The ego is tricky. It’s hard to see and therefore it’s hard to control. Buddhist say that in the war of ego the loser always wins. Which makes complete sense to me. The second you realized you overcame your ego, you have fallen into its trap. Therefore, the best way you can deal with your ego is by observing it. It is by observing that you can take control of your ego. Ego quotes by enlightened minds can help you to see the traps of the ego more clearly so that you can gain control over it.

In this article, I want to share with you my favorite ego quotes that help me be more aware of my own ego.

Here they are 50 thought-provoking ego quotes to forewarn you from its traps.

50 Thought-Provoking Ego Quotes

#1

“Love is happy when it is able to give something. The ego is happy when it is able to take something.” – Osho

#2

“Enlightenment is your ego’s greatest disappointment.” – Wayne Dyer

#3

“Happiness is threatening and misery is safe – safe for the ego. Ego can exist only in misery and through misery. Ego is an island surrounded by hell; happiness is threatening to the ego, to the very existence of the ego. Happiness rises like a sun and the ego disappears, evaporates like a dewdrop on the grass leaf.

Happiness is the death of the ego. If you want to remain a separate entity from existence as almost everybody is trying to do, you will be afraid of being blissful, cheerful. You will feel guilty in being blissful. You will feel suicidal because you are committing suicide on the psychological level, on the level of the ego.

It almost always happens that people enjoy a few moments and then afterwards feel very guilty. The guilt arises because of the ego. The ego starts torturing them, “What are you doing? Have you decided to kill me? And I am your only treasure. Killing me? You will be destroyed. Killing me is destroying yourself.” – Osho

#4

“Ego judges and punishes. Love forgives and heals.”

#5

“The reason that ego and love are not compatible comes down to this: you cannot take your ego into the unknown, where love wants to lead. If you follow love, your life will become uncertain, and the ego craves certainty.” – Deepak Chopra

#6

“If someone corrects you and you feel offended, then you have an ego problem.” – Nouman Ali Khan

#7

“The hallucination of separateness prevents one from seeing that to cherish the ego is to cherish misery. We do not realize that our so-called love and concern for the individual is simply the other face of our own fear of death or rejection. In his exaggerated valuation of separate identity, the personal ego is sawing off the branch on which he is sitting, and then getting more and more anxious about the coming crash!” – Alan Watts

Ego Quotes

#8

!!!“Do things that feed your soul, not your ego and you will be happy.”

#9

“Too much ego will kill your talent.”

#10

“Love and ego cannot go together. Knowledge and ego go together perfectly well, but love and ego cannot go together, not at all. They cannot keep company. They are like darkness and light: if light is there darkness cannot be. Darkness can only be if light is not there. If love is not there the ego can be; if love is there the ego cannot be. And vice versa, if ego is dropped, love arrives from all the directions. It simply starts pouring in you from everywhere.” – Osho

#11

“Spiritual transcendence is transforming the rigid ego attachments into acceptance of self and others.” – Lynne Namka

#12

“Yet again, the more you strive for some kind of perfection or mastery—in morals, in art or in spirituality—the more you see that you are playing a rarified and lofty form of the old ego-game and that your attainment of any height is apparent to yourself and to others only by contrast with someone else’s depth or failure.” – Alan Watts

#13

“The ego is the single biggest obstruction to the achievement of anything.” – Richard Rose

#14

“The foundation of the Buddha’s teachings lies in compassion, and the reason for practicing the teachings is to wipe out the persistence of ego, the number-one enemy of compassion.” – Dalai Lama

Ego Quotes

#15

“Complaining is one of the ego’s favorite strategies for strengthening itself.” – Eckhart Tolle

#16

“The ego says: I’m still angry about yesterday, the spirit says: new day, new attitude.”

#17

“Try to understand the ego. Analyze it, dissect it, watch it, observe it, from as many angles as possible. And don’t be in a hurry to sacrifice it, otherwise, the greatest egoist is born: the person who thinks he is humble, the person who thinks that he has no ego.

