4 ms·

I think you've been hanging out with the wrong "Gurdjieffites". At least some of those terms are pretty easy to figure out. "organ kundabuffer" was a specific

I think you've been hanging out with the wrong "Gurdjieffites". At least some of those terms are pretty easy to figure out. "organ kundabuffer" was a specific organ that excreted some kind of drug (in Gurdjieff's pre-history.) "being-partkdolg-duty" is the task and operation of remembering oneself. "the sacred Rascooarno" is death of the physical body. ...and so on.

throwanem 7y ago
Have you tried to look up definitions for some of them? I tried to figure out what a "hasnamuss" is, and about halfway through https://www.doremishock.com/beelzebub/hasnamussfieldguide.htm https://www.doremishock.com/beelzebub/hasnamussfieldguide.ht... found myself overcome with the urge to sneeze. The tick marks had gotten up my nose, as I'm sure you'll agree is a very present danger given their swarming multiplication throughout the text. But, having got past them, I found they'd done me a sort of mercy in distracting from the vast swamp of sheer nonsense into which I might otherwise have fallen. It appears from https://gnosticteachings.org/books-by-samael-aun-weor/the-elimination-of-satans-tail/288-the-kundabuffer-organ.html https://gnosticteachings.org/books-by-samael-aun-weor/the-el..., too, that: "It is necessary to know that the Kundabuffer Organ is the negative development of the fire." That's something I am certainly glad now to know! It makes the rest of it seem so much simpler. (Leaving aside sarcasm for a moment, "the negative development of the fire" seems like just the sort of thing a Quaker might describe as a perversion of the Inner Light, or a Catholic might regard as akin to what would become of humans absent the Holy Spirit indwelling. I'm sure someone conversant with the inner mysteries of Gurdjieff's particular flavor of syncretistic guff would consider both of these analogies to be shocking misapprehensions of the true nature of whatever it is supposed to be. But I'd be astonished to find such a person able to usefully explain what it is supposed to be.)
- carapace 7y ago
  > Have you tried to look up definitions for some of them? No. I've read Gurdjieff's "All and Everything" (as much of it as has been published) and thought about it deeply. Even so, I don't think I understand even half of it. The part I do understand makes me think that Gurdjieff was a genius, comparable only to Leonardo da Vinci, with the difference that, where Leonardo explored the external world, Gurdjieff explored the internal world. FWIW, as far as I can tell the "kundabuffer" was literally an organ that excreted some kind of drug. It deranged our thinking and perception, essentially making us high, so that we wouldn't notice that we were being used to somehow stabilize the orbit of the Moon after some disaster. Eventually the Moon's orbit was stabilized and the organ removed, but it was too late. The effects persisted. No one (of the alien/angels that were doing all this) noticed the problem until one person discovered that earthlings were destroying each other. (War is unknown other than on Earth. The rest of the Universe literally have no idea. Which is why no aliens land on the lawn: they're all totally terrified of us.) What's the big deal?
  - bitwize 7y ago
    > What's the big deal? The big deal is that you've nicely brought me back to my point. >Even so, I don't think I understand even half of it. The part I do understand makes me think that Gurdjieff was a genius By taking something relatively simple, combining it with other nonsense you heard or made up, wrapping it all in deeply nested layers of made up BS and obscurantist terminology, definable only in terms of itself, you too can develop a complex, seemingly consistent "system" that looks to the unwary like a work of profound intellect! And all you have to do next is pitch it with a hot take about something that everyone knows about and relies on (e.g., "the default state of man is sleep"/"the internet is broken"), to which your system is the only solution! A lesson Curtis Yarvin has learned very well.
    - carapace 7y ago
      >> What's the big deal? > The big deal is that you've nicely brought me back to my point. I shouldn't have omitted the sarcasm tag on that line. > By taking ... the only solution! Yeah, I know. I have to resist the urge to start a religion almost daily. I'm only saved by misanthropy: I couldn't stand to have the bobbies milling around. But that's not what Gurdjieff did. > A lesson Curtis Yarvin has learned very well. My take from the very beginning is that Yarvin is brilliant but mentally ill. I don't mean that in a derogatory way! I feel for the guy. It seemed clear (to me anyway) from his early writings about Urbit that he's a little touched. Over the years he's seemed to get a little better.
      - throwanem 7y ago
        If Yarvin is mentally ill, then so was Gurdjieff. Both wrestle with ideas that seem to be too big for them, and both clearly struggle in so doing, or at least in making their big ideas comprehensible to those less inspired. Of Gurdjieff's work I'm comfortable saying, in paraphrase of the apocryphal Dr. Johnson, that what is worthwhile is not original, and what is original is not worthwhile. Granted that I haven't studied him deeply - but I haven't done so because, where I have looked at his work, I've found nothing that other schools of enlightenment theory haven't said better both before and after him. Robert Anton Wilson is in my estimation much more worth anyone's time, not least because he doesn't seem nearly so much to deliberately cultivate opacity. In Yarvin's case, I suppose time has yet to tell. Certainly his opinion of the status quo, with regard to tools ostensibly for communication between people, is one I share. I doubt Urbit is the solution, but as I said, time will tell.
goodmachine 7y ago
I had to look up the "organ kundabuffer" "In his most important book, BEELZEBUB'S TALE TO HIS GRANDSON, Gurdjieff talks about an organ that was implanted into humanity called the "organ kundabuffer". It was planted by two archangels in response to galactic catastrophe which affected the solar system which includes the planet Earth. The organ was temporarily implanted into humankind in order to minimize the sorrow of adapting to the stabilization period where the two moons, Luna and Anulios, would return to a balanced orbit around the Earth." So now you know. https://sites.google.com/site/amritayanabuddhism/Home/the-organ-kundabuffer https://sites.google.com/site/amritayanabuddhism/Home/the-or...
