There are thirty-two transcripts of these meetings, which were attended at great hazard, with spies and checkpoints everywhere. The discussion is focused on the spiritual work of self-remembering and self-observation which Mr. Gurdjieff is teaching. He is not interested in "who wins war . . . all have ideals, all have peaceful purpose, all kill." He has seen enough of war and revolution, what he calls man's "chief particularity. . . the periodic arising in them of. . .the urgent need to destroy everything outside themselves". For him, war is the result of the slavery that men have accepted and embraced as their lot. There can be just one solution to war and that is to teach men and women how to free themselves from the hypnotism of contemporary life.

Alongside Gurdjieff's quiet discussions with his pupils, we hear Hitler's historical justifications, the fumbling and surprise of politicians and military men as France's defenses fail and she is overrun, the rationalizations for collaboration and the calls for resistance from her intellectuals on the right and the left. The author has faithfully drawn a picture of the crisis Hitler represented for the West. He points to the passive support Hitler received from the elites of many countries. They admired the new "barbarians" and hoped the Germans would deal a blow to communism. We also hear brave accounts of the resistance, and the challenge to action facing writers like Albert Camus, Andre Malraux, and Francois Mauriac. We see Charles de Gaulle, with his difficult personality which isolated him from the rest of the French military before the invasion, and how well it suited him for the historical role he would eventually play, pressuring Churchill and Eisenhower on behalf of the Free French Forces.

With these two perspectives, author Patterson has given us a new point from which to see those conflicted times. He casts new light on the often puzzling mystic and teacher, Gurdjieff. This is a remarkable meditation on war and I recommend it highly. It was nominated for the National Book Awards in 2001. Well researched and documented, it is an extremely interesting read and it will be welcomed by serious students of the Gurdjieff work as well as general readers.

As with his earlier book, Struggle of the Magicians, Mr. Patterson carefully weaves the meetings in a historical context. But unlike the former book, he adds an additional element that consists of `voices' from prominent leaders (from both sides), writers, and philosophers of the day. I would have thought that, given the dangers and rapid changes people lived with on a day-to-day basis, many of the questions in the meetings would have focused on how to live and survive during those dangerous times. However, it seems that, because of the difficult and life-threatening times, students were doubly serious about their inner work. The context - the dangerous situation - makes what was spoken of during the wartime meetings that much more rich, important, and insightful.

This book made me ponder what is truly important in life. And I recognized that it's not the `outer' things that are important (which we tend to give so much value to), but all the seemingly `little' inner things that we take so much for granted in ordinary life.

One of the things that Mr. Gurdjieff said in a wartime meeting - which has stayed with me for a long time after reading this book - is that God does not exist for a person while his or her parents are still alive. I don't know why, but this statement, in particular, really struck me. After a long period of contemplation and the recent event of a family member becoming ill - perhaps terminally - I have come to a far deeper understanding of what this means and its implications in terms of my own spiritual study and growth. Given this recent insight (some months after having read the book), I'm now certain that a first reading has only scratched the surface of the book's potential value for me. The material provided here really warrants further, serious study.

The story of occupied Paris is based on the experiences of such luminaries as Charles De Gaulle, Jean Paul Sartre, and Albert Camus. Mr. Patterson allows these protagonists to speak for themselves, quoting from diaries, transcripts and letters. Personally, I was most struck by the words of Jacques Lusseyran, a blind resistance fighter, who rose to become leader of an entire network.

Interspersed through the storm of events impacting Paris is the quiet nexus of meetings conducted in the face of curfews, privations, and Nazi checkpoints. Despite the incredible barriers each person faced in simply attending meetings, there is no mention of these external events. Yet these same events lend the context in which real questions arise.

Mr. Patterson presents us with authentic voices, which reflect both a particular moment of history and the recurrence of experiences throughout time.