It is not immediately obvious how a book like Beelzebub’s Tales could relate to meditation or techniques involving the expansion of consciousness.  However, this is precisely the necessary correlation that can be made in the contemporary context of neuroscience and meditation to justify study of such a strange and peripheral book.  Perhaps the simplest way to approach this is to draw a parallel between the book’s narrator, Beelzebub, and his subject matter, his Tales, with the human mind and its “stories”.

It is not uncommon to hear language in meditation circles about the “monkey mind” and the “stories we tell ourselves”.  Gaining space around negative mental content is much of what constitutes self awareness in many spiritual disciplines.  For many people, upon just a small amount of reflection, there is a feeling of “drowning” in one’s own thoughts.  Even when one notices that one’s mind wishes to move in a negative direction and the opportunity arises to make a conscious choice to redirect the flow of thought, it is common to feel a kind of compulsion towards negativity.  It would be one thing if the majority of thoughts were positive, but many times they are negative.  Viewing the contents of one’s own mind objectively, “ungluing” oneself from own’s own thoughts as it were, as though one were peering into the mind of another, runs contrary to the human tendency towards egocentrism.

So how does awareness begin to grow around thought?  Is it possible to be aware of thought only from the point of view of another thought, or is there a kind of purer “knowing” or “intuition” from which to view thought?  Are “knowing” and “intuition” themselves a kind of subtler layer of thought?

Perhaps the most practical test for whether there is “space” around a given point of view one may hold is whether the mind can fully articulate an opposing point of view.  In talking about a given topic, often  we reference opposing points of view inadequately, only as “spices” in a recipe whose base is really our own opinions.  We listen only enough to disagree or have our strong views triggered.  This is called reflexive listening.  However, if it is possible to fully articulate the view of another in such a way the other would find your presentation blameless, we can say we have the restraint of thought to actually get somewhere with our communication.

It is no secret that Beelzebub’s Tales appears contradictory.  Any given passage, when studied, yields multiple points of view from which it can be analyzed.  Often this leaves inexperienced students of the Tales at a loss.  Most wrongly conclude that “you can connect the dots any way you like”, “the mind is a pattern finding machine so who knows”, etc., and excuse themselves from the prolonged chore of teasing the knots Gurdjieff left apart.

However, there is another approach to the Tales ambiguity: rather than ecountering the “mess” Gurdjieff left and giving up, if one perseveres, one finds multiple intentional meanings.  (My post about Beelzebub, ENDLESSNESS, and Ashiata explored the interchangeability of these three characters as “carriers” of the same series of discrete meanings.  Beelzebub, ENDLESSNESS, and Ashiata, all represent Gurdjieff, the reader, and the reader’s student from different aspects.)

The core idea I am presenting in this article:  The effort to expand one’s awareness into two points of view simultaneously using the Tales’ metaphor represents a psychological exercise.  This exercise mimics the metacognitive process of noticing one’s own thoughts.  In considering the metaphor from an adjacent point of view which itself is a reflection or contemplation of the first thought one exercises a particular internal awareness “muscle”.  Again, metaphor may be constructed to contain not only a primary idea, but a secondary idea engineered to be contrary or supplementary to the first.  This can serve a few purposes which I will try to articulate.

First, in order to arrive at any meaning whatsoever, the primary and secondary ideas can be logically linked in such a way as for one to be invisible without the other.  That is, a given metaphor or idea can be presented without proper context in such a way that it is not understandable.  In chapter 2, what does Beelzebub find on the Sun Absolute that makes him question it?  Why does “Sun Absolute” have quotation marks around it?  Is it not Sun Absolute?  As of our first reading of this chapter, we know that something is up on Sun Absolute but simply cannot know what that something might be.  This particular ambiguity is not resolved until we think of ENDLESSNESS and Beelzebub as being the Author, Gurdjieff, and the reader, respectively, and the Sun Absolute and Ors as being two experiences of Gurdjieff’s book: the initial view of it as Sun Absolute (the reader is being “taken on” by the author to learn all of his “secrets”) followed by the view of it as Solar System Ors, i.e. Purgatory.  The reader goes through a process of enchantment and disenchantment after finding out how much work is actually going to be involved.

One of the primary issues this solves is the misunderstanding that happens through language.  If one expresses an idea through words, rather than hearing the idea in the context of the other thoughts one is nonverbally holding at the same moment, the listener inadvertently hears with their own nonverbal content.  There are many degrees to which the listener may be understanding the sense in which the words are meant by the speaker.

