Gurdjieff, Ouspensky, Amis, Praxis
I was recently reviewing a few interesting articles leading to a rather loosely connected chain of ideas. I am hoping to learn a little bit more about these connections.
Stepping through the relational degrees, we begin with the beloved Guitar Craft, Music Craft, etc. which is a development of Robert Fripp ’s experiences with J. G. Bennett who was a student of G. I. Gurdjieff.
Now the interesting article I found was one that studied the fabled links between G.I. Gurdjieff’s philosophy and Orthodox Christianity and the possibility that near the end of his life, Gurdjieff’s statement, “Remember what now I say, begin in Russia, finish in Russia…” suggests that prior to the revolution a deposit of Valaam monastic practice and wisdom teaching was deposited with the hope that once the coast was clear, it would be returned as presented to the monastic communities as a precious keepsake.
Be that as it may, there was another peer of Gurdjieff’s, P. D. Ouspensky, who took knowledge of mathematics and psychology and connected it to Gurdjieff’s philosophies to develop this ‘Fourth Way’ as an alternative form of ascetic practice for laypeople – beyond the classic forms of religious Work there is a way which engages mind, body and spirit in a harmonious way, etc.
There’s some stuff about Enneagrams in there also. Be that as it may, this study seems to have influenced yet another thinker, Robin Amis, to dedicate this work to the study of Athonite monasticism. His book, ‘A Different Christianity’ supposedly serves as a valuable guide to understanding patristic and monastic psychology. I haven’t read it yet, but I find it fascinating that the institute he heads, the Praxis Research Institute has dedicated so much of their work to understanding the spiritual development of early Christianity in conjunction with Athonite monastic experience.
I don’t necessarily suggest that this is entirely Orthodox or that there is no syncretism with other philosophies going on – however it does not seem to displace Orthodox beliefs on the surface.
I’ll have to delve into it all a bit further, but it is certainly an interesting chain of relationships and I am amazed that such a connection could exist between Guitar Craft, Russian Orthodox spirituality and Athonite asceticism.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 License.
© 2006 Jacob Gorny