exciting is conveyed.

 

ss MARY AND JESUS

For us to understand the teaching embodied in the upper part, we must first ask "What is the age of the Child on Mary's lap?" This is not the infant of the nativity scenes. I see a child half as tall as her, of no less than 9 years, and perhaps as old as 12 years, the age He was reported to be when found with the teachers in the Temple. Contemporary viewers of this window would have known from this somewhat curious story that Jesus was a precocious young man; already something of a teacher, or at least a very good student:

 

 

[Luke 2:41-52 4]

His parents went every year to Jerusalem at the feast of the Passover. When he was twelve years old, they went up to Jerusalem according to the custom of the feast, and when they had fulfilled the days, as they were returning, the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem. Joseph and his mother didn’t know it, but supposing him to be in the company, they went a day’s journey, and they looked for him among their relatives and acquaintances. When they didn’t find him, they returned to Jerusalem, looking for him. It happened after three days they found him in the temple, sitting in the midst of the elders, both listening to them, and asking them questions. All who heard him were amazed at his understanding and his answers. When they saw him, they were astonished, and his mother said to him, “Son, why have you treated us this way? Behold, your father and I were anxiously looking for you.” He said to them, “Why were you looking for me? Didn’t you know that I must be in my Father’s house?” They didn’t understand the saying which he spoke to them. And he went down with them, and came to Nazareth. He was subject to them, and his mother kept all these sayings in her heart. And Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and men."

 

If I take the typical nativity scene, with Joseph, Mary, and Jesus, to symbolize the birth of an “I”, or RE of my Soul body, then the Child on Mary's lap in the window, Who is mature and nearly ready to leave the support of His mother, represents something very different, perhaps a mature “I”.

 

He is a Child blessing us with his right hand, Who in his left has something to teach. It reads: "Omnis vallis implebitur" ("Every valley shall be filled."). This is Luke quoting John the Baptist quoting the Hebrew prophet Isaiah, and which Luke later has Jesus echo in his gospel as "For whoever exalts himself shall be abased; and he that humbles himself shall be exalted." (Luke 14:11) This little bit held up by Jesus in the window, is to remind us of the entire quote.

 

Here is the Greek translation of the Hebrew text of Isaiah: "The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make straight the paths of our God.  Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be brought low:  and all the crooked ways shall become straight, and the rough places plains.  And the glory of the Lord shall appear, and all flesh shall see the salvation of God."  

 

What is this quotation about, and why is it here? To politically establish that Jesus is the 'Lord' of Isaia’s predictions, or to advise the faithful to live a righteous life, but there must be esoteric meanings. One meaning may refer to equalizing the growth stages of the emotional and soul bodies, or is the made-straight ‘way of the Lord’ the route by which His Endlessness appears in our Purgatory? Another meaning may refer to straightening the spine, which assists the flow of energy to the brain, where it may be used for attention, perhaps Divine Attention, to coat higher being bodies through Being Partdolg Duty, or to flow down the front of the body to heal its organs. But I have another meaning in mind:

 

Children and infants on their mother's laps do not ordinarily suffer, but the Child on Mary's lap in the window is of a conscientious age; it represents for me the Soul Body at MI-FA, when it must 'go out on its own' into the world to labor and suffer.

After this talk of making the crooked straight, perhaps this would be a good time to mention what seems like a deterioration: that Mary's head in the window was originally vertical, as in traditional icons; it was 'restored' (and tilted) in 1906. Perhaps this was intended to suggest an attitude that she is listening to us.

 

 

 

ssTHE LAWS OF SEVEN AND THREE IN THE WINDOW

Perhaps the 7 foot Madonna and Child is the only part of the window that is original. Regardless, the entire 20 foot window comprises one octave. The first three levels of the window contains two episodes in Christ’s life. They seem be about the DO RE MI of the food octave in our Physical Body (food, water and air), but they act as a metaphor for the DO RE MI of our Emotional (Kesdjan) Body! What a wonderful amazing complex and yet simple thing the designer did! Whoever did this was surely with an esoteric school. Here are the eight levels:

ss DO RE MI

FOOD OCTAVE, FIRST BODY INTERPRETATION:

DO      H1536-H768  Triad of Power; of the Three Temptations of Christ by the Devil:

In the Desert: If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become bread."

On Top of the Temple: "Jump and God’s angels will save you!”

On the Mountain Top: “All this will be yours if you worship me."

This triad is an appeal to seize power: power over involutionary Nature (defying physical laws such as gravity), power over evolutionary Nature (stones to food), and power over world affairs.

 

Lk 4:1-13

“Filled with the Holy Spirit, Jesus returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the desert for forty days to be tempted by the devil. He ate nothing during those days, and when they were over he was hungry. The devil said to him, "If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become bread." Jesus answered him, "It is written, 'One does not live by bread alone.'" Then he took him up and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in a single instant. The devil said to him, "I shall give to you all this power and their glory; for it has been handed over to me, and I may give it to whomever I wish. All this will be yours if you worship me." Jesus said to him in reply, "You shall worship the Lord, your God, and him alone shall you serve." Then he led him to Jerusalem, made him stand ore the parapet of the temple and said to him, "If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from here, for it is written: 'He will command his angels concerning you, to guard you,' and: 'With their hands they will support you, lest you dash your foot against a stone.'" Jesus said to him in reply, "It also says, 'You shall not put the Lord, your God, to the test.'" When the devil had finished every temptation, he departed from him for a time.”

 

In the temptations, 'bread into stones', 'dashing your foot against a stone', and the 'mountain', there is a loose association with solid matter; earth’; food. a similarity to the DO of the food octave, that is, solid matter. These temptations seem to be about power, not sex, which is consistent with what I think Jesus' personality type may have been: a physical type, who is unconditionally loving, quick to anger, and quick to forgive. By resisting temptation, Christ stimulated the growth of His Conscience. I associate Conscience with my Emotional Body.

 

RE      H384   Triad of Life (Work, Friends, Family)

Followed by his disciples, Christ goes to Cana for the well-known wedding feast. Mary speaks to Christ, "They have no wine." She apparently thought he could do something about it.

 

Evidently hoping for a good time, Christ is asked by Mary to solve someone else’s problem. He struggles with Mary and says, "What is that to me? My time has not yet come." This level concerns liquid matter, as in RE of the food octave. I take the struggle as involving Conscience, still concerned at this level with material matters.

 

ss  CHIEF STEWARD

MI       H192   Triad of Faith (Unconditional, Faithful Servant, Involutional/Evolutional)

Mary speaks to the waiters, "Do whatever he tells you." Christ changes water into wine. The chief steward is shown taking wine to the married couple, and says "You have saved the best for last." The steward, representing the Laws of Nature, cannot conceive of a miracle, but the couple do know and have a changed faith and perhaps a changed love.”

 

Mary expects that her Son will not refuse her. She tells the waiters to assist, and Christ exhibits miraculous power for his mother, for the bridal family, for the wedding guests; FOR OTHERS, NOT HIMSELF. The chief steward digests his impressions of the wine, and expresses a conclusion (which, while possibly inspirational, is not quite correct). Note that this level concerns air, which is necessary to discern water from wine, and to discern the quality of good wine from bad. Christ's action shows a resolution of His struggle with Conscience with respect to material matters. We are told that this is Christ's first public miracle. Mary's role was to make him aware of the needs of others, and 'go public' with His ability to help them physically, which, of course, leads to His positive effects on others, and suffering to himself.

 

Changing water into wine has always seemed to me like a parlor trick; somewhat beneath a mature 'Son of God', which forces me to look for an esoteric meaning. Jesus later laments that people want a show: "Unless you see signs and wonders, you do not believe."

 

(While Jesus has resolved his minor struggle with Mary, He has exposed Himself as a miracle worker, which has the potential to attract all sorts of people, some of whom may have destructive intent.) The third level is concerned with air, for air is necessary for the waiters, chief steward, and guests to determine that what was water is now wine. Air is further necessary for the chief steward to determine that the “new wine” (which is a metaphor picked up by St. Paul) is superior to that which was already drunk. By introducing Gurdjieff’s ideas, perhaps we can understand that the miracle refers to the transformation of sexual energy into attention, and that it is “superior wine” when we direct this attention in ways that build Kesdjan and Higher Being Bodies; that is, when “I Am”. Finally, we should note that the DO RE MI of the food octave is concerned with the digestion of physical food, and the DO RE MI of the emotional body depicted in the Mary Window is allegorical for both the food and air octaves. It is concerned with the development of something which, once it is uncovered, exists partly as material and partly as energetic fields.

