“Are there any conditions for joining your group?” I asked. “And is a man who joins it tied to it and to you? In other words, I want to know if he is free to go and leave your work, or does he take definite OBLIGATIONS upon himself? And how do you act towards him if he does not carry out his OBLIGATIONS?” 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

“For instance, take one point. A situation may arise, not, of course, in the beginning but later on, when a man has to preserve secrecy, even if only for a time, about something he has learned. But can a man who does not know himself promise to keep a secret? Of course he can promise to do so, but can he keep his promise? For he is not one, there are many different people in him. One in him promises, and believes that he wants to keep the secret. But tomorrow another in him will tell it to his wife, or to a friend over a bottle of wine, or a clever man may question him in such a way that he himself will not notice that he is letting out everything. Finally, he may be hypnotized, or he may be shouted at unexpectedly and frightened, and he will do anything you like. What sort of OBLIGATIONS can he take upon himself? No, with such a man we will not talk seriously. To be able to keep a secret a man must know himself and he must be. And a man such as all men are is very far from this. Fragments: One