“In order to grasp the ESSENCE of this teaching it is necessary clearly to understand the idea that the ways are the only possible methods for the development of man’s hidden possibilities. This in turn shows how difficult and rare such development is. The development of these possibilities is not a law. The law for man is existence in the circle of mechanical influences, the state of ‘man-machine.’ The way of the development of hidden possibilities is a way against nature, against God. This explains the difficulties and the exclusiveness of the ways. The ways are narrow and strait. But at the same time only by them can anything be attained. In the general mass of everyday life, especially modern life, the ways are a small, quite imperceptible phenomenon which, from the point of view of life, need not exist at all. But this small phenomenon contains in itself all that man has for the development of his hidden possibilities. The ways are opposed to everyday life, based upon other principles and subject to other laws. In this consists their power and their significance. In everyday life, even in a life filled with scientific, philosophical, religious, or social interests, there is nothing, and there can be nothing, which could give the possibilities which are contained in the ways. The ways lead, or should lead, man to immortality. Everyday life, even at its best, leads man to death and can lead to nothing eke. The idea of the ways cannot be understood if the possibility of man’s evolution without their help is admitted. Fragments: Two

“Yes, that is because people believe in progress and culture,” said G. “There is no progress whatever. Everything is just the same as it was thousands, and tens of thousands, of years ago. The outward form changes. The ESSENCE does not change. Man remains just the same. ‘Civilized’ and ‘cultured’ people live with exactly the same interests as the most ignorant savages. Modem civilization is based on violence and slavery and fine words. But all these fine words about ‘progress’ and ‘civilization’ are merely words.” Fragments: Two

“The reason for this is that knowledge which is not in accordance with being cannot be large enough for, or sufficiently suited to, man’s real needs. It will always be a knowledge of one thing together with ignorance of another thing; a knowledge of the detail without a knowledge of the whole; a knowledge of the form without a knowledge of the ESSENCE. Fragments: Four

“Man number five has already been crystallized; he cannot change as man number one, two, and three change. But it must be noted that man number five can be the result of right work and he can be the result of wrong work. He can become number five from number four and he can become number five without having been four. And in this case he cannot develop further, cannot become number six and seven. In order to become number six he must again melt his crystallized ESSENCE, must intentionally lose his being of man number five. And this can be achieved only through terrible sufferings. Fortunately these cases of wrong development occur very rarely. Fragments: Four

There was more sense in this silly story than in a thousand theological treatises. The laws of a game make the ESSENCE of the game. A violation of these laws would destroy the entire game. The Absolute can as little interfere in our life and substitute other results in the place of the natural results of causes created by us, or created accidentally, as he can beat the ace of trumps with the deuce. Turgenev wrote somewhere that all ordinary prayers can be reduced to one: “Lord, make it so that twice two be not four.” This is the same thing as the ace of trumps of the seminarist. Fragments: Five

“I mentioned before about fate and accident in man’s life. We will now take the meaning of these words in more detail. Fate also exists but not for everyone. Most people are separated from their fate and live under the law of accident only. Fate is the result of planetary influences which correspond to a man’s type. We will speak about types later. In the meantime you must grasp one thing. A man can have the fate which corresponds to his type but he practically never does have it. This arises because fate has relation to only one part of man, namely to his ESSENCE. Fragments: Eight

“It must be understood that man consists of two parts: ESSENCE and personality. Essence in man is what is his own. Personality in man is what is ‘not his own.’ ‘Not his own’ means what has come from outside, what he has learned, or reflects, all traces of exterior impressions left in the memory and in the sensations, all words and movements that have been learned, all feelings created by imitation — all this is ‘not his own,’ all this is personality. Fragments: Eight

“From the point of view of ordinary psychology the division of man into personality and ESSENCE is hardly comprehensible. It is more exact to say that such a division does not exist in psychology at all. Fragments: Eight

“A small child has no personality as yet. He is what he really is. He is ESSENCE. His desires, tastes, likes, dislikes, express his being such as it is. Fragments: Eight

“Essence is the truth in man; personality is the false. But in proportion as personality grows, ESSENCE manifests itself more and more rarely and more and more feebly and it very often happens that ESSENCE stops in its growth at a very early age and grows no further. It happens very often that the ESSENCE of a grown-up man, even that of a very intellectual and, in the accepted meaning of the word, highly ‘educated’ man, stops on the level of a child of five or six. This means that everything we see in this man is in reality ‘not his own.’ What is his own in man, that is, his ESSENCE, is usually only manifested in his instincts and in his simplest emotions. There are cases, however, when a man’s ESSENCE grows in parallel with his personality. Such cases represent very rare exceptions especially in the circumstances of cultured life. Essence has more chances of development in men who live nearer to nature in difficult conditions of constant struggle and danger. Fragments: Eight

