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Introduction to
HE GURDJIEFFWORK
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Published by Sandpoint Press 2009Copyright 2009 Sandpoint Press, an imprint o Morning Light PressCover: Detail o 19th Century Dorasht Kelege carpet, Northeast Persia.Photograph: om Woodward, Woodward Images, Hope, ID
Previously published as the Introduction to Te Inner Journey: Views Fromthe Gurdjief Work, Morning Light Press, 2008.
Portions have been drawn rom G. I. Gurdjief and His School by JacobNeedleman, originally published in: Antoine Faivre and Jacob Needlemaneds. Modern Esoteric Spirituality, New York: Crossroad, 1992 and romTe Gurdjief radition by Jacob Needleman, originally published asan entry in: Wouter J. Hanegraaf (ed.) Dictionary o Gnosis and Western
Esotericism, Leiden: Brill, NV, 2005.
All rights reserved. No part o this publication may be reproduced orutilized in any orm or by any means, electronic or mechanical, includ-ing photocopying, recording, or by any inormation storage and retrievalsystem, without prior written permission rom Sandpoint Press, an imprinto Morning Light Press.
ISBN: 978-1-934686-02-7 Printed on acid-ree paper in Canada.
Needleman, Jacob. [Inner journey]Introduction to the Gurdjief work / Jacob Needleman.Originally published: Te inner journey : views rom the
Gurdjief work. Sandpoint, ID : Morning Light Press, 2008.Includes bibliographical reerences.ISBN 978-1-934686-02-7 (Sandpoint Press : alk. paper) --ISBN 978-1-59675-029-6 (Morning Light Press : alk. paper)1. Gurdjief, Georges Ivanovitch, 1872-1949. I. itle.BP605.G94G873 2009197--dc22
2009000080
SANDPOINT P R E S S10881 North Boyer Road, Sandpoint, ID 83864 morninglightpress.com
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Introduction to
HE GURDJIEFFWORK
Jacob Needleman
Introduction to
HE GURDJIEFFWORK
Jacob Needleman
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1
HE GURDJIEFFWORK
It has been nearly a hundred years since G. I.
Gurdjie rst appeared in Moscow in 1912, bring-ing with him a teaching unlike anything known or
heard o in the modern world. And although his
ideas have since then been explored in hundreds
o books and articles, and now exert a signicant
inuence throughout the Western world, both the
teaching and the man himsel remain essentially as
new and unknown, and as astonishing, as when they
rst appeared.
Gurdjie s undamental aim was to help human
beings awaken to the meaning o our existence and
to the eorts we must make to realize that mean-ing in the midst o the lie we have been given.
As with every messenger o the spirit, Gurdjie s
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undamental intention was ultimately or the sake
o others, never only or himsel. But when we rstencounter the gure o Gurdjie, this central aspect
o his lie is oten missed. Faced with the depth o
his ideas and the inner demands he placed upon
himsel and upon those who were drawn to him,
and becoming aware o the uniquely eective orms
o inner work he created, we may initially be struckmainly by the vastness o his knowledge and the
strength o his being. But sooner or later what may
begin to touch us is the unique quality o seless-
ness in his actions, the sacrices he made both or
those who came to him, and or all o humanity.We begin to understand that his lie was a work o
love; and at the same time that word, love, begins
to take on entirely new dimensions o meaning,
inconceivable in the state o what Gurdjie called
waking sleep.
In most major cities o the Western world, men andwomen are now trying to live his teaching. It is not too
soon, thereore, to consider what this teaching has
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brought or can bring to the world. As human lie in
our era spirals downward toward dissolution in vio-lence and illusion, one central question rises up beore
us in the shadow o which all teachings, including the
Gurdjie Work, must now be measured: How can
humanity reverse the process leading to its seem-
ingly inevitable sel-destruction?
In the ace o this question, the heart is restless,but the mind soon alls silent. It is as though the
unprecedented crisis o our modern world conounds
and all but reutes thousands o years o religious
doctrine and centuries o scientic progress. Who
now dreams o turning to religion or the answerwhen it is religion itsel that lies so close to the root
o war and barbarism? Who dares turn to science
or the answer when it is advancing technology, the
very ruit o scientic progress, that has so amplied
the destructive powers o human egoism? And who
imagines that new theories o society, new socialprograms, new ideologies can do anything more
than wrap the alling earth in dreams o ying?
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Te mind alls silent.
But in that silence something within can awaken.
In that moment an entirely new kind o hope can
appear. Te Gurdjie Work may in part be under-
stood as the practical, painstaking cultivation o
that silence and that hope, that state o embodied
awakening to the truth o the human condition inthe world and in onesel. Te unanswerable question
about the ate o humanity and the world is trans-
ormed into the question, also unanswerable: What is
a human being? Who am I? But it is now a question
asked with more o onesel, not only with the mindalonethe mind which, with all its explanations,
has so little power to resist the orces o violence and
brutality; nor with emotion alone, which, with all
its ervor, oten ends by making the most sacred o
doctrines into instruments o agitation and death.
Nor, so the Gurdjie teaching also shows us, can thequestion o who and what we are be answered by
giving way again and again to the endlessly recurring
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obsessions rooted inthe physical body. Tat is to say,the great question o who and what we are cannot beanswered by only one part o the whole o ourselves
pretending to be the master. Tis sel-deceptive state
o the human being is precisely what Gurdjie meant
by mankinds state o waking sleep. In this sleep, he
tells us, we are born, live and die, write books, invent
religions, build monuments, commit murders, anddestroy all that is good.
One thing, and one thing only, is thereore nec-
essary. It is necessary or individual men and women
to awaken, to remember Who they are, and then to
become Who they really are, to live it in the service
o ruth. Without this awakening and this becom-
ing, nothing else can help us.
