George Ivanovich Gurdjieff
|
Born | January 13, 1866 Alexandropol, Russian Empire |
Died | October 29, 1949 (aged 83) Neuilly-sur-Seine, France |
Era | 20th-century |
Region | Western Esotericism |
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,
Georgian:
გიორგი გურჯიევი,
Greek:
Γεώργιος Γεωργιάδης,
Russian:
Гео́ргий Ива́нович Гюрджи́ев, January 13, 1866 – October 29, 1949) was an influential
spiritual teacher of the early to mid-20th century who taught that the vast majority of humanity lives their entire lives in a state of hypnotic "waking sleep," but that it was possible to transcend to a higher state of consciousness and achieve full human potential. Gurdjieff developed a method for doing so, calling his discipline "The Work"
[1] (connoting "work on oneself") or "the Method."
[2]According to his principles and instructions,
[3]. Gurdjieff's method for awakening one's consciousness is different from that of the
fakir,
monk or
yogi, so his discipline is also called (originally) the "
Fourth Way."
[4] At one point he described his teaching as being "
esoteric Christianity."
[5]
At different times in his life, Gurdjieff formed and closed various schools around the world to teach the work. 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.
[6] The title of his third series of writings,
Life Is Real Only Then, When 'I Am',expresses the essence
[citation needed] of his teachings. His complete series of books is entitled
All and Everything.
[edit]Biography
'Every one of those unfortunates during the process of existence should constantly sense and be cognizant of the inevitability of his own death as well as of the death of everyone upon whom his eyes or attention rests'.
The exact date of his birth remains unknown (conjectures range from 1866 to 1877). Some authors (such as Moore) argue persuasively for 1866, others, like Patterson (Struggle of the Magicians, pp. 273-74.), for 1872; Both Olga de Hartmann—the woman Gurdjieff called "the first friend of my inner life"—and Louise Goepfert March, Gurdjieff's secretary in the early thirties, believed that Gurdjieff was born in 1872. A passport gave a birthdate of November 28, 1877, but he stated that he was born at the stroke of midnight at the beginning of New Year's Day (Julian calendar). Gurdjieff grew up in
Karsand 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."
[8]
The only account of Gurdjieff's early life, before he appeared in
Moscow in 1912, appears in his book
Meetings with Remarkable Men. This text, however, cannot be read as straightforward autobiography.
[9] In the period before 1912, Gurdjieff went on the voyage outlined in
Meetings with Remarkable Men, where he came upon a map of "pre-sand Egypt," which led him to study with an esoteric group, the alleged
Sarmoung Brotherhood.
From 1913 to 1949 the chronology appears to be based on material that can be confirmed by primary documents, independent witnesses, cross-references, and reasonable inference.
[10] On New Year's Day in 1912, Gurdjieff arrived in Moscow and attracted his first students. In the same year he married the
Polish 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 30 pupils.
In March 1918, Ouspensky separated from Gurdjieff. 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. 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 de Salzmann and his wife Jeanne and accepted them as pupils. Assisted by Jeanne de 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 concentrated on his still unstaged ballet,
The Struggle of the Magicians; Thomas de Hartmann (who had made his debut years ago before as 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.
[11] In 1919, Gurdjieff established his first
Institute for the Harmonious Development of Man. He was thought
[by whom?] to be greatly influenced by
Nicholas Marr, a Georgian
archaeologist and historian.
[citation needed]
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. He attracted 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 Mansouth 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.
[14] However, James Moore and Ouspensky
[15] convincingly show that Katherine Mansfield knew she would soon die, and that Gurdjieff made her last days happy and fulfilling.
[16]
Starting in 1924, Gurdjieff made visits to North America, where he eventually received the pupils taught previously by A.R. Orage. In 1924, while driving alone from Paris to Fontainebleau, he 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 developed
cancer; she died in June 1926 in spite of
radiotherapy and Gurdjieff's magnetic treatments. Ouspensky attended her funeral. According to Fritz Peters, Gurdjieff was in New York from November 1925 to the spring of 1926, when he succeeded in raising over $100,000.
[17]
In 1935 Gurdjieff stopped writing
All and Everything. He had completed the first two parts of the trilogy but only started on the
Third Series. (It was later 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.
