Good and Evil in Beelzebub's Tales to His Grandson, Part V: The Hasnamuss

 

 Part V of a seven-part series

In examining the question of evil in Gurdjieff’s writings, one inevitably comes up against the question of whether it exists at all as an “objective” force. 

In his chapter on justice, Gurdjieff seems to conclusively dismiss the idea that evil can exist objectively from outside a person and “flow into them;” and in this — unusually, as it happens — he deviates substantially from cosmological viewpoints expressed by Emmanuel Swedenborg. Much of Swedenborg’s theology—in revelations he claims to have received directly from God, a claim not taken lightly — rests on this very idea. 

Elsewhere in Gurdjieff’s cosmology, he brings up the concept of the “Hasnamuss,” which is worthy of examination in regard to this question.

The first time that we encounter a definition of the word in Beelzebub’s Tales to his Grandson is in the following passage: 

..this word designates every already ‘definitized’ common presence of a three-brained being, both those consisting only of the single planetary body as well as those whose higher being-bodies are already coated in them, and in which for some reason or other, data have not been crystallized for the Divine impulse of ‘Objective-Conscience’. 

Because the “higher being bodies” are, by definition in Beelzebub’s cosmology, metaphysical bodies existing on the astral (planetary) or even higher levels, it’s clear enough that subjective elements are capable of existing even at higher levels. Because Beelzebub himself, in the narrative, committed transgressions that fell into this category, we can have no doubt of this as not just a casual, but rather essential, premise in the cosmology. 

As to the behavior of such individuals, it is characterized by features such as greed and atheism:

“…a three-brained learned being by name Harnahoom—whose essence later became crystallized into what is called an ‘Eternal-Hasnamussian-individual’—invented that any old metal you like, abundant on the surface of that planet, could easily be turned into the rare metal ‘gold’ and all it was necessary to know for this was just one very small ‘secret’. “This maleficent fiction of his became widely spread there, and…began to pass to the beings of subsequent generations as a gradually formed definite maleficent fantastic science there, under the name of ‘alchemy’…“And as at that period to which my tale relates, this Persian king needed for some or other of his undoubtedly Hasnamussian aims, a great deal of this metal, rare on the surface of the Earth, called ‘gold’, and as the notion concerning this method that had been invented by the then existing ‘Hasnamussian-individual’, Harnahoom, had also reached his presence, he was eager to get gold by so easy a means. 

First case in point. Here we are presented with subjective or “evil” influences that definitely flow into others.

The second case in point as follows:

The second Babylonian teaching which then had many followers, and which, passing from generation to generation, also reached your contemporary favorites, was… one of the atheistic teachings of that period. 

“In this teaching by the terrestrial Hasnamussian candidates of that time, it was stated that there is no God in the world, and moreover no soul in man, and hence that all those talks and discussions about the soul are nothing more than the deliriums of sick visionaries. 

“It was further maintained that there exists in the World only one special law of mechanics, according to which everything that exists passes from one form into another; that is to say, the results which arise from certain preceding causes are gradually transformed and become causes for subsequent results. “

nb. This particular description is that selfsame cosmological philosophy I refer to as “mechanistic rationalism” in my book “Metaphysical Humanism.”

“Man also is therefore only a consequence of some preceding cause and in his turn must, as a result, be a cause of certain consequences. 

“Further, it was said that even what are called ‘super-natural phenomena’ really perceptible to most people, are all nothing but these same results ensuing from the mentioned special law of mechanics. 

“The full comprehension of this law by the pure Reason depends on the gradual impartial, all-round acquaintance with its numerous details which can be revealed to a pure Reason in proportion to its development.

 “But as regards the Reason of man, this is only the sum of all the impressions perceived by him, from which there gradually arise in him data for comparisons, deductions, and conclusions. 

“As a result of all this, he obtains more information concerning all kinds of similarly repeated facts around him, which in the general organization of man are in their turn material for the formation of definite convictions in him. Thus, from all this there is formed in man—Reason, that is to say, his own subjective psyche. 

“Whatever may have been said in these two teachings about the soul, and whatever maleficent means had been prepared by those learned beings assembled there from almost the whole planet for the gradual transformation of the Reason of their descendants into a veritable mill of nonsense, it would not have been, in the objective sense, totally calamitous; but the whole objective terror is concealed in the fact that there later resulted from these teachings a great evil, not only for their descendants alone, but maybe even for everything existing. 

