George Gurdjieff

George Ivanovich Gurdjieff

G.I. Gurdjieff
Full name George Ivanovich Gurdjieff
Born January 13, 1866(1866-01-13)?
Alexandropol
Died October 29, 1949(1949-10-29) (aged 83)
Neuilly-sur-Seine, France
Era Esotericism
Region 20th century mystic
School Fourth Way or the "Gurdjieff Work"
Main interests Psychology, philosophy, science, ancient knowledge
Notable ideas Fourth Way, Fourth Way Enneagram, Centers, Ray of Creation, Self-remembering

George Ivanovich Gurdjieff (Armenian: Գեորգի Իվանովիչ Գյուրջիև, Greek: Γεώργιος Γεωργιάδης, Russian: Гео́ргий Ива́нович Гюрджи́ев, January 13, 1866? – October 29, 1949) was a mystic and spiritual teacher. He called his discipline "The Work"[1] (connoting "work on oneself") according to Gurdjieff's principles and instructions,[2] or (originally) the "Fourth Way".[3] At one point he described his teaching as "esoteric Christianity".[4]

At different times in his life Gurdjieff formed and closed various schools around the world which followed his teachings. He claimed that the teachings he brought to the West from his own experiences and early travels expressed the truth found in ancient religions and wisdom teachings relating to self-awareness in people's daily lives and humanity's place in the universe.[5] The title of his third series of writings, Life Is Real Only Then, When 'I Am', expresses the essence of his teachings, while his complete series of books goes under the name All and Everything.

Contents

Biography

Gurdjieff was born to a Pontic Greek father and an allegedly Armenian mother in Alexandropol (now Gyumri, Armenia), then part of the Russian Empire. The Muslims around Georgia call the Georgian people gurdjis, which may account for the root of the name "Gurdjieff".

The exact date of his birth remains unknown (conjectures range from 1866 to 1877). Some authors (like Moore) argue persuasively for 1866, others (like Patterson) for 1872; a passport gave a birth-date of November 28, 1877. Gurdjieff grew up in Kars and traveled to many parts of the world (such as Central Asia, Egypt and Rome) before returning to Russia for a few years in 1912. He later said: "Begin in Russia, end in Russia."[6] The Work has recently re-established itself in its birthplace, Russia.

The only account of Gurdjieff's early life before he appeared in Moscow in 1912 appears in his text Meetings with Remarkable Men. This text, however, cannot be read as straightforward autobiography.[7] In the pre-1912 period Gurdjieff went on his apocryphal voyage outlined in Meetings with Remarkable Men where he comes upon a map of "pre-sand Egypt" which leads him to study with an esoteric group, the alleged Sarmoung Brotherhood.

From 1913 to 1949 the chronology appears to stand on the much firmer ground afforded by primary documents, independent witnesses, cross-references, and reasonable inference.[8] On New Year's Day in 1912 Gurdjieff arrived in Moscow and attracted his first students. In the same year he married Julia Ostrowska in St Petersburg. In 1914 Gurdjieff advertised his ballet, The Struggle of the Magicians, and supervised his pupils' writing of the sketch "Glimpses of Truth". In 1915 Gurdjieff accepted P. D. Ouspensky as a pupil, while in 1916 he accepted the composer Thomas de Hartmann and his wife Olga as students. At this time he had about thirty pupils.

In the midst of revolutionary upheaval in Russia he left Petrograd in 1917 to return to his family home in Alexandropol. During the Bolshevik Revolution Gurdjieff set up temporary study-communities in Essentuki in the Caucasus, then in Tuapse, Maikop, Sochi and Poti, all on the Black Sea coast of southern Russia, where he worked intensively with many of his Russian pupils.

In March 1918, Ouspensky separated from Gurdjieff and four months later Gurdjieff's eldest sister and her family reached him in Essentuki as refugees, informing him that Turks had shot his father in Alexandropol on 15 May during the Armenian Genocide (1915–1923). As Essentuki became more and more threatened by civil war, Gurdjieff put out a fabricated newspaper story announcing his forthcoming "scientific expedition" to Mount Induc. Posing as a scientist, Gurdjieff left Essentuki with fourteen companions (excluding Gurdjieff's family and Ouspensky). They traveled by train to Maikop, where hostilities delayed them for three weeks. In spring 1919 Gurdjieff met the artist Alexandre Salzmann and his wife Jeanne and accepted them as pupils. Assisted by Jeanne Salzmann, Gurdjieff gave the first public demonstration of his Sacred Dances (Movements at the Tbilisi Opera House, 22 June).

In the autumn of 1919, Gurdjieff and his closest pupils moved to Tbilisi, formerly known as Tiflis. There Gurdjieff's wife, Julia Ostrowska, Mr and Mrs Stjoernval, Mr and Mrs de Hartmann and Mr and Mrs de Salzmann gathered a lot of the fundamentals of his teaching. Gurdjieff himself concentrated on his still unstaged ballet, The Struggle of the Magicians; Thomas de Hartmann (who had made his debut years ago before the Czar of All Russia) worked on the music for the ballet; and Olga Iovonovna Lazovich Milanoff Hinzenberg (who years later wed the American architect Frank Lloyd Wright) practiced the ballet dances.[9] There, in 1919, he established the first Institute for the Harmonious Development of Man. He was thought to be greatly influenced by Nikolai Marr, a Georgian archaeologist and historian. In late May 1920, when political conditions in Georgia changed and the old order was crumbling, they traveled by foot to Batumi on the Black Sea coast and then to Istanbul. There Gurdjieff rented an apartment on Koumbaradji Street in Péra and later at 13 Abdullatif Yemeneci Sokak near the Galata Tower.[10] The apartment is near the tekke (monastery) of the Mevlevi Order of Sufis (founded by Jalal al-Din Muhammad Rumi), where Gurdjieff, Ouspensky and Thomas de Hartmann experienced the sema ceremony of The Whirling Dervishes. In Istanbul Gurdjieff also met Captain John G. Bennett, the then head of British Military Intelligence in Constantinople. Later, Bennett would become a follower of Gurdjieff and of Ouspensky.[11]

