Gurdjieff in the 21st . . .

Hello Charlotte

I copied this for my own info.

Regards
John

GURDJIEFF

The Anatomy of a Myth

Book review by Anthony Campbell. Copyright © Anthony Campbell (2000).

Mention Gurdjieff to most people today and you will be greeted by a blank look. Between the two world wars, however, it would have been different; and if television had existed at the time there is no doubt that the man, and his establishment at Fontainebleau outside Paris, would have been the subject of a documentary. Many intellectuals stayed there for varying periods, and the writer Katharine Mansfield died there of tuberculosis; an event that led to much hostile criticism at the time.

George Ivanovitch Gurdjieff was a major Western guru, whose influence can be detected in many modern esoteric movements dedicated to spiritual development, rather as Freud's influence is seen in many forms of psychotherapy that are not formally linked to psychoanalysis. Gurdjieff was a highly enigmatic figure, who combined elements of the sage, the adventurer, the comedian, and the confidence trickster. Some revered him, some loved him, some feared or hated him, but no one who met him seems to have been indifferent. He appears to have been a combination of Svengali, Cagliostro, and Groucho Marx. He was immensely resourceful. One of my favourite Gurdjieff stories tells how he once raised funds by catching sparrows, dyeing them yellow, and selling them as `American canaries'.

To write a biography of Gurdjieff is a daunting task, given that Gurdjieff himself went out of his way to sow confusion about his past, continually spreading rumours and fantastic stories about what he had done and where he had been. There have nevertheless been numerous attempts to unravel the mystery; this is one of the best. Moore did not meet Gurdjieff himself but he has read extensively and has talked at length with surviving disciples.

Gurdjieff was born in Alexandropol in 1866; his father was Greek, his mother Armenian. Later the family moved to Kars. As a young man Gurdjieff apparently travelled widely in search of esoteric knowledge, although it is difficult to know how much of what he said about these years is true; certainly it contained a large element of fantasy. There are stories that he was involved in espionage in Tibet, where he claimed to have stayed at a mysterious monastery at which he acquired much of his knowledge. Shortly before the First World War he turned up in Moscow, where he attracted a group of disciples, among whom was a young engineer called P.D. Ouspensky. Ouspensky later became an influential esoteric teacher in his own right, expounding the System he had acquired from Gurdjieff at this time.

As civil war broke out in Russia in 1918, Gurdjieff escaped with a small group of followers and taught for a time in Tbilisi, but when conditions deteriorated he escaped again, this time to Constantinople (Istanbul). In 1922 he visited London, where Ouspensky was now living; but Gurdjieff's followers were unable to get permission for him to stay. It was this that led to Gurdjieff setting himself up in Fontainebleau. Here he remained until 1933, when he lost possession of his establishment owing to financial difficulties. It appears he had by this time lost interest in it. He then lived in Paris until the outbreak of war. After the Liberation his American disciples sought him out, bringing funds (the `American oil well' which Gurdjieff had said he would have access to after the war). He resumed teaching, though in a different way from previously. He died in 1949.

Gurdjieff's teaching methods were Zen-like: enigmatic in the extreme, with elements of slapstick comedy. He wrote a good deal, often in a deliberately obscure style. Once, when he thought he hadn't made his meaning difficult enough, he said to his amanuensis: "Bury the dog deeper." He insisted he meant to say `dog', and not `bone'; this remark seems typical of the man.

He liked to go on long drives, although he never had any driving lessons, and had at least two very serious accidents, in one of which he almost died. He would arrive at a hotel late at night and demand accommodation and food for his entourage; by exerting his charm he generally won over the hotel staff in spite of the inconvenience he put them to. These expeditions, and Gurdjieff's behaviour generally, are hilarious to read about, but it must have taken considerable devotion on the part of his disciples to live with his eccentricities.

