74 Journal of Conscientiology, Vol. 2, No. 5 Book Review

Psychology of Man’s Possible Evolution, by Pedro Demianovitch OUSPENSKY. Title in French: L’Homme et son évolution possible. Title in Portuguese: Psicologia da Evolução Possível ao Homem. São Paulo; Ed. Pensamento, 1981; 79 páginas.

Ouspensky presents a set of five conferences on psychological studies about themes of man's observation of himself and his inner discipline, according to an evolutionary process, suggesting a new definition of Psychology. He states that people's main difficulty is to realize that they are really hearing new things, things that they have never heard before: "when we hear new ideas, we take them for old ideas or we think that they can be explained by or interpreted with the aid of old ideas. In fact, it is an arduous task to understand the possibility and the need for brand new ideas; this requires time and a deep review of current values” (p. 2). One aspect of psychology, when psychology was still a part of philosophy, was man's spiritual development through consciousness. Psychologists, however, have neglected this aspect for a very long time. Ouspensky proposes then that the definition of psychology should be the study of the principles, laws and facts relative to man's possible evolution (p. 5). The author considers this idea to be the oldest and the only one that can bring meaning to the forgotten origin and significance of psychology. Ouspensky highlights that man's evolution is the only subject worthy of being studied. He also adds that the experience and observation of the self indicate that it is impossible to study psychology like any other science, that is, without the person having a direct relationship with the subject under study. Ouspensky proposes four subdivisions in the definition of psychology: 1. the study of the possibilities of man's evolution; 2. the study of oneself; 3. the study of lies; 4. the study of a new language, the universal language. Pareja Evolutiva y Teneper 75

According to the author, in the last 10 to 15 thousand years, there are unmistakable signs of a superior type of humanity, whose presence can be demonstrated by multiple testimonies and monuments from ancient times, which cannot be recreated or imitated by today’s men. He states that, in the evolutionary path, man becomes a different being, who “can be considered to be an exception in comparison with the rest of humanity” (p. 6). A transitory desire arising from dissatisfaction with external environment is not enough for man to become a different being. Man has to intensely desire for a long period of time in order to create a strong enough impulse for new qualities to be acquired. As maintained by Ouspensky, when man realizes this, he can find ways to change. He will acknowledge that he does not have a single, permanent and unalterable Self, but that his Self is continuously changing (p.9). Ouspensky contends, “At the current stage of human development, the bright side is that nothing is permanent; if a small thing becomes permanent, this is a sign of madness. Only alienated people can have a permanent ego” (p. 63). The perception of having a physical body, a name, life conditions and habits is what creates the illusion of entirety. Ouspensky states that man is susceptible to 3 types of influences (p.46): A. Interests and attractions created by life itself: health, safety, comfort, wealth, pleasure, entertainment, vanity, pride, reputation, and others. B. Interests of other levels, awakened by ideas that are not created by human life, but that originate in schools of knowledge. C. Man has found school and is liberating himself through ideas and teachings that start to occupy his magnetic center. Slowly these ideas and teachings penetrate into different parts of man’s personality, until eventually they reach his essence. Consciousness in man is a particular type of acquisition of inner knowledge about himself, including the knowledge of who he is, where he is, what he knows, what he does not know, so on and so forth. Only the individual is capable of knowing if they are conscious or not at any given moment. The fact to be analyzed is that consciousness has distinctive degrees of self-observation, which can vary with inner development: 1. Duration: For how long was he conscious? 2. Frequency: How many times was he conscious? 76 Journal of Conscientiology, Vol. 2, No. 5

