SPIRITUAL CINEMA
By Lila Moore, PhD

Since its invention cinema was perceived as a kind of magic with the capacity to transport our awareness to metaphysical realms. In the cinema we sit in the dark whilst our gaze follows patterns made of light. Images of concrete reality and fantasy are projected on the screen like reflections of other worlds. As viewers we accept the temporarily loss of physical reality and in a state akin to dreaming, or occasionally trance, our psyche blends images of reality and illusion until the real and the unreal can not be differentiated.

Undoubtedly we tend to react with real physical sensation to film images. The connection between the pictures on the screen and the mind is so intense that the impact is both physical and mental. Brain research demonstrates that the human mind does not differentiate between reality and fantasy, and film unlike any other art has the power to enchant our awareness with intangible mirages.

The origins of cinema can be found in pre-history and shamanic art. The same magic thread runs through primordial rites and the technologically advanced cinema of our time. The visionary film producer and director Stephen Simon, co-founder of The Spiritual Cinema Circle, describes filmmakers as shamans ‘who combine stories and sounds and images to create celluloid visions of reflected light that initiate us with the sacred wisdom of our culture’.
In recent years a powerful wave of creativity and vision has been unleashed building a new frontier of filmmaking and the potential for a fresh and evolving cinematic genre. The spark that ignited the fire that fuels this promising form of creativity emerged from the cosmic depths of our intelligence and an urgent need to heal the Earth and transform human consciousness.

In 2006 Lila Moore created a course for the Institute for Spiritual Entertainment as a recommended Speaker of the Spiritual Cinema Circle. The course was originally designed to inspire and inform Spiritual Cinema Circle communities. The course highlights a number of topics central to the evolving genre:

Introduction:
The following Spiritual Cinema Circle course will take you on a spiritual journey starting at the dawn of time and culminating in an era where the realms of scientists and mystics merge and transcend our experience of life on earth. The topics will be demonstrated with screenings of film clips and shorts issuing from the Spiritual Cinema Circle or recommended by the Circle, and will be explored with audience participation.

Topic A: Cinema of the Spirit 

The notion of filmmakers as magicians and shamans has its roots in pre-history. Our ancestors did not make movies however the art and magic of cinema began in caves hidden within the ancient earth for thousands of years. Glimpsing the depths of our collective unconscious and Dream Time we will explore how cinema as a creative medium can connect us with, and manifest, our deeply engraved spiritual nature, whilst throwing light on the spiritual journey of our time. 

Topic B: Cinema of the Feminine Spirit 

Long before Niki Caro’s breathtaking Whale Rider, Maya Deren directed At Land and Ritual in Transfigured Time unleashing the language of the feminine body and psyche with the art of cinema. The Spiritual Cinema Circle provides a unique platform for women artists, authors and filmmakers by offering films made by women that depict aspects of women’s lives and spirituality rarely shown in mainstream cinema or television.  We will explore the new Screen Goddess, both as filmmaker and performer, her boundless creativity, visual language, healing powers and wisdom. Observing her reflecting the divine female Creator, who gives form to ideas and connects spirit with matter. 

Topic C: Cinema of Love and Transcendence 

The landmark film What Dreams May Come, the workshop film In To See Me, the recent visionary film Conversations with God, and many other precious films, reflect the desire of the Soul to unite with its soul-mate and with a mysterious force of eternal love that flows through the veins of Creation. We will access the matrix and substance of innovative films inspired by the power of love and the enigma of soul mates. We will look into the mystical lore of soul mates, and the practice of unconditional love in our daily lives, careers, creative projects and relationships.  This enlightening opportunity, based entirely on knowledge and inspirational visions extracted from films, will assist you to heal yourself and others, unleash your creative spirit, enjoy the gifts of love, and help bring peace and harmony to the world.”
Copyright, Lila Moore, 2006

ISE-LONDON

During 2006 Lila Moore and Heather Andrews Dobbs organised and presented Spiritual Cinema Circle’s workshops inspired by films, in central London. They offered a unique blend of film analysis and discussion, spiritual psychology and transformative reflection. The following article was inspired by the unique opportunity to discuss women’s spirituality via a film experience. It was published in the ISE Newsletter.
Artistic Movers
October 2006
Ise-global.org
Film review

