Ouspensky – In Search of the Miraculous from Chilluminati on Vimeo. Fragments of an Unknown Teaching. The book is written in the form of a personal account of Ouspensky’s years with Gurdjieff, and the ideas of Gurdjieff are presented to some extent in their chronological sequence against the background of the conditions of life which Gurdjieff created for his pupils during the chaos and upheaval of pre-revolutionary Russia. In addition to being a faithful presentation of major aspects of the Gurdjieff teaching, the book thereby also provides much material about the life of Gurdjieff and the early history of what has now become known as “the work.” The book’s form also allows Ouspensky to communicate to the reader what he clearly considers to be the necessary emotional correlates of these ideas. This is done with refreshing honesty and extraordinary skill—and in a variety of ways—often through Ouspensky’s describing the difficulties he and others encountered in understanding an idea, or the shock when understanding finally appeared and, often, the sense of joy or urgency when realizing this was the great knowledge, the miraculous, of which one had dreamed, but that the demands it made upon the seeker were correspondingly awesome. Great care is taken throughout the book to characterize the master-pupil relationship between Gurdjieff and his circle. The resulting picture of Gurdjieff is of a man obviously possessing immense wisdom and personal power, capable at once of painfully stripping away the pupil’s “mask” while carefully guiding him through the emotional and bodily experiences necessary for the process of deep learning. The information and speculations which Ouspensky offers about the sources of Gurdjieff’s knowledge and about his motivations for acting as he did in various situations, rather than satisfying the reader’s curiosity about Gurdjieff, communicate instead the impression of an indecipherable man, doubtless one of the most enigmatic men of the twentieth century. Finally, the form of the book allows Ouspensky to present the Gurdjieff ideas in a specific psychological sequence and in carefully selected juxtapositions without calling this strategy to the attention of the reader. As for the contents of the book, it touches on nothing less than the whole of the vast Gurdjieffian philosophy, cosmology, psychology, and guidelines for living. Although the book’s subtitle, “Fragments of an Unknown Teaching,” is presumably meant to indicate that the connectedness between all the various ideas cannot be made intellectually explicit, but must be discovered through experience, and although from a certain point of view it must still be considered a preliminary treatment, nevertheless the impression of an awesomely comprehensive system of ideas is inescapable. What follows is necessarily an extremely truncated abstract. – Gatlinburg Garden Castle Rainbow Tower Library Imagination Station Temple Water Spirit Guardian Labyrinth Treasury Magic Healing