There's a great point Gurdjieff makes in Fragments.
[A]lmost everything we know about various kinds of occult, masonic, and alchemical schools [is a result of] imitation. We know practically nothing about real schools.
This is entirely true and what we have to keep in mind whenever we talk
about this topic. Because this is the real starting point: that effectively
every manifestation we see of "esotericism" is a misrepresentation, a
fragment, an outward imitation, or nonsense.
The writings that are preserved to us in some cases may be legitimate texts or they could be
complete nonsense. In many cases (I brought this up when we examined alchemy
last time) even if we have a text that is
legitimate, if it was written using a confusing system of symbols, we have
no way to translate that into comprehensible language so it becomes effectively
useless to us.
Gurdjieff explains how there probably
have been many real esoteric schools throughout history, but we don't know
about them. Instead, what we have knowledge of today are imitation schools or
devolutions of real schools.
We can go through the list of these: Freemasonry, Pythagoreanism,
Orphism, the cults of Dionysus and Apollo, the Eleusinian mysteries, the cults
of Mithra and Isis, the Western Hermetic tradition, and so on.
Probably the best example of these is Freemasonry. I have some limited
experience with Freemasonry (I never thought it was a good use of time) and for
the most part my conclusion was it was mostly devolved into a drinking or social
club. It has a feel good "become a better person" philosophy but has
lost most of the hermetic foundation that is supposed to underlie it.
Gurdjieff explains how schools degenerate over time: the people who
formed the school move on, and those who remain maintain the outward show but the purpose of the
school goes away.
The example he gives of this is rites and sacraments: like
those we might find in Freemasonry or Catholicism. These rites were created as
powerful, sacral symbols used to elevate the meaning of the inner quest.
But, here you can see the error of later interpreters who claim these rites
communicate anything in themselves when
that is quite wrong. The actual work needs to be done on one's own.
Socrates himself speculates on some of the mysteries of his time in the
dialogues. It is clear both he and Plato understood the meaning of their contemporary mystery schools,
and tried to create their own version of the discipline through their development
of philosophy.
A final thought I wanted to add here is that esotericism is by
nature fragmentary. Even if we
pick up a few legitimate elements here and there, part of the challenge is still to make it all into a functional whole in oneself.
This is where I think the
original title of Ouspensky's book was great. As the ideas in it are fascinating - though ultimately
incomplete. I touched on the purpose of esoteric schools once here; that these schools are focused on the beginning stages of
spirituality (in the Gurdjieff language, "man 4" and "man
5"). But, in order to complete the "great work," one must eventually move on, and examine the disciplines of mysticism and philosophy.