Healing Rhythms
By Dr Lila Moore

The Whisperer directed by Andrea Odezynska has a spellbinding simplicity and raw beauty. The spontaneous camera movements on location seem to follow Andrea’s vision and emotion as she attempts to absorb, and connect with, the visible and invisible realm she encounters in the village. Immersed in a time capsule inside a rural village in Western Ukraine, as a viewer, I felt transported to a timeless world where witchcraft is a feminine art, and a way of knowing and healing through nature. A world in which, nature and women co-operate in rhythms so simple, so authentic and yet so powerful. The personal aspect of the filmmaker’s journey to the Ukrainian village reinforces the experience that the film generates. Many of us talk about the divine feminine therefore it is a delight to see aspects of her manifested in new films made by women such as this one.

Since the emergence of feminist film critique in the 1980s it became apparent that the language of women filmmakers is often personal and their stories are filled with intimate and detailed visual observations. In The Whisperer we can see a similar attitude to the portrayal of personal experience, and the importance of featuring the visual and audio details that create the magical environment and phenomenon. When Andrea arrives to the village she is overwhelmed by what she sees saying: “I was just really very moved… Everywhere you looked you saw a beautiful frame…. I felt affected by the colours. I felt affected by the absence of artificial light… We were trying to capture the uncapturable…”

No special effects or visual tricks are needed to express the pain and depth of Andrea’s quest for healing. Nothing can replace the authenticity of her tears. Her encounter with Baba Anna, the local village healer, is stripped of all illusions and yet filled with extraordinary charm. Although we find out that Andrea’s healing is eventually made complete in New-York with the aid of modern medicine, we feel that the village healer opened the door for her healing to take place. Providing Andrea with the energy to continue the healing process and attain emotional fulfilment. The impression is that the healer helped Andrea to connect with her feminine self through water. Water has been the emblem and medium of the divine feminine since the beginning of life on earth.

Although The Whisperer is based on a personal depiction it highlights the global tradition of women healers. It is a film that shows us the inner workings of natural feminine magic and the healing powers that women still possess in remote parts of the world. In places in which the water can hear our voice, give shape to the fire of passion, mirror the future, and answer the longings of the heart.

ISE-London

In 2007 ISE-London will produce a number of events to celebrate the emergence of the Divine Feminine in the evolving genre of Spiritual Cinema. Income from tickets will be utilised to support the expression of women’s creativity and divinity in film.
For info on events and workshops contact: ise-london@blueplanetproductions.co.uk

In 2007 Lila Moore is a Guest Speaker in Tel Aviv SPIRITS, International Spiritual Film Festival.

Tel Aviv SPIRITS, International Spiritual Film Festival takes place from April 26- April 28 2007 at Cinematheque Tel Aviv, Israel's first art Cinema house.

In London the special connection between cinema and the spirit was originally explored in The Spiritual Cinema in St James Church, Piccadilly. Established and led by filmmaker, and Director of St Ethelburga’s Centre, Simon Keyes, Spiritual Cinema commenced with homage to the films of Andrei Tarkovsky who gave two lectures in St. James Piccadilly in 1984, and his memorial service was held there two years later. His unforgettable film Nostalgia was chosen to launch the first season of spiritual cinema in September 2004.

“ I see it as my duty to stimulate reflection on what is essentially human and eternal in each individual soul, and which all too often a person will pass by, even though his fate lies in his hands. He is too busy chasing after phantoms. In the end everything can be reduced to the one simple element which is all a person can count upon in his existence: the capacity to love. The element can grow within the soul to become the supreme factor which determines the meaning of a person’s life. My function is to make whoever sees my films aware of his need to love and to give his love, and aware that beauty is summoning him”. Andrei Tarkovsky

In the second season Lila Moore introduced the films of Maya Deren with the screening of Ritual in Transfigured Time.