In August 1921 and 1922, Gurdjieff traveled around western Europe, lecturing and giving demonstrations of his work in various cities such as Berlin and London and capturing the allegiance of Ouspensky's many prominent pupils (notably the editor A. R. Orage). After he lost a civil action to acquire Hellerau possession in Britain, Gurdjieff established the Institute for the Harmonious Development of Man south of Paris at the Prieuré des Basses Loges in Fontainebleau-Avon near the famous Château de Fontainebleau. Gurdjieff acquired notoriety as "the man who killed Katherine Mansfield" after Katherine Mansfield died there of tuberculosis under his care on 9 January 1923.[12] Reading further, James Moore convincingly shows however that Katherine Mansfield knew that she would soon die, and that Gurdjieff made her last days happy and fulfilling; for this he received the calumny of the press.

Starting in 1924 Gurdjieff made visits to North America, where he eventually took over the pupils taught previously by A.R. Orage.

In 1924, while driving alone from Paris to Fontainebleau, Gurdjieff had a near-fatal car-accident. Nursed by his wife and mother, he made a slow and painful recovery — against medical expectation. Still convalescent, he formally "disbanded" his Institute on 26 August (in fact he dispersed only his less-dedicated pupils), and began writing All and Everything.

In 1925 Gurdjieff's wife contracted cancer; she died in June 1926 in spite of radiotherapy and of Gurdjieff's magnetic treatments - which due to his near death in the 1924 car-accident he was unable to fully implement. Ouspensky attended her funeral. According to Fritz Peters, Gurdjieff was in New York from November 1925 to the spring of 1926 and he succeeded in raising over $1,000,000.[13]

In 1935 Gurdjieff stopped writing All and Everything, having completed the first two parts of the trilogy but having only started on the Third Series (published under the title Life Is Real Only Then, When 'I Am').

In Paris, Gurdjieff lived at 6 Rue des Colonels-Rénard, where he continued to teach throughout World War II.

Gurdjieff died on October 29, 1949 at the American Hospital in Neuilly-sur-Seine, France. His funeral took place at the St. Alexandre Nevsky Russian Orthodox Cathedral at 12 Rue Daru, Paris. He is buried in the cemetery at Fontainebleau-Avon.[14]

Ideas

Gurdjieff claimed that people cannot perceive reality in their current state because they do not possess consciousness but rather live in a state of a hypnotic "waking sleep".

"Man lives his life in sleep, and in sleep he dies."[15] As a result of this condition each person perceives things from a completely subjective perspective. Gurdjieff stated that maleficent events such as wars and so on could not possibly take place if people were more awake. He asserted that people in their typical state function as unconscious automatons, but that one can "wake up" and become a different sort of human being altogether.[16]

Self-development teachings

Main article Fourth Way

Gurdjieff argued that many of the existing forms of religious and spiritual tradition on Earth had lost connection with their original meaning and vitality and so could no longer serve humanity in the way that had been intended at their inception. As a result humanity were failing to realize the truths of ancient teachings and were instead becoming more and more like automatons, susceptible to control from outside and increasingly capable of otherwise unthinkable acts of mass psychosis such as the 1914-18 war. At best, the various surviving sects and schools could only provide a one-sided development which did not result in a fully integrated human being. According to Gurdjieff, only one dimension of the three dimensions of the person - namely, either the emotions, or the physical body or the mind - tends to develop in such schools and sects, and generally at the expense of the other faculties or centers as Gurdjieff called them. As a result these paths fail to produce a proper balanced human being. Furthermore, anyone wishing to undertake any of the traditional paths to spiritual knowledge (which Gurdjieff reduced to three - namely the path of the fakir, the path of the monk, and the path of the yogi) were required to renounce life in the world. Gurdjieff thus developed a Fourth Way[17] which would be amenable to the requirements of modern people living modern lives in Europe and America. Instead of developing body, mind, or emotions separately, Gurdjieff's discipline worked on all three to promote comprehensive and balanced inner development.

In parallel with other spiritual traditions, Gurdjieff taught that one must expend considerable effort to effect the transformation that leads to awakening. The effort that one puts into practice Gurdjieff referred to as "The Work" or "Work on oneself".[18] According to Gurdjieff, "...Working on oneself is not so difficult as wishing to work, taking the decision."[19] Though Gurdjieff never put major significance on the term "Fourth Way" and never used the term in his writings, his pupil P.D. Ouspensky from 1924 to 1947 made the term and its use central to his own teaching of Gurdjieff's ideas. After Ouspensky's death, his students published a book titled The Fourth Way based on his lectures.