That is again the same story played on a more subtle level. That’s what the religious people have been doing down the ages – pious egoists they have been. They have made their ego even more decorated; it has taken the color of religion and holiness. Your ego is better than the ego of a saint; your ego is better, far better – because your ego is very gross, and the gross ego can be understood and dropped more easily than the subtle. The subtle ego goes on playing such games that it is very difficult. One will need absolute awareness to watch it.” – Osho

#18

“The ego is always looking to find something – the spirit can see what’s already there.” – Marianne Willamson

#19

“In the ego’s world, power means having the ability to control circumstances to your benefit, to manipulate or dominate people in order to get your own way. If what you want is the greatest good for everyone, ego has little to say. The kind of strength that is giving, selfless, devout, trusting, and patient is decidedly feminine. It belongs to saints and mothers. By affirming this kind of strength, you are demonstrating faith that there can be power without aggression, domination, and control. Is there real power in the feminine aspect? Certainly, there is, and even though the ego has exercised control for a long time, spiritual power has always been in charge. Spiritual power pervades every aspect of life as the intelligence that nurtures and organizes all forms, atom to cosmos. This power is yours to tap into. It comes from inside, and nothing can stop it once you have found its source in the true self.” – Deepak Chopra

#20

“You can either be a host to God or a hostage to your ego. It’s your call.” – Wayne Dyer

#21

“The ego is only an illusion, but a very influential one. Letting the ego-illusion become your identity can prevent you from knowing your true self. Ego, the false idea of believing that you are what you have or what you do, is a backward way of assessing and living life.” – Wayne Dyer

Ego Quotes

#22

“Ego is just like dust in the eyes. Without clearing the dust, we can’t see anything clearly, so clear the ego and see the world.”

#23

“Ego interrupts intuition.” – Danielle LaPorte

#24

“The ego exists through friction. Have an ideal, and you will become an egoist. The idealist is an egoist. Have a bigger ideal, and you will be a bigger egoist. The greater the ideal, the greater the ego, because the greater is the friction. The ego is created by friction between the real and the ideal. Now you may have the ideal of egolessness – that doesn’t matter. You may say, “But I have the ideal of being egoless” – it does not matter, the ideal brings the ego. Now your idea of egolessness will bring great ego. So the real egoists are those who think they are humble people, who pretend that they are egoless.

The man who is egoless is the man who has no ideals. Let this be the criterion, and you have stumbled upon a fundamental. The man of no ego is the man of no ideals. Then how can the ego be created? – the very energy is missing. The energy comes out of friction, conflict, struggle, will.
When you accept your life – when you take your breakfast, and when you sleep and when you walk and when you take your bath – how can you create an ego out of these things? Sleeping when feeling sleepy, eating when feeling hungry, how can you create your ego? No, if you fast, you can create ego. If you are on a vigilance for the whole night, and you say, “I am not going to sleep,” you can create the ego. By the morning, the person who has slept well will have no ego, you will have a great ego.” – Osho

#25

“Let go of your ego’s need to be right. When you’re in the middle of an argument, ask yourself: Do I want to be right or be happy? When you choose the joyous, loving, spiritual mode, your connection to intention is strengthened.” – Wayne Dyer

#26

“Big egos have little ears.” – Robert Schuller

#27

“The most strongly enforced of all known taboos is the taboo against knowing who or what you really are behind the mask of your apparently separate, independent, and isolated ego.” – Alan Watts

#28

“As you dissolve into love, your ego fades. You’re not thinking about loving; you’re just being love, radiating like the sun.” – Ram Dass

Ego Quotes

#29

“The ego, however, is not who you really are. The ego is your self-image, it is your social mask, it is the role you are playing. Your social mask thrives on approval. It wants control, and it is sustained by power because it lives in fear.” – Ram Dass

#30

“When the ego dies, the soul awakes.” – Mahatma Gandhi

#31

”‘I am’ is nothing but another name for the ego. Now you will be getting into trouble. If the ego is convinced that the only way is to drop the ego, then who is going to drop whom? And how? It will be like pulling yourself up by your own shoestrings. You will look just silly. Watch each word that you use. ‘I am’ is nothing but the ego.

The second thing: nobody has ever been able to drop the ego because ego is not a reality that you can drop; anything to be dropped at least has to be real, substantial. Ego is just a notion, an idea. You cannot drop it, you can only understand it. Can you drop your shadow? You can run as fast as you want but your shadow will run at the same speed, exactly the same speed…
You cannot drop the ego. Once you start trying to drop the ego you will get in a very deep mess; you will become more and more worried and puzzled. And this is not the way to get rid of the ego. The only way to get rid of the ego is to look at it.” – Osho

#32

“More the knowledge, lesser the ego. Lesser the knowledge, more the ego.” – Albert Einstein

#33

“At the level of spirit, everything is always unfolding perfectly, and you don’t have to struggle or force situations to go your way. It is only your ego mind that is fearful. When you surrender to spirit and listen to the voice of your deeper intelligence, you free yourself from fear and release the obstacles your ego has created.” – Deepak Chopra

