Gurdjieff Exercise

ARIES
ARIES 13 (2013) 173–203 brill.com/arie
“Te Four Ideals”:

A Contemplative Exercise by Gurdjieff
Joseph Azize
University of Sydney
Abstract
Nous présentons ici des données inédites en provenance de G.I. Gurdjieff (c. 1865–1949),
appelées “exercice des quatre idéaux”, et tentons de les situer dans le “Travail” institué par
celui-ci. Nous voudrions faire remarquer qu’un tel exercice possède un caractère singulier
parmi les diverses traditions mystico-religieuses, dans la mesure où nous ne connaissons pas
d’autre exemple d’ une pratique visant à attirer dans le propre corps de l’élève, d’une zone située
par delà l’atmosphère terrestre, de substances élaborées à la surface de notre planète. De telles
substances émanent censément des prières adressées par les hommes à certains “idéaux”. La
mise en oeuvre, par Gurdjieff, d’“exercices contemplatifs internes” compte parmi les aspects
les moins étudiés de sa méthode. Le présent article est le premier d’une série visant à attirer
l’attention des universitaires sur ces points particuliers.
Keywords
Gurdjieff; “Four Ideals”; Mysticism; prayer; contemplation
Part One: Te “Four Ideals” Exercise

1.1. Background
It has been suggested that the Greek-Armenian George Ivanovich Gurdjieff
(c. 1865–1949) can be considered a mystic, and that his ideas and methods are
intentionally conducive to the mystic range of experiences.1 Tere, it was argued
that Gurdjieff, like the Neoplatonist Plotinus, explained mystical experiences by
reference to the action of an internal human faculty which perpetually perceives
objective reality, unlike the faculties usually available to us. Tese faculties, our
minds and emotions, are so ofen disordered if not turbulent that it is impossible
for us, in our ordinary consciousness, to be aware of the objective reality which
1) Azize, ‘Solar Mysticism in Gurdjieff ’, passim.

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2013 DOI: 10.1163/15700593-13130202
174 Joseph Azize / ARIES 13 (2013) 173–203
our “nous” (in Plotinus’ terms) or “higher intellectual centre” (in Gurdjieff ’s sys-
tem), contemplate.2 Gurdjieff ’s ideas and methods aimed to allow a connection
between the higher intellectual centre and the ordinary faculties, and thereby
form a ‘higher-being-body’ or ‘soul’ which could survive physical death. Te per-
tinent method includes overcoming negative emotions, practicing self-discipline
(including sacred movements,3 which although perhaps unique could be recog-
nized by any major spiritual tradition), and remembering oneself. Ten it is pos-
sible for one to become ‘a particle, though an independent one, of everything
existing in the great universe.’4 Interestingly, Plotinus followed Plato in placing
the ‘higher part of the soul’ in the head. Tis is where Gurdjieff placed the higher
intellectual centre.5
Te “Four Ideals Exercise” (“FIE”) was an internal contemplative exercise
which Gurdjieff gave George M. Adie (1901–1989) in 1948.6 It comprises two
parts: a relatively lengthy introduction, and an instruction. Like most of Gurdji-
eff ’s internal exercises, Gurdjieff gave it orally, never, to the best of my knowledge,
reducing it to writing.
By “internal contemplative exercise”, I mean first a practice performed with-
out making any bodily movement once a posture has been assumed and the exer-
cise commenced. Te exercitant would invariably, if not always, attempt one of
Gurdjieff ’s internal exercises sitting unmoving with eyes closed. According to Dr
John Lester (1919–1999), who visited Gurdjieff regularly between 1946 and 1949,
he and other pupils learned the exercises in Gurdjieff ’s Paris apartment, seated
with Gurdjieff upon the floor.7 Second, despite their interior and contemplative
nature, these tasks are nonetheless aptly described as “exercises”: activities which
require exertion to achieve a benefit, even if the exertion is a subtle one of the
attention before all else. John G. Bennett (1897–1974)8 wrote: ‘Gurdjieff showed
me a sequence of exercises for the control and transformation of the psychic ener-
2) Azize, ‘Solar Mysticism in Gurdjieff ’, 21–24.

3) Azize, ‘Gurdjieff ’s Sacred Dances and Movements’, passim.
4) Gurdjieff, Beelzebub’s Tales, 183.
5) Azize, ‘Solar Mysticism in Gurdjieff ’, 24. Te terms from Gurdjieff ’s unique vocabulary
will be addressed below. It might be mentioned, for the sake of abundant clarity, that there
is no connection or similarity between Gurdjieff ’s “ideals” and Plato’s “ideas” except that of
coincidence. Gurdjieff ’s ideals are dealt with below. Te study of Plato’s ideas is a complex
one, but afer even a brief reading of Parmenides 130A–134C, one can see that Plato’s “ideas”
do not represent persons, but qualities of things and concepts, and that people do not pray to
them, and one cannot take energy from them (as one does with Gurdjieff ’s ideals).
6) For Adie, see Adie and Azize, George Adie, passim.
7) Oral communication to the author, probably in 1996.
8) For Bennett as a pupil of Gurdjieff, see Wellbeloved, Gurdjieff, 238.
Joseph Azize / ARIES 13 (2013) 173–203 175
gies in man.’9 Tis aptly describes Gurdjieff ’s internal contemplative exercises in

so far as they are known to me, and as they were taught by Adie. Gurdjieff did
have other exercises which were inner but not contemplative, as I have described
these, but they fall outside the purview of this article.10
Tis side of Gurdjieff ’s practical method is virtually unknown outside of some
of the Gurdjieff groups. Te three leading biographies of Gurdjieff, and the syn-
opsis by Michel de Salzmann (1923–2001),11 are entirely silent as to the existence
of these exercises.12 Although one would not expect a thorough and complete
treatment in the encyclopaedic Dictionary of Gnosis and Western Esotericism,
it is nonetheless significant that the two pertinent entries are deficient. One of
these, “Gurdjieff Tradition”, mentions contemplative traditions such as the Pre-
Socratics and Hesychastic Christianity. It then refers to a ‘Gurdjieffian practice
of guided meditation’ which is difficult to describe, but is ‘far from being a tech-
nique or method’, and is representative of ‘the contemplative aspect of life that is
embedded in the heart of all the religious traditions of the world.’ Tis “guided
meditation” is said to have been ‘gradually emphasized and developed by Jeanne
de Salzmann in the 1960s.’ Te pupil is said to seek a ‘quality of seeing and an
embodied presence that sustains and supports his attempt to know and directly
experience what he is, including both his limitations and possibilities.’13 In what
respects, one may ask, was the Pre-Socratic tradition “contemplative”, and what
does it mean to say that Gurdjieff ’s tradition “corresponds” to it? Further, it will
become apparent in this article that Gurdjieff himself, who died in 1949, estab-
lished a line of contemplative exercises based on extensive and consistent the-
oretical and practical research, which bear no resemblance to what is described
(and vaguely described, too) of de Salzmann’s “guided meditations”.
Te other article in the Dictionary of Gnosis and Western Esotericism, titled
“Gurdjieff ”, cryptically states:
9) Bennett, Witness, 208.

10) Te author is presently preparing a book which will provide full details of these exercises.
However, some of the exercises were published, without commentary, in Gurdjieff, Transcripts,
see the index under “exercises”.
11) Michel de Salzmann, Gurdjieff ’s natural son by Jeanne de Salzmann, effectively directed
the Institut Gurdjieff afer his mother’s death in 1990. See Wellbeloved, Gurdjieff, 235.
12) See Webb, Harmonious Circle, Moore, Gurdjieff, and Taylor, G.I. Gurdjieff. Although
Gurdjieff ’s use of fasting is little remarked, Moore’s index entry “Gurdjieff: Methodology” lists
“fasts” but not “exercises” (411). Neither does Moore’s reference to Gurdjieff ’s “pratique for the
mobilization and direction of attention” (342) mention exercises. De Salzmann’s article was
published in Te Encyclopedia of Religion, M. Eliade, ed.-in-chief, NY: Macmillan, 1987, see
now http://ouspensky.org/msalzmann1.htm on 4 September 2012. De Salzmann was director
of the Institut Gurdjieff in Paris.
13) Needleman, ‘Gurdjieff Tradition’, 451–452.
Abjuring lop-sided genius, Gurdjieff promotes the harmonious development of head,

heart, and hand, respectively supporting the intellectual, emotional, and physical tem-
peraments through his writings, music, and movements. He nevertheless issues an ubiq-
uitous demand for mobilised attention. Contemplatively deployed, this ever-refined
attention builds a progressively deeper awareness of nuances of one’s physical exis-
tence—approaching the Cartesian mind/body mystery in profound interior silence,
while putatively opening the psyche to benign supernal influences.14
Te key phrase may be “contemplatively deployed”, which of course means “de-

