What is the connection between the Transpersonal and
Media? Perhaps the very nature of any creative media is
Transpersonal. Film and video, as well as all the arts . . . are
ultimately the ideas, thoughts, and feelings of a "personal" mind
(or minds) being extended outward to other minds. At this level we
might say that the "medium is the message."
In the particular case of film, we have a medium steeped in alchemy,
mythology, illusion, magic, and transcendence. When audiences first
saw the image of a speeding train projected on a screen in front of
them, they leaped from their seats and ran out of the theater
screaming. A French magician made films in which people disappeared,
became transparent, and flew to the moon. Like an ancient religious
ritual we enter a darkened place in silence. As we sit before the
giant alter, a great light slices the darkness and transforms the
two-dimensional screen before us into a three-dimensional world.
Beyond the transpersonal nature of the medium itself, are some films
more transpersonal than others? Surely films about angels (It's A
Wonderful Life, 1946), life after death (Ghost, 1990), altered states
(Altered States, 1980), dreams (Kurosawa's Dreams,
1990), archetypes (Star
Wars, 1977), UFO phenomena (E.T.: The Extraterrestrial,
1982), mystical realities (The Last Wave, 1977)
or religious experiences (The Last Temptation of Christ, 1988) are
transpersonal in their content. And films that deal with shifts in
temporal and spatial reality, like Field of Dreams (1989) and
Groundhog Day (1993),
weave the transpersonal into the dramatic structure itself. Then
there are the films which embrace the transpersonal in the visual
form as well as through the subject content and dramatic structure.
In films like Wim Wenders' Wings of Desire (1987) and Lawrence Kasden's
Grand Canyon (1991) the camera transcends all boundaries, moving through
walls and floating through the air to capture the visceral reality
of these other realms. Of course these categories tend to overlap
and most transpersonal films are a combination of these elements.
It's a Wonderful Life (1946)
I believe there is also a more subtle way that the transpersonal
enters the cinema. There are films that move us in ways that are
beyond just the stimulation of thoughts, ideas and emotions; beyond
content, drama and form. These films cause a subtle shift inside us,
they touch us on the level of soul or spirit. Sometimes these films
deal directly with transpersonal realms; sometimes they are simple
films about love and the human spirit; sometimes they are dark
journeys into the underworld.
The power of these films seems to depend on the intersection of our
own life's journey with the journey of the film. When this
connection is made it seems as though this film was made for us. A
chill moves through us and the notion of a grand design touches our
awareness. In this way any film becomes transpersonal. From great
works of filmic art to pop culture escapist adventures. Somehow the
divine seems to be woven into the light of the movie projector. As
the images and sounds dance before us, our realities and projections
meet. Sometimes we are moved and entertained . . . and sometimes we
are transformed.
Published in Focus: The Quarterly Newsletter of the Institute of
Transpersonal Psychology, Fall, 1-2, 1993.
