Hi Joe and Ham, History tells us that the musical scale was established by Pythagoras after he noticed the pleasing harmonies of different sized anvils being struck by blacksmiths; he discovered that the most pleasing harmony was when one anvil was exactly half the size of the other producing an octave, and the musical fifth was produced when one anvil was 2/3 size of the other. Experimenting with mono chords revealed the other notes. Of course, Ham is correct in pointing out Bach's Well Tempered Clavier which solves the circle of fifths problem and shows that the various harmonies are all related to the square root of two; this was probably just too many numbers for Gurdjieff to cope with and besides, because of the elegant solution, he would not then have been able to claim it was a 'lawful inexactitude'.
Joe wrote: > IMO In the octave of universal creation the sixth place is earth, > starting from an Absolute, Do (1), -(shock), Si, 3 (level of all > possible system of worlds), La 6 (Level of our Milky Way), > Sol 12 (level of our Sun), Fa 24 (level of Planets as one mass, > Mi 48 (level of our earth), Re 96 (Level of our Moon), the final > note. (The Commentaries by Maurice Nicoll Vol 1 p 122.). How can that be your opinion, Joe, if you read it in some book? Nicoll got all that from Ouspensky who got it from Gurdjieff who said he got it from some secret (oh sorry esoteric) brotherhood somewhere in Asia. Gurdjiefff, who started out as a stage hypnotist, then added all the crap about shocks, all worlds, the numbers etc. and then, for his own ends, said it was all the divine law of Seven, he called it heptaparaparshinok (can't be bothered to check whether I spelt that right), that and, triamazikamno, his other law of three. This stuff is just ludicrous! I know you have to believe it Joe otherwise they'll sack you from the group. You can say you don't understand it though and they'll tell you that you haven't done enough self-remembering yet. Have you understood how heptaparaparshinok relates to the food octave yet Joe? It all has a kind of consistency but on close examination is completely arbitrary and invented. How long have your group leaders been doing 'the work' Joe? If you've got the nerve ask them which man number they are and do they have a Kesdjan body yet! I honestly don't know how you can go in for this esoteric creationist stuff and still claim to be interested in the MoQ, perhaps you think you might recruit someone? At least Gurdjieff was sufficiently people savvy to stop short of the mystical seven and only claimed he was man number six. He persisted in smoking and gormandising too much (didn't his food octave tell him this wrong), he became grossly overweight and kept crashing his cars nearly killing himself on several occasions; aside from that he was a megalomaniac which is very evident from the first page of his first book 'Herald of the Coming Good' - now withdrawn from print by his surviving pupils but it's also evident in his three volume 'Beelzebub's Tales to his Grandson'. The Cult of Gurdjieff has split up into many different sects now, his major pupil, Ouspensky, was the first to split off and form his rival school. In my opinion, Gurdjieff people can be divided into two; gullible, skivvy sheep or manipulative, power hungry fascists who think it is a virtue to 'tread on people's corns'. I think you are the first variety Joe, otherwise you wouldn't be wasting your time here. Gurdjieff's system just does not fit with the MoQ. Gurdjieff said that psychologically man is devolving; he said that pre-Greek era human beings were not corrupted as they are today and people back then were more in tune with divine law. Pirsig and Julian Jaynes (and many others I'm sure) also cited a turning point that came with the ancient Greeks; but whereas Pirsig and Jaynes see that turning point as an evolution, Gurdjieff did not and that's why it doesn't fit. Leave them Joe, before they take over your life. Regards -Peter Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/