ployed in a contemplative manner”, but here seems to mean “when applied to
the practice of contemplation”. I do not, however, pretend to understand what
is referred to by the phrase “nuances of one’s physical existence”: a “nuance” is a
slight and subtle variation, especially in expression. Neither does the writer define
“psyche” or “supernal influences”, and, given the opaque quality of his writing,
some explanation seems necessary. Afer considering the terms of the FIE below,
it should be apparent that this entry does not at all correspond to the quality of
Gurdjieff ’s spiritual exercises.
Many of these exercises have been published without commentary, chiefly by
way of incidental report when setting out the text of Gurdjieff ’s group meetings,
however they have not yet been studied.15 Further, the exercises are referred to,
albeit briefly, in several sources: for example, Rina Hands (d. 1994) mentions
being given an exercise by Gurdjieff in Paris in either 1948 or 1949, but discloses
nothing of its nature.16 However, Kenneth Walker (1882–1966)17 was a little
more forthcoming, saying enough to alert scholars to something of the nature
of the exercises:
Afer taking our coffee Gurdjieff would talk to me about some exercise that I had to
do, such as an exercise for ‘sensing’ various parts of the body. Or it might be a method
by which I should become more aware of the energy I was continually throwing away.
He suggested that I should draw an imaginary circle around myself, beyond which my
attention and my energies should never be allowed to stray, so long as I was engaged in
doing this exercise.18
14) Moore, ‘Gurdjieff ’, 449.

15) Many can be found in the transcripts of Gurdjieff ’s Paris meetings of the 1940s: see the
index entry for “exercises” in Gurdjieff, Transcripts, 180. Further, De Salzmann approved the
publication of exercises in Gurdjieff, Life Is Real. Exercises were published in de Salzmann’s
Te Reality of Being, see the index entry “exercise”, 306. Also, Sinclair published Gurdjieff ’s
“Wellington Hotel” injunction, which, as we shall see, expresses part of the basis of this Four
Ideals Exercise: Sinclair, Without Benefit of Clergy, 231.
16) Hands, Diary of Madame Egout, 71.
17) “Kenneth Walker (d. 1966) was an eminent surgeon, fellow of innumerable Royal Soci-
eties, and three times Hunterian Professor …”, Webb, Te Harmonious Circle, 401.
18) Walker, Te Making of Man, 126.
However, as a general rule, those who were taught the exercises have treated
them as secret if not privileged knowledge, which could possibly cause harm if
used unwisely. For example, Bennett, who learned many exercises directly from
Gurdjieff, stated: ‘I am reluctant to describe any of Gurdjieff ’s spiritual exercises,
as I am sure that they should never be undertaken without supervision by some
experienced guide.’19
I am not convinced that the stated reason is sound, or that the risk of danger is
so real as to justify silence. First, I am not aware of any instance where anyone has
used the exercises to their detriment, if anything, I would categorise my experi-
ence as being the opposite. Second, the publication of Gurdjieff ’s ideas marked
a significant departure from the rule of secrecy, and disseminating the details of
his exercises is arguably of lesser magnitude than the publication of the ideas in
In Search of the Miraculous (1949) and Gurdjieff ’s own works. Tird, militating
against secrecy is the desirability of making Gurdjieff ’s exercises better known.
Most of Gurdjieff ’s other methods are in the public arena where scholarship and
the general public can make use of them. Some of Gurdjieff ’s methods were pre-
sented in Part Four of the recent Brill Handbook of New Religions and Cultural
Production, his Enneagram, piano music, sacred dances and P.D. Ouspensky’s
idea of eternal recurrence (which was influenced by Gurdjieff ).20
1.2. Te Four Ideals Exercise (“FIE”)

Te FIE has not previously been published, but many of the ideas which Gurdji-
eff incorporates into the exercise have been. Te FIE is significantly more detailed
than any of those hitherto made available in the public domain, and illuminates
certain aspects of Gurdjieff ’s thought and methods. Terefore, publication of
this exercise, with an academic analysis, may both allow the Gurdjieff exercises
to become better known, and to expand our understanding of Gurdjieff ’s meth-
ods and ideas, filling out what I might call the “spiritual” or “religious” aspect of
Gurdjieff ’s system.
We can date Adie’s reception of the exercise, by virtue of appendices 1 and 2,
which are notes Adie made in September 1949. Being one of the executors of
Adie’s will, I found the material in appendices 1 to 4 amongst his papers afer his
death in Sydney in 1989. By virtue of the notation at the top of Appendix 1, we
can safely say that the notes were made on or afer 1 September 1949, but before
29 October 1949 when Gurdjieff died. Te notes, made on scraps of paper, tally
19) Bennett, Witness, 200.

20) Cusack and Norman, Handbook of New Religions, Blake, ‘Gurdjieff and the Legominism
of Objective Reason’, Petsche, ‘G.I. Gurdjieff ’s Piano Music’, and Azize, ‘Gurdjieff ’s Sacred
Dances’.
the days Adie had thus far spent with Gurdjieff in Paris. As Adie saw Gurdjieff
afer 1 September,21 the dating seems secure. Each side of the paper refers to an
exercise called “Four Ideals”. In Appendix 1, we read, inter alia:
Oct 1.48. Subjective Exercise Ideals. 5 months
to Mch. 49.
Appendix 2 includes the following note:

Oct 1. 1948. subjective ex. till Mch. 1
I understand this to mean that on 1 October 1948, Gurdjieff taught Adie a “sub-
jective exercise”, which means an exercise for a specific individual rather than for
a group,22 and that Adie worked with this exercise for five months, until some
point in March 1949. Te notations distinguish when Adie and his wife (Helen)
were given exercises (e.g., these notes show that Adie and his wife received the
exercise “I Am” at different times). Terefore, it would appear that she was not
given the FIE by Gurdjieff himself, one of several indications that Gurdjieff gave
the FIE to few of his pupils. Nonetheless, it seems to me that Helen made one of
the handwritten amendments to Appendix 3.
Briefly, in this exercise, students attempt to make contact with four “ideals”
(Christ, Buddha, Muhammad and Lama), and introduce into their own (i.e.,
the students’ own) bodies certain “higher substances” which are produced when
worshippers pray or address themselves to those “ideals”, concepts which I deal
with below.
Our direct pieces of evidence for the FIE are Adie’s written notes of the exer-
cise, a diagram which George Adie made, almost certainly, under Gurdjieff ’s
instructions in 1948 (appendices 3 and 4 respectively), and a short reference by
Bennett. Other writings to be discussed below reveal ideas and methods so close
to the Four Ideals exercise that they make my ascription of the exercise to Gurd-
jieff plausible.
21) Adie’s presence with Gurdjieff afer 1 September 1949 is independently attested for 7, 8,
10 and 11 October 1949: Bennett and Bennett, Idiots in Paris, 108, 109, 112, 113, 115 and
116.
22) Adie said, in an unpublished meeting of 11 June 1980: “As far as exercises are concerned,
there are objective exercises and subjective exercises. Te objective exercises are ones that affect
everybody in the same way, or could affect everybody in the same way, and everybody may use
them. Te subjective exercises, as you can see, will be specially suited to the person according
to their requirements at the time, and how much they have understood—the level, as it were,
of their understanding. And that will be measured from time to time …”. See also Claustres, La
Prise 134 = Becoming Conscious, 152, that Gurdjieff would simultaneously give exercises for
the individual and for the group.
1.3. Adie’s Text of “Te Four Ideals”

