Идиоты:ритуал

Джон Беннетт "Свидетель"

Глава 20

Все наше внимание привлекала череда тостов. Я помнил гурджиевские тосты в Prieure за идиотов различных видов по субботним празднествам, но теперь ритуал явно был основательно разработан и строго соблюдался. Гурджиев сидел и слушал. Тосты произносились тем же американцем, который читал. Он сидел слева от Гурджиева и назывался «директором:» Гурджиев объяснил, что это древний обычай, известный в Центральной Азии, и его можно найти в евангельском рассказе о свадьбе в Кане, в Галилее, где распорядитель празднества, или тамада, выполняет те же обязанности, что и директор за столом у Гурджиева.

Джон Бенетт "Наука Идиотизма"

Наука Идиотизма неотделима от понятия священной или сакраментальной еды. Г.Гурджиев говорил о ней только за столом и никогда не упоминал о ней в другом месте. Однажды кто-то, выходя из столовой, спросил что-то у него про нее, и он, повернувшись к нему, стал упрекать его за то, что он спрашивал об этом не за столом. В другом случае, случилось так, что новичок показал какое-то знание Идиотов и сказал, что ему уже рассказали об этом заранее. Г.Гурджиев поставил меня в неприятное положение, сказав, что я разрушил все после того, как это рассказал, и что люди должны изучать Науку Идиотизма только за столом и понимать ее должен каждый для себя. Никогда не нужно говорить об этом заранее.

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Одно правило за обедом у г.Гурджиева состояло в том, что каждый вновь прибывший был просто посетителем, «уважаемым гостем», которого не касались церемонии идиотов. Он должен был только слушать и принимать к сведению описание разных Идиотов. Затем, если бы он пришел во второй раз, он должен был узнать, каким он является Идиотом. И сказать Директору. Или лучше, написать это в своей визитной карточке и отдать Директору. Каждый, у кого была такая визитная карточка, которая показывала, что человек был посвящен в Науку Идиотов, был бы принят где угодно. Есть монастыри в Центральной Азии, где он был бы принят сразу с такой визитной карточкой.

Ритуал Науки Идиотизма был простым. Как только начиналась еда, Директор предлагал тост: «За здоровье всех Обычных Идиотов». Обращаясь к тем присутствующим, которые были Обычными Идиотами (часто это были дети), Директор добавлял, «и за ваше здоровье тоже…, «и за ваше…».

Несколько минут спустя, был предложен тост: «За всех Супер-Идиотов», и это происходило со всеми категориями Идиотов. Г.Гурджиев мог позволить, чтобы тосты проходили без комментариев, или мог использовать какой-нибудь из них, чтобы объяснить что-нибудь. Иногда он объяснял всю Науку Идиотизма кому - то вновь прибывшему, примерно такими словами:

«Есть двадцать один Идиот. Каждый – Идиот. Самый первый – это Обычный Идиот, а двадцать первый Абсолютный Идиот – или же, наш Бог». Когда он объяснял этот вид, я ощутил, что он неизменно говорил «наш» Бог, и никогда «Бог», никогда «наша Бесконечность», которые он всегда использовал, когда говорил о Создателе. У меня было впечатление того, когда говорили о двадцать первом Идиоте, что у него было в разуме особенное проявление Божественности – в каком-то смысле, это Божественный человек.