#34

“The problem is that we have allowed our egos, the part of us which believes that we are separate from God and separate from each other, to dominate our lives.” – Wayne Dyer

#35

“Don’t create things which are not there – your ego, your atman, or something else. The moment you create things like ‘What is beautiful is my atman, what is ugly is my ego,’ no transformation will be possible.” – Sadhguru

Ego Quotes

#36

“Self-importance is our greatest enemy. Think about it – what weakens us is feeling offended by the deeds and misdeeds of our fellowmen. Our self-importance requires that we spend most of our lives offended by someone.” – Carlos Castaneda

#37

“Gratitude is a sacred space where you allow and know that a force greater than your ego is always at work and always available.” – Wayne Dyer

#38

“When you are in anger, in passion, violent, aggressive, you feel a crystallized ego within you. Whenever you are in love, in compassion, it is not there. That’s why we cannot love because, with the ego, love is impossible. That’s why we go on talking so much about love, but we never are in love. And whatsoever we call love is more or less sex, it is not love; because you cannot lose your ego, and love cannot exist unless the ego has disappeared. Love, meditation, godliness, they all require one thing – the ego must not be there. That’s why Jesus is right in saying that God is love because both phenomena happen only when the ego is not.” – Osho

#39

“Less ego, more excellence. Less talk, more do. Less rude, more polite. Less fear, more wins.”

#40

“If your ego starts out, ‘I am important, I am big, I am special,’ you’re in for some disappointments when you look around at what we’ve discovered about the universe. No, you’re not big. No, you’re not. You’re small in time and in space. And you have this frail vessel called the human body that’s limited on Earth.” – Neil deGrasse Tyson

#41

“If you evolve within you, there will be no pride, no prejudice. You will perform the action out of pure, absolute sense.” – Sadhguru

Ego Quotes

#42

“In religion, the ego manifests as the devil. And of course, no one realizes how smart the ego is because it created the devil so you could blame someone else.” – Deepak Chopra

#43

“Your ego is your soul’s worst enemy.” – Rusty Eric

#44

“Everybody, even a mouse, has his own ego. Everybody, even a religious man, has his own ego. Even while declaring, “I am just dust underneath your feet,” you are gathering ego. The ego and the personality have to be dropped, then you will find individuality arising…a feeling of uniqueness. Yes, you are unique. Everybody else is also unique. In this world only unique people exist, so comparison is just stupid because you alone are like yourself. There is nobody like you, so how to compare?” – Osho

#45

“Waking up to who you are requires letting go of who you imagine yourself to be.” – Alan Watts

#46

“Learn to get in touch with the innermost essence of your being. This true essence is beyond the ego. It is fearless; it is free; it is immune to criticism; it does not fear any challenge. It is beneath no one, superior to no one, and full of magic, mystery, and enchantment.” – Deepak Chopra

#47

“When misunderstandings grow cut your ego.”

#48

“Ego is a social institution with no physical reality. The ego is simply your symbol of yourself. Just as the word “water” is a noise that symbolizes a certain liquid without being it, so too the idea of ego symbolizes the role you play, who you are, but it is not the same as your living organism.” – Alan Watts

Ego Quotes

#49

“The ego promotes turmoil because it wants to substantiate your separateness from everyone, including God. It will push you in the direction of judgment and comparison and cause you to insist on being right and best. You know your highest self by listening to the voice that only wants you to be at peace.” – Wayne Dyer

#50

“The moment you become aware of the ego in you, it is strictly no longer the ego but just an old, conditioned mind pattern. Ego implies unawareness. Awareness and ego cannot coexist.” – Eckhart Tolle

We hope you are inspired by these ego quotes as much as we are!

Please feel free to share our collection of ego quotes on your Social media to inspire and motivate others!

We live in a dangerous time of global warming and climate change. According to scientists, climate change is intensifying natural disasters like wildfires and floods, making them increasingly devastating. If you live on the West Coast like me, you surely noticed the increased activity of wildfires. Whereas the East Coast is hit by destructive hurricanes more often than ever before. Tornados, earthquakes, floods, and other natural disasters put the lives of millions of people all over the world at risk.

Higher temperatures are worsening many types of disasters, including storms, heatwaves, floods, and droughts. A warmer climate creates an atmosphere that can collect, retain, and drop more water, changing weather patterns in such a way that wet areas become wetter and dry areas drier.

