Sophia Wellbeloved was a member of the Gurdjieff Society in London from 1962 to 1975. Her scholarly books include Gurdjieff: the Key Concepts, and Gurdjieff, Astrology & Beelzebub’s Tales which is an expansion of Wellbeloved’s PhD thesis completed at King’s College, London in 1999. 

 

Wellbeloved’s 1998 dated ‘Some References to Love’ is a response to Moore’s ‘Moveable Feasts.’[1] In this article Wellbeloved looks at some references to love made by Gurdjieff in his early talks published under the title Views from the Real World.[2] She also gathers some recollections of Gurdjieff’s first-generation pupils, from 30s and 40s, in which pupils not only experienced struggle but also felt being ‘in presence of someone  by whom they were healed, loved, and guided.’[3] Wellbeloved presents the change as a new way to restore receiving love/grace; in the absence of the Master, whose pupils not only experienced effort and struggle, but also salvific powers of love/grace transmitted through Gurdjieff. She writes:

 

This brief look at the above references to love gives evidence for an acknowledgement of the salvific powers of love as an important element in Gurdjieff’s teaching. We find this evidence in both what he said and how his pupils experienced him.[4]

 

In relation to the receiving grace/love from above, contrary to Moore’s Yogic/Indian association, Wellbeloved draws parallels with Christianity:

 

Mme de Salzmann is directing pupils to receive love/grace not from herself but from above. We can see this in Pentecostal terms as when after Christ’s death his disciples were not abandoned but received ‘the comforter’, the Holy Spirit. The parallel is strengthened because Christian iconography depicts the ‘cloven tongues like as of fire … [which] sat upon each of them’ (Acts 2 : 3, KVJ) as flames on the crown of the head, the visual imagery thus suggesting the reception of the Holy Spirit through the top of the head.[5]

 

In another article Wellbeloved highlightes that ‘there is nothing in his texts nor in the pupil memoirs which suggests’ Gurdjieff introduced this form of Work.[6] And finally, in her Gurdjieff: The Key Concepts, in which the ‘New Work’ and the ‘New Work Terminology’ are two of the explored concepts, she writes:

 

This receptive mode may have been part of Gurdjieff’s late teaching in the 1940s though there is no sign of it in the group meetings held during World War II. Receptivity is not referred to in beneficial terms in Gurdjieff’s writings, nor his pupils’ memoirs, all of which emphasise the necessity for struggle and effort.[7]​

 

Like Moore, Wellbeloved also suggests Bennett’s and de Salzmann’s teaching might have something in common about this enabling force, ‘termed ‘grace’ in Christian doctrine and ‘baraka’ by Sufis.’[8]​

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Although it remains beyond the scope of this study, to conclude this summary, it is worth noting that Wellbeloved draws attention to the 68ers counterculture as the context of introduction of the ‘new’ teaching, and the idea that the Fourth Way might be a tradition in the making.[9]

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[1] Sophia Wellbeloved, ‘G.I. Gurdjieff: Some References to Love,’ Journal of Contemporary Religion, Vol.13 No.3 (1998) pp. 321-332.

[2] G.I. Gurdjieff, Views from the Real World: Early Talks of Gurdjieff (London: Routledge, 1976)

[3] Wellbeloved, ‘Some References to Love,’ pp. 328.

[4] Wellbeloved, ‘Some References to Love,’ pp. 330.

[5] Wellbeloved, ‘Some References to Love,’ pp. 331.

[6] Sophia Wellbeloved, ‘Changes in G. I. Gurdjieff’s Teaching ‘The Work’,’ (paper presented at the 2001 Conference (CESNUR-INFORM) in London) https://www.cesnur.org/2001/london2001/wellbeloved.htm [accessed 15-11-2020]

[7] Sophia Wellbeloved, Gurdjieff: The Key Concepts (New York: Routledge, 2003), pp. 156.

[8] Wellbeloved, The Key Concepts, pp. 154.

[9] Wellbeloved, ‘Some References to Love’ pp. 322-323; Wellbeloved, ‘Changes’; Wellbeloved, The Key Concepts, pp. 153-156.

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