Gurdjieff as a Bricoleur
Understanding the “Work” as a Bricolage
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1558/ijsnr.v6i2.29056Keywords:
Gurdjieff, The Work, Fourth Way, Bricoleur, Bricolage, Levi-Strauss, de Certeau, AltglasAbstract
Several descriptions have been given to the teachings of G. I. Gurdjieff (1866?-1949), including ‘esoteric Christianity’, a herald of the ‘New Age Movement’ and a standalone system called ‘The Work’ or the ‘Fourth Way’. Scholars qualify their assessments by noting Gurdjieff’s exposure to Theosophy, Spiritualism and Hypnotism, or his background in indigenous oral culture. Nevertheless, a complex unity of ideas, constituting a whole, is usually taken to underpin Gurdjieff’s instructions, with the allure and mystique of this ‘System’ lying in the quest to uncover its source(s). As a result, the Gurdjieff movement is typically presented as sui generis, issuing from a self-contained dynamic. In contrast, taking my lead from the model of the bricoleur in Levi-Strauss, and drawing on an illustrative range of primary sources and secondary literature, I argue that Gurdjieff is better understood not as launching a new ‘system’ – complete, integrated and self-sufficient - but as drawing together a heterogenous repertoire of sources and resources through which to make a bricolage. As a result, the ‘fourth way’ has always been a ‘work in progress’.
References
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Sutcliffe, Steven J. 2007. “The Origins of ‘New Age’ Religion between the Two World Wars.” In Handbook of New Age, edited by D. Kemp and J. Lewis, 51–75. Leiden: Brill. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/ej.9789004153554.i-484.21
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Tremlett, P-F. 2008. Levi-Strauss on Religion. London: Equinox.
Walker, Kenneth. 1957. A Study of Gurdjieff’s Teaching. London: Jonathan Cape.
Webb, James. 1976. The Occult Establishment. La Salle, IL: Open Court.
1980. The Harmonious Circle: The Lives and Work of G.I. Gurdjieff, P.D. Ouspensky and their Followers. London: Thames & Hudson.
Wellbeloved, S. 2003. Gurdjieff: the Key Concepts. London: Routledge.
2014b. From Yoga to Kabbalah: Religious Exoticism and the Logics of Bricolage. New York: Oxford University Press. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199997626.001.0001
Anon. 2014. Gurdjieff’s Early Talks 1914–1931. In Moscow, St. Petersburg, Essentuki, Tiflis, Constantinople, Berlin, Paris, London, Fontainebleau, New York, and Chicago. London: Book Studio
Azize, J. 2012. “Gurdjieff’s Sacred Dances and Movements.” In Handbook of New Religions and Cultural Production, edited by C. Cusack and A. Norman, 297–330. Leiden: Brill. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/9789004226487_014
2013. “‘The Four Ideals’: A Contemplative Exercise by Gurdjieff.” ARIES 13: 173–203. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/15700593-13130202
Beekman Taylor, Paul. 2001. Gurdjieff and Orage: Brothers in Elysium. York Beach, ME: Weiser Books.
Beekman Taylor, Paul, ed. 2010. Gurdjieff in the Public Eye: Newspaper articles, Magazines and Books 1914–1949. Utrecht: Eureka Editions.
Bennett, John G. 1969 [1963]. Gurdjieff: A Very Great Enigma. New York: Samuel Weiser.
1973. Gurdjieff: Making a New World. London: Turnstone Press.
Bennett, J.G. and Elizabeth Bennett. 1980. Idiots in Paris: Diaries of J. G.Bennett and Elizabeth Bennett. Ellingstring: Coombe Springs Press.
Benson, M. 2011. Martin Benson Speaks. New Paltz, NY: Codhill Press.
Butler, E. M. 1948. The Myth of the Magus. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Campbell, C. 1972. “The Cult, the Cultic Milieu and Secularization.” In A Sociological Yearbook of Religion in Britain 5, edited by Michael Hill, 119–136. London: SCM.
Carlson, Maria. 1993. No Religion Higher than Truth: A History of the Theosophical Movement in Russia 1875–1922. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
1997. “Fashionable Occultism: Spiritualism, Theosophy, Freemasonry, and Hermeticism in Fin-de-Siècle Russia.” In The Occult in Russian and Soviet Culture, edited by Bernice Glatzer Rosenthal et al. 135–152. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
Colombo, J. R., ed. 2015. The Occult Webb. Toronto: Colombo and Company.
de Certeau, M. 1984. The Practice of Everyday Life. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Derrida, J. 2000 [1967]. “Structure, Sign and Play in the Discourse of the Human Sciences.” In Writing and Difference. London: Routledge.
