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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
 Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and
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© Oxford University Press 2020

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CIP data is on file at the Library of Congress

ISBN 978–0–19–006407–5
eISBN 978–0–19–006409–9
To George and Helen Adie, this, my simple homage.
 Contents

Foreword by Professor Carole Cusack

Acknowledgments

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

PART II: GURDJIEFF’S CONTEMPLATIVE EXERCISES

4. The Russian Years
4.1 Introduction
4.2 The Ego Exercise
 4.3 First Relaxation and Sensing Exercises
4.4 The Stop Exercise
4.5 Why Did Gurdjieff Initially Eschew Contemplative Exercises?
4.6 Gurdjieff’s Hesitations About Contemplative Exercises
4.7 Gurdjieff’s Reticence About Exercises
5. Gurdjieff to the Early 1930s
5.1 Introduction
5.2 Orage’s Psychological Exercises
5.3 Orage’s “On Dying Daily”
5.4 The Herald of Coming Good
5.5 Transformed-Contemplation
6. The First Series: Beelzebub’s Tales to his Grandson
6.1 Introduction
6.2 Aiëssirittoorassnian-Contemplation
6.3 The Genuine Being Duty Exercise
7. The Soil Preparing Exercise from the Third Series
7.1 Introduction
7.2 The Talks
7.3 The Soil Preparing Exercise
7.4 Conjectured Sources
8. The First Assisting Exercise from the Third Series
8.1 Introduction
8.2 The First Assisting Exercise
8.3 Subsequent Explanations
9. The Second Assisting Exercise from the Third Series
9.1 Introduction
9.2 The Second Assisting Exercise
9.3 Commentary
9.4 Possible Antecedent in the Philokalia
10. Gurdjieff in the Late 1930s
10.1 Introduction
10.2 An Exercise Concerning Aim and Energy
10.3 “There Are Two Parts to Air”
10.4 Commentary on the Two Parts to Air Exercise
10.5 Hulme on the Exercises
10.6 “Make Strong! Not Easy Thing”
10.7 Commentary on “Make Strong! Not Easy Thing”
10.8 Review: Gurdjieff’s Transformed-Contemplation in 1939
11. Exercises from the Transcripts of 1941–1946
11.1 Introduction
11.2 Relaxation Exercises
11.3 A Simple Sensing Exercise
11.4 Exercises for the Body
11.5 Exercises for Three Centers
11.6 The Atmosphere Exercise
11.7 “I Am” Exercises
 11.8 The Filling Up Exercise
11.9 The Web Exercise
11.10 An Exercise of “I Am,” Breathing, and External Considering
11.11 An Exercise for Active Reasoning
11.12 Aim and Decision
11.13 Counting Exercises: Improving on Orage
11.14 Miscellaneous Exercises and Allusions

PART III: EXERCISES FROM GURDJIEFF’S PUPILS

12. The Reality of Being
12.1 Introduction
12.2 The Reality of Being
12.3 An Exercise for Feeling
12.4 The “I, Me” Exercise
12.5 Continuity and Discontinuity
13. The Four Ideals Exercise
13.1 Introduction
13.2 The Four Ideals Exercise
13.3 Commentary on the Four Ideals Exercise
13.4 Development of the Exercise
14. The “Lord Have Mercy” Exercises
14.1 Introduction
14.2 “Lord Have Mercy” in The Reality of Being
14.3 The “Lord Have Mercy” Exercises
14.4 Commentary on the “Lord Have Mercy” Exercise
14.5 Helen Adie’s Version
14.6 “Lord Have Mercy” and Gurdjieff’s Sources
15. The Color Spectrum Exercise
15.1 Introduction
15.2 Gurdjieff on Color in Life Is Real
15.3 The Color Spectrum Exercise
15.4 Commentary on the Color Spectrum Exercise
16. The Clear Impressions Exercise
16.1 Introduction
16.2 The Clear Impressions Exercise
16.3 Commentary on the Clear Impressions Exercise
17. The Preparation
17.1 Introduction
17.2 A Preparation by Helen Adie
17.3 Commentary on the Preparation by Helen Adie
17.4 A Preparation by George Adie
17.5 Commentary on the Preparation by George Adie
17.6 The Purpose of the Preparation
17.7 The Details of the Preparation: Time and Posture
17.8 Willpower and Transformation
18. Gurdjieff’s Last Exercises
 18.1 Introduction
18.2 The Last Exercise Given to Claustres
18.3 The Last Exercise Given to the Adies
18.4 The Form and Purpose of Gurdjieff’s Contemplative Exercises
18.5 Gurdjieff’s Sources for His Contemplative Exercises
18.6 Gurdjieff and Transformed-Contemplation

Bibliography
Index
 Foreword

The life of George Ivanovitch Gurdjieff (c.1866–1949) until his emergence as a teacher in Moscow and St.
Petersburg in 1912 is shrouded in obscurity, and his semi-fictionalized memoir Meetings with Remarkable Men,
while intriguing and suggestive of possible real-life journeys and potentially identifiable sources for his teachings,
remains inconclusive.1 From approximately 1914 his activities and associates were chronicled by a range of
journalists and other observers, not necessarily unbiasedly, providing a rich public source of corroborative evidence
up until his death in 1949. In his life Gurdjieff was not the subject of scholarly attention, and the lens of “religion”
was not applied to his practical instruction or his written works. Indeed, one of his pupils, Solange Claustres (1920–
2015), opined that “Gurdjieff’s teaching is not a search for religiosity, but it can be a deepening of reason. . . . There
is no question of ‘for’ or ‘against’ religion in this work.”2 This is compatible with understanding Gurdjieff’s
teaching as a technique for spiritual advancement that might be utilized in a range of contexts, and by people with
varying or no religious beliefs or affiliations. In fact, the terms used to describe Gurdjieff during his life included
“charlatan” and “magician” but in general did not connect him to religion, and more recent designators like
“spiritual teacher” and “Western esotericist” had not yet come into vogue. It is therefore not surprising that the
academic study of Gurdjieff has emerged only recently, and that it is situated in a range of disciplines including
religious studies, psychology, and Western esotericism, reflecting both the protean quality of the Work or the Fourth
Way, and the conflicting and contested ways that Gurdjieff himself has been portrayed.
The earliest writings about Gurdjieff, as noted above, were by critical journalists, and these were supplemented
by a body of early “devotional” literature authored by close pupils. These works included expositions of Gurdjieff’s
ideas such as P. D. Ouspensky’s In Search of the Miraculous (1949) and C. S. Nott’s Teachings of Gurdjieff: A
Pupil’s Journal (1961), and more personal, literary accounts of encounters with the master and of personal spiritual
growth, like Margaret Anderson’s The Unknowable Gurdjieff (1962) and Kathryn Hulme’s Undiscovered Country
(1966). With the exception of The Herald of Coming Good (1933), which was later recalled, Gurdjieff’s own Three
Series were published posthumously. Many other sources exist: pupil notes from lectures public and private, both
from Gurdjieff himself and from authoritative pupils in a range of teaching lineages; choreographies of Movements;
scores of the music he wrote with his pupil, the Ukrainian composer Thomas de Hartmann (1885–1956); and written
outlines of the “exercises” that are the subject of Joseph Azize’s astonishing research in Gurdjieff: Mysticism,
Contemplation, and Exercises. In the twenty-first century the restricted and initiatory nature of the Work as a
directly transmitted teaching from teacher to pupil via the Gurdjieff Foundation in London, New York, Paris, and
Caracas, which was led by Jeanne de Salzmann (1889–1990), Gurdjieff’s nominated successor, is in decline.
Alternative lineages led by important pupils including John Godolphin Bennett (1897–1974), Maurice Nicoll (1884–
1953), and Annie-Lou Staveley (1906–1996), to name only a few, have proliferated and challenged the master
narrative of the Foundation, and in the past three decades a steady stream of memoirs, collections of lectures, and
other books about or influenced by Gurdjieff have been published. Interestingly, many of these are by Foundation or
former Foundation members with access to significant private archives.3
Since the 1960s the dominant Christian religion of the Western world has been in retreat, and a deregulated
religious and spiritual marketplace has provided a range of alternatives for seekers. Gurdjieff; Helena Petrovna
Blavatsky (1831–1891), co-founder of Theosophy; and his near-contemporary Rudolf Steiner (1861–1925), the
founder of Anthroposophy, have been cast as founding figures of the so-called New Age. Gurdjieff’s Meetings with
Remarkable Men and Ouspensky’s In Search of the Miraculous became minor esoteric bestsellers, and in 1979
Madame de Salzmann and the celebrated theater and film director Peter Brook made a film of Meetings with
Remarkable Men that has become a cult classic among film buffs and also served to introduce Gurdjieff to a new
audience.4 This gradual but growing presence of the Fourth Way in the public sphere was accelerated by the
development of the internet; in 2019 it is thirty years since the debut of Tim Berners-Lee’s World Wide Web
interface, which effectively made cyberspace a medium for expression and communication among those who were
not computer scientists. In the first three decades of the Web, sites related to Gurdjieff have proliferated. These
include the curated, non-interactive Gurdjieff International Review site; William Patrick Patterson’s Gurdjieff
Legacy Foundation site, which hosts his Online Fourth Way School; and the interactive Gurdjieff Internet Guide,
founded by Reijo Oksanen in 2002. Other online services, such as YouTube, provide a range of Work content,
including film footage of Movements and recordings of the Gurdjieff–de Hartmann music, which has gained a
considerable following outside Fourth Way circles due to Keith Jarrett’s recording, G. I. Gurdjieff: Sacred Hymns,
released in 1980.5
The beginnings of the academic study of Gurdjieff were visible in the 1990s, with publication of some insider-
oriented volumes with mainstream scholarly publishers. For example, Jacob Needleman and George Baker’s
Gurdjieff: Essays and Reflections on the Man and his Teaching (1998), put out by Continuum, was a translation of
Bruno de Panafieu’s edited collection issued in French as Georges Ivanovitch Gurdjieff in 1994. Harry T. Hunt, who
had completed a doctorate on Gurdjieff, published a monograph, Lives in Spirit: Precursors and Dilemmas of a
Secular Western Mysticism (2003) with the State University of New York Press in a series on Transpersonal
Psychology. This had one chapter on Gurdjieff but was important because it brought Gurdjieff’s life and teachings
into conversation with those of other figures who could usefully be compared to him. The methodology included
phenomenology; object relations theory, which is associated with A. H. Almaas (b. A. Hameed Ali, 1944); and the
sociology of Max Weber (1864–1920) and Ernst Troeltsch (1865–1923), whose phrase “the secret religion of the
educated classes” Hunt applied to the “inner worldly mysticism” that he studies.6 Hunt’s genealogy of “secular
Western mysticism” included figures who are relevant to the present study, such as Epictetus, Plotinus, and various
Gnostics, and in the modern era a mix of philosophers (Friedrich Nietzsche and Martin Heidegger), psychoanalysts
(Carl Jung and Sigmund Freud), Transcendentalists (Henry David Thoreau and Walt Whitman), magic practitioners
(Aleister Crowley), and feminist movements with roots in Theosophy. This location of Gurdjieff’s teachings in the
field of psychology continued in Mohammad H. Tamdgidi’s Gurdjieff and Hypnosis: A Hermeneutic Study (2009)
with a foreword by J. Walter Driscoll, a Gurdjieff insider. Tamdgidi’s eccentric study was published by Palgrave
Macmillan and is primarily a textual analysis of Gurdjieff’s writings using hypnosis as a lens through which to
understand Gurdjieff’s assertion that humans are asleep and need to wake up in order to become real and to acquire
the possibility of life after death through growing a soul.7
The development of the academic field of (Western) Esotericism is temporally linked to this emergence of
scholarly studies of Gurdjieff. Antoine Faivre’s Access to Western Esotericism (1994) was published by the State
University of New York Press and provided a framework that generated a (relatively) consistently demarcated field
that unified disparate tendencies in the work of scholars like Edward A. Tiryakian, Marcello Truzzi, Mircea Eliade,
Colin Campbell, and Patricia A. Hartman from the 1970s. Since 2000 publications that apply methodologies from
both Religious Studies and Western Esotericism to Gurdjieff have gained ground. The emphasis has shifted from
insider-oriented work, though much fine research of that type has been done, in particular by James Moore (1929–
2017), to outsider-oriented work such as that pioneered by James Webb (1946–1980). A group of scholars working
in Australia formed, largely because of the presence of Joseph Azize, a researcher in Ancient Near Eastern religion
and culture, who assisted several younger scholars.8 Through his cooperation with my initiatives, utilizing our
international links with academics both inside and outside the Work in Europe and America, collaborations (mostly
in the form of themed journal special issues dedicated to aspects of Gurdjieff’s life and teachings) have resulted
since.9 The most substantial outcome is Johanna Petsche’s monograph Gurdjieff and Music: The Gurdjieff/de
Hartmann Piano Music and its Esoteric Significance (2015), which was published by Brill and has been well
received.
This historical sketch of writing, reading, researching, practicing, and publishing about or as part of the Gurdjieff
tradition establishes the context for Gurdjieff: Mysticism, Contemplation, and Exercises, a book that makes a major
contribution to scholarship in a number of areas. It has been commonplace to claim various “origins” or “sources” of
Gurdjieff’s teachings over the years: In his lectures he often spoke of Christianity, Sufism, Buddhism, Hinduism,
and various other religious and initiatory traditions, and sundry pupils became focused on seeking the mysterious
Sarmoung Brotherhood that featured in Meetings with Remarkable Men, most notably Bennett, who was convinced
that the Work originated in Sufism. This view has been promoted in two monographs, Anna T. Challenger’s
Philosophy and Art in Gurdjieff’s “Beelzebub”: A Modern Sufi Odyssey (2002) and Michael S. Pittman’s Classical
Spirituality in Contemporary America: The Confluence and Contribution of G. I. Gurdjieff and Sufism (2013).Yet
on more than one occasion Gurdjieff described his teaching as “esoteric Christianity” and his own upbringing was as
a member of the Orthodox Church. During his residence in and near Paris from 1922 to 1949 he often attended the
St. Alexandre Nevsky Russian Orthodox Cathedral at 12 Rue Daru, and his funeral service was conducted there.
Joseph Azize’s argument that the inner exercises that Gurdjieff termed “Transformed-contemplation” or
“Aiëssirittoorassnian-contemplation” were likely derived from Hesychasm, a contemplative practice in the Orthodox
tradition, and specifically from the monastery of Mount Athos in Greece, goes farther than earlier, very general,
attributions. Azize can better support his contention for three reasons: his extensive research into Eastern
Christianity; his deep knowledge and long-term engagement with Gurdjieff’s spiritual exercises; and unique access
to Gurdjieff pupils, archives, and texts that enable a more detailed and genuinely open analysis of the exercises,
which to date many have believed should be kept secret. Azize thus can situate Gurdjieff in the tradition of the
mystical use of the Prayer of the Heart and its great Orthodox Christian commentators and exegetes, most notably
Nicephorus the Solitary, without making a blanket claim that Gurdjieff was a Christian teacher or limiting the Work
to be interpreted via the lens of Christianity, as in real terms crucial elements of the faith were not present (for
example, the salvific Jesus, sacraments, and the Bible) in Gurdjieff’s system.10
Situating Gurdjieff in the context of the history of mysticism creates space for discussion of the exercises that
have been neglected to date for a range of reasons, chiefly the perception among Gurdjieff groups of all types and
lineages that the exercises were secret, and the fact that they have almost entirely been discontinued among
Foundation members.11 Gurdjieff: Mysticism, Contemplation, and Exercises makes valuable contributions to a
number of areas in Gurdjieff studies. For example, Azize is able to shed light on the relationships that two
distinguished literary pupils, Ouspensky and Alfred R. Orage, had with Gurdjieff and to clarify the reasons for
Gurdjieff’s interest in highly capable writers. The first account of the Work was published by Ouspensky, and Orage
was key to the 1931 edition of Beelzebub’s Tales to his Grandson, which has only recently been published by editor
Robin Bloor.12 Azize also builds new knowledge about how and why Gurdjieff taught in certain ways in different
periods of his life; rather than accepting the “insider” idea that Gurdjieff’s teaching sprang fully formed from him, as
did Athena from the head of Zeus, he demonstrates that the early teaching in Russia and the Caucasus was
characterized by the exposition of an elaborate cosmology and the use of physical techniques like the Movements
and the “Stop Exercise,” while the 1920s was characterized by intense work on music with Thomas de Hartmann
and the writing of Beelzebub’s Tales, whereas in his last two years Gurdjieff recorded a range of harmonium
improvisations. The rise to prominence of the contemplative exercises, Azize avers, was around 1930.
Gurdjieff disliked the term “meditation,” and his concept of contemplation differed from traditional
understandings in that he rejected the distinction between the active and the inactive (contemplative) life. The
exercises were to be practiced in the context of everyday life, and Azize’s exposition is especially valuable as to the
untrained eye they often appear to be so similar that disentangling the exact purpose of each exercise requires
extensive knowledge of their specific functions. Azize considers a range of “Transformed-contemplation” exercises,
identifying Gurdjieff’s Third Series, Life is Real Only Then, When “I Am” (1975), as the crucial text, along with the
lecture transcripts from 1941 to 1946, for tracing exercises to Gurdjieff himself. In this category are included the
Soil Preparing Exercise, the First and Second Assisting Exercises, the Atmosphere Exercise, and the Filling Up
Exercise, among others. The book also treats exercises that are preserved in the writings of key pupils; de
Salzmann’s The Reality of Being (2010) is especially interesting, as its publication twenty years after her death
effectively meant the Foundation made public much previously hidden material, though it is clear that the editing of
that book renders the dating and context of all of the information opaque. Those exercises that de Salzmann alludes
to are quite distant from Gurdjieff’s own, given her alteration of the tradition through the introduction of zazen-style
“sittings” and the abandonment of the effortful exercises (“self-remembering”) in favor of passivity (“being
remembered”).13 Versions of exercises preserved by different pupils are compared; both de Salzmann and Helen
Adie had versions of the “Lord Have Mercy” Exercise, and George Adie’s version of the Four Ideals Exercise is
carefully compared to truncated renderings preserved in writings by Bennett (“Conscious Stealing”), Frank Sinclair,
and others.14
The theological implications of Gurdjieff’s Transformed-contemplation are spelled out in Gurdjieff: Mysticism,
Contemplation, and Exercises. The Four Ideals Exercise suggests that Gurdjieff taught that the spiritual ideals
(Christ, Buddha, Muhammad, and Lama) actually exist. Azize relates the use of the phrase “Lord have mercy” both
in Movements and the eponymous exercise to Gurdjieff’s knowledge of the Athonite tradition, and his assertion that
the Orthodox liturgy preserved knowledge of the Ray of Creation, which Ouspensky noted.15 The Law of Three,
expressed in terms of the Affirming, Denying, and Reconciling forces, operates in the exercises, as for example in
the nameless exercise taught by George Adie that Azize dubs the Clear Impressions Exercise, in which the exercitant
first is active through looking, then passive through closing eyes, and then harmonized in a plan for the day. The
chief quality that individuals and groups bring to spiritual work is attention, which must be active in thought,
feeling, and sensation. In an exercise like the Preparation, these three are raised to consciousness, assisting in the
development of willpower. The last exercise that Gurdjieff gave to George and Helen Adie was a version of the “I
Am” Exercise, which Azize connects to the Jesus Prayer and Hesychasm. The basic intention of Gurdjieff’s inner
Work seems to be that through practice the individual will develop a “real I” that is awake, conscious, and in
possession of a soul. For this reason Gurdjieff was wary of meditation, trance, and also (though he was a skilled
hypnotist) hypnotism, all of which occluded consciousness. Joseph Azize’s book represents an invaluable
contribution to the scholarly study of Gurdjieff, in part through demonstrating that he changed his approach and
developed his teachings over time. It is also a major advance in filling lacunae in our knowledge of Western esoteric
teachings and currents in the first half of the twentieth century, and is a significant reconsideration of the links
between such systems, for example Gurdjieff’s, or indeed Steiner’s, and Christianity.
Carole M. Cusack
Professor of Religious Studies
University of Sydney
March 22, 2019