“There exists a possibility of experimental verification of the relation of personality to ESSENCE. In Eastern schools ways and means are known by the help of which it is possible to separate man’s personality from his ESSENCE. For this purpose they sometimes use hypnosis, sometimes special narcotics, sometimes certain kinds of exercises. If personality and ESSENCE are for a time separated in a man by one or another of these means, two beings, as it were, are formed in him, who speak in different voices, have completely different tastes, aims, and interests, and one of these two beings often proves to be on the level of a small child. Continuing the experiment further it is possible to put one of these beings to sleep, or the experiment may begin by putting to sleep either personality or ESSENCE. Certain narcotics have the property of putting personality to sleep without affecting ESSENCE. And for a certain time after taking this narcotic a man’s personality disappears, as it were, and only his ESSENCE remains. And it happens that a man full of the most varied and exalted ideas, full of sympathies and antipathies, love, hatred, attachments, patriotism, habits, tastes, desires, convictions, suddenly proves quite empty, without thoughts, without feelings, without convictions, without views. Everything that has agitated him before now leaves him completely indifferent. Sometimes he sees the artificiality and the imaginary character of his usual moods or his high-sounding words, sometimes he simply forgets them as though they had never existed. Things for which he was ready to sacrifice his life now appear to him ridiculous and meaningless and unworthy of his attention. All that he can find in himself is a small number of instinctive inclinations and tastes. He is fond of sweets, he likes warmth, he dislikes cold, he dislikes the thought of work, or on the contrary he likes the idea of physical movement. And that is all. Fragments: Eight

“Sometimes, though very seldom, and sometimes when it is least expected, ESSENCE proves fully grown and fully developed in a man, even in cases of undeveloped personality, and in this case ESSENCE unites together everything that is serious and real in a man. Fragments: Eight

“But this happens very seldom. As a rule a man’s ESSENCE is either primitive, savage, and childish, or else simply stupid. The development of ESSENCE depends on work on oneself. Fragments: Eight

“A very important moment in the work on oneself is when a man begins to distinguish between his personality and his ESSENCE. A man’s real I, his individuality, can grow only from his ESSENCE. It can be said that a man’s individuality is his ESSENCE, grown up, mature. But in order to enable ESSENCE to grow up, it is first of all necessary to weaken the constant pressure of personality upon it, because the obstacles to the growth of ESSENCE are contained in personality. Fragments: Eight

‘If we take an average cultured man, we shall see that in the vast majority of cases his personality is the active element in him while his ESSENCE is the passive element. The inner growth of a man cannot begin so long as this order of things remains unchanged. Personality must become passive and ESSENCE must become active. This can happen only if ‘buffers’ are removed or weakened, because ‘buffers’ are the chief weapon by the help of which personality holds ESSENCE in subjection. Fragments: Eight

“As has been said earlier, in the case of less cultured people ESSENCE is often more highly developed than it is in cultured man. It would seem that they ought to be nearer the possibility of growth, but in reality it is not so because their personality proves to be insufficiently developed. For inner growth, for work on oneself, a certain development of personality as well as a certain strength of ESSENCE are necessary. Personality consists of ‘rolls,’ and of ‘buffers’ resulting from a certain work of the centers. An insufficiently developed personality means a lack of ‘rolls,’ that is, a lack of knowledge, a lack of information, a lack of the material upon which work on oneself must be based. Without some store of knowledge, without a certain amount of material ‘not his own,’ a man cannot begin to work on himself, he cannot begin to study himself, he cannot begin to struggle with his mechanical habits, simply because there will be no reason or motive for undertaking such work. Fragments: Eight

“It does not mean that all the ways are closed to him. The way of the fakir and the way of the monk, which do not require any intellectual development, remain open to him. But the methods and the means which are possible for a man of a developed intellect are impossible for him. Thus evolution is equally difficult for a cultured or an uncultured man. A cultured man lives far from nature, far from natural conditions of existence, in artificial conditions of life, developing his personality at the expense of his ESSENCE. A less cultured man, living in more normal and more natural conditions, develops his ESSENCE at the expense of his personality. A successful beginning of workwork on oneself requires the happy occurrence of an equal development of personality and ESSENCE. Such an occurrence will give the greatest assurance of success. If ESSENCE is very-little developed, a long preparatory period of work is required and this work will be quite fruitless if a man’s ESSENCE is rotten inside or if it develops some irreparable defects. Conditions of this kind occur fairly often. An abnormal development of personality very often arrests the development of ESSENCE at such an early stage that the ESSENCE becomes a small deformed thing. From a small deformed thing nothing else can be got. Fragments: Eight

“Moreover, it happens fairly often that ESSENCE dies in a man while his personality and his body are still alive. A considerable percentage of the people we meet in the streets of a great town are people who are empty inside, that is, they are actually already dead. Fragments: Eight