Green, M. 1986. Mountain of Truth: the Counterculture Begins. Ascona 1900–1920. Hanover, NH: University Press of New England.
Gurdjieff, G. I. 1933. The Herald of Coming Good. Paris: Privately Published.
1978[1963]. Meetings with Remarkable Men. London: Picador.
Hulme, K. C. 1967[1966]. Undiscovered Country: A Spiritual Adventure. London: Frederick Muller.
Hunter, Bob. 2006. Don’t Forget: P. D. Ouspensky’s Life of Self-Remembering. Oregon House, CA: Bardic Press.
Levi-Strauss, Claude. 1966 [1962]. The Savage Mind. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson.
Mannherz, Julia. 2012a. Modern Occultism in Late Imperial Russia. DeKalb, IL: Northern Illinois University Press.
2012b. “Placing the Hidden on Centre Stage: Occultism and Entertainment in Late Imperial Russia.” In The New Age of Russia, edited by M. Hagemeister, B. Menzel and B. Glatzer Rosenthal, 19–42. Munich: Kubon and Sagner 2012.
Moore, James G. 1986. “Gurdjieffian groups in Britain.” Religion Today 3(2): 1–4. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13537908608580596
2006. “Gurdjieff.” In Dictionary of Gnosis and Western Esotericism, edited by W. Hanegraaff, 445–450. Leiden: Brill.
Needleman, J. 1992. “Gurdjieff and His School.” In Modern Esoteric Spirituality, edited by Antoine Faivre and Jacob Needleman, 359–380. New York: Crossroad.
Nicoll, Maurice. 1957 [1952]. Psychological Commentaries on the Teachings of Gurdjieff and Ouspensky Volume II. London: Vincent Stuart.
Nolte, John. 2014. The Philosophy, Theory and Methods of J. L. Moreno: the Man who Tried to Become God. London: Routledge.
Nott, C. S. 1990 [1961]. Teachings of Gurdjieff: A Pupil’s Journal. London: Arkana/Penguin.
1978 [1969]. Further Teachings of Gurdjieff: Journey through this World. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.
Ouspensky, P. D. 1950 [1949]. In Search of the Miraculous: Fragments of an Unknown Teaching. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul
Petsche, Johanna. 2011. “Gurdjieff and Blavatsky: Western Esoteric Teachers in Parallel.” Literature & Aesthetics 21(1): 98–115.
2013. “A Gurdjieff Genealogy: Tracing the Manifold Ways the Gurdjieff Teaching Has Travelled.” International Journal for the Study of New Religions 4(1): 49–79. http://dx.doi.org/10.1558/ijsnr.v4i1.49
Rauve, Rebecca. 2003. “An Intersection of Interests: Gurdjieff’s Rope Group as a Site of Literary Production.” Twentieth-Century Literature 49(1): 46–81. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/3176008
Roszak, Theodore. 1976. Unfinished Animal: The Aquarian Frontier and the Evolution of Consciousness. New York: Harper & Row.
Sutcliffe, Steven J. 2007. “The Origins of ‘New Age’ Religion between the Two World Wars.” In Handbook of New Age, edited by D. Kemp and J. Lewis, 51–75. Leiden: Brill. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/ej.9789004153554.i-484.21
2013. “‘Rosicrucians at large’: Radical versus qualified invention in the cultic milieu.” Culture and Religion 14(4): 424–444. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14755610.2013.838801
2014. “Hard Work: Locating Gurdjieff in the Study of Religion/s.” Journal for the Academic Study of Religions 27(3): 262–284. http://dx.doi.org/10.1558/jasr.v27i3.26500
Tingay, K. 2000. “Madame Blavatsky’s Children: Theosophy and its Heirs.” In Beyond New Age: Exploring Alternative Spirituality, edited by S. Sutcliffe and M. Bowman, 37–50. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
Tremlett, P-F. 2008. Levi-Strauss on Religion. London: Equinox.
Walker, Kenneth. 1957. A Study of Gurdjieff’s Teaching. London: Jonathan Cape.
Webb, James. 1976. The Occult Establishment. La Salle, IL: Open Court.
1980. The Harmonious Circle: The Lives and Work of G.I. Gurdjieff, P.D. Ouspensky and their Followers. London: Thames & Hudson.
Wellbeloved, S. 2003. Gurdjieff: the Key Concepts. London: Routledge.
Published
2016-01-20
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Section
Articles
How to Cite
Sutcliffe, S. J. (2016). Gurdjieff as a Bricoleur: Understanding the “Work” as a Bricolage. International Journal for the Study of New Religions, 6(2), 117-135. https://doi.org/10.1558/ijsnr.v6i2.29056
