> I'll see that and raise you Gurdjieff's Fourth Way embedded in the middle of "Meaning of Life" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O2QJvc_SxFQ
Wow! That's incredible, and would have gone over my head when I saw the movie as a kid.
I wonder which Python was into that stuff. Perhaps Cleese? Edit: looks like it: https://theweek.com/articles/677504/john-cleeses-6-favorite-..., https://www.nytimes.com/1988/12/25/magazine/cleese-up-close..... Maurice Nicoll is another character; an early UK psychiatrist and son of a prominent Victorian critic, who was Jung's British colleague. Jung was asking him to lead his work in England, but by then Nicoll fell into the Gurdjieff/Ouspensky orbit and ran off to Fontainebleau. The books Cleese is referencing ("Psychological Commentaries" [etc.]) are Nicoll's lectures to his Gurdjieff group that went on through WWII until he died in the 1950s. They're a strange mix of sharp psychological observation and impenetrable esoterica.
If you're interested in Gurdjieff's influence in Britain, I recommend the memoir of J.G. Bennett, who encountered both Gurdjieff and Ouspensky when he was running British intelligence in Constantinople just after WWI: https://www.amazon.com/Witness-Story-Search-Collected-Bennet.... As an old man in the early 70s he became the spiritual teacher of a lot of English hippies, eventually including, of all people, Robert Fripp. You can hear Bennett's voice at the beginning of Fripp's new-wave dance record (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nPQWHEu_rqQ), which also went over my head when I was a kid and frankly creeped me out. But what a great record! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nPQWHEu_rqQ#t=12m
Eh? There are a handful of Reichian therapists around, cloudbusters are pretty cheap to make, I don't think they'll arrest you for building an orgone accumulator, etc.
I'm not seriously suggesting you go out and mess around with this stuff but I'm curious about your motivation. Did you just read about it and never try any of it?
I was looking to cure my depression so I tried things. Now my depression is cured but I feel like a visitor from the future. I went too far too fast, raced out ahead of consensus reality, and now I have a kind of reverse futureshock. I can feel a rant coming on so I'll cool it. I'm bored and lonely and everyone's problems seem so simple and easy to solve... Y U NO Golden Age already Humanity!?
Aaaaaaanyway...
> I wonder which Python was into that stuff. Perhaps Cleese?
Yeah. He used to have an old flash site and there was a video there of him doing a kind of talking-head fireside chat bit, and halfway through that he starts talking about Gurdjieff. Blew me away. After that, I guess I was primed to see it, that scene I mean. It's incredible to think that they wrote that and filmed it and stuck it in there as a killer joke: the Meaning of Life is in "The Meaning of Life".
It's interesting how they set it up: there's basically a post-hypnotic suggestion to get distracted and then sudden attack by the Crimson Assurance acts as an amnesia induction pattern.
I wonder if they told anyone? I mean there had to be a group of people in on the joke, yeah? I've never heard of anyone else noticing that scene and making the connection to Gurdjieff, but then I don't get out much. At all. (I'm kind of a recluse. In fact, this HN account is pretty much my only connection to the outside world. Great work btw dang. I can't tell you how grateful I am to you for all you do. I owe you. If you're ever in Southwestern SF and want to experience some Chi or other weird shit get in touch.)
I met John Cleese once and roundly failed to serve him popcorn. I was working at a movie theater in Santa Barbara and he came in with a date to see "In the Name of the Father". Slow night. Empty lobby. I looked up and there he was. He's tall. Over six feet. I managed a sentence or two before I just started stammering. One of the other kids had to step up and serve him while I leaned against the wall and just gaped like a fish. He was ver British, didn't notice, might have been waiting to catch a bus. I thought that was wonderful of him, and his date was really enjoying it. :) They left via the side door... heh
> If you're interested in Gurdjieff's influence in Britain
Nah, like I said, once my depression was cured I lost interest. Not proud of it but there it is.
Cheers dude, well met!
FWIW, I was 110% Reich for a long time (UFOs too, why not? He's obviously one of the intellectual titans of his age, I wasn't there, who am I to second guess him?) but then I read a particular biography (it's in storage and I don't recall the title or author, sorry, but it was sympathetic to Reich) and it seemed to me that he became irrational after what he called "the Oranur Experiment". I found a site that seems to have a description: https://stillnessinthestorm.com/2013/08/orgone-energy-neutra...
I have no idea what really happened, of course, but I suspect he injured himself somehow experimenting with radium and "orgone".
Even if you set aside the fight with the UFOs, his response to the FDA seems crazy (to me) even for someone who was literally persecuted for much of his professional career. The actions of the FDA don't seem quite so egregious in light of the personal fight Reich picked with ... crap I can't recall now, some bigwig in the FDA, or a federal Judge, someone like that who took it personally, and that's how he wound up serving two years in prison. They still shouldn't have burned his papers, that's messed up. And his end is deeply tragic. But was doing things like refusing a lawyer, representing himself, insisting that the authorities read his books, and that they had no authority over him. Ah, it makes me sad.
I sometimes wonder what an alternate history would be like where Reich and his work took root in Vienna and grew into ... who knows what?
I'm curious dang, if you don't mind me asking, where do you fall out of the funnel on Reich? And on "woo-woo" in general? What's you metaphysical story like? :) Where does the sidewalk end?
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That Kate Bush video! Wow, LOL, Yay! I'll see that and raise you Gurdjieff's Fourth Way embedded in the middle of "Meaning of Life" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O2QJvc_SxFQ