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Gurdjieff Studies Gurdjieff Studies Ltd, Registered Charity No. 1098600 |
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A Footnote on Attention
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It was William James (1842-1910) who offered the dictum 'my experience is what I agree to attend to', but it was Gurdjieff who extrapolated this insight into a pratique for the mobilization and direction of attention, within the context of a persuasive phenomenology of consciousness. By the last decade of the twentieth century the various proponents of gestalt, transactional psychology, S-R learning theory, the Jungians, Kleinians and embattled Freudians, had long since consigned attention to the ideological and methodological periphery, leaving only lay Gurdjieffians working on attention, according to their canon, as the quintessential challenge to understanding. For a succinct evocation of the Gurdjieffian position, see William Segal, 'The Force of Attention', The Structure of Man, Green River Press, Stillgate Publishers, Vermont, 1987. For a fuller account, see C. Daly King, The Psychology of Consciousness, Kegan, Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co., 1932, especially chapter X, 'The Legitimacy of the Self-observational Technique'.
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