Rating: 
Summary: THE UNOFFICIAL STORY
Review: The purpose of Beelzebub's Tales to His Grandson is stated by the author at the very beginning of his book: "To destroy, merciless, without any compromise whatsoever, in the mentation and feelings of the reader, the beliefs and views, by centuries rooted in him, about everything existing in the world."There is no question that the author, from his very first word, strives merciless in order to fulfill the purpose of his book. The Tales are the "Unofficial Story of All and Everything," of God, Creation, the Universe, Earth and Man. Unofficial because it is not the account given to us by official history and the official philosophies, sciences and the arts; and official religion as well. It is the hidden story, the one rejected by the ancient Greek fishermen turned philosophers-scientists. The story is told by Beelzebub, a three-brained being from a planet close to the Center or Most Most Holy Sun Absolute, the chief Place of Residence of our ENDELESS CREATOR. Long time before the story actually begins, this Beelzebub is forced, because of a transgression of his youth, to live in exile in a remote corner of the Universe, our solar system. Instead of complaining and dwelling in self-pity, Beelzebub spends his thousands of years, (time in the story being relative to the place of birth of the observer), of exile learning about All and Everything, including the reason for his exile. Because of his meritorious work and indirect service to our UNI-BEING OMNI-BEING COMMON FATHER ENDELESS CREATOR, he is eventually pardoned and allowed to return home. He is now recognized in the whole Universe as a distinguished Sacred Individual and He is invited to a special conference in the solar system whose sun is the "Pole Star." While flying through space in route to the conference in the "transspace" ship Karnak, Beelzebub tells his twelve years old grandson Hassein about All and Everything he has learned during his years of exile. Of special interest to Hassein are those strange three-brained beings breeding on the planet Earth, where Beelzebub spends great part of his exile. With time and attention, we the reader become Hassein. Everything we have heard of is elevated or brought in the story to unexpected levels. Entropy, we are told, is Time, the Merciless Heropass, the "Ideally-Unique-Subjective-Phenomenon." It is precisely because of Time's Subjective-Merciless action that the CREATOR has to create the present universe. In this way Entropy is vanquished, in such a way that even Maxwell's clever demons could not have remotely figured it out. The secret, we are told, is very simple: "the Trogoautoegocratic principle of existence of everything existing in the Universe by means of reciprocal feeding and maintaining each other's existence." This principle of existence our COMMON FATHER ALL-GRACIOUS LORD SOVEREING ENDLESS ENDLESSNESS CREATOR actualizes by altering the functioning of the two primordial sacred laws, making them the two fundamental laws of World-creation and World-maintenance: the Sacred-Heptaparaparshinokn and the Sacred-Triamazikamno. Hell is elevated to a state of voluntary suffering. Suffering itself to a cosmic necessity arising from the operation of the Laws. Good and Evil are impersonal forces operating in conformity to World Laws. Man's fall is caused by the "unforseeingness of Most High Sacred Individuals." Chiefly among them are the Great Archangel Sakaki and the Chief-Common-Universal-Arch-Chemist-Physicist Angel Looisos. They are responsible for the implantation in Man's ancestors of an organ with very astonishing properties, among which that of making them to perceive reality topsy-turvy: Kundabuffer. Although Kundabuffer is later removed, the consequences of its maleficent properties are still with us. The story at times gets very provocative. We are told about "that completely formed Arch-Vainglorious Greek, the future Hasnamuss, Alexander of Macedonia." We learn that the Divine Teacher Sacred Individual Jesus Christ is resurrected not in His physical but in His Kesdjan body. Judas is not a traitor but the "most faithful and devoted" of all the disciples of Jesus Christ. Darwin, in the words of the very wise Mullah Nasser Eddin, "is very successful, though not without luck, in finding the authentic godmother of the incomparable Scheherazade on an old dunghill." Mesmer is a humble and honest learned being who, had he not been pecked to death by his contemporaries, might have saved Man from the consequences of Kundabuffer. Mendelejeff "a contemporary comical earned chemist." Atlantis a place of the highest learning. A university "is just that 'hearth' on which everything acquired during decades and centuries by preceding beings is burned..." America is, during the present flow of Heropass, "the fundamental source of the issuing of new causes of abnormality." Among Americans is the largest percentage of beings with "possibilities for the acquisition of Being nearer to the normal Being of three-brained beings in general." And much more we are told. Man himself is elevated to a Being with the possibility of attaining Objective or Divine Reason and thus becoming a conscious laborer of our ALOVING ALMIGHTY COMMON FATHER ENDLESS ENDLESSNESS ETERNAL CREATOR ALL-MAINTAINER, a cell in GOD's Brain. But Man, we are told with great sadness and great sorrow, is now asleep to his innermost essence, to the Divine Impulse of Objective Conscience, the REPRESENTATIVE OF THE CREATOR in Man. He takes the ephemeral for the Real. He can no longer Love with the "Love of Consciousness," Believe with the "Faith of Consciousness," and Hope with the "Hope of Consciousness." This is "The Terror of The Situation." Consequently, Man can no longer fulfill his highest destiny. The chief particularity of his strange psyche is to periodically engage in the process of reciprocal destruction or war. Everything is elevated or brought to unexpected levels in the story. Sometimes with great humor; all the time with great humanness. Even the concept of everything itself is elevated, becoming the "common-cosmic Ansanbaluiazar: Everything issuing from everything and again entering into everything." After having read the book three times, following the author's indications given in his Friendly Advice, one wonders: Have we been doped by the "official story of all and everything?"