 

 ss  MARY WINDOW

FA: “H96” (ions)  Angels support the throne of Mary and the Christ-child. At this point, it is clear we are dealing with the Emotional (Kesdjan) Body, and not the Physical.

 

We have left the mass-based world. Representative entities (angels) from the non-mass world have entered FROM OUTSIDE the Kesdjan body. They keep the worlds separated, but they also act as a binder to keep the Kesdjan body whole and intact. They 'keep body and soul together'. From here on, we are in a world of energy and fields. Mother and Child represent our Kesdjan and Soul bodies.

 

What are these angels? Where is my wish? Where is the Attention of His Endlessness? Where is remorse?

 

THE LAW OF THREE (SO LA SI):

SO: Mary's lower body. Her physical center.

 

This is the platform from which we Aspire to something higher, and to ask for it.

 

In the physical body, this would be the location of the generator of sexual energy, but it represents here the capacity to use sexual energy for spiritual growth or not, guided by CONSCIENCE at the FIFTH STOPINDER.

 

LA: Mary's mid-body and figure of Jesus. Her emotional center.

 

In the physical body, this would be the mother's internal organs, solar plexus and heart; the source of physical and emotional nourishment for the child, but it also represents here that Kesdjan nourishes the childhood of the Soul.

 

SI: Mary's upper body. Her intellectual center.

 

In the physical body, this would be the neck and head, but it represents here the location where the Inspiration which comes from above is realized.

 

DO: A Dove representing the Holy Spirit radiates three rays from its beak, the symbolic source of the silent Word of God, which contains all the potential of creation.

 

Symbolizes the entry of the Attention of His Endlessness', in the form of Inspiration (and possibly Wisdom) into the Kesdjan Body, which is an echo of the entry into the material universe, of the Ray of Creation which emanates from His Endlessness as Okidanokh, and which splits into three forces upon entering into a cosmic unit.

 

[John 1:1-14]

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.  The same was in the beginning with God.  All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.  In him was life; and the life was the light of men.  And the light shone in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.  There was a man sent from God, whose name was John.  The same came for a witness, to bear witness of the Light, that all men through him might believe.  He was not that Light, but was sent to bear witness of that Light.  That was the true Light, which lights every man that cometh into the world.  He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not.  But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.  And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth."

 

ssMARY WINDOW, AS DO RE MI OF THE EMOTIONAL BODY:

Another interpretation of the Mary Window, ties the DO RE MI to Faith, Hope and Love; the further significance of which will be seen later in a discussion about Sacred Being Impulses:

 

DO      H192   The devil exhibits possible faith in Christ and tempts Christ’s faith in himself: that he could actually produce bread from stone; that his angels would bear him up if he jumped; that he might be tempted by worldly possessions and power.

 

RE      H96     Jesus hopes to have a good time at the wedding; the new-married couple hope to have a happy life together, or at least a happy wedding; Mary hopes that her Son will bail out the embarrassed family, who have run out of wine. Jesus hopes to not have to reveal his power over Nature.

 

MI       H48     Triad of Love (Unconditional Love, Charitable Love, Married Love)

Charitable acts: Mary encourages Jesus to ‘go public’, perhaps realizing her son’s and her life will never be private again; Jesus’ miracle is for the guests and ushers in his public life; for others, not himself.

 

FA       H24     The angels of the fourth level liberate Mary and Jesus from earthly concerns.

 

SO       H12     Mary and Jesus were human, and so are able to empathize with us in our human condition.

 

LA    H6    The Child Jesus on Mary’s lap holds a recipe for the development of Conscience; to “make straight the paths of our God.  Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be brought low: and all the crooked ways shall become straight, and the rough places plains.” That is: “to walk the straight and narrow”. Webster defines conscientiousness as “the sense or consciousness of the moral goodness or blameworthiness of one's own conduct, intentions, or character together with a feeling of obligation to do right or be good b : a faculty, power, or principle enjoining good acts c : the part of the superego in psychoanalysis that transmits commands and admonitions to the ego. Also:“Sensitive regard for fairness or justice.”

 

SI        Individuality: The angel Gabriel’s “Blessed are you among women,” to Mary. “God so loved the world, that he send his only-begotten Son etc.” Some caution is necessary here: Does this characteristic belong instead to the Soul Body?

 

DO      The beak of the Paraclete Dove, symbolizing the Holy Spirit, emanates the silent potent Theomertmalogos; the Word of God shown splitting into three rays, and available to all who are able to receive it.

 

Sound judgement; judiciousness

 

In the Church, life is marked by 7 year rites of passage, Birth (Baptism), Age of Reason (First Holy Communion),  Puberty (Confirmation), Marriage, Holy Orders, and Last Rites.

ss THE CHRIST WINDOW, IN BRIEF:

Actually, there are three Christ windows, placed below the big rose window on the West Façade (the front entrance). These windows show the passion, childhood, and lineage of Jesus, with scenes from the new testament, old testament, and Last Judgement, and which represent the present, past, and future, or psychologically, the physical, emotional and intellectual worlds.

 

These windows may have been featured in the wooden cathedral of 1150, and, along with the Mary window, were the few that were saved from the fire which destroyed it. 

The Christ Window is on the West Façade under the Rose. Its eight steps show the great kings of Judah on a tree-of-life growing from Adam’s rib in the bottom pane to Christ presiding over the Last Judgement in the top pane. This is a scene from John’s surreal Book of Revelations Chapter 22, symbolizing the New Jerusalem and immortality. The idea is tied up with the tree-of-life from the Garden of Eden, the fall of man and Original Sin, Christ’s redemption of mankind as the Paschal Lamb, and His role as intermediating Good Shepherd between God and man, providing ‘food’ coming directly from God.

 

For me, the third window is not too artistic, but it’s most interesting feature is that, while it refers to the physical lineage of Jesus (echoing the physical body), it exists homogeneously and entirely in the vibrational world, but with no transition, as found in the Mary window. This is what first struck me. Of course this is only half-right, with respect to Gurdjieff’s conception (because all octaves must have a MI-FA injection).

 

Now, it's one thing to have an inspirational teaching, but another to have a way to evaluate your progress in it.

 

For this, we need maps.

 

 

III OUR THREE ‘BODIES’

 ss CHAGALL

“Before we can move in any direction, we must know where we are and where we have come from.” A Wish To Be  - Cecil Lewis

 

The value of a map is that it can give us a relative location of where we are within a larger whole, and the ladder metaphor is one form of a map that can indicate stages of growth. Just as counting distance with the rungs of a ladder can give us our absolute location with respect to such landmarks as the ground and the objective of our climbing, the ladder metaphor can give us our location with respect to internal landmarks which help us explore our own terra incognita. We have received landmarks as gifts, such as in Sacred Art, in All And Everything, by inspiration from outside ourselves and through our own Work on ourselves.

 

The well-known analogy of the steps of a major scale to the steps of digestion is an example of a ladder map. Each step is of a higher vibratory rate, according to definite principles.

 

ss BLAKE

In the Old Testament, Jacob saw angels ascending and descending on a ‘ladder’ between earth and heaven, which may remind us of Gurdjieff's Ray of Creation, and which Wiliam Blake painted as a stairway.

 

 

 

The term angel comes from the Greek angelos, or messenger."He dreamed that there was a ladder set up on the earth and the top of it reached to heaven; and behold, the angels of God were ascending and descending on it!" (Genesis 28:12). Jacob's vision tells of the meeting between heaven and earth, which is a fundamental theme of Chartres' Mary window, which also has angels at the juncture between the material and physical worlds. The second time Jacob saw an angel, he wrestled with it all night long, which signifies a test of conscience for me. The fifth stopinder is the place where we struggle the most according to Gurdjieff.  I associate the fifth stopinder of the emotional body with Conscience, where temptation is tested. Temptation is a feature of the first three panels of the Mary window, and it also figures, in panel six, into Jesus' struggle with Mary, his angelic mother (where he is tempted to keep his abilities under wraps). By panel eight, in level three of the window, he has resolved His struggle. There seems to be a clue in this that each step of our emotional body may involve struggle with conscience.

 

Jacob's ladder is interesting, but it does not give us as much detail as Gurdjieff does. While he does not tell us what he saw on the map of pre-sand Egypt, in All & Everything he has described for us such landmarks as the digestive stages of food in the physical body, the creation of or uncovering of the 'pilot of our spaceship', our "I", and the nature of other strivings at particular stages of growth. He has also hinted at the relationship between the successive steps of the ladder, and their relationship to the rungs of our three parallel ladders.