Уильям Дж. Уэлш – Воспоминания

Количество мест за столом было строго ограничено; гости рассаживались тесно друг к другу, локтем к локтю. Кому не хватало места, становились вдоль стен с тарелками в руках, оставшиеся наполняли просторную гостиную. Там люди рассаживались где придется – в креслах, на подоконниках, на полу, образуя то, что Гурджиев любил называть «пикником». Справа и слева от него за столом располагались особые места. Слева садился директор застолья, который следил за наполнением бокалов и произнесением тостов для всех присутствующих идиотов. Произнесение тостов начиналось с самого начала застолья, когда Гурджиев лично давал распоряжение директору: «Говорите, мистер Директор, говорите». Эти слова повторялись много раз на протяжении всего застолья, и каждый из присутствующих был обязан осушить бокал арманьяка или водки с каждым тостом. Женщинам было разрешено выпивать один бокал за три тоста. Те же, кто не пил вовсе или, наоборот, был замечен в чрезмерном пристрастии к алкоголю, угощались в случае личного соизволения Гурджиева. … Как только все мы рассаживались по своим местам, самый умный быстро погружал свою ложку в салат, и вместе с кусочком хлеба это было прекрасным фундаментом для рюмочки алкоголя, который быстро разливался, вслед за словами «Говорите, говорите, мистер Директор». Зимой 1948 года директором часто оказывался изможденный, безупречно вежливый англичанин, на протяжении многих лет бывшего близким последователем Успенских. Когда в 1947 году Успенский умер, он, по совету мадам Успенской, отправился к Гурджиеву в Париж, а затем последовал за ним в Нью-Йорк. Обычно он вставал из-за своего места, оглядывал весь стол и, поднимая свой бокал, начинал: « За всех обычных идиотов…» Часто Гурджиев обращался к вновь пришедшему за его стол человеку с вопросом – каким идиотом тот является, ибо каждый человек, по его мнению, относился по иерархии к определенной категории идиотов. Даже сам Бог, который, с его точки зрения, являлся «Уникальным Идиотом». Иногда (на моей памяти редко) он сам говорил человеку, каким идиотом тот является. Выбор часто был строгим. Многие, включая меня самого, выбирали «сострадающего» идиота. Но после паузы до следующего тоста, как всегда бывало с Гурджиевым, оказывалось, что у каждой палки – два конца. …

А.Ровнер - Гурджиев и Успенский

ЖИЗНЬ В ПРИОРЭ ПОСЛЕ АВТОМОБИЛЬНОЙ АВАРИИ

До 1929 года в шато обычно находилось около тридцати постоянных обитателей: де Гартманы, де Зальцманы, несколько американцев и англичан, а также сестра и брат Гурджиева и их дети. Работы велись нерегулярно, упражения в Учебном здании проходили также с перерывами. Зато субботние банные ритуалы и застолья стали важной частью жизни имения. После бани читалась глава из рукописи Гурджиева, иногда Томас де Гартман играл на органе. В полночь начинался пир с экзотическими блюдами и травами и с большим количеством напитков. Тосты следовали один за другим в строгом порядке, пока Гурджиев пил арманьяк и ел баранью голову, время от времени посылая новичку в виде угощения бараний глаз и наблюдая за тем, что тот будет с ним делать. Джон Тумер вспоминал, что Гурджиев, сидя за столом, излучал шарм и благородство, он ел и пил с доброжелательством к окружающим, если и они вели себя достойно. Ритуал застолья и порядок тостов был нерушим — однажды он швырнул стакан в женщину, которая выпила вино, не дождавшись тоста. Тогда же была разработана и введена в практику классификация «идиотов», и тосты за идиотов различных разрядов преобладали в этом застолье. Слово «идиот», обяснил Гурджиев, по-гречески означает «частное лицо». Гурджиев часто обращался к собеседникам как к «идиотам», и если они обижались, успокаивал их: «Зачем сердишься? Ты идиот, я идиот, Бог тоже идиот». Каждый из сидящих за столом знал, к какой группе идиотов он принадлежит. Насчитывался двадцать один разряд идиотов, за которых поднимались тосты. Пили за «всех идиотов», «обыкновенных идиотов», «кандидатов в идиоты», «супер-идиотов», «архи-идиотов», «безнадежных идиотов», «жалких идиотов» и «сострадательных идиотов». Так, д-р Серневал был известен как «архи-идиот» в то время как Ораж считался лишь «супер-идиотом». Были еще «круглые», «квадратные», «зигзагообразные» и «скорченные» идиоты. Себя Гурджиев величал «уникальным идиотом» и относил к двадцать первому разряду идиотов, а выше него был только сам Господь Бог, которого Гурджиев называл «Его Бесконечностью».

Keтлин Риордан – ГУРДЖИЕВ

Время обеда в "Приере", как был назван замок, рассматривалось и считалось подходящим для разговора и бесед об учении. Гурджиев часто заканчивал обед тостами к отдельным членам гуппы, как к различного рода идиотам — круглым идиотам, квадратным идиотам, сострадательным идиотам и двенадцати другим разновидностям. Эти прославления индивидуальных слабостей личности были частью попытки, которую Гурджиев продолжал на многих фронтах одновременно — сделать незаконным и обезвредить шаблоны условностей, чтобы сущностная природа учеников смогла начать проявляться.

