27.01.10
Comment on Gurdjieff the spy
Cooment on Gurdjieff suspected of being spy….
I missed this comment. The perspective is interesting, and we can welcome any comments people have on this.
Gurdjieff’s claims about ancient teachings are fine until we attempt to get specific, and then we realize that Gurdjieff didn’t really get ancient spirituality right in any sense that we can prove correct.
tom wasmuth said,
17.01.09 at 2:36 am ·
Gurdjieff was no White Russian. He was a Caucasian Greek, although his sympathies went rather with the Tsar and the old Russian monarchy with all their foibles than with the Bolsheviks whom he considered to be wiseacering Hasnamusian individuals, i.e. thugs and destroyers of genuine Russian cultural/spirtitual values as can be seen from the chapter on Russia in All and Everything.
He may have been a spy for the Russian monarchy in Tibet under the name Dordjieff in the early part of the 20th century, or perhaps an unofficial emissary of the Russian government to put in less sinister terms. To my knowledge this remains unproven.
The implication that his having been a spy would indicate that he was not passing on a true spiritual teaching is unpersuasive. Gurdjieff’s lament for the decay of ancient spiritual values, the tragedy of constant warfare on this ill-fated planet and his insistance on the importance of Consciousness and Conscience (to cite but four insights out of a much larger doctrine) certainly has caught the attention of a multitude of sincere and gifted spiritual searchers.
The fact, if it is a fact, and one pauses skeptically reading the imaginative assertions printed here, that some offsprings in families of those calling themselves “Gurdjieffians” only became interested in the Work to get their neglectful parents attention, leads one to wonder if we have a new theory of prodigies here. Was the boy Mozart only writing music to please his father, and ifso when did he start having such wonderful fun with it?