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Links to other sites of interest
Gurdjieff and Ouspensky
Sites relating to Gurdjieff and Ouspensky are numerous and require diligence to unearth those of quality; here are some suggested links that you might explore.
General Links
Other sites relating to our research and general links:
- Amazon search - an Amazon search of the Books area,
using the search-term "Gurdjieff" will produce over 700 results; the three most popular selling items
are listed first.
- Google search - similarly,
a Google search using the search-term "Gurdjieff" will produuce in excess of 76000 'hits'. Refine your
search-terms to reflect your specific interest.
Early 20th Century Links
Sites Relating to Early Part of the 20th Century
- The Empire That Was Russia online Exhibition of old photographs.
- The Jazz Age – America in the 1920s this is an excellent site with brief pieces looking at Prohibition, Jazz, Race Violence, Immigration Restriction, Crime, it gives an overall picture of the decade.
- American Cultural History 1920 –1929. This site has short essays or links to other sites about the design art, architecture, literature, music, events, people, Stock Market Crash, of the 1920s
- The Harlem Renaissance - the site defines the Harlem Renaissance as referring ‘to an era of written and artistic creativity among African-Americans that occurred after World War I and lasted until the middle of the 1930s Depression.’
- Harlem Renaissance - a site related to the one above which gives links to biographies of writers, poets, artists, photographers, actors, singers, musicians, composers, and activists of the Harlem Renaissance.
- Modern American Poetry - gives links to sites relating to Jean Toomer
- Museum of the City of New York, images and text about women in the 1920s.
- The State of Tennessee - John Thomas Scopes 1925 - this was the so-called “Monkey Trial” concerning the teaching of the evolution of man from monkeys in. Of interest in relation to Gurdjieff’s Chapter XXIII of Beelzebub’s Tales to His Grandson.
- Film History of the 1920s - Gurdjieff went to the movies, his first drafts of what became Beelzebub’s To His Grandson were in the form of film scripts, here you can see what films were playing in the decade.
- America in the 1930s - links to time-lines for the years 1929 – 1939
- Museum of the City of New York - this site gives invaluable help for researchers on the internet, defining the different kind of search engines, portals and sites.
Gnosticism
- The University of Virginia's New Religious Movements pages give a short scholarly outline of Gnosticism
Gnosticism
- An extract from the site: "one can preface words with "gnostic" and produce what appears to be significance but is only negative judgment. Simply calling logia gnostic without further explanation is a technique of several writers on the Gospel of Thomas."
Is the Gospel of Thomas Gnostic?
- The Gospel of Gnosis - A New Gospel for a New Age; An interpretation of The Gospel Of Thomas by Dr. Randall E. Wilson, July 2003
The Gospel of Gnosis
-
Eric G. Wilson’s ‘Emerson’s Gnostic Democracy’ in Esoterica
http://www.esoteric.msu.edu/VolumeVI/emersongnosis.htm
America - New Links September 2004
Paul Taylor writes that Gurdjieff was fascinated by America, he chose America as the place where his teaching might take effective root, yet he also saw it as evidence of the ‘gradual devolution of man’s moral an intellectual growth’. Some of the origins of America’s central role in Gurdjieff’s experience and teaching can be found in the preceding centuries in the long history of ideas and beliefs which connect America with notions of New World, New Land, New Jerusalem, a Paradise to return to, a Utopia to enter and build, where freedom, justice, religious, political, racial, social and economic equality might flourish. In terms of myth the exile from Eden brought about the loss of identity, and something of the search for new identity which has been part of the history of America was addressed in Gurdjieff’s teaching. The following links give some suggestions for places to continue this exploration:
Sixteenth - Seventeenth Centuries
Columbus in History
This essay with interesting links begins:
‘America's national memory is filled with icons and symbols, avatars of deeply held, yet imperfectly understood, beliefs. The role of history in the iconography of the United States is pervasive, yet the facts behind the fiction are somehow lost in an amorphous haze of patriotism and perceived national identity. Christopher Columbus, as a hero and symbol of the first order in America, is an important figure in this pantheon of American myth. His status, not unlike most American icons, is representative not of his own accomplishments, but the self-perception of the society which raised him to his pedestal in the American gallery of heroism’
America as the Garden during the Renaissance
Short reports from 1584, 1585, and “Michael Drayton's Ode to the Virginian Voyage (1606) Written a year before the founding of Jamestown, the first permanent English settlement in the New World, Drayton's Ode encourages England's "brave heroic minds" to pursue honor for their country by subduing "Virginia/ Earth's only paradise."
