Beelzebub’s Tales to His Grandson

Description

A landmark exploration of the human condition with the goal of bringing self-awareness in one’s daily life

With Beelzebub’s Tales to His Grandson, G. I. Gurdjieff intended to “destroy, mercilessly . . . the beliefs and views about everything existing in the world.” This novel beautifully brings to life the visions of humanity for which Gurdjieff has become esteemed. Beelzebub, a man of worldly (and other-worldly) wisdom, shares with his grandson the anecdotes, personal philosophies, and lessons learned from his own life.The reader is given a detailed discussion of all matters physical, natural, and spiritual, from the creation of the cosmos to man’s teleological purpose in the universe. This edition of Beelzebub’s Tales to His Grandson–the first single-volume paperback to appear in English–restores the original, authoritative translation.Beelzebub’s Tales to His GrandsonFirst Book
1. The Arousing of Thought
2. Introduction: Why Beelzebub Was in Our Solar System
3. The Cause of the Delay in the Falling of the Ship Karnak
4. The Law of Falling
5. The System of Archangel Hariton
6. Perpetual Motion
7. Becoming Aware of Genuine Being-Duty
8. The Impudent Brat Hassein, Beelzebub’s Grandson, Dares to Call Men “Slugs”
9. The Cause of the Genesis of the Moon
10. Why “Men” Are Not Men
11. A Piquant Trait of the Peculiar Psyche of Contemporary Man
12. The First “Growl”
13. Why in Man’s Reason Fantasy May Be Perceived as Reality
14. The Beginnings of Perspectives Promising Nothing Very Cheerful
15. The First Descent of Beelzebub upon the Planet Earth
16. The Relative Understanding of Time
17. The Arch-absurd: According to the Assertion of Beelzebub, Our Sun Neither Lights nor Heats
18. The Arch-preposterous
19. Beelzebub’s Tales About His Second Descent onto the Planet Earth
20. The Third Flight of Beelzebub to the Planet Earth
21. The First Visit of Beelzebub to India
22. Beelzebub for the First Time in Tibet
23. The Fourth Personal Sojourn of Beelzebub on the Planet Earth
24. Beelzebub’s Flight to the Planet Earth for the Fifth Time
25. The Very Saintly Ashiata Shiemash, Sent from Above to the Earth
26. The Legominism Concerning the Deliberations of the Very Saintly Ashiata Shiemash Under the Title of “The Terror-of-the-Situation”
27. The Organization for Man’s Existence
28. The Chief Culprit in the Destruction of All the Very Saintly Labors of Ashiata Shiemash

Second Book
29. The Fruits of Former Civilizations and the Blossoms of the Contemporary
30. Art
31. The Sixth and Last Sojourn of Beelzebub on the Planet Earth
32. Hypnotism
33. Beelzebub as Professional Hypnotist
34. Russia
35. A Change in the Appointed Course of the Falling of the Transspace Ship Karnak
36. Just a Wee Bit More About the Germans
37. France
38. Religion
39. The Holy Planet “Purgatory”

Third Book
40. Beelzebub Tells How People Learned and Againt Forgot About the Fundamental Cosmic Law of Heptaparaparshinokh
41. The Bokharian Dervish Hadji-Asvatz-Troov
42. Beelzebub in America
43. Beelzebub’s Survey of the Process of the Periodic Reciprocal Destruction of Men, or Beelzebub’s Opinion of War
44. In the Opinion of Beelzebub, Man’s Understanding of Justice Is for Him in the Objective Sense an Accursed Mirage
45. In the Opinion of Beelzebub, Man’s Extraction of Electricity from Nature and Its Destruction During Its Use, Is One of the Chief Causes of the Shortening of the Life of Man
46. Beelzebub Explains to His Grandson the Significance of the Form and Sequence Which He Chose for Expounding the Information Concerning Man
47. The Inevitable Result of Impartial Mentation
48. From the Author

G. I. Gurdjieff was born in 1887 in Alexandropol. After studying with spiritual masters in the Near East and Asia, he founded the Institute for the Harmonious Development of Man in France.US

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