The Redeemed Beelzebub
Pondering Chapter XLVII
Readers of All and Everything, Beelzebub’s Tales to His Grandson are met from the outset with what seems like a labyrinth of words undulating riotously in a profusion of ideas, perspectives, insults and asides. And so from the very beginning Mr. Gurdjieff challenges the reader's sincerity of interest, demanding a directed, not captured, attention.
The book, a Legominism, that is, "the means of transmitting information about certain events of long-past ages through initiates," has three layers. The first of which is "To destroy, mercilessly, without any compromises whatsoever, in the mentation and feelings of the reader, the beliefs and views , by centuries rooted in him, about everything existing in the world." This assault is unflagging The result is, if the reader submits, all the artifices of the knowledge he thinks he has about himself and the world will be stripped away. What is left is his quality of mentation alone. Why? Because only then will he truly be able to learn and grow. What is not generally understood is that there is a payment to be made for any genuine transformation. The payment is made in terms of one's time, energy and attention. We give it so easily to our daydreams and our personal life, but when it comes to the study of oneself in the persistent reading and rereading of All and Everything resistance arises. We are used to a book capturing our attention, letting us escape into its images. Gurdjieff confronts us with the meagerness of our attention and lack of will. If we accept this and patiently struggle on, not only will our attention and will increase but also a new perspective will be born.
Many, unfortunately, will give in to their resistance. The writer recalls years ago having left his umbrella on the subway and going to the lost and found to hopefully retrieve it. On the desk was a copy of All and Everything. When the clerk returned, my umbrella in hand, he saw me thumbing through the book. "What is it about this book?" he asked.
"What do you mean?"
"Come here," he said, and motioned me into the storeroom. A whole wall was lined with copies of Mr. Gurdjieff's Legominism.
"Must be the hardest book to read in the world," he said, laughing. "Everybody 'loses' their copy."
The interpretation that follows, certainly not definitive, is offered in the hope that those who "lost" their book might become interested enough to give it another chance.
Having thus begun, let us first note the chapter could have been titled "The Lawful Result of Impartial Mentation." But instead Gurdjieff chose the word Inevitable, which means the same but evokes an emotion, and hence more force. Gurdjieff's beginning this last chapter of the Legominism with Beelzebub as its first word, adds even more force. And the last words of this first sentence tell us that "everything was suddenly lit up with a 'pale blue something.'" So Beelzebub, like everything within the spaceship Karnak, has changed color to pale blue. Later, we will find that Beelzebub becomes orange—the sacred rod which is the channel by which his horns are returned emanates the color orange—and, at the chapter's close he becomes pale yellow. It is at this point when Beelzebub's grandson—all references to Beelzebub are now capitalized as "His," "Him," "Your," and "Himself"—asks Him a last question of what would be said to our all-embracing uni-being-creator concerning the possibility of saving the three-centered beings of the planet Earth by directing them "into the becoming path."
Note here that the now redeemed Beelzebub is spoken of as being One with the Creator, for as Gurdjieff writes:
Simultaneously 'something' pale yellow began little by little to arise around Beelzebub and to envelop Him, and it was in no way possible to understand or to discern whence this something issued—whether it issued from Beelzebub Himself or proceeded to Him from space from sources outside of Him.The answer Beelzebub gives to Hassein each reader should ponder for himself.
Returning to the chapter's beginning, we see that several archangels, a multitude of angels, cherubim and seraphim meet with Beelzebub's tribe in the main hall of the spaceship Karnak (the name calling up the great temple complex in ancient Thebes). Gurdjieff observes that these two groups are not the same but are "differently natured three-brained beings." What is this nature? Has the angelic ever been portrayed with horns? And what are horns? For a preliminary exposition, see TGJ #27, "Horns of Being."
Regardless of difference, the angelic and Beelzebub's tribe jointly sing the "Hymn to our endlessness" which, we are told, is sung on such occasions every-where "by beings of all natures and all forms of exterior coating." As the two different natures spoken of are both three-brained beings, and in an earlier chapter we are told that the difference between human beings and Beelzebub and his tribe is that we are two natured and they are one, it would be supposed that the angelic are also one-natured.
Passing beyond this, what is our endlessness like? The Hymn gives some core attributes such as "Long Patient," "Abundantly loving," the "cause Of All That Exists," and the "Unique vanquisher Of The Merciless Heropass." So He is patient, loving, creative and a warrior—a Vanquisher of Time. We are told, too, that everything that breathes is a maintainer of the Universe on its level and in so doing extols the maker-creator.