From: Bardic Press

Rodney Collin, born Rodney Collin Smith, was one of the students closest to P.D. Ouspensky. He was born in 1909 in Brighton on the south coast of England. He attended the London School of Economics and became a professional writer and an enthusiastic hiker. His first book, Palms and Patios, was an account of a walking tour through Spain, and was published in 1931, when he was twenty-two years old. During the early 1930s he wrote for a variety of English publications such as the Evening Standard, the Spectator and the New Statesman, and was on the team for the Daily Express Encylopaedia. He joined a number of organizations that were typical of the interests of the time—Toc H (a Christian society), the newly formed Youth Hostel Association, and finally the Peace Pledge Union, an extraordinarily popular pacifist movement that appeared in the run up to World War II. He was evidently searching for some meaning in life, and contributed actively to each of these societies, moving from one to the other, editing both the Toc H journal and the YHA newsletter the Rucksack. He met his wife, Janet, on a Toc H pilgrimage to the passion play at Oberammergau in 1930.

In 1931 he read a New Model of the Universe by P.D. Ouspensky, and in 1935 he and his wife attended some talks given by Maurice Nicoll, who had been a pupil of both Gurdjieff and Ouspensky, but he did not continue with Nicoll's meetings. Through one of the members of the Peace Pledge Union, Robert de Ropp, he was introduced to Ouspensky's lectures.

Rodney and Janet became active members of Ouspensky's group, which was going through a period of expansion and increased activity. He attended lectures and meetings, and worked in the grounds of Lyne Place, a large house in Surrey devoted to Ouspensky's activities. 1938 saw a presentation of Gurdjieff's movements, and a visit by Rodney to Damascus and Aleppo, where he contacted the Mevlevi dervish groups. The Collin Smiths bought a house in Virginia Waters to be closer to Lyne, and their daughter Chloe was born. Rodney worked in the gardens and spent many hours in the British Library, studying esotericism, art and civilizations.

The Second World War led to a reduction in the activities of Ouspensky's groups, and the situation in London eventually became so difficult, with blackouts and the loss of Ouspensky's private flat and Colet House, that Ouspensky had to move to America in order to keep his groups going. Janet and Rodney assisted in the buying of Franklin Farms in Mendham. Rodney worked as a censor in the British Security Commission, which enabled him to transfer to New York, by way of Bermuda. He travelled to America, by chance, on the same ship as Ouspensky did, the s.s. Georgic, and hence had some closer contact with his teacher.

America brought difficult times for Ouspensky. A number of the more influential English students were able to establish themselves in New York, but much had to be built again from the beginning. Ouspensky was drinking heavily and many of his older pupils have written critical accounts of this time. But after a dramatic evening when Collin confronted Ouspensky, Collin realised that Ouspensky was actually living the work and that much more could be learned from him. After this, Rodney Collin began to take a more active role in Ouspensky's work, spending a lot of time with Ouspensky and eventually leading meetings for him.

By 1947 Ouspensky was suffering from advanced kidney disease. In January he returned to England and Lyne Place. Rodney followed in the Spring, and the last months of Ouspensky's life were a time of miraculous possibility and intense change for Rodney. Ouspensky led a series of meetings which threw his pupils back on their own resources. He said that he abandoned the system. For many this was the end of the road, but Rodney found that many things began to come together for him from now onwards. Collin's intimate and inspiring account of this period, entitled Last Remembrances of a Magician, was circulated soon after Ouspensky's death, but has never been published. In August Collin wrote the outline to The Theory of Celestial Influence, a study of man and the universe according to the cosmological ideas of laws of the system.

In September, Ouspensky planned to sail back to America, but at the last moment refused to do so. His final few weeks were filled with extraordinary efforts. When Ouspensky died on October 2, Rodney locked himself away in Ouspensky's rooms for a number of days without food. When he emerged he seemed by many to have changed. In the following months he wrote Last Remembrances and The Theory of Eternal Life.

