The fourth way to nowhere

The Fourth Way is not an invention of Robert Earl Burton, although Robert Earl Burton’s version is.  The Fourth Way emerged from the teaching of George Gurdjieff, an Armenian Greek, brought up in the cathedral city of Kars in what is now eastern Turkey. Gurdjieff, according to his own account, gathered around him a small group of seekers of wisdom, and came back from Central Asia with the System. Gurdjieff taught his version of the System in Russia where he was joined by Russian writer and thinker Peter Ouspensky. Whereas Ouspensky was an intellectual, Gurdjieff was rather an unashamed trickster (read for example The Material Question in Gurdjieff’s Meetings with Remarkable Men ). Gurdjieff claimed that he had learned the System from a mysterious monastery in Central Asia, the Sarmoung Brotherhood, which has never been identified. He presented what he had learned in a bizarre nomenclature that was probably of his own devising, in which there are traces of Greek and probably other lang

I remember particularly my last-but-one visit to Apollo. It was late summer. My days were spent volunteering: sometimes in the kitchen but more often moving chairs and tables for outdoor events in sometimes sweltering heat. I would also attend Robert’s events, not only meetings but also dining events.  For all of Robert’s events one would dress formally. There would be teaching breakfasts and teaching dinners at which smaller numbers of students were served excellent food by other students while listening to Robert talk. Relatively little food actually got eaten because it was understood that one did not eat while someone else was talking. Robert would do most of the talking, supplemented by occasional contributions from students when we felt called upon. Somehow a magical atmosphere of peace was created from the moment one arrived. A student would be handing out glasses either of sparkling wine or orange juice depending on one’s choice, and one would wait under the palm trees, talking

I first travelled to Apollo, then called Renaissance, within a year of joining the Fellowship. The property is a large area of hills and a few small lakes in a remote part of northern California. To get there the only way is by car, and it takes about six hours. I hired a car from San Francisco airport and used a map supplied by the car rental company combined with sketched instructions from one of the London Centre Directors. In those days there was no sat-nav. I passed over the Oakland bridge, on through low hills and then a long journey in the flat rather drab landscape which is mostly farming and vineyards. Then the landscape changed to the foothills of the Sierra Nevada, climbing up through hills laced with conifers and scrub, eventually passing Collins Lake shortly to reach the small town of Oregon House, then off the main highway towards the property. In those days it was traditional that Fellowship students from around the world would travel to Renaissance in September for the