28.07.10

MBFM on The Harmonious Circle

Posted in Uncategorized at 11:58 am by nemo

Comment from MBFM on Enneagram Junk

MBFM said,
27.07.10 at 10:57 am ·
If you are prepared to de-mythologize both Gurdjieff and the enneagram, get a copy of James Webb’s The Harmonious Circle (1978). It is a vast and marvellously researched book. If you are lucky and can purchase a hardbound copy with its original dust cover, you will see on that cover, a diagram of a 17th century representation of the enneagram, from the frontispiece of Athanasius Kircher’s Arithmologia. James Webb gives us a tour of Gurdjieff’s sources in the last chapter of the book–feast of many courses.

The reader can accomplish a lot by reading first the introduction, and then go and read the last chapter in which Webb traces the sources. He finds versions of the enneagram throughout Western Occult texts, especially Raymond Lull and Athanasius Kircher. Webb suggests and carefully offers diagrams and evidence that Lull and later Kircher used the enneagram to diagram the tree of life in the Kabbalah and Gurdjieff used it in that same way. It was not original with Gurdjieff at all but, once again, derivative.

‘Countless examples show how the philosophy elaborated by Francisco Gorgi is the source of Gurdjieff’s cosmogony….Although Athanasius Kircher does not acknowledge Giorgi as source for his Arithmologia, there ican be little doubt he borrowed extensively from his predicessor. From De Harmonia, Kircher’s universe, dominated by the Triple Ternary of th enneagram, receives a fuller explanation; we learn that the first triad produces the angels, the second, the heavens, and the third the four elements. On the authority of Plato, Giorgi maintains that the octave can be used to scrutinize the human soul; for as man is constructed as an image of the greater world, the same laws apply to him as to the cosmos.

…Kirchers experiments into the effects of sound on matter went further than any of his predicessors in arguing that the universe was based not only on number and harmony, but on sound itself…there is no doubt that Gurdjieff made thorough researches into musical literature and though he might have picked up the principles of Pythagorean harmony from the classical texts, the version which he expounded quite difinately derives from the revival and adapation of that philosophy from the late Renaissance. The portable organ, like Gurdjieff’s own, but with the assembly of pipes, was known to both Fludd and Mersenne, whle many ofhte miracles which Gurdjieff attributed to ‘Essene’ music are discussed by Kircher. It is much more likely that the teacher of an ‘esoteric Christianity’ would have taken his version of harmonial philosophy from the more orthodox writers and practically certain that Gurdjieff’s interest in th effect of sound on matter would have led him to Kircher.

*What of the enneagram, the blazing Triple Ternary that dominates the frontispiece of the Arithmologia of the learned Jesuit, (Athanasius Kircher)?

‘ Kircher’s universe is governed as Gurdjieff would have said, by the Law of Three. From the intellectual world the astral world descends and such is the engravers skill that it seems to spin the emanations from the ennead…

‘Whatever Gurdjieff’s intention in adapting the enneagram to his own synthesis, or even whether he inadvertantly destroyed its original significance, it seems clear that the function of the enneagram is linked closely to another esoteric diagram: the Cabalistic Tree of Life.

(Webb pages selective quotes 510-513, from The Harmonious Circle)

‘In the Arithmetica, Kircher was quite explicit that his enneagram was equivalent to the Hebrew Tree of Life, and the diagram of the Tree places some of the ‘correspondances’ which his lists as appropriate to each Sephirah. (Webb page 515)

Here is a telling paragraph:

“The most unexpected occult source for Gurdjieff’s ideas is the American “Rosicrucian” Paschal Beverly Randolph, who flourished in the third quarter of the 19th century. Rudolph was a talented and extraordinary figure. Half-Negro by birth, he made a reputation as a lecturer on the American Civil War adn other patriotic subjects, but felt always that his ancestry prevented his real merits from being recognized. Eventually he relapsed into a welter of occultism and quack medicine. The essence of Randolph’s teaching was sexual. Gurdjieff sometimes gave personal advice on sexuality by word of mouth, but his general teaching was clear enough. Sex was a sacred function of which there should be two results: the procreation of children and “the coating and perfection of …’higher parts’. In Russia he taught that the most refined substance produced by body was sperm, and that it was sperm that formed the fourth body which made man immortal.

‘This, (writes Webb) is Randolph’s doctrine in all respects.

‘The detail which really ties Randolph to Gurdjieff is the American’s constant references to ‘Ansairetic Mysteries’ said to be secrets of ‘the Syrian mountaineers.’ This associates him directly with Gurdjieff’s emphasis on the ‘Aissors’ in Meetings With Remarkable Men. Unfortunately for any theory which would make Gurdjieff and Randolph heirs of the same esoteric tradition, the latter (Randolph) later decided to to reveal the source of his wisdom in The New Mola (1873) “Early in life” (Randolph wrote) “I discovered the fact of my ancestry on one side, being what they were (sic) was an effectual estoppel on my preferment….so I called myself The Rosicrucian and gave my thoughts to the the world as Rosicrucian thought; and lo! the world greeted with loud applause what it thought had had its origin adn birth elsewhere than in the soul of PB Rudolph!…Precisely so was it with things purporting to be Ansairetic. I had merely…got hold of a new name, and again mankind hurrahed for the wonderful Ansaireh, but incontinently turned up its nose at the supposed copyist.” (Webb 532-533)

Webb, tragically, died a suicide at the young age of 33 in 1980. My reading of his final months has convinced me that Webb suffered from a medical conditon, that would probably be diagnosed today as bipolar affective disorder.

In James Webb’s case, there is an added sadness. Many resent his work and will not frankly admit they dislike his work or feel threatened by it. Instead, they enjoy suggesting that he was driven mad or hounded into depression by a conspiracy of vested interests that resented his enlightening research. The unspoken moral of this conspiracy theory is anyone who dares to research esotericism and its destructive gurus will die under a curse.

Bullshit.

No domain is priviliged from scrutiny, especially when power abuses are regularly reported.

The take home lesson from James Webb’s great career and his tragic and early death is, keep on researching, hold power and powerholders accountable and stay balanced and healthy and hearty while doing so.

Many lives of great achievement, great and valid achievement were fueled by early onset bipolar affectiive disorder. Modern treatment and insight into the condition is keeping more and more persons with bipolar alive and happy. The ones who do well are the ones who do not draw attention to themselves, except when they invite us to their next booksigning party.

That James Webb died young from bipolar and suicide does not invalidate his scholarship. That some gloat over his fate demonstrate that he was right to ask tough questions of certain vested interests.

His suicide was not due to conspiracy but a tragic and frequent outcome of untreated bipolar affective disorder. The condition is seductive, for in early stage hypomania, the persons work is of high quality, he or she has enviable stamina and can go for days without sleep. An acquainance of mine with bipolar told me she was convinced that revolutions and breakthroughs may often be accomplished by talented persons on bipolar upswings. She witnessed many of these persons creating the stunning breakthroughs that created Silicon Valley, California, and two others I have met have been mightily productive artists.

The tragedy is that the superb creativity and energy of the manic phase is succeeded by varying degrees of depression unimaginable physical exhaustion. One cannot sleep even when one needs most to sleep, and worst of all, modern living gives few encouragements for rest and balance.

Forty years ago, there were few resources for recognizing and treating bipolar affective disorder. Even today, most persons suffer for an average of ten years until they are diagnosed and even then, medical care must be tailored to the individual needs of each person.

Permalink