I am pleased to say that a second edition of Boris Ferapontoff’s Constantinople Notes  has been published. It is available from By the Way Book:

https://www.bythewaybooks.com/pages/books/26530/boris-ferapontoff/constantinople-notes-on-the-transition-to-man-number-4

The few typographical errors have been corrected, but best of all, there is an index. When I prepared it, I did not think an index would be necessary, given the fulness of the Table of Contents. But the more I used the book, the more I realised its richness, and to help me better access that, I had to produce an index.

I recommend them for anyone wishing to study Gurdjieff’s ideas: take just a small portion each day and ponder the ideas in it. There is a reason that these notes were made in the first place despite the otherwise absolute ban on making such jottings, and have survived. I think that Ferapontoff was being prepared to be a teacher in his own right, like Ouspensky. Someone as formidable as J.G. Bennett said that Ferapontoff, like his friend Ivanoff, “should have been points of expansion for the spreading of the ideas and the methods.” (Gurdjieff: Making a New World, 236)

This is a reference to the Ray of Creation which, representing a cosmic design, is true on many levels, including that of teachings. The teaching, to achieve its purpose, must grow through more than one point – after all, God did not create only one sun, one planet, and one moon.

The more I have used this book, the more I have been grateful to Ferapontoff and to his teachers.