Introduction to

THE GURDJIEFF WORK

Published by Sandpoint Press 2009

Copyright 2009 Sandpoint Press, an imprint of Morning Light Press
Cover: Detail of 19th Century Dorasht Kelege carpet, Northeast Persia.
Photograph: Tom Woodward, Woodward Images, Hope, ID
Previously published as the Introduction to The Inner Journey: Views From
the Gurdjieff Work, Morning Light Press, 2008.
Portions have been drawn from G. I. Gurdjieff and His School by Jacob
Needleman, originally published in: Antoine Faivre and Jacob Needleman
eds. Modern Esoteric Spirituality, New York: Crossroad, 1992 and from
The Gurdjieff Tradition by Jacob Needleman, originally published as
an entry in: Wouter J. Hanegraaff (ed.) Dictionary of Gnosis and Western
Esotericism, Leiden: Brill, NV, 2005.
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of Morning Light Press.
ISBN: 978-1-934686-02-7

Printed on acid-free paper in Canada.

Needleman, Jacob. [Inner journey]

Introduction to the Gurdjieff work / Jacob Needleman.
Originally published: The inner journey : views from the
Gurdjieff work. Sandpoint, ID : Morning Light Press, 2008.
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 978-1-934686-02-7 (Sandpoint Press : alk. paper) -ISBN 978-1-59675-029-6 (Morning Light Press : alk. paper)
1. Gurdjieff, Georges Ivanovitch, 1872-1949. I. Title.
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Introduction to
THE GURDJIEFF WORK

Jacob Needleman

THE GURDJIEFF WORK

It has been nearly a hundred years since G. I.
Gurdjieff first appeared in Moscow in 1912, bringing with him a teaching unlike anything known or
heard of in the modern world. And although his
ideas have since then been explored in hundreds
of books and articles, and now exert a significant
influence throughout the Western world, both the
teaching and the man himself remain essentially as
new and unknown, and as astonishing, as when they
first appeared.
Gurdjieff s fundamental aim was to help human
beings awaken to the meaning of our existence and
to the efforts we must make to realize that meaning in the midst of the life we have been given.
As with every messenger of the spirit, Gurdjieff s
1

fundamental intention was ultimately for the sake

of others, never only for himself. But when we first
encounter the figure of Gurdjieff, this central aspect
of his life is often missed. Faced with the depth of
his ideas and the inner demands he placed upon
himself and upon those who were drawn to him,
and becoming aware of the uniquely effective forms
of inner work he created, we may initially be struck
mainly by the vastness of his knowledge and the
strength of his being. But sooner or later what may
begin to touch us is the unique quality of selflessness in his actions, the sacrifices he made both for
those who came to him, and for all of humanity.
We begin to understand that his life was a work of
love; and at the same time that word, love, begins
to take on entirely new dimensions of meaning,
inconceivable in the state of what Gurdjieff called
waking sleep.
In most major cities of the Western world, men and
women are now trying to live his teaching. It is not too
soon, therefore, to consider what this teaching has

brought or can bring to the world. As human life in

our era spirals downward toward dissolution in violence and illusion, one central question rises up before
us in the shadow of which all teachings, including the
Gurdjieff Work, must now be measured: How can
humanity reverse the process leading to its seemingly inevitable self-destruction?
In the face of this question, the heart is restless,
but the mind soon falls silent. It is as though the
unprecedented crisis of our modern world confounds
and all but refutes thousands of years of religious
doctrine and centuries of scientific progress. Who
now dreams of turning to religion for the answer
when it is religion itself that lies so close to the root
of war and barbarism? Who dares turn to science
for the answer when it is advancing technology, the
very fruit of scientific progress, that has so amplified
the destructive powers of human egoism? And who
imagines that new theories of society, new social
programs, new ideologies can do anything more
than wrap the falling earth in dreams of flying?

The mind falls silent.

But in that silence something within can awaken.
In that moment an entirely new kind of hope can
appear. The Gurdjieff Work may in part be understood as the practical, painstaking cultivation of
that silence and that hope, that state of embodied
awakening to the truth of the human condition in
the world and in oneself. The unanswerable question
about the fate of humanity and the world is transformed into the question, also unanswerable: What is
a human being? Who am I? But it is now a question
asked with more of oneself, not only with the mind
alonethe mind which, with all its explanations,
has so little power to resist the forces of violence and
brutality; nor with emotion alone, which, with all
its fervor, often ends by making the most sacred of
doctrines into instruments of agitation and death.
Nor, so the Gurdjieff teaching also shows us, can the
question of who and what we are be answered by
giving way again and again to the endlessly recurring

obsessions rooted in the physical body. That is to say,

the great question of who and what we are cannot be
answered by only one part of the whole of ourselves
pretending to be the master. This self-deceptive state
of the human being is precisely what Gurdjieff meant
by mankinds state of waking sleep. In this sleep, he
tells us, we are born, live and die, write books, invent
religions, build monuments, commit murders, and
destroy all that is good.
One thing, and one thing only, is therefore necessary. It is necessary for individual men and women
to awaken, to remember Who they are, and then to
become Who they really are, to live it in the service
of Truth. Without this awakening and this becoming, nothing else can help us.
But it is very difficult. An extraordinary quality of help is needed. To this end, Gurdjieff created
what has come to be called the Work.

