Joseph Azize - Gurdjieff (Oxford Studies in Western Esotericism)

Series Editor

Henrik Bogdan, University of Gothenburg

Editorial Board

Jean-Pierre Brach, cole Pratique des Hautes tudes

Carole Cusack, University of Sydney

Christine Ferguson, University of Stirling

Olav Hammer, University of Southern Denmark

Wouter Hanegraaff, University of Amsterdam

Ronald Hutton, University of Bristol

Jeffrey Kripal, Rice University

James R. Lewis, University of Troms

Michael Stausberg, University of Bergen

Egil Asprem, University of Stockholm

Dylan Burns, Freie Universitt Berlin

Gordan Djurdjevic, Siimon Fraser University

Peter Forshaw, University of Amsterdam

Jesper Aa. Petersen, Norwegian University of Science and Technology

CHILDREN OF LUCIFER

The Origins of Modern Religious Satanism

Ruben van Luijk

SATANIC FEMINISM

Lucifer as the Liberator of Woman in Nineteenth-Century Culture

Per Faxneld

THE SIBLYS OF LONDON

A Family on the Esoteric Fringes of Gregorian England

Susan Sommers

WHAT IS IT LIKE TO BE DEAD?

Near-Death Experiences, Christianity, and the Occult

Jens Schlieter

AMONG THE SCIENTOLOGISTS

History, Theology, and Praxis

Donald A. Westbrook

RECYCLED LIVES

A History of Reincarnation in Blavatskys Theosophy

Julie Chajes

THE ELOQUENT BLOOD

The Goddess Babalon and the Construction of Femininities in Western Esotericism

Manon Hedenborg-White

GURDJIEFF

Mysticism, Contemplation, and Exercises

Joseph Azize

JOSEPH AZIZE

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To George and Helen Adie, this, my simple homage.

This is compatible with understanding Gurdjieffs teaching as a technique for spiritual advancement that might be utilized in a range of contexts, and by people with varying or no religious beliefs or affiliations. In fact, the terms used to describe Gurdjieff during his life included charlatan and magician but in general did not connect him to religion, and more recent designators like spiritual teacher and Western esotericist had not yet come into vogue. It is therefore not surprising that the academic study of Gurdjieff has emerged only recently, and that it is situated in a range of disciplines including religious studies, psychology, and Western esotericism, reflecting both the protean quality of the Work or the Fourth Way, and the conflicting and contested ways that Gurdjieff himself has been portrayed.

The earliest writings about Gurdjieff, as noted above, were by critical journalists, and these were supplemented by a body of early devotional literature authored by close pupils. These works included expositions of Gurdjieffs ideas such as P. D.

Since the 1960s the dominant Christian religion of the Western world has been in retreat, and a deregulated religious and spiritual marketplace has provided a range of alternatives for seekers. Gurdjieff; Helena Petrovna Blavatsky (18311891), co-founder of Theosophy; and his near-contemporary Rudolf Steiner (18611925), the founder of Anthroposophy, have been cast as founding figures of the so-called New Age.

The beginnings of the academic study of Gurdjieff were visible in the 1990s, with publication of some insider-oriented volumes with mainstream scholarly publishers. For example,

The development of the academic field of (Western) Esotericism is temporally linked to this emergence of scholarly studies of Gurdjieff. The most substantial outcome is Johanna Petsches monograph Gurdjieff and Music: The Gurdjieff/de Hartmann Piano Music and its Esoteric Significance (2015), which was published by Brill and has been well received.

This historical sketch of writing, reading, researching, practicing, and publishing about or as part of the Gurdjieff tradition establishes the context for Gurdjieff: Mysticism, Contemplation, and Exercises, a book that makes a major contribution to scholarship in a number of areas. It has been commonplace to claim various origins or sources of Gurdjieffs teachings over the years: In his lectures he often spoke of Christianity, Sufism, Buddhism, Hinduism, and various other religious and initiatory traditions, and sundry pupils became focused on seeking the mysterious Sarmoung Brotherhood that featured in Meetings with Remarkable Men, most notably Bennett, who was convinced that the Work originated in Sufism. This view has been promoted in two monographs, Anna T. Challengers Philosophy and Art in Gurdjieffs Beelzebub: A Modern Sufi

Situating Gurdjieff in the context of the history of mysticism creates space for discussion of the exercises that have been neglected to date for a range of reasons, chiefly the perception among Gurdjieff groups of all types and lineages that the exercises were secret, and the fact that they have almost entirely been discontinued among Foundation members.from him, as did Athena from the head of Zeus, he demonstrates that the early teaching in Russia and the Caucasus was characterized by the exposition of an elaborate cosmology and the use of physical techniques like the Movements and the Stop Exercise, while the 1920s was characterized by intense work on music with Thomas de Hartmann and the writing of Beelzebubs Tales, whereas in his last two years Gurdjieff recorded a range of harmonium improvisations. The rise to prominence of the contemplative exercises, Azize avers, was around 1930.

Gurdjieff disliked the term meditation, and his concept of contemplation differed from traditional understandings in that he rejected the distinction between the active and the inactive (contemplative) life. The exercises were to be practiced in the context of everyday life, and Azizes exposition is especially valuable as to the untrained eye they often appear to be so similar that disentangling the exact purpose of each exercise requires extensive knowledge of their specific functions. Azize considers a range of Transformed-contemplation exercises, identifying Gurdjieffs Third Series, Life is Real Only Then, When I Am (1975), as the crucial text, along with the lecture transcripts from 1941 to 1946, for tracing exercises to Gurdjieff himself. In this category are included the Soil Preparing Exercise, the First and Second Assisting Exercises, the Atmosphere Exercise, and the Filling Up Exercise, among others. The book also treats exercises that are preserved in the writings of key pupils;