Changes in G

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Changes in G. I. Gurdjieffs Teaching The Work

by Dr Sophia Wellbeloved (London)A paper presented at The 2001 Conference (CESNUR-INFORM) in London. Preliminary

version - Do not reproduce without the consent of the author

Abstract

Gurdjieff (1866?-1949) changed his teachings form to accord with contemporary

interests: cosmological occultism in Russia c1912 and writing his texts in literary Paris

of the 1920s-1930s. Thus change itself is part of the Gurdjieff tradition. After hisdeath Foundations were set up to conserve his teaching, however, from the 1960s there

has been a change from active to passive Work practise. Other recent changes suggest the Foundations may wish to ally themselves with established Traditions.

Gurdjieffs obscure spiritual lineage has allowed for the appropriation or absorption of

his teaching by those claiming knowledge of its sources in, for example, Hinduism,Western European Occultism, Sufism, Theosophy, or Orthodox Christianity. Others

seek to give the Work a contemporary expression, most notably via Gurdjieffsenneagram which has become the enneagram of personality utilised in popular

psychology, therapies, and business studies.

Introduction

Gurdjieff was born 1866/70? and died in Paris in 1949. He taught that human beings

have no central I, are asleep and need to wake up. His teaching addresses this problemthrough a variety of methods for the integration of mind, body and emotions.

Change is inherent in Gurdjieffs teaching because he both embraced and provoked

change; in relation to the needs of his pupils and also in accordance with contemporary

interests. [1] This has made it difficult for the teaching to be passed on in one form only,

and in fact the Work has fragmented into many streams. We will look first at how

Gurdjieff embraced change, adapting his teaching to contemporary interests; secondly at

how he provoked change; and thirdly at how these changes relate to the continuation of

his teaching after his death.

Changes in Form and Mode of Teaching

We will look briefly at two points, in Gurdjieffs long teaching career, which show how

he changed the form and mode of his teaching. When Gurdjieff began teaching in

Russia c1912, his cosmological teaching was given in occult terms, the group meetings

were held in secret, pupils could not relate what they learned to others outside the

group. This was in accord with contemporary interests because the occult revival was

strong in Russia, Theosophy and other Western Occult teachings were of great interest

to the intelligentsia in general and Gurdjieffs pupils in particular.

Gurdjieff is quoted as saying that he taught via occultism because it was a subject hispupil had studied, but that there is no need to use occultism as the base from which to


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approach an understanding of the truth. [2]However, if we accept Webbs definition of

the occult as anti-rational and anti-establishment we can see that Gurdieffs teaching

was occult, and whatever other changes occurred to the teaching, it remained occult for

the whole of his life. [3]

Later, when Gurdjieff came to France, the period he is probably best known for, heopened his Institute for the Harmonious Development of Man, forty miles outside Paris

in 1922, but this was only fully functioning for two years. During this time Gurdjieff

had a high profile life, within a matter of months he had the reputation of both charlatan

and magician, the Institute became a kind of tourist attraction and on Saturdays there

were demonstrations of sacred dancing and of magic. [4]

Then, in 1924, Gurdjieff made another dramatic change in the form of the Work and

began to put his teaching into a written form. This was also in accord with

contemporary interests because Paris was both an occult and a literary centre. In the

1920s and 1930s there were many English language writers in Paris and the two

interests, occultism and literature were intertwined. [5] Gurdjieffs texts reflect bothinterests, they contain many occult references and are zodiacally structured. [6] They

may also be defined in relation to contemporary modernist literary interests, in the

rejection of conventional literature, experimentation with punctuation, and romantic

interest in myth and the anti-hero.

The high profile period of Gurdjieffs teaching from c1922 - c1932 was important

because it enabled him to attract large numbers of pupils and because his ideas were

also spread by writers, for example: T. S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, Henry Miller, and Aldous

Huxley. This would not have happened had he continued teaching in the closed format

that he used in Russia. These changes show that Gurdjieff was willing to embrace

contemporary interests and to change the form and mode of his teaching accordingly.

