Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Gurdjieff (Oxford Studies in Western Esotericism)
Gurdjieff (Oxford Studies in Western Esotericism)
Series Editor
Henrik Bogdan, University of Gothenburg
Editorial Board
Jean-Pierre Brach, École Pratique des Hautes Études
Carole Cusack, University of Sydney
Christine Ferguson, University of Stirling
Olav Hammer, University of Southern Denmark
Wouter Hanegraaff, University of Amsterdam
Ronald Hutton, University of Bristol
Jeffrey Kripal, Rice University
James R. Lewis, University of Tromsø
Michael Stausberg, University of Bergen
Egil Asprem, University of Stockholm
Dylan Burns, Freie Universität Berlin
Gordan Djurdjevic, Siimon Fraser University
Peter Forshaw, University of Amsterdam
Jesper Aa. Petersen, Norwegian University of Science and Technology
CHILDREN OF LUCIFER
The Origins of Modern Religious Satanism
Ruben van Luijk
SATANIC FEMINISM
Lucifer as the Liberator of Woman in Nineteenth-Century Culture
Per Faxneld
THE SIBLYS OF LONDON
A Family on the Esoteric Fringes of Gregorian England
Susan Sommers
WHAT IS IT LIKE TO BE DEAD?
Near-Death Experiences, Christianity, and the Occult
Jens Schlieter
AMONG THE SCIENTOLOGISTS
History, Theology, and Praxis
Donald A. Westbrook
RECYCLED LIVES
A History of Reincarnation in Blavatsky’s Theosophy
Julie Chajes
THE ELOQUENT BLOOD
The Goddess Babalon and the Construction of Femininities in Western Esotericism
Manon Hedenborg-White
GURDJIEFF
Mysticism, Contemplation, and Exercises
Joseph Azize
Gurdjieff
Mysticism, Contemplation, and Exercises
JOSEPH AZIZE
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PART I: INTRODUCTORY
Introduction
0.1 Aim and Thesis
0.2 Formal Definition of the Exercises
0.3 “Subjective” and “Objective” Exercises
0.4 “Meditation,” “Contemplation,” “Mysticism,” and “Western
Esotericism”
0.5 Preliminary Questions
0.6 Format
1. A Biographical Sketch of Gurdjieff
1.1 A Man with a Heritage but No Home
1.2 Gurdjieff to 1912
1.3 P. D. Ouspensky
1.4 Gurdjieff from 1912 to 1931
1.5 A. R. Orage and America
1.6 Gurdjieff from 1931 and de Salzmann
1.7 Summary
2. An Overview of Gurdjieff’s Ideas
2.1 An Overview of Gurdjieff’s System
2.2 Reality and Creation
2.3 Matter and Materiality
2.4 Gurdjieff’s Anthropology: The Centers
2.5 “Doing” and “Sleep”
2.6 “Self-Remembering”
2.7 The Food Factory and Diagram
2.8 Conscience
2.9 Duty and Suffering
2.10 Gurdjieff on Religion and Prayer
3. Gurdjieff and the Mystical Tradition
3.1 Introduction
3.2 Gurdjieff on Mysticism
3.3 Gurdjieff and Neoplatonism
3.4 Gurdjieff, Mount Athos, the Philokalia, and The Way of a
Pilgrim
3.5 Gurdjieff, Ouspensky, and the Jesus Prayer
Bibliography
Index
Foreword
The first acknowledgment must be to George and Helen Adie, to whom this
book is respectfully dedicated. Then, I feel, Mrs. Annie-Lou Staveley, Dr.
John Lester, and Madame Solange Claustres must be remembered, with
gratitude, and, of course, respect. Toddy kindly spent time reading among
her collection of the unpublished letters of Carol Robinson to Jane Heap, at
short notice, and provided me with copies of the requested pages. Together
with Karl and Gregory, she has been part of a modern group, at times
approaching something in the direction of a brotherhood, and they know my
respect and fidelity. Michael Benham kindly provided me with the benefits
of his significant research; this is now the second time I have had occasion
to thank him. Through their invitation to speak at a conference a few years
ago, Marlene and Bonnie provided encouragement. The lads from Book
Studio contributed indirectly through their publication of some most
informative material from and about Gurdjieff and Orage; a book like this
would not have been quite the same without their labors. Professors Carole
Cusack and Garry Trompf have also aided me in my research, each in their
quiet ways. Dr. Johanna Petsche kindly offered comments on extracts from
the first draft. Bishop Tarabay allowed me time to work on this, once I told
him that I had reached a crucial point; he made no fuss about it, he just
encouraged me, and limited his requests, allowing me to opt out of
meetings and committees, as I thought necessary. The final
acknowledgment is to Professor Henrik Bogdan, the anonymous peer
reviewers, and the peerless team at Oxford University Press. Maffee mitlkun
(there is no one like you), as we say where the snow falls on the cedars.
PART I
INTRODUCTORY
Introduction
The Shorter Oxford Dictionary, from 1944 and hence published during
Gurdjieff’s lifetime, offers an interesting definition as its first:
1. The action of exercising; the condition of being in active operation.18
The aim is developed over two stages, first of all to change the exercitant’s
state, and then to crystallize the soul (this latter aspect is more often tacitly
understood than articulated).
I would distinguish “tasks” as being occupations for the mind or body
that were given on a particular occasion and “disciplines” as occupations
for the mind or body that were given to be used over a period of time.
Neither of these comprise Transformed-contemplation, in my terms,
because neither of them use all three faculties or “centers,” or are directed
to the metabolism of higher substances.
Gurdjieff did not say that “Transformed-contemplation” must exclusively
be conducted in the secluded conditions that are often associated with
contemplative practices (e.g., seated, with eyes closed, away from
distractions, and so on). More important for Gurdjieff was that the internal
being of the exercitant approximate to what he called a “special state.”21
The hesychast tradition, too, demands a serious internal disposition, not that
the Jesus Prayer be recited sitting in a cell. However, from 1930, he more
frequently used secluded conditions as an aid to finding the special state (or
“kind of state”). That is, Gurdjieff came to believe that contemplation in
secluded conditions was, as a practical matter, necessary. Further, I shall
contend that in speaking of “Aiëssirittoorassnian-contemplation” in
Beelzebub, he specifically had in mind exercises of the type of the Assisting
Exercises from the Third Series, his breathing exercises, and the Four Ideals
Exercise (see Chapter 13). If Gurdjieff’s “Fourth Way” is a way “in life,” it
understands “life” as embracing both contemplation in secluded conditions
and activity in the social domain.
Here, the focus will be on just those exercises that do conform more
closely to what is known of contemplation from global religious and
spiritual traditions. It could be argued that, especially for Gurdjieff, the
distinction between life in secluded conditions and life in the social domain
is artificial, and so his entire body of ideas and methods comprise
Transformed-contemplation. But on this approach, the value of what
Gurdjieff himself wrote about Transformed-contemplation would be lost in
generality. There is a question of emphasis: In secluded conditions, one can
focus more closely on the receipt of impressions both from within and from
without. Gurdjieff sometimes linked his exercises to external activities; for
instance, he fashioned some internal exercises to be included with some of
his Movements. I shall not consider those exercises here, precisely because
the focus there is on the Movement as a whole, and not only the internal
exercises.
Three noteworthy aspects of Gurdjieff’s contemplation-like exercises are
how they (1) are so closely related to his instructions for existence in daily
life, (2) form variations on a theme, and (3) usually appear to be
improvised, but sometimes are apparently carefully crafted.
Very often, the same advice given concerning a contemplation-like
exercise would also be offered to persons asking about their state when they
met family and friends. For Gurdjieff, as with the Prayer of the Heart, no
single sphere of life was to be isolated from another. So one must compare
and contrast Transformed-contemplation (usually practiced alone, seated,
and quiet), and Gurdjieff’s instructions for external life (which demands
manifestation in life in the social domain), to understand them both. In his
Gurdjieff groups, exercises that might be done alone while at home were
practiced by all or some of the group, together. This made an intermediate
condition between special secluded conditions and the social domain.
When we speak of “contemplation” here, its true complement is not the
active life, but rather external manifestation. The distinction between the
“active” and the “contemplative” lives (the lives of praxis and theōria,
respectively) is known from Christianity, although even there the distinction
was variously drawn.22 Nicephorus the Solitary uses the distinction between
the active and the contemplative life in his short book On Sobriety, a text
that is critical for understanding the background to Gurdjieff’s techniques
(see Chapter 3).23 However, Gurdjieff eschewed these phrases and the
distinction. From his perspective, the contemplative work is the most active
work of all, even if it has been traditional to contrast the contemplative and
active lives. That Gurdjieff would find a distinction between
“contemplative” and “active” to be unsatisfactory may perhaps explain, at
least in part, why he called his techniques first “Transformed-
contemplation,” and finally “Aiëssirittoorassnian-contemplation,” rather
than “contemplation” simpliciter. Further, it is not ideal to refer to
“ordinary” or “daily” life as if Transformed-contemplation was part neither
of an “ordinary” (or ordered) life, nor of “daily” life. In Gurdjieff’s system
in its latest form, the secluded exercise known as the Preparation was to be
practiced each morning, and linked by a carefully thought-out plan to the
activities of the day. These exercises thus suffused one’s daily life. This is
why I prefer to contrast “life in the social domain” with a “special state,”
rather than to contrast “in life” with “away from life,” albeit at the risk of a
certain clumsiness.
0.6 Format
The volume falls into three parts. The shortest is the first, which introduces
Gurdjieff and the questions to be considered. Part II is devoted to
Gurdjieff’s exercises and their necessary context. In Part III, I deal with the
exercises taught by George and Helen Adie, and a conclusion.
This book is, then, a partly diachronic and partly thematic study. Because
my contention is that there was a development within Gurdjieff’s approach
to the use of contemplative exercises, it must to that extent proceed in
chronological order. However, two factors have frustrated my initial desire
to proceed purely chronologically: the uncertainty concerning the true dates
of the writing of the all-important lectures in Life Is Real, and the
desirability of not unduly fracturing the discussion of questions such as why
Gurdjieff eschewed the terms “meditation” and “contemplation” simpliciter.
I could have simply dealt with these last questions piecemeal, referring
back at each stage to the earlier discussion and adding more to it, but this
proved to be unsatisfactory. I have opted, therefore, for a four-part solution:
1. In Part I, I set out the background in Chapters 1, 2, and 3, including a discussion of Gurdjieff’s
desire to have his teaching witnessed in, rather than reduced to, writing; and the subsequent
need for Ouspensky and Orage, who were high-caliber authors, and well suited for the
purpose.
2. In Part II, I consider the written material concerning In Search of the Miraculous about
Gurdjieff’s teaching when he was in Russia, then the relevant passages in Herald of Coming
Good, Beelzebub, the exercises in Life Is Real, and some sundry exercises he gave in the
1930s.
3. I deal with all other exercises from the Gurdjieff tradition in Part III. The main sources here
are Jeanne de Salzmann and George Adie.
4. Cutting across that neat scheme, I deal with thematic questions when they first arise, even if it
is necessary to refer to texts that were written later on, or mentioned earlier.
And looking at those around her, she added: “And all you . . . laugh or cry . . . as you wish, I am
already unheeding, I am already outside.” With these words, she closed her eyes, never to open
them again.32
At some period, it is not entirely clear when, but it must have been in his
youth, he does in fact seem to have studied medicine in Athens. The
clearest evidence is this passage from the Solita Solano diaries:
I tell him how extraordinary are the three Russian-Greek anatomical books he has lent me for
my work at the Hospital St. Louis.
GURDJIEFF: Just from those books, I studied for my degree. Old German printings and
some diagrams, very rare. But of course I found later much better in one Chinese monastery.38
1.3 P. D. Ouspensky
The turning point in Gurdjieff’s career came in 1915 when P. D. Ouspensky
(1878–1947) was introduced to him, a moment for which Gurdjieff had
been planning and preparing.54 Although he is known today only because of
his subsequent teaching of Gurdjieff’s system, most especially in the
masterful In Search of the Miraculous, Ouspensky had quite a reputation as
a journalist, a lecturer, and an author in Tsarist Russia. He enjoyed a vogue
in Theosophical circles, attracting more than one thousand people to each of
a series of talks in St. Petersburg.55 Ouspensky’s Tertium Organum,
subtitled “The third canon of thought, a key to the enigmas of the world,”
was published in Russian in either 1911 or 1912, where sales justified a
second revised edition in 1916.56 The novel later to be known as The
Strange Life of Ivan Osokin was published in Russia in 1915, under the title
Kinemadrama.57 The stories later published as Talks with a Devil were
published in Russia in 1914 and again in 1916, in that language.58 His first
publication in a language other than Russian, was, so far as I am aware, the
publication in Petersburg in 1913 of his booklet The Symbolism of the Tarot
in English.59 Ouspensky’s “letters from Russia” had been in A. R. Orage’s
New Age and were warmly received as containing “a remarkable picture of
a society in a state of collapse,” while Tertium Organum was published in
English in 1920 and expanded his reputation in the English world of
letters.60
There is no question but that Ouspensky could write clearly and
sometimes powerfully, as the chapter “In Search of the Miraculous” in A
New Model of the Universe demonstrates. There he describes some of the
key moments in his travels through the Orient, looking for what we might
today term esoteric knowledge. Bennett, who had many conversations with
Ouspensky in the 1920s, states that when Ouspensky traveled, “He met
some of the outstanding yogis of the time, including Aurobindo . . . He was
not impressed by any of them. He explained . . . that he was looking for
‘real knowledge’ and found only holy men who may have achieved
liberation for themselves but could not transmit their methods to others.”61
Ouspensky returned to Russia after the outbreak of World War I. When
Ouspensky delivered his lectures in Moscow in 1915, he was approached
by two people who urged him to meet Gurdjieff. Ouspensky demurred, but
one of them persisted, and Ouspensky finally gave in.62 From one
perspective, he found much of what he had been searching for with
Gurdjieff—a practical method—but from another, his trajectory swerved.
It seems to me that, from the very beginning of his teaching in Russia,
Gurdjieff had intended to commit some, at least, of his teaching to writing,
and even before meeting Ouspensky, had arranged for some of his pupils to
commit to develop an idea he had, “to acquaint the public . . . with our
ideas,” into a story, but it was not judged successful.63 For Gurdjieff, whose
native languages were Greek and Armenian, this intention to write caused
him to alight on Ouspensky. Gurdjieff had instructed his pupils to study
Ouspensky’s Tertium Organum to determine what kind of being Ouspensky
possessed, and so to determine what he would find on his trip to the Middle
East and Asia.64 Later, Gurdjieff would say to Ouspensky that if he
(Ouspensky) had understood what was in Tertium Organum, he (Gurdjieff)
would “bow down to you and beg you to teach me.”65 Given Gurdjieff’s
esteem for Ouspensky’s writing, it may not be coincidental that, in 1914,
Ouspensky had published stories about meeting devils, and ten years later,
Gurdjieff would commence a book of tales related by Beelzebub. This
thesis of Gurdjieff’s desire to publish, and his decision to scout Ouspensky
as his amanuensis even before they had met, finds some slender support in
the statement of Marie Seton, who knew Ouspensky for six years, that
“Tertium Organum . . . was the book which enticed Gurdjieff to desire
Ouspensky as a collaborator.”66 Certainly, Bennett recalls that Gurdjieff
said that Ouspensky had given an undertaking to write and publish,
although it is not stated when the undertaking was made.67
At two points in his career, Gurdjieff wanted the aid of an accomplished
writer. First of all, Gurdjieff and Ouspensky were of mutual benefit:
Gurdjieff found a capable and successful author, and Ouspensky found his
best material. Later, Orage would fill this role, and once more, both would
profit. Even “the Rope,” the small group of women who met with him from
1935, at a period when he was apparently working with no one else, was
based around three writers: Solita Solano, Margaret Anderson and Kathryn
Hulme. Hulme states that at the very beginning of their association with
Gurdjieff, they would help type out copies of Beelzebub, and “the
manuscript readings dominated our nightly sessions and seemed to be their
raison d’être. The supposition that Gurdjieff was using us as sounding
boards for his massive composition was borne out by the way he watched
us.”68 Gurdjieff did not employ the Rope in helping him write, but their
acuity was of assistance in his quality control of the text.
Although it is difficult to escape the conclusion that Gurdjieff set out to
attract Ouspensky to himself, Ouspensky’s account of their first meeting is
itself tendentious. As I have elsewhere contended, the proper genre of In
Search of the Miraculous, in the form we have it, is an apologia, a defense
of his decision to set up separately from Gurdjieff.69 While Ouspensky
presents himself as having been courted by Gurdjieff, and having had
interesting conversations with Gurdjieff before becoming his pupil, he
apparently furnished Orage with a subtly different account; namely that he
had asked Gurdjieff about certain of his (Ouspensky’s) favorite lecture
themes on consciousness. Gurdjieff asked Ouspensky to set out the chief
points of his teaching, and when Gurdjieff met this exposition with “a firm
and deliberate contradiction,” Ouspensky “then joined this circle.”70 If this
story is accurate, then, in Miraculous, Ouspensky was underplaying his
intellectual debt to Gurdjieff, which is further reason to see in it a self-
defense. Yet, in his exposition of his meetings with Gurdjieff, and his
outline of the teaching, Ouspensky never represents himself as anything but
Gurdjieff’s student, and he sketches the ideas and Gurdjieff’s methods with
admirable concision and fullness. It is possible that Gurdjieff and
Ouspensky had mutually ambivalent feelings about each other.
However, the turmoil of 1917 obliged Gurdjieff and his students to flee
Russia, although, due to the uncertainty of the situation, this was not done
at once.71 When he eventually left revolutionary Russia, Ouspensky made
his way to Constantinople, where he taught Gurdjieff’s ideas, and hence to
London, where he had admirers. While in Russia during 1919, he had had
five letters published in New Age, which “under the skillful editorship of A.
R. Orage, was the leading literary, artistic and cultural weekly paper
published in England.”72 As Webb points out, Gurdjieff’s “law of
otherwise” stands behind Ouspensky’s reference in these letters to what he
called “the Law of Opposite Aims and Results,” namely that “everything
leads to results that are contrary to what people intend to bring about and to
which they strive.”73 Orage had helped Ouspensky find some employment
with Denikin’s Volunteer Army, and, while in Russia, Ouspensky met a
journalist who was connected with Orage.74 Through the publication of
Tertium Organum in England, and its impact on the wealthy Lady
Rothermere, Ouspensky was sent the necessary money to travel to London,
and J. G. Bennett, who was then stationed in Turkey, arranged Ouspensky’s
visa.75 Once Ouspensky arrived in London, he was feted by Lady
Rothermere, who supported Gurdjieff and him until, some years later,
switching her support to T. S. Eliot. It was at her table that Ouspensky first
met Eliot.76 That Ouspensky does seem to have exerted some sort of
influence on Eliot seems clear, particularly in respect of ideas of time, but
this cannot be accurately defined, undoubtedly because Eliot preferred to be
reticent.77
Once Ouspensky had established himself in England, his groups
prospered. As well as teaching the system he had learned from Gurdjieff, he
interested himself, deeply, in the hesychast tradition of Orthodox
Christianity. He himself translated the Way of a Pilgrim (see Chapter 3) into
English, apparently making several drafts.78 Ouspensky also discussed the
Lord’s Prayer in his groups,79 and included much material from both
Christian and Indian traditions in A New Model of the Universe. In a word,
Ouspensky related his teaching of Gurdjieff’s system to other spiritual
traditions, especially Orthodox Christianity.
Gurdjieff had great hopes for Ouspensky as someone who could make his
own ideas better known,80 but Ouspensky disappointed him, at least during
his lifetime. Bennett provides what may be yet be the most concise and
convincing analysis of the rupture between Gurdjieff and Ouspensky:
Gurdjieff began to drive Ouspensky away from him. . . . it might appear that the decision [to
separate] was Ouspensky’s, but, as the story has become clearer, it is evident that this was
something that Gurdjieff himself did in Ouspensky’s own interest: he put before Ouspensky a
barrier . . . Only by going away and coming to understand for himself the true nature of the
situation could he reach the point where a decision to return could be taken. But with
Ouspensky, this decision was never taken. . . . Gurdjieff . . . spoke always disparagingly of
Ouspensky whom he even accused of sabotaging the Work by his failure to carry out the
undertaking to write the system in a form that would be intelligible to all, so making it necessary
for Gurdjieff to take the unaccustomed role of author.81
This may also be what and to whom Gurdjieff was referring when he wrote,
in Herald, of how, after his 1924 car accident, he decided that he would
begin to dictate the material needed to “spread the essence of my ideas also
by literature,” a plan that had so far “failed on account of the
untrustworthiness and vicious idleness of those people whom I had
specially prepared during many years for that specific purpose.”82
Ouspensky’s importance to Gurdjieff has often been understated, but not
by E. C. Bowyer of the English Daily News, who wrote four “remarkably
accurate and sober reports,” on February 15, 16, 17, and 19, 1923,83 based
on a personal visit to Gurdjieff’s residence at the Prieuré at Fontainebleau,
and interviews with Gurdjieff, Ouspensky, and Orage. While Orage said
that Gurdjieff was “the Master” and “teacher,” with Ouspensky his
“disciple,” he seems to have described Gurdjieff and Ouspensky as “the two
men whose influence has called the settlement into being.”84 Ouspensky
said that in Gurdjieff “he found a kindred spirit who had gone farther on the
same road [i.e., as Ouspensky himself], and the two enthusiasts joined
forces, traveling and teaching in Russia.”85 This is consistent with the
report of Denis Saurat, a professor of English at King’s College, London,
who met Orage and Gurdjieff in February 1923, writing about the impact
Ouspensky had made in London in 1921, and how he had “gradually . . . let
it be known that he was merely the forerunner of some great man,” but that
in “preparing the way for him . . . [Ouspensky] had even invented a new
method of instruction . . . [since] the disciples would have understood but
little of a direct explanation.”86 Ouspensky dispensed with Gurdjieff’s
unpredictability and swerving, substituting a more reliably organized series
of talks and workshop-type format on weekends, where people would work
at sundry tasks, everything from gardening and farming to cooking to
translating and printing.87 As Ouspensky mentions throughout Miraculous,
Gurdjieff had always held talks and group discussions and, at various
points, required intense practical work from his pupils. But it was not as
systematically and reliably undertaken and organized as it was with
Ouspensky. The very disorganization of Gurdjieff’s undertakings and his
admitting fresh people to positions of responsibility without proper training
were major factors that led Ouspensky to leave Gurdjieff.88
The most plausible explanation I can devise for the bewilderment that
Gurdjieff eventually aroused in Ouspensky, and that caused him to leave
Gurdjieff, was that Gurdjieff was obliquely pushing Ouspensky to complete
and publish what would be In Search of the Miraculous, and Ouspensky
was refusing to do so. We do not know Ouspensky’s view of this
“undertaking” and his “failure,” but at least two reasons come readily to
mind. First, as late as September 15, 1938, Ouspensky was dissatisfied with
the text, saying that some of it was “in a state of transformation.”89 Perhaps
even more fundamentally, Ouspensky was in principle unwilling to publish
such a book. On December 7, 1936, he said to his London group:
In school one cannot begin with knowledge of all. So one begins with fragments. First one
studies fragments relating to the psychological side, then fragments relating to man’s place in
the world, etc. After several fragments have been studied, one is told to try and connect them
together. If one is successful, one will have in this way the whole picture. And then one may be
able to find the right place for each separate thing. There is no other way. One cannot learn the
system from books.
As a matter of fact I have written down and described how we met the system and studied
it. But I realized what a different impression it all produces on readers as compared to us who
actually were there. A reader will never be able to find the right center of gravity, so this book
would be like any other book. This is why there are not text books on the system. Things can be
written only for those who have studied.90 (italics added)
This may account for the vehemence with which Ouspensky refused to
consider it. Honour Hammond recalls that, after his return to England in
1947, Ouspensky’s voice was weak, except on one occasion only: When he
was asked whether the book should be published, “a great big strong voice
came out of him and said ‘No’.”91 I return below to the question of the
friction that often sprang up between Gurdjieff and his chief students, but it
may be that, at least in the cases of Ouspensky and Orage (see Section 1.5),
Gurdjieff felt he had been too demanding, or opaque, or both. It is
significant that Gurdjieff made overtures to Ouspensky to return to him in
1947, sending his chief lieutenant, Jeanne de Salzmann,92 thereby
indicating that he earnestly desired the approach to succeed.
If Ouspensky’s In Search of the Miraculous is still the best introduction
to Gurdjieff’s system, yet the book-length biographies of Ouspensky are all
lacking in serious respects.93 No substantial biography of Ouspensky can be
professionally attempted without studying the Russian culture in which he
grew up, and without accessing the voluminous unpublished materials
available in Yale’s Ouspensky collection.94 It would be necessary, to
understand Ouspensky, to follow up his own hints about the importance of
the artistic family into which he was born, a family that “did not belong to
any particular class and was in touch with all classes,”95 and also of the
allure of the prohibited theosophical literature in Russia in 1907, of which
he wrote:
It produced a very strong impression on me although I at once saw its weak side. The weak side
was that, such as it was, it had no continuation. But it opened doors for me into a new and
bigger world. I discovered the idea of esotericism, found a possible angle for the study of
religion and mysticism, and received a new impulse for the study of “higher dimensions.”96
Again, Bennett offers the best insights, observing that “Like many other
Russians, he [Ouspensky] dreamed of a cultured spirituality which would
create an environment in which an enlightened few could draw out of the
world and privately achieve liberation. This dream never entirely left
him.”97 This may account, at least to some degree, for the heavy drinking of
his last years,98 the apparent abandonment of his teaching, and, more so, his
loss of confidence in it during 1947, his last year.99 A certain promise had
been held out to Ouspensky, but he felt disappointed, considering that he
never passed a certain level. In about 1945, he wrote to Bennett that
intellectual processes alone were not enough for evolution, and that only the
work of higher emotional center would help, but “we do not know how this
is to be done.”100 If Seton is correct, in about 1946, Ouspensky said to her
that “The System has become a profession with me,” and the idea depressed
him.101
The absolute center of Ouspensky’s personal intellectual interest was not
quite the Fourth Dimension, but rather the related concept of Recurrence,
the idea that we live this life in a perpetual cycle, where certain changes can
be introduced provided one’s life allows this.102 In this respect, none of the
commentators have explored the similarity between Tolstoy’s exploration of
déjà vu and his affirmation of the fixed role of historical personages in the
march of predetermined history, with Ouspensky’s doctrine of Recurrence,
and his affirmation of fixed role of historical personages in that.103 Of his
commentators, perhaps Webb best understood the axial position of
Recurrence for Ouspensky: His last days were spent revisiting people and
places, as if seeking to impress their memory on himself so well that he
would not need to be reborn to re-experience them.104 This was only the
apogee of Ouspensky’s obsession: What may be his earliest artistic work,
dating from before World War I, the unpublished novel Atis—The Bloodless
Sacrifice (if it is indeed by Ouspensky and not merely attributed to him),
contains these lines: “All will pass away and all will return anew / and
communion with the Spirit will become Blood . . . There is no death, but
there is transfiguration.”105
My own view is that there is, as yet, no fair study of Ouspensky: For
example, none of them have worked through all the Yale materials. Then,
Hunter’s P.D. Ouspensky: Pioneer of the Fourth Way lacks footnotes and
references for important matters such as its account of Ouspensky’s meeting
with Leo Tolstoy in a café.106 Lachman’s book is marked by limitations
from his misstatement at the start of his book that Gurdjieff appeared in
Moscow in 1915, to the one at its end that Dr. Kenneth Walker did not
persevere with the Gurdjieff groups and that Bennett was the only one of
Ouspensky’s pupils who remained with Gurdjieff.107 I have given careful
consideration to writing more about Ouspensky, but I have so far only had
leisure to dip into the unpublished materials, and until I can study them in
depth, will abide by my own strictures.
Kirstein recounts how Hart Crane “had written his mother back in Ohio that
he had witnessed a performance of dancing organized by George Gurdjieff,
which although executed by amateurs “would stump the Russian ballet . . .
Crane . . . had seen Diaghilev’s company at the old Metropolitan Opera
House.”127 Although Crane was soon polarized against Gurdjieff, Kirstein
spent time at the Prieuré. The point is that such people were talking about
him at all, and were enthusiastically for or against.128
However, all this glory period ended abruptly with Gurdjieff’s major car
accident, probably on July 8, 1924.129 In Life Is Real, Gurdjieff wrote of his
response to it “Since I had not, when in full strength and health, succeeded
in introducing in practice into the life of people the beneficial truths
elucidated for them by me, then I must at least, at any cost, succeed in
doing this in theory, before my death.”130 Thus Gurdjieff undertook the
writing of three series of books. He commenced writing in Russian and, it
seems, Armenian,131 but for the all-important English translation he relied
chiefly on Orage, who, from 1924 to 1931, was vitally important to
Gurdjieff for this as well as for the US groups that sustained Gurdjieff’s
activities with students and money, work that became critically important
when the Great Depression struck in late 1929. Until 1931, Orage was
resident in New York, but twice crossed the Atlantic to assist Gurdjieff in
the translation of Beelzebub and Meetings.132 So important was the English
translation that it seems to have effectively become a new “original,” even
in Gurdjieff’s mind, when he boasted of his English-language authorship133
and translations into French, into German, and even back into Russian were
prepared from it.134 Orage’s role in the translation of the third series, Life Is
Real, is unclear, but as that book refers to Orage’s death, he cannot have
worked on all of it.135 Orage produced a mimeograph copy of Beelzebub in
early 1931, and in September of that year, Gurdjieff approved its sale to the
US students.136 Gurdjieff had intended to write “eight thick volumes,”137
which is the natural reading of the advertisement in Herald of Coming
Good (see Chapter 5). I would conjecture that the second and third series
were so much shorter than had been anticipated precisely because Gurdjieff
had lost Orage’s services. Thus, Gurdjieff made several attempts to have
Orage help with Herald itself, and was so dissatisfied with the efforts of
two highly qualified Americans that, notwithstanding previous refusals, he
again approached Orage.138
Gurdjieff relieved Orage of his position in the United States in somewhat
murky circumstances that caused a good deal of confusion in the US groups
and sparked the alienation of most of the Americans from Gurdjieff, a
process that peaked with the publication of Herald in 1933. Orage had
decided to return to his championing of the doctrine of Social Credit, even
while in the United States, and gave talks on this and related topics under
the heading of “The Leisured Society,” shortly before his return to Europe
in 1931.139 Gurdjieff stated that Orage had betrayed him in his teaching and
had used Gurdjieff to allow him a closer connection with his New York love
interest.140 Gurdjieff avowed that he deliberately set out to put Orage’s
students on their selection: Orage or himself.141 Munson, who was close to
Orage at the time, wrote:
The break between Orage and Gurdjieff that occurred in 1931 signified no dissent by Orage
from the teaching of Gurdjieff. . . . Gurdjieff’s school was a school of individuation and the time
comes when a man must find his own work in life. At that time Gurdjieff produced a strain and
a crisis in their relations and cast the man out. So it had happened with Ouspensky; so it
happened with Thomas de Hartmann and other advanced pupils. And so it happened with Orage
when Gurdjieff destroyed the position of authority that Orage held for seven years in America.
