Preface

For some years now my frequent reading of G. I. Gurdjieff's monumental and enigmatic publication "All and Everything" (See ref 9), resulted in my concluding that there are several levels of meaning involved.

I feel that I have been able to decipher within it a record of the development of Gurdjieff's teaching methods. There is also a record, in allegorical form, of major aspects of the history of humanity, and again an autobiographical account of Gurdjieff s early life. I have been able with some confidence to unravel some of the various levels.

More recently I have had a correspondence with Joy Lonsdale in Australia. Joy has been applying the Hermetic code in order to interpret parts of the Tales, in particular the Six Descents. Having been privileged to read her as yet unpublished work, I am convinced that she is on the right lines and that much of the Tales is in Hermetic code. The key word "Initiate" for example is used over thirty times in the tales. There are many other clues.

Joy has had a correspondence with Roy Norvill, an expert in the Hermetic code. As a result I have recently read his publication, Hermes Unveiled (see ref 15). While I have some familiarity with this field through my extensive reading of C. G. Jung's Complete Works (see ref. 23 & 24), and in particular his material on Alchemy and Hermeticism, I found Roy Norvill's material of particular interest.

But something else resulted from the coming together of Joy Lonsdale's and Roy Norvill' material in my attention. Apart from convincing me that Joy is entirely on the right track in concluding that Gurdjieff used the Hermetic code for much of the material in the Tales, I found that from a few weeks ago, I was most forcibly driven to produce the following material, first summarising my present overall understanding of our psychological history and development, and then going through all my old diaries in which I had recorded special dreams and experiences so as to put them together as a whole. The result for me is a clear indication of the way I have been taught over the years by some aspect within or beyond my ordinary self. The wonder of it all is that the teaching is in code, in effect the Hermetic code. From this I conclude that the code is a collective code upon which our mentation, in particular our inner mentation, our unconscious mind, is based. It is a universal code enabling the universal Mind to communicate with the individual mind when an individual mind is ready to receive it.

"When the pupil is ready, the teacher appears."

H.J.Sharp
Littlehampton, April 1999
Revised December 2000