The Connection Between Counseling and Self-Remembering

Although there's no obvious connection between counseling and self-remembering, in practice each facilitates the other. I'm talking here from the point of view of the counselor, not the client, although much that is said here also applies if a Work student enters into therapy.

Obviously, you have to be in the Work to understand the meaning of self-remembering, and to have practiced with an experienced and authorized Work teacher so that you recognize when it takes place.

And, equally obviously, you also have to be a trained and experienced counselor who's familiar with Freudian, Jungian and Rogerian therapy, at the very least, in order to see how counseling links with self-remembering. Here it's important to distinguish between the psychoanalytic, emotion-based counseling systems and the purely cognitive and behavioural therapies. The latter have no necessary connection to self-remembering, whereas the former certainly do.

Assuming both these requirements are met, and that the therapist is in the Work while also being an experienced, fully competent counselor, let's look at how the connection works.

First, we need to recall that there are many degrees of self-remembering, from the blissful "epiphany" states that are sometimes granted to us, and which could be compared to the Sufi and Buddhist concept of "enlightenment", to those more common moments when we are suddenly more than usually aware of ourselves, our thoughts and feelings, our surroundings, and the company we're with.

Sometimes such moments are granted early in our Work life, to give us the impetus to carry on. Sometimes they are the culmination of years of effort in our struggle against sleep. We don't know when they will come, and we can't control them, but we can work to increase the likelihood and the number of such experiences.

How can these states possibly be related to counseling?

A well-trained and experienced therapist or counselor will be used to monitoring her own reactions to whatever the client is presenting (I'm using the feminine pronoun to include both men and women counselors here, of course, and shall refer to the client as "he", also inclusively),

In observing the client, the therapist will be aware of his posture, his facial expressions, the words he uses and the feelings he is conveying - which may well be very different from, even at odds with, one another. She is actually observing all three centres in the client. And the expert therapist goes further: as well as observing the client, she also observes her own reactions to the client, also in all centres. This must be carried out simultaneously, as the reactions the client evokes may be quite different from the material which he intends to convey.

As an example, any experienced counselor will sometimes be aware of feeling fear or anger as a client speaks - and that these feelings have absolutely nothing to do with what the client is saying, or the client's posture. Observing her own reactions, the counselor needs to see whether these feelings are evoked by something within her own psychology, or whether they are arriving out of the blue, as it were.

A skilled counselor may find that a particular client reminds her of her own strict father, and this unconscious memory - evoked during the counseling process - is causing her to feel a counter-transference towards the client. If this happens, it's necessary for the counselor to detach from it - to disidentify with those I's the client is bringing out, in Work language - and return to the present moment.

On the other hand, if the therapist has checked her own thoughts and emotions and knows that the sudden feeling she is experiencing does not come from within her own psyche, it gives a valuable key to the client's true feelings. She is actually experiencing the client's own feelings, of which the client may be completely unaware. These feelings can then be verbalized, to give the client extra feedback, and can be very helpful indeed to the client's therapy.

Clearly, if a counselor has been in the Work for a number of years and is familiar with many of her own I's, she will find detachment easier and faster. This is where the experience of self-remembering, in one of its forms, will step in to help her understand what is happening.

And it can, of course, work the other way round. If someone is beginning to study herself in the Work, under a teacher, she may well find it an advantage to have taken counseling training so that she is used to acknowledging her own feelings and separating them from those of the client.

Anyone who chooses counseling as a career is obviously interested in her own psychological world and in the thoughts and feelings of other people. A thorough and rigorous training will help her to distinguish the two, and to see when feelings of counter-transference are occurring. In addition, she will have learned about transference - the feelings projected on to her by the client - and will able to pick up such feelings when they are taking place.

Of course, the client's feelings in therapy sessions may have nothing to do with either transference or counter-transference. In that case, they arise from the memories and associations taking place in the client during the present moment, the actual session. And these memories may be completely unconscious, so the therapist provides an invaluable service when she makes the client aware of what is actually happening.