Therefore, it is so important to know how to energetically protect yourself from natural disasters! In this article, I will share with you a secret Tibetan symbol you can use to protect yourself and your family from natural disasters and stay safe even if the area you live in is in danger.

Let me introduce you to the Kalachakra monogram and different ways you can use its protection power!

What Is Kalachakra?

A Kalachakra is a protection wheel also called the “time wheel,” used in Feng Shui for blocking negative energy influences.

The teaching behind the Kalachakra is known to be an incredibly complex and esoteric practice of Tibetan Buddhism. However, as a symbol, it is publicly used for its healing and protective powers.

The Kalachakra is a powerful protection against:

• an unnatural or untimely passing;
• natural disasters;
• malicious intents;
• dark forces.

It’s a powerful protective amulet to carry during travel or business trips that coincide with inauspicious dates.

The Essence of the Symbol

Kalachakra is one of the most powerful tantric talismans that comes from the Himalayan region of ancient India. In Tibet, it is revered along with the famous six-syllable mantra “Om Mani Padme Hum” and is found countless times on the books, boxes for amulets, flags that adorn stupas, on prayer mills, on the gates of temples (its image is found on the ruins of the famous Buddhist University of IV-VII centuries in Nalanda in the Indian state of Bihar), and, of course, on the doors and walls of the houses — to protect the shelter, property, and health of their inhabitants.

Kalachakra symbol consists of seven individual syllables combined together. These syllables are:

• ya – black, the disk of the element of wind.
• ra – red, the disk of the element of fire.
• va – white, the disk of the element of water.
• la – yellow, the disk of the element of earth.
• ma – multi-colored, the desire realm.
• kṣa – green, the form realm.
• ha – blue, the formless realm.

In addition, there are three other components to make a total of ten elements within the image:

• the crescent – known as a visarga;
• the disk or doughnut shape – known as a bindu or anusvāra;
• nāda, or wisp with three twists, at the top.

The crescent-shaped visarga is associated here with the sun. Therefore, it is usually depicted as red in color. The circular-shaped anusvāra is associated with the moon. Therefore, it is usually depicted as white. Nada is usually depicted in deep blue.

The Incredible Power Of Kalachakra Symbol

The symbol appears in a ten fold display of sacred syllables. Its presence is said to invoke the sacred warriors of Shambhala to guard against all evil energy. Shambhala is believed to be an ancient secret kingdom hidden somewhere in Asia. It is a fabulous place where every being is enlightened and in sacred harmony.

In Feng Shui, the Kalachakra symbol is used for harmonizing all negative energy forces that attempt to enter our lives. It also offers powerful energetical protection against any afflictions created by cosmic and planetary cyclic changes and bad Feng Shui.

How To Use It?

There are different ways to use the Kalachakra symbol.

Display it where malevolent energy exists as a result of bad flying stars. It will balance the energy of your house and cure even the most complicated combinations where other Feng Shui tools are insufficient.

Display it in the living room or family room for general blessings, good health, and protection against natural disasters, accidents, violence, and robbery.

Display it in the bedroom if you are suffering from the negative astrological influence of the year. It will help you solve all your problems and remove negative karma.

Display it in your personal Sheng Chi (wealth) direction to ensure a smooth ride in all undertakings and life’s pursuits, especially in career and relationship.

Wear a Kalachakra pendant to protect yourself from natural disasters, inauspicious travel dates, and unlucky times of doing business. It safeguards your fortune by bringing time on your side.

Attach a Kalachakra Protection Sticker on the window in your home or above the main door so that negative energies are barred from entering your home and your house is protected from the destructive forces of natural disasters.

The Bottom Line

Kalachakra is a powerful protection symbol that is essential for everyone. Put a sticker on your window, place the Kalachakra statue or image in your bedroom, wear the Kalachakra pendant, and your life will always be under the powerful protection of this secret Tibetan talisman.

There is a special place in entertainment for secret societies. Throughout history, these organizations have ignited the imagination of writers, filmmakers, and video game designers. Even in real life, secret societies often seem like something out of a movie or comic book. So it’s no surprise that creators of movies just love these groups! And in those cases when the truth isn’t strange enough, screenwriters dream up fictional groups that are even more inconceivable than real-life ones.