[18]
[edit]Offspring
Gurdjieff had seven known illegitimate children:
[19]
- Cynthie Sophia "Dushka" Howarth (1924-2010); her mother was dancer Jessmin Howarth.[20][21][1] She went on to found the Gurdjieff Heritage Foundation.[2]
- Sergei Chaverdian; his mother was Lily Galumnian Chaverdian.[22]
- Andrei, born to a mother known only as Georgii.[23]
- Eve Taylor (born 1928); the mother was one of his followers, American socialite Edith Annesley Taylor.[24]
- Nikolai Stjernvall (1919-2010), whose mother was Elizaveta Grigorievna, wife of Leonid Robertovich de Stjernvall.[3]
- Michel de Salzmann (1923-2001), whose mother was Jeanne Allemand de Salzmann; he later became head of the Gurdjieff Foundation.[25]
- Svetlana Hinzenberg, daughter of Olgivanna Hinzenberg and a future stepdaughter of architect Frank Lloyd Wright.[26]
Gurdjieff claimed that people cannot perceive reality in their current states 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."
[27] As a result of this condition, each person perceives things from a completely subjective perspective. 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.
[28]
[edit]Self-development teachings
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 humans 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 provide only 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 properly 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"
[29] 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.[30] According to Gurdjieff, "...Working on oneself is not so difficult as wishing to work, taking the decision."
[31] 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,
[32] inner growth and development are real possibilities that nonetheless require conscious work to achieve.
[33]
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.
[34]
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.
[35]
Distrusting "morality," which he describes as varying from culture to culture, often contradictory and hypocritical, 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 daydreaming were always possible at any moment.
[edit]Methods
The Work is in essence a training in the development of consciousness. During his lifetime Gurdjieff used a number of different methods and materials, including meetings, music, movements (sacred dance), writings, lectures, and innovative forms of group and individual work. Part of the function of these various methods was to undermine and undo the ingrained habit patterns of the mind and bring about moments of insight. Since each individual has different requirements, Gurdjieff did not have a one-size-fits-all approach, and he adapted and innovated as circumstance required.
[36] In Russia he was described as keeping his teaching confined to a small circle,
[37] whereas in Paris and North America he gave numerous public demonstrations.
[38].
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 and often led to various forms of stagnation and one-sidedness. His methods were designed to augment the traditional paths with the purpose of hastening the developmental process. He sometimes called these methods
The Way of the Sly Man[39] because they constituted a sort of short-cut through a process of development that might otherwise carry on for years without substantive results. The teacher, possessing consciousness, sees the individual requirements of the disciple and sets tasks that he knows will result in a transformation of consciousness in that individual. Instructive historical parallels can be found in the annals of
Zen Buddhism, where teachers employed a variety of methods (sometimes highly unorthodox) to bring about the arising of
insight in the student.
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.
[40] 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 in the salon at the Prieure, where much was composed. 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. Solo piano versions of these works have been recorded by
Cecil Lytle[41] and
Keith Jarrett.
[42]
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 collection of surviving recordings was recently released. A detailed booklet includes thoughts from producer
Gert-Jan Blom and a preface by
Robert Fripp.
[43] In all, Gurdjieff in collaboration with de Hartmann composed some 200 pieces.
[44] And most recently in May 2010, 38 minutes of unreleased solo piano music on acetate was purchased by Neil Kempfer Stocker from the estate of his late step-daughter Dushka Howarth.
[edit]Movements
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.
[edit]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. He believed that 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.
[citation needed]
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.
[45] 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 the magazine
Gentry.
[46] 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."
[47]
[edit]Writings
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. There are two English Translations of this unique work, one carried out under his strict supervision (Beelzebub 1950-1999) when still alive and the other after his death first published in 1991 without notifying the readers. Gurdjieff deliberately tried to increase the effort needed to read and understand the book. As a result the book is perhaps not the best introduction to Gurdjieff's ideas since part of the book's intention is to frustrate and usurp the normal patterns of thought. The second volume,
Meetings with Remarkable Men, is written in an accessible 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 Master's 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.
Gurdjieff's own writings are generally not considered the best introduction to his thought. His own writings do not present any sort of systematisation that clearly existed in his private teachings. Several of Gurdjieff's students kept records of these teachings and published their own accounts. The most highly regarded of these accounts are considered to be those of P D
Ouspensky[citation needed].
