Gurdjieff, Ouspensky and Others
The last name of George Ivanovich Gurdjieff was a household word in my father’s family, along with that of Gurdjieff’s major disciple, Peter Demianovich Ouspensky. I remember hearing these two strange sounding names from the mid-1940s when I was around age seven. Ouspensky died in 1947 and Gurdjieff in 1949, but their teachings remain important to a significant number of seekers and much has been written by their students, and students of these students, about them, especially Gurdjieff.
During my twenties, when I was hungry for glimpses of deeper structure and meaning in life, I began reading Gurdjieff the philosopher and psychologist, and Ouspensky the cosmologist and major explainer of Gurdjieff. I may not have pursued these writings so early and diligently had not their names been imprinted in me. I later read other explainers and interpreters of both these men because their writing is dense and, in Gurdjieff’s case, his written English is almost impenetrable to most readers.
By the time I was in my forties I had collected a large number of books about Gurdjieff and “the work,” as his legacy is known to his students, and a few by Ouspensky who was less prolific and had less of a following. I also had, and still have some, books by Rafael Lefort, Olga Arkadievna de Hartmann, Kathleen Speeth, John G. Bennett and Robert de Ropp which are, at least in part, pertinent to “the work”. And, to make even more clear what these two teachers taught I have their biographies by Colin W. Wilson.
The previous article in this journal was written as a result of such a rereading. More recently I have reread Making a Soul by John G. Bennett, adapted from a series of lectures, including extensive responses to questions from the audience, in London, 1954, expounding upon critical elements of the writing and teaching of Gurdjieff.
Sitting in the quiet early morning of a Swedish late spring, with the sun’s light about to stream into my window at 4:15 AM, I ask myself what I have learned from Gurdjieff and all his interpreters. The one thing I will remember is that we are, most of us, most of the time ‘asleep.’ The subtitle of Colin Wilson’s biography of Gurdjieff is The War Against Sleep. Another thing I will remember is that Gurdjieff and his followers asked good questions about the nature of man and his place in the universe. Finally, I am grateful for his having introduced me to ways of thinking and being in other parts of the world.
What I cannot now accept in his teachings is the metaphor of man as a machine. He and Ouspensky and all who followed them are steeped in the atmosphere of science and mathematics which bloomed in the first half of the 20th Century. The appeal to logic, reason and science in all these writings, no matter how much there may be an acknowledgment of a force ‘higher’ than man, is, in my view, like trying to put a previously living organism back to together after having dissected it.
Also, in Bennett’s Making of a Soul, he makes such, to me, unacceptable statements as “…the fundamental principle of all science, which is the continuity and self-consistency of the natural order”, and “…everything in the universe is built upon one common pattern.” I have an aversion to the use of the noun ‘science’ as if it were an independent agent causing things to happen or containing things that we try to discover. There is a scientific method that enables us to learn things about the universe and to make useful tools with this knowledge, but which is provisional and according to current theories, subject to revision.
Gurdjieff, Ouspensky, Bennett, de Ropp and others often present linear and planar diagrams in the manner of organizational charts and systems analyses to buttress their arguments of how man and the rest of the universe are constructed and how they relate to each other. These are inevitably hierarchical in nature, where Man is higher than all other living things on earth and subordinate to unseen and variously named forces higher than him.
Bennett, however, asks a critical question: “Who am I that can say ‘my body?'” This is precisely a question asked by others whose perceptions are influenced by Zen Buddhism and by those who perceive man as part of a vibrant and dynamic whole, not separate, not ‘outside’ of himself looking at himself.
Although fascinating and instructive, the adoption by Gurdjieff, then by others, of pieces of other cultures in The Caucasus, where Gurdjieff was born, and from parts of Western Asia such as Sufi dancing and The Enneagram, makes a kind of stew that requires endless interpretation for understanding.
I can now release many of the books in this realm of inquiry for others to read. I will keep some books because of their literary and historical value, and to remind me of these former teachers who have now become friends with whom I have some respectful differences of opinion.
Books to be released:
- Beelzebub’s Tales to His Grandson: All and Everything: 1st Series, by Gurdjieff
- The Herald of Coming Good, by Gurdjieff
- A New Model of the Universe, by Ouspensky
- The Fourth Way, by Ouspensky
- In Search of the Miraculous, by Ouspensky
- The Master Game: Pathways to Higher Consciousness , by de Ropp
- Warrior’s Way: A Twentieth Century Odyssey, by de Ropp
- Making a Soul: Human Destiny and the Debt of Our Existence, by BennettI will keep these books:
- Meetings With Remarkable Men, by Gurdjieff. This was translated from the Russian by A. R. Orage and is a quite readable adventure story.