bitwize 7y ago
> "organ kundabuffer" was a specific organ that excreted some kind of drug (in Gurdjieff's pre-history.) So basically you have to be on board with his sci-fi extended universe in order to grasp the cause behind the central tenet of the Fourth Way: that man is asleep. > "being-partkdolg-duty" is the task and operation of remembering oneself. Defining one Gurdjieffism in terms of another Gurdjieffism. Nice. "Remembering oneself" is, roughly, what Hackernews knows as mindfulness, but seems to involve a lot more following Gurdjieff (or one of his disciples, or his disciples' disciples, there must be an unbroken chain to the Master you see) around, scrubbing his floors and latrines, and doing his silly dances. Giving him your money also seemed to help. > "the sacred Rascooarno" is death of the physical body. So why does Gurdjieff say "the sacred Rascooarno" and not "death"? Because the Gurdjieffian concept of death is alien to anyone outside the Work. As you say, Rascooarno is the death of the physical, planetary body, but a person (or "three-brained being"), in the course of their life, has or develops other, "finer" bodies made up of even smaller particles than the matter which makes up their planetary body, like the body-kesdjan, which is often equated to the astral body but isn't really. One might say, in other religions, that a person has a soul. But for Gurdjieff even this is wrong: it's more like a person has the potential for a soul. Thanks to -- you guessed it -- the maleficent consequences of the organ Kundabuffer, a soul can only be attained through 20 or 30 years or so in the Work... do you see where I'm going with this? Anyway, if you had a true friend in the Work, that friend would rebuke you for doing what Gurdjieff specifically enjoined his followers not to do: attempt to interpret his works to outsiders, lest you transmit wrong information and cause those outsiders to be crystallized in the wrong hydrogens.
- carapace 7y ago
  > So basically you have to be on board with his sci-fi extended universe in order to grasp the cause behind the central tenet of the Fourth Way: that man is asleep. Yes and no. His opus "All and Everything" is comprised of three volumes. The first "Beelzebub's Tales to His Grandson" (itself divided into three volumes) is the part that is couched as a kind of autobiographical reminiscences of an alien, Beelzebub, to his grandson on the occasion of his pardon and reprieve from exile to Mars. It's allegory. That book is designed to affect the mind of the reader, it's a machine or program, not a book per se. > Defining one Gurdjieffism in terms of another Gurdjieffism. Nice. Don't be pissy. > "Remembering oneself" is, roughly, what Hackernews knows as mindfulness, but seems to involve a lot more "Remembering oneself" is literal. As literal as words can be. There was no concept of mindfulness in the West at the time. Buddhism was alien and barely known. > following Gurdjieff He discouraged followers. > (or one of his disciples, or his disciples' disciples, there must be an unbroken chain to the Master you see) The Fourth Way is not a lineage school. There may be people out there who try to make something like that out of it, I don't know. I don't hang out with them. The "Eneagram" craze was an example of a kind of degenerate cargo-cult residue of Gurdjieff's effect. But I don't think you should blame him for what people do with his work after he died. > around, scrubbing his floors and latrines, I'm not sure what you're referring to. Are you upset that he didn't clean the toilets personally at his dance school? > and doing his silly dances. Have you seen them? They are not silly. > Giving him your money also seemed to help. He could extract money from people seemingly at will (have you read the story of the time he nearly initiated an orgy?) He also spent lots of money, time, and effort feeding and taking care of elderly people during the war. In Paris if I recall correctly. > So why does Gurdjieff say "the sacred Rascooarno" and not "death"? To distinguish it from the current concept of death, which is very different. the sacred Rascooarno is a natural molting of the physical body, like a kind of second birth, and life carries on in the second and third being bodies. Our deaths, however, are merely the wearing out of a machine. Not having "coated" higher being-bodies into our physical body by the process of "being-partkdolg-duty" we "die like dogs", leaving nothing. > But for Gurdjieff ... it's more like a person has the potential for a soul. Exactly! Everyone says "There's a soul" or "There's no such thing" and Gurdjieff comes along and says "You have to make one sucker!" It's the first new thing under the sun, eh? > Thanks to -- you guessed it -- the maleficent consequences of the organ Kundabuffer, You lost me... > a soul can only be attained through 20 or 30 years or so in the Work... No, you "coat" a "second being-body" and then you "coat" a "third being-body" and then you molt ("the sacred Rascooarno") and leave the Earth to go live in space with cool aliens that like you, or something. These higher being bodies are like holograms that you use to store human-style experience in the next world. They're like emulators for your old software, eh? > do you see where I'm going with this? Yeah, but why? You obviously know a lot of this stuff but seem really unimpressed. Is it so wrong that I got a lot out of G.I. Gurdjieff without becoming some sort of esoteric edgelord weanie? I know there are a lot of knobs and fools out there. The "enneagram" craze proves that. But there's also something else there. (Or maybe I'm just crazy. I still haven't quite decided yet.) > Anyway, if you had a true friend in the Work, I don't. > that friend would rebuke you for doing what Gurdjieff specifically enjoined his followers not to do Well, fuck em' Gurdjieff didn't appoint a successor, so I'll say what I like to whom I please. > attempt to interpret his works to outsiders, lest you transmit wrong information and cause those outsiders to be crystallized in the wrong hydrogens. Yeah, this is almost certainly "pearls before swine" but whatever, I'm bored and lonely. "What was that about hats?"

