A Secret Gurdjieff Exercise - The Four Ideals

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2013 DOI: 10.1163/15700593-13130202

ARIES 13 (2013) 173–203ARIES

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“Te Four Ideals”:A Contemplative Exercise by Gurdjieff

Joseph AzizeUniversity of Sydney

AbstractNous présentons ici des données inédites en provenance de G.I. Gurdjieff (c. 1865–1949),appelées “exercice des quatre idéaux”, et tentons de les situer dans le “Travail” institué parcelui-ci. Nous voudrions faire remarquer qu’un tel exercice possède un caractère singulierparmi les diverses traditions mystico-religieuses, dans la mesure où nous ne connaissons pasd’autre exemple d’unepratique visant à attirer dans le propre corps de l’élève, d’une zone situéepar delà l’atmosphère terrestre, de substances élaborées à la surface de notre planète. De tellessubstances émanent censément des prières adressées par les hommes à certains “idéaux”. Lamise en oeuvre, par Gurdjieff, d’“exercices contemplatifs internes” compte parmi les aspectsles moins étudiés de sa méthode. Le présent article est le premier d’une série visant à attirerl’ attention des universitaires sur ces points particuliers.

KeywordsGurdjieff; “Four Ideals”; Mysticism; prayer; contemplation

Part One:Te “Four Ideals” Exercise

1.1. Background

It has been suggested that the Greek-Armenian George Ivanovich Gurdjieff(c. 1865–1949) can be considered a mystic, and that his ideas and methods areintentionally conducive to the mystic range of experiences.1 Tere, it was arguedthat Gurdjieff, like the Neoplatonist Plotinus, explained mystical experiences byreference to the action of an internal human faculty which perpetually perceivesobjective reality, unlike the faculties usually available to us. Tese faculties, ourminds and emotions, are so ofen disordered if not turbulent that it is impossiblefor us, in our ordinary consciousness, to be aware of the objective reality which

1) Azize, ‘Solar Mysticism in Gurdjieff ’, passim.

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174 Joseph Azize / ARIES 13 (2013) 173–203

our “nous” (in Plotinus’ terms) or “higher intellectual centre” (in Gurdjieff ’s sys-tem), contemplate.2 Gurdjieff ’s ideas and methods aimed to allow a connectionbetween the higher intellectual centre and the ordinary faculties, and therebyform a ‘higher-being-body’ or ‘soul’ which could survive physical death.Te per-tinentmethod includes overcoming negative emotions, practicing self-discipline(including sacred movements,3 which although perhaps unique could be recog-nized by any major spiritual tradition), and remembering oneself. Ten it is pos-sible for one to become ‘a particle, though an independent one, of everythingexisting in the great universe.’4 Interestingly, Plotinus followed Plato in placingthe ‘higher part of the soul’ in the head.Tis is whereGurdjieff placed the higherintellectual centre.5

Te “Four Ideals Exercise” (“FIE”) was an internal contemplative exercisewhich Gurdjieff gave George M. Adie (1901–1989) in 1948.6 It comprises twoparts: a relatively lengthy introduction, and an instruction. Like most of Gurdji-eff ’s internal exercises,Gurdjieff gave it orally, never, to the best ofmyknowledge,reducing it to writing.

By “internal contemplative exercise”, I mean first a practice performed with-outmaking any bodily movement once a posture has been assumed and the exer-cise commenced. Te exercitant would invariably, if not always, attempt one ofGurdjieff ’s internal exercises sitting unmovingwith eyes closed. According toDrJohnLester (1919–1999), who visitedGurdjieff regularly between 1946 and 1949,he and other pupils learned the exercises in Gurdjieff ’s Paris apartment, seatedwith Gurdjieff upon the floor.7 Second, despite their interior and contemplativenature, these tasks are nonetheless aptly described as “exercises”: activities whichrequire exertion to achieve a benefit, even if the exertion is a subtle one of theattention before all else. JohnG. Bennett (1897–1974)8 wrote: ‘Gurdjieff showedme a sequence of exercises for the control and transformation of the psychic ener-

2) Azize, ‘Solar Mysticism in Gurdjieff ’, 21–24.3) Azize, ‘Gurdjieff ’s Sacred Dances and Movements’, passim.4) Gurdjieff, Beelzebub’s Tales, 183.5) Azize, ‘Solar Mysticism in Gurdjieff ’, 24. Te terms from Gurdjieff ’s unique vocabularywill be addressed below. It might be mentioned, for the sake of abundant clarity, that thereis no connection or similarity between Gurdjieff ’s “ideals” and Plato’s “ideas” except that ofcoincidence. Gurdjieff ’s ideals are dealt with below. Te study of Plato’s ideas is a complexone, but afer even a brief reading of Parmenides 130A–134C, one can see that Plato’s “ideas”do not represent persons, but qualities of things and concepts, and that people do not pray tothem, and one cannot take energy from them (as one does with Gurdjieff ’s ideals).6) For Adie, see Adie and Azize, George Adie, passim.7) Oral communication to the author, probably in 1996.8) For Bennett as a pupil of Gurdjieff, see Wellbeloved, Gurdjieff, 238.

Joseph Azize / ARIES 13 (2013) 173–203 175

gies in man.’9 Tis aptly describes Gurdjieff ’s internal contemplative exercises inso far as they are known to me, and as they were taught by Adie. Gurdjieff didhave other exercises which were inner but not contemplative, as I have describedthese, but they fall outside the purview of this article.10

Tis side of Gurdjieff ’s practical method is virtually unknown outside of someof the Gurdjieff groups. Te three leading biographies of Gurdjieff, and the syn-opsis byMichel de Salzmann (1923–2001),11 are entirely silent as to the existenceof these exercises.12 Although one would not expect a thorough and completetreatment in the encyclopaedic Dictionary of Gnosis and Western Esotericism,it is nonetheless significant that the two pertinent entries are deficient. One ofthese, “Gurdjieff Tradition”, mentions contemplative traditions such as the Pre-Socratics and Hesychastic Christianity. It then refers to a ‘Gurdjieffian practiceof guided meditation’ which is difficult to describe, but is ‘far from being a tech-nique or method’, and is representative of ‘the contemplative aspect of life that isembedded in the heart of all the religious traditions of the world.’ Tis “guidedmeditation” is said to have been ‘gradually emphasized and developed by Jeannede Salzmann in the 1960s.’ Te pupil is said to seek a ‘quality of seeing and anembodied presence that sustains and supports his attempt to know and directlyexperience what he is, including both his limitations and possibilities.’13 In whatrespects, one may ask, was the Pre-Socratic tradition “contemplative”, and whatdoes it mean to say that Gurdjieff ’s tradition “corresponds” to it? Further, it willbecome apparent in this article that Gurdjieff himself, who died in 1949, estab-lished a line of contemplative exercises based on extensive and consistent the-oretical and practical research, which bear no resemblance to what is described(and vaguely described, too) of de Salzmann’s “guided meditations”.

Te other article in the Dictionary of Gnosis and Western Esotericism, titled“Gurdjieff ”, cryptically states:

9) Bennett, Witness, 208.10) Te author is presently preparing a book which will provide full details of these exercises.However, someof the exerciseswere published,without commentary, inGurdjieff,Transcripts,see the index under “exercises”.11) Michel de Salzmann, Gurdjieff ’s natural son by Jeanne de Salzmann, effectively directedthe Institut Gurdjieff afer his mother’s death in 1990. See Wellbeloved, Gurdjieff, 235.12) See Webb, Harmonious Circle, Moore, Gurdjieff, and Taylor, G.I. Gurdjieff. AlthoughGurdjieff ’s use of fasting is little remarked,Moore’s index entry “Gurdjieff:Methodology” lists“fasts” but not “exercises” (411).Neither doesMoore’s reference toGurdjieff ’s “pratique for themobilization and direction of attention” (342) mention exercises. De Salzmann’s article waspublished in Te Encyclopedia of Religion, M. Eliade, ed.-in-chief, NY: Macmillan, 1987, seenowhttp://ouspensky.org/msalzmann1.htmon4September 2012.DeSalzmannwas directorof the Institut Gurdjieff in Paris.13) Needleman, ‘Gurdjieff Tradition’, 451–452.

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Abjuring lop-sided genius, Gurdjieff promotes the harmonious development of head,heart, and hand, respectively supporting the intellectual, emotional, and physical tem-peraments through his writings, music, andmovements. He nevertheless issues an ubiq-uitous demand for mobilised attention. Contemplatively deployed, this ever-refinedattention builds a progressively deeper awareness of nuances of one’s physical exis-tence—approaching the Cartesian mind/body mystery in profound interior silence,while putatively opening the psyche to benign supernal influences.14

Te key phrase may be “contemplatively deployed”, which of course means “de-ployed in a contemplative manner”, but here seems to mean “when applied tothe practice of contemplation”. I do not, however, pretend to understand whatis referred to by the phrase “nuances of one’s physical existence”: a “nuance” is aslight and subtle variation, especially in expression.Neither does thewriter define“psyche” or “supernal influences”, and, given the opaque quality of his writing,some explanation seems necessary. Afer considering the terms of the FIE below,it should be apparent that this entry does not at all correspond to the quality ofGurdjieff ’s spiritual exercises.

Many of these exercises have been published without commentary, chiefly byway of incidental report when setting out the text of Gurdjieff ’s groupmeetings,however they have not yet been studied.15 Further, the exercises are referred to,albeit briefly, in several sources: for example, Rina Hands (d. 1994) mentionsbeing given an exercise by Gurdjieff in Paris in either 1948 or 1949, but disclosesnothing of its nature.16 However, Kenneth Walker (1882–1966)17 was a littlemore forthcoming, saying enough to alert scholars to something of the natureof the exercises:

Afer taking our coffee Gurdjieff would talk to me about some exercise that I had todo, such as an exercise for ‘sensing’ various parts of the body. Or it might be a methodby which I should become more aware of the energy I was continually throwing away.He suggested that I should draw an imaginary circle around myself, beyond which myattention and my energies should never be allowed to stray, so long as I was engaged indoing this exercise.18

14) Moore, ‘Gurdjieff ’, 449.15) Many can be found in the transcripts of Gurdjieff ’s Paris meetings of the 1940s: see theindex entry for “exercises” in Gurdjieff, Transcripts, 180. Further, De Salzmann approved thepublication of exercises in Gurdjieff, Life Is Real. Exercises were published in de Salzmann’sTe Reality of Being, see the index entry “exercise”, 306. Also, Sinclair published Gurdjieff ’s“Wellington Hotel” injunction, which, as we shall see, expresses part of the basis of this FourIdeals Exercise: Sinclair, Without Benefit of Clergy, 231.16) Hands, Diary of Madame Egout, 71.17) “Kenneth Walker (d. 1966) was an eminent surgeon, fellow of innumerable Royal Soci-eties, and three times Hunterian Professor …”, Webb, Te Harmonious Circle, 401.18) Walker, Te Making of Man, 126.


However, as a general rule, those who were taught the exercises have treatedthem as secret if not privileged knowledge, which could possibly cause harm ifused unwisely. For example, Bennett, who learned many exercises directly fromGurdjieff, stated: ‘I am reluctant to describe any of Gurdjieff ’s spiritual exercises,as I am sure that they should never be undertaken without supervision by someexperienced guide.’19

I am not convinced that the stated reason is sound, or that the risk of danger isso real as to justify silence. First, I am not aware of any instance where anyone hasused the exercises to their detriment, if anything, I would categorise my experi-ence as being the opposite. Second, the publication of Gurdjieff ’s ideas markeda significant departure from the rule of secrecy, and disseminating the details ofhis exercises is arguably of lesser magnitude than the publication of the ideas inIn Search of the Miraculous (1949) and Gurdjieff ’s own works. Tird, militatingagainst secrecy is the desirability of making Gurdjieff ’s exercises better known.Most of Gurdjieff ’s other methods are in the public arena where scholarship andthe general public can make use of them. Some of Gurdjieff ’s methods were pre-sented in Part Four of the recent Brill Handbook of New Religions and CulturalProduction, his Enneagram, piano music, sacred dances and P.D. Ouspensky’sidea of eternal recurrence (which was influenced by Gurdjieff ).20

1.2. Te Four Ideals Exercise (“FIE”)

Te FIE has not previously been published, but many of the ideas which Gurdji-eff incorporates into the exercise have been.TeFIE is significantlymore detailedthan any of those hitherto made available in the public domain, and illuminatescertain aspects of Gurdjieff ’s thought and methods. Terefore, publication ofthis exercise, with an academic analysis, may both allow the Gurdjieff exercisesto become better known, and to expand our understanding of Gurdjieff ’s meth-ods and ideas, filling out what I might call the “spiritual” or “religious” aspect ofGurdjieff ’s system.

