A pupil of J.G. Bennett, Rina Hands
was given the honorary title of
"égout," a French word for sewer or
drain, by Mr. Gurdjieff. Present at his
dinners in the last year of his life, she
has a deep experience with his toasting
to 21 different idiots; "The Science of
Idiots," he calls it. Sitting in Gurdjieff's
dining room she recounts, for example,
how when the toast came to all Compassionate
Idiots, he suddenly asked
her, "You, Blonde therenatural or
not I never knoware you Compassionate
Idiot?" Later, she learns from
Bennett that the whole of Beelzebub
was being retyped. Knowing how to
make herself useful, Hands offers her
services as a typist and so goes to Gurdjieff
's apartment each day, "taking
part in whatever was going on at the
time."
Of Jokes & Idiots
And so we sit with the author at
the lunches and dinners, hear Mr. Gurdjieff
recounting his English, Scottish
and Irish jokes and, of course, toasting
to the idiots, the toasts usually not getting
beyond nine or ten idiots. (Mr.
Gurdjieff says he is Idiot No. 17.)
Recounted are Gurdjieff 's insights into
the various idiots. For example, there
are three kinds of Compassionate Idiot.
The first sees a man in need of help and
immediately helps him, even giving
him his own shirt. The second does
exactly the same, but only because his
fianceé's father is observing. The third
kind, says Gurdjieff, "So-so-so, sometimes
he gives and sometimes not,
depending on many things, perhaps
even the weather."
Loving One's Parents
One day Lord Pentland, his wife,
Lucy, and young daughter, Mary, came
to lunch. Mary sat by her mother's side
and just in front of Gurdjieff. She
became very bored. Suddenly, Gurdjieff
spoke to her: "In life never possible do
everything." Having puzzled the child,
he points to the mess she has made at
the table. "On my table you cannot
make this mess. Perhaps at home
Mother permits." If she wants to act this
way, she is to stay home. But then she
won't be able to be here. "So you see,"
he says, "you can never do everything."
In the evening at the end of dinner,
Gurdjieff asked the little girl, "Who do
you respect the most?" Her mother has
to interpret: "Who do you think is the
most important person here?" Without
a moment's hesitation, Mary replied,
"My Daddy." Gurdjieff beamed: "I am
not offended. God is not offended
either." He explained that he who loves
his parents, loves God. If people love
their parents when they are alive, then,
when their parents die, "there is a space
left in them for Him to fill." He patted
her on the shoulder and said, "For my
aim, I want twenty such. If I had twenty
like her, I get my aim. Not because she
special, but because she not spoilt."
A Word on Gurdjieffian Idiots
Whoever has contact with reality is an
Idiot, the word having two meanings: 1)
to be oneself; 2) being so, to those in illusion,
such a one behaves like an idiot.
From ordinary man to God, idiots comprise
21 gradations of reason. Among the
idiots are: ordinary; super; arch; hopeless;
compassionate; squirming; square; round;
zigzag; enlightened, doubting; swaggering,
born; patented; psychopathic;
polyhedral. Idiots 17-21 constituted a
spiritual hierarchy; 21 being the reason of
God; idiots 19 and 20, the sons of God.
Idiot 18 was the highest development of
reason with which a human being could
resonate. Having attained #17, to go on,
the individual had to descend to the reason
of Idiot #1, that of the ordinary idiot.
Some say it happens with #10.
This review is from The Gurdjieff Journal Issue #5