Hollywood and Kabbalah?

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I've seen a couple movies now heavily dosed with Kabbahlistic messages and I'm starting to wonder whether its just a couple of isolated incidents or perhaps the start of a new trend in movie making. I'll admit, I sat through Revolver earlier this year - Jason Statham, Guy Richie directed, the film looks slick enough until you realize at the end that you rented something kind of similar to a Jehova's Witness flier.

Now my parents just handed me a movie that they rented at the library, told me I should give it a chance. 'The Peaceful Warrior' about Dan Millman and gymnastics, I watched the guy who played his part and then watched Nick Nolte and it was like Revolver revisited. Yeah, Dan Millman's written many self help books, not particularly Kabbalah but either intentionally or unintentionally loaded with the message to abandon ego, live in the moment, and forget the physical prizes.

I'm sort of curious to figure out what exactly is fueling this dynamic, if it is in fact a dynamic on its own. I noted that one of the old stars, can't remember who, said something to the extent that the old generation of Hollywood would have a party, enjoy themselves, and at the end of the night hand up their hats and go to sleep feeling at peace whereas the new generation goes from party to party to party. Maybe its the sense of emptiness that Hollywood feels with its own endeavors or how many of the stars themselves feel a sense of emptiness in that they've made all kinds of great movies, have people seeing them larger than life, and their easily as flawed as anyone else - compacted by the identity crisis that they're mere mortals, same self-doubts, same self esteem issues that anyone else has, reached the supposed ultimate pinnacle of what our culture is supposed to be, and just not feeling the reward that people say it is?


Don't get me wrong, I'm not knocking the messages of Kabbalah, I think a lot of it is rather on point in terms of dissecting the problems with human nature, just that its strange to see the ways its resurfacing sometimes. With a world still half-filled with genocidal maniacs and religious fanatics though, are we really ready as a culture to throw down our arms and let life act on us? I really have my doubts. I also have to admit, I'm not familiar with how Kabbalah deals with evil - does it encourage people to fight back and do what's necessary or does it encourage, like Buddhism, a lot of passive resistance? IMO, sadly, we're still a prehistoric people. With this day and age, our culture, technology, the ease of accessing great amounts of information, more and more people are greatly disenfranchised with being slaves to genes and animal instincts - after all we're feeling too human, too much like higher beings, too disconnected from that sort of reality and many people really want nothing to do with it. A lot of times, whenever I even just look around me, look at myself even, I'm just sickened by the state of the world and the sort of in-programmed slavery we have to our genetics, it seems to almost abrogate free will.

I'm going to keep an eye on this for sure though. By the same note, if my friends decide to rent any movies with mystical Mr. Miagi type teachers or people with almost supernatural senses of their surroundings or life, if they see me pointing at the TV and laughing about all the profound little moments - its not like they haven't been warned already.

I think it was that 'succubus' Madonna; brandishing the red bracelet made of yarn, talking about the importance of change just as soon as she 'multiplied' genetically.

Funny though, when you really think of it-- those really deep into kabbalah folklore place amulets on their young so demons like her stay at bay.

Yet deeper still, does she merit the consequences of her actions?

Well, if it is Madonna I'd imagine the Yankees manager will have to love her connections with A-Rod. Having a baseball superstar say "Nah, I'll take a lower contract - I'm just in it for the love of the game" would be a first in... probably ever .

Eh, he has to be stark-raving mad! Gosh I sure hope that is nothing more than a publicity stunt; how disgusting. I don't care how much yoga she has to do to keep it up, he has to know she has a gash the size of Staten Island. Basically it boils down to "What's Wrong with Hollywood?"

Well it's a propaganda machine, so it's appropriate to notice and question whatever propanda it thrusts at one. I'm not sure what Kabbalah actually is but I'd guess the Hollywood version of it is fairy shallow anyway. It's just another form of 'product placement' isn't it, you know, the coke can on the table, the smoking actors, the kabbalah accessories.

Spirituality DOES get commodified. Like everything else.

What's wrong with Kabbalah?

It's a Hollywood fad. I don't know enough about Kaballah to give any further comment.

you mean scientology?

The very few bits of information I got from reading about Kabbalah I found that some of my beliefs are very similar to it.

Excuse me, the resurgence of Kabalah teachings is a Hollywood fad.

Scientology ... what would you call Scientology?

There has always been something like this swirling in pop culture. In the 1960s, there was a Kaballah set sold in the Sears catalog - made from heavy duty, glow in the dark plastic, it was a competitor to the Ouija Board - the board pivoted depending on the pressure that people exerted with their hands, and there was a track with a marble - and letters around the track ... along with a book with somebody's take on what the Kaballah was and how to unlock its secrets.

In the 1970s, there was David Carradine in Kung Fu. Then came the Jedi and The Force in Star Wars. The Karate Kid was a toned version of the same thing with less mysticism and more old fashioned hard work and self-help.

I think it is a archetype - like the wizard, the cowboy, the detective, the woman trapped in a difficult relation, the athlete that overcomes incredible odds.

BTW - the most interesting movie featuring the Kaballah (IMO) is Pi. Not at all simplistic, rather disturbing, but it escapes the triteness of many of the other new-agey films.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kabbalah_Centre

This version of Kabbalah is a money-making scheme, just like Scientology. It shouldn't be the image of Kabbalah to the world, but unfortunately, it is, much in the way the false messiah Shabbatai Tzvi represented Kabbalah to the Vilna Gaon and the rest of Lithuanian Jewry.

Nothing, just that its really odd to me to see something actually good or intelligent coming out of Hollywood. That and when I do see something of that caliber coming out from, like I said, Hollywood, I start really wondering not about the religion itself but the context of the events, why its happening, who's pushing it, why, as in its the human agenda in it that has me scratching my head. To me, Kabbalah in Hollywood - right next to radical liberalism and Scientology, seems rather paradoxical; unless they're going to twist it into something very pro-socialist, very turn-the-other-cheek, very peace-love-dope hippyish. They have the Midas touch with everything that gets into their hands (in reverse of course), nothing seems to happen there for no reason, so the real intriguing question becomes - why Kabbalah.

Kabbalah is at least a valid and sensible philosophy, Scientology is just schizophrenia - blatantly obvious very recent history of a guy named L Ron Hubbard with a theory called Dyanetics, that didn't work, he had to coerce people into continuing to believe it and then when it became clear what it was....."Duh......uhh.......Its a religion! That's right..yeah!". The first at least has credibility, the later is BLATANT trash and I really have to wonder what sick agenda people have being Scientologist when, as the fact that its a scam is waved right out on a flagpole for everyone to see and literally no one who can breath on their own could be that stupid, what Scientologists real intentions and agendas really are.

This is just part of why it makes me sick to see the two blossoming in the same sh*thole town right next to eachother, as in there's something really wrong with that picture IMO.

Real Kabbalah is extremely complex and traditionally, you have to be a Jewish male over 40 well-versed in Hebrew, the Torah, and the Talmud. The Hollywood version of Kabbalah has nothing to do with that and is a way to fleece gullible celebrities.

Isn't it obvious what Scientology's true agenda is?

They want to take over the world.