But Orage approved the ending of his period of American leadership. He felt that he had
reached, at least for the time being, the end of his tutelage under Gurdjieff. He felt, too, that he
had discharged his debt to Gurdjieff and was free to open the final phase of his career.142
1.7 Summary
It is difficult to sum up Gurdjieff, partly because he wanted to be enigmatic.
The late George Adie Jr. insisted to me that Gurdjieff was “an Oriental,”
and was unapologetically such, and that this might account, but only in part,
for why Gurdjieff struck him, although he was but a child, as “an ongoing
surprise.” To draw a distinction between Gurdjieff’s ideas and methods is
useful, but, as noted in the introduction, for Gurdjieff, it would only be a
distinction of convenience, not substance: They were drawn from and
formed an integrated system. The teaching and study of ideas was, for
Gurdjieff, a method for “working on oneself,” of effecting such a change of
being that one’s faculties begin to operate as a harmonious whole, under the
direction of a will that is guided by objective knowledge and moderated by
conscience. For Gurdjieff, all teaching and learning should be as practical
as possible, and directed to the aim of self-perfecting.
An interesting anecdote is related by Marie-Madeleine Davy (1903–
1998), a student of mysticism whose work is best known in France. She
said of Gurdjieff, whom she knew, but not, it seems, well: “This person
filled me with astonishment, but also produced an unease in me. I could
acknowledge the originality of his teaching. Yet, his habit of using coarse
expressions seemed to me gratuitous and totally useless, together.”167 Davy
recounts the details of only one evening with Gurdjieff:
One evening, I saw Gurdjieff burn two or three banknotes. Among a general silence, I dared
raise my voice: “Mr. Gurdjieff, the poor are multiplying. You would do better to give this money
to the wretched.” No one supported me. The master’s gaze reposed on me, more condescending
than irritated. A few moments later I recalled, of course without making any absurd
correspondence, that the Curé of Ars had performed a similar action in front of his frightened
domestic. Providing someone with a lesson may call for unusual actions.168
This nicely captures the deliberately baffling nature of Gurdjieff, and the
ambivalence that accompanied him and even his teaching. With Gurdjieff,
the boundary between ideas and methods breaks down when we consider
that the teaching of the ideas was designed to help his students “awake,”
and being awake, to “perfect themselves.” A consideration of his methods
enables us to discriminate what is essential in the ideas from what is
subsidiary: The practice always points back to the central concepts.
Notes
1. Gurdjieff (1963) 158–159.
2. Anonymous (2012) 161.
3. Ouspensky (1949) 31.
4. Ouspensky (1949) 23 and Nott (1961) 34.
5. Munson (1985) 267.
6. I deal with most of this below; however, Nott (1961) 82 notes the loss of the “Big Seven” and
what was probably the most powerful Movement of all, the “Initiation of the Priestess,” also
Moore (1991) 67.
7. de Stjernvall (2013) 19–20.
8. de Hartmann (1992) 254–255.
9. Taylor (2001) 163.
10. Peters (1980) 251.
11. Bennett (1962) 194.
12. Ouspensky (1949) 251–253.
13. Peters (1980) 144–145.
14. de Hartmann (1992) 191.
15. Ouspensky (1949) 34–35.
16. Munson (1985) 271–272.
17. In Ouspensky (1949) 261–264; Bennett (2015) 117–118; and Hands (1991) 78.
18. Taylor (2010) 31.
19. For Gurdjieff’s date of birth, Taylor (2007a) 140 and (2008) 14–18; Claustres (2005) 5; the
editor’s note “New light on an old puzzle” in de Hartmann (1992) 260–262; and Gurdjieff
(1993) 12. In Herald, which I consider his most unguarded work (see Chapter 5), Gurdjieff
spoke of living “absorbed in . . . researches” concerning the significance of life on earth, and
especially of human life in particular “until the year 1892,” which would be an odd statement
to make about a fifteen-year-old: Gurdjieff (1933) 13 and 16. Further, if Gurdjieff were
effectively the same age as Ouspensky, who was born in 1878, it is unlikely that in 1915,
when both were around thirty-seven years of age, Ouspensky (1949) 7 would describe
Gurdjieff as “no longer young.” Documents such as passports will reflect the age Gurdjieff
wished authorities to accept.
20. Taylor (2008) 13.
21. Email communication, November 22, 2016.
22. Gurdjieff (1963) 33.
23. Gurdjieff (1963) 32–33.
24. Ouspensky (1949) 340.
25. Email communication from Michael Benham, referring to a paper About the Origins of
Gurdjieff and His Activities in Georgia by Dr. Manana Khomeriki of the Scientific Centre for
Studies and Propaganda of History Ethnology and Religion, Tiblisi, Georgia, November 22,
2016.
26. Lipsey (2019) 11.
27. Ouspensky (1949) 341.
28. See especially Tchechovitch (2003), “Sophie: Soeur de Monsieur Gurdjieff,” 200–203.
Unfortunately, the “translation” in Tchekhovitch (2006) 221–226 is quite mendacious in parts.
For his family’s belief that he had been to Tibet see Luba Gurdjieff (1993) 27–28.
29. Compare Gurdjieff (1963) 34 and 45.
30. Gurdjieff (1950) 27–29.
31. Gurdjieff (1950) 27–28.
32. Tchechovitch (2003) 188 (my translation). The contents of Tchekhovitch (2006) 239–240 are a
mistranslation.
33. Tchechovitch (2003) 186–187. The English version (2006) 238–239 again does not fairly
translate the text.
34. Gurdjieff (1950) 554–557.
35. Gurdjieff (1933) 48.
36. Anonymous (2012) 169. The death of Soloviev is at Gurdjieff (1963) 164–176.
37. Bennett (1973) 178.
38. Anonymous (2012) 195, reporting a conversation in New York in 1939.
39. Peters (1980) 103–104.
40. Email communication by Michael Benham, March 13, 2018.
41. Taylor (2010) 146.
42. Asterisked note at Taylor (2010) 146.
43. Azize (2016b) 10–35.
44. Gurdjieff (1963) 171, see n. 15 above.
45. Gurdjieff (1963) 148. Byblos
46. Gurdjieff (1963) 239. Byblos
47. Ouspensky (1949) 7–8.
48. Ouspensky, an early draft of (1949) recently made available online by an Ouspensky
organization, which would seem to be authentic, as it concisely states what is found in (1949)
27, 36, 304, 314, and 355. https://www.ouspensky.org.uk/bibliography, accessed December
17, 2017.
49. Gurdjieff (1963) 164–165.
50. Taylor (2008) 38–40 and 169 had accepted the idea that Gurdjieff had been in a Russian lodge
with Nikolai Roerich.
51. Email communication, November 22, 2016.
52. Bennett (1962) 89. The year appears on p. 98.
53. Gurdjieff (1933) 59 and (1975) 28.
54. Webb (1980) 133–134, relying chiefly on Ouspensky (1949) 6–7 and 16. In a meeting of
September 23, 1937, Ouspensky said that the group had been in Moscow “several years
before” (understanding this to be several years before Ouspensky met Gurdjieff in 1915):
Ouspensky (1950) 121.
55. Butkovsky-Hewitt (1978) 16–18, 29; Ouspensky (1949) 6. Driscoll (1985) 139 has 1911 as the
date of publication.
56. Ouspensky (1923) xv.
57. Driscoll (1985) 140.
58. Driscoll (1985) 145.
59. Publication page Ouspensky (1913) and Webb (1980) 124, who adds that the publication took
place in St. Petersburg. This was later incorporated into Ouspensky (1931).
60. Carswell (1978) 170. See the introduction by Fairfax Hall in Ouspensky (1978) vii–viii. For
the various editions and revisions of Tertium Organum, see Driscoll (1985) 139.
61. Bennett’s introduction to Ouspensky (1988) 6.
62. Ouspensky (1949) 6–7.
63. Ouspensky (1949) 10–11.
64. Ouspensky (1949) 16.
65. Ouspensky (1949) 20.
66. Seton (1962) 49.
67. Bennett (1973) 234–235.
68. Hulme (1997) 68–69.
69. Azize (2016b) 13–15.
70. Mairet (1966) 84.
71. Ouspensky (1949) 34–345 and 367–370.
72. From the introduction by Fairfax Hall, Ouspensky (1978) viii.
73. Ouspensky (1978) 3; Webb (1980) 167.
74. Webb (1980) 166 and 171–172.
75. Webb (1980) 166 and 185.
76. Garnett (1955) 224–226.
77. Murray (1991) 262–264.
78. Nick Dewey in Eadie (1997) 25–26.
79. Ouspensky (1952) 292–298.
80. Ouspensky (1949) 11 and 383.
81. Bennett (1973) 234–235.
82. Gurdjieff (1933) 42.
83. Taylor (2010) 45.
84. Taylor (2010) 47.
85. Taylor (2010) 55.
86. Taylor (2010) 28–30.
87. Webb (1980) 393–394, 405, 409–410, and 440–445.
88. Ouspensky (1949) 381, 384–385, and 389; Patterson (2014) 516–517.
89. Ouspensky (1951) 378.
90. Ouspensky (1951) 118–119.
91. In Eadie (1997) 128.
92. Moore (1991) 290–291.
93. Hunter (2000), Lachman (2004), Reyner (1981), Wilson (1993).
94. Patterson (2014) did access these and published some of them in (2014) 515–524.
95. Ouspensky (1952) 299.
96. Ouspensky (1952) 300–301.
97. Bennett’s introduction to Ouspensky (1988) 7.
98. Seton (1962) 52; Webb (1980) 445–460.
99. Walker (1963) 104–107.
100. Bennett (1962) 159. In 1937, Ouspensky had referred to both the need and the difficulty of
reaching a higher emotional center, saying that one “had to see how we can reach this”:
Ouspensky (1952) 294.
101. Seton (1962) 54. De Ropp also reports Ouspensky’s lack of morale while in New York: de
Ropp (1979) 151. Both accounts agree on excessive consumption of alcohol and an obsession
with his youth in Russia.
102. See Ouspensky (1934) 464–512 and (1952) 1–18. On Ouspensky’s obsession with it, which
became stronger in his last years, see Walker (1963) 106–107.
103. Compare Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace, vol. 2, Pt. 4, Chapter 9 and vol. 3, Pt. 1, Chapter 1 and
Pt. 2, Chapter 1 with Ouspensky (1931) 482. Both even use Napoleon, among others, as an
example of the idea that “the higher they stand in the social hierarchy the less freedom they
have” (War and Peace, vol. 3, Pt. 2, Chapter 1).
104. While Walker (1963) 105–107 states the facts, his interpretation of them may be wrong: de
Ropp (1979) 159–161 suggests what is I think the more likely reason for Ouspensky’s
behavior—his aim was not to remember for his next recurrence, but to cease recurring
altogether.
105. From an unnumbered pamphlet of 23 lines. Opposite the title page, it is stated: “The three
poems herein were excerpted from the manuscript . . . Atis—The Bloodless Sacrifice,
discovered in the P D Ouspensky Papers in the Manuscripts and Archives Department of the
Sterling Memorial Library at Yale University . . . likely written by Ouspensky within the first
decades of this century.” If Ouspensky did write it, and it was not merely fortuitously among
his papers, one would expect it to have been completed before he met Gurdjieff, as his writing
from that time is rather well attested.
106. Hunter (2000) 17–18.
107. Lachman (2004) 1 and 276. Gurdjieff appeared in Moscow prior to World War I, and not only
Walker but also George and Helen Adie, Lord and Lady Pentland, and many other of
Ouspensky’s pupils remained with Gurdjieff and with Gurdjieff groups until their deaths.
There are more substantial errors. For example, in Gurdjieff, “false personality” is so far from
being “all those unsavory aspects of oneself that one would like to ignore,” as Lachman has it,
at 297, it is one’s “imaginary picture of oneself”: Ouspensky (1952) 248.
108. See Taylor (2008) 225–229. These details are not controversial.
109. De Stjernvall (2013) 35.
110. Ouspensky (1949) 382–384; de Hartmann (1992) 118, 150–151, and 161.
111. See the French, English, and American newspaper articles collected in Taylor (2010) 25–124.
112. Taylor (2008) 85, 150, 171, and 174 and Taylor (2001) 190.
113. Patterson (2014).
114. de Hartmann (1992) 191–192.
115. Munson (1985) 266.
116. The literature on Orage is correspondingly large, but see in the index, Webb (1980); Taylor
(2001). The best biographies known to me are Mairet (1966), of which Orage is the sole focus,
and Carswell (1978), where Orage is a major but not the only interest.
117. Martin (1967) 284–286: The period in 1920 and 1921 when Orage was publishing Mitrinovic
was the period of the lowest circulation.
118. Coates (1984) 240–41.
119. Coates (1984) 239–241.
120. Taylor (2010) 53–54.
121. Taylor (2008) 82–89 and (2001) 25 n.9.
122. The story of Gurdjieff’s demands for money from the US students is recounted throughout
Taylor (1998) and (2001) passim, and even by Gurdjieff himself, not least in the appendix to
Gurdjieff (1963) called “The Material Question.”
123. Taylor (2001) 24–26.
124. Taylor (2008) 99–108.
125. Blom (2006) 164.
126. Blom (2006) 164 (Carnegie Hall) and 172 (Boston).
127. Kirstein (1991) 63–64.
128. Kirstein (1991) 63–67.
129. Patterson (2014) 614.
130. Gurdjieff (1975) 4.
131. Munson unequivocally states that he was with Gurdjieff when he was writing in Armenian. At
the top of the page he has named Beelzebub as “the book he was currently writing”: Munson
(1985) 267. March, who worked on the German translation, states that it was in Russian with a
small part in Armenian: March (2012) 37. The portions from Meetings on Prince Nijeradze
were written in Armenian: Bennett (1973) 178.
132. The best treatment is that of Taylor (2012) 55–70.
133. Taylor (2012) 69, and in that of March, his German translator: (2012) 64.
134. Taylor (2012) 63.
135. Taylor (2012) 71–74.
136. Taylor (2012) 64.
137. Gurdjieff (1950) 1185.
138. Taylor (2001) 191–194.
139. Munson (1985) 281–283.
140. Gurdjieff (1975) 92–93 and 96.
141. Gurdjieff 91975) 72, 100–101, 118–127.
142. Munson (1985) 283.
143. De Hartmann (1992) 254–255.
144. Taylor (2012) 62.
145. Taylor (1998) 121; Orage (1998) 7–8.
146. Taylor (1998) 121–122.
147. Webb (1980) 309.
148. Made available to me by the kindness of Barbara Todd Smyth.
149. Ouspensky (1951) 492, speaking on July 17, 1941, in New York.
150. Taylor (2001) 175.
151. Taylor (2012) 112.
152. Welch (1982) 136–137.
153. Webb (1980) 304–309.
154. See the photograph in Patterson (2014) 318. For this period, see Lipsey (2019) 151–175.
155. Taylor (2008) 188.
156. Gurdjieff (1933) 49.
157. Claustres (2005), Hands (1991), Staveley (1978), and Zuber (1980).
158. Webb (1980) 461–474 and van Dullemen (2014) 175–179.
159. Ouspensky (1949) 376.
160. Moore (1991) 237 and 258.
161. Moore (1991) 275; Claustres (2003) 11.
162. Ravindra (1999).
163. Tchechovitch (2003) 211–215.
164. Adie and Azize (2015) 105–122.
165. Lipsey (2019).
166. De Salzmann (2010).
167. Davy (1989) 125 (my translation).
168. Davy (1989) 126 (my translation).
2
An Overview of Gurdjieff’s Ideas
There would then be an internal logic here: One commences with one’s
own physical health, then the development of being, then understanding the
role of one’s being in the cosmic design, and finally, discharging one’s
“debt” for existence,21 so that one can help God through service. Clearly,
this is more consistent with mainstream religious and spiritual traditions,
and with the esoteric tradition of Blavatsky’s Theosophy, than it is with the
occultism of Crowley and his ilk. I will now elaborate on this overview.
I take this to mean that changing the process of the octave at the third and
seventh points necessarily places strain on the fifth point, so that if there
was calm, the passage of forces within anyone or anything at the fifth or
middle point continued within the being, for the benefit of that being. If
there was disturbance, then there would be an external reaction. Applying
this to us, I suggest that Gurdjieff was saying that when, for example, we
are speaking, we have a better possibility of maintaining some intention in
peace. Whether we do or not will depend on what happens at the third and
seventh intervals (e.g., whether we are distracted). But if there is
disturbance (e.g., anxiety), then by the middle of the process we will only
be reacting. This has a bearing upon Transformed-contemplation.
The Law of Three, or of “Triamazikamno,” means that each phenomenon
must be caused by the confluence or blending of three forces, which,
relative to each other at the point of meeting, must conduct active, passive,
and neutralizing forces. That law provides each phenomenon with
corresponding qualities (active, passive, and neutralizing), which cannot
necessarily be sensed. Possessing these three dynamic qualities, each
phenomenon has the potential to pass into another. It means, therefore, that
each phenomenon includes within itself a principle of change.36
The working of the Law of Seven was changed so that it needed
something from outside to enter at various points to continue the direction
with which it had begun, and so that it could give either external or internal
results.37 The entry of forces is a feeding, and by giving external results, it
formed the sources of food from the unorganized “Etherokrilno.” The
Word-God, acting on “the prime-source cosmic substance Etherokrilno,”
contributed to the “crystallization” of “concentrations” called “Second-
order-Suns.”38 The “Word-God” is an emanation of the Sun Absolute,39
which Gurdjieff identified with the Holy Ghost.40
The universe thus became, therefore, a vast system of feeding and eating.
This system that maintains “the existence of the Sun Absolute is called
‘Trogoautoegocrat’,”41 meaning “I hold myself together by feeding.”42 This
idea was adumbrated in Russia, when Gurdjieff showed to Ouspensky and
others the “Diagram of Everything Living,” which commences with the
Absolute, and includes within its scope metals, minerals, plants,
invertebrates, vertebrates, man, angels, archangels, “the eternal
unchanging,” and, again, the Absolute.43 It shows every class of entity,
what it feeds on, and what feeds on it.
To try and recap so far, in simpler terms, Gurdjieff seems to say that:
1. God created the universe we know, because before the creation, there were only an ocean of
Etherokrilno and “the Most Holy Sun Absolute,” and these were diminishing.
2. To save the Sun Absolute, he decided to nourish it with food from the Etherokrilno, which he
converted into a system of involving and evolving energies. The highest of these energies
directly support the Most Holy Sun Absolute.
3. The cosmos is, therefore, a designed and interrelated creation.
Abstracting this from the Absolute, through the sun and down to the moon,
one has what Gurdjieff called the “Ray of Creation,”56 the trajectory of the
creation from God to our own immediate environment. The form of the Ray
of Creation is the design on which all worlds, not only our earth, was made.
Evolution, for Gurdjieff, can only take place when the lower centers are
connected so that they can work together harmoniously. The “sleep” in
which we live is seen by Gurdjieff as the disconnection of centers. When in
harmony, these centers can operate in unison with the higher centers. The
harmonious working of all centers is necessary so that the higher-being-
bodies can be perfected.
In the background of this teaching of the centers is a well-developed
view of most of the centers as divided into two parts (negative and positive)
and into three levels (intellectual, feeling, and moving), so that, for
example, there is an emotional part of the intellectual center that deals with
the love of knowledge. This has a positive side (“yes, that is what I want to
know”) and a negative (“no, this does not satisfy”). But there are problems:
The centers work at different speeds, and those speeds have to stand in a
certain relation so that their work can be calibrated. This is analogous to
how the different parts of an engine have to each maintain their proper
speed so that the whole can perform its work. Further, in our state of
waking-sleep, one center often usurps the proper role of another—for
example, “The emotional center working for the thinking center brings
unnecessary nervousness, feverishness, and hurry into situations where, on
the contrary, calm judgment and deliberation are essential.”80
The harmonious work of centers and the human development they
facilitate is, for Gurdjieff, “evolution,” while “involution” is the downward
process of creation (i.e., the movement from the Absolute to the earth, man,
and the moon). We saw how Gurdjieff said that the original cosmic unity
became a plurality when the “prime substance,” “Etherokrilno,” was
crystallized to form a cruder matter. The process of an unimaginably subtle
substance coalescing by mechanical operation into seven levels of denser
substances is “involution.” We might call this “the procession of existence.”
• Identification
• Considering
• Imagination
• Daydreaming
• Negative emotion
• Lying
• Unnecessary talking
• Excessive formatory thinking.
2.6 “Self-Remembering”
Gurdjieff said that, in everything, we should have both an internal and an
external aim, and that what is performed in life will not sustain the inner
work unless one possesses an inner aim. The internal and external aims thus
“must meet and they must help one another.”98 If a person has a “definite
aim,” then whatever takes him or her in that “definite direction” is his or her
“work.”99 There is perhaps an allusion here to the “great work” or the
“Great Doing” of alchemy.100 For Gurdjieff, that work is awakening and
developing our embryonic whole into a permanent individual. Ouspensky
records Gurdjieff saying:
Man has no permanent and unchangeable I. Every thought, every mood, every desire, every
sensation, says “I.” And in each case it seems to be taken for granted that this I belongs to the
Whole, to the whole man, and that a thought, a desire, an aversion is expressed by this Whole. . .
. Man’s every thought and desire appears and lives quite separately and independently of the
Whole. And the Whole never expresses itself, for the simple reason that it exists, as such, only
physically as a thing, and in the abstract as a concept. Man has no individual I. . . . each time his
I is different. Just now it was a thought, now it is a desire, now a sensation, now another
thought, and so on, endlessly. Man is a plurality.101
The working of the chemical factory was set out in Gurdjieff’s “Food
Diagram.” The factory receives three foods: solid nourishment (eatables
and drink), air, and impressions (Hydrogens 768, 192, and 48, respectively).
Solid food develops reasonably well up to H12—that is, it is refined six
times. The food of the air is refined only twice, to the point of H48, but as
the human machine works now, the food of impressions is not at all refined,
so that overall the highest energy produced is H12.113 Remembering oneself
greatly improves the work of the chemical factory, for the foods of air and
impressions are further refined. Self-remembering is appropriately called
the “first conscious shock.” The second conscious shock, a work on
negative emotions, includes acknowledging and transforming them (or the
energy they use) into positive emotions, producing even more and finer
hydrogens, yielding far more H12 and even some H6.114 Gurdjieff
specifically states of H6 that it “is the highest matter produced by the
organism from air, that is, from the second kind of food. This however is
obtained only by making a conscious effort at the moment an impression is
received.”115 Significantly for the later breathing exercises of the 1930s and
afterwards, Gurdjieff continues:
Apart from the elements known to our science the air contains a great number of substances
unknown to science, indefinable for it and inaccessible to its observation. But exact analysis is
possible both of the air inhaled and of the air exhaled. This exact analysis shows that although
the air inhaled by different people is exactly the same, the air exhaled is quite different. Let us
suppose that the air we breathe is composed of twenty different elements unknown to our
science. A certain number of these elements are absorbed by every man when he breathes. Let
us suppose that five of these elements are always absorbed. . . . But some people . . . absorb five
elements more. These five elements are higher “hydrogens.” . . . By inhaling air we introduce
these higher “hydrogens” into ourselves, but if our organism does not know how to extract them
out of the particles of the air, and retain them, they are exhaled back into the air. If the organism
is able to extract and retain them, they remain in it.116
The Four Ideals Exercise (see Chapter 13) widens still further our
understanding of the higher hydrogens Gurdjieff considered to be available
as food. This is critical, for a greater quantity of these hydrogens is needed
to crystallize the higher-being-bodies, the first of which Gurdjieff called the
“astral body” and, in Beelzebub, “the body Kesdjan.”117 According to
Bennett, this neologism means “vessel of the soul” in Persian.118 Gurdjieff
told Ouspensky:
What is called according to one terminology the “astral body” is called in another terminology
the “higher emotional center,” although the difference here does not lie in the terminology alone.
These are, to speak more correctly, different aspects of the next stage of man’s evolution. It can
be said that the “astral body” is necessary for the complete and proper functioning of the “higher
emotional center” in unison with the lower. Or it can be said that the “higher emotional center”
is necessary for the work of the “astral body.”119
That is, the higher centers are functioning, but until the higher bodies are
formed there is no vehicle for them to reliably interact with the lower
centers. Gurdjieff’s cosmology integrates his entire scheme: It explains the
formation of the astral body, how that depends on the higher emotional
center, and how that cannot work in unison with the lower centers while
they are disharmonized by a lack of mutual connection between each other,
allowing the energy produced by the food factory to be wasted in negative
emotions.120 The avoidance of negative emotions and the concomitant
cultivation of positive feeling is equivalent to what, in other religious and
spiritual traditions, is good and righteous behavior: It is, as it were, the
psychological aspect of the ethical commands.
2.8 Conscience
The moral compass, according to the Gurdjieff of the Russian years, is the
human faculty of conscience, a concept that still plays a leading role in
Beelzebub.121 However, a series of commandments suddenly appear in
Beelzebub, where, among others, Gurdjieff cites the eighteenth “personal
commandment of our COMMON CREATOR . . . ‘Love everything that
breathes’.”122 Perhaps the two can be reconciled if there are absolute
commandments, but one needs conscience to discern them, and then, in the
ordinary conditions of life, when it is not clear how to act, conscience
speaks. Gurdjieff said of conscience:
In ordinary life the concept “conscience” is taken too simply. As if we had a conscience.
Actually the concept “conscience” in the sphere of the emotions is equivalent to the concept
“consciousness” in the sphere of the intellect. And as we have no consciousness we have no
conscience.
. . . Conscience is a state in which a man feels all at once everything that he in general
feels, or can feel. And as everyone has within him thousands of contradictory feelings which
vary from a deeply hidden realization of his own nothingness and fears of all kinds to the most
stupid kind of self-conceit, self-confidence, self-satisfaction, and self-praise, to feel all this
together would not only be painful but literally unbearable.123
• Matter and energy are not divided in the system: Matter conveys
energy, and energy is matter in motion.125
• Similarly, energy is the mechanical side of consciousness, and all
psychic processes are material.126 Conversely, consciousness is a
coin with two sides, the energetic and the mechanical.
• Therefore, Gurdjieff’s psychology and account of consciousness is
inseparably related to his cosmology.
• When the human being works well, or normally (in accordance with
the human norm), both consciousness and conscience are clear and
inform us as to reality (consciousness) and our proper attitude in
relation to it (conscience).
This is related to the struggle between “yes” and “no” that Gurdjieff said
was necessary for the formation of higher-being-bodies and the formation
of one individual “I” with true willpower.132 My thesis is that Gurdjieff
originally intended only to teach methods for conscious labor and
intentional suffering, realized in the common domain of life. The addition
of contemplative exercises, which he considered to be conscious labors,
came later.
3.1 Introduction
Although mysticism has been much studied, so far as my research discloses,
there is no book-length global history and survey of meditation and
contemplation. Halvor Eifring has recently edited and contributed to two
volumes: Meditation in Judaism, Christianity and Islam1 and Hindu,
Buddhist and Daoist Meditation.2 The various articles provide material,
much of it quite specific, but an even and overall survey is lacking. A
modest but pioneering effort is an article by Trompf, which explicitly
restricts its main scope to the West.3
The idea of a world survey raises many questions: What definitions can
be universally applied? Can terms and concepts, even terms such as
“meditation” and “contemplation,” be univocally applied to various
practices in different cultures? For example, Samuel warns that indigenous
terms for “yoga,” “Tantra,” and “meditation” vary “and do not correspond
neatly to modern Western uses of these terms.”4 Then, perhaps even more
basically, how does one study such phenomena? Is it possible to
meaningfully study such disciplines from outside, as it were, or must one
participate? And whichever approach is taken, must not modern scientific
studies of meditation and contemplation be included? The task is vast.
The author is minded to one day bite the bullet, as it were, and attempt
some such wide-ranging survey. The purpose of this book, however, is to
introduce Gurdjieff’s inner exercises, what can be called his contemplation-
like techniques, to a wider world. Since this is the introductory study, I
attempt to place them within the context of Gurdjieff’s system of ideas and
methods, and within that context alone.
3.2 Gurdjieff on Mysticism
What was Gurdjieff’s relationship to mysticism? We briefly examined the
essentialist/contextualist debate in the introduction and saw that the two
sides of the debate can, arguably, be taken as complementary rather than as
completely inimical. The view adumbrated by Gurdjieff explains mystical
experience quite differently from that of any other theory I am aware of, for
he does so by reference to the human faculties involved more than by
reference to the object of the experience, although that is included.
Gurdjieff says that we have lower faculties or centers (those we mentioned
in Section 2.4), plus two “higher centers,” the “higher emotional” and
“higher intellectual” centers, which are functioning, but are not connected
with the lower centers, with the result that with our ordinary mind and
feelings we are invariably unaware of the existence and operation of these
centers. Gurdjieff explicitly agrees with what he calls “mystical and occult
systems” that higher forces that possess extraordinary capacities are
available to us. He distinguishes his system from the others because he
teaches that the higher centers are fully developed but the lower centers are
disharmonized and undeveloped, and so cannot come into contact with the
higher centers.5 It is as if we lived without electricity on the ground floor of
a two-story house, while on the second floor, there is a full library of
classics and a laboratory with working equipment and telescopes, and the
electricity and the internet are connected. Sadly, the stairs that connect the
two floors are in disrepair, so their purpose is unknown to the inhabitants of
the ground floor. Even the existence of the upper floor is the stuff of legend.
