Carole M. Cusack, Bodily Rituals and Esoteric Spiritual Transformation: Art, Performance and Praxis in the Gurdjieff Work By Carole Cusack

https://www.academia.edu/167644225/Carole_M_Cusack_Bodily_Rituals_and_Esoteric_Spiritual_Transformation_Art_Performance_and_Praxis_in_the_Gurdjieff_Work?email_work_card=title G. I. Gurdjieff’s (c. 1877-1949) teaching, the Work or the Fourth Way, posits three centres in humans, the intellectual (associated with Gurdjieff’s writings as a teaching technique), the emotional or feeling (associated with the Gurdjieff-de Hartmann music as a teaching tool), and the sensory or bodily centre (associated with the Movements as a teaching method). Music, literature, and dance are all artistic activities and in the Work they are the gateway to esoteric spiritual (or religious) transformation. The contemplative exercises Gurdjieff taught later in his life explicitly addressed this transformation (the development of a soul or a kesdjan body) and are reflective of his Orthodox Christian background, in which the concept of theosis (humans participating in God’s divine nature and becoming like God) is prominent. This paper addresses the centrality of the body and physical ritual activity in the Work, arguing that bodily sensation in the Movements (dances accompanied by music) and contemplation, commonly termed ‘inner work’ (primarily breathing exercises) are, with self-remembering (which resembles mindfulness), the core activities that Gurdjieff’s pupils engage in, ritualising the body to develop an astral body or soul, which enables humans to survive bodily death. ...