We Are The New Ark

The Work is the distillation of the inner teachings of the world's great religions. The religions closest to it in spirit and in practice are the Catholic and Orthodox Christian denominations, while Orthodox Judaism and moderate Islam are also very near.

Anyone following such a path as a Good Householder will eventually reach enlightenment and attain immortality within the limits of the solar system, as Gurdjieff taught. The Work offers us a short cut, as it were, to the same end, and preserves the Essence of all true religions. We are the contemporary form of the Sarmoung Brotherhood: we gather nectar from all traditions.

For almost two millennia the West has sought to spread the Christian faith throughout the world. Our laws and our customs have embodied the Judeo-Christian precepts on which our society is built. Most people, at least until the late 20th century, tried to live according to the principles of the Ten Commandments and the teachings of Jesus Christ.

Even when dissenters claimed to be atheists or agnostics, the Judeo-Christian tradition formed the background of their lives, and most would have agreed that, even if they personally failed to live up to them, the demands of Christianity were the highest and best way to shape our lives, both as individuals and as a society.

Today, however, we are in the midst of a huge resurgence of paganism. We are throwing our Christian principles - the very building blocks of our society - out of our collective windows with both hands, and we have found nothing save the very vaguest of ideals to put in their place. Notions of "green" living, while admirable, are only a very small part of the stewardship of the planet and the survival of our species. They are important, but cannot take the place of the religious teachings that are now in danger of vanishing.

The original meaning of the word "religion" comes from the Latin "religio", to bind together. Without religion binding members of society together, everything disintegrates. To quote Yeats, "things fall apart, the centre cannot hold". We are seeing the truth of his prophetic poem today.

Living as a Good Householder in the 21st century is even more difficult than in the past, because society no longer supports such a goal. We are daily bombarded with messages from the media that our only problem is lack of money - we need to make more and more cash so that we can buy more and more stuff, have more and more sexual encounters, and so on. Hedonism is the new normal. A Christian man or woman in the Catholic or Orthodox churches faces criticism and risks the loss of his or her job if they dare to voice any dissent from the appalling new norms.

In England, people have been fired because they insisted on wearing a small cross, or have offered to pray for their colleagues. Where once they would have been commended, today they are disciplined and censured.

Politicians holding traditional Christian beliefs now face calls for resignation; apparently, it is impossible for a real Christian to hold high office unless he is willing to jettison his beliefs about abortion, marriage, various sexual activities, and so on. And yet, only 50 years ago, such a person would have won respect, not condemnation, for views which were then held by the majority of people in Western, Christian countries.

It was these commonly held views which bound society together. Inspired by the Bible, they encouraged an ordered, compassionate and sane community. They created the blessings of hospitals and schools, all forms of reciprocal care and consideration for one another. Today, these attitudes are under fire, and unless we ourselves become an Ark we shall all descend into a living hell where mutual help is discouraged, prayer is forbidden, and altruism considered just plain stupid.

Last week I wrote about the expansion of the demonic realm in our times. This sounds sensationalistic, but it is quite real. I suggested that, as others have said, the Holocaust opened a portal to the underworld and that we are now living in the Devil's Century.

The devil hates marriages, hates loving families, hates the God who created us, and in every way possible he seeks to frustrate the divine plan for our lives.

We can only imagine what Gurdjieff would say if he returned to modern day Paris or London! Instead of honouring the ideal family structure as containing a man, a woman and children, we have now encouraged two men or two women to adopt children, creating babies through surrogates if necessary, and raising those children in a completely unnatural environment.

Studies are now being published showing the ill consequences of forcing children to be raised by homosexual couples. Such children are often confused, ill equipped to deal with the opposite sex, and unsure and unhappy about their own sexuality. I am not making this up: the results are now clear and undeniable, yet they must be denied and children must be forced into psychologically abusive situations so that these harmful but politically correct principles are not questioned.

Today we even encourage boys and girls to question their own gender identity from a very young age, forcing them into basic uncertainty and causing much insecurity at a time when they should be learning how to read and write. We have become obsessed with sex in all its forms, and no longer accept the gender into which we were born. Freud once said that biology is destiny. Today he might be locked up for daring to voice such politically incorrect views.

Of course, someone who is born male and wishes to become female is now able to have mutilating surgery performed - at public expense - and a lifetime of expense hormone treatments given, again from the public purse; but this does not make a "he" into a "she". It is all quite senseless.

Catholic adoption agencies have now all been closed down in the UK, because they refused to allow children to be adopted by homosexual couples. Far from extending tolerance to all, society now only tolerates what we all once thought to be the abnormal and unnatural. Christians, Jews and Muslims holding the views of their religions are now forced into silence and forbidden to express their beliefs publicly. Gurdjieff's own teachings about sexuality, abortion and society are today very counter-culture, but they express the principles of Christianity, Judaism and Islam, which have not changed.

Many Catholic parents now home-school their children rather than expose them to the politically correct but completely unChristian attitudes that are forced upon them in public schools.

This evil is now becoming a socially enforced norm. This intolerant "toleralism" is destroying our Judeo-Christian heritage, and sowing entropy throughout every level of society. If we no longer know what a real family is, how may our children grow up secure and confident? If we no longer honour lifelong marriage and fidelity, how may we be trusted to fulfil other commitments?

All these horrors are new in the West - new, that is, since the collapse of the Roman Empire and the beginning of the Dark Ages. From the depravity that reigned at that time the monks and nuns of Western Europe salvaged hope in the form of the Gospels and the teaching contained in them.

When the great darkness had passed, the Christian message could again begin to spread light throughout the West, and civilization grew in the wake of the great monasteries which had preserved this message intact, an Ark for their times.

Today, we in the Work are tasked with keeping the teachings of the Fourth Way - the inner teachings of all true religions - intact in the face of an equally damaging social upheaval and disintegration.

Christians, Moslems and Jews following the way of the Good Householder may have to do so in secret, but they will surely continue to hold to their beliefs and to practice them while the persecution of believers is taking place.

We may support them and encourage them in their great task, while carrying on our own personal work in silence.

We may have a general idea about the end times, but we don't know how this particular story will end. Christians have the assurance of the Bible, that all men and women of good will shall some day be welcomed into the next life, but meanwhile there are great dangers surrounding us that threaten to bring about a new Dark Age.

Gurdjieff has warned us that our species is an experiment, and experiments may fail.

But whatever lies ahead, in the end the struggle is an unequal one, and the side of the Good will always have the ultimate victory. The Devil has been loosed on the world, and with him the 30,000 fallen angels he allegedly seduced from heaven, but he has only one third of the total spiritual kingdom. God has at least 60,000 angels, according to tradition, as well as archangels, thrones and dominions - and He has us and all those who've preceded us in keeping faith with the truth. All Conscious Humanity is engaged in this Holy War, and they lend us their help as we struggle with our own demons.

Keeping our inner Ark safe, refusing to abandon what we know to be true, continuing to work on ourselves and persevering in the face of huge odds, all this is necessary now - and as we preserve the teaching, so it will surely preserve us.

Are We Living in the Devil's Century?

In the late 19th century Pope Leo XIII reported a highly disturbing vision. He was apparently told that the Devil, after much pleading with God, was to be allowed a century in which to focus his activities on Earth. If you remember the Book of Job, God and Satan, although enemies, do converse - and the Devil, also called the Tempter, can exercise great power over mankind.

The Devil, in fact, is often called the Lord of this world, and in Christ's temptations in the wilderness Satan offered Him power over all the kingdoms of the Earth, if Jesus would bow down and worship him.

The original rebellion of Satan, or Lucifer, against God took place near the beginning of creation, when God created mankind and told the angels to serve this creature. Insulted at having to help a mere man or woman, Satan refused to serve. He was cast out from heaven "like lightning", and took with him a third of angels, about 30,000, who all serve Satan as demonic powers.

Satan now rules the world, and works in us through our mechanicalness. We Christians know that in the end, God and those who serve Him will be victorious, but each one of us has a part to play in this spiritual war; according to our particular weaknesses we will each be tempted through a multiplicity of little I's in conflict with our better nature, and our task is to overcome these temptations so that ultimately we may enter the Presence of God as saints.

All this is traditional Christian teaching, and in every respect the Work backs it up. We are here on Earth because of a particular, individual mission we need to carry out, the overcoming of our mechanicalness. If we carry out this task, then with the help of God and His angels we will be assisting the cosmic work of maintaining and creating order and defeating the forces of evil, the tendencies towards mechanicalness and entropy which threaten to destroy the work of creation.

Pope Leo XIII's vision emphasized that in the future this struggle would become even more intense. He added special prayers to St Michael in the Mass, encouraged Christians to prayer the Rosay and to offer other devotions, and to resist the wiles of Satan in their daily lives.

It seemed at the time that the "devil's century" must refer to 20th Century, which began in 1900.

Now, however, some scholars take the view that we are living in a state of even greater evil, greater mechanicalness, greater threats to organic life and to the souls of human beings in particular, than prevailed even during World War I.

I agree with those who locate the hypothetical beginning of this intensified onslaught of evil in the 1930's.

I believe that this period - when the occult practicioner Adolf Hitler, who specifically sought demonic help in his rise to power - began around 1934, give or take a year.

Hitler carried out acts of unprecedented wickedness, as we all know. He evoked the occult himself, and built Wewelsburg Castle as an occult headquarters for the SS, the elite forces of the Third Reich. Rituals involving occultic invocations and sacrifices were carried out there.

