P.L. Travers’s Spiritual Beliefs – The Mary Poppins Effect

Tarot and Mary Poppins

I read Mary Poppins and Mary Poppins Comes Back by P.L. Travers as a child in the early 1980’s in Bulgaria, but when I reread the stories in their original versions a few years ago, and discovered the other books in the series, I was amazed by P.L.Travers’s imagination. As a child I enjoyed the magic in the stories, but I did not give much thought to the author, although the name was on the cover of my book.

As an adult, however, I wondered where P.L. Travers got her whimsical ideas from. When asked about the origin of her magical nanny, she never gave a straight answer. This may be partially explained by her desire to keep people away from her private life. Afterall, she did say in one interview that Mary Poppins was the story of her life, and that she had taken every precaution to cover her tracks. But then in other interviews she said that no one really knows where ideas come from. Her statement about the mystery of the creative writing process is echoed by other contemporary writers such as Philip Pullman and Elizabeth Guilbert.

In Creativity, the Psychology of Discovery and Invention, psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi brings light to some interesting facts about our human creativity, such as the existence of certain commonalities in the personality traits of creatives.

Csikszentmihalyi explains in his book that the creative process does not occur in a vacuum. Most of the time we build on old ideas by combining and reorganizing them in new ways, or by applying ideas from one domain to another. However, the mystery of creation remains. How exactly we combine ideas and morph them into new ones in our minds and why they take the forms they take is still a conundrum.

All P.L. Travers’s writings are sprinkled with esoteric, mythological and fairy tales’ references, as these were her literary and spiritual pursuits. I love dwelling in the world of Mary Poppins and P.L. Travers, and I find the process of uncovering these references in the stories most enjoyable. Yet, I am fully aware that I can only uncover some of the components of the stories and link them to her personal beliefs and interests, without ever being able to explain how she incorporated and organized them into the whimsical Mary Poppins adventures.

I believe that she herself was not entirely conscious of the creative process. Her writing was, at its core, unconscious writing. Her ideas sprang from deep within and then she polished the form. This is at least how I understand her statement about writing Mary Poppins because she was there to be written about. Besides, the adventures in the books all have a dreamlike quality to them, and I doubt this can be achieved to such an extraordinary level of artistry only by rational thinking.

This blog post is about an esoteric reference in Robertson Ay’s Story, a story from Mary Poppins Comes Back, the second book in the series published in 1935. This esoteric reference is the Tarot card of the Fool. I found a few more Tarot references in the Mary Poppins stories but they will be the subject of other blogposts.

As a young writer P.L. Travers gravitated towards the renowned Irish poet and occultist W.B. Yeats, and her literary mentor, the mystic writer, poet, and painter George W. Russel (AE) who was also one of Yeats’s closest friends. Both men knew Pamela Coleman Smith, the illustrator of the most popular Tarot deck today, the Waite/ Ryder deck which was first published in London in 1909. It is also said that W.B. Yeats was an advisor to Pamela Coleman Smith on the mystic symbolism to be incorporated into Waite’s new deck.

Pamela Coleman Smith was a member of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, the secret magical society to which W.B. Yeats also belonged. Between 1903 and 1904 she published, edited, and illustrated the magazine The Green Sheaf which focused on Irish Celtic folklore and mysticism. Both Yeats and AE, who were leading figures of the Celtic Revival, were literary contributors to her magazine.

W.B. Yeats and AE also called Pamela Coleman Smith “Pixie”; a name first given to her by the Victorian actress Ellen Terry. Then some twenty years later, AE began to call P.L. Travers “Pixie” probably because he noticed certain similarities in their personalities and interests. Both women were orphaned at an early age, both loved fairy tales and magic and were interested in theatre, and both displayed a mischievous streak.

The two Pixies were thus connected, although I suspect they never met in person because by the time P.L. Travers entered the artistic/occult scene, Pamela Coleman Smith had abandoned it and converted to Roman Catholicism.

Because of her connections to W.B. Yeats and AE, and her regular attendance at their literary salons, P.L. Travers was familiar with the archetypes of the Tarot. This is what she said about the Tarot card of the Fool to Jonathan Cott during an interview at her house in Chelsea, London.

“Who is Robertson Ay? What is he paid for? He does nothing but sleep? He turns out to be the Fool. Yes, he does, but I didn’t know he was going to turn that way when he cropped up in my mind.

Not unnumbered, but Zero, which is all numbers and no numbers. The Fool is omnipresent, serenely passing through the world – as I said in “The Youngest Brother”- here and there are alike to him.”

The Wisdom of Mary Poppins: Afternoon Tea with P.L. Travers, in Pipers at the Gate of Dawn, The Wisdom of Children’s Literature, Jonathan Cott, 1981

The Tarot is composed of seventy-eight cards, twenty-two Major Arcana cards and fifty-six Minor Arcana cards. The Minor Arcana cards are divided into four suits, each associated with one of the four elements: fire, water, air, and earth. The suit of Pentacles is associated with the earth, the suit of Cups with water, the suit of Wands with fire and the Suit of Swords with air.

The twenty-two Major Arcana cards (meaning Big Secrets) are considered to represent cosmic, energetic patterns that manifest in our human world as opportunities or obstacles to our personal growth, and the Minor Arcana cards (Little Secrets) relate to our individual struggles and challenges in our daily lives. All Major Arcana cards are numbered except for the Fool. The number of the Fool is zero, signifying nothingness, the void from which all things proceed, the field of pure potentiality.

The archetype of the Fool represents pure potential. He lives in the here and now without placing judgments and looks at the world with a childlike innocence and wonder. The Fool in his positive aspect, is the playful, joyful child within us all. When The Fool appears in a reading, he heralds a clearing of the senses and announces a brand-new beginning. His advice is to go with the flow, just go with what is happening and learn from experience.

In the Wait/Ryder deck The Fool is depicted standing on the edge of a precipice or a cliff suggesting that the path regenerates itself with each step; he encourages us to take a leap of faith and trust in life and in ourselves. Notice that the Fool carries a small bundle on a stick as he only takes with him what he needs and nothing more. His advice to us is one of release; to release what no longer serves us. He tells us to keep only the habits and lessons that will help us along our journey.

Mary Poppins tells three fairy tales to the Banks children during her stay with the family. I find it interesting that she does not tell these fairy tales at bedtime as most people do. She only tells a story when the occasion calls for it and as it happens, she tells the story of Robertson Ay in the park during one of their outings.

It is a sunny day in the park and Mary Poppins is sitting on a bench knitting, Anabel and the twins are in the perambulator and Jane and Michael are busy enacting the nursery rhyme I am the King of the Castle and You Are the Dirty Rascal, when out of nowhere a strange figure appears on the path at the edge of the Lake and catches their attention.

“Along the path at the edge of the Lake came a tall, slim figure, curiously dressed. He wore stockings of red striped with yellow, a red-and-yellow tunic scalloped at the edges and on his head was a large-brimmed red-and-yellow hat with a high peaked crown.”

Robertson’s Ay Story, Mary Poppins Comes Back (1935)

The man stops by the bench to greet Mary Poppins, and the children learn that this is the Dirty Rascal, and Robertson Ay, but that is revealed to them only at the end. The children are mystified by the stranger whose face is hidden underneath the large-brimmed hat. When he leaves their company, and to the greatest delight of Jane and Michael, Mary Poppins offers to tell them the story of the Dirty Rascal.

The story is in fact the story of a King who is extremely stupid and uncapable of fulfilling his royal duties. It is the Queen, and the Lord High Chancellor who must step in and do the work. However, they spare no amount of effort to impart some wisdom to the King, alas to no avail. As a last resort, the Queen and the Lord High Chancellor offer a generous reward to whomever succeeds in teaching the King some wisdom.

As is the custom in fairy tales, the reward comes with a steep price for those who fail at the task. The professors who fail to teach the King wisdom are all doomed to have their heads cut off and spiked on the Castle Gates.

All the teachers who come to test their luck lose their heads. The King is crushed by the events and his inability to learn. Then an unexpected visitor arrives, pushes past the sentry at the gate and walks up to the King. The King presents himself as the King of the Castle and the visitor as the Dirty Rascal. They immediately form a strong bond as the Fool shows the King that he does not have to conform to other people’s expectations nor to their understanding of what it means to be intelligent.

