Robin Amis: Ouspensky and Esoteric Christianity

Robin Amis (1932-2014), was involved with the original Soho Kabbalah Group, and like various other members he also joined the Study Society, which at that time was linked to the teachings of Ouspensky. In the mid-1960s he established “The Society of the Inner Life”, drawing on the teachings of Ouspensky, Non-Dualist Yoga, early Christianity and Qabalah.  In 1979, he had his first encounter with the Orthodox Church, and converted to Eastern Orthodoxy in 1983; he became a frequent visitor to Mount Athos. During the succeeding years, he worked on his own teaching system of ‘Hesychasm’, or contemplative prayer, and founded the Praxis Research Institute, which continues its work today. 

​With the Soho Cabbalists
Robin and his first wife Julia were members of the early Soho Cabbalists group. He describes his experience of Post-War London in the preface to his book Views from Mount Athos: [1]

“The world-war was over. Whole areas of London lay in ruins, and the city was still almost war-dark at night, and almost empty of people, the returned combatants still wanting only to stay home with their families. A few people came and went. In parts of the empty city-center that were almost unmarked by war, some thirty or more young men and women gathered in the evenings and began questioning. They had missed going to university because they were not properly prepared, their families were bankrupted by two wars, and the soldiers had first-call on university places.”

“They began not by questioning a ruined society, but by questioning-themselves, not by drinking alcohol, but in the coffee-bars that were beginning to spring up in the city: the Nucleus, Bunjies. and small, cheap restaurants. They formed plans for their seedling-lives, for which no seed-bed had been prepared. Each tested this and that occupation, until in time they discovered something they could do that was useful, and which earned a couple-of-pounds a week which would pay tube-fares and buy a cheap meal. They were, by accident, non-specialists in a world forced into specialization by two wars in less than half-a-century. They asked the questions of non-specialists, but without tutors, discussion-groups organized by their elders, or any of the elaborate education facilities that non-specialists of the previous or later decades received.”

The idea of non-specialists versus specialization became an important theme for Robin:

“Corporations, authorities, associations: all the enormous organizations of which our society is composed is formed of specialists. The narrower their specialization, the more it makes them psychologically dependent, not only for abilities not developed in themselves but for satisfactions so often lacking in their lives. It is this mismatch between their lives and their inner needs that frequently leads to alienation.” [2]

The coffee bars that Robin describes began to open in London in the mid to late 1950s, and this is where the first Soho Cabbala group started in 1957.

Robin was about the same age as the other Soho Cabbalists, but his background was somewhat different. He had been educated at St Bees, a public school in the Lake District, and after school he began working in the electronics industry, leading on to a career in advertising copywriting. Compared to some other group members, he had established a firm footing in the world. Alan Bain, by contrast, mostly earned his living in this period by playing the piano accordion in the streets of London. Robin was well-known to other early group members who we’ve interviewed, and was the catalyst for at least one of them to enter the group: Eddie Prevost (jazz drummer, independent Cabbalist and a close friend of Glyn Davies) worked in the same advertising agency, and cites Robin as his first connection to ‘the Work’.

Robin Amis and Alan Bain
Despite Robin's different background, his quest was real and it seems that like many others, he formed a special bond with Alan. When Alan moved to Bristol in 1963, Robin followed him, and they carried on with Kabbalistic group work. 

Robin Amis horoscope by Alan Bain. Based on the 6.30 am estimate of birth time, the ascendant of the horoscope is around 11 degrees of Cancer.

When my colleague Cherry Gilchrist interviewed Robin in 2014 he told her how sometimes: “Things happened in Alan’s presence: changes in atmosphere, and rooms visibly illuminated by changes of colour.” Robin implied that these experiences were very powerful, and said later that he had had experiences of compassion and love in this context. He said that he had had one of his most powerful experiences ever in Alan’s group.
 
Experience of Light
At their meeting Robin gave Cherry a typescript describing key experiences which stood out in his life and had become the ‘cornerstones’ for his philosophy and way of life. I’ve included one of these below, although I don’t know if it occurred in the context of the Soho Cabbalists [3]:

“There are times in life when it can come to a man to sink right inside himself, down below the turbulence of thought, the ebb and flow of life's streams and currents. Below sensation and beyond understanding, down into a silent inner darkness which seems to have no bounds. If then this process continues, as it has done to me, there can happen that a gleam of light is perceived.
​
Suddenly, as if a sun had risen, the source of this light appears, represented in this empty mind-stuff or whatever it is by a pearly white sphere of light whose radiations pass through every part of the body, so that every cell shouts for joy - or so it seems. This piercing light of happiness makes every pleasure, every everyday joy seem empty by comparisons. This, it seems, is bliss.”

