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Gurdjieff and Hypnosis: A Hermeneutic Study 2009th Edition

by Mohammad Tamdgidi (Author)
4.3 4.3 out of 5 stars 12 ratings
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This book explores the life and ideas of the enigmatic twentieth century philosopher, mystic, and teacher of esoteric dances George Ivanovitch Gurdjieff, performing a hermeneutic textual analysis of all his writings to illuminate the place of hypnosis in his teaching. Foreword by J. Walter Driscoll.
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  1. ISBN-10
    0230615074
  2. ISBN-13
    978-0230615076
  3. Edition
    2009th
  4. Publisher
    Palgrave Macmillan
  5. Publication date
    December 18, 2009
  6. Language
    English
  7. Dimensions
    8.3 x 5.7 x 0.8 inches
  8. Print length
    288 pages
  9. See all details
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Editorial Reviews

Review

"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

About the Author

MOHAMMAD M. TAMDGIDI is Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology, University of Massachusetts, Boston, USA.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Palgrave Macmillan; 2009th edition (December 18, 2009)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 288 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0230615074
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0230615076
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 15.2 ounces
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 8.3 x 5.7 x 0.8 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.3 4.3 out of 5 stars 12 ratings

About the author

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Mohammad H. Tamdgidi

Mohammad H. Tamdgidi

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Mohammad-Hossein (a.k.a. 'Behrooz') Tamdgidi (pronounced "tamjidi"; Persian: «محمدحسين تمجيدى «بهروز ), is a transdisciplinary sociologist and transcultural social theorist. He is the founding director and editor respectively of OKCIR: Omar Khayyam Center for Integrative Research in Utopia, Mysticism, and Science (Utopystics) and its publication, Human Architecture: Journal of the Sociology of Self-Knowledge (ISSN: 1540-5699) which have served since 2002 to frame his independent research, pedagogical, and publishing initiatives. Tamdgidi is a former associate professor of sociology specializing in social theory at UMass Boston and has taught sociology at SUNY-Binghamton and SUNY-Oneonta.

Besides his research in progress being published in the 12-book series Omar Khayyam’s Secret: Hermeneutics of the Robaiyat in Quantum Sociological Imagination (Okcir Press, 2021-), Tamdgidi has previously authored Liberating Sociology: From Newtonian Toward Quantum Imaginations: Volume 1: Unriddling the Quantum Enigma (Okcir Press, 2020), Gurdjieff and Hypnosis: A Hermeneutic Study (Palgrave Macmillan, 2009), and Advancing Utopistics: The Three Component Parts and Errors of Marxism (Routledge/Paradigm, 2007). He has also published numerous peer reviewed articles and chapters and edited more than thirty journal issues.

Tamdgidi holds a Ph.D. and M.A. in sociology in conjunction with a graduate certificate in Middle Eastern studies from Binghamton University (SUNY). He received his B.A. in architecture from U. C. Berkeley, following enrollment as an undergraduate student of civil engineering in the Technical College of the University of Tehran, Iran. In Dec. 2013 he retired early from his tenured and promoted position at UMass Boston in order to pursue his independent scholarship in quantum sociological imagination and its application in Khayyami studies through the conduit of his research center, OKCIR.

Tamdgidi’s areas of scholarly and applied interest are the sociology of self-knowledge, human architecture, and utopystics—three fields of inquiry he invented in his doctoral studies and has since pursued as respectively intertwined theoretical, methodological and applied fields of inquiry altogether contributing to what he calls the quantum sociological imagination. His research, teaching, and publications have been framed by an interest in understanding how world-historical social structures and personal selves constitute one another. This line of inquiry has itself been a result of his longstanding interest in understanding the underlying causes of failures of the world’s utopian, mystical, and scientific movements in bringing about a just global society.

Customer reviews

4.3 out of 5 stars
4.3 out of 5
12 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Harun
5.0 out of 5 stars Important contribution to the body of Gurdjieff legacy
Reviewed in the United States on April 18, 2010
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First le me say I did not finish the book yet. I am somewhere the middle. But I decided to write my review anyway.
The author and his work deserves my five stars, for those reasons:

1. It shows, from the very first pages a solid and strong intelectual integrity, a quality not always present in many of the followers of Gurdjieff, specially those of the orthodox lineage.
2. He clearly states he was never a part of any formal organization of the Gurdjeff work, and this to me is another incredible aspect. Mainly because it shows that G did indeed succeed in leaving humanity a legominins, a message well encrypted with "All and Everything";
3. The book can be a great support for those either reading or those who already red Gurdjieff own works. I have been involved with the Gurdjieff work for the past 25 years, and honest think it was already time for that kind of approach (Hermeneutics) to understand his ideas.