We can now understand the complexity of these layers of emotion that may be revealed during therapy. Transference and counter-transference refer to the relationship between the counselor and the client, and the counselor's duty is to monitor and include these processes in the therapy, to work with the transference, as it's sometimes expressed. Beyond and distinct from these processes, however, there are also the feelings evoked in the counselor when the client accesses hidden memories and takes up unconscious attitudes to what is evoked by the session. Such feelings seemingly emerge from nowhere, and are very significant.

The skilled counselor must be aware of all these processes at once, calling for an enhanced state of consciousness. It can take many years of counseling experience before one is fully conscious of all that is taking place in a therapy session. Counseling skills can only be partially taught; the acquisition of advanced skills is down to the counselor's own ability to be honest about her own thoughts and feelings, and to be willing to face the pain of the client, even, at times, to the point of  experiencing this pain.

To be able to understand the multi-layered process of therapy therefore demands serious and consistent self-observation, although it is not called such in counseling training. And I think this fact accounts for the larger-than-normal numbers of counselors who become drawn to the Work.

Perhaps the counselor's previous professional training was a preparation for her studies in the Work. And vice-versa: if, like me, you become a therapist after many years' experience in the Work, the practice of self-observation, leading to self-remembering, makes for a much easier time during training, and a more enhanced awareness during actual therapy with a client.

And, at their highest potential, counseling and therapy may become an experience of self-remembering for both client and therapist, and a form of external considering on the part of the therapist.

On Progress

A Lunatic in the Work sense is someone who thinks he can "do", that he - alone or with others - can change the world for the better; that progress exists and can be imposed from the outside. In the Work, we know that true progress, whether spiritual or social, can be achieved only when we become more conscious. Society as a whole will not progress until mankind has become more awake.

Politicians make their living from trying to persuade us otherwise. And how we want to believe them! We forget that life, as Gurdjieff reminds us, is a pain factory. Pain is built into the system, as it were. We become more conscious only through struggling with sleep; in order to overcome the inevitable pain of living, we must accept real suffering as our lot, while striving to overcome the mechanicalness which leads to so much unnecessary suffering.

But nobody wants to hear this message. We want to believe in a quick fix, an immediate solution to mankind's many problems.

And when it comes to the suffering of others, who can blame us for wanting to relieve it as quickly as possible?

It's true that in many relatively simple situations, such as natural disasters, efforts to help those in distress can be swift and effective. But what of more complex matters? Can we really believe that progress exists when we see the state that society is in today?

When I was young, I believed that society was unfair, and that by changing our laws and improving the physical conditions of the poor, suffering would be alleviated and everyone could be set free from poverty to enjoy life to the full.

I wish that were true! If only! But in my own lifetime of 70 years I've seen no real progress at all.
Yes, in some groups within society there is noticeably less material poverty today than 50 years ago. But in the spiritual sense, Western society in the 21st century is more impoverished than ever.

As the world is structured today, the illusion that continuous growth is possible must be fostered. Giant corporations need to constantly stimulate our appetites for unnecessary and harmful "stuff". We must be manipulated into feeling anxiety, fear, envy, greed and lust, all of which - advertising tells us - can be assuaged by buying the right products.

We are fed "bread and circuses", exactly as were the Roman populace, to lull us further to sleep.

Spirituality is pushed into the background, or made disastrously "relevant" by churches' adopting the standards of the day. Greed is good. Don't think about the afterlife; don't turn away from the treadmill and speculate about your soul. This life is all there is. Progress is unending. You might live forever.

But it's lies, all lies. Some groups have seen their physical state improved, others have not. Yet others are descending further into entropy.

If you think I'm being unduly pessimistic, let me show you what has happened in one small area of society where reformers believed they were making things better.

I'm going to take the example of single parents, since it's one I've followed closely since the 1970s. And it's a state I know well, because I was - much against my will - left a single parent when my children were still very young.

Before the 1970s, if a young woman had a child outside marriage the baby was generally given up for adoption. In the worst extreme, an illegal abortion might be sought, and all too often this killed the mother as well as the unborn child.

