In the last of his physical explorations of world religions, Peter Owen Jones crosses the Egyptian desert with a group of Bedouin to visit the monastery founded by the father of Christian monasticism, St Antony. There he meets Father Lazarus, who tells him that the path to enlightenment entails constant assaults by the devil and his demons. With this in mind, Jones embarks on three weeks of complete isolation, devoid of any physical comforts, in a cave high in the mountains above the monastery.