Why we neither seek nor offer occult divinations in the Work

Sometimes people are confused about the difference between the "occult" and the "esoteric". It's easy to see why. If you have no experience of the latter, but genuinely seek knowledge, you will come across bookshelves in libraries or shops where everything of this nature is mixed up together. Tips on how to develop your "psychic abilities" (read "imagination"); how to get what you want (again, read "imagination" and "wishful thinking"); and how to tell fortunes for profit and enlightenment, all jostle for space beside copies of "In Search of the Miraculous", Gnostic texts and mystical writings.

Everything that Ouspensky called "imaginazzione, impressonazzione, illusionazzione" is for sale alongside the truth. Beginners may be forgiven for getting confused.

How shall the serious seeker distinguish between them?

When we've been in the Work for a while, we develop a feeling for the false versus the true. We call it a matter of "taste". The Work, together with other mystical traditions, gives one a completely different taste from the world of the fortune teller and commercial psychic. Entirely different I's are involved. People may begin with the false, but if they have Magnetic Centre they will see through it and find their way to the Work.

The study of esotericism, whether esoteric Christianity, the Cabbalah, or the poetry of Rumi, is concerned with working on one's self and one's Essence. It shows how to separate the false from the real. Students learn to discern the difference between the False Personality and the Personality, and between these constructs and the real part of their psyche, the Essence. This is long and arduous Work, but there is no alternative.

In popular books on magic, Tarot, angel cards, and so on, this distinction is never made. Instead, the practice of wishful thinking is encouraged and the student is urged to believe in his or her psychic abilities, to see the unreal as if it were real. The truth that we cannot "do" is denied. Self-deception reigns.

What's more, when someone asks for a divination they are really asking for a shortcut to knowledge. It would be irresponsible for anyone in the Work to indulge them. The knowledge they seek can only be achieved by painstaking Work on themselves over long periods of time, and if people are told something before they are ready, they will not be able to act upon it. It's the equivalent of taking a drug to get high, a quick fix. Real knowledge exists, but must be paid for through spiritual Work.

So, in the Work, while we study the Tarot, the Cabbalah, Sufism, the Gnostics and other esoteric writings, we never perform divinations. Some Work students may find this ban difficult, especially if they have carried out such practices in the past. Nevertheless, they must be renounced if the student truly wishes for enlightenment. All genuine esoteric, mystical paths, from Zen to Sufism to esoteric Christianity, make the same demand.

I've personally known a number of Work students who began with the false, but in time saw why they had been asked to stop these practices. Those who were willing to persevere were grateful in the end, because they realized how dangerous was the path they had been treading before they met the Work.

What we do before we encounter the Work is not held against us, as long as we have not deliberately harmed another. The damage we may have done to ourselves, however, must be repaired by our Work, sometimes at cost to the teacher, who will have to expend more energy in helping these students.

Yes, we study the esoteric, but we use the knowledge contained in esoteric writings and arts solely in order to better understand ourselves and the nature of reality.

 If we carry out divinations for other people, and especially if we make a charge for them, it inevitably feeds the False Personalities of both the practicioner and the client.

 Feeding the False Personality leads to pride, vanity, deception and self-deception. And deception - lying - kills Essence. So those involved will destroy their ability to Work on themselves and will harm others.

While there may be some truth in the divinations that are given, the ability to see clairvoyantly is not within one's own power to manipulate, and readings often mix truth with error so that the end result is confusion.

And by cultivating these lower level, astral-plane phenomena, one is, whether knowingly or not, opening oneself to the possibility of being manipulated by demonic spirits that work through the psychic and seek to mislead and misinform. This is a very real risk. If allowed entry, these entities may cause the unfortunate seeker to crystallize wrongly and to become an "immortal thing". Such a person would be in Hell. They would see their error and long to change, but they would be unable to do so without much suffering and remorse. And even then, change would not be guaranteed. It could be too late.

Suppose, however, that an accurate result is given by a divination. What is the harm?

Firstly, the practicioner's False Personality will inevitably become inflated, his or her self-importance growing at the expense of his Essence. And secondly, the reader or the client may come to rely on such phenomena instead of seeking the truth through hard personal Work, which is the only way to enlightenment.  Addiction to "magic" and psychic practices is a real mental illness. I have written previously about ritual addiction, and everything I said in that Post is also true of divination.

A rabbi of my acquaintance who lives in Jerusalem has worked with many such patients, and not all can be cured.

There is no shortcut to spiritual Work on oneself.

 The Work is known as the way of accelerated completion, because illumination may be attained within one lifetime instead of during countless incarnations. But it is nevertheless a strenuous path, which demands huge efforts. The path of the psychic diviner seems like a shortcut, but it is a path that leads downwards and towards entropy. It is the exact opposite of the Fourth Way. The two are completely incompatible. This is the difference between the "occult", as it is popularly known, and the "esoteric", as studied and practiced in the Work and elsewhere.

