"At last! I have found what I have been looking for all my life-a way to explain the gnosis for the new age!" That was Vitvan's reaction when he discovered General Semantics. He was so enthusiastic after reading Korzybski's Science and Sanity that he traveled to Chicago in 1938 to take a course from Count Alfred himself. The lesson course presented here was Vitvan's first presentation to his students of the science of general semantics after his return. Many who heard it at that time complained that Vitvan had "lost his spirituality." Indeed he had, since "spiritual" is one of the vague "unscientific" words he eliminated from his explanations after studying with Korzybski.

Vitvan had known from a very early age that his life's work, his dharma, was to articulate the ancient wisdom teachings for modern western man. He felt that in order to appeal to the American mind he should use a scientific approach. His first effort in this pursuit was a book, Textbook of the Sacred Science, published in 1923, describing the process of developing self-awareness. While his approach was scientific, he felt that the words he used in his explanations were too vague. Words such as "soul," "spirit," "God," etc., have as many meanings as there are users of the terms, and they certainly were not scientifically verifiable. For Vitvan, the science of semantics provided the language needed. His teachings would no longer refer to "sacred science," but to a natural order process which could be precisely described. His students would then have the means to take responsibility for their own growth and development.

What he did upon his return from his studies with Korzybski seemed almost beyond belief to the students and family who were with him at that time. He gathered up all of his manuscripts and even his published books and threw them into a cistern used for garbage. "My work must all be rewritten with this new scientific language," he announced. "No more mysticism. This is the new age dispensation of the gnosis and it must be written in new terminology."

Seekers of wisdom are not the only people who can benefit from this material. Anyone wishing to lead a more psychologically stable life will find many helpful tools in these lessons. As a means to greater mental health and happiness, the practice of general semantics may provide stability and "sanity" in the life of anyone who is willing to give it a try. The practices given in this course provide some of the best ways for students who are looking for a way to take charge of their own self-development to begin the process. Enjoy!

With this lesson we begin the instruction in what is now designated the School of the Natural Order. There are many reasons for the change in designation from the School of the Sacred Science to the School of the Natural Order. These reasons will become apparent as we proceed with the instruction—particularly as we learn the difference in orientation between the aristotelian and the non-aristotelian attitude toward nature. The post-non-aristotelian phase of the instruction will accentuate this difference.

We have been, and still are, devotees of the Wisdom Teachings. Or I might express it: that which has been called the Wisdom Teaching has been the focus of our orientation. This focus of our orientation has also been designated the Sacred Science—particularly by the more acceptable writers or commentators on the sacred scriptures of the East. The foremost of these scriptures includes the Gospel according to St. John, the Bhagavad Gita, the Upanishads, and the Path of Virtue by Lao-Tze.

We have been told that in every culture or age the Wisdom Teachings are re-expressed and presented in the thought, language structure and conventional symbols pertaining thereto. We have also learned that the form or pattern guiding and determining the presentation of the Wisdom Teaching in any given culture has been what might be termed the basic scientific thought of that culture. In other words, not only the presentation of the Wisdom Teaching, but the religions and the general mental outlook of informed individuals, the systems of thought and the philosophies of a culture have been determined by the scientific findings, determinations, and agreements of that culture. This, of course, can be and is designated as the philosophy of history, or philosophy of the development of society called social evolution. This, in turn, has resulted in the attitude toward nature held by the average perceiver of a given period.

A new age or culture is now (1941) forecast by a revolutionary change in the mental understanding of our leading scientists regarding nature. I call the new developments in science, and particularly in physics, the einsteinian age science. We also have new developments in linguistics and the structure of language, etc., called semantic science, which is of course based upon new discoveries in physics and provides us with an additional and up-to-date form of presentation of the Wisdom Teachings.

It is important that this point be noted: We are not pretending to teach einsteinian age science, nor are we pretending to teach general semantics, because we believe that the basic thought of these sciences does not represent nor express the ultimate Reality. These systems represent a definite advance in understanding and serve as a most important ‘next step’ in structure and expression, but do not represent the ultimate insight of the advanced perceiver. However, we do pretend to understand the einsteinian age science and also general semantics sufficiently to aid us in the modern and up-to-date presentation of the Wisdom Teachings. Therefore, this course of lessons will contain first, the developments of the einsteinian age science and of general semantics sufficient for our purposes; and second, the presentation of the Wisdom Teachings with the aid of the new orientation thus provided.

