Religion and the Arts 21 (2017) 40–69 RELIGION

and the ARTS

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“The Readiness is All”

Gurdjieff’s Art of the “Preparation” *

Joseph Azize
University of Sydney

Abstract

The most important of Gurdjieff’s still little-known contemplative techniques was

the daily exercise his pupils called the “Preparation.” No notes or recordings of a
Preparation given by Gurdjieff himself are known to exist. The chief aim of this article
is to publish a transcript of the Preparation as given by George M. Adie (1901–1989),
according to indications he had received from Gurdjieff. Other personal pupils of
Gurdjieff have attested to the accuracy with which Adie passed on the tradition of the
Preparation. Further references to the Preparation are examined, clarifying its various
aspects. The study closes by tracing the roots of the Preparation in Gurdjieff’s thought,
and its almost complete disappearance from the Gurdjieff tradition; a victim, as it were,
of close secrecy and a shift in practices in many Gurdjieff groups.

Keywords

G.I. Gurdjieff – P.D. Ouspensky – G.M. Adie – H.B. Ripman – Jean de Salzmann – Jean
Vaysse – the Preparation – meditation – contemplation – Western esoteric practice

i Introduction

“The readiness is all,” wrote Shakespeare (Hamlet v 2. 2. 218), and Gurdjieff’s

technique of the “Morning Preparation,” often simply the “Preparation,” exem-
plifies in nuce his entire system of methods and ideas. If “poise” and “pause”
are critical in Gurdjieff’s practical approach to “human self-perfecting” (as
contended by Applebaum 113–114), then the “Preparation” was his appointed

* This study is respectfully dedicated to my friend Dr. Greg Connor.

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“the readiness is all” 41

means for pausing before the hurly-burly of the day’s activities begins, col-
lecting oneself, and making a plan for the conscious use of his method in the
circumstances of daily life. In two previous articles I dealt with the intellectual
foundation of Gurdjieff’s contemplation-like exercises, and two of his exer-
cises in some detail: the “Four Ideals” (Azize, “Four Ideals” passim), and the
“i am” (Azize, “The Practice of Contemplation” 151–154). In the present arti-
cle I shall assume the background to Gurdjieff’s exercises presented there (see
especially Azize, “Four Ideals” 190–194). Reference will also be made to how
these exercises were significant in Gurdjieff’s later practical work, but are rel-
atively unknown outside the circle of those groups that follow his ideas and
methods (“Four Ideals” 175–176). In those articles, I indicated that of especial
importance in Gurdjieff’s practical methods was a daily contemplation-like
exercise called the “Preparation” (“Four Ideals” 187, 189; “The Practice of Con-
templation” 146, 149). This is the study of the Preparation foreshadowed in
those articles.
The question is not of purely academic interest: the picture of Gurdjieff and
his system is rather more weighted towards theory than it should be. While
Gurdjieff’s writing of a massive tome (Beelzebub’s Tales to his Grandson) and
fashioning of the Movements or Sacred Dances are well-known, and even his
“Toasts to the Idiots” have been freely mentioned, there has been reticence
when it comes to the Preparation and the exercises. I examine the Preparation
in this manner: first, I supply the complete transcript of a Preparation; second,
I offer some comments on that particular transcript; third, I make sundry com-
ments on selected aspects of the Preparation, drawing from the few available
sources within the Gurdjieff tradition; and finally, I search for the roots of the
Preparation in one of Gurdjieff’s talks from 1923, and note how and why it has
almost entirely disappeared from the Gurdjieff tradition.
Further, by producing a comprehensive psychology and cosmology, exten-
sive bodies of literature, music, and dance, and an applied methodology includ-
ing the internal exercises, Gurdjieff stood to his tradition as not only the
founder but even something of a “culture hero,” comparable to the position
of his near contemporary Rudolf Steiner (1861–1925) in Anthroposophy. If
Steiner’s Anthroposophy “inhabited the entire cultural life of its adherents”
(Cusack 174), so too did Gurdjieff’s “Fourth Way” for his pupils (Ouspensky,
Miraculous 48–50). Intended as a contemporary alternative to the three tra-
ditional ways of the fakir, monk, and yogi, the Fourth Way was, like those
vocations, inculturated. This is too large a topic to give it full justice here,
and in any event, since the Preparation and Exercises are so little known out-
side of the Gurdjieff groups, the first desideratum is to make them better
known.

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What then, is Gurdjieff’s “Preparation”? It is a contemplation-like technique

that aims to induce self-collectedness at the beginning of each day. Gurdjieff
stated that, in day to day life, people chiefly relied on three brains or centers
which organize their functions: these he termed the intellectual, the feeling,
and the moving centers, directing thought, emotion and motor activity (includ-
ing sensation) respectively (Early Talks 250–252). However, in most humans,
Gurdjieff said, the three do not work in tandem as they should, and as a result
the human organism operates wrongly and far beneath its proper level. “One
centred activity,” he averred, “is hallucination, two centre (sic) activity is semi-
hallucination—three centre (sic) is none” (Early Talks 388). The Preparation
was designed to allow the practitioner to experience three-centered activity in
quiet seated conditions each morning. The aims of the Preparation are realized
both in the exercise itself, for the value of the balanced state which it facili-
tates; and also as a platform for planning and readying the practitioner for the
day ahead. Although I shall not explore it here, the Preparation may also have a
role in “repairing the past,” and in forming “higher being bodies” (for Gurdjieff’s
concept of “repairing the past” see Adie and Azize, especially 273–281, and for
higher being bodies, see Ouspensky 40–42). It is central to the Preparation to
become aware of one’s own impulses and attitudes in a state of balanced (that
is, three-centered) quiet, and to “separate out” and affirm a conscious aim for
life. This is the concept of “Djartklom,” which Adie mentions in the transcript
below.
By always giving the Preparation in slightly different forms, yet following
the one set of principles, Gurdjieff obliged his pupils to deduce a consistent
framework for a contemplative exercise which would always vary, albeit some-
times slightly. He told Annie-Lou Staveley (1906–1996) that when he taught
them any exercise, he gave them a skeleton, and it was for them to place flesh
upon it (oral communication from a personal pupil of Staveley’s, April 2016).
That is, Gurdjieff provided a paradigm that then had to be applied or renewed,
as it were, each time the exercises were attempted. It is perhaps analogous
to the way that every tennis player will have an individual style, yet all will
recognizably be playing tennis. Further, each player will learn a technique,
and consistently apply it while playing so that an observer can identify that
play as being expressive of that player’s style, yet each stroke will be unique.
Hence, on 17 September 1980, Adie said of the Preparation: “It can never be
repeated.”
So far as I am aware, Gurdjieff never committed any of these exercises to
writing, or made recordings of them, although some of his pupils certainly did
make their own notes or record themselves giving exercises, notwithstanding
the strictures against committing such matters to writing in the Gurdjieff tra-