Kathleen Riordan Speeth - The Gurdjieff Work

Page 15

Mealtimes were particularly likely to produce talk and teaching by Gurdjieff, who would often end a dinner with toasts to specific members of the group as various kinds of idiots—round idiots, square idiots, compassionate idiots, and nineteen other varieties. These celebrations of individual personality characteristics were part of the attempt, carried on by Gurdjieff on many fronts simultaneously, to invalidate and detoxify patterns of conditioning so that the student's essential nature could begin to appear.

стр. 15

Время приема пищи было особенно подходящим для бесед и поучений Гурджиева, который часто заканчивал обед тостами за конкретных членов группы как различных видов идиотов ‒ Круглых, Квадратных, Сострадательных и 19 других видов. Эти ритуалы подчеркивания ин-дивидуальных особенностей личности были частью подхода, который Гурджиев осуществ-лял на многих фронтах одновременно, состоящего в том, чтобы свести на нет и обезвредить паттерны обусловленности, так сущностная природа учеников сможет начать проявляться.

Page 97

As part of the festivities we toasted any number of idiots, refilling glasses ot armagnac and milk every third idiot, and in that Dionysian state were required to choose between ten paper dollars circulated among us like salad plates, and eight Silver dollars, which, if we look, we should keen in remembrance of him.

стр. 97

В рамках празднеств мы произносили тосты за любое количество идиотов, наполняя бокалы на каждом третьем идиоте арманьяком и молоком, и в этом дионисийском состоянии должны были выбирать между десятью бумажными долларами, циркулирующими среди нас как тарелки для салата, и восемью серебряными долларами…

C.S. Nott - Journey through this world: The Second Journal of a Pupil

Page 240

After a period of silence during which Gurdjieff observed them with attention, he began to talk to Mr. Bennett about the science of idiotism, and the categories of ‘idiots’, and appointed Mr. Bennett toast master for the occasion. When Gurdjieff asked him which category he belonged to, of course he did not know. Gurdjieff told him, and at once, as it happened to everyone to whom he gave their ‘idiot’, Mr. Bennett’s character was made startlingly clear to some of us.

стр. 240

После некоторого молчания, во время которого Гурджиев внимательно их рассматривал, он начал рассказывать м-ру Беннету о науке идиотизма, о категориях «идиотов», и назначил его распорядителем тостов в этот раз. Когда Гурджиев спросил, к какой категории принадлежит он – он, конечно же, не знал. Гурджиев сказал ему, и сразу же, как и у любого, кому он давал его «идиота», некоторые из нас удивительно ясно увидели характер м-ра Беннета.

Tcheslaw Tchekhovitch "Gurdjieff:A Master in Life"

Page 169

Everyone then chose some kind of alcoholic drink to participate in the sacred ritual of toasting the different types of ‘idiots’. The ‘Director of Toasts’ interrupted the chorus of voices echoing through the forest each time he solemnly pronounced the prescribed phrases of the ceremony. From the very first toast, dedicated "to the health of all ordinary idiots," we found ourselves again confronted with that enigmatic science of ‘idiots’ and its mysterious typology. … So it was until his last days. He seemed to time the moment of his arrival at our meals carefully, in order to tire himself as little as possible and to fulfil his role most effectively. Thanks to the set progression of the ‘Toasts to the Idiots’, he could follow it even from his bed.

стр. 169

Затем каждый выбирал какой-то алкогольный напиток для участия в священном ритуале произнесения тостов за различные типы «идиотов». «Директор тостов» прерывал хор голо-сов, отдающихся эхом по лесу каждый раз, когда он торжественно произносил установленные фразы церемонии. С самого первого тоста, посвященного «здоровью всех обычных идиотов», мы обнаруживали, что снова сталкиваемся с загадочной наукой «идиотов» и ее таинственной типологией ... Так было до его последних дней. Он, казалось, внимательно выбирал время, определенный момент своего прибытия на наши застолья, для того, чтобы утруждать себя как можно меньше и выполнять свою роль более эффективно. Благодаря установленной последовательности «тостов за идиотов», он мог следить за ней даже со своей кровати.

