THE
TRUE MYTH
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Making
space for real knowledge
THE TRUE MYTH Reviewed by a Work
student
ITS
limited print run suggests that this is a specialist
book.
Confirmation is given by its subject for, although the
Fourth Way
teaching of George Ivanovitch Gurdjieff has steadily
attracted attention
in philosophical circles since early last century, even
academically in recent
years, his Beelzebub's Tales to His Grandson
remains
a formidable work to
comprehend.
It may be argued that, even if given
the opportunity, the majority
of people probably would not want to understand it. For
few would perceive
any advantage in having their fond hopes and beliefs,
their world picture,
deliberately deleted, a painful exercise in unknowing
that the Tales promises to
execute.
On the other hand, that very point,
the misconception that Beelzebub
is predominantly destructive, makes it a pity that The
True Myth is not more
widely available. For those seeking glimpses of reality
should know that the term
"unknowing" means more than an absence of
information;
it implies a sweeping
away of nonsense to make room for useful knowledge,
which
is Beelzebub's function.
Beryl Pogson's approach to the ideas
hidden in the Tales evidently assumes that
Gurdjieff does not demolish existing notions without
giving clues how they can be
supplanted by essential ideas ideas with the potential
to help develop a responsive
person's whole being. It is typical of what we see here
of her teaching that she
illustrates the need to avoid a void of this type by
drawing a moral from the gospel
parable of the room swept clean of a devil that then
attracts seven worse devils.
The True Myth examples of her
teaching are not so much about explaining what
this or that word might mean, as much as that might
be desired, but in translating
Gurdjieff's imaginative ideas into practical work. The
book is a record, mostly verbatim,
of Beryl Pogson's talks on these ideas to her Work
groups
in southern England.
(The Work is the term given to Gurdjieff's "system" or
"method" of human development;
he is not seen as the originator of the Fourth Way, but
as the agent of its resurfacing
in our era.)
In the main, she puts
Beelzebub's
ideas to work by assuming that its characters
represent psychological elements of Everyman,
particularly
of course as represented
by the pupils in her group and, interestingly, of
Gurdjieff
himself.
The question-answer format of
The True Myth allows readers to judge whether
fresh understanding of themselves is gained by students
who accept that the numerous
"unbecoming" qualities detected by the alien but
exceptionally
perceptive Beelzebub
apply to each's own psychology.
It does not require the broad
hint given by the title for readers to realise that to
Beryl Pogson the term "myth" describes neither a
fictional
nor a literal account,
but a story whose inner meaning lies in its imagery.
They are likely to come to
feel that both personal and cosmic aspects of these
images
can be understood
more by intuition than by intellectual analysing.
According to her reported
talks,
many images in the Tales can be perceived,
and presumably were conceived, with the help of
teachings
ranging from the Gospels
and ancient Mysteries to astrology and the Hermetic
code.
Her argument that this is
because the principles of all the major spiritual
disciplines
are basically the same makes
this eclectic spread of correspondences seem
inevitable,
and amenable to the "law"
of analogy.
Of course, Gurdjieff's ideas
are not limited to traditional formulations. Here again,
Beryl Pogson is adept at bringing out the practical
application
of his more radical teaching,
such as in the relative degrees of human consciousness,
when his descriptions of the
subconscious seem to relate to Jung's findings about
the unconscious, and in his universal
"uncertainty" and "reciprocal maintenance" themes,
which
suggest, in some ways perhaps
anticipate, present-day scientific theories.
Many of the transformation
processes
that Beelzebub unveils are on a scale to overawe
the ordinary seeker of truth, setting goals that seem
to require superhuman effort to achieve.
It is notable therefore that Beryl Pogson stresses that
spiritual growth is gradual particularly
as shown in her favourite technique of "doing the next
thing". She says that an inner teacher
continually presents us with our next task, the next
essential step, but we consistently ignore
or reject it as being too trivial, or unpleasant to our
False Personality.
This is one of several parts
of her teaching that recur through this long book. They may
give the impression that the compiler, Bob Hunter, has
been more intent on sharing
Beryl Pogson's teaching than elucidating Beelzebub's
intricacies. Even if that were accurate,
however, the result shows that, 35 years after her
death,
she still has a valuable message for
those who feel they have more to understand about the
invisible side of themselves.
The True Myth suggests
that had she lived to fulfil her wish to write about Beelzebub,
Beryl Pogson would surely have produced some deep
insights
into Gurdjieff's veiled
revelations. While that was not to be, this account of
how she taught that people on all
levels can use the Tales in work on themselves
may well serve as the next best thing.
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