In search of the miraculous

by Ouspensky

  unfortunately I had to leave behind all my books. I thought at the time that it would be risking very much to take them to the Caucasus. But in Petersburg, of course, everything was lost.

  Chapter Eighteen

  I WAS kept in St. Petersburg longer than I had thought to be and I only left there on the 15th of October, a week before the bolshevik revolution. It was quite impossible to stay there any longer. Something disgusting and clammy was drawing near. A sickly tension and the expectation of something inevitable could be felt in everything. Rumors were creeping about, each one more absurd and stupid than the other. Nobody understood anything. Nobody could imagine what was coming later on. The "temporary government," having vanquished Kornilov, conducted the most correct negotiations with the bolsheviks who openly showed they did not care a hang for the "socialist ministers" and tried only to gain time. The Germans for some reason did not march upon St. Petersburg although the front was open. People now thought of them as saviors both from the "temporary government" and from the bolsheviks. I did not share the hopes based upon the Germans because, in my opinion, what was taking place in Russia had to a considerable extent got out of hand.

  In Tuapse there was still comparative calm. Some kind of soviet was sitting in the country house of the Shah of Persia but plunderings had not yet begun. G. settled down at a fair distance from Tuapse to the south a little over fifteen miles from Sochi. He hired a country house there overlooking the sea, bought a pair of horses, and lived with a small company of people. Altogether about ten persons were gathered there.

  I went there too. It was a wonderful place, full of roses, with a view of the sea on one side and a chain of mountains already covered with snow on the other. I was very sorry for those of our people who had stayed in Moscow and St. Petersburg.

  But even on the day following my arrival I noticed that there was something wrong. There was not a trace of the Essentuki atmosphere. I was particularly astonished at Z.'s position. When I had left for St. Petersburg in the beginning of September Z. was full of enthusiasm; he continually urged me not to stay in St. Petersburg since it might become so difficult to get through.

  "Do you never intend to be in St. Petersburg any more?" I asked him then.

  "One who flees to the mountains does not turn back," Z. replied.

  And now, on the day following my arrival in Uch Dere, I heard that Z. intended to return to St. Petersburg.

  "What can he be going back there for? He has left his employment, what is he going to do there?"

  "I do not know," said Dr. S., who had told me about it. "G. is not pleased with him and says that he had better go."

  It was difficult for me to get Z. himself into a talk. He obviously did not desire to explain but he said that he really intended to leave.

  Gradually, by questioning others, I found out that a strange thing had happened. A very absurd quarrel between G. and some Letts, our neighbors, had occurred. Z. was present at it. G. had not liked something Z. had said or something, and from that day he had completely changed towards him, stopped speaking to him, and, in general, put him into such a position that Z. was obliged to announce his decision to leave.

  I considered this to be pure idiocy. To go to St. Petersburg at this time seemed to me the height of absurdity. There was a real famine there, unruly crowds, robbery, and nothing else. At that time of course one could not yet have imagined that we should never see St. Petersburg again. I counted upon going there in the spring. I thought that by the spring there would be something definite. But now, in the winter, this was quite unreasonable. I could have understood it if Z. was interested in politics and was studying the events of the period, but as this was not the case I saw no motives for it whatever. I began to persuade Z. to wait, to decide nothing at once, to talk to G., and to try somehow to clarify the position. Z. promised me not to be in a hurry. But I saw that he was indeed in a very strange position. G. completely ignored him and this produced on Z. a most depressing impression. Two weeks passed in this way. My arguments had worked on Z. and he said that he would stay if G. agreed to let him. He went to speak to G., but came back very soon with a disturbed face.

  "Well, what did he say to you?"

  "Nothing in particular; he said that once I had decided to go I had better go."

  Z. went. I could not understand it. I would not have let a dog go to St. Petersburg at that time.

  G. intended to pass the winter at Uch Dere. We lived in several houses spread over a large plot of land. There was no kind of "work" in the sense of what had been at Essentuki. We chopped up trees for winter firewood; we collected wild pears; G. often went to Sochi where one of our people was in hospital, having contracted typhoid before my arrival from St. Petersburg.

  Unexpectedly G. decided to go to another place. He found that here we might easily be cut off from all communication with the rest of Russia and be left without provisions.

  G. went away with half of our company and afterwards sent Dr. S. for the rest. We again forgathered in Tuapse and from there we began to make excursions along the seashore to the north where there was no railway. During one of these trips S. found some of his St. Petersburg acquaintances who had a country house twenty-four miles north of Tuapse. We stayed the night with them and the next morning G. hired a house half a mile away from them. Here our small company again forgathered. Four went to Essentuki.