Members of his armed forces were encouraged to participate in such rituals themselves, including the orders that they should have sexual intercourse with pure-blooded women in cemeteries where fallen German soldiers were buried, so that the souls of those conceived there would be recincarnations of former warriors. The resulting children were sent to be born and raised in special homes, where they would be indoctrinated from birth with Aryan, occult teachings. All this is a matter of record; just search for "lebensborn" homes and you'll see the terrible truth that resulted from this policy.

What's more, it was during the mid 1930s that Hitler's persecution of the Jews began. At first there were what seemed like fairly mild prohibitions, forbidding Jews from entering or continuing in certain professions. Then came marriage prohibitions, with the notorious Nuremberg laws. Pogroms quickly followed; in 1938, Krystallnacht brought destruction and devastation to the Jewish people as their homes and businesses were smashed to pieces.

We all know the horrifying sequel to this persecution.

The Holocaust killed more than six million Jews.

Other groups were also targeted, for utilitarian reasons; handicapped people wasted food, so they were killed; Catholics and other Christians were sentenced to death for speaking out against Hitler; gypsies and homosexuals were killed because they were considered decadent.

But it was the Jews who suffered the greatest losses. And they were the target of Hitler's hatred because they embodied all he and his demonic master, Satan, most hated - they were the Chosen People, chosen to bring the message of God to the world, and implacably opposed to the Nazis' cult and their aims.

When Jews are specifically targeted, we are safe in assuming that Satan is at work.

We see his actions now in radical Islam, when Jews are sought out for extermination both in the West and in Israel, their homeland. Iran, which finances many terrorist groups including Hamas, is continuing Hitler's work. Iran's primary, stated aim is the extermination of the Jewish people in their homeland, and then the destruction of the Christian, democratic West.

In World War II, Hitler and the mufti of Jerusalem were friends and helped each other in their common aim of killing Jews.

Today, the many Marxist-motivated political parties in the Arab world collude in their own aims of destroying Jews and Christians, and they are unfortunately abetted by naive, Christian Westerners who fail to see the larger picture and therefore back the wrong side, the Satanic side, in this great, spiritual war.

In the terrorist attack of 9/11, whose anniversary has just passed, more than 3,000 innocent civilians were killed in New York by Islamic terrorists.

Throughout the West, attacks are continually carried out by radical Islamists bent on destroying our Judeo-Christian culture.

And in Israel, attacks have been unrelenting, and alway target the civilian population, from Jewish kindergartens to restaurants to shopping malls. Israel is in the front line of the West's war on terror, and what happens there is of critical importance to the survival of Judaism and Christianity.

To this observer, we are definitely living in the "devil's century" today, and if this time-frame is accurate we may expect attacks on our civilization to continue and even to intensify at least until the mid-2030s.

It's not only a war waged with explosives, however. The family, marriage and education are all suffering as a result of this relentless onslaught. We are descending into a new barbarism.

In my next post I will outline some of the consequences of allowing Satan full reign in the West, where we are running blindly into the hands of our would-be destroyers.

This war, the war of the devil's century, is the crisis for which the Work was given to us in the 20th century.

We are to create an Ark that will carry us through the flood of destruction and provide the seeds of new understanding when the devil's century is finally over.

When Hitler killed six million Jews he opened a portal to the underworld that had remained closed since the beginning of time. This act has enabled the demonic powers to leash unprecedented evils on the world. In these dark days, all Christians, Jews, men and women of good will in Islam, and those of us in the Work need to focus our aims on our spiritual tasks and to make our lives into prayers by our efforts.

With the approach of the autumn equinox the time is right for us to seek spiritual renewal in the full awareness of all that is at stake.

We All Need Forgiveness, Especially Now

With last week's fabulous solar eclipse we entered the next phase of the Earth's  cosmic journey round the Sun. We perceive that the days are growing shorter and that the weather is changing. Falling leaves, ripening grain, early morning mists and a new crispness in the air alert us to the changing season.

If we are sensitive we will detect the inner promptings that encourage us to begin anew in our personal work. The time is propitious for new beginnings, but to experience the benefit we first have to make peace with our past.

We're now in the month of Ellul in the Jewish calendar, which encourages us to take a spiritual inventory before the Jewish New Year begins.

Though we don't celebrate a new year at this time in the secular calendar, nor in the Christian one, we do respond to the new energies which are beginning to influence us at the end of summer. Schools, colleges and universities begin a new scholastic year, while Work groups all over the world return to regular meetings.

In the agricultural year, farmers in the northern hemisphere are now in the midst of harvesting all the crops that were sown in spring; in the same way, in the spiritual sphere, we take an inventory of all we've gleaned from the previous year, to see where our pilgrimage has led us and what we've learned on the way.

An important part of this season is to seek forgiveness for the wrongs we've done to others.

We've been looking at the psychological and spiritual implications around forgiving others. We've seen that forgiveness is absolutely essential for our spiritual growth, and is commanded by Jesus Christ, the Head of Conscious Humanity.

Now, in Ellul, and approaching the Christian season of Michaelmass, it's time to see where we ourselves also need to be forgiven.

In the Jewish tradition, Ellul is the month when we begin to take stock of our spiritual "goods", as it were, and one of the most important aspects of doing this is very similar to the Twelve Step Inventory: we are obliged to look honestly and fearlessly at ourselves, as AA puts it, and to see the many occasions when we've caused harm to another person.

And then we have to ask that person's forgiveness.

Unless we've done so, the Bible, the Jewish and the Christian traditions, which of course stem from the same source, tell us we have no right to expect God to forgive us. It's in the Lord's Prayer, composed by Jesus, who says we must ask God to "forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who've trespassed against us".

This part of the prayer concerns our sins against God, and our forgiveness of others, but Jesus goes further when He tells us that if anyone has any cause to be angry with us, we must at least make the attempt to be reconciled with them before we dare to approach God.

In Jewish law, which is the background from which Jesus teaches us, every Orthodox Jew must honestly account for the misdeeds they've performed that have harmed people. He or she must then seek out the person they harmed and offer them a complete and sincere apology. If amends or restitution are called for, they must be given. Only then is the person spiritually clean, and able to stand before God.

AA asks us to do exactly the same when we make our personal inventory. We are told to apologize and make amends to every single person we have hurt before we can make any further spiritual progress and consolidate our recovery.

Although the major inventory is part of the Steps, and must be carried out sooner or later in regard to our entire lives before recovery, a lesser inventory - but one which is just as important - must be carried out daily. We have to review our behaviour every day, and be quick to apologize and make our amends when we see where we have hurt another person.

It's easy to say, but very hard to actually do. We may have overlooked or attempted to explain away some of the harm we've done from day to day, but eventually we must come to grips with it. We can't continue to self-justify, because this works against our conscience, however deeply we may attempt to bury it. And if we continue to go against our conscience we will ultimately kill our own Essence. A huge amount of progress depends on this continual honesty and willingness to acknowledge when we are in the wrong.

As the AA Big Book points out, it's no good just mumbling an apology; we actually have to make amends. That could mean writing to the person we've harmed and asking them to forgive us; it could involve phoning them, or meeting them face to face, and spelling out our apology, asking them how we may make amends for the harm we've done.

Sometimes we can't contact people we've hurt. They may have moved and not left a forwarding address, or they may have died, or have cut themselves off from us because of the way we have hurt them. And it could be that to contact them might do more harm than good. If, for example, we have had an affair with a married person and harmed their spouse, then to apologize to the spouse for the harm we've caused them and their marriage could very well bring up painful and angry feelings for the injured person, and this will not help to make amends.

In such cases we still need to make amends in some way, however, and perhaps the best way is to stop the behaviour that has caused the damage, while holding ourselves ready to apologize if the injured person should get in touch with us.

When someone has died we need to pray for them, and when it's someone we've harmed we can ask God to heal them and us, and bring about reconciliation in the spiritual realm.

But there is to be no dodging of this responsibility. If the person to whom we need to make amends is at all available, we are obliged to do all we can to show them our sincere regret and make them a full and frank apology for what we have done.

As the Big Book also points out, making an inventory and seeing where we have gone wrong is not about the harm others have done to us. In previous posts we've seen how important it is to forgive, but here we are considering how we ourselves need to be forgiven. We clean up our own side of the street, and leave the rest to our Higher Power.

Then, in the next phase of the cosmic cycle, we will be ready to start again, with fresh energy and in a determined spirit.

Forgive, Yes, But Forget? Not Always

We've looked at some problems relating to forgiveness, and we've established that forgiveness is an extremely important spiritual process. If we hold on to old resentments and past hurts, we can't make any progress. Those I's will interfere and hold us back, sapping our energy and creating long-term stress. They can even make us ill.

So, we need to forgive. Not too quickly, as I explained in the previous post, because that can be a spiritual bypass, a way of avoiding the hurt we have experienced and of denigrating ourselves; we are important, just as important as the person who's hurt us, and we need to be kind to ourselves by understanding when we have been wronged. Denial is no help, and will only ensure that the harm continues.

Should we always forget?

Yes, if the harm is relatively trivial, or if the relationship we have with the person who hurt us is too important and too positive to allow a passing injury to cancel all the good.

I'm thinking of here of minor injuries, such as your spouse's forgetting - again! - to take out the trash, or to call you to say when she'll be home. They are inconvenient, but not really important. Compared with the love you bear each other, they are really nothing, but they happen and we all need to acknowledge that fact. If something is causing problems between you, speak to the other person about it and let them know. And then forget it. Yes, it may happen again, but so what? It's really unimportant in the great scheme of things, and you don't want a good relationship to turn sour because you're obsessing over small things.

After all, you doubtless cause them similar minor problems! And if you want them to forgive you, you also have to forgive them.

What about the major hurts, though? Suppose our spouse has been unfaithful? Or a colleague has stolen money from our purse? Or you discover that someone you thought was a friend has been gossiping maliciously about you to others?

