where you can meet legit Gurdjieff interested parties face to face - also, Beelzebub

[JohnShirley]

Yes I put legit in the subject line as there are cults around who use Gurdjieff's name, people after your money, and people with no "lineage" in the work, no relationship to the original school, to Gurdjieff himself. The most legitimate groups in the USA are the Gurdjieff Foundation (created largely by Madame de Salzmann, at Gurdjieff's behest), Two Rivers Farm in Oregon, and the Nyland groups. James Moore's study group in England is probably sound.

So having said that I wanted to mention that I'll be reading from my book, GURDJIEFF: AN INTRODUCTION TO HIS LIFE AND IDEAS (Tarcher/Penguin) at Fields Books, a "metaphysical bookstore", as some term them, on Polk Street in San Francisco the evening of April 6, and talking about Beelzebub's Tales (the controversial new edition and the Dutton edition) and taking questions. I'm not a teacher of the work just a guy who wrote an introductory volume--I've only been in the work 17 years, which isn't that much. But I can answer basic questions and other people will be there who know more.

Myself, I prefer the Gurdjieff Foundation, for those interested in the Gurdjieff work--they have the best Movements teachers, and they have people who studied under Gurdjieff, and access to oral transmission of teachings that no one else has. Contact at http://www.gurdjieff.org/foundation.htm

I'll come back here with more specifics about the talk and to answer questions. I am not an official functionary of the Gurdjieff Foundation, not at all. I just think it's the best option in the USA for the work, and I extol it because so much damage has been done by the phonies.

[daniel]

I don't know if the author of this post intends to stick around, or if this was a one time promotional drop. We must share the same editor at Tarcher.

I haven't tried the Gurdjieff work, and wonder if anyone on the board has done it? When Shirley writes, "I've only been in the work 17 years, which isn't that much", I find myself feeling unconvinced, and unimpressed with this path.

Gurdjieff is always worth a discussion. I find a lot of voltage in some of his ideas, but his legacy and the "work" doesn't seem bear too much fruit.

I recommend JB Bennett's "Gurdieff: Making a New world" as the best introduction. Also the Ouspensky classic.

[sidecross]

I read Gurdjieff traded in good carpets.

[JohnShirley]

Hi Yes Shirley is sticking around. Gurdjieff did indeed deal in carpets sometimes, as well as many other businesses. He believed in "work in life" which means, among other things, having a job, while seeking, and while he accepted donations he liked to raise his own money if he could.

to the first respondent: Are you suggesting that my remark about 17 years not being much in the Gurdjieff work means I haven't made progress, or you don't know of progress being made in it? That's a myth that seems to've been started mostly by Colin Wilson. But Wilson was never in the work. He actually wouldn't know.

The Gurdjieff Foundation is an esoteric school, which doesn't tout the people in it who have achieved something. But there are very many of them.

In the real world, serious and authentic spiritual achievment is hard work, and takes a long time, though one can have spiritual insights and value from short-term work.

It's all relative. I've gotten a *lot* out of the work--it changed my life for the far, far better. It helped me shed addictions, and helped me consolidate my inner self. I feel more unified. I learned a number of things I feel are true, about how to live life and what it means, I hadn't known before. But people who make grand claims for their methods are often either exaggerating or kidding themselves. Significant spiritual achievment is hard work and if it's not hard work, it's not real. Note the use of the word significant, there.

That doesn't mean that everything that came easier is not of value--just that the *most* valuable spiritual work takes assiduous effort and good solid teachers who aren't prone to flights of fantasy.

My editor at Tarcher is Mitch Horowitz.

[ March 26, 2006, 12:16 PM: Message edited by: JohnShirley ]

[Humming]

One of my good friends (an ex-girlfriend) has a mother who is a trained ethnobotanist and works with the Gurdjieff foundation as a psychic. My friend's father is also involved, but to a lesser degree.

From what I've come to understand in my conversations with my friend, her mother enjoys the work and finds it satisfying but is also exhausted by it. As a psychic, she has a lot of mental static in her head a lot of the time. Apparently she remains in mental communication with the people that she works with even after she leaves the foundation. Apparently they do a lot of physical labor in addition to the psychic work. I think they do meditations while doing the physical labor.

My friend's sister had an intense shamanic awakening experience last year, what some would call a "psychotic break" during which her perception was fully and very strangely altered for a time. Her mother was very compassionate and dedicated to helping her, and she is now doing fine again and is able to live in the world. Perhaps her mother was able to help in part because of her training with the foundation.

John, I'm interested in Gurdjieff and I'll try to make your talk. What time does it start?

[ April 04, 2006, 09:46 AM: Message edited by: Humming ]

[Piers]

I've been reading Gurdjieff literature for over 25 years and was involved with the Foundation for two. And although I eventually went the way of Anthroposophy I value the time I spent in the "Work". My impression of Gurdjieffians is that they are a serious lot, committed to a rigorous path of self-transformation. Their rigor goes a long way towards screening out the merely curious. Many folks seem to get seduced by the persona of Gurdjieff himself; many of those same folks don't seem to have much interest in the hard work of sensing one's body, self-remembering, etc.

I think its pretty unfair to categorically state that the Work is a path that doesn't "bear much fruit" without taking the trouble to fully engage its praxis. Working in a group is far different than merely reading the literature. That being said, one of the main reasons I eventually embraced Anthroposophy is that it has given birth to so many vital initiatives -- Waldorf education, Biodynamic agriculture, Anthroposophical medicine.....

John, I thoroughly enjoyed the book.

[tegr]

Hi, I’ve been lurking for several months now and found this thread and thought I could reply because I have actually spent a lot of time in a Gurdjieff-centered organization, not the Foundation, probably one most would consider “not of proper lineage” (Indeed, its heraldry is pretty proletarian). But I did “interview” with the Foundation when I became dis-entraced with my earlier group. And I have to say they had the same “icky” feeling about them as the first (tho maybe it was just that group of five), and this has been true for, well, pretty much every organization I’ve ever come in touch with (Steiner teaching people in particular).
This is the amazing thing, and something I don’t quite understand, a kind of paradox. I feel that for me the Work did amazing things, in many ways it did just what it said it was supposed to do: wake me up in many many areas (I’m not sure I believe in the mythologized notion of WakingUpYourOneAndTrueSELFNowAndForever, though there is a track to be followed in that direction). But it is a very sure method for waking up, for becoming self-conscious. It can have miraculous effects on some people.
But honest to god, the view from here is that for all I got out of that Work with a “teaching”, and for which I will always feel grateful, like John Shirley seems to feel, and yes, a bunch of other people I know and don’t know, still, when I look back at those organizations, those teachings, I feel I see a great terrible carnage of souls as well, many, many good friends left dead in the dust twenty years ago. How do I know this? Because I saw their minds close, I saw the pathways close off, I saw the engagement and exploration cease, and I saw a bland contentment, complacency set in, a self-assurance that was half-fundamentalist and half-yuppie middle class, and half just too tired to try anymore, and counting catholic like in repeating the words. I am bitter about this about the lives lost, and about the pathetic prophets leading astray, - and yet, I know it did me good.
I almost feel like “teachings” are Divine Traps. What they most teach is that if you really absorb it you should run away as fast as you can; and that if you’re not running away, you havent’ really absorbed it. I don’t know, I’m just trying to figure out this paradox. I'd appreciate any thoughts.