Although most people, Gurdjieff said, never experience connection with
the higher centers, exceptions occur, namely in what we call “mystical
experiences.” Gurdjieff averred that on occasions:
a temporary connection with the higher emotional center takes place and man experiences new
emotions, new impressions hitherto completely unknown to him, for the description of which he
has neither words nor expressions. But in ordinary conditions the difference between the speed
of our usual emotions and the speed of the higher emotional center is so great that no connection
can take place and we fail to hear within us the voices which are speaking and calling to us from
the higher emotional center.
The higher intellectual center . . . is still further removed from us, still less accessible.
Connection with it is possible only through the higher emotional center. It is only from
descriptions of mystical experiences, ecstatic states, and so on, that we know cases of such
connections.
These states can occur on the basis of religious emotions, or, for short moments, through
particular narcotics; or in certain pathological states such as epileptic fits or accidental traumatic
injuries.6
That is, even when we are most engrossed, as it were, the highest part of the
soul is not demeaned. In 2.9.3 Plotinus reiterates this, saying that the higher
part of the soul is “always illuminated and continually holds the light.” In
“On Difficulties about the Soul: I,” 4.3.12, Plotinus writes: “The souls of
men see their images as if in the mirror of Dionysus . . . but even these are
not cut off from their own principle and from intellect (arkhēs te kai nou).
For . . . their heads are firmly set above in heaven.”
Plotinus summed up the philosopher’s task in his final words:
“Endeavour to lead the divine in you back to the divine in the all.”18 This
pithy phrase expresses the essence of Plotinus’s theory and of his practice.
A similar aspiration can be found in Iamblichus’s On the Pythagorean Life,
where at the climax of his account, he writes:
Much more wonderful than these, however, were what they established about partnership in
divine goods, and about unity of intellect and the divine soul. For they often encouraged one
another not to disperse the god within themselves. At any rate, all their zeal for friendship, both
in words and deeds, aimed at some kind of mingling (theokrasia) and union with God, and at
communion with intellect and the divine soul.19
This theokrasia was not solely a work for the philosopher’s study, and here
we also touch on a general parallel with Gurdjieff. Porphyry, the student of
Plotinus who edited his writings, states: “He (Plotinus) was present at once
to himself and to others (sunēn oun kai heautōi hama kai tois allois) and he
never relaxed his self-turned attention except in sleep,” being continually
turned “in contemplation of the intellect.”20 This, I would suggest, portrays
the sage overcoming the disruption of higher and lower parts of the soul.
This conscious activity grounds the mystic range of experiences. The
analogy with Gurdjieff, his theory of higher and lower centers, and his
injunction to “remember yourself” is apparent.
These are only general similarities, but they are, I suggest, significant as
showing general affinities between Gurdjieff’s system and that of
Neoplatonism, and hence aid us in placing Gurdjieff within the mystical
tradition. However, there is borrowing from Neoplatonism in two areas: the
story of Pythagoras and the solar theology. A possible third borrowing, an
adaptation of the “daily review” exercise, is dealt with in Chapter 5.
Iamblichus, in On the Pythagorean Life, wrote that when Pythagoras had
been studying in Egypt, he was captured by Cambyses’s soldiers and taken
to Babylon where he studied with the magi, learning about their rites,
worship, and mathematical sciences.21 Gurdjieff writes in Beelzebub that
Pythagoras was one of the “learned beings” who was forcibly gathered in
Babylon by a Persian king. This unnamed king had scoured his empire for
learned beings who might be able to transmute metals into gold, even
waging war on Egypt to seize their savants. In Babylon, these “learned
beings” studied together, Pythagoras among them.22 The likeness here is so
striking that independent invention is not plausible. Given that Gurdjieff
must have read a relatively obscure writer like Iamblichus, or some other
source that had, it is plausible that Gurdjieff had read the better-known
Plotinus and Julian. The relevant quotation from Julian’s Hymn to King
Helios refers to the Phoenician theology of Iamblichus:
For the opinion of the Phoenicians—(who are) wise and possessed of knowledge in respect of
divine matters—stated that the sunlight (which is) sent forth everywhere is the immaculate
action of pure mind (nous) itself.23
That is, the material and the spiritual realms are linked through the medium
of the soul. In both passages the sun is progenitor of a spiritual faculty: the
Neoplatonic nous and, for Gurdjieff, that part of the blood that “serves the
soul.” My only hesitation in advancing this is that Gurdjieff’s theory of the
soul forms a coherent unity, as does that of Iamblichus, and on no other
point whatever can I find any similarity. Rather, there are tremendous
differences between Gurdjieff and Neoplatonism, not least the later
Neoplatonic stress on theurgia. There is nothing in Neoplatonism
approximating to the ten key Gurdjieff doctrines that:
1. Our waking lives are almost always spent in a state of hypnotic sleep, but two higher states of
consciousness are possible for us.
2. We do not have the one controlling “I” that we should, and so have little will power.
3. Our knowledge and ability to do depends on our being.
4. We have seven centers or brains (with analysis of the centers, especially the formatory
apparatus and the distinction between moving and instinctive centers).
5. There is no center for negative emotions, which are a sort of disease.
6. God created the universe because heaven was deteriorating through the action of time.
7. We are part of a process of reciprocal feeding (the Trogoautoegocrat).
8. The universe is chiefly governed by the Laws of Three and Seven (which were altered at the
time of the creation of the present universe).
9. The soul is not necessarily immortal but can be coated in this life through the “alchemical
laboratory” that is man.
10. It is necessary to actualize what he called “Being-Partkdolg-Duty” by means of “conscious
labor and intentional suffering.”
Touching point 4, two of the distinctive aspects of Gurdjieff’s teaching of
the centers or brains are that he recognizes a difference between moving
and instinctive centers, and posits a brain for sexual activity, which he
understood to include both procreation without (the birth of children) and
within (the crystallization of the soul), as to which see Section 2.4.
Although many teachings attach significance to the number 7 as marking a
special point in a process, I am unaware of any that approaches Gurdjieff’s
teaching of the three vulnerable points in the line of development. Further,
the relation of the Laws of Three and Seven, depicted in the Enneagram, is
also, despite some assertions to the contrary in popular literature, not found
elsewhere than in Gurdjieff.
Then, if one approaches the question of similarity from the other
direction, the number of Neoplatonic ideas not found in Gurdjieff is
striking. Plotinus’s speculations about the virtues and number in Enneads
1.2 and 6.6 respectively, while well within the Hellenic tradition, are utterly
foreign to Gurdjieff, who never speaks of virtue and the virtues, but only of
conscience. Plotinus’s concern to allow the soul to leave the body naturally
(Ennead 1.9) would have been wishful thinking to Gurdjieff, who was more
concerned that people actually develop souls. If one extends one’s view to
the world of Porphyry, Iamblichus, and Proclus, the differences appear even
greater.
So, there is reason to think that Gurdjieff knew of Neoplatonism, and had
an affinity to it: He made some literary use of it, their common idea of the
sun being associated with the intellect is striking, and their analysis of
higher and lower faculties is similar but not identical. Perhaps there is
enough of a similarity to place them both within the mainstream mystical
tradition. Indeed, if the Neoplatonists could be integrated into the Christian
tradition through the Pseudo-Dionysius, there is no reason that elements of
Gurdjieff’s system could not also be so treated. But the harder question is
whether Gurdjieff’s system is indebted to Christianity.
This is one isolated reference, but as we shall see in the next chapter,
Gurdjieff attributed the “Ego” spiritual exercise to the monks of Mount
Athos. Further, in Herald of Coming Good, he states that the “strong
spiritual tribulation caused by the death of an intimate friend” was a major
stage in the development of his “irrepressible striving” for his search, when
it made contact with his “cogitative-laura.”26 The use of this last word, a
phonetic variant of “lavra,” is striking, but Gurdjieff’s meaning is obscure.
Mount Athos, actually a mountainous peninsula, had long been home to
hermits, but with the foundation of the Great Lavra (a monastery complex
with separate accommodation for the monks) in 963/4 by St. Athanasius (c.
925/30–c.1001), the area became a center of Orthodox monasticism and the
associated eremitic life.27 Mount Athos became the center of a movement
based around the Prayer of the Heart (best known in the simplified version
called the “Jesus Prayer”) and the associated vision of divine light, known
as “Hesychasm.” Krausmüller states that “the so-called hesychastic method
(comprised) a set of psychophysical techniques whose raison d’être it was
to rid the mind of all distracting thoughts and to induce visions of God as
light.”28 There is no evidence that Athanasius knew the Prayer of the Heart,
but then, he says little about inner prayer, so this is not conclusive that the
Prayer was unknown on Athos in the tenth century, as it can be traced back
to the fourth century.29
Hausherr discusses in some detail the question of whether the injunction
to “pray always” meant to pray but not to engage in any other activity.
While some of Hausherr’s ideas, such as his attribution of the Book of
Degrees or Liber Graduum to the Messalians, have been superseded,30 he is
correct to conclude that the earliest of the Desert Fathers believed that while
there were times to devote oneself uniquely to prayer, yet it could and even
should be undertaken while engaged in other occupations, with spiritual
reading or manual labor.31 For example, Abba Lucius showed some
Euchites (devotees of the “prayer alone” school) how to work at basket-
weaving while repeating some verses from Psalm 50.32 Ware refers to this,
and collects some other prayer formulations that were used in those early
days of monasticism.33
So the idea that a contemplative prayer could be used in the common
domain of life, to suffuse that life with the spirit of the secluded prayer, is
ancient in the monastic tradition. Hausherr refers to these two types of
prayer as “explicit” and “implicit,”34 but I shall not adopt that terminology
in treating of Gurdjieff, for there is also significant discontinuity between
Gurdjieff and monasticism.
The Athonite hesychast tradition of the Prayer was collected in the
Philokalia. This was compiled by Macarius of Corinth (1731–1805) and
Nicodemus of the Holy Mountain (?1748–1809) and was published in
Venice in 1782.35 That Greek version was translated into Slavonic under the
title Dobrotolubiye, by the monk Paissy Velichkovsky (d. 1794), who had
visited Mount Athos.36 Eugenie Kadloubovsky and G. E. H. Palmer, the
translators of a selection from the Dobrotolubiye titled Writings from the
Philokalia on Prayer of the Heart, state:
This translation [that of Velichkovsky] had a fundamental importance for the rebirth of
monasticism and the practice of the Jesus Prayer in Russian from the beginning of the
nineteenth century. Later, the “Philokalia” was translated into Russian by Bishop Theophan the
Recluse (d. 1894), from whose text this Russian translation has been made.37
So, the Philokalia had been at the center of a revival in Russian Orthodox
spirituality in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Key passages
from it, together with the Jesus Prayer, were set out in The Way of a
Pilgrim. Also receiving notice in Russia at this time were the writings of
Nil Sorsky, perhaps the foremost of the Russian Hesychasts. Sorsky died in
1508, but his writings had been influential on Velichkovsky, and had been
republished in St. Petersburg in 1912.38 The Prayer of the Heart, especially
but not only in the simplified form of the Jesus Prayer, feature prominently
in Sorsky’s Monastic Rule.39
For our purposes, the most significant text from the Philokalia is that of
Nicephorus the Solitary, A Most Profitable Discourse on Sobriety and the
Guarding of the Heart, as published in Writing from the Philokalia on
Prayer of the Heart,40 and, under the name of Nikephoros the Monk, On
Watchfulness and the Guarding of the Heart, in The Philokalia: The
Complete Text: Volume IV.41 First, I shall set out some relevant passages
from the text, using the earlier translation, which was made from the
Russian, whereas the second was made from the Greek. Nicephorus wrote:
Attention is a sign of sincere repentance. Attention is the appeal of the soul to itself, hatred of
the world and ascent towards God. . . . Attention is the beginning of contemplation, or rather its
necessary condition; for, through attention, God comes close and reveals himself to the mind. . .
. Attention means cutting off thoughts, it is the abode of the remembrance of God . . . Therefore
attention is the origin of faith, hope and love.42
However, states Nicephorus, for those who find this too difficult:
You know that in every man inner talking is in the breast . . . Thus, having banished every
thought from this inner talking (for you can do this if you want to), give it the following short
prayer: “Lord, Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy upon me!”—and force it, instead of all
other thought, to have only this one constant cry within. If you continue to do this constantly,
with your whole attention, then in time this will open for you the way to the heart which I have
described.44
I have checked this against the translation from the Greek and can find no
significant difference.45 A form of the Jesus Prayer, with a brief
explanation, is found in The Way of a Pilgrim, a book that was celebrated in
Russia in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. The Way of a
Pilgrim, an anonymously written text set in Russian sometime between
1853 and 1861,46 was the possession of a monk on Mount Athos, from
whom an abbot copied it and had it printed at Kazan in 1884.47 It seems to
have been based on texts composed by the priest Mikhail Kozlov and went
through several redactions before its first printing in 1881. The best-known
version is that prepared by the Theophan the Recluse, who translated the
Philokalia into Russian.48 The book commences without fuss or delay: The
pilgrim is a Christian of the most humble birth who heard St. Paul’s
exhortation to “Pray without ceasing” (1 Thessalonians 5:17).49 He
approaches two persons, an educated and pious layman and then an abbot,
receiving edification but not the instruction he desired. On the third
occasion, as early as page 4 of the book, he finds a monk who takes him to
a monastery, where he learns that:
The continuous Prayer of Jesus is a constant uninterrupted calling upon the divine Name of
Jesus with the lips, in the spirit, in the heart; while forming a mental picture of His constant
presence, and imploring His grace, during every occupation, at all times, in all places, even
during sleep. The appeal is couched in these terms, “Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me.”50
The monk then read to him from a treatise attributed to St. Symeon the New
Theologian, and some other authors in the Philokalia. At first, the practice
went well, but then the pilgrim started to find his mind clouding, and to
suffer distress. When he returned to the monk, he was read some of the
passage from Nicephorus that we shall see shortly, and was given a rosary
(note that the Latin rosary is used differently from the Greek and Russian
Orthodox rosaries). He was told to use the rosary and to say three thousand
times a day: “Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me.”51 The count was
increased, making it all but impossible to forget the prayer. It is also
significant that the beads were found necessary to keep his mind steady, for
Ouspensky refers to this value of the beads (see Section 3.5), and Gurdjieff
used chaplets in the 1930s (see Section 7.4).
Concerning the Jesus Prayer, Cunningham concludes at the end of her
recent survey of that prayer and its place in the Philokalia that:
The Jesus Prayer is not simply a formulation of words. It is aimed at returning the human person
to the experience for which she or he was originally created, namely, union with the One who
was begotten as the Second Adam, in the image and likeness of God. It is in this sense that the
Jesus Prayer becomes a unifying thread that runs right through the five volumes of the
Philokalia. It represents the means and the end of all ascetic endeavor, whose arduous practices
may ultimately be rewarded by the mystical goal of union with Christ.52
However, we are not concerned with the history of either Mount Athos or
of the Jesus Prayer as such, but the possible interest Gurdjieff had in certain
Athonite practices.53 These are threefold: (1) an otherwise unattested
exercise, the “Ego,” (2) the exercises of Nicephorus the Solitary, and (3)
counting prayers on beads.54
Incidentally, Kallistos Ware also makes the observation that the pilgrim in
the book advances with a swiftness that does not seem true to experience.57
Ouspensky then continues that the “methods of the Dobrotolubiye have not
vanished from real life.”58 That Ouspensky placed a great importance on
these texts is shown not only by his making a translation into English of the
Way,59 but also by how frequently he mentioned them, and by the fact that
he had Eugenie Kadloubovsky, his “private secretary and administrator,”
under his direction and that of his (Ouspensky’s) wife, translate the
Philokalia into English. These translations, with a commentary and with
texts from other religious traditions, were read in groups.60 He also took
from the Philokalia its analysis of the states of “identification.”61
On January 23, 1934, Ouspensky stated:
The fundamental idea of all that you can do in the Fourth Way and in this kind of school . . . is
that the more conscious you are the greater will be the results of your work, so that the result of
one or another effort is always modified and controlled by the consciousness of your aim,
intentions and desires.62
. . . These exercises exist in the Eastern Church and in other forms they exist in Buddhist
and Mohammedan schools. Some short prayer is usually taken and then repeated continuously;
and this repeating is generally connected with breathing, listening to heart-beats and many other
things . . .
But this exercise, that is, repetition of a short prayer, needs breathing and fasting, otherwise
it very soon becomes too easy; it slips over things without touching them. I mean that it awakes
attention only in the very beginning. So I replaced the short prayer of seven words mentioned in
the Philokalia by the Lord’s Prayer . . .63
. . . if it [the prayer] begins to repeat by itself or even starts by itself and does not need any
attention it means that it has passed into the moving part of the intellectual center. Then later it
can pass into the moving center and then into the instinctive center; and then by interesting
methods it is possible to make it pass into the emotional center. This is the aim of these
exercises, not for keeping the attention only but for the study of centers and parts of centers.
. . . at a certain stage of the work it is necessary to make the emotional center work more
intensively, and this is one of the aims of this prayer of the mind . . . The prayer of the mind in
the heart is described in the short book “The Way of the Pilgrim”—in a fuller form it is
described in the Philokalia, but I do not know of any literature describing the other method of . .
. repeating a longer prayer and making it pass from one center to another.64
Gurdjieff immediately added that there was a great danger with this, for the
moving center might not have learned the new technique, and when the
formatory apparatus was shut down, for example during sleep, the
exercitant might be unable to breathe because the moving center was
confused.68 By referring to the “book” on this, Gurdjieff is almost certainly
referring to either The Way of a Pilgrim or the Russian Dobrotolubiye,
which was published in Moscow no later than 1896–1901.69 Négrier is of
the view that Gurdjieff probably referred to the Jesus Prayer.70 Finally,
whereas, on Gurdjieff’s view, the monks used methods that could have the
effect of removing the action of the prayer from one center to another, at
some discomfort and even risk, the exercises we study will show how
Gurdjieff sought the same result by consciously directing the movement of
subtle energies within the body.
Notes
1. Eifring (2013).
2. Eifring (2015).
3. Trompf (2010).
4. Samuel (2008) 1.
5. Ouspensky (1949) 194.
6. Ouspensky (1949) 194–195.
7. Ouspensky (1949) 145
8. Ouspensky (1949) 141.
9. Ouspensky (1949) 142, 145, 194–195; and (1951) 226–227.
10. Ouspensky (1949) 195.
11. Ouspensky (1949) 195.
12. Taylor (2014) 13 and Lipsey (2019) 316 n.15.
13. See for example Rist (1967), Trouillard (1955), and Gerson (1996).
14. Plotinus, Ennead 5.1.10.
15. This is a theme of the Ennead called “On the Three Primary Hypostases”: Plotinus Ennead
5.1.1–4 and 10–12.
16. Ennead 4.3.30. Note Armstrong’s summary of Plotinus’ doctrine at 130 n.1: “the translation
into images depends on the good health and freedom from disturbance of the body.”
17. The “father” of souls is god: tas psukhas patros theou, Ennead 5.1.1.
18. Porphyry, The Life of Plotinus, 2.26–27 in Armstrong vol. 1. Porphyry’s Life of Plotinus is
traditionally published in the same volume as the Enneads, as a sort of introduction.
19. Iamblichus (1991) 33[240], pp. 234–235.
20. Porphyry 8.8–24.
21. Iamblichus (1991) 4[19], pp. 44–45.
22. Gurdjieff (1950) 455.
23. Julian the Emperor, Hymn to King Helios, 134A (see Julian 1913).
24. Gurdjieff (1950) 569.
25. Gurdjieff (1950) 28–29.
26. Gurdjieff (1933) 15.
27. Ware (1996) 3 and Speake (2002) 41–51.
28. Krausmüller (2006) 101.
29. Ware (1996) 13 and Cunningham (2012) 3.
30. Brock (1987) 42–61.
31. Hausherr (1978) 126–136.
32. Hausherr (1978) 128–129.
33. Ware (2000) 79–80.
34. Hausherr (1978) 131.
35. Speake (2002) 140 refers to “Makarios Notaras and Nikodimos of the Holy Mountain.”
36. Kadloubovsky and Palmer (1951) 6.
37. Kadloubovsky and Palmer (1951) 6.
38. Maloney’s introduction to Sorsky (2003) 16 and 35.
39. Sorsky (2003) 54–57.
40. Kadloubovsky and Palmer (1951).
41. Palmer, Sherrard, and Ware (1995).
42. Nicephorus, On Sobriety, 32.
43. Nicephorus, On Sobriety, 33.
44. Nicephorus, On Sobriety, 33–34.
45. Nikephoros the Monk, On Sobriety, 205–206.
46. Anonymous (1930) viii.
47. Anonymous (1930) viii.
48. Katz (2013) 200.
49. Anonymous (1930) 1.
50. Anonymous (1930) 8–9.
51. 9–12.
52. Cunningham (2012) 8–9.
53. For the Jesus Prayer, see Hausherr (1978) and Cunningham (2012) passim.
54. There has been some, but not very extensive, research in the field of Athonite practices,
chiefly because one can only study the texts that have been published. But the most important
studies may still be those of Irénée Hausherr (1966) and (1978).
55. Ouspensky (1923) 242–244; (1931) 264–267; (1950) 5; (1951) 500.
56. Ouspensky (1931) 265. See Section 2.1 on how “monk” means “monk in quotation marks,”
for the ways are usually met with in mixed forms.
57. Ware (2000) 84–85.
58. Ouspensky (1931) 265.
59. Nick Dewey in Eadie (1997) 25–26.
60. Webb (1980) 385 and 410–411.
61. Ouspensky (1951) 500, (1952) 296–298, and (1957) 12, plus Popoff (1969) 20. Sorsky (2003)
20–21 used the same analysis, which had long been known in monastic literature.
62. Ouspensky (1952) 295.
63. Ouspensky (1952) 296.
64. Ouspensky (1952) 297.
65. Ouspensky (1952) 298.
66. Ouspensky (1952) 298.
67. Ouspensky (1949) 387.
68. Ouspensky (1949) 387–388.
69. Kadloubovsky and Palmer (1951) 6 and 9 (the translator, Theophan the Recluse, died in 1894,
but the note states that the edition used was published in the years 1896–1901).
70. Négrier (2005) 37.
PART II
GURDJIEFF’S CONTEMPLATIVE EXERCISES
4
The Russian Years
4.1 Introduction
In Search of the Miraculous is the most authoritative introduction to
Gurdjieff’s ideas, despite being effectively limited to Gurdjieff’s teaching
between 1915 and August 1917. The period August 1917 through January
1924 is dealt with only in the final chapter, some twenty-one pages.1 As I
have elsewhere noted, the book is, to a significant extent, an apology, a
defense of Ouspensky’s break from Gurdjieff.2 However, for the theoretical
foundation of Gurdjieff’s system, it is irreplaceable. As these foundations
were canvassed in Chapter 1, I shall here deal only with the Ego Exercise,
the exercises Gurdjieff gave in Essentuki, and the Stop Exercise. I shall then
survey the evidence for Gurdjieff’s teaching of contemplative practices in
these, his “Russian years.”
There is one possible source I shall exclude, although some scholars have
availed themselves of it: I refer to Paul Dukes’s account of meeting one
“Prince Ozay.” For the reasons given by Paul Beekman Taylor, “Ozay”
cannot have been Gurdjieff. Indeed, I am skeptical that the “Prince” was a
real character.3 However, there are so many similarities to Gurdjieff’s
teaching and his personality, and to the story “Glimpses of the Truth,” that it
is difficult to think there is no connection. My own conjecture, based on the
fact that Dukes knew Ouspensky,4 is that Dukes may have woven together
the story out of “Glimpses” and Ouspensky’s recollections of Gurdjieff. A
violinist named Shandarovsky, who had been with Gurdjieff and Ouspensky
in Essentuki, told Thomas de Hartmann, and probably Ouspensky too, of
“an experiment with the Lord’s Prayer that he had once practiced.”5 No
other details of this are known. However, we must now consider Gurdjieff’s
comments about exercises, and his practices, as reported in these
foundational years of his public career.
Ouspensky does not state that they were given that exercise, or that
Gurdjieff had been asking them to say “I am” while being sensitive to any
bodily response. Rather, it was only mentioned as an illustration of the
possible experience. I shall contend that this exercise was adapted by
Gurdjieff as the First Assisting Exercise (also known as the “I Am”
Exercise) at some time in the early 1930s.
Boris Ferapontoff’s notes show that Gurdjieff had said, in 1920–1921,
while in Constantinople, that the sensation of oneself being present, “I and
here,” was a feature of the state of consciousness that had to be prolonged
for self-development.7 Further, the movement of the sense of “I” from one
center to another was of the essence of Gurdjieff’s 1923 explanation of
these Orthodox exercises (see Section 3.5), and, as we shall see, this is
exactly what he attempts through his later methods. The significance of this
passage from Ouspensky, then, is that it provides a theoretical platform for
what was to develop. In this episode is found the germ of Transformed-
contemplation.
De Ropp recalls that in England in the 1930s, Ouspensky’s wife, who had
also known Gurdjieff, and who joined Ouspensky in teaching the system,
“made it clear that the way was hard and could not be achieved by sitting
around meditating, which she said was a useless practice. ‘You meditate,’
she said, ‘stare at wall. Soon you see things—angels, devils, anything. All
imagination. Must work’.”34
In Section 3.5 we saw Ouspensky’s view of the mental prayer and of the
breathing exercises associated with it in the Orthodox tradition, and
Gurdjieff’s warning from 1923 about how they could lead to a complete
physical breakdown. While Bennett stated, possibly on his own authority,
that the Jesus Prayer had resulted in “thousands of monks and nuns
attaining to states of illumination,” he attributes to Ouspensky the view that
it had been designed for monks and was too emotionally disturbing for
others.35 This coincides with Gurdjieff’s stated reason for being wary of the
technique.
A full comparative study would take into account the many meanings of
“trance”48 and “meditation”49 and research what is done in practice, but the
difference between this and Gurdjieff’s body-based methods is apparent.
Finally, if I am correct that Gurdjieff adapted his inner exercises from the
Hesychast tradition, then it points to a very specific reason why Gurdjieff
would not have wanted to use such methods: They are not from the Fourth
Way, but from one of the existing traditions that he has said is not as
efficient as his own. Related to this, he wanted his students to be strong in
life, not only when they were quietly seated away from distractions. He
found, once more, that some blend was necessary.
Gurdjieff’s second reason for avoiding contemplation in secluded
conditions was perhaps his concern about human suggestibility, which he
considered to be a scourge, causing people to lose their independence and
individual initiative.50 The exercises often involve representing to oneself
that something is happening within the body, and saying to oneself words
such as “I am” or “Lord have mercy.” In Beelzebub, he stated that
suggestibility can lead to “that strange and relatively prolonged ‘psychic
state,’ which I should call the ‘loss of sensation of self’.”51 The link
between suggestibility and loss of self-awareness made Gurdjieff wary of
trance states and their equivalent. Gurdjieff did not want students to suffer
from dissociation; rather, he aimed at a fuller and more vivid sense of the
self as a unity.
The third concern, I shall suggest, is the one outlined above, that
Gurdjieff may have adopted at least the basic idea of his central exercises
from the monks of Mount Athos, and was concerned to cover his tracks lest
students begin to indiscriminately apply the various methods of Athos and
its monasteries, mixing its religious and devotional practices with his own.
Gurdjieff wanted to introduce a coherent system—hence, perhaps, his
efforts to introduce cultural elements: for the fuller immersion of his pupils
in a way of life. It was one thing for Gurdjieff to adapt a technique he had
found elsewhere, but there was also much that was inconsistent with his
Fourth Way, such as the requirement for obedience and the need to leave
life at once to enter a monastery forever. With Gurdjieff, faith was not
required, only understanding; and the conditions in which people find
themselves in life are the best for the work, “at any rate at the beginning of
the work.”52
To conclude: Contemplation was a method Gurdjieff learned, directly or
indirectly, from the monastic tradition. Contemplation was, then, for
Gurdjieff, a method that mixed the Fourth Way with others, and so was not
desirable.
4.7 Gurdjieff’s Reticence About Exercises
Then there is the question of the reticence of his students. We have already
seen de Hartmann’s stated belief that he should not disclose them (see
Section 4.3). Nott mentions exercises involving “the conscious use of air
and impressions” but states they were done only under Gurdjieff’s
direction.53 We have seen, in Section 4.5, Mme. Ouspensky’s
disparagement of meditation as a tool for introducing the wrong use of
imagination.
Kenneth Walker (1882–1966) was a little more forthcoming, saying
something of the nature of the exercises given in 1948 and 1949:
After taking our coffee Gurdjieff would talk to me about some exercise that I had to do, such as
an exercise for “sensing” various parts of the body. Or it might be a method by which I should
become more aware of the energy I was continually throwing away. He suggested that I should
draw an imaginary circle around myself, beyond which my attention and my energies should
never be allowed to stray, so long as I was engaged in doing this exercise.54
“The Old Man” is an epithet of Gurdjieff’s.57 This is also the only reference
I have seen to Gurdjieff’s being in the habit of sending people to church
(the habit is inferred from Benson’s saying that Gurdjieff used to send them
there). It is striking, too, that Benson states that he was never in a state
where he could fulfill the exercise: If Gurdjieff was aware of this difficulty
it may account for the fuller version he taught George Adie. Later on,
Benson restates this:
I used to go to Saint Eustache. . . . I sat and listened and tried to get into an objective state to
steal their prayers. And he approved. He said: “You take their prayers for your development,
your welfare, your strength, because they are going to waste. They have not the force, or power
or understanding to reach their God.” . . . He said: “They could reach their God if they knew
how.” Then he told me: “You have the wish to reach your God. It comes from you, and as you
develop, you can reach your God. And then you take strength from your God or from that force
and take it back to you. It’s like this [Benson would place his hand ten or twelve inches in front
of his chest and then bring it in towards his heart, in a gathering motion, several times over]
that’s the motion. It has to start from you, though. Begin as the desire, the wish, and then,
religiously, you study that in order to reach something higher and greater forces—in order to
bring it back to you.58
Benson does not associate with this anything like the full contemplative
exercise called “The Four Ideals” that Adie was taught (see Chapter 13):
This version does not even explicitly need to be done seated. Further,
Benson had an antipathy to contemplative exercises.59 He said: “I could
almost answer that nobody, sitting in a quiet time, can come to attention.