These are real injuries, and if we decide that the relationship is worth saving we will have to confront the person with our hurt and angry feelings. Yes, it will be difficult, and the other person may not respond. If we don't confront, however, we will allow those feelings to fester and spoil the relationship anyway. And we may decide that the infidelity, or the theft, or the betrayal are simply too much to overlook, that we don't want to be close to someone who can cause us such pain.

We know we have to forgive. The Work tells us so; the Head of Conscious Humanity, Jesus Christ, commands us to, and reinforces those instructions in the words of the Lord's Prayer: Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us; and AA and NA make forgiveness part of the Twelve Steps.

In these serious cases, however, we may actually forgive, but be left with a feeling of cautiousness that is actually very helpful. The straying spouse may stray once more, and we may find we need to leave the relationship to save our sanity. The colleague's continuing petty thefts may indicate an addiction problem. Our friend may in fact be a "toxic person" who is not a real friend at all, and in this case we need to end that relationship.

When we do so, when we end a long-term relationship of any kind, we are bound to feel hurt, and some of us - women, particularly - will feel guilty. As we saw in last week's post, many women have been raised ro believe that we should just "put up or shut up", keep taking any amount of abuse, because that is our duty as a woman. We are there to serve others, but we ourselves are worthless.

It's absolutely vital not to internalize this guilt, if it arises. We need to see it as what it is; a self-defeating, harmful attitude composed of several petty I's who are located in the negative emotional centre, and who have no right to speak for us. We observe ourselves, hear these messages, and then detach from them.

We are worthwhile, valuable people. If those around us treat us badly, we have every right to end our relationship with them. Doing so could save our life.

At the same time, we don't want to end a relationship in bitterness and recrimination. Depending on the emotional maturity of the other person, this may be extremely difficult. We can maintain a firm refusal to engage any further in that relationship, at the same time making it clear that we have forgiven the injury and have let it go; of course, this is much harder than it sounds, but it is perfectly possible and really necessary for our own sanity and peace of mind.

Ending relationships is often a very sad and difficult process. Whether it be a long-standing friendship with someone who has perhaps become mentally ill and is now abusive, or whether it's the breakup of a marriage or similar partnership, the ending is a bereavement that must be mourned. Mourning is not a negative emotion. We feel sad and hurt, but we also know that we have to protect ourselves. We wish the other person no harm, and we're told we must pray for them, so that is what we do.

And if we can't bring ourselves to forgive, or to mourn without bitterness, we need to pray - to ask our Higher Power for the willingness to forgive and then to let go of the relationship.

Over the course of our lifetime we are bound to have relationships with people who hurt us and let us down. Life is a pain factory, Gurdjieff tells us, and in order to grow spiritually we have to purify our negative emotional centre. Ending toxic relationships is necessary for our personal wellbeing, but letting go of the guilt afterwards is often very hard work. Yet it is work for which we should thank the "toxic person", because through these efforts we will acquire new strength.

Whenever such a situation has arisen in my own life, I've ended the relationship, and when I've worked through the period of mourning which always follows, I visualize the other person as wrapped in light, and I trust them to the care of God. I  see them enfolded in love and mercy, and I wish them well.

And I often have to do this not just once, but many times over, until the hurt and injury has been thoroughly worked through. Each time, I hand the person over to the loving care of God. This way I find brings peace of mind and soul, and I trust the other person may also benefit.

Forgiving may be hard, but not to do so may cost us our life.

Forgiving too quickly can be a spiritual bypass

Yes, Jesus Christ, the Head of Conscious Humanity, does tell us we absolutely must forgive others who have wronged us. Doing good to our enemies is what C. S. Lewis calls one of the "house rules" common to all denominations. And it's also mandated by the Work, because holding on to resentment is a negative emotion, and one that will hold us back from making any spiritual progress.

AA too tells us to watch out for resentment, because it can precipitate a relapse.

So we've looked in the previous post at the need to forgive, and although it's very, very difficult in many cases, we've managed to release our old angers and resentments, and let go of the whole bundle. (Hint: if we can't quite get there, we need to ask our Higher Power to give us the willingness to forgive).

But paradoxically, forgiving too easily or too quickly constitutes what a counsellor friend calls a "spiritual bypass".

He means that we leap over the anger or the resentment without processing it, and although we may say - and mean it - that we've forgiven the person concerned, we haven't really done that at all. We've just stuffed the anger deeper into our unconscious, where it festers, sometimes for years. And we do this because acknowledging the reality of how we've been treated and how we've allowed ourselves to be abused is too painful to contemplate.  Often, it takes professional help to see this and to accompany us through the difficult journey to understanding and eventual forgiveness.

Let me give you an example of a client who did just that, performed a "spiritual bypass", and the problems it caused her. She was typical of so many women who've been raised to be submissive and always "nice", especially to men, so that she didn't feel she had the right to be treated respectfully. Additionally, her mother, a Christian who hadn't fully understood the Gospel about forgiveness, had drilled into her daughter the need to be a doormat for others - this, the mother insisted, was what Jesus had told us to do.

Of course, He said nothing of the kind!

He tells us, as does the entire Jewish tradition, to "love our neighbour as our self".

That presupposes that we have the right, and actually do, love ourselves - that we have, as the modern buzzword puts it, compassion for ourselves. We really do need to love ourselves, and it's the prerequisite for any real forgiveness to take place.

If we don't love ourselves, we can't love others. All we can do is become codependent, putting up with abuse of all kinds because we don't believe we are valuable people. And that is what had happened to my client, whom I'll call Carol (not her real name, of course).

Carol had been raised to regard all women as inferior to men. That no matter what she did, however high her college marks were, or her achievements at work, this was all secondary to her real role in life, which was to look after her husband.

Yes, taking care of our family is very important indeed. But again, we must have a healthy level of self-esteem before we can do this. In Carol's case, because she despised her own sex, she tolerated a level of emotional abuse from her husband that other people would have found intolerable.


She had to rush home from work to cook a meal every night, even when she worked longer hours than he did. He never once offered to cook for them both, or to wash up, or to carry out any household chores at all; that was "women's work", and beneath his dignity as a man. Because she always had to be available as an unpaid servant, she was never allowed to take a day out with her friends, or a short break to stay with her sister.

Her husband treated their daughter as abusively as he did her mother, because she too was an inferior being, a female, and had no rights compared to those of her brother, who was excused all household chores "because he's a boy".

He constantly insulted his wife and daughter, finding fault with their cooking, their cleaning, their appearance and their attitude. Not once was any praise given, or affection shown.

The daughter voted with her feet as soon as she was old enough to leave, and took a lowly paid job in order to be able to afford her own bedsit.

Carol, however, could not leave, neither could she complain - that would have been "unChristian".

When Carol reached her fifties, careworn and with her self-esteem through the floor, she contracted cancer. It used to be thought that there was a "cancer personality", and although that theory has been much debated, there's no doubt that Carol's own lack of self-esteem exacerbated her illness. She simply fell into a state of denial about it. The strange pains and weaknesses couldn't be important, she told herself, and in any case, she didn't have time to be ill; she had her demanding job, her even more demanding husband and son to take care of, and no time at all to take care of herself.

By the time she was in so much pain that even her husband noticed, and insisted she see a doctor (because any serious illness must be nipped in the bud, in case it got in the way of her housekeeping), it was too late. The cancer was inoperable.

Carol finally came to see me when she had been given only months to live, and then only because her friends and her doctor insisted on it.

She still felt she had no right to be ill, and that her cancer was somehow a punishment for having been a poor wife and mother.

Eventually, we reached some understanding of her situation. She spent the last few weeks of her life partly at home, cared for by nurses and by her own sister, and partly in a very good hospice.

During her remaining time, Carol came to see how she had constantly "forgiven" her abusive husband for insults and demands that he had no right to make. And she had not really forgiven him at all. She had thought so little of herself that she had repressed any anger or resentment, and buried her negative emotions too deep to access - except when it was almost too late.

Her "forgiveness" was not true forgiveness, it was a spiritual bypass.

With the help of sessions with me and jointly with the hospital chaplain, Carol reached a level of understanding that allowed her to released the buried feelings, and to really forgive. She came to see that she had been treated very unfairly, and that her husband had made unreasonable demands throughout the marriage because he knew no better. They were both victims of a cruel, patriarchal upbringing that had served them ill.

I have seen this scenario played out many times in different forms. Sometimes, perhaps most often, it happens with abused women and their abusive husbands. Sometimes the persecutor is an adult child,  often an alcoholic or addict whom the mother is continually rescuing from his spectacular messes, to the detriment of both.

The mother and the abused wife say that they forgive their abusers, but they cannot really do so, because to be able to forgive means that you understand that someone has behaved wrongly towards you. Carol, raised to be a "doormat" (in her own words) could not believe that other people did not have the right to walk all over her. Only when she began to build some self-esteem, and to see herself as a valuable person, loved by God, did she come to see that she had allowed herself to be abused.

If you or someone you know should be in this situation, then before rushing to forgiveness, it's important to realize what has happened, what offences have been committed against you. Once you know, then - and only then - can you for.give

Can You Forgive Someone Who Isn't Sorry?

We're told by Jesus in the Gospels that we must always forgive others who've hurt us. The Lord's Prayer mandates our forgiveness of them to ensure that we ourselves will be forgiven by God for the wrongs we've done. And Jesus places no limit on the number of times that forgiveness must be given - he says "seventy times seven" to indicate that our obligation to forgive is limitless.

And yet, while we can all agree that we need to forgive someone who's sorry, who's apologized, and who is clearly repentant for what they've done, what can we do when the other person isn't sorry?

