The psychology of man's possible evolution - P.D. Ouspensky

The whole time I was reading this book, I couldn't ignore how commercial this book sounded. Especially towards the end when Ouspensky does an alleged interview with Mr.M. Ouspensky wanted to promote his school through his lectures, I see. But his approach reminded me of religious cult leaders.


Whilst Ouspensky has a lot of interesting insights to offer - especially regarding the incompleteness of man (nature develops man only to a certain point and then leaves him to develop further by his own efforts and devices), I found his views to be rather extreme, for instance when he says in the book "it's impossible to understand and not accept it at the same time, and thus man is incorrect when he says - I understand but I don't agree" Here, Ouspensky interpreted the idea of "I understand" in a way that demonstrates his lack of understanding in the function of language and communication.

"I understand" is a phrase that can contain various meanings.
1. I understand - where you are coming from, meaning that I understand the context of which your ideas are coming from.

2. I understand what you are saying, meaning that I'm understanding every word that is coming out of your mouth.


I also wish that Ouspensky elaborated on his theory of identification and consideration and the definition of negative emotions.

He distinguishes between pleasant and unpleasant emotions but fails to show the positive function of unpleasant emotions (senses) and how some of them should not be categorized as negative. And he also fails to show the accurate distinction between what is negative and what is positive. - even though he mentions that negativity = destructiveness, positivity = productiveness, but when explaining what is productive, destructive for man, he again falls into the abysm of vagueness and explains that we should achieve the consciousness by applying his school of thought into our life. (of course, this is no self-help, we have to actually get involved with his school and follow the rules) His idea that we can only tell what is positive and negative when we achieve the full consciousness(using HIS school of thought) is rather ambiguous and seems commercial even.

Rather than repeatedly (tediously) explaining the system of his school of thought and making himself sound like a con man(oops, sales man), Ouspensky should have explained his theories in a more concrete, scholaric manner.

I found "The psychology of man's possible evolution" to be exciting for Ouspenky's interesting and somewhat refreshing insights but not so reliable for its lack of analysis and his "subtle" and constant display of mercenary interest.


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Now I'm going to read Karen Horney's new ways in psychoanalysis. It's gotta be fun to have a surname like "horney".