Rating:
Summary: Objective Literature
Review: This book contains, at once, knowledge and the way to that knowledge. Reading this material in the recommended way is an initiation into an ancient esoteric tradition.
Muster your stamina, perseverence and willingness to forget what you (think you) know.
Warning: Contains philosophically explicit material.
check out: http://www.gurdjieff.org.
Rating:
Summary: Indeed a revelation of all and everything!
Review: This book is a complex book to read. Indeed the author's warning to read the book three times should be followed. Paragraphs are sometimes elaborate and the language complex with long sentences. The story teller has an advanced language with terms like 'Eternal-Hasnamuss-Individual' or 'Chainonizironess' which sometimes makes it easy to loose the plot of the story. There is no easy reference linking concepts and ideas and the only way to do that is to read the book. Meaning is attached to various levels of consciousness. The reader stands at awe by the very objective viewpoint and universal scale taken by the author where man is observed as a three-brained being. The book is a flashback on the whole history of mankind and the significance of each epoch on the evolution of human consciousness. Nothing is hidden from the author's eyes. The story of man is told by an ancient highly evolved being revealing all about man and yet much of the wisdom in the book is hidden from the normal reader. The joy of the book is its invitation to come and sit in the presence of Beelzebub with the same exitement and reverence of his grandson. An opportunity to learn and gain new insights should the reader have the courage to seize the moment. The aim of the book is to change the reader by shaking him awake so that he can destroy his own beliefs and views. For the serious reader this book will stay next to the bed or in the bookcase for many, many years. The book will be there ready to be picked up once again to be read with new insight and understanding...never loosing its relevance or its promise to reveal even more. Intuitively the book projects within it a sacred characteristic with immense authority of knowing.
Rating: 
Summary: The Bible of Gurdjieffians
Review: This book is Gurdjieff's magnum opus. Having said that, and having seen what other reviewers have written on the book- I'll throw my 0.02 $ with regard to the entire Gurdjieff "system"- essentially because "Beelzebub" is a quasiofficial Gurdjieffian Bible. So-what was G.I.G. up to ?
Gurdjieff was, to put it succinctly, a vitalist Gnostic. His central worldview is a Gnostic one, but having passed through various phases and mutations, fragments of his "system" (never fully articulated) gave rise to conflicting interpretations: deism vs diluted Gnostic theism, materialism vs spirituality,etc., etc. More: since accents during various phases shifted from one concept to another (and since he "invented" a new vocabulary along the way (for instance, "handbledzoin" for something akin to "bioplasmatic field" or "magnetic (in Mesmer's parlance) force")), it is impossible to gather his opus in corpus of a coherent "teaching". One can only detect various twists and turns and their inconsistencies. His "vitalism" is evident not only in his tumultuous life trajectory, but even more in essential "toughness" and energetic quest for realization of one's soul/"I", which is given in terms of incessant strife for acqusition of soul's will and power-certainly not an escapist Gnosis of a Buddhist or Gnostic Christian variety. This "power mad" characteristics combined with "scientific occultism" was something new in his era and Gurdjieff can be righteously termed the spiritual progenitor of Castaneda, Arica's Oscar Ichazo, clownish E.J.Gold and, to a lesser degree, of Scientology and all "Ye shall be like Gods" ideologies available on modern spiritual supermarket. For all his emphasis on "investigation" and "repeatability", Gurdjieff was, no doubt, a charismatic occultist, something of a Western Guru or Renaissance Magus like Flood reincarnated. Hence- any idea of impartial or "scientific" investigation of the "Work" is out of question. This is essentially an initiatory cult, and such secret societies shun the "outsiders". What I find more intriguing is the following: his writings (and his conversations with pupils, as well as their works) show his lack of interest for stormy ideas that had transformed Western culture from, say, 