Practical Work On Self

2010 Wednesday Class

One Comment on “Chapter 10, Mentation”

1. 
   1 Silverdale said at 11:22 am on May 4th, 2010:

   In the Chapter “Mentation” we see a reference to the “Holy Planet Purgatory”.

   This is an excellent example of the point I have made before, namely, the totality of E.J. Gold’s Fourth Way publications are based upon and PRESUME a prior knowledge and mastery of the totality of G.I. Gurdjieff’s Trilogy entitled All and Everything.

   By way of further explanation – in Gurdjieff’s book Beelzebub’s Tales To His Grandson there is a chapter entitled The Holy Planet Purgatory in which Beelzebub explains to his grandson EXACTLY WHY and EXACTLY HOW the Absolute created the now existing Creation, as well as the purpose for which the Holy Planet Purgatory was established.

   The attentive reader will “reverse engineer” this “data and information” and subsequently apply it to himself/herself for their own beneficial evolutionary transformation.

   Furthermore and in addition – it is then important to know that the book Practical Work on Self was first published in 1979 as the Second Volume of Secret Talks With Mr. G. in a limited edition of 200 privately printed books.

   This original material may have been written by Gurdjieff himself in the 1930s or 1940s and was only subsequently published by IDHHB in 1979.

   Volume 2 of Secret Talks With Mr. G. – originally published in a limited, private edition in 1979 – was significantly edited and commercially published in 1989. This is the book that we are using for this class discussion.

   Editing, as well as translation, of written material will be more and less faithful to the original intent of the author based on the knowledge, background, skill and proficiency of the editor and/or translator.

   My intention in providing this background information is to encourage participants in this class to familiarize themselves directly with Gurdjieff’s writings.

   A good introduction to the totality of Gurdjieff’s ideas – although there are flaws in it – is P.D. Oupensky’s book In Search of the Miraculous.

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