 

With respect to Work on ourselves, the wrinkle is that it is a striving both to locate and to develop. Without our personal effort, our second and third bodies are neither complete, nor functionally contiguous. In order to grow, we must actively connect the unconnected parts and become resonant to and digest materials of increasingly higher vibrations, with one product of each stage of development being an esoteric 'organ', something which stays with us, or as Gurdjieff puts it, something is 'coated', something which continues to process material for the functioning of the body.

 

Gurdjieff has given us a number of facts about our Three Body Ladder Map:

• each body has seven stages of 'digestion', each corresponding to successively higher rates of vibration
• each body starts with 'food' having successively higher rates of vibration, and successively less density
• the successively higher rates of vibration are in a relationship similar to those of a scale in music, DO RE MI FA SO LA SI DO (there is some doubt whether this scale corresponds exactly or metaphorically
• while digestion in each body starts with a ‘being food’, it has an important transition at the MI-FA interval where a second ‘food’ comes in from outside the body to continue the process of digestion
• likewise, the SI-DO interval requires ‘something’, but from inside the body, determined by a disharmony at SO
• thus, the development of each body is divided into a lower and an upper stage: DO-RE-MI-FA and SO-LA-SI-DO
• the rates of vibration of the stages of one body overlap with some of those of one other body
• there may be common vibration rates between the levels of adjacent bodies, or not…
• digestion of three being foods proceeds in the physical, emotional and soul bodies; each with its own food
• our teachers have a specific responsibility to instruct us in how to develop
• we are responsible for creating the bodies in which the special faculties can function
• self-perfection continues in ‘Purgatory’
• His Endlessness supplies something to us at crucial levels of our development

Gurdjieff also has given us important landmarks, particularly those which we can do something about developing, and told us their relative locations.

THREE BODY MAPS

 

In these maps, frequency increases from bottom to top.

Density decreases from bottom to top.

1 ss

If we combine the lower (DO-RE-MI-FA) and upper (SO-LA-SI-DO) parts of each body, we can show the three octaves in simple map like this:

 

 

 

2 ss

The line where the material and vibrational worlds meet, dividing heaven and earth, spirit and matter, can be found throughout sacred art. Above this line, materiality may be defined by ‘hydrogen’ numbers 48 to 6; the levels where  our Upper Kesdjan Body and Higher Being Body reside. Dr. Buzzell discusses electromagnetic fields in Perspectives, but I believe we also have magnetic, biomagnetic, and electric fields associated with the body, and that they may interact within us and between us. When these fields are put into motion by the body, electromagnetic fields are the result, for example, with blood flow. (Ampere’s Law: “The magnetic field in space around an electric current is proportional to the electric current which serves as its source, just as the electric field in space is proportional to the charge which serves as its source.”)

 

 

 

 

 

3 ss

After realizing the significance of the Mary window, I was reminded of Luke’s Nativity tableau, in which Joseph, Mary and Jesus can be interpreted as our three bodies. The Soul body is incomplete, because the infant Jesus is dependent on Mary. Several other triads are depicted: three wise men; myrrh, frankincense, and gold; ass, bull, camel. For me, the wise men signify the SOL LA SI of the physical body; and their gifts are offered in service to the emotional and soul bodies, that is, they stand for ‘thoughts’, ‘feelings’, and ‘sex energy’, which are enervated by impressions, images, and Attention. The vignette is an image which captures the condition where the Physical Body is mature (LA24), the Emotional Body has crossed MI48 to FA24, and the Soul Body is new-born (RE24). (this makes it a kind of pun, because H24 is the level of images.)

 

 

Head (third brain)             Torso (second brain)             Genitals (first brain)

 

 

4 ss

Icons depicting Mary and Jesus, signifying for us the Emotional Body and growing Soul Body, entered the church at least by the fourth century, in Jerusalem (Icons, the Fascination and the Reality – Onasch/Schnieper  Riverside Book Co. NY 1995) (We might also draw significance from the Annunciation of Jesus to Mary, in which the Archangel Gabriel appears, but Joseph does not.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

ss  Top two are 4^th C.

 

5 ss

In Chartres and other Christian cathedrals, Mary is called “The Virgin” or “Our Lady”  and Jesus is shown variously as a baby, a child, and grown up as Christ.

 

Over time, the inner meaning was forgotten; replaced by mysterious dogma of the Immaculate Conception of Mary, the virgin birth of Jesus, and the prima facie existence of souls. Also, an overwhelming emphasis took over concerning group rather than individual transformation. The congregation became cells in the “Body of Christ.” By 1900, romanticism and patriarchy led to art depicting Mary’s tilted head and Jesus’ effeminate gestures. 2.5

 

 

 

 

 

6 ss

However, by pondering the meaning of the information encapsulated in the Mary Window, we can make a diagram that is more relevant  to individual transformation. The cathedral building represents the physical body, and the Window is an attempt to differentiate the stages of Emotional Body development. (The “choir” is just above the altar; the intersectiocross pieces):

 

 

7 ss

Mr. Nyland’s three body diagram describes the steps as he saw them. He did not conform to the hydrogen levels in his diagram, which makes it partly allegorical and partly precise.

 

 

(The DO RE MI of the Soul Body appears similarly elsewhere, from students of Orage, which makes one wonder if it came from Orage or from Gurdjieff.)

 

Air

(From the teaching of Mr. Nyland, as I understand it:) The Emotional Body’s food is rare ‘active’ elements within air; perhaps it is ‘noble gases’. The concentration of the six noble gases in ordinary air is infinitesimal, except for Argon, which comprises 1 percent of our atmosphere, but in each breath, we do take in small amounts of helium (5ppm), Neon (18ppm), Krypton (1ppm) and Xenon (.086ppm).

 

Feeling

Proceeding automatically, without our intervention.

 

Intellect

Proceeding automatically, without our intervention.

 

MI-FA Interval

The Physical Body produces fine energy which can be used within it, or directed intentionally for something higher: intentional Work at DO of the soul body. When this is “properly conducted Self-Observation”, and the result has the qualities of Observation, Simultaneity and Impartiality, some energy flows also into the MI-FA Interval of the emotional body, and allows it to proceed higher, as well as being available for Working at RE of the soul body.

 

Aspiration

At the 5^th stopinder, where I am in the most conflict to develop or regress, I must ASPIRE; I must diminish myself and actively wish to receive something from higher than myself. My wish must be stronger than my tendency to involve. I summarize this impulse in what I call my CONSCIENCE.

 

We know intuitively that we can either weaken or strengthen conscience by our actions with respect to it, and that these actions are always in relation to other ‘planets’ and take place in their ‘atmospheres’.

 

Neither in this stage or at the DO of soul body do I allow any description of what the result of my efforts might be. As they are higher, they are not directly understandable by the ordinary mind.

 

The teaching of the church is replete with instances of inspiration and challenge to CONSCIENCE, but inspiration is also available from many other sources.

 

Inspiration

Something comes from above which gives me guidance in my quest for perfection.

 

Silence

Here enters Theomertmalogos, the silent potent Word of God, which can flow down my receptive emotional body and become available as Inspiration. And something may be available here flowing in the evolutionary direction to enter the MI-FA of soul body, from my own efforts to become Conscientious.

 

 

The DO of the Soul Body involves ‘creation of an I’, having the qualities “Objectivity,” “Impartiality,” and “Simultaneity.” A strong “I” can give me objective information about myself as I am, and participate in my life, but is always separate and indefinable.

 

For Mr. Nyland’s diagram to match in ‘hydrogen’ levels, each successive DO would have to begin on the level of MI in the previous octave.

 

8 ss  EMOTIONAL BODY AS A BRIDGE

One perspective of the Emotional Body is that it acts as a ‘bridge’, or transformer of energy between the Physical and Soul bodies. In the Church’s teaching, this would be congruent with Mary’s role as a nurturer for Jesus who became Christ. We might say that this supply of energy is necessary for ‘our’ Jesus to become Christ, or, to remove the religious symbolism, for our Souls to grow to completion.

 

One way to look at the function of the Emotional Body is to ask, “Where would we be like without Kesdjan?”

 

 

 

 

 

 

9 ss  IN THE ABSENCE OF AN EMOTIONAL BODY SLOWER

This is a diagram of a person who is not able to sense emotion; who is merely reactive to the primitive feelings of the body; who is not aware of automatic expressions associated with those feelings; who is not able to construct the image of an emotional mood; whose attention is on others only to the extent of ‘caring’ how it affects himself; who is unable to manipulate images of feelings or emotions in order to project what a fair outcome would be; who is inspired from outside only to the extent of considerations of self-preservation; who is profoundly alone.

