After Easter I went to give these lectures in Moscow. Among people whom I met during these lectures there were two, one a musician and the other a sculptor, who very soon began to speak to me about a GROUP in Moscow which was engaged in various “occult” investigations and experiments and directed by a certain G., a Caucasian Greek, the very”Hindu,” so I understood, to whom belonged the ballet scenario mentioned in the newspaper I had come across three or four months before this. I must confess that what these two people told me about this GROUP and what took place in it; all sorts of self-suggested wonders, interested me very little. I had heard tales exactly like this many times before and I had formed a definite opinion concerning them. Fragments: One

“I could accept such a condition only temporarily,” I said. “Of course it would be ludicrous if I began at once to write about what I learn from you. But if, in principle, you do not wish to make a secret of your ideas and care only that they should not be transmitted in a distorted form, then I could accept such a condition and wait until I had a better understanding of your teaching. I once came across a GROUP of people who were engaged in various scientific experiments on a very wide scale. They made no secret of their work. But they made it a condition that no one would have the right to speak of or describe any experiment unless he was able to carry it out himself. Until he was able to repeat the experiment himself he had to keep silent.” Fragments: One

“And each separate small I is able to call itself by the name of the Whole, to act in the name of the Whole, to agree or disagree, to give promises, to make decisions, with which another I or the Whole will have to deal. This explains why people so often make decisions and so seldom carry them out. A man decides to get up early beginning from the following day. One I, or a GROUP of I’s, decide this. But getting up is the business of another I who entirely disagrees with the decision and may even know absolutely nothing about it. Of course the man will again go on sleeping in the morning and in the evening he will again decide to get up early. In some cases this may assume very unpleasant consequences for a man. A small accidental I may promise something, not to itself, but to someone else at a certain moment simply out of vanity or for amusement. Then it disappears, but the man, that is, the whole combination of other I’s who are quite innocent of this, may have to pay for it all his life. It is the tragedy of the human being that any small I has the right to sign checks and promissory notes and the man, that is, the Whole, has to meet them. People’s whole lives often consist in paying off the promissory notes of small accidental I’s. Fragments: Three

“Thus, in one teaching, man is compared to a house in which there is a multitude of servants but no master and no steward. The servants have all forgotten their duties; no one wants to do what he ought; everyone tries to be master, if only for a moment; and, in this kind of disorder, the house is threatened with grave danger. The only chance of salvation is for a GROUP of the more sensible servants to meet together and elect a temporary steward, that is, a deputy steward. This deputy steward can then put the other servants in their places, and make each do his own work: the cook in the kitchen, the coachman in the stables, the gardener in the garden, and so on. In this way the ‘house’ can be got ready for the arrival of the real steward who will, in his turn, prepare it for the arrival of the master. Fragments: Three

“Let us take the word ‘man’ and imagine a conversation among a GROUP of people in which the word ‘man’ is often heard. Without any exaggeration it can be said that the word ‘man’ will have as many meanings as there are people taking part in the conversation, and that these meanings will have nothing in common. Fragments: Four

“Therefore, the first aim of a man beginning work in a GROUP should be self-study. The work of self-study can proceed only in properly organized GROUPs. One man alone cannot see himself. But when a certain number of people unite together for this purpose they will even involuntarily help one another. It is a common characteristic of human nature that a man sees the faults of others more easily than he sees his own. At the same time on the path of self-study he learns that he himself possesses all the faults that he finds in others. But there are many things that he does not see in himself, whereas in other people he begins to see them. But, as I have just said, in this case he knows that these features are his own. Thus other members of the GROUP serve him as mirrors in which he sees himself. But, of course, in order to see himself in other people’s faults and not merely to see the faults of others, a man must be very much on his guard against and be very sincere with himself. Fragments: Eleven

“When a GROUP is being organized its members have certain conditions put before them; in the first place, conditions general for all members, and secondly, individual conditions for individual members. Fragments: Eleven

“General conditions at the beginning of the work are usually of the following kind. First of all it is explained to all the members of a GROUP that they must keep secret everything they hear or learn in the GROUP and not only while they .are members of it but forever afterwards. Fragments: Eleven

“The next demand which is made of the members of a GROUP is that they must tell the teacher of the GROUP the .whole truth. Fragments: Eleven