As Gurdjieff explained to Ouspensky ... "for exact understanding exact language is necessary."
[48] 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..."
[49] 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.
[50]
[edit]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.
[33]On the other hand, some critics assert he was a
charlatan with a large ego and a constant need for self-glorification.
[51] 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,
[52] 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,
Rene Daumal 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.
[53] 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.
[54]
Gurdjieff gave 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. There have been many attempts to trace the origins of this version 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.
[citation needed] 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.
Gurdjieff inspired the formation of many groups after his death, all of which still function today and follow his ideas.
[55] 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 pupils of his. The main four branches of the Foundation.
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. Independent groups were formed and led by
John G. Bennett and Mrs. Staveley.
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.
[edit]Gurdjieff's pupils
Gurdjieff's notable pupils include
[56]:
Jeanne de Salzmann, originally a teacher of dance, recognized as his deputy by many of Gurdjieff's other pupils. She was responsible for transmitting the movements and teachings of Gurdjieff through the
Gurdjieff Foundation of New York, the Gurdjieff Institute of Paris, and other groups.
Willem Nyland was considered by some to be Gurdjieff's closest pupil, after Jeanne de Salzmann; he was appointed for an undisclosed special task by Gurdjieff in the
USA. At present, Mr. Nyland's groups exist in small concentrations across the United States, most notably at two locations, one termed "The Barn" in rural New York, and another termed "The Land" in Northern California. These groups are thought to be unique amongst recognized Gurdjieff groups, in that they are the only groups to have recorded their original meetings, resulting in an audio library in excess of many thousands of hours, featuring almost exclusively talks by a first-hand student of Gurdjieff. Many of these tapes have also been transcribed and indexed according to subject matter, but neither the tapes nor transcriptions are available to the general public.
Henry John Sinclair, 2nd Baron Pentland was a pupil of Ouspensky for many years during the 1930s and 1940s. He began to study intensely with Gurdjieff in 1948. He was appointed by Gurdjieff as his representative to publish
Beelzebub's Tales, and then to lead the Work in North America. He became president of the Gurdjieff Foundation when it was established in New York in 1953, and remained in that position until his death in 1984.
Jane Heap, an American publisher, met Gurdjieff during his 1924 visit to New York, and set up a Gurdjieff study group at her apartment in Greenwich Village. In 1925, she moved to Paris to study at Gurdjieff’s Institute, and in 1935 to London to set up a new study group.
Peter D. Ouspensky, a Russian esoteric philosopher, met Gurdjieff in 1916 and spent the next few years studying with him, later forming his own independent groups which also focused on the Fourth Way. He wrote
In Search of the Miraculous about his experiences with Gurdjieff.
Thomas de Hartmann, a Russian composer and prominent student and collaborator of Gurdjieff, first met Gurdjieff in 1916 in Saint Petersburg. From 1917 to 1929 he was a pupil and confidant of Gurdjieff. During that time, at Gurdjieff's Institute for the Harmonious Development of Man near Paris, de Hartmann transcribed and co-wrote much of the music that Gurdjieff collected and used for his Movements exercises, as well as additional music not intended to accompany Movements. Olga de Hartmann was Gurdjieff's personal secretary for many years, and collected many of Gurdjieff's early talks in the book
Views from the Real World (1973).
In 1924,
Alfred Richard Orage, a British intellectual, the editor of the magazine,
The New Age, was appointed by Gurdjieff as the assistant of another old follower of Gurdjieff to lead study groups in America, but due to Gurdjieff’s nearly fatal automobile accident, the one who was supposed to lead the groups never went to US and Orage decided to lead the groups on his own initiation.
Maurice Nicoll became a pupil of Gurdjieff in 1922. A year later, when Gurdjieff closed his Institute, Nicoll joined Ouspensky's group. In 1931, he followed Ouspensky's advice and started his own groups in England. He is perhaps best known as the author of the five volume series of texts on the teachings of Gurdjieff and Ouspensky:
Psychological Commentaries on the Teaching of Gurdjieff and Ouspensky (Boston: Shambhala, 1996, and Samuel Weiser Inc., 1996).
John G. Bennett, a British technologist, industrial research director, and author best known for his many books on psychology and spirituality, and particularly the teachings of G.I. Gurdjieff, whom Bennett met in Istanbul in 1921.