Te first page of Adie’s text of “Te Four Ideals”, our chief direct source for the
exercise, is Appendix 3. A two-page typed document on two foolscap sheets, it
bears handwritten corrections at five places on page 1, and hand-drawn brackets
at one place on the second page.23 Te exercise reads (incorporating the Adies’
corrections and editing, and making insignificant changes to layout and punctu-
ation):
On earth all people have an ideal which they situate far off in space, high above them-
selves. Towards this ideal they send their emanations. Tey pray to it, they stretch to-
wards it, their emanations mount towards it. Teir emanations do not all have the same
force. Some of them can hardly rise at all, others go further, further even than the atmo-
sphere of the earth, yet others mount almost to the very ideal.
Te emanations on leaving the earth are dispersed, then they mount, further on they
collect together to form at a certain level above the atmosphere of the earth a sort of
reservoir or foyer of substances.
23) Te handwritten corrections to page 1 are as follows:
1. In the first paragraph, sixth line, the first two letters of a word, perhaps “cerdly” (sic), have
been overwritten so that it reads “hardly”.
2. In the first paragraph, seventh line, the two letters of a word, perhaps “to” have been
overwritten so that it reads “of ”.
3. In the third paragraph, lines two and three, the words “and the earth” in line 3 are altered
to “the earth and”, circled, and linked by an arrow to a point in line 2.
4. In the third paragraph, sixth line, the word “to”, which appears afer the word “determina-
tion” is struck out.
5. In the final paragraph, second line, the word “parts” is crossed through and the word
“limbs” interlineated.
To my eye, the third correction was definitely made by George Adie. Te fifh handwritten
amendment is made in a different and darker ink and perhaps, also, a different hand. It seems
to me to be Helen Adie’s hand. Te first, second and fourth corrections appear to be in the same
dark ink as was used for the fifh correction. I cannot be sure who made them, but I think it
was Helen Adie, as it is likely that she made all the corrections in the same, darker pen. I would
conjecture that Helen Adie typed up the document, made these two simple typographical
corrections, then struck out the obsolete “to” (probably present in the original translation due
to a literal rendering of the French infinitive), and revised the translation of the word “parts” to
“limbs”, while Adie made the more substantial editorial change in a different pen. Helen Adie
ofen typed up confidential matters for Adie, at least into the 1970s, so this scenario is not
unlikely. I have viewed a handwritten English language original of appendix 3. I recognised
the handwriting of the English as being Adie’s (“the English draf”). I do not know where the
English draf is now, but I suspect that it has been misplaced.
We represent to ourselves that this foyer of substances is situated midway between the
earth and the point of concentration which represents the ideal of the believers. Te ideal
himself is too far for an unprepared man to be able to enter into contact with him, but the
man can, if he tries with determination enter into contact with this foyer of substances
formed from the concentration of the vibrations sent by the believers towards their ideal
and the man can assimilate these substances and accumulate them in himself. He can do
it by establishing through the concentration of his will a connection in the form of a line
or thread between this foyer and some part or other of his own body.
Te exercise is given to achieve this aim. We choose four ideals: Muhammad, Christ,
Buddha, Lama. We represent that their essence exists somewhere in space, in a place
situated above the country where they lived:
Muhammad above Mecca and Medina

Christ above Jerusalem
Buddha above India
Lama above Tibet
In representing to ourselves each of these ideals, the thought goes immediately in the
direction in space where the ideal is situated. Te exercise consists in establishing a
contact between one of the limbs of the body and the foyer of substances formed by
the vibrations of the faithful in the direction of the ideal.
Now follows the second part of the exercise:
Breath in air consciously while drawing into yourself the substances accumulated in the
limbs so that it can flow to meet the air which you are breathing in. It mixes with the air
by itself, at the level of the breast. Ten pour it into the sex organs.
I AM, in two parts.
With “I” feel the sex organs, with “AM” fill up the seven parts of the body one afer the
other.
1 “I” feel the sex organs

“AM” with the substance accumulated in them fill up the right leg by pouring
into it this substance
“AM” fill up the lef leg
“AM” refill up the lower part of the abdomen
“AM” fill up the whole of the abdomen
“AM” fill up the torso
“AM” fill up the two arms and the shoulders

“AM” fill up the head
Ten “I AM” several times “I” am conscious of the whole of the body with a feeling
centred in the solar plexus. “AM” again am conscious of the whole of the body, with
a sensation centred in the vertebral column.
Afer that, rest ten or fifeen minutes in a collected state, that is to say, do not allow
thought or feeling or organic instinct to pass outside the limit of the atmosphere of the
body. Rest contained so that your nature can assimilate in calmness the results deposited
in you, which otherwise would be lost in vain.
1.4. Adie’s “Ideal” Sketch

Tis is Appendix 4. It was made on headed note paper from the Belfast Hotel
in Paris, where Adie invariably stayed when visiting Gurdjieff in Paris in 1948
and 1949. It is written in Adie’s hand, and was drawn and annotated in blue
ink. Its contents pertain only to part 1 of the FIE. Te table below contains the
original French text without correction, my translation, and a description of the
document.
Table 1. Adie’s “Ideal” Sketch
Position Notation Comment
Top “Ideal” Beneath the word “Ideal” is a circular object,
presumably the unreachable ideal, which is made
up of a spiral of lines starting from the centre.
Mid-top “CONCENTRA- Tese words (“Concentrations of the vibrations
TIONS DES of the believers”) are written at the base of the five
VIBRATIONS DES parallel lines which lead from a lower sphere to
CROYANTS” the upper sphere marked “Ideal”.
Base-top A lower sphere made up of several concentric
circles. Whereas the upper sphere is, perhaps, the
unreachable sphere, this sphere, the summit of the
“concentration”, is within grasp.24
Top-middle 15 lines lead into the lower sphere (base-top)
from the lower levels of the diagram.
Middle “ATMOSPHERE” A concave line, almost parallel to the earth line
below, is superimposed over the lines which lead
into the lower sphere from the levels below.
24) I am indebted to one of the anonymous reviewers for considerably improving my descrip-
tion at this point.
Position Notation Comment

Lower-middle 15 lines lead upwards from the earth line below.
Tey are continuous with the 15 lines of the
top-middle.
Earth line “TERRE” Tis is a concave line annotated “Earth”. Along it
are 15 points, four of which are marked with a
dash. Each of the 15 lines referred to above leads
up from one of these points.
Below the “Assemblés des croyants “Gatherings of the praying believers, sending their
earth line priant, envoyant leurs vibrations in the direction of their ideals”
vibrations dans la
direction de leur idéals”
It is noteworthy that this diagram depicts only one “ideal”. It leaves open the
question of how many “ideals” may subsist, according to Gurdjieff. Taking these
two sources together, I would say that there are five essential theoretical elements
to this exercise:
1. “Higher substances” form certain “reservoirs” above the earth.

2. Te “higher substances” of those reservoirs are the results of emanations and
vibrations which arise when people pray to the “ideal” who lived on the spot
of the earth immediately below.25
3. An exercitant can attract and ingest these materials by means of a connection.
4. Te connection between the exercitant and the accumulations consists in a
temporary thread formed by concentration.
5. Implicitly, it is an advantage for an exercitant, to be able to ingest these
substances.
I suggest that there are three secondary theoretical elements:
6. Te “ideal” “himself ” indeed exists.

7. It is not enough to ingest the higher substances, if they are not calmly di-
gested, the results of the exercise will be squandered.
8. Te exercitant has an “atmosphere” around their body.
25) I use both terms “emanations” and “vibrations” because Adie used both terms in these
documents. Without going into the basis of the theoretical distinction in Gurdjieff ’s thought,
for him, all emanations are vibrations, but not all vibrations are emanations: see briefly Well-
beloved, Gurdjieff, 57 and 139.
Point 6 is implicit in the statement that ‘the ideal himself is too far for an
unprepared man to be able to enter into contact with him …’. It is otherwise
attested that Gurdjieff taught that each person has an “atmosphere” through
which energies are received or lost.26
1.5. Bennett on “Conscious Stealing” and “Lama”

Te third direct piece of evidence for the FIE is the testimony of John G. Ben-
nett. In the posthumously published Sacred Influences (1989), edited from mis-
cellaneous materials by A.G.E. Blake, is the transcript of a talk given by Bennett
on 14 May 1974, titled “Sacred Images”.27 Tere, Bennett, speaking of the image
which was produced by Térèse of Lisieux’s (1873–1897) intense faith, love and
conviction of her relationship with Jesus, said:
… Gurdjieff explains this to some extent in Beelzebub’s Tales, but he did it in much more
detail when he was introducing an exercise that he called “conscious stealing”, which
involved sacred images. He said that from time to time from another world—“from
Above”—a Sacred Individual is incarnated in human form with a very high and special
mission, the working out of which is not visible in this world and which can only be
perceived by the disciples or companions who are specially prepared. … We see that
sacred image as the founder of a religion, as a prophet or as an incarnation of God …28
In Gurdjieff: Making a New World (1973), Bennett said:

[Gurdjieff ] certainly had a deep respect for Lamaism. In Beelzebub’s Tales, he asserts
that a group of seven lamas possessed both knowledge and spiritual powers unparalleled
elsewhere on earth, and that the accidental death of the chief of the group had destroyed
one of the hopes of mankind. A further point is that in one of his most remarkable
spiritual exercises Gurdjieff placed ‘Lama’ on the same footing as Muhammad, Buddha
and Christ, and asserted that there was a special concentration of spiritual power in a
certain place between Tibet and Afghanistan.29
A question arises concerning “Lama” who lived above Tibet, and whose name
Bennett placed in inverted commas, perhaps to indicate that while this is not a
proper name, it does refer to a specific person. To scholars of religion, “Lama”
simpliciter, unlike Muhammad, Buddha and Christ, is strictly a designation, not
a proper name. Buddha (Awakened) and Christ (Anointed) are, of course, titles
which ofen effectively serve as proper names. For the purpose of this study, there
26) Claustres La Prise 65 = Becoming Conscious, 79.

