On G. I. Gurdjieff's Beelzebub's Tales to His Grandson

According to Beelzebub, the three-brained beings on planet Earth are potentially “similitudes of the Whole”–Microcosmoses embodying the macrocosm.   As such, they have the possibility of not only serving local cosmic purposes, feeding the earth and moon as part of organic life, but also of attaining various levels of Objective Reason and individuality, and even of “blending again with the infinite.” (p. 945)  As a microcosm of the macrocosm, a human being can potentially coat higher being-bodies for the life of the soul, instinctually sense cosmic truths and phenomena, and maintain his or her existence within the subtle realms of being after death while achieving different levels of immortality.  Unfortunately, humans came to perceive reality topsy-turvy, to be conditioned by pleasure and self-love, and to squander their sacred sexual substances.  They no longer remember or realize their deeper cosmic purposes, duties and possibilities.

 Beelzebub describes two principles by which a human can live and die, giving them the unlikely, invented names of Fulasnitamnian and Itoklanoz.  The first principle of being-existence, Fulasnitamnian, is “proper to the existence of all three-brained beings arising on any planet of our Great Universe ….”  According to this principle, three-brained beings “have all possibilities ... for the perfecting in them of both higher-being-bodies.”  (p.775)  In addition to serving Cosmic purposes, an individual can coat or crystallize higher being-bodies which allow for the continued evolution of the soul. 

 However, because of a series of cosmic catastrophes and the early implanting of the organ Kundabuffer, these strange three-brained beings formed in ways quite unbecoming for such beings:

 
“... they began to exist already excessively abnormally, that is to say, quite unbecomingly for three-brained beings, and when in consequence of this they had on the one hand ceased to emanate the vibrations required by Nature for the maintenance of the separated fragments of their planet, and, on the other hand, had begun, owing to the chief peculiarity of their strange psyche, to destroy beings of other forms of their planet, thereby gradually diminishing the number of sources required for this purpose, then Nature Herself was compelled gradually to actualize the presences of these three-brained beings, according to the second principle, namely the principle ‘Itoklanoz,’ that is,  to actualize them in the same way in which She actualizes one-brained and two-brained beings ....  (p. 131)

“... there are transmuted through them the cosmic substances required not for purposes of a common-cosmic character, but only for that solar system or even only for that planet alone, in which and upon which these one-brained and two-brained beings arise.  (p. 130)

Beelzebub’s Tales describes how human beings became so abnormal in their functioning.  They no longer have normal sensations of cosmic phenomena; they are oblivious of the need to fulfill their sacred being-obligations and duties; their true consciousness passes into the subconscious, and a false consciousness system becomes crystallized in their presences.  The terror of the situation is that people “die like dog,” according to the Itoklanoz principle, and serve only Nature’s local purposes.    Beelzebub explains that the majority of contemporary beings thus “remain with presences consisting of the planetary body alone, and thus are, for themselves, destroyed forever.”

Furthermore, the duration of ‘your favorites’ being-existence is “pitiably small” compared with the normal duration of existence for three-brained beings within other Solar systems. When the organ Kundabuffer was initially removed, the duration of human existence was according to the ‘Fulasnitamnian’ principle, and in this case, they were “obliged to exist until there was coated in them and completely perfected by reason what is called the ‘body-Kesdjan,’ or, as they themselves later began to name this being-part of theirs—of which, by the way, contemporary beings know only by hearsay—the ‘Astral-body.’”  (p. 131)  However, because of the abnormal conditions of external ordinary being-existence established there on Earth, their lives have become shorter and shorter.  Beelzebub compares the difference between the length of being-existence for your favorites and that of the three-brained beings on other planets in the Universe, to the difference between the length of human life to that of the “existence of the infinitesimal beings in that drop of water….”  (p. 132)

According to Gurdjieff, being a real human is only a possibility–which is generally unrealized.  Living in sleep and ignorance, people serve only the purposes of Mother Nature and become fertilizer–that is, food for the earth and moon.  However, self knowledge and the struggle to awaken can enable a three-brained being to serve higher and sacred purposes, even to attain real “I” and become “immortal within the limits of the solar system.”  All of these possibilities depend on the chemistry and alchemy of the soul. 

Although Common Mother Nature provides for the possibility for attaining the soul, this is not guaranteed.  It depends upon the individual’s conscious efforts to awaken and to fulfill their being obligations and duties—actualizing in their presences what Beelzebub labels as “their being-Partkdolg-duty.”  Beelzebub explains that it is through the actualization of the Partkdolg-duty that “it is possible for three-brained beings to acquire in their presences the data for the coating their said higher-parts ....” (p. 438)  Through awakening and knowing Self, three-brained beings can serve larger cosmic purposes, completely coating the Astral-body or “Kesdjan body,” the second being-body, and perfecting their Reason up to the level of the sacred ‘Ishmetch.’  Gurdjieff provides a remarkable teaching for the awakening of humanity–but a dismal view of human psychopathology.

