Gurdjieff and Hypnosis

" Tamdgidi sets a benchmark for Gurdjieff Studies in relation to two recognized but insufficiently explored areas, his writings as a unified field and his exploitation of hypnosis in its broadest sense. His compact interpretation of Gurdjieff emphasizes - for the first time - a search for meaning based on recognizable keys within about 1, 800 pages of Gurdjieff' s four texts as a single body of work, with particular focus on subliminal and subconscious dimensions of impact and interpretation, an approach which might be termed the ' Hermeneutics of Gurdjieff. ' Thus, Tamdgidi' s work is an important original contribution to the constructive, independent, and critical study of Gurdjieff' s four books. Anyone who has seriously attempted to read Beelzebub' s Tales to His Grandson or Meetings with Remarkable Men can vouch for their intentionally beguiling or ' hypnotic' effect. These readers will appreciate Tamdgidi' s interpretive virtuosity and focus - he keeps each tree and the entire forest in sight throughout. " - From the Foreword by J. Walter Driscoll, independent scholar and bibliographer; editor and contributing author, Gurdjieff: A Reading Guide, 3rd Ed. ; contributing editor, Gurdjieff International Review (1997-2001); co-author, Gurdjieff: An Annotated Bibliography

" A wondrous odyssey and extraordinary argumentation! Nothing in the corpus of writings on Gurdjieff' s works goes near to matching this masterful reading. Each time one looks back into the text, one finds more gold, no dross. " - Paul Beekman Taylor, Professor Emeritus at the University of Geneva, and author ofG. I. Gurdjieff: A New Life; Gurdjieff' s Invention of America; The Philosophy of G. I. Gurdjieff; Gurdjieff & Orage: Brothers in Elysium; andShadows of Heaven: Gurdjieff and Toomer

" In the ocean of literature on Gurdjieff, the brilliant book of Mohammad Tamdgidi has a very special place. It is the first serious academic attempt at a hermeneutics of Gurdjieff' s texts, taking as key the core of Gurdjieff' s teaching - the enneagram. Of course, Gurdjieff' s teaching cannot be understood apart from its practice. But it is also true that this teaching cannot be understood without a rigorous study of the writings of Gurdjieff himself. " - Basarab Nicolescu, author of Manifesto of Transdisciplinarity