Saturday, January 08, 2005
ANOTHER CROSSOVER - GURDJIEFF
A prominent feature of the post-1909 cultural scene was heightened interest in China, India, and Tibet (partly because of the Russo-Japanese war) and in exoticism generally. Two new occult systems foregrounded Oriental religions and yogic practices. George Gurdjieff (1886-1949) developed a unique system that included Islamic mysticism (Sufism), yoga, his own form of numerology, and a vision of the world and the body as machines. Uspensky began to work with Gurdjieff around 1915. They emigrated (separately) after the Bolshevik Revolution and continued to work together until the mid-1920's, when Uspensky began to develop his own system of a Fourth Way. The painter and poet Nikolai Rerikh (Roerich; 1874-1947) synthesized European and Asian esoteric and spiritual thought in an illustrated book of poems, Tsvety morii (The flowers of Moria, 1921), and in Agni-yoga (there is no such system in India), both written in emigration. Agni-yoga includes discussions of health, education, daily life, and human relationships. There is tremendous interest in his thought, and in Gurdjieff's and Uspensky's as well, in present-day Russia. (_The Occult in Russian and Soviet Culture_, Edited by Bernice Glatzer Rosenthal, p. 21)
James Webb, acknowledged authority on the occult, describes Gurdjieff:
Of Georgei Ivanovich Gurdjieff (c. 1877-1949) it is easy to say too little or too much. Just before the outbreak of the First World War, this enigmatic figure had appeared in Moscow and St. Petersburg and gathered around him a band of disciples drawn chiefly from the illuminated intelligentsia. It was not known where Gurdjieff had derived the singularly comprehensive system that he taught. He began from the principle that mankind was asleep and that by following a technique of "self-remembering" man could wake up. ...Gurdjieff's system...probably originates in a combination of Western occultism and certain Oriental doctrines. The ideas seem to represent a restatement of traditional doctrine in the language of the 20th century. In this aspect the work of Gurdjieff is comparable to that of Jung. Gurdjieff himself disliked occultists and Theosophists, regarding such groups as breeding grounds of delusion. But he discovered that his ideas met with an encouraging response in such circles. When this remarkable man emerged from the debris of revolutionary Russia, by the way of an astonishing spiritual and physical obstacle course in his native Caucasus, he brought with him a small group of disciples whose way toward him had led through the tortuous mysticism of the illuminated intelligentsia. (_The Occult Establishment_, James Webb, p. 179-180)
From the Enneagram Institute:
The first major figure in the Enneagram's modern development is George Ivanovitch Gurdjieff (c. 1872 ?-1949). Gurdjieff was instrumental in bringing the Enneagram symbol to the awareness of modern people. Gurdjieff, and his best-known student, P. D. Ouspensky, taught a great deal about the Enneagram as a system for understanding cosmological processes, but they did not teach anything about the Enneagram of types, or fixations. ...Many of the philosophical ideas underlying the modern Enneagram, including the Centers and the Instincts, Essence and Personality, and the notion of self-observation, among many others, derive from Gurdjieff's teachings. (The Enneagram Institute)
Dr. Laleh Bakhtiar, Ph.D is considered an expert on the Enneagram in Sufism. As her bio indicates, she "has been practicing Islam for over 30 years under her teacher, Dr. Seyyed Hossein Nasr." Nasr is one of the Guenonian Traditionalists. Dr. Bakhtiar writes:
The Sufi tradition inherited a sacred tradition of psychology which existed in the past but was the first to develop this psychological teaching into a system based on the nine points, particularly in the work of the 13th century Islamic scholar Nasir al-din Tusi. It was this same traditional psychology that G.I. Gurdjieff encountered through the Sufis in Central Asia which led to his use of the Enneagram symbol in his teaching during the 1920's. (The Sufi Enneagram Website - Overview)
The University of Michigan domain provides a Naqshbandia Sufi Meditation website that includes a link to the Enneagram website of Dr. Bakhtiar linked above. It also provides a link to "The Gurdjieff (Fourth Way School) & Sufi Connection" website.
A number of books by Gurdjieff are listed at the Transitions Bookplace webpage dedicated to Gurdjieff and the Work. (Some books on Eastern Orthodoxy are included here. I have not yet researched the relationship with Eastern Orthodoxy.) Interestingly, the first book on the list is titled "Alchemical Sex." Another book is published by "Traditional Studies Press." One is authored by Perry Whitall, a Traditionalist author. One book includes "Astrology" in the title. There is an author, "Sophia Wellbeloved". J. G. Bennett and Jacob Needleman are authors on the list. I thought that _Struggles of the Magicians: Why Uspenski Left Gurdjieff_ was an especially interesting title.
The Enneagram has made inroads into Catholic life. An article by Mary Jo Anderson from the Catholic Life document library spells it out:
Enneagram: Psychic Babble, The
No fad has swept through Catholic seminaries and retreat centers in recent years with as much fervor as has the Enneagram. Teaching the Enneagram, variously billed as "the mirror of the soul" and "a map to the psyche," has become the new profession of former priests, who offer it as a spiritual guide and an aid to pastoral practice. Welcomed in some dioceses, reviled in others, the Enneagram is a growing source of controversy among Catholic professionals in the fields of education, counseling, and priestly formation.
Writer David Eyes is attempting to synthesize the beliefs of Rudolf Steiner (Anthroposophy) and George Gurdjieff at steinergurdjieff.net As he writes at the website Awakenings, he believes that while "in incarnation" the two personalities would have put each other off, but now that they are seventy-years gone, a comparison is needed.
Lee Penn, in an article on the URI, mentions Gurdjieff in a quote from the writings of Betsy Stang:
In Western Europe and North America since 1945, any public figure suspected of anti-Semitism has been made a pariah. This sanction has not been applied to Alice Bailey, her teachings, and her Theosophist followers. On the contrary. Betsy Stang, an "interfaith minister" at the Wittenberg Center and an active participant in the URI, said, "Some of Bailey's writing is really remarkable, very Gothic. You would put her with Blavatsky, Gurdjieff, and Steiner. She is historically very important. In my mind, Bailey has beautiful, poetic evocations in her books." (Beware! The New Age Movement Is More Than Self-Indulgent Silliness)
It seems reasonable to speculate that liturgical dance may owe a debt to Gurdjieff as well. The website for Gurdjieff Studies Ltd. offers this assessment of Gurdjieff:
Of Gurdjieff's many roles - ideologue, man of action, author, 'physician/hypnotist', etc. - he arguably most rejoiced in being a 'rather good teacher of temple dances' . Such dances professedly served two vital functions: the harmonious evolution of the dancers themselves and the transmission of esoteric knowledge to remote generations. Today his 250 or so ensemble dances termed 'Movements' (or 'exercises' pre-1928), represent to many Gurdjieffians the Work's immaculate heart - a spiritual legacy of incalculable significance.
Gurdjieff Movements offers locations for their seminars in sacred dance. Most of them take place in Europe...a Europe that is post-Christian, I might add. There is one location in the U.S. offering these seminars as well.
Another area where there is a crossover between Gurdjieffian methodology and Anthroposophy is The Claymont Agricultural Project. A Biodynamics/Biodiversity Conference held in 1996 documents this crossover:
In its present form, the
Claymont Agricultural Project is emerging as a vital integration of several
movements: Dr. Steiner's Biodynamic Agriculture, Alan Chadwick's French
Intensive Agriculture and G.I. Gurdjieff's "Fourth Way" as transmitted by
J.G. Bennett (the founder of Claymont).
Biodynamics are being used by the Dominican Sisters of Caldwell, New Jersey at Genesis Farm:
Founded by Sister Miriam Therese MacGillis and the Dominican Sisters of Caldwell, New Jersey, the farm focuses on learning and teaching a new cosmology. They also sponsor a large, community-supported biodynamic garden. Their teaching is build around the works of Thomas Berry, Brian Swimme and a section of Saint Thomas Aquinas’ Summa Theologica. In Part I, Question 47 of his Summa, Aquinas says that God is most fully revealed, not through one species only, but through the whole universe because one creature alone could not adequately represent His goodness.
Genesis Farm uses the structure of a story. The universe is a series of unfolding stories. Humanity needs to listen to the stories and individuals need to see the story of their lives in the context of the universe of which they are a part. MacGillis also uses the image of a punchbowl on a table surrounded by glasses. Each glass is a religious or ethnic tradition that holds some wisdom. When the glasses are emptied into the punchbowl, the wisdom is not lost but enlarged. The families who sponsor the organic garden at Genesis Farm are presently founding a grammar school where their children can progressively learn the stories of the universe.
So God is surrounded by many religious traditions each of which holds some wisdom. That is precisely what Guenonian Sufi Traditionalism claims. A Traditionalism that is at home in Grand Orient Lodges. Have we become the Masons that prior popes warned us about? What the Lodge couldn't accomplish from without, it has apparently accomplished by infiltration.
Not only do the sisters practice Biodynamic farming and gardening, they have a garden named "Sophia" according to the same website:
The Dominican sisters also operate Sophia Garden in Amityville, New York...
It would appear that the plan laid out in the Alta Vendita, to overthrow the Church, has been carried out. From the booklet:
Eventually, a Pope would be elected from these ranks who would lead the Church on the path of "enlightenment" and "renewal." They stated that it was not their aim to place a Freemason on the Chair of Peter. Their goal was to effect an environment that would eventually produce a Pope and a hierarchy won over to the ideas of liberal Catholicism, all the while believing themselves to be faithful Catholics. ("The Permanent Instruction of the Alta Vendita: A Masonic Blueprint for the Subversion of The Catholic Church", John Vennari, p.3)
Soloviev was Russian as were his followers, the Sophiologists.
Gurdjieff was Russian.
Has Russia spread her errors around the world?
Our Lady of Fatima, pray for us!
