Toast of the Idiots

[Russell Smith]

SCIENCE OF IDIOTISM

TOAST OF THE IDIOTS

“There are twenty-one gradations of reason from that of the ordinary man to that of Our Endlessness, that is, God. No one can reach the Absolute Reason of God, and only the sons of God like Jesus Christ can have the two gradations of reason that are nineteenth and twentieth. Therefore the aim of every being who aspires to perfection must be to reach the eighteenth gradation. You must understand that the people you know do not have any reason at all. They live in their dreams and have no connection with reality. Whoever has any contact with reality is called an Idiot. The word idiot has two meanings: the true meaning that was given to it by the ancient sages was to be oneself. A man who is himself looks and behaves like a madman to those who live in the world of illusions: so when they call a man an idiot they mean that he does not share their illusions.

“Everyone who decides to work on himself is an idiot in both meanings. The wise know that he is seeking for reality. The foolish think he has taken leave of his senses. We here are supposed to be seeking for reality, so we should all be idiots: but no one can make you an idiot. You must choose it for yourself. That is why everyone who visits us here and wishes to remain in contact with us, is allowed to choose his own idiotism. Then all the rest of us will wish from our hearts that he will truly become that idiot. For this alcohol was used by the ancient sages; not to get drunk, but to strengthen the power to wish.”

Gurdjieff had a fixed ritual in proposing the toast of the idiots. The Director started with ordinary idiots, going on to the super idiot, then the arch idiot. The fourth, the hopeless idiot, was again and again chosen by Gurdjieff for an explanation of what he meant by dying an honorable death. The false hopeless idiot is satisfied with himself and does not see that he is a ‘candidate for perishing like a dog!’ The true hopeless idiot sees his own complete nothingness and does not realize that this death of self is the guarantee of his resurrection. From this stage he becomes a compassionate idiot, whose reason has opened to enter into the sufferings of others. The sixth is the squirming idiot who is not yet ready for help. There are then three ‘geometric’ idiots – square, round and zigzag – who represent stages in the establishment of true reason, at first only momentarily, then comes the discovery of one’s own identity and third the desperate struggle to break free. Gurdjieff said of him that he ‘has five Friday’s in the week’ – an example of a meaningless saying that communicates better than much good sense.

At the Saturday evening meals, the toasts seldom went beyond the zigzag idiot, unless he wished to associate someone present with the characteristics of one of the next series. These are the enlightened, the doubting and swaggering idiots. Beyond these again are idiots whose characteristics are deep in their essential nature. At each stage there is a death and resurrection before a new gradation of reason is attained.

Gurdjieff gave a most significant twist to the Science of Idiotism when he explained that no one could go beyond the enlightened idiot unless he had first ‘consciously descended’ to the first gradation of the ordinary idiot. His explanations made it clear that he was referring to the same secret as Jesus when he said: “Except ye become as little children, ye shall in no wise enter the kingdom of heaven.” Having heard scores of times Gurdjieff’s explanations of the idiot toasts, I can only marvel at the insights into human nature that he was able to express in such simple terms. His talks about the tragic situation of the enlightened idiot whom ‘even God could not help’ invariably sent a shudder of horror down my spine. Nothing has done so much to convince me that we must totally shed any pretension to be ‘special people’ if we hope to attain true freedom.

Gurdjieff: Making A New World
by: J. G. Bennett
pages 157-158

[Russell Smith]

IDIOTS EXPLANATION August 2, l998

An impromptu dissertation to a question concerning the Toast of the Idiots

There are twenty-one gradations of reason from that of the ordinary man to that of our Endlessness. Twenty-one gradations of reason; twenty-one definable existences from when a man comes into being to achieving all that a man can attain; twenty-one different gradations.

A being starts as an ordinary idiot–standing between the ace of diamonds and the jack of diamonds. He has an ordinary gradation of reason, just enough to assimilate something. An ordinary idiot has mechanical, instinctive reason, he can get out of the sun when it is hot, he can eat when he is hungry. He is the good ol’ ordinary idiot.

From there another gradation of reason is available: the super idiot. Super idiot–still pretty mechanical, still pretty much centered in his instinctive center, but with some drawn attention starting to arise. Super idiot–between the jack and the queen of diamonds–starts to be drawn by certain sensual impulses from all that is taking place outside of him.

We don’t get much from Gurdjieff on ordinary, super, and arch; but when we see where they are located, we can see why they are all in essence–the instinctive side of a man.

Arch idiot–from the queen of diamonds to the king of diamonds–we are still in the instinctive center but are dealing with a little bit more control. Probably starting to be very responsive to the world around us. And that is about all we get from those three.

Hopeless idiot starts the personality development–between the king of diamonds and the jack of clubs. The addition for the hopeless idiot is “dies an honorable death”, someone who is fulfilling, at least automatically, the duties of his position. He can say “I worked hard for a living; I went to church and paid my tithe; I did all the things that were supposed to be done”…and he dies an honorable death. He does what was asked and probably not much more; but certainly he has contributed to the church and donated some money to the poor and left a few bags of food on peoples’ doorsteps at Christmas. He feels he has paid his dues. But it is only the beginning of personality starting to form in the moving center.

And again, we are talking about the cards from Steward and beyond, from the moment a man wakes up conscience and comes into existence where he starts to portray these various gradations of idiot in himself.

From the hopeless idiot, he becomes a false hopeless idiot—“who is satisfied with himself and does not see that he is a candidate for perishing like a dog.” The jack of clubs to the queen of clubs; more personality–more drawn attention–maybe now we get into doing Gurdjieff Movements; doing all these elaborate yogi techniques. But we don’t see that this alone cannot take us very far; we are also going to die like a dog if this is all we have got.

From the false hopeless idiot to the squirming idiot, “who is not yet ready for help”–between the queen of clubs and the king of clubs–who still has not overcome the idea of dying like a dog; who is still serving the drawn personality in his moving center.

Then something happens; he becomes a true hopeless idiot–king of clubs to the ace of clubs. He completes the moving center and has the possibility of entering into the next development of essence. Unfortunately, the true hopeless idiot “sees his own complete nothingness but does not realize that the death of self is the guarantee of his resurrection”…that something in him has to die.

Ordinary, super, arch, hopeless, false hopeless, squirming, the seventh idiot–true hopeless, where something greater has to occur to a man in order for him to get rid of himself. He has acquired sensation, he has acquired movement, but he has to go beyond that in order to attain anything more. And this idea, of getting to so much and then having to give it up, having to come to one’s own nothingness, having to die in order to be born again, this is the true hopeless idiot.

From there he becomes a compassionate idiot–moves into the hearts, the ace of clubs to the jack of hearts—“whose reason has opened to enter into the sufferings of others.” Now suddenly, a being develops care and concern. He starts to recognize the struggles, and the sufferings, and the aims, and the wishes, and the desires of people around him. He has pretty much acquired something for himself–in the personality–and now he has moved into another level of essence, on one that is emotional based, where he starts to feel for the world around him, and recognize things outside of himself.

Then there are three geometric idiots he must go through: the square, the round, and the zigzag, which signify the development, in him, of the beginning of true reason. It starts, first “momentarily”, with the jack of hearts to the queen of hearts.

Next, the queen of hearts to the king of hearts, which represent “the discovery of ones’ true identity.”

Finally, he reaches the king of hearts to the jack of spades—“the desperate struggle to break free”. He is the man who has the five Friday’s in a week. The zig-zag idiot, who has not moved into the next moment of acquired reason, the reason that comes when one passes the higher emotional center and begins to merge into the higher mental center.

The desperate struggle to break free…five Fridays in the week….‘Friday’ represents the end of a work week, right there at the beginning of having time off, of having fun for yourself, of attaining something, something you can have now ‘cause you’ve worked all week and the week’s almost over, now tomorrow’s my day off and I can go to the lake, I can do this, I can fulfill myself, I can have the results of the fruits of my work, but for the zigzag idiot who has five Fridays in a week. He is always on the edge, he is always right there, never attaining. He is just a moment away from gaining something for himself, i.e., the desperate struggle to break free of the higher emotional center and move into reason, to attain the jack of spades, to become an enlightened idiot–between the jack and the queen of spades. But for the enlightened idiot “even God can not help” because he is using only the most automatic part of the most automatic part of his reason.

From here he must consciously descend, he must go back and become an ordinary idiot again, and purge the inexactitudes. He must do the things that he has not done; go back and tackle all the things he has avoided along the way. He is going to need the build up of all that has come before him in order for him to move further.

Reason comes with a price, it comes with the price of the best working of the lower parts of the machine, i.e., the first eleven gradations of reason that preceded it.

From the enlightened idiot he becomes a doubting idiot; he moves between the queen of spaces to the king of spades. He has become enlightened, has consciously descended, has worked on himself, has purged his various centers, developed more parts, ate his oysters to overcome the things that he was always afraid of, and has lost his enamoured view of all the things that he has always been pleased with; and then he begins to doubt what he is! I die to myself, and now, I do not have any of the things I wanted…what do I do from here?

Maybe we can even throw in the idea that here, having now come to something himself, in passing enlightenment, he wonders whether there is any possibility of this just being unique to himself. Is it just subjective to him, or can something be passed on?

Next, he becomes a swaggering idiot–from the king of spades to the ace of spades–who has acquired something more in reason, recognizing that what he has attained is beyond doubt, it is firmly rooted in objectiveness and in conscience; and so, he begins to swagger. People at this point may be looked at by others as being a little cocky, or a little bold, or a little condescending to the world around them; because in their state of clarity they cannot do anything but rejoice. Nothing is motivated in them to put someone else down, they are just enthusiastic in their own discovery of themselves and they swagger.

Then we have the born idiot and the patented idiot, followed by two idiots whose names we do not know.

The born idiot–from the ace of spades to the ace of diamonds–has to do with a man finally catching up with the interval that he fulfills in organic life. He is born of the second waters. He has claimed his own existence. He becomes a true teacher; and the work–a school–will live. The patented idiot is acquired when he begins to help others become born idiots. If he can give it to someone else, it can be patented. A proven way.

Then we have two gradations of idiot for which we do not have names, which brings us up to the 18th gradation of reason, to the joker.

There are three gradations of reason beyond that: the 19th, the 20th, and the 21st. They go beyond man where there is nothing but jokers; nothing but the higher centers, represented by their smallest parts. This is the place where something can transform and a man is able to withstand the shock of his own physical death. These last three gradations go beyond a man and are only available to the Sons of God, to those who were able to transcend the octave. Now, what does it mean to become a Son of God? Can we become Sons of God, or do we have to be born of a virgin?

Perhaps, that is the secret. We have to give birth to ourselves.

thedog

[Author]

Posts