(Three-brained beings and their higher-being bodies: TJ Clark on sacred neuroscience)
The Sacred Neuroscience of Beelzebub’s Tales to His Grandson by TJ Clark
“And so, the three-brained beings of the planet Earth are not only, as we also are, apparatuses for the transformation of the cosmic substances required for the Most Great Trogoautoegocrat with the qualities of all the three forces of the fundamental common-cosmic Triamazikamno, but also, themselves absorbing these substances for transformation from three different sources of independent arisings, have all the possibilities of assimilating besides the substances necessary for the maintenance of their own existence, also those substances which go for the coating and perfecting of their own higher-being-bodies.
Where, anatomically, in the planetary body of an ordinary human being are the three centers… moving, emotional and intellectual centers located? How are they connected in an ordinary human being and how could they be connected in a properly functioning and awake human being? What are the consequences of the abnormal connections and improper use of these centers and their effect on morbidity (disease) and the duration of existence of ordinary human beings? And, in contrast, what can be considered as normal?
“1. The brain determined by Great Nature for the concentration and further actualization of the first holy force of the Sacred Triamazikamno, called the Holy-Affirming, is localized in the head. “2. The second brain, which transforms and crystallizes the second holy force of the sacred Triamazikamno, namely, the Holy-Denying, is placed in their common presences, also as in us, along the whole of their back in what is called the ‘spinal column.’ “3. But as regards the place of concentration and source for the further manifestation of the third holy force of the sacred Triamazikamno, namely, the Holy-Reconciling – the exterior form of this being-brain in the three-brained beings there bears no resemblance whatever to ours”.
“Great Nature was compelled little by little to regenerate this brain and to give it the form which it now has in contemporary beings.” (4) Implicit in this statement is that we are not as we should be and that the human organism perhaps was, but is no longer, constructed to readily serve its higher purpose. He states that in this being-brain, representing the emotional center or third holy force in the contemporary three-brained beings there is not localized in one common mass, “…but is localized in parts, according to what is called ‘Specific Functioning,’ and each such part is localized in a different place of their whole planetary body”.
(The emotional center: its degeneration and location in the solar plexus)
“…just in that place of their planetary body where such a normal being-brain should be, namely, in the region of their breast, and the totality of these nerve-nodes in their breast, they call the “Solar Plexus.”7
Indeed the structure and function of the human head-brain or cerebrum can be appreciated as a marvel of evolutionary biology yet, in the absence of conscious awareness, it is no more than what Gurdjieff has referred to a “typewriter”9, a “machine”10 or an “apparatus.”11 Today, he would likely refer to the head-brain as a computer.
Note, however, that the abnormal functioning of the thinking center includes activities common to each of us including fantasy, considering, identification and daydreaming—like an errant typewriter—and that efforts to struggle against these can lead to the harmonious connections between the centers. The spinal cord or “spinal marrow,” as Gurdjieff refers to it, conducts messages to and from the head-brain or the cerebrum regarding the sensations and movements of the head, trunk and limbs.
Regarding the localization of the emotional center, in the chapter THE HOLY PLANET PURGATORY, Gurdjieff states: “Concerning the place of concentration of this localization which serves the common presences of terrestrial three-brained beings as a regularizing or reconciling principle, it must be noticed that in the beginning these three-brained beings of the planet Earth who have taken your fancy, also had this third concentration, similarly to us, in the form of an independent brain localized in the region of what is called ‘breast.’”
Through the conscious and intentional fulfilling of Being-Partkdolg duty by beings of the three-brained system they can “…utilize from this process of Djartklom in the Omnipresent-Okidanokh, its three holy forces for their own presences, and bring their presences to what are called the ‘Sekronoolanzaknian-state’; that is to say, that they can become such individuals as have their own sacred law of Triamazikamno and thereby the possibility of consciously taking in and coating in their common presence all that ‘Holy’ which, incidentally, also aids the actualizing of the functioning in these cosmic units of Objective or Divine Reason.”16
Indeed, although each center has been described as localized in either the head, spinal column or solar plexus, each center includes structures in each and connections with each other within the planetary body in accordance with the principle ‘Itoklanoz.’17
“Further, a part of this being-Tetartoëhary from both hemispheres of their head-brain goes unchanged to serve the planetary body of the given being, but the other part having in itself all the possibilities for independent evolution, continues to evolve without any help from outside; and mixing again by means of the process Harnelmiatznel with previously formed higher substances already present in the beings, it is gradually transmuted into still higher definite being-active-elements called ‘Piandjoëhary.’ “And these substances have as their central place of their concentration in beings the, what is called, ‘Sianoorinam’ or, as your favorites call this part of the planetary body, the ‘cerebellum,’ which in beings is also located in the head.”
