An autobiography, sometimes informally called an autobio, is a self-written biography of one's own life.
George Ivanovich Gurdjieff was a Greek–Armenian philosopher, mystic, spiritual teacher, composer, and movements teacher. Gurdjieff taught that people are not conscious of themselves 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 serve our purpose as human beings. The practice of his teaching has become known as "The Work" and is additional to the ways of the Fakirs (Sufis), Monks and Yogis, so that his student P. D. Ouspensky referred to it as the "Fourth Way".
A tariqa is a religious order of Sufism, or specifically a concept for the mystical teaching and spiritual practices of such an order with the aim of seeking haqiqa, which translates as "ultimate truth".
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-Armenian 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 Demyanovich Uspensky, known in English as P. D. Ouspensky, 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 Gurdjieff movements are a series of sacred dances that were collected or authored by G. I. Gurdjieff. He taught his students as part of the work of self observation and self study.
John Godolphin Bennett was a British academic and author. He is best known for his books on psychology and spirituality, particularly on the teachings of G. I. Gurdjieff. Bennett met Gurdjieff in Istanbul in October 1920 and later helped to co-ordinate the work of Gurdjieff in England after the guru had moved to Paris. He also was active in starting the British section of the Subud movement, and co-founded its British headquarters.
The Fourth Way is an approach to self-development developed by George Gurdjieff over years of travel in the East. 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.
Adelphopoiesis or adelphopoiia is a ceremony practiced historically in Eastern Christian tradition to unite together two people of the same sex in a church-recognized relationship analogous to siblinghood.
A bogatyr or vityaz is a stock character in medieval East Slavic legends, akin to a Western European knight-errant. Bogatyrs appear mainly in Rus' epic poems—bylinas. Historically, they came into existence during the reign of Vladimir the Great as part of his elite warriors (druzhina), akin to Knights of the Round Table. Tradition describes bogatyrs as warriors of immense strength, courage and bravery, rarely using magic while fighting enemies in order to maintain the "loosely based on historical fact" aspect of bylinas. They are characterized as having resounding voices, with patriotic and religious pursuits, defending Rus' from foreign enemies and their religion.
Jean Toomer was an American poet and novelist commonly associated with the Harlem Renaissance, though he actively resisted the association, and with modernism. His reputation stems from his novel Cane (1923), which Toomer wrote during and after a stint as a school principal at a black school in rural Sparta, Georgia. The novel intertwines the stories of six women and includes an apparently autobiographical thread; sociologist Charles S. Johnson called it "the most astonishingly brilliant beginning of any Negro writer of his generation". He resisted being classified as a "Negro" writer, as he identified as "American". For more than a decade Toomer was an influential follower and representative of the pioneering spiritual teacher G.I. Gurdjieff. Later in life he took up Quakerism.
The Sarmoung Brotherhood was an alleged esoteric Sufi brotherhood based in Asia. The reputed existence of the brotherhood was brought to light in the writings of George Gurdjieff, a Greek-Armenian spiritual teacher. Some contemporary Sufi-related sources also claim to have made contact with the group although the earliest and primary source is Gurdjieff himself, leading most scholars to conclude the group was fictional.
The Michael Teachings is a body of channeled New Age spiritual doctrine that originated in the early 1970s as a 'conversation' via a Ouija board between members of a spiritual study group in the San Francisco Bay Area and a channeled spiritual entity who became known as 'Michael'. The teachings received from the entity were first published in book form in 1979 as Messages from Michael, by novelist Chelsea Quinn Yarbro, the first in a series of four books by Yarbro chronicling the Bay Area sessions. Since that time, the teachings purportedly from the same entity have continued to accumulate and expand via a growing number of channels based in other locations.
Prince Lev Nikolayevich Myshkin is the main protagonist of Fyodor Dostoevsky's 1869 novel The Idiot. Dostoevsky wanted to create a character that was "entirely positive... with an absolutely beautiful nature", someone who is truly 'Christian'. According to Joseph Frank, the character of Prince Myshkin approaches "the extremest incarnation of the Christian ideal of love that humanity can reach in its present form, but he is torn apart by the conflict between the contradictory imperatives of his apocalyptic aspirations and his earthly limitations."
The Initiate: Some Impressions of A Great Soul is a combined anthology and parable dealing with the occult, written by the British composer Cyril Scott in the early 1900s. It was first published (anonymously) in 1920.
David of Sassoun is the main hero of Armenia's national epic Daredevils of Sassoun, who drove Arab Egyptian invaders out of Armenia.
New religious movements and cults have appeared as themes or subjects in literature and popular culture. Beginning in the 1700s authors in the English-speaking world began introducing members of cults as antagonists. Satanists, Yakuzas, Triads, Thuggees, and sects of the Latter Day Saint movement were popular choices. In the twentieth century concern for the rights and feelings of religious minorities led authors to invent fictional cults for their villains to belong to.New religious movements and cults then began to appear in more modern culture in the 1950s and 1960s and became more prominent in the 1970s and 1980s into the 2000s. In the twenty-first century came the new display NRMs and cults in popular culture by being displayed in the entertainment industry such as through movies, TV shows, documentaries, and even recent novels.
al-Masʿūdī, c. 896–956, was a historian, geographer and traveler. He is sometimes referred to as the "Herodotus of the Arabs". A polymath and prolific author of over twenty works on theology, history, geography, natural science and philosophy, his celebrated magnum opus The Meadows of Gold combines universal history with scientific geography, social commentary and biography.
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.
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.
