What do you think?
Rate this book
Deconstructing Gurdjieff: Biography of a Spiritual Magician
Beyond Meetings with Remarkable Men into the truth behind the self-crafted mythology of Gurdjieff’s life
• Reveals evidence that Gurdjieff was a secret Freemason, relying on hypnotism, psychic research and spiritualism
• Explores the profound influence of the Yezidis, esoteric Christianity, and the “gnostics” of Islam, the Sufis, on Gurdjieff’s Fourth Way teachings and the “Work”
• Uncovers the truth behind Gurdjieff’s relations with Aleister Crowley
• Accurately dates Gurdjieff’s real activities, particularly his enigmatic early life
In November 1949, architect Frank Lloyd Wright announced the death of “the greatest man in the world,” yet few knew who he was talking about. Enigmatic, misunderstood, declared a charlatan, and recently dubbed “the Rasputin who inspired Mary Poppins,” Gurdjieff’s life has become a legend. But who really was George Ivanovich Gurdjieff?
Employing the latest research and discoveries, including previously unpublished reminiscences of the real man, Tobias Churton investigates the truth beneath the self-crafted mythology of Gurdjieff’s life recounted in Meetings with Remarkable Men . He examines his controversial birthdate, his father’s background, and his relationship with his private tutor Dean Borshch, revealing a perilous childhood in a Pontic Greek family, persecuted by Turks, forced to migrate to Georgia and Armenia, only to grow up amid more war, persecution, genocide, and revolt. Placing Gurdjieff in the true context of his times, Churton explores Gurdjieff’s roles in esoteric movements taking root in the Russian Empire and in epic imperial construction projects in the Kars Oblast, Transcaucasia, and central Asia. He reveals Gurdjieff’s sources for his transformative philosophy, his early interest in hypnosis, magic, Theosophy, and spiritualism, and the profound influence of the Yezidis and the Sufis, the “gnostics” of Islam, on Gurdjieff’s Fourth Way teachings and the “Work.” Churton also explores Gurdjieff’s ties to Freemasonry and his relationships with other spiritual teachers and philosophers of the age, such as Madame Blavatsky, Frank Lloyd Wright, and Aleister Crowley, dispelling the myth that Gurdjieff forcibly expelled the “Great Beast” from his Institute.
Showing how Gurdjieff deliberately re-shaped elements of his life as parables of his system, Churton explains how he didn’t want people to follow his footsteps but to find their own, to wake up from the hypnosis that drives us blindly through life. Offering a vital understanding of the man who asked “How many of you are really alive?” the author reveals the continuing importance of Gurdjieff’s philosophy for the awakening of man.
• Reveals evidence that Gurdjieff was a secret Freemason, relying on hypnotism, psychic research and spiritualism
• Explores the profound influence of the Yezidis, esoteric Christianity, and the “gnostics” of Islam, the Sufis, on Gurdjieff’s Fourth Way teachings and the “Work”
• Uncovers the truth behind Gurdjieff’s relations with Aleister Crowley
• Accurately dates Gurdjieff’s real activities, particularly his enigmatic early life
In November 1949, architect Frank Lloyd Wright announced the death of “the greatest man in the world,” yet few knew who he was talking about. Enigmatic, misunderstood, declared a charlatan, and recently dubbed “the Rasputin who inspired Mary Poppins,” Gurdjieff’s life has become a legend. But who really was George Ivanovich Gurdjieff?
Employing the latest research and discoveries, including previously unpublished reminiscences of the real man, Tobias Churton investigates the truth beneath the self-crafted mythology of Gurdjieff’s life recounted in Meetings with Remarkable Men . He examines his controversial birthdate, his father’s background, and his relationship with his private tutor Dean Borshch, revealing a perilous childhood in a Pontic Greek family, persecuted by Turks, forced to migrate to Georgia and Armenia, only to grow up amid more war, persecution, genocide, and revolt. Placing Gurdjieff in the true context of his times, Churton explores Gurdjieff’s roles in esoteric movements taking root in the Russian Empire and in epic imperial construction projects in the Kars Oblast, Transcaucasia, and central Asia. He reveals Gurdjieff’s sources for his transformative philosophy, his early interest in hypnosis, magic, Theosophy, and spiritualism, and the profound influence of the Yezidis and the Sufis, the “gnostics” of Islam, on Gurdjieff’s Fourth Way teachings and the “Work.” Churton also explores Gurdjieff’s ties to Freemasonry and his relationships with other spiritual teachers and philosophers of the age, such as Madame Blavatsky, Frank Lloyd Wright, and Aleister Crowley, dispelling the myth that Gurdjieff forcibly expelled the “Great Beast” from his Institute.
