GURDJIEFF, G. I. Georgii Ivanovich Gurdzhiv (1866–1949) was a spiritual teacher of esoteric knowledge who claimed to have discovered specific methods for developing the human consciousness toward a more awakened state. Gurdjieff was born of a Greek father and Armenian mother in Alexandropol in the Cappadocian Greek quarter on the Russian side of the Russian-Finnish border. The date of his birth is disputed to be as much as eleven years later, due perhaps to a mistake on his passport. Gurdjieff himself maintained that he was born in 1866, a date that is corroborated by a number of sources.

The gifted boy, who came to use the Russian name Gurdjieff, was carefully schooled for a career in either the Orthodox priesthood or in medicine. However, even as a teenager he was convinced of the existence of perennial wisdom and secret knowledge that held the answers to life's...