It's probably impossible to write about a figure like Gurdjieff from a neutral standpoint. Moore explains his own position at the outset. By using the term `myth' to refer to Gurdjieff he does not mean to dismiss him as bogus; quite the contrary. It is evident that he thinks Gurdjieff to have been a major esoteric teacher, and he has himself practised Gurdjieffian methods since 1956. This might lead one to expect to find a work of hagiography, but not so; the general approach is fairly objective and scholarly, although also very readable. Moore's stated objective was to write an entertaining and informative introduction to his subject's life, and I think he has succeeded. There are detailed chapter notes for readers wishing to go further.

Hi All,

Rafael Lefort was a pen name of Idries Shah. The The Teachers of Gurdjieff book is a fabrication.
No one knows who Gurdjieff's teachers were.
There are some Sufi connections to Gurdjieff's teaching but there are also namy others, including Orthodox Christian, Buddhist, Hindu, and Platonic philosophy influences.

Ian

Neo-Sufism: The Case of Idries Shah
by James Moore
The Gurdjieff Journal Issue No. 24
www.gurdjieff-legacy.org/40articles/neosufism.htm
"Shah has conceded his own recourse to pen names (v. Reflections, p. 88), without divulging details; many of his disciples emulate him. Given this obfuscation, it is problematic which of the score or more queerly named authors stylistically and thematically assignable to the ‘Shah-School’ (e.g. Omar Michael Burke Ph.D., Arkon Daraul, Rafael Lefort, Hadrat B.M. Dervish and so on) have independent physical existence?"


New Lamps for Old:
The Enneagram Debacle
by James Moore
Reprinted from Telos Journal

"Space constraints alone forbid my advancing an equally persuasive and
unbalanced case that Gurdjieff's teaching flowed chiefly from
Buddhism-with particular redolences of Ch'an (or Zen). Nor can one
blithely disregard elements evidently drawn from Pythagorean, Stoic,
Essene, Zoroastrian, and Shamanist material.... Since 1980, when James
Webb published The Harmonious Circle, with its complex chapter "The
Sources of the System," no self-respecting critique of Gurdjieff's
thought can rest on any single-source hypothesis whatever. Still less
can the "Sufi-inspired" drum be banged unaccompanied, in sheer disregard
of L. P. Elwell-Sutton's magisterial "Sufism and Pseudo-Sufism" and
Robert Amadou's lucid "Gurdjieff et le soufisme".... In formal terms,
the major premise that Gurdjieff was fundamentally a Sufi-inspired
teacher must politely be summed up in one unavoidable adjective: false."

"How was this trap laid, which ensnares so many honest commentators
possessing no substantial background in Sufic or Gurdjieffian studies?
1966 was the year of grand misdirection. It was then there appeared the
distasteful fabrication "The Teachers of Gurdjieff" by Rafael Lefort
(pseud.) asseverating with marvelous chronological implausibility-that
the youthful Gurdjieff had merely been an indifferent pupil to a
succession of still living Sufi masters; it was then, in "Special
Problems in the Study of Sufi Ideas," that the Home County Sufi
"Sheikh," Idries Abutahir Shah, explicitly asserted: "G. I. Gurdjieff
left abundant clues to the Sufi origins of virtually every point in his
'system."' The ulterior and all-too-human motive for this misdirection I
have already examined in some detail in "Neo-Sufism: The Case of Idries
Shah." Shah's self-advertisements and invertebrate "Sufism" signified
less than nothing in orthodox Islamic circles and were rejected
wholesale by the British Gurdjieffian mainstream, which he schemed to
divert. The canard would never have taken hold had not Shah and his
self-depiction a) won flattering acceptance among a small but
influential coterie of British intellectuals, and b) chimed in with the
extravagant millenarian and messianic fervor of 69year-old John
Godolphin Bennett (1897-1974), who had been among those close to
Gurdjieff in his final year."

Hi Cogga's

I like the word "enthrawling", and will appreciate you eluding to ancient history, yes indeed, and the truths contained in Beelzibubs Tales to his Grandson, which book I don't have but will shortly.

I will also refresh my memory by listening to my teachers interpretation of G.s "Ray of Creation", and what else he said, because I feel this is my opportunity to get better acquainted with G. and profit.

