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

and so in whatever new conditions they found themselves, there should havebeen preserved in their presence the crystallized results of the factorsperfected for normal 'being-logical mentation,' transmitted to them by heredity."Well, my boy, after these distressing 'alstoozori' of mine or, as yourfavorites would say, 'sorrowful reflections,' I wished to clarify for myself thetrue cause of this lamentable fact, and as a result of careful investigations Ifinally understood and became aware with my whole being that thisabnormality is due exclusively to one aspect of the chief particularity of theirstrange psyche, that particularity which has become a completely crystallized,inseparable part of their common presence and serves as a factor for the periodicarising in them of the 'urgent need to destroy everything outsidethemselves."For when this particularity of their psyche—horrifying for every beingwith Reason—reaches its climax and those three-brained beings begin tomanifest it outwardly, that is to say, when they begin to carry out the processof reciprocal destruction on some part of the surface of their planet, then, atthe same time, just in passing, as it were, with no deliberate aim and evenwithout what is called 'organic need,' they also destroy everything that comeswithin range of their organ of sight. At the height of these psychopathic paroxysms,the beings between whom this terrible process takes place destroy notonly each others' intentionally produced objects but also works of the beingsof former ages that have chanced to survive and reach them intact."And so it was, my boy, that at the period of my fourth sojourn on the surfaceof your planet, and after my arrival in the country now known as 'Egypt,' Istayed there several days among the remote descendants of the members ofthe learned Society of Akhldanns, and became acquainted with certain resultsof their being-partkdolgduty that had survived