27) Bennett, Sacred Influences, 77–78 on the dating of the paper which is edited at 36–47.
28) Bennett, Sacred Influences, 42–43.
29) Bennett, Gurdjieff: Making a New World, 96.
is little benefit in expounding everything Gurdjieff had to say about “Saint Lama”.
It suffices that Gurdjieff ’s pupils would have understood “Lama” from Tibet to
be the character known to them from the oral readings of Beelzebub’s Tales, which
were a feature of life with Gurdjieff in his last years.30 Neither is it germane to my
task here to try and identify a specific historical person as being the original of
Gurdjieff ’s “Lama”.
Te similarities between what Bennett says about this “spiritual exercise”, and
what we have seen of the FIE is striking. Te sole difference is that Bennett refers
to the area between Tibet and Afghanistan, whereas the exercise, as Adie had
it, mentions only Tibet. If Bennett was given an exercise other than the FIE
which had these details, his account nonetheless strengthens the plausibility of
attributing Adie’s exercise to Gurdjieff himself.
1.6. Recollections of Gurdjieff ’s Pupils

Tis writer’s own personal enquiries of those who were with Gurdjieff proved
unfruitful. In 1996, in the USA, I asked Annie-Lou Staveley (1906–1996),31 then
about 90 years old but with a retentive memory and all her faculties, who had
also received exercises from Gurdjieff, whether she had ever heard of this exer-
cise. She said that she had not. She further added that it did not sound to her
like a Gurdjieff exercise, but more like one of Bennett’s own devising. Stave-
ley had reason to find the exercise redolent of Bennett, as I was later told that
one of his pupils had taught her the “Conscious Stealing Exercise” (see below).
However, it would appear, especially given Bennett’s note in Gurdjieff: Making
a New World, that the similarity between the FIE and the “Conscious Steal-
ing Exercise” is more likely to be due to Gurdjieff ’s common authorship than
it is to Bennett’s invention. It seems that Gurdjieff gave exercises like “Con-
scious Stealing” and the “Four Ideals” to Bennett, but not to very many oth-
ers. To be more precise, it seems to me that the general nature of the instruc-
tion was fairly widely circulated, but the technical details concerning attracting
the higher substances, then ingesting and assimilating them, were passed to very
few.
John Lester, also advised me, between 1996 and 1998, that he, too, had never
heard of the FIE, but that it resembled the “Conscious Stealing Exercise” which
he had been told Bennett had taught, presumably having learned it from Gur-
djieff. According to Dr Lester, the exercise involved picturing to oneself four
places of pilgrimage where the pilgrims’ prayers produce higher substances which
30) See Gurdjieff, Beelzebub’s Tales, 264, 697, 701, 705, 721 and 724.
31) On Staveley as a pupil of Gurdjieff, see Wellbeloved, Gurdjieff, 241–242.
accumulate over these sites ( Jerusalem, Mecca, Benares on the Ganges, and the
Potala). Te exercitant then ingests those substances by fabricating a connection
between their own body and the gathered substances, as in the FIE. Te “Con-
scious Stealing Exercise” is the closest parallel to the FIE known to me. Like the
FIE, it is not publicly available.
However, some published material in the public domain indirectly bears on
the FIE and Adie’s diagram. Te first of these is found in a posthumously edited
selection of the autograph notes of one of Gurdjieff ’s closest pupils, Jeanne de
Salzmann (1889–1990),32 published under the title, Te Reality of Being (2010).
Although the journal entries which comprise this volume were written over a
lengthy period of time, the book does not provide their dates. Te pieces are
edited and collated in such a way that, uninstructed by the editors’ foreword,
one would think that the book was written as a unified whole. Te foreword
states that de Salzmann declared that she was writing a book, although what
she lef was rather: “… notebooks … carefully preserved.”33 Tere is no indica-
tion as to who edited them, or their procedure. Te editors disclose that: ‘She
ofen echoed, and sometimes repeated, his (i.e., Gurdjieff ’s) exact words. … No
attempt has been made to identify isolated excerpts taken by her from Gurdjieff
or other writers.’34 Some of the material in Reality of Being is identical in every
important aspect to what we have seen of our exercise. For example, de Salzmann
writes:
Each person has an ideal, an aspiration for something higher. It takes one form or
another, but what matters is the call to this ideal, the call of his being. Listening to
the call is the state of prayer. While in this state, a man produces an energy, a special
emanation, which religious feeling alone can bring.35 Tese emanations concentrate
in the atmosphere just above the place where they are produced. Te air everywhere
32) For de Salzmann as a pupil of Gurdjieff, see Wellbeloved, Gurdjieff, 235.

33) de Salzmann, Te Reality of Being, xvi.
34) de Salzmann, Te Reality of Being, xvi and xviii. At xvi, they offer two examples of where de
Salzmann repeats Gurdjieff ’s words. An anonymous reviewer of this article correctly referred
to the fact that although she stated that she was transmitting Gurdjieff ’s teaching, de Salzmann
in fact also used other teachings, partly as a means of establishing a framework in which
Gurdjieff ’s ideas and methods could be seen as “traditional”. Te difficulty in knowing with
the, in de Salzmann’s book, comes from Gurdjieff and what does not, is not that of the editors
alone. Still, the similarities between these excerpts from Te Reality of Bring and the FIE is
prima facie evidence that Gurdjieff was, at least in large part, their source. As we shall see below
when we consider Kathryn Hulme’s “exercise”, Gurdjieff had previously taught this exercise to
de Salzmann, and trusted her to repeat it to Hulme.
35) Te role of “religious emotion” in Gurdjieff ’s system is a study in itself: it raises the
question of the divisions of the centres. Here, de Salzmann is referring to the source of the
energies in the “reservoir” to which the FIE makes reference.
contains them. Te question is how to enter into contact with these emanations. By our
call we can create a connection, like a telegraph wire, which links us, and take in this
material in order to let it accumulate and crystallize in us. We then have the possibility
to manifest its quality and help others understand—that is, to give it back. True prayer
is establishing this contact and being nourished by it, nourished by this special material,
which is called Grace. As an exercise for this, we breathe in air, thinking of Christ or
Buddha or Mohammed, and keep the active elements that have been accumulated.36
Other material in the book expresses similar ideas:

When I turn the attention of my thought to enter into contact with my body, my mind
opens. Te cells that vibrate are not the same as those engaged in my usual thinking.
It is a part of the mind that can have a relation with a more subtle, pure energy. Tis
is the energy of a higher level, which, Gurdjieff explained, is constituted by the real
thought, the prayer, of certain beings. In order to have a connection with this level, I
need a conduit, like a wire that reaches as high as my thinking allows. I can then take in,
or rather suck in, the energy and let it pass through the connection.
De Salzmann adds that the connection is a “cosmic scale”, “a link connecting

humanity with a higher influence.”37 She locates the “meaning” of individual
lives on this “scale”. Tat meaning is realised when a “current” and “magnetism”
is established between each person and the “higher influences”. Making this con-
nection is, she states, the aim of all “traditional ways”, which differ only because
they had to correspond to people of different times and places.38 Te overlap
between de Salzmann’s statements, taken together, and our exercise is substan-
tial. De Salzmann’s accounts contain each of the essential five elements identi-
fied above: concept 1 (that higher substances form reservoirs above the earth),
3 and 4 (that the exercitant can absorb them by means of a connection), and,
even more explicitly than Adie, 5 (that it is desirable to ingest these substances).
In respect of concept 2 (that the substances are the products of prayer), de Salz-
mann states that while in a state of prayer, and only while experiencing a “religious
feeling”, extraordinary emanations are produced and gather above the prayer site.
Some higher substances, she asserts, are made by the “real thought” of “certain
beings”.
Tere are also some differences between this and the exercise given to Adie, but
only in minor respects. First, Adie’s exercise includes a reference to Lama, as well
as Christ, Buddha and Mohammed, making four, not three ideals, for selection.
However, there is no reason to think that the number of “ideals” is limited to
four, for example, another of Gurdjieff ’s exercises mention these four ideals and,
36) de Salzmann, Te Reality of Being, 198–199.

