Typing Religions, Teachings, and Movements: Gurdjieff

Gurdjieff is a "whole different animal" than western religions like Mormonism, which I discussed below. He came from an eastern mystic tradition with probable roots to ancient Christianity, but quite unlike anything in existence in contemporary western Christianity. I have typed Gurdjieff as SLE (here's a bio from Wikipedia). Let's look at his teaching from a socionic perspective.

The personality of Gurdjieff himself has been absolutely central to the Gurdjieff movement itself, notwithstanding the widespread influence of his teachings (The Matrix, for instance, is full of echoes of Gurdjieff). He was a charismatic, internally driven, demanding force who could easily be considered a cult leader.

Gurdjieff's own spiritual quest, which occupied the first 40 or so years of his life, involved traveling large distances across mountains and deserts, conquering great external obstacles, and experiencing brushes with death. These were the aspects of his spiritual quest that he emphasized the most, and he tried to convey to his followers that any spiritual progress was to made at the cost of great efforts, even at risk of death or harm. He likened achieving higher states of spiritual development to making an escape from prison with the help of other prison mates - slowly and painfully digging their way to freedom with a few hints from those who had escaped before them.

Gurdjieff was a demanding teacher who consciously put his followers through all sorts of trials to test their resolve. His decisions often seemed rash or arbitrary, but were actually aimed at preserving an atmosphere of tension and extreme effort that he considered necessary for spiritual growth. He was often critical to the point of ridicule, but this was likely done to "create obstacles" and "test" followers, rather than simply being an expression of irritation or disgust. As we can see, this closely follows the ideas of a centered teaching as described in a previous post.

Gurdjieff lived a long life that involved frequent travels and starting over from scratch in several different countries. After he died, there was no formal successor, since Gurdjieff didn't establish a formal organization, much less a church. Instead, there were scattered followers and groups of followers in many different countries. A few attempts were made to join forces, but they haven't led to anything so far, perhaps because Gurdjieff himself gave no compelling reason to have a common organization (such as a belief in a divine organization).

The organizations and groups that do exist seem to have largely morphed from a emphasis to a one. While still retaining the sense that spiritual development is a hard journey that requires great effort, these groups seem more focused on following or studying the "canon" of teachings that Gurdjieff left behind. In reality, there seems to be no one to submit followers to type tribulations as Gurdjieff once did. This is another example of how an extraverted founder left an ultimately introverted movement behind him.

I don't know Gurdjieff's teachings as well as Mormonism, but I'll try to look at how different information aspects are valued in the teaching.

: The concept of a spiritual search is given considerable emphasis in Gurdjieff's teachings, but the substance of it is actually . In other words, one already has a very good idea of the goal of the search (as opposed to an open-ended search), and the key is to make up one's mind and press forward despite the obstacles. Searching for the sake of searching seems to be viewed as a frivolous occupation.

: In addition to what I've already said, Gurdjieff's focus on living in the here and now and not troubling oneself with irrelevant thoughts (worries about the future or regrets about the past) also contains a emphasis.

: I would say this aspect is completely ignored. If any work is performed, it is only to provide another test of participants' strength and resolve.

: Gurdjieff's extensive work with music and dancing (including his famous "Gurdjieff movements") can be seen as partly an expression of emotional coalescence with the divine and with other participants. Mormonism, which I just discussed below, as well as quite a few Protestant religions, has no such group rituals that involve external emotional expression.

: Quite a bit of emphasis. Gurdjieff himself practiced hypnosis for a long time and seems to have used trance-like states in his teaching. It could be argued that many of Gurdjieff's teachings that he got from other sources - such as concepts like the "ray of creation" - were meant to be understood symbolically and could be associated with .

: I'm not aware of much emphasis at all. Nowhere does Gurdjieff espouse a particular diet or philosophy of consumption of food or water. Also, the idea of striving for a relaxed, balanced physical state doesn't mesh well with the concept of "super efforts" and accessing one's "reserve batteries."

: Heavily emphasized, at least in the early period of Gurdjieff's teaching, when he introduced a complex conceptual system (basically, the equivalent of "doctrine" in religions) that followers were expected to think about and discuss actively.

: Fully suppressed. Gurdjieff felt that "being nice" encouraged "sleep," and that it was necessary to be harsh and blunt to keep people "awake." Occasionally followers accused him and his teachings as being "heartless." Also, Gurdjieff often made a point of alienating those who had dropped out and encouraging active followers to break off contact with the person as a necessary step to avoid being distracted by feelings of sentimentality and empathy.