George Ivanovich Gurdjieff was a philosopher, mystic, spiritual teacher, composer, and dance 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".
Idries Shah, also known as Idris Shah, Indries Shah, né Sayed Idries el-Hashimi and by the pen name Arkon Daraul, was an Afghan author, thinker and teacher in the Sufi tradition. Shah wrote over three dozen books on topics ranging from psychology and spirituality to travelogues and culture studies.
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.
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.
In Search of the Miraculous: Fragments of an Unknown Teaching is a 1949 book by Russian philosopher P. D. Ouspensky which recounts his meeting and subsequent association with George Gurdjieff.
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.
Henry Maurice Dunlop Nicoll was a Scottish neurologist, psychiatrist, author and noted Fourth Way esoteric teacher. He is best known for his Psychological Commentaries on the Teaching of Gurdjieff and Ouspensky, a five-volume collection of more than 500 talks given and distributed to his study groups in and around London from March 1941 to August 1953.
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.
Reality tunnel is a theory that, with a subconscious set of mental filters formed from beliefs and experiences, every individual interprets the same world differently, hence "Truth is in the eye of the beholder". It is similar to the idea of representative realism, and was coined by Timothy Leary (1920–1996). It was further expanded on by Robert Anton Wilson (1932–2007), who wrote about the idea extensively in his 1983 book Prometheus Rising.
Rodney George Collin-Smith, known as Rodney Collin, was a British writer who focused on the area of spiritual development. His work was heavily influenced by his teacher P. D. Ouspensky and, through him, G. I. Gurdjieff and the thought system associated with them. His best known work, The Theory of Celestial Influence, is an ambitious attempt to unite astronomy, physics, chemistry, human physiology and world history with his own version of planetary influences.
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.
Charles Stanley Nott (1887–1978) was an author, publisher, translator and a student of G. I. Gurdjieff. He first met Gurdjieff and A. R. Orage in New York in 1923. He spent time at the Institute for the Harmonious Development of Man and became a close student of Gurdjieff. He helped with the publication and distribution of Gurdjieff's first published book The Herald of Coming Good. He wrote two books on his life and experience with Gurdjieff, Orage, and P. D. Ouspensky.
William Patrick Patterson was a spiritual teacher of the Fourth Way, an esoteric teaching of self-development brought to the West by G. I. Gurdjieff. Patterson was 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 was 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.
Oscar Ichazo was a Bolivian philosopher and an advocate of integral philosophy. Following his early life in Bolivia, Ichazo was later principally based in Chile, where he founded the Arica School in 1968. He lived his last decades in Hawaii, where he died. Ichazo's Arica School can be considered, as Ramparts magazine described it in 1973, "A body of techniques for cosmic consciousness-raising and an ideology to relate to the world in an awakened way." An American headquarters, the Arica Institute, was established in New York in 1971.
Kenneth Macfarlane Walker was a British author, philosopher and urological surgeon.
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.