1 Gurdjieff (1963) passim.

2 Claustres (2005) 136.
3 These works include Roger Lipsey’s Gurdjieff Reconsidered: The Life, the Teachings, the Legacy (2019), Jeanne de Salzmann’s The Reality of
Being: The Fourth Way of Gurdjieff (2010), and Frank Sinclair’s Without Benefit of Clergy (2005). Additionally, a large number of books have been
written by Paul Beekman Taylor, whose half-sister Eve (Petey) was one of Gurdjieff’s children, including a biographical study titled G. I. Gurdjieff: A New
Life (2008) and two moving studies of Gurdjieff’s relationship with two key pupils who were themselves celebrated literary men, Gurdjieff and Orage:
Brothers in Elysium (2001) and Shadows of Heaven: Gurdjieff and Toomer (1998).
4 Cusack (2011) 93–97.
5 Petsche (2015) 10.
6 Hunt (2003) 65–71.
7 Gurdjieff (1950) 569.
8 The foremost Australian Gurdjieff scholar is Joseph Azize, who assisted David Pecotic and mentored Johanna Petsche during their Ph.D.
candidatures at the University of Sydney, where they were enrolled in Studies in Religion and supervised by Carole M. Cusack, who developed an interest
in the Work as a result of these associations. Azize and Pecotic began publishing on the Fourth Way in the first decade after 2000, with Petsche and Cusack
contributing from the start of the second.
9 The first of these was a collection of four chapters in a book edited by Cusack and Alex Norman in 2012 by Azize, Pecotic, and Petsche with the
additional contribution by Anthony Blake, a pupil of Bennett and an innovative and productive Work teacher himself, based in the United Kingdom. Since
then special issues of Journal for the Academic Study of Religion (2014), International Journal for the Study of New Religions (2015), Fieldwork in
Religion (2016), and Religion and the Arts (2017) have appeared, with additional contributions by Steven J. Sutcliffe, Vrasidas Karalis, Michael Pittman,
David Seamon, David G. Robertson, Ricki O’Rawe, John Willmett, and Catharine Christof. Two further issues are planned for Correspondences: Journal
for the Study of Esotericism (2020) and Aries: Journal for the Study of Western Esotericism (2021), with a further scholar, Christian Giudice, joining the
now-established group (totaling fourteen scholars from Europe, America, and Australia).
10 Azize has discussed aspects of the Work that point to affinities, if not identity, with Christianity, such as fasting. Azize (2014) 299–300.
11 Moore (1994) 11–16.
12 Gurdjieff (1931) passim.
13 Wellbeloved (2003) 154.
14 Azize (2013) 183.
15 Ouspensky (1949) 132.
 Acknowledgments

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

0.1 Aim and Thesis

The aim of this book is to study and make better known, in as clear and precise a format as possible, Gurdjieff’s
internal exercises. He coined for them the phrases “Aiëssirittoorassnian-contemplation” and “Transformed-
contemplation,” although we could say “contemplation-like exercises.”1 It also offers a thesis about Gurdjieff’s
sources for these exercises and his philosophy and purpose in fashioning them. That study grounds a reevaluation of
Gurdjieff and his system and revisits aspects of his relationship with P. D. Ouspensky and A. R. Orage.
This research is undertaken in the hope that it will prove to be of interest not only to students of Gurdjieff’s
system, but also to students of meditation and contemplation, and to scholars of modern culture, and of Western
Esotericism in particular. Since it is suggested that Gurdjieff’s internal exercises were probably adapted from the
hesychast Christian Orthodox traditions of Mount Athos, and especially from the techniques of the Prayer of the
Heart (most notably as found in the writings of Nicephorus the Solitary), it may also be of interest to scholars of
Hesychasm and the Christian contemplative traditions, who may begin to see Gurdjieff from a new perspective, and
perhaps benefit from some of his ideas.
Gurdjieff’s system is in many respects compatible with Christianity; indeed, Gurdjieff said that his system could
be taken as “esoteric Christianity.”2 Notwithstanding this, Gurdjieff also insisted on the value of non-Christian
traditions, stating that Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, and what he called “Lamaism” (thereby distinguishing it from
Buddhism) had been founded by “genuine Sacred Individuals sent . . . from Above.”3 Had he been asked how his
system related to these, he might have described it as “esoteric Islam,” “esoteric Buddhism,” or even “esoteric
Lamaism.” Apparently cutting across this division, he made a short enigmatic comment to Ouspensky in 1915 that
“schools” had been divided up “long ago” so that there were only schools of “philosophy” in India, of “theory” in
Egypt, and of “practice” in Mesopotamia and Turkestan (for Ouspensky, see Section 1.3).4
Later on, Gurdjieff taught that there were four chief lines of “understanding”: the Hebraic, Egyptian, Persian,
and Hindu. Of these, he stated parts of Hebraic, Egyptian, and Persian theory were then known, together with Hindu
philosophy. From these “fundamental lines,” two “mixed” lines, bearing “grains” of truth insufficient to give
“practical realization,” were known: “theosophy and so-called Western occultism.”5 Further, Gurdjieff had warned
that “professional occultism,” by which he meant “spiritualists, healers and clairvoyants,” were “professional
charlatans” and their activities were absolutely inimical to effective internal development.6
Gurdjieff therefore claimed to be speaking from a perspective that allowed him to judge the value of all
religions, philosophies, and spiritual paths. Gurdjieff notably availed himself of dervish culture, especially in his
Sacred Dances and Movements, and allowed that there was genuine knowledge in alchemy, astrology, the Tarot, and
ancient folk traditions, if they were understood correctly.7 At the same time, Gurdjieff not infrequently pointed to
what he said were gaps in these teachings, but added that his system supplemented and corrected them; for instance,
while stating that alchemists, fakirs, and monks had some understanding of the necessary path of spiritual
development, he averred that they left out or did not know of “self-remembering,” the vital preparatory step.8
Solange Claustres (1920–2015), his pupil from 1941 until his death in 1949, stated: “Gurdjieff’s teaching is not a
search for religiosity, but it can be a deepening of reason. . . . There is no question of ‘for’ or ‘against’ religion in
this work.”9 On this view, if one understands Gurdjieff’s ideas, one can better discern what is valuable in any
religion or tradition, and what is not. This accords with Gurdjieff’s idea of the Four Ways (see Section 2.1), his
individual survey and evaluation of the traditions. Gurdjieff’s comments about religion are often akin to the
approach of Theosophy, where certain religions and spiritual currents, such as Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism,
Islam, Judaism, and Neoplatonism, are accepted as being exoteric husks around an esoteric seed, although the
exoteric circle may be oblivious even of the existence of the esoteric core.10
Although I shall be contending that Gurdjieff’s contemplative methods were adapted from Orthodox traditions,
and became more overtly religious as he grew older, his system cannot be called a Christian system, if only because
the Messiah himself, the sacraments, and the scriptures play no significant role in Gurdjieff’s system.
 Despite having adapted monastic Christian techniques, dervish culture, and other resources, Gurdjieff’s ideas
and practical methods were carefully and consistently integrated and interrelated. Perhaps the best available analogy
is that of language: Gurdjieff’s relationship to older religions and spiritual traditions can be likened to the
relationship between someone who fashions a new, internally consistent language, on the model of already existing
languages. The innovator’s new tongue makes use of found languages, and produces its own more or less distinctive
vocabulary, grammar, and syntax. The former languages are not rendered obsolete, but the practitioner of the new
may believe that it is superior. Gurdjieff himself pointed the way to some such understanding when he spoke of his
“Fourth Way” as combining simultaneously the practical elements found in the three other ways, those of the Fakir,
the Monk, and the Yogi.11 Jane Heap (1887–1964), one of the few pupils whom Gurdjieff had personally authorized
to teach his system, was speaking of both his ideas and his methods when she said: “Gurdjieff left us a great
inviolable body of ideas,”12 thus painting Gurdjieff’s teaching as an organic and distinctive identity.
My aim, then, is to expound the nature and basis of Gurdjieff’s contemplative methods, and to explore his
sources, to the degree that is possible. My view is that Gurdjieff has, to a significant extent, been imperfectly
understood by scholars. For reasons given below, I suggest that Gurdjieff can properly be considered to be a
“mystic” who tried to fashion a workable system without contemplative methods, but later found them necessary
supplements to his practical methods.
It is part of my thesis that Gurdjieff’s method as a whole can be taken as naturally leading to the mystical
dimension of spirituality. A survey of contemporary practitioners of Gurdjieff’s system also leads to the same
conclusion: For example, Parabola, a magazine founded by Dorothea Dooling (a personal pupil of Gurdjieff and
Jeanne de Salzmann), and connected by some personnel if nothing else to the New York Gurdjieff Foundation,
regularly features articles and interviews from and with practitioners of the major religious traditions, but rarely
from Theosophical, occult, or magical circles.13
Some of the terms used in stating this thesis require explanation. With Gurdjieff, the words “mystic,” “God,” and
“serious,” for example, have slightly but not entirely different meanings from those they enjoy elsewhere. One
simple reason is that Gurdjieff integrated his vocabulary into his philosophy, and so words take on corresponding
nuances. Further, Gurdjieff devoted much attention to his beloved “philological question.”14 So substantial is
Gurdjieff’s approach to language that there have been two monographs on that subject alone.15
The word “seriousness” may serve as an example of how Gurdjieff integrated his interest in words into his
system:
[S]eriousness is one of the concepts which can never and under no circumstances be taken conditionally. Only one thing is serious for all people at
all times. . . . If a man could understand all the horror of the lives of ordinary people who are turning around in a circle of insignificant interests
and insignificant aims . . . he would understand that there can be only one thing that is serious for him—to escape from the general law, to be free.
. . . People who are not serious . . . are people who live by fantasies, chiefly by the fantasy that they are able to do something.16

It was probably because Gurdjieff wanted to be understood by those who were “serious” in his sense of the word,
and to discourage those who were not, that he adopted the strategy of mixing clarity and confusion. I suggest that
Gurdjieff attempted to be sufficiently clear for those who were serious to sense that there was something of value in
his teaching, but not so clear that this could be appreciated without some personal effort to penetrate to this meaning.
Those who were merely dilettantes would move on to the next fad, and leave him in peace.

0.2 Formal Definition of the Exercises

The Macquarie Dictionary (2017) defines the noun “exercise” as meaning, inter alia:
1. bodily or mental exertion, especially for the sale of training or improvement.
2. something done or performed as a means of practice or training, to improve a specific skill or to acquire competence in a particular field . . .
3. a putting into action, use, operation or effect . . .

9. a religious observance or act of worship.17

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

That dictionary then goes on to provide definitions such as that found in the Macquarie. All of these definitions
are useful, but that of working to be “in active operation” will appear particularly pertinent to Gurdjieff’s exercises.
The word’s etymology is interesting: It is not controversial that Skeat derives the word from the Latin exercitium,
and that word itself from exercitus, the past participle of exercere, “to drive out of an enclosure, drive on, keep at
work.”19 “To keep at work” would be an appropriate description of “exercise” in Gurdjieff’s sense.
In the course of his career, Gurdjieff taught many exercises of different kinds, some of which I would call
“tasks,” others “disciplines,” and yet others “Transformed-contemplation.” “Exercise” is my umbrella term for
Transformed-contemplation, tasks, and disciplines. When we speak of “Transformed-contemplation,” we mean
those exercises that are:
Internal practices designed to shift the exercitant out of a habitual state, using attention and intention to coordinate and develop their three centers,
i.e. their faculties of mind, feeling and sensory awareness (including awareness of the breath), and sometimes purporting to involve other faculties;
in order to assimilate, transform and coat very fine substances in the exercitant’s body (what Gurdjieff calls “the sacred cosmic substances required
for the coating of the highest-being-body, which sacred being-part of theirs . . . they call soul”).20

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.

0.3 “Subjective” and “Objective” Exercises

Gurdjieff distinguished between “objective” and “subjective” exercises. The brief jottings George Adie (1901–1989;
see Section 13.1) made of his time in Paris with Gurdjieff refer to this distinction, marking the Four Ideals Exercise
as subjective, and noting that at the same time he had been given the “I Am” to say hourly, leading to the inference
that that exercise was an objective one. Elaborating on this distinction, Adie said, in a meeting on June 11, 1980:
As far as exercises are concerned, there are objective exercises and subjective exercises. The objective exercises are ones that affect everybody in
the same way, or could affect everybody in the same way, and everybody may use them. The subjective exercises, as you can see, will be specially
suited to the person according to their requirements at the time, and how much they have understood—the level, as it were, of their understanding.
And that will be measured from time to time.24

Therefore, “subjective” exercises were for specific individuals alone. It would require judgment to decide when to
give the objective exercises, and flair to devise the subjective exercises. In the transcripts of Gurdjieff’s meetings in
the 1940s, the subjective ones seem to have been improvised as the demand presented itself. As we shall see,
Gurdjieff himself refers to some exercises as being for specific individuals only, while others are for the entire
group.

