The war could not touch me personally, at any rate not until the final catastrophe which seemed to me inevitable for Russia, and perhaps for the whole of Europe, but not yet imminent. Though then, of course, the approaching catastrophe looked only temporary and no one had as yet conceived all the disintegration and destruction, both inner and outer, in which we should have to live in the FUTURE. Fragments: One

“There are no conditions of any kind,” said G., “and there cannot be any. Our starting point is that man does not know himself, that he is not” (he emphasized these words), “that is, he is not what he can and what he should be. For this reason he cannot make any agreements or assume anyobligations. He can decide nothing in regard to the FUTURE. Today he is one person and tomorrow another. He is in no way bound to us and if he likes he can at any time leave the work and go. There are no obligations of any kind either in our relationship to him or in his to us. Fragments: One

“If he likes he can study. He will have to study for a long time, and work a great deal on himself. When he has learned enough, then it is a different matter. He will see for himself whether he likes our work or not. If he wishes he can work with us; if not he may go away. Up to that moment he is free. If he stays after that he will be able to decide or make arrangements for the FUTURE. Fragments: One

“Many things are possible,” said G. “But it is necessary to understand that man’s being, both in life and after death, if it does exist after death, may be very different in quality. The ‘man-machine’ with whom everything depends upon external influences, with whom everything happens, who is now one, the next moment another, and the next moment a third, has no FUTURE of any kind; he is buried and that is all. Dust returns to dust. This applies to him. In order to be able to speak of any kind of FUTURE life there must be a certain crystallization, a certain fusion of man’s inner qualities, a certain independence of external influences. If there is anything in a man able to resist external influences, then this very thing itself may also be able to resist the death of the physical body. But think for yourselves what there is to withstand physical death in a man who faints or forgets everything when he cuts his finger? If there is anything in a man, it may survive; if there is nothing, then there is nothing to survive. But even if something survives, its FUTURE can be very varied. In certain cases of fuller crystallization what people call ‘reincarnation’ may be possible after death, and, in other cases, what people call ‘existence on the other side.’ In both cases it is the continuation of life in the ‘astral body,’ or with the help of the ‘astral body.’ You know what the expression ‘astral body’ means. But the systems with which you are acquainted and which use this expression state that all men have an ‘astral body.’ This is quite wrong. What may be called the ‘astral body’ is obtained by means of fusion, that is, by means of terribly hard inner work and struggle. Man is not born with it. And only very few men acquire an ‘astral body.’ If it is formed it may continue to live after the death of the physical body, and it may be born again in another physical body. This is ‘reincarnation.’ If it is not re-born, then, in the course of time, it also dies; it is not immortal but it can live long after the death of the physical body. Fragments: Two

He had passed his young years in an atmosphere of fairy tales, legends, and traditions. The “miraculous” around him was an actual fact. Predictions of the FUTURE which he heard, and which those around him fully believed, were fulfilled and made him believe in many other things. Fragments: Two

At one of the following meetings of the group G. continued, in reply to a question, to develop the ideas given by him before on reincarnation and the FUTURE life. Fragments: Two

What I heard interested me very much for it connected G.’s system with the system of the Tarot, which had seemed to me at one time to be a possible key to hidden knowledge. Moreover it showed me a relation of three to four which was new to me and which I had not been able to understand from the Tarot. The Tarot is definitely constructed upon the law of four principles. Until now G. had spoken only of the law of three principles. But now I saw how three passed into four and understood the necessity for this division so long as the division of force and matter exists for our immediate observation. “Three” referred to force and “four” referred to matter. Of course, the further meaning of this was still obscure for me, but even the little that G. said promised a great deal for the FUTURE. Fragments: Five

“I formulated my own aim quite clearly several years ago,” I said. “I said to myself then that I want to know the FUTURE. Through a theoretical study of the question I came to the conclusion that the FUTURE can be known, and several times I was even successful in experiments in knowing Fragments: Six

the exact FUTURE. I concluded from this that we ought, and that we have a right, to know the FUTURE, and that until we do know it we shall not be able to organize our lives. A great deal was connected for me with this question. I considered, for instance, that a man can know, and has a right to know, exactly how much time is left to him, how much time he has at his disposal, or, in other words, he can and has a right to know the day and hour of his death. I always thought it humiliating for a man to live without knowing this and I decided at one time not to begin doing anything in any sense whatever until I did know it. For what is the good of beginning any kind of work when one doesn’t know whether one will have time to finish it or not?” Fragments: Six

“Very well,” said G., “to know the FUTURE is the first aim. Who else can formulate his aim?” Fragments: Six

“I don’t care whether I know the FUTURE or not, or whether I am certain or not certain of life after death,” said another, “if I remain what I am now. What I feel most strongly is that I am not master of myself, and if I were to formulate my aim, I should say that I want to be master of myself.” Fragments: Six

