Islamic Mysticism (Spirituality) - The Sufi Way By Huston Smith

Islamic Mysticism (Spirituality) - The Sufi Way By Prof. Huston Smith, Professor of Philosophy, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Terence McKenna's True Hallucinations (Full Movie) HD

Terence McKenna's True Hallucinations is an experimental documentary about the chaos at La Chorrera, the imagination, time, the Logos, belief, hope, madness, and doubt. Created by Peter Bergmann, this project is an expansion of ideas first presented in "The Transcendental Object At The End Of Time".

In 1971, Terence McKenna, along with his brother Dennis and three other companions, ventured by plane, boat, and foot to the paradisical Colombian mission town of La Chorrera, where they hoped to encounter the elusive psychedelic oo-koo-hé. Fate would have it otherwise. Their attention soon turned to the large numbers of Stropharia Cubensis that they lucked upon, and before long, Terence and especially Dennis were formulating the psychopharmacological "experiment at La Chorrera" which would eventually give rise to Terence's expanded Jungian notion of the UFO as human oversoul, and his I Ching based TimeWave Theory which holds, among other things, that history as we know it is accelerating and, in fact, will come to a major concrescence.

Based on the underground classic book and talking book 'True Hallucinations: Being an Account of the Author's Extraordinary Adventures in the Devil's Paradise', this tale of alchemical understanding is a deep dive into the young minds of the McKenna brothers, and an effort to provide some kind of visual aid and emotional center to a much larger story, with details scattered through hundreds of talks. Featuring unearthed photos and notebook pages which have never been seen by the public since generated in 1971.

Special Thanks to Dennis McKenna, Klea McKenna, Kathleen Harrison and Stephanie Schmitz, since their contributions of documents, and approval were crucial in making this film a reality.

Princess Margaret - a royal of passion and cruelty

The Princess Margaret and the The Gangster: John Bindon

John Dennis "Biffo" Bindon (4 October 1943 – 10 October 1993) was an English actor and bodyguard who had close links with the London underworld. The son of a London cab driver, Bindon was frequently in trouble as a youth for getting into fights, and spent two periods in borstal. He was spotted in a London pub by Ken Loach, who asked him to star in his film Poor Cow (1967).

Other film and television productions followed, with Bindon sought after to play gangsters or tough police detectives. He played a violent mobster alongside Mick Jagger in Performance (1970) and a London crime boss in Get Carter (1971). Philip Hoare described Bindon as "the archetypal actor-villain, and an all-round 'good geezer'".

He was also known for having many socialite girlfriends, such as Christine Keeler, the former Playboy "Bunny Girl" Serena Williams and Vicki Hodge, who had a 12-year abusive relationship with Bindon. Through Hodge, Bindon gained access to British aristocratic circles, which culminated with his meeting Princess Margaret in the late 1960s, at her home on Mustique in the Caribbean. Bindon claimed he had sex with the princess, whilst Margaret later denied the meeting ever took place despite photographic evidence.

Bindon lived his hard man persona on and off screen. He was believed to be running protection rackets in west London pubs and was alleged to have connections to the Kray twins and the Richardson Gang. In the late 1970s in addition to acting work he provided security for actors and musicians, most notoriously for Led Zeppelin on their 1977 US tour, where he was sacked for brawling backstage.

In 1978 Bindon was tried for the murder of London gangster Johnny Darke. Bindon pleaded self-defence and was acquitted, but the case damaged his reputation, and this coupled with being seen as difficult to work with by directors meant his acting career declined. In the 1980s Bindon became reclusive; he died in 1993 from AIDS related cancer.

The Secret Lives of Princess Margaret (1997)

Princess Margaret has had a low royal profile for nearly 20 years. At 66 her life provides few headlines. But recently she stepped back into the spotlight with a stinging rebuke to the Duchess of York. In a letter she told her

Not once have you hung your head in embarrassment. Clearly you have never considered the damage you have caused us all. How dare you discredit us like this, and how dare you send me those flowers!

But Margaret had herself already tarnished the royal image. When she returned from Mustique in 1976 she was in disgrace because she had been exposed by the press with a lover 17 years her junior. It was she who was the first member of the house of Windsor to divorce. She who was the first to be publicly criticised. Margaret has at times wanted to be the most royal of the royals at others a rebel. Her life has been spent trying to resolve these contradictions.