We can date Adie’s reception of the exercise, by virtue of appendices 1 and 2,which are notes Adie made in September 1949. Being one of the executors ofAdie’s will, I found the material in appendices 1 to 4 amongst his papers afer hisdeath in Sydney in 1989. By virtue of the notation at the top of Appendix 1, wecan safely say that the notes were made on or afer 1 September 1949, but before29 October 1949 when Gurdjieff died. Te notes, made on scraps of paper, tally

19) Bennett, Witness, 200.20) Cusack and Norman, Handbook of New Religions, Blake, ‘Gurdjieff and the Legominismof Objective Reason’, Petsche, ‘G.I. Gurdjieff ’s Piano Music’, and Azize, ‘Gurdjieff ’s SacredDances’.


the days Adie had thus far spent with Gurdjieff in Paris. As Adie saw Gurdjieffafer 1 September,21 the dating seems secure. Each side of the paper refers to anexercise called “Four Ideals”. In Appendix 1, we read, inter alia:

Oct 1.48. Subjective Exercise Ideals. 5 monthsto Mch. 49.

Appendix 2 includes the following note:

Oct 1. 1948. subjective ex. till Mch. 1

I understand this to mean that on 1 October 1948, Gurdjieff taught Adie a “sub-jective exercise”, which means an exercise for a specific individual rather than fora group,22 and that Adie worked with this exercise for five months, until somepoint in March 1949. Te notations distinguish when Adie and his wife (Helen)were given exercises (e.g., these notes show that Adie and his wife received theexercise “I Am” at different times). Terefore, it would appear that she was notgiven the FIE by Gurdjieff himself, one of several indications that Gurdjieff gavethe FIE to few of his pupils. Nonetheless, it seems to me that Helen made one ofthe handwritten amendments to Appendix 3.

Briefly, in this exercise, students attempt to make contact with four “ideals”(Christ, Buddha, Muhammad and Lama), and introduce into their own (i.e.,the students’ own) bodies certain “higher substances” which are produced whenworshippers pray or address themselves to those “ideals”, concepts which I dealwith below.

Our direct pieces of evidence for the FIE are Adie’s written notes of the exer-cise, a diagram which George Adie made, almost certainly, under Gurdjieff ’sinstructions in 1948 (appendices 3 and 4 respectively), and a short reference byBennett. Other writings to be discussed below reveal ideas and methods so closeto the Four Ideals exercise that they make my ascription of the exercise to Gurd-jieff plausible.

21) Adie’s presence with Gurdjieff afer 1 September 1949 is independently attested for 7, 8,10 and 11 October 1949: Bennett and Bennett, Idiots in Paris, 108, 109, 112, 113, 115 and116.22) Adie said, in an unpublished meeting of 11 June 1980: “As far as exercises are concerned,there are objective exercises and subjective exercises.Te objective exercises are ones that affecteverybody in the same way, or could affect everybody in the same way, and everybody may usethem. Te subjective exercises, as you can see, will be specially suited to the person accordingto their requirements at the time, and how much they have understood—the level, as it were,of their understanding. And that will bemeasured from time to time…”. See alsoClaustres,LaPrise 134 = Becoming Conscious, 152, that Gurdjieff would simultaneously give exercises forthe individual and for the group.


1.3. Adie’s Text of “Te Four Ideals”

Te first page of Adie’s text of “Te Four Ideals”, our chief direct source for theexercise, is Appendix 3. A two-page typed document on two foolscap sheets, itbears handwritten corrections at five places on page 1, and hand-drawn bracketsat one place on the second page.23 Te exercise reads (incorporating the Adies’corrections and editing, andmaking insignificant changes to layout and punctu-ation):

On earth all people have an ideal which they situate far off in space, high above them-selves. Towards this ideal they send their emanations. Tey pray to it, they stretch to-wards it, their emanations mount towards it. Teir emanations do not all have the sameforce. Some of them can hardly rise at all, others go further, further even than the atmo-sphere of the earth, yet others mount almost to the very ideal.

Te emanations on leaving the earth are dispersed, then they mount, further on theycollect together to form at a certain level above the atmosphere of the earth a sort ofreservoir or foyer of substances.

23) Te handwritten corrections to page 1 are as follows:

1. In the first paragraph, sixth line, the first two letters of a word, perhaps “cerdly” (sic), havebeen overwritten so that it reads “hardly”.

2. In the first paragraph, seventh line, the two letters of a word, perhaps “to” have beenoverwritten so that it reads “of ”.

3. In the third paragraph, lines two and three, the words “and the earth” in line 3 are alteredto “the earth and”, circled, and linked by an arrow to a point in line 2.

4. In the third paragraph, sixth line, the word “to”, which appears afer the word “determina-tion” is struck out.

5. In the final paragraph, second line, the word “parts” is crossed through and the word“limbs” interlineated.

To my eye, the third correction was definitely made by George Adie. Te fifh handwrittenamendment is made in a different and darker ink and perhaps, also, a different hand. It seemstome tobeHelenAdie’s hand.Tefirst, second and fourth corrections appear tobe in the samedark ink as was used for the fifh correction. I cannot be sure who made them, but I think itwasHelenAdie, as it is likely that shemade all the corrections in the same, darker pen. I wouldconjecture that Helen Adie typed up the document, made these two simple typographicalcorrections, then struck out the obsolete “to” (probably present in the original translation dueto a literal rendering of the French infinitive), and revised the translation of theword “parts” to“limbs”, while Adie made the more substantial editorial change in a different pen. Helen Adieofen typed up confidential matters for Adie, at least into the 1970s, so this scenario is notunlikely. I have viewed a handwritten English language original of appendix 3. I recognisedthe handwriting of the English as being Adie’s (“the English draf”). I do not know where theEnglish draf is now, but I suspect that it has been misplaced.


We represent to ourselves that this foyer of substances is situated midway between theearth and thepoint of concentrationwhich represents the ideal of thebelievers.Te idealhimself is too far for anunpreparedman tobe able to enter into contactwithhim, but theman can, if he tries with determination enter into contact with this foyer of substancesformed from the concentration of the vibrations sent by the believers towards their idealand theman can assimilate these substances and accumulate them in himself. He can doit by establishing through the concentration of his will a connection in the form of a lineor thread between this foyer and some part or other of his own body.

Te exercise is given to achieve this aim. We choose four ideals: Muhammad, Christ,Buddha, Lama. We represent that their essence exists somewhere in space, in a placesituated above the country where they lived:

Muhammad above Mecca and MedinaChrist above JerusalemBuddha above IndiaLama above Tibet

In representing to ourselves each of these ideals, the thought goes immediately in thedirection in space where the ideal is situated. Te exercise consists in establishing acontact between one of the limbs of the body and the foyer of substances formed bythe vibrations of the faithful in the direction of the ideal.

Now follows the second part of the exercise:

Breath in air consciously while drawing into yourself the substances accumulated in thelimbs so that it can flow to meet the air which you are breathing in. It mixes with the airby itself, at the level of the breast. Ten pour it into the sex organs.

I AM, in two parts.

With “I” feel the sex organs, with “AM” fill up the seven parts of the body one afer theother.

1 “I” feel the sex organs“AM” with the substance accumulated in them fill up the right leg by pouring

into it this substance

2 “I” feel the sex organs“AM” fill up the lef leg

3 “I” feel the sex organs“AM” refill up the lower part of the abdomen

4 “I” feel the sex organs“AM” fill up the whole of the abdomen

5 “I” feel the sex organs“AM” fill up the torso

6 “I” feel the sex organs“AM” fill up the two arms and the shoulders


7 “I” feel the sex organs“AM” fill up the head

Ten “I AM” several times “I” am conscious of the whole of the body with a feelingcentred in the solar plexus. “AM” again am conscious of the whole of the body, witha sensation centred in the vertebral column.

Afer that, rest ten or fifeen minutes in a collected state, that is to say, do not allowthought or feeling or organic instinct to pass outside the limit of the atmosphere of thebody. Rest contained so that your nature can assimilate in calmness the results depositedin you, which otherwise would be lost in vain.

1.4. Adie’s “Ideal” Sketch

Tis is Appendix 4. It was made on headed note paper from the Belfast Hotelin Paris, where Adie invariably stayed when visiting Gurdjieff in Paris in 1948and 1949. It is written in Adie’s hand, and was drawn and annotated in blueink. Its contents pertain only to part 1 of the FIE. Te table below contains theoriginal French text without correction, my translation, and a description of thedocument.

Table 1. Adie’s “Ideal” Sketch

Position Notation Comment

Top “Ideal” Beneath the word “Ideal” is a circular object,presumably the unreachable ideal, which is madeup of a spiral of lines starting from the centre.

Mid-top “CONCENTRA-TIONS DESVIBRATIONS DESCROYANTS”

Tese words (“Concentrations of the vibrationsof the believers”) are written at the base of the fiveparallel lines which lead from a lower sphere tothe upper sphere marked “Ideal”.

Base-top A lower sphere made up of several concentriccircles. Whereas the upper sphere is, perhaps, theunreachable sphere, this sphere, the summit of the“concentration”, is within grasp.24

Top-middle 15 lines lead into the lower sphere (base-top)from the lower levels of the diagram.

Middle “ATMOSPHERE” A concave line, almost parallel to the earth linebelow, is superimposed over the lines which leadinto the lower sphere from the levels below.

24) I am indebted to one of the anonymous reviewers for considerably improving my descrip-tion at this point.


Position Notation Comment

Lower-middle 15 lines lead upwards from the earth line below.Tey are continuous with the 15 lines of thetop-middle.

Earth line “TERRE” Tis is a concave line annotated “Earth”. Along itare 15 points, four of which are marked with adash. Each of the 15 lines referred to above leadsup from one of these points.

Below theearth line

“Assemblés des croyantspriant, envoyant leursvibrations dans ladirection de leur idéals”

“Gatherings of the praying believers, sending theirvibrations in the direction of their ideals”

It is noteworthy that this diagram depicts only one “ideal”. It leaves open thequestion of how many “ideals” may subsist, according to Gurdjieff. Taking thesetwo sources together, I would say that there are five essential theoretical elementsto this exercise:

1. “Higher substances” form certain “reservoirs” above the earth.2. Te “higher substances” of those reservoirs are the results of emanations and

vibrations which arise when people pray to the “ideal” who lived on the spotof the earth immediately below.25

3. An exercitant can attract and ingest thesematerials bymeans of a connection.4. Te connection between the exercitant and the accumulations consists in a

temporary thread formed by concentration.5. Implicitly, it is an advantage for an exercitant, to be able to ingest these

substances.

I suggest that there are three secondary theoretical elements:

6. Te “ideal” “himself ” indeed exists.7. It is not enough to ingest the higher substances, if they are not calmly di-

gested, the results of the exercise will be squandered.8. Te exercitant has an “atmosphere” around their body.

25) I use both terms “emanations” and “vibrations” because Adie used both terms in thesedocuments.Without going into the basis of the theoretical distinction inGurdjieff ’s thought,for him, all emanations are vibrations, but not all vibrations are emanations: see briefly Well-beloved, Gurdjieff, 57 and 139.