37) de Salzmann, Te Reality of Being, 199.
38) de Salzmann, Te Reality of Being, 199.
in addition, Moses. Second, de Salzmann refers to assimilating these substances

within the “active elements” of the air.39
Another person who personally knew Gurdjieff and received instructions
along these lines was Louise March (1900–1987), who knew Gurdjieff, on and
off, over a period of twenty years.40 In her posthumously edited and published
recollections, she states that, afer she had studied with Gurdjieff in France, chil-
dren called her “Quiet Lady”, because she would sit ‘in stillness above the alcove
on the second-story porch,’ each morning.41 Tis suggests that she had learned
the Gurdjieff exercise which Adie called “the preparation”, and which was to be
done at the start of each day. However, this is by no means certain, and there is no
clue in the book as to what March did while she was sitting quietly. March also
discloses that during the Christmas of 1948, while Gurdjieff was in New York:
Afer the dinner, around midnight, Gurdjieff gives advice. “I wish give real Christmas
present. Imagine Christ. Somewhere in space is.” Mr Gurdjieff forms an oval with both
his hands. “Make contact, but to outside, periphery. Draw from there, draw in, I. Settle
in you, Am. Do every day. Wish to become Christ. Become. Be.”42
Tis account emphatically affirms element 6 from the FIE, that the ideal itself
actually does exist. Further, it seems to exploit the possibility hinted at in Adie’s
text, that a prepared person could enter into contact with the ideal. It is notewor-
thy that Gurdjieff formed an oval with both his hands, and that Adie’s diagram
also depicts an oval. Gurdjieff ’s consistency may indicate that his instruction was
not meant merely as a “true myth”,43 but as literally accurate (which is not to say
that the existence of the ideals is verifiable by us).
Frank Sinclair, co-president of the Gurdjieff Foundation of New York from
April 2000,44 studied not with Gurdjieff himself but with Gurdjieff ’s pupils,
especially Jeanne de Salzmann, Lord Pentland (1907–1084) and Martin Benson
(d. 1971). He has published some material which throws light on how Gurdjieff
brought a related exercise. Te first reference in his volume comes from the edited
memoirs of Beatrice Hastings, his wife, referring to Gurdjieff ’s visit to the USA
in 1948:
39) Te term “active elements” could shortly be explained as referring to fine substances in
the air which can act as catalysts for spiritual development. Tese are “higher hydrogens” as
referred to in 2.2.
40) For March as a pupil of Gurdjieff, see Wellbeloved, Gurdjieff, 242.
41) McCorkle, Te Gurdjieff Years: Expanded, 97.
42) McCorkle, Te Gurdjieff Years: Expanded, 107.
43) Tat is, a fiction which, if believed, is as effective as if it were true (e.g. imagining that you
are sleeping on a pleasant beach, as a way of inducing sleep).

44) Sinclair, Without Benefit of Clergy, 214–215.
At another time, at the end of movements, Gurdjieff said to the class, “At this time
(around Christmas), many people pray. Teir prayers go only so far up in the atmosphere.
You can suck these into yourself; this force.”45
Sinclair’s footnote observes that the audience for this advice comprised ‘both
new and older people.’46 Tere is no indication that Gurdjieff said how to do this.
Sinclair also notes that Martin Benson, who knew Gurdjieff over a period of at
least 20 years, said that Gurdjieff advised him: ‘Go to church, Benson, and steal.
Teir prayers will not reach God. Steal them.’47 Te advice is not dated, although
in the footnote, Sinclair states that this “evidently predated” the advice given
on Christmas Day 1948.48 He does not say why he thought this to be “evident”.
Sinclair later states that on Christmas 1948, in the Wellington Hotel, New York,
Gurdjieff gave an exercise concerning one ideal, Christ. Citing three people who
were present at that talk, Sinclair wrote that:
… they would recall his extraordinary injunction to go out and “draw in”, “steal”, or “suck
in” the energies being poured out “by millions” of people in prayer, as on that Christmas.
(My old notes reveal that … Benson was drumming into me his account of how Gurdjieff
had told him, “STEAL those energies, Benson, STEAL. Teir prayers cannot reach
God.” And in the way he spoke, I felt that those injunctions must have dated back to
his time at the Prieuré, and not just to that Christmas Day.)
Inevitably, there were only partial recollections of that occasion. For instance, Louise
March, German translator of All and Everything, displaying uncharacteristic sensitivity,
ventured only a skeletal summary of his instruction.49
Sinclair then quotes most of the passage from March to which I have referred.
He continues:
… it would appear that Gurdjieff counseled his listeners to turn towards a point “some-
where in space”—someone even said he had referred to a planet, but clearly then, “above
the head”, even perhaps “a higher part of the mind”—and consciously draw in a fine
energy.50
Sinclair goes on to say that in that session, Gurdjieff claimed to speak “as a Christ”
and told people to undertake this exercise because only through it would they
45) Sinclair, Without Benefit of Clergy, 121 (the year) and 125.
46) Sinclair, Without Benefit of Clergy, 125 n. 5.
47) Sinclair, Without Benefit of Clergy, 146.
48) Sinclair, Without Benefit of Clergy, 157 n. 6.
50) Sinclair, Without Benefit of Clergy, 230–231. Sinclair cites McCorkle, Te Gurdjieff Years,
80.
“understand reason to live”.51 Sinclair’s account nowhere provides a firm date for
the reception of this advice before the Christmas period of 1948. Sinclair’s “feel-
ing” that the exercise was given in the 1920s is possibly a function of his desire
to use the exercise as the “lynchpin” of his argument that Jeanne de Salzmann’s
“new work”,52 was no innovation, but a continuation of Gurdjieff ’s own meth-
ods.53 However, the fact is that there is no evidence of Gurdjieff giving the exer-
cise before October 1948 when he gave it to Adie.
Te polymath Solange Claustres, who studied many exercises with Gurdjieff
in the 1940s, records that at some point in his last ten years in Paris, Gurdjieff
prepared a “groupe particulier” of fifeen people to whom he gave “des exercises
intérieurs”. She describes the exercises as being:
He gave us inner exercises to be carried out at precise times and frequencies, during
the day, and during the night, in a sustained progession consisting of consciously taken
sensations—going deeper and deeper … It was a very structured and strictly disciplined
school. Te group formed the essential foundation of G.’s teaching during this period of
his life.54
Claustres only gives details of one of these exercises. In 2007, in Paris, I described
the FIE to her, and she replied that she had not been given it by Gurdjieff,
and, indeed, had not previously known of the exercise. Claustres, did, however,
recognise the “preparation” when I described that to her, and told me that the
Adies had passed it on exactly as Gurdjieff had taught them. Te special group
had ceased, she said, before 1948, but not long before. Gurdjieff is not known
to have used the concept of the “ideal” before the 1940s. Tis seems to be a
further reason to date the FIE then. Indeed, there is very little evidence that
Gurdjieff gave any exercises at all before the late 1930s. I shall review that evidence
in a later article, but for now I note that although Bennett had studied under
Gurdjieff in the 1920s, he only speaks of receiving exercises from him afer he
had re-established contact with him in 1948.

52) See Wellbeloved, Gurdjieff, 153–156.
53) Sinclair, Without Benefit of Clergy, 7. Sinclair’s argument that de Salzmann’s line was
continuous with Gurdjieff ’s, because it was in line with this exercise, is an act of faith. He
nowhere explicates what it was she said which corresponds to what Gurdjieff said in the
Wellington Hotel.
54) Claustres, Becoming Conscious, 89 = La Prise, 73: ‘… très précis dans le temps et la fré-
quence, pendant la journée et pendant la nuit, avec un cheminement très continu et très pro-
gressif de sensations prises consciemment—allant de plus en plus en profondeur … C’était un
école de discipline stricte et très structurée. Ce groupe a été la base essentielle de l’enseignment
de G. à cet période de sa vie.’
It therefore seems more likely than not that Gurdjieff devised the FIE in 1948,
and taught it to very few people (we know with certainty only of George Adie,
and with a degree of probability, of J.G. Bennett and Jeanne de Salzmann). How-
ever, it also seems clear that Gurdjieff disseminated abbreviated or simplified ver-
sions of it, such as the “Conscious Stealing Exercise” and the New York 1948
instructions, but without instructions as to how to ingest, digest and assimilate
the desired substances. It would, perhaps, be reasonable to see the FIE in the form
given to Adie as one of Gurdjieff ’s “subjective exercises”, but the instructions in
New York, as an “objective exercise”.
Part Two: Gurdjieff ’s System and “Ideals”

