Gurdjieff and the Women of the Rope

Gurdjieff and the Women of the Rope PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780955909061
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 284

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Book Description
During the mid 1930s in Paris, the spiritual teacher George Gurdjieff drew together four women - Solita Solano, Kathryn Hulme, Alice Rohrer, and Elizabeth Gordon - into a special, mutually supporting work group calling itself 'The Rope' to develop their full human potential.

Gurdjieff and the Women of the Rope

Gurdjieff and the Women of the Rope PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780955909061
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 284

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Book Description
During the mid 1930s in Paris, the spiritual teacher George Gurdjieff drew together four women - Solita Solano, Kathryn Hulme, Alice Rohrer, and Elizabeth Gordon - into a special, mutually supporting work group calling itself 'The Rope' to develop their full human potential.

Ladies of the Rope

Ladies of the Rope PDF Author: William Patrick Patterson
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781879514416
Category : American literature
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description


Gurdjieff

Gurdjieff PDF Author: Joseph Azize
Publisher:
ISBN: 0190064072
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 349

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Book Description
"This is the first analysis of all of Gurdjieff's published internal exercises, together with those taught by his students, George and Helen Adie. It includes a fresh biographical study of Gurdjieff, with ground-breaking observations on his relationships with P.D. Ouspensky and A.R. Orage (especially, why he wanted to collaborate with them, and why that broke down). It shows that Gurdjieff was, fundamentally, a mystic, and that his contemplation-like methods were probably drawn from Mt Athos and its hesychast tradition. It shows the continuity in Gurdjieff's teaching, but also development and change. His original contribution to Western Esotericism lay in his use of tasks, disciplines, and contemplation-like exercises to bring his pupils to a sense of their own presence which could, to some extent, be maintained in daily life in the social domain, and not only in the secluded conditions typical of meditation. It contends that he had initially intended not to use contemplation-like exercises, as he perceived dangers to be associated with these monastic methods, and the religious tradition to be in tension with the secular guise in which he first couched his teaching. As Gurdjieff adapted the teaching he had found in Eastern monasteries to Western urban and post-religious culture, he found it necessary to introduce contemplation. His development of the methods is demonstrated, and the importance of the three exercises in the Third Series, Life Is Real only then, when 'I Am', is shown, together with their almost certain borrowing from the exercises of the Philokalia. G.I. Gurdjieff P.D. Ouspensky A.R. Orage George Adie Mysticism Meditation Contemplation Fourth Way Hesychasm Western Esotericism"--

Meetings With Remarkable Men

Meetings With Remarkable Men PDF Author: George Ivanovich Gurdjieff
Publisher: Library of Alexandria
ISBN: 1465505911
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 486

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Book Description
EXACTLY A MONTH HAS ELAPSED since I finished the first series of my writings—just that period of the flow of time which I intended to devote exclusively to resting the parts of my common presence subordinate to my pure reason. As I wrote in the last chapter of the first series, I had given myself my word that during the whole of this time I would do no writing whatsoever, but would only, for the well-being of the most deserving of these subordinate parts, slowly and gently drink down all the bottles of old calvados now at my disposal by the will of fate in the wine-cellar of the Prieuré, and specially provided the century before last by people who understood the true sense of life. Today I have decided, and now I wish—without forcing myself at all, but on the contrary with great pleasure—to set to work at my writing again, of course with the help of all the corresponding forces and also, this time, with the help of the law-conformable cosmic results flowing in from all sides upon my person from the good wishes of the readers of the first series. I now propose to give a form understandable for everyone to everything I have written down for the second series, in the hope that these ideas may serve as preparatory constructive material for setting up in the consciousness of creatures similar to myself a new world—a world in my opinion real, or at least one that can be perceived as real by all degrees of human thinking without the All and Everything: Beelzebub’s Tales to His Grandson, p. 1236 slightest impulse of doubt, instead of the illusory world which contemporary people picture to themselves. And indeed, the mind of contemporary man, of whatever level of intellectuality, is only able to take cognizance of the world by means of data which, whenever accidentally or intentionally activated, arouse in him all sorts of fantastic impulses. And these impulses, by constantly affecting the tempo of all the associations flowing in him, gradually disharmonize the whole of his functioning, with such sorrowful results that it is impossible for any man, if he is able to isolate himself even a little from the influences of the established abnormal conditions of our ordinary life and is willing to think about it seriously, not to be terrified—as, for example, by the shortening of our life with each decade. First of all, for the ‘swing of thought’, that is, for establishing a corresponding rhythm for my thinking and also for yours, I wish to follow somewhat the example of the Great Beelzebub and imitate the form of thinking of one highly respected by him and by me, and perhaps already, brave reader of my writings, by you, if of course you have had the daring to read through to the end all of the first series. That is to say, I wish to introduce at the very beginning of this writing of mine what our dear-to-all Mullah Nassr Eddin1 would call a ‘subtly philosophical question.’ I wish to do this at the very beginning because I intend to use freely, both here and in my later expositions, the wisdom of this sage, who is now recognized almost everywhere and upon whom, it is rumoured, the title of ‘The One and Only’ is soon to be officially conferred by the proper person. And this subtly philosophical question may already be sensed in that sort of perplexity which is bound to arise in the consciousness of every reader of even the very first paragraph of this chapter, if he compares the many data on which his firm convictions about medical matters are based with the fact that I, the author of Beelzebub’s Tales to His Grandson, after the accident which nearly cost me my life, with the functioning of my organism not yet fully re-established owing to the incessant active effort Mullah Nassr Eddin, a legendary figure in numerous countries of the Near East, is an embodiment of popular wisdom.

