Introduction to Vol. I of "Journal of Gurdjieff Studies"
Please note that articles assume familiarity with fundamental fourth way texts. See Introduction and Bibliography for guidance, and for full citations of abbreviated references.
Please find below the Introduction to the newly published Volume I of Journal of Gurdjieff Studies. Many of the chapters have been rewritten, sometimes extensively, from the articles that were originally posted here. Here is the link to the hardback book:
See the following links for summaries of the contents:
Introduction
In what does this volume consist? What are the underlying motivations for this endeavour? And why “Journal of Gurdjieff Studies”?
Here I explore Gurdjieff’s writings and talks, and those of his immediate pupils, with major underlying themes of medicine, hypnotism and consciousness. Having said this, however, it will be noticed that the first part of this volume contains articles that have been classed under the title, “Reading, Language, Understanding and Attention.” The latter two subjects seem to have an obvious and intimate link to both consciousness and medicine, if medicine is taken as “making whole,”1 and as applying to the psyche as well as to the body, but what about language and reading?
Language is how we communicate with each other, and perhaps also with different parts of ourselves. The physician needs to communicate with us, whether that physician be within, or external to us, which latter could as well be a friend we are communing with, or, even, sometimes, a book. I put forward the suggestion that reading, in the right way, of Gurdjieff’s own writings in particular, is also a kind of medicine.2 Reading, and perhaps also writing, can be part of the initial preparation that is necessary for travelling on the road to “Real Being,” that is, in attaining to the knowledge of this way,3 and to have in oneself “the preliminary required data for entering with the help of [Gurdjieff’s] detailed and written explanations and indications upon the path leading to real Being.”4
The second part of this book contains chapters under the title, “Gurdjieff’s Medicine,” with sections as follows:
General and Miscellaneous Considerations, Hypnotism and Consciousness
Series on the Prolongation of Life
Meat and Vegetables Series
Sweetness, Bitterness and Magnetism
Aspects of the Food-Factory
Air, Climate and Emotions
The articles that make up the chapters in this volume were originally written for the Substack Journal of Gurdjieff Studies, and to which new articles are frequently added. Of course, this is not properly a journal, in terms of the academic meaning of the word. It is closer to a daily journal, that is, it is the results of daily reflections, questioning, inner confrontation – writing to clarify the thought and the questions that pre-occupy me, as one way of helping to fathom the gist of what Gurdjieff is trying to communicate.
As a straightforward, but important, task, I try to make no attributions to Gurdjieff or to his direct pupils without citing a published source, or bona fide typescript and so on, either of their writings, or the writing of an eyewitness. It is far too easy to rely on one’s own or others’ inaccurate paraphrasing and the distortions of improperly remembered information.5 Ever since being described as wrong-headed, because of being stubborn about references, accuracy, language and so on, I have more than ever delighted in, and tried to cultivate, wrong-headedness, so applied.
It seems to me of great importance to go back to the sources – namely, in this case, Gurdjieff's writings and Ouspensky’s record of Gurdjieff’s early teaching in In Search of the Miraculous in particular – and immersing oneself in them, that we may each make for ourselves a “forming ground”6 of associations, by which we may meet their author “on the ground of my ideas.”7
Much of my own material here is based on questions, holding them, keeping them open and alive, often working around them from different angles, rather than tackling them head on. Above all, in this writing, study and reflection, I am pursuing understanding, while bearing in mind what could almost be thought of as its “blood relation” with consciousness, conscience and will. These inter-relationships are repeatedly examined and returned to in the material of this volume.
In addition to this primary pursuit of understanding, I always wish to share questions and reflections with others for possible mutual exchange, contact and help. I am indeed indebted to friends and critics with whom I work trying to fathom the gist of Gurdjieff’s writings, and his ideas as also given by the records of his talks, and by his first generation pupils, among other aspects of Gurdjieff’s teaching, the working together being not only invaluable, but a necessity.
Seeking to understand and apply the teaching of Gurdjieff to my own life, I have no authority for anything I write, except that of any serious seeker. I hope that the material here will be judged on its own merits.
I realise that there must be error aplenty in this volume, but if its publishing does nothing else but stimulate others (and myself) to read and re-read Gurdjieff’s own writings, and to work to apply the ideas of his teaching in our lives, then that is very worthwhile.