When I finish I might edit this review, but so far I have been pleased therefore I don't believe my feeling will change for worse.
14 people found this helpful
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John Amaral
5.0 out of 5 stars In support of the author's comments to MJ Thomas
Reviewed in the United States on September 27, 2012
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When I read the author's response to MJ Thomas mentioning William Patrick Patterson, I did a Google search for both names and found a lot of hits. I also substituted another negative reviewer's name and found a lot more hits with WPP. Other reviews are solidly positive. This makes me wonder why they have gone to the trouble. There must be more to this story.

I agree with the author that at least some of Thomas' comments seem sophomoric. For example, using In Search to contrast and compare with The Tales seems reasonable, since many people, including Gurdjieff, have commented that Ouspensky was a very good reporter of his words.

Finally, I agree with Paul Taylor that "Gurdjieff and Hypnosis" is worth careful attention.
6 people found this helpful
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Christian Morales
5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars
Reviewed in the United States on October 26, 2015
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Everything ok!
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MJ Thomas
1.0 out of 5 stars Hidden Purposes
Reviewed in the United States on December 26, 2010
In this resolute and densely argued book, Tamdgidi admits to being drawn to the Work ideas, as he sees the need for understanding that goes beyond mere "knowing." He recognizes that "alone [one] can do little," and so attended a number of (non-Gurdjieffien) spiritual retreats. At one such retreat he suddenly "awoke" to its hypnotic influences. He then concludes that one must "maintain distance to avoid being trapped" in what he calls the "Yezidi circle" of hypnosis and so avoids joining any group. Therefore he believes he writes from an independent scholastic stance, his unstated assumption being that he is unbiased, and, of course, that he is not hypnotized.
Tamgdidi certainly has the scholastic credentials to apply a theory of interpretation known as hermeneutics to Gurdjieff's texts. An analytical approach traditionally used with the study of scripture, the intent of hermeneutics is "both to conduct an in-depth textual analysis and to interpret the text using its own symbolic and meaning structures." His sole purpose, Tamdgidi says, is to "engage with Gurdjieff's life and teachings in his own terms...considering not only what is included but also what is excluded...as being equally significant." What one includes can certainly be known, but what is excluded and why is open to judgment. As to the way Gurdjieff wrote, he purposely used what is commonly known as a "salting technique" by which he "buried the dog."
Tamdgidi's main thesis is that Gurdjieff's writings "themselves were conscious, intentional, and systematic efforts in literary hypnotism." It doesn't seem to occur to him that similar structures can be found in the Old and New Testaments and Koran. (Tamdgidi's search for inner composition would have been better served had he read Mary Douglas' Thinking in Circles, which examines the ring composition in scripture and classical literature.) But beyond that, he misses Gurdjieff's saying that the ideas in All and Everything have three meanings and seven aspects. That they are salted throughout the three series of books demands that the reader be active, not passive, toward the material and so, his or her intuition engaged, suddenly see the connections, thus being moved from what Gurdjieff calls the "reason of knowledge" to the "reason of understanding."
Given his careful exposition of the approach of hermeneutics, it is odd to see Tamdgidi regularly deviating from its strictures. For example, he references supportive material, such as Ouspensky's In Search of The Miraculous, to address concepts such as the enneagram and self-remembering, but more intellectually entrapping, introduces new words and concepts, such as a discussion of food "circuits." At one point he even proposes that The Herald of Coming Good and The Material Question are in fact books of the Third Series, hardly concepts presented in the material itself. He also raises the laughable idea that Gurdjieff was hypnotized by his father.
Almost half the book is Tamdgidi's attempt to represent though condensation, intricate diagrams and interpretation of (a subset of) the concepts presented in All and Everything, which he relegates to the level of "philosophy". Tamdgidi's depiction of an "observing self' as opposed to observing is not an accurate summarization of Gurdjieff's words. Note also should also be taken of the author's extensive use of quotes around individual words. Ostensibly, Tamdgidi is simply noting words that receive emphasis in Gurdjieff's writing. But what is the cumulative effect (a kind of `hypnotism' of which he accuses Gurdjieff) of repeatedly seeing "ancient," "knowledge," and "being" in quotes? Perhaps a questioning of the veracity of these terms? That what Gurdjieff is presenting is not authentic?
A scholastic, or as Gurdjieff calls them, "learned being of new formation," the author places himself at an equal or higher level to the material being presented. He documents and analyzes myriad (seeming) inconsistencies in the writings. He muses on the experiments on theosophical "guinea pigs," reported in Herald, postulating that these experiments were hypnotic in nature. Tamdgidi presents himself as a scholar whose sole purpose is to divine the "actual" intention behind Gurdjieff's writings. But as the reader works his way through its factual spins, suppositions, arguments, declarations and counter declarations-for example, Gurdjieff is a black magician but later not a black magician really-the question arises: just where is the author coming from? On the web site for The Omar Khayyam Center for Integrative Research in Utopia, Mysticism, and Science (Utopystics), which Tamdgidi co-founded, he writes"...the world's utopian, mystical, and scientific movements have ... failed to bring about the good society." This quote may expose the hidden agenda behind his project: the intention is not to give an independent appraisal of Gurdjieff and his writings, but rather to present him as a flawed individual and his writings as a failed attempt to waken humanity and so skew Gurdjieff's Fourth Way teaching.
As Tamdgidi names his center for Omar Khayyam, the poet commonly claimed by some Sufis as one of their own, one wonders if Tamdgidi is a closeted Sufi or one much under their influence? If so, one is reminded of another Sufi-Idries Shah-who some 40 years ago tried similar disinformation with the Teachers of Gurdjieff (Shah was also linked with a controversial translation of the Rubaiyat). Originally, Teachers caused a great stir until unmasked as fiction. While Tamdgidi's analysis isn't fiction, it falls on its own petard. It is hardly independent; rather it is an intellectual attempt at hypnotic propaganda.
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5.0 out of 5 stars “Great masterpieces will be written based on All and Everything"
Reviewed in the United States on January 17, 2016
Gurdjieff has been quoted saying something like “Great masterpieces will be written based on All and Everything”, and this book is certainly along that line in the sense that it is a truly profound effort of understanding the “gist” of Gurdjieff’s writings.

