Many principles or ideas that were formulated by Gurdjieff before he began writing Beelzebub’s Tales to his Grandson in 1924 bring a considerable amount of context to what he wished to convey to the reader in his book.  In the tales, none of these principles or ideas are formulated directly, but are noticed as part of the structured experience of his work. These principles are theoretically explained in various secondary source materials such as Ouspensky’s In Search of the Miraculous or King’s Oragean Version.  Having studied Beelzebub’s Tales carefully, the correlations between what Gurdjieff’s book demonstrates and what secondary sources explain become noticeable.  In some cases, an experience from the Tales brings understanding to what was meant in theoretical formulations from these sources, and in other cases, the formulations highlight experiences which hadn’t been specifically differentiated in the consciousness of the reader but are immediately identifiable in the context of the explanation.  Its difficult to know in these cases to what depth these authors (Ouspensky, Orage, King, or others) understood these principles, but in some cases its clear they were repeating what they had been told but had not fully cognized it themselves.  The ability to intellectually understand a theory and thereby become blocked in understanding it within ones own experience explains why Gurdjieff adhered to a principle of burying theoretical knowledge underneath a particular form of effort that itself corresponds precisely to what that knowledge was indicating. The effort to fathom the symbol is the very thing the symbol refers to.  Gurdjieff himself says:

“…everybody approaching the symbol and possessing a complete understanding of it, possesses a perfect synthesis of it. Speaking figuratively, he has this symbol within himself. A symbol, by expressing the knowledge of the laws of unity, has at the same time expressed the path to it.”

One example of a principle explained in secondary sources (ie not Gurdjieff himself) which finds a similar expression in the structure of Beelzebub’s Tales is the concept of ‘Tricks, Half-tricks, and Real supernatural phenomena’. We find this described in C.S. Nott’s Teaching of Gurdjieff.  Gurdjieff and his pupils put on a performance containing, among other things, Movements, the Stop Exercise, and demonstrations of magic.  When the magical portions of the show began, Orage came on stage and explained the difference between the three categories of supernatural phenomena:

“We shall now present some of the so-called “supernatural phenomena” also studied at the Institute. Mr. Gurdjieff puts all such phenomena into three categories: tricks, semi-tricks and real supernatural phenomena.Tricks are done artificially, the performer pretending that they result from some source of natural force; semi-tricks are not produced by sleight of hand, such as by finding a hidden object blindfold; the third category, supernatural phenomena, has as its basis laws which official science does not explain.”

Tricks are illusions created by the performer and not based on any skill.  This would include using a handkerchief to make something disappear, which in fact, has simply been transferred under another handkerchief in the other hand.  This creates an illusion for the viewer by producing a false expectation or using suggestibility.  As for semi-tricks, Orage goes on to explain a little more, using the example of finding a hidden object blindfolded while holding the hand of someone who knows where it is.  Here, the performer creates the illusion he can read the mind of the participant, when in reality, he has trained himself to feel subtle tensions in the hand of the person which tense in the direction of the object unconsciously.  Here he uses some natural law, such as the participant’s unconscious transference of tension to the hand, but deceives the audience to think he can read the mind of the participant.  Thus semi-tricks use some form of specialized knowledge, but this knowledge is kept secret from the uninformed audience.  As for supernatural phenomena, this is explained by Orage in this way:

“The third class of phenomena comprises those having as the basis of their manifestation laws unexplained by official science: real supernatu­ral phenomena. This has nothing to do with spiritualism, ghosts, and so forth. It is experiment in the reaction of a lower force to the impact of a higher force; or the reaction of pupils at a lower level to something given out from a higher level. The study of this class of phenomena is organ­ized in the Institute very seriously and in full accordance with the meth­ods of Western science. Not all members or pupils are admitted to it. Three conditions are necessary. The first is a wide and deep knowledge in some special branch; the second is a naturally persevering and sceptical mind; the third and most important is the necessary preliminary assur­ance of the future trustworthiness of the pupil, to ensure that he will not abuse the knowledge he may thus acquire for the pursuit of egoistic aims.”

In other words, real supernatural phenomena are placed at a very profound level and in Gurdjieff’s view are considered to be real but of a high order.

In his explanations, Orage pointed out that the study of these tricks helped to free the mind of the pupil from superstitions, while at the same time teaching them to contact another level of ability.  By mastering tricks, by understanding them, they could then be free of them because they had understood them.  This explains a great deal about Gurdjieff’s “fraudulent” methods and tests as a teacher and why he acted as he did.  It is not entirely surprising that this would transfer directly to his writings, as we will see.

I will use the same example covered in my essay A Perspective on Chapter 12-the First Growl referring to the Gospel writer, and will assume it has been read and understood.

In that essay, we saw that an illusion was spun about the Gospel Writer.  He is described as a “bad guy”.  We then have him pitted as a protaganist against the “power possessors”, themselves described no more glowingly.  When we find out that the power possessors are apprehensive that the writer’s gospel will wake people from their hibernation, we receive a suggestion completely to the contrary of what we have been told to that point.