- The Teachers of Gurdjieff, by Rafael Lefort, generally believed to be an alias for Idries Shah.
- The Gurdjieff Work by Kathleen Speeth. I once had a tape of Dr. Speeth discussing Gurdjieff. I was greatly impressed by the clarity of her speech and her presentation of “the work.”
- G.I. Gurdjieff: The War Against Sleep, Colin Wilson
- The Strange Life of P.D.Ouspensky, by Colin Wilson
I urge the reader to read the reviews underneath the links to these books for even more, and very interesting commentary.
As I retrieved and set aside these books for their proper distribution beyond my library, I came across this bookmark of unknown date, so I don’t know if the telephone numbers are current.
interesting post
Thank you.
Ron, I was just going to glance at the new(er) version of your blog and then do some other things, but got so hung up in this article (and the Hemingway piece) that I read them in entirety.
When reading your words about the idea of “man as machine,” (with which I agree) it struck me that people in general often use words that embrace that idea. For instance, we say a person had a breakdown, in the same way we refer to our cars. Also, I deduce from reading and interpreting medical records (jobwise) that doctors often see their patients more or less as an assemblage of parts. The orthopod evaluates and “fixes” the aching knee just as the transmission specialist sticks to the tranny.
I’ll end this way too long comment. Thanks for a thought-provoking read!
Loretta,
Your comments are always welcome and instructive. I grok your observations about the body as machine. I will soon report on a book, the author of which points out how much me use the ‘sight’ metaphor in our conversation, among many other deeper philosophical observations and assertions.
‘Glad Sommar’
Ron
Like you, Ron, I collected shelf upon shelf of books, until I came across Idries Shah’s work in 1986. And as I read more Shah, I ditched my prior interests in the esoteric and the occult and collected Shah’s books instead. That was before I realized that these were books that actually helped fuel change in oneself. It’s only in the last five years that I’ve finally managed to prise myself away from these, too.
Thanks, eric t.
Thank you very much for reading my article and telling me of your experience. I see us in a kind of brotherhood, if you don’t mind.
Best wishes
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Betty-Ann,
Thank you for your thoughtful response.
In the works of the Fourth Way I cannot find any reference to the musical harmonic series which is a universal and can be scientifically demonstrated. Instead what is used is the structure of the major scale, one of numerous scales used in eastern and western music over millenia. The Gurdieff/ Hartmann attempt to try and translate Mevlevi music played on a ney flute which uses ‘just’ tuning, does not transfer to the ‘tempered tuning’ of the piano, being unable to produce the very fine and expressive nuances of pitch that can be obtained on the ney flute. So much for the subtlety of Gurdieff’s understanding of music. Before prostrating one’s Self before the ‘fouth way’ teaching, a basic and working knowledge of both eastern and western musical theory should be appreciated. In my informed opinion the fourth way teaching does not qualify itself as a spiritual/ scientific teaching as it is based on hypnosis on a grand scale while debasing both eastern and western cultural and spiritual achievments that have been built upon laws founded in the very distant past.
The view of the body from the limited perspective of being analogous to a machine was just a way of aiding and abetting the paving of the way to our present technology-dependent existence. Gurdieff and Ouspensky et al. have been dead for over 60 years, but where is the ‘harmonious development’ evident in our present world? There is very scant evidence, despite the money that has been invested in these ‘schools’ and the volumes of books and argument written on this subject. Both western and eastern culture has been so degraded that now, literally any old rubbish can be classed as art and can be sold for obscene amounts of money.
Thankfully modern technology has provided the opportunity to listen to the mavlevi music, to watch sacred temple dances and compare them to the turgid Gurdieff interpretations.
I sense it is time to emerge from this Gurdieff/ Ouspensky collectivist hypnosis that has contributed to the oppression of the human spirit for over a century. The only thing that has any constructive value in this ‘work’ is the act of self-remembering, particularly useful when one is learning to stand on one’s own two feet without the support of wealth, kudos and class that so many of his early followers enjoyed the advantage of.
Yes, I omitted reference to “harmonious development” and the music of Gurdjieff/de Hartmann (I have it in MP3) just to keep from writing too much here. I don’t disagree with your observations on how things have deteriorated, but things generally do after the teacher or leader dies. I agree self-remembering is something to retain as a lesson, and yes his followers were mostly of the leisure class which I suppose is why he was so rude to them–in part to ‘wake them up.’