Point 6 is implicit in the statement that ‘the ideal himself is too far for anunprepared man to be able to enter into contact with him …’. It is otherwiseattested that Gurdjieff taught that each person has an “atmosphere” throughwhich energies are received or lost.26

1.5. Bennett on “Conscious Stealing” and “Lama”

Te third direct piece of evidence for the FIE is the testimony of John G. Ben-nett. In the posthumously published Sacred Influences (1989), edited from mis-cellaneous materials by A.G.E. Blake, is the transcript of a talk given by Bennetton 14 May 1974, titled “Sacred Images”.27 Tere, Bennett, speaking of the imagewhich was produced by Térèse of Lisieux’s (1873–1897) intense faith, love andconviction of her relationship with Jesus, said:

… Gurdjieff explains this to some extent in Beelzebub’s Tales, but he did it in much moredetail when he was introducing an exercise that he called “conscious stealing”, whichinvolved sacred images. He said that from time to time from another world—“fromAbove”—a Sacred Individual is incarnated in human form with a very high and specialmission, the working out of which is not visible in this world and which can only beperceived by the disciples or companions who are specially prepared. … We see thatsacred image as the founder of a religion, as a prophet or as an incarnation of God …28

In Gurdjieff: Making a New World (1973), Bennett said:

[Gurdjieff ] certainly had a deep respect for Lamaism. In Beelzebub’s Tales, he assertsthat a group of seven lamas possessed both knowledge and spiritual powers unparalleledelsewhere on earth, and that the accidental death of the chief of the group had destroyedone of the hopes of mankind. A further point is that in one of his most remarkablespiritual exercises Gurdjieff placed ‘Lama’ on the same footing as Muhammad, Buddhaand Christ, and asserted that there was a special concentration of spiritual power in acertain place between Tibet and Afghanistan.29

A question arises concerning “Lama” who lived above Tibet, and whose nameBennett placed in inverted commas, perhaps to indicate that while this is not aproper name, it does refer to a specific person. To scholars of religion, “Lama”simpliciter, unlike Muhammad, Buddha and Christ, is strictly a designation, nota proper name. Buddha (Awakened) and Christ (Anointed) are, of course, titleswhich ofen effectively serve as proper names. For the purpose of this study, there

26) Claustres La Prise 65 = Becoming Conscious, 79.27) Bennett, Sacred Influences, 77–78 on the dating of the paper which is edited at 36–47.28) Bennett, Sacred Influences, 42–43.29) Bennett, Gurdjieff: Making a New World, 96.


is little benefit in expounding everythingGurdjieffhad to say about “SaintLama”.It suffices that Gurdjieff ’s pupils would have understood “Lama” from Tibet tobe the character known to them from the oral readings ofBeelzebub’sTales, whichwere a feature of life withGurdjieff in his last years.30 Neither is it germane tomytask here to try and identify a specific historical person as being the original ofGurdjieff ’s “Lama”.

Te similarities between what Bennett says about this “spiritual exercise”, andwhat we have seen of the FIE is striking.Te sole difference is that Bennett refersto the area between Tibet and Afghanistan, whereas the exercise, as Adie hadit, mentions only Tibet. If Bennett was given an exercise other than the FIEwhich had these details, his account nonetheless strengthens the plausibility ofattributing Adie’s exercise to Gurdjieff himself.

1.6. Recollections of Gurdjieff ’s Pupils

Tis writer’s own personal enquiries of those who were with Gurdjieff provedunfruitful. In 1996, in theUSA, I askedAnnie-Lou Staveley (1906–1996),31 thenabout 90 years old but with a retentive memory and all her faculties, who hadalso received exercises from Gurdjieff, whether she had ever heard of this exer-cise. She said that she had not. She further added that it did not sound to herlike a Gurdjieff exercise, but more like one of Bennett’s own devising. Stave-ley had reason to find the exercise redolent of Bennett, as I was later told thatone of his pupils had taught her the “Conscious Stealing Exercise” (see below).However, it would appear, especially given Bennett’s note in Gurdjieff: Makinga New World, that the similarity between the FIE and the “Conscious Steal-ing Exercise” is more likely to be due to Gurdjieff ’s common authorship thanit is to Bennett’s invention. It seems that Gurdjieff gave exercises like “Con-scious Stealing” and the “Four Ideals” to Bennett, but not to very many oth-ers. To be more precise, it seems to me that the general nature of the instruc-tion was fairly widely circulated, but the technical details concerning attractingthe higher substances, then ingesting and assimilating them, were passed to veryfew.

John Lester, also advised me, between 1996 and 1998, that he, too, had neverheard of the FIE, but that it resembled the “Conscious Stealing Exercise” whichhe had been told Bennett had taught, presumably having learned it from Gur-djieff. According to Dr Lester, the exercise involved picturing to oneself fourplaces of pilgrimagewhere the pilgrims’ prayers produce higher substanceswhich

30) See Gurdjieff, Beelzebub’s Tales, 264, 697, 701, 705, 721 and 724.31) On Staveley as a pupil of Gurdjieff, see Wellbeloved, Gurdjieff, 241–242.


accumulate over these sites ( Jerusalem, Mecca, Benares on the Ganges, and thePotala). Te exercitant then ingests those substances by fabricating a connectionbetween their own body and the gathered substances, as in the FIE. Te “Con-scious Stealing Exercise” is the closest parallel to the FIE known to me. Like theFIE, it is not publicly available.

However, some published material in the public domain indirectly bears onthe FIE and Adie’s diagram. Te first of these is found in a posthumously editedselection of the autograph notes of one of Gurdjieff ’s closest pupils, Jeanne deSalzmann (1889–1990),32 published under the title, Te Reality of Being (2010).Although the journal entries which comprise this volume were written over alengthy period of time, the book does not provide their dates. Te pieces areedited and collated in such a way that, uninstructed by the editors’ foreword,one would think that the book was written as a unified whole. Te forewordstates that de Salzmann declared that she was writing a book, although whatshe lef was rather: “… notebooks … carefully preserved.”33 Tere is no indica-tion as to who edited them, or their procedure. Te editors disclose that: ‘Sheofen echoed, and sometimes repeated, his (i.e., Gurdjieff ’s) exact words. … Noattempt has been made to identify isolated excerpts taken by her from Gurdjieffor other writers.’34 Some of the material in Reality of Being is identical in everyimportant aspect to what we have seen of our exercise. For example, de Salzmannwrites:

Each person has an ideal, an aspiration for something higher. It takes one form oranother, but what matters is the call to this ideal, the call of his being. Listening tothe call is the state of prayer. While in this state, a man produces an energy, a specialemanation, which religious feeling alone can bring.35 Tese emanations concentratein the atmosphere just above the place where they are produced. Te air everywhere

32) For de Salzmann as a pupil of Gurdjieff, see Wellbeloved, Gurdjieff, 235.33) de Salzmann, Te Reality of Being, xvi.34) de Salzmann,TeReality of Being, xvi and xviii. At xvi, they offer two examples of where deSalzmann repeats Gurdjieff ’s words. An anonymous reviewer of this article correctly referredto the fact that although she stated that shewas transmittingGurdjieff ’s teaching, de Salzmannin fact also used other teachings, partly as a means of establishing a framework in whichGurdjieff ’s ideas and methods could be seen as “traditional”. Te difficulty in knowing withthe, in de Salzmann’s book, comes from Gurdjieff and what does not, is not that of the editorsalone. Still, the similarities between these excerpts from Te Reality of Bring and the FIE isprima facie evidence thatGurdjieffwas, at least in large part, their source. Aswe shall see belowwhen we consider Kathryn Hulme’s “exercise”, Gurdjieff had previously taught this exercise tode Salzmann, and trusted her to repeat it to Hulme.35) Te role of “religious emotion” in Gurdjieff ’s system is a study in itself: it raises thequestion of the divisions of the centres. Here, de Salzmann is referring to the source of theenergies in the “reservoir” to which the FIE makes reference.


contains them. Te question is how to enter into contact with these emanations. By ourcall we can create a connection, like a telegraph wire, which links us, and take in thismaterial in order to let it accumulate and crystallize in us. We then have the possibilityto manifest its quality and help others understand—that is, to give it back. True prayeris establishing this contact and being nourished by it, nourished by this special material,which is called Grace. As an exercise for this, we breathe in air, thinking of Christ orBuddha or Mohammed, and keep the active elements that have been accumulated.36

Other material in the book expresses similar ideas:

When I turn the attention of my thought to enter into contact with my body, my mindopens. Te cells that vibrate are not the same as those engaged in my usual thinking.It is a part of the mind that can have a relation with a more subtle, pure energy. Tisis the energy of a higher level, which, Gurdjieff explained, is constituted by the realthought, the prayer, of certain beings. In order to have a connection with this level, Ineed a conduit, like a wire that reaches as high as my thinking allows. I can then take in,or rather suck in, the energy and let it pass through the connection.

De Salzmann adds that the connection is a “cosmic scale”, “a link connectinghumanity with a higher influence.”37 She locates the “meaning” of individuallives on this “scale”. Tat meaning is realised when a “current” and “magnetism”is established between each person and the “higher influences”.Making this con-nection is, she states, the aim of all “traditional ways”, which differ only becausethey had to correspond to people of different times and places.38 Te overlapbetween de Salzmann’s statements, taken together, and our exercise is substan-tial. De Salzmann’s accounts contain each of the essential five elements identi-fied above: concept 1 (that higher substances form reservoirs above the earth),3 and 4 (that the exercitant can absorb them by means of a connection), and,even more explicitly than Adie, 5 (that it is desirable to ingest these substances).In respect of concept 2 (that the substances are the products of prayer), de Salz-mann states thatwhile in a state of prayer, and onlywhile experiencing a “religiousfeeling”, extraordinary emanations are produced and gather above the prayer site.Some higher substances, she asserts, are made by the “real thought” of “certainbeings”.

Tere are also somedifferences between this and the exercise given toAdie, butonly in minor respects. First, Adie’s exercise includes a reference to Lama, as wellas Christ, Buddha and Mohammed, making four, not three ideals, for selection.However, there is no reason to think that the number of “ideals” is limited tofour, for example, another of Gurdjieff ’s exercises mention these four ideals and,

36) de Salzmann, Te Reality of Being, 198–199.37) de Salzmann, Te Reality of Being, 199.38) de Salzmann, Te Reality of Being, 199.


in addition, Moses. Second, de Salzmann refers to assimilating these substanceswithin the “active elements” of the air.39

Another person who personally knew Gurdjieff and received instructionsalong these lines was Louise March (1900–1987), who knew Gurdjieff, on andoff, over a period of twenty years.40 In her posthumously edited and publishedrecollections, she states that, afer she had studied with Gurdjieff in France, chil-dren called her “Quiet Lady”, because she would sit ‘in stillness above the alcoveon the second-story porch,’ each morning.41 Tis suggests that she had learnedthe Gurdjieff exercise which Adie called “the preparation”, and which was to bedone at the start of each day.However, this is by nomeans certain, and there is noclue in the book as to what March did while she was sitting quietly. March alsodiscloses that during the Christmas of 1948, while Gurdjieff was in New York:

Afer the dinner, around midnight, Gurdjieff gives advice. “I wish give real Christmaspresent. Imagine Christ. Somewhere in space is.” Mr Gurdjieff forms an oval with bothhis hands. “Make contact, but to outside, periphery. Draw from there, draw in, I. Settlein you, Am. Do every day. Wish to become Christ. Become. Be.”42

Tis account emphatically affirms element 6 from the FIE, that the ideal itselfactually does exist. Further, it seems to exploit the possibility hinted at in Adie’stext, that a prepared person could enter into contact with the ideal. It is notewor-thy that Gurdjieff formed an oval with both his hands, and that Adie’s diagramalso depicts an oval. Gurdjieff ’s consistencymay indicate that his instructionwasnot meant merely as a “true myth”,43 but as literally accurate (which is not to saythat the existence of the ideals is verifiable by us).

Frank Sinclair, co-president of the Gurdjieff Foundation of New York fromApril 2000,44 studied not with Gurdjieff himself but with Gurdjieff ’s pupils,especially Jeanne de Salzmann, Lord Pentland (1907–1084) and Martin Benson(d. 1971). He has published some material which throws light on how Gurdjieffbrought a related exercise.Tefirst reference inhis volume comes fromthe editedmemoirs of Beatrice Hastings, his wife, referring to Gurdjieff ’s visit to the USAin 1948:

39) Te term “active elements” could shortly be explained as referring to fine substances inthe air which can act as catalysts for spiritual development. Tese are “higher hydrogens” asreferred to in 2.2.40) For March as a pupil of Gurdjieff, see Wellbeloved, Gurdjieff, 242.41) McCorkle, Te Gurdjieff Years: Expanded, 97.42) McCorkle, Te Gurdjieff Years: Expanded, 107.43) Tat is, a fiction which, if believed, is as effective as if it were true (e.g. imagining that youare sleeping on a pleasant beach, as a way of inducing sleep).44) Sinclair, Without Benefit of Clergy, 214–215.