In Meetings With Remarkable Men, Gurdjieff asserts that “there was not a single book on neuropathology or psychology in the library of the Kars military hospital that I had not read, and read very attentively…”26 Perhaps as a result of this interest and persistent pursuit he introduces the concept of the death of individual centers and “dying-by-thirds.”27
Since Gurdjieff’s time, the enhanced identification with amateur and professional sports, along with the passion or obsession among many people with physical fitness including that of extreme endurance, body building and body “sculpting” can be seen as potentially shortening rather than extending the duration of existence of the ordinary human being.
Mr. Gurdjieff. “In the common presence of every being existing merely on the basis of Itoklanoz ‘something’ similar to the regulator in a mechanical watch is present and is called ‘Iransamkeep’; this ‘something’ means: ‘not-to-give-oneself-up-to-those-of-one’s-associations-resulting-from-the-functioning-of-only-one-or-another-of-one’s-brains.”36
(Self-work, neural rewiring, and the prospect of awakening)
The process of work on oneself, i.e. self-remembering, self-observation, non-identification and the struggle against negative emotions result in physiologic changes and connections between and among the centers. Efforts to awaken quiet the constant chatter of the associative head-brain and serve to reign in mechanical and automatic emotional responses. The substances of the food cycle are transmuted by these efforts or being-Partkdolg-duty into Piandjoëhary in the cerebellum via the cortico-pontine-cerebellar tract. Center four, located in the cerebellum is activated as is center five, the higher emotional center, localized in the heart. The lower centers located in the cerebrum, spinal cord and solar plexus continue to function but with new connections and are thus subservient to the higher centers. Approximately 90% of neural volume and connections in the ordinary human being are present by the age of six. From the point of view of a human being who is endeavoring to awaken, the neurologic structures necessary for awakening already exist and have existed since early childhood. The connections forged by efforts to awaken serve to connect the lower and higher centers and provide the prospect of fulfilling the true nature of the human being according to the Fulasnitamnian principle41 and are not theoretical, but real, tangible and verifiable.
Dr. Christian Wertenbaker, in his book Man and Cosmos, GI Gurdjieff and Modern Science addresses the anatomic correlates of the three centers and suggests that
“if the body’s electromagnetic activity is organized and functional on a macroscopic level, a realm of possible interactions unknown to current scientific thinking may exist.”43 Could the proper alignment and integration of the anatomic structures comprising the three lower centers result in accruing powers or changing the influences under which a normal, completed human being may be subject to? Ouspensky relates in Fragments of an Unknown Teaching that Gurdjieff stated that by freeing oneself from various orders of mechanical laws, one would come under the influence of the planetary world, the sun and the starry world and that “the possibility for man thus gradually to free himself from mechanical law exists.”44 Or, as Gurdjieff suggests in Beelzebub’s Tales to his Grandson, becoming a Polormedekhtian being. In the chapter BEELZEBUB’S FOURTH SOJOURN ON THE EARTH, Gurdjieff introduces the concept of a Teleoghinoora which he describes “…a materialized idea or thought which after its arising exists almost eternally in the atmosphere of that planet in which it arises. “And the sequential series of being-ideas, materialized in this way, concerning any given event, are called ‘Korkaptilnian thought tapes.’”46 These Korkaptilnian thought tapes could be accessed and the texts cognized by any being who has acquired the ability, through their efforts to perfect the Reason of a higher being, to enter into the “being-state called ‘Soorptakalknian contemplation.’”47
In Life is real only then, when, I am, Gurdjieff claims that “I could attain almost anything within the limits of man’s possibilities, and in some fields attained even to such a degree of power as not one man, perhaps not even in any past epoch, had ever attained. “For instance, the development of the power of my thoughts had been brought to such a level that by only a few hours of self-preparation I could from a distance of tens of miles kill a yak; or, in twenty-four hours, could accumulate life forces of such compactness that I could in five minutes put to sleep an elephant.”48
It is the quality not of mind or of feeling; or of successful accomplishment, but simply of being.”51
(Questions and answers: directed thinking, chatter, and the Work in practice)
Questions and Answers
The moments in which I feel more alive and awake are when I can cut off all the chatter. Before I came to a Work group, I went through the Arica training course in 1974. They used the term “chitch” for the cerebral chatter that was going on all the time. I think that directed thinking comes from being awake.
