Gurjjieff studied with Yogis and Sufis and he may have got his system from them. The Holy Bible has 7 spirits of God and 7 heavens etc. Ouspensky was influenced by R.M.Bucke's book Cosmic Consciousness. So was Walter Russell. Ed Carpenter had used the term, it is another name for Supreme Judgment.
Man is a machine and can know it.
The Human Machine has 7 different functions. Know the machine to stop being a machine. It is always moving up or down. Compare this to Ohsawa s writings. The first four stages of evolution are egocentric.