Showing how Gurdjieff deliberately re-shaped elements of his life as parables of his system, Churton explains how he didn’t want people to follow his footsteps but to find their own, to wake up from the hypnosis that drives us blindly through life. Offering a vital understanding of the man who asked “How many of you are really alive?” the author reveals the continuing importance of Gurdjieff’s philosophy for the awakening of man.
- GenresBiography
368 pages, Hardcover
Published June 13, 2017
12 people are currently reading
71 people want to read
About the author
Tobias Churton
47 books78 followersTobias Churton is a filmmaker and the founding editor of the magazine "Freemasonry Today". He studied theology at Oxford University and created the award-winning documentary series and accompanying book The Gnostics, as well as several other films on Christian doctrine, mysticism, and magical folklore, such as "A Mighty Good Man" (2002), a documentary on Elias Ashmole, his religious ideas and Masonic initiation in 1646. He is currently a lecturer on Freemasonry at the Exeter Centre for the Study of Esotericism, Exeter University. He lives in England.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
July 26, 2017
This is a great modern biography of Gurdjieff. It presents the facts, the fiction and the interpretations of his life as we know them - and there a plenty of the later two.
Churton spends most of this book sorting through the more mysterious and poorly documented early periods of Gurdjieff's life. Of course this is the time of his formation that results in his later endeavours and teaching. There is so much detail on Gurdjieff's early travels that a few more maps would be of great assistance to understanding the proposed storyline. With changing city names, country borders and great movements of people, it is difficult to keep up with the developments of his life during the late 19th and early 20th Century.
Churton does an excellent job of pulling together Gurdjieff's myths and analogies presented in his books that surely are more like parables than history. For the attentive reader this opens up the door to what is really important in Gurdjieff's thoughts and writings.
By laying things out in this book it helps to clarify some of the real mystery and some of the real truths about the man. By working against Gurdjieff's wishes to "bury the dog deeper" this biography may prove useful for some readers in approaching his life's work.
Churton spends most of this book sorting through the more mysterious and poorly documented early periods of Gurdjieff's life. Of course this is the time of his formation that results in his later endeavours and teaching. There is so much detail on Gurdjieff's early travels that a few more maps would be of great assistance to understanding the proposed storyline. With changing city names, country borders and great movements of people, it is difficult to keep up with the developments of his life during the late 19th and early 20th Century.
Churton does an excellent job of pulling together Gurdjieff's myths and analogies presented in his books that surely are more like parables than history. For the attentive reader this opens up the door to what is really important in Gurdjieff's thoughts and writings.
By laying things out in this book it helps to clarify some of the real mystery and some of the real truths about the man. By working against Gurdjieff's wishes to "bury the dog deeper" this biography may prove useful for some readers in approaching his life's work.
December 3, 2019
Wake up. You are asleep. You cannot perceive reality, as you trapped within your own subjectivity, a mere automaton of the senses, a machine. Only by practicing "the Work” will you able to transcend these limitations of consciousness and awaken. So declared the perplexing, enigmatic Greek-Armenian G.I. Gurdjieff (1873-1949), who, while alternatively described as a charlatan, megalomaniac, Oriental rug salesman, remains among the most important – and controversial – spiritual leaders of the West in the 20th century. In this new biography, which amends earlier biographies with its thorough use of contemporary sources, Tobias Churton, scholar and author of Aleister Crowley: The Beast in Berlin and Occult Paris, takes on this difficult subject, arguing that, for all their occult and esoteric roots, Gurdjieff’s ideas largely represent a patchwork of Gnosticism and reconstituted Masonry. Such a bold claim, while not exactly novel, is certain to rankle Gurdjieff’s followers and admirers, though any book with a title that purposefully foregrounds “deconstructing,” with all its concomitant intimations of exposing flaws or inconsistencies, should be a major red flag for those who question the accuracy of the historical record.
