Speakers

Gurdjieff: Alchemy, The Emerald Tablet, Contemplation, and Movements

The Emerald Tablet is possibly the only text which Gurdjieff ever cited by name in his teaching. The alchemical tradition which it exemplified and Gurdjieff reinterpreted was a constant in his doctrine. I introduce Gurdjieff’s system and discuss how he related it to others; examine what Gurdjieff said about the Tablet and alchemy; then consider the Emerald Tablet for further indications of a possible relation to Gurdjieff’s system, and illustrate its pertinence to his ideas and to two of his practical methods: his “Transformed-Contemplation” and his Movements. I conclude that Gurdjieff fashioned a coherent system, a “spiritual alchemy,” which integrated cosmology, psychology, and various instruments for actualising this alchemy: ideas, contemplative exercises, Sacred Movements, music, literature, tasks, and disciplines. Finally, I offer a tentative hypothesis as to the relationship of his system to world religions and spiritualities, and the vexed question of his sources.

Biographical Note

Joseph Azize, a Maronite priest living a contemplative life on the NSW Central Coast, is an honorary associate with Studies in Religion, University of Sydney. He obtained his doctorate at the same university. His most recent books are Gurdjieff: Mysticism, Contemplation, and Exercises (OUP, 2020) and John G. Bennett: Witness to Death and Resurrection (Red Elixir, 2024), he and has published a number of academic articles on Gurdjieff’s ideas and methods. A pupil of the late George and Helen Adie, personal pupils first of Ouspensky then of Gurdjieff, he continues to work with the Gurdjieff Society of Newport which they established in 1986.

G. I. Gurdjieff, the Work, and the Academic Study of Religion and Esotericism

This paper addresses tensions which exist between theological approaches (insider discourses assuming the truth of a tradition) and social scientific approaches (discourses engaged in classification, comparison, and contextualization of teachers and traditions). The academic study of G. I. Gurdjieff and the Work is a recent subfield situated at a crossroads of religious studies, Western esotericism, and psychology. Studies of spiritual and esoteric phenomena traditionally were undertaken by members of esoteric schools and tendencies; the value of outsider-oriented ‘scientific’ research has frequently been questioned. Yet, the insider-outsider distinction is less important than generally assumed; as Jeppe Sinding Jensen notes, the most it demonstrates is “the plain fact that knowledge is unevenly distributed among subjects” (Jensen 2011, 29). That being acknowledged, the ways of approaching subjects that are exclusive to scholars, and perspectives that differ from the lived experience of esoteric practitioners and their communities, are of value in building new knowledge.

Biographical Note

Carole M. Cusack is Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Sydney. She trained as a medievalist and her doctorate was published as Conversion Among the Germanic Peoples (Cassell, 1998). She now researches primarily in contemporary religious trends and Western esotericism. Her books include (with Katharine Buljan) Anime, Religion and Spirituality: Profane and Sacred Worlds in Contemporary Japan (Equinox, 2015), Invented Religions: Imagination, Fiction and Faith (Ashgate, 2010), and The Sacred Tree: Ancient and Medieval Manifestations (Cambridge Scholars, 2011). She edited (with Alex Norman) Handbook of New Religions and Cultural Production (Brill, 2012) and (with Pavol Kosnáč), Fiction, Invention and Hyper-reality: From Popular Culture to Religion (Routledge, 2017). She is the Editor of Literature & Aesthetics (journal of the Sydney Society of Literature and Aesthetics), Journal of Daesoon Thought and the Religions of East Asian (Daejin University), and Alternative Spirituality and Religion Review (PDC, USA). 

From Silence: The Role of Music as an Essential Influence in Gurdjieff’s Teaching

Gurdjieff’s teaching was transmitted through the ideas in his writings, through the movements and sacred dances he created, and through the music he composed with Thomas de Hartmann. Transcripts of his meetings with students have also been preserved and published.

I will explore the role of music in his teaching with the following questions: Why music as a form of transmission? What is the intended meaning of their compositions? What genres of music were employed? Two composers: What is the significance of the collaboration of Gurdjieff and de Hartmann? What origins and influences helped to shape this body of music? Can we consider the piano music an example of what Gurdjieff called “objective art”? In the last years of his life, Gurdjieff played the harmonium for those who came to see him. Recordings were made. What is experienced when we listen to those recordings?

