This is the third post on this valuable book. Having noticed the significance of imagination and visualisation, Rayner then comes to attention, as taught by (Gurdjieff and) Ouspensky. The exercise of consciousness allows attention to be directed, but there are three broad degrees of attention: first, zero attention – the lack of attention which we usually live by. Second, attracted attention, where something external stimulates our attention (but at least there is some attention), and third and finally, “directed attention (which) involves conscious effort and can produce lasting results.” (57) Further, we want to be attentive to what is occurring all three centres at once.

Reyner discusses the use of psychotropic drugs, and concludes that their use may: “provide useful information about different states of consciousness, but confers no lasting benefit, because no payment has been made. Only those experiences for which we have paid by individual effort can belong to us and help to raise our level of being.” (60) He goes on to make the significant point that the same applies to the “heightened emotional perception” we can discover when encountering ideas – they will not leave a lasting impact unless we make payment by pondering upon them, individually.

In the interesting chapter “Vibrations and Rhythms,” he points out that some vibrations are too slow to be appreciated by the senses, e.g. the cycle of days, seasons, and years, and the organic rhythms of sleep and eating (62). He mentions breathing, too, but we are aware of that rhythm, albeit usually only when it goes wrong. Then there is the fascinating phenomenon of the cells of our body: they are their own cosmos, with their own laws, but within our bodies they are “subservient to the cosmos of man,” just as cells in the cosmos: the wheel within a wheel of Ezekiel. (64) This is a significant matter: the coming of real “I” is another aspect of this. I mean, as we are, we have our own laws; but as real I comes, we must, little by little, become subservient to it and the laws of its cosmos. This is very difficult, and perhaps the reason Gurdjieff says so little about this phase is that to say much about it would suggest all sorts of wonders for people. Further, I suspect that some of what he writes at 64-65 lies behind his work on “Psionic medicine,” although in this volume he mentions Ouspensky and his ideas on cells and diagnosis, and in the latter he does not.

There are a number of interesting details: for example, he says that there is an ether (74), but it is undetectable to our science because it is a property of the noumenal (real) world. However, I wonder, if that is so, how does he know? There have recently been theories again suggesting the existence of ether – but I am no physicist, and this is beyond my expertise. Reyner takes all this into an interesting area: he says that there are “vibrations” which comprise “what can best be called the life-force.” (75) His evidence for this is taken from dowsing and radiesthesia: something which I intend to investigate in the future.

In my own view, Bennett’s work on energies is, so far, unmatched. Incidentally, the excellent book of that name was not his final word: he produced more ideas about energies, but the material is only now being transcribed and put into some sort of order.

What I do think is more productive, at least recognisably productive, is Reyner’s Ouspensky-like listing of four energies: mechanical, vital, psychic, and conscious. He writes: “… no expenditure of mechanical energy can produce a living organism, which requires vital energy; nor does life itself produce thought and feeling, which require psychic energy; while still another form of energy is required to nourish the mind …” (76) I could ask some questions about this: it is a matter of the energy alone, or does the material on which the energy works make a difference, is their organisation relevant? One cannot simply collapse energy and matter together: after all, the heat of the sun will wither grass, but not granite. But Reyner is speaking here about von Reichenbach’s odyle, and I am not sure that the energ(ies) which goes (go) into life can so easily be segregated. In other words, he seems to think there can be a “bottled life force” and I am not sure.

Reyner also advances the suggestion that there is something unexplained about gravity, asking the same question as Rupert Sheldrake: could gravity operate faster than the speed of light? (77-78) The available “orthodox” material seems confident that the answer is no, but again, I cannot tell. I would suspect, and I can say no more, I suspect that, in higher worlds, there is something faster than the speed of light.

But where all this really leaves me is wondering what is practical? Can one sense the different energies within ourselves, or in our lives and living, and is there something we can do to attract a higher quality of energy, that is, a more vivifying energy with which our level of being can be raised? Then, I am not sure why, but I am impressed by this sentence: “Another possibility is that the movement of consciousness is not uniform but proceeds in short bursts, in such rapid succession as to appear continuous. … it is conceivable   that in the intervals between the pulses there would be room for other pulses appropriate to other orders of consciousness.” (79) He calls this “pulse-interlacing.” I think the value of this is that it explains how quickly we can go from a good state of being to a poor one. It means that we have to watch and be careful, and make use of this interlacing. Reyner returns to some of these ideas when he considers recurrence. (87-96) His idea that our shifting individual sense of time is related to but not the same as the time of the world may well be correct, and explain what goes on in our internal lives.