In 1948, along with a few followers, Rodney and Janet moved to Mexico, which he had visited a number of times during the war. They lived in Tlalpam for a couple of years. The Theory of Eternal Life was published anonymously in 1949, and around this time he wrote Hellas, a play concerned with the different stages of Greek civilization. He continued to work on the Theory of Celestial Influence, which was finally published in Spanish in 1953 and in English in 1954.

During this time Collin's group held regular meetings, and he purchased land outside of Mexico city for group work. During the week after Ouspensky's death he had conceived the idea of a building based on the enneagram and the diagram of the four circles used in Eternal Life. Work began on the building, which took many years and was never finished.

By 1953 Collin was entering into a new period of work. The idea of harmony became central to his aim, and he attempted to establish connections to the other groups who tried to continue the work of Gurdjieff and Ouspensky. He had good relations with Maurice Nicoll, whose books Rodney had had translated into Spanish and were published in Mexico by Ediciones Sol, but Dr Nicoll died that year. He visited Mendham again, but found both the other students of Gurdjieff and Ouspensky strangely lacking in any ongoing sense of the miraculous.

A number of new Mexican pupils joined, among them a lady named Mema Dickens, who began channeling messages from Ouspensky. Collin took these seriously, and this opened up an unbridgeable gap between him and the majority of the other work groups. Collin wrote and published a number of small pamphlets, among them The Herald of Harmony, The Christian Mystery and The Pyramid of Fire. He converted to Roman Catholicism in 1955 and traveled in South America, Europe and Asia, looking for the traces of the Fourth Way, allowing himself to be guided by the messages he was receiving from Ouspensky. During this time he drove himself very hard physically, taking little rest. In early 1956 he collapsed, and seemed in retrospect to have suffered a heart attack after a marathon pilgrimage to a cathedral. In May he, his wife, John Grepe and Mema Dickens left to visit Rodney's group in Peru. While the other party members were having a siesta he climbed to the top of a cathedral tower along with a beggar boy whom he was helping, suffered another heart attack, and fell out of the tower into the cathedral square, where he died.

Rodney Collin's writings include:

Palms and Patios
Written when he was twenty-one years old, this is a vivid account of his travels in Spain.

The Whirling Ecstacy
A translation of part of Les Saints des Derviches Tourneurs, itself a translation of Aflaki's Lives of the Gnostics. This looks at Rumi and his friend and teacher Shems-ed-din.

Last Remembrances (of a Magician)
Distributed in typescript, but never published, this is Collin's intimate and unpolished account of Ouspensky's last months.

The Theory of Eternal Life
Written after Ouspensky's death, this intense book unites the various theories about death, the soul, recurrence, reincarnation and immortality.

Hellas
A verse drama which looks at different stages of Greek civilization, with Homer, a Socrates and Plato who resemble Gurdjieff and Ouspensky, and Plotinus and Porphyry.

The Theory of Celestial Influence
Collin's monumental work. Begun as a classification of the sciences according to the ideas of the System, it grew to include the universe, man, and civilization, all looked at from the point of view of ideas such as the Law of Three and the Law of Seven and the enneagram.

The Pyramid of Fire
One of a series of pamphlets. This one investigates the ancient gods of Mexico.

The Mysteries of the Seed
Based around the Greek Mysteries, the authorship of this pamphlet is disputed, and it is my current opinion that, while it was definitely published by Collin, he was not the author.

The Herald of Harmony
A poetic look at school and civilization from the beginning of time until the new civilization of which Collin felt he was a forerunner. Collin sees Gurdjieff and Ouspensky as two poles of a work designed by Higher Forces.

The Christian Mystery
The events of the drama of Christ and the unfolding of Christian civilization are placed on the enneagram.

A Programme of Study
Issued for his groups, this pamphlet outlines many of the general ideas that they studied.

