A tendency in some Work groups has arisen, when contemplating the Tales allegory, to pose the question: “What does the allegory represent in me?”  Although this question is intended to ground study of the book by relating it to one’s inner world, it actually produces the opposite by misdirecting the questioner’s attention away from deeper implications present in the text which would have implications for understanding one’s inner world.

There are a number of examples of allegories in the Tales which have acquired a relatively fixed connotation in some Work groups.  For instance, in Chapters 4-6 there is a discussion about two ship systems and the theory of Perpetual Motion.  The second ship system, that invented by the Angel Hariton, has one aspect which can be connected to a practical idea, and as a result, has been reduced down to this single plausible meaning.  Having discovered one practical idea which can be inserted into this metaphor, namely, the idea that anything can be fuel for one’s Work, Gurdjieff groups overemphasize one particular notion at the expense of dealing with all of the highly inconvenient unknowns which also form a part of the description of this ship system.

For instance, Hariton’s ship system is described as a “cylinder barrel” containing unspecified materials isolated from each other by “Amber”.  This arrangement performs an impossible feat: any cosmic substances taken into the barrel are expanded.  As they pressurize the barrel, they push open a hinged lid situated at the end of the barrel  which opens, allowing the substances out and new substances in.  The movement of the lid sets in motion “cogwheels” which revolve fans attached to the ship, allowing movement in any direction.  One important point which makes the ship popular is its ability to make use of any cosmic substances whatsoever.

This ship system is described in a fair amount of detail, but, like all of Gurdjieff’s metaphors the detail is, at least initially, highly vague.  There is one idea however which stands out as relatively understandable, namely, that the ship system can use any fuel and operate in any space.

Like all sub-cultures, the Work has acquired a web of shared ideas which have slowly gathered a strings of words and phrases to express them.  Some such ideas are “like what it dislikes” or the idea that, “difficulty can be Food for my Work.”   In and of themselves, these ideas, applied to day to day situations, can help.  One encounters a disagreeable situation, and the difficulty of the situation itself causes an association back to one or more Work ideas, and as a result one may receive support in the form of greater perspective on the situation or renewed emotional will to take the difficulty head on rather than avoid it.  The effect of these ideas, often presented as weekly Tasks in Work groups, depends on the ability of the practitioner to remember them at the moment a difficulty arises.  Put another way, if the Task resonates strongly with the practitioner, whether because the Task was set by a respected group leader or represented a novel or interesting idea, it will reverberate throughout the week with more or less strength.

These tasks form a kind of practical knowledge gained by members of Groups.  Over several years a pupil will take most, or at least many, of the tasks held in the store of such a Group.  Although this knowledge is essentially practical in nature, it is, as knowledge, in one aspect also series of ideas which are conceptually overlaid onto situations encountered in day to day life.  It is perhaps because this knowledge is meant to be practically applied that Groups have failed to acknowledge it is fundamentally conceptual in nature.  The pupil, moving into a particular situation, mediates their response to the difficulty encountered by means of an idea.  The idea forms a reconciling force.

To illustrate the usefulness of Work ideas and tasks, lets construct the basic theory.  First, all humans encounter external circumstances, have a perception about that circumstance, and subsequently move into action by means of their perception.  When I say perception here I refer to a densely interconnected web of thoughts, feelings, and sensations.  Work tasks are useful to Group members in that they insert useful perceptions in the form of practical ideas or a questioning attitude, among others, into this process.  The chain of goes something like this: Circumstance –> Perception —> Action.  The action in the world affects what the world is and therefore represents a return to the external.  Put in a more purely philosophical or metaphysical sense, the chain is: External —> Internal —> External.

In theory Work perceptions represent more useful attitudes and therefore more appropriate actions.   This can be in the sense that one more accurately understands the external circumstance, or simply that one’s perception leads to a more useful action with respect to one’s own inner balance of energies, regardless of whether one has fully comprehended the situation.  It is often the case as human beings we act in a world and in situations far too complicated for us to understand.  As a result, the best approach is rather often to interfere the least or to at least safeguard one’s own state of mind, operating from higher principles (particularly emotional) in the face of the void.

Perhaps before engagement with Work ideas, a group member previously would have had a circumstance in which they found doing the dishes disagreeable, felt irritated, and simply left them in a heap in the sink.  The chain ran: Dirty Dishes —> Irritation —> Avoidance.  Being in Work groups, one may apply a new attitude: Dirty Dishes —-> Anything is Fuel —> Clean the Dishes.

In any event, these are concepts applied to practical situations.  Again, because they apply to practical situations, such as our example of doing the dishes, it is generally not acknowledged that they are conceptual in nature.  One is applying an idea or point of view, to a situation.

The reason it is important to understand that these are conceptual is twofold.  First, they have been lumped in with body practices such as Movements, Sensation exercises, which, to some degree, utilize other organs of awareness.  That is, there is an idea (again, it is an idea) that there are a series of activities which are “Practical” and another series of activities which are “Intellectual”, aka “Non Practical.”  These two buckets are not explicitly expressed, but form a part of a reservoir of unconscious assumptions underlying discussions.

Second, the assumption these ideas are not conceptual masks deeper layers of questioning into the nature of reality.  In other words, these concepts take life and our perceptions of it to be fundamentally real.  Life is real, doing the dishes is real, our family is real, we are real, the world is real.  This inadvertently directs the practitioner away from the dream like nature of reality ever-present in direct experience.  As a result, indications Gurdjieff gave to question deeply into the nature of reality go unnoticed, because the associations these indications could stimulate in the minds of Group members are absent in the web of ideas presented in groups.