 Beelzebub explains to his grandson Hassein that the phrase “We are the images of God,” is “one of the only ‘cosmic truths’” expressed by the contemporary three-brained beings on planet Earth; although they have no understanding of what it truly means.  In his humorous and insightful manner, Beelzebub elaborates upon how those “unfortunates” have taken this deep truth:

 
“‘Good ... if we are “images of God” ... that means ... means ... “God” is like us and has an appearance also like us ... and that means, our “God” has the same moustache, beard, nose, as we have, and he dresses also as we do. ... they can very clearly see this same ‘God’ of theirs in their picturings, almost with a comb sticking out of his left vest pocket, with which he sometimes combs his famous beard. …

“And the reason that they picture their ‘God’ to themselves just with a long beard was due to the fact that then, among the maleficent inventions of the Babylonian ‘learned,’ it is said among other things that that famous ‘God’ of theirs had, as it were, the appearance of a very old man, just with a heavy beard.

“But concerning the appearance of their ‘God.’ your favorites have gone still further.  Namely, they picture this famous ‘God’ of theirs exactly as an ‘Old Jew,’ since in their bobtailed notions, all sacred personage originated from that race.  (pp. 776-7)

 The ‘learned’ beings, assembled in the city of Babylon, had invented various ‘maleficent fictions’ concerning their ‘God,’ chiefly as a consequence of their “Hasnamussian manifestations.”  These ‘maleficent fictions’ were afterward widely spread everywhere on that ill-fated planet.

Beelzebub explains that indeed your favorites are in another sense made ‘in the ‘image of God:’

 “… through each of them the cosmic substances arising in all seven Stopinders of the Sacred Heptaparaparshinokh could be transformed, and all of them, again even the contemporary, besides serving as apparatuses for the Most Great cosmic Trogoautoegocrat, could have all possibilities for absorbing from those cosmic substances which are transformed through them what is corresponding for the coating and for the perfecting in them of both higher-being-bodies; because each three-brained being arisen on this planet of yours represents in himself also, in all respects, just like every three-brained being in all our Universe, an exact similarity of the whole Megalocosmos. 

“And indeed, each of them is the image of God, not of that ‘God’ which they have in their bobtailed picturings, but of the real God, by which word we sometimes still call our common Megalocosmos. (pp. 774-5)

 In order to understand how a three-brained being could embody the whole of the “Megalocosmos,” we will have to consider the creation processes elaborated by Beelzebub, the fundamental principles of world-creation and world-maintenance, and assorted esoteric teachings about the lost science and knowledge of the soul.

 Beelzebub further refers to three-brained beings as potentially “a particle of all that exists,” and as, “beings having in their presences every possibility for becoming particles of a part of Divinity ....”  (pp. 162 & 452)  On another occasion, Beelzebub talks of his efforts to fulfill his being obligations and duties in order to be worthy of “becoming a particle though an independent one, of everything existing in the Great Universe.”  (p. 183)  What great possibilities are inherent even to those peculiar three-brained beings on planet Earth, but how low have they fallen and now all their ‘maleficent fictions’ confuse ever more their ‘bobtailed reason!’

 A soul is not given to a human being but must be acquired.  Unfortunately, the cosmic catastrophes which occurred to the Earth and the miscalculations regarding the organ Kundabuffer led to the emergence of a strange breed on that ill-fated planet.  According to Beelzebub, they are willing to believe any old tale and have innumerable other unnatural and unbecoming traits and characteristics formed in their presences; all ultimately due to the crystallization of the consequences of the properties of the organ Kundabuffer.  Humans are lulled into sleep, convinced they are eagles and magicians, and that they will never be shorn or turned to fertilizer.   Humans miss the mark and do not establish their own inner triangle or sevenfold nature, and thus fail to complete the inner cosmic octaves required in order to blend again with the Most Most Holy Sun Absolute. 

Human beings are potentially similitudes of the whole–particles of the Great Universe–with deep hidden roots within vaster dimensions of being and non-being.  Behind essence is real I, behind real I, is God, or at least the Most Most Holy Sun Absolute.  Beelzebub’s tales to his grandson Hassein provide strange and provocative insights into the nature of those peculiar three-brained beings breeding on the planet Earth.