In Search of the Miraculous

all this into practice. Soon after his arrival G. said that he thought of opening his

Institute in England. Many of those who came to my lectures became interested in this

idea and arranged a subscription among themselves to cover the material side of the

business. A certain sum of money was immediately given to G. to

prepare for the passage of the whole of his group to England. I continued my lectures,

connecting them with what G. had said during his stay in London. But I had decided

for myself that if the Institute opened in London I would go either to Paris or to

America. The Institute was finally opened in London but for various reasons it failed.

But my London friends and those who came to my lectures collected a considerable

sum of money for him and with this G. bought the historic Chateau Prieuré in Avon

near Fontainebleau, with an enormous neglected park, and in the autumn of 1922 he

opened his Institute there. A very motley company assembled there. There were a

certain number of people who remembered St. Petersburg. There were pupils of G.'s

from Tiflis. There were people who had come to my lectures in Constantinople and

London. The latter were divided into several groups. In my opinion some had been in

far too great a hurry to give up their ordinary occupations in England in order to

follow G. I could have said nothing to them because they had already made their

decision when they spoke to me about it. I feared that they would meet with

disappointment because G.'s work seemed to me not sufficiently rightly organized and

therefore to be unstable. But at the same time I could not be sure of my own opinions

and did not want to interfere with them because if everything went right and my fears

proved to be false then they would undoubtedly have gained by their decision.

Others had tried to work with me but for some reason or other they had parted from

me and now thought that it would be easier for them to work with G. They were

particularly attracted by the idea of finding what they called a short cut. To this, when they asked my advice, I of course advised them to go to Fontainebleau and work with

G. And there were others who came to G. temporarily, for two weeks, for a month.

These were people who attended my lectures and who did not want to decide

themselves, but on hearing about other people's decisions had come to me and asked

whether they ought to "give up everything" and go to Fontainebleau and whether this was the only way to go on with the work. To this I said that they should wait until I

was there.

I arrived at the Chateau Prieuré for the first time at the end of October or the

beginning of November, 1922. Very interesting and animated work was proceeding

there. A pavilion had been built for dances and exercises, housekeeping had been

organized, the house had been finished off, and so on. And the atmosphere on the

whole was very right and left a strong impression. I remember one talk with Miss

Katherine Mansfield who was then living there. This was not more than three weeks

before her death. I had given her G.'s address myself. She had been to two or three of

my lectures and had then come to me to say that she was going to Paris. A Russian

doctor was curing tuberculosis by treating the spleen with X-rays. I could not of

course tell her anything about it. She already seemed to me to be halfway to death.

And I thought that she was fully aware of it.

But with all this, one was struck by the striving in her to make the best use

even of these last days, to find the truth whose presence she clearly felt but

which she was unable to touch. I did not think that I should see her again.

But I could not refuse when she asked me for the address of my friends in

Paris, for the address of people with whom she would be able to talk about

the same things she had talked about with me. And so I had met her again at

the Prieuré. We sat in the evening in one of the salons and she spoke in a

feeble voice which seemed to come from the void, but it was not unpleasant.

"I know that this is true and that there is no other truth. You know that I have long since looked upon all of us without exception as people who have

suffered shipwreck and have been cast upon an uninhabited island, hut who

do not yet know of it. But these people here know it. The others, there, in life,

still think that a steamer will come for them tomorrow and that everything

will go on in the old way. These already know that there will be no more of

the old way. I am so glad that I can be here."