In Robertson’s Ay Story, the Fool appears in its positive aspect, a carefree, playful, childlike creature capable of imparting wisdom to the hopelessly stupid King. But he does not teach him in the way all the other teachers tried to. Instead, the Fool incites the King to burn all his books and simply enjoy life. They sing and dance, and laugh to the horror of the Queen and the Lord High Chancellor who see their behavior as being completely foolish and crazy. This highlights another aspect of the Fool archetype. The Fool is the outsider, the one that does not conform to pre-established norms.

At the end of the story, the King is tested by the Chief of all the Professors, the wisest man in the kingdom. The questions asked by the Chief Professor are met with unexpected, but practical answers and the Chief Professor has no other choice but to declare the King to be wise. Wisdom, as P.L. Travers believed, cannot be taught, it can only be acquired through lived experience; a dance through life. To understand something, she said one must stand under it. Factual knowledge can only get us so far, something else is required of us to live an authentic life.

When the Fool appears in a Tarot reading, it often signifies a new journey, a new beginning and this is exactly how the story of Robertson’s Ay ends with the beginning of a new journey for the King. Once the King realizes that what others think about him has no importance whatsoever, he realizes that he has no desire to be King. Together with the Dirty Rascal, the King climbs on a rainbow that has suddenly appeared in the sky and throws down his crown and scepter, thus shedding his old identity.

Interestingly, the rainbow appears on another Tarot Card, the 10 of Cups, and I am thinking that I will have to explore this element of the story in a future blog post. For now, I hope you enjoyed reading this blog post as much as I enjoyed writing it.

Midsummer’s Eve with Mary Poppins

Bulgarian Mary Poppins in Cherry Tree Lane

Cover illustration by Piers Stanford, 1994

Yesterday, as a celebration of the summer solstice, I read the Bulgarian translation of the fifth Mary Poppins book, Mary Poppins in Cherry Tree Lane. The Bulgarian edition in my possession was published in 2004 and is translated by Anelia Ianeva.

It is Midsummer’s Eve and Mary Poppins takes the Banks children for an evening picnic in the park.

Mary Poppins in Cherry Tree Lane

Illustration by Mary Shepard

There, in the furthest corner of the park, in the herb garden, they feast and dance with celestial constellations who have taken the shape of their appellations: Orion, Castor and Pollux, the Bear, the Fox (or Vulpecula in Latin) named in the late 17th century by the astronomer Johannes Hevelius, and the Rabbit (or Lepus in Latin), a constellation that was listed in the 2^nd century by Ptolemy. PL Travers was interested in astrology and like a pastry chef fond of sugar, she sprinkled her Mary Poppins books with stars and constellations.

Mary Poppins celebration Midsummers Eve

Illustration by Mary Shepard

Down a lane in the park comes Ellen, the maid, strolling backwards with her eyes closed. She had put herbs under her pillow the night before and now is on her way to meet her true love.

Ellen the maid Mary Poppins

Illustration by Mary Shepard

The lonely Park Keeper decides, rather uncharacteristically, to try his luck. He follows suit only to bump into Mary Poppins. Afterall, opposites attract. What better match for a rigid man overly concerned with rules.

Mary Poppins and the Park Keeper

Illustration by Mary Shepard

The Bulgarian translation of the story, just like the translation of Mary Poppins, is loyal to the original text, but there is one interesting modification. Midsummer’s Eve is translated for the corresponding Bulgarian folk holiday Eniovden.

On Eniovden, according to old Bulgarian beliefs the celestial lights “go crazy”. At midnight, the sky opens and miracles happen. The stars descend on Earth and bathe in the cold waves of the sea. People gather herbs because on this day the herbs’ healing powers are at their peak. Young women perform divination rituals and put herbs under their pillows in the hope that their dreams will reveal their husbands-to-be. On Eniovden there is also a custom of making offerings of fresh cherries to the deceased.

Surprisingly, these old Bulgarian customs are reflected in Mary Poppins in Cherry Tree Lane, first published in 1982. Aren’t these similarities of beliefs between two different cultures fascinating? I am certain P.L. Travers would have been interested to hear about Eniovden. Then, maybe she did.

I have two editions of Mary Poppins in Cherry Tree Lane but none of them contain any illustrations. The Bulgarian one does! What a nice surprise for a Mary Poppins nerd like myself.

Happy Summer Solstice!

Who Are You Monsieur Gurdjieff?

Who Are You Monsieur Gurdjieff cover page

In this post I want to continue the exploration of Gurdjieff’s use of meals as a function of his spiritual teachings. And, René Zuber’s book Who Are You Monsieur Gurdjieff? is just perfect for this purpose. Zuber was a French writer and photographer, and a pupil of Gurdjieff.

In her Foreword of the English translation of Who Are You Monsieur Gurdjieff? P.L. Travers qualified Zuber’s testimony about his experience of Gurdjieff’s teaching strategies as being “fresh, vivid, wholly unprejudiced” .

First published in France in 1977, Zuber’s account of his time with Gurdjieff during the German occupation of Paris was translated in English by one of P.L. Travers’s friends and a fellow member of the Gurdjieff tribe, Jenny Koralek, herself an author of children’s books. The English translation of the book was first published in Great Britain in 1980.

I purchased an old copy of Who Are You Monsieur Gurdjieff? online, without knowing anything about Zuber and the fact that he wrote his book in French, which turned out to be a lucky ignorance on my part because had I purchased the French edition, I would have missed P.L. Travers’s Foreword. Of course, I interpreted this lucky coincidence as maybe P.L. Travers sending me a wink from the beyond, but that’s just me, and I don’t expect the readers of this post to share my interpretation of this coincidence.

Who Are You Monsieur Gurdjieff Foreword Page

The reason why I chose this book was its title. I wanted to know who Gurdjieff was and a book by one of his pupils asking this same question was intriguing to me. I admit, sometimes I choose books by their titles!

Zuber’s questions “How can we think of Gurdjieff? As a musician? Choreographer? Writer? Physician? Psychiatrist? Master Cook?” remain largely unanswered, because Gurdjieff was paradoxically all of the above (without the conventional credentials) and none of the above. His talents composed a peculiar composite that defied labels of any kind. And, I believe that it is precisely because of his shapeshifting abilities that Gurdjieff was so fascinating to his pupils.

In her Foreword P.L. Travers vouched for the veracity of Zuber’s account of Gurdjieff. She wrote that Zuber’s “testimony shows him to be a perceptive and veracious member of this tribe.” I read these words as a confirmation of the resonance between her experiences and memories of Gurdjieff and those of René Zuber.

P.L. Travers wrote in her article George Ivanovitch Gurdjieff (1977-1949) about how Gurdjieff shattered to pieces the egos of his pupils to make place for the arising of a new awareness in their consciousness.

…or assisting at one of Gurdjieff’s great feasts where, under the influence of good food, vodka and the watchful eye of the Master, opportunities were provided, for those who had the courage, to come face to face with themselves.

(…)

“If take, then take!” was one of his favourite aphorisms—no sipping, no trifling—and for many the special nourishment that was offered in addition to the delicious edibles was indigestible, hard to stomach. The exotic flavours and the vodka in which the famous “Toasts to the Idiots” were drunk (Gr. idiotes, private person, that which in myself I am) did not make things easier. But easiness was not the aim. The patriarchal host, massive of presence, radiating a serene power at once formidable and reassuring, dispensed this “food” in various ways, always unexpected; sometimes in thunderclaps of rage, sometimes telling a story that only one of all the table would know was meant for himself, sometimes merely by look or gesture thrusting home the truth. Masks were stripped off mercilessly. Beneath the exacting benevolence of his gaze everyone was naked. But occasionally, for those who could face their situation Gurdjieff, always fleetingly, would let his own mask fall. It was possible then to see that behind the apparent mercilessness stood sorrow and compassion.

P.L. Travers

Zuber’s description of Gurdjieff’s meals is very similar to that of P.L. Travers:

When Mr. Gurdjieff was nearby it was impossible to sleep in piece. Nobody was safe from being tripped up and sent flying. It is a wonder that there were not more broken bones. His table, at the end of a meal, when a great silence fell to make way for the questions of his pupils, resembled the mat in a judo club.

