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Editor's Introduction Religion and the Arts 21 (2017) 1–9 RELIGION and the ARTS brill.com/rart Editor’s Introduction G.I. Gurdjieff, the Arts, and the Production of Culture Carole M. Cusack University of Sydney George Ivanovitch Gurdjieff (c. 1866–1949) was an original and influential teacher of modern esotericism and one of the sources of what Harry T. Hunt describes as “secular Western mysticism” (225–250). Gurdjieff is often studied in the context of his older contemporary Helena Petrovna Blavatsky (1831– 1891), who co-founded the Theosophical Society with Henry Steel Olcott in 1875, and also Rudolf Steiner (1861–1925), who broke away from Theosophy to found the Anthroposophical Society in 1912. It is true there are similarities between the three esoteric systems: both Steiner and Gurdjieff were familiar with, and used on occasion, the language of Theosophical discourse; Blavatsky and Gurdjieff consciously melded Eastern and Western religious, spiritual, and esoteric ideas; Steiner and Gurdjieff taught esoteric movement arts and had artists, dancers, and musicians as followers; and all three were charismatic lead- ers whose pupils gave them fierce loyalty (Petsche, “Gurdjieff and Blavatsky” 98). Yet both Blavatsky and Steiner attributed their teachings to various “Mas- ters,” while Gurdjieff “never based his authority upon ‘Masters,’ let alone being their emissary” (Azize 28). The popularity of the “Ascended Masters” tradi- tion in twentieth-century America may be one reason Gurdjieff’s teaching (the “Fourth Way” or the “Work”) is less well-known than either Theosophy or Anthroposophy (Brown passim). The secrecy with which the Foundation groups led by Gurdjieff’s successor Jeanne de Salzmann (1889–1990) guarded his legacy is certainly one reason for this. Scholarly research on Gurdjieff has until the last decade or so been limited, with most studies being hagiographies by “insiders,” focused more on celebration than on criticism (Sutcliffe 269–273). The cultural productions of Gurdjieff and his pupils include the music that he composed with Thomas de Hartmann (1885–1956) and the script that Alex- andre de Salzmann devised with Gurdjieff, which read vertically from top to bottom, in which were written the aphorisms that were featured on the walls of the Study House at the Prieuré des Basses Loges, Fontainebleau-Avon, where the second Institute for the Harmonious Development of Man flourished from 1922–1924. Bennett said the script resembled Arabic, and recorded thirty of © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2017 | doi: 10.1163/15685292-02101021 2 cusack the sayings, including: “Take the understanding of the East and the knowl- edge of the West, and then seek,” “Respect all religions,” and “Always remember that you are here having realized the necessity for contending with yourself; therefore thank everyone who affords an opportunity” (Bennett 153–154). The “sacred dances” or Movements are another cultural form that Gurdjieff taught, and they connect with the basic Fourth Way teachings, that humans are three- brained beings who must work to acquire a soul or kesdjan body through “work and conscious suffering” (Cusack 76). Johanna J.M. Petsche describes Move- ments as “dances and exercises characterized by unusual and symbolic ges- tures of the body, usually placed in unpredictable sequences” (“Gurdjieff and de Hartmann’s Music for Movements” 100). The Movements facilitate “self- remembering” (in Gurdjieff’s system a vital practice that indicates the emer- gence of the mechanical human from the state of waking sleep that is his or her natural condition). Gurdjieff taught his pupils esoteric contemplation or “inner exercises” that until recently were largely unknown to outsiders, although there were descrip- tions of these practices in some of his pupils’ memoirs. Joseph Azize, a pupil of Gurdjieff’s pupils George and Helen Adie, published the text of an exer- cise preserved by the Adies (“The Four Ideals”), and he has followed this up with studies on the practices of fasting and contemplation in Gurdjieff’s teach- ing (“Fasting in Christianity and Gurdjieff”; “The Practice of Contemplation in the Work of Gurdjieff”). Azize’s contribution to this special issue increases our knowledge of this aspect of Gurdjieffian practice. Gurdjieff also authored four works that are a major site of culture in the Fourth Way tradition. Only one text was published privately in Paris during his lifetime, The Herald of Coming Good (1933). It was removed from circulation after commentators, including the journalist Rom Landau, pronounced it “the work of a man who was no longer sane” (Landau 254). After Gurdjieff’s death his “Three Series,” also known as “All and Everything,” was gradually released. The first book, Beelzebub’s Tales to His Grandson (1950) was followed by Gurjieff’s semi-autobiographical Meet- ingsWith Remarkable Men (1964) and Life Is Real OnlyThen,When “I Am” (1975). Michael Pittman’s article in this special issue, “Gurdjieff, Art, and the Lego- minism of Ashiata Shiemash,” analyses Beelzebub’s Tales to clarify Gurdjieff’s attitude to artistic production. This special issue of Religion and the Arts is focused on the culture of the “Work” as taught by Gurdjieff and continued by his followers. The arts specifi- cally (music and dance, visual art and literature) are an important part of this culture, but are not the totality (Karalis 253). The ten articles collected here discuss a wide range of cultural productions: spiritual exercises, alternative life- ways, actor-training methods, personal experience, phenomenology, personal Religion and the Arts 21 (2017) 1–9.
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