Crownsville Hospital: From Lunacy to Legacy is a feature-length documentary film highlighting the history of the Crownsville State Mental Hospital in Crownsville, MD.
In his lifetime, Thomas Merton was hailed as a prophet and censured for his outspoken social criticism. For nearly 27 years he was a monk of the austere Trappist order, where he became an eloquent spiritual writer and mystic as well as an anti-war advocate and witness to peace. Merton: A Film Biography provides the first comprehensive look at this remarkable 20th century religious philosopher who wrote, in addition to his immensely popular autobiography The Seven Storey Mountain, over 60 books on some of the most pressing social issues of our time, some of which are excerpted here. Merton offers an engaging profile of a man whose presence in the world touched millions of people and whose words and thoughts continue to have a profound impact and relevance today.
In the early nineties, Dr. Jacobo Grinberg’s career was blooming and he gained lots of international credit as a researcher in the fields of telepathy and neurophysiology at the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico. When Dr. Grinberg mysteriously disappears in 1994, the police find no trace of him. The only thing that is clear, is that all his research material, including his computers, disappeared along with him.
This documentary examines how Adolf Hitler and the Nazi regime made use of ancient mysticism, occultism, and mind-control techniques in their efforts to win the war.
An unconventional biography by Oscar nominee Paola di Florio and Sundance winner Lisa Leeman about Hindu mystic Paramahansa Yogananda who brought yoga and meditation to the West in 1920 and authored the spiritual classic "Autobiography of a Yogi," which became the go-to book for seekers from George Harrison to Steve Jobs.
This compelling film represents a rare record of an original genius. In Jung on Film, the pioneering psychologist tells us about his collaboration with Sigmund Freud, about the insights he gained from listening to his patients' dreams, and about the fascinating turns his own life has taken. Dr. Richard I. Evans, a Presidential Medal of Freedom nominee, interviews Jung, giving us a unique understanding of Jung's many complex theories, while depicting Jung as a sensitive and highly personable human being.
A documentary on sufism
A hilarious introduction, using as examples some of the best films ever made, to some of Slovenian philosopher and psychoanalyst Slavoj Žižek's most exciting ideas on personal subjectivity, fantasy and reality, desire and sexuality.
A film about the noted American linguist/political dissident and his warning about corporate media's role in modern propaganda.
A series of interviews are conducted concerning people's beliefs towards the possibility of an afterlife. The interviews are filmed against a set of strange backdrops, and are intercut with clips from classic films and a variety of stock footage.
The Sufi and the Scientist is the collective story of Sufi healer Sayyid Arif Hussain, the medieval Sufi Sheikh Haji Ali, and Dr. Thornton Streeter, a scientist working in the realm of human consciousness.
In 1244, Jelaluddin Rumi, a Sufi scholar in Konya, Turkey, met an itinerant dervish, Shams of Tabriz. A powerful friendship ensued. When Shams died, the grieving Rumi gripped a pole in his garden, and turning round it, began reciting imagistic poetry about inner life and love of God. After Rumi's death, his son founded the Mevlevi Sufi order, the whirling dervishes. Lovers of Rumi's poems comment on their power and meaning, including religious historian Huston Smith, writer Simone Fattal, poet Robery Bly, and Coleman Barks, who reworks literal translations of Rumi into poetic English. Musicians accompany Barks and Bly as they recite their versions of several of Rumi's ecstatic poems.
Mostashregh
A journey into the labyrinthine heart of ideology, which shapes and justifies both collective and personal beliefs and practices: with an infectious zeal and voracious appetite for popular culture, Slovenian philosopher and psychoanalyst Slavoj Žižek analyzes several of the most important films in the history of cinema to explain how cinematic narrative helps to reinforce prevailing ethics and political ideas.
Tens of thousands of years ago man stood upright; looked around and discovered existence. He was suddenly conscious of himself and the universe. And soon he needed to explain everything he saw and experienced. He embarked on a journey of discovery so profound it gave rise to the religions of the globe and even modern science. What is the meaning of life; is there life after death; and is there a God? These were the most fundamental questions anybody has ever dared to ask. Today, after thousands of years of searching and the development of modern science, we are moving closer to the answers than ever before. What we have discovered is that existence in the macro world matches that of the micro world. As it is above, so it is below and this understanding unlocks the answers we are searching for. Through quantum physics we can now finally look upon the face of God and see the meaning of existence.
Psychoanalysis in El Barrio shows the experience of Latino psychoanalysts in the United States bringing psychoanalysis to Latino communities. It features interviews with ten Latino analysts (whose heritage is from a variety of Latino cultures) as well as students. It uniquely shows some of those communities in Philadelphia, New York City, and Texas and Interviews Latinos in the street on their thoughts about therapy. And it discusses issues of culture, bias, language and transference that occur for Latino analysts and their patients. The video challenges psychoanalysts to understand the culture and economic circumstances of Latinos in the United States and to bring psychoanalytically informed therapy to them. It Is a consequence of conferences held by the Institute for Psychoanalytic Training and Research (IPTAR) and the Clinical Psychology Department of The New School.
A documentary about the legendary Japanese filmmaker.
In 1950 Jerome Hill went to Zurich with the intention of making a film about Dr. Carl G. Jung. The project was abandoned when Hill decided that Jung was not a good subject. After Hill's death, Jonas Mekas edited the film which focuses on Dr. Jung as a person.
Alan Watts talks about our perception of the world, and how we derive metaphysics from it. Watts recorded this video in 1971 as a pilot for a public television series in the United States.
In "psychanalyse", a two part documentary, the psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan answers to questions submitted by his son-in-law Jacques-Alain Miller under the direction of Benoit Jacquot. The Office de Radiodiffusion Television Francaise (ORTF, the french public TV) broadcast this program. This documentary and its text became famous because this is the only televisual experience practiced by Lacan. A fair amount is made of the fact that Lacan was renowned for his powers of seduction and what effect this had on transference in the clinical setting. According to some of the interviewees, he could be irresistibly seductive, so much so that some thought him "monster".