TJC: I think that the cerebellum –if you look at some of the diagrams like the food diagram – is where the fourth center or individuality exists. From a neuroscience perspective, we do not speak about Piandjoëhary or Exhioëhary as these are cosmic substances.
have had the experience of washing dishes or preparing a meal when I think of something someone sad to me ten years ago and I get angry. The random thoughts trigger an automatic emotional response. The autonomic nervous system takes over and literally uses up my life, like a Bobbin-kandelnost.
Make it (the Work) known to them. I don’t know what to say about that. It’s a good perspective. I find it frightening what is happening on the planet. This is something that we have to be awake to.
(Reading Beelzebub’s Tales as an inner act: Joshua Denny on active mentation)
The Legominism of Beelzebub’s Tales by Joshua Denny
Can we see something more of the ‘inner action’ that is present within us when we do engage with this material?
This ‘Solioonensius’ can possibly be an inspiration for our work, but of course this depends upon how we make use of the conditions, or the energy that is related to Solioonensius.
This energy can be thought of as coming from a higher world into our world, the world of Man, and expresses differently depending on how we are able to make use of the conditions and energy in order to transform it.
Maybe quite the opposite, just allow your associations to flow, see where they go, maybe give them a bit more attention than usual, but don’t be afraid to ‘get lost’ in them and go with them. Along with that, I want to give you the suggestion, or maybe just my hope, that you might get a sense of kind of being immersed or submerged in a kind of ‘medium’, or ‘substance’, if you like, just like we can be submerged or immersed in the substance of water. But instead of water, this substance is the stuff of impressions and associations, the stuff of mind.
We may see Gurdjieff’s very advice at the start of Beelzebub’s Tales,4 to read the book in three different ways, as a direction to experiment with form, the form of our reading, and see how this changes the results.
In this case, there isn’t really much attention available to be paid to the process of thinking. This process is ‘bringing thoughts to mind’ and is involved in shaping them into a particular order or structure. If, for the moment, we called both thinking in words and thinking in pictures, forming ‘images’, then it’s like saying that in order to connect to this process of thinking, and thereby to be able to participate in that process differently, I need to get beyond ‘images’ in my thinking, beyond thinking in words and pictures, I need to be able to connect to a deeper level than that, the level that is behind the words and pictures and is involved in shaping them. In the Work we have ideas of ‘self-observation’, and this can involve the observation of our thinking, which is great, but we also have this idea of ‘active mentation’.
If, for the moment, we called both thinking in words and thinking in pictures, forming ‘images’, then it’s like saying that in order to connect to this process of thinking, and thereby to be able to participate in that process differently, I need to get beyond ‘images’ in my thinking, beyond thinking in words and pictures, I need to be able to connect to a deeper level than that, the level that is behind the words and pictures and is involved in shaping them. In the Work we have ideas of ‘self-observation’, and this can involve the observation of our thinking, which is great, but we also have this idea of ‘active mentation’.
Coming to read and think differently can then involve this process of the clarification of concept, and one way of talking about this is to say that we need to come to ‘see’ the concepts that are present in us and operative in us, and how they are involved in shaping mental content.
By this I mean that we have to be able to intensify the inner experience that accompanies reading, I have to be able to change and intensify the inner content that arises in me in response to this or that word. This intensification of the inner experience that accompanies reading, could possibly link to the word ‘Hanbledzoin’ used in Beelzebub’s Tales.
In the analogy, the horse is the feelings, the driver the mind, and the cart the body. Hanbledzoin is here expressed as the connection between the driver and the horse, the ‘reins’ that connect thinking and feeling, and the material of these reins is said to be composed of this Hanbledzoin.