You have to be in a receptive part of attention, and it takes a big shock so
that you’re ready to receive it.”60 Although Gurdjieff did say that one
should practice in quiet conditions so that one could then remember in the
common domain of life (see Section 11.7), he may not have entirely
disagreed with Benson either. I rather think that his position was that quiet
conditions were necessary and that these exercises would help the
exercitant to be in a receptive state in the common domain, hence the
sometimes lengthy prologues to the exercises.
The very fact that Benson was taught the theoretical basis of the Four
Ideals Exercise, and also not to sit with eyes closed, together with his
knowledge of the Athonite Ego Exercise, shows that Gurdjieff could have
introduced these ideas earlier, but chose not to.
Notes
1. Ouspensky (1949) 368–369.
2. Azize (2016b) 14–15.
3. Taylor (2004) passim and (2008) 45–47. Taylor makes sufficient reference to those writers
who accept the story at face value.
4. Taylor (2004) 8–9 and Lachman (2004) 88.
5. De Hartmann (1992) 53.
6. Ouspensky (1949) 299 and 304. All italics and punctuation are as in the text.
7. Ferapontoff (2017) 66.
8. Ouspensky (1949) 346.
9. Ouspensky (1949) 350.
10. Ouspensky (1949) 350–351.
11. Ouspensky (1949) 351.
12. Ouspensky (1949) 358.
13. Moore (2005) 209.
14. Claustres (2005) 73. Ouspensky’s comments on the rationale for them are also significant but
fall outside the scope of this study: Ouspensky (1949) 359.
15. Claustres (2005) 109–110.
16. De Hartmann (1992) 209.
17. Howarth and Howarth (1998) 470.
18. Adie and Azize (2015) 160.
19. Edwards (2009) 19–21.
20. Adie and Azize (2015) 159.
21. Sinclair (2005) 73.
22. Ouspensky’s fullest statement of this exercise is found in (1949) 351–354 with several pages
of observations on the application of the exercise at Essentuki: 354–356. In Gurdjieff’s Early
Talks, Ouspensky’s notes have evidently been used to produce three talks: 155–157, 159–161,
and 284–285.
23. Gurdjieff (2014) 284–285.
24. Ouspensky (1949) 355.
25. Azize (2016b) 146.
26. Ferapontoff (2017).
27. Gurdjieff (undated) 6. On the “Prospectus,” see Webb (1980) 233–236.
28. Gurdjieff (undated) 9.
29. Azize (2016b) 147–149.
30. Ouspensky (1951) 151.
31. Ouspensky (1952) 127.
32. Orage (2013) 228.
33. Azize (2016b) 149.
34. De Ropp (1979) 100.
35. Bennett (1962) 131.
36. Bennett (undated) xxxii–xxxiii.
37. Anonymous (2012) 27.
38. Gurdjieff (2017) 196.
39. Taylor (2008) 176.
40. Gurdjieff (1933) 35–36.
41. Azize (2014).
42. Gurdjieff (2009) 140.
43. Gurdjieff (2009) 140.
44. Gurdjieff (2009) 104.
45. Orage (2013) 161.
46. Katz (2013) 7.
47. Powers (2007) 84–85. The Notes on the Concentrations and Formless Absorptions of Tsong-
kha-pa would appear to entirely bear out Powers’s conclusions; Zahler (2009), 330–349,
especially 347.
48. See, for example, Inglis (1989) 7–11.
49. Powers (2007) 81–91 describes many types of meditation in Tibetan Buddhism.
50. Gurdjieff (1950) 107 and 644.
51. Gurdjieff (1950) 960–961.
52. Ouspensky (1949) 49.
53. Nott (1961) 91.
54. Walker (1963) 126.
55. March (2012) 97.
56. Benson (2011) 156.
57. Benson (2011) 236.
58. Benson (2011) 174.
59. Note the introduction, by Lehmann-Haupt, Benson (2011) 12.
60. Benson (2011) 78.
5
Gurdjieff to the Early 1930s
5.1 Introduction
There is no evidence that Gurdjieff used methods of Transformed-
contemplation while at the Prieuré, but there is a significant account of his
giving mental tasks (for my definition of “tasks” see Section 0.2).
Tchechovitch recalls that at the Prieuré:
In the morning, after breakfast, we would head off to the work we had been assigned. . . . One
time we were asked to carry out mathematical operations while using, in the place of numbers,
sixteen feminine names. Instead of saying 16 minus 12 equals 4, for example, we had to say
Nina minus Adèle gives Marie, or that Marie multiplied by Nina gives Lily-Marie, meaning 64.
When we were together at our tasks, one of us had to propose an arithmetical operation in time
with a certain rhythm. On the following measure, the others were to respond according to the
proposed rule. Then it was the next person’s turn and so on. . . . The feminine names could just
as well be replaced by colors, opera titles, various objects, gestures, or whatever.1
So, while the evidence is less than conclusive, it does seem that Orage
was working in tandem with Gurdjieff on this line of research, and
publication. He had spoken with him about furthering it by devising a series
of exercises for the will—that is, for the ability to “do,” in Gurdjieff’s
terms. Some light is shed on this by consideration of one particular essay,
“On Dying Daily,” which I term a “discipline,” being more sustained than a
“task” but not so complex as an exercise, as it does not use the feeling and
body, and is not aimed at digesting higher substances (see Section 0.2).
5.5 Transformed-Contemplation
As indicated, some of Herald is lucid—for example, this passage, which we
can take as our starting point:
The modern man does not think, but something thinks for him; he does not act, but something
acts through him; he does not create, but something is created through him; he does not achieve,
but something is achieved through him.49
6.1 Introduction
Gurdjieff referred, in Herald of Coming Good, to three series of books, the
first of which comprised three volumes “under the title of ‘An Objectively-
Impartial Criticism of the Life of Man,’ or, ‘Beelzebub’s Tales to his
Grandson’.” The stated aim of the first series was “Mercilessly, without any
compromise whatsoever, to extirpate from the mentation and feeling of man
the previous, century-rooted views and beliefs about everything existing in
the world.”1 Its first edition was sold in a limited edition, to Orage’s US
groups in 1931.2 A revised version was issued posthumously in 1950. It is
the first and by far the longest of Gurdjieff’s three series of writings.
The second series, which was to comprise three books under the title
Meetings with Remarkable Men, intended “To furnish the material required
for a new creation and to prove its soundness and good quality.” The third
series, to comprise four volumes titled Life Is Real Only Then, When “I
Am,” was to “contribute to the arising in the mentation and feeling of man
of an authentic and correct representation of the World existing in reality
and not that illusory one, which according to the affirmation and proof of
the author is perceived by all people.”3
Orage, who worked closely with Gurdjieff on the English version of
Beelzebub, said to members of his group in New York that it was to be read
“with three centers,” explaining as follows:
Remember how you listened to stories heard, when you were a child—so that you participated,
your hair stood on end and your eyes shone, and you wept. That is reading with all three centers
and Gurdjieff would hope the book reading could be of that order. . . . the difference between a
child’s appreciation and that necessary for this book is that it requires a developed psyche really
to sympathize with the characters of this book.4
Two chief aspects of Beelzebub are significant for this study: Gurdjieff’s
comments on what he was pleased to call “Aiëssirittoorassnian-
contemplation,” and the Genuine Being Duty Exercise.
6.2 Aiëssirittoorassnian-Contemplation
In Beelzebub, Gurdjieff stated:
[T]he substances needed both for coating and for perfecting the higher-being-body Kesdjan
enter into their [i.e., humanity’s] common presences through their, as they say, “breathing,” and
through certain what are called “pores” of their skin.
And the sacred cosmic substances required for the coating of the highest-being-body,
which sacred being-part of theirs . . . they call soul, can be assimilated and correspondingly
transformed and coated in them . . . exclusively only from the process of what is called
“Aiëssirittoorassnian-Contemplation” actualized in their common presence by the cognized
intention on the part of all their spiritualized independent parts.5
The parallel between this passage and the one in Beelzebub where
Gurdjieff speaks of Aiëssirittoorassnian-contemplation is quite precise. In
each case the desired end result is the formation of higher bodies, in each
case there is a process, the element of intention is critical, and all parts of
the person must join in. The exercise commences with the words “I am”
said as one inhales and exhales, consistent with future studies that shall
show that the “I Am” Exercise was the basis of Gurdjieff’s inner exercises,
if not indeed of his entire teaching, as Frank Sinclair, president emeritus of
the Gurdjieff Foundation in New York, believes.19
There are a number of differences, but the two most important are, first,
that a general instruction becomes a daily exercise to be done at sunrise,
and, second, that the state of contact between conscious and unconscious
parts is to be made lasting. That is, what was a discipline becomes an
instance of Transformed-contemplation, as I have defined the terms in
Section 0.2. Although there is no reference to the formation of a soul, yet
there is the simultaneous exercising, with intention and attention, of subtle
parts of the psyche. This takes it beyond a discipline such as the Dying
Daily Exercise (see Section 5.3).
This is the first truly contemplative exercise for which there is evidence
in Gurdjieff’s corpus. The exercises we shall see from Third Series can be
attempted in the social domain of life. However, in Section 10.2, we meet a
contemplative exercise for energy and clarification of one’s aim from 1930,
and then there is an apparent dearth until 1939 and the exercise titled “Make
Strong! Not Easy Thing.”
There was a puzzling exchange about the Genuine Being Duty exercise
in a group meeting of April 20, 1944:
MME. DAVID: What must one do to follow the advice you give in your book;
to persuade all the matters, all the unconscious parts of one’s presence, to
work as if they were conscious, and so on?
GURDJIEFF: It is not my book, it is Mr. Beelzebub’s, and it is advice which he
is giving to his grandson.
MME. DAVID: Then it is only for his grandson?
GURDJIEFF: Beelzebub will explain it to you. As for me, I give you another
piece of advice: get accustomed to calling Beelzebub, “my dear
grandfather.” That will help you. The condition is that you address him
respectfully . . . Then perhaps he will answer.24
7.1 Introduction
The Third Series, or Life Is Real Only Then, When “I Am,” was first
published in an edition of 170 pages, in 1975, by Triangle Editions,
although the book was printed by the firm E. P. Dutton. Apparently there
was a second edition printed in 1978. Although no copy is available to me,
the 1981 edition by Routledge & Kegan Paul is thought to reproduce the
second edition.1 The 1981 edition seems to most differ from the 1975 in
that in it the final essay, “The Outer and Inner World of Man,” is almost
eight pages longer, but the foreword by Jeanne de Salzmann is
approximately two pages shorter.
Beneath the details of publication, the 1981 edition bears a note, the last
sentence of which reads: “This second edition includes the additional ten
pages from the end of the final chapter of the French (Paris 1976) edition.”
Those additional pages, numbering only eight in English, have been of great
value in this study, especially in understanding Gurdjieff’s idea of
Transformed-contemplation, and in dealing with the Color Spectrum
Exercise. As there is no publicly available collection of Gurdjieff’s
surviving manuscripts, there is no certainty that all the material he wanted
to include in this series has been published, even now.
Opposite the table of contents in each volume is found the following
note:
No one interested in my writings should ever attempt to read them in any other than the
indicated order; in other words, he should never read anything written by me before he already
well acquainted with the earlier works.—G. I. Gurdjieff
The paperback edition of 1999 published by Penguin Arkana, and first
published in the United States by Viking in 1991, is practically identical to
the 1981 hardcover, except that it lacks a photograph of Gurdjieff, and
beneath the “No one interested” note appears this additional quotation from
Beelzebub, which was, one could infer, added to indirectly advise the reader
to seek instruction in using the within material from first-generation pupils
of Gurdjieff (i.e., his personal pupils). It reads:
[A]s regards the real, indubitably comprehensible, genuine objective truths which will be
brought to light by me in the third series, I intend to make them accessible exclusively only to
those from among the hearers of the second series of my writings who will be selected by
specially prepared people according to my considered instruction.2
Who these people were was not indicated, although Gurdjieff did nominate
certain people as responsible for the promotion of Beelzebub, and he gave
indications that Jeanne de Salzmann was his senior pupil.3 Despite what
appears to be Gurdjieff’s clear statement that the Third Series was to be
kept private, and used only under the direction of “specially prepared
people,” de Salzmann wrote the foreword for this book and had it
published.
Although Gurdjieff had stated that the Third Series would be in four
books, the published book comprises only one volume, which is not even
the size of any of the three comprising Beelzebub. My own conjecture is
that he had intended it to be longer, but when he lost the assistance of
Orage, he had to be less ambitious. It is not certain that de Salzmann is
correct in saying that the Third Series was unfinished; although the longer
version of the chapter “The Outer and Inner World of Man” finishes in
midsentence, this may be deliberate.4 It was advertised that Life Is Real
would “contribute to the arising, in the mentation and feeling of man of an
authentic and correct representation of the World existing in reality and not
that illusory one, which . . . is perceived by all people.”5 Some of its
contents do not seem to measure up to that, while some of the material
does.
In the form we have it, the Third Series comprises a very lengthy
prologue of some fifty-six pages, five talks totaling some eighty-six pages,
and a final thirty-five-page essay, “The Outer and Inner World of Man.”
Neither the prologue nor the final essay is obviously connected to the five
talks, which purport to be lectures given in the United States to the former
Orage groups. Some of the material in the final essay is of value in
understanding the rationale of the Color Spectrum Exercise, and so is dealt
with in Chapter 15. In this and the next chapter, we shall chiefly be
concerned with the third and fifth talks.
Some of Gurdjieff’s chief biographers have made little or no use of the
Third Series, Life Is Real Only Then, When “I Am.” Webb writes that the
chapter on “The Four Bodies of Man” that Gurdjieff had written for it was
said to have been destroyed by Gurdjieff himself, and says: “What remains
of the Third Series is too incomplete to give any real idea of Gurdjieff’s
intentions for the book.”6 James Moore evinces a somewhat casual
treatment of the book. His verdict on it was:
[He] breaks off “The Outer and Inner World of Man,” and jettisons his promised and eagerly
anticipated revelations as to the Sarmoung Monastery and the secret needs and possibilities of
man’s body, spirit, and soul—the very kernel of his esotericism. His own narrative freezes and
the frame collapses—Gurdjieff simply disappears.7
Apart from the confected drama “Gurdjieff simply disappears,” to say that
“the very kernel of his esotericism” was lost is to display an
incomprehension of the exercises of the third and fifth talks. I note, too, that
Taylor makes a fair argument for seeing a deliberate ploy in the incomplete
final sentence of this book, just at the moment of promising to reveal a
secret.8
Before coming to the Soil Preparing Exercise itself, some features in the
previous lectures set the stage for it. According to the headnote, the first
talk was “delivered by me on November 28th, 1930, with free entrance . . .
[to] the followers of my ideas.”12 There, Gurdjieff explains, inter alia, that
at his Institute for the Harmonious Development of Man, pupils were sorted
into three groups, exoteric or outer, mesoteric or middle, and esoteric or
inner.13 The members of the third group “were to be initiated not only
theoretically . . . but also practically, and to be introduced to all the means
for a real possibility of self-perfecting.”14 Significantly, he goes on to state
that with the members of the third group: “[I] intended to devote myself to
the searching for means already accessible to everyone and to the applying
of all that was learned thus and minutely verified for the welfare of all
humanity.”15 That is, as I have been suggesting, even while at the Institute
in the 1920s, Gurdjieff had not determined which methods were best for his
purposes.
The discourse continues in rather complex sentences, but Gurdjieff states
that the program he had prepared for the Institute pupils would have shortly
been put into practice, when he suffered his motor accident.16 He then sets
out what he considers to be central concepts in his system, the need to
practice “self-observation” and to “remember oneself.”17 If one can work
conscientiously and with intensity, says Gurdjieff, a man need no longer
remain what “in moments of self-sincerity he knows himself to be—an
automatically perceiving and in everything manifesting himself domestic
animal.”18
In the second talk, which is undated, and is said to have been addressed
to “a much increased assemblage,”19 Gurdjieff relates his view of Orage’s
conduct of the US groups and requires each of those present to sign a
document declaring that they will have nothing to do with Orage or former
members of his group, excepting those whose names would be on a list of
the members of the “newly formed exoteric group.”20 There is evidence that
there was such a meeting.21
Gurdjieff now declares that he will teach them some of the exercises he
had intended to explain to the mesoteric group. For these exercises it is
necessary, he says, to concentrate one’s attention on three diverse objects
for a definite time, and to assist in this, he teaches a “soil preparing
exercise.”30 The exercise is, he states, but number four from a series;
however, “on account of several misunderstandings in the past” he has to
teach them this one.31 There are many such digressions in this book. The
only discernible purpose for this tangent would be to provide a trap for the
curious. I set out the exercise in smaller and numbered paragraphs for more
convenient commentary:
1. First, all one’s attention must be divided approximately into three equal parts; each of these
parts must be concentrated on one of the three fingers of the right or the left hand, for
instance, the forefinger, the third and the fourth, constating in one finger—the result
proceeding in it of the organic process called “sensing,” in another—the result of the process
called “feeling,” and with the third—making any rhythmical movement and at the same time
automatically conducting with the flowing of mental association a sequential or varied manner
of counting.
Gurdjieff then states that “sensing” and “feeling” are often confused, but
that they can be distinguished as follows:
2. A man “feels”—when what are called the “initiative factors” issue from one of the dispersed
localizations of his common presence which in contemporary science are called the
“sympathetic nerve nodes,” the chief agglomeration of which is known by the name of “solar
plexus” and the whole totality of which functioning, in the terminology long ago established
by me, is called the “feeling center”; and he “senses”—when the basis of the “initiative
factors” is the totality of what are called “the motor nerve nodes” of the spinal and partly of
the head brain, which is called according to this terminology of mine the “moving center.”32
Gurdjieff then declares that the listeners do not distinguish “the nature of . .
. these two independent sources.”33 He then sets out the exercise:
3. [F]irst it is necessary to learn with what exists in you now only as a substitute, so to say
“fulfilling the obligation” of what should, in a real man, be “self-willed attention” and in you
is merely a “self-tenseness,”
4. simultaneously to observe three heterogeneous results proceeding in you, each coming from
different sources of the general functioning or your whole presence:
5. namely, one part of this attention of yours should be occupied with the constatation of the
proceeding-in-one-finger process of “sensing,” another with the constatation of the
proceeding-in-another-finger process of “feeling,” and the third part should follow the
counting of the automatic movement of the third finger.
6. . . . And for cognizing its importance and indispensability for you, as well as its real difficulty,
it is necessary to do it many, many times. At the beginning, you must try all the time only to
understand the sense and significance of this exercise, without expecting to obtain any
concrete result.
7. As only an all-round understanding of the sense and significance of this fourth—and for you,
first—exercise, as well as the ability to carry it out, will perforce make it easier for you to
cognize the sense and significance, as well as the carrying out, of all the subsequent exercises
which are required for the acquisition of one’s own individuality.
This explains why the control of attention for a consciously formulated aim
is basic in Transformed-contemplation.
The reference here is not to counting per se, but rather to intentional
occupations such as making rhythmic movements; however, the principle is
the same. Gurdjieff returned to counting exercises in 1943 (see Section
11.13).
They were not the Catholic type of rosary. When Hulme showed them to
Gurdjieff twelve years later, he gave her “quite the most lovely smile I have
ever seen,” then, “as if caressing them, he passed a few beads through his
fingers,” held them up for all to see, and said: “Is moth-er thing.”49 I do not
know whether he means that his mother used them, or that faith is a mother,
or something else again. No conclusive proof that the Soil Preparing
Exercise is an adaptation of the beads is possible. One’s assessment of the
likelihood of this conjecture will very much depend on what one makes of
my thesis in Chapter 9.
Notes
1. Taylor (2012) 73 and Driscoll (1985) 3–4.
2. Gurdjieff (1950) 1238; to like effect, Gurdjieff (1933) 57.
3. Yet, according to Gurdjieff, genuine authority should be “in accordance with . . . objective
merits . . . personally acquired, and which [can] really be sensed by all the beings around
them.” Gurdjieff (1950) 385.
4. Gurdjieff (1975) xi–xiii and 177.
5. Gurdjieff (1933) 48.
6. Webb (1980) 544.
7. Moore (1991) 257.
8. Taylor (2007a) 121.
9. Azize (2016b) 151–152.
10. Azize (2016b) 151–152.
11. Taylor (2014) 105.
12. Gurdjieff (1975) 73.
13. Gurdjieff (1975) 77.
14. Gurdjieff (1975) 77.
15. Gurdjieff (1975) 77–78.
16. Gurdjieff (1975) 80–81.
17. Gurdjieff (1975) 82.
18. Gurdjieff (1975) 83.
19. Gurdjieff (1975) 89.
20. Gurdjieff (1975) 90–101, citing 101.
21. See Section 1.5, and Gurdjieff (1975) 92–96.
22. Gurdjieff (1975) 102.
23. Gurdjieff (1975) 102.
24. Gurdjieff (1975) 103.
25. Gurdjieff (1975) 107.
26. Gurdjieff (1975) 109.
27. Gurdjieff (1975) 109.
28. Gurdjieff (1975) 109–111.
29. Gurdjieff (1975) 112.
30. Gurdjieff (1975) 113.
31. Gurdjieff (1975) 113.
32. Gurdjieff (1975) 114. Note the clearer example in Early Talks.
33. Gurdjieff (1975) 114.
34. Ouspensky (1949) 282.
35. Gurdjieff (2014) 204.
36. Gurdjieff (2014) 204–205.
37. Gurdjieff (2014) 205.
38. Gurdjieff (2014) 205.
39. Ouspensky (1949) 56, 109.
40. Ouspensky (1957) 61 and (1950) 108.
41. Ouspensky (1957) 61–66 and (1950) 108–114.
42. Ouspensky (1957) 61, 64 and (1950) 108 and 110.
43. Ouspensky (1957) 62.
44. Ouspensky (1957) 64.
45. Gurdjieff (1963) 107.
46. Anonymous (1930) 14.
47. Ouspensky (1952) 298.
48. Hulme (1997) 90.
49. Hulme (1997) 224.
8
The First Assisting Exercise from the Third Series
8.1 Introduction
The two “assisting exercises” of the Third Series appear in the “fifth talk,”
ostensibly dated December 19, 1930. When the rubric asserts that it was “to
the same group,” this refers back to the subheading of the “fourth talk,”
which reads: “Delivered by me on December 12th, 1930, at a meeting of a
newly formed group, to which were again admitted the members of the so-
called Orage group. The place was crowded in the extreme.” So these
exercises were allegedly taught in the United States in 1930 to members of
an Orage group.
The fifth talk opens in language that can neutrally be described as
“roundabout,” but one might fairly term it “verbose.” Gurdjieff opens by
indicating that he intends to ask those present how they found the exercise
given in his third talk (the Soil Preparing Exercise). However, before
asking, he means to teach them “two other independent exercises which
were in the general program of the Institute . . . but which belonged to quite
a different series of exercises . . . [and comprised] ‘assisting means’ for
acquiring one’s own real I.”1 As we shall see, the first of these exercises
could fairly be termed “internal,” and it forms part of the foundation for the
contemplative exercises that were to follow. There is not the slimmest
evidence that either exercise was in fact ever used at the Institute.
Gurdjieff evokes an ambience of high and hoary mystery around the
exercises by linking them to “secrets” that have been kept “from the dawn
of centuries” by “initiates” and that could “prove ruinous” to the “average
man.”2 Gurdjieff explains the distinction of these initiates into three groups
(Saints, Learned, and Sages),3 a matter that is of no relevance for the
exercises, suggesting that his purpose may be to provide “enchantment” and
to position himself as a “mythologized persona . . . steeped in a magical
aura.”4 However, it may be simpler: Although Gurdjieff did use the allure
of the exotic East, a simple reading of this exercise shows that there is not,
pace Owen, anything of the Crowley-type mage about him. More simply,
Gurdjieff’s purpose seems to be to provide obstacles so that the reader had
to struggle to understand the material (see Section 1.1), and, just possibly,
to increase one’s valuation of the exercise.
A further two pages intervene before the exercise is given. The details on
these pages are significant: They amount to declaring that the exercises rely
on “self-deception,”5 and that this paradoxical method is necessary because
he must find a way to bypass “the ordinary consciousness of a man, which
for the given case has almost no significance” and reach the
“subconscious.”6
[A]s a means for self-perfecting man can use a certain property which is in his psyche and
which is even of a very negative character. This property . . . is none other than that which I
have many times condemned . . . and is called “self-deception.”7
There are several significant points here. First, Gurdjieff places himself
in a tradition that has extended over centuries in which advanced persons
have conducted experiments. Whether he invented these exercises or not, he
does not claim that the methodological basis was his own, but rather credits
them to “person of Pure Reason.” My conjecture is that, in fact, the persons
were Orage and himself.
Second, Gurdjieff states that the “indications” to be taught to the
subconscious are not “contradictory to instinct.” It is unclear whether he
means that ideas that are contradictory to instinct cannot, by their very
nature, be taught to the subconscious, or whether he is merely highlighting
the “reasonableness” of the “indications.” Perhaps his point is related to the
idea that it is the instinctive center that prevents us from gaining access to
certain powers and energies until we are sufficiently mature and responsible
to be able to use them wisely.9
The third matter to note is that this lengthy digression about how it might
seem odd to use self-deception for the purpose of “acquiring one’s own real
I” supports the thesis that Gurdjieff delayed in introducing these exercises
into his system at least partly because of the dangers he considered to be
inherent in them. Yet, he later made even more use of such techniques.
Some imagination is constructive imagination, for Gurdjieff had said in
Russia that the problem with imagination (the power of mentally forming
images) was that in us, as we are, it is uncontrolled.10
9.1 Introduction
The introduction to this exercise commences with Gurdjieff’s observations
on attention, just over halfway through the fifth talk. Gurdjieff states, once
more in convoluted prose, that attention comprises “the proportionately
blended results” of the actions of the three centers. That is, while a person’s
attention forms “always one whole,” yet its sources are the “corresponding
actions” of the “three independent automatized parts of [one’s] whole
individuality.”1 Gurdjieff indicates neither which actions are the
“corresponding” ones, nor how the blending is “proportioned.” If attention
is a “thing,” as he there indicates, then, on his principles, it will have to be a
material substance, even if a subtle one. This is the basis of his next
statement, that in “the active state,” one can concentrate the whole of the
attention on anything: “either on some part of his common presence or on
something outside him, in such a so to say ‘collectiveness’ that all the
associations automatically proceeding in him . . . will totally cease to hinder
him.”2
This calls to mind the terms of the “Genuine Being Duty” exercise, in
which one’s common presence is not hindered by the operation of the
unconscious part. Gurdjieff does not say that the associations will stop;
rather, he states that they will “inevitably proceed” as long as one breathes,
for they are “law-conformable results of the general functioning of his
organism.”3
This is an important principle for Gurdjieff’s exercises. Although the
Gurdjieff tradition speaks of a “free from thought state,” and Gurdjieff
spoke of “stopping thought,” this is understood as a shorthand way of
referring to stopping the activity of the lower part of the mind (the
formatory apparatus) when it is not needed. Formatory apparatus should
play its proper role, and so not impinge on other functions, and completely
dominate one’s consciousness. Yet, even if it has been stopped when the
higher parts of the mind are engaged (and the sound of the higher mind is
akin to silence),4 the formatory apparatus will spring back quite as capable,
if not more so than before, when one needs it (e.g., to do some math or to
find a key). Gurdjieff reiterates this point, stating that in the “very ancient
past” it was shown by “learned persons” that a man’s automatic associations
not only do not cease during life, but even continue after death for a few
days, “by momentum.”5 Once more, Gurdjieff evokes sages from the
distant past, and provides a piece of “information” that, if interesting, is yet
not relevant to his disquisition, and probably serves little purpose but as an
obstacle to readers taking the material too lightly, and not making efforts to
understand it. He then devotes about half a page to dreams, effectively
stating that if one’s attention is well directed while awake, then one will not
dream.6
Only now does Gurdjieff return to the material related to the second
exercise: “a normal man can intentionally divide his whole attention . . .
into two or even three separate parts, and concentrate each of these on
various independent objects inside or outside himself.”7 Having spoken of
the ability to direct the whole of one’s attention, Gurdjieff now adds that
one can divide it so that it alights on, or rather includes, multiple objects.
Gurdjieff demonstrates his idea by an illustration rather than a theoretical
explanation because, he states, while at the Institute, he had found that the
“principle of illustrative inculcation” was the only means of teaching these
exercises: “I was then already convinced of the impossibility of exactly
explaining and fully formulating in words the various fine points of the
procedures of any intentional experiencings and exercises for the purpose of
self-perfection.”8 This information is “very useful . . . for the productivity
of the further work in this newly formed group of ours.”9
Again, matters that might have been placed at the start of any systematic
treatise are introduced later in the piece; one is obliged to sort them out for
oneself. Gurdjieff here states that the exercises must be personally
demonstrated, and for that, a teacher is needed: It is the “only true and
useful method for such cases.”10 The word, spoken or printed, does not
suffice. This is another mark of continuity with the teaching as given in
Russia. Although Gurdjieff was not satisfied with calling these “exercises,”
yet he used that word as an alternative to “intentional experiencings.”
A variant of the following exercise has been published in the recent
volume of Early Talks under the title of “The Compromise Exercise.”11 It is
headed “New York, 1930.” The provenance of the text is not given. If it had
indeed been taught in New York in 1930, then it is the earliest evidence of
Gurdjieff teaching such exercises, and is probably to be associated with the
separation of Orage from his groups, an affair in which I see the question of
exercises playing a larger role than has been thought. It represents a slightly
simplified version of the exercise given below. It could well be that
Gurdjieff did give the Compromise Exercise in 1930, and when writing the
Third Series expanded it, also making it somewhat more obscure in the
process. However, as the version in the Third Series is both fuller and is the
version Gurdjieff settled on for his Third Series, that is the one I shall use.
