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Beelzebub's Tales to His Grandson #3
Beelzebub's Tales to His Grandson
The teaching of G. I. Gurdjieff (1866-1949) has come to be recognized as one of the most original, enduring, and penetrating of our century. While Gurdjieff used many different means to transmit his vision of the human dilemma and human possibility, he gave special importance to his acknowledged masterwork, Beelzebub's Tales to His Grandson.
Beelzebub's Tales is an "ocean of story" and of ideas that one can explore for a lifetime. It is majestic in scale and content, challengingly inventive in prose style, and, for those very reasons, often approached with apprehension. The first English language edition of the Russian original appeared in 1950. Since then, readers have recognized the need for a revised translation that would clarify the verbal surface while respecting the author's own thought and style.
This revised edition, in preparation for many years under the direction of Gurdjieff's closest pupil, Jeanne de Salzmann, meets this need. Originally published in 1992, this translation offers a new experience of Gurdjieff's masterpiece for contemporary readers. It is presented in a sturdy cloth edition that echoes its original publication.
Librarian's note: This edition was published with ISBN 0-525-47350-5, which has also been used on another work.
Beelzebub's Tales is an "ocean of story" and of ideas that one can explore for a lifetime. It is majestic in scale and content, challengingly inventive in prose style, and, for those very reasons, often approached with apprehension. The first English language edition of the Russian original appeared in 1950. Since then, readers have recognized the need for a revised translation that would clarify the verbal surface while respecting the author's own thought and style.
This revised edition, in preparation for many years under the direction of Gurdjieff's closest pupil, Jeanne de Salzmann, meets this need. Originally published in 1992, this translation offers a new experience of Gurdjieff's masterpiece for contemporary readers. It is presented in a sturdy cloth edition that echoes its original publication.
Librarian's note: This edition was published with ISBN 0-525-47350-5, which has also been used on another work.
- GenresPhilosophy
432 pages, Paperback
Published September 29, 1988
About the author
G.I. Gurdjieff
119 books748 followersGeorges Ivanovich Gurdjieff (Armenian: Գեորգի Իվանովիչ Գյուրջիև, Georgian: გიორგი გურჯიევი, Greek: Γεώργιος Γεωργιάδης, Russian: Гео́ргий Ива́нович Гюрджи́ев, Georgiy Ivanovich Gyurdzhiev, or Gurdjiev) was an influential Greek-Armenian mystic, spiritual teacher of the early to mid-20th century, and a self-professed 'teacher of dancing'.
He taught that the vast majority of humanity lives their entire lives in a state of hypnotic "waking sleep," but that it was possible to transcend to a higher state of consciousness and achieve full human potential. Gurdjieff developed a method for doing so, calling his discipline "The Work" (connoting "work on oneself") or "the Method." According to his principles and instructions, Gurdjieff's method for awakening one's consciousness is different from that of the fakir, monk or yogi, so his discipline is also called (originally) the "Fourth Way." At one point he described his teaching as being "esoteric Christianity."
At different times in his life, Gurdjieff formed and closed various schools around the world to teach the work. He claimed that the teachings he brought to the West from his own experiences and early travels expressed the truth found in ancient religions and wisdom teachings relating to self-awareness in people's daily lives and humanity's place in the universe. The title of his third series of writings, Life Is Real Only Then, When 'I Am', expresses the essence of his teachings. His complete series of books is entitled All and Everything.
He taught that the vast majority of humanity lives their entire lives in a state of hypnotic "waking sleep," but that it was possible to transcend to a higher state of consciousness and achieve full human potential. Gurdjieff developed a method for doing so, calling his discipline "The Work" (connoting "work on oneself") or "the Method." According to his principles and instructions, Gurdjieff's method for awakening one's consciousness is different from that of the fakir, monk or yogi, so his discipline is also called (originally) the "Fourth Way." At one point he described his teaching as being "esoteric Christianity."
