Customer Reviews

The Psychology of Man's Possible Evolution

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When you have had your first 'education' by the way of years of "ordinary" life; when you have been exposed to thousands of works of literature, art, science, religion--and these have created a hunger in you; at a certain point, you may be ready to receive a certain quality of knowledge. When you do, when you recognize its value and if you apply it to your daily life, you yourself can truly change. This book, in the hands of one who seeks, can be a key to the start of a path to a larger and richer world.

How well do you *really* know yourself? Are you willing to go digging? The world is waiting, and a man named Piotr Demianovich Ouspensky saw fit to help you know both it, and yourself, in ways you never guessed.

Yes, there are books that can truly change lives. This is one of them. Do not read if your aim is only to remain comfortable. I wish you the best on your Way.

If you're new to Gurgjieffian thought, this is the book to start with. It gives a general overview of G.I. Gurdjieff and P.D. Ouspensky's main philosophical ideas. The book is in the form of five short lectures that each tackle a particular topic. The major emphasis of the book is that humans need to learn to stop being meachines and to acquire self-consciousness by self-sudy before any upward motion along the lines of knowledge and being can be accomplished. Contains very practical advice.

A spare, terse distillation of the no-nonsense call to waking up in the manner of the 4th Way, which takes place not in the monastery, but in the ordinary conditions of life. Basically, Gurdjieff's transmission of esoteric understanding through Ouspensky's language.

Some people have very negative opinions of Ouspensky and his books but for reasons that rarely have anything to do with the books themselves or the knowledge they contain. Usually they are associating everything with a bad experience they had in one cult or another that probably exploited all or some of the knowledge in books like the Psychology of Man's Possible Evolution, or, they're working from some uniquely conceived intellectual fetish like the 'Laws of Manu' and how their tradition is attempting to renew itself and strike terror into Democratic Man, or whatever... There's nothing about the Laws of Manu in this book by Ouspensky, nor is there anything having to do with cults or cult manipulation. The book itself explains very clearly the basic psychological side of what has come to be known as the Work, which is simply the universal ideas and practices of inner, spiritual development put into a very clear and precise and practical language. Aside from its unique terminology it is the inner meaning and goals of the New Testament, Stoic philosophy and some Buddhist literature (just to name a few examples from the full spectrum of universal influences...) This book doesn't contain the cosmological side of the Work which provide the metaphor and models for understanding the psychological side of the Work, but that can be found in Ouspensky's other major books the Fourth Way and In Search of the Miraculous. All these books require real effort in the area of study to learn the language that they contain as-well-as enough of a development in your life in the areas of physical activity, creative activity and the absorbtion of the lowest to the highest influences in the realms of art, philosophy, music, imaginative literature, history, religion and science. At first you're fighting your own ignorance. Later you fight your own laziness. The ultimate goal is to, in a very practical and real way, build your inner, spiritual body which requires conscious efforts in the right direction (a right direction that it is very possible to find on your own without the 'guidance' of a group or so-called school, in fact Ouspensky himself said late in his life that this Work could be learned on one's own without a school ['school' as that word is understood by the common schools associated with the Fourth Way, yet in the Work 'school' has a higher meaning as well, and is found in your everyday surroundings and the friction of going up against what in the Work is called the General Law...]) Learning a book like the Psychology of Man's Possible Evolution puts you on the road to the whole experience.

In spite of his difficulty in accepting Gurdjieff as an authentic teacher Ouspensky kept in contact with Gurdjieff from 1915 until their last meeting in France 1930. He started lecturing the 'system' already in the twenties in Constantinople and continued until close to his death in 1947.

(By the way I have yet to see a negative review with an e-mail address!)

When you take this book for what it is - a short introduction to the psychology of an extensive 'system for personal development' - then it certainly serves its purpose. The book was written to be read aloud to people waiting for Ouspensky to start his lectures. His audiences ranged from just a handful of people to some hundreds.

'The Psychology' gives you an overview of the psychology of Gurdjieff's teaching.

This book, a little over 100 pages, is packed with Ouspensky's philosophy. This book might be a good place to start if one is trying to evaluate Ouspensky to decide whether or not to read the larger (in number of pages) books "The Fourth Way" and "In Search of the Miraculous". I own both of these other books and have just started reading "Miraculous". I can see why many prefer Ouspensky's writings over Gurdjieff himself.

My first reading of this book was like a casting off of "dogmatic slumber" for me. Never had I read a work that laid out so very clearly and precisely what is required to work upon ourselves and begin to live intentionally in the world. This is not only the first book to provide someone interested in the Gurdjieffian 4th Way, it's a pivotal work for anyone demanding more of themselves and life than what is provided by alleged exoteric authorities. There are more tools for change in this small book than in many massive tomes offering similar tools for self growth and change. Highly recommended.

I just scrolled through the reviews and am pleased to see divergent views, regardless of how misguided they may be.

But. . . Laws of Manu? Cult? Wha-a-a. . . ?

All of O's writing is top-notch. True or false? Was he "right" or "wrong?" Who could possibly know. I can say, however, that his words have a quality that invariably focuses my mind and makes the madness and poison of the Tom Consumer world seem manageable.

