'See a Great Man who knows what's best'

What follows is an attempt to tell how I got started in a spiritual tradition known as "the Gurdjieff Work." Sometimes a story runs deeper in your heart than sentences can convey. After 45 years, I keep trying and ask readers to forgive the clumsiness of this effort. I extend special thanks to John and Karen Dyson for the photos of Doctor Nobileo, and for their gracious acceptance and encouragement. Since there isn't anything about him on the web, I'd like to share a few impressions of his strength and goodness for people who have a wish and are searching for the "narrow gate."

In late summer 1979, at the age of 21, I boarded a Trailways bus from New York City to Jacksonville to meet an unusual, original man.


He was beautiful, wise, brimming with warmth, vision, and a sense of humor that could defrost your insides. His full name was Hermia S.E. Nobileo, 'Doctor of Divinity,' a teacher and healer who showed the bridge where working on oneself begins.

How we met is a strange story.

After graduating from the U of Rochester, I was at a loss about what to do next. The bubble-ride of college life had burst; sixteen years of ass-in-chair "education" left me feeling empty, with no sense of having learned anything.

Since early teenhood I had been questioning what life is for, how to make good on the gift of being alive... how to be of service. Upon graduation, I had a conviction that it was time to find a real school teaching the spirit values of man, and to discover a way to live that had evaded me thus far.

Religion had no appeal, but in high school I went deep into Transcendental Meditation and Bhakti Yoga. In college, my friend Greg S and I took classes in Kundalini Yoga and practiced it every day. During senior year, we traveled to an ashram in Buffalo to meet the Kundalini master, Yogi Bhajan. Greg took to this path so fervently that after graduation, he joined the ashram, went celibate and changed his name.  I'd been riding draft with him for a while, but when it came down to joining the Kundalini community, I pulled away. I was yearning for something deep and transformative, but taking on a radically new Sikh lifestyle didn't feel right. Most of all, opening up the chakras with intense breathing exercises and kriya postures felt forced and unnatural.

In 1977, while browsing in the college book store, I found a used copy of In Search of the Miraculous, by P. Ouspensky -- an account of his experiences as a pupil of G.I. Gurdjieff.  The book made a tremendous impression, unlike anything I had encountered. Over time it ignited a wish to go out on my own search for the miraculous, as soon as circumstances would allow.

Day by day I was incubating a sense that the teachings expressed by Mr. Gurdjieff -- which involve working on oneself in the midst of ordinary daily conditions -- represented a road for life. But reading books isn't the same as working and walking on a path. In those days, there was no internet and "Gurdjieff groups" weren't listed in the phone book. As my wish grew stronger, I tried to search and look around, but the gate was hidden.

* * * * * * *

Needing money and not knowing what else to do after graduation, I went up to the Adirondacks in upstate New York and took a job at a Boy Scout camp, not far from Lake George. I'm an Eagle Scout and had worked at summer camps before.

Part of the job was to run the camp's rifle range. I didn't know anything about guns and took on that role sheepishly. Two bear-sized guys from the NRA, decked out in combat boots and jackets covered with gun patches, came out to train and certify me. Ravenous mosquitoes swarmed around the camp; chicken served at dinner was almost rubber -- truly depressing conditions.

Such are the neck-deep galoshes a young guy can fall into when he isn't solid and has no clear plan in front of him. But during free hours, I reread In Search of the Miraculous, wanting to take in its stunning content once more to convince myself that this "Fourth Way," Gurdjieff's teaching, was a path my heart, mind and body agreed on completely.

I had a little copy of the I Ching with me. Everything was in question: What to do? What is correct? What does God wish for me? How to serve something deeply felt but unclear and barely known?

I sat down with the I Ching with these questions and tossed the coins, formulating a hexagram that brought this answer:

Look to the South; look to the West
See a Great Man who knows what's best

See a great man? The oracle's advice stirred my heart. By that point I was aching to get out of that wretched Scout camp and see what might happen next.

