Reviews:   Reflections on Gurdjieff’s Whim

Elan Sicroff, pianist, presenter of the music of Gurdjieff/de Hartmann

I have been meaning to contact you regarding your latest book, Gurdjieff’s Whim.  I have found it to be one of the most most interesting and inspiring books related to the Work that I have read in a long long time.

Thank you for this.

Massachusetts, July 8, 2012

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Paul Beekman Taylor

In reading Keith’s book, I was reminded of my stay at the Wellington in 1948-1949 when, after an afternoon with Gurdjieff I would go down a floor to my room and work on my Russian with a Russian keyboard typewriter someone had lent me. My thoughts were occupied with what Gurdjieff had said, however, and I began to understand things–or, thought I began to understand–simply because his words seemed to generate ideas in my mind. So Keith’s text did the same each chapter through. I began to envision things I had not seen–or thought were visible–before. In brief, I begin to learn what I always knew, and this is exactly what Gurdjieff told me: he awakens a knowledge asleep in us.

As usual, one must pay attention carefully to Buzzell’s texts. He is an extraordinarily gifted reader of Gurdjieff’s works.

Buzzell reveals in graphic detail the deep science in Beelzebub’s Tales.

Keith Buzzell’s startling insights into Beelzebub’s Tales make his new book, Reflections on Gurdjieff’s Whim, a must read for serious students of Gurdjieff’s magnum opus.  There is indeed a “dog” which is buried deeply in The Tales, and Keith brings it to light.

If one has been puzzled, after numerous readings of  The Tales, by (for example) the nature of Okidanokh, the assertion that the sun neither lights nor heats, the reason that suggestibility is man’s greatest vulnerability, along with a host of other issues, this book goes a long way to answering these questions, and gives us the key to a new way of looking for meaning in Beelzebub’s Tales.

The book demonstrates how Gurdjieff’s “whim,” to bring to mankind a new understanding of God, is accomplished by the reconciliation of Science and Religion.  When the great discoveries of modern science of the 20th century are brought to bear upon the cosmic scheme which is found in Beelzebub’s Tales and In Search of the Miraculous, it becomes clear how far ahead of his time Gurdjieff actually was.

“Buzzell reveals in graphic detail the deep science in Beelzebub’s Tales.”

Switzerland, June 29, 2012

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Jackson Bailey

Myself being such a visual learner, Keith’s foldout has become an almost indispensable tool in my study of the laws.  If I find myself with a question regarding the laws, usually I can find a diagram in the foldout that corresponds or relates to my specific question. I refer to it almost daily and I store it in whatever book I happen to be reading at that time; it’s my new bookmark.

Oregon, June 2, 2012

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Steffan Soule

This book [Reflections on Gurdjieff’s Whim] is great. I am now at the end of Chapter 8 and I find section 2 to be so great that I wanted to just stop and say Thank You! One of the most useful events that has happened to me in reading books about G’s Work  is confirmation for progress that I cannot seem to find in groups or in brief discussions. (And this has happened in big ways only a few times. This  is one of those rare times.)

Page 136 on to the end of the chapter suddenly helps me, because I know I am not insane or something like that. It just plain helps me to know that this Real I and Conscience interplay that has been deeply and constantly going on in me since a moment of cosmic something that “happened in me” in 1992 (years and years ago) fits clearly into the process definitely outlined by G. And how it all relates to Attention which I have personally verified countless times but still I am always a bit open to wondering: what am I missing? There is some doubt you know, even with real progress. I need to connect with others partly to validate my own realizations, for confidence. It’s an odd fact of life, even when we’re talkin’ higher stuff!

Oregon, May 15, 2012

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