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“the readiness is all” 43

dition (a prohibition expressed, for example, by Vaysse 168). Ouspensky notes

this requirement as dating back to Gurdjieff’s first years of teaching, in Russia in
1915, but adds that Gurdjieff accepted that secrecy could be a temporary policy:
it was not an aim in itself, but served the purpose of ensuring that the teachings
not be “transmitted in distorted form” (14). Gurdjieff agreed that there could be
“no better formulation” of the secrecy requirement than that: “… no one would
have the right to speak of or describe any experiment unless he is able to carry
it out himself” (Ouspensky 14). I return to this question, from a different per-
spective, in Part iii below.
As stated, no transcript or recording of the Preparation as given by Gurdjieff
survives, to the best of the author’s knowledge. However, I have personally
verified with four personal pupils of Gurdjieff (Annie-Lou Staveley, Dr John
Lester, Med Thring, and Solanges Claustres) that the Preparation in the manner
it was taught by Adie was faithful to Gurdjieff’s teaching. George Mountford
Adie (1901–1989) was a personal pupil of Gurdjieff. For Adie’s relevant history,
see Adie and Azize passim. Adie’s wife, Helen Cradock Adie (1909–1996) gave
substantially the same Preparation; that is, she followed exactly the same
form or template, even if, like Adie, she never repeated herself, but always
responded to what she sensed was demanded right then to serve the aim of the
Preparation. Available to the author are not only his own recollections, but also
a number of tape recordings made at Adie’s instructions of the Preparation as
he gave it at four-weekly meetings of all his pupils (varying in number between
85 and 100) in Sydney from 1977 to the time of his death in 1989. The author
personally knew Adie from 1981 to his death.
Of particular importance as a supplementary source to Adie, is the legacy
of Hugh Brockwill Ripman (d. 1980), who, like Adie, was a pupil of Ouspen-
sky, Gurdjieff, and Jeanne de Salzmann (1889–1990), seriatim. In Questions and
Answers along the Way (2009), a posthumously published collection of Rip-
man’s answers in group meetings, which were held in Washington d.c., the
anonymous editor or editors include a fairly lengthy chapter titled “Collection”
which deals in some detail with the Preparation, although not by that name.
The indications in Jean Vaysse’s Toward Awakening (1979) are as significant
as they are clear, although Vaysse only addresses preliminary matters. Vaysse
(c. 1917–1975) apparently met Gurdjieff in 1947. A prominent Paris cardiologist,
he played a leading role in the groups before his untimely death. This article
also draws upon to some unpublished transcripts of group meetings in Lon-
don from the 1950s and 1960s taken by Maurice Desselle and Henriette Lannes
(as to whom see below). Adie also sat in front of these groups with them (the
people who “sit in front” respond to the questions). Desselle and Lannes had
enjoyed even greater access to Gurdjieff than Adie had, having been with Gur-

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djieff through World War ii. Adie considered them authorities on the authentic
Gurdjieff method.1

ii The Preparation

As an example, then, of how the Preparation could be applied, a verbatim

transcript of a Preparation given by George Adie, on 14 August 1985 to his groups
in Newport, Australia is presented. This is a relatively short presentation, but
not so brief that the outline does not appear reasonably completely. For the
sake of the commentary given later in this article, I have numbered each
paragraph:

1. How to understand more the sitting that we have, the preparation? Some-
thing to help me move from a passive state to an active one. I think I’m
awake, but I’m not, I still sleep.
2. But by custom, by tradition, at the impact of some external influence, like
now when we’re together, I close my eyes and go within. But I need to
know that I have this sensory envelope—I have the actual body—but I
have the sensory envelope around me, and I try to withdraw inside that,
and maybe I close the eyes in order to shut out external impressions, and
I go within. And from inside, I am not troubled to the same extent with
external lights and sounds and so forth.
3. And from that inner condition, I direct my attention to my body, its
extremities, to my feeling, to my breathing, to what’s happening.
4. But I am still at the mercy of turning thoughts, I am still at the mercy of
turning thoughts, but I struggle. I see I’m lost. I try again. I notice. I put my
attention on my foot. A little bit later I know that it’s … disappeared, and
I am again doing something.
5. But I still struggle, and by virtue of that, at a certain moment, I recognise
a clearer impulse, I’m connected with a higher idea.
6. And now with that, which sort of—it sort of consolidates a certain inner
wish, and now I can direct my attention quite clearly to my foot, and
to the other foot, and eventually my breathing, my head—there’s no
doubt.

1 It will become apparent that I have benefitted from access to unpublished transcripts, in the
author’s possession, of meetings in Newport, Sydney Australia with G.M. Adie, and in London
with Maurice Desselle, Henriette Lannes, and G.M. Adie.

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“the readiness is all” 45

7. And there’s that experience of the three centres, and thought, more or
less, should be not troubling. In the very distance it’s going on, but it’s not
concerning me. I can centralise my force.
8. And then I have a little while in my oratory or Hrhaharhtzaha, or what-
ever you like to call it, I have a little time to experience whatever I can
experience there, what I can understand there.
9. And after a certain time, I have to come out again and live my life. It’s
very significant, the kind of movement I make to open. Is it already being
dragged open, or do I from a balanced position decide to open? That is
the exercise.
10. Now we’ll be quiet for about five or ten minutes. People work. This is work.
We come to work.
11. I have no time to waste. I move. I move from one part to another. It’s
fortunate I have all these different parts, and they are, to a certain extent
connected by previous efforts. I cannot hang on one in case I get lost again.
I work, I work.
12. As I continue to sense myself, I notice my breath. I notice that it is flowing
down. I notice its definiteness. I take in force. May be something rises
from the pit of the stomach. There’s a connection there, and there is this
Djartklom takes place, and the product sinks down again, also fills the
body while the unused portion is exhaled.
13. I continue to sense myself and the parts. The sensation and breathing
have a different rhythm, they go together—it is possible—my head is
getting clearer—I follow.
14. I realize that I am being helped by higher ideas, higher—finer matter
entering through the centre of my head, joining with the air that’s coming
in, helping it.
15. Now it’s the whole of sensation, peripheral and also internal as well, and
the breathing, and the force filling me, and the stomach down, the pot-
shaped, and the head balanced, and the eyes without any crows-feet. No
tension on the forehead: the eyeballs completely limp and passive in the
sockets of the eyes.
16. As long as I am watchful, as long as I am careful, I’m relatively safe for a
short time.
17. I feel myself getting more strong with the entry of this force … more solid.
18. Now I manifest myself innerly. Silently I say, with all the force of my
feeling, “I”, and with all the force of my sensation, in my spine, “am.” Three
times quite silently, on the in-breath, “I”, and on the out breath, “am.”
19. I feel how material that is. I feel the quality of the material within me—
the certainty of it.

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20. And now I breathe it. I don’t allow the vocal chords to vibrate, but I do it
on the breath, three times. I have to open my mouth for this:
21. i—am … i—am … i—am.
22. And now to the minimum, the minimum dynamic I can in order to make
it the truest, in a low voice, I murmur: i—am … i—am … i—am.
23. Ah-mon.
24. I observe how I open my eyes, move my hands, I come awake.

iii Commentary on the Transcription

While much of the transcript is self-explanatory, a few comments are in order.

1. This is a prelude of ideas to orient the listeners, and to summon an attitude

appropriate for the Preparation to follow. It is so closely related to the Prepara-
tion, and so instructive as to the purpose of the Preparation, that it could not
be omitted without some loss of clarity. As Adie pithily indicates, the process
of the Preparation is intended to be a movement from the hypnotic sleep, in
which, according to Gurdjieff most of humanity lives, to relative waking (Ous-
pensky 66, and Gurdjieff, Early Talks 226, finessing this by referring to “different
degrees between our waking state and sleep”). This awakening with all of one’s
faculties working in tandem allows one “to be,” and when one can “be,” one can
consciously formulate an aim, direct one’s actions towards achieving it, and
hence become able “to do” (Ouspensky 21–22, 54, 59, 99, and 102). This awaken-
ing and “becoming” is essentially the same, in Gurdjieff’s system, as acquiring
one’s own “I” and hence moving from internal or psychological passivity to
internal activity (the most concise statement of these propositions in Gurd-
jieff’s own words is found in the lecture “The Study of Psychology. Man, the
Machine” delivered in London in 1922, and reprinted in Gurdjieff, Early Talks
123–128). The term “sitting” was often used for the Preparation within Gurdjieff
groups, and Adie would also use them interchangeably.