Lessons in Religion for a Skeptical World
A posthumously issued pamphlet, consisting of notes and fragments, mostly with a religious perspective, some of which have probably been revised by his students. A second part to this was published in Spanish only.

The Theory of Conscious Harmony
A posthumous collection of excerpts from letters. Collin was a great letter writer, and these excerpts, organised by topic, offer an encouraging and emotional perspective of the Work. Unlike some of the other posthumous publications, Conscious Harmony is entirely authentic.

The Mirror of Light
Collected from his notebooks, this feels more authentic than Lessons in Religion, but still contains some writings that were probably not Collin's. A second collection was issued in Spanish only, entitled La Nueva Luz.

Biographical:

The Legacy of Rodney Collin 
Article by Anthony Cartledge, author of Planetary Types: The Science of Celestial Influence
(Originally published in New Dawn magazine May-June 2000.)

Beloved Icarus
Beloved Icarus is an astrological approach to Rodney Collin's life, written by his sister-in-law, Joyce Collin-Smith

Call No Man Master
[Also by Joyce Collin-Smith. Her memoirs provide the fullest first-person account of Rodney Collin.]
Call Man No Master is back in print, so the ebook has been taken down. Buy through Amazon.com

Interview with Joyce Collin-Smith
The first half of an interview by William Patterson that covers the same ground as Joyce Collin-Smith's published works.

Joyce Collin-Smith's website

Gauquelin's Legacy: New Evidence for Planetary Types
An earlier article by Anthony Cartledge, author of Planetary Types.

Gary Lachman, author of the new Ouspensky biography, In Search of P.D. Ouspensky wrote an article on James Webb for the Fortean Times, which mentions Collin.
The Damned

In every age men have tried to assemble all the knowledge and experience of their day into a single which would explain their relation to the universe and their possibilities in it.

• In the ordinary way they could never succeed. For the unity of things is not realisable by the ordinary mind, in an ordinary state of consciousness.
• The ordinary mind, refracted by the countless and contradictory promptings of different sides of human nature, must reflect the world as manifold and confused as is man himself.
• A unity, a pattern, an all-embracing meaning — if it exists — could only be discerned or experienced by a different kind of mind, in a different state of consciousness. It would only be realisable by a mind which had become itself become unified.

What unity, for example, could be perceived by even the most brilliant physicist, philosopher or theologian, while he still:

• Trips absent-mindedly over a stool.
• Becomes angry at being short-changed.
• Fails to notice when he irritates his wife.
• And in general remains subject to the daily trivial blindness of the ordinary mind, working with its customary absence of awareness?

Any unity he reaches in such a state can exist only in his imagination.

Thus the attempt to gather all knowledge into a whole has always been connected with the search for a new state of consciousness.

• And it is meaningless and futile apart from such a search.

Perhaps it may even be said that the few successful attempts that have come down to us show signs of being only the by-products of such a search, when it has proved successful. The only convincing 'models of the universe' in existence are those left by men who evidently achieved a completely different relation to the world and consciousness of it from that belonging to ordinary experience.

For such true 'models of the universe' must not only display the inner form and structure of this universe, but must also reveal man's relation to it and his present and possible fates within it.

• In this sense, certain of the Gothic cathedrals are complete models of the universe, whereas a modern planetarium, for all its beauty, knowledge and accuracy, is not. For the latter model completely omits man.
• The difference, of course, lies in the fact that the cathedrals, directly or indirectly, were designed by men who belonged to schools for the achievement of higher states of consciousness, and had the advantage of experience gained in such schools.
• Whereas the designers of the planetarium are scientists and technicians, clever and qualified enough in their field, but claiming no particular knowledge of the potentialities of the human machine with which they have to work.

