George Ivanovich Gurdjieff was a philosopher, mystic, spiritual teacher, and composer. Gurdjieff taught that most humans do not possess a unified consciousness and thus live their lives in a state of hypnotic "waking sleep", but that it is possible to awaken to a higher state of consciousness and achieve full human potential. Gurdjieff described a method attempting to do so, calling the discipline "The Work" or "the System". According to his principles and instructions, Gurdjieff's method for awakening one's consciousness unites the methods of the fakir, monk and yogi, and thus his student P. D. Ouspensky referred to it as the "Fourth Way".
Beelzebub's Tales to His Grandson or An Objectively Impartial Criticism of the Life of Man is the first volume of the All and Everything trilogy written by the Greek-Armenia mystic G. I. Gurdjieff. The All and Everything trilogy also includes Meetings with Remarkable Men and Life Is Real Only Then, When 'I Am'.
Pyotr Demianovich Ouspenskii was a Russian philosopher and esotericist known for his expositions of the early work of the Greek-Armenian teacher of esoteric doctrine George Gurdjieff. He met Gurdjieff in Moscow in 1915, and was associated with the ideas and practices originating with Gurdjieff from then on. He taught ideas and methods based in the Gurdjieff system for 25 years in England and the United States, although he separated from Gurdjieff personally in 1924, for reasons that are explained in the last chapter of his book In Search of the Miraculous.
The Fourth Way is an approach to self-development developed by George Gurdjieff over years of travel in the East. It combines and harmonizes what he saw as three established traditional "ways" or "schools": first, those of the body; second, the emotions; and third, the mind. Students often refer to the Fourth Way as "The Work", "Work on oneself", or "The System". The exact origins of some of Gurdjieff's teachings are unknown, but various sources have been suggested.
Fakir, faqeer, or faqīr, derived from faqr, is an Islamic term traditionally used for Sufi Muslim ascetics who renounce their worldly possessions and dedicate their lives to the worship of God. They do not necessarily renounce all relationships, or take vows of poverty, but the adornments of the temporal worldly life are kept in perspective. The connotations of poverty associated with the term relate to their spiritual neediness, not necessarily their physical neediness.
Alfred Richard Orage was a British influential figure in socialist politics and modernist culture, now best known for editing the magazine The New Age before the First World War. While he was working as a schoolteacher in Leeds he pursued various interests, including Plato, the Independent Labour Party and theosophy. In 1900 he met Holbrook Jackson and three years later they co-founded the Leeds Arts Club, which became a centre of modernist culture in Britain. After 1924, Orage went to France to work with George Gurdjieff and was then sent to the United States by Gurdjieff to raise funds and lecture. He translated several of Gurdjieff's works.
The number 142,857 is a Kaprekar number.
Margaret Caroline Anderson was the American founder, editor and publisher of the art and literary magazine The Little Review, which published a collection of modern American, English and Irish writers between 1914 and 1929. The periodical is most noted for introducing many prominent American and British writers of the 20th century, such as Ezra Pound and T. S. Eliot, in the United States and publishing the first thirteen chapters of James Joyce's then-unpublished novel Ulysses.
The Ray of Creation is an esoteric cosmology which was taught by G. I. Gurdjieff. It is a diagram which better represents the place which Earth occupies in the Universe. The diagram has eight levels, each corresponding to Gurdjieff's Law of Octaves.
In G.I. Gurdjieff's Fourth Way teaching, also known as The Work, centers or brains refer to separate apparatuses within a being that dictate its specific functions. According to this teaching, there are three main centers: intellectual, emotional, and moving. These centers in the human body are analogous to a three-storey factory, the intellectual center being the top storey, the emotional center being the middle one, and the moving center being the bottom storey. The moving center, or the bottom storey is further divided into three separate functions: sex, instinctive, and motor.