2. Adie refers to a custom or tradition because the Preparation was to be

attempted each and every morning, and so become a beneficial habit. Al-
though, in other contexts, Gurdjieff would say that habits were stultifying (Ous-
pensky 111–113 and 179), he distinguished good from bad habits: Adie said that
Gurdjieff would, on occasion, advise them to “take habit” (Gurdjieff’s verba-
tim words), meaning, to make a conscious connection between a harmless
habit and their desire to acquire real “I,” so that the habit became a remind-
ing factor. Adie gave the example of using mustard: if I like mustard with my

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“the readiness is all” 47

meat, then each time I reach for it, I should remember to collect myself (per-
sonal recollection of the author’s). The idea of raising to consciousness the
“sensory envelope of the body” is critical in Gurdjieff’s practical thought. In a
lecture of 20 January 1923 which is analysed in Part v, Gurdjieff discusses sensa-
tion and feeling, distinguishes the one from the other and concludes that: “For
primary exercises in self-remembering the participation of all the three centres
is necessary” (Gurdjieff, Early Talks 203–209, quoting 205; italics in the origi-
nal).

3. The instruction in the Preparation was that one’s body should eventually
be sensed as a whole simultaneously, while being aware of the breathing and
the quality of feeling. The reference to “what’s happening” is to being aware of
one’s own body, feeling and thought, and also to external impressions such as
sounds. One aims to retain a thread of consciousness, despite the inevitable
distractions. Adie would say: “thought proceeds.” Thought and associations
cannot be stopped, but when a “higher” mind is available, our ordinary thought
and associations are no hindrance, and can even remain passive until called
upon. I intend to deal with this more fully, and to compare this with similar
comments from the traditions of Buddhist meditation, in a book-length study.
It should be noted that in the Gurdjieff system all thought implies at least
some consciousness, but there can be a consciousness which is above our
ordinary thought, and which can wordlessly direct the practitioner during
the Preparation and exercises, and perhaps even in life (Adie, transcript from
1979).

4. Distractions are dealt with in Part iv. 8. Here Adie mentions the foot only
because it was one suitable place to begin the Preparation. When Adie says, “I
am again doing something,” he is warning the practitioners not to force what
has to be a gentle effort. On 14 February 1979, he directed:

Now I start from the head, and direct the attention in this very, very quiet
way. Very neat. Very clean. Very definite. I place some of that attention
on my right arm … I direct my attention simply by turning the gaze of
the mind onto that arm. And I leave it there until there is unquestionable
sensation in the arm.

5. Gurdjieff taught that only by the struggle between “yes” and “no” can one
have inside oneself the friction needed to unite the diverse parts of oneself.
In Ouspensky 43–44, Gurdjieff is reported as using the analogy of a retort
filled with various metallic filings. The diversity within the retort is symbolic of

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our stated internal diversity, while the chemical fusion of the metals into one
symbolizes internal unification. That we are connected with “higher ideas,” and
“higher forces,” and that we can potentially benefit more from these ideas and
forces than we do, was a stable of Gurdjieff’s thought (for some explanation,
see the materials collected in Azize, “Four Ideals” 174, 178, 182, 184, 186, 187 n. 39,
188, and 190).

6. Although parts of the body are mentioned sequentially, the instruction was
always to add the sensation of each part to the one before mentioned, so that by
the end of the exercise of raising physical sensation to consciousness, one has
a sense of the entire body (see iv. 10 below). Gurdjieff considered the ability
to say “I wish” with the whole of myself to be an “impulse,” which could be
developed by exercises (Gurdjieff, Life is Real 111–112 and 135–136).

7. The three centers Adie refers to are the moving, feeling and intellectual cen-
ters, controlling the body, the feeling and the mind, respectively (Ouspensky,
Miraculous 55, 109–110). He is specifically alluding to the experiences of phys-
ical sensation, of feeling oneself to be present, and of intellectually directing
the Preparation.

8. The aim of the Preparation is not to project anything upon my experi-

ence, but rather to receive it as it is, whatever my experience may be (see
iv.2 below). Adie refers to coming to within one’s “atmosphere,” and remain-
ing within that circumscribed area to work at the Preparation (see iv. 5 below).
When Adie alludes to an “oratory” he means a place of prayer. Adie, among
others, often drew analogies with Christian concepts and teachings. For the
“Hrhaharhtzaha,” see iv. 5 below. Adie’s mention of an oratory and to a “Hrha-
harhtzaha,” signifies that the person working at the Preparation retains a focus
only upon themselves within their atmosphere.

9. The practitioner aims have the influence of the relatively collected inner state
during daily life, although one’s experience in life cannot be the same as it is
during the protected conditions of the Preparation. Just as one was to gently
and deliberately lower one’s eyelids and close one’s lips, so too, the re-opening
to the world is to be intentional and without violence.

10. Gurdjieff’s tradition is known among his pupils as “the Work.” A period of
five minutes would be very short for a Preparation. Ten minutes is the ideal
minimum. It is said that Gurdjieff himself recommended more than twenty
minutes only for the specific exercises he taught, such as the “Four Ideals.”

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“the readiness is all” 49

11. The reference to previous efforts ties in with Adie’s view that a tradition is
created. Previous efforts to sense the body leave a trace, and when one comes
again to sense the body, those traces become active, and assist the fresh effort.
Although Adie speaks of moving from part to part without “hanging on,” he is
not denying that the sensation of the parts were cumulatively added until one
had a sense of the whole (see Part v. 10). Rather, he means not to linger on one
part of the body, e.g. an aching stomach, and so compromise the experience of
the whole.

12. For “Djartklom” see iv. 5 below. The breath is central to Gurdjieff’s exercises.
Adie recommended a heightened awareness of the breath without altering or
interfering with it. The practitioners present on 14 August 1985 were all familiar
with this aspect of the practice. They would have often heard things such as
what Adie had said on 15 November 1978:

Now (I become aware of) the impressions of breath … also sense impres-
sions of breath, but not only. The significance which begins to appear in
the rhythm of the breath, and the rise and fall. The head joins with its
realization of the very fine force included in the oxygen of the air, a very
fine material … the witness of the senses that this enters and mingles in
the breast with another force, the observation that the force flows down
into the pit of the stomach, the used portion exhaled … I begin to experi-
ence the rhythm of this ebb and flow. I can discern a readjustment in the
breast, a different kind of life arising. A sort of flooding of a different kind
of force (i.e. from the force of the sensation).2

The term tanden comes from Buddhism (see Dürckheim 176, and the com-
ments on Dürchkeim and his importance to the Gurdjieff tradition below).

13. The rhythm of the breath is obvious to anyone who attends to it, but Adie
is saying that he also experiences a rhythm in the sensation of the body. He
would refer to several rhythms, the circulation of the blood, the physical aspect
of breathing, and also other subtle rhythms and “pulses” related to the nerves.

14. According to Gurdjieff’s system of ideas, the Preparation is, inter alia, a
feeding upon not only air, but also upon substances of a higher than earthly
provenance.

2 The author has added the two parentheses and their contents.

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15. The “pot-shaped” is a reference to the belly, when it has been slightly pushed
forward (Dürckheim 192). In this respect, Adie, and many others in the Gurd-
jieff tradition, not least Jeanne de Salzmann, were influenced by Dürckeim’s
thought, especially his book Hara (1977 [1956]).

