OUSPENSKY’S LAST DAYS

November 16, 2023 Mike Zonta Leave a comment

In the summer of 1947, Ouspensky retires to Lyne Place with a small circle of followers, embarking on a series of excursions to landmarks of significance during his life in England, with the apparent aim to retrace and reconstruct his memory of all of the episodes to which they were connected. Those who join Ouspensky on these trips view it in the air of an expedition which requires that they continually work to string together meaning by his enigmatic clues and hints in order to navigate.

[OUSPENSKY] What is this place?

[MISS P] Lyne Place.

[OUSPENSKY] What is it connected with?

[MISS P] It is connected with everything.

[OUSPENSKY] That’s it – exactly. ^xiii

By September 4, 1947, much preparation is underway on both sides of the Atlantic for Ouspensky’s return to America, with his people at Lyne Place arranging for his departure while those at Franklyn Farms make ready for his arrival. Yet at the very point of boarding the ship, Ouspensky cancels the whole voyage and requests to return to Lyne Place, a decision that immediately reveals itself to have been his plan all along.

[OUSPENSKY] You know I never intended to go to America – not for a minute.xiii

This sudden reversal of plans makes room for a sequence of extraordinary and strange events in which Ouspensky’s companions accustom themselves to meet with near unconditional acceptance, no matter how unusual the request or unreasonable the demand. He compels the household to break all routines, blurring day with night, continuing the scavenger hunt throughout England as he demonstrates an astonishing command of will over his frail and severely weakened state.

[OUSPENSKY] Do you understand that everything can only be done by effort, or do you think that things can happen right? ^xiii

[STUDENT] How do I find real “I”?
[OUSPENSKY] By making demands on oneself. I show you the way. ^xiii

Those among his inner circle account of continual supernatural phenomena taking place amid these last days. They ascribe to Ouspensky the faculty to orchestrate people and events by means of telepathy, how he is able to induce special conditions and scenarios as if directing and producing a theatrical performance with his own conscious death as the central plot, and by which each of his peers, through the part they play, is instructed on the future of their own personal work.

[OUSPENSKY] This is not a dress rehearsal. This is not miracle. This is preparation for preparation for a miracle.xiii

Ouspensky dies on October 2, 1947 in Lyne Place, with those with him at the end left with the steadfast conviction that he continued onwards, in the spirit of his lifelong adherence to the Theory of Recurrence, to find himself returned once again a newborn infant in Moscow on March 5, 1878. The conscious design of this final period serves as a testament to his embodiment of the teaching to which he dedicated his life.

[OUSPENSKY] Think about death. You do not know how much time remains to you. And remember that if you do not become different, everything will be repeated again, all foolish blunders, all silly mistakes, all loss of time and opportunity — everything will be repeated with the exception of the chance you had this time, because chance never comes in the same form.^xiv

SOURCES

Psychological Commentaries by Maurice Nicoll
Conversation of Ouspensky with Gerald Palmer (1946)
Autobiographical Note
In Search of the Miraculous by Peter Deminaovich Ouspensky
P. D. Ouspensky Memorial Collection, Sterling Memorial Library, Yale University
A Further Record by Peter Deminaovich Ouspensky
Witness by John Godolphin Bennett
Fragments of an Unknown Teaching (1926 manuscript) by Peter Deminaovich Ouspensky
The Constitution, Objects, and Organization of the Historico-Psychological Society
February 24th, 1947, Colet Gardens
May 21st, 1947, Colet Gardens
The Theory of Celestial Influence by Rodney Collin
Last Remembrances of a Magician by Rodney Collin and Francis Roles
Conscience: The Search for Truth by Peter Deminaovich Ouspensky