“Yes,” said G. “In many cases these substances are those which you call ‘narcotics’ But they can be used in entirely different ways. There are schools which make use of narcotics in the right way. People in these schools take them for self-study; in order to take a look ahead, to know their POSSIBILITIES better, to see beforehand, ‘in advance,’ what can be attained later on as the result of prolonged work. When a man sees this and is convinced that what he has learned theoretically really exists, he then works consciously, he knows where he is going. Sometimes this is the easiest way of being convinced of the real existence of those POSSIBILITIES which man often suspects in himself. There is a special chemistry relating to this. There are particular substances for each function. Each function can either be strengthened or weakened, awakened or put to sleep. But to do this a greatknowledge of the human machine and of this special chemistry is necessary. In all those schools which make use of this method experiments are carried out only when they are really necessary and only under the direction of experienced and competent men who can foresee all results and adopt measures against possible undesirable consequences. The substances used in these schools are not merely ‘narcotics’ as you call them, although many of them are prepared from such drugs as opium, hashish, and so on. Besides schools in which such experiments are carried out, there are other schools which use these or similar substances, not for experiment or study but to attain definite desired results, if only for a short time. Through a skillful use of such substances a man can be made very clever or very strong, for a certain time. Afterwards, of course, he dies or goes mad, but this is not taken into consideration. Such schools also exist. So you see that we must speak very cautiously about schools. They may do practically the same things but the results will be totally different.” Fragments: One

What interested me in this talk was that G. spoke of the planets and the moon as living beings, having definite ages, a definite period of life and POSSIBILITIES of development and transition to other planes of being. From what he said it appeared that the moon was not a “dead planet,” as is usually accepted, but, on the contrary, a “planet in birth”; a planet at the very initial stages of its development which had not yet reached “the degree of intelligence possessed by the earth,” as he expressed it. Fragments: One

All these things taken together had created in him at a very early age a leaning towards the mysterious, the incomprehensible, and the magical. He told me that when quite young he made several long journeys in the East. What was true in these stories I could never decide exactly. But, as he said, in the course of these journeys he again came across many phenomena telling him of the existence of a certain knowledge, of certain powers and POSSIBILITIES exceeding the ordinary POSSIBILITIES of man, and of people possessing clairvoyance and other miraculous powers. Gradually, he told me, his absences from home and his travels began to follow one definite aim. He went in search of knowledge and the people who possessed this knowledge. And, as he said, after great difficulties, he found the sources of this knowledge in company with several other people who were, like him, also seeking the miraculous. Fragments: Two

“And a man becomes a fakir not because he understands the POSSIBILITIES and the results of this way, and not because of religious feeling. In all Eastern countries where fakirs exist there is a custom among the common people of promising to give to fakirs a child born after some happy event. Besides this, fakirs often adopt orphans, or simply buy little children from poor parents. These children become their pupils and imitate them, or are made to imitate them, some only outwardly, but some afterwards become fakirs themselves. Fragments: Two

“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

“As a rule it is hard for man to reconcile himself to this thought; it seems to him exaggerated, unjust, and absurd. He has a poor understanding of the meaning of the word ‘possibility.’ He fancies that if he has any POSSIBILITIES in himself they must be developed and that there must be means for their development in his environment. From a total refusal to acknowledge in himself any POSSIBILITIES whatever, man generally proceeds forthwith to demand the imperative and inevitable development of these POSSIBILITIES. It is difficult for him to accept the thought that his POSSIBILITIES may remain altogether undeveloped and disappear, and that their development, on the other hand, requires of him tremendous effort and endurance. As a matter of fact, if we take all the people who are neither fakirs, monks, nor yogis, and of whom we may say with confidence that they never will be either fakirs, monks, or yogis, then we may say with undoubted certainty that their POSSIBILITIES cannot be developed and will not be developed. This must be clearly understood in order to grasp all that follows. Fragments: Two

“The evolution of man,” G. replied, “can be taken as the development in him of those powers and POSSIBILITIES which never develop by themselves, that is, mechanically. Only this kind of development, only this kind of growth, marks the real evolution of man. There is, and there can be, no other kind of evolution whatever. Fragments: Three

