In Search of the Miraculous
From Cassiopedia
This book by P.D. Ouspensky is a sort of reference manual of 4th Way concepts and is therefore very frequently cited in this glossary.
The book relates events starting from Ouspensky's encounter with Gurdjieff in Moscow in 1915. Ouspensky describes his participation in the Gurdjieffian Work groups, recording concepts Gurdjieff gave in his lectures in a roughly chronological order.
Interspersed with introducing Work terms and practices, Ouspensky relates the story of Gurdjieff, the St Petersburg and Moscow work groups, their travels to Southern Russia and finally to Turkey and France, escaping from the chaos of the Russian revolution.
Most Work concepts are at least introduced in this book. Mouravieff's Gnosis is a good companion volume. Writings by Gurdjieff himself are generally more difficult and less explicit. Ouspensky's great contribution to the Work has been to gather the concepts into a relatively concise and structured package.
Many specific points of Gurdjieff's teaching are only recorded in writings by his followers. If they are found in Beelzebubb's Tales, they are often in a more difficult form requiring more familiarity with the Work for extracting them from the text.