“If ESSENCE is subject to the influence of fate, does it mean that compared with accident fate is always favorable to a man?” asked somebody present. “And can fate bring a man to the work?” Fragments: Eight

“We have already spoken enough about the meaning of being ‘born.’ This relates to the beginning of a new growth of ESSENCE, the beginning of the formation of individuality, the beginning of the appearance of one indivisible I. Fragments: Eleven

“The next important feature of group work is that groups may be connected with some aim of which those who are beginning work in them have no idea whatever and which cannot even be explained to them until they understand the ESSENCE and the principles of the work and the ideas connected with it. But this aim towards which without knowing it they are going, and which they are serving, is the necessary balancing principle in their own work. Their first task is to understand this aim, that is, the aim of the teacher. When they have understood this aim, although at first not fully, their own work becomes more conscious and consequently can give better results. But, as I have already said, it often happens that the aim of the teacher cannot be explained at the beginning. Fragments: Eleven

“You must understand that a man should have, first, a certain preparation, certain luggage. He should know what it is possible to know through ordinary channels about the ideas of esotericism, about hidden knowledge, about possibilities of the inner evolution of man, and so on. What I mean is that these ideas ought not to appear to him as something entirely new. Otherwise it is difficult to speak to him. It is useful also if he has at least some scientific or philosophical preparation. If a man has a good knowledge of religion, this can also be useful. But if he is tied to religious forms and has no understanding of their ESSENCE, he will find it very difficult. In general, if a man knows but little, has read but little, has thought but little, it is difficult to talk to him. If he has a good ESSENCE there is another way for him without any talks at all, but in this case he has to be obedient, he has to give up his will. And he has to come to this also in some way or other. It can be said that there is one general rule for everybody. In order to approach this system seriously, people must be disappointed, first of all in themselves, that is to say, in their powers, and secondly in all the old ways. A man cannot feel what is most valuable in the system unless he is disappointed in what he has been doing, disappointed in what he has been searching for If he is a scientist he should be disappointed in his science If he is a religious man he should be disappointed in his religion If he is a politician he should be disappointed in politics If he is a philosopher he should be disappointed in philosophy If he is a theosophist he should be disappointed in theosophy If he is an occultist he should be disappointed in occultism And so on But you must understand what this means I say for instance that a religious man should be disappointed in religion This does not mean that he should lose his faith On the contrary, it means being ‘disappointed’ in the teaching and the methods only, realizing that the religious teaching he knows is not enough for him, can lead him nowhere All religious teachings, excepting of course the completely degenerated religions of savages and the invented religions and sects of modern times, consist of two parts, the visible and the hidden To be disappointed in religion means being disappointed in the visible, and to feel the necessity for finding the hidden and unknown part of religion To be disappointed in science does not mean losing interest in knowledge It means being convinced that the usual scientific methods are not only useless but lead to the construction of absurd and self contradictory theories, and, having become convinced of this, to begin to search for others To be disappointed in philosophy means being convinced that ordinary philosophy is merely — as it is said in the Russian proverb — pouring from one empty vessel into another, and that people do not even know what philosophy means although true philosophy also can and should exist To be disappointed in occultism does not mean losing faith in the miraculous, it is merely being convinced that ordinary, accessible, and even advertised occultism, under whatever name it may pass, is simply charlatanism and self decep­tion and that, although somewhere something does exist, everything that man knows or is able to learn in the ordinary way is not what he needs So that, no matter what he used to do before, no matter what used to interest him, if a man has arrived at this state of disappointment in ways that are possible and accessible, it is worth while speaking to him about our system and then he may come to the work But if he continues to think that he is able to find anything on his former way, or that he has not as yet tried all the ways, or that he can, by himself, find anything or do anything, it means that he is not ready I do not mean that he must throw up everything he used to do before This is entirely unnecessary On the contrary, it is often even better if he continues to do what he used to do But he must realize that it is only a profession, or a habit, or a necessity In this case it is another matter, he will then be able not to ‘identify’ “There is only one thing incompatible with work and that is ‘professional occultism,’ in other words, professional charlatanism All these spiritualists, healers, clairvoyants, and so on, or even people closely connected with them, are none of them any good to us. And you must always remember this and take care not to tell them much because everything they learn from you they might use for their own purposes, that is, to make fools of other people. Fragments: Twelve

When G. next came to St. Petersburg (he had been in Moscow this time for two or three weeks) we told him of our attempts; he listened to everything and merely said that we did not know how to separate “personality” from “ESSENCE.” Fragments: Twelve

“Personality hides behind ESSENCE,” he said, “and ESSENCE hides behind personality and they mutually screen each other.” Fragments: Twelve