In Gurdjieff’s final comments on the last page and a half of this “lecture,”
he continues the fiction that he has been addressing a group. He states that
he has done this exercise before them—“for the purpose of illustratively
elucidating its details to you”13—but that such conditions do not correspond
“to the possibility of accumulating to the full in my common presence the
entire beneficial result of this exercise.”14 Notwithstanding this, he feels
“incomparably better than before beginning this ‘demonstrational
explanation’.”15 If those conditions did not correspond, perhaps we are to
understand that he would have found more benefit had he performed it in a
special state. He then states:
12. Owing to my “solar plexus” intentionally and directly taking in the law-conformable results of
the air I was breathing and the results arising in my head brain of the previously consciously
perceived impressions, I feel much more fully that “I am,” “I can” and “I can wish.”16
9.3 Commentary
That ends the fifth talk, which is also the last of the “talks” in the Third
Series. It is also the final exercise in that volume. It is a rather highly
developed form of Transformed-contemplation, as I have defined it in
Section 0.2. Let us now consider the exercise in a little more detail.
1. Gurdjieff is sitting during the entirety of the exercise, and he has his eyes open, for he can see
a man whom he names. One of the exercises Adie taught, and which so far as I am aware no
other pupil of Gurdjieff taught, is the Clear Impressions Exercise (see Chapter 16).
Gurdjieff proceeds, here, on the understanding that it is possible to “intentionally direct all
[his] attention” while looking at someone. That is, the attention can be controlled by an act of
will, even though such willpower as we have is, according to Gurdjieff, weak by comparison
to what it is in a “normal man.” That attention is directed onto his foot, although he does not
say which foot, and I doubt that it matters. By insisting that his attention is now “one whole,”
he refers back to the preamble to the exercise, where he stressed the possibility of
concentrating one’s attention. Note, too, that his awareness of the person at whom he is
looking is now “automatic.” That is, automatic functioning is not intrinsically bad for
Gurdjieff, it has its legitimate place, but sometimes consciousness is needed. This reminds one
of the division of the centers he taught in Russia, where the higher parts of the centers require
conscious attention to be operative.
2. The division of his attention into “two equal parts” illustrates the second property of the
attention Gurdjieff had mentioned: that although it is one whole, yet it can be “divided.” Some
in the Gurdjieff tradition have objected to the word “division” on the basis that it implies that
the attention can be broken into two pieces, rather like a loaf of bread. But that is a subjective
interpretation. Gurdjieff was fond of the “philological question,”19 saying that “philology was
a better route to Truth than philosophy.”20 He may have known that the word comes from the
Latin dividō, and that the word properly meant “to distinguish,” being from the root vid-,
which is related to video “to see” and, in English, “wit” and “wise.”21 The prefix dīs- or dī-
has the meaning, in composite words, of “asunder” and “in different directions.” It hails from
the root dua- and dui-, which of course has the meaning of “apart” and “two.”22 So, in
speaking of “dividing” the attention, Gurdjieff may have had nothing more in mind than
holding in the attention more than one object, literally “two seeing”—that is, allowing the
impression of more than one object (or the subject and the object) to be consciously received.
Certainly, this fits the context of the word in this passage.
3. Bringing awareness to one’s breathing is a prime feature of Gurdjieff’s exercises (see
especially Sections 10.3, 10.6, and 11.10). He indicates the importance of conscious breathing
in a special state by writing into Beelzebub the Djamdjampal and Djameechoonatra (see
Section 6.2).
4. Consciousness of an object becomes magnified when the attention is directed on it. It is a
property of consciousness that when it is trained in one direction, other objects are
marginalized, but they do not completely disappear from our field of consciousness. George
Adie stated that this is a two-sided feature, and that one of the dangers of trance states was that
one could direct one’s attention so narrowly as to remain oblivious of dangerous events
(which was perhaps part of Gurdjieff’s objections to trances).23 Attention has a useful side (it
allows us to focus and study) but when one is identified it leads to a narrowing of awareness.
5. This paragraph relates to the Food Diagram from In Search of the Miraculous. The bulk of the
air we inhale is used mechanically, and then exhaled as waste. But not all of it is used that
way: Through the first conscious shock a portion reaches the lungs, then moves inward, and,
“as it were,” spreads through the “whole organism.” The “as it were” is significant: Adie
stated that it is not exactly the air itself, but rather a force fueled by the air, that passes into the
blood and through that means penetrates the entire organism.24
6. Gurdjieff echoes the terms of the Genuine Being Duty Exercise when he speaks of the
associations as “hindering” the attention “much less.”
7. It is not to be expected, let alone demanded, that something be sensed. One watches for what
one may see. But this exercise is not an exercise of “constructive imagination” as the First
Assisting Exercise was (see Chapter 8). The process is either “constated” or it is not. The
word “constated” is one of those valuable words rarely used today, to the impoverishment of
the language. It is probably due to Orage that this word entered Gurdjieff’s vocabulary. It does
not merely mean “state,” but rather, “to verify” and “to prove” with the nuance of settling the
matter in question. Philologically, it derives from the Latin cōnstō, being “together,” plus
“stand,” so as “to agree, accord; be consistent, correspond.” It came to figuratively mean
“stand firm, be immovable” and “endure.” Gurdjieff spoke to Kathryn Hulme of attempting
his inner exercises: “not with knowing . . . but with sure-ing”—not with the mind but with the
feeling.25 He used the word “constated” in a special sense, that of knowing something with
one’s attention. Hence, on September 25, 1943, he said: “your head is only capable of
constating if you put attention on something.”26 It may be that the original title of the exercise,
the Compromise Exercise, was an attempt to express the idea of constating, for “compromise”
etymologically has the sense of making a joint promise, which is close to the meaning of
“constating” as agreeing, coming to an accord.
8. The concept here is that the higher hydrogens, which are “very fine, almost imperceptible to
me,” can in fact be sensed or, as stated here, “felt.” This perception is not to be confused with
cruder sensations such as tensions in the scalp.
9. Perhaps Gurdjieff says that he neither knows nor desires to know what this substance is, so
that the exercitant not spend too much time and attention on this part of the exercise, to the
neglect of the others. This sort of comment, that there are aspects of hydrogens used in the
exercise that we should not interest ourselves in, with recurs in the exercise “Make Strong!
Not Easy Thing” (see Section 10.7).
10. The arousal of an interest in the exercise is likewise prescribed in “Make Strong! Not Easy
Thing.” That the results of the breathing are stressed here makes me more confident that
Gurdjieff’s intention in paragraph 9 is that the exercitant not become too wrapped up in
speculations on the fine substances.
11. So far as my researches have disclosed, Gurdjieff uniquely speaks of “remembering the whole
of myself,” while one “aids” the higher hydrogens in the head to flow directly into the solar
plexus, and to feel how it flows. According to the Food Diagram, consciously received
impressions develop to as far as MI 12, and these settle in the lower story of the food factory
of the human organism.27 However, in this exercise, Gurdjieff speaks of substances in the
head brain. The highest substances found there are LA 6, which result only from the conscious
development of the air octave.28
The hydrogen FA 6 may be present in the brain as a result of the second conscious shock
alchemically transmuting MI 12. This follows from the diagram, wherein all hydrogens of a
similar density congregate in the one story. That is, just as all hydrogens 12 are in the lower
story, so too all hydrogens 6 should be in the upper story, the brain.29
The food octave ends with SI 12 in the lower story, but were that to develop further, it
would produce hydrogen DO 6, and for the same reasons, the head brain would also the site of
that substance. So, it would appear that Gurdjieff is speaking about the possibility of moving
at least one substance (LA 6), and possibly also two others (FA 6 and DO 6), to the solar
plexus, presumably as H 3, in order to assist the further work of the food factory. Gurdjieff
had several times said that the factory could produce more substances than it does, but that at
certain critical points the “carbons” (the necessary mixing substances) were not present at the
relevant part of the organism, and so could not blend with the lower substances to produce
higher hydrogens.30
In other words, the theory behind this exercise is not apparent on an uniformed reading, but
once it has been teased out, it accords with the theory expressed in the Food Diagram and,
indeed, enables one to add more details (the Diagram, as given, omits some details, one
obvious example being the ingestion of water, which is not H 768 but H 384).
12. This paragraph alludes to the comments Gurdjieff had made in conjunction with the Soil
Preparing Exercise in the third talk, concerning the impulses he called “I am,” “I can,” and “I
wish.” Now, he says, as a result of this exercise, what he presents as our absent birthright
might become a reality. To term the “results of the air” he had been breathing “law-
conformable” is to indicate that the cosmic laws have been working to produce this result,
without any outside interference of a violent kind. The phrases “law-conformable” and “not
according to law” appear in Beelzebub in this sense.31 The exercise facilitates the act of the
will that is necessary to bring hydrogens from one part of the organism to another, and to
actualize these more refined processes.
13. Once more, Gurdjieff insists that what is being done is “law-conformable,” thereby countering
any notion that this might be some form of magic. He can use “cosmic laws” because he
possesses “a fully defined subjective I” that can receive and regulate impressions. He added
that although not everyone present has such an I, nonetheless, they could sense that he has
performed something remarkable. Again, in the presence of a teacher who can actualize the
process, one can better understand what is to be done, and how.
14. Interestingly, Gurdjieff speaks of this “I of mine” absorbing “this law-conformable food
proper to it more intensively.” That the I absorbs it means that at a certain point, perhaps when
the I has been awakened, the food factory can be identified with I, rather than simply being a
mechanism that rumbles on while in the bowels the real I is slumbering.
There are too many references to the work of the machine and the food being “law-
conformable” for this to simply be a coincidence or a fault in literary style. The only
discernible reason seems to be to insist on the scientific, almost engineering, aspect of the
entire process.
15. Gurdjieff warns the exercitant not to expect “such a definite result,” because expectations can
interfere with the exercise. However, he does qualify this by saying “for the time being.” See
the fuller discussion of “not working for results” in Section 18.4.
16. This paragraph is strongly redolent of the instruction in the Genuine Being Duty Exercise.
17. Gurdjieff’s principled dislike of philosophy and “maleficent discussions” finds colorful
expression in his stories of the ancient Greeks in Beelzebub.32 On July 15, 1943, he put his
reservations about philosophy in a pithy formula: “To have real material, do not think about
what your state is. Do not philosophize. Only absorb; breathe in your real ‘I’.”33
Much has been omitted from both columns of the table. My thesis is not
that Gurdjieff slavishly copied this exercise, but rather that he adapted it in
accordance with his own established principles. There are also differences
that must be mentioned:
1. Gurdjieff’s exercise begins with sensing the foot, while Nicephorus does not mention
sensation.
2. Gurdjieff has some of the air retained in the breast; Nicephorus has all of it retained in the
nostrils.
3. Gurdjieff calls attention to particles in the head, and to moving these to the breast. Nicephorus
does not speak of particles but has the enigmatic instruction to force one’s mind to descend
into the heart, and remain and be established there.
To an extent, however, these differences are more apparent than real, for:
1. The experience of sensation is tacitly included in the Prayer of the Heart because the unusual
posture obliges one to sense oneself, and holding rosary beads and counting on them involves
the sensation. In this respect see Section 3.4 and the reference to the use of beads in The Way
of a Pilgrim, where the sensation of his thumb, wrist, and lower arm was a feature of his
practice. In addition, as Gurdjieff mentioned, the prostrations of the Orthodox add a physical
element to their discipline.34 That is, Gurdjieff noticed from the Orthodox tradition of praying
that there is a physical component to what is usually spoken of as purely mental and affective.
The effort to hold breath in the nostrils does have the effect of holding it in the lungs, because
2. one must inhale using the lungs to fill the nostrils. Besides, in the Philokalia, Callistus and
Ignatius give the instruction that when one inhales, one should “constrain it [the mind] to enter
the heart together with the inhaled air, and keep it there.”35
3. The two instructions may come to the same thing in practice. Gurdjieff maintained a theory of
the materiality of psychic processes, while Nicephorus probably did not consider this at all. To
“force one’s mind” may necessarily involve moving particles, should they exist.
Further, Gurdjieff said that the “feeling brain” had initially been localized in
the breast but had been removed to the solar plexus and other places.36 In
other words, in Gurdjieff, the “solar plexus” is the functional equivalent of
the heart in the Philokalia.
It now remains to set out in table form the second and simpler
formulation of the Prayer (the one I prefer to call the “Jesus Prayer”) by
Nicephorus and the First Assisting Exercise from Gurdjieff:
Nicephorus Gurdjieff
Thus, having banished very thought from this inner talking . . . [W]hen pronouncing the words
give it the following short prayer: “Lord, Jesus Christ, Son of “I am,”
God, have mercy upon me!”
. . . in time this will open for you the way to the heart which I imagine that this same
have described reverberation is already
proceeding in his solar plexus.
Although the two exercises, both in Nicephorus and Gurdjieff, are short, the
similarities appear clearer once one has noticed the likeness to the Prayer of
the Heart.
There is another passage in Gurdjieff that seems to be a literary
reminiscence of the Prayer of the Heart. In the early paper, written under
Gurdjieff’s instructions, known variously as “Glimpses of the Truth” and
“Reflexes of Truth,” Gurdjieff says to the narrator: “the understanding you
have is nothing but a dim reflex of the bright divine light.”37 Perhaps
“reflex” is a mistranslation of “reflection.”
This is an intriguing way of speaking, because it is so unexpected that
Gurdjieff would speak of the “bright divine light.” However, it may be an
echo of the importance of the experience of the light of God to the
Hesychasts. One of the main points on which the hesychast controversy had
arisen was the stated vouchsafing to monks of vision of the uncreated light
that had shone on Mount Tabor at the time of the Transfiguration.38
Now, if the Second Assisting Exercise is adapted from Nicephorus’s
Prayer of the Heart, then it is more plausible that the First Assisting
Exercise is adapted from Nicephorus’s Jesus Prayer. As we saw in Section
3.4, Nicephorus states that if the first exercise is too difficult one may use
the shorter prayer: “Lord, Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy upon
me!”39 I suggest that Gurdjieff has reversed the order of the two exercises:
Nicephorus presents first the longer exercise, what I exclusively term the
“Prayer of the Heart,” with the breath and the holding of the mind. He then
presents the second and shorter version of that prayer (the “Jesus Prayer”)
without the breath and the mental constraint.
Gurdjieff first substitutes “I am” for “Lord have mercy” (as de Salzmann
stated was possible; see Section 6.3). He then, as stated, reverses the order
of the exercises. It seems to me to be strongly arguable that, if this is the
case, it is plausible to see in the Soil Preparing Exercise his adaptation of
the use of beads for the Jesus Prayer (see Section 14.2). Incidentally, given
Gurdjieff’s comments about an Ego exercise on Mount Athos, then it may
be that the substitution of “I am” for some prayer for mercy first occurred
within Hesychasm, or at least that Gurdjieff thought it had.
These, then, were the exercises of Transformed-contemplation that
Gurdjieff wrote out. These could be called “internal exercises.” They set the
stage for other exercises that were to come, and that were contemplative in
style, and even, as with the Lord Have Mercy and the Four Ideals Exercises,
overtly religious.
Notes
1. Gurdjieff (1975) 138.
2. Gurdjieff (1975) 138.
3. Gurdjieff (1975) 138.
4. Adie and Azize (2015) 79–80.
5. Gurdjieff (1975) 138.
6. Gurdjieff (1975) 138–139.
7. Gurdjieff (1975) 139.
8. Gurdjieff (1975) 139.
9. Gurdjieff (1975) 139.
10. Gurdjieff (1975) 140.
11. Gurdjieff (2014) 409–411.
12. Gurdjieff (1975) 140–141.
13. Gurdjieff (1975) 141.
14. Gurdjieff (1975) 141–142.
15. Gurdjieff (1975) 142.
16. Gurdjieff (1975) 142.
17. Gurdjieff (1975) 142.
18. Gurdjieff (1975) 142.
19. Hulme (1997) 95 and Gurdjieff (1950) 500. See, for examples of Gurdjieff’s interest in words,
Anonymous (2012) 101, 113, and this exchange at 178: Gurdjieff having been told that one
cannot say “dish of the day” because it is not English, he asks Payson Loomis what he would
say instead of “dish of the day.” When Loomis replies: “Well, we say plat du jour,” Gurdjieff
immediately retorts: “That is not English, either, Mr. Loomis.” Loomis had studied Arabic and
Russian at Harvard: Taylor (2007b) 49.
20. March (2012) 43.
21. Lewis (1889) 1191.
22. Lewis (1889) 308 and 1182.
23. Oral communication.
24. Oral communication.
25. Hulme (1997) 71–72.
26. Gurdjieff (2009) 47. The translation in (2017) 176 has “observe” for constate.
27. Ouspensky (1949) 189.
28. Ouspensky (1949) 188–189.
29. See Figure 39, Ouspensky (1949) 190.
30. See, for example, Ouspensky (1949) 187 and 188. Certain efforts are said to bring diverse
hydrogens into a contact that would not otherwise occur.
31. See especially Gurdjieff (1950) 31, 123, 240, 293, 301, 795,1172, 1220, and 1227–1228.
32. Gurdjieff (1950) 417–418.
33. Gurdjieff (2017) 75.
34. Ouspensky (1949) 387.
35. Kadloubovsky and Palmer (1951) 192.
36. Gurdjieff (1950) 779–780 and (2009) 182.
37. Gurdjieff (2014) 13.
38. Krausmüller (2006) 102–105. For a selection of the original texts, see St. Gregory Palamas in
Palmer, Sherrard, and Ware (1995) 376–378 and 414–417.
39. Nicephorus, On Sobriety, 33–34.
10
Gurdjieff in the Late 1930s
10.1 Introduction
Partly because of the difficulty in dating the lectures in Life Is Real, Only
Then, When “I Am,” and partly because of their central importance to our
topic, it seemed convenient to deal with those talks and their exercises prior
to treating of the balance of Gurdjieff’s teaching in the 1930s.
Gurdjieff’s constructive concern in the 1930s was writing and arranging
translations of his writings. As suggested in Section 1.3, this preoccupation
may have contributed to his forming “the Rope” on October 21, 1935.1 By
all accounts, this group apart, the 1930s were a rather desultory period for
him; he traveled sometimes to the United States, where little was
accomplished once Orage’s direction was lost.2 Gurdjieff’s relations with
the Americans revolved, obsessively, around money.3 Rumors of a visit to
Central Asia and Russia seem to be unfounded,4 but the very fact that they
circulated and cannot be positively disproved show how far Gurdjieff’s
public profile had diminished.5
It was a period of underachievement, of an inexplicable lassitude and
apparent indifference to any mission. It is likely that Gurdjieff could have at
least attempted to reorganize and vivify the American groups, and publish
his writings. Perhaps he had been counting on Orage’s continued assistance
in writing the Second and Third Series, and simply did not know what
methods he should employ, but felt constrained to wait and see what would
develop from his earlier efforts (see Section 1.6).
However, our concern is now Transformed-contemplation. The exercises
in this chapter are, unlike those we have studied, found in transcripts of his
talks. That is, they were not carefully prepared and written down
beforehand. That Gurdjieff improvised when giving his exercises is beyond
doubt. The style of his comments suggest this (see Section 11.1), and it also
emerges from Hulme’s recollection of his instructions to the Rope in the
summer of 1936. Gurdjieff has just challenged Hulme to stop smoking, and:
Then he leaned back and gave us all an instruction that sounded like prayer. “This can be a thing
for power,” he said. “I will tell you one very important thing to say each time when the longing
comes. At first you say it and maybe you notice nothing. The second time, maybe nothing. The
third time . . . maybe you will notice something. Say: “I wish the force of my wishing to be my
own, for Being”.” He thought a moment, then shook his head. “No. Better another way. Force
such as this, has special results, makes chemicals, has special emanations. Better to say—I wish
the result of this, my suffering, be my own, for Being. Yes, you can call that kind of wishing
suffering, because it is suffering. This saying maybe can take force from your animal and give it
to Being . . . and you can do this for many things. For any denial of something that is a real
slavery.”6
The two exercises that it is thought Gurdjieff did deliver in the United
States in December 1930 and February 1931 (see Sections 10.2 and 10.3)
bear only a family resemblance to the three more fully realized exercises
that, according to Life Is Real, were then taught. That no independent record
of these latter exercises exists is further reason to see them as a retrojection.
Further, the more developed form of the exercises in Life Is Real is not
merely a function of Gurdjieff’s taking the time to write them: The
exercises mark Gurdjieff’s development of mental tasks (e.g., learning
Morse code and Tibetan words), disciplines (“the Dying Daily Exercise”)
and Transformed-contemplation (the three carefully thought-out and
interrelated exercises in Life Is Real dealt with in Chapters 7–9).
This exercise, then, is based on the same principles as the Genuine Being
Duty Exercise (relaxation to prepare the entire organism, then the process of
“active mentation,” including addressing one’s mechanical part as if it were
conscious). It is also the precursor of the exercise on aim and decision given
on August 24, 1944, in Paris (see Section 11.12).
This exercise is neither done sitting nor with eyes closed. Rather,
paragraph 5 can only mean that the exercise is attempted with open eyes
(“whenever you see anyone”), while paragraph 2 (“the person on whom
your attention rests”) does not require one to be alone or seated.
A religious tone is prominent: the centrality of the realization that those
we meet are our neighbors, which grounds what Gurdjieff says about our
interrelationship, would be sufficient to recall the parable of the Good
Samaritan (Luke 10:25–37). But, in addition, in paragraphs 6 and 7, he
makes reference to the desirability of acquiring faith, hope, and love (the
“Theological Virtues” celebrated in 1 Corinthians 13:13).
10.4 Commentary on the Two Parts to Air
Exercise
Turning to a more detailed analysis, I observe that:
1. It may, at first sight, seem odd that it is not the evolving but the involving part of air that is
said to “give vivifyingness” to “I.” It is not that there are two different airs, but that the air has
two parts. The involving part must, on first principles, be that part that has come from above
in the Ray of Creation (“the Prime Source”). The evolving part, on the other hand, will be that
which has arisen from below—that is, from planetary sources. With that understanding, the
comment does make sense: The “I” is animated by what is received from the higher sources.
“Trogo-afto-ego-crat” is the “Trogoautoegocrat” of Beelzebub (see Section 2.2). “Afto” is
the modern Greek pronunciation of the Greek letters alpha and upsilon, classically translated
and taken into English as “au” (e.g., in “auto”). Gurdjieff’s meaning is that now we only
digest from the air what is needed for the purpose of maintaining ourselves. However, more
can be assimilated, if one has “a conscious wish.” As we saw in Section 8.3, “wish” is
important in Gurdjieff’s teaching.
2. To say that “the involving part of air” can be assimilated only when we realize our own
“insignificance” and that we are “nonentities” is typical of Gurdjieff’s subversion of romantic
ideas of humanity as a prelude to substituting other, more sober notions that focus more on
human possibilities. I would suggest that this amounts to a call to humility, and a statement
that those around us are in no more distinguished position. That is, in Gurdjieff’s terms, we
are all equally asleep.
Gurdjieff said that the Fourth Way was for people who are disappointed with the methods
of other ways.12 Radically, this was because the first enlightenment on the Fourth Way is that
man “does not exist; he must realize that he can lose nothing because he has nothing to lose;
he must realize his ‘nothingness’ in the full sense of the term.”13 One will not make sacrifices
to gain what one already believes one has.14
The reference in paragraph 2 of the exercise to realizing that “You are mortal and will die
some day” is also found in Beelzebub, almost as the climax. At the very end of the story,
Beelzebub’s grandson Hassein asks him [Beelzebub] how he would reply if “Our All-
Embracing-Creator-Endlessness Himself” were to ask him “whether it is still possible by
some means or other to save them [i.e., men] and to direct them into the becoming path?” To
this, Beelzebub replies, in the 1931 transcript:
Thou All of the Allness of my Wholeness! The sole means now for the saving of the Beings of
the planet Earth would be to implant again into their presences a new organ, an organ like
Kundabuffer, but this time of such proportion that 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 every one upon whom his eyes or attention rests.
Only such a sensation and such a cognizance can now destroy the egoism completely
crystallized in them that has swallowed up the whole of their Essence and also the tendency to
hate others which flows from it—the tendency seemingly which engenders all those inimical
relationships existing there which serves as the chief cause of all their abnormalities
unbecoming to three-brained beings and maleficent for them themselves and for the whole of
the Universe.15
With this, the narrative and Chapter 47 end. There follows only Chapter 48, “From the
Author,” an address from Gurdjieff speaking in his own voice. The thought of becoming
conscious that we ourselves and all whom we see will die, and so growing in love, was in
Gurdjieff’s mind in 1931. Incidentally, the phrase “Thou All of the Allness of my Wholeness”
corresponds to his statement to Nicoll that “Behind real I lies God,” and is more evidence that
a religious aspect is palpable in Gurdjieff, even if often sublimated (see Section 12.4).
3. The concept that some suffering can be “intentional” or “voluntary” is a frequent theme in
Gurdjieff.16 But the idea that it comes from “a feeling of anger and jealousy toward others”
seems new, and links the growth of love to the benefits of “intentional suffering.”
4. This relation to others is connected to the above themes, but note also the similarity to the
words placed by “OUR COMMON FATHER” over “the chief entrance of the holy planet
Purgatory”: “ONLY-HE-MAY-ENTER-HERE-WHO-PUTS-HIMSELF-IN-THE-POSITION-
OF-THE-OTHER-RESULTS-OF-MY-LABOURS.”17 Both this and the preceding quotation
from that book are highlighted by being placed close to the end of the narrative.
5. This is another example of what Gurdjieff called “taking habit.” He was not against habit as
such—habit could be used for conscious purposes18—but he warned that unconscious and
mechanical habits were a sign of sleep. One might offer the paradox that people could usefully
have habits, provided that they were not themselves “a habit” or “a collection of habits.”
Again, the ultimate aim is the forming of “real I.”
6. It is typical of Gurdjieff that he does not deliver an injunction to “love” as if one could love on
demand. Love is the goal: He even states that it is the Way,19 and that “Real love is the basis
of all, the foundations, the Source.”20 But, according to Gurdjieff, the love of a person without
“real I” can always turn to hatred, and that means that it is not love: “mechanical man cannot
love—with him it loves or it does not love.”21 Hands states that, in 1949, while she was
speaking with Gurdjieff, he explained to her telepathically [sic]:
what I wanted to know about objective love. I began to understand how the greater does not
preclude the lesser, but includes it and, in fact, the greater could not exist without the lesser. I
saw how his love was not at all a personal love, but love for all humanity, for all living beings,
perhaps even for all creation.22
7. As we saw in Section 7.3, it is necessary to undertake these exercises often because, according
to Gurdjieff, only then will they begin to act in the subconscious, which is what he and
Ouspensky said about the Orthodox exercises (see Section 3.5). The idea of “faith” arising in
“some part” and then spreading is a way of saying that what begins in the mind or feeling can
eventually be absorbed by the other centers of the organism. Faith, hope, and love were
important in Beelzebub; see especially the role they play in Chapter 26 of Beelzebub, where
they are the theme of the marble inscription that forms the centerpiece of the chapter.23
As stated, this was an exercise done with eyes open. It is almost more an
injunction with a series of considerations than a practice, like the undated
advice given to Benson about stealing prayers (see Section 4.6). Given the
transformation of the air and the contact between different parts of oneself,
it must, like the Benson exercise, provide an example of what we have
defined as Transformed-contemplation, although Gurdjieff is not tying it to
being done in secluded conditions.
Further, the basic idea of feeding on the air reappears in an conversation
in 1939. In Undiscovered Country, Hulme recalls Gurdjieff saying: “Nature
gives only one thing; he gives atmosphere, this air. This is all he gives.” She
continues:
I knew better than to interrupt with a pointed query about the breathing exercise he had given . .
. aimed precisely to take from that absurd air the “being food” it contained, as conscious man
had done from the beginning of conscious time.24
Exercise 1939
1. Fifteen minutes relax. Break tempo of ordinary life before doing exercise.
2. Breathe in—“I.” Breathe out—“am.” With all three parts do. Not just mind. Feeling and body
also. Make strong! Not easy thing.
3. When breathe out, imagine part of air stays in and flows to corresponding place. Where flow,
how flow, that is its business. Only feel that part remains.
4. Before beginning exercise say: “I wish to keep this substance for myself.”
5. Without this conscious and voluntary labor on your part nothing at all will be coated. All will
in time evaporate.
6. Just this small property in blood makes possible very big result if done with conscious labor.
Without this, for one month you must work for such result.
7. When doing, must be very careful not to change exterior. It is inner thing. No one need know.
Outside keep same exterior. Inside you do.
8. Not hold breath. Just breathe in and out. Of course, to change thinking will take time.
Automatically breath will adjust.
9. To be able to do exercise not lopsidedly you must put whole attention on it. To arouse feeling,
interest, and attention for cooperation you must think the following before beginning: “I am
now about to begin this exercise. With full attention I will draw in my breath, saying ‘I,’ and
sensing the whole of myself. I wish very much to do this in order that I may digest air.”
10. To arouse body to cooperate, take corresponding posture. Inner tension of forces. Mobilize
your centers for working together for this aim. In breathing [out] imagine something flows,
like when inhaling cigarette.
11. I am now about to begin this exercise, which I have been fortunate enough to learn from Mr.
Gurdjieff, and which will enable me with the aid of conscious labor, to coat higher bodies in
myself from active elements in the air I breathe.29
that part of the being-blood which almost everywhere is called the sacred being-Hanbledzoin,
and only on certain planets is called the “sacred Aiëskhaldan,” and which part serves the highest
part of the being called the soul, is formed from the direct emanations of our Most Holy Sun
Absolute.31
To say that one who did not understand this would need the equivalent of a month for the
result harks back to what has been quoted about the difference between the ways, and how the
practitioner of the Fourth Way can simply prepare in a pill or a cup the substances needed (see
Section 6.2).
7. The exhortation “not to change exterior” seems to suggest that it can be done while going
about daily activities. However, when it has been used in groups, it has been taken as a
contemplative exercise, done seated, and with eyes closed.
8. The advice that the breath will automatically adjust itself is needed so that exercitants do not
try and force any change in their breathing. The Gurdjieff methods rarely involve changing or
holding the breath, only observing it. The general rule is that one does not make a change to
one’s breathing, but a change may well be experienced. The very few exceptions are
restricted, to the best of my knowledge, to the movements.