Olgivanna Lazovich who later became Mrs.
Olgivanna Lloyd Wright when she married the architect,
Frank Lloyd Wright, was a student of Gurdjieff, as was their daughter, Iovanna Lloyd Wright. After returning to Taliesin, Iovanna instituted classes in Gurdjieffian Dance Movements, which apprentices were required to participate in and learn. On Wednesday afternoons, Mr. Wright would read to his pupils and discuss Gurdjieff's ideas expressed in
All and Everything, and in Ouspensky's book,
In Search of the Miraculous.
[edit]Responses
Louis Pauwels, among others,
[57] criticizes Gurdjieff for his insistence on considering 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."
[58]
Henry Miller approved of Gurdjieff's not considering himself holy but, after writing a brief introduction to Fritz Peters' book
Boyhood with Gurdjieff, Miller wrote that man is not meant to lead a "harmonious life," as Gurdjieff claimed in naming his institute.
[59]
Critics note that Gurdjieff gives no value to most of the elements that comprise 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 of being anything else.
[60] This belief seems to run counter to the Judeo-Christian tradition that man is a living soul. 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 attain only 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
[61]—went the "broad way" that "led to destruction."
[62]
In
Beelzebub's Tales to His Grandson (see bibliography), Gurdjieff expresses 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 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.
[63]
Gurdjieff's former students who have criticized him argue that, despite his seeming total lack of pretension to any kind of "guru holiness," in many anecdotes his behavior displays the unsavory and impure character of a man who was a cynical manipulator of his followers.
[64] 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."
[65]
Louis Pauwels wrote
Monsieur Gurdjieff (first edition published in Paris, France in 1954 by Editions du Seuil).
[66] In an interview, Pauwels 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."
[67]
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.
[68] 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.
[69]
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)."
[70]
In the early 1930s Gurdjieff publicly ridiculed one of his pupils, Alfred Richard Orage. In response, his wife Jessie Dwight wrote the following 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, 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. Some
Sufi orders, such as the
Naqshbandi, draw from and are amenable to Kundalini.
[71]
[edit]Bibliography
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,
[72] 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.
[edit]Books about Gurdjieff and The Fourth Way
- The Reality of Being, by Jeanne de Salzmann, 2010, Shambhala Publications, ISBN 978-1-59030-928-5
- The Teachers of Gurdjieff, by Rafael Lefort, 1966, Victor Gollancz, ISBN 0-87728-213-7
- The Unknowable Gurdjieff, Margaret Anderson, Routledge & Kegan Paul, London, 1962, ISBN 0-7100-7656-8
- Gurdjieff: A Very Great Enigma by J. G. Bennett, 1969
- Gurdjieff: Making a New World by J. G. Bennett 1973, ISBN 0-06-090474-7
- Idiots in Paris by J. G. Bennett and E. Bennett, 1980
- Becoming Conscious with G.I. Gurdjieff, Solanges Claustres, Eureka Editions, 2005
- Mount Analogue by René Daumal 1st edition in French, 1952; English, 1974
- The Fellowship: The Untold Story of Frank Lloyd Wright and the Taliesin Fellowship by Roger Friedland and Harold Zellman, 2006, (includes especially extensive documentation on "the strong influence the occultist Georgi Gurdjieff had on Wright and especially his wife Oglivanna."[75])
- Gurdjieff Unveiled by Seymour Ginsburg, 2005
- Our Life with Mr. Gurdjieff by Thomas and Olga de Hartmann, 1964, Revised 1983 and 1992