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I didn't have to wait long. A sudden intense toothache forced me to take a day off and run over to the local dentist. I sat on his front lawn, waiting for the appointment and poring over "In Search of the Miraculous." The dentist reamed out the tooth, put in a filling and declared that I'd need a root canal -- which he didn't have ability to do. "You need to go down to NYC to take care of this."

Thus Mother Nature served an excuse to bail from the Scout camp. I slung my backpack on and walked into town to hitch a ride downstate.

And here is where the story took a strange turn toward pure hitchhiker's luck. Shortly after sticking out my thumb, a green two-seat convertible pulled up.

The driver was Karen W, mid-20s, very pretty and friendly.  She smiled and waved me in, and we sped off.

That would be the only ride I needed to get home: Karen was heading to her family's house in Eastchester, and drove me 250 miles to the door of my parents' home in neighboring New Rochelle.

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Karen W was upbeat and put me at ease with her kindness. We talked non-stop for the five-hour ride. At some point as we got into spirituality and religion, she began telling me about her "guardian angel" -- an elderly man in Jacksonville who was a teacher, minister and healer.

Full of knowledge and spirit power, this old man was helping her, as she put it; and she added that he was helping a lot of other people as well.

"He watches out for me," she said several times, matter-of-factly.

I was enchanted by Karen's description of her elderly benefactor. She gave me his business card and urged me to reach out to him. I still have the card with its odd headline: "DO YOU NEED HELP? We Help Those with Natural and Unnatural Complaints."

For the next few weeks, I looked at this card, wondering if Dr. Nobileo might be the 'Great Man' down South that the I Ching had spoken of.

I finally summoned nerve to call Dr. Nobileo and heard his high-pitched voice: "Helloooooh?" We spoke for a while; I tried to tell him about my searching and inward longing. He told me he was 89 years old, and to come to him as soon as possible.

I got the root canal, sold one of my guitars, purchased a Trailways bus ticket and headed down to Jacksonville to meet him.

* * * * * * *

The trip from NYC Port Authority took 24 hours. It seemed like we stopped in every small town in the Carolinas, Georgia, and northern Florida. As we rolled down into the southern heat and humidity, little churches showed themselves on almost every street corner -- I was entering the famed Bible Belt region.

Dr. Nobileo's place was situated in a suburban Jacksonville neighborhood called, oddly enough, Sherwood Forest. He ran his own little church, adjoining his house, The First Church of Metaphysical Science -- not your typical Bible Belt establishment. His house was different than the others on the street -- completely enclosed by lush, tall and dense shrubs, which gave it an air of mystery.

I walked a half-mile to his house with my suitcase in the blasting sun, rang the doorbell, and was greeted by an elderly olive-skinned man with silvering hair tied back in a ponytail. He was not obese, but solid and robust in size, with a dark mustache and penetrating eyes that embraced everything I did and said.

Dr. Nobileo spoke with the deep accent of a distinguished southern gentleman. I asked him about his heritage. He said he was descended from the Moors -- Africans from the western Mediterranean region. His voice, hovering playfully in a high register, took on edgy gravel when he wanted to drive home a point. His words could warm your soul or cut like a band saw.

He asked me about Karen W., speaking in amused tones about her. I remember he had a nickname for her: "Shoes."

The way he moved was serene and purposeful. I can still see him lighting a candle, carrying it across the room as if walking on air. He had a quality of buoyancy that I've rarely seen in the elderly.

How old was he? He'd said on the telephone that he was 89, and it was easy to believe my ears, for on the phone his voice was soft and aged, almost feeble. Now I wasn't so sure, because the man in front of me gave an impression of... not simply strength, but potency emanating from his eyes, glowing skin, silvery hair, and robust laughter.

