PART 1
In the previous class, we mentioned that “our organism has different kinds of fuel necessary for the different centers” and today we are going to go into more detail about this concept, especially in its relation to the Sexual Center…
Just like how we have habits in our Motor-Instinctive Centers, we also have them in our Sexual Center.
These can be some of the most difficult habits to observe due to the speed of this center.
The sex center is very fast, we can know in a split second if we are sexually attracted to a person or not.
The Sexual Center, “Types”, the Personality and the Wrong Working of the Centers
When speaking of “types” Gurdjieff once said: “Have you noticed what a tremendous part ‘type’ plays in the relationship between man and woman?”
“I have noticed,” Ouspensky said, “that throughout his whole life every man comes into contact with women of a definite type and every woman comes into contact with men of a definite type.
As if the type of woman for every man had been predetermined and the type of man predetermined for every woman.”
“There is a good deal of truth in that,” replied Gurdjieff. “But in that form it is, of course, much too general. Actually you did not see types of men and women but types of events.
What I speak of refers to the real type, that is to say, to essence.
If people were to live in essence then one type would always find the other type and wrong types would never come together.
But people live in personality. Personality has its own interests and its own tastes which have nothing in common with the interests and the tastes of essence.
Personality, in our case, is the result of the wrong work of centers. For this reason personality can dislike precisely what essence likes —and like what essence does not like.
Here is where the struggle between essence and personality begins. Essence knows what it wants but cannot explain it. Personality does not want to hear of it and takes no account of it.
Personality has its own desires. And it acts in its own way. But its power does not continue beyond that moment.
After that, in some way or other, the two essences (the two people) have to live together. And they may hate one another. No sort of acting can help here.
In one way or another essence or type gains the upper hand and decides. In this case nothing can be done by reason or by calculation. Neither can so-called ‘love’ help because, the mechanical human being cannot love, in the real meaning of the word, —with him either it loves or it does not love.
So now let’s take a look at what we have previously mentioned regarding the sex center.
-Paraphrase from Ch 12.9 of In Search of the Miraculous
The Sexual Center (Recap from another Class)
The sex center is stronger and quicker than all other centers and can be regarded as an independent center.
Sex plays a tremendous role in maintaining the mechanicalness of life. Everything that people do is connected with ‘sex’: politics, religion, art, the theater, music, is all ‘sex’.
Do you think people go to the theater to see some new play or the movies, or to church to pray? That is only for the sake of appearances.
The principal thing, in the theater as well as in church, is that there will be a lot of women or a lot of men. This is the center of gravity of all gatherings.
What do you think brings people to cafés, to restaurants, to various festivals? One thing only: Sex. Sex is the principal motive force of all mechanicalness. All dreaming, all day-dreaming, depends upon it.
Mechanicalness is especially dangerous when people try to explain it by something else and not by what it really is.
When sex is clearly conscious of itself and does not cover itself up by anything else it is not mechanical.
On the contrary sex which exists by itself, and is not dependent on anything else, is already a great achievement.
But the evil lies in the constant self-deception! What is this self-deception? It is when we do not realize how much of a slave we are of our sexual center and we justify this slavery to ourselves.
But one can change one’s own position in relation to it and one can escape from this power of sex over people.
Within the sexual center are many different possibilities. It includes the chief form of slavery and it is also the chief possibility of liberation.
-Paraphrase from Ch 12.9 of In Search of the Miraculous
Cosmic Forces and the Sex Center
Cosmic forces have created this state of affairs and cosmic forces control this state of affairs.
…The ‘new birth’, of which Christianity speaks, depends as much upon sex energy as do physical birth and the propagation of species.
‘Hydrogen’ SI-12 (sometimes called TI-12) is the ‘hydrogen’ [the substance, material, “fuel” or energy] which represents the final product of the transformation of food in the human organism.
This is the matter with which sex works and which sex manufactures. It is ‘seed’ and ‘fruit’.
‘Hydrogen’ SI-12 can pass into the DO of the next octave with the help of an ‘additional shock’.”
This refers to the law of Octaves (DO-RE-MI-FA-SOL-LA-SI-DO)
“The union of male and female Hydrogen SI-12 and all that accompanies it constitutes the ‘shock’ of the first kind and the new octave begun with its help develops independently as a new organism or a new life.
This is the normal and natural way that the energy or fuel of Hydrogen SI-12 is used.
