[First published in the New York Evening Post, January 26, 1924, p. 12. Raymond Carroll provides a journalist's jaunty account of "Gurdjieffers," the "weird and fantastic Gurdjieff cult" which had just arrived in the U.S. for the first time. Despite Carroll's limited understanding of Gurdjieff and the movements demonstration he witnessed, his article contains several vivid observations that are not available elsewhere.]

All His Followers Turn Over Their Worldly Goods to "The Master" to Be Used For Further Propagation Of Strange Faith

A NEW CULT has come to town. Really it is a very old cult, for it scurries down through the centuries to us from pagan times. Like all cults it has a "Master"—Gurdjieff, a former Greek antique collector who lived in Moscow but who spent years studying the pagan harmonic rhythms, the gymnastics of esoteric schools, sacred temple dances and ceremonies, the ritual movements of monks, dervishes, shamans, and fakirs of the various religious ceremonies.

You pronounce his name "Gurr-jeff." He is here among us—a medium-sized man of powerful black eyes with a black mustache which rides his upper lip like a whipstock. His head is shaved, after the fashion of a Brahmin. None other—yes, he is the famous Gurdjieff of the Gurdjieff Institute for the Harmonious Development of Man, which is permanently located in the outskirts of the historic town of Fountainbleau, thirty-seven miles southeast of Paris.…

[The complete text is available in the printed copy of this issue.]

Copyright © 1924 New York Evening Post This webpage © 1998 Gurdjieff Electronic Publishing Featured: Summer 1998 Issue, Vol. I (4) Revision: May 1, 2000