Today, abortions are legal for every woman in the West. If babies are brought into the world, it's because the mother actually wants to give birth to a child. But in the 1970s, before the UK legislation was changed by a well-intentioned government, being a single parent meant bringing up a child in poverty.

At that time, women were rarely single mothers by choice. That state was imposed on them by an irresponsible boyfriend, or a deserting spouse, as in my own case, or by the death of the husband. Generally, everyone believed the best environment for a child was to have two parents, a mother and a father, married to each other, because marriage was, and is, a far more stable situation than cohabitation. And that was the ideal for which most people strove.

The most recent studies support this view. Children raised without one of their parents, or raised in same-sex households, suffer more bullying, are more confused about their identity, have lower self-esteem and do less well in school and in later life than those brought up with a mother and a father.

Until recently, moreover, there was undoubtedly a stigma against illegitimacy. Clearly, this was unfair to the child. The mother's sheer bad luck or irresponsible behaviour, however the situation had come about, was not the child's fault, and the child should not have to suffer the consequences. So, gradually, the idea of birth outside marriage became more acceptable. It was seen as less than ideal, but not a catastrophe, either.

The government of the 70s wondered next what could be done to make sure that children raised by single parents could be free from grinding poverty.

And our British lawmakers had a wonderful solution: give the mothers money for each illegitimate child they bore. More than that, give them their own flat! Then the child would be raised in better circumstances, the mother would not be forced to give her child up for adoption, and society would benefit. Progress!

Now, in the 21st century, we are seeing the results of that "progress".  Being a single mother has become a career choice for many young girls who want to drop out of education and are disinclined to look for a job. Far from being an exception - albeit an exception tolerated and supported by society - this state has become a way of life. You have only to visit any housing estate to see the results this shortsighted, "progressive" policy has produced.

Hundreds of thousands of children are being raised without a father in the home. Deprived of this most basic right, they grow up undisciplined and semi-feral. Not all of them are reduced to this state, of course. Sometimes a single mother will eventually find a partner; sometimes she will marry the father of her child, or children; sometimes another male family figure will fill the role of guide and mentor, and supply the discipline that the overworked single mother simply has no time to impose.

But many more grow up with the idea that society owes them a living, and that criminal behaviour is acceptable. Without anyone to give them boundaries and inspire them to achieve, what else can they do? Gangs often take the place of the family as children grow up, and with no moral guidelines they are prey to drug dealers and pimps. Nobody has told them this is wrong. Nobody has set limits.

Many single mothers do an excellent job, working hard to provide for their children and teaching them moral standards as well as giving them love and support. We all know mothers who've raised children in these very difficult conditions, and who deserve praise and respect for the tremendous efforts they've made. Their children grow up to be loving and responsible citizens, Good Householders in their turn.

I was once a single mother, as I have explained, and I struggled to provide a happy and loving home in the absence of the children's father. It was incredibly difficult. I cannot imagine choosing such a situation - those who do so can have no idea of what such a life is really like, or how their children will suffer because of it. Nobody would choose to handicap their own or their child's life in this way.

 But it is not entirely the fault of the mothers that they are raising children in this difficult situation; society has encouraged it by rewarding them for their behaviour.

So progress has not been achieved, and children raised without fathers still suffer. And society as a whole suffers from the behaviour of these fatherless children, whose mothers could not cope.

I mention this as only one example of how well-meaning legislation has not brought about the effects it sought to impose - in this case, the relief of poverty and of suffering. If we encourage people to abandon the attempt to live as Good Householders, what else can we expect?

Think of the truly ridiculous policies recently pursued by Western governments; from toppling a cruel leader in a foreign country only to see him replaced by the murderous fanatics of Islamist State, to compassionately but very stupidly inviting in an unlimited number of unchecked, unknown foreign migrants amongst whom we now know there were groups of terrorists, rapists and criminals. And then we wonder why our so well-meaning, so generous policies bring nothing but tragedy.

These are the politics of lunacy, created by Lunatics.

Yes, a certain degree of material improvement has taken place between our times and the Victorian age, when children were made to work in factories or sent up chimneys, and huge numbers of single or deserted women were forced to become prostitutes or die of poverty. The legislators who brought an end to these conditions were acting from the highest motives. Some progress has taken place in this respect.

