Our Lineage
The Gurdjieff work is a living oral tradition. Gurdjieff wrote his series All and Everything in which he explains and transmits the cosmology, psychology, laws, and some practices which characterize “the Work;” yet the Gurdjieff tradition remains essentially a direct teaching transmitted through direct experience. Conditions in which to make the needed efforts to awaken and struggle with one’s automatism, to see oneself in moments, to find stillness, to open, eventually to become a conduit for the higher, are the living form of the Gurdjieff Work. It is through this practical work in the moment, over time, that awakening and transformation occur. It is through this living work acting on one, that real change occurs. Lineage is important in our tradition, as in so many authentic spiritual traditions, because the Gurdjieff Work depends upon a chain of seekers, each a little farther along the way than the next, sharing with those who come a little after. Likewise, the newer people serve to feed and enliven the work of their group leaders or elders. Through genuine Work, something very fine becomes possible to taste and, in moments, to allow.
Before he died, Mr. Gurdjieff selected those he trusted to carry on his work. Madame Jeanne de Salzmann continued the Work on an international scale from her center in France and maintained the direction of all the groups world-wide. Under her, Henry John Sinclair, known to us as Lord Pentland, assumed responsibility for work in North America.
Mr. John Fuchs and the Foundation in Denver
Our group in Denver was formed when Lord Pentland asked Mr. John Fuchs to begin a group in Colorado. John moved to Denver with his wife and began holding meetings in his home with a small group of people, originally known as the Denver Gurdjieff Group. Under Mr. Fuchs’ direction, the Denver group has grown into four subgroups with a bimonthly reading group. We have established our own study house near downtown Denver, where we hold meetings, sittings, days and weekends of intensive practical work, and study Movements in conjunction with neighboring groups in a Movements hall we built on our own property.
THE GURDJIEFF FOUNDATIONS
The Institute Gurdjieff is centered in France. In the U.S.A., Foundation groups associate with the Gurdjieff Foundations of New York and California, which safeguard and transmit the overall integrity of the tradition, the Movements, coordination among local groups, and hold intensive work periods for those in Foundation groups throughout the country. Among the most senior people are still a few who knew or worked with Gurdjieff and many who worked for decades with Mme. De Salzmann and Lord Pentland. The Gurdjieff Colorado Foundation is affiliated with the Gurdjieff Foundation of New York as well as the Gurdjieff Foundation of California.