At first glance Who Are You Monsieur Gurdjieff? appears to be just a small booklet of 75 pages. But for me it happens to be so much more. It is a magical portal to another time and place, that of a small Parisian apartment at 6, Rue des Colonels Rénard in 1943, during the German occupation of Paris.

Here is Zuber’s description of this dark period in time:

Paris during the war, under German occupation, was in the grip of the blackout: if the slightest ray of light filtered through a window it had to be smothered quickly and the curtains more tightly drawn. The city was under curfew: no one would have dared on pain of death, to go out into the deserted streets after eleven o’clock at night. It was the reign of what we called the ‘restrictions’, that is to say, of organised poverty, with its corollary, obsession with food; not to mention the constant hammering of Nazi propaganda which tried, in vain, to rob the Parisians of their last glimmer of hope.

I don’t have a picture of the building at 6, Rue des Colonels Rénard from 1943 but I found a street view on Google, taken in April 2018. The Building is still there, and I wonder if its current occupants know of its history.

Street view Gurdjieff flat 3

Street view Gurdjieff flat

Amazingly, Gurdjieff, even though a foreigner with suspicious appearance, described by Zuber as “a Macedonian smuggler or an old Cretan capetan”, found his way around occupied Paris and always had exotic food on his table.

Not only is Who Are You Monsieur Gurdjieff? beautifully written but it is also very candid. Zuber discusses his doubts about Gurdjieff, about his need to categorize him and pin down the sources of his teachings. And despite the fact that a personal relationship is almost impossible to translate in words, Zuber’s recollections provide the reader with a vivid description of Gurdjieff’s meals and a subtle hint of what it might have felt to be a pupil of Gurdjieff.

While reading this little book I felt like a small fly on the wall of the “ordinary bourgeois dining room” in Gurdjieff’s first-floor apartment overflowing with guests sitting on “ill-sorted chairs” that “could have come from any saleroom” and listening to the conversations and the famous Toasts to the Idiots.

I’ve always wondered why his pupils submitted themselves to this humiliating exercise and Zuber gave me an interesting explanation; the ritual of the toasts was a “play of mirrors where others served as reflections of our own image.”

But could one trust these projected images? It was, I believe, a dangerous game to walk into Gurdjieff’s hall of mirrors. Maybe this is what Zuber intended to communicate when he wrote “I do not know how to sum up the highly varied impressions we experienced during these dinners.”

Apparently, Gurdjieff’s meals always began in silence; the conversations were kept for the end because Gurdjieff considered eating as a “sacred act” by which we absorb and assimilate the “first food”.

This act asks for our appreciation. It has the value of a call to order since it brings us into communion with the natural forces which we constantly forget we depend upon. It cannot be done in the way one gives swill to a pig, while the mind and feelings are given over to their own affairs or dreams.

Zuber, like other pupils of Gurdjieff report of his culinary talents. Zuber writes that Gurdjieff cooked like “a gourmet with the knowledge of a scientist. (…) He cooked scientifically, like a dietician who foresees the action on the organism of each dish, each flavouring, each spice.”

I loved reading Zuber’s description of the human chain made by the pupils between the dining room and Gurdjieff’s kitchen, the “passing the plates from one person to another, empty on their way out, laden on their way back.” For Zuber this chain was an allusion to the “great chain which exists everywhere in the universe between substances (or energies) of different levels”.

With all distinctions as to age, size and sex abolished, the chain, when formed functioned as a whole. At one end, Mr. Gurdjieff took the dishes from the oven, carved the meat or poultry, and, with supreme authority, shared out the helpings. At the other end, the food was kept warm on plates covered by soup bowls. When this ballet was over the circle would close around, and together we would eat the extraordinary fare Mr. Gurdjieff had prepared for us.

For me the description above evoked an image of little orphans lined up to receive a bowl of soup. I could easily imagine P.L. Travers holding her place in the chain and feeling as being part of a family. She, as well as the rest of the followers, found in Gurdjieff a father figure dispensing food and wisdom. But, in order to be factually accurate, P.L. Travers was not present at these dinners 6, Rue des Colonels Rénard. At that time, she and her adopted son lived in New York.

Who Are You Monsieur Gurdjieff 2

In the Kitchen with Gurdjieff

Gurdjieff Special Meals

Pamela L. Travers’s spiritual teacher G. I. Gurdjieff had many talents, but his ability to stimulate other people’s imaginations was the one that served him best. His stories, allegories, music, dances and exotic meals were the magical tools which he used to provide those unsatisfied by their ordinary existence with a glimpse of something mysterious, a promise of a way towards a higher state of being and of experiencing reality.

In some way, he was the real-life Wizard of Oz. A gifted man, an original and highly individuated one, but no wizard, except in the eyes of his followers. Did his teachings, the green tinted glasses attached to the eyes of his pupils, improve their life experience? Well, the answer to this question is beyond the scope of this blogpost.

However, after reading extensively on the subject of Gurdjieff, I am convinced that he possessed vast religious and esoteric knowledge. And, I do believe that in his youth he was a true spiritual seeker. It’s just that at one point in his life he decided that he had found all the answers and that it was time for him to start teaching others. I am not convinced that his Fourth Way was (is) the right way for spiritual growth, meaning that I doubt that his teaching techniques were beneficial to his followers. More on this subject in another post.

In this post I want to explore Gurdjieff’s use of food as a function of his teachings. He used different teaching methods at different periods of his activities but during the last period of his life, meals became an important component of his modus operandi.

It is important to compose a dish in its correctly blended elements as a composition of music or the colors in painting. Harmony in scale. Must have much knowledge to be a good cook. A culinary doctor.

G.I. Gurdjieff

A “culinary doctor”? What did he mean exactly? Was he referring to some special culinary knowledge? Was that knowledge related to some healing combination of the three types of food necessary for the nourishment of the three-brained system of the human being?

Now, for those of you not familiar with the concept of the “three-brained beings”, note that Gurdjieff believed that man was a machine, an unconscious automaton reacting impulsively to his external environment with the function of one of his three “brains”, the physical, mental and emotional. According to Gurdjieff our three brains are invariably at odds with each other, and, it is precisely this inner disharmony of the functions of the human inner workings that cause the fragmentation of our psyches into many different “I”s. The sensation in the average person of a unified “I” is an illusion.

Gurdjieff held that the average man is unaware of his multiplicity, sleepwalking through his life. Only a man who has awaken and has struggled to integrate the functions of his three brains into one harmoniously working unity, is a real man. And, only a real man is able to perceive the terror of his situation, his fate, which is to fulfill the organic cosmic needs of nature.

Gurdjieff’s cosmology proposes that the purpose of organic life on our planet is to provide the energy needed to sustain the Moon, and that energy is liberated through the process of death. Once a man has recognised his fate, he could by the exertion of his will (the concept of intentional suffering) have a chance at developing a soul that could outlive the death of his physical body. (Note to readers: Please keep in mind that this is only a simple over-view of Gurdjieff’s system synthesised for the purposes of this post.)

Now let’s examine how Gurdjieff conceived of the nourishment of our three-brained system.

Mr. Gurdjieff next drew a scheme of the human body and compared it to a three-storied factory, the stories being represented by the head, chest and abdomen. Taken together the factory forms a complete whole> (…) and he explained that while the food of the lower story was man’s meat and drink, air was the food of the middle story, and that of the upper story was what could be called “impressions”.

Glimpses of Truth, Views from the Real World

Gurdjieff held that the air, the “second-being food”, nourishes the mind (and on a physical level we all know that the brain needs oxygen to survive) and helps build the astral body which he called the “Kesdjan body”. The third type of food, the “impressions” are the emotional records of all of our life experiences.

Since Gurdjieff believed only in experienced based knowledge, then the logical conclusion is that his concept of the alignment of the functions of the three brains is absolutely necessary for the construction of the soul. Hence, the “right” ideas can only be asserted as being right if experienced with the body, mind and heart.

Gurdjieff claimed to be a teacher of “Esoteric Christianity” and from that standpoint we can easily extrapolate that Jesus’s custom of sharing meals with others was Gurdjieff’s source of inspiration for his habit of serving food to his pupils. Gurdjieff, a keen observer of our human nature, must have realised the connecting power of this ritual. His daughter, Dushka Howart, confirms the teaching function of Gurdjieff’s meals in the shared memoir with her mother, Jessmin Howarth:

Much that was said at table had very personal application to the person addressed, but it could also be understood on different levels, in various ways, (or maybe not at all!) by others present.”