3. Amplitude and depth: What was he conscious of? There are as many ways to understand human beings as there are human beings themselves. To understand man in a single fashion is not accurate. Man is not one; man is multiple in relation to the changes and growth that a person undergoes. Man can be divided into two parts: 1) Essence - what is innate; and 2) Personality - what is acquired; both parts should grow in parallel, without one prevailing over the other. Man does not realize how much his observations and theories can be deceiving, even so he continues to believe in them. The development of consciousness can neither be based on lies, nor on fooling oneself. Man's possible evolution, based on the desire to acquire knowledge and to change, is limited by the narrow vision of what man is. Man is not capable of evaluating the extent of his self-knowledge. In order to find out about his own limitations and possibilities, man needs to eliminate false ideas about himself. These false ideas are based on the concept that man is a machine, an automaton, with memories from previous experiences and a certain amount of stored energy. Neither does man realize the amount of energy spent and the difficulties created as a result of an incorrect work (p. 43). A change should be made based on the acquisition of accurate information through the understanding of different consciousness states and their functions. One gradually acquires control of one’s own consciousness, leading to the state of continuous consciousness. Man is not a complete being. When man obtains a method, which provides him with the knowledge required for his evolution, he will be able to promote the development of qualities and inner charac- teristics by himself. Usually these characteristics remain embryonic and do not develop spontaneously, only through personal efforts. Experience and observation, according to Ouspensky, indicate that man’s development is only possible in well defined conditions that require personal efforts and an adequate help from those who, before him, undertook similar endeavors and arrived at a certain degree of development or, at least, obtained some knowledge about methods. Once the observation process starts, man will be able to distinguish strong and weak traits in regards to the possible knowledge about the self, a possible awakening and a possible development. Man will be able to discern what can become conscious and what cannot and should be eliminated. Pareja Evolutiva y Teneper 77

The author considers rather important to classify man into seven categories. This categorization can be applied in several possible ways of studying human activity, and it serves as an instrument to define manifestations that represent different levels of being. We present below a summary of the study of man’s model proposed by Ouspensky. The first 3 centers are related to the physical body and they represent the categories of man that prevail in our society: 1. Physical man – the instinctive center or motor center, which prevails over the intellectual and emotional centers; inferior part of the trunk. 2. Emotional man - the emotional center, which prevails over the intellectual, motor and instinctive centers; part of the thorax. 3. Intellectual man - the intellectual center, which prevails over the emotional, motor and instinctive centers; part of the head. 4. A man who differs from the first 3 due to the knowledge about himself, the understanding of his situation and the acquisition of a permanent center of gravity, similar to an attracting magnetic center. The idea of his development, acquiring unity, consciousness, the permanent Self and will became more important than all of his other interests. 5. A man who acquired the unit and the consciousness of himself. 6. A man who acquired the objective consciousness. He possesses a greater number of new faculties and powers far beyond the understanding of the common man. 7. A man who has reached everything that a human being can reach. He has a permanent Self and free will, and is able to control all his states of consciousness without losing any acquired knowledge. Similar to our awareness, our understanding is not always at the same level, it continuously increases and decreases. If we realize this fluctuation in ourselves, we will be able to maintain and even surpass our superior levels of understanding. In fact, if we wish to interact with and to understand more advanced people, we first need to change ourselves. In man’s natural course of evolution, he develops his knowledge and being. Both aspects cannot stop growing, if one does not develop, the other weakens. Comprehension is the arithmetic average between knowledge and being.

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CRITICAL ANALYSIS

This thin but profound book is filled with ideas that stimulate critical questioning, analysis and reflection on important aspects concerning individuals and humanity such as the study of the consciousness. It can be observed that the author lived in a continuous search to understand what man is as well as his potentials for developing and evolving. At the same time, Ouspensky also attempted to understand the difficulty in clarifying to himself and his fellow researchers all the knowledge that they have already acquired. Even taking into account all the effort put in by the author, the complexity of his study, and even the translator’s attempt to maintain the original ideas intact, there are many occasions where the author’s writing is not clear, making it quite difficult to understand what he means. In addition, the lack of clarity in the sequence and repetition of ideas hinders the comprehension of the material. On the other hand, it is quite remarkable to verify that approximately one century ago there already existed researchers who defended a shift of the scientific paradigm of that period, proposing the introduction of participative research, self-research, and even suggesting human evolution as the most important subject of psychological investigation. Along these lines, the author seemed to have achieved in his life a certain degree of consciential maturity, evidenced by his evolutionary intelligence (an area currently investigated by conscientiology). I agree when the author expresses that “to know” means to be able to recognize knowledge within oneself; also, that man's restricted understanding on what he is and how he functions is a main impediment to that recognition (p. 33). The author also mentions the evolutionary process related to the innate, subjective aspects of the human being, contributing to the expansion of psychological studies. However, his approach is still very restricted because he does not consider the consciousness within a multidimensional context. In order to help the reader to have a greater understanding of the information contained in Ouspensky’s book, we present the following ideas, selected according to the consciential paradigm:

