The Psychology of Man's Possible Evolution

A series of five introductory lectures by P.D. Ouspensky, originally written in 1934 and refined over many years, presenting the psychological ideas he encountered through his work with Gurdjieff. Ouspensky argues that genuine psychology — as distinct from modern scientific psychology — is the oldest of sciences, historically disguised under philosophy, religion, art, and symbolic teachings such as alchemy and astrology. Its true subject is not man as he is, but man from the point of view of his possible evolution. The lectures were designed as a structured introduction for people new to these ideas, with Ouspensky emphasizing that the material is genuinely new and resists translation into habitual frameworks of thought. Delivered in London and New York, they cover self-observation, the nature of consciousness, the multiplicity of 'I', sleep and waking states, and the conditions under which inner development becomes possible — forming one of the clearest entry points into the Fourth Way teaching.