I have been reading G. I. Gurdjieff’s work since I was young, half a centrury ago. And still I am captrued by him. One of his most enigmatic writings is The Herald of Coming Good (1933). In that book one also sometimes stumbles over strange, unfamiliar words, terms that seem to appear once and then vanish forever. One of these rare creatures is Tzvarnohamo (p. 12 of the original text). It is never defined outright, but the surrounding passage offers enough clues to place it within the architecture of Gurdjieff’s teaching. It is worth while analysing.

The Setting: An “Unnatural” Life

In this part of The Herald, Gurdjieff explains why he adopted a “protracted and absolutely unnatural” way of living. His lifestyle, he says, was shaped by traits fixed in his individuality by the time of his maturity, and guided by a decision made after studying historic precedents.

He gives two main reasons for this deliberate choice:

1. To prevent the formation of something King Solomon allegedly called “Tzvarnohamo”: a process that naturally develops in communal life when the destructive impulses of ordinary people combine. According to Gurdjieff, it eventually destroys both the person trying to achieve something for the good of humanity and the work they have already accomplished.
2. To counteract a paralysing trait in others, the feeling of enslavement that arises when people are confronted with a more prominent personality, which suppresses their personal initiative. At that time, Gurdjieff especially needed people around him to be capable of independent action.

Tzvarnohamo: Gurdjieff’s vocabulary

Gurdjieff provides only a minimal description: it is a naturally arising phenomenon in human communal life, known since ancient times, and it is destructive to genuine efforts for the common good.

From this we can infer that Tzvarnohamo is:

• Collective, not individual: It doesn’t originate from one person’s malice but from the combined effect of many unconscious, negative actions.
• Self-generating: It forms as a “natural process,” almost like a social law, whenever certain conditions are present.
• Inherently hostile to higher aims: It specifically undermines people who are attempting to bring something new, useful, or transformative into the world.
• Anciently recognised: By attributing it to Solomon, Gurdjieff suggests it was understood as a recurring human pattern long before modern psychology.

Fitting the Term into Gurdjieff’s Broader Teaching

Anyone familiar with Gurdjieff’s ideas will recognise the theme. Throughout his work, he warns that humanity in its ordinary state is “asleep,” operating mechanically under the sway of automatic habits and unexamined impulses. From this state arise powerful collective forces, what he elsewhere calls the “evil inner God of self-calming” or likens to a “many-headed Hydra”, which resist any disturbance to the status quo.

Tzvarnohamo seems to be one name for this social-psychological immune system of unconscious humanity: a set of automatic reactions, often clothed in moral indignation or petty malice, which pulls down individuals who rise above the norm. It is the invisible undertow that has swallowed countless reformers, visionaries, and teachers.

A Possible Definition

Tzvarnohamo: in Gurdjieff’s usage, a naturally-arising destructive social phenomenon produced by the combined unconscious negativity of ordinary people. Emerging in communal life, it undermines and eventually destroys both the individual striving for the general good and the beneficial results already achieved.

Why Gurdjieff Avoided It

By living in a deliberately “unnatural” way, out of step with conventional life, Gurdjieff sought to prevent Tzvarnohamo from taking hold around him. This strategy included unconventional public behaviour, tightly controlled access to his work, and a conscious disruption of the normal patterns by which people project onto leaders.

In essence, he aimed to make himself a poor target for the social mechanism that has brought down so many before him.

A Modern Reflection

You don’t have to be a spiritual teacher to feel the bite of Tzvarnohamo. Any modern reformer, activist, or visionary can encounter it, in the form of online pile-ons, office politics, or community backbiting. Gurdjieff’s term gives us a name for this old and stubborn reality, and his strategy of living “unnaturally” is one possible response: stepping outside predictable patterns so that the mechanism cannot find its grip.

If you’ve read The Herald of Coming Good, you know it is an unusual work, part personal letter, part teaching fragment, part coded announcement. Tzvarnohamo appears only once, but in that brief moment it points to something Gurdjieff understood very well: the collective forces of ordinary life will, if left unchecked, tear down anything that tries to rises above them!

Perhaps the first step in counteracting it is to simply recognise it when it starts to form. This is the essence of his work. To watch. In Real Time!

Shunyam Adhibhu