Background
Gurdzhiev, Georgii was born in 1873 in the Caucasus. Son of Greek settlers.
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Georgii Ivanovich Gurdzhiev
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As a dealer in Levantine carpets, travelled widely in the Middle East. Middleton Murry, the husband of Katherine Mansfield, described him as a ‘man of violent temper, greedy for money, personally lustful, extravagant and boastful’, and T. S. Eliot, in a letter to Ezra Pound, called him ‘a maniac’. First known as a guru of small groups, seeking an increased awareness of life in Moscow before World War I. One of the first to notice and use the attractiveness to Western minds of Eastern esoteric teachings and mysticism.
Worked out his own eclectic system with elements of Sufism and exercises based on yoga and dervish dancing. Not very well educated, was able to gain influence only after the arrival among his disciples of the highly educated P. Uspenskii, who in his works gave a detailed interpretation of the enigmatic utterings of the Eastern mystic. Had some success before World War I in Russia in the highly charged atmosphere that led to the emergence of several similar figures (Rasputin, Badmaev).
During the Civil War, met Uspenskii again in the Caucasus, emigrated to Turkey, and later followed him to England. In the 1920s, with Uspenskii’s help, set up a teaching centre or an early guru commune (The Institute for the Harmonious Development of Man) in Fontainebleau, where for a time they both taught. After breaking with Uspenskii, continued to teach until he became seriously ill after a car accident.
Wrote several mystical works, drawing on Indian and Persian esoteric traditions. Wrote an account of his alleged early meetings with wise men of the East.
