The key to Gurdjieff's Theosis: Remorse of Conscience, the Holy Spirit and Aiëssirittoorassnian-contemplation

In Beelzebub’s Tales to His Grandson (Penguin/Arkana: see reference text below, after the article), Gurdjieff outlines a spiritual cosmology and anthropology whose theological sophistication rivals that of the patristic Fathers. Nowhere is this more evident than in his vision of theosis—divinization—not as static mystical union, but as dynamic participation in the cosmic processes of reconciliation.

Central to this vision are three esoteric but intimately linked elements:

1. the action of the Word-God (Theomertmalogos) as the force of the Holy Reconciling (Holy Spirit or Holy Ghost);

2. the actualization of objective conscience through remorse; and

3. the path of contemplative transformation.

Gurdjieff’s doctrine of theosis hinges on the spiritual action of remorse of conscience (the “Sacred Aieioiuoa”), the ontological function of conscience as the representative of the Creator, and the contemplative pathway of Aiëssirittoorassnian-contemplation fed by the Sacred Aiësakhaldan, all of which emerge as extensions of the divine Emanation known as Theomertmalogos—the “Word-God.” These terms, unified by the sacred prefix Aie-, trace a soteriological pathway grounded in Trinitarian cosmology and culminate in the conscious crystallization of higher being-bodies—true theosis.

The Word-God (Theomertmalogos) as the Holy Reconciling, the Holy Spirit

Gurdjieff asserts that the creation of the universe proceeds not directly by the continual will of God, but through the automatic processes of two transformed primordial laws—the Sacred Heptaparaparshinokh (Law of Seven) and Triamazikamno (Law of Three)—set into motion by the initial divine act (Beelzebub, pp. 756–758). From this transformation arises Theomertmalogos, the Emanation-of-the-Sun-Absolute, also called the Word-God, which thereafter serves as the third force—the Holy Reconciling—within the triadic law of Triamazikamno.

“The Most Most Holy Theomertmalogos began to manifest itself in the quality of the third holy force of the sacred Triamazikamno…” (p. 758)

This Word-God is not a metaphorical logos; it is the substantial energetic emanation by which reconciliation is universally enacted. Like the Johannine Logos or the Stoic logos spermatikos, Gurdjieff’s Theomertmalogos permeates all creation. But it also incarnates a functional theology: the Word-God generates the possibility of interior reconciliation within man as a microcosmic participant in cosmic reconciliation.

Remorse of Conscience, the Sacred Aieioiuoa

The interiorization of the reconciling Word occurs through the “Sacred Aieioiuoa,” a cosmic law operative wherever beings come into contact with divine emanations. This law instantiates remorse—a psychosomatic and spiritual response to the encounter between the parts of being derived from different triadic forces (Beelzebub, pp. 140–141).

“A process when every part that has arisen from the results of any one Holy Source... ‘revolts’ and ‘criticizes’... another part of its whole.” (p. 140)

Here, remorse is not simply regret. It is a spiritual dissonance—a functional sorrow that awakens the possibility of repentance, self-transformation, and interior reconciliation. It is precisely this remorse of conscience that Gurdjieff identifies as the pivotal movement of awakening: an organic, soul-producing energy that arises when the lower self is held accountable by the higher.

This is the secret of theosis by repentance: the process whereby the fragmented self, under the influence of Theomertmalogos, becomes re-ordered around a higher divine principle—conscience.

Objective Conscience as the Representative of the Creator

Gurdjieff speaks of conscience as objective—not a mere social construct or psychic habit, but a divinely sourced presence rooted in the Creator’s own sorrow. Conscience emerges from “particles of the emanations-of-the-sorrow of our OMNI-LOVING AND LONG-SUFFERING-ENDLESS-CREATOR” and is, therefore, a direct “Representative of the Creator” (pp. 371–373).

“‘In consequence of this, every three-centered being... must, owing to the presence in us also of the factors for engendering the Divine impulse of “Objective Conscience,” always inevitably struggle with the arising and the proceeding within our common presences of two quite opposite functionings giving results always sensed by us either as “desires” or as “nondesires."' (p. 372)

This conscience is awakened and actualized through suffering—specifically the conscious suffering of remorse. It is not passive but participatory. The individual who “assists the ‘nondesires’ to predominate over the 'desires'” acts analogously to the Creator, and thus participates in divine reconciliation—"...whereas he who with his consciousness assists the contrary, only increases HIS sorrow."

