The Gurdjieff Journal—Fourth Way Perspectives

Essential Questions:
Who Is Mr. Gurdjieff? What Is the
Origin of the Teaching?
T hose who do not know history are not only condemned to

repeat it but also allow history to be distorted. A graphic example is

the new edition of P. D. Ouspensky's In Search of the Miraculous. Its
cover shows a Middle Eastern man, presumably a Sufi, and the book
is described as being "The Classic Exploration of Eastern Religious
Thinking and Philosophy." The foreword is by Marianne Williamson,
the millionaire spiritual doyenne of the New Age (now renamed "New
Thought"), teacher of the channeled teaching known as the Course in
Miracles. She tells the reader that if you hadn't read this book "then
you hadn't learned your mystical basics"; Ouspensky's text is just a
primer by which one can evolve into the spiritualism of the mystical
channeled teachings. This reorientation—"repackaging" to use a
marketing term—will no doubt broaden the appeal of this esoteric
text and, of course, boost sales.

It will, no doubt, make Gurdjieffians angry as well, but this new

"Sufi" edition is a lawful result. For too long the essential questions—
who is Gurdjieff? and what is the origin of Fourth Way teaching?—
have been left unanswered. Time and again we see Mr. Gurdjieff
referred to as "a philosopher and mystic" or some such safe
appellation. Nothing much is said about the teaching's origin, but the
suggestion is it is either a compilation of teachings, or mostly Sufi.

Why is it so difficult for otherwise intelligent people to understand

that Gurdjieff is a Christian and the origin of the teaching is also
Christianity (though the term "Christianity" should be taken in an
expanded sense)? Why do people keep saying Gurdjieff's identity and
the teaching's origin cannot be known?

Let it be declared without reservation: Gurdjieff was a Christian.

Why? If a man is baptized a Christian, and his earliest teachers are
the dean of the Kars Cathedral and a priest who later becomes the
abbot of an Essene monastery—what is he? If, when finally
establishing the teaching at the Prieuré, he declares that "The
program of the Institute, the power of the Institute, the aim of the
Institute, the possibilities of the Institute can be expressed in a few
words: the Institute can help one to be able to be a Christian"—what
is he? If in writing All and Everything he begins with the Christian
prayer "In the name of the Father and of the Son and in the name of
the Holy Ghost. Amen."—what is he? If, at his death, his funeral is
held at the Russian Orthodox Church and his burial is performed
according to that church's prescriptions—what is he?

How, then, could anyone believe that Gurdjieff is anything but a

Christian?

Is there an unconscious bias at work here against Christianity?

The teaching—its approach practical and scientific with its

admonition to believe nothing until one can verify it—has appealed to
intellectuals who disregard Christianity. The people initially attracted
—Ouspensky and Orage, for example—were very much influenced by
Theosophy and Nietzsche and had a low opinion of Christianity
(although later on Ouspensky's viewpoint would change). Considering
themselves caretakers of the teaching, intellectuals have been
vigilant about maintaining its "purity." This is both laudable and
understandable, but in doing so have they been blind to its obvious
Christian ancestry?

When asked about the teaching's origin, Gurdjieff says it is

"esoteric Christianity, if you like." The reason he adds the words "if
you like" is because he doesn't know how much the questioner knows
about Christianity. For the Christianity of which Gurdjieff speaks has
its origin in prehistoric Egypt. "It will seem strange to many people,"
Gurdjieff said, "when I say that this prehistoric Egypt was Christian
many thousands of years before the birth of Christ, that is to say, that
its religion was composed of the same principles and ideas that
constitute true Christianity." [Emphasis added.]

The Christian Church Was a School

And after much discussion he adds: The question of the origin of

the Christian church, that is, of the Christian temple, is much more
interesting than we think. To begin with, the church and worship in
the form which they took in the first centuries of Christianity could not
have been borrowed from paganism because there was nothing like it
either in the Greek or Roman cults or in Judaism. The Jewish
synagogue, the Jewish temple, Greek and Roman temples of various
gods, were something quite different from the Christian church which
made its appearance in the first and second centuries. The Christian
church is—a school concerning which people have forgotten that it is
a school.

The idea that what Gurdjieff brought was the esoteric teaching of a
Christianity that existed before Christ seems to be a taboo subject.
Other than in articles in this journal (See The Gurdjieff Journal vol. 6,
no. 2, "Gurdjieff and Christianity" and the investigation of the subject
in the video Gurdjieff in Egypt.) it remains unexplored. If the subject is
engaged at all, it's never with intelligent argument but name calling,
which in itself suggests a psychological repression.

