Beelzebubs-Tales-to-His-Grandson-by-G-I-Gurdjieff

"Once at a general meeting of the being-members of the society, 'TheEarth Belongs to Our Common Creator and Is Equally Free for All HisCreatures,' this anything but ordinary terrestrial three-brained being, who wasalso the elected representative of the whole population of the country called'Kurdistan,' at the request of his fellow members, expounded his theory veryeloquently and in detail, and this aroused great confusion and agitationamong the members of the society."They were so struck by his theory that at first a 'sepulchral silence'prevailed among them, and they were so stupefied that no one could stir.Only after rather a long interval did such an uproar break out that it seemed asif each one's life depended on the degree of his excitement and the vehemenceof its expression."The result of it all was that late that night they unanimously decided toselect from their number several learned beings to investigate jointly thedetails of this theory which had impressed them so strongly, and afterward tomake a report on it to the general assembly."From the very next day, the selected learned members of the society setto work very earnestly to familiarize themselves with the theory of thisAtarnakh."But to the misfortune of all terrestrial three-brained beings of futuretimes, it turned out that although most of the appointed learned memberswere well advanced in years, and those baneful functions which make thebeing of your favorites 'jealous' and 'greedy' were almost atrophied in them,nevertheless for various reasons, chiefly owing to their upbringing inchildhood, certain of them had not yet acquired enough experience to beconvinced that their dreams—ensuing from that abnormal education oftheirs— could never be realized, and they were therefore not disillusionedenough to be fully impartial and just."And in consequence of this, from that very same day,