The Esoteric Circle

So where does one find this secret knowledge that Ouspensky and so many others have hinted to in their writings? For Ouspensky, there is a secret circle of like-minded people who quest after this knowledge. This circle can range from secret cults and druids to monks, ashrams, the 12 apostles, etc.

"According to this idea, humanity is regarded as two concentric circles. All humanity which we know and to which we belong forms the outer circle. All the history of humanity that we know is the history of the outer circle. But within this circle there is another, of which men of the outer circle know nothing, and the existence of which they only sometimes dimly suspect, although the life of the outer circle in its most important manifestations, and particularly in its evolution, is actually guided by the inner circle. The inner or the esoteric circle forms, as it were, a life within life, a mystery, a secret in the life of humanity" (19).

More than that, Ouspensky believes that this inner circle, comparable to the fables of Dune, or The Giver, or even the collective unconscious, holds a quantity of secret of knowledge that has been passed down throughout all of humanity:
"The esoteric circle is, as it were, humanity within humanity, and is the brain, or rather the immortal soul, of humanity, where all the attainments, all the results, all the achievements, of all cultures and all civilisations are preserved" (19-20).

Ouspensky's Secret Knowledge

"The idea of a knowledge which surpasses all ordinary human knowledge, and is inaccessible to ordinary people, but which exists somewhere and belongs to somebody, permeates the whole history of the though of mankind from the most remote periods" (11).

The idea of secret knowledge does indeed permeate the whole history of mankind, from the Holy Grail to the messages of the Gods. Science fiction novels and worship communities, fantasy films and archaeological conspiracy theorists talk about secret knowledge for as far back as there is written documentation. But what does this mean? Is this some sort of proof in itself? Or is it just evidence that believing in secret knowledge is a product of evolution? Perhaps a function of coping with our ability to project scenarios into the future?

For Ouspensky, history is just the beginning. The experiential, or the 'gut-feeling,' is also a powerful mode of evidence.












"Man is conscious of being surrounded by the wall of the Unknown, and at the same time he believes that he can get through the wall and that others have got through it; but he cannot imagine, or imagines very vaguely, what there may be behind this wall. He does not know what he would like to find there or what it means to possess knowledge. It does not even occur to him that a man can be in different relations to the Unknown....In this incapacity of man to imagine what exists beyond the wall of the known and the possible lies his chief tragedy, and in this, as has already been said, lies the reason why so much remains hidden from him and why there are so many questions to which he can never find the answer" (14-15).

What does it mean to be conscious?

Can a computer be conscious? How would you know?

To which animals do we attribute consciousness? And how is that different from human consciousness?