Volume One, Issue One of Parabola appeared in early 1976, after years of preparation. The magazine was founded by Dorothea Dooling, who had studied with G.I. Gurdjieff. On the first page of the first issue, she wrote, “Parabola has a conviction: that human existence is significant, that life essentially makes sense in spite of our confusions, that man is not here on earth by accident but for a purpose, and that whatever that purpose may be it demands from him the discovery of his own meaning, his own totality and identity.” To express that conviction, Mrs. Dooling—as she was known to many—relied on the advice and help of many, including most notably another student of Gurdjieff, P.L. Travers, author of the Mary Poppins books.
Initially Mrs. Dooling served officially only as the magazine’s publisher (the editor was John Loudon) but her guidance was evident in each issue until after three years she took on the editor’s role as well. She remained publisher and editor until 1982, when she turned over those posts to Lorraine Kisly, but she remained intensely involved in the magazine throughout its first ten years.
Parabola’s first issue was on the theme of “The Hero.” The issue carried eight feature articles, including an interview with religion scholar Huston Smith, as well as five epicycles (stories), two tangents (ancillary topics), and book reviews—categories the magazine still follows a half century later. Its fortieth issue, marking ten full years of publication, was on the theme of “The Seven Deadly Sins.” Here are excerpts from notable entries during those first ten years. Subsequent issues of Parabola will cover the next forty years of publication.
From Volume 1, Number 1: THE HERO:
The World of the Hero
P.L. Travers
I will preface what I am going to say with a few lines from e.e. cummings:
“May my mind walk about freely and supple
And even if its Sunday may I be wrong,
For whenever men are right they are no
Longer young.”
This gives you leave to doubt me and to take what I say simply as hint and indication and not at all as assertion. It is meant as a whisper at the inner ear and designed to touch that part of you which is not accessible to the things that are spoken of in newspapers.
But before we begin to search for the hero, I think we should take a look at the element he moves in, the world where he functions—folklore, fairy-tale, allegory, legend, parable, even nursery rhyme; for all these are as it were the principalities that together comprise the homeland of myth, the country which in the old Russian stories is called East of the Sun and West of the Moon, and for which there is no known map.
But first I think it is important to clarify what I mean by that word myth. We have so betrayed and brutalized language that we have forgotten that in itself it is, in a way, mythical, in the sense that it is sacred, in its essence, a gift at some immemorial time mysteriously bestowed. Even the behaviorists are beginning to question their own theory, that language is a simple human function that has evolved, over millenniums, from the grunting of boars and apes. We have lost our respect for this given treasure and now care so little to foster its growth that we have all become like Humpty-Dumpty: “When I use a word,” he says in Alice in Wonderland, “it means exactly what I mean it to mean.” This is all very well, perhaps, to somebody who is living down a rabbit hole, but not for us, if we communicate ideas; we have to admit that words exist in their own right, that they have antecedents, long family trees and are not just foundlings left on the doorstep for anybody to pick up and do with as they will. If I were a hero the maiden I would set out to rescue would be language.
The word myth, for example, is largely accepted and used as something synonymous with life. “It’s a myth,” we say, meaning something that is not to be believed, a tarradiddle, a tall story, an impossibility. Even the Oxford Dictionary describes it as a “fictional account.” I would rather have said “unverifiable,” but even that would not have been exact. For whether we know it or not, or wish it or not, we all—like the hero—live in myth, or rather the context of myth, as the egg yolk lives in its albumen; and if we set about it, we can verify and confirm the fact ourselves.
From Volume 1, Number 3: INITIATION:
A Conversation with Mircea Eliade
It is hard to find anything to say about Mircea Eliade that would not already be known to any reader of this magazine: for among those interested even peripherally in myth, symbolism, and religion, his is a name to conjecture with….
Besides his many books on the history of religions that are known all over the world, he has written several novels and short stories, and Harper & Row will publish his journals this fall. But it is not only this wide-ranging quality of his mind that one feels in talking with him or in reading his work; what gives his words particular weight is that behind the scholar is a man whose life has been molded by the “sacred” of which he speaks.
Parabola: In this issue of Parabola we are considering some aspects of the idea of initiation. How would you approach this idea?
Mircea Eliade: I would like, first of all, to review the meaning of “initiation” in the history of religions. In the most general sense, the word denotes a body of rites and oral teachings whose purpose is to produce a radical modification of the religious and social status of the person to be initiated. To put it in philosophical terms, this is the same as “an ontological mutation of the existential condition.” Initiation is such an experience that the novice emerges from his ordeal a totally different and transformed being who will never be the same again.
Broadly, we can point to three different types of initiation: initiations into adulthood, into secret societies, and into mystical vocations. Each has its own special characteristics—for instance, the prevalence of the ecstatic element in the initiations of mystical vocations—but there is a sort of common denominator among all these categories, with the result that from a certain point of view, all initiations are much alike.
