person in constant danger of assasination, the Christian way, on racks and meat hooks. It marked the end of learning and spiritual fulfillment as so called pagans became the fodder that even the Saracens would have never contemplated. But by then, the essence of power was in the destruction of the knowledge released and Templarism like Sufism not only went underground, but suffered persecution in the name of the gentle Jesus who influenced Ghandi to achieve his pacificistic goal.
Sufism, or the cult of knowledge as it has been referred to, has many facets and few have been able to apply it to modern living as well as the Caucasian Mountains adept, George Gurdjieff, who spent the major part of his life in pursuit of it. His now legendery Priories in France and Britain, displaced the mediocrity of the early spirtualists and pseudo mystiques like Annie Bessant and Blavatsky. These and a great many more had captured the imagination of a public thirsting for answers to the mysteries of life. Like all good religious enthusiasts, the people with money surplus and modern comforts could not but turn to the paternalistic approach to the less equipped. This needed the mystique of saintliness and there were many at hand who could give them that. The need to establish a reason for living in opulence and little knowledge also brought in all the charlatans into their splendid lounges, to fill the gaps. Gurdjieff however was probably one of the very few who genuinely wished to apply his knowledge of the human psyche in pursuit of the happiness and sense of destiny that careful discipline could produce. In this context he was successful in attracting great talent and left his doctrines