The Gurdjieff Work Today

The Gurdjieff Foundation
Before his death in 1949, Gurdjieff entrusted
the task of transmitting the teaching to his chief
pupil, Jeanne de Salzmann, and a small circle of
other pupils in France, England, and America who
acknowledged her leadership. Under her guidance,
the first centers of the Work were established in
Paris, London, New York, and Caracas. Over the
past half-century other centers have radiated from
them to major cities of the Western world. Most of
the groups maintain close correspondence with the
principal centers and most have developed under the
personal guidance of one or two of the first-generation pupils of Gurdjieff. The general articulation of
all these groups is a cooperative one, rather than one
based on strictly sanctioned jurisdictional control.
There are also groups that no longer maintain close

correspondence with the main body of pupils and

operate independently. And there are numerous
other organizations led by individuals who claim no
historical lineage with either Gurdjieff or his direct
pupils. In what follows, we limit ourselves to the
teaching as it has been studied and transmitted by
groups that may be historically designated as representing the direct Gurdjieff lineage. These groups
now exist in each specific location under the name
of The Gurdjieff Foundation, or, in the United
Kingdom, The Gurdjieff Society.

6
A central focus of the Gurdjieff teaching is the
awakening to consciousness and the creation of
proper communal and psychological conditions that
can support this multi-leveled process. For this, a
preparatory work is necessary, as stated by Jeanne de
Salzmann:

According to Gurdjieff, the truth can be

approached only if all the parts which make
the human being, the thought, the feeling,
and the body, are touched with the same
force in a particular way appropriate to each
of themfailing which, development will
inevitably be one-sided and sooner or later
come to a stop. In the absence of an effective understanding of this principle, all work
on oneself is certain to deviate from the aim.
The essential conditions will be wrongly
understood and one will see a mechanical
repetition of the forms of effort which never
surpass a quite ordinary level.1
Gurdjieff gave the name of self-remembering
to the central state of conscious attention in which
the higher force that is available within the human
structure makes contact with the functions of
thought, feeling, and body. The individual remembers, as it were, who and what he really is and is

meant to be, over and above his ordinary sense of

identity. This conscious attention is not a function
of the mind but is the active conscious force which
all our functions of thought, feeling, and movement
can begin to obey as the inner master.
Consistent with the knowledge behind many
contemplative traditions of the world, the practice of
the Gurdjieff work places chief emphasis on preparing our inner world to receive this higher attention,
which can open us to an inconceivably finer energy
of love and understanding.

6
The Gurdjieff work remains above all essentially
an oral tradition, transmitted under specially created conditions from person to person, continually
unfolding, without fixed doctrinal beliefs or external
rites, as a way toward freeing humanity from the
waking sleep that holds us in a kind of hypnotic illusion. The moving life of the tradition thus supports

10

the individual search and helps to overcome the

seemingly universal impulse of resistance or inertia:
the tendency toward attachment, and the gradual
fixing on partial aspects, institutionalized forms,
dogmatic doctrines and a habitual reliance on the
known rather than facing and entering the unknown.
According to the Gurdjieff teaching, the forms
exist only to help discover, incarnate, and elaborate
a formless energy of awakening, and without this
understanding, the forms of the teaching become an
end in themselves and lose their meaning.
At present, the general forms of practice in the
Gurdjieff tradition may be characterized as follows:
Group meetings: Gurdjieff taught that alone, an individual can do nothing. In group meetings, students
regularly come together to participate in a collective
atmosphere that is meant to function as a principal
means for the transformation of the individual state
of consciousness. Although, with the help of more
advanced pupils, questions are shared and responded

11

to in words, the fundamental support of the group is

directed to the individual work of facing oneself and
consciously recognizing ones own inner lack, until
the appearance of a new quality of energy is possible.
The more experienced pupils, helping the group as
part of their own search, strive to be sensitive not so
much to the content of the exchange, but to the process of the developing energy and the mutual teaching that can take place under its influence. In their
turn, more advanced pupils just as urgently need to
work in groups, and in this way a redefinition of the
conventional image of the leader is inevitable. At
each level of inner work, what has been understood
needs to be individually and collectively re-examined
and verified in the movement of a dynamic living
esoteric school.
The sacred dances and movements which Gurdjieff
taught were partially a result of his research in the
monasteries and schools of Asia, and are of a nature
that seems unique in the modern Western world.

12

In certain respects, they are comparable to sacred

dances in traditional religious systems (for example,
the Cham dances of Tibetan Buddhism or the dervish dances of the Sufis). Like them, the Gurdjieff
Movements are based on the view that a series of
specific postures, gestures, and movements, supported by an intentional use of melody and rhythm
and an essential element of right individual effort,
can help to evoke an inner condition that is closer to
a more conscious existence, or a state of unity, which
can allow an opening to the conscious energy of the
Self. The Gurdjieff Movements are now regularly
given at major centers of the work by carefully prepared pupils who emphasize the need for exactitude
and a special quality of feeling, without which the
movements cannot provide the help for which they
were brought.
The practice of sitting is difficult to characterize apart
from observing that, in accordance with the overall
aim of the work, it is not a form in and of itself, but

13

is fundamentally a preparation for the inner search

within the midst of life. With or without spoken
guidance, the aim is ultimately to help individuals
search for an embodied presence that sustains the
attempt to enter more deeply into an awareness of
all the opposing forces constantly moving within the
body. Madame de Salzmann gave this special work
to her older pupils in the way Gurdjieff had given it
at the Prieur.2 Later, in the l960s, when groups had
become more advanced, she gradually introduced it
more broadly.
Work in life: To be able to work in life in the full sense
would be considered a very high achievement. The
struggle to be present in everyday life constitutes
a major aspect of Gurdjieff s teaching, a struggle
which leads to a full engagement in the duties and
rewards of human life, now and here. In this context,
Gurdjieff created conditions to help his pupils experience the fundamental practice of self-observation.
Through such experience, a man or woman can begin

