J.H.Reyner was a well-known electrical engineer, managing director of a firm of scientific-instrument makers, and the author of a number of standard text-books. In 1938 he met Dr Maurice Nicoll and he studied 15 years with him. He said of this contact: "Dr Nicoll, with great patience, showed me the much greater delight of thinking in new directions. He constantly emphasised to those of us who knew him the need to see more connections in what is pre-eminently a universe of relationships, and many of the ideas in my books are the result of his inspiration." J.H.Reyner wrote
in the introduction of the 1980 edition: "It is all too evident that
mankind has lost its way in a miasma of strife and discord; but there
is a way out if man's consciousness can be placed in something higher
than himself. How this can be achieved is the theme of the now well-known
philosophy of G.I.Gurdjieff who maintained that man's behaviour is not
conscious but can become so if he can discard the shackles of habitual
associations. |