“It’s Up to Ourselves” A Mother, A Daughter, and Gurdjieff

A Shared Memoir and Family Photo Album

By Jessmin and Dushka Howarth

Obviously, to succeed in creating his versions of The Last Supper Gurdjieff had to have a talent for cooking.

cooking cabinet

Dushka reports of this talent. Once Gurdjieff, expecting important quests for lunch charged his nephew Valia to roast four chickens in the oven. Unfortunately, Valia failed to pull them out of the oven in time.

Mastering his rage and disappointment, Gurdjieff strode off toward the kitchen. With a quick twist of hand he tore off the skin which stuck to the burned carcasses of the birds. A few spoonfuls of butter, some cream, onion, garlic powder and some spices transformed into a delicacy what was a hopeless disaster a few moments ago.”

“It’s Up to Ourselves” A Mother, A Daughter, and Gurdjieff

A Shared Memoir and Family Photo Album

By Jessmin and Dushka Howarth

Gurdjieff concocted exotic dishes and turned his table into a dramatic stage where he acted as the master tamer of egos, administering the necessary external shocks that he believed were necessary to awaken his pupils from their identification to their thoughts and emotions. His provocative remarks, the famous ritual of the Armagnac Toasts to the Idiots, the readings from his books and the music he played on his harmonium after the meals, assisted him in opening up his pupils to new “impressions”.

Gurdjieff handed down four books to posterity but unfortunately none of them was a cookery book. There is however Gurdjieff’s famous marinated salad for which Dushka generously provides the recipe in her family memoir.

What he called his “salad” was a soupy, highly seasoned mixture of raw vegetables that was nearer to a chunky “gazpacho”. Ripe tomatos, cucumbers, onions, dill pickles, herbs and spices were marinated to a thick consistency, redolent of fresh dill, fruit juices and gingery chutney. It was offered in a small bowl and was especially succulent with the smoothing addition of smetana (sour cream).

“It’s Up to Ourselves” A Mother, A Daughter, and Gurdjieff

A Shared Memoir and Family Photo Album

By Jessmin and Dushka Howarth

Obviously, I wanted to have a taste of the salad, but unfortunately the measurements in the recipe are “for three hundred forty-six cup-sized servings …” . I decided that the effort to reduce the measurements to something more reasonable would be futile given the fact that I have never tasted the salad before. How would I know if the result is accurate? So instead, I made Russian borsch. I know he served borsch to his pupils.

Tobias Churton’s Deconstruction of Gurdjieff

Cover Deconstructing Gurdjieff

P.L. Travers was a pupil and a lifelong follower of the somewhat controversial spiritual teacher G.I. Gurdjieff. And, it must be stressed right from the start that his teachings are difficult to grasp by people not versed in esotericism. I know I struggled with them enormously at the beginning. And those who are less spiritually inclined readily categorize him as a charlatan. The debate remains.

Gurdjieff was a peculiar character. He did some strange things and, on some occasions, gave downright weird advice to his followers. But then, he also told them not to take anything at face value. His teaching methods were unorthodox, and they did involve humiliation tactics in a group work dynamic, and forced alcohol consumption in the form of the ritual “Toasts to the Idiots.” He believed that human beings needed shocks from outside in order to awaken to their inner truth.

He also used drugs and hormones with a closed group of his pupils known as the Rope. Peculiar or not, he managed to create a system and a following to our present days, and thus he deserves to be taken seriously even if only to understand the psyche of the people who needed his advice. And since I am very much interested in P.L. Travers’s psyche, I had to take Gurdjieff into account.

I didn’t know anything about him until I began investigating the life and literary works of P.L. Travers. To my surprise, I found out that there is an enormous amount of literature on the subject of Gurdjieff and his teachings.

He wrote four books: The Herald of Coming Good, Beelzebub’s Tales to His Grand Son, Meetings with Remarkable Men, and Life is Real Only Then When I am. (The Herald of Coming Good is the only one that was published during his lifetime.) There are also the transcripts of some of his meetings with his pupils during different time periods of his teaching, there are books written by his pupils, books by his modern-day followers, and books explaining his esoteric ideas. Plus, there are the biographies. And I wanted to read a biography, I wanted to gain some insight into Gurdjieff’s personality in order to better understand the potential causes for his immense influence on P.L. Travers.

Now how was I to choose the right biography? Well, simple. I followed my intuitive pull to a title. I chose a book by its cover. Deconstructing Gurdjieff by Tobias Churton.

I liked the idea of deconstructing something into its forming parts in order to gain a better understanding of its inner workings and what is more, Gurdjieff metaphorically described human beings as machines operating on autopilot. So, I found that there was a certain humor in the title, a tiny mischievous wink in Gurdjieff’s direction.

Tobias Churton

My intuition didn’t disappoint me, intuition rarely does.

Tobias Churton 2

What makes Deconstructing Gurdjieff an enjoyable read is the combination of Churton’s expertise in Western Esoterics with his good sense of the historical context of Gurdjieff’s life and his psychological understanding of Gurdjieff’s complex personality.

The effect of Churton’s deconstruction is the exact opposite, the construction of a portrait that is, in all probabilities, closer to who Gurdjieff really was.

Gurdjieff worked to awaken people from the sleep of the automaton. The automaton was an identity through which the will of others, not of the real “I Am”, the authentic being, was expressed. Human beings were unconscious of their unconsciousness.

Deconstructing Gurdjieff, Tobias Churton

In his book, Churton successfully describes the socio-cultural background of Gurdjieff’s humble upbringing in Russian Armenia and Gurdjieff’s innate temperamental traits. The reader will also be well informed of the different underlying currents of the Gurdjieff’s system, namely the Yezidis tradition, Sufi tradition, Rosicrucianism, Hermetic Masonry, Pythagorean ideas as well as influences of the esoteric and scientific thoughts in Paris during the 1880s and 1890s.

Carte Gurdjieff

(Picture from Deconstructing Gurdjieff, by Tobias Churton)

Others before Churton have made the connection between the Sufi influence and Gurdjieff’s teachings, but Churton is the first to link the teachings to the Gnostic tradition and Free Masonry.

When Gurdjieff came to reorganize his clubs of students in New York in 1931, he divided the membership into exoteric, mesoteric and esoteric. The rule of three he habitually employed is familiar to the thinking Masons.

The Gnostic conception of body, soul and spirit, evident in Fabre d’Olivet, becomes for Gurdjieff the basis for therapeutic interest in reharmonizing bodily instinct, feelings (soul) and thinking or mentation (mind) to generate awakening from the dream of ordinary, externally directed consciousness, to a higher being or state of being.

Deconstructing Gurdjieff, Tobias Churton

On a more personal level, what I find interesting in Gurdjieff is his imaginative mixture of mystic theories, science and psychology, and even a little bit of science-fiction. The result of this amalgamation is original but in my very humble opinion, ambiguous. To me, the most appealing aspect of his teachings is the psychological aspect but then psychology is not a synonym for spirituality. And this is something that Churton insightfully brings to the reader’s attention.

It seems to me that Gurdjieff has either confused the spiritual with the psychic, eliminating the spiritual, or simply regarded the spiritual as a state of special powers attendant on the acquisition of interior psychic and bodily harmony.

Deconstructing Gurdjieff, Tobias Churton

Not long ago, I reached out to Churton via email with a long list of questions. For the benefit of the readers of this blog, and with infinite gratitude to Tobias Churton, and with the desire to avoid any unintentional changes in the meaning of his response, I am reproducing integrally certain portions of his correspondence:

TC: He (Gurdjieff) was not a scientist; he was not a university professor. He was only a teacher in the sense of a craftsman passing on his advice from an assumed superiority. He did not ever explain precisely what HE knew, or thought he knew. That is, he was unable to produce a successor or true inheritor. This is not unusual in the prophetic field!

He was an autodidact, who got the best out of his life as best he could. I think his activities going up and down the Transcaspian Railway – even if we only take his word for it – show us that he was a manipulator of people and circumstances to suit himself. That he had wisdom about the follies of the human species we recognize. That wisdom I tried to illuminate in my book. But he was a “player.”