“The next demand made of members of a GROUP is that they must remember why they came to the GROUP. They came to learn and to work on themselves and to learn and to work not as they understand it themselves but as they are told to. If, therefore, once they are in the GROUP, they begin to feel or to express mistrust towards the teacher, to criticize his actions, to find that they understand better how the GROUP should be conducted and especially if they show lack of external considering in relation to the teacher, lack of respect for him, asperity, impatience, tendency to argument, this at once puts an end to any possibility of work, for work is possible only as long as people remember that they have come to learn and not to teach. Fragments: Eleven

“The fundamental demands which have been enumerated provide the material for rules which are obligatory for all members of a GROUP. In the first place rules help everyone who wants to work to avoid everything that may hinder him or do harm to his work, and secondly they help him to remember himself. “It very often happens that at the beginning of the work the members of a GROUP do not like some or other of the rules. And they even ask: Can we not work without rules? Rules seem to them to be an unnecessary constraint on their freedom or a tiresome formality, and to be reminded about rules seems to them to be ill will or dissatisfaction on the part of the teacher. Fragments: Eleven

“What happens to them for this?” asked one of the audience. “Nothing — what could happen to them?” said G. “They are their own punishment. And what punishment could be worse? “It is impossible to describe in full the way work in a GROUP is conducted,” continued G. “One must go through it. All that has been said up to now are only hints, the true meaning of which will only be revealed to those who go on with the work and learn from experience what ‘barriers’ mean and what difficulties they represent. Fragments: Eleven

On another occasion, speaking of GROUPs, G. said: “Do not think that we can begin straight away by forming a GROUP. A GROUP is a big thing. A GROUP is begun for definite concerted work, for a definite aim. I should have to trust you in this work and you would have to trust me and one another. Then it would be a GROUP. Until there is general work it will only be a preparatory GROUP. We shall prepare ourselves so as in the course of time to become a GROUP. And it is only possible to prepare ourselves to become a GROUP by trying to imitate a GROUP such as it ought to be, imitating it inwardly of course, not outwardly. Fragments: Eleven

“What is necessary for this? First of all you must understand that in a GROUP all are responsible for one another. A mistake on the part of one is considered as a mistake on the part of all. This is a law. And this law is well founded for, as you will see later, what one acquires is acquired also by all. Fragments: Eleven

“The rule of common responsibility must be borne well in mind. It has another side also. Members of a GROUP are responsible not only for the mistakes of others, but also for their failures. The success of one is the success of all. The failure of one is the failure of all. A grave mistake on the part of one, such as for instance the breaking of a fundamental rule, inevitably leads to the dissolution of the whole GROUP. Fragments: Eleven

“A GROUP must work as one machine. The parts of the machine must know one another and help one another. In a GROUP there can be no personal interests opposed to the interests of others, or opposed to the interests of the work, there can be no personal sympathies or antipathies which hinder the work. All the members of a GROUP are friends and brothers, but if one of them leaves, and especially if he is sent away by the teacher, he ceases to be a friend and a brother and at once becomes a stranger, as one who is cut off. It often becomes a very hard rule, but nevertheless it is necessary. People may be lifelong friends and may enter a GROUP together. Afterwards one of them leaves. The other then has no right to speak to him about the work of the GROUP. The man who has left feels hurt, he does not understand this, and they quarrel. In order to avoid this where relations, such as husband and wife, mother and daughter, and so on, are concerned, we count them as one, that is, husband and wife are counted as one member of the GROUP. Thus if one of them cannot go on with the work and leaves, the other is considered guilty and must also leave. Fragments: Eleven

“Are we able to say for instance that life is governed by a GROUP of conscious people? Where are they? Who are they? We see exactly the opposite: that life is governed by those who are the least conscious, by those who are most asleep. Fragments: Fifteen

“Are we able to say that such a GROUP exists? Perhaps we can on the basis of certain signs, but in any event we have to acknowledge that it is a very small GROUP, quite insufficient, at any rate, to subjugate the rest of humanity. Or, looking at it from another point of view, we can say that humanity is in such a state that it is unable to accept the guidance of a conscious GROUP.” Fragments: Fifteen

But the story is not yet over. In the carriage with G. there traveled A. (a well-known journalist) who was at that time being sent away from Petersburg (this was just before the revolution). We who were seeing G. off, were standing at one end of the carriage while at the other end stood a GROUP seeing A. off. Fragments: Sixteen