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Witness: The Story of a Search (The Collected Works of J.G. Bennett) (Volume 7)

J. G. Bennett · 1 HN comments
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Amazon Summary
This is the story of a life of adventure and search, an account of meetings with great teachers, a love story, an inspirational tale of one of the greatest minds of the 20th century. John Bennett (1897-1974) had not one career but several; starting his life as a soldier and spymaster in the early years of the Middle East conflicts, Bennett moved into - and failed - in the world of finance as an adventurer and entrepreneur. He reinvented himself as a world-leading technologist and director of research. All through his adult life, his outer life was on a parallel and sometimes divergent course to his inner spiritual search under the guidance of P.D. Ouspensky and G.I. Gurdjieff. After his career in the coal industry came to an abrupt end in his sixth decade, he entered the path of a single-minded seeker. For fifteen years, he travelled widely, seeking knowledge and sharing knowledge. Although he began a written account of his ideas in 1940, it was only in the last four years of his life that he declared his willingness to teach and worked intensively with large groups of students at his International Academy for Continuous Education. Subsequent history has revealed over and over that Bennett was ahead of his time, and that he developed and presented a vision of the next stage of evolution of humanity in the Synergic Epoch.
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The answer to your question is I don't know. I guess I'm agnostic. He's too hard to assess objectively, and the resources to do it aren't available. By the way, there is a recent documentary about Reich that I haven't watched yet: https://vimeo.com/ondemand/wr1897.

> I'll see that and raise you Gurdjieff's Fourth Way embedded in the middle of "Meaning of Life" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O2QJvc_SxFQ

Wow! That's incredible, and would have gone over my head when I saw the movie as a kid.

I wonder which Python was into that stuff. Perhaps Cleese? Edit: looks like it: https://theweek.com/articles/677504/john-cleeses-6-favorite-..., https://www.nytimes.com/1988/12/25/magazine/cleese-up-close..... Maurice Nicoll is another character; an early UK psychiatrist and son of a prominent Victorian critic, who was Jung's British colleague. Jung was asking him to lead his work in England, but by then Nicoll fell into the Gurdjieff/Ouspensky orbit and ran off to Fontainebleau. The books Cleese is referencing ("Psychological Commentaries" [etc.]) are Nicoll's lectures to his Gurdjieff group that went on through WWII until he died in the 1950s. They're a strange mix of sharp psychological observation and impenetrable esoterica.

If you're interested in Gurdjieff's influence in Britain, I recommend the memoir of J.G. Bennett, who encountered both Gurdjieff and Ouspensky when he was running British intelligence in Constantinople just after WWI: https://www.amazon.com/Witness-Story-Search-Collected-Bennet.... As an old man in the early 70s he became the spiritual teacher of a lot of English hippies, eventually including, of all people, Robert Fripp. You can hear Bennett's voice at the beginning of Fripp's new-wave dance record (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nPQWHEu_rqQ), which also went over my head when I was a kid and frankly creeped me out. But what a great record! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nPQWHEu_rqQ#t=12m

carapace
> The answer to your question is I don't know. I guess I'm agnostic. He's too hard to assess objectively, and the resources to do it aren't available.

Eh? There are a handful of Reichian therapists around, cloudbusters are pretty cheap to make, I don't think they'll arrest you for building an orgone accumulator, etc.

I'm not seriously suggesting you go out and mess around with this stuff but I'm curious about your motivation. Did you just read about it and never try any of it?

I was looking to cure my depression so I tried things. Now my depression is cured but I feel like a visitor from the future. I went too far too fast, raced out ahead of consensus reality, and now I have a kind of reverse futureshock. I can feel a rant coming on so I'll cool it. I'm bored and lonely and everyone's problems seem so simple and easy to solve... Y U NO Golden Age already Humanity!?

Aaaaaaanyway...

> I wonder which Python was into that stuff. Perhaps Cleese?

Yeah. He used to have an old flash site and there was a video there of him doing a kind of talking-head fireside chat bit, and halfway through that he starts talking about Gurdjieff. Blew me away. After that, I guess I was primed to see it, that scene I mean. It's incredible to think that they wrote that and filmed it and stuck it in there as a killer joke: the Meaning of Life is in "The Meaning of Life".

It's interesting how they set it up: there's basically a post-hypnotic suggestion to get distracted and then sudden attack by the Crimson Assurance acts as an amnesia induction pattern.

I wonder if they told anyone? I mean there had to be a group of people in on the joke, yeah? I've never heard of anyone else noticing that scene and making the connection to Gurdjieff, but then I don't get out much. At all. (I'm kind of a recluse. In fact, this HN account is pretty much my only connection to the outside world. Great work btw dang. I can't tell you how grateful I am to you for all you do. I owe you. If you're ever in Southwestern SF and want to experience some Chi or other weird shit get in touch.)

I met John Cleese once and roundly failed to serve him popcorn. I was working at a movie theater in Santa Barbara and he came in with a date to see "In the Name of the Father". Slow night. Empty lobby. I looked up and there he was. He's tall. Over six feet. I managed a sentence or two before I just started stammering. One of the other kids had to step up and serve him while I leaned against the wall and just gaped like a fish. He was ver British, didn't notice, might have been waiting to catch a bus. I thought that was wonderful of him, and his date was really enjoying it. :) They left via the side door... heh

> If you're interested in Gurdjieff's influence in Britain

Nah, like I said, once my depression was cured I lost interest. Not proud of it but there it is.

Cheers dude, well met!

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