OUR MANY SELVES-by ELIZABETH O'CONNOR

The author of this book is/was associated with THE CHURCH OF THE SAVIOUR in Washington,DC, and its unique coffee house called, THE POTTER'S HOUSE. I became personally acquainted with both back in the late 1960's when I was there and I also stayed or roomed and boarded briefly at a house they maintained. To stay there, you had to eat at least on meal with them a day.Eventually, they sold this house and I had to move. They also had a bookstore there and did a lot of work in that area which was in NW DC.

I became friends with many of the persons who stayed there. One lady worked for THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC SOCIETY, of which I was, at that time, A LIFE MEMBER and I used to spend a lot of time looking at the various exhibits as well as at the Smithsonian Institute. I only went a few times to the Coffee shop with a friend whom I met and also a member of the church for special reasons. He had been in the Navy and so on but I can't recall even his name now without consulting my diaries,journals and notes of that time. However, I did attend on church service if I recall and met the Minister whose name escapes me also.

I do not recall meeting the authoress of  this book but when I picked it up I decided to buy it and read it. I skimmed through it and only now have re-read it. For those in the FOURTH WAY,  it may prove a bit helpful in some ways. I have not read her other books.

In this book she tells of joining and 'working' with a group to read books on THE WORK and about Gurdjieff and Ouspensky, of whom she,like so many others, relied on and used the latter's IN SEARCH OF THE MIRACULOUS. I suspect this was the case because some of the other works had not been published or released at the time or were too expensive to obtain back then,etc, or if you did not know of their existence you might not search for them.

She tells us that she eventually left the work group and gives her reasons, some of which may not seem important enough to warrant giving up work with others along similar lines. I did not encounter any group devoted to the work at that time but met other groups of interest which I may or may not mention in other blogs or even this one.

I will comment on this book when I have more time to do so and mention the things that I feel or think may be useful in some ways. The authoress quotes from works that she has found useful and interesting and compatible with her views at the time of its publication.

The CHRISTIAN ORIENTATION will be obvious in this book but it is not strictly what might be 'traditional' or 'sectarian' in-so-far as being allied with the major groups and churches now more familiar to us, whether CATHOLIC OR PROSTESTANT and the political aspects of church operations and missions,whatever they might be or how they might be described.

However, there is some hint of 'ancient' & 'early' Christianity in the book but you have to find it and relate to the actual history of EARLY CHRISTIANITY AND/OR THE CHURCHES & GROUPS AT THAT TIME, namely the first and second centuries, or the TIME CHRIST WAS THERE.