a pale blue something and voluntary attention
James Wyly
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cg4P2blVtPE&t=13s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TPRo9BTgyOc
It is a conscious and
individual effort of
collecting the material
of life experience and
then merging all of
But in actual practice a
man can never bring himself
to make the kind of efforts
necessary and consecutively
for a long enough time to
attain unity; to do this
requires a method and it
must be the kind of
method that can
develop the
necessary
force of
will.
A method is imperative
because of the complexity
of a man's "mechanical-
psychological" organization.
A man is not able to keep a
constant and continuous watch
on himself and all of his
different sides without
a method because he is
much too lazy and will
do a great deal of work
without the necessary
intensity and the whole
time do nothing while
thinking that he is
doing something. Without
a method, he is unable
objectively to determine
those key half-steps or
moments when intensity of
effort is all and in
everything essential
but instead of this the
man will only work with
intensity on something
that does not need it
It is all well and good
for the purposes of ordinary
life to "mean well" in the
usual life of itself sense of
altruism and philanthropy
whereby the only reward is
a Nobel Prize and "to be
seen" with Oprah for all it
The present situation of
life of itself has so
degenerated as to have
reduced everything to
whining and crying
complaints and
quibbling over
things that have
happened in the
past but do not
provide a method
for the aim of
transcendence.
Unresolved and so-called
"unpayable debts" avail us
nothing unless there is a
method for the creation
of tension because it
is by way of tension
that sharp acute angles
can be smoothed away
by the greater and
more harmless obtuse
angles necessary for
absorption as well as,
if necessary, deflection
of negative-clairvoyant
generated material for
of the material into a
higher body all the time
thinking in our insane
minds that we already
have a soul.
or the way which leads
to self-knowledge.
"But in order to study
oneself one must first
learn how to study, where
to begin, what methods to
use. A man must learn how
to study himself, and he
must study the methods
of self-study.
"The chief method of self-
study is self-observation.
Without properly applied
self-observation a man
will never understand
the connection and the
correlation between the
various functions of his
machine, will never understand
how and why on each separate
occasion everything in him
'happens.'
"But to learn the methods
of self-observation and of
right self-study requires a
certain understanding of the
functions and the characteristics
of the human machine. Thus in
observing the functions of the
human machine it is necessary to
understand the correct divisions
of the functions observed and to
be able to define them exactly
and at once; and the definition
must not be a verbal but an
inner definition; by taste,
by sensation, in the same
way as we define all
inner experiences."
--ch 6, p 105, ISO
"BEELZEBUB would have
said more, but just
then everything was
suddenly lit up and
permeated by a 'pale
blue something.' From
that moment the speed
of falling of the ship
Karnak began to decrease
perceptibly.
"This meant that in this
sphere of the Universe
one of the great cosmic
'egolionopties' had
appeared and was
about to come
alongside the
space ship
Karnak.
"And indeed, through the
transparent outer walls
of the Karnak the source
of that 'pale blue something'
soon became visible, lighting
up not only the whole interior
of the ship but also all the
space of the Universe around
this great cosmic
'egolionopty,' as
far as the ordinary
vision of beings
could reach.
"In the whole Universe
there are only four of
these great 'egolionopties,'
and each of them is under
the direction of one of
the four All-Quarters
Maintainers of the
Universe."
--ch 47, inevitable result
voluntary attention
In order to understand the idea
of "voluntary attention" and the
hidden influence of higher forces,
we must become aware of the
existence of what is called the
"stream of unconsciousness" an
involuntary series of automatically
arising moods and mentations evoked
by association, producing a continuous
dream state which we neither enter nor
leave, and in which we have continuous
existence with at least part of our
unconscious attention.
It is into this stream of unconsciousness
that our conscious attention involuntarily
falls when our body is at rest, sometimes
more so than at other times. We refer to
this as our "dream world".
This unending series of events
grouped together under the name
"dreams" occurs continuously both
day and night through our so-called
"sleeping" and "waking" cycles, and
that it has a definite and profound effect
on us which can be mental, emotional,
organic, or all three. The Higher Bodies
Astral and Causal can be deeply affected
by this continuous stream of imaginary
activities.
Under ordinary conditions the sequence
of events ... our subjective activities within
them, our participation in them, our sensory
perceptions of them including tactile, emotional,
and psychological and their effects on us ranging
from inconsequential to profound ... are totally
involuntary, that is to say, over the form and
content of our dreams we have no voluntary
influence, and over the personal and
impersonal phenomena of dreams
we have no voluntary authority.
Under ordinary circumstances we can
neither initiate action in the dream nor
alter the action and sequence of events,
once begun. The momentum of dreams
can be said to have greater Will than any
mental or emotional Will we can bring to
bear on them, although from time to time
our ordinary Will from the involuntary
motor center can furnish the automatic
organic Will necessary to awaken from
a nightmare or during an organic
emergency.
In order to separate our attention
from the dream, the crux of the secret
depends upon the knowledge that our
dreams are continuous even in the so-
called "waking state", that they have
continuous and sometimes profound
mental, emotional, physical effects
upon us, and that under ordinary
circumstances we cannot exercise
either voluntary Will or voluntary
attention over our dreams. It can
be easily seen that dreams are the
hidden source of our mental,
emotional, and physical states,
even to the extent that they
sometimes can cause
organic illness,
imaginary memories,
and sentimentality.
To exercise voluntary Will over
dreams is the beginning of formation
of the Astral Body, it is a definite sign
of its formation. To the Higher Body
belongs "voluntary attention" and the
ability to isolate, view, as well as
participate in the events of the
dream world.
