Carole M. Cusack, Gurdjieff and Modernity: Science Fiction as a Work Textual Technique By Carole Cusack

https://www.academia.edu/144018660/Carole_M_Cusack_Gurdjieff_and_Modernity_Science_Fiction_as_a_Work_Textual_Technique?email_work_card=title The teachings of G. I. Gurdjieff (c. 1877-1949) are often presented as anti-modern; thus, his reputed disdain for modern art and classical music, advocacy of peasant remedies for medical conditions, and other seemingly atavistic attitudes and behaviours are understood as ‘traditional’, antithetical to modernity. This interpretation is erroneous; for example, Gurdjieff used the literary genre of science fiction (quintessentially modern) to convey key teachings in Beelzebub’s Tales to His Grandson (1950), and exhibited knowledge of contemporary science and medicine, music and literature. He collaborated with pupils who were expert in these fields (for example, P. D. Ouspensky, Thomas de Hartmann, and Alfred R. Orage), and was regarded by representatives of the Traditionalist school of René Guénon (1886-1951) and Frithjof Schuon (1908-1998) as anti-traditional, an enemy. This paper clarifies the relationship of Gurdjieff and his teachings to traditional views and reclaims his status as a thinker and teacher in modernity. This modern (and modernist) strain in his teachings is reinforced by the cultural productions of his pupils and the contribution he made to an entirely new esotericism, one not known prior to the twentieth century. ...