Reel Spirit is your personal guide to spirituality in the movies. It includes reviews and synopses of 400 movies that truly matter–movies which put you in touch with your true spiritual nature, perhaps challenge your way of looking at the world, and help you understand and love yourself and other people
This invaluable reference guide covers everything from blockbuster titles to movies of various generes that span the history of the cinema, from the early 1900s through 1999. it includes such films as the Star Wars series, It’s a Wonderful Life, The Lion King, The Wizard of Oz, Life Is Beautiful, When Harry Met Sally and National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation.
Teague provides short summaries of the plots of 150 movies, along with a page-long commentary on each film’s spiritual themes. Short synopses point readers to an additional 250 movies. Teague covers a wide range of Hollywood’s output, from the 1950s to the present, focusing mostly on films with a strong positive message, from The Wizard of Oz to the Star Wars series.
He doesn’t stray very far from the beaten path: there is no mention of the spiritually charged The Shawshank Redemption, much less notable films that missed the American mainstream, such as Searching for Bobby Fischer or Babette’s Feast.
Spiritual people are just as subject as their secular neighbors to the Blockbuster Effect: the amazing incapacity, when confronted by a video store’s thousands of titles, to pick out just one film to watch tonight. Teague aims to guide the perplexed toward “metaphysical movies” that demonstrate “basic spiritual principles”–specifically, the principles of the Unity Church, a development of Christianity with affinities to, though a longer history than, the New Age movement. (Unity teaching includes the ideas that “the essence of God is within each person” and “we create our world and experiences using God-energy.”)
Teague, who was a journalist before joining the Unity Church’s publishing arm, provides short summaries of the plots of 150 movies, along with a page-long commentary on each film’s spiritual themes. Short synopses point readers to an additional 250 movies. Teague covers a wide range of Hollywood’s output, from the 1950s to the present, focusing mostly on films with a strong positive message, from The Wizard of Oz to the Star Wars series.
He doesn’t stray very far from the beaten path: there is no mention of the spiritually charged The Shawshank Redemption, much less notable films that missed the American mainstream, such as Searching for Bobby Fischer or Babette’s Feast. Teague’s selections mirror standard box office hits so closely that readers may have a difficult time discerning where Hollywood ends and Unity begins.
Author: Raymond Teague
Year of Release: 2000
