Copyright © November 2013 by Robert W. Sullivan IV, Esq.

Cinema Symbolism:

A Guide to Esoteric Imagery in Popular Movies

by Robert W. Sullivan IV, Esq.

Edited by     Eva Hume

Art Direction     Meredith Hancock

Published by Rocket Science Productions, LLC

ISBN-13: 978-1-939954-37-4

e-ISBN: 978-1-939954-38-1

Library of Congress Control Number: 2014937971

Published by Rocket Science Productions

All rights reserved.

© Copyright November 2013 Robert W. Sullivan IV, Esq.

Legal Disclaimer: All images that appear in “Cinema Symbolism: A Guide to Esoteric Imagery in Popular Movies” are either 1) in the Public Domain,

2) permitted by the Fair Use Doctrine (text is educational research), and

3) the Nominative Use Doctrine for any trademarks/logos.  The author of this book does not maintain ownership over any of the images that appear as part of this book except the “About the Author” photo.

All text is copyrighted November 1, 2013 with the Copyright Office,

Library of Congress. All right reserved.

This book is dedicated to movie fans everywhere.

Contents

List of Illustrations

Preface

Introduction

Chapter I: What an Excellent Day for an Exorcism

Chapter II: Born of a Jackal: The Omen Trilogy

• The Omen

• Damien: Omen II

• Omen III: The Final Conflict

Chapter III: What, Behind the Rabbit?: Monty Python

and the Holy Grail

Chapter IV: 88 Miles per Hour: Back to the Future Trilogy

• Back to the Future

• Back to the Future II

• Back to the Future III

Chapter V: President William McKinley: The Wizard of Oz

Chapter VI: James Bond: The Elizabethan Magus Dr. John “007” Dee and the Occult

Chapter VII: God is Dead! Satan Lives! The Year is One!: Horror Movie Symbolism

• Vlad the Impaler: The History of Dracula and

Vampire Symbolism

• Full Moons: Werewolves, Witchcraft, and Silver Bullets

• Frankenstein’s Monster and the Scientific Revolution

• Can Your Heart Stand the Shocking Facts about

Horror Movie Symbolism?

Chapter VIII: May the Force be With You: The Star Wars Monomyth

• Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope

• Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back

• Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi

• Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace

• Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones

• Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith

Chapter IX: Welcome to the Real World: The Matrix Trilogy

• The Matrix

• The Matrix Reloaded

• The Matrix Revolutions

Chapter X: The Lord of the Rings:

Saturn and the J.R.R. Tolkien Universe

• The Fellowship of the Ring

• The Two Towers

• The Return of the King

Chapter XI: Obscured Perfection: The Goddess in Cinema

• Wisdom Personified: Sophia, Minerva, and Lilith in Cinema

• No Wire Hangers: The Figure of the Mother in Film

• The Great Masturbators: Black Swan and 9 ½ Weeks

Chapter XII: Thoth Hermes Mercurius Trismegistus and Gnosticism in Popular Culture

• Trismegistus, Harry Potter, Hermione Granger, and Ron Weasley

• Hermes Wants You!: Fight Club and the Batman Mythos

• Evil Hermes in Film: Thulsa Doom, David Lo Pan,

Kung Fu Movies, and Willy Wonka

• Beyond The Matrix: The Gnosticism of Blade Runner

and The Truman Show

Chapter XIII: Hey Whitey, Where’s Your Hat?: Comedies, B-Movies, and Beyond.

Conclusion

Filmography

Bibliography

Index

About the Author

List of Illustrations

Introduction:

• Mesuline

• Starbucks Coffee logo

• The Beatles’ Abbey Road album cover

• Papa Smurf

• Karl Marx

• The Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band album cover

• Painting of Dante’s Inferno by Sandro Botticelli

• Princess Leia, Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope

• Xerxes from 300

• Chance (a/k/a Chauncey Gardiner) walking on water from Being There

• Photo of the sun “walking on water”

• Photo of Elvis Presley performing

• Sun Records logo

• Elvis Preseley’s TCB emblem

• The Sun newspaper cover announcing the death of Elvis Presley

• The sun and the terrestrial cross formed by the solstices and equinoxes

• Engraving of Typhon from Athanasius Kircher’s Oedipus Aegyptiacus

• The Jesuit Seal

• The Flux Capacitor

• Elizabeth McGraw, 9 ½ Weeks

• Elizabeth’s black stockings, 9 ½ Weeks

Chapter I

• Antique engraving of Jesuit Priest Athanasius Kircher

• A demonically possessed Regan T. McNeil from The Exorcist

Chapter II

• Egyptian Ankh

• Original 1959 window card poster for The Hound of the Baskervilles

Chapter III

• King Arthur and Patsy from Monty Python and the Holy Grail

• Tim from Monty Python and the Holy Grail

• The Killer Rabbit and the Cave of Caerbannog, Monty Python and the Holy Grail

Chapter IV

• Infinity symbol

• The Hierophant Tarot card from the Rider-Waite deck

• Reverse, Great Seal of the United States of America

• Susan from Desperately Seeking Susan

• The Fool Tarot card from the Rider-Waite deck

• Honest Joe Statler Trading Post sign, Back to the Future III

Chapter V

• Inverted pentagram incorporating the Goat of Mendes

• Glinda the Good Witch (Billie Burke)

• Scarecrow, Tin-Man, Dorothy Gale and Lion; The Wizard of Oz

• Engraving of the Ladder of Ascent and Descent of the Intellect

Chapter VI

• Elizabethan magus Dr. John Dee and his 007 signature

• Frontispiece from Christopher Marlowe’s The Tragicall History

of the Life and Death of Dr. Faustus

• Original 1968 British Quad poster for The Devil Rides Out

• Photograph of Hoagy Carmichael

• The Priestess Tarot Card from the Rider-Waite deck

• Original Book Cover, Goldfinger by Ian Fleming

• Original Book Cover, From Russia with Love by Ian Fleming

• The Baron Samedi, Live and Let Die

• The Chariot Tarot card from the Rider-Waite deck

Chapter VII

• Vlad Dracula painting

• Vlad Dracula dining amongst the dead woodcut

• Varney the Vampire or the Feast of Blood frontispiece

• Count Orlok from 1922’s Nosferatu

• Mr. Barlow from 1979’s Salem’s Lot

• Baphomet (Goat) of Mendes drawing by Eliphas Levi

• Larry Talbot’s silver handled walking stick, The Wolfman

• Pentagram from An American Werewolf in London

• Painting of Petrus Gonsalvus

• Dr. Septimus Pretorius and a homunculus, The Bride of Frankenstein

• 1968 hardback book Criswell Predicts

• The Ennis House, Los Angeles, California

• Michael Myers, Halloween

• Silver Shamrock Novelties logo, Halloween III: The Season of the Witch

Chapter VIII

• Luke Skywalker on Tatooine, Star Wars: A New Hope

Chapter IX

• Astrological sigil of Cancer

• The Ouroboros

Chapter X

• The Moon Tarot Card from the Rider-Waite deck

Chapter XI

• Illustration of the Mad Hatter by Sir John Tenniel

• Pascoli wine label, The Fifth Element

• Joan Crawford from the movie Mommie Dearest

• India Stoker masturbating, Stoker

• Evelyn and India Stoker, Stoker

• Nina Sayers, Black Swan

• Autoerotic arousal overwhelms Nina Sayers’ Black Swan persona

• Nina welcoming her transformation into the sexual yet tragic Black Swan

• Lily, Black Swan

• The Great Masturbator oil painting by Salvador Dali

• Elizabeth masturbating, 9 ½ Weeks

• Elizabeth masturbating, 9 ½ Weeks

Chapter XII

• The Hermit Tarot Card from the Rider-Waite deck

• Photograph of Conrad Veidt as Gwynplaine from The Man Who Laughs

• The Hanged Man Tarot card from the Rider-Waite Deck

• Thulsa Doom, Conan the Barbarian

• Shaw Brothers logo

• Warner Brothers symbol

• William Blake’s Lucifer

• Meryl Burbank, The Truman Show

Chapter XIII

• Antique engraving of St. Jerome in his Study by Albrecht Dürer

• Startling Stories pulp magazine cover, September 1939

About the Author

• Robert W. Sullivan IV, Esq.

Preface

“Thrill me.” - Detective Ray Cameron,

Night of the Creeps, 1986.

“The analogy of opposites is the relation

of light to shadow, peak to abyss, fullness to void.

Allegory, mother of all dogmas, is the replacement

of the seal by the Hallmark, or reality by shadow;

it is the falsehood of truth, and the truth

of falsehood.” - Eliphas Levi, Dogme de la Haute Magie,

Paris, Balliere, 1856, XXII, 22.

“No doubt there are some among you

who will doubt the truth of what I’m about to say

or doubt the reality of what you are about to see.

But believe me my friends, this is no fake.

Before your very eyes is all that remains of a vampire,

one of the world’s undead. Dare I but remove this stake

from where his heart once beat, and he would rise from the

grave within which he lies and turn into a bat,

a vampire bat who’d feed hideously upon the living

whose veins pulsate with warm and vibrant blood.

Ladies and gentlemen, the actual skeleton of Count Dracula the Vampire!”

- Dr. Gustav Niemann, House of Frankenstein, 1944.

“You ever listen to K-Billy’s Super Sounds of the

Seventies? It’s my personal favorite.”

- Mr. Blonde, Reservoir Dogs, 1992.

“Of course he’s dead, the dosage was too large.”

- Herbert West, Re-Animator, 1985.

“I told you a long time ago you fucking little monkey not to fuck me!”

- Alejandro Sosa, Scarface, 1983.

“Beware, beware. Beware of the big green dragon

that sits on your doorstep. He eats little boys. Puppy dog tails

and big fat snails. Beware, take care. Beware.”

- Scientist, Glen or Glenda, 1953.

Movies are the new mythology, they formulate modern legends that transcend material culture and the social fabric.  Hollywood’s influence is undeniable; visit any bar in America on a Friday night and one will eventually hear someone quoting Ben “Obi-Wan” Kenobi (Alec Guinness, 1914-2000) from Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope (1977), Tony Montana (Al Pacino) from Scarface (1983), or Mr. Pink (Steve Buscemi) from Reservoir Dogs (1992).  Movies define us and in turn we glorify them or at least try to; in other words films are a reflection of both the conscious and the unconscious while society, in turn, often mimics them.  This is best described by the phrase, life imitates art. Who has not heard the phrase, “Here’s looking at you kid,” or “May the Force be with you?”  Unless one has been living in a cave for the last sixty years the answer is no one.  “Nothing clean. Right.” is idiosyncratically spoken by Arnold Schwarzenegger playing a time traveling Cyberdyne Systems Model 101 in The Terminator (1984). The “Punk Leader” (Bill Paxton) responds quipping, “ Hey I think this guy’s a couple cans short of a six-pack,” while the Terminator’s line “I’ll be back,” is his catch phrase that one immediately associates with the Austrian actor and former governor of California.  Lest we could forget the scene when Cyberdyne Systems Model 101 goes into a gunsmith seeking to acquire firearms of a highly sophisticated nature.  Like a kid in a candy shop, the Terminator orders them as if he was purchasing fast-food from McDonald’s.  He even asks for a weapon that has yet to be invented, a Phased Plasma Rifle in the 40 watt range to which the store owner replies, “Hey, just what you see pal.”  Although it was a made-for-television horror film, everyone remembers Karen Black (1939-2013) as Amelia (Story III) who is chased, attacked, tormented, and ultimately possessed by a vicious Zuni fetish doll in 1975’s Trilogy of Terror.

Some movies are so omnipresent that to not be familiar with them is a form of social ostracization.  Films such as Scarface, The Godfather (1972), The Empire Strikes Back (1980), Casablanca (1942), Saturday Night Fever (1977), Reservoir Dogs (1992), The Exorcist (1973), Gone with the Wind (1939) and The Wizard of Oz (1939) are so engrained on the psyche that there is not an adult American who is not familiar with them in some form or fashion.  One could even argue that they are not even “American” anymore since they are so well known they belong to everyone in every nation.  Unfamiliarity with certain films may transform a person into a social leper while, on the other end of the spectrum, some movies are so bad that they are actually good.  This maxim applies to movies that aspire to be great but fail thus achieving what is commonly called “cult status” where a film has a group of disciples that adore it irregardless of its bizarre nature.  Movies produced and directed by Edward D. Wood Jr. (1924-1978) would fall into this category.  Alternatively some movies were box offices failures yet now are received as cinematic classics; The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975) is shown to sold out midnight audiences while A Christmas Story (1983) now airs twenty-four hours around the clock starting on Christmas Eve on Turner Network Television or TNT.  There is not a person out there who does not know the story of Ralphie (Peter Billingsley) and his desire to get a Red Ryder BB Gun for Christmas.   Everyone knows that when attending a midnight viewing of The Rocky Horror Picture it is not enough to sit there and watch it rather one must experience it.  The patrons will dress up as their favorite characters becoming Janet Weiss, a heroine (Susan Sarandon), Brad Majors, a hero (Barry Bostwick), Magenta, a domestic (Patricia Quinn), Columbia, a groupie (Little Nell) Riff Raff, a handyman (Richard O’Brien) Dr. Frank-N-Furter, a scientist (Tim Curry) while singing-a-long to the film’s soundtrack.

This book was borne out of the final chapter of my first book The Royal Arch of Enoch: The Impact of Masonic Ritual, Philosophy, and Symbolism which was published in August 2012.  Chapter XV is titled “So Dark the Con of Man” and explores Masonic, solar, occult, and Enochian symbolism in modern cinema.  Movies discussed and analyzed include 1979’s Being There, 2004’s National Treasure, 1981’s Excalibur, and 1999’s The Ninth Gate among others.  This book is a continuation and extension of that chapter.  Some of the symbolic and themes presented in Cinema Symbolism, while not necessarily Masonic, solar, or Enochian, are nevertheless important and of a highly esoteric and mystic nature.  This book presents a symbolic analytical interpretation of some of the most famous movies ever made and the arcane influences behind them.  As will be seen there are elements of the occult, Gnosticism (Manichean and Valentinian), numerology, dualism, mysticism, demonism, astrology, Astro-theology, Freemasonry, mythology, and much more incorporated into these sublime Hollywood masterpieces.

Before one can begin Chapter I one must first read this book’s Introduction; do not skip over it.  This portion provides insights on the subjects of Astro-theology, Freemasonry, Gnosticism, and the Occult that one must comprehend in order to understand the esoteric themes contained in theses films that are presented in this tome.  In other words, the reader must have a base outline of these numinous and mythological doctrines in order to proceed properly.   Lastly, the reader of this book should be aware of the fact that the symbolic interpretation of these films, in some instances, is based upon the Director’s Cut of these movies.  This book does not present a symbolic interpretation of every movie made, to do so would be an impossible task.  Rather this book reveals hidden symbolism in some of Hollywood’s finest and the foundations of this esoterica.  Please enjoy but read carefully Cinema Symbolism: A Guide to Esoteric Imagery in Popular Movies.

Robert W. Sullivan IV, Esq.

Baltimore, Maryland, United States of America

30 September 2012

Introduction

“Michael Rennie was ill the day the earth stood still,

but he told us where we stand.

And Flash Gordon was there in silver underwear,

Claude Raines was the invisible man.”

- Lyrics from Science Fiction Double Feature, 1975.

“No Mr. Bond, I expect you to die! There

is nothing you can talk to me about that I

don’t already know.”

- Auric Goldfinger, Goldfinger, 1964.

“Let me have a Diablo sandwich, a Dr. Pepper,

and make it fast I’m in a god damn hurry.

- Sheriff Buford T. Justice, Smokey and

The Bandit, 1977.

“To travel in silence, by a long and circuitous route,

to brave the arrows of misfortune and fear neither noose nor fire,

to play the greatest of all games - and win!

Foregoing no expense is to mock the vicissitudes

of fate and to gain at last the key

that will unlock the Ninth Gate.”

- Boris Balkan, The Ninth Gate, 1999.

“Take a can of your gasoline. Say this can of gasoline is the sun.

Now, you spread a thin line of it to a ball,

representing the earth. Now, the gasoline represents the sunlight,

the sun particles. Here we saturate the ball with the gasoline, the sunlight.

Then we put a flame to the ball. The flame will speedily travel

around the earth, back along the line of gasoline to the can,

or the sun itself. It will explode this source and spread to

every place that gasoline, our sunlight, touches. Explode

the sunlight here, gentlemen, you explode the universe!

Explode the sunlight here and a chain reaction will

occur direct to the sun itself and to all the planets that

sunlight touches, to every planet in the universe. This is why

you must be stopped. This is why any means must be used

to stop you. In a friendly manner - or as it seems you want it.”

- Eros, Plan 9 from Outer Space, 1959.

As the title of this book suggests, one must be cognizant of some occult and esoteric doctrines in order to properly understand and digest Cinema Symbolism: A Guide to Esoteric Imagery in Popular Movies.  This Introduction provides background information for a person who is brand new to this subject matter in order to give them working knowledge of the occult and the mystical.  This esoterica is further explained and elucidated as the book unfolds.  To begin with, there are two types of symbolism: the exoteric which is known to all and the esoteric which goes unseen to the untrained eye.  Esoteric and concealed imagery in film is a powerful conduit allowing a filmmaker to tell another story beyond what is presented to the naked eye.  Hidden symbols, metaphors, and devices also reveal the legends, the occult lore, and archetypes the story and characters are based upon.  This enables filmmakers and producers the ability to transform celluloid into mythological masterpieces that transcends popular culture.  In other words, concealed symbolisms and veiled esoteric themes can transmute a film from mere entertainment into timeless and compelling pieces of art that resists the hands of time.  Additionally, the placement of concealed symbols in film challenges the audience to match wits with the movie’s creators to see if the former can uncover the underlying esoterica behind the film’s storyline and characters.

One sees arcane emblems everyday but may not even be mindful of them.  For example, the iconic Starbucks Coffee logo’s central image is the legendary female spirit Melusine.  Melusine (or Melusina) was a figure of European legends and folklore, a feminine sprite-like spirit of fresh waters and sacred springs and rivers.  She is most often depicted as a woman who is a serpent or fish from the waist down much like a mermaid.  Melusine is sometimes illustrated with wings, two tails, or both.  Starbucks incorporates her into their logo since Melusine is a powerful and highly noticeable occult sigil who invokes the watery Age of Pisces (Pisces is a water sign), numinous folklore, the supernatural, and the sacred feminine.

To begin with, some movies contain metaphors that are not so concealed.  It is well known that the character of Charles Foster Kane played by Orson Welles (1915-1985) in 1941’s Citizen Kane is a conglomeration of American newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst (1863-1951), Chicago tycoons Samuel Insull (1859-1938) and Harold McCormick (1872-1941), as well as aspects of Welles’ own life.[1]  Likewise the character of Quint (Robert Shaw, 1927-1978) from Jaws (1975) naturally parallels Herman Melville’s Captain Ahab from Moby-Dick first published in 1851.  Both Quint and Ahab pursue a ferocious sea creature (shark and a whale) personal reasons and die in the process.  Melville’s novel was first adapted for the big screen in 1956 starring Gregory Peck (1916-2003) in the role of the legendary sea-captain.

While not cinema related, some hidden symbolisms are concealed in plain sight.  One of the best example’s this author can think of is the 1969 album cover of The Beatles’ Abbey Road.  The Beatles Abbey Road illustration shows a funeral procession suggesting and reinforcing the Paul McCartney deceased rumors that swirled around the band since its inception. John Lennon (1940-1980) leads the group as God wearing heavenly white. Ringo Starr follows next representing the mourning sexton clothed in black.  Paul follows Ringo symbolizing a corpse; he is displaced being out of step with the others.  Being “dead” his eyes are closed, he is barefoot, and McCartney - who is left-handed - unnaturally holds his cigarette in his right hand.  George Harrison (1943-2001) is the gravedigger dressed in workman denim whose tasked with burying the corpse.  A little more adroitly concealed symbolism can be found surrounding the mythos of The Smurfs.

These little blue creatures represent the perfect communist/socialist society working without pay while living communally or, “From each according to his ability, to each according to his need or needs” popularized by Karl Marx in his 1875 Critique of the Gotha Program.  Papa Smurf wears communistic red and physically resembles Karl Marx (1818-1883) serving as the de-facto benign Stalinist ruler of the Smurfs.  Papa Smurf also wears a red Phrygian cap symbolizing the proto-Marxian revolutionary zeal of the sans-culottes during the French Revolution (1789-1799).  The Smurfs battle against the evil wizard Gargamel and his cat Azrael who generally symbolize the materialism of western culture.  Gargamel’s cartoon cat Azrael is named after Azrael who is the Archangel of Death in some traditions and is the angel of retribution in Islamic theology and Sikhism. The name Azrael is an English form of the Arabic name عزرائيل  or عزرایل (Azra’eil), the name traditionally attributed to the angel of death in some sects of Islam and Sikhism, as well as within Hebrew lore. Thus Gargamel’s cat strikes mortal fear and terror in the Smurfs.

* * * * *

One of the most dominate and overarching motifs in film is the “solar hero” or the dying and resurrected sun-man or allegorical sun god.  The hero personifying light defeats a villain representing darkness. Solar symbolism is everywhere, even The Beatles “sail on to the sun” in a golden and magical Yellow Submarine. The song, which was featured on their 1966 album Revolver, was sung by Ringo Starr and anticipates the esoteric and mysterious themes that incorporate on their next album, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.  “We all live in a Yellow Submarine” is one of the most popular refrains to come from The Beatles’ catalog and is often played when an instant reference to them is required.[2]  The song spawned an animated feature film with the same name which was released in November 1968.  Let this author state - for all time - that these artists and filmmakers are aware, at least on some levels, of arcane and occult symbolism.

Staying with The Beatles, George Harrison was a mystic who was responsible for including British occultist, spymaster, and Freemason Aleister Crowley (1875-1947) in Sgt. Pepper’s famous band of lonely hearts appearing collaged on the upper left hand side of the album cover. Movie producers and directors are also familiar with occult philosophies and doctrines.  Founded in 1934, Manly Palmer Hall’s (1901-1990) Philosophical Research Society (PRS) promotes the study of comparative religion, mythology, secret societies, metaphysics, and the occult.  PRS maintains a research library of over 50,000 volumes and also sells and publishes metaphysical and spiritual books mostly those authored by Hall.  Its headquarters are in Los Angeles, California near the heart of the movie making industry in Hollywood.  Philosophical Researcher Society’s building on Los Feliz Boulevard was designated as a Los Angeles Historic Cultural Monument on 3 March 1994.

In some instances, esoteric icons and occult themes are mistaken within the “conspiracy world” as concealed emblems of a grandiose and ominous “Hollywood-Illuminati-Luciferian-Freemasonic” agenda to take over the world.  People head into chat rooms and post blogs and YouTube videos about “Anti-Christian Evil Conspiracy” films being produced in Hollywood and their related demonic symbols.  The pyramidal “eye in the triangle” appears to be the main culprit with women clothed in the color red coming in a close second.  To this author, some of this can be chalked up to artistic expression and in most cases - not all - people are simply seeing things that are not there.  Conspiratorial chatter of this kind only popularizes these movies to the delight of the film makers and even more so to the movie studios.  This is best explained in the 1994 film Ed Wood when Béla Lugosi (Martin Landau) says to Ed Wood (Johnny Depp), “There is no such thing as bad press, Eddie.”  In other words, it is better to be mentioned negatively than it is to be ignored.  However, in some movies occult symbols and devices are intentionally placed and cannot be dismissed as mere coincidence.  Rather than superfluously pointing out every time a triangle appears in close proximity to a circular object on screen, this books explores the true kabbalistic, mystical, psychological, and occult underpinnings in cinema.

Some of these occult emblems, esoteric themes, and mystical icons are part of our collective unconscious best explained by Swiss psychotherapist Carl G. Jung (1875-1961); it should come as no surprise that they appear in this powerful conduit known as modern cinema.  As will be revealed many of cinema’s most iconic characters are essentially products of the collective unconscious. Collective unconscious is a term of analytical psychology, it is proposed to be a part of the subconscious mind, expressed in humanity and all life forms with nervous systems, and describes how the structure of the psyche autonomously organizes experience.  Jung distinguished the collective unconscious from the personal unconscious in that the personal unconscious is an singular reservoir of experience unique to each individual, while the collective unconscious gathers and organizes those personal experiences in a similar way with each member of a particular species.  In their book The Supernatural, authors Douglas Hill and Pat Williams briefly explain Jung’s collective unconscious theorem,

“Jung saw the unconscious as composed of several ‘levels’: the barely subliminal level of unconscious memories, ideas, and so on, temporarily forgotten and ignored. Which could  easily become conscious; the level of the personal complexes and repressed wished, fears, and so on; and finally the collective level, the deepest and the most fully unconscious level of the instincts. On this collective level, common to the entire race throughout history, exists the deep instinctual tendencies that produced in primeval man (probably through dreams, among  other means) his concrete belief in the supernatural. And these same unconscious collective tendencies, which Jung called the archetypes, exist in us today - no matter how much our civilized rationalism tries to repress them. Thus they produce in us today objective representations and beliefs similar to ancient man’s. We are partially irrational beings, Jung is saying, and these  unconscious tendencies cause us to respond to irrationalism - even if the veneer of civilized skepticism sometimes reduces that response to a weak half-belief. (Because we cannot as rational beings accept our own irrationalism, Jung always stressed, we therefore cannot control it. And because we cannot control it and live with it, it has got completely out of hand - and so to Jung, modern man remains an unbalanced, neurotic, constantly in conflict with himself, going in search for a soul.)

Basically, then, Freud and Jung (along with a great many modern psychologists, sociologists, and anthropologists) would agree that there remain in men’s minds certain elements that tend to produce, even in the skeptical age, supernatural beliefs and practices akin to those of primitive man.

….Freud’s achievement - considering his work in its broadest terms - was his success in reminding men of something that for centuries they had allowed themselves to ignore: the fact that man is unconscious of

of a large part of his mind.  Jung’s achievement (again broadly) was to demonstrate that this ‘unconscious’ was not separate - exclusive to and unique in each individual - but was collective as well: and that beneath that level, perhaps endlessly, lie other levels of consciousness or, in our terms unconsciousness. These fundamental discoveries form the basis of all the more recent investigations of supernatural belief by ‘depth’ psychology.”[3]

Solar lore, the twelve signs of the zodiac and their related mythologies, cosmology, legends and folklore, magic and sorcery are part of our collective unconscious.  As such they may appear on film irregardless of the film maker’s intent, however,  this author emphatically states that many of these hidden cinema symbols and allegories appear intentionally.  This author has seen too much evidence for this to be passed off as mere coincidence.  If a film maker or producer denies the doctrines of this book than this author suggests that these symbols and themes materialize in cinema as part of society’s Jungian unconscious collective mechanism.

Jung linked the collective unconscious to what Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) called archaic remnants: mental forms whose presence cannot be explained by anything in the individual’s own life and which seem to be aboriginal, innate, and inherited shapes of the human mind.  The collective unconscious informs and creates some of cinema’s most famed characters, hidden symbolism, and movie personalities what are termed archetypes.  Strictly speaking, Jungian archetypes refer to unclear underlying forms or the archetypes-as-such from which emerge images and universal motifs such as the mother, the father, the child, the trickster, the teacher, the temptress, the lover, the hero, the heroine, and the villain among others.  It is history, culture, and personal context that shape these manifest representations giving them their specific content.  Being unconscious, the existence of archetypes can only be deduced indirectly by examining behavior, images, art, myths, religions, or dreams. They are inherited potentials which are actualized when they enter consciousness as images or manifest in behavior on interaction with the outside world.  As such the collective unconscious does not develop individually rather it is inherited.  It consists of pre-existent forms, the archetypes, which can only become conscious secondarily and which give definite form to certain psychic contents.  Some of cinema’s most famous archetypes and plot lines adhere to legends surrounding the sun and the solar mythology of Apollo, Osiris, Jesus Christ, and Horus, while also incorporating the symbolism and lore associated with the zodiac, the planets, lunar esoterica, mythological gods and goddesses, religion, the occult, and the Major and Minor Arcana of the Tarot.  All of these incarnate on screen in one form or another.  For example, in antiquity the classical planets were the non-fixed objects visible in the sky, known to various ancient cultures.  The classical planets were the sun and moon along with the five non-earth planets of our solar system and are visible without a telescope.  They are Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. The name “planet” comes from the Greek term πλανήτης, planētēs, meaning “wanderer” as ancient astronomers noted how certain lights moved across the sky with the other stars.  They called these objects asteres planetai or wandering stars. Together they form the seven classical planets as well as the names of the seven days of the week: Sun-day, Moon-day or Monday, Saturn-day or Saturday, and in Latin, “Martis” (Mars, Tuesday), “Mercurii” (Mercury, Wednesday), “Iovis“ (Jupiter, Thursday) and “Veneris” (Venus, Friday).  The English names for the days of the week would be altered incorporating the corresponding Germanic or Norse god.  For example, Jupiter’s day was changed to the day of Thor who was the god of thunder, lightning, and storms making the day “Thor’s Day” or Thursday while Venus became the goddess Frige making her day “Frige Day” or Friday.  The number seven appears in cinema routinely; there are seven western archetypes known The Magnificent Seven (1960) while the heroine Snow White is assisted by Seven Dwarfs.  On the numinous number seven, Masonic mystic Albert Pike (1809-1891) expounds,

“….There were seven planets and spheres presided over by seven archangels. There were seven colors of the rainbow; and the  Phoenician Deity was called HEPTAKIS or God of seven rays; …. John, in the Apocalypse, writes seven epistles to the seven churches. …. Enoch was the seventh patriarch, Adam included, and Lamech lived 777 years. …. Israel was in the hand of Midian seven years before Gideon delivered them. The bullock sacrificed by him was seven years old. Samson told Delilah to bind him with seven green withes; and she wove the seven locks of his head, and afterwards shaved them off. Balaam told Barak to build for him seven altars. Jacob served seven years for Leah and seven for Rachel. Job had seven sons and three daughters, making the perfect number ten. He had also seven thousand sheep and three thousand camels.  His friends sat down with him seven days and seven nights.  His friends were ordered to sacrifice seven bullocks and seven rams;  and again, at the end, he had seven sons and three daughters, and twice seven thousand sheep, and lived a hundred and forty, or twice seven times ten years. Pharaoh saw in his dream seven fat and seven lean kine, seven good ears and seven blasted ears of wheat; and

there were seven years of plenty, and seven of famine. Jericho fell, when seven priests, with seven trumpets, made the circuit of the city on seven successive days; once each day for six days, and seven times on the seventh. ‘The seven eyes of the Lord,’ says Zechariah, ‘run to and fro through the whole earth.’ …. Seven angels, in the Apocalypse, pour out seven plagues, from seven vials of wrath. The scarlet-colored beast, on which the woman sits in the wilderness, has seven heads and ten horns. So also has the beast that rises up out of the sea. Seven thunders uttered their voices. Seven angels sounded seven trumpets. Seven lamps of fire, the seven spirits of God, burned before the throne; and the Lamb that was slain had seven horns and seven eyes.”[4]

The Royal Arch of Zerubbabel is the seventh degree of the York (or American) Rite of Freemasonry which sees the recovery of the Tetragrammaton (Name of God).  There are seven colors of the rainbow that Dorothy Gale must “go over” to experience the magical land of Oz while Dr. Lao (Tony Randall, 1920-2004) prominently displays seven alchemical visages in The Sevens Faces of Dr. Lao (1964).  There are Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (1954) while Detectives Mills (Brad Pitt) and Somerset (Morgan Freeman) investigate a serial killer who models his victims after the seven deadly sins in the film Se7en (1995).  In folklore, a seventh son of a seventh son is a sorcerer possessing supernatural powers such as the ability to heal the sick and perform necromancy.  The seventh son must come from an unbroken line with no female children born in between and be born to a true seventh son.  This legend is explained in the trendy song Seventh Son (1965) by Johnny Rivers.

Solar and lunar symbolisms are prevalent in Hollywood.  A study of mythology reveals many legends and traditions that concern the sun and the moon as related in some way by family or marital ties.[5]  In early history of all people we find the sun and moon regarded as human beings, more or less closely connected with daily life of mankind, and influencing in some mysterious way man’s existence, and controlling his destiny.[6]  In fact, the very basis of mythology lies in the idolatrous worship of the solar great father, and the lunar great mother, who were the first objects of worship that the history of the race records.[7]  In film, the sun is Neo from The Matrix and Luke Skywalker from Star Wars.  The moon counterbalances Neo and Luke’s solar hero becoming Trinity and Princess Leia.

In order to better understand solar iconography, one must first have working knowledge of the astrological-astronomical phenomenon known as The Precession of the Equinoxes and its related occult philosophies.  The yellow sun - as General Zod would say - is the center star of our correctly named solar system; without the sun life cannot exist on earth.  Earth and the other planets are ruled by its gravitational pull causing them to orbit around it.  The Precession of the Equinoxes occurs since the earth rotates around the sun on an axis causing the it to slightly wobble.  The 1851 invention, Foucault’s Pendulum, is named after French physicist Jean Bernard Léon Foucault (1819-1868) and demonstrates this astronomical motion causing stars and constellations to appear in different locations from one night to the next.  The Precession of the Equinoxes or the Platonic Year occurs because one of the stars in the Pleiades - most likely Alcyone - or the star Spica in the constellation Virgo exerts a gravitational pull on the sun.  In my first book, The Royal Arch of Enoch, this author explained,

“As part of the Egyptian religion was the worship of the solar bull - Apis - which is of course Taurus the Bull - the sun in the house of Taurus circa 4300-2150 B.C.E.  The initiate into the Egyptian Mysteries was no doubt instructed  in the astronomical phenomena known as the Precession of the Equinoxes. The Precession is based upon the great Solar or Platonic year: that is the sun moves trough each house (starting at the Vernal Equinox from the northern hemisphere perspective) of the zodiac; it remains in that house of the zodiac approximately 2000-2150 years (due to cusps as the sun does not just leave one house and enter another) and completes the entire cycle about 25,900- 26,100 years.  It is called a precession because the sun moves in retrograde motion though each house of the zodiac which consists of thirty degrees; it moves one degree backwards every seventy-two years.

….The sun’s retrograde motion is based upon the earth’s wobble as it orbits the sun; the earth’s ‘wobble’ is why different constellations appear in different places in the night sky.  The sun also appears to be in motion in the galaxy likely due to the gravitational pull on it from either Spica within the constellation Virgo or Alcyone within the Pleiades.  The Precession of the Equinoxes was officially observed for the “first time” by Greek astronomer and mathematician Hipparchus (190 - 120 B.C.E) in 170 B.C.E, although it and its influence must have been known to earlier Egyptian astrologers and sabeans, Hebrew Kabbalists, Druidic and Persian mystics as part of their respective mysteries.  Hipparchus saw that a specific house of the zodiac laid behind the sun at the vernal equinox and that it slowly moved backward over time - one degree every seventy two years.  The sun thereby moved from one house of the zodiac to the next every 2000 years or so.  By his calculation the Piscean Age will end and the Age of Aquarius will begin circa 2040; Aquarius will be behind the sun at the vernal equinox, not Pisces.  The 2000 - 2160 years the sun remains in a house of the zodiac is called an age - the worship of the sun adopts the personality of the particular house or celestial sign it is in during that 2000 year time frame or “age”.  Symbolically - as will be seen - this is of great importance and is one of the great mysteries of the ancients.

For the last 2000 years (0 - 2012 C.E.) the sun crossed the equator at the vernal equinox in the constellation Pisces - the Piscean Age; 2000 - 2160 before that the sun passed through the constellation Aries giving rise to the Arian Age; and 2000 - 2160 years before that being the age Taurus the Bull; Cain slew his brother Abel - each brother was betrothed to a ‘twin’ sister - thus the death of Abel symbolically ended the Age of Gemini.  Albert Pike describes the reverence the Persians felt for Taurus and the method of astrological symbolism in vogue among them, thus ‘In Zoroaster’s cave of initiation, the Sun and the Planets were represented , overhead, in gems and gold, as was also the Zodiac.  The Sun appeared, emerging from the back of Taurus.’

In the constellation of the Bull are also to be found the ‘Seven Sisters’ - the sacred Pleiades - famous to Freemasonry as the Seven Stars at the upper end of the Sacred Ladder.  In ancient Egypt it was during this period - when the vernal equinox was in the sign of Taurus - that the Bull, Apis, was sacred to the Sun God, who was worshiped through the animal equivalent of the celestial sign which he had impregnated with his presence at the time of its crossing into the Northern Hemisphere.  This is the meaning of an ancient saying that the celestial Bull ‘broke the egg of the year with his horns.’ The primary religious symbol of the Taurean Age was the Ankh: it was the Egyptian symbol of life - the sun; it is the thoracic vertebra of a bull as seen in cross section.  The Age of Taurus also gave rise to bull cults of the Minoans on the Island of Crete.  Murals in the ruined city of Knossos in Crete depict female acrobats entertaining the court by leaping over heads of bulls.  In the sacred Indian text Rig Veda (circa 3500 B.C.E - dating it to the Taurean Age) the god Surya references a solar bull who shines out through all the sky while the fire god Agni was likened to a bull with hair on fire.  The Age of Taurus was also affected by its opposite house Scorpio - the sign of the occult, death and rebirth - and was a strong influence in Egypt during the Age of Taurus.  The Egyptians were thought to be obsessed with death and the occult sciences.  Egyptian priests performed special mystical rituals and rites over the mummified bodies of the newly dead to help their spirits navigate the afterlife.   Taurus gave way to Aries and then Pisces; starting in approximately 2012 the sun will be in one or two degrees out of Pisces and in the sign of Aquarius thus beginning the humanistic-egalitarian ‘Masonic’ Aquarian Age.  Some have argued that Solomon’s Temple - the name Solomon when bifurcated: ‘SOL-OMON’ or ‘Sol/Sun - omon/Moon’ and the Sphinx’s nose were devices that somehow measured and calculated the Precession of the Equinoxes.”[8]

This author elucidated in The Royal Arch of Enoch that the sun changing houses by way of the Precession of the Equinoxes does not necessarily extinguish old age religions.  In other words, Judaic fire symbolism still remains despite the fact that the sun entered the house of Pisces over 2000 years ago.  This is evidenced in Judaism with the continued use of the shofar or ram’s horn in Hebrew religious practices despite the Age of Aries being long over.  If one wishes to see Taurean Age iconography symbolism in cinema, look no further than Xerxes (Rodrigo Santoro) golden throne chair from the movie 300 (2007).  Xerxes I of Persia, also known as Xerxes the Great (519–465 BC), was the fourth King of Kings of Persia.  He confronted the Spartans led by Leonidas I at the Battle of Thermopylae, 480 B.C.E.  Leonidas I (Leōnidēs; “son of the lion”; died 480 BC) also known as Leonidas the Brave who was a Greek hero-king of Sparta, the 17th of the Agiad line, third son of Anaxandridas II of Sparta, who was believed to be a descendant of Heracles possessing much of the latter’s strength and bravery.  In the film 300, Leonidas, (Gerald Butler) approaches Xerxes’ throne which is adorned with two large golden bulls on either side symbolizing his divine solar rulership.  The Taurean bulls are golden representing the divine glow of the yellow sun and its brilliant, life-giving light.

Within Judaism, Moses descends Mount Sinai and destroys the golden calf thereby announcing the end of the old age of Taurus; the “golden calf” itself symbolizes the Egyptian Apis bull. Moses next grows ram’s horns heralding the new solar age of Aries (the Ram) transforming him into a solar avatar epitomizing the Arian Age lawgiver.  On the vernal equinox - approximately March 20th to March 22nd - for the last 2000 years the sun has risen in the sign of Pisces; within Masonic prophecy it is known as the Piscean Age.  The adoration and worship of the sun in the sign of Pisces is Christianity.  Piscean Age or Christian eschatology (end days) sees the sun leaving Pisces and entering the next house of Aquarius at Luke 22:10; Jesus announces this to the 12 Apostles saying, “And he said unto them, Behold, when ye are entered into the city, there shall a man meet you, bearing a pitcher of water; follow him into the house where he entereth in.”  Simply put, upon leaving Pisces the sun will enter the house of the man bearing the water pitcher - Aquarius - and to follow the sun into that next house.  Jesus Christ is a solar Piscean Age Roman Messiah all but created at the Council of Nicea in 325 C.E. who bears the astrological decans of Pisces.  For example, Jesus walks on water and washes feet since Pisces is a water sign that rules the feet.  Jesus also has 12 Apostles who are the 12 houses of the zodiac anthropomorphized.  The 12 signs of the zodiac administer aid to the sun on its annual journey paralleling the 12 Apostles who assist Jesus on his travels.  This occultism is echoed in Judaism wherein the Twelve Tribes of Israel are emblematic of the 12 zodiac signs.  Jesus - the sun in Pisces - naturally feeds his followers with two fishes at Matthew 14:13-21.  Within occult Christianity, Jesus is “the sun of god” who is dead and buried at the winter solstice (December 20th-22nd) only to be resurrected at the vernal equinox (March 20th-21st) culminating with the “Easter” celebration of the sun emerging from the three month tomb of winter announcing longer days and warmer weather.  In many parts of the world Easter heralds spring as well as the resurrection of Christ.  Echoing the diurnal sun, the nocturnal rabbit, signifying the moon, dies every morning and is resurrected every evening also represents the rebirth of nature in spring.  Both the moon and the rabbit were believed to die in order to be reborn.

* * * * *

To the Knights Templar, who were an esoteric brotherhood of medieval Roman Catholic warrior monks, Jesus the Messiah was the resurrected sun or the light of the world and the planet Venus was Mary Magdalene anthropomorphized.  The planet Venus is interchangeable with Lucifer[9] since Venus rises in the east prior to the sun thus making it the son of the morning star or false light while announcing (or bearing) the coming of the world’s true light, the sun.  In addition, within Roman mythology Venus was the goddess of beauty, sex, and love who was known to the Greeks as Aphrodite.  To the Gnostics, Venus was the embodiment of Mary Magdalene called Mary Lucifera who was companion to Jesus the “sun of god” due to Venus’ closeness to the sun.  This Astro-theological lore promulgated the notion that the 12 Apostles (twelve signs of the zodiac) were envious of Magdalene (Venus) since the stars that create the zodiac constellations were farther away from the sun than Venus or Mary Lucifera.  Despite the Christian Church’s profane negativity towards Mary Magdalene, Lucifer qua Venus/Aphrodite remains glorified in the Greco-Roman Neo-Platonic pantheon as a sublime light bearer.  Venus or Aphrodite becomes a beautiful and alluring sex goddess brought to life in the persona of Elizabeth McGraw (Kim Basinger) in the film 9 ½ Weeks (1986).

Solar symbolism can be seen in 1979’s Being There.  Chance or “Chauncey Gardiner” (Peter Sellers, 1925-1980) is a solar Piscean hero who speaks in parables droning on about the equinoxes and solstices and how plant life and the harvest revolves around the rising and setting sun.  Being a numinous “sun-man” Chauncey Gardiner is surrounded by Biblical icons symbolizing the Ancient Mysteries.  For example, the Shirley MacLaine character of Eve Rand is named after the first woman, Eve of the Book of Genesis, while her husband Benjamin Rand (Melvyn Douglas, 1901-1981) is placed into a Egyptian-Masonic pyramidal tomb at the film’s conclusion suggesting the mysteries of Egypt of the dying and resurrected solar deity Osiris.  The “ all seeing eye” atop the pyramid represents the Egyptian sun god Amun Re/Ra who is the spiritual force behind the sun.  The legend of the dying and resurrected sun is symbolically duplicated in third degree Blue Lodge Freemasonry where the candidate portrays architect Hiram Abif who is murdered and is resurrected transforming the initiate into an Osirian solar figure.  Hiram Abif is steeped in solar mysticism: he is buried west of Solomon’s Temple representing the dying or setting sun, his grave is concealed with a sprig of acacia which is a flower sacred to the sun god Apollo who is comparatively  Horus in the Egyptian Mysteries.  Hiram is resurrected with the Strong Grip of the Lion’s Paw which is an esoteric reference to the house of Leo the Lion; the constellation Leo is ruled by the sun.

When examining the life and career of music and screen legend Elvis Presley (1935-1977), one is confronted with “Masonic” solar synchronicity[10] from start to finish.  A devote Christian, Elvis was nevertheless familiar with the occult works and philosophies of Manly P. Hall, Albert Pike, and Madam Helena Blavatsky (1831-1891) and sometimes read the latter’s The Voice of Silence on stage to his audience.  This suggests that Elvis was familiar with solar deities and symbolisms of antiquity, yet was unaware that his life was a solar parable from birth to death.  Like the premier Olympian solar deity Apollo who was also the god of music, Elvis Presley would become an apotheosized Apollonian King of Rock n’ Roll.  Presley was given to the house of Capricorn being born on 8 January 1935.  Capricorn is exalted between 22nd December to January 19th under which the winter solstice occurs.  The winter solstice of December 20th-22nd is when the sun, in the northern hemisphere, is annually “born again” since the days start becoming longer.  Thus Presley, like the sun and solar gods of old, is born under Capricorn.  Elvis, synchronizing the sun, dies under the sign of Leo the Lion on 16 August 1977 which is the sole house of the sun.  Presley, towards the end of his life, routinely wore jumpsuits while performing at concerts that featured solar emblems including the Mayan Solar Calendar.  Elvis’ early songs were recorded and distributed by Sun Records in Memphis Tennessee. Sun Records of Memphis, Tennessee in turn synchronizes to Memphis, Egypt which itself featured an influential solar temple.  A temple dedicated to Aten in Memphis is attested by hieroglyphs found within the tombs of Memphite dignitaries of the end of the 18th dynasty, uncovered at Saqqara.