But it is very difcult. An extraordinary qual-
ity o help is needed. o this end, Gurdjie created
what has come to be called the Work.
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Te Gurdjie Work oday
Te Gurdjie Foundation
Beore his death in 1949, Gurdjie entrusted
the task o transmitting the teaching to his chie
pupil, Jeanne de Salzmann, and a small circle oother pupils in France, England, and America who
acknowledged her leadership. Under her guidance,
the rst centers o the Work were established in
Paris, London, New York, and Caracas. Over the
past hal-century other centers have radiated rom
them to major cities o the Western world. Most othe groups maintain close correspondence with the
principal centers and most have developed under the
personal guidance o one or two o the rst-genera-
tion pupils o Gurdjie. Te general articulation o
all these groups is a cooperative one, rather than onebased on strictly sanctioned jurisdictional control.
Tere are also groups that no longer maintain close
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correspondence with the main body o pupils and
operate independently. And there are numerousother organizations led by individuals who claim no
historical lineage with either Gurdjie or his direct
pupils. In what ollows, we limit ourselves to the
teaching as it has been studied and transmitted by
groups that may be historically designated as rep-resenting the direct Gurdjie lineage. Tese groups
now exist in each specic location under the name
o Te Gurdjie Foundation, or, in the United
Kingdom, Te Gurdjie Society.
6
A central ocus o the Gurdjie teaching is the
awakening to consciousness and the creation o
proper communal and psychological conditions that
can support this multi-leveled process. For this, apreparatory work is necessary, as stated by Jeanne de
Salzmann:
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According to Gurdjie, the truth can be
approached only i all the parts which makethe human being, the thought, the eeling,
and the body, are touched with the same
orce in a particular way appropriate to each
o themailing which, development will
inevitably be one-sided and sooner or later
come to a stop. In the absence o an eec-tive understanding o this principle, all work
on onesel is certain to deviate rom the aim.
Te essential conditions will be wrongly
understood and one will see a mechanical
repetition o the orms o eort which neversurpass a quite ordinary level.1
Gurdjie gave the name o sel-remembering
to the central state o conscious attention in which
the higher orce that is available within the human
structure makes contact with the unctions othought, eeling, and body. Te individual remem-
bers, as it were, who and what he really is and is
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meant to be, over and above his ordinary sense o
identity. Tis conscious attention is not a unctiono the mind but is the active conscious orce which
all our unctions o thought, eeling, and movement
can begin to obey as the inner master.
Consistent with the knowledge behind many
contemplative traditions o the world, the practice o
the Gurdjie work places chie emphasis on prepar-ing our inner world to receive this higher attention,
which can open us to an inconceivably ner energy
o love and understanding.
6
Te Gurdjie work remains above all essentially
an oral tradition, transmitted under specially cre-
ated conditions rom person to person, continually
unolding, without xed doctrinal belies or external
rites, as a way toward reeing humanity rom thewaking sleep that holds us in a kind o hypnotic illu-
sion. Te moving lie o the tradition thus supports
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the individual search and helps to overcome the
seemingly universal impulse o resistance or inertia:the tendency toward attachment, and the gradual
xing on partial aspects, institutionalized orms,
dogmatic doctrines and a habitual reliance on the
known rather than acing and entering the unknown.
According to the Gurdjie teaching, the orms
exist only to help discover, incarnate, and elaboratea ormless energy o awakening, and without this
understanding, the orms o the teaching become an
end in themselves and lose their meaning.
At present, the general orms o practice in the
Gurdjie tradition may be characterized as ollows:
Group meetings: Gurdjie taught that alone, an indi-
vidual can do nothing. In group meetings, students
regularly come together to participate in a collective
atmosphere that is meant to unction as a principal
means or the transormation o the individual stateo consciousness. Although, with the help o more
advanced pupils, questions are shared and responded
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to in words, the undamental support o the group is
directed to the individual work o acing onesel andconsciously recognizing ones own inner lack, until
the appearance o a new quality o energy is possible.
Te more experienced pupils, helping the group as
part o their own search, strive to be sensitive not so
much to the content o the exchange, but to the pro-
cess o the developing energy and the mutual teach-ing that can take place under its inuence. In their
turn, more advanced pupils just as urgently need to
work in groups, and in this way a redenition o the
conventional image o the leader is inevitable. At
each level o inner work, what has been understoodneeds to be individually and collectively re-examined
and veried in the movement o a dynamic living
esoteric school.
Te sacred dances and movements which Gurdjie
taught were partially a result o his research in themonasteries and schools o Asia, and are o a nature
that seems unique in the modern Western world.
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In certain respects, they are comparable to sacred
dances in traditional religious systems (or example,the Cham dances o ibetan Buddhism or the der-
vish dances o the Sus). Like them, the Gurdjie
Movements are based on the view that a series o
specic postures, gestures, and movements, sup-
ported by an intentional use o melody and rhythm
and an essential element o right individual eort,can help to evoke an inner condition that is closer to
a more conscious existence, or a state o unity, which
can allow an opening to the conscious energy o the
Sel. Te Gurdjie Movements are now regularly
given at major centers o the work by careully pre-pared pupils who emphasize the need or exactitude
and a special quality o eeling, without which the
movements cannot provide the help or which they
were brought.
Te practice osittingis difcult to characterize apartrom observing that, in accordance with the overall
aim o the work, it is not a orm in and o itsel, but
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to come into contact with an ever-deepening sense
o inner need which allows an opening to a power-ul conscious inuence within onesel. According
to Gurdjie, without a relationship to this more
central aspect o onesel, everyday lie is bound to
be an existential prison, in which the individual is
held captive, not so much by the so-called orces
o modernity, as by the parts o the sel that cannothelp but react automatically to the inuences o the
world. Te help oered by the special conditions o
the work is thereore understood not as replacing
our lie in the world, but as enabling us, in the course
o time, to live lie with authentic understanding andull participation.
