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Details Gurdjieff's "Science of the Idiots" toasts. Floor plan of Gurdjieff's apartment. Meeting with John Pentland.

A pupil of J.G. Bennett, Rina Hands was given the honorary title of "égout," a French word for sewer or drain, by Mr. Gurdjieff. Present at his dinners in the last year of his life, she has a deep experience with his toasting to 21 different idiots; "The Science of Idiots," he calls it. Sitting in Gurdjieff's dining room she recounts, for example, how when the toast came to all Compassionate Idiots, he suddenly asked her, "You, Blonde there—natural or not I never know—are you Compassionate Idiot?" Later, she learns from Bennett that the whole of Beelzebub was being retyped. Knowing how to make herself useful, Hands offers her services as a typist and so goes to Gurdjieff 's apartment each day, "taking part in whatever was going on at the time."

Of Jokes & Idiots

And so we sit with the author at the lunches and dinners, hear Mr. Gurdjieff recounting his English, Scottish and Irish jokes and, of course, toasting to the idiots, the toasts usually not getting beyond nine or ten idiots. (Mr. Gurdjieff says he is Idiot No. 17.) Recounted are Gurdjieff 's insights into the various idiots. For example, there are three kinds of Compassionate Idiot. The first sees a man in need of help and immediately helps him, even giving him his own shirt. The second does exactly the same, but only because his fianceé's father is observing. The third kind, says Gurdjieff, "So-so-so, sometimes he gives and sometimes not, depending on many things, perhaps even the weather."

Loving One's Parents

One day Lord Pentland, his wife, Lucy, and young daughter, Mary, came to lunch. Mary sat by her mother's side and just in front of Gurdjieff. She became very bored. Suddenly, Gurdjieff spoke to her: "In life never possible do everything." Having puzzled the child, he points to the mess she has made at the table. "On my table you cannot make this mess. Perhaps at home Mother permits." If she wants to act this way, she is to stay home. But then she won't be able to be here. "So you see," he says, "you can never do everything." In the evening at the end of dinner, Gurdjieff asked the little girl, "Who do you respect the most?" Her mother has to interpret: "Who do you think is the most important person here?" Without a moment's hesitation, Mary replied, "My Daddy." Gurdjieff beamed: "I am not offended. God is not offended either." He explained that he who loves his parents, loves God. If people love their parents when they are alive, then, when their parents die, "there is a space left in them for Him to fill." He patted her on the shoulder and said, "For my aim, I want twenty such. If I had twenty like her, I get my aim. Not because she special, but because she not spoilt."

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A Word on Gurdjieffian Idiots

Whoever has contact with reality is an Idiot, the word having two meanings: 1) to be oneself; 2) being so, to those in illusion, such a one behaves like an idiot. From ordinary man to God, idiots comprise 21 gradations of reason. Among the idiots are: ordinary; super; arch; hopeless; compassionate; squirming; square; round; zigzag; enlightened, doubting; swaggering, born; patented; psychopathic; polyhedral. Idiots 17-21 constituted a spiritual hierarchy; 21 being the reason of God; idiots 19 and 20, the sons of God. Idiot 18 was the highest development of reason with which a human being could resonate. Having attained #17, to go on, the individual had to descend to the reason of Idiot #1, that of the ordinary idiot. Some say it happens with #10.

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This review is from The Gurdjieff Journal Issue #5