He was Gurdjieff, and it is unwise, I believe, to follow this kind of figure. I agree with Crowley’s view that some of Gurdjieff’s methods, as revealed at the Prieure, were rather “artificial.” He did not like being attached to people who came to him. His personality, however, had magnetism, and he knew it – though not enough to bring in the money he believed he deserved to live on. He was sore at the loss of his income after the Revolution. Who can blame him?

He was an amateur in a field where there has not been anything like a professional magus since, perhaps, and arguably, the Renaissance, or late antiquity. Such men or women can hardly be judged “objectively.” The myth is as much the man as it is a myth.

I think I showed that “Meetings with Remarkable Men” can hardly be taken entirely at face-value, and that is not a new insight in itself, but I think I have shown where we can see “scissors and paste” and highlighted Gurdjieff’s instinctive attitudes. I think my suspicions about his leaning on Freemasonry for his ideals is probably correct and justified.

I am sometimes slightly amazed that Gurdjieff has attracted some serious seekers after spiritual truth, but then, there are not that many non-Indian gurus about in the modern period! I believe people like exploring the mystery of their own being, and almost any guide can encourage the self-interest. Gurdjieff’s methods intrigue, partly because they blend rationality with irrationality – just like the human mind itself.

His perception about contrary “brains” is a reasonable metaphor, but is likely to confuse most people, and lead them into quandaries.

Now, about that last point, we must give Gurdjieff some credit about his theory of the three-brained being. The latest scientific discoveries revealed that our bodies have indeed three brains. In recent years scientists have discovered that the heart contains some 40,000 sensory neurons which “opens the door to vast new possibilities that parallel those that have been accurately described in the scriptures of some of our most ancient and cherished spiritual traditions.”

And a similar discovery was made in relation to our gut which apparently comprises some 100 million neurons.

However, I do hope that science never comes to prove Gurdjieff’s strange concept of man being food for the moon. More on that in a future posts on this blog.

Linking P.L.Travers to Gurdjieff and the Women of the Rope

Women of The Rope

I wish I could discuss roses with Pamela L. Travers. I wish I had the opportunity to ask her if she knew about Gurdjieff’s opinion of flowers? And if she did, how did she reconcile her spiritual teacher’s peculiar views with her own love for flowers and gardening.

Clearly, Gurdjieff hated flowers, he believed them to be dirty things, fake things.

Flower is dirty thing, is the poison of the earth, is masturbator thing. You know why created? For helping Kundabuffer. In old science it had evil reputation, it was material for black magic. Flowers not grow lawable.

Gurdjieff and The Women of The Rope, meeting in Paris, July 29, 1936

After lunch he went over to a pot of dead flowers and smelled them. Gurdjieff: Finish. Nothing they have. Involution. Never was otherwise. Never active element they have, such dirty thing. From birth was only involution. Always they are false.

Gurdjieff and The Women of The Rope, meeting in Paris, January 29, 1938

The quotes above are excerpts from the transcripts of certain meetings with Gurdjieff recorded by lesbian writers Kathryn Hulme and Solita Solano, published in 2012, Gurdjieff and The Women of The Rope.

My habit was to rush out to the café across the street everyday and write down everything while still fresh in my mind. Katie also, when she was in Paris, did the same. We would then combine our recollections and establish sequences.

Solita Solano in Gurdjieff and the Women of The Rope

These women were part of a special group which met regularly with Gurdjieff during the period between 1935-1939. On the back of the cover of Gurdjieff and The Women of The Rope one reads:

In allegory he explained: You are going on a journey under my guidance, an “inner-world” journey like a high mountain climb where you must be roped together for safety, where each must think of the others on the rope, all for one and one for all. You must, in short, help each other “as hand washes hand”, each contributing to the company according to her lights, according to her means. Only faithful hard work on yourselves will get you where I want you to go, not your wishing.

Among themselves they called their group The Rope.

There was a link between The Rope and Pamela L. Travers. The link was one of Gurdjieff’s disciples, American publisher Jane Heap, who was also the co-editor of the literary journal The Little Review. The members of The Rope were part of Heap’s lesbian entourage in Paris, before she left for London on Gurdjieff’s instructions, in the fall of 1935. Valerie Lawson, Pamela L. Travers’s biographer, reports that in the spring of 1936, Pamela and Jessie Orage (the widow of A.R. Orage, Gurdjieff’s emissary in New York) attended Heap’s study group of the Gurdjieff’s teachings in London. And, it was in March 1936 that Pamela and Jessie visited Gurdjieff in Paris at his favourite Café de la Paix, and then went to his flat where some of the members of the Rope were present.

It is possible then, that at some point Pamela became aware of Gurdjieff’s radical views on flowers. Luckily for her (she had a special affection for roses) Gurdjieff’s take on roses was more nuanced. In Gurdjieff and the Women of The Rope the image of the rose appears on three different occasions; in one instance as a figurative conduit for Gurdjieff’s idea of objective love, and on the other two occasions, as an illustration of his concept of the process of the acquiring of a human soul (according to Gurdjieff men are not born with a soul).

Gurdjieff’s concept of objective love

Alice: And roses, even roses? The Bible often speaks of roses.

Gurdjieff: For certain things roses are good-but must be in combination. Roses in the Bible are always mentioned with thorns. There is an old saying: ‘You can understand and love me only when you love -have a passion-for my thorns. Then only I am your slave.’ In old poetry, not your poetry but religious poetry, there is a very beautiful song that the nightingale sings to the rose: ‘Even though I hate your dirtiness, I must love you and sing to you.”

Gurdjieff and the Women of The Rope, meeting in Paris, July 29, 1936

It seems that for Gurdjieff objective love is attained only when one is aware of the flaws in the object of one’s affection, a love that encompasses the good and the bad, conscious unconditional love. At least this is how I interpret his allegory.

Then somewhat in contradiction with his previous statements about flowers:

The rose is king of flowers. Always in Eastern literature is put with nightingale. Rose is loving-loving rose. And besides loving, rose can have many another emotion which idiot English have no name for. Yes, even nature can feel loving-like woman.

Gurdjieff and the Women of The Rope, meeting in Paris, January 30, 1937

Gurdjieff and the creation of the Soul

In Café de la Paix Gurdjieff started talking about roses, roses, how he felt, how next week would be thorns, thorns when the fourteen thousand franks becomes due on the car. But thorns, thorns in outer world were good because then there are roses, roses in the inner world. ‘Is law-for one dissatisfaction, always a satisfaction.’ Then he asked which I think would he rather have roses, roses in his inner world or in his outer world… then when I answered, he decided that was too complicated a question. He said, better I tell you one thing. This will make you rich for life, richer than your Mr. Rockefeller. There are two struggles – inner world struggle and outer world struggle, but never can these two make contact. (…) Only one thing –must make intentional contact between outer world struggle and inner world struggle. Then can make data which crystalize for third world of man, sometimes called world of the soul.

Gurdjieff and the Women of The Rope, meeting in Paris, February 2, 1936

After roses, roses come thorns. Only then with thorns can have man a possibility for happiness.

Gurdjieff and the Women of The Rope, meeting in Paris, June 12, 1936

In this case, Gurdjieff associated roses with his idea of the reconciling factor in our human suffering. The only way to transcend the pain we experience in our dualistic world is to become conscious of the struggles and use this awareness to work persistently on improving the self. Only by conscious suffering and voluntary work can one acquire a soul, or a rose in the inner world. Which means that one must accept that roses come with thorns. As Gurdjieff puts it, for every dissatisfaction there is a satisfaction. And vice versa.

As for Pamela, she loved roses and was moved by their mysterious, secretive nature. She loved the way in which, layer by layer, the rose’s petals protect its center, revealing its inner world only at the very last moment. In Pamela’s writings the rose appears as a symbol of womanhood, by opposition to the daisy, which she perceived as a child’s flower because of its openness. This is why she chose to name the princess in her retelling of her favourite fairy tale, Sleeping Beauty, Rose:

For instance, the Beauty, who has never before been given a name, is here called Rose-having regard not only to the Grimm’s “Dornroschen” (Rose in Thorns or Briar Rose) but also to Robert Graves’ Druidic language of the tress in The White Goddess, where he speaks of the ‘erotoc’ briar.