 

                                                                       

             

 

 

10A ss

The enneagram depicted here shows the complete octaves of the three bodies. [from Perspectives on Beelzebub’s Tales to His Grandson © 2005 by Dr. Keith Buzzell; used by permission.] On the enneagram, the inner lines and their multiplications give us insight about possible modes of interconnectedness. But it does not show which levels coincide. This is where a ladder map excels.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

10B  ss   ENNEAGRAM UNWOUND

 

The three-body enneagram can be ‘unwound’ as a ladder map in which the steps are parallel.

 

Seen this way, there are three ‘triads’ indicating levels where all three bodies can interact.

 

Because they are on the same level of materiality, the notes of each horizontal triad are available for sympathetic vibration, allowing energy to be exchanged between them.

 

They ‘sound’ together in a complete individual. Whatever we take the relationships between the ‘notes’ within these ‘triads’ to be, they imply that we need to strive for the continual processing of ‘food’ in our three bodies, and that we must be “Working” to be ‘harmonious’.

 

                                                mass-based world / mass-less world

 

 

 

 

Please read footnotes from the bottom up.   2.5
10C ss   THREE BODY DIAGRAM

This final ladder map incorporates Mr. Nyland’s stages of development, Perspectives on Beelzebub’s Tales and personal experience:

mass-based world / mass-less world              

 

What is it about air that can feed Kesdjan? Is it something in the air, that the Kesdjan breaks down and digests? Something that the physical body does not need and can't even use? Something that may perhaps be related to Faith, Hope and Charity? Something whose stages of digestion are ‘air’, feeling and intellect? And what about those ‘active elements’?

 

The mechanism for respiration is in the physical body. "Air" with O2 is taken in and supplied to the bloodstream; "air" with CO2 is exhausted. We know of no way for digested "air" to get to the Kesdjan Body to bridge its non-mass MI-FA of emotion. So what gets there? What is along the way?

 

Perhaps it's not matter in the air that Kesdjan digests, but the mechanism of breathing itself; the breathing that is flexibly unique for every different personality, for every condition of every personality from healthy to diseased, for every emotional mode and for every yoga pose; the breathing that is automatically different, as directed unconsciously but appropriately by the physical body; adapted for each activity and flowing from moment to moment.

 

Perhaps the food of Kesdjan is the respiration itself. At RE, then, would be the involuntary bodily expressions of feeling states associated with unique respirations. At MI, would be the nerve impulses; the raw impressions and observations of the feeling states. At FA, would be images of the kinds of breathing associated with each feeling state and finally, at SOL many images would be manipulated.

 

Attention to the breathing is an aspect of inner development, but what kind of attention? It's the continuous observation of the kind of breathing that the body is 'automatically' directing.

 

This is the reminding factor! I am always breathing! But HOW am I breathing?

 

Consider the mechanism of Conscience: Can we agree that it is a matter of our Attention, choosing, comparing, discriminating, and realizing images and projecting the outcomes of our imaged behavior; of lawful ‘right’ and ‘wrong’? Can we agree that temptation is a matter of comparing and valuing images? Can we agree that the development of Conscience is a matter of valuing ever more complex images; perhaps of even eventually coming to lawfully understand Objective Fairness and Justice? 2.0

 

Has your conscience ever said to you, “If I did that, I would feel awful…”?  “If I do that, I’ll sleep peacefully…”? 

 

The process, as I propose it, would be:

 

ss  EMOTIONAL BODY FUNCTIONING

 

 “Only he may enter here who puts himself in the position of the other results of my labors.” BT p 1164 “Here” would be Purgatory, and the foregoing would put Purgatory on the level of the WILL.

 

 

All speech and singing are about breath.

Likewise all instrumental performance is about breath. (For example, listen to Bach played by Perlman, Casals, Segovia. They bring this intellectual music emotionally alive by making it breathe.)

 

Live entertainment is about breath.

 

After cataloguing breathing, notice the hungers of the body: food, drink, activity, emotional, intellectual, spiritual, and the hungers to eliminate that which is not useful.

 

Final comment: the materials constituting successive steps of each body are increasingly expensive (precious) for our organism.

 

Counter argument: Is it possible that DO of Kesdjan is not of level H192?

 

 

ss  EXAMPLES OF 3 BODIES OR PARTS OF 3 BODIES IN ART

 

 

 

Romanticization can be seen in the above right example by Falero, a master Spanish painter, two years before he died.

                                   

IV OUR ETHERIC BODY (PERSONALITY MAPPING, YOGA AND GURDJIEFF)

 

(Art) P480

"So, my boy, from the time when these favorites of yours completely ceased consciously to actualize in their common presences the 'being-Partkdolg-duty', thanks only to the results of which what is called sane 'comparative mentation' as well as the possibility of conscious active manifestation can arise in beings from various associations, and from the time when their separate 'brains', associating now quite independently, begin engendering in one and the same common presence three differently sourced being-impulses, they then, thanks to this, gradually, as it were, acquire in themselves three personalities, having nothing in common with each other, in respect of needs and interests. 

 

"Rather more than half of all the anomalies arising in the general psyche of your favorites, particularly those of recent times, are due in the first place to their having in their entire presence a process of three different kinds of independent associations evoking in them the being-impulses of three localizations of different kinds and of different properties; and secondly, because there is a connection between these three separate localizations in them as there is also in general in the presences of every kind of three-brained being predetermined by Great Nature for other what are called 'common-presence-functionings'; and thirdly, because from everything perceived and sensed, that is from every kind of shock, associations of three different kinds of impressions proceed in the three said localizations in consequence of which three totally different kinds of being-impulses are evoked in one and the same whole presence; then, on account of all this, a number of experiencings are nearly always proceeding in them at one and the same time, and each of these experiencings by itself evokes in the whole of their being an inclination for a corresponding manifestation, and in accordance with the definite parts of their total presence a corresponding movement is thus actualized. 

 

"Just these said differently sourced associative experiencings proceed in their common presences and ensue one from the other also in accordance with the same Law of Sevenfoldness.

 

(Art) P485

"So it was in this way that the learned members of the group of the mysterists then in Babylon became players of strange roles and demonstrated before the other learned members of the club the experiencings and the actions ensuing from them, which were produced in accordance with the directing of their well-informed Reason. 

 

"And thereafter, as I have already said, they, together with the other learned members of the club of the Adherents-of-Legominism who were present, selected the corresponding for their aim from among the being-impulses demonstrated in such a way, which according to the law of the flowing of different-sourced associations, had to be experienced and manifested in the definite actions of the beings, and only then did they include those selected in the details of some mystery or other. 

 

"Here it is very important to emphasize that then in Babylon the three-brained learned beings who belonged to the group of the mysterists did indeed reproduce in action amazingly well and accurately the subjective particularities of the perceptions and manifestations of various types foreign to them. 

 

"They reproduced them well and accurately not only because as I have already explained they possessed the being-property Ikriltazkakra, but also because the learned beings of the planet Earth of that time were very well aware of what is called the 'law-of-typicality', and that the three-brained  beings of their planet are ultimately formed into twenty-seven different definite types [emphasis added], and also in which cases what had to be perceived and how it had to be perceived, and how they had to manifest themselves. “

 

(Justice) P1122  

"My sons soon became so attached to him that they never left his side even during the execution of his strict duties concerning my observatory, and even under these conditions the good Pooloodjistius constantly enlightened their Reason and gave them practical explanations about all the observations on the concentrations, the methods of studying their mutual influence, and the significance of these influences themselves. 

 

"He always explained to them why and for what purpose any definite cosmic concentration occupies just a certain place, and informed them about the particularities of the influence of these concentrations on each other during the common-cosmic Trogoautoegocratic process. 

 

"In this way, under the guidance of this remarkable learned being, there was not only crystallized, in the common presences of my results, data required for every kind of responsible three-brained being, but also numerous data for the thorough cognizance and the sensing of true information about cosmic concentrations and their functions. 

  

"By the way, it was just at this period that their subjectively favorite subjects for observation and study were gradually formed in each of my sons. 

 

"Namely, your father liked to observe and study the mutual influence and maintenance of cosmic concentrations situated in the spheres nearest to the Prime Source, the Most Most Holy Sun Absolute, and your uncle Tooilan manifested an interest in the observations on the planet Earth and in the process which proceeded on it of the being-existence of the three-brained beings who have interested you. ”

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ss   MERIDIAN SYSTEM

On page 152 of Perspectives on Beelzebub’s Tales, Dr. Buzzell lists the following clarifications:

The Astral Body is also known as the Kesdjan Body.

The Mental Body is also known as Higher-Being-Body or Body of the Soul.

 

In In Search, Gurdjieff mentions a “causal” body, which others have called the Spiritual or Light Body, said to be the “innermost essence of the soul”.

