As of 2014 there are some 1600 people regularly engaged within these groups worldwide in countries including Australia, Brazil, Canada, Denmark, England, Germany, Ireland, Israel, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway and the United States of America.
In 1971 a small number of people began to meet with Raymond Armin (1924 - 2002) to research the core issues of life, the universe and everything.
By 1974 the group had 80 members; Raymond Armin was employed full-time by the society and a centre was rented for meetings at Gospel Oak in London.
In 1981 a request for verification of this from the London Central Mosque produced the response that Emin is a Europeanised variation of the Arabic: Ameen.
The Emin philosophy is the result of the work of Raymond Armin (AKA Leo), born in Camden Town, London, in 1924.
To aid students in their own researches, Leo wrote papers explaining important concepts and these became known as the Emin archives.
A number of the early archives (from the 1970s) borrow and develop concepts from Gurdjieff's work, and these include: The Ray of Creation, the Five Centres, Essence & Personality , Knowledge, Understanding & Being, Body Types, The Three Brains, States of Consciousness, Levels of existence, Cosmology and Laws.
An ingredient of the Emin way is to seek understanding in order to change the conduct of one's life to come into greater harmony with the higher, spiritual, self.
The society responds that Emin archives are the product of philosophical and scientific studies and often occur in a graduated fashion from simple to more advanced so that the concepts are easier to grasp and the reader is not overwhelmed.
The organisation explains that the practise of quoting subsections of text out of their original context does not lend to easy understanding by the casual observer.