Briey, the movement toward awakening, which
is meant to be supported by the ideas and these
orms o practice, becomes in act an organic process
in lie and movement, and or that reason, dogmatic
approaches will inevitably ail. Te process o awak-ening requires not only an understanding o the con-
stituent orces and laws governing mans psyche and
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actions, but also a deep sensitivity and appreciation o
individual subjective needs and conditions. In otherwords, or an eective guidance, the principle o rel-
ativity must be recognized in the transmission o the
teaching: individuals must be approached according
to their respective levels o development and expe-
rience. Gurdjie might have stressed one view to a
student at a certain level o understanding and quiteanother view when that student had reached another
level. Tis might give the appearance o contradic-
tion, but in act it was consistent in applying only
those aspects o the whole teaching truly necessary
at a given moment. Te same principle applies to theideas, some o which seemed more accessible at one
period while others still remained to be revealed in
the unolding lie o the teaching.3
For example, the work o sel-observation
acquires a completely new meaning as the develop-
ing attention lets go o its eort, joining and willinglysubmitting to a higher conscious seeing. Te action
that might take place in this conditionin the quiet
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o meditation or even in outer actionreects the
simultaneous dual nature o both an impersonalconsciousness and a personal attention that has a
new capacity to maniest and act in the world. Te
qualities o both these aspects o consciousness and
attention are quite unknown to the ordinary mind.
In this new relationship o individual attention and
a higher impersonal consciousness, a man or womancan become a vessel, serving another energy which
can act through the individual, an energy which
at the same time transorms the materiality o the
body at the cellular level. Tis understanding o
inner work introduced by Jeanne de Salzmann can
be ound today in many o the Gurdjie Foundation
groups worldwide.
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Te Lie o Gurdjie
and the Principal Ideas
Te Early Years
What we know o Gurdjie s early lie is based
mainly on what he has revealed in the auto-biographical portions o his own writings, espe-
cially Meetings with Remarkable Men. Although
there is no reason to doubt the accuracy o his
account, the act remains that the principal aim o
Gurdjie s writings was not to provide historical
inormation, but to serve as a call to awakening and
as a continuing source o guidance or the inner
search that is the raison dtre o his teaching. His
writings are cast in orms that are directed not only
to the intellectual unction but also to the emotional
and even subconscious sensitivities that, all together,make up the whole o the human psyche. His writ-
ings thereore demand and support the search or
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a ner quality o sel-attention on the part o the
reader, ailing which the thought contained in themis unveriable at its deeper levels.
Gurdjie was born, probably in 1866, to a Greek
ather and an Armenian mother in Alexandropol (now
Gumri), Armenia, a region where Eastern and West-
ern cultures mixed and oten clashed. Te environment
o his childhood and early adolescence, while suggest-ing a near-biblical patriarchal culture, is also marked
by elements not usually associated with these cultural
traditions. Te portrait Gurdjie draws o his ather,
a well-known ashokh, or bard, suggests some orm o
participation in an oral tradition stretching back tohumanitys distant past. At the same time, Gurdjie
speaks o having been exposed to all the orms o
modern knowledge, especially experimental science,
which he explored with an impassioned diligence.
Te inuence o his ather and certain o his early
teachers contrasts very sharply with the orceso modernity that he experienced as a child. Tis
contrast, however, is not easily describable. Te
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dierence is not simply that o ancient versus mod-
ern worldviews or patterns o behavior, though itcertainly includes that. Te impression, rather, is that
these remarkable men o his early years maniested
a certain quality o personal presence or being. Tat
the vital dierence between human beings is a mat-
ter o their level o being became one o the unda-
mental elements in Gurdjie s teaching and is notreducible to conventional psychological, behavioral,
or cultural typologies.
Meetings with Remarkable Men shows us the
youthul Gurdjie journeying to monasteries and
schools o awakening in remote parts o CentralAsia and the Middle East, searching or a knowl-
edge that neither traditional religion nor modern
science by itsel could oer him. Te clues to what
Gurdjie actually ound, inwardly and outwardly, on
these journeys are subtly distributed throughout the
narrative, rather than laid out in doctrinal orm. Dis-cursive statements o ideas are relatively rare in the
book, and where they are given it is with a deceptive
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simplicity that serves to turn the reader back to the
teachings woven in the narrative portions o the text.Repeated readings oMeetings with Remarkable Men
yield the realization that Gurdjie meant to draw
our attention to the search itsel, and that what he
intended to bring to the West was not only a new
statement o what has been called the primordial
tradition, but the knowledge o how to conduct asearch within the conditions o contemporary lie.
For Gurdjie, as we shall see, the search itsel, when
rightly conducted, emerges as the principal spiritu-
alizing orce in human lie, what one observer has
termed a transorming search, rather than a searchor transormation.