Parabola: Is there anything in our religious or social life today, in the education of young people or in the training of special professions, that can be thought of as initiatic?
Eliade: Initiatory themes remain alive chiefly in modern man’s unconscious. This is confirmed not only by the initiatory symbolism of certain artistic creations—poems, novels, films, and works of plastic art—but also by the reception of these works by the public. Just think of the enormous success of Jules Verne’s novels, the initiatory structure of which has been brilliantly analyzed by Simone Vierve in her book, Jules Verne et le roman initiatique. Other writers have recognized initiatory scenarios in Moby Dick, Walden, Huckleberry Finn, Faulkner’s The Bear, as well as in the work of such diverse authors as James Fenimore Cooper, Henry James, Sherwood Anderson, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Thomas Wolfe. The fact that artistic representation of initiatic theses can find massive spontaneous acceptance certainly indicates that in the depths of his being, modern man is still capable of being moved by initiatory scenarios or messages. The very fact that a journal like yours devotes a special issue to the topic of initiation would indicate that this theme still has great power.
From Volume 2, Number 1: DEATH
Sabbath in Gehenna
Isaac Bashevis Singer
On the Sabbath, as is known, the fires do not burn in Gehenna. The beds of nails are covered with sheets. The hooks on which wicked males and females hang—by their tongues for gossip, by their hands for theft, by their breasts for lechery, by their feet for running after sin—are concealed behind screens. The piles of coals and snow on which the transgressors are flung are hidden by curtains. The angels of destruction put away their fiery rods. The sinners who remain pious even in Hell (there are such) go to a little synagogue where an iniquitous cantor intones the Sabbath prayers. The free-thinkers (there are many of them in Gehenna) sit on logs and converse. As is usually the case with enlightened ones, their topic is how to improve their lot, how to make a better Gehenna. That wintry late Sabbath afternoon a sinner named Yankel Farseer was saying:
“The trouble with us in Hell is that we are selfish. Every sinner thinks only about his own business. If he believes that he can save his behind from a few lashes by the angel Dumah, he is in seventh heaven. If we could create a united front, we would not be in need of private intercession. We would come out with demands—”
When he uttered the word “demands,” his mouth began to water. He choked and puffed. Yankel was and remained a fat man with broad shoulders, a round belly, short legs. He had long hair around his bald spot and grew a beard—not a kosher beard as the pious in paradise have, but a rebellious one, every hair of which points at revolution. A little delinquent who braided his long hair in a pony tail tied with a wire he tore out of a bed of nails asked:
“What kind of demands, Comrade Yankel?”
“First, that the week in Gehenna should not last six days, but that we should have a four-day week. Secondly, that each villain should get a six-week vacation during which he should be permitted to return to earth and break the ten commandments without being punished. Thirdly, that we should not be kept away from our beloved sisters, the female sinners. We will ask for sex and free love. Fourthly—”
“Dreams of a chopped off head!” said Chaim Bontz, a former gangster. “The angel Dumah is not afraid of your demands and petitions. He does not even bother to read them. The saints in paradise use them for toilet paper.”
“What do you propose?”
“The angels, like the humans, understand one thing—blows. We must arm ourselves. Rub out the angel Dumah, storm the court of heaven, break a few ribs among the righteous. Then we must take over paradise.”
From Volume 5, Number 1: THE OLD ONES
Where We Are
Gary Snyder
I came here by a path, a line, of people that somehow worked their way from the Atlantic seaboard westward over a hundred and fifty years. One grandfather ended up in the Territory of Washington, and homesteaded in Kitsap County. My mother’s side was railroad people down in Texas, and before that they’d worked the silver mines in Leadville, Colorado. My grandfather, being a homesteader, and my father a native of the state of Washington, put our family relatively early in the Northwest. Yet we weren’t early enough. An elderly Salish Indian gentleman came to our farm once every month in a model T truck, selling smoked salmon.
“Who is he?”
“He’s an Indian,” my parents said—
Looking at all the different trees and plants that made up my second-growth Douglas fir forest plus cow pasture childhood universe, I realized that my parents were short on a certain kind of knowledge. They could say “That’s a Doug Fir, that’s a cedar, that’s bracken fern…” But I perceived a subtlety and complexity in those woods that went far beyond a few names.
As a child I spoke with the old Salishan man a few times over the years he made these stops—then, suddenly, he never came back. I sensed what he represented, what he knew, and what it meant to me: he knew better than anyone else I had ever met, where I was. I had no notion of a white American or European heritage providing an identity; I defined myself by relation to the place. Soon I also understood that “English language” is an identity—and later, via the hearsay of books, received the full cultural and historical view—but never forgot, or left, that first ground, the “where” of our “who are we?”