You know I love the yellow brick road and always thought that the wizard of "OZ" is the wizard of "US"

Thank you

Charlotte

Yes, thank you.

Charlotte

The Yellow Brick Road.

The end only brings a new beginning,
The journey is the task at hand...


C.

Having read to page 24, I am beginning to understand why a man I once knew, not the teacher I mentioned, asked me at the very beginning of our relationship if I knew Gurdjieff. No. He was a man of few words, but every now and then he would tell me how G. would answer a particular question I had.

For this reason, when the teacher announced that he would lecture on the teachings of G., I was more interested than I would have been otherwise. As I see it now, it should not have surprised me that the teacher knew so much about G., as he seemingly knew everything: taught chemistry, biology, physics, ancient philosophy, on the Rosicrucians, generated geometrical shapes and mathematical models for us "just to wonder at", not try to understand, he said, on his computer, and liked the Moody Blues to boot. "You like the Moody Blues?" I asked in disbelieve, "Yes I do" he smiled warmly. The lectures of G. he accompanied with classical music, and I used to help him with all the equipment, and got a hug for it.

Needless to say that we, his students, comprised of homemakers, secritaries, professionals, plumbers and mechanics, so to speak, loved him, none ever missing a class. During one lecture I turned around for some reason, and saw my friend sitting behind the table in the back, acknowledging me with an impersonal look only, but I sensed him leave.

Anyway, so far in the book, I like very much the distinction G. makes between "waking consciousness", which, he says "most people in their ignorance mistake for the real consciousness." This is a confirmation for me.

And the subject of "one's mentation", that "each word, for the same thing or idea, almost always acquires for people of different geographical locality and race a very definite and entirely different so to say 'inner content."

(I'm looking at a spectacular sunrise at the moment, the sky to my left is like a sublime painting of orange cloud shapes on a blue canvas.)

And the story about the Kurd eating hot peppers, and will not stop even if he burns up and his soul departs from him, because he paid his last 2 cents for the peppers, reminded me of my statement about forcing myself to finish reading the Da Vinci Code, hoping to find something worth the money I paid.

And the warning he gives about stirring up the drowsy thoughts of the reader and himself, which he definately feels "that on the whole it will take the form of something which will be, so to say, 'hot,' and will have an effect on the entirety of every reader such as the pepper pods had on the poor Transcausian Kurd", reminds me also of my friend, exceedingly hard on me. I have the feeling that G. will "steal my face" again, leaving me once more wandering in the wilderness.

Charlotte

Hi Coggas,

By page 35 I absolutely love the man! I went to p.66, but had to go back at least a few pages to have an "Anlauf", because without knowing the previous how could I fully understand "The Law of Falling."

Actually I read from Page 66 to 72 "your right Reverence", and laughed my way through it all with glimpses of "the large inclosure fitted with things like shutters made of a material impervious to the rays of the cosmic substance 'Elekilpomagtistzen", and so on and so on. I simply have to go back to where I left off and fill in the gaps of all he says in his marvelous way, having, as I said before, read only in the mechanically accostumed way, sometimes half asleep, without the benefit yet of having read it again out loud as if to another, let alone a third time to maybe "fathom the gist" of G.s writings.

Fortuned for me that I know German, and had good teachers later in life, enabling me to blick through some of what he says, because in my youth I was educated by the same professor "Stumpsinschmausen", and it's a good thing I had my secret bomb crater or I would have been "shut up in a lunatic asylum" with those thousands we visited once as a class.

I won't be long catching up, as I can hardly put the book down when in my hands.

Delighted

Chalotte

More on the first chapter "The Arousing of Thought"

Toward the end of the chapter G incorparates more of the profound. He actually does this from the beginning but, and probably on purpose, keeps it light with this wonderful humor of his:

That Beelzebub is not written in the usual manner "for helping to produce in one's mentation, very smoothly and easily, exciting images and lulling reveries, he may, if he wishes, without wasting words with the bookseller, return it and get his money back, money perhaps earned by the sweat of his own brow."

