Summary

The Adventures of a Solitary Soul - H. J. Sharp

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Gurdjieff makes much of the concept that the ordinary human is a Three-Brained being: Instinctive-Moving, Feeling and Intellect. From Solita Solano's private notes we see that this concept did not come to Gurdjieff from ancient knowledge, but rather from Wichita's interpretation of physiology in Russian-Greek anatomical books. Gurdjieff lent Solita three of these books for her work in the Hospital St. Louis .

And now we have Paul D. MacLean's monumental work, "The Triune Brain in Evolution: Role in Paleocerebral Functions". In this work the three basic stages of evolution of the three brain systems, Reptilian, Instinctive-Moving; Paleomammalian, Feeling, the Limbic system; Neomammalian, Intellect, are dealt with in detail, together with their presence in the current human brain .

Finally we have the application of these concepts to modern psychiatry by Anthony Steven and John Price, "Evolutionary Psychiatry: A New Beginning". In this just published work they stress that the only possible future for humanity is to move from the Agonic to the Hedonic mode, from action for reward to action as mutual help and cooperation. 

But all this was already referred to by Theophan the Recluse, who was a major force in the Russian Orthodox Church with a worldwide correspondence at the time Gurdjieff was being instructed as a young man by Dean Bogachevsky and later by Father Yevlampios. This was between 1879 and 1884. St. Theophan said about "prayer of the heart" or as he called it "contemplative prayer":
"The principle thing is to stand with the mind in the heart before God, and to go on standing before Him unceasingly day and night until the end of life".
I understand St. Theophan to be referring to the state in which one's consciousness has expanded to include Higher Mind, conscious in Higher Mind. This is to pray without ceasing, since one is then conscious beyond time, in the Aeon, so there is no time and no ceasing or beginning. But he goes on:

"The first degree is bodily prayer" - to pray with the Moving Mind.
"The second degree is to pray with attention" - to pray with the Intellectual Mind.
"The third degree is prayer of feeling" - to pray with the Feeling Mind.

"When the feeling of prayer reaches the point where it becomes continuous, then spiritual prayer may be said to begin. This is the gift of the Holy Spirit praying for us, the last degree of prayer which our minds can grasp".

So this is the fourth that the three give rise to, the bridge between the exterior and interior human, and at this stage Higher Mind begins to intervene. This is when the Three Brain Being begins, perhaps, to function additively or interactively. Theophan goes on:

"But there is, they say, yet another kind of prayer which cannot be comprehended by our mind, and which goes beyond the limits of consciousness. On this read St. Isaac the Syrian".

St. Isaac the Syrian tells us: "Abide with patience in prayer means that a man must renounce himself . In other words he must move from Lower Mind, cease to be identified with it, and allow Higher Mind to direct him. To invoke the terminology of Hermeticism, the Lower Mind must be stilled so that full attention can be given to Higher Mind. But in addition a bridge must be built in order that Lower and Higher Mind may be in contact.

This is surely what is being told to us in the Norse Tales about Odin: "The Allfather" foremost of the Norse Gods stands at the foot of Bifrost the rainbow Bridge of Light, leading to Valhalla, in the God's Realm of Asgard. At Odin's feet stand his wolf-dogs Gere (the greedy), and Freke (the voracious). Above him fly his ravens Hugin - reflection, and Munin - memory.