“For this purpose a man must learn to take, so to speak, ‘mental photographs’ of himself at different moments of his life and in different emotional states: and not photographs of details, but photographs of the whole as he saw it. In other words these photographs must contain simultaneously everything that a man can see in himself at a given moment. Emotions, moods, thoughts, sensations, POSTURES, movements, tones of voice, facial expressions, and so on. If a man succeeds in seizing interesting moments for these photographs he will very soon collect a whole album of pictures of himself which, taken together, will show him quite clearly what he is. But it is not so easy to learn how to take these photographs at the most interesting and characteristic moments, how to catch characteristic POSTURES, characteristic facial expressions, characteristic emotions, and characteristic thoughts. If the photographs are taken successfully and if there is a sufficient number of them, a man will see that his usual conception of himself, with which he has lived from year to year, is very far from reality. Fragments: Eight

I think it was at about ten o’clock that he called me, Dr. S., and Z. into a small separate room. We sat on the floor “Turkish fashion” and G. began to explain and to show us certain POSTURES and physical movements. I could not help noticing that there was an astonishing assurance and precision in all his movements although the movements and POSTURES themselves did not present any particular problem and a good gymnast could have done them without exceptional difficulty. I had never had any pretensions to the role of an athlete but I could imitate them outwardly. G. explained that although a gymnast could of course do these movements the gymnast would do them in a different way from him and that he did them in a special way with muscles relaxed. Fragments: Thirteen

Indicating what had been preserved up to our time, G. at the same time pointed out what had been lost and forgotten. He spoke of sacred dances which accompanied the “services” in the “temples of repetition” and which were not included in the Christian form of worship. He also spoke of various exercises, and of special POSTURES for different prayers, that is, for different kinds of meditation; about acquiring control over the breathing and of the necessity of being able to tense or relax any group of muscles, or the muscles of the whole body at will; and about many other things having relation, so to speak, to the “technique” of religion. Fragments: Fifteen

“If a man were able to work on himself everything would be very simple and schools would be unnecessary. But he cannot, and the reasons for this lie very deep in his nature. I will leave for the moment his insincerity with himself, the perpetual lies he tells himself, and so on, and take only the division of the centers. This alone makes independent work on himself impossible for a man. You must understand that the three principal centers, the thinking, the emotional, and the moving, are connected together and, In a normal man, they are always working in unison. This unison is what presents the chief difficulty in work on oneself. What is meant by this unison? It means that a definite work of the thinking center is connected with a definite work of the emotional and moving centers — that is to say, that a certain kind of thought is inevitably connected with a certain kind of emotion (or mental state) and with a cer­tain kind of movement (or posture); and one evokes the other, that is, a certain kind of emotion (or mental state) evokes certain movements or POSTURES and certain thoughts, and a certain kind of movement or posture evokes certain emotions or mental states, and so forth. Everything is connected and one thing cannot exist without another thing. Fragments: Seventeen

In this connection G. showed us a number of different exercises for obtaining control over muscular tension and he showed us certain POSTURES adopted in schools when praying or contemplating which a man can only adopt if he learns to relax unnecessary tension of the muscles. Among them was the so-called posture of Buddha with feet resting on the knees, and another still more difficult posture, which he could adopt to perfection, and which we were able to imitate only very approximately. Fragments: Seventeen

“Every race,” he said, “every nation, every epoch, every country, every class, every profession, has its own definite number of POSTURES and movements. These movements and POSTURES, as things which are the most permanent and unchangeable in man, control his form of thought and his form of feeling. But a man never makes use of even all the POSTURES and movements possible for him. In accordance with his individuality a man takes only a certain number of the POSTURES and movements possible for him. So that each individual man’s repertory of POSTURES and movements is very limited. Fragments: Seventeen

“The character of the movements and POSTURES in every epoch, in every race, and in every class is indissolubly connected with definite forms of thinking and feeling. A man is unable to change the form of his thinking or his feeling until he has changed his repertory of POSTURES and movements. The forms of thinking and feeling can be called the POSTURES and movements of thinking and feeling. Every man has a definite number of thinking and feeling POSTURES and movements. Moreover moving, thinking, and feeling POSTURES are connected with one another in man and he can never move out of his repertory of thinking and feeling POSTURES unless he changes his moving POSTURES. An analysis of man’s thoughts and feelings and a study of his moving functions, arranged in a certain way, show that every one of our movements, voluntary or involuntary, is an unconscious transition from one posture to another, both equally mechanical. Fragments: Seventeen