14

to come into contact with an ever-deepening sense

of inner need which allows an opening to a powerful conscious influence within oneself. According
to Gurdjieff, without a relationship to this more
central aspect of oneself, everyday life is bound to
be an existential prison, in which the individual is
held captive, not so much by the so-called forces
of modernity, as by the parts of the self that cannot
help but react automatically to the influences of the
world. The help offered by the special conditions of
the work is therefore understood not as replacing
our life in the world, but as enabling us, in the course
of time, to live life with authentic understanding and
full participation.
Briefly, the movement toward awakening, which
is meant to be supported by the ideas and these
forms of practice, becomes in fact an organic process
in life and movement, and for that reason, dogmatic
approaches will inevitably fail. The process of awakening requires not only an understanding of the constituent forces and laws governing mans psyche and

15

actions, but also a deep sensitivity and appreciation of

individual subjective needs and conditions. In other
words, for an effective guidance, the principle of relativity must be recognized in the transmission of the
teaching: individuals must be approached according
to their respective levels of development and experience. Gurdjieff might have stressed one view to a
student at a certain level of understanding and quite
another view when that student had reached another
level. This might give the appearance of contradiction, but in fact it was consistent in applying only
those aspects of the whole teaching truly necessary
at a given moment. The same principle applies to the
ideas, some of which seemed more accessible at one
period while others still remained to be revealed in
the unfolding life of the teaching.3
For example, the work of self-observation
acquires a completely new meaning as the developing attention lets go of its effort, joining and willingly
submitting to a higher conscious seeing. The action
that might take place in this conditionin the quiet

16

of meditation or even in outer actionreflects the

simultaneous dual nature of both an impersonal
consciousness and a personal attention that has a
new capacity to manifest and act in the world. The
qualities of both these aspects of consciousness and
attention are quite unknown to the ordinary mind.
In this new relationship of individual attention and
a higher impersonal consciousness, a man or woman
can become a vessel, serving another energy which
can act through the individual, an energy which
at the same time transforms the materiality of the
body at the cellular level. This understanding of
inner work introduced by Jeanne de Salzmann can
be found today in many of the Gurdjieff Foundation
groups worldwide.

17

The Life of Gurdjieff

and the Principal Ideas
The Early Years
What we know of Gurdjieff s early life is based
mainly on what he has revealed in the autobiographical portions of his own writings, especially Meetings with Remarkable Men. Although
there is no reason to doubt the accuracy of his
account, the fact remains that the principal aim of
Gurdjieff s writings was not to provide historical
information, but to serve as a call to awakening and
as a continuing source of guidance for the inner
search that is the raison dtre of his teaching. His
writings are cast in forms that are directed not only
to the intellectual function but also to the emotional
and even subconscious sensitivities that, all together,
make up the whole of the human psyche. His writings therefore demand and support the search for

18

a finer quality of self-attention on the part of the

reader, failing which the thought contained in them
is unverifiable at its deeper levels.
Gurdjieff was born, probably in 1866, to a Greek
father and an Armenian mother in Alexandropol (now
Gumri), Armenia, a region where Eastern and Western cultures mixed and often clashed.The environment
of his childhood and early adolescence, while suggesting a near-biblical patriarchal culture, is also marked
by elements not usually associated with these cultural
traditions. The portrait Gurdjieff draws of his father,
a well-known ashokh, or bard, suggests some form of
participation in an oral tradition stretching back to
humanitys distant past. At the same time, Gurdjieff
speaks of having been exposed to all the forms of
modern knowledge, especially experimental science,
which he explored with an impassioned diligence.
The influence of his father and certain of his early
teachers contrasts very sharply with the forces
of modernity that he experienced as a child. This
contrast, however, is not easily describable. The

19

difference is not simply that of ancient versus modern worldviews or patterns of behavior, though it
certainly includes that. The impression, rather, is that
these remarkable men of his early years manifested
a certain quality of personal presence or being. That
the vital difference between human beings is a matter of their level of being became one of the fundamental elements in Gurdjieff s teaching and is not
reducible to conventional psychological, behavioral,
or cultural typologies.
Meetings with Remarkable Men shows us the
youthful Gurdjieff journeying to monasteries and
schools of awakening in remote parts of Central
Asia and the Middle East, searching for a knowledge that neither traditional religion nor modern
science by itself could offer him. The clues to what
Gurdjieff actually found, inwardly and outwardly, on
these journeys are subtly distributed throughout the
narrative, rather than laid out in doctrinal form. Discursive statements of ideas are relatively rare in the
book, and where they are given it is with a deceptive

20

simplicity that serves to turn the reader back to the

teachings woven in the narrative portions of the text.
Repeated readings of Meetings with Remarkable Men
yield the realization that Gurdjieff meant to draw
our attention to the search itself, and that what he
intended to bring to the West was not only a new
statement of what has been called the primordial
tradition, but the knowledge of how to conduct a
search within the conditions of contemporary life.
For Gurdjieff, as we shall see, the search itself, when
rightly conducted, emerges as the principal spiritualizing force in human life, what one observer has
termed a transforming search, rather than a search
for transformation.
As has been noted, Gurdjieff began his work as a
teacher in Russia around 1912, on the eve of the civil
war that led to the Russian Revolution. In 1914, he
was joined by the philosopher P. D. Ouspensky and
soon after by the well-known Russian composer
Thomas de Hartmann. Ouspensky was later to
produce In Search of the Miraculous, by far the best

