Scholar Reinterprets The Great Gatsby as Occult Manual Rooted in Gurdjieff Work

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A new annotated edition of F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, authored by Jon Woodson, argues the novel functions as a guide to spiritual development rooted in esoteric traditions. Woodson contends that Fitzgerald was a follower of A. R. Orage, who promoted the Gurdjieff Fourth Way philosophy and coordinated a broader literary network around occult ideas. The book draws connections between Gatsby and Carl Van Vechten's 1923 novel The Blind Bow-Boy, which Woodson identifies as a template for several modernist works. Using what he describes as a phonetic-syllabic code called the alchemical cabala, Woodson claims to have decoded a hidden subtext within the novel, presented through footnotes. His son built an interactive website to bring the annotated work to a wider audience.

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