The Arousing of Thought

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This kind of people among us who have been turned into, so to say, “moths” destroying the good prepared and left for us by our ancestors and by time, have not the slightest notion and have probably never even heard of the screamingly obvious fact that, during the preparatory age, there is acquired in the brain functioning of every creature, and of man also, a particular and definite property, the automatic actualization and manifestation of which the ancient Korkolans called the “law of association,” and that the process of the mentation of every creature, especially man, flows exclusively in accordance with this law.

In view of the fact that I have happened here accidentally to touch upon a question which has lately become one of my so to speak “hobbies,” namely, the process of human mentation, I consider it possible, without waiting for the corresponding place predetermined by me for the elucidation of this question, to state already now in this first chapter at least something concerning that axiom which has accidentally become known to me, that on Earth in the past it has been usual in every century that every man, in whom there arises the boldness to attain the right to be considered by others and to consider himself a “conscious thinker,” should be informed while still in the early years of his responsible existence that man has in general two kinds of mentation: one kind, mentation by thought, in which words, always possessing a relative sense, are employed; and the other kind, which is proper to all animals as well as to man, which I would call “mentation by form.”

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Moth

Note that “moth” is a New Testament symbol, which can be found in Matthew vi.19-20, as follows:

Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal:

But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal:

Korkolans

Korkolans possibly refers to the inhabitants of Koorkalai, the capital city of Tikliamish, which Gurdjieff introduces on Beelzebub’s second descent. If that’s the case, he has deliberately misspelled the word, omitting the second “o.”

The text of The Tales clearly depicts Tikliamish as an intellectual culture, and hence it is credible that the Korkolans formulated a “law of association.”

We have not yet been able to find an alternative to this.

process of mentation

The statement that “the process of the mentation of every creature, especially man, flows exclusively in accordance with” association, is worthy of pondering and observation. Earlier in the text, referring to the Greek language, Gurdjieff writes:

...which I spoke in childhood and, as might be said, the “taste of the automatic associative power of which” I still retain.

Without explanation, Gurdjieff states that languages are imbued with “automatic associative power.”

hobbies

hobby: c. 1400, hobi, "small, active horse," short for hobyn (mid-14c.; late 13c. in Anglo-Latin), probably originally a proper name for a horse.

The modern sense of "a favorite pursuit, object, or topic" is from 1816, a shortening of hobbyhorse in this sense, which is attested from 1670s. Earlier it meant "a wooden or wickerwork figure of a horse," as a child's toy or a costume in the morris-dance, the connecting notion being "activity that doesn't go anywhere."

two kinds of mentation

Explained by Gurdjieff in the paragraphs that follow, the idea of two kinds of mentation is critical to understanding much of The Tales.