In fact, despite Churton’s best efforts at deciphering what is extant, solid historical evidence remains in short supply. Thus, Deconstructing Gurdjieff, like all preceding Gurdjieff biographies, depends a great deal on interpretation and speculation. For example, not much is known of Gurdjieff’s childhood and background; to date most of the information concerning Gurdjieff’s early years is provided by Gurdjieff himself, and given his tendency toward self-mythologizing, the veracity of this account remains questionable. Raised in the multi-ethnic, religiously syncretic Turkish region of Kars, Gurdjieff was introduced to a number of different cultures and religious ideologies, in particular that of the Kurdish-speaking Yazidis, whose beliefs are comprised of a unique mélange of Zoroastrianism, Christian, Islam, and Judaism. Because of this variety of influences, Gurdjieff came to question dogmatic belief systems, be they religious or scientific. Gurdjieff later claimed that his education involved travels to far-flung regions of the East, including Tibet, India, Egypt, Iran, and Rome, where he encountered “seekers of truth,” namely dervishes, fakirs, and the remnants of the long extinct tribe of Essenes in a Sarmoung monastery. His account of these alleged travels, Meetings with Remarkable Men (1927; published 1963) – complete with a map of an ancient “pre-sand” Egypt – is considered by most scholars to be largely a work of fiction.
Returning to Moscow in 1912, Gurdjieff began to collect the first of his many students, many of whom leaned toward the intellectual, and artistic. Gurdjieff himself exhibited artistic tendencies, particularly toward music, literature, and dance – though he viewed art as a means of achieving truth, and not in possession of truth value in and of itself – composing an allegorical ballet, an "accurate picture of Oriental magic" set in India, entitled The Struggle of the Magicians (1914-1919), which interestingly enough, anticipated his later philosophical texts. An advertisement for the “Hindu”-authored ballet, published in the St. Petersburg paper The Voice of Moscow, attracted the attention of one of its editors, the philosopher, author, and seeker P.D. Ouspensky, who became Gurdjieff’s most important pupil and collaborator, and later author of In Search of the Miraculous (1949), to date the best and most authoritative introduction to Gurdjieff’s ideas. At Ouspensky’s urging, the decidedly non-dogmatic nor systematic Gurdjieff concretized his complex and eccentric system, couched in language that is alternately scientific and occult.
According to Gurdjieff, a human has three different “centers,” consisting of the mind, body, and emotions. Accordingly, each of these centers is cultivated to the detriment of the others, resulting in an imbalance. The three paths to spiritual enlightenment, those of the monk, yogi, and fakir, demanded that the practitioner reject modern life. Gurdjieff’s (or rather Ouspensky's) system, “the Fourth Way,” allowed seekers of spiritual enlightenment to do so without abandoning their 20th century lifestyles. As a correction to deficiencies and imbalances, Gurdjieff’s discipline, called “the Work,” would exercise each of the three centers to create balance and to awaken one from the sleep that resulted from the limitations they imposed.
This system held more appeal for the decidedly intellectual Ouspensky and his disagreement with Gurdjieff over its importance to “the Work” contributed to their eventual split. Ouspensky began his own group, utilizing the “Fourth Way” as its basis, while Gurdjieff’s own philosophy and teachings – in 1921 he established the Institute for the Harmonious Development of Man near Paris – absent the rationalizing influence of Ouspensky, tended toward the extreme. Gurdjieff’s method involved conscious attention to the self, which often depended on physical activity, be it labor or dance. He collaborated with composer Thomas de Hartmann, producing music for a variety of sacred dances, called “movements,” which were intended to increase awareness of the interconnectedness of the three centers. He instituted “stop” exercises wherein students were instructed to physically freeze in place, with the goal of perceiving one’s inner state at that moment. Like a Zen master, Gurdjieff often berated his students, alternating kindnesses and cruelties, attention and ignorance, and so on, in order, he claimed, to keep them from regressing into habits of mind, i.e. a “waking sleep,” a similar desired outcome in Zen Buddhism.
In this sense, and coupled with his grandiosity, demands for obedience, rigidity, aloofness, and charm, Gurdjieff arguably exhibited qualities often associated with cult leaders. Deeply charismatic, he attracted many intellectually gifted followers during his lifetime, including Ouspensky, de Hartmann, Jane Heap, Jeanne de Salzmann, Maurice Nicoll, John G. Bennet, and A.R. Orage. As a result, the Gurdjieffian literature, consisting of lectures, essays, book-length manuscripts, exegesis, and memoirs, is considerable, and the wide-ranging influence of “the Work” – the result, Churton contends, of its being rather syncretic and vaguely defined – has in many ways legitimized its practice. Gurdjieff’s emphasis on stoic introspection and self-examination appealed to Western students during the 20th century, a period when Eastern and ancient philosophies began to be introduced and reintroduced in popular culture. Moreover, his borrowings from occult literature, esotericism, Vedism, and Pythagoreanism – particularly in his enneagram (pictured on the cover to Churton’s book) and Gurdjieff’s belief in a harmonious, vibratory structure to the universe – hold a similar appeal.
