In Search of P. D. Ouspensky: The Genius in the Shadow of Gurdjieff [Hardcover]

Gary Lachman (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 1, 2004

P. D. Ouspensky's classic work In Search of the Miraculous was the first to disseminate the ideas of G. I. Gurdjieff, the mysterious master of esoteric thought in the early twentieth century who still commands a following today. Gurdjieff's mystique has long eclipsed Ouspensky, once described by Gurdjieff as "nice to drink vodka with, but a weak man." Yet Ouspensky was a brilliant, accomplished philosopher in his own right, and some consider his meeting with the charismatic "Mr. G." the catastrophe of his life. Indeed, in subsequent years Ouspensky tried hard, with limited success, to break away. This book moves Ouspensky's own story center stage, against the backdrop of the Russian Revolution, the dervishes of Constantinople, and a cosmopolitan Europe entre deux guerres. The archetypal encounter it describes echoes that of Don Juan and Castaneda, or perhaps Mephistopheles and Faust. One of the great mystical adventures of our time, it will fascinate everyone interested in the farthest reaches of what it means to be human. The paperback edition includes a new chapter on Gary Lachman's own former work in Gurdjieff's psychology.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 340 pages
• Publisher: Quest Books (September 1, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0835608409
• ISBN-13: 978-0835608404
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.2 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,872,420 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars acceptable survey for casual readers, June 6, 2007

By 

king wolf (Jotunheim) - See all my reviews

This review is from: In Search of P. D. Ouspensky: The Genius in the Shadow of Gurdjieff (Paperback)

The partisan squabbles between the devotees of Ouspensky and those of Gurdjieff take place on roughly the same level as those between the advocates of the XBox and the Playstation, or the Yankees and Red Sox. But Lachman doesn't sink to their level, and his understanding of events is as near to the truth as we will probably see from any of these types. He is still sort of a moon-mad mystic, but not nearly to the degree of William Patterson or J G Bennett or any of the other lost souls who have written about these subjects in the past. However, there is little new in this book, and the author's understanding of Ouspensky's most important ideas is obviously quite shallow, as he concentrates on the more incidental aspects of his work. Those who have read the sourceworks, almost all of which are decades old, won't find this book to be of much value.

The Gurdjieff work is a hundred miles wide and one foot deep. Just deep enough for those who can't swim to drown in, as Ouspensky almost did. The work isn't without value; many of Gurdjieff's ideas are basically correct, but everything he knew can be found in superior form in other places. All of Gurdjieff's ideas are distortions of things he got from other places, but he wasn't sophisticated enough to always tell the good from the bad, and he mixes wisdom and foolishness together in a salad of roughly equal parts. And much of what Gurdjieff taught, such as the necessity of group work or self-observation as endless toil, is the opposite of truth. Gurdjieff was a man who asked the right questions, but got all the answers wrong. Partly because Gurdjieff was a second-rate mystic with a second-rate mind, and partly because he was like all gurus: he had a deep-seated need to manipulate others and take financial advantage of them. I have seen his type repeatedly and known some of them personally. They are all the same. They take bits and pieces of other people's ideas and use them to impress the gullible. Ouspensky was able to separate what little good there was in Gurdjieff from the little con man himself, but grew too attached to the ideas before finally rejecting them.

It is Ouspensky's work that is of serious interest, but really only parts of it, mainly his thinking on spatial dimensions. It is a tragedy of epic proportions that Ouspensky abandoned his real work for the shallow occultism of the dubious Gurdjieff, and it doesn't speak well of Ouspensky's more mystical side. But that isn't the side of Ouspensky that will stand the test of time.

To this day, his two books Tertium Organum and New Model of the Universe are at the cutting edge of human thought. They show the real direction that our conceptions of space and time should take, not the mathematically correct but logically ridiculous direction physics has taken. And yet, no doubt largely because of his association with the little Armenian con man, the enormous importance of Ouspensky's work is largely forgotten by all but a few.

Those two books show how to overcome the paradoxes of not just physics, but of philosophy. Nothing like them exists, or has ever existed. If you understand his ideas, their truth cannot be denied on any level. Unlike the endless double-bind prison that constitutes the "thought" of the "fourth way", the essays in those two books can change the way you perceive the world in the most fundamental way imaginable. But they are beyond both the reach and grasp of people with no more intelligence or common sense than occult disciples, which is why the people most likely to encounter them get very little from them.