0.4 “Meditation,” “Contemplation,” “Mysticism,” and “Western Esotericism”

Perhaps these words cannot adequately be defined, at least not with cross-cultural validity. However, they can be
described well enough for our purposes. First, let us take the words “contemplation” and “meditation.” In an earlier
study, considering the historical and cultural factors, as well as the etymological, I concluded that the contemporary
word “contemplation” often bears the nuance of a way of life that is more withdrawn than the “active” life.25 In that
study, I concluded that the word “meditation” probably developed “from the notion of measuring out one’s
attention, that is, carefully controlling it . . . [or else from] the care needed when remaining “in the middle,” as it
were, between various possibilities.”26
Perspectives on meditation and contemplation vary to an almost surprising degree depending on the scholar’s
background. For example, in The Cambridge Companion to Christian Mysticism, a chapter on “Meditation” written
by Thomas Bestul, an academic in English literature, devotes more attention to “meditation as a written form” than
to it as a viva voce practice. While Bestul sees that as only one side of meditation, the other being “meditation as a
practice of spiritual exercise,” even his understanding of the practice is intimately related to literary engagement.27
Further, despite the presence of a chapter by Andrew Louth, Hollywood concedes in her introduction that “There is
little attention to the Christian East after the sixth century”28 and that a separate volume is needed for that. But that,
of course, only shows that the book should have been called The Cambridge Companion to Western Christian
Mysticism.
These two points, the width of the concept of “meditation” and the existence of significant mystical traditions in
both Eastern and Western Christianity, again indicate the difficulties awaiting anyone who attempts to produce a
global survey of meditation.
The fact is that Gurdjieff deliberately used the word “contemplation” when coining the phrase
“Aiëssirittoorassnian-contemplation” for the English and French editions of Beelzebub’s Tales. For the German
edition, however, he chose the German word “Betrachtung.” “Betrachtung” has not only the meaning of
“contemplation” but also that of “examination.” The verbal root “betrachten” means “to look at, watch, observe” and
so on. As I observed in an earlier study: “Had Gurdjieff wished to use a term suggestive of trances or altered states
of consciousness, he could have. However, in all three languages, especially perhaps in German, the words suggest
concentrated attention and heightened alertness.”29
Why, then, did he eschew using the word “meditation”? It seems that Gurdjieff usually avoided that word other
than to disparage it; hence, on January 25, 1936, he said to Solita Solano of attempting the exercises he was then
teaching: “But not mind meditating like monk or philosopher.”30 Gurdjieff did not use the term “meditation,”
although it otherwise seems quite suitable for his exercises, because of its associations, first with Christian prayer
and lectio divina;31 second with the Eastern practices that he believed led only to “sleep on a higher level” (see
Section 4.6); and third, with the monks and philosophers of whose example he warned Solita Solano.
I adopt Katz’s definition “mysticism” as “the quest for direct experience of God, Being, or Ultimate Reality,
however these are understood, that is, theistically or non-theistically.” This is similar to many other attempted
definitions32 and includes experiences such as those within Buddhism and diverse analogous systems. Perhaps it will
appear that mysticism can only be described rather than defined, but Katz’s definition is sufficient for my present
purposes. There have been many universal studies of mysticism, and the great spate of scholarship in the field has
led to something of a shift in the understanding of that subject. Katz contends that in the history of the study of
mysticism, there have been two broad models: the “essentialist” and the “contextualist.”33
The essentialist sees mystical experience as a relatively homogenous experience, essentially the same across
boundaries of culture, religion, language, age, gender, social status, and so on. This sort of view was unchallenged
for quite some time. A typical representative was Margaret Smith, who wrote that “mysticism” was to be found all
over the world “in an almost identical form,” so that it could be called “universal, a tendency of the human soul
which is eternal.”34 Even a relatively modern study using methods of biofeedback took the same attitude. Cade and
Coxhead wrote:
The actual basis of the biofeedback principle is very simple: if one is enabled physically to observe in one’s self some biological happening of
which one is not normally aware, for example, the presence of what is called the alpha rhythm in one’s brain waves, then one can be trained to
control that happening. In cases of alpha rhythm, the subject may be trained to produce at will more of the appropriate state of calm, detached
awareness with which it is associated. So one aspect of biofeedback is the training of the individual to control his own states of awareness, just as
one aspect of the Eastern philosophies of yoga, Sufism or Zen is the training of the individual to control his own internal awareness at will, but
without outer technical corroboration. In other words, it might reasonably be said that biofeedback is an instrumental mystic self-control.35

That is, Cade and Coxhead have an essentialist take on “Eastern philosophies,” among which they number Sufism.
The contextualist, however, sees mysticism as a range of experiences, influenced and even determined by
culture, and other social influences. Katz, the chief proponent of this theory, states:
[I]n order to understand mysticism it is not just a question of studying the reports of the mystic after the experiential event but of acknowledging
that the experience itself, as well as the form in which it is reported, is shaped by concepts which the mystic brings to, and which shape his or her
experience. . . . what is being argued is that, for example, the Hindu mystic does not have an experience of x that he or she then describes in the
familiar language and symbols of Hinduism but, rather, has a Hindu experience.36

The distinction between the two schools of thought may be false, or at least overly rigid: Few essentialists would
ever deny that subjective factors had no effect on mystics’ experiences, while even a contextualist might find
something in common between at least some of those experiences, albeit across cultural barriers, and even find an
objective basis for that commonality. Thus, for example, Ewert Cousins, writing in one of Katz’s volumes, states
that “the symbolic method of interpreting scripture is not arbitrary but is based on the very structure of the
psyche.”37
Influential as Katz’s theory has been, it has not always been accepted, and short as this overview is, I suggest
that it goes too far. D’Aquili and Newberg, in their neurobiological study of mysticism, refer to Katz’s thesis, and
state:
The bottom line in understanding the phenomenology of subjective religious experience is to understand that every religious experience involves a
sense of the unity of reality at least somewhat greater than the baseline perception of unity in day-to-day life.38

It is significant that researchers in the biological and medical sciences consider that there are, objectively, different
states of consciousness, which can be changed by the use of the exercitant’s attention alone. Cade and Coxhead, who
knew of Ouspensky’s advice to be aware of oneself while gazing at a watch-face, concluded that if one
“conscientiously: tried to be aware of one’s “sensory input,” as Ouspensky had suggested, then:
you will experience what amounts to a new altered state of consciousness—the state of generalized hyperesthesia, or mind expansion without
drugs—and however successful or unsuccessful you were in focusing all the stimuli, provided that you made a really honest effort, you will realize
why Ouspensky said, “Man is asleep; for compared to what we are capable of, our normal waking state is more like sleep-walking.”39
An approach based on organic phenomena occurring in the body of the practitioner should, in theory, make it
possible to study all systems, as d’Aquili and Newberg assert.40 They define a “state” of “Absolute Unitary Being,”
or “AUB,” by reference to either “blissful positive effect . . . usually interpreted as the unio mystica, or the
experience of God,” or a “neutral or tranquil effect” that the exercitant understands impersonally “as the void or
Nirvana of Buddhism, or as the Absolute of various philosophic systems.”41
The great danger of their model, the essentialist, is that it may fashion the very object it purports to study, and
prove its assumptions by removing from consideration any phenomena that do not correspond to those assumptions.
Physical and biological characteristics can be defined, but there may be more than one cause for a particular
characteristic. Psychological states are harder to pin down, especially across linguistic and cultural boundaries.
Biology apart, how does the researcher decide who is to be considered a mystic, and who is not? As even
d’Aquili and Newberg state, the interpretations of the states experienced can be quite different. But if the
interpretation is bracketed, as it were, then how do we know which states are being compared? Many people who
claimed to have had apparitions and visions of divine figures, but yet are not considered to be mystics. It seems that
unless the visionary has not articulated a certain spirituality or theology, then that visionary rarely elicits the interest
of students of mysticism. Lamm refers to “religious elitism,” and notes that there are good reasons to think that far
more people have had mystical experiences than we know of.42
The contextualist model is not without its dangers, too: If “mysticism” is so very various, on what basis do we
use the one word for it? At a deeper level, perhaps, it is not to the point that “mystical” experiences are conditioned
by the mystic’s culture. That may be so, and yet the essentialist model still be accurate, for the mystics may be
having similar experiences that are influenced and interpreted by reference to their diverse cultures, yet possess an
objective and common basis. The same is true of all perception: It is always influenced and interpreted by one’s
culture. It does not mean that there is nothing “universal,” let alone objective and common, in the perceptions. This
is Pike’s critique of Katz’s critique of Stace, and it is a view that, as we shall see, Gurdjieff would most certainly
have shared.43
Besides, from a purely logical point of view, does it matter if a Hindu mystic has a “Hindu experience” and a
Christian mystic a “Christian experience” and so on, if Hinduism and Christianity themselves are diverse exoteric
expressions of identical esoteric reality? Here, we only need to be aware of this debate, as we shall return to it and
Gurdjieff’s view, a view that is far more consistent with the essentialist, in Section 3.2.
“Western Esotericism,” one of the streams in which I place Gurdjieff, has been “somewhat crudely” defined by
Bogdan as:
a Western form of spirituality that stresses the importance of the individual effort to gain spiritual knowledge, or gnosis, whereby man is
confronted with the divine aspect of existence. Furthermore, there is usually a strong holistic trait in esotericism where the godhead is considered
manifest in the natural world—a world interconnected by so-called correspondences. Man is seen as a microcosm of the macrocosm, the divine
universe. Through increased knowledge of the individual self, it is often regarded as possible to achieve corresponding knowledge about nature,
and thereby about God.44

This definition, streamlining the views of scholars such as Faivre,45 is more serviceable than, for instance, van
Egmond’s definition of esoteric schools as enabling transformation and guidance from one’s “soul,” “higher self,” or
“holy guardian angel,”46 which is not, in my view, incorrect so much as it is limited. We shall see that Gurdjieff’s
teaching accords well with Bogdan’s description. It sometimes seems that each scholar in the field has his or her
own definitions. David Katz, for example, is loath to draw distinctions between terms such as “occult” and
“esotericism”47 and sees Gurdjieff as an occultist whose “movement successfully made the transition to what would
become New Age religion.”48 Hanegraaff, on the other hand, sees occultism as a subset of esotericism and mentions
Gurdjieff only tangentially in his study of the New Age, esotericism, and the occult in Western culture.49 Another
approach is taken by von Stuckrad, who prefers to speak of “the esoteric” rather than of “esotericism,” seeing “the
esoteric” as an “element of discourse,” avoiding the term “occult,” and not mentioning Gurdjieff at all in his short
book, but granting Blavatsky an eminent position.50 Magee simply sees Gurdjieff as “arguably the most influential
esoteric teacher of the twentieth century.”51
To my mind, the hardest term to pin down in the definition may well be “Western,” but I think that what is
important here is that, within this historically conditioned definition, the word “Western” serves the purpose of
highlighting the disillusionment with both the (Western) Enlightenment program and the dominant (Western)
Christian churches, which seems to me to be a regular feature of the confluence of currents called “Western
Esotericism.”52
 So, questions of definition and categorization are difficult and complex: certainly too complex to fully deal with
here. Also, the very point of this monograph is to present an aspect of Gurdjieff that has been little known and often
unacknowledged. The result of this study may well be that it alters scholars’ view of Gurdjieff, and the extent to
which he resembles a magician more than a mystic.

0.5 Preliminary Questions

Some preliminary questions arise. The first question, which often puzzles even those in the Gurdjieff groups who
approach these exercises, is this: Which exercises came from Gurdjieff himself? In this volume, I state reasons for
considering the various exercises to be authentically from Gurdjieff, or, in a very few cases, either uncertain or
clearly not authentic. In Section 13.1, I state why the exercises George Adie taught can be attributed to Gurdjieff
with some degree of confidence.
Related to this question of source is that of the variety of forms in which the exercises are found today in the
Gurdjieff groups. One might wonder why Gurdjieff would fashion various exercises that were so similar, but the
inescapable conclusion is that this was intentional on Gurdjieff’s part. The exercises often seem to fall into
variations on a theme, showing the extent to which they were an artistic form of teaching. He told Annie-Lou
Staveley (1906–1996) that when he taught them any exercise, he gave them a skeleton, and it was for them to place
flesh on it.53 That is, Gurdjieff provided a paradigm that then had to be applied or renewed, as it were, each time the
exercises were attempted. Solange Claustres explained her understanding of the principle this way: “I never took
refuge in an exercise; I understood the principle of it without knowing it consciously. It happened naturally in me,
through a life instinct.”54
The apparent improvisation of exercises, so apparent in Chapter 11 where we see them given in the course of
group meetings in Paris between 1941 and 1946, relates to this. The “fleshing out” would take place extempore, in
the presence of an immediate demand. It may even be that they were ideally fleshed out in such circumstances.
The challenge when improvising was only augmented by Gurdjieff’s instruction that the exercises were always
to be given and to be worked at precisely, never “approximately.” As Gurdjieff said in an undated transcript: “One
must work precisely on something precise. Work should not be a desire, but a need, a need.”55 There is no
contradiction between the requirement to be exact in practicing exercises from an internalized skeleton rather than
from a text. One might have to use artistic freedom in deciding what was to be taught or done, but it was a freedom
to search for the exact demand. It might even be better to avoid speaking of this freedom as “artistic,” and to coin
the less colorful phrase “athletic freedom,” for athletes must continually and soberly adapt their regimen by
reference to principles and to exigencies.
Not the least interesting controversy, although to date it has tended to be held only within the Gurdjieff tradition,
is why Gurdjieff taught an elaborate system of ideas, particularly well known from Ouspensky’s In Search of the
Miraculous, but in later years seems to have abandoned it. One solution is to say that Gurdjieff worked with
Ouspensky on ideas simply because of Ouspensky’s intellectual abilities, just as he worked with the talented
composer Thomas de Hartmann on music. However, it is not so simple. Gurdjieff had commenced teaching the
ideas before Ouspensky joined him. Also, Ouspensky was not the only highly intelligent person to whom the ideas
were taught, and what we see in Gurdjieff’s later years was, in the eyes of many, not merely a downplaying but
practically a negligence of the system he had once taught.56
My conjecture is that Gurdjieff’s initial intention was not to use these inner exercises, certainly not in secluded
conditions. That is, he wanted people to learn his ideas, and to strive to observe and remember themselves
exclusively in the social domain of life, without using the affirmations and techniques concerning breathing,
representation, and the movement of energies he eventually taught. If that was his original perspective, it changed.
Perhaps bringing people to the higher states of self-awareness he pointed to was not so easy using only the ideas
and corresponding instructions: In other words, it was just too hard to awaken people in the social domain. It was
found necessary to first arouse oneself in a special state on arising and then, when one had a taste of it, to bring that
experience to the day. He also feared, I believe, using techniques of self-suggestion, which he regarded as akin to
hypnotism and hence dangerous, a risk he explicitly referred to and acknowledged himself to be taking (see Section
8.1).
These considerations could explain Gurdjieff’s experimenting with different methods. He introduced the Sacred
Dances and Movements, making them a major feature of his system from no earlier than 1917.57 He prepared a very
large body of music with de Hartmann, which he worked on intensely only between the years of 1925 and 1927,58
and recorded many of his improvisations on the harmonium during the years 1948 and 1949.59 But from about 1930,
he gradually introduced and gave more and more importance to Transformed-contemplation. He found detailed use
of the ideas less helpful than he had anticipated. It may also be that he was disappointed Ouspensky had not
produced the promised introduction to them (see Section 1.3).
Studying how Gurdjieff continues and develops the traditions he found, we approach the question of the
“lineage,” as it were, of his system. As indicated above, it seems to me that those in the Gurdjieff groups tend to see
Gurdjieff as following in the tradition of Christian mystics such as Meister Eckhart, of certain Sufis (although there
is quite some diversity, even within Islam, in “Sufism”), and of Buddhist and Hindu sages. Adie specified, as
specially relevant: “the Hindu, the Zen, Sufi and Christian teachings.”60 Kenneth Walker, a personal pupil of
Gurdjieff, compared him to both Ammonius Saccas and Plotinus, the master and the pupil.61 Academics, however,
often place Gurdjieff on a horizon with Blavatsky and Steiner, and even see him as a bricoleur.62 In my view, if we
exclude from consideration the magical tradition, let alone the “magick” of Crowley and his ilk, each perspective
has some elements of the truth. I return to this in Chapter 18, after we have examined the nature of Gurdjieff’s
internal exercises, for until we accurately know what Gurdjieff taught, we cannot accurately place him.
One subsidiary result of the writing of this book will be the preservation of some of the exercises dealt with here,
especially the Four Ideals, the Clear Impressions, and the Color Spectrum Exercises. Even the Preparation, the
quondam basis of Gurdjieff’s practical system, is known in very different ways throughout the Gurdjieff world.
While the idea of an oral esoteric tradition is appealing to some, the reality is that the exercises of Gurdjieff that
have not been forgotten are those that have been published. The unpublished exercises have effectively disappeared,
even from the subculture of the Gurdjieff groups.
This book, therefore, preserves for the Gurdjieff tradition, too, some exercises that would be otherwise lost. By
considering the basis of Gurdjieff’s exercises, it may facilitate a reappraisal of their value. Gurdjieff was not
speaking of pushups when he said: “Exercises, exercises, thousands and thousands of times. Only this will bring
results.”63
I deal only with those Gurdjieff exercises that have been published, together with the exercises taught by George
and Helen Adie. Some other exercises are attributed to him, but of those known to me, the evidence is tenuous, and
not vouched for by anyone who personally studied with Gurdjieff.