This is where Gurdjieff resonants with the Christian understanding of the Cross: to align with the sorrow of the Creator is to begin to bear that sorrow consciously, willingly, reconcilingly—this is the path of theosis.

The Path of Aiëssirittoorassnian-Contemplation and Aiësakhaldan

Gurdjieff offers a spiritual practice—Aiëssirittoorassnian-contemplation—as the means by which sacred substances are assimilated for the formation of the soul (Beelzebub, pp. 569–570). This contemplation, which requires a previously prepared and “cognized intention” from all inner faculties (Being-integration of thinking, feeling, sensation, instinct), is nourished by the Scared Aiësakhaldan, the "blood" of the higher part of the soul.

“The sacred cosmic substances... can be assimilated and correspondingly transformed and coated in them... exclusively only from the process of what is called ‘Aiëssirittoorassnian-contemplation.’” (p. 570)

Here the “Aie-” prefix again reappears, unifying the Sacred Aieioiuoa, Aiësakhaldan, and Aiëssirittoorassnian. Linguistically and spiritually, the prefix signals a divine source—a heavenly vibration, an aetheric thread tying together remorse, soul substance, and contemplation.

This triad suggests an esoteric theology of sacraments:

• Aieioiuoa is the inner baptism by remorse of conscience.

• Aiësakhaldan is the communion substance by the blood of the Soul.

• Aiëssirittoorassnian is the liturgy of the soul actualized through conscious participation.

Theosis as Trinitarian Participation

Gurdjieff’s system is often misconstrued as psychological or quasi-mystical, but at its core lies a rigorous spiritual anthropology founded in Trinitarian metaphysics. Theosis, in this schema, is not union without differentiation, but reconciliation through participation in the cosmic working of the Word-God. This reconciliation is initiated by remorse of conscience, matured through objective suffering, and completed through prolonged intentional contemplation.

The repeated invocation of the sacred prefix “Aie-” across these terms reveals a hidden grammar of divinization: a single current running through remorse, conscience, and contemplation—a Trinitarian energy expressing itself in human subjectivity.

Gurdjieff’s Word-God is not abstract. It seeks embodiment. And in remorse, we hear its voice.

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Excerpts from Beelzebub’s Tales to His Grandson (Penguin/Arkana)

Pages 140-141

“As regards the second peculiarity of the ‘Omnipresent-Okidanokh,’ equally proper to it alone, and which it is also necessary for us to elucidate just now for the given theme of our talk, you will be able to understand about that, only if you know something concerning one fundamental cosmic second-degree law, existing in the Universe, under the denomination of the ‘Sacred Aieioiuoa.’

“And this cosmic law is, that there proceeds within every arising large and small, when in direct touch with the emanations either of the Sun Absolute itself or of any other sun, what is called ‘Remorse,’ that is, a process when every part that has arisen from the results of any one Holy Source of the Sacred Triamazikamno, as it were, ‘revolts’ and ‘criticizes’ the former unbecoming perceptions and the manifestations at the moment of another part of its whole—a part obtained from the results of another Holy Source of the same fundamental sacred Cosmic Law of Triamazikamno.

Pages 371-373

“Well, then, it was to those same Great Initiates who were first set apart that the Very Saintly Ashiata Shiemash, now already the Most Very Saintly, then among other things also elucidated in detail what this being-impulse ‘objective conscience’ is, and how factors arise for its manifestation in the presences of the three-brained beings.

“And concerning this he once said as follows:

“‘The factors for the being-impulse conscience arise in the presences of the three-brained beings from the localization of the particles of the “emanations-of-the-sorrow” of our OMNI-LOVING AND LONG-SUFFERING-ENDLESS-CREATOR; that is why the source of the manifestation of genuine conscience in three-centered beings is sometimes called the REPRESENTATIVE OF THE CREATOR.

“‘And this sorrow is formed in our ALL-MAINTAINING COMMON FATHER from the struggle constantly proceeding in the Universe between joy and sorrow.’

“And he then also further said:

“‘In all three-brained beings of the whole of our Universe without exception, among whom are also we men, owing to the data crystallized in our common presences for engendering in us the Divine impulse of conscience, “the-whole-of-us” and the whole of our essence, are, and must be, already in our foundation, only suffering.

