“Unlocking” Beelzebub’s Tales?
We can wish that Jesus might have written the Gospels himself rather than leaving that matter to chance. That way we would have a more exact idea of his teachings.
In the same way we might also regret that Gurdjieff left us as he said ‘in a fine mess’ with no official successor(s).
That situation was probably not what he originally intended but, unlike Jesus he left us enough material to figure it all out if – and it is a big if – we feel a strong enough need to do the work necessary to use it.
It’s very common to hear people talking about Beelzebub’s Tales needing to be ‘unlocked’ but the true case is the reverse. Although the style and language of the book is intentionally challenging, the message is rather straightforward. What needs to be unlocked is our perception.
He writes early in the first chapter –
“In my opinion the trouble with you [by which he means the reader], in the present instance, is perhaps chiefly due to the fact that while still in childhood, there was implanted in you and has now become ideally well harmonized with your general psyche, an excellently working automatism for perceiving all kinds of new impressions, thanks to which ‘blessing’ you have now, during your responsible life, no need of making any individual effort whatsoever.” (BT – page 6)
In other words the solutions he offers can’t be understood with the ‘formatory apparatus’.
As an author he will make every effort to bypass that ‘automatism’, but he also expects us to cooperate by suspending our blind faith in previously perceived material we have absorbed without due diligence.
Very often people try and fail to read Beelzebub because they insist on seeing it only through their present veil of confusion.
Those that are willing to suspend judgment for two readings instead may find that those scales fall off their eyes and the pages become nearly transparent in their lucidity.