20. and 21. Saying “i am” at the end of the Preparation and sensing the rever-
beration is not universal throughout the Gurdjieff tradition, although it was
a leading feature of many of his exercises. Some who knew and studied with
Willem Nyland (1890–1975), one of Gurdjieff’s leading pupils in North Amer-
ica, have told the author that Nyland did not have the full Preparation, only
an exercise in sensation, yet he taught them to experience the resonance of
the words “i am” at the end of that exercise. More generally however, pupils
of Gurdjieff had the Preparation but not the affirmation “i am” as described
above.

22. Often Adie would use the “i am” three times: first, silently; secondly with the
mouth open but no sound beyond the slightest murmur; and third, speaking
the words with the minimum volume.

23. Initially, I did not at all understand the word pronounced “Ah-mon.” One
day, I asked Adie what it was, and he replied that it was “Amen.” I asked him
why he pronounced it that way, and he responded that he did so because that
was how Gurdjieff pronounced it. Adie had retained Gurdjieff’s pronuncia-
tion perhaps because he had Gurdjieff’s view that the pronunciation of cer-
tain words has a virtue if sounded in a particular way. Adie related that, he
(Adie) had been reading a chapter from Gurdjieff’s then unpublished Meet-
ings with Remarkable Men. Gurdjieff was listening. Adie pronounced the word
“vibration” as “vībration” (with a long i). Gurdjieff corrected him, saying: “vĭb-
ration,” (with a short i). Adie’s conclusion was that Gurdjieff was alive to the
fact that the long i made the word sound heavier than the short i did, and
that that brisker pronunciation better corresponded to the meaning of the
word.3

3 Gurdjieff paid a good deal of attention to words, and to developing within oneself a sensitivity
to the tones of their sounds. Thus, in Gurdjieff’s Beelzebub’s Tales, when the character Beelze-
bub speaks to his grandson Hassein of a kind of person called a “Hasnamuss,” Hassein says: “…
you have already many times used the expression Hasnamuss. I have until now understood
only from the intonation of your voice and from the consonance of the word itself, that by
this expression you defined those three-brained beings (i.e. humans) whom you always set
apart from others as if they deserved Objective-Contempt” (Beelzebub 234–235).

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“the readiness is all” 51

24. The final stage is quite critical. Adie stressed that if one got up from the
Preparation in a hurry, and allowed any random manifestation, it not only
accelerated the dissipation of the collected state, but the beneficial effects of
the entire Preparation could be lost. Gurdjieff believed that it was necessary to
“hold,” as it were, the state for a while. As he advised with reference to the Four
Ideals exercise:

After that (i.e. the exercise), rest ten or fifteen minutes in a collected state,
that is to say, do not allow thought or feeling or organic instinct to pass
outside the limit of the atmosphere of the body. Rest contained so that
your nature can assimilate in calmness the results deposited in you, which
otherwise would be lost in vain.
azize, “Four Ideals” 181

iv Further Commentary

In this section, I deal with certain matters pertinent to the Preparation, drawn
from the sparse literature on the topic, or from other of Adie’s instructions. I
exclude from this treatment the chapter “Meditation” from Seymour Ginsburg’s
Gurdjieff Unveiled (55–69). This chapter is a very full exposition of a contempla-
tive exercise in the Gurdjieff tradition, but it mixes Gurdjieff with Theosophy
and Asian traditions. It is not disparaging to Ginsburg, with whom the author
has enjoyed amicable relations, to observe that Ginsburg does not disclose his
sources for the Preparation (which he does know by that name, see for example
Gurdjieff Unveiled 57), and so that book does not aid in isolating what can reli-
ably be attributed to Gurdjieff, although is undoubtedly of value in considering
the development of the Gurdjieff tradition.

Other Publications
So far as the writer is aware, the first published work to refer in any way to
the Preparation was Jean Vaysse in 1979. The French original was published in
or shortly before 1975 as Vers l’eveil à soi-même (Vaysse ix). There is also some
brief mention of the Preparation in Meetings with Louise Welch in Toronto, pub-
lished in 2012, but containing materials from fifty years prior. There are some
allusions to the Preparation in the posthumously published notebooks of Jane
Heap (17–19 and 21), and in Lannes 2003 (cited below). In the transcripts of
Gurdjieff’s war-time meetings, there are several passages where he expounds
certain principles that enter into the Preparation. I deal more fully with Gurd-
jieff’s indications in Part v.

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The Aim of the Preparation

One can find almost endless formulations of the purpose of the Preparation,
which are complementary more than they are contradictory. Vaysse says that
some sort of technique is needed so that one may: “… develop a strong, lucid,
stable presence, one that is capable of achieving its goals, making use of the
forces in life that carry us away” (158). He recommends that the process com-
mence with trying to sense the physical body (161), in a quiet secluded manner,
for: “… life is a tempest … (B)efore putting ourselves to the test or taking big
risks, it is necessary to have developed patiently, in sheltered and favourable
conditions, the forces and facilities (powers) which will preserve us from dis-
aster” (162).
Vaysse states that practitioners aim to “re-establish quiet conditions inside
ourselves and free ourselves little by little from all the outer preoccupations
of daily life, the tensions they create, the hold and the inner repercussions they
have on us …” (165). He also he stresses that at the very commencement of each
Preparation, one must not only remind oneself of the aim of the exercise, but
also arouse the feeling of interest, and the need for that effort, since one part
of us has no interest in that work, and would rather be doing other things (165–
166).
Henriette Lannes (1899–1980), a personal pupil of Gurdjieff from France,
wrote of the Preparation: “Pendant cette tentative de travail du calme, nous
nous rapprochons de la possibilité de connaître un état d’ être où il n’est pas
question de faire quelque-chose mais d’éprouver silencieusement des impres-
sions liées à notre realité intérieure. Cet état est un état de non-faire” (Lannes
17). The notes of Jane Heap (1887–1964), a personal pupil of Gurdjieff, record:

In morning when doing preparation my aim is to keep myself separate

from all these things: all cares of the day, all tiny things that have to be
decided, all little grievances, all that I have to fight that pulls me away from
the state that I want to be in—in my preparation. But when I come into
life my effort is to be somewhere where I can observe myself at certain
moments—without losing all memory of my preparation when there is a
struggle.
21

Length and Frequency

Vaysse states that the amount of time required is variable, and that each person
must decide: but equally, that one needs to “promise ourselves” to come to
“complete relaxation” at least once or twice a day (162–163 and 165–166). As
a demonstration that the time to be spent depends upon the person and the

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situation they are in, Ripman variously limits the Preparation (which he called
the “Collection”) to five minutes, ten minutes, and also thirty minutes, in the
latter case to obtain a deeper sense of relaxation (68, 81–82). Ripman was even
open to the possibility of the Preparation lasting for more than half an hour, but
in the recorded answer, he denied permission to someone to do so (82). At least
when teaching the Preparation to beginners, Lord Pentland recommended ten
or twelve minutes.4

Posture
Adie invariably said something about posture, although in the Preparation
transcribed, he did not, possibly because those present had already taken the
appropriate posture and nothing needed to be said about it. Vaysse provides a
rather detailed treatment of the necessary posture, relevantly stating:

… first of all, we have to take a position suitable to work of this kind. Any
such posture must be stable in itself, comfortable, and without strain of
any kind. For us, the one which is probably the best is simply sitting in a
straight-backed chair … with the lower back supported or not, but with
the pelvis well-balanced, the body erect and the head straight, that is,
neither too low (which is a sign of inertia and even sleep) nor too high (a
sign of running away into the intellect and ideas and even imagination)
… The knees should be at right angles and the feet close together or only
slightly apart, flat on the ground.
163

Referring to circuits of energy that move through the body, Vaysse asserts that
this posture allows: “… a free flow everywhere within us for all these circuits of
energy” (164). He makes a number of other comments about the correct posture
or placing of the various parts of the body, especially the hands, spine, neck and
head (163–164). He concludes that the ideal posture, if possible, is the “lotus
position,” taken on the floor, with slightly raised buttocks, using a cushion of a
height appropriate to each individual (164). The late Dr John Lester, who often
visited Gurdjieff between 1946 and 1949, told me that Gurdjieff himself always
sat on the floor when showing them the Preparation and various exercises.