Gurdjieff’s language, by implanting contradictions, creates a method of alluding to different points of view, and grouping or compressing those views in an organized way to ultimately create a more expanded conceptual space.  In other words, much more can be said using fewer words.  Of course, this requires a full reading of the book and the ability to follow all of the author’s illusions.  Once the language has been mastered, many ideas can be indicated in a very limited amount of verbal space.

Unlike poetry, the meanings assembled are vetted for content.  There is great poetry and prose that, by linking itself with universal themes or motifs, can appear to blend with any particular human context, thereby acquiring a “timeless” quality.  However, this kind of chameleon quality can just as easily be a product of vague language.  Hypnotists have made much of the ability of vague language to be used to manipulate patients into believing they are understood whether they in fact are or not.  Gurdjieff, coming from a completely different point of view, sought an exact solution to the problem of the inexactness of language.

The idea of an exact language, rather than being an antiquated idea plucked from early 20th century esoteric lore, is relevant today. Much of the modern political conversation is limited by the ability for speakers and listeners to convey ideas accurately.  There is an increasing difficulty for public thinkers and intellectuals to express ideas with the confidence their ideas will be assimilated into the larger culture accurately.  The sheer volume of online content via social media has made it almost impossible to take the time to express an idea in context.  Fortunately, recent long form podcasts have stepped in to create space in which people can express their thoughts more fully.

To this point, we have covered the multi dimensionality  of any given object in the Tales and the need to view them simultaneously from multiple, changing perspectives.  This increases the reader’s capacity to listen to others while also listening to themselves at the same time. Another aspect is the way in which Beelzebub begins, leaves off, takes up again, and finally finishes story threads.  If a reader follows attentively as Beelzebub begins a topic, they will notice that he very quickly diverts off topic.  Beelzebub rarely forgets to return to the topic, and never leaves off entirely without some motive.  This gradually trains the reader to take in what they are perceiving as a whole.  The ability to see the whole while also attending to momentary parts applies to conversations, daily projects, life organization, inner listening, movies, music, or literally anything we care about and pay attention to. It is an omnipresent faculty.

The second major idea I want to present is the idea that listening to and incorporating all of Beelzebub’s threads represents the increasing ability to hold the whole of one’s own mind without identifying with it.  In meditation it quickly becomes apparent that although one can separate from thought and even observe its movement, it is difficult not to get sucked back into identification with the stream of thought.  There is nothing in life to stop us from constant compulsive engagement with our thoughts other than immediate physical needs and shifts as we encounter other people or objects in the environment that require our attention.  Barring external stimuli, we must also assume there are various hormonal and neurochemical processes that likely underly the cyclical flow of thoughts we experience.

Beelzebub’s Tales is an exact, artistic simulation of the flow of mind.  It is tangential, random, and biased.  It is extremely difficult to follow!  The ability to follow all of Beelzebub’s Tales represents a series of increasingly difficult attention exercises that gradually ramp up the reader’s metacognitive ability to be self aware, that is, aware of his or her own mind.  In a polarized world full of complex social, political, cultural, and environmental issues, we need all self-awareness we can get!

From an evolutionary psychology point of view (and Gurdjieffian), egotism and identification with the content’s of one’s own thoughts is actually quite useful and necessary to operate sanely and intelligently in the world.  However,  this psychological gear work, necessary as it has been for self preservation and agency in a what were many times hostile natural environments, proves incongruous in startling ways in the modern context.  The topic of egotism as an evolutionary force and Gurdjieff’s upending of the traditional notion of personal evolution as being contrary to natural evolution

Examples of the buggy nature of our usual moral inclinations include thought experiments such as the fact that any “moral” parent would save their own child from a burning building before saving a million dollar painting.  However, the million dollar painting, if sold, could raise enough money to save potentially hundreds of third world children.  If one were given the option to choose to save one child they didnt personally know or hundred of children they didnt personally know, most of us would conclude any “moral” person would save hundreds of children over one child.  This discrepancy, that we would value the life of our own single child over the lives over perhaps many other children with whom we have no personal relationship, exposes glitches as we scale a morality evolved for small human bands to large scale human civilizations in which many millions of lives must be considered as we navigate a complex legal landscape.

