STRUGGLE OF THE MAGICIANS - Tapa blanda

This title presents the synopsis of Gurdjieff's planned ballet, The Struggle of the Magicians, which was edited from two extant manuscripts by David Kherdian. In 1914 a notice for the Struggle of the Magicians appeared in a Russian newspaper. It was aptly subtitled "Scenario of the Ballet," for it was never performed. In this surreptitious manner Gurdjieff had just taken the first steps in the founding of the Institute for the Harmonious Development of Man. The ballet would never be performed but it would figure prominently in the lives of his pupils for some time to come. Although there has been a great deal of speculation about this ballet, there has been no consensus as to how it was written, why it was written or by whom it was finally committed to paper. Nor do we know if Gurdjieff ever "wrote" it out himself, and if he did, what language he composed it in. In fact, none of this is important. What matters is that the text was preserved, and for those of us who were not there to receive the teaching from the Master, a different link is now created, and reading the words we are connected again to the man who gave us so muchfor he was, and continues to be, our example and our teacher. Cover art by Nonny Hogrogian.