A Path Out of Exile
With Gurdjieff in Post-war Paris
François Grunwald
Translated by Thierry Guillemin and Anne Sullivan
Foreword by Roger Lipsey
Paperback
ISBN9781966293101
$24.95 US
eBook available
January 15, 2026
“We called the main task, to be repeated tirelessly, the goal of all the exercises: ‘to remember oneself!’ Self-remembering is this attempt to deliberately remind ourselves of the exile in which we live and to transform it, with the time devoted to this practice, into consciousness. This idea evoked an immense resonance in me. I had been in exile since I was seventeen, banished. That was the word that explained my very painful state. Of course, I had experienced rejection from my country and emigration as an exile, but this was about my personal homeland, my inner world. I had lost it a long time ago: I lived on the margins of myself. Consciousness was ‘in exile,’ captured, stuck in secondary and insignificant circumstances, exiled to the domain of functions and appearances.”
François Grunwald, a renowned psychiatrist and tireless seeker of truth born in Vienna in 1917, was a fighter for Free France during World War II, a student of G.I. Gurdjieff after the war and became a leader of Gurdjieff groups in Germany. His autobiography was published for the first time in France in 2017, decades after Grunwald’s passing, under the title: A Path Out of Exile, From Freud to Gurdjieff. The present book is the translation of the third part, which centers on Grunwald’s encounter and work with G.I. Gurdjieff and his circle of pupils in Paris after World War II and until Gurdjieff’s death in 1949. It is likely to be the last direct eyewitness account of this extraordinary time of spiritual search.
Anne Sullivan and Thierry Guillemin are students of the Gurdjieff teaching and collaborate translating spiritual texts.
“After coming to post-war Paris, Grunwald’s meeting with Gurdjieff marked the turning point in his search for genuine freedom. The stunning account of a life in contact with a real master provides an intimate picture of the Work in its gathering momentum. A must read.” —David Appelbaum, author of Voice (SUNY Press)
“‘His large black eyes with their extraordinary expression seemed to be questioning me…They revealed a serenity from which radiated intense affliction, a sort of sacred sorrow, along with an ironic malice….’
“So runs the startling description by François Grunwald of his first encounter with G.I. Gurdjieff. One notes similar unexpected insights and a steady dedication to truth throughout as Grunwald transports readers into the turbulent France of last century, illuminating not only Gurdjieff and his Work but other notables including Mme. de Salzmann and Henriette Lannes.
“This may be the final memoir ever published of working with Gurdjieff. It is an essential addition to that invaluable genre, a worthy read for all those seriously interested in the man and his teaching.” —Jeff Zaleski, Editor and Publisher, Parabola
“More than compelling, Grunwald’s story touches the miraculous. It’s profoundly encouraging, and a priceless addition to the Gurdjieff literature.” —Richard Whittaker, Founding Editor and Publisher, works & conversations Magazine
“Grunwald’s memoir chronicles daily life with Armenian-Greek mystic George Ivanovitch Gurdjieff in post-World War II Paris... The double life Grunwald describes (harvesting apples by day, learning sacred dances by night) makes the teachings feel simultaneously precious and practical, transmissible yet fragile... A rare account of spiritual teaching grounded in life rather than theory.”— Kirkus Reviews
“Moving, intimate account of studying the Work with G. I. Gurdjieff.” —Publisher’s Weekly/Booklife