1900 to 1940. There is no indication (apart for casual and shallow remarks) that he was acquainted (or even paid attention to ) with anything scientific above the purely technical level: relativity or quantum physics or radiation physics hadn't made way into his work. Also, speculative ideas and artistic movements that changed his era passed him by: psychoanalysis, existentialism, phenomenology, expressionism, cubism,...Curiously enough, phenomenology's insistence on "inauthenticity" of ordinary human life didn't sit well with Gurdjieff. Once formed, his Weltanschauung remained essentailly fixed and impenetrable (shifting accents only emphasized incongruity of his primary sources). All the talk about an all-encompassing "teaching", spanning the spectrum from cosmology, psychology, theology ...to chemistry, ethics, art and "evolution" evaporated into thin air. My final verdict (Georgi Ivanovitch would certainly explode in a riotous laughter could he read these sentences): Gurdjieff "Work", once important, even inspiring force, has spent itself. Ancient wisdom doctrines, transplanted and adapted to the West, do it better. On the other hand, contemporary Consciousness studies, groping and hoping to discover, analyze and synthesize, to use Gurdjieff's title, "All and Everything", in inquisitive nondogmatic efforts, ranging from non-Copenhagen interpretations of Quantum theory to Cognitive science and Complexity: they all are on a completely different track where newly emerging paradigmata may have not achieved a universally accepted corpus of knowledge yet-but, in these fields (if they intend to grow) Gurdjieff is destined to remain something of a curiosity.
Rating:
Summary: The book that started a change. A classic
Review: This is a book that any seeker for spiritual growth should read. Gurdjieff was the beginner of a movement that change many people views and lifes. Many existing esoteric groups have being influenced by the work of Gurdjieff. The writer considered by many a Master is again between us in these days.
A book not to miss, read it and you will like it.
Rating:
Summary: Reading this is itself an act of G's "conscious labor"
Review: This is one of the best works of spirituality ever written. Gurdjieff admits in his forward ("The Arousing of Thought"'s Warning to the reader) that he tried conveying his "wiseacring" in a straightforward, "newsworthy" manner but found that it failed miserably. So, being enamored his entire life by both the form and content of the "1001 Nights", he tried another approach. The genius of his writing is that it not only imparts information to you the reader, but performs or enacts the "cosmic principles" he's discussing in the very way the sentences are constructed (which many people find extremely difficult, overloaded, and dense). But his book was intentionally composed in a rhythmic & musical fashion. The sentences have distinct cadences (many of them have multiple embedded clauses) which when read aloud, as Gurdjieff recommends, are apt to put one in a strange state of mind. It takes a while to acclimatize oneself to the rhythm, but once one does it becomes easier to intuit--with something other than the "intellectual center"--the ideas behind the words. His neologisms are also meant to dislocate, but they are simply combinations of Russian, Armenian, and newlyminted words. About the content: Gurdjieff's system is often lumped in with many other fads and gurus' elixirs under the moniker "new age". Which is ironic, considering that these ways of being are apparently thousands of years old. But what feel-good new age movement starts with the axiom that human beings are basically in varying degrees of a hypnotic state, possessing only a shred of what Western philosophies call free will? (and that shred only "awakens" sometimes in "peak experiences" when the three centers work together--mortal danger, sexual union, etc., when the ego drops away). Yet this axiom is not asked to be taken on "faith" by Gurdjieff. His is a hard-headed empiricism--indeed, he thought most of humanity incapable of "faith". He never claimed sagehood nor superhuman powers of himself, and was quite satisfied to turn people away and even shock them with behavior at odds with the European conception of a guru. One can only really grasp Gurdjieff's starting point--"Man is asleep"-- by either already being convinced of this truth, or by doing experiments in conscious attention to convince one such.