His warning about him setting the readers mind on fire, face flaming, and tears streaming from his eyes by 'eating real red pepper pods' with the words 'what are you doing you Jericho jackass? You'll be burned alive! Stop eating that extraordinay product, so unaccustomed for your nature."

That to go on reading 'by appearance alone' the 'noble red pepper' is 'not to be joked with', which 'data are formed in the entirety of contemporay man, thanks evidently to his frequenting of the cinema and thanks also to his never missing an opportunity of looking into the left eye of the other sex."

To remember his grandmothers strict injunction to 'in life never do as others do - aping', corresponding to my fathers advice with a twinkle in his eye to break all the rules that need to broken, but strictly keep those I know to be necessary; and later in life my philosophy teachers urging to "write sideways when they give you ruled paper."

"Shut your trap, you hopeless mongrel offshoot of the Hottentot's", got me thinking of that ancient race not much talked about, but unwittingly kept alive by the Germans. When somebody lives in "primitive" conditions, by this the Germans, thinking themselves almost perfect, mean what in America is called "trailer trash", they say "die leben wie die Hottentotten."

G talks about Mr. Beelzebub being "of a different grain", and "since He can also think, and, waht is most important, has---as I long ago learned, thanks to the treatise of the famous Catholic Monk, Brother Foolen---a curly tail . . . " Lol, I grew up Catholic.

Leading into the profound, he mentions that "All Common teacher, whom I particularely esteem, the wisest of the wise, Mullah Nassr Eddin, or as he is aslo called, Hodja Nassr Eddin, is, it seems, little known in Europe and America, but he is very well known in all countries of the continent of Asia", and then he says something very interesting to me "this legendary personage corresponds to the American Uncle Sam or the German Till Eulenspiegel."

He talks about "a peaceful inner condition as I experienced in later life once only, when the ceremony of the great initiation into the Brotherhood of the 'Originators of making butter from the air' was performed over me . . . "

"Any writer can write within the scale of the earth, but I am not any writer. Can I confine myself merely to this, in the objective sense, paltry earth of ours? . . . especially now when I can already quite 'skillfully' enter into the position of another . . . ". He notes the discovery of his "two souls" and an "overexercised solar plexus", and the "vivifying experiences."

"With a signature there must be no joking", and he signs the first chapter:

"He who in childhood was called 'Tatakh'; in early youth 'Darky'; later the 'Black Greek; in the middle age, the 'Tiger of Turkistan'; not just anybody, but the genuine 'Monsieur' or Mr. Gurdjieff, or the nephew of 'Prince Mukransky', or finally a 'Teacher of Dancing."

Practicing the first steps

Charlotte

I know I know Coggas!

I, one "of the three-brained beings" and "embodiment of 'Bliss-storkirno', was seriously considering to loosen a thread or two of my web to cruise the solar system with his "right Reverence, who had such an exeptionally strong, fiery, and splendid youth, and an also exeptional old age", who "had been taken, owing to his extraordinarily resoursful intelligence, into the service of the 'Sun Absolute', where our LORD SOVEREIGN ENDLESSNESS has the fundamental place of his dwelling; and there Belzebub, among others like himself, had become an attendant upon HIS ENDLESSNESS."

The man is incredible

Charlotte

Hi Charlotte,

You have a gift, this is REALLY good stuff. I hope one of us, that might be Don, or the good folks at proboards.com, because it ain't me, is making a back-up of your art.

If you can finish it with me I'l sell it. When I get past the new year and the back to school phenomenon, I promise to be closer on the mark, and have much more to say.....ask...

What else but roses....roses...

Cheers Cogga's.

Hi coggas,

If a gift and art it is, all the credit goes to Fern, my mentor: "I'm telling you all of this because you have been conditioned for a long time and can think abstractly"; Manly Palmer Hall, and my three other principle teacher. I am just beginning to realize just how excellent they are, reminding me of the words of my philosophy teacher to us: "Some time from now, maybe when there is a cold and blistery day in LA, you might think back to this time and remember your old teacher and say: hmmm, that son of a gun, he was really somebody."