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.

When referring to Gurdjieff’s books, I would prefer to speak of the First, Second, and Third Series for those
three volumes he prepared for publication, although none were published in his lifetime. However, they were
published under the rather longer and clumsier, albeit more colorful, titles Beelzebub’s Tales to His Grandson,
Meetings with Remarkable Men, and Life Is Real Only Then, When “I Am.”

Notes
1. Gurdjieff spoke of “Transformed-contemplation” in Gurdjieff (1933) 32.
 2. Ouspensky (1949) 102.
3. Gurdjieff (1950) 699. Orage wrote: “Tibetanism is not a form of Buddhism, but the religion of St Lama who lived. . . . It is little known to us.”
Orage (2013) 285.
4. Ouspensky (1949) 15.
5. Ouspensky (1949) 285–286.
6. Ouspensky (1949) 243–244.
7. Ouspensky (1949) 15, 20, 35, 193, 283, and 366–367.
8. Ouspensky (1949) 193.
9. Claustres (2005) 136.
10. Blavatsky (1910) 1–2, 31–32, and especially 40: “[Theosophy] is the essence of all religion and of absolute truth, a drop of which underlies every
creed.” See also Blavatsky (1877) 613. For Gurdjieff, see Tchechovitch (2006) 45–46.
11. Ouspensky (1949) 44–51.
12. Heap (1983) 95.
13. The author checked the accuracy of his first draft on this point with Jeff Zaleski, the editor of Parabola, who broadly approved that draft, but
suggested three improvements. Those improvements have been made. (Email correspondence of June 17, 2017.)
14. Anonymous (2012) 101. Incidentally, Ouspensky shared this interest with Gurdjieff. George Adie, who knew both men, told me that Ouspensky
had the complete Oxford English Dictionary and spent his last weeks immersed in it.
15. The most important of these is Taylor (2014). There is a rather more obscure effort by Bonnasse (2008).
16. Ouspensky (1949) 364.
17. Macquarie Dictionary, 7th ed. Macquarie Dictionary Publishers, Sydney, 2017, vol. I, 527.
18. The Shorter Oxford Dictionary, 3rd ed. with revised etymologies, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1973, 700.
19. Skeat (1882) vol. I, 199.
20. Gurdjieff (1950) 569.
21. Gurdjieff (2017) 173 and 317–318.
22. Ware (1992) 395–414, 396–397.
23. See “A Most Profitable Discourse on Sobriety and the Guarding of the Heart,” in Kadloubovsky and Palmer (1951) 23.
24. Azize (2013) 178.
25. Azize (2016a) 139–158, especially 139–144.
26. Azize (2016a) 141.
27. Bestul (2012) 157–166.
28. Hollywood (2012) 9.
29. Azize (2016a) 146.
30. Anonymous (2012) 27.
31. Trompf (2010) 1–2.
32. See, for example, the collected definitions in Ferguson (1976) 126.
33. See, for example, Katz (1978) 32–33, 40, 46–47 and 65–66; and Katz (2000) 3.
34. Smith (1930) 2.
35. Cade and Coxhead (1979) 4.
36. Katz (2013) 5.
37. Cousins (2000) 128.
38. d’Aquili and Newberg (1999) 159.
39. Cade and Coxhead (1979) 110–111.
40. d’Aquili and Newberg (1999) 14.
41. d’Aquili and Newberg (1999) 110.
42. Lamm (2013) 5.
43. Pike (1992), 194–204. Pike critiques Katz’s theories as misconceiving the material he studies: 204–206.
44. Bogdan (2007) 5.
45. See Stuckrad (2005) 1–5.
46. van Egmond (1998) 312.
47. Katz (2007) 6–10.
48. Katz (2007) 173.
49. Hanegraaff (1996) 421–422 and 351.
50. von Stuckrad (2005) 10–11.
51. Magee (2016) 284.
52. Bogdan (2007) 6–10 and 20–21. I am aware of the Dictionary of Gnosis and Western Esotericism, edited by Hanegraaff, and the importance he
attributes to the gnostic. However, I can find little to recommend in the articles on “Gurdjieff” and “Gurdjieff Tradition,” which, unfortunately,
are replete with errors and bare assertions.
53. Oral communication from a personal pupil of Staveley’s, April 2016.
54. Claustres (2005) 146.
55. Gurdjieff (2009) 101.
56. This disoriented many of Ouspensky’s former pupils: Moore (1991) 297–298.
57. Azize (2012) and Cusack (2017). It is arguable that the Sacred Dances and Movements represent an intermediate state between seclusion and the
common domain, although I shall not enter into that question here.
58. Petsche (2015) 1.
59. Blom (2004)
60. Adie and Azize (2015) 310. Michel de Salzmann (2011) draws on mythology, psychiatry, and mainstream religions, and not at all on occultism. In
Michel de Salzmann (1987), a short entry in an encyclopedia, he compares Gurdjieff to Socrates or a Zen Patriarch.
61. Walker (1963) 127–128.
62. Sutcliffe (2015).
63. Gurdjieff (2009) 100 (undated).
 1
A Biographical Sketch of Gurdjieff

1.1 A Man with a Heritage but No Home

That the life of George Ivanovitch Gurdjieff (December 1865 or January 1866–1949) should be found interesting,
obscure, and controversial all at once is of a piece with his teaching. In Meetings with Remarkable Men, “Prince
Lubovedsky” encounters an old man who uncannily uses the prince’s long-forgotten childhood name. When
Lubovedsky asks him who he is, the elder replies: “Is it not all the same to you, just now, who I am and what I am? .
. . Is there really still alive in you that curiosity which is one of the chief reasons why the labors of your whole life
have been without result?”1 In one conversation, Gurdjieff averred that “Curiosity is a dirty thing,” and
distinguished a beneficent type of it (“needing-to-know”) from a maleficent “idiot” variety.2 Ouspensky explained:
“He by no means wanted to make it easy for people to become acquainted with his ideas. On the contrary he
considered that only by overcoming difficulties, however irrelevant and accidental, could people value his ideas.”3
Gurdjieff held that we do not value knowledge unless we have worked and thus paid for it, seeking it for the sake of
a conscious aim, and not allowing ourselves to be distracted by trivialities and fancies.4 Munson states that although
Gurdjieff usually spoke in bad English, he (Munson) heard him speak “perfect English” on some occasions, causing
him to believe that “it was a deliberate part of his pedagogy to speak broken English. By making himself hard to
understand, Gurdjieff obliged his listeners to give full attention. In order to get his meaning, they had to be active
instead of passive toward him.”5
Such a perspective might leave a potential biographer abashed, but there is sound reason for inquiring as to
certain aspects of Gurdjieff’s life: namely, they help us to understand the development of his teaching, and so to
better grasp it. Research can, perhaps, be a form of payment—it is certainly a form of work.
Gurdjieff appears on the world stage as a man with a heritage but no fixed home, a past presented as a mystery
more than a history. An Oriental forced to the West by war and revolution, he hid key biographical details,
presenting often improbable sagas, artfully mixing fact and myth to produce a narrative that pointed to the teaching,
and told the lesson that daring and sacrifice were needed to make it one’s own. It was the teaching, meaning both his
ideas and his methods, that he considered important.
However, together with this concern for the teaching are signs of a certain negligence. In the 1930s, Gurdjieff
gave only fitful signs of being driven by a mission; he allowed perhaps the most significant of his Sacred Dances to
simply be forgotten; and he practically impeded Ouspensky and Orage, his two most successful lieutenants.6 His
sometimes bizarre behavior and contrariness, especially difficult to understand when directed toward people who
were not even his pupils, must be acknowledged: for instance, abusing priests totally unknown to him while driving
past them, even causing one to fall heavily onto the pavement7; and telling Olga de Hartmann’s parents that if they
did not do something he asked, “a coffin will be in this room and your daughter will be in it.”8 It is a question of
judgment as to whether Gurdjieff did not sabotage whatever his mission was by devising too many difficulties, and
sometimes making his presentation too baffling, particularly in the book to which he devoted so much time,
Beelzebub: Some of its readers even complained about Beelzebub’s opacity to his face.9
The combination of three matters contributes to arouse interest in the man himself and his history: first, his
presentation of a comprehensive system in an original garb with a plurality of often startlingly new techniques (such
as the Movements and the Stop Exercise); second, the fact that he claimed to be both traditional and innovative,
inviting questions as to the traditions he stood in; and third, his striking, even compelling, personal impact,
supported by his wide practical abilities, and his occasional demonstration of a striking understanding of healing and
trance. As cures, I might cite the mysterious healing of Peters by a transfer of energy, “as if a violent, electric blue
light emanated from him and entered into me”10; and the treatment of Mrs. Beaumont with pills, followed by
Gurdjieff asking her where her pain has gone, and her reply: “You have taken it.”11 He demonstrated an ability to
cause trance or other states of altered consciousness by some sort of chemical preparation,12 and by music, with the
ability to predict that a woman he had adventitiously met was “susceptible to hypnotism of a particular sort” and
would go into “deep hypnosis” when a stated chord was struck—which she did.13 Neither is evidence of his ability
in practical matters lacking, whether as a blacksmith14 or as a carpet salesman and improviser in carpet mending.15
Munson describes how, in 1927, when possibly sixty years old, Gurdjieff was able to put his back to the front of a
car that had spilled into a ditch, and push it back to the road: Munson called it “remarkable” and thought, “What a
Herculean back.”16 The fact that Gurdjieff was willing to do this is as eloquent of his character as that he was able
to. In addition, Gurdjieff possessed an attested ability to communicate by telepathy: Whatever the true explanation
of this apparent ability, testimony has been published by three eyewitnesses.17 Saurat asserts that Orage “was
positive . . . [Gurdjieff] possessed supernatural powers,” and referred to an otherwise unattested episode of
bilocation [sic].18 It would be easy to dismiss such anecdotes, but they undoubtedly contributed to the legend.
The interest in Gurdjieff’s sources, and hence in his biography, continues because he claimed to have brought to
the West a long-lost and fuller tradition than any other known, rather than something of his own independent device,
and he demonstrated an inexplicable understanding of states of consciousness. By speaking of remote and hidden
monasteries in Meetings with Remarkable Men, he must have known that he was piquing interest in his own
personal history.

1.2 Gurdjieff to 1912

Gurdjieff was born in 1865 or 1866,19 probably in Gumri, formerly known as Alexandropol, in modern Armenia.20
There is reason to suspect that Gurdjieff may not have been the son of his stated parents, but I am informed by
Michael Benham that the basis for this is slimmer than once thought, resting on but one document (the marriage
certificate of his stated parents), while another document, the 1907 Alexandropol census, contradicts it.21
There is still a good deal of evidence for the critical facts. First, he was raised in Alexandropol and Kars,22 in or
near what is now Armenia, in a family of ancient Greek descent, whose domestic language was chiefly Armenian.
As Gurdjieff states in Meetings, his father was the repository of many traditional songs.23 We can be sure of this
because Ouspensky met the family, and after referring to Gurdjieff’s father and his bardship, adds: “They were
people of a very old and very peculiar culture.”24 As indicated, the Alexandropol registry contains records of the
marriages of Gurdjieff’s parents, and also of his uncle Vasily, and of the birth of Vasily’s son.25
Second, we can be sure that Gurdjieff was raised in a mix of various Asian cultures with a European, chiefly
Russian strand. This is shown by the languages he spoke, first Greek and Armenian, but then Russian and Turkish.26
Ouspensky brings some contemporary color to this, saying of Alexandropol:
It contained a great deal which was peculiar and original. Outwardly the Armenian part of the town calls to mind a town in Egypt or northern
India. . . . The center of the town calls to mind a Russian country town, but alongside it is the bazaar which is entirely oriental . . . There is also the
Greek quarter, the least interesting of all outwardly, where G.’s house was situated, and a Tartar suburb in the ravines, a very picturesque, but
according to those in the other parts of the town, a rather dangerous place.27

It was also remembered by his family that he had been, as he indicates throughout Meetings, given to practical
work and the repair of machines; that he had been resourceful in raising money, manufacturing and selling novelties
and geegaws; and that he had engaged in lengthy travels, leaving home, returning after a period, and setting out
again. Further, he mentioned to his family destinations such as Tibet.28
The problems with uncritically relying on Gurdjieff’s own literature are quite significant. First, there are some
outright contradictions. For example, within eleven pages, Gurdjieff says that his father would stay up all night, and
then that he would go to bed early, and made no exceptions, even on the night of his daughter’s wedding.29 Second,
there are most improbable details. Thus, in Beelzebub, Gurdjieff states that when he was his grandmother’s eldest
son, and but a “chubby mite,” small enough to hide in a slops bin, that grandmother, then over a hundred years old,
died.30 On that basis, both his grandmother and his father would have been, on average, over forty-five years of age
when they had their eldest children. Then, one wonders whether the story of his grandmother’s decease in Beelzebub
is not an imaginative retelling of the death of his mother. In Beelzebub, Gurdjieff states that on her deathbed, his
grandmother enjoined him to either do nothing or else do something original and then, “with a perceptible sense of
disdain for all around her and with commendable self-cognizance, gave up her soul directly into the hands of . . . the
Archangel Gabriel.”31 Now, Tchechovitch, who met Gurdjieff’s family, records the death of Gurdjieff’s mother. She
dressed herself in what would be her funeral clothes, lay down on her bed, and:
Her body was already cold. She uttered the words of her favorite prayer, “Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name . . .,” which she
repeated without stopping, while looking at those present as if to assure herself that she was still here, sometimes making heard, “Thy Kingdom
come . . ., Hallowed be Thy name,” uttered more loudly, as if to understand herself. Her last words were those of an Armenian saying which when
translated into the French of our Western life, unfortunately lose all sense and savor:

The flower has faded . . .

It leaves this life . . .
The wind will scatter its seed . . .
The bird having gone,
You flew away
To live in another country.

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

Gurdjieff’s grandmother was quite a personality, and her real-life figure may have influenced the anecdote in
Beelzebub. Tchechovitch relates that this lady, known as “Sophia Padji,” was so renowned as a midwife and healer
that, as Gurdjieff recalled, she bought a large field before her home to accommodate the number of people who
came in wagons to consult her. One story was that when a doctor had been unable to help a mother facing imminent
death during her delivery, Sophia Padji was called, to the doctor’s disdain. When she had effected a safe birth for
mother and child, she turned to the doctor; then, flinging the placenta at his feet, she delivered herself of some
choice words. Apparently, she impressed the doctor, who congratulated her.33 Apart from the Beelzebub story of her
decease, this may have been drawn on for Gurdjieff’s tale of delivery without midwife or doctor, having as it does
the moral that physicians are often useless.34
Gurdjieff’s intent in the superficially autobiographical Meetings was ostensibly to “furnish the material required
for a new creation and to prove its soundness and good quality.”35 He uses his personal history to do so, but the
details are disguised and transformed. Yet, what can be understood of his childhood points to an immersion in a
mosaic of religious and linguistic cultures, coexisting in a manner suggestive of his own later system. It was a world
where it was easy to escape regimentation, and which provided extraordinary opportunities to travel across Asia, but
of all those who lived in Armenia at that time, Gurdjieff was unique.
It would appear, therefore, that there is reason to accept the general nature of Gurdjieff’s account of his
childhood and of his travels in Meetings. Thus, in 1937, when Elizabeth Gordon, a longtime pupil, said that she used
to wonder about whether all or only some of the stories were fables, Gurdjieff responded: “No, those stories true,
only ten percent is fantasy. That reminds me how much I suffer when Soloviev died. For three months I was not
myself. Such friend was—more than brother. I love him more than a mistress.”36 It may well be that much in
Meetings is either true or based on historical events, but this does not enlighten us as to which specifics are true, and
it is clear that Gurdjieff did wish to obscure his sources. Hence, Bennett stated that a rather important chapter was
probably omitted from Meetings because it disclosed too accurately Gurdjieff’s sources:
[A] chapter devoted to Prince Nijeradze . . . was never completed. There are two discordant translations of the original Armenian fragments . . .
We gather that Prince Nijeradze had been concerned in some embarrassing episode connected with the difficulty Gurdjieff came up against,
through having broken some of the rules of one of the brotherhoods where he had been receiving help and teaching. One who heard the chapter
read in 1933, recounts that it produced a profound impression by its account of the state of a man who wakes up after dying, and realizes that he
has lost the chief instrument of his life, his body, and recalls all he could have done with it while he was still alive.37

