Beelzebubs-Tales-to-His-Grandson-by-G-I-Gurdjieff

are not written in the usual convenient and easily read language, should not becompelled to read them through to the end at any cost, as our poorTranscaucasian Kurd was compelled to go on eating what he had fancied forits appearance alone—that not-to-be-joked-with, noble "red pepper."And so, to avoid any misunderstanding on account of this property, whicharises from data formed in the "presence" of contemporary man thanks to hisfrequenting the cinema and never missing an opportunity of looking into theleft eye of persons of the other sex, I wish to have this opening chapter ofmine printed in the said manner, so that everyone can read it through withoutcutting the pages of the book itself.Otherwise the bookseller will, as is said, "cavil," and behave without failaccording to the basic principle of all booksellers, formulated in the followingwords "You are more a fool than a fisherman if you let go the fish that hasswallowed the bait," and will decline to take back a book whose pages havebeen cut I have no doubt that this would happen Indeed, I fully expect suchlack of conscience on the part of the booksellers.My certainty about this lack of conscience on the part of booksellerscomes from data formed in me during the period when I was a professional"Indian fakir" and, in order to clarify a certain "ultraphilosophical" question, Ihad to become familiar with the associative process of the manifestation ofthe automatically constructed psyche in contemporary booksellers and theirsalesmen, when palming off books on their buyers.Knowing all this and having become, since the accident that befell me, justand fastidious in the extreme, I cannot help repeating, or rather I cannot helpwarning you again and even insistently advising you, before beginning to cut