Gurdjieff’s emphasis on individuation is clear.  For instance, his Fifth Being-Oblogonian Striving:

“…the striving always to assist the most rapid perfecting of other beings, both those similar to oneself and those of other forms, up to the degree of the sacred ‘Martfotai’, that is up to the degree of self-individuality.” (p 386)

This passage, taken from the chapter about Ashiata Shiemash, shows Ashiata’s (Gurdjieff’s) emphasis on individuality.  The fifth striving can be seen as the culmination of the others: the ability to help others become themselves.

One can take the whole story of Beelzebub and his time in Ors to be a story of individuation.  Beginning as a lopsided learned being, he is banished to a remote corner where he must make his own verification and investigations in order to ultimately be redeemed.  Realizing that beelzebub, in relating his story to the reader, represented by the attentive listening of Hassein, is wishing to impart an experience or identical development, we see that the “specific benefit” which Gurdjieff wishes for the reader is just this individuation.  Individuation here, represented at the end of the book by Hassein taking the “posture-of-the-all-famous-universal-hermit” (p 1179), can be seen in a similar sense to the Alone-ness of Plotinus, a Oneness and not a loneliness.

So what are the ways in which this is done?

First, we can say that the ability to contemplate and put the book together for oneself is a demonstration of the reader’s individuality.  Beelzebub’s Tales cannot be fathomed easily or automatically, and, being process-oriented as well as simultaneous, cannot be put in cliff notes form or explained to someone who has not put it together for themselves.  This shows that thinking for oneself plays a major part in this development.  Each word, phrase, and image must acquire corresponding associations with other words, phrases, and images in the book, and such associations can only be forged by comparing and connecting them in one’s own mind.

Second, are the outer forms that  Gurdjieff’s message is couched in.  These are obviously ridiculous.   Consider Gurdjieff’s infamous metaphor of the women breeding with apes (277-278), the description of the triadic sexual process of an alien species on an unknown planet (771-773), the disturbing story of a young school girl’s suicide (1036-1040), or any number of other stories that seem, at first glance, incomprehensible and disgusting.  Not only is the literal content of these stories unpalatable, but their allegorical content is extremely difficult to discern without concerted and lengthy thought.  This means that the reader will not only be given no immediate evidence of any couched meaning, but will experience, quite naturally, all sorts of negative feelings. Additional examples of this include constant criticisms of scientists, artists, business-persons, politicians, and every other professional, as though Gurdjieff were out to push every possible kind of interested person away.  This is interesting because he is particularly harsh to exactly those persons that he would seem to be trying to attract to his book/teaching.  All of this outrageous material becomes more understandable if we think of them as being intentionally so.

Due of all this, Beelzebub’s Tales does not and cannot have a simple introduction to a person unfamiliar with it, and because most human beings, quite logically, will not pursue any course of action without some preconception about its usefulness, a preconception that is necessarily theoretical exactly because they have not carried that course of action out, it is ensured that Beelzebub’s Tales cannot be integrated into the general culture.  Because it cannot be generally palatable also, then, by association, persons who study it will not be applauded or supported in their efforts.  It is dirty, difficult, and “unrewarding” work.  In other words, it is a “Way of Blame.”

Ironically, all of the black and indigestible elements of his book are exactly what maintains the purity of its practice.  First, a person studying it will not do it for social gain, because there is no recognition for such a pursuit.  Second, there are no academic grants, no careers publishing informational accounts of Beelzebub’s tales, in a word, no positive financial successes that come from the time spent.  Third, because, as was said, the forms of thought within Gurdjieff’s book do not fit within conventional language and thinking, a student of the book cannot directly tell others about it.  That is, they cannot tell someone else what they have understood.  They must know for themselves.  This is similar but subtly different than the first point referring to purity because anything that can be recognized and verified from without is something that, ultimately, can become a crutch.

