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

"Well then, at the beginning, two of the participants would always comeonto this 'reflector of reality' or 'stage', and then usually one of them wouldstand for a while and, as it were, listen to his own 'dartkhelkhloostnian' stateor, as it is sometimes called, the state of his own inner 'associative psychicexperiencings. '"Listening in this way, it would become clear to his Reason that, forinstance, the sum total of his associative experiencings took the form of anurgent impulse to punch the face of another being, the sight of whom alwaysaroused in him by association a certain series of impressions already presentin him, which invariably evoked in his general psyche disagreeable emotions,offensive to his 'conscious feeling of himself.'"Let us suppose that these disagreeable experiencings are always producedin him when he sees a 'trodokhakhoon,' a professional whom contemporarybeings there call a 'policeman.'"As soon as this 'dartkhelkhloostnian' psychic state and impulse of hisbecome perfectly clear to his Reason, he recognizes, on the one hand, that inexisting conditions of external social existence it is impossible for him togratify this impulse to the full, and on the other hand, being already perfectedin Reason and thus well aware of his dependence on the automaticfunctioning of the other parts of his common presence, he understands clearlythat the fulfillment of some urgent being-duty of great importance to thosearound him is contingent on the gratification of this impulse And havingthought over everything in this way, he decides to gratify this urge of his asbest he can by doing at least a 'moral injury' to that 'trodokhakhoon,' that is,by evoking in him associations of an offensive nature."With this object in view, he turns to the other learned being who hadcome onto the stage with him, and treating him now as a 'trodokhakhoon' orpoliceman, he says: