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

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Gary Lachman's book is essentially predicated upon what we already knew about Gurdjieff and Ouspensky from primary and secondary sources. However, the book's very special character stems from the author's brilliant synthesis of all that material. One might criticize the book for its dependence on secondary sources. But such criticism badly misses the mark.

In my judgment, the real value of Mr. Lachman's work is that it humanizes the so-called "Fourth Way," something that has, heretofore, never been attempted, let alone achieved. The book is a lucid and fascinating demythologization of both an erstwhile practical "philosophy," and the concealed personalities behind it. It provides a badly needed hermeneutic by which one can decipher the manner in which the sly man behind the curtain plied his hypnogogic craft. The man I have in mind, of course, is Gurdjieff.

Lachman is absolutely correct to suggest that Ouspensky denied his better self, and neglected his own (in my estimation, more important) work, to pursue the idiosyncratic and synthetic occultism of Gurdjieff. Lachman gives us a masterful depiction of the process of decline of Ouspensky the man, as well as his metaphysical thought world. It is truly tragedy on an epic scale, and Lachman adeptly chronicles the monumental pathos without disfiguring the human beings involved in the drama.

Besides all the obvious merits of Lachman's book, allow me to touch on one that has been thus far neglected in any reviews of which I am aware. In fact, allow me to go so far as to suggest that it is the chief merit of this important book. That is, Gary Lachman opens a way for Fourth Way devotees to gain some objective insight into their precarious existential situation. He reveals the people and personalities behind the dogma and ritualism of the Fourth Way worldview. He exposes the true and concrete dimensions of the "work," not in any theoretical or purely historical manner, but as it actually was and is for the people bound to the "system." He lays bare the roots of Fourth Way "philosophy" in the person and personality of one man, G. I. Gurdjieff, and displays the catastrophic and appalling outcome of the imposition of one man's will upon that of another.

In my own meetings with remarkable wo/men over the years, I have never met a more remarkably rigid, mechanical, and unimaginative lot as those who are devotees of Beelzebub, the sly Monsieur Gurdjieff. They are blindly caught in the neurotic-obsessive drive to actualize a superhuman, godlike Self. Their uncomprehending devotion to the religion of spiritual self-idolatry surpasses anything with which I have come into contact. This penetrating and sadly amusing irony escapes no one except his very obedient and unthinking disciples. Now there is an "escape manual" for them to consult. I cannot, of course, say that this was one of the intentions of the author in writing his book. My guess is that it must have at least been in the back of his mind. In any event, we owe Mr. Lachman a debt of gratitude for a very fine and interesting book, and furthermore, one with the potential to do great good.

-- Michael J. Langlais, Ph.D.

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.

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.

The title of this book, a play on the Ouspensky opus "In Search of The Miraculous", is an invitation to finally gain a line of insight about the personal life of a very capable mathematician and philosopher who has all too often been dismissed by mainstream academics as a mystic, as though such a designation relegates Ouspensky to some distant fringe. This biography is a rigorous and thorough contribution to the life and understanding of a very fine mind.
By sheer virtue of Ouspensky's eclectic teachings, often in the shadow and as an offshoot of his mentor, the reader is invited to view metaphysics and philosophy through the early and middle 20th-Century from a highly unique point of view. The author is exceptionally talented and through his careful research brings the reader intimately within the circle of Ouspensky's initiates. Page 203 provides such an example: Kenneth Walker arrives to speak with Ouspensky and Lachman treats us to an almost cinematic setting of Ouspensky developing photographs while the curious Walker examines his bookcases and scientific paraphernalia. The narrative is rich and full of images of the special world of the diverse and unique personalities that always surround this guru. Of course, as is the case during the life of Ouspensky, Gurdjieff is not far away...ever. Indeed, Gurdjieff outlived Ouspensky by nearly two years, passing away--or 'over'--in 1949.
The author's genius is in his portraiture. While the philosophical and mystical holdings, beliefs, and practices can be extracted from sections of the 21 chapters, readers would do far better reading the original works or from the many interpretative volumes which have been written by acolytes and reviewed by critics. Lachman gives us details, and in an almost Austen-like fashion, allows us to live in Ouspensky's time, and akin to the fly-on-the-wall, share in great depth, the group dynamics of his followers. Their habits and social context is simply not available elsewhere in the literature and Lachman deserves much credit for his creative reconstruction.
The 8-page epilogue provides a fine summing-up, and is followed by 29 pages of notes to each chapter. The notes are both bibliographical as well as providing the reader with clarifications. The 16 page index is professionally organized and gives the reader sub-headings that further direct them to valuable in-depth sources. This is a very important addition to the the subject and the ability of the author to take us within the private lives of the characters is a great gift.

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

I'd long been curious about what the deal was between those two, Gurdjieff and Ouspensky. In addition to providing an introduction to the concepts of the work, Lachman clearly illuminates for me the sadomasochism in the esoteric teacher-student relationship. I have experienced that state of mind myself, where the mind whirrs in circles trying to interpret the teacher's demands -- what I mostly learned is that my mind has an endless ability to create unusual gestalts from limited teaching input.
Lachman, once a student of the work, does not editorialize, but rather allows the story to reveal the lessons of this occult relationship. It's much better that way. Lachman allows the ambivalence of Gurdjieff's character to emerge -- was he a classic kind of charlatan, what with his history as a hypnotist and his cruel techniques? Or was this questionable self-presentation part of his teaching, which was genuinely rooted in a deep esoteric understanding? Whatever the case, Gurdjieff did gather and use a lot of enthusiastic students as his guinea pigs, and he must have learned something valuable from them as a group.
As for Ouspensky, Lachman makes much of his turnabout at the end of his life. I myself read this part of the biography with astonishment. Because Ouspensky finished his career with a bizarre repudiation of the work, telling his students shocking things like: There is no system. Who tells you that you are mechanical, that you are asleep? All that is necessary is that you know what you want, and aim for that. Think for yourself.

