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Movements Traditions
If we, just as an example, want to compare these three lineages,
we need criteria for comparison. The following criteria seem
relevant.
Criteria for comparison - whether or not Movements are related
to the study of Gurdjieff's teaching as a whole:
- the number and type of Movements that are being transmitted;
- the relation between form and content of these Movements;
- to whom they are taught;
- whether or not whole Movements are given, or only fragments
of Movements.
Application of these criteria will quickly bring the strengths
and weaknesses of the different lines of transmission to the
surface.
Both the Foundation and the Ouspensky line teach Movements
only to members of their organisations, as an integrated component
of the whole teaching they are supplying. The Bennett line
experiments with short seminars, open to everybody, where
the Movements dominate all other activities.
The repertoire of the Ouspensky line consists only of the
27 older Movements that have been preserved, but not only
do they know them in full historical detail, they also transmit
them in their totality.
The Bennett line has a mix of some old Movements and several
newer exercises. They too teach the whole Movement, however
not with the same painstaking care for detail as demonstrated
by the Ouspensky line.
The Foundations have a true wealth of newer exercises at their
disposal, unequalled by any other existing lineage. However,
in Europe many of the older Movements are hardly practised
at all and are almost forgotten. Equally unparalleled as their
repertoire of newer exercises is their knowledge and experience
in exploring the inner content of them. The other side of
this coin is that they show a shocking disrespect for the
form of Movements by their inclination to teach fragments
only. Further, because of their size, they are in danger of
creating "specialists" for different areas of Gurdjieff´s
teaching, Movements being one of them. To become a "specialist,"
in whatever part of the Gurdjieff Work, means to suicide oneself
for the whole of it.
It is remarkable, and touching as well, to realise that the
three entities we selected all reflect, to this day, the historical
stage of the Movements at the time when they received them.

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