In fact, if we are in possession of certain keys for their interpretation, the most astonishing thing about these ancient 'models of the universe' arising in widely separated ages, continents and cultures, is precisely their similarity. So much so that a good case might be made out for the idea that higher consciousness always reveals the same truth, solely on the basis of a comparative study of certain existing models of the universe which seem to derive therefrom — for example:

• The Cathedral of Chartres
• The Great Sphinx
• The New Testament
• The Divine Comedy, or
• Certain cosmic diagrams left by the 17th century alchemists
• The designers of the Tarot pack, and
• The painters of some Russian ikons and Tibetan banners.

Of course, one of the chief difficulties in the way of such comparative study lies in the fact that all these models are expressed in different languages, and that to the ordinary unprepared mind different language implies different truth.

• This is in fact a characteristic illusion of man's ordinary state.

Even a small improvement in his perception reveals, on the contrary, that the same language, the same formulation may cover diametrically opposed understandings, whereas languages and formulations which at first sight have nothing in common may in fact refer to the same thing.

• For instance, while the words 'honour', 'love', 'democracy' are universally used, it is almost impossible to find two people who attach the same meaning to them.
  • • That is to say, different uses of the same word may be quite incomparable.
• On the other hand — strange though it may seem —
  • • The Cathedral of Chartres
    • A pack of Tarot cards, and
    • Certain many-armed and many-headed bronzes of Tibetan deities
• — All are in fact formulations of exactly the same ideas.
  • That is, they are directly comparable.

It thus becomes necessary at this point to consider the question of language in relation to the construction of a model of the universe, the delineation of a pattern of unity. Fundamentally, language or form of expression is divided according as it appeals to one or another of man's functions, familiar or potential.

• For example, a certain idea may be expressed in philosophical or in scientific language, to appeal to man's intellectual function.
• It may be expressed in religious or poetic language to appeal to his emotional function.
• It may be expressed in ritual or in dances to appeal to his motor function.
• It may even be expressed in scents or in physical postures to appeal to his instinctive physiology.

Of course, the more complete 'models of the universe' created by schools in the past aimed at combining formulations of what they wished to express in many languages, so as to appeal to several or all functions at once, and thus partly offset the contradiction between different sides of man's nature already referred to.

• In the cathedral, for example, the languages of poetry, posture, ritual, music, scent, art and architecture were successfully combined; and something similar appears to have been done in the dramatic representations of the Eleusinian mysteries.
• Again in certain cases, for instance in the Great Pyramid, the language of architecture seems to have been used not only for the symbolism of its form, but in order to create in a person passing through the building in a certain way a quite definite series of emotional impressions and shocks, which had a definite meaning in themselves, and which were calculated to reveal the very nature of the person exposed to them.

All this refers to objective use of language — that is, the use of a definite language to convey a definite idea with previous knowledge of the effect which will be created, the function which will be affected, and the type of person who will respond.

• Again we have to admit that such objective use of language is not ordinarily known — except perhaps in an elementary form in advertising — and that its higher use can only derive, directly or indirectly, from knowledge gained in higher states of consciousness.

Besides these languages recognisable by man through his ordinary functions, there are other forms of language arising from and appealing to supernormal functions, that is, functions which can be developed in man, but which he does not ordinarily enjoy.

• For instance, there is the language of higher emotional function, where one formulation has the power of conveying an enormous number of meanings — either simultaneously or in succession.
• Some of the finest poetry, which can never be exhausted, and which, though it always yields something fresh, can never be fully understood, may belong to this category.
• More evidently, the Gospels are written in such language, and for this reason their every verse can convey to a hundred men a hundred different but never contradictory meanings!

In the language of higher emotional function, and particularly of higher intellectual function, symbols play a very large part.

• For symbols are based on an understanding of true analogies between a greater cosmos and a smaller.
• A form or function or law in one cosmos being used to hint at the corresponding forms, functions and laws in other cosmoses.

This understanding belongs exclusively to higher or potential functions in man, and must always produce a sense of bafflement and even frustration when approached by ordinary functions, such as that of logical thought.