Robin was also a poet, and the ending of one of his poems, The Return of the Mysteries may be relevant here:

“I have seen the warmth of a voice
Tease away wrinkles from an old face
And a warehouse off Old Street
Filled with an uncreated light,
And ordinary men happy
To stand an hour, still, in silence.
And in an old house in Stepney
A young man laughed as he died
And planted seeds of hope
In three tired hearts.
                             Knock, knock, knock.” [4]

Robin and the Study Society
Like other Soho Cabbalists, Robin was also a member of the Study Society, and he continued his connection with them for many years.

The Study Society, originally “The Society for the Study of Normal Psychology” was founded in 1951 by Dr. Francis C. Roles, a pupil of Ouspensky, to carry on Ouspensky’s teaching of Gurdjieff’s fourth way tradition.

A few years later Leon MacLaren of the School of Economic Science (SES) came across the Study Society and adapted their teachings as part of the SES training courses. From the mid-forties to the mid-sixties the two organisations worked together quite closely, and some of the Soho Cabbalists belonged to each organisation at various times. Leon Maclaren’s personal assistant Dorine Tolley has an interesting observation on the two organisations: 

“Whereas the Study Society was drawn from the middle and upper-middle, professional classes, the students of the SES came from the street and few had received higher education. Most of them had gone from school to work. As well as the search for Truth, within and without, the School also developed mind and culture. It was like a university. People’s potential was developed, talents found and tested. Those in authority acquired confidence and polish. Humble secretaries tutored, while barristers washed the floors.” [5]

Between 1964 and 1982 Robin founded and ran several groups from London to the West of England and South Wales. Some of these groups have survived as the West of England part of the Study Society. [6]
​
There’s an advert published in 1970 which must have been from Robin:

“The Society of the Inner Life

Was founded spontaneously in 1966. Theoretical instruction and practical work is provided for the development of individual potential under present-day conditions in everyday life. The Society draws on many sources, and has close connections with a number of genuine traditions. Particular emphasis is laid on the teachings of OUSPENSKY, NON-DUALIST YOGA, EARLY CHRISTIANITY, and EARLY QABALAH. Groups in London, Birmingham, and Bristol. The Society is open to seekers who sincerely wish self-knowledge and inner growth. - 'Men of the Tao lose every day'.
​
Robin Amis Esq., 28 Castlebar Road, Ealing, London W.5” [7]

The quote at the end is from Verse 48 of the Tao Te Ching, more helpfully translated as:
In the pursuit of learning, every day something is acquired.
In the pursuit of Tao, every day something is dropped.

Robin and his first wife separated in the late 1960s and he met and married American artist Lillian Delevoryas in 1972. Together they opened Weatherall Workshops in the Forest of Dean, producing high quality wall hangings, often employing a large number of people on short courses and applying Fourth Way principles and practices of self-remembering and working with attention. The project ran till 1979.

The Study Society and Advaita
Shortly before Ouspensky had died in 1947, he had sensed something missing in Gurdjieff’s system, and had instructed Dr Roles to seek the source of the teaching. In the 1960s, Dr Roles came across what he saw as the missing practice, in the Indian Advaita tradition.

In the early 1960s, the Study Society and SES hosted Maharishi Mahesh Yogi in London, adopting his Transcendental Meditation (TM) practice. Roles saw the TM technique, and more generally the Indian Advaita tradition, as the missing part of the Gurdjieff/Ouspensky tradition.
​
As the influence of Indian philosophy grew within the study society, Robin thought that something was lacking in the progress of students. Suspecting that the teaching of the heart which was being provided was insufficient, he decided to investigate an alternative approach: that Gurdjieff’s teaching was Esoteric Christianity. After all, Gurdjieff himself had said this, as quoted by Ouspensky: 

“What is the relation of the teaching you are expounding to Christianity as we know it?” asked somebody present.
​
“I do not know what you know about Christianity,” answered G., emphasizing this word. “It would be necessary to talk a great deal and to talk for a long time in order to make clear what you understand by this term. But for the benefit of those who know already, I will say that, if you like, this is esoteric Christianity. We will talk in due course about the meaning of these words.”[8]

The monastery of Osiou Gregoriou, on the West-coast of Mount Athos - one of Robin’s main sources for recovering forgotten knowledge. Photo from Wikimedia.

