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Working for a Soul
I always loved that Simpsons episode where Bart sells his soul to Milhouse, and then undergoes an existential crisis to retrieve it. At the end of it, his sister Lisa buys it back for him, and explains to Bart:
But you know, Bart, some philosophers believe that nobody is born with a soul — that you have to earn one through suffering and thought and prayer, like you did last night.
Ever since that episode came out many years ago, I’ve wondered to what philosophers her character might be referring. Yesterday, reading Pinchbeck’s book, I came across a possible candidate listed on page 105. While I’ve never done much research into G.I. Gurdjieff, many people have suggested that I do so. I can now see why; he had lots of interesting and wild ideas.
He believed that a soul was not something you simply had but something you had to work to acquire. He called this work “intentional suffering” and “conscious labor”.
Wikipedia’s entry on him also adds:
The teaching he brought centers around the struggle of working on oneself for the purpose of awakening conscience. Gurdjieff taught that man has no soul. Rather, man must create a soul while incarnate whose substance could withstand the shock of death. Without a soul, Gurdjieff taught, man will “die like a dog.”
This is very similar to a sentiment expressed in some Gnostic texts, particularly the Gospel of Philip:
Those who say they will die first and then rise are in error. If they do not first receive the resurrection while they live, when they die they will receive nothing.
It’s a crazy idea, isn’t it? Totally opposite to everything mainstream Christianity teaches. What do you think of it? Was Gurdjieff just nuts, or was he onto something? I feel like this might be a good starting point for me to exploring Gurdjieff’s works. Does anybody know of a resource where I can find out more of his thoughts on this soul question? Books are fine, but websites would be better in the short term. Also, I’m curious if anybody knows of other philosophers who had a similar idea as this, and to which the writers of the Simpsons may have been referring to in that episode.
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August 26th, 2005 at 11:59 am
This is quite interesting, as I’m starting to lean towards this understanding lately on my own and had not realised there was a field of research on it.
(What isn’t there something written on these days, though? Doesn’t it feel as though sometimes all we’re doing is sieving through massive amounts of data just trying to find the pieces of info that fit for us? Not solving anything, really, just looking for the needle in the haystack.)
I was curious as to whether you (or anyone) have read The Outsider, by Colin Wilson. It’s described as the seminal work on alienation, creativity, and the modern mind-set. “An exhaustive, luminously intelligent study… a real contribution to our understanding of our deepest predicament.”
It also introduced me to one of my own personal more-contemplated quotes, from Willian James’s Varieties of Religious Experience:—
It also mimics Saint John of the Cross’s writings on the human “Dark Night of the Soul,” which is itself mimicked in the Hero’s Journey of Joseph Campbell, as the Underworld which we must all triumph over in order to return wiser the Hero.
I think I am also starting to tackle the whole concept of suffering as necessity, however from a design point of view I wonder how we can ease the process for those willing to push through in order to obtain their personal metamorphoses. I find myself going through my own little Dark Nights of the Soul every so often, but because I am aware of it symbolically and in that context, I manage to “strap in” and prepare for bumpy waters. But I fear not because I understand the process of change and willingly give myself up to it…
August 26th, 2005 at 12:08 pm
i like the idea of what we’re doing as a kind of sieve! that’s an interesting synchronicity, too, ’cause i’ve just been reading (like 10 minutes ago) about the sieve of eratosthenes.
August 26th, 2005 at 12:35 pm
That gospel of Philip quote reminds me of a quote from a Cynthia Ozick story that’s stayed with me for years: “Heaven is for those who have already been there.”
As for Gurdjieff, I don’t know about his ideas, but two great books about his practice are Waking Up and Living the Mindful Life by Charles Tart.
August 26th, 2005 at 12:45 pm
o and something else this reminds me of is william blake’s idea that the soul is fragmented and life is basically a struggle to pull it together and make it whole.
August 26th, 2005 at 12:55 pm
Yeah, then there’s also the obvious Jungian parallels here as well. The journey from the ego to the larger Self. Jungian Marie Louise Von Franz also mentions in one of her books a Buddhist concept called the “diamond body” which, if I understand it correctly is sort of a body that you create for yourself to survive death with. I’ve seen other people call it the dream body and the resurrection body, but I’ve yet to hit paydirt in terms of a resource on it.
August 26th, 2005 at 12:55 pm
Interesting that I was just leafing through your archived comments while eating lunch, and happened on post about the examples of the fake humans and other soulless entities. Can the organically soulless entity struggle spiritually to become ensouled? Or is that only an option for us humans, because we come equipped with the plug-in soul slot?
Joyce
August 26th, 2005 at 12:56 pm
I think the concept is from Sufism - Gurdjieff drew a lot of his teaching from the Sufis, specifically Naqshbandis (who are also called the ‘Fourth Way’). The Sufi Farid ud-Din Attar wrote in his ‘Conference of the Birds’ the following:
This refers to this doctrine I think. Another fascinating aspect of this teaching of Gurdjieff’s you might find interesting is the reason why we don’t have souls. In his cosmology (at least at the time of the Russian groups) the energy of all earthly life was used on death to ‘feed the moon’ - ie when the moon absorbed enough of this ’soul energy’ it would progress to the next stage and become like the earth. The earth would become like the sun and on and on in a chain….
Humans were therefore merely ‘food’ and this is the natural order of things. God made it this way. It is possible to gain a soul and to escape this fate (which equates to hell) but to do so is essentially, in Gurdjieff’s words, “a way against nature, against God’. That is why it is difficult and there are barriers.
Re sites, I suppose Gurdjieff.org is the best for research material but it is hardly objective. I’d go the traditional book route with Ouspensky, Nott and Gurdjieff himself if you can spare the reading time.
August 26th, 2005 at 1:08 pm
Thanks Segovius, that’s a big help. Yeah, I’ve actually heard that stuff about feeding the moon, etc. Fucking wild. I definitely need to get more involved with this thinking.
August 26th, 2005 at 1:10 pm
and of course, to bring us full circle, a similar concept is found in kazantzakis’ the saviours of god. kazantzakis’ concern was always the struggle between soul and body, and for him the spiritual path was the laborious struggle of incomplete soul ever upwards through constant questioning.
kazantzakis hung out with sufis a lot on crete, since it was a part of the ottoman empire for so long, & i believe in his autobiography he even talks about some time he spent with some dervishes.
August 26th, 2005 at 1:12 pm
the idea is also found in blavatsky’s ’secret doctrine;’ once all the souls here ‘evolved’ to the next ‘plane’ of existence, we’d basically migrate to the next planet and so on.
great discussion– all kinds of awesome correspondences are flying around in my lil’ synapses!
August 26th, 2005 at 2:08 pm
I am just looking up some quotes from Terrence Malick’s The Thin Red Line, and this one in particular struck a cord and reminded me of reading this entry this morning:—
August 26th, 2005 at 2:36 pm
heaven is for those who`ve already been there. yes it is…………..we`ve all been there but some seem to have forgotten. you can see by the look on thier face. who` job is it to remind them?
August 26th, 2005 at 3:07 pm
I don’ think this is a whole lot different from Buddhist reincarnation. In Buddhism you already have a soul, but you still have to earn an empowered soul before you can escape reincarnation.
I like this connection better though: In PKD novels, some of his heroes are just trying to remain sane or become sane (I just posted about this on my site BTW). I think this is the really interesting struggle, and for me, it’s pretty much equivalent to earning a soul.
Whoa, kinda like those spells you have to cast beforehand in a Nintendo RPG battle to revive your guy if he gets killed.
August 26th, 2005 at 4:18 pm
The Rhadhasoami’s of India, who are very gnostic in my view, also believe that one must die “to live.” Through Shabd Yoga, you could learn how to do the death experience before death and so reach the highest realm and unity with god when you die. But you gotta be deligent with shabd yoga and learn how to do it in life, other wise you’ll get lost at death (it’s like learning how to be a shaman in a way). When you see the “SatGuru” within during your meditation/astral travel, that’s when you know you’ve made it or can make it. My take is, what if seeing the Satguru is actually the point at which you gain a soul or fuse with the one that’s how there for you (the Higher Self). I seem to recall Gurdjieff talking about developing a subtle body (astral body) as a stage along the path of crystalizing a soul.
August 26th, 2005 at 4:29 pm
Do androids dream of electric sheep?
August 26th, 2005 at 4:32 pm
Or, going back farther, Pinocchio. Or Commander Data on Star Trek Next Generation. Or Frankenstein. There must be others.
August 27th, 2005 at 11:18 am
Castaneda also talks about this (or Juan Matus, if Carlos is to be believed); esp. in The Eagle’s Gift.
Basically, “don Juan” teaches him that your awareness is consumed by its source (The Eagle) upon your death, but sorcerers, by a practice of discipline, create a substitute to feed The Eagle, thereby freeing themselves/attaining sovereignty.
For those not familiar w/C.C., a great intro is at
http://www.prismagems.com/castaneda/
Jesus teaches the same thing in the Gospel of Thomas ( when you make a hand to replace a hand, and an eye to replace an eye, and a body to replace a body…)
August 27th, 2005 at 12:44 pm
good lead, thanks jeff!
August 27th, 2005 at 12:45 pm
HEY! Maybe this explains the whole idea of ransom theory. Where Jesus death pays the devil a ransom so that we don’t have to go to hell. Its because Jesus is making up a double that stands in for us when we die, and thats the one that gets eaten or whatever
August 27th, 2005 at 7:16 pm
Most of G’s sources derive from Central Asia and the Kwajagan (later the
Naqshbandi sufis). Looking at that system, the idea that man is incomplete and must awaken certain latent centers (part of making the higher self) is central. Awakening just the first center may come after many years work, and yet that is only a beginning of “the Work.”
The sufis also maintain that before this, there are a series of deaths one undergoes before one even “learns how to learn.” The pattern of centers (latifa) that become eventually activated may resemble the enneagram or octagon. After that, the centers are said to work “as one”. The sufis consider this to be a science, not a philosophy or psychology of “ideas.”
August 28th, 2005 at 4:42 am
Yes, interesting points fro RJ - the Sufis call this process ‘dying before you die’ which has many interesting implications.
August 28th, 2005 at 5:19 pm
A great deal of detailed information on the making of a soul is in J.G. Bennett’s great (and rather large) work, “The Dramatic Universe,” vol. 3, Man and His Nature. Specifically in chapter 40, The Human Life Cycle. Other chapters are also relevant. Futher information is presented in vol. 4, History. I highly recommend this work to those who are interested in the ideas of Gurdjieff and the Sufis. There’s some tough going here, but well worth the effort. The books can be obtained at:
http://www.bennettbooks.org/