Still higher degrees of emotional language need no external expression whatsoever, and therefore cannot be misunderstood.

This digression about language is necessary in order to explain in part the form of the present book.

• For this too, it must be admitted, purports to be a 'model of the universe' — that is, an assembly or outline of available knowledge, arranged in order to demonstrate a cosmic whole or unity.

It is, indeed, couched in scientific language, and is thus primarily directed to the intellectual function, and to people in whom this function predominates.

• Certainly, the writer is well aware that this language is the slowest, most tedious, and in some ways the most difficult to follow of all languages.
• The language of good poetry, of myths or fairy-tales, for example, would be much more penetrating, and might carry the ideas with much greater force and swiftness into the reader's emotional understanding.
• Perhaps later an attempt in this direction may be possible.

At the same time, the reader accustomed to scientific language and thought will also encounter difficulties here.

• The free use of analogy throughout the book will seem to him an inconsistency.
• And for his benefit if it were better to make a fuller explanation and a frank acknowledgment of the defects of this method in advance.

One of the main characteristics of modern thought is a contradiction between the way man regards the external world, outside himself, and the way he regards the internal world, inside himself. And the way he regards the external world inside himself, and the way he regards his internal world outside of himself.

As regards the external world, he has never been more objective, more convinced of the universal application of laws, expressable by formulae and consistently measurable in their effects.

• In this field, any belief which throws doubt on the principle of measurability, for example, any belief in intelligence or consciousness belonging to beings greater in scale than man, is in danger of being regarded as superstition.

As regards his internal world, on the other hand, man has rarely been more subjective, more convinced of the special validity of his every whim, imagination, hope and fear, and less willing to admit that his inner world is subject to any laws whatsoever.

• The greater part of modern psychology, and especially of psycho-analysis, has been based on this subjectivity.
• And in this field, it is precisely the belief in laws and measurability — for example, belief that much of human psychology is the result of the calculable interplay of types, or belief that man's inner world is subject to laws similar to those governing the astronomical or microscopic worlds — which is called superstition.

There have been previous periods when intelligence was seen as the ruling principle in both fields, for example, in the early Middle Ages.

• And there have been other periods when immutable law was seen as such, for example, in 18th century rationalism.
• But there has perhaps never been a period when there was such a blatant contradiction between man's attitudes towards the two.

When we find this contradiction in ordinary life, that is, when we meet a man who judges the world around him by one standard, and himself and his own actions by another and quite different standard, we take it as sign of a primitive and uncultured point of view.

• Yet when this same contradiction is the chief characteristic of the whole thought of our age, we call it enlightenment or emancipation.
• We do not see that it lies at the root of as much blindness, unhappiness, disappointment and moral bankruptcy, as it would in an individual case.

One of the aims of this book is precisely to try to heal this contradiction — to look at man and his inner life from the same point of view as we look at the universe.

• And to look at the universe from the same point of view as we look at man and his inner life.

If the attempt smacks of superstition, it may, at least in part, be the palate of the time which is at fault.

In our attempt to reconcile the inner and outer world, however, we do come up against a very real difficulty, which must be faced. This difficulty is connected with the problem of reconciling different methods of knowing.

Man has two ways of studying the universe. The first is by induction: he examines phenomena, classifies them, and attempts to infer laws and principles from them. This is the method generally used by science. The second is by deduction: having perceived or had revealed or discovered certain general laws and principles, he attempts to deduce the application of these laws in various specialised studies and in life. This is the method generally used by religion. The first method begins with 'facts' and attempts to reach 'laws'. The second method begins with 'laws' and attempts to reach 'facts'.

These two methods belong to the working of different human functions. The first is the method of the ordinary logical mind, which is permanently available to us. The second derives from a potential function in man, which is ordinarily inactive for lack of nervous energy of sufficient intensity, and which we may call higher mental function. This function, on the rare occasions of its operation, reveals to man laws in action, he sees the whole phenomenal world as the product of laws.