But spiritually, we are in a worse state than ever.

What the world needs in order to make real progress possible is that more conscious people should exist at any given time. The Talmud says that there are always 36 hidden saints living among us, unknown even to themselves. If they should ever suspect their sainthood, they immediately cease to be one, and another takes their place.

Some Sufi traditions have the same idea; as well as the hidden saints, they say, there must be a sufficient number of relatively conscious people below them in the hierarchy of spirituality, to support the existence of the saintly ones.

In the Work, we accept that the only true progress is spiritual. But if, say, 200 conscious people existed in the world, then the consciousness of the whole of human society would be increased, and real progress could be made in every sense - spiritually and physically.

Only people with objective consciousness are able to change society for the better. Only they can foresee the results that will follow from changes in the law. Without such knowledge we are worse than blind - we are doomed to create more and more entropy.

While compassion demands that we must all, as individuals and as a society, relieve the suffering of others as well and as quickly as possible, we must always keep in mind that the best effort we can make is to struggle constantly against sleep, against mechanicalness.

Our own individual efforts to grow more conscious will, in unimaginable ways, benefit the whole of humanity. We have a responsibility to ourselves and to others - and to God.

The need is urgent. We have no time to waste, either for ourselves or for mankind.

New Moons, the Kabbalah, Judaism and the Fourth Way

Tomorrow we'll be experiencing the first new moon of 2016, which marks the start of the Jewish month of Shevat.

Recently we've been thinking about the cosmological significance of Christmas, the Solstice, and other traditions which mark the deepest part of winter in the northern hemisphere. We saw how the Earth is closer at this time to the outer parts of the galaxy and therefore receives rare and unique energies from the furthest reaches of space, from the level closest to the Absolute, to use Fourth Way terminology. At present, those influences are waning but are still there, while the Earth moves forward towards the year's next festival, the next special influences, marked by Candlemass and the New Year for Trees.

Throughout this year I want to continue to look at this interaction between the Earth, the planets and the energies they represent, and in particular to consider at how we can benefit from each change in the Earth's position.

So, from time to time, I'll be talking about astrological and astronomical phenomena and relating them to the Fourth Way and to religions which - because they were founded by conscious people - understand and mark these different stages in the Earth's journey round the Sun.

The religion which, today, has developed the best and fullest, most comprehensive, understanding of these matters is Judaism. The Christian religion also understands and marks the passage of the Earth through the solar system, and its festivals celebrate each stage.

Other religions, such as Buddhism and Islam, take into account the relative positions of the planets and the Earth, but they give less importance to their influence on the life of Man. 

The Jewish religion, however, has for more than three thousand years sought to understand and elaborate the meaning and potential of the planetary influences, especially that of the Moon.

In particular, the Kabbalah, the Jewish mystical tradition, gives prominence to cultivating the right attitude to each change in the position of the Moon relative to the Earth, and also to the cosmic atmosphere surrounding each month. There are different festivals to mark the new energies coming to the Earth each month, and at each festival. The Kabbalah understands and explains them so that we can best take advantage of the opportunities (and dangers) each phase offers.

First, though, a word of warning: in these posts I'll necessarily have to over-simplify the teaching of the Kabbalah. Space doesn't permit me to go into the theory and practice of this ancient system more fully here, but I shall try to situate each festival, each new month, within the greater Jewish tradition.

And please be aware: it's really not possible to understand the Kabbalah unless you have a good knowledge and grounding in Judaism. This is a mistake often made by New Age "Kabbalists", who have studied some part of the Kabbalah without reference to the whole, or to its religious setting. When they do this, the New Agers distort the Kabbalah and misunderstand its intent. It's like religious followers who seize on one verse of their holy scriptures and emphasize it to the exclusion of others: it loses context, loses meaning.

The Kabbalah is not simply something - like, say, astrology or numerology - which you can "add on" to any New Age philosophy. It demands a rethinking of our attitudes towards monotheism, towards mysticism, and towards the Jewish and Christian scriptures. It demands a commitment to ethical behaviour and to spiritual growth, and is very practical in its insistence that we must live out our understanding in actions, or mitzvahs, which is sometimes translated as "good deeds", but means something like "following the commandments".