But in the same organism there is a further possibility.
And this is the possibility of creating a new life within the actual organism, in which the Hydrogen SI-12 has been manufactured, without the union of the two principles, the male and the female.
A new octave then develops within the organism, not outside it. This is the birth of the ‘[solar] astral body’.
You must understand that the ‘[solar] astral body’ is born of the same material, of the same matter, as the physical body, only the process is different.
The whole of the physical body, all its cells, are, so to speak, permeated by emanations of the matter called Hydrogen SI-12.
And when they have become sufficiently saturated, then the matter called Hydrogen SI-12 begins to crystallize.
The crystallization of this matter constitutes the formation of the ‘[solar] astral body’.
-Paraphrase from Ch 12.9 of In Search of the Miraculous
Transmutation and the Sex Center
The transition of matter SI-12 into emanations and the gradual saturation of the whole organism is what alchemy calls ‘transmutation’ or transformation.
It is first this transformation of the physical body into the [solar] astral [body] that alchemy called the transformation of the ‘coarse’ into the ‘fine’ or the transformation of base metals into gold.
Completed transmutation, that is to say, the formation of the ‘[solar] astral body’, is possible only in a healthy, normally functioning organism.
In a sick, or a perverted, or a crippled organism, no transmutation is possible.
… it must, again, be remembered that only a person who is completely normal as regards sex has any chance in the work.
Any kind of ‘originality’, strange tastes, strange desires, or, on the other hand, fears, constantly working ‘buffers’, must be destroyed from the very beginning.
Modern education and modern life create an enormous number of sexual psychopaths. They have no chance at all in the work.
…You must understand where lies the chief evil and what makes for slavery.
It is not in sex itself but in the abuse of sex. But what the ‘abuse of sex’ means is again misunderstood.
People usually take this to be either excess or perversion. But these are comparatively innocent forms of abuse of sex.
And it is necessary to know the human machine very well in order to grasp what ‘abuse of sex’ is in the real meaning of these words.
-Paraphrase from Ch 12.9 of In Search of the Miraculous
The Sex Center and the ‘Abuse of Sex’
‘Abuse of sex’ means the wrong work of centers in relation to sex,
[1] that is, the action of the sex center through other centers,
[2] and the action of other centers through the sex center;or, to be still more precise,
[1] the functioning of the sex center with energy borrowed from other centers
[2] and the functioning of other centers with energy borrowed from the sex center.
-Paraphrase from Ch 12.9 of In Search of the Miraculous
The Sex Center and “Fuel”
The sex center should work with ‘hydrogen’ SI-12 when it is functioning normally… But the fact is that it very rarely works with its proper hydrogen [or fuel].
Abnormalities in the working of the sex center require special study.
…As a consequence of the wrong work of centers it often happens that the sex center unites with the negative part of the emotional center or with the negative part of the instinctive center.
And then, stimulation of a certain kind of the sex center, or even any stimulation at all of the sex center, calls forth unpleasant feelings and unpleasant sensations.
People who experience unpleasant feelings and sensations which have been evoked in them through ideas and imagination connected with sex are inclined to regard them as a great virtue or as something original; when in actual fact it is simply a particular kind of wrong working of the centers.
Everything connected with sex should be either pleasant or indifferent. Unpleasant feelings and sensations all come from the emotional center or the instinctive center. This is the ‘abuse of sex’.
It is necessary, further, to remember that the sex center works with the ‘hydrogen’ SI-12. This means that it is stronger and quicker than all other centers.
Sex, in fact, governs all other centers.
The only thing in ordinary circumstances, (that is, when a person has neither consciousness nor will), that holds the sex center in submission is ‘buffers’.
-Paraphrase from Ch 12.9 of In Search of the Miraculous
The Sex Center’s Energy Stolen by Other Centers for Useless Work
‘Buffers’ stop the sex center’s normal manifestation. But they cannot destroy its energy.
The energy remains and passes over to other centers, finding expression for itself through them; in other words, the other centers rob the sex center of the energy which it does not use itself.
The energy of the sex center in the work of the thinking, emotional, and moving centers can be recognized by a particular ‘taste’, by a particular fervor, by a vehemence which the nature of the affair concerned does not call for.
