The historical and geographical position of Russia meant that a lot of Asian literature made its way to her…Blavatsky’s father had all kinds of Tibetan and other Buddhist and Hindu texts in their library, and young Blavatsky devoured them, recapitulating them, not without some originality on her own part of course, in her Secret Doctrine and Isis Revealed.

After you sort-of absorb the Theosophical worldview — you must read the unabridged editions! — its not hard at all to trace Gurdjieff’s “system” from its contents. Further, Ouspensky, who may be more responsible for the “system” than G., was the President of the Theosophical Society in St. Petersburg in his Tertium Organum years.

I do believe that G. and O. were much more practical, and where they improved upon HPB was in their focus on individual practice and experience.

I highly recommend Crowley’s commentary on HPB’s The Voice of Silence.

Great blog, important work, you all rock.