"Colin Wilson - The War Against Sleep" - читать интересную книгу автора (Wilson Colin)

It also became obvious within the next few
minutes that he knew how to renew his own
energy quickly, for I was amazed when he
returned to the kitchen to see the change in him;
he looked like a young m an again, alert, smiling,
sly and full of good spirits. He said that this was
a very fortunate meeting, and that while I had
forced him to make an almost impossible effort,
it had been тАФ as I had witnessed тАФ a very good
thing for both of us.

Gurdjieff's com ment is of considerable importance. W hen Peters
first came to the apartment, he looked tired тАФ 'I have never seen
anyone look so tired.' He made an effort that drained him even
further, transmitting vitality to Peters. And then, within fifteen
minutes, was completely renewed and refreshed. The implication
seems clear. Gurdjieff himself had forgotten that he had the
power to renew his own energies, until the exhaustion of Fritz
Peters forced him to make an enormous effort. Before Peters
came, Gurdjieff had been taking his own fatigue for granted, as
something inevitable. Pouring energy into Peters reminded him
that he had the power to somehow call upon vital energy. This is
why he told Peters that this was a fortunate meeting for both of
them.

This story enables us to see precisely why Kenneth W alker's wife
thought Gurdjieff a magician. It also makes it clear that his
'magical' powers were not of the kind that we norm ally associate
with notorious 'occultists' or magicians, like Madame Blavatsky
or Aleister Crowley. There are stories of Madame Blavatsky
causing raps to resound from all over the room, of Crowley
somehow causing men to go on all fours and howl like dogs; but
never of their producing this wholly tonic effect on someone. It is
not even necessary to assume that Gurdjieff revitalized Peters by
some form of telepathic transfer of energy; a psychologist would
probably argue that he did it by some form of suggestion.

As to Gurdjieff's power to renew his own energies, its essence
had been understood by psychologists of the nineteenth century,
decades before the age of Freud and Jung. W illiam James
speaks about it in an important essay called 'The Energies of
Man'.

Everyone is familiar with the phenomenon of
feeling more or less alive on different days.
Everyone knows on any given day that there are
energies slum bering in him which the incitements
of that day do not call forth, but which he might
display if these were greater. Most of us feel as