The Sarmoung Brotherhood was an alleged esoteric Sufi brotherhood based in Asia. The reputed existence of the brotherhood was brought to light in the writings of George Gurdjieff, a Greek-Armenian spiritual teacher. Some contemporary Sufi-related sources also claim to have made contact with the group although the earliest and primary source is Gurdjieff himself, leading some scholarship to conclude the group was merely a fictional teaching device.[1]
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The word 'Sarmoung' uses the Armenian pronunciation of the Persian term 'Sarman', which may mean either 'he who preserves the doctrine of Zoroaster', or 'bee'.[2]
Regarding the meaning, the author John G. Bennett, a student and aide of the mystic Georges Gurdjieff writes:
"The word can be interpreted in three ways. It is the word for bee, which has always been a symbol of those who collect the precious 'honey' of traditional wisdom and preserve it for further generations. A collection of legends, well known in Armenian and Syrian circles with the title of The Bees, was revised by Mar Salamon, a Nestorian Archimandrite in the thirteenth century. The Bees refers to a mysterious power transmitted from the time of Zoroaster and made manifest in the time of Christ.... Man is Persian meaning as the quality transmitted by heredity and hence a distinguished family or race. It can be the repository of an heirloom or tradition. The word sar means head, both literally and in the sense of principal or chief. The combination sarman would thus mean the chief repository of the tradition." Yet another possibility was "those whose heads have been purified", in other words: the enlightened.[2]
The Brotherhood was also sought by Georges Gurdjieff on his journeys (pre-1912) through Southwest and Central Asia.[2][3] Gurdjieff states that the Brotherhood was known to have existed somewhere in Mesopotamia up to the sixth or seventh century AD. "But," he wrote before his later encounters: "about its further existence one could not obtain anywhere the least information".[4]
Gurdjiieff's experiences on these journeys, and a sketchy account of his somewhat mysterious relationship with the Sarmoung Brotherhood, can be found in his autobiography Meetings with Remarkable Men.[4] His attempts to establish a link between the Brotherhood, ancient Sumer, and even "pre-sand Egypt", was an intriguing attempt at acquiring esoteric knowledge that had been passed down from antiquity.[2][5]
In Studies in Comparative Religion (Winter 1974), it is said that according to the Armenian book Merkhavat, the Sarmoung Brotherhood, also referred to as the 'Inner Circle of Humanity', originated in ancient Babylon circa 2500 BC,[6] at around the time the Egyptians built the Great Pyramid of Giza. The Ouspensky Foundation state that the brotherhood was active in the golden Babylonian time of Hammurabi (1728-1686 BC) and is connected with Zoroaster, the teacher of Pythagoras (born c. 580 BC–572 BC, died c. 500 BC–490 BC). According to the Foundation, Pythagoras stayed for twelve years in Babylon.[7]
In The Masters of Wisdom, J.G. Bennett states that the Sarman left Babylon before the arrival of the Greek king of Macedon, Alexander the Great (who reigned 336-323 BC), moved up the Tigris and made their headquarters in the abandoned capital of the Assyrian Kings, close to modern-day Mosul in northern Iraq.[8]
The Commagene King Antiochus I Theos Epiphanes (c. 86 BC-38 BC, ruled 70 BC-38 BC) seems to have been connected to the Brotherhood, and may even have been (as Adrian Gilbert suggests) its leader.[5]
In Gurdjieff in the Light of Tradition (2002), Whitall Perry wrote that Gurdjieff believed that the northern Sufi orders could well be under the hidden direction of the Khwajagan - the 'Masters of Wisdom' - themselves in turn delegated by the Sarman 'Inner Circle', the 'Assembly of the Living Saints of the Earth'.[9]
According to Account of the Sarmoun Brotherhood (1966, 1982) by Major Desmond R. Martin, a major centre of the contemporary Sarmoun Brotherhood was in the Hindu Kush mountains of northern Afghanistan. Major Martin was an associate of the writer and Sufi teacher, Idries Shah.[10]
In the account, the motto of the Sarmouni is said to be "Work produces a Sweet Essence" (Amal misazad yak zaati shirin), work being not only work for God and for others but also self-work. In relation to this, it is maintained that just as the bee accumulates honey, so the Sarmouni accumulate, store and preserve what they term "true knowledge" (which is equally seen as existing as a positive commodity and associated with the spiritual gift or energy of Baraka).[10][11] In times of need this is released once more into the world through specially trained emissaries.[10]
In The People of the Secret, Edward Campbell (writing as Ernest Scott), another associate of Idries Shah, describes studies in extrasensory perception being undertaken in the contemporary Sarmoun monastery in Afghanistan.[11]
Mark Sedgwick, the Coordinator, Unit for Arab and Islamic Studies at Aarhus University writes:
Although few commentators in Gurdjief would put it so bluntly, it seems clear to me that the Sarmoung are entirely imaginary. No Sufi tariqa of such a name is known, and in fact "Sarmoung" is a typically Gurdjieffian fantastical name. It is immediately obvious to anyone who knows anything about regular Sufism that there is nothing remotely Sufi about the Sarmoung Order described by Gurdjieff.[1][12]
We could surmise that the name 'sarmoung brotherhood' was not any formal institution but instead a title adopted by Gurdjief as a metaphor for great traditions handed down from the past that he had discovered in his travels, thus providing greater legitimacy and a historical anchor for his teachings.