Idiots in Paris: Diaries of J.G. Bennett and Elizabeth Bennett, 1949

In the few months before his death in Paris on October 29th, 1949, Gurdjieff’s flat in the Rue des Colonels Rénard became the centre of his teaching. Followers of his ideas came to be with him at his table. They came to work – but in a way they could not expect. At the centre of what happened were the meals with their extraordinary rituals. Of these rituals, perhaps the most significant was the one known as the ‘toast of the idiots’. The ‘science of idiotism’ that Gurdjieff taught portrayed the whole human situation and the hazards of attaining liberation. Day after day, Elizabeth Bennett sat with Gurdjieff, often as ‘Director’, having the task of declaring the right toast at the correct moment and proposing the health of corresponding individuals. Her observations are meticulously recorded in these diaries and woven together with J.G. Bennett’s own commentary. The record of Mr. Bennett’s struggles are a teaching in itself. There are few explanations, because this is how it really was. We are afforded a unique glimpse into the methods of a Master and much that can shatter our illusions about the nature of the spiritual life. Gurdjieff subtly revealed his mission to those who could know it. To each he gave according to capacity, never failing to strike at the very roots of self-deception in his followers. Elizabeth Bennett was born in 1918, and died 1991. The present work is a direct transcript of a diary she kept during the last 3 months of Gurdjieff's life in 1949. A fuller account of her own life is provided in her memoirs, entitled "My Life: J.G. Bennett and G.I. Gurdjieff" written in the years before her own death. Although she taught many people in her later years, she refused the title of teacher and taught by the example of humility, courage and common sense in the hard and demanding path she chose for herself.