- IT'S UP TO OURSELVES, A Mother, A Daughter and Gurdjieff, a Shared Memoir and Family Photoalbum by Jessmin and Dushka Howarth, Gurdjieff Heritage Society, 2009, ISBN 978-0-9791926-0-9
- Undiscovered Country by Kathryn Hulme, 1966
- The Oragean Version by C. Daly King, 1951
- The Gurdjieff Years 1929-1949: Recollections of Louise March by Annabeth McCorkle
- Psychological Commentaries on the Teachings of Gurdjieff and Ouspensky by Maurice Nicoll, 1952, 1955, 1972, 1980, (6 volumes)
- Teachings of Gurdjieff : A Pupil's Journal : An Account of Some Years With G.I. Gurdjieff and A.R. Orage in New York and at Fontainbleau-Avon by C. S. Nott, Routledge and Kegan Paul, London, 1961
- On Love by A. R. Orage, 1974
- Psychological Exercises by A. R. Orage 1976
- In Search of the Miraculous by P. D. Ouspensky, 1949 (numerous editions)
- The Fourth Way by P. D. Ouspensky, 1957
- The Psychology of Man's Possible Evolution by P. D. Ouspensky, 1978
- Eating The "I": An Account of The Fourth Way: The Way of Transformation in Ordinary Life, William Patrick Patterson, 1992
- Ladies of the Rope: Gurdjieff's Special Left Bank Women's Group, William Patrick Patterson 1999
- Struggle of the Magicians: Exploring the Teacher-Student Relationship, William Patrick Patterson 1996
- Taking with the Left Hand: Enneagram Craze, The Fellowship of Friends, and the Mouravieff Phenomenon, William Patrick Patterson, 1998
- Voices in the Dark: Esoteric, Occult & Secular Voices in Nazi-Occupied Paris 1940-44, William Patrick Patterson, 2001
- The Life & Teachings of Carlos Castaneda, William Patrick Patterson, 2008
- Spiritual Survival in a Radically Changing World-Time, William Patrick Patterson, 2009
- Boyhood with Gurdjieff by Fritz Peters, 1964
- Gurdjieff Remembered by Fritz Peters, 1965
- The Gurdjieff Work by Kathleen Speeth ISBN 0-87477-492-6
- Gurdjieff: An Introduction To His Life and Ideas by John Shirley, 2004, ISBN 1-58542-287-8
- Gurdjieff: A Master in Life, Tcheslaw Tchekhovitch, Dolmen Meadow Editions, Toronto, 2006
- Toward Awakening by Jean Vaysse, 1980
- Gurdjieff: An Approach to his Ideas, Michel Waldberg, 1981, ISBN 0-7100-0811-2
- A Study of Gurdjieff's Teaching, Kenneth Walker, 1957
- Gurdjieff: The Key Concepts, Sophia Wellbeloved, Routledge, London and N.Y., 2003, ISBN 0-415-24898-1
- Gurdjieff, Astrology and Beelzebub's Tales, Sophia Wellbeloved, Solar Bound Press, N.Y., 2002
- The War Against Sleep: The Philosophy of Gurdjieff, Colin Wilson, 1980
- Who Are You Monsieur Gurdjieff?, René Zuber 1980
- Monsieur Gurdjieff, Louis Pauwels, France, 1954.[76]
- "Ouspensky, Gurdjieff et les Fragments d'un Enseignement inconnu", by Boris Mouravieff, in Revue Mensuelle Internationale "Synthèses", N°138, Bruxelles, novembre 1957.
- "Ecrits sur Ouspensky, Gurdjieff et sur la Tradition ésotérique chrétienne", Inédit, Dervy Poche, Paris, September 2008.
- Gurdjieff Seeker of the Truth, Kathleen Speeth, Ira Friedlander, 1980, ISBN 0-06-090693-6
- The Self and I: Identity and the question "Who am I" in the Gurdjieff Work, Dimitri Peretzi, 2011, ISBN 978-960-99708-1-5
- Gurdjieff and Hypnosis: A Hermeneutic Study, by Mohammad H. Tamdgidi, foreword by J. Walter Driscoll, Palgrave/Macmillan, 2009 (HC)/2012 (PB), ISBN 978-0230615076 (HC), ISBN 978-1137282439 (PB)
[edit]Comprehensive biographies
- Gurdjieff: Making a New World posthumous work by John G. Bennett, 1973, Harper, ISBN 0-06-060778-5
- The Harmonious Circle: The Lives and Work of G. I. Gurdjieff, P. D. Ouspensky, and Their Followers by James Webb, 1980, Putnam Publishing. ISBN 0-399-11465-3
- Gurdjieff: The anatomy of a Myth by James Moore, 1991, ISBN 1-86204-606-9
- Gurdjieff's America: Mediating the Miraculous by Paul Beekman Taylor, 2004, Lighthouse Editions, ISBN 1-904998-00-3. Reissued as Gurdjieff's Invention of America 2007, Eureka Editions.
