'Gurdjieff' on drugs

I understood that all religions no matter what their current form, had in the beginning the same founding cause and underlying factor - all stemming from one source which has kept itself hidden, but which issues periodically the means for the formation of new religions as they become necessary for the outer life of people and which serves as a guiding factor for the world at that time in history.

Even though accompanying 'assisting factors' - incense. perfume, oils and powders - are perpetuated by existing religions, the use of active substances which serve to bypass the false emotional and intellectual centres has been suppressed. It was clear to me that in order to elevate the centres without false emotions, it would be necessary to avail myself of certain substances so contemptible and fearsome to modern man - although substances for the submergence of real and objective impressions and the activation of the mentating center are approved by him - for medical reasons only - and of the said approved pharmacology almost every contemporary being existing in the western world now partakes without understanding that these also are drugs. In accepting that these assisting substances were necessary to my aim, I resolved insofar as possible to keep such activities secret.

I had read somewhere or other about a sacred drink used in the Eleusinian Mysteries - and knew also of the inhalation of a special smoke used in the Delphic Mysteries. The use of these substances became imperative for me to personally elucidate. For this purpose it was impossible to ask anyone else about the subjective or objective nature of their own conclusions just because I had no way of determining impartially their real powers of objectivity in relation to experiments conducted by themselves upon themselves. In short, it became necessary to enact the anciently.respected custom of performing experiments upon myself as the only available candidate who could be both subjective and objective and upon whose testimony I could determine exact reliability. That is to say, I was as a result of the need aroused by this aim of conducting self-experimentation both subjective and objective, forced to exterminate in myself all tendency to lie to myself about anything whatever.

It became necessary to first discover the exact active substances used by the ancients, knowing that the same substances would in all probability be the only ones that would unlock the secrets.

Not only did I encounter difficulties inherent in the use of these substances, but along with these came the problem that I had no language in which to express even to myself what I had learned. The rapid change into completely unforeseen new forms caught me completely by surprise, and before I could stop myself I resisted the flow and became caught in the suffering of these new, for me, sensations.

Through these experiments, I found myself within a special inner community quite invisible to ordinary people. Because of my new connection with this inner circle of humanity. I found a world which proceeds in an entirely different direction from the world known to ordinary man.

In these first experiments I was forced to learn that results could be totally unexpected. After a few such experiences it became obvious to me that I must not under any circumstances enter these states with any expectation whatever, nor limit my perception to the known or to the acceptable. I had to forgo any limits, emotional, perceptual or knowable that I had formed in myself or that had accidentally been formed in me through previous experience. I quickly recognised that any objective shock to the system could be used, provided it were safe enough to stop short - in some cases just exactly short - of total disruption of the life force in the body.

I knew during these times objectively without a single doubt that these experiences were real, and that the usual reality in which I lived from day to day was false. I resolved to remember myself. and to know always. and in every situation, that compared to that reality, ordinary reality is a dream.

A powerful effect of the use of these substances was that I could alter the flow of time at will. Soon, knowledge which came from these experiences was not sufficient. In short, I understood quickly that knowledge from experience is subjective and imaginary. It was in connection with my third sojourn that I encountered the abyss of infinity. Everything, as soon as it was formed, flowed into infinity in which it was transformed into the void and reformed as a new formation, which in turn was instantly swallowed.