Eighteenth – Nineteenth Centuries
Representative Poetry Online
I learned in a personal communication that the Blake scholar Foster Damon (1893-1971) recognised an affinity between the writings of William Blake (1757-1827) and Gurdjieff’s teachings and that he recommended some of his Blake students to go to the Institute in France to find out more. So I am including this site, which gives a short excerpt from America, A Prophecy together with helpful notes, I quote one below:
‘America, A Prophecy was first engraved in 1793, in eighteen plates, and deals with Blake's interpretation of the American Revolution. Orc (partly from Latin orcus, hell) is the spirit of freedom inspiring the American revolt. He is associated with the classical Titans, with the Norse god Loki, also imprisoned in a "cavern" (line 18) under a mountain, and with Esau, the rightful heir of Isaac (cf. "hairy youth" in line 11 with Gen. 27: 11). The "Daughter of Urthona" is the land of America which a new civilization is taking possession of. Urthona: the creative power of the imagination, later identified with Los, the hero of most of Blake's prophecies.
Romanticism
This is a section of the Perspectives In American Literature site see below:
http://www.csustan.edu/english/reuben/pal/chap3/3intro.html
Theosophy
There are many links between Gurdjieff’s teachings and Blavatsky’s, for her views on America in relation to continents rising and falling see the Secret Doctrine ‘The fifth continent was America in point of time, but Europe and Asia Minor have received the name, as they were almost coeval with America and it was there that the fifth root-race evolved’ (SD 2:8) and other passages.
The site below gives links to sites to sites that explore Theosophy:
Many readers of this site will be aware of the connection between Gurdjieff and the architect Frank Lloyd Wright the site below has an article that looks at wider links between architecture and Theosophy, from the site: ‘By moving beyond the constraints of history and positivism Theosophy also offered an alternative to the lived experience of modernity … [it] contributed to the modernist framework within which both radically regressive and progressive departures soon emerged’.
Two overview sites: Making of America & PAL: Perspectives in American Literature
Making of America
Cornell University Library's contributions to Making of America (MOA), a digital library of primary sources in American social history from the antebellum period through reconstruction. The collection is particularly strong in the subject areas of education, psychology, American history, sociology, religion, and science and technology. This site provides access to 267 monograph volumes and over 100,000 journal articles with 19th century imprints. The project represents a major collaborative endeavor in preservation and electronic access to historical texts.
This site has a wonderful search facility, for example, my search for utopia brought 831 matches in 585 works. 9 matches in 4 books., 822 matches in 581 journal articles.
PAL: Perspectives in American Literature
A Research and Reference Guide - An Ongoing Project © Paul P. Reuben
This site is a rich source of information, see the contents list below:
Chapter 1: Early American Lit to 1700 Chapter 2: Early American Lit 1700-1800 Chapter 3: 19th C Romanticism
Chapter 4: 19th C Transcendentalism Chapter 5: Late 19th C Realism Chapter 6: Late 19th C Naturalism
Chapter 7: Early 20th C Modernism Chapter 8: American Drama Chapter 9: The Harlem Renaissance
Chapter 10: Late 20th C
Links added October the 1st 2004
Critical reading
The advice given to students at Gurdjieff’s Institute, "If you have not by nature a critical mind your staying here is useless" is often quoted, though little is recorded in relation to what a critical mind is and how it might be useful. Just as it would be unfair to expect someone who has been taught how to make a sound by pressing down piano keys to be able to play Dvorjac, so it is unreasonable to expect someone who has learned to read words and sentences on a page to spontaneously become equipped to examine a text. The links this month begin to explore notions about the purpose and benefits of a critical mind in relation to reading. The sites vary in length and complexity. Quotes are from the relevant website:
Professor John Lye’s
Critical Reading: a Guide
Brock University, St Catherine’s, Ontario, Canada
"There are people who resist analysis, believing that it ‘tears apart’ a work of art; however a work of art is an artifice, that is, it is made by someone with an end in view: as a made thing, it can be and should be analyzed as well as appreciated."
