(46.) Maurice Nicoll 1 - On Hydrogens (III) - p.192-194
This is number (46.) of our sequential postings from Volume 1 of Maurice Nicoll’s Psychological Commentaries on the Teaching of Gurdjieff and Ouspensky.
(If you are a subscriber to The Journal of Gurdjieff Studies, you can opt in or out of receiving emails from the Fragments Reading Club category.)
Links to each commentary will be put on the following Contents page, as we progress through the book:
Birdlip, November 30, 1942
ON HYDROGENS - III
Part I.—You must understand that the Diagram of the Centres in Man and the Diagram of Man as a Three-Storey Factory are not the same. In each, three compartments appear, upper, middle and lower, and these correspond roughly with the Head, with the Lungs and Heart, and with the Belly and Organs of Sex. The diagrams represent, roughly, Man in profile.
Last time we spoke of the six stages of digestion of ordinary food, which is taken into the lowest factory, as Hydrogen 768, and is transformed in the stomach into Hydrogen 384, which passes into the lymph and blood-stream and is transformed into Hydrogen 192, and so on by successive stages of transformation until the finest matter or energy, made mechanically in the body, is reached, namely, Hydrogen 12, at the note Si. This energy, you will notice, cannot proceed further by transformation without beginning a new octave.
It was also said that since the Emotional Centre lies in the middle compartment, all unpleasant emotional states can disturb the chemical processes of transformation taking place in the middle compartment or laboratory. If a person is thoroughly identified with his negative emotions, or depressed, or sad, or without hope, and so on, the work of the Food Octave may be disturbed both in its up-going and down-going. That is, the formation both of Fa 96 and La 24 may be interfered with, and you will see plainly that if the formation of Fa 96 is disturbed, then the formation of Sol 48 from it will be disturbed and Sol 48 is the first psychic Hydrogen, being the energy ordinarily used for thinking by the Intellectual Centre. That is, the power of thought, of concentration, will be disturbed. Remember that every human activity, whether of thought, feeling, movement, pleasure, self-love, self-satisfaction, sensation, and so on, is due to the presence of some requisite Hydrogen or Energy-Matter. For example, you cannot think without a supply of Hydrogen 48 any more than you can drive a car
193
without petrol. Nor can you move, feel, and so on, without the appropriate energy-substance or Hydrogen being present in you in sufficient amount. Nor can you admire yourself without becoming depressed afterwards. We have a common idea that the body works with one energy. Actually it works with six energies, on different levels of intensity, and these energies or Hydrogens, from 384 to 12, are derived from different levels of the created Universe, as shewn in the Ray of Creation and Three Octaves of Radiation. Notice here that 768 is not an energy in the body. Perhaps we do not realize that to think or to feel takes energy. To think or to feel one must have food. One cannot, of course, think with a beefsteak, but a beefsteak when eaten is transformed successively by stages and passes into Hydrogen 48 and then 24 etc. and without these higher energies thinking and feeling are impossible.
***
Part II.—Now we have to speak of the place of shock in the Food Octave. Between Mi 192 and Fa 96 in the Food Octave at the "place of the missing semi-tone" a shock is necessary and this comes from Air, which enters the body as Hydrogen 192 at the note Do. I will explain this later on in more detail. At present we are speaking as simply as possible about the Hydrogens made in the Body. The shock given by the air we breathe is essential to the further development of the digestion of Food. It is essential to the Food Octave at the place between Mi and Fa. If not given sufficiently, as when people breathe bad air, or do not breathe air properly owing to some nervous tension or depressed state, or for whatever reason, then the transformation of food at the stage 192 into 96 is interfered with, and in consequence the formation of the further Hydrogens 24 and 12 is interfered with. And here, once more, the state of the Emotional Centre comes in, for the emotions influence the breathing via the muscular walls of the tiny air tubes in the lungs. Everyone should notice through self-observation when the breathing is easy or difficult, and what relaxation and tension mean in this respect. The shock of air is called a mechanical shock.
***
We must speak briefly of Air and Impressions. Air or Hydrogen 192 entering the body as Do passes by itself to the stage Mi 48. Here this octave, the Octave of Air, reaches the "place of shock". A shock is required at this stage for the Air Octave to pass on. But this shock is not supplied by nature. The food of Impressions enters the Body as Do 48 and does not proceed by transformation any further. The diagram, then, represents the Hydrogens made in Man naturally—that is, by nature. As you know, it is not in the interests of nature that Man should evolve beyond a certain point. If he did, he would no longer serve nature.
194
We have, then, in this Diagram, a picture of the energies or Hydrogens made in Man naturally. But we can easily see from it that there are two places where further energies might be made. Do 48—that is, impressions coming into the upper compartment of the three-storey factory—could proceed further. And also the Air Octave, which only goes by itself as far as the stage Mi 48, could, were a shock given it, obviously proceed further. You will notice that Do 48 and Mi 48 lie close together in this upper compartment. Now if Do 48 could in some way be activated it would give a shock, or reinforce, Mi 48, just as Do 192, or Air, reinforces the Food Octave at the note Mi 192 in the middle compartment. The activation of Do 48 or impressions is possible, but it can only be done consciously. That is, a conscious shock must be given at the point of incoming impressions. This means that something must be created here which nature does not create for us. Nature creates for us a stomach with gastric juices, etc. into which Food, Do 768, passes, and in which it is digested. But nature does not create anything similar for the Food of Impressions, Do 48. The transformation of Do 48 into Re 24 is only possible through a conscious act. For this reason it is called the First Conscious Shock. For the ordinary purposes of life this shock is quite unnecessary. Man asleep living in a world of sleeping people and serving nature and the purposes of the Ray of Creation does not require to give himself the First Conscious Shock. Yet Man is so created that this possibility exists in him. There is a definite place where he can begin. This is the place of the First Conscious Shock, which is the act of Remembering Oneself or Self-Remembering. But this is a very concentrated definition and can only be understood gradually. The technical definition of Self-Remembering is expressed by two arrows, thus,
————————————————>
<————————————————
It means that a man looks out and looks in simultaneously. He observes, say, the person, and observes his own reaction to the person, at the same time. He "sees" the impression coming from the person and "sees" his own reaction to it together. This increased state of consciousness is Self-Remembering. But I will speak of the First Conscious Shock next time and try to explain further what Self-Remembering means. What has to be understood is that unless the shock of Self-Remembering is given, no further Hydrogens are created in the Body, and if a man seeks growth of Being extra Hydrogens must be made in him.