“Only thought as theoretical and as far removed from fact as modem European thought could have conceived the evolution of man to be possible apart from surrounding nature, or have regarded the evolution of man as a gradual conquest of nature. This is quite impossible. In living, in dying, in evolving, in degenerating, man equally serves the purposes of nature — or, rather, nature makes equal use, though perhaps for different purposes, of the products of both evolution and degeneration. And, at the same time, humanity as a whole can never escape from nature, for, even in struggling against nature man acts in conformity with her purposes. The evolution of large masses of humanity is opposed to nature’s purposes. The evolution of a certain small percentage may be in accord with nature’s purposes. Man contains within him the possibility of evolution. But the evolution of humanity as a whole, that is, the development of these POSSIBILITIES in all men, or in most of them, or even in a large number of them, is not necessary for the purposes of the earth or of the planetary world in general, and it might, in fact, be injurious or fatal. There exist, therefore, special forces (of a planetary character) which oppose the evolution of large masses of humanity and keep it at the level it ought, to be. Fragments: Three

“But, at the same time, POSSIBILITIES of evolution exist, and they may be developed in separate individuals with the help of appropriate knowledge and methods. Such development can take place only in the interests of the man himself against, so to speak, the interests and forces of the planetary world. The man must understand this: his evolution is necessary only to himself. No one else is interested in it. And no one is obliged or intends to help him. On the contrary, the forces which oppose the evolution of large masses of humanity also oppose the evolution of individual men. A man must outwit them. And one man can outwit them, humanity cannot. You will understand later on that all these obstacles are very useful to a man; if they did not exist they would have to be created intentionally, because it is by overcoming obstacles that man develops those qualities he needs. Fragments: Three

“The advantage of the separate individual is that he is very small and that, in the economy of nature, it makes no difference whether there is one mechanical man more or less. We can easily understand this correlation of magnitudes if we imagine the correlation between a microscopic cell and our own body. The presence or absence of one cell will change nothing in the life of the body. We cannot be conscious of it, and it can have no influence on the life and functions of the organism. In exactly the same way a separate individual is too small to influence the life of the cosmic organism to which he stands in the same relation (with regard to size) as a cell stands to our own organism. And this is precisely what makes his ‘evolution’ possible; on this are based his ‘POSSIBILITIES.’ Fragments: Three

“People do not know what man is. They have to do with a very complex machine, far more complex than a railway engine, a motorcar, or an aeroplane — but they know nothing, or almost nothing, about the construction, working, or POSSIBILITIES of this machine; they do not even understand its simplest functions, because they do not know the purpose of these functions. They vaguely imagine that a man should learn to control his machine, just as he has to learn to control a railway engine, a motorcar, or an aeroplane, and that incompetent handling of the human machine is just as dangerous as incompetent handling of any other complex machine. Everybody understands this in relation to an aeroplane, a motorcar, or a railway engine. But it is very rarely that anyone takes this into account in relation to man in general or to himself in particular. It is considered right and legitimate to think that nature has given men the necessary knowledge of their machine. And yet men understand that an instinctive knowledge of the machine is by no means enough. Why do they study medicine and make use of its services? Because, of course, they realize they do not know their machine. But they do not suspect that it can be known much better than science knows it; they do not suspect that then it would be possible to get quite different work out of it.” Fragments: Three

“But even the clearest understanding of his POSSIBILITIES will not bring man any nearer to their realization. In order to realize these POSSIBILITIES he must have a very strong desire for liberation and be willing to sacrifice everything, to risk everything, for the sake of this liberation.” Fragments: Three

“Such preponderance of knowledge over being is observed in present-day culture. The idea of the value and importance of the level of being is completely forgotten. And it is forgotten that the level of knowledge is determined by the level of being. Actually at a given level of being the POSSIBILITIES of knowledge are limited and finite. Within the limits of a given being the quality of knowledge cannot be changed, and the accumulation of information of one and the same nature, within already known limits, alone is possible. A change in the nature of knowledge is possible only with a change in the nature of being. Fragments: Four

