Introducing the highly-experiential, officially-unscientific Soul’s Code list of the most transcendental movies in recent cinema history, starting with the Tom Hanks vehicle, Cast Away (in ascending order). Almost all of these titles share a theme of personal transformation and identity-morphing resurrection.
We love using pop culture rankings and hierarchies to start conversations about everything from The [...]

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Given its deficit of dialogue and, like, characters, it’s amazing that this 2000 millennial flick did more than $230 million in U.S. domestic box office. Cast Away translates that famous critique of philosopher Blaise Pascal’s into a modern scenario: the misery sewn by western man derives from his inability to sit quietly in an empty [...]

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Nick Nolte in a major spiritual cinematic release? Whodda thunk it? But the one-time action hero (”Farewell to the King,” “Extreme Prejudice,” “North Dallas Forty”) and DUI’d party animal pulls off the role of a modern shaman disguised as a service station custodian with convincing presence. The movie’s not really about him. The central character [...]

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Based on the memoir of the same name by Austrian mountaineer, Heinrich Harrer (1912 -2006), the movie traces the meltdown of the ultimate western ego by the mystical ether that was the Dalai Lama’s Tibet. Brad Pitt plays Harrer, a Nazi poster-boy who embarks on a publicity stunt to scale a Himalayan peak, a point [...]

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Metaphysical bon mots ricochet like ping-pong balls between the characters played by the dream-team cast of Jude Law, Dustin Hoffman, Naomi Watts, Lily Tomlin and French star Isabelle Huppert in this screwball-paced comedy. Brought to you by Three Kings war-caper director, David O’Russell, our favorite bit of dialogue goes:
Tommy: Did you get it?
Albert: Yeah, you [...]

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Think of this movie as the “French Lieutenant’s Woman” of spiritual cinema in that it toggles back and forth between two stories. One narrative is set in modern-day America: the search is on for the next Dalai Lama, and monks vet a caucasion kid in Seattle who just may be The One. Those scenes are [...]

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Another Italian master, Franco Zefferelli, devotes 120 minutes of celluloid to a subject closer to home: the life of Umbrian saint, Francis of Assisi, the most revered male figure in Christianity next to Jesus himself. A period piece that reflects the halo of a fading hippie counterculture, this 1972 biopic catches up to young Francis, [...]

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A sly marriage of a romantic comedy with spiritual cinema, this mainstream hit casts Bill Murray as a cynical narcissist. His gig as a weatherman for a regional TV channel has gone to his head. By some fluke of relativity, he is forced to re-live the same day — again and again — in a [...]

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Arguably the most influential sci-fi movie ever, this abstract cinematic essay was penned by two visionaries: director Stanley Kubrick and science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke. Its central message is that a supreme intelligence is behind the leaps that have informed the evolution of human consciousness. The widely-copied “stargate” scene at the end, in which a lone astronaut is propelled “beyond the [...]

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This movie executes itself like a Mousetrap for mediation — or an induction into a state of profound compassion for one’s Self and *all* beings.
So it may surprise you that Kundun is the product of Martin Scorcese, more familiar to an admiring intelligentsia and media as Hollywood’s reigning monarch of mob violence.
A classic of world [...]

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In our mind, a spiritual resort is a place where you can go out of mind. A place that’s therapeutic not just for your body but your most over-worked and over-heated organ in this mad, mad world — your brain. A spiritual resort is a place that chills your brain organ to the point that [...]

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No. 9
The Chopra Center, Carlsbad, CA: Dr. Deepak is dismissed by purists as Spirituality Lite but let’s face it: he’s done more than most people alive today to bring consciousness studies and mind-body work into the mainstream.
Cost: $325 - $1,000 + per night.
Fine Print: The “center” is actually a meditation and ayurvedic treatment facility within [...]

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No. 8
Mount Calvary Retreat House, Santa Barbara, CA: With Spanish mission architeture and a commanding view of the Pacific Coast, Mt. Calvary is a sublime sanctuary where a lot of healers themselves go to renew their own spirits. We recommend this is as a refuge after a major loss or an inflection point in your [...]

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No. 7
Sycamore Mineral Springs, San Luis Opisbo, CA: A for-profit venue, Sycamore is nonetheless as devoted to wellness in all its forms as the other destinations on this list. It offers everything from Qi Gong to hyphotherapy. It also happens to sit at the northern end of the California “central coast” wine region that the movie Sideways made famous. 
Cost: $165 [...]

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No. 6
Tassajara Zen Mountain Center, Ventana Wilderness preserve, CA:, A hair-rising, hour-long 4×4 drive up a steep and skimpy road full of jack-knife turns brings you to this Zen monastery southeast of Monterey, CA. Tassajara is revered for its network of mountain streams and waterfalls.
Cost: $85 -325 per night.
Fine Print: No electricity in the [...]

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No. 5
Spirit Rock Meditation Center, Woodacre, CA: The San Francisco Bay area redoubt of superstar, Buddhist teacher Jack Kornfield (”After the Ecstasy, the Laundry”) makes up in substance and presence what it lacks in spa trappings and water features. The property has a traditional meditation hut and a large stone Buddha statue –fonts where [...]

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No. 4
Breitenbush Hot Springs, Detroit, Oregon: Like Esalen, this is a workshop resort. But unlike Esalen’s coastal perch, Breitenbush sits at the end of a deep, remote gorge in the Cascade Mountains, southwest of Portland, OR. Its cedar sauna is heated by a bubbling hot springs that sits below the building’s floor boards, and [...]

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No. 3
Wickaninnish Inn, Tofino, BC: It’s not an official spiritual retreat center — it’s a commercial eco-resort. But this is that rare for-profit venue where heaven truly does meet earth, and earth meets heaven. Where old-growth rainforest meets whale-watching. This dreamy outpost on the far side of Vancouver Island feels like its perched on the [...]

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No. 2
The Esalen Institute, Big Sur, CA: Call it the cradle of West Coast civilization. Founded in the 1960s, it was here that figures like Joseph Campbell, Abraham Maslow, Fritz Perls and an Episcopal priest-turned-Zen Buddhist named Alan Watts fused eastern mysticism with modern psychology. They seeded mega-trends ranging from Gestalt Therapy to Star [...]

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No. 1
Harbin Hot Springs, Middletown, CA: Three hours north of San Francisco, this new age community features the only real mineral hot springs in the vicinity of Napa Valley wine country. Equally noteworthy, it is the birthplace of a deeply-somatic therapy called watsu, a word conflated from “water” and “shiatsu”. Think Swedish massage [...]

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