Session 5: The Law of Threefoldness
February 3rd
On the Law of Threefoldness, from Bennett's book "Deeper Man" pp 111:
In order to be able to change we have to understand, in a real sense, the law of threefoldness and how it is altered and limited in the passage through the various worlds. People who grasp the law intellectually are very rarely nearer to it than those who feel completely lost. It is one thing to be able to deal with these matters in words and quite another to live them. At the very start we all suffer from a tremendous drawback: the working of our centers is dominated by polarity so that everything we look at, everything we feel and think and sense is experienced in terms of two forces and not three. For us, three forces are higher-dimensional, and Gurdjieff expressed this by saying that "Man is third force blind."
The summary above goes a long way toward pointing out the importance of understanding the law of threefoldness and the difficulty of truly seeing its operation "in the moment." However, by exploring the emergence of this law in a wide variety of practical settings we can gain some insight into its operation. We can also gain insight by approaching it from another direction, namely seeing how an intention always splits into three parts and then "strives to reblend." Appropriately enough, a third approach will take the form of examining the relationship between the three forces. From this examination we will see that any one of the three forces can initiate an action, not just the affirming force. Likewise, any one of the three forces can manifest the result of a law or provide the "glue" that holds an action together.
Tables:
Table of Examples of the Law of Threefoldness
Readings:
Gurdjieff on the Law of Threefoldness... from In Search of the Miraculous (HTML)
J. G. Bennett on Relationships (The Law of Threefoldness)
(Word Doc) 14 pages
J. G. Bennett talk on the Triad (PDF) 19 pages
Tony Blake talk on the Triad (PDF) 6 pages
Nicoll on the study of the three forces in oneself (HTML) 1 page
Talks by Tim White:
The Passive Do (HTML)
The MI-FA Interval: Decision (HTML)
Harnel Aoot (Word Doc) 14 pages
Active DO (Word Doc) 14 pages
Identity (Word Doc) 14 pages
Order (HTML)
Ken Pledge paper on Harnel_Miatznel (PDF) 11 pages
The Poor Thing by Robert Louis Stevenson (HTML)
Triad Manual by Betsey Terrell (PDF) 140 pages:
Intro from the author... "Originally I intended this to be a teaching manual for teachers to use in school classrooms. As it developed, however, I realized that it had potential for a much broader audience. Anyone can use triads and improve their thought and decision making processes."