[Wrong working of the thought center:] The thinking center writes books, but in making use of the energy of the sex center it does not simply occupy itself with philosophy, science, or politics
—It is always fighting something, disputing, criticizing, creating new subjective theories.
[Wrong working of the feeling center:] The emotional center preaches Christianity, abstinence, asceticism, or the fear and horror of sin, hell, the torment of sinners, eternal fire, all this with the energy of the sex center…
Or on the other hand it works up revolutions, robs, burns, kills, again with the same energy.
[Wrong working of the movement center:] The moving center occupies itself with sport, creates various records, climbs mountains, jumps, fences, wrestles, fights, and so on.
In all these instances, that is, in the work of the thinking center as well as in the work of the emotional and the moving centers, when they work with the energy of the sex center, there is always one general characteristic and this is a certain particular vehemence and, together with it, the uselessness of the work in question.
Neither the thinking nor the emotional nor the moving centers can ever create anything useful with the energy of the sex center.
This is an example of the ‘abuse of sex’. But this is only one aspect of it.
-Paraphrase from Ch 12.9 of In Search of the Miraculous
If the Sex Center’s Energy is Gone, then it Steals Energy to do its Work
Another aspect of the ‘abuse of sex’ consists in the fact that, when the energy of the sex center is plundered by the other centers and spent on useless work, then it has nothing left for itself and has to steal the energy of other centers which is much lower and coarser than its own.
And yet the sex center is very important for the general activity, and particularly for the inner growth of the organism, because, working with ‘hydrogen’ SI-12, it can receive a very fine food of impressions, such as none of the ordinary centers can receive.
The fine food of impressions is very important for the manufacture of the higher ‘hydrogens’.
But when the sex center works with energy that is not its own, that is, with the comparatively low ‘hydrogens’ 48 and 24, its impressions become much coarser and it ceases to play the role in the organism which it could play.
At the same time the use of the sex center’s energy by the thinking center creates far too great an imagination on the subject of sex, and in addition a tendency to be satisfied with this imagination.
The use of the sex center’s energy by the emotional center creates sentimentality or, on the contrary, jealousy, cruelty.
This is again a picture of the ‘abuse of sex’.
-Paraphrase from Ch 12.9 of In Search of the Miraculous
Working Against the Abuse of Sex and the Permanent Center of Gravity
At this point you already ought to understand that it is just as difficult to explain to a person who has not yet begun to work on themselves and does not know the structure of the machine what the ‘abuse of sex’ means, as it is to tell them what must be done to avoid these abuses.
Right work on oneself begins with the creation of a permanent center of gravity.
When a permanent center of gravity has been created everything else begins to be disposed and distributed in subordination to it.
Therefore the question comes to this: From what and how can a permanent center of gravity be created?
And to this may be replied that only:
• a person’s attitude to the work, to school,
• their valuation of the work,
• and their realization of the mechanicalness and aimlessness of everything elsecan create in them a permanent center of gravity.
The role of the sex center in creating a general equilibrium and a permanent center of gravity is very big.
…if it uses its own energy, then the sex center stands on a level with the higher emotional center. And all the other centers are subordinate to it.
Therefore it would be a great thing if it worked with its own energy. This alone would indicate a comparatively very high level of being.
And in this case, that is, if the sex center worked with its own energy and in its own place, then all other centers could work correctly in their places and with their own energies.
What does this imply? That all wrong working of the centers originates in the “abuse of sex”, that is, the abuse of the sexual center’s energy…
-Paraphrase from Ch 12.9 of In Search of the Miraculous
SUMMARY OF PART 1
1. Personality is the result of the wrong work or incorrect functioning of centers.
2. The wrong working of the centers can also be called the ‘abuse of sex’
3. The ‘abuse of sex’ has 2 aspects:
a. The Inferior Intellectual, Emotional, Motor and/or Instinctive centers steal the sex energy (called ‘Hydrogen SI-12’) and necessarily produce wrong and useless work
b. When the Sex Center does not have any more of its energy (the ‘Hydrogen SI-12’) then it steals the unused energy of the Inferior Intellectual, Emotional, Motor and/or Instinctive centers, which it can not properly use, but which instead causes its own wrong working
4. To end the ‘abuse of sex’ requires the creation of a Permanent Center of Gravity, which is related to:
a. the Attitude a person has regarding the Gnostic Esoteric Work,
b. their Valuation of (or the Value they place on) this Work
c. their realization of their present condition and of the mechanicalness of their lives & current situation
Because only in this way will they make the necessary efforts (or super-efforts) to economize their energy and then spend that energy on Doing Useful Work.
