Beryl Pogson, Nicoll’s long-time secretary, made some significant statements about Gurdjieff, which I would think can only have come from Nicoll (excepting the last one). I think that these passages speak for themselves: we would be much the poorer without them, especially in my opinion, #166. When I first read this, I did not appreciate its importance; but as I have re-read the Pogson books, in preparation for my volume on Nicoll’s reading of the Gospels, its significance struck me; and now, sometimes, when touched by a certain like or dislike, I ask: would it not be better to be like Gurdjieff? Of course I cannot be like Gurdjieff, but I can be more like him – and the thought makes a difference.
163. In the short volume of selections which Bob Hunter called Mind and Energy, we find this exchange:
Mrs Pogson: … The grail is this place in oneself, emptied of oneself. You know that this is what Mr Gurdjieff and Mr Ouspensky and Dr Nicoll all taught: that one has to work for eternal life, that one has to make a body that can live in eternal life; that is, become immortal. In this sixth chapter of the Fourth Gospel this is said again and again.
Q: The paradox is that the Work says that we can’t do anything about it.
Mrs Pogson: Who says? We can do through the power of Christ in us. Everything becomes possible through this force.
Q: Did Gospel and Ouspensky say “through the power of Christ”?
Mrs Pogson: Mr G said: “through the power of Christ.” He was very religious. In Mr Ouspensky’s formulation it was “through the power of the Work.” (49-50)
164. In More Work Talks, edited by Lewis Creed, there is a transcript from 29 June 1966 where Mrs Pogson says:
The self-will courses along the bloodstream and Gurdjieff taught that certain transformations gradually become possible in our psychology so that there is an actual transformation in the bloodstream which no longer conduct the self-will. (55)
165. Also, in More Work Talks, Mrs Pogson says: “Mr Gurdjieff belonged to the Russian Orthodox Church and he said that it was best for people to remain in the religion they were brought up in because there conscience was close to this.” (93)
166. In Work Talks at The Dicker, edited by Lewis Creed, on20 February 1966, Mrs Pogson said: “Dr Nicoll used to tell us that Mr Gurdjieff had no likes or dislikes of events —that means he did not receive events on small I’s, and this is what Dr Nicoll noticed as remarkable …” (47)
167. Beryl Pogson also once said: “Mr Gurdjieff said that if a man has a psychology instead of a mechanism one can’t tell how he will decide; then he begins to become interesting. Then he will give you surprises. Nothing is more delightful.” (The True Myth, 437)
168. In The Very Next Thing, comes this important question. My guess is that it was someone in the group who had heard it from Nicoll. But it is so significant I wonder why there is no published instance of his saying it: “When Mr Gurdjieff said he never put his feeling of I into what he was doing when he was helping people, that was an illustration of not living in the opposites.”
Pogson had clearly heard it before, because she replied: “Yes, that is a very good sentence to remember. If you stand back, the outer man can certainly help people a lot. … When you can be conscious in a place further back you can take the force out of outer I’s.” (195-196)
169. This almost astonishing thought must come from Gurdjieff, as Pogson indicates: “There is a power given by the glorious Resurrection Body. It is called the Body of Will. Gurdjieff says that those who follow Christ can attain to this Body of Light, which has the power to assume a physical body and appear. This body gives the power to work in the world. This is what Gurdjieff, Ouspensky, and Nicoll all told us.” (The Very Next Thing, 200)
170. This is not from Dr Nicoll, but it is worth passing on. “I heard the other day about … when Mr Gurdjieff had received a sum of money, he said, “Better in my pocket than in his!” (The True Myth, 112).