REL207: Ritual, Symbol, and Myth (Carleton)

Here are a rich collection of new and interesting religious and philosophical documentaries and educational films from the library resource Kanopy.

The database Films on Demand contains a wealth of great film and documentary content. This collection showcases a number of the religion titles carried in the collection.

Host Bruce Feiler embeds with a group of active duty and retired US military, wounded in Afghanistan, Iraq and other American wars, as they travel to the Catholic shrine of Lourdes in Southwest France in search of healing. More than five million pilgrims from around the world visit this shrine to the Virgin Mary every year to drink and bathe in the waters of a spring that Catholics believe has miraculous powers. The wounded warriors from America are joining 30,000 other military and their families from 35 different nations on an International Military Pilgrimage that's now in its 55th year, starting after the Second World War.

The Island of Shikoku in Japan is the birthplace of the most revered figure in Japanese Buddhism, the monk and teacher Kobo Daishi, who brought a populist form of Buddhism to Japan from China in the 9th Century. For hundreds of years, a 750-mile pilgrimage route has circled this mountainous island, connecting 88 separate temples and shrines that claim connection to the Great Master - Kobo Daishi. Host Bruce Feiler circles the island, following a pilgrim trail that's taken by hundreds of thousands of Japanese and international pilgrims every year; a Buddhist pilgrimage that welcomes pilgrims of all faiths.

Sukkot, or the Feast of the Tabernacles, is one of three great festivals in the Jewish calendar when, in ancient times, Jews from across Israel were commanded to come to the Temple in Jerusalem on pilgrimage. But although Jewish pilgrimage lessened in importance after the destruction of the Temple by the Romans in 62CE, Christian pilgrims began coming to Jerusalem and the Holy Land within centuries of Jesus' death. During the week of Sukkot, host Bruce Feiler travels to Israel with Jewish and Christian pilgrims. For many Christians, the road to Jerusalem begins in the Galilee along the Jesus Trail, a route that follows the path of Jesus' ministry. For a Jewish pilgrim from Philadelphia, spending Sukkot in Jerusalem not only honors ancient Jewish pilgrimage but also her personal time of decision, whether to remain in America or move to Jerusalem on permanent pilgrimage. In coming to Jerusalem, Bruce returns to his own Jewish roots. Whether walking with Christian pilgrims on the Jesus Trail, celebrating Sukkot with American Jews in Jerusalem or exploring the past with scholars of the three faiths - Judaism, Christianity and Islam - who share Jerusalem, Bruce reveals a land where religious and historical divisions have made it the most contentious place on earth. But as the pilgrims from different faiths converge on the many sacred shrines that coexist within Jerusalem's ancient walls, Bruce also reveals why Jerusalem has been a center of pilgrimage for so long. In spite of its long and turbulent history, it remains a city of faith for all who worship the One God who is the God of Moses, of Jesus and of Muhammad.

"The Hajj is the iconic pilgrimage on Earth," says host Bruce Feiler, as millions of pilgrims gather in the valleys outside the city of Mecca in today's Saudi Arabia to take part in the annual five-day pilgrimage every Muslim hopes to complete at least once. Since non-Muslims aren't permitted in Mecca, Bruce's surrogate is Anisa Mehdi, a veteran reporter of the Hajj, with whom Bruce will Skype at regular intervals. Anisa joins a group of Muslim pilgrims from Boston who begin their journey in Medina, the second of Islam's holy cities. As the pilgrims visit sites in Medina associated with the life of the Prophet Muhammad, Bruce enlists the help of a historian and an eminent American Muslim scholar to explore the origins of the religion and its iconic pilgrimage. In 622CE Muhammad fled his birthplace of Mecca after persecution by its pagan rulers who objected to him preaching a new monotheism. Muhammad and a small group of followers settled in Medina. Within ten years Islam was the dominant religion of Arabia and Muhammad returned to Mecca in triumph to clear idols from the holy sites and teach his followers the different stages of the Hajj pilgrimage. The Boston pilgrims follow Muhammad's path from Medina to Mecca, beginning their Hajj by circling the Ka'aba, the ancient shrine at the center of Mecca's Great Mosque. Muslims believe the Ka'aba was first built by Abraham, patriarch of Islam, Judaism and Christianity. Stripping themselves of worldly possessions for the duration of the Hajj, the pilgrims enact the rituals laid out by Muhammad, experiencing exhaustion, injury and elation as they seek forgiveness and inner peace. They leave with a new sense of connection to humanity, and to the one-and-a-half billion people that make up the worldwide community of Muslims.

Every twelve years, tens of millions of men, women and children gather on the flood plain of the Ganges and Yamuna Rivers in Allahabad, India, for the largest gathering of humanity for religious purposes on the planet, and host Bruce Feiler is there. This is the Kumbh Mela, the great Hindu festival where pilgrims come from across India, and around the world, to bathe in the water where two sacred rivers meet. Such mass bathing in the Ganges has been recorded for more than 2500 years and at least 100 million people will attend what Hindu astrologers have declared as the most auspicious Kumbh Mela in 144 years. Host Bruce Feiler travels to the Kumbh with a group of spiritual seekers from across America, first stopping in the Hindu holy city of Varanasi, downstream from Allahabad, to take part in traditional rituals on the Ganges, India's most sacred river that is worshipped by Hindus as a goddess. Bruce and the pilgrims travel on by bus to the vast Mela tent city built on land that was underwater just months earlier and will be flooded again in just a few months more. Bruce and the American pilgrims settle into camp, surrounded by millions of other pilgrims, holy men, gurus and ash-covered Naga babas, the naked ascetics who are the most visible symbol of the Kumbh Mela. After surviving an out-of-season monsoon that floods much of the Mela camp, Bruce and the American pilgrims meet with some of India's leading spiritual gurus. They also join millions of fellow pilgrims, Naga babas and sadhu holy men and women who are taking a 'holy dip' at the confluence of the Ganges and Yamuna Rivers in a ritual that Hindus believe washes away sins and breaks the endless cycle of reincarnation.

Host Bruce Feiler travels to Nigeria with a group of African American pilgrims who are attending an annual festival in honor of the Yoruba Goddess Osun as a way to reconnect with their cultural and spiritual roots. This indigenous African faith, sometimes called Orisa Devotion, was first carried to the Americas during the Transatlantic Slave Trade where it evolved and spread to become one of the ten largest religions in the world with upwards of 100 million practitioners. In its many forms it's most widely practised in the Caribbean and Brazil.

This is an epic new series that explores how religion has shaped the history of the world - and how it continues to mould the lives of every single one of us today, no matter what our faith - or lack of faith - may be. Academy Award-winning actor Morgan Freeman travels to some of the holiest sites in the world - from the Pyramids of Giza and Buddha's Bodhi Tree to Mayan ruins and Jerusalem’s Dome of the Rock. He meets people of all faiths and speaks to religious leaders, scientists, historians and archaeologists in an effort to understand how religion evolved and adapted as our society changed and, in turn, how religion transformed the evolution of society. Morgan attempts to shed light on questions that have puzzled, terrified and inspired us from the beginning, including the creation of the universe and the belief that the world will end in apocalypse. The Story of God with Morgan Freeman is a grand sweep through millennia of history, archaeology and theology. But it is also Morgan's personal exploration - through conversations with shamans, priests, imams and everyday believers - to discover what God means to all the people of planet Earth and to show that, despite our perceived differences, our beliefs are more alike than we think.