Brain Systems Appendix D: The Nature of Shocks

New students have questions about the world, the nature of the “sleeping men” mentioned in Fourth Way literature and literally about the “distance” between a man who has begun his own work and the others who he has “left behind.” Unnecessary suspicions about cults and elitist, secret societies arise for new students in less than accurate perspective. This paper on “shocks” addresses some of the more frequent inquiries.

As for its content, it contains the story of the clams and the story of stale air. It reflects my interest in the constant reliance by these new students on points of reference to life experiences found in movies. It addresses topics such as automatic speech, their questions about life in a sleeping world, Kundabuffer, the difference between “happen and do,” the Trogoautoegocrat, the conduct of my school and their innocent suspicion about the lack of agreement in men.

The paper includes a reference to Gurdjieff’s lecture concerning “the line of knowledge and the line of being” with respect to “agreement” and cooperation between men. It has many references to Ouspensky’s In Search of the Miraculous; Gurdjieff’s Beelzebub’s Tales To His Grandson; some things from John Bennett, and the usual reliance on nomenclature from Brain Systems and others.