Created and narrated by William Patrick Patterson
Part I:
What is the sense and significance of life on Earth, and human life in particular?' This is the question which impelled G.I. Gurdjieff's search for the origin of esoteric knowledge.
Gurdjieff believed that the esoteric knowledge of ancient civilizations contained the answer to his question and so set out to find its origin.
In Egypt retraces G.I. Gurdjieff's journey and his discovery of the teaching of The Fourth Way, an ancient prehistoric teaching of self-development and conscience, which he reassembled and reformulated for our time.
Ever since Gurdjieff's arrival in Russia in 1912, there has been speculation about the origin of the teaching, many believing it came from Central Asia. However, through pondering the clues left by Gurdjieff, along with new evidence recently discovered, William Patrick Patterson shows otherwise. We follow him as he retraces Gurdjieff's journey, from the search for the Sarmoung Brotherhood in Iraq, to his finding of a map of pre-sand Egypt, thence to the Sphinx and Great Pyramid, into Upper Egypt and Thebes, Temple of Man, Temples of Karnak, Valley of the Kings, Temple of Edfu, and finally to the headwaters of the Nile. Gurdjieff said he had been four times through the Initiate Mysteries of Egypt. His discovery was, as he said, 'This prehistoric Egypt was Christian many thousands of years before the birth of Christ, that is to say, that its religion was composed of the same principles and ideas that constitute true Christianity'."
Part II:
"Gurdjieff's Mission is the first documentary to detail Gurdjieff's unwavering struggle to fulfill his mission of establishing the ancient teaching of The Fourth Way in the West. Shot on site in St. Petersburg, Moscow, Constantinople, London, Paris and New York, the 80-minute color documentary follows Gurdjieff from his arrival in Russia in 1912 through to 1924.
Having finally established his Institute for the Harmonious Development in France, he risked all in a make-or-break gamble to take the teaching to America. For America, Gurdjieff believed, despite its 'feverish existence' and obsession with 'growing dollars', was a country which had 'the largest percentage of beings in whose presences the possibility of acquiring Being is not entirely lost'.
The film vividly demonstrates Gurdjieff's warning to America of the rise and challenge of the East with footage recalling the 9/11 attack and its aftermath."
Part III:
Gurdjieff's Legacy tracks his struggle to establish the ancient teaching of The Fourth Way. It traces G's life from his near-fatal car crash in 1924 through to his giving meetings during the German occupation of Paris to his death in 1949. Examined in depth are the writing of his Legominism All and Everything and his relationships with Orage, Ouspensky and Bennett. Also included is the Rope and his final trip to the the Caves of Lascaux.