Among them, that of Tutankhamun, who began his career under the reign of the Pharaoh Akhenaten (1380-1334 B.C.E.) as a steward of the temple of Aten in Memphis. Akhenaten, whose name means “living spirit of Aten”, is known before the fifth year of his reign as Amenhotep IV (sometimes given its Greek form Amenophis IV meaning Amun is Satisfied), was a Pharaoh of the Eighteenth dynasty of Egypt who ruled for seventeen years.  He is especially noted for abandoning traditional Egyptian polytheism and introducing worship centered solely on the sun or Aten, which is sometimes described as monotheistic or henotheistic.  An early inscription likens the Aten to the sun as compared to stars, and the later official language avoids calling the Aten a god rather it gives the solar deity a status above mere gods.  Memphis, Egypt rests on the banks of the Nile River paralleling Memphis, Tennessee which rests on the banks on the New World’s Nile River, the Mississippi.  Sun Records and Elvis’ estate named Graceland - both in Memphis, Tennessee - esoterically represent new world solar temples while symbolically designating Elvis as America’s Rock and Roll solar and musical messiah.  Elvis dies reading The Scientific Search For The Face Of Jesus (1972) by Frank Adams synchronizing one sun king (Jesus) with another (Elvis).  Graceland is one of the most visited landmarks in America and Presley is buried on its grounds in the Meditation Garden.  Elvis’ fans and disciples make pilgrimages to Graceland like it was a holy shrine and collect Elvis’ personal belongings keeping them as if they were sacred relics. Like a resurrected sun, rumors that Elvis survived his own death began to immediately circulate after his apparent drug overdose.  It now appears as if a solar religion has grown up posthumously around the Apollonian King of Rock and Roll.  In sum, Elvis’ solar life and personality, paralleling Jesus, appears to be a unique product of the world’s collective unconscious.  Elvis Presley personifies what the world wanted and needed him to be: a messianic musical sun king.  Elvis’ life, from his humble beginnings to his rise to musical superstar, is the raw material that dreams are made of.

The esoteric idea of the solar man or “new age” resurrected sun god is popular in Hollywood.  This character generally dwells in ignorance or darkness only to be brought to enlightenment or gnosis (sublime wisdom and revelation) thus allowing ascensio (aristocratic and rightful leadership) and/or apotheosis (divine approbation) achieving the Pleroma (Greek: πλήρωμα).  Pleroma refers to the totality of divine mystical powers and the Spirit of God.  This philosophy is best reflected in the doctrines of Gnosticism.  Gnosticism (from gnostikos, “learned”, from Ancient Greek: gnōsis, knowledge) is the belief that the material world created by the Demiurge - a lesser god - should be shunned citation needed and the spiritual world should be embraced as God’s true world. The craftsman god or Demiurge is assisted by a group of enforces known as the Archons who are both angelic and demonic.  On the Demiurge, Masonic symbolist and philosopher Manley P. Hall says,

“The Gnostics were divided in their opinions concerning the

Demiurgus, of creator of the lower worlds. He established the

terrestrial universe …the Demiurgus was individualized as

the lowest creation out of the substance called pleroma.

One group of Gnostics was of the opinion that the Demiurgus

was the cause of all misery and was an evil creature, who by

building this lower world had separated the souls of men from

truth by encasing them in mortal vehicles.  The other sect viewed

the Demiurgus as being divinely inspired and merely fulfilling

the dictates of the invisible Lord. Some Gnostics were of the

opinion that the Jewish God, Jehovah, was the Demiurgus. This

concept, under a slightly different name, apparently influenced

Mediaeval Rosicrucianism, which viewed Jehovah as the Lord

of the material universe rather than as the Supreme Deity.

….To the Gnostics, the Christ was the personification of

Nous, the Divine Mind, and emanated from the higher spiritual Æons.”[11]

Although Ralph Richardson (1902-1983) is billed as the “Supreme Being” in 1981’s Time Bandits, this “god” behaves more like a Demiurge.  This deity endlessly harasses the protagonists and is only interested in reclaiming his secret map.  The map provides material riches to those who know how to unlock its secrets.  At film’s end the Supreme Being has no problem sending Kevin (Craig Warnock) back to his boring existence and apathetic parents.  The Supreme Being also places Kevin in harm’s way returning him to his home which is engulfed in flames.  Evil (David Warner), on the other hand, is constantly questioning the Supreme Being’s true motives and decision making processes.  Evil seems more interested in advancing mankind than his counterpart who wants to keep humanity stale in a state of perpetual servitude.  Gnostic ideas influenced many ancient religions which teach that gnosis - variously interpreted as knowledge, enlightenment, salvation, emancipation or oneness with God - may be reached by practicing philanthropy to the point of personal poverty, sexual abstinence (as far as possible for hearers, totally for initiates) and diligently searching for wisdom by helping others.  Gnostic belief held that the light bearing serpent in the Garden of Eden was not evil rather it opened Adam and Eve’s eyes to reality, good and evil, right and wrong, a conscious awakening, gnosis.  To the Gnostics the resurrected sun is an emblem of the divine spark, to be “born again” and resurrected was the sun or divine light.  Solar light symbolizes true divine esoteric revelation when one is truly birthed into true consciousness or enlightenment.  Being enlightened, one has achieved a form of hermetic, and in some instances, a kabbalistic-alchemical ascensio or apotheosis.  Within Christianity, the dying and resurrected sun-man or deity is Jesus Christ.  In cinema, this becomes time traveler James Cole (Bruce Willis) who dies at the end of the movie 12 Monkeys yet is resurrected watching his younger self leave the airport in safety at film’s climax.  Cole is sent back in time by a group of scientists to prevent a toxic virus from wiping out most of humanity.  James Cole initials are “J.C.” symbolizing Jesus Christ or the resurrected sun-man.  James Cole dies at the film’s conclusion yet is resurrected over and over and over again.  The space-time continuum in 12 Monkeys is a predestination paradox also called a causal loop, a causality loop, and less frequently, a closed loop or a closed time loop.  It exists when a time traveler is caught in a sequence of events that predestines or predates him or her to travel back in time.  In 12 Monkeys, Cole is forever stuck in a never ending loop that he cannot escape from despite his actions.  As a child he will always see himself die, and as an adult he will always be sent back in time and be shot dead in Philadelphia’s airport.  Cole, like Jesus Christ, is a savior-heroic archetype since both Christ and Cole are on  spiritual missions to save mankind from itself.  Christ offers eternal life to mankind while Cole is sent back in time in the hopes of saving humanity from a deadly virus.  During his mysterious quest Cole is assisted by the sacred feminine who is personified by Kathryn Railly (Madeleine Stowe), who represents Sophia or divine female wisdom and enlightenment.  Railly, a Baltimore psychiatrist, helps Cole unravel the mysteries of time travel while supporting his efforts to save humankind.  Sophia (Σοφíα, Greek for wisdom) is a central idea in Hellenistic philosophy and religion, Platonism, Gnosticism, Orthodox Christianity, Neo-Platonism, and Christian mysticism.  Sophiology is a philosophical concept regarding wisdom, as well as a theological concept regarding the wisdom of the biblical God.  Mary Magdalene (cf. sacred feminine) believed that Jesus Christ spoke the truth, so too does Railly become convinced of Cole’s veracity.  Railly comes to believe that Cole has been sent from the future to prevent a contagion from wiping out most of earth’s population.  Like Christ, Cole is mocked, shunned, attacked, imprisoned, and criticized by his peers in the process.  Part of James Cole’s  mission is to find and locate “12 Monkeys” more accurately known as “The Army of 12 Monkeys” which are a sublime representation the 12 houses of the zodiac.  Exoterically Cole believes “The Army of the12 Monkeys” holds the key to the virus but esoterically Cole is looking for the twelve signs of the zodiac that he, as a solar hero,  governs.  Finally unlocking the mystery of the 12 Monkeys with the help of Railly, Cole comes to understand that truth lays elsewhere.  Cole and Railly finally achieve gnosis (wisdom/truth) of how the virus really spreads but Cole dies before he can prevent it.   Cole is eternally resurrected observing himself as a little boy depart the airport.

If the sun is an emblem of divine godly light, than the absence of it portends evil.  This  can be seen in horror films such as The Exorcist which takes place during the autumn months.  Symbolism related to the weather is also featured in The Omen Trilogy to be analyzed in Chapter II.  During the autumn and winter the sun’s power wanes and weakens.  In the northern hemisphere the earth symbolically dies during these months; trees shed their leaves, plant life decays, the days are shorter, and the temperature is colder.  With the sun becoming weaker, night or darkness becomes longer and, on a symbolic level, evil is exalted.  In other words, evil is given license to roam free in The Omen Trilogy and The Exorcist since they are set against an autumn and winter backdrop.  However, when the sun of god is resurrected at the vernal equinox - celebrated as “Easter” within Christianity - does the sun overtake the darkness.  The weather once again turns warm and plant life returns to the rejuvenated earth.  Christian symbolism can be seen at the end of 1971’s The Omega Man.  Dr. Robert Neville’s (Charlton Heston, 1923-2008) blood contains antibodies which can create a vaccine to cease the mutation that is plaguing humanity.  The virus causes humans to turn into mutated zombie-like albinos with a penchant for destruction.  Neville is killed at the end of the film by having a spear thrust into his side.  Perishing, he passes a holy grail - a flask of his blood serum with the cure to restore humanity - to an acolyte and dies cruciform on a cross-like sculpture with one knee turned in.  This iconography is echoed in 300 which sees Leonidas laying amongst the Spartan dead cruciform pierced by arrows symbolizing his Christ-like apotheosis transforming him into the savior of the Greek people.  Leonidas death at the “Hot Gates” galvanizes Greece into uniting thereby thwarting Xeres’ plan for world domination.  Neville, anticipating Leonidas, is Jesus Christ or the savior archetype: the spear thrust into Neville’s side by Matthias (Anthony Zerbe) symbolizes the infamous Spear of Longinus that was plunged into the side of Jesus during the crucifixion.  Neville - like Christ Jesus - saves humanity by passing the “holy grail” containing the sanguine antibiotic cure to one of his friends or disciples; Neville gives his life becoming a cinematic crucified savior of mankind.

In Christian Mysteries, the “cross” that Christ (cf. the sun) is crucified upon represents the terrestrial cross formed by the two solstices and equinoxes as well the celestial cross formed by the four fixed signs of the zodiac which are Aquarius, Leo, Scorpio, and Taurus. The sun waxes and wanes upon these two “crosses” yearly.  The birth of Jesus Christ is also Astro-theological.  The birth of the solar savior was heralded by three “Persian Magi” bearing gifts who have followed the eastern star to locate the birth of god’s son/sun.  The “three Persian kings” are esoteric personifications of the stellar “three kings” or Drie Konings which are the stars Alnitak, Alnilam, and Mintaka that form Orion’s Belt.  Although Osiris has solar attributes, the god is represented by the constellation Orion in the Egyptian stellar mysteries.  On December 24th these three stars align with the Eastern Star or Sirius (Isis, the Virgin Mother who also has lunar attributes) which the brightest star in the evening sky.  This stellar calibration locates the spot of the sunrise on the horizon on the morning of December 25th, hence the “sun of god” is newly born every twenty-fifth of December.  This Egyptian astral symbolism would be changes in the Christian Mysterion becoming the legend of “three kings following the Eastern Star to locate the birth of God’s son on December 25th”.  At the winter solstice of December 21st, the sun is at its lowest demarcation in the northern hemisphere; the sun does not move on the horizon for thee days.  The word solstice means “sun stands still” originating from the Latin sol (sun) and sistere (to stand still).  On December 25th the sun moves one degree north thus making it the birthday of the newly born annual sun.  Astro-theology of this nature is heavily incorporated into the final Omen installment analyzed in Chapter II

If one wants to see the Gnostic Demiurge in all his manipulative glory look no further than Béla Lugosi’s (1882-1956) portrayal as the “Scientist” in 1953’s Glen or Glenda.  Lugosi’s lesser god or Demiurge “pulls the string” controlling his earthly marionettes while attempting to correct the genders and justifies transvestism as one of his rectifiable mistakes.  Lugosi’s martinet tries to fix men who like to wear girl’s clothes while the film’s narrator, Dr. Alton (Timothy Farrell, 1922-1989), constantly reminds the viewer that these men are transvestites and not homosexuals.  Like a child overseeing an ant farm, Lugosi mordantly enjoys being humanity’s master.  He looks down on mankind with great derision stating, “People. All going somewhere. All with their own thoughts, their own ideas, all with their own personalities. …Pull the string!”  Lugosi’s Demiurge acknowledges that change occurs slowly coinciding with the astrological signs of the ages.  Other themes relating to Gnosticism are prevalent in popular movies most notably 1999’s The Matrix which is diagnosed symbolically in Chapter IX.

The sun naturally has an enemy who in the Egyptian Mysteries it is Typhon (Typhone) who incarnates as Judas Iscariot in Christian occultism.  Typhon is the Greek name for the Egyptian Set or Seth who is the brother of Osiris.  Typhon is further personified by the constellation Scorpio; as Scorpio rose Orion set symbolizing the death of Osiris and the temporary victory of Typhon or Set/Seth. Typhon is forever the enemy of the sun or the solar hero archetype. Regarding the mysteries of Typhon or Set, Freemason Albert Pike astutely explains,

“Whether Egypt originated the legend, or borrowed it from

India or Chaldaea, it is now impossible to know.  But the Hebrews received the Mysteries from the Egyptians; and of course were

familiar with their legend, - known as it was to those

Egyptian Initiates, Joseph and Moses. It was the fable (or rather the

truth clothed in allegory and figures) of Osiris, the Sun, Source

of Light and Principle of Good, and Typhone, the Principle of

Darkness and Evil. In all the histories of the Gods and Heroes lay

couched and hidden astronomical details and the history

of the operations of visible Nature;  and those in their turn

were also symbols of higher and profounder truths. None but rude

uncultivated intellects could long consider the Sun and the Stars and

the Powers of Nature as Divine, or as fit objects of Human Worship;

and they will consider them so while the world lasts; remain

ignorant of the great Spiritual Truths of which these are the

hieroglyphics and expression.”[12]

Osiris is murdered by Set and is resurrected by his virgin sister-wife Isis who sires Horus their solar child.  According to legend Horus was nursed in the swamps of the Nile Delta, where Isis hid from Set, who intended to kill Horus.  One of Set’s forms was the crocodile, and the English legend of St. George and the Dragon is partly descended from pictures of Horus fighting Seth as a crocodile.[13]  He eventually vanquished Seth and succeeded to the throne of his murdered father, Osiris.[14]  Horus was lord of the sky and the sun, and each pharaoh of Egypt was Horus in his lifetime and Osiris after his death.[15]  Horus comparatively is Apollo who slays Python who, in turn, is a representaion of Typhon/Set/Seth.  Typhon  - the sun’s antagonist - is typified by Biff Tannen (Thomas F. Wilson) in the Back to the Future Trilogy.  The villainous Set or Seth is allegorized in the Star Wars movies by the dark Set or Sith lords.  As will be seen, solar iconography and even more so Manichean cosmology or light versus dark, is a dominate theme in cinema echoing the Abrahamic Faiths.  This concept  stems from Gnosticism or the re-awakening to esoteric enlightenment, ascensio, apotheosis, where one is brought to light from darkness.  A person’s divine “solar” spark is ignited thereby allegorically resurrecting the Christ in you.  Gnostic philosophy was highly influential in the development of Neo-Platontic thought which was a philosophical doctrine attempting to reconciling the Pagan Mysteries with Christianity.  Typhon - as darkness - is Carl Jung’s psychological shadow self.  The shadow is the unknown dark side of our personality since it tends to consist predominantly of the primitive, negative, socially or religiously depreciated human emotions and impulses like sexual lust, power strivings, selfishness, greed, envy, anger or rage, and due to its unenlightened nature is obscured from consciousness.  The shadow is opposed by the conscious ego which is the organized realistic part of human consciousness that mediates between the desires of the id (uncoordinated instinctual trends) and the super-ego (critical and moralizing role).  In other words, whatever we deem evil, inferior, or unacceptable becomes part of the shadow, the counterpoint to what Jung called the persona or conscious ego personality.  Jung differentiated between the personal shadow, the impersonal or archetypal shadow which acknowledges transpersonal pure or radical evil symbolized by the Devil and vicious demons; and collective evil exemplified by the horror of the Nazi holocaust.  Historical figures like Adolf Hitler (1889-1945), Charles Manson, Theodore “Ted” Bundy (1946-1989) and François “Papa Doc” Duvalier (1907- 1971) personify the shadow embodied in its most negative archetypal human form.  In cinema, the personal shadow self comes alive in Darth Vader who is consumed by the malevolent dark side of the Force and Nina Sayers (Natalie Portman) who explores the dark, immoral sides of eroticism including self-mutilation and excessive masturbation.  “Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men?”  The answer is a dark Jungian archetype known as The Shadow who was featured in pulp novels of the 1930s.  The Shadow is a mysterious vigilante whose alter or conscious ego is Lamont Cranston.  Being the dark side of consciousness, only The Shadow truly knows what evil lurks in men.  The Shadow was an influence on the subsequent evolution of comic book superheroes, in particular Batman who is Bruce Wayne by day and becomes his shadow self nocturnally costuming himself as a giant fearful bat.  In 1994 The Shadow was made into a film starring Alec Baldwin in the title role.

*         *          *         *         *

Further esotericism appears in film notably those relating to Kabbalah, the Tarot, Alchemy, and the occult in general.  On Kabbalah and its mysteries, this author explained in The Royal Arch of Enoch: The Impact of Masonic Ritual, Philosophy, and Symbolism,

“Likewise, Kabbalah is a form of Hebrew occultism.  Hebrew theology was divided into three parts: the law, the soul of the law (Mishna) and the soul of the soul of the law: Kabbalah. Only the highest initiates among the Hebrews were instructed in the Kabbalah’s secret principles.  Kabbalah - often intermingled with Qabbalah with a “Q” its Hermetic first cousin and with Cabala with a “C” which is the Christian form of Hebrew Kabbalah (twining Christian and Hebrew mysticism) and largely a Renaissance phenomenon - is the study of the Sephirotic Tree of Life. It is not uncommon to interchange the “K”, “C”, and “Q” when defining Kaballah.  The foundation of Kabbalah is the Zohar; the Zohar itself derives from a group of Hebrew texts that include commentary on aspects of the Torah (the five books of Moses), the scriptural interpretations as well as material on mysticism, mythical cosmogony, and mystical pyschology.  The Kabbalah is an oraltradition, allegedly given to Moses on Mount Sinai by God and transmitted to Aaron and other great Hebrew prophets.  The Kabbalah was reputedly conveyed along with the Law (Ten Commandments) and the Talmud.  Rabbi and Neo-Platonist Isaac the Blind (ca. 1160-1235) wrote on Kabbalah and was likely the author of the Book of the Bahir, an important early text on Kabbalah that circulated throughout medieval France. The twenty-two paths and ten Sephiroth of the Kabbalah as understood by practitioners formulate a mystical system where - according to Isaac the Blind -  “Ain Soph” or divine consciousness (found beyond the first Sephirot - Kether - or “Crown” meaning above consciousness) could be obtained through various meditations and similar practices.  The twenty-two paths connecting the ten Sephiroth when added form the number thirty two which is an esoteric reference to the thirty two paths of wisdom within the Mishna - the “soul of the law” and serve as the symbolic basis for the thirty two degree system of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry.  Add a hidden, unseen Sephirot in the Kabbalah called Da’at (often thought to be the other ten Sephirot united as one) and one has twenty-two paths when added to the eleven Sephirot becomes thirty-three: an occult reference to the thirty-third and final degree of the Scottish Rite called Inspector General.   Kabbalah is a secret doctrine and “Kabbalah” is often a synonym for the word “secret”. In turn Christian Cabala interpreted the Hebrew Kabbalistc Tetragrammaton - the name of God - as Jesus Christ thus announcing him as the true Messiah.  Cabala is a combination of philosophy, theology, cosmology, and white magic to achieve communication with angels and through them Deity. Since Cabala proved that the longed for Messiah was Christ Jesus, the use of magic through angelic powers to obtain a higher godhead was permissible.  Cabala heavily influenced Elizabethan magus Dr. John Dee; to Dee and other Renaissance Cabalists such as Robert Fludd (Dee’s English hermetic-cabalist successor), Marsilio Ficino, Tommaso Campenella, Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, and Giordano Bruno the use of black magic was also permissible.  Dr. Dee served as the inspiration for Christopher Marlowe’s (1564 - 1593) and Johann Wolfgang Goethe’s (1749 - 1832) Dr. Faust or Faustus; Dee is Edgar Allan Poe’s (1809 - 1849) Prince Prospero from The Masque of the Red Death published in 1842.”[16]

Tarot cards reflect and parallel the esoterica of Kabbalah.  As there are twenty two paths that connect the sephirot there are also twenty two Major Arcana cards of the Tarot.  This sephirotic pathway creates the mystical Tree of Life or Wisdom.  This metaphor derives from Hebrew Kabbalah, though is understood less universally.  In the Jewish Kabbalist view, both of the two trees in the Biblical Garden of Eden (Genesis 2:9), the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil and the Tree of Life, were alternative perspectives of the Sephirot and the full array of ten as seen respectively from the last Sephiroth Malkuth and the middle Sephiroth Tiferet.  It is explained to Enoch during his time in Heaven that Eve symbolically bit from the kabbalistic Tree gaining knowledge since the sacred tree is the emanation of the Tetragrammaton or the true Name of God.  While in the netherworld Enoch (Hebrew for initiate) also serves as an intermediary for a group of fallen angels known as The Watchers.  Tarot cards also contain occult and alchemical symbols that when understood reveal hidden truths.  Some of the cards are The Moon, The Sun, The Wheel of Fortune, The Star, The Devil, The Tower, The Chariot, and The Lovers among others.  On the history of the Tarot, occult author Richard Cavendish writes,

“It has been claimed that the Tarot preserves the wisdom of ancient Egypt, the mystery religion of Mithras, pagan Celtic traditions, the beliefs of medieval heretics, or the teachings of learned Cabalists who supposedly designed the pack in Morocco in the year 1200.  Or again, the imagery of the Tarot has been to the collective unconscious, or to the symbolism of Dante’s Divine Comedy. The Tarot itself has been derived  from Egyptian, Hebrew, or Latin, and by one ingenious writer from Astaroth, the great fertility goddess Syria and Palestine, condemned in the Old Testament for the sensuality of her rites.”[17]

The Minor Arcana of the Tarot is also of symbolic significance.  On this subject matter Masonic philosopher Manley P. Hall provides,

“Modern playing cards are the minor trumps of the Tarot, from each suit of which the page, or valet, has been eliminated, leaving 13 cards. Even in its abridged form, however, the modern deck is of profound symbolic importance, for its arrangement is apparently in accord with the divisions of the year. The two colors, red and black, represent the two grand divisions of the year - that during which the sun is north of the equator and that during which it is south of the equator. The four suits represent the seasons, the ages of the ancient Greeks, and the Yugas of the Hindus. The twelve court cards are the signs of the zodiac arranged in triads of a Father, a Power, and a Mind according to the upper section of the Bembine Table. The ten pip cards of each suit represent the Sephirothic trees existing in each of the four worlds (the suits). The 13 cards of each suit are the 13 lunar months in each year, and the 52 cards of the deck are the 52 weeks in the year. Counting the number of pips and reckoning the jacks, queens, and kings as 11, 12, and 13 respectively, the sum for the 52 cards is 364. If the joker be considered as one point, the result is 365, or the number of days in the year. Milton Pottenger believed that the United States of America was laid out according to the conventional deck of playing cards, and that the government will ultimately consist of 52 States administered by a 53rd un-denominated division, the District of Columbia.”[18]

On Carl Gustav Jung, the archetypes, and the Tarot, Cavendish further writes:

“Later, C.G. Jung put forth the theory of the ‘collective unconscious’.

Jung himself experienced visions, ghostly entities and other paranormal phenomena, and was interested in and influenced by gnosticism, alchemy, astrology, folklore and the occult revival in Europe. He believed that human brains have been shaped and affected by the experiences of mankind over millions of years, and he suggested that in a deeper level of the mind than the personal unconscious there is the collective unconscious, which contains certain very primitive ‘images’ or ways of thinking. These are the ‘archetypes’, which find expression in religion, mythology, philosophy, science, symbolism, dreams, visions, and fantasies. Jungian theory has been one more influence on modern interpretations of the Tarot.”[19]

The Major and Minor Arcana of the Tarot are archetypical representations of the Jungian collective unconscious and, as will be seen, their esoteric iconography is incorporated into the personalities of some of cinema’s most memorable figures.

The Hermetic Science par excellence is alchemy; the famous Emerald Tablet, the bible of the alchemist thought, is attributed to Hermes Trismegistus and gives in a mysterious compact form the philosophy of the All and the One: “That which is above is like that which is below….And as all things have been derived from one…so all things are born from this thing….”.[20]  The hermetic maxim of “As Above, So Below” enters Freemasonry since it is Hermes who restores the Seven Liberal Arts and Sciences by correctly pronouncing the Tetragrammaton in the vault of Enoch; it is from these Seven Liberal Arts and Sciences that Freemasonry originates.  In terms of modern engineering, “As Above, So Below” dictates that buildings of import and significance embody astral alignments in order to draw upon heavenly influences.  For example, the cornerstone of the United States Supreme Court Building was laid on October 13th, 1932 thus aligning the building to the great astrological scales of justice or Libra which houses the sun from September 23rd to October 22nd.  In the Renaissance, a new style “Alchymia” becomes associated with the new Magia of Christian Cabala.  Queen Elizabeth I’s (1533-1603) astrologer Dr. John Dee (1527-1608/09) is a product of this philosophy as is the famed mystic Paracelsus (1493-1541).  Dee’s Irish psychic sidekick Edward Kelley (1555-1597) was also an adherent of this occultism.  Dee is most likely the drafter of two of the Rosicrucian (proto-Masonic philosophical secret society) manifestos, the Fama Fraternitatis and the Confessio Fraternitatis.  These two Rosicrucian manifestos caused an immense furor across all of Europe with their esoteric imagery while calling for a universal spiritual and cultural reformation across the continent.  Paracelsus’ alchemical thought is related to the conception of Logos, or the Word, as found in the Corpus Hermeticum, and also its Cabalistic interpretations.  Logos, or the alchemical Word, is a vital component in Freemasonry.  The “Lost Word of a Master Mason” goes missing upon the death of Hiram Abif in the third degree Blue Lodge ritual but is recovered in the Red Capitular higher degrees in a ceremonial known as The Royal Arch of Enoch.  Alchemy itself contains symbolic meaning.  One of its prime doctrines is the transmutation of base metal into gold via possession the Philosopher’s Stone (occult hermetic device that makes this change possible) while gold itself symbolizes the sun. Alchemy, or the transmutation of base metal into gold, is a metaphor for turning ignorance (base metal, darkness) into sublime occult wisdom and “golden” enlightenment.  Concepts relating to numerology, Freemasonry, folklore, Satanism, astrology, legends and mythology will all be presented in this book.  The mystical philosophies and theologies of Aleister Crowley, Eliphas Levi (1810-1875), and Madam Helena P. Blavatsky also turn up in film.

*       *       *       *       *

In most cases film sequels are not planned.  If a movie is released and does not perform well at the box office a sequel is not made.  The James Bond movies aside, if a movie becomes a smash hit and a sequel or sequels are made, it is the first film that contains the most symbolism.  The reason is obvious: since a sequel is not anticipated, the director and producer incorporate the proper symbolism in the first movie which they know they are making.  The reader of this book should be cognizant that some chapters contain summaries of the actual films when the author feels it is necessary.  In some cases the plot must be revealed since the storyline itself is of symbolic importance.  This is especially true for movies that feature Joseph Campbell’s (1904-1987) monomyth or the hero’s journey.  The reader is now put on notice that from here on out the Spoiler Alert is on.

This book opens with a symbolic analysis of the horror classic The Exorcist.  In cinema, demonic evil is exalted in autumn and winter when, in the northern hemisphere, the sun is farthest from the earth.  Since the sun is in decay, the earth plummets into the cold darkness associated with this time of year.  A young Regan MacNeil (Linda Blair) becomes possessed by a demon (Pazuzu, or the Devil) and two Jesuits - a solar magisterium - are dispatched to exorcise the brooding evil.  Damien Karras (Jason Miller, 1939-2001) is the Jesuit who successful exorcises the demon from Regan.  During The Exorcist he is constantly seen in a state of ascension representing a divine rising sun typifying a virtuous hero archetype.  In New York City, Father Karras climbs steps up to a subway platform from 33rd Street symbolizing Jesus’ 33 years on earth.

Christ was 33 years old when he was crucified becoming mankind’s dying savior; this numerological symbolism links Karras to Christ foreshadowing Karras’ transformation into an apotheosized savior who sacrifices himself to liberate Regan from demonic possession.  The number 33, however, is dualistically opposed immediately after it appears on screen.  After leaving the subway platform, Karras walks down a New York street and the word “QUIT” can be seen spray painted outside the entrance to his mother’s apartment.  This represents his skepticism and doubt about God and religion that permeates the film.  Although Karras is Regan’s savior, his lack of faith is further symbolized when he falls down a steep flight of steps to his death allegorizing his own fall from grace and spiritual death.  Other concealed imagery of this nature can be found in The Exorcist.  For example, when Regan’s mother Chris MacNeil (Ellen Burstyn) angrily speaks on the phone to a switchboard operator in Rome, the burning ciders in her fireplace typify her anger and frustration.  Similar hidden metaphors can also be found in The Omen Trilogy which is the subject matter of the second chapter.

Monty Python and the Holy Grail is the domain of Chapter III.  The Arthurian Legend is a solar allegory which was explained by this author in his first book, The Royal Arch of Enoch, which contained an astrological analysis of John Boorman’s 1981 film Excalibur.  King Arthur symbolizes the sun while the round table represents the zodiac wheel.  The twelve (or twenty four) Arthurian knights appropriately sit at the round table representing the twelve houses of the zodiac (and/or their diurnal and nocturnal phases).  King Arthur, the Grail quest, Lancelot, and Guinevere are all part of our collective unconscious; it is no surprise that Holy Grail contains astrological and Astro-theological allegories and symbolism.  Notably absent from Monty Python’s take on the Arthurian myth is the character of Morgana le Fay.  In keeping with solar allegory and Jungian archetypes, Morgana is the house of Libra which is ruled by the planet Venus.  The first day of the Autumnal Equinox occurs in Libra thereby the sun begins to enter death foreshadowing the winter months.[21]  When a feminine character represents Libra she often appears as a trickster or charlatan since sun is “deceived” by this persona sending it into “death” or the winter months.  The best example of a malevolent trickster goddess is Lilith who incarnates in the movie Black Swan (2010).  Lilith, simply put, is a dark and coquettish version of Sophia.

The Egyptology of the Back to the Future Trilogy is explained in Chapter IV.  The first film in the trilogy contains the most esoterica, however the entire trilogy is a modern retelling of the Egyptian Osirian Cycle.  There is much concealed symbolism in this trilogy, even Emmett “Doc” Brown’s address is of numerological significance.  The original Brown estate - seen in Back to the Future - is 1640 Riverside Drive.  The numeric address of 1640 is an occult reference to the year 1640.  It was in 1640 that French inventor and mathematician Blaise Pascal (1623-1662) demonstrated the properties of the Hexagrammum Mysticum in his Essai pour les coniques which he sends to French mathematician, theologian, and philosopher Marin Mersenne (1588-1648).  In projective geometry, Pascal’s Theorem or Hexagrammum Mysticum states that if an arbitrary six points are chosen on a conic (i.e., ellipse, parabola or hyperbola) and joined by line segments in any order to form a hexagon, then the three pairs of opposite sides of the hexagon (extended if necessary) meet in three points which lie on a straight line, called the Pascal Line of the Hexagon. This is essentially the birth of quantum mechanics which, according to Albert Einstein (1879-155), allows for the possibility of time travel.  Pascal’s Theorem is valid in the Euclidean plane, but the statement needs to be adjusted to deal with the special cases when opposite sides are parallel.  If two pairs of opposite sides are parallel, then all three pairs of opposite sides form pairs of parallel lines and there is no Pascal Line in the Euclidean Plane: in this case, the line at infinity of the extended Euclidean plane is the Pascal Line of the hexagon.  The tripartite nature of Pascal’s Line is symbolized by the triangular Flux Capacitor which, when activated, formulates a quantum line of infinity departing Pascal’s Line in the Euclidean Plane thereby allowing for a breach of space-time and making time manipulation possible.  Emmett Brown invents the Flux Capacitor at his appropriately numerical 1640 address in Hill Valley.

The Wizard of Oz takes center stage in Chapter V.  Oz contains multi-layered concealed imagery. On one level it is a political allegory of 1900 American socio-economic culture while on a deeper esoteric level it documents the initiate’s journey into the mystery tradition experiencing gnosis, ascensio, or self awakening.  In Chapter VI the occultism of the James Bond films and storylines, his “Bond Girls”, and Bond’s arch enemies are discussed while many of the legends, folklore, and mythology surrounding film’s most recognizable horror monsters is the purview of Chapter VII.  Horror films in general are analyzed in this chapter concordantly.  Chapters VIII, XI, and X document the hero’s journey or monomyth described by mythologist Joseph Campbell incorporated into the Star Wars films, the Matrix Trilogy, and J.R.R. Tolkien’s epic Lord of the Rings.  If the protagonist is the hero-savior archetype, then the monomyth is this character’s archetypical adventure.

Chapter XI explores notions related to the goddess in film concluding with an analysis of the shadow side of female sexuality presented on screen in Black Swan for which Natalie Portman won the Best Actress Oscar.  Also discussed is the surreal and quasi-diabolical masturbatory projections of 9 ½ Weeks (see opposite page). Chapter XII explores the symbolism and plotlines related to the Hermetic Sciences and Gnosticism.  Movies covered in this chapter are Fight Club (1999), Blade Runner (1982), Big Trouble in Little China (1986), and The Truman Show (1998) among others.  Cinema Symbolism: A Guide to Esoteric Imagery in Popular Movies concludes with an analysis of some of the hidden symbolisms in comedies and a discussion of the genuine weirdness that is the surreal cinema of Edward D. Wood, Jr.   Whether you are familiar with my last work, The Royal Arch of Enoch: The Impact of Masonic Ritual, Philosophy, and Symbolism, or new to this material, this author is certain you will enjoy Cinema Symbolism.  This book is written and presented in a way that it can be understood by a seasoned veteran who is well versed in symbolism, occultism, and mysticism, or a neophyte Padawan learner.  Either way please read and enjoy Cinema Symbolism: A Guide to Esoteric Imagery in Popular Movies.

Chapter I

What an Excellent Day

for an Exorcism

“There were several ways of determining that a person

was a demoniac . . . including facial swelling, grimaces,

insensitivity and leprosy, immobility, twitching of the

stomach, staring, French answers to Latin questions, and

the absence of bleeding from cuts.” - Collin de Plancy,

Dictionnaire infernale, 1818.

“Especially important is the warning to avoid conversations

with the demon.  We may ask what is relevant but anything

beyond that is dangerous.  He is a liar. The demon is a liar.

He will lie to confuse us. But he will also mix lies with

the truth to attack us.  The attack is psychological,

Damien, and powerful - so don’t listen.

Remember that - do not listen.”

- Father Lankester Merrin, The Exorcist, 1973.

“Since the day I joined the Jesuits, I’ve never met

one priest who has performed an exorcism. Not one.”

- Father Damien Karras, The Exorcist, 1973.

“Oh no, that was no spasm. I got on the bed.

The whole bed was thumping and rising off the

floor and shaking. The whole thing, with me on it!”

- Chris MacNeil, The Exorcist, 1973.

“If certain British doctors never asked ‘What is this fungus?’

we wouldn’t today have penicillin, correct?” - Lt. William Kinderman,

The Exorcist, 1973.

“There are no experts. You probably know as much about

possession than most priests. Look, your daughter doesn’t

say she’s a demon. She says she’s the Devil himself.

And if you’ve seen as many psychotics as I have, you’d

know it’s like saying you’re Napoleon Bonaparte.”

- Father Damien Karras, The Exorcist, 1973.

If one is looking to see the allegory of solar-divine light combating the forces of evil or darkness, one need not look any further than The Exorcist directed by William Friedkin.  The film is based upon the novel of the same name written by William Peter Blatty.  Often referred to as the scariest movie of all time, its theatrical release was paradoxically contrasted with the birthday of the newly born annual sun on December 25th.  The Exorcist debuted on December 26th,1973 more commonly known as Boxing Day.  The movie depicts an innocent youth, Regan Teresa MacNeil, becoming possessed by a Middle Eastern demon named Pazuzu qua the Devil or Satan; Satan in Hebrew means “opposer”. Unable to find a scientific-medical cure for her daughter, Chris MacNeil enlists two Jesuit priests, Father Damian Karras and Father Lankester Merrin (Max von Sydow), who at the cost of their own lives are able to expel the demon from Regan by performing the Catholic Rite of Exorcism.

At the start of The Exorcist, Jesuit Lankester Merrin is excavating a pagan temple which is part of an archeological dig in northern Iraq.  This mirrors Jesuit Athanasius Kircher’s investigating Christianity’s Egyptian/pagan origins in the seventeenth century.  Merrin, like Kircher before him, is an archeologist interested in unearthing pagan sites and ruins in order to uncover higher, spiritual “Christian” truths.  To Kircher, the sun was a holy father at dawn being resurrected thus defeating the darkness of the night (Typhon/Set).  The sun is at full strength at high-noon when the sun is youthfully energized, and at evening the sun descends into the ghostly underworld beneath the western horizon becoming a holy ghost or spirit.  The sun thus has three distinct phases: growth, maturity/strength, and decay. To the Egyptians the sun was a symbol of immorality dying each night only to be born again in the morning and at the day’s apex the sun is at full strength.  It is from the sun’s movement that the divine concept of the holy trinity of “the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost” derives from within Christianity – lifted from the Egyptian – being accepted and understood by Kircher.

Aspects of Father Merrin were also based on the British archaeologist Gerald Lankester Harding, who had excavated the caves where the Dead Sea Scrolls had been found and whom Blatty had met in Beirut; both share the same name of “Lankester”. Merrin discovers a small bronze amulet depicting the head of the demon Pazuzu, an entity that Merrin is not only familiar with but has encountered before. Pazuzu is the personification of the scorching desert wind that brings storm, injury, and fever. Merrin, echoing the mysticism of Kircher, is well suited for the Society of Jesus. The Jesuit Order,

“…was founded in 1534 by Ignatius Loyola, a Spaniard

of ardent imagination and earnest spirit, and was confirmed

by Pius III in 1540. There can be little doubt that he intended

it to be a mystical and contemplative association, resembling, in

many things, the colleges of Egyptian priests; . . .The Jesuits

appear to have taken the Egyptian priests for their

model.  Like them, they were the conservators and interpreters

of religion. The vows, they pronounced, bound them to their

company, as indissolubly as the interest and politics of the

Egyptian priests fixed them in the sacred college of

Memphis. …After the Order of Jesus had fallen from it high

estate, and became merely a secret society of political agitators

and intriguers, some ardent enthusiastic men conceived the idea

of superseding it by a new Order that should

retain all the good of the old, and be

better adapted to the circumstances of modern times,

and the wants of modern society. The Society of the Illuminati and that

of the Rosicrucians were formed with this aim and purpose. The adepts

of the Illuminati were governed by rules nearly identical with

those of the Jesuits, and the whole machinery of the two orders

was constructed after the same idea.”[22]

Immediately realizing that the demon-head talisman is an ill omen, Merrin takes a pill ameliorating his heart condition.  Merrin knows that the relic foreshadows a confrontation with the demon.  Merrin is beset by premonitions of despair and malevolency seeing what appears to be the blind leading the blind.  He next encounters a one-eyed man who stares at him emblematic of the evil eye which is an unintentional lingering look by a stranger causing illness, death, and general misfortune.  There are two types of evil eyes: involuntary and voluntary the latter being a part of witchcraft.[23]  The evil eye exists in virtually every culture around the world and dates back to ancient times.  Merrin is next seen examining other items from the dig in an Islamic museum; the clock on the wall mysteriously stops ticking mid-stroke symbolizing that his time is up.  Merrin leaves the museum informing the curator he must depart Iraq because, “There is something I must do,” heralding his final battle with the demon.  Shortly thereafter Merrin is almost run over by a carriage transporting a grieving widow dressed in black mourning clothes.  This symbolism seems to hint that Merrin’s next exorcism will be his last one.  Finally, Merrin confronts a full size sandstone statue of the demon Pazuzu.  With the sun setting in the background, two dogs fight in the distance representing the coming struggle between the forces of light and darkness.  The setting sun represents the temporal triumph of evil/darkness over solar divine light.

The film shifts to the affluent neighborhood of Georgetown, Washington, D.C. The viewing audience is introduced to movie actress Chris MacNeil, her twelve year old daughter Regan, Chris’ valet Sharon Spencer (Kitty Winn), and MacNeil’s maid Willi (Gina Petrushka, 1909-1981) and Karl the butler (Rudolf Schündler, 1906-1988).  Chris MacNeil is starring in a film being produced at the Jesuit University of Georgetown titled “Crash Course”.   Its British director is the insufferable and doomed alcoholic Burke Dennings portrayed by Jack McGowan (1918-1973). The Exorcist was MacGowran’s last film dying shortly thereafter from an influenza outbreak in London.  Chris leaves the movie set telling her limousine driver that she is going to walk home that evening.  Her temporary residence is located at the intersection of Prospect and 36th streets.  Walking through bourgeois Georgetown neighborhood, Chris encounters a group of young trick-r’-treaters identifying the date as October 31st or Halloween.  Halloween is a yearly holiday occurring the night before All Saints’ Day.  Halloween incorporates traditions from ancient pagan harvest festivals and celebrations honoring the dead particularly the Celtic Samhain.  The medieval Goidelic festival of Samhain marked the end of the harvest, the end of the lighter half of the year (spring/summer), and the beginning of the darker half (autumn/winter).  Most commonly it is held on 31 October-1 November delineating the halfway mark between the autumn equinox and the winter solstice.  The souls of the dead were said to revisit their homes on Samhain.  Halloween occurs after the autumnal equinox when the sun is heading towards death - the winter solstice - when the days become noticeably shorter and darkness or night is prolonged symbolically exalting evil.  Therefore one can conclude that the identification of Halloween and the dying or waning sun signifies the coming of evil and darkness into the MacNeil household and to Georgetown in general.  Not only does the demon attack Regan, it also defaces a statue of the Virgin Mary in Georgetown University’s Dahlgren Chapel.

The demon Pazuzu enters young Regan through her solo use of a Ouija board, William Flud edition.  At first Pazuzu benevolently identifies himself under the alias “Captain Howdy”.  The William Flud “talking board” that becomes the famous Ouija was first marketed in Baltimore, Maryland in the early 1890s by Charles W. Kennard of Kennard Novelty Company.  Kennard gave the board the name Ouija which he believed to be the Egyptian word for luck.  It is not; the word ouija is a combination of the French and German words for yes: oui and ja.  The Ouija board, as a tool to speak to angels and demons or foresee the future, originates from scrying devices such as black mirrors that were used by Renaissance cabalists, occultists, sorcerers and magicians such as Edward Kelley and Dr. John Dee the latter who served as Queen Elizabeth I’s court astrologer and soothsayer.  Regan’s condition deteriorates and the demon begins to manifest itself, she is diagnosed by Drs. Klein (Barton Heyman) and Taney (Robert Symonds).  Their conclusion is that Regan needs to undergo a series of spinal taps to locate brain defects or scarring that may be causing her bizarre and increasingly destructive behavior.  The results of the spinals prove to be negative and a psychological explanation is now sought to uncover what is wrong with Regan.

Regan MacNeil, now becoming fully possessed by the demon, is taken to the Barringer Clinic and Foundation for observation and diagnosis. Chris is informed in a meeting that Regan suffers from somnambular-form possession.  Somnambular-form possession is a rare form of anxiety where the victim comes to believe that their body has become inhabited by an evil spirit.  Dr. Barringer, the head of the clinic, reports that there is nothing they can do.  At this meeting Chris (qua Christ, their names are one letter apart) sits at the head of the table surrounded by twelve doctors mirroring the Four Gospels and their account of the Last Supper at which Jesus Christ sat at the head of the table enveloped by the Twelve Apostles.  Visually this reflects Leonardo Da Vinci’s (1452-1519) painting of the Last Supper with Christ sits at the middle of the table surrounded by his twelve followers on either side.  This symbolism suggests that Regan needs a spiritual - not a medical - remedy.  Jesus Christ is esoterically referenced again by Chris when she hears Dr. Barringer tell her that he and his fellow doctors are powerless to treat her daughter.  A frustrated and distressed Chris yells at them, “You’re sorry! Jesus Christ, 88 doctors and all you can tell me with all of your bullshit is -”. The number “88” is an arcane nexus to Greek Gematria - a division of the practical Kabbalah assigning numerical values of letters and analogies between words and phrases - wherein which the number 888 is numerically equivalent to the name Jesus.  Jesus, Iesous or Iēsous, has a letter of: (I)10 + (e)8 + (s)200 + (o)70 + (u)400 + (s)200 equaling 888 foreshadowing that a spiritual and numinous cure is needed for Regan.  Thus the number 88, spoken by Chris, symbolizes that Jesus Christ or divine solar light is necessary to drive the darkness or evil from young Reagan.  The number 88 appears in Back to the Future (Chapter IV) although the number denotes the sun in a different numerological manner. At this point Dr. Barringer recommends that Regan may need an exorcism stating, “There is one outside chance for a cure. I think of it as shock treatment, as I said, it’s a very outside chance... Have you ever heard of exorcism? Well, it’s a stylized ritual in which the rabbi or the priest try to drive out the so-called invading spirit.  It’s been pretty much discarded these days except by the Catholics who keep it in the closet as a sort of an embarrassment, but uh, it has worked. In fact, although not for the reasons they think, of course. It’s purely a force of suggestion. The victim’s belief in possession is what helped cause it, so in that same way a belief in the power of exorcism can make it disappear.” Chris responds saying, “You’re telling me that I should take my daughter to a witch doctor? Is that it?”