“How can ESSENCE be separated from personality?” asked one of those present. Fragments: Twelve

“Quite true,” replied G. “Therefore we must first of all establish of what precisely we are speaking — of what moment in a man’s development and of what level of being. Just now I was simply speaking of a man in life who had no connection whatever with the work. Such a man, particularly if he belongs to the ‘intellectual’ classes, is almost entirely composed of personality. In most cases his ESSENCE ceases to develop at a very early age. I know respected fathers of families, professors full of various ideas, well­known authors, important officials who were almost ministers, whose ESSENCE had stopped developing approximately at the age of twelve. And that is not so bad. It sometimes happens that certain aspects of ESSENCE stop at five or six years of age and then everything ends; all the rest is not their own; it is repertoire, or taken from books; or it has been created by imitating ready-made models.” After this there were many conversations, in which G. took part, during which we tried to find out the reason for our failure to fulfill the task set by G. But the more we talked the less we understood what he actually wanted from us. Fragments: Twelve

Conversations in groups continued as usual. Once G. said that he wanted to carry out an experiment on the separation of personality from ESSENCE. We were all very interested because he had promised “experiments” for a long time but till then we had seen nothing. I will not describe his methods, I will merely describe the people whom he chose that first evening for the experiment. One was no longer young and was a man who occupied a fairly prominent position in society. At our meetings he spoke much and often about himself, his family, about Christianity, and about the events of the moment connected with the war and with all possible kinds of “scandal” that had very much disgusted him. The other was younger. Many of us did not consider him to be a serious person. Very often he played what is called the fool; or, on the other hand, entered into endless formal arguments about some or other details of the system without any relation whatever to the whole. It was very difficult to understand him. He spoke in a confused and intricate manner even of the most simple things, mixing up in a most impossible way different points of view and words belonging to different categories and levels. Fragments: Twelve

Neither of them remembered anything the next day. G. explained to us that with the first man everything that constituted the subject of his ordinary conversation, of his alarms and agitation, was in personality. And when his personality was asleep practically nothing remained. In the personality of the other there was also a great deal of undue talkativeness but behind the personality there was an ESSENCE which knew as much as the personality and knew it better, and when personality went to sleep ESSENCE took its place to which it had a much greater right. Fragments: Twelve

“There is a good deal of truth in that,” said G. “But in that form it is, of course, much too general. Actually you did not see types of men and women but types of events. What I speak of refers to the real type, that is to say, to ESSENCE. If people were to live in ESSENCE one type would always find the other type and wrong types would never come together. But people live in personality. Personality has its own interests and its own tastes which have nothing in common with the interests and the tastes of ESSENCE. Personality in our case is the result of the wrong workwork of centers. For this reason personality can dislike precisely what ESSENCE likes — and like what ESSENCE does not like. Here is where the struggle between ESSENCE and personality begins. Essence knows what it wants but cannot explain it. Personality does not want to hear of it and takes no account of it. It has its own desires. And it acts in its own way. But its power does not continue beyond that moment. After that, in some way or other, the two ESSENCEs have to live together. And they hate one another. No sort of acting can help here. In one way or another ESSENCE or type gains the upper hand and decides. Fragments: Twelve

G. told another of our party — it was the middle-aged man on whom he had carried out the experiment of dividing personality from ESSENCE and who asked for raspberry jam — that his feature was that he had no conscience. Fragments: Thirteen

P., the middle-aged man whom I have mentioned in connection with experiments in dividing personality from ESSENCE, came out of the situation with honor and quickly became a very active member of our group, only on occasions going astray into a formal attitude or in “literal understanding.” Fragments: Thirteen

“The transmission of the meaning of symbols to a man who has not reached an understanding of them in himself is impossible. This sounds like a paradox, but the meaning of a symbol and the disclosure of its ESSENCE can only be given to, and can only be understood by, one who, so to speak, already knows what is comprised in this symbol. And then a symbol becomes for him a synthesis of his knowledge and serves him for the expression and transmission of his knowledge just as it served the man who constructed it. Fragments: Fourteen

“So that in the actual situation of humanity there is nothing that points to evolution proceeding. On the contrary when we compare humanity with a man we quite clearly see a growth of personality at the cost of ESSENCE, that is, a growth of the artificial, the unreal, and what is foreign, at the cost of the natural, the real, and what is one’s own. Fragments: Fifteen

“Yes,” said G., “it depends upon how they are understood. They can be of value and they can be without value. Astrology deals with only one part of man, with his type, his ESSENCE — it does not deal with personality, with acquired qualities. If you understand this you understand what is of value in astrology.” Fragments: Seventeen

“Essence remembers,” said G., “personality has forgotten. And this was necessary because otherwise personality would have perverted everything and would have ascribed all this to itself.” Fragments: Twelve