Joseph Azize

Joseph Azize is a priest in the Maronite Catholic Church, an Honorary Associate, Studies of Religion, University of Sydney and for twenty-three years was an attorney for the Commonwealth of Australia. His new book Gurdjieff: Mysticism, Contemplation, and Exercises is published by Oxford University Press in 2020.[2] Azize’s other books include: How to Spot a Fraud, The Phoenician Solar Theology: An Investigation into the Phoenician Opinion of the Sun Found in Julian's Hymn to King Helios, John Lennon: Harmony Out of Pain, and George Adie: A Gurdjieff Pupil in Australia.

Like Moore and Wellbeloved who are second-generation pupils (from London), Joseph Azize is also a second-generation pupil (from Australia). He was a student of George Adie and Helen Adie who ‘after first meeting the work through P.D. Ouspensky in the late 1930's, became direct students of Gurdjieff in France in 1948, and in 1965, they emigrated to Australia where they formed and led a large Gurdjieff group.’[3] Azize’s George Adie: A Gurdjieff Pupil in Australia is an account of his teacher’s representation of the Gurdjieff Work, that is largely based on Adie’s essays and transcripts of meetings he led.[4]

In what follows, I focus on Azize’s critique of the ‘New Work.’ His critique touches different aspects of the Gurdjieff Work (such as ‘how Movements/Sacred Dances are taught’ or the revision Beelzebub’s Tales) which are beyond the scope of this study. Hence, I should also highlight, my focus on Azize’s critique is limited particularly to the themes that are directly related to the quiet work.

Azize reports that he first came across to the ‘New Work,’ in 1990, following Mr. Adie’s death, when Jim Wyckoff (from New York Foundation) started leading their group, due to the advice of Michel de Salzmann. He provides sample transcripts of their group meetings with Wyckoff that is followed with his critique of Wyckoff’s ‘overly passive dispensation.’ Azize concludes:

Jim Wyckoff played a large role in the destruction of Mr. Adie’s school.

…

This formula “not my attention but the attention” is a play with words. It is just not right: I can keep something of it, as Gurdjieff said, and as many have proved. One can change, one can coat the higher bodies, one can save one’s soul. In the end, although he did have something, Jim fulfilled his teaching: he could not do, he could not change, he did not know who he was, he could not even remember, and he died like that.[5]

Azize’s critique extends to Jeanne de Salzmann, as he asks:

Did Jeanne de Salzmann effectively Protestantise the Orthodox teaching and methods of Gurdjieff? It is an intriguing line of thought: the Gurdjieff exercises were no longer needed: one just called down higher energy. The old rituals with their rules and stately order were discarded … why were his exercises not performed without alteration?[6]

In another post he expresses his ‘opinion that the Gurdjieff exercises are of a far higher quality’ than the Zen-influenced ‘sittings’ de Salzmann adapted. He adds:

When Jim Wyckoff introduced the “new work” sittings, that tradition of the Gurdjieff preparation and exercises stopped.[7]

For details of Azize’s claims, my selection of free sources list is enclosed below. The totality of Azize's arguments in relation to quiet work can be summarized as follows:

In the post-Gurdjieff era Zen-like ‘sittings,’ are introduced which emphasize being passive, receptive, open. (see ref. to William Segal)
These ‘sittings’ not merely supplemented but replaced former sittings based on Gurdjieff’s highly structured, directional, transformed-contemplation exercises (including the morning preparation).
The changes in the ‘work in quiet’ are accompanied by downplaying of the study of ideas, both in the Study of Psychology (especially significant is the disappearance of the necessity of formulating a work aim and working towards that aim, efforts at finding one’s chief feature, efforts at coating higher being bodies) and in the Study of Cosmology, two fundamentally related aspects of the Gurdjieff Work.
‘New Work’ effectively displaced the former work, and there was no transparency about it. It was denied.
‘New Work’ is de Salzmann’s own Gurdjieff-influenced teaching. Although there is certain continuity there also is evidenced discontinuity with the original teaching. (see ref. to Ravi Ravindra)

Azize provides some nuances to his position in a recent blog post devoted to Moore’s ‘Movable Feasts’:

Before I begin that, I will state two facts. One: the term “New Work” is not pejorative, derogatory, or dismissive. It is a neutral phrase, based upon the observation that from some point in the 1960s, Jeanne de Salzmann began to introduce a “new work” which was to a degree in continuity with Gurdjieff’s, but also evidenced significant discontinuity. Two: I do not believe that there is nothing of value in what we might call “Foundation groups” as a whole; or that no individual associated with those Foundations has anything of value to offer; or that they use none of Gurdjieff’s ideas and methods. As I said, there is some continuity, and even sometimes great continuity. The value of the societies and the individuals, their ideas and methods, and their fidelity to Gurdjieff’s methods and ideas are matters of fact to be ascertained in each case. It would be as absurd to imagine that everything inside the Foundation groups is rotten as it would be to think that everything outside them is wonderful.[8] [my italics]

Azize’s last book, Gurdjieff: Mysticism, Contemplation, and Exercises, and especially three of his academic articles titled; ‘“The Four Ideals”: A Contemplative Exercise by Gurdjieff,’ ‘The Practice of Contemplation in the Work of Gurdjieff,’ and ‘The Readiness is All: Gurdjieff’s Art of the “Preparation” are substantial studies directly related to transformed-contemplation exercises given by Gurdjieff.[9]