There are, however, many people who do receive intuitions from a higher source without having recourse to methods of divination.  They may belong to the Work, or they may come from another tradition. Such people claim no special powers. They use their knowledge for another's good and they never charge for doing so, nor would they advertise themselves or seek any praise for it. They keep silence about these matters, and you will not find them plying their wares for gain or recognition.

They know that the abilities they manifest come from beyond them, and are not owned by them. They are grateful to their Higher Power for enlightening them and for using them to help another, but they would never imply that it is due to their own personal worth or ability. Indeed, they sometimes go to great lengths to show others that they are, in fact, simply ordinary, powerless mortals like everyone else, so that they will not be perceived as some sort of "guru". Hence, it does not feed their False Personality.

That such higher guidance exists cannot be doubted. Anyone who attends a Twelve Step meeting will see it in action.

 God often speaks through other people to help us, and whether we are the recipients or the agents of higher knowledge, we are humble and grateful. There is no pretense at special knowledge, and no ego-inflation.

In these conditions, there is no danger at all.

Question: If someone has practiced divination in the past, whether by Tarot, Cabbalah or any other occult method, could they later be authorized to teach the Work?

Answer: Yes, as long as they have renounced these practices.  In this case, the knowledge they had acquired in studying the Tarot, the Cabbah, and so on, could be useful in the Work, as they could assist their own students in studying these complex subjects. I have known a number of such students who went on to become teachers and who have used their past to good effect. They can help students to understand exactly why the path of divination is opposed to the Work.

 If they went back to practicing divination, however, their teaching permission would automatically be revoked. They would show they did not understand the difference between the occult and the esoteric, and that they were mixing up these different levels in an ignorant and dangerous fashion. They would mislead others, and endanger their own spiritual progress.

As the Dervish in "Meetings With Remarkable Men" says:-

Cursed be the one who does not know, yet who presumes to show others the way.

Death, Judgement, Heaven and Hell

"What will survive of us is love" 

- Philip Larkin

Throughout November, Catholics all over the world are pondering the mysteries of the Four Last Things: Death, Judgement, Heaven and Hell.

In the Work, of course, we are advised to keep our minds constantly on the thought of our own death. This, Gurdjieff says, will help to counteract the terrible disease of procrastination. 

And although November is the month when we are bidden to concentrate on the reality of our passing away, Catholics also remind themselves of this fact every time they say the "Hail Mary" prayer, which we pray at least once a day, and many more times than that if we are saying a rosary. 

The particular line in question is: "Holy Mary, mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death".

We know that Conscious Humanity designed the world's great religions, and that the various festivals and their times of celebration accord with cosmic energies. In November, the year is drawing towards its darkest point. The harvest has been gathered in, and gales blow the last traces of autumn leaves from the trees, leaving the land bare and stark. As we process inexorably towards the Winter Solstice,  the time of greatest darkness,  we may recall that our ancestors chose this time to slaughter much of their livestock and salt it to provide food for the winter months to come. In some countries, November is called the Blood Month. No wonder that the reality of death is pondered now.

In the Christian year, November culminates in the triumphant festival of Christ the King, to remind us that, despite the outer darkness and decay, Christ has conquered death, and so may we.

Then, the year continues with the beautiful season of Advent, when in the Work we remember the need for something new to be born in us, born in our Essence, which alone will survive death.

What will be destroyed at death? False Personality, certainly, which is unreal, a cruel and stern, false slavemaster which holds many of us in captivity until the moment of our death, when it dissolves completely.

It has to be so: who would take their False Personality with them into eternity? Imaginary I, of course, wishes to prolong its own sham existence and does its best to convince of us its power and its determination to survive. But it is composed of unreal, negative emotions and I's built out of fear and anger. It could not possibly be allowed to enter eternity.

Think for a moment: What is it that you would have survive of yourself? Which I's do you think are worthy to enter the Kingdom of Heaven? Do you, in fact, have any I's which would be allowed to enter? Many people do not, and if they are solely based on False Personality, then they will not survive death in an individual form.

Then there are the I's in Personality, many of which can be useful in the Work. Without a strong Personality, Essence cannot develop. Personality must grow and strengthen so that it can enable us to deal with life, and life's problems, and so that it may protect and feed the immature Essence developing within.

At the moment of death, our Personality is no longer of any use to us, however. For what will enter the Kingdom of Heaven and survive after our physical death is, of course, our Essence, and within our Essence, our Real I.

And if Essence has remained undeveloped throughout our lifetime, it cannot have any individuality. It will return to the "melting pot" from which new three-brained beings are constantly created. Without individuality, it cannot manifest itself in any particular form, and so cannot attract a particular body, a particular life.

