Nouveau Shamanic
Cinema Podcast
with Joost Vervoort
Welcome to the Nouveau Shamanic Cinema
where films are portals into the depths of being
For each episode we watch a movie, immerse ourselves in its themes, and let it resonate as if it was a dream or an imaginal practice. We then explore the nature of reality from this perspective and discuss how this relates to dharma. As of Season 2, we have recorded some episodes of ‘Imaginal Gaming’ where we also engage with video games in this way.
If you would like to support me to create this podcast, you can sign up to my Patreon
I Saw the TV Glow: What is Real?
Season 2, Episode 9
We watch I Saw the TV Glow, in which two characters experience a lot of imaginal resonance watching a TV program, and it starts to spill over into their lives, leaving questions about what is real.
We also watched two TV shows:
Season 3, Episode 1, The White Lotus
Euphoria Special Episode, ‘Trouble Don’t Last Always’
We weave together themes and resonances from them all and discuss disconnection, connection, and what feels most real to us.
“You’ve got to believe in the poetry because everything else in your life will fail you, including yourself.”
Ali Muhammad, Euphoria
Nosferatu: Uninhibited, Dark Desire
Season 2, Episode 8
The 2024 version of Nosferatu had a transformative effect on Joost when he went to see it last year at the cinema.
We discuss this and how connecting to your darkest desires as a shadow work process opens up more ease and groundedness.
“I am an appetite, nothing more.”
Count Orlok
Animal Well: An Alive Universe
Season 2, Episode 7
For the second episode of Imaginal Gaming we played some of the game Animal Well. We talked about living in an alive Universe and Awakening as a giant interactive puzzle game.
If you haven’t played Animal Well you can watch this short review video to get a flavour of it.
If you want to learn more about Rosa’s approach to awakening (that resonates with Animal Well), you can find out more here.
Avengers Endgame: Sovereign Energy
Season 2, Episode 6
For this episode we watched Avengers: Endgame, and some scenes from Interstellar. We discuss the richness of connecting with your sovereign energy and how this relates to time travel and non-self.
We spend most of the time talking about the famous scenes from each of the movies. If you haven’t seen the movies, or you haven’t seen them for a while, it’s worth watching these two clips beforehand to get the context and the imaginal vibes.
Avengers: Endgame Portal Scene
“Everyone fails at who they’re supposed to be. The measure of a person, of a hero, is how well they succeed at being who they are.”
Frigga
Moulin Rouge: Falling In Love with Experience
Season 2, Episode 5
We watched Rosa’s favourite film – the ever-magical, soul explosion Moulin Rouge!
We discuss the power of love and sincerity, romantic love as an opening force and falling in love with the whole of experience through the imaginal realm.
“Never knew, I could feel like this.
Like I’ve never seen the sky before”Christian
The Opportunist and Tár: Predator Energy
Season 2, Episode 4
Once again we are joined by guest David Lassiter, this time to discuss the short film that he wrote and directed – The Opportunist. You can watch it here.
We also discuss Tár and the common themes that both films portray, of psychopathy and predatory behaviour.
I mention an imaginal meditation exercise from this retreat, by Ken Mcleod.
Megalopolis: Unhinged Creativity
Season 2, Episode 3
Joined by guest David Lassiter, we went to see Francis Ford Coppola’s new film at the cinema. We reflected on the strange experience of watching the movie as well as the process that went into making it.
“Only in a nightmare do people stand in the moonlight”
Teresa Cicero
Shadow of the Erdtree: Imaginal Gaming
Season 2, Episode 2
We host an episode of a new podcast that looks at the deeper resonances that are in video games.
For this episode we discuss Shadow of the Erdtree and the way it feels like a collective soul realm.
LOTR, The Fellowship of the Ring: Archetypal Depth
Season 2, Episode 1
We talk about all the mythic resonance that overflows from this film and its archetypal depths.
“There are other forces at work in this world Frodo, besides the will of evil.”
Gandalf
Season One Wrap-Up: Letting Soul Speak Through Film
We do a summary of the 14 films from season one and reflect on what we have learned from recording Nouveau Shamanic Cinema so far.
“This podcast invites you into a way of relating where the world itself is innately alive and expressive”
Rosa
Paprika: Dreams and the Imaginal
Season 1, Episode 14
In Paprika a machine that allows you to enter people’s dreams goes missing and everyone starts dreaming and living in the same dream world. The film inspired amazing conversations about emptiness and form; creativity and boundaries; dream work and the animistic roots of experience.
We mention Steve Aizenstat’s dream tending and River Kenna’s dream return.
“The Internet and dreams are similar. They’re areas where the repressed conscious mind escapes.”
Paprika
The Last Samurai: Being a Warrior Poet
Season 1, Episode 13
We chose this Hollywood epic as a depiction of some ideal archetypal energies including care, commitment, courage, discipline, devotion, harmony and poetics.