Biographical Note

Charles Ketcham has conducted many of the major orchestras in the United States, including the Pittsburgh Symphony, the Dallas Symphony, and the Indianapolis Symphony. He has held the position of Resident conductor with the Utah Symphony and the San Diego Symphony. 

He has conducted orchestras in a number of European countries including the London Philharmonia Orchestra, and the Russian National Orchestra. He has recorded for RCA Red Label, Pro Arte and Varèse Sarabande.

Mr. Ketcham led the team to prepare and edit the Four Volume set of Music for the Piano by G.I. Gurdjieff and Thomas de Hartmann. He, with the other editors, recorded the entire edition for the German label, Wergo Schallplatten. 

He has performed concerts of Gurdjieff’s music in the United States, Canada and Europe as well as in South America. During the Pandemic, Mr. Ketcham broadcast eight programs of the Gurdjieff / de Hartmann music via YouTube.

“The eighteenth commandment”: What are the values of the Gurdjieff teaching?

The Gurdjieff teaching is not typically viewed as a structure of values by the light of which participants make their way. Memorable statements of values are to be found in many places in the literature of the teaching, but entry into the teaching typically focuses on practice—individual practice and practice in community. Further, the values of the teaching are typically perceived by newer participants as embodied in the senior teachers, in their words and conduct. For years even, one may look no farther than those guides. The values of the teaching are assimilated almost unnoticed as such. Yet the time comes when participants recognize a structure of values, and the need appears to search out and embrace them more consciously. Where are they found, how to understand them?

Exploration of the values of the teaching offers an often overlooked avenue toward understanding what Gurdjieff wished for humanity.

Biographical Note

Roger Lipsey, PhD, is the author of Gurdjieff Reconsidered: The Life, The Teachings, The Legacy (2019). A trustee of the Gurdjieff Foundation of New York and a member of the board of the Gurdjieff Society of Massachusetts, he has participated since 1961 in the Gurdjieff teaching. His published work as a scholar and biographer includes Hammarskjöld: A Life (2013), two studies of the monk and author Thomas Merton, including Make Peace Before the Sun Goes Down: The Long Encounter of Thomas Merton and his Abbot, James Fox (2015), and a trilogy of works by and about Ananda K. Coomaraswamy (1977). Published autumn 2024: Des Yeux pour voir: une approche du spirituel dans l’art mondial (English-language edition forthcoming). Roger is currently writing a book about the thought and vision of Václav Havel. Author website: rogerlipsey.net.

“G.I. Gurdjieff as Cosmopolitan of early 20th Century: Transformation in Translation”

G.I. Gurdjieff (d. 1949) was born in Gyumri (Alexandrapol), Armenia and was raised in the Caucasus and eastern Asia Minor. As a polyglot and liminal figure, between East and West, his work has had a decisive influence in contemporary culture in such diverse areas as philosophy, religion, literature, psychology, and ecology. Through his own blending of high and low language, storytelling, laughter, among other elements, Gurdjieff was a unique innovator and provocateur. Viewed through the lens of a cosmopolitanism which sought to break down barriers to transformation, this talk will address some of the ways that Gurdjieff’s life and work drew on and was influenced by the diverse spiritual and cultural influences of the Caucasus, Asia Minor, and surrounding areas, of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Biographical Note

Michael Pittman, Ph.D. is an independent scholar whose research and publications have focused primarily on the life and writings of G.I. Gurdjieff. Drawing on a background in Comparative Literature and Religion, he continues to return to Armenia and Turkey for teaching and research, especially on the life of Gurdjieff and the traditions and practices of Sufism. His book-length work, Classical Spirituality in Contemporary America: The Confluence and Contribution of Gurdjieff and Sufism (Continuum 2012), addresses the cultural and religious influences on Gurdjieff’s work, as well as the influence that Gurdjieff and Sufism continue to have in contemporary religious and spiritual culture in North America. His latest article is entitled, “Concluding Beelzebub’s Tales: Gurdjieffian Notions of the Soul and the Import of Human Life,” appearing in Alternative Spirituality and Religion Review. 