Upon taking Regan home Chris is visited by police detective Lt. William Kinderman (Lee J. Cobb, 1911-1976)) who is investigating the mysterious death of film director Burke Dennings.  Dennings was found at the bottom of an imposing flight of steps leading from Prospect Street to M Street with his head turned completely around facing backwards.  Regan’s bedroom window overlooks these steps and Kinderman is searching for a possible link between Dennings’ death fall and Regan’s bedroom; Kinderman is convinced that Dennings’ injuries occurred prior to his fall down the steps.  Kinderman leaves unsatisfied and Chris is exposed to Pazuzu in all his horrific glory: a disgusting and terrifying scene occurs culminating in Regan’s head rotating around 180 degrees mocking Dennings’ death while Regan curses her mother in his unmistakable British accent.  Chris MacNeil now understands that her daughter is under the control of demonic forces and the only solution is an exorcism.  Exorcism is not a medieval invention.  In the second century, the Christian philosopher Justin Martyr (ca. 100-165 C.E.) wrote of “many demoniacs all over the world …whom none other exorcists, conjurers, or sorcerers have cured, these have many of our Christians cured …and still do cure.”[24]  Origen (184/185-253/254 C.E.), writing in the third century, says that even the simple pronouncement of the name Jesus had the power to exorcise devils and demons.[25]

Chris initially seeks the aid of a Jesuit named Damien Karras.  Father Karras starts investigating Regan’s benighted condition becoming increasing convinced that she is possessed by multiple - three specifically - evil manifestations and requests the Catholic Church permission to conduct an exorcism. He is persuaded after hearing Regan speak in foreign languages that she has not studied, performing telekinetic feats such as opening a drawer, and speaking English in reverse. The Catholic Church grants permission with the condition that Karras assist while the exorcist will be Father Lankester Merrin who has recently returned to the United States from Iraq.  Merrin is currently at the Jesuit seminary in Woodstock, Maryland working on another book.  Merrin is seen walking through the Maryland woods when a young priest presents Merrin with a letter requesting him to perform the exorcism.  He does not open the envelope rather he calmly places it in his pocket eerily sensing what the document inside is requesting him to do.

The exorcism proceeds with Merrin in charge and Karras assisting.  The only established form of exorcism is that found in the Rituale Romanum which is a book of services used by Roman Catholic priests.  Exorcism grew out of the New Testament accounts - e.g., “In my name shall they cast out devils” (Luke xvi. 17; also Luke ix. 1; x. 17).  During the ritual, demons are commanded to depart in the name of Jesus Christ returning them to Hell.  However powerful the demon may be, he must ultimately yield to the power of the Lord.  The exorcist also calls upon the saints, the Virgin Mary, the angels especially the Archangel Michael who is an ancient foe of the Devil.  Merrin’s occult formulae involves the invocation of the Christ, the solar Trinity, and making the sign of the cross to dispel Pazuzu or works of darkness.  Father Merrin invokes these Astro-theological solar icons admonishing the demon, “It’s God, himself who commands you! The majestic Christ commands you! God the Father commands you! God the Son commands you! God the Holy Spirit commands you! The Mystery of the Cross commands you! The Blood of the Martyrs commands you!”  In order to expel the demon, Merrin also employs a purple stole, holy water, and a crucifix during the ritual.  These Jesuit rites, spells, and incantations symbolically express Merrin’s attempt to control the demonic being that now infests Regan and the material world.  On symbolism, C.G. Jung notes that it is constantly used “to represent concepts that we cannot define or fully comprehend.”[26]  Jung adds that this is why all religions employ symbolic language or images and why ceremonial magic does as well.[27]

During the exorcism one can clearly see the breath of the two Jesuits and Regan MacNeil.  This demonstrates that Regan’s bedroom is freezing cold due to the presence of the diabolical Pazuzu.

Within the Christian mythos the idea of Hell being a place of extreme cold invokes Dante Alighieri’s (1265-1321) Inferno (The Divine Comedy) where Satan dwells in the lowest (ninth) circle of Hell which is a frozen, frigid wasteland called Lake Cocytus.  This can also be found in the religion of Islam which has a Hell of ice, unbearable blizzards, and snow called Zamhareer.  Alighieri’s Satan features three faces emblematic of the three faces of Hecate who is a Diana-like goddess of malevolent magic.  It has been argued that Dante’s Inferno is kabbalistic and Gnostic, his journey through the underworld echoing the initiation rites of the Mysteries at Eleusis and Thebes.[28]  Dante also serves as an Enoch-like figure who visited the afterlife and learned its secrets while remaining in corporeal form.  In order to expel Pazuzu, the two Jesuits invoke solar icons namely the name of Jesus Christ, the Holy Trinity, and the astrological cross allegorizing numinous godly light in order to combat unholy darkness.  In other words they are mysteriously stating and reinforcing Christ’s name as a representation of divine solar light in order to compel the dark evil demon to exit Regan, doubt it not!

The demon finally leaves Regan at the expense of Merrin’s and Karras’ lives.  Karras becomes possessed by the demon but hurls himself out Regan’s window plummeting down the same flight of steps that Dennings fell.  Karras, unlike Dennings, is killed in the fall.  Karras lies dying at the bottom of the stairs, one will see the word “PIGS” spray painted on the wall to the left of the steps.  This symbolizes Mark 5:1-20 and Luke 8:26-39 which document the account of Jesus successfully exorcising a man possessed by a host of demons identifying themselves as Legion.  Jesus casts the demonic spirits into a herd of pigs that quickly drown.  The word “PIGS” identifies Karras as a Christ archetype who triumphantly saves Regan by exorcising Pazuzu.  With the Pazuzu gone, Chris and Regan leave the Georgetown residence hoping to return normalcy to their lives.  The eternal concept of good vs. evil, God vs. Satan, or more apropos light versus darkness dominates The Omen Trilogy which is the subject matter of the next chapter.

Chapter II

Born of a Jackal

The Omen Trilogy

“She is an apostate of Hell. She will

die before permitting this.”

- Carl Bugenhagen, The Omen, 1976.

“When the Jews return to Zion, and a comet rips the sky,

and the Holy Roman Empire rises, then you and

I must die. From the eternal sea he rises, creating armies on

either shore,  turning man against his brother, ‘til man exists no more.”

- Father Brennan, The Omen, 1976.

“Winter is here again.”

- Bill Atherton, Damien: Omen II, 1978.

“Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding

count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man;

and his number is Six hundred threescore and six.”

- Revelation 13:18.

“You’ll see me in Hell Mr. Thorn.

There, we will share out our sentence.”

- Father Brennan, The Omen, 1976.

“Disciples of the Watch, I stand before you

in the name of the one who was cast out

from Heaven, but is alive in me.”

- Damien Thorn, Omen III: The Final Conflict, 1981.

“For such are false apostles, deceitful workers,

transforming themselves into

the apostles of Christ.” - II Corinthians 11:13.

Over the years Hollywood has taken on the Bible and its related stories.  These films always seem to air on various cable television channels during the Easter and Passover holidays.  During the Judaic-Christian celebrations of the vernal equinox, one will have no trouble watching The Ten Commandments (1956), The Greatest Story Ever Told (1965), Barabbas (1961), King of Kings (1961), Ben Hur (1959), and The Robe (1953).  However, the darker side of the Bible was made into three films that depict the coming of the Antichrist and his rise to power foretold in the Book of Daniel and Revelation.  These three movies, collectively known as The Omen Trilogy, will now be symbolically explored.

The Omen

The first Omen film is based upon on the Book of Revelation which is the last book of the New Testament.  Revelation prophesizes the coming of the son of the devil - the Antichrist - who does battle with the second coming of Christ during the End of Days.  In the Omen films the Antichrist is identified by an unholy birthmark concealed beneath his hair: a series of three sixes, 666.  Likewise the apostles and apostates of Hell are also branded with this same birthmark.

In The Omen (1976), the Antichrist is Damien Thorn (Harvey S. Stephens) who is born in Rome, Italy on the morning of June 6th, at 6:00 a.m., the three six motif is obvious.  Puer Natus est 6th 6th 1970 6 o’clock am! is briefly seen handwritten on a newspaper clipping in Father Brennan’s (Patrick Troughton, 1920-1987) apartment, more on this later.  His human parents are Robert and Katherine Thorn (Gregory Peck, 1916-2003 and Lee Remick, 1935-1991), the former having been appointed United States ambassador to the Court of St. James.  The birth of the Antichrist in Rome reflects the other side of the world or Europe which is opposite of the Holy Land.  Placing the birth of the Antichrist in Rome, Italy also symbolizes the early Lutheran and Protestant tradition of labeling the Bishop of Rome the Antichrist.  This tradition reached back into the eleventh century; not only did dissidents and heretics but even some Saints called the Pope “Antichrist” when they wished to castigate his abuse of power.  England’s James I (1566-1625) was the first monarch to denounce the Pope as Antichrist.[29]  As early as 1588, fifteen years before succeeding to the English crown, James published A Fruitful Meditation … of the vii-x verses of the Second Chapter of Revelation, in which he argued that the Pope was Antichrist.[30]  In The Omen it is also explained that the Antichrist’s birth was heralded by a comet that “changed direction and turned into a glowing star.”  This information is provided by an English photographer Keith Jennings played by David Warner.  Since a star (Sirius) heralded the birth of Jesus (the sun), so too does a star announce the coming of the Antichrist.  The birth date of June 6th, at 6:00 a.m. is the three six motif found in the Revelations of John of Patmos; however there is a deeper astrological meaning.  The date of June 6th foreshadows the coming summer solstice of June 21-23 which is the longest day of the year.  Thereafter the sun begins to “die” or fade sending the sun (and the earth with it) towards their allegorical “deaths” in autumn and winter.  This symbolism was hinted at a few years earlier in Roman Polanski’s Rosemary’s Baby (1968) where the birth of Satan’s child was expected to be June 28th.  This is yet another reference to summer solstice of June 20th-23rd which foretells the coming seasonal darkness.  Within the context of Rosemary’s Baby, this means that the son of Satan was conceived on or around the vernal equinox when the sun of god symbolically approaches death during the winter months.  The Antichrist - named Adrian Steven - is actually born shortly after midnight, June 25th, 1966, symbolizing the opposite or anti-date of December 25th when birth of the sun is celebrated.  Within antiquity, the date of December 25th was the feast day of the sun-god Mithras announcing the birth of new annual sun.  Christianity stole this date and made the feast day of Mithras into the birthday of Jesus, the Piscean Age solar messiah.  Adrian Steven is born June 1966; June is the six month and when combined with 1966 forms the numerical value “666” referencing Revelation 13:18.  Satanic priest Roman Castevet triumphantly boasts that 1966 will be “The Year One!” while proposing a toast on New Year’s Eve.  The relationship between the summer months and the coming of the Antichrist heralds the End of Days and is prophesied in the Bible at Matthew 24:32-33, “Now learn a parable of the fig tree; When his branch is yet tender, and putteth forth leaves, ye know that summer is nigh: So likewise ye, when ye shall see all these things, know that it (cf. End of Days) is near, even at the doors.”

The photographer Jennings attends young Damien’s birthday party and cryptically remarks, “I don’t know if we’ve got the heir to the Thorn millions here or Jesus Christ himself.”  Jennings next appears investigating the strange death-by-impalement of Father Brennan.  Assisted by Ambassador Robert Thorn, the two enter the apartment of the deceased Brennan searching for clues.  Every inch of wall space - even the windows - are covered with pages from the Bible.  Jennings then informs Thorn that there are forty seven crosses on the interior of Brennan’s door, “There are forty seven, I counted them.  I think he was trying to keep something out, don’t you?” remarks Jennings.  The forty seven crosses symbolize the Forty-Seventh Proposition (or Problem) of Euclid, the Pythagorean Theorem.  The Pythagorean Theorem (a 3, 4, 5 triangle) is the emblem of a Masonic Worshipful Master denoting solar authority. The Worshipful Master sits in the east representing the rising sun who brings light to the lodge just as the sun brings light to the world.  This emblem is an arcane protective Egyptian solar sigil; on this Masonic ritualist Albert Pike explains:

“Plutarch continues to say the Egyptians compared the universal nature to what they called the most beautiful and perfect triangle, as Pluto does, in that nuptial diagram, as it is termed, which he has introduced into his Commonwealth.  Then he adds that this triangle is right-angled, and its sides respectively as 3,4, and 5; and he says, ‘We must suppose that the perpendicular is designed by them to represent the masculine nature, the base the feminine, and that the hypotenuse is to be looked upon as the  offspring of both; and accordingly the first of them will aptly enough represent Osiris, or the prime cause; the second, Isis, or the receptive capacity; the last, Horus, or the common effect of the other two. For 3 is the first number which is composed of even and odd; and 4 is a square whose side is equal to the even number 2; but 5, being generated, as it were, out of the preceding numbers, 2 and 3, may be said to have an equal relationto both of them, as to its common parents.”[31]

Paul Foster Case, in his book The True and Invisible Rosicrucian Order, simplifies:

“…Horus to the hypotenuse of the celebrated Pythagorean Triangle,  Masons revere as an invention of Pythagorus but in their monitors  term the Forty-seventh Problem of Euclid. …the vertical line of this triangle, three units long, represents Osiris, the Father; its base of four units corresponds to Isis, the Mother; and Horus, the Son, is the hypotenuse of five units. Observe that the parts of this triangle are assigned by the Egyptians to Father, Mother, and Son, just as the Pillars of the Qabalistic Tree of Life also are associated with a triad of Father, Mother, and Son. Note also that the Egyptian hero Horus, like the Masonic hero Hiram, is the son of a widow.”[32]

Horus, like Christ Jesus, is the reborn sun as well as heir apparent to his resurrected solar father Osiris.  Thus when Jennings remarks that Brennan was, “….trying to keep something out….” Jennings is symbolically suggesting  that the solar forty-seven crosses were shielding Brennan from evil.  In other words, the deceased priest was symbolically evoking the sun via the forty-seven crosses that hung inside his door.  The forty-seven crosses esoterically represent the Forty-Seventh Proposition of Euclid which is an Egyptian-Masonic solar emblem that keeps evil or darkness at bay.  Jennings and Thorn sift through a stack of newspaper clippings in Brennan’s tiny apartment.  It becomes clear that the birth of the Antichrist was heralded, like the birth of Jesus Christ, with Astro-theological allegory.  Jennings produces an article from the Astrologer’s Monthly about a comet that changed direction into a pseudo Star of Bethlehem on the 6th of June over the European continent.  Another clipping shows the words, “Puer Natus est 6th 6th 1970 6 o’clock am!” apparently written by Father Brennan; in English it means “Child is Born 6th 6th 1970 6 o’clock am!”

Jennings and Thorn next sojourn to the birthplace of Christianity or the town of Megiddo in the old city of Jezreel to meet the exorcist Carl Bugenhagen (Leo McKern, 1920-2002).  The hermetic Bugenhagan produces seven sacred daggers that are the only weapons that can be used to kill the Antichrist or young Damien Thorn.  The number seven is shrouded in Biblical and spiritual mystery.  Masonic scholar Albert Mackey (1807-1881), in his Encyclopedia of Freemasonry, further expounds upon the divinity of the number seven,

“In every system of antiquity there is a frequent reference to  this number, showing that the veneration for it proceeded from some common cause. …The Pythagoreans called it a perfect number, because it was made up of 3 and 4, the triangle and the square, which are the two perfect figures. They called it also a virgin number, and without a mother, comparing it to Minerva,  who was a motherless virgin, because it cannot by multiplication  produce any number within ten, as twice two does four, and three times three does nine; nor can any two numbers, by their multiplication, produce it.

It is singular to observe the important part occupied by the number seven in all the ancient systems. There were, for instance, seven ancient planets, seven Pleiades, and seven Hyades; seven altars burned continually before the god Mithras; the Arabians had seven holy temples; the Hindus supposed the world to be enclosed within the compass of seven peninsulas; the Goths had seven deities, viz., the Sun, the Moon, Tuisco, Woden, Thor, Friga, and Seatur, from whose names are derived our days of the week; in the Persian mysteries were seven spacious caverns, through  which the aspirant had to pass; in the Gothic mysteries, the candidate met with seven obstructions, which were called the “road of the seven stages”; and, finally, sacrifices were always considered  as the most efficacious when the victims were seven in number.

…..The Sabbath was the seventh day; Noah received  seven days’ notice of the commencement of the deluge, and was commanded to select clean beasts and fowls by sevens; seven persons accompanied him to ark; the ark rested on Mount Ararat in the seventh month; the intervals between dispatching the dove were, each time, seven days; the walls of Jericho were encompassed seven days by seven priests, bearing rams’ horns;  Solomon was seven years in building the Temple, which was  dedicated in the seventh month, and the festival lasted seven days; the candlestick in the tabernacle consisted of seven branches; and, finally, the tower of Babel was said to have been elevated seven stories before dispersion.

Seven is a sacred number in Masonic symbolism. It has always been so. In the earliest ritual of the last century it was said that a Lodge required seven to make it perfect; but the only explanation to be found in any of those rituals of the  sacredness of the number is the seven liberal arts and sciences,  which, according to the old ‘Legend of the Craft,’ were the foundation of Masonry. In modern ritualism the symbolism of seven has been transferred from the First to the Second Degree, and there it is made only to refer to the seven steps of the Winding Stairs; but symbolically seven is to be found diffused in a hundred ways over the whole Masonic system.

…..Hippocrates says that the centenary number, by its occult virtue, tends to the accomplishment of all things, is the dispenser  of life and the fountain of all its changes; and, like Shakespeare, he divides the life of man into seven stages.”[33]

The seven daggers are imbued with godly and sacred symbolism associated with their number; the seven form a cross and should emanate outwards when thrust into the Antichrist.  However, Thorn refuses to slay the boy discounting what Bugenhagan has just told him.  Thorn says that Damien is not responsible and throws the daggers down an alley.  As Jennings is retrieving the blades, a flatbed truck’s gearshift slips into reverse causing it to roll towards him. The truck hits an embankment launching a sheet of glass that decapitates Jennings sending his head flying.  Interestingly, the name “Keith Jennings” is all too akin to the name “Burke Dennings” from The Exorcist.  Dennings and Jennings both die from severe head trauma: Dennings by having his head spun around 180 degrees while Jennings dies by having his head cut off.  The two British characters are killed by demonic forces; their analogous names and similar manners of death cryptically link them to one another. The author will not give away The Omen’s dramatic climax, however Damien survives setting up a sequel and ultimately a trilogy.

Damien: Omen II

The second movie in the trilogy, Damien: Omen II (1978) is a film that perpetually takes place in the months of autumn and winter symbolizing the death of god’s sun; there are no scenes that occur in spring or summer.  One will notice that this movie constantly flip-flops between autumn and winter irregularly.  The film begins in autumn with leaves being burnt on the Thorn estate which is also festooned with statutes of pagan deities.  From thereon out Damien: Omen II is in a constant state of flux moving back and forth between autumn and winter and back again.

Damien Thorn (Jonathan Scott-Taylor) is now twelve years old living with his uncle Richard Thorn (William Holden, 1918-1981) and his aunt Ann Thorn (Lee Grant) in Chicago.  He is introduced by being silhouetted behind burning leaves symbolizing the flames of Hell.  Richard Thorn is captain of the lucrative Thorn Industries and purveyor of the Thorn Museum which houses a collection of ancient antiquities from Egypt, the Middle East, and Europe.  In the movie’s prologue, Carl Bugenhagen reveals that Yigael’s Wall has been finally discovered.  Yigael, a medieval monk and exorcist, suffered horrible visions after Satan appeared to him.  These visions were painted by him on a wall giving the façade its name; the four images on the wall depict the Antichrist from childhood to adulthood.  The four visages of the Antichrist depict him surrounded by various animals including a jackal and a crow; the four images of the Antichrist points to Revelation 4:7, “And the first beast was like a lion, and the second beast like a calf, and the third beast had a face as a man, and the fourth beast was like a flying eagle.” These are astrological symbols; the lion is Leo, the calf is Taurus, the man is Aquarius, and the eagle is Aquila the Eagle which is also Scorpio the Scorpion. The four signs contain the four fixed stars of Regulus in Leo, Formalhaut onto which Aquarius pours out his water, Aldebaran the eye of Taurus, and Antares in Scorpio.  If Christ is the sun, the four images and their accompanying beasts painted on Yigael’s Wall indicate that the Antichrist is anti-sun or darkness personified.  While showing Yigael’s Wall stark imagery to his friend Michael Morgan (Ian Hendry, 1931-1984), demonic forces descend burying them alive.  The Wall is discovered by archaeologists working for the Thorn Museum years later.  At one point in the film Richard Thorn remarks that Yigael’s Wall goes on display in the Thorn Museum on Easter Sunday.  This symbology is important because once the wall is on public display, his nephew Damien will be exposed as the Antichrist.  This is to occur on Easter Sunday - the vernal equinox - when god’s sun is reborn defeating the “evil” darkness of winter.  Yigael’s Wall is ultimately destroyed in a train wreck by unseen evil forces seeking to keep Damien’s true identity a secret.  Also to go on display in the Thorn Museum is a sculpture of the infamous Whore of Babylon.  The Whore of Babylon or Babylon the Great is a Christian figure of evil mentioned in the Book of Revelation.  Her full title is given as “Babylon the Great, the Mother of Prostitutes and Abominations of the Earth”. The sculpture’s appearance in the Thorn Museum is apropos since the Whore correlates with the Antichrist and the Beast of Revelation as all three are harbingers of evil earthly kingdoms.

The Thorn Museum’s chief curator, Charles Warren (Nicholas Pryor), receives a small chest that was recovered near Bugenhagen’s skeleton.  In it are the seven daggers necessary to rid the world of the Antichrist along with a letter warning Richard Thorn that Damien is the Antichrist.  With the discovery of Yagael’s Wall and Bugenhagen’s remains, the small chest was recovered and sent to Warren at the Thorn Museum.  There is another item in the chest that is of particular symbolic import.  The item appears to be a Christian Cross but in fact it is not.  It is an Egyptian Ankh or crux ansata which is Latin for “cross with a handle” and is more commonly known as the Key of Life or the Key of the Nile.  Warren carries it with him throughout the film believing it to a protective talisman against the Antichrist and the forces of evil.  Is this a symbolic gesture by the filmmakers to pay homage to Christianity’s true Egyptian origins?  Are the makers and producers of Damien: Omen II esoterically suggesting that Jesus Christ is Horus plagiarized? Are they implying that the Virgin Mary is a rip off of the Virgin Isis? Being an Egyptian agent of darkness, is the evil Typhon/Set the true embodiment of the Devil’s son or the Antichrist?  By carrying around an Egyptian Ankh, what evil is Charles Warren genuinely trying to ward off?  These astronomical and Astro-theological aspects of Christ and his “solar” conflict with the “dark” Antichrist are carried over into the final film of the trilogy titled Omen III: The Final Conflict.  Once again, this author will not spoil the conclusion of this film.

Omen III: The Final Conflict

The final film is this trilogy sees the defeat of the Prince of Darkness - the Antichrist - centering around the second coming of Christ who is born at the vernal equinox.  It is at this time that Jesus, the sun, emerges from the symbolic vault of winter thereby defeating darkness and all its agents.  At the start of Omen III: The Final Conflict (1981) Damien Thorn (Sam Neill) is now thirty-two years old and chief executive officer of Thorn Industries.  Thorn, quoting from the fictitious Book of Hebron,  states that the Antichrist will rule for one hundred score and thirty days and nights, or seven years symbolizing the seven years he has been in charge of Thorn Industries.  After this seven year time period, the second coming of Jesus Christ will occur.  According to the Book of Hebron, Jesus will come forth from the Angel Isles or England.

According to the film, the second coming of Christ will occur on March 24th when three stars will align in the constellation Cassiopeia proclaiming Christ’s birth. The March 24th date echoes the vernal equinox when the sun - Jesus Christ - is annually resurrected.  In the movie, Damien Thorn’s demonic influence begins to weaken as the vernal equinox approaches foreshadowing the rejuvenation of the sun (Christ) or divine light.  The three star alignment occurs in the constellation Cassiopeia.  In Greek mythology she was the wife of king Cepheus of Æthiopia; she was beautiful but also arrogant and vain which led to her downfall.  In some sources she was daughter of Coronus and Zeuxo. The astral alignment in a feminine constellation brings to mind the constellation Virgo - or the Virgin Mary - who is the stellar mother of the Piscean Age sun god, Jesus.   Virgo appears the on the horizon on the morning of December 25th symbolizing that the newly born sun is virgin birthed. “At the moment of the Winter Solstice, the Virgin rose heliacally (with the Sun), having the Sun (Horus) in her bosom.”[34]  The convergence of three stars in Cassiopeia parallels the three star arrangement of the Three Kings (Drie Konings) or wise-men that form Orion’s Belt: Alnitak, Alnilam, and Mintaka.  The constellation Orion represents the resurrected and apotheosized Egyptian sun god Osiris in the Egyptian stellar pantheon that aligns with Sirius the Eastern Star, symbolizing the virgin mother Isis, on 24 December pointing to the location on the horizon of the sunrise on the morning of December 25th when the sun is “born again” bringing forth a new solar year.  As mentioned in the Introduction, this is where the idea of three kings following the eastern star to locate the birth of God’s sun on December 25th comes from.  This is comparatively incorporated in Omen III when three stars converged in Cassiopeia heralding a new solar age (cf. Aquarius) or the second coming of Jesus on or about the vernal equinox of March 24th.  Omen III: The Final Conflict was released in movie theaters on the vernal equinox of 1981 - March 20th - confirming this Astro-theological nexus.  The exact time of birth for the second coming of Jesus is provided in Omen III: The Final Conflict.  The stars will align on the morning of March 24th at 0226 HRS GMT, or 2:26 a.m.  If one adds 2 + 2 + 6 one gets the number 10 which is the numeric equivalency of the supreme deity in Pythagorean numerology.  On this Masonic magus and symbolist Manly P. Hall declares,

“The decad - 10 - according to the Pythagoreans, is the greatest of numbers,….because it comprehends all arithmetic and harmonic  proportions. Pythagoras said that 10 is the nature of number, because all nations reckon to it when they arrive at it they return to the monad. The decad was called both heaven and the world, because the former includes the latter. Being a perfect number, the decad was applied by the Pythagoreans to those things relating to age. Power, faith, necessity, and the power of memory. It was also called unwearied, because, like God, it was tireless. The Pythagoreans divided the heavenly bodies into ten orders. They also stated the  the decad perfected all numbers and comprehended within itself the nature of odd and even, moved and unmoved, good and ill. They associated its power with the following deities: Atlas (for it carried the numbers on its shoulders), Urania, Mnemoyne, the Sun, Phanes, and the One God.”[35]

With the death of the United States’ ambassador to Great Britain by an apparent suicide, Damien Thorn is offered the position by the President or the United States portrayed by Mason Adams (1919-2005). Thorn will only accept the ambassadorship if he is also appointed head of the United Nation’s Youth Council which the President reluctantly agrees to.  Upon arriving in England, Thorn meets BBC reporter Kate Reynolds played by Lisa Harrow.  It is through Harrow that Thorn meets her young son Peter (Barnaby Holm) who desperately craves a father figure.  Peter becomes Damien’s chief apostle.  Peter is also the name of one of Christ’s most devoted apostles who became the first father (Pope) of the church after Christ’s death; it is no coincidence that Damien’s first disciple is also named Peter. Thorn agrees to an interview with Kate Reynolds at her BBC studio where he is met with an assassination attempt.  The seven sacred daggers have found their way into the hands of monks who know Thorn’s true identity and are sworn to kill him. The select group of monks/priests are led by Father DeCarlo portrayed by Rossano Brazzi (1916-1994).  Kate Reynolds television studio is flanked with panels depicting Egyptian iconography featuring what appears to be the sun gods Horus and Osiris along with the latter’s virginal consort Isis in keeping with Astro-theological and Egyptian concealed themes of these movies.

Thorn, now aware that the daggers have been recovered from the old Thorn Museum in Chicago, attempts to oust the band of assassins so he can learn their identities and kill them.  He successfully tricks three of the monk-assassins into the ruins of a medieval castle on the moors of Dartmoor in south Devon, England.  Dartmoor abounds with sinister myths and legends.  It is reputedly the haunt of pixies, a headless horseman, a mysterious pack of spectral hounds, and a large black dog.  During the Great Thunderstorm of 1638, the Dartmoor town of Widecombe-in-the-moor was even said to have been visited by the Devil.  These mythos and legends are echoed in the Sherlock Holmes adventure The Hound of the Baskervilles first published in The Strand Magazine from August 1901 to April 1902 which is set in Dartmoor.  The story is about a demonic and spectral hound that roams the moors at night to the general distress of the Baskerville family.  This Sherlock Holmes adventure was turned into a film starring Peter Cushing as the great detective and Christopher Lee as Sir Henry Baskerville produced by Hammer Studios in 1959. Holmes describes the negative influence of Dartmoor to Sir Henry Baskerville admonishing him, “The powers of Evil can take many forms. Remember that, Sir Henry, when you’re at Baskerville Hall. Do as the legend tells and avoid the moor when the forces of darkness are exalted.”  Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1930), the creator of Sherlock Holmes, was a Freemason well versed in occult lore and spiritualism.  Damien Thorn would find refuge in foreboding Dartmoor; being a place where the forces of darkness are exalted Thorn, through his demonic powers, deceives two of the priest-assassins into killing one of their own.  The two remaining would-be assassins are then buried alive when Damien conjures an evil hound - a giant Rottweiler - adhering to the Sherlockian legend of an evil dog that terrorizes Dartmoor.

Towards the end of the film Damien Thorn addresses his disciples at a secret location requesting they locate and kill the newly born Nazarene.  He addresses his unholy acolytes calling them Disciples of the Watch.  The inclusion of the word “Watch” echoes a group of fallen angels known as The Watchers who are discussed in the mysterious and apocryphal Book of Enoch (ca. 300 B.C.E.).  It is only fitting that the Antichrist’s nefarious followers bear the name of fallen, cast out angels.

This author indicated in the Introduction of this book that Spoiler Alert was on.  In some of the upcoming chapters key plot devices and storylines are revealed so “beware, take care” as Béla Lugosi warned in Glen or Glenda.  Some story threads and plotlines are symbolic themselves containing elements of what is called the Hero’s Journey or the Monomyth interpreted by Joseph Campbell in his opus The Hero with a Thousand Faces.  The Omen Trilogy is now concluded and it will not be discussed or analyzed further. To learn the fate of the Damien Thorn in Omen III: The Final Conflict please watch the film.  When viewing The Omen Trilogy pay attention to its concealed allegories because they reveal an Egyptian, astral story that exists beneath its celluloid surface.  The next movie to be symbolically dissected is the comedy classic Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

Chapter III

What, Behind the Rabbit?

Monty Python and the Holy Grail

“Oh, king eh? Very nice. And how’d you get that, eh?

By exploiting the workers. By hanging on to outdated imperialist

dogma which perpetuates the economic and social

differences in our society.”

- Dennis, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, 1975.

“Look you stupid bastard you’ve got no arms left!”

- King Arthur, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, 1975.

“Every time I try to talk to someone it’s ‘sorry this’ and ‘forgive me that’ and ‘I’m not worthy’….”

- God, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, 1975.

“I don’t want to talk to you no more,

you empty headed animal food trough wiper.

I fart in your general direction. Your mother was a hamster

and your father smelt of elderberries.”

- French Soldier, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, 1975.

“Follow. But! Follow only if ye be men of valor, for the entrance to this cave is guarded by a creature so foul, so cruel that no man yet has fought with it and lived. Bones of full fifty men lie strewn about its lair! So brave knights, if you do doubt your courage or your strength, come no further, for death awaits you all with nasty big pointy teeth.”

- Tim, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, 1975.

“This new learning amazes me, Sir Bedevere.

Explain again how sheep’s bladders may be

employed to prevent earthquakes.”

- King Arthur, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, 1975.

If one wants to see the idea of the Jungian collective unconscious at work in film, look no further then Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975). Although the esoteric symbolism in this film is most likely unintentional and a product of the Jungian collective unconscious, some members of the Python troupe seem highly knowledgeable of Gnosticism and the occult.  Terry Gilliam, who plays Patsy, Old Man from Scene 24 (Bridgekeeper), Sir Bors, and the Gorilla Hand in Holy Grail, also directed or wrote 12 Monkeys,  Time Bandits, Life of Brian (1979), Brazil (1985) and The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (1988) among others.  These films are embedded with Gnostic, supernatural, astrological elements combined with mystical motifs, storylines, and characters.  The Arthurian legend is essentially a solar-cosmological allegory.  In my first book, The Royal Arch of Enoch, I explained this symbolism in regards to the 1981 film Excalibur,

“First,  King Arthur, like Apollo, Dionysus, Jesus Christ, Bacchus, Mithras, Osiris, Amun-Ra/Re, and Horus - is a  metaphor avatar/stand-in for the sun and its annual travels  among the Houses of the Zodiac based of the Earth’s orbit around it.  It has been claimed by certain authors that the character of  King Arthur is based upon real life Christian Emperor Charlemagne or even his grandfather Charles Martel.

Some historians suggest that the story of  King Arthur  is the same as Jesus Christ: i.e. that Jesus Christ and King Arthur are one and the same person.  It is further argued that the story of Christ was brought to England by Joseph of Arimathea in the first century and was some how transformed into the Arthurian legend.  In fact some claim that like Enoch before him, Joseph of Arimethea - after he imported the Christ/Arthur legend to England - was  transported to the Heavens in corporeal form.  Some more lurid claims hold that Joseph of Arimathea was buried with the Holy Grail in Glastonbury Tor in a currently undiscovered burial vault.

The characters in Arthurian Legend - like those within the Christian Mysteries - appear to be the planets and/or their corresponding Zodiac as vestiges of the Egyptian/Mediterranean Mystery Schools.  As has been discussed the passing of the sun through these houses (either by way of the Precession of the Equinoxes or earth’s orbit around the sun) is the basis for many religions;  it is also the basis for many folktales, nursery rhymes, legends, and myths.  King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table is one of these.”[36]

Thus the astrological and solar components of the Arthurian Myth appear in Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

Let’s start with what is missing (or substituted for) regarding this humorous version of the Arthurian legend. The Hellensitic sage Thoth Hermes Mercurius Trismegistus (Thrice Greatest) is the messenger of wisdom; he is planet Mercury which is the closest planet to the sun whose light symbolizes wisdom, gnosis, or enlightenment.  In the Arthurian myth he is epitomized by Merlin, the great wizard, who possesses god-like hermetic wisdom and magic.  Trismegistus is a representation of the syncretic combination of the Greek god Hermes, the Roman Mercury, and the Egyptian god Thoth.  In Hellenistic Egypt, the Greeks recognized the congruence of their god Hermes with Thoth.  Subsequently the two gods were worshipped as one in what had been the Temple of Thoth in Khemnu, which the Greeks called Hermopolis.  Both Thoth and Hermes (the Roman Mercury) were gods of writing and of magic in their respective cultures. Thus the Greek god of interpretive communication was combined with the Egyptian god of wisdom as a patron of astrology and alchemy. In addition both gods were psychopomps who guided souls to the afterlife.  Trismegistus was the purported author of the Corpus Hermeticum, a series of sacred texts that are the basis of hermeticism which the study of esoteric and occult arts.  Merlin is chief counsel to King Arthur; in Monty Python and the Holy Grail Merlin Merlin does not appear rather he is replaced with Sir Bedevere the Wise played by Terry Jones.  Sir Lancelot (John Cleese) exemplifies the sign of Scorpio of ancient times when it was ruled by the war-like planet Mars.  Today Scorpio is regulated by Pluto or Hades the Lord of the Underworld therefore Arthur’s enemy Mordred, who is properly the sun in the sign of Scorpio (Typhon/Set in the Egyptian Mysteries) is likewise absent from the film.  Also not appearing is Queen Guinevere who symbolizes the moon which rules the Sign of Cancer making her the “White Queen” emblematized by Luna’s nocturnal light.  In the Arthurian Legend proper, Lancelot is the house of Leo which is ruled by the sun. Since King Arthur is a solar avatar, his favorite and best knight is Sir Lancelot who like Arthur, personifies the sun.  This is paralleled in the Christian Mysterion where Christ is the sun (of God) and his favorite apostle is John who is Leo the Lion which is home to the sun. As mentioned earlier in Cinema Symbolism, the twelve Apostles symbolize the twelve houses of the zodiac.  Thus it is Lancelot qua Leo who seduces the house of Cancer because it sits next to Leo on the zodiac wheel; Cancer anthropomorphizes into Queen Guinevere who is the white lunar queen in the Arthurian mythos.  Lancelot and Guinevere have a secret affair which Arthur eventually discovers (see the film Excalibur).

In Holy Grail, Arthur and his knights approach Camelot but decide not to stay.  Possessing the qualities of nobility, virtue, and valor were requirements for a knight to be welcomed to King Arthur’s court at Camelot; this court convened at meetings of the Round Table.  A knight had to be brave as well in order to sit at the Round Table thus Sir Robin the Not-Quite-So-Brave-as-Sir Lancelot (Eric Idle) would not make the cut.  While it is probable that the Order of the Round Table had its distinctive rituals and symbols, the knowledge of them has not survived the ages.  Since King Arthur is a solar avatar, and the Knights of the Round Table represent different houses of the zodiac, Camelot’s famous table is circular allegorizing the famed wheel of the zodiac.

Now let’s get to what esoterica and mysticism that is present in Monty Python and the Holy Grail. King Arthur, portrayed by Graham Chapman, symbolizes the sun signified by the emblem on King Arthur’s shield, tunic, and flag.  The Black Knight that King Arthur comically does battle with represents the Devil or the nighttime sky who is always in conflict with sun.  Light cannot exist with dark and vice versa so Arthur and the Black Knight decide to end their duel by calling it a draw.  During this scene Arthur wishes to cross a miniscule bridge to reach the other side of an insignificant stream.  The small river symbolizes the constellation Eridanus - the astral river - or the Milky Way mirroring the Arthurian legend’s astronomical and solar motifs.

Sir Galahad is played by Michael Palin and is the sign of Aquarius.  Sir Percival is the house of Aquarius in the traditional Arthurian tale because it is he who searches for and ultimately finds the Holy Grail. Exoterically, the Holy Grail is the chalice that Christ used at the last supper which caught some of his blood during the crucifixion.  Esoterically the Holy Grail that Percival seeks is the pitcher of water that Aquarius pours out in the heavens heralding the spring rains of the vernal equinox when the sun emerges from the vault of winter causing the land to be baptized or reborn.  In Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Galahad stops at nothing in order to find his lost pitcher, not even the temptresses of Castle Anthrax can stop him. Galahad is lured into Castle Anthrax when he sees a solar-like “Grail Beacon” floating over the castle.  These temptresses - Zoot and Dingo (both played by Carol Cleveland) - symbolize the sign of Libra, who in the proper Arthurian Legend is female trickster-sorceress Morgana le Fay who, like Merlin and Mordred, is not present in Holy Grail. The female Libra archetype versus solar hero motif is played out more clearly and with better understanding in the mythology of Samson and Delilah.  Samson represents the sun while Delilah is the sign of Libra.  Samson’s long hair, representing powerful sun rays, is allegorically clipped by Libra qua Delilah at the autumnal equinox which occurs on September 22nd, the first day of Libra.  The result is that Samson (cf. sun) loses his strength.  It is at the autumnal equinox that night becomes longer overtaking the day hence the sun’s rays are clipped or “cut short” as the sun’s power diminishes.  The autumnal equinox represents the sun beginning to descend into symbolic “death” or winter.  The Libra female archetype appears in an early scene in Holy Grail.  Sir Bedevere exposes female trickster - a witch - by balancing her on oversized scales which represent the constellation Libra.  Bedevere, epitomizing a Hermes Trismegistus or Merlin-like archetype, bears a symbol that both conceals and reveals.  Bedevere’s shield, tunic, and crest or coat of arms is a tree symbolizing Kabbalah’s Sephirotic Tree of Wisdom identifying him as the possessor of arcane knowledge.

Although he is absent from Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Mordred the Traitor is improperly replaced with Sir Lancelot.  In Holy Grail, Lancelot (John Cleese) is a warmongering imbecile maiming and destroying everything in his wake.  The interaction between the houses of Scorpio, Sagittarius, and Gemini is adroitly presented in the scene depicting the heir of Swamp Castle, Prince Herbert (Terry Jones).   Herbert symbolizes Sagittarius, Lancelot represents Scorpio, and the two guards are Gemini.   Within general mythology, when one sign of the zodiac is portrayed heroically its opposite sign is portrayed negatively.  For example, if the Cancer archetype is positive than its opposite house of Capricorn becomes the negative or villain.  An example of this is seen in the New Testament where Jesus Christ is tempted for “forty days” in the wilderness.  The “forty days” refer to the sun in the sign of Cancer; there are no bright stars in Cancer hence it was held by the ancient magi that the sun spent forty days in it as opposed to the typical thirty days of the other zodiacs.[37]  Thus the wilderness that Christ is in represents the sun in the sign of Cancer; Christ is then tempted by the Devil or the evil horned one who is Capricorn the Goat, the enemy personified.  In other words, Cancer positive attributes become Capricorn’s negative decans within this particular Biblical tale.  The influence of the signs that sit on either side of a zodiac house is also important.  This allegory was presented earlier regarding Lancelot as Leo (cf. sun) and Guinevere as Cancer (cf. moon).

In Holy Grail this astral-zodiac story plays out like this: Prince Herbert is being held hostage in the tower of Swamp Castle by his father, The King of Swamp Castle (Michael Palin). He is the good guy who wants to find that certain something special in the one he weds, not his betrothed Princess Looky.  Herbert, who is accidentally called Alice by his father, symbolizes Sagittarius the Archer.  Being the oppressed hero in this scene, Herbert is guarded by his negative version of his opposite sign, Gemini the Twins.  Herbert reveals himself to be Sagittarius when he immediately goes for his bow and arrow as soon as his oppressive father exits the room.  Sagittarius sits next to the house of Scorpio on the zodiac and is actually pointing its arrow at Scorpio’s stinger.  Scorpio is the eight house of the zodiac making Sagittarius the ninth.  The two guards or Gemini the Twins guard Herbert keeping him hostage.  They look on without interference when Herbert writes a note calling for help, ties it to an arrow, and flings out the castle window. Herbert’s arrow and rescue note find none other than Lancelot - Scorpio - who comes to Sagittarius’ rescue ultimately “liberating” him from Swamp Castle.

Esoteric and astrological allegory can also surface in the character of Tim the Enchanter (John Cleese).  Tim is not Merlin the Magician rather he is the constellation Aries the Ram anthropomorphized.  It is on the first day of Aries, the zodiac’s first house, that the vernal equinox occurs which sets the sun on its annual course after it has emerged from the three month vault of winter.  Symbolizing Aries and thus the vernal equinox, Tim is able to provide the correct information or enlightenment that puts Arthur (the sun) and his knights on the correct path to find the Holy Grail.  Aries is a fire sign making the enchanter fire obsessed; Tim ignites fires and explosions all around him. On Tim’s pyrotechnical abilities King Arthur adroitly remarks, “What manner of a man are you who can summon up fire without flint or tinder?”  Tim’s headdress features two ram’s horns on either side denoting the sign of Aries. The astrological motif continues; the guardian of the Cave of Caerbannog is a representation of the constellation Lepus the Rabbit.  In Africa and the Americas the rabbit was believed to be a trickster using its superior intellect as its defense. The guardian rabbit deceives Arthur and his knights into believing it to be harmless.  Arthur and his coterie soon learn that the rabbit is a deadly menace not to be trifled with.  Tim and the hare are intertwined because the constellations Aries and Lepus are both are linked to the celebration of Easter.  The Easter Bunny or Rabbit is a highly occult and mystical symbol of the vernal equinox qua Easter or Passover.  The European spring goddess Ēastre (Old English from whence the word “Easter” originates) had the head of a hare, and the date of Easter is determined by the moon whose symbolism is strongly tied to that of the hare. The moon and its rabbit symbolism were mentioned in the conversation between the Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center more commonly known as Houston and the Apollo 11 crew just before the first moon landing:

“Houston: Among the large headlines concerning Apollo this morning, there’s one asking that you watch for a lovely girl with a big rabbit. An ancient legend says a beautiful Chinese girl called Chang-o has been living there for 4000 years. It seems she was banished to the moon because she stole the pill of immortality from her husband. You might also look for her companion, a large Chinese rabbit, who is easy to spot since he is always standing on his hind feet in the shade of a cinnamon tree. The name of the rabbit is not reported. Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin: Okay. We’ll keep a close eye out for the bunny girl.”[38]

The hare is the symbol of the moon and numerous lunar goddesses such as Hecate, Freyja, and Holda; in the British Isles rabbits were identified with witches and witchcraft.  Ever since the Council of Nicea in 325 C.E., Easter has been celebrated on the first Sunday following the first full moon after the vernal equinox placing the Christian holiday in the sign of Aries.  Because of these early associations, hare hunting was once a common Easter activity in England and even today children symbolically celebrate or worship the moon on Easter.  The Easter Bunny delivers eggs to children on Easter morning  symbolizing the “Egg Moon” or the name given to the first full moon occurring after the vernal equinox and the first full moon before Easter.  Youths go egg hunting on Easter morning esoterically paying homage to the moon and the resurrected sun.  To the Hebrews, this celebration is called Passover since the sun passes over the equator at the vernal equinox on its way to the summer solstice in the northern hemisphere. At the summer solstice, Apollo proudly drives his solar chariot across the Tropic of Cancer.  In the Christian mysteries, the sun reaching full strength in the house of Cancer is symbolized by Jesus Christ triumphantly riding a donkey and ass into Jerusalem.[39]

The mediaeval Rosicrucians were undoubtedly in possession of the true secrets of the Arthurian Cycle and the Grail legend, much of their symbolism having been incorporated into that order.[40]  Though the most obvious of all keys to the Christos mystery, the Grail legend has received the least consideration.[41]  In conclusion, it is apparent that the Arthurian Legend is a solar, Astro-theological allegory.  King Arthur is the sun, the Knights of the Round Table are the houses of the zodiac and their table is round representing the circular wheel of the Zodiac.  In the legend there are usually twelve knights symbolizing the twelve houses of the zodiac or twenty four knights representing the diurnal and nocturnal phases of the zodiac.  This author firmly believes that this esoteric astral symbolism would appear in Monty Python and the Holy Grail whether or not it was the intent of the film makers to include it.  The zodiac, the sun, and astrology in general are all part of the collective unconscious thereby turning Arthur and his knights into Jungian archetypes.