The book focuses on a rehash of Gurdjieff vs.Ouspensky and Ouspensky's life, which only provides so much interest to begin with. Be that is it may, in reading it I found myself agreeing with another reveiwer of another Lachman book:

"...Gary Lachman appears to be deeply sympathetic to Gurdjieff/Fourth Way work... At the same time Lachman gave some very misleading information about Zen Buddhism, classifying it as an occult discipline, which in fact Zen is not..."

I would note that the author shows again a bias in this work and has thus limited his sources and interpretations. Lachmann disregards those people who, after being marooned by the deaths of both Gurdjieff and Ouspensky, ventured elsewhere. Many of those who went with Bennett or with, for instance, Rene Daumal in Paris did continue further studies. Lachmann doesn't explore this. Another example is that, Lachmann deliberately distorts the event of Bennett's giving the property of Coombe Springs to Idries Shah. Lachmann astonishingly neglects to say that this gift led to the immediate establishment of another center and enterprise nearby in England (Langton Green) for students (formerly with Bennett, Gurdjieff, Ouspensky, et al), as well as other endeavours for students in other countries. Lachmann simply parrots the old, distorted Gurdjieffian resentment that Shah grabbed Bennett's enormous gift and then promptly "sold it". Lachmann implies by omission that it was a "take the money and run" result. That's pretty low for an author. Two more sentences by way of clarification should have been included. But they weren't.

Dishonesty in what may seem like small details like this indicates a larger bias and raises questions as to an author's motivation and integrity.

While I have no problems with the fact that this book was written by an ex-punk rocker, I do have a problem with a writer who doesn't write objectively, but uses his work to promote what he believes in, and bashes what he opposes, in what is meant to be a neutral analysis. Gurdieff and his doings are always described in a negative way, and it seems the man can't do a thing right in Lachman's eyes. This constant negative slant inevitably leads to serious contradictions though. Probably the most obvious one is the paradox that while Gurdieff is portrayed as a conman out to make a buck by fooling the gullible, he is simultaneously criticized for always breaking off his various ventures in setting up schools (in Tiflis, Fontainbleau, etc) just as they were getting started. The most dramatic example of this was the closure of the school at Fontainbleau of course, just when he was attracting the wealthy and famous. Seems like a crazy move for a conman though. Just when he had things set up to make big bucks, he closes the whole thing down. No, accuse the man of many things, being erratic, inconsiderate, downright eccentric, but a conman out to make a buck he certainly was not. This is just one example from a book of contradictions that far from throwing a favourable light on Ouspensky, shows him up as being an insecure man who in his last years seemed extremely doubtful of what he'd been teaching for 30 years. While this may come as no surprise to all who have tried to penetrate Ouspensky's yawn-inducing 'The Fourth Way', a chapter of which is more effective than any prescription sleeping pills on the market, it certainly should give second thoughts to those who see Ouspensky as a genius overshadowed by Gurdjieff, when in fact it is clear that if he hadn't met Gurdjieff, he would have remained the second-rate, wannabe mystic and esotericist he was at the time of their first meeting. This book is still interesting for the many anecdotes and interesting information on both men, but don't expect an objective account of their relationship.

Partly a biography of Ouspensky and partly an examination of the similarities and differences in his spiritual beliefs and those of his mentor Gurdjieff, Lachman's work basically searches for the reasons for or causes of the eventual estrangement between these two spiritual leaders of the early twentieth century. Lachman places them in the company of Madame Blavatsky, Rudolf Steiner, and Aleister Crowley. Ouspensky and Gurdjieff first met in Moscow; their lives were disrupted by the Russian Revolution; and both eventually ended up in London. Gurdjieff has the claims to greater fame and influence in the areas of the occult and mysticism. Although Lackman does not completely dismiss the bases for Gurdjieff's higher reputation, he does bring light to Ouspensky's originality, independence, and influence. Gurjieff's higher standing in relation Ouspensky is seen as a result of his craftiness, which is a type of worldliness whereby he managed his image to try to make for an assured and favorable legacy. While the relative stature of each in this vein of modern spirituality can finally be only opinion, in his search to establish such stature, Lachman opens up many dimensions of the modern-day spirituality espoused by these two, both of whom were undeniably influential. Lachman has written two previous books and has appeared on BBC programs on topics related to his writings of social critique and modern spirituality.

This study of the philosopher-mystic Ouspensky breaks new ground, and also dares to challenge the Gurdjieff mystique, with a refreshing look at the author of Tertium Organon, the man before meeting the sufi shark, who wrecked his natural development and left a broken man in his place. Hopefully this book can help many to stand back and not get mesmerized by the 'fourth way' game. Almost everyone susceptible to these writings at all lacks the ability extricate themselves from the entanglement or move on to something more useful. I never met anyone who was ever helped by thrashing through this spiritual way, it simply leaves people confused and, ironically, more mechanical than before. It is hard not to suspect the whole game wasn't even intended to help the people it snared, and even a superficial acquaintance with sufis tells one that's no exaggeration. The whole issue of the Work, and the relationship of Ouspensky and Gurdjieff has gone on far too long, become rancid, with no productive result, and in the process has confused too many people, thousands in fact who need to be released from what was all too obvious a flypaper 'spiritual path' never designed to really help anyone. Such deceptive people are sadly part of the Sufi world and its shadowy mafia,it's no big mystery anymore and it is time people had the courage to stand up to the obsessive domination tactics concocted by such dishonest people.