Robert Fripp - Chapter 7

       On the break-up of King Crimson III, Fripp calculated that he had enough money to pay his bills for three years. And indeed, even in his disoriented frame of mind, he was hatching a personal three-year plan consisting of preparation, withdrawal, and recovery. His activities of the first year - winding up his affairs - would prepare him for a decisive withdrawal from the music industry - and effectively from the outside world - at J.G. Bennett's International Society for Continuous Education at Sherborne House, following which he would survey the inner and outer landscapes and decide what to do next.

         It is quite possible that Fripp's transformational experience at Sherborne - which is, if obliquely, the subject of this chapter - cannot be understood by anyone who has not undergone something similar. It is just possible, however, that some inkling of what was involved may be got by reviewing the historical backdrop of his experience. Since Fripp's subsequent music and public posture was deeply affected by his encounter with the Gurdjieff/Bennett tradition, and since only the most superficial information on that tradition was dispensed by the music press in the course of reviewing Fripp's work, I offer here a somewhat more substantial summary for the interested reader.

         In recent years Fripp has publicly distanced himself from the Gurdjieff/Bennett tradition, preferring to claim only that he speaks for his own school, Guitar Craft. It was not so long ago, however, that he was splicing Bennett tapes into his albums and quoting Gurdjieff in his articles. It may in part have been the rock press's open hostility and ridicule of Fripp's apparent conversion to a "mystical cult" - though as far as I can make out, the Gurdjieff work is neither mystical nor a cult -­ that led him to his present position of reserve.

via progressiveears.com