Mr. Gurdjieff's Original Approach to Life

It is difficult to categorize his teaching, in spite of how deeply rooted it is in the traditional world. His so-called “system of ideas,” expounded initially by P. D. Ouspensky, demonstrates seriousness and intelligence. There are also multiple colorful anecdotes recorded by other authors. But beyond anecdotes, one should take into account the example given by the man himself.

Biographical Note

Alexandre Georges de Salzmann is a French physician, born in 1958, living near Paris. He is president of the Institut G. I. Gurdjieff in Paris as well as of the International Association of Gurdjieff Foundations. Son of Michel and Josée de Salzmann and grandson of Jeanne de Salzmann, he benefited from a particular exposure to the teaching of Gurdjieff. Dr. de Salzmann travels frequently to work with Gurdjieff groups large and small, from long-established groups in the Americas to groups of more modest size such as those in Vienna and Malta. In collaboration with a Slavic linguist, Dr. de Salzmann published in 2021 a revised French edition of Gurdjieff’s major work, Beelzebub’s Tales to His Grandson, corrected in light of the original Russian.

After Presence: How Memoirs Re-Member Gurdjieff’s Charisma

In The Book of Enlightened Masters: Western Teachers in Eastern Traditions (1997), Andrew Rawlinson was amongst the first scholars to discuss Gurdjieff comparatively: as an example of a new type of authority in the religious field—a “western guru.” I will explore the affective function of the memoir as a devotional text which aims to “re-member” Gurdjieff’s presence in his absence. The paradoxical challenge of “representing presence” embeds a sensation in the reader of the “mythic” basis of Gurdjieff’s life as delineated by James Moore (1991). The aim of the memoir is therefore to extend a “taste” (Tracol 1994) of Gurdjieff’s charismatic authority beyond the circle of those who knew him “in the flesh,” to readers dispersed in space and time. This approach to how Gurdjieff’s charisma has been communicated could be tested against memoirs of other “western gurus.”

Biographical Note

Dr. Steven J. Sutcliffe is Senior Lecturer in the Study of Religion at the University of Edinburgh and a past President of the British Association for the Study of Religions. He works on new and alternative spiritualities in late modernity and is author of Children of the New Age: A History of Spiritual Practices (2003) and co-editor (with Ingvild Sælid Gilhus) of New Age Spirituality: Rethinking Religion (2014) and (with Carole Cusack) of The Problem of Invented Religions (2016). He has published several articles on the Gurdjieff movement in cultural and historical context and is also working on a monograph on Life Reform networks in Scotland and Europe in the first half of the twentieth century with special reference to vegetarianism, conscientious objection and nature cure. 

Objective Art: Gurdjieff’s Influence on Esoteric Aesthetics in American Literature 

Gurdjieff introduced “objective” art to the West. Beginning in 1924, the influence of Gurdjieff’s Beelzebub’s Tales led to a vast underground literary movement that pervaded American literature, and also influenced theatre and film.  The movement took shape after the split between A. R. Orage and Gurdjieff in 1931. Works of “objective” literature in America number in the thousands and include canonical works, best sellers, and writings in all of the pulp genres. Major authors include Ralph Ellison, William Faulkner, John O’Hara, Djuna Barnes, Thornton Wilder, John Dos Passos, Raymond Chandler, Nathaniel West, and James Agee. These writings were connected to the creation of an “objective” historical drama centered on a third (secular) messiah to follow Osiris and Jesus. Works related to the drama include novels about Egypt, novels about Jesus, fragmentary and allusive depictions of the esoteric historical drama, and novels, stories, and poems with a coded, esoteric subtext.

Biographical Note

Jon Woodson is a Howard University emeritus professor of English. He published The Emblematic Novel: Esoteric Realism in the Harlem Renaissance and the Lost Generation in 2023. He is the author of previous critical studies including: Notes on Ralph Ellison’s Three Days Before the Shooting (2017), Oragean Modernism: A Lost Literary Movement, 1924-1953 (2013); Anthems, Sonnets, and Chants: Recovering the African American Poetry of the 1930s (2011); A Study of Catch-22: Going Around Twice (2001), and To Make a New Race: Gurdjieff, Toomer, and the Harlem Renaissance (1999).  He published The Staircase Shuffle, an esoteric-noir novel in 2024.