PL Travers and Gurdjieff

1899 Pamela Lyndon (PL) Travers (d. April 23, 1996), Australian author. Born Helen Lyndon Goff in Maryborough, Queensland (though she tended to hide the fact), Travers was the author of Mary Poppins and devotee of Armenian mystic GI Gurdjieff, writing books on the mystic author and on mysticism generally.

In London she became a friend (and perhaps lover) of the poet George William Russell ('AE'), who introduced her to his close friends, WB Yeats and TS Eliot. (Yeats and Russell had met at the Dublin Theosophical Society and conducted experiments into the occult, and held séances.) Russell also introduced her to writer and editor, Alfred Orage, who in turn introduced her to Gurdjieff.

Like her most famous character, Mary Poppins, the motto of Travers appears to be ‘never explain’, and perhaps this derives from the Gurdjieffian philosophy. Travers’s life is difficult to research as she was very private and would rarely if ever discuss her life. One thing that is known is that her father was a banker, like Mr Banks, the father figure in the Mary Poppins books ...