The fourth way to nowhere

The enneagram, Gurdjieff’s diagram of nine points, has been subsequently adopted by all kinds of people to classify supposed relationships between things, not always with any obvious connection with the diagram as originally set out.  I am principally familiar with it as a diagram of the relationships between the various body types, and as a way of understanding our different essences it is as good as any. Classifying ourselves and each other in this way can help in understanding our ‘mechanics,’ why we do things in particular characteristic ways, that we are not unique, and that our differences from other types need not result in selfdeprecation or negative judgements of others. We are what we are.  Rodney Collin claimed that there is a circulation within the enneagram, such that each body type tends towards the next one in the flow of the diagram. Thus a lunar type, during the course of spiritual evolution, will tend to become more venusian, venusians will become more mercurial, and

You’re nothing but a pack of cards! —Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland  I do not recall reading anywhere in Gurdjieff’s or Ouspensky’s works the idea of body types or centres of gravity. The idea of body types appears to derive from Rodney Collin’s Theory of Celestial Influence and that of centres of gravity is, as far as I can tell, an innovation by Robert Burton, although I do not know for certain.  In essence both sets of ideas are peripheral to the aim of the fourth way, but they have their uses. Both sets of ideas provide a framework in which one can identify the mechanics of one’s ‘machine.’ This enables one better to understand one’s mechanical or automatic reactions to people and situations and thus become more forgiving and accepting of oneself and others.  The idea of centres of gravity appears to be an embellishment on the division of the body into head, heart and guts, or intellectual centre, emotional centre and instinctive-moving centre, which is discussed in In Search

 Men and women no. 5 are said to be able to self-remember, that is, to enter into the third state of consciousness at will. It is also said that at any one moment one is either a man or woman 1, 2 or 3 or else a no. 5. One is either ‘conscious’ (in the sense of third state) or not. Men and women no. 4 are neither one thing nor the other. They stand at the threshold, or as it were in the doorway, neither in the hallway nor the living room. They are ordinary people who are trying to awaken. Men and women no. 5 are said to have higher emotional centre working within them. This is said to be a part of us that is dormant unless we awaken. Gurdjieff said that we do not possess a soul, but have to acquire one. In the Fellowship only two students were alleged to have become men no. 5. One was before my time, and according to reports of others subsequently left the school, and the other was told he was man no. 5 by the teacher during the time when I was a member. When asked about this by anothe