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G.I. Gurdjieff (d. 1949) remains an important, if controversial, figure in early 20th-century Western Esoteric thought. Born in the culturally diverse region of the Caucasus, Gurdjieff traveled in Asia, Africa, and elsewhere in search of practical spiritual knowledge. Though oftentimes allusive, references to Sufi teachings and characters take a prominent position in Gurdjieff's work and writings. Since his death, a discourse on Gurdjieff and Sufism has developed through the contributions as well as critiques of his students and interlocutors. J.G. Bennett began an experimental 'Fourth Way' school in England in the 1970s which included the introduction of Sufi practices and teachings. In America this discourse has further expanded through the collaboration and engagement of contemporary Sufi teachers. This work does not simply demonstrate the influence of Gurdjieff and his ideas, but approaches the specific discourse on and about Gurdjieff and Sufism in the context of contemporary religious and spiritual teachings, particularly in the United States, and highlights some of the adaptive, boundary-crossing, and hybrid features that have led to the continuing influence of Sufism.

In this article I present and discuss some of the literary aspects of G.I. Gurdjieff’s Beelzebub’s Tales to His Grandson (published in 1949) and analyze, in broader strokes, the reflection and residue in his work of oral and early literary cultures. Written in the 1920s, and revised into the 1930s, Gurdjieff’s 1,200+ page magnum opus draws significantly from pre-existing literary and religious traditions and stands in the liminal space between orality and writing in a number of notable ways. Not only is Beelzebub’s Tales told in the mode of a dialogue, between Beelzebub and his grandson, Hassein, but the text of the Tales themselves reflect an influence both direct and indirect from oral storytelling, popular culture, and early literary forms that were prevalent in wellknown, as well as lesser known, literary texts particularly from the eleventh to the fourteenth centuries. I first address briefly Gurdjieff’s own attitude toward oral culture and language as expressed in the preface to his work. I then focus on Beelzebub’s Tales and several points of correspondence with early textualizations of oral culture such as The Arabian Nights, Boccaccio’s The Decameron, and a notable example from the second century, The Golden Ass. Gurdjieff’s Beelzebub’s Tales stands in its own time and context between oral and literate cultures and employs and parallels many of the formal and cultural elements of these early textualizations in the same way that they did in their own time.

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Gurdjieff’s theory of art brings together several strands of thought expressed in his magnum opus Beelzebub’s Tales to His Grandson (1950). In particular, Gurdjieff presents art as a means for the transmission of certain ideas through history, and interpreted by properly informed individuals. In one chapter, Beelzebub’s grandson, Hassein, asks him about the meaning of “legominism.” Beelzebub describes legominism as, “one of the means existing there of transmitting from generation to generation information about certain events of long-past ages, through just those three-brained beings who are thought worthy to be and who are called initiates” (Gurdjieff 349). This article will first briefly consider Gurdjieff’s presentation of art, particularly as it reflects Gurdjieff’s notion of legominism, and the transmission of knowledge to subsequent generations. I will then focus on Ashiata Shiemash, one of the chief exemplars found in Beelzebub’s Tales that exhibits the potentialities of an authentic legominism. As I will offer, the continuing potency of Gurdjieff’s narrative is that it operates on both a deconstructive level, to destroy or wipe away the destructive notions, past and present, just as it creates a space for a more positive view of the potential for certain aspects of cultural forms, such as art and religion.