Everyman

A portrait of Gerard Manley Hopkins. During his lifetime not six people even knew he wrote poetry, and no one thought it worth publishing. His family never accepted his conversion to Catholicism. He spent much of his adult life working as a priest in Liverpool and Dublin. He died at 45. Yet today Gerard Manley Hopkins is recognised as one of the greatest Victorian poets. He lived in isolation from the fashions and trends of his time. But his work seems wholly modern. In this portrait John Wain , writer and former Oxford Professor of Poetry, examines Hopkins's life and work, explains why the Victorians found it hard to listen to his voice - and why we need to.

'Killing another human being is beyond description. Each time it's like killing a little bit of yourself.' James R. Jarrett survived a violent upbringing, and later the war in Vietnam. Survival is now his business. He runs the Phoenix Firearms Training Centre in Arizona. The courses Jarrett offers prepare his clients to meet their own worst fears - in mock ambushes, muggings and raids. And there's a philosophy to go with the training: 'Survival requires no apology'. Jarrett has come to believe there is a stark choice between trust and survival. He has made his choice, and has adopted a personal creed to match: 'I do believe in God, but I really don't think he gives a damn about us'.

Ever since Galileo fell foul of the Roman Catholic Church, science and faith have appeared to be in conflict. But some commentators now argue that, the further physics progresses, the nearer it approaches a mystical view of the universe, and of man's place in it. Fritjof Capra is a physicist and writer, living in California. In this film he criticises the conventional belief that the universe can be viewed simply as a vast machine, and argues that modern physics itself can lead us to the profoundest spiritual insights - insights crucial to man's survival.

Ten years ago, in the New Year of 1976, Northern Ireland suffered one of the worst instances of terrorist violence since the Troubles began. On 4 January five Catholics from South Armagh were shot dead. Twenty-four hours later, as relatives of the murdered were appealing on television against retaliation, a minibus carrying local Protestant mill workers home was ambushed. Ten were killed. This moving film revisits the villages of Whitecross and Bessbrook on the tenth anniversary of the killings - and tells the remarkable story of a community still united by grief, where the transient headlines have become part of daily reality.

In this programme Everyman looks at the world's oldest and newest Marxist-inspired revolutions. It shows the price the Russian Orthodox Church has paid to survive in the Soviet Union. And it travels to Nicaragua, to investigate the conflict between those Christians who support the revolution and those who are actively opposed to it.

The Black Madonna of Czestochowa, 'Queen of Poland', has been the symbol of Poland's faith and national tradition for six centuries. In today's Poland the pilgrimage to the Black Madonna is also an act of defiance and solidarity. Last year eight million Poles made the pilgrimage, and on 15 August alone, half a million converged on Czestochowa This film examines why 40 years of Communist rule in Poland have strengthened the Catholic Church's power and influence, and why the pilgrimage has become even more popular since the banning of Solidarity. Beginning in Gdansk, at the church of Lech Walesa , Everyman follows in the footsteps of the pilgrims and examines the faith of the Polish Catholics, their martyrs, their leaders and their adversaries.

'The "New Man" Castro is trying to create here is similar to the "New Man" we Christians have failed to create over the centuries. I feel that to be a true Christian you have to be a Communist'. Some Cuban Christians feel the regime offers a unique opportunity to put their faith into practice. Others talk of repression and discrimination. Cuba is full of contradictions: while young Communists gather at a mass rally to chant anti-imperialist slogans, a few miles away a spirit priest sacrifices a live chicken in an occult African ceremony. But is there really religious freedom in Cuba? And can faith ever be compatible with Marxism?

Christianity has been the established religion in the country for over half of the 2,500-year reign of its emperors. When the Derg, a group of army officers led by Lieutenant-Colonel Mengistu, deposed the last Emperor, Haile Selassie , in 1974 and inaugurated Africa's first Marxist-Leninist revolution, it was not at all clear what would happen to the Church. The Revolution has attempted dramatic changes despite wars, insurrections, drought and famine. Literacy campaigns, land reforms and workers' unions modelled on its ally, the Soviet Union, are all designed to create 'scientific socialism'. Yet the numbers going to church have increased, and the priests have found a new role, both as mediators in the civil wars, and in helping the famine victims.

This BAFTA award-winning series returns with a remarkable documentary, probably the most revealing portrait of Afghanistan at war yet made. Taking over a year to make, and filmed at great personal risk, Jihad contains sequences of combat, interrogation of prisoners, and daily life under Soviet occupation. It concentrates on a group of Afghan warriors, based in Kandahar, the country's second largest city. They include a 9-year-old street assassin and a chief executioner of the Islamic Court. Several were captured or killed during the making of the film. The war in Afghanistan is nearly seven years old: it has cost over 1,000,000 lives, and created 4,000,000 refugees. But coverage of it in the West has been sparse. This film shows the war at closer quarters than ever before.