At another time, at the end of movements, Gurdjieff said to the class, “At this time(aroundChristmas),manypeople pray.Teir prayers go only so far up in the atmosphere.You can suck these into yourself; this force.”45

Sinclair’s footnote observes that the audience for this advice comprised ‘bothnew and older people.’46 Tere is no indication thatGurdjieff said how to do this.Sinclair also notes that Martin Benson, who knew Gurdjieff over a period of atleast 20 years, said that Gurdjieff advised him: ‘Go to church, Benson, and steal.Teir prayers will not reachGod. Steal them.’47 Teadvice is not dated, althoughin the footnote, Sinclair states that this “evidently predated” the advice givenon Christmas Day 1948.48 He does not say why he thought this to be “evident”.Sinclair later states that on Christmas 1948, in the Wellington Hotel, New York,Gurdjieff gave an exercise concerning one ideal, Christ. Citing three people whowere present at that talk, Sinclair wrote that:

… they would recall his extraordinary injunction to go out and “draw in”, “steal”, or “suckin” the energies being poured out “bymillions” of people in prayer, as on thatChristmas.(My old notes reveal that…Bensonwas drumming intomehis account of howGurdjieffhad told him, “STEAL those energies, Benson, STEAL. Teir prayers cannot reachGod.” And in the way he spoke, I felt that those injunctions must have dated back tohis time at the Prieuré, and not just to that Christmas Day.)

Inevitably, there were only partial recollections of that occasion. For instance, LouiseMarch, German translator of All and Everything, displaying uncharacteristic sensitivity,ventured only a skeletal summary of his instruction.49

Sinclair then quotes most of the passage from March to which I have referred.He continues:

… it would appear that Gurdjieff counseled his listeners to turn towards a point “some-where in space”—someone even said he had referred to a planet, but clearly then, “abovethe head”, even perhaps “a higher part of the mind”—and consciously draw in a fineenergy.50

Sinclair goes on to say that in that session,Gurdjieff claimed to speak “as aChrist”and told people to undertake this exercise because only through it would they

45) Sinclair, Without Benefit of Clergy, 121 (the year) and 125.46) Sinclair, Without Benefit of Clergy, 125 n. 5.47) Sinclair, Without Benefit of Clergy, 146.48) Sinclair, Without Benefit of Clergy, 157 n. 6.49) Sinclair, Without Benefit of Clergy, 231.50) Sinclair, Without Benefit of Clergy, 230–231. Sinclair cites McCorkle, Te Gurdjieff Years,80.


“understand reason to live”.51 Sinclair’s account nowhere provides a firm date forthe reception of this advice before the Christmas period of 1948. Sinclair’s “feel-ing” that the exercise was given in the 1920s is possibly a function of his desireto use the exercise as the “lynchpin” of his argument that Jeanne de Salzmann’s“new work”,52 was no innovation, but a continuation of Gurdjieff ’s own meth-ods.53 However, the fact is that there is no evidence of Gurdjieff giving the exer-cise before October 1948 when he gave it to Adie.

Te polymath Solange Claustres, who studied many exercises with Gurdjieffin the 1940s, records that at some point in his last ten years in Paris, Gurdjieffprepared a “groupe particulier” of fifeen people to whom he gave “des exercisesintérieurs”. She describes the exercises as being:

He gave us inner exercises to be carried out at precise times and frequencies, duringthe day, and during the night, in a sustained progession consisting of consciously takensensations—going deeper and deeper … It was a very structured and strictly disciplinedschool. Te group formed the essential foundation of G.’s teaching during this period ofhis life.54

Claustres only gives details of one of these exercises. In 2007, in Paris, I describedthe FIE to her, and she replied that she had not been given it by Gurdjieff,and, indeed, had not previously known of the exercise. Claustres, did, however,recognise the “preparation” when I described that to her, and told me that theAdies had passed it on exactly as Gurdjieff had taught them. Te special grouphad ceased, she said, before 1948, but not long before. Gurdjieff is not knownto have used the concept of the “ideal” before the 1940s. Tis seems to be afurther reason to date the FIE then. Indeed, there is very little evidence thatGurdjieff gave any exercises at all before the late 1930s. I shall review that evidencein a later article, but for now I note that although Bennett had studied underGurdjieff in the 1920s, he only speaks of receiving exercises from him afer hehad re-established contact with him in 1948.

51) Sinclair, Without Benefit of Clergy, 232.52) See Wellbeloved, Gurdjieff, 153–156.53) Sinclair, Without Benefit of Clergy, 7. Sinclair’s argument that de Salzmann’s line wascontinuous with Gurdjieff ’s, because it was in line with this exercise, is an act of faith. Henowhere explicates what it was she said which corresponds to what Gurdjieff said in theWellington Hotel.54) Claustres, Becoming Conscious, 89 = La Prise, 73: ‘… très précis dans le temps et la fré-quence, pendant la journée et pendant la nuit, avec un cheminement très continu et très pro-gressif de sensations prises consciemment—allant de plus en plus en profondeur … C’était unécole de discipline stricte et très structurée. Ce groupe a été la base essentielle de l’ enseignmentde G. à cet période de sa vie.’


It therefore seemsmore likely than not that Gurdjieff devised the FIE in 1948,and taught it to very few people (we know with certainty only of George Adie,andwith a degree of probability, of J.G. Bennett and Jeanne de Salzmann).How-ever, it also seems clear thatGurdjieff disseminated abbreviated or simplified ver-sions of it, such as the “Conscious Stealing Exercise” and the New York 1948instructions, but without instructions as to how to ingest, digest and assimilatethe desired substances. Itwould, perhaps, be reasonable to see the FIE in the formgiven to Adie as one of Gurdjieff ’s “subjective exercises”, but the instructions inNew York, as an “objective exercise”.

Part Two: Gurdjieff ’s System and “Ideals”

2.1. Gurdjieff ’s System: Four States of Consciousness

Te FIE is consistent with Gurdjieff ’s general system of ideas and methods, andexpands our understanding of it. To state the matter at its simplest, although itsays nothing explicit about consciousness, the FIE fits into Gurdjieff ’s thought,in that forGurdjieff “human evolution” is the evolution of human consciousness,and can only be achieved by individuals. Te evolution of consciousness is, Iwould suggest, implicitly the goal of the exercise. Terefore, when at the endof the FIE, Gurdjieff advises one to: ‘Rest contained so that your nature canassimilate in calmness the results deposited in you,which otherwisewould be lostin vain,’ the benefit he envisages is probably the development of consciousnessthrough the assimilation of “higher hydrogens” (see 2.2. below).

In his first systematic disclosures, in WWI Russia, Gurdjieff taught thathuman evolution is dependent upon, inter alia, the foods or substances a persondigests, and in particular, for effective development, it is necessary to obtainmoreof the finer foods or substances.55 When one obtains the finest substances, thesecan be alchemically transmuted into “higher bodies”, which serve as the platformfor the work of functions which are rarely operative in people. It is through thesefunctions that we come to be conscious of ourselves within reality, and then todirectly perceive reality in the state Gurdjieff called “objective consciousness” (asto which, see below).

I shall briefly develop this in several stages. Te first, perhaps foundationalmatter for Gurdjieff, is that the human body consists of seven “centres” or brainsmaking one whole organism. Of the seven centres: five are “lower” and two

55) Interestingly, Claustres remembers that Gurdjieff told them that they had to eat the mostnourishing physical food: “Que nous devions manger des aliments de première qualité, richesen valeur nutritive et en vitamins.” Claustres, La Prise, 59 = Becoming Conscious, 73, where itis translated as: “Tat we should eat the best quality foods, nutritious and rich in vitamins.”


are “higher”. Te five lower ones are observable. Tey comprise the intellectual,emotional, sexual, moving and instinctive centres. Te instinctive centre dealswith that work of the physical organism which does not have to be learned,and so usually does not need the awareness of the other four centres. In fact,operations governed by the instinctive centre ofen cannot be made consciousat all. Instinctive functions include the pumping of blood, the working of thehormonal system, the growth of the body and all its parts, etc. Some instinctivefunctions are amenable to a certain amount of intellectual interference, e.g.,breathing, while others are not, e.g., the working of the liver. Moving centrefunctions are also physical functions, but these must be learned, e.g., walking,speaking and playing sports.

In addition, according to Gurdjieff, each person also possesses “higher emo-tional” and “higher intellectual” centres.56 Te two higher centres facilitate tworare states of consciousness: what he termed “self-remembering” and “objectiveconsciousness.” For Gurdjieff, these are the two highest of four possible statesof human consciousness. Te first or lowest state, “sleep”, is self-explanatory.Te fourth and highest, “objective consciousness”, is the only state in which wecan ‘see things as they are’.57 In between, there are two other states, “wakingconsciousness”, which is our usual waking state, in which our attention shifsbetween ourselves, externals and our reactions to internal and external stim-uli. In the third state, “self-remembering”, the attention available in waking con-sciousness is clearer, more inclusive and “finer”, meaning more penetrating. Atthe present, according to Gurdjieff, we possess this third states only in flashes.58“Self-remembering” is one of Gurdjieff ’s most individual contributions to eso-teric lore.59 He concisely described it as “consciousness of one’s own being”.60 Itis, briefly, the effort to divide one’s attention between oneself and one’s actions,thoughts, sensations and feelings, so that one becomes conscious of a greaternumber of one’s own psychic and organic functions and of their true nature. It

56) Ouspensky, In Search of the Miraculous, 142.57) Ouspensky, In Search of the Miraculous, 141, retaining Ouspensky’s italics. I can findno more pithy and authoritative comment on these states of consciousness, as understoodby Gurdjieff, than Ouspensky’s formulation: “When we become self-conscious, we becomeobjective to ourselves, and in objective conscious (sic) we can know objective truth abouteverything.” Ouspensky, Fourth Way, 106. For a concise explanation of Gurdjieff ’s theory ofconsciousness, so that the theory of different states of consciousness is put in context, seeWellbeloved, Gurdjieff, 39–40.58) Ouspensky, In Search of the Miraculous, 141–142.59) See Wellbeloved, Gurdjieff, 187–189 and the material collected in Webb, HarmoniousCircle, 146–148.60) Ouspensky, In Search of the Miraculous, 141.


is significant partly because the habitual experience of the third state is the onlyway to be able to achieve moments of the state of objective consciousness, and toaccurately remember anything of the objective reality we perceive in that state.Tis is perhaps the key to understanding the relation between Gurdjieff andmysticism, for, speaking of mystical experience, he said:

Allmystical and occult systems recognize the existence of higher forces and capacities inman … and speak of the necessity for developing the hidden forces in man. Tis presentteaching differs from many others by the fact that it affirms that the higher centres existin man and are fully developed. It is the lower centres that are undeveloped.61

In our usual state of consciousness, there is no connection between the higherand lower centres, and so we ‘fail to hear within us the voices which are speak-ing and calling to us from the higher emotional centre.’62 Were there a connec-tion, one would experience: “new emotions, new impressions hitherto entirelyunknown to him, for the description of which he has neither words nor expres-sions.”63 Self-consciousness, or “self-remembering”, is a function of the operationof the higher emotional centre. Te higher intellectual centre is still less accessi-ble: it can be approached only through the higher emotional centre, and thus, inpractice, through self-remembering. Rare as they are, connections to the higherintellectual centre are known to occur apart from the intentional cultivationof higher emotional centre, and when they do, they cause mystical and ecstaticstates. Gurdjieff explained the circumstances of these random connections as fol-lows:

Tese states can occur on the basis of religious emotions, or, for shortmoments, throughparticular narcotics; or in certain pathological states such as epileptic fits or accidentaltraumatic injuries …64

A longer connection with the higher intellectual centre usually results in aswoon. Importantly for this study, Gurdjieff then stated of such accidental con-nections that:

Te mind refuses to take in the flood of thoughts, emotions, images, and ideas whichsuddenly burst into it. And instead of a vivid thought, or a vivid emotion, there results,on the contrary, a complete blank, a state of unconsciousness. Te memory retains onlythe first moment when the flood rushed in on the mind and the last moment when theflood was receding and consciousness returned. But even these moments are so full ofunusual shades and colours that there is nothing with which to compare them among

61) Ouspensky, In Search of the Miraculous, 194.62) Ouspensky, In Search of the Miraculous, 195.63) Ouspensky, In Search of the Miraculous, 194.64) Ouspensky, In Search of the Miraculous, 195.


the ordinary sensations of life. Tis is usually all that remains from so-called ‘mystical’and ‘ecstatic’ experiences, which represent a temporary connection with a higher centre.Only very seldom does it happen that a mind which has been better prepared succeedsin grasping and remembering something ofwhatwas felt and understood at themomentof ecstasy. But even in these cases, the thinking, the moving, and the emotional centresremember and transmit everything in their ownway, translate absolutely new and neverpreviously experienced sensations into the language of everyday sensations, transmitin worldly three-dimensional forms things which pass completely beyond the limits ofworldly measurements …65

Gurdjieff is saying, in short, that the source of mystic experiences is found incertain “higher brains” which we all possess, and which are able to directly per-ceive reality. Te reason we are usually unaware either of objective reality or ofthe existence of these brains in us is that the ordinary mind we use is not capa-ble of entering into connection with the higher brains without the preparationprovided by spiritual disciplines, or by one of the random occurrences Gurdjieffwas quoted as referring to. Even if such a connection does take place by accident(e.g. as a result of head trauma), we then understand what is higher in terms ofwhat is lower. Tis explanation has the virtue of being systematic and internallyconsistent, even if it is impossible to assess its correctness.