Our task, then, is to develop our Essence to the point that it rules our life and guides our destiny.

When Essence matures, it knows what needs to be done to complete our spiritual development. It chooses the right conditions for us to live on this planet, and after the end of this life it may continue to grow and develop in higher spheres. To continue its journey, however, Essence may see that another life on Earth is necessary, and it will choose its next lifetime in accordance with its spiritual needs.

Marian and Mrs Pogson insisted all their students read Plato's "The Story of Er," and the Gnostic "Hymn of the Robe of Glory". In these two works we see the state of the soul between lives, and the task it must complete in order to return with honour to the place from whence it came.

We come to this Earth in order to overcome certain very specific problems and to contribute to the evolution of humanity. Essence knows what our task is, and selects the best way for us to fulfil it. But in the process of reincarnating, the newborn baby becomes once again a helpless creature, dependent on the goodwill and spiritual maturity of those around it, and in every lifetime our Essence must once more undertake the arduous and perilous task of becoming conscious.

If we have worked on ourselves in previous lifetimes, the right circumstances for our development - which may be harsh or soft, physically easy or very difficult - will be selected for us before we are born. We will have access to a certain "spiritual memory" that lies within a developing Essence, and we will meet the Work sooner in this lifetime than before.

If we have lived as Good Householders, we will reap the benefits in our next lifetime. We may encounter the Work, and finish our necessary tasks so that we may then be free to leave this planet and continue our spiritual journey elsewhere.

 Or we may, if we have reached a high level, choose to reincarnate in order to be able to help those beings still trapped in illusion. Only the greatest saints or bodhisattvas reach this level of development, and have this choice. We may be sure that Gurdjieff was among them: this is why he came. But any one of us has the chance to evolve to this level.

A well-known saying quoted in the Work is "Blessed is he who hath a soul, and blessed is he who hath none, but woe and sorrow to him who hath it in conception". 

In other words, creatures who have no possibility of acquiring a soul in this lifetime, such as the birds and animals, live in many ways more freely than do we three-brained beings. They don't have to worry about spiritual matters - they fulfil their destiny by living as nature created them to do. Human beings may choose to live in this thoughtless, mechanical way, and if they don't know any better, they won't agonize over lost possibilities. Their individuality will not continue after death.

And blessed are the saints and those who have reached a higher level of development, who can truly be said to have souls, or, as the Work says, Higher Being Bodies.  At this level we become better able to help God in His tremendous Work. We experience real freedom, and real, lasting, positive emotions. We know and understand our place in the great Ray of Creation.

But those of us in the middle - that is, most of us - are in the process of creating our souls, our Higher Being Bodies. Essence may guide us, but too often we fail to listen, and drown out its voice by mechanical behaviour. 

Yet, before we die, we must achieve the state of a developed Essence. That is our most urgent task. When we do so, we have nothing to fear from the Four Last Things.

And Larkin was right: in Essence we can reach Real I; and Real I is love itself, and light, and truth. And all of this is what will survive.

The Benefits of a Pilgrimage: a Personal Story

Why do we go on a pilgrimage?

To visit a sacred site as a pilgrim - part holiday, part festival, part spiritual retreat - is something we humans have done since the beginning of our history.

In Great Britain, you can trace the pilgrim routes to Avebury, Stonehenge, Arbor Low, and many, many more Neolithic sacred places that have been in use for 6,000 years or more. The earliest sign that a particular location was considered sacred was the discovery, near Stonehenge, of three huge wooden pillars, like totem poles, stained bright red in the midst of what had been a clearing in the great forest that covered the hills.

What activities were carried out there we cannot know. At Stonehenge itself, however, as well as at the other sites erected at about the same time, archaeologists have found large piles of animal bones that have clearly been gnawed by human teeth. They think that men and women, whose own remains show that they came from many parts of the British Isles, gathered there at special times: Midwinter, Solstice, Harvest, and Spring. The monuments themselves were of a sacred, symbolic nature, though what was the nature of the spirits they represent is anyone's guess. Harvest Gods; storm Gods; fertility Goddesses? The spirits who lived in the Sun, the Moon, the stars? All these and more, no doubt.

And there was a physical, festive side to pilgrimage, then as well as now. For besides cooked animal bones, later pottery fragments show that fermented beverages were also drunk - in other words, the pilgrims worshipped their gods or goddesses and then went on to celebrate a huge barbecue!

Drinking, feasting and worshipping: these acts, though probably not in that order, have been common to pilgrims since human beings first began to settle the land and farm it.