All true formulations of universal laws derive recently or remotely from the working of this higher function, somewhere and in some man. At the same time, for the application and understanding of the laws revealed in the long stretches of time and culture when such revelation is not available, man has to rely on the ordinary logical mind.

In fact, this is recognised today in scientific thought. In his book 'Nature of the Universe' (1950), Fred Hoyle writes: "The procedure in all branches of physical science, whether in Newton's theory of gravitation, Maxwell's theory of electromagnetism, Einstein's theory of relativity, or the quantum theory, is at the root the same. It consists of two steps. The first is to guess by some sort of inspiration a set of mathematical equations. The second step is to associate the symbols used in the equations with measurable physical quantities."¹ The difference between the work of these two minds could not be better put.

But here the great quandary of human understanding arises. For these two minds can never ordinarily understand each other. There is too great a difference in speed between them. Just as communication is impossible between a peasant plodding along a road with a load of sticks and a car which flashes past him at eighty miles an hour, because of their difference in speed, so is communication ordinarily impossible between logical mind and higher mind, for the same reason. To logical mind, the traces left by higher mind will seem arbitrary, superstitious, illogical, unproven. To higher mind, the work of logical mind will seem ponderous, unnecessary, and beside the point.²

In the ordinary way, this difficulty is overcome by keeping these two methods quite separate, giving them different labels and different fields of action. Books on religion, or on higher mathematics, which deal in laws and principles, abstain from the method of induction. Books on science, which deal in accumulations of observed facts, abstain from presuming laws in advance. And since quite different people write and read the one kind and the other kind of book, or the same people read them with different quite separate parts of their minds, the two methods manage to exist together without too much friction.

In the present book, however, the two methods are employed simultaneously. Certain great principles and laws of the universe, which have found expression in different countries and in all ages, and which from time to time are rediscovered by individual men through the momentary working of a higher function, are frankly taken for granted. From them deductions are made downwards into the world of phenomena ordinarily accessible to us, largely by the method of analogy. At the same time, an attempt is made to study and classify 'facts' and phenomena about us, and by inference to arrange these in such a way that the classifications lead upwards towards the abstract laws descending from above.

In fact — for the reason given above, that they derive from different functions with widely different speeds — the two methods never quite meet. Between the admissible deductions from general laws and the admissible inferences from facts there always remains an invisible belt, where the two should and must join, but where such joining remains always unseen and unproven.

For these reasons, the writer is prepared to admit that the plan of the present book endeavouring to reconcile the two methods may be an impossible one. He realises that such an attempt inevitably involves a kind of sleight-of-hand, almost chicanery. And he also realises that this sleight-of-hand will in no way deceive the professional scientist, wedded exclusively to the logical method.

At the same time he is convinced on the one hand that present-day science, without principles; is headed towards ever more pointless specialisation and materalism; and on the other hand that religious or philosophical principles, uncoordinated with the scientific knowledge which characterises our age, can today appeal only to a minority. This conviction persuades him to take a risk. Those who use the logical method exclusively will never be satisfied by the arguments given, which — let it be admitted do contain logical flaws and gaps. On the other hand, for those who are willing to accept both methods, it is hoped to present sufficient evidence to enable each reader to attempt to bridge the gap between the world of everyday fact and the world of great laws — for himself.

This task can never be performed in any book, nor would more facts or more knowledge, ordinarily available to science either now or in the future, ever make this possible. But, with help and effort, it can be performed by each individual to his own satisfaction.

Meanwhile, to the ordinary man, interested in his own fate but not particularly in science, it can only be said that perhaps, on closer examination, he may find in this book in fact not so 'scientific' as it at first appears. Scientific language is the fashionable language of the day, just as the language of psychology was the fashionable language thirty years ago, the language of passion the fashionable language in Elizabethan times, and the language of religion the fashionable language of the Middle Ages. When people are induced to buy toothpaste or cigarettes by pseudo-scientific arguments and explanations, evidently this in some way corresponds to the mentality of the age, and truths must also be scientifically expressed.

