The Struggle to "Fathom the Gist" of Beelzebub's Tales

The highest that a man can attain is to be able to do.

Gurdjieff International Review

The Struggle to “Fathom the Gist” of Beelzebub’s Tales

by Terry Winter Owens

For over 30 years, I have wanted to write a follow up to the essay on Gurdjieff's All and Everything, that I wrote in the 1960's expressly for the University Books Mystic Arts Book Club. Writing now from a different perspective, I want to specially focus on Gurdjieff's "friendly advice" to the reader and some issues that arose from a consideration of that advice. In the preamble titled "Friendly Advice," that Gurdjieff inserts before the table of contents to All and Everything, he states:

I find it necessary on the first page of this book, quite ready for publication, to give the following advice: 'Read each of my written expositions thrice:

Firstly—at least as you have already become mechanized to read all contemporary books and newspapers.
Secondly—as if you were reading aloud to another person.
And only thirdly—try and fathom the gist of my writings.'
Only then will you be able to count upon forming your own impartial judgment, proper to yourself alone, on my writings. And only then can my hope be actualized that according to your understanding you will obtain the specific benefit for yourself which I anticipate, and which I wish for you with all my being.

Who among students of the Work would not wish for this benefit for themselves? Probably I will not gain anything beneficial or significant from still another overview of Beelzebub's Tales. But something quite beneficial may be gained from the process of fathoming. What Gurdjieff intended by the verb fathoming is a question worthy of deep consideration and one which inevitably leads to other questions.…

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

Gurdjieff International Review

The Struggle to “Fathom the Gist” of Beelzebub’s Tales

by Terry Winter Owens