Willem Coymans, by Frans Hals

Oil on canvas, 1645

The National Gallery, Washington, DC

 

The Habit of Ruling

 

“But to the misfortune of all the three-brained beings of our Great Universe, no sooner does the 'blissful action' of this lawful cosmic manifestation cease, and these terrifying processes come to an end, than the 'same old story' begins again, and their ordinary being-existence grows more 'bitter' than before and, parallel with this, what is called the 'sane awareness of the sense and aim of their existence' deteriorates.

"And it deteriorates, in my opinion, chiefly because after these processes, the leaders of the former ruling class are usually replaced by beings from other castes which have never had among their representatives, either of the present or past generations, persons of any experience, conscious or unconscious, of that being-manifestation which gives the ability to direct the process of outer existence, and sometimes even of inner existence, of surrounding beings who although 'similar' to them have not yet attained to their degree of reason.

"In all justice it must be admitted that although in the common presence of the three-brained beings of the former ruling class the data present in their 'subconscious' for engendering real being-Conscience also did not take part in the functioning of their 'waking consciousness,' these beings at least did have the habit of ruling, acquired by heredity and improving automatically from generation to generation.

"On the other hand, in the presence of the beings who have newly attained to power not only is real being-Conscience absent, as in the beings of the former ruling class, but in addition, certain 'charms' begin to manifest in a particularly stormy way and to give extraordinary and terrible results, 'charms' which in general are crystallized in the presence of terrestrial three-brained beings, especially of recent times, in consequence of the properties of the organ kundabuffer, such as 'vanity,' 'pride,' 'self-conceit,' 'self-love,' and others, whose functioning in them is still quite fresh, having almost never before been 'satisfied' to a sufficient degree.

"To these terrestrial beings who become 'impromptu power-possessors,' with no hereditary data at all in themselves for even the automatic ability to rule, one of the sayings of our dear teacher can be fittingly applied:
"'I have yet to meet that idiot used to shuffling about in a pair of old slippers who would feel comfortable in smart new shoes.'”

 

 

Beelzebub's tales to His Grandson, G. I. Gurdjieff, Tarcher-Penguin, 1992, page 575-576