Part of the Casswiki article series Fourth Way and Psychology
Idiot:
L’Idiot
Main Entry: id·i·ot
Pronunciation: ɪd.iː.ət
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English, from Anglo-French idiote, from Latin idiota, ignorant person, from Greek ἰδιώτης, one in a private station, layman, ignorant person, from idios one’s own, private; akin to Latin suus one’s own.
- usually offensive : a person affected with idiocy
- a foolish or stupid person
Fyodor Dostoyevsky wrote the famous novel The Idiot:
The basis of the novel is that Myshkin is not bright, has not had much education, and traverses society with a mentality of simplistic innocence. When speaking his opinion, he struggles to articulate himself with Charlie Brown-like stammering and wishy-washiness. For this reason, people consider him an idiot, but he is a good, honest, sympathetic, and gracious person.
But the term “idiot” has also its esoteric meaning as used by George Gurdjieff; from William Patrick Patterson’s Struggle of the Magicians, p. 153-154:
Gurdjieff sits on the terrace of the Café Henri IV drinking coffee and cognac and working on a translation of All and Everything when the writer Thornton Wilder is introduced to him. Gurdjieff grunts and motions him to sit down and have a coffee and cognac. Asking Wilder a number of questions, he laughs inordinately at every reply.
Wilder is not put off. He sees in Gurdjieff’s face someone who is “at once sly and jovial, arrogant and clownish.” He looked, says Wilder, “like a very intelligent Armenian rug-dealer.”
Gurdjieff orders more coffee and cognac and tells Wilder, “In the world, everybody idiot. Twenty-one kinds of idiot: simple idiot, ambitious idiot, compassionate idiot, objective idiot, subjective idiot-everybody one kind of idiot.”
Wilder tells him he thinks he is a subjective idiot.
”Non,” answers Gurdjieff, laughing uproariously. “Il ne faut pas aller trop vite. Il faut chercher.-Mais vous êtes idiot type vingt: vous êtes idiot sans espoir!” (No. One mustn’t go too fast. One must search.-But you are idiot type twenty: you are idiot without hope.).
Wilder is not offended and Gurdjieff asks him to come to dinner at the Prieuré. Says Wilder: “I had begun to like him, and his eyes rested on me affectionately.”
Gurdjieff holds his glass toward Wilder and says-barely able to speak for laughter: “I idiot, too. Everybody idiot. I idiot vingt-et-un (twentyone). I”—Gurdjieff holds his forefinger emphatically pointed skyward — “I the unique idiot.” And he breaks into convulsions of laughter.