In Gurdjieff and Music Johanna Petsche examines the large and diverse body of piano music produced by Armenian-Greek spiritual teacher G. I. Gurdjieff (c.1866-1949) in collaboration with his devoted pupil Thomas de Hartmann (1885-1956). Petsche draws on a range of unpublished materials and data from original field research to critically situate and assess this music within its socio-cultural and unique religio-spiritual context. Focusing on the tremendous role that music played in the life and teaching of Gurdjieff, Petsche chronicles the unique relationship and collaboration between Gurdjieff and de Hartmann, analyses the styles and possible sources of their music, and explores Gurdjieff’s ultimate intentions for the music in light of his esoteric teaching.

G. I. Gurdjieff travelled for many years through Central Asia and the Middle East collecting melodies and ritual dances, which his friend and pupil Thomas de Hartmann wrote down and arranged as piano pieces.

As the third in a musicological trilogy that seeks objective answers to physical and metaphysical questions by way of musical ratios and proportions, this book may start with the acoustical properties of vibrating strings, but it certainly does not stop there. Rather, it goes on to attack some of the thorniest issues facing quantum physics today, including why string theory, as it is presently conceived, doesnt work; what is missing in the physicists understanding of missing information; and how the real cause underlying the perceived inflation of the universe is, in fact, due to the power laws inherent in vibrating strings. The surprising answers are neither wholly mathematical nor totally philosophical, but result from the reconciling perspective of music theory, the real M-theory. Moving beyond the sterile and secular world-view of the physicists, the author introduces into the equation the sacred metaphysical soul principle, now viewed as the holographic membrane whose sole function is to gather and store information and thus serve as the anti-entropic force within the universe. The properties of the soul, being movement and expansion, have long been associated with the figure called the lambdoma, and with the ancient diatonic scale that naturally forms within it, known as The Scale of the Soul of the World and Nature. With uncanny insight, the author shows how there is not one, but three musical scalesdiatonic, chromatic, and enharmonicwhich form of their own accord within the expanding lambdoma. These informing musical scales become the obvious links to the three branes of the quantum physicists, at the same time providing substantive evidence for why a three brain system is absolutely essential for the completion of the soul of manan idea that students of the Gurdjieff Work will find very familiar, and perhaps very intriguing.

This book recounts P. D. Ouspensky's first meeting and subsequent association with George Gurdjieff. It is widely regarded as perhaps the most comprehensive account of Gurdjieff's system of thought available. Many followers regard it as a "fundamental textbook" of Gurdjieff's teachings and it is often used as a means of introducing new students to Gurdjieff's system of self-development.

The definitive edition of Our Life with Mr. Gurdjieff. The remarkable personal account of the de Hartmann's work with the great master, GI Gurdjieff.

Presents an overview and introduction to Gurdjieff's teaching. This title helps students to integrate theoretical knowledge with practical experience and gain a taste of what it means to work on oneself by following Ginsburg's six lessons.

An important book on liberating ourselves from the state of “waking sleep” in which we live our lives, as taught by one of the most influential spiritual teachers of the 20th century As the closest pupil of the charismatic spiritual master G. I. Gurdjieff (1866–1949), Jeanne de Salzmann was charged with carrying on his teachings of spiritual transformation. Known as the Fourth Way or “The Work,” Gurdjieff’s system was based on teachings of the East that he adapted for modern life in the West. Now, some twenty years after de Salzmann's death, the notebooks that she filled with her insights over a forty-year period (and intended to publish) have been translated and edited by a small group of her family and followers. The result is this long-awaited guide to Gurdjieff's teaching, describing the routes to be traveled and the landmarks encountered along the way. Organized according to themes, the chapters touch on all the important concepts and practices of the Work, including: • Awakening from the sleep of identification with the ordinary level of being • Self-observation and self-remembering • Conscious effort and voluntary suffering • Understanding symbolic concepts like the Enneagram • The Gurdjieff Movements, bodily exercises that provide training in Presence and the awareness of subtle energies • The necessity of a "school," meaning the collective practice of the teaching in a group Madame de Salzmann brings to the Work her own strong, direct language and personal journey in learning to live that knowledge of a higher level of being, which, she insists, “you have to see for yourself” on a level beyond theory and concept. De Salzmann consistently refused to discuss the teaching in terms of ideas, for this Fourth Way is to be experienced, not simply thought or believed.