http://www.brocku.ca/english/jlye/criticalreading.html
The Writing Center
Cleveland State University
"Critical reading means that a reader applies certain processes, models, questions, and theories that result in enhanced clarity and comprehension."
http://www.csuohio.edu/writingcenter/critread.html
Resources in Applying Critical Thinking to Reading
Longview Community College
Including "Critical reading aids, reviews of textbooks, other web-based resources".
This site aims to provide resources to enable the reader to ask "what point is the author trying to make?"
http://www.kcmetro.cc.mo.us/longview/ctac/reading.htm
History of literary criticism
This site gives a short history of literary criticism from classical and medieval criticism to the present day with extending links.
"Literary criticism has probably existed for as long as literature. Aristotle wrote the Poetics , a typology and description of literary forms with many specific criticisms of contemporary works, in the 4th century BC. Poetics developed for the first time the concepts of mimesis and catharsis , which are still crucial in literary study. Plato ’s attacks on poetry as imitative, secondary, and false were formative as well.
"Later classical and medieval criticism often focused on religious texts, and the several long religious traditions of hermeneutics and textual exegesis have had a profound influence on the study of secular texts."
http://www.fact-index.com/l/li/literary_criticism.html
Two Books on ‘The Book’
Northrop Frye, The Great Code: the Bible and Literature, Harvest Books (November 1, 2002)
"Here is a book that has had a continuously fertilizing influence on English literature, from Anglo-Saxon writers to poets younger than I, and yet no one would say that the Bible ‘is’ a work of literature. Even Blake, who went much further than anyone else in his day in identifying religion and human creativity, did not call it that: he said ‘The Old and New Testaments are the Great Code of Art’."
See a short anonymous review of this at:
http://www.gurdjieff-internet.com/book_details.php?authID=145&BID=433&lang=
John Shelby Spong, Liberating the Gospels: Reading the Bible with Jewish Eyes, Harper, San Francisco (1996)
See a review of Spong’s book by Ina Belderis:
http://www.theosophy-nw.org/theosnw/world/christ/xt-ibel3.htm
Links added November - Dreams
The links below follow, in a sense, from those of last month, which were connected to the interpretation of texts: here are some links which are related to the interpretation of dreams.
http://psychclassics.yorku.ca/Freud/Dreams/
Sigmund Freud’s The Interpretation of Dreams (1900) was translated by A.A. Brill (1913). You can look at the complete text, or any part of it, prepared and kindly donated to Classics by Daniel M. Ryan. Complete text in .pdf format
http://www.wsu.edu:8080/~wldciv/world_civ_reader/world_civ_reader_2/freud.html
‘Despite the widely-recognized failure of Freudian psychotherapy to heal disturbed people effectively and the rejection of many of his major theories Freud remains one of the most influential figures of the 20th century. Freud's basic insight that our minds preserve memories and emotions which are not always consciously available to us has transformed the way humanity views itself ever since. Freud said that there had been three great humiliations in human history: Galileo's discovery that we were not the center of the universe, Darwin's discovery that we were not the crown of creation, and his own discovery that we are not in control of our own minds. The tendency of modern people to trace their problems to childhood traumas or other repressed emotions begins with Freud. One of Freud's more important discoveries is that emotions buried in the unconscious surface in disguised form during dreaming, and that the remembered fragments of dreams can help uncover the buried feelings. Whether the mechanism is exactly as Freud describes it, many people have derived insights into themselves from studying their dreams, and most modern people consider dreams emotionally significant, unlike our ancestors who often saw them either as divine portents or as the bizarre side-effects of indigestion. Freud argues that dreams are wish-fulfillments, and will ultimately argue that those wishes are the result of repressed or frustrated sexual desires. The anxiety surrounding these desires turns some dreams into nightmares.’