Following a car accident in 1924 and resulting intimations of mortality, Gurdjieff began work in earnest on his own contribution to the literature, beginning with a privately printed The Herald of the Coming Good (1933), which outlined what was to be his magnum opus, the intentionally grandiosely entitled All and Everything, the first part of which was the 1,238 page, deliberately obscure Beelzebub’s Tales to His Grandson (composed 1924-1927; not published until 1950), among the strangest and most dense works of 20th century occult literature – written in such a way, Gurdjieff explained, as to demand the reader’s attention. Subtitled An Objectively Impartial Criticism of the Life of Man, the “novel” consists of the philosophical reflections on the history of the human race by an extraterrestrial known as "Beelzebub" to his grandson, recounting during a long return journey to their home planet. From 1927 to 1935, Gurdjieff completed the second and third parts of All and Everything, Meetings with Remarkable Men and Life is Real Only Then, When 'I Am' (1974), though all of these works would be published posthumously in versions edited and translated by his followers. For Churton, these works are “filled with pseudo-objectivity... and arch pretentiousness” and, unsurprisingly, are not to be trusted as sources of autobiography. Instead, he argues, their ultimate value lies in what they can tell us about Gurdjieff as a personality, a teacher, and thinker.
Indeed, Churton’s principal intention with this biography appears to be a simple interrogation of Gurdjieff’s ideas and practices, with the overarching aim of reducing Gurdjieffian thought and the appeal of “the Work” to a cult of personality and mere manipulation. To that end, Churton is at pains to attach these undeniably esoteric writings as deriving principally from Masonic sources; indeed, Churton argues that the “seekers of truth” mentioned in Meetings may in fact be a Masonic Lodge and his three centers has its basis in the Masonic “rule of three.” Given Gurdjieff’s inclusiveness, such derivations, however unlikely, are not outside the realm of possibility. Gurdjieff, for his part, long maintained only generalized derivations from ancient philosophy, primarily Sufism and Yezidism. In many ways, Gurdjieff both as personality and teacher defies easy categorization demanded by the limitations of biographical narrative, especially the thematically-limited variety engaged in by Churton. There is value here in grappling with the historical record, yet what is most interesting about Gurdjieff is the method, and not the alleged madness. -- Eric Hoffman, Fortean Times
In fact, despite Churton’s best efforts at deciphering what is extant, solid historical evidence remains in short supply. Thus, Deconstructing Gurdjieff, like all preceding Gurdjieff biographies, depends a great deal on interpretation and speculation. For example, not much is known of Gurdjieff’s childhood and background; to date most of the information concerning Gurdjieff’s early years is provided by Gurdjieff himself, and given his tendency toward self-mythologizing, the veracity of this account remains questionable. Raised in the multi-ethnic, religiously syncretic Turkish region of Kars, Gurdjieff was introduced to a number of different cultures and religious ideologies, in particular that of the Kurdish-speaking Yazidis, whose beliefs are comprised of a unique mélange of Zoroastrianism, Christian, Islam, and Judaism. Because of this variety of influences, Gurdjieff came to question dogmatic belief systems, be they religious or scientific. Gurdjieff later claimed that his education involved travels to far-flung regions of the East, including Tibet, India, Egypt, Iran, and Rome, where he encountered “seekers of truth,” namely dervishes, fakirs, and the remnants of the long extinct tribe of Essenes in a Sarmoung monastery. His account of these alleged travels, Meetings with Remarkable Men (1927; published 1963) – complete with a map of an ancient “pre-sand” Egypt – is considered by most scholars to be largely a work of fiction.
