Gurdjieff and the Fourth Way

"Grant's particular take here is that recognizing the Fourth Way as an esoteric teaching has critical implications for the practice. Esotericism goes to the heart of the teaching itself. Gurdjieff warned against taking anything literally or on faith, and advised accepting only experience that could be lived oneself. He also said that one has to find out "how to know" and that understanding knowledge of being depends on the "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. This is, above all, a practical matter. The chapters outline 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: (i) introducing the system of ideas to and through Ouspensky; (ii) writing his own theory of the teaching, principally in Beelzebub's Tales; and (iii) passing on the practical teaching toward consciousness to and through Jeanne de Salzmann. The last five chapters will 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"--