- G. I. Gurdjieff: A New Life by Paul Beekman Taylor, 2008, Eureka Editions, ISBN 978-90-72395-57-3
[edit]Videos and DVDs about Gurdjieff and the Fourth Way
- G.I. Gurdjieff Sacred Hymns, by Keith Jarrett, ECM, 1980
- Seekers of the Truth: The Complete Piano Music of Georges I. Gurdjieff and Thomas de Hartmann, Volume One, by Cecil Lytle,Celestial Harmonies, 1992
- Reading of a Sacred Book: The Complete Piano Music of Georges I. Gurdjieff and Thomas de Hartmann, Volume Two, by Cecil Lytle, Celestial Harmonies, 1992
- Words for a Hymn to the Sun: The Complete Piano Music of Georges I. Gurdjieff and Thomas de Hartmann, Volume Three, byCecil Lytle, Celestial Harmonies, 1992
- Gurdjieff/deHartmann, piano music pianist Elsa Denzey, GFT (record label), 1998
- Gurdjieff's Music for the Movements, by Wim van Dullemen, Channel Classics, 1999
- Thomas de Hartmann: Music for Gurdjieff's '39 Series' , by Wim van Dullemen, Channel Classics, 2001
- Chants, Hymns and Dances, by Anja Lechner and Vassilis Tsabropoulos, ECM, 2004
- Melos, by Anja Lechner, Vassilis Tsabropoulos and U.T. Gandhi, ECM, 2008
- The Way of the Sly Man, by Dave Morgan, Being Time, 2010
[edit]See also
[edit]References
- ^ Ouspensky, P. D. (1977). In Search of the Miraculous. pp. 312–313. ISBN 0-15-644508-5. "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."
- ^ Nott, C.S. (1961). Teachings of Gurdjieff : A Pupil's Journal : An Account of some Years with G.I. Gurdjieff and A.R. Orage in New York and at Fontainbleau-Avon. Routledge and Kegan Paul, London and Henley. p. x. ISBN 0-7100-8937-6.
- ^ De Penafieu, Bruno (1997). Needleman, Jacob; Baker, George. eds. Gurdjieff. Continuum International Publishing Group. p. 214. ISBN [[Special:BookSources/0-8264-1049-8|0-8264-1049-8]]. "If I were to cease working... all these worlds would perish."
- ^ Gurdjieff International Review
- ^ An Anthology of Quotations on The Fourth Way and Esoteric Christianity Bardic-press.com
- ^ P. D. Ouspensky (1949). In Search of the Miraculous
- ^ http://gurdjieffbooks.wordpress.com/2009/02/04/gurdjieff-armenian-roots-global-branches/
- ^ James Moore, Gurdjieff: Anatomy of a Myth, p. 138
- ^ S. Wellbeloved, Gurdjieff, Astrology and Beelzebub's Tales, pp. 9-13
- ^ James Moore, Chronology of Gurdjieff's Life
- ^ Moore, James (1999). Gurdjieff. Element Books Ltd. p. 132.ISBN 1-86204-606-9. "What name would you give such an Institute?"
- ^ "In Gurdjieff’s wake in Istanbul", Gurdjieff Movements, March 2003.
- ^ John G. Bennett (1983). Witness
- ^ Moore, James (1980). Gurdjieff and Mansfield. Routledge & Kegan Paul. p. 3. ISBN [[Special:BookSources/0-7100-0488-8|0-7100-0488-8]]. "In numerous accounts Gurdjieff is defined with stark simplicity as "the man who killed Katherine Mansfield.""
- ^ Ouspensky, In search of the Miraculous, chapter XVIII, p.392
- ^ Fraser, Ross. "Gabrielle Hope 1916-1962". Art New Zealand (Art New Zealand) 30 (Winter).
- ^ Taylor, Paul Beekman (2004). Gurdjieff's America. Lighthouse Editions Ltd. p. 103. ISBN [[Special:BookSources/1-904998-00-6|1-904998-00-6]]. "What Gurdjieff was doing during the winter of 1925-1926..."
- ^ James Moore (1993). Gurdjieff—A Biography: The Anatomy of a Myth.