The book is unique, not only because it provides a catalogue of Gurdjieff’s inner exercises (though incomplete[10]), but by relating them with the notion of transformed-contemplation (as a way of receiving and feeding on higher impressions, for the actualization of the possibility of evolution) brings a key component of the Gurdjieff Work, that is introduced in the teaching starting around 1930s, into focus.[11]

In the book, in the section devoted to Azize’s discussion about the ‘New Work,’ in addition to references to other insider-scholars, Moore and Wellbeloved, Azize also quotes from Segal and Ravindra (two figures who are close to Mme de Salzmann) to support his argument about the change of emphasis in the ‘sittings’ in the Foundation groups.[12] As he weaves his case around the theme of ‘Continuity and Discontinuity’ with the original teaching, Azize writes:

It could be that the use of Gurdjieff’s Transformed contemplation has disappeared from most Gurdjieff groups, due to the influence of Jeanne de Salzmann, for her teaching was not in full continuity with Gurdjieff’s.

…

There is no doubt both that she could be absolutely true to Gurdjieff’s tradition and that she did instigate changes, adding new practices and discarding established ones. The longer she continued, the less she used Gurdjieff’s Transformed contemplation, substituting her own “sittings” for it.[13]

What is particularly important from the perspective of this research is that Azize did not relate his arguments about the New Work ‘sittings’ (e.g. Zen-like ‘sittings’ with the encouragement and cooperation of Segal) with de Salzmann’s emphasis on reception of a descending energy from above the head. And in accordance he does not discuss its possible relation to Chakra Yoga (as in the claim of Moore) nor its possible relation to Christianity (as in the cases of Wellbeloved and Ravindra).

In the video interview, however, while talking about Gurdjieff's intentions for Work's impact on Life and the whole of humanity, and before highlighting the importance of the Group Work in that regard, he says:

Mme de Salzmann in the New Work does have something about the energy being received, the higher force coming down because the planet needs it. And that is good. Full credit for that.[14]

This implies, contrary to Moore’s criticism but similar to Wellbeloved’s position expressed in her 'Some References to Love,' to Azize’s perception, effort-saturated cosmology of the Work allows for an actualizable possibility for the reception of a descending force.

Selected free sources list from Azize:

..for a recent video interview (2020) see:

GURDJIEFF’S LEGACY AND THE ‘NEW WORK’

..for his review of the book posthumously edited using notes of Jeanne de Salzmann’s (2011) see:

THE REALITY OF BEING

..for Azize’s earlier criticism, including details about the group work with Wyckoff (2008) see:

DOING AND NOT DOING

WHAT DID GURDJIEFF LEAVE UNFINISHED?

TWO SYDNEY GROUPS

[1] Personal website: https://www.josephazize.com

[2] Joseph Azize, Gurdjieff: Mysticism, Contemplation, and Exercises (New York: Oxford University Press, 2020) [hereafter Azize, 2020, Contemplation, and Exercises]

[3] https://www.bythewaybooks.com/pages/books/22844/george-adie-joseph-azize/george-adie-a-gurdjieff-pupil-in-australia [accessed 09.02.2021]

[4] Joseph Azize, George Adie, A Gurdjieff Pupil in Australia (Richmond: By the Way Books, 2019 [2nd ed. 2015, 1st ed. 2007])

[5] https://gurdjieffbooks.wordpress.com/2008/04/07/doing-and-not-doing/ [accessed 12.02.2021]

[6] https://gurdjieffbooks.wordpress.com/2008/04/07/doing-and-not-doing/ [accessed 12.02.2021]

[7] https://gurdjieff2013.wordpress.com/2014/04/08/joseph-azize-reviews-gurdjieffs-early-talks-in-moscow/ [accessed 25.02.2021]

[8] Joseph Azize, ‘The “New Work,” James Moore, Pt I’ http://www.josephazize.com/2020/06/14/the-new-work-james-moore-pt-i/ [accessed 12.02.2021]

[9] Azize, 2020, Contemplation, and Exercises; Joseph Azize. 2013. ‘“The Four Ideals”: A Contemplative Exercise by Gurdjieff,’ Aries. 13, 2, pp. 173-203; Joseph Azize. 2015. ‘The Practice of Contemplation in the Work of Gurdjieff,’ International Journal for the Study of New Religions. 6, 2, pp. 139-156; Joseph Azize. 2017. ‘The Readiness is All: Gurdjieff’s Art of the “Preparation”,' Religion and the Arts. 21, 1-2, pp. 40-69.

[10] David Seamon, ‘Book Review: Azize, Joseph, Gurdjieff: Mysticism, Contemplation, and Exercises (New York: Oxford University Press, 2020)’ Correspondences (forthcoming)

[11] Azize, 2020, Contemplation, and Exercises, especially pp. 121-124.

[12] Azize, 2020, Contemplation, and Exercises, especially pp. 222-225.

[13] Azize, 2020, Contemplation, and Exercises, especially pp. 220-221.

[14] MindMatters, ‘Interview with Fr. Joseph Azize: Gurdjieff's Legacy and the 'New Work',’ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ve7j-rGd0SU[accessed 12.02.2021] starting from (57.00)