throwanem 7y ago

Have you tried to look up definitions for some of them? I tried to figure out what a "hasnamuss" is, and about halfway through https://www.doremishock.com/beelzebub/hasnamussfieldguide.htm https://www.doremishock.com/beelzebub/hasnamussfieldguide.ht... found myself overcome with the urge to sneeze. The tick marks had gotten up my nose, as I'm sure you'll agree is a very present danger given their swarming multiplication throughout the text. But, having got past them, I found they'd done me a sort of mercy in distracting from the vast swamp of sheer nonsense into which I might otherwise have fallen. It appears from https://gnosticteachings.org/books-by-samael-aun-weor/the-elimination-of-satans-tail/288-the-kundabuffer-organ.html https://gnosticteachings.org/books-by-samael-aun-weor/the-el..., too, that: "It is necessary to know that the Kundabuffer Organ is the negative development of the fire." That's something I am certainly glad now to know! It makes the rest of it seem so much simpler. (Leaving aside sarcasm for a moment, "the negative development of the fire" seems like just the sort of thing a Quaker might describe as a perversion of the Inner Light, or a Catholic might regard as akin to what would become of humans absent the Holy Spirit indwelling. I'm sure someone conversant with the inner mysteries of Gurdjieff's particular flavor of syncretistic guff would consider both of these analogies to be shocking misapprehensions of the true nature of whatever it is supposed to be. But I'd be astonished to find such a person able to usefully explain what it is supposed to be.)

