Gurdjieff, on Speed of Emotional Center |
"The centers of the human machine work with different 'hydrogens.' This constitutes
their chief difference. The center working with a coarser, heavier, denser 'hydrogen'
works the slower. The center working with light, more mobile 'hydrogen' works the
quicker. The thinking or intellectual center is the slowest of all the three centers we have
examined up to now. It works with 'hydrogen' 48 (according to the third scale of the
'table of hydrogens').
"The moving center works with 'hydrogen' 24. 'Hydrogen* 24 is many times
quicker and more mobile than 'hydrogen' 48. The intellectual center is never able to
follow the work of the moving center. We are unable to follow either our own
movements or other people's movements unless they are artificially slowed down. Still
less are we able to follow the work of the inner, the instinctive functions of our
organism, the work of the instinctive mind which constitutes, as it were, one side of
the moving center.
"The emotional center can work with 'hydrogen' 12. In reality, however, it very
seldom works with this fine 'hydrogen.' And in the majority of cases its work differs
little in intensity and speed from the work of the moving center or the instinctive
center."
Excerpt taken from In Search of the Miraculous by P. D. Ouspensky, pub. Paul H. Crompton Ltd, 2004, p 193-94.