9. “Lopsided” was one of Gurdjieff’s favorite words in the 1930s.32 It means that one is not
balanced. Man number 4, developing man, is one in whom “his psychic centers have already
begun to be balanced; one center in him cannot have such a preponderance over others as is
the case with people of the first three categories.”33 Ouspensky reports Gurdjieff saying:
In an unbalanced kind of man the substitution of one center for another goes on almost
continually and this is precisely what “being unbalanced” or “neurotic” means. . . . The
emotional center working for the thinking center brings unnecessary nervousness, feverishness,
and hurry into situations where, on the contrary, calm judgment and deliberation are essential.34
This is not the only place where Gurdjieff offers considerations that rouse exercitants to make
a steady effort. Here the effort is to “arouse feeling, interest, and attention for cooperation.”
Perhaps the reference to “cooperation” is to the cooperation between conscious and
unconscious parts found in the Genuine Being Duty Exercise.
10. More will be said about the correct posture when we come to the Preparation in Chapter 17,
but having first been mentioned in the Russian years,35 posture became a very important part
of the exercises.
The employment of “constructive imagination” was met in Section 8.1.
11. This final paragraph, again exhorting the exercitant, can hardly have been written by
Gurdjieff, but I do not know who wrote it.
11.1 Introduction
Until the publication of G.I. Gurdjieff Paris Meetings 1943 in 2017 by the
Paris Gurdjieff Institute and with the aid of the Gurdjieff Foundations, the
main source for the transcripts of Gurdjieff’s group meetings between 1941
and 1946 was the typewritten corpus in the Solita Solano collection of the
Library of Congress. The editor’s note to the 2017 volume asserts that the
Solano transcripts had been edited, and are in any event incomplete, in
comparison with those in the Institute’s archives.1 The original French
transcripts have not been published, which means that we have only two
checks on the 2017 translations: (1) the French-language transcript of the
October 16, 1943, meeting that I found among the papers of the late George
Adie with a note saying that it had been sent to the London group by Jeanne
de Salzmann and was to be read by Adie, and (2) the transcript of
September 1943, which had been earlier published. This earlier publication
includes the observation that the notes were taken down by hand during the
meeting: “The person who usually takes notes asks a long question. During
this time someone else takes notes for him, and then gives back the paper
and the pencil.”2 Other than this, nothing is known of how the transcripts
were made and whether they were contemporaneously checked.3
The strict accuracy of the 2017 volume is not beyond question. For
example, in the 2017 edition of the transcript of the September 9, 1943,
meeting, someone tells Gurdjieff that he had not spoken “because one is
asleep,” while in the 1996 translation he says: “My question was very
personal; not everyone is interested in that.” Almost bizarrely, Gurdjieff’s
response in the 2017 transcript is “The question was very typical. Everyone
is interested in it,” which is an appropriate response to the statement in the
1996 version, but not to the one in the 2017 book. Further, the 1996
transcript omits any reply from Gurdjieff, but passes straight to the next
question—suggesting that neither transcript is scrupulously accurate.4
Examples could be multiplied. Sufficient to say, it is impossible to avoid the
conclusion that the transcripts have been afforded a rather cavalier
treatment.
A new Gurdjieff appears in these transcripts. The intricate and
deliberately obscure prose of the First and Third Series has vanished. The
speaker is a wonder of concise and direct formulation, some of his phrases
being quite powerful. Also, he comes across as both demanding and warm;
for instance, on December 7, 1941, he states: “Love of our neighbor: That is
the Way. Bring to everyone that which you felt for your parents.”5
Disciplining the intellect to follow concepts such as the Ray of Creation is
gone. In its place, Gurdjieff gives practical exercises for use both in quiet
contemplation and in the social domain. Purely mental tasks such as those
used at the Prieuré (see Section 5.1) almost disappear. The time to be spent
on the exercises often varies from person to person: It is anything from
eleven minutes to three hours.6 Great emphasis is placed on these practices:
I told you to expect nothing from this exercise. It is the exercise which will give you
understanding. Others will come after. . . . To understand, it is necessary to do, to have
experience. The exercises will give you experience. These exercises were established centuries
ago, even before Europe existed.7
Gurdjieff then went on to say that because of “an abnormal life in the
past,” it was necessary for her to create a “new quality of functions.” This
exercise, or more precisely the sense of presence produced by it, was to be
“a barrier.”27 When she could feel that barrier as something definite, then
she would be ready for a further exercise. This would lead to a “new
interior, independent, and a new exterior, independent . . . without the
abnormal ex-functions.”28 Gurdjieff then warned the others not to try it out
of curiosity, because it was “dangerous.”29 However, on November 11,
1943, he gave another exercise for raising sensation to consciousness, so
that “feeling will start to come into play,” without stressing its being
exclusive to the pupil.30
I have been told that George Adie also knew of an exercise of standing
with arms outstretched; however, I have no transcripts of him teaching it,
nor did I ever hear him give it. The mention of the cessation of associations
is significant: On May 10, 1945, when this exercise was mentioned,
Gurdjieff said that associations do not completely stop until death, but
“when your attention is consciously busy with something, it doesn’t see
them.”32 Gurdjieff returned to this exercise, but little more light was shed
on it.33
The following exercise, given on September 25, 1943, is for the sensing
of the body. Although in one place Gurdjieff speaks of “feeling,” it is clear
from the context that he means to both “sense” and “feel” the upper arm
and the solar plexus, as those terms were distinguished in Section 7.3:
To begin with, the secret is “I am.” You begin like that. Now, I feel “I.” But how do I feel “I”?
What is “I”? I sense this region (touching the top of his arm) and this one (touching his solar
plexus). Try that now. And at the same time, I observe this with my head. Do that. . . . I sense
and feel these two parts, the top of the arm and the solar plexus, and at the same time, with my
head, I observe what is going on. . . . Afterwards, when you have experienced this with one part
of your attention and with your head, you will be able to travel within yourself freely. . . .
Thanks to this exercise you will increase your power of concentration. It is made for that.34
The exercise, then, is not given for the sake of being able to sense the top
of the arm, but rather to be able to concentrate so that one can experience
the sensation he calls “I am” anywhere in the body. This will be of signal
importance in the Preparation (see Chapter 17). These exercises of sensing
the top of the arm or the joints (as in Section 11.3) may be related to what
the Athonite monk would have felt in holding out his arms bent at the
elbow (see Section 4.2).
Tracol added: “And at the same time, I feel that the real work is in
ordinary life,” to which Jeanne de Salzmann replied: “But first you must do
it in a special state, and little by little you will succeed in ordinary life.”51
On December 9, 1943, Gurdjieff again used the phrase “special state” for
coming to calm in secluded conditions.52
This, in a few sentences, explains why Gurdjieff eventually introduced
these contemplation-like exercises, and the absence of such statements from
earlier material shows that these exercises for employment in a “special
state” were not then in use.
The frequent or continuous affirmation of “I am” is a feature of many
exercises from this time, culminating in the final exercise he gave George
and Helen Adie. The “depositing” of the active elements in the legs is new
but recurs in the Four Ideals Exercise. However, the instruction to deposit
these in the solar plexus when standing, and in the legs otherwise, is quite
new. It may point to the importance of the sensation of the legs.
The following, given on July 22, 1943, is to be used in daily life, and
hence is of a piece with the exercise of February 16, 1931. I break it down
into numbered paragraphs:
1. It is a very big thing, impossible to do in four or five weeks. Four or five months are needed,
maybe more . . . I am sure that if you accomplish it, you will get what you are expecting. You
deserve to have all the results that this exercise can bring.
2. During your holidays, prepare the ground to come to “I am.” You understand? Now listen
carefully to this exercise. “I wish that the person who is looking at me would feel love and
respect for me. I wish above all that the desire to help me would appear in that person, and
that in all that I think I would be truly worthy of that.” At the same time, when you breathe,
you say “I am.”
3. If you do this honestly, conscientiously, as a service, I assure you results in six months. This
exercise is your God, even more than your father or your mother. Do it until I tell you it’s
enough.
4. . . . Do it two or three times a day. When you wake up, when you go to sleep, and in the
middle of the day, before lunch or dinner. You choose three moments for this exercise. If you
remember it in between, even automatically, do it.53
On April 20, 1944, Gurdjieff advised one man to make the affirmation
when he experienced a depressing emotion.55 This ties in with the advice in
the Third Series that, by intentionally concentrating the reverberation of “I
am” on any part of the body, it can be cured of “any disharmony.”56 Then,
on December 9, 1946, Gurdjieff said:
[I]f you ascertain that you work only with one or two centers, know that this is not
consciousness. There is only real consciousness with the same intensity in three places.
For example, here is an exercise: I am—when you say “I” you feel the three centers. When
you say “am,” you feel also the three centers but differently. “I,” it is as if something stood up.
“Am,” it is as if, in the three centers something sat down. This is an original explanation.57
On May 25, 1944, at what must have been one of the first occasions the
group met after the exercise, someone reported that he felt “filled” but had
“nervous contractions” he could not “conquer.” Gurdjieff advised him:
You do not have the rhythm. It is necessary to do different things. (1) Inhale normally; (2)
Retain the air while becoming discontracted; (3) Exhale without becoming contracted. It is not
necessary to relax when you retain.60
After the speaker had protested that he always had “contracted exhalations,”
Gurdjieff said: “You do not have rhythm, perhaps you have other
disharmonies,” and they discussed his physical condition and the possibility
that an illness can shift within the body.61
This exercise is based on the idea that an “echo of I” can be heard and
directed into a specific part of the body. Although Gurdjieff does not say so
here, if to speak of “filling the body” means anything, then the echo has to
be understood as somehow filling that part.
That there is a rhythm to it is probably true of all rotation exercises, as it
was of the Soil Preparing Exercise (see Chapter 7), where the counting was
to be done rhythmically. When excercitants lacked rhythm, Gurdjieff
effectively advised them to establish an artificial one, in which the inhaled
air would be held while they allowed “decontraction,” which in the context
probably means of the ribcage. George Adie always insisted that one was to
observe rather than to interfere with the breath, but in one case of tense
breathing, as the author recalls, he said that allowing relaxation of the rib
cage on and after the exhalation (in the brief period between exhalation and
inhalation, when the higher hydrogens in the inhaled air are moving through
the body) assists the process of conscious relaxation.
To judge from The Reality of Being, de Salzmann emphasized the echo
“as a feeling of ‘I’ in the contact between my thought and my sensation.”62
In that same meeting he gave a similar exercise for when seeing one’s
parents,70 and on another occasion he gave a woman an exercise that
involved having before her photographs of her absent siblings, and wishing
them well for their future.71 In another meeting, Gurdjieff advised two
people to call up the faces of their parents, and to have remorse for their
actions toward them. To the first person, whose parents were deceased, he
added, in terms reminiscent of the chapter on Prince Nijeradze (see Section
1.2): “They cannot do any more where they are, they have no bodies. You
must work for them.”72
On August 10, 1944, giving a similar exercise involving one’s family, he
said that it was possible to work to change them for the better, remembering
oneself whenever one met them. This was harder, he implied, than to
change them for the better, for “It is easy to suggest evil to another.”73 This
is one of the very few occasions on which Gurdjieff suggested that one
should actually work to change another person.
Demonstrating the intimate connection between these contemplation-like
exercises and the tasks Gurdjieff gave for use in daily life, the social
domain, consider this instruction from an undated transcript to a
schoolteacher who felt that teaching was an “empty” thing:
Everything that you do must become a part of your work. . . . Your class must be part of your
task. Your task is to help. You must not see the children in their manifestations, but in their
future. You must wish to help that future. You must put yourself in their place. Remember how
you were at their age. . . . When you think “I am” at the same time wish to help.74
It is, I suggest, critical to this that to have an effective wish is not easy;
rather, it is a real action, possible only for one on the path of conscious
evolution, able to remember oneself. It does raise a question as to the limits
of this idea in Gurdjieff’s thought: It would seem that one might be able to
have such a wish for people one meets (e.g., with one’s own family). It does
not seem that Gurdjieff is teaching some quasi-magical way of feeding the
world.
When Gurdjieff speaks like this, he stands close to the ascetic disciplines
of more traditional religion, and perhaps especially close to the monastic
tradition in Christianity.
11.12 Aim and Decision
This exercise of August 24, 1944, is based on the same principles as the
Exercise Concerning Aim and Energy (see Section 10.2). In answer to a
question from Dr. Aboulker about how he does not make decisions, but
rather just adapts himself to whatever the exigencies oblige, Gurdjieff
stated:
1. It is necessary to keep aside two or three hours free.
2. Relax yourself. Put all your attention, all your possibility, on relaxing the three classes of
muscles.
3. Further, when you have separated yourself, that is to say, the machine is one thing and the
psyche another [without letting them fuse again] choose and decide.
4. You have prepared a paper on which you write your decision.
5. Continue to guard organically this state.
6. Write down your decision and at the same time write down different remarks on your state.
7. Then you can come back to your previous state. Forget what took place. For one or two days
don’t touch it. If you remember this state, try to remember the taste of it, but without thinking
about what has been written.
8. Then believe what you have written and stop believing in yourself. Your paper should be for
you a holy image, your gospel, but remember that you are still small, and that you can only do
little things. After you will be able to have faith in the future.80
I would comment:
1. The exercise of December 29, 1930, which bears a striking resemblance, called for the
exercitant to sit for one hour. Gurdjieff now raises it to two or three hours. This is extremely
lengthy for a Gurdjieff exercise.
2. In Section 11.2 we saw Gurdjieff’s mention of relaxing three classes of muscles. It is
interesting that Gurdjieff speaks of putting not only all one’s attention but also all one’s
“possibility” on the relaxation. Does he mean “capacity” or “to bring to mind one’s future,” or
a combination, or something else? From the comment in the paragraph about “faith in the
future,” it may be that Gurdjieff had no precise meaning in mind, but said this in order to
arouse the exercitant’s feeling.
3. Gurdjieff often spoke of the need to separate one’s head from the functioning of the
organism.81 The sensation exercises had this aim, among others. On 7 December 1941, he
gave on such exercise and said: “The key to everything – remain apart.”82
4–6. The advice to write one’s decision on a sheet of paper, recalls his advice of 1930, but now he
adds the requirement to also make notes about the exercitant’s state, and to “guard organically
this state,” which would mean that the head should act as “policeman.”
7. This instruction is intended to bring about an encounter between two different states: the
ordinary one, and the more collected one brought about by the exercise.
8. The instruction to “. . . believe what you have written and stop believing in yourself,” is new,
but consistent with Gurdjieff’s teaching that we are too identified with our ordinary “I.” It is
interesting, given the ambiguity about religion which I have noted in Gurdjieff (section 2.11),
that he should compare the paper to “a holy image, your gospel.”
11.13 Counting Exercises: Improving on Orage
Gurdjieff’s Soil Preparing Exercise included counting, and in discussing
that exercise, I noted the principle of accustoming oneself to work, which is
found in Meetings with Remarkable Men. On October 21, 1943, Gurdjieff
gave a counting exercise to someone who seems to have been new in the
group:
Whenever you have free time, you count: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 . . . up to 50. After 50, you count
backwards 49, 48, 47, 46, etc., and then you begin again. After you have done this seven times,
you sit down for five or ten minutes. You relax and say, “I am, I wish to be, I can be. Not to
serve the doing of harm but the doing of good. I will help my neighbor when I have being. I
am.” After that, count again, but consciously, not automatically. Do this during all your free
time.83
It was a subjective exercise, for one person alone, and it sounds as if it had
been improvised, yet according to the principle that one can counter
weakness by relaxing and changing the direction of one’s thought. This sort
of exercise approximates to a prayer, although not directly addressed to a
higher power. While it is rather simple, Gurdjieff evidently considered it
significant and expected the exercitant to find it so, too.
Finally, one small exercise, what I would call a task, indicates how
Gurdjieff intended his methods to be used in everyday life. On December 9,
1946, he said:
In general, it is necessary to create some automatic factors of recall. . . . It is very easy. For
example, how do you sit down at the table? You have never ascertained with which foot you sit
down. You observe that there also you have automatism. You will connect something with this
automatism, for a reminder of your work. With each time that you sit down to the table, this
thing will be able to act as a factor of recall.
Another example, when you wash, you take a towel. Look to see with which hand. . . . Do
it consciously, take it with the left hand instead of the right. In this manner you make a contact
with your work, in order to self-remember. Another example . . . Which sock do you put on
first? . . . You find out that you begin with the left, always. Set a task: Begin with the right. And
connect this new way of doing with the recall of your work.89
12.1 Introduction
The most important book for Gurdjieff’s theoretical teaching is generally
considered to be Ouspensky’s In Search of the Miraculous. However, the
preeminent practical guide is probably now Jeanne de Salzmann’s The
Reality of Being, published posthumously in 2010. De Salzmann (1889–
1990) joined Gurdjieff in Tiflis in about 19191 and remained with or in
contact with him until his death. The group she had built up from her late
husband’s pupils, and presented to Gurdjieff in 1941, formed the basis of
his Paris groups.2
Here we come up against one of the problems with the writing in this
volume: The poor editing of the notes has resulted in a certain vagueness.
What is “identification with the life force”? I doubt anyone ever really has
an experience of identifying with a “life force.” Are we to understand
identifying with the energy in our bodies, or with life in general, or what?
And then, when it is stated that the Fourth Way is to be lived, are we to
compare it to something that is not to be lived? It is quite possible that the
meaning is the idea de Salzmann expressed in Gurdjieff’s Paris groups, and
that was quoted in Section 11.7, that the exercitants should work in a
“special state,” and then test themselves in the social domain.
A few pages later, de Salzmann alludes to “When I withdraw from life to
open to what I am.”8 She may be referring to the morning Preparation, but
this is not clear. Ironically, when the notes do treat of sensation exercises,
the context is not given, so that when we read the following we do not
know whether she means that she is walking down the street, whether she is
sitting alone, or whether that does not matter at all:
Now, for example, I turn to my body and sense that my body is here. I sense my left arm— that
is, I have an impression of my left arm. As soon as this impression reaches me, it provokes my
thought, which says, “arm . . . left arm.” And at the moment I say this to myself, I lose the
impression. In thinking of the arm, I believe I know it. I have more trust in the thought than in
the fact, the real existence of the arm.9
The result is that when we come to a reference to “work in the quiet” where
“the position of the body is very important,”10 we have to guess what this
“work in the quiet” is. On the next page, de Salzmann gives what must be
intended as advice for the posture to be taken during an exercise, including
what the Adies called the “Preparation”:
My posture will be more stable if I am seated on the floor, on a cushion so that the knees are
lower than the hips. One foot is placed, if possible, on the thigh or calf of the other leg. Crossing
the legs checks the active impulse and allows the deepest level of quietude.11
I deal with a similar exercise, one of the “Lord have mercy” exercises, in
Chapter 14.22 De Salzmann told Ravi Ravindra, who is of Indian
background, about this exercise: “Maybe Mr. Gurdjieff brought it for the
people in the West. You can say the words which touch you. This exercise
can help.”23 Incidentally, this supports my thesis that Gurdjieff found,
through trial and error, that he had to make more adaptations for people in
the West than he had anticipated.
Later in the volume, we find her explanation of what she means by the
“collected state”—that is, the state of “collected attention,”24 an attention
that, in one clear view, as it were, embraces being relaxed and aware of
sensation, of feeling, and of one’s presence. Perhaps it is called “collected”
not only because these faculties are brought into consciousness together, but
also because one is collected, so to speak, within one’s atmosphere.
The Atmosphere Exercise, which was dealt with in Section 11.6, is also
set out here, albeit in a reduced form.25 De Salzmann also provides a
shorter version of the Second Assisting Exercise,26 and just the barest
indications of the Four Ideals Exercise, yet enough to show that she was
aware of at least part of it.27
This is reminiscent of the idea behind the Hindu nadīs, the 72,000
channels of breath and energy that are related to the subtle body.37 But even
the most cursory glance at this material will show significant differences
from Gurdjieff’s indications.38 There are indications that some such system
was known at Mount Athos; Trompf states:
At least we know, from the brilliantly colored manuscripts on the holy Mount Athos, that
Eastern Orthodoxy worked with something closely related to the cakra system (in fact it is one
of the mysteries of comparative religion as to who formulated this system first). . . . Here I rely
on research by my doctoral student the late John Henshaw on Mss in the Greek Orthodox
monasteries of the Holy Mount Athos.39
“Any approach to establish closer relations with me is made through the mediation of Jeanne. I
have confided my affairs to her,” Mr. Gurdjieff said to me one day, and after brief consideration,
he added: “Jeanne has never deceived me.” [Author’s translation]
However, this was not sufficient for the English translation by one of the
Foundation groups (which purports to be a translation of what was
published in French), under the direction of her son, Michel de Salzmann,
for there we find this:
He solemnly stated more than once: “Whoever seeks a relationship with me must come through
Jeanna. I have entrusted the continuation of my work to her, and she has my complete
confidence. She has never let me down.”45
What the original text reports Gurdjieff had said on one day to
Tchechovitch is now solemnly asseverated “more than once.” From a
statement that his affairs have been trusted to her because she is honest, it
becomes the continuation of his work on account of her always rising to the
occasion. There are more changes of a similar nature in this chapter, all
tending to the building up of de Salzmann. One of these is quite remarkable.
Speaking of how important it was that Gurdjieff should have met de
Salzmann, Tchechovitch has:
Mais, Monsieur Gurdjieff n’étant pas à la mesure ordinaire, cette rencontre DEVAIT avoir lieu.
Et, à l’égard de Madame Jeanne de Salzmann, nous devons tous éprouver les sentiments dont
l’ensemble exprime dans ce mot: RECONNAISSANCE.46
But Mr. Gurdjieff not being by any ordinary measure, this meeting HAD TO HAVE taken place.
With regard to Mme. Jeanne de Salzmann, we must all experience the feelings, the totality of
which is expressed in this word: GRATITUDE. [The author’s translation. The final word here is
literally “recognition,” but it connotes “gratitude,” a meaning that is well attested in the
dictionaries.]
This passage summarizes the line of teaching that has become known as the
“New Work.” According to Dushka Howarth, the type of “sitting” referred
to by Ravindra finds its origins in de Salzmann’s visit to Japan with
William Segal, whom Howarth describes as a “Zen enthusiast.”53
James Moore, who was present in the London group at the time, dates the
change from the original Gurdjieff dispensation to the “New Work,” at least
for London, to the very moment of the death of Henriette Lannes, his
teacher, in 1980. He states:
Fronting the new doctrine was an oligarchy-led modulation of idiom from active to passive
voice: the pupil no longer “remembered himself” but “was remembered”; no longer “awoke”
but “was awoken.” Pupils did not, need not, could not, work: they were “worked upon” (even
while they literally slept!).54
Moore records that Lannes had never accepted the “special work.”59 When,
after her death, the new sittings were introduced into the London group, it
was on the basis that they were for advanced pupils, but that later on all
pupils were taught them to the exclusion of the original Preparation and
Gurdjieff exercises.60 Amit’s recollection of a visit by de Salzmann to Israel
is that she had thought he was studying the ideas and working alone, yet he
was admitted to the exercise.61
While de Salzmann did not openly repudiate Gurdjieff’s ideas, there can
be no doubt that a change was made, and that this represented a departure.
Further, the new “receptive” practices did not merely supplement but
replaced Gurdjieff’s own techniques. Attempts to deny the introduction of
the New Work are futile: William Segal (1904–2000), a personal pupil of
Ouspensky and Gurdjieff stated—his very word is that he confessed—to
having been instrumental in the introduction of the New Work “sitting”:
I must confess that I was a great proponent of meditation, which I felt was lacking in the
Gurdjieff Work in the 1940s. I was in Japan in 1952. . . . I felt that the practice of formal sitting
of Zazen was lacking in the Gurdjieff Work at the time. Then Madame de Salzmann did institute
it. She probably had that practice going in its own way, but I felt it needed a more formal
adherence. We needed more “sittings.” Trying to speak from the moment, as we do in our
practice and in the groups, leads one to the same place.62
The practice of “trying to speak from the moment” is one of the New Work
practices, but it is not from Gurdjieff. The exercises presented in the next
five chapters are, however, from him, although the evidence for the Color
Spectrum and Clear Impressions Exercises is indirect.
Notes
1. Taylor (2008) 67.
2. Webb (1980) 433–437 and Moore (1991) 237.
3. De Salzmann (2010) xvi and xviii.
4. De Salzmann (2010) xviii.
5. De Salzmann (2010) xvii.
6. De Salzmann (2010) xvii.
7. De Salzmann (2010) 23.
8. De Salzmann (2010) 26.
9. De Salzmann (2010) 34.
10. De Salzmann (2010) 49.
11. De Salzmann (2010) 50. See also 196 for comments of a similar nature.
12. De Salzmann (2010) 82.
13. De Salzmann (2010) 143.
14. De Salzmann (2010) 85.
15. De Salzmann (2010) 85.
16. De Salzmann (2010) 86.
17. De Salzmann (2010) 23.
18. De Salzmann (2010) 150. These thoughts are part of a rather standard exercise involving
awareness of sensation, feeling, breath and “I am.”
19. De Salzmann (2010) 218.
20. De Salzmann (2010) 72.
21. De Salzmann (2010) 73.
22. De Salzmann (2010) 236 provides an important example of the genre.
23. Ravindra (1999) 23.
24. De Salzmann (2010) 188, and also 189: “a state in which my centers try to be attuned in order
to know this being, the being that I am.”
25. De Salzmann (2010) 189. She makes more comments about the “waves” of thought that
Gurdjieff had referred to in connection with this exercise, at 248.
26. De Salzmann (2010) 196–197.
27. De Salzmann (2010) 198–199.
28. Nicoll (1997) 14.
29. De Salzmann (2010) 237.
30. Gurdjieff (2017) 40.
31. De Salzmann (2010) 237.
32. Schaeffer, a noted musicologist and author, was a personal pupil of Gurdjieff: Schaeffer
(1964).
33. Gurdjieff (2009) 177–179.
34. Gurdjieff (2009) 179–180.
35. Schaeffer (1964) 10.
36. Gurdjieff (2009) 181.
37. White (1996) 254.
38. See for example, the elaborate development of the naḍīs found in White (1996) 252–254 and
also 226–228.
39. Trompf (2010) 1–2, and footnote 1, p. 2.
40. Ouspensky (1949) 45.
41. Gurdjieff (2009) 113.
42. Taylor (2007) 197.
43. Moore (1994) passim. Pauline de Dampierre, who had been a personal pupil of Gurdjieff, and
was one of de Salzmann’s chief lieutenants in the post-Gurdjieff years, told someone, who
reported it to me: “Madame de Salzmann introduced a more feminine influence into the
Work.”
44. Tchechovitch (2003) 214.
45. Tchekhovitch (2006) 246.
46. Tchechovitch (2003) 215.
47. Tchekhovitch (2006) 246.
48. I have been told in confidence that the published French text is the only one, there are no
alternative drafts, and the changes were made at the insistence of Michel de Salzmann.
49. Oral communications to the author from members of Foundation groups. The late Solange
Claustres expressed to me very mixed feelings about de Salzmann: Sometimes she brought
exactly what Gurdjieff had, and sometimes she changed or even reprobated it. We chiefly
discussed the Preparation and the exercises. Claustres said of de Salzmann and those who had
collaborated with her that while they had acted from the best of motives, “what they did was
negative, although they were not negative in themselves,” or words to that effect.
50. This is a quote from a book review: references are found in situ.
51. Rawlinson (1997) 312–313.
52. Ravindra (1999) 128–129. The dating is found at p. 130.
53. Howarth (1998) 4. The relevant portions of the book were written by Dushka Howarth.
54. Moore (1994) 4.
55. Moore (1994) 5.
56. Moore (2005) 242.
57. Wellbeloved (2003) 154.
58. Wellbeloved (2003) 156.
59. Moore (2005) 242.
60. Oral communication from Wellbeloved.
61. Amit (2009) 157–159.
62. Segal (2003) 196–197.
13
The Four Ideals Exercise
13.1 Introduction
There is direct evidence that George and Helen Adie (1901–1989 and
1909–1996 respectively) learned exercises directly from Gurdjieff: George
Adie said that they did, and some exercises are mentioned in the jottings he
made when he calculated how often he had been with Gurdjieff, together
with some miscellaneous details. When I published the Four Ideals Exercise
I also published these notes, which relevantly read1:
From 7 June, there are no further references to exercises on these sheets. It
could be that from that point they were in the notes he refers to. This page
was probably written on or shortly after September 1, 1949, as it is dated
then, and has no reference to anything after that, although Adie did visit
Gurdjieff after that time. Adie stated in groups that Helen and he had
traveled to Paris not long before Gurdjieff died. Gurdjieff had been so ill
that he had had to lie on something, I think a couch. He had called them
over to him, and said to them in a low voice: “Angel help you. Devil help
you.”3
Also, Gurdjieff had taught them another exercise: the last exercise. On an
occasion that must have been after September 1, 1948, but before the final
meeting, Gurdjieff had transmitted it to Helen and she had been charged to
pass it on to George by telephone. I return to that in Chapter 18.
From this chapter through Chapter 18, I am bound to speak about my
conversations and engagements with George and Helen Adie. The tone of
the writing cannot therefore be as it has been, for so far I have been drawing
almost entirely from published sources. A tone of witness and even of
assertion must therefore enter.
Perhaps the most important of the matters within my personal knowledge
is that when I first visited Adie in 1981, he told me that all of the techniques
and methods he used came from Gurdjieff. At one of our very first
meetings, he said that there were some places where people called their
groups Gurdjieff groups but had mixed Gurdjieff’s methods with others,
and now people were becoming confused, thinking that foreign, even
inimical techniques were from Gurdjieff. He did not, he stated, do that. He
insisted, rather, on the necessity to use “pure” Gurdjieff methods and to
keep them unmixed.
Adie was keenly aware that Gurdjieff’s authentic methods were being
displaced by others and, what is worse, mixed. If a practice is simply
replaced by another, it can be restored. But if has been adulterated in the
memory of those who are passing it on, it is effectively lost, and Adie saw
himself as being responsible for continuing a pure current in Australia. Adie
(a distinguished architect) and his wife Helen (a world-renowned pianist,
one-time muse to John Ireland, and a very successful composer) ran their
own Gurdjieff group in Sydney, as I have elsewhere written.4
Finally, since they are recorded on these notes, it is clear that Gurdjieff
had something to do with the giving of pills, injections, and what was
probably testosterone (I do not know whether the testosterone was
administered by injection or not). The references to pounds sterling are
probably to payments made to Gurdjieff.
