Colin Wilson
Fritz Peters, an American who had known Gurdjieff since childhood, describes what happened when he visited Gurdjieff in Paris. His war experiences had brought Peters to the verge of a nervous breakdown. The moment Gurdjieff saw him, he realized that he was sick.
“When we reached his apartment, he led me down a long hall to a dark bedroom, indicated the bed, told me to lie down, and said: This is your room, for as long as you need it.’ I laid down on the bed and he left the room but did not close the door. I felt such enormous relief and such excitement at seeing him that I began to cry uncontrollably and then my head began to pound.
“I could not rest and got up and walked to the kitchen where I found him sitting at the table. He looked alarmed when he saw me, and asked me what was wrong. I said I needed some aspirin or something for my headache, but he shook his head, stood up, and pointed to the other chair by the kitchen table.
“’No medicine,’ he said firmly. ‘I give you coffee. Drink as hot as you can.’ I sat at the table while he heated the coffee and then served it to me. He then walked across the small room to stand in front of the refrigerator and watch me. I could not take my eyes off him and realized that he looked incredibly weary — I have never seen anyone look so tired. I remembered being slumped over the table, sipping at my coffee, when I began to feel a strange uprising of energy within myself — I stared at him, automatically straightened up, and it was as if a violent electric blue light emanated from him and entered into me.
“As this happened, I could feel the tiredness drain out of me, but at the same moment his body slumped and his face turned grey as if it was being drained of life. I looked at him, amazed, and when he saw me sitting erect, smiling and full of energy, he said quickly: ‘You all right now — watch food on stove — I must go.’ There was something very urgent in his voice and I leaped to my feet to help him but he waved me away and limped slowly out of the room.”
What had happened, apparently, was that Gurdjieff had somehow poured vital energy into Peters by some psychic discipline — either that, or somehow touched the source of vitality in Peters himself; at all events, it drained Gurdjieff. Peters says: ‘I was convinced… that he knew how to transmit energy from himself to others; I was also convinced that it could only be done at great cost to himself.’
What happened next is equally significant.
“It also became obvious within the next few minutes that he knew how to renew his own energy quickly, for I was amazed when he returned to the kitchen to see the change in him; he looked like a young man again, alert, smiling, sly and full of good spirits. He said that this was a very fortunate meeting, and that while I had forced him to make an almost impossible effort, it had been — as I had witnessed — a very good thing for both of us.”
Gurdjieff’s comment is of considerable importance. When Peters first came to the apartment, he looked tired. He made an effort that drained him even further, transmitting vitality to Peters.
Excerpted from G.I. Gurdjieff – The War Against Sleep.
