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The Trinity is primarily about how God moves and flows, how God changes from one form (or “state”)3 into another within the domain of manifestation and interpenetrates the mutability of creation with the wholeness of divine being. The idea that the Trinity might be about process rather than persons seems to be a radical notion.
But when viewed phenomenologically, the Trinity is a prime example of what is sometimes called in sacred tradition an arcanum: a densely encoded symbol (image, sacred gesture, or liturgical formula) that, when read by an illumined heart, conveys objective metaphysical knowledge.
With the Law of Three as its hermeneutical key, the Trinity reveals the knowledge of how God, the hidden, unmanifest, inaccessible light, becomes accessible light, manifesting and creating love; and how love in turn becomes the driveshaft of all creation, bringing all things to their fullness not by escaping createdness but by consummating it.
A few of Bennett’s major works are listed in the bibliography at the end of this book, and I recommend them heartily. In particular, his grasp of the enneagram, as well as his presentation of the Near Eastern and Sufi sources of the Gurdjieff teaching, remains unparalleled.
To this established corpus of Gurdjieff literature have arrived in recent years some welcome new additions. I would now recommend James Moore’s Gurdjieff: The Anatomy of a Myth as the normative starting point for most newcomers to the Work, even before cracking the pages of In Search of the Miraculous. A highly respected figure in Work circles in the United Kingdom, with a discriminating mind and a keen sense of irony, Moore gives a wonderfully comprehensive overview of the Work and offers some astute comments on delicate subjects all too often glossed over by less independent-minded devotees. And as Jacob Needleman, long a respected voice in the North American intellectual scene, becomes increasingly willing to “own up” publicly to his long-standing involvement in the Work, a whole new stream of insight is beginning to emerge. In his recent What Is God? Needleman has some excellent and insightful points to make about the Law of Three and particularly about its companion piece, the Law of Seven, which I will be drawing on in due course.
WORKS CITED HERE G. I. Gurdjieff, Beelzebub’s Tales to His Grandson James Moore, Gurdjieff: The Anatomy of a Myth Jacob Needleman, What Is God? Maurice Nicoll: Psychological Commentaries on the Teaching of Ouspensky and Gurdjieff, volumes 1 and 3
The essence of the Law of Three is the stipulation that every phenomenon, on whatever scale (from subatomic to cosmic) and in whatever world, springs from the interaction of three forces: the first active, the second passive, and the third neutralizing. In the language of the Gurdjieff Work, these are known respectively as “Holy Affirming, Holy Denying, and Holy Reconciling,” or “affirming, denying, and reconciling (or neutralizing),” or simply “first, second, and third.” The most important thing to keep in mind here is that this third force is an independent force, coequal with the other two, not a product of the first two as in the classic Hegelian “thesis, antithesis, synthesis.” Just as it takes three independent strands of hair to make a braid, so it takes three individual lines of force to make a new arising. This third force serves to bring the two other forces (which would otherwise remain disconnected or deadlocked) into relationship, from which forward momentum can emerge.
- The interweaving of the three produces a fourth in a new dimension. —Gurdjieff, 131; Moore, 44; Nicoll, 108–9
AI Summary
The Holy Trinity and the Law of Three by Cynthia Bourgeault presents key insights from the Sufism tradition. The 8 passages above capture the essential teachings.
Core Themes:
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Key Passages: Highlights 1, 3, and 8 are particularly representative.
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