On The Magnetic Centre, finding schools and A, B, C influence
The Fourth Way, by P. D. Ouspensky, Chapter 4
Q. Suppose one only imagines that one is working under influences B? A. One does not know about it and one does not ‘work’ under influences B. One can be interested in influences B just for one’s own personal advantage, profession, fame or something like that; then one loses all the profit one can get from them. But if a man values them for themselves, not selfishly, not only for his own gain, if he is interested in their meaning, then he may get something from them. Definitions are very difficult and mostly wrong, for our ordinary language has so many different associations that sometimes a more precise definition spoils the possibility of understanding. For instance, you can say, though I do not guarantee that it will always be right, that the chief characteristic of influence A is that it is always selfish, whereas influence B is unselfish. But people understand these words so differ ently that it does not convey much. You can also say that influences A need identification and influences B can exist without identification and that if there is identification with influences B it spoils them. In fact, the more identification there is with influences B, the more they become influences A. But all this is not sufficient to explain the difference between them.
Q. Is total immersion in influences B and complete rejection of influences A a correct attitude to life? Can we altogether dispense with influences A?
A. Why should we? Influences A may be quite legitimate interests in life. If you do not
disappear in them they are quite harmless. One has to accept everything that comes, only not identify. Influences A are not dangerous in themselves, only identification is dangerous. So there is no question of dispensing, there is only the question of having some interest in influences B, of not being entirely under the power of influences A. If people have an interest in these influences B, they have a magnetic centre; if not, they have no magnetic centre. After some time, with the help of magnetic centre, a man may find a school, or if he comes near one he may recognize it. But if he has no magnetic centre, he will not notice it, or will not be interested. And if he meets a school or a man who transmits another kind of influence, influence C, magnetic centre helps him to recognize this new influence and absorb it. If he has
not first absorbed enough influences B, and so has no magnetic centre, or if his magnetic centre is wrong or too weak, a man will not recognize influence C. Or he may meet a wrong school and have wrong instruction and instead of becoming better become worse; instead of acquiring, lose. Influence C differs from influences B in that it is conscious, instead of being accidental, both in its origin and its action, whereas influences B are conscious in their origin but accidental or mechanical in their action. Influence C is school influence.
Q. Must one be adult to recognize C influence?
A. There is no general rule about age. But one must have enough experience, enough
temptations from influences A and enough time to accumulate influences B. Otherwise
influence C will serve as influence B; in other words, it will do the work of a more simple instrument and will not have its full value. When people have tried and have realized that ordinary means do not satisfy them, do not give them what they want, they value influences C. But if they come before that, they take influences C on the same level as the other influences and influences C lose their power. It is very important to understand that.
Q. When you recognize influence C, is it bound to be the right one for you?
A. No, not at all, you may be right or wrong, it depends on your magnetic centre. If the magnetic centre is right, you are bound to recognize the right things; if it is wrong, you may find quite a wrong school. This happens every day. Why do so many quite unfounded and wrong schools exist, with no material whatever? Because people have a wrong magnetic centre. The case is possible, for instance, when a man with a wrongly formed magnetic centre may come upon a school which pretends to be connected with esotericism, while in actual fact no such connection exists. In this case influences which should have been influences of the third kind become influences of the first kind, that is, leading nowhere.
Q. Isn’t there a way in which one can find out?
A. Only by results. But even if people have wrong results, if they have a wrong magnetic centre they persuade themselves that the results are good. One can deceive oneself about anything. Generally speaking, there is very little chance of finding a right school and many possibilities of wrong schools, because a school must have influences C, that is, ideas that come direct from higher mind. What does ‘direct’ mean? It means coming not through books, not through ordinary learning accessible to everybody. These ideas must come from another school, and to that school again from another school, and so on, until one comes to the original source. If there are no ideas of that kind, it is only an imitation school. This does not mean that a school must be directly connected with the source, but it must at a certain time have received this kind of ideas, and then people can work on them. But if it has no ideas
different from ordinary ideas, it is not a school; then, at best, it is a school on the level of B influences, that is, a philosophical or scientific school. It can be called a school only if, through it, one may be able to find the direction towards becoming man No. 4 (although there is no guarantee of attaining it). So, through the school you can find the right direction only if you have a right kind of school. If you come to a wrong kind of school you lose what you can learn by yourself.
Q. What becomes of magnetic centre when one has come to a school?
A. We can say that it becomes that part of a man which is interested in school work. It lives on influences B, but now it receives better material, more concentrated knowledge than before. Besides, many things a man has learned before may be useful to him when he has joined a school, particularly after he has thrown away all that is useless. In ordinary life man does not know what to learn and what to discard. For instance, many things in which people believe have no meaning, but a man often cannot recognize this and takes them all on the same level – both those that have meaning and those that have not. But in studying himself according to school methods he learns to recognize imaginary values in himself and, through this, to discover imaginary values outside himself. And then, much later, after long work, the group of ‘’'s or the personality which was the magnetic centre develops into ‘deputy steward’. When the magnetic centre is right and a man meets with true influence C, it begins to act on
the magnetic centre. And then, at this point, man becomes free from the law of accident. The bigger the magnetic centre the more man is free from the law of accident. This means that he becomes free from this law only at the point through which he is connected with influence C.