Princess Margaret’s morning routine c 1955

Margaret's life of excess, cruelty, desire, passion and self-abuse caught up with her. This is her at 70, just 6 months before her death:

A Technicolor Dream

"A Technicolor Dream" is the story of the underground movement during the Sixties leading up to its culmination at The 14 Hour Technicolor Dream, a "musical happening" at Alexandra Palace, London on April 29th, 1967.

The story takes in CND marches in the early Sixties, the foundation of the London Free School and the Notting Hill Carnival. There are brand new interviews with Roger Waters and Nick Mason from Pink Floyd, John "Hoppy" Hopkins, Joe Boyd, Kevin Ayers, Barry Miles, Phil May from The Pretty Things and many more.

Two documentaries on Paul Bowles - author, traveler, musician, magician

Paul Bowles: The Complete Outsider (1995 Documentary)


Paul Bowles-An American in Tangier (1993)

Paul Frederic Bowles (/boʊlz/; December 30, 1910 – November 18, 1999) was an American expatriate composer, author, and translator. He became associated with Tangier, Morocco where he settled in 1947 and lived for 52 years to the end of his life.

 Following a cultured middle-class upbringing in New York City, during which he displayed a talent for music and writing, Bowles pursued his education at the University of Virginia before making several trips to Paris in the 1930s. He studied music with Aaron Copland, and in New York wrote music for theatrical productions, as well as other compositions.

He achieved critical and popular success with his first novel The Sheltering Sky (1949), set in what was known as French North Africa, which he had visited in 1931. In 1947 Bowles settled in Tangier, at that time in the Tangier International Zone, and his wife Jane Bowles followed in 1948. Except for winters spent in Sri Lanka (then known as Ceylon) during the early 1950s, Tangier was Bowles' home for the remainder of his life.

He came to symbolize American immigrants in the city. Paul Bowles died in 1999 at the age of 88. His ashes are buried near family graves in Lakemont Cemetery, in upstate New York.

Two Documentaries Pink Floyd ( The Story 1994 ) BBC and The Pink Floyd and Syd Barrett Story (2003)

Pink Floyd - The Story (1994). A superb made for TV documentary featuring interviews with the band and associates and rare footage from their career up to The Division Bell. Originally screened as BBC Omnibus. Stereo sound. Bonus feature is a rare Tomorrow's World piece from 1967 featuring Pink Floyd and Mike Leonard's light machines. 46mins


"The Pink Floyd and Syd Barrett Story"The late Syd Barrett was a major cult figure and rock music legend. The charismatic and brilliant lead guitarist of the early Pink Floyd, he created a unique psychedelic sound and wrote wonderfully eccentric songs including the hits “Arnold Layne”, “See Emily Play” and “Bike”. Syd Barrett left Pink Floyd in 1968 when his increasingly erratic behaviour made his continued participation in the band impossible. After two extraordinary solo albums he disappeared from music altogether. “The Pink Floyd & Syd Barrett Story” tells the full bizarre, tragic but also celebratory story of Syd Barrett with contributions from all the members of Pink Floyd plus friends, managers and lovers.

Many lament of what became of Syd, but in my own opinion his mental and emotional state was not simply a disintegration. I seriously believe he was not where he wanted to be by 1968. He was not permitted to alter course due to the enormous reaction his musical work and presence had generation and the number of people who were now dependent upon it, not just him alone but the group he had founded. This excerpt from Nick Mason's book Inside Out; A Personal History of Pink Floyd, about the Floyd gives some idea of what was happening in the mind of Syd even in the earliest days of success:

Red Dead Redemption Short Film by John Hillcoat (2010)

The director of The Road and The Proposition, John Hillcoat, brings you an entirely digital Western short film. It uses Rockstar's rich open world in Red Dead Redemption to tell the story of John Marston's struggle in the new American Frontier.

Phantom India

Louis Malle called his gorgeous and groundbreaking Phantom India the most personal film of his career. And this extraordinary journey to India, originally shown as a miniseries on European television, is infused with his sense of discovery, as well as occasional outrage, intrigue, and joy.

"One Step Beyond": The Sacred Mushroom

In this rather amazing episode, Newland travels to Mexico to eat magic mushrooms. This show aired less than a year after Timothy Leary had traveled to Cuernavaca and had his first experiences with psilocybin, making Newland, along with Leary, one of the handful of high profile pioneers of psychedelia and one of the first public figures to praise psilocybin’s mind expanding properties.