…

All the known versions of the story have in them this strong element of eroticism. Indeed, it can be said with truth that every fairy tale that deals with a beautiful heroine and a lordly hero is, among many other things, speaking to us of love, laying down patterns and examples for all our human loving.

Pamela L. Travers, About the Sleeping Beauty

For Pamela, as for most of us, love and sex are intertwined while Gurdjieff’s concept of objective love excludes sex. It seems he deemed it to be something dirty. Or maybe he was talking about how sometimes we mistake lust for love.

But conscious love, that is real love. You have only love based on sex; it is sickness, a weakness. You cannot have love. That which perhaps your grandfather had. Today, for everyone, love is based on sex and sex on polarity. So, if a person has a nose like this you love her; if she hasn’t a nose like that, you don’t love her. Real love is objective; but in Paris objective love doesn’t exist. You have made the word sentiment for sex, for dirty things; you have forgotten real love.

Gurdjieff and the Women of The Rope, meeting in Paris,

Although it would have been really interesting to discuss Gurdjieff and flowers with Pamela, what really tickles my curiosity is Pamela L. Travers’s own secretive nature. Did she believe the only way to entice and keep a romantic partner was to remain elusive and mysterious? Or was this obsession with concealment reminiscent of Gurdjieff’s admonition to his pupils to never reveal their inner world, to be like actors on the stage of Life?

P.L Travers and G.I. Gurdjieff or the Masters of Mystification

Pamela L. Travers Gurdjieff

During her lifetime Pamela L. Travers, the author of Mary Poppins, was deliberately secretive about her personal affairs. “Although warm and open, in interviews she declined answering any questions relating to her private life, or her age. Her official date of birth was 1906; in fact she was born in 1897” wrote a journalist from The Independent, a British newspaper. But, she was born on August 9, 1899.

And she did not believe in truth based on facts.

He (Galileo) is famous for – ‘Nevertheless, it moves’. The story is known to everyone; but the recantation of his recantation has nowhere been recorded. How could it have been? The only people near enough to hear it were his inquisitors, and had they heard it, his fat would have been in the fire. He never said it- except of course in his accurate heart. But in his unconscious shaping of the hero, the folk required that it be said, the story required that it be said; the truth had somehow to be told that Galileo was not a liar. So, mythologically, Galileo was required to say it. IT IS A TRUTH, BUT IT IS NOT A FACT…So you see how the mythmaking mind works, balancing, clarifying, adjusting, making events somehow correspond to the inner necessity of things. It is tension, the uncompromising insistence on both ends of the stick – black and white, good and evil, positive and negative, active and passive – that gives the myth their ambivalent power.

The World of the Hero, Parabola, 1976

Not surprisingly then, when it came to questions about her interest in writing an autobiography, Pamela L. Travers held that mere statements of facts prove insufficient for the deeper purpose of understanding the inner development of an individual.

Oh, no. Being born, going to school, having measles or not, being married or not, wouldn’t really be an autobiography for me – it would be more of an inner statement, how one grew within, the hopes, the difficulties, the aim. But as I never do want to write anything about myself, no autobiography.

And to complicate matters further for those who would have been interested in the details of her personal life, she did not hesitate to distort facts. One example is her made-up story about her early childhood in Australia. She repeatedly told interviewers that she had spent the first years of her life playing in the sugar cane fields in her father’s sugar plantation. One example of this distorted childhood memory can be found in Patricia Demers’s book, P.L. Travers, and another one in a recorded conversation with British writer Brian Sibley, P.L. Travers, the Woman Behind Mary Poppins.

This embellished childhood memory was so well spread by Pamela L. Travers that it appeared at the time of her passing in many obituaries published in various newspapers. Here is what one journalist from the New York Times wrote: “Her father was a sugar planter, and Miss Travers recalled growing up near the Great Barrier Reef in a tropical world of sugar cane, shells and mangoes.”

The truth was much less luxuriant. Her father, Travers Goff, worked in a bank and struggled with his alcohol addiction which in all probabilities contributed to his early death. Pamela L. Travers was seven years old at the time of his passing.

Why did Pamela L. Travers change the facts of her early childhood? Was she trying to escape from a painful past or was she protecting the memory of her father? Or, could it be that her mind was so imbued with myth and fairy tales that she ended up perceiving her own reality as myth and thus malleable to fit her inner needs?

It is interesting to note that her spiritual teacher G.I. Gurdjieff also displayed tendencies towards mystification and anyone who has read his book “Meetings with Remarkable Men”, will agree that the adventures recounted in that book are remarkably fairy tale-like and probably not at all factually accurate.

This mythical aspect of Gurdjieff’s personality was described by Pamela L. Travers in her article George Ivanovitch Gurdjieff (1877–1949)

GEORGE IVANOVITCH GURDJIEFF (1877–1949). These brackets enclose seventy-two years of a life that, in spite of all that has been written about it, is incapable of exact documentation. It is a fact that Gurdjieff died in 1949, but since he gave his age differently at different times, the date of birth given here can only be approximate. This was all part of his enigma, of the sense he gave of deliberately playing a role, or, as P. D. Ouspensky wrote, after their first meeting, of being a man “poorly disguised.” His whole life, for the biographers, has the air of an authentic myth, in the sense of something heroic and significant but not to be apprehended except in so far as he could, by these very disguises, mediate it to the general understanding.”

It is worth asking, although there will be no certain answers, was Pamela L. Travers’s elusiveness a conscious imitation of the ways of her spiritual teacher? Was she attempting to give a heroic and significant overtone to her own life? Or was she, in part, attracted to Gurdjieff and his teachings precisely because they both shared this tendency for mystification and love of myth?

It is an interestingly paradoxical fact that Pamela L. Travers, although often in the public eye due to the nature of her craft, wished to remain anonymous and “go down in myth”. This wish was stated many times to interviewers at different periods in her life. What is then the truth behind this fact? Was she, by being vague and elusive, hoping to ascertain the meaning and significance of her life? Was she trying to attain some sort of immortality? Or was she simply trying to protect herself from the praying eyes of the outside world. Maybe she craved the freedom to explore life as she intended without risking rejection. Maybe she didn’t believe people could understand her. This seems to be a plausible suggestion. She did not exactly live a conventional life: she never married, she had romantic relationships with both men and women, and her relationship with her adopted son Camillus was in constant turmoil. But all this will be the subject of future posts.

Gurdjieff and the Symbolism of the Carpet

Mary Poppins Gurdjieff

Lately I have been listening to a recording of a conversation between British author Brian Sibley and Pamela L. Travers, which was recorded in the late 1980: P.L. Travers, The Woman Behind Mary Poppins. And, conversation is truly the right word to describe this recording because of the fluidity of the exchanges. Brain Sibley successfully follows the rhythm of Pamela L. Traver’s answers and it feels almost like a dance, an exquisite waltz of words swirling into the forms of the memories, personal beliefs, and opinions of Pamela L. Travers.

When I listened to the recording for the first time, I was already aware that Pamela L. Travers believed that one should not force the meaning out of a story; that it is sufficient to ponder on the story, love it for itself, and hold the questions inside and let the story unravel:

The myths never have a single meaning, once and for all and finished. They have something greater; They have meaning itself. If you hang a crystal in the window it will give off light from all parts of itself. That is how the myths are; they have meaning for me, for you and everyone else. A true symbol has always this multisidedness. It has something to say to all who approach it.

Pamela L. Travers, The World of the Hero (1976)

Knowing that Pamela L. Travers was a true lover and connoisseur of myths and fairy tales, it was interesting to listen to her discussion with Brian Sibley about whether fairy tales could be considered as a form of wishful thinking or not. Not surprisingly, Pamela L. Travers refuses to give a lecture on the subject but advises Brian Sibley to read the stories and to discover for himself the true nature of the wishes made in these stories. And then, she remembers how once she refused to read a typescript of a seminar on the interpretation of fairy tales:

There is a famous Jungian analyst who writes about fairy tales and I imagine very well indeed. But I was shown the typescript of a seminar she gave to her pupils and she said: ‘The first thing you must to with a fairy tale is analyze it.’ and I thought, here I will read no more. Because the first thing you must do with a fairy tale is to love it! And keep it inside yourself as you do what you love, and it will send up its meaning to you eventually. To analyze it seems to me profanity.

