The Gurdjieff Work Book

	Foreword	ix
	Preface	xi
	Preface to the First Edition	xiii
Chapter 1	Who Was Gurdjieff?	3
	"The Work"
	Gurdjieff's Quest
	Early Preparation
	Religious & Esoteric Fertility of His Native Land
	The Search for Sources of Eternal Wisdom
	His Various Occupations, Business Enterprises and Political Involvement
	The Russian Period
	Gurdjieff in Europe
	The Later Years
Chapter 2	The Philosophical Basis of Gurdjieff's System	19
	Self-Realization and the Human Condition
	The Ray of Creation
	The Law of Three and The Law of Seven
	The Law of Octave
	The Enneagram: The Union of the Law of Seven and the Law of Three
	The First Conscious Shock
	The Second Conscious Shock
Chapter 3	The Psychology of Ordinary Human Beings	31
	Human Fragmentation
	The Human Machine
	Our "Three Brains"
	Three Human Types
	States of Consciousness
	The Psychopathology of Ordinary Waking State
	The Systematic Distortion of Experience of Ordinary Waking State
	Essence and Personality
Chapter 4	Human Possibilities	51
	Potential for Inner Growth
	The Four Ways
	Higher States of Consciousness
	Objective Consciousness
	Peak Experiences
	The Stages of Human Development
	Achieving Inner Unity
	The Seven Levels
	Evolution, Death and Immortality
	Development of the Four Bodies
Chapter 5	The Gurdjieff Work	69
	Engaging the Struggle Between Essence and Personality
	The Beginning
	Stages on the Way
	Finding a Group
	The First Line of Work
	Self-Remembering
	The Second Line of Work
	External Considering
	Non-Expression of Negative Emotions
	The Third Line of Work
	Selfless Action
	The Movements
	Breaking the Cycle of Lifelong Conditioning
	The Role of Physical Labor in the Work
	Experiential Exercises
Chapter 6	The Living Tradition	95
	The First Generation
	The Gurdjieff Foundations
	American Society for Continuous Education
	Taliesin
	Northeon Forest
	The Fellowship of Friends
	Other Groups
	Where and How to Contact Real Work
	Further Reading	118
	Notes	119