I think the film analogy is very accurate. It is depressing, but it's the truth. After reading the 4th way material and having a few years to cogitate on it and observe, I've been pretty much convinced. Think of the average person's life. You're born, you go to some type of school, you find a mate, have kids, work until you die, and then do it all over again. You can do that thousands of times in dozens of different ways and never go anywhere. Sure there are probably variations on it depending on your "type" and personal preference, but the General Law likes this particular type of film because it keeps everyone in their place and the system keeps going. Look at history, it is clearly a "film." There are a lot of "spinoffs," the scenery changes and some of the characters, but it's the same story over and over again. Taking into account the whole OP/preadamic situation, I don't think a soul who is new to 3D has much in the way of choice or individuation, but is very gradually exposed to these higher energies through the endless repetition of the film. After a certain number of repetitions, a soul may have a dim impulse to choose something different, and then that's when lesson planning in 5D comes more into play. Maybe after you get far enough in the Work, the life review stage may become detailed enough that you acquire a sort of a "mission" for the last few lifetimes.
Also, I don't recall Mouravieff saying it was the exact same life over and over again, I do remember him saying that the General Law allows for a wide range of experiences as long as none of them really challenge the matrix or lead to any true evolution. The film is not carbon copied, but the general dynamic is always the same. I agree, and I think Mouravieff agrees that after you gain a certain degree of individuation, you can tweak the film to give you more of the types of experiences that you want, but you're still more or less beholden to the overall cycle, until in the course of one of these films, you stumble across something resembling the Work which gives you an aim. If you decide to follow the Path of Access, that has already built something of an attractor in you where the higher level lessons such as STS and STO, graduation to 4D, and cyclical time start to have some relevance to you. Until you have the beginnings of an aim to evolve, I don't think there is a whole lot for you and your guides to discuss in 5D. Before that point, they may drop little "hints" to give you perspective on things, but you have be able to make the choice to learn for yourself. I think Laura's development up to and after contacting the Cassiopaeans is a good 3rd density analog to this multi incarnational process. After you have something of an aim, you can modify the film to take you closer and closer to the Way with each successive lifetime. It is not a linear process, you kind of spiral towards it, because you are subject to the Law of Seven until you can create conscious shocks and you go back under the veil of forgetting each time, but I think each time you reincarnate something is preserved that makes it easier to get a little bit farther the next time around. So that's my theory of human evolution. It starts out purely mechanical, and gradually gets more and more conscious until you make it to the third threshold, which takes many lives. Each time you are still subject to the "film" but it has less of a hold on you because the experiences carry over from previous lifetimes and you can make the choices necessary to get you on the Staircase much more quickly.
In addition, I don't think that Gurdjieff and Mouravieff had any idea that the General Law is coopted by 4D STS. Casteneda seems to have some awareness, but I'm not sure if he really understood it at that level either. I can understand why the General Law is necessary to maintain the balance of an ecosystem when none of the souls are advanced enough to make good decisions, but I'm amazed at how difficult it is to progress once you decide to go off in your own direction. It seems that if the universe wants you to evolve, there wouldn't be so many stumbling blocks and dirty tricks that come up and try to keep you down. The only way I can reconcile that in my mind, is that the Lizzies, being 4D, have been given some liberty to tinker around with these lower level cosmic laws, and the General Law has been modified to make sure their energy farm continues to operate at peak efficiency. So the influence of 4D STS makes the whole phenomenon of the film much more difficult and confining, I think. We are food for the moon.
As far as the Real I, my personal speculation on it is that the definition changes depending on what density you're on. In 3D, the work is to build the Real I in the organism, so that your mind/body/spirit complex has one consistent will and not shifting personalities that appear under different circumstances. In 4D, I think the work is to build the Real I across all of the various versions of yourself in parallel dimensions/timelines. You perceive your unity with all of these Is, some STS and some STO. I don't know if this work is completed in 4D, the Cassiopaeans have spoken of souls whose native level of density is 5th, so perhaps this is something that is started in 4D and perfected during a long cycle in 5th that happens after 4th and before 6th. Nevertheless, this is how you become the 6D STO being, which is perfectly balanced with STS reflections, because it has integrated all of the various versions of itself into one consciousness, both the sacred and the profane. I think the work on 6D is to build a Real I with your soul group/social memory complex, beings that are similar to you but different, and then on 7D all of the soul groups merge into the Absolute, the I of the universe.
