The Search at Northeon Forest

From: Kathleen Riordan Speeth, The Gurdjieff Work
2nd ed. New York: Tarcher/Perigree, 1989. Page 109.

Paul Henry Beidler, who in 1973 began a group he called The Search at Northeon Forest, represents the melding of the lines of transmission among the Foundation, Bennett, and Taliesin. A brochure for the group describes Beidler as a native Pennsylvanian who came under the influence of Sufis in Egypt, Iraq, and Pakistan. For two years he lived among the Yezidi priests in Kurdistan and was admitted to the mysteries of Sheik Adi. Shortly afterward he met Gurdjieff, who became a prime influence in his life. Beidler spent 25 years in Asia, first as an archeologist with the University of Pennsylvania Museum, then as a private architect, and finally as a regional engineer in the US Foreign Service.

Northeon Forest is a tree farm and wildlife refuge where students who wish to use everyday life there as a means to self-transformation form a community in which "higher aspirations" are approached through concentrated inner effort under rigorous conditions. The questions to be confronted are:

• Why are so few called upon to search for ways to inner transformation?

• Why should we try to disengage from conventional values and beliefs rooted in contemporary society?

• What is the real significance of organic life in general and of one's own life in particular?

• What responsibility do we bear for the maintenance of organic life on earth?

• What goals in life are fitting and feasible?

There is intentionally no commercial or academic aspect to life at Northeon Forest so that freedom from fiscal dependence is possible. Paul Beidler also leads groups in Tucson and elsewhere.