carapace 7y ago
> Have you tried to look up definitions for some of them? No. I've read Gurdjieff's "All and Everything" (as much of it as has been published) and thought about it deeply. Even so, I don't think I understand even half of it. The part I do understand makes me think that Gurdjieff was a genius, comparable only to Leonardo da Vinci, with the difference that, where Leonardo explored the external world, Gurdjieff explored the internal world. FWIW, as far as I can tell the "kundabuffer" was literally an organ that excreted some kind of drug. It deranged our thinking and perception, essentially making us high, so that we wouldn't notice that we were being used to somehow stabilize the orbit of the Moon after some disaster. Eventually the Moon's orbit was stabilized and the organ removed, but it was too late. The effects persisted. No one (of the alien/angels that were doing all this) noticed the problem until one person discovered that earthlings were destroying each other. (War is unknown other than on Earth. The rest of the Universe literally have no idea. Which is why no aliens land on the lawn: they're all totally terrified of us.) What's the big deal?
- bitwize 7y ago
  > What's the big deal? The big deal is that you've nicely brought me back to my point. >Even so, I don't think I understand even half of it. The part I do understand makes me think that Gurdjieff was a genius By taking something relatively simple, combining it with other nonsense you heard or made up, wrapping it all in deeply nested layers of made up BS and obscurantist terminology, definable only in terms of itself, you too can develop a complex, seemingly consistent "system" that looks to the unwary like a work of profound intellect! And all you have to do next is pitch it with a hot take about something that everyone knows about and relies on (e.g., "the default state of man is sleep"/"the internet is broken"), to which your system is the only solution! A lesson Curtis Yarvin has learned very well.
  - carapace 7y ago
    >> What's the big deal? > The big deal is that you've nicely brought me back to my point. I shouldn't have omitted the sarcasm tag on that line. > By taking ... the only solution! Yeah, I know. I have to resist the urge to start a religion almost daily. I'm only saved by misanthropy: I couldn't stand to have the bobbies milling around. But that's not what Gurdjieff did. > A lesson Curtis Yarvin has learned very well. My take from the very beginning is that Yarvin is brilliant but mentally ill. I don't mean that in a derogatory way! I feel for the guy. It seemed clear (to me anyway) from his early writings about Urbit that he's a little touched. Over the years he's seemed to get a little better.
    - throwanem 7y ago
      If Yarvin is mentally ill, then so was Gurdjieff. Both wrestle with ideas that seem to be too big for them, and both clearly struggle in so doing, or at least in making their big ideas comprehensible to those less inspired. Of Gurdjieff's work I'm comfortable saying, in paraphrase of the apocryphal Dr. Johnson, that what is worthwhile is not original, and what is original is not worthwhile. Granted that I haven't studied him deeply - but I haven't done so because, where I have looked at his work, I've found nothing that other schools of enlightenment theory haven't said better both before and after him. Robert Anton Wilson is in my estimation much more worth anyone's time, not least because he doesn't seem nearly so much to deliberately cultivate opacity. In Yarvin's case, I suppose time has yet to tell. Certainly his opinion of the status quo, with regard to tools ostensibly for communication between people, is one I share. I doubt Urbit is the solution, but as I said, time will tell.

goodmachine 7y ago

I had to look up the "organ kundabuffer" "In his most important book, BEELZEBUB'S TALE TO HIS GRANDSON, Gurdjieff talks about an organ that was implanted into humanity called the "organ kundabuffer". It was planted by two archangels in response to galactic catastrophe which affected the solar system which includes the planet Earth. The organ was temporarily implanted into humankind in order to minimize the sorrow of adapting to the stabilization period where the two moons, Luna and Anulios, would return to a balanced orbit around the Earth." So now you know. https://sites.google.com/site/amritayanabuddhism/Home/the-organ-kundabuffer https://sites.google.com/site/amritayanabuddhism/Home/the-or...

bitwize 7y ago

> "organ kundabuffer" was a specific organ that excreted some kind of drug (in Gurdjieff's pre-history.) So basically you have to be on board with his sci-fi extended universe in order to grasp the cause behind the central tenet of the Fourth Way: that man is asleep. > "being-partkdolg-duty" is the task and operation of remembering oneself. Defining one Gurdjieffism in terms of another Gurdjieffism. Nice. "Remembering oneself" is, roughly, what Hackernews knows as mindfulness, but seems to involve a lot more following Gurdjieff (or one of his disciples, or his disciples' disciples, there must be an unbroken chain to the Master you see) around, scrubbing his floors and latrines, and doing his silly dances. Giving him your money also seemed to help. > "the sacred Rascooarno" is death of the physical body. So why does Gurdjieff say "the sacred Rascooarno" and not "death"? Because the Gurdjieffian concept of death is alien to anyone outside the Work. As you say, Rascooarno is the death of the physical, planetary body, but a person (or "three-brained being"), in the course of their life, has or develops other, "finer" bodies made up of even smaller particles than the matter which makes up their planetary body, like the body-kesdjan, which is often equated to the astral body but isn't really. One might say, in other religions, that a person has a soul. But for Gurdjieff even this is wrong: it's more like a person has the potential for a soul. Thanks to -- you guessed it -- the maleficent consequences of the organ Kundabuffer, a soul can only be attained through 20 or 30 years or so in the Work... do you see where I'm going with this? Anyway, if you had a true friend in the Work, that friend would rebuke you for doing what Gurdjieff specifically enjoined his followers not to do: attempt to interpret his works to outsiders, lest you transmit wrong information and cause those outsiders to be crystallized in the wrong hydrogens.

