War Machines
Considering All Quiet on the Western Front Near its Centenary
In his classic of esoteric exploration, In Search of the Miraculous, Russian mathematician and spiritual seeker P.D. Ouspensky (1878–1947) recalled witnessing piles of freshly made crutches driven down a Moscow street toward the Russian front during World War I:
I had seen two enormous lorries…loaded to the height of the first floor of the houses with new unpainted wooden crutches. For some reason I was particularly struck by these lorries. In these mountains of crutches for legs which were not yet torn off there was a particularly cynical mockery of all the things with which people deceive themselves.
Upon hearing of the scene, philosopher G.I. Gurdjieff (1866–1949), Ouspensky’s mentor, replied, “What do you expect? People are machines.” Gurdjieff meant this in the most literal sense. Not that the individual isn’t made of flesh and bone — but that he possesses no more capacity for choice and doing than an automaton.