2.2. Gurdjieff ’s System: “Higher Hydrogens”

For Gurdjieff, the evolution of consciousness requires finer foods. Our higheststates of consciousness require foods of a finer type than those we need forour lower states. Foods comprise, according to Gurdjieff, a much greater rangeof substances than we ordinarily think. Part of the significance of the “FIE” isthat it widens still further our understanding of what Gurdjieff considered tobe available as food. Briefly, for Gurdjieff, the material universe (not excludingthe possibility of something in the universe which is notmaterial)66 is composedof interpenetrating substances or “hydrogens” of increasing density. Althoughthere aremore hydrogens in the universe,Gurdjieff said that, for all our purposes,it was sufficient to take 12 of these hydrogens, which he designated as H1, H6,

65) Ouspensky, In Search of the Miraculous, 195.66) Ouspensky, In Search of the Miraculous, 82 is very careful in its wording: “We take thethree-dimensional universe and consider the world as a world of matter and force in the sim-plest and most elementary meaning of these terms. Higher dimensions … as well as other cat-egories of knowledge of the world which are unknown to science, we will discuss later.” Gur-djieff ’s reported exposition of the “ray of creation” is marked by his selection of deliberatelyselects only one “ray:” from the possibly infinite number which are created by the Absolute,ibid 80–81.


H12, H24, H48, H96, H192, H384, H768, H1536 & H3072. Each hydrogencomprises a “category of matter”, embracing various objects, some of which areknown to us, for example, wood is composed of H1536, while the substanceswhich serve as food for us are H768.67 Each organic creature or body is also acomposite of hydrogens of varying density.Tese hydrogens are all material, andhave both chemical and psychic attributes. Te materiality and thus the qualityof each hydrogen is different: for example, air and wood each possess propertieswhich the other does not.

In about 1918,Gurdjieff said that humans feedupon three foods: solidnourish-ment (food and water, which, for these purposes, Gurdjieff treated as one class);air; and impressions. Tese three foods are “hydrogens” 768, 192 and 48 respec-tively.68 He stated that although all hydrogens with the significant exception ofH1 could be found in the human body,69 the higher hydrogens (i.e., those withlower numbers, H48, H24 etc.) were “matters unknown to physics and chem-istry, matters of our psychic and spiritual life on different levels.”70 In adumbrat-ing the ideas which culminated in the “Food Diagram” in its classical completedform,71 Gurdjieff indicated that, by a special alchemical work, the three foodscould be developed further than they usually are. According toOuspensky, Gur-djieff stated that a person usually does not have enough energy to attain the aimsthey set themselves. For Gurdjieff, the only worthwhile aim to start with is “self-remembering”. At a later date, Gurdjieff went on to say that one of the reasonswe cannot “remember ourselves” is that:

Te human organism represents a chemical factory planned for the possibility of a verylarge output. But in the ordinary conditions of life the output of this factory neverreaches the full production possible to it … all its elaborate equipment actually serveno purpose at all, … it maintains only with difficulty its own existence.

It must follow that if exercitants can attract and feed on higher substances, theFood Diagram of In Search of the Miraculous must be incomplete, as the “ema-nations” produced by prayer cannot easily be accommodated to any concept of“impressions” without stretching that word beyond any reasonable meaning.

67) Ouspensky, In Search of the Miraculous, 172–175. As Ouspensky notes, water and liquidfoods are in fact H384, but for simplicity, all solid edible and potable foodstuffs are taken asH768.68) Ouspensky, In Search of the Miraculous, 181–190.69) Ouspensky, In Search of the Miraculous, 174.70) Ouspensky, In Search of the Miraculous, 175.71) Figure 39: Ouspensky, In Search of the Miraculous, 182.


2.3. Gurdjieff on Prayer and “Ideals”

According to the transcript of a meeting in Paris of 7 December 1941, some-one asked Gurdjieff how he should pray. Gurdjieff replied, inter alia, that cer-tain substances emanate from the sun and planets.72 Tese emanations, he said,make contact at certain points in our solar system, and can reflect in material-ized images which are themselves images of the All Highest. Tere are always,he averred, materialized images in the atmosphere, and if only we could suffi-ciently concentrate, we could enter into contact with the image and receive thesubstances. Tere is a significant difference between this and the FIE, for in 1941Gurdjieffwas referring to emanations from thebodies of the solar system. FIE, onthe other hand, refers to emanations sourced from the faithful. However, whatwas said in this meeting of 7 December 1941 is of interest in that it suggests abasis, in Gurdjieff ’s thought, for asserting the objective reality of “ideals” whichsubsist somewhere above the surface of the earth.

Gurdjieff advised his students to have an ideal: for example, in the meeting of16 January 1944, he stated, if one does not have an ideal, if one does not believein God, then one’s parent or teacher can serve as an ideal.73 On 9 December1946, Gurdjieff advised that when finishing an exercise one could make a prayerto one’s ideal to help guard what one has received or attracted until the nextexercise.74 It is possible that Gurdjieff ’s theory can be accommodated within theframework of traditionalChristianity (e.g., the receipt of the “higher substances”corresponds to the receipt of divine grace), although this too, is a topic for alater study.75 However, the significant point is that as the exercises are aimedat conscious development, they will—or should—make possible a connectionbetween higher and lower centres, and thus for the states which are experiencedas “mystical” to become “natural” for the exercitant. Tis is further reason to seeGurdjieff ’s system as fundamentally mystical, as it has elsewhere been argued.76

Another aspect of the FIE’s prayer-like nature is that religiosity is not usu-ally associated with Gurdjieff. But the impression of Gurdjieff ’s a-religiosity issuperficial. His music and his movements are replete with the conventionally

72) Gurdjieff, Transcripts, 2–3. Similarly, see Gurdjieff, Beelzebub’s Tales, 760–761.73) Gurdjieff, Transcripts, 106.74) Gurdjieff, Transcripts, 173.75) I am aware that there are significant differences betweenGurdjieff ’s ideas and those foundin Christianity, but that is not my topic here.76) Azize, ‘Solar Mysticism in Gurdjieff ’, passim. Despite the many diverse methods whichGurdjieff used, the writer is here referring to the system as a whole: ideas and techniquesconsidered as leading to an end.


religious: much of his piano music bears titles such as “Essentuki Prayer”, “TeStory of the Resurrection of Christ”, or “Reading from a Sacred Book”. Tereare even pieces with titles such as “Vespers Hymn” and “Tibi Cantamus”. Tereare two entire series of piano music named “Hymns from a Truly Great Temple”and “Sacred Hymns”, respectively. Te solemnity and gravity of these pieces isapparent. Ten there are movements with titles such as “Te Big Prayer”, and“Sense of the Sacred”. During the latter, the pupils invoke the names of the fourideals. One cannot say much about this wordless teaching, but it exists and isan important part of Gurdjieff ’s heritage.77 Nowhere in any of Gurdjieff ’s orOuspensky’s books, or in the transcripts of Paris meetings, does Gurdjieff say oris he quoted as saying that prayer is ineffectual, let alone that one should not pray.On the contrary, he actually and explicitly gave instruction in how to pray andenjoined it.78 In In Search of the Miraculous, Gurdjieff is reported as saying thatthe action of conscious praying could itself do for the person what they soughtfrom a higher power.79 In other words, prayer is one of Gurdjieff ’s methods.

What is striking about some of Gurdjieff ’s methods, is how he uses imagina-tion, although he considered uncontrolled imagination to be one of the signs of“waking sleep”. Gurdjieff evidently considered that imagination could be usedconstructively, even if it was rarely used in that manner. Tus, in a talk dated to19 December 1930, Gurdjieff stated:

… as a means for self-perfecting a man can use a certain property which is in his psyche,and which is even of a very negative character. Tis property … is none other thanthat which I have many times condemned and which people themselves consider anunworthy manifestation for a man who has reached responsible age … and it is called“self-deception”.80

Tere are indications that imagination could be very different in its significancefor a person and their conscious development, depending on whether it wasintentional and controlled or unintentional and uncontrolled.81 Te FIE must,it is submitted, be taken as one of those rare examples where Gurdjieff recom-mended the use of intentional and controlled imagination. Another such exam-ple, which also takes us into the area of magic is found in Kathryn Hulme’s(1900–1981) memoir Undiscovered Country: In Search of Gurdjieff (1966).

77) See Petsche, ‘G.I. Gurdjieff ’s Piano Music’, and her forthcoming Music for Remembering:Te Gurdjieff/de Hartmann Piano Music and its Esoteric Significance.78) Ouspensky, In Search of the Miraculous, 300–302, and see also the references in Well-beloved, Gurdjieff, 166–167.79) Ouspensky, In Search of the Miraculous, 300–302.80) Gurdjieff, Life Is Real, 133.81) Ouspensky, Te Fourth Way, 370–371.


Reporting meetings with Gurdjieff in 1949, Hulme speaks of Gurdjieff ’s refer-ences to “conjury” as being something which one does for one’s own benefit, andwhich has that effect not because it is magic but because the person themselvesdid it.82 However, the exercise which Gurdjieff gave her later that year when hermother had started to suffer from dementia was intended to work for the benefitof her mother as well. Hulme states:

Hewent tohis trunk, took from it a postcard-sizedphotographof a strong-facedold ladyin a black head shawl and cape … “My mother,” he said. He then gave me an exercise,totally different from any previous instruction yet including steps from many of theearlier “spiritual” disciplines. Imust always be alone in a roomwhen I performed it, alonewith two empty chairs before me, on which I was to see “with inner eye” his mother andmy mother sitting side by side. Step by step, he went through the instruction which, Igathered, might enable me to draw intomyself a force to send to them—a kind of “help”for hismother andmine.Ten he calledMadame S., his oldest andmost trusted Russianassistant, told her to go over it once again, step by step with me, and abruptly lef theroom.

It was the last exercise he was ever to give to me.83

Te parallel to the FIE consists in the fact that she would draw into herself “aforce”. But then, this exercise goes beyond the FIE in that she would send it onto both her mother and Gurdjieff ’s. At this point, we are looking at somethingwhich most scholars would probably consider to be magic or at least akin to it:the hardest question is probably one of definition.

PartTree: Conclusion

Gurdjieff ’s “Four Ideals Exercise” would seem to be unique.Te chief aim of thispaper has been to publish the exercise with the necessary notes to make it com-prehensible in its own terms, and to relate it to Gurdjieff ’s own system. Te pro-cess of showing its consistency with Gurdjieff ’s ideas and methods also presentsthose in a fresh light. Te exercise shows Gurdjieff making use of religious con-cepts but recasting them; almost, in fact, materialising them. Although the “sub-stances” of which Gurdjieff speaks are, in his scheme of the universe, subtle sub-stances, they are, nonethelessmaterial substances. Likewise, thenotion thatwhenpeople pray they emanate a refined substance which ascends above the earth is,to the best of my knowledge, unique and reframes received religious ideas in anovel manner.

82) Hulme, Undiscovered Country, 278–279.83) Hulme, Undiscovered Country, 284–285.


Apart from exhibiting the connection between religion and Gurdjieff ’s sys-tem, especially perhaps in its later stages, this article seeks to draw attention toGurdjieff ’s use of “internal contemplative exercises”. As we have seen, there arein fact some references in the extant literature to these exercises. Te first publi-cation of a full exercise occurred in 1975 with Gurdjieff ’s Tird Series, publishedunder the title Life is Real, Only Ten, When ‘I Am’. As stated, it is my inten-tion to follow this paper up with more studies of these exercises. Tat researchmay lead to a rather different, more nuanced picture of Gurdjieff emerging: thefiery teacher of “dervish dances” was but one role he played. Gurdjieff was also ateacher of a unique form of contemplation which was grounded upon an exten-sive and internally-consistent theory.

Bibliography

Books

Adie, George M. and Azize, Joseph, George Adie: A Gurdjieff Pupil in Australia, London:Lighthouse Work Books 2007.

