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The Force of Gurdjieff, Vol. 3: Oragean Version by C. Daly King
A magnum opus somehow similar with Ouspensky's Fragments, this version of the Gurdjieffian teaching contains all the theoretical and practical aspects along with never before published diagrams and a coherent presentation of Gurdjieff exercises, transmitted only orally until now. Written by C. Daly King - who received first hand information from Gurdjieff, Ouspensky and Orage - is now available for the first time to the general public. The only version with corrected text and remastered diagrams. Foreword - 9 - Premises - 15 - The Subject and the Attitude - 55 - Part 1. The body of knowledge. A scientific method. Impartiality. The fundamental questions. - 56 - Part 2. Levels of knowledge. The course of exposition. Language and terms. Reality and Unreality. - 62 - Part 3. What is the attitude? The map and the continents. Accuracy. The disease of suggestibility. - 76 - Part 4. Personal verification. The localities and the boat. - 80 - Part 5. Mankind in the Universe. The Law of the Octave. Examples of octavic relationships. The Law of the Three. Examples. - 82 - Part 6. The origin of the information. The Esoteric schools. Why the secrecy? - 96 - The Local Map - 101 - Part 1. Neurological structures. Normal vs. Abnormal. The point of departure. - 102 - Part 2. The functions of man. The centers. Heredity and environment. The Magnetic Centre. - 113 - Part 3. Functional Types. The “I”. Identification. Automatic roles. Consciousness. Free Will. The fallacy of reform. The Equipage. The Prince. - 129 - Part 4. Levels of consciousness. Man’s natural function in the Universe. The Myth of the Black Sheep. The Cosmic Ray. The Organic Kingdom. - 150 - Part 5. Mechanisms of bondage. Kundalini and Kundabuffer. Imagination. Self-Calming. The human potential. - 171 - Part 6. The potential centers. The universal octave. Centers and functions. The three foods. Digestion stages. - 181 - The Boat - 204 - Part 1. The Open Secret and the Hidden Secret. Warnings. The actual postulant. Between two chairs. - 205 - Part 2. The threefold image of oneself. Sincerity and humor. Sane objectivity. Organizing your work. The Portrait. Positive and negative human types. The life review. The nightly review. Personality and essence. Chief Feature. Animal Types. Dangers of self-knowledge. Impartiality towards oneself. - 209 - Part 3. The four states of consciousness. Self-Observation and Self-Consciousness. - 239 - Part 4. The four ways. The technique of Self-Observation. “I” and “it”. Dangers of breathing exercises. The second Participation. Common Sense. The third Experiment. Changing habits. The balanced day. The weather. The vow. Artificial reminders. Self-Remembering. - 254 - Part 5. The effects of Self-Observation on the organism. The organic location of digestion stages. Activation of centers. Subcentres. The three organic bodies. The second conscious shock. - 338 - Part 6. The first stage of the Method. The scientific procedure. Verification of conclusions. - 371 - Part 7. Voluntary Suffering and Conscious Labor. Negative emotions. Pondering. Sin-eating. The complete outline of the Method. - 378 - The Greater Map - 390 - Part 1. The outline of the universe. The hidden knowledge of genuine schools. - 391 - Part 2. The “I”. A normal human action. Sympathy and compassion. Conscience. Morality. The Comfort Bed. Useless worries. Faith, Hope and Love. Art. Symbols. The Enneagram. Man in the Universe. Information sources. - 395 - Part 3. The cosmoses. Atom. Hydrogen. Table of hydrogens. Universal relationships. Man’s energy sources. Types of reason. Prospects. - 447 - Part 4. Time dimensionality. The time-organ. The first dimension of time. Simultaneity. Memory. Three-dimensional time. Relative time. Incarnation and Reincarnation. Physical time. Recurrence. The life path. - 493 - Destination - 537 - Oragean Aphorisms - 538 - Summation - 563 - The Destiny of Man. - 569 - Reckoning - 571 - Appendix - 576 - The Ouspenskian Version - 577 -
486 pages, Paperback
First published May 18, 2014
24 people want to read
About the author
G.I. Gurdjieff
120 books726 followersGeorges Ivanovich Gurdjieff (Armenian: Գեորգի Իվանովիչ Գյուրջիև, Georgian: გიორგი გურჯიევი, Greek: Γεώργιος Γεωργιάδης, Russian: Гео́ргий Ива́нович Гюрджи́ев, Georgiy Ivanovich Gyurdzhiev, or Gurdjiev) was an influential Greek-Armenian mystic, spiritual teacher of the early to mid-20th century, and a self-professed 'teacher of dancing'.