21

account of Gurdjieff s teaching written by a pupil

or anyone other than Gurdjieff, while de Hartmann,
working in a unique collaboration with Gurdjieff,
would produce what has come to be called the
Gurdjieff/de Hartmann music. Soon after, as the
Revolution drew near and the coming breakdown
of civil order began to announce itself, Gurdjieff and
a small band of dedicated pupils, including Thomas
and Olga de Hartmann, made perilous journeys to
the Crimea and Tiflis (now Tbilisi). There they were
joined by Alexandre and Jeanne de Salzmann, the
former a well-known artist and theatrical designer
and the latter a teacher of the Dalcroze system of
rhythmic dance who was later to emerge as Gurdjieff s greatest pupil and the principal guide under
whom his teaching continued to be passed on after
his death in 1949. It was in Tiflis, in 1919, that
Gurdjieff organized the first version of his Institute
for the Harmonious Development of Man.
The account by Ouspensky and notes by other
pupils published in 1973 under the title Views from

22

the Real World show that in the Moscow period,

before the journey out of Russia, Gurdjieff tirelessly articulated a vast body of ideas about man
and the cosmos. It is appropriate here to interrupt
the historical narrative in order to summarize some
of these formulations, which played an important
role in the subsequent development of his teaching,
even as Gurdjieff changed the outer forms and certain inner emphases in his direct work with pupils.
Also, to a limited extent, these ideas throw light on
developments that came later, some of which have
given rise to unnecessary confusion in the minds of
outside observers. One caveat, however, is necessary.
If in his writings Gurdjieff never sought merely to
lay out a philosophical system, all the more in his
direct work with pupils did he mercilessly resist the
role of guru, preacher, or schoolteacher. In Search of
the Miraculous shows, with considerable force, that
Gurdjieff always gave his ideas to his pupils under
conditions designed to break through the crust of
emotional and intellectual associations which, he

23

taught, shut out the voice of conscience in man.

The often awesome precision with which he was
able to break through that crustways of behaving
with his pupils that were, in turn, shocking, mysterious, frightening, magical, delicately gentle, and
clairvoyantremains one of the principal factors
around which both the Gurdjieff legend and the
misunderstandings about him have arisen, as well as
being the element most written about by those who
came in touch with him, and the most imitated in
the current age of new religions.

The Gurdjieff Ideas

It is true enough to say that Gurdjieff s system of
ideas is complex and all-encompassing, but one must
immediately add that their formulation is designed
to point us toward a central and simple power of
apprehension that Gurdjieff taught is merely latent
within the human mind and that is the only power

24

by which we can actually understand ourselves in

relation to the universe. In this sense, the distinction between doctrine and method does not entirely
obtain in Gurdjieff s teaching. The formulations
of the ideas are themselves meant to have a special action on the sense of self and may therefore
be regarded as part of the practical method. This
characteristic of Gurdjieff s teaching reflects what
Gurdjieff perceived as the center of gravity of the
contemporary subjectivitythe fact that modern
civilization is lopsidedly oriented around the thinking function. Modern mans illusory feeling of I is
to a great extent built up around his thoughts and
therefore, in accordance with the level of the pupil,
the ideas themselves are meant to affect this false
sense of self. For Gurdjieff, the deeply penetrating influence of scientific thought in modern life
was not something merely to be deplored, but to
be understood as the channel through which the
eternal Truth must first find its way toward the
human heart.

25

Man, Gurdjieff taught, is an unfinished creation. He is not fully Man, considered as a cosmically unique being whose intelligence and power
of action mirror the energies of the source of life
itself. On the contrary, man, as he is, is an automaton. Our thoughts, feelings, and deeds are little
more than mechanical reactions to external and
internal stimuli. In Gurdjieff s terms, we cannot do
anything. In and around us, everything happens
without the participation of an authentic consciousness. But human beings are ignorant of this state of
affairs because of the pervasive and deeply internalized influence of culture and education, which
engrave in us the illusion of autonomous conscious
selves. In short, man is asleep. There is no authentic
I am in his presence, but only a fractured egoism
which masquerades as the authentic self, and whose
machinations poorly imitate the normal human
functions of thought, feeling, and will.
Many factors reinforce this sleep. Each of
the reactions that proceed in ones presence is

26

accompanied by a deceptive sense of Ione of many

Is, each imagining itself to be the whole, and each
buffered off from awareness of the others. Each of
these many Is represents a process whereby the subtle
energy of consciousness is absorbed and degraded, a
process that Gurdjieff termed identification. Man
identifiesthat is, squanders his conscious energy
with every passing thought, impulse, and sensation.
This state of affairs takes the form of a continuous
self-deception and a continuous procession of egoistic emotions, such as anger, self-pity, sentimentality, and fear, which are of such a pervasively painful
nature that we are constantly driven to ameliorate
this condition through the endless pursuit of social
recognition, sensory pleasure, or the vague and unrealizable goal of happiness.
According to Gurdjieff, the human condition
cannot be understood apart from considering
humanity within the function of organic life on
earth. The human being is constructed to transform energies of a specific nature, and neither

27

our potential inner development nor our present

actual predicament is understandable apart from
this function. Thus, in the teaching of Gurdjieff,
psychology is inextricably connected with cosmology and metaphysics and, in a certain sense, biology. The diagram known as the Ray of Creation
provides one of the conceptual keys to approaching
this interconnection between humanity and the universal order, and as such invites repeated study from a
variety of angles and stages of understanding.
The reader is referred to chapters 5, 7, and 9 of
In Search of the Miraculous for a discussion of this
diagram, but the point to be emphasized here is that,
at the deepest level, the human mind and heart are
enmeshed in a concatenation of causal influences of
enormous scale and design. A study of the Ray of
Creation makes it clear that the aspects of human
nature through which one typically attempts to
improve ones lot are without any force whatever
within the network of universal influences that act
upon man on earth. In this consists our fundamental

28

illusion, an illusion only intensified by the technological achievements of modern science. We are simply
unable to draw upon the conscious energies passing
through us which, in the cosmic scheme, are those
possessing the actual power of causal efficacy. We do
not and cannot participate consciously in the great
universal order, but instead are tossed about en masse
for purposes limited to the functions of organic life
on earth as a whole. Even in this relatively limited
spherelimited, that is, when compared to mans
latent destinyhumanity has become progressively incapable of fulfilling its function, a point that
Gurdjieff strongly emphasized in his own writings.
This aspect of the Ray of Creationnamely, that
the fate of the earth is somehow bound up with
the possibility of the inner evolution of individual
men and womenresonates with the contemporary
sense of impending planetary disaster.
How are human beings to change this state of
affairs and begin drawing on the universal conscious
energies which we are built to absorb but which now

29

pass through us untransformed? How is humanity

to assume its proper place in the great chain of
being? Gurdjieff s answer to these questions actually
circumscribes the central purpose of his teaching
namely, that human life on earth may now stand at a
major transitional point, comparable perhaps to the
fall of the great civilizations of the past, and that
development of the whole being (rather than one or
another of the separate human functions) is the only
thing that can permit us to pass through this transition in a manner worthy of human destiny.
But whereas the descent of humanity takes place
en masse, ascent or evolution is possible only within
the individual. In Search of the Miraculous presents a
series of diagrams dealing with the same energies
and laws as the Ray of Creation, not only as a cosmic
ladder of descent but also in their evolutionary aspect
within the individual. In these diagrams, known collectively as the Food Diagram, Ouspensky explains
in some detail how Gurdjieff regarded the energy
transactions within the individual human organism.

30

Again, the reader is referred to Ouspenskys

book. The point of these energy transactions is
that humanity can begin to occupy its proper place
within the chain of being only through an inner
work which within the individual human being may
be subsumed under the general term attention. The
many levels of attention possible for man, up to and
including an attention that in traditional teachings
has been termed Spirit, are here ranged along a
dynamic, vertical continuum that reaches from the
level of biological sustenance, which humans require
for their physical bodies, up to the incomparably
finer sustenance that we require for the inner growth
of the soul. This finer substance is termed the food
of impressions, a deceptively matter-of-fact phrase
that eventually defines the uniquely human cosmic
obligation and potentiality of constantly and in
everything working for an objective understanding
of the Real.

31

6
The Ray of Creation and the Food Diagram,
extraordinary though they are, are only a small
part of the body of ideas contained in In Search of
the Miraculous. They are cited here as examples of
how Gurdjieff not only restated the ancient, perennial teachings in a language adapted to the modern
mind, but also brought to these ancient principles
something of such colossal originality that those
who followed him detected in his teaching the signs
of what in Western terminology may be designated
a new revelation.
However, as was indicated above, the organic
interconnection of the ideas in In Search of the
Miraculous is communicated not principally through
conceptual argument but as a gradual unfolding,
which Ouspensky experienced to the extent that
there arose within him that agency of inner unity
which Gurdjieff called the real Ithe activation
of which required of Ouspensky an ego-shattering

32

inner work under the guidance of Gurdjieff and

within the general group conditions he created
for his pupils. Each of the great ideas in the book
leads to the others. The Ray of Creation and the
Food Diagram are inseparable from Gurdjieff s
teaching about the fundamental law of three forces
and the law of the sevenfold development of energy
(the Law of Octaves), and the interrelation of these
laws as expressed in the symbol of the enneagram.
These ideas are in turn inseparable from Gurdjieff s
teaching about the tripartite division of human
nature, the three centers of mind, feeling, and body.
Likewise, the astonishing account of how Gurdjieff
structured the conditions of group work is inseparable from the idea of his work as a manifestation of
the Fourth Way, the Way of Consciousness, distinct
from the traditionally familiar paths termed the way
of the fakir, the way of the monk, and the way of
the yogi.
The notion of the Fourth Way is one of Gurdjieff s ideas that have captured the imagination of

33

contemporary people and have brought quite a new

meaning to the idea of esotericism. The meaning of
this idea is perhaps best approached by resuming the
narrative of Gurdjieff s life, with special attention
given to the conditions of work which he created
for his pupils.

The Institute for the Harmonious

Development of Man
After a brief period in Constantinople, Gurdjieff
and his group of pupils made their way through
Europe and finally settled in France where, in 1922,
he established his Institute for the Harmonious
Development of Man at the Chteau du Prieur at
Fontainebleau-Avon, just outside Paris. The brief
intense period of activity at the Prieur has been
described in numerous books, but even for those
familiar with these accounts, the establishment
and day-to-day activities of the Prieur still evoke

34

astonishment. It was during this period that Gurdjieff developed many of the methods and practices
of group work that have retained a central place
in the work throughout the world today, including
many of the Movements or sacred dances. All serious accounts of the conditions Gurdjieff created at
the Prieur give the impression of a community life
pulsating with the uncompromising search for truth
engaging all sides of human naturedemanding
physical work, intensive emotional interactions, and
the study of a vast range of ideas about humanity
and the universal world. These accounts invariably
speak of the encounter with oneself that these conditions made possible and the experience of the self
which accompanied this encounter.
The most active period of the Prieur lasted less
than two years, ending with Gurdjieff s nearly fatal
motor accident on July 6, 1924. In order to situate
this period properly, it is necessary to look back once
again to the year 1909, when Gurdjieff had finished
his twenty-one years of traveling throughout Asia,

