The Seven Psychic Factors, Part III

This brings us to the threshold of a discussion about the question my friend originally asked, which is, “what are the other four functions?” He noted that these “missing” functions, although mentioned in the third talk, are never adequately explained in the other text or literature one is familiar with. And indeed, there seems to be a vacuum here, in which specific forces and their nature are introduced and discussed, but only in the sense of the worldly forces.

Perhaps Gurdjieff felt that a discussion of the metaphysical forces was premature; and this is entirely possible, because his work was at that time still relatively new, with – again, relatively — few practitioners and a scant (at the most) decade or so of practice in the West, perhaps, generously, two decades. We come, however, to these questions now with nearly 100 years of cumulative practice and community and it’s time to examine them in greater detail, a more fecund and fertile soil, so to speak, having now been prepared.

In meeting this moment we come to the perpetual danger that everyone will just absorb this information with their intellects, that is, superficially and without any organic participation — and this is an inevitable consequence of writing and reading. The action of thinking things through, discerning the laws and laying them out on paper and in structures, is very different than the practice of Being; yet the collision must be tolerated in order to, as Gurdjieff himself says, “learn ever more and more about the laws of world creation and world maintenance.”

So I would caution the reader to do your best to sense your body through the whole of your organic sensation; to see what part of your organic intelligence can participate, and to invite a visit from your organic feeling to support the examination of these questions, both that which has gone before and that which I’m about to elucidate.

First of all, I’ll note that only three of the four psychic functions or “crystallizations” under examination here — the “unknown” ones, that is — can be subject to any definite analysis or description. The reason for that will become apparent. Secondly, I note that these three identifiable forces are identifiable not through great effort, intuition, or argument, but quite simply by default, because they belong to the ordinary set of immutable laws defined by the diagram.

We already explained here how the first three forces Gurdjieff iterates fit precisely into the diagram and have traditional relationships defined not just by the yogic systems, but also by simple common logic, and, thirdly, according to Gurdjieff’s own system for the way we need to begin, in the natural world, with sensation, intellect, and feeling. 

The second group of forces belong, inevitably, to the notes Sol, La, and Si, and represent, in their turn, the following crystallized (sevenfold completed) elements:

Sol — Being

La — Purification

Si — Wisdom

Each of these “crystallized elements” represents a completed subordinate octave: that is to say, for example, Being can be perfected on one of seven different levels, and if all seven are completed, it’s a whole note. Exactly the same principle applies to purification and wisdom. 

This leads to a complex structure in which we understand that there are 49 (7 x 7) different potential levels of development for an individual Being; I’ll leave that to the reader to ponder. The point here is that the first three forces Gurdjieff speaks about in this essay, founded upon the most important force, organic sensation of being, have the aim of crystallizing Sol or Real “I” in a person. If this step is completed — and one can infer that his exercises aim for that — then the much more important and higher spiritual work of purification and the attainment of wisdom can take place.

In a certain sense, by this time, I have defined and answered the initial question; and yet at the same time we have not spoken of the seventh force in man which can crystallize, that is, Do, the absolute. I believe any discussion of that is well beyond the scope of this essay, it being enough to merely point out that the possibility is inherent within the systemic nature of the enneagram. I will merely, in the end, refer the reader to the following quote, the first of two places in the talk where Gurdjieff refers to man as a “godlike” creature:

It was just for this purpose that your group was organized and is now reorganized to consist of people who have more or less cognized the absurdity of our ordinary life and who, although you have not yet sensed it with all your Being but are seriously striving to take in what you have cognized, are continuing to learn as many aspects of the objective truth as possible so as to determine, in accordance with this, your own real individuality, in order to manifest afterwards in everything in a way corresponding to a Godlike creature.

He ends the talk with this same descriptive. The aim is to become one who corresponds to a godlike creature. This is related to the Do of the enneagram of man.

with warm regards,

Lee

Lee van Laer is a Senior Editor at Parabola magazine.