As has been noted, Gurdjie began his work as a
teacher in Russia around 1912, on the eve o the civil
war that led to the Russian Revolution. In 1914, he
was joined by the philosopher P. D. Ouspensky and
soon ater by the well-known Russian composerTomas de Hartmann. Ouspensky was later to
produce In Search o the Miraculous, by ar the best
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account o Gurdjie s teaching written by a pupil
or anyone other than Gurdjie, while de Hartmann,working in a unique collaboration with Gurdjie,
would produce what has come to be called the
Gurdjie/de Hartmann music. Soon ater, as the
Revolution drew near and the coming breakdown
o civil order began to announce itsel, Gurdjie and
a small band o dedicated pupils, including Tomasand Olga de Hartmann, made perilous journeys to
the Crimea and iis (now bilisi). Tere they were
joined by Alexandre and Jeanne de Salzmann, the
ormer a well-known artist and theatrical designer
and the latter a teacher o the Dalcroze system orhythmic dance who was later to emerge as Gurd-
jie s greatest pupil and the principal guide under
whom his teaching continued to be passed on ater
his death in 1949. It was in iis, in 1919, that
Gurdjie organized the rst version o his Institute
or the Harmonious Development o Man.Te account by Ouspensky and notes by other
pupils published in 1973 under the title Views rom
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the Real World show that in the Moscow period,
beore the journey out o Russia, Gurdjie tire-lessly articulated a vast body o ideas about man
and the cosmos. It is appropriate here to interrupt
the historical narrative in order to summarize some
o these ormulations, which played an important
role in the subsequent development o his teaching,
even as Gurdjie changed the outer orms and cer-tain inner emphases in his direct work with pupils.
Also, to a limited extent, these ideas throw light on
developments that came later, some o which have
given rise to unnecessary conusion in the minds o
outside observers. One caveat, however, is necessary.I in his writings Gurdjie never sought merely to
lay out a philosophical system, all the more in his
direct work with pupils did he mercilessly resist the
role o guru, preacher, or schoolteacher.In Search o
the Miraculous shows, with considerable orce, that
Gurdjie always gave his ideas to his pupils underconditions designed to break through the crust o
emotional and intellectual associations which, he
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taught, shut out the voice o conscience in man.
Te oten awesome precision with which he wasable to break through that crustways o behaving
with his pupils that were, in turn, shocking, mys-
terious, rightening, magical, delicately gentle, and
clairvoyantremains one o the principal actors
around which both the Gurdjie legend and the
misunderstandings about him have arisen, as well as
being the element most written about by those who
came in touch with him, and the most imitated in
the current age o new religions.
Te Gurdjie Ideas
It is true enough to say that Gurdjie s system o
ideas is complex and all-encompassing, but one must
immediately add that their ormulation is designed
to point us toward a central and simple power oapprehension that Gurdjie taught is merely latent
within the human mind and that is the only power
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by which we can actually understand ourselves in
relation to the universe. In this sense, the distinc-tion between doctrine and method does not entirely
obtain in Gurdjie s teaching. Te ormulations
o the ideas are themselves meant to have a spe-
cial action on the sense o sel and may thereore
be regarded as part o the practical method. Tis
characteristic o Gurdjie s teaching reects whatGurdjie perceived as the center o gravity o the
contemporary subjectivitythe act that modern
civilization is lopsidedly oriented around the think-
ing unction. Modern mans illusory eeling o I is
to a great extent built up around his thoughts andthereore, in accordance with the level o the pupil,
the ideas themselves are meant to aect this alse
sense o sel. For Gurdjie, the deeply penetrat-
ing inuence o scientic thought in modern lie
was not something merely to be deplored, but to
be understood as the channel through which theeternal ruth must rst nd its way toward the
human heart.
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Man, Gurdjie taught, is an unnished cre-
ation. He is not ully Man, considered as a cosmi-cally unique being whose intelligence and power
o action mirror the energies o the source o lie
itsel. On the contrary, man, as he is, is an automa-
ton. Our thoughts, eelings, and deeds are little
more than mechanical reactions to external and
internal stimuli. In Gurdjie s terms, we cannot doanything. In and around us, everything happens
without the participation o an authentic conscious-
ness. But human beings are ignorant o this state o
aairs because o the pervasive and deeply inter-
nalized inuence o culture and education, whichengrave in us the illusion o autonomous conscious
selves. In short, man is asleep. Tere is no authentic
I am in his presence, but only a ractured egoism
which masquerades as the authentic sel, and whose
machinations poorly imitate the normal human
unctions o thought, eeling, and will.Many actors reinorce this sleep. Each o
the reactions that proceed in ones presence is
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accompanied by a deceptive sense o Ione o many
Is, each imagining itsel to be the whole, and eachbuered o rom awareness o the others. Each o
these many Is represents a process whereby the subtle
energy o consciousness is absorbed and degraded, a
process that Gurdjie termed identication. Man
identiesthat is, squanders his conscious energy
with every passing thought, impulse, and sensation.Tis state o aairs takes the orm o a continuous
sel-deception and a continuous procession o ego-
istic emotions, such as anger, sel-pity, sentimental-
ity, and ear, which are o such a pervasively painul
nature that we are constantly driven to amelioratethis condition through the endless pursuit o social
recognition, sensory pleasure, or the vague and unre-
alizable goal o happiness.
According to Gurdjie, the human condition
cannot be understood apart rom considering
humanity within the unction o organic lie onearth. Te human being is constructed to trans-
orm energies o a specic nature, and neither
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our potential inner development nor our present
actual predicament is understandable apart romthis unction. Tus, in the teaching o Gurdjie,
psychology is inextricably connected with cosmol-
ogy and metaphysics and, in a certain sense, biol-
ogy. Te diagram known as the Ray o Creation
provides one o the conceptual keys to approaching
this interconnection between humanity and the uni-versal order, and as such invites repeated study rom a
variety o angles and stages o understanding.
Te reader is reerred to chapters 5, 7, and 9 o
In Search o the Miraculous or a discussion o this
diagram, but the point to be emphasized here is that,at the deepest level, the human mind and heart are
enmeshed in a concatenation o causal inuences o
enormous scale and design. A study o the Ray o
Creation makes it clear that the aspects o human
nature through which one typically attempts to
improve ones lot are without any orce whateverwithin the network o universal inuences that act
upon man on earth. In this consists our undamental
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illusion, an illusion only intensied by the technolog-
ical achievements o modern science. We are simplyunable to draw upon the conscious energies passing
through us which, in the cosmic scheme, are those
possessing the actual power o causal efcacy. We do
not and cannot participate consciously in the great
universal order, but instead are tossed about en masse
or purposes limited to the unctions o organic lieon earth as a whole. Even in this relatively limited
spherelimited, that is, when compared to mans
latent destinyhumanity has become progres-
sively incapable o ullling its unction, a point that
Gurdjie strongly emphasized in his own writings.Tis aspect o the Ray o Creationnamely, that
the ate o the earth is somehow bound up with
the possibility o the inner evolution o individual
men and womenresonates with the contemporary
sense o impending planetary disaster.