I think Don is responsible for the appearance of smiley-grin faces in posts, has it rigged so they put themselves in automatically. I have sort of hinted on this before but he has not responded, so I might be wrong. By his own admission, he saves everything, and suggested puplishing "Bacon and Charlotte's Web", so he might be saving this thread also. I never even thought of "the good folks at propboard.com" looking in.

If I finish it with you and you sell it, does this mean we go 50/50 ? I don't know about you Sir, but if it becomes a runaway best seller and we make milli ::)ns, I could get Don a super computer so he could leave me totally in the dust with more functions which I don't know how to use, and for him, and everybody around here a big time financial bust, and a meeting in the "White Desert" would be a glorious must! Dreamer I am

I'll keep on thinking out loud until you can help me understand better, even only on page 54 I can precognize that "everything will come up roses"; on the open hand . . .

Thank you for bringing G into my life!

Charlotte

Hi Charlotte [et al]:

Please forgive me for my absence and I have done as you suggested and saved 'The Bacon Chronicles". 'The Voynich Manuscript" and 'Gurdjieff in the 21st' threads. Are there any others we should save ?

As to mysterious smiley faces, I fear Charlotte you are getting far too like myself. Whenever one tries to put quotation marks [ " ] and a D together one gets "D

Cheers
Don Barone

"We have a reason for the unthinkable!"

Concluded this wonderful genius Waterstone at the end of one of his posts.

I still can't make up my mind what the ship "Karnak" means, or "the spaces of Assooparatsata", the Milky Way. What I found was "a region of 'invisible' stars that could be taken, they said, for clouds -- so massed are they in the zone that we call Via Straminis, the Milky way, these are the stars of Lucifer, engulfed with him in his terrible shipwreck."

But Beelzebub didn't wreck the Karnak, so far. Rather, he profits from the advice of the very wise three-brained being Mullah Nassr Edin: "You cannot jump over your knees and it is absurd to try and kiss your own elbow." Lol And so far also, the journey of this ship seems to me to be "conditions" we passed through in our evolution. The "captain" of the ship, after "having performed before Beelzebub all the ceremonies appropriate to Beelzebub's rank, addresses him:

"Your Right Reverence, allow me to ask your authoritative opinion upon an 'inevitability' that lies in the line of our course, and which will hinder our smooth falling by the shortest route." The smooth course seems to me to be the "orderly", therefore lawful unfolding of consciousness his ENDLESSNESS had in mind.

"The point is", says the captain, "that if we follow our intended course, then our ship, after two Kilprenos, I can't stop laughing, will pass through the solar system 'Vuanik." I thought Kilprenos were Kilometers, but in the foot note it says that in the "language of Beelzebub means a certain period of time, equal approximately to the duration of the flow of time which we call an 'hour." In any case, it's distance Kil-and time-chronos.

Now it gets really interesting. The solar system "Vuanik" sounds like a fiery region, one of those really hot pepper pods . . .

"But just through where our ship must pass; there must also pass, about a Kilpreno before the great comet belonging to that solar system and named 'Sakoor' or, as it is sometimes called, the 'Madcap".

"So if we keep on our proposed course", that is Beelzebub's, not our "LORD SOVEREIGN'S, "we must inevitably traverse the space through which this comet will have to pass.

Your Right Reverence of course knows that this 'Madcap' always leaves in its track a great deal of 'Zilnotrago' which on entering the planetary body of a being disorganizes most of its functions until all the 'Zilnotrago' is volatilized out of it."

Zilnotrago, when hitting my reflecting apparatus, the thought nitrogen floated up. In it the foot note it is a "special gas similar to what we call 'cyanic acid." I have to make "nitrogen dioxide" an extreemly poisonous gas used in producing "nitric acid" out of "cyanic acid", on account the great comet named "Sakoor", sometimes called "Madcap" is involved here. "Sakoor" I change to liqueur, and is it by coincidence that we have been talking about this "Madcap." In any event, it is a poisenous, noxious, toxic, intoxicating agent, and we are all intoxicated by Beelzebub.

