This series re-discovers and preserves the knowledge of our human potential and nature’s wisdom, embracing the transformative contributions of the peoples who have shaped the geography of what it means to be human. 100% of your tax-deductible donation supports the filming, production and research for this documentary series.
Traveling the world 30+ years, David Verdesi finds himself back in Rome. Urged to uncover the reason behind the instinctive human desire for spiritual yearning, Verdesi starts retracing the intersection of science and theology within the city his family has called home since the early 1400s.
Vibrating from the walls of the city’s sacred spaces, he discovers findings of oral history, predating the beginning of humanity by thousands of years. Documents and rare rituals that upend conventional ideas of the behaviors of the mind in ancient times. Narratives heavily influenced by civilizations and cultures beyond Rome, continue to influence the moral compass of life today, Verdesi realizes he is back on the road.
Book of Knowledge The Quest for Meaning rediscovers and preserves the knowledge of our human potential and nature’s wisdom. This movie addresses questions around the intersection of science, spirituality, and anthropology. Join David Verdesi to the roots of the Book of Knowledge.
2025
Anthropologist and host David Verdesi documents a cross-cultural journey to the root of humanity, the foundation, and anthropological core of our existence, embracing its whole history and the transformative contributions of the peoples who have shaped the geography of what it means to be human.
Meet mystics, yogis, cave-dwellers, saints and genuine enlightened beings, Siddhas from the mountains and jungles of India and Xian immortals from China and Southeast Asia, the Shamans of Central and South America and Africa, the mystics and royals of old Europe, and the mysterious saints of the northern Steppes of Russia, Tibet and Mongolia.
The study of humankind’s sacred anthropological and spiritual history commonly lacks in diversity and multicultural themes, depth and true understanding. Through the power of storytelling, David Verdesi’s Book of Knowledge aspires to expose and preserve these treasures of our sacred past for generations to come.
As a wandering anthropologist over the last 30 years David Verdesi travelled all over the world in search for one thing: life’s purpose. David Verdesi has dedicated his life to the actualization of the individuation process through applied mind training, comparing wisdom traditions and methods of askesis and its archetype through the hero’s journey, the phenomenology of human potential and altered states of consciousness.
Verdesi has studied the concepts of Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism, Taoism, Kabbalism. Verdesi has deeply practiced disciplines including yoga, kung fu, pranayama, tantra, and qigong and spent several years in solitary meditations in the mountains.
Simultaneously with his travels he also studied anthropology, psychology, neurobiology, quantum physics. As a true scientist, he has culminated years of personal askesis and practice into the realization of an algorithm that can be applied to navigate, explore and integrate the human psyche into wholeness, the development of human potential and the maximization of happiness.
These experiences formed an instrumental part of an ongoing work of enrichment and comparison, contributing valuably to the successive phases of the development of his teachings.
It wasn’t until years later that Verdesi realized his odyssey had much greater meaning than these physical, geographical experiences – his journey allowed him to discover, retrieve and relearn the lost parts of his being, soul and mind. It became clear that everything we are doing as we go through the journey of our life is meant to connect, create, and discover who we truly are, ultimately allowing us to reach wholeness.