Gurdjieff’s notion that evolution for human beings runs counter to Nature rings true even more today than in his time, as comes under question when exploring interpersonal conflicts where various forms of cognitive bias predominate. Gurdjieff’s notion that evolution for human beings runs counter to Nature rings true with today’s conversation about the ways in which human nature and morality, constructed over millions of years to operate within small bands of human beings, produce startling incongruities with the modern technological environment,

Prior to the advent of modern science, many primitive cultures reasoned analogically across scales.  In China and Japan, the emperor’s ritualistic perambulations about their courtyard were thought to affect the harmony of the entire cosmos above.  In Greece, so close was the link perceived between the heavens and the human anatomy that to this day portions of the body such as the Atlas (the upper portion of the spine that supports the skull much as Atlas supported the world) retain names related to mythology.  The gradual development of scientific reasoning neatly abolished an archaic logic presupposing a causal relationship between crude anatomical observations projected onto large scale, dimly perceived celestial mysteries.

In Gurdjieff’s approach we have an odd tension between a somewhat cynical skepticism prompting need for personal verification that flyies in the face of any kind of belief structure and a romantic and fantastical view of ancient cultures.  I have spoken elsewhere about Gurdjieff’s use of Exoticism in his works and how his own journey East both destroyed naive ideas he had about Eastern “schools” and “masters” while simultaneously replacing them with an experience of genuine lineages transmitting Awakening.

Recognizing that much of Gurdjieff’s use of Esoteric symbolism, cosmology and metaphysics was sarcastic, we are poised to recognize what perhaps lay underneath.  In this post I propose that Gurdjieff’s “worlds” in the Tales correspond to psychic centers in the energetic anatomy of human beings.

Perhaps the first and most obvious clue Gurdjieff gives is his assertion that the only true idea human beings have is the idea they are made “in the image of God”.  This provides an analogical link between the process ENDLESSNESS undergoes creating the Megalocosmos and a process of inner growth which the reader may undertake.  If this process is an energetic one, we may link the succesive unfolding of the “worlds” to the succesive unfolding Gurdjieff describes of sensation and feeling.

Gurdjieff left many exercises in the form of sittings and movements which involve internal migrations of sensation and feeling.  Some feelings are evoked by naming the parts of the family (i.e. “Mother, Father, Brother, Sister”) or affirmations such as “I Am, I Wish, I Can Be.”

There is a striking contradiction in Gurdjieff’s claim, which has become a traditional view, that he “put everything in The Tales.” However, nowhere in his writings does he describe these inner patterns of sensation and feeling which formed an important part of his transmission to pupils.  The idea that Beelzebub’s Tales in fact contains Gurdjieff’s inner-anatomy of psychic centers solves this contradiction.

Taking this idea on board helps explain other things as well.  What do Beelzebub’s descents, “In Person” (Gurdjieff’s quotes) represent?  Why does Gurdjieff describe the various centers of culture in so odd a manner, placing quotation marks around them, giving them two or three names each, and in general making such a show in describing them.  His descriptions of the movements and spread of ancient cultures into various areas of the planet can hardly be taken literally.

Instead he seems to be speaking metaphorically about an internal shift of energetic center of gravity.   We find references to shifts of “center of gravity” or “center of culture” in a number of chapters.  The first catastrophe describes the split and subsequent harmonization of three centers of gravity (Earth-Moon-Kimespai).  In the second descent, the sinking of Atlantis apparently coincides with the shift of the Earth to its “true center of gravity”, according to rather suspect Angels in charge of such matters.  These and many other Tales appear to be metaphors for a psychic or energetic process rather than a literal description of events on earth.

Taken in this sense, Beelzebub’s “habit of visiting various planets of that solar system”, and of “visiting various centers of culture on the planet” appears to be rather a habit of sensation exercises Gurdjieff wished to instill in his students as a personal practice.  This accords completely with the traditional practice handed down of focusing on inner exercises of breathing, sensing, and feeling, and resolves the apparent paradox between Gurdjieff’s absurdly impractical and abstruse esotericism in The Tales and the apparently straightforward and practical emphasis on “one’s experience in the moment” found in most practicing Gurdjieff groups.  After all, what use is one’s connection to the moment if one falls pray to “any old tale?”

