Book Review

On a Spaceship With Beelzebub:
By a Grandson of Gurdjieff

by David Kherdian

FIRST-GENERATION ARMENIAN POET DAVID KHERDIAN has his "first taste of impersonal love" when he meets John Pentland, British businessman and lord, the man Gurdjieff appointed to lead the Work in America. He describes Lord Pentland as "an unusual man, with capacities that were beyond my judgment" (reviewer's italics). Then he observes, "I was beginning to feel an emotional connection.... Perhaps I could give him my trust, perhaps I could learn what I needed from him and achieve the freedom I craved." But there is also the fear: "If l entered the work I would have to give up my art."

So begins David Kherdian's turbulent ride into the esoteric world of self-remembering and self-observation which carries him into the forbidden terrain of his "I"s (a concept he, curiously, never explores in any depth and which he speaks of as "modes"). He will spend more than a dozen years attempting to observe himself as he really is. He will see much and the great strength of On a Spaceship with Beelzebub is that he has the courage not to spare himself. He is a self-described spoiled child, whiner and complainer, blamer with a lust for fame and a compulsive need for respect; a man who harbors grudges, seeks revenge, sees men as rivals and always, at bottom, feels—"I've been cheated, they owe me."

His early days in the Work are rich in self-impression. During the day-long Sunday work he discovers: "I couldn't seem to make myself work at something I myself had not chosen. I didn't know how to work with other men—having always worked alone—and I had never learned the necessary physical skills that most boys learn from their fathers." In group meetings he admits: "I was envious of the two leaders in front, and I wanted to ask impressive questions and be noticed." However, a year or so later, the seeing ends and the conclusions begin: "I began to notice that my questions and observations were not being attended to as I felt they should have been...Lord Pentland was often harsh, and even cruel to me." Oddly—even in hindsight—he doesn't see that he was asleep in his "I."

Of two of the events which follow, this reviewer has his own impressions, for in the fall of 1975 Kherdian and his wife, Nonny, were transferred into the same group as my wife, Barbara, and I. The Kherdians made themselves instantly felt in opposite ways. Nonny, an artist, was often in tears, her emotional center overwhelming her. Meanwhile, next to the wall in the last seat of the second row, his bearded face silent and often scowling, sat David. Only once do I recall him asking a question. Interestingly, he records it in his book. Speaking to Lord Pentland about writing a poem, he observed that life is breath and that "the body of a poem was the breath of its line." Interesting, but David was full of "David" that night, and like us all, was looking for affirmation. But Lord Pentland was not one to feed false personality. Looking on impassively, he let the electricity build, then said with a hint of derision: "Oh ... [so] you've published a book of poems." The words stripped "David" bare. That moment an "I" died. Unfortunately, self-love raised it from the dead. When a teacher cuts an "I" away from a student, the shock splits the forces that glue the "I" together. In that stark emptiness hovers the moment of truth: either the student sees to the true source of his identification or he shuts down and defends. "The truth shall set you free," says Jesus. Yes, but first it kills you. But, of course, when we love our "I" more than we love the truth...

Some months after the poetry question, in February 1976, Lord Pentland, the man whom many called "Gurdjieff's St. Paul," suffered a heart attack. He would not return until October. Equipped with a pacemaker now, he set the theme for the day's work as he customarily did. Everyone present had eagerly awaited this day, but his words were entirely unexpected. It was much as David remembers it: "...his generation [said Lord Pentland] had come into the work from a need that had not been provided by their culture. But although this work had provided a spiritual idea for them at the time, it seemed to him now that the work was passé, that perhaps its time was over."

This, for those who had observed him over the years, was "pure Pentland." The effect was tantamount to Jesus declaring Christianity dead. For those, like David, who interpreted Lord Pentland literally, the inner upheaval was total. For those mature enough to consciously work with the energy released, the moment was golden. The judgments this "David" makes show the extreme state of "I" he fell into. He believes that the Lord Pentland he sees is "mad...[that as he is] against the Work, he is unqualified to pass it on"...that he therefore must be "overthrown." Here, as elsewhere, David believes himself able to impartially judge others.

The defining moment provided, the Kherdians soon leave New York for Portland and a new teacher, Annie Lou Staveley, once a pupil of Jane Heap. "Rose Dohanian," a fellow Armenian, has provided the link to Mrs. Staveley. Once greatly enamored of Lord Pentland, Rose had developed a strong animus against him and the New York Foundation. She regularly undermined him and recruited for Mrs. Staveley (none of this was Mrs. Staveley's idea). In 1977, the Kherdians' first year in Oregon, Mrs. Staveley told David that he "would one day be in her chair" that is, in the same role she was in. He doesn't apparently understand, as Mrs. Staveley does, the real reason he left New York. Mrs. Staveley is certainly more "nurturing" and willing to put up with a 48-year-old "David" who, into his second year with her—his fourth year in the Work—is still speaking in meetings about books, as well as tales I remembered from the experiences of Bennett, Nott, Hulme, de Hartmann and other of Gurdjieff's pupils, as well as from theories, ideas and other concoctions.

Some 11 or 12 years pass. Then an opportunity arises for him to be made a group leader. Mrs. Staveley refuses. "David" reacts. And so, once again, the Kherdians leave their teacher; this time with the oft-used Work excuse: "There is no work here for us," neither apparently realizing tha. their real work, work on chief feature, had just then begun.

The point of greatest pressure in one's work is when the student realizes he or she no longer has anything to gain (in the way in which his "I"s imagine "gain"). If the ensuing ordeal of violent projections is endured, the student stands in his own true nothingness, that from which—and only which—his real I can be born. Like so many, the Kherdians leave just at the point when they most had to stay. Sad but understandable for anyone who has undergone the pressures of work. Not so understandable is Spaceship's cargo of malice and revenge. Not only is judgment passed on both his teachers, but on The Fourth Way centers they have given their lives to building. "David" literally bites the hands that have fed him. Though many of his self-observations are quite keen, his perception of what is at the heart of chief feature, for example, or how he absolved his "stealing, lying, falsifying" because he felt cheated by life—it appears self-identity's deeper observations have eluded him.

Though well-written (the poem celebrating Gurdjieff's birthday is especially evocative), Spaceship never gets off the ground, confining itself as it does to the psychological. The ambit of the book, the author's mind, with all else an appendage, is hinged to ambition, self-will, and self-absorption. Goodwill and humor are not much in evidence here. Yes, he says he sees himself, but his actions speak otherwise. Tbe question here is: is the author aware of the clever stratagem that undergirds his attempt at self-sincerity?

The stratagem is this: "David" will mercilessly lacerate himself in public but this will only be done so that, thus "cleansed," he can don the black robes of judgment. The inner freedom that was his original aim has deflected into self-justification, all the years of hard work produce bitter fruit. He might well have pondered an old adage — What Peter says about Paul tells us more about Peter than it does about Paul.

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