Chapter IV

88 Miles per Hour

Back to the Future Trilogy

“If my calculations are correct, when this baby hits 88 miles per hour, you’re gonna see some serious shit.”

- Dr. Emmett Brown, Back to the Future, 1985.

“Last night Darth Vader came down from planet Vulcan and told me that if I didn’t take Lorraine out he’d melt my brain.”

- George McFly, Back to the Furture, 1985.

“Marty! What in the name of Sir Isaac H. Newton happened here?”

- Dr. Emmett Brown, Back to the Future II, 1989.

“You know your history, very good.”

- Biff Tannen, Back to the Future II, 1989.

“Unbelievable that old Biff could have chosen that particular date. It could mean that that point in time inherently contains some sort of cosmic significance. Almost as if it were the temporal junction point for the entire space-time continuum.

On the other hand, it could just be an amazing coincidence.”

- Dr. Emmett Brown, Back to the Future II, 1989.

“Don’t tease, Emmett. You couldn’t have read that when you were a little boy, it was only first published ten years ago.”

- Clara Clayton, Back to the Future III, 1990.

All three of the Back to the Future films were directed by Robert Zemeckis and contain esoteric, Egyptian, and numerological allegories and metaphors. The first movie was released in 1985, its sequel in 1989, and part three in 1990 with parts two and three being filmed simultaneously.  These movies exoterically detail the time traveling adventures of Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox) who is the son of George McFly (Crispin Glover in part one, Jeffrey Weissman in parts two and three) and Lorraine Baines McFly (Lea Thompson).  Marty along with Emmett “Doc” Brown (Christopher Lloyd) journey through time in a DeLorean that Brown has converted into a time machine. The McFly family and Brown are antagonized throughout the films by Biff Tannen portrayed by Thomas F. Wilson.  Marty and Doc Brown time-travel from 1985 to the years 1955, 2015, and finally 1885. Their time travels affect the space time continuum both negatively and positively.  Consequently some of their actions are intentionally designed to affect the future while in other instances the future is altered unbeknownst to them.  Like The Omen Trilogy of Chapter II, this analysis will follow all three of the Back to the Future Trilogy in chronological order.

Back to the Future

Before a metaphoric analysis of any of these films can occur, one must have a complete understanding of Egyptian mythology relating to the Osirian Cycle. As will be seen, this trilogy draws heavily from Egyptian legends and lore.  The characters of the Back to the Future Trilogy are Egyptian archetypes personifying the solar hero, the dead yet resurrected father, the hermetic sage, the virginal mother, and the malevolent villain.  The Osirian Cycle is a solar allegory and this esoteric heliocentric symbolism is likewise embedded in this trilogy.  On these eternal solar and astral archetypes, scholar Albert G. Mackey provides the following,

“In the mysteries of Osiris, which were the consummation of the Egyptian system, the lesson of death and resurrection was symbolically taught; and the murder of Osiris, the search for the body, its discovery and restoration to life is scenically represented. This legend of initiation was as follows: Osiris, a wise king of Egypt, left the care of his kingdom to his wife Isis, and traveled for three years to communicate to other nations the art of civilization.

During his absence, his brother Typhon formed a secret conspiracy to destroy him and usurp his throne.  On his return, Osiris was invited by Typhon to an entertainment in the month of November, at which all the conspirators were present.  Typhon produced a chest inlaid with gold, and promised to give it to any person present whose body would most exactly fit it. Osiris was tempted to try  try the experiment;  but he had no sooner laid down in the chest, than the lid was closed and nailed down, and the chest thrown into the river Nile.  The chest containing the body of Osiris was, after being for a long time tossed about by the waves, finally cast up at Byblos in Phoenicia, and left at the foot of a tamarisk tree. Isis, overwhelmed with the grief for the loss of her husband,  set out on a journey, and traveled the earth in search of the body.  After many adventures, she at length discovered  the spot whence it had been thrown up by the waves and returned with it in triumph to Egypt.  It was then proclaimed, with the most  extravagant demonstrations of joy, that Osiris was risen from the dead and had become a god. Such, with the slight variation of  details by different writers, are the general outlines of the Osiric legend which was represented in the drama of initiation.

Its resemblance to the Hiramic legend of the Masonic system will be readily seen, and its symbolism will be easily understood. Osiris and Typhon are the representative of the two antagonistic  principles - good and evil, light and darkness, life and death.

There is also an astronomical interpretation of the legend which makes Osiris the sun and Typhon the season of winter,  which suspends the fecundating and fertilizing powers of the  sun or destroys its life, to be restored only by the return of the invigorating spring.

The sufferings and death of Osiris were the great mysteries of the Egyptian religion.  His being the abstract idea of the Divine goodness, his manifestation upon earth, his death, his resurrection, and his subsequent office as judge of the dead in a future state, look, says Wilkenson, like the early revelation of a future manifestation of Deity converted into a mythological fable.

Into these mysteries Herodotus, Plutarch, and Pythagorus were initiated, and the former two have given brief accounts of them. But their own knowledge must have been extremely limited, for, as Clement of Alexandria (Strom., v., 7) tells us, the more important secrets were not revealed to even all the priest, but to a select number of them only.”[42]

Masonic Scottish Rite Sovereign Grand Commander Albert Pike writes the following about these arcane mysteries,

“Whether Egypt originated the legend, or borrowed it from  India or Chaldaea, it is now impossible to know.  But the Hebrews  received the Mysteries from the Egyptians; and of course were Familiar with their legend, - known as it was to those

Egyptian Initiates, Joseph and Moses. It was the fable (or rather the truth clothed in allegory and figures) of Osiris, the Sun, Source of Light and Principle of Good, and Typhone, the Principle of Darkness and Evil. In all the histories of the Gods and Heros lay  couched and hidden astronomical details and the history of the operations of visible Nature;  and those in their turn were also symbols of higher and profounder truths. None but rude uncultivated intellects could long consider the Sun and the Stars and the Powers of Nature as Divine, or as fit objects of Human Worship; and they will consider them so while the world lasts; remain ignorant of the great Spiritual Truths of which these are the  hieroglyphics and expression.

…..Osiris, said to have been an ancient King of Egypt, was the  Sun, and Isis, his wife, the Moon: and his history recounts,  in poetic and figurative style, the annual journey of the Great Luminary of Heaven through the different  Signs of the Zodiac.

In the absence of Osiris, Typhon, his brother, filled with envy  and malice, sought to usurp his throne; but his plans were frustrated by Isis.  Then he resolved to kill Osiris. This he did, by persuading him to enter a coffin or sarcophagus, which he then flung into the Nile.  After a long search, Isis found the body, and concealed it  in the depths of the forest; but Typhon, finding it there, cut it into fourteen Pieces, and scattered them hither and thither. After tedious  search, Isis found the thirteen pieces, the fishes having eaten the other (the privates) , which she replaced with wood, and buried the body at Philae; where a temple of surpassing  magnificence was erected in honour of Osiris.

Isis, aided by her son Orus, Horus or Har-oeri, warred against Typhon, slew him, reigned gloriously, and at her death  was reunited to her husband, in the same tomb.

…..Horus, who aided in slaying him (Typhon), became God of the Sun, answering to the Grecian Apollo, and Typhon is but the anagram of Python, the great serpent slain by Apollo. ….When Isis first found the body, where it had floated ashore near Byblos, a shrub or erica or tamarisk near it had, by virtue of the body, shot up into a tree around it, and protected it; and by hence our sprig of acacia.

Isis was also aided in her search by Anubis, in the shape of a dog. He was Sirius the Dog-Star,[43]  the friend and counsellor of Osiris, and the inventor of language, grammar, astronomy, surveying, arithmetic, music,  and medical science; the first maker of laws; and who taught the worship of the Gods, and the building of Temples.

In the Mysteries, the nailing up of the body of Osiris in the chest or ark was termed the aphanism, or disappearance [of the Sun at the Winter Solstice, below the Tropic of Capricorn], and recovery of the different parts of his body by Isis, the Euresis, or finding. The candidate went through a  ceremony representing this, in all the Mysteries everywhere. The main facts in the fable were the same in all countries; and the predominant Deities were everywhere a male and a female.

….The mysteries of Osiris, Isis, and Horus, seem to have been the model  of all other ceremonies of initiation subsequently established among the different peoples of the world. Those of Atys and Cybele, celebrated in Phrygia; those of Ceres and Proserpine, at Eleusis and Many other places in Greece, but were copies of them.  This we learn  From Plutarch, Diodorus Siculus, Lactantius, and other writers; and in the absence of direct testimony should necessarily infer it from the similarity of the adventures of these Deities; for the ancients held that

Ceres of the Greeks was the same of Isis of the Egyptians; and Dionusos or Bacchus as Osiris.”[44]

The Back to the Future Trilogy incorporates these universal, Egyptian archetypes.  The Osirian myth and it solar underpinnings serve as the template for Back to the Future, Back to the Future II, and Back to the Future III.  Since the director and producer are allowed some artistic license, the mythology may not be followed to the letter.

In this cinematic trilogy, George McFly represents Osiris while his wife Lorraine Baines is Isis and their son Marty symbolizes Horus their solar child.  Marty personifies the Egyptian solar hero thus it is esoterically apropos that his girlfriend is named Jennifer Parker; the name Jennifer is the modern English name for Guinevere who was King’s Arthur’s lunar queen (see Chapter III).  Since Marty is a heliocentric archetype, it is only fitting that his girlfriend would have a first name that implies the moon.  In Greco-Roman mythology, Apollo was the sun anthropomorphized while his sister Artemis (or Diana) was adored as the moon.  Solar iconography is also incorporated into the McFly place of residence. The McFly family dwell in Hill Valley’s Lyon Estates which is an occult reference to the constellation Leo the Lion which is the astrological domain of the sun.  The McFly family is forever antagonized by the dimwitted Biff Tannen who is the Typhon (or Set) archetype.  The name Tannen is highly suggestive of the name Typhon; they are all but identical phonetically  At the start of the trilogy, George and Lorraine are married and both are total losers. George is stuck in a nowhere job answerable to his supervisor Biff Tannen while Lorraine is an overweight alcoholic.  From the outset, George is harassed by his nemesis Biff Tannen who at the start of Back to the Future has crashed George McFly’s car while drinking and driving.  It is revealed that Biff endlessly bullied the timid McFly since high school.  Although George and Biff are not brothers like Osiris and Typhon, the two are forever interwoven with each other.  This becomes apparent throughout as the trilogy unfolds. Tannen, as will be seen, covets Lorraine just as Typhon covets Isis; Tannen seeks to usurp Lorraine from George by killing him which is the main plot device in Back to the Future II.

Marty McFly is aided in his time traveling adventures by a Thoth Hermes Trismegistus-like Dr. Emmett Brown or Doc Brown who has discovered time travel by way of creating the Masonically nuanced Pythagorean triangular Flux Capacitor.  Brown - a reclusive hermit - also symbolizes the proto Masonic magus Pythagoras (ca. 570 B.C.E.-ca. 495 B.C.E) since both explore the boundaries of science, mathematics, and physics.  Brown is a quasi-Masonic polymath who personifies the Biblical patriarch Enoch; like Enoch (who lived for a heliocentric 365 years) Emmett Brown is seemingly incapable of death.   Doc Brown rises from the grave at the end of Back to the Future echoing Masonic Blue Lodge ritual where the initiate is resurrected from his own symbolic death becoming an Osirian archetype.  Emmett Brown, like Enoch and the Prophet Elijah, never experiences physical death.

Brown further personifies the fortieth President of the United States Ronald Reagan; Back to the Future was released on July 3, 1985 during the height of the Reagan Presidency and Administration.  Paradoxically, the Emmett Brown of 1955 ironically mocks the idea that Reagan - “the actor?” - could possibly be a future President.  Nevertheless the Brown and Reagan nexus is overwhelming: both hail from California, both narrowly escape assassination attempts, both battle Libyan terrorists, and despite achieving their success in the 1980’s - Reagan as President and Brown for time travel - both Brown and Reagan are ultimately lionized as legends of the Old West (see Back to the Future III).  It was the Reagan Administration that embraced the philosophic idea of transforming 1980’s America or symbolically going back to the future to the glory of the Eisenhower Presidency of the 1950’s.  Marty meets Brown in the early morning hours of October 26th, 1985 at the Twin Pines Mall to record Brown’s time travel experiment.  Brown tells McFly that the property the Mall now sits on used to be owned by Old Man Peabody who had a crazy idea about breeding pine trees hence the name “Twin Pines Mall”.  Brown’s dog Einstein becomes the world’s first time traveler breaching the space time continuum when the car reaches 88 miles per hour.

The canine departs at 1:20 a.m. and returns one minute later at 1:21 a.m.; the “1:21” refers to the 1.21 gigawatts of electricity necessary to fuel and activate the Flux Capacitor.  It is apropos that a dog named Einstein becomes the first time traveler since Albert Einstein’s renowned Theory of Relativity (1915) allows for manipulation of space-time.    The number eight when turned sideways is the symbol for the entrapment of space and time, hence 88 miles per hour must be reached to activate the triangular Flux Capacitor making time travel possible.  Hill Valley’s kabbalistic clock tower also evokes solar symbolism of the number 88 albeit in a different manner than it appeared in The Exorcist.  Brown, explaining how time travel works, enters the date of November 5th, 1955 into the time circuit’s keypad.  Brown states that it is a red letter date because it is the day he had a revelation - a vision - of the Flux Capacitor.  The number 5 is omnipresent and it too has symbolic, kabbalistic, esoteric meaning and importance.  “The pentad - 5 - ….is sometimes referred to as the hierophant, or the priest of the Mysteries, because of its connection with the spiritual ethers, by means of which mystic development is attained.”[45]

The fifth card of the Major Arcana of the Tarot is the Hierophant who sits between twin pillars, much like the High Priestess does in Card II.  In Kabbalah, the two pillars represent the Sephirotic Tree of Life, one representing Mercy and one Severity; the Hierophant symbolizes balance between the two or the middle path or way as the truth is always found in between two opposites. Symbolically the Hierophant reversed - in a Tarot Card reading - represents someone who is open to new ideas and willing to think outside the box much like Doc Brown who has lived his entire life as a reclusive hierophant or master dedicated to the pursuit of science, time travel and its associated mysteries.  English occultist Aleister Crowley (1875-1974) explains the Hierophant card, “But the main reference is to the particular arcanum which is the principal business, the essential, of all magical work;…before the Manifestor of the Mystery…He seems to be enjoying a very secret joke at somebody’s expense. …All of these are based upon deep indigo (dark blue of the starry night of Nuit, from whose womb all phenomena are born) the colour of Saturn, the Lord of Time.”[46]  Doc Brown is this archetype perfectly: as the inventor of time travel phenomena and is the master of magic or time/space manipulation - the Lord of Time - who revels in the fact that he has deceived Libyan evildoers in order to accomplish his ends by stealing their plutonium.  Brown also symbolizes the Greek mathematician Pythagoras linking him to the number 5, “It is the Pentalpha of Pythagoras, or the Pentangle of Solomon; has five lines and five angles; and is, among Masons, the outline or origin of the five pointed Star, and an emblem of Fellowship.”[47]  Doc Brown serves as a Pythagorean mentor and tutor to Marty creating a pedagogical fellowship.  Is Emmett Brown a veiled villain in the Back to the Future movies?  Consider the facts: Doc Brown, by inventing a time machine and thereby time manipulation, is ultimately responsible for the death of George McFly in Back to the Future II; an alternate-incorrect timeline and the ascendancy of Biff Tannen in Back to the Future II, and the counterfactual survival of school governess Clara Clayton (Mary Steenburgen) who is supposed to die by going over a cliff into Shonash Ravine in Back to the Future III.[48]  There is a dark, malevolent, sinister, evil side to the Hierophant Card that associates itself with Emmett Brown.  Eliphas Levi has stated that the raised hand of the Hierophant (or Pope) forms a sign of esotericism - the thumb and first two fingers pointed upward and the last two fingers folded onto the palm - casts a shadow shaped like the head and horns of the Devil heralding disaster and misfortune.[49]

Doc Brown is seemingly killed - shot dead - by Libyan terrorists in retaliation for swindling their plutonium instead giving them a bomb casing filled with old pinball parts; Brown needs the plutonium to power the Flux Capacitor.  Marty escapes the Libyans by jumping into the Delorean accelerating to 88 miles an hour transporting him back in time to the early morning hours of November 5, 1955 as pre-programmed by Brown.  The DeLorean winds up in Old Man Peabody’s barn; awakened by the ruckus Peabody comes out to investigate.  Convinced by his son the Delorean is a space craft and Marty is an extraterrestrial, his son states that the alien has already mutated into human form causing Peabody to fire his shotgun at Marty.  McFly flees the Peabody’ Twin Pines Farm[50] in the Delorean driving the Delorean through a small fenced-in area that contains two pine trees side by side which is Peabody’s breeding experiment.  The Delorean runs over one of the pines - killing it - causing old man Peabody to yell, “You space bastard, you killed my pine!”

Marty hides the Delorean and walks into the Hill Valley of 1955; note the name Hill Valley is a paradox or an oxymoron.  He sits next to his future father in a café and watches Tannen berate him about doing his homework for him and getting it to him before Monday morning classes so he will have time to copy it over in his own handwriting. Tannen remarks that if he turned in homework in McFly’s handwriting he would get kicked out of school.  Marty interferes with his parents first meeting when he pushes George out of the way of Lorraine Baines’ father’s oncoming car causing it to hit Marty - not George - thereby interfering with the correct timeline.  As such it is Marty - not George - who is taken to the Baines residence where he encounters his future mother Lorraine who nurses him back to health.  She begins to fall in love with Marty clearly confusing him for her correct solar husband/brother George mirroring the Isis/Osiris Egyptian legend.[51]  Doc Brown attributes this to the “Florence Nightingale Effect” where nurses fall in love with their patients.  Marty, after leaving the Baines residence, locates Emmett Brown and explains the situation: he came from the future in a time machine of Brown’s invention.  Brown agrees to send McFly back to 1985 but realizes - from watching a future video of himself - that the Flux Capacitor is electrical and that 1.21 gigawatts of electricity is needed to activate it.  Brown laments that in 1955 the only power source capable of generating the proper voltage is a bolt of lightning but unfortunately no one knows when one will strike.

Marty next produces a flyer given to him in 1985 at the start of the film. The flyer is given to those who donate money to the Save the Clock Tower campaign.  The flyer reveals that at 10:04 pm on the evening of November 12, 1955 lightning will strike the clock tower stopping it forever; the flyer itself persuades people to donate money in an effort it as a historical landmark curtailing its demolition.  Interesting, this flyer is given to McFly in front of a shop called The Third Eye which is home to a spiritual adviser who foresees the future via palmistry and phrenology.  The third eye, also known as the inner eye, is a mystical and esoteric concept where an invisible eye provides perception beyond ordinary sight and the ability to gaze into the future.  The third eye also refers to the gate that leads to inner realms and spaces of higher consciousness.  The symbol for the store is an eye inside a triangle symbolizing the mystical third eye; the eye in the triangle has been an emblem of Masonic deism since time immemorial.  The eye in the triangle is also known as the Eye of Providence or the all-seeing eye of God.

In the modern era, the most notable depiction of the eye in the triangle is the reverse of the Great Seal of the United States which appears on the back of the United States one-dollar bill.  The eye mysteriously hovers over a truncated pyramid announcing a new order of the ages.  The Third Eye, or rather what replaces this store in 2015, will have paradoxical symbolism in Back to the Future II.

Throughout Back to the Future the viewer sees Biff Tannen bully and harass George McFly and Lorraine Baines because he wants to escort the latter to the Enchantment Under the Sea school dance. This entire movie takes place in early November under the sign of Scorpio the Scorpion (October 23 - November 22) - a water sign - hence the watery theme of the social event.  Marty devises a plan where George wins Lorraine by rescuing her from Marty’s advances, only this backfires when Biff interferes with Marty on the night of the dance causing a confrontation between George and Biff.  Instead of backing down, George stands up to Biff and knocks him out.  In doing so, George wins Lorraine’s love and gains self-confidence in the process.  The symbolic alchemical wedding of Osiris and Isis or George and Lorraine (sun and moon) is now complete with Typhon or Tannen temporarily down for the count.  Marty goes to the clock tower to meet Brown to await the lightning strike that will send Marty forward in time to the year 1985 in the speeding DeLorean.  Prior to the time experiment and before Marty goes to the Enchantment Under the Sea dance, Marty writes Brown a letter warning him that the night he traveled back in time Brown was shot dead and to take precautions to prevent this.  The esoterica surrounding the time of the lightning strike, 10:04 and McFly’s letter of warning will now be analyzed.

Ten o’clock and four minutes post meridian is not only a time of night, it is also a concealed date containing a solar reference.  “10:04” is metaphorically October (10) 4th (04) which is the 277th day of the year within the Gregorian calendar; as such there are exactly 88 days remaining until the end of the solar year.  “10:04” is a concealed solar symbol linking Marty to the sun-hero archetype (cf. Horus) while at the same time transforming the DeLorean into a symbolic chariot of fire of Ma’aseh Merkabah solar and occult iconography.[52]  The chariot is also emblematic of the sun god Apollo who drives one across the afternoon sky; Apollo is comparatively the sun god Horus in the Egyptian Mysteries.  When the Delorean hits 88 miles per hour, it spits out fire leaving flames behind as tire tracks when it breeches the space-time continuum.  When the lightning bolt strikes the clock tower at 10:04 p.m., it symbolically invests Marty and the DeLorean with solar mysticisms of the Ancient Mysteries.  Marty becomes Horus and the time machine is his solar chariot.  In sum, the time of “10:04” is a concealed allusion to the date October 4th synchronizing Marty McFly, the DeLorean, and the number 88 to the sun.  The letter that Marty gives Brown containing forbidden knowledge of the future ties into the Bible’s own book of prophecy, Revelation.  The time of 10:04 numerologically  parallels verse 10:4 of John of Patmos’ Book of Revelation; 10:4 reads, “And when the seven thunders had uttered their voices, I was about to write: and I heard a voice from heaven saying unto me, Seal up those things which the seven thunders uttered, and write them not.”  The reference to thunder echoes the famous Hill Valley lightning storm of November 12th from which is produced the lightning bolt that strikes the clock tower.  The line “Seal up those things….and write them not.” represents McFly’s letter warning Brown of his impending doom which Marty seals in an envelope marked “DO NOT OPEN UNTIL1985”.  Brown warns McFly not to write down future information because the consequences could be disastrous even if well intentioned. Emmett Brown rips up the sealed envelope containing McFly’s letter prior to McFly’s returning to 1985.  The occult, forbidden information is apparently lost.

Doc Brown, like Doctor Benjamin Frankin (1706-1790), performs scientific magic by harnessing lightning from the heavens becoming a modern day Prometheus.  Marty McFly arrives back in 1985 in front of Statler Toyota car dealership; however he has set the time circuits to return ten minutes earlier in an effort to save Brown from being assassinated by the Libyans.  Marty is still too late.  Approaching the Lone Pine Mall - no longer the Twins Pines Mall because McFly ran over one of Peabody’s pines when he time traveled back to Peabody’s Farm in 1955 - he now witnesses Brown shot by the terrorists and his 1985-self time travel in the Delorean.  However Brown rises from the grave opening his jacket showing McFly a bullet-proof vest.  Brown, like the hermetic wizard Gandalf from J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, is dead yet resurrected achieving an Enochian form of kabbalistic ascensio.  Brown next produces the note - now taped together and yellow from age - that McFly gave him on the evening of November 12th, 1955 prophesizing his own demise.  Brown drops Marty off at his home and heads thirty years into the future.  Marty McFly awakens the next morning to find his parents have completely rehabilitated: George is now a successful author having gained confidence from knocking out Biff. Lorraine is no longer an alcoholic but the perfect mother or wife or Isis personified.  Biff, their tormentor, now washes their cars and is subservient to the McFly’s - not the other way around.  Biff now runs his own auto-detailing company and maintains the McFly family cars.  Biff’s obsession with automotive detailing originates from endlessly having to pay the Jones family to clean out manure from inside his car.  In conclusion, Marty’s actions in 1955 altered the future although he was ignorant of how his past actions might affect 1985 and beyond.  Biff Tannen, the villainous Typhon or Set, will soon triumph over the McFly’s seeing George transformed into Osiris resurrected in 1989’s Back to the Future II completing the Egyptian mysterion.  Within the Egyptian stellar mysteries the house of Scorpio symbolized Typhon or Set; the exaltation of Typhon or Scorpio coincided with the waning dormancy of Osiris or Orion.  Back to the Future’s sequel presents an alternate reality wherein Biff Tannen or Typhon is the supreme ruler of Hill Valley and George McFly or Osiris is dead and buried.

Back to the Future II

Back to the Future II opens exactly where Back to the Future left off. Marty, his girlfriend Jennifer Parker (originally played by Claudia Wells, now played by Elisabeth Shue) leaving 1985 and traveling into the future to the year 2015 at the behest of Doc Brown who has returned from the future in the DeLorean. Biff attempts to show Marty his new matchbooks advertising his automotive detailing but instead see the DeLorean lift off the ground commenting, “A flying Delorean?”  When the car breaks the space time continuum Biff remarks, “What the hell is going on here?” anticipating the coming alternate 1985 of Tannen’s own creation.

Brown, McFly, and Parker arrive on October 21st, 2015 in an effort to avert McFly’s son - Marty Jr. - and his daughter - Marlene - going to prison.  Marty McFly’s children are both played by Michael J. Fox.  This task is accomplished but their plan sends Griff Tannen (Biff’s grandson) and his fellow juvenile delinquent gang to jail instead of the young McFlys.  In 2015 Marty sees an electronic billboard reporting that the Chicago Cubs have defeated an unnamed Miami team in the World Series.  McFly gets an idea: return to 1985 from 2015 with occult information with the outcome of future sporting events so he can place bets and never lose.  McFly goes into a store called Blast from the Past that specializes in memorabilia, collectibles, and antiques from the 1960s, the 1970s and the 1980s.  Paradoxically, Blast from the Past  in 1985 was The Third Eye wherein one could divine the future yet in 2015 the building now houses a store that sells relics of the past, an dualistic contradiction.  Doc Brown warned Marty in1955 about the hazards of possessing future information; however Brown did not heed his own advice instead keeping Marty’s letter that warned of the attack by the Libyan terrorists.  Following in Brown’s footsteps, McFly purchases Grays Sports Almanac Complete Sports Statistics 1950 - 2000 from Blast from the Past in order to make some money when he returns to 1985.  Like the fruit in the Garden of Eden, the almanac contains forbidden knowledge and McFly’s decision has disastrous consequences for the McFly family.

Prior to returning to 1985, Emmett Brown discovers the sports almanac and admonishes McFly for buying it stating, “What’s this? …Fifty years of sports statistics? Hardly recreational reading material Marty.…I didn’t invent the time machine for financial gain. The intent here is to gain a clearer perception of humanity: where we’ve been, where we’re going, the pitfalls, the possibilities, the perils and the promise. Perhaps even an answer to that universal question: why? …I am going to put this in the trash….And this stays here (referring to the almanac placing it in a garbage can).  I didn’t invent the time machine to win at gambling, I invented the time machine to travel through time.”  Biff Tannen of 2015, now 78 years old[53], overhears this conversation while concealed in a doorway and removes the almanac from the trash.  Doc Brown and Marty travel to Hilldale - Marty and Jennifer’s future place of residence - and rescue the Jennifer Parker of 1985 who has been mistakenly taken there.  Biff Tannen secretly follows Brown and Marty in a cab owned by Luxor Cab Co. conferring the trilogy’s esoteric Egyptian iconography and mythology.  Luxor was the ancient city of Thebes, the great capital of Egypt during the New Kingdom, and the glorious city of the spiritual sun god Amun-Ra/Re. The city was regarded in the Ancient Egyptian texts as Waset which meant or city of the sceptre and also as ta ipet meaning the shrine and then, in a later period, the Greeks called it Thebai and the Romans after them Thebae.

Prior to Marty, Jennifer, and Doc Brown returning to 1985, Biff Tannen steals the Delorean and time travels back to the year 1955 and gives himself - the 1955 Biff Tannen - the sports almanac and tells him the book contains the outcomes of future sporting events.  Biff Tannen of the 2015 informs Biff Tannen of 1955 that he will never lose a  bet and that the information in the almanac is worth millions.  Doc Brown and Marty successfully rescue Jennifer from her future home.  Tannen returns with the time machine and exits it leaving behind the top of his clenched fist cane on the driver’s side floor.  As they are about to return to 1985 Emmett Brown remarks, “And then I’m going to destroy the time machine … Just imagine the danger if the time machine were to fall in the wrong hands!…But time traveling is just too dangerous.”  Doc Brown, Marty McFly, and Jennifer Parker (who has fainted after encountering her 2015-self) head home to 1985 only to discover it is a parallel universe 1985 resulting from Biff’s meddling and space-time tampering.

Biff Tannen, who is the beneficiary of forbidden knowledge in 1955 given to him by his future self, is now a multi-billionaire and chief executive officer of the corporation BIFFCO.  McFly, Brown, and Parker are now in an alternate 1985, a different time line or reality that forked off from the original Euclidean Plane.  Quantum Mechanics and Einstein’s Theory of Relativity allows for the bending or manipulation of space-time, that is space existing in three dimensions and time playing the role of a fourth dimension that is of a different sort from the spatial dimensions by matter and energy.  This new timeline and alternate universe is explained to Marty by the narrator of the Biff Tannen Museum which now occupies the Hill Valley courthouse:

“Ladies and Gentlemen! Welcome to the Biff Tannen Museum!

Dedicated to Hill Valley’s number one citizen, and America’s greatest living folk hero: the one and only Biff Tannen.

Of course we’ve all heard the legend, but who is the man?

Inside you will learn how Biff Tannen became one of the richest and most powerful men in America. Learn the amazing history of the Tannen family, starting with his great-grandfather Buford ‘Mad Dog’

Tannen, fastest gun in the West.  See Biff’s humble beginnings and how a trip to the race track on his twenty first birthday made him a millionaire overnight. Share in the excitement of a fabulous winning streak that earned him the nickname, ‘The Luckiest Man on Earth’.

Learn how Biff parlayed that lucky winning streak into the vast empire called BIFFCO.  Discover how, in 1979, Biff successfully lobbied to legalize gambling and turned Hill Valley’s dilapidated Courthouse into a beautiful casino-hotel….”

Marty encounters a wax figure of Biff Tannen pinching a “solar” golden horseshoe in the effigy’s left hand symbolizing good fortune but instead it represents an ill omen.  When the golden horseshoe is seen, a homage to Buford “Mad Dog” Tannen is being shown on a television monitor as part of the famed history of the Tannen family.  Foreshadowing the future events that take place in the past, it is Buford Tannen who kills Emmett Brown over an 80 dollar dispute resulting from Buford’s horse throwing a horseshoe.  Sometime in the late summer of 1885 Doc Brown shoed Buford Tannen’s horse; Tannen confronts Brown demanding $75 for the horse that Buford shot when the horseshoe was thrown plus $5 for a bottle of Kentucky “red eye” Whiskey that he broke in the incident, $80 in total (see Back to the Future III).  The golden horseshoe in the Biff Tannen Museum foreshadows the demise of Doc Brown and his failure to shoe “Mad Dog” Tannen’s horse properly.  The horse is a universal symbol of good luck yet here it is an esoteric dualistic talisman heralding bad fortune.

Based on the narration from the Tannen Museum, Biff is now Typhon personified.  Tannen or Typhon is,

“…the embodiment of every perversity.

He is the negative creation, …He is black magic and sorcery….

Typhon lured Osiris into the ark of destruction at the time when the sun enters the house of the Scorpion, hence we know him to be the eternal betrayer, that ageless Judas, who undoes all good things that inevitably presages ruin. …He is…The desirefor riches, pomp, power and sovereignty by which this evil genius was obsessed, reveals the temptation by which humanity is deflected from it ultimate goal and led into the byways of sorrow and despair.”[54]

This description now fits Biff perfectly: he is wealthy, powerful, his enemies are dead, and he is the master of black magic symbolized by the pornographic film Black Taboo that sits on Tannen’s bar.  Marty discovers that his mother Lorraine (cf. Isis) has now been usurped by Tannen/Typhon whom she is married to.  Her original husband George McFly (cf. Osiris) is long dead and buried having been murdered by Tannen.  Marty discovers George McFly’s gravestone where he meets Doc Brown who explains to him how the space-time continuum has been breached and corrupted.  The tombstone reveals that George McFly was born on April 1, 1938.  This date, April 1st or April Fools’ Day is syncretic with the zero or Fool Card of the Tarot.

Aleister Crowley provides a deeper occult explanation of the Fool archetype writing, “In spiritual matters, the Fool means idea, thought, spirituality, that which transcend earth.  In material matters, it may, if badly dignified, mean folly, eccentricity, or even mania.”[55]  Like the Fool, George McFly “…is simple, pure and innocent, ignorant of the trials and pitfalls that await him.”[56]  These esoteric descriptions typify George McFly’s personality traits from the first Back to the Future film.  George is an eccentric who stays to himself and is badly dignified when he is degraded and humiliated by Biff Tannen.  Manically obsessed with science fiction, George initially refuses to ask Lorraine Baines out because he wants to stay in so he can watch his favorite television program Science Fiction Theatre.  However, he nevertheless produces new thoughts and ideas that metaphorically transcend reality by writing short stories and novellas that are about extraterrestrial visitations to planet earth.  George McFly’s idiosyncratic thoughts and concepts lead to the publication of his first book titled A Match Made in Space.  Being dead, George will always be unaware of the alternate 1985 timeline where he is murdered by Biff Tannen who personifies Set triumphant.

Brown explains that the Biff Tannen of 2015 was in the time vehicle showing Marty the bag and receipt from Blast from the Past where the sports almanac was purchased.  He says he found them in the DeLorean along with the broken top of Biff’s cane - a clenched fist - proving that while McFly and Brown (and Jennifer Parker) were in 2015, “Old Biff” stole the Delorean and traveled back in time giving himself the sports statistical almanac thus creating the alternate 1985 timeline.  Brown shows Marty a Hill Valley newspaper from1973 whose headline states, “George McFly Murdered: Local Author Shot Dead” while explaining to Marty that to correct this alternate 1985 they must return to the past undoing what Biff has done.  Brown tells Marty that Tannen’s use of this forbidden knowledge contained in the sports almanac is how Biff built his entire corrupt financial empire thus creating a parallel quantum mechanical universe of 1985; Brown instructs Marty that he must confront Biff Tannen and discover the date and exact circumstances of how the young Tannen got his hands on Grays Sports Almanac Complete Sports Statistics 1950 - 2000.

Marty places the George McFly Murdered newspaper headline in his pocket and confronts Biff in the penthouse of his Pleasure Paradise Casino & Hotel.  Marty finds Biff sitting in a hot-tub with two prostitutes watching the Clint Eastwood spaghetti western A Fistful of Dollars (1964) which is appropriate since Biff is wealthy beyond avarice.  After a brief confrontation Biff informs McFly that he received the almanac from a “crazy old codger with a cane” on November 12th, 1955.  As Marty takes a matchbook from an ashtray on Biff’s desk, Tannen informs McFly that he did not recognize the codger as himself stating, “He says he’s my distant relative. I didn’t see any resemblance”.  After Tannen pulls a gun on Marty a brief shootout ensues with Marty escaping to the roof of Biff‘s casino-hotel.  Biff informs Marty that it was him who killed his father; holding up the gun he yells, “I suppose it’s poetic justice, two McFlys with the same gun,” thus Tannen symbolically confirms his transformation into Typhon the dark murderer of Osiris.  Marty escapes in the air-born Delorean and Brown and McFly time travel back to November 12th, 1955.

Marty and Doc return to 1955 and successfully obtain the sports almanac from Tannen prior to him looking at it.  They have also allowed Old Biff to leave in the Delorean thus returning himself back to 2015.  Brown explains that the Biff of 2015 must be allowed to return with the DeLorean to the future or else a paradox or a massive breech of the space-time continuum will ensue.  As Marty burns the almanac destroying it, he pulls out the matchbook and sees it alchemically change before his eyes from Biff’s Pleasure Paradise to Biff’s Auto Detailing symbolizing that the space-time continuum has been repaired.  Alternate 1985 no longer exists in the present reality.  Marty then pulls out the newspaper headline and sees the caption change from “George McFly Murdered: Local Author Shot Dead” to “George McFly Honored: Local Author Receives Award”.  Marty or Horus has defeated Tannen or Typhon; George qua Osiris has been resurrected and reunited with his wife Isis, or Lorraine.  Marty yells, “Doc, the newspaper changed….My father’s alive!” which is confirmed by Brown explaining it is the “Ripple Effect” indicating the correct timeline has been restored and that alternate 1985 may still exist only in another parallel dimension (cf. Einstein‘s Theory of Relativity).  Brown slowly steers the flying Delorean trying to land it when it is struck by lightning causing it to vanish.  Immediately thereafter Marty receives a letter from Western Union delivery man from Doc Brown dated September 1, 1885 telling Marty he has been transported back to the Old West.  Brown writes that McFly should have just seen the DeLorean struck by lightning causing a gigawatt overload to the Flux Capacitor sending him back in time to the year 1885.

Back to the Future III

Marty, with the aid of the 1955 Doc Brown, find the Delorean hidden in the Old Delgado Mines near Boot Hill Cemetery.  This information is provided in the letter that the 1985 Doc Brown sent to Marty from 1885.  The 1985 Emmett Brown - now living in the Old West - informs Marty in his letter that he was unable to fix the time machine after it was struck by lightning.  He buried the DeLorean in the mine with repair instructions and orders Marty not to return to 1885 instead to go back to 1985 and destroy the time vehicle since time travel is too dangerous.  This film opens with Marty explaining to Doc Brown that he and the Brown of 1985 returned to 1955 in order to retrieve a book from Biff.  In a brief state of disbelief, Brown retreats to his bathroom to hide from Marty.  When Brown opens the door one will see the clock hanging over the toilet that caused him to slip inducing the vision of the famed Flux Capacitor.

Marty and Brown discover the Delorean concealed in an underground vault in the Delgado Mines; Brown says that the Delorean has been there for seventy years, two months, and thirteen days.  The seventy two years is an occult solar reference to the Precession of the Equinoxes wherein astronomically the sun moves one degree backward every seventy two years.  This is yet another example of the Egyptian-solar iconography and mythology that surrounds the McFly Family.  The 13 days are symbolic of the thirteenth degree of the Rite of Perfection and the Scottish Rite known as the Royal Arch of Enoch (or Solomon).[57]  It is in this high degree ceremonial that the treasure of Freemasonry is discovered.   Within the ritual, temple builders find the Lost Word of a Master Mason better known as the Tetragrammaton[58] in a hidden underground vault.  This secret word is lost in the Blue Lodge upon the death of architect Hiram Abif and is the prized possession of all of Freemasonry.  This Masonic-numeric symbolism dovetails and synchronizes perfectly within Back to the Future III since the scientific treasure of the trilogy - the DeLorean time machine - is uncovered in a secret underground vault.  McFly and Brown remove the time machine from the vault while Brown’s dog discovers his 1885 gravestone revealing that Brown was shot in the back by Buford Tannen on September 7th, 1885 over a matter of $80.  McFly vows to return to 1885 and bring Doc Brown back to 1985 thereby re-writing history and, once again, voiding his death.

Marty McFly enters the town of Hill Valley of 1885.  One of the first things he sees is a giant billboard that reads, “Honest Joe Statler Fine Horses Sold * Bought and Traded.” This is a concealed reference to the Statler Toyota dealership of 1985’s Hill Valley.  In Back to the Future, it is from Statler Toyota that Marty first sees the truck he covets and hopes to own.

While Marty and Jennifer Parker sit in front of Hill Valley’s Courthouse (Department of Social Services) Marty sees a black truck covered by a banner that reads, “Another Custom 4x4 for Statler Toyota”.  At the very beginning of Back to the Future when Emmett Brown’s radio alarm clock goes off at 7:55 a.m.[59] one hears a commercial advertising that, “October is inventory time” at Statler Toyota.  The actual dealership can be seen in the background in several shots across the street from Hill Valley’s Courthouse.  The owner of the 1985 automotive Toyota dealership is a descendant of Honest Joe Statler.

A Gnostic theme of dualism, in this case role reversal, dominates the third installment of Back to the Future where Marty and Brown switch personas.  In doing so Brown reveals a hypocritical side of his personality.  In Back to the Future III, Marty McFly is now the rationale scientist who wants to return to 1985 proper while not disrupting the space-time continuum any further.  This is contrasted by Emmett Brown who is now a love-sick teenager wanting to remain in 1885 with Clara Clayton come what may.  Brown is a hypocrite: he admonishes Marty for purchasing the Sports Almanac in 2015 because returning with it to 1985 could have dire consequences yet Brown cannot - and does not - abandon Clara despite his own admonition that tampering with space-time can be calamitous.  In the end, Brown selfishly remains in 1885 and sires two sons with Clara.  Despite telling Marty to destroy the DeLorean when he returns to 1985 because time travel is too dangerous, Brown nevertheless constructs another time vehicle this one built out of a steam powered locomotive.  Clara Clayton, a spinster school teacher and astronomer, parallels Maria Mitchell (1818-1889).  Mitchell was an American astronomer who, in 1847 by using a telescope, discovered a comet which became known as Miss Mitchell’s Comet. She won a gold medal prize for her discovery which was presented to her by King Frederick VII of Denmark. On the medal was inscribed Non Frustra Signorum Obitus Speculamur et Ortus taken from Georgics by Virgil, Book I, line 257.  In English it means, “Not in vain do we watch the setting and rising of the stars”.  Mitchell was the first American woman to work as a professional astronomer.

That concludes the hidden, esoteric symbolism of the Back to the Future trilogy save one more from Back to the Future III.  During the scene where Brown and McFly look at a map of 1885 Hill Valley planning their time travel trip back to 1985, Brown remarks that “Clayton Ravine” is called “Shonash Ravine” which he says must be the old Indian name for it.  The large clock face that is to be incorporated into Hill Valley’s Clock Tower tympanum is being delivered behind them.  The clock face reads 10:04 anticipating the lightning strike of November 1955 that will cease it from operating.

Chapter V

President William McKinley

The Wizard of Oz

“Money - well get back.

I’m all right Jack keep your hands off my stack.”

- Pink Floyd, Money, The Dark Side of the Moon, 1973.

“Going so soon? I wouldn’t hear of it.

Why my little party’s just beginning.”

- The Wicked Witch of the West, The Wizard of Oz, 1939.

“Come out, come out, wherever you are and meet

the young lady who fell from a star.

She fell from the sky, she fell very far, and Kansas

she says is the name of the star.” - Glinda the Good Witch

of the North, The Wizard of Oz, 1939.

“Do not arouse the wrath of the great

and powerful Oz! I said come back tomorrow.”

- The Wizard of Oz, The Wizard of Oz, 1939.

“Toto, I’ve a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore.”[60]

- Dorothy Gale, The Wizard of Oz, 1939.

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz is a children’s story written by L. Frank Baum (1856-1919) and illustrated by American caricaturist W. W. Denslow (1856-1915).  It was originally published by the George M. Hill Company in Chicago on May 17, 1900.  It has since been reprinted numerous times, most often under the name The Wizard of Oz, which is the name of both the 1902 stage play and the well-known adaptation 1939 film version directed by Victor Fleming (1889-1949) starring Judy Garland (1922-1969), Frank Morgan(1890-1949), Billie Burke (1884-1970), and Margaret Hamilton (1902-1985).  It is the book and the film version - their related and intertwined symbolism - that is the subject of this present chapter.  In order to understand the political metaphors in The Wizard of Oz one must first have an understanding of the movie, its characters and plot lines, as well a brief history of late nineteenth-early twentieth century American politics. This chapter opens with an outline of The Wizard of Oz film and a brief history of the political scene and its related issues of American socio-economic culture during the turn of the previous century.  This chapter proceeds with a symbolic analysis intertwining and overlapping the two concluding with a presentation of the occult metaphors contained in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.  Baum was a member of Madam Blavatsky’s Theosophical Society and its teachings and spiritualism - especially those relating to the initiation into the Ancient Mysteries and gnosis - clearly rubbed off on Baum and his work.