Gurdjieff's teaching addressed the question of humanity's place in the universe and the importance of developing latent potentialities — regarded as our natural endowment as human beings but rarely brought to fruition. He taught that higher levels of consciousness, higher bodies,[20] inner growth and development are real possibilities that nonetheless require conscious work to achieve.[21]

In his teaching Gurdjieff gave a distinct meaning to various ancient texts such as the Bible and many religious prayers. He claimed that those texts possess a very different meaning than what is commonly attributed to them. "Sleep not"; "Awake, for you know not the hour"; and "The Kingdom of Heaven is Within" are examples of biblical statements which point to a psychological teaching whose essence has been forgotten.[22]

Gurdjieff taught people how to increase and focus their attention and energy in various ways and to minimize daydreaming and absentmindedness. According to his teaching, this inner development in oneself is the beginning of a possible further process of change, the aim of which is to transform people into what Gurdjieff believed they ought to be.[23]

Distrusting "morality", which he describes as varying from culture to culture, often contradictory and superficial, Gurdjieff greatly stressed the importance of conscience. This he regarded as the same in all people, buried in their subconsciousness, thus both sheltered from damage by how people live and inaccessible without "work on oneself".

To provide conditions in which inner attention could be exercised more intensively, Gurdjieff also taught his pupils "sacred dances" or "movements", later known as the Gurdjieff movements, which they performed together as a group. He also left a body of music, inspired by what he heard in visits to remote monasteries and other places, written for piano in collaboration with one of his pupils, Thomas de Hartmann. Gurdjieff also used various exercises, such as the "Stop" exercise, to prompt self-observation in his students. Other shocks to help awaken his pupils from constant day-dreaming were always possible at any moment.

Methods

Gurdjieff transmitted his ideas through a number of different methods and materials, including meetings, music, movements (sacred dance), writings, lectures, and innovative forms of group work. He was not consistent in his use of these materials through his lifetime; for example, six years in Paris were devoted primarily to writing, while composition of music and movement centered around a few distinct periods. In Russia he was described as keeping his teaching confined to a small circle,[24] while in Paris and North America he gave numerous public demonstrations.[25]

Gurdjieff felt that the traditional methods of self-knowledge—those of the fakir, monk, and yogi (acquired, respectively, through pain, devotion, and study) -- were inadequate on their own. These three can be understood as a metaphor for work on the body, emotions and the intellect separately.

"Gurdjieff's teachings were transmitted through special conditions and through special forms leading to consciousness: Group Work, physical labor, crafts, ideas exchanges, arts, music, movement, dance, adventures in nature..., enabled the unrealized individual to transcend the mechanical, acted-upon self and ascend from mere personality to self-actualizing essence."[26]

Music

The Gurdjieff music divides into three distinct periods. The first period is the early music, including music from the ballet Struggle of the Magicians and music for early Movements, dating to the years around 1918.

The second period music, for which Gurdjieff arguably became best known, written in collaboration with Russian composer Thomas de Hartmann, is described as the Gurdjieff-de Hartmann music. Dating to the mid 1920s, it offers a rich repertory with roots in Caucasian and Central Asian folk and religious music, Russian Orthodox liturgical music, and other sources. This music was often first heard, and even composed, in the salon at the Prieure. Since the publication of four volumes of this piano repertory by Schott, recently completed, there has been a wealth of new recordings, including orchestral versions of music prepared by Gurdjieff and de Hartmann for the Movements demonstrations of 1923-24.

The last musical period is the improvised harmonium music which often followed the dinners Gurdjieff held in his Paris apartment during the Occupation and immediate post-war years, to his death in 1949. A virtually encyclopedic recording of surviving tapes of Gurdjieff improvising on the harmonium was recently published.

In all, Gurdjieff in collaboration with de Hartmann composed some 200 pieces.[27]

Movements

Whirling dervish

Movements, or sacred dances, constitute an integral part of the Gurdjieff Work. Gurdjieff sometimes referred to himself as a "teacher of dancing," and gained initial public notice for his attempts to put on a ballet in Moscow called "Struggle of the Magicians."

Films of Movements demonstrations are occasionally shown for private viewing by the Gurdjieff Foundations, and one is shown in a scene in the Peter Brook movie Meetings with Remarkable Men.

Group work

Gurdjieff taught that group efforts both enhance and surpass individual efforts preparing them to practice a new psychology of evolution. To accomplish this he needed to constantly innovate and create new alarm clocks to awaken his sleeping students as Jesus did 1900 years before. Students regularly met with group leaders; both separately and in group meetings, and came together for "work periods" where intensive conscious labor, connected with the forms mentioned above. Work in the kitchen was a special task and sometimes elaborate meals were prepared. This food was the lowest of the three being foods, food, air and impressions. Air and impressions being even more important, special exercises were given for them.

According to Gurdjieff, the work of Schools of the Fourth Way never remains the same for long. In some cases, this has led to a break between student and teacher as is the case of Ouspensky and Gurdjieff. The outward appearance of the School and the group work can change according to the circumstances. However, the inner individual expression such as the practice of self-remembering with self-observation and the non-expression of negative emotions, always remains the same and could never change for that is the guarantee of ultimate self-development.

In addition, one should never violate the one basic rule in group-work which guarantees the harmonious development of the Work: the practice of external considering. Whenever group-work fails, the failure may be traced to a lack of external considering among its members.[28]

A follower of Gurdjieff, former American Fabrics magazine publisher William C. Segal, tells of periods of hard labor around the clock which in the Gurdjieff System are known as "super-efforts". According to Gurdjieff, only super-efforts count in the Work.[29] In 1948 and 1949, Segal was sporadically in contact with Gurdjieff who had been the teacher of avant-garde lesbian Jane Heap. In 1951, at 26, Peter Brook became a pupil of Heap in London and Segal published Gentry catering to a superior audience.[30] As Segal would write in the poem Silence Clarity, "... It is through the body that sits here/ that I go to my true nature." A voice at the borders of silence would conclude, "... It is through the mind that stands still/ that I experience my true nature."[31]

Writings

Enneagram hieroglyph of a universal language

Gurdjieff wrote and approved for publication three volumes of his written work under the title All and Everything. The first volume, Beelzebub's Tales to His Grandson, is a lengthy allegorical work that recounts the explanations of Beelzebub to his grandson concerning the beings of the planet Earth. Intended to be a teaching tool, Gurdjieff went to great lengths in order to increase the effort needed to read and understand the book. The second volume, Meetings with Remarkable Men, was written in a very easily understood manner, and purports to be an autobiography of his early years, but also contains many allegorical statements. His final volume left intentionally unfinished shows the Masters hand, Life is Real Only Then, When 'I Am', contains a fragment of an autobiographical description of later years, as well as transcripts of some lectures.