Provocation of Change - Fragmentation within the Work

However, Gurdjieff also provoked change. If we looked at what happened after his

death, we can see that although he had united the groups of American and British

pupils, in Paris after World War Two, he chose not to form a secure line of succession.

At the same time he suggested to various pupils that they were the only one who could

carry out his teaching after his death and this was a provocation to schism. [7]

Although most of his pupils stayed with Jeanne de Salzmann (b.1889) who remaineduntil her death in 1990 the head of the Foundations set up to transmit and preserve the

authentic teaching, at least eight of his pupils, some sooner than others, formed their

own institutes or groups which carried on the Work outside the umbrella of the

Foundations. [8] Many of these groups, or those which have sprung from them, are still

functioning.

The life-myth, which Gurdjieff created for himself in his writings, has also been a cause

for fragmentation within the Work. He acknowledged that he drew his teaching from a

number of diverse sources, and although traces of Western European Occult traditions,

Christianity, Islam, Hinduism and Buddhism can all be detected in his teaching and his

texts, he left no information about his sources that we can verify. The obscurity and


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multiplicity of the sources from which Gurdjieff drew his teaching has allowed for the

re-fragmentation of his teaching back towards its possible constituent parts.

As a result there were, and are, strands of the Work in which it has been mixed with, for

example: Roman Catholicism (Rodney Collin); Greek Orthodox Christianity

(Mouraviev, Robin Amis, UK, The Church of Conscious Harmony, USA); Hinduism(the School of Economic Science, UK); Hinduism and Theosophy (Sri Krishna Prem,

Sri Ashish Madhava, India, Sy Ginsburg, USA). Gurdjieff did not provide a clear

lineage and so his teaching was open to appropriation by those who claimed to be in

touch with his teachers. Idries Shah, for example, said that he was in contact with

Gurdjieffs Sufi origins. [9]

But, while some of those outside the Foundations have sought to take the teaching back

to its origins others have sought to take it forward, making it in tune with the times,

arguing that this is what Gurdjieff himself would do were he alive now. Thus there are

the Gurdjieff Ouspensky Schools and The Fellowship of Friends, they operate

outside the Foundations, do not have a line from Gurdieffs pupils, and they doadvertise.

Changes to Work Practice introduced in 1960s/1970s in the Foundations

Although the Foundations were set up to conserve the Work, there is a sense in which

the teaching was irrevocably changed by Gurdjieffs death because pupils were now

without his charismatic presence. I was informed in personal communications that

Jeanne de Salzmann visited spiritual teachers in North Africa and India, researching

how to take the Work forward. Whatever she decided, she does seem to have made one

important change. In the late 1960s or early 1970s she introduced a new form of passive

and receptive Work, where the pupil received love, through the crown of the head, he

experienced himself as being worked upon, rather than actively working on himself,

(these changes were not introduced in London until 1980). [10] While we cannot be sure

that Gurdieff did not introduce this form of Work at the end of his life, there is nothing

in his texts nor in the pupil memoirs which suggest this. [11] All of these stress the need

for incessant struggle against passivity and sleep.

Gurdjieff reputation in relation to his pupils is mixed. He had much bad publicity during

his high profile time, often unfounded, which he did nothing to correct, he was a great

destabiliser of his own reputation. The Foundations, in wishing to preserve the teaching,

have focused on his role as a spiritual teacher. But to tidy Gurdjieff up is to deny theessential paradoxes that he himself created; in his self-presentation, his mode of

teaching pupils, in his theory which is inconsistent, and in his texts. [12]

Destabilising paradoxes, contradictions and anomalies are of value because they arouse

questioning and force the pupil to be active in relation to the teaching. These are

qualities which Gurdieff valued and it is clear from his writings that he was aware of

and valued the irreconcilable elements within his teaching. [13] As mentioned earlier,

Gurdjieffs teaching remained a revolutionary, occult, anti-establishment, anti-rational

teaching and this renders any aim to establish it as a tradition, or to conserve one

specific form of it problematic.