The Wizard of Oz is about a youthful Dorothy Gale, portrayed by Judy Garland, who is an orphaned teenager living on a Kansas farm with her Auntie Em (Clara Blandick, 1880-1962) and Uncle Henry (Charley Grapewin, 1869-1956).  She is friends with three luckless farmhands: Hunk (Ray Bolger, 1904- 1987), Hickory (Jack Haley, 1898-1989), and Zeke (Bert Lahr, 1895-1967), however no one pays any real attention to her.  She daydreams about going “over the rainbow” after Miss Almira Gulch (Margaret Hamilton), a mean spirited neighbor, hits Dorothy’s dog Toto on the back with a rake causing Toto to bite her.  Miss Gulch shows up with a sheriff’s order authorizing Toto’s euthanasia.  While Gulch bicycles away Toto leaps out of the Gulch’s basket returning home to Dorothy.  Dorothy fears that Gulch, who does not know that Toto has escaped, will return looking for him.  She hides the dog and decides to run away from home.  She meets an itinerant phony fortune teller, Professor Marvel (Frank Morgan), who immediately guesses that Dorothy has run away.  Pretending to see her future and wishing to reunite Dorothy with her aunt, Marvel tells her that Auntie Em has fallen ill resulting from worry and anxiety over her disappearance.  Dorothy immediately returns to the farm with Toto only to find a menacing tornado approaching. Unable to reach her family in their storm cellar Dorothy enters the house and is knocked unconscious by a loose window and begins to hallucinate, or does she?  She sees Miss Gulch on her bicycle morph into a witch riding a broom outside the window.  Along with her house and Toto she is swept away from her sepia-toned world to the magical, beautiful, dangerous, and Technicolored Land of Oz.  Dorothy realizes that she is now “over the rainbow.”

The tornado drops the farm house on the Wicked Witch of the East killing her instantly.  The diabolical witch ruled the Land of the Munchkins who are little people that think Dorothy herself must be a witch. Dorothy immediately meets Glinda the Good Witch of the North (Billie Burke) who suggests that Dorothy is a magical entity or a witch herself.  The sinister, green-skinned, black clad Wicked Witch of the West (Margaret Hamilton), who is the sister of the recently deceased Western Witch, magically appears threatening Dorothy.  Glinda the Good Witch of the North - in the novel she is the Good Witch of the South - magically gives Dorothy the dead witch’s enchanted ruby slippers.  The slippers protect Dorothy from the Wicked Witch of the West’s malevolent black sorcery.  Good Witch Glinda advises Dorothy that if she wants return to Kansas she should seek the aid and advice of the famous Wizard of Oz who dwells in Emerald City.  To reach Emerald City Dorothy is instructed to simply follow the Yellow Brick Road.  Observe that Glinda is a good or white witch whose magic wand is tipped with a pentagram with one point up identifying her as a white kabbalistic sorceress.  When the pentagram is reversed with two points up and one point down it symbolizes black magic, the dark side of gnosis, the left-hand path, or the Goat of Mendes.  The inverted pentagram adorns the cover of Aristide Torchia’s Satanic grimoir titled Nine Gates to the Kingdom of Shadows in The Ninth Gate.  The Masonically nuanced Goat of Mendes itself makes a brief appearance in the film 300 playing a sitar in Xerxes camp.  The sabbatical Goat also incarnates during a séance in 2009’s Drag Me to Hell where a capricious demon known as the Lamia possesses a typical farm goat transforming it into the demonic Baphomet.  And finally Reverend Jonathan Whirley (Christopher Plummer) in 1987’s Dragnet disguises himself as the Goat of Mendes while performing a human sacrifice as the leader of the clandestine quasi-Satanic cult named P.A.G.A.N which stands for People Against Goodness And Normalcy.

Not sojourning too far down the Yellow Brick Road, Dorothy and Toto encounter a talking animated Scarecrow (Ray Bolger) whose dearest wish is to be endowed with a brain or sublime wisdom.  Hoping that the wizard can help him the Scarecrow joins Dorothy on her numinous journey. They come upon a rusty Tin woodsman or laborer (Jack Haley) who was unexpectedly caught in the rain; he is a non-mobile ancient relic.  Dorothy and Scarecrow oil his joints allowing him to walk and talk again.  The Tin-Man confesses that he yearns for a heart or fortitude and joins Dorothy’s sacred band of “Pythagorean” travelers: a group of diverse yet unified friends who cannot be torn asunder (see Chapter VIII).  As the trio walk through a dense forest they are confronted by a Lion (Bert Lahr) who is exposed as a weakling since he experiences great anxiety making him a Cowardly Lion.  In order to find his courage, the Lion joins them in the hopes that the Wizard of Oz will endow him with bravery.  On the way to Emerald City Dorothy and her friends are hindered and tormented by the Wicked Witch of the West.  During their travels the Wicked Witch incites apple trees to menace them by hurling their fruits while she tries to incinerate Scarecrow.  Within sight of the city the diabolical witch conjures up a field of poppies that cause Dorothy, Toto, and the Lion to fall asleep.  Glinda saves them by making it snow counteracting the narcoleptic effects of the poppies.

Dorothy, Scarecrow, Tin-Man, and Lion are granted admittance to Emerald City by its Gatekeeper who is portrayed by Frank Morgan who also portrays the Wizard of Oz.  The four travelers marvel at the wonders they find in Emerald City and take time to freshen up.  Dorothy, Toto, and the Lion have their hair done, the Tin-Man gets polished, and the scarecrow receives an infusion of fresh straw stuffing.  They emerge looking clean and spiffy while the Wicked Witch maliciously appears in the sky on her broomstick skywriting, “SURRENDER DOROTHY” above the Emerald City.  The friends are frustrated by the great and powerful Wizard of Oz because he will not grant them an audience.  When the omnipotent Oz finally agrees to meet with them - the doorkeeper finally lets them in because he had an “Aunt Em” himself - the terrifying Wizard refuses assistance until they retrieve the broomstick of the dreaded Wicked Witch of the West.  Daunted but determined the group sets off to complete the task.

The Wicked Witch dispatches flying winged monkeys to attack Dorothy’s entourage before they reach her castle; the monkeys snatch Dorothy and Toto and scatter the others.  When the Witch finds that the Ruby Slippers can not be taken against Dorothy’s will as long she remains alive, the Witch turns her hourglass upside-down threatening that Dorothy will perish when the sand runs out.  Meanwhile Toto the canine has escaped and is running for help.  Dressed as guardsmen, the Lion, the Tin-Man, and Scarecrow sneak into the witch’s castle to liberate Dorothy. They are uncovered before they can escape with the Wicked Witch and her guards cornering them in a tower.  “How about a little fire, Scarecrow?” cackles the witch igniting him.  Trying to extinguish the flames, Dorothy douses Scarecrow with a pail of water splashing the witch by accident.  The water causes the Wicked Witch to disintegrate and she yells, “I’m melting!”.  The guards are happy to let Dorothy have the witch’s broomstick and Dorothy and her friends return to Emerald City.

The Wizard of Oz is not at all pleased to see Dorothy and her fellowship again.  He blusters and torments them until Toto pulls aside a curtain in the corner of the audience chamber revealing an old man who resembles Professor Marvel; he pulls levers and speaks into a microphone that transforms his voice into a bombastic terror.  The so-called Wizard of Oz, as the Scarecrow correctly says, is nothing more than a humbug.  The wizard is abashed and apologetic but quickly finds ways to help Dorothy’s friends producing a diploma for the Scarecrow, a medal of valor for the Lion, and a testimonial heart-shaped watch for Tin-Man.  Then he reveals that he too is from Kansas and came to Oz in a hot-air balloon in which he proposes to take Dorothy home.  The Wizard then appoints the Scarecrow, Tin-Man, and Lion de-facto rulers of Oz in his absence.  Just as the balloon is about to take off Toto runs after a cat causing Dorothy to chase after him. Unable to stop the balloon’s take-off the Wizard of Oz leaves without Dorothy.  Glinda descends and discloses that Dorothy always had the power to go home; Glinda did not reveal this because Dorothy would not have believed it anyhow.  Bidding her friends a tearful good-bye, Dorothy closes her eyes and taps her ruby heeled shoes thrice repeating, “There’s no place like home.”  The ruby slippers magically transport her and Toto back to Kansas.

Dorothy wakes up in her own bed with Auntie Em and Uncle Henry fussing over her. Professor Marvel and the farmhands Hunk, Hickory, and Zeke stop by to see how she is doing.  She raises indulgent laughter when she tells them about the Land of Oz yet she is so happy to be home it does not bother her that they do not believe her.  The film ends and Miss Gulch is never mentioned again.

*      *       *       *       *

William McKinley (1843-1901) was the twenty-fifth President of the United States serving from 4 March 1897 until his assassination on 14 September 1901.  He was killed in Buffalo, New York by anarchist Leon Czolgosz (1873-1901) while attending the Pan-American Exposition.  President McKinley led the nation to victory in the Spanish–American War, raised protective tariffs to promote American industry, and maintained the nation on the gold standard in a rejection of inflationary proposals. Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919), one of the heroes of the Spanish-American War (1898), was his second Vice President and became the twenty-sixth President upon McKinley’s death.[61]  Though McKinley’s second term was cut short by his assassination, his presidency marked the beginning of a period of dominance by the Republican Party that lasted for more than a third of a century.

McKinley was the last President to have served during the American Civil War (1861-1865) beginning as a private in the Union Army and ending as a brevet major. After the war he settled in Canton, Ohio, where he practiced law and married Ida Saxton (1847-1907). In 1876 he was elected to Congress where he became the Republican Party’s expert on the protective tariff which he promised would bring prosperity.  His 1890 McKinley-Tariff was highly controversial and together with a Democratic redistricting aimed at gerrymandering him out of office led to his defeat in the Democratic landslide of the same year.  Elected Ohio’s Governor in 1891 and 1893 he steered a moderate course between capital and labor interests.  With the aid of his close adviser Mark Hanna (1837-1904) he secured the Republican nomination for President in 1896 amid a deep economic depression. He defeated his Democratic rival, William Jennings Bryan (1860-1925), after a front-porch campaign in which he advocated “sound money” (the gold standard unless altered by international agreement) and promised that high tariffs would restore prosperity.

Rapid economic growth marked McKinley’s presidency. He promoted the 1897 Dingley Tariff to protect manufacturers and factory workers from foreign competition, and in 1900 he secured the passage of the Gold Standard Act.  McKinley hoped to persuade Spain to grant independence to rebellious Cuba without conflict, but when negotiations failed, he led the nation during the Spanish-American War; the United States’ victory was quick and decisive. As part of the peace settlement Spain turned over to the United States its main overseas colonies of Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines.  Cuba was promised independence but at that time remained under the control of the United States Army. The United States annexed the independent Republic of Hawaii in 1898 becoming a United States territory and eventually the fiftieth state.

McKinley defeated Bryan once again in the 1900 presidential election in a campaign focused on imperialism, prosperity, and “Free Silver”.  McKinley also defeated socialist candidate Eugene Debs (1855-1926) who had accepted the united Social Democratic Party’s presidential nomination.  Debs was a national labor hero who helped unify the Social Democratic Party (SDP) with the Kangaroo Faction[62] of the Socialist Labor Party.  Despite an enthusiastic campaign Eugene Debs was resoundingly defeated by William McKinley.  Debs renewed his efforts to unify socialism in America and succeeded in uniting the SDP and the Socialist Labor Party joining it with many smaller factions forming the Socialist Party of America (SPA).  The growth of the SPA during the Progressive era was largely due the efforts of Eugene Debs.  This growth made the SPA the third largest Party by 1904 passing both the Prohibition and Populist parties.

Populism is an American political movement starting in 1891 with the founding of the Populist Party which sought to improve conditions for blue collar laborers and farmers. The Populist Party supported its own third-party candidate, James B. Weaver (1833-1912), in the 1892 presidential election.  Although he lost, the Populists remained a strong force in the American political arena.  In the following election of 1896 they backed Democratic Party candidate William Jennings Bryan who proclaimed himself sympathetic to the causes of the Farmers’ Alliance - a reform-minded agricultural organization - as well as the nation’s working class.  Bryan lost to McKinley and the Populist Party began to fall apart finally disappearing by 1908.

Nevertheless, many of the party’s initiatives and ideals remained strong themes in the nation’s political and socio-economic arena.  During the next two decades many Populist Party goals were enacted into laws.  Among them were the free coinage of silver and government issue of more paper money - greenbacks - to loosen the money supply and the adoption of a graduated income tax based on each person’s income.  Other Populist reforms were an amendment allowing for the popular election of United States Senators, antitrust laws (to combat business monopolies in which one company has exclusive control over a good or service), and implementation of the eight-hour work day.  To this day many political candidates appeal to voters - referring to themselves as Populists - by implying that they favor the rights and values of the common people.

Also of import is the Free Silver campaign which was supported by Democratic nominee and Populist William Jennings Bryan.  It was aided in large part by the publication in 1894 and 1895 of a booklet called Coin’s Financial School.  Through the educational teachings of fictional Professor Coin, the booklet extolled the sound financial decisions made by the Founder Fathers when in 1792 Congress fixed the monetary unit of one dollar at 371.25 grains of silver.  Gold was also given monetary worth but its value was pegged to the silver dollar at a ratio of 15 to 1 and then 16 to 1.  Although this was called bimetallism it was actually a silver standard.  Silver fixed the unit and the value of the gold was regulated by it.  This was wise, according to Coin, because silver was scattered among the people, and one person could not so easily injure the economy by monopolizing the metal as he could with gold.  Professor Coin further philosophizes that such concepts like credit money (paper, coins, etc.), all of which were redeemable in primary money (gold and silver), to which a stable value had been given. A greenback system could also be employed, as long as the amount of money in circulation was limited per-capita so that it could be redeemed at any given time and confidence in the government’s ability to do so could be maintained.  But then Congress perpetuated what Professor Coin refers to as The Crime of 1873.  It repealed the unit clause of 1872 and replaced the language with this:

“That the gold coins of the United States shall be

a one-dollar piece which at the standard

weight of twenty-five and eight-tenths

grains shall be the unit of value.”

The right to free silver was denied and silver was no longer legal tender in the payment of debts over five dollars. With this law the supply of primary money was cut in half. Because there was a very limited gold supply all property declined in value in comparison to gold or gold increased dramatically in value and buying power.  Borrowing became the only way to pay outstanding debts even as falling prices continued because there was not enough real money behind the credit money.  Mounting debts and mortgages created the Panic of 1893 which was a serious economic depression in the United States causing numerous bank failures.

*      *       *       *       *

The political-economic-social world that was late nineteenth and early twentieth century America is symbolized in The Wizard of Oz.  President William McKinley personifies the character of Oz’s powerful Wizard.  McKinley supported Free Silver and the Gold Standard which resulted in the formulation of green paper-backed money.  The Gold and Silver Standard will always result in the creation and backing of paper money or greenbacks thereby the Yellow Brick Road (cf. Gold Standard) leads to Emerald City (green money).  The Wizard dwells in a green or emerald city symbolizing McKinley’s economic end-game of inflated green-paper dollars.  In the novel Dorothy is awarded silver, not ruby, slippers symbolizing the American farmer’s desire for green dollars to have a fixed ratio of both gold and silver.  Dorothy’s silver slippers symbolize the Silver Standard and the Yellow Brick Road represents the Gold Standard.  The Gold Standard or the Yellow Brick Road and the Silver Standard or the silver slippers will symbolically always lead to the Emerald City or green-paper money.  In economic terms, Gold and Silver Standards always results in the backing of green currency; the pathway of gold and silver end in the power of green money or  an “Emerald City”.  Thus, Baum conceals President McKinley under the guise of a Wizard politico who rules from a green metropolis symbolizing McKinley’s economic policies and principles.

Oz is the name of Baum’s magical land and “oz” is the abbreviation for the word “ounce”.  Esoterically, the name “Oz” references the troy ounce or the measuring unit of precious metals.  Inflation, which is caused by over-borrowing and lending against gold and silver, is represented by the evil Wicked Witch of the West.   She hails from the West symbolizing the mounting debts, mortgages, and a railroad financial bust that compounded the Panic of 1893 in the western world or the United States.  Margaret Hamilton’s green-skinned (cf. greenbacks) Wicked Witch embodies the wicked side of paper-money or inflation which stems from over-borrowing.  The Wicked Witch of the West understands the power of the silver slippers (novel) as a way to lower inflated greenbacks thus she covets Dorothy’s silver slippers.  Oz’s capital Emerald City is, like Washington D.C., ruled by a scheming politician - the Wizard - who uses publicity devices and tricks to gain the admiration of the people.  Even Good Witch Glinda believes that the Wizard is a benevolent and wise ruler when in reality he is selfish and cruel.  He sends Dorothy and her fellowship into great danger hoping she will rid him of his nemesis, the Wicked Witch of the West.  In the end, the Wizard of Oz is shown to be a powerless scheming transient figure finally admitting, “I’m a very bad Wizard.”[63]

The Wicked Witch of the West commands a horde of Flying Monkeys.  In chapter fourteen of Baum’s book the reader is educated regarding the concealed imagery of the airborne primates,

“Once, began the leader, we were a free people,

living happily in the great forest, flying from tree to tree,

eating nuts and fruit, and doing just as we pleased without

calling anybody master. Perhaps some of us were rather

too full of mischief at times, flying down to pull the tails

of the animals that had no wings, chasing birds,

and throwing nuts at the people who walked in the forest.

But we were careless and happy and full of fun,

and enjoyed every minute of the day.

This was many years ago, long before Oz came

out of the clouds to rule over this land.”

The Flying Monkeys allegorize Native Americans who lost their lands and were placed on reservations by immigrating American-European settlers.

Dorothy is a representation of the common American adolescent; she is the wholesome everyday girl-next-door.  Dorothy is also emblematic of twenty-sixth President Theodore Roosevelt.  Roosevelt attempted to move the Republican Party toward Progressivism, including trust busting and increasing regulations on big businesses.  Progressivism or the Progressive Era was a period of social activism and political reform in the United States that flourished from the 1890s to the 1920s.  One of the main goals of the Progressive Movement was the purification of government; Progressives tried to eliminate corruption by exposing and undercutting political machines and bosses.  Many - but not all - Progressives supported Prohibition in order to destroy the political power of local bosses which were based mostly upon the copious profits from saloons and alehouses.  At the same time women’s suffrage was promoted to bring in the female vote into the political battleground; in sum Theodore Roosevelt attempted to give the country back to the average common folk.  The name Dorothy is symbolic of the name Theodore, observe the similarity when the names are reversed: Dor-o-thy is The-o-dore while The-o-dore is Dor-o-thy, a palindrome. Even the name of Dorothy’s canine friend Toto is an allegory.  Toto is a pun or a play on the word teetotaler which is a nickname for one who does not consume alcohol.  Toto epitomizes the Prohibitionist Movement who were close allies with the Progressives and Populists.  Mckinley’s political opponent, Democratic-Populist Party candidate William Jennings Bryan, was known to be “dry”.

The cyclone or tornado that transports Dorothy from Kansas to Oz exemplifies the political upheaval of the Free Silver Movement.  During this period in history farmers were suffering from federal deflation and were receiving less money for their goods thereby increasing their debts. They wanted the value of a dollar to have a fixed ratio of both silver and gold.  Some politicians - like William Jennings Byran - were behind this movement while others were not.  The cyclone takes the farm away from the Gale family symbolizing foreclosure.  The Munchkins of Oz were the little people representing, like Dorothy, the ordinary citizens of the United States.  In the film the Lullaby League allegorize the sleeping yet awakening Woman’s Suffrage Movement which was begun at the turn of the last century and became a mainstay of the Progressive Movement.  In the same breath the Lollipop Guild symbolizes burgeoning unionized labor.  Dorothy’s fellow travelers are also symbolic.  The Scarecrow personifies western farmers who supported Free Silver.  While he laments that he does not have a brain Scarecrow turns out to be the most clever problem solver of the four travelers.  When the Wizard of Oz finally awards Scarecrow a degree - or brain - at the film’s conclusion Scarecrow recites the 47th Proposition of Euclid or the Pythagorean Theorem which is the emblem of a Masonic Worshipful Master.[64]  This is apropos since President William McKinley - personifying the Wizard - was himself a Freemason.

The symbolism of the Tin Woodman is somewhat less concealed.  He represents American industrial workers who were often dehumanized and seen as chattel.  Metaphorically, he is rusty and immobile paralleling disillusioned factory workers.  When businesses began shutting down because of a nation-wide depression and unemployment (cf. Panic of 1893) skyrocketed, most if not all laborers felt helpless and cast off.  The Tin Woodman’s initial immobility also symbolizes the American steel industry’s failure to combat increasing international competition at the time.  The Tin Woodman begins moving when he is oiled; this represents oil companies such as John D. Rockefeller’s (1839-1937) Standard Oil that kept the economy moving despite economic recession and depression.  The Cowardly Lion - Dorothy’s finale companion - embodies William Jennings Bryan who was McKinley’s presidential challenger.  Jennings Bryan, like the Cowardly Lion, had a “loud roar” but no bite or political influence; McKinley soundly defeated Bryan in 1896 and 1900.  The Cowardly Lion may also typify Socialist presidential candidate Eugene Debs who, like Bryan, posed no real political threat to McKinley or the Republican Party.  Debs was the Socialist Party’s presidential candidate in 1900, 1904, 1908, 1912, and 1920 the last time from a prison cell.

Does The Wizard of Oz contain anymore esoteric and occult symbolism?  Consider the facts: L. Frank Baum and his wife Maud Gage (1861-1953) joined the Theosophical Society in Chicago and the archives of the Theosophical Society in Pasadena, California  recorded the start of their membership as September 4th, 1892.  Baum studied the esoteric-Gnostic doctrines of Theosophy as well as its co-founder Helena Blavatsky and seemed impressed enough to have embedded this esotericism in his novel.  Dorothy Gale lives in the boring black and white material world created by the Demiurge.  She ascends to a magical land via a cyclone.  The powerful cyclone is the winding stairs of the mysteries, the ladder of Mithras or Minerva that commences initiation to receive sublime wisdom (cf. hermetic ascensio or apotheosis) mirroring the Winding Stairs leading to the Middle Chamber of Masonic Fellowcraft degree (I Kings 6:8) where the candidate is instructed to study the Seven Liberal Arts and Sciences.  The Winding Stairs of the Fellow Craft Degree symbolizes the gnosis of the candidate and his maturation as a independent thinker.  This section of the degree draws on the symbolism of the early system of Jewish mystical thought (cf. Kabbalah) and on the symbols of alchemy.  The alchemists were philosophers who believed that the physical world could reveal spiritual and esoteric truths, thus a winding staircase is correctly identified as a symbol of Masonic ascension in 2004’s National Treasure. The cyclone elevates Dorothy to Oz (cf. Gnostic ascension) paralleling Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland where Alice ventures to a mystical world by way of a winding staircase symbolized by a cylindrical rabbit hole (see Chapter XI).  Dorothy and her dog Toto are inseparable mirroring magicians and witches who use animals or “familiars” to do their occult and infernal biddings.  A familiar is a creature - usually a cat, dog, owl, or toad - that is inhabited by a demon that aids the witch in their pursuit of esoteric knowledge.  Familiars also perform small malicious errands on the witch’s behalf.  Dorothy, her familiar Toto, and her sacred band follow a miraculous golden pathway or the yellow brick road.  In Buddhism, which is an influential within Theosophical teachings, is the doctrine known as the Golden Path of Spiritual Illumination upon which one can achieve sublime gnosis and epiphany.  Dorothy is given the deceased witch’s silver slippers (novel) to tread on this golden path; this is an alchemical formulaic representation of changing base metal into gold or the transformation of ignorance into the golden light of occult wisdom that the initiate seeks.  Her silver slippers also symbolize the moon and Dorothy’s feminine energy; witches favor silver amulets which enhance their psychic and magical powers.  This explains why the Wicked Witch of the West covets them so dearly while providing Dorothy with the sorcery to psychically travel back to Kansas by tapping them three times.   Dorothy is awarded the silver slippers upon landing in the mystical land of Oz by killing the Wicked of the East when her house crashes down on her.  This echoes the Theosophical teaching of a silver cord that ties the physical body to the spiritual-astral realm; in this case Dorothy’s physical body has departed Kansas for the ethereal Oz.  This teaching originates from Ecclesiastes 12:6-7, “Or ever the silver cord be loosed, or the golden bowl be broken, or the pitcher be broken at the fountain, or the wheel broken at the cistern. Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was: and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it.”  While in Oz, Dorothy attracts three fellow travelers: one seeks a brain or wisdom, another seeks a heart or fortitude, and the other desires courage.  Wisdom, fortitude, and courage are three attributes that initiates must possess to seek progress and illumination.  These three qualities must be possessed by a candidate to gain entrance into the Mysteries; on this Blavatsky explained, “There is no danger that dauntless courage cannot conquer, there is not trial that a spotless purity cannot pass through; there is no difficulty a strong intellect cannot surmount.”[65]

In Oz, the golden path leads to a false messiah or evil manipulative Demiurge-like person who in Baum’s story is the Wizard.  The Wizard uses fear and intimidation to gain admiration and worship.  This reflects the Mystery School tradition of being weary of organized religions that use threats of eternal damnation to those who do not believe or follow.  In the novel the Wizard appears differently to each of the four: to Dorothy the Wizard is a giant head; the Scarecrow sees a beautiful woman; the Tin Woodman sees a terrible beast while the Cowardly Lion sees a ball of fire.  This also echoes the Mystery Tradition which teaches that organized religions can take on many false guises.  This ancient discipline is also prevalent in Theosophy.  In the film adaptation, the Wizard appears as a menacing, fiery, floating green head that barks orders and terrifies the four companions.  Dorothy, having killed the Wicked Witch of the East, is tasked by the Wizard to destroy the Wicked Witch of the West and retrieve her broomstick.  A broomstick is a phallic emblem that gives a witch the power of flight while to take it away from her undercuts her demonic powers.  Brooms are associated with witches because they are a symbol of female domestically and a tool of every woman.  Witches are identified with the feminine while male witches are known as warlocks.  According to folklore a newly initiated witch would be presented with a broomstick by the Devil himself; it was believed that ringing church bells had the holy power to ground witch’s broomsticks.  Interestingly in Baum’s novel the Wicked Witch of the West has one-eye and from the tower of her castle can survey the entire land of Oz.  The jurist, demonologist Henry Boguet (1550-1619) states in his Discours exécrable des Sorciers (Evilspeak of the Sorcerers, 1602) that witches have two eyeballs in one.[66]  In Greek mythology, the Graeae (English translation: “old women”, “grey ones” or “grey witches”) better known as the Stygian Witches were three sisters who shared one eye among them.  The antagonist Sauron in J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings echoes this folklore.  Sauron’s spirit manifest as a giant all seeing eye - The Eye of Sauron - atop the tower of his fortress Barad-dûr forever watchful over the black land of Mordor (Chapter X).  In order to achieve illumination, spiritual gnosis, and consciousness Dorothy must vanquish the Wicked Witches of the East and the West who were forming an evil, stagnant materialistic horizontal axis.  By vanquishing them Dorothy successfully achieves illumination and metaphysically departs the lesser, material world.  In the novel Dorothy was wise in heeding the advice of the good witches of the North and South or the vertical axis which one moves upwards (cf. the ladder of Minerva or Mithras, Masonry’s Winding Stairs, ascensio) representing spiritual progress towards the sacred dimension or the godhead in the anti-material realm.  Allegorically Dorothy has rejected the immobile horizontal plane of reality in favor of esoteric gnosis symbolized by the north/south ladder of selflessness.

Dorothy experiences gnosis and revelation though her mystical journey in Oz.  She achieves ascensio by listening to her spiritual guide Glinda the Good Witch of the North representing apotheosized Samadhic felicity. This occultism is also astrological symbolizing the vernal and autumnal equinoxes (East and West) and the winter and summer solstices (North and South).  The Two Saint John’s of Freemasonry are appellations for the two vertical solstices thereby Masonry associates itself with the esoteric and spiritual enlightenments of the Ancient Mystery Schools which taught spiritual gnosis, ascensio, and the abandonment of materialism.  Many arcane teachings - including Gnosticism and later Theosophy - propound the idea of a series of worlds or hypostases as cosmic ontological gradations in the Great Chain of Being (cf. Neo-platonic religious hierarchical structure of all matter, life, and spirit) arranged metaphorically in an upper and lower manner, vertical and horizontal, the former spiritual and divine and the latter material and profane.  Dorothy’s familiar Toto, by pulling back a curtain, exposes the Wizard to be a fraud.  He is nothing more than an ordinary old man who had journeyed to Oz from Omaha long ago in a hot air balloon.  In the novel the Wizard and Dorothy construct a new balloon made out of green silk.  In the mystery tradition the color green alludes to the vegetation that covers the earth or “Mother Earth” representing the feminine.[67]  Metaphorically, the green balloon returns Dorothy (cf. sacred feminine) back to “earth” or the material black and white realm of Kansas.  When the Wizard is about to take Dorothy back to Kansas, Dorothy’s familiar Toto chases after a cat (another familiar) causing Dorothy to get out of the balloon perusing her dog.   The balloon guided by the false wizard takes off leaving Dorothy behind; the balloon itself represents the empty promises of organized religions because they are nothing but allegorized hot air.  This leads to Dorothy Gale’s gnosis, divine spiritual illumination, ascensio, and consciousness.  With the aid of Glinda the Good Witch - her spiritual guide - she finally understands that everything she ever wanted could be found in her own backyard because there is no place like home.  Dorothy Gale has completed her spiritual journey successfully; she is now Sophia or wisdom personified having successfully navigated the initiatory rites of Mystery Tradition.  Dorothy is now an enlightened being who is fully conscious, she clicks her silver heels three times to return home.  The number three is a mystical number, “The Pythagoreans called it perfect harmony.  So sacred was this number deemed by the ancients, that we find it designating some of the attributes of almost all of the gods.  The thunderbolt of Jove was three-forked; the scepter of Neptune was a trident; Cerebus, the dog of Pluto, was three headed; there were three Fates and three Furies; the sun had three names, Apollo, Sol, and Liber; and the moon three also, Diana, Luna, and Hecate. …The Druids paid no less respect to this sacred number. Throughout their whole system, a reference is constantly made to its influence; and so far did their veneration for it extend, that even their sacred poetry was composed in triads. In all the mysteries, from Egypt to Scandinavia, we find a sacred regard for the number three.  In the Rites of Mithras, the Empyrean was said to be supported by three intelligences, Ormuzd, Mithra, and Mithras. In the Rites of Hindustan, there was the trinity of Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva.  It was, in short, a general character of the mysteries to have three principal officers and three grades of initiation.”[68]   The Ancient Mysteries tripartite levels of initiation are carried on today in Freemasonry’s Blue Lodge degrees of Entered Apprentice, Fellowcraft, and Master Mason.  Dorothy has returned home from Oz armed with gnosis and enlightenment having successful achieved a form of divine consciousness and ascensio.  Thus awakened, Dorothy is not understood by her family or farmhands who represent the profane or the vile multitude to use Scottish Rite Grand Sovereign Commander Albert Pike’s own terminology.

*      *       *       *       *

Although not a political or arcane allegory, this chapter finishes with an urban legend surrounding The Wizard of Oz.  It has been stated and argued that if one cues up The Wizard of Oz beginning with the MGM lion roar while starting Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon, the two are apparently synchronized.  The high point occurs with the song “Money” that starts when Dorothy enters Oz and the film changes from black and white to color.  Although this author has never attempted this experiment, this either works perfectly or not at all depending on whom one talks to.  Members of Pink Floyd have denied that there is any similarity between the two and the overall general consensus seems to be that it is a coincidence.  That notwithstanding, the late nineteenth century/early twentieth century political, socio-economic, and Gnostic/Theosophical allegories and parallels contained in The Wizard of Oz - both book and movie - are undeniable.

Chapter VI

James Bond: The Elizabethan Magus

Dr. John “007” Dee and the Occult

“I’m a member of SPECTRE.

Special Executive for Counter Intelligence,

Terrorism, Revenge, Extortion.

The four great cornerstones of power headed

by the greatest brains in the world.”

- Dr. Julius No, Dr. No, 1962.

“Man has climbed Mount Everest, gone to the bottom of the ocean.

He’s fired rockets at the moon,

split the atom, achieved miracles in every

field of human endeavor...except crime!”

- Auric Goldfinger, Goldfinger, 1964.

“Mr. Bond, you persist in defying my efforts

to provide an amusing death for you.”

- Hugo Drax, Moonraker, 1979.

“You handle those cubes like a monkey handles coconuts.”

- Plenty O’Toole, Diamonds are Forever, 1971.

“The firing power inside my crater is

enough to annihilate a small army.

You can watch it all on TV.

It’s the last program you’re likely to see.”

- Ernst Stavro Blofeld, You Only Live Twice, 1967.

“Red wine with fish. Well that should have told me something.”

- James Bond, From Russia with Love, 1963.

Most of the James Bond movies are based on the works of English author, journalist, and naval intelligence officer Ian Fleming (1908-1964).  Fleming, who wrote the children’s book Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang: The Magical Car (1964), is better remembered for the James Bond espionage novels.  His literary achievements, the popularity of Bond, and even his death were predicted by English witch, occultist, astrologer, and psychic Sybil Leek (1917-1982).  This is apropos since all of James Bond’s espionage adventures incorporate mystical, Gnostic, arcane, and esoteric elements and components.  Fleming’s fictional protagonist, Royal Navy Commander James Bond (CMG or The Most Distinguished Order of Saint Michael and Saint George, Companion),[69](RVNR),[70] is a member of the SIS or Secret Intelligence Service also known as MI6.  Bond’s code number within MI6 is 007 which, as will be seen, has occult significance.  Nine actors have played James Bond: Barry Nelson (1954), Sean Connery (1962-1971 & 1983), David Niven (1967), George Lazenby (1969), Christopher Cazenove (1973), Roger Moore (1973-1985), Timothy Dalton (1986-1993), Pierce Brosnan (1995-2004), and Daniel Craig (2006-present).  The novels were released in the following chronological order:

- Casino Royale (1953)

- Live and Let Die (1954)

- Moonraker (1955)

- Diamonds are Forever (1956)

- From Russia, with Love (1957)

- Dr. No (1958)

- Goldfinger (1959)

- For Your Eyes Only (1960)

- Thunderball (1961)

- The Spy Who Loved Me (1962)

- On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (1963)

- You Only Live Twice (1964)

- The Man with the Golden Gun (1965)

- Octopussy and The Living Daylights (1966)

After the initial publication of Casino Royale in 1953, Fleming used his annual holiday at his house in Jamaica to write another Bond story.  The name of Fleming’s Oracabessa, Jamaica estate was Goldeneye which would be the name of a Bond film starring Pierce Brosnan as 007 in 1995. The name “Goldeneye” originates from Operation Golden Eye which was developed by Fleming while working for Naval Intelligence.  Operation Golden Eye was an Allied plan during World War II that entailed monitoring Spain after a possible alliance between Francisco Franco (1892-1975), the dictator of Spain, and the European Axis powers (Germany and Italy) and to undertake sabotage and clandestine operations therein.  With no German takeover of Spain or invasion of Gibraltar the plan was aborted in 1943.  Twelve Bond novels and two short-story collections were published between 1953 and 1966 with the last two, The Man with the Golden Gun and Octopussy and The Living Daylights, posthumously.  Much of the background for the Bond stories came from Fleming’s time in the Naval Intelligence Division (NID) during World War II or from circumstances he knew about from the Cold War.[71]  For example, the plot of From Russia, with Love involves a beautiful double-agent named Tatiana Romanova[72]  who is trying to defect with a fictitious Soviet decoding apparatus.  Much of Bond’s espionage activity takes place on the Orient Express.  The Soviet cipher device itself has its roots in the wartime Nazi Enigma cipher machine[73] while Fleming based Romanova on Maria Krystyna Janina Skarbek also known as Christine Granville GM, OBE (1908- 1952).  Skarbek was a Polish Special Operations Executive (SOE) agent and became celebrated for her daring exploits in intelligence and irregular-warfare missions in Nazi-occupied Poland and France. The novel’s plot involving spies on the Orient Express was based on the story of Eugene Karp who was a U.S. naval attaché and intelligence agent based in Budapest, Hungary.  Karp took the Orient Express from Budapest to Paris in February, 1950 carrying a number of papers about United States spy networks in the Eastern Bloc.  Soviet assassins and spies on the train drugged the train’s conductor and Karp’s body was found shortly afterwards in a railway tunnel south of Salzburg.[74]  Fleming’s James Bond stories are not limited to the events of World War II and the Cold War.  Rather, Fleming’s Bond espionage missions conceal hidden allegories, metaphors, and occult truths.  In order to better understand some of the esoteric, Gnostic, and alchemical symbolisms concealed in the Bond movies (and books), a brief history of the origin of James Bond’s code number 007 will now be disclosed.  Bond’s numerical designation in steeped in Elizabethan mysticism.

Bond’s numerical designation 007 originates from Elizabethan polymath Dr. John Dee (1527-1608/09).  Dr. Dee,

“…was of the most celebrated and remarkable men of the Elizbethan age.  Philosopher, mathematician, technologist, antiquarian, teacher and friend of powerful people, Dee was at the centre of some of the major developments of the English Renaissance; in fact, he inspired several of these developments through his writings and his teachings. But Dee was also a magician deeply immersed in the most extreme forms of occultism: he was Elizabethan England’s great magus.  ….He was one of a line of philosopher magicians that stemmed from Ficino and Pico Della Mirandola and included, among others, Trithemius, Abbot of Sponheim; Henry Cornelius Agrippa; Paracelsus; Giordano Bruno; Tommaso Campanella; and Dee successor in England, Robert Fludd. Like Dee, these philosophers lived in a world that was half-magical, half-scientific.  Astronomy and Astrology were not yet completely separated, and Tycho Brahe still cast horoscopes, as did Kepler.”[75]

Joy Hancox, author of The Byrom Collection and the Globe Theatre Mystery, writes,

“The work of John Dee was heavily influenced by Christian Cabala. He published the Monas Hieroglyphica in Antwerp in 1564 and dedicated it to Emperor Maximilian II.  It is thought that he traveled to Vienna to present the book to the Emperor in person. When he returned to England, Dee was summoned to Greenwich in June, where he instructed Queen Elizabeth in some of the mysteries of the book.

….The book was highly popular with hermetic scholars of the time. Among the writers influenced by it were Dee’s successor Robert Fludd, the German mystic Jacob Boehme, and the alchemical physician Count Michael Maier.

….Dee’s importance is not that of an original thinker, but of a great disseminator of knowledge. He did not make any new advances in  mathematics but he saw its value both philosophically and practically. We are in his debt for encouraging so many technical skills in this country and he is now accepted as the most important influences in the development of navigation in the Elizabethan age. He advised many leading seaman, including Sir Humphrey Gilbert and Martin Frobisher, and was on close terms with four of the backers of Drake’s voyage around the world (1577-1580).One of those four was the Earl of Leister.”[76]

And finally on John Dee, English historian Frances A. Yates elucidates in her magnum opus Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition,

“John Dee (1527-1608) was a genuine mathematician of considerable  importance, intensely interested in all mathematical studies, and in the application of mathematics to produce results in applied sciences.  He himself was a practical scientist and inventor, his activities in this field being many and varied; they included a flying crab for a college  stage-play. In his preface to H. Billingsley’s English translation of Euclid’s Elements of Geometry, Dee outlines the state of mathematical sciences in his time and fervently urges their prosecution and improvement, and he is certainly concerned with genuine mathematics and their application as genuine applied science. He based this plea on ‘the noble Earl of Mirandula’ who set up 900 theses in Rome, amongst them being, in his eleventh mathematical conclusion, the statement that ‘by numbers, a way is had, to the searching out, and understanding euery thyng, hable to be knowen’. This is, indeed, as Dee says, an English translation of one of Pico’s (della Mirandola) eighty-five mathematical conclusions, ‘Per numeros habetur uia ad omnis scibilis inuestigationem & intellection.’

Though on one side of his mind, Dee is interested in number as ‘real artificial magic’ (he does not use this expression in the Billingsley preface) he was also still more interested in the use of number in  connection with Hebrew names of angels and spirits in the practical Cabala which he did with his associate, Edward Kelley. Dee and Kelley were close students of Agrippa’s occult philosophy; in Agrippa’s third book there are elaborate numerical and alphabetical tables for angel-summoning of the type which Dee and Kelley used in their operations, in the course of which Michael,  Gabriel, Raphael and other angels and spirits appeared in the  show-stone and spoke to Dee through Kelley. Though Dee never saw them himself.

…..John Dee has to the full the dignity, the sense of operational power, of the Renaissance Magus. And he is a very clear example  of how the will to operate, stimulated by Renaissance magic, could  pass into, and stimulate, the will to operate in genuine applied science. Or of how operating with number in the higher sphere of religious magic could belong with, and stimulate, operating with number in the lower sphere of ‘real artificial magic’.”[77]

Dr. John Dee was a learned mathematician, occultist, astrologer, scientist, alchemist, navigator, and spy; Dee was friends with English spymaster Francis Willingham (ca. 1532-1590) and statesman William Cecil (1520-1598), 1st Baron Burghley.  John Dee was the first to coin the term “British Empire” and his imperialistic philosophy was influenced by Georgius Gemistus Pletho (ca. 1355-1452/53), a Byzantine scholar of Neo-Platonic thought and attendee of the Council of Florence (1438 - 1439).  Dee was also Queen Elizabeth I’s (1533-1603) court astrologer and psychic adviser who, along with Irish medium Edward Kelley, developed a system of dark sorcery called Enochian Magic that allowed one to communicate with their Guardian Angel via angelic and demonic spiritual conjurations.  This was accomplished through the art of scrying which is the practice of looking into a translucent ball or other material - Dee used a black mirror - with the belief that entities manifest becoming etheric visions.  These devices were employed less often for purposes of divining the future and soothsaying.   Enochian is a complex language with solid grammar and syntax having a melodic sound similar to Sanskirt, Greek, or Arabic.  Enochian may have also been a secret code that Dee and Kelley used in espionage activities on behalf of Queen Elizabeth I.   Each letter of the Enochian alphabet has a numerical value - Gematria - that corresponds to elemental, planetary, and Tarot properties.

Dr. John Dee was, like Dominican mystic Giordano Bruno (1548-1600), one of Sir Francis Walsingham’s spymasters; the numerical 007 was Dr. Dee’s cabalistic signature on intelligence correspondences to Queen Bess and is the source of Ian Fleming’s MI6 agent James Bond’s codename Double-O Seven.  The actual signature is eyeglasses symbolizing that the correspondence was for “her eyes only” and that he was her “eyes in the field”.  Dee’s 007 sigil denotes secrecy and forges a nexus to the phrase “For Your Eyes Only” which is still employed in modern day espionage and spycraft.  Exoterically the double zeros, “00”, or double Os give Bond a license to kill placing him outside civil and criminal prosecution.  Esoterically, 007 is the concealed link revealing that Elizabethan spymaster Dee is the actual basis for Fleming’s own secret agent.  Dr. John Dee inspired Christopher Marlowe’s (1564-1593) and Johann Wolfgang Goethe’s (1749-1832) Dr. Faustus or Faust; Dee also becomes Shakespeare’s Prospero from The Tempest published 1610/1611 and Edgar Allan Poe’s (1809-1849) Prince Prospero from The Masque of the Red Death published in 1842.  John Dee’s occult philosophy further lies behind Edmund Spenser’s (1552-1559) work; one of the Rosicrucian manifestos contains a tract which is closely based on Dee’s Monas Hieroglyphica (1564) which is a treatise about symbolic language.[78]

Paralleling the Rosicrucian mysteries, Spencer’s The Faerie Queene has a character called “The Red Cross Knight” which symbolically personifies Dee thereby transforming him into a proto “Christian Rosenkreutz”[79]  which in English means, “Christian Rose Cross”. According to lore, Christian Rosenkreutz was the legendary founder of the Rosicrucians.  The white magic of The Faerie Queene also serves to balance out the darker Egyptian sorcery of Dominican friar Giordano Bruno.  Bruno, like Spenser, lionized good Queen Bess as a universal monarch who would usher in a new, reformed, Egypto-Judaic-Christianity for the New World.