35

the Middle East, Africa, and Europe meeting individuals and visiting communities who possessed
knowledge unsuspected by most people. By 1909
Gurdjieff had learned secrets of the human psyche
and of the universe that he knew to be necessary for
the future welfare of humanity, and he set himself
the task of transmitting them to those who could use
them rightly. After trying to cooperate with existing societies, he decided to create an organization
of his own. He started in 1911 in Tashkent, where
he had established a reputation as a wonder-worker
and an authority on questions of the Beyond. He
moved to Moscow in 1912 and after the revolution
of February 1917 he began his remarkable journeys
through the war-torn Caucasus region, leading a
band of his pupils to Constantinople and finally to
France, where he reopened his institute at the Chteau de Prieur at Fontainebleau-Avon. His avowed
aim during this period was to set up a worldwide
organization for the dissemination of his ideas and

36

the training of helpers. The motor accident of July

1924 occurred at this critical juncture.
When he began to recover from his injuries,
Gurdjieff was faced with the sheer impossibility
of realizing his plans for the institute. He was a
stranger in Europe; his health was shattered; he had
no money; and many of his friends and pupils had
abandoned him. At that point he made the decision
to find a new way of transmitting to posterity what
he had learned about human nature and human destiny. This he would do by writing. His period as an
author began in December of 1924 and continued
until May 1935. It was during this period that he
produced the monumental expression of his thought,
Beelzebubs Tales to His Grandson; the subtle, crystalline call to inner work, Meetings with Remarkable
Men; and the profoundly encoded, unfinished Life is
Real Only Then, When I Am. It was also during this
period that he culminated his collaboration with
the composer Thomas de Hartmann, rounding off

37

the unique corpus of music that now bears both

their names.
In fact, although the period of the Prieur had
ended, and although struck by numerous personal
blows and tragedies, Gurdjieff by no means limited
himself to writing. Quite the contrary. His travels to
America, and his seeding of the work there, accelerated and intensified. The creation and development
of the Movements continued. And, perhaps above
all, assisted by Jeanne de Salzmann, his work with
groups and individuals in Paris not only attracted
from Europe and America the men and women
who would later carry the work to the cities of the
Western world, but at the same time allowed him,
within the silence and energy of his Paris apartment,
to transmit a portion of his understanding of inner
work to many other men and women from many
parts of the world.
After his death in Paris in 1949, the work continued under the guidance of Jeanne de Salzmann

38

and now rests largely in the hands of the second

generation of his circle of direct pupils.

6
In conclusion, and returning to the idea of the three
centers, a succinct statement of this fundamental
aspect of what Gurdjieff brought to the modern
world as the Fourth Way may be cited from the
descriptive brochure published at the Prieur in
1922:
The civilization of our time, with its
unlimited means for extending its influence,
has wrenched man from the normal conditions in which he should be living. It is true
that civilization has opened up for man new
paths in the domain of knowledge, science
and economic life, and thereby enlarged his
world perception. But, instead of raising him
to a higher all-round level of development,
civilization has developed only certain sides

39

of his nature to the detriment of other faculties, some of which it has destroyed altogether . . .
Modern mans world perception and his
mode of living are not the conscious expression of his being taken as a complete whole.
Quite the contrary, they are only the unconscious manifestation of one or another part
of him.
From this point of view our psychic life,
both as regards our world perception and
our expression of it, fail to present a unique
and indivisible whole, that is to say a whole
acting both as common repository of all
our perceptions and as the source of all our
expressions.
On the contrary, it is divided into three
separate entities, which have nothing to do
with one another, but are distinct both as
regards their functions and their constituent
substances.

40

These three entirely separate sources of

the intellectual, emotional or moving life of
man, each taken in the sense of the whole
set of functions proper to them, are called
by the system under notice the thinking, the
emotional and the moving centers.4
It is difficult conceptually, and in a few words,
to communicate the meaning of this idea of the
three centers, which is one of the central aspects
of Gurdjieff s teaching. The modern person simply has no conception of how self-deceptive a life
can be that is lived in only one part of oneself. The
head, the emotions, and the body each have their
own perceptions and actions, and each in itself can
live a simulacrum of human life. In the modern
era this has gone to an extreme point, and most of
the technical and material progress of our culture
serves to push the individual further into only one
of the centersone third, as it were, of our real
self-nature. The growth of vast areas of scientific

41

knowledge is, according to Gurdjieff, outweighed

by the diminution of the conscious space and time
within which we live and experience ourselves. With
an ever-diminishing I, we gather an ever-expanding corpus of information about the universe. But
to be humanto be a whole self possessed of moral
power, will, and intelligencerequires all the centers,
and more. This more is communicated above all in
Gurdjieff s own writings, in which the levels of
spiritual development possible for human beings are
connected with a breathtaking vision of the levels
of possible service that the developing individual is
called on to render to mankind and to the universal
source of creation itself.
Thus, the proper relationship of the three centers
of cognition in the human being is a necessary precondition for the reception and realization of what in
the religions of the world has been variously termed
the Holy Spirit, Atman, or the Buddha nature. The
conditions Gurdjieff created for his pupils cannot be
understood apart from this fact. I wished to create

42

around myself, Gurdjieff wrote, conditions in which

a man would be continuously reminded of the sense
and aim of his existence by an unavoidable friction
between his conscience and the automatic manifestations of his nature. 5 Deeply buried though it is,
the awakened conscience is the something more that,
according to Gurdjieff, is the only force in modern
mans nearly completely degenerate psyche that can
actually bring the parts of his nature together and
open him to that energy and unnamable awareness
of which all the religions have always spoken as the
gift that descends from above, but which in the conditions of modern life is almost impossible to receive
without an extraordinary quality of help.
Notes:
1 From the Introduction to Life is Real, Only Then, When
I Am, p xii.
2 In 1922, Gurdjieff acquired the Prieur dAvon, a
large estate and former priory located about 40 miles

43

from Paris where he established intense communal

conditions for inner work, especially from 1922 until
his automobile accident in 1924.
3 In this light, it is interesting to note that groups that
break away at different moments, to work by themselves and on their own, run the risk of clinging dogmatically to certain specific forms and practices.
4 G. Gurdjieff s Institute for the Harmonious Development of Man: Prospectus No. 1, p 3 (privately printed,
ca. 1922).
5 Meetings with Remarkable Men, p 270.

