Some recent insights on the Work, two, in fact

There have been some very foundational insights regarding the Work in recent threads. Two of them are:

1. That the context of the Work within Christianity is in 'progressive sanctification.' I wrote a three part post on this subject on my Plain Path Puritan blog the other day. Anyway, so this is why the Work doesn't mention issues of salvation. It assumes salvation. I.e. it assumes one is born again, converted, justified, has faith in the Savior, Jesus Christ, etc. Even though the main teachers of the Work may have been, or may not have been, naive regarding this fact (I refer to both G. and O.); it goes to show, anyway, if in fact they were unaware of this context, that the Work really was above them and didn't come from them, just as Ouspensky often stated.

2. Along the same lines is this insight: I think it was providential that I saw that edition of the Oxford Companion to English Literature in a new used bookstore I stopped to look at. It was only $2.99 too which made it enticing to buy. That it had entries on G. and O. was strange too. But that it brought to my attention that Gurdjieff considered his knowledge to be more *method* than *doctrine* is a big thing to know when you are trying to see the Work vis-a-vis Christianity. I was recently reading Nicoll, and I think he may have been guilty of introducing more of a sort of doctrine into the teaching (such as making entry into the conscious circle of humanity the goal, unless he flat out meant that as a metaphor for the Kingdom of God which I don't think he did). But the pure springs of the Work teaching, Ouspensky's books, really keep any attempt at doctrine out of it and focus on method. I never thought of the distinction before, and I think it is a big distinction and very clarifying for what the Work actually is, especially when you combine the insight with the first one above.