- ^ Paul Beekman Taylor, Shadows of Heaven: Gurdjieff and Toomer (Red Wheel, 1998), page 3
- ^ Roger Friedland and Harold Zellman, The Fellowship: The Untold Story of Frank Lloyd Wright and the Taliesin Fellowship(Harper Collins, 2007), page 424
- ^ Jessmin Howarth and Dushka Howarth, It's Up to Ourselves: A Mother, a Daughter, and Gurdjieff (1998)
- ^ Paul Beekman Taylor, Shadows of Heaven: Gurdjieff and Toomer (Red Wheel, 1998), page xv
- ^ Paul Beekman Taylor, Shadows of Heaven: Gurdjieff and Toomer (Red Wheel, 1998), page xv
- ^ Paul Beekman Taylor, Shadows of Heaven: Gurdjieff and Toomer (Red Wheel, 1998), page 3
- ^ Paul Beekman Taylor, Gurdjieff's America: Mediating the Miraculous (Lighthouse Editions, 2005), page 211
- ^ That Svetlana is considered to be a daughter of Gurdjieff by all his other identified children is cited in Paul Beekman Taylor,Shadows of Heaven: Gurdjieff and Toomer (Red Wheel, 1998), page 3
- ^ P.D. Ouspensky (1949), In Search of the Miraculous
- ^ Jacob Needleman, G. I. Gurdjieff and His School
- ^ P.D. Ouspensky (1949), In Search of the Miraculous, Chapter 2
- ^ Gurdjieff International Review
- ^ Gurdjieff, George. Views from the real world. E. P. Dutton & Co., Inc.. p. 214. ISBN 0-525-47408-0.
- ^ P. D. Ouspensky (1949). In Search of the Miraculous Chapter 2
- ^ a b P. D. Ouspensky (1971). The Fourth Way, Chapter 1
- ^ Wellbeloved, Sophia (2003). Gurdjieff: the key concepts. Routledge. p. 109. ISBN [[Special:BookSources/0-415-24897-6|0-415-24897-6]]. "...different psychological terms in which the teaching of the Institute was presented..."
- ^ P. D. Ouspensky (1949). In Search of the Miraculous, Chapter 9
- ^ "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."Seekerbooks.com, Book review of Gary Lachman. In Search of the miraculles: Genius in the Shadow of Gurdjieff.
- ^ P. D. Ouspensky (1949). In Search of the MiraculousmChapter 1,
- ^ G.I. Gurdjieff (1963) Meetings with Remarkable Men, Chapter 11
- ^ See In Search of the Miraculous
- ^ Nielsen Business Media, Inc. (18 December 1999).Billboard. Nielsen Business Media, Inc.. pp. 60–.ISSN 00062510. Retrieved 14 April 2011.
- ^ Lytle, Cecil. "Cecil Lytle - List of Recordings". Retrieved 30 May 2011.
- ^ Jazz Discography Project. "Keith Jarrett Discography". Retrieved 30 May 2011.
- ^ "Gurdjieff - Harmonic Development". Retrieved 30 May 2011.
- ^ Gurdjieff.org
- ^ Segal, William (2003). A Voice at the Borders of Silence. Overlook Press. ISBN [[Special:BookSources/1-58567-442-8|1-58567-442-8]].
- ^ Peter Brook Candid Camera
- ^ Bees of the Invisible World vol. 1, p. 24 #20
- ^ Ouspensky, P. D. In Search of the Miraculous, p. 70, Harourt Brace & Co. 1949, ISBN 0-15-644508-5
- ^ MacDiarmid, Hugh (1998). The raucle tongue: hitherto uncollected prose. Carcanet. p. 137.ISBN [[Special:BookSources/1-85754-378-0|1-85754-378-0]].
- ^ 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 1-4343-0659-3. "...What this mysterious Izvarnoharno may be is no longer our primary interest."
- ^ Michael Waldberg (1990). Gurdjieff – An Approach to his Ideas, Chapter 1
- ^ Friedland and Zellman, The Fellowship, pp.33-135
- ^ Lawrence Sutin, Do what thou wilt: A life of Aleister Crowley, 2002, p. 317-318.
- ^ Dirda, Michael (2005). Bound to please. W.W. Norton & Co.. p. 222. ISBN 0-393-05757-7. "... he studied with the mystics..."
- ^ Seymour B. Ginsburg Gurdjieff Unveiled, pp. 71-7, Lighthouse Editions Ltd., 2005 ISBN 978-1-904998-01-3
- ^ http://www.gurdjieff.org/ (click "His Pupils" on the left side)
- ^ Lachman, Gary (2003). Turn off your mind. The Disinformation Co.. p. 13. ISBN [[Special:BookSources/0-9713942-3-0|0-9713942-3-0]]. "... a hostile book on... Gurdjieff."
