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Beelzebub's Tales to His Grandson #1
Beelzebub's Tales to His Grandson: First Book
Beelzebub's Tales to His An Objectively Impartial Criticism of the Life of Man by G. I. Gurdjieff.
- GenresPhilosophy
410 pages, Paperback
First published November 1, 1996
13 people are currently reading
145 people want to read
About the author
G.I. Gurdjieff
119 books728 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 - 7 of 7 reviews
March 9, 2021
Not an easy read at first, but once you get into the flow of it there's no stopping the torrent of ideas, images and scenes that this book conjures up in your inner world.
A rare book that can change your mind about almost everything you thought you knew.
Good for seekers who have exhausted their search and feel there is still nothing of substance out there. This book and it's sequels are choc full of layers of information and keys to awaken dormant parts of you which are heavily buried under social conditioning.
Read with caution as I have been forever changed by this series of books.
A rare book that can change your mind about almost everything you thought you knew.
Good for seekers who have exhausted their search and feel there is still nothing of substance out there. This book and it's sequels are choc full of layers of information and keys to awaken dormant parts of you which are heavily buried under social conditioning.
Read with caution as I have been forever changed by this series of books.
August 13, 2023
THE FIRST OF THREE BOOKS IN GURDJIEFF’S ‘FIRST SERIES’
An introductory section of this posthumously-published 1950 book explains the place of this 3-book series in Gurdjieff’s works: “Ten Books in Three Series: FIRST SERIES: Three books under the title of … ‘Beelzebub’s Tales to His Grandson.’ SECOND SERIES: Three books under the common title of ‘Meetings With Remarkable Men.’ THIRD SERIES: Four books under the common title of ‘Life is Real Only Then, When I Am.’ All written according to entirely new principles of logical reasoning and strictly directed towards the solution of the following three cardinal problems: FIRST SERIES: To destroy, mercilessly, without any compromises whatsoever, in the mentation and feelings of the reader, the beliefs and views, by centuries rooted in him, about everything existing in the world. SECOND SERIES: To acquaint the reader with the material required for a new creation and to prove the soundness and good quality of it. THIRD SERIES: To assist the arising, in the mentation and in the feelings of the reader, of a veritable, non-fantastic representation not of that illusory world which he now perceives, but the world existing in reality.”
Author G.I. Gurdjieff wrote in the ‘Friendly Advice’ section of this book, “I find it necessary on the first page of this book… to give the following advice: ‘Read each of my written expositions thrice: Firstly---at least as you have already become mechanized to read all your contemporary books and newspapers. Secondly---as if you were reading aloud to another person. And only thirdly---try and fathom the gist of my writings.’ Only then will you be able to count upon forming your own impartial judgment, proper to yourself alone, on my writings. And only then can my hope be actualized that according to your understanding you will obtain the specific benefits for yourself which I anticipate, and which I wish for you with all my being.”
In the New Testament, ‘Beelzebub’ is the ‘prince of demons’ (e.g., Mt:12:24). In Gurdjieff’s book, this character states, “In all probability you are now thinking that I am… a young man with an auspicious exterior and … a ‘suspicious interior,’ and that… I am … intentionally being eccentric in the hope of becoming famous and thereby rich. If you indeed think so, then you are very, very wrong. First of all, I am not young; I have already lived so much that I have been in my life… ‘not only through the mill but through all the grindstones’… and secondly, I am … not writing so as to make a career for myself… as regards my personal career… I have actualized it long ago…” (Pg. 17-18) He later adds, “As for me, unfortunately doomed, while still living, to experience the delights of ‘Hell’…” (Pg. 37)
He explains, “Let us return to the main task of this initial chapter, destined, among other things, on the one hand to stir up the drowsy thoughts in me as well as in the reader, and … to warn the reader about something.” (Pg. 24)
In Chapter 2 (‘Why Beelzebub was in our solar system’), he states, “It was in the year 223 after the creation of the World, by objective time-calculation, or, as it would be said here on the ‘Earth,’ in the year 1921 after the birth of Christ. Through the Universe flew the ship ‘Karnak’ of the ‘trans-space’ communication. It was flying from … the spaces of the ‘Milky Way,’ from the planet Karatas… On the said ‘transspace’ ship was Beelzebub with his kinsmen and near attendants…” (Pg. 51) “Although the solar system ‘Ors’ had been neglected owing to its remoteness from the center… nevertheless our LORD SOVEREIGN has sent from time to time HIS Messengers to the planets of this system, to regulate… the being-existence of the three-brained beings arising on them, for the co-ordination of the process of their existence with the general World Harmony.” (Pg. 53-54)
He adds, “On this big space-ship Karnak, the passengers included… one very handsome boy … was always near Beelzebub himself. This was Hassein, the son of Beelzebub’s favorite son Tooloof.” (Pg. 54-55) The book is thus ostensibly a series of conversations by Beelzebub and his grandson.
