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

to the large community of Russia, was named 'Russian Turkestan.'"In the towns of Chinese Turkestan there was a great need for physiciansof my specialty, because at that period there had developed more intenselythan usual among the three-brained beings breeding on that part of the surfaceof your planet two most pernicious 'organic habits,' which had become properto them to acquire in their presence."One of these pernicious organic habits was the 'smoking of opium' andthe other was the 'chewing of anasha' or, as it is otherwise called, 'hashish.'"As you already know, they obtain this 'opium' from the poppy plant, and'hashish' is extracted from a surplanetary formation called 'chakla' or 'hemp.'"And so, at this period of my activities, I existed at first mainly in varioustowns of Chinese Turkestan, but later on, circumstances so fell out that Ipreferred to stay in the towns of Russian Turkestan."Among the beings of Russian Turkestan, the first of these pernicioushabits or, as they sometimes say, 'vices'— namely, the smoking of opium—was almost nonexistent, and the chewing of anasha was even rarer, but on theother hand, the use of what is called Russian 'vodka' was in full flower."This harmful product is obtained chiefly from the surplanetary formationcalled the 'potato. '"From the use of 'vodka,' just as from 'opium' and 'anasha,' not only doesthe psyche of these ill-fated three-brained beings become utterly farcical but,in addition, certain important parts of their planetary body little by littledegenerate completely."Here I may say that it was just at the beginning of these activities of mineamong your favorites that, in order to further my investigations of theirpsyche, I began keeping those 'statistics' which later so greatly interestedcertain