To his eternally recurring credit, Ouspensky abandoned and renounced the Gurdjieff system late in life, realizing at last that it was a dead end, a dangerous distraction. It is ironic that Ouspensky is remembered mostly for his book on Gurdjieff, which is the least of his works and the very thing that keeps the Gurdjieff movement going. Indeed, much of the better stuff people tend to give Gurdjieff credit for was, in fact, Ouspensky all along. Without Ouspensky to make his ideas semi-coherent, there never would have been a Gurdjieff movement. It would have died with Gurdjieff.

In any event, it has been noticed by too few that many of the ideas credited to Gurdjieff, such as the antiquity of the Sphinx, for example, are mentioned in Ouspensky's books long before Gurdjieff professed them, in altered form, later on. And Gurdjieff himself said he would beg Ouspensky to be his teacher if Ouspensky "understood" his own books! From this we can gather that Gurdjieff read Ousepensky's early classics, admired them, and very likely appropriated many of Ouspensky's own ideas, only to regurgitate them back at their originator later on, as part of Gurdjieff's own admittedly "stolen" hodgepodge of ideas. No wonder Ouspensky was so impressed with him.

My recommendation is to read Ouspensky's two early classics, then come back to this biography if you are interested in more information on this fascinating man. But only if you haven't already read any of the existing biographical literature.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The Good Friend, April 5, 2010

By 

Mnemosyne (Planet Earth) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: In Search of P. D. Ouspensky: The Genius in the Shadow of Gurdjieff (Paperback)

I've read all the classic G & O literature and it's been a tremendous blast. Decades have passed and, like every other experience, it has all faded into standard memory, leaving only some pleasantries and old-timer's allegories to "pass on to my children." The conclusion of this book is that Ouspensky ended his life a defeated man: it had all turned to nothing. Living it, taking the tour, having the adventure was all there ever was. To have a goal: Ouspensky's ultimate advice.

If so, I think he's got it dead right. I think that's all anyone "knows." The arguments that have ranged back and forth through these reviews do not give the impression of a community that has learned anything fundamental about our place in the universe, or of any "destiny" for us as human beings.

I have little interest in purported systems of insight into our ultimate nature anymore. I simply don't believe. It was all a good story and Ouspensky was a brilliant storyteller, whom I've always felt close to and would have dearly loved to meet. The only other dead man I'd really like to have met would be Che Guevara. I think that both he and O had guts and tried to remain true to the last.

Perhaps Gurdjieff was a great man, but I found the recordings of his voice [the harmonium tapes] most disappointing. For me, the question is this: who would one like to have had as a friend? Ouspensky would be at the top of my list, along with Che. The latter, too, strove to create "The New Man," and it's that effort, that passion, that compulsion, that I find attractive.

This book tells a good story, I recommend it.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Well done Mr Lachman!, June 23, 2010

By 

Pandanus (Australia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: In Search of P. D. Ouspensky: The Genius in the Shadow of Gurdjieff (Paperback)

I discovered this book only recently (2010) and am very pleased I did. This book is certainly well researched and nicely put together. At last a well written book to help lift P D Ouspensky out of the shadow of Gurdjieff to where he rightly belongs. I don't completely agree with Mr Lachman's conclusion. Of course we can never really know for certain, but the indications are there that Ouspensky made it "home" at the very end of his life. He experienced Self realization (cosmic consciousness - call it what you will) shortly before his death at Lyne Place in October 1947.

He repudiated the System at the end, but in one sense all his own work and system efforts inspired by Gurdjieff brought him to that point, at the end - where he knew and could say "There is no System"! The events that took place in Lyne Place in the last days are indication enough that a transformation took place...

What Gary Lachman doesn't follow up (and naturally as this wasn't the books intention) was how Francis Roles continued the running of the Study Society at Colet House in London and his subsequent meeting with the Shantanand Saraswati, then the Shankaracharya of the north in India. Dr Francis Roles was convinced that this was the connection with the source and from where the Fourth Way system had originally come. Through Dr Roles Leon MacLaren also met Shantanand Saraswati and accepted his guidance and knowledge and with it the practice of meditation. The Study Society and The School of Economic Science (also known as the School of Practical Philosophy) run by Leon MacLaren are still continuing to this day. For an excellent account of all this, beginning with Ouspensky and the life of Leon MacLaren and the teaching of Shantanand Saraswati (Advaita) please read the excellent book by Dorine Tolley: The Power Within: Leon MacLaren, A Memoir of His Life and Work.
http://www.amazon.com/Power-Within-Leon-MacLaren-Memoir/dp/1439210306