You’re reading this article because you are interested in these shadowy organizations and asking yourself questions like “What are their motives?”, “Who are their members?”, “Are they bent on world domination?”, “Are they controlled by politicians, priests, CEOs, criminals… or all the above?”, in short, “Who are they and what do they want?”. Well, you are not alone! There are lots of conscious people asking the very same questions because they find these groups fascinating!

In this article, we run some of the most memorable appearances secret societies have made in the movies.

Now let us share with you 10 best movies about secret societies!

Top 10 Best Movies About Secret Societies

#1 The Da Vinci Code, 2006

The Da Vinci Code is a mystery thriller based on Dan Brown‘s 2003 best-selling novel of the same name. In the movie, Robert Langdon, a professor of religious symbology from Harvard University, is the prime suspect in the grisly and unusual murder of Louvre curator Jacques Saunière. On the body, the police find a disconcerting cipher and start an investigation. Langdon escapes with the assistance of police cryptologist Sophie Neveu, and they begin a quest for the legendary Holy Grail. A noted British Grail historian, Sir Leigh Teabing, tells them that the actual Holy Grail is explicitly encoded in Leonardo da Vinci’s wall painting, The Last Supper. Also searching for the Grail is a secret cabal within Opus Dei, an actual prelature of the Holy See, who wishes to keep the true Grail a secret to prevent the destruction of Christianity.

This movie was considered controversial. It was met with especially harsh criticism by the Catholic Church for the accusation that it is behind a two-thousand-year-old cover-up concerning what the Holy Grail really is and the concept that Jesus Christ and Mary Magdalene were married and that the union produced a daughter, as well as its treatment of the organizations Priory of Sion and Opus Dei.

Many members urged the laity to boycott this movie. In the book, Dan Brown states that the Priory of Sion and all descriptions of artwork, architecture, documents, and secret rituals in this novel are accurate.

#2 Angels & Demons, 2009

Angels & Demons is definitely one of the best movies about secret societies! This mystery thriller is also based on Dan Brown’s novel of the same title. It is the sequel to the 2006 film The Da Vinci Code.

In Angels & Demons, Tom Hanks reprises his role as Professor Robert Langdon, while Ayelet Zurer stars as Dr. Vittoria Vetra, a CERN scientist joining Langdon in the quest to recover a missing vial of antimatter from a mysterious Illuminati terrorist.

William A. Donohue, president of the Catholic League, did not call for a boycott this time but requested that Catholics inform others about anti-Catholic sentiments in the story.

The official Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano called the film “harmless entertainment”, giving it a positive review and acknowledging that “the theme is always the same: a sect versus the Church, but this time, the Church is on the side of the good guys.” Beforehand, it had stated it would not approve the film, while La Stampa reported the Vatican would boycott it.

Angels & Demons was banned in Samoa by film censor Lei’ataua Olo’apu. Olo’apu stated that he was banning the film because it was “critical of the Catholic Church” and so as to “avoid any religious discrimination by other denominations and faiths against the Church.”

#3 Eyes Wide Shut, 1999

Eyes Wide Shut is an erotic mystery psychological drama. Based on the 1926 novella Traumnovelle (Dream Story) by Arthur Schnitzler, the story is transferred from early 20th-century Vienna to 1990s New York City. The film follows the sexually charged adventures of Dr. Bill Harford, who is shocked when his wife, Alice, reveals that she had contemplated having an affair a year earlier. He then embarks on a night-long adventure, during which he infiltrates a massive masked orgy of an unnamed secret society. Eyes Wide Shut’s orgy came to stand for a whole complex of elite degeneracy.

This movie definitely worth watching (or even re-watching) due to the current child abuse cover-ups and political scandals, such as Epstein, the Catholic Church, Dennis Hastert, Operation Yewtree, and Westminster’s missing “Paedophile dossier” cases.

#4 The Skulls, 2000

The Skulls is a thriller film based upon some of the conspiracy theories surrounding Yale University. Deep within the hallowed walls of Ivy League’s most prominent campus exists a secret society where power and elite are bred. Only a few are chosen to join where Presidents are groomed, wealthy bloodlines bond, and plots thicken. For Luke McNamara, an invitation to join the prestigious secret college organization, The Skulls, is a dream come true, until murder befalls another student.

The movie claims to rip the lid off a secret campus society named the Skulls, which is inspired by the Yale society known as Skull and Bones. The real Skull and Bones has existed for two centuries and has counted presidents, tycoons, and CIA founders among its alumni. For example, the real Skull and Bones numbers among its alumni former President George Bush and his son. Of course, there’s no connection between Skull and Bones and the fictional Skulls. However, it still worth watching!