*      *       *       *       *

Bond’s creator Ian Fleming would have been fully aware of Dee and of esoteric and occult symbolism in general; Aleister Crowley moved within Fleming’s espionage-occult circles.  It is beyond dispute that Crowley influenced Fleming and the world of James Bond.  Crowley, who claimed to be the reincarnation of French occult author, ceremonial magician, transcendentalist, and Freemason[80] Eliphas Levi (1810-1875), called himself The Great Beast 666.  Crowley, whose sardonic and idiosyncratic charisma often turned friend into foe, was an English occultist, mystic, ceremonial magician, part-time spy, Freemason[81], poet, and mountaineer who was responsible for founding the religious philosophy of Thelema.  Thelma (Greek for will or intention) promoted Crowley’s hedonistic theology of Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law.  Crowley’s occult dogma is based on the fiction of François Rabelais (1494-1553) who was French Renaissance writer, doctor, humanist, monk, and scholar.  Historically, Rabelais is best remembered for being a writer of fantasy, satire, the grotesque, bawdy jokes and songs.  His best known work, Gargantua and Pantagruel, introduced the world to Thelma and the doctrine of Do what thou wilt.  One episode of this epic adventure tells of the founding of an Abbey of Thelema as an institution for the cultivation of human virtues which Rabelais identified as being squarely opposite the prevailing Christian proprieties and mores of the time; the sole rule of the Abbey of Thelema was Do what thou wilt.  Rabelais is considered one of the great writers of world literature and among the creators of modern European writing from who Crowley borrows heavily.  Crowley’s role in the founding of Thelemite philosophy and modern occultism caused him to see himself as the prophet who was entrusted with informing humanity that it was entering the new Aeon of Horus (cf. Aquarius) in the early 20th century. This occult philosophy was described and presented in his The Book of the Law (1904).  Born into a wealthy upper-class family, Crowley soon became a member the esoteric Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn whose rituals and theologies interwove Freemasonry, alchemy, mysticism, astrology, magic or “magick”,[82] and Tarot.  Within the Golden Dawn he took the name Frater Perdurabo which is Latin for, “Brother (that) shall endure to the end”.  The Golden Dawn also counted Freemason and Tarot card enthusiast  Arthur Edward Waite (1857-1942), poet W.B. Yeats (1865-1939), and Dracula author Bram Stoker (1847-1912) among its members.  In 2009’s Sherlock Holmes, the Victorian era Golden Dawn is symbolized by a secret society named the Temple of the Four Orders whose members are steeped in mysticism and the occult.  Holmes’ nemesis in the film is a member of the Temple of the Four Orders named Lord Henry Blackwood (Mark Strong).  Blackwood is a Crowley-like character who performs demonic sorcery in an effort to instill fear in the populace while toppling the British government thereby creating a New World Order conjured out of left-hand path kabbalistic (or qabalistic) thaumaturgy.  Crowley’s caustic personality saturates Daryl Van Horne (Jack Nicholson) in 1987’s The Witches of Eastwick.  Van Horne is the Devil in disguise who teaches hell-raising bewitchments to Alexandra Medford (Cher), Jane Spofford (Susan Sarandon), and Sukie Ridgemont (Michelle Pfeiffer) in a Thelma-like mansion where the women become his sex magick partners or Scarlet Women.[83]

Aleister Crowley claimed that he was contacted by his Holy Guardian Angel - a divine entity he named Aiwass - while staying in Egypt in 1904.  It was through Aiwass that Crowley received a manuscript known as The Book of the Law.  The mysterious and metaphysical philosophies of The Book of the Law would serve as the “Bible” and template of his new esoteric mantra called Thelema.  Crowley would go on to found his own arcane society known as the A:.A:. whose initials stand for Argentium Astrum (Silver Star) which is likely reference to the Egyptian Dog Star Sirius.  Crowley eventually rose to become a leader of another occult group known as the Ordo Templi Orientis - O.T.O. or Order of the Eastern Templars - before founding a religious commune in Cefalù, Italy known as the Abbey of Thelema which he led from 1920 until 1923.  The androgynous O.T.O. and the Abbey of Thelema combined mysticism and spiritualism with sexual rites in order to produce sex magicks thus creating an altered state of perception.  After abandoning the Abbey amid widespread opposition to it, Crowley returned to Britain where he continued to promote Thelema and its Do what shall wilt philosophy until his death in 1947.  Although Crowley was not a Satanist per se, he is associated with demonism due to his practice of the Sacred Magic of Abramelin the Mage.  When practiced correctly these mystical rites and sorcery allow one to communicate with their Holy Guardian Angel (cf. Dee and Kelley’s Enochian incantations); once this is accomplished the magician must evoke the twelve Kings and Dukes of Hell: Belial, Leviathan, Satan, Lucifer, Berith, Baal, Moloch, etc., among others and bind them.  Aleister “666” Crowley practiced these occult rites and rituals in his estate named Boleskine House near Loch Ness in Scotland which he owned from 1899 to 1913.  It is said that the notorious Loch Ness Monster was actually a Goetia[84] styled Leviathan that Crowley conjured through his practice of Abramelin sorcery.  From 1971 to 1991 the house was owned by Crowley enthusiast and Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page who claimed Boleskine was haunted by a decapitated head.[85]  Crowley is the “…traveler of both time and space, to be where I have been…” who sits “…with elders of the gentle race, this world has seldom seen…” to whom “…all will be revealed…” in Led Zeppelin’s song “Kashmir” (1975).  The Great Beast is also acknowledged in The X-Files Season II episode titled Die Hand Die Verletzt (German for The Hand that Wounds) which premiered 27 January 1995.  Federal Bureau of Investigation agents Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) and Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson) investigate a high school in Milford Haven, New Hampshire where Goetia sorcery and the dark rites are being practiced causing student deaths.  During their investigation the Devil visits the school in the guise of Mrs. Phyllis H. Paddock (Susan Blommaert), a substitute teacher.  Consequently the school in question is named Crowley High School in honor of the English occultist and Freemasonic ceremonial magician.

Richard Spence, in his book Secret Agent 666: Alesiter Crowley, British Intelligence, and The Occult, documents Ian Fleming’s interaction and relationship with The Great Beast 666,

“A few years later, however, Gomer Berry hired young Ian Fleming, the future creator of James Bond, to head a foreign desk. Fleming, as we will see, would later find himself in Naval Intelligence and working with Crowley. His intelligence career almost certainly commenced in 1933, when he went to Moscow as a Reuters correspondent. There he covered the trial of some British engineers (including at least two past or present SIS operatives) accused of  espionage and sabotage. At the same time, Crowley’s pal Gerald Yorke, also under Reuters cover, was busy spying in China alongside Ian’s elder brother, Peter, mentioned above. Crowley may have known the Fleming brothers by the early 1930s. Their mother’s paramour during the 1920s was the painter Augustus John, another familiar of the Beast.

….After the war, self-proclaimed warlock Cecil Williamson alleged that he had been tapped by SIS on the eve of the Second World War to head A ‘Witchcraft Research Centre’. Williamson later became a founding father of modern witchcraft and the curator of the Witchcraft Museum. The goal of his wartime outfit, he claimed, was to discover who in the German High Command and Nazi hierarchy might be influenced by astrology or related superstitions.  In this, Williamson claimed to have collaborated with Ian Fleming, Dennis Wheatley, and others definitely linked to Crowley.

….Nevertheless, Paul Newman (writer, not the actor), citing a source with access to classified SOE and Political Warfare Executive (PWE) files, believes that  Williamson was telling at least a version of the truth. Similarly, spy writer Donald McCormick (a.k.a. Richard Deacon) once observed that ‘[the British] might quite easily create a coven as a propaganda weapon against the Germans, but it would be highly impracticable to suggest that the Germans could do the same thing in reverse on our soil.’ This, he insisted, was because the Germans were far more inclined to take such things as witchcraft and astrology seriously. While that is debatable, and McCormick earned a reputation for sensational and unsubstantiated statements, he did spend WWII in British Naval Intelligence working with the likes of Ian Fleming. He may have learned more about this exotic branch of spycraft than he let on.

….The man who became the NID’s (Naval Intelligence Division) point man on the ‘Crowley business,’ effectively his case officer, was Godfrey’s assistant Ian Fleming. Fleming later recalled how Crowley “put forward some madcap ideas to the intelligence authorities …one being dropping occult information [on the enemy] by leaflet. Supposedly, the idea went nowhere, yet Delmer’s and other agencies engaged in almost identical activities, whether or not inspired by Crowley.

Fleming later confessed that one of his unfulfilled desires was to have Crowley interview Rudolf Hess. That would make perfect sense if the  Beast was already involved in prisoner interrogations. Crowley was willing to oblige, and may have suggested the idea himself. Fleming preserved a letter from him, dated 14 May (four days after Hess’ capture), which read: ‘If it is true that Herr Hess is much influenced by astrology and magic, my services might be of use to the department in case he should not be willing to do what you wish.’ ….Fleming and Godfrey hoped that the old Magician might persuade Hess to divulge  intimate details about other tops Nazis, such as the degree of their own occult susceptibilities.”[86]

Eccentric spymaster Dennis Wheatley (1897-1977) was also in Fleming’s and Crowley’s circle. Wheatley produced thrillers and occult novels such as 1934’s The Devil Rides Out which is about black magic and a devil worshipping cult.  Wheatley, like Ian Fleming, worked in British Intelligence during World War II; Wheatley was a member of the London Controlling Section which secretly coordinated strategic military deception and cover plans or false flags. Wheatley once shared an afternoon repast with Aleister Crowley.  Crowley’s occult influence was not limited to Fleming.  Wheatley clearly believed in the power associated with the practice of black magic and witchcraft.  On the fly-leaf of The Devil Rides Out he admonishes the reader, “I desire to state, that I personally have never assisted at, or participated in, any ceremony connected with magic - black or white.  Should any of my readers incline to a serious study of the subject, and thus come into contact with any man or woman of Power, I feel that it is only right to urge them, most strongly, to refrain from being drawn into the practice of the Secret Art … to do so would bring them into dangers of a very real and concrete nature.”[87]

The Devil Rides Out features a Crowley-like figure named Mocata who commands a Satanic coven.  The Devil Rides Out was later made into a film with the same name by Hammer Studios starring Christopher Lee as the protagonist Duc de Richleau in 1968.  In the film Mocata was played by Charles Gray (1928-2000) who would later play Bond arch nemesis Ernst Stavro Blofeld in the movie Diamonds are Forever (1971).  Blofeld heads SPECTRE whose initials stand for: SPecial Executive for Counter-Intelligence, Terrorism, Revenge, Extortion.  SPECTRE, who manipulates both the East and West, is an illuminist styled organization hell-bent on global domination.

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Crowley’s leverage on Fleming  is undeniable.  It is not surprising that esoteric, alchemical, and occult symbolism and allegory can be found in the James Bond films which are based on Fleming’s novels.  First, in order to better comprehend the esoteric, some exoteric background information on the James Bond archetype must be provided.  The persona of James Bond was influenced by Wheatley’s fictitious spy named Gregory Sallust.  Sallust was an English covert operator who performed cloak and dagger operations for Great Britain during WWII.  In one adventure, Faked Passports (1940), Sallust has dinner with Reichsmarschall and Luftwaffe chief Hermann Goering (1893-1946).  Gregory Sallust aside, Fleming based his spymaster on a number of individuals he met during his time working in Naval Intelligence Division (NID). To Fleming Bond was a compound of all the secret agents and commandos that he had encountered during the second World War.  Amongst these were his older brother Peter Fleming (1907-1971) whom he greatly admired.

Peter Fleming had been involved in behind-the-lines covert operations in Norway and Greece during the World War II.  Fleming envisaged that Bond would physically resemble the composer, singer, and actor Hoagy Carmichael (1899-1981) although others point out aspects of Fleming’s own visage in his description of Bond.[88]  Evidence further suggests that Fleming modeled aspects of Bond on three specific individuals: Conrad O’Brien-ffrench (1893-1986), a spy whom Fleming had met whilst skiing in Kitzbühel in the 1930s; Patrick Dalzel-Job (1913-2003), a British Naval Intelligence Officer who served with distinction in 30AU (No. 30 British Commando Unit) during the World War II; and Bill “Biffy” Dunderdale (1899-1990), station head of MI6 in Paris, who wore cufflinks and handmade suits whilst being chauffeured around Paris in a Rolls-Royce.[89]  Sidney Reilly (1872-1925), a SIS operator who along with Sir Robert Bruce Lockhart (1887-1970) attempted to overthrow the fledgling Bolshevik regime in Russia in 1918, also inspired Fleming. Two others likely models for James Bond were Sir Fitzroy Hew Royle MacLean (1911-1996) based upon his wartime work behind enemy lines in the Balkans, and MI6 double agent Dušan Popov (1912-1981).[90]  Ian Fleming endowed Bond with many of his own traits including the same golf handicap of nine, his taste for scrambled eggs, and his love of gambling.[91]  In turn Fleming gave Bond’s arch enemy Ernst Stavro Blofeld his own birthday of 28 May 1908.

Exoterically many of the names used in the Bond works came from people Ian Fleming knew.  For example Scaramanga, the principal villain in The Man with the Golden Gun, was named after a fellow Eton schoolboy with whom Fleming fought;[92] Goldfinger, from the eponymous novel, was seemingly named after British architect Ernő Goldfinger (1902-1987), whose work Fleming abhorred;[93] Sir Hugo Drax, the chief antagonist in Moonraker, was named after Fleming’s acquaintance Admiral Sir Reginald Aylmer Ranfurly Plunkett-Ernle-Erle-Drax (1880-1967).[94]  Other than the name, Bond’s nemesis Drax bears little resemblance to the British admiral.  Sir Hugo Drax was born in Germany as Graf Hugo von der Drache. Because his mother was English, Drache was educated in England until the age of twelve.  Afterwards he moved to Berlin and later Leipzig, where he continued and finished his education. After graduating Drax joined the Nazi Party and entered the Wehrmacht becoming a soldier in the Panzer Brigade 150.  Due to Drax’s association with Nazism, Drax’s assistant Krebbs  bears the same name as Adolf Hitler’s last Chief of Staff Hans Krebs (1898-1945).  Colonel Rosa Klebb (Lotte Lenya, 1898-1981), the main antagonist in From Russia with Love, name is a pun on the popular Soviet phrase for women’s rights, khleb i rozy (Cyrillic: хлеб и розы). This in turn is a direct Russian translation of the internationally used labor union slogan “bread and roses”.  Her name also invokes the rose which is a flower symbolizing secrecy and concealment.

One of the homosexual villains from Diamonds Are Forever, pretty boy Charles “Boofy” Kidd, was named after one of Fleming’s close friends (and relative of his wife) conservative whip in the House of Lords Arthur Gore (1910-1983), 8th Earl of Arran known as “Boofy” to his friends.[95]  Charles “Boofy” Kidd’s partner is Mr. Albert Wint and both are enforcers for the Spangled Mob and suspected henchmen of SPECTRE’s director Ernst Stavro Blofled or Number 1.   Bond’s CIA contact  Felix Leiter[96] suspects the two men of being a homosexual couple. Fleming also embedded esoteric and veiled meanings in the names of his dramatis personae.  Many of the characters in the espionage world of James Bond conceal esoteric meanings that will now be revealed. Let’s start with Fleming’s protagonist, James “007” Bond.

*      *       *       *       *

Exoterically Ian Fleming took the name for his spy from that of the American ornithologist James Bond (1900-1989), a Caribbean bird expert and author of the definitive field guide Birds of the West Indies.  Fleming, a keen birdwatcher himself, had a copy of Bond’s guide and later explained to the ornithologist’s wife that, “It struck me that this brief, unromantic, Anglo-Saxon and yet very masculine name was just what I needed, and so a second James Bond was born.”[97]  Philip Gardiner, in his book The Bond Code: The Dark World of Ian Fleming and James Bond (2008), provides an esoteric explanation for the spymaster’s name.  Accordingly the name “James Bond” is a mystical reference evoking the two pillars of Blue Lodge Freemasonry, Jachin and Boaz, which stood on the porch of King Solomon’s Temple.  The pillars or columns, sometimes simply referred to as “JB”, synchronize the name James Bond.  This may at first seem a stretch, but when combined with the other esoterica in Fleming’s kabbalistic masterpieces  this appears to make sense.  Fleming, though not a Mason, would have been aware of this mysticism from his interactions and espionage activities with Aleister Crowley and Dennis Wheatley.  Fleming’s 1954 novel Live and Let Die involves a fortune teller who uses the Tarot to divine the future.  The Priestess card of the Major Arcana features the pillars of Blue Lodge Freemasonry Jachin and Boaz and is prominently displayed in the 1973 film of the same name.

These two pillars connote the active and the passive of Divine Energy, the sun and moon, male and female, sulphur and salt, good and bad, light and darkness.[98]  Jachin and Boaz thus symbolize concepts relating to dualism: good versus evil, male and female, sun and moon which are themes that dominate the Bond stories.  On the dualistic nature of the male and female, “If the godhead joins the male and female in the ultimate unity, then to be like God man must unite the masculine and the feminine elements of his nature.  In Jungian terms, he must unite himself to his anima ( the feminine part of a man’s personality).  In terms of sexual symbolism, he must penetrate and ‘know’ his own virgin feminine component, to enter the Temple where the godhead is concealed.”[99]  In other words, Bond must unite with the sacred feminine or the “Bond Girl” to achieve a form of Gnostic alchemical ascensio allowing him to defeat the Demiurge-like villain.  This plot device occurs in all of James Bond’s cloak and dagger adventures.  Jachin Boaz translates to: “In strength shall my house be established”[100] and dovetails perfectly with the Bond heroic archetype: a masculine, solar dominate persona who successfully imposes his will against all odds, triumphing in the end irregardless of the sacrifice while uniting with the sacred feminine, Sophia, or the lunar goddess incarnating as the “Bond Girl”.  James Bond and his leading ladies are Jungian archetypes conforming to Gnostic concepts of dualism and the division of nature. To the Gnostics these motifs conceive the world as being created, organized, or influenced by two Demiurges, culture heroes or other mythological god-like beings, who either compete with each other or have a complementary function in creating, arranging or influencing the world such as male and female, flesh and spirit, good and evil, themes that are omnipresent in the Bond adventures.  These Gnostic philosophies were midwifed through various secret orders down through the Age of Pisces by the Cathers, Knights Templar, and the Rosicrucians; the Rosicrucian premier symbol is the rose placed upon the cross implying secrecy or an arcane doctrine.  Thus, “…..The work of the Order of the Rose Cross (Rosicrucians), inasmuch as the Greek word for Rose is rhodon, and its number, 294, is the number also of ekklesia (Church). Rose Cross, therefore, would mean to the initiated Church of the Gnosis and the Gnosis is, in very truth, based on the true meaning of the stauros, or cross, represented in the Hebrew alphabet by the letter Tav.”[101]  Applying Greek Gematria to the word stauros the letters add to the numerical value of 1,271 which is in turn the value of the phrase He kleronomia hagion or the sacred inheritance as well as He Gnosis or the Gnosis.[102]  Thus the phallic cross, like the female rose, symbolizes wisdom, esoteric secrets, and the unification of the sun and moon, male and female, it is the Alchemical Wedding of Christian Rosenkreutz, the legendary founder of the Rosicrucians.[103]

Interestingly the book jacket artwork of Fleming’s Goldfinger and From Russia with Love both display a rose symbolically implying secrecy while conveying that Fleming’s work contains occultism fused with dualistic Gnostic and alchemical esoterica.  Albert Pike also writes on the synthesized unification of male (cf. James Bond) and female (cf. “Bond Girl”), “To unite the Rose to the Cross, was the problem proposed by the High Initiation; and in fact the Occult Philosophy being the Universal Synthesis, ought to explain all the phenomena of Being.”[104]  The feminine Rose also represents light (cf. enlightenment) both revealing and concealing arcane wisdom, “The Rose was anciently sacred to Aurora (mother of Lucifer) and the Sun.  It is a symbol of Dawn, of the resurrection of Light….”.[105]  Thus to unite the female “rose” with the masculine phallic “cross” represented an alchemical allegorized second birth into the Mysteries, the perfected dualistic union of the male and female.  Esoterically, the skull on the cover of Goldfinger also represents the sublime doctrine of initiation into the Ancient Mysteries and the obtainment of gnosis epitomized by the trials and tribulations of Bond’s mission or adventure.  This initiatic principle was referenced in Albrecht Dürer’s Melencholia II (1514), analyzed by Erwin Panovsky, Frances A. Yates, and Wilhelm Waetzoldt regarding hermetically informed representations of St. Jerome in his chamber or study contemplating the mysteries of life and death symbolized by a human skull.[106]  James Bond is a cultural hero archetype who combats evil grandiose Demiurge-like villains hell-bent on creating chaos and destruction while seeking power and global domination.  Bond always encounters Sophia or the divine, sacred feminine who is the moon to his sun.  Through a Gnostic unification with the sacred feminine otherwise known as an alchemical wedding, Bond achieves gnosis foiling the scheme of the Demiurge-like villain and saving the world from disaster.

In the first Bond novel, Casino Royale, the villain’s name is Le Chiffe meaning “The Number” or “The Cipher”  depending on the language.  He is the paymaster of the Syndicat des Ouvriers d’Alsace (French for Alsatian Workmen’s Union) a SMERSH controlled trade union.  In the Bond novels and films SMERSH is a soviet controlled counter-intelligence agency whose name means Death to Spies which was in turn based on a real life SMERSH organization controlled by Soviet dictator Josef Stalin (1878-1953) and coordinated by the Red Army.  At the conclusion of World War II, SMERSH’s primary objective was the location and retrieval of Adolf Hitler’s mortal remains.  It seems from the outset that Ian Fleming, by introducing an antagonist with a name meaning cipher, was trying to convey the esoteric within the pages of his works.

The villain in 1963’s Goldfinger is appropriately Auric Goldfinger whose name suggests alchemy which is the occult practice of transmuting base metal into gold. “The Hermetic science par excellence is alchemy; the famous Emerald Table, the bible of alchemists, is attributed to Hermes Trismegistus and gives in a mysteriously compact from the philosophy of the All and the One.”[107] Goldfinger is obsessed with gold while welcoming any enterprise that will increase his gold supply and material wealth.  Goldfinger’s first name is Auric deriving from the Latin Aurum meaning gold or glow of sunrise hence the chemical or alchemical symbol for gold is Au within the Periodic Table; the license plate on Goldfinger’s Rolls-Royce Phantom 3, ’37 is “AU1”.[108]   Gold represents the sun’s yellow brilliant radiance since the sun defeats darkness so too does solar enlightenment defeat ignorance.  Alchemy also symbolizes a form of gnosis.  Alchemy is the transmutation of base metal into gold or the turning of ignorance into golden wisdom or gnosis on a deeper esoteric level.  Auric Goldfinger (Gert Froebe) is an international gold bullion dealer set on detonating a nuclear dirty bomb inside the vaults of Fort Knox thus radiating - not destroying - the United States’ gold supply.  This will causes economic chaos while increasing the value of his own gold supply ten times, he conservatively estimates.[109]  The bomb itself is a symbolic Philosopher’s Stone (cf. the Emerald Tablet of Hermes Trismegistus) since it atomically transmutes matter by increasing the value of Goldfinger’s gold supply simultaneously diminishing the value of the Fort Knox gold substantially.  The name of Goldfinger’s master-plan is Operation Grand Slam.  In the film, Grand Slam is to take place Sunday morning since Sunday is the “day of the sun” and the sun is the golden yellow citrinitas of alchemy.  Although Auric Goldfinger does not actually transmute base metal into gold, he nevertheless intends to use modern day alchemy or an atomic reaction to increase the value of his own gold stockpile while ruining the West’s economy.  On this occult philosophy Masonic magus Albert Pike opines, “Raymond Lulle has said that, to make gold, we must first have gold. Nothing is made out of nothing; we do not absolutely create wealth; we increase and multiply it.”[110]  King Midas, who in Greek mythology had his golden touch, puts forth the term “gold-finger” which is said to relate to medieval and Renaissance alchemists and magicians who had the magic touch - a golden finger - to change base metal into valuable gold.  This is confirmed when Goldfinger’s Korean mute henchman Oddjob (sometimes spelled “Odd Job”) murders Jill Masterson by painting her entire body gold thereby symbolically giving her the Midas touch.

Alchemically, there are four colors representing the stages necessary to transmute matter (cf. Philosopher’s Stone) the first of which, nigredo, is a blackening (cf. death) or symbolic melancholia.  In analytical psychology, the term became a metaphor for the dark night of the soul, when an individual confronts the shadow within.  The other colors are albedo which is a whitening represented by Luna the heavenly queen who reflects the rays of the sun; citrinitas which is a yellowing symbolizing the majestic sun; and rubedo or a reddening allegorizing completion, integration, and dualistic unification.  To Carl Gustav Jung, rubedo is the self archetype which has achieved wholeness when a person discovers their true nature, positive or negative.  In Goldfinger, nigredo is represented by Oddjob who is death or Saturn epitomized.  He wears a black tuxedo and wields a deadly steel rimmed black bowler hat that he uses in the style of a chakram or flying guillotine to kill his victims.  Albedo is the heroine, the white lunar goddess, the “Bond Girl” who is awaiting her alchemical wedding; in Goldfinger she incarnates in the form of Ms. Pussy Galore.  Citrinitas, the yellow of the sun, is Bond himself who is the masculine sun-hero archetype or the embodiment of solar gods Apollo, Horus, and Hercules.  Citrinitas is also represented by Fort Knox’s gold supply which Goldfinger is attempting to transmute with the alchemical assistance of the sacred lunar feminine, Ms. Pussy Galore and her Flying Circus.  The color red or rubedo symbolizes completion of the alchemical process, the Magnum Opus, or the finality of the Great Work.  The color red is noticeably absent from the film Goldfinger because, in the end, Operation Grand Slam fails.  Earlier in the film, when Goldfinger is planning his Fort Knox break-in, he seeks financial backing from Chicago and New York gangsters one of which is named Napoleon Solo.[111] Solo is ultimately killed by Oddjob for backing out of Operation Grand Slam by being crushed to death in an automotive junkyard.  The name Napoleon Solo was used, with Fleming’s blessing, as the name of the main protagonist in the television show The Man from U.N.C.L.E.[112] which was a small screen version of the Bond adventures.

The name of the villain Hugo Drax (Michael Lonsdale) also conceals esoteric symbolism.  Drax is the antagonist in Moonraker (1979) which opens with 007 investigating the theft of a space shuttle. This leads Bond to Hugo Drax who is the owner of the shuttle’s manufacturing firm. Along with space scientist Dr. Holly Goodhead, Bond follows the trail from California to Venice, Rio de Janeiro, the Amazon Rainforest, and finally into outer space to prevent a plot to wipe out the world population and to re-create humanity with a master race. This plot parallels the Bond film The Spy Who Loved Me, the tenth book in the James Bond series, though Spy does not contain any elements of the novel’s plot.  The Spy Who Loved Me (1977) movie storyline involves a reclusive megalomaniac named Karl Stromsburg (Curt Jurgens) who plans to destroy the world and create a new civilization under the sea.  Bond teams up with a Russian agent Anya Amasova (Barbara Bach) to stop Stromberg. Likewise the novel Moonraker involves Drax trying to wipe out London with a nuclear weapon and has nothing to do with him trying to repopulate earth with a Nazi-like blonde haired, blued eyed master race.  Bond, as he does in all his adventures, frustrates Drax’s plan.  The name Drax (or Drache) derives from Draco meaning dragon in Latin.  The name Drax also likely stems from the Romanian Dracul[113] meaning dragon or devil hence the name of Bram Stoker’s vampire Dracula first published in 1897. Hugo’s surmane conforms with dualism - in the Bond stories as good vs. evil - epitomized by the English legend of St. George slaying the Dragon or Drax.  On good versus evil or light against dark,

“The concept of Light and Darkness, when discussed within

the esoteric, religious, or philosophical sense is not generally

taken to mean physical illumination versus that of non-

physical illumination; creating a source of producing light

to illuminate the dark void whereby one can ‘see his way.’

The difference between light and darkness is also represented

as good and evil, positive and negative, right vs.

wrong, purity and innocence, taint and vulgarity

amongst other examples.”[114]

On this Albert Pike explains, “The belief in dualism in some shape, was universal.  Those who held that everything emanated from God, aspired to God, and re-entered into God, believed that, among those emanations were two adverse Principles, of Light and Darkness, Good and Evil.”[115]  James Bond has been appointed to The Most Distinguished Order of Saint Michael and Saint George allegorizing the noble and chivalrous St. George (cf. Horus) who slays the evil dragon (cf. Set) or Hugo Drax in Moonraker.  This Gnostic dualism - good against evil, hero against demiurge - is personified by Bond who is the heroic Jungian archetype.  Bond is citrinitas or the sun who combats diabolical “dragons” or darkness personified.  Whether their names be Ernst Stavro Blofeld, Auric Goldfinger, Emilio Largo, whose souped-up yacht Disco Volante means “flying saucer”; Hugo Drax, Mr. Big (Buonapart Ignace Gallia), or Hector Gonzales they all typify the villain archetype.  Bond’s antagonists are earthly Demiurges who want to mold the world to into reflections of their shadow-selves; Bond always stops them.  In Fleming’s novel Goldfinger, the St. George (cf. Horus) against the dragon (cf. Typhon/Set) motif is categorically mentioned, “Bond sighed wearily. Once more into the breach, dear friend! This time it really was St. George and the Dragon. And St. George had better get a move on and do something.”[116]  Goldfinger and Moonraker aside, Bond battling a real-life fire breathing dragon can be found in both the novel and film Dr. No (1962).

Dr. No is the villain of the novel and film of the same name; in the movie Dr. Julius No was portrayed by Joseph Wiseman (1918-2009).  His surname, No, obviously represents the pinnacle of negative energy and dualistically contradicts Bond the positive hero.  In the film James Bond is sent to Jamaica to secretly discover the circumstances surrounding the mysterious death of fellow British agent John Strangways.  Bond’s investigation leads him to the underground base of Dr. Julius No who is plotting to disrupt an American spacecraft launch with a radio beam type weapon.  No’s private island named Crab Key is guarded by a fearsome fire breathing dragon according to the Jamaican locals.  The name Crab Key is a reference to the Tropic of Cancer since the house of Cancer is emblematized by a crab; the Tropic of Cancer runs through the Caribbean where the story is naturally set. The fire breathing dragon turns out to be a flame-throwing armored swamp buggy implemented by Dr. No to keep away trespassers.  Bond disables the mechanical “dragon” only after it incinerates Bond’s associate Quarrel (John Kitzmiller, 1913-1965).  Bond has dinner with Dr. No who accuses No of working for the East.  This mirrors Dennis Wheatley’s spymaster Gregory Sallust having dinner with Hermann Goering; Julius No is second-in-command to Blofeld echoing Hermann Goering who was second-in-command to Adolf Hitler.  During the repast Dr. No informs Bond that he is a covert black operator working for SPECTRE.  SPECTRE’s plan is world domination and it is headed by the epitome of a Demiurge-like manipulator, Ernst Stavro Blofeld.  Blofeld in turn mirrors Adam “Spartacus” Weishaupt’s (1748-1830) grand design of the Masonically nuanced Illuminati which is the transformation of the world into a perfected Masonic Temple or a one world government - a New World Order - outwardly democratic yet inwardly ruled by an occult theocracy.[117]  Bond neutralizes Dr. No’s plan with the assistance of Honeychile Rider (Ursula Andress) representing another dualistic element that predominates the Bond stories: the unification of male and female, sun and moon, Osiris and Isis, and Romeo and Juliet is more commonly known as the alchemical wedding.

The unity of male and female, sun and moon, citrinitas and albedo, Apollo and Diana, Jesus the sun and Mary Magdalene as Venus or Mary Lucifera, is sublime Gnostic perfection.  In the Mystery Tradition this merger is most often referred to as the alchemical wedding.  In Fleming’s stories this sacred unification always defeats evil: Bond the sun unites alchemically and sexually with Sophia, the moon or the “Bond Girl”, allowing Bond to perfect a form of ascensio allowing him his defeat the Demiurge-like nemesis.  On this esoteric philosophy we again turn to Albert Pike who elucidates, “The All-embracing Wisdom, issuing and shining from the Most Holy Ancient, shines not otherwise than as male and female. Wisdom as the Father, Intelligence the Mother, are in equilibrium as male and female, and they are conjoined, and one shines in the other. Then they generate, and are expanded in Truth.  Then the two are the Perfection of all things, when they are coupled, and when the Son is in them, the summary of all things is in one.”[118]  On this doctrine Masonic philosopher Manly Palmer Hall concurs, “From an ethical standpoint, the young King and Queen resurrected at the summit of the tower and ensouled by Divine Life represent the forces of Intelligence and Love which must ultimately guide society.  Intelligence and Love are the two great ethical luminaries of the world and correspond to enlightened spirit and regenerated body.”[119]  Thereby, “….This Queen is not a separate deity, but rather a mode of God’s divine presence. Simply put when God is close to us as individuals or as a community, we can experience Him as His Immanence that we experience as female.”[120]  In sum the unity of male and female is understood as the divine triumphing over darkness and evil.  In the Fleming adventures it is James Bond, the dominate solar male or kingly archetype who inevitable discovers the sacred feminine, Sophia, intelligence or the wise lunar queen.  Bond always encounters the female resulting in a sexually connection symbolizing the unification of Intelligence and Love thereby equipping Bond with the alchemical divine presence[121] or godhead enabling him to defeat his opponent.  In this way James Bond esoterically and metaphorically becomes a luminous Gnostic initiate while the “Bond Girl” has a name that both conceals and reveals female sexuality and energy.

For example, the name Pussy Galore from Goldfinger contains double meaning: abundance of vagina or too many cats since in the novel she is a lesbian who chiefs an all lesbian troupe of trapeze artists who moonlight as cat burglars.  In the film Pussy charges an aerial flying circus with her pilots and protégées all wearing a solar golden icon on their jumpsuits over their left breasts symbolizing their allegiance to Auric Goldfinger.  Dominetta “Domino” Vitali[122]  from Thunderball (1965) name means vital and vigorous dominatrix.  Honeychile Rider, from Dr. No, name is a double entendre for the sexual position of the woman riding on top.  Vesper Lynd (Ursula Andress, Eva Green) from Casino Royale (1967, 2006) is a metaphoric lunar reference since her first name literally means night; Mary Goodnight (Britt Eckland) from The Man with the Golden Gun (1974) is more female lunar symbolism which serves to counteract the malefactor Francisco Scaramanga’s (Christopher Lee) phallic solar or golden pistol.  In The Man with the Golden Gun, Bond pursues a device known as the Solex Agitator which can harness the power of the sun.  The handle of circus owner and jewel smuggler Octopussy[123] is a bastardization of the word octopus with a clitorial alternative meaning.  The female lead Tiffany Case (Jill St. John) from Diamonds are Forever (1971) name means chastity belt: her first name Tiffany implies Tiffany & Co. the famed silverware device corporation[124] while her last name Case insinuates containment and confinement.  Live and Let Die’s celibate Solitaire (Jane Seymore) is so nicknamed because she is a chaste, beautiful virgin who intentionally shuns men.  She reads Tarot cards sequestered repudiating sexual congress fearing that intercourse will diminish the effectiveness of her black magic and voodoos.[125]  The moniker Solitaire (real name Simone Latrelle) thus alludes to the solitary act of masturbation.  Finally is Japanese Kissy Suzuki (Mie Hama) from You Only Live Twice (1967) whose first name is the sensual act of kissing.  These female characters all appear in the films while some Bond movies depict feminine leads with sexual names that do not incarnate in the novels.  For example, Dr. Holly Goodhead (Lois Chiles) from Moonraker surname is oral copulation.  Plenty O’Toole (Lana Wood) from Diamonds are Forever (1971) name means copious vagina and Xenia Onatopp (Famke Janssen) from GoldenEye (1995) name has the exact same meaning as Honeychile Rider from Dr. No.  Although not a sexual name, the androgynous female henchwoman in the film A View to a Kill (1985) bears the handle May Day played by Grace Jones.  This name is an concealed nexus to the Illuminati which was founded on May 1, 1776, the first of May is called “May Day”.  May Day’s boss is Chief Executive Officer of Zorin Industries who is the evil and sadistic Max Zorin portrayed by Christopher Walken.  His plan is to destroy his competition in Silicon Valley by triggering a massive earthquake in the San Andreas Fault at high tide causing the valley to flood.  Such a disaster would effectively wipe out Zorin’s competition in the world leaving him as the sole supplier of microchips as well as killing millions residing in the valley.   This scheme would leave Zorin as de-facto world authority in the developing computer software industry and echoes the founder of the Illuminati Adam Weishaupt’s plan for world domination although Zorin’s motivations are purely economic.  James Bond seduces May Day and with her assistance counters Zorin’s plan.  The feminine represents the opposite of the male hence Fleming is esoterically presenting personages and concepts relating to Manichean Gnostic dualism and ther perfection of the self.  in the case of the Bond stories, in a more overt sexual nature.  Bond and the “Bond Girl” (cf. Sophia) are the sun and moon thus united, male and female, intelligence and love, Isis and Osiris that when fused topple the Demiurge villains that plague the Bond universe.  Negative and malignant aspects of dualism exist as well and are presented in 2010’s Black Swan to be analyzed in Chapter XI.

The female lead in Live and Let Die, Solitaire is a Tarot card expert and dabbler in the  occult and voodoo.  She utilizes both the Rider-Waite Tarot deck and a deck featuring artwork by illustrator Fergus Hall known as the Tarot of the Witches to council drug lord and Bokor Mr. Big portrayed by Yaphet Kotto.  Bokors in the religion of voodoo are sorcerers or houngan (priests) or mambo (priestesses) for hire that are said to serve the Loa (voodoo spirits) with both hands meaning that they practice both dark and light magic.  Solitaire uses the Tarot to foretell Bond’s arrival and subsequent interference with Mr. Big’s nefarious plans.  Solitaire turns over the Tarot cards and provides the following interpretation: Knight of Wands, “A man comes”; Six of Swords, “He travels quickly”; Knight of Swords, “He has purpose”; Six of Wands, “He will oppose”; The Tower (Major Arcana Card XVI), “He brings violence and destruction”; all are accurate. When Solitaire initially meets Bond there are three Tarot cards on the table representing her and her mystical abilities.  They are the Moon (Card XVIII) symbolizing the mysteries of divine femininity (cf. lunar goddess Artemis or Diana) that provides insight and intuition by way of sorcery and witchcraft.[126] Next is the High Priestess (Major Arcana Card II) featuring the virgin Isis representing Solitaire’s own virginity, and lastly the Queen of Cups symbolizes a psychic counselor representing her advisory role to Mr. Big.  These cards face Solitaire but the viewer of the film sees them upside down or reversed representing Solitaire’s shadow self. The Moon reversed represents deception symbolizing Solitaire’s nebulous allegiance which slowly shifts from Mr. Big to James Bond.

The High Priestess reversed represents sexual frustration stemming from Solitaire’s virginity and celibacy.  The Queen of Cups reversed emblematizes villainy and someone not be trusted; at the start of the film she is allied with the Mr. Big only to turn against him by allying with the MI6 agent.  Bond says he recognizes the nexus between her and the High Priestess card causing her to instruct Bond to “pick a card.”  Bond turns over the Fool or zero card eliciting her to say, “You have found yourself” referring to Bond himself.  After Mr. Big enters and leaves, she has Bond pick another card foretelling his future and we see Card VI, the Lovers, foreshadowing the inevitable.  In the film, once Bond and Solitaire sleep together she loses her ability to read the Tarot causing Mr. Big to turn her over to Baron Samedi for sacrifice since she is now of no use to him.  The nefarious Baron, Loa of the Dead, is usually depicted with a top hat, black tuxedo or dinner jacket, dark glasses, and cotton plugs in the nostrils as if to resemble a corpse dressed and prepared for Haitian burial.  He has a white skull-like face and speaks in a nasal voice like he does in the film.  Baron Samedi burns the High Priestess Card allegorizing that Solitaire has forfeited her occult powers since she has lost her virginity.  He next flips over the Death Card (XIII) symbolizing Solitaire’s impending demise.  In the end Bond rescues Solitaire defeating the villainous Mr. Big and Baron Samedi which is a recurring pattern in the Bond stories now to be discussed.

*      *       *       *       *

The Bond adventures, at least in the films, follow the same basic plotline or formula.  At the beginning, Bond is assigned to investigate the miscreant dealings of an arch antagonist.  Bond next meets with his Quartermaster (“Q”) to retrieve a new gadget that he has invented.  Q has been played by six actors, most famously Desmond Llewlyn (1914-1999).  Bond discovers the villain and his diabolical plot; Bond then meets the “Bond Girl”, they sexually unite and the bad-guy and his henchmen are destroyed or at least foiled.  This pattern starts with James Bond being given his assignment by his MI6 boss known simply as “M”.  Ian Fleming based much of M’s character on Rear Admiral John Godfrey (1888-1970) who was Fleming’s superior in Naval Intelligence Division during World War II.  Fleming’s third Bond novel, Moonraker, establishes M’s initials as “M**** M*******” and his first name is subsequently revealed to be Miles.  In The Man with the Golden Gun, M’s full identity is revealed as Vice Admiral Sir Miles Messervy KCMG;[127] Messervy had been appointed to be head of MI6 after his predecessor had been assassinated at his desk.[128]  Esoterically the letter M is thirteenth letter of the alphabet.  In the Mystery Tradition the number thirteen represents leadership symbolized by the sun ruling over the twelve houses of the zodiac.  Zodiac means circle of animals in Greek and is a circle of twelve 30° divisions of celestial longitude that are centered upon the ecliptic (earth’s orbit around the sun); the apparent path of the sun across the celestial sphere over the course of the year.  This hidden symbolism is appropriate because M is Bond’s commander within MI6.  Dr. Robert Hierominus, in his book Founding Fathers, Secret Societies writes, “….He cites Clio Hogenraad’s Names and Numbers: Their Powers and Significance (1915) to show the ancient and secret societies linked the 13 to rebirth and regeneration and considered it to bring luck. ‘It is the number of evolution and progress…a sacred number and a messenger from another world.’”[129]  This description dovetails M perfectly.  M symbolizes the solar ruler who governs and moderates Bond; Bond is often lucky or fortuitous during his adventures especially at gaming tables and with the ladies.  It is M who allegorically rebirths or regenerates Bond by assigning him new missions and covert operations.  Interestingly M’s secretary is the economically named Miss Moneypenny originally played by Lois Maxwell (1927-2007).  Having a base, non-sexual, monetary surname she is the only reoccurring female to have a platonic relationship with James Bond.

After being given a mission by M, Bond next visits his Quartermaster who gives him incredible gadgets to help him complete M’s assignment. These gizmos vary from everything from a watch that shoots poisoned tipped darts, an x-ray safe-cracking device concealed within a cigarette case, ski poles that shoot .30 caliber rounds, a Rolex watch with a laser beam cutting tool, and of course the most famous of all: an Aston Martin DB5.  The Aston Martin is equipped with revolving license plates, spinner hubcaps that doubled as tire slashers, passenger side ejector seat, rear bulletproof shield, forward machine guns concealed behind the headlights, and rearward defenses including smoke screen and oil slick sprayers.  Q is the developer of these wonders personifying the wise Hellenistic sage and god of magic Thoth Hermes Mercurius Tresmigistus.  Both Egyptian Thoth and Greek Hermes (the Roman Mercury) were gods of writing and of magic in their respective cultures. Thus, the Greek god of interpretive communication was combined with the Egyptian god of wisdom as a patron of astrology and alchemy.  Trismegistus, as author of the Corpus Hermeticum (a/k/a The Divine Pymander) which visits such topics Celestial Magic and Ceremonial and Religious Magic.  His famed Emerald Tablet gave rise to alchemy and his Pymander heavily influenced Renaissance cabalists and magicians such as John Dee, Giovanni Pico della Mirandola (1463-1494), Marsilio Ficino (1433-1499), Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa (1486-1535), and Giordano Bruno (1548-1600).  Being the magical sage archetype, Q is a hermit (deriving from the word Hermes), an eccentric, and he keeper and bringer of secrets and wisdom.  In the James Bond saga, Q’s occult and arcane wisdom takes physical form becoming a magical piece of spycraft.  In the Bond novels and films it is Q who always equips Bond with a wizardly gadget of his own creation that assists Bond in defeating his flamboyant nemesis.  In other words, Q provides wisdom to Bond that enables him to gain knowledge of his enemy’s activities that allows 007 to uncover a weakness in their plan and exploit it.  Bond, once unified with Sophia, defeats the cinematic bad guy.  Hermes Trismegistus also appears as Ben “Obi-Wan” Kenobi in Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope and Morpheus in the Matrix Trilogy to be analyzed in Chapters VIII and IX; Chapter XII is titled Thoth Hermes Mercurius Trismegistus and Gnosticism in Popular Culture.

There is one last numerological symbolism to be analyzed.  In Fleming’s novel You Only Live Twice, James Bond is given a new code number.  After the wedding-day murder of his wife Tracy in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, Bond begins to let his life slide, drinking and gambling heavily, making mistakes and turning up late for work.  M had been planning to dismiss Bond but instead decides to give him a last-chance opportunity to redeem himself by assigning him to the diplomatic branch of the organization.  Bond is re-numbered 7777 and given an impossible mission: convincing the head of Japan’s secret intelligence service, Tiger Tanaka  to share information received through the Magic 44 cipher machine which gives the Japanese access to Soviet radio transmissions.  In exchange, the Secret Service will allow the Japanese access to one of their own information sources.  The four number sevens suggest the seventh sephirot of the Kabbalah’s Tree of Life called Netzach or Netsach.  Its symbolism conforms perfectly with James Bond’s character traits and of elements of dualism which dominate the James Bond spy stories.  Netsach is,

“….the perfect Success, which, with the Deity, to Whom

the Future is present, attends, and to His creatures is to result,

from the plan of Equilibrium everywhere adopted by Him.

It is the reconciliation of Light and Darkness, Good and

Evil, Free-will and Necessity,…It is the prevailing Wisdom

over accident; and it, in turn, both produces and is the

Glory and Laudation of the Great Infinite Contriver,

whose plan is thus Successful and Victorious.”[130]

Bond’s clever cloak and dagger plan is always successful and victorious since Bond dualistically reconciles good with evil, light with darkness, male and female; the hero triumphs over the villain embodying the Netzach sephirot.  7777 (and even 007) also symbolizes the seventh card of the Tarot of the Major Arcana, the Chariot.  On its most profane level, it implies war, a struggle, and an eventual, hard-won victory over an enemy allegorizing Bond’s battles with his larger than life antagonists. The traits associated with this card correspond to James Bond superlatively: conquest, honor, victory, energy, egocentrism, self-confidence, willpower, self-assertion, success, bravery, and pride. The black and white sphinxes suggest Gnostic themes of dualism exemplifying male and female, good against evil, wisdom contrasted with knowledge, and Fleming’s archetypical characters in general.