We sat down in his living room for the first of several long talks -- which were frequently interrupted by the phone ringing. He'd pick it up and answer with a high-pitched "Helloooh...?" The caller would always be someone asking for help; that was the line of work Dr. Nobileo was engaged in.

People were calling on him all day long, from near and far, to address a spectrum of human problems -- financial or employment troubles, health, marital and relationship issues -- and they were paying good money for his service. He'd talk to the person for a few minutes, imparting advice and reminders in Christian terms, sometimes even scolding them with a flash of anger and scathing words.

I came to understand that the "help" Dr. Nobileo dispensed was not so much in words, but ongoing in a telepathic relationship with the person, "through the ether," as he sometimes put it.

Putting down the phone, he would tell me about this or that caller, whether her attitude was correct or if she was being parasitic and grabbing without being fully willing to pay. Apparently money was not the only form of payment he was looking for. He balanced benevolent respect for people with a realistic view of their weaknesses and strengths, and most of all with an eye toward sincerity and responsibility. Something other than demand for dollars was at work here -- even as it appeared that dollars were flowing in at a fast clip.

His attitude toward money seemed to be: make a lot of it, have no qualms about fleecing presumptuous people; give it away to the needy and sincere poor.  This resembled what I later learned about Mr. Gurdjieff and his practice of "shearing sheep" from the accounts of some of his pupils.

We talked all afternoon about everything under the sun. One of the most vivid impressions I had of Dr. Nobileo was that his mind took in everything, embracing details down to the most trivial and ordinary. It struck me that a man reputed to be 'spiritual,' a 'man of God,' could be so utterly human and down to earth. . . and brimming with lascivious humor. He was full of jokes and funny anecdotes, and was as comfortable talking about sex as holy scripture, often in the same conversation.

To my surprise, Dr. Nobileo knew all about Gurdjieff and the Work, and apparently bore great respect for "old Gurdjieff," whom he referred to as a Master. A blue hardcover copy of All and Everything:  Beelzebub's Tales to His Grandson, Gurdjieff's first book, was kept on the night table in the guest room where I stayed -- so it was there in his home where I began my first reading of this sacred book.

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Every hour or so he looked at me with inquisitive eyes and asked, "Now why did you come to me? What can I do for you?" I had to stammer out an answer:

"Sir, I don't know what I want you to do for me. I don't want you to solve my problems; I am not looking for help finding a girlfriend, a job, money, or anything. I'm just trying to find a way to be of service, to find out what God wants for me."

He leaned back in his chair. "Ah, you dear little angel." My answer pleased him. But over the next few days he repeated the question pointedly several times: "Now what can I do for you?" And I responded the same way.

Sensing that I was a little disconsolate about things, he humored me with spicy anecdotes and went into detail about his work and the rarified Christian tradition he represented.

It seemed apparent that Dr. Nobileo had disdain for the mainstream Christian branches and churches. He felt they were hypocritical, cut off from spirit and original teachings; their views on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ were faulty and incomplete. He maintained that there was a great deal about Jesus that people knew nothing about, or denied outright.

Here is one way he put it:  Jesus was both son of God and human through and through. Most people refuse to believe or even consider a possibility that he had sexual needs like any normal man. The Doctor said: "Nobody wants to say this -- that He was always surrounded by the disciples clinging to Him all hours of day and night, so that He couldn't even break away and get some privacy to play with His own pecker."

I can still hear his emphatic drawl: "Couldn't git time to play with his own PECKUHHH. . .!"

I was startled by the Doctor's descriptions of Jesus Christ -- so earthly and ethereal at the same time. He saw no contradictions in looking on the Son of God as a man who could get horny like everyone else. And that was only an aside that he put in to humor me. The overarching idea he kept hammering out was that the teachings of Christ, as expressed in the Gospels, were full of esoteric meaning that contemporary "Christian" churches missed almost entirely. I heard this theme rendered profoundly in his sermon that night.

