OK, let me take a shot at this. I'm not sure I've gotten all of it, but it's
as much as I care to do right now.

First Ouspensky. Petyr Demianovich Ouspensky was born in Russia, Moscow I
think, in 1878. He was a self-taught mathematician and journalist. He seemed
to be taken with mysticism early on and spent some time in his youth
exploring various types of mystical teachings. At some time in the early
1900s he came under the influence of George Ivanovitch Gurdjieff. Gurdjieff
was actually a Greco-Armenian con man born George S. Georgiades.

Gurdjieff had established The Institute for the Harmonious Development of
Man in Moscow in 1919 and this is probably where Ouspensky met him and began
to collaborate with him. Gurdjieff was a charismatic guru and Ouspensky was
his chief apologist. Whereas Gurdjieff was very obscure in his writings,
Ouspensky was an accomplished writer and was able to convey Gurdjieff's
ideas to a wide audience.

Gurdjieff claimed to be dispensing wisdom he had attained in travels in the
East, but there is no evidence he ever visited the East at all. Together he
and Ouspensky moved to Paris and became quite influential among rich
Europeans interested in the occult.

Apparently Ouspensky became a bit disillusioned with Gurdjieff and went his
own way, but they are still linked in most people's minds today. There are
Gurdjieff Ouspensky Centers in about 30 countries around the world that are
still active (http://www.apollo.org/centres/). Ouspensky moved to England,
but continued to write about the occult and mysticism. He lived in the US
for a short time during WWII, but returned to England to die in 1947.

I tried to follow some of the ideas of Gurdjieff and Ouspensky, but they
just numbed me. This may be due to my natural distaste for this type of
thing, but frankly it seems a bit weird at best. Here is an excerpt from
Gurdjieff's writings I took off "The Skeptic's Dictionary";

"All evil deeds, all crimes, all self-sacrificing actions, all heroic
exploits, as well as all the actions of ordinary life, are controlled by the
moon."

During the time Ouspensky was involved with Gurdjieff, he wrote a number of
books on the occult, including at least one on the Tarot. He also wrote
Tertium Organum : the third canon of thought : a key to the enigmas of the
world. This book was largely about reconciling western rationalism with
eastern mysticism. The book created quite a stir among philosophers in
Europe and the US. It was talked about quite a bit in the early 1920s and
this is probably when AL became aware of it.

AL was working on a draft of Some Fundamentals of Conservation in the
Southwest at this time. The manuscript was not published in AL's lifetime,
he may have been dissatisfied with it, but it was published in the inaugural
issue of the journal Environmental Ethics. Copies of the article were well
known as AL had sent the manuscript around for comments from his friends and
associates. In the article AL cites Ouspensky as an example of thinking
about "the earth's parts-soil, mountains, rivers, atmosphere, etc-as organs,
or parts of organs, of a coordinated whole, as a whole, through a great
period of time, etc." It seems AL at this time (1922) was looking for ideas,
concepts, to help him express his emerging ideas about ecology and the role
of ethics in conservation.

According to Flader, AL cited Ouspensky three other times, but she does not
say specifically where. Meine found a copy of as speech by AL to the Sigma
Xi chapter of the University of Wisconsin in 1935 where he stated
"Philosophers have long since claimed that society is an organism, but with
few exceptions they have failed to understand that the organism includes the
land which is its medium" AL had penciled in "Ospenski" (sic) in the margin.


In Sand County Almanac the most likely place for AL to mention "the
philosopher" would be in the final section, The Land Ethic. However, all I
can find is; "This extension of ethics, so far studied only by philosophers,
is actually a process in ecological evolution" (pg 202). I find no other
mention in any reference to SCA. It may be there, and some smart alec may
show me wrong, but I don't think there is a mention of "the philosopher" or
anything close to make me think AL was still using Ouspensky in his
writings.

AL did keep his copy of Tertium Organum and apparently read it from time to
time. Carl Leopold, Aldo's son, states: "On the philosophical side, he (AL)
was much influenced by the Russian, Ouspensky. His copy of Tertium Oranum is
still somewhere in the family with lots of notes." (Wouldn't that be
interesting to take a look at?).

The Land Ethic in SCA was an outgrowth of The Conservation Ethic, the fourth
annual John Wesley Powell Lecture to the Southwestern Division of the
American Association for the Advancement of Science, which AL gave in 1933.
In this lecture AL did not cite Ouspensky, but instead cited Revolt of the
Masses by the philosopher Jose Ortega, a socialist and existentialist. It is
remarkable that this association, rather than the mention of a mystic in an
unpublished paper, has not received as much attention. The Conservation
Ethic as compared with Some Fundamentals of Conservation in the Southwest
shows the growth in AL's thinking in ecology as much as anything. He had
found a rational account of what he saw in nature and no longer needed an
explanation based on mysticism.

Here is my read of all this; first I find no evidence that AL used anything
like Ouspensky's ideas in SCA. Despite SCA becoming a bit of a "Bible" of
the environmental movement, I see no evidence that AL intended any religious
or mystical conclusions to be drawn from it. By the way, AL used 'The' Bible
repeatedly in his writings, primarily the Old Testament, and I've seen at
least one reference to AL as a "Christian Existentialist." His son Carl had
this to say about AL's religious feelings; "People sometimes ask me if my
father was a religious man, and I have to say no, he wasn't, but he was a
very moral person."

I think that like many intelligent, educated young men, AL was looking for
many ideas to help him formulate his own approach. Here is what Curt Meine
says concerning the citation of Ouspensky;

        "This intuitive sense of a living earth had always been a part of
Leopold's psyche. Over the years he had found support for it in the words of
many poets, naturalists, and philosophers: the Bible, Emerson, Thoreau,
Bergson, Whitman, Muir, Burroughs, Bailey. The strongest influence on him
during this period (early 1920s) was the Russian philosopher-mystic, Piortr
Ouspensky. . . .He (AL) did not adopt Ouspensky's philosophy outright-he did
not adopt anyone's philosophy outright-but he did recognize elements in it
relevant to the conditions he was observing on the ground (pg 214)."

I tried to find reference to AL's personal feelings about mysticism and
religion in those works by his close associates. I failed to find any
evidence that AL was at all interested in the occult or in metaphysics of
any type, although he did read the Bible throughout his life. My conclusion
is that, while he probably had a brief passing interest in his youth, he did
not find anything of value in this line of thinking as his mature concepts
of ecology and evolution developed.

So, why is this passing reference to an obscure Russian mystic taken on such
important proportions? I think that there is more than just a little desire
among those interested in environmental issues to see religious,
other-worldly influences to help support their positions. Being able to have
God, or the unknown forces of the universe on your side is a good thing. It
would be nice to think that we don't have to really understand ecology,
evolution, complexity, all that stuff and simply point to the mystical
forces of the planet as the reason we have an interest in environmental
issues. So, some want to believe that AL shares their feelings about the
mystical side of nature. The trouble is, I find nothing to support that.

This is not to say that there isn't a mystical side to all this; I sure
don't know one way or the other. I don't think there is, but I don't dismiss
it. My point is that if anyone wants to support arguments about mysticism
and nature, they cannot find support in AL's writings.

Here are the sources I used to ferret this all out:

Aldo Leopold's Wilderness: Selected writings by the author of A Sand County
Almanac. 1990. David E. Brown and Neil B. Carmony, eds. Stackpole Books.

Aldo Leopold's Southwest: Twenty-six writings early writings by the author
of A Sand County Almanac. 1990. David E. Brown and Neil B. Carmony, eds.
University of New Mexico Press.

Thinking Like a Mountain: Aldo Leopold and the Evolution of an Ecological
Attitude toward Deer, Wolves and Forests. 1974. Susan L. Flader. The
University of Wisconsin Press.

The River of the Mother of God and other essays by Aldo Leopold. 1991. Susan
L. Flader and J. Baird Callicott, eds. The University of Wisconsin Press.
(Some Fundamentals of Conservation in the Southwest is also reprinted here).

A Sand County Almanac and Sketches Here and There. 1949. Aldo Leopold.
Oxford University Press.

Round River; From the Journals of Aldo Leopold. 1991. Luna B. Leopold, ed.
NorthWord Press, Inc. (the quotes from Carl Leopold are here).

Aldo Leopold: A Fierce Green Fire, an illustrated biography. 1996. Marybeth
Lorbiecki. Falcon.

Aldo Leopold the Professor. 1987. Robert A. McCabe. Palmer Publications.

Aldo Leopold; His life and work. 1988. Curt Meine. The University of
Wisconsin Press.

Aldo Leopold; The man and his legacy. 1987. Thomas Tanner, ed. Soil
Conservation Society of America.