 

I don’t claim to sense these other bodies in myself, but I believe I have at least briefly sensed Kesdjan and Soul, and the effects of the Etheric Body in acupuncture and stretching.

 

The meridians, a system of conduits for the flow of life energy, which interpenetrates and interconnects the physical and emotional bodies, has been the basis of medical treatment for thousands of years in the Orient. It has been identified as the Etheric Body; not Physical or Emotional, but a means for LIFE to enervate both.

 

Stretching or needling the meridians can positively affect various tissues of the body (muscles, organs, glands, bones, blood and lymph) and improve emotional states and mental alertness.

 

In the chapters on “Art”, “Hypnotism” and “Justice”, Gurdjieff  has given us incentive to study personality. He was reported to be deeply aware of personality types, and to have watched in cafes for a type unknown to him.

 

Researcher Bob Cooley, a stretching coach to professional athletes, has found that personality type follows the meridians with such tight differentiation that lawful relationships consistent with Western Psychology and Traditional Chinese Medicine can be discerned between them. Bob’s research has revealed a total of sixteen meridians and their related personality types.

 

Further study has indicated that conditioning modifies genetic personality type, but not necessarily indelibly. For example, yoga can profoundly reshape a person to his or her natural personality condition, which appears in infancy. Bob’s book, “Mastering Flexibility,” is scheduled for Fall 2005 release by Simon & Schuster. I have provided below some detail with which a person might honestly locate his or her type in this system.

 

Bob found that yoga positions elicit psychological changes, from which he developed a database of behaviors. In Chinese Medicine, he found a rudimentary psychology based on the meridians, and made the connection between the yoga stretches and acupuncture. Now we know that the meridians  correspond to sixteen personality types which are organized into four discrete groups on a ‘circular’ continuum. In practice, none of us has a pure type; we all fall between two pure types in a ratio of about 70% ‘dominant’ and 30% ‘wing’. Thus there seem to be about 32 types in practice.. In the future, Bob hopes to have a system of precise measurement of type, based on the amount of natural spiral twist in a person’s limbs.

 

There seem to be no pure type individuals, so, in Bob’s system there is a circular continuum of 32 blended types, but the complexity of personality typing makes it more practical to study the 16 theoretical types at first.

 

ss  CHARTRES SAINTS

We can look for exact or near instances of 16 or 32 in artistic symbols. For example, the front facade of Chartres has 16 ‘saints’, and Notre Dame has 28 “kings of the Old Testament. Tarot decks have 16 court cards in four suits.

 

Gurdjieff mentions 27 types in Art. We might suppose that this slight discrepancy was because he did not have a highly refined system, but was using his prodigious memory for the types he had recognized. Another reason could be that some types are extremely rare.

 

Other typing systems exist with 12 (apostles, zodiac) and 72 types (e.g., Maurice Nicoll).

 

The types are localized in meridians and organs. We understand from this that personality is not only in the thinking brain; it is in the body, the feelings, and in specific locations of the head.

 

Setting aside the subject of personality, there is an interesting mystery about the meridians: Each terminates in the extremities of the hands and feet and originates in the torso or head, yet all may be treated in Traditional Chinese Medicine as if there is one long connected meridian. What then connects them into this Long Meridian? We don’t know. However, consider these pictures which show  a familiar position of the arms and hands:

ss  HUMILITY POSE

 

It does not seem a coincidence, that SEVEN (Heart, Spleen, Pericardium, Lung, Kidney, Appendix and Liver) out of eight yin meridians have endpoints in an area about the size of our palm! Yin means “receptive”. Gurdjieff calls it “passive.” It may be that the hands activate these locations or complete a circuit for the associated meridians, or simply assist in sensing them. Sit in a quiet place and decide for yourself whether this may be a Self-remembering exercise.

ss   YIN MERIDIAN ENDPOINTS

 

 

It is interesting and may be instructive to contrast the previous pictures with the following, in which the hands are placed differently, in a yang (initiating) position.

 

 

V THE HIGH QUALITIES OF PERSONALITY IN RELATION TO SACRED BEING IMPULSES

Gurdjieff on Sacred Being Impulses:

 

Sacred: "you were created also as a-field-of-hope for the future expectations of our Common All Gracious Creator - that is to say, created with the possibilities of coating in your presence that Higher-Sacred for the possible arising of which the whole of our now existing World was just created."

 

Being: "the beings of their planet of former epochs, who, becoming responsible beings had even attained in respect of Being at least to what is called self-remembering." "many of them did indeed completely free themselves from the consequences of the properties of the organ Kundabuffer and either thereby acquired Being personally for themselves or became normal sources for the arising of normal presences of succeeding beings similar to themselves."

 

Impulse: "the sacred data for genuine being-consciousness...together with the properties...which engender...the genuine sacred being-impulses of faith, hope, love, and conscience...becoming gradually also isolated...evolve independently...and come to be regarded as what is called the subconsciousness."

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LOCATING TYPE ON THE THREE BODY DIAGRAM

The four gospels of the New Testament relate to different parts of the first two bodies. Matthew begins with the lineage of Jesus, which is physical, Mark begins with Jesus’ intellectual precursor, John the Baptist, Luke begins with a sacrifice and the Nativity, and John’s is symbolic or esoteric.

 

Sometimes we see metaphorical symbols for the Four Evangelists, such as on the facades of the cathedrals, as from Chartres below left. In some art, such as the pre-Christian example below right, characteristics are combined: 1.5

 

 

 

 [P310 (V1 P310)] 

" 'And this emblem of ours is understood by all of us, members of the society Akhaldan in the following way: 

 

" 'The trunk of this allegorical being, represented by the trunk of a "Bull", means that the factor crystallized in us and which engender in our presences the impulses maleficent for us, those we have inherited, as well as those we have personally acquired, can be regenerated only by indefatigable labors, namely, by those labors for which among the beings of our planet, the Bull is particularly fitted. 

 

" 'That this trunk rests on the legs of a "lion" means that the said labors should be performed with that cognizance and feeling of courage and faith in one's "might", the property of which "might" is possessed among all the beings of the Earth in the highest degree by the possessor of these legs--the mighty lion. 

 

" 'The wings of the strongest and the highest soaring of all birds, the Eagle, attached to the Bull trunk, constantly remind the members of our society, that during the said labors and with the mentioned inner psychic properties of self-respect, it is necessary to meditate continually on questions not related to the direct manifestations required for ordinary being-existence. 

 

" 'And as regards the strange image of the head of our allegorical being, in the form of the "Breasts of a virgin", this expresses that Love should predominate always and in everything during the inner and the outer functionings evoked by one's consciousness, such a Love as can arise and be present only in the presences of concentrations formed in the lawful parts of every whole responsible being in whom the hopes of our COMMON FATHER are placed. 

 

 

" 'And that the head is fixed to the trunk of the Bull with "amber" signifies that this Love should be strictly impartial, that is to say, completely separated from all the other functions proceeding in every whole responsible being.' 

  

[P311 (V1 P311)] 

"In order, my boy, that the sense of this latter emblem put into the material called there amber, may become quite comprehensible to you, I must add that amber is one of those seven planetary formations, in the arising of which the Omnipresent Active Element Okidanokh takes part with all its three separate, independent, sacred parts, in equal proportion; and in the process of planetary actualization, these intraplanetary and surplanetary formations serve for what is called the 'impeding' of the independent flow of these three localized independent sacred parts."

 

 

BOB COOLEY’S PERSONALITY MAP

There are four personality types associated with each of these worlds. The detail will be found in Bob Cooley’s publications. Bob’s map is a circular continuum. Here are the types mapped on the 3 bodies.

 

LOCATING HIGH QUALITIES OF PERSONALITY ON THE SAME MAP

Following is a list of high attributes of each personality type, which have been determined from empirical observation of hundreds of people by yoga researcher Bob Cooley. The list may be perhaps startling, because some seem to correlate with the Sacred Being Impulses. Since we all have all the meridians, all these qualities are in us, but each quality is more naturally evident in a healthy person of the corresponding personality type:

 

                       

 

While the ­four underlined high qualities seem similar to Gurdjieff’s Sacred Being Impulses, and while they may be ordinarily indistinguishable from them, they are not the same, because they are not necessarily interconnected with Higher Emotional Center or Higher Intellectual Center. That is, in themselves, they are not products of Self-remembering. And they are certainly not necessarily expressions of Higher Law.