In representing to ourselves each of these ideals, the thought goes immediately in the
direction in space where the ideal is situated. The exercise consists in establishing a contact
between one of the limbs of the body and the foyer of substances formed by the vibrations of the
faithful in the direction of the ideal.
For this, each of the four limbs of the body represents one of the four ideals. The right arm
represents Muhammad, the left arm Christ, the right leg Buddha, the left leg Lama.
First, establish a contact between the right arm and that part of space in which Muhammad
is situated, where are concentrated the vibrations sent by the faithful towards Muhammad. One
must suck, attract to oneself; by means of a thread which serves to connect us; the substance
concentrated at that place, and with this substance fill the right arm.
Second do the same thing by means of a contact between Buddha and the right leg.
Third the same between Christ and the left arm.
Fourth the same between Lama and the left leg.
At this stage the four limbs are like accumulators fully charged.
Now follows the second part of the exercise:
Breathe in air consciously while drawing into yourself the substances accumulated in the
limbs so that it can flow to meet the air which you are breathing in. It mixes with the air by
itself, at the level of the breast. Then pour it into the sex organs.
I AM, in two parts.
With “I” feel the sex organs, with “AM” fill up the seven parts of the body one after the
other.
Then “I AM” several times. “I” am conscious of the whole of the body with a feeling
centred in the solar plexus. “AM” again am conscious of the whole of the body, with a sensation
centred in the vertebral column.
After that, rest ten or fifteen minutes in a collected state, that is to say, do not allow thought
or feeling or organic instinct to pass outside the limit of the atmosphere of the body. Rest
contained so that your nature can assimilate in calmness the results deposited in you, which
otherwise would be lost in vain.
At the time of publication, I referred to the fact that I had seen notes of it
in French, but did not know where they were. Shortly afterwards, Kenneth
Adie, Adie’s youngest son, gave me some documents of his father’s that
included that text. It is clearly in Adie’s handwriting. I cannot find anything
on it to indicate whether it was translated from or into English, or when the
notes were made. It seems to me to that there is no significant difference
between the two texts.
The idea of there being substances high off in space, almost like some
hovering cloud, formed by the emanations of believers, is nothing if not
unusual. But even this is not so original as the notion that the substances are
available as a resource to us if we can enter into contact with them. There is
nothing to like effect in Beelzebub, and Gurdjieff has not previously
mentioned “reservoirs of substances,” let alone an ideal that is himself too
far for us to reach. Neither am I aware of any suggestion that Jesus,
Buddha, Muhammad, and Lama do in fact subsist somewhere in space.
The unknown ideal here is “Lama.” In Gurdjieff: Making a New World,
Bennett wrote that Gurdjieff
certainly had a deep respect for Lamaism. In Beelzebub’s Tales, he asserts that a group of seven
lamas possessed both knowledge and spiritual powers unparalleled elsewhere on earth, and that
the accidental death of the chief of the group had destroyed one of the hopes of mankind. A
further point is that in one of his most remarkable spiritual exercises Gurdjieff placed “Lama”
on the same footing as Muhammad, Buddha and Christ, and asserted that there was a special
concentration of spiritual power in a certain place between Tibet and Afghanistan.5
It is most significant that Gurdjieff ends this exercise with the advice to
remain in a collected state for up to fifteen minutes “so that your nature can
assimilate in calmness the results deposited in you, which otherwise would
be lost in vain.” This shows that Gurdjieff has come so far as to now be
saying that it is necessary for his pupils to remain secluded in the collected
state. That is, contemplation without distraction is now taught to be
essential if the results of the efforts are not to be lost in the stream of life.
Further, when he says not to allow thought or feeling “to pass outside the
limit of the atmosphere of the body,” he probably means not to think of or
allow any feelings respecting what is outside that atmosphere. But the
reference to “organic instinct” is not so clear. I suggest that it means not to
allow one’s body to itch to get up and move. This formed a feature of one of
Adie’s most important lectures.6
The parallel to the Four Ideals Exercise consists in the fact that Hulme
would draw into herself “a force.” But then, this exercise goes beyond the
Four Ideals Exercise in that she would send this force on to both her mother
and Gurdjieff’s. At this point, we are looking at something most scholars
would probably consider to be magic or at least akin to it: The hardest
question is probably one of definition. An almost identical exercise,
involving the photograph of his mother, was apparently given to Bennett,
although Bennett did not pass on the details.9
Further, in the posthumously published Sacred Influences, edited from
miscellaneous materials by A. G. E. Blake, is the transcript of a talk given
by Bennett on May 14, 1974, titled “Sacred Images.” There, Bennett,
speaking of Thérèse of Lisieux’s (1873–1897) intense faith, love, and
conviction of her relationship with Jesus, said:
Gurdjieff explains this to some extent in Beelzebub’s Tales, but he did it in much more detail
when he was introducing an exercise that he called “conscious stealing,” which involved sacred
images. He said that from time to time from another world—“from Above”—a Sacred
Individual is incarnated in human form with a very high and special mission, the working out of
which is not visible in this world and which can only be perceived by the disciples or
companions who are specially prepared. . . . We see that sacred image as the founder of a
religion, as a prophet or as an incarnation of God.10
This lacks the significant instructions about the blending of the substances
received in the breast with the incoming air, the “pouring” into the sex
organs, then filling the body, and the period of calm that is needed to
assimilate and retain the results of the exercise. Other material in the book
expresses similar ideas:
When I turn the attention of my thought to enter into contact with my body, my mind opens. The
cells that vibrate are not the same as those engaged in my usual thinking. It is a part of the mind
that can have a relation with a more subtle, pure energy. This is the energy of a higher level,
which, Gurdjieff explained, is constituted by the real thought, the prayer, of certain beings. In
order to have a connection with this level, I need a conduit, like a wire that reaches as high as
my thinking allows. I can then take in, or rather suck in, the energy and let it pass through the
connection.12
This account emphatically affirms element 6 above, that the Ideal itself
actually does exist, thus confirming that Gurdjieff was serious in asserting
the existence of a series of sacred persons and a reservoir of higher
substances formed from prayer, in space, together with the possibility that a
“prepared” person can enter into contact with the Ideal. However, it goes
much further, for it suggests that one can become the same as Christ, if it is
not actually saying that one becomes Christ.
It is intriguing that March specifically recalls that Gurdjieff formed an
oval with both his hands, while Adie’s diagram also depicts an oval,
although Adie wrote nothing of this in his text. If it is not purely
coincidental, this feature almost prompts one to speculate whether that
Gurdjieff believed the oval shape to be objective.
Frank R. Sinclair (co-president of the Gurdjieff Foundation of New York
from April 2000, president from 2005, and now president emeritus), who
studied with many of Gurdjieff’s pupils, especially Jeanne de Salzmann,
Lord Pentland, and Martin Benson (d. 1971), refers to the edited memoirs
of Beatrice Rego, his wife, who was utterly faithful to Gurdjieff and his
teaching. There she states of Gurdjieff’s 1948 visit to the United States:
At another time, at the end of movements, Gurdjieff said to the class, “At this time [around
Christmas], many people pray. Their prayers go only so far up in the atmosphere. You can suck
these into yourself; this force.”14
Sinclair also passes on a similar recollection from Martin Benson, and after
referring to March’s recollection, concludes:
[I]t would appear that Gurdjieff counselled his listeners to turn towards a point “somewhere in
space”—someone even said he had referred to a planet, but clearly then, “above the head,” even
perhaps “a higher part of the mind”—and consciously draw in a fine energy.15
Sinclair goes on to say that in that session, Gurdjieff claimed to speak “as a
Christ” and told people “to undertake this exercise because only through it
would they ‘understand reason to live’.”16 In his later work, Of the Life
Aligned, Sinclair again referred to this incident, recalling that while
Gurdjieff did “urge people to ‘steal’ the energies that people were pouring
towards Jesus Christ on that day[,] Gurdjieff nevertheless referred to his
exercise as ‘honest’ stealing because, he said, the debt would have to be
repaid ‘with something else’.”17 He added these informative notes:
[T]hose privileged to have listened to the tape could hear Gurdjieff say very clearly that one
should actively “suck in” some of the “active element” being directed to where Christ was
imagined to be—“somewhere in space”—and that from this element one could build one’s astral
body. “With this active element you will grow your being.”
What’s more, he declared that nothing could be more useful for one’s future than this
exercise.
I should add that giving such an exercise was perhaps just a little odd for a man who had
warned his students not to tamper with the breath, not that “sucking in” is tampering, but it does
have an effect on the breathing. But then Gurdjieff defied all norms, including his own.18
But the most significant aspect of the exercise as given to Adie is that
Gurdjieff affirmed that it is necessary to rest secluded in the collected state
for ten to fifteen minutes so that the results of one’s efforts do not
evaporate. This supports the comment in Herald and Beelzebub about the
critical role played by Transformed-contemplation in the formation of the
soul (see Section 4.2), but whereas that remark does not make explicit that
it is to be done seated and without distractions, that detail is now either
added or articulated, depending on Gurdjieff’s initial intention.
Notes
1. Azize (2013).
2. The symbol Adie drew is similar to a circle with two vertical lines within it, crossing from top
to bottom. I do not understand its meaning.
3. As we saw in Section 1.7, Gurdjieff would sometimes add to this formula “between the two
may God keep you.”
4. Adie and Azize (2015), where all references to their careers are also gathered. See the very
many references to “Helen Perkin” in The John Ireland Companion, Foreman (2011).
5. Bennett (1973) 96.
6. Adie and Azize (2015) 319–323.
7. De Salzmann (2010) 198–199.
8. Hulme (1997) 223.
9. Bennett (1962) 201.
10. Bennett (1989) 42–43.
11. De Salzmann (2010) 198–199.
12. De Salzmann (2010) 196.
13. March (2012) 107.
14. Sinclair (2005) 125.
15. Sinclair (2005) 230–231.
16. Sinclair (2005) 230–232.
17. Sinclair (2009) 48.
18. Sinclair (2009) 49.
14
The “Lord Have Mercy” Exercises
14.1 Introduction
The prayer “Lord have mercy” might, on one plausible reading, be entirely
out of place in Gurdjieff’s teaching. In his teaching on prayer Gurdjieff
attributed the power of prayer not to any deity who would respond, but to
the effect of the prayer on the supplicant (see Section 1.7). Prayer is, on this
view, effectively a form of “active reasoning” (see Section 11.1). Further,
given his comments on the inaccessibility of God, it might be thought
inconsistent that Gurdjieff should teach pupils to make a prayer that was, in
its precise terms, something of a nonsense.
Yet, it is not controversial to suggest that Gurdjieff was neither always
consistent nor always so absolute. As we saw in Section 8.1, he felt he had
to justify the use of imagination in his exercises when he was otherwise
warning against that faculty, and even his Transformed-contemplation itself
existed in a sort of tension with the balance of his system, which was to be
more aware in the social domain (what he called “life”). I shall contend in
Section 18.4 that this tendency to inconsistency is due to a tension inherent
in his very program: the presentation of a mystical system in a secular
guise.
In the 1950 edition of Beelzebub, but not the 1931 one, Gurdjieff
effectively endorsed this prayer, saying that before people’s psyches had
deteriorated to their present low pitch, they were aware of the “three holy
forces of the Sacred-Triamazikamno”: “God the Father, the Son and the
Holy Ghost.”1 He went on to say that they would sometimes express:
the hidden meaning . . . and also their longing to have a beneficent effect on them by the
following prayers:
Sources of Divine rejoicings, revolts and sufferings, direct your actions upon us.
or Holy-Affirming, Holy-Denying, Holy-Reconciling, transubstantiate in me for my Being.
or Holy God, Holy Firm, Holy Immortal, have mercy on us.2
The last prayer is a celebrated portion of the Divine Liturgy of the Eastern
Churches, Catholic and Orthodox alike, and even made its way into some
Latin liturgies.3 Dix records:
This hymn is said to have been divinely revealed . . . at Constantinople in the time of the
patriarch S. Proclus (A.D. 434–446) as the authentic text of the hymn sung by the angels in
heaven. . . . we have the contemporary testimony of Proclus’ banished predecessor . . .
Nestorius, that it was inserted into the liturgy at Constantinople between A.D. 430 and 450.4
l: Yes.
gurdjieff: And you have a prayer?
l: Yes.
Gurdjieff: Then say: “I am, I wish to be, I have the sensation of myself. I do not emanate.” And
then say your prayer. And at the end, say again, “I am.”5
The next week, on June 3, 1943, “L” said that he did not know what to
picture when he says “Lord.” Gurdjieff replied: “Picture to yourself better
minds, non-commissioned officers, because there are many ranks. Say,
‘have mercy,’ with conviction.”6
Four matters emerge from these two exchanges: Gurdjieff’s reference (1)
to God and (2) to prayer (and his acceptance that his pupil had a god and a
prayer); (3) the linkage of the evocations “Lord have mercy” and “I am”;
and (4) the melding of this evocation with Gurdjieff’s ideas of being,
relaxation, sensation, and restraining emanations (see Section 11.6).
The prayer “Lord Have Mercy” had meaning for Gurdjieff, and by 1943
his teaching was taking a more religious turn just at the time when he was
using contemplative exercises. Further, he used these words in some of his
movements.7
14.2 “Lord Have Mercy” in The Reality of Being
De Salzmann says a significant amount about this prayer and how to relate
it to Gurdjieff’s ideas. In The Reality of Being, de Salzmann seems to make
the prayer central to the desire to attain being, for she relates human
possibilities to the being of God:
Everything that exists is constituted of three forces. They can be represented as the Father, the
active force; the Son, the passive force; and the Holy Spirit, the neutralizing force. The Father
creates the Son. The Son returns to the Father. The force that descends is the one that wishes to
return, to go back up.
In man it is the mind that is opposed to the body. The neutralizing force is the wish that
unites them, connects them. Everything comes from the wish, the will. To represent God, it is
necessary to represent these three forces. Where the three forces are reunited, God is. Where our
attention is, God is. When two forces are opposed and a third unites them, God is here. We can
say, “Lord have mercy on me.” We can ask for help, to come to this in ourselves. The only help
is this. Our aim is this, to contain, to unite these three forces in us . . . to Be.8
I have access to myself only through sensation. But there are different kinds of sensation. . .
. I need to open and receive the impression of a finer vibration. For this a new feeling needs to
appear that allows the vibration to spread. This is why Gurdjieff had us say, “Lord, have mercy,”
which opens us to a feeling of our nothingness and awakens a deeper energy.9
This has some of the blending instructions found in the Four Ideals
Exercise, including the directing of the exercitant’s attention to the sex
organs as a sort of reservoir, and for the pouring of the results into other
parts of the body. However, another passage from the same volume takes us
even further into the realm of traditional spirituality:
My deep wish is to submit entirely to an inner voice, the feeling of the divine, of the sacred in
me. I know that a higher energy—what religions call God or Lord—is within me. It will appear
if the mind and the body are truly related. God is here when two forces are opposed and a third
unites them. We can ask for help in order to unite these forces in us. We can say, “Lord have
mercy,” in order to Be.12
The meetings of 1943 and the exercise given to Adie later in the chapter
show that Gurdjieff did in fact go in the direction indicated by de Salzmann.
However, to assert that “God is here” whenever the Law of Three operates
is bold, and does not sit easily with Gurdjieff’s teaching that God is distant
(see Section 2.11). As we saw in Section 14.1, Gurdjieff redefined or
redescribed “Lord” in terms of “non-commissioned officers,” intelligences
higher than our own yet not at the level of God. One is reminded not only of
the higher beings in the “Diagram of Everything Living” but also the
angels, archangels, cherubim, and seraphim of Beelzebub, and even
(Pseudo) Dionysius’s ranks of angels. He told Benson: “The angels are
pure, and there is no place for them to go. We on this earth are fallen angels,
but we have a place to strive for, objectively and actively to come to.”13
Gurdjieff does seem to have literally believed in the existence of a ladder of
cosmic intelligences; this helps make sense of his “Lord Have Mercy”
exercises.14
Adie then spent some time speaking about the proper physical posture to
be taken for the exercise. The principles of the proper type of posture (there
is no one correct posture, only correct principles) are dealt with in Chapter
17, for the same basic posture is taken for all these exercises.
5. That wants to be done very frequently, because all life is producing other tense postures.
6. Now the exercise, the sitting, the preparation. I need to understand how essential preparation
is. Preparation is the determiner of the moment that follows, which determines the future. If
there is any possibility, it cannot take place without preparation. If I am not conscious now,
then I have much less chance of receiving any impulses later, or of noticing them.
7. I wish to prepare.
8. One of the main interferences, in fact one of the key interferences: the words in the head. The
head is not related to the body, the head is separate, turning in dreams and imagination . . . and
identification. Quite unaware of the body, even though I was putting it in posture.
9. So now I try and have an all-over sense in myself, an all-over sense of myself without any
words. I want to free my head. Free it from words. Connect it to the body.
10. And now I keep part of the attention, not all of it, on this awareness, my total awareness, and
my total freedom from words. I remain, and I place the other half of my attention on my right
arm. And I sense my right arm: I sense it. I have no words, and I sense the arm.
11. I start maybe at the top, and go down to the bottom, but . . . if I have done a lot of sensing and
exercise in the past, I find that the arm is there rather readily. What I need is a finer sensation,
not just peripheral, I need a total sensation of the arm, the fineness, the life flowing in that
arm.
12. And as I sense the arm, I have the concept, as if I said to myself: “Lord have mercy.”
13. Perhaps I must start innerly. It’s as if I innerly said: “Lord have mercy.” But you see, it’s still
there. I don’t have to repeat, I don’t even have to repeat the thought of the words “Lord have
mercy.”
14. They echo in me without repeating them. I sense my arm. In me is the echo: “Lord have
mercy.”
15. Now with that sensation, which I don’t leave, I then pass to the right leg, and again: “Lord
have mercy.” I experience, I sense the life force in that limb, and in the body . . . my central
presence free from any words, and the right arm . . . and the right leg.
16. And now I sense the left leg. Again: “Lord have mercy.” Again it echoes there.
17. When I have established a really fine sensation in that leg, I pass to the left arm. Again: “Lord
have mercy.” I. Central. Free from thought. All limbs with the force in them, sensed. And this
wordless echo: “Lord have mercy.” I experience the influence of the words.
18. Now, in my own time, I repeat that series of four movements again. And then a third time,
each time getting finer.
19. When I have finished that series, I have a total experience of myself. Total. The whole. The
presence of the whole, the reality of my conscious being, and in me: “Lord have mercy.”
20. I remember that. I have no words, no thoughts.
After this, there followed about five minutes of silence. Adie then asked:
21. When I open my eyes, can I receive the impressions without words?
The main difference between this and the exercise given by her husband
is that in this exercise the entire round of the four limbs is gone through
four times, in canon. Also of significance is the remaining for five minutes
or more after the exercise, continuing the breathing exercise, because it
shows that the exercise is valued partly because of the state it produces.
Once more, it makes a connection between this prayer and Gurdjieff’s own
invocation: “I am.” The “finger exercise” is the Soil Preparing Exercise of
Chapter 7. The combination of these exercises indicates the value of
thinking in terms of an “alphabet” that was used to make larger wholes.
The possibility that Gurdjieff adapted the “Lord Have Mercy” Exercises
from the Jesus Prayer both explains the anomaly at point 7 and shows that
his system was becoming more overtly religious as he aged. My hypothesis
has some basis, and accurately describes and explains developments in
Gurdjieff’s teaching, even if conclusive proof is lacking.
But there is another matter of some importance for a consideration of
Gurdjieff’s sources. Having outlined the Ray of Creation, Gurdjieff said to
his Russian pupils:
You know the prayer “Holy God, Holy the Firm, Holy the Immortal”? This prayer comes from
ancient knowledge. Holy God means the Absolute or All. Holy the Firm also means the
Absolute or Nothing. Holy the Immortal signifies that which is between them, that is, the six
notes of the ray of creation, with organic life. All three taken together make one. This is the
coexistent and indivisible Trinity.17
Later, and after his exposition of Gurdjieff’s consideration of the prayer
“Lord Have Mercy,” Ouspensky adds that Gurdjieff explained the Orthodox
liturgy, astonishing him at how pure the recording of the creation and all its
stages and transitions were in the liturgy, and how it should be taken far
more simply than it is.18 If the ancient knowledge of the Ray of Creation is
preserved in the Orthodox liturgy, it does not necessarily mean that
Gurdjieff considered Orthodox Christianity to be the source, but it does
mean that Orthodox Christianity was intimately acquainted with the source,
and was influenced by it. And it suggests that his source was at the least
also sufficiently well acquainted with the Orthodox liturgy to be able to
identify the teaching of Ray of Creation in it. This of course suggests a
monastery on Mount Athos rather than in Central Asia.
Notes
1. Gurdjieff (1950) 751–752.
2. Gurdjieff (1950) 752.
3. “Trisagion,” New Catholic Encyclopedia (Vol. 14, 2nd ed. Detroit: Gale, 2003), 209.
4. Dix (1945) 451.
5. Gurdjieff (2017) 48–49.
6. Gurdjieff (2017) 51.
7. Schaeffer (1964) 8.
8. De Salzmann (2010) 27.
9. De Salzmann (2010) 64.
10. De Salzmann (2010) 73.
11. De Salzmann (2010) 255–256.
12. De Salzmann (2010) 260.
13. Benson (2011) 138. This also allows a different perspective on Gurdjieff’s assuming the voice
of Beelzebub, a fallen angel: see footnote 26 to Section 6.3.
14. Ouspensky (1949) 322–324.
15. Ouspensky (1949) 119.
16. Azize (forthcoming).
17. Ouspensky (1949) 132.
18. Ouspensky (1949) 303.
15
The Color Spectrum Exercise
15.1 Introduction
In my judgment, this is likely to be an authentic Gurdjieff exercise because,
as mentioned in Section 13.1, George Adie told me that all the methods he
used came from Gurdjieff. Further, in the Third Series, Gurdjieff treats of
color in a way that can readily be related to this exercise. As with the Clear
Impressions Exercise (see Chapter 16), no other pupil of Gurdjieff had this
exercise, so far as I am aware. My own conjecture is that this exercise is
referred to in Adie’s notes, set out in Section 13.1, on May 17, 1949, where
he writes what appears to me to be “strengthened (+ esoteric).” This is
based on his statements, in groups where questions were asked about this
exercise, that the purpose of this exercise was to “give strength.”
“Strengthened” is unlikely to be a mere diary-like comment about feeling
more robust; that would have been out of place.
If it is possible, one adds the sensing of each part to the part or parts before,
but the emphasis or greater focus is on the part added. So, when one is due
to sense the arms, for example, one does not become negligent of the
sensing of the head, but allows it only a lower place in one’s consciousness.
After this, one reverses the process, so that one senses the area of the sex
organs (including the buttocks), both legs, the spine as a whole, the belly,
the breast and the solar plexus, both arms, the head, face and neck, and,
once more, all of the body.
That is the first series. The exercitant is, however, to repeat it twice if
possible (that is, to go through the sensing series thrice in all). However, if
time does not permit, the exercitant does one or two series. With the last
series of sensing, when sensing the body as a whole for the last time, one
represents to oneself that it is suffused with white light. In the recordings of
group meetings after the exercise had been given, many people were
confused about the suffusion of light, trying to sense or even see the
different colors. Both George and Helen Adie explained that the exercise
involves representing to oneself that the requisite limb or the entire body, as
the case may be, is suffused: One does not imagine that one senses or feels
the color.
I set out the second part in skeleton format:
As with the first part, one then reverses the order, beginning with the area
of the sex organs and buttocks, suffused with red light, and so on through to
the end, when one is once more to sense all of the body suffused with white
light. With this part, again, if one can add the representation of the earlier
members to the representation of the latest member, that is good, although it
is much harder.
This is done once, but can be attempted twice if time allows. In the third
part, one senses and represent to oneself, with an attention that is directed
not just from the head but from the whole of the exercitant:
a) all of the body as a whole suffused with white light for three breaths;
b) over three breaths, as I inhale, the whole suffused with white light, and as I exhale, the head
and face and neck with violet light
c) over three breaths, as I inhale, the whole with white light, and as I exhale, both arms suffused
with indigo light
d) over three breaths, as I inhale, the whole suffused with white light, and as I exhale, the breast
and solar plexus with light blue light
e) over three breaths, as I inhale, the whole suffused with white light, and as I exhale, the belly
with green light
f) over three breaths, as I inhale, the whole suffused with white light, and as I exhale, the spine
with yellow light
g) over three breaths, as I inhale, the whole suffused with white light, and as I exhale, both legs
with orange light
h) over three breaths, as I inhale, the whole suffused with white light, and as I exhale, the area of
the sex organs and buttocks with red light
i) over three breaths, all of the body as a whole suffused with white light.
The exercise is then reversed, exactly the same as the reversal in the
other parts of the exercise, until one arrives back at the sensation of all of
the body suffused with white light for three breaths.
The fourth part is to remain collected for several minutes, and then to
affirm “I am,” thrice. This part is considered to be very important as
allowing the results of the effort to be retained.
On November 14, 1979, George Adie added at the end of the exercise
this instruction:
I wish this force to become mine for my being. I accept all shocks. I represent to myself what I
shall be doing in the day, and make my plan, appointing moments to come to myself. I aim to
connect my state at the appointed moments with my state as I experience it now.
In the exchanges that followed in small groups, the Adies made clear that
part of the aim of this exercise was to give one access to a certain
strengthening force, and that one did not try to feel the color but rather to
represent it to oneself as suffusing the pertinent part of the body.
16.1 Introduction
As noted, Gurdjieff wanted his exercises, even the contemplative ones, to
be related to and have an effect on life in the social domain. This would, of
course, be easier with tasks and disciplines, as defined in Section 0.2. Also
to this end, some of his contemplative exercises were to be practiced with
open eyes. Thus the Second Assisting Exercise, one of the most important
of all, specifically requires the exercitant to look at a particular object; as
the exercise proceeds, it could be said that the gaze rests on that object,
rather than that one looks. In 1980, George Adie gave several variations of
a contemplative exercise with open eyes. In addition, I have heard of an
exercise allegedly given by Jeanne de Salzmann where one looks at an
object until the difference between object and subject disappears. I do not
have details of it, and I could not find it in The Reality of Being. For those
reasons, in addition to what was written in Section 13.1, I am of the opinion
that, more likely than not, this is an exercise Adie learned from Gurdjieff. I
suspect that this is the exercise Adie refers to as “Complete surrender” on
May 6, 1949 (see Section 13.3), because one “surrenders,” so to speak,
going out to our impressions, allowing them to enter the mind, without
comment.
17.1 Introduction
Gurdjieff is known to have been teaching his “Preparation” in 1946, for the
late Dr. John Lester told me that they were taught it from their first
meetings, which were in that year. At this stage, no evidence of Gurdjieff
teaching it any earlier is available. It is absent from the published transcripts
of the Paris groups. However, the idea of daily Preparation, and also of a
daily review, had been in Gurdjieff’s mind for several years, even if one
discounts the Genuine Being Duty Exercise from Beelzebub. In a transcript
of a group meeting of September 9, 1943, in answer to a question about
nightly rest, Gurdjieff gave this advice:
It is not the quantity [of sleep], it is the quality that matters. When you sleep seven and a half
hours and you need two hours to relax in the evening and two hours to tense up in the evening,
that leaves you three and a half hours of sleep. You don’t relax yourself consciously and this
takes time. Everything takes place mathematically, but it is automatic and this takes time. To
start with, you can relax consciously up until the moment of sleep. On the one hand, you relax
and this rapidly allows you to fall asleep. On the other hand, you begin to establish a discipline
between your consciousness and our body. . . . In the morning when you wake up, do the same
thing: immediately make a program, think, suggest to yourself how you will spend your day; do
the same work as when you relax yourself. Your activity will double. . . . make a program. Not a
fantasy, but a real program.1
This is significant not only for linking the program to a relaxed state in
the morning, but also because a mutually supporting cycle is established:
preparing each night and each morning for the next phase of the day. The
most important comments on the program, connecting it to a form of the
Preparation, seem to be these of December 9, 1943:
[Y]ou will find a quiet place. You will sit down very quietly; you will become calm in a good
state. Do this for one or two weeks or a month, and you will no longer believe anything or
anyone. Make a program. If you don’t have a program, anything—any idiot, any nonentity or
shit—can order you around. Trust only this program you have decided on while in a special
state. The main thing is to decide how you want to behave, what you want to do, the relationship
you want to establish with each person; that is what a program is. And you believe only in this.
And even if God comes to disturb you and tells you to do something else, you must not do it.
Maybe he has just come to trip you up. You do only what you have decided to do in your special
state.2
Gurdjieff went on to link that task and its successful completion to the
preparation for it. When Mme. D said she had tried but could neither
remember herself nor achieve a strong sensation of herself, Gurdjieff
replied:
Your decision is not strong. . . . You must put yourself in a quiet state—relaxed—and in this
state settle your task. You try it. Ten times, a hundred times, you fail. You continue. You take
trouble. Little by little you train yourself and you achieve it. . . . Remember yourself
consciously. Consciously. That is to say, by your own decision.4
Solange Claustres told me, in 2007, in Paris, after I had described the
Preparation as the Adies taught it, that it was exactly as Gurdjieff had taught
them. This is not proof that Gurdjieff was teaching the whole of the
Preparation in 1941, but the basic elements were there by that time, and it
had been put together by the time of his death. Touching the transcripts of
the Preparation that are set out below, both Annie-Lou Staveley and Dr.
Lester informed me that the outline of the Preparation I sketched for them
was authentically from Gurdjieff.
One particularly helpful published source is the chapter “Collection” in
Questions and Answers Along the Way, by Hugh Brockwill Ripman (d.
1980), posthumously published in 2009. Brockman, like Adie, had been a
pupil of Ouspensky, Gurdjieff, and Jeanne de Salzmann (1889–1990).5 The
practice described there is not called the “Preparation,” yet it is the same.