Einstein spoke of ‘Gedankenexperiment’ which is the German word for thought-experiment, which he used in order to come to his conclusions and insights. We might see that in this process we can create an inner ‘simulation’ that is of such a quality that it displays all the same laws that are at work in the physical world, the external world.
We might see a link here to Gurdjieff’s notion of ‘the sly man’ (ISM p.50-1), who can take his ‘pill’ to instantly access the same level of energy and material that the men of the other ways, the monk, the yogi, and the fakir, have to work much longer to be able to access. The example here is that the yogi has to do exercises all day in order to achieve the same results that the sly man can get access to instantly through popping his pill. The pill can here refer to the quality of the inner experience, in terms of reflecting, more or less depending on its quality, the laws of the external world, or we might think here of the ‘Objective Laws’.
The sly man makes use of the external conditions around him, making a correspondence between his inner and outer worlds, and it is this correspondence that can give accelerated results.
He may be engaging with the text in a more appropriate way, in the sense that a much more living experience is present in him when he is reading or listening to something being read. As he has a more real, living experience, he may get much more out of the text than we do as adults.
The substance of my being, as related to my body and feelings, has to be breathed into my thinking, into my mentation, in order to bring it alive, to enliven it with the Divine breath and Holy Spirit. To this end, I have to give of the blood of my being, my being-blood. The ‘spirit’ realm has often been associated with blood, and with blood sacrifice.
(Abstract ideals, Kesdjan body, and working without ambition: Jan Jarvis)
Role of Abstract Ideals in the Creation of Kesdjan by Jan Jarvis “I am Gurdjieff: I not will die.”1 But, of course, he did. What could he have meant by this extraordinary declaration? Everyone dies; the physical body goes into the ground (or the crematorium) and it doesn’t come out again. In the chapter entitled ‘Religion’, Gurdjieff makes this very clear. Survival of the human entity after death is not, nor ever has been, a legitimate possibility or aim of inner Work.
Then we can come to an understanding of why such an Ideal is necessary in order to Work. Let’s visualize an ‘Ideal’ as a shining beacon, an abstract that which inspires us and lights the way to the goals or aims that we hold dear.
The octaves of digestion, especially that of impressions, will aid in this goal, what is digested and how impressions are in turn, broken down in the process of Work until they can be reconstituted in our understanding.
Later, on the next page, Gurdjieff addresses the impossibility of having a direct relationship with whatever “god” is and advised to take ‘an ideal whoever is nearest…” and further that “your ideal will be your god.” So, this Ideal is, clearly, to be worshipped, prayed too, and above all, emulated. An Ideal is an abstract notion, one used by Plato to explain what is permanent and eternal (and existing outside our world) as opposed to a flawed reflection in this world.
Qualities are the building blocks of the abstract Ideal and so, for the Ideal to be digested, must be reduced to these manageable ‘elementals’. Take again, small steps.
Just being present and having the will to act without expectation or reward is a form of ‘showing up.’ It is through–just in the smallest exchange, the smallest action, the smallest effort to be present–we build a ‘body’ of Work.
“The teaching, by itself, cannot pursue any definite aim. It can only show the best way for men to attain whatever aims they may have.” In other words, the Work needs us to be the conduits, those who manifest the values of the Ideal. It is, truly, “Up to Ourselves.”24
No, everyone wants to be somebody, to have their ‘own’ Kesdjan body’ or impressive ‘being’ or great knowledge of the intricacies of the Tales—they do not seek to be no one and nothing–which is the case in truth. I have come to believe that this way of working, the outcome of which has been put forth by Gurdjieff over and over, is unavailable to ambition of any sort.
Giovanni longs for God of Truth and nothing more for himself. His understanding is by efforts and not by ambition.
In this Truth, we become the conduits, the messenger, the exemplar, for the Ideal, the higher worlds, finer energies or whatever term you choose to adopt.
Every single present moment, shot through with J.G. Bennett’s idea of Hyparxis, the omnipresent present moment that is made up of all past present moments and contains the possibility of all future present moment is available if we are awake.
We can practice attaining the ideal in its particularity while accepting the concreteness of our future demise.
