So, Beelzebub is an evolved being who has harmonised his ‘three-brains’ (or ‘centres’) into working rationally and efficiently (‘active mentation’). Everything he thinks, says, or does is the result of an intense focus on the ‘reality’ – that is, the trueness of experience free from falsity and clouding emotion – at any one instant in space-time. He is currently aboard the spaceship Karnak on some kind of intergalactic diplomatic mission with members of his own tribe, including his grandson (and disciple) Hassein, and his old retainer, Ahoon. Beelzebub has been recalled from his long exile in the solar system called Ors – which contains Earth – because the assistance he provided one of the periodic messengers sent by the MAKER CREATOR ABSOLUTE to help the inhabitants of that planet develop their full spiritual potential, has helped counter-balance the massive cock up Beelzebub perpetrated during that system’s formative process.
A word of caution: Everything Beelzebub says or does (including his gestures when described) has multiple levels of meaning, dependent on the reader’s ability to interpret them; so while you may read something else into what follows, I can only give you my interpretation. In addition, time and space restraints make it impossible for me to discuss every single nuance of Gurdjieff’s work, so I will have to skip over large portions and shall only comment on the more obvious passages.
At one particular point in the voyage, the Karnak’s captain approaches Beelzebub to inform him that they are about to traverse an area of space that is still awash with the wake of the ‘madcap’ comet Sakoor. The comet’s wake has the propensity to ‘disturb’ the functions of a planetary (that is, a physical) body, so Beelzebub advises the captain to halt the ship and wait until the wake has dissipated. He will use the delay, he says, to educate his grandson, Hassein, about the strange three-brained beings that inhabit the planet Earth. This episode is, I feel, an illustration of the mechanics behind ‘active mentation’ in that it demonstrates how to avoid potential confusion by stopping, assessing the alternatives, and taking the most appropriate action. Every experience or situation is a potential teacher. On another level, Beelzebub is demonstrating that when faced with powers out of our individual control, it is sensible to yield to the best option and learn from the experience. This is very much like the Stoic teaching as expressed by Seneca (a section on whom you can also access on this website) that it is far less stressful to willingly be led than to be dragged against your will.
Back aboard the Karnak, Hassein is eager to hear more about the inhabitants of Earth where his grandfather spent so much time and this is the point in the book where we are introduced to the concept of individuals having the potential to ‘coat’ themselves in ‘higher being-bodies’. The concept is that, although we ‘three-brained’ humans are born into a physical body, we possess the potential to ‘coat’ it with a ‘higher being-body’ otherwise known as a soul. But we have to work at it. Unlike the Egyptians, who saw duality in every person – that is, the ‘soul’ was an invisible and refined ‘reflection’ of the physical body, which was either beautified and ennobled or distorted and made ugly depending on how the physical body behaved during life – Beelzebub paints a picture of our being born with a wisp of a soul that we can, through extreme effort, grow into a permanent entity. I like to picture the process of ‘coating’ our physical bodies as similar to placing a smaller Russian doll inside a larger one.
Beelzebub also suggests at this point that the Moon was once part of the Earth and became separated after some massive catastrophe that was actually the fault of mismanagement by some higher up ‘architects’ of the cosmos; but more on that in later postings.
Although Beelzebub states that three-brained beings exist on most planets and moons of the solar system, Earth, it seems, is lagging behind in spiritual development. There are even a race of ant-like beings living on the Moon, he says, and even they have managed to outperform humanity in the self-betterment stakes (although, this, I suspect, is meant to be a metaphor that effort is required to evolve psychically and the industrious ant kind of epitomises that non-stop work ethic). Beelzebub then describes the inhabitants of Earth as being physically like his own tribe only lacking a tail and horns (you see; I did tell you there was a similarity to the biblical Beelzebub, although the possession of horns is also an indication of wisdom in a lot of older cultures and esoteric thought).
Beelzebub then goes on to explain the further ‘peculiarity’ that humans’ ‘being-Reason’ is degenerate, under-developed, and highly peculiar, but has to stop his explanation at that point in time as he takes the opportunity to engage the captain of the ship (who has just reappeared) about the Law of Falling.
This is a strange passage, and I’m not sure I’ve got my head around it yet, so feel free to have a crack yourselves.
