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

already in existence or newly created by themselves, and only afterward, bymeans of intentionally allowed deviations from the principles of the Law ofSevenfoldness in the being-experiencings and manifestations that theyreproduced, did they indicate what they wished to transmit."In this connection it must be noted that although in former times'mysteries'—some of which contained many instructive ideas known toantiquity—did sometimes happen to reach beings of later epochs, havingpassed automatically from generation to generation, in recent times thosemysteries in which the learned members of the club of the Adherents ofLegomonism intentionally introduced all manner of knowledge, calculatingthat it would reach their remote posterity, have almost totally ceased to exist."The mysteries that had been incorporated in the process of the ordinaryexistence of your favorites many centuries earlier began to disappear soonafter the Babylonian period At first their place was taken by what are called'kesbaadji' or, as they are now called on the continent of Europe, 'puppetplays,' but afterward they were completely supplanted by the 'theatricalshows' or 'spectacles' that at present are one of the forms of that contemporaryart of theirs which has a particularly maleficent action in the progressiveshrinking of their psyche."These theatrical spectacles came to replace the mysteries at the beginningof the contemporary civilization after the beings, to whom only 'odds andends' of information had passed down about the activities of the learnedBabylonian 'mysterists,' began trying to imitate them and set about doing, asit were, the same thing."From then on, the other beings called these imitators of the mysterists bysuch names as 'players,' 'comedians,' 'actors,' and nowadays they even callthem 'artists,' of whom, I may say, very many have sprung up during recenttimes.