All evidence of Gurdjieff’s teaching and life witness to the fact that he didn’t want blind “followers” who would accept uncritically all his “utterances” and this book strives sincerely to this direction.

What is very interesting and at the same time amusing (in one word, tragic-comic) is that this book is in no way “against” Gurdjieff, on the contrary, Mr. Tamdgidi, having devoted so much real effort in understanding the “gist” of Gurdjieff’s teaching, is more than for Gurdjieff… even if he might not seem so by his blind “followers”!

The “holy rage” that is felt by the blind “followers” of Gurdjieff, even by the mere title of this book, proves what this author very painfully tries to show: if you are hypnotized in a “bad” way by Gurdjieff and his teachings then you’ll get nowhere, if you are hypnotized (or awakened) in a good way, then you might get the expected benefit.

In simpler words, if you think Gurdjieff was a “prophet from Above” (as Mr. Tamdgidi very accurately explains in his answer to a blind review) then you’ll delight in being his “apostle” and fight furiously with everyone you assume belittles your “God”; if you acknowledge in a real way that Gurdjieff had something of real value to offer, then you’ll strive to understand it.

This book can help one in this direction.

P.S. The author’s answers to the “negative” (in the really negative meaning of the word!) reviews, proves all the more so his sincere attitude and considerable effort in sharing with his (even hostile) fellow “three-brained beings” the meaning of Gurdjieff’s teaching.
5 people found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

Blue Magus Sound
5.0 out of 5 stars kNew uncharted territory in the Gurdjieff Work!
Reviewed in Canada on June 12, 2017
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I'm still working my way through this material! MT's research is very in depth. Gurdjieff's idea of "conscious labours and intentional suffering" are key elements in his work. His writings "bury the dog deeper" with strange words and ideas in his three main masterworks which form a part of TG's main theme in this book. Fascinating stuff to wake you out of a daily slumber.
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