"I thought at first", the captain continues, "of avoiding the 'Zilnotrago' by steering the ship around these spheres, but for this a long detour would be necessary which would greatly lenghten the time of our passage." Probably because by not passing through that solar system and encountering the comet "Zakoor", contact with Wotan would take forever, as we say here on earth.

"On the other hand", says the captain, who as far as I can tell at the moment, is our divine, evolving ego stirring the ship "Karnak", in which case the ship would be our carnal body- Kòrper, "to wait somewhere until the 'Zilnotrage' is dispersed would take still longer."

"In view of the sharp distinction in the alternatives before us, I cannot myself decide what to do, and so I have ventured to trouble you, your Right Reverence, for your competent advice.

The captain having finished speaking, Beelzebub thought a little and then said as follows:

"Really, I don't now how to advice you, my dear Captain. Ah, yes . . ." Said Lucifer the proud Spirit to a host of spirit self-hoods, as we were yet sitting on cloud 9 with nothing to do, I can't force you to follow me, but, he thought, I know myself to be brilliantly enlightened which gives me almost unlimited power with which I desire to rule the heavens come hell or high water, but I have to have legions of these guys to lord this power over, or what good would it do me, so I'll give them a sufficient dose of this power to see just how good that feels, and I know that once intoxicated they will irresistably follow me. And as Beelzebub himself says to the Captain:

"There is nothing to be done; when an event is impending which arises from forces immersurably greater than ours, one must submit."

Charlotte

Huh Don, what happened to our picture?

Beelzebub in the 21st . . .

In the Earth year 1921 after the birth of Christ, the ship Karnak with Beelzebub on board flew through the "transspace communication." He was on his way to a special conference with his friends of long standing, because "events of great importance" had "occurred on one of the planets of the solar system "Pandetznokh", and his old friends "intruded" on him because they wanted to talk to him about these events. So this would be our time.

"His influence and authority had not only not declined during his exile, but on the contrary, they had greatly increased, since all those around him were clearly aware, thanks to his prolonged existence in the aforementioned unusual conditions, his knowledge and experience must inevitably have been broadened and deepened."

Always near Beelzebub was the handsome boy Hassain, standing out in a way that compels attention. Hassein was "the son of Beelzebub's favorite son Tooloof" lol. Reminds me of Pluto abducting us into the underworld when we're picking daisies, which is good and bad. When we day-dream we dont pay attention to the external world, but wander around in our inner space.

"After his return home from exile, Beelzebub had seen this grandson of his, Hassein, for the first time, and, appreciating his good heart, and also owing to what is called 'family attraction', he took an instant liking to him."

So due to this "family attraction", was Beelzebub, after his exeptionally strong, fiery, and splendid nature waned, aloof while occupied with the actualization of active mentation for a "Kilpreno" or two during his exile, in the middle ages as the "Black Greek", regenerated himself, and in a second youth, beause the middle was sort of a trasition period, became "Hassein of the East", so to speak, because Wisdom comes from the East, or the "Tiger of Turkestan." Though with renewed vigor, a kinder and gentler Beelzebub owing to his experience "during the period of which this tale of ours refers." And he was getting old and tired anyway, and according to universal law it is either die or transform.

The time Beelzebub met his grandson for the first time "happened to coincide with the time when the Reason of little Hassein needed to be developed, Beelzebub, having a great deal of free time there (on the Karnak), himself undertook the education of his grandson, and from that time on took Hassein everywhere about with him."

Beelzebub or Lucifer, intoxicated us with the promise to become as gods in our own right, of immortality, whereupon we followed him in the first place, and now, as Hassein, whom "he looked upon with great affection" keeps leading us to make good on his promise? Or why would we consider this story of Gurdjieff's at all, and why am I sitting here writing about it? My mind is making all sorts of connections to this very wise man Mullah Nassr Eddin, corresponding to Ameica's Uncle Sam. Takes on a whole new meaning, this

"Running with the devil", though I rather dance with this Teacher of 7 octaves.

Charlotte