Gurdjieff and Orage: Brothers in Elysium by Paul Beekman Taylor

Gurdjieff and Orage: Brothers in Elysium

by Paul Beekman Taylor

This book is interesting, maddening, and ultimately disappointing as I think the author completely misses the point. The back cover says the book is "informed by both rigorous scholarship and his own relationship with Gurdjieff." In my opinion, his relationship with Gurdjieff and the work cannot be terribly deep given the analysis he provides of the relationship between the two men.

Alfred Richard Orage was a prominent literary critic and editor of the highly influential review The New Age whose contributors included Ezra Pound, G.B. Shaw, and Katherine Mansfield. It covered not only literature and poetry, but also economics, a discipline that would preoccupy Orage until his untimely death in 1934.

Before meeting Gurdjieff, he had written for the theosophical review and had a keen interest in esoteric matters. Orage was one of the most influential men in England at the time, although he was not well-known. His influence came from his relations with the people he knew, who were themselves famous.

After hearing Gudjieff in London, Orage gave up his literary life and went to Le Prieuré in France, home of Gurdjieff's Institute for the Harmonious Development of Man, where he dug ditches, got calluses on his hands, and worked to see a glimpse of the personality he called "Orage". A year later, Gurdjieff sent him to New York before Gurdjieff and his dance troop arrived in order to prepare the terrain for G's first visit to the United States. Orage spent the next seven years in New York as the leader of the Gurdjieff groups there. In this capacity he nourished links with artist, writers, politicians, and people of money, spreading the word about the Gurdjieff work, as well as raising money to support the Institute in France.

He also did the bulk of the translation of Gurdjieff epic work, All and Everything, Beelzebub's Tales to his Grandson.

The book contains many extracts from Orage's letters. Taylor is a friend of the Orage family and was given access to letters and journals of both Orage and his wife Jessie, with whom he fell in love shortly after his arrival in New York. This aspect of the book is its best. We can read Orage and Jessie's own words.

But the idea that Jessie could have been a diversion sent by the General Law to take Orage away from the work is never considered by Taylor.

It is clear from her writing that Jessie was only participating in the work to the extent she needed to in order to retain Orage. Once they were married, she pretty much gave up on it completely. When she was at Le Prieuré alone, she hated it. When she was there with Orage, she hated it. She had no interest in the work for herself.

Other commentators have argued that it was his relationship with Jessie that ultimately led to the parting of the ways between Orage and Gurdjieff. William Patrick Patterson discusses this question in his book Struggle of the Magicians. Taylor says there is no evidence in Orage's papers that Gurdjieff expressed his displeasure with Orage over the matter and says that Gurdjieff was always fond of her. Taylor's friendship with the Orage family seems to have coloured Taylor's analysis of the relationship between Orage and Jessie, as well as the effects of this relationship on his work with Gurdjieff, because there is much evidence in Taylor's book itself if one can read between the lines and knows something of how Gurdjieff worked.

Take this statement from Orage, cited in a footnote and taken from Louise Welch's book, Orage:

"Orage confided to his New York group that Gurdjieff 'regarded me as someone who had...come with him from another planet with a task to carry out. But, I had fallen in love with a native, and this interfered with his aim.'"

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Orage finally gave up on this "common task" he shared with Gurdjieff and returned to London and his career, spending his final years promoting the ideas of Social Credit. Jessie enticed Orage onto a descending octave. She split him from the work. Throughout their relationship, she continually was putting Orage into the position of choosing between Gurdjieff and the work and her. The evidence is clear in Taylor's book.

While Taylor quotes Welch, he dismisses the comment from Fritz Peters that Peters heard Gurdjieff yelling at Orage over the matter of his relationship with Jessie, saying that there is no evidence in Orage's own writings it ever happened.

Moreover, during his 1924 trip to France during which the incident reported by Peters occurred, Orage spent long hours discussing the question of love with Gurdjieff, finally putting these ideas into his well-known essay "On Love". Gurdjieff was obviously trying to help Orage understand that his relationship with Jessie was not the highest form of love, but Orage was blind to it. Taylor completely ignores this, only mentioning in passing that the essay came from the discussions. However, in his penultimate chapter, Taylor quotes this advice on love from Gurdjieff to Jean Toomer, another American student:

"The only type of sexual relations possible are those with someone who is as advanced and capable as oneself. In either case there will be no feeling of responsibility in regard to progress in the work to interfere. Such a feeling of responsibility should not cut across a sexual relationship. Real sex is impossible if it does. We are not permitted to entertain ideas of development or reform for another person."