“Dr Lila Moore has been involved in Spiritual Cinema at St James Piccadilly for some time. She has spoken at several events, for instance introducing films by Maya Deren, and led some of the discussions that are a central aspect of the screenings. We were particularly pleased to be able to screen her films "Oasis - Experience Love and Gaia - Mysterious Rhythms" which were well received and prompted a fascinating debate. Her interest in the spiritual dimensions of cinema is profound and inspiring”.
Simon Keyes

The following article was written to support the screening of Ritual in Transfigured Time

Ritual in Transfigured Time
Director: Maya Deren,
USA, 1946, 14 mins
By Lila Moore

Meshes, Trances, Rituals and Meditations: Maya Deren created a series of short films in the 1940s; Meshes of the Afternoon (1943), At Land (1944), A Study in Choreography for the Camera (1945), Ritual in Transfigured Time (1946) and Meditation on Violence (1948). The films were realised alongside her attempts to discover a new language integrating the formal aspects of filmmaking, poetry and dance. The films form a body of work that is usually discussed as a whole in order to be fully appreciated. Each film is like a phase in a metaphysical journey, a rite of passage leading to further mysteries.
“Each film was built as a chamber and became a corridor, like a chain reaction. You know those puzzles games where if you draw a continuous line from one point to another, consecutively numbered, you end up with a picture? Well…I finally drew these points and got a picture” (Maya Deren)

The Ritual:
In Ritual Maya Deren explores the metaphysical dynamics of a rite of passage, referring to ritualistic behaviour in an anthropological sense, but locating the rite in a modern setting where a widow undergoes a transformation through the dynamics of ritualistic actions. Likewise tribal rituals in which the participants are depersonalised through the use of masks and movements, in Ritual the characters are merged with archetypal concepts and images and their natural movements are formally manipulated into, what Deren described as, “transcendental tribal power towards the achievement of some extraordinary grace”; the resurrection of the bride.

The Dance:
“Was there anything like Choreography for the Camera before Deren? Snyder: No, well I take it back, because we don’t really know. There was another woman named Loie Fuller, fifty years before Maya, who in her later years was doing experimental films in Europe…” (Clark, Hodson & Newman, 288)
Maya Deren pioneered a cinematic concept of dance choreography based on the manipulation of movement, space and time. She termed the new form ‘film-dance’ suggesting a dance exclusively created by camera and editing. In Ritual she produced the transcendental power of a ‘film- ritual’ through the filmic and choreographic manipulation of both dance and non-dance elements.

A Woman’s Rite:
When Maya Deren’s films were re-discovered by feminist
Filmmakers and theorists it became apparent that her exploration of the female psyche, body and sexuality manifested in radical concepts and depictions never seen before. Deren made her films before any feminist critique of cinema or language existed. She took her gender for granted exploring issues relating to female identity and sexuality with total artistic liberty and outside the limitations of Hollywood’s patriarchal system.
Deren scripted and edited Ritual and performed the transitory state of the protagonist sharing it with two other women. Together the women are depersonalised and unified within a larger archetypal notion of femininity. The film offers a rich mosaic of mythic and symbolic imagery with many layers of meanings ascribed to a sexual rite of passage as seen and experienced by a woman.

Metaphysical Experience:
The ability of the human mind to contemplate the physical and material world, Maya Deren articulated, is a miraculous ability that differentiates humans from other living creatures. The metaphysical action of the human mind, she explained, is as important as the material and physical activities of the body. Stating, “my films are concerned with meanings, ideas and concepts – not with matter”.
Ritual delivers the metaphysical process of transformation through a ritualistic dance leading from the dark fears and sufferings of a widow to the shining purity and ecstasy of a bride. In technical film terms, at the end of the film the widow in her black weeds of the first sequence becomes, by use of a negative, the bride in her white gown.

Film, Myth and Ritual:
In his book The Hero with a Thousands Faces (1949) Joseph Campbell examines the decaying substance of ancient mythologies, religions and nature-based rites, which no longer satisfies the psyche and neuroses of modern people. Hopefully, Maya Deren’s films, ideas, and depiction in Ritual can still rekindle the interest in mythic and ritualistic expression on screen, and in utilising 21st century film and video technology to portray the contemporary heroine and hero by shifting the attention to the spiritual quest of our time.

The Future:
“As we move forward in time and space we take with us the great tradition and wisdom of cinema Masters who sensed the incredible potential of the medium to become the vessel and the mirror of the Soul. Cinema is primarily a visual medium and an art form that can transcends our earth-bound ideas. We are in the midst of a great cinematic adventure”. Lila Moore, PhD