Magellan's Ships

Since I began this column several months ago, I've received hundreds of emails and questions asking me about both the very nature of Spiritual Cinema and why I am so committed to its recognition. To properly respond to those questions, this column is going to be somewhat of a departure from our usual structure.

We're at a crossroads both in society and in our industry. There is a powerful yearning for meaning and hope in the world, for stories that challenge us to be our best, to lift up our hearts to the skies and encourage us to become the people we were born and have evolved to be. Story telling has always raised our sights and our spirits and has been the preferred tool of shamans and great teachers. It is no accident that Confucius, the Buddha, and Jesus were all gifted story tellers. Today's great story tellers are novelists, publishers, lyricists, musicians, screenwriters, and film makers.

Is it possible then that certain movies contain spiritual messages that either we or the Universe transmit by way of our own collective subconscious and unconscious minds?

I think the answer is yes.

I believe that Spiritual Cinema is in and of itself a genre of film that has been around for decades but has never been recognized as such. My new book (from which most of this column is adapted), and the tour that I am engaged in now, are my attempts to share my belief in both the existence and viability of this genre; moreover, it is my belief that these films hold the key to the next century in entertainment.

The spiritual experience in the arts can open wide the doors of perception. As we evolve as a species, we hit certain key moments in that evolution when old ways are discarded and new maps of behavior are forged. Movies are the most electrifying communications medium ever devised and the natural conduit for inspiring ourselves to look into the eternal issues of who we are and why we are here.

When I realized this connection, it electrified my senses. Could this entertainment form of the movies be, in some cosmic way, reflecting to us in those darkened theaters the deepest questions, challenges, and yearnings of our humanity? Could movies be fashioning a metaphoric pathway to the forgotten secrets of our very existence?

If the answer is yes, why has society not acknowledged this before?

I think I know.

Let me tell you--what else?--a story of Magellan's trip around the world in 1519. Magellan's fleet of massive high-sailed ships would sail into the bays of primitive islands and the natives would go wild with fear upon seeing these huge vessels. It would take weeks for the priests aboard to calm the natives and get to know them.

One day, the fleet sailed into the bay of an island and, to the amazement of all aboard, the natives onshore paid no attention whatsoever. They simply went on about their daily chores without the slightest shred of concern for these foreign invaders.

When Magellan's crew got into their longboats and neared shore, the natives finally did react, and with even greater terror than had been witnessed elsewhere. When the priests ultimately calmed the natives and learned their language, they realized something extraordinary. These particular natives were so primitive that they didn't react when the ships came into the bay--because they actually couldn't physically perceive them! The ships were so far beyond their consciousness that they literally could not see them.

The films of Spiritual Cinema and the messages within them are the Magellan Ships of the movie industry today.

We are rapidly approaching a time when all the outer experiences of human existence will have been thoroughly mapped by the technical wizardry of the film making process.

There is another landscape, however, that has only begun to be mapped--our inner world, where we weave dreams of who we might be as a humanity when we operate at our very best.

Magellan's ships--this time carrying the cargo of our deepest questions and hopes about ourselves--are now sailing into the waters of the mass consciousness of human awareness. Movies are part of the mainsail. I believe that it is now up to those of us on the shoreline to see with new eyes ... to a distant horizon of evolution that is just now reflecting the first rays of dawn.

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Stephen Simon has produced such films as Somewhere in Time and What Dreams May Come. His new book The Force is With You: Mystical Movie Messages That Inspire Our Lives has just been published by Walsch Books/ Hampton Roads. For more information, and for Stephen’s tour schedule, Stephen invites you to visit MysticalMovies.com and also welcomes your comments: Stephen@MysticalMovies.com