4 Pentland 17; Patterson 30. Pentland had suggested to his pupils that after the Preparation
(which he seems to have called “the exercise”) they do something such as walk or read for ten
minutes while sensing the sort of presence they had experienced (35 and 48). At the meetings
referred to, after the Preparation, Helen Adie would play some of Gurdjieff’s music, with the
same intention of continuing the state approached in the Preparation.

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Rather typical of statements about the posture of the head, is Ripman’s

advice to “try to balance your head so that it rests lightly on your spine. Feel
as though it were being supported by a thread going up from the crown of your
head” (68). On 9 June 1982, leading a Preparation, Adie counseled practitioners
to have:

… the spine quite erect, and the head not thrust forward, not tilted up-
wards, but as perfectly balanced as I can on the spine, easily, so that
the head can turn to the right, or to the left, so that it is not poked
forward, because it’s a very heavy member, and if it is poked forward, a
lot of unnecessary work is being done, and the apertures through which
the impressions and the material has to flow become closed. This is the
vertical line of the centres right there. They have to be open, and they have
to be erect for that purpose. Not tensely rigid, but perfectly balanced, like
the body of a serpent.

It is significant that Adie says that one should not aim to hold the spine rigidly
but rather with the sinuous yet upward alignment of a serpent. He said that
the natural curvature of the spine could be more or less straight, but that
the point was to sense in the posture which was best for the individual. An
upward orientation, perhaps a slight sense of lifting, is more to be cultivated
than straightness.
There is a question about the “posture,” so to speak, of the eyes. Sometimes
when Adie gave the Preparation, he advised that one should keep one’s eyes
open. More frequently, however, he recommended that the eyes be closed.
He did not, unlike meditators in some systems, allow the opening of a slit of
the eyelids, or recommend that the gaze or even the eyeballs be fixed on any
particular point, whether it could be seen or not. In this respect, he departs
from the advice of Vaysse (163). However, Adie would also say that the eyes
should not be tightly shut, lest that induce tension not only in the eyes but
elsewhere as well. Rather, he would say, the eyelids were to be gently lowered
not so much to shut out visual impressions as to turn inside. Conversely, he
also paid significant attention to the way in which the eyes were opened at
the end of the Preparation. Helen Adie would often advise that when they had
been opened, to slowly close them, and then re-open them, and then to close
and re-open them. The idea was to make the return from the cloistered state
of the Preparation to that of activity a deliberate one, and especially, not to
reintroduce tensions.

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The Atmosphere
According to Gurdjieff, every person has an “atmosphere,” not be confused with
an “aura,” which extends around them for about a meter.5 Gurdjieff, believing
that even thoughts and emotions have a materiality, states that it is possible
to keep one’s thoughts and emotions within that atmosphere. Hence, in the
Four Ideals exercise, he states: “… do not allow thought or feeling or organic
instinct to pass outside the limit of the atmosphere of the body” (Azize, “Four
Ideals” 181). The idea of sensing oneself within one’s atmosphere was critical in
Gurdjieff’s methods. Gurdjieff taught an exercise which involved “sucking” it
into oneself.6 Adie sometimes referred to the atmosphere as an “envelope.” On
9 June 1982, he said:

When we prepare, we represent our envelope for a metre around. This is

the actual circle of our radiation. We represent that, and we go inside that.
And we go inside that with the intention of working. We close the eyes,
and the first thing is not to let our thought go outside that envelope. We
are now in it. It is our inner, it is our holy of holies, it is our oratory, it’s our
… our inner place. We don’t let our thoughts go outside that.

This is related to the term “Hrhaharhtzaha,” pronounced by Adie as “ha.rā.hat

.zā.ha.” The word is used in Beelzebub’s Tales to his Grandson, to refer to an
apparatus which looks like a “huge-electric-lamp” (Gurdjieff, Beelzebub 154),
but which is large enough to be entered. Within it, one can perceive the “disso-
ciating” the “Unique-Active-Element” the “Omnipresent-Okidanokh” into each
of its “three fundamental parts,” and then, when desired, those separated parts
can be “blended” back into a whole (153). One hesitates to be too categorical,
but if the Okidanokh can be identified with will-power (as Bennett states, see
Gurdjieff 202), then the idea of referring to it here is to suggest that by separately
raising to consciousness each of the three main human faculties (according to
Gurdjieff these are the intellect, the feelings, and sensation, or organic instinct),
they can be combined in the course of the Preparation so that one can exercise
a truly human will-power during the day.
This is intimately related to the other word from Beelzebub that Adie used at
paragraph 12: “Djartklom.” Gurdjieff wrote:

5 The concept of the “aura” is one that Gurdjieff never used, so far as I am aware, although it
had a wide currency in Theosophical circles.
6 3 August 1944, Transcripts 148–149. De Salzmann’s “exercise … for coming to a collected state”
is drawn from Gurdjieff’s atmosphere exercise (de Salzmann 189). At least two authentic
Gurdjieff exercises were known as “the collected state exercise.”

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The first peculiarity is that when a new cosmic unit is being concentrated,
then the “Omnipresent-Active-Element” does not blend, as a whole, with
such a new arising, nor is it transformed as a whole in any definite corre-
sponding place … but immediately on entering as a whole into any cosmic
unit, there immediately occurs in it what is called “Djartklom,” that is
to say, it is dispersed into the three fundamental sources from which it
obtained its prime arising …
Beelzebub 139–140

Therefore, when Adie speaks of “Djartklom,” he is probably referring to the

separating of the “hydrogens” contained in the air. In other Preparations, Adie
said more about this. On 24 March 1982, for example, he stated:

I sense the breathing. I sense it enters. I go down, I sense the whole of

the breast, the solar plexus. I sense the pot-shaped, the belly, the tanden
two inches below the navel … I sense the breathing, but it’s a different
experience from the sensation, the peripheral sensation I’ve established
all over: there’s a different rhythm to it. I notice how the breath enters, and
when it gets to the breast, it seems to mingle, apart from there it radiates
through me, it fills me with force. Maybe I notice something rising from
the pit of the stomach to meet it as it enters, and then flows down again
while the unused portion is expelled.

Djartklom is exemplified in the manner that the inhaled air is broken up:
some particles are assimilated, while others are expelled. But there is more to
Djartklom than even this. Speaking of Djartklom, Bennett states:

… it is described as a dividing of the Omnipresent Okidanokh into its

three constituent parts and their striving to reblend. (This) … is the
key. It amounts to saying that an opportunity is created. The forces are
separated—the affirmative, denying and reconciling—and in striving to
reblend they produce an action in us.
Talks 115

That is, by remaining within calmly the crucible of one’s atmosphere, the
three internal forces can be separated out and their operation consciously
directed. The forces are, I would think: the practitioner’s desire for conscious
development as the active force, the resistance to this being the negative, and
then the understanding of the ideas and techniques such as the Preparation,
showing that conscious development is possible and how to achieve it being

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the neutralizing force (this analysis closely follows one which Gurdjieff offered
of how the three forces come together, i.e. Ouspensky 77–78).
This also has the corollary that the negative force, the resistance, is an
integral part of the entire operation: it is not to be excluded but rather to be
employed in the transformation of forces. The resistance is as essential to the
Preparation as it is to a carpenter when hammering in a nail, for the resistance
provides a definite object for the application of the positive force, and the
entering in of the neutralizing. The three forces are always present in us, on
this theory, but only by not identifying with the negative or denying force, can
it be seen with any objectivity (see Wellbeloved 103–104).

