Beelzebub’s Tales, Book Two: The Side by Side Comparison

The second in this series of three books enables direct comparison of Book Two of The Tales with Gurdjieff’s earlier draft, The 1931 Manuscript. Readers will notice many differences between the two versions. In some chapters the differences are minor but in the following they are significant:

-In the 1950 version, the chapter, Hypnotism included significant changes to some of the text and much new text was added.

-In the chapter Beelzebub as Hypnotist a substantial amount of text was added, with Gurdjieff creating much new material.

-The chapter, The Change in the Appointed Course of the Falling of the Transspace Ship Karnak, is missing entirely from The 1931 Manuscript.

-The short chapter Just a Wee Bit More about the Germans is substantially different.

-The chapters on Russia, France and Religion there is some missing text and the text is substantially different in places.

-The chapter, The Holy Planet Purgatory, is substantially different. It was reorganised with three sections of text being moved and most of the text being substantially rewritten.

The study of these changes reveals to some degree, Gurdjieff’s creative process and will likely prove useful to those who are trying to fathom the gist of The Tales.