Therefore, Beelzebub’s Tales, in its structure, limits its readership to persons not concerned with money, fame, or recognition.  If these elements are present in the student, it will be ground out.  If, for instance, a person wishes to study and understand it for social gains because they are  in a Gurdjieff group, and they happen to make persistent enough efforts to make real progress, they will find that their understandings cannot be communicated directly, though they can see quite well both what Gurdjieff’s intended meaning is, and, by the things others say, whether or not they have understood the same thing (or series of things).

Gurdjieff said:

“Those who know, know. Those who dont, dont.”  This applies exactly to Beelzebub’s Tales.

Simultaneity is of prime importance in Gurdjieff’s theory of objective art.  We know this because examples of simultaneity can be found in all of Gurdjieff’s works, including the Movements, his Music, and Beelzebub’s Tales.  Simultaneity was also emphasized by a number of his prominent pupils.  Madamme de Salzmann in her journal entries writes continually about the need for a divided attention.  Sometimes she refers to the need for the attention to inhabit all three centers, and sometimes she speaks of the need to stand between the lower mechanical functions and a rising stream of consciousness toward the Higher.  Willem Nyland spoke of the “ABC’s of Work”, and included simultaneity along with self-observation and impartiality as fundamental to work on oneself.

So what is simultaneity and how does it function in Gurdjieff’s works of Art?  Not discounting other potential categories, there are at least two forms of simultaneity used by Gurdjieff.  Concurrent simultaneity is the production of two or more energies, emotions, postures, or thoughts at the same time.  A second form of simultaneity has to do with working memory and the ability to retrieve information from several active stores. We could call this simultaneity in time. In almost all cases of Gurdjieff’s art, both forms of simultaneity are used.

For example, we can take Gurdjieff’s multiplication exercises.  In these dances, participants move to the front of the room, taking a series of postures and exchanging file positions with the other dancers.  This represents concurrent simultaneity because the participants must both be aware of which postures their bodies are taking as well as the configuration of the entire group of which they are a part.  They consciously participate both with attention on themselves and their own bodies as well as being attentive to the positions of others around and outside of them.  This is concurrent simultaneity, because both processes of attention take place in step with eachother.  A degree change in one process, say, a step forward and to the right to “become” another file in the multiplication process, takes place alongside a degree change in the other process, in this case a change to another posture with the upper torso.  However, this very same movement also represents temporal simultaneity, as two processes are in another sense culminating at different tempos.  For instance, the bodies of the dancers, take, let us say, 6 postures in the course of their multiplication, but the entire group in the same amount of time only takes one new configuration. (The group moves from 758241 to 417582)  In the time it takes the group to multiply through six configurations, the dancers, in regards to their own bodies, have taken the same postures 6 times that number.

Another example of temporal simultaneity similarly nests a process of one duration with a process of longer duration which only occurs at intervals.  For instance, after the participants move to the front of the classroom, often in a multiplication movement, an “intermed” is taken which contains a certain sequence.  This intermed then disappears, and the dancers move to the back of the classroom.  Multiplying again to the front of the hall, the same intermed appears again, but with the sequence changed, so that the participant has to consciously remember what they had done in the previous intermed in order to understand the predetermined order for the current one.  This ability to pay attention to the process of the moment without losing a working memory of larger orbiting cycles shows a very characteristic “nesting” strategy gurdjieff uses to mobilize the dancers’ attention completely to the task at hand.

We see from this example that simultaneity can be expressed through two forms.  One form has to do with the extension and breadth of the participant’s attention in any given moment, and the other has to do with a working memory taking place in time.  Often these two apparently different forms are interlinked.

So why is simultaneity important?  Why all the seeming complexity?  To explain this, we need to include what Gurdjieff originally referred to as the “discontinuity of vibrations”.

