“Yes,” said G. “In many cases these substances are those which you call ‘narcotics’ But they can be used in entirely different ways. There are schools which make use of narcotics in the right way. People in these schools take them for self-study; in order to take a look ahead, to know their possibilities better, to see beforehand, ‘in advance,’ what can be attained later on as the result of prolonged work. When a man sees this and is convinced that what he has learned theoretically really exists, he then works consciously, he knows where he is going. Sometimes this is the easiest way of being convinced of the real existence of those possibilities which man often suspects in himself. There is a special chemistry relating to this. There are particular substances for each function. Each function can either be strengthened or weakened, awakened or put to sleep. But to do this a greatknowledge of the human machine and of this special chemistry is necessary. In all those schools which make use of this METHOD experiments are carried out only when they are really necessary and only under the direction of experienced and competent men who can foresee all results and adopt measures against possible undesirable consequences. The substances used in these schools are not merely ‘narcotics’ as you call them, although many of them are prepared from such drugs as opium, hashish, and so on. Besides schools in which such experiments are carried out, there are other schools which use these or similar substances, not for experiment or study but to attain definite desired results, if only for a short time. Through a skillful use of such substances a man can be made very clever or very strong, for a certain time. Afterwards, of course, he dies or goes mad, but this is not taken into consideration. Such schools also exist. So you see that we must speak very cautiously about schools. They may do practically the same things but the results will be totally different.” Fragments: One

In the course of one of our talks I asked G.: “What, in your opinion, is the best preparation for the study of your METHOD? For instance, is it useful to study what is called ‘occult’ or ‘mystical’ literature?” Fragments: One

“The METHOD of the fourth way consists in doing something in one room and simultaneously doing something corresponding to it in the two other rooms — that is to say, while working on the physical body to work simultaneously on the mind and the emotions; while working on the mind to work on the physical body and the emotions; while working on the emotions to work on the mind and the physical body. This can be achieved thanks to the fact that on the fourth way it is possible to make use of certain knowledge inaccessible to the ways of the fakir, the monk, and the yogi. This knowledge makes it possible to work in three directions simultaneously. A whole parallel series of physical, mental, and emotional exercises serves this purpose. In addition, on the fourth way it is possible to individualize the work of each separate person, that is to say, each person can do only what is necessary and not what is useless for him. This is due to the fact that the fourth way dispenses with a great deal of what is superfluous and preserved simply through tradition in the other ways. Fragments: Two

The METHOD of exposition of which I am speaking, and G.’s suppressions in his first talks, resulted in the creation of such misunderstanding, more particularly in later groups not connected with my work. Fragments: Three

The next lecture began precisely with the words: “Know thyself.” “These words,” said G., “which are generally ascribed to Socrates, actually lie at the basis of many systems and schools far more ancient than the Socratic. But although modem thought is aware of the existence of this principle it has only a very vague idea of its meaning and significance. The ordinary man of our times, even a man with philosophic or scientific interests, does not realize that the principle ‘know thyself speaks of the necessity of knowing one’s machine, the ‘human machine.’ Machines are made more or less the same way in all men; therefore, before anything else man must study the structure, the functions, and the laws of his organism. In the human machine everything is so interconnected, one thing is so dependent upon another, that it is quite impossible to study any one function without studying all the others. In order to know one thing, one must know everything. To know everything in man is possible, but it requires much time and labor, and above all, the application of the right METHOD and, what is equally necessary, right guidance. Fragments: Six

“The chief METHOD of self-study is self-observation. Without properly applied self­observation a man will never understand the connection and the correlation between the various functions of his machine, will never understand how and why on each separate occasion everything in him ‘happens.’ Fragments: Six

“There are two METHODs of self-observation: analysis, or attempts at analysis, that is, attempts to find the answers to the questions: upon what does a certain thing depend, and why does it happen; and the second METHOD is registering, simply ‘recording’ in one’s mind what is observed at the moment. Fragments: Six