Returning to Moscow in 1912, Gurdjieff began to collect the first of his many students, many of whom leaned toward the intellectual, and artistic. Gurdjieff himself exhibited artistic tendencies, particularly toward music, literature, and dance – though he viewed art as a means of achieving truth, and not in possession of truth value in and of itself – composing an allegorical ballet, an "accurate picture of Oriental magic" set in India, entitled The Struggle of the Magicians (1914-1919), which interestingly enough, anticipated his later philosophical texts. An advertisement for the “Hindu”-authored ballet, published in the St. Petersburg paper The Voice of Moscow, attracted the attention of one of its editors, the philosopher, author, and seeker P.D. Ouspensky, who became Gurdjieff’s most important pupil and collaborator, and later author of In Search of the Miraculous (1949), to date the best and most authoritative introduction to Gurdjieff’s ideas. At Ouspensky’s urging, the decidedly non-dogmatic nor systematic Gurdjieff concretized his complex and eccentric system, couched in language that is alternately scientific and occult.
According to Gurdjieff, a human has three different “centers,” consisting of the mind, body, and emotions. Accordingly, each of these centers is cultivated to the detriment of the others, resulting in an imbalance. The three paths to spiritual enlightenment, those of the monk, yogi, and fakir, demanded that the practitioner reject modern life. Gurdjieff’s (or rather Ouspensky's) system, “the Fourth Way,” allowed seekers of spiritual enlightenment to do so without abandoning their 20th century lifestyles. As a correction to deficiencies and imbalances, Gurdjieff’s discipline, called “the Work,” would exercise each of the three centers to create balance and to awaken one from the sleep that resulted from the limitations they imposed.
This system held more appeal for the decidedly intellectual Ouspensky and his disagreement with Gurdjieff over its importance to “the Work” contributed to their eventual split. Ouspensky began his own group, utilizing the “Fourth Way” as its basis, while Gurdjieff’s own philosophy and teachings – in 1921 he established the Institute for the Harmonious Development of Man near Paris – absent the rationalizing influence of Ouspensky, tended toward the extreme. Gurdjieff’s method involved conscious attention to the self, which often depended on physical activity, be it labor or dance. He collaborated with composer Thomas de Hartmann, producing music for a variety of sacred dances, called “movements,” which were intended to increase awareness of the interconnectedness of the three centers. He instituted “stop” exercises wherein students were instructed to physically freeze in place, with the goal of perceiving one’s inner state at that moment. Like a Zen master, Gurdjieff often berated his students, alternating kindnesses and cruelties, attention and ignorance, and so on, in order, he claimed, to keep them from regressing into habits of mind, i.e. a “waking sleep,” a similar desired outcome in Zen Buddhism.
In this sense, and coupled with his grandiosity, demands for obedience, rigidity, aloofness, and charm, Gurdjieff arguably exhibited qualities often associated with cult leaders. Deeply charismatic, he attracted many intellectually gifted followers during his lifetime, including Ouspensky, de Hartmann, Jane Heap, Jeanne de Salzmann, Maurice Nicoll, John G. Bennet, and A.R. Orage. As a result, the Gurdjieffian literature, consisting of lectures, essays, book-length manuscripts, exegesis, and memoirs, is considerable, and the wide-ranging influence of “the Work” – the result, Churton contends, of its being rather syncretic and vaguely defined – has in many ways legitimized its practice. Gurdjieff’s emphasis on stoic introspection and self-examination appealed to Western students during the 20th century, a period when Eastern and ancient philosophies began to be introduced and reintroduced in popular culture. Moreover, his borrowings from occult literature, esotericism, Vedism, and Pythagoreanism – particularly in his enneagram (pictured on the cover to Churton’s book) and Gurdjieff’s belief in a harmonious, vibratory structure to the universe – hold a similar appeal.
Following a car accident in 1924 and resulting intimations of mortality, Gurdjieff began work in earnest on his own contribution to the literature, beginning with a privately printed The Herald of the Coming Good (1933), which outlined what was to be his magnum opus, the intentionally grandiosely entitled All and Everything, the first part of which was the 1,238 page, deliberately obscure Beelzebub’s Tales to His Grandson (composed 1924-1927; not published until 1950), among the strangest and most dense works of 20th century occult literature – written in such a way, Gurdjieff explained, as to demand the reader’s attention. Subtitled An Objectively Impartial Criticism of the Life of Man, the “novel” consists of the philosophical reflections on the history of the human race by an extraterrestrial known as "Beelzebub" to his grandson, recounting during a long return journey to their home planet. From 1927 to 1935, Gurdjieff completed the second and third parts of All and Everything, Meetings with Remarkable Men and Life is Real Only Then, When 'I Am' (1974), though all of these works would be published posthumously in versions edited and translated by his followers. For Churton, these works are “filled with pseudo-objectivity... and arch pretentiousness” and, unsurprisingly, are not to be trusted as sources of autobiography. Instead, he argues, their ultimate value lies in what they can tell us about Gurdjieff as a personality, a teacher, and thinker.
