Where to start with Gurdjieff

[Z]

Is anyone here familiar with Gurdjieff's philosophies and know of a good resource to start with? I have the first two volumes of Beelzebub's Tales, but in addition to these, I'd like to see something that has an overview of his belief system and exercises etc.

[daniel]

Definitely do not start with Beezlebub - you will bore yourself to tears. I recommend Ouspensky's In Search of the Miraculous and JG Bennet's Gurdjieff: Making a New World. Also for an interesting application of Gurdjieffian ideas, A.E. Blake's The Intelligent Enneagram.

[Z]

Yeah, I kept up with it for a short streak but dropped it soon after. The introduction was oh so nice, though. I'll have to check out those books.

thanks!

[StSimon]

I just started my investigation into Gurdjieff, having finished 'Meetings with Remarkable Men' and Bennet's 'Gurdjieff: A Very Great Enigma'. Currently reading Ouspensky's 'The Fourth Way'. A friend recomended the film adaptaion of 'Meetings with Remarkable Men' but I have yet to track it down. What strikes me about the man is the ancient patriarch character he took on, supporting hundreds of people, a real clan leader or tribal chieftain. The true nomadic spirit of man seen throughout his life. His attention to detail in descriptions astounds; knowing his father to be a remnant of the ancient oral tradition, passing on the legend of Gilgamesh for 6000 years almost word perfect, it does not surprise me at all.

[John Hoopes]

Gurdjieff's story of his father's recitation of the Gilgamesh epic omits the important detail that the original story was composed in a Sumerian language of the Early Dynastic period that is now known only from cuneiform texts. It was extinct as a spoken language several millennia before Gurdjieff was born (and hence the epic could not have been recited in the original)!

For some alternative perspectives on Gurdjieff and his legacy, I recommend Peter Washington's Madame Blavatsky's Baboon: A History of the Mystics, Mediums, and Misfits Who Brought Spiritualism to America and Jocelyn Godwin's The Theosophical Enlightenment.