* * * * * * *

As the afternoon wound down, I helped him prepare supper. A funny impression: he kept a chicken or two in his fenced-in yard. He called out to the birds lovingly, bent down and collected a few brown eggs. The refrigerator was well stocked with them.

After the meal, he needed to rest and prepare for his evening service. I felt fortunate to have arrived on a Sunday; it would be the first Christian church of any kind I'd ever attended.

Around 7:30 p.m., folks started arriving and we went into the little chapel adjoining Dr. Nobileo's home. Women came in with well-coiffed hair under hats adorned with flowers. . . couples attired in formal Sunday garb. . .white folks, black folks, everyone warm and gracious. It was a small gathering, maybe a dozen or fifteen at best.

I noticed two men in their mid to late twenties, dressed handsomely in suits and ties. One was David Johnson; the other, John Dyson, both close pupils of the Doctor who assisted him in his church and personal activities.

Dr. Nobileo sat down at the organ and played a slow hymn. The congregation joined in, singing in heartfelt tones. I'd never heard the song before, and it was utterly lovely:

"What a Friend We Have in Jesus. . .
All our sins and griefs to bear
What a privilege to carry
Everything to God in prayer. . ."

I can still hear the song as it was rendered then through sweet voices of black women sitting around me in pews of the little chapel. Years later I figured out how to play it on guitar (John Fahey-fingerstyle), from the memory of that one hearing.

Then it was time for testimonials to be given by the congregation. One by one, people stood up and spoke about how Dr. Nobileo had healed or helped them in various ways. One man (was it Johnson or Dyson?) described his ordeal with a life-threatening kidney ailment, living for years in pain from an onslaught of kidney stones that doctors and hospitals were unable to alleviate.

"I was at the end of my line, completely without hope. The medical establishment had given up and said there was nothing more they could do, and that the condition would eventually kill me. But Dr. Nobileo cured my condition, and I have lived without pain ever since. I am here among you all bearing witness to this, and I want to thank Dr. Nobileo for what he has done."

As one after another shared accounts of their personal miracles, Dr. Nobileo sat motionless; I could see he was listening with full attention. It seemed to me that he drew strength from these accounts; and those who had received his help were expected to cascade their gratitude into the atmosphere of the church.

Finally Dr. Nobileo stepped up to the podium to give his evening sermon. He based it on a statement of Jesus Christ, recorded in the Gospel of St. Matthew. It is a well known passage, but at that time I had never heard it or read the Gospels before. So I listened with great interest and alertness:

"Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat;

"Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto Life, and few there be that find it."

The Doctor's sermon had a strong immediate effect on me. I could feel him bearing into these statements of Christ with original force of his will, elucidating their content:

"Wide is the gate that leadeth unto destruction. . .Narrow is the way, which leadeth unto Life."  The path to awakened living and Service is hidden. Never will you find it in the settings where massive waves of humanity flock to; nor in places we ourselves go when we are dense and caught up in hypnotic states.

If you can find that narrow gateway opening to the Life that you wish for, in your most essential essence, approach in humility; there can be no entry unless you make yourself small (humble). No amount of ambition or evangelical fervor will open the door; you have to be pure as a child. "Except ye become as little children. . ." So it is with anything held out by esoteric tradition: the Way is narrow.

A few years later, I would read Gurdjieff's description of "Christians in quotation marks," and his characterization of the Work as "esoteric Christianity."  For many in the Work, Christ and the voice of Consciousness and Conscience are synonymous.

* * * * * * *

The next morning, we had an early chat and went out for breakfast. He wasn't driving anymore at his age, so John Dyson came over and chauffeured us in the Doctor's big old gold-colored Chrysler Imperial, which glided over the road smooth as butter.

There was a lot of butter at breakfast too -- my first taste of Southern-style grits. While we ate, Dr. Nobileo motioned in the waitress's direction. "What's she thinking about? What's going on in her little heart right now?"

