Movements Traditions

Any learning process has stages. It requires the acquisition of new knowledge, the absorption and digestion of this material, and finally the application in practice of what has been learned in theory. In learning Movements these stages add up to a minimum of ten years.
It only makes sense to study with a teacher who knows the Movements, is willing to give the whole Movement and not just in fragments, and is able to stimulate the class in its inner work.
A transmission line is authentic when founded by a personal pupil of Gurdjieff. These pupils often co-operated with one another, at least in the years immediately after Gurdjieff s death, and amidst the labyrinth formed by these lines, the Institute Gurdjieff in Paris and the related Foundations stand out because of their historical bonds, their competence and the size of their organisation, and because all were led by their founder, Mme. Jeanne de Salzmann.
Several other lines, independent from the above-mentioned organisation, and smaller in size, can also be qualified as authentic because they too were founded or guided by direct pupils of Gurdjieff who themselves stood in his Movements classes.
From this last group the original Ouspensky and Bennett lines seem the most important, insofar as comparative study of Movements transmission is concerned, but these are by no means the only ones.
All these organisations differ widely. To call the Bennett line an organisation is a misnomer in the first place, because it consists of a varying group of pupils of John Bennett who have organised different sorts of activities, open to everybody, according to specific needs or circumstances.
The Ouspensky line is a relatively small one, while the Foundation, by which term I indicate the different international Foundations founded or supported by the French Institute Gurdjieff and the Foundations, which incorporate thousands of students. Despite their different sizes, these last two have in common that they could be qualified as hierarchic.