Alfred Richard Orage (1873-1934), whom G. B. Shaw declared the most brilliant editor of the past century, suddenly laid down his pencil in 1922 and sold his famous journal The New Age to work with the mystic G. Gurdjieff in France. Orage hoped that with Gurdjieff's help, he could come to a more fundamental understanding of the human species. For Orage, modern man had come to the end of his tether, and without the development of new faculties, he was convinced that the problems that pile up in front of mankind would not be solvable, and even the very will to live must decline. Gurdjieff claimed to have found a way to develop new and higher faculties, and to have been trained in the necessary methods and knowledge which had its sources in the hidden wisdom of the East. Orage worked intensively for more than a year with Gurdjieff in his Institute for the Harmonious Development of Man, and it seems that he had found what he was seeking. Gurdjieff, on the other hand, found in Orage someone whom he considered a brother in spirit. A spirit that was defined by Orage some years before as: ." . . displaying itself in disinterested interest in things; in things, that is to say, of no personal advantage, but only of general, public or universal importance." When Gurdjieff expanded his activities into the New World, it was only consequent that Orage became his emissary there. Orage arrived in New York in December 1923 to expound Gurdjieff's ideas, and until 1931, was talking to a growing group of interested people. This book contains the notes of many of these talks. We are grateful to the notetakers and their prudence to leave their papers to the universities of Yale, Berkeley and Leeds, who guaranteed the survival of these papers in their archives. Without all this combined effort, they would otherwise be scattered all over the world, largely unknown and "upon the verge of being irrecoverably lost" as C. Daly King once wrote. Along with Orage's Commentary on "Beelzebub's Tales to His Grandson," this edition completes the record of Orage's meetings, talks and lectures on Gurdjieff's teaching. Illustrated with 130 line drawings and 37 photographs

"This is the first analysis of all of Gurdjieff's published internal exercises, together with those taught by his students, George and Helen Adie. It includes a fresh biographical study of Gurdjieff, with ground-breaking observations on his relationships with P.D. Ouspensky and A.R. Orage (especially, why he wanted to collaborate with them, and why that broke down). It shows that Gurdjieff was, fundamentally, a mystic, and that his contemplation-like methods were probably drawn from Mt Athos and its hesychast tradition. It shows the continuity in Gurdjieff's teaching, but also development and change. His original contribution to Western Esotericism lay in his use of tasks, disciplines, and contemplation-like exercises to bring his pupils to a sense of their own presence which could, to some extent, be maintained in daily life in the social domain, and not only in the secluded conditions typical of meditation. It contends that he had initially intended not to use contemplation-like exercises, as he perceived dangers to be associated with these monastic methods, and the religious tradition to be in tension with the secular guise in which he first couched his teaching. As Gurdjieff adapted the teaching he had found in Eastern monasteries to Western urban and post-religious culture, he found it necessary to introduce contemplation. His development of the methods is demonstrated, and the importance of the three exercises in the Third Series, Life Is Real only then, when 'I Am', is shown, together with their almost certain borrowing from the exercises of the Philokalia. G.I. Gurdjieff P.D. Ouspensky A.R. Orage George Adie Mysticism Meditation Contemplation Fourth Way Hesychasm Western Esotericism"--

Offers information and stories about Gurdjieff, setting him within the cultural and social contexts of America between 1924 and 1935.

With what is this book concerned? "Primarily with the destiny of Man and with that of individual men, with their genuine human functions and the obstacle that prevents the fulfillment of them, and with those procedures that may hold out promise of being used effectually to alter the situation. This was the sort of thing taught in the ancient Mysteries, now mostly lost and almost entirely unintelligible because the key of those teachings has vanished. . . . But the same verities, to which they pointed, shall be our subject too; for the truth, if genuine, is unique and single. But the terms presently to be defined, will be modern terms and thus more readily comprehensible to the contemporary reader." A. R. Orage, editor and owner of the famous avant-garde magazine The New Age, met the Russian journalist P. D. Ouspensky in 1914 in London. Both men were deeply interested in spiritual matters and corresponded in the following years. During this time, Ouspensky met G. Gurdjieff and became his pupil. Driven by the Russian Revolution, Ouspensky, after many adventures, arrived in London in 1921, and began giving lectures on the Gurdjieff-system. Orage attended his lectures and realized that Ouspensky had found what both had been looking for. But, after Gurdjieff's first visit to Ouspensky's group, he knew that Gurdjieff was the teacher. Eventually, he gave up everything, sold The New Age, and went to Fontainebleau. Orage attended Gurdjieff's Institute in Fontainebleau from October 1922 until December 1923 when he was sent to New York by Gurdjieff to prepare for his first visit and demonstrations of sacred dances. With the intention to open branches of the Institute in America, Gurdjieff left Orage in New York to continue what had been begun. But in 1924 Gurdjieff suffered a serious car accident which forced him to revise all his plans. He decided to transmit his knowledge in written form with Orage as his editor and collaborator. From 1924 to 1931, Orage held regular meetings in New York to explain the nature of the Institute and its work. It was at one of these meetings in the fall of 1924 that C. Daly King first met Orage. What impressed King most, was the complete and utter rationality of what he heard. This was contrary to what he had expected-a proselytizing harangue for a bogus cult. The topics went to the real heart of what had always intrigued him, and from then on he regularly attended Orage's meetings. By the following fall, King was already conducting two groups of his own, and in his absence, Orage even appointed King as his deputy. They had formed a close friendship, which gave King the opportunity to discuss with Orage all the details of the system. All this came to an end, when between 1930-1931, Gurdjieff staged the repudiation of Orage which led to Orage's return to England. His New York groups were abandoned, and three years later, Orage died suddenly and unexpectedly on 6 November 1934. Gurdjieff made his last trip to America at the end of 1948. King attended two of his meetings, and realized that the Oragean version of the teaching no longer remained extant, and that it was upon the verge of being irrecoverably lost. He therefore resolved to set it down in accurate detail, the result of which, is the present volume. Fully indexed with over 40 redrawn illustrations and corrected errata.

"He outlines his attempts to establish the Institute in the United States at Olgivanna and Frank Lloyd Wright's Taliesin East in Wisconsin, Mabel Luhan's ranch in Taos, New Mexico, Marjorie Content and Jean Toomer's Mill House in Doylestown, Pennsylvania, and New York City where his emissary, A. R. Orage, had formed a well-organized and faithful body of followers of Gurdjieff's ideas since 1924. This biography stands apart from other biographical writings about Gurdjieff by emphasizing his relations with the many children for whom he played a fatherly role in the Caucasus, Fontainebleau, and New York City. It includes as well a review of Gurdjieff's misunderstood relations with the women who bore his children. In effect, this scan of his life covers virtually every significant aspect of his extraordinary life and brings to light photographs which have not been available to readers"--Back cover.

This book is an attempt to explore various aspects of the enneagram, the symbol that G. I. Gurdjieff introduced to the modern world, and which he stated represented a complete description of the laws governing the universe. Because of the importance he attached to it, it has long intrigued followers of his teaching, and others, yet the understanding of its meanings remains very incomplete. In particular, how it relates to modern mathematical and scientific descriptions of the laws governing the universe has largely been unexplored. This book tries to find connections between these two approaches to the truth, while also recognizing and exploring the differences between knowledge based on symbols and that based on scientific theories and mathematical formulae.