“The Two Chief Motors of Our Existence: Food and Sex” by Clare Mingins
"This booklet explores aspects of the teaching of G.I.Gurdjieff in terms of "the two chief motors" of our existence, the digestive function and the sexual function. The contents were originally published as a paper in the Proceedings of the 2010 "All and Everything International Humanities Conference." According to Gurdjieff, sex energy is the final result of the transformation of our ordinary food and drink. It is also the source of all higher energy and of Will, and is necessary to create a soul. The ordinary person carries out incomplete absorption and transformation of active elements from the three being-foods. The small amount of energy produced is either automatically used up, wasted, or tainted. Ordinary human physiology is the physiology of abnormality. A.R.Orage pointed out that work on oneself produces fifty percent more mental energy and three times more emotional and sex energy than before. Here various questions are examined concerning the transformation of the three being-foods with reference to material in Gurdjieff’s writing and oral teaching, and that of J.G.Bennett, P.D.Ouspensky and A.R.Orage. Information from the various sources often appears discrepant, perhaps intentionally so. Subjects considered include a composite food diagram, “food for real man,” vegetarianism, “the most important part of the second-being food,” evolution and involution of sex energy, half-beings, and others."
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