Footnotes to Chapter 2: Gurdjieff’s Theory of Laughter
1)
[page 63] In
Gurdjieff’s system of self-development, the “accumulator” represents the total
fund of energy resources immediately available to a particular center,
that is, to the intellectual, emotional, or moving-instinctive functions. Each
center is provided with a limited amount of energy (“small accumulator”) for
its immediate needs, which in turn is periodically replenished by the total
undifferentiated energy resources of the entire organism (“large accumulator”).
One of the aims of his Method is to enable these centers or functions to draw
their “energy straight from the large accumulator.” See P.D. Ouspensky, In Search of the Miraculous,
pp.233—36,
2)
The notion of “centers” and their division into
two halves requires clarification. The various physical and psychic functions
of the human organism are hypostatized by Gurdjieff into “centers” for
convenience, and are examined separately. This is because according to him,
these functions may proceed quite independently of each other though they are
confused by ordinary people, and one of the first exercises of his discipline
is to consciously distinguish these functions in oneself as they manifest in
daily life by attributing a constant stream of confused impressions to one or
the other of the centers. These lower centers are the intellectual, emotional,
moving-instinctive and sex centers. The last may be left out of consideration
here because it is not divided into two halves like the other centers; although
due to its connection with the emotional or instinctive center, through the
“wrong work of the centers,” it often unites with the negative half of these
two centers (cf. Ouspensky, op. cit., pp.257-58).
3)
[64] The inner
physiological functions of the organism (heart-beat, respiration,
blood-circulation, etc.) along with our sensations are called instinctive
functions by Gurdjieff. The only external functions that belong to this
category are reflexes (and laughter, Koestler claims, is a “luxury
reflex” that is partly subject to voluntary control). One of the chief
properties of the moving center, which governs the motor response, is its
ability to imitate the motor responses of others (hence laughter provokes
laughter), and a series of complex moving functions are usually mistakenly
explained as ‘instinct.’ But because these two centers are closely related,
they are treated here as forming a single, the moving-instinctive, center: “we
take them as one center with different functions which are on the same level”
(p.115). Cf. Ouspensky, op. cit., pp.113-15.
4)
[69] Madeleine Biardeau, L’hindouisme: anthropologie d’une civilisation
(=HAC), p.79,
5)
M. Biardeau, Théorie de la connaissance et philosophie de la
parole dans le brahmanisme classique (CPBC), p.141, Paris / La Haye, 1964.
6)
[70] Cf. Biardeau, CPBC, pp.65-67. Yasyepsā-jihāsā-prayuktasya pravttih sa pram āt ā
/ and pram āNena khalv ayam jñ ātãrtham upalabhya tam
artham abhīpsati jih āsati v ā / tasyeps ā-jih ās ā-prayuktasya samīh ā pravrttir ity
ucyate / Ny āya Bh āSya, Introduction.
[this
concludes the Footnotes to chapter 2: “Gurdjieff’s Theory of Laughter”]