The Mystical Movie Guide: Introduction
What is a Mystical Movie? A Mystical Movie is a film that depicts profound contacts with other worlds, along with the efforts of individuals and groups to grow in harmony with and spiritual responsibility for such experiences. Typical life-changing mystical contacts include: mystical union (moments of oneness and peace with all creation), mystical journeying (tours of fantastic realms including heavens and hells), and mystical communication (exchanges of feelings and thoughts with other spirits, God, or sides of one's own Soul).
All movies depict relationships, and all of life's relationships have a spiritual basis. So it is true that all movies may be analyzed spiritually. But not all movies are mystical! Most supernaturally-based popular films, along with many psychological ones, do contain mystical experiences - but many are not very realistic, kind, or sensible. Even the best special effects may be showing only a fantasy. And showdown shootouts between good and evil may be politically or religiously thrilling, but it is not mystically responsible to build up such discontinuities. You don't want to get stuck in line waiting forever for Godot.
Many quieter and lesser-known movies will offer the most true mystical insights and comfort. The number of directors who are exploring the most amazing metaphysical questions is increasing exponentially, and some are contributing significantly to the available symbolic vocabulary for human mystical experience. This can be very useful stuff when building your own working relationship with the divine. How then to find out about the best movies for you and your Soul to enjoy together? Take our advice and consult the Mystical Movie Guide!
The Mystical Movie Guide is your comprehensive and savvy guide to films that have metaphysically interesting and/or emotionally profound supernatural, psychological, and spiritual themes. In practice, this means a lot of movies about dreams, ghosts, altered states, psychotherapy, parallel worlds, time travel, alien visitors, mystical experiences, religious founders, mythical heros, and other cool stuff like that. We're pretty open-minded, so these could be in any genre, though we do tend to avoid the really gory stuff. This could still end up being between 2 and 4 percent of all known films, hence a few thousand. True, many of these are low-budget, foreign, or obscure. But when you realize that this is where many of the most uncompromising and engaging artistic visions are waiting to be found, you too may develop a fondness, or at least a tolerance, for the independent and b-movie genres. It usually helps if you imagine what it must have been like for the makers of the movie - and who knows, with the proliferation of efficient film-making equipment, maybe someday you'll want to direct something too!
And what is a Soul? In some ways that is for you to find out. But we'll give you a hint: you and your Soul are eternal and come from a place where anything is possible for friendship and love. Someday that place will be where you live now, and somedays it already is. Your happiness in life will not depend on having material things, but on how you use the things you have access to for the building of your relationship with your soul and the souls of others around you. Seeing just the right film at just the right time is a lot like having the right dream at the right time, and it is a good example for having access to a powerful soul-building experience.
What about "Spiritual Cinema"? This a new genre term that is being promoted in the wonderful works of producer Stephen Simon, the Hollywood refugee who made "What Dreams May Come" and went on to found the recommendable DVD-of-the-month club at SpiritualCinemaCircle.com. If Stephen has his way (and we can hope he does) there will soon be a Spiritual Cinema section in every video store, cable TV guide, and film festival. As championed by Stephen, Spiritual Cinema basically means feel-good life-interest human-potential stories with a high probability of metaphysical phenomena; there's about a 70% overlap with what we would call Mystical Movies. According to Stephen, classics of Spiritual Cinema include "It's a Wonderful Life", "Groundhog Day", and of course, "What Dreams May Come". Spiritual Cinema draws strongly upon modern popularity, since part of its fervor is to prove that the New Age is new and everything is changing, a kind of apocalyptic positivity campaign ("It's a Wonderful Life" is an old film, but it became a household holiday favorite only after being rediscovered in the 1970's). Spiritual Cinema will exclude, or remain ignorant of, many Mystical Movies that are deemed too old, obscure, religious, dark, controversial, or just plain amateur, and likewise it will embrace many non-mystical relationship dramas that are quite mainstream in emotional appeal (some would say manipulative and maudlin).
Why am I contrasting cinematic sub-genres this way? I feel a need to highlight the (peaceful) differences of agenda that can exist even among the spiritually compatible. Stephen is a promoter of nice smooth upbeat films that will reach the most people for making the world a better place. That's a laudable (and potentially lucrative) goal. In upholding Mystical Movies, I'm excited about those timeless films that validate important seeds of truth for personal shamanic and psychic experience. I have never been particularly swayed by what's popular in my entertainment. I tune in to what is unique, authentic, and visionary in context, often favoring understatement (life is subtle, the Hollywood style is not). Furthermore, I believe that the metaphysically empowered future human will make its own best judgements regarding what is positive and negative, so dysfunctions and disturbances are not to be filtered from the viewing experience.