As Gurdjieff explained to Ouspensky ... "for exact understanding exact language is necessary."[32] In his first series of writings, Gurdjieff explains how difficult it is to choose an ordinary language to convey his thoughts exactly. He continues..."the Russian language is like the English...both these languages are like the dish which is called in Moscow 'Solianka', and into which everything goes except you and me..."[33] In spite of the difficulties, he goes on to develop a special vocabulary of a new language all of it his own. He uses these new words particularly in the first series of his writings. However, in The Herald of Coming Good, he uses one particular word for the first time: "Tzvarnoharno", allegedly coined by King Solomon.[34]

Reception and influence

Opinions on Gurdjieff's writings and activities are divided. Sympathizers regard him as a charismatic master who brought new knowledge into Western culture, a psychology and cosmology that enable insights beyond those provided by established science.[21] Critics assert he was simply a charlatan with a large ego and a constant need for self-glorification.[35] Gurdjieff is said to have had a strong influence on many modern mystics, artists, writers, and thinkers, including Osho (Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh), Frank Lloyd Wright,[36] Keith Jarrett, George Russell (composer), Alan Watts, Timothy Leary, Robert Anton Wilson, Robert Fripp, Jacob Needleman, John Shirley, Carlos Castaneda, Dennis Lewis, Peter Brook, Kate Bush, P. L. Travers, Robert S de Ropp, Walter Inglis Anderson, Jean Toomer, Alejandro Jodorowsky, Louis Pauwels, James Moore and Abdullah Isa Neil Dougan. Gurdjieff's notable personal students include Jeanne de Salzmann, Willem Nyland, Lord Pentland (Henry John Sinclair), P. D. Ouspensky, Olga de Hartmann, Thomas de Hartmann, Jane Heap, John G. Bennett, Alfred Richard Orage, Maurice Nicoll, Lanza del Vasto, George and Helen Adie and Katherine Mansfield. The Italian composer and singer Franco Battiato was sometime inspired by Gurdjieff's work, for example in his song "Centro di gravità permanente" - one of most popular modern Italian pop songs. Aleister Crowley visited his Institute at least once and privately praised Gurdjieff's work, though with some reservations.[37] During WWI, Algernon Blackwood took up spying while reporting to John Buchan, author of The Thirty Nine Steps. After the war, during the Roaring Twenties, Blackwood studied with Gurdjieff and Ouspensky.[38]

However a person regards Gurdjieff's teaching or his character, he appears to have given new life and practical form to ancient teachings of both East and West. For example, the Socratic and Platonic emphasis on "the examined life" recurs in Gurdjieff's teaching as the practice of self-observation. His teachings about self-discipline and restraint reflect Stoic teachings. The Hindu and Buddhist notion of attachment recurs in Gurdjieff's teaching as the concept of identification. Similarly, his cosmology can be "read" against ancient and esoteric sources, respectively Neoplatonic and in such sources as Robert Fludd's treatment of macrocosmic musical structures.

An aspect of Gurdjieff's teachings which has come into prominence in recent decades is the enneagram geometric figure. For many students of the Gurdjieff tradition the enneagram remains a "koan", challenging and never fully explicated. Lord Pentland only allowed very limited use of the figure. There have been many attempts to trace the origins of the enneagram; some similarities to other figures have been found, but it seems that Gurdjieff was the first person to make the enneagram figure publicly known and that only he knew its true source. Others have used the enneagram figure in connection with personality analysis, principally in the Enneagram of Personality as developed by Oscar Ichazo, Claudio Naranjo, Helen Palmer and others. Most aspects of this application are not directly connected to Gurdjieff's teaching or to his explanations of the enneagram.

The science-fiction and horror novelist John Shirley has written an introductory work on Gurdjieff for Penguin/Tarcher, Gurdjieff: An Introduction to His Life and Ideas.

Groups

Gurdjieff had influenced the formation of many groups after his death, all of which still function today and follow his ideas.[39]

The Gurdjieff Foundation, the largest organization directly influenced by the ideas of Gurdjieff, was organized by Jeanne de Salzmann during the early 1950s, and led by her in cooperation with other direct pupils. The main four branches of the Foundation are The Gurdjieff Foundation of New York,[40] The London-based Gurdjieff Society, the Institut Gurdjieff (Paris), and the network of foundations in South America founded by the late Natalie de Etievan, daughter of Jeanne de Salzmann. Connected to these four foundations are numerous smaller groups around the world, collected under the umbrella of the International Association of Gurdjieff Foundations. The president of the Gurdjieff Foundation of New York was Lord Pentland, who retained this position until his death. And was then led by Paul Reynard, a painter and Master of Gurdjieff Movements. As of 2009 Frank R. Sinclair, author of Without Benefit of Clergy, presides. A group in India is led by Ravi Ravindra who was a student under Mme De Salzmann and Dr. Welch.

