Assessing Borrowing: The Case of Gurdjieff

The history of esoteric currents cannot be intrinsically closed to scholarly research and query. Here, we shall examine just one question: that of methodology in examining the sources of esoteric systems. We shall take but one case study: that of Tobias Churton's recent book-length efforts to &...

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Nebentitel:Special Issue on Gurdjieff
1. VerfasserIn: Azize, Joseph 1957- (VerfasserIn)
Medienart: Elektronisch Aufsatz
Sprache:Englisch
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Veröffentlicht: Brill [2020]
In: Aries
Jahr: 2020, Band: 20, Heft: 1, Seiten: 1-30
normierte Schlagwort(-folgen):B Churton, Tobias 1960-, Deconstructing Gurdjieff / Gurdjieff, Georges I. 1872-1949 / Vierter Weg / Esoterik / Entlehnung
RelBib Classification:AA Religionswissenschaft
AZ Neue Religionen
weitere Schlagwörter:B Gurdjieff
B esoteric tradition
B Fourth Way
B cultural borrowing
B P.D. Ouspensky
B Gnosticism
B Tobias Churton
B Yezidis
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Zusammenfassung:The history of esoteric currents cannot be intrinsically closed to scholarly research and query. Here, we shall examine just one question: that of methodology in examining the sources of esoteric systems. We shall take but one case study: that of Tobias Churton's recent book-length efforts to "deconstruct" George Ivanovich Gurdjieff and his teaching. Like others before him, he traces diverse aspects of Gurdjieff's teaching to different sources, viewing Gurdjieff as a synthesiser, who disguised his debt to Western Esotericism and presented it as his "Fourth Way". How can such a theory be evaluated? Is it possible to draw up a canon of principles for assessing borrowing? In evaluating borrowing, does the whole of a teaching possess a significance over and above the parts? What is the significance of the phenomenon of borrowing? After noting some results of research on inter-cultural borrowings in ancient mythology, I make suggestions for sound methodology.
ISSN:1570-0593
Enthält:Enthalten in: Aries
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1163/15700593-02001001