Diaries of J.G. Bennett and Elizabeth Bennett "Idiots in Paris"

August 22nd

J.G.B. At lunch I called E’s toast of Square Idiot and she looked at me and bowed slightly, unsmiling. Gurdjieff at once said, "Yelizabet, why you not manifest? When Director gives toast, necessary manifest pleasure. Perhaps you are angry with Director?" She assured him that she was not, and he repeated that she must manifest pleasure. Then as she was saying goodbye before leaving for England, he pointed to me and said, "You speak with him before you go." It is a mystery to me, his knowledge of what we all do with our lives in his absence. Again and again, people confirm this quite unmistakably.

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E.B. I had lunch at the flat and afterward went to England. At lunch, when we came to Square Idiots, Mr. Gurdjieff was looking at me all through the preliminaries "We come now to the series…." I knew he had something up his sleeve. I was in my corner by the piano, and Bouche d’Egout obscured my view of the Director, who said, "To your health also, Elizabeth. …" I looked away from Mr. G to the Director; leaned forward just enough to see him and gave a small nod. The Director had already looked away from me. Mr. G was still looking at me when I turned back to him again, and then he said, kind and amiable and only half serious, that when one’s health is drunk, necessary something manifest, and how this is serious thing, etc. He added, "perhaps something happen between you and Director, I not know, but necessary something manifest."

September 10th

There were many Square Idiots today, and he teased us about being "cheap merchandise." He passed a huge wedge of melon to John Mills, standing in the doorway, and then began to cough. Eat it quickly, he said, between bursts of coughing, so that I can finish coughing. He scolded one of Miss Heap’s group for not having chosen an Idiot, after being here six days, and the girl said she didn’t know which to choose — always she wanted to choose a different one. He did not like this, and said this was "dishonest" in her, and such uncertainty was a sure sign "what you are not honest."

Rene Zuber - Who Are You Monsieur Gurdjieff?

Page 71

We even forgot where we were because the spectacle which followed the various toasts drunk to ‘the idiots’ was extraordinary.

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Mr Gurdjieff would have sitting next to him someone he had publicly designated as ‘director’ or ‘tamada’ of the meal, and who would be one of us. This person dispensed the alcohol, and gave the toasts, one after the other, at the right moment, in words which demanded great exactness. Our glasses, filled with vodka or armagnac, stood before us untouched until the first toast.

Then the tamada stood up, and announced with the assurance of marabout: ‘To the health of all ordinary idiots …’ After which, turning to the fellow-guests he knew to be ‘ordinary idiots’, he greeted them by their name (or nickname), ‘… and to your health, your Honour’, ‘… and to your health too, Doctor’, ‘and to your health too, Miss X’. We would put down our glasses only after downing the contents at one gulp.

When the clatter of spoons and forks resumed, the generous alcohol was already working in us, and adding with the tasty food to the indefinable but profound impression we experienced on hearing our comrades addressed by the title which defined their true status.

The next toast was ‘to the health of all superior idiots’. If there were any idiots of this kind at the table the tamada would now turn to each one of them. ‘And to your health, so and so … ‘, ‘and to your health also, sir . ..’ And so on. Later we would drink to the ‘arch-idiots’, ‘hopeless idiots’, ‘round idiots’, ‘square idiots’, ‘zig-zag idiots’ and others, without ever reaching the ultimate degrees of this hierarchy. For me they remain a mystery. Some, fearing the effects of the alcohol, began to cheat immediately after the second or third glass, having first ensured the complicity of the tamada and, perhaps the tacit agreement of Mr Gurdjieff who, I am sure, missed nothing of what went on at that table.

Some say that for Gurdjieff there were twenty-one categories of idiot ranging in ‘degrees of reason’ from the reason of an ordinary man up to the reason of our Ail-Embracing Endlessness, God, the unique idiot. Others maintain that there were only thirteen.

I never heard him speak on this subject. I shall simply say that to be described as an idiot, which would be taken as an insult if it were thrown in your face by a passing stranger, was vested, in his presence, with an inexplicable grandeur.

The Greek root idios means particularity. The entire edifice of idiocity was perhaps merely a wonderful device intended to help us to see in others, and to discover in ourselves, certain particularities so deeply encrusted in our nature that we would have been incapable of discerning them without this artifice: a play of mirrors where others served as reflections of our own image.

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These alcoholic libations have been severely criticized by those who have only heard about them without actually taking part. But one must not forget that these ceremonies took place under the master’s eye.

