Excerpt from my forthcoming book, “Meetings with Remarkable Kooks”
“If I had to choose a personal guru, or spiritual leader, it would have been Gurdjieff. He sold cheap rugs from the Far East to the bourgeoisie, and his penchant for forcing his vices on his loyal pupils is well documented. Initiation at its finest. Gurdjieff inspired a deep support and allegiance in his pupils – so much so that at several of his disciples’ gatherings he would have them smoking cigars, slamming vodka, and chowing on beef sticks. Gurdjieff presents this as his brand of awakening – the spiritual worth of clouding up the threshold between pure allegory and unexaggerated facts. Gurdjieff very simply took his worshipful neophytes on a journey straight into the abyss from whence they came. How they emerged on the other end of the beef stick was theirs alone to craft.”
Michael Theroux 
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