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

That Gurdjieff should have studied Western medicine is in accord with Peters recording him as keeping abreast of
developments in that field.39 That he should then say that in the East he had learned something that trumped
anything to be found in the West also corresponds to his theme of having found esoteric understanding in usually
inaccessible places. But that he should have obtained a degree using three Russian volumes of anatomy and old
German prints is surprising. More light is shed on this by an unattributed article in the Harvard Crimson of February
27, 1924, wherein his associate A. R. Orage is quoted as having said that “after graduating from the University of
Athens, [Gurdjieff] spent thirty years travelling through the East, gathering as much knowledge as possible of
Eastern tradition. . . . Gurdjieff didn’t invent the dances, he discovered them. They consist of ancient Greek,
Egyptian and Buddhist and early Christian sacred classics—4000 all told.”40
The Boston Globe of February 29, 1924 reported that “The Gurdjieff theory was started in 600 B.C. by
Pythagoras, who like Gurdjieff, was a Greek, although the latter skipped away from the University of Athens at a
tender age, skipped aboard a tramp as a sailor and went in search of the wonders of the East.”41 A footnote by the
editor states, without providing sources, that “Gurdjieff might well have studied medicine since he was seen with a
number of medical texts throughout his travels.”42
There is, then, good reason to see Gurdjieff as having been raised in the Greek community of Asia Minor, having
studied medicine in Athens, and then having commenced his travels in the East. For reasons I have given elsewhere,
it is hopeless to try and piece together Gurdjieff’s movements in this period with any confidence.43 However,
Gurdjieff spoke in an apparently serious manner to his small Paris group about an astounding experience in Tibet,
and he told Orage of his activities and discoveries there in slim, but still significant, detail. One cannot prove that
Gurdjieff was not attempting to deceive, and of course Gurdjieff would have known that even his casual comments
would be seized on, but such disclosures are very different from the improbable saga of crossing the Gobi on stilts:
noting that he did not contradict Gordon’s comment that that, at least, was a fable.44
However, the spotlight in Meetings is held not by the Gobi expedition, but by certain remote brotherhoods and
their monasteries. First among these is the Sarmoung brotherhood, “of which the chief monastery is somewhere in
the heart of Asia,” and the members seem to be Muslim, although willing to consider the case of a meritorious
kaphir.45 Also important is the “World Brotherhood,” the members of which have a monastery in Central Asia, but
“among the adepts of this monastery there were former Christians, Jews, Mohammedans, Buddhists, Lamaists, and
even one Shamanist. All were united by God the Truth.”46
To sum up, then, that Gurdjieff did journey as far east as Tibet, India, and China, but most especially in Central
Asia, Persia, and Egypt, is beyond any real doubt, being consistently attested by family and by his own assertions.
While the traditions current in his family are decisive, it is certainly significant that someone as well traveled in the
East as Ouspensky considered that Gurdjieff’s accounts were based on extensive first-hand knowledge: “We spoke
of India, of esotericism, and of yogi schools. I gathered that G. had travelled widely and had been in places of which
I had only heard and which I very much wished to visit. Not only did my questions not embarrass him but it seemed
to me that he put much more into each answer than I had asked.”47 In later conversations with Ouspensky about
where he had found this knowledge “he said very little and just hinted at it. He mentioned Mount Athos, Sufi
schools in Persia, Tibetan monasteries and Chitral schools in Central Asia and eastern Turkestan. He referred to
dervishes too, but all this was always in a very indefinite manner.”48
Central to Gurdjieff’s tale of searching in the East for hidden knowledge was his account of having been acting
in concert with others. Over halfway through Meetings he casually declares that the group called itself “The Seekers
of Truth.”49 The greater bulk of the volume is filled with tales of Gurdjieff’s travels, generally with one or more of
these people. I have dwelt on this, and especially on his having studied medicine in Athens, and retained some of his
texts, partly because this material has so often been overlooked, and, relatedly, Gurdjieff’s early years are of
programmatic importance for his later career. Only when this period is complete does he emerge into a fuller light.
Gurdjieff does eventually appear in Russia, but the once current notion that Gurdjieff was associated with a
Masonic lodge in Russia in 1909 seems to be unfounded.50 It had its basis in an anticommunist conspiracy theory,
and so must remain suspect. As the notion of Gurdjieff’s association with this lodge has spread, it is as well to quote
Benham:
These were portions of transcripts of secret police interrogations of Gleb Bokii regarding a Masonic Lodge and its supposed members. A lot more
is now known about both Bokii and Barchenko. Biographies of both have since been published in Russia. The complete transcripts of Bokii’s
interrogations show that Bokii’s “confession” was heavily edited by his interrogator to fit the official party line of a Masonic conspiracy
(something I suspected at the time) and many of the supposed members such as Gurdjieff and Roerich had nothing to do with it.51

No contemporary or near contemporary notices known of him are available before he appears in Russia, and the
earliest reasonably secure date that can be given for that is 1911, for Bennett states that “a famous Russian lawyer
named Rakhmilievitch, who had formerly been the leader of the St Petersburg bar before the war . . . had joined
Gurdjieff in 1911, and was inclined to lay down the law as the senior pupil,” and that, in 1923, Gurdjieff stated that
Rakhmilievitch had been his pupil for twelve years.52 This coincides with his statement in Herald that in 1911 he
arrived in “Russian-Turkestan” and made his way to Moscow, while in Life Is Real he states that he opened his
“Institute for the Harmonious Development of Man” in Moscow in 1912.53

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.

1.4 Gurdjieff from 1912 to 1931

To return directly to Gurdjieff, the period of verifiable teaching for which details are available stretches from 1915
to 1949. Gurdjieff spent those years in Russia, Turkey, Germany, France, England, and the United States, with odd
holidays in Switzerland and Monaco. The chief dates and records of his teaching are:

1915–1917, when Gurdjieff lived in Russia. The bulk of his teaching there is recorded in In Search of the
Miraculous. There are also accounts by Thomas and Olga de Hartmann, and Anna Butkovsky-Hewitt.
1917–1922, when Gurdjieff moved through Asia and Europe. Some talks were taken down and have now been
published in Gurdjieff’s Early Talks. Also, Tchechovitch’s posthumously published memoires are available, together
with Ferapontoff’s notes of Gurdjieff’s teaching, now published as Constantinople Notes, and the memoirs of the de
Hartmanns, referred to above.
1922–1949, when Gurdjieff made his home in France, but frequently traveled to the United States, and wrote
Herald of Coming Good and three “series of writings,” leaving transcripts of group meetings from the 1940s, some
of which have been published. There is too much material from this period to summarize here: It is referred to
throughout this book. In addition, A. R. Orage gave many talks in the United States on Gurdjieff and his system in
the 1920s and 1930s.

It is notable that in the first of three periods, Gurdjieff lived in Moscow, almost certainly with his wife, although he
traveled to St. Petersburg and for a time stayed there. He would meet his pupils in various places, chiefly houses,
apartments, and cafés. From 1917 to 1922 he traveled from place to place, sometimes settling for a longer period,
but always with a group of people whom he guided through the postwar upheavals. In the third period, he had two
chief bases: the Prieuré of Fontainebleau, France, between 1922 and 1933, and a Paris apartment from 1937 until his
death.108 He lived alone in that apartment with, at most, someone to help maintain it.109
How did Gurdjieff end up in Paris, when his story is that of a Greek from the Caucasus, an area fought over by
Russia and Turkey? The Greeks of Turkey were uprooted and repatriated to a land neither they nor their ancestors
had known for time out of mind, hence my statement that Gurdjieff appears as a man with a heritage but no home.
He journeyed throughout the East having not found in a Western university what he sought, an explanation of the
ultimate questions of the significance of life. He returned after about twenty years and made his home in Russia.
This meant that it was his fate, as it was of so many other Russians, to become an emigre when the year of
revolutions arrived in 1917, and like so many other Russian fugitives, he ultimately found shelter in France, having
sojourned in Georgia, then Constantinople, and then Germany.110
One established in France, Gurdjieff must have seemed a dynamo. Much has been written about the intense
period at the Prieuré, where he established the most famous iteration of his Institute for the Harmonious
Development of Man. Never was Gurdjieff so much reported by the press.111 He and his entourage, chiefly those
who had traveled with him from Russia, took possession of the Prieuré on October 1, 1922. Although its numbers
fluctuated from 1922, it was only effectively moribund about four years or so before he parted with possession of it
in the winter of 1933–34.112 It had attracted sensational attention and was a magnet for many people with public
reputations for talent if not genius (e.g., Margaret Anderson, Jane Heap, Lincoln Kirstein, Katherine Mansfield, A.
R. Orage, and Jean Toomer).113
These people, Russian emigres, some of whom were quite distinguished, English and American artists and
intellectuals alike, engaged in manual labor of all varieties, gardening, learning the Sacred Dances and Movements,
and attended talks Gurdjieff might give. There were steam baths and occasionally large and exotic banquets. It was
colorful and intense, even perhaps excessively so for some people. Thomas de Hartmann painted an intriguing
portrait of it:
At the Prieuré all these constantly changing works engulfed the whole person. Life outside somehow ceased to exist. . . . In the Prieuré, the life of
a person, like a ball, was thrown from one situation into another. Our prayer was the Work, which concentrated together all spiritual and physical
forces. The variety and constant change of tasks continually reawakened us. We were given minimal hours of sleep, just enough to give strength
for the following day. Instead of abstinence, there was spending of forces to the utmost, attentive work renewing energies as they were spent in the
manner of a rhythmic fly-wheel. There was no rejection of life within the Prieuré. On the contrary, life was expanded to the utmost intensity and
spirituality.114

Gurdjieff himself was as enigmatic as ever, and since he was now in Western Europe, he appeared even more exotic
to those from England and the United States than he had in Russia, where he was, after all, from areas under Russian
domination. Munson states, probably acutely, that “Gurdjieff usually dashed people’s preconceptions when they met
him, especially if they thought they were about to meet a holy man from the East.”115

1.5 A. R. Orage and America

When he arrived in France, Gurdjieff was still in some contact with Ouspensky, who gathered an audience to hear
Gurdjieff on February 23, 1922, in Kensington, London. Among them was Alfred Richard Orage (1873–1934), the
redoubtable editor of the New Age, who, as we have seen, had published Ouspensky’s letters from Russia and
offered him assistance at certain points. Unlike others with a significant contemporary reputation, which has now
entirely faded, Orage is still known in the United Kingdom as one of the finest editors produced by England at a
time when its intellectual press meant something. As the friend and editor of T. S. Eliot, G. B. Shaw, G. K.
Chesterton, H. G. Wells, Ezra Pound, Herbert Read, and many lesser lights, Orage is still mentioned in the pertinent
literature and is especially well known in Leeds, where he had been a vital figure in its cultural life before he had
moved to London.116
Even as editor, Orage made some false moves, such as his patronage of the writing of Dmitri Mitrinovic,
betrayed perhaps by enthusiasm for some means of arriving at “scientifically valid religious truths.”117 But this is
only to say that his judgment was not infallible. Orage still enjoys a reputation as having been “one of the foremost
English disciples of Nietzsche, the first to spread an accurate account of the German philosopher’s teaching in [the
United Kingdom], in two pioneer books and the evangelist of the Superman cult of an unlimited transcendence of
human limits.”118 Like G. K. Chesterton, Orage had long sought an integrated spiritual and social philosophy that
would look like simple common sense However, adds Coates, Orage’s development did not stop there but rather had
continued under Chesterton’s influence, so that he came to see humanity as being “a fixed species” and incapable of
indefinite progress.119 If this is correct, one might suggest that Gurdjieff’s system brought an understanding of
humanity that reconciled Orage’s growing skepticism about humanity with his aspirations for transcendence:
According to Gurdjieff both are legitimate, for the possibility of development depends on individual change of
being. This accords with Orage’s statements to Bowyer in 1923.120
Webb underplays Ouspensky’s significance when he states that Gurdjieff’s initial success in the West was due to
Orage: It was demonstrably Ouspensky who achieved significant success in England (his pupils provided the funds
for Gurdjieff to purchase the Prieuré) and prepared the first wave who crossed the Channel as students, and poured
their resources and muscle into it.121 Orage himself heard of Gurdjieff through Ouspensky. But Orage’s importance
for Gurdjieff’s undertakings in the United States can hardly be overstated: From the time Gurdjieff first visited the
United States in 1924, it was Orage’s US groups, organized at Gurdjieff’s direction, that furnished Gurdjieff with
funds and students.122
Orage had applied to Gurdjieff to be accepted into the Prieuré by letter dated July 22, 1922. While waiting to
liquidate his affairs, he had recommended to Katherine Mansfield that she herself move there, thus opening another
chapter in the Gurdjieff story. He was finally able to travel to France on October 13, 1923.123 Gurdjieff was then
preparing the dramatic staging of his Sacred Dances and Movements, which would cause something of a stir, first in
Paris, in December 1923, then from February 2, 1924 in the United States—although, oddly, they were never taken
to England.124 A large volume, replete with eyewitness accounts, photographs, and contemporary recordings of the
music, has been published, reproducing rare items such as the Carnegie Hall program.125 The flavor of the tour can
be savored in this extract from the Boston Post of March 6, 1924, published under the rather breathless heading:
“Gurdjieff Rites Amaze Boston—Wonderful Dances of Asia Set before Audience of “Intellectuals” Cause Thrills in
Plenty”:
Gurdjieff captured Boston’s Intelligentsia last night at the Fine Arts Theatre. With one of the most amazing programs of Asian dances and weird
music, the master of the Fontainebleau Institute for the Harmonious Development of Man, had a select audience of writers, poets, psychologists
hurling over their distinguished approbation with spontaneous clattering of applause. . . . the Gurdjieff pupils, after months of practice in the
natural forests outside of Paris, had absolute control of their bodies. Every muscle in their frames seemed to quiver and vibrate.126

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

This may well be correct, so far as it goes. At first blush, it seems reasonable: Gurdjieff seems to have engineered
ruptures with Ouspensky, Thomas de Hartmann, Alexander Salzmann, and Jean Toomer. But he also had
relationships with major pupils that did not see similar breaks (Sophia Ouspensky, Jane Heap, Louise March, and
Jeanne de Salzmann). In between was Olga de Hartmann, who, as I read her story, was originally allowed to remain
with Gurdjieff while he did not speak with Thomas, until Gurdjieff obliged her to choose between her husband and
himself.143 Whatever the reason may have been, it is striking that Gurdjieff’s most fractious relationships were with
males. It is not that the women were without responsibilities: de Salzmann worked with Edith Taylor on the French
translation of his books144 and became his right hand for Movements, groups, and exercises. One might speculate
whether Gurdjieff expected more from men, or was harder on them, but it does seem that, as a rule, he was more
likely to be stubbornly and unintelligibly difficult with them.
The plain fact is that Gurdjieff was unhappy with the direction in which Orage had been moving. By 1930,
Orage was in fact changing his teaching, chiefly by adding the “psychological exercises” that he had been interested
in even before meeting Gurdjieff, but that he published only in that year. These comprise mental exercises involving
counting, words, memory, sense, and spatial perception, and calling for inventiveness, imagination, and self-
analysis.145 I return to these in more detail in Chapter 5 because there is a little more to the story than this outline
would suggest. Taylor states, “When Gurdjieff heard this (of the publication of Psychological Exercises), he was
furious, not only because of the departure from his own method, but because he feared that Orage would alienate a
New York group that was still the major source of the funds that maintained the Institute.”146 Further, as we shall
see in Chapter 5, some of the exercises, and most especially the essays that formed the bulk of the slim volume,
were indebted to an unacknowledged Gurdjieff. In 1927, Orage started extra classes in which he and his students
worked at the psychological exercises.147 However, in an unpublished and undated letter to Jane Heap, Carol
Robinson records that “The attendance at psychological groups so small that meetings were discontinued.” Quite
simply, she, like many, was short of funds in Depression-era America.148
A previously unpublished document sheds a little more light on these events and confirms that Gurdjieff was
displeased with Orage’s “psychological exercises.” Dr. John Lester, who had been a personal pupil of Gurdjieff and
Jane Heap, provided me with a copy of a typewritten document titled “Notes of Meetings with Mme Salzmann about
Jane’s notes.” It was taken down after a meeting of Jane Heap’s former pupils with Jeanne de Salzmann in
Switzerland in August 1973. Their question was whether they should publish extracts from the notes that Jane Heap
would make before group meetings. At pp. 3–4, under the heading “The story of Orage,” they report de Salzmann
saying:
Orage had not been trained long enough by Gurdjieff before he began his Groups in New York. When one knows the Ideas well—when they are
available to you—something can happen—there can be a danger. It always happens, everyone is exposed to this danger.
Orage had many people around him—he could attract them—arouse their interest—but then something else happened and it was a trap—
inside one has to know the danger of this—he began to ‘play’ with the Ideas. To make up exercises of his own and so on. Gurdjieff went to
America and he saw what was happening. It was not good and he decided to do something about it.
It would have been useless to say anything to Orage directly—it would have been no benefit for him. He had to receive a shock. He had to
feel shame—deep inside. So G. began to talk to O.’s people—behind his back—and told them that they were being told nonsense—taught
wrongly. There is a talk about it all in the Third Series. Naturally it soon got back to O.—there was much disturbance. G. then told every one of
O’s people that they had to choose and that they would have to sign a paper and would solemnly swear never to see or speak to Orage again.
There was to be a special meeting of all O’s people and they were then to sign.
Mme S was there when Orage telephoned G—having of course heard about this meeting—Mme S heard the conversation on the second
earpiece of the phone. O asked if he should come to the Meeting—would G let him come. G said—“Come Orage, come.”
At the meeting when the papers were passed around for signature Orage was the first person to sign. As he gave the paper back to G, he
said he hoped he would never see or speak to Orage again. It was very clever—he had felt something—he had been touched.
A shock of this kind makes a complete difference to the direction of somebody’s life.
Orage decided to go back to England—to give up his Groups—to go back into life.
Maybe in another life he would return at just that point.
But not only Orage was put on the spot—every one of his people as well. Many were very upset—Jessie Orage in particular. Of course
some didn’t sign, but that was no good for them. They thought they had escaped but they didn’t. G never accepted these people back again.
Perhaps later O. would have returned—maybe he was working—preparing to do so—he always stayed faithful—he didn’t go elsewhere
to other teachings—perhaps he had only decided to go away into life for a time.
When Orage died Gurdjieff felt that he had lost somebody valuable. [My italics]