At the same time, this is not to suggest that the scientific language used is a disguise, a pretence or a falsification. The explanations given are, as far as it has been possible to verify, quite correct and they correspond to actual facts.³ What is claimed is that the principles used could with equal correctness be applied to any other form of human experience, with equally or more interesting results. And that it is these principles which are of importance, rather than the sciences to which they are applied.

Where do these principles come from? To answer this question, it becomes necessary to acknowledge my complete indebtedness to one man, and to explain to a certain extent how this indebtedness came about.

¹ Examples of this 'scientific illumination' are given in Appendix I.

² The irreconcilability of these two ways of looking at the universe is described in its origins by P. D. Ouspensky in 'A New Model of the Universe', chapter viii, pp. 341-2 (English edition).

³ Even 'facts', however, are not sacred. Of two recognised and reputed scientists, writing in two books published in England in the same year (1950), one states as a 'fact' that the moon is moving away from the earth, the other equally categorically that it is moving towards it.

I first met Ouspensky in London, where he was giving private lectures, in September 1936. These 'lectures' referred to an extraordinary system of knowledge, quite incomparable with anything I had encountered before, which he had received from a man whom he called 'G'. This system, however, was not new: on the contrary it was said to be a very ancient one, which had always existed in hidden form and traces of which could from time to time be seen coming to the surface of history in one guise or another. Although it explained in an extraordinary way countless things about man and the universe, which had seemed hitherto quite inexplicable, its sole purpose — as 0. constantly stressed — was to help individual men to awake to a different level of consciousness.

Any attempts to use this knowledge for other and more ordinary purposes he discouraged or forbade altogether.

Yet despite the staggering completeness of this 'system' in itself, one could never entirely separate it from the 'being' of the man who expounded it, from 0. himself. When anyone else tried to explain it, the 'system' degenerated, lost quality in some way. And although no one could entirely neutralise the great strength of the ideas in themselves, it was clear that the 'system' could not be taken apart from a man of a certain quite unusual level of consciousness and being. For only such a man could induce in others the fundamental changes of understanding and attitude which were necessary to grasp it.

This 'system', in the pure and abstract form in which it was originally given, has been recorded once and for all by Ouspensky himself in his In Search of the Miraculous. Anyone who wishes to compare the original principles with the deductions which have here been made, would do well to read that book first. They will then find themselves in a position to judge whether the applications and developments of the ideas are legitimate. And in fact, from their own point of view, it will be their duty so to judge.

Personally, I felt myself at a crossroads at the time, and on the first occasion I saw 0. in private — at his crowded little rooms in Gwyndyr Road — I told him that I was a writer by nature, and I asked his advice upon the courses which then lay open to me. He said, very simply . . . Better not to get too involved. Later we may find something for you to write."

It was typical of the strange confidence that 0. inspired that this seemed a complete answer to my problem — or rather, I felt that I no longer had to worry about it, it had been taken from me. In fact, as a result of this conversation, for just over ten years I wrote practically nothing at all. There was too much else to do. But in the end 0. kept his promise. And the outline of the present book was written in the two months immediately before his death, in October 1947, as a direct result of what he was trying to achieve and show at that time. Later, a second book, continuing where this leaves off, was written after his death.

During the ten years' interval, 0. expounded to us in countless ways theoretical, philosophical and practical — all the different sides of the 'system'. When I arrived, many of those with him had already been studying in this way, and endeavouring to penetrate to the result he indicated, for ten or fifteen years, and they were able to help a newcomer like myself to understand very much of what was and what was not possible. 0. tirelessly explained, tirelessly showed us our illusions, tirelessly pointed the way — yet so subtly that if one was not ready to understand, Ins lessons could pass one by, and it was only years later that one might remember the incident, and realise what he had been demonstrating. More violent methods may be possible, but these can also leave scars that are difficult to heal.