Bennett, John G., Witness: Te Story of a Search, Santa Fe: Bennett Books, 1997 reprint of a1962 original, with a foreword by George and Ben Bennett.

——, Gurdjieff: Making a New World, New York: Harper & Row 1973.Bennett, JohnG. editedA.G.E. Blake, Sacred Influences: Spiritual Action inHumanLife, Santa

Fe: Bennett Books 1989.Bennett, John J. and Bennett, Elizabeth, Idiots in Paris: Diaries of J.G. Bennett and Elizabeth

Bennett, 1949, York Beach, Maine: Samuel Weiser 1991.Claustres, Solange, La Prise de conscience et G.I. Gurdjieff, Utrecht: Eureka Editions 2003.——, Becoming Conscious with G.I. Gurdjieff, Utrecht: Eureka Editions 2005 (a translation of

Claustres 2003).de Salzmann, Jeanne, Te Reality of Being: Te Fourth Way of Gurdjieff, Boston and London:

Shambhala 2010.Gurdjieff, George I., Beelzebub’s Tales to his Grandson, Aurora: Two River Press 1950 (a 1993

“unaltered republication of thework as itwas originally prepared for publicationbyG.Gur-djieff, published by Harcourt, Brace & Company in 1950.”)

——, Life Is Real, only then, When ‘I Am’, New York: privately printed by E.P. Dutton & Co.,Inc. for Triangle Editions, Inc. 1975.

——, Transcripts of Gurdjieff ’s Meetings 1941–1946, London: Book Studio (the volume isanonymously edited) 2008.

Hands, Rina, Diary of Madame Egout Pour Sweet, Aurora: Two Rivers Press 1991.Hulme, Kathryn, Undiscovered Country: In Search of Gurdjieff, Boston and Toronto: Little

Brown and Company 1966.McCorkle, Annabeth W., Te Gurdjieff Years, 1929–1949: Recollections of Louise March, Wal-

worth, New York: Te Work Study Association, Inc. 1990.——, Te Gurdjieff Years, 1929–1949: Recollections of Louise Goepfert March, Expanded Edi-

tion, Utrecht: Eureka Editions 2012.Moore, James, Gurdjieff: Te Anatomy of a Myth, Dorset: Element Books 1991.


Ouspensky, Piotr D., Te Fourth Way, New York: Vintage Books 1957.——, In Search of the Miraculous, New York: Harcourt Brace 1949.Sinclair, Frank, Without Benefit of Clergy: Some Personal Footnotes to the Gurdjieff Teaching,

Xlibris 2005.Taylor, Paul Beekman, G.I. Gurdjieff: A New Life, Utrecht: Eureka Editions 2008.Walker, Kenneth, Te Making of Man, London and Henley: Routledge & Kegan Paul 1963.Webb, James, Te Harmonious Circle: An Exploration of the Loves and Work of G.I. Gurdjieff,

P.D. Ouspensky and others, London: Tames and Hudson 1980.Wellbeloved, Sophia, Gurdjieff: Te Key Concepts, London and New York: Routledge 2003.

Articles

Azize, Joseph, ‘Solar Mysticism in Gurdjieff and Neoplatonism’, Crossroads, 2010 (1), 18–26.——, ‘Gurdjieff ’s Sacred Dances and Movements’, in: Cusack, Carole and Norman, Alex

(eds),Handbook ofNewReligions andCultural Productions, Leiden andBoston: Brill 2012,297–330.

Blake, AnthonyG.E., ‘Gurdjieff and the Legominism ofObjective Reason’, in: Cusack, CaroleandNorman, Alex (eds),Handbook of New Religions and Cultural Productions, Leiden andBoston: Brill 2012, 237–270.

Moore, James, ‘Gurdjieff ’, in Hanegraaf, Wouter J. (ed), Dictionary of Gnosis and WesternEsotericism, Leiden and Boston: Brill 2005 (two volumes), vol. I, 445–450

Needleman, Jacob, ‘GurdjieffTradition’, inHanegraaf,Wouter J. (ed),Dictionary ofGnosis andWestern Esotericism, Leiden and Boston: Brill 2005 (two volumes), vol. I, 450–454

Petsche, Johanna, ‘G.I. Gurdjieff ’s Piano Music and its Application In and Outside ‘theWork’ ’, in: Cusack, Carole and Norman, Alex (eds), Handbook of New Religions and Cul-tural Productions, Leiden and Boston: Brill 2012, 271–295.


Appendices 1–4

Te reproductions of all four appendices are published by kind permission of thetrustees of the late George Adie.Te originals are in the possession of the author.

Appendix 1

Obverse of Adie’s notes, handwritten in 1949, concerning the time spent withGurdjieff in Paris, and the exercise Gurdjieff gave him.


Appendix 2

Reverse of Adie’s notes, handwritten in 1949, concerning the time spent withGurdjieff in Paris, and the exercises Gurdjieff gave him.


Appendix 3

Page 1 of the typed version of Gurdjieff ’s Four Ideals Exercise, with handwrittencorrections by Adie and Helen Adie.


Appendix 4

Adie’s French language sketch, probably made in 1949, of the cosmology of Gur-djieff ’s Four Ideals Exercise.

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SPECIAL ISSUE SPECIAL ISSUE SPECIAL ISSUE SPECIAL ISSUE –––– 2006 AEN CONFERENCE2006 AEN CONFERENCE2006 AEN CONFERENCE2006 AEN CONFERENCE

VOLUME V ISSUE 1 2010 ISSN: 1833-878X

Pages 18-26

Joseph AzizeJoseph AzizeJoseph AzizeJoseph Azize

Solar Mysticism in Gurdjieff and Neoplatonism

ABSTRACTABSTRACTABSTRACTABSTRACT This article evaluates a striking similarity between two passages, one from the emperor Julian (‘the Apostate’), and the other from G. I. Gurdjieff (1865?-1949). These passages present the ‘sun’ as the source of ‘nous’ (Julian), or ‘higher centres’ (Gurdjieff). I suggest that these two faculties are effectively the same, as in both systems these faculties ground mystic experiences. In both systems, mystical experience is the experience of elevated human faculties which are nourished by the sun. This enquiry establishes that Gurdjieff was, directly or indirectly, aware of certain Neoplatonic ideas. It also suggests that Gurdjieff can be reasonably characterised as a mystic.

BIOGRAPHYBIOGRAPHYBIOGRAPHYBIOGRAPHY

Joseph Azize, PhD LlB, is a Visiting Fellow at the University of Technology, Sydney. His PhD was published as The Phoenician Solar Theology (Piscataway, New Jersey: Gorgias Press, 2007), and he edited and co-authored George Adie: A Gurdjieff Pupil in Australia (England and Wales: Lighthouse Publications, 2008).

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SOLAR MYSTICISM IN GURDJIEFF AND NEOPLATONISM In contemporary academic study of mysticism, there is a debate between ‘essentialist’ and ‘contextualist’ models, the terms favoured by Katz.1 The essentialist sees mystical experience as a relatively homogenous experience, essentially the same across boundaries of culture, religion, language, age, gender, social status, and so on. The contextualist, however, sees mysticism as a range of experiences, influenced if not determined by culture etc. There may be a false or at least an overly rigid distinction between the two schools of thought: few essentialists would ever deny that subjective factors had no affect upon mystics’ experience, while even a contextualist may see something in common between these experiences, and find an objective basis for that commonality.2 The view adumbrated by Gurdjieff, but in significant respects anticipated in Neoplatonism, explains mystical experience by the human faculties involved. This theory comprises, as it were, a third position neither essentialist nor contextualist. According to this perspective, the essentialist is correct in that the mystical experience always represents the contemplation of unchanging objective reality in a state of consciousness where the higher faculties (nous in Neoplatonism) are active and the lower ones (in Neoplatonism, the lower parts of the soul) are passive. However, the contextualist point of view is accounted for in that descriptions of the mystical experience can later be relayed only by means of the lower faculties, and in a different state of consciousness. These accounts are expressed in subjective terms conditioned by the individual’s history as determined by the diverse factors mentioned. Our first quotation is from Julian’s Hymn to King Helios,3 referring to the Phoenician theology of Iamblichos: ‘For the opinion of the Phoenicians – (who are) wise and possessed of knowledge in respect of divine matters – stated that the sunlight (which is) sent forth everywhere is the immaculate action of pure mind (nous) itself.’4 Compare this passage from Gurdjieff’s Beelzebub’s Tales to his Grandson (‘Beelzebub’): ‘Finally, that part of the being-blood ... which (part) serves the highest part of the being called the soul, is formed from the direct emanations of our Most Holy Sun Absolute.’5 The similarity to Julian is striking. As we shall see, in Gurdjieff, the ‘Most Holy Sun Absolute’ is directly analogous to the various suns of the Neoplatonic cosmoses. There is a pertinent passage in Plotinos. In Ennead 4.3.11, ‘On Difficulties about the Soul: I’, he writes:

… sun in the divine realm is Intellect (nous) … and next after it is soul (psukhē), dependent upon it and abiding while Intellect abides. This soul gives the edge of itself which borders on this [visible] sun to this sun, and makes a connection of it to the divine realm through the medium of itself, and acts as interpreter of what comes from this sun to the intelligible sun and from the intelligible sun to this sun …6

That is, the material and the spiritual realms are linked through the medium of the soul. But by what principles can we establish that one writer or body of ideas has influenced another? I have earlier considered this question, and contend that a canon of assessment is needed. This canon requires us to distinguish particular influence from general influence, although it is often the case that the existence of a particular influence may make it easier to infer the co-existence of general influence. I shall argue in future papers that Neoplatonism did have a general influence on Gurdjieff. Here, I am positing only particular influence.

1 See, for example, Steven T. Katz (Ed.), “Editor’s Introduction” in Mysticism and Sacred Scripture (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 3. 2 To take but one example, see Ewert Cousins, “The Fourfold Sense of Scripture in Christian Mysticism” in Mysticism and Sacred Scripture (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 118-137, especially 128: ‘the symbolic method of interpreting scripture is not arbitrary but is based on the very structure of the psyche.’ 3 Flavius Claudius Julianus, Emperor of Rome 361-3 is an important witness and also an important contributor to trends in Neoplatonism, especially between the time of the death of Iamblichos and his own writing. 4 I use the edition of W. C. Wright, Julian: Volume I (Cambridge, Mass: Loeb Classical Library, 1913). See the commentary on this passage in Joseph Azize, The Phoenician Solar Theology (Piscataway: Gorgias Press, 2005), 15-36. 5 G. I. Gurdjieff, Beelzebub’s Tales to his Grandson (Aurora: Two Rivers Press, 1993 [1950]), 569. 6 A. H. Armstrong (Ed.), Plotinus in seven volumes (Cambridge, Mass: Loeb Classical Library, 1978-1988). All translations are Armstrong’s.

