At least a hundred books have been written on this subject, many anecdotal and some frankly useless. Here are some you can read with profit.
Publishers are not listed because many books have gone into further editions with different firms.
Gurdjieff wrote three series of books.All and Everything or Beelzebub’s Tales To His Grandson – An objectively impartial criticism of the life of man.
Meetings With Remarkable Men.
Life Is Real, Only then, when I Am.
There is also a series of talks given by Gurdjieff as recollected by his pupils. Views from the Real World.
For a remarkable exposition of the Gurdjieff cosmology and teaching, there is an unparalleled account compiled by P.D. Ouspensky: In Search of the Miraculous - Fragments of an Unknown Teaching. The same author wrote The Psychology of Man's Possible Evolution and there is an account of his answers to pupils in The Fourth Way.
There are significant accounts by other pupils who studied with Gurdjieff. A selection follows:
The Reality of Being, the Fourth Way of Gurdjieff by Jeanne de Salzmann.
Venture With Ideas and A Study of Gurdjieff;s Teaching by Kenneth Walker.
Teachings of Gurdjieff and Journey Through This World by C. S. Nott.
Toward Awakening by Jean Vaysse.
On Attention by Christopher Freemantle.
Inner Octaves by Michel Conge.
Opening by William Segal.
The Next Attention - a record of talks given by Michelle de Salzmann by Fran Shaw
There are also omnibus books, biographies and compendiums. For instance:
Gurdjieff - Essays and Reflections on the Man and his Teaching. edited by Jacob Needleman and George Baker. A collection containing many significant accounts and appreciations by contemporaries. Then there is Gurdjieff - the anatomy of a myth. the organization's 'official' biography of the Master by James Moore.
Further accounts are being published, For instance, G. I. Gurdjieff PARIS MEETINGS 1943. This is a transcription of exchanges during the War Years in Paris. Then there are essays and reflections such as The Taste for Things That are True by Henri Tracol.
The analogical novel Mount Analogue by Rene Daumal
An exposition on Being and Time which parallels Dogen - Living Time by Maurice Nicoll.
And Our Life with Mr Gurdjeff by Thomas de Hartmann.
The Gurdjieff literature is so extensive that we include only a representative selection.
From In Search of the Miraculous:
"People believe in progress and culture," said G. "There is no progress whatsoever. Everything is just the same as it was thousands, and ten thousands, of years ago. The outward form changes. The essence does not change. Man remains the same. 'Civilized' and 'cultured' people live with exactly the same interests as the most ignorant savages. Modern civilization is based on violence and slavery and fine words. But all these fine words about 'progress' and 'civilization' are merely words."Copyright
Gurdjieff Canberra. All rights reserved.