Gurdjieff: Making a New World

by J.G. Bennett

ISBN 0060607785

Genres: Philosophy, Spirituality, Psychology

297 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1973

About the author

John Godolphin Bennett (8 June 1897 – 13 December 1974) was a British mathematician, scientist, technologist, industrial research director and author. He is perhaps best known for his many books on psychology and spirituality, particularly on the teachings of G. I. Gurdjieff. Bennett met Gurdjieff in Istanbul in October 1920 and later helped to co-ordinate the work of Gurdjieff in England after Gurdjieff's arrival in Paris. He also was active in starting the British section of the Subud movement, and co-founded its British headquarters.

Reviews

[Fred Jenkins · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a book to read slowly and reread. Bennett includes a number of things not readily available. Particulary noteworthy items include the original preface to Ouspensky's In Search of the Miraculous, which was never published and provides a very different view of O. Bennett provides a lot of background on G.'s life and the sources of his teachings. He also discusses a number of the more difficult words from Beelzebub's Tales and makes a lot of useful connections. The appendices are by no means peripheral, but include much of value. The end of appendix 2 has one of the clearer explanations of the Enneagram that I have encountered.

[Maureen · Rating 5 out of 5]

An indispensable introduction to the Gurdjieff work, Gurdjieff: Making a New World makes both Gurdjieff the man and his ideas more understandable. The author, J.G. Bennett, traces Gurdjieff's earliest influences, ancient Eastern prophets and religious leaders like Zoroaster, and the great Sufi teacher Khwaja Naq'shbandi. He discusses how Gurdjieff was educated by the spiritual descendants of these leaders, and how he went about establishing his groups. It also goes into some detail about the Gurdjieff ideas, and benefits from the photographs and diagrams which grace its pages.

Bennett ends the book with this paragraph:
"Gurdjieff's elaborate symbolism, uncouth neologisms, and changes of terminology were not employed to mislead and obstruct his followers, but to ensure that they would make the effort to discover the meanings for themselves. Explanation is often a fictitious help. Initiation is real enough, but it does not consist in making things easy for the seeker."

[Duncan Swann · Rating 5 out of 5]

Outstanding book.

[Mitch Olson · Rating 4 out of 5]

It’s taken me so long to finish this book that I can’t remember all of the value I have got from it. Bennett is my favourite student of Gurdjieff and I suspect this is one of the better introductions to Gurdjieff’s ideas.

[Y · Rating 5 out of 5]

Bennett gives a very well done explanation of Gurdjieff’s work, the history of the work, and tries to put into larger context/origin/lineage what Gurdjieff was teaching.

Bennett is extremely knowledgeable about Gurdjieff’s work and he is able to provide an explanation of it that I felt was more thorough than Ouspensky’s, although maybe not for someone brand new to the topic. He goes into interpreting parts of Beelzebub’s Tales and the symbolism that went straight over my head when I read them.

Bennett also spends quite a bit of time theorizing whether there is an “Inner Circle of Humanity”, a group of humans (or maybe not human) that seed knowledge and steer the world towards some ultimate goal. He describes the “strong view” and the “weak view”, with strong being this Inner Circle has superhuman powers and knowledge and might have non-human assistance. The weak view in contrast is that there are certain intellectual lineages or secret societies that have secret teachings, but they are just made of normal people. Either way (Bennett doesn’t venture a guess) he believes Gurdjieff studied with these ones and was sent out as an evangelist. This paints Gurdjieff from a master to an emissary. Bennett tries to uncover the origins of Gurdjieff’s teachings, actually traversing Asia in his search. While there is no smoking gun, he does get clues that point to Sufic origins, and further back to Greece or Zoroastrianism. As part of his evidence, he refers to The Book of the Bee (which I was surprised to see), which was written in 13th century Syria. It refers to an alleged Zoroastrian prophecy about Christ, which is taken as a transference between to the religions.