 

Dr. Buzzell: “3) Functional attributes, of the prefrontal cortex, drawn from the studies of Paul MacLean, Antonio Damasio, Elkhonen Goldberg, Allen Schore and others, include: advanced intellectual skills; complex emotional/ intellectual abstractions such as justice, love, compassion and understanding; creative thinking; regulation of emotional re-actions; control of first-brain survival impulses; complex linguistic expressions like poetry and myth; complex planning into the future and reasoning and analyzing with symbolic images. In the above functional expressions, the prefrontal lobes utilize and integrate the functions of modules and/or regions of all three brains.”

 

[P310 (V1 P310)] 

" 'And as regards the strange image of the head of our allegorical being, in the form of the "Breasts of a virgin", this expresses that Love should predominate always and in everything during the inner and the outer functionings evoked by one's consciousness…”

 

In Perspectives  on P 157, Dr. Buzzell states:

Both Higher Emotional and Higher Intellectual Centers are, as Gurdjieff

notes, in each of us now. They are represented, biologically, as highly

organized nerve cell regions that are anatomically referred to as the

prefrontal lobes of the third brain. They can be fully functional (at our

maturity) but the lower parts of our triune brain are not in continuous and

conscious resonance with their higher vibratory energies when we exist in

only the first two states of consciousness. The First Conscious Shock makes

possible a resonance with these Higher Centers; the Second Conscious

Shock carries this resonance to its potential completion.

 

 (Others (ie: John G. Bennett, in “Journeys Through Islamic Countries”) site the Arabic teaching that the breasts are the location of the soul. This may actually be related to the yin meridian endpoints cited earlier.

 

Wherever the Higher Centers  are localized in the body, it seems that, prior to Self-remembering, the activity in these regions is the seat of the energetic personality types; that they are energized by the meridians Pericardium, Appendix, Large Intestine, and Spleen. The physical, emotional and intellectual personality types are similarly localized, both in the prefrontal lobes, and in the rest of the body.

 

Dr. Buzzell again (same page):

1) There are nerve pathways that link the prefrontal lobes with all

other areas of the brain. This is the only brain region which does this. These

linkages develop in parallel as the other brain regions unfold in their

chronological development. Significantly, there are distinct pathways that

link the cerebellum and prefrontal lobes.

 

[INSERT RAS quote]

 

For those of us in Gurdjieff Work, there may be a problem with these qualities: we may disagree whether they are ‘ordinary’ or ‘conscious’. I believe that we can reconcile this by considering the former as isolated egalitarian qualities, and the latter as fully connected; that is, self-re-membered, in which a person can sense all the individual locations at once. Of course, the Higher Being Bodies, introduce new levels to ‘sense’. You may now wish to revisit Mr. Nyland’s Three Body Diagram, and compare his qualities with these, and decide for yourself.

 

Another way to look at this controversy is to ask that, since the Physical and Kesdjan Bodies are impermanent, are the Sacred Being Impulses also impermanent?

 

Nevertheless, the meridians associated with these personalities and qualities are highly localized within the physical body; that is, we can learn to sense their localizations, and the physical stretching of the hatha yoga positions can help us do it.

 

We who value Gurdjieff Work can learn a lot from the observation that flexibility of body leads to flexibility of personality, which in turn, can lead to the high qualities of personality and at least some of these seem to me to correlate with the Sacred Being Impulses. Stated another way, we can learn to flexibly resonate with the high qualities of all the personalities, because we have all the meridians in each of us.

 

SACRED BEING IMPULSES

While it is speculative to map the Sacred Being Impulses on empirically determined personality types, they do seem to correlate. We do instinctively admire high qualities in personalities, so there may be some connection.

 

There seem to be mundane and sacred versions of some being impulses. As an example, Beelzebub and his companions eventually travel toward the planet Karatas. This is close to the word “caritas”, which in Latin means “charity”, one of St. Paul’s three theological virtues. “Love of mankind” is the high attribute Mr. Nyland associated with the SI DO of the Soul Body. We should not forget the Greek designations of agape, erotic, filial, etc.

 

The high-side functionings of the personalities are neither arbitrary or theoretical. Here is how l think they work out, with respect to the three-body diagram:

 

IN THE CATHEDRAL

 

Successful religions appeal to all types. They have something for everyone. Recalling again the map of the four evangelists,

 

 

Their gospels correspond with the four worlds of personality:                                                          

This introduces a controversy about whether the energetic personality types are more ‘conscious’ than other types, because they appear in the diagram “above the line”, in the non-material world of electromagnetic fields. In fact, in isolation, prior to self-remembering, all the types are equally ordinary; each existing on a separate continuum of high to low qualities.

 

In summary, I am not implying that vibrational types are automatically conscious. Consciousness starts with SRM, which must be an intentional process.

 

[Further research must be done to fully connect the energetic meridians with the localizations in question.]

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------PERSONALITY AND THE ENNEAGRAM

While each of us has a dominant personality type, the sixteen personality types, taken individually, are within us all and equivalently ‘ordinary’,  until we learn to simultaneously sense multiple locations.

 

In ISM, Ouspensky reports that Gurdjieff demonstrated a hatha yoga pose to his Russian group. With hatha yoga, in which stretching positions are held for a time, we can become more flexible. We can develop our ability to sense individual locations and combinations of locations, and experience their associated psychologies, as a preparation for simultaneous sensing of multiple locations. I believe such sensing is one aspect of what Gurdjieff characterized as “everything more vivid!”

 

Whether or not he made a connection between the types of which he was aware and the enneagram, there has been a popular movement in the US for about 50 years which attempts to map personalities on it. This has caused a profound confusion for two reasons:

 

First, there is a misconception that higher vibrational rates (hydrogens) associated with successive types indicates that some types are more ‘developed’ than others, and that baseline personality changes with development. Our type does not change, but we can better access the qualities of other types by becoming more flexible; that is, physical flexibility leads to psychological flexibility. Since observation shows that type is fixed from early childhood, rather than try to ‘change our type’ it is more useful to consider that we need to actively re-member ourselves, after which Gurdjieff’s method can be much more effective.

 

Secondly, because of an apparent misunderstanding of the enneagram, the so-called “enneagram of types” has been limited to nine types. This has caused some types to be completely left out of it and others to be blended together, and has also led to complicated discussions of non-adjacent ‘wings’ and tortuous attempts to use the internal connections of the enneagram to make up for this deficiency. If humans really do differentiate into 9 types, where has this information been for 40,000 years?

 

Finally, a remark should be made that personality typing is made much more complex by conditioning, in which a person may fixate functionally in relation to other personalities, and may have masked his or her genetic type which only appears after probing. Serious trauma can have the effect of splitting personality.

 

SIMPLE TYPING PARAMETERS

Empirical evidence shows that personalities may be divided into four groups ("worlds"): Intellectual, Physical, Vibrational, Emotional. Some general characteristics, such as unconscious time-sense, ego defense, preferred thinking style, preferred learning mode, preferred kinds of music, etc., can be directly correlated with them, or nearly so.

 

I have found that yoga and music are useful for accessing, tuning, and strengthening these "worlds" within myself, as well as the specific personality characteristics within them. We also may find that paintings, film, literature, etc. excite these attributes of our being.

 

Here is a favorite quote about acupuncture: “In this book, I will show that acupuncture points do not exist, meridians do not exist, and that most of the laws of acupuncture are laws about non-existent entities. Yet acupuncture works.” Dr. Felix Mann

 

Traditional Chinese Medicine describes three relationships between meridians and organ personalities: Balancing, Counterbalancing, and Completing; Bob Cooley has identified a fourth relationship, he calls “Changing”. With these fundamental interactions, fifteen (of the sixteen possible) relationships between each type can be understood, and interactions between ‘planetary atmospheres’, Gurdjieff’s code for personalities, can be predicted.

 

The meridian personalities take into account several empirical parameters:

Time sense: past, present, future

Yin/yang: active, passive

Arm/leg dominance

Personality depth: surface - - deep

Ego defense

Circadian rhythm

Preferred learning style, etc.

                       

Gurdjieff on yoga:

[P350 ISM]

“Ordinary man, even if he comes to the conclusion that work on himself is indispensable—is the slave of his body. He is not only the slave of the recognized and visible activity of the body but the slave of the unrecognized and the invisible activities of the body, and it is precisely these which hold him in their power. Therefore when a man decides to struggle for freedom he has first of all to struggle with his own body.

"I will now point out to you only one aspect of the functioning of the body which it is indispensable to regulate in any event. So long as this functioning goes on in a wrong way no other kind of work, either moral or spiritual, can go on in a right way.

"You will remember that when we spoke of the work of the 'three-story factory,' I pointed out to you that most of the energy produced by the factory is wasted uselessly, among other things energy is wasted on unnecessary muscular tension. This unnecessary muscular tension eats up an enormous amount of energy. And with work on oneself attention must first be turned to this.