Indeed, Churton’s principal intention with this biography appears to be a simple interrogation of Gurdjieff’s ideas and practices, with the overarching aim of reducing Gurdjieffian thought and the appeal of “the Work” to a cult of personality and mere manipulation. To that end, Churton is at pains to attach these undeniably esoteric writings as deriving principally from Masonic sources; indeed, Churton argues that the “seekers of truth” mentioned in Meetings may in fact be a Masonic Lodge and his three centers has its basis in the Masonic “rule of three.” Given Gurdjieff’s inclusiveness, such derivations, however unlikely, are not outside the realm of possibility. Gurdjieff, for his part, long maintained only generalized derivations from ancient philosophy, primarily Sufism and Yezidism. In many ways, Gurdjieff both as personality and teacher defies easy categorization demanded by the limitations of biographical narrative, especially the thematically-limited variety engaged in by Churton. There is value here in grappling with the historical record, yet what is most interesting about Gurdjieff is the method, and not the alleged madness. -- Eric Hoffman, Fortean Times
December 11, 2017
Well worth it!
Unravels the great enigma that is G. I. Gurdjieff. Fast paced and fascinating it uncovers the triumphs and failures of the remarkable man,his teachings and almost mythical life stories.
Unravels the great enigma that is G. I. Gurdjieff. Fast paced and fascinating it uncovers the triumphs and failures of the remarkable man,his teachings and almost mythical life stories.
September 22, 2022
Amazon reviews
DEStructing Gurdjieff or DECONStructing Gurdjieff?
This new book authored by Oxford graduate and professional writer Tobias Churton, fulfills the profile depicted by Mr. Gurdjieff in Beelzebub Tales under its chapter I (The arousing of thought), when Mr. Gurdjieff, about contemporary writers, affirms:
"This strange disease is manifested by this, that if the invalid is somewhat literate and his rent is paid for three months in advance, he (she or it) unfailingly begins to write a either some 'instructive article' or a whole book."
Mr. Churton's book is a full compendium of the 'literary language of the bon-ton', 'the grammatical wiseacrings of professional writers' as well as 'the literary language of the intelligentsia'.
Mr. Churton depicts an allegedly low-self steem Gurdjieff presumably because he did not get a college degree as Mr. Churton did in Oxford. See what Mr. Churton writes:
"I personally suspect he had a chip on his shoulder about never having graduated from university, so vehement were his repeated digs at 'wiseacring', that occurs with tiresome, arguably obsessive repetitiveness throughout all his writings and talks; followers have picked the word up and scatter it like buckshot from self-elevated heights at critics."
This assertion is proper of a Hasnamuss candidate.
Regarding Mr. Gurdjieff's birthdate, Mr. Churton fails to acknowledge that in the book 'Views from the real world' in the New York conference dated February 20, 1924, Mr. Gurdjieff himself is quoted as saying:
"I reason in this way: I am a small man. I have only lived for fifty years, and religion has existed for thousands of years."
End of the speculation.
As per Mr. Gurdjieff's own words, he was born in 1873. Mr. Churton could have saved us from another long and boring chapter.
Concerning the surname Gurdjieff, I would like to clarifiy that it is indeed connected to both Gurdjistan (which means Land of Wolves) while the root KRT is also connected with KURT (Wolf) , as well as with the KARTULI tribe, one of the three founding clans of SAKARTVELO (Georgia), along with the SVAN and MEGRELIAN tribes.
Mr. Churton makes a mistake when he asserts that the PRIEURÉ belonged to the Dreyfuss family.
Not at all true, it never belonged to the Dreyfuss family, it used to belong to the widow of the lawyer that defended the Jewish military Dreyfuss.
Mr. Churton under the influence of his organ Kundabuffer, shows us his ridiculous talent as a literary critic.
About Beelzebub's Tales” he says:"In this even more peculiar, often perhaps intentionally ludicrous and unnecesarily elongated work…"
Mr. Churton dares to criticize the grammaticality of Beelzebub Tales, when he states:
"He (Gurdjieff) opens his Beelzebub Tales with an excessively long-winded attack/defense explaining why his book does not read like anyone else's."