This chapter concludes with one final element relating to dualism.  It involves the maiden name of James Bond’s deceased wife.  Teresa “Tracy” Bond, born Teresa Draco (also known as the Contessa Teresa di Vicenzo), marries Bond in both the novel and film On Her Majesty’s Secret Service.  Tragedy strikes on their wedding day when Ernst Stavro Blofeld (Telly Savalas, 1922-1994) and his henchwoman Irma Bunt (Ilse Steppat, 1917-9169) kill Tracy (Diana Rigg) in a drive-by shooting getting revenge on 007.  Tracy’s maiden name is Draco which means dragon.  Her surname comes from her villainous father, Marc-Ange Draco (Gabriele Ferzetti) who is the head of the largest crime syndicate in Europe called Union Corse based out of Corsica.  However, unlike organizations like SPECTRE, Union Corse runs a number of legitimate businesses in areas such as agriculture and construction.  The mergence or marriage of a dragon or Draco (cf. Typhon/Set) with a hero or St. George (cf. Horus) is a paradox that cannot stand.  The alchemical unification of darkness with light cannot exist thus the marriage Tracy and Bond symbolizes a “reversed alchemical wedding” which is impossible.  As such Tracy is killed by Bond’s prime adversary Blofeld immediately after their wedding ceremony, the marriage is never consummated.  In this case the unity of male and female is thwarted, dualism unsuccessful, Draco is murdered by Blofeld, a dragon slayed by another dragon.

Chapter VII

God is Dead! Satan Lives!

The Year is One!

Horror Movie Symbolism

“I watched him for fifteen years, sitting in a room,

staring at a wall, not seeing the wall,

looking past the wall - looking at this night,

inhumanly patient, waiting for some secret, silent alarm

to trigger him off. Death has come to your little town

sheriff. Now you can either ignore it,

or you can help me to stop it.”

- Dr. Samuel Loomis, Halloween, 1978.

“I will come as a demon.” - Alfredo,

Masque of the Red Death, 1964.

“You can do nothing against the Master. Stop

holy man! …Back, back holy man, back shaman,

back priest! …The Master wants

you. Throw away your cross, face

the Master. Your faith against his faith.

Could you do that? Is your faith enough?

Then do it. …Throw away the cross.

Face the Master! Faith against faith.”

- Richard K. Straker, Salem’s Lot, 1979.

“Some call it ‘Hallowmass,’ some ‘All Saints Day’

but most call it ‘Halloween’.”

- Criswell, Criswell’s Forbidden Predictions

Based on Nostradamus and The Tarot, 1972.

“Look, the sacred spells which protect the soul

in its journey to the underworld have been chipped

off the coffin. So Imhotep was sentenced to death

not only in this world, but in the next.”

- Dr. Muller, The Mummy, 1932.

“REDRUM! REDRUM!” - Danny Torrance,

The Shining, 1980

This chapter examines horror movie symbolism and in some cases the legends,  histories, and superstitions that inspired them.  Some of horror’s most iconic figures are based on historical people.  For example, earlier in this book it was revealed that the characters of Mocata from The Devil Rides Out and Daryl Van Horne from The Witches of Eastwick are personifications of real life ceremonial magician Aleister Crowley.  Crowley also appears in Universal’s 1934 The Black Cat as Satanic ritualist Hjalmar Poelzig portrayed by Boris Karloff (1887-1969).   Poelzig, who keeps preserved dead women on permanent display inside glass cases, carries a black cat around his house with him while surveying these morbid curios.  Poelzig’s black cat is a familiar which is a demon possessed creature that performs occult errands for its master.  The cat is also an allusion to Edgar Allan Poe’s The Black Cat poem first published in 1843.  Poelzig is a “man of the world” who, like Crowley, has traveled to the United States and Spain and is an expert occultist and ceremonial magician.  Poelzig leads a coven that plans a Satanic ritualistic sacrifice during the Dark of the Moon which appears in a grimoire called Rites of Lucifer that Poelzig keeps bedside.  Crowley is also personified in Roman Polanski’s Rosemary’s Baby (1968) which is based upon Ira Levine’s novel of the same name.  In the novel and film the antagonist Roman Castevet - real name Steven Marcato - commands a New York based Satanic coven whose plan is to summon the Devil and have him impregnate their new neighbor Rosemary Woodhouse (Mia Farrow) so she will begat the Antichrist.  Rosemary and her husband are new tenants to the Bramford apartment house that is home to witches who answer to Marcato; the name Roman Castevet is an anagram for his real name Steven Marcato.  Marcato is the son of Satanic warlock Adrian Marcato who like his son, conjured the Devil in the Bramford during the late nineteenth century placing a dark cloud over the Bramford causing it have a menacing and foreboding reputation.  The Bramford, in reality, is the Dakota which is New York City’s brooding gothic dwelling at 72nd street and Central Park West.  Former Beatle John Lennon lived there; on December 8th, 1980 he was fatally shot by Mark David Chapman while entering the apartment complex.  Stephen Marcato performs a Black Mass styled ritual summoning Satan who rapes a drugged Rosemary thus impregnating her.  Historically, a Black Mass was carried out at midnight in a ruined church with a renegade priest officiating.  His assistants were harlots and the Holy Eucharist was befouled with human excrement.  He wears a black surplice cut in three points embroidered with an inverted cross or goat’s head or Baphomet.  Black candles are burned; in Levin’s novel Rosemary is lent black candles by Roman’s wife Minnie when the power in the Bramford goes out (cf. 9 November 1965 otherwise known as the Great Northeast Blackout).  Black candles are exclusively used in sabbats or esbats which are assemblies of witches and left-hand path magicians who perform Satanic rituals, and cursing sorcery.[131]  Pitch candles are emblems of darkness said to be carried and adored by the Devil himself since their radiance gives off sabbatical unholy light.  Hundreds of black candles can be viewed in the film The Ninth Gate (1999) burning outside of the French estate of Liana de Saint Martin-Telfer shortly before she presides over a congregation of the Order of the Silver Serpent, a secret society styled witches coven.  The holy water of the Black Mass must have been used to drown a newly born un-baptized bastard; the alter is decorated with bats, toads, and owls which are totems of the night along with other items of ill-omen.  Standing with the left foot forward the officiating priest or magician reads the Roman Catholic Mass backwards, a crucifix is then trampled and spit upon concluding with sexual perversions performed before the alter.  The Black Mass appears in literature; the protagonist of the Marquis de Sade’s (1740-1814) novel Justine: The Misfortunes of Virtue (1787) participates in a Black Mass.  Despite her ungodly activity in the Black Mass, Justine’s virginity remains un-violated.  The demonic sorcery of Steven Marcato and even his father Adrian (both played by Sidney Blackmer, 1895-1973) symbolizes Crowley’s hermetic magical workings which sometimes flirted with the diabolic.  Ira Levine pays homage to British occult author and spymaster Dennis Wheatley by naming his antagonist Marcato which phonetically parallels the Crowley-like Mocata from Wheatley’s The Devil Rides Out.

Members of Marcato’s coven toast one another exclaiming “Hail Satan” which brings to mind the most infamous witches coven in history: England’s Hellfire Club also known as the Monks of Medmenham Abbey. The Hellfire was a quasi-Satanic secret society that practiced debauchery, drunkenness, womanizing, and obscene rites designed to mock the orthodoxy of the Abrahamic Faiths.  Founded by Sir Francis Dashwood (1708-1781) circa 1749, Medmenham Abbey’s members included the John Montagu the Earl of Sandwich (1718-1792), John Wilkes (1725-1797), satirist Charles Churchill (1732-1764), and politician Thomas Potter (1718-1759) who was son of the Archbishop of Canterbury.  Parodying Christ’s twelve disciples, these four men joined with eight others and Dashwood - thus making the number 13 - in a Superior Order of the Hellfire Club.  The members met in caverns known as The Hellfire Caves beneath Dashwood’s West Wycombe estate.  The club’s motto was Fay ce que voudras (“Do what you will” of Rabelais) which was inscribed above a doorway.  In an apsidal sanctuary of the chapel the Eucharist of Hell was celebrated and the chapel itself was formally dedicated to Satan.[132]  What exactly went on in this inner sanctum of the abbey was never known for sure and no one but its select members were ever allowed inside. The members were all bound to total secrecy since if any of their vile rituals had become common knowledge, their lives and careers would have been ruined.[133]  Dr. Benjamin Franklin can also be counted among Hellfire’s ranks.

Horror films are replete with concealed esoterica of this nature.  Yet another example of this veiled allegory can be found in 1987’s Angel Heart[134] surrounding the character of Ethan Krusemark (Stocker Fontelieu, 1923-2009).  Krusemark is under the aegis of the Price of Darkness while his daughter Margaret (Charlotte Rampling) reads Tarot Cards and dabbles in witchcraft and black magic.  She possesses a Hand of Glory which is a preserved mummified hand cut from a hanged murderer granting invisibility to its owner and the ability to open any lock it comes upon.  Once removed from the corpse the hand was either dried in an oven with vervain, an herb believed to repel demons, or laid out to dry in the sun during the Dog Days of August when Sirius is exalted.[135]  The Hand of Glory was an item wielded by both black magicians and thieves.  Lighting the wicks on the fingers or the tips of the fingers themselves allegedly put people to sleep or render them speechless.  The wicks were made of the hanged man’s hair according to European folklore; once lit the Hand could only be extinguished by dousing it with milk.  The Hand of Glory’s hypnotic power was spoke of by the Jesuit demonologist Martin del Rio (1551-1608) in his commentary Disquisitionum Magicarum (1599-1600) which was used as a reference book during the Salem Witch Trials of 1692.  The Hand of Glory itself is a living serpent (cf. wisdom) and is wholly in accordance with the genius of Black Magic.[136]  Echoing this diabolical iconography Ethan Krusemark’s alias is “Edward Kelley” thereby affiliating himself with the historical Edward Kelley who, along with Dr. John Dee, performed necromancy and developed a system of conjuring called Enochian.  When questioned Ethan Krusemark emphatically states, “I was Edward Kelley,” implying reincarnation; it is not coincidence that both men share the initials “E.K”.  Dee and Kelley’s Enochian Magic involves invoking demons and angels through occult ceremonies, the use of dark mirrors, enchanted cubes, a secret language, and mysterious incantations.  Lewis Carroll (1832-1898, born Charles Lutwidge Dodgson) secretly pays homage to Kelly’s partner Dr. John Dee in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865) when Alice encounters three anthropomorphized playing cards.  Fearing decapitation by the Queen of Hearts, the cards paint white roses on the “rose tree” crimson; it is not a rose bush but a rose tree.   According to the story, the cards paint the roses’ red because the Queen of Hearts detests white roses, yet there is a concealed meaning.  Dr. John Dee and Lewis Carroll were mathematicians who studied occult philosophies while the latter was a member of the Society for Psychical Research which investigated psychic ability, the paranormal, the mysterious, and extra sensory perception (ESP).  Dr. Dee would have been well known to Carroll as would Dee’s mathematical theories and arcane theology.  Concurrently and esoterically the “rose tree” in the Queen of Hearts’ garden symbolizes the cabalistic (or kabbalistic) Sephirotic Tree of Wisdom; the painting of white roses to red cryptically initiates Alice in the Mystery Tradition and links Dee to Spencer’s Rosicrucian inspired Red Cross Knight from The Faerie Queene and, by default, to Christian Cabala.  In other words, the red rose is an emblem of Ancient Mysteries, self consciousness, Christian Cabala, and John Dee who was likely the writer of two of the Rosicrucian (“Rose Cross”) manifestos.  The red rose becomes a symbol of Alice’s gnosis and occult revelation; this esoterica is best exemplified with the phrase, “He who attempts to penetrate into the Rose Garden of the Philosophers without the key resembles a man who would walk without feet,” adroitly stated by Michael Maier (1568-1622), Atalanta Fugiens, Oppenheim, De Bry, 1618, emblem XXVII.  Maier served as an alchemical-occult advisor to Holy Roman Emperor Rudolf II (1552-1612) and was well versed in Rosicrucianism.  The red rose symbolizes the sublime initiate (or parfait) while the white rose emblematizes the profane and vile multitude.  Ergo the Fool or zero card of the Tarot proudly holds aloft a white rose signifying his exoteric folly and wanton ignorance.  Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass (1871) allegorizes initiatory concepts and divine epiphany relating to the Ancient Mysteries, Gnosticism, and Rosicrucianism.  Occult ideas of dualism, Sophia, the sacred feminine, a sacred tree, and the obtaining of esoteric revelation will be further examined in Chapter XI.  Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland has been transformed into many animated features and live action films the most recent being 2010’s Alice in Wonderland directed by Tim Burton featuring Johnny Depp as the Mad Hatter, Anne Hathaway as the White Queen, Mia Wasikowska as Alice, and Helena Bonham Carter as the Red Queen.

The rose, as an arcane emblem, can also be witnessed in 1964’s The Masque of the Red Death where a hooded Red Death magically changes a white rose to red heralding the death of the evil Prince Prospero (Vincent Price, 1911-1993).  The red rose is a esoteric symbol of the coming red death which is a bubonic plague-like affliction that turns the victim red causing agonizing death symbolizing Prospero’s downfall.  The Red Death persona gives the red rose to an old crone calling her “bread mother” which is a veiled reference to the constellation Virgo and the sheaf of wheat that she carries.  He instructs the old woman to return to the village and with the red rose as an emblem of their deliverance.  Since the constellation Virgo mysterious births the Piscean sun god,  the red rose is a benevolent symbol announcing the downfall of Prince Prospero, light against darkness, or good overcoming evil.

The few horror films bold enough to depict the threshold between darkness and light mostly come from the classic movie age.  One immediately thinks of this in regard of Tod Browning’s Dracula (1931),  James Whale’s Frankenstein (1931),  and George Waggner’s The Wolf Man (1941) all produced by Universal Pictures.  Within these films the boundaries between good and evil, right and wrong are blurred.  There are only shades of gray some darker than others.  Thus this chapter opens by exploring vampire legends and lore stemming from Bram Stoker’s Dracula.  Stoker, like Carroll, was heavily influenced by the hermetic sciences while Dracula films and vampire movies have been a main stay in Hollywood since its inception.  The legends and history surrounding Dracula must first be explored in order to understand vampire lore and its mystical symbolisms.

Vlad the Impaler: The History of Dracula and Vampire Symbolism

Bram Stoker based his vampire Dracula on historical figure Vlad III, Prince of Wallachia (1431-1476) dubbed “Vlad Tepes” or “Vlad the Impaler” posthumously. His father, Vlad II Dracul, was a member of the Order of the Dragon (Dracul) which was formed to protect Christianity in Eastern Europe from Islamic encroachment.  His son Vlad III was thus “Son of the Dragon” or “Dracula”.  Dracula historians Raymond T. McNally and Radu Florescu provide the following,

“So the vampire Dracula first appears in Bram Stoker’s novel. Published in 1897, Dracula is as popular now as when it was written. Millions not only have read it but have seen it at the cinema. Among the filmed versions are Nosferatu, made with Max Schreck in 1922, Dracula with Bela Lugosi in 1931, and Horror of Dracula with Christopher Lee in 1958.

….I re-read Stoker’s Dracula, and noted that not only this novel but almost all of the Dracula films are set in Transylvania.  At first, like many Americans, I assumed that this was some mythical place …I found out that Transylvania is real - a province that belonged to Hungary for almost a thousand years and that now is part of modern Romania.  In Stoker’s novel there were some fairly detailed descriptions of the towns Cluj and Bistrita, and the Borgo Pass in the Carpathian mountains.

….Eventually I read an authentic late 15th century Slavic manuscript, in an archive in Leningrad, which described the deeds of a Wallachian ruler named Dracula. ….I took up the study of the Romanian language and traveled directly to the very homeland of Dracula to see what more I could discover about this mysterious man and legend.  There, underlying the local traditions, so I found, was an authentic human being fully as horrifying as the vampire of fiction and film - a 15th century prince who had been the subject of many horror stories even during his own lifetime; a ruler whose cruelties were committed on such a massive scale that his evil reputation reached beyond the grave to the firesides where generations of grandmothers warned little children: ‘Be good or Dracula will get you.’”[137]

Vlad III was a three-time Voivode (ruler) of Wallachia ruling primarily from 1456 to 1462 which was the period of the incipient Ottoman conquest of the Balkans, as such he spent much of his rule campaigning against the Ottoman Empire and its expansion.  As the cognomen “the Impaler” suggests his practice of impaling his enemies is central to his historical reputation.  During his lifetime his reputation for excessive cruelty spread abroad to Germany and elsewhere in Europe. The total number of his victims is estimated between 40,000 and 100,000.  Vlad was called Tepes - the Impaler - only after his death in 1476 and the name was given to him by his enemies circa 1550.  Impalement was considered a particularly gruesome form of execution with the victim impaled on a sharp wooden stake.  Vlad was said to especially delight in mass executions where several victims were impaled at once with their stakes hoisted upright. As they hung suspended above the ground, the weight of their bodies would slowly drag them downwards, causing the sharpened end of the stake to pierce their internal organs causing a slow and painful death.  In order to better enjoy these mass spectacles, Vlad Dracula routinely ordered a banquet table set up in front of his victims and would enjoy a leisurely supper amid the pitiful sights and sounds of the dying. At the same time that Vlad became notorious for his sadism yet respected by his subjects because of his fierce and unrelenting campaigns against the Turks.  It has been said that in 1462 Sultan Mehmed the Conqueror (1432-1481, a/k/a Mehmed II), himself noted for his own psychological warfare tactics, returned to Constantinople after being sickened by the sight of 20,000 impaled corpses outside Vlad’s capital of Târgoviste.  Dracula was revered as a warrior and a stern ruler who tolerated no crime against his loyal subjects; during his reign Vlad erected several monasteries perhaps as a symbolic penance.  He was a hero that was both worshiped and feared by his people.

The exact date of Vlad’s death is unknown, most likely around the end of December 1476, but it is known that he was dead by 10 January 1477. The exact location of his death is also unknown, but it would have been somewhere along the road between Bucharest and Giurgiu.  Vlad’s severed head was taken to Constantinople as a trophy and his body was buried unceremoniously by his Wallachian rival Basarab Laiota[138] possibly at Comana which is a monastery founded by Vlad in 1461.  Legends began to grow around Vlad III and are the primary source of vampire legend and lore found in Bram Stoker’s Dracula.

The vampire came into his fictional own during the flood of horror stories in the 19th century; Goethe, Gautier, and Baudelaire were all attracted to vampire tales.[139]  On the other end of the literarily spectrum were best-selling “penny dreadfuls” like Thomas Prest’s Varney the Vampire of 1847.

But dominating the vampire market - and incidentally forming the lore surrounding the vampire - was the inimitable Dracula by Irish author Bram Stoker.  Stoker himself was fascinated by the occult being an initiate of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn.  The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn was a magical society active in Great Britain during the late 19th and early 20th centuries which practiced theurgy, mysticism, astrology, and spiritual development.  It has been one of the largest single influences on 20th century Western occultism.  Concepts of magic and ritual at the center of contemporary traditions, such as Wicca and Crowley’s Thelema, were inspired by the Golden Dawn.  Stoker, like James Bond author Ian Fleming, was fully aware of the occult and esoteric mythology, philosophy, and its related symbolism.  For example, Stoker would have been versed with the symbolism of blood.  Called the “river of life,” blood is identified with the soul and is the vehicle that carries the vital energy of the universe through the body.  Blood that is let is believed to unleash supernatural power while sacrificial blood scattered on the earth regenerates crops.  The “blood of Christ” is drunk during the Eucharist to bring about Holy Communion while pacts with the Devil are always signed in blood according to legend.  Since a vampire is a member of the undead it needs to consume blood to survive, “The blood is the life,” quotes Dracula from Deuteronomy 12:33 in Stoker’s novel.  Dracula experts Raymond T. McNally and Radu Florescu impeccably cite vampire lore,

“In Eastern Europe, vampires are said to have two hearts, or two souls; since one heart, or one soul, never dies, the vampire remains undead.

Who can become a vampire? In Transylvania, criminals, bastards, witches, magicians, excommunicated people, those born with teeth or a caul, and unbaptized children. The seventh son of the seventh son is doomed to become a vampire.[140]

How can one detect a vampire? Any person who does not eat garlic or who expresses a distinct aversion to garlic is suspect.

Vampires sometimes strike people dumb. They can steal one’s beauty and strength, or milk from nursing mothers.

In Romania, peasants believe that the vampires and other spectres meet on St. Andrew’s Eve at a place where the cuckoo doesn’t sing and the dog does not bark.

How does one kill a dragon? St. George killed the dragon with a lance. One must impale the dragon, as one must impale the vampire.

Vampires are frightened by the light, so one must build a good fire to ward them off, and torches must be lit and placed outside the houses.

Even if you lock yourself up in your home, you are not safe from the vampire, since he can enter through chimneys and keyholes. Therefore, one must rub the chimney and keyholes with garlic, and the windows and doors as well. The farm animals must also be rubbed with garlic to protect them.

Crosses made from the thorns of wild roses are effective in keeping the vampire away.

Spread thorns or poppy seeds on the paths leading to the village from the churchyard. Since the vampire must stop to pick up every one of them he may be so delayed that he cannot reach the village before sunrise, when he must return to his grave.

Take a large black dog and paint an extra set of eyes on his forehead with white paint - this alienates vampires.

According to Orthodox Christian belief, the soul does not leave the body to enter the next world in forty days after the body is laid in the grave. Hence, the celebrations in Orthodox cemeteries forty days after the burial. Bodies were once disinterred between three to seven years after the burial and if decomposition was not complete a stake was driven through the heart of the corpse.

If a cat or another “evil” animal jumps or flies over someone’s dead body before it’s buried, or if the shadow of a man falls upon the corpse, the deceased may become a vampire.

If the dead body is reflected in a mirror, the reflection helps the spirit to leave the body and become a vampire.

One of the most common ways of locating a vampire was to choose a boy or a girl, young enough to be a virgin, and seat such a person on a horse of a solid color, all white, brown or black, which was also a virgin and had never stumbled.

The horse was led through the cemetery and over all of the graves. If it refused to pass over a grave, a vampire was thought to lie there.

Usually the tomb of vampires has one or more holes roughly the size through which a serpent could pass.

How to kill a vampire? The stake must be driven through the vampire’s body and into the earth in order to hold him securely in his grave.

The stake should be made from a wild rosebush, or an ash or asp tree. In some areas, red-hot iron rather that wood is used for the stake. The vampire’s body should be burned or else reburied at the crossroads.

If a vampire is not found and rendered harmless, it first kills all members of its immediate family, then starts on the other inhabitants of the village and its animals.

The vampire cannot stray from its grave too far since he must return to it at sunrise.

If not detected, the vampire climbs up into the belfry of the church and calls out the names of the villagers - who instantly die. Or, in some areas, the vampire rings the death-knell and all who hear it die on the spot.

If the vampire is allowed to go undetected for seven years, he can travel to another country or to a place where another language is spoken and become a human again. He or she can marry and have children, but they all become vampires when they die.”[141]

Although most inhabitants of modern day Romania do not consider that Vlad Dracula was a real life vampire, vampire lore as it exists today owes much to the 15th century prince.  Vlad III was referred to as Wütrich or bloodthirsty monster as well as berserker in 15th century German horror stories no doubt a result of his sadistic tortures and crimes.[142]

Vampire legends date back to ancient Egypt. Noted vampire folklorist and English Catholic priest Montague Summers (1880-1948) explains,

“…for the ancient Egyptians held that every man had his ka, his double, which when he died lived in the tomb with the body and was there visited by the khu, the spiritual body or soul which at death departed from the body, and although it might visit the body, could only be brought back from its habitation in heaven by the ceremonial performance of certain mystic rites. Yet from one point of view the soul was sufficiently material to partake of the funeral offerings which were brought to the tomb for the refreshment of the ka. One of the chief objects of these sepulchral oblations was to maintain the double in the tomb so that it should not be compelled to wander abroad in search of food. But, as in Assyria, unless the ka were bountifully supplied with food it would issue forth from the tomb and be driven to eat any offal or drink any brackish water it might find. The ka occupied a special part of the tomb, “the house of the ka,” and a priest called ‘the priest of the ka’ was appointed specially to minister to it therein. The ka snuffed up the sweet smell of incense which was very agreeable to it when this was burned on certain days each year with the offerings of flowers, herbs, meat and drink in all of which it took great delight. The ka also viewed with pleasure the various scenes which were sculptured or richly painted on the walls of the tomb. In fact it was not merely capable, but desirous of material consolations. It would appear even that in later times the khu was identified with the ka.”[143]

Egyptian mysticism was also an important component of Helena Blavatsky’s mystical Theosophical Society.  Madam Blavatsky and Theosophy’s symbolic nexus to the vampire legend, Dracula, and its Irish author Bram Stoker will now be analyzed.

The vampire and Dracula iconography centers around the all too common theme of light or good versus dark or evil.  This concept is rampant in the Star Wars and the Matrix films to be explained in the coming chapters.  Stoker’s Count Dracula, on a esoteric level, embodies and symbolizes both Madam Helena Blavatsky (1831-1891) and the Theosophy movement of the nineteenth century.  In 1875 Blavatsky and Henry Steel Olcott (1832-1907) established a research and publishing institute called the Theosophical Society.  Blavatsky defined Theosophy as the archaic wisdom-religion or the esoteric doctrines once known in every ancient country having claims to civilization.  Blavatsky’s research into the many different spiritual traditions of the world, Egyptian, Assyrian, Chaldean, and Babylonian led to the publication of what is now considered her magnum opus, The Secret Doctrine (1888), which collates and organizes the essence of these teachings into a comprehensive synthesis.  Blavatsky saw herself as a missionary of this ancient knowledge and emissary of the Ancient Mysteries and one of the main purposes of the Theosophical Society was to form a nucleus creating the Universal Brotherhood of Humanity without distinction of race, creed, sex, caste, or color.  The fundamental tenets of Theosophy, as promulgated by Blavatsky, were drawn from multiple sources ranging from Kabbalah/Cabala/Qabalah to Buddhism and from Hinduism to Western occultism.  Her society was dedicated to three main objectives: (1) the formation of a universal brotherhood of man, (2) the study and furtherance of ancient religions, sciences, and philosophies, and (3) the investigation of the laws of nature while nurturing the divine powers lying dormant in every man and woman.  Madam Blavatsky’s other works include Isis Unveiled (1877), The Key to Theosophy (1889) and The Voice of the Silence (1889).  Blavatsky and Theosophy posed a theological threat to Western established religions like Christianity, Judaism, and even Islam since Theosophy set out to expose that Christianity and the Abrahamic Faiths were veiled versions of the solar and stellar religions of the Egyptians, the Greco-Romans, and the Persians among others.  Thus, to Blavatsky and the members of the Theosophical Society, the dramatis personae of the Bible were simple re-branded and renamed.  Since Madam Blavatsky and her Theosophy Society were Eastern esotericism set on undermining Western Judaic-Christianity and its traditions, so too does Dracula become an occult Eastern menace to Victorian religion and civilization.  Dracula, like Blavatsky, comes to the West or England from mysterious East or, in Dracula’s case, from Transylvania meaning “land beyond the forest”.  Dracula seeks to turn young virginal women into lustful vampires like himself; the vampire Count is mystical, dark, evil being who seeks to corrupt the West by exerting a sinister occult influence upon it.  The Theosophical movement was also vilified by the Christian Church as being evil and demonic while its members and were perceived to be Luciferian adherents of the occult.  Bram Stoker, being a member of the Golden Dawn, was fully aware of Blavatsky and Theosophy’s arcane philosophies and waxing influence upon Western culture.  Dracula’s vampirism also represents the fear of disease especially those transmittable by bodily fluids.  Stoker was rumored to suffer from syphilis which he allegedly contracted from a prostitute.

In many vampire films, such as 1922’s Nosferatu, when the vampire invades England he brings with him rats symbolizing disease, plague, and death.  This preyed on European fears of the fourteenth century’s Black Death or the Bubonic Plague that killed between 75 and 200 million people.

In Nosferatu (“disease bearer”) Count Orlok is depicted as a living corpse.  Since the vampire represents occult Eastern mysteries, it is apropos that Stoker’s Dracula is transported from the European mainland to England on a Russian cargo ship named Demeter.  In ancient Greek religion and myth, Demeter was the goddess of the harvest who presided over grains and the fertility of the earth.  The Eleusinian Mysteries were initiation ceremonies held annually for the cult of Demeter and her daughter Persephone headquartered at Eleusis in Greece.  Substantially their myth is identical with the Syrian myth of Aphrodite (Astarte) and Adonis, and the Phrygian legend of Cybele and Attis, and the Egyptian lore of Isis and Osiris.[144]  In the Greek fable, as in the Asiatic and Egyptian counter-parts, a goddess mourns the loss of a loved one who personifies the vegetation, more especially the corn, which dies in winter to revive in spring.[145]  The rites flourished until Emperor Theodosius I (347-395 C.E.) suppressed the mysteries and destroyed all who did not accept the Christian faith; in 396 C.E. a band of fanatical Christian monks destroyed the temple at Eleusis.  In this context Dracula represents the ancient pre-Christian mysteries coming from the enigmatic East to undermine Western Victorian establishment.  Dracula is metaphorically brought forth from Eleusis qua Egypt by way of the goddess Demeter whose rites and rituals echoed those of the Egyptian Isis and Osiris as well as other pagan pre-Christian deities.  Dracula symbolically attempts to undermine the Christianized values and ethics of Victorian England paralleling Blavatsky’s occult and esoteric Theosophical subterfuge against organized Western Abrahamic religions.  Helena Blavatsky was Russian so too is the Demeter a Russian cargo ship that transports the bloodthirsty vampire.  The captain’s log is recovered and tells of strange and sinister events that had taken place during the ship’s journey.  The Demeter and its vampiric freight represents the ancient, pre-Christian Mystery Tradition that is in eternal conflict with the Christian Church and Victorian ethos.  Is it no wonder then that a vampire would be repulsed by Christian iconography?

How does a man or woman become vampire?  Making a pact with the Devil works but many theologians believed that a vampire was an innocent corpse reanimated or taken over by a demon.  According to legend the most common way of becoming a member of the undead was to die in a state of sin without the blessing of the Church and the prospects of salvation.  Once one becomes a member of the undead, they are given license to roam freely at night; it is during the nocturnal hours that the vampire is strongest.  Dracula and vampires, being agents of the night and darkness, are repelled by Christian emblems representing light or the sun.  Images of Jesus on the Cross, as explained earlier in this book, is a representation of the sun and serves to keep vampires at bay.  In turn water blessed by a Christianized sun priest can harm vampires since this too is invoking solar divine power.  It is often thought that exposure to sunlight can kill a vampire yet Stoker explains that sunlight diminishes a vampire’s supernatural abilities; sunlight does not destroy the undead in Stoker’s mythos.  Daylight curtails the vampire’s ability to transform itself into mist or night creatures such as bats and wolves.  Baying wolves can be heard in the background when Dracula says, “Listen to them. Children of the night. What music they make,” by Hungarian actor Béla Lugosi in 1931’s Dracula.[146]  The placement of hawthorn or whitethorn around widows and thresholds keeps the vampire away from one’s home during the nighttime hours.  Hawthorn and whitethorn symbolize Christ’s solar crown of thorns (cf. sun rays) thus repudiating agents of darkness and the undead.  The deployment of garlic works as well although no explanation has ever been given save some authorities that state the pungent herb is full of virtu.  The placement of sacred plants around a window or threshold symbolizes the boundary between the foreign and domestic or the inner and outer worlds when applied to an ordinary dwelling.  In the case of a sacred temple, it signifies the difference between the profane ignorant outsider and the sublime enlightened initiate.  Concurrently some vampire legends hold that a member of the undead cannot enter a dwelling unless invited first by the rightful owner.  In other words, in order to invade a private or sacred space evil must be willingly welcomed.  In the 1985 film Fright Night the vampire Jerry Dandrige (Chris Sarandon) cannot enter the house of Charley Brewster (William Ragsdale) until he is first invited by Charley’s mother Judy Brewster (Dorothy Fielding) who is the rightful and legal owner of the dwelling.

The universal way to eradicate a vampire is to follow it to its coffin before dawn breaks and, during daylight hours, drive a wooden stake through its heart while it slumbers.  Symbolically one is pinning the vampire to its grave thus preventing it from ever rising again.  Despite this seemingly common knowledge, what is often forgotten is that in Stoker’s novel the vampire Count is not destroyed by a wooden stake.  Rather Dracula is impaled with a Bowie Knife belonging to Texan Quincey P. Morris symbolizing Europe’s fascination with the American Wild West.  Colonel James “Jim” Bowie’s (ca. 1796-1836) deadly knife features a razor sharp blade ranging anywhere from six to twenty four inches in length.  Bowie, a Freemason, perished during the siege at the Alamo by Mexican forces commanded by Antonio López de Santa Anna (1794-1876) in 1836.

In Dracula the character of Lucy Westenra falls prey to the vampire transforming her into a succubus-like creature making her his initial victim.  Of particular symbolic interest is her last name, Westerna.  Since Dracula is an Eastern occult menace it is only symbolically appropriate that his first vampiric convert be a woman of the West or a Westerna.  Lucy’s best friend is Wilhelmina “Mina” Harker (née Murray) who marries the protagonist Jonathan Harker.  Lucy Westenra is a vivacious young woman who is much praised for her beauty, purity and sweet nature.  These qualities earn her three suitors, all of whom propose to her on the same day  They are Arthur Holmwood who is the wealthy son of Lord Godalming; Quincey Morris who is an American cowboy; and Doctor John Seward who is an asylum psychiatrist.  Despite Mina’s marriage to Jonathan Harker and Lucy’s three male suitors, there is strong sexual undercurrent between the two women hinting that they are secretly lovers.  In 1992’s Dracula, Mina Murray (Winona Rider) and Lucy Westenra (Sadie Frost) passionately kiss while frolicking in the rain surrendering to their homoerotic desires.  Lucy accepts Arthur’s marriage proposal but soon begins suffering from severe anemia.  She has become the victim of Dracula who is slowly draining her blood covertly invading her bedroom at night.  Unable to figure out what is wrong with Lucy, Dr. Seward calls in his former teacher Professor Abraham Van Helsing.  Van Helsing, who is the keeper of esoteric wisdom, represents the Hellenistic god of magic Thoth Hermes Mercurious Trismegistus; Van Helsing is the hermetic sage archetype.  Being a student of the occult sciences, Van Helsing truly knows what Dracula is and that Ms. Westenra is under attack by malignant supernatural forces and that she is beyond the care of ordinary medicine. Van Helsing writes about Dracula,

“Thus when we find the habitation of this man-that-was, we can confine him to his coffin and destroy him, if we obey what we know. But he is clever. I have asked my friend Arminius, of Buda-Pesth University, to make his record, and from all the means that are, he tell me of what he has been. He must, indeed, have been that Voivode Dracula who won his name against the Turk, over the great river on the very frontier of Turkeyland. If it be so, then was he no common man, for in that time, and for centuries after, he was spoken of as the cleverest and the most cunning, as well as the bravest of the sons of the ‘land beyond the forest.’ That mighty brain  and that iron resolution went with him to his grave, and are even now arrayed against us. The Draculas were, says Arminius, a great and noble race, though now and again were scions who were held by their coevals to have had dealings with the Evil One. They learned his secrets in the Scholomance, amongst the mountains over Lake Hermanstadt, where the devil claims the tenth scholar as his due. In the records are such words as ‘steroidal’ witch, ‘ordog’ and ‘pokol’ Satan and hell, and in one manuscript this very Dracula is spoken of as ‘wampyr,’….”[147]

Thus Van Helsing equates the vampire or “wampyr” to the auspices of the Devil.  Being Hermes Trismegistus personified, Van Helsing possesses the sublime wisdom and information that Holmwood, Seward, and Morris lack.  Van Helsing is the sublime hermetic initiate while Holmwood, Seward, and Morris are profane and vulgar.  Once again we turn to 1992’s Dracula which sees Van Helsing (Anthony Hopkins) battling Dracula (Gary Oldman) while wearing his Masonic apron thereby identifying him as a student of the esoteric arts while confirming his allegiance to this hermetic brotherhood.  Lucy Westerna finally succumbs to Dracula and soon thereafter reports of children being attacked at night are heard with each child claiming it was the “Bloofer Lady” (child speak for “Beautiful Lady”) perpetrating it.  The children also have bite marks on their throats though none of their blood has been seriously drained.  Dr. Van Helsing realizes that Lucy has now risen as a vampire and asks Dr. Seward, Holmwood, and Morris to help him destroy the undead creature.  When they doubt him, Helsing shows Seward that Lucy’s coffin is empty and they wait for her to return with a child to feed on.  She once again only takes a little blood before leaving the child and heading back to her crypt.  Van Helsing and Seward make sure the child is alright and go into the crypt where the coffin is now occupied with Lucy’s corpse. However, as Helsing correctly points out, her body has not decayed a day since her death since the undead never age.

That next night Van Helsing gathers the rest of the men and they put a holy plaster seal over Lucy’s crypt while she is out feeding.  The men wait for her to come back where they see the monstrous form she’s now become.  They confront her and stop her from biting her current victim.  Upon seeing Arthur, Lucy changes her tone and stance and pretends as if she was alive, beckoning him to come to her so they can be undead together.  Her hypnotic spell almost works until Helsing flashes a cross (cf. the sun, astrological cross) at Lucy repelling her.  She flees to her crypt but is unable to enter until Helsing removes some of the plaster.  The men follow and find Lucy in her coffin where they discover her resting.  Van Helsing explains to the others that the “Lucy” they knew is indeed dead.  The figure they see now is a monster which is the result of Dracula’s vampirism.  He warns that unless she is stopped Lucy will continue her nightly feedings to the point of fully draining her victims.  They will become undead and continue the cycle by building up Dracula’s undead army in a mathematical progression.  Van Helsing feels it best that the men who loved Lucy in life play a role in freeing her soul.  On his instructions they stake Lucy destroying the vampire part of her so that Westerna is finally able to rest in peace.  However, just to be sure Dracula does not reclaim her, Van Helsing cuts off her head and stuffs her mouth full of garlic as a precaution.  The hermetic archetype Van Helsing saves the day because his arcane wisdom provided the luminous knowledge necessary to overthrow works of darkness.

Feminine vampires are not the domain of the fictitious Lucy Westenra alone. The historical Vlad Dracula aside, Elizabeth Báthory de Ecsed (Báthory Erzsébet in Hungarian, Alžbeta Bátoriová in Slovak, 1560-1614) was a Countess from the renowned Báthory family of nobility in the Kingdom of Hungary.  She has been labeled the most prolific female serial killer in history although the number of murders is debated. After her husband Ferenc Nádasdy’s (1555-1604) death, she and four collaborators were accused of torturing and killing hundreds of girls, with one witness attributing to them over 650 victims, though the number for which they were convicted was 80. Elizabeth herself was neither tried nor convicted.  In 1610 she was placed under house arrest and imprisoned in the Csejte Castle, now in Slovakia and known as Čachtice, where she remained bricked in a set of rooms until her death four years later.  Legendary accounts of the Countess bathing in the blood of virgins to retain her youth led to comparisons with Vlad III the Impaler of Wallachia and to her modern monikers: the Blood Countess and Countess Dracula.  Báthory crimes and the legends they spawned provide a key element of vampire lore which is the consuming or use of human blood to keep one’s self young and sexually vivacious.  German scholar and historian Michael Wagener, in his Beiträge zur Philosophischen Anthropologie (Articles on Philosophic Anthropology) wrote,

“Elizabeth used to dress up well in order to please her husband … On one occasion, her chambermaid saw something wrong with her headdress, and as a recompense for observing it, received a severe box on the ears that blood gushed from her nose and spurted on her mistress’s face… When the blood drops were washed off her face, her skin appeared more beautiful; whiter and more transparent on the spots where the blood had been. Elizabeth, therefore, formed the resolve to bathe her face and entire body in human blood, so as to enhance her beauty. Two old women and a certain Ficko assisted her in her undertaking. The monster used to kill her luckless victim, and the women caught the blood in which Elizabeth used to bathe at the hour of four in the morning…She continued this habit after the death of her husband in the hope of gaining new suitors. The unhappy girls, who were lured to the castle under the pretext that they were to be taken into her service there, were locked up in a cellar. Elizabeth not infrequently tortured the victims herself; often she changed her clothes which dripped with blood, and renewed her cruelties. The swollen bodies were cut up with  razors … She caused, in all, the death of six hundreds and fifty girls, some at Csejthe [Cachtice] where she had a cellar constructed for the purpose, others in different localities; for murder and bloodshed became a necessity with her.”[148]

Bathory apparently delighted in sexual perversions and masochisms as well.  Raymond T. McNally explains,

“Unfortunately in real life such sexual jealously of older women and mothers towards younger girls and even children often ends in ruinous destruction for the girls, as the Bathory case demonstrates.  According to the court testimony, Elizabeth Bathory bit parts of the girls’ bodies whom she was having killed.  Thus, Elizabeth became popularly known in her lifetime as a werewolf, not just a vampire.…

According to the available evidence, Elizabeth Bathory presumably received some of her sexual gratification by biting her female servants.”[149]

The use of human blood keeps the vampire youthful and “alive” and is best exemplified by the Báthory legend.  The story of Elizabeth Báthory was made into a movie by Hammer Studios released in 1971 titled Countess Dracula starring Ingrid Pitt (1937-2010) as the infernal Countess.  The concept of an elderly woman taking delight in the destruction of youth is best reflected in the Brothers Grim fairy tale Schneewittchen or Snow White (1812) turned into both a Disney animated feature, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937), and a live action feature starring Kristen Stewart, Charlize Theron, and Chris Hemsworth called Snow White and the Huntsman (2012).  Theron is an evil Queen who employs black magic to pilfer youth and life-force from young girls thereby keeping herself beautiful, youthful, and energetic mirroring the Báthory legend.  In the Grim story and related movies the wicked queen - symbolizing Báthory - is aging and her flesh decaying.  The Queen’s supernatural mirror tells her that she is no longer the “fairest of them all” since that moniker now belongs to the virginal, youthful, and beautiful Snow White.  The jealous queen also practices the art of scrying asking a magic mirror incessantly, “Magic mirror on the wall, who is the fairest of them all,” to which the mirror always replies “You, my queen, are fairest of all.”  However, when Snow White reaches the age of seven becoming as beautiful as the day the queen questions her mirror and it dubiously responds, “Queen, you are full fair, ‘tis true, but Snow White is fairer than you.”  The hatred and envy of the Queen is so strong and deep that even after failing to kill Snow White she obsessively persists again and again to eliminate the younger pulchritudinous woman.  Temporary reversals only heighten the Queen’s anger and fervor.  After two temptations by the disguised Queen, Snow White finally succumbs to eating the tainted apple falling into a passive vampire-like languid state.[150]  She is not really deceased rather she is like a vampire since her body does not decay.  Snow White lies in her glass coffin above ground seemingly as a corpse.  When her Prince Charming is carrying her coffin off she coughs up the poisonous apple and returns to life.  The wicked Queen is forced to wear red-hot shoes in which she must dance until she dies.  In turn the concept of a psychic vampire preying on the living to steal their energy and life force (not blood) was the subject of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes’ The Adventure of the Sussex Vampire (1924) turned into a made for television feature titled The Last Vampyre (1994) staring Jeremy Brett (1933-1995) as Sherlock Holmes and Edward Hardwick (1932-2011) as Dr. John Watson.  Holmes investigates an alleged vampire named John Stockton (Roy Marsden) who preys on the communal life force and sensibilities of the inhabitants of a small English village resulting in death and overall paranoia.  It is within The Adventure of the Sussex Vampire that Holmes mentions to Watson the notorious case of The Giant Rat of Sumatra referring to it as “a story for which the world is not yet prepared.”  This single idiosyncratic reference to this untold Holmes case has been expanded upon and explored by a number of other authors and performers.

