Psychological Commentaries on the Teaching of Gurdjieff and Ouspensky: Volume 3

The third volume of Maurice Nicoll's Psychological Commentaries, collecting weekly talks given at Quaremead, Ugley and Great Amwell House from September 1945 through April 1948. The commentaries move fluidly between theory and practice, covering the second and third lines of work, self-remembering and its different methods, false personality and self-love, essence and personality, psycho-transformism, time-body and the fourth dimension, internal considering, the food of impressions, and the parable of the horse, carriage and driver. This volume contains some of Nicoll's most sustained treatments of inner separation, acceptance of oneself, and the psychological meaning of scriptural imagery such as walking on water and the meaning of foot. The 1947 talks in particular show Nicoll at his most systematic, working through the Work-octave in three consecutive commentaries and addressing the personal realization that one is a machine as a turning point in genuine inner development. Throughout, the tone is warm, specific, and oriented toward the actual difficulties of people trying to live these ideas week by week.