Gurdjieff International Review

Gurdjieff
International Review

Welcome to the Gurdjieff International Review—a source of informed essays and commentary on the life, writings, and teachings of George Ivanovitch Gurdjieff.

Mr. Gurdjieff was an extraordinary man, a master in the truest sense. His teachings speak to our most essential questions: Who am I? Why am I here? What is the purpose of life, and of human life in particular? As a young man, Gurdjieff relentlessly pursued these questions and became convinced that practical answers lay within ancient traditions. Through many years of searching and practice he discovered answers and then set about putting what he had learned into a form understandable to the Western world. Gurdjieff maintained that, owing to the abnormal conditions of modern life, we no longer function in a harmonious way. He taught that in order to become harmonious, we must develop new faculties—or actualize latent potentialities—through “work on oneself.” He presented his teachings and ideas in three forms: writings, music, and movements which correspond to our intellect, emotions, and physical body.

What's New Since the Last Issue

Mr. Nyland’s Index to Beelzebub’s Tales

“After more than a half century since its conception, the very first Index to All and Everything: Beelzebub’s Tales to His Grandson is at last emerging from obscurity and making its well-deserved entrée into the literature relating to the Gurdjieff Work... Few people know about the first Index. Begun over 50 years ago, and published in mimeographed format, it was developed by Willem Nyland and his groups. For those who have had access to it, it has proven to be an invaluable help for studying Gurdjieff’s teaching.”

It’s Up To Ourselves, a review by Michael Benham

“Jessmin Howarth, one of the accomplished women who contributed to the transmission of Gurdjieff’s practical teaching, known as the Movements, rarely talked about herself and her own personal life, and as her daughter Dushka Howarth recalls in this book, particularly not to her. It is therefore fortunate that in the later part of her life she began to write down some of her reminiscences and inner thoughts as neatly typed hand-bound essays that she gave to her daughter on birthdays and other special occasions. From these essays, private letters, family scrapbook fragments and the accounts of others Dushka has assembled the story of her mother’s life (in Jessmin’s words) and expanded it with comments, historical background and her own recollections of later events. To this she has added an account of her own life, including her experiences with Gurdjieff in his last years and her meetings and work with his senior pupils from the 1950’s to the present day.”

Courses and Practica in the J. G. Bennett Tradition of the Gurdjieff Work

A distinction of the Bennett lineage of the Gurdjieff Work has been its Practicum trainings in which numbers of people live and work together for a definite time. John Amaral interviews George Bennett and Elan Sicroff to discuss the history, features and effectiveness of these Courses. The aims and format of the trainings are revealing and useful for understanding J. G. Bennett's presentation of Gurdjieff's teaching.

Considering Fragments

Other than Mr. Gurdjieff's own writings, “what other written material has the real stamp of authenticity? Of particular note in this regard is P. D. Ouspensky's In Search of the Miraculous: Fragments of an Unknown Teaching. However, given Ouspensky's early break with Gurdjieff, one might reasonably ask how reliable and complete Fragments is as an introduction? After all, the conversations Ouspensky records—more than two-thirds of Fragments consists of direct quotes from Gurdjieff—took place in Russian almost a century ago. Not only did Ouspensky have to remember his conversations with Gurdjieff but he had to translate his personal notes into a language that he learned later in life. Fortunately we have published appraisals of Fragments from several sources including some of Mr. Gurdjieff's most senior students.”

You Will Not Forget Work

One of Mr. Nyland's pupils describes how she incorporates work into her daily life? “Work in life is a way of life, a practice of the constancy of being in the midst of activity. My day-to-day life is filled with doing things, thinking about everyday affairs, being critical and going through varied and often conflicting emotions. How do I remember work when I am so engaged?”

An Introduction to the Writings of Henri Thomasson

Henri Thomasson's first contact with the Work occurred in Paris in 1947, where he participated in a small group led by Mme Henriette Lannes, who later introduced him to Mme de Salzmann and Gurdjieff. He went on to start new groups in Italy.

Frank Sinclair's Without Benefit of Clergy, a review by Müge Galin

“In this largely autobiographical account of his several decades in the Gurdjieff Work, or what he calls his ‘personal indulgence,’ Frank R. Sinclair shares some moving reflections on his inner and outer experiences in that pursuit. . . While recounting his search for meaning and his struggle to live in two worlds—the sacred and the profane—Sinclair courageously tells on himself, so to speak, as well as on others. In the end, he exposes the same human being full of contradictions, strengths and weaknesses, within us all.”

Frank Sinclair's Without Benefit of Clergy, a review by Anthony De Marinis

“Provides a recent assessment of the Gurdjieff teaching as it exists in its institutional setting today, written by someone who is in a position to speak of it. Sinclair is the president of the Gurdjieff Foundation of New York, one of the four founding foundations that comprise the International Association of Gurdjieff Foundations. As indicated in the book’s subtitle, Some Personal Footnotes to the Gurdjieff Teaching, Sinclair provides commentary on what practitioners call ‘the Work’ as it exists today, as well as offering an engaging memoir of the life of a seeker—a seeker of truth.”

“There do exist enquiring minds, which long for the truth of the heart, seek it, strive to solve the problems set by life, try to penetrate to the essence of things and phenomena and to penetrate into themselves. If a man reasons and thinks soundly, no matter which path he follows in solving these problems, he must inevitably arrive back at himself, and begin with the solution of the problem of what he is himself and what his place is in the world around him.”

G. I. Gurdjieff

“Gurdjieff gave me many new ideas I did not know before, and he gave a system I did not know before. About schools I did know, for I had been travelling and looking for schools for 10 years. He had an extraordinary system, and quite new. Some separate fragments of it could be found elsewhere, but not connected and put together like they are in this system.”

P. D. Ouspensky

“I beg myself as well as my readers not to mistake understanding for attainment; and not to imagine, on the strength of their realization of certain truths, that they possess them, or still less, that they can use them. Our being, in which alone truth is possessed, is still a long way behind our understanding.”

A. R. Orage

“Gurdjieff was a danger. A real threat. A threat for one’s self-calming, a threat for the little regard one had of oneself, a threat for the comfortable repertoire where we generally live. But at the moment when this threat appeared, like a ditch to cross, a threshold to step over, one was helped to cross it by his presence itself.”

Michel de Salzmann

November 26, 2004