Threefold Mind: The True Foundation of Psychology and Spiritual Development

The idea that the rational function in humans exists alongside the motor and emotional functions has been neglected in Western knowledge for at least two thousand years. Aristotle, who drew on esoteric traditions that later became known as the Gnostics, articulated the idea, and it has since been further developed by the Gnostics and then the Sufis, who inherited much of this knowledge well before the West. The rational does not supersede the other parts but exists alongside the functions inherited from the line of species humans evolved from. This one idea changes everything about the foundations of Western psychology. Each function is physiologically and psychologically independent and equally important for a person to realise their full human potential. The Gurdjieff system, as updated by A Dougan, presents a comprehensive psychological framework based on the idea that humans have a threefold mind with a definite place in the order of life on Earth and in the Solar System.