The problem is compounded if the offender is dead, or mentally ill, or otherwise unavailable. We are certain that they can't feel regret or sorrow for the harm they have done to us, and yet the obligation to forgive is still there.

Many clients have told me they have found it quite impossible to forgive a really serious offence, including childhood abuse. The abuser may be long dead, and yet the harm they did lives on. I have had a client who seemed to actively enjoy holding on to her unforgiving nature. Her son had married the "wrong person", according to her, and she experienced this as a personal insult. She hated the new wife, and she could never forgive her son.

In this case, nothing I did helped her to let go of her hatred. Indeed, her anger and animosity seemed to give her some sort of pleasure; there was a grim smile as she talked about the family split, and she was clearly identified with her own hateful I's. She absolutely refused to let go of any part of her hatred, and I had to terminate our sessions. I think she was an example of what Gurdjieff calls a "hasnamuss", someone who derives pleasure from willing ill to others.

Sometimes, in cases of abuse or other serious harm, the offender may have apologized, may have shown complete sincerity in their attitude and be truly contrite, and yet the victim stays stuck and cannot move on, because he cannot forgive.

Forgiveness, however, frees us to go on with our lives. It releases us from the chains of misery, and from the truly horrible "inner accounting" we make in respect of those who've harmed us.

A huge amount of psychological energy is bound up in our resentments, our grudges, our internal accounts. They devour our time and attention and distract us from the vital business of personal work on ourselves. We simply can't afford to hold on them.

But it's often so hard to let go! It seems as though, if we were to take the leap of forgiveness, we would be letting that person off the hook, saying to ourselves that what they did was not so bad, after all. And, if we've experienced hurt or shame or abuse, what the other person did was very much not OK, not to be condoned under any circumstances.

The answer is to look at ourselves, rather than at the other person. What harm are we doing to ourselves, by holding on to past hurts and refusing to forgive and let go of them? If we're honest, the pain we cause ourselves through our own lack of forgiveness may be just as bad as the original harm caused by the other. It may even be worse, in a way, because it can endure for many years, as my hate-filled client experienced.

We need to be clear with ourselves, and with others, that just because we may forgive someone, that doesn't mean the hurt they caused was unimportant or in any way to be condoned. If we are talking about abuse, it most certainly is not; but what forgiveness can do is to let ourselves off the hook, as it were, freeing ourselves from the constant pain and tension that holding to resentments will inevitably cause.

The first step is to see that we are indeed suffering because of what we are doing to ourselves, over and above what the other person did to us. We can look honestly at our inner state, and decide that it's time to call a halt to that resentment.  We make a decision to let go of the anger, the internal accounts - and we resolve that we will forgive the other, for our own good.

We can then look at that other, and see them as what they are; a person with their own mental problems, who acted as they did because they are themselves sick in some way, or oblivious of our feelings, or so mechanical that they had no choice in what they did.

An abuser is someone who's been abused. That is a counselling truism, and it is always the case. A victim of abuse does not have to become an abuser, but someone who does abuse others, in whatever way, is a person who in the past has been abused and has internalized the pain to such an extent that they don't even realize its existence.

And for lesser offences, the mechanical nature of the I's in the person who insulted us, or disrespected us, or offended our sensitivities, is easy to see when we look at them without prejudice. Mostly, people hurt us because they cannot help themselves. They are acting mechanically, and unless they are on a spiritual path, or receiving psychological help, they cannot see what they've done, or why they did it.

By not forgiving them, we are hurting only ourselves.

It's extraordinarily liberating to be able to let go of a past wrong. There is a real feeling of relief and an inrush of energy. We are finally free from that other person, and from the hurt they caused. They no longer have the power to harm us, because we have made the decision to detach from that harm.

Someone on a spiritual path will want to go further. We see the plight of the abuser, the offender, how they are locked into a painful situation they cannot change, because they can't see it, and we turn them over to the care of a Higher Power.

This is what Jesus means when talks of forgiveness. Instead of returning evil with evil, we let go, and leave the person in the care of God. We don't wish them harm, we hope they will one day change, but we can do nothing to change them; we are powerless over them.

If one day the offender does become more aware, and sees the harm they've caused us, they may indeed apologize. That would be wonderful, the best possible outcome. But we can't count on it, and so, for own sake, for the purpose of liberating ourselves from the past, we forgive and - one day -forget.

Not the Last Post!

Because of a very annoying computer glitch I haven't been able to post or to reply to comments. Please accept my apologies. Everything now is back to normal and I'll be posting again next week.
Thanks for not giving up on this blog!

Essence Relationships

We think of Essence relationships as something very beneficial - a vitally important link to other people, much stronger than relationships formed in Personality.

And often that is exactly what they are. Our spouse, our children, our parents are all related to us in our Essence, and our feelings for them are very deep.

If we're lucky enough to find Essence friends, we cherish these relationships and value them above most others in our lives.

Essence friends are people with whom we're very close and connected at a fundamental level. This connection can be through our common spiritual journeys, especially if we are in the Work and develop friendships among others in our group.  But it may also be formed by other religious contacts, such as people we meet at church, or in a philosophical or religious discussion group, and to whom we're drawn through a common interest and outlook.

Sometimes they develop through our hobbies; perhaps we've taken an art class, for example, and found someone there whose ideas we share, and with whom we develop a friendship. Any pursuit which brings people together to follow a spiritual, intellectual or creative path can lead to strong Essence friendships, and is one of the benefits of such groups.

But not all Essence relationships are good for us in the long run. It may be that we find ourselves drawn to people who don't have our welfare at heart. We recall that Gurdjieff taught that all sexual contacts take place in Essence, no matter how casual, how unpleasant, or how harmful they may turn out to be.

This is because our Essence is often childish and unable to make good judgments about whether those we choose to spend time with - let alone share our lives with - are actually going to hurt us.

False Personality plays a part in bringing about such sexual relationships, for we may be attracted to those whom we know, at an unconscious level, are bad for us. Such a relationship can easily become abusive, but is always codependent and therefore very difficult to break away from.

All therapists have known people trapped in such relationships. They bring much grief and sorrow, and can even cause death when one of the partners becomes so unhappy that they wish to end their life.

Personality and False Personality are, of course, the main initiators of abusive relationships but, once they have become sexual, they are Essence relationships, and as such they are very, very harmful. They can cause us to fall into depression; to relapse into addiction; to harm ourselves; to leave the Work, or abandon our religious beliefs. Again at the unconscious level, we may realize that our abusive relationship is in conflict with what our Higher Power, or Conscious Humanity, wishes for us. But the codependence is so strong that we feel paralyzed, unable to free ourselves.

Essence friendships can also turn sour. At the beginning of this post, I noted that our close family relationships are in Essence, and we know how destructive the family can be. Parents and children may bear one another ill will for some long-ago incident; sibling rivalry is very real and painful; and the Bible notes that a person's worst enemies "are those of his own household". This, of course, refers to our spiritual world as well as our actual, physical household.

 And so it can be with Essence friendships. What was once a source of joy can become a festering pit of resentment. All too often, relationships that have progressed to become part of our Essence can later become contaminated with I's in False Personality.

This happens because, as we are, we cannot "do". We so easily fall back into False Personality, especially when someone "treads on our corns", and all those resentful, angry and arrogant I's spring forth to defend some imaginary insult or avenge some perceived slight. Sometimes this is the fault of both people in a relationship, who have not been working on themselves and have not observed the gradual slide into False Personality that has taken place in their interactions.

Sometimes it is mainly the fault of one person, usually the man or woman who has been in the Work for a lesser amount of time, or who is less developed spiritually no matter what the context is; or who has not been working on themselves for some while.

If both people have good will and wish to repair the quarrel, they may invoke the Third Force of the Work to bring about reconciliation, and clearly this is the best course of action. It can be done by both parties' externally considering one another, and seeing their own part in the misunderstanding. They may pray about the relationship, entrusting it to their Higher Power, to Conscious Humanity. If both are willing to do this, the result is usually a relationship that has become stronger because of their efforts. It will be stronger, in fact, than if the breach had not taken place, because both have had to make Work efforts and will appreciate the relationship all the more.

The problem is that it takes not only good will to bridge a gap, but insight and remorse. Both people must examine their conscience and see where they went wrong. Such a process is painful and difficult, and in Life it is often shirked. The result is a string of broken relationships, hurt feelings, and family quarrels.

In the Work we cannot avoid this process if we wish to remain in a good spiritual state, and able to make progress. No matter how hard it is, we must be willing to examine ourselves and see where we may have contributed to the brokenness. To do this requires humility, the very opposite of the False Personality, arrogant, "hot air" I's, which prefer to keep a quarrel going, and rather enjoy feeling angry and hurt!

But if the result is to repair an Essence relationship, the effort will be very worthwhile.

And if, unfortunately, we are forced to realize that the other person cannot change, cannot experience remorse, and that consequently they will continue to act destructively, then the relationship must be ended for our own sake. In such a case we must forgive the other person, because it is not their fault that they are unable to make efforts. And then, having forgiven them and entrusted their care to Conscious Humanity, we simply let go.

The Summer Solstice, Personality and Essence

We're now at the climax of the Sun's powers in the Northern Hemisphere. As the Earth tilts towards the Sun, so the days grow longer and the strength of the Sun's rays increase.

But now, after the Solstice and marking St. John's Tide (June 24th), we experience the beginning of the second major cycle that makes up the Earth's year: the breathing in which takes place from St.John's Day (celebrated as Midsummer throughout Europe and Russia) until Christmas.

The two festivals are perfectly balanced. The Earth's year comprises one complete breathing cycle. From Christmas Eve until St. John's Tide the Earth breathes out all she has received from the furthest reaches of the Universe. Then, six months later, the Earth once more begins to breathe in, culminating in the Feast of Christmas.