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Clearly, the relationship between Orage and Jessie was not one of this type. She had no deep need or interest in the work. Orage was given the message, but he was unable to hear it. He made his choice, a choice that is tragic for anyone involved in the work. And this is where the book ultimately fails for someone doing the work: Taylor is interested in Orage the man, not Orage the potential Man. Yes, Orage was extraordinary in so many ways. But to what good if one loses one's soul in the end?

Excellent review! And the quote from Gurdjieff about sex is priceless. Sex should be natural and an expression of love between soul equals, not an act of pity or grandiosity or self- aggrandizement.

There is much more in this book that is maddening. Taylor looks for the influences on Gurdjieff's work, and comes up with five sources, but doesn't mention esoteric Christianity!

Sheesh!

henry said:

There is much more in this book that is maddening. Taylor looks for the influences on Gurdjieff's work, and comes up with five sources, but doesn't mention esoteric Christianity!

Sheesh!

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In his book "Taking with the left hand" William Patrick Patterson deals with those teachings that he believes have misappropriated G's teaching. Included are, "the enneagram craze", "people of the bookmark" and the "Mouravieff phenomenon".

Patterson writes:

A central issue is Mouravieff's contention that Gurdjieff "stole" the teaching. Among his attempts to prove his case, Mouravieff wrote of an encounter with G that he believed was quite revealing, but again perhaps in a way that he never supposed. One day, seated with G at the Cafe de la Paix, Mouravieff asked him point blank:

"I find that the system is based upon Christian doctrine. What do you say to this subject?"

In French the sentence reads : "Je trouve le systeme a la base de la doctrine Chretien"

There is an ambiguity in the way Mouravieff words his statement. It could be understood in two ways. Once the systems was a the base of Christian doctrine. Two, the system was rooted in the Christian doctrine, the emphasis here being on "doctrine".

It's the ABC G replied. But they, they didn't understand it at all."

They "they referred to is presumably the Church fathers.

"Is the system yours?"

"No..."

"Where did you find it? - From where did you take it?"

"Perhaps I stole it..."

Given Mouravieff's negative judgment of G from their first meeting in Constantinople, it is inconceivable that G was unaware of Mouravieff's animus towards him. His answer, then, must be taken in the context of this knowledge. Mouravieff thought G stole the teaching, so G, of course, said that perhaps he did.

One can almost see Mouravieff smiling with knowing cynicism. And G, a master of the Way of Blame, intentionally drinking it in.

As for G agreeing with Mouravieff that the Fourth Way is based on Christianity - "It's the ABC", G said - G certainly never denied that elements of the Fourth Way could be found in the contemporary version of Christianity, He, in fact, says that "if only the teaching of the Divine Jesus Christ were carried out in full conformity with its original the the religion unprecedentedly wisely founded on it, would not only be the best of all existing religions, but even of all religions which may arise and exist in the future. (Emphasis added]

For G - and this is an important point - the original Christianity which, as he said, the church fathers didn't understand at all, is not the same as contemporary Christianity. This is because contemporary Christianity has been distorted and is, according to the First series, in the last stages of the process of being destroyed. The original to which G refers has its origin in prehistoric Egypt. Itis this original "Christianity" which is the ABC of both the Fourth Way and Christian doctrine.

So Mouravieff was asking and interpreting on one level and G replied from a much deeper level. G was certainly aware of this and fed Mouravieff's arrogance in thinking the could trap G, that he could see him, that he was on his level. As G once said, the "truth can only come to people in the form of a lie". Here, he told the truth, the deep truth, knowing full well that Mouravieff's interpretation of what he said would be only a half-truth.

Mouravieff, having read Ouspensky's book, was certainly aware that in Russia when G was asked about the relation of the Fourth Way to Christianity, he had answered: "I do not know what you know about Christianity. It would be necessary to talk a great deal and to talk for a long time in order to make clear what you understand by this term" [Emphasis added] But perhaps Mouravieff did not read closely enough. The use of the word "know" is meant in the sense of knowing as a component of being, the two together forming understanding.

