Finer Materials

 

Gurdjieff’s discussion of so-called “finer” materials opens with the comments made by P. D. Ouspensky in “In Search of the Miraculous.” Much is made of the subject in these annals; and it comes up elsewhere as well, especially in Gurdjieff’s Beelzebub’s Tales to his Grandson, where he speaks about the “coating” of what he calls the “higher being body parts” with finer substances.

An understanding what he means by this involves understanding what the difference is between “coarse” and “fine” particles. Gurdjieff refers to this as a difference in the rate of vibration: “coarse” particles are at a lower rate of vibration.

Taking this strictly from the perspective of physics, we think of this in terms of heat. Particles that are hotter vibrate more intensely. Yet clearly he was alluding to some other property, since we don’t become more spiritually attuned if we live in a warmer climate or drink a cup of coffee.

Practical experience leads us to understand, unerringly, that what is finer has a greater capacity for feeling. That is to say, that which is coarser is admixed with the physical or intellectual properties other things; and that which is finer purifies these qualities in such a way that the feeling becomes more sensitive and more intense. This is a movement away from indifference and towards love. That is to say, finer substances and higher energies always move us away from that which clings to the dense material of being towards the freeing influence of love.

We can know and sense the action of finer materials in us to the extent that they produce feeling qualities. Higher materials produce, first of all, sensation; and sensation is a less developed form of feeling. As materials become finer and are more concentrated in being, so does feeling also deepen. In this way we can know the difference between what is coarse in us and what is finer simply by the effect that it produces in our feelings.

In this, all spiritual work and every effort at the evolution — the true evolution, not an evolutionary complication — of the psyche, the soul, and consciousness itself is an effort aimed at the advent of sacred feeling. Sacred feeling differs entirely from ordinary emotion in that it is organic and unprompted. It does not attach itself to the external or even to the internal. To the extent that a seeker or and adapt the tunes themselves to an understanding of sacred feeling, so may they deepen the question of the development of finer substances.

These substances are the gold of alchemy: gold attracts gold.

May you be well within today.

Lee

Lee van Laer is a Senior Editor at Parabola Magazine.