He taught that the vast majority of humanity lives their entire lives in a state of hypnotic "waking sleep," but that it was possible to transcend to a higher state of consciousness and achieve full human potential. Gurdjieff developed a method for doing so, calling his discipline "The Work" (connoting "work on oneself") or "the Method." According to his principles and instructions, Gurdjieff's method for awakening one's consciousness is different from that of the fakir, monk or yogi, so his discipline is also called (originally) the "Fourth Way." At one point he described his teaching as being "esoteric Christianity."
At different times in his life, Gurdjieff formed and closed various schools around the world to teach the work. He claimed that the teachings he brought to the West from his own experiences and early travels expressed the truth found in ancient religions and wisdom teachings relating to self-awareness in people's daily lives and humanity's place in the universe. The title of his third series of writings, Life Is Real Only Then, When 'I Am', expresses the essence of his teachings. His complete series of books is entitled All and Everything.
He taught that the vast majority of humanity lives their entire lives in a state of hypnotic "waking sleep," but that it was possible to transcend to a higher state of consciousness and achieve full human potential. Gurdjieff developed a method for doing so, calling his discipline "The Work" (connoting "work on oneself") or "the Method." According to his principles and instructions, Gurdjieff's method for awakening one's consciousness is different from that of the fakir, monk or yogi, so his discipline is also called (originally) the "Fourth Way." At one point he described his teaching as being "esoteric Christianity."
At different times in his life, Gurdjieff formed and closed various schools around the world to teach the work. He claimed that the teachings he brought to the West from his own experiences and early travels expressed the truth found in ancient religions and wisdom teachings relating to self-awareness in people's daily lives and humanity's place in the universe. The title of his third series of writings, Life Is Real Only Then, When 'I Am', expresses the essence of his teachings. His complete series of books is entitled All and Everything.
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
March 4, 2025
Once again, my 4-star rating depends on your interest and background. If you are obsessed with all things Gurdjieffian and Fourth Way, you should find this interesting. If not,I can hardly imagine why you'd even start it.
Overall, I'm glad that this manuscript has been made available. And there are a few gems within.
To describe it, you need be at least familiar with A. R. Orage and P. D. Ouspensky, each of whom studied closely and personally with Gurdjieff for many years. In later years, each either broke with him or were disavowed by him as teachers, in intricate and complicated fashions.
Orage taught what he believed was an accurate version of G.'s teachings in the U.S. for some time, but around 1930 G. told Orage's students that he was no longer permitted to teach G.'s system. Orage actually signed a pledge agreeing to do so, and a few years later returned to the UK. He died unexpectedly in 1934, significantly, before the publication of "Beelzebub's Tales" or Ouspensky's "Man's Possible Evolution".
C. Daly King was a close friend and student of Orage's, and took copious notes on their extensive discussions of the work. The "Oragean Version" is King's reconstruction, as accurately as he could create it, of the Work as Orage understood it. King wrote in the original manuscript that he absolutely forbade its publication, saying that he could not be responsible for the text's misapplication outside of a legitimate School. That is, he feared that possibly well-meaning people would attempt to work the system without proper guidance and checks and end up hopelessly lost or worse. Thus he wrote what he hoped would be an accurate reconstruction of Orage's "System", using his many years familiarity with it and his volumes of notes. A few copies were made of the original typescript, and the date given at the end of the Introduction is 1949 (thus before the publication of "Beelzebub's Tales...")
I am sorta familiar with G.'s System from several readings of "Beelzebub's Tales" and his other works, reading Ouspensky's works (particular "Man's Possible Evolution" a couple times), and reading many other secondary sources, including many J. G. Bennett works, and James Moore's and Needleman and Baker's books.
