Gurdjieff Bennett and the Fourth Way (2)

are, from the demiurgic point of view, instruments for the fulfilment of their task –
should the ‗human experiment‘ be found wanting it would be superseded by
something else. 113 ) The context of this nurturing is the progressive preparation to
embody the conscious and creative energies. 114 The time scale of their operations
embraces that of the ―Great Cycle‖ (approximately 25,000 years) 115 and works more
specifically at the levels of the ―Epoch‖ (2,500 years) 116 and ―Civilizations‖. From
the point of view of the evolution of humanity in relation to the biosphere,
Civilizations act as psycho-spiritual instruments for the generation and concentration
of the higher energies (―Conscious‖ and ―Creative‖). 117
The terrestrial “esoteric centre”.
Such social ordering has been inspired and assisted with the aid of special potent
terrestrial concentrations of these higher energies as embodied through a hidden
tradition and the small numbers of highly evolved human beings that constitute it.
Bennett classifies such beings as ―saints‖ because they have transcended selfhood and
speaks of them, collectively, as ―belonging to the future soul of Humanity called the
Communion of Saints.‖ 118 In The Dramatic Universe Volume IV Bennett calls this
collectivity the ―Hidden Directorate‖ 119 and in Gurdjieff: Making a New World he
uses the term ―inner circle‖ 120 : the reader will recognize the idea of the terrestrial
esoteric centre. It is Bennett's view that such centres have in the remote past existed
at several locations in the world at which certain specific developmental lines were
pursued under the guidance of the demiurgic intelligences. 121 Within historical times,
Bennett associates the activities in Central Asia of the Khwajagan (―Masters of
Wisdom‖) – whom he represents as exemplifying a kind of ‗higher‘ or ‗trans-Islamic‘
Sufism 122 – with the Sarmoun Brotherhood. 123 It is Bennett's view that the ‗rumours of
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