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The assessment of particular influence, by my canon, has two stages: the first stage is positive: a prima facie correspondence must be positively established.7 Scholars look for similarities between two cultural phenomena which are so precise as to persuade that that there must have been a borrowing or an influence.8 I suggest that a correspondence is readily apparent here. In both passages the sun is progenitor of a spiritual faculty: the Neoplatonic nous and that part of the blood which ‘serves the soul’. As we shall see, in both Neoplatonism and Gurdjieff, central roles in their cosmologies are played by ‘suns’: these are the visible sun and metaphorical suns, which are the suns of other dimensions. These suns are integrally related. The second stage in assessing particular influence is negative: we must exclude the possibility of independent innovation, or that the influence came from yet another source. This involves considering whether the cultural phenomenon in question can be explained by reference to purely local influences, or to individual discovery or inspiration.9 Gurdjieff could read Greek,10 but I am unaware of any evidence that he specifically read ancient Greek. It is difficult to envisage any independent research of Gurdjieff’s which would establish that the sun nourishes higher human faculties. One cannot exclude the possibility that Gurdjieff obtained this idea from some unknown source. However, I have not come across this doctrine elsewhere. The similarity is so peculiar that the suggestion of Neoplatonic influence on Gurdjieff here, whether directly or indirectly, seems likely. A virtually certain but less central borrowing from Neoplatonism comes from Iamblichos’ On the Pythagorean Life. Iamblichos writes that when Pythagoras had been studying in Egypt, he was captured by Cambyses’ soldiers and taken to Babylon where he studied with the magi, learning about their rites, worship and mathematical sciences.11 Gurdjieff writes in Beelzebub that Pythagoras was one of the ‘learned beings’ who was forcibly gathered in Babylon by a Persian king. This unnamed king had scoured his empire for learned beings who might be able to transmute metals into gold, even waging war upon Egypt to seize their savants. In Babylon, these ‘learned beings’ studied together, Pythagoras among them.12 The likeness here is so striking that independent invention is not plausible. I suggest that this strengthens the case that Gurdjieff had a strong interest in Neoplatonism. It also suggests a further element in the canon of assessing putative influence: a theory of particular influence will be more compelling where there is more than one prima facie instance. Given that Gurdjieff must have read a relatively obscure writer like Iamblichos, or someone who had, it is more credible that he had read Julian. Having established the likelihood of borrowing, directly or indirectly, between Gurdjieff and Julian, it falls now to consider in more detail the higher faculties in Gurdjieff and Neoplatonism, taking Plotinos as the parade ground example of Neoplatonism. The similarity I contend for is this: in both systems the higher faculties are eternally in communication with objective reality although we are rarely conscious of this. THE HIGHER FACULTIES IN NEOPLATONISM Plotinos’ philosophy has been extensively studied.13 For Plotinos, reality is hierarchical. At the head of the cosmic order is ‘the One beyond being’, (to epekeina ontos to hen); then ‘Being’ and ‘Intellect’ (to on kai nous)’ and third, ‘the nature of Soul’ (hē tēs psukhēs phusis). These three levels are separate from the sensible world: Ennead 5.1.10. The soul possesses lower and higher faculties. The higher parts are in constant contemplation of the world of forms. However, we are unaware of this, because there is a disruption between the two parts of the soul.14 This is explained in the early treatise Ennead 4.8, ‘The Descent of the Soul into Bodies’, where at 4.8.8, Plotinos states: ‘… our soul (psukhē) does not altogether come down, but there is always something of it in the intelligible; but if the part which is in the world of sense-perception (to de en tōi aisthētōi) gets control, or rather

7 Joseph Azize, “Considering the Book of Qohelet Afresh,” Ancient Near Eastern Studies 37 (2000): 183-214: 185-6. 8 Ibid., 185. 9 Ibid., 186-7. 10 Gurdjieff, Beelzebub’s Tales, 13. 11 John Dillon and Jackson Hershbell (Eds.), Iamblichus: On the Pythagorean Way of Life (Atlanta: Scholar’s Press, 1991), Chap 4 [19]. 12 Gurdjieff, Beelzebub’s Tales, 323-30 and 455. The borrowing was first observed by John G. Bennett, Gurdjieff: Making a New World (New York: Harper & Row Publishers, 1973), 59. Bennett did not pursue any other Neoplatonic parallels. 13 See for example J. M. Rist, Plotinus: The Road to Reality (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1967), Jean Trouillard La purification plotinienne (Paris: Presses Universitaires, 1955) and Lloyd P. Gerson (Ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Plotinus (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996). 14 Ibid., 229.

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if it is itself brought under control, and thrown into confusion [by the body], it prevents us from perceiving the things which the upper part of the soul contemplates.’ A complementary reason for our obliviousness of the activity of the higher parts of the soul is offered in 4.3 ‘On Difficulties about the Soul: I,’ where Plotinos states that the ‘image-making power’ (to phantastikon) does not receive the impression of the ceaseless activity of the nous, because it is occupied with the receipt of perceptions.15 Then, in Ennead 2.9.2, ‘Against the Gnostics,’ he states:

… there is one intellect (hena nous), unchangeably the same, without any sort of decline, imitating the Father16 as far as is possible to it: and that one part of our soul is always directed to the intelligible realities, one to the things of this world, and one is in the middle between these; for since the soul is one nature in many powers, sometimes the whole of it is carried along with the best of itself and of real being (tou ontos), sometimes the worse part is dragged down and drags the middle with it; for it is not lawful for it to drag down the whole.

That is, even when we are most ‘engrossed,’ as it were, the highest part of the soul is not demeaned. In 2.9.3 Plotinos reiterates this, saying that the higher part of the soul is ‘always illuminated and continually holds the light.’ In speaking of the higher part of the soul, which ‘preserves its activity in purity,’ Plotinos cites the enigmatic passage in Plato’s Timaios 90A to the effect that it is ‘on top in the head.’17 In ‘On Difficulties about the Soul: I,’ Plotinos writes at 4.3.12: ‘The souls of men see their images as if in the mirror of Dionysus … but even these are not cut off from their own principle and from intellect (arkhēs te kai nou). For … their heads are firmly set above in heaven.’ Plotinus summed up the philosopher’s task in his final words: ‘Endeavour to lead the divine in you back to the divine in the all.’18 This pithy phrase expresses the essence of Plotinos’ theory and of his practice. A similar aspiration can be found in Iamblichos’ On the Pythagorean Life, where at the climax of his account, he writes:

Much more wonderful than these, however, were what they established about partnership in divine goods (tōn theiōn agathōn), and about unity of intellect and the divine soul. For they often encouraged one another not to disperse the god within themselves. At any rate, all their zeal for friendship, both in words and deeds, aimed at some kind of mingling (theokrasia) and union with God, and at communion with intellect and the divine soul.19

This theokrasia was not solely a work for the philosopher’s study, and here we also touch on a general parallel with Gurdjieff which I shall return to in future studies. Porphyry, the student of Plotinos who edited his writings, states: ‘he was present at once to himself and to others, (sunēn oun kai heautōi hama kai tois allois) and he never relaxed his self-turned attention except in sleep ...,’ being continually turned ‘in contemplation of the intellect.’20 This, I would suggest, portrays the sage overcoming the disruption of higher and lower parts of the soul. This conscious activity grounds the mystic range of experiences. As we shall see, the analogy with Gurdjieff, and his injunction to ‘remember yourself,’ is apparent. THE HIGHER FACULTIES IN GURDJIEFF On my reading of Gurdjieff’s ideas, one insight is fundamental: that the very design of creation, exemplified in each cosmic unit from the largest galaxy to the most minute particle, is unity, plurality and the movement between unity and plurality. One might call this ‘the procession of existence’—integration and disintegration. This procession is the key to understanding ‘unity in diversity.’21 Just as the sun is the centre of our solar

15 Enneads 4.3.30, and see also Armstrong’s summary of Plotinos’ doctrine at 130 n.1 ‘… the translation into images depends on the good health and freedom from disturbance of the body …’ with references. 16 The ‘father’ of souls is god: tas psukhas patros theou, Enneads 5.1.1. 17 For this passage, and some relevant notes, see Enneads 5.1.10 and Armstrong’s footnotes at pp.46-48. 18 Porphyry, The Life of Plotinus, 2.26-27 in Plotinus in seven volumes Vol.1. Armstrong (Ed.,) Porphyry’s Life of Plotinus is traditionally published in the same volume as the Enneads, as a sort of introduction. 19 Iamblichos, [240]. Please read: Iamblichos, in Dillon and Hershbell, Iamblichos. 20 Porphyry, The Life of Plotinus, 8.8-24. 21 P. D. Ouspensky, In Search of the Miraculous (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1949), 75-80 and 278. A full set of references will require a book length study. For an accessible introduction to Gurdjieff and his ideas, see Sophia Wellbeloved, Gurdjieff: The Key Concepts (London: Routledge, 2003). For reference to Gurdjieff’s intellectual context, see Sophia Wellbeloved, Gurdjieff, Astrology and Beelzebub’s Tales (New York: Solar Bound Press, 2002), 1, 9-31.

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system, so the ‘Most Holy Sun Absolute’ is the centre of this unity in diversity: ‘… in the Great Universe all phenomena in general without exception wherever they arise and manifest, are simply successively law-conformable ‘Fractions’ of some whole phenomenon which has its prime arising on the ‘Most Holy Sun Absolute’.’22 The ‘Most Holy Sun Absolute’ is the place where god himself abides, the ultimate ground of the universe, and was at one time the ‘sole cosmic concentration.’23 It is, effectively, ‘heaven’. Even the ‘Word-God’ is an emanation of the Sun Absolute.24 The Word-God, acting upon ‘the prime-source cosmic substance Etherokrilno,’ contributed to the ‘crystallization’ of ‘concentrations’ called ‘Second-order-Suns.’25 More orders of ‘suns’ then formed around these: indeed, even ‘planets’ are ‘suns’ in this terminology,26 and one can speak of an electron making revolutions around its ‘sun.’27 These suns, then, are analogous to the suns of Noplatonism’s world, hence Julian’s references to the ‘noetic sun.’28 For Gurdjieff, each entity (e.g. each plant) is itself a unity, is a diversity, and is in flux. Within each member of the plant, the same pattern applies to each leaf, root, and flower. In the earliest Gurdjieff-related essay known, ‘Glimpses of the Truth,’29 the writer explicitly states that Gurdjieff ‘delineated the scheme of the construction of the Universe,’ and used the image of the tree to express the idea of ‘unity in multiplicity.30 In us, this diversity appears as a separation of powers which should be, but are not, working as an integrated whole. Gurdjieff stated:

Man has no permanent and unchangeable I. Every thought, every mood, every desire, every sensation, says ‘I’. And in each case it seems to be taken for granted that this I belongs to the Whole, to the whole man, and that a thought, a desire, an aversion is expressed by this Whole. … Man’s every thought and desire appears and lives quite separately and independently of the Whole. And the Whole never expresses itself, for the simple reason that it exists, as such, only physically as a thing, and in the abstract as a concept. Man has no individual I. … Man is a plurality.31

The reference to thoughts, desires and sensations is to the ‘intellectual,’ ‘emotional’ and ‘moving’ brains or centres, which are axial in Gurdjieff’s anthropology. It is the disordered work of these centres which comprises our internal disruption.32 Like Plotinos, Gurdjieff taught methods to recognize this situation within the individual, and to consciously assist the process of internal integration. Gurdjieff’s blueprint of unity in plurality is for practical use. The individual process of integration also advances the purpose behind the design of creation.33 As we shall see, this is the basis of Gurdjieff’s understanding of mysticism. Unity, plurality, and the procession of existence, is simultaneous and never-ceasing. It is true of each and every entity in nature. This triune reality subsists in different ways at different levels of the universe, except possibly, at the level of the Absolute or god, where only unity subsists. In this respect, Gurdjieff made an interesting choice of words which shows his interest in philosophy: ‘… passing to philosophical conclusions, we may say that ‘all worlds’ must form some, for us, incomprehensible and unknown Whole or One (as an apple is one).’34 Each entity is also potential, for it is in the procession of existence. This is exemplified in the ‘Diagram of Everything Living,’ which commences with the Absolute, and includes in its scope metals, minerals, plants, invertebrates, vertebrates, man, angels, archangels, ‘the eternal unchanging’ and again, the Absolute.35

22 Gurdjieff, Beelzebub’s Tales, 123. 23 Ibid., 748-749. 24 Ibid., 756. 25 Ibid., 757. 26 Ibid., 758-60. 27 Ouspensky, In Search of the Miraculous, 335-336. 28 For the Neoplatonic suns, see Azize, The Phoenician Solar Theology, 30-32. 29 For the background to this essay, see P. D. Ouspensky, In Search of the Miraculous, 10-11, 214 and 251. 30 G. I. Gurdjieff, Views from the Real World (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1979) 15-19. I learned of George Latura Beke, Digging up the Dog: The Greek Roots of Gurdjieff’s Esoteric Ideas (New York: Indications Press, 2005) only after a first draft of this paper was written. This is not the place to critique this book, which, while sincere, is not an academically valuable study, and lacks methodology. 31 Ouspensky, In Search of the Miraculous, 58. All italics are in the original. 32 Ibid., 55-56 and 194. I have omitted two other brains or centres, the sex and the instinctive. However, they do not affect our analysis. 33 Gurdjieff, Beelzebub’s Tales, 745-775, 778-786, esp. 756, 775 and 783. See also Wellbeloved Gurdjieff, Astrology, 183-186. 34 Ouspensky, In Search of the Miraculous, 76. 35 Ibid., 322-324.