The Embrace of the Serpent / El abrazo de la serpiente

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Presented here without subtitles, it can downloaded from the site and subtitles are available here to add yourself.

The film tells two stories thirty years apart, both featuring Karamakate, an Amazonian shaman and last survivor of his tribe. He travels with two scientists, firstly with German Theo von Martius in 1909 and American named Evan in 1940, to look for the rare yakruna, a (fictional) sacred plant.

The film blends visions, dreams, memories and the conventional story of a journey into a hallucinatory account of how human societies exist in the world-  one against the frame of a luxuriant and cruel nature, the other against a cruel and powerful colonialism. The world of spiritual integrity grows dim and men and women lose the connection with their dreams, and nature is destroyed as a result. This film is an important document for the evolution of human consciousness in a time of great ignorance and misunderstanding. 

The Killing of a Chinese Bookie. (John Cassavetes 1976)

The Killing of a Chinese Bookie is a 1976 American crime film directed and written by John Cassavetes and starring Ben Gazzara. A rough and gritty film, this is the second of their three collaborations, following Husbands and preceding Opening Night.

Gazzara's character of the formidable strip club owner Cosmo Vittelli was in part based on an impersonation he did for his friend Cassavetes in the 1970s. But in an interview for the Criterion Collection in the mid 2000s, Gazzara stated that he believed Vittelli, who cares deeply about the rather peculiar "art" aspect of the routines put on at his nightclub but can't get his patrons (who are only there for naked girls) to, was a double of sorts of Cassavetes himself. Gazzara described his friend as a writer and director that totally believed in the importance and value of his work, because the work represented his heart and soul.

N'oublie pas que tu vas mourir (Don't Forget You're Going to Die)

Benoit is a student in Art History. When it is time for him to do his mandatory military service, he feels that his carefully planned life is falling apart. A fake suicide attempt gets him exempted, but leads him to learn something far worse than army life. Something irrevocable: as the Army doctor told him, the result of his test is positive. He tries to come to terms with this. However, he quickly realises he will never be the same again and like the Romantic heroes of his former life, he chooses to reject his destiny and to transform his existence into a constant exaltation of the senses. Omar, who has always known the hell that surrounds us, is his guide on this initiatory journey...Benoit cannot forget. He fulfils the only dream he has left: a trip to Italy. There, he meets Claudia. S. This film is in French without subtitles.

Change Itself: An Art Apart – Genesis Breyer P-Orridge

To sum up the life and work of British artist Genesis Breyer P-Orridge is close to impossible. Not only because of the wide range of artistic disciplines, but also because of the timespan, since the mid 1960s to the present day, that has been saturated by musical projects like Throbbing Gristle and Psychic TV, hundreds of records, thousands of concerts, exhibitions, interviews, videos, spoken word performances, collages, sculptures, philosophy, cultural engineering, occultism and radical transgender concepts. A couple of descriptions are still valid after these 50 years of active creativity and provocation. P-Orridge is a romantic existentialist and a cultural engineer. Everything is both work as such and seed for cultural and behavioural change.

 A film by Carl Abrahamsson, Sweden, 2016. www.trapartfilm.com

The Sundance Ceremony /The Life of Tasunke Witko (Crazy Horse)

Teaching of the Sundance and why we dance, the history, the outlawing, the youth,men, women and elders points of view. It does not show the ceremony but the preparations involved and work involved to make it happen. We were offered to film it but declined out of respect for the dancers and our people. You can teach people about the ceremonies without showing the ceremony. The only real way to learn is to go, watch, listen and help. It aired 10 years ago in March 0f 2003.

Told from the perspective of contemporary Lakota people, the film explores the life of Crazy Horse (Tasunke Witko). Viewers see the natural world of the Dakotas, Nebraska, Wyoming, and Montana that Crazy Horse knew. His spiritual nature is discussed, as are his unique qualities as a leader. The final portion of the film examines his role at the Battle of Little Bighorn, his resistance against reservation life, and his violent death at Fort Robinson in 1877. Lakota people share what Crazy Horse means in their world today. The film features original music created for this story. Sharing their insights are Lakota historians Jace DeCory, Donovin Sprague, Wilmer Mesteth and Whitney Recountre.

