"Not have patriotism . . ."
Gurdjieff spoke English as a second language. His direct quote came from transcriptions of Gurdjieff's Paris group during World War II, courtesy of Fritz Peter's book Gurdjieff Remembered (pp. 92-93). The passage was recently quoted (p. 277) in William Patrick Patterson’s new book Voices in the Dark: Esoteric, Occult and Secular Voices in Occupied Paris, 1940-44 (Fairfax, MA: Arete Communications, 2001). Patterson also quotes it (pp. 198-199) in Struggle of the Magicians: Why Uspenskii Left Gurdjieff (Fairfax, MA: Arete Communications, 1997).

". . . bookmark 'viral marketing' . . ."
Marketeers began applying Richard Dawkins's concept of the meme (a cultural unit of information) in the mid-1990s, after Douglas Rushkoff published Media Virus (New York: Basic Books, 1995). Rushkoff's book spawned a field called 'viral marketing' (derivative authors include Richard Brodie, Seth Godin and Steve Jurvetson). Osama bin Laden used the technique by creating video-taped messages. The line specifically refers to the practice, by the US-based Fellowship of Friends, of leaving 'Gurdjieff-Ouspensky Center' bookmarks in books. This runs counter to the tradition's austere secrecy. More information is available in William Patrick Patterson's book Taking With the Left-Hand (Fairfax, MA: Arete Communications, 1998).

". . . conscious labour and voluntary suffering undertaken . . ."
Gurdjieff was a precursor to the Frankfurt School in criticising Western consumerism and role-identification. He contended, like Oswald Spengler, that Western culture was in a period of macrohistorical transition. The automatic thinking and role-identification of this era helped 'seed' dehumanising military-information systems after World War II (notably operations research and management by objectives). Two methods that Gurdjieff taught to escape this existentialist hell were 'conscious labours' (psychological ordeals) and 'voluntary suffering' (influenced by the Russian Orthodox tradition). Both methods were codified in his 'action research' period.

". . . Gurdjieff 'the man' has been obscured . . ."
One condition of Gurdjieff's early groups (the Moscow, St. Petersberg and Essentuki period) were that pupils were not allowed to take notes. Only after Gurdjieff's death did first-hand accounts appear of his personality and teaching style. Because he burned his personal papers in the 1930s and allegorised his early search (the Seekers After Truth), Gurdjieff 'the man' has been obscured. His birth-date ranges from 1866 to 1877. The period from 1901 to 1911 is unaccounted for by biographers. Some biographers have suggested that he was following the Way of Blame (the Malamati Path in Islam), and that he constructed fake identities to challenge students. Less charitable biographers have 'read' this as charlatanism.

". . . Gurdjieff is not only unknown. Perhaps he is also unknowable."
The comment refers to Gurdjieff's mystification of facts concerning his life, and is also a commentary on how, after Gurdjieff's death, some pupils began to seek the source of his teachings and investigated other spiritual traditions (notably Russian Orthodox Christianity and Muslim-influenced Sufism).

". . . the wrong form . . ."
The Russian journalist and mathematician Pyotr Ouspensky/Uspenskii, regarded as the most 'accessible' of Gurdjieff's pupils, warned that his ideas would undergo devolution. This occurred because of fragmentation between Gurdjieff's pupils, who each became obsessed with an idee fixe at the expense of the whole, and of derivative groups that have flourished using Gurdjieff's name to attract devotees (Gurdjieff actively discouraged 'guru' worship). Two examples of this are Ouspensky's ideas on "negative thinking" and Gurdjieff's 1916 description of the Enneagram symbol, a precursor to systems tools, which was 'dumbed down' in the 1970s as a Californian pop psychology fad. Claude Shannon's work on Information Theory (signal/noise), the Whorff/Sapir hypothesis in Linguistics (the language and syntax define the context/scope of thoughts) and the "knowledge-doing" gap are comparable perspectives. Peace activists need to thoroughly investigate their influences and to appreciate that the meaning of ideas can change according to cultural context, historical period and the existential problems being faced. Two parallel examples are Krishnamurti's disavowal of his 'World Teacher' status in the Theosophical tradition and Ken Wilber's critique of how the Avatar/Guru tradition is perceived in the West.

". . . ecologies of mind . . ."
A reference to the work of systems anthropologist and cyberneticist Gregory Bateson, whose book Steps to an Ecology of Mind (New York: Ballantine Books, 1972) anticipated Richard Dawkins' concept (p. 192, pp. 210-212), in The Selfish Gene (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989), of the meme (cultural unit of information). Gurdjieff came across the "chain-effect" of social suggestion during his studies of hypnosis.

". . . a state of associative experience . . ."
Peace Studies may undergo the ossification that any discourse faces. Self-awareness, a critical attitude, and the ability to deconstruct people and institutions is helpful.

". . . to do . . ."
Gurdjieff uses the word 'do' in a specific sense; he contended that people needed to test his hypotheses for themselves and not simply accept them. Ouspensky taught basic disassociation exercises (watching emotional states or a watch) to create an external observer of the 'I'. Gurdjieff's hypotheses can be verified by contemplative or meditative practices such as the Christian Prayer of the Heart and the Muslim dikr.

". . . Gurdjieff likened human existence to living under laws . . ."
This paragraph summarises key concepts of Gurdjieff's philosophy (as presented by Ouspensky) that consist of several hundred pages of group notes. The cosmological Law of Three, Law of Seven and Law of Octaves can be found throughout Christian and Renaissance thought, and were precursors to systems theory (relevant to Peace Studies). Gurdjieff focused on unconscious attitudes such as fame, procrastination and social judgment (all mentioned in the paragraph's final sentence).