OK, the Law of Falling is described in the context of spaceship propulsion system evolution. Beelzebub starts off by remarking that the ‘science’ behind spaceship design and propulsion has come on in leaps and bounds since he was first exiled. There is a tie-up here with some of the fundamental laws of the universe, but it is early in the book at this point, so I’m going to have to take a stab in the dark; but one thing that can be stated is that the evolution (or change) in the field of spaceship design is meant to stand in stark contrast to the changelessness of THE SOURCE. So, no matter how things shift (remembering that what we call ‘time’ is simply the leading edge of molecular change) it must be borne in mind that the fundamental energy – for want of a better word – from which all and everything comes, is pure and changeless.
Beelzebub says that, when he was younger, spaceship propulsion – and interstellar communication – depended on a composite of two separate parts of a substance that fills the universe (I know, I know, it’s hardly convincing in its detail, is it?). This all changed when a certain Saint Venoma formulated the cosmic Law of Falling, which, as far as I can tell, goes a bit like this:
Everything falls to the bottom (the Epicureans had a similar concept – as explicated by the Roman poet Lucretius – but we don’t need to go down that track here). The ‘bottom’ for any given part of the Universe is its nearest ‘point of stability’ (presumably concentration of matter) which makes it the convergence point for all lines of force within that part of the universe. So all suns and planets are their own ‘bottom’ for the part of space they’re in. That same concentration of mass helps these ‘bottoms’ maintain their positions relative to one another.
So far, all well and good, and not a problem to get your head around. OK, this Saint Venoma person then goes on to postulate that anything ‘dropped’ into space will naturally end up at the sun or planet that is the ‘bottom’ of that part of space into which it is dropped. Still all good so far.
Saint Venoma’s next leap of logic was to realise that this cosmic peculiarity could be taken advantage of for spaceship locomotion – but in a rather round about way. Unfortunately, Beelzebub (or Gurdjieff) glosses over the rather obvious flaw in this logic because it is not explained how a spaceship, having ‘fallen’ to the ‘bottom’ of one part of space, then goes against the stream, as it were, to arrive at the border where it can ‘fall’ to the next sun or planet at the ‘bottom’ of the next bit of space. We have to cut Gurdjieff a bit of slack here though as it must be remembered he was writing this stuff well before space travel became a reality, and we should give him at least some credit for having a fair crack at it.
The flaw in the logic, though, doesn’t really matter, as what Saint Venoma then did, having realised that even planets’ atmospheres would pose a problem for direct ‘falling’, was to invent a spacecraft with a mechanism that creates a temporary vacuum immediately in front of the ship in the direction it is travelling, thereby obviating any problems caused by directional lines of force or pesky atmospheric resistance.
The captain of the Karnak winds up his explanation by stating that, although this propulsion system was far from perfect, it was the best available, and so was being used everywhere. But, because of the issues that still arose due to the universal constant known as the Law of Falling, only beings who had been trained to a very high degree of Reason could be allowed to pilot such vessels. Spaceships of this type were, he winds up, still very difficult to maneuver in areas with high comet concentrations and around large suns and planets.
Well, there you have it: The Law of Falling. There’s obviously a hell of a lot going on here between the lines, and it’s not just good old Gurdjieff trying to show he can trump up a plausible physics theory along with the best of them (I don’t think he was that kind of bloke, anyway). I guess that, on one level, this little episode is yet another illustration of employing Reason to make sense of, and use, the forces at play around you. Comets seem to be used allegorically as almost random events that can derail your ability to think rationally, and the Law of Falling itself is demonstrative of the immutability of cosmic law within which we have the ability to exercise some free will (as this Saint Venoma person did). There’s also the implication that the more sophisticated the spaceship (= the more spiritually developed the person), the greater the need for a pilot with high-level reasoning ability (= the more Reason must be deployed to think and act correctly). Well, that’s what I reckon, but it could be all hogwash. Feel free to contact me if you can make more sense of it.
OK, this passage closes with the ship’s captain saying that Saint Venoma’s system was superseded by a new propulsion system designed by the Archangel Hariton. My, my, we do seem to be shifting up the celestial ranks commensurate with the evolution of the propulsion systems, don’t we? I suppose it’s all illustrative of the wider point that the more we develop and evolve ourselves; that is, the more we streamline and enhance our spiritual potential, the higher the spiritual status and quality of the ‘I’ that develops as a result of our self-betterment.
Right, that’s enough for now. The next posting will cover the system of this Archangel Hariton and the concept of perpetual motion, along with an introduction into how we can start to become aware of what Gurdjieff (and Beelzebub) call our ‘being-duty’. I’ll see you there.
