Gurdjieff: An Approach to His Ideas

By Michael Waldberg

Book Overview

A survey of Gurdjieff - the man and his central ideas. This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0140190988
• ISBN13: 9780140190984
• Release Date: January 1989
• Publisher: Arkana
• Length: 158 Pages
• Weight: 0.85 lbs.
• Dimensions: 7.8" x 0.5" x 5.0"

Customer Reviews

An Excellent Introduction

Michel Waldberg writes clearly and gives a good picture of Gurdjieff's ideas. The main contents of his book are direct quotations from Beelzebub's Tales and In Search of the Miraculous, which gives an authentic impression.But the books is not only quotations it is also full of acute observations and thoughts on the teaching. Consider the following little quotation:"It is as children that we must read Meetings with Remarkable Men' - as children capable of wonder, of following where the storyteller leads, and also of identifying with the marvellous living figures whom we see. Anybody who came to this book in search of new revelations, or new methods of achieving the consciousness without which it remains useless to utter the word freedom, would be quickly disenchanted."

An objective analysis from an "Outsider"

This is a basic introduction to essential concepts, practices, and historical perspective of the Gurdjieff Work. This book was unique at the time (1973) as the point of view of an objective reviewer who was not a "student of the Work." It clearly lacks the important emotional impact of Gurdjieff's own writings or Ouspensky's "In Search of the Miraculous." Whether it is preferable to have a rational presentation of the concepts before delving into those much more challenging and provacative books is debateable. Personally I would say that, for those who may have a true calling to this teaching, it is better to skip all the "Gurdjieff for Dummies" starter books and go straight to "In Search of the Miraculous." But for those who choose not to do that, this book is a decent candidate for a primer.