In Search of the Miraculous

Soon after my return to London I heard of her death. G. was very good to

her, he did not insist upon her going although it was clear that she could not

live. For this in the course of time he received the due amount of lies and

slanders.

During the year 1923 I went fairly often to Fontainebleau, that is, to the

Prieuré.

Soon after its opening the Institute attracted the attention of the press and

for a month or two the French and English papers were active writing about

it. G. and his pupils were called the "forest philosophers,"' they were

interviewed, their photographs were published, and so on.

G.'s own work during this time, that is, from 1922, was dedicated chiefly

to the development of methods of studying rhythm and plastics. He never

stopped working the whole time on his ballet, bringing into it the dances of

various dervishes and Sufis and recalling by memory the music he had

listened to in Asia many years before. In this work was a very great deal that

was new and interesting. Dervish dances and music were reproduced in

Europe undoubtedly for the first time. And they produced a very great

impression on all who were able to hear and see them.

In the Prieuré also they carried on very intensive mental exercises for the

development of the memory, of attention, and of the imagination, and

further, in connection with these exercises, in "imitation of psychic

phenomena." Then there was a lot of obligatory work for everyone in the

house and connected with the housekeeping which required great

strenuousness, thanks to the speed of working and various other conditions.

From among the talks of that time I particularly remember one which

related to the methods of breathing and although this talk as well as

many other things that were done then passed unnoticed, it showed the possibility of

an entirely fresh point of view on the subject in question.

"Right exercises," G. said once, "which lead direct to the aim of mastering the organism and subjecting its conscious and unconscious functions to the will, begin

with breathing exercises. Without mastering breathing nothing can be mastered. At the

same time to master breathing is not so easy.

"You must realize that there are three kinds of breathing. One is normal breathing.

The second is 'inflation.' The third is breathing assisted by movements. What does this

mean? It means that normal breathing goes on unconsciously, it is managed and

controlled by the moving center. 'Inflation' is artificial breathing. If for instance a man says to himself that he will count ten inhaling and ten exhaling, or that he will inhale

through the right nostril and exhale through the left—this is done by the formatory

apparatus. And the breathing itself is different because the moving center and the

formatory apparatus act through different groups of muscles. The group of muscles

through which the moving center acts are neither accessible nor subordinate to the

formatory apparatus. But in the event of a temporary stoppage of the moving center

the formatory apparatus has been given a group of muscles which it can influence and

with whose help it can set the breathing mechanism in motion. But its work will of

course be worse than the work of the moving center and it cannot go on for long. You

have read the book about 'yogi breathing,' you have heard or have also read about the

special breathing connected with the 'mental prayer' in Orthodox monasteries. It is all

one and the same thing. Breathing proceeding from the formatory apparatus is not

breathing but 'inflation.' The idea is that if a man carries out this kind of breathing

long enough and often enough through the formatory apparatus, the moving center

which remains idle during this period can get tired of doing nothing and start working

in 'imitation' of the formatory apparatus. And indeed this sometimes happens. But so

that this should happen many conditions are necessary, fasting and prayer are

necessary and little sleep and all kinds of difficulties and burdens for the body. If the body is well treated this cannot happen. You think there are no physical exercises in

Orthodox monasteries? Well, you try to carry out one hundred prostrations according

to all the rules. You will have an aching back that no kind of gymnastics could ever

give.

"This all has one aim: to bring breathing into the right muscles, to hand it over to the moving center. And as I said, sometimes this is successful. But there is always a

big risk that the moving center will lose its habit of working properly, and since the

formatory apparatus cannot work all the time, as for instance during sleep, and the

moving center does not want to, then the machine can find itself in a very sorry

situation. A man may even die from breathing having stopped. The disorganization

of the functions of the machine through breathing exercises is almost inevitable when

people try to do 'breathing exercises' from books by themselves without proper

instruction. Many people used to come to me in Moscow who had completely