This particular passage not only denotes a specific set of subjective influences flowing into people from outside sources; from them arises an evil. So from this we can conclude that in Gurdjieff’s eyes, the question of objective external evils and the way in which they influence people is a bit more complicated than what we encounter in his discourse on justice in chapter 44.

In the largest and most general sense, then, Gurdjieff proposes a universe in which subjective elements are able to “crystallize,” or concentrate themselves and acquire force, both within individual humans and in metaphysical contexts (higher being bodies.) These forces can be great; and they can produce great evils. The whole idea of Hasnamuss-individuals, which is mentioned throughout the book, embodies this principle.

The struggle between good and evil, then, is recast in Gurdjieff’s eyes as a struggle between the objective and subjective.

While this appears to differ substantially from Swedenborg’s perspective, they have a point of contact in the idea of the objective as unselfish (in Gurdjieff’s terms, “pure”) and the subjective as selfish (admixed with the personal.) And indeed, when we encounter Gurdjieff’s discourse on the exact qualities of a Hasnamuss-individual, they’re all entirely selfish:

(1) Every kind of depravity, conscious as well as unconscious

(2) The feeling of self-satisfaction from leading others astray

(3) The irresistible inclination to destroy the existence of other breathing creatures

(4) The urge to become free from the necessity of actualizing the being-efforts demanded by Nature

(5) The attempt by every kind of artificiality to conceal from others what in their opinion are one’s physical

defects

(6) The calm self-contentment in the use of what is not personally deserved

(7) The striving to be not what one is.

One of the first and thus primary characteristics of a Hasnamuss individual is referred to as “conscious” depravity. This elevates the nature of the characteristic to intention, rather than automatism; and it is significant, because it assigns the quality of intentional perversion to a being that has acquired objective consciousness. This whole list is merely a fancy way of saying that they are bad people; the seven characteristics constitute, in their entirety, a description of evil behavior.

Here, in other words, evil is assigned a materiality… a metaphysical materiality. While it arises in individuals, its influences can spread throughout the universe, endangering everyone; and this is precisely because of the influential effect it has on others, which is metaphysical and consists of a “flowing in” of the subjective properties of Hasnamuss individuals into others around them.

Crafted as it is in a group of seven characteristics, the nature of a Hasnamuss reveals itself as a form of inner, metaphysical (spiritual) development. It proceeds according to the laws of the octave, but with a negative manifestation of each of the notes.

First, the three physical parts of that development as seen on the right side of the enneagram:

(1) Every kind of depravity, conscious as well as unconscious.

Re, the material creation of a world of depravity.

(2) The feeling of self-satisfaction from leading others astray.

Mi, the emotional center of that world, which consists of the act of pleasing oneself.

(3) The irresistible inclination to destroy the existence of other breathing creatures.

Fa, the locus of force and power, which is used not just to harm others, but to kill them.

This consists of the physical or natural, outer side of the Hasnamuss as they manifest in the world. The next three notes represent the left side of the enneagram, the metaphysical “anti-being” of the Hasnamuss:

(4) The urge to become free from the necessity of actualizing the being-efforts demanded by Nature.

Sol, the arising of an anti-being whose wish is opposed to the natural order.

(5) The attempt by every kind of artificiality to conceal from others what in their opinion are one’s physical defects.

La, the preservation of corruption as opposed to its purification. 

(6) The calm self-contentment in the use of what is not personally deserved.

Si, the exercise of an anti-– wisdom, which is the apotheosis of selfishness.

(7) The striving to be not what one is.

Do, the absolute. We can construe this as being the alpha and omega of the universe of the Hasnamuss, and it is an Absolute of lying.

The proposition that the Hasnamuss represents an anti-being relates the concept directly to the idea of the antichrist; and since the development of the Christ, in terms of the octave, proceeds along the lines of Gurdjieff’s man’s numbers 1 through 7, we can see the logic here: Hasnamuss number seven is, in its essence, the antichrist of Gurdjieff’s mythological and cosmological model. 

It implies a negative consciousness; and as such it embodies the very idea of a force of “external” evil that can influence that which is around it: Gurdjieff’s black magician. I think we uncover here subtleties and undercurrents that belie any supposition that Gurdjieff eschewed either the idea of evil itself, or the idea that it did not exist objectively, in its own sense, outside of the subjective characteristics of human beings. It is a force that develops: and it is furthermore a force that can reach to the highest levels of development or consciousness, as described in his character Lentrohamsanin.

May you be well within today.

Lee

Lee van Laer is a Senior Editor at Parabola Magazine.