"Meetings with Remarkable Men" by G.I. Gurdjieff

This is the Second Series of the Gurdjieff writings, as he envisioned them.  According to the original plan, after the illusions were destroyed with the First Series (Beelzebub), the Second Series was supposed to point out to the right way to educate oneself and harmoniously develop in all directions to become a Normal Man.

The book is divided in multiple chapters, each dedicated to an allegorical story about an authority figure or a close friend and associate from Gurdjieff's life.  The last chapter is called "The Material Question" which is a separate essay on the various ways Gurdjieff earned money to support his pupils' needs, which also appears in other publications.

Each story, from Gurdjieff's own father, through Dean Borsh and Bogachevsky to Yelov and Profesor Skridlov, teaches a certain aspect of the Work, appropriate for a certain period and sequence.  All the names of the characters sound a bit like from the Russian fairy tales (many of which include three bearded sailors on the Seven Seas) and they probably are made up, like much of the material, which, although probably based on some real events and people, is actually meant to be a "Teaching Story" in the Sufi sense that Idries Shah popularized in the West.  Thus, this book is a manual for the sequence and quality of the work on oneself that a student of the Gurdjieff's System needs to follow.

In that spirit, and alike Beelzebub, there's very little to be said about the actual content.  It needs to be read and the sentences need to sink into the unconscious, where Mr.Gurdjieff intended them to go, as he saw the unconscious as the last possibility for salvation of Man Kind, and he called the unconscious - "the real conscious."