The Slugs: On G. I. Gurdjieff's Beelzebub's Tales to His Grandson - Paperback

by Zeljka Zupanic (Author), Anita J. Mitra (Author), Christopher P. Holmes Ph. D. (Author)

The Slugs provides an overview, explanation and interpretation of G. I. Gurdjieff's masterpiece Beelzebub's Tales to His Grandson, undoubtedly one of the most profound and mysterious books of the sacred literature in the modern world. The framework of ideas, claims and objective science offers a fundamentally alternative view of the nature of life, the origins and history of the Solar System and humankind, the nature of the human psyche and psychopathology, and a science of the soul. In the light of The Tales, most of modern thought and philosophy is so much 'pouring-from-the-empty-into-the-void.' The 'sorry scientists' of 'new format' have no conception of the great inscrutable mysteries of Nature and the subtle inner dimensions and alchemy of human beings. Beelzebub's Tales is a work not only of myth, allegory, history and fantasy, but about the secrets of 'objective science' and the psychology of the soul. Gurdjieff's masterful Tales also provides a shocking portrait of the "strangeness of the human psyche" and explains how humans' essential consciousness and the divine impulses of faith, hope and love, passed into the 'subconsciousness, ' while a 'false consciousness system' replaced it, crystallized around their egoism and associated unbecoming being-impulses. Beelzebub as a cosmic figure of higher reason observes the horrific "processes of reciprocal destruction," or war as periodically occurs on Earth, and asks how such phenomenal depravities come about and why humans cannot eradicate such an arch-criminal particularity in their psyche. The strange three-brained beings perceive reality "topsy-turvy," are mechanized to "see nothing real" and squander their sacred sexual substances solely for pleasure and their multiform vices. Beelzebub's portrayal of the "Hasnamusses," individuals who lack the Divine being-impulse of 'conscience, ' the 'intelligentsia' and the 'crats, ' provides vivid images of the psychopathology of the world's so-called 'elites' with their special societies or "criminal gangs," their "international five o'clocks" and "Hasnamussian sciences." The future of humanity is bleak indeed without the guidance of a being of such a higher intelligence as Beelzebub himself. The Slugs, like Gurdjieff's Tales, provides searing and illuminating insights into human psychopathology, the cause of war and the horror of it all.

Author Biography

Christopher P. Holmes was born in England, on October 7 1949, and raised in Ontario, Canada. He graduated with a B.A. from Carleton University, Ottawa in 1971 and a Ph.D. in clinical psychology from the University of Waterloo in 1978. He taught at York University, Downsview, Ontario over an eleven year period, amidst controversy over his investigations of mystical and spiritual psychology, science and psychic phenomena. He co-founded with Anita Mitra, three centers-the Institute for Mystical and Spiritual Science, Maple, Ontario, the Rainbow Centre in Toronto, and Zero Point in the Ottawa valley. Christopher has also worked for twelve years as a forensic psychologist with young offenders and adults within the Ontario Ministry of Corrections. He currently dedicates himself to furthering the aims of Zero Point-Institute for Mystical and Spiritual Science-currently in Kemptville, Ontario, Canada. Dr. Holmes has studied widely in modern psychology and science, as well as in the mystical and spiritual traditions. In his view, the mainstream of modern thought is seriously misguided in dismissing the spiritual and soul nature of human beings, and in failing to explore the deep roots of human consciousness and the heart. Dr. Holmes explains that a science of soul and spirit must consider the physics, metaphysics and cosmology of consciousness. Most importantly, it involves self study and awakening through the alchemy of psycho-spiritual transformation. Christopher was introduced to the Gurdjieff teaching while a graduate student in clinical psychology interested in the development of consciousness within psychotherapy and in the broader nature of human psychopathology. His early years of study were focused more on the Ouspensky version of the fourth way teaching, and it was only over the following twenty years that he began to fathom the depths of Gurdjieff's masterpiece Beelzebub's Tales and to apply the study of the sacred laws to the findings, theories and philosophy of modern science and to understand the collective psychopathology of humankind.