carapace 7y ago
> So basically you have to be on board with his sci-fi extended universe in order to grasp the cause behind the central tenet of the Fourth Way: that man is asleep. Yes and no. His opus "All and Everything" is comprised of three volumes. The first "Beelzebub's Tales to His Grandson" (itself divided into three volumes) is the part that is couched as a kind of autobiographical reminiscences of an alien, Beelzebub, to his grandson on the occasion of his pardon and reprieve from exile to Mars. It's allegory. That book is designed to affect the mind of the reader, it's a machine or program, not a book per se. > Defining one Gurdjieffism in terms of another Gurdjieffism. Nice. Don't be pissy. > "Remembering oneself" is, roughly, what Hackernews knows as mindfulness, but seems to involve a lot more "Remembering oneself" is literal. As literal as words can be. There was no concept of mindfulness in the West at the time. Buddhism was alien and barely known. > following Gurdjieff He discouraged followers. > (or one of his disciples, or his disciples' disciples, there must be an unbroken chain to the Master you see) The Fourth Way is not a lineage school. There may be people out there who try to make something like that out of it, I don't know. I don't hang out with them. The "Eneagram" craze was an example of a kind of degenerate cargo-cult residue of Gurdjieff's effect. But I don't think you should blame him for what people do with his work after he died. > around, scrubbing his floors and latrines, I'm not sure what you're referring to. Are you upset that he didn't clean the toilets personally at his dance school? > and doing his silly dances. Have you seen them? They are not silly. > Giving him your money also seemed to help. He could extract money from people seemingly at will (have you read the story of the time he nearly initiated an orgy?) He also spent lots of money, time, and effort feeding and taking care of elderly people during the war. In Paris if I recall correctly. > So why does Gurdjieff say "the sacred Rascooarno" and not "death"? To distinguish it from the current concept of death, which is very different. the sacred Rascooarno is a natural molting of the physical body, like a kind of second birth, and life carries on in the second and third being bodies. Our deaths, however, are merely the wearing out of a machine. Not having "coated" higher being-bodies into our physical body by the process of "being-partkdolg-duty" we "die like dogs", leaving nothing. > But for Gurdjieff ... it's more like a person has the potential for a soul. Exactly! Everyone says "There's a soul" or "There's no such thing" and Gurdjieff comes along and says "You have to make one sucker!" It's the first new thing under the sun, eh? > Thanks to -- you guessed it -- the maleficent consequences of the organ Kundabuffer, You lost me... > a soul can only be attained through 20 or 30 years or so in the Work... No, you "coat" a "second being-body" and then you "coat" a "third being-body" and then you molt ("the sacred Rascooarno") and leave the Earth to go live in space with cool aliens that like you, or something. These higher being bodies are like holograms that you use to store human-style experience in the next world. They're like emulators for your old software, eh? > do you see where I'm going with this? Yeah, but why? You obviously know a lot of this stuff but seem really unimpressed. Is it so wrong that I got a lot out of G.I. Gurdjieff without becoming some sort of esoteric edgelord weanie? I know there are a lot of knobs and fools out there. The "enneagram" craze proves that. But there's also something else there. (Or maybe I'm just crazy. I still haven't quite decided yet.) > Anyway, if you had a true friend in the Work, I don't. > that friend would rebuke you for doing what Gurdjieff specifically enjoined his followers not to do Well, fuck em' Gurdjieff didn't appoint a successor, so I'll say what I like to whom I please. > attempt to interpret his works to outsiders, lest you transmit wrong information and cause those outsiders to be crystallized in the wrong hydrogens. Yeah, this is almost certainly "pearls before swine" but whatever, I'm bored and lonely. "What was that about hats?"