To produce this same form of
attention with the ordinary attention
of the body, we would have to develop
this ability completely artificially by
way of "diffused" vision and
attention by way of which all
objects are equally present to
our attention. Eventually, with
continuous practice, this artificial
form of a higher level of attention
would produce effects contributing
to the formation of the Higher Body.
And something was written about this
in Beelzebub's Tales to His
Grandson in Chapter 18:
"My first meeting with the three-
centered being who later became my
'essence-friend,' and thanks to whom
I saw these experiments with the
'Omnipresent Okidanokh,' . . . "
Beelzebub's observations of
the experiments performed by
Gornahoor Harharkh helped him
to arrive at very important
"increases" of his understanding
of the omnipresent and everywhere-
penetrating Okidanokh by the
experimental, that is, "artificial"
blending and dissociating of all the
three fundamental parts of Okidanokh
from every kind of surplanetary and
intraplanetary process, including
the process of self-perfecting of
the individual three-brained being
man, and to study the specific
properties of each part separately
in its manifestations of a man, of,
namely, YOU, THE READER,
which is a process of
self-study:
What is "artificial" stated above
and also by Gurdjieff in Views and
is why Gurdjieff wrote in the
subjective "chosen language," a
sort of "artificial language" of
Beelzebub's in his tales to his
grandson:
"In most of us this common language
I speak about is irretrievably lost.
The only thing left us is to establish
a connection in a roundabout,
'fraudulent' way. And these
indirect, 'FRAUDULENT,' ARTIFICIAL
connections must be very subjective,
since they must depend on a man's
character and the form his inner
makeup has taken.
"So now we must establish this
subjectivity, and find a program
of work, in order to make connections
with the other parts. Establishing this
subjectivity is also complicated; it
cannot be arrived at once, not
until a man is thoroughly analyzed
and pulled to pieces, not until one
has probed 'as far as his
grandmother.'
"Therefore on the one hand we shall
go on establishing this subjectivity
for each man separately, and on the
other we shall begin general work
possible for everyone--practical
exercises. There are certain
subjective methods and there
are general methods. So we
shall try to find subjective
methods and at the same time
try to apply general methods."
--Gurdjieff
--p221-227, views
Gurdjieff
formulated it according to the style of
writing of his that we see in Beelzebub's
Tales in general and in Chapter 18, THE
ARCH PREPOSTEROUS, in particular
and in connection with self-study, the
following:
"'All these special appliances that
I invented have enabled me to obtain
certain extremely important clarifications
about the omnipresent and everywhere-
penetrating Okidanokh, because they
made it possible for me first to
collect all three fundamental parts
of Okidanokh from every kind of
surplanetary and intraplanetary
process and then to blend them
artificially into a whole; and
finally to dissociate them, also
artificially, and to study the
specific properties of each part
separately in its manifestations.'"
--ch 18, arch preposterous
and
"And only after the said cosmic unit
has been completely destroyed do these
holy sources of the sacred Triamazikamno,
localized in the 'Omnipresent-Active-
Element-Okidanokh,' reblend and they
are again tranformed into 'Okidanokh,'
but having now another quality of
Vivifyingness of Vibrations."
--ch 17, arch-absurd
Gurdjieff said that it is not possible
to perceive directly the results of the
blending of higher influences with those
processes that connect affirming forces
together with denying forces
. . . this may explain the irruption
from the "collective depths" of clairvoyance
and archetypal phenomena and other so-called
"psychic phenomena." The danger here is
putting meanings on the visions that arise
archetypal and clairvoyantly in terms of
ordinary consciousness, in terms of life
of itself, but must be regarded as a thin,
light and airy "something," as a sort of
"artificial light," and that this something
that arises is not important but we must
direct our attention to help this
something in the brain to flow towards
the solar plexus. What arises in the
brain is not important. The moment you
start doing that, then you are no longer
remembering yourself and it is only by
self-remembering, either from conscious
sources or from accidental mechanical
results, that you have any ability at
all to observe and separate out what is
false in association with the aforesaid
psychic phenomena . . . only then is the
real world revealed to you and you are
then liberated from the unfortunate
results of conscious-evil-manipulations
of living archetypal phenomena, that is
to say, living law-conformably according
to laws of a higher reality transcendent
of the ordinary. Angels, for example,
can appear winged archetypal from
within and all around you as
messengers.
ARTIFICIAL LIGHT
"'But since an "able Reason"—-my own,
in this case—-has by intention artificially
excluded the third part of Okidanokh, known
as "parijrahatnatius," the process is now
taking place between only two of its
independent parts, which science calls
"anodnatius" and "cathodnatius."
Consequently, instead of the law-
conformable results that would issue
from the blending of the three parts, a
non-law-conformable result is now being
actualized ensuing from "the reciprocal
blending of two opposite forces," and
ordinary beings call this result "the
cause of artificial light."
--ch 18, arch preposterous
"RAYS"
SUN NEITHER LIGHTS NOR HEATS
"He pointed to 'something' very much
like the apparatus called a 'voltmeter'
on your planet and said, 'One of the
advantages of my new invention for the
demonstration of this phenomenon is
that in spite of the extraordinary
power of the "force of striving"
now proceeding there, the
"salnichissinooarnian momentum-
vibrations," which should issue from
this process, and which most beings
regard as "rays," do not issue from
the place of their arising, that is,
the interior of this apparatus,
where the particularities of
the Omnipresent Okidanokh
are being studied."