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Sympathetic assimilation of energies p.47 – attracting similar influences. Self-awareness p.14 – controllable continuous consciousness. p.15 – objective consciousness. p.65 – not to remember oneself. Self-control p.34 – control of own manifestation. Self-corruption, self-deception p.8 - when one considers the self, one disregards self- corruption. p.29 - lies about oneself. p.32 - false ideas about oneself. p.33 - to lie to oneself. Self-discipline p.45–a set of external and internal conditions. Self-mimicry p.29 - lies lead man to the imitation of himself. Evolutionary self-organization p.44 - necessary conditions to personal development. Cosmoconsciousness p.17 –superior functions and states of consciousness. Conscientiotherapy p.35 – to fall asleep and to be extraphysically awakened. p.36 – to get rid of useless and immature manifestations. Energetic imbalance p.43 – needless energy consumption. Epicentrism p.47 – the magnetic center of the personality as a factor of orienting and controlling other people. Evolutionary intelligence p.7 – man's evolution depends on his understanding of what he can acquire and of what he should invest to acquire. Holosoma p.17 – first four functions: intellectual, emotional, instinc- tive and motor. p.53 – each center occupies the whole body and penetrates into the whole organism.

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Groups of Intelligence (innate talents) p.30 – some are good sailors, others have musical talents; and others still have a greater facility to learn languages. Adult immaturity p.31 – adult person whose essence remained at the age of ten or twelve. Monothosene p.63 – fixed idea. Multiple egos p.10 – each thought, sentiment, sensation, desire, I like or I don't like, is one “self”. p.33 – ...of the numerous “selves” that exist in us. Neophilia p.7 – acquiring new qualities. Neophobia p.2 – difficulty in hearing new things. Levels of self-lucidity p.13 – the consciousness has very observable levels of being conscious: duration, frequency, amplitude and depth. Personal paradigm p.39 – very subtle instrument to define manifestations. Parapsychism p.56 – certain physiological processes still unexplained by science. Existential program p.50 – we cannot sleep as peacefully as before; we will be constantly awakened to verify that our work has stopped. Existential robotization p.9 – man: an automaton, a puppet. p.33 – mechanical manifestations. p.35 – to fight this automatism. Somatic repercussion p.65 – to remember ourselves modifies our body metabolism. Foreigner syndrome p.7 – dissatisfaction with external conditions, and desire to become a different person. Somnambulism of humanity p.24 – all absurdities and contradictions of men and human life in general can be explained if we understand that they live and act in sleep and they do not know that they are sleeping. Pareja Evolutiva y Teneper 81

p.47 – at a certain age, sometimes very early,..., man dies although he is physically alive, like a seed that without the proper conditions, does not germinate. Theoricity p.33 – technical aspect, to learn how to observe, to know how to take the first step. Strong and weak traits p.33 – will distinguish the useful and the harmful aspects of the personality. Personal experience p.17 – recognize existence through experience.

Even with the great effort of many researchers, science assimilates new ideas very slowly. Then again, today humanity is undergoing an accelerated search for knowledge about ancient human phenomena. This knowledge now appears as new ideas because it is the result of recent and advanced methods and techniques.

About the author: P. D. Ouspensky was born in 1878, in Moscow, in a family of artists and intellectuals. He is known as a mathematician, author, journalist, and as a person interested in several areas of knowledge: philosophy, psychology, religion and cosmology. He was one of Gurdjieff’s best students in the Esoteric Fourth Way School. In 1918, he organized his own groups of study, promoting cycles of conferences on methods of consciousness development, including self-observation and self-discipline. After living in several cities, he settled down in London from 1921 to 1941. In 1941 he traveled to New York, where he lived until 1947, returning then to London to continue his work. However, he passed away on that same year. Among his published books are: Tertium Organum: Key to the Enigmas of the World; A New Model of the Universe; In Search of the Miraculous: Fragments of An Unknown Teaching; Talks with Devil; Conscience: the Search for Truth; The Fourth Way.

Pilar Alegre IIPC – São Paulo [email protected]