(Gurdjieff’s body discipline and keeping his word: Richard Miller)
Material to Construct a Psychology of the Seekers of Truth by Richard Miller
To remind the reader, In the chapter “Ekim Bey”, the band of seekers have come across the Persian dervish on one of their expeditions and they are talking. Gurdjieff is speaking about how he chews his food according to the methods advocated by the yogis. The dervish then asks him if he did gymnastics to which Gurdjieff responds:
“I was in fact working very hard at gymnastics at that time and although I knew all the methods recommended by the Indian Yogis, I kept to the system of the Swede, Mueller…and considered it necessary to practise twice a day.”11 The dervish then goes on to discuss digestion, breathing and eventually a question from one of the seekers, Ekim Bey.
Miller: Yes quite so. I remember what inspired me years ago when I first started reading Gurdjieff years was John Henderson’s book. In it he makes this statement Gurdjieff always kept his word. If he says he is going to write about it something somewhere else then he’s going to write about it somewhere else – it’s up to you to find it.
(Transformed contemplation and sensing one’s own presence: Peter Apps)
The Akhaldan Cathedral by Peter Apps
“‘The striving to become aware of the sense and aim of the Being of beings.’”
Another consideration is where Gurdjieff got his material from. Paul Taylor and others have suggested that in his youth Gurdjieff was widely read and not only absorbed ‘ancient texts’ but also contemporary western writings. We face a limitation on what we can know of the ancient texts Gurdjieff would cite because he never revealed what they were or gave anyone a sight of any such documents. Concerning modern western sources, he also gave no information, so we are left with guesswork.
What this means, in practice, is that when we discuss the exercises, the control should be coming from somewhere above the level of the ordinary mind, above the level of what Gurdjieff called the “formatory apparatus.”
This illusion feeds our egotism, our vanity, our self-complacency, our inner self-calming. When we are in the grip of this illusion, we disrespect the exercises. The exercises have a reality: they have a form, they correspond to objective truth, and they bear in themselves something of the influence of those who shaped their form.
You ought to have known more by now. There is no particular benefit in the existence of groups by themselves and there is no particular merit in belonging to groups. The benefit or usefulness of groups is determined by their results.
am taking a risk in saying all this, the risk of being misunderstood, but perhaps the chance of being understood is more valuable to me, and I will be able to discriminate between constructive criticism and little darts of another character.
ideas, the individual formulation of an aim, the daily programme, and the contemplative exercises. I consider these indispensable. I would say the same of nothing else, not even the movements and the music, although they can be an extraordinary aid.
Gurdjieff’s second reason for avoiding contemplation in secluded conditions was perhaps his concern about human suggestibility, which he considered to be a scourge, causing people to lose their independence and individual initiative.
In Beelzebub, he stated that suggestibility can lead to “that strange and relatively prolonged ‘psychic state,’ which I should call the ‘loss of sensation of self’.” The link between suggestibility and loss of self-awareness made Gurdjieff wary of trance states and their equivalent. Gurdjieff did not want students to suffer from dissociation; rather, he aimed at a fuller and more vivid sense of the self as a unity.
Gurdjieff returned to impressions when he offered what seems to be a definition of Transformed-contemplation as “the confrontation of homogeneous impressions of all origins, which were already fixed, while continuous contact is maintained between their inner and separate centres.”5 The essential element of this equation is placed at the end: There is a sustained attention given simultaneously to mind, feeling, and body. This is one of two possible grounds of criticism of Orage’s exercises; first, that they did not exercise three centres at once, and second, that they do not call one to sense their own presence. In my terms, they were “tasks” or, at most, “disciplines.”
More frequently, however, he spoke of the need to come to one’s own presence, a collected state, what he called the sense of “I am.”
The need to consciously sense one’s body in a relaxed state; while having some awareness of one’s feeling (chiefly a feeling of presence); with all this being directed by an undistracted intellect. If this was maintained, three happy results could flow: a unified calm in one’s common presence; higher hydrogens could be received and digested;
and the higher being bodies coated, which allow the higher and the lower centers to work together in unison. Eventually, this would achieve the grand aim of: Exercitants’ achieving their own real “I,” with powers of consciousness, will, expressive of their own individuality, and able to hear and support their conscience.