This Everyman special traces the Frankenstein myth's extraordinary progress through modern culture, using a wealth of clips and illustrations. It includes the first television showing of the first Frankenstein film - the 1910 Edison version, which was lost for over 50 years and was finally found in an attic in the US mid-West. At its heart is an original dramatisation of the major scenes from Mary Shelley's story, closely following - unlike other films - the spirit and content of the novel. Combining dramatisation, film extracts, documentary sequences and interviews, Everyman explores a myth that still haunts us today.

The Jains are the world's strictest believers in non-violence. Jain monks will not bathe, for fear of killing the organisms that live on the body; some tie a cloth band across their mouths to protect flying insects from harm. In Ahmedabad, west India - where this film was shot - they run a hospital for animals: no matter how ill, or how great their suffering, the animals are not killed, but allowed to die naturally. In this film Everyman explores the paradoxes of this small but influential sect. The crew was given unique access to the animal hospitals, and was allowed to film the austere life of Jain monks and nuns - including their ritual hair-plucking. The result is a portrait of people who live on the frontiers of peace - far beyond what most would consider the reasonable limits of non-violen

Arthur Kirkby: a sculptor from, Merseyside is trying to cope with religious doubts. Peter: Distribution Manager for a small firm near Newcastle, needs to rethink his priorities at home and at work. Elizabeth: hopes to find the spiritual resources to face her cancer. All of them go on retreat. For five days at St Beuno's College, North Wales, they follow St Ignatius's spiritual exercises, a blend of devotion and psychological exploration. The aim is 'to enable them to distinguish between their positive and creative feelings and their negative and destructive ones'. Peter, Arthur and Elizabeth speak frankly and movingly about what it is like to be exposed to five days of silence and solitude in search of the will of God.

Five years ago, few people had heard of AIDS. Now, it is seen as one of the greatest health threats facing the modern world. According to some medical sources, there could be 10,000 deaths in the UK from AIDS by 1990, with a further two million people carrying the virus. Yet attitudes to this killer disease are today dominated by ignorance and fear. AIDS has been described as 'God's gift to bigotry': from the gay community in particular come increasing reports of discrimination and violent attacks. Jeremy Paxman reports on the causes and the consequences of present attitudes to AIDS. He meets people with the virus and those working to help prevent the spread of a disease which, in the United States, already affects over a quarter of a million people.

Lysergic acid diethylamide - more commonly known as LSD - is one of the most potent pharmacological substances known to science. It is also the most controversial. One ten-thousandth of a gram, an amount invisible to the naked eye, can precipitate some of the most powerful experiences in the repertory of human consciousness. Tonight Everyman traces the turbulent history of this remarkable substance. Are psychedelic drugs merely dangerous and subversive poisons, or do they tell us something important about reality, consciousness and the relationship between them? Among those appearing are Dr Albert Hofmann , the man who discovered the drug in 1943; Humphry Osmond , who coined the term 'psychedelic' and administered mescaline to Aldous Huxley ; and Lord Christopher Mayhew who, 30 years ago, took part in a filmed experiment with a hallucinogenic drug, shown tonight for the first time.

Tonight Everyman follows the bizarre and sometimes tragic events as LSD escaped from the laboratory and was consumed, during the 1960's, by millions of young people seeking enlightenment and consciousness expansion. To some, like the novelist Ken Kesey , LSD was a sacrament that seemed to reveal a new and better reality. But others were overwhelmed and damaged by the drug, and 20 years ago LSD was classified as an illegal substance. With the help of Albert Hofmann , discoverer of LSD, Rosie Boycott , founder of Spare Rib magazine, and Roger Scruton , conservative writer and thinker, Everyman asks what influence the drug had on the social upheaval of the 60s. Was it taken simply for kicks, or did LSD's popularity hint at something deeper?

Many of us will buy our Christmas with credit cards, and sort out the payments in the New Year. Credit is easy to get and it's on the increase. But for some people, credit is a nightmare. At worst, people lose their homes, their marriages and even their will to live. Martin Young reports on the phenomenon of credit, and examines the morality of it. Ought lenders to give us so much credit? Or ought we to discipline ourselves?

A Meditation on the Paintings of Georges de la Tour In the years between the wars, a mystery gradually unfolded before the eyes of the world. Thirty-eight paintings, previously lost in obscurity, were discovered and collected together. The paintings of Georges de la Tour are now regarded as among the greatest works of 17th-century art. But about the painter we know virtually nothing. All we have are a series of images, haunting tableaux, often candle-lit and usually with a religious subject. This film attempts to explore behind the surface of these mysterious works, with the help of Fr John McDaid, sj, theatre director Ronald Eyre , novelist Peter Ackroyd , psychoanalyst Linda Freeman , and the children of HOTWELLS SCHOOL, Bristol.

An Everyman presentation starring The pioneers who sailed on the Mayflower had very different dreams of what their 'New World' could be. One group planned a communal state where all would love each other, the other group were adventurers out to make their fortune backed by the power of the gun.