gurdjieff and the fourth way: an esoteric legacy

A profound new look at Gurdjieff’s life, teaching, and role as a spiritual leader through the lens of esotericism.

Gurdjieff warned against taking anything literally or on faith, and he advised accepting only experience that could be lived oneself. He also said that one has to find out ＂how to know＂ and that understanding higher knowledge depends on one’s ＂level of being.＂ The aim of the Fourth Way is toward a change of being--from the level of man number one, two, and three to that of man number four. Stephen Grant offers a fundamental reassessment of Gurdjieff as a spiritual leader and the Fourth Way as an esoteric teaching. This includes recognizing the Fourth Way as esoteric Buddhism.

This book outlines Gurdjieff’s early life and view of ancient history, followed by the itinerant course of his teaching from Russia in 1915 to his death in Paris in 1949. The discussion then focuses on his esoteric mission--to bring the Fourth Way to the West--and its three major stages: (1) introducing the system of ideas to and through P. D. Ouspensky; (2) writing his own theory of the teaching, principally in Beelzebub’s Tales; and (3) passing on the practical teaching to and through Jeanne de Salzmann. The last five chapters deal with Gurdjieff’s relationship with his closest pupils, his system of ideas, his hidden doctrine in Beelzebub’s Tales, and the practical knowledge revealed by Mme. de Salzmann.

STEPHEN A. GRANT is a lifetime student of G. I. Gurdjieff and former secretary and trustee of the Gurdjieff Foundation of New York. For forty years he has served as president of Triangle Editions Inc., the publisher of Gurdjieff’s books. He also was the editor of Jeanne de Salzmann’s The Reality of Being and of Gurdjieff’s In Search of Being. Mr. Grant graduated summa cum laude in history and literature from Yale University in 1960 and from Columbia University Law School in 1965, where he was editor-in-chief of the law review. He spent several years in Paris and Tokyo and practiced law in international financing and acquisitions until he retired in 2003.