This book is obviously a fable and uses the same allegorical format that Gurdjieff employed in his works. The pseudonym Rafael Lefort, an anagram for "A REAL EFFORT", is quite obvious and further points clearly to this.

Those who dismiss fables and their message because "fables aren't true" miss the point entirely. Readers, disappointed by not finding information and factual data on Gurdjieff's teachers in this book, are prevented from benefiting from the book's central message. Likewise, "4th way" followers, attached to their system, feel threatened by the author's basic asserion -- that the teaching of Gurdjieff was limited and had at best temporary value for real development.

I read this book more than 25 years ago at a time when I was immersed in the books of Gurdjieff and Ouspensky. Unlike some reviewers' protests, the book, which never mentions Idries Shah, did not point me in that direciton whatsoever (I didn't discover that author until years later), so hardly a comercial for the man. The average reader wouldn't get this at all, and it is but the usual sort of claim perpetuated in 4th Way circles, despite Shah's practice of rejecting most applicants (including many Gurdjieffians). However, what this book did provide me at the time was a sensibility or counterbalance in assessing the Gurdjieff legacy. The tale simply reminds seekers to look elsewhere.

In addition, the book is peppered with surprising observations -- from the underlying enneagon design of Baghdad to the analysis of such terms as "kundabuffer"-- which made the reading lively. Other insights and perspectives offered were part of the book's corrective impact, and I took the one-dimensional flavor of the book's characters and conversations as serving this overall function. Certainly, I wouldn't expect this or any work to "uncover" the missing "facts" of Gurdjieff's life and training when Gurdjieff himself avoided disclosing that and went out of his way to obscure many details. Yet some of his followers persist in trying to correlate dates or comb through biographies for inaccuracies, none of which is ultimately useful unless one is in the museum business.

Whether or not Shah (or someone connected to him) wrote this needn't concern everybody not obsessed with conspiracy theories. I would recommend this book for those who can absorb a different perspective and who may welcome the reassurance that an intact Teaching survives and is accessible to those who can "empty the glass."