"In speaking of the work of the factory in general it is indispensable to establish that it is necessary to stop useless waste before there can be any sense in increasing the production. If production is increased while this useless waste remains unchecked and nothing is done to stop it, the new energy produced will merely increase this useless waste and may even give rise to phenomena of an unhealthy kind. Therefore one of the first things a man must learn previous to any physical work on himself is to observe and feel muscular tension and to be able to relax the muscles when it is necessary, that is to say, chiefly to relax unnecessary tension of the muscles."

In this connection G. showed us a number of different exercises for obtaining control over muscular tension and he showed us certain postures adopted in schools when praying or contemplating which a man can only adopt if he learns to relax unnecessary tension of the muscles. Among them was the so-called posture of Buddha with feet resting on the knees, and another still more difficult posture, which he could adopt to perfection, and which we were able to imitate only very approximately.

To adopt this posture G. kneeled down and then sat on his heels (without boots) with feet closely pressed together. It was very difficult even to sit on one's heels in this way for more than a minute or two. He then raised his arms and, holding them on a level with his shoulders, he slowly bent himself backwards and lay on the ground while his legs, bent at the knees, remained pressed beneath him. Having lain in this position for a certain time he just as slowly raised himself up with arms outstretched, then he again lay down, and so on.

He gave us many exercises for gradually relaxing the muscles always beginning with the muscles of the face, as well as exercises for "feeling"

the hands, the feet, the fingers, and so on at will. The idea of the necessity of relaxing the muscles was not actually a new one, but G.'s explanation that relaxing the muscles of the body should begin with the muscles of the face was quite new to me; I had never come across this in books on "Yoga" or in literature on physiology.”

 

CLARIFICATIONS

The ETHERIC body is ALL the meridians plus the aura, which is probably an artifact of the meridians when they are active. It energizes all four groups of meridians and organs.

 

The personality types are associated with meridians and organs. The emotional types seem associated with the lower emotional body, and the vibrational types seem associated with the upper emotional body. All the localizations (meridian/organs) do double-duty. They have an ordinary function associated with each personality and whatever they do in the whole body, and they have the possibility of an increased interconnectedness. ALL meridians and organs have this possibility.

 

Kesdjan and Astral are the same thing and stand for the entire Emotional Body. “Centers" are not the same as bodies. The Higher Emotional Center (having three or four steps) functions in the Upper Emotional Body. But, the Higher Intellectual Center has SEVEN steps and is not associated with any ordinary organs. It is free of the earth.

 

There are localizations in the body (organs) associated with ALL the meridians. Some (or possibly ALL) of them also have frontal lobe connections. If these are not connected-up (Self-remembered) it's just the ordinary consciousness.  We have from Dr. Buzzell that the frontal lobes perform 'ordinary' functions. Take a look at that list, then look at the high qualities of the vibrational types.

 

PERSONALITY AND MUSIC

During the course of my experience in the music business, I have noticed that various personality types seem to gravitate to specific instrumental families and musical styles. That is, certain instruments associate more easily with various "worlds" and their music.

 

DEMONSTRATION: PLAY EXAMPLES WHICH ARE PREDOMINANTLY ONE WORLD (WHILE NOT "HIGHER", IS THIS OBJECTIVE?)

 

GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS OF MUSICAL STYLES, GROUPED ACCORDING TO PERSONALITY WORLD:

Intellectual:  complicated melodies and harmonies; counterpoint;

Physical: periodic rhythms; dance rhythms; disco; marches; parade struts; mazurkas; square dance; single or duple time; six eight

Vibrational: economical melodies; slower tempos; slow polyrhythms (Note that this is counter-intuitive, as the frequency of the associated personality world is the highest of the four.)

Emotional: glissandos; steady slower tempos; large melodic leaps

 

Where does the Gurdjieff music fall in respect to these? As a musician, and at least by process of elimination, I would argue that his music primarily appeals to the vibrational world within us, but some of it is more difficult to define.

 

 

It does seem clear that personality belongs to "ordinary", not "conscious" life. A goal of Gurdjieff Work is for us to intentionally connect and disconnect our centers, and Gurdjieff seems to talk only about three ordinary centers, or does he?

 

ss   VI CHARTRES CATHEDRAL AND MUSIC

The earliest traces of notated two-part polyphonic music appear from the end of the 10th century in central France, in the famous Chartres Manuscript. Worshipers at Chartres were experienced with Gregorian chant, which resonates specific locations in the body. Not long after the stone cathedral was built, new technology, the organ, was installed having broader capacities than voice; for example, it can be RELATIVELY LOUD, which imparts more energy to the listener. Loud polyphony can cause both consecutive and simultaneous bodily sensations, as well as related musical images and associations. Music at Chartres would have powerfully influenced the subconsciousnesses of the listeners by these means.

 

LOCATION EXERCISES

Location exercises, transmitted orally by Gurdjieff teachers, consist of instructions to sense parts of the body in a specific sequence, while simultaneously forming specific emotional and thought images, thus involving all three brains. While we don’t have time today to break this down thoroughly, there are a number of things which we learn through participating in music that have direct application to location exercises, such as:

 

1) TONE RETENTION. This simple, yet powerful phenomenon has a counterpart in physical sensation. To experience tone retention, it is not necessary to recognize the elements of music by name, but merely to notice differences from one sensation to another; a capacity of memory.

 

2) TEMPO

In three places in The Tales, Gurdjieff describes pouring liquor “S-l-o-w-l-y.” [BT p 927 (twice) and p1236)]. He may be emphasizing how tempo affects our ability to focus Attention. In both music and sensation there is a definite range of tempos that can contain meaning for us, and a lesson from music which we can apply to location sensing is that we can increase dexterity by stretching the extremes of this range, as we do in Gurdjieff Movements.

3) SEQUENCE

Changing the order of pitches and phrases changes meaning. Changing the order of sensed locations also changes meaning. This is similar to word order in language.

4) POLYPHONY

Certain aspects of music that the organ could easily invoke, relate directly to the three bodies. The feelings respond to tone (timbre), the body resonates to low pitches, and the intellect images melody. Polyphonic organ music can speak to all the above aspects at once.

 

GURDJIEFF AND MUSIC

What has all this to do with Gurdjieff? Mr. Gurdjieff named his school: "Institute for the Harmonic Development of Man".  It has been said that he was referring to the harmonious development of our three centers. But he could also have been alluding to something much more subtle: the harmonic resonances that occur when precise locations in our bodies are sensed sequentially or simultaneously, similar to melodies or chords. Here we should keep the ‘hydrogens’ in mind.

 

 

I’d like you to compare the following two examples. While they are neither organ nor polyphonic, they have many of the aspects just mentioned: interesting timbre, changing pitch sequences, differences in tempo, and differences in pitch. While they are VERY simple, you will have no trouble recognizing what they are. Try to sense the notes’ locations within yourself.

 

 

ss

 

 

 

 

 

One more thing about music: Christian Church music is predominantly in minor modes. Why? And why did Gurdjieff favor Aeolian mode (a flavor of minor)?

Perhaps the answer may be found in examination of the three body diagram:

ss   ADJUSTMENT OF KESDJAN

Notice that the mi fa sol of Kesdjan, the range of greatest importance for resonating with and amplifying the energies produced by the physical body which are needed by the Soul for its development, is musically unlike the parallel steps in the other bodies. The intervals are different (MI-FA is not the same as DO-RE or SO-LA), but if Kesdjan were a minor mode, it’s intervals would be same for the steps in question. Several other minor modes would fit. Here’s Aeolian:

 

There are other issues, which I don’t have space to discuss at this time.                                

ss  VII TWO Self-Re-Member-ing EXERCISES

 

One perspective about Self-remembering, is that it is about reconnecting the dismembered (Kundabuffered?) parts of ourselves.

 

I will place on the website (www.usschoolofmusic.com) an interesting musical experiment in Self-remembering. It involves the simultaneous listening to various combinations of four pieces that resonate four different centers. I will leave it to you to decide whether these centers are psychological, personality, or esoteric.

1

AN INTERACTIVE EXERCISE FOR DEVELOPING ATTENTION AND SRM BASED ON  GURDJIEFF’S METHODS  ("RESONANCE EXERCISE")

 

Preparation: have at hand some music you find to be of a ‘higher’ nature, which energizes your higher centers.

