“There is at the present time a great spiritualizing action that is preparing the [future].”
—JG Bennett in 1974 in his monograph, Gurdjieff Today. [This monograph is in Bennett’s book, Is There Life on Earth?]

JOHN GODOLPHIN BENNETT—as visionary mystics are apt to be—was ahead of his times.
In the 1970s he inspired and encouraged numerous young men and women
to work on themselves to become open to a “great spiritualizing action” which he foresaw.

Today, in Egypt, Libya, Japan, Wisconsin, and in our own homes and hearts, is not such an action at work?

Solioonensius was Gurdjieff’s term for an impulse from the sun that brings to earth an energy of agitation and thereby of opportunity for those who work. Is this such a time?

The work-on-oneself that Gurdjieff and Bennett encouraged so long ago in so many has born some apparent and virtual fruit: in their names actions and activities abound planet-round and a many-colored rainbow of forms and content has formed and is arching over their memories. So let it.

Everything from “the soup of the soup” to “the jewel in the lotus” is available in their name to the passersby. Countless impressions of the elephant have been taken and each feature is vying for a place on the long-empty refurbished shelves in humankind’s long-deserted storehouse of slowly dimming bright possibilities. So let them.

Here now sixty and thirty-five years respectively fast-forwarded of these long-dead men, we find their then young-man and young-woman grandchild now elder-grown if not gone beyond—some of whom, rightfully or wrongly are even seen by a fellow few or distanced many as tempered and true links in the human chain of transmission—have, had, and continue to make many useful and worthwhile mistakes.

And, a yet fewer but nonetheless worthy few have learned from theirs and others own worthy few mistakes while sharing what they were given with others to make it their own. And, they too are reorganizing their positions and fractal links and some fewer too even feel that now is the time to take their learning and “begin again” to create again a new new new world. So do it.

A wish for all of us: may we find and meet each other on the field of dharma overlooking what is, and sit at table and share our findings, then together re-enter the field. Why not? We’re all replaceable replicable necessities. Nice huh?

Be well, James Tomarelli for Bennett Books