Gurdjieff and the WW II Years in Nazi-occupied Paris

In October 1935 he formed an all-women's group known as "the Rope" and worked with them until September 1939, the beginning of the Second World War. The group was composed of seven women: Elizabeth Gordon, Solita Solano, Kathryn Hulme, Margaret Anderson, Georgette Leblanc, Louise Davidson and Alice Rohrer. Sometimes Jane Heap would come from London to attend meetings. For an in-depth look at the Rope, see William Patrick Patterson's Ladies of the Rope.

During the Nazi occupation of France, Gurdjieff continued working with small groups of people in Paris. For a sense of this time and to read transcripts of meetings Gurdjieff held in his Paris apartment, see William Patrick Patterson's Voices in the Dark and The Gurdjieff Journal article "Gurdjieff's Wartime Paris Meetings."

via gurdjieff-legacy.org

It has been said that Mr. Gurdjieff worked with perhaps no more than a thousand people during his time in the west. He always kept things small, small groups, he obviously wanted to create a chain of schools led by teacher-helpers I think he called them, people who had been trained by him. But seemed to have been thwarted by wars, and revolutions. Also, it is one thing to have the knowledge, he also had the energy and the being, this came simply through sheer hard work and suffering. The classic way that being is created. This and his own individual drive is what distinguishes leaders from followers.