Pamela L. Travers was probably referring to Dr. Marie-Louise von Franz who was a student, then colleague and collaborator to C.G. Jung and eventually his successor at the C. G. Jung Institute in Zurich, and who was famous for her many books on the psychological interpretation of fairy tales.

Apparently, Pamela L. Travers’s point of view on the hidden meaning in fairy tales was shared by others in the field of mythology, and Dr. von Franz was not ignorant of their criticism:

Again and again investigators and specialists on mythology attack Jungians on the grounds that myth speaks for itself; that you have only to unravel what it says, and you don’t need psychological interpretation; the psychological interpretation is only reading something into it which is not in it; and that the myth with all its details and amplifications is quite clear in itself.

Although an interesting debate, the purpose of this blogpost is not to discuss whether psychological interpretations of fairy tales are relevant or not. The purpose is to discuss an idea that crossed my mind while I was reading Dr. von Franz’s book, The Interpretation of Fairy Tales. I came across the symbol of the carpet and Dr. Franz’s exposition about its possible meanings, and a connection to Pamela L. Travers and her spiritual teacher, George I. Gurdjieff formed itself in my mind. Let’s begin with the symbolism of the carpet as explained by Dr. von Franz:

In European civilisation the carpet was not known until we came into contact with the East. The nomadic Arab tribes, who are still famous for their carpet weaving, say that the carpets they use in their tents represent the continuity of earth which they need to prevent them from feeling that they have no soil under their feet. […] It also protects them from the evil influences of foreign soil. […] The symbol of the carpet with its designs is often used as a symbol for the complex symbolic patterns of life and the secret designs of fate. It represents the greater pattern of our life, which we do not know as long as we live it. The purposiveness of an individual life pattern, which gives one a feeling of meaningfulness, is very often symbolized in the carpet. Generally, carpets, especially Oriental ones, have those complicated meandering patterns such as you follow up when in a dreamy mood, when you feel that life goes up and down and along and changes around. Only if you look from afar, from a certain objective distance, do you realize that there is a pattern of wholeness in it. The secret design woven into a human life is much more intelligent than human consciousness.

Now, interesting fact, Pamela L. Travers’s spiritual teacher George I. Gurdjieff was also a merchant of carpets. His carpet trade was witnessed by P.D. Ouspensky and described in his book In Search of the Miraculous:

The sale of these carpets was in itself remarkable. G. put an advertisement in the papers and all kinds of people came to buy carpets. […] A Persian used to come to him to mend carpets. One day I noticed that G. was very attentively watching how the Persian was doing his work. […] Next day I came in earlier than usual. G. was sitting on the floor mending a carpet exactly as the Persian had done. Wools of various colors were strewn around him and in his hand was the same kind of hook I had seen with the Persian.

And then, Ouspensky writes about Gurdjieff’s description of the making of carpets in certain parts of Asia where entire villages participated in the weaving process:

… all the work is done to the accompaniment of music and singing. The women spinners with spindles in their hands dance a special dance as they work, and all the movements of all the people engaged in different work are like one movement in one and the same rhythm.

Apparently, inspired by this memory Gurdjieff composed the Carpet Weaving as one of his exercises known as the Movements. You can listen to the music here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3kbls2wJEsI

During his lifetime Gurdjieff composed (with the help of Thomas de Hartmann) numerous dance exercises for his pupils, the purpose of which was to work simultaneously with the intellectual, emotional and moving centers in each person and to open up higher parts of these centers. (For a brief summary of Gurdjieff’s system read Pamela L. Travers, Gurdjieff, and the Father Figure Connection). Gurdjieff’s Movements were composed of different groups of exercises with different purposes. Those known as the Occupational Movements such as the Carpet Weaving were mean to reflect the essence of a particular craft or activity and were performed in a group to give the dancers the sense of working as a unified whole.

And, not only did Gurdjieff sell, mend and included carpets in his Movements, but he also incorporated them in his immediate environment (probably with the intent to produce particular effects in the perceptions of his pupils). Here is an account of one of the early pupils who met Gurdjieff in his living quarters outside of Moscow:

There was no area not covered, either by carpets or hangings of some sort. A single enormous rug covered the floor of this spacious room. Even its walls were hung with carpets which also draped the doors and the windows; the ceiling was covered with ancient silk shawls of resplendent colours, astonishingly beautiful in their combination.

Views from the Real World, Glimpses of Truth

(collection of early meetings with Gurdjieff)

It would have been lovely to have had the opportunity to discuss with Pamela L. Travers the symbolic meaning of Gurdjieff’s carpet business and his metaphysical weaving of the lives of his pupils. It would have been interesting to hear her thoughts on this subject. Or maybe she would have simply told us that there is nothing surprising about that and that we all have these sorts of symbolic patterns in our own lives and the fact that we cannot recognize them does not make their existence less real.

Pamela L. Travers, Gurdjieff, and the Father Figure Connection

Meetings With Remarkable Men

Pamela L. Travers was a lifelong follower of the spiritual teachings of G.I. Gurdjieff, a controversial spiritual teacher of the last century. She was first introduced to his teachings by his disciples Alfred Richard Orage, the editor of The New English Weekly, a publication to which Pamela L. Travers contributed between 1932-1949, and Piotr Damien Ouspensky.

Valerie Lawson, Pamela L. Travers’s biographer, speculates in Mary Poppins She Wrote that Pamela L. Travers’s spiritual motivation was rooted in her snobbish nature and her desire to always set herself apart from others. Now this evaluation appears, at least in my opinion, to be superficial and judgmental, especially when Lawson never met with Pamela L. Travers. The real question is (if one truly wants to understand Pamela L. Travers) what in Gurdjieff’s teachings resonated so strongly with her inner being? This is a complex question on which I am still pondering, and sincerely I don’t know if I will ever find its answer. But, while reading Gurdjieff’s book Meetings with Remarkable Men an interesting observation popped up on the surface of my mind. However, before I share my personal observation, I will briefly expose the principles of Gurdjieff’s teachings for those who read this post and are not familiar with his Work.

According to Gurdjieff the average person is a sleeping machine endowed with a dormant essence, an embryo of a soul which has the capacity to grow and develop into its potential higher destiny. Gurdjieff warned his students that the failure to develop one’s essence would lead one to a harsh ending; he said that a man who fails to develop his soul would die like a dog and become food for the Moon. Now that is one strange idea …. One of Gurdjieff’s biographers, Tobias Churton speculates that maybe Gurdjieff’s aim was to scare his students and force them to take the Work seriously.

The Components of Gurdjieff’s System:

The Law of Three

The Law of Three expresses the natural interplay between the three essential forces that bring everything into manifestation in our world: affirming, denying, and reconciling or positive, negative, and neutral. Gurdjieff stressed that the third essential force often goes unnoticed.

The Law of Seven

All events that are brought to completion have seven distinct phases that correspond to the notes of the musical scale. Gurdjieff believed that at specific moments one must apply an appropriate shock or things will not manifest in the material world. These specific moments correspond to the transition between mi and fa and between si and do (if I understood this part correctly. In all honesty the Law of Seven and the Table of Hydrogens, which I am not even trying to summarize here, completely escaped my grasp. I will have to read some more…)

The Ray of Creation

The Ray of Creation follows the musical scale and the numbers corresponding to each world correspond to the number of laws governing each level. The higher we move up the less laws and more freedom. According to Gurdjieff’s classification, life on Earth is ruled by 48 laws and all act of free will is doomed to failure, only few can awaken from their sleep but only through tremendous effort and work on themselves.

World 1: The Absolute -do

World 3: All Worlds (the Universe) – si

World 6: All Suns (Galaxies) – la

World 12: The Sun – sol

World 24: All Planets (Planetary) – fa

World 48 Earth (Organic) – me

World 96 Moon ( Inorganic) – re

All life on Earth is influenced by planetary forces arising from All Planets, the level immediately prior to Earth.

Gurdjieff, with the help of Thomas de Hartmann, composed music based on The Law of Seven and choreographed dance exercises for his students.

The Seven Energy Centers

Gurdjieff taught his followers that all human beings possess seven energy centers.