How are human beings to change this state oaairs and begin drawing on the universal conscious
energies which we are built to absorb but which now
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pass through us untransormed? How is humanity
to assume its proper place in the great chain obeing? Gurdjie s answer to these questions actually
circumscribes the central purpose o his teaching
namely, that human lie on earth may now stand at a
major transitional point, comparable perhaps to the
all o the great civilizations o the past, and that
development o the whole being(rather than one oranother o the separate human unctions) is the only
thing that can permit us to pass through this transi-
tion in a manner worthy o human destiny.
But whereas the descent o humanity takes place
en masse, ascent or evolution is possible only withinthe individual.In Search o the Miraculouspresents a
series o diagrams dealing with the same energies
and laws as the Ray o Creation, not only as a cosmic
ladder o descent but also in their evolutionary aspect
within the individual. In these diagrams, known col-
lectively as the Food Diagram, Ouspensky explainsin some detail how Gurdjie regarded the energy
transactions within the individual human organism.
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Again, the reader is reerred to Ouspenskys
book. Te point o these energy transactions isthat humanity can begin to occupy its proper place
within the chain o being only through an inner
work which within the individual human being may
be subsumed under the general term attention. Te
many levels o attention possible or man, up to and
including an attention that in traditional teachingshas been termed Spirit, are here ranged along a
dynamic, vertical continuum that reaches rom the
level o biological sustenance, which humans require
or their physical bodies, up to the incomparably
ner sustenance that we require or the inner growtho the soul. Tis ner substance is termed the ood
o impressions, a deceptively matter-o-act phrase
that eventually denes the uniquely human cosmic
obligation and potentiality o constantly and in
everything working or an objective understanding
o the Real.
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6
Te Ray o Creation and the Food Diagram,
extraordinary though they are, are only a small
part o the body o ideas contained in In Search o
the Miraculous. Tey are cited here as examples o
how Gurdjie not only restated the ancient, peren-
nial teachings in a language adapted to the modernmind, but also brought to these ancient principles
something o such colossal originality that those
who ollowed him detected in his teaching the signs
o what in Western terminology may be designated
a new revelation.
However, as was indicated above, the organic
interconnection o the ideas in In Search o the
Miraculousis communicated not principally through
conceptual argument but as a gradual unolding,
which Ouspensky experienced to the extent that
there arose within him that agency o inner unitywhich Gurdjie called the real Ithe activation
o which required o Ouspensky an ego-shattering
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inner work under the guidance o Gurdjie and
within the general group conditions he createdor his pupils. Each o the great ideas in the book
leads to the others. Te Ray o Creation and the
Food Diagram are inseparable rom Gurdjie s
teaching about the undamental law o three orces
and the law o the sevenold development o energy
(the Law o Octaves), and the interrelation o theselaws as expressed in the symbol o the enneagram.
Tese ideas are in turn inseparable rom Gurdjie s
teaching about the tripartite division o human
nature, the three centers o mind, eeling, and body.
Likewise, the astonishing account o how Gurdjiestructured the conditions o group work is insepa-
rable rom the idea o his work as a maniestation o
the Fourth Way, the Way o Consciousness, distinct
rom the traditionally amiliar paths termed the way
o the akir, the way o the monk, and the way o
the yogi.Te notion o the Fourth Way is one o Gurd-
jie s ideas that have captured the imagination o
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contemporary people and have brought quite a new
meaning to the idea o esotericism. Te meaning othis idea is perhaps best approached by resuming the
narrative o Gurdjie s lie, with special attention
given to the conditions o work which he created
or his pupils.
Te Institute or the Harmonious
Development o Man
Ater a brie period in Constantinople, Gurdjie
and his group o pupils made their way through
Europe and nally settled in France where, in 1922,
he established his Institute or the Harmonious
Development o Man at the Chteau du Prieur at
Fontainebleau-Avon, just outside Paris. Te brie
intense period o activity at the Prieur has been
described in numerous books, but even or thoseamiliar with these accounts, the establishment
and day-to-day activities o the Prieur still evoke
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astonishment. It was during this period that Gurd-
jie developed many o the methods and practiceso group work that have retained a central place
in the work throughout the world today, including
many o the Movements or sacred dances. All seri-
ous accounts o the conditions Gurdjie created at
the Prieur give the impression o a community lie
pulsating with the uncompromising search or truthengaging all sides o human naturedemanding
physical work, intensive emotional interactions, and
the study o a vast range o ideas about humanity
and the universal world. Tese accounts invariably
speak o the encounter with onesel that these con-ditions made possible and the experience o the sel
which accompanied this encounter.