“Summing up all that has been said before about the ray of creation, from world 1 down to world 96, it must be added that the figures by which worlds are designated indicate the number of forces, or orders of laws, which govern the worlds in question. In the Absolute there is only one force and only one law — the single and independent will of the Absolute. In the next world there are three forces or three orders of laws. In the next there are six orders of laws; in the following one, twelve; and so on. In our world, that is, the earth, forty-eight orders of laws are operating to which we are subject and by which our whole life is governed. If we lived on the moon we should be subject to ninety-six orders of laws, that is, our life and activity would be still more mechanical and we should not have the POSSIBILITIES of escape from mechanicalness that we now have. “As has been said already, the will of the Absolute is only manifested in the immediate world created by it within itself, that is, in world 3; the immediate will of the Absolute does not reach world 6 and is mani-fested in it only in the form of mechanical laws. Further on, in worlds 12, 24, 48, and 96, the will of the Absolute has less and less possibility of manifesting itself. This means that in world 3 the Absolute creates, as it were, a general plan of all the rest of the universe, which is then further developed mechanically. The will of the Absolute cannot manifest itself in subsequent worlds apart from this plan, and, in manifesting itself in accordance with this plan, it takes the form of mechanical laws. This means that if the Absolute wanted to manifest its will, say, in our world, in opposition to the mechanical laws in operation there, it would then have to destroy all the worlds intermediate between itself and our world. Fragments: Five

“Having fixed in his own mind the difference between the intellectual, the emotional, and the moving functions, a man must, as he observes himself, immediately refer his impressions to this or that category. And at first he must take mental note of only such observations as regards which he has no doubt whatever, that is, those where he sees at once to what category they belong. He must reject all vague or doubtful cases and remember only those which are unquestionable. If the work is carried on properly, the number of unquestionable observations will rapidly increase. And that which seemed doubtful before will be clearly seen to belong to the first, the second, the third center. Each center has its own memory, its own associations, its own thinking. As a matter of fact each center consists of three parts: the thinking, the emotional, and the moving. But we know very little about this side of our nature. In each center we know only one part. Self-observation, however, will very quickly show us that our mental life is much richer than we think, or in any case that it contains more POSSIBILITIES than we think. Fragments: Six

G. began the next talk as follows: “Man’s POSSIBILITIES are very great. You cannot conceive even a shadow of what man is capable of attaining. But nothing can be attained in sleep. In the consciousness of a sleeping man his illusions, his ‘dreams’ are mixed with reality. He lives in a subjective world and he can never escape from it. And this is the reason why he can never make use of all the powers he possesses and why he always lives in only a small part of himself. Fragments: Eight

“It has been said before that self-study and self-observation, if rightly conducted, bring man to the realization of the fact that something is wrong with his machine and with his functions in their ordinary state. A man realizes that it is precisely because he is asleep that he lives and works in a small part of himself. It is precisely for this reason that the vast majority of his POSSIBILITIES remain unrealized, the vast majority of his powers are left unused. A man feels that he does not get out of life all that it can give him, that he fails to do so owing to definite functional defects in his machine, in his receiving apparatus. The idea of self-study acquires in his eyes a new meaning. He feels that possibly it may not even be worth while studying himself as he is now. He sees every function as it is now and as it could be or ought to be. Self-observation brings man to the realization of the necessity for self-change. And in observing him-self a man notices that self-observation itself brings about certain changes in his inner processes. He begins to understand that self-observation is an instrument of self­change, a means of awakening. By observing himself he throws, as it were, a ray of light onto his inner processes which have hitherto worked in complete darkness. And under the influence of this light the processes themselves begin to change. There are a great many chemical processes that can take place only in the absence of light. Exactly in the same way many psychic processes can take place only in the dark. Even a feeble light of consciousness is enough to change completely the character of a process, while it makes many of them altogether impossible. Our inner psychic processes (our inner alchemy) have much in common with those chemical processes in which light changes the character of the process and they are subject to analogous laws. Fragments: Eight

“In order to understand the work of the human machine and its POSSIBILITIES, one must know that, apart from these three centers and those connected with them, we have two more centers, fully developed and properly functioning, but they are not connected with our usual life nor with the three centers in which we are aware of ourselves. Fragments: Nine

“All mystical and occult systems recognize the existence of higher forces and capacities in man although, in many cases, they admit the existence of these forces and capacities only in the form of POSSIBILITIES, and speak of the necessity for developing the hidden forces in man. This present teaching differs from many others by the fact that it affirms that the higher centers exist in man and are fully developed. Fragments: Nine

“Here again there are many POSSIBILITIES. But this will be spoken of later on. For the moment let us imagine that he has met a man who really knows the way and is ready to help him. The influence of this man upon him goes through his magnetic center. And then, at this point, the man frees himself from the law of accident. This is what must be understood. The influence of the man who knows the way upon the first man is a special kind of influence, differing from the former two, first of all in being a direct influence, and secondly in being a conscious influence. Influences of the second kind, which create magnetic center, are conscious in their origin but afterwards they are thrown into the general vortex of life, are intermixed with influences created in life itself, and are equally subject to the law of accident. Influences of the third kind can never be subject to the law of accident; they are themselves outside the law of accident and their action also is outside the law of accident. Influences of the second kind can proceed through books, through philosophical systems, through rituals. Influences of the third kind can proceed only from one person to another, directly, by means of oral transmission. Fragments: Ten

