Between Two Worlds

A memoir of adversity, hope, and the value of the Gurdjieff Work James Opie’s spiritual autobiography is a story of continuous movement. Episodes of youthful right-wing politics, racism, and drug use move into resistance to the draft and Vietnam, and eventually connect with the teaching of G.I. Gurdjieff. Opie even enters the same line of work that the spiritual master maintained—becoming an Oriental rug dealer. There are travels to Iran and Afghanistan, and colorful characters as Opie plies his trade with distinction. Opie moves through several marriages and other personal turbulence. Fourteen years in a Gurdjieff center in Oregon come to an end in 1988 when Opie runs afoul of the motherly but overbearing leader of “The Farm.” But by then he has spoken with Madame Jeanne de Salzmann, Gurdjieff’s most devoted pupil who remained with him until his death in 1949 and for forty-one years worked to transmit his teaching and preserve the content and meaning of the Movements. Opie also learns directly from the leader of the Gurdjieff Work in North America, Lord Pentland. In the end, this memoir-with-Gurdjieff reveals how inner efforts and fortuitous help incrementally make a man more mature and serious, though still remaining a beginner.