Assessing

Borrowing: The Case of Gurdjieff

Joseph Azize
University of Sydney

The history of esoteric currents cannot be intrinsically closed to scholarly research and
query. Here, we shall examine just one question: that of methodology in examining the
sources of esoteric systems. We shall take but one case study: that of Tobias Churton’s
recent book-length efforts to “deconstruct” George Ivanovich Gurdjieff and his teaching.
Like others before him, he traces diverse aspects of Gurdjieff’s teaching to different
sources, viewing Gurdjieff as a synthesiser, who disguised his debt to Western
Esotericism and presented it as his “Fourth Way”. How can such a theory be evaluated?
Is it possible to draw up a canon of principles for assessing borrowing? In evaluating
borrowing, does the whole of a teaching possess a significance over and above the parts?
What is the significance of the phenomenon of borrowing? After noting some results of
research on inter-cultural borrowings in ancient mythology, I make suggestions for
sound methodology.

Keywords: Gurdjieff – Fourth Way – P.D. Ouspensky – Cultural Borrowing – Esoteric
Tradition – Tobias Churton – Yezidis – Gnosticism

Tradition, Esotericism, Secrecy and Hiddenness in the Gospel Studies of P. D.
Ouspensky and Maurice Nicoll

John Willmett
University of Edinburgh

This article examines the views of Gurdjieff’s disciples P. D. Ouspensky and Maurice
Nicoll on the esoteric nature of the Gospels. Utilising one of Wouter Hanegraaff’s
definitions of esotericism as religious activity concerned predominantly with salvific
knowledge of the “inner mysteries of religion” reserved for a selected elite, Ouspensky’s
and Nicoll’s view of the Gospels as the rendering in metaphorical form of esoteric
knowledge as the formulation of the esoteric psychology of the path of inner evolution
is discussed. Sources for this discussion are Ouspensky’s A New Model of the Universe
(1931), and Nicoll’s The New Man (1950) and The Mark (1954). It is suggested that the
Gospels render esoteric knowledge and its linguistic expression secret and hidden.
Nicol’s idea of the necessity for this secrecy and hiddenness in dealing with the esoteric,
that esoteric knowledge given to those unprepared for it is dangerous, both because it
will be spoiled, its truth and beauty destroyed, and because it will turn into what Nicoll
calls “world poison”, is illustrated in a discussion of the thesis presented in Jacob
Needleman’s A Sense of the Cosmos (1975), that the rise of modern science represents
an abuse of esoteric knowledge. The article concludes by presenting ideas from
Needleman, Ouspensky and Nicoll of what needs to be done in the face of this current
widespread abuse of esoteric knowledge.

Keywords: P. D. Ouspensky – Maurice Nicoll – hermeneutics – the “Fourth Way” –
“Western Esotericism” – esotericism – Jacob Needleman


The Enneagram: G. I. Gurdjieff’s Esoteric Symbol

Carole M. Cusack
University of Sydney

The Enneagram, from the Greek ennea (nine) and grammos (written or drawn), is a nine-
sided figure, presented as a triangle within a circle (connecting points 9, 3 and 6), that
was taught by the esoteric teacher G. I. Gurdjieff and discussed in P. D. Ouspensky’s In
Search of the Miraculous (1949). Gurdjieff stated that the Enneagram is “completely self-
supporting and independent of other lines and it has been completely unknown up to the
present time” (Ouspensky, In Search of the Miraculous, 286), yet multiple origins have
been claimed for the symbol, e.g., Christian, Sufi, Kabbalistic (Webb, The Harmonious
Circle, 505-519). This article situates the Enneagram in the Work context, and considers
the post-Gurdjieffian Enneagram, which is chiefly used for personality analysis (indebted
to Oscar Ichazo, founder of the Arica School).

Keywords: G. I. Gurdjieff – Enneagram – Oscar Ichazo – esotericism – P. D. Ouspensky

The Master’s Voice’: The Hidden Gurdjieff in the Music and Art of Franco Battiato

Christian Giudice
University of Gothenburg

Occultism has been present in popular music since the 1960s, but genuine occult content has
been lacking in chart-topping bands, relegating more serious interactions between esoteric
message and music to underground phenomena. An exception to this trend is Franco Battiato,
who has sold in excess of three million records, one million of his masterpiece, La Voce del
Padrone (The Voice of the Master, 1981), alone. This article analyses Battiato’s method of
communicating occult lore through coded words, which couch esoteric meaning in exoteric
forms of expressions. The article provides a substantial analysis of Battiato’s career, including
his spiritual research through the works of Sufi masters, René Guénon and, especially, the
teachings of the Armenian mystic G. I. Gurdjieff. Through a textual analysis of Battiato’s lyrics
of his most mystical works (1979-1982), I aim to identify the Italian songwriter’s hidden
references to the works of Gurdjieff and his disciple P. D. Ouspensky, proving that Battiato
represents a rare case of a pop musician whose works are informed by occult knowledge, and
who wants to communicate this hidden lore to listeners.

Keywords: Franco Battiato – G.I. Gurdjieff – occultism in music – Fourth Way

Understanding the Esoteric through Progressive Awareness: The Case of Gurdjieff’s
Law of Three as Elaborated by J. G. Bennett’s Six Triads

David Seamon
Kansas State University

Many researchers of Western esotericism today assume a “methodological agnosticism”

whereby they limit themselves to historical and textual verification. They do not adjudicate
whether the specific esoteric tradition studied is genuine or spurious, reasonable or unsound,
grounded in a spiritual reality or premised in fantastical impossibilities. In this article, I draw
on G. I. Gurdjieff’s understanding of the “Law of Three” as extended by British philosopher
and Gurdjieff associate J. G. Bennett to argue that a phenomenological approach is a valuable
interpretive complement to methodological agnosticism because it offers a reliable
conceptual and methodological means for probing esoteric claims as they might be
understood via firsthand encounter and experience. Bennett particularized Gurdjieff’s
presentation of the Law of Three by describing it in terms of six triads; i.e., systems of three
forces that interact to sustain a specific action, process, or happening. In this article, I draw
on my ongoing understanding of Gurdjieff’s Law of Three and Bennett’s six triads to suggest
that esoteric knowledge is not necessarily “hidden” or “beyond the ordinary” but can unfold
in a process of progressive awareness whereby the student engages in an empathetic,
deepening understanding of phenomena. Instead of the “outsider” perspective of
methodological agnosticism, one draws on an “insider” perspective of committed, first-
person involvement.

Key words: G. I. Gurdjieff—P. D. Ouspensky—J. G. Bennett—Western esotericism—Law

of Three—phenomenology of esoteric experience—triads