Mount Athos
Robin was unable to make any satisfactory contact among Gurdjieff circles, but then certain coincidences led him to the monasteries of Mount Athos in 1982. There he met Gerald Palmer, a former student of Ouspensky who had converted to Orthodoxy in 1950, and was involved in translating the Philokalia, the compendium of teachings of the Church Fathers of the Eastern Orthodox Church.

As a result of this meeting, in 1985 Robin set up the Praxis Research Institute to begin the task of making this Christian Inner Tradition available to the West. For his research into the teachings of the Holy Mountain, Robin received in 1985 the rare designation of ‘Synergatis’ (fellow worker, and equal to the monks), and was given a document providing “free access, both coming in and going out of the Holy Mountain."

In 1986 Robin came across Boris Mouravieff’s “Gnosis: Study and Commentaries on the Esoteric Tradition of Eastern Orthodoxy” and arranged for it to become available in English as the three volume “Gnosis”. Mouravieff was a friend of P D Ouspensky, and had researched the esoteric tradition of Eastern Orthodoxy. The publication of Gnosis aroused controversy in some Gurdjieff circles who disputed the claim made by Mouravieff and Amis that linked the origin of Gurdjieff's material and teaching to Eastern Orthodoxy.

A Different Christianity
In 1995 Robin published his book A Different Christianity, presenting “The Forgotten Christian Inner Tradition” for use by contemporary Christians and seekers after truth. He summarises some results of his research [9] (and I paraphrase): 

1. The spiritual transformation of man requires as a preliminary condition the liberation of the mind from the activities which normally obscure it.
2. Methods described by the Early Fathers have the capacity to liberate the mind without requiring massive changes in our way of life. These changes then follow rather than precede the change in the mind.
3. The effective use of the method allows us to face reality and so overcome emotional delusions.
4. What Ouspensky saw as being missing from Gurdjieff’s teaching exists in the form of the Prayer of the Heart used in the inner tradition of Eastern Orthodoxy.
5. The Prayer of the Heart and the method combine to form an effective discipline of inner growth.

The books ends: 

“This book, then, is a detailed study of a single Christian inner tradition in several different forms: in its written forms, some of them nearly two millennia old, and including the Gospels themselves; in its direct modern form that survives in the monasticism of the Eastern church; and in perhaps less complete modern forms, as a lay teaching that in the recent past has taken on different terminology at different times.

Accepting that these modern forms are incomplete, the book has also explored what elements in early texts or monastic practice would be needed to restore something like the original form of this tradition, and what there was in the psychology of the Fourth Way forms not otherwise available to the West, which might serve as essential replacements for knowledge that has been lost, if ever there is to be a reawakening of spirituality in the Western world.”

Views from Mount Athos
​Shortly before he died in 2014, Robin’s book, Views from Mount Athos, was published by Praxis:

 “Illustrated throughout the text by color photographs, Amis' account of his first visit to Orthodox Christianity's Holy Mountain - the 'Garden of the Mother of God' - is punctuated by his meditations on the experience of being in the presence of so much holiness.  It is also informed by his many subsequent visits to Athos.
​
This may be Amis' 'latest' book, but it is also his first.  The manuscript lay forgotten for twenty or more years while he developed his understanding of spiritual life for lay people in the modern world.” 

Order from Praxis Publications

Rod Thorn

​Sources of further information:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robin_Amis
https://www.praxisresearch.net/

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Notes:
[1] Robin Amis, Views from Mount Athos, (Praxis Research Institute, 2014)

[2] Robin Amis, A Different Christianity, (SUNY Press, 1995) p.338.

[3] It is not clear if and where these experiences were published by Robin. Two other experiences were included: that of compassion arising during a walk in Regent Street, and an experience of inner fire rising through the body after a day spent with a single purpose (the latter is retold in A Different Christianity on page 45).

[4] Poems by Robin Amis, Who Writes the Waves, (Agora Books, 1992), “The Return of the Mysteries” was written in London in 1970.

[5] Dorine Tolley, The Power Within: Leon MacLaren, A Memoir of His Life and Work, (Booksurge Publishing, 2009) p. 165.

[6] Robin Amis’s presentation at the 1996 All and Everything Conference. "PROCEEDINGS 1996 | All & Everything International Humanities Conference". Aandeconference.org.

[7] The Aquarian Guide to Occult, Mystical, Religious, Magical London & Around, Francoise Strachan, Ed., (Aquarian Press, 1970) 

[8] P D Ouspensky, In Search of the Miraculous (Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, 1977), p.102.

[9] Robin Amis, A Different Christianity, (SUNY Press, 1995) paraphrased from p.348.




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