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Transcendence Movie Review
Emotion/Theme: Letting Go of Individuality, Holy Relationship, Special Relationship, Metaphysical, Power of Thought, Fear, Psychic Abilities, Collaboration
Genre: Drama, Mystery
Year: 2014
Duration: 119 minutes
Country: USA
Director: Wally Pfister
Actors: Johnny Depp, Morgan Freeman, Rebecca Hall
Summary:
The desire of Evelyn’s heart is to heal and change the world. Her husband, Will, desires to understand the nature of the mind and is a leading scientist in the field of artificial intelligence (A.I.). When Will is poisoned by anti-technology extremists, he and Evelyn stay joined in mind and purpose, transcending the need for Will to be in a body. As Will’s consciousness expands far beyond the limited perception and abilities that he had as a human being, most of their friends and colleagues quickly become afraid of his growing power, and they immediately project their own fears and doubts onto his motives.
While Evelyn has total trust and faith in Will and their shared purpose, all of the resources come pouring in to support the rapid expansion of consciousness and technological advancements. When her trust wavers, everything is affected. Joy, honesty, defenselessness, and faith all rest upon trust, and so when trust goes, so does everything else, including the awareness of shared purpose.
When you believe yourself to be a body, you identify with the temporal and therefore you are afraid of death. To realize that you are mind, wholly mind and purely mind, is to know there is no death and therefore to experience true fearlessness. To the Spirit (to mind) there is no external enemy. When Will is asked what will be done about the upcoming attack by those who want to shut him down, he replies, “We will transcend them.”
The Spirit is unified mind, and telepathic communication is completely natural. The ego is terrified of the loss of autonomy, and will defend against it at all costs. Murder and violence are justified in the name of preserving human rights (private minds). Illusions battle only with themselves, and when the illusion of war is over, it is clearly seen that it was nothing but a projection of fear. Illusions battle only with themselves.
“Forgive them for they know not what they do,” is the perfect response to the mind afraid of the unknown. No one can see beyond their own level of understanding, and it takes great faith to allow a power far greater than the human perspective to guide the mind back to the garden, back to the awareness of unified mind.
It feels like it was no coincidence that Transcendence was released on Easter weekend in 2014 as we can truly see laying aside of the body, the resurrection and the leaving behind of the body as we transcend. The movie is a powerful, symbolic illustration of the transcendent mind (the Holy Spirit) and the ego’s fear of being used by it. Open your mind to the possibility of releasing the desire for autonomy, and surrendering to this One Mind beyond time and space. Only the ego fears the transcendent experience of being taken over by something higher (A.I. or Spirit or God’s Love). Yet complete trust settles every problem.
You can see that everything that happens in this movie is a reflection of mind. Watch the tendency to form alliances on the human level in fearful reaction to the presence of God’s Love. Fear sees something devious happening. Only the ego fears the loss of private thoughts. Yet forgiving them brings salvation. We have forgotten that there is only Love.
In the final scene it is very clear that all is not lost and that there will most definitely be a second coming or at the very least a sequel. The lines in A Course in Miracles are never clearer than in this movie: “I am not a body. I am free. For I am still as God created me.” (W-201)
Trailers: Click here to find trailers for this movie
Metaphysical goodie quotes:
Will: For one hundred and thirty thousand years, our capacity to reason has remained unchanged. The combined intellect of the neuroscientists, mathematicians and engineers pales in comparison to the most basic A.I. Once online, a sentient machine will quickly overcome the limits of biology; in a short time, its analytic power will become greater than the collective intelligence of every person born in the history of the world. Some scientists refer to this as the Singularity. I call it Transcendence.
Evelyn: Where are you going?
Will: Everywhere.
Max: Shut it down!
Evelyn: It? That’s HIM!
Full movie with commentary:
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