Monthly Archives: April 2022

Tips on Reading Beelzebub’s Tales, Part 2: Outlining

In his Third Series, Gurdjieff instructs his students to familiarize themselves enough with Beelzebub’s Tales to where he could mention the chapter number and the student would know overall the contents of that chapter for further detailed discussion:

“…[E]ach of you should cease entirely, at least for three months, the reading of your newspapers and magazines, and during this time should become as well acquainted as possible with the contents of all three books of the first series of my writings entitled An Objectively Impartial Criticism of the Life of Man…

An all-round acquaintance with the contents of these three books is necessary also in order that when I personally, or the mentioned instructors, speak during our general meetings about some question which in the given moment is the center-of-gravity question, and speak about its details, we may, for the purpose of economizing time, simply refer to the corresponding chapter in this first series, and you, already having preliminary information about this, may easily assimilate what we shall subsequently develop in detail.

For example, intending in today’s meeting to speak about a question which is based on data I have already more or less elucidated in the last chapter of the third book, namely in the chapter entitled “From the Author,” the deliberations on the proposed question today should be as a continuation of this chapter.

Well, if you were all well-informed of its contents, then I could for the purpose of economizing time refer to the requisite passages, but now I shall be compelled to waste time on reading to you certain extracts.”

Previously, I gave some tips on reading Beelzebub’s Tales. While reading, one helpful method for remembering Beelzebub’s Tales at the level mentioned above is to outline each chapter.

Below is a sample outline that takes each chapter and notes, very broadly, when important characters are introduced, or major events take place, or major topics are touched upon.

Purpose of Three Series

Friendly Advice

  1. The Arousing of Thought
      1. Opening prayer
      2. Mentation on writing
      3. Bon-ton literary language
      4. Beginning with a warning
      5. Mullah Nassr Eddin
      6. Every stick has two ends
      7. Transcaucasian Kurd and red pepper pods
      8. Grandmother’s injunction story
      9. Wisdom tooth story
      10. “If you go on a spree” story
      11. Scope of tales and its protagonist, Beelzebub
      12. Karapet of Tiflis and the train whistle
      13. Concluding signature of the author

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Perennial RPG: Scale and Spirits

Giant versus Human

Giant versus Human

A Problem of Scale

A new problem appeared during playtesting. During mid-tier play (4th-6th level in this system), player feedback was that adversaries they thought should have felt harder to fight were too easy, and I agreed.

To address this, I returned to the perennial principles the game is based on, in this particular case, scale.

The perennial idea transmitted by G.I. Gurdjieff is that we live in a universe of scale.

“…the lines of development of vibrations are divided into periods corresponding to the doubling or the halving of the number of vibrations in a given space of time.”

– In Search of the Miraculous

The example given in this passage relates to music, that each scale up or down is a doubling or halving of the vibration. The whole universe can be regarded this way, starting with the universe as a whole, down to the scale of galaxies, to the scale of solar systems, to the scale of planets, to the scale of our planet, to the scale of humans, to the scale of micro-organism, on and on, each a world unto itself on its own scale.

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