I have never actually been to a Gurdjieff group, so my report is not going to be firsthand, but I do know that Gurdjieff himself, at his Center for the Harmonious Development of Man, kept his disciples up very late, put them to work on arduous tasks (some of them were even pointless; he had someone - I think it was de Hartmann, the composer - dig ditches and then fill them up again. I have heard
Forum: Recovery from Destructive Cults and Groups

I am continually perplexed and a bit amused at the irony of a group of people falling under the autocratic sway of an individual (Gurdjieff) because they believe he has WOKEN THEM UP and they can see forces at play they never saw before because they were asleep, when in fact those very people, in their "awakened" state, are in fact in a kind of spell and could just as easily (since e
Forum: Recovery from Destructive Cults and Groups

In the preceding diatribe I left one thought incomplete. It comes after the quote from Bill Everson. I said: "I do feel that Gurdjieff was "touched" in this sense, and furthermore, that if he hadn't had disciples to respond in the reverential way they did and affirm the truth of his delirium". I meant to say: If he hand't had disciples to respond in the reverenti
Forum: Recovery from Destructive Cults and Groups

My first reaction to what I was told by my partner was very negative. I delved - not very thoroughly, in the sense of reading an entire book - into what she had by Ouspensky, Nicoll, and Gurdjieff himself - and the book by the de Hartmanns on their life with Mr. Gurdjieff. I can honestly say my impressions do come from the original material, but I also have to admit I haven't made a thoro
Forum: Recovery from Destructive Cults and Groups

I hate being compelled to be contentious, but I can't accept the rendition of Gurdjieff as a "prophet" - not in my own scheme of thought. Quite apart from the movie, there is plenty of damning evidence of an unbalanced mind cynically manipulating people for egotistical reasons (and rather pathetic at that). In the spiritual vacuum of our times, it seems like just anyone who comes a
Forum: Recovery from Destructive Cults and Groups

i can't really say much about what the groups do; i do know that their originator, George Gurdjieff, espoused some extremely strange ideas about metaphysical things, and that the basic concept is that an individual is not just one thing but rather a whole collection of different "I's", and the goal of the groups is to learn to identify and navigate among them, and thus find th
Forum: Recovery from Destructive Cults and Groups

I am involved with a woman who goes to Gurdjieff groups. I am going crazy, feeling like a voice crying out in the wilderness; what I see and intuit about those groups is that they are VERY twisted and damaging. Gurdjieff himself, to me, was so obviously an inflated ego interested only in wielding power and having others kowtow to him, thus feeding his image of himself and perpetuating it. I j
Forum: Recovery from Destructive Cults and Groups