Beelzebub recounts, “Upon that planet Earth… I descended for the first time on account of a young being of our tribe who had had the misfortune to become deeply involved with a three-brained being there, as a consequence of which he had got himself mixed up in a very stupid affair…” (Pg. 109)
Very rarely, Gurdjieff actually inserts some genuine IDEAS into this mass of tall tales; e.g.: “Time in itself does not exist; there is only the totality of the results ensuing from all the cosmic phenomena present in a given place. Time itself, no being can either understand by reason or sense by any outer or inner being-function. It cannot even be sensed by any gradation of instinct which arises and is present in every more or less independent cosmic concentration. It is possible to judge Time only if one compares real cosmic phenomena which proceed in the same place and under the same conditions, where Time is being constated and considered. It is necessary to notice that in the Great Universe all phenomena without exception … are simply successively law-conformable ‘Fractions’ of some whole phenomenon which has its prime arising on the ‘Most Holy Sun Absolute.’ And in consequence, all cosmic phenomena, wherever they proceed, have a sense of ‘objectivity.’” (Pg. 123)
He adds, “the whole period of the process of the flow of Time in that same drop of water is for the whole of it subjective, yet for the beings existing in the drop of water itself, the aid given flow of Time is perceived by them as objective.” (Pg. 127)
In another conversation, Beelzebub states, “During this second serious catastrophe to that planet, the continent Atlantis, which had been the largest continent and of the chief place of the being-existence of the three-brained beings of that planet during the period of my first descent, was engulfed together with other large and small terra firmas within the planet with all the three-brained beings existing upon it…” (Pg. 177)
Beelzebub says, “You have a religion, a faith in something. It is excellent to have faith in something, in whatever it might be, even if you don’t exactly know in whom or in what, nor can represent to yourself the significance and the possibilities of what you have faith in. To have faith, whether consciously or even quite unconsciously, is for every being very necessary and desirable. And it is desirable because owing to faith alone does there appear in a being, the intensity of being-self-consciousness necessary for every being, and also the valuation of personal Being as of a particle of Everything Existing in the Universe…” (Pg. 191-192)
He states, “In this religious doctrine it was said… that far from our continent Ashhark was a larger island where existed our ‘Mister God.’ … it was said that Mister God had intentionally attached to our souls the organs and limbs we now have to protect us against our environment, and to enable us to … serve both himself personally and the ‘souls’ already taken to the island of His. And when our soul is liberated from all these specially attached organs and limbs, it becomes what it really should really be, and is then immediately taken to this island of his, where our Mister God … assigns to it an appropriate place for its further existence.” (Pg. 216-217)
He records, “in His explanations to them about cosmic truths, Saint Buddha had… told them also that in general the three-centered beings existing on various planets of our Great Universe… were nothing else but part of that Most Great Greatness which is the All-embracing of all that exists…” (Pg. 244)
After recording the Babylonian teachings of Hell [‘a place without vegetation, always unimaginably hot, and without a single drop of water’], he explains, “Every action of man is good in the objective sense if it is done according to his conscience, and every action is bad, if from it he later experiences ‘remorse.’” (Pg. 341-342)
Some readers find Gurdjieff’s approach in this book fascinating, while others (including me) just find it tiresome.
An introductory section of this posthumously-published 1950 book explains the place of this 3-book series in Gurdjieff’s works: “Ten Books in Three Series: FIRST SERIES: Three books under the title of … ‘Beelzebub’s Tales to His Grandson.’ SECOND SERIES: Three books under the common title of ‘Meetings With Remarkable Men.’ THIRD SERIES: Four books under the common title of ‘Life is Real Only Then, When I Am.’ All written according to entirely new principles of logical reasoning and strictly directed towards the solution of the following three cardinal problems: FIRST SERIES: To destroy, mercilessly, without any compromises whatsoever, in the mentation and feelings of the reader, the beliefs and views, by centuries rooted in him, about everything existing in the world. SECOND SERIES: To acquaint the reader with the material required for a new creation and to prove the soundness and good quality of it. THIRD SERIES: To assist the arising, in the mentation and in the feelings of the reader, of a veritable, non-fantastic representation not of that illusory world which he now perceives, but the world existing in reality.”
Author G.I. Gurdjieff wrote in the ‘Friendly Advice’ section of this book, “I find it necessary on the first page of this book… to give the following advice: ‘Read each of my written expositions thrice: Firstly---at least as you have already become mechanized to read all your contemporary books and newspapers. Secondly---as if you were reading aloud to another person. And only thirdly---try and fathom the gist of my writings.’ Only then will you be able to count upon forming your own impartial judgment, proper to yourself alone, on my writings. And only then can my hope be actualized that according to your understanding you will obtain the specific benefits for yourself which I anticipate, and which I wish for you with all my being.”
In the New Testament, ‘Beelzebub’ is the ‘prince of demons’ (e.g., Mt:12:24). In Gurdjieff’s book, this character states, “In all probability you are now thinking that I am… a young man with an auspicious exterior and … a ‘suspicious interior,’ and that… I am … intentionally being eccentric in the hope of becoming famous and thereby rich. If you indeed think so, then you are very, very wrong. First of all, I am not young; I have already lived so much that I have been in my life… ‘not only through the mill but through all the grindstones’… and secondly, I am … not writing so as to make a career for myself… as regards my personal career… I have actualized it long ago…” (Pg. 17-18) He later adds, “As for me, unfortunately doomed, while still living, to experience the delights of ‘Hell’…” (Pg. 37)
He explains, “Let us return to the main task of this initial chapter, destined, among other things, on the one hand to stir up the drowsy thoughts in me as well as in the reader, and … to warn the reader about something.” (Pg. 24)
In Chapter 2 (‘Why Beelzebub was in our solar system’), he states, “It was in the year 223 after the creation of the World, by objective time-calculation, or, as it would be said here on the ‘Earth,’ in the year 1921 after the birth of Christ. Through the Universe flew the ship ‘Karnak’ of the ‘trans-space’ communication. It was flying from … the spaces of the ‘Milky Way,’ from the planet Karatas… On the said ‘transspace’ ship was Beelzebub with his kinsmen and near attendants…” (Pg. 51) “Although the solar system ‘Ors’ had been neglected owing to its remoteness from the center… nevertheless our LORD SOVEREIGN has sent from time to time HIS Messengers to the planets of this system, to regulate… the being-existence of the three-brained beings arising on them, for the co-ordination of the process of their existence with the general World Harmony.” (Pg. 53-54)
He adds, “On this big space-ship Karnak, the passengers included… one very handsome boy … was always near Beelzebub himself. This was Hassein, the son of Beelzebub’s favorite son Tooloof.” (Pg. 54-55) The book is thus ostensibly a series of conversations by Beelzebub and his grandson.
Beelzebub recounts, “Upon that planet Earth… I descended for the first time on account of a young being of our tribe who had had the misfortune to become deeply involved with a three-brained being there, as a consequence of which he had got himself mixed up in a very stupid affair…” (Pg. 109)
Very rarely, Gurdjieff actually inserts some genuine IDEAS into this mass of tall tales; e.g.: “Time in itself does not exist; there is only the totality of the results ensuing from all the cosmic phenomena present in a given place. Time itself, no being can either understand by reason or sense by any outer or inner being-function. It cannot even be sensed by any gradation of instinct which arises and is present in every more or less independent cosmic concentration. It is possible to judge Time only if one compares real cosmic phenomena which proceed in the same place and under the same conditions, where Time is being constated and considered. It is necessary to notice that in the Great Universe all phenomena without exception … are simply successively law-conformable ‘Fractions’ of some whole phenomenon which has its prime arising on the ‘Most Holy Sun Absolute.’ And in consequence, all cosmic phenomena, wherever they proceed, have a sense of ‘objectivity.’” (Pg. 123)
He adds, “the whole period of the process of the flow of Time in that same drop of water is for the whole of it subjective, yet for the beings existing in the drop of water itself, the aid given flow of Time is perceived by them as objective.” (Pg. 127)
In another conversation, Beelzebub states, “During this second serious catastrophe to that planet, the continent Atlantis, which had been the largest continent and of the chief place of the being-existence of the three-brained beings of that planet during the period of my first descent, was engulfed together with other large and small terra firmas within the planet with all the three-brained beings existing upon it…” (Pg. 177)