  Here we lived for two months. It was a very interesting time. G., Dr. S., and I went to Tuapse every week for provisions for ourselves and fodder for the horses. These trips will always remain in my memory. They were full of the most improbable adventures and very interesting talks. Our house stood overlooking the sea three miles from the big village of Olghniki. I had hoped that we would live there a longer time. But in the second half of December there came the rumors that a part of the Caucasian Army was moving towards Russia on foot along the shores of the Black Sea. G. said that we would again go to Essentuki and begin fresh work. I went first. I took part of our belongings to Pyatigorsk and returned. It was possible to get through although there were bolsheviks in Armavir.

  The bolsheviks, in general, had increased in the north Caucasus and friction began between them and the Cossacks. At Mineralni Vodi, when we all passed through there, everything was outwardly quiet, although murders of many persons whom the bolsheviks disliked had already occurred.

  G. hired a large house in Essentuki and sent out a circular letter, dated the 12th of February, over my signature, to all the members of our Moscow and St. Petersburg groups inviting them to come with those near to them to live and to work with him.

  There was already famine in St. Petersburg and Moscow but there was still an abundance of everything in the Caucasus. To get through now was not easy and several failed in spite of their desire to do so. But many came. Altogether about forty people assembled. With them came Z. to whom also a letter had been sent. He arrived quite ill.

  In February while we were still waiting, G. once said, when he was showing me the house and everything he had arranged:

  "Now do you understand why we collected money in Moscow and St. Petersburg? You said then that a thousand roubles was too much. And will even this money be enough? One and a half persons paid. I have now already spent more than was collected then."

  G. intended to hire or buy a plot of land, arrange kitchen gardens, and in general to organize a colony. But he was prevented by the events which had begun during the summer.

  When our people assembled in March, 1918, very strict rules were established in our house: it was forbidden to leave the grounds, day and night orderlies were established, and so on. And work of the most varied kind began.

  In the organization of the house and of our lives there was very much of interest.

  Exercises on this occasion were much more difficult and varied than during the preceding summer. We began rhythmic exercises to music, dervish dances, different kinds of mental exercises, the study of different ways of breathing, and so on. Part
icularly intensive were the exercises for studying various imitations of psychic phenomena, thought-reading, clairvoyance, mediumistic displays, and so forth. Before these exercises began G. explained to us that the study of these "tricks," as he called them, was an obligatory subject in all Eastern schools, because without having studied all possible counterfeits and imitations it was not possible to begin the study of phenomena of a supernormal character. A man is in a position to distinguish the real from the sham in this sphere only when he knows all the shams and is able to reproduce them himself. Besides this G. said that a practical study of these "psychic tricks" was in itself an exercise which could be replaced by nothing else, which was the best of all for developing certain special characteristics: keenness of observation, shrewdness, and more particularly for the enlargement of other characteristics for which there are no words in ordinary psychological language but which must certainly be developed.

  But the principal part of the work which began at that time were the rhythmics to music and similar strange dances which afterwards led to the reproduction of the exercises of various dervishes. G. did not explain his aims and intentions but according to things he had said before, it was possible to think that the result of these exercises would be to bring under control the physical body.

  In addition to exercises, dances, gymnastics, talks, lectures, and housework, special work was organized for those without means.

  I remember that, when we were leaving Alexandropol the year before, G. took with him a box of skein silk which he told me he had bought cheaply at a sale. This silk always traveled with him. When our people assembled in Essentuki G. gave this silk to the women and children to wind onto star-shaped cards which were also made in our house. Then some of our people who possessed commercial talents sold this silk to shops in Pyatigorsk, Kislovodsk, and Essentuki itself. One must remember that time. There were absolutely no goods whatever, shops were empty, and the silk was snapped up at once because such things as silk,

  cotton, and so on were unbelievably difficult to obtain. This work continued for two months and gave a sure and regular income quite out of proportion with the original cost of the silk.

  In normal times a colony like ours could not have existed in Essentuki nor probably anywhere else in Russia. We should have excited curiosity, we should have attracted attention, the police would have appeared, some kind of scandal would undoubtedly have arisen, all possible kinds of accusations would have made their appearance, political tendencies would certainly have been ascribed to us, or sectarian or anti- moral. People are made in such a way that they invariably make accusations against the things they fail to understand. But at that time, that is, in 1918, those who would have been curious about us were occupied in saving their own skins from the bolsheviks, and the bolsheviks were not yet strong enough to be interested in the lives of private people or private organizations having no direct political character. And, seeing that, among the intellectuals from the capital who found themselves by the will of fate at Mineralni Vodi at that time, a number of groups and working associations had Just been organized, nobody paid any attention to us.

  On one occasion during general conversation in the evening G. said that we must think of a name for our colony and in general legalize ourselves. This was at the time of the Pyatigorsk bolshevik government.

  "Think out something like Sodroojestvo1 and 'earned by work' or 'international' at the same time," said G. "In any case they will not understand. But it is necessary for them to be able to give us some kind of name."

  We began in turn to propose various designations.

  Public lectures were arranged in our house twice a week to which a fair number of people came and once or twice we gave demonstrations of imitation psychic phenomena which were not very successful since our public submitted very poorly to instruction.