2.1. Gurdjieff ’s System: Four States of Consciousness
Te FIE is consistent with Gurdjieff ’s general system of ideas and methods, and
expands our understanding of it. To state the matter at its simplest, although it
says nothing explicit about consciousness, the FIE fits into Gurdjieff ’s thought,
in that for Gurdjieff “human evolution” is the evolution of human consciousness,
and can only be achieved by individuals. Te evolution of consciousness is, I
would suggest, implicitly the goal of the exercise. Terefore, when at the end
of the FIE, Gurdjieff advises one to: ‘Rest contained so that your nature can
assimilate in calmness the results deposited in you, which otherwise would be lost
in vain,’ the benefit he envisages is probably the development of consciousness
through the assimilation of “higher hydrogens” (see 2.2. below).
In his first systematic disclosures, in WWI Russia, Gurdjieff taught that
human evolution is dependent upon, inter alia, the foods or substances a person
digests, and in particular, for effective development, it is necessary to obtain more
of the finer foods or substances.55 When one obtains the finest substances, these
can be alchemically transmuted into “higher bodies”, which serve as the platform
for the work of functions which are rarely operative in people. It is through these
functions that we come to be conscious of ourselves within reality, and then to
directly perceive reality in the state Gurdjieff called “objective consciousness” (as
to which, see below).
I shall briefly develop this in several stages. Te first, perhaps foundational
matter for Gurdjieff, is that the human body consists of seven “centres” or brains
making one whole organism. Of the seven centres: five are “lower” and two
55) Interestingly, Claustres remembers that Gurdjieff told them that they had to eat the most
nourishing physical food: “Que nous devions manger des aliments de première qualité, riches
en valeur nutritive et en vitamins.” Claustres, La Prise, 59 = Becoming Conscious, 73, where it
is translated as: “Tat we should eat the best quality foods, nutritious and rich in vitamins.”
are “higher”. Te five lower ones are observable. Tey comprise the intellectual,
emotional, sexual, moving and instinctive centres. Te instinctive centre deals
with that work of the physical organism which does not have to be learned,
and so usually does not need the awareness of the other four centres. In fact,
operations governed by the instinctive centre ofen cannot be made conscious
at all. Instinctive functions include the pumping of blood, the working of the
hormonal system, the growth of the body and all its parts, etc. Some instinctive
functions are amenable to a certain amount of intellectual interference, e.g.,
breathing, while others are not, e.g., the working of the liver. Moving centre
functions are also physical functions, but these must be learned, e.g., walking,
speaking and playing sports.
In addition, according to Gurdjieff, each person also possesses “higher emo-
tional” and “higher intellectual” centres.56 Te two higher centres facilitate two
rare states of consciousness: what he termed “self-remembering” and “objective
consciousness.” For Gurdjieff, these are the two highest of four possible states
of human consciousness. Te first or lowest state, “sleep”, is self-explanatory.
Te fourth and highest, “objective consciousness”, is the only state in which we
can ‘see things as they are’.57 In between, there are two other states, “waking
consciousness”, which is our usual waking state, in which our attention shifs
between ourselves, externals and our reactions to internal and external stim-
uli. In the third state, “self-remembering”, the attention available in waking con-
sciousness is clearer, more inclusive and “finer”, meaning more penetrating. At
the present, according to Gurdjieff, we possess this third states only in flashes.58
“Self-remembering” is one of Gurdjieff ’s most individual contributions to eso-
teric lore.59 He concisely described it as “consciousness of one’s own being”.60 It
is, briefly, the effort to divide one’s attention between oneself and one’s actions,
thoughts, sensations and feelings, so that one becomes conscious of a greater
number of one’s own psychic and organic functions and of their true nature. It
56) Ouspensky, In Search of the Miraculous, 142.

57) Ouspensky, In Search of the Miraculous, 141, retaining Ouspensky’s italics. I can find
no more pithy and authoritative comment on these states of consciousness, as understood
by Gurdjieff, than Ouspensky’s formulation: “When we become self-conscious, we become
objective to ourselves, and in objective conscious (sic) we can know objective truth about
everything.” Ouspensky, Fourth Way, 106. For a concise explanation of Gurdjieff ’s theory of
consciousness, so that the theory of different states of consciousness is put in context, see
Wellbeloved, Gurdjieff, 39–40.
58) Ouspensky, In Search of the Miraculous, 141–142.
59) See Wellbeloved, Gurdjieff, 187–189 and the material collected in Webb, Harmonious
Circle, 146–148.
is significant partly because the habitual experience of the third state is the only
way to be able to achieve moments of the state of objective consciousness, and to
accurately remember anything of the objective reality we perceive in that state.
Tis is perhaps the key to understanding the relation between Gurdjieff and
mysticism, for, speaking of mystical experience, he said:
All mystical and occult systems recognize the existence of higher forces and capacities in
man … and speak of the necessity for developing the hidden forces in man. Tis present
teaching differs from many others by the fact that it affirms that the higher centres exist
in man and are fully developed. It is the lower centres that are undeveloped.61
In our usual state of consciousness, there is no connection between the higher

and lower centres, and so we ‘fail to hear within us the voices which are speak-
ing and calling to us from the higher emotional centre.’62 Were there a connec-
tion, one would experience: “new emotions, new impressions hitherto entirely
unknown to him, for the description of which he has neither words nor expres-
sions.”63 Self-consciousness, or “self-remembering”, is a function of the operation
of the higher emotional centre. Te higher intellectual centre is still less accessi-
ble: it can be approached only through the higher emotional centre, and thus, in
practice, through self-remembering. Rare as they are, connections to the higher
intellectual centre are known to occur apart from the intentional cultivation
of higher emotional centre, and when they do, they cause mystical and ecstatic
states. Gurdjieff explained the circumstances of these random connections as fol-
lows:
Tese states can occur on the basis of religious emotions, or, for short moments, through
particular narcotics; or in certain pathological states such as epileptic fits or accidental
traumatic injuries …64
A longer connection with the higher intellectual centre usually results in a

swoon. Importantly for this study, Gurdjieff then stated of such accidental con-
nections that:
Te mind refuses to take in the flood of thoughts, emotions, images, and ideas which
suddenly burst into it. And instead of a vivid thought, or a vivid emotion, there results,
on the contrary, a complete blank, a state of unconsciousness. Te memory retains only
the first moment when the flood rushed in on the mind and the last moment when the
flood was receding and consciousness returned. But even these moments are so full of
unusual shades and colours that there is nothing with which to compare them among

the ordinary sensations of life. Tis is usually all that remains from so-called ‘mystical’
and ‘ecstatic’ experiences, which represent a temporary connection with a higher centre.
Only very seldom does it happen that a mind which has been better prepared succeeds
in grasping and remembering something of what was felt and understood at the moment
of ecstasy. But even in these cases, the thinking, the moving, and the emotional centres
remember and transmit everything in their own way, translate absolutely new and never
previously experienced sensations into the language of everyday sensations, transmit
in worldly three-dimensional forms things which pass completely beyond the limits of
worldly measurements …65
Gurdjieff is saying, in short, that the source of mystic experiences is found in

certain “higher brains” which we all possess, and which are able to directly per-
ceive reality. Te reason we are usually unaware either of objective reality or of
the existence of these brains in us is that the ordinary mind we use is not capa-
ble of entering into connection with the higher brains without the preparation
provided by spiritual disciplines, or by one of the random occurrences Gurdjieff
was quoted as referring to. Even if such a connection does take place by accident
(e.g. as a result of head trauma), we then understand what is higher in terms of
what is lower. Tis explanation has the virtue of being systematic and internally
consistent, even if it is impossible to assess its correctness.
2.2. Gurdjieff ’s System: “Higher Hydrogens”

For Gurdjieff, the evolution of consciousness requires finer foods. Our highest
states of consciousness require foods of a finer type than those we need for
our lower states. Foods comprise, according to Gurdjieff, a much greater range
of substances than we ordinarily think. Part of the significance of the “FIE” is
that it widens still further our understanding of what Gurdjieff considered to
be available as food. Briefly, for Gurdjieff, the material universe (not excluding
the possibility of something in the universe which is not material)66 is composed
of interpenetrating substances or “hydrogens” of increasing density. Although
there are more hydrogens in the universe, Gurdjieff said that, for all our purposes,
it was sufficient to take 12 of these hydrogens, which he designated as H1, H6,

66) Ouspensky, In Search of the Miraculous, 82 is very careful in its wording: “We take the
three-dimensional universe and consider the world as a world of matter and force in the sim-
plest and most elementary meaning of these terms. Higher dimensions … as well as other cat-
egories of knowledge of the world which are unknown to science, we will discuss later.” Gur-
djieff ’s reported exposition of the “ray of creation” is marked by his selection of deliberately
selects only one “ray:” from the possibly infinite number which are created by the Absolute,
ibid 80–81.
H12, H24, H48, H96, H192, H384, H768, H1536 & H3072. Each hydrogen
comprises a “category of matter”, embracing various objects, some of which are
known to us, for example, wood is composed of H1536, while the substances
which serve as food for us are H768.67 Each organic creature or body is also a
composite of hydrogens of varying density. Tese hydrogens are all material, and
have both chemical and psychic attributes. Te materiality and thus the quality
of each hydrogen is different: for example, air and wood each possess properties
which the other does not.
In about 1918, Gurdjieff said that humans feed upon three foods: solid nourish-
ment (food and water, which, for these purposes, Gurdjieff treated as one class);
air; and impressions. Tese three foods are “hydrogens” 768, 192 and 48 respec-
tively.68 He stated that although all hydrogens with the significant exception of
H1 could be found in the human body,69 the higher hydrogens (i.e., those with
lower numbers, H48, H24 etc.) were “matters unknown to physics and chem-
istry, matters of our psychic and spiritual life on different levels.”70 In adumbrat-
ing the ideas which culminated in the “Food Diagram” in its classical completed
form,71 Gurdjieff indicated that, by a special alchemical work, the three foods
could be developed further than they usually are. According to Ouspensky, Gur-
djieff stated that a person usually does not have enough energy to attain the aims
they set themselves. For Gurdjieff, the only worthwhile aim to start with is “self-
remembering”. At a later date, Gurdjieff went on to say that one of the reasons
we cannot “remember ourselves” is that:
Te human organism represents a chemical factory planned for the possibility of a very
large output. But in the ordinary conditions of life the output of this factory never
reaches the full production possible to it … all its elaborate equipment actually serve
no purpose at all, … it maintains only with difficulty its own existence.
It must follow that if exercitants can attract and feed on higher substances, the
Food Diagram of In Search of the Miraculous must be incomplete, as the “ema-
nations” produced by prayer cannot easily be accommodated to any concept of
“impressions” without stretching that word beyond any reasonable meaning.
67) Ouspensky, In Search of the Miraculous, 172–175. As Ouspensky notes, water and liquid
foods are in fact H384, but for simplicity, all solid edible and potable foodstuffs are taken as
H768.
71) Figure 39: Ouspensky, In Search of the Miraculous, 182.
2.3. Gurdjieff on Prayer and “Ideals”

