Abstract

The significance of George Gurdjieff's Beelzebub's Tales to His Grandson, the major literary work of this modern philosophical and religious writer, has been recognized by such figures as Jean Toomer, Alfred Orage, and Rene Daumal, yet the book has received very little critical attention. Among the reasons for this neglect are its great complexity, diffuseness, and obscurity: it is too formidable for the average reader. However, once one recognizes the influence of Sufism on Gurdjieff's life and thought, an avenue of approach to Beelzebub's Tales opens, and one may place it firmly in the tradition of the Sufi teaching tale. ;The Sufis, mystics who follow the esoteric or inner path of Islam, use the teaching tale to convey knowledge which they believe cannot be transmitted in any other way. They use the tales to disrupt fixed patterns of thought and force the hearer or reader to respond in ways other than routine and rational. Their aim is to raise the person to higher levels of consciousness with a view toward spiritual evolution. Gurdjieff too makes arduous demands on his readers in the hope of spiritual evolution. Claiming that the ways of faith, hope, and love have failed, he proposes that the way of consciousness remains open to man, a way he begins to follow by attempting to understand the world and his place in it, and by working to eliminate his baser qualities and to refine his best ones. Gurdjieff thus addresses somewhat unfamiliar themes in a difficult style in Beelzebub's Tales, making increased intellectual and emotional demands on the reader in order to increase his capacity for and level of understanding. ;This study attempts to present these matters in a reasonably clear and straightforward way in six chapters and a conclusion. The first three deal with Gurdjieff's life and works, connection with Sufism, and theory of art; the last three offer an overview of Beelzebub's Tales, a discussion of the Purgatory section, and a sampling of the variety of tales within the whole