“It is illusion to say our movements are voluntary. All our movements are automatic. Our thoughts and feelings are just as automatic. The automatism of thought and feeling is definitely connected with the automatism of movement. One cannot be changed without the other. So that if a man’s attention is concentrated, let us say, on changing automatic thoughts, then habitual movements and habitual POSTURES will interfere with this new course of thought by attaching to it old habitual associations. Fragments: Seventeen

“In ordinary conditions we have no conception how much our thinking, feeling, and moving functions depend upon one another, although we know, at the same time, how much our moods and our emotional states can depend upon our movements and POSTURES. If a man takes a posture which with him corresponds to a feeling of sadness or despondency, then within a short time he is sure to feel sad or despondent. Fear, disgust, nervous agitation, or, on the other hand, calm, can be created by an intentional change of posture. But as each of man’s functions, thinking, emotional, and moving, has its own definite repertory all of which are in constant interaction, a man can never get out of the charmed circle of his POSTURES. Fragments: Seventeen

“In order to oppose this automatism and gradually to acquire control over POSTURES and movements in different centers there is one special exercise. It consists in this — that at a word or sign, previously agreed upon, from the teacher, all the pupils who hear or see him have to arrest their movements at once, no matter what they are doing, and remain stock-still in the posture in which the signal has caught them. Moreover not only must they cease to move, but they must keep their eyes on the same spot at which they were looking at the moment of the signal, retain the smile on their faces, if there was one, keep the mouth open if a man was speaking, maintain the facial expression and the tension of all the muscles of the body exactly in the same position in which they were caught by the signal. In this ‘stopped’ state a man must also stop the flow of his thoughts and concentrate the whole of his attention on preserving the tension of the muscles in the various parts of the body exactly as it was, watching this tension all the time and leading so to speak his attention from one part of the body to another. And he must remain in this state and in this position until another agreed-upon signal allows him to adopt a customary posture or until he drops from fatigue through being unable to preserve the original posture any longer. But he has no right to change anything in it, neither his glance, points of support, nothing. If he cannot stand he must fall — but, again, he should fall like a sack without attempting to protect himself from a blow. In exactly the same way, if he was holding something in his hands he must hold it as long as he can and if his hands refuse to obey him and the object falls it is not his fault. Fragments: Seventeen

“It is the duty of the teacher to see that no personal injury occurs from falling or from unaccustomed POSTURES, and in this connection the pupils must trust the teacher fully and not think of any danger. Fragments: Seventeen

“The idea of this exercise and its results differ very much. Let us take it first of all from the point of view of the study of movements and POSTURES. This exercise affords a man the possibility of getting out of the circle of automatism and it cannot be dispensed with, especially at the beginning of workwork on oneself. Fragments: Seventeen

“But it must be understood that in order to bring into action a sufficient strength of will to keep a man in an unaccustomed position an order or command from the outside: ‘stop,’ is indispensable. A man cannot give himself the command stop. His will will not obey this command. The reason for this, as I have said before, is that the combination of habitual thinking, feeling, and moving POSTURES is stronger than a man’s will. The command stop which, in relation to moving POSTURES, comes from out­side, takes the place of thinking and feeling POSTURES. These POSTURES and their influence are so to speak removed by the command stop — and in this case moving POSTURES obey the will.” Fragments: Seventeen

“The fundamental idea of this method consists in the fact that certain movements and POSTURES can call forth any kind of breathing you like and it is also normal breathing, not ‘inflation.’ The difficulty is in knowing what movements and what POSTURES will call forth certain kinds of breathing in what kind of people. This latter is particularly important because people from this point of view are divided into a certain number of definite types and each type should have its own definite movements to get one and the same breathing because the same movement produces different breathing with different types. A man who knows the movement which will produce in himself one or another kind of breathing is already able to control his organism and is able at any moment he likes to set in motion one or another center or cause that part which is working to stop. Of course the knowledge of these movements and the ability to control them like everything else in the world has its degrees. A man can know more or less and make a better or a worse use of it. In the meantime it is important only to understand the principle. Fragments: Eighteen

Having explained the meaning of various kinds of breathing he began to divide those present into three groups according to type. About forty people were there. G.’s idea was to show how the same movements with different people produced different “moments of breathing,” for instance, with some inhalation, with others exhalation, and how different movements and POSTURES can produce one and the same moment of breathing — inhalation, exhalation, and holding the breath. Fragments: Eighteen