“People are turning into MACHINES,” I said. “And no doubt sometimes theybecome perfect MACHINES. But I do not believe they can think. If they tried to think, they could not have been such fine MACHINES.” Fragments: One

“Yes,” said G., “that is true, but only partly true. It depends first of all on the question which mind they use for their work. If they use the proper mind they will be able to think even better in the midst of all their work with MACHINES. But, again, only if they think with the proper mind.” Fragments: One

“And secondly,” he continued, “the mechanization you speak of is not at all dangerous. A man may be a man” (he emphasized this word), “while working with MACHINES. There is another kind of mechanization which is much more dangerous: being a machine oneself. Have you ever thought about the fact that all peoples themselves are MACHINES?” Fragments: One

“Yes,” I said, “from the strictly scientific point of view all people are MACHINES governed by external influences. But the question is, can the scientific point of view be wholly accepted?” Fragments: One

“Scientific or not scientific is all the same to me,” said G. “I want you to understand what I am saying. Look, all those people you see,” he pointed along the street, “are simply MACHINES — nothing more.” Fragments: One

“Of exactly the same order,” said G. “These activities are just as mechanical as everything else. Men are MACHINES and nothing but mechanical actions can be expected of MACHINES.” Fragments: One

“Very well,” I said. “But are there no people who are not MACHINES?” Fragments: One

“Quite right,” said G., “people are very unlike one another, but the real difference between people you do not know and cannot see. The difference of which you speak simply does not exist. This must be understood. All the people you see, all the people you know, all the people you may get to know, are MACHINES, actual MACHINES working solely under the power of external influences, as you yourself said. Machines they are born and MACHINES they die. How do savages and intellectuals come into this? Even now, at this very moment, while we are talking, several millions of MACHINES are trying to annihilate one another. What is the difference between them? Where are the savages and where are the intellectuals? They are all alike . . . Fragments: One

“But there is a possibility of ceasing to be a machine. It is of this we must think and not about the different kinds of MACHINES that exist. Of course there are different MACHINES; a motorcar is a machine, a gramophone is a machine, and a gun is a machine. But what of it? It is the same thing — they are all MACHINES.” Fragments: One

“Before speaking of psychology we must be clear to whom it refers and to whom it does not refer,” he said. “Psychology refers to people, to men, to human beings. What psychology” (he emphasized the word) “can there be in relation to MACHINES? Mechanics, not psychology, is necessary for the study of MACHINES. That is why we begin with mechanics. It is a very long way yet to psychology.” Fragments: One

“‘What do you expect?” said G. “People are MACHINES. Machines have to be blind and unconscious, they cannot be otherwise, and all their actions have to correspond to their nature. Everything happens. No one does anything. ‘Progress’ and ‘civilization,’ in the real meaning of these words, can appear only as the result of conscious efforts. They cannot appear as the result of unconscious mechanical actions. And what con­scious effort can there be in MACHINES? And if one machine is unconscious, then a hundred MACHINES are unconscious, and so are a thousand MACHINES, or a hundred thousand, or a million. And the unconscious activity of a million MACHINES must necessarily result in destruction and extermination. It is precisely in unconscious involuntary manifestations that all evil lies. You do not yet understand and cannot imagine all the results of this evil. But the time will come when you will understand.” Fragments: Two

“But of course there are limits and bounds. Generally speaking, the being of a modem man is of very inferior quality. But it can be of such bad quality that no change is possible. This must always be remembered. People whose being can still be changed are very lucky. But there are people who are definitely diseased, broken MACHINES with whom nothing can be done. And such people are in the majority. If you think of this you will understand why only few can receive real knowledge. Their being prevents it. Fragments: Four

“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

“First of all it is necessary to understand that a Christian is not a man who calls himself a Christian or whom others call a Christian. A Christian is one who lives in accordance with Christ’s precepts. Such as we are we cannot be Christians. In order to be Christians we must be able ‘to do.’ We cannot do; with us everything ‘happens.’ Christ says: ‘Love your enemies,’ but how can we love our enemies when we cannot even love our friends? Sometimes ‘it loves’ and sometimes ‘it does not love.’ Such as we are we cannot even really desire to be Christians because, again, sometimes ‘it desires’ and sometimes ‘it does not desire.’ And one and the same thing cannot be desired for long, because suddenly, instead of desiring to be a Christian, a man remembers a very good but very expensive carpet that he has seen in a shop. And instead of wishing to be a Christian he begins to think how he can manage to buy this carpet, forgetting all about Christianity. Or if somebody else does not believe what a wonderful Christian he is, he will be ready to eat him alive or to roast him on hot coals. In order to be a good Christian one must be. To be means to be master of oneself. If a man is not his own master he has nothing and can have nothing. And he cannot be a Christian. He is simply a machine, an automaton. A machine cannot be a Christian. Think for yourselves, is it possible for a motorcar or a typewriter or a gramophone to be Christian? They are simply things which are controlled by chance. They are not responsible. They are MACHINES. To be a Christian means to be re­sponsible. Responsibility comes later when a man even partially ceases to be a machine, and begins in fact, and not only in words, to desire to be a Christian.” Fragments: Six

