Welcome to "Conscious Movie Reviews."
I'm your host, Joy Davis, and here to review the action and adventure film, "Dr. Strange."
A brilliant and arrogant neurosurgeon, Dr. Stephen Strange, became hospitalized from
a bad car accident that left his hands nearly useless from nerve damage.
He became manic, seeking out experimental and costly treatments.
His growing frustrations drove away any caring gestures from his former girlfriend and fellow
surgeon, Dr. Christine Palmer.
During a rehabilitation session, Dr. Strange learned about a parapalegic patient who was
able to miraculously walk again.
He was intent on finding him for answers.
They met at a basketball court where Jonathan Pangborn spoke about the Ancient One of the
Kamar-Taj sanctuary, but warned him about the cost of seeing her, not in dollars, but
the effect on his mind and spirit.
Dr. Strange traveled to Kathmandu.
He was directed to the Kamar-Taj site and taken in by Mordo, a sorcerer trained by the
Ancient One.
As the saying goes, "When the student is ready, the Master will appear."
It's usually from a series of synchronistic events leading up to that life-changing moment.
In a private meeting with Dr. Strange, the Ancient One understood his dire need for a
healing.
She explained that the body's cells have an innate ability to repair and regenerate.
We can facilitate the process by reorienting our spirit to better heal the body.
There are numerous testimonials of spontaneous healings from those who practice Qigong from
China.
It is done by doing a moving meditation to direct your Qi (or Life Force) to where it's
needed by the body.
Some forms of Qigong help you to draw from Nature's Life Force that's abundant in trees,
the earth, sun, moon and planets for self-healing.
Not at all convinced by the Ancient One's wisdom, she motioned with one hand to push
out his Astral body so he can experience the otherworldly reality of the Astral plane.
It was a terrifying experience!
She forced him to expand his sense of Self within the multi-verse.
To be anatomically correct, the Astral body is connected to the physical by a silver cord.
We operate several bodies at once called the Astral, Causal, Mental, Etheric and Soul.
They range in vibrational quality, from course to fine.
The most efficient means to travel throughout the planes of God is by using the Soul body.
It is not through movement, but more of an expansion of consciousness to project yourself
anywhere.
Through lots of practice, you can master this natural ability.
The furthest you can reach with the Astral body is the Astral plane that is above the
physical plane.
Also called the World of Emotions, it is the source of psychic phenomena, ghosts, flying
saucers and the occult sciences.
You can use your imagination to easily manifest at will on this plane.
The Ancient One kicked out Dr. Strange when he pleaded, "Teach Me."
She recognized the same stubborness, arrogance and ambition in him, like her former student,
Kaecilius, who aligned with the dark forces.
Dr. Strange was let back in the sanctuary to be trained as a sorcerer.
The Ancient One demonstrated how to harvest energy from other energies of the multi-verse
to build shields and weapons.
When you observe the designs made, they follow geometrical archetypes used in Sacred Geometry.
The understanding is that all life forms emerge out of timeless geometric codes.
The five basic patterns are the Tetrahedron, Hexahedron, Octahedron, Dodecahedron, and
Icosahedron.
You'll find these patterns throughout the Universe.
They represent unity and wholeness in geometry.
The demonstration by the Ancient One was also similar to Reiki, the ancient practice of
subtle energy healing from Japan.
A student is initiated when the Reiki Master places Universal Life symbols in their aura.
The power of the symbols are invoked for the spiritual energies to flow through them for
healing purposes, higher levels of awareness or manifestation.
Dr. Strange was shown how to use a Sling Ring for building an energetic portal to step into
another location or dimension.
He had trouble with the exercise.
He could not surrender control for the power to flow through him, so the Ancient One had
to demonstrate.
The portal created opened to Mt. Everest where she left him there to focus on building a
portal back to the sanctuary or else go into shock from the frigid cold within minutes.
Her merciless method worked.
Spiritually, you do not need a relic like a Sling Ring to project yourself.
The body houses energetic centers called chakras.
The Third Eye chakra and the crown chakra at the top of the head are built-in portals.
To explore the planes of heaven, you are not going outside the body to do that.
Just the opposite.
You are going within the body through these portals for inner exploration to other dimensions.