Te most active period o the Prieur lasted less
than two years, ending with Gurdjie s nearly atal
motor accident on July 6, 1924. In order to situate
this period properly, it is necessary to look back onceagain to the year 1909, when Gurdjie had nished
his twenty-one years o traveling throughout Asia,
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the Middle East, Arica, and Europe meeting indi-
viduals and visiting communities who possessedknowledge unsuspected by most people. By 1909
Gurdjie had learned secrets o the human psyche
and o the universe that he knew to be necessary or
the uture welare o humanity, and he set himsel
the task o transmitting them to those who could use
them rightly. Ater trying to cooperate with exist-
ing societies, he decided to create an organization
o his own. He started in 1911 in ashkent, where
he had established a reputation as a wonder-worker
and an authority on questions o the Beyond. He
moved to Moscow in 1912 and ater the revolutiono February 1917 he began his remarkable journeys
through the war-torn Caucasus region, leading a
band o his pupils to Constantinople and nally to
France, where he reopened his institute at the Ch-
teau de Prieur at Fontainebleau-Avon. His avowedaim during this period was to set up a worldwide
organization or the dissemination o his ideas and
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the training o helpers. Te motor accident o July
1924 occurred at this critical juncture.When he began to recover rom his injuries,
Gurdjie was aced with the sheer impossibility
o realizing his plans or the institute. He was a
stranger in Europe; his health was shattered; he had
no money; and many o his riends and pupils had
abandoned him. At that point he made the decision
to nd a new way o transmitting to posterity what
he had learned about human nature and human des-
tiny. Tis he would do by writing. His period as an
author began in December o 1924 and continued
until May 1935. It was during this period that heproduced the monumental expression o his thought,
Beelzebubs ales to His Grandson; the subtle, crystal-
line call to inner work, Meetings with Remarkable
Men; and the prooundly encoded, unnished Lie is
Real Only Ten, When I Am.It was also during thisperiod that he culminated his collaboration with
the composer Tomas de Hartmann, rounding o
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the unique corpus o music that now bears both
their names.In act, although the period o the Prieur had
ended, and although struck by numerous personal
blows and tragedies, Gurdjie by no means limited
himsel to writing. Quite the contrary. His travels to
America, and his seeding o the work there, acceler-
ated and intensied. Te creation and development
o the Movements continued. And, perhaps above
all, assisted by Jeanne de Salzmann, his work with
groups and individuals in Paris not only attracted
rom Europe and America the men and women
who would later carry the work to the cities o theWestern world, but at the same time allowed him,
within the silence and energy o his Paris apartment,
to transmit a portion o his understanding o inner
work to many other men and women rom many
parts o the world.Ater his death in Paris in 1949, the work con-
tinued under the guidance o Jeanne de Salzmann
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and now rests largely in the hands o the second
generation o his circle o direct pupils.
6
In conclusion, and returning to the idea o the three
centers, a succinct statement o this undamental
aspect o what Gurdjie brought to the modernworld as the Fourth Way may be cited rom the
descriptive brochure published at the Prieur in
1922:
Te civilization o our time, with its
unlimited means or extending its inuence,
has wrenched man rom the normal condi-
tions in which he should be living. It is true
that civilization has opened up or man new
paths in the domain o knowledge, science
and economic lie, and thereby enlarged his
world perception. But, instead o raising himto a higher all-round level o development,
civilization has developed only certain sides
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o his nature to the detriment o other ac-
ulties, some o which it has destroyed alto-gether . . .
Modern mans world perception and his
mode o living are not the conscious expres-
sion o his being taken as a complete whole.
Quite the contrary, they are only the uncon-
scious maniestation o one or another parto him.
From this point o view our psychic lie,
both as regards our world perception and
our expression o it, ail to present a unique
and indivisible whole, that is to say a wholeacting both as common repository o all
our perceptions and as the source o all our
expressions.
On the contrary, it is divided into three
separate entities, which have nothing to do
with one another, but are distinct both asregards their unctions and their constituent
substances.
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Tese three entirely separate sources o
the intellectual, emotional or moving lie oman, each taken in the sense o the whole
set o unctions proper to them, are called
by the system under notice the thinking, the
emotional and the moving centers.4
It is difcult conceptually, and in a ew words,to communicate the meaning o this idea o the
three centers, which is one o the central aspects
o Gurdjie s teaching. Te modern person sim-
ply has no conception o how sel-deceptive a lie
can be that is lived in only one part o onesel. Tehead, the emotions, and the body each have their
own perceptions and actions, and each in itsel can
live a simulacrum o human lie. In the modern
era this has gone to an extreme point, and most o
the technical and material progress o our culture
serves to push the individual urther into only oneo the centersone third, as it were, o our real
sel-nature. Te growth o vast areas o scientic
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knowledge is, according to Gurdjie, outweighed
by the diminution o the conscious space and timewithin which we live and experience ourselves. With
an ever-diminishing I, we gather an ever-expand-
ing corpus o inormation about the universe. But
to be humanto be a whole sel possessed o moral
power, will, and intelligencerequires all the centers,
and more. Tis more is communicated above all inGurdjie s own writings, in which the levels o
spiritual development possible or human beings are
connected with a breathtaking vision o the levels
o possible service that the developing individual is
called on to render to mankind and to the universalsource o creation itsel.
Tus, the proper relationship o the three centers
o cognition in the human being is a necessary pre-
condition or the reception and realization o what in
the religions o the world has been variously termed
the Holy Spirit, Atman, or the Buddha nature. Teconditions Gurdjie created or his pupils cannot be
understood apart rom this act. I wished to create
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around mysel, Gurdjie wrote, conditions in which
a man would be continuously reminded o the senseand aim o his existence by an unavoidable riction
between his conscience and the automatic manies-
tations o his nature.5 Deeply buried though it is,
the awakened conscience is the something morethat,
according to Gurdjie, is the only orce in modern
mans nearly completely degenerate psyche that canactually bring the parts o his nature together and
open him to that energy and unnamable awareness
o which all the religions have always spoken as the
git that descends rom above, but which in the con-
ditions o modern lie is almost impossible to receivewithout an extraordinary quality o help.
Notes:
1 From the Introduction to Lie is Real, Only Ten, When
I Am, p xii.2 In 1922, Gurdjie acquired the Prieur dAvon, a
large estate and ormer priory located about 40 miles
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rom Paris where he established intense communalconditions or inner work, especially rom 1922 untilhis automobile accident in 1924.