This opens up a number of questions.  What do the various centers of culture represent, if they were to represent specific psychic or energetic centers or parts of the body?  Is it more complicated than a one-to-one symbolic relationship between a given part of the body and a given place described in the Tales, i.e. can they represent different centers depending on which point of view they are viewed from?  What are associative cues that alert the reader as to what sense a given metaphor should be given?

Perhaps one of the more popular correlations that have been mentioned are the three ancient centers of culture: Tikliamish, Maralplecie, and Gemchania (Pearl Land).  These have been equated with the physical body (particularly the spine), the heart (moral place), and head (source of “pearls” or ideas).

Some of the characters inventions also seem related to Gurdjieff’s sitting and moving exercises.  Gornahoor’s lab, with its Life Chakanas and various apparatuses which fill with fluidic energies and concentrate them, separating and combining them in various ways, would seem to correspond to language Gurdjieff used early in his teaching about viewing some centers through the lens of other centers.  For instance, feeling ones thoughts, or sensing ones feelings, or other novel combinations.  In the sittings he gave, there would be energies concentrated, for instance, in the solar plexus, before being moved to the sex center, and from there to other parts of the body.

Another interesting invention is the Alla Atta Pan, which has “collecting disks”, “slabs” which concentrate various mediums, and which in general shows the inner relationship between sound (feeling), color (thought), and opium (body/sensation).

Much more work would need to be done to prove a specific way in which Gurdjieff’s Tales contain hidden “sensation” or “feeling” exercises.  It is also important to justify the extra effort entailed in having to work, by means of thinking about these allegories, in order to understand these exercises, rather than just being given these exercises directly.

Every story within Beelzebub’s Tales simultaneously represents events in three times: past, present, and future.

In Chapter 17, the Relativity of Time, Beelzebub explains that time is necessary to understand everything which he has related as well as everything he has yet to relate.  As a result, time represents an essential enigma which Gurdjieff places right at the reader’s feet.

For those who have read about Gurdjieff’s life story in other texts, such as those of CS Nott or other pupils, it becomes clear that aspects of various characters stories are taken right out of Gurdjieff’s own life.  The Persian whom Beelzebub speaks to has a wife who dies of cancer, Beelzebub’s visits to many places in Europe and Asia, Ashiata’s attempt to start an organization and ultimate failure, all of these are taken right out Gurdjieff’s own life.  As a result, we can see that Gurdjieff has placed his autobiography within the text, but fragmented and scattered about, to be recollected.  This is the sense in which stories may be viewed as representing the past.  In other words, the past refers to Gurdjieff’s own life story.  When he refers to Legominisms as conveying information about “events long past”, he is referring to Beelzebub’s Tales’ purpose of telling his own life story and everything he tried to do.

In another sense, each story conveys a present moment.  This is tricky to articulate, but comes about when the reader realizes the story represents them themself.  That is, the story of the characters represents the reader perceiving those very stories.  Gurdjieff masterfully weaves a story that begins outside the reader, but as the reader begins to understand what the allegories represent, the stories come to represent precisely the perception they are having.  The metaphor folds back on itself, causing awareness of awareness.  To understand this is to come close to the heart of the mystery Beelzebub’s Tales gradually makes clear to the consciousness of the reader: the paradox of conscious experience itself.  This comes about through a certain reflexivity within the books symbolism, a fractal expansion and, simultaneously, condensing, of the allegory itself.

Another way to think of this present, is that each story conveys the understanding Gurdjieff gained from his past.  Each tale, revealing something about his past, also reveals what he learned from it and is presently telling us, the reader, in the present moment that we perceive the narrative.

This knowledge, then, relates to our third time: predictions of the future.  Each story may also be understood to represent events from the future, events anticipated by Gurdjieff in the present moment of his authorship, based on his experiences in the past.  These future events are based on instructions to posterity.  He failed to fulfill his mission.  What he had completed, he packaged up inside of Beelzebub’s Tales, and shipped off into the future, to beings meritorious enough to receive and understand it, to be finished by someone else.  In some sense his mission was larger than the span of his life.  The instructions to complete his work, the bringing of an understanding into the life of human beings of a profound nature, would inevitably have brought future beings up against challenges similar to those he experience in his own life.  It is in this sense that the Tales are also predictions of the future: they predict obstacles his predecessor(s) will encounter on own journey in Solar System Ors.

In summary, each Tale is a metaphor of Gurdjieff’s life, contains his reflections on it as he narrates to the reader, instructs posterity in what to do, and predicts the results of these activities.