Other materials are available in Jean Vaysse’s Toward Awakening. Vaysse
(c. 1917–1975) apparently met Gurdjieff in 1947. A prominent Paris
cardiologist, he played a leading role in the groups. The evidence that in the
1940s Gurdjieff taught the Preparation to a number of his pupils is
overwhelming. It is not so well known today, partly because of the
discipline of secrecy, but also, I suggest, because so few of Gurdjieff’s
students recorded it. As has been mentioned, what is not recorded is lost.
The authentic Gurdjieff techniques for Transformed-contemplation suffered
this fate in an extreme form because, from the 1960s on, they were
increasingly displaced by de Salzmann’s “New Work” (see Section 12.5).
I interpret this to mean that when one comes into contact with a higher reality (the
emanations of a sun), one sees where one has fallen short, and feels remorse. I once asked
Adie why he used this word there, and he replied: “Perhaps it corresponds to the feeling of
genuine remorse.” This was connected with how the Preparation was meant to be, quite
literally, a Preparation for life in the social domain: Thus, one could go into that life having
seen how one has been, regretted it, and changed.
Adie also told me that he had always felt that the spelling of the word Aieioiuoa did not
quite correspond to the sound he felt it should have. He had amended it in his book. When the
French translation was published, it was exactly the same: “Aïeïoïouoa.” That is, there was an
additional “o” before the “u,” and it is clear that the three “i”s are each separately and
distinctly pronounced.18 Adie also believed that this word, Aïeïoïouoa, was ideal for the “final
straightening” of what he called “the organ pipe.” On some occasions, Adie would even
pronounce it thrice.
Whether he used Aïeïoïouoa or not, Adie would often end the Preparation with a word he
pronounced “Ah-mon.” I once asked him what it was, and he replied that it was “Amen.” I
asked him why he pronounced it that way, and he responded that he did so because that was
how Gurdjieff had pronounced it. Adie had retained Gurdjieff’s pronunciation perhaps
because of Gurdjieff’s view that the pronunciation of certain words had a virtue if sounded in
a particular way.
35. The Preparation should be given a definite and clean end, rather than being allowed to
meander along. On March 30, 1982, Adie said:
I should go from it willingly . . . I cannot stay seated in my room, and catch the bus, and get
paid for my day’s work at the same time. It doesn’t follow. If I sit for a quarter of an hour that
is mine, then I am a person who has sat, who has made an effort. There is an record of effort
inside of me that tends to make me more aware of impressions. . . . you could say that every
morning’s Preparation is the creation of facts. Creation of reality for the day. I begin to create
facts. . . . Then it is not a question of “seems”; the fact is it was. I was there. There’s no doubt
about it. And I can remember the state.19
Adie stressed that if one got up from the Preparation in a hurry, returning
too quickly to “life” (the social domain), and allowed any random
manifestation, it not only accelerated the dissipation of the collected state,
but the beneficial effects of the entire Preparation could be lost. Compare,
in this respect, Gurdjieff’s words at the close of the Four Ideals Exercise
about the need to “rest contained” so that the “results” could be
“assimilated.”
In other words, Adie was suggesting that when we are awake we are
already on a trajectory from sleep to waking, and that “wave,” as it were,
can be used to pass from “waking sleep” to “clear awareness” or “self-
consciousness,” the third level of consciousness in Gurdjieff’s schema.20
Henriette Lannes (1899–1980), a personal pupil of Gurdjieff, wrote of the
Preparation:
During this attempt at calm work, we draw nearer to the possibility of knowing a state of being
where it is not a question of doing something but of silently experiencing impressions connected
to our internal reality. This state is a state of non-doing.21 [The author’s translation]
18.1 Introduction
We have now examined Gurdjieff’s Transformed-contemplation in the
context of his teaching and his life. In doing so, I have placed him both
within the current known as “Western esotericism” and within the spiritual
traditions of Athonite monasticism. The evidence shows that when
Gurdjieff slowly began introducing those practices in or after 1930, he had
already worked out a coherent and integrated system of ideas and practices.
The contemplative exercises fit into his system, even extending it in
somewhat paradoxical directions (the Four Ideals and “Lord Have Mercy”
Exercises). In particular, Gurdjieff’s idea of man as a station for the
transformation of energies, schematically set out in the Food Diagram,
provides a basis for the understanding of all of his exercises, especially
when it is taken with his cosmology, anthropology, and psychological ideas
(see especially Section 2.7).
This chapter will commence with Gurdjieff’s “last exercises.” There are
two “last exercises” known to me: the final exercises he gave to Solange
Claustres and to the Adies respectively. They naturally lead into my
summary and conclusions.
That is, one is to discharge one’s duty in life, gradually doing so more and
more consciously. The final sentence, italicized in the original, is significant
not only because it clearly summarizes the whole, but because it also
reminds one of the biblical injunction of the very first page of The Way of a
Pilgrim: “Pray without ceasing” (1 Thessalonians 5:17).2 The pilgrim’s
desire to live by this exhortation led him to the Jesus Prayer. What is meant
in Claustres’ point 4 is to “work towards developing an inner consciousness
of self [by coming to a three-centered sense of ‘I am’ in the special state],
and little by little [with the help of a daily program], to enable this
consciousness [of my own presence] to penetrate the other three parts.”
To the end of their lives, the Adies taught the Preparation and exercises
as they had had them from Gurdjieff.
For the reasons presented in Section 9.4, the “I Am” exercise seems to
me to have been adapted from the Jesus Prayer. If I am correct, and if this
was the last exercise he gave, then it is fitting that Gurdjieff’s last exercise
should have been the simplest, and the closest to the point from which he
began.
I will close this section with one thought, prompted by the reflection that
George Adie was taught exercises that Claustres did not know of, and vice
versa. We have had to consider a rather wide range of sources, even to
analyze those exercises that hailed from Gurdjieff and de Salzmann’s
books, and transcripts of the Adies. Gurdjieff certainly did not leave all the
relevant information in one place. It seems that he gave exercises like
Conscious Stealing and the Four Ideals to Bennett, but not to very many
others. To be more precise, it seems to me that the general nature of the
instruction was fairly widely circulated, but the technical details concerning
attracting the higher substances, then ingesting and assimilating them, were
passed on to very few.
This seems to me to be deliberate. It is as if his book Meeting with
Remarkable Men was a template for what his pupils were to do, meeting
with one another. If I am correct, then Gurdjieff was effectively obliging
them to communicate and exchange in order to complete their own
education. His contemplative exercises were to be a discovery, or else were
to disappear—and there is no doubt that some of them have indeed
disappeared.
We now come to the summary and conclusion: What were Gurdjieff’s
contemplative exercises? That can be considered under three heads: What
was their form and purpose? What was their source? What was their nature?
Finally, I ask the question: What does the product tells us of the maker?
That is, what do the exercises tell us of Gurdjieff?
For the benefit of digital users, indexed terms that span two pages (e.g., 52–53) may, on occasion,
appear on only one of those pages.
Babylon, 85–86
Beaumont, Winifred, 22–23
Beelzebub, 133
Beelzebub’s Tales to his Grandson, 7, 10, 17, 18, 24, 25, 38–39, 43, 55, 56, 61, 69, 70, 71, 74, 75,
85–86, 109, 119–20, 121, 127–34, 137, 138–16, 154, 162, 164, 165, 175, 177, 181, 183–84, 222–
23, 234, 236, 240, 241, 243, 244, 257, 271, 286, 291, 297–98, 301, 302, 303–4
1931 edition, 38–39, 56, 119–20, 127, 128, 129–30, 132–33, 175–76, 183–84, 241
Beinecke Rare Manuscripts Library, 178–79
being, real, 52, 84
being-obligolnian-strivings, 54, 118
Benares, 237
Benham, Michael, 23, 27–28
Bennett, John Godolphin, 25–26, 28, 29, 30–31, 33–34, 69, 102–3, 106, 139, 182–83, 188, 231, 234,
236, 237, 297
Benson, Martin (d. 1971), 110–11, 152, 177, 184, 235, 239, 244, 247
Bestul, Thomas, 9–10
Betrachtung, 10
biofeedback principle, 11
Blake, A.G.E., 236
Blavatsky, Helena P. (1831–1891), 13–14, 16, 54
blind motif, 249
blood, 61, 86, 128, 179, 180, 181, 258, 265, 268
body, 6–7, 12, 25–26, 51, 54, 61–62, 84, 87, 93–94, 100, 103, 108, 109, 110, 118, 122, 129, 131, 134,
138–39, 143, 152, 179, 180, 184, 191–93, 195, 198–99, 200, 205, 208, 216–19, 231, 232, 233,
234, 237–38, 243, 244, 245, 246, 247, 253, 254, 255, 256, 257, 258, 263, 264, 266, 268, 271, 272,
274, 275, 276, 277, 278, 280, 281–82, 285, 286, 289–90, 297–98, See also astral body; higher-
being-body; Kesdjan body
Bogdan, Henrik, 13
Book of Degrees, 88–89
Boston Globe, 26
Boston Post, 38
Bowyer, E.C., 32, 37
brain waves, 11
breath, breathing, breathing exercises, 6–7, 15, 61, 68–69, 71, 92–94, 102, 106, 107–8, 123–24, 128,
130, 131, 134, 152, 159, 160, 162, 163, 164, 165, 166–68, 177, 179–82, 198, 200, 202–3, 219,
232, 237, 239–40, 243, 248–49, 255, 256, 257–58, 276, 278, 279, 281–82, 283, 284, 285, 286, 288
bricoleur, 16
Brook, Peter (1925–), 102
Brother Lawrence of the Resurrection, 247
Brotherhoods, 25–26, 27, 154, 182–83, 201–2
Brunton, Paul (1898–1981), 105
Buddha, 74, 101, 231, 232, 234, 237
Buddhism, 3, 4, 10, 12, 16, 26, 27, 72, 73, 92–93, 101, 108, 281, 302
Butkovsky-Hewitt, Anna, 35
Daily News, 32
Damascus, 72
d’Aquili, Eugene, 12
Davy, Marie-Madeleine (1903–1998), 44
daydreaming, 61–62, 64, 65
Dean Borsh, 71–72
Denikin’s Volunteer Army, 30–31
depression, 65–66
Deputy Steward, 278
dervishes, 4–5, 27, 72
“The Descent of the Soul into Bodies,” 84
de Val, Nicolas, 209
dhyanas, 108
Diaghilev, Sergei (1872–1929), 38
Diagram of Everything Living, 57–58, 59, 244
diaphragm, 281
Dix, Gregory, 241
Djamdjampal, 129, 162, 183–84
Djameechoonatra, 129, 162, 183–84
Djartklom, 291
Dobrotolubiye, 89, 92, 250
doing, 64, 66, 207, 283, 286, 288
Dooling, Dorothea, 5
Dukes, Paul (1889–1967), 99
Dürckheim, Karlfried Graf (1896–1988), 224, 285
duty, 71, 296
“Dying Daily” (daily review), 85–86, 118–19, 133, 172, 183, 302
Easter, 73–74
Eckhart, Meister (c.1260–c.1328), 16
van Egmond, Daniël, 13–14
“Ego” exercise, 88, 91–92, 99–100, 111, 154, 168, 249–50
Egypt, Egyptian, 3–4, 23, 26, 27, 85–86
Eifring, Halvor, 81
Eliot, T.S. (1888–1965), 57–58, 61
emanations, 86, 171–72, 181, 203, 231, 233, 234, 235, 237, 238, 242, 248, 284, 286–87
emotion, 56, 61–62, 63–64, 65–67, 68, 69, 70, 82–83, 87, 93, 103–4, 117, 119, 121–22, 123, 129,
143, 144, 182, 190, 198–99, 267, 301–2
energy, 15, 22–23, 36, 56, 58, 63, 68, 69, 70, 94, 100, 110, 133, 145, 150, 172–73, 180, 183–84, 190–
96, 202–3, 206, 216, 217, 219, 222–23, 237, 238, 239, 243, 244, 254, 276, 278, 282, 286, 288,
290, 295, 298
England, 30–31, 33, 35, 36–38, 41, 106
English language, 21, 28–29, 31, 38–39, 67, 92, 104–5, 127, 161–62, 175, 179, 221, 222, 224, 233
Enneads, 84–85, 86, 87
Enneagram, 58–59, 87
envelope, 280, 283, 284
esoteric Christianity, 3, 74
esotericism, 13–14, 27–33, 138–39, 152
essence (as opposed to “personality”), 63–64, 71, 176
essentialist, 10–12
Essentuki, 52, 100, 102, 173
Etherokrilno, 58, 64
evolution, 63–64, 66, 68, 69, 73, 75, 123, 140, 204, 219
exercises
for “Active Reasoning,” 204–5
concerning Aim and Decision, 206–7
concerning Aim and Energy, 172–73, 183–84
with Arms Outstretched, 192–93
Atmosphere Exercise, 194–96, 218, 257–32, 284
for the Body, 191–93
Clear Impressions, 16, 161, 225, 303
Color Spectrum, 16, 137, 138, 225, 253–59, 303
Compromise, 158, 162–63
Conscious Stealing, 177, 236, 237, 297
with counting, 91–92, 93, 102, 116–17, 119, 141, 142, 145–46, 166, 188–89, 200, 207, 249
“Dying Daily” (daily review), 85–86, 118–19, 133, 172, 183, 302
for Feeling, 217–18
Filling Up, 199–200
Finger (see Soil Preparing)
First Assisting, 100, 131, 149–55, 162, 167, 196, 296, 298
Four Ideals, 7, 9, 16, 69, 111, 130–31, 152, 168, 184, 189, 195, 197, 198, 201–2, 218, 229–40, 244,
247–48, 257, 287, 295, 296, 297, 298, 303
Genuine Being Duty, 127, 132–34, 145, 157, 162, 164, 172, 173, 182, 183–84, 205, 271, 298
“I Am,” 9, 100, 104, 105, 131, 191–92, 193, 195, 196–99, 217–18, 296–97, 301–2
“I am,” Breathing, and External Considering, 202–4
“I,” “Me,” 218–20
“Lord Have Mercy,” 218, 241–50, 295
Make Strong! Not Easy Thing, 131, 133, 163, 178–82, 184
for Relaxation, 100–1, 104, 190–91, 199
Second Assisting, 154, 157–68, 218, 261, 284
for Sensing, 100–2, 110, 143, 146, 191–92
Soil Preparing, 137–47, 151, 154–55, 164, 168, 184, 200, 207, 248–49, 298
Stop, 99, 101, 102–4
for Three Centers, 122, 123, 127, 143, 154, 193, 199
Two Parts to Air, 173–77
Web, 200–2
Faivre, 13–14
fakir, 4–5, 51–52, 129
fana’, 304
feeling, 6–7, 51, 56, 62, 63–64, 67, 69, 70, 72, 81–82, 101, 102, 107, 108, 118, 121–22, 123, 127,
130, 131, 138, 141–43, 146, 151–52, 154–55, 159, 162–63, 167, 173, 174, 176, 177, 179, 180,
182, 184, 189, 191, 192–93, 194, 195, 197, 200, 204, 206, 207, 217–18, 222, 233, 234, 237, 238,
243, 248, 253, 264, 267, 273–74, 275, 277, 278, 279–80, 281–82, 283, 284, 286, 287, 290, 291,
296, 298, 303. See also emotion; feeling center
Feeling Exercise, 217–18
Ferapontoff, Boris (1891–1930), 35, 51–52, 75, 100, 104
Filling Up Exercise, 217–18
Fine Arts Theatre, 38
finger exercise, see Soil Preparing
First Assisting Exercise, 100, 131, 149–55, 162, 167, 196, 296, 298
Fontainebleau, 35, 38
food, 57, 58, 60–61, 68–54, 70, 122, 129, 144, 160, 162, 163–64, 177, 180–81, 205, 266, 295
Food Diagram, 60–61, 68, 162, 163, 164, 180–81, 266, 295
food factory, 68–69, 70, 163–64
formless realm, 108
formatory apparatus, 61–62, 75–76, 87, 93–94, 157–58, 173, 267
formatory thinking, 65
Four Ideals Exercise, 7, 9, 16, 69, 111, 130–31, 152, 168, 184, 189, 195, 197, 198, 201–2, 218, 229–
40, 244, 247–48, 257, 287, 295, 296, 297, 298, 303
four ways, 4, 51–52
fourth dimension, 34
fourth way, 4–5, 7, 51–52, 92, 109, 129, 134, 175, 181, 202–3, 215–16, 217, 299
The Fourth Way, 144
Fragments of an Unknown Teaching, 51
France, 35–36, 37, 38, 44, 52, 110
Genuine Being Duty Exercise, 127, 132–34, 145, 157, 162, 164, 172, 173, 182, 183–84, 205, 271,
298
Georgia, 35–36, 52, 104
Germany, 35–36
“Glimpses of the Truth,” 99, 167
Gnosis, 13
Gobi Desert, 8
God, 54–61, 72–75, 85, 87, 88, 90, 110, 111, 140, 153, 165, 167–68, 172, 176, 198, 218, 220–21,
235, 236–37, 241, 242, 243, 244, 245, 247, 250, 271–72, 291, 304
Good Samaritan, 174
Gordon, Elizabeth, 25, 26–27
Gospel, 73–74, 206, 207
Great Lavra, 88
Greek language, 23, 26, 29, 53, 83–84, 89–91, 175, 301–2
Groups, 8, 9, 14–15, 16, 26–27, 30, 31, 32, 34, 35, 37, 38–39, 40–41, 42–44, 73, 92, 102–3, 107, 110,
116, 117–18, 120, 127, 133, 134, 138, 139, 140, 141, 149, 153–54, 158, 160, 173–74, 178–79, 181,
184, 187–209, 215, 216, 220–21, 222, 223, 224, 225, 230, 234, 247, 248, 253, 255, 257, 267, 268,
271, 272–73, 276–77, 285, 296, 300, 302–3
Grunwald, François, 73–74
Gumri, 23
Gurdjieff and the Women of the Rope, 178
Gurdjieff: Making a New World, 234
Gurdjieff, George Ivanovitch, (more significant references only)
car accidents, 31–32, 38–39, 73–74, 139–40, 182–83, 302–3
on Mysticism, 81–83
and Neoplatonism, 83–88
and Orage, 22–23, 30–31, 33, 37–43, 115, 117, 118, 119, 120, 122
and Ouspensky, 28–34, 92–94, 99–111
and de Salzmann, 42–44, 220–24
sources of his exercises, 83–94, 118, 134, 145–47, 154–55, 165–68, 249–50, 295–304
studied medicine, 26–27, 302
Gurdjieff, Vasily, 23
Gurdjieff Institute (Institut Gurdjieff), 197
Gurdjieff’s grandmother, Sophia Padji, 25
Gurdjieff’s Early Talks, 35
hallucination, 66
Hammond, Honour, 33
hanbledzoin, 181
Hands, Rina, 43, 177, 296
Hanegraaff, Wouter, 13–14
hara, 285
Hartmann, Olga de, 22, 35, 40, 74, 172
Hartmann, Thomas de, 15, 16, 35, 36, 39, 40, 71–72, 73–74, 102, 110
Harvard Crimson, 26
Hassein, 132, 175
Hausherr, Irénée, 88–89
healer, healing, 3–4, 22–23, 25
Heap, Jane (1887–1964), 4, 36, 40, 43, 117, 119, 237, 288
Hebraic, 3–4
Henshaw, John, 219
Heptaparaparshinokh, 56. See also Law of Seven
Herald of Coming Good, 17, 35, 38–39, 52, 88, 107–8, 119–24, 127, 130, 182–84, 297–98, 301, 303
Heropass, 55
Hesychasm, 3, 88, 168, 301–2
hesychast, 3, 7, 31, 88, 89, 109, 167, 300–2
higher-being-body, 6–7, 51, 68, 128, 220, 297–98
higher centers, 63, 68, 69, 81–83, 84, 85, 87–88, 93, 106, 123, 144, 235, 268–69, 298
higher emotional center, 34, 63, 69, 81–83
higher hydrogens, 68–69, 123, 130, 163–64, 184, 200, 218, 247, 248, 266, 276, 278, 298
higher intellectual center, 81–83
Hindu, 3–4, 11, 13, 16, 219
Hindu, Buddhist and Daoist Meditation, 81
HIS ENDLESSNESS, 55, 61, 75, 175
Hollywood, Amy, 4
Holy Ghost, 57, 73–74, 241
householders, 73
“How to Think,” 117
Howarth, Dushka, 223
Hulme, Kathryn, 30, 74, 119, 130, 146–47, 162–63, 173, 177, 178, 188, 235–36, 277
Hunter, Robert, 34
hydrogen, 61, 68–69, 123, 130, 163–64, 184, 200, 218, 247, 248, 266, 276, 278, 298
hypnosis, 22–23, 72
Lachman, Gary, 34
Lama, 231–32, 234
Lamaism, 3, 234
Lamm, Julia, 12–13
Lannes, Henriette (1899–1980), 224, 288
“The Law of Opposite Aims and Results,” 30–31
“Law of Otherwise,” 30–31
Law of Seven, 56–59, 130, 288
Law of Three, 56–59, 243, 244, 284
lectio divina, 10
Leeds, 37
Lester, Dr. John (1919–1999), 40, 237, 271, 272, 290
Liber Graduum, 88–89
Library of Congress, 187
Life Is Real only then, when ‘I Am’, see Third Series
Lipsey, Roger, 43–44, 72, 121
London, 30–31, 32, 37, 43, 63, 187, 224
“Lord Have Mercy,” 168, 218, 241–50, 295, 303
Lord’s Prayer, 72, 93, 99
Louth, Andrew, 9–10
love, 70, 90, 145, 154, 174, 176, 177, 187–88, 198, 204, 222–23, 236
lying, 65
nadīs, 219
negative emotions, 62, 65–66, 68, 69, 87, 117, 268–69, 290–91
Négrier, Patrick, 94
Neoplatonism, 4, 83–88, 119, 302
Nestorius (Patriarch of Constantinople (428–431), 242
neutralizing force, 57, 243, 291–92
New Age, 4
The New Age, 28–29, 30–31, 37
A New Model of the Universe, 29, 31, 92
New Work, 220, 222–25, 272–73
New York, 38–39, 40, 41, 42, 104, 117, 127, 130, 158, 172, 173–74, 238
New York Gurdjieff Foundation, 5, 131, 239
Newberg, Andrew B., 12–13
Nicephorus the Solitary (13th century), 3, 8, 89–92, 154, 166–68, 249–50
Nicodemus of the Holy Mountain (?1748–1809), 89
Nicoll, Maurice (1884–1953), 72, 74, 75
Nietzsche, Friedrich (1844–1900), 37
Nikephoros the Monk, see Nicephorus the Solitary
nirvana, 12, 51, 61, 304
“Notes of Meetings with Mme Salzmann about Jane’s notes,” 40
Nott, Charles Stanley (1887–1978), 110, 120, 121, 173–74
nous, 84, 86
Nyland, Willem (1890–1975), 279
Palmer, G.E.H., 89
Parabola, 34
passive force, 57, 58, 241, 243, 244, 266, 284, 291–92
P.D. Ouspensky: Pioneer of the Fourth Way, 34
Pentland, Lord (Henry John Sinclair), (1907–1984), 239
Perkin, Helen, see Adie, Helen
Persia, 3–4, 27, 69, 85–86, 131
Peters, Fritz (1913–1979), 22–23, 26
Philokalia, 12–168, 301–2
“philological question,” 5, 161–62
philosophy, 3–4, 5, 10, 11, 12, 37, 84, 85, 106, 107–8, 160, 161–62, 165, 180, 183
Phoenicia, 85–86
Pike, Nelson, 13
Plotinus (c.204–270), 16, 83–86, 87
Pogossian, 144–45
pomnie sebya, 67
pondering, 105, 107, 290
pores of the skin, 128, 130
Porphyry (c.234–305), 85, 87
posture, 61–62, 101, 103–4, 143, 166, 179, 182, 216, 245, 262, 264, 266, 267, 274, 277, 280–81, 284,
286, 289–90
Potala, 237
Pound, Ezra (1885–1972), 37
Powers, John, 108
practice of the presence of God, 245, 247
praxis, 8
prayer, 10, 24, 36, 71–76, 88–89, 91–93, 101, 106, 110–11, 129, 166, 168, 171–72, 177, 180–81, 189,
204, 208, 220–21, 231, 235, 237, 238–39, 241–51, 296. See also Jesus Prayer; Lord’s Prayer;
Prayer of the Heart
Prayer of the Heart, 3, 8, 83, 88–90, 92, 154–55, 165, 166–68, 219–20
Preparation (daily), 3, 16, 56, 83, 101, 104, 105, 110, 180, 182, 189, 193, 195, 202–3, 209, 216, 217,
224, 245, 246, 248, 265, 266, 271–92, 296, 297, 299, 303
priest, 22, 73–74, 90–91
Prieuré, 32, 35, 36, 37, 38, 42–43, 52, 73–74, 102–3, 115–16, 120, 122, 130, 142, 182–83, 184, 187–
88, 195, 204, 207, 235, 299–300
Prince Nijeradze, 25–26, 203
Prince Ozay, 99
Proclus (philosopher, 412–485), 87
Proclus (Patriarch of Constantinople, 434–446), 242
program (daily), 188, 191, 271, 296, 303
Prospectus (of the Institute), 104–5, 107–8, 115, 124, 183–84, 188–89
Pseudo-Dionysius, 87–88
Psychological Exercises, 40, 115–19, 183
psychology, 12, 32–33, 51, 61, 62, 69, 70
Psychology (journal), 117
The Psychology of Man’s Possible Evolution, 144
Pythagoras (c.570–495BCE), 26, 85–86
Saccas, Ammonius, 16
sacraments, 4
Sacred Dances, see Movements
Sacred Individuals, 3, 236–37
Sacred Influences, 236
salvation, 51, 304
Salzmann, Alexander, 40, 43–44
Salzmann, Jeanne de (1889–1990), 5, 17, 33, 40–44, 57, 102, 137, 138, 154, 168, 172, 187, 188, 197,
200, 215–25, 235, 237, 238, 239, 242, 243, 244, 247, 249–50, 261, 272–73, 285, 295, 297, 303
Sarmoung Brotherhood, 27
Sarmoung Monastery, 27, 51–52, 138–39, 182–83
Saurat, Denis (1890–1958), 4, 12
Schaeffer, Pierre (1910–1995), 219
school, 3, 13–14, 27, 32–33, 39, 88–89, 92–93, 101, 105
scriptures, 4, 11–12
secluded conditions, 7–8, 15, 109, 145, 153–54, 177, 178, 183–84, 197
Second Assisting Exercise, 154, 157–68, 218, 261, 284
Sedgwick, Mark, 301
Seekers of Truth, 27
Segal, William (1904–2000), 223, 224
self-deception, 150, 180, 201–2, 299
self-hypnosis, 72
self-observation, 67, 153–54, 190
self-perfection, 54, 158
self-remembering, 4, 15, 66–68, 71, 72, 82–83, 85, 105, 108, 111, 118, 139–40, 143, 184, 188, 191–
92, 195, 197, 203, 204, 208, 247, 263, 265, 266, 272, 279, 283, 290, 301. See also pomnie sebya
self-suggestion, 15–16, 72
sensation, 100, 101, 102, 104, 109, 110, 131, 140, 141, 142–43, 146, 163, 166, 176, 179, 184, 189,
191–93, 195, 196, 197, 199, 200, 201, 206–7, 216, 217–18, 219, 222–23, 242, 243, 245–46, 247,
248, 255, 256, 262, 263, 264, 265, 266, 268, 272, 274–76, 277–78, 279–90, 291, 296
sex organs, 232, 237–38, 244, 255, 256, 258, 262, 275, 281, 285, 286
Shamanist, 27
Shandarovsky, 99
Shaw, G.B. (1856–195), 37
Shorter Oxford Dictionary, 6
Sinclair, Frank R., 102–3, 131, 239–40
Skeat, Walter W. (1835–1912), 6
sleep, 10, 12, 53, 63–68, 82–83, 85, 86, 91, 93–94, 105, 118, 119, 175, 176, 187, 198, 205, 235, 271,
279, 288, 289, 296, 299, 302–3
“sly man,” 51
Smith, Margaret, 11
Social Credit, 39
social domain, life in the, 7–8, 15–16, 43, 51–52, 104, 115, 130, 133, 145, 178, 182–83, 184, 187–88,
196, 203, 215, 216, 241, 261, 279, 287, 298, 299, 304
Soil Preparing Exercise, 137–47, 151, 154–55, 164, 168, 184, 200, 207, 248–49, 298
Solano, Solita (1888–1975), 10, 26, 30, 106–7, 129, 187
solar plexus, 62, 141, 143, 151, 152, 159–60, 163–64, 165, 167, 184, 192–93, 197, 217, 219, 233,
244, 255, 256, 258, 262, 275, 281–82, 283, 285, 286, 296
Soloviev, 25
Sorsky, Nil (c.1433–1508), 89
soul, 6–7, 11, 13–14, 24, 42, 51, 54, 61, 64, 68, 69, 84–86, 87, 90, 128, 131, 133, 138–39, 181, 240,
297–98, 301
spirit, 34, 54, 64, 91, 138–39, 301
spiritual traditions, 4, 31, 69, 295
Spiritualists, 3–4, 108
St. Petersburg, 28–29, 35, 89
Staveley, Annie-Lou (1906–1996), 14–15, 43, 119, 272
Steiner, Rudolf (1861–1925), 16
Steward, 278
Stop Exercise, 99, 101, 102–4
The Strange Life of Ivan Osokin, 28–29
von Stuckrad, Kocku, 13–14
subconscious, 150, 151, 177, 205, 254
subjective exercises, 9, 107–8, 188–89, 196, 208, 229, 231
suffering, 66, 71, 129, 171–72, 174, 176, 241. See also intentional suffering
Sufi, 11, 16, 27, 301, 302
sun, sunrise, 57, 59, 66, 86, 87–88, 132, 133, 235, 286.–87, See also Most Holy Sun Absolute
Superman, 37
Switzerland, 35, 40
Umayyad Mosque, 72
Undiscovered Country, 177, 178, 235–36
unio mystica, 12
United States of America, 36, 37–42, 121, 171
unnecessary talking, 65