Various pupils of Gurdjieff and his direct students have formed other groups. Willem Nyland, one of Gurdjieff's closest students and an original founder and trustee of The Gurdjieff Foundation of New York, left to form his own groups in the early 1960s. Jane Heap was sent to London by Gurdjieff, where she led groups until her death in 1964. Louise Goepfert March, who became a pupil of Gurdjieff's in 1929, started her own groups in 1957 and founded the Rochester Folk Art Guild in the Finger Lakes region of New York State; her efforts were closely linked to the Gurdjieff Foundation of New York. There are also independent groups which were formed and led by John G. Bennett and Mrs. Staveley. In 2005 Alan Francis, after co-founding the Gurdjieff Foundation in Oregon in 1999, formed the as yet unaffilated Russian Center for Gurdjieff Studies in Moscow.

Gurdjieff student Lord Pentland connects the Gurdjieff group-work with the later rise of encounter groups. Groups also often meet to prepare for demonstrations or performances to which the public is invited.

Criticism

Criticism by Louis Pauwels among others[41] of Gurdjieff's system largely focuses on his insistence on seeing people as "asleep" in a state closely resembling "hypnotic sleep". Gurdjieff said, even specifically at times, that a pious, good, and moral man was no more "spiritually developed" than any other person; they are all equally "asleep".[42]

In spite of Henry Miller's personally positive attitude towards Gurdjieff for not considering himself holy like other masters of wisdom, after writing a brief introduction to Fritz Peters' book Boyhood with Gurdjieff he goes on to explain that man is not meant to lead a "harmonious life", as Gurdjieff claimed in naming his institute.[43]

A primary criticism of Gurdjieff's work points out that it attaches no value to almost everything that comprises the life of an average man. According to Gurdjieff, everything an "average man" possesses, accomplishes, does, and feels is completely accidental and without any initiative. A common everyday ordinary man is born a machine and dies a machine without any chance whatsoever of being anything else.[44] This belief seems to run counter to the Judeo-Christian tradition that man is a living soul. A closer reading of Gurdjieff, however, clarifies this apparent divergence from Christian teaching. Gurdjieff believed that the possession of a soul (a state of psychological unity which he equated with being "awake") was a "luxury" that a disciple could only attain by the most painstaking work of over a long period of time. The majority - in whom the true meaning of the gospel failed to take root.[45] - went the "broad way" that "led to destruction"[46] Gurdjieff attributed the cause of this human tendency towards spiritual corruption and ignorance to astronomical (astrological) influences (particularly the influence of the moon). Christian theology accounts for this proclivity of the majority to fail to achieve salvation as due to the power of original sin.

In his most elaborate writing, Beelzebub's Tales to His Grandson (see bibliography), Gurdjieff records his reverence for the founders of the mainstream religions of East and West and his contempt (by and large) for what successive generations of believers have made of those religious teachings. His ironical discussions of "orthodoxhydooraki" and "heterodoxhydooraki" — orthodox fools and heterodox fools, from the Russian word durak (fool) — position him as a critic of religious distortion and, in turn, as a target for criticism from some within those traditions. Gurdjieff has been interpreted by some, Ouspensky among others, to have had a total disregard for the value of mainstream religion, philanthropic work and the value of doing right or wrong in general.[47]

Gurdjieff's former students as detractors argue, despite his seeming total lack of pretension to any kind of "guru holiness", that the many anecdotes of his sometimes unconventional behavior display the unsavory and impure character of a man who was a cynical manipulator of his followers.[48] Gurdjieff's own pupils wrestled to understand him. For example, in a written exchange between Luc Dietrich and Henri Tracol dating to 1943: "L.D.: How do you know that Gurdjieff wishes you well? H.T.: I feel sometimes how little I interest him--and how strongly he takes an interest in me. By that I measure the strength of an intentional feeling." [49]

Louis Pauwels wrote Monsieur Gurdjieff (first edition published in Paris France in 1954 by Editions du Seuil).[50] In an interview, he said of the Gurdjieff work: "... After two years of exercises which both enlightened and burned me, I found myself in a hospital bed with a thrombosed central vein in my left eye and weighing ninety-nine pounds...Horrible anguish and abysses opened up for me. But it was my fault."[51]

Pauwels claims Karl Haushofer, the father of geopolitics whose protegee was Deputy Reich Führer Rudolf Hess, as one of the real "seekers after truth" described by Gurdjieff. According to Rom Landau, a journalist in the 1930s, as reported to him by Achmed Abdullah: at the beginning of the 20th century, Gurdjieff was a Russian secret agent in Tibet who went by the name of "Hambro Akuan Dorzhieff" (i.e. Agvan Dorjiev), chief tutor to the Dalai Lama.[52] However, reports have it that Dorzhieff went to live in the Buddhist temple erected in St. Petersburg and after the revolution, he was imprisoned by Stalin. James Webb conjectures that Gurdjieff may have been Dorzhieff's assistant Ushe Narzunoff (i.e. Ovshe Norzunov) but this is untenable.[53]

Colin Wilson writes about "...Gurdjieff's reputation for seducing his female students. (In Providence Rhode Island, in 1960, a man was pointed out to me as one of Gurdjieff's illegitimate children. The professor who told me this also assured me that Gurdjieff had left many children around America)."[54]

Frank R. Sinclair, president of the Gurdjieff Foundation in New York, identifies Michel de Salzmann as Jeanne de Salzmann's son by Gurdjieff.[55] Dushka Howarth, the daughter of one of Gurdjieff's early Movements instructors Jessmin Howarth, and a few others are described as children of Gurdjieff.[56]

In the early 1930s Gurdjieff publicly ridiculed one of his pupils, Alfred Richard Orage. Orage's wife, Jessie Dwight, then composed this poem about Gurdjieff:

"He call himself, deluded man, The Tiger of The Turkestan. And greater he than God or Devil Eschewing good and preaching evil. His followers whom he does glut on Are for him naught but wool and mutton, And still they come and sit agape With Tiger's rage and Tiger's rape. Why not, they say, The man's a god; We have it on the sacred word. His book will set the world on fire. He says so - can God be a liar? But what is woman, says Gurdjieff, Just nothing but man's handkerchief. I need a new one every day, Let others for the washing pay."

