Chapter 5
Anticipation or Trepidation

The way to come to true sanity is just to see things as they are. _JG Bennett

One morning I am assigned to do house cleaning chores with a tall husky Irish American named Patrick, who looks to be in his forties, a little more than ten years older than I. The majority of students are in their early twenties; a few are a good deal older, and a few are in their late thirties or forties. It doesn’t seem as if many are my age—twenty-nine. Patrick, speaking in a gentle voice, looks directly at me with bright blue eyes that sparkle with intelligence.
Only when he speaks about the Work and finds me unresponsive is there a lapse in his sympathetic manner. Is he offended by my lack of familiarity with the philosophical teachings? But that will be taken care of when school begins. read the rest of this entry… »

Existence, by J.G. Bennett. Back in print after thirty-three years!
Edited & compiled by Anthony Blake.

Updated for our present time with a new chapter, “The Dimensional Framework of the Natural Sciences”, a paper by J.G. Bennett; a foreword essay by Anthony Blake; and an index of names and special words.

We turn to non-existence. In ordinary parlance, the concept rather means something that is less than existing, on the lines of “illusion.” For Bennett, it was the converse. If existence arises from a set of conditions of limitation (designed of course to be mutually consistent) then what might be the content of what is beyond such constraints? We return to the question of experience. Unless, in some way, what is beyond existence is contained in or is “with” experience it would be entirely useless to even speak of it at all. As we shall see, Bennett endeavored to see that in experience there was always something more than existence and, even, something that did not exist at all. read the rest of this entry… »

Chapter 4
Anticipation Mounts

Unless we feel great compassion for mankind
we can’t do our work in this world. _JG Bennett

New students arrived daily during the transition period. Everyone had a story of how they came to Sherborne House.
“I studied with Mrs. Popoff,” was a statement I’d heard repeated several times. Mrs. Popoff, an active member of the Gurdjieff Foundation, had also been a student of the philosopher P.D. Ouspensky and had worked with Gurdjieff when he’d come to New York City near the end of his life in the 1940s. She ran a Gurdjieff group on Long Island and prepared a number of her students to attend the first or second courses. From what they said, it sounded as if they had done a lot of Movements.
Some students came to Sherborne with their friends from other study groups or had known Mr. B through his writings or his community at Coombe Springs.
One of the American students told us he’d learned about Sherborne when a book of Bennett’s had fallen on his head while he was perusing the ‘esoteric’ shelves in a bookstore. Another American said he’d been invited to attend a public lecture Mr. B was giving in Boston. read the rest of this entry… »

On Saturday night, Mick leads a laughing group of us on a path through the woods, probably not more than a quarter of a mile long, over to the local Social Club in nearby Sherborne village. Because it is a private membership pub, children are allowed. For a nominal annual fee of one pound, whole families come to watch TV and play games—chess, checkers, cards, and pinball. Its two well-lit rooms are filled with small game tables, chairs, and couches, just like the interior of a home. Music, TV shows, beeping and buzzing pinball games, and the murmur of a couple dozen people chatting fill the room. The local hairstyles and clothing look just foreign enough to suggest the early ‘50s. Adults enjoy bottles of beer or ale on tap while the children purchase snacks and soft drinks, playing games with others outside their immediate family. It’s much cheerier than a bar and not so isolated as being at home.
The Sherborne students join in, joking with the villagers, drinking beer, and playing games. I start out trying to be sociable, drinking juice and eating some chocolate, making stilted conversation; but it isn’t long before I return to Sherborne House, seeking out my dorm, hoping that everyone is either asleep or still out. As much as I wish to feel connected, I’m also starved for time alone. read the rest of this entry… »

Chapter 3
Transition

Every one of us has weaknesses that we have inherited from parents
and grandparents, and so on. We have to accept this
and by overcoming those weaknesses in ourselves,
we liberate both past and future generations.
In that way we can break the line of transmission. _JG Bennett

I have no trouble finding Mick when I’m ready. It’s as if he pops into existence when needed. After we visit the broom closet, he starts me sweeping a wide seemingly endless hallway that runs the full length of the first floor upstairs—a tedious task when I’m feeling so tired and the floor looks so clean.
Mick shows up again just about the time I arrive at the turn of the corridor, where a deep paneled wooden door, maybe twice the height of an ordinary one, stands ajar.
“Come here,” he says, crooking his finger. He opens the door fully to reveal an elegant ballroom with a sparkling crystal chandelier, plaster swags along the top of panel moldings on several walls, a grand piano at the far end, and an expansive well worn, yet shiny hardwood floor. Also, bewildering to see in that baroque room, are two six-by-fifteen foot expressionist paintings hanging on the long wall where the entrance door is. They’re more like graphic designs, crisp, with bold brush-like strokes but larger than any brush I’ve ever seen. They are red, white, and black with no mixing of colors.
“This is the room where we do Morning Exercise, the morning meditation,” Mick tells me. “Most of the Movements classes are in here, too.” read the rest of this entry… »