#5 SPECTRE, 2015

SPECTRE is a spy film and the twenty-fourth in the James Bond series. The story sees Bond pitted against the global criminal organization SPECTRE and their enigmatic leader Ernst Stavro Blofeld, who plans to launch a national surveillance network to mastermind criminal activities across the globe.

SPECTRE (an acronym for Special Executive for Counter-intelligence, Terrorism, Revenge, and Extortion) is a fictional organization. Led by criminal mastermind Ernst Stavro Blofeld, the international organization first formally appeared in the novel Thunderball (1961) and in the film Dr. No (1962). SPECTRE is not aligned to any nation or political ideology, enabling the later Bond books and Bond films to be regarded as somewhat apolitical. This organization began in the novels as a small group of criminals but became a vast international organization with its own SPECTRE Island training base in the films.

If you love James Bond movies, you will definitely consider SPECTRE to be one of the best movies about secret societies.

#6 National Treasure, 2004

National Treasure is an action-adventure film. In this movie, Benjamin Franklin Gates, a historian and amateur cryptologist searching for a lost treasure of precious metals, jewelry, artwork, and other artifacts that gets accumulated into a huge stockpile and eventually hidden by American Freemasons during the American Revolutionary War. A coded map on the back of the Declaration of Independence points to the location of the “national treasure”, but Gates is not alone in his quest. Whoever can steal the Declaration and decode it first will find the greatest treasure in history.

The fact is that of the 55 men who signed the Declaration of Independence, at least 9 are said to have been Freemasons. President George Washington was also among its members.

Although some Christian leaders have called Freemasons “a secret society bent on spreading evil”, in National Treasure they are seen in a positive light.

#7 Dead Poets Society, 1989

Dead Poets Society is a teen drama film. Set in 1959 at the fictional elite conservative Vermont boarding school Welton Academy, tells the story of an English teacher, John Keating, who inspires his students through his teaching of poetry. The story shifts gracelessly from the joys of Keating’s classroom to focus on the theatrics of a group of his students, seven boys who dare to “Carpe diem, seize the day,” as he has bidden them. They form the Dead Poets Society, a secret cabal who read their own and others’ verse in a spooky, dripping cave. Shortly they are defying their parents and the school authorities, becoming not the Metropolitan Club members of tomorrow, but incipient anarchists.

#8 The Good Shepherd

The Good Shepherd is a spy film which is all about secrets – from Skull and Bones, a secret society at Yale University, to secret agents, danger, and the erosion of idealism in the light of the Cold War. It tells the story of the early days of the Central Intelligence Agency through the life of the fictional Edward Wilson. Edward Wilson is educated at Yale and takes an interest in poetry. Then comes his indoctrination into the notorious Skull & Bones society. Later in the movie, Wilson gets recruited in the early days of the CIA and dedicates his life to his work.

Although it is a fictional film loosely based on real events, it is advertised as telling the untold story of the birth of counter-intelligence in the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).

#9 The Ninth Gate, 1999

The Ninth Gate is an adaptation of The Dumas Club, a book written by Spanish novelist Arturo Pérez-Reverte. However, The film has a different title from its source novel, The Dumas Club, because the book is referred to as a major subplot involving a secret society obsessed with serialized novels, such as those written by Alexandre Dumas.

The movie tells the story of Dean Corso who specializes in tracking down rare and exotic volumes for collectors. He’s hired by Boris Balkan, a millionaire collector who owns a copy of The Nine Gates of the Kingdom of the Shadows, published in Venice in 1666 by one Aristide Torchia who, legend has it, adapted the engravings from the work of Satan himself. Two other copies of the book survive, and Balkan wants Corso to track them down and compare the engravings. With The Nine Gates in his possession, Corso soon finds himself at the center of strange and violent goings-on. Not only is his apartment ransacked, but it also appears that he is being shadowed ferociously by others determined to regain the book.

#10 Fight Club, 1999

Fight Club was one of the most controversial and talked-about films of the 1990s.

The movie tells the story of a depressed man suffering from insomnia. He meets a strange salesman named Tyler Durden and soon finds himself living in his squalid house after his perfect apartment is destroyed. The two bored men form an underground Fight club with strict rules. Fight Club is a secret society of men who meet in order to find freedom and self-realization through beating one another into pulp. This secret club is all about freeing yourself from the shackles of modern life, which imprisons and emasculates men. By being willing to give and receive pain and risk death, Fight Club members find freedom.