The Perfection, part 1

“The earthly, which is the outermost level of the divine design, brings about completion, so that the inner things, which are heavenly and spiritual, stand firmly on it the way a house stands on its foundation.”

—Emmanuel Swedenborg, The Last Judgment

“In any case, you must first of all be told that this same holy planet, which is called Purgatory, is for the whole of our Great Universe, as it were, the heart and place of concentration of all the completing results of the pulsation of everything that functions and exists in the Universe. 

“Our COMMON-FATHER-CREATOR-ENDLESSNESS appears there so often only because this holy planet is the place of the existence of the, in the highest degree, unfortunate ‘higher-being- bodies’, who obtained their coating on various planets of the whole of our Great Universe. 

“The ‘higher-being-bodies’ who have already merited to dwell on this holy planet, suffer, maybe, as much as anybody in the whole of our Great Universe. 

“In view of this, our ALL-LOVING, ENDLESSLY-MERCIFUL and ABSOLUTELY-JUST CREATOR-ENDLESSNESS, having no other possibility of helping these unfortunate ‘higher-being-bodies’ with anything, often appears there so that by these appearances of HIS HE may soothe them, if only a little, in their terrible inevitable state of inexpressible anguish. 

—G. I. Gurdjieff, Beelzebub’s Tales to His Grandson, The Holy Planet Purgatory 

In order to understand the above passage, one first needs to consider the below text, which is well known to most readers of Gurdjieff’s work:

‘The factors for the being-impulse conscience arise in the presences of the three-brained beings from the localization of the particles of the “emanations-of-the-sorrow” of our OMNI-LOVING AND LONG-SUFFERING-ENDLESS-CREATOR; that is why the source of the manifestation of genuine conscience in three-centered beings is sometimes called the REPRESENTATIVE OF THE CREATOR.

“ ‘And this sorrow is formed in our ALL-MAINTAINING COMMON FATHER from the struggle constantly proceeding in the Universe between joy and sorrow.’

“And he then also further said:

“ ‘In all three-brained beings of the whole of our Universe without exception, among whom are also we men, owing to the data crystallized in our common presences for engendering in us the Divine impulse of conscience, “the-whole-of-us” and the whole of our essence, are, and must be, already in our foundation, only suffering.

“ ‘And they must be suffering, because the completed actualizing of the manifestation of such a being-impulse in us can proceed only from the constant struggle of two quite opposite what are called “complexes-of-the-functioning” of those two sources which are of quite opposite origin, namely, between the processes of the functioning of our planetary body itself and the parallel functionings arising progressively from the coating and perfecting of our higher being-bodies within this planetary body of ours, which functionings in their totality actualize every kind of Reason in the three-centered beings.

—G.I. Gurdjieff, from “The Organization for Man's Existence Created by the Very Saintly Ashiata Sheimash:"

Gurdjieff’s writings work on many levels; some are literary, some are literal, some are allegorical, some are mythological, and some are even outright fictional. Yet these two passages covertly present two essential processes that human beings ought to undergo in their work to develop spiritual Being; and while he ultimately places them in a “location” called The Holy Planet Purgatory, the actual “location” they take place in, if rightly understood, is within the Being of an individual who works.

The Holy Planet Purgatory, in other words, is just as much a place within man or woman as is the Kingdom of Heaven. 

Part 2 of this series will be published on Dec. 3.

Warmly,

Lee

Announcing the publication of 

The Reconstruction of the Soul

The Reconstruction of the Soul is a wide-ranging investigation of symbolism in High and Late Medieval art. It includes detailed analyses of the Unicorn Tapestries at the Cluny Museum and the Cloisters in New York, as well as detailed examinations of the mysterious, erotic and bizarre symbolism in The Cathedral of St. Lazare in Autun.

Along the way, it traces the roots of Western esoteric art from Babylon to ancient Greece, revealing traditions that are still alive today, some 3000 or more years later.

The material is illustrated with photographs taken by the author on location in France and New York, as well as source material from various museums.

It will appeal to anyone interested in the symbolic transmission of the world's Western esoteric heritage.

All funds from your purchase of this book will go to support the translation of important historical documents related to the Gurdjieff tradition.

The author is currently at work on a second volume which will explore even earlier (!) influences on esoteric art and practice. Anticipated publication of this follow-up work will be late 2019.

Lee van Laer is a Senior Editor at Parabola Magazine.