“In order to know the FUTURE it is necessary first to know the present in all its details, as well as to know the past. Today is what it is because yesterday was what it was. And if today is like yesterday, tomorrow will be like today. If you want tomorrow to be different, you must make today different. If today is simply a consequence of yesterday, tomorrow will be a consequence of today in exactly the same way. And if one has studied thoroughly what happened yesterday, the day before yesterday, a week ago, a year, ten years ago, one can say unmistakably what will and what will not happen tomorrow. But at present we have not sufficient material at our disposal to discuss this question seriously. What happens or may happen to us may depend upon three causes: upon accident, upon fate, or upon our own will. Such as we are, we are almost wholly dependent upon accident. We can have no fate in the real sense of the word any more than we can have will. If we had will, then through this alone we should know the FUTURE, because we should then make our FUTURE, and make it such as we want it to be. If we had fate, we could also know the FUTURE, because fate corresponds to type. If the type is known, then its fate can be known, that is, both the past and the FUTURE. But accidents cannot be foreseen. Today a man is one, tomorrow he is different: today one thing happens to him, tomorrow another.” Fragments: Six

“It is impossible to say,” said G. “One can only foretell the FUTURE for men. It is impossible to foretell the FUTURE for mad machines. Their direction changes every moment. At one moment a machine of this kind is going in one direction and you can calculate where it can get to, but five minutes later it is already going in quite a different direction and all your calculations prove to be wrong. Therefore, before talking about knowing the FUTURE, one must know whose FUTURE is meant. If a man wants to know his own FUTURE he must first of all know himself. Then he will see whether it is worth his while to know the FUTURE. Sometimes, maybe, it is better not to know it. Fragments: Six

“It sounds paradoxical but we have every right to say that we know our FUTURE. It will be exactly the same as our past has been. Nothing can change of itself. Fragments: Six

“And in practice, in order to study the FUTURE one must learn to notice and to remember the moments when we really know the FUTURE and when we act in accordance with this knowledge. Then judging by results, it will be possible to demonstrate that we really do know the FUTURE. This happens in a simple way in business, for instance. Every good commercial businessman knows the FUTURE. If he does not know the FUTURE his business goes smash. In work on oneself one must be a good businessman, a good merchant. And knowing the FUTURE is worth while only when a man can be his own master. Fragments: Six

“There was a question here about the FUTURE life, about how to create it, how to avoid final death, how not to die. Fragments: Six

“For this it is necessary ‘to be’ If a man is changing every minute, if there is nothing in him that can withstand external influences, it means that there is nothing in him that can withstand death. But if he becomes independent of external influences, if there appears in him something that can live by itself, this something may not die. In ordinary circumstances we die every moment. External influences change and we change with them, that is, many of our I’s die. If a man develops in himself a per­manent I that can survive a change in external conditions, it can survive the death of the physical body. The whole secret is that one cannot work for a FUTURE life without working for this one. In working for life a man works for death, or rather, for immortality. Therefore work for immortality, if one may so call it, cannot be separated from general work. In attaining the one, a man attains the other. A man may strive to be simply for the sake of his own life’s interests. Through this alone he may become immortal. We do not speak specially of a FUTURE life and we do not study whether it exists or not, because the laws are everywhere the same. In studying his own life as he knows it, and the lives of other men, from birth to death, a man is studying all the laws which govern life and death and immortality. If he becomes the master of his life, he may become the master of his death. Fragments: Six

“In order to find a way of discriminating we must understand that every normal psychic function is a means or an instrument of knowledge. With the help of the mind we see one aspect of things and events, with the help of emotions another aspect, with the help of sensations a third aspect. The most complete knowledge of a given subject possible for us can only be obtained if we examine it simultaneously with our mind, feelings, and sensations. Every man who is striving after right knowledge must aim at the possibility of attaining such perception. In ordinary conditions man sees the world through a crooked, uneven window. And even if he realizes this, he cannot alter anything. This or that mode of perception depends upon the work of his organism as a whole. All functions are interconnected and counterbalance one another, all functions strive to keep one another in the state in which they are. Therefore when a man begins to study himself he must understand that if he discovers in himself something that he dislikes he will not be able to change it. To study is one thing, and to change is another. But study is the first step towards the possibility of change in the FUTURE. And in the beginning, to study himself he must understand that for a long time all his work will consist in study only. Fragments: Six

The second thing was the demand “not to express unpleasant emotions.” I at once felt something big behind this. And the FUTURE showed that I was right, for the study of emotions and the work on emotions became the basis of the subsequent development of the whole system. But this was much later. Fragments: Six

“The first fundamental law of the universe is the law of three forces, or three principles, or, as it is often called, the law of three. According to this law every action, every phenomenon in all worlds without exception, is the result of a simultaneous action of three forces — the positive, the negative, and the neutralizing. Of this we have already spoken, and in FUTURE we will return to this law with every new line of study. Fragments: Seven