Interestingly, some of this coincides exactly with Ouspensky’s view that Orage had “forgotten many things and
had to invent.”149 Further, de Salzmann’s account confirms that Gurdjieff’s treatment of Orage was, at the best,
indirect, and, at the worst, bizarre (e.g., teasing him that he had all along known of Orage’s deficiencies and not
helped him with them).150 But as Gurdjieff had placed Orage in charge of the US operations, one may wonder
whether the statement that Orage had not been sufficiently trained was not framed with the benefit of hindsight.
Further, as we shall see in Sections 5.2 and 5.3, there is reason to think that Gurdjieff had had a significant hand in
Orage’s psychological exercises. Gurdjieff nursed an apparently genuine affection for Orage, so that when he heard
the news of Orage’s sudden death in 1934, Gurdjieff organized a concert of his piano music at Carnegie Hall, the
program featuring Orage’s favorites from Gurdjieff’s oeuvre.151 Louise Welch, later one of the leaders of the
Gurdjieff Foundation in New York, recalls that when the news of Orage’s death reached them:
Group members and old friends met with Gurdjieff and, in a room we had rented for meetings . . . for a long time we sat together in silence. Then
he spoke: “How you say it in your country? May his soul reach the Kingdom of Heaven!” I remember that evening well. There was a sight I was
wholly unprepared for: Gurdjieff wiping the tears from his eyes with his fists, and saying to all of us: “This man . . . my brother.”152

It is possible that all of these elements had a place in the mosaic of events: Orage had been Gurdjieff’s most
valued aide, but when he found his wife-to-be in New York, he decided to establish himself there on a firm basis,
hence his introduction of more of his own ideas and methods at the expense of Gurdjieff’s own, even if he had
developed his system as a highly intelligent and already accomplished individual who had learned a great deal from
Gurdjieff—what his own student Daly King called “The Oragean Version,” meaning Orage’s version of Gurdjieff’s
system.153 I shall suggest, in Chapter 5, that Orage’s elaboration of Gurdjieff’s methods into a series of exercises
may well have stimulated Gurdjieff to develop his own rudimentary tasks and disciplines into what he would call
“Transformed-contemplation.”

1.6 Gurdjieff from 1931 and de Salzmann

What happened to Gurdjieff in the 1930s? In this period he had only one small group, “the Rope,” made some trips
to the United States to the group that he had himself sent into decline (his visits do not seem to have been terribly
successful by any standard), and put on a good deal of weight.154 Taylor, who knew Gurdjieff, describes the second
half of the 1930s as a period when Gurdjieff was “marking time.”155 I do not think this is wrong, but perhaps it was
more specifically a period when he was not promoting his ideas. It may simply have been that he did not know what
to do, meaning that he did not know what methods would work with people. He had tried very different methods in
Russia, then in the Caucasus, at the Prieuré, and in the United States, and there are no signs whatever that he was
well pleased with the results. From the discharge of Orage in 1931, Gurdjieff seems to have been waiting to see
whether any of the seeds he had planted would come to bear fruit. Perhaps there was little else he could do: He had
intended to write a second series in three volumes, and a third series in four. Nothing like this was produced; rather,
each series comprises but one volume. My conjecture is that Gurdjieff had hoped Orage would again collaborate
with him, and when this did not come to pass, he was at a dead end.156
Yet, in his final years, Gurdjieff appears as a patriarchal figure sought out and surrounded by pupils. These years
were not so much in the public eye as those of 1922 to 1924, but perhaps the results were more lasting, for it is then
that he laid the foundations of the Gurdjieff groups, which still exist. Four particularly intimate, even poignant, but
brief recollections of these years exist in English, by Solange Claustres, Rina Hands, Annie-Lou Staveley, and René
Zuber.157 From 1941 to 1946, he worked quite intensely with French groups, answering questions about the
application of his ideas and methods in the social domain (see Chapter 11). It is not known when this group ended.
From 1946 to 1949, he also had visitors, first from Jane Heap’s London group, then from Ouspensky’s English
groups and from the United States. With these, he arranged many meals, the toasting of “Idiots,” trips into the
countryside, and readings (especially from Beelzebub and Meetings), conversed, and taught his Movements,
including the production of an entire new series of the same.158
Gurdjieff seems never again to have taught his ideas with the exhaustive range that he did in Russia, yet some of
his methods, such as the music, the Sacred Dances or Movements, and the “contemplation-like exercises” with
which this book deals were either introduced or developed after the Russian period. Their intellectual foundations
are found in that earlier teaching, thus evidencing continuity in Gurdjieff’s teaching. Ouspensky indicates that when
all but one of his original pupils had left him, after his trek across the Caucasus Mountains to Solchi, and his
relocation in Tiflis that Gurdjieff continued work “with new people and in a new direction, basing it chiefly on art,
that is, on music, dances, and rhythmic exercises.”159
 What happened to make the 1940s so different? Alexander Salzmann had died in 1934, and his wife Jeanne had
taken charge of his small group studying Gurdjieff’s teaching.160 The turning point seems to have been when Jeanne
de Salzmann (1889–1990) presented Gurdjieff with those students she had prepared. This seems to have taken place
for most of them in 1940 and 1941.161 Little has been published about Jeanne de Salzmann. Ravindra offered a book
of his memories of her oral teaching,162 and there is a short portrait in Tchechovitch.163 I have summarized her
correspondence with George Adie after his removal to Australia, and this paints a picture of a careful and diligent
friend, able to keep her fingers on the pulse of the Gurdjieff teaching throughout the world.164 Lipsey’s treatment of
Gurdjieff and his legacy mentions her often.165 But, at this point, anyone desiring a feel for her contribution is best
advised to turn to her posthumously edited and published notes.166 I devote the entirety of Chapter 12 to the inner
exercises as recorded by de Salzmann. If little more can be said about her life, yet her contribution in maintaining
the system appears clearly enough in that section.

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

2.1 An Overview of Gurdjieff’s System

I contend that Gurdjieff brought a mystic discipline that comprised a comprehensive system, meaning a broad, not a
complete, system; that is, a scheme that can be consulted for ideas and clues, not necessarily for complete answers.
Gurdjieff stated: “All this teaching is given in fragments—[and so] must be pieced together [by the student].”1
Beyond even that, the nature of the “system” requires each student to make her own final discoveries.2 Perhaps it
was as a sign of this that Gurdjieff left his “Third Series” unfinished in midsentence. This is consistent with
Ouspensky’s chosen title for his magnum opus being not In Search of the Miraculous but rather Fragments of an
Unknown Teaching.
In Gurdjieff, cosmology and psychology cohere. The principle of his cosmology, that the cosmos is a unity that
manifests as a diversity, is also the principle of his psychology, that man is a potential unity who presently manifests
as a diversity. Gurdjieff said that the human condition can be addressed through one of what he termed “the four
ways”: the way of the fakir (who works on his body), the yogi (who works on his mind), the monk (who works on
his feeling), or the “sly man” (who works on all four at the same time). This Fourth Way was Gurdjieff’s own.3 In
Gurdjieff’s terms, all of these ways are aimed at developing the soul (or higher-being-body) so that one can achieve
immortality, even if practitioners of those ways would themselves speak in other terms (e.g., salvation of the soul, or
nirvana).
This teaching of ways is not meant to be taken rigidly, as if speaking of four completely exclusive roads. As
Ferapontoff stated: “The fakir is not taken in a literal sense. Fakir [is taken] in quotation marks. . . . Monk in
quotation marks.”4 Ouspensky even refers to a monastic practice as a form of “yoga” because the first three ways are
usually met in mixed, not pure, forms.5 There is also this oddity: Gurdjieff never claimed to have discovered the
Fourth Way in life, where it is supposed to be sited: The tales in Meetings indicate more than anything else that a
monastery, what he calls the “Sarmoung monastery,” was his critical source. The fact that Gurdjieff’s own
development probably took place in a monastery in the East has significant consequences for his own career, and, in
particular, his own assessment that he had failed to produce students of an appropriate level, using methods to be
implemented in the social domain of life, and in the West (see the review of Gurdjieff’s career to 1939 in Section
10.8).6
Despite the idea that the Fourth Way does not require a monastery or ashram, but should be undergone in the
conditions of ordinary life, Gurdjieff had lived with other people during the second period, often in intensive
teaching conditions.7 As we have seen, Orage, who had been “in life,” sold his business to move to the Prieuré.
What, then, had become of the idea that “the conditions of life in which a man is placed at the beginning of his
work, in which . . . the work finds him, are the best possible for him. . . . Any conditions different from those created
by life would be artificial for a man”?8 Yet Gurdjieff founded “Institutes” in Essentuki (even if it was not called
that), in Georgia, Constantinople, and France. The last of these was effectively downsized in 1924, although it
lingered in a diminished form for some time. Gurdjieff told Bennett that his system gave the best results when
people could live and work together, and he apparently made plans for a new Institute in 1948 and 1949.9 George
Adie, an architect, recalls that he and another architect were taken by Gurdjieff to examine premises in France as a
possible site, and that Gurdjieff carried out a substantial inspection.10 However, Gurdjieff died before anything
could be finalized. If a person’s ordinary conditions were the best for him or her, and this was a feature of the Fourth
Way, these facts are anomalous (similarly, see Section 1.4).
On my reading of Gurdjieff’s ideas, informed by a practical acquaintance with his methods as taught by some of
his personal pupils, the fundamental insight is that as we are we do not perceive reality, but we can change our
being, and with that change, we will be able to perceive our own reality, at least to some degree. That is, we now see
neither ourselves nor anything else objectively, but there is a possibility of changing, so that we can become free of
our subjectivities. To go further, and perceive objective reality, is in theory possible, but in practice it is nearly
impossible. Yet, Gurdjieff said in his Third Series, Life Is Real, Only Then, When “I Am,” that his aim in writing
that third and ultimate series was “to share the possibilities which I had discovered of touching reality and, if so
desired, even merging with it.”11 Gurdjieff’s writings demonstrate this fundamental concentration on reality. In the
only book he published during his lifetime, Herald of Coming Good, he wrote:
[I]f a man desires sincerely and seriously, and out of no mere curiosity, to attain to the knowledge of the way leading to Real Being, and if he
[should] fulfil to this end all that is requested of him and begin, in fact, among other things to aid indirectly . . . the attainment of this by others, he
will, by this act alone, become as it were the forming ground for the real data contributing to the manifestation of objective and actual Good.12

So there is, for Gurdjieff, an objective reality, and it is related to “objective and actual Good,” and a condition of
attaining to it is that we assist others to approach it. We can touch and “even merge” with this reality, but, implicitly,
we do not presently touch it, and hence are separated from it. This separation from reality is our “sleep.”
The key to our present position is that reality, in its absolute sense, is a unity, possessing the unity not of a
monolith but of an organism, for the Whole is One “as an apple is one.”13 However, we ourselves, as parts of that
Whole, do not possess the internal unity or individuality that we should. Lacking this unity in ourselves, our faculties
cannot work as they should, and so cannot perceive objective reality. If we desire to change, then this diversity
needs to be harmonized into or at least toward a unity, albeit a relative unity, a sort of microcosm of the larger
cosmos. As A. R. Orage said in expounding Gurdjieff’s system: “An individual is a microcosm but the only
difference between it and the Megalocosmos is that the Megalocosmos is very much more actualized than we [small
fry] are.”14 “Megalocosmos” is clearly enough from the Greek, and means “the Great Cosmos.” Between ourselves
on this planet and the Whole, there are other levels or orders, such as those of the solar system and the Milky Way.
Each of these can be considered as a “cosmos” because it is “a living being which lives, breathes, thinks, feels, is
born and dies.”15 Each cosmos being a living entity, it follows that, in our cosmos, “There is only one life and we are
the highest biological development [in this cosmos]” (my italics).16 This single life force manifests throughout the
cosmos: In human life, it can be developed into “objective reason,” which has the corollary that the purpose of
human life is “to attain within [ourselves] objective reason.”17
In this system of cosmoses or “orders,” four insights are fundamental:
1. The universe is a creation.
2. The creation was a dynamic movement from the cosmic Whole into the cosmic plurality of phenomena, so that intelligent creatures are ultimately the
products of higher intelligence, not chance developments from lower forms.
3. The purpose of the universe, and all that is in it, is that the plurality should maintain the cosmic Whole by transforming coarser substances into finer, and
thereby have the chance to itself evolve into a higher form.
4. The highest purpose of humanity is consciously joining in that process of maintaining that Whole through the conscious transformation of received
substances, and so developing objective reason, and evolving to serve higher purposes as a higher form of life.

Implicit in this is an exalted anthropology: Man is not “just an animal.” As Gurdjieff said, “man is a different
formula,” meaning a different type of creature from animals.18 Man has a unique place on the planet, and is able to
“coat and crystallize” within his physical (“planetary”) body what Gurdjieff called “higher-being-bodies,” the “soul”
and the “spirit.” Differing from other systems and the major monotheist religions, Gurdjieff’s theory states that we
have souls only in embryo.19 Further, by the very fact of their existence and possibilities, every human being has
duties. Gurdjieff set out five injunctions, which he called the “being-obligolnian-strivings”:
The first striving: to have in their ordinary being-existence everything satisfying and really necessary for their planetary body.
The second striving: to have a constant and unflagging instinctive need for self-perfection in the sense of being.
The third: the conscious striving to know ever more and more concerning the laws of World-creation and World-maintenance.
The fourth: the striving from the beginning of their existence to pay for their arising and their individuality as quickly as possible, in order
afterwards to be free to lighten as much as possible the Sorrow of our COMMON FATHER.
And the fifth: the striving always to assist the most rapid perfecting of other beings, both those similar to oneself and those of other forms,
up to the degree of the sacred “Martfotai” that is up to the degree of self-individuality.20

Perhaps the essence of each injunction could be described as:

1. Physical health
2. Conscious development of being
3. Understanding of the nature and purpose of creation
4. Payment for what one has received and achieved
5. Service, or “helping God.”
 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.

