On Love and Psychological Exercises

An invaluable resource for students of self-development, especially those with a particular interest in the ideas of George Gurdjieff and Pyotr Ouspensky.

While editing a publication he cofounded, The New Age, A. R. Orage formed a study group of practicing psychologists—including Dr. Maurice Nicoll, one of Jung's foremost exponents—to study psychoanalysis. They reached the conclusion that the need in psychology was not psychoanalysis but, psycho-synthesis. Upon his introduction to P. D. Ouspensky, and the ideas of Gurdjieff, Orage informed his group that psycho-synthesis had arrived.

Orage wrote On Love after spending years working with Gurdjieff and the Fourth Way System. The three essays, "On Love," "On Religion," and "What Is the Soul?" explore personal self-development. These essays are still practical, timely, and important to students who seek a clear understanding of the self.

Psychological Exercises is the result of work with both Gurdjieff and Ouspensky and was written during the seven years Orage spent organizing Fourth Way study groups for Gurdjieff in the United States. It presents 200-plus psychological exercises designed to increase the flexibility and scope of our minds by working with numbers, words, verses, and images. These exercises pick up where conventional education leaves off, teaching us to hone the conscious and deliberate manipulation of our mental resources. Included are 15 essays covering various aspects of self-development such as: how not to be bored, economizing personal energy, acquiring intuition, controlling our tempers, and learning to observe and think.

Alfred Richard Orage was a British intellectual, now best known for editing the magazine The New Age. While he was working as a schoolteacher in Leeds he pursued various interests, including Plato, the Independent Labour Party and theosophy.