Crystalline Being, Part II

Photo: Topaz crystal with trilobite, glacial till with quartz intrusions, antique linen, Delft tile, and Buddhas. There are a few other kinds of stone in the background: a Chinese scholar rock, trace fossils, and sandstone.

“Who we are” ultimately depends on magnetic factors. I use the term in the sense of that which attracts or repels, based on the electrical state of the material.

Gurdjieff's “magnetic center” isn't so much a conceptual entity consisting of great thoughts we have which then attract other great thoughts, and so on; or wonderful feelings which engender new additional wonderful feelings. Magnetic center is a physical property within men and women that affects the alignment of their molecules.

It should be noted that every living creature has a magnetic center of one kind or another. They can differ vastly in terms of ultimate potentials, but the principal is commonly shared by both organic and inorganic forms. The existence of magnetic center operates under the law of three: attraction, indifference, repulsion.

If you think about it for a little while you'll see that every center also functions under the law of those three forces. We need to have the ability to be attracted, in different, or repulsed in each part of our Being. If those forces don't function correctly, we are attracted to the wrong things, indifferent to the wrong things, and repulsed by the wrong things. In this context "the wrong things" can be related to the idea of aim; but there are metaphysical principles of right and wrong at work here as well, a question larger than the scope of this set of essays.