The Mechanics of Madness

Apotheosis of Gurdjieff and Ouspensky by Joe Michelli

Hello again,

It's been a month and a bit since it all started.

During the first days of chaos I was reminded of the following passage from P.D Ouspensky's account of the days preceding world war I and of a conversation he had with Gurdjeff (aka. Mr. G), as described in his book "In Search of The Miraculous":

I remembered that a few days before this talk, I had seen two enormous lorries on the Liteiny loaded to the height of the first floor of the houses with new unpainted wooden crutches. For some reason I was particularly struck by these lorries.

In these mountains of crutches for legs which were not yet torn off there was a particularly cynical mockery of all the things with which people deceive themselves…

I spoke to our people about these lorry­loads of crutches and of my thoughts about them at a meeting.

"'What do you expect?" said G.

"People are machines. Machines have to be blind and unconscious, they cannot be otherwise, and all their actions have to correspond to their nature.

Everything happens. No one does anything. 'Progress' and 'civilization' in the real meaning of these words, can appear only as the result of conscious efforts

They cannot appear as the result of unconscious mechanical actions.

And what consciousness can there be in machines?

And if one machine is unconscious, then a hundred machines are unconscious, and so are a thousand machines, or a hundred thousand, or a million.

And the unconscious activity of a million machines must necessarily result in destruction and extermination.

It is precisely in unconscious involuntary manifestations that all evil lies. You do not yet understand and cannot imagine all the results of this evil. But the time will come when you will understand".

With this, so far as I remember, the talk ended.

Recently, I decided to revisit several passages from this book. Ouspensky's description of his growing anxiety before the imminent catastrophe of world war I sounded almost too familiar.

Apparently, man has not changed. This is a sad but predictable conclusion. So much for our talk on "progress of Man"… We don't seem to be willing to fathom what it truly means.

And yet, I admire Ouspensky and Mr. G's willingness to investigate and harvest truly transformative knowledge on Man, even from the harshest experiences and circumstances.

P.S After giving it some thought, I have decided to carry on with the release campaign for my first EP. More updates will come soon.

Very soon.