"Gurdjieff, G I - Beelzebubs Tales To His Grandson" - читать интересную книгу автора (Gurdjieff G I)

as those which in general the writers of all ranks and epochs on Earth have drawn and exalted, that is to
say, types such as any Tom, Dick, or Harry, who arise through a misunderstanding, and who fail to
acquire during the process of their formation up to what is called "responsible life", anything at all which
it is proper for an arising in the image of God, that is to say a man, to have, and who progressively
develop in themselves to their last breath only such various charms as for instance: "lasciviousness",
"slobberiness", "amorousness", "maliciousness", "chickenheartedness", "enviousness", and similar vices
unworthy of man.
I intend to introduce in my writings heroes of such type as everybody must, as is said, "willy-nilly" sense
with his whole being as real, and about whom in every reader data must inevitably be crystallized for the
notion that they are indeed "somebody" and not merely "just anybody."
During the last weeks, while lying in bed, my body quite sick, I mentally drafted a summary of my future
writings and thought out the form and sequence of their exposition, and I decided to make the chief hero
of the first series of my writings … do you know whom? … the Great Beelzebub Himself—even in spite
of the fact that this choice of mine might from the very beginning evoke in the mentation of most of my
readers such mental associations as must engender in them all kinds of automatic contradictory impulses
from the action of that totality of data infallibly formed in the psyche of people owing to all the
established abnormal conditions of our external life, which data are in general crystallized in people
owing to the famous what is called "religious morality" existing and rooted in their life, and in them,
consequently, there must inevitably be formed data for an inexplicable hostility towards me personally.
But do you know what, reader?
In case you decide, despite this Warning, to risk continuing to familiarize yourself with my further
writings, and you try to absorb them always with an impulse of impartiality and to understand the very
essence of the questions I have decided to elucidate, and in view also of the particularity inherent in the
human psyche, that there can be no opposition to the perception of good only exclusively when so to say
a "contact of mutual frankness and confidence" is established, I now still wish to make a sincere
confession to you about the associations arisen within me which as a result have precipitated in the
corresponding sphere of my consciousness the data which have prompted the whole of my individuality
to select as the chief hero for my writings just such an individual as is presented before your inner eyes
by this same Mr. BEELZEBUB.
This I did, not without cunning. My cunning lies simply in the logical supposition that if I show him this
attention he infallibly—as I already cannot doubt any more—has to show himself grateful and help me
by all means in his command in my intended writings.
Although Mr. Beelzebub is made, as is said, "of a different grain", yet, since He also can think, and, what
is most important, has—as I long ago learned, thanks to the treatise of the famous Catholic monk,
Brother Foolon—a curly tail, then I, being thoroughly convinced from experience that curls are never
natural but can be obtained only from various intentional manipulations, conclude, according to the
"sane-logic" of hieromancy formed in my consciousness from reading books, that Mr. Beelzebub also
must possess a good share of vanity, and will therefore find it extremely inconvenient not to help one
who is going to advertise His name.
It is not for nothing that our renowned and incomparable teacher, Mullah Nassr Eddin, frequently says:
"Without greasing the palm not only is it impossible to live anywhere tolerably but even to breathe."
And another also terrestrial sage, who has become such, thanks to the crass stupidity of people, named
Till Eulenspiegel, has expressed the same in the following words:
"If you don't grease the wheels the cart won't go."
Knowing these and many other sayings of popular wisdom formed by centuries in the collective life of
people, I have decided to "grease the palm" precisely of Mr. Beelzebub, who, as everyone understands,
has possibilities and knowledge enough and to spare for everything.
Enough, old fellow! All joking even philosophical joking aside, you, it seems, thanks to all these
deviations, have transgressed one of the chief principles elaborated in you and put in the basis of a
system planned previously for introducing your dreams into life by means of such a new profession,