8 ms·

Gurdjieff and the Women of ‘The Rope’ (1997)

51 points by acsillag 8y ago

pmoriarty 8y ago
Alan Watts on Gurdjieff: "Gurdjieff was a magnificent old rascal, who lived a joyous life, and most of his disciples live extremely restricted, rigid, and serious lives -- because the object of Gurdjieff's method was to weed out those who understood from those who do not, and those who understood went away and those who did not understand remained. "Gurdjieff laid a trap for people who think that the purpose of life is power, that is to say, to control everything, and he beguiled them with the idea that they were all asleep and not fully in control of their own processes and their own organisms, and he assigned them the impossible task of being the Lord God Jehova each for one's self. He set them to doing this with great rigor and he added to this the discipline of dances in which you could exercise every limb working on a different rhythm to give yourself the illusion of omnipotence. But if you persevered in these exercises hard enough, you would discover they were all nonsense, at which point you would have attained Gurdjieff's stage of illumination."
- golemotron 8y ago
  So, like Zen for people with control issues.
- duopixel 8y ago
  One must consider that Alan Watts himself was a magnificent old rascal. He made no pretense about it and described himself as a "philosophical entertainer". When you verify his teachings (either by experience or by going to the source) you find a lot of deliberate bending. His interpretation of the Tao Te Ching is deeply idiosyncratic, for example. Though I suspect there's some degree of truth in his opinion of Gurdjieff, I wouldn't take his word for it.
- sgc 8y ago
  As someone who had much more to do with Gurdjieff followers when growing up than is healthy or happy, this is a very refreshing perspective on his followers at least, and absolutely hits the nail on the head as far as my experiences go! Also, if you read his works they are not top shelf philosophy by any means. They are more an organized compilation of thoughts he came across than a true original opus. I have no idea how anybody took it seriously, beyond the observation that humans do many irrational things.
  - neonate 8y ago
    What were your experiences with Gurdjieff followers when growing up? I've not heard any stories from this point of view. Would be interested in whatever you can share.
    - sgc 8y ago
      I am not going to pull all that shit back up since it would take a lot for me to find my calm afterwards. Suffice to say its structure was fluid and never totally defined, its fuel was sophistic like much of Gurdjieff's maxims (there was a lot of fuel), and its hidden goal was always unacknowledged control masquerading as wisdom. It wound up spiraling out of control. The tight clamps could not hold back the more powerful fuel and people burned themselves out.
- rdtsc 8y ago
  > the object of Gurdjieff's method was to weed out those who understood from those who do not, and those who understood went away and those who did not understand remained. It is kind of like when scammers claim they are from Nigeria or purposely misspell words or use bad grammar. "Here! Perform these 40 silly dances and you'll become omnipotent" is the early 20th century version of "Hello kind sir/m'am. I am the crown prince of Nigeria..."
lrenn 8y ago
You ever see the OA on netflix? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gurdjieff_movements https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gurdjieff_movements
neonate 8y ago
There's a fun interview I ran across recently with Gary Lachman (a.k.a. Gary Valentine, early bass player for Blondie!) who knows a ton about this stuff. Though he's strongly biased in favour of Ouspensky against Gurdjieff. Pretty entertaining though, for anyone who likes esoterica about esoterica. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lgurBMfwQw4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lgurBMfwQw4
MaysonL 8y ago
An interesting review of a 2012 book with the same title as this article: http://www.josephazize.com/2016/04/01/gurdjieff-and-the-women-of-the-rope/ http://www.josephazize.com/2016/04/01/gurdjieff-and-the-wome...
- neonate 8y ago
  That book appears to be the personal notes of Solita Solano, which are mentioned in the article. This bit is hilarious: Gurdjieff has given them some “special liquor chocolates”, and Jane Heap, thinking to flatter Gurdjieff, says to him: “Every day in your house is Christmas.” Gurdjieff replies with this remarkable repartee: “Excuse! Twice a day in my house is Christmas. Look, Mees Gordon, she wish belittle me!”
YeGoblynQueenne 8y ago
From Wikipedia's article on Gurdjieff: >> Gurdjieff taught that most humans do not possess a unified consciousness and thus live their lives in a state of hypnotic "waking sleep", but that it is possible to awaken to a higher state of consciousness and achieve full human potential. Gurdjieff described a method attempting to do so, calling the discipline "The Work"[5] (connoting "work on oneself") or "the Method".[6] According to his principles and instructions,[7] Gurdjieff's method for awakening one's consciousness unites the methods of the fakir, monk and yogi, and thus he referred to it as the "Fourth Way".[8] So, a typical charlatan selling spiritual enlightenment.
- dang 8y ago
  "Please don't post shallow dismissals, especially of other people's work. A good critical comment teaches us something." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
  - rimliu 8y ago
    I think Hitchens' razor applies there. "What can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence" Would you leave the same remark under a comment dismissing some flat-earther?
    - dang 8y ago
      I'm afraid this comment is breaking the same guideline. Dismiss as much as you like, but please don't post like this to HN. It's informationless and therefore boring and therefore off topic here.
      - cam_l 8y ago
        Dang's Razor: "What can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without comment."
      - YeGoblynQueenne 8y ago
        If it's about information content- I was concerned that people reading this article may not be aware that Gurjieff was a New Age guru. The article is written to present him as some kind of respectable philosopher who attracted a following of intellectuals and artists, rather than a cult leader. I felt it was important to point out what he actually was. I still don't quite get why my comment broke that guideline. What would be a non-shallow dismissal of Gurjieff? I mean, give me an example here, because I'm a bit confused, really. The man had no "work" to dismiss, he was just full of hot air and making it up as he went along. What else can be said about him than the fact that he was a charlatan? What, at the end of the day, is counter to HN guidelines about calling out cranks?
okokokok10 8y ago
Mathias er god til programmering
okokokok10 8y ago
Lisa er 145cm og Jens er 190cm