Continued G: "But for the benefit of those who know already, I will say that , if you like, this is esoteric Christianity" Because of the italicization of the words "esoteric Christianity" this is what draws the attention. But the operative, modifying words in G's answer are "know" and "if you like". What G is saying is that - framing his answer in terms of the questioner's frame of reference, his level of understanding - the Fourth Way can be called "esoteric Christianity". This however does not mean that the Fourth Way is esoteric Christianity. Nor does it mean that contemporary Christianity is the basis, the root, of the Fourth Way.

The teaching is linked with Christianity, but in the sense that the teaching predated the origin of Christianity as we historically know it. "It will seem strange to many people, said G, "what I sayt that this prehistoric Egypt was Christian many thousand of years before the birth of Christ, that is to say, that its religion was composed of the same principles and ideas that constitute true Christianity".

"The Christian church, the Christian form of worship" G declared, "was not invented by the fathers of the Church. It was all taken in a ready-made form from Egypt, only not from the Egypt that we know but from one which we do not know. This Egypt was in the same place as the other but it existed much earlier".

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So its seems that the teaching as presented by G was perhaps not influenced by the esoteric Christianity that was promoted by Mouravieff (and Robin Amis today), but rather it was the other way around.

Joe

And note particularly that it was taken not from the Egypt that we know... and most likely not even the same physical Egypt if Iman Wilkens is correct.

Yes, indeed, Mouravieff had way too much ego and it is always entertaining to see how Gurdjieff dealt with such individuals - a master of "External Consideration."

Joe said:

So its seems that teaching as presented by G was not influenced by the esoteric Christianity that was promoted by Mouravieff (and Robin Amis today), but rather it was the other way around.

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If this is the case though, where did Mouravieff get the stuff about Adamic/Pre-adamic man, Polar Opposites and Courtly Love? Doesn't that mean he had access to pre-Gurdjieffian sources? Or did he go hunting for the rest of the system on his own after 'appropriating' the basics from G./O.?

(BTW - I love your new avatar!)

Ryan said:

Joe said:

So its seems that teaching as presented by G was not influenced by the esoteric Christianity that was promoted by Mouravieff (and Robin Amis today), but rather it was the other way around.

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If this is the case though, where did Mouravieff get the stuff about Adamic/Pre-adamic man, Polar Opposites and Courtly Love? Doesn't that mean he had access to pre-Gurdjieffian sources? Or did he go hunting for the rest of the system on his own after 'appropriating' the basics from G./O.?

(BTW - I love your new avatar!)

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Maybe he got it from the esoteric Christianity that G says the founding fathers did not understand at all, and the idea of courtly love is or was already widely known. In any case, these terms are not used by G, which suggests again that G's teaching was not influenced by the esoteric Christianity source that Mouravieff used to fill out the bulk of his work, which Patterson claims he obviously took from G.

Joe

I don't think any discernible 'link' between systems is even necessary. If you look hard enough, the truth behind the ideas can be found anywhere: literature, mythology, religion, observation of human behavior, etc. If an alchemical understanding of the world is correct, then with a certain level of 'being', the same ideas are obvious when they pop up in various systems. So G, learning what he did wherever he did, would be able to understand the original intention of Christianity without having any direct contact with 'actual' recipients of the original Christian tradition. I'd say it's even possible that there ARE no real recipients -- that Christianity was ponerized early on and that the truths behind it were only "rediscovered" by remarkable individuals.

Some further thoughts on the esoteric Christian influence in Gurdjieff's work:

Gurdjieff was from a Greek family. One of the earliest "remarkable men" of whom he speaks in his book of that name was a Russian Orthodox priest. So I think it is possible that he encountered the ideas of Orthodox esotericism at an early age.

Given his cultural heritage, it is not unthinkable that one of his first stops on his search for truth might have been Mount Athos.

There is also this very suggestive passage from the first chapter of Beelzebub's Tales:

Gurdjieff said:

Continuing my exposition with this idea in mind, I must first of all inform your fictitious consciousness that, thanks to three definite and peculiar psychic data crystallized in my common presence during my preparatory age, I am really "unique" at so to say "muddling and befuddling" all the notions and convictions supposedly firmly fixed in the presences of people with whom I come in contact....

