Introduction and Afterword by William Patrick Patterson. Long out of print, this special hardcover reissue of Fritz Peters' account of his five years with G.I. Gurdjieff ranks among the classics of Gurdjieffian literature. Only 11 years old when his aunt, Margaret Anderson, brought him to the Prieuré in June 1924, he immediately became devoted to Gurdjieff. Within weeks, however, Gurdjieff suffered a near fatal car crash. During his recovery the young boy became his "chair carrier." Other tasks included mowing the château's great lawns, kitchen boy, waiter and gatekeeper. He also was to clean Gurdjieff's room, no small task as Gurdjieff delighted in wrecking it. Peters was among the few to whom Gurdjieff gave individual lessons on the teaching. An acute observer and talented writer, Peters' crisp images and scenes, often hilarious, give a rare look at what life was like at Gurdjieff's Institute for the Harmonious Development of Man. Peters' interactions with Miss Madison (Ethel Merston), Rachmilevitch, and Gurdjieff's dog Philos, as well as A. R. Orage and Gertrude Stein are quite telling. Said the writer Henry Miller of Peters' book, "It's full of amazing anecdotes and the wisdom of life."

Boyhood with Gurdjieff

Fritz Peters

Humor & Entertainment

Arete Communications

The spiritual life story of Ethel Merston based on her diaries and recollections is an important historical work, as well as a keen insight into many of the seminal teachers of her times. Merston was one of Gurdjieff's first English pupils and lived at the Prieure from 1922 until 1927. Her seriousness and organizational abilities led Gurdjieff to put her in charge in his absences. Fritz Peters gives a wonderful account of what she had to put up with (he gives her the name Miss Madison) in his Boyhood with Gurdjieff. In India, she lived at Ramana Maharshi's ashram for many years. She gives a first-person account of his death and also the meeting between The Mother, Sri Aurobindo and Anandamayi Ma (with whom she often traveled). She also attended many of Krishnamurti's talks and seminars in the 1930s, was a friend of Sunyata, Alain Danielou, Krishna Prem and Swami Omananda. In the 1950s she was initiated into Subud by Pak Subuh at J. G. Bennett's Coombe Springs study house. At Mendham, she met again her friends from her Gurdjieff days - Mme de Salzmann, Mme Ouspensky, Olga de Hartmann and Peggy Flinsch - and was introduced to Lord John Pentland.

A Woman's Work With Gurdjieff, Ramana Maharshi, Krishnamurti, Anandamayi Ma & Pak Subuh

Biographies & Memoirs

Mary Ellen Korman

Leaders & Notable People

Georgi Ivanovitch Gurdjieff: The Man, the Teaching, His Mission [Hardcover] [Jan 06, 2014] Patterson, William Patrick

Georgi Ivanovitch Gurdjieff: The Man, the Teaching, His Mission

William Patrick Patterson

Professionals & Academics

A lucid and compelling account of conflict and charlatanism surrounding the Gurdjieff Work, one of the most important alternative spiritual movements of our day. The first book to explore one of the taboo subjects of our time—spiritual theft, distortion and appropriation—Patterson details and documents how a principal symbol of the teaching has been stolen and commercialized by the so-called enneagram community; how Robert Burton, founder of the Fellowship of Friends, distorted the teaching; and how Mouravieff, a Russian esotericist, plagiarized and appropriated it.

Taking With the Left Hand: Enneagram Craze, People of the Bookmark, & The Mouravieff "Phenomenon"

Literature & Fiction

Patterson, William Patrick

Essays & Correspondence

January 19, 1970: I entered the esoteric teaching of The Fourth Way with Lord John Pentland, the man Mr. Gurdjieff had chosen to lead the Work in America. On April Fool's Day, 1980, I met Sunyata, given that name by Ramana Maharshi. Sunya said he had "Nothing to teach. Nothing to sell." Before his passing, he introduced me to Jean Klein, the Advaita Master, who said "Absence is the greatest presence." And so there I was with these teachers of No-Thing and Nothing. It reminded me of the Buddha's Parable of the Raft, where Buddha tells the monks, "Teachings are like a raft, and are for crossing over with - not for seizing hold of." With the "raft" laid down, there I was in the unknown, dying and not, thinking I was crazy, but relaxing deeper and deeper, moving from No-Thing to Nothing, the subject of subject-object perception falling away... If this speaks, then give it your attention, energy, time and, as Sunya said, "Bhagavan Sri Dollar." -- William Patrick Patterson 
Teachers of No-Thing & Nothing: Eating The "I" Parts II & III continues the journey begun in Eating The "I", "...one of the more important writings on the Gurdjieff Work, after Ouspensky's In Search of the Miraculous." --Miguel Serrano