Deconstructing Gurdjieff

Deconstructing Gurdjieff PDF Author: Tobias Churton
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1620556391
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 467

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Book Description
Beyond Meetings with Remarkable Men into the truth behind the self-crafted mythology of Gurdjieff’s life • Reveals evidence that Gurdjieff was a secret Freemason, relying on hypnotism, psychic research and spiritualism • Explores the profound influence of the Yezidis, esoteric Christianity, and the “gnostics” of Islam, the Sufis, on Gurdjieff’s Fourth Way teachings and the “Work” • Uncovers the truth behind Gurdjieff’s relations with Aleister Crowley • Accurately dates Gurdjieff’s real activities, particularly his enigmatic early life In November 1949, architect Frank Lloyd Wright announced the death of “the greatest man in the world,” yet few knew who he was talking about. Enigmatic, misunderstood, declared a charlatan, and recently dubbed “the Rasputin who inspired Mary Poppins,” Gurdjieff’s life has become a legend. But who really was George Ivanovich Gurdjieff? Employing the latest research and discoveries, including previously unpublished reminiscences of the real man, Tobias Churton investigates the truth beneath the self-crafted mythology of Gurdjieff’s life recounted in Meetings with Remarkable Men. He examines his controversial birthdate, his father’s background, and his relationship with his private tutor Dean Borshch, revealing a perilous childhood in a Pontic Greek family, persecuted by Turks, forced to migrate to Georgia and Armenia, only to grow up amid more war, persecution, genocide, and revolt. Placing Gurdjieff in the true context of his times, Churton explores Gurdjieff’s roles in esoteric movements taking root in the Russian Empire and in epic imperial construction projects in the Kars Oblast, Transcaucasia, and central Asia. He reveals Gurdjieff’s sources for his transformative philosophy, his early interest in hypnosis, magic, Theosophy, and spiritualism, and the profound influence of the Yezidis and the Sufis, the “gnostics” of Islam, on Gurdjieff’s Fourth Way teachings and the “Work.” Churton also explores Gurdjieff’s ties to Freemasonry and his relationships with other spiritual teachers and philosophers of the age, such as Madame Blavatsky, Frank Lloyd Wright, and Aleister Crowley, dispelling the myth that Gurdjieff forcibly expelled the “Great Beast” from his Institute. Showing how Gurdjieff deliberately re-shaped elements of his life as parables of his system, Churton explains how he didn’t want people to follow his footsteps but to find their own, to wake up from the hypnosis that drives us blindly through life. Offering a vital understanding of the man who asked “How many of you are really alive?” the author reveals the continuing importance of Gurdjieff’s philosophy for the awakening of man.

The Herald of Coming Good

The Herald of Coming Good PDF Author: George Ivanovich Gurdjieff
Publisher: Library of Alexandria
ISBN: 146550592X
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 96