Of course, the first time the student reads this chapter, they are likely not to notice this, forever believing what they were told about this “degenerate” writer.  They have taken the bait, and this corresponds to our first category of Tricks. They believed, without any digestion of the situation, what Beelzebub said.  In this case, unlike stage magic, nothing special or magical would appear to happen, but it corresponds precisely to the same suggestibility in that the audience, or, in this case, the reader, implicitly believes what they have seen without questioning it.  If a reader happens to notice that this writer’s gospel will wake people up, they may realize they have been tricked.  Either the writer is not so bad after all, or we are to think that the power possessors are mistaken and that the gospel will not in fact wake the population up. We are inclined to pursue the first, that perhaps what we are being told about the writer is not the case. Having realized the trick and seen through it, the reader will have established an experiential understanding and, more importantly, an attention to detail and contradiction, which will help them see through the gossip and lies heard everyday when interacting with other people. Thus, Gurdjieff’s statement that humans are suggestible, is accompanied by an experience for the reader of that suggestibility, as, for instance, in the case of believing Beelzebub about the gospel writer the first time they read chapter 12.

Having exhausted the level of the “Trick”, or, in other words, having seen through the bare-faced fabrication or illusion, the reader may descend to the level of the semi-trick.  This level really isnt separate from the first, but forms another aspect of the experience being “sequentially” created in the reader’s mind. We put quotes around the word “sequentially”, because in fact both these levels are taking place, and though they unfold  sequentially within the reader’s experience, they are in fact both present from the beginning. A closer look at the first level reveals the second that was always there. The level of the semi-trick consists in noticing a deeper level of subtlety.  We notice the way in which Gurdjieff anticipated the reader’s suggestibility.  We will also see the way in which the primary level of meaning retains its importance even as the secondary level of meaning becomes apparent.  Just as Orage referred to in his description of semi-tricks, Gurdjieff is using a “real” method based on real psychological knowledge, but he is deceiving the audience (in this case the reader) about the method he is using. Not only did he suggest something to the reader (that the writer was “bad”) and succeed the first time, even after the reader has noticed this contradiction, yet further aspects of Gurdjieff’s meaning are eluding them, and by eluding them, acting on them.  This requires a little explaining.

When being introduced to the gospel writer, we received a number of indications about him.  Among these, was for instance, the description of how contemporary writers, a group the writer in question is a part of, pen their new books and ideas.  We are told that they fit old ideas from already existing books together to create new ones:

“You must here know that in long past ages one might still occasionally run across beings of that profession who still invented and really wrote something by themselves; but in these later epochs the ‘writers’ among the beings there, particularly among contemporary beings, have been of those that only copy from many already existing books all kinds of ideas, and by fitting them together make a ‘new book.'”

We simply assume, because of what we are told about the writer, that this means a lack of creativity, suggestibility and imitation of the works of others. After all, this is a description “we must know” (see paragraph opening above)in order to understand the gospel writer.  Having seen through the farse of the first level, namely, that he is a not degenerate and is actually waking people up, we are forced to reinterpret the various parts of the description at another level.  Regarding the above passage, in order to “adjust” it to fit the new implication that the writer isnt a “bad guy” after all,  we can start by recalling Gurdjieff’s own statement that there is “nothing new under the sun”.  Seeing that the writer is not degenerate, that his book is awakening others, and having at least the idea, if not the experience, that everything is One, we may come to understand that his book, while being “new”, is nothing more than an expression of the one Truth that has always existed. Here we refer to the Unity of everything existing, an statement that repeats itself throughout Beelzebub’s Tales. These are the first implications of a profoundly subtle allusion to a timeless Truth that exists beyond its particular manifestations in any given epoch.  This gives solid ground for connecting Gurdjieff with perennial philosophers such as Guenon, Schuon, and others.  Gurdjieff also is indicating his wish to awaken the reader to something that is already real, but with which they are not yet in touch, something which he humbly implies is nothing new, no matter how ingenious his creation of All and Everything was.

Thus, the first level of interpretation, being shattered by the admission that the gospel would wake the populace up, then leads the reader to reinterpret previous material, such as the statement about contemporary writers, which in turn causes them to “inadvertently” stumble on a profound cognizance of Truth (provided they have the depth to see it).  As a result, the reader is exposed to a trick, a semi-trick, and real supernatural phenomena.  In this case, the trick corresponds to the silliness of group think and suggestibility (the writer is “bad”), the semi trick to a skillful psychological discrimination (holding two views of the writer, “good” and “bad”), and the supernatural phenomena to a profound objective Truth.

My aim with this essay is not so much to claim gurdjieff was literally using the three categories of trick, semi trick, and supernatural phenomena as a strict and intentional structure within his book, or that while writing he was bearing in mind precisely the idea he had formulated when putting on performances with his pupils.  By drawing these correlations, I hope to use one of Gurdjieff’s concepts, well explained in C.S Nott’s book, to help illustrate similarities between the methods Gurdjieff used during different periods of his teaching career. The common denominator in these two cases is a discrimination of levels of understanding, and an arrangement and incorporation of those levels into one moment of experience.  This allows a place for every level of cognizance as well as a ladder to another understanding, and thus expresses a point of view that is at once egalitarian and inclusive, while at the same time recognizes a hierarchy of comprehension and the need for evolution.