At different times in his life, Gurdjieff formed and closed various schools around the world to teach the work. He claimed that the teachings he brought to the West from his own experiences and early travels expressed the truth found in ancient religions and wisdom teachings relating to self-awareness in people's daily lives and humanity's place in the universe. The title of his third series of writings, Life Is Real Only Then, When 'I Am', expresses the essence of his teachings. His complete series of books is entitled All and Everything.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
August 13, 2023
THE THIRD OF THREE BOOKS IN GURDJIEFF’S ‘FIRST SERIES’
This third book begins, “[Beelzebub’s] grandson Hassein again turned to him and said: ‘… Please help me to … clear up for myself one contradiction which … does not accord with my logical confrontations. When you began your elucidations about the holy planet Purgatory … while trying to assimilate well these sacred laws… it suddenly greatly astonished me… how the three-brained beings who … exist on the planet Earth could not only understand these sacred cosmic laws, but could even have constated them among the surrounding cosmic results…” (Pg. 3-4)
Beelzebub then explains, “the three-brained beings there became… possessors of only an automatic-Reason… And in consequence, in this way all possibilities for the free formation of all that which is required for the engendering of objective being-Reason is gradually atrophied and finally disappears in these unfortunate… newly arising beings during … their what is called ‘preparatory age.’ … In consequences of this… the whole process of the functioning of their planetary body becomes dependent only on chance, automatically perceived, external impressions.” (Pg. 4-6)
He says of America, “these unfortunate Americans, who are always governed by these dollar businesses of theirs, can do what they please only on Sundays… on that continent, all dollar and other businesses depend never upon the beings themselves: on the contrary, your favorites there always themselves depend entirely on these ‘businesses’ of theirs… This street Broadway is the foremost and principal street not only in this New York, but … is the longest street in any of the large contemporary cities on your planet…” (Pg. 111-112) Later, he adds, “But of all of these methods not one was so harmful for the beings themselves as this method invented by these contemporary beings of the continent America, namely, the preserving of products in poison-exuding tin cans.” (Pg. 153)
He asserts, “A woman with such a nature of course does not wish to fulfill the obligations of a genuine woman-mother, and in view of the fact that being a prostitute enables her just to do nothing and to experience great pleasure, there is gradually formed in both in her nature and in the ‘passive consciousness’ proper to her a factor for the irresistible urge to be a woman-female…” (Pg. 175)
He says of the ‘Mohammedan religion,’ “in that religion there were many more good customs than in any of the religions of today; in none of the ancient religious teachings were so many good regulations for ordinary everyday life laid down as in just that teaching on which this same Christian religion was founded… all the great genuine religions … are always based on the same truths. The difference in those religions is only in the definite regulations they lay down for the observances of certain details and are of what are called rituals; and this difference is the result of the deliberate adoption by the great funders of these regulations which suited the degree of menta perfection of the people of the given period.” (Pg. 191-192)
I found the most interesting part of the book was Chapter 48, ‘From the author,’ in which Beelzebub explains, “After six years of work… I yesterday at last completed the setting down on paper, in a form, I think, accessible to everybody, the first of the three series of books I had previously thought out … those three series in which I planned to actualize by means of the totality of the ideas to be developed… three essential tasks I had set myself: namely, by means of the first series, to destroy in people everything which, in their false representations… exists in reality… With this end in view I very attentively read over this morning the ‘preface’ I wrote six years ago… I order to takt corresponding ideas from it for a corresponding … ‘logical fusion’ of that beginning with this conclusion which I now intend to write.” (Pg. 374)
He asks, “can a man who is a product of contemporary education and civilization do anything at all himself, consciously and by his own will? No… we answer at the very beginning... Why not? Solely because, as the Institute-for-the-Harmonious-Development-of-Man experimentally proves … there is nothing which a contemporary man himself does… not a single one of these ‘victims of contemporary civilization’ can ‘do’ anything… everything does itself in him and through him, coincides with what is said of man by contemporary ‘exact-positive-science.’ … from the point of view of the totality of Mr. Gurdjieff’s ideas … man differs from the animals only impressions, and by having a more complex construction for perceiving and reacting to them… Will is a certain combination obtained from the results of certain properties specially elaborated in themselves by people who can do.” (Pg. 392-393)