“Thus we see that our organism has the different kinds of fuel necessary for the different centers. The centers can be compared to MACHINES working on fuels of different qualities. One machine can be worked on oil residue or crude oil. Another requires kerosene; a third will not work with kerosene but requires gasoline. The fine substances of our organism can be characterized as substances of different flash­points, while the organism itself can be compared to a laboratory in which the combustibles of different strengths required by the different centers are prepared from various kinds of raw material. Unfortunately, however, there is something wrong with the laboratory. The forces controlling the distribution of combustibles among the different centers often make mistakes and the centers receive fuel that is either too weak or too easily inflammable. Moreover, a great quantity of all the combustibles produced is spent quite uselessly; it simply runs out; is lost. Besides, explosions often take place in the laboratory which at one stroke destroy all the fuel prepared for the next day and possibly for even a longer period, and are able to cause irreparable dam­age to the whole factory. Fragments: Nine

“You must realize that the teacher takes a very difficult task upon himself, the cleaning and the repair of human MACHINES. Of course he accepts only those MACHINES that are within his power to mend. If something essential is broken or put out of order in the machine, then he refuses to take it. But even such MACHINES, which by their nature could still be cleaned, become quite hopeless if they begin to tell lies. A lie to the teacher, even the most insignificant, concealment of any kind such as the concealment of something another has asked to be kept secret, or of something the man himself has said to another, at once puts an end to the work of that man, especially if he has previously made any efforts. Fragments: Eleven

It proved that friends and acquaintances asked very shrewd questions to which most of bur people had no answers. They asked for instance what we had got from the work and openly expressed doubts as to our “remembering ourselves.” On the other hand others had themselves no doubt whatever that they “remembered themselves.” Others found the “ray of creation” and the “seven cosmoses” ridiculous and useless; “What has ‘geography’ to do with this?” very wittily asked one of my friends parodying a sentence from an amusing play which had been running shortly before this; others asked who had seen the centers and how they could be seen; others found absurd the idea that we could not “do.” Others found the idea of esotericism “entertaining but not convincing.” Others said that this idea in general was a “new invention.” Others were not prepared to sacrifice their descent from apes. Others found that there was no idea of the “love of mankind” in the system. Others said that our ideas were thorough-going materialism, that we wanted to make people MACHINES, that there was no idea of the miraculous, no idealism, and so on, and so on. Fragments: Twelve

Our talks about people who could be interested in the system and able to work, involuntarily led us towards a valuation of our friends from an entirely new point of view. In this respect we all experienced bitter disappointment. Even before G. had formally requested us to speak of the system to our friends we had of course all tried in one way or another to talk about it at any rate with those of them whom we met most often. And in most cases our enthusiasm in regard to the ideas of the system met with a very cold reception. They did not understand us; the ideas which seemed to us new and original seemed to our friends to be old and tedious, leading nowhere, and even repellent. This astonished us more than anything else. We were amazed that people with whom we had felt an inner intimacy, with whom in former times we had been able to talk about all questions that worried us, and in whom we had found a response, could fail to see what we saw and above all that they could see something quite opposite. I have to say that, in regard to my own personal experience, it gave me a very strange even painful impression. I speak of the absolute impossibility of making people understand us. We are of course accustomed to this in ordinary life, in the realm of ordinary questions, and we know that people who are hostile to us at heart or narrow-minded or incapable of thought can misunderstand us, twist and distort anything we say, can ascribe to us thoughts we never had, words which we never uttered, and so on. But now when we saw that all this was being done by those whom we used to regard as our kind of people, with whom we used to spend very much of our time, and who formerly had seem to us to understand us better than anyone else, it produced on us a discouraging impression. Such cases of course constituted the ex­ceptions; most of our friends were merely indifferent, and all our attempts to infect them with our interest in G.’s system led to nothing. But sometimes they got a very curious impression of us. I do not remember now who was the first to notice that our friends found we had begun to change for the worse. They found us less interesting than we had been before; they told us we were becoming colorless, as though we were fading, were losing our former spontaneity, our former responsiveness to everything, that we were becoming “MACHINES,” were ceasing to think originally, were ceasing to feel, that we were merely repeating like parrots what we heard from G. Fragments: Twelve

“Where, in the cosmic octaves of radiation, the place of the interval fa-mi appears, in the diagram are marked the ‘MACHINES’ which are found there in the same way as in the human body. Fragments: Fourteen

“Contemporary culture requires automatons. And people are undoubtedly losing their acquired habits of independence and turning into automatons, into parts of MACHINES. It is impossible to say where is the end of all this and where the way out — or whether there is an end and a way out. One thing alone is certain, that man’s slavery grows and increases. Man is becoming a willing slave. He no longer needs chains. He begins to grow fond of his slavery, to be proud of it. And this is the most terrible thing that can happen to a man. Fragments: Fifteen

“And besides there is deception in the very words ‘moral’ and ‘spiritual’ themselves. I have often enough explained before that in speaking of MACHINES one cannot begin with their ‘morality’ or their ‘spirituality,’ but that one must begin with their mechanicalness and the laws governing this mechanicalness. The being of man number one, number two, and number three is the being of MACHINES which are able to cease being MACHINES but which have not ceased being MACHINES.” Fragments: Seventeen

“This all has one aim: to bring breathing into the right muscles, to hand it over to the moving center. And as I said, sometimes this is successful. But there is always a big risk that the moving center will lose its habit of working properly, and since the formatory apparatus cannot work all the time, as for instance during sleep, and the moving center does not want to, then the machine can find itself in a very sorry situation. A man may even die from breathing having stopped. The disorganization of the functions of the machine through breathing exercises is almost inevitable when people try to do ‘breathing exercises’ from books by themselves without proper instruction. Many people used to come to me in Moscow who had completely disorganized right functioning of their MACHINES by so-called ‘yogi breathing’ which they had learned from books. Books which recommend such exercises represent a great danger. Fragments: Eighteen