Higher Intellectual Center: the ‘wisdom eye’, the seat of the objective reason which is the ability to apprehend and understand reality directly, to see the truth of things. This center is non-operative in the average person.
Higher Emotional Center: the higher aspect of the heart, ‘true love’. Dormant in most people.
Intellectual Center: the average person’s typical cognitive processes.
Emotional Center: the typical person’s emotional life
Moving Center: the domain of the body-movement.
Instinctive Center: the realm of unconscious body functions.
Sex center: the domain of our sexual drives and behaviours.

The technique of awakening practiced by Gurdjieff’s followers is called “self-remembering” a sort of simultaneous inner and outer awareness. Central to this idea is the practice of divided attention, which means to be simultaneously aware of both ourselves and what we are considering. Gurdjieff taught his students to delay their reactions intentionally while consciously observing themselves. He believed that the right crystallization begins to occur only when we make honest efforts to observe ourselves and struggle with our unconscious habits by not allowing ourselves to be controlled by them in an autopilot way.

The major barriers to awakening according to Gurdjieff:

Internal Considering: being caught in the fear of being judged and living in constant need of approval.

External Considering: shadow side of empathy, when we give sympathy that weakens the other person instead of applying appropriate backbone.

Buffers: Defense mechanisms such as lying, repression, projection, rationalization, and sublimation.

Gurdjieff organised meetings in which he discussed his ideas and answered the questions of his students. And since the subject of his teachings and his persona are fascinating to me, I will write more about them in future posts on this blog. Now, back to Meetings with Remarkable Men and my personal observation.

Although Meetings with Remarkable Men is not a faithful account of Gurdjieff’s life but a parable of his spiritual awakening, the first chapter contains authentic autobiographical elements. In that chapter Gurdjieff talks about his childhood and his relationship with his father. This made me think about Pamela L. Travers’s childhood and her relationship with her father. And I noticed certain similarities.

As young children both Gurdjieff and Pamela L. Travers were raised in a religious way, although in very different cultural settings, and both seem to have been sensitive, extremely perceptive, and spiritually inclined children. The fairy tales and myths they heard from their respective fathers left permanent imprints on the blank slates of their imaginations.

Both their fathers were poets at heart. Gurdjieff’s father was an ashokh “the name given everywhere in Asia and the Balkan peninsula to the local bards, who composed, recited or sang poems, songs, legends, folk-tales, and all sorts of stories.” Gurdjieff accompanied his father to contests where ashokhs competed in front of a large public. This is Gurdjieff’s description of such contests:

One of the participants in the contest, chosen by lot, would begin, in singing an improvised melody, to put to his partner some question on a religious or philosophical theme, or on the meaning and origin of some well-known legend, tradition or belief, and the other would reply, also in song, and in his own improvised subjective melody.

Gurdjieff recounts that in Alexandropol and Kars, the towns where he lived with his family during his childhood, people often invited his father to evening gatherings in order to hear his stories. And on Saturday evenings his father would tell stories to Gurdjieff and his siblings, stories “either about ancient great peoples and wonderful men, or about God, nature and mysterious miracles, and he would invariably conclude with some tale from the Thousand and One Nights, of which he knew so ma y that he could indeed have told us one whole tale for each of the thousand and one nights”. These stories served for Gurdjieff as “spiritualizing factor” and made him understand the immense significance of legends and myths in one’s life as a gateway to primal spiritual truths.

Very much like Gurdjieff’s father, Travers Goff, Pamela L. Travers’s father, loved to tell his family and friends tales of ancient Ireland, stories inhabited by elves, fairies, and pixies. Pamela recalls being “nurtured on the Celtic Twilight, Yeats and all”. Her memories of her father are somewhat romanticized and embellished but, nevertheless, these memories led her to Ireland and George W. Russell and form then on, on the path of myths and fairy tales and to Gurdjieff.

It seems possible that the minds of Pamela L. Travers and Gurdjieff shared certain consonant traits which were coincidently paired by similar traits in the characters of their fathers.

It is interesting to note that both fathers struggled to make ends meet and both Pamela L. Travers and Gurdjieff seem to have had an inner drive (conscious or not) to redeem their fathers. This too could be an interesting subject for a separate blog post.

However, there is one major difference between Gurdjieff’s father and Pamela L. Travers’s father. Gurdjieff’s father used his knowledge of fairy tales and myth to draw strength and resilience in the face of harsh realities, where Pamela L. Travers’s father used it as an escape route. Gurdjieff remembers “all the grandeur of my father’s calm and the detachment of his inner state in all his external manifestations, throughout the misfortunes that befell him…..which poured upon him as though from the horn of plenty, he continued to retain the sole of a true poet.”

While Pamela L. Travers recalls : “But I’ve come to know he was melancholy and sad and that he needed someone to understand him. His melancholy was the other side if his Irish gaiety.” Lawson reports in Mary Poppins She Wrote that Pamela L. Travers talked to her dead father and even tried to comfort him and tell him that everything is all right and that he doesn’t have to be so unhappy.

So, this is how the use of myths and fairy tales by two fathers made of one child a spiritual teacher and from the other a spiritual seeker.

Well, this is it for this blogpost. Only my musings, my mind making connections, just as Pamela L. Travers said, thinking is linking.

*All quotes in this post are from Meetings with Remarkable Men and Mary Poppins She Wrote.

Pamela L. Travers and the Rebel Archetype (Part II)

way-of-transformation

When it happens that a human being grows up under difficult circumstances, or from lack of loving and understanding he inevitably becomes distorted. He is thrown back upon himself. Inevitably, he reacts to such conditions by developing postures which are the result of continuous adaptation. By means of this he protects its natural ego, but always at the expense of the growth of his individual essence.

Karlfreid von Dürckheim

Pamela L. Travers did grow up in difficult circumstances and she never felt loved nor understood by her family. And, as discussed in last week’s post, I believe that one of the major causes for Pamela’s psychological blockages stems from her repressed feelings of resentment towards her mother.

A bothersome question now arises.

Did Dürckheim, who was aware of the consequential dynamics of the unresolved relationships between a child and a mother, identify the issue? This is quite possible, if we assume that during their meetings Pamela L. Travers opened up about her childhood experiences, something that she was reluctant to do, at least in her writings, until she was in her seventies and eighties.

But if he did identify the cause of her blockages, did he point them out to her? Or did he choose to “…. call him (her) to enter upon his (her) innate Way in order that his (her) essential self may begin its struggle towards the light?”

Translated in ordinary language, did he encourage her to recognize her inner nature by delving deeply into herself by means of breathing and meditating exercises, hoping that she would eventually experience healing inner insights? He seems to have privileged that route: “The man who feels himself lost in utter darkness in the world which, so long as he is caught in his ego, thrusts him into fear, despair and loneliness, may be the one uniquely ready to hear the call of his essential being -ready to respond to the summons that, breaking through his ego-shell, brings him to awareness of his inner core.” Did he feel that Pamela was ready to break through her Dark Night of the Soul? Did he anticipate that a more directive approach would only strengthen the defense mechanisms of her ego?

Of course, there are no certain answers to these questions; no answers at all actually. There can only be speculations.

Dürckheim held that to go trough the Wheel of Transformation (his model of spiritual and psychological growth which will not be discussed in this post) a person must first be firmly grounded in himself and in life.

And proper grounding begins with a proper nurturing. He also believed that the body needs to adapt a proper posture so to allow the life energy from the earth to circulate through the body and allow a person to adapt to the forces from above.

The physical grounding center, the gravity center of a person according to a concept Dürckheim borrowed from Zen teachings, is located in the belly.

This is what he writes about that center: “That power which enables us to be truly centered lies, physically, in the middle of the body, in Hara, or more accurately, in the pelvic region. Hara refers to an attitude by means of which man is anchored ‘below’ in such a way that he is freed from habitual restrictions brought about by being tip-heavily centered ‘above’ in his world-ego. This setting-down into strength within man’s own being to support and mould him, and to give direction to his life.”

Curious enough, Pamela L. Travers experienced health issues related to the lower parts of her body. She had digestive troubles and bowel problems which affected her throughout her life. She also wrote notes to herself about the fear she experienced in her body. Her biographer, who was so fortunate to read her personal papers reports:

…the fear within often felt impenetrable, solid, separating the upper parts and lower parts of her body. She felt as if she was becoming this black fear, which at its worst extended dark rays into the other parts of her. Even when she wrote of the fear, to herself, her breath came up too quickly to her chest.

Valerie Lawson