The first of these three data, from the moment of its arising, became as it were the chief directing lever of my entire whole, while the other two became the "vivifying sources" for the nourishing and perfecting of the first This first datum arose in me when I was still, as is said, a "chubby mite " My dear, now deceased, grandmother was then still alive and was a hundred and some years old.

When my grandmother—may she attain the Kingdom of Heaven—was dying, my mother, as was then the custom, took me to her bedside and, as I kissed her right hand, my dear grandmother placed her dying left hand on my head and said in a whisper, yet very distinctly:

"Eldest of my grandsons! Listen and always remember my strict injunction to you: In life never do as others do."

Having said this, she gazed at the bridge of my nose and, evidently noticing my perplexity and my obscure understanding of what she had said, added somewhat angrily and imperiously:

"Either do nothing—just go to school—or do something nobody else does." Whereupon she immediately, without hesitation and with a perceptible impulse of disdain for all around her, and with commendable self-cognizance, gave up her soul directly into the hands of His Faithfulness, the Archangel Gabriel.

I think it will be interesting and perhaps even instructive for you to know that all this made so powerful an impression on me that I was suddenly unable to endure anyone around me, and as soon as we left the room where the mortal "planetary body" of the cause of the cause of my arising lay, I, very quietly, trying not to attract attention, stole away to the pit where, during Lent, the bran and potato peelings were stored for our "sanitarians," that is to say, our pigs.

And I lay there, without food or drink, in a tempest of whirling and confused thoughts—of which, fortunately for me, I still had only a very limited number in my childish brain— right until my mother's return from the cemetery, when the weeping that was shaking her after finding me absent and searching for me in vain "broke in" on me. At once I climbed out of the pit and stood a moment on the edge, for some reason or other with hands outstretched; then I ran to her and, clinging fast to her skirt, involuntarily began to stamp my feet and—why I don't know—to imitate the braying of the donkey that belonged to our neighbor, the bailiff.

Why all this produced such a strong impression on me just then, and why I almost automatically behaved so strangely, I still cannot make out, though during recent years, particularly on the days known as "Shrovetide," I have pondered over it a great deal, trying to discover the reason.

I have only reached the logical supposition that it was because the room where this sacred scene occurred, which was to have tremendous significance for the whole of my future life, was permeated through and through with the scent of a special incense brought from a monastery of Mount Athos and very popular among followers of every shade of belief of the Christian religion. Whatever it may have been, those are the facts.

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When I read this passage, I had the impression that Gurdjieff was leaving a clue, that he was suggesting that the teaching from Mount Athos somehow "permeated" his teaching.

Yes, Gurdjieff would have seen that it was not enough, that it remained a monastic teaching, and its core truths needed to be adapted to bring it to people in ordinary life. Mouravieff, who it seems could never separate the teaching from the Christian gloss, would have reacted like any true believer at Gurdjieff's introduction of non-Christian elements, so Patterson's descriptions of how G handled Mouravieff are likely to be accurate. The idea that the teaching was "stolen" is absurd. Did Mouravieff think it could it be "stolen" because it was suppose to be secret?

However, Patterson himself is the keeper of the flame for the Gurdjieff school in the US. His own way of looking at this history is possibly coloured.

An interesting point is that it seems that Mouravieff's introduction to the system came from Gurdjieff and Ouspensky.

There is this passage from a student of Mouravieff:

And yet...! Is not the System of Octaves symbolized by the musical scale (tones and semitones) as well as by the notes that compose it (Dominus, Sidereus orbis, etc...). Is not the origin of these notes a Christian hymn to John the Baptist? Mouravieff reminds us of this in detail (Gnosis, chapter 10). He therefore responds, in preventive measure, to the issues raised by Patterson by showing that Christianity, including its European version, contained the System of Octaves at a certain period.

Going back through Christianity to Judaism, Mouravieff points out the presence of the System in David's Psalm 118. Finally, there is no question that the Philokalia contains all the precepts of the Work and its "Christianity" need not be proven...

Besides, Gurdjieff himself -- as Mouravieff reminds us -- made reference rather often to both monasteries and to Christian esotericism. And, other than questioning Mouravieff's witness -- that is, to call him a liar -- Gurdjieff stated to him that [Gurdjieff's] System "was the ABC of Christian doctrine".