Rina Hands - Diary of Madame Egout Pour Sweet

Page 5

He then explained the system of toasting to us— ‘The Science of Idiots" he called it. Those who come for the first time must listen attentively to the toasts proposed for each idiot, "and tomorrow, if by chance you come back, tell the Director which kind of idiot you have chosen to be. " No one eats anything until after Mr. Gurdjieff calls on Mr. Director for the first toast. To all Ordinary Idiots. " But one still looks at Mr. Gurdjieff. He may drink at once after looking round at those who admit to being such, or he may talk and not drink. Usually he did not talk on the first toast. When he drinks, then we do and we are then at liberty to eat.

Carl Zigrosser – Gurdjieff

There was a ritual for the drinking of this brandy: seven rounds were served, each with a toast, to which everyone was expected to drain his glass. The toasts seldom varied from the following order: (1) To the health of all idiots; (2) To the ordinary idiot; (3) To the candidate for idiocy; (4) To the superidiot; (5) To the archidiot; (6) To the hopeless idiot; (7) To the compassionate idiot. I once asked him why he always toasted idiots, why he did not invoke a benevolent power in his toasts, such as Beëlzebub, for instance. He answered that he sometimes did, but that he never could venture—and here his tone assumed the greatest reverence—to drink to Beëlzebub himself. “To the tip of his tail, yes, or his hoofs, or his horns, maybe—but never to the great being himself.” And he showed me the chair that Beëlzebub always sat in when he visited him, pointing out that there was room for him to curl up his tail comfortably, and so on.…

Arnold Keyserling

Here is Arnold's description of his first meeting with the remarkable George Gurdjieff: …The same evening I went with him to his flat and took part in a reading of his book, All and Everything. Around 3:00 in the morning all of us were invited to a wonderful meal in which, according to a certain ritual, one had to drink to the health of idiots. Gurdjieff discerned 24 idiots without explaining what they meant. Each had to choose one: normal-idiot, super-idiot, arch-idiot, square and round-idiot, zigzag-idiot who has five Fridays in the week, but two Sundays. On the well being of each idiot, one third of a wine glass of pepper vodka was drunk. During the meal Gurdjieff told stories which were like Zen stories. All of us listened without saying anything….

Whitall Perry - Gurdjieff in the Light of Tradition

Page 23

These evenings also featured a special banquet dedicated to the 'Science of Idiotism', said to be derived from an ancient Central Asian institution called the Chamodar, or Master of the Feast. Gurdjieff had learned from a 'Sufi community' that there are twenty-one gradations of reason or 'idi¬otism' in man's evolution from his natural 'reasonless' state to the highest state of 'Our Endlessness', or 'God'. As the last three states are reserved for God and his sons, that left open within the generic category of 'All Hopeless Idiots' eighteen specific grades to choose from, each person being free to decide what type of idiotism best accorded with his nature,—the compassionate idiot, the squirming idiot, the zigzag, doubting, swaggering, or enlightened idiot, as the case might be. The 'ancient sages' taught that alcohol was used to actualize one's degree of idiotism. Dr Christopher Evans has amus¬ingly if not very flatteringly described this event in his Cults of Unreason: At these sessions Gurdjieff who was a great tippler, would call a long series of toasts to various kinds of 'idiot', in which all, whether teetotallers or not, were obliged to participate. It was a great evening for those who liked alcohol, and a nightmare for those who didn't. The Russian's many biographers, great and small, have made numerous attempts at explaining the signifi¬cance of the 'idiots' toast', and most have come to the conclusion that the not particularly ambiguous word had some symbolic significance. No one, it seems, has ever seriously contemplated the possibility that the idiots in question were those seated at the table, though one suspects that Gurdjieff with fez awry and flushed, beaming face, had a pretty good idea of whom he was thinking as he raised his glass on high.

James Moore – Gurdjieff: A Biography

Page 261

After recent - somehow anaemic - years Gurdjieff re-entered his teaching role with Gargantuan relish. His three unlikely pupils were first assigned their 'inner animal': Solita a canary, Louise a stranded sardine, and Kathryn a crocodile. ('Crocodile meat I do not like, never eat, but crocodile I like, I can send ahead of me to swallow enemy, can be useful to me.') The unexpected and problematical toast, 'A la sante de tous les idiots ordinaires', plunged them without preamble into the science d'idiotisme - a typology of twenty-one 'idiots' or archetypes, saluted successively in Chateau de Larresingle Armagnac, with formularies and improvisations. Eagerly 'Canary', 'Sardine', and 'Krokodeel' groped towards the sense and sequence of these idiots: ordinary, super, arch, hopeless, compassionate, squirming, square, round, zigzag, enlightened … and so on up to No. 21, the Unique Idiot, God himself. Small wonder if the women sometimes gazed about them with a wild surmise: 'We had become habituees of the incalculable.'