He continues, “Although the said liberation is possible, nevertheless whether any particular man has the chance to attain it---this is difficult to say… The chief difficulty in the way of liberation from whole entire slavery consists in this, that it is necessary, with an intention issuing from one’s own initiative and persistence, and sustained by one’s own efforts, that is to say, not by another’s will but by one’s own, to obtain the eradication from one’s presence both of the already fixed consequences of certain properties… as well as of the predisposition to those consequences which might again arise.” (Pg. 409-410)
He asserts, “The death referred to is not the death of the body, since for such a death there is no need of resurrection. For if there is a soul, and moreover, an immortal soul, it can dispense with a resurrection of the body. Nor is the necessity of resurrection our appearance before the awful Judgment of the Lord God, as we have been taught by the Fathers of the Church. No! Even Jesus Christ and all the other prophets sent from Above spoke of the death which might occur even during life…” (Pg. 422)
He concludes, “Summing up all that has been said, the thoughts set out in the lecture you have heard read…that is about the two categories of contemporary people who in respect of inner content have nothing in common…I consider it necessary to say and even to emphasize still more that all misunderstandings without exception arising in the process of our collective life… Every man, if he can even a little seriously think, so to say ‘without being identified’ with his passions, must agree with this if he takes into account merely one single fact often repeated in the process of our inner life, namely, that all our experiencings which at first… seem to be stark terrors, appear, after the lapse of only an insignificant time and when these experiencings have been replaced by others and are recalled by chance, and when according to our logical reasoning we are already in another mood, not worth, a ‘brass farthing.’” (Pg. 423-424)
Some readers find Gurdjieff’s approach in this book fascinating, while others (including me) just find it tiresome.
This third book begins, “[Beelzebub’s] grandson Hassein again turned to him and said: ‘… Please help me to … clear up for myself one contradiction which … does not accord with my logical confrontations. When you began your elucidations about the holy planet Purgatory … while trying to assimilate well these sacred laws… it suddenly greatly astonished me… how the three-brained beings who … exist on the planet Earth could not only understand these sacred cosmic laws, but could even have constated them among the surrounding cosmic results…” (Pg. 3-4)
Beelzebub then explains, “the three-brained beings there became… possessors of only an automatic-Reason… And in consequence, in this way all possibilities for the free formation of all that which is required for the engendering of objective being-Reason is gradually atrophied and finally disappears in these unfortunate… newly arising beings during … their what is called ‘preparatory age.’ … In consequences of this… the whole process of the functioning of their planetary body becomes dependent only on chance, automatically perceived, external impressions.” (Pg. 4-6)
He says of America, “these unfortunate Americans, who are always governed by these dollar businesses of theirs, can do what they please only on Sundays… on that continent, all dollar and other businesses depend never upon the beings themselves: on the contrary, your favorites there always themselves depend entirely on these ‘businesses’ of theirs… This street Broadway is the foremost and principal street not only in this New York, but … is the longest street in any of the large contemporary cities on your planet…” (Pg. 111-112) Later, he adds, “But of all of these methods not one was so harmful for the beings themselves as this method invented by these contemporary beings of the continent America, namely, the preserving of products in poison-exuding tin cans.” (Pg. 153)
He asserts, “A woman with such a nature of course does not wish to fulfill the obligations of a genuine woman-mother, and in view of the fact that being a prostitute enables her just to do nothing and to experience great pleasure, there is gradually formed in both in her nature and in the ‘passive consciousness’ proper to her a factor for the irresistible urge to be a woman-female…” (Pg. 175)
