The Breithaupt Archive consists of approximately 216 pages of material, contained in 17 PDFs. The 3 excerpts below represent some aspects of this collection.
ABOUT
Katherine Rodomar Breithaupt was a member of Lord Pentland’s Group in New York in the 1950s. She took part in Movements demonstrations, and spent many work weekends at Mendham. She was a close friend of both Jessmin and Dushka Howarth. Her collection contains early copies of manuscripts and books, newspaper articles, notes, and a photo of Mdm. de Hartmann. This collection was donated to the GHS by her daughter, Kate Breithaupt.
Archive Excerpt: W.C. Segal Obituary
From the Katherine Breithaupt Archive. To access the full Breithaupt Archive and many other collections, please become a Gurdjieff Heritage Society member.
If you are already a member and wish to visit this archive directly, please sign in here.
Archive Excerpt: The Structure of Man, Attention (Segal) pp. 5-6 of 14
(plain text version below the image)
gurdjieff-heritage-society.org
Original document: Green River Press, friends & students of W.C. Segal.
Text reproduced from the image:
ATTENTION
II
Each day we hear: ‘pay attention, give attention,
be attentive, attend to.’ The key with power to
change, attention bridges the gap between man
and higher forces, sustains and is sustained by
the ongoing interplay of body / mind energies.
Focusing, sharpening, and heightening recepti-
vity, conscious attention restores and strengthens,
makes meaningful the structure of man.
ATTENTION is the quintessential medium to reveal man’s dormant energies to himself. Whenever one witnesses the state of the body, the interplay of thought and feeling, there is an intimation, however slight, of another current of energy. Through the simple act of attending, one initiates a new alignment of forces.
Maintenance of a conscious attention is not easy. The movement, the obligations of day-to-day existence constantly distract. With no base of operations, no home in one’s organism, the attention serves random thoughts, feelings, and appetites which conflict and tyrannize each other.
Sensation of parts or the whole of the body can anchor the attention, provide it with a kind of habitat. The structure, becoming more sensitive, helps to unify attention, so it is less liable to veer into mental channels that consume its power. In turn, perceptions and sensations are quickened, insights are multiplied.
Opening to the force of attention evokes a sense of wholeness and equilibrium. One can glimpse a possibility of a state of awareness immeasurably superior to that of the reactive mechanism, an awareness which transcends one’s automatic subject/object mode of response.
Freely flowing, the concentrative, transforming effect of conscious attention brings the disparate tempos of the centers to a relatively balanced relationship. Thought, feeling, and sensing are equilibrated under this vibrant, harmonizing influence.
Attention is an independent force which will not be manipulated by one’s parts. Cleared of all internal noise, conscious attention is an instrument which vibrates like a crystal at its own frequency. It is free to receive the signals broadcast at each moment from a creative universe in communication with all creatures.
However, the attention is not ‘mine.’ In a moment of its presence, one knows that it does not originate entirely with oneself. Its source surrounded by mystery, attention communicates energies of a quality the mind cannot represent.
One needs to be at the service of conscious attention; one prepares for its advent through active stillness.
In quiet, tension-free moments, man’s structure is open to energy flows which are ordinarily blocked. In turn, these energies blend with previously received materials, to serve the higher in a wordless, nameless exchange.
Attention is not only mediating; it is transmitting. Giving and receiving, God speaks to man. Receiving and giving, man speaks to God. Just as man’s structure needs to be vivified by the infusion of finer vibrations, those very same vibrations require the mixing of coarse material for their maintenance. Without the upward transmission of energies through the intermediary of conscious attention, the universe would give in to entropy.
In man, the smallest deformation of a balanced attention closes down this two-way communication. Alone, the mind cannot maintain it. A relaxed body, too, is needed.
Mid-way between micro and macrocosmos, man has his part to play. Returning to the body is a gesture of opening to the attention which, beckoned, is ready to serve its cosmological function.
Katherine Breithaupt Archive – The Structure of Man – pp. 5-6 of 14 pages
Archive Excerpt: Gurdjieff Explains, text document
From the Katherine Breithaupt Archive. To access the full Breithaupt Archive and many other collections, please become a Gurdjieff Heritage Society member.