The discontinuity of vibrations was one of three key principles of the Law of 7 as he explained it to Ouspensky and others in his Russian groups.  As Gurdjieff explained it, this principle was discovered when noting the intervals in the octave, or the natural breaks in the progression of vibrations.  This is a scientifically observable phenomena.  We see this not only in natural phenomena like the vibrations of sound, but can see the same principle functioning in all life processes.  Here I think we have to stay open minded and not get too literal.  We can in principle say that there  are mathematically based forces driving all life processes, whether biological, such as the bio-rhythms of organ systems, or those psychologically significant to humans such as the development of an intimate relationship, the change of a job, the growth of a child, and so on.  However, we know that even just on a physical, sub atomic level, the forces involved are tremendously complex and absolutely inconceivable from the subjective standpoint of human cognition.  Actually, the principle of the discontinuity of forces serves to connect the scientific idea that objective forces govern all phenomena to the creation of art in that the same principle of irregularity can be applied consciously to art forms to simulate the seeming randomness and chaos humans experience as infinitesimal beings existing in an unfathomably complex universe.  Patterns such as the multiplications both provide concreteness, specificity, and foresight while also allowing for fluidity, freedom, and spontaneity.

Having established the incredible synthesis the principle of irregularity creates between the known and the unknown, or, put another way, between science and art, we can see how this is applied to creating artistic forms with a loosely scientific principle underlying them.  The basic idea is to both bring consciousness to specific aspects of experience while allowing consciousness to find those aspects spontaneously on its own.  A person can be told that there are layers of breathing, layers of consciousness, and levels of attention, but the spontaneous experience of an opening within is an altogether different reality than what usually can be manufactured.  Irregularity (or discontinuity) is the primary tool Gurdjieff uses in his art forms to guide awareness to a given aspect of experience.  In one sense, by combining a left arm movement in 4/4 time with a right arm movement in 3/4 time, we can say for sure that every combination of the left arm postures will combine with the right arm postures over the course of twelve counts.  However, for the participant, those combinations will come unexpectedly and with the same quality of impermanence that postures taken in life have.  Another aspect is that a series of postures when first learned require a students conscious participation to learn, leaving no room for attention to wander.   Some scientists call this the “cognitive stage” when a motion or pattern is neurologically fresh.  Often when learning something for the first time there is a particular quality of aliveness and awareness.  However, having set up an expectation or known pattern, parts of awareness immediately begin to have room to wander, and the unifying quality of the experience begins to fade.  Using the principle of irregularity, a simple number or multiplication set can be used to regenerate patterns beyond what could be foreseen or anticipated by the participant, requiring absolute stability of attention to follow.  In this way, the participant must remain actively engaged or the experience immediately and obviously falls apart.

This is important because human beings generally experience life processes mechanically.  To explain what this really means and not just to use Gurdjieffian jargon, think of your drive home from work, school, or some other regular trip you take.  Notice the tendency to see the same tree, the same building, the same part of that building.  After you’re home, ask yourself to visualize what was around that impression.  Can you remember?  The key here is that humans become accustomed to perceive a particular aspect of experience and then, out of habit, continue to perceive those very same aspects over and over without noticing others.  Another example.  I go to the shed to grab the lawn mower.  Going in, I notice the same light bulb that has gone out and needs changing.  This initiates some self-talk about changing that light bulb.  I may or may not realize I had this same self-talk previously.  I had thought about changing that light bulb the last time i went in.  However, a light bulb not being handy, and still being engaged simultaneously in the process of grabbing the lawn mower, I pull the machine out of the shed, and, looking into the gas tank, find it empty.  Bummer.  I get angry, realizing my neighbor borrowed the lawn mower last week and never refilled it AND that I need to go get gas at the store. This is particularly aggravating as guests are coming in an hour and I had only allotted a half hour for the lawn.  The shock and unexpectedness of needing to make an unaccustomed and irregular trip to the store and, moreover, not even having the time to before the guests arrive, takes all of my energy of attention and I forget all about the light bulb.  Next time I go to the woodshed to get a tool, this time the shovel, I again see the light bulb which again initiates a thought process about changing it that blends with whatever mental-emotional chemistry happens to be occurring at that moment.

