Meetings with Remarkable Men, G.I. Gurdjieff

Meetings with Remarkable Men, G.I. Gurdjieff

Who was Gurdjieff ?

George Ivanovitch Gurdjieff was born in 1877 in Alexandropol, near the Persian frontier of Russia, where the ancient traditions of patriarchal life were still a living influence. After his family had suffered great losses and moved to Kars, his father's friend, the dean of the Cathedral, took charge of the boy's education and arranged for him to be trained both as a priest and a physician. While supporting himself to pursue these studies, Gurdjieff acquired unusual dexterity in many trades.

During the period which followed, lasting perhaps some twenty years, Gurdjieff 'disappeared'. It is known only that he travelled in the remotest regions of Central Asia and that these years were crucial in the moulding of his thought. Ouspensky quotes him as saying later; 'I was not alone. There were all sorts of specialists among us. Afterwards when we foregathered we put together everything we had found.'

In Meetings with Remarkable Men, Gurdjieff himself introduces us to some of his companions. With colourful episodes from their adventures, he brings to life the story of his own unremitting search for a real and universal knowledge. But although his narrative has the undeniable ring of authenticity, the sense of mystery surrounding the truths he discovered is left intact. Meetings with Remarkable Men can be read as a colourful narrative or psychological autobiography, but the meaning of its contents can be best appreciated in relation to the expositions of Gurdjieff's ideas, previously published in All and Everything, or Beelzebub's Tales to His Grandson.

No one who came into personal contact with Gurdjieff ever failed to be impressed by him and by the range of his knowledge. There is no doubt that he has an important message for humanity in this critical period of its history' - Kenneth Walker, Sunday Times

Details

• Paperback, 1977
• ISBN: 0710014805 - 9780710014801
• Condition: Very Good
• Publisher: Routledge & Kegan Paul