It would be great to see this published in book form, perhaps together with the original version of The Struggle of the Magicians. The document following is found in “Reel 4 of 5” from the Jean Toomer papers at the Beinecke Library at Yale.

Page 677 reads: “No. 1. G. Gurdjieff’s Institute for the Harmonious Development of Man.” Main Branch: France Fontainebleau (Formerly Chateau de Prieure).” The text begins at p. 679 [=1]:

“The Institute for the Harmonious Development of Man by the G. I. Gurdjieff system is practically the continuation of the Society that went under the name of the “Seekers after Truth.” This Society was founded in 1895 by a group of various specialists, including doctors, archaeologists, priests, painters, etc., whose aim was to study in close collaboration so-called supernatural phenomena, in which each of them was interested from a particular point of view.

During the existence of the Society, its members undertook many very difficult journeys, mostly in Persia, Afghanistan, Turkestan, Thibet (sic), India, but also in other countries. They also undertook a good deal of work of various descriptions in connection with their object, which involved much labour and organisation.

Throughout the period of travel and work many of the Society’s members lost their lives, while others from time to time abandoned the task, and only a small number returned to Russia in 1913, under the leadership of Mr Gurdjieff.

Their first stop was at Tashkent, but Mr Gurdjieff subsequently set up his headquarters in Moscow with the intention of arranging the material that had been collected and of putting to practical use such of it as was adapted to the purpose.

A course of lectures given by Mr Gurdjieff resulted in a number of men of science, representing all branches, rallying round him, and the number of people interested in his ideas began rapidly to increase.

He then resolved to give effect to the plan that he had long entertained of founding a training establishment under the name [680=2] of the “Institute for the Harmonious Development of Man” for the study of his ideas and in order to put into practice his system of training.

But the war and the subsequent events in Russia hindered this plan and, being compelled by circumstances to leave Moscow, he traveled from country to country and at last settled in Europe.

Notwithstanding the enormous difficulties arising out of the events of recent years, Mr Gurdjieff nevertheless contrived to organise several scientific expeditions and to form groups in various cities with a programme for the study of the theoretical part of the work.

The site he had long been looking for was at last found in France, at Fontainebleau, near Paris, where Mr. Gurdjieff in 1922 acquired by purchase the old chateau called Le Prieuré, and where he founded a permanent centre of the Institute according to his original plan.

Although the period of organisation is not yet complete, the main branch of the Institute in all countries is not far short of 5,000, of all nationalities and religions.

The Institute divides its adherents into two categories:

1) Those who are interested in the ideas of the Institute, on the information already acquired, and

2) Those who wish to be trained according to the Institute’s own ideas.

The Gurdjieff Institute’s system of harmonious training is based upon conclusions arising out of the theses set out below.

Owing to the conditions of modern life, man has departed from his original type, that is to say from the type he should have become by virtue of his surroundings: place, society and culture in which he was born and nurtured.

By their very nature, these conditions marked out for man [681=3] the paths of development and the final normal type to which he should have attained. The civilisation of our time, with its unlimited means for extending its influence, has wrenched man from the normal conditions in which he should be living. It is true that civilisation has opened up for man new paths in the domains of knowledge, science and economic life, and thereby enlarged his world perception. But, instead of raising him to a higher all-round level of development, civilisation has developed only certain sides of his nature to the detriment of other faculties, some of which it has destroyed altogether. Civilisation has robbed man of the natural advantages of his type, without at the same time providing him with what was needed for the harmonious development of a new type. And from an individually finished man, normally adapted to the nature and the environment in which he was placed and which created him, civilisation has produced a being, torn from his element, unfitted for life, and a complete stranger to all the conditions of his present mode of existence.

That is the stand taken, with the aid of psycho-analysis, by the psychological system of Mr. Gurdjieff, which proves experimentally that modern man’s world perception and his own mode of living are not the conscious expression of his being taken as a complete whole. Quite on the contrary, they are only the unconscious manifestation of one or another part of him.

From this point of view our psychic life, both as regards our world perception and our expression of it, fail to present an unique and indivisible whole, that is to say a whole acting both as a common repository of all our perceptions and as the source of all our expressions. On the contrary, it is divided into three separate entities, which have nothing to do with one another, but are distinct both as regards their functions and their constituent substances.

These three entirely separate sources of the intellectual, emotional and instinctive or moving life of man, each taken in the sense of the whole set of functions proper to them, are called by the system under notice the thinking, the emotional and the moving centres.

Every really conscious perception and expression of man must be the result of the simultaneous and co-ordinated working of all three centres, each of which must fulfill its share of the whole task, i.e. furnish its quota of associations. A complete apper[682=4]ception in any given case is possible only if all three centres work together. But, owing to many disturbing influences affecting modern man, the working of the psychic centres is almost disconnected. Consequently his intellectual, emotional and instinctive or moving functions fail to complete and correct one another, but, on the contrary, they travel along different roads which very rarely meet, and thus allow of very few moments of consciousness.”

To be continued