 The Kabbalah is anything but New Age in its orientation towards transforming the world whilst transforming ourselves; it means hard work for those who commit themselves to it, but promises new understanding and insights, and new opportunities for working on oneself,  in just the same way as does the Work.

In its essence, Kabbalah comes very close to the Fourth Way. In fact, someone who follows the Kabbalah and also practices the Way of the Good Householder by living the Jewish or Christian teachings will be to all intents and purposes also following a Fourth Way school.

One writer who makes this clear is the excellent Zvi ben Shimon Halevi, otherwise known as Warren Kenton. Another is the writer Brian Lancaster. 

Yet another is the equally good, but differently oriented, Melissa Ribner.

I would also recommend the writings of David Aaron, Martin Buber, Gershon Scholem and - for a creative, imaginative approach - some of the works of Isaac Bashevis Singer.

Beryl Pogson, whose teachings I honour as part of the Nicoll line in the Work, and who was my own teacher's teacher, placed great importance on knowing the Jewish Bible and the background of the Jewish religion. I heartily recommend those who want to understand more about the significance of the Kabbalah and Judaism in relation to the Work to seek out her teachings on the Bible and Jewish festivals.

All this is by way of introducing the subject of the current New Moon, which on Sunday ushers in the month of Shevat.

Shevat, in Kabblistic teaching, brings new life. In this month, under the astrological sign of Aquarius, we celebrate the wonderful and unique "New Year of Trees", when trees are planted, existing trees tended, and new life celebrated. It is very close in feeling to the Christian festival of Candlemass, celebrated on February 2nd. 

On Tu b'Shvat, the New Year of Trees, fruit is eaten and wine, or fruit juice, drunk, to celebrate the blessings that trees bring us. But also, to the mystic, concentrating on the archetype of the tree suggests the original Trees in the Garden of Eden. What does it mean to us to contemplate the Tree of Life? The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil?

How does the story of the Garden of Eden, with its tale of disobedience, pride and blame, reveal to us our own faults? How have we blamed others for the errors into which our own rebellious I's, our own pride, our refusal to listen to our teachers and the knowledge of our own Higher Centres, have led us? If we are to carry out our Work Aim in the coming year, we need to see what has lured us away from the Work in the past, which habitual thoughts, which negative emotions, which recurring temptations and distractions, keep us from fulfilling our aims and really living the Fourth Way.

We're given the chance this month to become more open to new plans and projects, which will help us in the Work when we formulate our Aim for the New Year and seek to put it into practical form. If you're thinking of keeping a spiritual journal - a highly recommended practice - this month is a very good time to begin it.

The Kabbalah, with its emphasis on practical action, including eating the right food for each cosmic season, reminds us that what we take in is extremely important.

 In the Kabbalah as in the Work, this is not just physical food, but the three being-foods we study in the Work - the quality of the air we breathe, and how conscious we can be in assimilating it; and the attention we bring to incoming impressions. Eating fruit reminds us that our food comes ultimately from God, and our bodies are temples which should be honored as such. As far as possible we try to avoid "non-foods" such as artificial flavorings and colorings, and foods we know are harmful to our health, such as sugar, trans fats and all sorts of junk food. Intuition is essential here, since some food may be of good quality but not suited to our individual constitution. Paying close attention to the effects of different foods on the body and mind will bring rich rewards this month.

There is much to ponder here. Every month we'll look at the changing cosmic situation, and consider how each affects us, drawing on the teaching of the Kabbalah as well as that of the Fourth Way.

And meanwhile, let our Aim include the ideal of continuing to live our lives in sobriety, in appreciation, and gratitude. Those of us in recovery have been given new lives. Those of us in the Work are offered the chance to become fully transformed by following its call. Those of us who have both, are privileged indeed.

New Year, Sobriety and the Work

Happy New Year!

Like everyone else in the Work, I find the New Year a convenient reference point from which to look at the past year and make Aim for the year to come.