St. John's Tide is the feast day of John the Baptist, who said "He must increase, and I must decrease". He, of course, is Christ, the Head of Conscious Humanity, whom we may approach through our Essence, through Real I.

It was always explained in groups that St. John the Baptist represents the highest level of the Personality, someone who has seen and understood the purpose of the spiritual life, and whose deepest wish is to practice what he has learned, and to inspire others to do the same.

The skillful I's in Personality are of use only when they serve Essence, however. There is no point in serving the Personality for its own sake, as this only leads to deeper enmeshment in Life; and Life, as we all know, leads nowhere but stays on its own level.

When Personality serves Essence, however, we are structured aright in our inner lives. Essence which has matured through spiritual work knows and understands what must be done in each situation. It is Personality which gives the individual the power to respond with appropriate actions at the right time. This is right ordering of the two.

To take an example from my own life, I trained as both a teacher and a writer, because my Essence and Personality enjoyed these activities and I wanted to learn to do both of them as well as I could.

When I began to understand the Work, and was eventually authorized to teach it, those Personality I's which had studied and practised how to teach and how to write really came into their own. They now serve my Essence, which loves the Work and longs to help others to understand it.

When I teach and when I write I'm in my Essence. Of course, there are many other activities which also stem from the needs and desires of Essence: listening to beautiful music, especially Eastern Orthodox and Western sacred liturgical music, and the great composers of the Renaissance; when I'm painting; when I'm outdoors, surrounded by nature, in the countryside or at the seashore, or simply gardening in our long back yard; reading poetry, especially Christian and Sufi poems; and many, many more.

Most of them, however, don't require any special skills to carry them out. But teaching a class or a Work group, or writing - whether it's this blog, a book, or an article for publication - all call for trained skills, which Essence uses to express itself in these activities.

In the same way, people who've made a difference to the world (and I don't mean here the Sacred Messengers, but simply ordinary men and women of good will, living at the level of the Good Householder) have had trained Personality I's which were useful to the impulses that came to them from Higher Centres, from their Essence, perhaps even from Real I.

I'm thinking here of people such as Dr. Martin Luther King, who trained as a preacher and spoke most eloquently to the crowds, and whose commitment to the right action demanded that he be willing to sacrifice his life. His sacrifice, and his words, brought healing and justice to the black people of America who had been cruelly oppressed for more than a hundred years.

Think, too, of Mahatma Gandhi, the lawyer whose words and deeds culminated in ending the British Raj in India, putting an end to centuries of exploitation. He, too, worked with a trained and highly intelligent legal mind, and he also sacrificed his own life for the cause of justice.

Closer to our own time, I think of Nelson Mandela, whose refusal to seek revenge for his imprisonment led to a great breakthrough in human rights in South Africa. Like Dr. King and Gandhi, Mandela was committed to justice and equality, and like them, his own actions brought about a healing of divisions in South Africa so that apartheid was ended and power shared between blacks and whites.

Dr Nicoll and Mrs Pogson used to speak of the great sacrifices made by very young pilots in World War II, who knew they faced probable death and yet gave their lives to fight for the cause of freedom and liberty, and oppose the demonic Nazi regime which threatened the world. Dr  Nicoll thought these incredibly brave young men had incarnated for that purpose, and that somewhere deep within they knew this, and remembered their mission. That war was truly a battle of good against evil, and it was not a foregone conclusion that the good would win - at times, it seemed that evil had the upper hand, and it was only through the willing sacrifices made by men such as these, "the Few", that civilization was saved.

All of these men - and there are, of course, many more, including women, who are both known to us and unknown - allowed their Personalities to be used by something higher. They
embodied the principal of the Baptist, by letting their own wishes be subordinated to a higher influence, that of Conscious Humanity, which used these willing "volunteers" to bring about an improvement on the Earth.

Of course, there is no real progress overall in Life, and the most we can hope for is to stave off disaster, to make things a little better here and there, and to work towards becoming more conscious and helping others to do so, so that eventually the level of humanity may rise and a real transformation can occur. But it is not certain that any such breakthrough will ever occur.

As the Talmud says, we may not be able to complete the task, but neither are we free to desist from the effort.

When speaking of these matters, both Mrs Pogson and my own teacher, Mrs Davison, would ask us whether we could be used by something higher. It is a question we should ask ourselves, especially now, when at the Summer Solstice our actions in the world are emphasize.

 And if not, what would stand in the way?

A Quick Post About My Book .....

My book, "A Raging Thirst", is now out in paperback! 

Excuse this minor trumpet note, but I've been told by quite a few people that the Kindle edition, out for two years now, has really helped them.  So - with the encouragement and help of another Work teacher and of my spiritual advisor - I decided to go ahead and publish my book in paperback form.

It's now available to buy from Amazon, and I've priced it as cheaply as possible so that it may reach the people who will benefit from it. 

The Kindle edition is free of charge if you belong to the Kindle library programme, and the new print edition (revised and updated) will soon also be available on Kindle.

Who might benefit from reading it?

Anyone interested in the Work; the Twelve Steps; Catholic teachings on suffering; the Sufis; alcoholism and other addictions; and disability.

Anyone with an addiction problem or who has a family member or friend with such a devastating illness.

Anyone who lives with disability and pain.

Anyone in the Work or in the Twelve Step programmes, or who is interested in the Christian teachings on suffering and how all these paths may be connected.

I've already had great feedback on all these issues, and several people have pointed out that my memoir is unique in combining so many different areas and explaining how they mesh together.

It's a very personal story, and writing it was a true labour of love. Love for the Work, for the Twelve Steps, for Christian teachings on redemptive suffering, and above all, love for my family. 

Writing honestly about oneself is a very difficult task. But it's very necessary - if a memoir is meant to help people, it can only do so when the author includes her "warts and all". So that is what I have done, and I hope it will reach all those who may be helped by what I've written.

Of course, years of being totally honest with myself in my Work observations, and honest with my family and friends about my experiences, have helped me write truthfully and with understanding.

There's no point in any form of autobiography, including a blog, unless the writer is prepared to tell the truth. Otherwise, he or she might just as well take out an ad! Post a selfie!

But in being so honest, all of us who strive to follow the path of truthful self-disclosure with the aim of helping others are bound to come in for some criticism from formatory thinkers, and those who haven't managed to break free of their judgmental, critical I's.

So be it. Just as there's nothing to be gained by going to an AA meeting or sharing your Work observations unless you tell the truth, so there's no point in trying to make oneself look good in a memoir or a blog. Everyone will see through it, and you will gain nothing. Nor will anyone else.

So, if you're interested in reading my sometimes painful and "brutally honest" (in the words of one reviewer) memoir, please either buy it cheaply as a paperback, or download it for free.

I'm trusting that the Work and Conscious Humanity will see that it falls into the hands of those who may gain insight from reading it. Therefore, this is the only notice that you will see. I'm not interested in making money from my writing or in becoming famous. I've already achieved recognition in my career as a journalist, under various noms de plume to preserve my anonymity and that of my family.

My sole aim writing this memoir was to tell my story and share my understanding, so that others may be helped.

If you haven't read it, I hope you will. And if you know anyone who might benefit from reading it, then please pass it on to them.

And thank you for reading this post!

The Festivals of Ascension and Whitsun, and Cosmic Energies

At the end of May, we have just celebrated the Feast of the Ascension. Today, the 31st, commemorates the visit of Mary to her cousin, Elizabeth, who was to be the mother of John the Baptist, and Elizabeth's greeting of her, which forms the first part of the Hail Mary prayer. 

Then, at the weekend, we will be moving firmly into early summer with the Festival of Whitsun, or Pentecost, celebrating the descent of the Holy Spirit as the disciples, together with Mary, waited in the Upper Room at Jerusalem as they had been told to do.

Pentecost comes 50 days after the Resurrection, and 50 is a number of great significance in esoteric studies. It symbolizes a great change, a freedom from the past, and a time of celebrating and feasting. Today, in Israel, the entire nation is celebrating a Jubilee Year, and the Jubilee of Jerusalem is especially important in the mystical teachings of esoteric Judaism. 

To Christians in the United Kingdom, the Feast of Pentecost has always been marked with special celebrations. Until recently, it was the custom for Christians in the North of England to hold parades, complete with brass bands, when families would all put on new clothes for Whitsun, and mark the birthday of the church with parties and dances. My own parents and their brothers and sisters would recall these festivities, which were a huge break from everyday life, and impressed on the children the importance of  Pentecost.

We can see this mood enhanced and reflected in the weather as the seasons change from late spring to early summer. The lengthening of the day is very obvious now; the sun is stronger; the countryside, the town parks and individual gardens are full of flowers and scents, as though Nature herself were joining in the celebrations of this great and ancient feast.

We can see how the Earth, turning now towards the Sun and towards the centre of our galaxy, is receiving special influences, from closer at hand than before. There is a real difference in the energies that permeate the very elements at this time, and these changes are the real reason why this time of year was the start of something quite new. Especially are we graced with fresh energies from the Sun, and from the Sun's Sun, as it were, the Dog Star, Sirius.

Our Sun revolves around Sirius, as we have been noticing. And Sirius, in turn, revolves around an even greater Sun, so that the entire galaxy is in motion, in a perpetual dance of joy and celebration.

Recall that we've passed the past eight months in focused, concentrated, inner work.

Since the Feast of St Michael at the end of September, and the harvest festivals and Jewish New Year of the September/October period, we've been remembering the eternal truths which Christianity, Judaism and the Work all teach us. 