“The next object of self-observation must be habits in general. Every grown-up man consists wholly of habits, although he is often unaware of it and even denies having any habits at all. This can never be the case. All three centers are filled with habits and a man can never know himself until he has studied all his habits. The observation and the study of habits is particularly difficult because, in order to see and ‘record’ them, one must escape from them, free oneself from them, if only for a moment. So long as a man is governed by a particular habit, he does not observe it, but at the very first attempt, however feeble, to struggle against it, he feels it and notices it. Therefore in order to observe and study habits one must try to struggle against them. This opens up a practical METHOD of self-observation. It has been said before that a man cannot change anything in himself, that he can only observe and ‘record.’ This is true. But it is also true that a man cannot observe and ‘record’ anything if he does not try to struggle with himself, that is, with his habits. This struggle cannot yield direct results, that is to say, it cannot lead to any change, especially to any permanent and lasting change. But it shows what is there. Without a struggle a man cannot see what he consists of. The struggle with small habits is very difficult and boring, but without it self-observation is impossible. Fragments: Six

“Besides being a very good METHOD for self-observation, the struggle against expressing unpleasant emotions has at the same time another significance. It is one of the few directions in which a man can change himself or his habits without creating other undesirable habits. Therefore self-observation and self-study must, from the first, be accompanied by the struggle against the expression of unpleasant emotions. Fragments: Six

In the first place I saw that self-remembering resulting from this METHOD had nothing in common with “self-feeling,” or “self-analysis.” It was a new and very interesting state with a strangely familiar flavor. Fragments: Seven

“In what way can control be attained? “The technical part of this is explained by the law of octaves. Octaves can develop consecutively and continuously in the desired direction if ‘additional shocks’ enter them at the moments necessary, that is, at the moments when vibrations slow down. If ‘additional shocks’ do not enter at the necessary moments octaves change their direction. To entertain hopes of accidental ‘shocks’ coming from somewhere by themselves at the moments necessary is of course out of the question. There remains for a man the choice either of finding a direction for his activities which corresponds to the mechanical line of events of a given moment, in other words of ‘going where the wind blows’ or ‘swimming with the stream,’ even if this contradicts his inner inclinations, convictions, and sympathies, or of reconciling himself to the failure of everything he starts out to do; or he can learn to recognize the moments of the ‘intervals’ in all lines of his activity and learn to create the ‘additional shocks,’ in other words, learn to apply to his own activities the METHOD which cosmic forces make use of in creating ‘additional shocks’ at the moments necessary. Fragments: Seven

“Let us suppose, for example, that a man called Ivanov hears the description of this METHOD of self-observation. He is told that a man must divide himself, ‘he’ or ‘I’ on one side and ‘Ouspensky,’ ‘Tetrov,’ or ‘Zakharov’ on the other side. And he divides himself literally as he hears it. ‘This is I,’ he says, ‘and that is “Ouspensky,” “Petrov,” or “Zakharov.”‘ He will never say ‘Ivanov.’ He finds that unpleasant, so he will inevitably use somebody else’s surname or Christian name. Moreover he calls ‘I’ what he likes in himself or at any rate what he considers to be strong, while he calls ‘Ouspensky,’ ‘Petrov,’ or ‘Zakharov’ what he does not like or what he considers to be weak. On this basis he begins to reason in many ways about himself, quite wrongly of course from the very beginning, since he has already deceived himself in the most important point and has taken not his real self, that is, he has taken, not Ivanov, but the imaginary ‘Ouspensky,’ ‘Petrov’ or ‘Zakharov.’ Fragments: Eight

“Each of you,” he said, “has probably met in life people of one and the same type. Such people often even look like one another, and their inner reactions to things are exactly the same. What one likes the other will like. What one does not like the other will not like. You must remember such occasions because you can study the science of types only by meeting types. There is no other METHOD. Everything else is imagination. You must understand that in the conditions in which you live you cannot meet with more than six or seven types although there are in life a greater number of fundamental types. The rest are all combinations of these fundamental types.” Fragments: Twelve

