Wednesday, October 12, 2005
MEET GURDJIEFFIAN IAN PHILLIPS LAWRENCE
Ian Phillips Lawrence runs his own Gurdjieff Fourth Way school called The Institute of Universal Energies. You can see a picture of him here.
The Gurdjieff Internet Guide (GIG) interviewed Lawrence. Some of his answers are certainly interesting. Especially these:
GIG: From a very early age my parents told me I had insisted that I will become a priest. This never materialized as it always looked to me that I could not believe in the God I met in connection with the studies to become a priest. Did you encounter similar questions?
Ian: Not similar questions. It is clear to me that there is a 'gift for religion' - a sense that some people have and others do not. I have never had any doubts about the spiritual things I saw before me every minute of the day! However I have had an awful rough ride in respect of the 'Chruch'. It took me years and years to become dissatisfied with worship that concentrated only on 'the word'. Then I moved to that part of the Church that concentrates on the mystery of the Eucharist to the detriment of freethinking. I even trained for the priesthood in the Anglican Church - an excellent, though very limited and earthbound programme. It was meeting with the ideas of Gurdjieff that put me on the right track. My apprehension of religion was esoteric. Only the inner form meant anything to me. By equally good fortune one of my Work friends was a priest in the Liberal Catholic Church - which is dedicated to the esoteric and having no 'dogma' can concentrate on the Sacraments in a pure uncluttered way.
GIG: Did you become a priest?
Ian: After seven arduous years of training - yes. I was ordained in 1990 and have been given to (sic) opportunity to speak widely on Gurdjieff's ideas as part of the churches (sic) exploration of the esoteric Christian inheritance.
GIG: You live now in Liverpool?
Ian: Yes - it is the very positive result of the most severe demiurgic negative action I have experienced so far in my life. I was forced to liquidate all my assets in Carlisle but now have the advantages of managing the Liberal Catholic Centre in Liverpool - where I have had a group since 1988. In the past year The Institute of Universal Energies has been very creative - not least the re-establishment of the Diploma Course in Gurdjieff Studies in an email version!
Did you get that? A priest of the Theosophical Liberal Catholic Church runs a Gurdjieff Fourth Way school, and says his priesthood gives him more opportunities to teach Gurdjieff's ideas!
And he likes the Liberal Catholic Church because they engage in mysticism while rejecting dogma so that they can concentrate on the sacraments in an uncluttered and pure way. Like Taize?