We've been reminded of our own death; of the new birth which takes place at Christmas for those who have worked for it; of the celebrations of this new life and its beginnings in the world; and of the period of fasting and abstinence in Lent which prepares us for the Easter Passion Drama. 

We've recognized the changing seasons, their different energies, and the cosmic patterns which fit us for different types of work on ourselves as the year progresses.

Now, after the huge, most important time of all - the Easter drama, the Resurrection and the Ascension - we can have reached the time of Pentecost.

From the furthest reaches of space, from other suns and faraway galaxies, those of us who  are sensitive to such changes have experienced this whole time as especially propitious for our own personal work on ourselves.

When Pentecost comes, the emphasis falls differently. We now take all that we have learned and received from this remarkable journey and practice it as best we can in the external world. The time is now ripe for groups, for gatherings of all kinds, and for group work.

In our own lives, we try especially to live what we have learned, to practice external considering, to transform our mechanical reactions into the conscious reception of impressions. We need to do this all year, of course, but now, as the seasons propel us into summer, we emphasize putting it all together in a very real and practical way among our friends, our families, our colleagues, our fellow Work students. And as we do so, so others also gain the possibility of transformation.

Each season is different and unique, but each offers a particular way to practice the Work.

Looking at the cosmic dance of Suns and planets, we understand why it is most appropriate that the Ascension has recently taken place. Just as Christ ascends to heaven, so the extra-terrestrial, even extra-galactic, energies recede from us so that we can no longer directly perceive or experience them.

Jesus Christ returns to the Father; the influences from far, far afield - even from the sphere of the Most Holy Sun Absolute - seem now to return to their source. Of course, it is we, on our small and insignificant planet, who have moved. We are powerless to resist the changes, but we can benefit from the new and different influences that are apparent now.

 We cherish all that we have learned and assimilated, and take it into the world around us during the summer season.

The flames of Pentecost are reflected in the hotter, warmer sunshine we often experience. But even when the weather disappoints us, we can still feel the underlying shift of emphasis in the energies of this season, and if we are more awake we respond to it through our Higher Centres.

And as we remember this Feast, we can understand what a tremendous shock it gave those first disciples.

Nothing like it had ever happened in the world. Just as Jesus's entire ministry and Passion were unique and pioneering, so was - and is - Pentecost, for us as for them.

The first disciples were suddenly given the power to do. They began to communicate in unheard-of ways, to experience new emotions and new powers. Before Pentecost, they had been meeting together in prayer every day, but with no understanding or expectation of what was to come.

Because they were gathered together as a group, the shock they received was all the more powerful. They were welded together as a group, as the first church, and they were able - thanks to the shock of the Holy Spirit - to go out into the world and evangelize, just as they had been instructed. 

Before Pentecost, they could not do much. Afterwards, the entire world was changed.

This is the meaning of this very important festival, and how we may celebrate it today - by going out into the world and putting into practice what we have so arduously learned. And as we do so, we will receive exactly the energies and powers that Conscious Humanity knows we will need. It is not given until it is needed, but then it is poured out generously and freely and is available to all those who are able to receive it.

True Spirituality Takes Focus Away from Self

Last week I looked at the self-compassion and mindfulness practices, and whether they were real, spiritual paths. And it's clear that they are not. They are psychological, not spiritual, and while they may offer their followers some much-needed respite and reassurance, they don't go beyond the individual practitioner.

As counselling techniques they are admirable. They seem to be especially helpful to women, and less so for men, which I think says much about how women are treated - and how we treat ourselves - in western society today.

Women are often very stretched by having to care for their spouse and family, look after the house, work at a profession and maintain difficult standards in every sphere. We try to have it all, and we can't. And then we berate ourselves for our failures!

In this context, times of mindfulness and of self-compassion can be very useful indeed, even more so than the cliche of running oneself a bath, lighting a candle, and so on. What is needed is a change in consciousness, a break from the endless cycle of "shoulds" and "oughts" which plague so many of us.

Men, however, seem to find action more helpful in calming anxiety and stress. This is hardly surprising in our society, where so much emphasis is given to action rather than to creative non-action, but in the East it is traditionally a male guru who teaches meditation and helps his followers to tame their wayward thoughts and feelings

But true spirituality consists in none of these things by themselves.

We practise "sitting" and various forms of meditation, among which I include the Work's  morning exercise, in order to wake up, to become more conscious. But that is not the end.

Gurdjieff repeatedly reminded his followers how difficult it is to be a Christian. He never repudiated his faith, and he spoke only with appreciation and respect of the world's religions. And he emphasized that it is impossible to make progress in the Work just by working on and by oneself.

Essential as is that first step, it is only the beginning of a long journey out of our limited selves, our False Personalities, through the idiosyncfrasies of the Personality and into the Essence, towards Real I as our goal. Our Essence is the part of us which is most spiritual - indeed, it is the only part from which our spirit may grow. And Real I is the locus where our individual Essence meets with God.

To reach spiritual understanding, we need to work with others and to work for the sake of the Work itself. These are the second and third lines of Work, and they are vital to all progress.

We find that when we try to relate to others in the Work we can't simply fall back on our False Personality or our Personality. We need to relate to them with our Essence, because anything else will strike a false note. We will soon be caught out if we try to keep on our everyday mask, our "persona".

In the Work, we gradually learn to relate to people through externally considering them. We put ourselves in their place, moving completely away from our own limited, self-centred viewpoint and entering the experience of the other.

We do this both with fellow students in the Work and with those outside it, people we meet in our everyday lives, our families, colleagues and friends. We practise external considering in all circumstances, towards those we like and even more towards people we can't stand! And this again takes the focus away from our petty concerns and helps us to act with real understanding and compassion.

Eventually, we come to appreciate that the Work is so much greater than psychology. It is a way of reaching enlightenment, the shortest and surest way for those of us raised in the West who don't have access to a "guru" and whose responsibilities don't permit them to leave everything and live out their lives in a monastery.

And it is much more than that. The great creative power we call God has made it possible for us to evolve spiritually, and He has so directed our evolution that as we reach more enlightened states of consciousness so we also help the very universe itself to evolve.

So our ultimate responsibility is towards that great Being, and towards all of Conscious Humanity, all of whom cooperate in the task of ordering and maintaining the universe, and helping everyone who genuinely wishes to reach a higher level.

We are not alone; and we cannot work for ourselves alone.

Unlike the many self-help methods which claim to increase the practitioner's personal power, and which in reality do nothing of the kind but lead them further into delusion and materialism, spiritual paths emphasize the need for humility before God, and compassion to all beings.

When we acknowledge that there is indeed a God who directs our lives when we ask Him, we humble ourselves before that great source. We realize our own nothingness. Far from "bigging ourselves up" or bragging about our achievements, we acknowledge that we can do nothing without God's help, and that everything we try to do on our own inevitably comes to nought.

This is where the psychological and the spiritual paths diverge. To the psychologist who does not believe in God, everything begins and ends with the human being. There is nothing beyond. What a profoundly depressing world view this is!

The spiritual person knows she is under a great obligation to serve the highest; that she is bound to manifest compassion towards everyone she meets, in whatever form she can, even when that compassion may necessitate acting the part of anger, as a wise teacher must sometimes do.

She knows that on the spiritual path there are definite obligations that we all incur, ethical standards that we ignore at the cost of our own enlightenment.

And she longs with all her being to offer devoted service to the One who is above all, who has created her and everything that exists.

The self-help methods can never teach you such an attitude - and without it there is no growth in understanding.

As the Talmud says, "If I for myself only, what am I?"


                                                               *                            *                              *

I'm taking a break from this blog for three weeks, as I prepare for the publication of my book "A Raging Thirst" in paperback, on CreateSpace.

I hope and pray that it will reach anyone who may be helped by it.

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Are Self Compassion and Mindfulness Spiritual Paths?

In my previous post, I wrote about Self Compassion and the Divine Mercy. The two have much in common; just as God shows mercy towards us, so we must be merciful towards ourselves. But is self compassion by itself a spiritual path?

I don't think it is.

To me, self compassion is an essential feature of well being. It's a self-counselling technique, one which may be taught by a therapist or learned from reading and applied to oneself. Without a similar approach to self observation, we can't make any progress in the Work or along any other spiritual path; certainly we can't become true Christians, able to love ourselves and other people, unless we show mercy towards ourselves.

But - like its companion discipline, mindfulness, which may be compared to the very beginning of self-observation - it operates purely on the natural level. There is nothing supernatural about it. And without the supernatural, there is no spirituality.

Neither self compassion nor mindfulness can, by themselves, function as a spiritual path. Why not? Because they begin and end with ourselves, whereas a spiritual path, by definition, leads us towards a Higher Power, towards God. Such a journey takes us out of ourselves, out of that short-circuit which is the natural, psychological level of life, where most people live for most of the time.

More, a spiritual path shows us how to treat other people.

Obviously, we need first of all to treat ourselves with compassion and mercy. That is basic to all spiritual progress, because we cannot love others or love God if we do not love ourselves. By loving ourselves, accepting ourselves with all our faults and defects, we place ourselves in a position whereby we can love others, who also have faults and defects. We accept that we are no better and no worse than others. We don't judge ourselves, and we don't judge others (though we must make value judgments about words and actions, otherwise we are lost in a maze of amoral options and fall into psychological entropy).

But someone who goes no further than self-acceptance is not engaged in a spiritual journey. That journey begins only when we aspire to reach a higher level of Being and Understanding, however we may describe that inner longing. To be spiritual beings - or rather, to understand that this is what we are, no matter how involved in matter we have become - we must have within us some idea of a Higher Power, of God.