In short, you may find the Mystical Movie Guide raving about films that Spiritual Cinema fans, expecting something more pleasant, contemporary, and familiar, won't touch with a ten foot pole. And conversely, our reaction to some mainstays of Spiritual Cinema may be, well, that's okay even though it's rather melodramatic, populist, and derivative, with ideas that were defined years before in films that few want to talk about. If our agenda is to celebrate the undercurrent of soulful art throughout the ages and at every social strata, then it can be a sore point when the New Age fails to appreciate and own its heritage. Still, we know that the commercializing of Spiritual Cinema is a big step in the right direction (there's nothing wrong with good people making good money, now is there?) And we really do like Stephen along with most of his favorite films, and we hope Stephen likes us too (there's nothing wrong with being liked, now is there?) With our esoteric mystical movies and complex arty tastes, we can look forward to inhabiting a bigger fringe, I would suppose.
About the Guide: In our Mystical Movies database you will find a tremendous resource for learning about metaphysically relevant movies of all kinds. This collection of titles is searchable by Year, Country, Rarity, film Genre, plot summary, crew information, and mystical Themes - all to help you find the movies that you and your soul would someday like to see together. Many listings include reviews for major symbols and spiritworld truths behind the images and stories. This is done to shine a light on the mystical teaching potentials of the cinema, as well as to celebrate the many gems that have already been made. (In the afterlife you will find yourself reviewing and previewing your lives in movie-like formats, so your best films are yet to come!)
The Guide is continually growing, so there's a WhatsNew option to see recent additions. Also, entries may start out quite short and without Theme tags, then later get filled in. So while the Guide aims to be comprehensive, its coverage and searchability will improve over time. Someday we may even see and review all the films that we list (that would move the Goodness ratings from lesslikely/probably to sometimes/yes/YesYes) but we'd need a bigger staff for such a feat.
Special! Now Read "A New Context for Peace through Film Appreciation"
Please be aware that "spoilers" (things that reveal story details) can happen in the Mystical Movie Guide, because we don't believe that life should be entered into blindly. As with any art appreciation, including the art of living, the more you know the more you will find. (There are movies that I don't like until the act of writing the review opens my eyes, so you can benefit from my humbling experiences). Also, since we are tracking down some very hard-to-find titles to review, it's nice to at least have detailed summaries so you can enjoy the plot concepts before you get a chance to see the film. Hopefully this information will be a guide for the movie-makers as well, and become a resource in the field (there are many great story ideas waiting to be reused in here). We will refrain from giving away the most important endings in the mystery/thriller genre, and single-sentence summaries are offered in asterisks for the skipping of details before long plot descriptions.
The Mystical Movie Guide is offered through the opinions of one Carl J. Schroeder for personal growth purposes. The difference between my listings and those of any comprehensive film guide is that I am a mystic who does a lot of dream and reality interpreting, so I claim to really understand what spiritual symbols are for. I am also happy to hear feedback, although I have limited time for debate in what I know can be very debatable areas.
All of my prose is copyright and can only be quoted non-commercially in fair use when full reference is made to this website and author, unless other permissions have been granted specifically in writing from me (see also the link-to-me page). For Latest News about the Guide, click here. I am very grateful to major internet film sites for providing many raw facts, and I have recommended these links for further research, discussion, and locating of titles. I may or may not have ideas and connections for movie projects going forward, so if you are involved in film-making you are welcome to just ask - see also the Mystical Art and Talent Shows which I produce at www.SoulStirring.org, and my personal website at www.AstralResearch.org. If you are considering having a movie party with your friends, I've posted our history and notes to inspire you.
Getting your Film Listed on the MysticalMovieGuide
We are continually working to add and improve entries for all genres of mystical film in the MysticalMovieGuide's film database, with special affection for obscure and independents. We first make a basic entry in the All Films List for title, synopsis, and director. If we haven't seen the film, the goodness rating can only be "Probably" or "Less Likely" depending on comments in the popular press. After we see a film, we add our personal comments to the basic entry, including "Yes" or "Yes YES!" for goodness if we like the film. Only then can we appropriately recommend the movie to festivals and DVD anthology services that come to us for advice. We will always send collectors to the most legitimate buying sources available. We also provide reviewer quotes as needed by filmmakers who contact us, and we write detailed researched Full Reviews as time permits (more in future). So...if you have a philsophically interesting film that you think should be listed, let us know, and if it is your independent film then a screener would really help us to understand what it's all about. In general, we love to hear from filmmakers and to network for everyone's mutual benefit. So please send us your info/screeners/promo materials, by first emailing a heads-up to movieguide@astralresearch.org
Copyright 2002 Carl J. Schroeder