James Charles Napier Webb (1946 – 1980). Scottish historian and
biographer. He is remembered primarily for his books
The Harmonious
Circle,
The Occult Underground and
The Occult Establishment.
In
1980 his important biography of G. I. Gurdjieff, titled
The Harmonious
Circle, was published. He spent 8 years researching the book, making
contacts with the Gurdjieff community worldwide. The New York Review of
Books described Webb's research and knowledge of the subject as "e
xtremely
comprehensive" and Mistlberger described the book as "scholarly and
occasionally gossipy" with Webb being "unquestionably a sincere
researcher" who became "deeply involved in the matter of his subject"
while remaining "fundamentally an outsider, an investigative
journalist". Tamdgidi wrote that, amongst all the biographers of
Gurdjieff, "only Webb claimed to have been independent and outside the
circle of Gurdjieff's followers", and in 2004, in Inventors of
Gurdjieff, Paul Beekman Taylor described The Harmonious Circle as "the
first systematic biographical account by a writer who hadn't known
Gurdjieff personally". Webb established that Gurdjieff's writings
revealed substantial evidence of familiarity with the languages and
cultures of central Asia, but Webb regarded Gurdjieff more as a
self-taught innovator than a member of an esoteric Asiatic group, and,
although seeing some of its forms having derived from Asia, saw the
content of his teachings deriving from western occult traditions.
- "
He was red-haired and very Scottish-looking."
http://colombo.ca/wp-conte…/uploads/…/05/The-Occult-Webb.pdf
- "
The reaction brought up with it from the depth of memory the visual
image of a tall, spare young figure eight years back, red hair flaring
in the sea wind..."
https://www.joycecollinsmith.co.uk/…/an-appreciation-of-jam…
