Instagram: Improv as a Spiritual Release Valve

After randomly opening #BeelzebubsTalesToHisGrandson by G. I. #Gurdjieff, I stumbled on this page where the alien Beelzebub describes an odd kind of theater-ritual that people on earth used to perform. The idea is for someone to "listen to" and "illustrate" "the state of his own inner 'associative-general-psychic-experiencings.'" It works like this: a man would introspect and find that he had an emerging urge to punch an 'Irodohahoon,' otherwise known as a policeman. Finding this urge offensive to him, he decides to "act it out" in a way that is not just safe, but actually beneficial. So...he turns to "the other learned being who has come onto the stage with him" and treats him like a policeman, giving they epic dashed monologue in the photo. He says it spontaneously, "acting from" the impulse the wanted to punch the policeman. Moreover, the second man acts like a policeman from that point onward, and since he acted like a "chief physician" in his rant, he takes on that role. It's like a big improv game, only more sacred. Then more and more people get roped in, each one acting out what the spontaneous "associative-general-psychic-experiencings" spits out. As such, a train of "soul-force" (for lack of a better term) gets elaborated. It's a way of illustrating the spiritual forces that long to act out given the right opportunities. For Beelzebub seems to suggest that any impulse (to punch a policeman, for instance) is good and needed even if it's not acceptable to act it out in *this* way. Transmutation is the way, not repression. In brief, an objective improv (it has to be objective) can serve as a way to disclose spiritual realities. By just acting spontaneously and "acting from" the feelings that rise up in you, giving yourself to "become" the feelings and acting like the feelings want you to act, holding nothing back, you completely embody them. Think of the potential! Think of what you always wanted to do but weren't allowed to. Maybe it's even something violent. Wouldn't you feel so much better if you let it be acted out safely? What would you feel? What would you learn? What would embody itself? #spiritual #enneagram #God #LDS #archetype #occult

A post shared by Christian Swenson (@swensonthechristian) on May 19, 2017 at 9:21pm PDT