Part One

First, this is from vol. 3 of Maurice Nicoll’s Psychological Commentaries:

“Now in ordinary seen life, where people, even religious people, do not practically work on themselves each day, they accumulate a substance which cannot lead to unity. For example, they criticize one another, talk scandal privately, slander each other secretly and hate each other—in short, make every kind of internal account against one another. They are mechanical people, and just because they do not work they remain mechanical.

As a result, there is formed a thick, heavy, psychological substance which G. called by one of his strange words—something like Tzarvarno. “This substance,” he said, in so many words, “accumulates in life and makes all right relationship impossible. This substance has no Holy Spirit in it. It is dead.” He said it was due to the unnatural outward and inward manifestations of people to one another and was an accumulation of evil actions, thoughts and emotions, of which people do not understand the consequences. The Work calls it simply “making internal accounts.”

Now remember, the slightest, unworked on “evil” towards another mounts up and makes this thick, dead substance. Where ? In oneself. One may suspect how often illness is due to this dead substance, daily formed. Now everything the Work teaches us to practise, to make effort about, is to prevent this heavy dead substance from forming itself. A good daily and nightly incinerator for negative states is necessary.” (973-974, [3] 30 November 1946, Commentary 238)

Next, this is from Willem Nyland:

“I (gave) an exercise once of draining, draining everything (which is), let us say, evil in the form of tensions from the head down to your hips, draining out what you can by means of the arms and the fingers outstretched; draining it to the level (of) … your hips, it reaches your sex organs … it also takes away from (the) sex (impulse) … the wish for procreation, (but) it leaves in (the) sex (centre) the wish to create, and as a result, parallel or simultaneous with this draining from your sex (organs) down, … (something) enters into your head (and) comes down through your head, and gives your mind understanding. (It) comes down further through your shoulders and gives your heart real emotional states; … (while) what is created out of the wish for real creation will use up your sex (energy) and, you might almost say, embellish your body, … (and) the body will then answer to the purpose for which it was created in God’s name, and not for the maintenance of (the) Earth.” (edited, p.48 Mr Nyland’s Talks on Gurdjieff’s Exercises).

Part Two

First, I wonder if Nyland did not mean to say “the maintenance of the Moon.” Of course, the excretions of the body go to the earth, as the corpse does at death. But the invisible energy is always said by Gurdjieff to be drawn to the Moon.

Second, in Herald, Gurdjieff mentions “Tzvarnoharno”, of which he says, it: “forms itself by a natural process in the communal life of people as an outcome of a conjunction of the evil actions of so-called “common people” and leads to the destruction of both him that tries to achieve something for general human welfare and of all that he has already accomplished to this end.” (12, The Herald of Coming Good, Sure Fire Press, 1988) This is put more clearly by Nicoll, but each account have details not found in the other.

Third, it seems that Nicoll and Nyland are speaking of the same reality, only Nyland has received a draining exercise from Gurdjieff which Nicoll had not. Nyland understands well the effect of draining Tzvarnoharno from the body, albeit he does not use that word. What is significant, in my view, is the overlap between the two.

Summary

Although he does not have the draining exercise, Nicoll does have relaxation exercises (which I shall have to set out in the future), and he has very powerful means of work-in-life. The effect must be the same. But, that said, I still appreciate the direct quality in Nyland’s understanding of the draining. I am quite sure that if one uses the relaxation techniques taught by Gurdjieff, including the draining, together with the understanding which Nicoll had, the result is correspondingly greater.