The Gurdjieff Society of Newport presently has a regular Movements group in Sydney. It is planning to expand that group and, if possible, to commence one on the Central Coast. All classes are in person.
The Sacred Dances, or “Movements”
My late friend, Michael Smyth, a long-term pupil of Mrs Staveley, wrote:
The Gurdjieff Movements are a form of Movement or Sacred Dance, at one time called Sacred Gymnastics. These dances, exact and precise, are accompanied by music of the same level. There is no place in either for personal expression. They are mathematically constructed according to the laws of the universe, handed down for ancient times to Gurdjieff. They are what Gurdjieff calls a legominism, a means by which ancient knowledge is preserved and passed down to future generations. Each posture and gesture, as well as carriage, and sometimes even tone of voice and facial expression have been constructed consciously with a three-fold purpose.
The function of the movement corresponds to Gurdjieff’s three lines of Work. The thirst line being work on oneself. The form of the movements, when practised with attention, presents us with opportunities for self-study and self-observation. The difficulties one faces with the Movements are the same difficulties one faces in everyday life: the resistance of the body, the reactions to difficulties, the limitations of one’s capacity to learn, and so on.
The second line of Work is work with others. Although the Movements can be practiced alone – when practising for proficiency of form – the real work does not begin until one is in a class with others, struggling together with a mutual aim. One’s attention then expands from simply oneself to include the entire class.
Before we can begin to talk about the third line of Work, we must first speak of the form and content of the Movements. As stated before, the form is mathematically exact, based on the laws of the universe, but until that form is filled, there is no meaning. When one fills the form and takes the positions precisely with one’s full presence through sensation, wish, and directed attention, one brings content to the form. Only then is there a blending between form and content, enabling a third force to appear: understanding. This understanding, this reconciling force, doesn’t take place in the head but most often as an experience of the Higher, from having reached the higher emotional centre. This, then, is what Gurdjieff called the “alphabet” or language of the Movements, which is deciphered through the effort just spoken of.
Now we can talk about the third line of Work: work for Work’s sake – sometimes called service or work for His Endlessness. When one fulfils the movement in this way, one becomes a vehicle through which the laws of the universe can flow correctly, resulting in a higher understanding of being. And by doing so, one is not only for fulfilling one’s purpose as a human being, but one is helping His Endlessness in the maintenance of the ever-expanding universe, thus lightening His burden.
Michael Smyth
Valuation of the Movements
A certain mystique has grown up around the Movements, but it is, in the last analysis, a distraction from what counts in the first instance: our valuation, our intention, and our aim.
An impartial approach to the Movements would expect neither too little nor too much: their greatest value is “revealed,” so to speak, in proportion as one can make an inner effort to be present with all three functions: body, feeling, and mind. But if I expect to hear angels singing, or be raptured, I am losing myself in fantasy – and the Movements are an approach to reality. For this, I must have my feet on the ground and remain open to what I may receive from a higher level, without demand, without straining, and preconceived notions. Then the almost miraculous alignment Michael described can be realised, for a flash.
Their value is not in providing a moment of ecstasy, but in the longer-term effect upon my being. Understanding this is, I suggest, at least one possible basis for sound valuation of the Movements. Learning a language or training in a gym might be fair analogies. I attend language classes, progressing by steps, until more and more, I develop a facility to put together what I have learnt comes back to me naturally, always making an effort, but understanding more with a more confident effort, engaging at once, no longer always cudgelling my brains and being one step behind. Training with resistance weights offers a good point of reference: it should be an effort, in fact, one should train beyond the point of comfort. There may well be pain. But the positive effects one may enjoy later are what make it worthwhile. If one has not trained sufficiently well, with perseverance, awareness and effort, or is always in a turmoil, one might not only receive any benefit at all, but can harm oneself.
There are occasions when after a period of working with Movements, something mysterious seems to appear in the circle of those who have worked together. That is a bonus, an encouraging sign. But it is in vain if that energy is not digested and assimilated, if the new way of moving for the period of the effort does not enter me so as to make possible a change in being (at a point which may not eventuate at once).
Learning the Entirety of a Movement
Gurdjieff said that his Movements were a medicine, and also that they were a book: perhaps, we could say, a medicine book, for the sort of healing he envisaged had what we might call a spiritual component: the making whole of the entire person. That is, the each Movement is intended to exercise, in a therapeutic manner, our three main faculties: intellect, feeling, and sensation. Gurdjieff addressed some of this when he said:
Imagine that in the study of the movements of the heavenly bodies, let us say the planets of the solar system, a special mechanism is constructed to give a visual representation of the laws of these movements and to remind us of them. In this mechanism each planet, which is represented by a sphere of appropriate size, is placed at a certain distance from a central sphere representing the sun. The mechanism is set in motion and all the spheres begin to rotate and to move along prescribed paths, reproducing in a visual form the laws which govern the movements of the planets. This mechanism reminds you of all you know about the solar system. There is something like this in the rhythm of certain dances. In the strictly defined movements and combinations of the dancers, certain laws are visually reproduced which are intelligible to those who know them. Such dances are called ‘sacred dances.’ In the course of my travels in the East I have many times witnessed such dances being performed during sacred services in various ancient temples. Some of these dances are reproduced in ‘The Struggle of the Magicians.’ (In Search of the Miraculous, 16 )
It is hardly possible that the sacred dance should reproduce something, let alone that it remind us of anything we know unless it is taught and learnt as a whole. This is why the Gurdjieff Society of Newport, following the Adies, who learnt Movements from Gurdjieff himself, study the entirety of a Movement. This is, experience indicates, the only way of getting the Movement into one’s bones, so to speak.
Together with this, we are attempting to study them in the manner Mrs Adie taught them, again following Gurdjieff. That is, to begin with emphasizing what Gurdjieff called the exoteric Movements, together with some of the higher classes of Movement (mesoteric and esoteric), and gradually add more and more of the latter. In this way, one is prepared for the more complex Movements, aiming for the right and ability to participate in the great prayer Movements which characterise the esoteric series. This idea raises many questions: it is not entirely clear which Movement belongs to which category, but teachers like Mrs Adie had a very good sense of this, and even if they did not refer to these distinctions, yet they had an implicit sense of them.
A Final Word
Mrs Adie once said:
You can look at movements as an analogy to life, in a way, and of course it’s much more possible because you’re all trying to do the same thing with postures and gestures to which you’re not accustomed. But they mean something, although you don’t know what it is. Yet, you can sense that it has some meaning. It’s a definite effort in a definite direction, the difficulty with life is that it’s all dispersed and you are taken by your personality by your egotism and completely forget.”