  But my personal position in G.'s work began to change. For a whole year something had been accumulating and I gradually began to see that there were many things I could not understand and that I had to go.

  This may appear strange and unexpected after all I have written so far, but it had accumulated gradually. I wrote that I had for some time begun to separate G. and the ideas. I had no doubts about the ideas. On the contrary, the more I thought of them, the deeper I entered into them, the more I began to value them and realize their significance. But I began very strongly to doubt that it was possible for me, or even for the majority of our company, to continue to work under G.'s leadership. I do not in the least mean that I found any of G.'s actions or methods wrong or that they failed to respond to what I expected. This would be

  1 Sodroojestvo: approximately "Union of friends for common aim." strange and completely out of place in connection with a leader in work, the esoteric nature of which I have admitted. The one excludes the other. In work of such a nature there can be no sort of criticism, no sort of "disagreement" with this or that person. On the contrary, all work consists in doing what the leader indicates, understanding in conformance with his opinions even those things that he does not say plainly, helping him in everything that he does. There can be no other attitude towards the work. And G. himself said several times that a most important thing in the work was to remember that one came to learn and to take no other role upon oneself.

  At the same time this does not at all mean that a man has no choice or that he is obliged to follow something which does not respond to what he is seeking. G. himself said that there are no "general" schools, that each "guru" or leader of a school works at his own specialty, one is a sculptor, another is a musician, a third is again something else, and that all the pupils of such a guru have to study his specialty. And it stands to reason that here a choice is possible. A man has to wait until he meets a guru whose specialty he is able to study, a specialty which suits his tastes, his tendencies, and his abilities.

  There is no doubt that there may be very interesting ways, like music and like sculpture. But it cannot be that every man should be required to learn music or sculpture. In school work there are undoubtedly obligatory subjects and there are, if it is possible to put it in this way, auxiliary subjects, the study of which is proposed merely as a means of studying the obligatory. Then the methods of the schools may differ very much. According to the three ways the methods of each guru may approximate either to the way of the fakir, the way of the monk, or the way of the yogi. And it is of course possible that a man who is beginning work will make a mistake, will follow a leader such as he cannot follow for any distance. It stands to reason that it is the task of the leader to see to it that people do not begin to work with him for whom his methods or his special subjects will always be alien, incomprehensible, and unattainable. But if this does happen and if a man had begun to work with a leader whom he cannot follow, then of course, having noticed and realized this, he ought to go and seek another leader or work independently, if he is able to do so.

  In regard to my relations with G. I saw clearly at that time that I had been mistaken about many things that I had ascribed to G. and that by staying with him now I should not be going in the same direction I went at the beginning. And I thought that all the members of our small group, with very few exceptions, were in the same or in a similar situation.

  This was a very strange "observation" but it was absolutely a right one. I had nothing to say against G.'s methods except that they did not suit me. A very clear example came to my mind then. I had never had a nega-

  tive attitude towards the "way of the monk," to religious, mystical ways. At the same time I could never have thought for one moment that such a way was possible for me or suitable. And so, if after three years of work I perceived that G. was leading us in fact towards the way of religion, of the monastery, and required the observance of all religious forms and ceremonies, there would be of course a motive for disagreeing with this and for going away, even though at the risk of losing direct leadership. And certainly this would not, at the same time, mean that I considered the r
eligious way a wrong way in general. It may even be a more correct way than my way but it is not my way.

  The decision to leave G.'s work and leave him exacted from me a great inner struggle. I had built very much upon it and it was difficult for me now to reconstruct everything from the beginning. But there was nothing else to do. Of course, all that I had learned during those three years I retained. But a whole year passed by while I was going into all this and until I found it possible to continue to work in the same direction as G. but independently.

  I went into a separate house and again began work abandoned in St. Petersburg, on my book which afterwards appeared under the title A New Model of the Universe.

  In the "Home" lectures and demonstrations still continued for a certain time and then stopped.

  Sometimes I met G. in the park or on the street, sometimes he came to my house. But I avoided going to the "Home."

  At this time the position of affairs in the north Caucasus began to get very much worse. We were completely cut off from central Russia; what was going on there we did not know.

  After the first Cossack raid on Essentuki the position quickly began to change for the worse and G. decided to leave Mineralni Vodi. Where he actually intended to go he did not say and it was difficult to say, having regard to the circumstances of the time.

  The public who had left Mineralni Vodi at that time had tried to get through to Novorossiysk and I supposed that he would also go in that direction. I also decided to leave Essentuki. But I did not want to leave before he did. In this respect I had a strange kind of feeling. I wanted to wait until the end; to do everything that depended upon me so that afterwards I could tell myself that I had not let a single possibility escape me. It was very difficult for me to reject the idea of working with G.

  In the beginning of August G. left Essentuki. Most of those living in the "Home" left with him. A few people had gone earlier. About ten persons were left in Essentuki.