From:    Michelle Hass                          Area: Thelema
To:      Falcon                                 24 May 95 19:39:40
Subject: JUGORUM                                UpdReq 

Hi...
I don't know if it's still in print, but one of the better introductions to 
Gurdjieff's philosophy is "Transformation(s)" by J.G. Bennett. There are a 
couple of others I recently got copies of..."The Gurdjieff Work" by Kathleen 
Riordan Speeth, and "Toward Awakening" by Jean Vaysse. Gurdjieff's own 
writings are rather obscure...he was even worse than people like Waite in 
writing very obscure prose. None of the directness of a Regardie or a Wilson 
or even Uncle Al himself.
Gurdjieff's most famous works include "Meetings With Remarkable Men" which was 
an account of his travels in Asia, and "Beelzebub's Tales To His Grandson" 
which is an allegorical work, spanning several volumes, and includes much of 
his theories in a pretty hard to crack code.
Much of what Gurdjieff taught was stuff he didn't put into writing...he was a 
very great believer in keeping certain teachings within his school. 
Therefore, it took students of his like Bennett to put forth much of his 
theories in writing.
Another reason why his own books might be hard to follow is that English and 
French were not his first language...he was from Georgia, which was part of 
the Soviet Union before it broke up. Georgian is perhaps similar to 
Azerbaijani and Armenian...I'm no philologist, but that's where the country 
is located near.
Hope this was somewhat helpful.
93 93/93
--.\\<-H-- michelle.hass@ledge.com


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