Soul's Code

We knew that we had a winning combination when we created Soul’s Code. How Hollywood is using the same words

In the spirit of Jungian synchronicity, are movie studios now mimicing our meme? Hundreds of millions have been invested in these feature films, and the producers branded them by using either the word “Soul” or “Code” in the titles — and on the cinema marquee:

She’s pretty American

BY PAUL KAIHLA — In her short, unintentional life, Paris Hilton has performed at least one spiritual good deed: In 2007, after being sentenced to 45 days in jail for . . . whatever, she exited her L.A. home carrying a copy of Eckhart Tolle’s, The Power of Now.

That single act, and famous photo, gave Tolle’s best-selling book of spiritual haiku a second life. It zoomed up Amazon.

The take on Paris among the Soul’s Code community of helping-professionals goes something like this: she’s a harmless person who puts herself out there — but not “in” there — as in, herself. Or what Carl Jung called “the Self,” free of an excessive degree of self-concern.

When she was sentenced, we publicly prayed for Paris’ new inner life — or at least that she’d undergo what another American icon, Dwight Eisenhower, called “an agonizing reappraisal.”

It didn’t work.

Spiritual cinema: From the Rolling Stones to religious war, these 5 flicks are enlightened and entertaining.

1. 9th Company, the Russian side of “Charlie Wilson’s War”

Hulu.com, the website where you can play TV and movies for free, finally has a foreign flick worth watching. (Actually, make that any flick).

Hulu just posted 9th Company, “9 Рота” in the original Russian — the first time that a mass American audience has been exposed to the best movie we’ve ever seen from the post-Soviet Union (and in that spirit, it’s a co-production with Finland and the Ukraine).

Yes, the movie does has subtitles. But think of it as the Rus version of Platoon with the nitty-gritty psychological naturalism of Stanley Kubrick’s Natural Born Killers. But it’s actually based on a true story.

An anti-anxiety antidote from Katie Davis, a spiritual teacher and peer of Eckhart Tolle’s

SPECIAL TO SOUL’S CODE: KATIE DAVIS author of Awake Joy: The Essence of Enlightenment — Through spiritual awakening, we realize that virtually nothing is as it seems. Previously, we believed that we were a tiny fraction of individuality that was limited to an, “I am the body,” idea.

In mis-identification with the false “I,” which is the ego or mind-made self, it seemed like we were separate bodies that lived in a world of other separate people and things.

That individuated ego only knows separation, so it can only perceive separation and its lack. This delusion is the source of all suffering, and what we call the misery of the world.

Spiritual IQ Quiz — The Hobbit sits at the intersection of Hollywood and high geekery.

It’s hard to imagine a topic any more obscure than the ancient languages and elaborate invented mythologies of author J.R.R. Tolkien’s universe.

After the improbable success of Peter Jackson’s film adaptation of Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, however, it’s hard to imagine a hotter Hollywood property — if anything Tolkien’s The Hobbit is a much more cinematic tale than his Rings epic.

The entertainment and gossip rags are abuzz with every piece of news connected to the two-part film production. This week’s development: actor Elijah Wood has agreed to reprise his role as Frodo.

There’s another strand running through this cultural event, however. Tolkien had a deep spiritual life, and his tales are a rich expression of it. Take this quiz to find out how much you know about the spiritual world Tolkien created, a world that will very soon generate yet another Hollywood blockbuster.

Can you inherit hate? The karmic question is tested in an HBO documentary about the most notorious public enemy alongside Bin Laden and Hitler

BY PAUL KAIHLA – A DEA agent once told me a story he heard about Pablo Escobar, the late founder and CEO of the Medellin drug cartel. Escobar saw an attractive woman in a Colombian hotel. He ordered his henchmen to do two things: kill the woman’s husband, and bring her to his room, where he raped her.