44

For Further Study

The Gurdjieff Foundation

The most comprehensive directory of websites and

contact information for the Gurdjieff Foundations
throughout the world may, at present, be accessed
on the website of The Gurdjieff International
Review, at www.gurdjieff.org/foundation.htm.

Books, Music and Film

Note: first publication of all books is cited, followed,

in parentheses, by most recent or more readily available editions.

Books by Gurdjieff

Gurdjieff, G. I. All and Everything: Beelzebubs Tales

to His Grandson. New York: Harcourt Brace, 1950
(New York: Penguin Arkana, 1999); and New York:
Jeremy P. Tarcher/Penguin (revised), 2006 Tarcher/
Penguin (second revision), 2008.

Long read and respected, and perennially

45

in print, the 1950 edition was edited by A. R. Orage

on the basis of a literal English text prepared from
Gurdjieff s original Russian and Armenian by
pupils at the Institute for the Harmonious Development of Man. This version may become the readers
preference. However, the revised translation, initially
published in 1992 and republished with corrections
in 2006, should also be read. This edition reflects,
to some extent, the greater ease of expression of
the French edition of 1956 and also benefited from
direct access to the original Russian text, published
in 2000 by Traditional Studies Press (Toronto). Both
versions of the book can be trusted.
. Meetings with Remarkable Men. New York:
Dutton, 1963 (New York: Penguin Arkana, 1985).

Gurdjieff s account of his youth and early
search for hidden knowledge was written as an autobiographical narrative. It possesses an uncommon
inner calm and presence which offers a taste of the
path that he brought to the modern world.

46

. Life is Real Only Then, When I Am. New

York: Dutton, 1982 (New York: Penguin Arkana,
1991).

Here Gurdjieff speaks on many levels and
with great precision and candor of the discoveries
and difficulties in his personal struggle to bring the
Work to birth.
. Views from the Real World. New York: Dutton, 1973 (New York: Penguin Compass, 1984).

A collection of Gurdjieff s lectures from
the years 1917 to 1933. That any record of these
lectures exists at all is due to a few pupils who, with
astonishing powers of memory . . . managed to write
down what they heard afterwards during the turbulence of revolutionary Russia, at the Institute for
the Harmonious Development of Man, and during
Gurdjieff s visits to American pupils in New York
and elsewhere. The book offers a rare opening to
the vast scale of the Gurdjieff ideas expressed in the
human resonance of his own voice.

47

Accounts by Direct Pupils

Ouspensky, P. D. In Search of the Miraculous. New
York: Harcourt, Brace, 1949 (New York: Harcourt,
2001).

This book may be given a special significance
in this list of reliable recommended works. Since its
first publication in 1949, Ouspenskys In Search of the
Miraculous has served as the most artful, electrifying
and profound account written by a pupil. Ouspenskys book retains a remarkable strength and freshness to this day and continues to help readers at all
levels of their preparation and acquaintance with the
Gurdjieff teaching. For many, it remains the book
of choice for those approaching the teaching for the
first time.
de Hartmann, Thomas and Olga. Our Life with Mr.
Gurdjieff. New York: Cooper Square, 1962. Several
revised and enlarged editions have been published
over the years. The most recent and definitive: Sandpoint: Sandpoint Press, 2008.

48

This book describes the dangerous flight by
Gurdjieff and a handful of pupils out of war-torn
revolutionary Russia, ending with the establishment
of the Prieur community in France. One of the
most faithful portraits of Gurdjieff the man.
Lannes, Henriette. This Fundamental Quest. San
Francisco: Far West Institute, 2007.

A direct pupil of Gurdjieff, Henriette
Lannes was responsible in later years for the practical study of the Gurdjieff teaching in Lyon (France)
and in London. Many of the brief chapters in this
record of her work in Lyon are deceptively simple,
recording a kind of higher common sense based
on few but fundamental assumptions: the need for
self-knowledge, the necessity of challenging ourselves, the revelatory power of attention, the imperative of honesty with oneself and of clarified relations
with others.
Pentland, John. Exchanges Within. New York: Continuum, 1997 (New York: Tarcher Penguin, 2004).

49

John Pentland was immensely influential
in the transmission of the Gurdjieff teaching in
America. A faithful and dynamic record of both the
energy and the thought exchanged in a Gurdjieff
group as led by one of its most powerful and creative
leaders.
de Salzmann, Michel. Mans Ever New and Eternal Challenge. In On the Way to Self Knowledge,
pp 54-83, New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1976. Also
Seeing: The Endless Source of Inner Freedom in
Material for Thought, #14, 12-30.

Michel de Salzmann was both a trained
psychiatrist and one of the most respected leaders of
the Work throughout the world. These two magisterial essays show the place of psychotherapy in the
process of inner development while at the same time
offering a far-reaching vision of the several levels of
the Gurdjieff work.
Segal, William. A Voice at the Borders of Silence. New
York: The Overlook Press, 2003.

