A feature length documentary that explores the universal emotion of awe
Coming Soon - Early 2020.
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The Search: Manufacturing Belief
This 2019 documentary examines the "spiritual experience." It explores the mystery of consciousness from the perspective of neuroscience and how over many centuries traditional religions utilize psychological mind control techniques to create euphoria, ecstacy and the complex emotion of awe. It features some of the world’s most important public intellectuals and thought leaders including Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Dacher Keltner, Anil Seth, Onora O’Neill, Bart Ehrman and others.
Featuring
Richard Dawkins
Richard Dawkins is an evolutionary biologist, world renown author and professor emeritus at New College, Oxford. He has helped steer evolutionary science into the 21st century, and his concept of the "meme" contextualized the spread of ideas in the information age. In recent years, his penetrating critiques of religion have made him a leading figure in the New Atheism movement.
Bart Ehrman
Bart Erhman is a New Testament scholar focusing on textual criticism of the New Testament, the historical Jesus and the origins and development of early Christianity. He has written and edited 30 books, including three college textbooks. He has also authored six New York Times bestsellers including Misquoting Jesus, The Triumph of Christianity and How Jesus Became God.
Sam Harris
Sam Harris is a neuroscientist, philosopher, and best-selling author. He explores important and controversial questions about the human mind, consciousness, society, and modern culture. His writing and public lectures cover a wide range of topics including neuroscience, moral philosophy, religion, meditation practice, human violence and rationality. He also poses important questions about our growing understanding of ourselves in a changing world and the morality of how we live. He is also the host of the popular Making Sense podcast.
Kathleen Taylor
Kathleen Taylor is a science author and a research scientist in the Department of Physiology, Anatomy and Genetics at the University of Oxford. She was appointed as a Science Fellow of the Institute for Food, Brain and Behaviour. Her book Brainwashing: The Science of Thought Control explains mind control, thought reform and coercive persuasion and the neurological basis for reasoning and cognition in the brain, proposing that the self is changeable while describing the physiology of neurological pathways.
Anil Seth
Anil Seth is a Professor of Cognitive and Computational Neuroscience at the University of Sussex, where he is the Co-Director of the Sackler Centre for Consciousness Science. He focuses on understanding the biological basis of conscious experience and considers it one of the great challenges for 21st century science. He is also a Wellcome Trust Engagement Fellow, a Senior Fellow of the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research, and Co-Director of the Leverhulme Doctoral Scholarship Programme: From Sensation and Perception to Awareness.
Daniel Dennett
Daniel Dennett is a philosopher, writer, and cognitive scientist whose research is centered on philosophy of mind, philosophy of science, and biology and particularly how those fields relate to evolutionary biology and cognitive science. He is the co-director of the Center for Cognitive Studies and the Austin B. Fletcher Professor of Philosophy at Tufts University. Dennett is an atheist and secularist and a member of the Secular Coalition for America advisory board.
Dacher Keltner
Dacher Keltner is a professor of psychology at University of California, Berkeley, where he directs the Berkeley Social Interaction Lab. He is also the founder and faculty director of the Greater Good Science Center. His research focuses on the biological and evolutionary origins of compassion, awe, love, beauty, and power, social class, and social inequality
Brian V. Janssen
Brian V. Janssen has been pastor of the First Presbyterian Church of Hospers, Iowa since 1986. He is a graduate of Wheaton College and Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, and received the Doctor of Ministry degree in 2007 at Covenant Theological Seminary in St. Louis. The focus of his dissertation was on the long-term effects of the Dutch Reformed Cursillo in Northwest Iowa.
"The idea of an authentic "spiritual experience" is fascinating to me and I have always wondered how people arrive at their strongly held beliefs"
- Patrick Payne | Director of The Search
Shaman Films © 2019
