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

solitude.' And it was in order to give themselves up to this famous 'suffering,'without hindrance from others like themselves, that these beings with whomwe spent the night had settled so far away from their own people."Now, my boy, everything I learned that night and saw the next day of thedevotees of that sect made such a painful impression upon me that for manyof their 'centuries' I could never recall it without 'shuddering.' And so I shouldlike to tell you in some detail about what I then saw and learned."During our conversation that evening I learned that while still in Pearlland,before their migration to this isolated place, the leaders of this sect hadinvented a special form of 'suffering.' They had decided to withdraw to someinaccessible place where other beings, not belonging to their sect and not'initiated' into its 'arcana,' would be unable to prevent them from inflictingupon themselves this particular form of 'suffering' they had invented."After a long search, they finally found this place that we had come uponby chance, and saw that it was well suited to their purpose. As they werealready solidly organized and materially secure, in the face of greatdifficulties they migrated with their families to this place, which was almostinaccessible to their ordinary countrymen and which, as I have already said,they named 'Sincratortsa.'"At first, while they were settling down in this new place, they existedmore or less in harmony; but when they began actually putting into practicethe special form of 'suffering' they had invented, their families, andparticularly their wives, having discovered what that form of suffering reallywas, rebelled and made a great outcry, which resulted in a schism."This schism had occurred not long before our arrival at Sincratortsa andalready small groups were beginning to