50

A highly successful businessman, an important American artist and a devoted practitioner of
Zen, William Segal was for many years a leading
figure in the development of the Gurdjieff Work in
America. This book generously offers a window into
all sides of this remarkable Gurdjieff man.
. Opening. New York: The Continuum Publishing Company, 1998.
Tracol, Henri. The Taste For Things That Are True.
Longmead, Shaftesbury, Dorset: Element Books,
Ltd., 1994. (Expanded and revised edition forthcoming, entitled The Real Question Remains by
Sandpoint Press, Sandpoint).

Henri Tracol was a pupil of Gurdjieff for
over ten years and worked as a leader of the Work
closely alongside Jeanne de Salzmann in the years
following Gurdjieff s death. The essays, talks and
interviews in this book reveal an approach to the
Gurdjieff teaching unsurpassed in its subtlety, depth
and purity.

51

The following books seem to me to be among the

most honest attempts by pupils of Gurdjieff to
depict the personal impact of the man and his way
of teaching:
Anderson, Margaret. The Unknowable Gurdjieff.
New York: Weiser, 1962 (London and New York:
Penguin Arkana, 1991).
Hulme, Kathryn. Undiscovered Country. Boston:
Little Brown, 1966.
Hands, Rina. Diary of Madame Egout Pour Sweet.
Aurora, Oregon: Two Rivers Press, 1991.
Nott, C. S. Teachings of Gurdjieff: The Journal of a
Pupil. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1961
(London and New York: Penguin Arkana, 1991).
Tchekhovitch, Tcheslaw. Gurdjieff: A Master in Life.
Toronto: Dolmen Meadow Editions, 2006.
Zuber, Ren. Who Are You, Monsieur Gurdjieff? London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1980.

52

Accounts by Other Pupils of the Gurdjieff Work

Ravindra, Ravi. Heart Without Measure. Halifax:
Shaila Press, 1999. (Sandpoint: Morning Light
Press, 1999).

The first published account of the teaching
of Jeanne de Salzmann, Gurdjieff s greatest pupil,
who was responsible for the Work after his death.
Vaysse, Jean. Toward Awakening: An Approach to the
Teaching Left by Gurdjieff. San Francisco: Far West
Undertakings, 1978. (London and New York: Penguin Arkana, 1988); (Sandpoint: Morning Light
Press, 2009).

Written by a long-time pupil of Jeanne de
Salzmann, this concise exposition clarifies much
that has seemed obscure in the Gurdjieff teaching.

53

Also recommended:
Material for Thought, a journal published occasionally in San Francisco by the Gurdjieff Foundation of
California under the imprint of Far West Editions.
See: http://www.farwesteditions.com
Gurdjieff International Review: see http://www.gurdjieff.org
Guide and Index to Beelzebubs Tales. Toronto: Traditional Studies Press, 2003. Second edition, referencing all editions of Beelzebubs Tales.
Needleman, Jacob and George Baker, eds., Gurdjieff:
Essays and Reflections on the Man and His Teaching.
New York: Continuum, 2004.
Needleman, Jacob, ed., The Inner Journey: Views from
the Gurdjieff Work. Sandpoint: Morning Light Press,
2008.

The first major collection of essays and interviews by the first and second generation of Gurdjieff

54

pupils. The present essay has been drawn, with minor

changes, from the Introduction to this book.

Music

The Music of Gurdjieff/de Hartmann. Thomas de

Hartmann, piano. 3-disc set. Triangle Records, a
division of Triangle Editions.

In these essential recordings one feels
immediately the authority of the composers interpretation of his own music, although de Hartmann was not always aware that his performances
were being recorded. Thus certain pieces contain
spontaneous departures from the printed text.

The original recordings were made largely
on an early, somewhat primitive, wire recorder. Many
years later the transfer to LP, and eventually to CD,
included an electronic process designed to clarify the
sound and eliminate extraneous noises and background hiss. Nevertheless, the spiritual authenticity
of these recordings make this a definitive rendition
of one of the central forms of the teaching.

55

Gurdjieff/de Hartmann: Music for the Piano, Volumes 1-4. Linda Daniel-Spitz, Charles Ketcham,
Laurence Rosenthal, pianists. Wergo (Schott
Wergo Music Media, Mainz, Germany).

These performances were recorded by the
three editors of the published complete works. This
edition was produced under the guidance of Jeanne
de Salzmann. A major feature of these four sets of
CDs is that they comprise a complete recording of
the four volumes of the published music, presented
in the same order. Thus it is possible for the listener
to follow in sequence the printed scores.
Gurdjieff/de Hartmann, Volumes 1-10 (Various
titles: Meditations, Music of the Sayyids and Dervishes, Hymn for Christmas Day, First Dervish
Prayer, Circles, etc.). Alain Kremski, piano. Fano,
Italy: Nave Recording Studio.

Alain Kremskis interpretations are often
imaginative and unusual, and always there is great
authority in his playing and technique. Although the

56

music for the Gurdjieff Movements is generally not

designed to be heard separately from the sacred dances
themselves, Kremski has elected to include many of
de Hartmanns compositions for the Movements in
these collections.
Gurdjieff/de Hartmann, Volumes 1 and 2. Laurence
Rosenthal, piano. Windemere.

These recent recordings, part of a series still
in progress, were made by a composer and pianist
with a long association with the Gurdjieff/de Hartmann music. Rosenthal arranged and orchestrated
many of these pieces for inclusion in the musical
score of Peter Brooks film Meetings with Remarkable
Men. The CD of the score for the film is available on
Citadel records.

Film

Meetings with Remarkable Men, directed by Peter

Brook, produced by Remar Production, Inc., 1978,
distributed by Morning Light Press, Sandpoint.

Filmed on location in Afghanistan, and based

57

on the book by Gurdjieff, this deeply evocative film

includes what is currently the only publicly available
performance of the Gurdjieff Movements.