All morning long, while we were cruising in the car, waiting at a red light, sitting in the restaurant, he would point to people around us, asking me and John Dyson questions about them.

"That lady over there, is she having trouble with her children? Why is that man stooped over so like that? What big weight is he carrying around?" He was inviting us to observe people, to be innerly sensitive and work to enter into another's situation.

I was attracted to this psychic exercise as he practiced it. He was working from a place of kindness, compassion for people, attention to details of the ways they suffer. And he was trying to show us how, by touching vibrations in our hearts and psyches.

Almost 90 years old, he was far more alive, acutely observant and open-minded than we were. He was genuinely curious and alert throughout the day, looking into this situation and that, embracing the human condition with his ordinary five senses, and others beyond those.

* * * * * * *

We returned to the house late in the morning and sat together in his living room. "Now what is it you wanted me to do for you?"

"I've already told you. There's nothing you need to do or fix for me. I don't want anything, just a chance to find out how I can help you, learn what the calling is, be of some service."

He looked at me squarely. "Three times, I've asked the Spirit about you; and each time it told me that you are good."

He gave me a booklet of his private teachings, A Course in Metaphysical Healing. More conversation about the previous evening's sermon; about Gurdjieff and the Work; about dollar business and the dirt of the world. Many more jokes, references to the excretory functions and sex lives of saints. He filled me with an atmosphere of delicate humor and happiness that has never left.

* * * * * * *

About a month afterward, back in New York, the gate finally opened. I was browsing around Samuel Weiser's bookstore in the Village downtown, when my eyes fell upon a little postcard taped to the wall: Gurdjieff.  There it was. My heart danced when I read the little notice about a beginning group forming, and a phone number. Thus I found my way to Chardavogne Barn, a school of the esoteric tradition, founded by Gurdjieff's pupil Willem Nyland. I attended my first meeting at the Universalist Church on Central Park West, on November 6, 1979, and have been working with love and dedication within the Chardavogne groups ever since. And over the years I was also fortunate to get deep immersion within a few other groups of direct lineage to Gurdjieff.

In my heart I know it was Dr. Nobileo who guided me to the hidden gate and helped me find a right attitude of humility to enter in; and I am eternally grateful to him.

We stayed in contact through telephone calls and "through the ether." A few times, I called him from the Rochester Folk Art Guild farm in Middlesex, where I was living and working with Louise March, a long-time pupil of Gurdjieff.

"I know what you're doin'," he said. "You're out workin' in the fields, planting corn; you stand up straight and let the Spirit come into you."

As years went by, Dr. Nobileo's voice on the phone became more feeble. "The force is leaving me," he said. "I'm just about done." He passed away in 1988 at the age of 97.

Now (so many turns of the octave later), I feel his helpful, inspiring presence again; and wish to join what small force I have with his for the benefit of anyone who can use a hand in this stormy world. Apparently that was what he lived for.

* * * * * * *

One day as I described my impressions of Dr. Nobileo to Mrs. March at the Folk Art Guild, she smiled knowingly and said, "Mr. Gurdjieff had olive skin."

I am convinced that Dr. Nobileo was trained in an aspect of spiritual science that Gurdjieff had partaken in -- reflected in their activities as healers. Reverend Dyson has described Dr. Nobileo to me as a 'mentalist,' someone who works through the power of pure thought guided by higher reason through the medium of ether.

In Beelzebub's Tales, Gurdjieff often refers to 'etherokrilno,' the prime element pervading the universe; there are references to materialized thought as well other metaphysical congruences in his writings and legacy.

This can only be my speculation; however, the clues are striking.

At any rate, Dr. Nobileo also had some choice words for Gurdjieff's pupil, P.D. Ouspensky.

"Poor Ouspensky. . .he thought he had the Key, so he left the Master and went behind his back, pretending to teach the Way.

"But Ouspensky didn't have the Key; it was shown that he wasn't a Master. It was only Gurdjieff who taught the Way."