Mouravieff himself tells us that he learned the System "in 1920-21" in Constantinople through Ouspensky and Gurdjieff. This does not mean that Mouravieff did not follow other teachings, "Christian" teachings for example (see references in the manuscript INITIATION). On this last point, having no information, we can only ask questions: Did Mouravieff have Christian masters? Did they know the System? Or did Mouravieff study for himself "monuments such as the Philokalia", and discovered on his own the keys to the Gospels from Psalm 118?

It would be an exceptional exploit of a self-taught person in a field where everyone claims the importance of an oral tradition.

In saying that Ouspensky had "never been initiated in the oral Tradition other than through Gurdjieff", Mouravieff suggests that he personally had access to this oral Tradition among confirmed masters. But this can only be a deduction, based on our crediting the honesty of Mouravieff; there is no "objective" certainty.

Whatever the case may be, we come out of these conjectures with the observation, which is now entirely objective, that Gnosis contains more information then [Ouspensky's] Fragments. Mouravieff evaluated the volume of supplementary material in Gnosis at one third more than those contained in Ouspensky's Fragments.

How can Patterson explain that the copier knows more than the one copied, that the thief is richer than the one who is robbed?

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Take out the author's need to identify with "Christianity", we can see there are still elements in the teaching that are expressed by Gurdjieff with a Christian gloss. Certainly the original teaching is much older, from old Egypt and before, and Gurdjieff never allowed himself to get caught up in any identification with the Christian aspect. He was interested in truth, and so he set out to find the bits he needed that he felt were missing to make it a modern Fourth Way school. Gurdjieff would have understood that those pieces existed and might be found elsewhere, outside of Christendom. Mouravieff, identified with its "Christian" trappings, could not.

In going to other sources, Gurdjieff would have been honouring his grandmothers last request. :)

At least, these seems like a possibility to me.

As to what Harrison raises, it is also possible. I think that Robin Amos has expressed the idea that the teaching itself was not unbroken even on Mount Athos. It had been lost and rediscovered several times over the centuries.

Just wanted to mention an interesting essay by Reijo Oksanen which compares Russian Orthodox Christianity with Gurdjieff's Work. In particular:

In the Gurdjieff related literature there are some references saying that he stole the ideas from somewhere. He started these rumours himself. In relation to the Orthodox teaching I think that he certainly was inspired by the Orthodox inner teachings. He also put them in a form that is more accessible in our time.

Gurdjieff: "No, we are a group of friends. About 30 years ago a dozen of us spent several years in central Asia, and we reconstructed the doctrine from the remains of oral traditions, from the study of ancient customs, folk songs and even from certain books. The doctrine has always existed, but the tradition has often been interrupted. In ancient times certain groups and castes knew it, but it was incomplete. The ancients went in too much for metaphysics. The doctrine was too abstract." [Ref. 22]

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The reference is apparently to the book: "St. Theophan: The Spiritual Life" by the St. Herman of Alaska Brotherhood, 1995, p. 74-75

Galahad said:

Moreover, during his 1924 trip to France during which the incident reported by Peters occurred, Orage spent long hours discussing the question of love with Gurdjieff, finally putting these ideas into his well-known essay "On Love". Gurdjieff was obviously trying to help Orage understand that his relationship with Jessie was not the highest form of love, but Orage was blind to it. Taylor completely ignores this, only mentioning in passing that the essay came from the discussions.

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I noticed a small discrepancy here. Patterson says that Gurdjieff spoke to Orage about love in the summer of 1925 (this is when the incident Peters reported took place), which Orage spent at the Prieure. However, Taylor points out that this essay was actually published in December 1924. He also says that Orage had written it at the Prieure "probably in the summer of 1923", i.e. before he had even met Jessie Dwight (which was on January 1, 1924). Looks like Patterson was definitely wrong here, but Taylor might be wrong, too. The only possibilities I can see are: 1) He did write it in 1923, before meeting Jessie, 2) He wrote it in the month he spent there in August/September of 1924, a few months before publishing it. (That was the summer Jessie had spent at the Prieure.) If that's the case, then the fact that Taylor says he spent that month "drinking, laughing, and talking" with G. says something. Maybe G. told him this stuff on love to see of Orage would get it. He didn't, thinking he was capable of objective love with Jessie. The next summer, G. ripped into him...

That doesn't change Patterson's thesis, but I think he was a little sloppy in his presentation.