Sufi Merchandising

Is this why the covers of Gurdjieff's books frequently show Oriental

rugs or Arabic writing—though Gurdjieff wrote his Legominism in
Armenian and Russian and was fluent in those languages as well as
Turkish? Yes, he did sell rugs, but the usual association of Oriental
rugs is to Sufism, not Christianity. Yes, there are references to Sufis in
Gurdjieff's writings and possibly he was initiated into one or another
of their orders. But the Christianity of which he speaks—and out of
which he teaches—predates Sufism, contemporary Christianity and
Judaism by many thousands of years. In his search, yes, he did visit
Mecca, but in disguise, because he was not Muslim. There are those
who would divide Sufism from its Islamic base, but as William C.
Chittick, a noted scholar of Islam and Sufism, shows in his Faith and
Practice of Islam, one can't be a true Sufi and not be a Muslim.

If a Sufi, then Gurdjieff must have kept the Five Pillars of the
Islamic faithful. Did he? Of course not. Moreover, as we see by the
First Series, he certainly did not accept Mohammad as God's only
prophet. Are some of the songs and dances he taught Sufic in origin?
Yes. But this doesn't make The Fourth Way a Sufi teaching. One could
only argue for the teaching's not being Christian in origin if most of
what Gurdjieff lived and wrote is glossed over. Because the teaching's
origin has never been definitely stated, such New Age exemplars as
Williamson feel free to pick and choose what pleases them from
Gurdjieff's teaching (just as Robert Burton, E. J. Gold and a host of
others have done before her) and drop the rest.

It can be clearly and unequivocally stated: Gurdjieff was not a Sufi

but a Christian, who, like the teaching that he brought, is centered in
a "Christianity before Christ." These are essential questions that must
be argued, if necessary, but finally and definitively answered.
Otherwise what this new edition of In Search of the Miraculous
presumes will be the beginning of both Gurdjieff and the ancient
teaching of The Fourth Way being made Tchik.

Notes

1. Esoteric Christianity. P. D. Ouspensky, In Search of the Miraculous,

p. 102.
2. See Prayers in G. I. Gurdjieff's All and Everything (Fairfax, Calif.:
Arete Communications, 1998).
3. Orthodox funeral and burial. See J. G. Bennett, Idiots in Paris (York
Beach, Maine: Samuel Weiser, Inc.), p. 52. Here, two months before
his death, Gurdjieff recounts, as he did many times before, that
Roman Catholicism had degenerated entirely, only the Orthodox
Church had retained at least something.
4. The program of the Institute. G. I. Gurdjieff, Views from the Real
World (London: Arkana, 1984), pp. 152–54.
5. It will seem strange. Ouspensky, Search, p. 302.
6. Greek or Roman cults or in Judaism. Ibid. The common idea is that
Christianity grew out of Judaism. That it does not changes the
relationship entirely. For a learned discussion of the subject see Karl
W. Luckert's Egyptian Light and Hebrew Fire: Theological and
Philosophical Roots of Christendom in Evolutionary Perspective
(Albany, N.Y.: SUNY Press, 1991).
7. Anything but a Christian. Writes Kathryn Hulme in Undiscovered
Country (Boston, Mass.: Little Brown & Co., 1966), pp.112–13:
"Gurdjieff had given us a pledge to say each time before beginning
the new exercise—that we would not use this for the self, but for all
humanity. This 'good-wishing-for-all' vow, so deeply moving in intent,
had a tremendous effect upon me. For the first time in my life, I felt
that I was truly doing something for humanity as I strove to make my
own molecule of it more perfect. The meaning of this Work, which at
first had seemed quite egotistical and self-centered, suddenly
blossomed out like a tree of life encompassing in its myriad
branchings the entire human family. The implications of it were
staggering. By my single efforts toward Being, I could help sleeping
humanity one hairsbreadth nearer to God. I believed this. Every time I
said the pledge before beginning my exercise, I believed that if I
made something for my own inner world, I would be making it for 'all
humanity.' It was my first experiencing of the Mystical Body of Christ
of which I knew nothing then, but would encounter many years later
like a familiar concept though always shrouded in its immense
mystery."
8. William C. Chittick, Faith and Practice of Islam (Albany, N.Y.: SUNY
Press, 1992).
9. Five Pillars. Consists of saying the double Shahadah or testimony
that there is no god but God and that Muhammad is His messenger,
performing the ritual prayer, fasting during the month of Ramadan,
paying the alms-tax, and making the hajj if one has the means to do
so. Ibid., p. 3.

This article is from The Gurdjieff Journal Issue #27

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