"The writing of 'The Courage Machine,' which covers ten years, was retarded by illness. For a long time I lived beside death. But I had a presentiment that something essential -- something foreseen in New York -- would develop for me during these last years. I was not mistaken.
"This book follows an evolution which, for me, is not a curve but an ascending line. There is a beginning and an end; a new beginning, an advance, and a new search; then again an advance -- but this time on an essential plane, where the great events are inner ones."
Georgette Leblanc's first encounter with the celebrated mystic, teacher and philosopher, George Ivanovitch Gurdjieff, was the turning point of her life. Impressed by his vast knowledge and "unknown doctrine," she attended his Institute at the Château du Prieuré in Fontainebleau-Avon for two years. From then on, she continued to live according to his principles, absorbing his doctrine more and more deeply. Her effort to incorporate what she had assimilated during her years with Gurdjieff is recorded in the last part of the book.