The Domain of Automatic Thought
The Siren Song of Automatized Thought
The Tales is not a comforting read. It was written “to-corrode-without-mercy-all-the-rubbish-accumulated-during-the-ages-in-human-mentation”. Among the many observations Gurdjieff delivers concerning the unfortunate state of humanity, one stands out as particularly relevant to our contemporary era of perpetual digital chatter and instant expertise: the crippling epidemic of intellectual automatism and the scarcity, if not the death of genuine logical mentation.
The modern reader of The Tales, already accustomed to the “bon ton literary language” of our day, has acquired an “ideally well working automatism for perceiving all kinds of new impressions”. This “blessing” means that no individual effort whatsoever is required for their digestion.
Most people operate from within a “fictitious consciousness”, which Gurdjieff asserts is mistakenly taken for the real one. Man has lost the capacity to ponder and reflect deeply on what he hears or reads. He has developed a type of consciousness—or lack thereof—that is incapable of forming genuine, subjective being-convictions derived from logical deliberation.
This is a departure from the inherent capability of a healthy three-brained being and a characteristic of our epoch.
The Problem of the Pseudo-Learned
Our intellectual decline is perhaps most evident in the class of people frequently satirized throughout the Tales: the “learned beings” and writers. In recent times, few professional “writers” invent anything really by themselves; they usually plagiarize ideas from existing books, slotting them together with honeyed words to make a “new book”. “Learned” individuals often congregate to pontificate on questions that are either beyond their understanding or about which they cannot elucidate anything useful.
Gurdjieff calls out Tolstoy, a writer who decided to improve on the Gospel, which he found wanting, with his own “more cultured” version. The products of this ilk engender a culture of intellectual superficiality. Contemporary literature focuses not on the quality of thought but on “exterior polish” or “beauty of style,” resulting in “word prostitution”.
The Tyranny of External Opinion
The consequences of our intellectual void are devastating. They promote a psychological state where one’s beliefs are dictated entirely by external affirmation—an echo chamber effect long ago noted by Beelzebub. He notes that a new understanding becomes crystallized in us only if one person, like “John Smith,” says something, and “then if John Brown says the same, we become quite convinced it is just so and couldn’t possibly be otherwise”. Their convictions depend exclusively on what others say about the given question. Journalism, in particular, is singled out as a “fundamental evil”, which accelerates this decay, leading to the atrophy of the capacity for self-cognizance. The media, the “evil-sowers”, are devoted to sensationalism, leading to a “continuous doubt about everything”. This is further exacerbated by “advertising”.
The Escape Route
To break free from the habitual state of reading and accepting external notions, the reader must cease merely being a recipient and instead cultivate active, impartial mentation. This difficult struggle requires the development of definite sacred impulses, defined by the notions of “I can,” “I wish,” and “the entire sensing of the whole of oneself”. These capacities, which Gurdjieff considers necessary for a man, are overwhelmingly neglected in favor of immediate, superficial satisfaction.