All mainstream religions, all those which Gurdjieff considered to be real religions, have this awareness; that of ourselves we are nothing, can do nothing without help from above. And they all mandate that we must treat others as we treat ourselves, with compassion and mercy, with acceptance and understanding, knowing that we are all children of that same God and that He cares for all with equal love.

Equipped only with the psychological tools of mindfulness and self compassion, people may lead satisfied lives on the natural level, may reach a state of well being and personal comfort which nevertheless falls short of their real potential as spiritual beings.

And many, perhaps most, people are quite happy with this state. They may eventually, by leading the life of a Good Householder, reach an understanding that this life does not truly satisfy their deepest longings - but, again, they may never do so. We can't judge someone's ultimate Fate, whether they will reach a spiritual understanding in this life, or whether they may undergo further incarnations as they make progress towards such a goal.

My own teacher explained that Essence, if it does not develop, will simply be returned to the "universal melting pot" at the end of life. If people have made no efforts towards creating a soul, a higher being body, then they will have nothing permanent which can continue its journey after this life is finished.

We can't decide for ourselves whether this is the case for anyone else. We don't know what inner yearnings, what sufferings, someone with apparently no religious or spiritual orientation may be undergoing, nor where this may lead. We are not God.

And we can't see what the Fate of another may be, no matter how close they are to us; that depends on God, on the Higher Power in which they may say they don't believe, but which will still be present right up until their final moments, when they have the chance to decide whether to journey on, towards the Light, with all the purgatorial pain that might imply; or whether to reject that possibility, and hence to cease to exist at all.

So mindfulness, excellent as it is as a beginning practice and as a self calming technique, is not by itself a spiritual practice. Neither is self compassion.  Either or both can make people happier in this life, but they do nothing towards guiding the individual into a spiritual mode of existence.

We are now reaching the time in the cycle of the seasons when the Earth is leaving the influences that reached their peak at Christmas, those radiations which come from the farthest reaches of our galaxy and even beyond, which contain the possibility of new creation.

We have seen how, correctly and consciously taken up, these very special energies allow us to grow in Being, to experience a new birth in our Essence.

Now, however, that season is drawing to a close and we are beginning to experience the stronger influences of the Sun and planets closer to us.

In our spiritual lives, we are now encouraged to put into practice all that we have learned during the time of year that preceded it, to allow the new understanding to be expressed in the way we approach the outer world.

Mrs Pogson taught that the Earth experiences a whole cycle of breath during one year. From the time of Christmas until Midsummer, St.John's Tide, the Earth breathes out the energies it has received, while from Midsummer to Christmas the Earth is breathing in again. Uniting this cycle with the changes in the position of the Earth and Sun in our galaxy helps us understand the type of energy appropriate for each season of the year, and guides us as to the right way to express our spirituality.

Those who practice mindfulness and self compassion with a spiritual aim will find that they may go out into the welcome summer season with new confidence in their ability to put all they have learned to use.

The Divine Mercy and Self-Compassion

This Sunday, Catholics celebrate the Feast of the Divine Mercy. If you're a Catholic, you already know all about this feast. If not, a brief summary is in order: the Divine Mercy is a traditional Christian feast which had fallen into disuse, but during the earlier part of the 20th Century a Polish nun, Sister Faustina, was asked by Jesus to revive it, and to have a special picture painted which would illustrate the way that Jesus's mercy and compassion radiate to the whole world. The Feast of the Divine Mercy always takes place on the first Sunday after Easter Sunday. It therefore falls on the Octave of Easter, and emphasizes the central meaning of the whole festival of Easter - the loving kindness of God towards us, the God who would rather go through the agony of death than lose a single soul to sin. That face of God is that of the father of the prodigal son; when we turn to him he runs towards us and celebrates our return. You may have seen the Divine Mercy image in a Catholic church or bookshop. It shows Jesus standing with His right arm raised in blessing, with two rays - one red and one white - radiating from His Sacred Heart, sending compassion to all. Jesus told Sister Faustina, now canonized as St. Faustina, that He longed for the whole world to trust in His Divine Mercy. He wished everyone not only to trust in His Mercy, but also to show mercy towards others in thought, word and deed. The reason for wishing this Feast to be re-established today, He told St. Faustina, was that we are now much closer to His Second Coming, and when He arrives He will administer the final judgement. Anyone may obtain mercy now, but if they fail to trust in Him they will face His judgement when He comes again. Clearly, we all wish to obtain Mercy, and now is the era in which Jesus wishes Mercy to spread throughout the world, Mercy towards others but also towards ourselves; in this aspect, the Divine Mercy has much in common with the self compassion movement. Self compassion is a school of thought which emphasizes being compassionate and merciful towards ourselves. It's not an excuse for selfish behaviour, but is an antidote to all the harsh, critical, harmful I's in us that are ready to step in and condemn us every time we make a mistake. Self compassion is being recognized as a helpful approach in counselling, and while in itself it is not a spiritual discipline, it's certainly a healthy way of seeing oneself as one truly is. As such, it can help us in our work efforts. From working on ourselves we've seen how critical and judgmental we often are towards ourselves, how we often stop ourselves from making accurate observations because we're afraid to look. That fear comes from the feeling that we are unworthy and constantly fail, which is quite true; but we also know that the critical, judging I's which bedevil our attempts to know ourselves are completely useless, and so far from helping us to progress, they actually hinder us and involve us in a vicious circle. We see something, some I, which another I rushes in and judges. The result is a war of separate, small I's, getting nowhere and sabotaging our personal work. We are all taught that these attitudes are useless, and that we need to dis-identify from these critical, condemnatory I's so that we may see ourselves as we really are. But - for some types more than others - these critical I's are very strong. They clamp down on our attempts at self-observation and cause mayhem. For intellectual centre types, especially, they can pose a very serious threat to personal work. And people who judge themselves harshly also judge others, and can be difficult companions, so that their relationships suffer and family life is problematic. The antidote is self compassion, although it is not necessarily expressed in those terms. A Work teacher, a Work group, can be models of self compassion and compassion towards one another. We observe ourselves as accurately as we can, without self-justifying, and report on our observations to the group. We see that we are all in the same state, all too often falling far short of the aims we set ourselves, and that this is simply how we are. Our teachers don't condemn us for it, and neither do our fellow students. This process is similar to the Little Way of St Therese and fosters true humility and self acceptance. And as for identifying with the critical I's, this is simply futile. It perpetuates the inner conflicts which stop us from seeing ourselves and from giving ourselves the First Conscious Shock. In the Work, therefore, we have to learn to let go of these I's and their negative, harmful companions, the harsh thoughts, the condemnations, even - at time - the despair. I think we Catholics may have an easier time in some respects. If we regularly go to Confession, we acknowledge our faults and receive assurance from the priest, who represents Christ to us, that we are forgiven, absolved, given a fresh start. If we are particularly prone to judgementalism, either towards ourselves or towards others, our confessor may remind us of the words of Christ to the woman taken in adultery. She was about to be stoned to death, surrounded by a crowd who all condemned her for her wickedness. Jesus stops them from killing her by saying, "Let him who is without sin cast the first stone". Of course, nobody is without sin, and so the crowd disperses and spares the woman's life. Jesus asks her, "Does anyone now condemn you?" "No," she replies. "Neither do I condemn you," Jesus tells her. "Go and sin no more." We may take this as a literal story or as an allegory. The crowds of condemning I's are those which rail against us, in our own False Personality, condemning us to death for our perceived sins. None of them have the right to kill; all are guilty of some sort of sin, because they are in error and cannot see the truth, the whole picture. In such a state, we may fear that Jesus - our Real I - will also condemn us. But this doesn't happen. Instead, He tells her to go - and also, which is very important, to sin no more. The whole story shows us how to have compassion on ourselves, and compassion towards others. It's important that we admit our shortcomings, our sins, the many ways in which we fall short; and if we honestly do so, we have the chance to try again, to continue our life, our personal work, free of condemnation and with the aim of "sinning no more". To be told that one is granted absolution in the Confessional is a very important part of life as a Catholic. We hear those words, we understand them as coming from Christ, from our Real I if we are in the Work, and we experience release and mercy. We go on our way lighter in heart and with a new energy to use in our efforts. We are loved in our littleness, in our imperfection, as long as we are humble enough to admit our faults and to try again. Compassion towards ourselves includes the acknowledgment that we have fallen short of our aims, and the wish to do better; it sees that we do indeed fall short, but, like St. Therese, uses that understanding for self-acceptance. At the same time, we see that we harm ourselves when we miss the mark, or sin. So real self compassion includes the determination to avoid sin and to live according to our Real Conscience. If we do this, then no matter how many times we may fail, we are not condemned. We are picked up, consoled, loved and set on our feet once more with a new chance. That is real self compassion. Note: The description I have given of the Divine Mercy Feast is very abbreviated. It is a truly inspiring devotion, and if you want to know more you could visit the Divine Mercy Message website, and also - if you are really interested, as I am - read the Diary of Saint Faustina. It's very long, but also very rewarding.