American Hardcore (2006)

American Hardcore: The History of American Punk Rock 1980-1986 is a documentary directed by Paul Rachman and written by Steven Blush. It is based on the book American Hardcore: A Tribal History also written by Blush. It was released on September 22, 2006 on a limited basis. The film features some early pioneers of the hardcore punk music scene including Bad Brains, Black Flag, D.O.A., Minor Threat, Minutemen, SSD, and others. It was released on DVD by Sony Pictures Home Entertainment on February 20, 2007.

Nass El Ghiwane -Transes (1981)

Nass El Ghiwane (Arabic: ناس الغيوان‎) are a musical group established in 1971 in Casablanca, Morocco. The group, which originated in avant-garde political theater, has played an influential role in Moroccan chaabi (or shaabi). Nass El Ghiwane were the first band to introduce Western instruments like the modern banjo. Their music incorporates a trance aesthetic, reflecting the influence of local Gnawa music. Khaled, a prominent Raï singer, began his career performing Nass El Ghiwane songs at weddings and parties. They are also credited for helping bring a new social movement to Morocco.

Transes is a Moroccan film directed by Ahmed El Maânouni, released in 1981. A fan of the Moroccan musical group Nass El Ghiwane, Izza Genini encouraged Moroccan director Ahmed El Maânouni to film the concerts of this musical group. The Moroccan director then follows Nass El Ghiwane in several concerts in the Maghreb (Morocco, Tunisia) and in France then decides to go further and films the musicians in their intimacy. The result is this musical docufiction retracing various social themes (hope, laughter, suffering, revolt ...). The trance in its traditional musical form found among the Gnaouas in Morocco is the major inspiration of Nass El Ghiwane.

"The group's "Trances" are our equivalent of "soul music", our irrationality. I followed the example of the Nass El Ghiwane themselves: I went back to the roots. They draw their music from the last thousand years of Moroccan and African history. the film sets out to reveal and emphasize this heritage. I chose the music of the Saharan brotherhood, The Gnawas, and the verses of the famous poet El Mejdoub, to underline the trances." - Ahmed El Maânouni

Tarkovsky's Stalker (1979) HD with English Subs

A film that requires several viewings. A lot has been written about 'Stalker'. I believe it to be an art work produced of genius. It can be watched again and again - with new depths revealing themselves every time.

"The key moment in Stalker was what comes after the group's realisation that the room does not grant you what you want or plan or even need, but what your heart truly desires. The Writer never enters the Room, as his lack of inspiration is just a symptom of his lack of self-knowledge - he can't know what he wants. The Professor never enters, and dismantles the bomb - if the Room truly does grant you your desire and his deepest desire was to destroy the Room, the bomb is actually redundant. Not one of them enters the Room because they are afraid of what their true desire is. And yet, thanks to going through this process of realisation, all three men arguably end up with exactly what they wanted. The Writer understands he was lacking inspiration because he didn't understand himself; he leaves with both inspiration and understanding. The Professor said he wanted to understand the Zone but planned to prevent its misuse by evil men; he leaves knowing it is beyond the whims of evil men, and with some understanding of what the Zone truly is. The Stalker wants to take people to the Zone but laments that people have lost the belief for traversing the Zone and living good lives; three men have safely navigated to the heart of the Zone and back again, and all three have a belief in something beyond them as a result.

The Professor and the bomb literalise that thought - you get what you truly desire from the Room, but you do so from the act of reaching and understanding it. Entering the Room is redundant - and as the bomb is thrown away unused, so the Room is never used and even goes unseen.

Understanding ourselves is the most powerful thing we have at our sole disposal. So many films, political plans, news angles here are about creating a narrative that suits, and so few challenge the necessity of it. Even when a story is about finding yourself in a narrative you don't control, it is almost always about seizing the narrative for yourself, or finding comfort within it. We are directed to fight the narratives that surround us on their grounds of greatest strength, and told that the correct victory is the one that leaves a narrative redirected but ultimately still in place. Stalker felt important to me as one of the few stories that tells you that you can exist outside of these narratives, so long as you are willing to abandon your narrative of self first. If you understand yourself you don't need to tell stories about yourself to fill that gap, and you find the gulf between you and the narratives that would drag you in is suddenly visible, so visible you don't know why you didn't see it before." (from a comment on the YouTube site by UreasonableOpinions.

Shoah (1985)

Claude Lanzmann's epic documentary recounts the story of the Holocaust through interviews with witnesses - perpetrators as well as survivors.