There are many people on the planet, now, who are not “inhabitants.” Far from their home villages; removed from ancestral territories; moved into town from the farm; went to pan gold in California—work on the Pipeline—work for Bechtel in Iran. Actual inhabitants—peasants, paisanos, paysan, peoples of the land—have been sniffed at, laughed at, and overtaxed for centuries by urban-based ruling elites. The intellectuals haven’t the least notion of what kind of sophisticated, attentive, creative intelligence it takes to “grow food.” Virtually all the plants in the gardens and the trees in the orchards, the sheep, cows, and goats in the pastures were domesticated in the Neolithic; before “civilization.” The differing regions of the world have long had—each—their own precise subsistence pattern developed over millennia by people who settled in there and learned what particular kinds of plants the ground would “say” at that spot.
From Volume 5, Number 3: OBSTACLES
Footnote to the Gurdjieff Literature
M. de Salzmann
The increasing spate of books about Gurdjieff should not blind us to their almost unfailing and therefore tragic irrelevance to what is essential. “Well and good,” we might say, if we are willing to accept the offerings of ill-informed commentators who provide us with every possible shade of misinformation. But how not to be baffled when those who claim some relation to Gurdjieff’s teaching contribute, the subjectivity of their approach, to the distortion of this real perspective?
Of course, one cannot blame premature attempts for their failure to meet an almost impossible challenge, for their failure to convey, outside its proper ground, the metaphysical essence of the teaching, which is self-realization and the correlative capability for true action. But did those responsible for these attempts ever consider that naïve and pretentious intentions in this realm could very well engender in others thoughts and reactions that are deeply misleading? We must admit that the problem is not an easy one, and is fraught with ambiguity.
Ambiguity already arises in the uncontrollable phenomenon of Gurdjieff’s increasing fame. He was almost unknown in his lifetime. But now the spreading literature about him and the recent filming of Meetings with Remarkable Men have made his name widely known to the general public; and it will probably not be long before he will sit in the ranks of popular figures. On the one hand, we are justifiably irritated insofar as this mounting wave of interest is based largely on a caricature of the reality. On the other hand, we cannot object to it if we recognize, underneath it all, its profound legitimacy.
Ambiguity appears again when we observe that, in spite of all the dilutions, distortions, and mystifications that Gurdjieff’s message has undergone, it nonetheless preserves an awakening power.
Ambiguity, or rather the lack of understanding from which it arises, will of necessity always be found near Gurdjieff. It pertains, in fact, to the kind of knowledge he tried to transmit and to the inherent requirements of this transmission, which are beyond ordinary understanding. Failure to recognize this essential point ends any chance of avoiding the misunderstanding.
It is not possible to present here a conventional review of all that has been written about Gurdjieff. Neither censure nor argument, nor judgments in general, can be helpful when trying to approach a reality that is beyond them. The words of Heraclitus wonderfully point to an alternative ideal: “Among those who sleep, each one lives in his own world; only those who are awake have a world in common.”
So, until the definitive book appears, it seems preferable to suggest, and perhaps make acceptable by means of a candid commentary, the idea that different levels are expressed—levels which are necessarily to be found in the Gurdjieff literature as well as in any other human endeavor. It may also become apparent that what has been written on this subject has for the most part only touched the deceptively visible portion of the iceberg or, to use a better image, merely commented on the façade behind which the “path” begins.
From Volume 9, Number 4: FOOD
Listening to Steiner
Owen Barfield
[A book review of The Essential Steiner: Basic writings of Rudolf Steiner]
When I was growing up, the punchline of a once popular Victorian drawing-room ballad was quoted from time to time in my family circle: Oh no, we never mention him, his name is never heard! The song was of course a lament by a lovelorn maiden for her socially inferior lover, taboo’d by the parental establishment; but the line is apt to run in my head, when I contemplate the relation of Rudolf Steiner to that other establishment; I mean the one Doctor Johnson used to refer to as “the lettered world,” but which we are more disposed to call “the Western mind-set,” or by some such name. Possibly the lady has come to symbolize for me the anima within the unconscious of the Zeitgeist.
The editor—and part author—of The Essential Steiner puts it more soberly in his General Introduction:
If, as his followers claim, Rudolf Steiner is a genius in twelve fields, why do we not come across his name in colleges, in scholarly writings, and in the public press? Experts in each of the fields in which he worked—including history, philosophy, science, art, social sciences, education, and Gospel commentary—seem especially unaware of his work. It is tempting to assume that the only possible reason for this neglect must be that Steiner’s writings are either inferior or idiosyncratic. In fact, however, Steiner’s contributions in these fields have not been rejected so much as ignored.
