14.09.08

Depersonalization vs ‘self-remembering’

Posted in Uncategorized at 4:34 pm by nemo

As we expose the Gurdjieff game it is also true that we ought to be wary of reductionist explanations of people’s ‘spiritual’ experiences, granting that the term ‘spiritual’ is highly problematic. (Actually the irony is that the disguised and purloined Samkhya in the Ouspensky system is a classic solution to the problem as it avers strict ‘materialism from low to high).
The experience that Ouspensky describes of ‘self-remembering’ seems genuine enough, complete with an occult twist. Trying to psychologize these out of existence it seems misses the point. People have these experiences, in a multitude of forms all the time.
I think ‘depersonalization’ reflects the concern of psychologists to keep people lowballed in ‘normal states of consciousness’.
This passage in Ouspensky with its bits about transspacial contact has sold a lot of books, and the issue is how unremarkable such experiences are in the end. They sucker in beginners as if they were evidence of something spectacular, when what they show is the social narrowness of beginners.
Gurdjieff hardly deserves such exalted status for this bit.
The problem is that people can contact the ‘noumenal’ briefly, it is their psychological makeup, but then imagination takes over, and the whole thing becomes the object of fantasies.

**(In his book ‘In Search of The Miraculous, Ouspensky described practicing Self Observation according to Gurdjieff’s instructions. As a result, Ouspenky, who was in his thirties, experienced a fugue/dissociation state in which for half a day, he had carried out his usual routines, run errands–with no conscious awareness of having done so. An entire half a day had been lost to him. Ouspenksy thought this was evidence of an important psycho-spiritual breakthrough, for he had never experienced anything like this.

It appears that ‘self observation’ had disrupted Ouspensky’s conscious awareness, rather than expanding it—and he had followed instructions from Gurdjieff himself.

It can happen that persons suffering certain dissociative reactions such as depersonalization may be misled by ignorant teachers and believe this is expansion of consciousness, when in fact, thier consciousness has been contricted, not expanded. For an article on depersonalization/dissociation, go here:

http://www.depersonalization.info/overview.html

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