Gurdjieff

George Gurdjieff (1877- 1949) born to Graeco-Armenian parents in Kars, North East Turkey had been a founder member of the ‘Seekers of Truth’, a group of ‘remarkable men’, who set out to discover the meaning of human life, and who sought in the Middle East and Central Asia, traces of a Great Knowledge they were certain had existed in the past. The journeys of The Seekers of Truth took them to almost inaccessible monasteries, temples, and Men of Power. Fragments of Knowledge were acquired, and he describes in his semi-autobiographical book, ‘Meetings with Remarkable Men’ (made in 1979 into a film of the same name by Peter Brook), how the doors of a hidden school which he called the ‘Universal Brotherhood’, opened to him, enabling him to understand the principles of an original esoteric teaching, simultaneously complex and comprehensible. He began teaching chosen pupils in Moscow in 1916, and the teachings are delineated in Piotr Ouspensky’s book, ‘In Search of the Miraculous’, first published in 1950, and reprinted many times since. His teachings attracted remarkable pupils, including Thomas and Olga de Hartmann.

In their joint biography, ‘Our Life with Mr. Gurdjieff ’ Olga wrote; ‘Russia in 1917 was torn by war and revolution. Mr. Gurdjieff was an unknown person, a mystery. Nobody knew about his teaching, nobody knew his origin, or why he appeared in Moscow and St. Petersburg. But, whoever came into contact with him, wished to follow him, and so did Thomas de Hartmann and I’.

Gurdjieff led his group through the war torn Caucasus, to the safety of Constantinople and thence, to Berlin, and established his ‘Institute for the Harmonious Development of Man’ in the Prieuré, Fontainebleau, near Paris, in the early 1920s. Here, Gurdjieff taught through living ideas, music, Sacred Dances, and practical work, to an International group of students, including Katherine Mansfield and J.B. Priestley, and Kathryn Hulme. Much of the music being performed this evening comes from his collaboration at this period with Thomas de Hartmann. Prior to his death, between 1927 and 1935 he recorded his teachings in three books. ‘Beelzebub’s Tales to His Grandson’, ‘Meetings with Remarkable Men’ and ‘Life is Real only when ‘I AM’. A rich literature exists on Gurdjieff , written by his pupils. *

  * This information obtained from a press release by Peter Dodd, 154 Kensington Church Street, London W84BN. T: 07802 236814.