Orage’s Farewell Address to NY Groups upon departing to England May 1930
“We are still far from that order of Being…that can do without meeting or a director. There is a difference between a group and a circle: the latter meet for themselves individually, to help each other and to help a common cause, ‘to make the world safe for consciousness.’ Very few of us have a sense of…three responsibilities even after six years. Some have a sense of one. The first sense of individual responsibility is that unless I spend my day advantageously from the point of view of consciousness and development, I am lapsing, or disloyal. This is consciousness of the first side of the triangle.
“The second responsibility is toward our neighbors, the members of our tribe also striving for consciousness. When you can say that no wave of circumstance is so high that you are submerged and lose sight of the method, you have developed consciousness of the second center. This is the first crystallization of individuality. And still I hear people complain that in a crisis, it is ‘trifling’ to talk of the method at such a time!
“The third form of consciousness requisite for membership in a circle has to do with the work, in which respect I think we are weakest. Jesus’ personality…was not different from ours. He was not an occultist — not a Californian. He spoke of Living Jerusalem as the City of God — the circle of workers. His passion for Jerusalem was divinely paternal or parental. Theosophical literature speaks of the masters as ‘the elder brothers of the race’ — an ideal of a being who could not but be as an elder brother… (C)onsider the quality which in a group distinguishes some as ‘elders’. When it is really present, it indicates a state of being and a third center of gravity.
“When a being has all three of these kinds of consciousness, he can be either a circumference or a center in a circle. Such members of a circle have a communion which is not perceptible but…rises from their common understanding, their ability to be in each other’s places. It becomes unnecessary for them to meet. You will realize how far it is necessary for us to go before we reach this state…
“I have a conviction that if one of us has a problem that might impede the development of a group into a circle, it can be discussed objectively… But can we ever trust the majority of us not to misunderstand, or not to betray confidences?
“A group must be selected which can be trusted to discuss problems as if we were dead and holding a post mortem. Also it is necessary that this group should make a greater impression on the community. In six years the impression we have made is almost entirely bad, associated with cult-like beliefs. We are more like Californians than like Akhaldans.
“The kind of works that must be undertaken by a working group here are the establishment of a school like the Pythagorean, only not under a roof; an organization without organization. Take some subject in which you are relatively expert and start a group — if you are developing, there will percolate into the group something of this magnetic influence. Not everybody can undertake such groups, but teaching must be done — teaching of the ideas — and it must be done in connection with the technique in which individuals are skilled. If such groups were formed, they could be independent, like planets in relation to a sun which is the source of inspiration. I suggest that this work become obligatory in the New Year, with the threat that, unless in eight months you are a candidate for such work, you will either be compelled to attend a beginner’s group or no group at all…
“I want to remind you once more of certain principles which you understand — to your peril, as St. Paul said to those who were hearers and not doers; for if they had not heard, their not doing would have been without sin. Having heard, you incur the responsibility of doing.
“The end and aim of the method is to attain the state of being in which your planetary body and all its possibilities become yours to exploit. The psyche comes into possession of a planetary body, and by the law of reciprocal feeding, planetary food is eaten and transformed until it participates in higher states of being. Our feeding upon nature is a transformation into higher substances. And when I feed upon Orage, through self-observation, participation and experimentation, Orage does not suffer but comes up a step. I divinize my planetary body by feeding upon it. Self-creation by reciprocal feeding between psyche and planetary body is the end of the method. This attainment of the ability to exploit the planetary body is a common, as well as an individual, responsibility of all three-centered beings. There is cosmic development corresponding to that of the individual three-centered microcosm… —Orage with Gurdjieff in America, Louise Welch
Mme. de Salzmann
There is a time for everything. I speak of the form that our work today has taken, of groups, and of the possibility that has been created.
If this possibility is not sufficiently realized, this form will degenerate by itself, and will never give birth to a new…form, with a new possibility. Forms do not invent themselves. They arise from the need to work together that certain elements feel is necessary to preserve their existence.
…I need to collaborate in a common effort of ascent. If I do not, whether or not I wish it, I am responsible for the stone I do not bring to the edifice… —The Reality of Being – 56. This Form
Gurdjieff
“There is no particular benefit in the existence of groups in themselves and there is no particular merit in belonging to groups. The benefit or usefulness of groups is determined by their results… —In Search of the Miraculous – Chapter 11