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Book Description
Before venturing to unfold the very substance of my first appeal to contemporary humanity, I count it essential and even in every way my duty, to set forth—even if only approximately—the motives which compelled me to assume the whole burden of such an artificial life. This protracted and, for me, absolutely unnatural life. absolutely irreconcilable, too, in every way with the traits that had entrenched themselves in my individuality by the time of my maturity, was the direct consequence of my decision, founded upon the results of my previous study of a whole series of historic precedents with a view, first of all,—to preventing, by to a certain degree unnatural outward manifestations of myself, the formation, in relation to me, of that already noted from ancient times ” something “, termed by the great Solomon, King of “ Juda, ” Tzvarnoharno , which, as was set out by our ancestors, forms itself by a natural process in the communal life of people as an outcome of a conjunction of the evil actions of so-called ” common people ” and leads to the destruction of both him that tries to achieve something for general human welfare and of all that he has already accomplished to this end. Secondly, with a view,—to counteracting the manifestation in people with whom I came in contact of that inherent trait which, embedded as it is in the psyche of people and acting as an impediment to the realization of my aims, evokes from them, when confronted with other more or less prominent people, the functioning of the feeling of enslavement, paralysing once and for all their capacity for displaying the personal initiative of which I then stood in particular need. My aim at that time was concentrated upon the creation of conditions permitting the comprehensive elucidation of one complicated and with difficulty explicable aspect of the question which had, already long before the beginning of this my artificial life, inhered in my being, and the necessity of whose final solution has, whether by the will of fate or thanks to the inscrutable laws of heredity, become and would, at the moment, appear to be the fundamental aim of my whole life and of the force motivating my activity. I find myself obliged—in this, so to say, definitive statement as a writer, which will also have to serve among other things as a sort of ” prospectus ” of the new phase of my unremitting activity for the welfare of my neighbours,—to give a brief outline of the history of the rise and development of those events and causes which were responsible for the formation in my individuality of the unquenchable striving to solve this question, which had, in the end, become for me what modern psychologists might term an ” irresistible Mania “ This mania began to impose itself upon my being at the time of my youth when I was on the point of attaining responsible age and consisted in what I would now term an ” irrepressible striving ” to understand clearly the precise significance, in general, of the life process on earth of all the outward forms of breathing creatures and, in particular, of the aim of human life in the light of this interpretation. Although a multitude of very specific factors, conditioned by my upbringing and education, had served as the primal cause for the formation in my being of the ground giving rise to such, for contemporary man, unusual striving, yet, as I understood later upon giving thought to the matter, the principal cause must in the end be attributed to those entirely accidental circumstances of my life which coincided precisely with the aforesaid transition from preparatory age to responsible age, and which may all be summed up in the fact that all my contacts at the time were almost exclusively with such persons of my age or my seniors who were either in the process of being formed themselves or who had already been formed into precisely that, of late increased amongst us, ” psychic typicality ” of people, the formation of which, as I myself have statistically established during the existence of my foundation, “The Institute For Man’s Harmonious Development” , is due to the fact that the future representatives of this ” typicality ” have never, either with a view to the real understanding of actuality, or in the period of their preparatory age, or, again, in the period of their responsible life, absolutely never, and in spite of the obvious necessity of such a step, laid themselves open to experience, but have contented themselves with other people’s fantasies, forming from them illusory conceptions and, at the same time, limiting themselves to intercourse with those like them, and have automatised themselves to a point of engaging upon authoritative discussions of all kinds of seemingly scientific, but, for the most part, abstract themes.

The Struggle of the Magicians

The Struggle of the Magicians PDF Author: George Ivanovich Gurdjieff
Publisher: Library of Alexandria
ISBN: 1465505938
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 42

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Book Description
The market square where various streets and alleys meet: around it, shops and stalls with every variety of merchandise - silks, earthenware, spices; open-fronted workshops of tailors and shoemakers. To the right, a row of fruit stalls; flat-roofed houses of two and three stories with many balconies, some hung with carpets and others strewn with washing. To the left, on a roof a tea shop further on, children are playing; two monkeys are climbing on the cornices. Behind the houses are seen winding streets leading to the mountain houses, mosques, minarets, gardens, palaces, Christian churches, Hindu temples, and pagodas. In the distance, on the mountain is seen the tower of an old fortress. Amongst the crowd moving about the alleys and the market square, types of almost every Asiatic people are to be met with, clad in their national costumes: a Persian with dyed beard; an Afghan all in white, with proud and bold expression; a Baluchistani in a white turban with a sharp peak to it and short white sleeveless coat with a broad belt, out of which stick several knives: a half-naked Hindu Tamil, the front of his head shaved and a white and red fork, the sign of Vishnu, painted on his forehead;. a native of Khiva wearing a huge black fur cap and a thickly wadded coat: a yellow-robed Buddhist monk, his head shaved and a prayer-wheel in his hand; an Armenian in a black ‘chooka’ with a silver belt and a black Russian forage cap; a Tibetan in a costume resembling the Chinese, bordered with valuable furs; also Bokharis, Arabs, Caucasians and Turkomans. The merchants cry their wares, inviting customers; beggars with whining voices beg for alms; a sherbet-vendor amuses the crowd with a witty song. A street barber, shaving the head of a venerable old ‘hadji’ recounts the news and the gossip of the town to a tailor who dines in the adjoining eating house. A funeral procession passes through one of the alleys; in front is a ‘mullah’ and behind him the corpse is borne on a bier covered with a pall, followed by the women mourners. In another alley a fight is in progress and all the boys run there to watch. On the right, a fakir with outstretched arms, his eyes fixed on one point sits on an antelope skin. A rich and important merchant passes along ignoring the crowd, his servants follow him, carrying baskets laden with purchases. Then appear some exhausted beggars, half-naked and covered with dust, evidently just arrived from some famine area. At one shop Kashmir and other shawls and materials are brought out and shown to customers. Opposite the tea shop, a snake-charmer seats himself and is at once surrounded by a curious crowd. Donkeys pass by, laden with baskets. Women walk along, some wearing the ‘chuddar’ and others with unveiled faces. A humpbacked old woman stops near the fakir and with a devout air, puts money into the coconut almsbowl standing near him. She touches the skin on which he is seated and goes away: pressing her hands to her forehead and eyes. A wedding procession moves by: in front are gaily dressed children, behind them buffoons, musicians and drumbeaters. The towncrier passes, shouting at the top of his voice. From an alley is heard the din of the copper-smith’s hammers. Everywhere there is noise, sound, movement, laughter, scolding, prayers, bargaining - life bubbling over.

Gurdjieff Reconsidered

Gurdjieff Reconsidered PDF Author: Roger Lipsey
Publisher: Shambhala Publications
ISBN: 1611804515
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 382

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Book Description
From a master biographer and longtime Gurdjieff practitioner, a brilliant new exploration of the quintessential Western esoteric teacher of the twentieth-century. The Greek-Armenian teacher G.I. Gurdjieff was one of the most original and provocative spiritual teachers in the twentieth-century West. Whereas much work on Gurdjieff has been either fawning or blindly critical, acclaimed scholar and writer Roger Lipsey balances sympathic interest in Gurdjieff and his "Fourth Way" teachings with a historian's sense of context and a biographer's feel for personality and relationships. Using a wide-range of published and unpublished sources, Lipsey explores Gurdjieff's formative travels in Central Asia, his famed teaching institution in France, the development of the Gurdjieff Movements and music, and, above all, Gurdjieff's fascinating continuous evolution as a teacher. Published on the 70th anniversary of Gurdjieff's death, Gurdjieff Reconsidered delves deeply into Gurdjieff's writings and those of his most important students, including P. D. Ouspensky and Jeanne de Salzmann. Lipsey's comprehensive approach and unerring sense of the subject make this a must-read for anyone with a serious intention to explore Gurdjieff's life, teachings, and reputation.

Gurdjieff's Emissary in New York

Gurdjieff's Emissary in New York PDF Author: A. R. Orage
Publisher: Book Studio
ISBN: 9780995475618
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 634

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Book Description
Alfred Richard Orage (1873-1934), whom G. B. Shaw declared the most brilliant editor of the past century, suddenly laid down his pencil in 1922 and sold his famous journal The New Age to work with the mystic G. Gurdjieff in France. Orage hoped that with Gurdjieff's help, he could come to a more fundamental understanding of the human species. For Orage, modern man had come to the end of his tether, and without the development of new faculties, he was convinced that the problems that pile up in front of mankind would not be solvable, and even the very will to live must decline. Gurdjieff claimed to have found a way to develop new and higher faculties, and to have been trained in the necessary methods and knowledge which had its sources in the hidden wisdom of the East. Orage worked intensively for more than a year with Gurdjieff in his Institute for the Harmonious Development of Man, and it seems that he had found what he was seeking. Gurdjieff, on the other hand, found in Orage someone whom he considered a brother in spirit. A spirit that was defined by Orage some years before as: ." . . displaying itself in disinterested interest in things; in things, that is to say, of no personal advantage, but only of general, public or universal importance." When Gurdjieff expanded his activities into the New World, it was only consequent that Orage became his emissary there. Orage arrived in New York in December 1923 to expound Gurdjieff's ideas, and until 1931, was talking to a growing group of interested people. This book contains the notes of many of these talks. We are grateful to the notetakers and their prudence to leave their papers to the universities of Yale, Berkeley and Leeds, who guaranteed the survival of these papers in their archives. Without all this combined effort, they would otherwise be scattered all over the world, largely unknown and "upon the verge of being irrecoverably lost" as C. Daly King once wrote. Along with Orage's Commentary on "Beelzebub's Tales to His Grandson," this edition completes the record of Orage's meetings, talks and lectures on Gurdjieff's teaching. Illustrated with 130 line drawings and 37 photographs

Transcripts of Gurdjieff's Meetings 1941-1946

Transcripts of Gurdjieff's Meetings 1941-1946 PDF Author: G. Gurdjieff
Publisher: Book Studio
ISBN: 9780955909016
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 196

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Book Description
Thirty-two meetings with Gurdjieff held at 6 rue des Colonels Renard, Paris, France. Unabridged.