Rating: 
Summary: Much Ado about Nothing
Review: This, as someone called it, "Finnegan's Wake" of esotericism, is a grave disappointment for anyone not infatuated by Gurdjieffian myth. Let's see what it's all about. 1. It is a blend of ironic science fiction, superfluos "criticism" leaning towards shallow stereotypes on various nations or modes of behaviour, combined with unnecessary obscure references to diverse "occult" practices ( "kundabuffer" ). 2. Also, it is a rehashed ancient "teaching" ( alchemy, Patanjali's and Taoist yoga, Sufi dhikr,..)-all cast in a consciously deceptive lingo ( heptaparaparshinokh, triamazikamno and all that jazz ). 3. Cognitively, judging it as a work in psychology, archaic cosmology, even philosophy- this is an empty ( not sealed, but empty ) book, Gurdjieff's personal indulgence and nothing more. Even in the field of esotericism, it is a miserable failure compared to Blavatsky or Aurobindo ( who are champions of turgid prose, but here and there sparkle with insight.) 4. As for its literary merit, ie. as a piece of imaginative literature- it can't sustain the company of a London or a Zane Grey. 5. I gave it two stars only because it complements ( tangentially ) Wilson's and Speeth's books on Gurdjieffian myth, one of rare adventure stories of our past century. Because, with all pros and cons, Gurdjieff remains one of those writers/personalities about whom Henry Miller said that "their lives are more important and interesting than their works".
Rating:
Summary: Lord of the flies?
Review: To aspire to a pedigree of big devils by name should be a hint the man who espouses esoterica has something to hide. Innocent til proven guilty, we are left guessing with a short list from grand larceny to murder one. Perhaps the sufi trick of malamat, or path of blame, is to be taken with a wink here to excuse the occultist who has lost rank as a saint and is condemned to the shadows as a rug mechant, a good front for a magus, certainly not of the magi. But such sufi riffraff have learned a funny trick, and its use requires little wisdom, but a little wise lingo to disguise it, so beware, and find your own way, for you alone are the guardian of your own will. The main trick of these devils is preach awareness then put you to sleep. The truth is out, the man dabbles in evil, and the spiritual starving disciple should be read his rights, one of them the right to pay no attention, and less money, to this concoction of deceptive spirituality. Put it to the test, is there a law of three or a law of seven? This nonsense is not the answer for a positivistic age that can do without the sufi human torpedo launched at the modern world. Here is a man who thought the Russian peasantry was better off under the Tsars, playing wolf among the new york intellectual fans of Nietzche at the turn of the century. Behold the overman, found with his well-stocked larder in Paris at the end of the War. This master of fronts indulged the luxury of several intellectuals to promote fronts of kind mien to enter to a more vicious game little described in Gurdjieff's unreadable book. The all time low in sufi degeneration, it must be the last times, at least in sufistic time. We may reach a New Age still.
Rating:
Summary: A JAVALIN HURLED INTO THE FUTURE
Review: When Gurdjieff discovered that his institute would fall short of accomplishing his aims and his condition after a severe automobile accident forced - or bookmarked - a re-evaluaton of what he must do, he turned to writng and produced this "Magnum Opus." He remarked that it was a javalin hurled into the future. I have read the book 3 times, and portions repeatedly, and contrary to the remarks of certain reviewers, I and others giving favorable reviews are not gullible. It took me three decades to see this issue in its true light, and the more I understand, the more I see I have a long way to go. The book is a legominism, to use Gurdjieff's own technical term defined in the text. It exists on several levels, and on occassion I have been able to verify that for myself by the perceptivity of its deeper currents. Actually I will be the first to confess that you cannot tell much about this book by the reviews. The reviews - pro and con - tell much more about their authors than they do about this book. That should be expected. Even my own review reminds me of Beelzebub's description of our species as those unfortunate three-brained beings that breed and multiply upon the face of that ill-fated planet Earth. Gurdjieff held up a mirror, and reviewers - including myself - seem eager to show our faces in it. Without question this is the most important work ever written on the issue of stopping wars, and that singular observation alone among many other comparable ones is sufficient to validate Leary's comment that this is the most important work produced in the twentieth century. But because of its inaccessibility to many audiences, I would also include Ouspensky's account of Gurdjieff's teaching, "In Search of the Miraculous," on a par with it. Ouspensky's book may actually be more important immediately, but ultimately Gurdjieff's Beelzebub's Tales will emerge to its true stature among segments of our posterity. Gurdjieff knew and stated that there was no hope for current generations. Without this javalin hurled into the future, there would be no hope at all.
Rating:
Summary: Dig the Dog Up!
Review: Whoever reads Beelzebub and makes an effort to understand it will be able to find out the meaning(s) in it. On the other hand a mere reading will not get to the meaning at all. The idea is something like this: if you want knowledge it is available and to get it you will have to pay for it. This is preventing Beelzebub from being just an intellectual exercise. Gurdjieff often asked: 'what does it make you feel?' This is very much similar to the whole idea of the Gurdjieff Work and a bit like Movements applied to the reading of the book.
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