The important point to which I here direct your attention is that it is the Wisdom Teachings that we are desirous of presenting; and this in a manner more up-to-date, modern, acceptable, and understandable. I am of the opinion that the modern einsteinian age science, together with the science of general semantics, will enable us to arrive at a keener insight into the Wisdom Teachings, and to arrive with more immediacy than is possible with any presentation heretofore accessible.

In the old presentations there are many blockages to understanding—what we are learning to designate as semantic blockages imposed by the structure of the language used, and which we have been under the necessity of employing. With the removal of these blockages, understanding is facilitated and immeasurably enhanced.

As an aid to the groundwork of this course, I recommend the reading of the following books:

The Evolution of Physics by Albert Einstein and Leopold Infeld

The New Background of Science by Sir James Jeans

Science and Sanity by Count Alfred Korzybski

Man on His Nature by Sir Charles Sherrington

The Promise of Scientific Humanism by Oliver L. Relser

What is the teaching?

In brief, I would say that it is a new age presentation of the Wisdom Teachings. It is ‘new age’ because modern discoveries in physics, the modern einsteinian science, has been used as an approach to the developing of understanding on higher levels.

It begins with a description of the aristotelian orientation. The fundamental basis of aristotelianism is that the ‘objective world’, as it appears to our senses, is a reality, and that there is a creating power or animating spirit of this ‘objective world’ and of each and every apparently separated ‘thing’ contained therein. The major point in aristotelianism is identity—identity of word with ‘thing’, and the identity of the objective appearance with reality, which are both false to facts. The modern physicists have already destroyed any basis for such a belief in the reality of the objective world, and the science of general semantics has destroyed the identity of word with ‘thing’.

This course is presented in two divisions. One division is designed to overcome identity. This is a preparation for the understanding of the instruction regarding Reality proper. The second division deals with the study of Reality, and that, in turn, is divided into two phases—the study of Reality from the field basis, and the study of the same Reality from the basis of the Power-to-be-conscious and the various states in which it is conscious.

In the instruction, to help break identity, a diagram, and the manner in which it is used, is described and explained, so that not only identity may be surmounted, but the ability to consciously abstract is developed. The objective appearance is due to an image in the mind made substantive. Then we learn how we identify word with ‘thing’, and the confusion in the physiological and psychological organisms resulting therefrom.

The high point of the first phase of the instruction is in showing the orders of abstractions, and the names for these orders of abstractions. Then the most significant point of this phase is presented, namely, that due to the habit of identifying word with ‘thing’ and ‘thing’ with Reality, in the lower orders of abstractions we made a name or a word for a higher order of abstraction a ‘thing’. This is done by reifying or hypostatizing our ideas or notions regarding words— which words are nothing but symbols of higher orders of abstractions. When one has developed the ability to consciously abstract, he is well on his way, intellectually at least, toward breaking identity.

Then comes the instruction regarding Reality. It is first taken up on the non-aristotelian basis. To develop the factors of the non-aristotelian basis, contrast is constantly made with the aristotelian basis. This is done by showing the structure of the two, and contrasting one structure with the other structure.

For instance, we have a diagram of a tent with a tent pole to illustrate the aristotelian subject and predicate structure or form. The tent pole represents the subject, which shows the main point of identity, or aristotelianism, and the various props represent the predications about the subject. Then we contrast the diagram of the tent with a large circle having two poles, like magnets, with lines of force flowing between those poles, illustrating an electromagnetic field of force. The multiplicity of fields is described as that in which configurations or aggregations of units of energy are formed, which became the individualized energy systems.