2.2 Reality and Creation

For Gurdjieff, reality is a property of the whole. The cosmos is a unity in diversity: The kernel of all unity is the
“Most Holy Sun Absolute,” which is the abode of HIS ENDLESSNESS (Gurdjieff’s small capitals): the “God” figure in
Beelzebub. In what Gurdjieff terms “the Great Universe,” all phenomena in general, without exception wherever
they arise and manifest, are simply successively law-conformable “Fractions” of some whole phenomenon that has
its prime arising on the “Most Holy Sun Absolute.”22 This means, I suggest, that the reality we know is only a
partial or incomplete reality. It is neither a complete illusion, nor is it perfectly true: The whole of reality is found
only on the Most Holy Sun Absolute. That this abode should be called “Absolute” indicates that it depends on
nothing else.
The Most Holy Sun Absolute is the ultimate platform of the universe, and was at one time the “sole cosmic
concentration,”23 meaning that there was no other place in the universe. It is, effectively, “heaven.” So, why is there
a universe? Gurdjieff’s explanation is, effectively, that God created the universe not because he desired to, but
because he needed to in order to maintain the Sun Absolute, his “home.” Gurdjieff states:
From the third most sacred canticle of our cherubim and seraphim we were worthy of learning that our CREATOR OMNIPOTENT once
ascertained that this same Sun Absolute, on which HE dwelt with HIS cherubim and seraphim was, although almost imperceptibly yet nevertheless
gradually, diminishing in volume.24

Concerned at the gradual disappearance of his home, the Creator reviewed all the “laws” that maintained the Sun
Absolute, and concluded that its volume was diminishing because of the flow of time (which Gurdjieff calls the
“Heropass”). He concluded that this process of diminution had to be remedied, as otherwise “this sole place of HIS
Being” would be destroyed.25 Gurdjieff does not say that the Creator would himself be destroyed, only his home.
Whether we can draw the conclusion that the Creator himself could have perished, or whether we have to prescind
from any such knowledge, is an open question.
The “fifth canticle of the cherubim” informs us that the Creator decided to maintain the Sun Absolute by creating
the universe we know, the “Megalocosmos.”26 We should note that, at this stage, the source for Gurdjieff’s narrative
is stated to be not his own researches or even ancient tradition, but rather canticles of the highest ranks of angels.
This is more truly revelation than tradition.
Prior to this point, says Gurdjieff, the universe was a closed system, meaning that it was “not depending on any
forces proceeding from outside,”27 and was structured by two “fundamental cosmic laws,” the “sacred
Heptaparaparshinokh” and the “sacred Triamazikamno.”28 These are the “Law of Seven” and the “Law of Three.”
The Law of Seven says that any line of flow of forces lawfully deflects in the course of its flow until it unites again
at the end of the flow.29 That is, no process will, by itself, proceed in a uniform manner: There are no naturally
straight lines of development. The Law of Seven is a cosmic law that, for us, is most clearly exemplified in the
musical octave—that is, the doubling of vibrations that is found between the beginning and end of any one octave is
taken as the basis of the understanding of any process.30
The musical octave commences with the note “DO,” and proceeds to “RE,” “MI,” “FA,” “SOL,” “LA,” “SI” and
“DO.” In Gurdjieff’s system, any process or line of action can be analyzed by analogy with this octave, for every
complete process is a complete octave. To be completed, any line of action must proceed from “DO” to “DO” in
some octave.31 To develop in an orderly manner, this line needs special care at three points: This is often lost sight
of because Ouspensky was only told about the two intervals between “MI” and “FA” and “SI” and “DO,” not about
the anomaly at the note “SOL”: That was added in Beelzebub. To take these in order: The particularity of the
intervals between “MI” and “FA” and between “SI” and “DO” is that the notes are only one semitone rather than
one entire tone apart.32 At those two intervals, the line of development is especially vulnerable to outside forces and
hence to deviate from the original impulse.33 As Gurdjieff is reported to have said:
Such a . . . change of direction, we can observe in everything. After a certain period of energetic activity or strong emotion or a right understanding
 a reaction comes, work becomes tedious and tiring; moments of fatigue and indifference enter into feeling; . . . a search for compromises begins;
suppression, evasion of difficult problems.34

The relevance of this to Gurdjieff’s exercises will become apparent later, especially in Chapter 17, for his
“Preparation” can be understood as an attempt to begin the day by striking a note “DO” of such a nature, and
making plans of such a kind, that the line of inner activity can continue during the day instead of suffering deviation
or weakening.
Gurdjieff taught that in Russia. But in the final edition of Beelzebub, he added something that was lacking even
from the 1931 transcript: that the Creator “disharmonized” the fifth point (SOL) simply by altering the other
intervals, with the result that:
If the completing process of this sacred law flows in conditions where . . . there are many “extraneously-caused-vibrations,” then all its functioning
gives only external results.
But if this same process proceeds in absolute quiet without any external “extraneously-caused-vibrations” whatsoever, then all the results
of the action of its functioning remain within that concentration in which it completes its process, and for the outside, these results only become
evident on direct and immediate contact with it.35

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.

The interrelationship of this scheme is exemplified in the Enneagram, a symbolic representation of the mutual
working of the two fundamental laws: the Laws of Three and Seven. The Enneagram is a circle marked at nine
points along its circumference, and intersected by internal lines joining the nine points. Each entity “with an orderly
and complete existence” can be described as an Enneagram.44 The apex of the circle does double service: It plays a
role in both of the laws, thus allowing ten points to be shown by nine. Seven of these points relate to the Law of
Seven, and three to the Law of Three. Two points of the Law of Three are evenly distributed among six of the points
of the Law of Seven. This co-working of the two laws, shown in their co-placement in the one symbol, reflects the
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
At the age of a year the bird propagates, so that individuals in the
white, mottled, or blue plumage, may be seen breeding together.
When only a few weeks old, the serrature of the claw of the middle
toe is scarcely perceptible, exhibiting merely faint indications of
points upon a very slight margin. This margin enlarges, and when
the bird is completely fledged the serratures are perfectly formed.
In this bird, as in most other Herons, the crura of the lower mandible
are thin, flexible, and elastic, the angle filled by an elastic membrane
covered by the skin. The tongue is 1 inch long, sagittate at the base,
tapering to a point. The roof of the mouth has a median prominent
ridge, and two lateral lines; the palate is convex; the posterior
aperture of the nares 10 lines in length. The pharynx may be dilated
to 1 1/2 inch; the œsophagus, which is 12 inches long, is when
dilated 10 lines in diameter at its upper part, and gradually contracts
to 7 lines; at the curvature of the neck it lies directly behind, having
passed down on the left side, along with the trachea. Its walls are
extremely thin, contrasting in this respect with the œsophagus of the
Great Northern Diver and other swimming piscivorous birds. The
proventriculus is 1 inch long, its glandules cylindrical, and extremely
slender. The stomach seems as if it merely formed a basal sac to the
œsophagus, its muscles being extremely thin, its tendons circular
and half an inch in diameter; cuticular lining soft. The intestine is long
and very narrow, 5 feet 10 inches in length, 2 lines in diameter at the
upper part, 1 1/2 near the rectum, which is 2 3/4 inches long, with a
diameter of 4 1/2 lines, and terminates in a nipple-like cœcum,
projecting 3 lines beyond the entrance of the small intestine, but
having no appearance of the two lateral appendages usually called
cœca. In this respect, the Blue Heron agrees with others of the same
family. The cloaca is about an inch in length and breadth.
The trachea, when extended, is 8 3/4 inches long. The rings 170 in
number, are osseous and circular, so that the organ preserves its
cylindrical form under all circumstances. They are, like those of all
Herons, of equal breadth on both sides, not broad on one side and
narrow on the other, as has been represented. The contractor
muscles are very slender, as are the sterno-tracheal; the former
send down a slip on each side to the first bronchial ring. The
diameter of the trachea is 2 lines at the upper part, 1 1/2 at the lower.
The bronchi are short, wide, conical, of about 13 half rings.
The right lobe of the liver is 2 1/4 inches long, the left lobe 1 1/2; the
heart 1 1/4 in length, 8 lines broad, of an oblong conical form. The
stomach contained remains of insects and crustaceous animals,
together with a few seeds.
 TELL-TALE GODWIT.

Totanus melanoleucus, Vieill.

PLATE CCCVIII. Male and Female.

It is my opinion that they who have given so much importance to the

cry of this bird, as to believe it to be mainly instrumental in ensuring
the safety of other species, and in particular of Ducks, have called in
the aid of their imagination to increase the interest of what requires
no such illustration. A person unacquainted with this Godwit would
believe, on reading its history as recorded in books, that the safety of
these birds depends on the friendly warning of their long-billed and
long-tongued neighbour. And yet it is at no season more noisy or
more vigilant than the Kildeer Plover, nor ever half so much so as the
Semipalmated species, the reiterated vociferations of which are so
annoying. It is true that the Tell-tale is quite loquacious enough; nay,
you, Reader, and I, may admit that it is a cunning and watchful bird,
ever willing to admonish you or me, or any other person whom it may
observe advancing towards it with no good intent, that it has all along
watched us. But then, when one has observed the habits of this bird
for a considerable time, in different situations, and when no other
feathered creatures are in sight, he will be convinced that the Tell-
tale merely intends by its cries to preserve itself, and not generously
to warn others of their danger. So you may safely banish from your
mind the apprehension, which the reading of books may have
caused, that duck-shooting in the marshes of our Middle Districts, is
as hopeless a pursuit as “a wild goose chase.”
The Tell-tale Godwit has a great range in the United States, where,
indeed, I have found it in almost every district, and at all seasons. It
spends the winter along the shores of our estuaries, rivers, and
ponds, and in the rice-fields, from Maryland to Mexico. It is abundant
then in South Carolina, the Floridas, and along the shores of the Gulf
of Mexico, as far as Texas, where I found it in considerable numbers
and paired, in the months of April and May, along with the Yellow-
shank Snipe, Totanus flavipes. It is also met with in spring and
autumn over the whole interior of the country, and I have found it
quite abundant at those seasons along the entire length of the
Mississippi, Ohio, and Missouri rivers, as well as on the Arkansas.
They congregate in great numbers in the inland marshes of Florida,
and along its rivers, during the winter. I found them near Eastport, in
the State of Maine, on the 11th of May 1833; and on the coast of
Labrador, on the 18th of June of the same year. In Newfoundland, on
the 11th of August, the young were equal in size to their parents, and
being extremely fat, tender, and juicy, afforded excellent eating. In
general, however, these birds are thin and have a fishy taste.
In the State of Maine and the province of New Brunswick, the Tell-
tale is known by the name of “Humility,” which, however, is an
appellation that ill accords with its vociferous habits. The Creoles of
New Orleans call it “Clou-clou;” and were these syllables rapidly
enunciated from two to five times in succession, the sounds would
have some resemblance to the usual notes of the species.
When these Godwits arrive in the vicinity of New Orleans about the
middle of March, they appear in considerable flocks. They retire,
however, in the beginning of May, and return about the first of July,
from which time they continue there until the end of autumn, some
indeed remaining all winter. It seems, that at the period of their
disappearance at New Orleans, they retire to the vast marshes near
the sea-shore, and there breed, for I have found them abundant near
the passes or mouths of the Mississippi in pairs, on the first of April,
when the air is warmer than in the interior. They are said to breed in
the marshes along the coast of New Jersey, where, according to
Wilson, they arrive early in April, and continue until November. It is a
curious fact that the Tell-tale Godwit, as well as some other birds of
similar habits, is of very rare occurrence along the shores of
Massachusetts and Maine. This, however, seems to be accounted
for by the absence there of the large spongy marshes, to which
these birds are fond of resorting.
Although found in the vicinity of both salt and fresh water, at all
seasons, it usually prefers the latter, and the spots which appear to
be best adapted to its nature are ponds of which the water is shallow
and the shores muddy, so that they can walk and wade at ease upon
them. Wherever such ponds occur, whether in plantations or in the
interior of forests, or on extensive savannahs or prairies, there you
will find them actively employed, wading so far into the water as to
seem as if they were swimming. If just alighted after ever so short a
flight, they hold their wings upright for a considerable time, as if
doubtful of not having obtained good footing. Closing their wings,
they then move nimbly about the pool, and are seen catching small
fishes, insects, worms, or snails, which they do with rapidity and a
considerable degree of grace, for their steps are light, and the
balancing or vibratory motion of their body, while their head is gently
moved backwards and forwards, is very pleasing to the eye.
I have often observed these birds on large logs floating on the
Mississippi, and moving gently with the current, and this sometimes
in company with the Snowy Heron, Ardea candidissima, or the
American Crow, Corvus Americanus. In such situations, they procure
shrimps and the fry of fishes. In autumn, they are extremely prone to
betake themselves to the margins of our most sequestered lakes in
the interior of Louisiana and Kentucky, where the summer heat has
left exposed great flats of soft sandy mud abounding with food suited
to their appetite, and where they are much less likely to be disturbed
than when on the marshes on the sea-shore, or on the margins of
rivers. When they have been some time in the salt-marshes, and
have eaten indiscriminately small shell-fish, worms, and fry, they
acquire a disagreeable fishy taste, and being at the same time less
fat, are scarcely fit for the table. They are social birds, and frequently
mingle with other waders, as well as with the smaller ducks, such as
the Blue-winged and Green-winged Teals. In the salt-marshes they
associate with Curlews, Willets, and other species, with which they
live in peace, and on the watchfulness of which they depend quite as
much as on their own.
The flight of the Tell-tale Godwit, or “Great Yellow-Shank,” as it is
generally named in the Western Country, is swift, at times elevated,
and, when necessary, sustained. They pass through the air with their
necks and legs stretched to their full length, and roam over the
places which they select several times before they alight, emitting
their well-known and easily imitated whistling notes, should any
suspicious object be in sight, or if they are anxious to receive the
answer of some of their own tribe that have already alighted. At such
times, any person who can imitate their cries can easily check their
flight, and in a few moments induce them to pass or to alight within
shooting distance. This I have not unfrequently succeeded in doing,
when they were, at the commencement of my calls, almost half a
mile distant. Nay, I have sometimes seen them so gentle, that on my
killing several in a flock, the rest would only remove a few yards.
I have always found that the cries of this bird were louder and more
frequent during the period of its breeding, when scarcely any birds
were in the vicinity. I therefore conclude that its cries are then more
intended to draw you from the spot where its nest is concealed, than
for any other purpose, as on such occasions the bird either moves
off on foot, or flies away and alights at a short distance from the
place where its treasure lies.
When in Labrador, I found these birds breeding, two or three pairs
together, in the delightful quiet valleys bounded by rugged hills of
considerable height, and watered by limpid brooks. These valleys
exhibit, in June and July, the richest verdure, luxuriant grasses of
various species growing here and there in separate beds many
yards in extent, while the intervening spaces, which are
comparatively bare, are of that boggy nature so congenial to the
habits of these species. In one of those pleasing retreats my son
found a pair of Tell-tales, in the month of June, both of which were
procured. The female was found to contain a full-formed egg, and
some more of the size of peas. The eggs are four, pyriform, 2 1/4
1
inches long, 1 4 /2/8 in their greatest breadth, pale greenish-yellow,
marked with blotches of umber and pale purplish-grey.
The plumage of this bird has a very different appearance in autumn
and winter from that which it presents at the approach of the
breeding season. This has led some students of Nature in the United
States to suppose, that there exist two nearly allied species; but this,
I am confident, is not the case. The female is larger than the male,
but only in a slight degree.
Dr Richardson has found this species on the Saskatchewan and Dr
Townsend on the Columbia River.

Totanus melanoleucus, Ch. Bonaparte, Synopsis of Birds of United States,

p. 324.
Tell-tale Godwit or Snipe, Scolopax vociferus, Wils. Amer. Ornith. vol. vii.
p. 57, pl. 58, fig. 5.
Tell-tale, or Greater Yellow-Shanks, Nuttall, Manual, vol. ii. p. 148.
Totanus vociferus, Tell-tale, Richards. and Swains. Faun. Bor. Amer. vol. ii.
p. 389.
Adult male. Plate CCCVIII. Fig 1.
Bill much longer than the head, very slender, subcylindrical, straight,
flexible, compressed at the base, the point rather depressed and
obtuse. Upper mandible with the dorsal line straight, the ridge
convex, broader at the base beyond the nostrils blended with the
sides, which are convex, the edges thick, with a groove running their
whole length, the tip slightly deflected. Lower mandible with the
angle very long and narrow, the dorsal line straight, the sides
convex, with a slight groove in their basal half, the sides convex, the
edges grooved longitudinally, the tip narrow. Nasal groove long and
narrow, extending to nearly half the length of the bill; nostrils basal,
linear, direct, pervious.
Head of moderate size, oblong, compressed, eyes large. Neck rather
long and slender. Body slender. Feet very long and slender; tibia
bare for half its length, scutellate before and behind, tarsus
compressed, also scutellate before and behind; hind toe very small
and elevated; fore toes of moderate length, very slender, connected
at the base by webs, of which the outer is larger; second or inner toe
considerably shorter than fourth, which is in a similar degree
exceeded by the third; all covered with numerous scutella above,
flattened beneath, and marginate. Claws small, slightly arched, much
compressed, rather obtuse, that of the middle toe much larger, with
the inner edge dilated.
Plumage soft and blended, on the fore part of the head very short.
Wings long, narrow, pointed; primaries narrow and tapering, first
longest, second a little shorter, the rest rapidly graduated;
secondaries short, broad, incurved, obliquely rounded, the inner
elongated and tapering. Tail short, doubly emarginate in a slight
degree, of twelve rounded feathers.
Bill black, tinged with bluish-grey at the base. Iris dark brown. Feet
bright yellow, claws brownish-black. Upper part of the head, lores,
cheeks, and the neck all round, excepting the throat, streaked with
brownish-black, on a white ground, tinged with grey on the head and
hind neck; the throat, breast, and abdomen, are pure white, the sides
and lower tail-coverts barred with brownish-black, as are the axillar
feathers and lower wing-coverts, the lower surface of the primaries
light grey, their shafts white. The upper parts generally are black,
glossed with green, each feather margined with white triangular
spots. The hind part of the rump and the upper tail-coverts white,
barred with dusky. The anterior smaller wing-coverts, alula, primary
coverts, and primary quills, brownish-black, without spots; shaft of
first primary white, of the rest brown. Tail-feathers white, with
numerous bands of dark greyish-brown, the middle six feathers more
or less of a light brownish-grey toward the end, the bars not
extending over their central part, their tips white. Length to end of tail
14 inches, to end of wings 14, to end of claws 16; extent of wings
24 3/4; bill along the ridge 2 3/12, along the edge of the lower
mandible 2 5/12, wing from flexure 8 2/12; tail 3 8/12; bare part of tibia
1 1/2; tarsus 2 5/12; hind toe and claw 4 1/2/12; middle toe and claw
1 8 1/2/12. Weight 6 oz.

