Sectarians united against sectarianism

Claudio Naranjo 

"Taking with the left hand" is a booklet by William Patrick Patterson, a prominent follower of the Fourth Way, the spiritual path associated with Gurdjieff and Ouspensky. The booklet is of interest to other followers of Gurdjieff, comparative religion scholars and cult-watchers. I don't think the general reader would be interested. The booklet is filled with Fourth Way jargon, and it's primary objective is to prove that many groups claiming the mantle of Gurdjieff do so falsely. In other words, Patterson is on a heresy-hunt!

Still, his heresy-hunting seems pretty well-researched, which is why "Taking with the left hand" might be of interest to those who study New Age groups on a more scholarly level. The first chapter, dealing with the Enneagram community, is especially interesting in this regard. The Enneagram is a complex geometrical symbol, used (and invented?) by Gurdjieff, but later popularized and commercialized by people in the Human Potential and New Age milieux. Patterson traces the development through Claudio Naranjo, Oscar Ichazo and Helen Palmer. Frankly, I never understood the original meaning of the Enneagram, but later it became just another self-help technique along the lines of New Age astrology and similar schemes.

The next chapter deals with the Fellowship of Friends, led by Robert Burton. The author describes their beliefs in some detail, mentions various lawsuits against the group, and eventually condemns them as a cult. Since the book was written, the FOF has officially become "a non-denominational church" which no longer sees itself as exclusively Gurdjieffian. I was intrigued to learn that it was the FOF that launched the technique of recruitment through bookmarks, hence its nickname "People of the Bookmark". A Gurdjieff group in Sweden, the Linbu Foundation, recruits people in exactly the same manner! (On a funnier note, the Linbu group has been accused of Satanism, just as the Fourth Way group in Oregon mentioned in David Kherdian's book "On a spaceship with Beelzebub". The reason, no doubt, is Gurdjieff's weird work "Beelzebub's tales to his grandson". However, nobody in Sweden got the idea of organizing an armed posse against it! I guess we are more laid back than settlers in backwoods Oregon. But I'm digressing.)

Finally, William P. Patterson takes on Boris Mouravieff. This chapter seems less well researched, yet contains what could be more explosive pieces of information. For instance, the author believes that Mouravieff may have been responsible for the rift between Gurdjieff and Ouspensky. Apparently, Mouravieff (a Russian aristocrat and one-time secretary to Alexander Kerensky) met both men in Constantinople, became interested in their teachings, but preferred the company of the more intellectual Ouspensky, while developing a strong animus towards the decidedly less intellectual Gurdjieff. Much later, Mouravieff developed his own brand of esoteric teaching, fusing the Fourth Way with Orthodox Christianity and Russian Freemasonry, complete with medieval chivalry and courtly love. (Mouravieff's three-volume work "Gnosis" is available from Amazon.) At the same time, Mouravieff strongly criticized both Gurdjieff and Ouspensky, claiming that they had distorted or misunderstood the true teachings of the Great Brotherhood, a top secret society Mouravieff claims to be on a first name basis with.

Since the main point of "Taking with the left hand" is to prove that the Enneagram community, the Fellowship of Friends and the followers of Mouravieff aren't "true" Fourth Way groups, the booklet gives a sectarian, in-house impression. Essentially, William Patrick Patterson is a sectarian fighting other sectarians. Or perhaps less sectarian people! In passing, he attacks many other groups and teachers as well, including our old friend Osho, whose followers practice Gurdjieff dances they picked up from a movie (I can hear Osho laughing).

As already pointed out, however, this short book may nevertheless interest travellers through the New Age jungle.