Page 297

And as to the 'differential calculus' undeniably employed at his table, it did not entail the pupil's nationality or Work itinerary but his indicative 'idiocy'… To the health of all Squirming Idiots and hysterical women! To the health of all Zigzag Idiots! To the health of all Enlightened Idiots! To the health of all Patented Idiots! This strange speciation of a universal idiocy proved, para¬doxically, to have powerful cohesive effect.

Page 314

At 11.30 pm on Monday the 24th, Gurdjieff surprisingly called for a dinner table to be set in his bedroom: for the last time the idiots' (how many indeed had passed through his hands) were toasted in Larresingle Armagnac; for the last time in his presence some of his haunting 'Musiks' were given. The pressure on Jeanne de Salzmann was now intense; on Tuesday she phoned Dr Welch in New York, urging him to come immediately and administer a radical liver treat¬ment …

Page 353

14. Toasts to the Idiots (p. 281) Gurdjieff's 'Toast to the Idiots', with its 'Science of Idiotism', was perhaps his strangest and most innovative method of teaching. At regular ritualistic meals which he hosted, formulary toasts were drunk to successive categories of-'idiot', sometimes with improvised 'additions' illuminating the specific idiocy and type. The toasts were proposed by 'the Director', generally a man but sometimes a woman, seated on Gurdjieff's left (of these, Bernard Lemaitre was the most notable during Gurdjieffs last years). All guests – excepting of course those in the particular category being saluted - were then obliged to drink the toast in Armagnac or vodka. As well as the Director, other participants assigned specific roles at these meals were Verseur, Poubelle, Egout, Bouche d'Egout and Egout pour Sweet. (For an evocative seating plan, see Rina Hands The Diary of Madame Egout Pour Sweet, Two Rivers Press, 1991, p. 3.) Gurdjieff introduced his Toast to the Idiots in 1922, and from 1940 gave it increasing emphasis. Although not divesting 'idiot' of its pejorative sense, he re-invested it with the meaning of individuality (from a Greek root meaning i make my own'). Though idiocy was universal - God himself being the Unique Idiot (No. 21) - a subsidiary differentiation afforded a human typology at once 'poetic' and profound. Each pupil, relying simply on intuition, was initially required to choose his own idiot from among the first twelve (1 ordinary; 2 super; 3 arch; 4 hopeless; 5 compassionate; 6 squirming; 7 square; 8 round; 9 zigzag; 10 enlightened; 11 doubting; 12 swaggering). Considerable interest - once existential, now purely historical - attaches to certain assignments given by Gurdjieff himself (Orage a super idiot, Dr Stjoernval an arch idiot, Jessie Orage a squirming idiot, J. G. Bennett a round or doubting idiot, etc.). Gurdjieff designated only one person as 'going out of idiocy' namely Jeanne de Salzmann (McCorkle 76). Since Gurdjieff's meals demanded a mobilized attention, and were never remotely orgiastic, toasts beyond twelve were seldom even approached. The subsequent order of idiots (nowhere reliably published) is believed to be: 13 born; 14 patented; 15 psychopathic; 16 polyhedral. Although idiots 1-16 might seem to occupy a plateau of being, only differentiated behaviourally, there are hints of a desirable evolution to the proximate type - forewards vide JGB (NW 158) (e.g. from hopeless to compassionate) but backwards vide Louise March (McCorkle 76) (e.g. from hopeless to arch). Certainly each type, of itself, offered scope for evolution or involution. The distinction most alluded to in memoirs is that between the subjectively hopeless idiot, aware of his nullity and hence a candidate for an honourable death, and the objectively hopeless idiot, enmeshed in egoism and hence doomed to perish like a dog (cf. Armenian merneel, human death; satkeel, animal death). In fact, however, all the idiots were comparably differentiated. Consider the passage: Zigzag is high idiot, goes this way, that way. Takes different I's for reminding factor. Struggles against merde he knows he is … If he does this, then I admire him with all my presence! But ordinary zigzag idiot with five Fridays in the week is shit of shit. Idiots 17—21 constituted a spiritual hierarchy, reflecting progressive gra¬dations of 'objective reason'. Idiot 18 represented the highest development which a human being could reaeh, but in order to attain it, he had first voluntarily to descend again from 17 to category 1, the ordinary idiot. Idiots 19 and 20 were reserved for the sons of God. For the provenance of ritualistic meals involving an inviolable succession of ceremonious, patriarchal toasts, we need look no further than the still living Georgian tradition, with its presidency by the tamada and dispensa¬tion by the tolumbashi. However the provenance of Gurdjieff's 'Science of Idiotism' is entirely unresolved. J. G. Bennett's suggestion (NW 157) that he borrowed the whole procedure from a Sufi community in Turkestan, seems particularly extravagant in view of the Islamic interdiction on alcohol. The Toast to the Idiots was discontinued immediately on Gurdjieff's death in 1949, it being felt that, without his decisive presence, it stood in danger of becoming a mere form without content.