51 points by acsillag 8y ago

Alan Watts on Gurdjieff: "Gurdjieff was a magnificent old rascal, who lived a joyous life, and most of his disciples live extremely restricted, rigid, and serious lives -- because the object of Gurdjieff's method was to weed out those who understood from those who do not, and those who understood went away and those who did not understand remained. "Gurdjieff laid a trap for people who think that the purpose of life is power, that is to say, to control everything, and he beguiled them with the idea that they were all asleep and not fully in control of their own processes and their own organisms, and he assigned them the impossible task of being the Lord God Jehova each for one's self. He set them to doing this with great rigor and he added to this the discipline of dances in which you could exercise every limb working on a different rhythm to give yourself the illusion of omnipotence. But if you persevered in these exercises hard enough, you would discover they were all nonsense, at which point you would have attained Gurdjieff's stage of illumination."

golemotron 8y ago
So, like Zen for people with control issues.
duopixel 8y ago
One must consider that Alan Watts himself was a magnificent old rascal. He made no pretense about it and described himself as a "philosophical entertainer". When you verify his teachings (either by experience or by going to the source) you find a lot of deliberate bending. His interpretation of the Tao Te Ching is deeply idiosyncratic, for example. Though I suspect there's some degree of truth in his opinion of Gurdjieff, I wouldn't take his word for it.
sgc 8y ago
As someone who had much more to do with Gurdjieff followers when growing up than is healthy or happy, this is a very refreshing perspective on his followers at least, and absolutely hits the nail on the head as far as my experiences go! Also, if you read his works they are not top shelf philosophy by any means. They are more an organized compilation of thoughts he came across than a true original opus. I have no idea how anybody took it seriously, beyond the observation that humans do many irrational things.
- neonate 8y ago
  What were your experiences with Gurdjieff followers when growing up? I've not heard any stories from this point of view. Would be interested in whatever you can share.
  - sgc 8y ago
    I am not going to pull all that shit back up since it would take a lot for me to find my calm afterwards. Suffice to say its structure was fluid and never totally defined, its fuel was sophistic like much of Gurdjieff's maxims (there was a lot of fuel), and its hidden goal was always unacknowledged control masquerading as wisdom. It wound up spiraling out of control. The tight clamps could not hold back the more powerful fuel and people burned themselves out.
rdtsc 8y ago
> the object of Gurdjieff's method was to weed out those who understood from those who do not, and those who understood went away and those who did not understand remained. It is kind of like when scammers claim they are from Nigeria or purposely misspell words or use bad grammar. "Here! Perform these 40 silly dances and you'll become omnipotent" is the early 20th century version of "Hello kind sir/m'am. I am the crown prince of Nigeria..."

