Gurdjieff in the Late 1930s

Abstract The more reliable and datable exercises for Gurdjieff’s activities in the 1930s is examined in this chapter: these comprise an “Exercise concerning Aim and Energy”, “There Are Two Parts to Air,” and “Make Strong! Not Easy Thing.” These, together with the reminiscences of Hulme, support the thesis that, in this period, Gurdjieff was developing his exercises of Transformed-contemplation, but that they did not possess the sophistication of those he purportedly taught in Life Is Real, Only Then, When “I Am.” The situation of Gurdjieff’s teaching in 1939 is reviewed: he has claimed to find his system in monasteries located in Central Asia, yet what he taught was for use in the social domain of life, not in monastic settings. The car accident of 1925 had prompted him to evaluate his career so far. It seems that he had concluded that the methods he had used had not succeeded as he had hoped, and as Ouspensky had not published the promised introduction to his teaching, he began to write himself, with the assistance of A.R. Orage, and then to develop the exercises which are the subject of this book. Here again, Orage was important, as bringing the initiative to the formulation, elaboration and use of the more basic exercises Gurdjieff had previously employed.