We discuss living like a poem, the importance of warrior energy in awakening and the expression of full masculine power.
“Awakening as the non-conflicted, grounded, multi-dimensional flow of life, from which care and kindness naturally arise”
Joost Vervoort
Suspiria: Dark Feminine Power
Season 1, Episode 12
We watched Suspiria and describe the slow unveiling of different forms of feminine evil depicted through a secret witch’s coven within a dance school.
We discuss the realness of the horror it depicts, wildness, and other-than-human morality.
“Dance everyone, dance. It’s so beautiful”
Mother Suspiriorum
The Green Knight: The Headless Way
Season 1, Episode 11
We watched the Green Knight; we start by introducing the concepts of phenomenal opacity and transparency and discuss getting your head cut off as a metaphor for being in a non-dual flow state with meaning.
We engaged with this film as a soul-realm transmission about letting go of control and finding the courage to step into the flow of life.
“Well done, my brave knight. Now… Off with your head.”
The Green Knight
Sunshine: Raw Experience
Season 1, Episode 10
We watched Sunshine, with guest David Lassiter, and resonate with the themes of: life and death; opening to the full raw intensity of experience; and the importance of staying in touch with humanity on the spiritual path.
“Total light envelopes you. It becomes you.”
Searle
The Witch: Where Evil Takes Root
Season 1, Episode 9
In this episode, we watch Joost’s favourite ever horror movie, The Witch.
We discuss different forms of evil, being a black sheep, narrow-mindedness, and religions acting as the rules to the game that make life worth suffering through.
“Wouldst thou like to live deliciously?”
Black Phillip
Annihilation: The Weird, Horrible Beauty of Life
Season 1, Episode 8
In this episode we unpack the psychedelic cosmic horror film, Annihilation.
Some of the themes that emerge include reality unravelling, mandelbulbs, orienting towards naturalness and delving deeply into your inner world on the Goddess journey.
Lena: It was dreamlike.
Lomax: Nightmarish?
Lena: Not always. Sometimes it was beautiful.
Dune: Myth & Resonance
Season 1, Episode 7
We watched Dune and it inspired conversations about contrasts of realities, the Dune Universe being less sci-fi than consensus reality in some ways and working with mythic content and visualisations.
Some of the things that resonated were walking through the fire and staying with the pain to ignite a mystical connection, exploring what the core of humanity is and existential therapy for chosen ones.
“The mystery of life isn’t a problem to solve, but a reality to experience”
Frank Herbert
Midsommar: Cults & Toxic Power
Season 1, Episode 6
After a day of retreating together in the Netherlands, we watched Midsommar, a horror film about a cult.
We explore toxic cultures, the theatre of reality, collective hypnosis, unsupported realities and finding the antidote to all this in love and connection.
“Are you not disturbed by what we just saw?”
Dani
IT: Friendship Against Darkness
Season 1, Episode 5
We watch IT, a pivotal film from Joost’s childhood, and discuss Joost’s nightmares, alternate realities, loneliness, empowerment of the feminine life-force energy and separation as a fuel for individuation. Rosa also gives some Jungian analysis of the film’s symbolism.
We particularly love the theme of collective belief in each others’ realities as a force of resistance and strength.
This is IT.
Aniara: Living in the Void
Season 1, Episode 4
In Aniara, which we watched with guest Odile Strik, a spaceship carrying settlers to Mars is knocked off course, causing the passengers to reckon with their fate as they drift endlessly into the void.
We discuss emptiness, the basic problems of being alive and who we’d like to get stuck in space with.
“Deliver me from the vision.”
Mima
Event Horizon: Integrating Hell
Season 1, Episode 3
Event Horizon evokes discussions about the experiences of the depths of hell and having the capacity to love the darkness.
We also recorded a shared meditative journey where we travelled into the void together, which you can listen to at the end.
“It shows you things. Horrible things.
The dark inside me from the other place.”
Justin
Upstream Color: Strange, Eco-Systemic Beings
Season 1, Episode 2
Upstream Color is an American experimental science fiction film.
In this episode we get immersed in the topics of interconnection, the role of the observer and how shamanic and imaginal practice intertwines with human connection.
“A man and woman are drawn together, entangled in the life cycle of an ageless organism. Identity becomes an illusion as they struggle to assemble the loose fragments of wrecked lives.”
Mandy: Owning the Darkness
Season 1, Episode 1
In the first episode we watch ‘Mandy’ starring Nicolas Cage, whom Rosa is fascinated by and who we named the podcast after.
“Cage said that, at a certain point in his career, he realized that he had developed his own method of acting, which he described as ‘Nouveau Shamanic’.”
Described as a ‘primal, psychedelic rage-scream of a movie’, Cage goes on a wild revenge-killing spree against a religious cult.
This evokes discussions on dark imaginal practice, narcissism in spirituality and what happens when you fuck with people who know what really matters in life.