Remembrance in Honor of Gurdjieff's Liftoff

January 13, 1872 – October 29, 1949

WHEN FOLKS ASK ME to recommend my favorite biography on G.I. Gurdjieff I instantly mention Fritz Peters‘ Boyhood with Gurdjieff.

The book is an honest-to-goodness odyssey, recounted from the wildly unusual perspective of a teenage boy.

The book’s tenor is human, the language simple, and Peters’ recapitulation—written many years later, when he was an adult—remains vividly alive.

You won’t find a more engaging recounting from the scores of books written by individuals who experienced Gurdjieff firsthand except of course for Ouspensky’s In Search of the Miraculous. But that book is academic and over-exacting, whereas Boyhood occupies a realm composed of equal parts heart, humor, and unresolved mystery.

In the below section from the book, G. describes the missed opportunity that would have normally accompanied completing the task that young Peters had been assig…