Gurdjieff himself is almost passe - a relic of the sixties and before - though doubtless he still has his acolytes, and those who take his teachings seriously enough to want to practice them, as well as his vociferous critics who cannot tolerate the possibility of the breadth of being that his life hints may be possible for a human to have. Magician or charlatan? There is no need to engage in that dispute whilst reading this book; one can simply be swept up by it instead. It is one of those books that doesn't just tell a story but creates an entire world. In this case it is the pre-industrial Central Asia of the late nineteenth century into which Gurdjieff was auspiciously 'thrown into' by birth; a unique historical confluence region of almost every major civilization that has ever existed, and not coincidently too the original birth-source of all the Indo-European races. Even today this area retains its hint of unfathomable antiquity and the most ancient of ancestral memories; it seems perfectly fitting that if there are hidden secret spiritual teachings to be had, they should be located somewhere there in that great expanse between the Caucasus and the Pamirs. And no one would seem more perfectly born to inherit such a lineage than Gurdjieff; just European enough to retain the critical detachment necessary to pass on those Oriental pearls rather than be totally absorbed by them. There is always a mysterious sense of predestination that is present in this autobiography. Without doubt the most 'remarkable' character is the author himself, but we are left with a clear sense of believability that a life like his could have unfolded as it did. In the entire book, and particularly the infamous final chapter, he confronts us at the very least with the notion that true mastery of life extends far beyond the merely spiritual.