George Gurdjieff

[Milk Sheikh]

... and his famous student, Ouspensky.

Your thoughts? Were they some of the keenest minds of the last century?

Discuss.

[ComradeMan]

Not really. Gurdjeff's ideas reduce humans to automatons and seem to give us no credit for anything we have achieved. I personally think he was like a kind of forerunner of the "gurus" we have had running around since the 1960s.

[hatzel]

To be honest, my image of Gurdjieff has been forever tainted by being sent tonnes of YouTube videos with weird old women talking about the enneagram. I'm yet to understand it, let alone be captivated by it. However, my understanding of his whole Fourth Way idea suggests that it's pretty well-crafted, and self-development, in whatever form it wants to take, is unlikely to be particularly destructive. In fact, I heartily support spiritual development, so irrespective of whether or not I feel that Gurdjieff really had the answers or anything like that, I greatly respect people who approach these ideas, as it shows that they have an interest in self-development, which is presumably a good interest to have...

What's with this talk of automatons, by the way? In what respect? Explain yourself, comrade!

[ComradeMan]

enneagram. I'm yet to understand it

Don't waste your time- stick to astrology..... ;)


What's with this talk of automatons, by the way? In what respect? Explain yourself, comrade!

One of Gurdjeff's sacred dances was the Automaton- but this was rather in reference to his ideas of people being in some kind on unenlightened sleep state and any achievement or success or sign of progress made my humans is not actually down to them at all. Gurdjeff reduces the "unenlightened" to the level of robots or machines.

[hatzel]

Don't waste your time- stick to astrology..... ;)

Good plan! When it comes to personality types and all that, I much prefer socionics. That actually makes sense to me, I see some kind of logic, rather than just...random accusations based on little or no even pseudo-logical claims...astrology, on the other hand, is based on nothing but stone cold facts. Facts, I tell you! No denying it...

[ComradeMan]

Good plan! When it comes to personality types and all that, I much prefer socionics. That actually makes sense to me, I see some kind of logic, rather than just...random accusations based on little or no even pseudo-logical claims...astrology, on the other hand, is based on nothing but stone cold facts. Facts, I tell you! No denying it...

Well on a deeper level, an astrophysical level, perhaps the constellations, the cosmic rays, phases of the moon and sun spots do have an effect on us- just not the type of thing that is best expressed as Cancer: Today you're going to find out something new.... blah blah blah stuff that you find in the newspaper, fun as they may be. The enneagram stuff however- just on what was that based? Subjective observations and correlations with musical notes? I studied the enneagram for a while and came to the conclusion that most of the attributes could be ascribed to just about anyone and they allowed no room for change or development- unlike astrology of course- my sign has changed this week! :lol:

Socionics? Is that the kind of Jungian analysis that originated in Lithuania by any chance?

[hatzel]

Couldn't agree more. For those interested, the only enneagram 'expert' I know promises me I'm a '5', whatever that means. Badass me, badass 5...now what? How do I develop as a 5? No idea, pointless...though of course I'm waiting for the scientists to tell me the Earth has shifted and now I'm an 8...

But yeah, that's the socionics we're talking about. It makes more sense to me. According to another 'expert', I'm a Don Quixote type. I wonder how much crossover there is between Don Quixote and a '5'...I'll do some research there...

[ComradeMan]

Couldn't agree more. For those interested, the only enneagram 'expert' I know promises me I'm a '5', whatever that means. Badass me, badass 5...now what? How do I develop as a 5? No idea, pointless...though of course I'm waiting for the scientists to tell me the Earth has shifted and now I'm an 8...

But yeah, that's the socionics we're talking about. It makes more sense to me. According to another 'expert', I'm a Don Quixote type. I wonder how much crossover there is between Don Quixote and a '5'...I'll do some research there...

Both George Bush and Einstein were supposed to be 5s too- the "cerebral investigator types"- not so sure about how we can take this so seriously.

Of course there's a nice "wing" theory with this that you can explain away differences of contradictions with the wings.

Some of the people I have met who were into this stuff took it very seriously however and made life decisions based on enneagram types. Perhaps it works for them.