/lit/ - Literature

Has anybody on here read this? What does it say about Gurdjieff and his teachings? Is he counter-initiation?

>>10702211
>>10702239

Gurdjieff is definitely unconventional but I think Guenon was wrong to entirely write him off. The man wasn't infallible and sometimes would change his mind as evinced by Marco Pallis and Evola influencing him to eventually consider Buddhism a legitimate tradition as opposed to his earlier view that it was basically an anti-traditional kshatriya revolt against the brahmins. It's true that Gurdjieff was a known womanizer, heavy drinker, manipulative, somewhat of an self-aggrandizer etc but exhibiting unwholesome behaviors and personality traits is not mutually exclusive with realizing/receiving some genuinely valuable teaching and wanting to pass it to others.

Gurdjieff traveled throughout central Asia which is full of Sufis, Ismailis, and all sorts of small gnostic/neoplatonist/buddhist/manichean/esoteric islamic influenced sects and groups. It's not hard to imagine that he could have come into contact and been initiated into various groups. Not to mention that a key tenet of Traditionalism is that the metaphysical tradition 'Sanatana Dharma' exists on it's own and that anyone (however rare this might be in practice and despite initiation being much more preferable and reliable) is theoretically capable of tuning into it like a radio station.

Even though Gurdjieff was not 'Traditional' I think that it's fair to judge that however flawed his teachings were when compared to established religions that they were in part derived from metaphysical principles and that his teachings were just a 19th-century Armenian-Greeks idiosyncratic way of understanding them. It's noteworthy that a non-insignificant group of people were heavily influenced by him and spoke of his teachings as life-changing and later went on to achieve major successes like Frank Lloyd Wright for example. Pic related is a book considering Gurdjieff as a part of Tradition which was written by a close friend and associate of Guenon who spent time with him in Egypt.

Evola also wrote approvingly of Gurdjieff.

https://www.counter-currents.com/2011/08/mr-gurdjieff/