Lord John Pentland: In Tribute: The Gurdjieff Journal—Fourth Way Perspectives

The Gurdjieff Journal\u2014Fourth Way Perspectives

Lord John Pentland: In Tribute

T

his year marks the 20th anniversary of the passing

of Lord John Pentland, the remarkable man Mr. Gurdjieff chose to lead the work in America. Under his indefatigable leadership as president of the Gurdjieff Foundation of New York, from its inception in 1953 to his death 31 years later, the ancient teaching of The Fourth Way, rediscovered, reassembled and reformulated for modern times by George Ivanovitch Gurdjieff, grew significantly both in numbers of students and the establishment of foundations in many of the major cities of America. Gurdjieff had told Lord Pentland in the waning months of his life: "You are like Paul; you must spread my ideas."

His Life's Mission Gurdjieff's directive became his life's mission and responsibility, one that he never shirked. He became an unwavering and instrumental force in establishing the teaching and in doing so had to bring together and reconcile many disparate elements. Always diffident and respectful of others, he was open to new ideas and approaches but his perspective was always clear: the need to preserve the teaching and protect it from the introduction of distortions. He had to employ all his considerable political skills and organizational ability to guide the teaching through the many societal and psychic innovations and disturbances of the 1960s and 70s. Not everyone shared the same level of understanding, of course, and so some viewed him as too doctrinaire and unbending. In February 1976 he had a heart attack. It must have been severe as a pacemaker was installed and he did not return to leading groups until the fall. For months everyone had anticipated his return and so one Sunday morning at the Foundation's estate at Armonk when the tall, thin and erect figure occupied the speaker's seat to open the day a breathless quality entered the room. What would he say after so

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many months? He spoke in an even tone as always, never excessively

The Gift of a Sheik's Hat In Lord Pentland's final years a student had traveled to Kars, the

Lord Pentland died in Houston from a heart attack on Valentine's





her and the word dead shot into the high vaulting of the church and echoed down on the mourners in the pews. Following her, Frank Sinclair, a longtime pupil of Lord Pentland's

William Segal, a close friend of Lord Pentland's and a senior group

With the Ouspenskys He was born Henry John Sinclair on June 6th in London and lived

Lord Pentland studied engineering at Trinity College, Cambridge,





thousand or so students Mr.

Lord Pentland came to America to serve on the Combined

Madame, she was always called simply Madame, was constantly

At Gurdjieff's Table





the time, he had come to the place in which he felt his nothingness.

The couple took seven-year-old Mary to meet Gurdjieff at his apartment. Wrote Rina Hands of this time: People are beginning to bring their children. They sit at the table with





Lord Pentland was with Gurdjieff for

in marketing British engineering

As a teacher the qualities he emanated of integrity, resolution and







sloping hillside by a large tree, overlooking a pond. It is a rose-tinted

Lord John Pentland 1907–1984 And his final message to all that would hear. Commit thy work to God. —William Patrick Patterson

Notes 1. You are like Paul. J.G. Bennett, Witness (Charles Town, W.Va.: Claymont Communications, 1983), p. 262.

[since renamed The Gurdjieff Journal ] Vol. II, No. 3, p. 1. 5. Madame, she was always called simply Madame. Lord Pentland, private paper. 6. People are beginning to bring their children. Rina Hands, Diary of





essays and book reviews. It does not, and will not, carry advertising. For its publication, it relies solely on the support of its readership.

Lord John Pentland: In Tribute: The Gurdjieff Journal—Fourth Way Perspectives

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