More Work Talks

Beryl Pogson was a pupil of Dr. Maurice Nicoll for nineteen years and his secretary for fourteen years and was one of the small group who lived with him and Mrs. Nicoll at the houses where The Work was carried on: Tyeponds, Birdlip, Quaremead and Great Amwell House. Many of her writings have been published only privately for the benefit of her students and groups. Now for the first time much of her Teaching has been republished and is now more widely known. Beryl Pogson taught that the aim of all religion is to change man's level of Being and to teach him to live according to his own divinely ordained nature. Every religion has an inner teaching which is basically the same, through which man can seek to reach his highest destiny. This teaching is periodically renewed throughout the ages. Efforts are made to awaken man through the coming of great teachers, by the lives of holy men and women and the work of artists, writers, and musicians - many of whom have come under the influence of esoteric schools in all lands and at all periods up to the present day. Practical Work Teaching was always given. During the last ten years of her life she was taking as many as six Group meetings a week, and daily meetings during sessions at The Dicker, Sussex. These were quite informal lectures fol- lowed by questions, but quite often she would ask for a question at the beginning and a discussion would take its course from the question asked. She often made connections between The Work and sacred books, literature, plays and poetry as will be seen in these books. At the meeting there were members of her group who were from different backgrounds and different stages of The Work yet with a unity of purpose. Her Work teaching was based on The Psychological Commentaries on the Teachings of G.I. Gurdjieff and P.D. Ouspensky by Maurice Nicoll, and of course, from Gurdjieff's and Ouspensky's own writings.