Viaggi ai confine della Coscienza

Journeys to the Edge of Consciousness is a wonderful film - it encapsulates such an important message so beautifully. I know I was one of many at the screening who found it very moving. More of the world needs to see it, I recommend it to everyone!

In the past few years I watched many different documentaries about the exciting topic of psychoactive substances and the psychedelic revolution we're entering just now. There are many great movies about it, but Journeys to the Edge of Consciousness is by far my favourite one. There are not only some of the wisest people speaking about how psychedelics can release us from the dangerous (thought-)systems we get born and trapped into in our society, but also the amazing artwork and the wonderful stories of some of the greatest psychonauts of the last century in this movie is just mind-blowing.

I can recommend this movie to anyone who's interested in changing this world to a better place through practices that most people in western civilisation would probably call unconventional. We need unconventional thinking and psychedelics open up doors to realms that we rarely can grasp in our modern day-to-day lives.

Please go and buy the movie, it is so worth the few bucks and honors all the hard work that was put into the production of this masterpiece. I hope and believe that this movie can bring us a giant leap forward in the evolution of collective and individual consciousness! A consciousness that is so much needed right now!

Part narrative exploration of written accounts of psychedelic experiences (what I expected going in), part polemic, part advocacy and part education. I suspect that for the message to truly resonate as intended a very specific worldview and cultural context is necessary (contrary to its universalist presentation), so its ideal audience is rather small. It's unlikely to change any minds and, to someone whose worldview only partially overlaps with that presented, its content ranged from the insightful, through the obvious, through the totally backwards and through some unfortunate patches of thin nonsense.

However that does not ruin any experience, there's beauty in it and some valuable messages. Even if you are not fully aligned with the worldview espoused of psychedelics as an gateway to the external and spiritual more than the internal and obscure, as I am not, there are things to appreciate or learn from this and I would recommend a watch. Parts will need discarded but other parts are of great value.

My lukewarm rating comes primarily not from my disagreements in spiritual worldview but from a sense that the components of the film work against each other. The narrative exploration is undercut by long discussion segments that veer off far from the texts. The education is undercut by needing to make room for other content, for example setting is often mentioned but not elaborated on in depth. The advocacy of drug liberalisation, a cause I support, is built on twin justifications of (sadly underexplored) medical merits of psychedelics and of laying out a spiritual faith-based view of reality as revealed by psychedelics. Naturally these do not complement each other and, indeed, undermine each other. This film is effectively several other potential films crowding each other out and stunting what they could have been. A shame, but take from it what you can, and enjoy the process of doing so.

'Journeys to the edge of consciousness' , could have equally been called, 'a road map for healing mental and emotional trauma' or even 'how to navigate the mind, body and spirit of the self'. The film looks at three wonderful animations, documenting a quick snapshot of the experiences of Alan Watts, Aldous Huxley and Timothy Leary. What follows are the lucid perspectives of the best of today's thinkers. The film educated me, (the quality of the information is in depth and referencable), this film challenged my perspective on social issues surrounding human behaviour and human rights issues. This film comforted me to know that there are individuals and groups who have solutions to troubling social issues of today. Psychedelia this film explains but the wider truth is that of the reconciliation of the human spirit is within our grasp if conscientious disciple and a dollop of humour is employed,....for All! A wonderful, wonderful documentary, and because of the mature delivery will become a reference of the genre and indeed for all who want to be whole.

Having watched many documentaries on the subject of how exogenous substances interact with human consciousness I can say that this documentary takes a very refreshing perspective on this subject which, sadly, is still severely lacking in research. Hopefully this documentary and others like it will help bring this subject further into the mainstream.

The three accounts retold in this documentary are extremely well presented with a beautifully animated visual style and moving score which all work together elevating this beyond just a film, this is an important piece of self education for those thinking about diving into the world of altering consciousness, but equally this is an audio visual piece of art. Enjoy!