In "The Oragean Version", Dr. C. Daly King surmised that the problem that Gurdfieff had with Orage's teachings was that the "Oragean Version" was not emotional enough and was not based on "incredulity" and faith. King wrote that Gurdjieff did not state it as clearly and specifically as this, but was quick to add that nothing Gurdjieff said was specific or clear.

According to Osho, the Gurdjieff system is incomplete drawing from Dervish sources inimical to Kundalini even though there are Sufi orders such as the Naqshbandi who draw from and are amenable to Kundalini.[57]

Gurdjieff and Crowley

According to Alex Owen, Gurdjieff "...was often referred to by his followers as a magician, and the powerful effect of his hypnotic presence is reminiscent of Aleister Crowley in his prime. Although Gurdjieff despised Crowley, both men were undeniably occult Masters in a similar mold."[58]

Whitall Perry writes that "...there is just the possibility that the two men had some business in common that escaped the notice of the others present."[59]

Samael Aun Weor writes more directly in The Juratena Mountain of how Francisco A. Propato (a graduate of La Sorbonne and Spanish translator of The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam) declares "Beelzebub" Gurdjieff a Black Magician.[60] Aun Weor himself only ever speaks of Gurdjieff in positive terms but not so when it comes down to discuss Kundalini or when Gurdjieffism suggests: "...Concerning sexual desire ...If a youth but once gratify this lust before reaching adulthood, then the same would happen to him as happened to the historical Esau...But when the youth is grown up, then he can do whatever he likes..." (This saying does not quote Gurdjieff, but Father Borsh answering a question asked of him by Gurdjieff about sex.[61])

"...As far as I know, the only occult resort of recent times which surpassed Gurdjieff's in madness was the infamous monastery established near Cefalu, in Sicily, by the fabulous British occultist, Aleister Crowley."[62]

Gurdjieff vs Rasputin

"...Rom Landau was one of the first to compare Gurdjieff to Rasputin. Describing a meeting with Gurdjieff, he explains: 'I had been specially careful not to look at Gurdjieff and not to allow him to look into my eyes...'"[63]

Time magazine once described Gurdjieff as "a remarkable blend of P.T. Barnum, Rasputin, Freud, Groucho Marx and everybody's grandfather."[64]

Other views

With so much to be discussed, about Gurdjieff and his teaching, other views abound which were either generated by Gurdjieff himself or his followers. For example, during the Russian period Gurdjieff spoke with respect of the obyvatel, the simple householder or salt-of-the-earth peasant, who lives by traditional values and slowly develops himself. Much later, in Paris, he gave encouragement and financial help to a multitude of people who were hard up for one reason or another. His Paris flat had, people say, one of the world's worst art collections, consisting of pieces purchased from indigent artists as a cover for providing them with funds without humiliating them. Diogenes, the ancient Greek Cynic philosopher whom Gurdjieff resembles, once said of himself that like the chorus master, he set the note a little high so that the chorus would hit the right note. For his pupils and in his writings, Gurdjieff set the note "a little high" as a goal and inspiration, while in his personal conduct he was generous to "the average man." Many such people attended his funeral at the Russian cathedral, rue Daru. Gurdjieff's pupils did not know them.[65]

Bibliography

Gurdjieff's views have arguably become best known through the published works of his pupils. His one-time student P. D. Ouspensky wrote In Search of the Miraculous: Fragments of an Unknown Teaching, which some, Rodney Collins among others, regard as a crucial introduction to the teaching. Others refer to Gurdjieff's own books (detailed below) as the primary texts.

Published accounts of time spent with Gurdjieff have appeared written by A. R. Orage, Charles Stanley Nott, Thomas and Olga de Hartmann, Fritz Peters, René Daumal, John G. Bennett, Maurice Nicoll, Margaret Anderson and Louis Pauwels, among others. Many others found themselves drawn to his "ideas table": Frank Lloyd Wright,[66] Kathryn Hulme, P. L. Travers, Katherine Mansfield, Jean Toomer and Ethel Merston.

Three books by Gurdjieff were published in the English language in the United States after his death: Beelzebub's Tales to His Grandson published in 1950 by E. P. Dutton & Co. Inc., Meetings with Remarkable Men, published in 1963 by E. P. Dutton & Co. Inc., and Life is Real Only Then, When 'I Am', printed privately by E. P. Dutton & Co. and published in 1978 by Triangle Editions Inc. for private distribution only. This trilogy is Gurdjieff's legominism, known collectively as All and Everything. A legominism is, according to Gurdjieff, "one of the means of transmitting information about certain events of long-past ages through initiates". A book of his early talks was also collected by his student and personal secretary, Olga de Hartmann, and published in 1973 as Views from the Real World: Early Talks in Moscow, Essentuki, Tiflis, Berlin, London, Paris, New York, and Chicago, as recollected by his pupils.

The feature film Meetings with Remarkable Men (1979), based on Gurdjieff's book by the same name, depicts rare performances of the sacred dances taught to serious students of his work, known simply as the movements. Jeanne de Salzmann and Peter Brook wrote the film, Brook directed, and Dragan Maksimovic and Terence Stamp star, as does South African playwright and actor, Athol Fugard.