The actual date of the New Year has no spiritual or religious significance. It's just the date that Julius Caesar would best suit the start of the new year, because January was ruled by Januarius, the god who looks backward and forward at the same time.

Astrologically and astronomically, we are still celebrating the Twelve Days of Christmas, with Twelfth Night, the end of the concentrated period, falling on January 6th. In England - though not in many other countries - most of us still keep the tradition, even if many celebrants don't understand why.

January 6th, Twelfth Night, is the Feast of the Three Kings (or Magi, or Wise Men). It's also known as the Epiphany, the showing of the newborn Christ child to the representatives of other countries and older religions. The Magi, who seem to have come from Persian and Babylon, and who I believe were members of the Sarmoung Brotherhood, realized that a new Sacred Messenger had been incarnated, and were keen to be among the first to greet him.

In Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, the Protestant reformation took greater hold than in England, and Oliver Cromwell and the Puritans saw the celebration of Christmas as a reversion to pagan practices. They therefore forbade it, and armies of men would scour the countryside on December 25th, putting out any fires that had been lit in manor houses or cottages - because such a fire might be used for cooking a Christmas pudding! The celebration of Christmas was banned, but the inborn need for human beings in the northern hemisphere to enliven the long, dark nights of winter remained, and the parties and revels were simply transferred to New Year's Eve, or Hogmanay.

England was a little different, however, and we never really adopted this extreme form of Protestantism. Catholicism remained a potent force, even when outlawed, causing the Church of England to adopt many Catholic practices at the same time as it denounced "Papism"! And among the traditions the English refused to abandon is the custom of Twelfth Night. Most English households will keep their Christmas decorations up until January 6th, and continue to enjoy mince pies, Christmas cake, and even Christmas pudding, which I absolutely love but discovered that hardly any Americans did. Perhaps you need English DNA to appreciate it.

New Year falls towards the end of these twelve days. It's a good time to take stock of one's life, and to consider one's Aim in the Work. Setting a new Aim for 2016 is strongly recommended.

I almost never made it to this year. My first New Year's Eve in sobriety stands out in my memory as a huge struggle, one which separated the past and present quite radically.

My lover had come to visit me, armed with a large stock of beer. He thought we could drink our way through it, and then celebrate the New Year with the rest of his family. But I was horrified. And very torn. I'd stopped drinking six months previously, but faced with this huge temptation I wasn't sure I could hold out.

Euphoric recall kicked in, and the beer bottles looked tempting. I could smell the aroma as he opened the first bottle, hear the little fizz of foam, saw the dewdrops forming on the ice-cold glass.

But I'd already begun to live the AA Steps, and I knew with certainty that if I were to drink, I would die. Not at once, perhaps, but quite soon after I picked up that first drink. I'd lose control, lose my sobriety, lose my life.

And no relationship, no temporary euphoria, was worth that cost.

So - with tremendous reluctance, and with tears in my eyes - I asked my lover to leave, and to make sure he took the beer with him. Then I got into my car and drove myself to the nearest AA meeting. There are always plenty of meetings on New Year's Eve, because it's such a large temptation for alcoholics, and fortunately there was one near me.

And I went to bed sober.

Every New Year's Eve since then, I remember that night.

And every New Year's Day I think about what my Aim is going to be for the year to come. I look back over the past 12 months and take a mini-inventory. What were my greatest trials, and where do I need to place most effort in the year ahead?

Marian always encouraged us to keep spiritual journals, and I've found this highly beneficial. We can look back over many years' worth of efforts and observations, and we generally find the same sort of trials, the same sort of temptations, running like a red thread through the journal.

But it's not quite a repeat of each.  The spiritual life is like a spiral, not a circle. Yes, similar situations recur, similar types of people - if not the very same people!- provide us with challenges. Our Second Force is never exactly the same, but it will take the form each time of something we deeply need to overcome, situations and temptations from which we can learn.

If you haven't kept a spiritual journal before, now might be the year to begin. Write your aim on the first page of the first entry you make. When you look back a year from now, it's sure to be enlightening.