Internal Channels
Adie spoke of three internal channels running from the top of the head to the
base of the spine and the sexual organs. These were said to be the spinal col-
umn, the windpipe, and another finer channel through which higher hydrogens
enter the body. On 9 December 1946, Gurdjieff delivered some instructions
about these channels, but the transcript is cryptic, not least because he was
demonstrating the movement of energies on his own body (Transcripts 178–
183).

The Sequence
Although Adie here gives the impression that the sensing of the body is to
commence with the feet, he more often began with the right arm, taking this
order: right arm, right leg, left leg, left arm, the spine, commencing with the
lowest vertebra, and climbing vertebra by vertebra, over the skull, the face, the
neck and throat, the chest, the solar plexus, and finally the belly. However,
he might also commence with the left arm, and then the right arm, and as
before. Even when beginning with the right arm, he would sometimes initiate
the Preparation from the right shoulder and then descend down the arm to the
hand, and sometimes commence with the hand. It was not unusual for him to
begin with both hands together, then climb both arms together, then go to the
legs. Likewise, the legs could be commenced from the hip or alternatively from
the feet. Rarely, Adie might start with the head, but in that case he might also
end with it, for he invariably ended with head and face. However, I never heard
and have no recording in which he commences with the back or the torso.
To summarize, the following broad sequence was always invariable and
never changed:

raising the body to consciousness;

raising the breath and/or the feeling to consciousness;
consciousness of the whole (i.e. “i am”).

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When beginning the Preparation, Adie often advised recalling one’s purpose
in the Preparation. When taking a Preparation at the start of the day, which
would happen on Saturdays and Sundays at Newport when the Preparation
would commence at 8.00am, he often included an intention for the day. This
came towards the end of the Preparation, and was meant to be an integral
feature of it when we used it at home.
The appropriate posture was often mentioned at the start, but equally it
was often mentioned again within the course of the Preparation, since the
very exercise of raising the sensation to consciousness occasioned a greater
awareness of one’s posture. Then, at the very end of the Preparation, when
certain words such as “i am” and “Amen” are repeated, Adie often indicated
that these would, if the vibration causing the sounds was true, lead to a “final
straightening” of the internal channels. Another word that Adie added to the
Preparation, was “Aieioiuoa.” That word is original to Gurdjieff, who relates it
to the process of remorse (that is, remorse of conscience, Beelzebub 141, 142,
253, and 305). Adie stated that if one pronounced the word with a wide-open
mouth, the reverberation would straighten the air pipe.7
Touching the formulation of one’s aim and sensing one’s intention before
the Preparation, I recall Helen Adie advising someone to first actually look at
the stool on which they would sit for their Preparation, and recall why they
were going to sit down. One might say that it did not matter too much whether
one began by coming to one’s aim, or by sitting and adjusting one’s posture, or
by going within their atmosphere, only provided that one began, and then all
elements could be included.

Distractions and Difficulties

Gurdjieff’s advice was to deal with distractions, with external or internal (such
as the “turning” or recurrent thoughts Adie refers to) by directing one’s atten-
tion in a purposeful way, in this instance, upon the sensation of the body, which
provides a stable focus for the attention (Vaysse 160–161). Note that although
one sits quietly, there is no mantra. But Gurdjieff would sometimes indicate
the use of words, not least “i am” and “Lord have mercy” in some of his exer-
cises.

7 Adie told me that he had felt that the word had to be pronounced slightly differently from
how it was written in Beelzebub. Then, he added, when the French edition appeared in 1976,
he found it written in a manner that corresponded exactly to his pronunciation: “Aïeïoïouoa.”
He also stated that it could be that the consonance of the word objectively corresponded to
the feeling of remorse.

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On 16 October 1979, Ripman counselled about thoughts “arising” during the

Preparation:

It isn’t suggested that you try to shut these thoughts out, but try to experi-
ence them just as though somebody had turned on the radio in the next
room … If you pay attention to the thoughts that arise in your head, it
takes you away from the awareness of the sensations in the body; but
if you concentrate your attention on that awareness, you will take your
attention away from the thoughts. If you try and make them shut up, you
draw more attention to them.
68

On 19 January 1979, Ripman had favorably described paying attention to the

sensations of the body as “a counter-attraction to the pull on the attention of
the thoughts that arise” (73). On the same date, he counselled against using
mental counting as a “counter-attraction” to distracting thoughts (76).
In a volume of selections from group meetings taken by Louise Welch, a per-
sonal pupil of Gurdjieff, who sometimes had the assistance of Margot Dustan,
there is a report of a meeting dated 22 February 1973, at which someone said: “I
find morning preparation very difficult, yet it is vital to me now.” Dustan replied:

Madame de Salzmann suggested to someone to thank His Endlessness in

the morning for being born. It seems to help me be more collected. Also
it has helped me to think in bed at night about how I’m going to be in the
morning. Perhaps a golden thread carries through and makes it possible
to be a little present.
welch 98

Relaxation
It is axiomatic in the Gurdjieff tradition that without relaxation there cannot be
psychological movement. Gurdjieff consistently gave instructions concerning
this (see the index of Gurdjieff, Transcripts under “relaxing”). While it was
considered necessary to commence with relaxation of the muscles at the start
of the Preparation, the very process of that exercise is thought to allow a
deepening relaxation. The processes of sensation and relaxation were to go
together. Sometimes Adie would, in moving through the limbs, simultaneously
relax and sense. On other occasions, he might go through the entire body,
methodically relaxing, then revisit each part, raising the body to consciousness.
In one recorded Preparation, he first relaxes the body in a general way, revisits
it with deeper relaxation, and only then commences the program of sensation.

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Sensation
Touching sensing the body, on 15 November 1978, Adie said:

I aim that the whole of the body, sensation, peripheral, the body and
the inner part, shall be so relaxed and disposed that the sensation is
conscious, conscious everywhere, connected. Consciousness of body …
I have the impressions of the first body in this very sensation. This is the
impressions of the life of the first body, the moving of the blood, the waves
and the nerve connections, the energy passing, the interchange between
all the particles composing my body.

