From an email... (the Work and Calvinism)

I think that you are so far out of reach and that is why you are given the silent treatment [C.: silent treatment from the mainstream realm, but also somewhat from the Work realm]. Maybe thats not all but in the end that is why people are reacting to you, its because they dont/cant understand where your coming from. I should also say that I know you go to great lengths to explain yourself so its not necessarily through you not making the effort to explain yourself but rather through the arrogance/ignorance of those who are listening. If you are learning something - which I have very little doubt about then thats what counts. It doesn't really matter whether people directly understand you or not, maybe a part of them understands but they are not ready to recieve it yet.

I'm on-the-mark with the Work, though, so take that as a foundation. I also direct anyone I come into contact with in the direction of the pure spring which are the main Work books of Ouspensky. So my authority, so to speak, regarding the Work teaching is not myself. I truly value the Work teaching as it exists in the main books of Ouspensky as unique, special, and rare - practical level - knowledge of real inner development.

With the above as foundation you then have to see that the Work is esoteric (which means practical level) Christianity. I make this argument definitively (it's not hard to do). The main sources of the Work tell you it's esoteric Christianity. I explain just why it is Christianity and not 'any-religion-X'.

So then, with the above as foundation, the rest of it is the Calvinism (which is what really throws people). Calvinism is just another name for apostolic, biblical doctrine (which is held to by about less than 3% of self-identified Christians on the planet). It is the 'pure theology'. ('Apostolic just means what the apostles - such as Paul and the Gospel writers and James and Peter and etc. taught, i.e. what is actually contained in the New Testament.) It is the most unpopular because it makes no concessions and makes no compromises to the demands of vanity, worldly pride, or self-will (i.e. false personality). You have to be God-centered to see it rathen than man-centered.

But once you have understanding of the Work (a big, rare understanding to have), and then once you're able to discern true theology -- then you see how the foundation of the Work is nothing less than Calvinist theology (sometimes called Reformed Theology, sometimes called Covenant Theology).

The 5 Points of Calvinism are like the five pillars of the Work, once you're able to see and accept them. (The 5 Points of Calvinism are the famous 'doctrines of grace' put into the memorable TULIP acronym).

But it's no mystery why the Work and why Calvinst doctrine should be connected: they both represent the most demanding, uncompromsing, on-the-mark teaching at their repsective levels: the exoteric and the esoteric levels of Christian faith.

What does it give you as a Work person to know Calvinism? It gives you the philosophical and theoretical and Biblical foundation of Work ideas, practices, and goals. It also gives you all the wealth of Reformed Theology to further your understanding of the foundation and the deep background of the Work: what it is, why it is, where it leads, how it's accomplished, etc.

The language of cosmoses alone can only be pursued by tapping the body of Reformed theological writings (Covenant Theology in particular).

Yes, it's all very advanced (Calvinist theology is the most demanding and 'advanced' of all the schools of theology, yet at the same time it's as simple as the Bible itself because it IS what the Bible teaches). The main problem is getting your vanity, worldly pride, and self-will out of the way so that they don't keep you from seeing it and learning it.

The Work still exists on its level and makes its unique demands for you to do anything with it. The Work isn't exoteric theology. It is practical level knowledge and practices.

This will come across as a shallow example, but I'll write it anyway: I always said in my own study and engaging of esoteric knowledge I'd only come across knowledge of 'pre-adamic' man (or the distinction between Adamites and pre-Adamites) in the teaching of Shepherd's Chapel (quasi-British Israelism, etc., etc.) and in Mouravieff's Gnosis. So, lo and behold, when I began to get the measure of Calvinist literature (going back to the source) I find that this is a theme and subject matter of the early Calvinists themselves. This didn't surprise me! In fact it was a Dutch Calvinist who wrote the main book on it (in Latin in the 1500s) that brought it to light as subject matter. Then after I acquired Turretin's Institutes of Elenctic Theology (a massive 17th century systematic theology by Calvin's successor in Geneva) I glanced through the contents and found that Turretin had written an entire chapter on the subject of pre-Adamite man.

There's a book by 17th century (that's the 1600s, for the record, not that anyone reading this didn't know that, I just want to point it out to make sure the age of these sources is getting communicated) Calvinist British theologian named John Owen called Biblical Theology, translated into English for the first time in the 1990s, that is basically a sacred history of the world that casts light in innumerable ways on Work teaching. (I.e. you can see that the Work is really a sort of pre-fall theology which, in fact, the Reformed scholastic theolgians even had a Latin name for: theologia viatorum ante lapsum. That is, pilgrim theology prior to the fall, or in the Garden. 'Pilgrim' being a synonym for human as opposed to angelic theology.)

Gurdjieff's teaching and language echoes a work popular in his day called Outlines of Theology by A. A. Hodge. It is a thoroughly Calvinist systematic theology. Hodge was dubbed the 'scientific theologian', and it's in some of his theological language along those lines that he sounds Gurdjieffian; yet the connection is much deeper and foundational because the Work and Calvinism are connected. They are connected because they both are on-the-mark Biblical teaching at their respective, unique levels. (Levels that are different, yet that share the same biblical foundation. If you refuse to recognize this you will never get out of the nursery.)

The cosmological language of the Work mirrors what Covenant Theology describes. In fact, the usefulness of knowing Covenant Theology (and remember CT is Calvinism) is it fleshes out and clothes the bare bones language and description found in the cosmological Work teaching.

Finally (a last point to this scatter-shot post): regeneration is needed to be able to see the truth in the Bible and to see apostolic biblical doctrine (Calvinism). Yet regeneration is also needed to truly connect with the Work at the practical level and in an on-the-mark way. #4 Man is the first level of regenerated man. It is Christianity, afterall, pure and simple. And I take it seriously because it is as serious as death and hell and eternity. There are two kingdoms: the Kingdom of Satan and the Kingdom of God; the Absolute III and the Absolute II. You are connected to one or the other. The former by default; the latter only by regeneration by the Word and the Spirit and taking it by force...