Deconstructing Gurdjieff
Subtitle: biography of a spiritual magician
By: Tobias Churton
Published: 2017
Language: eng
Number of pages: 346
ISBN-13: 9781620556382; 9781620556399
Description: "Employing the latest research and discoveries, including previously unpublished reminiscences of the real man, Tobias Churton investigates the truth beneath the self-crafted mythology of Gurdjieff's life recounted in Meetings with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."--Jacket flap.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (pages 332-336) and index.
Table of contents: title: Preface: Caveat lector; title: The enigma arrives ; Meeting the press; title: Reviewing the situation: a birth ; Archival reports ; Cattle plague; title: War baby: an education in Kars; title: Dean Borshch and other enthusiasms ; The circle of the Yezidi ; Bogachevsky and the flying chairs; title: The spiritual question ; Miracles ; Spiritualism and hypnosis; title: Mad about the girl: or How to get to Tiflis in a hurry ; Fedeev and Blavatsky ; Tiflis; title: Books: furniture of the mind ; The tradition ; The Brotherhood of the Rose-cross; title: In search of brotherhood ; The Armenian question ; Ani; title: The Yezidis ; The god of the Yezidis ; Melek Tawus ; Yezidi beliefs ; Origins; title: Do-it-yourself Gurdjieff and unaccountable journeys ; Miscellaneous adventures ; The Sufis ; Back to work with Gurdjieff; title: Traveling tales and bullets in the leg ; Soloviev and the Kushka line ; Toward the Sarmoung Monastery; title: Two more bullets ; Trouble in Tibet ; The Chiatura Tunnel; title: Holy Mother Russia! ; Papus in Russia ; The Unique Work Brotherhood; title: the struggle of the magicians; title: Octave and Enneagram ; From seven to eight ; Nine in the circle; title: The International Alliance of Ideological Workers ; Tbilisi; title: Stateless person ; Constantinople ; John Godolphin Bennett, Prince Sabahaddin, and Gurdjieff; title: Doctrine: an objectively impartial criticism of the life of man; title: The Beast 666 and the Black Devil; title: The long ascent ; Breaking with old friends ; The war; title: The grave with no name.