This collection includes writings, meeting notes, and audio. At this time the Anderson archive consist of approximately 545 pages of written material, contained in 3 PDFs, as well as approximately 5 hours 24 minutes of audio, in 19 mp3s. The excerpts below provide a glimpse into some aspects of this collection.
Audio Archive Excerpt: Paul Anderson for Wendell House Dec 7-9 1973 – understanding
From the Paul and Naomi Anderson Archive. To access the full Anderson Archive and many other collections, please become a Gurdjieff Heritage Society member.
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ABOUT
Members of the Orage groups in New York, Paul and Naomi Anderson were also with Gurdjieff at the Institute in France. Gurdjieff visited them in Washington, D.C. where they were instructed to organize and run groups. Among the original members of the Gurdjieff Foundation in New York, the Andersons later went their own way in keeping with their own instructions from Mr. Gurdjieff. This collection contains several of Mr. Anderson’s unpublished writings and talks.
Archive Excerpt: Selected Talks of Paul Anderson, Vol. 1 (p51-53 partial)
Paul and Naomi Anderson Archive – Selected Talks of Paul Anderson – Vol. 1 (p51-53 partial)
Text reproduced from the image.
"The Three Lines of Work" Wendell - 2/16/73 Perhaps, for those of you who are familiar with it, the Enneagram will give one of the best representations of the inter-relations of the three lines of Work. The Enneagram helps greatly in understanding that the three lines are three octaves, and that they are in themselves also three separate forces. It shows how help comes to the student at the right places, and how the lines form a complete experience. By now most of us are familiar with the expression of the "three lines of Work", and some may, in a general way, have a grasp of what these three lines mean from their experiences in the Work, including our Work on movements and special tasks. Beginning with the first level or stage, wherein we Work on ourselves, we begin to comprehend that it is implicit in an obligation of a special kind. It is an obligation in the Work to strike a strong do ... to learn not to believe in what we hear or imagine, but to use the Work as a means of valuation. This is especially true when we begin to understand that, although we are machines, we are machines with special qualities or ways - 39 - of responding to external influences. We begin to understand also that the more we learn about ourselves through self study, the more we may become one day aware of or experience what Being is, to be able to do, and thus to increase our knowledge, and, out of that, our understanding. Working on oneself creates the possibility of Being ... more - We begin to experience what the Being of a three-centered being may realize. We may even begin to cognize, that is, feel and know by feeling, as well as to sense that there may be something quite beyond our present level which somehow we must make use of to attain a different level of being. In the first line, we begin to acquire certain techniques, to learn of certain teachings regarding man's psyche and the world about him, so that a man-machine learns that his functional characteristics make it possible for him to attain an entirely different understanding of his own meaning and the possibility of having aims in his existence. He learns first that he is asleep and at a low level of consciousness that can be enlarged, that what keeps him asleep is his identification with a multitude of insignificant associations scattered throughout his body - all acquired quite mechanically and passively. He finds that he lives in fantasy and imagination, sees not reality but shadow shapes, and so on. In this stage, he needs help, outside help. Not knowing how to distinguish reality from fantasy, he has to be shown. And since he cannot do this by himself, nor have the undivided attention of a single teacher, who has obligations of his own, he should and must join with others who, like himself, are in a similar plight. So, a Group is born, and with it the - 40 - second stage of Work comes into existence.
From the Paul and Naomi Anderson Archive. To access the full Anderson Archive and many other collections, please become a Gurdjieff Heritage Society member.