“Conscience is a general and a permanent phenomenon. Conscience is the same for all men and conscience is possible only in the absence of ‘buffers.’ From the point of view of understanding the different categories of man we may say that there exists the conscience of a man in whom there are no contradictions. This conscience is not suffering; on the contrary it is joy of a totally new character which we are unable to understand. But even a momentary awakening of conscience in a man who has thousands of different I’s is bound to involve suffering. And if these moments of conscience become longer and if a man does not fear them but on the contrary co­operates with them and tries to keep and prolong them, an element of very subtle joy, a foretaste of the FUTURE ‘clear consciousness’ will gradually enter into these moments. Fragments: Eight

“The idea of this restriction consists in the fact that they are unable to transmit correctly what is said in the groups. They very soon begin to learn from their own personal experience how much effort, how much time, and how much explaining is necessary in order to grasp what is said in groups. It becomes clear to them that they are unable to give their friends a right idea of what they have learned themselves. At the same time also they begin to understand that by giving their friends wrong ideas they shut them off from any possibility of approaching the work at any time or of understanding anything in connection with the work, to say nothing of the fact that in this way they are creating very many difficulties and even very much unpleasantness for themselves in the FUTURE. If a man in spite of this tries to transmit what he hears in groups to his friends he will very quickly be convinced that attempts in this direction give entirely unexpected and undesirable results. Either people begin to argue with him and without wanting to listen to him expect him to listen to their theories, or they misinterpret everything he tells them, attach an entirely different meaning to everything they hear from him. In seeing this and understanding the uselessness of such attempts a man begins to see one aspect of this restriction. Fragments: Eleven

But G.’s chaff did not affect me. He had given me something very substantial and could not take it back. I did not believe his jokes and did not believe that he could have invented what he had said about recurrence. I also learned to understand his intonations. The FUTURE showed that I was right, for although G. did not introduce the idea of recurrence into his exposition of the system, he referred several times to the idea of recurrence, chiefly in speaking of the lost possibilities of people who had approached the system and then had drawn away from it. Fragments: Twelve

One thing I understood even then with undoubted clarity, that no phenomena of a higher order, that is, transcending the category of ordinary things observable every day, or phenomena which are sometimes called “metaphysical,” can be observed or investigated by ordinary means, in an ordinary state of consciousness, like physical phenomena. It is a complete absurdity to think that it is possible to study phenomena of a higher order like “telepathy,” “clairvoyance,” foreseeing the FUTURE, mediumistic phenomena, and so on, in the same way as electrical, chemical, or meteorological phenomena are studied. There is something in phenomena of a higher order which requires a particular emotional state for their observation and study. And this excludes any possibility of “properly conducted” laboratory experiments and observations. Fragments: Thirteen

“You think perhaps that this affords me a great deal of satisfaction,” he said. “Or perhaps you think that there is nothing else that I could do. If so you are very gravely mistaken in both cases. There are very many other things that I could do. And if I give my time to this it is only because I have a definite aim. By now you ought better to understand in what my aim consists and by now you ought to see whether you are on the same road as I am or not. I will say nothing more. But in the FUTURE I shall work only with those who can be useful to me in attaining my aim. And only those people can be useful to me who have firmly decided to struggle with themselves, that is, to struggle with mechanicalness.” Fragments: Thirteen

The more we saw and realized the complexity and the diversity of methods of work on oneself, the clearer became for us the difficulties of the way. We saw the indispensability of great knowledge, of immense efforts, and of help such as none of us either could or had the right to count upon. We saw that even to begin work on oneself in any serious form was an exceptional phenomenon needing thousands of favorable inner and outward conditions. And the beginning gave no guarantee for the FUTURE. Each step required an effort, each step needed help. The possibility of attaining anything seemed so small in comparison with the difficulties that many of us lost the desire to make efforts of any kind. Fragments: Seventeen

“Events” gave no time to go into philosophical speculations. One had to think about living, that is to say, simply and quite plainly to think about where one could live and work. The revolution and everything connected with it aroused in me deep physical disgust. At the same time, in spite of my sympathy with the “whites” I could not believe in their success. The bolsheviks did not hesitate to promise things that neither they nor anyone else could perform. In this was their principal strength. It was something in which nobody could compete with them. In addition to this they had the support of Germany, who saw in them a possibility of revenge in the FUTURE. The volunteer army, which had freed us from the bolsheviks, was able to fight them and conquer them. But it was not able to organize in a proper way the course of life in the liberated provinces. Its leaders had neither program, knowledge, nor experience in this direction. Of course this could not be demanded of them. But facts are facts. The situation was very unstable and the wave which was still rolling towards Moscow at the time could be rolled back again any day. Fragments: Eighteen

On returning to London I announced to those who came to my lectures that my work in the FUTURE would proceed quite independently in the way it had been begun in London in 1921. Fragments: Eighteen