PART 2
The Incorrect Working of the Centers
The incorrect functioning of the centers, is a theme that has to be studied during the entire life through the observation of oneself and the rigorous examination of dreams.
It is not possible to comprehend the centers and their correct or incorrect work in just a moment; we need infinite patience.
One’s entire life unfolds in the functioning of the centers and it is controlled by them.
Our thoughts, feelings, hopes, fears, loves, hatreds, actions, sensations, … frustrations, etc., are in the centers…
-paraphrase of “Prodigios y Misterios del Fuego”
translated as “The Fire and the Emotional Center”
Lecture 106 in EL QUINTO EVANGELIO
The 5 Inferior Centers, Sex and the Hydrogen SI-12
As we have already mentioned in previous classes, there are 5 inferior centers:
The first is the intellectual center.
The second is the emotional center.
The third is the center of the movement.
The fourth is the center of instinct.
The fifth is the sex center.There is no doubt that SEX is the center of gravity of all human activities. People go to church driven by sex, meet in the café driven by sex, and dance driven by sex.
When a man finds his soul-mate and they unite sexually, and then society has begun.
The mechanicity of SEX is frightening and the INTELLECTUAL ANIMAL does not want to comprehend this.
When we become conscious of SEX and its functions, when we work with the MAITHUNA (SEXUAL MAGIC) and the Transmutation of the Sexual Energy, then the MECHANICITY disappears and we enter the path of SEXUAL REGENERATION.
SEX has the great power to ENSLAVE and the GREAT POWER TO TOTALLY LIBERATE.
THE NEW BIRTH which JESUS spoke to NICODEMUS about depends totally upon SEX.
THE INTERNAL ANGEL must be born of SEX and only with the MAITHUNA can we ACHIEVE it.
If we want the AUTHENTIC CHRISTMAS then we need the GOD CHILD OF BETHLEHEM to be born within us and this is only possible with the MAITHUNA (SEXUAL MAGIC).
The wonderful HYDROGEN SI-12 is the material with which the SEX center works and with which the SEX center creates. It is SEED, the seed in which the INTERNAL ANGEL is found in a latent state.
We have explained that with the TRANSMUTATION of the HYDROGEN SI-12 we can CREATE the real ASTRAL BODY, the authentic MENTAL BODY and the legitimate CAUSAL BODY.
…No abuser of SEX can CREATE the SUPERIOR EXISTENTIAL BODIES OF THE BEING and for them the unhappiness continues after death with the LUNAR vehicles.
It is impossible for anyone to be free of the 48 laws if they only possess LUNAR bodies. Only by creating the SOLAR BODIES, and the SUPERIOR EXISTENTIAL BODIES OF THE BEING, can we LIBERATE OURSELVES FROM THE 48 LAWS.
-Paraphrase from Ch 8 (‘The Abuse of Sex’)
of The Science of Music (Christmas Message 1965-66)
The Incorrect Working of the Centers and the “Abuse of Sex”
The Abuse of Sex exists in the action of sex through the other centers of the human machine or the action of the other centers through the SEXUAL CENTER.
Each CENTER OF THE MACHINE must operate with its own energy, but unfortunately the other centers of the machine steal the SEX energy.
When the INTELLECTUAL, EMOTIONAL, MOVEMENT and INSTINCTIVE centers steal the sexual energy, then there exists the Abuse of Sex.
What is most serious, regarding all of this, is that in order to work, the SEX CENTER has to simultaneously steal the energy from the other centers, and all this is also the Abuse of Sex.
When the SEX CENTER works with its own Hydrogen SI-12, then it TRANSMUTES in order to CREATE the SUPERIOR EXISTENTIAL BODIES OF THE BEING.
Unfortunately, people abuse the sexual energy. People are captivated with disorder and with wasting the HYDROGEN SI-12.
It’s easy to discover the Abuse of Sex in people.
When there is the Abuse of Sex, the intellect, emotional, movement, instinctive centers have: a certain special “TASTE” or “FLAVOR”, a certain unmistakable tint, a certain passion, a certain vehemence that leaves no room for any doubt.
All this is visible for the warlords in the mental plans; in the bullfighting arena; in the exciting efforts of the football players during a contest; and in the violent passionate instincts of the people.
