sex gossip

I have heard a great many stories and a great deal of gossip about Gurdjieff's own reputed sexual practices, most of which were obviously untrue and seemed to stem from the fact that anyone who has set himself up as a leader, or who has a "school" of an unusual nature, must also, more or less automatically, have an unusual and varied sex life. The only somewhat unusual truth about this aspect of his life that I know to be a fact is that he did have children by a few different women to whom he was not married; a normal, if not legal, performance, and a far cry from the practices, rites, and orgies which I have heard ascribed to him.

Even now, many years after his death, I find that it is not uncommon for people who know of him by reputation to inquire about his sexual practices, often suggesting that they must have been not only very interesting and unusual (and, incidentally, that I had certainly either participated in them or at least knew all about them), but even a part of his teaching; they are always disappointed - one might say even disillusioned - to learn the opposite, particularly to learn that he was married, reacting almost as if that was the final sin for anyone of his "peculiar" stature.

Remembering Gurdjieff (Chapter VIII)