Initiation and initiative : an exploration of the life and ideas of Dimitrije Mitrinović

Chapter 5

THE ADLER SOCIETY

In the early 1920s psychoanalysis made its first impact on British intellectual circles. Orage and his associates around The New Age were amongst the first to acclaim the discoyeries of Freud. Orage described this new psychology as “the hopeful science of the dawning era,” acclaiming it as the new form of “the gnosis of man,” the only sure basis for morality.!

Under his initiative a group was formed to discuss the relevance of this new body of knowledge to religion and morality. The group included Rowland Kenney, Dr. E. M. Eder an associate of Freud’s, Dr. Maurice Nicholl an associate of Jung’s, and Mitrinoyi¢. According to Mairet this group had, by the autumn of 1921, arrived at something of an impasse. They had failed to develop much further than gazing into the abyss of the unconscious and had been unable to develop a new morality, a new religion, a new guide for their life and studies. In October 1921 Orage discussed with members of the group the idea of forming a new group in association with P. D. Ouspensky who had just arrived in London from Constantinople. Ouspensky had met Orage in London in 1914 and had returned to renew their acquaintance after spending some years of intensive study and training with Gurdjieff. He came armed with a proposal to set up a school in London to teach the Gurdjieff system.

The new group was immediately convened and met at Lady Rothermere’s studio in St. John’s Wood. According to Orage “Ouspensky had found what I was looking for,”? but Mitrinovic was unimpressed by the Russian and soon ceased to attend. A fortnight after Ouspensky’s arrival in London Mitrinovié’s last and shortest article in the pages of The New Age was published. Then, in February 1922 Gurdjieff visited London. Shortly afterwards Orage resigned from the editorship of the weekly and left for France where he joined Gurdjieff recently founded Institute for the Harmonious Development of Man at the Chateau du Prieuré near Fountainbleau. He

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