0. never worked for the moment. It might even be said that he did not work for time — he worked only for recurrence. But this needs much explanation. In any case, he quite evidently worked and planned with a completely different sense of time from the rest of us, though to those who impatiently urged him to help them achieve quick results, he would say: "No, time is a factor. You can't leave it out."

So the years passed. Yet although very much indeed was achieved, it often seemed to us that 0. was too far ahead of us, that he had something which we had not, something which made certain possibilities practical for him that remained theoretical for us, and which for all his explaining, we did not see how to get. Some essential key seemed missing. Later, this key was shown. But that is a different story.

0. went to America during the war. In connection with this strange unfolding of possibilities which went by the name of 0's 'lectures', I remember how in New York about 1944 he gave us a task which he said would be interesting for us. This was to 'classify the sciences', according to the principles which had been explained in the system, to classify them according to the worlds which they studied. He referred to the last classification of the sciences — by Herbert Spencer — and said that though it was interesting, it was not very satisfactory from our point of view nor from the point of view of our time. He also wrote to his friends in England about this task. It was only when the present book was nearing completion, some five years later, that I realised that it was in fact one answer to 0's task.

0. returned to England in January 1947. He was old, ill and very weak. But he was also something else. He was a different man. So much of the vigorous, whimsical, brilliant personality, which his friends had known and enjoyed for so many years, had been left behind, that many meeting him again were shocked, baffled, or else were given a quite new understanding of what was possible in the way of development.

In the bitter early spring of 1947 he called several large meetings in London of all the people who had previously listened to him, and of others who never had. He spoke to them in a new way. He said that he abandoned the system. He asked them what they wanted, and said that only from that could they begin on the way of self-remembering and consciousness.

It is difficult to convey the impression created. For twenty years in England before the war, 0. had almost daily explained the system. He had said that everything must be referred to it, that things could only be understood in relation to it. To those who had listened to him the system represented the explanation of all difficult things, pointed the way to all good things. Its words and its language had become more familiar to them than their mother tongue. How could they 'abandon the system'?

And yet, to those who listened with positive attitude to what he now had to say, it was suddenly as though a great burden had been taken from them. They realised that in the way of development true knowledge must first be acquired and then abandoned. That exactly what makes possible the opening of one door may make impossible the opening of the next. And some for the first time began to gain an idea where lay that missing key which might admit them to the place where 0. was and where they were not.

After this 0. retired to his house in the country, saw very few people, hardly spoke. Only he now demonstrated, now performed in actuality and in silence, that change of consciousness the theory of which he had explained so many years.

The story of those months can not be told here. But at dawn one September day a fortnight before his death, after a strange and long preparation, he said to a few friends who were with him: "You must start again. You must make a new beginning. You must reconstruct everything for yourselves — from the very beginning."

This then was the true meaning of 'abandoning the system'. Every system of truth must be abandoned, in order that it may grow again. He had freed them from one expression of truth which might have become dogma, but which instead may blossom into a hundred living forms, affecting every side of life.

Most important of all, 'reconstructing everything for oneself evidently meant 'reconstructing everything in oneself, that is, actually creating in oneself the understanding which the system had made possible and achieving the aim of which it spoke — actually and permanently overcoming the old personality and acquiring a quite new level of consciousness.

Thus if the present book may be taken as a 'reconstruction', it is only an external reconstruction, so to speak, a representation of the body of ideas we were given, in one particular form and in one particular language. Despite its scientific appearance, it has no importance whatsoever as a compendium of scientific facts or even as a new way of presenting these facts. Any significance it may have can only lie in its being derived, though at second hand, from the actual perceptions of higher consciousness, and in its indicating a path by which such consciousness may be again approached.

R.C.
Lyne, August 1947 Tlalpam, April 1953