Tertium Organum (1920)

This book is a masterpiece. It starts with a question fundamental to our understanding of everything and proceeds to synthesize an explanation through math, logic and mystical experience and concludes with an analysis of religious and esoteric knowledge.

It is by no means light reading and is a work that I will have to read again several times because of the density of the ideas presented. But Ouspensky's intelligence and intellect shine through in this brilliant work and I highly recommend this work to anyone who is seeking knowledge of themselves and the world around them. ( )

Hold on to your hats with this one. P. D. Ouspensky begins with a problem proposed by Kant--that 'space' and 'time' are simply constructs of consciousness--and runs with it. Boiled down to its barest argument, Tertium Organum suggests that the world we perceive is an artificiality; we cannot perceive the world as it is because our perception is self-limited. Lots of analogies about how two-dimensional beings would perceive three-dimensional objects passing through planes lead Ouspensky to suggest that we fail to understand what we see. His answer? What we perceive as 'time' is actually the movement of fourth-dimensional objects through our plane of existence. It is possible according to Ouspensky to achieve the consciousness required to understand the 'realm of causes,' because the technology exists in our mystical traditions going back millenia. The Fall of Adam and Eve actually marked the imprisonment in Matter of Spirit. We can liberate ourselves with proper training and devotion.

Elaborate bullshit or the key to higher consciousness? Doesn't matter to me so long as it entertains. I loved it. Any book capable of rationally marshalling disparate figures like Hegel, William James, Lao Tzu, Madame Blavatsky, Jacob Boehme, Sufi mystics, the Mahabarata, Plato, and Plotinus can't help but challenge a three-brained being. ( )