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There are signs at the moment that there is a change in feeling about the nature of the

Work. Terms relating to the traditions, meditation, spiritual teaching are now in use

by Work pupils, these were certainly not used in London in the 1960s when the Work

was presented largely as a psychology. This shift can also be seen in two quotations

relating to John Pentland, who was the head of the Foundation in New York from 1953

until his death in 1984. He is described, by a past Foundation member, as a man:

who understood the work and its need for a vehicle uncontaminated with the

thought forms of the time. He had resolutely sought to guard the teachings

against any and all deviation, so that it might be passed down intact. [14]

We can see that the aims of the Foundation, expressed in relation to preserving the

teaching, is very different from Gurdjieffs own approach where indeed he did use the

thought forms of the time and taught through them. The second quotation is from Roy

Finchs introduction to a book of Pentlands group meetings. [15] He refers to Pentland

as a spiritual director who is compared to Thomas Merton, among others. [16] This may

show the Foundations moving to establish themselves with the Traditions, or at leastlooking for a more public face than they have had up till now. The Foundations have

always followed the quiet mode of teaching of Gurdjieffs later years, they have never

advertised and so the number of new pupils have declined.

Changes to the Enneagram

However, the element of Gurdjieffs teaching which seems to have separated itself from

the main body of the teaching is Gurdjieffs enneagram which has become the

enneagram of typology or personality widely used in therapies and business studies.

Gurdjieff taught that his enneagram was a unique symbol not to be found elsewhere. [17]

However, Gurdjieff did adapt his enneagram which has a form and a numerology that

is connected with the Tree of Life and the zodiac. This makes its connection with the

enneagram of personality understandable; the points of the enneagram represent the

signs of the zodiac, or the planets. [18] Once again, Gurdjieffs decision not to reveal the

sources of his enneagram, opened the way for its appropriation by Oscar Ichazu at his

Arica foundation c1960. The enneagram of personality arrived, via Claudio Naranjo,

at the Eslan Institute and from there information was taken up at seminars in Jesuit

theological centres, especially the Universities of California, Berkley and Loyola

University Chicago, and thence on into numerous popular publications. [19] A web

search (via www. google.com) reveals that another religious teaching is forming around

the enneagram which involves a prayer practise termed kything. [20]

Conclusions

In conclusion we can see that the changes which Gurdjieff made in his teaching, the

inconsistencies and the paradoxes that he presented through the way he taught, through

his theory and his teaching texts, have opened the teaching to appropriation and

fragmentation. Formal and informal Work groups, some with lineage and some without,

groups which focus on past origins and those which focus on present adaptations, both

advertised and unadvertised now exist in Australia, China, India, Japan, Malaya, North

and South America and Europe in a multiplicity of expressions which continue to

fragment and reform.


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NOTES

[1] While the truth sought for was always the same, the forms through which he [Gurdjieff] helped his

pupils approach it served only for a limited time de Salzmann in Gurdjieff, G. I., Views From The RealWorld: Early Talks of Gurdjieff. (Views). London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1976, p. vii.

2. [2] Views, p. 14.

[3] Webb defines the occult as rejected knowledge, that is an Underground whose basic unity is that of

being in opposition to the established political and religious powers. Webb, James, The Flight From

Reason (vol. I of The Age of The Irrational). London: MacDonald, 1971 pp. v-vii, 120-21. Alchemy,

astrology, Hermeticism, Gnostisicm and the mystery religions are all forms of occult teaching traces of

which can be found in Gurdjieffs teaching.

[4] Taylor, Paul Beekman. Shadows of Heaven: Gurdjieff and Toomer. York Beach Maine: SamuelWeiser, 1998, p. 9.

[5] Taylor, Paul Beekman. Gurdjieff and Orage: Brothers in Elysium. York Beach Maine: Samuel

Weiser, 2001, p. 22-3.

[6] Wellbeloved, Sophia. Gurdjieff Astrology & Beelzebubs Tales. Aurora, Oregon: Abintra, 2001.

[7] Moore, James. Gurdjieff: the Anatomy of a Myth. London: Element, 1991, p. 288.

[8] Paul and Naomi Anderson (American Institute For Continuing Education, USA) John Bennett,

(Sherbourne, Combe Springs, UK and Claymont USA), Rodney Collin (Mexico USA), C. Daly King,

USA, Louise March (East Hill Farm, USA), Willem Nyland (Institute for Religious Development, USA),

A. L. Stavely (Two Rivers Farm, USA), Olgivana Wright (Taliesen, USA), from a diagram in Speeth,

Kathleen, Riordan. The Gurdjieff Work. London: Turnstone, 1977, p. 96, (first pub. USA: And/or, 1976).

[9] Moore, James. Neo-Sufism: The Case of Idries Shah Religion Today: A Journal of ContemporaryReligion 3 (3),n.d. pp. 4-8 and New Lamps for Old: The Enneagram Debacle Religion Today: A Journalof Contemporary Religion/ 5, (3) n. date pp. 8-11.

[10] see Wellbeloved, Sophia. G. I. Gurdjieff: some Reference to Love, Journal of ContemporaryReligion, Vol. 13, No. 3, 1998 pp. 321-332.

[11] see Anderson, Margaret. The Unknowable Gurdjieff. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1962;

de Hartmann. Thomas and Olga, Our Life With Mr Gurdjieff, enlarged edn. rev. by C. T. Daly and T. A.

G. Daly, London : Arkana, 1992 (first pub. Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1964). 1964,

Ouspensky, P. D., In Search of the Miraculous: Fragment of an Unknown Teaching. London Arkana,1987 (first pub. Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1949. Peters, Fritz. Gurdjieff. London: Wildwood House, 1976(Boyhood WithGurdjiefffirst pub.1964, Gurdjieff Rememberedfirst pub. 1965)

[12] Wellbeloved, 2001 pp. 65-73.

[13] Taylor, Paul Beekman. Decontruction of History in the Third SeriesAll & Everything Proceedings

of the International Humanities Conference, ed. H. J. Sharp and others, Bognor Regis, privately published1997.

[14] Patterson, William Patrick. Eating the I: A Direct Account of the Fourth Way - the Way of

Transformation in Ordinary Life. California: Arete, 1992, p. 348).


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[15] Pentland, John. Exchanges Within: Questions from Everyday Life selected from Gurdjieff Group

Meetings with John Pentland in California 1955 - 84. New York: Continuum, 1997.

[16] Finch, an academic philosopher and long term Gurdjieff student, includes Simone Weil, Baron von

Huegel [Hugel], Martin Buber, Frithjof Schuon in the list of spiritual directors with whom Pentland is

compared.

[17] (Ouspensky 1950, p. 287).

[18] Wellbeloved 2001, pp. 42-5. Ouspensky (1987, p. 378) shows an astronomical enneagram in which

seven of the enneagrams nine points are represented by the seven planets.

[19] Levine, Janet. The Enneagram Intelligences: Understanding Personality for Effective Teaching and

Learning. Westport: Bergin & Garvey, 1999, pp. 12, 18).

[20] References for and against kything can be found on the web, for: Savary and Bearne on Kything: The

Art of Spiritual Presence, a case against kything is given on the Catholic evangelist Eddie RussellsBlaze


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Pamela Travers, Gurdjieff, and Mary Poppins

Pamela Travers met Gurdjieff in 1938, while the first edition of Mary Poppins was

published in 1934 [6]. The equally famous Mary Poppins Comes Backfollowed in 1935[7]. Although Travers may have heard about Gurdjieff in the British esoteric milieu

before their personal meeting, this is far from being probable and any influence by

Gurdjieff is more likely to be found in the following Mary Poppins books (particularly

Mary Poppins Opens the Door, 1944 and Mary Poppins in the Park, 1952) [8]. Travers,

of course, is more clearly influenced by Gurdjieff in her non-fiction worksAbout the

Sleeping Beauty (1975) and What the Bee Knows (1989) [9], and in her non-Mary

Poppins fictional workFriend Monkey (1971) [10]. All scholars of Gurdjieff are familiar

with the entry on the Master authored by Pamela Travers for Richard Cavendish'

encyclopedia Man, Myth & Magic (1970) [11], and with the subsequent fascinating

booklet George Ivanovitch Gurdjieff(1973) [12]. Apart from placing Gurdjieff's birth

date in 1877 (rather than in the more probable 1866) [13], Travers' work still maintainsthe taste of a genuine Gurdjieffian experience, and is a good introduction to the Fourth

Way for beginners. The perennial popularity ofMary Poppins, thus, could become anopportunity to explore Travers' other works and her relations with Gurdjieff.

This is not, however, the only possibility. Although any influence of Gurdjieff is

extremely unlikely for the first two books of the Mary Poppins saga, the situation could

be different forMary Poppins in the Park, published in 1952. On the other hand, one

could apply to Mary Poppins the theory that Max Weber suggested for capitalism.

Although early modern capitalism, in Italy and elsewhere, could obviously not be

"protestant" or "puritan" many decades before Martin Luther and John Calvin, Weber

argued that capitalism had from its very beginning some significant "elective affinities"

with puritan protestantism. In time, these "elective affinities" (a concept Weber

borrowed from Goethe, who had used it in a very different context) would have

revealed themselves and forged an alliance between capitalism and puritanism [14]. I

argue that Mary Poppins had, from the beginning, an "elective affinity" with Gurdjieff's

thought. This was, of course, not entirely casual. Travers, from 1925 on, had been

introduced to Theosophical thought and to literary figures familiar with the

Theosophical Society, including George Russell and William Butler Yeats. The latter

was, of course, also one of the leaders of the Golden Dawn [15]. Although many authors

have insisted on Gurdjieff's uniqueness, a recent study by Paul Johnson -- controversial

but useful -- insists on what he had in common with Theosophy and a larger westernesoteric tradition [16]. The correspondence between Travers and Staffan Bergsten, when

the latter was preparing his bookMary Poppins and Myth (1978) [17], is particularlyinteresting. Travers insists that Mary Poppins is not onlya children's book but the

conscious creation of a myth. One could wonder whether Travers purposely led

Bergsten away from the Gurdjieff track, since the Master is never mentioned in Mary

Poppins and Myth. Bergsten, however, at least insists on what he calls the "mythical

method" ofMary Poppins.

I will give only three examples of these "elective affinities". In chapter 10 ofMary

Poppins we meet the animals of a zoo dancing the "Grand Chain" (a military dance, but

also -- as Bergsten knows -- a reference to the esoteric Great Chain of Being) guided bya snake, Hamadryad (the snake is common in Yeats and Travers was also an admirer of
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Blake). To the children surprised that the animals, left free, do not eat each other, the

snake explains that after all

"'it may be that to eat and be eaten are the same thing in the end. My wisdom

tells me that this is probably so. We are all made of the same stuff, remember,

we of the Jungle, you of the City. The same substance composes us -- the treeoverhead, the stone beneath us, the bird, the beast, the star -- we are all one, all

moving to the same end. Remember that when you no longer remember me, my

child.'

'But how can tree be stone? A bird is not me. Jane is not a tiger,' said Michael

stoutly.

'You think not?' said the Hamadryad's hissing voice. 'Look!' and he nodded his

head towards the moving mass of creatures before them. Birds and animals were

now swaying together, closely encircling Mary Poppins, who was rocking

lightly from side to side. Backwards and forwards went the swaying crowd,keeping time together, swinging like the pendulum of a clock. Even the trees

were bending and lifting gently, and the moon seemed to be rocking in the sky

as a ship rocks on the sea.

'Bird and beast and stone and star -- we are all one, all one --' murmured the

Hamadryad, softly folding his hood about him as he himself swayed between the

children.

'Child and serpent, star and stone -- all one" [18].

I would take a second example from Mary Poppins Comes Back, where each chapter

corresponds -- symmetrically -- to a chapter in Mary Poppins. Like the twins John andBarbara in Mary Poppins, the newly born baby of the Banks family ofMary PoppinsComes Back, Annabel, talks with a starling. Infant children in the saga of Mary Poppinsare in fact able to understand the language of the animals, but they forget after a few

months. In fact, they forget a number of other things, as we understand from the

following dialogue between Annabel, the starling and one of his fledglings:

"Annabel moved her hands inside the blanket.

'I am earth and air and fire and water,' she said softly. 'I come from the Darkwhere all things have their beginning.'

'Ah, such dark!' said the Starling softly, bending his head to his breast.

'It was dark in the egg, too!' the Fledgling cheeped.

'I come from the sea and its tides,' Annabel went on. 'I come from the sky and its

stars; I come from the sun and its brightness --'

'Ah, so bright!' said the Starling, nodding.

'And I come from the forests of earth.'
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As if in a dream, Mary Poppins rocked the cradle -- to-and-fro, to-and-fro with a

steady swinging movement.

'Yes?' whispered the Fledgling.

'Slowly I moved at first,' said Annabel, 'always sleeping and dreaming. Iremembered all I had been, and I thought of all I shall be. And when I had

dreamed my dream, I awoke and came swiftly.'

She paused for a moment, her blue eyes full of memories.

'And then?' prompted the Fledgling.

'I heard the stars singing as I came and I feld warm wings about me. I passed the

beasts of the jungle and came through the dark, deep waters. It was a long

journey.'

Annabel was silent.

The Fledgling stared at her with his bright inquisitive eyes.

Mary Poppins' hand lay quietly on the side of the cradle. She had stopped

rocking.

'A long journey, indeed!' said the Starling softly, lifting his head from his breast.

'And, ah, so soon forgotten!'

Annabel stirred under the quilt.

'No!' she said confidently. 'I'll never forget.'

'Stuff and Nonsense! Beaks and Claws! Of course you will. By the time the

week's out your won't remember a word of it -- what you are or where you came

from!'

Inside her flannel petticoat Annabel was kicking furiously.

'I will! I will! How could I forget?'

'Because they all do!' jeered the Starling harshly. 'Every silly human, except' --

he nodded his head at Mary Poppins -- 'her!'" [19].

Here, again, there is a quite obvious reference to Blake, but also to the Theosophical

scheme of the discent of the humans along the Rays. Gurdjieff is not far away if we

reflect that children are born with a pure essence in touch with the mysteries of the

universe, that will soon be overcome by a personality that will forget everything about

the true origin of the humans. In turn, the only way to overcome the personality is to be
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"different" like Mary Poppins: "She is the Oddity, she is the Misfit" according to the

Starling [20].

A third example comes from Mary Poppins in the Park(written, as mentioned earlier,

after Travers had met Gurdjieff). Here Jane and Michael discover that the real word is

probably less real than it may seem. While Jane is reading to Michael in the Park thestory of the three princes, Florimond, Veritain and Amor, the princes step out from the

book and start a real-life conversation with the children:

"'Don't you know us, Jane?' asked Florimond, smiling.

'Yes, of course!' she gasped. 'But -- how did you get here?'

'Didn't you see?' asked Veritain. 'You smiled at us and we smiled at you. And

the picture looked so shiny and bright -- you and Michael and the painted roses..'

'So we jumped right into the story!' Amor concluded gaily.

'Out of it, you mean!' cried Michael. 'Were not a story. We're real people. It's

you who are the pictures!'

The Princes tossed their curls and laughed.

'Touch me!' said Florimond.

'Take my hand!' urged Veritain.

'Here's my dagger!' cried Amor.

Michael took the golden weapon. It was sharp and solid and warm from Amor's

body.

"Who's real now?' Amor demanded. 'Tuck it into your belt,' he said, smiling at

Michael's astonished face" [21].

One should not jump to the conclusion that there is a clearly gurdjieffian element here

about the real word not being too "real" after all, since this is simply an inversion of the

theme of earlier Mary Poppins stories, where the children (and occasionally MaryPoppins and her friend Bert) may jump into a book or a picture. Bergsten thinks that one

source is a book by William Anderson about the story of the Chinese painter Wu Tao-

Tsz, of the T'ang dinasty (600-900 A.D.), who entered one of his own pictures,

disappeared and "was never seen again" [22]. The idea of an "elective affinity" between

Travers' "mythical method" and Gurdjieff remains however here particularly

fascinating.

We should, of course, resist the temptation of reading too much of Gurdjieff into Mary

Poppins' stories. In an interview which appeared in The Paris Review in 1982 theinterviewers asked Travers whether "Mary Poppins' teaching -- if one can call it that --

resemble that of Christ in his parables". Travers replied:
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"My Zen master, because I've studied Zen for a long time, told me that every one (and

all the stories weren't written then) of the Mary Poppins stories is in essence a Zen story.

And someone else, who is a bit of a Don Juan, told me that every one of the stories is a

moment of tremendous sexual passion, because it begins with such tension and then it is

reconciled and resolved in a way that is gloriously sensual".

The answer is clarified by the following question: "So people can read anything and

everything into the stories?". "Indeed" [23].

The Rhetoric of Fundamentalism

It would be nice to conclude on this sober note, but I would like to add a final comment

on the rhetoric of fundamentalism. Although new religious and esoteric movements

only amount to 1% of the general population in all Western countries, they have become

a convenient scapegoat for all kind of social trouble. The secular anti-cult movement is

mirrored, within Christianity, by a fundamentalist counter-cult movement that sees the

direct work of the Devil behind all "cults" [24]. Generally speaking, the activities of boththe secular anti-cult and the religious counter-cult movements have been less successful

than they normally like to believe. For many groups and private individuals, however,

the assault -- largely based on ignorance -- has been a source of unnecessary suffering.

The rhetoric of the "children in danger" has been often used in the anti-cult discourse.

Fundamentalist counter-cultists have been particularly active in "discovering" occult or

satanic meanings hidden in children literature. A case in point is Madeleine L'Engle (in

fact, if anything, a liberal Christian) whose award-winning books for young boys and

girls (particularly herTime Trilogy, which consists ofA Wrinkle in Time,A Wind in the

Door, andA Swiftly Tilting Planet) [25] have been accused by fundamentalist Christians

to carry sinister New Age and occult messages, not far from Anton LaVeys Satanic

Bible [26]. True, fundamentalists have been able to prove that L'Engle occasionally flirts

with esotericism and quotes Theosophical authors. But, once again, in the case of

L'Engle -- and countless other authors -- the rhetoric of fundamentalism operate by

confusing esotericism with occultism, and occultism with Satanism. My own adventure

withLa Stampa about Pamela Travers and Mary Poppins shows that this rhetoric maymake dangerous inroads into the mainline press. The latter, however, unlike its

fundamentalist fringe counterpart, is at least prepared to hear another side of the story,

and occasionally to correct its own errors. It would be, however, a mistake for scholars

and friends of esotericism alike to dismiss the dangerous rhetoric of fundamentalism as

merely stupid, and to underestimate the power of the popular press.

Notes

1. [back] Paolo Poletti, " Mary Poppins? Satana",La Stampa, June 6, 1995.

2. [back] See myIndagine sul Satanismo. Satanisti e anti-satanisti dal Seicento ai nostri giorni,Milan: Mondadori 1994.

3. [back] Paolo Poletti, "I bimbi nel mirino", interview with the exorcist Don Gabriele Amorth, LaStampa, June 6, 1995.

4. [back] See my "Mary Poppins esoterica",Avvenire, September 5, 1995 and my bookIl sacropostmoderno. Chiesa, relativismo e nuova religiosit, Milan: Gribaudi, 1996, pp. 293-304.

5. [back] Giuseppina Ciuffreda, "Mary Poppins non Satana",Il Manifesto, September 8, 1995.

6. [back] P.L. Travers, Mary Poppins, London: Gerald Howe, 1934.

7. [back] P.L. Travers, Mary Poppins Comes Back, London: Lovat Dickson & Thompson, 1935.
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8. [back] P.L. Travers, Mary Poppins Opens the Door, London: Peter Davies, 1944; Ead., MaryPoppins in the Park, London: Peter Davies, 1952.

9. [back] P.L. Travers,About the Sleeping Beauty, New York: McGraw-Hill, 1975; Ead., What theBee Knows. Reflections on Myth, Symbol and Stories, Wellingborough: The Aquarian Press,1989.

10. [back] P.L. Travers,Friend Monkey , New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1971.

11. [back] P. Travers, entry "Gurdjieff", in Richard Cavendish (ed.), Man, Myth & Magic: AnIllustrated Encyclopedia of the Supernatural, New York: Marshall Cavendish Corporation,1970, 24 voll., vol 9, pp. 1188-1189.

12. [back] P.L. Travers, George Ivanovitch Gurdjieff, Toronto: Traditional Studies Press, 1973.

13. [back] According to the seminal work by James Moore, Gurdjieff: The Anatomy of a Myth. ABiography, Shaftesbury (Dorset)-Rockport (Massachussetts): Element 1991.

14. [back] On the concept of "elective affinity" in Weber see Hubert Treiber, "Nietsche's Monasteryfor Freer Spirits and Weber's Sect", in Hartmut Lehmann and Guenther Roth (eds.), Weber's

Protestant Ethic: Origins, Evidence, Contexts , Cambridge-New York: Cambridge UniversityPress, 1993, pp. 133-159.

15. [back] See George Mills Harper, Yeats's Golden Dawn: The Influence of the Hermetic Order ofthe Golden Dawn on the Life and Art of W.B. Yeats, London: Macmillan, 1974; in general: EllicHowe, The Magicians of the Golden Dawn: A Documentary History of a Magical Order 1887-

1923, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1972.16. [back] See K. Paul Johnson,Initiates of Theosophical Masters, Albany (New York): State

University of New York Press, 1995.17. [back] Staffan Bergsten, Mary Poppins and Myth, Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell International,

1978.18. [back] P.L. Travers, Mary Poppins, pp. 172-173.

19. [back] P.L. Travers, Mary Poppins Comes Back, pp. 142-144.

20. [back]Ibid.

21. [back] P.L. Travers, Mary Poppins in the Park, p. 131.

22. [back] S. Bergsten, Mary Poppins and Myth, p. 64. The reference is to William Anderson,

Descriptive and Historical Catalogue of a Collection of Japanese and Chinese Paintings in theBritish Museum, London: British Museum-Department of Prints and Drawings, 1886. Bergsten

misspells the name of the noted historian of Japanese art as "Andersen".23. [back] Edwina Burness and Jerry Griswold, "The Art of Fiction LXXIII - P.L. Travers", The

Paris Review , 24:8 (Fall 1982), 211-229 (218).24. [back] For the difference see my "The Secular Anti-Cult and the Religious Counter-Cult

Movement: Strange Bedfellows of Future Enemies?", in Eric Towler (ed.),New Religions and

the New Europe, Aarhus-Oxford: University of Aarhus Press, 1995, pp. 32-54.25. [back] Madeleine L'Engle,A Wrinkle in Time, New York: Farrar, Straus and Cudahy, 1962;A

Wind in the Door, New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1968;A Swiftly Tilting Planet, NewYork: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1978.

26. [back] For a typical fundamentalis assault see Brenda Scott - Samantha Smith, Troyan Horse:

How the New Age Movement Infiltrates the Church, Lafayette (Louisiana): Huntington HousePublishers, 1993.
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