 

STEPS:

1) drain

2) music of 4 worlds;  possibly tap physical, sing others

3) play your own ‘higher’ music

5) vivification, 'abc' or 'as if'

6) intentional suffering (individual with person)

 

EXPLANATION:

After draining thoroughly, listen in turn to musical excerpts representing 4 worlds in the following order: physical, intellectual, energetic, feeling, alone and in combinations two at a time, and all four together. Sense the location in your body which for you resonates with the excerpt. As you listen to each successive excerpt, retain some attention in the location which resonated. Now listen to excerpts representing for you the Higher Being Bodies, and ‘sense’ the locations which resonate.

ss  2  “DOXOLOGY” EXERCISE IN CUMULATIVE LOCATION SENSING

 

My Catholic experience and Dr. Buzzell’s identification of the prefrontal lobes as the seat of the Higher Centers, precipitated another ‘electric shock’ epiphany: that the Sign of the Cross, which I had experienced hundreds of times, even before starting grade school, can be understood as a location exercise. Since it is not a Gurdjieff exercise, I can show you how I do this each day, as a means of demonstrating the principles introduced in the previous sections. Please keep in mind the principles of SENSATION RETENTION, TEMPO, and SEQUENCE and how they might relate to your practice.

 

FOREHEAD = frontal lobes = Higher Emotional/Higher Intellectual

SOLAR PLEXUS = Mechanical Feeling (Lower Emotional)

HEART = Thymus Gland (Lower Emotional)

BREASTS = Terminus of the Yin Meridians,  (Physical and Higher Emotional)

HANDS TOGETHER  = (Lower Emotional)

HANDS ON THIGHS = Lower Intellectual (Thinking)

 

These relationships led me to the following three-body, five-center Self-remembering exercise:

 

MERIDIAN SIGN OF THE CROSS/DOXOLOGY

 

I take the seated position. In preparation, I drain tensions, then I accumulate sensations of my limbs, and three specific locations in my torso and head. In the exercise, as I touch each new location, I say the prayer out loud, and make each location resonate, continuing to sense the previous locations. I begin thus:

 

SAY 3X. The third time, reverse the order for “Son” (at heart) and “Father”.

(YOU MAY BEGIN WITH LH ON BELLY ABOVE THE NAVAL)            LOCALIZATION

In the name of the Father (RH FOREHEAD), and of the                                   (HE/HI)

Son (SOLAR PLEXUS), and in the name of the                                                 (LE)

Holy Ghost (LEFT & RIGHT BREAST)                                                              (P/HE)

Amen (HANDS IN PRAYER AT HEART)                                                          (LE)

 

Glory be to the Father (LH FOREHEAD), and to the                                         (HE)

Son (HEART/THYMUS), and to the                                                                     (LE)

Holy Spirit (LEFT & RIGHT BREAST)                                                                          (P/HE)

(LEAVE THE HAND ON RIGHT BREAST)

 

As it was in the beginning (RH FOREHEAD), is now and ever                                   (HE/HI)

Shall Be (HEART/THYMUS),                                                                               (LE)

World without end (LEFT BREAST)                                                                   (P/HE)

(LEAVE THE HAND ON LEFT BREAST)

Amen (HANDS ON THIGHS).                                                                               (T)

REFERENCE, CHRISTIAN PRAYERS: The greater doxology is the Gloria in Excelsis Deo in the Mass. The shorter, which is the one generally referred to as "doxology", is the Gloria Patri (Glory be to the Father…etc.)

 

The Sign of the Cross         In the Name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

 

 Trisagion Prayer  (greek)    Holy + God, Holy Firm, Holy Immortal, have mercy on us! (3x)(three times)

 

Glory Be

 Glory be + to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, now and ever, and forever. Amen.

Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.

 

Jesus Prayer

 "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner."

 

Kyrie

Lord, have mercy. (3x) (Slavonic: Hospodi, pomiluj.) (Greek: Kyrie, eleison.)

 

Agnus Dei (left hand on the altar, right hand strikes breast each stanza –from “Gloria in Excelsis” below)

1          "Agnus Dei, Filius Patris, Qui tollis peccata mundi, miserere nobis; Qui tollis peccata mundi, suscipe deprecationem nostram; Qui sedes ad dexteram Patris, miserere nobis"

(Lamb of God, Son of the Father, Who takest away the sins of the world, have mercy on us; Who takest away the sins of the world, have mercy on us, receive our prayer; Who takest away the sins of the world, grant us peace.)

 

2          "Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi, miserere nobis

"Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi, miserere nobis

"Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi, dona nobis pacem"

(Lamb of God, Who takest away the sins of the world, have mercy on us,

Lamb of God, Who takest away the sins of the world, have mercy on us,

Lamb of God, Who takest away the sins of the world, grant us peace.)

 

GLORIA IN EXCELSIS DEO        

• Glory be to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men of good will.
• We praise Thee; we bless Thee; we adore Thee; we glorify Thee. We give Thee thanks for Thy great glory.
• Lord God,  heavenly king,  God the Father almighty.
• Lord God, Lamb of God,  Son of the Father.
• Lord Jesus Christ,  the only-begotten Son:
• Who takest away the sins of the world, have mercy on us.
• Who takest away the sins of the world,  receive our prayer.
• Who sittest at the right hand of the Father, have mercy on us.
• For Thou alone art holy; Thou alone art Lord; Thou alone art most high.
• Jesus Christ, together with the Holy Ghost in the glory of God the Father.  Amen.

Latin:

Gloria in excelsis Deo, et in terra pax hominibus bonae voluntatis.

Laudamus te,  benedicimus te, adoramus te,  glorificamus te.  

Gratias agimus tibi propter magnam gloriam tuam. Domine Deus rex coelestis,  Deus Pater omnipotens. Domine Fili Unigenite,  Jesu Christe.

Domine Deus,  Agnus Dei, Filius Patris.    

Qui tollis peccata mundi,  miserere nobis.   

Qui tollis peccata mundi, suscipe deprecationem nostram.      

Qui sedes ad dexteram patris,  miserere nobis.          

Quoniam tu solus sanctus, tu solus Dominus, tu solus altissimus,      

Jesu Christe, cum Sancto Spiritu, in gloria Dei Patris.  Amen.

 

ss  TYING ALL THIS TOGETHER

We’ve covered:

Mary  and Jesus Windows in the Cathedral

Three Body Maps: Physical, Kesdjan, Soul

Special emphasis on process in the Kesdjan Body

Etheric Body – Meridian Locations, (Personality, High Qualities)

Music in the Cathedral – Implications for Self-Re-Membering

Locations –of the three bodies in esoteric Christianity (Higher, Lower, Physical – Father, Son, Holy Ghost)

So, to summarize:

·      Esoteric Christianity contains teachings aligned with Gurdjieff, which are therefore likely much older than the historical Church.

·      The Cathedral contains metaphors for all three bodies, and liturgical exercises which unite them.

·      The meridians are key to understanding personality and some location exercises.

·      Music in the Cathedral teaches the subconscious directly

·      Self-Re-Membering may involve Locations

·      The Sign of the Cross is a location exercise that unites heaven and earth within an individual.

 

PARTING SHOT:

John Bennett, a sharp and eclectic man, converted to Catholicism near the end of his life and took Communion. Why?

 

NOTES:

It is less important to know what world a location belongs to, than to have the sense of connectedness to it.

 

Organ names stand for an entire meridian, not just the organ itself.

 

The Sign of the Cross, mentioned by Gurdjieff on the first page of A&E, is done both before and after other prayers in the Catholic Church. The second part of the exercise above (“Glory be…”) is known as the Lesser Doxology.

 

The location of the solar plexus, which figures in Gurdjieff exercises seems to change. I believe that the story of Apollo carrying the sun across the heavens in his chariot, a favorite theme of Mr. Nyland’s, is related to the change in the location of our center of gravity from feelings in my upper abdomen to my heart/thymus, the seat of real emotion.

 

The final blessing indicates my wish to project myself to others as I am in the exercise.

LINKS

http://artemis.austincollege.edu/acad/history/mgrober/chartres/unit4.htm

http://www.beloit.edu/~arthist/historyofart/gothic/chartrescath.htm

rcompagine@yahoo.com

http://www.udayton.edu/mary  (http://rubens.anu.edu.au/raid5/frenchglass.050304/chartres/Notre_Dame_de_la_Belle_Verriere/)

Perspectives on Beelzebub’s Tales to His Grandson, Keith Buzzell, 5^th Press

All and Everything: Beelzebub’s Tales

In Search of the Miraculous

 VIII CONTRASTING THE METHODS OF THE CHURCH AND GURDJIEFF, CONSTRUCTING AND ASCENDING THE LADDER OF CREATION (to be continued….)

 

The Church has been accused of many negative effects, but what was the original undeteriorated teaching? If both are esoteric Christianity, how the methods of the Church and Gurdjieff compare?