John Shirley – Gurdjieff. An introduction to his life and ideas

Page 259

His perplexing "toasts to the idiots" constituting a whimsical, inexplicable sort of human typology—were introduced to his semi ritualistic dinners. The floors of the little apartment groaned from the number of pupils who crowded in, some standing heron-like on one leg just to fit side by side against the walls.

Page 262

But Gurdjieff insisted on numerous toasts—often his "toasts to the idiots" and keeping some self-possession despite the effects of many high-octane toasts was one of the exercises of the evening. Everyone was jocularly toasted as some kind of "idiot" according to a "science of idiotism". Gurdjieff was perfectly aware of the absurd of the process, and he reveled in it. The term "idiot" retained its obvious mockery, but, as James Moore put it, Gurdjieff "reinvested it with the meaning of individuality (from a Greek root meaning 'I make my own.')" Each student was required to choose their own level of "idiocy"- there was the ordinary idiot, the super idiot, the arch idiot, the hopeless idiot, the compassionate idiot, the squirming idiot, the square idiot, the round idiot, the zigzag idiot, the "enlightened" idiot, the doubting idiot, the swaggering idiot. Toasts were made to this or that kind of "idiot" each with its vile or benign characteristics—and Gurdjieff himself was the "arch idiot". The idiot toasts—which died with Gurdjieff, since they were distinctive to his sense of humor and fully understood only by him—reminded the toasters to be skeptical about themselves, to see themselves with an objectivity peculiar to this whimsical typology.

Luba Gurdjieff - Uncle George

Page 33

Oh. We had twenty-one Idiots! My Uncle used to make a toast to every kind of idiot. It was a square idiot, a round idiot, a long idiot — oh, I don't know all of them. Somebody must remember all this Idiot. He used to tell people what kind of idiot they were. I was a round one, because I was Idiot all the time. I didn't drink all l hose toasts, but he used to say, "She's a round idiot." My cousin, all the family was round idiots. My father, though, he was good/bad/good/bad idiot.

Helen Palmer – Enneagram. Understanding Yourself and Others in Your Life

The toasts were another way to introduce students to the con¬cept of type. Those who dined with Gurdjieff were required to drink a good amount of alcohol in a series of toasts to various classifications of people. A new guest would be asked to select the category to which he or she seemed to most belong and would then be toasted as that sort of idiot. He uses that word [idiot], but in its original and not in its acquired meaning, it really signifies another word for type. There are a number of toasts to be drunk in the course of the meal, and the usual rule is one glass of brandy or vodka for every three toasts. The women are let off with six toasts per glass; and there can be up to twenty-five toasts per night. You see, he's a Russian and Russians always drink a lot of vodka. But there is another and far more important reason why all of G's guests have to drink. … A great many people are passing through his hands, and he is compelled to see them as quickly as possible. Well you know how alcohol opens up a man so that what he has previously managed to keep hidden is revealed. That is what the Arabs mean when they say "alcohol makes a man more so."" During the toasts Gurdjieff would often indicate features of temperament that he saw within one of the idiots. Sometimes this feature was named, and sometimes demonstrated.

Paul Beekman Taylor - Gurdjieff's America: Mediating the Miraculous

Page 201

Two or three times Gurdjieff gathered the children in front of him after lunch, while adults were cleaning and re-ordering the dining area, and talk. The children, whom he called during meals "unformed idiots," or "aspirants for ordinary idiot," sat quietly on the floor.