i have been reading some gurdjieff and i find some of his ideas worth reading. and yet i found on this board some people who think he was a cult leader.

it is hard to read all of the thousands of previous posts, i was wondering if there is any kind person who can point me to do some reading online, not through books, but online on the computer so i can read any criticisms of gurdjieff and his teachings. iwant to be well informed and make a conscious decision regarding him whether he has any usefulness or if he was totally a charlatan, a fake, a cult leader.

very curious what other famous people thought of him. but couldnt find anything so far about people critiquing or putting him down. thanks a million for any help.

[forum.culteducation.com]

thank you ctel for your response. will read those posts on that page you posted. it looks interesting. it helps to narrow down some of the reading for me, which is what i wanted, for else it is just overwhelming somettimes reading all of the posts on this forum on a particular topic.

So far my research on the internet hasnt turned up much criticism or negatives against gurdjieff. Wikipedia article hardly had any negatives or crticisisms of gurdjieff which really surprised me. i was hoping to read some negative stuff about him, but no, they didnt report anything.

all i found so far is that he possibly fathered some illegitimate children, meaning he slept around a lot with his female students and also that he charged money a lot for everything was into money and did some lying on selling birds or something,w as not canaries that he was selling but ordinary sparrows that he painted or something. But no major scandals or negatives so far can i find on him, like it is so easy to find on so many gurus and teachers out there.

so many new age writers and spiritual students today seem to take many of his ideas like byron katie calling her stuff the work which is what gurdjieff called his stuff. and so many like to use some of his ideas about how we are asleep and not conscious, etc. and to be honest some of this stuff i just dont seem the harm in why this kind of philosophy or theory can do so much harm. But that is why i am investigating and questioning before i accept some of these ideas of his. i dont think i am in danger of going to any gurdjieff group, dont even know any by the way, but just am a student of spirituality and got intersted in his work, teachings. will continue doing the research and hopefully will just find too many negatives against him and his teachings and i will not want to continue reading him.

You need not agree with whatever has already been written here.

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it is hard to read all of the thousands of previous posts, i was wondering if there is any kind person who can point me to do some reading online, not through books, but online on the computer so i can read any criticisms of gurdjieff and his teachings.

If you want to reach your goal, you will have to be willing to sit down and do some reading.

And..much of the best material cited online is from books, such as James Webb's 'The Harmonious Circle an ironically titled and very carefully documented study of the Gurdjieff movement.

Ditto, Gary Lachman's book 'In Search of P D Ouspensky'

and this book, by a grandson of Gurdjieff's.

[www.google.com]

This online bio of someone who spent a long time in a group

[www.google.com]


Just go to the upper right corner of this forum, hit the 'search' button. Once there, put 'Gurdjieff' into the all words slot and then select 'all dates'. That will give you seven years worth of citations on Gurdjieff many correspondants have given during the 7 years this message board has been up. Several members were members of various
Gurdjieff groups and thier testimony carries special weight.

So all you need to do is decide if you want to give the time to read whats here and on Google about Gurdy. For google you can just type 'Gurdjieff' and 'problems' and 'criticisms' or 'cults' and see what else comes up.

Only you can decide, for yourself, whether you want to take the time and read for yourself if you're interested in this subject, as you were, some time back interested in Hawkins and spent time corresponding and reading about him online.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 11/03/2009 01:51AM by corboy.