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Recommended reading:
Transcripts of Gurdjieff's Meetings 1941-1946

Author/Artist: G. I. Gurdjieff
ISBN: 978-0-9559090-1-6
Publisher: Book Studio
First published: 2008

Thirty-two meetings with Gurdjieff held at 6 rue des Colonels Renard, Paris, France. Unabridged.
These records of meetings have waited too long to be published. Now finally in bookform they give for more people an opportunity to study the way Gurdjieff conducted his meetings in the fourties.
The earlier notes on his meetings were published under the name "Views from the Real World" and they were generally appr. 20 years older than these transcripts.


You Can Almost Hear Him Speak...



These transcripts, now in book form after 62 years, are some of the most authentic we can come across from Mr. Gurdjieff. His own books were translated, edited and re-edited during his life and also after he died. The transcripts are a translation from French and what Mr. Gurdjieff said in these meetings was also during the meetings themselves translated to French. A careful study of these texts can be rewarding.

Some years ago I was warned (by a senior member of a respected "official" Gurdjieff organisation) about publishing the texts on my website. (His words were an answer to my question why the transcripts had not been published.) I repeat the warning.

He had three main arguments against publishing:
  • that there are enough authentic writings from Mr. Gurdjieff already available

  • that those reading the transcripts will think that they have understood something and therefore not make the efforts to work

  • that what was said was meant for those present and can easily be misunderstood by reading them

I don't have to explain why I was truly amazed at this and disappointed! To understand is wrong, to misunderstand is also wrong and to add to the couple of thousand pages already published of authentic material from Mr. Gurdjieff is also wrong!

Nevertheless - back to the book: to read anything it is wise to read slowly and like Mr. Gurdjieff advised about reading his main work Beelsebub's Tales to His Grandson: first as one is accustomed to read the newspapers, then as if aloud to oneself and then one can study. This way it is not so much only the head that understands; one of the main messages in the transcripts and the exercises described in it and also in the whole of the Gurdjieff Work.

Mr. Gurdjieff said that his mission was "to live and teach so that there should be a new conception of God in the world, a change in the very meaning of the word" (the quote is in the A. R. Orage - A Memoir by Philip Mairet). This is for all of us to discover in the transcripts. When asked how he found his teaching he answered: "Perhaps I stole it!" Perhaps Mr.Gurdjieff "stole Christianity"! How could he do that?

There is more material in the book than in the notes that I have been reading and for those who are studying it is therefore a must. It is good to keep in mind that "the head is a luxury and only a policeman".

The important question, so aptly put by Reshad Feild is: who is the Gurdjieff of our time?


Reijo Oksanen, Switzerland

To the Reader


In building up our books, music and videos section at GIG our aim is to create a unique service to the people who are interested in Gurdjieff's ideas. This service is now again functioning and will be updated with old and new information regularly.

One of these unique features is information on the writers and artists in the form of bios; you are also welcome to send your reviews on the books to me by email.

10 latest added books.

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Review


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Frederick Franck offers his amazing concept of seeing and drawing as a discipline by which the world may be rediscovered, a way of experiencing Zen.

A Review


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René ZuberBreathe into Being: Awakening to Who You Really Are

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