This is an excerpt from Reading About the World, Volume 2, edited by Paul Brians, Mary Gallwey, Douglas Hughes, Azfar Hussain, Richard Law, Michael Myers, Michael Neville, Roger Schlesinger, Alice Spitzer, and Susan Swan, and published by Harcourt Brace Custom Books.
http://www.blackwellpublishers.co.uk/Joap/JOAP151.pdf
This article by F.X. Charet, ‘Understanding Jung: recent biographies and scholarship,’from the Journal of Analytic Psychology, 2000, 45, 195-216, re-evaluated the relationship between Jung and Freud in relation to their separation. He looks at the myth ‘enshrined in’ Jung’s Memories, Dreams, Reflections and at it’s role in the continuing conflict of the development of their depth psychologies.
http://www.humboldt.edu/~relig/McMurray/393.html
The books below are from Dr Madeline McMurray's reading list for her ‘Dreams, Visions & Soul’ course at Humbolt State University, California.
Book List Dreaming:
Anthropological and Psychological Interpretations, edited by Barbara Tedlock
Einstein's Dreams, Alan Lightman
Memories, Dreams, Reflections, C.G. Jung
Inner Work, Robert A. Johnson
Lying Awake, Mark Salzman
Dreaming in the Lotus, Serinity Young
Myth, Dream and the Vocation of Contemporary Philosophy, Underwood
Inner Life: The Unconscious As Experience, Hillman
A Return to the Animal Soul, Hinton
The Bible and the Psyche, Edinger
Hildegard: Her Times and Her Illuminations, Fox
Dream Interpretation and Orthodoxy, Lamoreaux
The Fools of God, Vaughan-Lee
Chapter One of Dreaming With Open Eyes, Tucker
http://www.tryskelion.com/dreamhis.htm
This brief history of dreams looks at Egyptian, Greek, Roman, Biblical, Middle Eastern, and other approaches to dreams and their interpretation. It is from a neo-pagan site that has two purposes: ‘to serve as a resource for Pagans, and to promote understanding among those of religious paths different from ours. It is our fervent hope in this cause that the more we know about each other, the less there'll be to fear from each other.’
http://www.artmovements.co.uk/surrealism.htm
Dreams and Surrealism Key Dates 1920–1930s
Surrealism was founded in Paris by Andre Breton in 1924, the same year that Gurdjieff began to write the Tales. It was ‘a literary and art movement dedicated to expressing the imagination as revealed in dreams […] the movement's principal aim was 'to resolve the previously contradictory conditions of dream and reality into an absolute reality …’
http://www.eyeconart.net/history/surrealism.htm
Dreams and Surealism – Visual Images
This site shows some work by Max Ernst, Renee Magritte, Salvadore Dali, and Leonora Carrington, together with some later Surrealist works from Remedios Varo and Frida Kahlo.
http://www.dreamgate.com/dream/mcphee/book/chapter11.html
The below is an excerpt from Charles McPhee’s Stop Sleeping Through Your Dreams: A Guide to Awakening Consciousness During Dream Sleep, Henry Holt and Company, Inc., 1998.
‘Of all of the minds who have attempted the great question of consciousness in human experience, perhaps no one is more intriguing to read than is the Russian philosopher Georgi Ivanovitch Gurdjieff. His writings are not widely known, but his discussions of consciousness invariably hold a ring of truth for lucid dreamers. Indeed, anyone who has worked diligently with the experiential development of the ability for consciousness within himself or herself will find an immediate friend in Gurdjieff.’
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