This is a perfect example of the constant need for a working memory in life and the way various life processes tend to evoke diverse mental and emotional associations in a person.  Most of this cannot be foreseen, and even if they were, life would be extremely boring if all the unexpected were avoided.  Really the tragic piece in all of this is that humans in general are unaware of their own associational processes and how they affect one another.  They move from one mental-emotional-physical stimulant to another, like a street cleaner from one light post to another at night who, being underneath one, cannot see the others.

By taking, say, a series of 6 postures and linking them to a number series Gurdjieff manages to both contain the field of cognitive operation within the participant as well as keep them on their toes when the postures are counter-intuitively recombined through the use of algorithm.  The attention must remain with the series to maintain it and it is also obvious when the attention fails.  The external form acts as an internal support for consciousness.

Further, by interlocking a series of 6 postures, a process with a particular tempo or rate of change (a new posture is taken with each step, for instance), with another series built according to a different logic, tempo, or rate of change (for instance the intermed of a movement which takes place between each multiplication), the participant now has a double requirement that requires them to exist in two spheres of working memory taking place in different time scales.   Scales here loosely defines units of time.  For instance, a process of posture change for a dancer takes place roughly every second while the multiplication of the group takes place roughly every 6 or 7 seconds while an intermed completes itself over the course of the series of multiplications, roughly every minute.   This double and triple tasking is extremely important for the verification of Gurdjieff’s claim that an exact experience can be conveyed through art.  This is not exhaustive, but a huge step in establishing the plausibility of objective art forms.

So we have established several basic principles.  First, something similar to what some scientists have called Global Workspace, or specific areas to which consciousness can be drawn by giving it a particular task.  This creates the sphere of operation, and can be adjusted to include any combination of functions that are under consideration.

In one of Gurdjieff’s divisions of the human machine, that of three brains or psychic centers, which we may refer to as three areas of conscious experience, we have thoughts, emotions, and sensations as the phenomena.  Further, we may consider several levels or kinds of each of these.  For instance, on the level of the body, we have propioception in relation to other moving bodies or a sense of space, while, at the same time, still on the level of the body, we have a sense of muscular tension.  These are awareness functions of the body that are both related to each other and yet different.  For instance, the body tenses if the propioceptive function senses another body coming toward it.  Therefore, postures with the arms can be taken that require the dancer to consciously exert tension in one part of the body and relaxation in another while at the same time being aware of one’s position relative to other moving bodies.  This would be working with aspects of physical consciousness.  At the same time, two aspects of mental functioning may be taken for comparison.  In Beelzebub’s Tales, the metaphor of Atlantis may both signify a real historical loss in terms of culture and spiritual awareness on a planetary scale while at the same time standing for the loss that takes place within a contemporary human being in the course of their development as a child, this very loss being the culprit that caused the historical involution in the first place.  Therefore, a metaphor may cause a person to think both historically and personally; neither losing hold of ones daily life to fantasize about other times and places nor becoming completely identified with one’s subjective culture and losing historical perspective.  This tasks the imaginative historical picturing capacity as well as the personal-historical picturing capacity and brings them into a simultaneous unity with implicit causal connections between them included. Lastly, a series of words with a particular symbolic significance indicating an emotional sequence may be intoned over a series of physical postures that induce a particular rhythm of breathing.  This layers some combination of the emotional and physical centers together.

So we have scope established as a principle which determines breadth of the work of art.  Using logarithm and the principle of irregularity, the particular constellations of experience are sure to come into view and be both “required” as well as spontaneous.  I put required in quotations because a person may move their arms in a certain way and yet, without a developed sense of the body, have no idea what sets of muscles are being engaged nor awareness of how the breathing is affected.

On top of scope, logarithm and irregularity, we have the two kinds of simultaneity: concurrent and temporal, which are determined by the logarithmic aspect.