Then the detailed explanation of how any given ‘this’ (pointing to an ‘object’)—is an aggregation of configurations of units of energy. These aggregations of units of energy are not isolated one from another, but are aggregations or configurations in a field, and the electromagnetic forces of which the field itself is composed, constitute connections between individual configurations of units of energy within the field. These connections are called relations which obtain between one configuration and another configuration in the field, or between the configurations of units of energy and the field. So, the non-aristotelian structure is revealed as dynamic, not static. To understand any one individual, you must understand the field to which he, or it, belongs.

In the study of non-aristotelianism, we have first the structure of the energy system, and second the function of the energy system as determined by structure. We have relationships between the energy systems within the field, in which the whole field plus its multiplicity of energy-systems, is called a dynamic process. This does not allow of any static manifestation; it does not allow of any identity with a static manifestation. Therefore, it can be seen that there could be no ‘animating force’, or ‘entity’, or ‘being’ developed as an other-than, simply because the field itself is dynamic, and is that (activity) by which Self as Reality is known.

This field, with its multiplicity of individualized energy systems, and the relationships obtaining therein, becomes the first basis from which Reality is studied. The second division of the study of Reality is taken up with the field, which is characterized by action, and which, in the final analysis, is shown as identical with the activity of the Self as its Self-awareness. This point is much amplified, and it is shown first that there can be no awareness without an act or activity of being aware, and second, that this activity and the field are one and the same. The energy systems will develop by the changing states of awareness, from the most simple form of energy system, which is the ‘atom’, to the most complex and heterogeneous system, which is labeled ‘man’. This point, in turn, has to be amplified by the elucidation of what we mean by the word ‘Self’, the axiomatic and self-evident fact that there is a Power-to-be-conscious implied before there can be any act or consciousness.

A description follows of the various states in which that power is conscious, by referring back to the energy field and showing that the energy systems now become representations of states in which the Power-to-be-conscious is conscious. It "creates" ‘photon’, ‘electron’, ‘atom’, ‘molecule’, ‘colloid’, ‘unicellular structure’, ‘organism’, ‘animal,’ ‘man’, ‘energy-system’, and ‘field’ as states of consciousness. It culminates in what is named the Planetary Logos, or the planet as a field representing a single unified state in which the Power-to-be-conscious is conscious.

At every stage of the instruction you will be so trained in not identifying word with ‘thing’ that you will consciously abstract when you give a word or name to energy systems or to states of consciousness, for, in order to communicate one with another, we have to use names and labels. So we know that these words ‘photon’, ‘electron’, ‘atom’, ‘molecule’, ‘colloid’, ‘cell’, etc., are not ‘things’; they are only abstractions, and are simply words used as symbols which we have given to abstractions. Therefore, we never fall into confusion by regarding these names as ‘things’. We are not talking about ‘things’ at all. We understand that that which is symbolized by these words is activity, a dynamic process, either as energy or as states of awareness.

After studying these lessons, you will see all ‘things’ as activity, supported by an energy field, and you will know that they are simply symbolical of a greater Power-to-be-conscious in the various states in which it is conscious.

What does this do to you? What ‘good’ is it?

No doubt, all of your life you have dealt with ‘things’ and ‘objects’ and ‘individuals’ but after taking this instruction, you will live in an energy world, where all lines of demarcation between ‘this world’ and the energy world are gone. You will learn to put energy under the control of your will, and to direct it to specific purposes—in constructive work. In ascertaining the design of the planetary field, to which you belong, you will function in the light of understanding, and cooperate with the planetary design.

We know that the intellectual understanding of this instruction is analogous to having a road map in our possession. The map is not the journey; but at least we have a road map which is true to the territory. In the old teachings we used to have a map which was false to the territory through which we were going to journey. And because we had false maps, we always got into confusion in the proposed journey to Reality. But now at last, we have a very clear map which is true to the territory. Therefore, by pursuing this map, we will arrive immediately and with far less confusion.

The world has been lead by ‘blind leaders of the blind’. If you have a clear map in your possession, you can go with confidence. With blockages revealed and understood and marked on your map, you cannot go into blind alleys of identity and confusion. Therefore, the map is invaluable. If we were seekers of buried treasure and had discovered an ancient map showing where gold was buried, we would guard that map well.

In completing this instruction, you will have a map to a treasure infinitely more valuable than gold—a map that leads to Invariant Reality.