Gnosis magazine #21, Fall 1991 (not really a rag). Letters column.
NUDGES FROM KATE
To the Editor:
Your otherwise comprehensive Gurdjieff issue neglected to mention one valuable source of dissemination of information on Gurdjieff: the music of Kate Bush.
Kate was apparently first exposed to the teachings of Gurdjieff through her two older brothers, and while she herself is not deeply involved in the Work (indeed she has often, in interviews and in her lyrics, admitted to her own 'laziness' and resistance to such things), she has sparked an interest in many of her fans which has led them to further explore the Gurdjieff material.
Some examples of these references in her music include "Them Heavy People," a song about the initial "inconvenience" and frequent discomfort of spiritual transformation, from her first album, "The Kick Inside". In it she sings, "They opened doorways that I thought were stuck for good/ They read me Gurdjieff and Jesu/ They build up my body/ Break me emotion-ally, it's nearly killing me/ But what a lovely feeling!"
The song "Strange Phenomena" talks about clairvoyance, prescience, and synchronicity: "'G' arrives, funny, had a feeling he was on his way." And a third song on the album, "Kite," begins with the line, "Beelzebub is aching in my belly-o." In "Fullhouse," from the "Lionheart" album, the refrain is "remember yourself." (Kate also had this phrase stamped into the vinyl on British pressings of "The Kick Inside.")
Granted, these are all brief references that, taken alone, hardly shed any light on Gurdjieff or the Fourth Way. But they have served as an impetus for quite a few people to explore further on their own. Through her music and video images, Kate has also inspired many seekers to investigate such curious topics as Sufi dancing, Wilhelm Reich, the aboriginal Dreamtime, near-death experiences, the music of Frederick Delius, European witch-hunts, the writings of Emily Bronte, Henry James, and James Joyce. Any artist who can nudge her listeners into opening their hearts and minds, hopefully bettering themselves and their world, deserves recognition in GNOSIS.
--Miriam Imblum, Pittsburgh Pennsylvania
[Gurdjieff's central teaching was 'self-remembering'-- the theory that to attain spiritual growth you had to learn to notice when your thoughts were wandering blindly. One of his books was called "Beelzebub's Tales to his Grandson". In "In Search of the Miraculous" (the most popular introduction to G's thought), Ouspensky always refers to Gurjieff as "G." "The Fourth Way" and "the Work" are names for the Gurdieff approach.]