Teachers of No-Thing & Nothing

The first critical assessment of the life of Adi Da Samraj and his teachings. Born he said in the "Bright" with his kundalini risen after only a few years of practice, Franklin Jones had a breakthrough into the pointless point of view. Young, hip, articulate and funny, this first American-born guru had a meteoric rise, bringing him thousands of seekers until the sex scandals brought a public shaming and his withdrawal to a Fijian island hermitage where he, now Adi Da Samraj, announced he was God Incarnate. CONTENTS Preface I In the Beginning II The Cult of Pairs &amp; the Saturday Night Massacre III Radical Shock Tactics &amp; "Divine Emergence" IV Sex Scandals, Naitauba &amp; Seventh Stage Realizer V The Last Days of Adi Da Samraj VI What Is Adi Da Samraj's Teaching? VII So Who Was Adi Da Samraj? Afterword Chronology References Appendices: Franklin Jones' Vedic Horoscope Franklin Jones &amp; Gertrude Stein The Myth of Narcissus Scott Jones' "The Outlaw Christs" Of Swami Muktananda &amp; Rudrananda G. I. Gurdjieff

Adi Da Samraj-Realized or/and Deluded?

2007 Expanded edition. Includes a gallery of 17 paintings depicting different stages in the journey. The search for one s real self is a sacred quest, an archetypal journey, whereby the seeker eats through the web of illusory "I's" that mask his or her real self-identity. In our times, this search has rarely been reported in such a candid and compelling manner as it is in William Patrick Patterson s book Eating the "I". Dispirited and disappointed in life, the author s life dramatically changes when he is introduced to the esoteric teachings of the Fourth Way - the way of transformation in ordinary life. Unique to this rich and practical teaching is its insistence that the student's negativity and confusion are the sources of his awakening. Life's shocks and uncertainty - that which he is most trying to avoid - are in fact that which can help him to awaken. Writing on many levels, and in the strong vibrant voice of a natural storyteller, Patterson describes his twelve-year search that takes him from secret meetings in a Manhattan townhouse, to the Pyramid of the Sun in Mexico, to Dublin and the Aran Islands, to England s Lake District and a medieval Scottish chapel, to his boarding of Allan Watt's S.S Vallejo and discovery of the "Holy Fool". Into his life come many memorable and powerful people: Trungpa, a Tibetan Master of Crazy Wisdom; Vali, a beautiful and enticing witch; Casey, a Jungian painter; and Stanley, an arch-adversary. Yet by far the most remarkable and unforgettable of all remains the man chosen by Gurdjieff to lead the Fourth Way in America, Lord John Pentland. Eating the "I" shows how the pressures, conflicts and uncertainties of the technological world actively serve our awakening. Life is used to come to Life.

Eating the I: An Account of the Fourth Way-The Way of Transformation in Ordinary Life (In Search of the Self)

Politics & Social Sciences

Philosophy

2007 Expanded edition. Includes a gallery of 17 paintings depicting different stages in the journey. The search for one s real self is a sacred quest, an archetypal journey, whereby the seeker eats through the web of illusory "I's" that mask his or her real self-identity. In our times, this search has rarely been reported in such a candid and compelling manner as it is in William Patrick Patterson s book Eating the "I". Dispirited and disappointed in life, the author s life dramatically changes when he is introduced to the esoteric teachings of the Fourth Way - the way of transformation in ordinary life. Unique to this rich and practical teaching is its insistence that the student's negativity and confusion are the sources of his awakening. Life's shocks and uncertainty - that which he is most trying to avoid - are in fact that which can help him to awaken. Writing on many levels, and in the strong vibrant voice of a natural storyteller, Patterson describes his twelve-year search that takes him from secret meetings in a Manhattan townhouse, to the Pyramid of the Sun in Mexico, to Dublin and the Aran Islands, to England s Lake District and a medieval Scottish chapel, to his boarding of Allan Watt's S.S Vallejo and discovery of the "Holy Fool". Into his life come many memorable and powerful people: Trungpa, a Tibetan Master of Crazy Wisdom; Vali, a beautiful and enticing witch; Casey, a Jungian painter; and Stanley, an arch-adversary. Yet by far the most remarkable and unforgettable of all remains the man chosen by Gurdjieff to lead the Fourth Way in America, Lord John Pentland. Eating the "I" shows how the pressures, conflicts and uncertainties of the technological world actively serve our awakening. Life is used to come to Life.

Eating the I: A Direct Account of the Fourth Way- The Way of Using Ordinary Life to Come to Real Life (In Search of the Self), Revised & Expanded Edition

Struggle of the Magicians: Why Uspenskii Left Gurdjieff : Exploring the Teacher-Student Relationship

Religion & Spirituality

Religious Studies

The seventh and final book in William Patrick Patterson's survey of The Fourth Way, Spiritual Survival warns of Technology's challenge and how it can spur us to awaken to a new integration of body, senses and mind. Explored in great and original depth is how the seminal teaching of G. I. Gurdjieff's Fourth Way - the teaching for our time - offers the esoteric keys and practices to self-awakening in a radically changing, high voltage and mercurial world-time.

Spiritual Survival in a Radically Changing World-Time

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