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We have the potential to be more connected within ourselves, and also with other entities in the creation, thus becoming a unity of a different order. But there is potential to proceed in the other direction, towards dis-integration.36 Gurdjieff calls the movement from unity to plurality involution, and the integration of pluralities into a unity evolution.37 By reason of the design of creation, the process of human evolution must, according to Gurdjieff, be conscious and intentional. Both evolution and involution are possible because the procession of existence follows certain paths which Gurdjieff called ‘laws.’38 These represent an intelligence in the very nature of the universe. As Gurdjieff said: ‘The intelligence of the sun is divine.’39 Now we come to what is possibly the most well-known phrase in Gurdjieff’s psychology: such as we are, we do not ‘remember ourselves.’ As we have seen, for Gurdjieff, our faculties are in a state of dismemberment. We feel one thing, but we may think something quite different, and so, when we come to speak, we say something we had not intended.40 To ‘remember’ is not just to think of something: it is to ‘have (it) present to the attention. It is also a gentle and a psychic movement. To Gurdjieff, there are three chief elements in our psyches: what we feel, what we think, and our organic instinct (i.e. how the body feels, are we tired, full of energy, comfortable, and so on). One part of the human machine, functioning by itself, is more susceptible to external influence, but when we ‘remember ourselves,’ the plurality which we usually are is integrated to a greater degree, our actions and responses are more a function of the whole, and more authentically our own.41 To remember one’s self is also to have a divided attention, in which one simultaneously is aware of what one is doing, and the fact that one is conscious of oneself.42 As Gurdjieff expressed it:

If a man … tries to remember himself, every impression he receives while remembering himself will, so to speak, be doubled. In an ordinary psychic state I simply look at a street. But if I remember myself, I do not simply look at the street; I feel that I am looking, as though saying to myself: ‘I am looking.’ Instead of one impression of the street there are two impressions, one of the street and another of myself looking at it.43

This bring us now to the nub of the essay: Gurdjieff’s concept of the higher faculties and states of consciousness. To Ouspensky,44 Gurdjieff stated that in addition to the ordinary faculties of thought, feeling and sensation, which are in a state of disharmony:

… we have two more centres, fully developed and properly functioning, but they are not connected with our usual life nor with the three centres in which we are aware of ourselves. … All mystical and occult systems recognize the existence of higher forces and capacities in man … This present teaching differs from many others by the fact that it affirms that the higher centres exist in man and are fully developed. It is the lower centres which are undeveloped. And it is precisely this lack of development, or the incomplete functioning, of the lower centres that prevents us from making use of the work of the higher centres.45

Gurdjieff then went on to state that these two ‘higher centres’ are called, for convenience, the ‘higher emotional’ and ‘higher intellectual’ centres. They are the key to understanding the possibilities of the human states of consciousness. These states can be analysed in four broad orders: sleep, waking consciousness, self-consciousness and objective consciousness. The first two states are the ones we are most familiar with. The third state, self-consciousness, is the state of self-remembering.46 The third and fourth states of consciousness are connected with the higher centres. In fact, one could define the third state of consciousness as one in which impressions are received from the higher emotional centre, and states of mystical experience as the fourth state

36 Gurdjieff. Beelzebub’s Tales, 1230, where the ‘drop of water’ which represents man has the ‘possibility to evolve, as it is, to the next higher concentration.’ 37 Ibid., 759; Ouspensky, In Search of the Miraculous, 305-309. 38 Ouspensky, In Search of the Miraculous, 281-282, 305-311. 39 Ibid., 25. 40 Ibid., 117-118. 41 Ibid., 40-51, 65-73, 188. 42 Ibid., 118-119. 43 Ibid., 188. 44 Ouspensky’s In Search of the Miraculous, is often considered the most important single account of Gurdjieff’s teaching, at least as delivered in Russia during WWI. It is difficult to disagree with that assessment. Probably more than any other book, it was responsible for the worldwide growth of Gurdjieff groups from 1950. 45 Ibid., 194. 46 Ibid., 141.

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(objective consciousness), where the higher intellectual centre is the cognitive instrument in the experience.47 Gurdjieff stated that in certain circumstances:

… a temporary connection with the higher emotional centre takes place and man experiences new emotions, new impressions hitherto completely unknown to him, for the description of which he has neither words nor expressions. But in ordinary conditions the difference between the speed of our usual emotions and the speed of the higher emotional centre is so great that no connection can take place and we fail to hear within us the voices which are speaking and calling to us from the higher emotional centre.

The higher intellectual centre … is still further removed from us, still less accessible. Connection with it is possible only through the higher emotional centre. It is only from descriptions of mystical experiences, ecstatic states, and so on, that we know cases of such connections.48

According to Gurdjieff, mystical experiences properly defined, as opposed to deceptions (perhaps self-induced imitations), are flashes of the state of objective consciousness.49 If one is not in the third state (self-remembering), then when the connection with the higher intellectual centre opens, the ordinary mind is unable to cope with the flood of new impressions. The memory can retain only the start and the end of the ‘flood.’ This is why mystical experience is often marked by unconsciousness or fragmented consciousness (often described as swooning).50 Even should a person be able to retain something coherent of their experience of this exalted state: ‘… the thinking, the moving, and the emotional centres remember and transmit everything in their own way, translate absolutely new and never previously experienced sensations into the language of usual everyday sensations, transmit in worldly three-dimensional forms things which pass completely beyond the limits of worldly measurements …’51 To be brief, it is the aim of Gurdjieff’s method to make the connection to higher centres and to thereby crystallize a ‘higher-being-body’ or ‘soul’ which can survive death. To do so, one must overcome negative emotions, undertake a course of self-discipline (the details of which, although perhaps unique, could be recognized by any major spiritual tradition), and remember oneself.52 Then it is possible for one to become ‘a particle, though an independent one, of everything existing in the great universe.’53 Interestingly, as we saw, Plotinus followed Plato in placing the ‘higher part of the soul’ in the head. This is where Gurdjieff placed the higher intellectual centre.54 Although he disguised it well in his writings, Gurdjieff is, I suggest, fundamentally a mystic. Gurdjieff’s mysticism was more prominent in practice, at least as developed by some of his pupils. George Adie (1901-1989), who had studied with both Gurdjieff and Ouspensky, said on 15 December 1982:

… everything in the universe and in (our)selves proceeds and can only proceed according to the will of God – according to the will of the absolute, according to the laws of creation. … all things are in accordance with God’s will, all my actions, even my bad manifestations. For according to the will of God, I am granted the possibility of a power of choice of direction, either for evolution and development, or for involution and self-destruction. So now I wish to remember this reality and to experience the reality of the operation of my will becoming merged in the will of God. Just as my will is part of the will of God, so is my inner sense of place and reality: this also is part of the place and the reality of God. So when I go within to find I, I go also to find I in God.55

Adie also stated, on 29 April 1989, that any possibility of conscious development depends on acquiring the ‘power to work towards the purpose of the creation. ... (and) flow back to the Absolute.’ That is, ‘we can only go back as gods in our own cosmos, our own world.’ In seeking to gain control over our psychic processes by remembering ourselves, overcoming our faults, and so on, we become, as it were, the ‘gods’ of our own

47 Ibid., 142, 145, 194-195; P. D. Ouspensky, A Record of Meetings (London: Arkana, 1992) 226-227. 48 Ouspensky, In Search of the Miraculous, 194-195. 49 Ibid., 145. 50 Ibid., 195. 51 Ibid., 195. 52 Ibid., 31-33, 40-44, 54, 91-94, 180-193. 53 Gurdjieff, Beelzebub’s Tales, 183, see also 191-192. 54 Oral communication from G. M. Adie. 55 Unpublished.

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presences.56 Such a statement could have been made by Plotinos. This entire line of thought can be summarised in an exchange with Adie. Someone once asked him whether the concept of acquiring objective knowledge by the higher centres did not make god obsolete. Adie replied that the higher centres and objective knowledge were god.57 Adie was, perhaps, overstating the point in order to emphasize that in the treating of such topics, a closely analytical approach was too cut and dried. Yet, I think that if the statement is understood as somewhat poetic, it is true both of Gurdjieff and of the Neoplatonists. SOLAR MYSTICISM Gurdjieff stated that organic life on earth was a process which began in the sun, meaning our visible sun.58 There is an anecdote that when a chance companion asked Gurdjieff his trade, he replied that he was a salesman of ‘solar energy.’59 As Gurdjieff died in 1949, this had nothing to do with the commercial exploitation of alternatives to fossil fuels. The human ‘hero’ of Beelzebub, is ‘Ashiata Shiemash,’ whose name is exactly the Arabic words ‘ray of the sun.’60 Gurdjieff explained his sacred dances by analogy with the sun and planets.61 Clearly, the sun in Gurdjieff is not an arbitrary metaphor. I contend that just as with the Neoplatonists, Gurdjieff literally believed that the sun possessed a ‘divine intelligence,’ that it is the source of either the spiritual faculties themselves (nous) or the material which fuels those faculties, and thus a bridge between the human and ‘divine’ worlds. It must be observed that both Plotinos and Gurdjieff spoke of becoming a sun for oneself. According to Elias the Alexandrian, Plotinus said that ‘the philosopher must imitate God and the sun and not neglect his body altogether in caring for his soul.’62 Gurdjieff’s idea of ‘creating sun within myself,’ was described by Adie as: ‘the experience of an affirmative, positive and intelligent element within myself. This is our aim, this is our doing, to create sun within ourselves.’63 In conclusion, like the Neoplatonists, Gurdjieff was a thinker whose aims, ideas and methods – at least at certain points – include mystical methods. For both the Neoplatonists and Gurdjieff, the sun, and the suns, are critical in the process of the return to the divine. If I am correct that Gurdjieff studied Neoplatonism so extensively as to have read Iamblichos and Julian themselves or in a secondary work, then he was indeed a close student of that philosophy. It is striking that apart from Bennett, Wellbeloved and Webb, few scholars have attempted to trace Gurdjieff’s intellectual influences.64 Yet, Gurdjieff himself made penetrating reference to the pre-Socratics, Socrates, and to Immanuel Kant.65 How widely he was read in Western philosophy is another issue. Gurdjieff’s ideas may provide fruitful perspectives on the essentialist / contextualist debate, and arguably makes the distinction between ‘extrovertive’ and ‘introvertive’ mystical experience of marginal interest for those who are influenced by his views.66 Applying Gurdjieff’s ideas to the contemporary debates would require a further study,

56 G. M. Adie and J. Azize, George Mountford Adie: A Pupil of Gurdjieff in Australia (Cambridge: Lighthouse, 2007). 57 Personal observation in about 1985. 58 Ouspensky In Search of the Miraculous, 139. 59 Henry. L. Finch, “The Sacred Cosmos: Teachings of G.I. Gurdjieff,” in J. Needleman and G. Baker, Gurdjieff: Essays and Reflections on the Man and his Teaching (New York: Continuum, 1996) 19. 60 However, in ‘Shiemash’ the final sibilant has been altered to ‘sh,’ as it is in Aramaic, Hebrew, Phoenician and Syriac. Also, if the ‘i’ and ‘e’ of the first syllable are separately pronounced, this change may have been for rhythmic consonance with ‘Ashiata’. 61 Ouspensky, In Search of the Miraculous, 16. 62 Cited in Armstrong, Plotinus in seven volumes, Vol. 1, 324-325. 63 Adie on 8 June 1983, unpublished. So far as I am aware, this concept is not extant in any of the Gurdjieff-related literature, but Adie said that Gurdjieff was his source. 64 In addition to Wellbeloved, Gurdjieff: The Key Concepts (London: Routledge, 2003) and Bennett, Gurdjieff: Making a New World see James Webb, The Harmonious Circle, (London: Thames and Hudson, 1980). Finch in “The Sacred Cosmos: Teachings of G.I. Gurdjieff,” approaches some interesting points, but draws away before deepening his research. W. Perry, Gurdjieff in the Light of Tradition (Middlesex: Perennial Books Ltd, 1978) seems to see Gurdjieff as an innovator if not a maverick. It is not that there is no innovation in Gurdjieff, but that a scholarly approach would consider Gurdjieff’s ideas in an historical context. 65 Ouspensky In Search of the Miraculous,. 279, 104, 304-305, respectively. 66 The distinction is Stace’s, but I first found it in Caroline F. Davis, The Evidential Force of Religious Experience (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989), 54-55.

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and attention to a wide range of recent scholarly literature.67 But perhaps the most important result of characterizing Gurdjieff as being at least partially a mystic is that it may provide scholars with a basis for discussing Gurdjieff in terms which are familiar to serious students of mysticism. Future studies may also lead to some new insights into Plotinos and the Neoplatonists, and into Gurdjieff’s use of other aspects of the Western esoteric tradition such as alchemy. However, it has not been the aim of this paper to produce a comprehensive review of all aspects of Gurdjieff’s ideas and methods.

67 It would be interesting to consider volumes such as Robert K. C. Forman (Ed.), The Problem of Pure Consciousness, Mysticism and Philosophy (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990).

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A Secret Gurdjieff Exercise - The Four Ideals

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