The Teachers of Gurdjieff is a book by Rafael Lefort that describes a journey to the Middle East and central Asia in search of the sources of G. I. Gurdjieff's teaching, and culminates in the author's own spiritual awakening, by meeting and "opening" to the teachings of the Naqshbandi Sufis. The author's search finally leads him to the Sarmoun monastery in Northern Afghanistan where Gurdjieff had been previously taught.
William Patrick Patterson is a spiritual teacher of the Fourth Way, an esoteric teaching of self-development brought to the West by G. I. Gurdjieff. Patterson is also an author, filmmaker and speaker on spiritual themes, including the Fourth Way, being and becoming, Advaita Vedanta, self-awakening, self-observation, esoteric Christianity, and conscious-body-breath-impressions. He is the editor-in-chief of The Gurdjieff Journal.
Leon MacLaren, born Leonardo da Vinci MacLaren, was a British philosopher and the founder of the School of Economic Science (SES). MacLaren was inspired by Henry George, Socrates, Dr Francis Roles, Pyotr Ouspensky, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, and finally the philosophy of Advaita Vedānta through the Shankaracharyas of Jyoti Math.
Sophia Wellbeloved was born in Dublin, Ireland, and is an historian of Western Esotericism, with special reference to 1920s and 1930s Paris, focusing on the life and writings of G. I. Gurdjieff.
Meetings with Remarkable Men is a 1979 British biographical drama film directed by Peter Brook and based on the book of the same name by Greek-Armenian mystic, G. I. Gurdjieff, first published in English in 1963. Shot on location in Afghanistan, it starred Terence Stamp, and Dragan Maksimović as the adult Gurdjieff. The film was entered into the 29th Berlin International Film Festival, in competition for the Golden Bear award.
The left-brain interpreter is a neuropsychological concept developed by the psychologist Michael S. Gazzaniga and the neuroscientist Joseph E. LeDoux. It refers to the construction of explanations by the left brain hemisphere in order to make sense of the world by reconciling new information with what was known before. The left-brain interpreter attempts to rationalize, reason and generalize new information it receives in order to relate the past to the present.
Begum Bilquis Sheikh was a Pakistani author and Christian missionary. She was a prominent member of a noble Muslim of Wah in Attock and known throughout the country for her political and social work. She is known for her high-profile conversion from Islam to Christianity, following a series of visions and prophetic dreams. She told her life story in the book, I Dared To Call Him Father. Published in 1978, the book is a classic in Christian literature and evangelism. It is a best-selling book with worldwide sales exceeding 300,000. Her autobiography was one of the most popular Muslim-to-Christianity conversion books of the 20th century, prior to 9/11. It has been printed numerous times, in several different languages around the world. A 25th Anniversary edition was released by Baker Publishing Group in 2003.
The Study Society is registered with the Charity Commission as Registered Charity Number 1155498. Its stated objects are for the public benefit:
- to advance the education of the public in religion, science, philosophy and the arts.
- the promotion of moral and spiritual welfare.
Robin Amis (1932–2014) was a British author, poet, publisher, editor and translator. Although he had studied a wide range of spiritual traditions, including Kabbalah, the Fourth Way and Hindu teachings, it was his conversion to the Eastern Orthodox Church and his relationship with Mount Athos, the ancient monastic republic in Greece, that ultimately defined his life and work. Over a thirty-year period, between 1982 and 2013, he made more than 60 visits to Mount Athos, where he was recognised as a "synergatis", a fellow worker and equal of the monks. Amis documented the results of his research in A Different Christianity: Early Christian Esotericism and Modern Thought, and recounted his experience on the Holy Mountain in Views from Mount Athos. As founder of Praxis Institute Press, he translated, edited and published the three-volume English language edition of Gnosis by Boris Mouravieff as well as books on Hesychasm and the spiritual tradition of Eastern Orthodoxy. He was married to the American artist Lillian Delevoryas and in the last years of his life lived in Bristol, England.
Boris Petrovich Mouravieff was a Russian historian, philosopher, writer and university professor. He is known for his three-volume work Gnosis: Study and Commentaries on the Esoteric Tradition of Eastern Orthodoxy.
