02.08.08
Response to Gurdjieff the spy comments
Thanks a lot for these great comments from SK and mybrainisafleamarket (MBFM).
Post on James Webb
Webb’s book is invaluable, and I wish his other book on the occult renaissance were cheaper. I think I read it once, and it has been many years since I researched this material. The comments on the sufi tradition and the absence of reference to the enneagram is significant.
I would offer one caveat: although Gurdjieff was clearly brazen in his deceptions, those deceptions betray a man with a few consistent themes, one of which is the claim for a tradition deeper than the sufi stream, the whole point about his wild statements about greater antiquity and lost knowledge, all the way to Sumer.
I don’t find his conclusions about this reliable, but he is saying that the enneagram is something he found after very difficult efforts, resulting in the discovery of the Sarmon monastery, where he found the enneagram. A possible reason noone had ever heard of it. Packaged in disinformation is something that rings true even as it rings false. Don’t know, but the whole game is impossible to get quite straight.
Could all be balderdash anyway. And the result, the enneagram, we live in another age that can’t take this bit seriously, and least not I. It is just ingenious enough to confuse a mystic, but obviously a flawed instrument of knowledge.
As to being an intelligence agent, the possibility discredits him, but at the same time he was unlikely to have been the standard psychopathic spy type.
Recall that he was evidently recruited in the context of the Great Game, with Russia and England vying for Tibet. That required a combination of sincere spiritual type and and cunning spy type, a rare combo, but obviously Gurdjieff fit the requirements.
Keep in mind that he was penetrating Tibet. He wouldn’t have had any chance of deceiving all those lamas if he were merely a psychopathic spy type. Again, hard to say. But no ordinary intelligence agent could have gotten very far in Tibet. To cal someone an intelligence agent can be misleading. There are many specialists given a specialist job in secret with no contact with the general field of political cloak and dagger. And then dismissed at the end, ‘we never heard of you’.
SK tries to bring in a Gold connection, interesting, and thanks. We talked about that a while back at Darwiniana, perhaps we can pursue it further here.
Thanks for the great input, it is a big help here.
mybrainisafleamarket said,
03.08.08 at 8:42 am
Its a bit easier to impose on Buddhists than one might think, even Tibetan lamas and rinpoches.
Alexander Berzin has a great book entitled Healthy Relationships with Spiritual Teachers.
He notes that it is considered bad form and a violation of right speech to flat out tell someone he or she is an imposter. Traditional Asians shun confrontation, even if that means not confronting a con artist.
And many Tibetan Buddhist teachers might take the time to teach Dharma to a scoundrel hoping that in another life, that persons potential will ripen into sincere practice.
However, high level teachings in tantra, mahamudra and dzogchen would never be given unless someone has done foundational practices and throughly commits to living by the Buddhist ethical precepts–and has studied with a teacher for years.
Someone on a spy’s hectic schedule would not be able to do this.
Richard Burton had considerable leisure to do his undercover work–General Napier wanted as much information as possible about local habits and customs and wanted the kind of information that would enable future agents to pass successfully. Burton worked for him in the 1840s, and had the leisure to try many different covers and learn the ettiquette appropriate to each. (He found that a great source of information was if one could gain entry to the ladies harems. Burton found that the best method was to impersonate being a merchant, have excellent goods and sell at a reasonable price. If a suspicous husband or father arrived, all Burton had to do was display his stock of jewellry and the ladies raised hell and insisted that he stay!)
Burton actually liked the people who he impersonated, and though many of his comments are miserably racist and sexist (he was Victorian), one thing comes through…he was sympathetic to the local cultures, lived with the people, to the point where he lost the trust of his superiors–he was much too willing to ‘go native.’ Fawn Brodie, one of his biographers stated that Burton was special.. he was willing to live with the people whose customs he
studied-he did not treat them as specimens.
Quite different from Gurdjieff.
And, throughout his books, Burton was scrupulously careful to list his sources and provide accurate information–for he knew that future travellers lives might be at stake and he wanted them to have the best
information he could provide.
Again, quite different from Gurdjieff. Burton also had a radical belief that women were as entitled to sexual pleasure as men and noted that British officers rarely won the affection of their Indian mistresses because the Brits were poor at making love.
Quite different from Gurdjieff who was an utter boor in these matters.
The Gurdjieff Con » Burton vs Gurdjieff said,
03.08.08 at 4:00 pm
[...] interesting comment upgraded to a [...]
HGJ said,
12.09.08 at 9:17 am
Consider Sir Paul Dukes. Then consider again. What does it matter.
nemo said,
13.09.08 at 2:18 pm
Give us some input on Paul Dukes