Institute for the Harmonious Development of Man

The Institute for the Harmonious Development of Man in the Priory of the Basses Loges in Avon, near Paris, was founded in 1922 by Georges I. Gurdjieff Caucasian esoteric. It existed until 1932. Thereafter, Gurdjieff continued to work with various groups and individual students in Paris ( during the German occupation in the Rue des Colonels Renard ) and in far-flung travels in the United States.

The program of this esoteric school 's aim was to enable the students to a full and independent development of their human potential. Even before Gurdjieff in Russia and the Caucasus in a similar manner with students such as PD Ouspensky (who later separated from him ) and Jeanne de Salzmann worked. The form of this work was known as the Fourth Way.

In particular, the charismatic personality of Gurdjieff attracted more and more international artists and intellectuals, including the publisher and editor of the journal New Age epochal, AR Orage, the American architect Frank Lloyd Wright, the psychoanalyst Maurice Nicoll and the physicist and mathematician John G. Bennett.

In France at that time because was soon spoken of the "Forest Philosophers ", since the Institute was in a great forest near Paris, and from there invaded repeatedly dazzling stories to the public. For example, the case of the New Zealand writer Katherine Mansfield was scandalized that their last sought refuge in a moribund state at Gurdjieff and soon died under controversial circumstances in the Priory of their tuberculosis.