Oral anecdotes, never absolutely reliable, and always liable to be contradicted

by other anecdotes, nonetheless indicate that sensing the entire body as one
whole is an aspect of the Preparation which some lineages from other of
Gurdjieff’s pupils do not presently have: either it has been forgotten or was
never given in that manner. It was, however, a feature of the Preparation as
given by the Adies and also by Solange Claustres among others. Ripman is
emphatic:

Become aware in turn and accumulatively of the physical sensations from

the different parts of the body, starting with the feet and working up, not
losing contact with the awareness of your parts of the body to whose
sensations you are already open, building up until you are aware of all
the sensations from all parts of the body at the same time.
ripman 67

The Plan for the Day

As we saw above, Jane Heap advised that a connection between one’s struggle
to remember oneself in the Preparation had to be made with one’s struggle
to remember oneself during the day (21). Louise Welch stated the desirability
of making a plan for the day during or after the Preparation: “What comes
you must acknowledge. That may be only a little more collectedness … and I
plan my Work for the day. Maybe you only plan one thing, taking the day into
account, and plan what is possible” (Welch 21).
On 9 February 1960, Maurice Desselle, a personal student of Gurdjieff from
Paris, who was sitting in front of a group in London with Adie, said to a
questioner: “I prepare myself for something or it is not a preparation.”8 He went

8 Page 5 of an unpublished transcript.

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on to say that it was important to leave the Preparation with a question, and that
“It is the same question,” and that, he implied, it is always myself and my state
which are in question (ibid). On 12 July 1960, Maurice Desselle, in the same
circumstances, said in answer to a question about not making the plan for the
day at the end of the Preparation:

You know it (i.e. the effort to remember oneself) is more difficult during
the day. Then you have to prepare yourself more carefully … When you try
in more easy conditions in the morning, you reach some place in yourself
where you begin to approach this effort. You appear. At the same time
you know it will not go on like that. Then at this moment you have to
prepare your day. You choose some moment of the day when you will
try to recapture some of your attention to appear again … May be only
a glimpse. If you don’t choose these moments it is just hoping for the best
… You have to create a conscious link between your preparation and the
moment of the day when you are to appear.9

Henriette Lannes, taking a London group meeting with Adie on 22 March 1960
added an interesting twist to this sort of idea, saying:

… these appointments with ourselves are made with an unknown person

for whom we are not prepared. We can prepare that person to welcome
the visit … To face this, preparation must be sufficient. If you remember
in preparation having received that heavy response … Have you prepared
what comes to meet it? Your attention.10

In case there was any ambiguity, the “unknown person” is oneself.

Miscellaneous
The idea of going into a blissful state or even of having pleasant sensations
is utterly foreign to the Gurdjieff Preparation. It is, rather, to begin the day
by being present to what there is, including, as mentioned in iv. 5 above, the
resistance to one’s more conscious aim. The resistance is a necessary element
in what Gurdjieff called the process of “Djartklom.” Henriette Lannes in the
meeting of 22 March 1960, stressed the importance of being aware of any
resistance, and finding in it a call to consciousness, helping to awaken the wish

9 Page 4 of an unpublished transcript.

10 Pages 5–6 of an unpublished transcript.

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to make efforts towards consciousness: “… experience it as that pull and try to

know in yourself where to find the other.”11
As mentioned above, I am preparing the materials for a book-length study
of Gurdjieff’s contemplation-like techniques, which shall include comparative
references. However, it would not be amiss to record that Adie always took
Buddhist meditation methods as being reliable guides in respect of posture. His
admiration for Dürckheim has already been noted. But if a question concerning
posture arose, he would not infrequently refer to Buddhist statuary. I recall that
he once spoke to me about the posture of my chin, and illustrated his point by
showing me illustrations of sundry Buddhas.
It would be appropriate to end this section by remarking that on 17 Septem-
ber 1980, Adie said: “We are immediately engaged in a possible mystery, there
is a possible alchemical incident available to us if we only understand.” This
of course alludes to Gurdjieff’s teaching about the transmutation of “higher
hydrogens” and Djartklom, but nonetheless, the iteration of an irreducible ele-
ment of mystery serves as a salutary reminder that this was an art, calling for
flair and adaptation, and was never presented to us as a rigid science. Yet, many
aspects of the art are, nonetheless, precise.

v The Basis of the Preparation in Gurdjieff’s Thought

In Azize, “The Practice of Contemplation” (passim), I contended that there was

no evidence that Gurdjieff had taught the Preparation or the contemplative
exercises before the 1930s. This remains the state of the evidence, so far as I am
aware. As I attempted to demonstrate there, the basis for the Preparation was
certainly laid out much earlier. In addition to the references provided in that
article, of signal importance to the Preparation is the lecture Gurdjieff gave at
the Prieuré in France, on 23 January 1923 (Gurdjieff, Early Talks 203–209).
Commencing with a stated desire to remember oneself, but an inability
to do so, Gurdjieff states that to try to remember oneself solely by means
of mental associations is insufficient, and that, as we are, we rely upon the
intellect without trying to remember ourselves by “sensation” (203). Gurdjieff
then elaborates upon the distinction between sensing and feeling: when he sits
in an unaccustomed posture it is uncomfortable. But in this posture he has
a “sensation of my body, if not the whole of it, at least of some parts of my
body, of warmth, of the circulation of blood” (204). Gurdjieff gives as examples

11 Pages 3–4 of an unpublished transcript.

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“the readiness is all” 63

of “feeling,” remembering moments connected with his mother, the feeling of

satisfaction he has when a certain plan he made was realized, and finally the
pang of conscience he felt when he saw the disfigured face of a blameless man
whom he had recklessly struck in the dark (204).
Critically for the development of his system, Gurdjieff states that sensations
have their origins in the “moving centre” and feelings have theirs in the “emo-
tional centre.”12 It is then that Gurdjieff makes the statement: “For primary
exercises in self-remembering the participation of all the three centres is neces-
sary” (Early Talks 205), which I quoted above. He then gives an exercise that
anticipates many aspects of the Preparation:

… I begin to think in my mind: “I wish. I wish very much to be able often to

recollect, in order to remember that it is necessary to remember myself. I
wish! You—it is me, it is my body!” I say to my body: “You. You—me. You
are also me. I wish. These sensations which my body is now experiencing,
every similar sensation—I wish them to remind me. I wish. You are me. I
wish. I wish to recollect as often as possible that I wish to remember, that
I wish to remember myself.”
206–207

Gurdjieff then enjoins the listeners to sense in themselves the sounding and the
sensation of the words “I,” “wish,” “to remember” and “myself.” In respect of the
last word, he states: “Usually, when I say the word “myself,” I am accustomed
to mean either thought, or feeling, or body. Now we must take the overall
boundary, the atmosphere, the body and all there is in it” (207–208). As we have
already seen, the “atmosphere” plays a vital role in the Preparation.
Gurdjieff then adds something that helps to explain Adie’s step 18: “Silently
I say, with all the force of my feeling, ‘I’, and with all the force of my sensation,
in my spine, ‘am’. Three times quite silently, on the in-breath, ‘I’, and on the out
breath, ‘am’.” Gurdjieff states:

… our apparatuses (i.e. the centres) are so arranged that an intensive

response is impossible if a man has had no rest … These apparatuses of
ours, which produce a response when we pronounce each of the four
words, must be given rest in turn, if they are to be able to print.13 Each

12 205. For a treatment of these centers, and also the thinking center, consult Ouspensky
106–108.
13 It is not apparent to my how the analogy of galvanic batteries that Gurdjieff has been using

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of these bells (i.e. parts of the centres which will respond) possesses its
own battery. While I am saying “I” one bell answers, “wish”—another bell,
“to remember”—a third bell, “myself”—the general bell.14

It is mentioned that Gurdjieff then gave an exercise, which was omitted from
the transcript, and stated: “All the exercises we have done so far, without excep-
tion, are designed to harmonise feeling, thought and movement” (208). This is
true also of the Preparation although it could be added that the purpose of
harmonizing those three faculties is not only to achieve an intrinsic good, but
also to absorb the “higher hydrogens” absorbed in such a harmonized state,
and to assimilate them so that “higher being bodies” might be formed, that is,
to make permanent one’s soul (see Azize “The Practice of Contemplation”pas-
sim).
In a meeting 18 March 1943, Gurdjieff tells someone that her effort is only
theoretical, and that she must “establish a contact between (her) head and
(her) body” by placing her legs in ice water (Transcripts 8). This reflects the
principle, exemplified in the Preparation of making a conscious connection
between the intellect and the body, and then with the feeling.

