Gurdjieff and Interleaved Practice
Gurdjieff “system” or “method”, as a transformational tool for human understanding, is primarily educational. Highly critical of the prevailing educational system of his time, he wrote:
“Owing to the absence among contemporary people of any knowledge and ability specially to prepare in a corresponding way the rising generation for responsible existence by educating all the separate parts composing their common presences, every person of today is a confused and extremely ludicrous something…” [From the Author, BT]
The quote shows Gurdjieff training system had in view the whole person, something he clearly felt the conventional educational system failed to do. In looking at Gurdjieff’s system then, it is important to compare his manner of exposition, what he called his “Form and Sequence”, and conventional western educational methods.
Surprisingly, some western educational theories have caught up to Gurdjieff’s own methods. For instance, the form and sequence of Beelzebub’s Tales requires interleaved learning from the reader. At the time in which Gurdjieff lived, and today in most educational systems, teachers used or use the so-called block method. This shows that one of gurdjieff’s primary criticisms of the educational system in his time was the use of the block method. However, owing to “groundbreaking” studies in memory retention based on the interleaving versus block methods, many students, whether they are learning motor skills, languages, or other information, have begun using the interleaving method. We’ll take a look at both of these approaches.
The block method, also known in clinical studies as spacing, focuses on learning one skill or information set at a time. The use of repetition aims to seat the skills or information in the students memory, and one subject is learned before moving on to the next. In this learning style, a student of piano practices a scale up and down until mastered before moving on to another scale, for instance. Traversing the same territory over and over theoretically strengthens a particular connection in the brain, much like consistently walking along an area of the lawn creates a pathway.
With the interleaved method, skills are practiced in a staggered, overlapping, or random order. A student partially learns some information or skill, or practices it in tandem with another, returning to it again at staggered or random intervals. Many times a number of approaches are all introduced at the beginning of study rather than in sequential order. One of the primary concepts linked to the interleaving method is called discriminative-contrast. Thiss idea holds that mixing disparate skills together makes it easier for the brain to recognize different tasks. This more effectively seats a skill in the brains working memory. In other words, the brain has to work harder and more intentionally at each skill, forming stronger neuronal connections. [This concept is related to theory of cognitive, associative, and autonomous phases of skill acquisition. The aim here would be to initiate the cognitive phase of learning.]
A useful metaphor for interleaved practice is described by Orthopedist Jake Jenkins on his blog:
“Imagine driving down a highway. Block practice is the equivalent of setting the cruise control and zoning out while interleaved practice is more like stop and go traffic. When you set the cruise control it is possible to disassociate from driving and end up at a destination with no memory of the drive while stop and go traffic keeps us engaged an on edge. It is impossible to zone out because we have to keep adjusting our driving style to the current conditions.” [j2jenkins.com]
The underlying mechanisms for these two skills are not fully understood scientifically, and they are not necessarily mutually exclusive. However, tests have shown the interleaving method to strongly assist long-term memory and is now common in language learning, sports and fitness training, and other skills.
Gurdjieff, speaking of his method, symbolized in Beelzebub’s Tales by Beelzebub’s education of Hassein, most clearly explains it in Form and Sequence:
“The point is, that when I returned to our dear Karatas, I, being free from any other being-duties whatsoever, voluntarily took upon myself the responsible guidance of your finishing Oskiano for the Being of a responsible being, or, as your favorites would say, ‘your education.’ And, in view of the fact that the present period of your existence is for you just that period when in general, in three- brained beings, all those functions present in them are harmonized, which in totality during the period of responsible existence just actualize in them that form of mentation which is called ‘sane- mentation’; I, in consequence of this, when we set out on this journey in the space-ship Karnak, thought of profiting by this time to help you so that the harmonizing of the functions of yours and the formation of your future active mentation which depends on them should proceed precisely in that order, of the correctness of which I became convinced with the whole of my presence during the process of my long personal existence.” …
For this, I have in almost all my tales strictly held to the two following principles: “The first: not to say anything as if it were my own personal opinion, in order that data necessary for your own convictions should not be crystallized in you in a prepared form according to the opinions of another.