The tale may be apocryphal, and it appears in no public accounts. But what is in the public record thanks to multiple investigations and sig-int intercepts is that Mr. Escobar ordered: the assassination of 3 Colombian presidential candidates, as well as 100’s of cabinet ministers, judges, prosecutors and cops; the bombing of an Avianca jet that killed 110 passengers . . . it’s a long list of atrocities.

In other words, if you’re going to document a case study on the origins and transference of hate, violence and sin, Pablo Escobar is a cardinal candidate.

The gospel of LOST: Steeped in mystical memes and Einstein’s deconstruction of time, here are 12 reasons that LOST was the most “enlightened” show on TV

BY PAUL KAIHLA — In the 2011 liturgical calendar of American TV, what have we got? Jersey Shore ?! Millionaire Matchmaker? They make Sarah Palin look seriously spiritual. And they strip all shame from the vapid Lloyd Braun-Marc Cherry content called Desperate Housewives. Also an ABC product.

In this 2011 season of Lent, we still long for LOST. Why bring up religious matters?

LOST was a religious experience. Here are 12 reasons why:

The Secret‘s wishful thinking, versus the reality of 7 million American jobs lost. Soul’s Code introduces its own guide to balancing job security — and inner security

BY PAUL KAIHLA —  Oprah’s endorsement helped make a viral, online video called, The Secret, a mainstream hit a couple of years ago.

The theme of The Secret is that the good or bad you see in your life situation is a reflection of the contents of your consciousness. No, not your intellectual property — your intention. The producers of the indie Internet phenomenon co-opted the phrase, “the law of attraction” — as in, you have what you believe in.

Or more to their point: your affluence equals your attitude.

By that measure, many Americans — and good people all around the world — must have been thinking some very, very bad things, indeed, since September, 2008.

Black Swan shows the best and worst extremes of art and letting go

BY MICHELLE MORRA-CARLISLE – As the closing credits for Black Swan started rolling, the woman I was sitting next to turned to me and said, “Weird, eh?”

Yes, the darling ballerina who first graced the screen had gone off the artistic deep end. There comes a point in Black Swan where everyone in the theatre realizes it’s more than just a movie about an angst-ridden dancer. We fidget, uncomfortably bracing ourselves for what’s next.

Natalie Portman’s character, Nina Sayers, is a disciplined dancer whose entire focus is on keeping it together. That means being sweet enough to keep her unstable and manipulative mother (Barbara Hershey) from unraveling, quiet enough not to elicit the wrath of her catty fellow dancers, and having full control over her every ballet move. That self-discipline makes her the ideal White Swan for Swan Lake – her big break – but her choreographer Thomas Leroy (Vincent Cassel) doubts her ability to embody the sensual darkness of the Black Swan. In a grueling rehearsal, the sexy and cruel Thomas says, “Perfection is not just about control. It’s also about letting go.”

Loving someone hurts when we can’t slay their monsters. The King’s Speech is about coming through the worst of it alone.

BY MICHELLE MORRA-CARLISLE – Movies want audiences to sympathize for their characters, and I usually oblige. My heart sank right along with Leonardo DiCaprio in the Titanic. I ached for Jamie Foxx as his character battled schizophrenia and homelessness in The Soloist. I even mustered some emotion for Angelina Jolie as she screeched about her stolen son in The Changeling. Pretty heavy subject matter compared to public speaking – yet I have never felt such agony for a character as I did for Colin Firth in The King’s Speech.

The actor reportedly had a similar response when he watched a newsreel of the real King George VI stammering through a speech. Though the King did a good job of making his stutters sound like dramatic pauses, his obvious struggle brought tears to the eyes of Firth and director Tom Hooper.

This isn’t a story about someone being mocked for his impediment. The King had support. The British masses in stadiums and in their livingrooms sat with bated breath, respectfully rooting for the King. Yet all of their collective good will and that of his loving wife and daughters could not help His Majesty get those words out smoothly and painlessly. For me, it’s a story of not only the King but those who loved him.