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

"And it was then that this bearer of the future Sacred Individual,Belcultassi, having in this way recalled all his former perceptions,experiencings, and manifestations, clearly realized that his externalmanifestations did not correspond at all either to his perceptions or to thedefinite impulses formed in him."He then began to make similar sincere observations of impressions—coming from without as well as from within—at the very moment they wereperceived by his common presence, and he made all these observations withthe same exhaustive, conscious verifications of how these impressions wereperceived by each of his spiritualized parts, when and how they wereexperienced by the whole of his presence, and for what manifestations theybecame the impulses."These conscious observations and impartial verifications at last convincedBelcultassi that in his common presence something was proceeding not as itshould proceed according to sane being-logic."As it became clear to me during my further detailed investigations, althoughBelcultassi had become convinced of the accuracy of his observations ofhimself, he doubted the validity of his own sensations and understanding, andeven the normality of his own psychic organization He therefore set himselfthe task of verifying first of all whether he was in general normal in sensingand understanding everything in this way and not otherwise."To carry out this task, he decided to find out whether others sensed andcognized things in the same way he did. With this aim he began inquiringamong his friends and acquaintances, trying to learn from them how theysensed all this, and how they cognized their perceptions and manifestations,both past and present—doing so of course very