lrenn 8y ago

You ever see the OA on netflix? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gurdjieff_movements https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gurdjieff_movements

neonate 8y ago

There's a fun interview I ran across recently with Gary Lachman (a.k.a. Gary Valentine, early bass player for Blondie!) who knows a ton about this stuff. Though he's strongly biased in favour of Ouspensky against Gurdjieff. Pretty entertaining though, for anyone who likes esoterica about esoterica. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lgurBMfwQw4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lgurBMfwQw4

MaysonL 8y ago

An interesting review of a 2012 book with the same title as this article: http://www.josephazize.com/2016/04/01/gurdjieff-and-the-women-of-the-rope/ http://www.josephazize.com/2016/04/01/gurdjieff-and-the-wome...

neonate 8y ago
That book appears to be the personal notes of Solita Solano, which are mentioned in the article. This bit is hilarious: Gurdjieff has given them some “special liquor chocolates”, and Jane Heap, thinking to flatter Gurdjieff, says to him: “Every day in your house is Christmas.” Gurdjieff replies with this remarkable repartee: “Excuse! Twice a day in my house is Christmas. Look, Mees Gordon, she wish belittle me!”

YeGoblynQueenne 8y ago

From Wikipedia's article on Gurdjieff: >> Gurdjieff taught that most humans do not possess a unified consciousness and thus live their lives in a state of hypnotic "waking sleep", but that it is possible to awaken to a higher state of consciousness and achieve full human potential. Gurdjieff described a method attempting to do so, calling the discipline "The Work"[5] (connoting "work on oneself") or "the Method".[6] According to his principles and instructions,[7] Gurdjieff's method for awakening one's consciousness unites the methods of the fakir, monk and yogi, and thus he referred to it as the "Fourth Way".[8] So, a typical charlatan selling spiritual enlightenment.

dang 8y ago
"Please don't post shallow dismissals, especially of other people's work. A good critical comment teaches us something." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- rimliu 8y ago
  I think Hitchens' razor applies there. "What can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence" Would you leave the same remark under a comment dismissing some flat-earther?
  - dang 8y ago
    I'm afraid this comment is breaking the same guideline. Dismiss as much as you like, but please don't post like this to HN. It's informationless and therefore boring and therefore off topic here.
    - cam_l 8y ago
      Dang's Razor: "What can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without comment."
    - YeGoblynQueenne 8y ago
      If it's about information content- I was concerned that people reading this article may not be aware that Gurjieff was a New Age guru. The article is written to present him as some kind of respectable philosopher who attracted a following of intellectuals and artists, rather than a cult leader. I felt it was important to point out what he actually was. I still don't quite get why my comment broke that guideline. What would be a non-shallow dismissal of Gurjieff? I mean, give me an example here, because I'm a bit confused, really. The man had no "work" to dismiss, he was just full of hot air and making it up as he went along. What else can be said about him than the fact that he was a charlatan? What, at the end of the day, is counter to HN guidelines about calling out cranks?

okokokok10 8y ago

Mathias er god til programmering

okokokok10 8y ago

Lisa er 145cm og Jens er 190cm