Today, we know that many of the most beloved sacred sites in the United Kingdom were pagan before they were Christian. I'm sure this applies to many sacred sites around the world, but I'm talking about those I know best, the ancient gathering grounds which have seen hundreds of generations of pilgrims and are still in use today

In the southern part of England, you can trace the growth of these sites along two major ley lines, the Michael and Mary Lines, described in the excellent book "The Sun and the Serpent" by Hamish Miller and Paul Broadhurst.

For most of my life, since the late 1960s, I've dowsed the ley lines and venerated the sacred sites around Glastonbury, Avebury, Stonehenge and the Rollright Stones. They are very powerful accumulators and distributors of earth energies. Anyone with a strong intuition and open mind may learn to dowse. I use special copper rods for the purpose, but there are some parts of England where the lines themselves disperse amongst watery sites and are impossible to trace, and one such area is the Fens of East Anglia, where I live now.

The most sacred site here is Walsingham, where the two national shrines to Our Lady of Walsingham are located, one belonging to the Anglican Church, the other to the Roman Catholic Church. In prehistoric times this area, too, was sacred to pagan goddess worship. You can understand why when you make your way along the slightly raised meadows and by the many streams that water the site; the whole place exudes sacred feminine energy, very peaceful and soothing, like balm to a troubled soul. A fine, diffuse, watery light pervades the air, and earthy scents rise from the ground.

The history of Walsingham, which has been a Christian pilgrim destination for a thousand years, is very interesting; most of it is available on the internet, and I won't repeat it here.

To me, as a Catholic, the most beautiful part of Walsingham is the 14th century Slipper Chapel, which has been beautifully restored and now contains the fine statue of Our Lady of Walsingham. St Mary is here shown as a Saxon maiden, strong and firm, carrying her divine Son in her arms and proudly showing Him to the many generations who've come to seek help at this much-loved site.

Royalty visited Walsingham, along with many hundreds of thousands of ordinary men and women, seeking consolation and help from the Mother of God who promised the founder of Walsingham, one Lady Richeldis, that nobody who sought Mary's help there would return empty-handed.

The tyrannical king, Henry VIII, destroyed as much of it as he could when he wrenched England away from her Catholic faith and seized control of the church's lands and buildings. Oliver Cromwell finished off what Henry had started, but two hundred years later a change of heart by the leading churchmen and the gifts of some very generous benefactors made possible the restoration of this healing, beautiful place.

Recently my husband and I made our own private pilgrimage to Walsingham. We needed a sanctuary of peace and restoration while we sought advice around some difficult decisions we needed to make. And we didn't leave empty-handed! The blessing of Walsingham, its beauty, peace and tranquillity, gave us the surroundings we needed to go deep within and to ponder with our Higher Centres what would be the next steps on our journey through life.

We realized that next year we will need to move house so that we can live closer to our children. As we are both growing older, and my husband will retire in January, we are looking for somewhere where we can have more contact with our family, and also where we can live close to the sea as well as to beautiful countryside. The prospect of moving house, though, with literally thousands of books and a garage load full of heaven-knows-what old furniture and possessions, some belonging to kids who left home long ago, is daunting. But what we took from our pilgrimage to Walsingham was the confidence that this is our right direction, the "very next thing", as Mrs Pogson says, and that we will be helped at each step of the way.

In confirmation, on our return we discovered that a distant relative had left us a small legacy. It will help with our moving expenses, of course, but even more than that, it helped us to see that this really is the correct way for us to go. It was as though Mary, Our Lady of Walsingham, had reached down from heaven to ensure that we really did not leave empty-handed! Spiritually and physically, we left refreshed and comforted.

Chaucer wrote of April being the time when "folk long to go on pilgrimages". For us, it was the lovely Autumn season, of rich leaf colours, woodsmoke, and golden harvest that saw our pilgrimage. Walsingham is not far from the sea, and the sound of the waves and the seabirds lifted our spirits, while the many excellent farm shops of Norfolk filled our bodies with fine food!

A pilgrimage is a very important journey. It can nourish every centre. In a way, our whole life is a pilgrimage, but in the individual journeys we make to sacred places, we gain new impressions - the favourite food of Essence - and our spirits are regenerated.

We are seeking God; we are seeking rest for our souls; we are seeking ourselves. A pilgrimage is the chance to live for a while in a higher state of consciousness, remembering ourselves and our aim, as we take in the sights, sounds and energies of the sacred site.

Ideally, we would be able to see each day, each moment, anew, without the baggage of the past. If we could do that, impressions would always fall upon Essence, and everything would indeed be more vivid, as Gurdjieff said. Each new day would be a pilgrimage. As we are, we need to set aside special times for these experiences.

A pilgrimage is not simply a holiday. It is that, of course, but it is so much more. A pilgrimage may be a journey to Walsingham, or Jerusalem, or to the tomb of Rumi.

Reverently undertaken, it will always lead back to the centre of our being, where alone we are truly at home.