Another brilliant Churton's quote:
"Gurdjieff's habitual discourse is filled with pseudo-objectivity, where the plainest statements are dressed in quasi-scientific terms, reaching, in Tales particularly, fantastic levels of repetition, invented words, and arch pretentiousness."
Mr. Churton emphatically suggests and it could have been written in a more friendly way and by saving 20% of words, he writes:
"There are many more perceptions of good sense in Tales, though it needs editing to about one-fifth of its current length and to be recast in clearer sentences, with spiritual understanding of its wise, humorous contents; then Tales would enjoy considerably greater currency."
Evidently, Mr. Churton ignores that this Hasnamussian effort to edit Gurdjieff's masterpiece was already attempted by the so-called “1992 Revision”.
It is also obvious that Mr. Churton never read “Beelzebub Tales” three times, so he is unable to grasp the encrypted esoteric legominism of its words.
Somehow, Mr. Churton deconstructs Mr. Gurdjieff suggesting he was a Free-Mason or a Gnostic in disguise. Is this a fact, an opinion or information? Mr. Churton is obviously biased, he sees and edits reality a according to his predetermined aim.
Anyway, reading through this book has been a test of endurance in terms of Intentional Suffering and Conscious Work. Thank you Mr. Churton! Hopefully after my review, other readers will save some valuable time and hard-earned money
Martin Braunstein
---
The book has been poorly proof read, if at all
The Bekaa Valley is not in Syria
a 10CV Citroen does not have a top speed of 65kph
August is not 'two months' after July
Chailly is a different town to Chailly-en-Biere
Compiegne is not 30 miles from Paris & etc and etc.
Pulp the book, proof read it properly, and then re-issue it, if you cannot resist temptation.
The spurious and specious 'puffs' on the dust jacket from various 'literary luminaries and intelligentsia' are deceitful to potential purchasers.
Peter Dodd
DEStructing Gurdjieff or DECONStructing Gurdjieff?
This new book authored by Oxford graduate and professional writer Tobias Churton, fulfills the profile depicted by Mr. Gurdjieff in Beelzebub Tales under its chapter I (The arousing of thought), when Mr. Gurdjieff, about contemporary writers, affirms:
"This strange disease is manifested by this, that if the invalid is somewhat literate and his rent is paid for three months in advance, he (she or it) unfailingly begins to write a either some 'instructive article' or a whole book."
Mr. Churton's book is a full compendium of the 'literary language of the bon-ton', 'the grammatical wiseacrings of professional writers' as well as 'the literary language of the intelligentsia'.
Mr. Churton depicts an allegedly low-self steem Gurdjieff presumably because he did not get a college degree as Mr. Churton did in Oxford. See what Mr. Churton writes:
"I personally suspect he had a chip on his shoulder about never having graduated from university, so vehement were his repeated digs at 'wiseacring', that occurs with tiresome, arguably obsessive repetitiveness throughout all his writings and talks; followers have picked the word up and scatter it like buckshot from self-elevated heights at critics."
This assertion is proper of a Hasnamuss candidate.
Regarding Mr. Gurdjieff's birthdate, Mr. Churton fails to acknowledge that in the book 'Views from the real world' in the New York conference dated February 20, 1924, Mr. Gurdjieff himself is quoted as saying:
"I reason in this way: I am a small man. I have only lived for fifty years, and religion has existed for thousands of years."
End of the speculation.
As per Mr. Gurdjieff's own words, he was born in 1873. Mr. Churton could have saved us from another long and boring chapter.
Concerning the surname Gurdjieff, I would like to clarifiy that it is indeed connected to both Gurdjistan (which means Land of Wolves) while the root KRT is also connected with KURT (Wolf) , as well as with the KARTULI tribe, one of the three founding clans of SAKARTVELO (Georgia), along with the SVAN and MEGRELIAN tribes.
Mr. Churton makes a mistake when he asserts that the PRIEURÉ belonged to the Dreyfuss family.
Not at all true, it never belonged to the Dreyfuss family, it used to belong to the widow of the lawyer that defended the Jewish military Dreyfuss.
Mr. Churton under the influence of his organ Kundabuffer, shows us his ridiculous talent as a literary critic.