- ^id=QjetCc6ktOgC&pg=PA110&dq=Gurdjieff+insanity&lr=#v=onepage&q=Gurdjieff%20insanity&f=false |page=110 |year=2001 |publisher=Samuel Weiser |isbn=1-57863-128-5 |quote=...Orage revealed Gurdjieff's views of drugs and alcohol as conducive to 'insanity'
- ^ Miller, Henry (1984). From Your Capricorn Friend. New Directions Publishing. p. 42. ISBN [[Special:BookSources/0-8112-0891-8|0-8112-0891-8]]. "What I intended to say..."
- ^ Ginsburg, Seymour (2005). Gurdjief unveiled. Lighthouse Editions Ltd. p. 6. ISBN [[Special:BookSources/1-904998-01-3|1-904998-01-3]]. "Without any doubt the human psyche and thinking are becoming more and more automatic."
- ^ See The Parable of The Sower
- ^ 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.
- ^ Ouspensky, P. D. (1977). In Search of the Miraculous. Harcourt Brace & Co.. pp. 299–302. ISBN 0-15-644508-5. "G. invariably began by emphasizing the fact that there is something very wrong at the basis of our usual attitude towards problems of religion."
- ^ Cafes.net
- ^ Henry Tracol, The Taste For Things That Are True, p. 84, Element Books: Shaftesbury, 1994
- ^ Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke Black Sun, p. 323, NYU Press, 2003 ISBN 978-0-8147-3155-0
- ^ 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
- ^ Gary Lachmann Turn Off Your Mind, pp. 32-33, Disinformation Co., 2003 ISBN 978-0-9713942-3-0
- ^ Gary Lachman Politics and the Occult, p. 124, Quest Books, 2004 ISBN 978-0-8356-0857-2
- ^ Colin Wilson G. I. Gurdjieff/P.D. Ouspensky, ch. 6, Maurice Bassett, 2007 Kindle Edition ASIN B0010K7P5M
- ^ Osho, Kundalini Yoga: In Search of the Miraculous, volume I, p. 208, Sterling Publisher Ltd., 1997 ISBN 81-207-1953-0
- ^ Friedland and Zellman, The Fellowship, pp.33-135
- ^ Panafieu, Bruno De; Needleman, Jacob; Baker, George (September 1997). Gurdjieff. Continuum International Publishing Group. pp. 28–. ISBN 978-0-8264-1049-8. Retrieved 14 April 2011. "A brief glimpse of the dances appears at the very end of the motion picture about Gurdjieff, Meetings with Remarkable Men, produced and directed in 1978 by Peter Brook, with a screenplay by Peter Brook and Jeanne de Salzmann"
- ^ nimbus:the creation story according to mr. g.. 1dhhb, inc.-doneve designs. 1978. pp. 182. ISBN 0-89556-008-9.
- ^ Review of the Fellowship
- ^ Amazon.fr
[edit]External links
- International Association of Gurdjieff Foundations
- Gurdjieff entry in Dictionary of Gnosis and Western Esotericism
- Gurdjieff Movements studies
- G. I. Gurdjieff and His School by Jacob Needleman, Professor of Philosophy, San Francisco State University
- Gurdjieff Reading Guide compiled by J. Walter Driscoll. Fifty-two articles which provide an independent survey of the literature by or about George Ivanovitch Gurdjieff and offer a wide range of informed opinion (admiring, critical, and contradictory) about him, his activities, writings, philosophy, and influence.
- Gurdjieff International Review Informed essays and commentary on the history, writings, and teachings of George Ivanovitch Gurdjieff.
- Writings on Gurdjieff's teachings in the Elizabeth Jenks Clark Collection of Margaret Anderson Papers at Yale University Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library
- Gurdjieff Work Definition by Wilhem Nyland Gurdjieff Work Definition by Wilhem Nyland
- The first published account in English about Gurdjieff, from In Denikin’s Russia and the Caucasus, 1919–1920, by C. E. Bechhofer [Roberts] (W. Collins Sons, 1921).
- talks with gurdjieff
- Gurdjieff: articles and links