According to the transcript of a meeting in Paris of 7 December 1941, some-
one asked Gurdjieff how he should pray. Gurdjieff replied, inter alia, that cer-
tain substances emanate from the sun and planets.72 Tese emanations, he said,
make contact at certain points in our solar system, and can reflect in material-
ized images which are themselves images of the All Highest. Tere are always,
he averred, materialized images in the atmosphere, and if only we could suffi-
ciently concentrate, we could enter into contact with the image and receive the
substances. Tere is a significant difference between this and the FIE, for in 1941
Gurdjieff was referring to emanations from the bodies of the solar system. FIE, on
the other hand, refers to emanations sourced from the faithful. However, what
was said in this meeting of 7 December 1941 is of interest in that it suggests a
basis, in Gurdjieff ’s thought, for asserting the objective reality of “ideals” which
subsist somewhere above the surface of the earth.
Gurdjieff advised his students to have an ideal: for example, in the meeting of
16 January 1944, he stated, if one does not have an ideal, if one does not believe
in God, then one’s parent or teacher can serve as an ideal.73 On 9 December
1946, Gurdjieff advised that when finishing an exercise one could make a prayer
to one’s ideal to help guard what one has received or attracted until the next
exercise.74 It is possible that Gurdjieff ’s theory can be accommodated within the
framework of traditional Christianity (e.g., the receipt of the “higher substances”
corresponds to the receipt of divine grace), although this too, is a topic for a
later study.75 However, the significant point is that as the exercises are aimed
at conscious development, they will—or should—make possible a connection
between higher and lower centres, and thus for the states which are experienced
as “mystical” to become “natural” for the exercitant. Tis is further reason to see
Gurdjieff ’s system as fundamentally mystical, as it has elsewhere been argued.76
Another aspect of the FIE’s prayer-like nature is that religiosity is not usu-
ally associated with Gurdjieff. But the impression of Gurdjieff ’s a-religiosity is
superficial. His music and his movements are replete with the conventionally
72) Gurdjieff, Transcripts, 2–3. Similarly, see Gurdjieff, Beelzebub’s Tales, 760–761.
73) Gurdjieff, Transcripts, 106.
74) Gurdjieff, Transcripts, 173.
75) I am aware that there are significant differences between Gurdjieff ’s ideas and those found
in Christianity, but that is not my topic here.

76) Azize, ‘Solar Mysticism in Gurdjieff ’, passim. Despite the many diverse methods which
Gurdjieff used, the writer is here referring to the system as a whole: ideas and techniques
considered as leading to an end.
religious: much of his piano music bears titles such as “Essentuki Prayer”, “Te
Story of the Resurrection of Christ”, or “Reading from a Sacred Book”. Tere
are even pieces with titles such as “Vespers Hymn” and “Tibi Cantamus”. Tere
are two entire series of piano music named “Hymns from a Truly Great Temple”
and “Sacred Hymns”, respectively. Te solemnity and gravity of these pieces is
apparent. Ten there are movements with titles such as “Te Big Prayer”, and
“Sense of the Sacred”. During the latter, the pupils invoke the names of the four
ideals. One cannot say much about this wordless teaching, but it exists and is
an important part of Gurdjieff ’s heritage.77 Nowhere in any of Gurdjieff ’s or
Ouspensky’s books, or in the transcripts of Paris meetings, does Gurdjieff say or
is he quoted as saying that prayer is ineffectual, let alone that one should not pray.
On the contrary, he actually and explicitly gave instruction in how to pray and
enjoined it.78 In In Search of the Miraculous, Gurdjieff is reported as saying that
the action of conscious praying could itself do for the person what they sought
from a higher power.79 In other words, prayer is one of Gurdjieff ’s methods.
What is striking about some of Gurdjieff ’s methods, is how he uses imagina-
tion, although he considered uncontrolled imagination to be one of the signs of
“waking sleep”. Gurdjieff evidently considered that imagination could be used
constructively, even if it was rarely used in that manner. Tus, in a talk dated to
19 December 1930, Gurdjieff stated:
… as a means for self-perfecting a man can use a certain property which is in his psyche,
and which is even of a very negative character. Tis property … is none other than
that which I have many times condemned and which people themselves consider an
unworthy manifestation for a man who has reached responsible age … and it is called
“self-deception”.80
Tere are indications that imagination could be very different in its significance
for a person and their conscious development, depending on whether it was
intentional and controlled or unintentional and uncontrolled.81 Te FIE must,
it is submitted, be taken as one of those rare examples where Gurdjieff recom-
mended the use of intentional and controlled imagination. Another such exam-
ple, which also takes us into the area of magic is found in Kathryn Hulme’s
(1900–1981) memoir Undiscovered Country: In Search of Gurdjieff (1966).
77) See Petsche, ‘G.I. Gurdjieff ’s Piano Music’, and her forthcoming Music for Remembering:
Te Gurdjieff/de Hartmann Piano Music and its Esoteric Significance.
78) Ouspensky, In Search of the Miraculous, 300–302, and see also the references in Well-
beloved, Gurdjieff, 166–167.

80) Gurdjieff, Life Is Real, 133.
81) Ouspensky, Te Fourth Way, 370–371.
Reporting meetings with Gurdjieff in 1949, Hulme speaks of Gurdjieff ’s refer-

ences to “conjury” as being something which one does for one’s own benefit, and
which has that effect not because it is magic but because the person themselves
did it.82 However, the exercise which Gurdjieff gave her later that year when her
mother had started to suffer from dementia was intended to work for the benefit
of her mother as well. Hulme states:
He went to his trunk, took from it a postcard-sized photograph of a strong-faced old lady
in a black head shawl and cape … “My mother,” he said. He then gave me an exercise,
totally different from any previous instruction yet including steps from many of the
earlier “spiritual” disciplines. I must always be alone in a room when I performed it, alone
with two empty chairs before me, on which I was to see “with inner eye” his mother and
my mother sitting side by side. Step by step, he went through the instruction which, I
gathered, might enable me to draw into myself a force to send to them—a kind of “help”
for his mother and mine. Ten he called Madame S., his oldest and most trusted Russian
assistant, told her to go over it once again, step by step with me, and abruptly lef the
room.
It was the last exercise he was ever to give to me.83
Te parallel to the FIE consists in the fact that she would draw into herself “a
force”. But then, this exercise goes beyond the FIE in that she would send it on
to both her mother and Gurdjieff ’s. At this point, we are looking at something
which most scholars would probably consider to be magic or at least akin to it:
the hardest question is probably one of definition.
Part Tree: Conclusion

Gurdjieff ’s “Four Ideals Exercise” would seem to be unique. Te chief aim of this
paper has been to publish the exercise with the necessary notes to make it com-
prehensible in its own terms, and to relate it to Gurdjieff ’s own system. Te pro-
cess of showing its consistency with Gurdjieff ’s ideas and methods also presents
those in a fresh light. Te exercise shows Gurdjieff making use of religious con-
cepts but recasting them; almost, in fact, materialising them. Although the “sub-
stances” of which Gurdjieff speaks are, in his scheme of the universe, subtle sub-
stances, they are, nonetheless material substances. Likewise, the notion that when
people pray they emanate a refined substance which ascends above the earth is,
to the best of my knowledge, unique and reframes received religious ideas in a
novel manner.
82) Hulme, Undiscovered Country, 278–279.

