This is a four-part series of talks in which Laurence Freeman draws on the wisdom of the early desert teachers as a contemporary way of understanding the human condition. The mothers and fathers of the early Christian desert combined spiritual insight with sharp psychological perception. 

Laurence builds on their sense of awareness of the patterns in which our interior problems manifest themselves. He develops a schema of the “eight principal faults” and shows how self awareness of these patterns is the first step to overcoming them. The immediate effect of this therapeutic self knowledge is felt in our relationships and how we deal with the challenges of daily life.