Gurdjieff – Meetings With Remarkable Men 1:42:52
Peter Brook, one of the pioneers of the experimental theatre movement of the 1950s and 1960s, was the director of Meetings with Remarkable Men. Brook tells the story of Asian mystic G. I. Gurdjieff, here played by Dragan Maksimovic. Gurdjieff devotes his entire existence, from youth to old age, in quest of the meaning of life. He eventually develops a form of meditation incorporating modern dance. Terence Stamp, who in Meetings with Remarkable Men plays Prince Lubovedsky, himself briefly retreated from his career after this picture, in favor of Eastern meditation.

Meetings with Remarkable Men
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Meetings with Remarkable Men is the second volume of the All and Everything trilogy written by the Greek-Armenian mystic G. I. Gurdjieff. A book of autobiography, it was originally published in 1963 and tells the tale of the young Gurdjieff growing up in a world torn between his unexplainable experiences and the developing modern sciences.

The book takes the form of Gurdjieff’s reminiscences about various “remarkable men” that he has met, beginning with his father. They include the Armenian priest Pogossian; his friend Soloviev, Prince Lubovedsky, a Russian prince with metaphysical interests, and a couple of others.

In the course of describing these characters, Gurdjieff weaves their stories into the story of his own travels, and also into an overarching narrative which has them cooperate in locating spiritual texts and/or masters in various lands (mostly Central Asia). Gurdjieff calls this group the “Seekers of Truth”.

Most of them do in fact find “truth” in the form of some suitable spiritual destiny. The underlying philosophy, especially as articulated in an appendix, amounts to the assertion that people generally live their lives asleep, are unconscious of themselves, and accordingly behave like machines, subject to outside causes and pressures. Also, one of the chief assessments of the novel is that the people of the past epochs lived in more suitable outer conditions and at higher inner levels than the people today. Many additional hidden harmonies are noted or alluded to.

These contradictory towards modern beliefs claims have inspired some to question the book’s “autobiographical” character. For example, Gurdjieff claims to have first heard the Epic of Gilgamesh as an oral epic sung from memory by his father; to have made contact with various ancient brotherhoods including the Sarmoung Brotherhood; to have copied a map of “pre-sand Egypt”, and to have witnessed a number of miracles and esoteric phenomena. There is currently in existence an esoteric group of loosely affiliated individuals who engage in what is called “The Work”, which is the doing part of Gurdjieff’s teachings.

In a way it can be claimed that many of the vignettes in Meetings are meant to be symbolic, or “teaching stories”.

We are continuing the series of conversations with Antero Alli on an experiential medium called ParaTheatre. To have a better understanding of the context, and for the introduction of the speakers, please refer to the first talk in the series.

In this episode, we touch upon the following topics:

• ParaTheatre – how to start
• Qualities needed for this work
• Flexibility of ego
  • Ego as a self-image. Fixed ego is an attempt to preserve this self-image. Flexible ego is the ability to be at home with both self-image and its opposite.
  • Polarization technique as a way to support flexible ego
  • Flexible ego is the same as a strong ego; as opposed to big ego.
• On thinking before acting
• Existing conditions
  • Dealing with things that come up
  • Antero’s example – escaing INTO reality, instead of away from it
• Keeping a journal
• Talking with our bodies
  • We are continually sending signals
  • Becoming more conscious of these signals, and allowing their expression without the constant need to evaluate the appropriateness of your actions, as you would in a typical social context
  • Exploration of unfamiliar; creativity
• Codification project
• (Not) Mythologizing Archetypes
• No-form – nothing special
• No-form "conversion" period
• ParaTheatre from books
• Finding a language
  • And how weird it may look for an uninitiated observer

We are continuing the series of conversations with Antero Alli on an experiential medium called ParaTheatre. To have a better understanding of the context, and for the introduction of the speakers, please refer to the first talk in the series.

In this episode, we touch upon the following topics:

• Relationship to Space
  • The very first ritual – entering the room
  • Territorial instinct
  • Relationship to space and no-form
• Verticality
  • Virtical vs. Horisontal attention
• Asocial Intent
  • To avoid the burden of social considerations – approval, attraction, wanting to beat up someone, etc.
  • Not the same as anti-social (meaning "hostile"); instead, re-focused on relation to space around people
  • Allows for connection to "verticality"
  • Interaction with other people becomes from the place of offering, where one’s needs are already met by the connection to the vertical sources. The interactions become more authentic; you present yourself as you are, not as you want them to see you. You are not losing yourself in the other person. In contrast, most social interactions are based on meeting the needs, "what can I get from you", and very little vertical connection.
• Feeling the body deeply
  • ParaTheatre as a medium for triggering visions
  • Feeling the body deeply to find the visions / images that are
• Direct Experience
  • Choice of what to be true to
  • Ritual is not solving the conflict, but exposing the conflict, and interacting with it as the energy source for movement
• The Force of Commitment
  • Your capacity for follow-through
  • Commitment always determines the quality of the result, in anything you do.
  • Increasing the force of commitment
  • Fear (of inadequacy) is where commitment is most required. Fear is the beginning stage of converting fears into commitments.
• Integrity Point

Today we are starting another series of conversations with Antero Alli on an experiential medium called ParaTheatre.

Antero has been producing work in various mediums of theatre and
paratheatre since 1977 and, experimental video documents and feature
fiction films since 1993.

His paratheatre work is documented in his book, "Towards an Archeology
of the Soul" and in his videos "CRUX", "Archaic Community" and "Orphans of Delirium". Alli’s 2005 docufiction feature, "The Greater
Circulation", incoporates a paratheatre performance in a critically
acclaimed cinematic treatment of poet Rainer Maria Rilke’s "Requiem
for a Friend". His recent experimental feature, "The Invisible Forest" was inspired by the ideas of French Surrealist playwright/actor,
Antonin Artaud.

Twice a year, he facilitates paratheatre labs in Berkeley, California
with each lab having a focus on rituals based on specific themes, like
movements recalled from dreams, beginer’s mind, and others.

In this first episode, we touch upon the following topics:

• What is ParaTheatre?
• Reasons to do ParaTheatre
  • To get high, to get in a certain state of consciousness
  • Spiritual reasons, self-healing in a way. Experience communion with minimal interference of one’s beliefs, conceptions, ideas.
  • To stay honest to one’s impulses, get in touch with spontaneity, flexibility of ego
  • To induce visions: it’s a process of entering of feeling my body deeply; releasing energies that are trapped in my body, committing fully to the expression of those energies, and releasing images that have been trapped in the body with these energies.
  • Performance arts people enter because they’ve got into a rut of repetition, to let their talent take over
  • As a yoga: a physically intensive discipline with mind attention and intention and focus
  • Those who have outgrown the hedonic motivation, the need to get high, move to circuit 6 in a way
  • People who approach it more like a worship, more like a 7th circuit
• What is a ritual?
• Ritual as initiatic experience
  • Cultivate greater receptivity to the unknown
• Ritual Process
• Group Circle
  • Talk about what happened
  • Let off steam
  • Begin psychological intergation of pre- or post-verbal experiences