If David Miscavige, the head of the Church of Scientology, had delivered a Christmas Day speech he might have described 2009 as an annus horribilis for his organisation. In October, a French court convicted the Church of fraud, following a trial over allegations by two women that they were conned into paying tens of thousands of Euros for Scientology training materials; and a bookshop belonging to the organisation was fined 600,000 Euros. A month later in Sydney, an independent senator, Nick Xenophon, stood up in the Australian parliament and denounced Scientology as a criminal organisation that “coerces its followers into having abortions” and one “that defrauds, that blackmails, that falsely imprisons”. He then called for a parliamentary investigation into the tax-exempt status enjoyed by Scientology in Australia.

I am not sure how far I go with him on the issue raised by his title, thence the purported main theme of his book: on one level however his thesis is, if not obvious, then a referral to some important hidden strains of post-fascism fascism.
But as you read the text something else happpens, it is so packed with secondary issues, and mini-research findings that you are left gaping. A good example is the suggestion that the Nazis actually did produce a nuclear weapon, and that the uranium used by the Los Alamos team was in part produced in Germany by Nazis, brought to the USA near the end of the war.
The book is filled with ‘hypotheses’ like this, which are hard to assess.

In general, I find the book of interest for the way a ‘conspiracy theory’ thesis comes into being willynilly, on the basis of the stark contradictions emerging at many points in twentieth century history in general and the post-JFK legacy in particular.
More on this later. If you can follow the maxim, read all, believe nought, the book is well worth reading.

This book (which I haven’t yet read) is of interest because its author wrote Crossfire, one of the best factual explorations of the JFK assassinations. I think he deserves a read through of his other books, although I am wincing a little bit at the content, here secret socities, and also the history of secrecy, and the issue of alien life.
But, well, c’est la vie. We can add this to the already considerable confusion here.

Marrs nailed the JFK assassination, so I can’t reject his other insights sight unseen. We shall see.

In general, the issue, as Sillykitty noted several times, of intelligence orgs, mind control and the Gurdjieff legacy as intertwined has to be faced. And thus Marrs book is directly relevant in the way it braids the issue of fascism, and American intelligence histories to that of various occult traditions.
My problem is that noone can get the issues here straight.
But, we will see.

It is very easy to be misunderstood by dabblers in Gurdjieffianity. The ‘vitriol’ springs from the concealed fascist malevolence of Gurdjieff’s conspiracy, and the general attack on modernity and freedom.
People get angry when you try to destroy their freedom, OK?

People are easily impressed by Gurdjieff’s ‘teaching’, but most of it is junk thinking, leaving his case unmade for an ancient teaching.

grey hat said,
27.02.10 at 12:42 pm ·
Some thoughts for you.

The attribution of Sufism to the Gurdjieff teachings is a false one. It was created entirely by Idries Shah and his cohorts, as means of exploiting the aspects of “legacy” and “transmission”. Regardless of his reasoning for co-opting the movement, Shah was determined to become the new head or “prophet” and even leveraged his budding support from this community to take control of the Coombe Springs property, which he was given by Bennet for free. He sold the property for 100k sterling a few months later.

Gurdjieff and his teachings are certainly not for everyone, but I was somewhat surprised with how emotionally charged your perspective is. It seemingly borders on pure vitriol. Unfortunately this precludes rational discussion of the matter, IMO. We can attempt it, of course – if you are interested in the possibility of new understanding, either for you or me. Feel free to email me.

Some quick notes I have for you is that I regard G as very much ahead of his time in many aspects, and one of the more impressive examples of those is his artistry; of “meme” creation, propaganda, etc. In particular the synthesis of vast amounts of previous knowledge into a new coherence, AS WELL AS a vibrant living understanding, and a visceral energy of persuasion. I never knew the man personally, and therefore dont consider myself qualified to truly know much about his personality or “what he was like”. I have studied a wide cross-section of first hand accounts by those who did know him personally, and lived with him, etc. I certainly dont consider him a saint, but then again I certainly dont consider him a devil either. He seemed to be one of the first in a new, modern line of trickster teachers. Blavatsky was also a trickster, but much more of a b-rate snake oil gypsy, and not much of a teacher at all. Idries Shah was of this line, but his priorities were different – he was much more concerned with his own personal matters than those of the greater community of knowledge.

I regard Gurdjieff’s works as the penultimate modern representation of this kind of art, the only others in this field I would consider close are Carlos Castaneda, and the Church of the Subgenius. These all could be considered a modern form of thoroughly urgent taoism – the inner alchemical art of self-cultivation.

In all of these works of art produced by these people, there is a deliberate obscuration and deception, as well as a deliberate manipulation. There is also the deliberate effort to arrange things in such a way that anyone who is a blind believer in the system will become utterly and completely ridiculous to everyone else, invalidating their views in the eyes of society. The only way to make effective use of these teachings is a simple “do or die” scenario. The church of the Subgenius takes it further, by having no practical systematic methods per se, as well as an almost impenetrable wall of humor.

The common thread of these systems is the use of both “wholesome” and “unwholesome” methodology. If you wanted to, you could say they bounce between “black” and “white” “magic”. Its dangerous stuff. That is the point, you dont play with fire unless you want to get burned.

You may have realized that disruption of the coherence of your current perspective will threaten its emotionally reinforced (and therefore most likely comfortable) status. If not, you should look into it – this is a handy realization to have.

That’s why a way toward the future, like water seeking a path around obstacles, seems to have spawned a future tradition in the Jain cultural context, where the immense obsession and red herring of Hinduism is rendered irrelevant.