Talk:George Gurdjieff

message: Perhaps there is a case to be made for some Christian categories for Gurdjieff? Gurdjieff had a complex but generally congenial relationship to Eastern Orthodox Christianity, having been raised in it and mentored by some Fathers he profoundly respected, and his funeral was Russian Orthodox. The book Meetings with Remarkable Men offers useful information on this; therein, he gives Jesus the highest praise. Gurdjieff always carried a well-read copy of the New Testament in Koine Greek. It can be argued that his Fourth Way was somehow a way of communicating the spirit of those teachings to people in the west that would have none of its externals. 74.133.104.185 (talk) 22:22, 20 November 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Gurdjieff the Christian? 

message: § Children had the following at the bottom, after the bulleted list:
:Clarification: Svetlana Hinzenberg – b. Sept. 27, 1917, d. Sept. 30, 1946  Mother: Olga (Olgivanna) Ianovna Lazovich, Father (of Record): Valdemar Hinzenberg.  "In the winter of 1919, humoring a friend, she (Olgivanna) left her apartment to see a visiting Armenian-born mystic, a man who was said to teach dances that could develop the will. She was, she recalled, "looking for something beyond the limits of my senses."  Friedland & Zellman: "The Fellowship: The Untold Story of Frank Lloyd Wright & The Taliesin Fellowship."  HarperCollins, 2006. page 18, citing OLW, Autobiography.
Obviously this belongs in a reference, not the main text, and I've moved it to one, but I can't check it in the source. And the cited grand-source, "OLW, Autobiography", only makes sense as a typo for "FLW, Autobiography"; that would be An autobiography: Frank Lloyd Wright, originally published in 1932 by Longmans, Green and Company (Worldcat). --Thnidu (talk) 23:05, 14 June 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: @Thnidu The year of Svetlana's birth, 1917, is two years before her mother met Gurdjieff, precluding the possibility of her being a child of Gurdjieff. Also the fact that she remained with her father Hinzenberg when Olga left them. Blainster (talk) 05:47, 19 February 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Svetlana Hinzenberg 

message: Surely the combination "it is believed that" and "known" is contradictory. If they were "known" children, "it is believed that" is superfluous - but if it is only "believed that" he had them, then they weren't "known" for certain.213.127.210.95 (talk) 14:50, 28 August 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: @213.127.210.95 You are correct. The article clearly states that the supposed children are unverified. For example, the first one listed as "known" cannot be Gurdjieff's child: The year of Svetlana's birth, 1917, is two years before her mother met Gurdjieff, precluding the possibility of her being a child of Gurdjieff. Also the fact that she remained with her father Hinzenberg when Olga left them Blainster (talk) 05:52, 19 February 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  "it is believed that he had seven known children" 

message: One thing Gurdjieff said is that his ideas could be thought of as "esoteric Christianity". Could this page be added to the category called "Esoteric Christianity"? Vorbee (talk) 16:35, 4 December 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: The reference to Gurdjieff labelling his teaching as esoteric Christianity is on page 110 from In Search of the Miraculous.He is also quoted in Views from The Real World (meeting New York 1/3/1924) as saying "Your aim is to be Christian, but for that you must be able to do - and you cannot. When you are able to do, you will become Christian." Whether there should be a separate section on Christianity is worth considering. Perhaps one should first collect the various references on this talk page and then publish? Londonlinks (talk) 14:34, 5 October 2023 (UTC)
thread_title: Esoteric Christianity

message: *Demetrios1993, I would like a brief summary of your opinion along with a list of your sources and the quotes you are pulling from those sources. Similar to Seraphimblade, I question the WP:DUEWEIGHT of including the mother's heritage at all. I would appreciate your summary to be under 300 words. Please also include your suggestions for the article like you have done above. Share your summary in a response edit to this bullet point.
::, thank you for your new attempt to establish consensus. In summary, there is disagreement among sources regarding the background of Gurdjieff's mother; supporting either an Armenian or Greek ancestry. Every source that i read, describing Gurdjieff's mother as Armenian, does so in passing, without even mentioning her name. During the last decade or so, some secondary sources expanded on the background of the family via their consideration of archival records, and came to the conclusion that his mother was Greek. Secondary sources that support that view are those by Tobias Churton (2017), Roger Lipsey (2019), Joseph Azize (2019), and Paul Beekman Taylor (2020). These newer secondary sources are also corroborated – directly or indirectly – by earlier primary sources, such the account of P. D. Ouspensky and Gurdjieff's own writings. I am including the relevant quotes within the following collapsible template, in order to avoid cluttering.
From In Search of the Miraculous (1949) by P. D. Ouspensky:
*p. 340: 
From Deconstructing Gurdjieff: Biography of a Spiritual Magician (2017) by Tobias Churton:
*pp. 19–25: 
From Gurdjieff: Mysticism, Contemplation, and Exercises (2019) by Joseph Azize:
*p. 23: 
*p. 83: 
The quote on page 23 is referring to his mother as well; he is more clear on his position in a 2019 article that he published on his blog ():
*
From Gurdjieff Reconsidered: The Life, the Teachings, the Legacy (2019) by Roger Lipsey:
*p. 11: 
*p. 316: 
From G.I.Gurdjieff: A Life (2020) by Paul Beekman Taylor:
*pp. 13–14: 
*p. 270: 
::Excluding the background of his mother altogether is an alternative option, but it is not an ideal solution in my opinion, and i don't think User:Londonlinks would agree to it. Personally, i am ok with either of the two following summaries, which are neutral; though, i am open to other suggestions as well. The second summary is what the article currently has.
::
::
::Demetrios1993 (talk) 01:37, 20 August 2023 (UTC)
thread_title: Second-Attempt Summary