The central theme of this book is the difference between "work from the mind" and "work from the essence." Work from the mind produces skillful prisoners of illusion, but prisoners all the same. Work from the essence is the way to be free. It is centered in the heart. This book is compiled from conversations that took place between Bennett and his students, and includes several sections from previously unpublished notes that were to be used in a definitive work on a complete system of Gurdjieff study. It includes an essay on the "Octave of Salvation," written in the 1940s, which shows Bennett's remarkable familiarity with the spiritual traditions of Buddhism, Hinduism and Christianity and which is a significant treatise in its own right. Bennett was a master of structural thinking but always remained closely in touch with the concrete detail of experience. This 2006 edition has a new foreword by Anthony Blake and was compiled and edited by Anthony Blake.