Wisdom Schools are the vehicle for passing esoteric teachings through the ages.
“Wisdom schools seem to have emerged as the favored ‘shop-front’ for conscious-circle activity, and while the Wisdom river is always flowing, the schools themselves tend to above ground either in times of planetary crisis or on the threshold of a new evolutionary leap in consciousness.” Cynthia Bourgeault, Eye of the Heart, p144
“All real teaching begins with the formation of a school.” Maurice Nicoll, Commentaries p246
“Without a group, nothing is possible was Gurdjieff’s celebrated dictum.” Eye of the Heart, p150
“When we are working on a galactic scale, the heart that apprehends [a revelation] is no longer the individual heart, but the noetic heart of the Imaginal body of humankind, in which each fully prepared Wisdom group holographically participates.” Eye of the Heart, p151
“Conscious teaching cannot exist in the sphere of mechanical life by itself, but it can be kept alive and transmitted by means of schools having a direct connection with people who have reached that degree of inner evolution and consciousness belonging to the circle of conscious humanity.” Commentaries p34
“As St. Benedict, an otherwise obscure monk, intuited fifteen centuries ago, only by obtaining full Imaginal fluency could his ‘school for the Lord’s service,’ i.e. in active partnership with the conscious circle of humanity, actually deliver the goods. The institution he brought into being is Christianity’s oldest ongoing school.” Eye of the Heart, p102
“One of the problems of esotericism is how to keep alive this contact or connection (with influences coming from a higher level). At different times in history different ways have been tried, but all with the same end in view. For example, different kinds of schools or ‘churches’ have existed, which for a time have maintained this connection. But sooner or later any particular school or focus created for the reception and transmission of these higher influences, has died. But a new focus always appears. The death of a ‘church’, if we use this term, is sometimes called a flood in the language of parables.” “many of those long tables of references to so and so who begat so and so and lived for so many hundred years are records of different ‘schools’ or branches of ‘churches’ … there was a school or church called ‘Noah’.” Commentaries, p163
“Esoteric teaching continues. It preserves itself. The Ark riding on the flood of evil refers to this idea. Christ’s parables about the vineyard that might be destroyed refer to an esoteric school of teaching, not to esotericism itself.” Commentaries, p246
(See full talk on the Ark, Commentaries p1744.) “Understood psychologically, therefore, the Flood is a flood of barbarism, of evil and violence, and the story of the Ark is a story about how esoteric teaching preserved itself during that Flood. The Ark floated on the waters of the flood of evil, and it contained in it all the seeds of a new teaching, represented by Noah, his three sons, their wives and all the animals…. When the Ark settled on Mount Ararat, it means that the new form of teaching that it represented began to be taught on earth—that is, Man.” Commentaries, p1745
Logion 40
Yeshua says...
A grapevine was planted
away from its Source
where it remains unprotected.
It will be torn out by its roots and destroyed.
Page numbers for Maurice Nicoll refer to Psychological Commentaries on the Teachings of Gurdjieff and Ouspensky (Eureka Editions:2020) unless stated otherwise.
All quotations from the Gospel of Thomas are from Lynn C Bauman, Ward J Bauman, Cynthia Bourgeault, The Luminous Gospels (Praxis 2008)
Cynthia Bourgeault, Eye of the Heart, Shambhala Publications, 2020
Read the Impression introducing the Gospel of Thomas.
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