Much of Gurdjieff’s teaching or “philosophy” was ostensibly an oral process of transmission, but after his accident he decided rather reluctantly to delineate its essence for mankind in the form of 3 written volumes. The First volume entitled “Beelzebub’s Tales to His Grandson” is composed of three books or sections. The second volume was entitled “Meetings with Remarkable Men”, and the third “Life is Only Real, Then when I am”.
The following hypothesis is a review of the following literary works:
1. All & Everything or “Beelzebub’s Tales to His Grandson”.
2. Meetings with Remarkable Men.
3. The Self is Only Real, Then When I am.
One important factor relevant in understanding the sophistication of Gurdjieff’s System was the language he employed to write these literary works. All of them were originally written in Armenian and contained numerous esoteric word ciphers which required a knowledge of the keys to the cryptic clues required for deciphering their real meaning. The Armenian language is derived and partly based on the Georgian Language which was in turn largely a combination of the Indo-Iranian and Caucasian languages. The Georgian language strangely enough is like the Greek in that numerically it is an isosephic tongue whereby all its’ letters contain the number range from 1 to 1,000.
Two distinct writing styles developed within the Georgian alphabet – the “Khutsuri” or priestly letters which are somewhat square in shape and the more cursive “Mkhedruli” or warrior letters developed around 1,000 CE. As a direct result of the development of the more cursive script the Georgian language itself was reduced from 39 to 33 letters. This mathematically reflects the symmetry contained in the number 9 and the number 11 – these two numbers reoccur within Arabic and Sanskrit esoteric number symbolism (See 99 Names of God). Where for example 3×3 = 9, 3×9 = 27, and 3×11 = 33. The first three key numbers enumerated are 9 – the numer of the enneagram, 27 – the number of Lunar Asterisms, and 33 – the number of joints in the human spine. In Sanskrit cosmology they re-emerge as the 33 consonants of their alphabet which correspond with the 33 joints of the human spine, the sum total of 25 Varga letters & 8 Avarga letters symbolically represent the 33 Gods of Heaven (Surya) and the Goddess Kali herself. They can also be found within Cabalistic doctrines where the 33 degrees represent the entire range of Masonic levels of initiation.
As many students of the Gurdjieffian system are aware G.I. Gurdjieff was well travelled and studied the components of esoteric Arabic mathematics and the Greek “Soma Sophia”. He no doubt aligned much of his work along the lines of the abstract numerical symbolism contained within these particular occult systems. It is therefore a subtle blend of Eastern Mysticism, Gnosticism or Esoteric Christianity.
It should be noted that the First Book or section contains 27 chapters which correspond to the 28 Lunar Mansions or “manzils” of Arabic astrology defined by al-Arabi’s astrological scale. The major calendrical and cosmological systems of the world have corresponding asterisms each with various names or titles. These lunar asterisms usually contain an additional intercalary “month” thus bringing the final total to 28. Based again on the laws of the octave, there are 4 Palaces representing the four cardinal directions, each one containing 7 asterisms. The Chinese Compass Plates used in Divination and Feng Shui are also relevant to this form of geomantic division of the 360 degrees of the Celestial Sphere where conveniently 4 x 9 = 36.
The Chinese Lo Shu Magic Square and the talismanic seal of Saturn is composed of 9 cells arranged in a manner that contains a series of four numbers: 3, 9, 15 and 45. The first number (3) is the number of squares of any given side. The second number is 9 – the total number of cells which correspond to the nine points of the Enneagram. The third number is 15 – the sum total of any 3 cells read vertically, horizontally or diagonally. The fourth number 45 is the total sum of the entire nine numbers of the magic square. These 4 numbers therefore govern the symbolic arrangement of the Magic Square acting as metaphors. Before the discovery of the outer planets Uranus, Neptune and Pluto the planet Saturn was the “King” or ruler of the other six planets Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, and Jupiter.
The Second Book contains eleven chapters which accord with the 11 degrees of the Cosmic Ladder of Consciousness. See also Orphic Ladder.
Finally, the Third Book contains 8 chapters which accord with the Geomantic Ogdoad. The last is a subtle addition entitled “From the Author” and can be set aside from the entire three volumes thus totalling 45. “From the Author” contains a description of the automatic or mechanical nature of the human psyche analogously expressed as a Horse and Carriage.
Leon Patsalides is Artist come all round nice guy living in Chorlton, South Manchester.