About Beelzebub's Tales” he says:"In this even more peculiar, often perhaps intentionally ludicrous and unnecesarily elongated work…"
Mr. Churton dares to criticize the grammaticality of Beelzebub Tales, when he states:
"He (Gurdjieff) opens his Beelzebub Tales with an excessively long-winded attack/defense explaining why his book does not read like anyone else's."
Another brilliant Churton's quote:
"Gurdjieff's habitual discourse is filled with pseudo-objectivity, where the plainest statements are dressed in quasi-scientific terms, reaching, in Tales particularly, fantastic levels of repetition, invented words, and arch pretentiousness."
Mr. Churton emphatically suggests and it could have been written in a more friendly way and by saving 20% of words, he writes:
"There are many more perceptions of good sense in Tales, though it needs editing to about one-fifth of its current length and to be recast in clearer sentences, with spiritual understanding of its wise, humorous contents; then Tales would enjoy considerably greater currency."
Evidently, Mr. Churton ignores that this Hasnamussian effort to edit Gurdjieff's masterpiece was already attempted by the so-called “1992 Revision”.
It is also obvious that Mr. Churton never read “Beelzebub Tales” three times, so he is unable to grasp the encrypted esoteric legominism of its words.
Somehow, Mr. Churton deconstructs Mr. Gurdjieff suggesting he was a Free-Mason or a Gnostic in disguise. Is this a fact, an opinion or information? Mr. Churton is obviously biased, he sees and edits reality a according to his predetermined aim.
Anyway, reading through this book has been a test of endurance in terms of Intentional Suffering and Conscious Work. Thank you Mr. Churton! Hopefully after my review, other readers will save some valuable time and hard-earned money
Martin Braunstein
---
The book has been poorly proof read, if at all
The Bekaa Valley is not in Syria
a 10CV Citroen does not have a top speed of 65kph
August is not 'two months' after July
Chailly is a different town to Chailly-en-Biere
Compiegne is not 30 miles from Paris & etc and etc.
Pulp the book, proof read it properly, and then re-issue it, if you cannot resist temptation.
The spurious and specious 'puffs' on the dust jacket from various 'literary luminaries and intelligentsia' are deceitful to potential purchasers.
Peter Dodd
April 26, 2020
This will be a mixed and opinionated review, sorry.
Part 1.
Admittedly I was thrilled by the idea of "Deconstructing" G.I.G. whose own "autobiography" requires quotation marks due to it's allegorical tendencies. As a teacher he missed no opportunity to plant seeds or bury bones of truth. But because his colorful history is both thrilling and hard-to-pin-down, of course I/we welcome a strong-minded attempt to suss out the details and help connect the legitimate dots.
It feels like this is one of his main intentions at the start of the book.
And much of his work in this direction is great, but...
Part 2.
... there are two things to know about the author. One is that he is a Freemason, and number two is that he loves Aleister Crowley.
So, guess what he can't help talking about every 3rd page or so?
If you guessed Freemasonry and/or Mr. Crowley, you are correct!
I think he also mentioned Jim Morrison a couple times...(WTF?)
When Mr. Churton tries to talk about Gurdjieff's ideas, it sounds like he mis-read wikipedia articles, which is to say it does not sound like he understands what he is saying.
And two-thirds of the way through the book he loses steam,
which is what initially I liked about this writer.
So, for me this book started very strong but by the end
I was mostly Irked.
Part 1.
Admittedly I was thrilled by the idea of "Deconstructing" G.I.G. whose own "autobiography" requires quotation marks due to it's allegorical tendencies. As a teacher he missed no opportunity to plant seeds or bury bones of truth. But because his colorful history is both thrilling and hard-to-pin-down, of course I/we welcome a strong-minded attempt to suss out the details and help connect the legitimate dots.
It feels like this is one of his main intentions at the start of the book.
And much of his work in this direction is great, but...
Part 2.
... there are two things to know about the author. One is that he is a Freemason, and number two is that he loves Aleister Crowley.
So, guess what he can't help talking about every 3rd page or so?
If you guessed Freemasonry and/or Mr. Crowley, you are correct!
I think he also mentioned Jim Morrison a couple times...(WTF?)
When Mr. Churton tries to talk about Gurdjieff's ideas, it sounds like he mis-read wikipedia articles, which is to say it does not sound like he understands what he is saying.
And two-thirds of the way through the book he loses steam,
which is what initially I liked about this writer.
So, for me this book started very strong but by the end
I was mostly Irked.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews