Conspiracy Advocates

I've been wondering what is the fascination of conspiracy theories for some people.
Could it be that they have a sense that the world isn't real?
Then conspiracy would be an attempt to rationalize this underlying sense of unease about reality.

Literature of the Fourth Way

The remarks about Many "i"s below were elicited in part from a recent re-reading of Ouspensky's "In Search of the Miraculous."

From a literary view point, I noticed his fore shadowing of the publication of the discussions in his "Fourth Way."  He said he would discuss the details of the centers that he had learned from Gurdjieff later.

Many i's

Yes, small "i" vice Real "I", capitalized.

I was talking with a friend. I told him that I was on the edge of an experience of more than one "i"...distinct from remembering actions of more than one "i".  My friend thought this was ridiculous. "It's all the same 'I'. You were frustrated and just overcome by a desire for chocolate!"

To come to some of these ideas requires doing the experiment, not just reading or talking about them. The flavor cannot be conveyed by description or analogy.

Strange Loop Wrap Up

The book was disappointing because he couldn't explain what he thought a "Strange Loop" was.  His example from Gödel sounds like a confusion of levels of abstraction.

Other western scientists have done much better work on this problem. Some of them, such as António Rosa Damásio have publications preceding the date of Douglas Richard Hofstadter book, Strange Loop.  Why write something that is not current?

Most of the ideas Douglas Richard Hofstadter presents were well covered by Aristotle, so why re-hash them now?

I'm done with Douglas Richard Hofstadter.

A Woman's Work is an absorbing account of Ethel Merston

A Woman's Work is an absorbing account of Ethel Merston's association with many of the spiritual leaders of the early 20th century. Ethel Merston left her descriptions and impressions of Gurdjieff, Ramana Maharshi, Anandamayi Ma, Pak Subuh, Edgar Cayce and many others.

Mary Ellen Korman has researched all the available records and woven a wonderful story that provides a detailed sense of Ethel Merston's life long spiritual search. I found clues to the contrasts between life with Gurdjieff and life with spiritual leaders in India. My own insights are refined by having access to Ethel Merston's accounts and Korman's descriptions of her life.

Merston tells of the changes and conflicts experienced by Gurdjieff's students after his death: The search for another teacher. How students found or forgot what they were looking for. The breaking apart of communities of seekers. She recounts her search after Ramana Maharshi's death.

Many of these people that Ethel Merston worked with were major influences on the "Age of Aquarius." The book helps me understand the culture that I grew up in.