TRUE? Gurdjieff: (Most) “people are machines”

March 3, 2025

I know I sure was, up until the moment when a book fell to floor from a Cambridge Massachusetts bookstore shelf in 1966 as I was wheeling a stroller with two little kids through an aisle. What was the book? “In Search of the Miraculous,” by P.D. Ouspensky, a recounting of his relationship with the mysterious Gurdjieff.

The title of course, intrigued me. I sure needed one! Something had to change. My so-called life as wife, mother, and graduate student had become a role-playing prison with no room for free thought or action.

I didn’t just read the book. I devoured it.

LIFE FORCE ACTIVATED!

First sign of regeneration.

What struck me deeply was especially the idea that though we are imprisoned, acting in a mechanical manner, we can break free. How? Via a seemingly silly little practice called “self-remembering.”

I started practicing. . . Whatever I was doing, just stop, stop! And notice. Notice what I am doing. Just that. Notice.

And it’s true! That momentary noticing would eventually evolve into a mostly steady awareness that envelops and surrounds all my otherwise mechanical motions, so that I no longer identify with them, and can thus alter them at will.

Back then, in my early 20s: Notice that I’m brushing my teeth! Notice that I’m changing a diaper! Notice that I’m emotionally reacting to husband’s demand!

I’ll never forget the day, walking alone along a street, when I suddenly noticed that my hands were automatically typing in the air, over and over again. Curious. What were they typing? “I. . . A. . . M . . . A . . . M . . .E . . .S . . S. . .”

“I AM A MESS”!

Over and over over again. My body diagnosing my mind, and, apparently, making sure I stayed that way.

Had I not begun the practice of self-remembering, of noticing, at any moment, what I was doing, I doubt I would have made this discovery.

A discovery which led, over several decades, to the practice of exploring and engaging the unconscious mind. So that I could begin to understand the roots of my actions. To understand how my body is an outgrowth of the unconscious, which provides me with behavioral cues!

We call this “shadow work,” and to me it is the foundation of freedom.

One might say that this sudden synchronous (miraculous) event, “In Search of the Miraculous,” falling off a shelf, ignited my existential search; as a budding philosopher, I would actually begin to follow in the footsteps of Socrates: know thyself. 

From this foundation, the inevitable realization: the boundaries of the personal unconscious are permeable; at deeper levels, we call it the collective unconscious, each of us a drop within its infinitely mysterious oceanic tides.

In other words, by engaging in the tiny, seemingly innocuous practice of noticing, of “self-remembering,” one eventually opens to a spacious awareness that encompasses the whole of reality.

And, I might add now: This practice of “self-remembering” became the cornerstone of my conscious life so that I could, over time, extract, and learn to engage, my own sovereign soul from the welter of social conditioning that still, according to the passage below, deadens 80% of humanity.

 

THE WH “INFLUENCER” OP — and what it demonstrates

February 28, 2025

Re: the title of this post. “WH” refers to White House, not White Hat. I think. Or does it?

Whatever . . .

For if I was “dead wrong” yesterday, it’s likely I’m doubly dead wrong since then. To me, this one photo tells it all.

Yeah, right. Look how happy they are? “Gee whiz! I was one of the lucky ones!”

And who are they, exactly? Why these “influencers” and not others?

Oh? I now hear that all the right-wing influencers “chosen” are zionist-supporting. True? No idea.

And what exactly are these lucky “influencers” holding? Some kind of a dossier that turns out to be a highly redacted “Phase One” nothing-burger, compared to all the stuff re: the Epstein case that’s already online and has been for a long time.

There is, of course, just so much more. See, for example, Celia Farber today, who cannot help but go deeply into the complexities of the ongoing op. Prolific, expansive Jupiter in fact-seeking Gemini square gobs of confusing, melting, “no context” Pisces planets later, this:

This is an immensely long contextualizing post, with all sorts of “evidence” that my eyes just went Piscean blurry in a failed attempt to stay focused. Nope. Couldn’t do it. But I did pick up these three nuggets:

She ends with this;

Simon Groddek sums up his own pov nicely, and offers a photo with a wider view.

So yes, gobsmacked likely twice now. But: what is crucial to remember: the meaning we humans assign to anything that initially puzzles us depends on the size and complexity of the context, or framework, we assign to that one “thing” — in this case, what to make of the White House meeting with selected “influencers” re: the Jeffrey Epstein files.

And, since our schooling, i.e., our indoctrination, teaches us to obey orders, including to (often unconsciously) swallow whole contexts fed to us from external sources, then we’re likely to get gobmacked as a matter of course.

Then, there are the frames that include and interact with other frames, like this one: a Joe Lange post on viewing the White House occasion within a game theory lens:

https://x.com/joelang51440671/status/1895268029539164408?s=61&t=aUBDiSUrvn0aSlRBtZx0wQ

And of course, let’s not forget Trump’s purported 5D chess, which is supposedly ten steps ahead of anybody else.

For example, this, from this six minutes ago.  Check it out.

I’ll conclude with the two most cynical twitter/X posts I’ve found so far.

David Icke

and

Prolotario1

Or should I conclude with Clandestine’s always hopeful point of view? Nah. Not now. No more time to waste on this latest conundrum, this op.

 

The point is, as usual, to stop, breathe, connect with earth below and sky above, go about my small personal world with heart open, embracing all and everything. And I mean everything! Everyone! Even the bullshit! Even when I don’t know what is bullshit and what not! Just embrace it, and then let it go. It’s all part of the play of maya in which we, as embodied sovereign souls, are presently immersed.

Besides, doesn’t just the phenomena of seemingly infinite interpretations, dots, patterns, etc. demonstrate the magnificence of human creativity?

I think so. I’m betting on it.