Fall 1999 Issue, Vol. III No. 1

In Memoriam: An Introduction to Gurdjieff

Editorial Introduction

Our ninth issue, the last of the millennium, comes in the same month that George Ivanovich Gurdjieff died in Paris fifty years ago. This provides an occasion to consider the rich multi-faceted portrait of him that the future will inherit.

Excerpts from the Talks and Writings
of G. I. Gurdjieff

These selected excerpts on philosophy, religion, science, and psychology are drawn from key passages of Gurdjieff’s writings and notes on his talks.

Gurdjieff, G. I.
by Michel de Salzmann

Dr. de Salzmann provides an informed and thoughtful synopsis of Gurdjieff’s life, writings and influence as “an incomparable ‘awakener’ of men” and spiritual teacher who “left behind him a school embodying a specific methodology for the development of consciousness… The Gurdjieff teaching has emerged … as one of the most penetrating spiritual teachings of modern times.”

George Ivanovitch Gurdjieff (1877–1949)
by P. L. Travers

Travers—author of the Mary Poppins books—combines a historical account of Gurdjieff’s search and teaching with a pupil’s personal impressions of “this man whose life has the air of authentic myth.” She emphasizes that Gurdjieff “had come not to bring peace but a special kind of inner warfare and that his mission in life was to destroy men’s complacency and make them aware of their limitations. Only by such means, by what he called ‘conscious labours and intentional sufferings,’ was it possible to bring about their inner development. The Work, as his method came to be called, had, as it very soon appeared, been only too accurately named.”

Gurdjieff: The Unknown Man
by Kenneth Walker

Dr. Walker’s vivid account, particularly of his first visit to Gurdjieff’s Paris apartment in the late 1940s, is distinguished by his keenly trained powers of observation as a physician. “Gurdjieff used to say that a man revealed himself most clearly in his reactions to sexuality and to money. I could add yet another signpost to a man’s personality, namely, his reaction to Gurdjieff himself. Many reactions were possible, but it was impossible to be indifferent to him or to forget that he was there… Whatever he was, he was something on a much bigger scale than one had ever seen before, or is ever likely to see again.”

The Patriarch Goes West
by William Segal
[Excerpt Only]

Segal compares Gurdjieff to a Zen Patriarch and points out that his teaching has a timely appeal to Westerners, especially for those who are “hungry for deeper, more authentic modes of life.”

To Recognize a Master
by Henriette Lannes
[Excerpt Only]

Madame Lannes describes the powerfully unsettling and awakening impact that Gurdjieff’s person and teaching had on her. She emphasizes that Gurdjieff’s legacy is the possibility, through his teaching, of realizing that “We have to recognize a master in ourselves.”

All and Everything
by G. I. Gurdjieff

In these first two pages of Gurdjieff’s All and Everything, the author concisely describes the scope and purpose of his writings which were “All written according to entirely new principles of logical reasoning.”

An Introduction to the Writings of G. I. Gurdjieff
by J. Walter Driscoll

This synopsis is drawn from the author’s Gurdjieff: a Reading Guide. It briefly sketches the contents and publication history of Gurdjieff’s writings and the notes that have been published of his talks.

Gurdjieff Observed
by Roger Lipsey

Drawing on excerpts from the lesser known but “unexpectedly rich secondary literature,” Lipsey assembles a vivid composite portrait of Gurdjieff and the ontological challenge he presented to everyone around him. In so doing, he provides an excellent introductory survey of the anecdotal literature about Gurdjieff.

G. I. Gurdjieff and His School
by Jacob Needleman

Professor Needleman surveys those aspects of Gurdjieff’s “life and teaching that are of signal importance for anyone approaching this influential spiritual teacher for the first time.” He traces how Gurdjieff’s influence is becoming a factor in contemporary civilization and describes the international activities of The Gurdjieff Foundation.

Gurdjieff as Survivalist
by James Moore
[Excerpt Only]

Moore’s introduction to the second edition of his biography offers an astute appraisal of the currents swirling around Gurdjieff’s emerging cultural influence and reminds us of the obvious fact that Gurdjieff was “that rarest of creatures, a man who knows what he is talking about.”

Let Us Not Conclude
by Henri Tracol

Tracol characterizes what is essential in the Gurdjieff teaching as a call to “place myself interiorly in relation to what presents itself from the outside.” He emphasizes that this teaching guards against dependence on credulity, dogma and subjectivity.

About This Publication

“There do exist enquiring minds, which long for the truth of the heart, seek it, strive to solve the problems set by life, try to penetrate to the essence of things and phenomena and to penetrate into themselves. If a man reasons and thinks soundly, no matter which path he follows in solving these problems, he must inevitably arrive back at himself, and begin with the solution of the problem of what he is himself and what his place is in the world around him.”

G. I. Gurdjieff

“Gurdjieff had a very wide range of knowledge, which embraced modern Western scientific theories as well as the special knowledge he had learned in his years of wandering in the East. But it was not so much what he said or what he did that impressed as what he was. Gurdjieff was a living example of the outcome of his own teaching, which he summed up in the words ‘the harmonious development of man.’”

Kenneth Walker

“No doubt there is a profound connection between Zen and the teaching of Gurdjieff, in that they both propose that only with tough disciplines and practice is it possible to relate to a ‘changeless self.’ Theory without practice, words without an immediate connection to experience, is for followers of both Zen and Gurdjieff as fruitless as ‘pouring from the empty into the void.’”

William Segal

“What I know for certain is that I truly began to recognize Mr. Gurdjieff when my eyes began to open. I saw him as he was to the extent I was able to see myself. From the moment when all my values—all inner facade and indeed also my outer one—began slowly and surely to be transformed, and another world, though still out of reach, began to appear in me, I knew it was he who was the cause.”

Henriette Lannes

“Beelzebub’s Tales … gradually yields its meanings only after repeated readings. Each reading of it opens new facets of Gurdjieff’s teaching, not only in intellectual terms but at deep, subconscious levels.”

Jacob Needleman

“Efforts to understand and to test the ideas: this is what gives this teaching its dynamic character: the growth of being indeed demands both a direct knowledge and a gradual mastery of the movements of our energy as it manifests itself on different levels.”

Henri Tracol

Copyright © 1999
Gurdjieff Electronic Publishing

October 1, 1999