3 In this light, it is interesting to note that groups thatbreak away at dierent moments, to work by them-selves and on their own, run the risk o clinging dog-matically to certain specic orms and practices.
4 G. Gurdjie s Institute or the Harmonious Develop-
ment o Man: Prospectus No. 1, p 3 (privately printed,ca. 1922).
5 Meetings with Remarkable Men, p 270.
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For Further Study
Te Gurdjief FoundationTe most comprehensive directory o websites and
contact inormation or the Gurdjie Foundations
throughout the world may, at present, be accessed
on the website o Te Gurdjie InternationalReview, at www.gurdjie.org/oundation.htm.
Books, Music and FilmNote: rst publication o all books is cited, ollowed,
in parentheses, by most recent or more readily avail-
able editions.
Books by Gurdjief
Gurdjie, G. I.All and Everything: Beelzebubs ales
to His Grandson. New York: Harcourt Brace, 1950
(New York: Penguin Arkana, 1999); and New York:
Jeremy P. archer/Penguin (revised), 2006 archer/Penguin (second revision), 2008.
Long read and respected, and perennially
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in print, the 1950 edition was edited by A. R. Orage
on the basis o a literal English text prepared romGurdjie s original Russian and Armenian by
pupils at the Institute or the Harmonious Develop-
ment o Man. Tis version may become the readers
preerence. However, the revised translation, initially
published in 1992 and republished with corrections
in 2006, should also be read. Tis edition reects,
to some extent, the greater ease o expression o
the French edition o 1956 and also beneted rom
direct access to the original Russian text, published
in 2000 by raditional Studies Press (oronto). Both
versions o the book can be trusted.
.Meetings with Remarkable Men. New York:
Dutton, 1963 (New York: Penguin Arkana, 1985).
Gurdjie s account o his youth and early
search or hidden knowledge was written as an auto-
biographical narrative. It possesses an uncommoninner calm and presence which oers a taste o the
path that he brought to the modern world.
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. Lie is Real Only Ten, When I Am. New
York: Dutton, 1982 (New York: Penguin Arkana,1991).
Here Gurdjie speaks on many levels and
with great precision and candor o the discoveries
and difculties in his personal struggle to bring the
Work to birth.
. Views rom the Real World. New York: Dut-
ton, 1973 (New York: Penguin Compass, 1984).
A collection o Gurdjie s lectures rom
the years 1917 to 1933. Tat any record o these
lectures exists at all is due to a ew pupils who, with
astonishing powers o memory . . . managed to write
down what they heard aterwards during the tur-
bulence o revolutionary Russia, at the Institute or
the Harmonious Development o Man, and during
Gurdjie s visits to American pupils in New York
and elsewhere. Te book oers a rare opening tothe vast scale o the Gurdjie ideas expressed in the
human resonance o his own voice.
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Accounts by Direct Pupils
Ouspensky, P. D. In Search o the Miraculous. New
York: Harcourt, Brace, 1949 (New York: Harcourt,
2001).
Tis book may be given a special signicance
in this list o reliable recommended works. Since its
rst publication in 1949, OuspenskysIn Search o theMiraculoushas served as the most artul, electriying
and proound account written by a pupil. Ouspen-
skys book retains a remarkable strength and resh-
ness to this day and continues to help readers at all
levels o their preparation and acquaintance with the
Gurdjie teaching. For many, it remains the booko choice or those approaching the teaching or the
rst time.
de Hartmann, Tomas and Olga. Our Lie with Mr.
Gurdjie. New York: Cooper Square, 1962. Several
revised and enlarged editions have been publishedover the years. Te most recent and denitive: Sand-
point: Sandpoint Press, 2008.
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Tis book describes the dangerous ight by
Gurdjie and a handul o pupils out o war-tornrevolutionary Russia, ending with the establishment
o the Prieur community in France. One o the
most aithul portraits o Gurdjie the man.
Lannes, Henriette. Tis Fundamental Quest. San
Francisco: Far West Institute, 2007.A direct pupil o Gurdjie, Henriette
Lannes was responsible in later years or the practi-
cal study o the Gurdjie teaching in Lyon (France)
and in London. Many o the brie chapters in this
record o her work in Lyon are deceptively simple,
recording a kind o higher common sense basedon ew but undamental assumptions: the need or
sel-knowledge, the necessity o challenging our-
selves, the revelatory power o attention, the impera-
tive o honesty with onesel and o claried relations
with others.
Pentland, John.Exchanges Within. New York: Con-
tinuum, 1997 (New York: archer Penguin, 2004).
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John Pentland was immensely inuential
in the transmission o the Gurdjie teaching inAmerica. A aithul and dynamic record o both the
energy and the thought exchanged in a Gurdjie
group as led by one o its most powerul and creative
leaders.
de Salzmann, Michel. Mans Ever New and Eter-nal Challenge. In On the Way to Sel Knowledge,
pp 54-83, New York: Alred A. Knop, 1976. Also
Seeing: Te Endless Source o Inner Freedom in
Material or Tought, #14, 12-30.
Michel de Salzmann was both a trained
psychiatrist and one o the most respected leaders othe Work throughout the world. Tese two magiste-
rial essays show the place o psychotherapy in the
process o inner development while at the same time
oering a ar-reaching vision o the several levels o
the Gurdjie work.
Segal, William.A Voice at the Borders o Silence. New
York: Te Overlook Press, 2003.
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A highly successul businessman, an impor-
tant American artist and a devoted practitioner oZen, William Segal was or many years a leading
gure in the development o the Gurdjie Work in
America. Tis book generously oers a window into
all sides o this remarkable Gurdjie man.
