Rina Hands attended Mr. Ouspensky’s lectures and later became a pupil of J.G. Bennett, working in his group during the period of the Second World War. In 1948 she met G.I. Gurdjieff which was an overwhelming event in her life. From then on until Mr. Gurdjieff died in 1949, she spent every possible moment in Paris, typing drafts of Beelzebub’s Tales and trying to bring the teaching to life. These experiences are described in her book Diary of Madame Egout Pour Sweet, With Mr. Gurdjieff in Paris 1948-1949. In the book, she describes her first meeting with Mr. Gurdjieff:

We didn’t get to Paris until almost 8:00 in the evening, but meeting Mr. Bennett and the others was like a homecoming. He left us to settle into the hotel with instructions as to how to get to Mr. Gurdjieff’s flat where he could meet us at 10.30 pm. We got hopelessly lost trying to find the flat and finally arrived after everyone else was there. A reading was already in progress. We had no time to look about us as we crossed the tiny entrance hall and were let into the room for the reading, just an ordinary-sized sitting room of a flat…..

 

Someone made room for me on a corner of the divan on which at least ten people were already sitting. I really tried to be as quiet and collected as I could, but was only extremely aware of my highly flushed face and general disarray. The salon is half a small drawing room with a china cabinet standing across the closed double doors. Every wall in the room is completely covered with pictures and decorations. Even the curtains drawn across the windows have quantities of brooches and Christmas tree decorations pinned to them. The room itself was packed with people sitting on chairs, stools and the floor. Mr Bennett was in an armchair beside the fireplace, reading from Beelzebub’s Tales to His Grandson.

 

An empty armchair opposite to him must, I thought must be for Mr. Gurdjieff. Feeling I must stop looking about me and try to listen to the reading, I kept my eyes on the floor. There were pine needles on the carpet…….I must stop all idle thoughts and keep my attention on the reading. It was not easy to do so, especially when the door opened and I knew without looking up that Mr. Gurdjieff had come in and sat down.

 

I was now invaded by a new distraction – fear. I had no right to be here in this dispersed state. He would see at a glance how unprepared I was, and might well send me away. I dared not look up, but kept my attention as well as I could on the reading. A great many of my questions were being answered in spite of my wandering attention. The reading spoke of faith, hope and love; of consciousness of the body, of conscious labours and intentional suffering to produce remorse of conscience and of how all these things had begun to be understood by a great teacher in a distant epoch.

In 1950, Mr. Bennett asked her to look after a newly formed group in Bradford.  For forty-four years she traveled from London to Yorkshire in all weather conditions. She made her last trip at the age of almost 87, only one week before her death.

She arranged almost from the start for Mrs. Rosemary Nott to come to Bradford to teach Movements and both Lise Etievant and Solange Claustres visited.

Following Gurdjieff’s death, she returned to London becoming part of J.G. Bennett’s group. Mr. Bennett left The Gurdjieff Foundation in 1955, and Rina took over that group along with Madame Nott. She ran groups both in London, where she lived, and in Bradford in the North of England.

The house in Bradford was sold in the early 1970s and the group moved to a then derelict farmhouse near Settle on the North Yorkshire moors. After great effort, this was converted into a place suitable for Mr. Gurdjieff’s Work.

Rina’s account of the Movements

The Movements class was a revelation. There were about six rows of six people. The English, who had been practising, mingled with a lot of unknown French people. We sat on the floor and watched. I tried as best I could to follow what was being done, but found myself unable to keep up with it. The speed and precision were far beyond anything I could encompass, even working inwardly. At the same time there emanated from the whole class a very strong feeling of what I can only describe as devotion – one might almost say of prayer. I was surprised at the emotional response evoked in me. I had never before really seen the Movements as anything but a physical activity.

Rina Hands died in 1994 and is buried next to Jane Heap in a cemetery in North London.

 

Reference

Rina Hands, (1991), Diary of Madame Egout Pour Sweet. With Mr. Gurdjieff in Paris 1948-1949. Two Rivers Press.