83) Hulme, Undiscovered Country, 284–285.
Apart from exhibiting the connection between religion and Gurdjieff ’s sys-
tem, especially perhaps in its later stages, this article seeks to draw attention to
Gurdjieff ’s use of “internal contemplative exercises”. As we have seen, there are
in fact some references in the extant literature to these exercises. Te first publi-
cation of a full exercise occurred in 1975 with Gurdjieff ’s Tird Series, published
under the title Life is Real, Only Ten, When ‘I Am’. As stated, it is my inten-
tion to follow this paper up with more studies of these exercises. Tat research
may lead to a rather different, more nuanced picture of Gurdjieff emerging: the
fiery teacher of “dervish dances” was but one role he played. Gurdjieff was also a
teacher of a unique form of contemplation which was grounded upon an exten-
sive and internally-consistent theory.
Bibliography
Books
Adie, George M. and Azize, Joseph, George Adie: A Gurdjieff Pupil in Australia, London:
Lighthouse Work Books 2007.
Bennett, John G., Witness: Te Story of a Search, Santa Fe: Bennett Books, 1997 reprint of a
1962 original, with a foreword by George and Ben Bennett.
——, Gurdjieff: Making a New World, New York: Harper & Row 1973.
Bennett, John G. edited A.G.E. Blake, Sacred Influences: Spiritual Action in Human Life, Santa
Fe: Bennett Books 1989.
Bennett, John J. and Bennett, Elizabeth, Idiots in Paris: Diaries of J.G. Bennett and Elizabeth
Bennett, 1949, York Beach, Maine: Samuel Weiser 1991.
Claustres, Solange, La Prise de conscience et G.I. Gurdjieff, Utrecht: Eureka Editions 2003.
——, Becoming Conscious with G.I. Gurdjieff, Utrecht: Eureka Editions 2005 (a translation of
Claustres 2003).
de Salzmann, Jeanne, Te Reality of Being: Te Fourth Way of Gurdjieff, Boston and London:
Shambhala 2010.
Gurdjieff, George I., Beelzebub’s Tales to his Grandson, Aurora: Two River Press 1950 (a 1993
“unaltered republication of the work as it was originally prepared for publication by G. Gur-
djieff, published by Harcourt, Brace & Company in 1950.”)
——, Life Is Real, only then, When ‘I Am’, New York: privately printed by E.P. Dutton & Co.,
Inc. for Triangle Editions, Inc. 1975.
——, Transcripts of Gurdjieff ’s Meetings 1941–1946, London: Book Studio (the volume is
anonymously edited) 2008.
Hands, Rina, Diary of Madame Egout Pour Sweet, Aurora: Two Rivers Press 1991.
Hulme, Kathryn, Undiscovered Country: In Search of Gurdjieff, Boston and Toronto: Little
Brown and Company 1966.
McCorkle, Annabeth W., Te Gurdjieff Years, 1929–1949: Recollections of Louise March, Wal-
worth, New York: Te Work Study Association, Inc. 1990.
——, Te Gurdjieff Years, 1929–1949: Recollections of Louise Goepfert March, Expanded Edi-
tion, Utrecht: Eureka Editions 2012.
Moore, James, Gurdjieff: Te Anatomy of a Myth, Dorset: Element Books 1991.
Ouspensky, Piotr D., Te Fourth Way, New York: Vintage Books 1957.
——, In Search of the Miraculous, New York: Harcourt Brace 1949.
Sinclair, Frank, Without Benefit of Clergy: Some Personal Footnotes to the Gurdjieff Teaching,
Xlibris 2005.
Taylor, Paul Beekman, G.I. Gurdjieff: A New Life, Utrecht: Eureka Editions 2008.
Walker, Kenneth, Te Making of Man, London and Henley: Routledge & Kegan Paul 1963.
Webb, James, Te Harmonious Circle: An Exploration of the Loves and Work of G.I. Gurdjieff,
P.D. Ouspensky and others, London: Tames and Hudson 1980.
Wellbeloved, Sophia, Gurdjieff: Te Key Concepts, London and New York: Routledge 2003.
Articles
Azize, Joseph, ‘Solar Mysticism in Gurdjieff and Neoplatonism’, Crossroads, 2010 (1), 18–26.
——, ‘Gurdjieff ’s Sacred Dances and Movements’, in: Cusack, Carole and Norman, Alex
(eds), Handbook of New Religions and Cultural Productions, Leiden and Boston: Brill 2012,
297–330.
Blake, Anthony G.E., ‘Gurdjieff and the Legominism of Objective Reason’, in: Cusack, Carole
and Norman, Alex (eds), Handbook of New Religions and Cultural Productions, Leiden and
Boston: Brill 2012, 237–270.
Moore, James, ‘Gurdjieff ’, in Hanegraaf, Wouter J. (ed), Dictionary of Gnosis and Western
Esotericism, Leiden and Boston: Brill 2005 (two volumes), vol. I, 445–450
Needleman, Jacob, ‘Gurdjieff Tradition’, in Hanegraaf, Wouter J. (ed), Dictionary of Gnosis and
Western Esotericism, Leiden and Boston: Brill 2005 (two volumes), vol. I, 450–454
Petsche, Johanna, ‘G.I. Gurdjieff ’s Piano Music and its Application In and Outside ‘the
Work’ ’, in: Cusack, Carole and Norman, Alex (eds), Handbook of New Religions and Cul-
tural Productions, Leiden and Boston: Brill 2012, 271–295.
Appendices 1–4
Te reproductions of all four appendices are published by kind permission of the
trustees of the late George Adie. Te originals are in the possession of the author.
Appendix 1
Obverse of Adie’s notes, handwritten in 1949, concerning the time spent with
Gurdjieff in Paris, and the exercise Gurdjieff gave him.
Appendix 2
Reverse of Adie’s notes, handwritten in 1949, concerning the time spent with
Gurdjieff in Paris, and the exercises Gurdjieff gave him.
Appendix 3
Page 1 of the typed version of Gurdjieff ’s Four Ideals Exercise, with handwritten
corrections by Adie and Helen Adie.
Appendix 4
Adie’s French language sketch, probably made in 1949, of the cosmology of Gur-
djieff ’s Four Ideals Exercise.

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ARIES

ARIES 13 (2013) 173–203 brill.com/arie

“Te Four Ideals”:

Part One: Te “Four Ideals” Exercise

1) Azize, ‘Solar Mysticism in Gurdjieﬀ ’, passim.

2) Azize, ‘Solar Mysticism in Gurdjieﬀ ’, 21–24.

gies in man.’9 Tis aptly describes Gurdjieﬀ ’s internal contemplative exercises in

9) Bennett, Witness, 208.

Abjuring lop-sided genius, Gurdjieﬀ promotes the harmonious development of head,

Te key phrase may be “contemplatively deployed”, which of course means “de-

14) Moore, ‘Gurdjieﬀ ’, 449.

1.2. Te Four Ideals Exercise (“FIE”)

19) Bennett, Witness, 200.

Appendix 2 includes the following note:

1.3. Adie’s Text of “Te Four Ideals”

23) Te handwritten corrections to page 1 are as follows:

Muhammad above Mecca and Medina

1 “I” feel the sex organs

7 “I” feel the sex organs

1.4. Adie’s “Ideal” Sketch

Position Notation Comment

1. “Higher substances” form certain “reservoirs” above the earth.

I suggest that there are three secondary theoretical elements:

6. Te “ideal” “himself ” indeed exists.

1.5. Bennett on “Conscious Stealing” and “Lama”

In Gurdjieﬀ: Making a New World (1973), Bennett said:

26) Claustres La Prise 65 = Becoming Conscious, 79.

1.6. Recollections of Gurdjieﬀ ’s Pupils

32) For de Salzmann as a pupil of Gurdjieﬀ, see Wellbeloved, Gurdjieﬀ, 235.

Other material in the book expresses similar ideas:

De Salzmann adds that the connection is a “cosmic scale”, “a link connecting

36) de Salzmann, Te Reality of Being, 198–199.

in addition, Moses. Second, de Salzmann refers to assimilating these substances

are sleeping on a pleasant beach, as a way of inducing sleep).

51) Sinclair, Without Beneﬁt of Clergy, 232.

Part Two: Gurdjieﬀ ’s System and “Ideals”

56) Ouspensky, In Search of the Miraculous, 142.

In our usual state of consciousness, there is no connection between the higher

A longer connection with the higher intellectual centre usually results in a

61) Ouspensky, In Search of the Miraculous, 194.

Gurdjieﬀ is saying, in short, that the source of mystic experiences is found in

2.2. Gurdjieﬀ ’s System: “Higher Hydrogens”

65) Ouspensky, In Search of the Miraculous, 195.

2.3. Gurdjieﬀ on Prayer and “Ideals”

in Christianity, but that is not my topic here.

beloved, Gurdjieﬀ, 166–167.

Reporting meetings with Gurdjieﬀ in 1949, Hulme speaks of Gurdjieﬀ ’s refer-

Part Tree: Conclusion

82) Hulme, Undiscovered Country, 278–279.

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