The Teachers of Gurdjieff

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The Teachers of Gurdjieff (ISBN 0-87728-213-7) is a book by Rafael Lefort that purports to describe a journey to the middle east and central asia in search of the sources of Gurdjieff's teaching, and culminates in the author's own spiritual awakening, by meeting and "opening" to the teachings of the Naqshbandi Sufis.

The book is considered by many to be a product of the Sufi school associated with Idries Shah and his brother Omar Ali-Shah. The Gurdjieff biographer James Moore stated that the name Rafael Lefort probably was a pseudonym, and a "botched anagram" of "A Real Effort"; he described the book as a "distasteful fabrication" and a "chronological absurdity".^[1]

Various authors have been suggested for the book, including both Shah brothers. The book first appeared in 1966 from the British publishing house Victor Gollancz. A second edition was published in 1998 by Malor Books under the editorial directorship of Robert Ornstein, a prominent American associate of Idries Shah. A Spanish version has been published by Alif Publishing Corp., which publishes many of Omar Ali-Shah's works, and a Portuguese one by Edições Dervish.

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• The Way of the Sufi Idries Shah (1968) ISBN 0-14-019252-2
• The People of the Secret Ernest Scott (1983) ISBN 0-86304-038-1
• The Rules or Secrets of the Naqshbandi Order Omar Ali-Shah (1992) ISBN 2-909347-09-5