Beelzebub says, “You have a religion, a faith in something. It is excellent to have faith in something, in whatever it might be, even if you don’t exactly know in whom or in what, nor can represent to yourself the significance and the possibilities of what you have faith in. To have faith, whether consciously or even quite unconsciously, is for every being very necessary and desirable. And it is desirable because owing to faith alone does there appear in a being, the intensity of being-self-consciousness necessary for every being, and also the valuation of personal Being as of a particle of Everything Existing in the Universe…” (Pg. 191-192)
He states, “In this religious doctrine it was said… that far from our continent Ashhark was a larger island where existed our ‘Mister God.’ … it was said that Mister God had intentionally attached to our souls the organs and limbs we now have to protect us against our environment, and to enable us to … serve both himself personally and the ‘souls’ already taken to the island of His. And when our soul is liberated from all these specially attached organs and limbs, it becomes what it really should really be, and is then immediately taken to this island of his, where our Mister God … assigns to it an appropriate place for its further existence.” (Pg. 216-217)
He records, “in His explanations to them about cosmic truths, Saint Buddha had… told them also that in general the three-centered beings existing on various planets of our Great Universe… were nothing else but part of that Most Great Greatness which is the All-embracing of all that exists…” (Pg. 244)
After recording the Babylonian teachings of Hell [‘a place without vegetation, always unimaginably hot, and without a single drop of water’], he explains, “Every action of man is good in the objective sense if it is done according to his conscience, and every action is bad, if from it he later experiences ‘remorse.’” (Pg. 341-342)
Some readers find Gurdjieff’s approach in this book fascinating, while others (including me) just find it tiresome.
January 12, 2022
Para disfrutar a Gurdjieff, hay que estar dispuesto a una metamorfosis, si estás cómodo en tu vida, si te gusta leer por distracción, si no disfrutas usar la mente a todas sus revoluciones, Gurdjieff te va a cansar, te vas a enojar, vas a a sufrir de más gratuitamente; hay que estar abierto mentalmente para amar su obra.
March 22, 2020
Dificilísimo de leer, pero cuando te adentras en el mundo Gurdjieff, resulta una maravilla. Obra plagada de conocimiento, el autor no nos lo pone nada fácil para que debamos desautomatizarnos y leer con conciencia y presencia. Personalmente, creo que lo ideal es leer antes a Ouspensky para aprovechar y entender al máximo las enseñanzas de Gurdjieff.
March 1, 2024
A difficult but interesting first book which will likely need a second read in order for me to begin to comprehend the strangeness of the psyche of the three-brained beings of that planet Earth, and in general, for a better understanding of everything concerning this peculiar planet. Honestly though, it really isn't an easy read and I'll need a break before I can proceed to the second book.
August 15, 2024
Now "Life Is Real" makes more sense as to what he was being cloak and dagger about
June 22, 2015
Strange thing..I know - he told us - why the Author use such awful outdated (for polish reader in polish translation) language and such unfriendly nomenklatur for the most important words and ideas.
The aim of Author is to change the habits and language xero-bad-meaning-copies, repeated by centuries of using words and in word while things and values changes, meaning changes in some tricky way...many different habits, in language esspecially hidden and dangerous - because strictly linked (somehow hard to show or detect this link between sentence, word and thought..emotion and observation are another problems..).
The merit aim of Author is told truth about human pre-history, forgotten civilistion, and forgoten history of ideas, right meaning of bad, good, evil, God, death, life, soul, mind, ego... etc.etc. and such, most important concepts of human thought and emotion, ego, and other soul powers.
However, it may be considered as almost - masterpiece - I decided to give only 3 stars as a formal
impression, because I think the book could be written better, better for Reader. Without merit compromise.
pS
I have red 4/5 of book..
The aim of Author is to change the habits and language xero-bad-meaning-copies, repeated by centuries of using words and in word while things and values changes, meaning changes in some tricky way...many different habits, in language esspecially hidden and dangerous - because strictly linked (somehow hard to show or detect this link between sentence, word and thought..emotion and observation are another problems..).
The merit aim of Author is told truth about human pre-history, forgotten civilistion, and forgoten history of ideas, right meaning of bad, good, evil, God, death, life, soul, mind, ego... etc.etc. and such, most important concepts of human thought and emotion, ego, and other soul powers.
However, it may be considered as almost - masterpiece - I decided to give only 3 stars as a formal
impression, because I think the book could be written better, better for Reader. Without merit compromise.
pS
I have red 4/5 of book..
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews