Masses Irretrievably Lose Their Reason
Freedom in the Midst of Madness
Is the title of this piece the headline of a current internet news feed? A line from a sci-fi apocalyptic zombie movie? No, but it certainly does seem as if it could be. In fact, it is part of a talk given by G. I. Gurdjieff in St. Petersburg, Russia, the year was 1915. The context of the talk, in ordinary life, was that the First World War was not going well for Russia, additionally there was a very unsettled Russian political situation. But he chose to speak on a level and scale much broader and deeper than ordinary life events. Gurdjieff spoke, “There are periods in the life of humanity, which generally coincide with the beginning of the fall of cultures and civilizations, when the masses irretrievably lose their reason [emphasis added] and begin to destroy everything created by centuries and millenniums of culture…” When this was first read in the early 1970’s it resonated strongly, and it seemed as if humanity had entered or perhaps was already deeply immersed in such a period. Having lived through that period one can only say, on a world scale and without much question, that the position on Earth in which humanity currently finds itself makes the 1960s and 70s appear as if they were child’s play at kindergarten, perhaps even nursery school.
Gurdjieff continues, “Such periods of mass madness, often coinciding with geological cataclysms, climate changes, and similar phenomena of a planetary character, release a very great quantity of the matter of Knowledge…” Certainly, we are in a period of climate change, mostly man induced. And this climate change is happening at a speed likely never before experienced on Earth save from a cataclysm. Humanity, as is easily observed, is immersed in deepening duality, locked into the reason of the formatory (frontal, chatterbox) brain and taken away by an astonishing degree of suggestibility. We have a technologically enabled situation whereby information often absurdly false is impressed into the unquestioning, vulnerable masses, primarily men (and women) number one; people who are dominated by their instinctual, moving and sexual centers. It is to remember that man number ones make up the great majority of human beings. Gurdjieff goes on to say, “…The crowd neither wants nor seeks knowledge, and the leaders of the crowd, in their own interests, try to strengthen its fear and dislike of everything new and unknown…” 1 As to the “crowd” this quite succinctly describes the situation and attitude of the great majority of humanity. He says, the masses become irretrievably without reason in such times and this is an apt description of today’s masses and key to understanding the worldly situation as it exists. That the current reason of the masses is being dictated by forces that would be inconceivable to those who are being influenced/controlled and one might add to those who are to some degree less influenced. That the abnormal conditions of ordinary existence Gurdjieff saw and wrote of in the early to mid Twentieth Century have now become more abnormal. This situation of what appears to be a growing mass madness likely will simply play out on an earthly/organic life scale, the forces involved are unstoppable. But for those reading this, those who have interests beyond the level of ordinary existence, for them, much more to the point is the question: what is this “very great matter of Knowledge”?
Petrograd (Saint Petersburg), July 4, 1917 Street demonstration on Nevskey Prospekt just after troops of the Provisional Government have opened fire with machine guns
“It is our attitude toward events, not the events themselves that we can control”
Epictetus
Later, while near Baku, as the general situation in Russia accelerated its unraveling (1917-18) Gurdjieff and P. D. Ouspensky talk. ”Events are against us,” I [Ouspensky] said. “It is by now clear that it is not possible to do anything in the midst of this mass madness.”
“It is only now possible,” G replied, “and events are not against us at all. They are merely moving too quickly. This is the whole trouble. But wait five years and you will see for yourself how what hinders today will prove useful to us.” 2
Was Gurdjieff’s statement made several years earlier, regarding the release of a “matter of Knowledge” the basis for his statement above? There is no question that on an ordinary level events/the situation in Russia were bad and getting worse. But Gurdjieff’s primary interests were clearly not of an ordinary level, though without doubt he was quite adept at dealing with what life threw at him. One gets a sense that indeed, the worsening conditions themselves may have been an aid in Gurdjieff’s deeper aim. Gurdjieff uses the term “mass madness” as does Ouspensky. And that was certainly what they were then experiencing in that time and place. While the current situation in most of the so-called free world is relatively calm, one would be delusionary not to see how fragile this calm is, and how easily the ordinary life situation we currently live in may deteriorate in ways quite impossible to predict by ordinary methods.
It seems that these two quotes are an indication that work for those interested in the evolution of consciousness is more favorable or more possible at certain times than others. Further, the worse the conditions of ordinary life, the more possibilities may exist that enable one to come to real life. Gurdjieff’s work up to the time he gathered a small group near Essentuki in south western Russia, was, though not entirely, of a somewhat theoretical/philosophical nature. In October of 1917 just after the Bolshevik revolution, he began, in Essentuki, what one might call a more active/practical work. As Ouspensky at the time said “…G. unfolded the plan of the whole work.”3 to a few students. Some months later he would expand this group at a nearby location to about 40 students and include public performances and lectures. Was he taking into consideration that events were occurring and that the deep and spreading madness would allow his students, if prepared and available to gather a matter of Knowledge? We really don’t know the level on which he was operating and why he did what he did. But his work which began with the Russian Intelligentsia about 1912 certainly changed/unfolded, and it reached for a different level during this period.
On a surface level there isn’t much question that humans are lulled into a sort of routine stupor by the hypnotic momentum of ordinary life, that is, when things go well and in an anticipated fashion. But, routines get broken by the unforseeingness of people and the flow of events. As Gurdjieff says, “Looking backwards, we only remember the difficult periods of our lives, never the peaceful times; the latter are sleep, the former are struggle and therefore life.” 4 This can easily be verified. When we are in our default state of psychological sleep, the waking state, we live at a very low level of awareness, of consciousness. Little deeply registers. However, at times it is possible external events may, if we are open, directly affect us internally, or we can be, without volition, shocked by events into a heightened state of awareness, of openness. This often is a very uncomfortable state, and typically people do whatever they can to return to their default state just “so I don’t feel too bad.” But what happens if events are so strong and enduring that it is impossible to return to my so-called normal life and that I continue to feel, continue to be open? Is one swept away by mass madness? Or can one work with the released energies and new openness in the context of a teaching? This is one way to begin to understand what Gurdjieff meant when he said in the midst of revolutionary chaos, “It [ real work] is only now possible…”
However, possibilities could exist in making contact with the matter of Knowledge Gurdjieff speaks of and this may be of great interest to those who seek the higher. It would seem it is not, in itself, the teaching Gurdjieff brought, though work with a teaching may be prerequisite to being able to contact such knowledge. That there is “a something” that may be lawfully, directly and individually “gathered” by those who are or make themselves available. Here we may look at what Gurdjieff calls the “affinity of vibrations.” That such “matter” exists at a higher level of vibration than ordinary life and that this something, has or is being released or made accessible in some way by the craziness and associated death and destruction currently befalling humanity or perhaps just from planetary changes themself. But are we open to this knowledge on a vibrational level? Is our level of being at a point where a said affinity of vibration could occur? And more basically how to remain internally free and available to the higher as world events swirl around? A clue might be given by Gurdjieff: “Faith of Consciousness is Freedom” 5
Richard Myers October 2023
WWW.growingchoongary.com
Notes
- P. D. Ouspensky. In Search of the Miraculous, p. 38.
- P. D. Ouspensky. In Search of the Miraculous, p. 343.
- P. D. Ouspensky. In Search of the Miraculous, p.346.
- G. I. Gurdjieff. Views from the Real World, p. 194.
- G. I. Gurdjieff. All and Everything (1950), p. 361
Open to Openness 