“And in accordance with the second principle: to relate to you in just such an order and in such a premeditated and selected sequence about all the events which proceeded on this planet Earth…” …
“I decided to do this in order that many diversely essenced ‘Egoplastikoori’ for your future logical confrontation should be crystallized in corresponding localizations in your common presence…” [Form and Sequence, BT]
Gurdjieff uses unambiguous language: “the formation of your future active mentation…should proceed precisely in that order, the correctness of which I became convinced”; “to relate to you in just such an order and in such a premeditated and selected sequence“; “in order that many diversely essence ‘Egoplistikoori’“.
In all of these phrases Gurdjieff emphasizes the intentionality, precision, and organization of his exposition. However, the initial readings of Beelzebub’s Tales appear to reveal a completely disorganized mess of a book! As a result, we can see that Gurdjieff leasft it fragmented so that the reader would build the information themselves, a process Gurdjieff, in the above passage, calls Oskiano or education.
Looking at the apparent disorganization of the book, and attempting to bring it into a recognizable whole reveals an obvious use of the interleaving method. In particular, the interleaving method helps clarify the apparent discrepancy between Gurdjieff’s supposed precision and the external “sloppy” appearance of his writings. As a result, Gurdjieff’s reference to precision and especially “sequence” can be seen as sarcastic references to the block method of memorizing sequences of information in traditional educational models during his time period. He of course does use sequencing in his exposition of ideas, but interleaves and overlaps more than one thread, producing an intentionally discombobulated appearance which none the less represents a cohesive totality.
There are many other examples of Gurdjieff using symbolical sarcasm, an extremely important element in his artistic style. Symbolical sarcasm is really implied sarcasm. Gurdjieff theatrically takes the role of something he despises and in doing so implies his own point of view. For instance, in referring to the “sequence” of his writings, he of scourse knows the reader will find a disorderly mess. What he really means is “simultaneous sequencing”. So he at one and the same time refers to the block method form of sequencing used by conventional education and to his own method of multiple interleaved and disrupted sequences. It is up to the reader to fill in all this background in understanding his meaning, and in the effort will express their own capacity for understanding. We can say in any case, that gurdjieff does in fact use sequencing, however complicated and messy, and that it is indeed intentional and not at all random.
Traditionally, most secondary sources speaking about Gurdjieff’s magnum opus, constantly refer to his disdain for bon ton literary styles with clearly written prose. This has produced the general impression found in other copycat “authorities” on his writings that Gurdjieff produced Beelzebub’s haphazardly, as though it were something that unintentionally spewed from his unconscious or perhaps was channeled from a supposed Higher source. An unfortunate implication ensues for the reader: If Beelzebub’s Tales rose mysteriously out of Gurdjieff’s unconscious or descended from some higher realm unintentionally, the reader themselves must somehow replicate the same unconscious receptivity in order to grok it. The stop and go nature of the Tales, its discontinuities, and its breaks in thematic and ideational rhythm, all relate to the highway metaphor described by Jenkins. Gurdjieff used sequences, but disrupted them in order to strengthen the readers internal awareness, guiding the internal witness to particular aspects of the reality creating mechanism.
In Beelzebub’s Tales, Gurdjieff initiates dozens of interweaving lines of thought and discussion, all of which are returned to intermittently and in tandem just as described in the interleaving educational model. We take a few examples.
First, his theme of Itoklanoz. We first learn about Itoklanoz in the chapter on time as one of the two principles of being-existence:
“And it is according to the second principle of being-existence [Itoklanoz] that all one-brained and two-brained beings in general exist wherever they may arise. …
“And the sense and aim of the existence of these beings, also, consist in this, that there are transmuted through them the cosmic substances required not for purposes of a common-cosmic character, but only for that solar system or even only for that planet alone, in which and upon which these one-brained and two-brained beings arise.” [Time, BT]
Beelzebub goes on to explain that Itoklanoz is the supposedly degenerated form of being-existence humans gradually moved to as part of the “whole chaos” reigning on the planet earth. He goes on to say that:
“Later when I shall have told you more about the three-brained beings of that ill-fated planet Earth, you yourself will understand and form your own opinion about everything.”
In other words, he says nothing more about Itoklanoz. Only that beings existing according to it have a shorter lifespan, exist like two-brained animals, and only process substances for the solar system or planet in which they live. The references to lifespans, animals, and solar systems or planets is metaphorical and can be gone into more detail at a different time. Suffice to say that, although it may not be apparent to the reader, he has not finished his exposition of Itoklanoz. He only returns to it roughly 500 pages later in the Fruits and Blossoms chapter:
“So that you may better represent to yourself and understand why the duration of their existence is being still further diminished on account of this sport, it is now opportune to explain to you a little more in detail about what I have already promised you to explain, namely, the difference between the duration of being-existence according to the ‘Fulasnitamnian’ principle and according to the ‘Itoklanoz’ principle.”
“You remember that when I explained to you how these favorites of yours define the ‘flow-of-time’ I said that when the organ Kundabuffer with all its properties was removed from their presences, and. they began to have the same duration of existence as all normal three-brained beings arising everywhere in our Universe…” [Fruits and Blossoms, BT]
Here Gurdjieff consciously references back to the chapter on time and theme of duration of being-existence and Itoklanoz. There is nothing to indicate this is anything other than a consciously constructed association. It is not a “channeled” or “unconsciously” created pattern. It is quite explicit. This theme is returned to in the context of the english ‘sport’ being described in this chapter, which is described as an inherited custom from the ancient Romans and Greeks. Revisiting Itoklanoz after hundreds of pages and multitudes of topics and tales covered, we apparently are now ready to receive more information about this topic:
“According to this principle, the duration of being-existence and also the whole of the contents of their common presences are in general acquired from the results arising from the following seven actualizations surrounding them, namely, from:
(1) Heredity in general
(2) Conditions and environment at the moment of conception
(3) The combination of the radiations of all the planets of their solar system during their formation in the womb of their productress
(4) The degree of being-manifestation of their producers during the period they are attaining the age of responsible being
(5) The quality of being-existence of beings similar to themselves around them
(6) The quality of what are called the ‘Teleokrimalnichnian’ thought-waves formed in the atmosphere surrounding them also during their period of attaining the age of majority—that is, the sincerely manifested good wishes and actions on the part of what are called the ‘beings-of-the-same-blood,’ and finally,
(7) The quality of what are called the being-egoplastikoori of the given being himself, that is his being-efforts for the transubstantiation in himself of all the data for obtaining objective Reason.” [Fruits and Blossoms, BT]
Beelzebub goes on to explain that these seven factors are the primary sources for the contents of the three brains of humans (thinking, feeling, moving), which he refers to as clock-like mechanisms called Bobbin-Kandelnosts. In other words, these seven factors are brought up specifically in order to contextualize the conversation about the three human brains.
“The chief particularity of existence according to this principle Itoklanoz is that in the presences of beings existing according to it, dependent upon the enumerated seven exterior actualizations, there are crystallized in their ‘being-localizations’ which represent in beings the central places of the sources of actualization of all the separate independent parts of their common presence—or, as your favorites say, in their brains—what are called ‘Bobbin-kandelnosts,’ that is to say, something that gives in the given localizations or brains a definite quantity of possible associations or experiencings.” [Fruits and Blossoms, BT]
We wont go into what all of this symbolizes, but simply point out the effort of attention required by the reader to remember the first presentation of itoklanoz in the chapter on time with all of its context and connect that across the interval of the preceding hundreds of pages to be applied at exactly the right moment in the section of bobbin-kandelnosts. It is no accident that the centers are likened to watches, which amounts to three ways of measuring and experiencing time, and the fact that this is the second occurrence of itoklanoz in relation to the theme of time. What is of particular emphasis is the interleaving of the theme of Itoklanoz alongside another theme Time. Time of course, has come up previously in the Fifth Flight and in many other chapters. It does not occur as a subject only when Itoklanoz comes up. They are separate but related strands running through Beelzebub’s Tales that must develop sequentially in the mind of the reader.