Wherever there is a waste of DIABOLIC INTELLECT, VIOLENT EMOTIONS, PASSIONATE MOVEMENTS, PASSIONATE CAR, HORSE OR BIKE RACING, olympic games, etc., etc., etc., or even bestial instincts in action, then it is clear that there is the Abuse of Sex.
What is most serious regarding all of this abuse is that the center of SEX is then forced to work with heavier HYDROGENS which correspond to the other centers.
When SEX is forced to work with HYDROGENS like 48, 24, etc., it is impossible then to create the SUPERIOR EXISTENTIAL BODIES OF THE BEING.
Those who enjoy pornographic movies, novels and pictures, use sexual energy in the intellectual center and it is clear that they agree with the tendency to satisfy sexual fantasy and thus eventually acquire the PSYCHO SEXUAL type of IMPOTENCE, which is when those persons truly want to execute the sexual act, instead they fail miserably.
When the EMOTIONAL CENTER steals the SEXUAL ENERGY then stupid sentimentalities, jealousy, cruelty, etc., etc., etc., follow.
When the MOVEMENT CENTER works with the HYDROGEN SI-12, stolen from the SEX CENTER, then the abusers of the center of the MOVEMENT such as the football players, the ACROBATS OF THE CIRCUS, cyclists of the great races, etc., appear.
When the center of instinct steals the SEXUAL ENERGY then there is a wastage in instinctive, passionate, violent acts.
-Paraphrase from Ch 8 (‘The Abuse of Sex’)
of The Science of Music (Christmas Message 1965-66)
How and Why one should End the “Abuse of Sex”
The Abuse of Sex truly ends when we establish within ourselves the PERMANENT CENTER OF GRAVITY.
We have said it before and we are repeating again, that the “I” is a legion of DEVILS.
The “I” exists in a pluralized form.
The five cylinders of the human machine provide the origin and strength for the legions of small “I’s” which in their conjunction constitute what is called the EGO, the “I”, the MYSELF.
THE PLURALIZED “I” awkwardly wastes the ESSENCE which is within us for the purpose of CREATING THE SOUL.
When WE DISSOLVE THE PLURALIZED “I” THEN THE SQANDERER IS FINISHED, and then the ESSENCE begins to accumulate itself within, converting into a PERMANENT center of GRAVITY.
When we establish inside of ourselves a PERMANENT CENTER OF GRAVITY, then THE SEX CENTER starts to work with its proper HYDROGEN, the HYDROGEN SI-12.
GNOSTIC ESOTERICISM teaches that when the SEX CENTER works with its proper energy, with its proper HYDROGEN, this ends the Abuse of Sex because then each center starts working with the ENERGY which corresponds to the HYDROGEN that corresponds to it, and not with the HYDROGEN SI-12 stolen from the sex center.
It is necessary to DISSOLVE THE “I” if we want to finish (or stop) the Abuse of Sex.…It is URGENT that … we understand in an INTEGRAL FORM the need to liberate ourselves from this world of 48 Laws in which we live, if we Do Not want to degenerate so as to fall into the horrific World of the 96 laws.
…At first, we understand that we are controlled by innumerable laws created by ourselves and the people around us; then we understand that we are enslaved by these laws.
When we begin to free ourselves from all those boring laws created by society, it is clear that our fellow human beings become our enemies because we disagree with them in the wrong way of thinking, feeling and acting.
The REVOLUTION OF THE CONSCIOUSNESS is terrible and our fellow human beings MORTALLY HATE it in an INSTINCTIVE way, since they do not know it.
Bringing back the SEXUAL ENERGY inward and upward, dissolving the “I”, and giving our life for others is something strange and exotic for the ‘immature goats’.
For the ABUSERS of SEX the REVOLUTION OF THE CONSCIOUSNESS is IMPOSSIBLE and human beings with the ‘skin of goats’ are not willing to renounce their Abuse of Sex.…Anyone who wants to get rid of the 48 laws must end (or stop) the Abuse of Sex and must annihilate the “I”, reducing it to dust.
It is URGENT to establish a complete equilibrium of all five centers of the human MACHINE and this is only possible by dissolving the “I”.
-Paraphrase from Ch 8 (‘The Abuse of Sex’)
of The Science of Music (Christmas Message 1965-66)
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