An Allusion in All and Everything

While Gurdjieff never directly refers to the Preparation in Beelzebub’s Tales to
his Grandson, he wrote there:

… do not forget one thing, namely at your age it is indispensably necessary

that every day, at sunrise, while watching the reflection of its splendour,
you bring about a contact between your consciousness and the various
unconscious parts of your general presence. Try to make this state last
and to convince the unconscious parts—as if they were conscious—
that if they hinder your general functioning, they, in the period of your
responsible age, not only cannot fulfil the good that befits them, but your
general presence of which they are part, will not be able to become a good
servant of our common endless creator and by that will not even be
worthy to pay for your arising and existence.
78

leads to a question of “print” rather than “response.” There may have been an error in the
note-taking.
14 208. The two bracketed clauses introduced by “i.e.” are my own interpretations of Gurdji-
eff’s meaning.

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“the readiness is all” 65

Vaysse undoubtedly regards these words as applicable to the Preparation, for

although he does not quote Beelzebub, he writes: “We must convince this other
part for one moment to help us, or at least not to interfere with us, even if it has
to be given what satisfaction it needs later” (166). The similarity between the
ideas expressed is too great to be accidental.

Secrecy and the Near Disappearance of the Preparation

The thesis of this article is that the discipline of secrecy in which Gurdji-
eff’s techniques have been shrouded meant that the Preparation was rarely
recorded or noted, and even when it was, those materials were barely dis-
tributed. This had, inter alia, the result that when Jeanne de Salzmann substi-
tuted new methods for the Preparation and Gurdjieff exercises, they all but dis-
appeared without a trace. It may well be that the culture of reverential respect
for group instructors induced many in the Gurdjieff groups to passively accept
and even approve the changes.
First, the secrecy as to methods did not lack any rationale. Vaysse explains it
by stating that the work he describes goes through stages: first, it is chiefly taken
up with relaxation and sensation, but then later, with “self-remembering” (167).
The fact that the stages are not rigidly fixed is, he avers, one reason why these
exercises are not written down, or if written, only made accessible to: “… people
who already have enough experience of the exercises and have practised them
long enough under the direction of their elders to understand what they stand
for within the line of work of the particular school” (168).
Fundamental here is the assumption that the exercises would be kept alive
by means of such a person-to-person transmission. All the evidence available
to me indicates that there are slim grounds for confidence in this assumption.
Fundamental, too, is confidence in the “elders.” James Moore, who was present
in the London group at the time, dates the change from the original Gurdjieff
dispensation to what is called the “New Work”, at least for London, to the very
moment of the death of Lannes in 1980. He states:

Fronting the new doctrine was a oligarchy-led modulation of idiom from

active to passive voice: the pupil no longer ‘remembered himself’ but ‘was
remembered’; no longer ‘awoke’ but ‘was awoken’. Pupils did not, need
not, could not, work: they were ‘worked upon’ (even while they literally
slept!).
moore 4

Moore makes a vague reference to the replacement of the Preparation and

Gurdjieff exercises with “sittings” of Asian inspiration (5), but Wellbeloved, who

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was also present in the London group at the time, provides more details. Under
the heading “New Work Terminology,” she writes:

The exercise of the attention, which used to be referred to in English as

‘morning preparation,’ has been changed in process and aim, and is now
referred to as ‘meditation’ or ‘sitting’ (terms probably taken from the Zen
practice of zazen). Sitting is also used to refer to groups of pupils meditat-
ing together; in London this began in the 1960s and was known as ‘special
work.’ … This receptive mode may have been part of Gurdjieff’s late teach-
ing in the 1940s, though there is no sign of it in the group meetings held
during World War ii. Receptivity is not referred to in beneficial terms in
Gurdjieff’s writings, nor his pupils’ memoirs, all of which emphasise the
necessity for struggle and effort.
156

I have been told that Lannes used and taught the Preparation to the end of her
teaching, and had never accepted the “special work.” When, after her death,
the new sittings were introduced into the London group, it was on the basis
that they were for advanced pupils, but later on all pupils were taught them
to the exclusion of the original Preparation and Gurdjieff exercises. And so, an
authentic Gurdjieff technique, vulnerable to loss because of the observance of
secrecy, disappeared when those charged with teaching it were instructed to
teach something else in its place.
This is the best direct evidence for the substitution of the “New Work” for the
original. However, William Segal (1904–2000), a personal pupil of Ouspensky
and Gurdjieff stated—his very word is that he confessed—to having been
instrumental in the introduction of the New Work “sitting”:

I must confess that I was a great proponent of meditation, which I felt

was lacking in the Gurdjieff Work in the 1940s. I was in Japan in 1952
… I felt that the practice of formal sitting of Zazen was lacking in the
Gurdjieff Work at the time. Then Madame de Salzmann did institute it.
She probably had that practice going in its own way, but I felt it needed a
more formal adherence. We needed more “sittings.” Trying to speak from
the moment, as we do in our practice and in the groups, leads one to the
same place.
196–197

The practice of “trying to speak from the moment” is one of the New Work
practices.

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“the readiness is all” 67

I first raised the question of the disappearance of the Preparation with

James Wyckoff in New York in 1993.15 I had already found that the “sittings”
he gave were much vaguer and less well-structured than Adie’s Preparations.
I described to him that Preparation as Adie had given it, and he stopped
me, somewhat testily, saying: “Adie was not the only person who knew that.
Others had it, too.” Wyckoff’s irritation reflected, I believe, an impatience with
what he saw as an interest in former and less advanced methods. The point is
that it would appear that the introduction of the “New Work” has led to the
almost complete disappearance of the Preparation as it was initially taught by
Gurdjieff. In April 2016, I attended an international conference, the “All and
Everything Conference” in Salem. The audience was made up of attendees
from various lineages or none. I delivered a paper which was in substance on
Gurdjieff’s Preparation and exercises: nothing I then heard would lead me to
change my opinion about the loss of the Preparation, especially in those groups
aligned to Jeanne de Salzmann.

vi Conclusion

The Preparation had a central role in the first generation of the Gurdjieff groups
before the advent of the “New Work.” Henriette Lannes said, in London on
23 November 1959: “Your first obligation is always to try and maintain that
morning effort. This is the corner stone, the thing without which nothing will
ever happen.”16 It has effectively been replaced in most Gurdjieff groups, and
the knowledge of it has almost entirely completely disappeared. The chief
aim of this article was to make available a record of it in its authentic form.
It can be seen from the analysis of even the concise instructions given by
Adie on 14 August 1985 that a good deal of thought lies behind the Prepara-
tion. It is hoped that this effort has helped to present a more balanced pic-
ture of Gurdjieff’s ideas and practices, one which is less reliant upon philos-
ophy.
This study also conduces to future research that might examine how Gurd-
jieff’s contemplation-like exercises exemplified what the culture of his “Fourth

15 James or “Jim” Wyckoff was, for a period, one of the members of “Group 1,” the directing
circle within the New York Foundation. He was not a personal pupil of Gurdjieff, but was of
the second “generation”: that is, his teachers, Christopher Fremantle, Jeanne de Salzmann,
Michael de Salzmann, and Henri Tracol among others, were themselves personal or “first
generation” pupils.
16 Page 3 of an unpublished transcript.

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Way,” and how, being inculturated, they were changed as the Gurdjieff groups
were influenced by the winds of change blowing in the 1960s.

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