C. Daly King is another issue entirely, and if you're interested in this subject, see my review of his book "The States of Human Consciousness" (1963).
Two things that struck me most about this book (and the above King book): it's quite amazing how science has progressed since the mid-40s; many of the physiological theories that he bases his ideas on have been pretty much superseded, this is almost notable in "The Oragean Version". Also, the fact that all these things were written before "Beelzebub's Tales" I think is telling. Basically, G. took the tack that the Work couldn't be transmitted in a linear fashion like physics or math, whereas King, and I presume Orage, could never quite get their heads around the idea that the work it had to be transmitted "tangentially."
What is the reason for the importance of G.'s system and its value is a very complicated subject. From a simplistic point of view: would it be worth a lifetime of incredibly difficult work to become a being on a different evolutionary level all but a handful of other human beings? Is that a world that you would want to live in? Ask an idiot savant or a neurodiverse person. Maybe the answer is not so simple.
There are a few typos, but due to the nature of this, and possibly the fact the publishers are Romanian (!), they aren't so pervasive or egregious to confuse the sense of the text.
It's apparently print-on-demand, soft cover, but well-enough made.
Overall, I'm glad that this manuscript has been made available. And there are a few gems within.
To describe it, you need be at least familiar with A. R. Orage and P. D. Ouspensky, each of whom studied closely and personally with Gurdjieff for many years. In later years, each either broke with him or were disavowed by him as teachers, in intricate and complicated fashions.
Orage taught what he believed was an accurate version of G.'s teachings in the U.S. for some time, but around 1930 G. told Orage's students that he was no longer permitted to teach G.'s system. Orage actually signed a pledge agreeing to do so, and a few years later returned to the UK. He died unexpectedly in 1934, significantly, before the publication of "Beelzebub's Tales" or Ouspensky's "Man's Possible Evolution".
C. Daly King was a close friend and student of Orage's, and took copious notes on their extensive discussions of the work. The "Oragean Version" is King's reconstruction, as accurately as he could create it, of the Work as Orage understood it. King wrote in the original manuscript that he absolutely forbade its publication, saying that he could not be responsible for the text's misapplication outside of a legitimate School. That is, he feared that possibly well-meaning people would attempt to work the system without proper guidance and checks and end up hopelessly lost or worse. Thus he wrote what he hoped would be an accurate reconstruction of Orage's "System", using his many years familiarity with it and his volumes of notes. A few copies were made of the original typescript, and the date given at the end of the Introduction is 1949 (thus before the publication of "Beelzebub's Tales...")
I am sorta familiar with G.'s System from several readings of "Beelzebub's Tales" and his other works, reading Ouspensky's works (particular "Man's Possible Evolution" a couple times), and reading many other secondary sources, including many J. G. Bennett works, and James Moore's and Needleman and Baker's books.
C. Daly King is another issue entirely, and if you're interested in this subject, see my review of his book "The States of Human Consciousness" (1963).
Two things that struck me most about this book (and the above King book): it's quite amazing how science has progressed since the mid-40s; many of the physiological theories that he bases his ideas on have been pretty much superseded, this is almost notable in "The Oragean Version". Also, the fact that all these things were written before "Beelzebub's Tales" I think is telling. Basically, G. took the tack that the Work couldn't be transmitted in a linear fashion like physics or math, whereas King, and I presume Orage, could never quite get their heads around the idea that the work it had to be transmitted "tangentially."
What is the reason for the importance of G.'s system and its value is a very complicated subject. From a simplistic point of view: would it be worth a lifetime of incredibly difficult work to become a being on a different evolutionary level all but a handful of other human beings? Is that a world that you would want to live in? Ask an idiot savant or a neurodiverse person. Maybe the answer is not so simple.
There are a few typos, but due to the nature of this, and possibly the fact the publishers are Romanian (!), they aren't so pervasive or egregious to confuse the sense of the text.
It's apparently print-on-demand, soft cover, but well-enough made.
Displaying 1 of 1 review