Spiritual Revolution

Title:               The Spiritual Revolution
Director:              Alan Swyer
Producer:            Alan Swyer
Screenwriter:
Cinema:                Aaron Landy
Editor:                   David Flores
Music:                   Catherine Wong, Derek Alan Jones
Year:                      2007 (128 minutes)

Synopsis: The Spiritual Revolution is a look at Eastern spirituality in the Western world – its origins, its forms, and the many ways it has evolved on American soil. While exploring various forms of Hinduism and Buddhism – with a who’s-who of swamis, gurus, Zen Masters, and Tibeten kamas that include Master Charles Cannon, Sakyong Mipham Rinophe, Swami Chetanananda, Jack Kornfield, and others – the film also focuses on specifically Western manifestations. Highlighted is the way Buddhism, for example, has been embraced by forward thinking psychotherapists. Also explored is the path of convergence with western science, thanks especially to Harvard’s Sara Lazar, who has used FMRI technology to conduct the breakthrough studies on the cortex of meditators, proving that meditative practice can reverse the aging process in the brain. Also addressed in the film is the changing role of women in what in the East have been patriarchal realms. But perhaps most exciting is the section detailing how meditation has been used to help segments of the population that have been long overlooked: on the one hand, junkies and AIDS patients; and on the other, working-class children, who are introduced to it under the secular term “mindfulness.”

Review: I enjoyed this film. I can’t claim that it is a great documentary, but I did find it interesting and entertaining. Director Alan Swyer does a good job of explaining Eastern spiritual philosophies and how they have slowly gained understanding and acceptance in Western cultural. He also did a good job of presenting this information in a way that is accessible to the spiritual novice.

Spiritual Revolution is part history and part infomercial for the growing Eastern philosophical movement in the U.S. and the rest of the Western world. Actually, using the world “infomercial” is not the word I want to use. I think it’s safe to say that Swyer is an advocate of eastern thought, but his film is much more informational than it is slick salesmanship. Rather than hitting the audience over the head with a marketing message, Spiritual Revolution simply offers the information for audiences to either accept or reject. No hard sell.

There was one segment of the film that seemed a bit sales-oriented. It involved Master Charles Cannon and his breakthrough research on using technology to help people meditate. That part of the film did seem like a bit of a pitch, but even that was not hard sell.

Spiritual Revolution will likely not change the world (How many documentaries can make that claim?), but it was an enjoyable and informative film.

(3.0 out of 5.0)