Beelzebub's Tales to His Grandson is the first volume of Gurdjieff's three-volume All and Everything series, framed as the cosmic memoir of Beelzebub addressed to his grandson Hassein during a space voyage. Beelzebub recounts the development of "three-brained beings" — humans — on Earth across multiple historical epochs: their original capacities, the organ Kundabuffer implanted to prevent self-awareness, and the consequences that persist to the present. Embedded within this narrative is the core of Gurdjieff's psychological and cosmological teaching.
The prose is deliberately difficult. Gurdjieff designed it to prevent passive reception — sentences run for pages, vocabulary is partially invented, and the argument circles back on itself. Chapter 1, "The Arousing of Thought," addresses the reader directly to warn them what they are getting into. The book spans 48 chapters and 1,238 pages in the standard complete translation. Two English versions exist: the 1950 translation overseen by A.R. Orage and Gurdjieff's pupils, and the 1992 Arkana revision by Jeanne de Salzmann's circle. Which edition to read is itself a live intra-tradition debate.
In life never do as others do. Either do nothing—just go to school—or do something nobody else does.
p. 27 · Chapter 1, The Arousing of Thought
First lines
Among other convictions formed in my common presence during my responsible, peculiarly composed life, there is one such also—an indubitable conviction—that always and everywhere on the earth, among people of every degree of development of understanding and of every form of manifestation of the factors which engender in their individuality all kinds of ideals, there is acquired the tendency, when beginning anything new, unfailingly to pronounce aloud or, if not aloud, at least mentally, that definite utterance understandable to every even quite illiterate person, which in different epochs has been formulated variously and in our day is formulated in the following words: "In the name of the Father and of the Son and in the name of the Holy Ghost. Amen."
Contents
The Arousing of Thought
Introduction: Why Beelzebub Was in Our Solar System
The Cause of the Delay in the Falling of the Ship Karnak
The Law of Falling
The System of Archangel Hariton
Perpetual Motion
Becoming Aware of Genuine Being-Duty
The Impudent Brat Hassein, Beelzebub's Grandson, Dares to Call Men "Slugs"
The Cause of the Genesis of the Moon
Why "Men" Are Not Men
A Piquant Trait of the Peculiar Psyche of Contemporary Man
The First "Growl"
Why in Man's Reason Fantasy May Be Perceived as Reality
The Beginnings of Perspectives Promising Nothing Very Cheerful
The First Descent of Beelzebub upon the Planet Earth
The Relative Understanding of Time
The Arch-absurd: According to the Assertion of Beelzebub, Our Sun Neither Lights nor Heats
The Arch-preposterous
Beelzebub's Tales About His Second Descent onto the Planet Earth
The Third Flight of Beelzebub to the Planet Earth
The First Visit of Beelzebub to India
Beelzebub for the First Time in Tibet
The Fourth Personal Sojourn of Beelzebub on the Planet Earth
Beelzebub's Flight to the Planet Earth for the Fifth Time
The Very Saintly Ashiata Shiemash, Sent from Above to the Earth
The Legominism Concerning the Deliberations of the Very Saintly Ashiata Shiemash Under the Title of "The Terror-of-the-Situation"
The Organization for Man's Existence Created by the Very Saintly Ashiata Shiemash
The Chief Culprit in the Destruction of All the Very Saintly Labors of Ashiata Shiemash
The Fruits of Former Civilizations and the Blossoms of the Contemporary
Art
The Sixth and Last Sojourn of Beelzebub on the Planet Earth
Hypnotism
Beelzebub as Professional Hypnotist
Russia
A Change in the Appointed Course of the Falling of the Transspace Ship Karnak
Just a Wee Bit More About the Germans
France
Religion
The Holy Planet "Purgatory"
Beelzebub Tells How People Learned and Again Forgot About the Fundamental Cosmic Law of Heptaparaparshinokh
The Bokharian Dervish Hadji-Asvatz-Troov
Beelzebub in America
Beelzebub's Survey of the Process of the Periodic Reciprocal Destruction of Men, or Beelzebub's Opinion of War
In the Opinion of Beelzebub, Man's Understanding of Justice Is for Him in the Objective Sense an Accursed Mirage
In the Opinion of Beelzebub, Man's Extraction of Electricity from Nature and Its Destruction During Its Use, Is One of the Chief Causes of the Shortening of the Life of Man
Beelzebub Explains to His Grandson the Significance of the Form and Sequence Which He Chose for Expounding the Information Concerning Man
The Inevitable Result of Impartial Mentation
From the Author
Reception
The most demanding of Gurdjieff's published works and required reading in Fourth Way schools that descend from him through Jeanne de Salzmann. The 1950 Routledge translation (overseen by A.R. Orage and Gurdjieff's pupils) and the 1992 Tarcher revision differ substantially in cadence and chapter divisions; the choice of edition is itself a long-running intra-tradition dispute. Outside the Fourth Way the book is generally treated as nearly unreadable — an assessment Gurdjieff explicitly intended as a screen against superficial readers.
Frequently asked
What is Beelzebub's Tales to His Grandson about?
It is the first volume of Gurdjieff's All and Everything trilogy. Framed as a cosmic memoir, it presents Beelzebub—an exiled elder figure—recounting to his grandson Hassein the history and psychology of humanity across civilizations. The narrative embeds Gurdjieff's Fourth Way teaching in allegorical form, deliberately resisting easy summary.
Why is the book so difficult to read?
Gurdjieff designed the difficulty intentionally. He used invented vocabulary, extremely long sentences, and digressive structure to prevent passive reception. The stated aim was to force the reader into active, effortful engagement rather than allowing the text to be absorbed automatically — the same quality of attention his teaching demanded in person.
Which edition should I read — 1950 or 1992?
Two English translations exist: the 1950 Routledge version overseen by A.R. Orage and Gurdjieff's pupils, and the 1992 Arkana revision. They differ substantially in cadence and chapter divisions. Readers in Fourth Way groups are divided on which better preserves Gurdjieff's intention. The 1992 revision is more widely available in print.