Fragment 26

In this series of "Fragments" I want to discuss the topic of the "True Self". This has been viewed by many as the completion of the Great Work. I am not one of those, but it is an important part of the Great Work. Gurdjieff is a prime example of this attitude. This can also be observed in the more mystical systems, where it is called the creation of the light body. The "True Self" and the "Light Body" are the same thing. To understand how this is done, we must first look at rhe raw materials that we use to build the "True Self". To do this we must go back to our first ancestors, the first hominids. This is also the time of the first Great Magical working, where humans transformed themselves. I shall be using the term "humans" instead of "hominids" for two reasons. The first is for the sake of brevity, and the second is that I do not think that we are that much different from our ancient ancestors. In this series of "Fragments" I shall be relying on two books: "The Naked Ape" by Desmond Morris and "The Origin of Consciousness in the Break Down of the Bicameral Mind" by Julian Jaynes. Both these books are dated in some ways, but it does not affect their central theses.In some instances the new findings have only helped to straighten the central theses. I can commend both books to all students of the Occult and human nature. Both are very controversial books, although written by mainline academics. The purpose of this "Fragment" is to examine the Beast. I am using the term "Beast" to refer to our animal nature orninheretence from our ancient ancestors. It is the deepest level of the unconscious. We are descendents of Beasts not Angels. At this point I shall offer a diversion by way of a theory of mine, of which I am not totally convinced of; that the unconscious of humans is the unconscious of previous humans. That consciousness has many overlapping layers. The example being that of Classical mythology. Classical mythology was the conscious mind of the early Greeks and Romans and is in many ways the unconscious mind of modern humans. After all much of S. Freud's psychology is an interpretation of Classical mythology. As I said I am not convinced of this theory. I can be talked out of all my theories, but some would take more talking than others, this one would not take much talking for me to give it up. So let us examine the Beast. The Beast is not an amorphous entity of desires, like Freud's Id. The Beast has definite outlines, although there are some ambiguities. As we shall see these ambiguities are the product of humans first Great Magical working. The Beast is the default setting of human nature, it is what takes over which civilization falls apart. To get a glimpse of what happened we must go back to the end of the Miocene age when humans and chimpanzees split. So why the split between humans, and chimps? I have a theory that is all my own, so no one else should be blamed for it, and it has no scientific backup. It is my speculation. The theory is that before the split there were apes that were good at being apes, and apes that were not good at being apes. The apes that were good at being apes became the chimps, and the apes that were not good at being apes became the humans. A parallel would be the split between domestic dogs, and wolves The wolves that were not good at being wolves became domestic dogs. To stretch the parallel further, I think humans and chimps split for a similar reason. That the first humans were scavenger apes. Humans were the weaker apes. This is why when the forests receded; it was humans that got pushed out into the grasslands. They did not decide to leave the safety of the forest. Being a scavenger ape did give humans some advantages. Even today humans will eat almost anything that does not kill them or make them sick. Of course there were also great disadvantages to being pushed out of the forests. The main one being is becoming prey to the apex predators: the big cats. Although in a strange way this also worked to humans advantage, humans were forced to innovate. This is the time of the first Great Magical working. Humans transformed from typical primates into predators. Of course, all mistakes were severely punished. This kept the human population small. This is the reason that humans evolved so fast. The first Great Magical working was paid for in blood and death. The primate became a predator. This is what led to the ambiguous nature of the Beast. The ambiguity in the Beast is between typical primate and predator. These are the two aspects of human nature that cannot be ignored: the hierarchical imperative and the territorial imperative. Any political theory that does not allow for these two aspects is doomed to failure. The dual nature of the Beast as primate and predator has affected these two aspects. So let us return to our earliest ancestors and our cousins the chimps to see what we can learn about the Beast. We shall first examine the hierarchical imperative. Both humans and chimps are obsessed with status. Both groups have a well defined pecking order. For chimps status is defined by accessibility to females. This should sound familiar. We are never surprised when a powerful man has a mistress or many mistresses. The King Kong ape can have any female in the group; Polygamy is the natural state of the primate. And here arises one of the ambiguities in the nature of the Beast. This was modified into pair bonding when humans became predators. Monogamy is the result of humans becoming predators. Thus we can observe one of the ambiguities in the Hierarchical imperative. The other imperative is the territorial imperative. Even though chimps move about not having any fixed camp, they still move only within the troop's territory. Chimps regularly go to war with other chimp troops to expand or defend their territory. When humans became predators this changed into humans having fixed camps or lairs. The territorial imperative is mental as well as physical. This can be easily observed in academics. Even though our present day academics are always preaching equality, inclusiveness, and diversity. Just watch how viciously they defend their fields, when it is suggested someone outside their comments on their theories. Diversity and inclusiveness are resisted like a wild beast would resit an invader into their territory. To sum up their are two different natures in the Beast, sometimes they conflict, and sometimes they compliment each other. Here we have the raw material of the Self.