Books

Books about Gurdjieff and The Fourth Way

Comprehensive biographies

Videos/DVDs about G. I. Gurdjieff and the Fourth Way

Music

See also

References

  1. ↑ Ouspensky, P. D. (1977). In Search of the Miraculous. pp. 312–313. ISBN 0156445085. "Schools of the fourth way exist for the needs of the work... But no matter what the fundamental aim of the work is... When the work is done the schools close." 
  2. ↑ De Penafieu, Bruno (1997). Needleman, Jacob; Baker, George. eds. Gurdjieff. Continuum International Publishing Group. p. 214. ISBN 0826410498. http://books.google.com/books?id=3R9vGrR5IEUC&pg=PA214&dq=Gurdjieff+the+work#v=onepage&q=Gurdjieff%20the%20work&f=false. "If I were to cease working... all these worlds would perish." 
  3. ↑ Gurdjieff International Review
  4. ↑ Bardic-press.com
  5. ↑ P. D. Ouspensky (1949). In Search of the Miraculous
  6. ↑ Gurdjieff: Anatomy of a Myth - James Moore - Page 138
  7. ↑ S. Wellbeloved, Gurdjieff, Astrology and Beelzebub's Tales, pp.9-13
  8. ↑ Chronology of Gurdjieff's Life by James Moore
  9. ↑ Moore, James (1999). Gurdjieff. Element Books Ltd. p. 132. ISBN 1862046069. "What name would you give such an Insitute?" 
  10. ↑ "In Gurdjieff’s wake in Istanbul", Gurdjieff Movements, March 2003.
  11. ↑ John G. Bennett (1983). Witness
  12. ↑ Moore, James (1980). Gurdjieff and Mansfield. Routledge & Kegan Paul. p. 3. ISBN 0710004888. "In numerous accounts Gurdjieff is defined with stark simplicity as "the man who killed Katherine Mansfield." 
  13. ↑ Taylor, Paul Beekman (2004). Gurdjieff's America. Lighthouse Editions Ltd. p. 103. ISBN 1904998006. http://books.google.com/books?id=50w1tPTV0EEC&pg=PA103&dq=Fritz+Peters+Gurdjieff+trip+to+New+York+to+raise=funds&cd=2#v=onepage&q=&f=false. "What Gurdjieff was doing during the winter of 1925-1926..." 
  14. ↑ James Moore (1993). Gurdjieff – A Biography: The Anatomy of a Myth.
  15. ↑ P.D. Ouspensky (1949), In Search of the Miraculous
  16. ↑ G. I. Gurdjieff and His School by Jacob Needleman
  17. ↑ P.D. Ouspensky (1949), In Search of the Miraculous, Chapter 2
  18. ↑ Gurdjieff International Review
  19. ↑ Gurdjieff, George. Views from the real world. E. P. Dutton & Co., Inc.. p. 214. ISBN 0525474080. 
  20. ↑ P. D. Ouspensky (1949). In Search of the Miraculous Chapter 2
  21. ↑ 21.0 21.1 P. D. Ouspensky (1971). The Fourth Way, Chapter 1
  22. ↑ Wellbeloved, Sophia (2003). Gurdjieff: the key concepts. Routledge. p. 109. ISBN 0415248976. http://books.google.com/books?id=efukKaH6JO4C&pg=PA109&dq=Gurdjieff+psychological+teaching&lr=#v=onepage&q=Gurdjieff%20psychological%20teaching&f=false. "...different psychological terms in which the teaching of the Institute was presented..." 
  23. ↑ P. D. Ouspensky (1949). In Search of the Miraculous, Chapter 9
  24. ↑ P. D. Ouspensky (1949). In Search of the Miraculous, Chapter 1,
  25. ↑ G.I. Gurdjieff (1963) Meetings with Remarkable Men, Chapter 11
  26. ↑ Seekerbooks.com, Book review of Gary Lachman. In Search of the miraculles: Genius in the Shadow of Gurdjieff.
  27. ↑ Gurdjieff.org
  28. ↑ Hayward, Jeremy (2007). Warrior-King of Shambhala. Wisdom Publications. pp. 19–23. ISBN 0861715466. http://books.google.com/books?id=oFKM49xRwZwC&pg=PT35&dq=Warrior-King+of+Shambhala+G.+I.+Gurdjieff#v=onepage&q=&f=false. "To help us wake up, Gurdjieff taught the dual practice of 'self-observation' and 'self-remembering'." 
  29. ↑ Segal, William (2003). A Voice at the Borders of Silence. Overlook Press. ISBN 1585674428. 
  30. ↑ Peter Brook Candid Camera
  31. ↑ Bees of the invisible world vol. 1, p. 24 #20
  32. ↑ Ouspensky, P. D. In Search of the Miraculous, p. 70, Harourt Brace & Co. 1949, ISBN 0-15-644508-5
  33. ↑ MacDiarmid, Hugh (1998). The raucle tongue: hitherto uncollected prose. Carcanet. p. 137. ISBN 1857543780. 
  34. ↑ Henderson, John (2007). Hidden meanings and picture-form language in the writings of G. I. Gurdjieff: excavations of the buried dog. AuthorHouse. p. 155. ISBN 1434306593. "...What this mysterious Izvarnoharno may be is no longer our primary interest." 
  35. ↑ Michael Waldberg (1990). Gurdjieff – An Approach to his Ideas, Chapter 1
  36. ↑ Friedland and Zellman, The Fellowship, pp.33-135
  37. ↑ Lawrence Sutin, Do what thou wilt: A life of Aleister Crowley, 2002, p. 317-318.
  38. ↑ Dirda, Michael (2005). Bound to please. W.W. Norton & Co.. p. 222. ISBN 0393057577. http://books.google.com/books?id=wMMPyF98dcIC&pg=PA222&dq=Gurdjieff+Henry+Miller&lr=#v=onepage&q=Gurdjieff%20Henry%20Miller&f=false. "... he studied with the mystics..." 
  39. ↑ Seymour B. Ginsburg Gurdjieff Unveiled, pp. 71-7, Lighthouse Editions Ltd., 2005 ISBN 978-1-904998-01-3
  40. ↑ Frank Sinclair Without Benefit of Clergy, p. 17, Xlibris Corporation, 2005 ISBN 1-4134-7514-0
  41. ↑ Lachman, Gary (2003). Turn off your mind. The Disinformation Co.. p. 13. ISBN 0971394230. http://books.google.com/books?id=8jfptmqzTzkC&pg=PA13&dq=critics+of+Gurdjieff+work&lr=#v=onepage&q=&f=false. "... a hostile book on... Gurdjieff." 
  42. ↑ id=QjetCc6ktOgC&pg=PA110&dq=Gurdjieff+insanity&lr=#v=onepage&q=Gurdjieff%20insanity&f=false |page=110 |year=2001 |publisher=Samuel Weiser |isbn=1578631285 |quote=...Orage revealed Gurdjieff's views of drugs and alcohol as conducive to 'insanity'
  43. ↑ Miller, Henry (1984). From Your Capricorn Friend. New Directions Publishing. p. 42. ISBN 0811208918. http://books.google.com/books?id=LY-zJmKDzKUC&pg=PA42&dq=Gurdjieff+Henry+Miller#v=onepage&q=&f=fasle. "What I intended to say..." 
  44. ↑ Ginsburg, Seymour (2005). Gurdjief unveiled. Lighthouse Editions Ltd. p. 6. ISBN 1904998013. "Without any doubt the human psyche and thinking are becoming more and more automatic." 
  45. ↑ See The Parable of The Sower
  46. ↑ Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat: Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it. Matthew 7, 13-14.
  47. ↑ Ouspensky, P. D. (1977). In Search of the Miraculous. Harcourt Brace & Co.. pp. 299–302. ISBN 0156445085. "G. invariably began by emphasizing the fact that there is something very wrong at the basis of our usual attitude towards problems of religion." 
  48. ↑ Cafes.net
  49. ↑ Henry Tracol, The Taste For Things That Are True, p. 84, Element Books: Shaftesbury, 1994
  50. ↑ Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke Black Sun, p. 323, NYU Press, 2003 ISBN 978-0-8147-3155-0
  51. ↑ Bruno de Panafieu/Jacob Needleman/George Baker/Mary Stein Gurdjieff: Essays and Reflections on the Man and His Teachings, p. 166, Continuum, 1997 ISBN 978-0-8264-1049-8
  52. ↑ Gary Lachmann Turn Off Your Mind, pp. 32-33, Disinformation Co., 2003 ISBN 978-0-9713942-3-0
  53. ↑ Gary Lachman Politics and the Occult, p. 124, Quest Books, 2004 ISBN 978-0-8356-0857-2
  54. ↑ Colin Wilson G. I. Gurdjieff/P.D. Ouspensky, ch. 6, Maurice Bassett, 2007 Kindle Edition ASIN B0010K7P5M
  55. ↑ Frank R. Sinclair, Without Benefit of Clergy, p. 17, Xlibris Corporation, 2005 ISBN 1-4134-7514-0
  56. ↑ Jessmin and Dushkah Howarth, IT'S UP TO OURSELVES" A Mother, A Daughter and Gurdjieff, a Shared Memoir and Family Photoalbum, Gurdjieff Heritage Society, 2009 ISBN 978-0-9791926-0-9
  57. ↑ Osho, Kundalini Yoga: In Search of the Miraculous, volume I, p. 208, Sterling Publisher Ltd., 1997 ISBN 8120719530
  58. ↑ Alex Owen The Place of Enchantment, p. 235, University of Chicago Press, 2004 ISBN 978-0-226-64201-7
  59. ↑ Whitall Perry Gurdjieff in the Light of Tradition, p. 77, Sophia Perennis, 2005 ISBN 978-1-59731-015-4
  60. ↑ Samael Aun Weor The Juratena Mountain, ch. 3, Colombia S. A., Spanish first edition 1959
  61. ↑ Gurdjieff, G. (1963). Meetings with Remarkable Men. E.P. Dutton & Co., Inc.. pp. 54–55. ISBN 0140190373. "In his conversations with me he often spoke about the question of sex." 
  62. ↑ Martin Gardner Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science, p. 215, Dover Publications Inc., 1957 ISBN 978-0-486-20394-2
  63. ↑ Colin Wilson Rasputin and the Fall of the Romanovs, p. 103, Farrar Straus & Co., 1964 ASIN B001GIMPZ8
  64. ↑ Edwin Abbott/Ian Stewart The Annotated Flatland, p. 140, Da Capo Press, 2002 ISBN 978-0-7382-0541-0
  65. ↑ Phillpotts, Dorothy (2008). Discovering Gurdjieff. AuthorHouse. p. 232. ISBN 1434388711. http://books.google.com/books?id=gcoMppgR2vcC&dq=Gurdjieff+funeral&lr=. "In front of me and behind me were people I did not know..." 
  66. ↑ Friedland and Zellman, The Fellowship, pp.33-135
  67. ↑ Review of the Fellowship
  68. ↑ Amazon.fr

External links

Critics