Adult Female. Plate CCCVIII. Fig. 2.

The female resembles the male.

Length to end of tail 13 3/4, to end of wings 14 1/2, to end of claws

17 3/4; extent of wings 25 1/2. Weight 6 1/2 oz.

Both sexes become darker on the upper parts, at the approach of

spring. This dark colour disappears after their autumnal moult.
The tongue is 1 2/12 inch in length, slender, sagittate and papillate at
the base, triangular, tapering to a fine point. On the roof of the mouth
are two rows of large blunt papillæ directed backwards; the edges of
the mandibles are thick and grooved; the posterior aperture of the
nares linear, 9/12 long. The œsophagus, 6 3/4 inches in length,
passes along the right side of the neck, and has a diameter of 3/12 of
an inch in its upper part, but is dilated to 5/12 before it enters the
thorax. The proventriculus is oblong, 8/12 in length, its glandules
oblong. The stomach is oblong, 1 2/12 inch in length, 8/12 in breadth,
its lateral muscles of moderate size, the tendons 5/12 in diameter, the
cuticular lining hard, with large longitudinal rugæ, and of a deep red
colour. The intestine 2 feet 8 inches long, varying in diameter from
2 1/2/ to 2/12. The rectum 1 9/12 inch long; the cæca 4 inches 5/12
12
long, of an oblong form, with the extremity rounded, their diameter
1 1/2/ .
12

In another individual, the œsophagus is 6 1/2 inches long; the

stomach 1 9/12; the intestine 2 feet 3 inches; the rectum 1 9/12, the
cæca 4 1/12, their diameter 1 1/2/12.
1
The trachea, 4 8/12 inches long, 2 /2/12 in diameter above, 2/12 below;
of 120 unossified rings; its contractor muscles feeble, the sterno-
tracheal moderate; a single pair of inferior laryngeal; the bronchial
rings about 15.
 COMMON TERN.

Sterna Hirundo, Linn.

PLATE CCCIX. Adult.

Although the Prince of Musignano has thought that the bird named
the Common Tern in America, differs from that bearing the same
name in Europe, and has in consequence changed its appellation to
that of Wilson’s Tern, I am of opinion that no difference exists
between the Common Terns of the two Continents. The cry of both is
besides precisely similar, so that with me there is no doubt whatever
as to their identity. Experience has shewn me that the markings or
white spots on the primary quills of Gulls, at one time assumed as a
criterion by which species might be distinguished, cannot in the least
be depended on, varying, as they always do, in individuals of the
same species, at almost each successive moult. Then why, Reader,
should not Terns exhibit analogous changes? The fact is, they do so;
and it is almost impossible, on closely inspecting a dozen or more
specimens procured at the same period, in either country, to find two
individuals exactly corresponding in every particular. Some have the
bill almost entirely black, while others have it more or less red and
black, and tipped with yellow. The length of the tail-feathers, that of
the tarsus, and the size of the inter-digital membranes, are all found
to differ in some degree, if minutely compared. If species are to be
founded on such slight differences, an ample field is open to those
who are ambitious of being discoverers. At all events, I cannot help
remarking here, that it seems to me improper to impose new names
on objects, until it is proved by undeniable facts that they present
permanent differences.
I have observed this species along the Atlantic coast of North
America, from Galveston Island in Texas to the Straits of Belle Isle
on the coast of Labrador, both in spring and in early autumn. But
when on the islands in Galveston Bay, in the month of April, I saw
only a few arriving there from the west; whereas, in the beginning of
May great numbers arrived there from the east, settled at once, and
commenced breeding. I felt convinced that the numbers which came
from the direction of the Floridas were much greater than those
which arrived from the westward, and judged it probable that vast
numbers had at the same time left the Peninsula on their way
northward. Should other travellers observe the same or similar
phenomena at the season mentioned, it will be proved that this
species does not extend its autumnal migration so far as several
others, which I observed arriving at Galveston Island from the south-
west, for example, the Least Tern, Sterna minuta, the Cayenne Tern,
St. cayana, and the Black Tern, St. nigra.
The Common Tern commences breeding on the coast of our Middle
Districts about the 5th of May. On my voyage to Labrador, I found its
eggs on the islands in the Gulf of St Lawrence, and especially on the
Magdalene Islands, which I visited on the 11th of that month. On the
18th I saw them in great abundance in the neighbourhood of
American Harbour, on the coast of Labrador, where thousands of
Terns were plunging headlong after shrimps all round us. In that
country, their eggs were deposited among the short grass, and the
places which they occupied were but slightly scratched; whereas on
the Magdalene Islands, where they breed on sandy ridges, slight
hollows were scooped out, as is generally the case along the eastern
coast of the United States. Their sojourn in Labrador is of short
duration; and when we were at Newfoundland, on the 14th of
August, multitudes were already passing southward. At the same
period considerable numbers pass by an inland route from the
Canadas, and all our great lakes, travelling along the Ohio and
Mississippi. While residing at Henderson, and afterwards at
Cincinnati, I had ample opportunities of watching their movements in
the month of September. And yet, you will think it strange, that,
during their vernal migration, I never saw one ascend any of these
rivers or the streams connected with them. Perhaps the inferior
temperature of the waters, compared with those of the ocean, in the
early spring months, may induce them to abandon their route at that
season. In autumn, on the contrary, when these rivers are heated
and reduced in size, the Terns may find in them an abundant supply
of the fry of various fishes. It would thus appear, being corroborated
by other observations which I have made relative to migration, that
species whose range is extensive, are determined in their
movements by a genial temperature and an abundant supply of food.
With an easy and buoyant flight, the Tern visits the whole of our
indented coasts, with the intention of procuring food, or of rearing its
young, amidst all the comforts and enjoyments which kind Nature
has provided for it. Full of agreeable sensations, the mated pair glide
along side by side, as gaily as ever glided bridegroom and bride. The
air is warm, the sky of the purest azure, and in every nook the
glittering fry tempts them to satiate their appetite. Here, dancing in
the sunshine, with noisy mirth, the vast congregation spreads over
the sandy shores, where, from immemorial time, the species has
taken up its temporary abode. They all alight, and with minced steps,
and tails carefully raised so as not to be injured by the sand, the
different pairs move about, renew their caresses, and scoop out a
little cavity in the soil. If you come again in a few days, you will find
the place covered with eggs. There they lie, three in each hollow,
beautifully spotted and pointed; and as they receive heat enough
from the sun, the birds have left them until evening. But not absent
are they from the cherished spot, for they have seen you, and now
they all fly up screaming. Although unable to drive you away, they
seem most anxiously to urge your departure by every entreaty they
can devise; just as you would do, were your family endangered by
some creature as much stronger than yourself as you are superior to
them. Humanity fills your heart, you feel for them as a parent feels,
and you willingly abandon the place. The eggs are soon hatched; the
young in due time follow their parents, who, not considering their
pleasant labour ended when they are able to fly, feed them on wing
in the manner of swallows, until they are quite capable of procuring
their subsistence themselves. So soon as this is the case, the young
birds fly off in bands, to seek on distant shores, and in sunny climes,
the plentiful food which the ocean yields.
The nest of the Common Tern is, as I have said, a mere hollow made
in the loose sand of some island or mainland beach, scantily tufted
with wiry grass, or strewed with sea-weeds. Their eggs never exceed
three in number; their average length is 1 inch 5 1/2 eighths, their
breadth 1 1/4 inch. They vary greatly in their markings, as is the case
with those of all the smaller species of this family; but their ground
colour is generally pale yellowish-green, blotched and spotted with
brownish-black and purplish-grey or neutral tint.
The young, which are fed with small fishes, shrimps, and insects,
separate from the old birds when fully fledged, and do not again
associate with them until the following spring, when both are found
breeding in the same places. It seems quite curious to see these
young birds in winter, during boisterous weather, throwing
themselves into the remotest parts of estuaries, and even visiting
salt-water ponds at some distance from the sea, as I have often
seen them do at Charleston, in South Carolina, when accompanied
by my friend the Rev. Dr Bachman. Their plumage is then so very
different from that of the old birds, that one might readily believe
them to be of another species, did he not observe that their mode of
flying and their notes are the same. Not less strange is it, that on
such occasions none of the old birds are to be seen in the place,
they having remained, braving the fury of the tempest, on the outer
harbours. In the beginning of winter, young birds also sometimes
ascend the Mississippi as far as Natchez; and in the same manner
betake themselves to all the large lakes bordering the Gulf of
Mexico. There, as well as elsewhere, you see them plunge into the
water, and instantaneously secure their prey, rise as quickly, and
dash into another spot hard by, whenever food happens to be
abundant.
I have many times seen the Common Tern suddenly fly up and come
close over a man or a dog, without the least apparent provocation,
indeed when far distant from its nest, and then pass and repass
repeatedly within a few yards, emitting a plaintive cry, as if its eggs
or young were in the immediate vicinity. At other times, when the
birds were yet distant from their young, and carrying fish in their bills,
they would, on seeing a man, round to, drop their food, and perform
the same evolutions. I, however, know nothing more remarkable of
this species of Tern, than that it should breed, as I know from
personal observation to be the case, along the whole of our Atlantic
coast, in suitable places, from Texas to Labrador.
When travelling in stormy weather, they skim over the surface of the
water, moving rapidly and close together; whereas in fine weather,
they rise high, and proceed in a straggling manner. Now and then I
have seen them alight among Tringas of different species, as well as
among Razor-billed Shearwaters, on outward sand beaches.

Sterna Hirundo, Linn. Syst. Nat., vol. i. p. 227.—Lath. Ind. Ornith., vol. ii. p.
807.—Ch. Bonaparte, Synopsis of Birds of the United States, 354.—
Richards. and Swains. Fauna Bor. Amer. vol. ii. p. 412.
 Great Tern, Sterna Hirundo, Wils. Amer. Ornith., vol. viii. p. 76, pl. 60, fig.
1.
Great or Common Tern, Nuttall, Manual, vol. ii. p. 271.

Adult Male. Plate CCCIX.

Bill about the same length as the head, rather slender, compressed,
nearly straight, tapering to a narrow point. Upper mandible with the
dorsal line slightly arched, the ridge rather broad and convex at the
base, narrow towards the end, the sides sloping, convex towards the
end, the edges sharp and inflected, the tip very slender. Nasal
groove rather long, and with a faint groove and ridge extending
obliquely to the edge of the mandible; nostrils sub-basal, linear,
direct, pervious. Lower mandible with the angle very narrow,
extending beyond the middle, the dorsal line straight, the sides
ascending and convex, the edges sharp and inflected, the tip very
acute.
Head of moderate size, oblong; neck of moderate length; body very
slender. Feet very small; tibia bare for a considerable space; tarsus
very short, slender, compressed, covered anteriorly with twenty-two
small scutella, laterally and behind with reticular scales; toes very
small, slender, the first extremely small, the third longest, the fourth
considerably shorter, the second shorter than the fourth in the same
proportion; the anterior toes connected by reticulated webs, which
are deeply concave at their margin. Claws arched, compressed, that
of the hind toe smallest, of the middle by much the largest, and
having the inner edge thin and dilated.
Plumage soft, close, blended, very short on the fore part of the head;
the feathers, in general, broad and rounded; wings very long, narrow,
and pointed; primary quills tapering to a rounded point, slightly
curved inwards, the first longest, the rest rapidly graduated;
secondary quills short, broad incurved, obliquely rounded, the inner
more tapering. Tail long, very deeply forked, of twelve feathers, of
which the outer are tapering, the middle short and rounded.
Bill bright coral-red, black towards the end, the tip light yellow; inside
of mouth reddish-orange; eye hazel. Feet coral-red, lighter than the
bill; claws brownish-black. Upper part of the head, and the hind neck
half-way down, deep black, the anterior part tinged with brown, the
posterior with blue. The sides of the head, the fore neck, and all the
lower parts, white, with a slight tinge of greyish-blue on the breast.
Back, scapulars, and wings, light greyish-blue, the edges of the
wings, the rump, and upper tail-coverts, white, slightly tinged with
grey. First primary, with the outer web deep black, the shaft white, on
the inner web a greyish-black band running along the shaft, narrow
at the base, and widening so as to occupy the whole breadth of the
web for an inch at the end, where it is hoary. The next five have the
outer web, and a varying portion of the inner, in nearly their whole
length hoary, but at the same time with a dusky shade, which
becomes more apparent at the ends; the rest of the quills are like the
back, but margined and tipped with white. Tail-feathers with the inner
webs white, the outer webs of the colour of the back, paler on the
middle feathers, gradually deepening outwards, and on the outer
feathers dark or blackish-grey.
Length to end of tail 16 inches, to the fork of the tail 11, to end of
wings 15 3/8, to end of claws 11 1/4; extent of wings 31 1/2; wing from
flexure 11 5/12; tail to end of lateral feathers 7 1/12, to fork 3 1/12; bare
part of tibia 6 1/2/12; tarsus 10 1/2/12; hind toe and claw 3 1/2/12, middle
toe and claw 1 1/12. Weight 5 oz.

The female is similar to the male, but rather smaller. In some

instances I have seen a small portion of the forehead white.
Length to end of tail 15 inches, to the fork 11 1/2, to end of wings
15 1/4, to end of claws 11; extent of wings 30 1/4; wing from flexure
10 1/2. Weight 5 oz.

The young in their first plumage, have the bill dull greenish-black,
with the tip yellowish; the feet greenish-yellow.
In winter, the bill is black, with the base pale orange, and the tip
yellowish; the feet orange-yellow. The colours are as in the adult, the
forehead white, the rest of the head dusky, the upper parts having
the feathers slightly margined with lighter.

Length to end of tail 12 3/4, to the fork 11; to end of wings 14, to end
of claws 10 1/2; extent of wings 29 1/4; wing from flexure 8 1/4.

American and British specimens present no essential differences

when compared in considerable numbers. The outer web of the
lateral tail-feather is blackish-grey, and the inner webs of the tail-
feathers are white in all the specimens collected for comparison. The
tarsus in American specimens varies in length from 9 to 10 1/2
twelfths, and the claw of the middle toe from 2 1/2 to 4 1/2 twelfths;
but similar differences are observed in the British birds.

The tongue is 1 4/12 inch long, sagittate and papillate at the base,
very slender, tapering, the point slit, the upper surface a little
concave, the lower horny towards the end. Aperture of posterior
nares linear, 9 twelfths long. Palate with a middle and two lateral
ridges. Œsophagus 6 inches long, extremely wide, its average
diameter on the neck 7 twelfths, within the thorax 11 twelfths. The
stomach is muscular, 1 inch long, the lateral muscles not
distinguishable, the fasciculi of fibres being disposed as in the
rapacious birds; the central tendinous spaces 3 twelfths in diameter;
the cuticular lining strong, with broad longitudinal rugæ. The contents
of the stomach, fishes. The proventriculus 1 inch long. Intestine 1
foot 7 inches long, of moderate diameter, convoluted, varying from
2 3/4 twelfths to 2 1/2 twelfths. Rectum 1 inch long. Cœca 5 twelfths
long, with a diameter of 3/4 of a twelfth.

The trachea is 3 1/4 inches long, 2 1/2 twelfths in breadth above, 1 1/2
twelfth below; its rings 103, feeble and unossified; the lateral
muscles extremely slender; there are sterno-tracheal muscles, but
none besides. Bronchial half-rings about 18.
 SPOTTED SANDPIPER.

Totanus macularius, Temm.

PLATE CCCX. Male and Female.

In the course of my last journey in search of information respecting

the birds which at one season or other are found within the limits of
the United States, I observed so vast a number of them in Texas,
that I almost concluded that more than two-thirds of our species
occur there. Among them I observed the beautiful bird now before
you.
The Spotted Sandpiper has a wonderfully extensive range, for I have
met with it not only in most parts of the United States, but also on the
shores of Labrador, where, on the 17th June 1833, I found it
breeding. On the 29th of July, the young were fully fledged, and
scampering over the rocks about us, amid the putrid and drying cod-
fish. In that country it breeds later by three months than in Texas; for
on the head waters of Buffalo Bayou, about sixty miles from the
margin of the Mexican Gulf, I saw broods already well grown on the
5th of May 1837. On the same day of the same month in 1832, a
similar occurrence happened on an island near Indian Key, on the
south-east coast of Florida. In Newfoundland, on the other hand, the
young were just fully fledged on the 11th of August 1833. It appears
strange that none were observed by Dr Richardson on the shores
of Hudson’s Bay, or in the interior of that country. They are quite
abundant along the margins of the Mississippi, the Ohio, and their