. Opening. New York: Te Continuum Pub-lishing Company, 1998.
racol, Henri. Te aste For Tings Tat Are rue.
Longmead, Shatesbury, Dorset: Element Books,
Ltd., 1994. (Expanded and revised edition orth-
coming, entitled Te Real Question Remains by
Sandpoint Press, Sandpoint).
Henri racol was a pupil o Gurdjie or
over ten years and worked as a leader o the Work
closely alongside Jeanne de Salzmann in the years
ollowing Gurdjie s death. Te essays, talks and
interviews in this book reveal an approach to theGurdjie teaching unsurpassed in its subtlety, depth
and purity.
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Te ollowing books seem to me to be among the
most honest attempts by pupils o Gurdjief todepict the personal impact o the man and his wayo teaching:
Anderson, Margaret. Te Unknowable Gurdjie.
New York: Weiser, 1962 (London and New York:
Penguin Arkana, 1991).Hulme, Kathryn. Undiscovered Country. Boston:
Little Brown, 1966.
Hands, Rina. Diary o Madame Egout Pour Sweet.
Aurora, Oregon: wo Rivers Press, 1991.
Nott, C. S. eachings o Gurdjie: Te Journal o a
Pupil. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1961
(London and New York: Penguin Arkana, 1991).
chekhovitch, cheslaw. Gurdjie: A Master in Lie.
oronto: Dolmen Meadow Editions, 2006.
Zuber, Ren. Who Are You, Monsieur Gurdjie?Lon-
don: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1980.
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Accounts by Other Pupils o the Gurdjief Work
Ravindra, Ravi. Heart Without Measure. Haliax:
Shaila Press, 1999. (Sandpoint: Morning Light
Press, 1999).
Te rst published account o the teaching
o Jeanne de Salzmann, Gurdjie s greatest pupil,
who was responsible or the Work ater his death.
Vaysse, Jean. oward Awakening: An Approach to the
eaching Let by Gurdjie. San Francisco: Far West
Undertakings, 1978. (London and New York: Pen-
guin Arkana, 1988); (Sandpoint: Morning Light
Press, 2009).Written by a long-time pupil o Jeanne de
Salzmann, this concise exposition claries much
that has seemed obscure in the Gurdjie teaching.
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Also recommended:
Material or Tought, a journal published occasion-
ally in San Francisco by the Gurdjie Foundation o
Caliornia under the imprint o Far West Editions.
See: http://www.arwesteditions.com
Gurdjie International Review: see http://www.gurd-
jie.org
Guide and Index to Beelzebubs ales. oronto: radi-
tional Studies Press, 2003. Second edition, reerenc-
ing all editions oBeelzebubs ales.
Needleman, Jacob and George Baker, eds., Gurdjie:Essays and Refections on the Man and His eaching.
New York: Continuum, 2004.
Needleman, Jacob, ed., Te Inner Journey: Views rom
the Gurdjie Work. Sandpoint: Morning Light Press,
2008.Te rst major collection o essays and inter-
views by the rst and second generation o Gurdjie
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pupils. Te present essay has been drawn, with minor
changes, rom the Introduction to this book.
Music
Te Music o Gurdjie/de Hartmann. Tomas de
Hartmann, piano. 3-disc set. riangle Records, a
division o riangle Editions.
In these essential recordings one eelsimmediately the authority o the composers inter-
pretation o his own music, although de Hart-
mann was not always aware that his perormances
were being recorded. Tus certain pieces contain
spontaneous departures rom the printed text.
Te original recordings were made largely
on an early, somewhat primitive, wire recorder. Many
years later the transer to LP, and eventually to CD,
included an electronic process designed to clariy the
sound and eliminate extraneous noises and back-
ground hiss. Nevertheless, the spiritual authenticityo these recordings make this a denitive rendition
o one o the central orms o the teaching.
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Gurdjie/de Hartmann: Music or the Piano, Vol-
umes 1-4. Linda Daniel-Spitz, Charles Ketcham,Laurence Rosenthal, pianists. Wergo (Schott
Wergo Music Media, Mainz, Germany).
Tese perormances were recorded by the
three editors o the published complete works. Tis
edition was produced under the guidance o Jeanne
de Salzmann. A major eature o these our sets o
CDs is that they comprise a complete recording o
the our volumes o the published music, presented
in the same order. Tus it is possible or the listener
to ollow in sequence the printed scores.
Gurdjie/de Hartmann, Volumes 1-10 (Various
titles: Meditations, Music o the Sayyids and Der-
vishes, Hymn or Christmas Day, First Dervish
Prayer, Circles, etc.). Alain Kremski, piano. Fano,
Italy: Nave Recording Studio.
Alain Kremskis interpretations are otenimaginative and unusual, and always there is great
authority in his playing and technique. Although the
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music or the Gurdjie Movements is generally not
designed to be heard separately rom the sacred dancesthemselves, Kremski has elected to include many o
de Hartmanns compositions or the Movements in
these collections.
Gurdjie/de Hartmann, Volumes 1 and 2. Laurence
Rosenthal, piano. Windemere.Tese recent recordings, part o a series still
in progress, were made by a composer and pianist
with a long association with the Gurdjie/de Hart-
mann music. Rosenthal arranged and orchestrated
many o these pieces or inclusion in the musical
score o Peter Brooks lmMeetings with RemarkableMen. Te CD o the score or the lm is available on
Citadel records.
Film
Meetings with Remarkable Men, directed by Peter
Brook, produced by Remar Production, Inc., 1978,distributed by Morning Light Press, Sandpoint.
Filmed on location in Aghanistan, and based
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on the book by Gurdjie, this deeply evocative lm
includes what is currently the only publicly availableperormance o the Gurdjie Movements.
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