Holy Week in the Work

Since the autumn, we've been looking at the way the Christian year has been arranged. We've seen that for two thousand years the church's liturgical cycle has taken advantage of cosmic variations in the positions of the planets and stars, which can help us in our inner work. Other festivals before Christianity had also made use of these times, because various Messengers had known of the changes in the position of the Earth, the planets and our Sun which could be used to encourage an increase in consciousness. The Egyptian and Greek religions, in particular, which preceded our Christian era, gave their followers feasts and fasts which corresponded to the energies available for initiates. But here I'm looking at Christianity, because that is the religion which today, I believe, embodies the most conscious planning by learned men and women so that even now we may study the Christian year and learn which type of inner work best corresponds to each festival. Now we've arrived at Holy Week, the most important time of the entire Christian year and the period when much understanding and an increase in Being may be obtained if we make the right efforts. On the largest possible scale of understanding, Dr. Nicoll told his students that "The sacrifice of Christ was to decrease entropy for humanity". And he explained that every time we make some small sacrifice, every time we accept a small death on our own level, which is what we've been attempting to do throughout Lent, we increase the possibility of becoming more and more alive in the most real part of ourselves. We increase our inner order, and work against entropy. Mrs. Pogson pointed out that while Adam in the Garden of Eden acted from self-will and disobeyed God, thereby losing his right to live in Paradise, Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane lay down his self-will and obeyed the Will of His Father. His choice demanded conscious suffering, but from that suffering came the great and holy triumph of Easter Sunday. He came to show us the way which we may all follow, which leads to eternal life. On a physical level, too, everything changed after the Crucifixion. The drops of blood and water which flowed from the wounds of Jesus fell upon the Earth and purified it, reaching backwards and forwards in time simultaneously so that all of mankind now had the chance to become conscious. The festival of Easter is almost always celebrated at the same time as the Passover of the Jews. The very few exceptions occur when the Jewish year, which is lunar, has to insert an extra month so that the solar and lunar calendars agree. Both festivals are, at root, festivals of freedom. As the Israelites were led out of Egypt and out of bondage to their material desires and mental addictions, so at Easter all mankind is shown how to be free from the slavery of the multitude of I's within us and to reach that point in ourselves which alone is real. How does the Earth's position in space relate to the timing of Easter? If you remember our previous discussions of cosmic time, you'll recall that a period of concentrated work began for us in early autumn, when we focused more on internal tasks after the summer holidays. In September, the Earth starts to move closer to the energies which come from the highest level of the cosmos, from far away, which are better able to reach us at this time. The Earth revolves around the Sun, of course, but we recollect that the Sun also revolves around its own "Sun", the star Sirius. And all Suns, all stars, revolve around the central Sun of the galaxy. There is much to ponder here. The special position of our planetary journey which began in the autumn takes us within the Sun's own orbit of Sirius, and in direct alignment with the forces of the Ray of Creation. The moon also plays a part in reflecting light to us here on Earth, and increasing the powers of the different energies that reach us. By the time the Earth has come to the spring equinox, it is beginning to move away from the alignment with Sirius and the further reaches of the universe; it then begins a new phase of the annual journey which focuses more on working in the world, in Life. Before the Earth leaves the elliptical orbit of the Sun around Sirius, a final Full Moon at this stage of the pilgrimage reflects back increased energies to us on Earth, and this Full Moon is what is important at the festivals of Passover and Easter. From time to time suggestions have been made that we should fix a date for Easter, to be the same every year just as Christmas always falls right after the Winter Solstice. As we can see, this would be a huge mistake as far as our inner work is concerned. We would no longer receive the extra boost which now benefits our Work life, and this would make our transformation even more difficult than it currently is. We need all the help we can get from the cosmos, and Easter shows us that harmony between inner and outer worlds is actually made more possible when we align ourselves with those special energies. For us in the Work, Holy Week is the most concentrated phase of this whole annual cycle. What is conceived now, at Easter, may be born at Christmas in Essence. What we now sacrifice will enable new life to rise from our most real part. The Gospel narratives of Easter are extremely interesting, and one of the most fruitful tasks for this time is to see all the different I's at work around the events of Holy Week. The Pharisees, Pilate, the crowds which first acclaim Jesus and then reject Him, the Roman soldiers, the disciples who simply can't stay awake - all these I's are within us. Most interesting of all is Judas, who plays the part of the betrayer in this cosmic drama. Gurdjieff says that Judas is actually a great saint because he understands the need for his action - to bring about the events that lead to the death of Jesus - and also that he would be hated and reviled for what he had done, until the very end of time. Such a person needs courage and equanimity, together with real devotion to the Master, and his part could only be played by a conscious man far above the level of Being of the crowds. We might ponder on the meaning of this role, and whether we ourselves would have been prepared to play it. Which of our I's take the uppermost role in the drama of Holy Week? Do we have the courage of Judas and Jesus Himself, as we draw closer to the crucifixion? Do we watch and pray, as Christ asks us to do, or do we fall asleep along with the other disciples? Do we give up any attempt to understand and to work on ourselves, like Pontius Pilate? Or do we accept the Will of the Father, and steadily set our face towards Jerusalem, unwavering in our knowledge of what is to come, and our acceptance of the conscious suffering that will be our task?

Dark NIght - or Depression?

As a counsellor, I've often worked with clients suffering from depression. A combination of therapies usually works best, by which I mean anti-depressant medication together with psychotherapy. The client's mood first has to be stabilized with medication before the "talking cure" can be effective, and we're fortunate today in having many different anti-depressants for doctors to prescribe. Often it's a matter of trial and error, but eventually the medication begins to kick in and the client is able to look at the reasons behind the depression and work on improving his mood - and, if necessary, making beneficial changes in his life. We talk about endogenous depression (the kind that originates in a brain disorder, so that insufficient endorphins are manufactured, or they are dissipated too fast to be of help). Anti-depressants relieve this type of depression, but psychotherapy is also very helpful in encouraging the client to look at factors in his life which may be contributing to the mood disorder. The second type of depression is called reactive, because it's brought on by disturbing and difficult life events. The client is reacting to something that has happened, possibly after a long period of stress. Here, too, anti-depressants can be useful, because whatever the cause of the depression the client must be in a stable and rational state of mind to benefit from counselling or psychoanalysis. Of course, in real life it's very difficult to distinguish between the two, because usually both types are present, with one or the other predominant. Long-term stress affects the brain's chemistry; endogenous depression leads to more stress, as the client withdraws more and more from life and fails to tackle his problems. You can't really separate the two forms in reality, so anyone with severe depression also needs to see a doctor for an assessment as to suitability for anti-depressant medication. But recently my attention has been drawn to a third type of psychological disturbance, one that often mimics depression but which is not identical to it. I'm talking about the so-called "dark night of the soul", described by St John of the Cross and other mystical writers, in which Christians who are following the Way of Illumination can suddenly be plunged into seeming darkness. I'm referring to Christians, but followers of other religions may also face similar experiences; I'm not familiar with the forms they would take, however, and am not qualified to write about them. Here, I'm talking about a specifically Christian experience which many devout followers of Jesus face in their walk towards closer union with God. The pilgrim is actually moving closer to God in the so-called dark night of the soul, but it seems quite otherwise. He becomes intensely aware of his own sinful nature and the great difference between his own being and that of God. The individual feels that God is further away from him than ever, and with this perception (which is erroneous) comes a sense of great sadness. Previously, he had enjoyed his prayer times and participating in the Eucharist; now, he is deprived of these consolations and feels abandoned. In this sense of sadness the dark night imitates depression. Inexperienced counsellors, especially if they are not from a background of faith, may mistake one for the other. And the situation is further confused by the fact that both may coexist. A depressed client may be undergoing the dark night as well as depression - and the person who knows, from his or her spiritual director, that he is in the dark night may also be depressed. The most helpful way to distinguish between them, and to give the client the maximum psychological and spiritual help, is for a counsellor and parish priest to work closely together when faced with someone in this situation. I have been doing this recently with a middle-aged woman whom I'll call Julie. Obviously, this is not her real name, and I've altered other personal details to preserve her anonymity. She gave permission for me to tell her story, because she thought it might be useful to others, and I agree. Julie, at 55, was experiencing a state of depression brought on by a quarrel with one of her adult children. Her son, whose marriage was breaking up, accused Julie of bringing him up unwisely so that he could not relate well to women; he implied that his own problems were all Julie's fault. As a single mother, deserted by her partner after the birth of their son, Julie had always worried that she was an inadequate mother, and her son's accusations triggered an acute sense of guilt, of total uselessness and failure as a parent and as a human being. No wonder she was depressed. Her parish priest, however, thought that something else might be going on, and with Julie's permission we talked about her situation and what might be happening to her. He knew Julie to be a devout Christian, and felt that she was in a process of deeper enlightenment that could emerge after she had lived through the dark night. Julie's depressed mood was stabilized by anti-depressant medication, but she still felt deeply unworthy. As a practicing Christian who regularly attended Mass and prayed and meditated every day, Julie began to feel increasingly cut off from God. Her sense of God's absence was different from depression. She did not feel the self-loathing that had assaulted her during her depression, but she did feel her own sinfulness, and wondered what had gone wrong in her relationship with God. Nothing was wrong, her parish priest told her: her situation was typical of what is experienced by every pilgrim and would-be saint, and would come to an end when it had run its course. It was, he said, a form of purification that is necessary to enjoy greater union with God, and this is what would happen as long as Julie stayed faithful to her prayer life. The dark night of the soul was, said the priest, actually a case of being blinded by the light! The tremendous love and light of God so overwhelm the seeker's soul that it feels like darkness at first, but the pilgrim who persists will find at last that he is enjoying a closeness to God that he has never before been able to attain. One state - depression or dark night - does not exclude the other. If anyone feels that he might be going through either of these processes, it's really important to discuss it with a priest as well as a doctor. In Julie's case she found that she did indeed feel closer to God in the end, but if she had not sought treatment for depression she might never have realized the underlying, beneficial process taking place in her soul. Gurdjieff describes the dark night experience in "All and Everything". The souls approaching most closely to God feel deeply their own sinfulness, and their separation from their Creator. Even their very existence as individuals can come to seem painful. They want to dissolve into unity with God, but cannot do so by their own efforts. This story is very illuminating and deserves serious study by all Work students, but especially by anyone who thinks they may be experiencing a dark night. May all who undergo this darkness come through it stronger, wiser and closer to their goal.