Either one gets this point, or one does not. There is no point in trying to convince anyone in this regard. O realized that he was alive and he ran with it. He put something out there and I am here to report that it was worthwhile. Thanks P.D.

There's a cut-off point in life where one realizes that what is regarded as "normal" is all one big farce: law, business, carefully manufactured consent. . . Some people make the cut-off. Others still deal in fear and guilt. No point in debating with those who fall short, though it's interesting to see them display their "vision" in a forum such as this.

As soon as you see someone wax intellectual on this, showing off "credentials" and using "philosophical" language, lean back and have a good laugh. You'll know it's time when you feel the skin tightening around your skull.

This is a great little book that offers a surprising amount of insight into the spiriual path. The book is written before Ouspensky published his book In Search of the Miraculous, which goes into much more detail, but this book has so many little gems that it is worth every penny spent. To me Ouspensky is more accessible than reading Gurdjieff directly and gives a very good overview of the 4'th way teaching.

The "Fourth Way" is a term given by Gurdjieff for a special spiritual path to practiced in the world, in ordinary human society, which is not one of the three traditional ways of the fakir (yogi), monk (bhakti), or philosopher (jnana yoga), which roughly correspond to physical, emotional, and mental paths. According to these teachings, the Fourth Way is a path of energy and consciousness where a person can generate an evolutionary energy called "Do 48" through a meditation practice called "self remembering" more deliberately, rapidly, and efficiently than the other paths, which have to work harder to produce a small amount of this energy in a more indirect way. This book is based on a series of introductory lectures that Ouspensky gave in London and in other places. These lectures inspired many people in London to form a group there, many of them part of the "intelligensia" of the area, including Orage, Maurice Nicole, Kenneth Walker, and others. Many of the ideas of the Fourth Way did influence the formation of many branches of western psychology and even brain research. Gurdjieff taught, for instance, that humans were "three brained beings" and this idea became the basis of the research into the R-complex (reptilian brain), Limbic system (mammalian emotional brain), and cortex (intellectual human brain) of Restak and Macclain. Gurdjieff also made other scientific assertions that were later verified by western science. The Fourth Way is a variation of Sufi teaching that was related to the Sarmoun community. In Gurdjieff's own writings, he mentions several of his teachers. The books by Ouspensky, IN SEARCH OF THE MIRACULOUS and THE FOURTH WAY are a good systematic presentation of the teachings Gurdjieff left behind. Ouspenky had a very good memory and the accounts in the book IN SEARCH OF THE MIRACULOUS do give a flavor of how Gurdjieff taught. However, both IN SEARCH and THE FOURTH WAY are very thick books with highly condensed material which presents a fairly complete system of spiritual growth. The only essential part of the work that seems lacking in these books is the sacred dances that Gurdjieff felt were needed to create the functional fusion of the inner centers which was necessary for a more permanent state of awakened consciousness. These dances are rarely detailed in books, because this medium had not been felt adequate to properly teach them. Only in the last ten years or so have videos of those dances come out which give a feeling for this part of the Gurdjieff work.

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF MAN'S POSSIBLE EVOLUTION by Ouspensky is a brilliant condensation and introduction to the core ideas of the Fourth Way and presented in such a manner that I feel a person could verify the validity of most these ideas in their own immediate experience. It is a less intimidating way of entering into the whole system of Fourth Way teachings and one that does not lose sight of the practical day to day part of how we can grow into objective consciousness.

I suspect that some negative reviews of the books by Ouspensky and even Gurdjieff come from a dogmatic cult flavor behind many of the groups who practice the system. Some of the groups that me and some of my friends have encountered, indeed, do not seem healthy or balanced. One person I met worked with a teacher who did eventually commit suicide. I think part of this has to do with the writings of Ouspensky having a pessimistic flavor, teaching that man cannot 'do', and making the effort awaken feel so difficult that it is easy to get discouraged. Maurice Nicole, a student of both Gurdjieff and Ouspensky, does not have this pessimistic flavor and even held a vision that all humans might fully awaken, while Ouspensky felt only a few could "escape" mechanical human life. Gurdjieff was more optimistic as well, and mentions a blueprint for healing this world in his writings called BEELEZEBUB'S TALES where a Saint develops an initiation system that spreads across the planet until thwarted by another being. Although it seems to be talking about a past saint, Gurdjieff did confide to John Bennett that he was really talking about a possible future and that the opposition was more of a warning about what could go wrong.

While I would caution anyone about joining a Fourth Way group and would recommend that they steer clear of any group that has an authoritarian dogmatic flavor (whether Fourth Way or not), I feel the ideas of the Fourth Way are valuable and I feel worth practicing for a length of time to see what happens. THE PSYCHOLOGY OF MAN'S POSSIBLE EVOLUTON is a good place to start, to see if one has an affinity to the ideas. I had a time with this work and found the insights and growth I gained through work with this system very valuable. My preference, though, is to work with Buddhist teachings and Buddhist meditation practice. I feel the Buddhist inquiry into the illusory sense of self is a valuable remedy to "crystallizing a false sense of self" that the Fourth Way has a danger of creating as well as the Mahayana emphasis on compassion being an antidote to the danger of the work becoming overly intellectual.