years in Babylon. (Merkabah mysticism is in fact a form of Jewish esotericism, which Gurdjieff possibly encountered in an Armenian translation). In The Masters of Wisdom, J. G. Bennett states that the Sarman left Babylon before the arrival of the Alexander the Great (who reigned 336-323 BC), moved up the Tigris and made their headquarters in the abandoned capital of the Assyrian Kings, close to modern-day Mosul in northern Iraq. In Gurdjieff in the Light of Tradition (2002), the Perennialist Whitall Perry wrote that Gurdjieff believed that the northern Sufi orders could well be under the hidden direction of the Khwajagan - the 'Masters of Wisdom' - themselves in turn delegated by the Sarman 'Inner Circle', the 'Assembly of the Living Saints of the Earth'. In The People of the Secret, Edward Campbell (writing as Ernest Scott), another associate of Idries Shah, describes studies in extrasensory perception being undertaken in the contemporary Sarmoun monastery in Afghanistan. The Canadian diplomat and Gurdjieffian James George has speculated, on the basis of the similar name and location, that Surmang, a Tibetan Buddhist monastery currently within Chinese borders may be real basis of the Sarmoung. Surmang has been more recently associated with the renowned and controversial Kagyu teacher Chogyam Trungpa. In 2007, Buddhist priest Rev. José M. Tirado presented a paper to the All & Everything Conference in Loutraki, Greece detailing the probable Buddhist influences on Gurdjieff's teachings, and linking "Sarmoun" to the Surmang monastery, in "Beelzebub's Buddhas". Skepticism Mark Sedgwick, the coordinator of the Unit for Arab and Islamic Studies at Aarhus University writes: Although few commentators in Gurdjieff would put it so bluntly, it seems clear to me that the Sarmoung are entirely imaginary. No Sufi tariqa of such a name is known, and in fact "Sarmoung" is a typically Gurdjieffian fantastical name. It is immediately obvious to anyone who knows anything about regular Sufism that there is nothing remotely Sufi about the Sarmoung Order described by Gurdjieff.Nathalie Clayer-Eric Germain Islam In Inter-War Europe, p. 208, Columbia University Press, 2008 James Moore, in his biography of Gurdjieff, writes Gurdjieff's claim to have found and entered 'the chief Sarmoung Monastery' is, in effect, a litmus test, distinguishing literal minds from those preferring allegory. See also Agartha Bön Fourth Way Great White Brotherhood Greco-Buddhist monasticism Gurdjieff movements Gymnosophists Khwajagan Magi Naqshbandi Secret Chiefs Shambhala Shangri-La Shramana Zoroastrianism Literature Adrian G. Gilbert, Magi: The Quest