I began a series of experiments or exercises, making use of a certain experience in this direction that I had acquired earlier. I carried out a series of short but very intensive fasts. I call them “intensive” because I did not take them at all from the hygienic point of view but tried, on the contrary, to give the strongest possible shocks to the organism. In addition to this I began to “breathe” according to a definite system which, together with fasting, had given me interesting psychological results before; and also “repetition” on the METHOD of the “prayer of the mind” which had helped me very much before to concentrate my attention and to observe myself. And also a series of mental exercises of a rather complicated kind for the concentration of the attention. I do not describe these experiments and exercises in detail because they were, after all, attempts to feel my way, without having exact knowledge of possible results. Fragments: Thirteen

I felt so much in this word that for some time I did not hear myself what I was saying. But after I had collected my thoughts I saw that they were listening to me and that I had explained everything I had not understood myself on the way to the meeting. This gave me an extraordinarily strong and clear sensation as though I had discovered for myself new possibilities, a new METHOD of perception and understanding by giving explanations to other people. And under the impetus of this sensation, as soon as I had said that examples or analogies of the transition of the forces 1, 2, 3 and 1, 3, 2 must be found in the real world, I at once saw these examples both in the human organism and in the astronomical world and in mechanics in the movements of waves. Fragments: Thirteen

“In Western systems of occultism there is a METHOD known by the name of ‘theosophical addition,’ that is, the definition of numbers consisting of two or more digits by the sum of those digits. To people who do not understand the symbolism of numbers this METHOD of synthesizing numbers seems to be absolutely arbitrary and to lead nowhere. But for a man who understands the unity of everything existing and who has the key to this unity the METHOD of theosophical addition has a profound meaning, for it resolves all diversity into the fundamental laws which govern it and which are expressed in the numbers 1 to 10. Fragments: Fourteen

“As was mentioned earlier, in symbology, as represented, numbers are connected with definite geometrical figures, and are mutually complementary one to another. In the Cabala a symbology of letters is also used and in combination with the symbology of letters a symbology of words. A combination of the four METHODs of symbolism by numbers, geometrical figures, letters, and words, gives a complicated but more perfect METHOD. Fragments: Fourteen

“The teaching whose theory is here being set out is completely self-supporting and independent of other lines and it has been completely unknown up to the present time. Like other lines it makes use of the symbolical METHOD and one of its principal symbols is the figure which has been mentioned, that is, the circle divided into nine parts: “The circle is divided into nine equal parts. Six points are connected by a figure which is symmetrical in relation to a diameter passing through the uppermost point of the divisions of the circumference. Further, the uppermost point of the divisions is the apex of an equilateral triangle linking together the points of the divisions which do not enter into the construction of the original complicated figure. Fragments: Fourteen

“The complete construction of this symbol which connects it with a complete expression of the law of octaves is more complicated than the construction shown. But even this construction shows the inner laws of one octave and it points out a METHOD of cognizing the essential nature of a thing examined in itself. Fragments: Fourteen

“But in actual practice a man can never bring himself to make super-efforts consecutively or for a long time; to do this another person’s will is necessary which would have no pity and which would have METHOD. Fragments: Seventeen

“At the same time ‘stop’ demands unconditional obedience, without any hesitations or doubts. And this makes it the invariable METHOD for studying school discipline. School discipline is something quite different from military discipline, for instance. In that discipline everything is mechanical and the more mechanical it is the better. In this everything should be conscious because the aim consists in awakening consciousness. And for many people school discipline is much more difficult than military discipline. There it is always one and the same, here it is always different. Fragments: Seventeen

“The fundamental idea of this METHOD consists in the fact that certain movements and postures can call forth any kind of breathing you like and it is also normal breathing, not ‘inflation.’ The difficulty is in knowing what movements and what postures will call forth certain kinds of breathing in what kind of people. This latter is particularly important because people from this point of view are divided into a certain number of definite types and each type should have its own definite movements to get one and the same breathing because the same movement produces different breathing with different types. A man who knows the movement which will produce in himself one or another kind of breathing is already able to control his organism and is able at any moment he likes to set in motion one or another center or cause that part which is working to stop. Of course the knowledge of these movements and the ability to control them like everything else in the world has its degrees. A man can know more or less and make a better or a worse use of it. In the meantime it is important only to understand the principle. Fragments: Eighteen