For this pointed silence—no other epithet will do for anyone who is at all acquainted with both the quantity and the quality of the work and through elicited by Steiner’s vast spiritual legacy during the sixty years since his death—there are no doubt reasons, some of them more, some of them less reputable. One of the former class is the vastness itself. Twenty books and five or six thousand lectures are only a crude measure of that, since there are also the various activities which he initiated in education, agriculture, science, art, medicine, and elsewhere, all of which have been and are being developed in Europe and (increasingly) in America and elsewhere. Whatever its cause, the silence raises a communication problem, of which most of his followers are aware and some few of them who are writers have tried to tackle….The fact that they have nevertheless so far failed to penetrate the wall of ignorance that still hides the badly needed light of Spiritual Science from “the lettered world” may well be due to circumstances that, even allowing for substantial quotation in them, the reader is learning about Steiner rather than connecting with Steiner himself….
From Volume 10, Number 1: WHOLENESS
The Fullness of Emptiness: An interview with his Holiness the Dalai Lama
The following interview was conducted at the Deanery at Westminster Abbey…I asked His Holiness to share with Parabola’s readers his vision of Wholeness.
—Robert A.F. Thurman
Robert Thurman: Your Holiness, Parabola magazine would like to ask you about “Wholeness”—the Whole Man, the Whole Person. They say: “We are defining the Whole Person as one who has in his being, to a very high degree, freedom, unity, consciousness, and will. What is your view?”
His Holiness: What I call the human qualities are love, compassion, tolerance, will. To be warm-hearted—that is true human being. You see, not to have warm feeling in the heart, that is almost not to have fully the nature of a human.
R.T.: Would you say, finally, that Buddha is Whole Man?
H.H.: Yes—on a high level. Yes, certainly. But when I speak of the good qualities of a human being, that means our ordinary human being, on the human level. Buddha is already beyond the human level.
R.T.: If Buddha is beyond ordinary human nature, then some people might think of Him as cold-hearted—someone sort of superhuman, that doesn’t care.
H.H.: No, no, no, no. What we call Buddha is warm-heartedness developed infinitely, love perfected. And also infinite enlightened consciousness—oh, yes.
R.T.: Their next question is, “It has been said that the Whole Person is one who lives simultaneously in two worlds.” Do you agree with this and, if so, what does it mean to you?
H.H.: This has different meanings. One: the person himself or herself reaches the highest level, but meantime, remains in world affairs—for the sake of other beings, out of altruism. In that way, “living in two worlds” can be said. Then again, maybe another meaning: a person who really practices well, and as a result, for himself or herself there is no sort of emotion, but equanimity. One is impartial; but in accordance with circumstances, taking certain action. In his inner world, there are no differences, but in his outer world he or she keeps aware of differences, and accordingly takes action. So you see, two worlds, I think, can be understood on different levels….
R.T.: Now, “What would be a fruitful attitude for me to hold towards those things in myself which I would like to change? Should I hate these aspects of myself? Study them? Try to eliminate them? Learn to accept them?”
H.H.: That depends on your own inner strength. There are different techniques. If it is someone who knows, and who has the capability, that is one thing. If not, the only thing is to eliminate. And after all, the ultimate aim is to eliminate these. But the method sometimes makes use of these negative forces for example, insects born from wood eat the very wood—it’s like that. Those persons who are using these lower energies or wrong thoughts—that does not mean they accept these thoughts, only that a different method is being used. It’s something like wrathfully killing one’s enemy in the open, or using stealth and deception to kill him; in both cases, the essential point is to kill the enemy. In one case, with a very wrathful face, in the other, a very polite one, and then exploiting his own weakness. ◆
Profiles
Owen Barfield (1898-1997) was, along with J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, and Charles Williams, one of the Oxford Inklings. Among his books are Romanticism Comes of Age and The Rediscovery of Meaning and Other Essays.
His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama (b.1935) is the spiritual leader of Tibet and head of its government in exile.
Mircea Eliade (1907-1986) was an influential Romanian scholar of religion whose books include The Sacred and the Profane and The Myth of Eternal Return.
Michel de Salzmann (1923-2001) was a psychiatrist, the son of G.I. Gurdjieff and Jeanne de Salzmann, and led the international Gurdjieff Work from 1990 until his death.
Isaac Bashevis Singer (1902-1991) was a Polish-born, Jewish-American author whose novels include The Magician of Lublin and Shadows on the Hudson. Singer wrote his books in Yiddish and was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1957.
Gary Snyder (b.1930) is an American poet and essayist. He appears as Japhy Ryder in Jack Kerouac’s novel The Dharma Bums.
Robert Thurman (b.1941) is an American scholar and academic, author of Inner Revolution and other works.
P.L. Travers (1899-1996) was the bestselling English author of the Mary Poppins books. She studied with G.I. Gurdjieff and contributed mightily to Parabola.