At the sanctuary's library, Dr. Strange was drawn to a collection of advanced books on
sorcery.
One in particular was about the study of time and the page was missing.
According to master Wong, the head librarian, it was stolen by Kaecilius, who killed for
it.
Dr. Strange was forbidden to read the book, but managed to acquire it deceptively.
They were instructions about using the mystical Eye of Agamotto to bend time to freeze it
and create time loops.
Mordor was a purist in his strong belief that they are Defenders of Natural Law.
There's consequences to manipulating the space-time continuum.
Actually, time is an illusion.
The past, present and future are all occuring at once in this moment.
Because our physical body is part of the third dimension, our ego-mind can only perceive
experiences separately, meaning one at a time.
If you were to operate from your Soul body's awareness, you'd be able to see beyond the
constructs of the mind.
Kaecilius wanted the text from the book to summon the powerful Dormammu of the Dark Dimension
that is beyond time to live forever.
To let the dark force in, he would have to destroy the three sanctums in London, Hong
Kong and New York City that protect Earth from other dimensions.
The Dark Arts are a misuse of the energies of God.
There are karmic repercussions from doing this whenever you bend God's Will to your
own for power and control.
As a warning, don't get trapped by lower world phenomena!
Many mistakenly believe that the Universal Mind Consciousness is the highest level of
spiritual evolvement.
There is much more beyond the lower planes of heaven.
Very few explore the higher worlds of pure spirit that can lead to Self-Realization for
an understanding of yourself as Soul and ultimately, God-Realization.
Dr. Strange surveyed the sanctum in New York to notice a long cape encased in glass.
He found himself in battle with Kaecilius and his zealots when they showed up unexpectedly.
Coming to Dr. Strange's defense was the cape that claimed him as relics choose a sorcerer
to work with.
It gave him the power of levitation.
We are all endowed with the natural ability to levitate, but it takes lots of practice
to master.
One of the most famous levitators was Teresa of Avila, a Carmelite nun during the Middle
Ages.
On more than one occasion, she was observed levitating during Mass.
To explain this remarkable feat, Teresa wrote in her biography that "...consciousness of
being in the body disappears.
Sense activity ceases; memory and imagination are also absorbed in God or intoxication.
Body and spirit are in the throes of a sweet happy pain, alternating between a fearful
fiery glow, a complete impotence and unconsciousness, and a spell of strangulation, sometimes by
such an ecstatic flight that the body is literally lifted into space."
After the fall of the London sanctum, it became obvious to the sorcerers that Kaecilius was
drawing power from the Dark Dimension.
In a fight to the death, Kaecilius would mock up illusions of rotating buildings and landscapes
that Dr. Strange found difficult to course through.
Visually, the folding of objects resemble the masterful art of M.C.
Escher.
He practiced Geometric sorcery on canvas to create illusion.
Many recognize him as a kind of Existentialist.
Escher once called himself a "reality enthusiast" interested in "the language of matter, space
and the Universe."
The Ancient One showed up in New York City to join the fight against Kaecilius, but was
mortally wounded by him and had to be taken to the hospital.
Dr. Strange called on Dr. Palmer to save the Ancient One.
She died at the hospital as her spirit body trailed away.
He learned about how she used the powers of the Dark Universe to bend time and avoid death.
Moving on to Hong Kong, Kaecilius defeated the sorcerers to freely destroy the sanctum.
Dr. Strange used the Eye of Agamotto to reverse time and undue all of the destruction.
As a cunning move, he confronted Dormammu in the Dark Dimension to trap them in an endless
time loop.
This gave Dr. Strange the ability to bargain in his favor.
Dormammu agreed to take Kaecilius from Earth and never come back again for the spell to
be broken.
The grasp by the negative forces is strong to keep you in the lower worlds through endless
rounds of birth and rebirth.
You must want self-mastery over your lower natures and true spiritual freedom, more than
anything.
In the end, Dr. Strange restored order and returned the Eye of Agamotto to Wong for safekeeping
at the Kamar-Taj sanctuary.
He chose to continue his studies in sorcery at the sanctum in New York City.
As for Mordor, he was so disillusioned by the Ancient One for violating the Laws of
Nature that he abandoned the path of the sorcerer.