He says of the ‘Mohammedan religion,’ “in that religion there were many more good customs than in any of the religions of today; in none of the ancient religious teachings were so many good regulations for ordinary everyday life laid down as in just that teaching on which this same Christian religion was founded… all the great genuine religions … are always based on the same truths. The difference in those religions is only in the definite regulations they lay down for the observances of certain details and are of what are called rituals; and this difference is the result of the deliberate adoption by the great funders of these regulations which suited the degree of menta perfection of the people of the given period.” (Pg. 191-192)
I found the most interesting part of the book was Chapter 48, ‘From the author,’ in which Beelzebub explains, “After six years of work… I yesterday at last completed the setting down on paper, in a form, I think, accessible to everybody, the first of the three series of books I had previously thought out … those three series in which I planned to actualize by means of the totality of the ideas to be developed… three essential tasks I had set myself: namely, by means of the first series, to destroy in people everything which, in their false representations… exists in reality… With this end in view I very attentively read over this morning the ‘preface’ I wrote six years ago… I order to takt corresponding ideas from it for a corresponding … ‘logical fusion’ of that beginning with this conclusion which I now intend to write.” (Pg. 374)
He asks, “can a man who is a product of contemporary education and civilization do anything at all himself, consciously and by his own will? No… we answer at the very beginning... Why not? Solely because, as the Institute-for-the-Harmonious-Development-of-Man experimentally proves … there is nothing which a contemporary man himself does… not a single one of these ‘victims of contemporary civilization’ can ‘do’ anything… everything does itself in him and through him, coincides with what is said of man by contemporary ‘exact-positive-science.’ … from the point of view of the totality of Mr. Gurdjieff’s ideas … man differs from the animals only impressions, and by having a more complex construction for perceiving and reacting to them… Will is a certain combination obtained from the results of certain properties specially elaborated in themselves by people who can do.” (Pg. 392-393)
He continues, “Although the said liberation is possible, nevertheless whether any particular man has the chance to attain it---this is difficult to say… The chief difficulty in the way of liberation from whole entire slavery consists in this, that it is necessary, with an intention issuing from one’s own initiative and persistence, and sustained by one’s own efforts, that is to say, not by another’s will but by one’s own, to obtain the eradication from one’s presence both of the already fixed consequences of certain properties… as well as of the predisposition to those consequences which might again arise.” (Pg. 409-410)
He asserts, “The death referred to is not the death of the body, since for such a death there is no need of resurrection. For if there is a soul, and moreover, an immortal soul, it can dispense with a resurrection of the body. Nor is the necessity of resurrection our appearance before the awful Judgment of the Lord God, as we have been taught by the Fathers of the Church. No! Even Jesus Christ and all the other prophets sent from Above spoke of the death which might occur even during life…” (Pg. 422)
He concludes, “Summing up all that has been said, the thoughts set out in the lecture you have heard read…that is about the two categories of contemporary people who in respect of inner content have nothing in common…I consider it necessary to say and even to emphasize still more that all misunderstandings without exception arising in the process of our collective life… Every man, if he can even a little seriously think, so to say ‘without being identified’ with his passions, must agree with this if he takes into account merely one single fact often repeated in the process of our inner life, namely, that all our experiencings which at first… seem to be stark terrors, appear, after the lapse of only an insignificant time and when these experiencings have been replaced by others and are recalled by chance, and when according to our logical reasoning we are already in another mood, not worth, a ‘brass farthing.’” (Pg. 423-424)
Some readers find Gurdjieff’s approach in this book fascinating, while others (including me) just find it tiresome.
January 23, 2022
Puede ser, puede no ser; para quien no tiene brújula está es respuesta, para quien ya la tiene, bien digerido, refuerza la ida al destino. Es difícil, pero vale la pena absorber el trabajo de Gurdjieff y como le gustaría a este Alien llamado Belcebú, ya absorbido hay que ser igual de críticos con Gurdjieff como él con el mundo (críticos ≠ conflictivos).
April 26, 2020
Excellent
June 21, 2025
Gracias por el viaje 🩵 Qué bonito ser una tricerebrada
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews