John G. Bennett, Witness to Death and Resurrection, my study of John G. Bennett’s mystical experiences, and the practical results he harvested from them, is now available for ordering, from By the Way Books, and possibly elsewhere. It is published by Red Elixir (Monkfish), the same firm which publishes Cynthia Bourgeault’s Mystical Courage, another valuable book.

John G. Bennett, Witness to Death and Resurrection is, I believe, more accessible than my study Gurdjieff: Mysticism, Contemplation, and Exercises. It should also shine another light on that earlier book. At the risk of appearing to praise myself, I think these books present, in a systematic manner, some of the fresh perspectives which Gurdjieff and Bennett discovered. I am sure others can improve on my work, but if these books stimulate people to do so, I will be among the first to benefit from that.

To put it in a sentence: in the first book I pointed to the prime value of Gurdjieff’s Transformed-Contemplation. In this follow-up, I show how Bennett was able to relate the Gurdjieff system and its exercises to the formation of higher being-bodies, by virtue of a combination of Gurdjieff’s help, and his own engagement with his remarkable experiences, commencing with his Near Death Experience in 1918 in the last year of World War I.

Apart from the intrinsic interest of Bennett’s 24 mystical visions, and the insights they provide into life after death of the physical body, the way to form those bodies, cosmology, Christ and Christianity, they show what Bennett learnt about the irreplaceable value of Gurdjieff’s Transformed-Contemplation, and of course, his ideas and other methods. If you have ever been puzzled by Bennett’s apparent apostasy to Subud and later to Idries Shah, I think this volume will provide a new interpretation, one which I would suggest is closer to the facts and takes account of the sincerity of Bennett’s lifelong search.

Assisted by the work of other scholars like Carole Cusack and Steven Sutcliffe, I place Bennett within the context of his contemporary world, and examine the truth of the many controversies which plagued his early and middle years. Here, my debt to Michael Benham and his indefatigable research is gratefully acknowledged at all pertinent points. I provide a good deal of material which is not otherwise available, and try to do so in a clear and systematic way. I furnish references for all assertions of fact, make clear where I am offering my own opinion, and provide a full bibliography.

I must make special mention of David Seamon’s extraordinary annotated bibliography of Bennett’s work. A personal pupil of Bennett, David generously allowed his bibliography to be printed as an appendix to this volume. If, as I hope, your interest in Bennett’s journey of discovery is whetted by this book, Prof. Seamon’s bibliography will be of substantial value.

Many who knew Bennett graciously assisted me in various ways: especially, Anthony Blake, George and Ben Bennet, Anthony Hodgson, and Gavin Perry. I have too many others to thank by name here, but they are listed in the book.

In other news, I am going to be one of the panelists at the Gurdjieff conference at Harvard in December. My topic is “Gurdjieff, Alchemy, and the Emerald Tablet.” My intent is to show how the Emerald Tablet can be taken as a short but powerful text, with practical application on the mystic path. So far as I can tell, mine will be the first translation of the Tablet from the older Arabic version into English, with a discussion of its meaning. If anyone knows of an older English-language translation and study of the Arabic, please let me know – I have Ruska’s 1926 German study.  I will say more about the Harvard conference when they put up their web site about it and open for registration. I hope that will be within a month. I understand the event will also be live-streamed. I think I can confirm that Professors Carole Cusack, David Seamon, Steven Sutcliffe, and Jon Woodson, shall all be speaking. There will be a number of speakers from the Foundation. It might best if I say more about it when all details are publicly available, so that the information I provide is unlikely to change.