“‘And they must be suffering, because the completed actualizing of the manifestation of such a being-impulse in us can proceed only from the constant struggle of two quite opposite what are called “complexes-of-the-functioning” of those two sources which are of quite opposite origin, namely, between the processes of the functioning of our planetary body itself and the parallel functionings arising progressively from the coating and perfecting of our higher being-bodies within this planetary body of ours, which functionings in their totality actualize every kind of Reason in the three-centered beings.

“‘In consequence of this, every three-centered being of our Great Universe, and also we men existing on the Earth, must, owing to the presence in us also of the factors for engendering the Divine impulse of “Objective Conscience,” always inevitably struggle with the arising and the proceeding within our common presences of two quite opposite functionings giving results always sensed by us either as “desires” or as “nondesires.”

“‘And so, only he, who consciously assists the process of this inner struggle and consciously assists the “nondesires” to predominate over the desires, behaves just in accordance with the essence of our COMMON FATHER CREATOR HIMSELF; whereas he who with his consciousness assists the contrary, only increases HIS sorrow.’

Pages 569-70

“Finally, that part of the being-blood which almost everywhere is called the sacred being-Hanbledzoïn, and only on certain planets is called the ‘sacred Aiësakhaldan,’ and which part serves the highest part of the being called the soul, is formed from the direct emanations of our Most Holy Sun Absolute.

“And the sacred cosmic substances required for the coating of the highest being-body, which sacred being-part of theirs, as I have already told you, they call soul, can be assimilated and correspondingly transformed and coated in them, just as in us, exclusively only from the process of what is called ‘Aiëssirittoorassnian-contemplation’ actualized in the common presence by the cognized intention on the part of all their spiritualized independent parts.

Pages 756-758

“And so, my dear boy, our COMMON FATHER CREATOR ALMIGHTY, having then in the beginning changed the functioning of both these primordial sacred laws, directed the action of their forces from within the Most Holy Sun Absolute into the space of the Universe, whereupon there was obtained the what is called ‘Emanation-of-the-Sun-Absolute’ and now called, ‘Theomertmalogos’ or ‘Word-God.’

“For the clarity of certain of my future explanations it must here be remarked that, in the process of the creation of the now existing World, the Divine ‘Will Power’ of our ENDLESSNESS participated only at the beginning.

“The subsequent creation went on automatically, of its own accord, entirely without the participation of His Own Divine Will Power, thanks only to these two changed fundamental primordial cosmic laws.

“And the process itself of creation proceeded then in the following successiveness:

“Thanks to the new particularity of the fifth Stopinder of the sacred Heptaparaparshinokh, these emanations issuing from the Sun Absolute began to act at certain definite points of the space of the Universe upon the prime-source cosmic substance Etherokrilno from which, owing to the totality of the former and the new particularities of the sacred primordial laws, certain definite concentrations began to be concentrated.

“Further, thanks to these factors and also to their own laws of Heptaparaparshinokh and Triamazikamno which had already begun to arise in these definite concentrations with their action upon each other, everything which had to be gradually began to be crystallized in these concentrations, and as a result of all this, those large concentrations were obtained which exist also until now and which we now call ‘Second-order-Suns.’

“When these newly arisen Suns had been completely actualized and their own functionings of both the fundamental laws had been finally established in them, then in them also, similarly to the Most Most Holy Sun Absolute, their own results began to be transformed and to be radiated, which, together with the emanations issuing from the Most Most Holy Sun Absolute into the space of the Universe, became the factors for the actualization of the common-cosmic fundamental process of the sacred law of Triamazikamno, and that is to say:

“The Most Most Holy Theomertmalogos began to manifest itself in the quality of the third holy force of the sacred Triamazikamno; the results of any one of the newly arisen Second-order-Suns began to serve as the first holy force; and the results of all the other newly arisen Second-order-Suns in relation to this mentioned one newly arisen Sun, as the second holy force of this sacred law.

“Thanks to the process of the common-cosmic sacred Triamazikamno thus established in the space of the Universe, crystallizations of different what is called ‘density’ gradually began to be formed around each of the Second-order-Suns out of that same prime-source Etherokrilno, and grouping themselves around these newly arisen Suns, new concentrations began to take form, as a result of which more new Suns were obtained, but this time ‘Third-order-Suns.’

“These third-order concentrations are just those cosmic concentrations which at the present time are called planets.