Meetings with Remarkable Men, G. I. Gurdjieffs autobiographical account of his youth and early travels, has become something of a legend since it was first published in 1963. A compulsive ?read in the tradition of adventure narratives, but suffused with Gurdjieffs unique perspective on life, it is organized around portraits of remarkable men and women who aided Gurdjieffs search for hidden knowledge or accompanied him on his journeys in remote parts of the Near East and Central Asia.
This is a book of lives, not doctrines, although readers will long value Gurdjieffs accounts of conversations with sages. Meetings conveys a haunting sense of what it means to live fully with conscience, with purpose, and with heart. Among the remarkable individuals whom the reader will come to know are Gurdjieffs father (a traditional bard), a Russian prince dedicated to the search for Truth, a Christian missionary who entered a World Brotherhood deep in Asia, and a woman who escaped white slavery to become a trusted member of Gurdjieffs group of fellow seekers. Gurdjieffs account of their attitudes in the face of external challenges and in the search to understand the mysteries of life is the real substance of this classic work.
Meetings with Remarkable Men Foreword
Translator's Note
I. Introduction
II. My Father
III. My First Tutor
IV. Bogachevsky
V. Mr. X or Captain Pogossian
VI. Abram Yelov
VII. Prince Yuri Lubovedsky
VIII. Ekim Bey
IX. Piotr Karpenko
X. Professor Skridlov
The Material Question
Gurdjieff was born in Alexanderpol in 1877 and trained both as a priest and physician. For some twenty years he travelled in the remotest regions of Central Asia and the Middle East, moulding his thought. On his return he began to gather pupils in Moscow, and from this base his ideas began to spread worldwide.