“There are also various POSSIBILITIES as regards the teacher’s situation in relation to the esoteric center, namely, he may know more or he may know less about the esoteric center, he may know exactly where this center is and how knowledge and help was or is received from it; or he may know nothing of this and may only know the man from whom he himself received his knowledge. In most cases people start precisely from the point that they know only one step higher than themselves. And only in proportion to their own development do they begin to see further and to recognize where what they know came from. Fragments: Ten

“So far I have spoken of the right magnetic center, of the right guide, and of the right way. But a situation is possible in which the magnetic center has been wrongly formed. It may be divided in itself, that is, it may include contradictions. In it, moreover, may enter influences of the first kind, that is, those created in life, under the guise of influences of the second kind, or the traces of influences of the second kind but distorted to such an extent that they have become their own opposite. Such a wrongly formed magnetic center cannot give a right orientation. A man with a wrong magnetic center of this kind may also look for the way and he may meet another man who will call himself a teacher and will say that he knows the way and that he is connected with a center standing outside the law of accident. But in reality he may not know the way and may not be connected with such a center. Moreover here again there are many POSSIBILITIES: “1. He may be genuinely mistaken and think that he knows something, when in reality he knows nothing. “2. He may believe another man, who in his turn may be mistaken. “3. He may deceive consciously. Fragments: Ten

“Every moment of time contains a certain number of POSSIBILITIES, at times a small number, at others a great number, but never an infinite number. It is necessary to realize that there are POSSIBILITIES and there are imPOSSIBILITIES. I can take from this table and throw on the floor a piece of paper, a pencil, or an ash-tray, but I cannot take from the table and throw on the floor an orange which is not on the table. This clearly defines the difference between possibility and impossibility. There are several combinations of POSSIBILITIES in relation to things which can be thrown on the floor from this table. I can throw a pencil, or a piece of paper, or an ash-tray, or else a pencil and a piece of paper, or a pencil and an ash-tray, or a piece of paper and an ash-tray, or all three together, or nothing at all. There are only these POSSIBILITIES. If we take as a moment of time the moment when these POSSIBILITIES exist, then the next moment will be a moment of the actualization of one of the POSSIBILITIES. A pencil is thrown on the floor. This is the actualization of one of the POSSIBILITIES. Then a new moment comes. This moment also has a certain number of POSSIBILITIES in a certain definite sense. And the moment after it will again be a moment of the actualization of one of the POSSIBILITIES. The consecutiveness of these moments of actualization of one possibility constitutes the line of time. But each moment of time has an infinite existence in eternity. The POSSIBILITIES which have been actualized continue to be endlessly actualized in eternity, while the non-actualized POSSIBILITIES continue to remain non-actualized and non-actualizable. Fragments: Ten

“But all the POSSIBILITIES that have been created or have originated in the world must be actualized. The actualization of all the POSSIBILITIES created or originated constitutes the world’s being. At the same time there is no place for the actualization of these POSSIBILITIES within the limits of eternity. In eternity everything that has been actualized continues to be actualized and everything non-actualized continues to remain non-actualized. Eternity, however, is only a plane crossed by the line of time. At every point of this line there remains a certain number of non-actualized POSSIBILITIES. If we imagine the line of the actualization of these POSSIBILITIES, they will proceed along radii issuing from one point at different angles to the line of time and the line of eternity. These lines will proceed outside eternity, outside the five­dimensional space, in ‘higher eternity’ or in six-dimensional space, in the sixth dimension. Fragments: Ten

“The sixth dimension is the line of the actualization of all POSSIBILITIES. Fragments: Ten

“The fifth dimension is the line of the eternal existence or repetition of the actualized POSSIBILITIES. Fragments: Ten

“This means that all the POSSIBILITIES of the ‘atom’ or ‘microbe’ are realized within the limits of the solar system. Fragments: Ten

“If we take man as the Tritocosmos, then, for him, the Mesocosmos will be four­dimensional space, the Deuterocosmos five-dimensional space, and the Macrocosmos six-dimensional space. This means that all the POSSIBILITIES of the Tritocosmos are realized in the Macrocosmos. Fragments: Ten

“Therefore parallel with this, all the POSSIBILITIES of the Mesocosmos are realized in the Ayocosmos and all the POSSIBILITIES of the Deuterocosmos, or the sun, are realized in the Protocosmos or the Absolute. Fragments: Ten

“The POSSIBILITIES of the earth are actualized in the Ayocosmos; this means that in the Ayocosmos the earth is a six-dimensional body. And actually we can to a certain extent see in what way the form of the earth must change. In the Deuterocosmos, that is, in relation to the sun, the earth is no longer a point (taking a point as a scale reduction of a three-dimensional body), but a line which we trace as the path of the earth around the sun. If we take the sun in the Macrocosmos, that is, if we visualize the line of the sun’s motion, then the line of the motion of the earth will become a spiral encircling the line of the sun’s motion. If we conceive a lateral motion of this spiral, then this motion will construct a figure which we cannot imagine because we do not know the nature of its motion, but which, nevertheless, will be the six­dimensional figure of the earth, which the earth itself can see as a three-dimensional figure. It is necessary to establish and to understand this because otherwise the idea of the three-dimensionality of the cosmoses will become linked with our idea of three-dimensional bodies. The three-dimensionality even of one and the same body can be different. Fragments: Ten

“In this case all the POSSIBILITIES of man are actualized in the sun. This corresponds to what has been said before, namely, that man number seven becomes immortal within the limits of the solar system. Fragments: Ten

“Beyond the sun, that is, beyond the solar system, he has not and cannot have any existence, or in other words, from the point of view of the next cosmos he does not exist at all. A man does not exist at all in the Macrocosmos. The Macrocosmos is the cosmos in which the POSSIBILITIES of the Tritocosmos are realized and man can exist in the Macrocosmos only as an atom of the Tritocosmos. The POSSIBILITIES of the earth are actualized in the Megalocosmos and the POSSIBILITIES of the sun are actualized in the Protocosmos. Fragments: Ten

” ‘To awake,’ ‘to die,’ ‘to be born.’ These are three successive stages. If you study the Gospels attentively you will see that references are often made to the possibility of being born, several references are made to the necessity of ‘dying,’ and there are very many references to the necessity of ‘awakening’ — ‘watch, for ye know not the day and hour . . .’ and. so on. But these three POSSIBILITIES of man, to awake or not to sleep, to die, and to be born, are not set down in connection with one another. Nevertheless this is the whole point. If a man dies without having awakened he cannot be born. If a man is born without having died he may become an ‘immortal thing.’ Thus the fact that he has not ‘died’ prevents a man from being ‘born’; the fact of his not having awakened prevents him from ‘dying’; and should he be born without having died he is prevented from ‘being.’ Fragments: Eleven

BY THAT time, midsummer 1916, work in our groups began to take new and more intensive forms. G. spent most of the time in St. Petersburg, only going to Moscow for a few days and coming back again generally with two or three of his Moscow pupils. Our lectures and meetings had by that time already lost their formal character; we had all begun to know one another better and, though there was a little friction, we represented on the whole a very compact group united by interest in the new ideas we were learning and the new POSSIBILITIES of knowledge and self-knowledge which had been opened out before us. At that time there were about thirty of us. We met almost every evening. Several times, on arriving from Moscow, G. arranged excursions into the country for large parties, and picnics where we had shashlik, which were somehow totally out of keeping with St. Petersburg. There remains in my memory a trip to Ostrovki up the river Neva, more particularly because I suddenly realized on this trip why G. arranged these seemingly quite aimless amusements. I realized that he was all the time observing and that many of us on these occasions showed entirely new aspects of ourselves which had remained well hidden at the formal meetings in St. Petersburg. Fragments: Twelve

“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

“This idea of repetition,” said G., “is not the full and absolute truth, but it is the nearest possible approximation of the truth. In this case truth cannot be expressed in words. But what you say is very near to it. And if you understand why I do not speak of this, you will be still nearer to it. What is the use of a man knowing about recurrence if he is not conscious of it and if he himself does not change? One can say even that if a man does not change, repetition does not exist for him. If you tell him about repetition, it will only increase his sleep. Why should he make any efforts today when there is so much time and so many POSSIBILITIES ahead — the whole of eternity? Why should he bother today? This is exactly why the system does not say anything about repetition and takes only this one life which we know. The system has neither meaning nor sense without striving for self-change. And work on self-change must begin today, immediately. All laws can be seen in one life. Knowledge about the repetition of lives will add nothing for a man if he does not see how everything repeats itself in one life, that is, in this life, and if he does not strive to change himself in order to escape this repetition. But if he changes something essential in himself, that is, if he attains something, this cannot be lost” Fragments: Twelve

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

“That is something people always ask,” he said. “Whatever they may be speaking about, they ask: Ought it to be like that and how can it be changed, that is, what ought to be done in such a case? As though it were possible to change anything, as though it were possible to do anything. You at least ought to have realized by now how naive such questions are. Cosmic forces have created this state of affairs and cosmic forces control this state of affairs. And you ask: Can it be left like that or should it be changed! God himself could change nothing. Do you remember what was said about the forty-eight laws? They cannot be changed, but liberation from a considerable portion of them is possible, that is to say, there is a possibility of changing the state of affairs for oneself, it is possible to escape from the general law. You should understand that in this case as well as in all others the general law cannot be changed. But one can change one’s own position in relation to this law; one can escape from the general law. The more so since in this law about which I speak, that is, in the power of sex over people, are included many different POSSIBILITIES. It includes the chief form of slavery and it is also the chief possibility of liberation. This is what you must understand. Fragments: Twelve

I quickly noticed a still stranger property of G.’s apartment. It was not possible to tell lies there. A lie at once became apparent, obvious, tangible, indubitable. Once there came an acquaintance of G.’s whom I had met before and who sometimes came to G.’s groups. Besides myself there were two or three people in the apartment. G. himself was not there. And having sat a while in silence our guest began to tell how he had just met a man who had told him some extraordinarily interesting things about the war, about POSSIBILITIES of peace and so on. And suddenly quite unexpectedly for me I felt that he was lying. He had not met anybody and nobody had told him anything. He was making it all up on the spot simply because he could not endure the silence. Fragments: Thirteen

I felt so much in this word that for some time I did not hear myself what I was saying. But after I had collected my thoughts I saw that they were listening to me and that I had explained everything I had not understood myself on the way to the meeting. This gave me an extraordinarily strong and clear sensation as though I had discovered for myself new POSSIBILITIES, a new method of perception and understanding by giving explanations to other people. And under the impetus of this sensation, as soon as I had said that examples or analogies of the transition of the forces 1, 2, 3 and 1, 3, 2 must be found in the real world, I at once saw these examples both in the human organism and in the astronomical world and in mechanics in the movements of waves. Fragments: Thirteen

“We have no clues from which we are able to tell in what period of planetary evolution we exist and whether the moon and the earth have time to await the corresponding evolution of organic life or not. But people who know may, of course, have exact information about it, that is, they may know at what stage in their possible evolution are the earth, the moon, and humanity. We cannot know this but we should bear in mind that the number of POSSIBILITIES is never infinite. Fragments: Fifteen

But certainly the idea of the difficulty and the exclusiveness of the way was right. And at different times questions arose out of it which were put to G.: “Can it be possible that there is any difference between us and those people who have no conception of this system?” — “Must we understand that people who are not passing along any of the ways are doomed to turn eternally in one and the same circle, that they are merely ‘food for the moon,’ that they have no escape and no POSSIBILITIES?” — “Is it correct to think that there are no ways outside the ways; and how is it arranged that some people, much better people perhaps, do not come across a way, while others, weak and insignificant, come into contact with the POSSIBILITIES of a way?” Fragments: Seventeen

“When I say that an obyvatel is more serious than a ‘tramp’ or a ‘lunatic,’ I mean by this that, accustomed to deal with real values, an obyvatel values the POSSIBILITIES of the ‘ways’ and the POSSIBILITIES of ‘liberation’ or ‘salvation’ better and quicker than a man who is accustomed all his life to a circle of imaginary values, imaginary interests, and imaginary POSSIBILITIES. Fragments: Seventeen

“Yes and no,” said G. “This is true in most cases, just as it is true in one life. But on a big scale new forces may enter. I shall not explain this now; but think about what I am going to say: Planetary influences also can change. They are not permanent. Besides this, tendencies themselves can be different; there are tendencies which, once they have appeared, continue and develop by themselves mechanically, and there are others which need constant pushing and which immediately weaken and may vanish altogether or turn into dreaming if a man ceases to work on them. Moreover there is a definite time, a definite term, for everything. Possibilities for everything” (he emphasized these words) “exist only for a definite time.” Fragments: Twelve