Another example of interleaving is the three strands initiated in chapter 2, Why Beelzebub was in Our Solar System. I call these the present, past, and future sequences. The present refers to the voyage of the ship karnak, the past refers to Beelzebub’s Tales of his time in Solar System Ors, and the future to the development of Hassein whom Beelzebub later refers to as his “future substitute”.
In chapter 2, we first receive a description of the voyage of the ship karnak:
It was in the year 223 after the creation of the World, by objective time-calculation, or, as it would be said here on the “Earth,” in the year 1921 after the birth of Christ.
Through the Universe flew the ship Karnak of the “transspace” communication.
It was flying from the spaces “Assooparatsata,” that is, from the spaces of the “Milky Way,” from the planet Karatas to the solar system “Pandetznokh,” the sun of which is also called the “Pole Star.”
On the said “transspace” ship was Beelzebub with his kinsmen and near attendants.
He was on his way to the planet Revozvradendr to a special conference in which he had consented to take part, at the request of his friends of long standing. [Why Beelzebub, BT]
Momentarily, Gurdjieff tangents to tell the reader about Beelzebub’s general biography. This takes place on pages 52-54, and forms a synopsis of the entirety of Beelzebub’s Descents to the planet earth, described over hundreds of pages of ensuing text. Immediately in the later part of the chapter we learn about Hassein, whom Beelzebub, while on the present moment journey of karnak, decides to educate in order that he may becomes his future substitute.
The present moment sequence is relatively straightforward. We learn about the journey to revozvradendr in chapter 2 and about the obstacle of zilnotrago in chapter 3 which allows Beelzebub the time to regale Hassein with stories of the past, our second thread. We dont return to the present moment journey of karnak until nearly 500 pages later, at the end of the chapter Art (page 523), when the ship reaches the planet revozvradendr. Intermittently, throughout the rest of the book, the reader will be given more information as the ship changes its course, reaches deskaldino, reaches purgatory, and eventually reconvenes with an egolionopty with its strange group of celestial passengers. This is perhaps the thread that receives the least description and the least amount of text.
The description of Beelzebub’s past largely comes through in his six descents, which are broken up with their own subsidiary threads and aspects.
The future thread largely comes through in metaphor and implication from the description of Beelzebub’s in Ors. It as though Beelzebub was saying “this is what I ran into trying to help the situation on Earth, so this is what is likely to happen to you!” In other words, Gurdjieff is giving a description of his own autobiography and the difficulties he experienced creating an educational organization, and in effect is trying to give the reader a leg up if they were to try the same using the special knowledge gained from reading his book.
These three threads extend into all directions in time and have to be built in the mind of the reader using a working memory of the various passage in the book. They indicate a clear intention on Gurdjieff’s part, and a special relationship binding the past to the present and the future.
Having seen these two examples of Gurdjief’s interleaving method (the three times, and the Itoklanoz thread), it is clear that the discontinuity or breaking up of the sequence of information given is intentional. It requires an effort of understanding and creates discriminative contrast in the readers experience. One can see quite obviously that Gurdjieff used the interleaving method, albiet more complexly that it is usually conceived.
In scientific literature today there is little reference to Gurdjieff or his educational techniques. For instance, in conducting a google search or looking at references to interleaving in scholar articles, the groundbreaking discovery of interleaving came from the 1979 study by John Shea and Robyn Morgan “Contextual interference effects on the acquisition, retention, and transfer of a motor skill.” This was published by the journal of Experimental Psychology in Volume 5 entitle Human Learning and Memory. Although they were understood to be operating partially from previous thinking from William Battig, their study is considered to be “groundbreaking”. This is understandable, since little empircal study has been done on Gurdjieff’s works and certainly nothing of note has been published in dissertations beyond Sophia Wellbeloved, Muhammed Tamgidi and a handful of others’ works. It is baffling such an impressive outpouring of creativity as such a profound level could go completely unrecognized.
The All and Everything Review 