In Bram Stoker’s Dracula, four men hunt the infamous vampire.  This idiom was turned on its head when a young woman, instead of being the victim, ferociously hunts and destroys the undead in the 1992 film Buffy the Vampire Slayer.  The movie was turned into a popular television series that ran from 1997-2003 on The WB Television Network.  In the small screen version, Buffy Summers (Sarah Michelle Gellar) battles the agents of darkness and demonic forces in Sunnydale which is an ironic name since it is a “Mouth of Hell” or “Hellmouth”. Buffy, with the aid of her friends Willow Rosenberg (Alyson Hannigan) who is a bi-sexual witch, Alexander “Xander” Harris (Nicholas Brendon) who is a wise cracking yet effective combatant, and Rupert Giles (Anthony Head) who is Buffy’s mentor and teacher paralleling Abraham van Helsing (cf. Thoth Hermes Trismegistus).  Buffy the Vampire Slayer was also unique because it divorces itself from Christianity and Christian iconography as tools to defeat vampires and the agents of darkness.   That notwithstanding Buffy’s last name “Summers” allegorizes the summer solstice when Apollo’s solar chariot is strongest thus esoterically equipping her with symbolic Gnostic-light or gnosis to combat darkness.  Along the way Buffy is befriended by others including the vampire Spike portrayed by James Marsters and even a female demon named Anya Christina Emmanuella Jenkins played by Emma Caufield.  Buffy’s supporting cast help her overcome her demons both literally and figuratively.  Buffy and her coterie form a sacred band known as the “Scooby Gang” and as will be seen originates from the Pythagorean Mysteries.  This “sacred band” also appears in the Star Wars movies, the Matrix films, and the works of J.R.R. Tolkien.  Buffy’s most trusted friend, Willow Rosenberg, is a sorceress who performs both black and white magic.  Unfortunately Willow’s black magic will eventually devour her in the episodes Villains (airdate 14 May 2002) and Two to Go (airdate 21 May 2002).  It is apropos that this section ends on the theme of witchcraft since it serves segues into this book’s next portion which is lycanthropy and witchcraft.  The television program Buffy the Vampire Slayer also embodies themes of Manicheaism which was a instrumental Gnostic religion originating in Sassanid-era Babylonia.  Although most of the original writings of the founding prophet Mani (ca. 216-276 C.E.) have been lost, numerous translations and fragmentary texts have survived.  Manichaeism taught an elaborate cosmology describing the struggle between a good spiritual world of light and an evil material world of darkness.  Buffy symbolizes Sophia who is a goddess of sublime light and gnosis.  Sophia is wisdom to the Gnostics, as well as by some Neopagan, New Age, and feminist-inspired goddess spirituality groups.  Sophia is comparable to the Roman Minerva and her Greco offshoot Athena sicne all three are wisdom goddesses (see Chapter XI).   In Orthodox and Roman Catholic Christianity, Sophia or rather Hagia Sophia (Holy Wisdom), is an expression of understanding for the second person of the Holy Trinity integrated in the dedication of the church of Hagia Sophia in Istanbul, Turkey and can be found in the Old Testament, Book of Proverbs 9:1.[151]  Buffy is provided guidance by the Hellenistic Sage Thoth Hermes Mercurius Trismegistus in the form of Rupert Giles who is a member of a Masonic-styled English secret society called the Watchers Council.  Providing knowledge to Buffy, the Watchers Council implies the Watchers from the mysterious Book of Enoch who are fallen, mercurial angels that provide information to Enoch which is both of esoteric and profane nature.  Buffy and her sacred band combat darkness in the guise of a reoccurring Demiurgus who appears annually and is known as the “Big Bad”.  The first Big Bad or villain on the program was the vampire simply known as the “Master” played by Mark Metcalf.  The Master was the chief among all vampires who sought to manifest himself in the material, lesser world.  Buffy slays the Master and upon his death new vampire “Big Bads” were introduced in season two of the program, Spike, Drusilla (Juliet Landau), and Angelus or Angel (David Boreanaz).  Spike comes to Sunnydale in the episode School Hard accompanied by his longtime love Drusilla.  Drusilla, in a weakened and frail condition, is cared for by Spike who hopes that the Hellmouth’s demonic energy will help to restore her strength and health. They are soon reunited with Angel but constantly refer to him as Angelus which Angel’s dualistic evil alter ego or his Jungian shadow.  Demonism dominates season three with the villainous yet tidy and pleasant Mayor Richard Wilkins played by Harry Groener.  The Mayor was granted demonic properties sometime in the 19th century granting him longevity.  Since his founding of Sunnydale, he has changed his name to Richard Wilkins, Jr. and then Richard Wilkins III all to conceal his inability to age. Part of his unholy pact he was promised Ascension or an evil materialistic promotion of sorts from partial demon to full demon, a form of reverse gnosis.  The Demiurge of season four is Adam (George Hertzberg) who is a biomechanical demonoid, a Frankenstein-like cyborg composed of multiple human and demon parts; he is named after the first man.  Created by Professor Maggie Walsh (Lindsay Crouse), Adam is a kabbalistic golem who is designed to be the ultimate life form.  He is strong, immortal, and nearly omniscient through personal awareness and his ability to uplink with technology.  Paul Wegener’s (1874-1948) movie The Golem, released in 1920, shows the tragic results of kabbalistic magic: an animated form of mud trying unsuccessfully to be a happy human.[152]  James Whale’s Frankenstein features a Gnostic failed attempt to transcend deathly matter, a mad scientist’s creation of monstrosity instead of salvation.[153]  These older films constitute reactionary warnings against questioning what society has deemed “reality”.[154]  Adam is the transhumanistic ideal being emotionless in tendency and devoid of personality.  Season five welcomes Glorificus otherwise known as Glory played by Clare Kramer. Unlike other monsters in the series she is not a demon but a god from a hell-like dimension. Banished to Earth and forced to share a body with a human man named Ben, Glory’s goal is to find a mysterious “Key” which is the only means of escaping her banishment and returning to her home universe.  However the Key is not merely designed to open a magical portal instead when activated it will simultaneously break down the barriers between every dimension in existence.  Unbeknownst to Glory, the Key exists in the form of Dawn Summers (Michelle Trachtenberg) who is Buffy’s younger sister. Dawn was kabbalistically and alchemically created (not born) by monks specifically for the purpose of concealing the Key.  The main villains in season six were the Trio comprised of Warren Mears (Adam Busch), Jonathan Levinson (Danny Strong), and Andrew Wells (Tom Lenk) who are followed by “Dark Willow” who is Willow Rosenberg possessed by demonic magic and hell-bent on bloodthirsty revenge.  Willow, on a symbolic level, has transformed into the Gnostic demon goddess Lilith in her most vicious incarnation, the destroyer of worlds.  Finally the Demiurge in season seven is called the “First Evil” and is uniquely portrayed by many actors and many characters. The First Evil is incorporeal but it has the ability to take the form of anyone who has died, even if the person is still active in some way, such as Buffy, or a vampire, through skillful playacting it can impersonate a living person.  Through the destruction of the “Big Bads” and their materialistic odious desires and plans, Buffy’s concealed purpose is truly revealed.  She is an agent of light sent to earth to counteract the agents of darkness or the “Big Bads” and their agents.  Gnostically, the “Big Bads” symbolize the Demiurge while their agents are representations of the Archons.  If blooding lusting phantoms or ghosts serve as the base for the vampire legend and Count Dracula, then the werewolf is likewise intertwined with the witch and witchcraft.  Symbolism of the werewolf and its relationship to witchcraft and female left-hand path devilry will now be scrutinized.

Full Moons: Werewolves, Witchcraft, and Silver Bullets

Werewolves and wolfmen are linked with witches and witchcraft, the two are inseparable.  The ability to transform into a wolf is known as lycanthropy with the person becoming either a wolf or werewolf also known as a lycanthope.  They can also change into a therianthropic hybrid wolf-like creature either purposely or after being placed under a witch’s curse or affliction like a bite or scratch from another werewolf; 1935’s Werewolf of London was one of the first films to include this latter element.  Some lycanthropes are thought to gain wolf-like attributes while actually not transforming into a wolf.  The word “lycanthrope” has also been linked to Lycaon, a king of Arcadia who according to Ovid’s Metamorphoses (completed 8 C.E.), was turned into a ravenous wolf in retribution for attempting to serve human flesh (his own son) to visiting Zeus in an effort to disprove the god’s divinity.  One element of lycanthopy is universal, that is in order to change into a wolf the moon must be full.  The moon, Diana (the Greco Artemis) must be in all her nocturnal glory for a transformation to occur.  Diana is the premiere goddess of witches and witchcraft since Diana rules the mysteries and darkness that envelope night.  A nexus between witches and werewolves can be seen in Cervantes’ (1547-1616) last work, Persiles y Sigismunda which features lycanthropic islands where witches transform into she-wolves in order to abduct men with whom they are in love.  These arcane legends must be fleshed out further to understand werewolf symbolism in modern cinema.

Halloween aside, the high holy day of witchcraft is Walpurgisnacht or 30 April which was the celebration of Beltane or 1 May.  Beltane was an ancient Gaelic festival celebrated in Ireland, Scotland, and the Isle of Man.  It marked the beginning of summer and was linked to similar festivals held elsewhere in Europe, such as the Welsh Calan Mai and the Germanic Walpurgisnacht. Beltane and Samhain or Halloween were the leading terminal dates of the civil year in medieval Ireland, though the former festival was the more important.  It is a cross-quarter day, marking the midpoint in the Sun’s progress between the spring equinox and summer solstice.  The 17th century German tradition of a meeting of sorcerers and witches on May Day (1 May) was influenced by the descriptions of Witches’ Sabbaths in 15th and 16th century literature; the pseudo-Masonic Order of the Illuminati was founded on Beltane of 1776 in Bavaria by Masonic-Jesuit Adam Weishaupt.  The Devil was said to appear at sabbats in the form of goat-like creature named Mendes or Baphomet while the symbol of entity is usually portrayed as half-human, half-goat figure, or a goat head.[155]  In 1818 a number of idols called heads of Baphomet were discovered among forgotten antiquities of the Imperial Museum of Vienna.[156]  They were said to be replicas of the Gnostic divinity, Mete, or “Wisdom.”[157]  The practice of black or white magic depends upon the ability of the adept to control the universal life force or that which Eliphas Levi refers to as the great magical agent or the astral light.[158]  The famous hermaphroditic Goat of Mendes was a composite creature formulated to symbolize this esoterica.[159]

It is identical with Baphomet, the mystic pantheos of those disciples of ceremonial magic and the Templars who probably obtained if from the Arabians.  In the Middle Ages, Baphomet was believed to be an idol represented by a human skull, a stuffed human head, or a metal or wooden human head with curly black hair.  This idol was allegedly adored by the medieval Order of the Knights Templar as a source of fertility and wealth.  In 1307 King Philip IV (le Bel or the Fair) of France and his puppet, Pope Clement V, accused the Templar Order of heresy, homosexuality, and worshipping Baphomet and anointing it with the fat of murdered children.  However, only 12 of the 231 knights interrogated by the Church admitted worshipping or having knowledge of the Baphomet.  Novices said they had been instructed to worship the idol as their god and savior, and their descriptions of it varied from it having up to three heads and up to four feet and being made of either wood, metal, or being simply a painting.  Ceremonial magician Aleister Crowley named himself Baphomet when he joined the magical and sexual Ordo Templis Orientalis (O.T.O) secret society in 1910.  So how does one become a witch? Seventeenth century demonologist Francesco-Maria Guazzo (15??-16??) identifies eleven separate stages in his book Compendium Maleficarum (Book of Witches, 1608):

1. A spoken denial of the Christian faith.

2. Rebaptism in the Devil’s name, at which point the novice gained a new name in place of the Christian one.

3. Symbolic removal of the baptismal chrism (consecrated oil mixed with balm) by the Devil’s touch.

4. Denial of godparents and the gaining of new sponsors.

5. Gift of a piece of clothing to the Devil as a token of submission.

6. Oath of Allegiance to the Devil in the form of a pact made while standing in a magic circle.

7. Inclusion of the initiate’s name in the Book of Death.

8. A promise to sacrifice children to the Devil.

9. A promise to pay annual tribute to the Devil.

10. Marking the initiate with the Devil’s Mark: a strangely shaped area on the skin that becomes insensitive.

11. Various vows of special service to the Devil including the destruction of holy relics and promising to keep the secrets of the sabbat.

Other accounts of pacts give special emphasis to two further stages for women only.  Female initiates were usually required to have ritualistic sexual intercourse with the Devil and often they were required to conclude the ceremony by kissing the Devil’s rectum which was known as the osculem infame or the shameful kiss.

The essence of witchcraft is the ill-famed Pact with the Devil or Oath of Allegiance.  The pact pinpointed sorcery as heresy and thereby brought witchcraft under the jurisdiction of the Holy Inquisition.  Every demonologist, whether Roman Catholic or Protestant, acknowledged that the agreement to conspire with the Devil against the Christian God was at the core of the crime.  On the continent of Europe witches were burned at the stake while in England they were hung.  England’s most famous witch hunter was the Cromwellian lawyer Matthew Hopkins (died 1646), who along with his sidekick John Stearne (ca. 1610-1670), sent to the gallows more witches than all other witch hunters in England.  Hopkins was the subject of the 1968 movie Witchfinder General (U.S. title The Conqueror Worm) starring Vincent Price as Matthew Hopkins.  The demonic pact was the heart of the crime and it was the pact - not evil doing - that constituted the offense.  In other words, remove the demonic pact and the witchcraft heresy disappears.  When taking away the Pact with the Devil, the witch was in reality engaged in mere nature, fertility, or pagan agrarian adoration and fetishism (see The Night Battles by Carlo Ginzburg).  Once the unholy alliance was consummated, the Devil provided the witch with supernatural abilities.  Among these was the ability to fly on phallic broomsticks which was part of every witch’s repertoire and the capability of metamorphosis which was reserved for truly evil adepts.  Theologians distinguished two types of pacts: the tacit or Private Pact (Professio Tacita) and the professed or Solemn Public Pact (Professio Expressa).  During the Private Pact, the witch gave allegiance to the Devil indirectly through some other witch or warlock while it was ultimately expected that the newly initiated witch would eventually make a public acknowledgment.  The Public Pact could be administered with all due rites at a sabbat (solemnis sive publica) or made without an audience by signing the written agreement with the Devil usually in blood.  As such all witches vowed obedience and subjection into the hands of the Devil; once the pact was consummated a Black Mass would occur.  In Europe, during the reign of Louis XIV of France (1638-1715), a veritable epidemic of sacrilege seemed to rage throughout Paris.  The horrors of the Black Mass were said to be in many houses, especially in that of La Voisin (Catherine Deshayes, ca.1640-1680) who lived in the rue Beauregard.  La Voisin arranged Black Masses where clients could pray to the Devil to make their desires come true.  She was a sorceress par excellence in the concoction of love potions and poisons.  The most important client of La Voisin was Madame de Montespan (1640-1707), the official royal mistress to King Louis XIV.  In 1667, Montespan hired La Voisin to arrange a Black Mass.  This mass was celebrated in a house in Rue de la Tannerie wherein Montespan prayed to Satan to win the love of the monarch.  La Voisin was eventually burned at the stake for her witchcraft and Satanic crimes.  In the eighteenth century the Black Mass and sabbats persisted.  At the hotel of Madam de Charolais the vilest scenes of the sabbat were continued where a coterie of Satanists celebrated their monstrous orgies in Paris on 22 January, 1793 the night after the guillotining of King Louis XVI.  In order to understand the symbolism concerning werewolves - as presented in popular film - a nexus between lycanthropy and witchcraft and their myths and legends must now be forged.

Throughout the centuries of witch persecution in Europe, lycanthropy was seen simply as another activity of the witch whose powers of metamorphosis have already been noted.  That is transforming herself or himself into a wolf and ranging the countryside at night terrorizing the people, killing and devouring wayfarers, was thought to be one way that a witch obeyed her Satanic majesty’s orders while wreaking havoc on the innocent causing general mayhem.  Some commentators at the time thought that not all werewolves were witches but that some of them were lesser demons from hell.  A few individual werewolves, whose depredations were exceptionally pernicious, were actually thought to be the Devil himself.  But even where the werewolves were not metamorphosed witches, but demons instead, the connection was nevertheless clear.  Many accounts of sabbats refer to witches being transported to the scene on the back of wolves while at a few sabbats the whole assembly was said to transform itself into a wolfpack and spend the night frightening the countryside.  This can be seen in 2007’s Trick ‘r Treat where a clique of young women, while partying around a campfire on Halloween night, shape-shift into a pack of werewolves killing and eating their unsuspecting inebriated guests.  An old Latvian tale concerns a 12-day march at Christmas of a pack of thousands of werewolves led by the Devil who himself was in wolf form.[160]  To 16th and 17th century demonologists,  if a werewolf was much the same as a witch then one became a werewolf the same way one became a witch: by contracting with the Devil.  Once the pact was concluded in the usual way, Satan conferred upon the initiate the power of magical metamorphosis.  This power was just one of the talents acquired by the newly initiated lycanthrope.  But in a great many tales and demonologist’s accounts it seems that a portion of lycanthropes were only werewolves; in other words they lacked the witches other powers such as cursing sorcery and flight.  It seems as if most werewolves had petitioned the Prince of Darkness only for the lycanthropic ability.  The folklore of most nations offers many methods of becoming a werewolf other than entering into a contract with the Devil.  Some of these semi-magical procedures did not directly involve any diabolism.  In Italian folklore, the belief was anyone conceived at the time of the new moon would become a werewolf and so would anyone who slept in the open overnight on a Friday (cf. Venus’ pentagonal orbit) under a full moon.  In Europe it was thought that drinking water from a real wolf’s footprint, drinking from a stream where a wolfpack drank, or eating a wolf’s brain were some of the ways of becoming a lycanthrope, intentionally or not.[161]

The 16th century occultist and magician Paracelsus (1493-1541) suggested that a man who lived a brutal or bestial life might return after death in beast form usually as a wolf.  According to the modern French writer Claude Seignolle, old French lore contains stories of priests putting a curse on criminals to change them into werewolves for seven years.  Lycanthropy was sometimes deemed hereditary while many investigators - including Montague Summers - firmly asserted that werewolves were invariably cases of demonic possession.  With this knowledge in hand, the nexus between full moons, the pentagram, and witchcraft must now be linked in order to understand its import in cinema symbolism.

This most overt symbol connecting the werewolf to the witch in film history is the five pointed star known as the pentagram.  Most recently this symbolism was displayed in the 2005 Wes Craven werewolf movie, Cursed.  At the film’s beginning the lights of Los Angeles form a pentagram while Ellie Meyers (Christina Ricci) drives through the Hollywood Hills. Ellie’s female lycanthrope antagonist Joanie (Judy Greer) bears a pentagram on her right hand.  This esoteric symbolism dates back to The Wolf Man starring Lon Chaney Jr. (1906-1973).  After learning of the death of his brother, Larry Talbot (Chaney) returns to his ancestral home in Llanwelly, Wales to reconcile with his estranged father, Sir John Talbot (Claude Rains, 1889-1967). While there Larry becomes romantically interested in a local girl named Gwen Conliffe (Evelyn Ankers, 1918-1985) who runs an antique shop. As a pretext to converse with her, he purchases a silver-headed walking stick decorated with a wolf featuring a pentagram. Gwen tells him that it represents a werewolf which she defines as a man who changes into a wolf at certain times of the year.

Throughout the film, various villagers recite a poem whenever the subject of werewolves comes up:

“Even a man who is pure in heart

and says his prayers by night

may become a wolf when the wolfbane blooms

and the autumn moon is bright.”

Gwen, her friend Jenny Williams (Fay Helm, 1909-2003), and Larry go to see Gypsy Fortune Tellers.  Jenny wants to have her fortune read, the gypsy Bela (Béla Lugosi) obliges her and stares into her palm only to see a pentagram with two points up, one point down.  Bela becomes troubled and immediately asks the young woman to leave.  A little later that night Larry attempts to rescue Jenny from what he believes to be a wolf attack.  He kills the beast with his new walking stick, but is bitten on the chest in the process. A gypsy fortuneteller named Maleva (Maria Ouspenskaya, 1876-1949) reveals to Larry that the animal which bit him was actually her son Bela in the form of a wolf.  Bela had been a werewolf for years and now Larry will be transformed into one as well.  During the full moon Talbot transforms into a wolf-like creature and stalks the village first killing the local gravedigger.  Talbot retains vague memories of being a werewolf and wanting to kill but continually struggles to overcome his condition. He is finally bludgeoned to death by his father with his own silver-tipped walking stick after attacking Gwen Conliffe.  Sir John Talbot watches in horror as the dead werewolf transforms back into his son’s human form as the local police arrive on the scene.

The pentagram symbolism links the werewolf in film to witchcraft and, in the case of The Wolf Man, to gypsies and Eastern Europeans. The fear of foreign intrusion by eastern mysticism upon Western Civilization is similar to that of the Dracula mythos.  The pentagram with two points up represents the Goat of Mendes or Baphomet epitomizing the dark side of gnosis, the shadow shelf, malevolency.  In the Hammer film The Devil Rides Out, Baphomet is brought forth by Macato while he conducts a sabbat. However, when the pentagram features one point up and two points down it is a protective sigil against lycantropy and maleficia. The inverted pentagram or the Goat of Mendes thus links lycanthropy to demonic witchcraft; as Manly Palmer Hall correctly writes,

“The pentagram is used extensively in black magic,  but when so used its form always differs in one of three ways: The star may be broken at one point not permitting the converging lines to touch; it may be inverted by having one point down and two up; or it may be distorted by having the points of varying lengths. When used in black magic, the pentagram is called the ‘sign of the cloven hoof,’ or the footprint of the Devil. The star with two points upward is also called the ‘Goat of Mendes,’ because the inverted star is the same shape as the goat’s head. When the upright star turns and the upper point falls to the bottom, it signifies the fall of the Morning Star (the sun).”[162]

The pentagram inverted is an emblem of evil (cf. the sabbatic goat) and is the premiere symbol of the werewolf while the goat’s horn is an important icon in witchcraft as well.  In primitive societies the horn was a symbol of numinous power and protection.  During the 16th and 17th centuries in England and Scotland accused witches admitted that the Devil appeared to them in the form of a goat (or bull) as the “Horned One”.  Within the lore of witchcraft, the Horned God is born at the winter solstice, unites the with the Goddess Diane or Hecate at Beltane (1 May) and dies at the summer solstice.  The horn is a symbol of the crescent moon representing the waxing moon completing its glorified cycle  when it becomes full.  The Horned God represents sexuality, the hunt, logic, and power all worshipped in occult fertility rites.  The witch, when presented in cinema, often wears the black pointed hat, black pointed slippers, and rides a broomstick emblematized best by Margaret Hamilton as the Wicked Witch of the West in the film The Wizard of Oz (see Chapter V).  The conical hat, pointy slippers, and erect broomstick represent the Horned God of witchcraft and immediately identify a woman as being a witch.  Erica Jong, in her book Witches, states that these iconic items are concealed erotic accessories employed by witches.  The witch’s long, hard broomstick and her pointy hat and slippers are in reality masturbatory devices used ritualistically at sabbaths or while performing sexual rites and incantations alone.  This erotica is highly suggested in the 1922 Danish silent horror film Häxan: Witchcraft Through the Ages wherein witches wantonly engage in the pleasures of the flesh.  During an esbat, a demon symbolically masturbates by rapidly churning butter euphemizing the witch’s carnal and obscene gratifications.

The “fall of the sun or the Morning Star” is the pentagram inverted and symbolizes the moon, the nocturnal ruler, which reigns when the sun - the diurnal light - retires to the ghostly netherworld at dusk. The moon is personified by goddesses Diana or Hecate who are twined becoming the protectresses of witches and witchcraft.  The waning/waxing moon also reflects the female menstrual cycle becoming a sublime emblem of the sacred feminine and fertility.  It is under a full moon, when the goddess of witches is exalted, that one is transformed into a bloodthirsty werewolf.   The eighteenth card of the Major Arcana of the Tarot is La Luna or The Moon and usually depicts a wolf-like creature baying at the moon.  Diana is the Roman Goddess of the hunt, the moon anthropomorphized, and the grand patroness of witches.  Also of import is the mercurial and heinous goddess Hecate who has survived in folklore as a hag figure thereby associating with witchcraft.  Hecate, conflated and twined with the goddess Diana, appears in late antiquity and in the early medieval period merging legends and lore associated with gatherings of women, the moon, and witchcraft that eventually became established in the area of Northern Italy, southern Germany, and the western Balkans (see Ginzburg’s Night Battles).  This theory of the Roman origins of many European folk traditions related to Diana or Hecate was explicitly advanced at least as early as 1807.  This is reflected in numerous etymological claims by lexicographers from the seventeenth to the nineteenth century deriving “hag” and/or “hex”, the latter a witch’s curse, from Hecate by way of haegtesse (Anglo-Saxon) and hagazussa (Old High German).  The nexus between Diana and Hecate arises since the underworld both pushes up new crops to the light and swallows them up when they die and rot, fertility deities are also associated with death and decay.  Diana was thus identified with three-faced Hecate who is depicted as dreadfully pale (cf. moon), a goddess of death, and a patroness of evil sorcery.[163]  In this dark form Diana appeared in medieval belief as the lunar leader of witch processions and rites.[164]  This led to superstitions such that it is unlucky to point at the moon at any one time, and that one should always bow to the new moon especially the first new moon of the year as a token of respect.  At first sight of the new moon a silver coin should be turned over in a purse or pocket for silver is the metal of the moon.  Since a moon transforms a person into a lycanthrope, a silver bullet must be used to kill one.  Since silver symbolizes the moon one must symbolically draw upon the moon by firing a lunar-silver into the lycanthrope thus killing it.  In other words, a silver bullet is a lunar weapon that turns the moon’s power against the lycanthrope.  The idea of the werewolf’s supposed vulnerability to silver probably dates back to the legend of the Beast of Gévaudan, in which a gigantic wolf was killed by Jean Chastel firing a gun loaded with silver bullets.[165]  However the claim that the Beast of Gévaudan, an eighteenth century wolf or wolf-like creature, was shot by a silver bullet appears to have been introduced by novelists retelling the story from 1935 onwards.[166]  The moon turns man into werewolf so the silver of the moon must be employed to kill it. This occult symbolism is present in just about every important werewolf film.  The Wolf Man, Curse of the Werewolf (1961), The Beast Must Die (1974), House of Frankenstein (1944), Silver Bullet (1985), and The Wolfman (2010) all feature werewolves that are killed by silver or a silver bullet.  On the other hand, full moons are noticeably absent from 1981’s The Howling wherein the lycanthropes can shapeshift at will.  In 1994’s Wolf, the waxing moon synchronizes lycanthrope Will Randall’s (Jack Nicholson) aggressive behavior.  Although it take a full moon to change him, silver bullets are not used in 1981’s An American Werewolf in London.  American werewolf David Kessler (David Naughton) is killed by regular bullets fired by police while stalking London’s streets.

There have been historical “wolf people” but these associate themselves not with full moons but with a condition called hypertrichosis.  Hypertrichosis, also called Ambras Syndrome, is an abnormal amount of hair growth on the body and extensive cases of hypertrichosis have informally been called “werewolf syndrome” because the appearance is similar to the mythological werewolf.  The most famous of these was Petrus Gonsalvus (a/k/a Pedro Gonzalez) who was born in 1537 in Tenerife, Canary Islands.  Gonsalvus, due to his hairy condition, was referred to by Italian naturalist Ulisse Aldrovandi (1522-1605) as “the man of the woods”.  He first came to the court of Henry II (1519-1559), King of France who sent him to the court of Margaret of Parma (1522-1586), regent of the Netherlands.  He married while there and some of his children were also afflicted with his condition; Gonsalvus eventually settled in Italy.  In 1975 the Krewe of Satan featured Petrus Gonsalvus as a wolf-man on a Mardi Gras doubloon.

Frankenstein’s Monster and the Scientific Revolution

“Alan was becoming a woman and didn’t realize it. A woman in mind only but the mind rules.  …It had been found that Alan was really a pseudohermaphrodite. …That which nature had given him was a mistake. …Alan had to decide whether he wanted to become a man or she wanted to become a woman.  …But in time Alan is Ann.  A very happy, lovely young lady that modern medicine and science has created almost as a Frankenstein Monster,” spoke Dr. Alton (Timothy Farrell, 1922-1989) in Ed Wood’s 1953 transvestite sex-change docudrama Glen or Glenda.  Contrary to popular belief “Frankenstein” is not the name of the monster but the surname of its creator.  This is correctly acknowledged in James Whale’s  Frankenstein starring Boris Karloff (1887-1969) who is billed as “The Monster” with Colin Clive (1900-1937) in the role of Henry Frankenstein while in Shelly’s novel his first name is Victor.  Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus was first published anonymously in 1818.  Shelly’s name did not appear until the second edition was published in France in 1823.  Dr. Frankenstein is the Modern Prometheus because, just like his namesake, he steals fire from the gods.  Frankenstein attempts to imbue his creation with a life or fire symbolized by lightning thus stolen from the heavens.  Although the creature has “life,” it is missing a soul.  In the novel the monster is nebulously identified with words such as “creature,” “monster,” “fiend,” “wretch,” “vile insect,” “daemon,” “being,” and “it”.  Speaking to Victor Frankenstein the monster refers to himself as, “the Adam of your labors,” and elsewhere as someone who, “would have (been) your Adam,” but is instead “your fallen angel”.  The story of Frankenstein and his legendary creation originated from Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (1797-1851) travels in the region of Geneva, Switzerland where much of the story takes place.  Topics of galvanism and other similar occult ideas were themes of conversation among her companions particularly her future husband, Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822). In biology, galvanism is the contraction of a muscle that is stimulated by an electric current.  In physics and chemistry, it is the induction of electrical current from a chemical reaction, typically between two chemicals with differing electronegativities. The storyline of Frankenstein emerged from a dream.  Mary, Percy, Lord Byron (1788-1824), and John Polidori (1795-1821) decided to have a competition to see who could write the best horror story.  After thinking for weeks about what her possible storyline could be, Shelley dreamt about a scientist who created life but was horrified by what he had made.  She was then inspired to write Frankenstein.

The novel Frankenstein is written in epistolary form, documenting a correspondence between Captain Robert Walton and his sister Margaret Walton Saville.  Walton is a failed writer who sets out to explore the North Pole and expand his scientific knowledge in hopes of achieving fame.  During the voyage the crew spots a dog sled mastered by a gigantic figure. A few hours later the crew rescues a nearly frozen and emaciated man named Victor Frankenstein.  Frankenstein has been in pursuit of the oversized man observed by Walton’s crew.  Frankenstein starts to recover from his exertion and sees in Walton the same over-ambitiousness that plagued him.  Frankenstein then recounts the story of his life’s miseries to Walton as a warning.

Victor Frankenstein now recounts his life.  According to the novel, as a young boy Victor was obsessed with studying outdated theories of science that focus on achieving natural wonders. When he witnesses lightning strike an oak tree splitting it in two, he is inspired to harness the power of lightning echoing Dr. Benjamin Frankin’s harnessing of the heavens.  His mother dies of scarlet fever weeks before he leaves for the University of Ingolstadt in Germany.  At university he excels at chemistry and other sciences and develops a secret-occult technique to imbue inanimate bodies with life.  Victor constructs a reanimated creature.  The details of the monster’s construction are left ambiguous, but Frankenstein is forced to make the creature roughly eight feet tall because of the difficulty in replicating the minute parts of the human body.  His creation, which he has hoped would be beautiful, is instead hideous with watery yellow eyes and withered translucent yellowish skin that barely conceals the muscular system and blood vessels.  The creature has perfect white teeth, black lips and long black hair.  Frankenstein’s creation is a kabbalistic golem or an animated anthropomorphic creature created entirely from inanimate matter according to Jewish folklore. The word golem occurs once in the Bible at Psalms 139:16, which uses the word               (galmi, my golem) meaning “my unshaped form” connoting an unfinished human being before God’s eyes.  Victor’s monster is unfinished since it lacks a divine soul.  This concept is echoed in the movie Pumpkinhead (1988) where an evil Appalachian witch employs black kabbalistic magic to revive a destructive, monstrous, soulless abomination whose only purpose is revenge, terror, and murder.  In order to remain animated, the horrific Pumpkinhead receives a form of demonic nourishment by psychically feeding off the soul of the person who requests the monster’s resurrection thereby causing that person’s damnation.  In the film, Ed Harley (Lance Henriksen) instructs the witch Haggis (Florence Schauffler) to bring forth the demon to avenge the accidental death of his son at the hands of reckless teenagers.  Like a typical golem Pumpkinhead does his master’s bidding, however Harley begins experience Pumpkinhead’s murderous rampages.  During the movie’s climax, Harley notices that Pumpkinhead’s face is turning more human causing him to realize that he and the creature are one and that the only way to kill the monster is to die himself.

After bringing his creation to life Victor Frankenstein is repulsed by his work fleeing the room and abandoning the monster.  Hopeless and saddened by being rejected by its creator the monster vanishes.  Victor becomes ill from the experience but is nursed back to health by his childhood friend Henry Clerval.  After a four-month recovery Frankenstein decides to return home only to learn that his brother William has been found  murdered.  Upon arriving in Geneva he sees the monster near the site of the murder and becomes certain the creature is the killer.  William’s nanny Justine is hanged for the murder based on the discovery of William’s locket in her pocket.  Victor, though certain the monster is responsible, doubts anyone would believe him and is unable to stop the hanging.  Ravaged by his grief and self-reproach, Victor retreats into the mountains to find peace. The monster approaches him ignoring his threats and pleading with Victor to hear his own tale.  Intelligent and articulate, the creature tells Victor of his own encounters with people, and how he had become afraid of them and spent a year living near a cottage observing the DeLacey family and growing fond of them.  The monster learned to speak by listening to the DeLaceys.  He also discovered a lost satchel of books and taught himself to read. When he saw his reflection in a pool he realized that his physical appearance is hideous compared to the humans he observed.  Though he eventually approached the family with hope of becoming their friend, they were frightened by his appearance and drove him away, and then left the residence permanently.  The creature in a fit of rage burned the cottage and left.  The monster concludes his story demanding that Frankenstein create a female companion (which will become 1935’s The Bride of Frankenstein) for him.  He argues that as a living thing he too has a right to happiness.  He promises that if Victor grants his request, he and his mate will vanish into the wilderness of South America uninhabited by man, never to reappear.

Fearing for his family Victor reluctantly agrees and travels to England to do his work. He is accompanied by Clerval but the two separate in Scotland. Through their travels Victor suspects that the monster is following him. Working on a second creature on the Orkney Islands, he is plagued by premonitions of what his work might wreak, particularly the idea that creating a mate for the creature might lead to the breeding of an entire race of creatures that could be the bane of mankind.  He destroys the unfinished female creature after he sees his first creation looking through the window at him.  The monster witnesses this and, confronting Victor, vows to be with Victor on his upcoming wedding night. The monster murders Clerval and leaves the corpse on an Irish beach where Victor lands upon leaving the Orkney Islands. Victor is imprisoned for the murder of Clerval and becomes seriously ill suffering another mental breakdown while in prison. After being acquitted and with his health renewed, he returns home with his father.

Once home Victor marries Elizabeth Lavenza and prepares for a fight with the monster.  Elizabeth was an orphan child taken in by the Frankenstein family and raised with Victor.  Wrongly believing the monster’s vowed revenge was for his own life, Victor asks Elizabeth to retire to her room for the night while he goes looking for the fiend. While Victor searches the house and grounds the creature murders Elizabeth. Victor sees the monster at the window and the monster taunts Victor by pointing at Elizabeth’s corpse. Grief-stricken by the deaths of William, Justine, Clerval, and now Elizabeth, Victor’s father suddenly dies. Victor pursues the monster to the North Pole but does not kill his creation.

At the end of Victor’s narrative Captain Walton resumes the telling of the story.  A few days after the creature vanishes, the ship becomes entombed in ice and Walton’s crew insists on returning south once they are freed.  In spite of a passionate speech from Frankenstein, encouraging the crew to push further north, Walton realizes that he must relent to his men’s demands and agrees to head for home.  Frankenstein dies shortly thereafter.  Walton discovers the monster on his ship mourning over Victor Frankenstein’s body. Walton hears the creature’s misguided reasons for his vengeance and expressions of remorse.  Frankenstein’s death has not brought him peace rather his crimes have increased his misery and alienation.  He vows to kill himself on his own funeral pyre so that no others will ever know of his existence.  Walton watches as the monster drifts away on an ice raft that is soon lost in darkness.

*      *       *       *       *

If vampirism and lycanthropy represent the fear of eastern mysticism superseding Victorian Christian ethos and values, Frankenstein’s creature in turn allegorizes the anxieties associated with the Scientific Revolution, its objective advances, and subsequent intrusions up the belief systems of the Abrahmaic Faiths.  The Scientific Revolution was the emergence of modern science during the early modern period when developments in mathematics, physics, astronomy, biology, medicine, and chemistry transformed societal views and beliefs towards religion and nature.  According to traditional accounts, the Scientific Revolution began in Europe towards the end of the Renaissance era and continued through the late 18th century influencing the intellectual social movement known as the Enlightenment. While its dates are disputed, the publication in 1543 of Nicolaus Copernicus’s De revolutionibus orbium coelestium (On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres) and Andreas Vesalius’s De humani corporis fabrica (On the Fabric of the Human Body, 1543) is often cited as marking the beginning of the Scientific Revolution.  By the end of the 18th century the Scientific Revolution had given way to the “Age of Reflection.”  In short the advance of science combined with the new learning methodology of Sir Francis Bacon (1561-1626) sought to advance science in favor of religiosity.  Bacon was an English philosopher, statesman, scientist, lawyer, jurist, author and pioneer of the scientific method serving as both Attorney General and Lord Chancellor of England.  Although his political career ended in disgrace, he remained extremely influential through his works especially as a philosophical advocate and practitioner of the scientific method during the Scientific Revolution; Bacon has been called the creator of empiricism.  His works established and popularized inductive methodologies for scientific inquiry, often called the “Baconian Method,” or simply the “Scientific Method.”  Bacon’s demand for a planned procedure of investigating all things natural marked a new turn in the rhetorical and theoretical framework for science much of which still surrounds conceptions of proper methodology today.  The concealed symbolism of Frankenstein creature, as a man-made science experiment, allegorizes mankind’s inquiry into understanding the universe, to play god, and master nature.  The creature is man-made lacking a soul from deity hence it is an abomination.  The creature forces upon us the eternal question: can man play or be God?  Frankenstein’s Monster is a symbol that represents man’s scientific meddling invading upon nineteenth Western religious belief or “Victorian Christianity” similar to the mysticism of the vampire and the werewolf.

In chapter two of Shelley’s Frankenstein, Victor identifies “three lords of my imagination” who are Paracelsus, Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa, and Albertus Magnus.  Paracelsus (born Philippus Aureolus Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim) was a German-Swiss Renaissance physician, botanist, alchemist, astrologer, and master occultist. He founded the discipline of toxicology.  The name Paracelsus means “equal to or greater than Celsus” referring to the Roman encyclopedist Aulus Cornelius Celsus from the first century known for his tract on medicine.  Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa von Nettesheim (1486-1535) was a German magician, occult writer, theologian, astrologer, alchemist, and author of his famed Three Books of Occult Philosophy.  Albertus Magnus (1193/1206-1280), also known as Albert the Great and Albert of Cologne, was a German Dominican friar and a bishop who was eventually canonized.  James A. Weisheipl and Joachim R. Söder have referred to him as the greatest German philosopher and theologian of the Middle Ages, an opinion supported by his contemporaries such as Roger Bacon (ca. 1214-1294).  The Catholic Church honors Albert as a Doctor of the Church, one of only 35 persons with that title.  These three occult philosophers are mentioned in 1994’s Frankenstein (also known as Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein) yet there is no mention of them in other Frankenstein films, Universal or Hammer.  Interestingly one of Paracelsus’ alleged arcane creations does appear in The Bride of Frankenstein, which is the Homonculus.  Homunculus (masculine, Latin for “little man”, plural: “homunculi”; from the diminutive of homo) is a term used (generally) in various fields of study to refer to any representation of a human being.  Popularized in sixteenth century alchemy and nineteenth century fiction, it has historically referred to the creation of a miniature, fully formed human. The concept has roots in preformationism as well as earlier folklore and alchemic traditions. Currently in scientific fields, a homunculus may refer to any scale model of the human body that illustrates physiological, psychological, or other abstract human characteristics or functions.  The homunculus first appears by name in alchemical writings attributed to Paracelsus titled De natura rerum (1537) in which he outlines his method for creating homunculi,

“That the sperm of a man be putrefied by itself in a sealed cucurbit for forty days with the highest degree of putrefaction in a horse’s womb, or at least so long that it comes to life and moves itself, and stirs, which is easily observed. After this time, it will look somewhat like a man, but transparent, without a body. If, after this, it be fed wisely with the Arcanum of human blood, and be nourished for up to forty weeks, and be kept in the even heat of the horse’s womb, a living human child grows therefrom, with all its members like another child, which is born of a woman, but much smaller.”[167]

The Bride of Frankenstein opens in the home of Lord Byron who is entertaining his friends Percy and Mary Shelley while a thunderstorm rages outside. At Byron’s urging, Mary, played by Elsa Lanchester (1902-1986) who also dualistically plays the Monster’s Mate, continues the story of Frankenstein picking up about where the original film left off.

Henry Frankenstein (again Colin Clive) just barely survives the collapsing windmill, but so does the monster (Karloff). Shortly thereafter Frankenstein receives a visit from his old mentor, Dr. Septimus Pretorius (Ernest Thesiger, 1879-1961), who wants to join forces and continue Frankenstein’s experiments to invent life.  In one of the film’s most memorable scenes, Pretorius shows Frankenstein a series of little people in jars, including but not limited to a king, a queen, an archbishop, and the Devil.  Pretorius can make people, but he cannot get his miniature golems up to normal size.  Frankenstein meanwhile has created a giant.  Pretorius now proposes that the two men work together in order to perfect their kabbalistic creations; Frankenstein will provide the body and Pretorius will supply the brain.

Pretorius, by way of kabbalistic magic and alchemy, has unlocked the occult secret of how to create Paracelsus’ homunculi.  Although not exact, there is still a noticeable similarity between the names Paracelsus and Pretorius insinuating an esoteric nexus.

The most famous imitation of Shelly’s Frankenstein is H.P. Lovecraft’s (1890-1937) Herbert West - Reanimator which was made into the 1985 film Re-Animator starring Jeffrey Combs as West.  Lovecraft’s fiction was written between October, 1921 and June, 1922 and was first serialized in February through July 1922 in the amateur publication Home Brew.  Herbert West - Reanimator is seminal work since it is the first to mention  Miskatonic University while depicting zombies as scientifically reanimated corpses with animalistic and uncontrollable appetites.  Miskatonic University is a fictional university located in equally fictitious town of Arkham which is in the real-life county of Essex in Massachusetts.  The university is named after the Miskatonic River which is also fictional.  Miskatonic is a highly prestigious university on par with Harvard University and are the two most popular schools for the children of Massachusetts’ old gentry families.  Miskatonic University is famous for its collection of occult books and its library holds one of the few genuine copies of the Necronomicon which is a fictional grimoire authored by the “Mad Arab” Abdul Alhazred.  The Necronomicon contains an account of powerful primordial entities known as the Old Ones, their history, and the means for summoning them.  This Lovecraftean lore is actually paralleled in reality at a university not too far from where Lovecraft’s stories take place.  Yale University’s Library houses the only copy of the Voynich Manuscript which is a mysterious fifteenth-sixteenth century alchemical-occult laden grimoire that once belonged to the Jesuit mystic and hermeticist Athanasius Kircher.  It has been alleged that the author of the Voynich Manuscript is none other than Elizabethan dark magician Dr. John Dee although this claim cannot be fully substantiated.  Miskatonic University provides the foundation for J.K. Rowling’s Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry in the Harry Potter books and films.  A humorous parody of the Frankenstein myth can be found in 1985’s Weird Science where two horny high school students Gary Wallace and Wyatt Donnelly (Anthony Michael Hall and Ilan Mitchell-Smith) imbue a doll with life creating Lisa played by Kelly LeBrock.  Lisa is a beautiful, sexual golem conceived by Wyatt’s computer that kabbalistically serves as a mechanized conduit between reality and the supernatural.  Like all golems Lisa serves her two masters well even to the point of willingly abandoning them when they finally land human girlfriends at the film’s conclusion.  Dracula, werewolves, and Frankenstein’s Monster aside, esoteric themes and symbols concealed in more recent horror movies will now be analyzed.

Can Your Heart Stand the Shocking Facts about Horror Movie Symbolism?

And now Criswell (1907-1982) predicts, “Greetings, my friend.  We are all interested in the future for that is where you and I are going to spend the rest of our lives.  And remember my friend; future events such as these will affect you in the future.  You are interested in the unknown, the mysterious, the unexplainable.

That is why you are here. And now for the first time, we are bringing to you the full story of what happened on that fateful day.  We are bringing you all the evidence based only on the secret testimony of the miserable souls who survived this terrifying ordeal.  The incidents, the places, my friend we cannot keep this a secret any longer.  Let us punish the guilty, let us reward the innocent. My friend, can your heart stand the shocking facts about Grave Robbers From Outer Space?”  Thus Criswell the Psychic opens Edward D. Wood’s infamous Plan Nine From Outer Space which is often considered to be one of the worst films ever produced.    One will notice that the name was changed from “Grave Robbers” to the mundane “Plan 9” to appease the Baptist Church that was financing the film since they believed the term “Grave Robbers” was sacrilegious.  Plan 9 from Outer Space, which was Béla Lugosi’s final film, was intended by Wood to be a serious commentary with overarching socio-political themes.  Instead it serves as a comedic idiosyncratic parody of science fiction films from the 1950’s involving extraterrestrial visitations to planet earth.  The idea of an alien invasion and especially concepts of extraterrestrials disguising themselves like humans to infiltrate humanity symbolizes the Red Menace: the paranoia of Soviet and communist political and philosophical intrusion upon President Eisenhower’s wholesome America during the Cold War.  This exterior communist threat materializes in science fiction films either as a direct alien invasion or via subterfuge and skullduggery epitomizing a communist fifth column.[168]  Examples of the former are H.G. Wells’ War of the Worlds (1953), The Thing (1951), The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951), When Worlds Collide (1951), Invaders From Mars (1953), It Came From Outer Space (1953), Earth vs. The Flying Saucers (1956), It Conquered the World (1956), The Blob (1958), and Target Earth (1954).  Examples of the latter include I Married a Monster From Outer Space (1958), This Island Earth (1955) and the most famous of all, Invasion of The Body Snatchers (1956). Invasions of the Body Snatchers involves aliens cloning humans and making “pod people” while removing the original person thereby secretly controlling and undermining the human populace; This Island Earth centers around aliens who have already set up a secret base in America from which they intend to transport the world’s best scientists back to their home planet of Metaluna.  A film depicting a direct alien intervention is best presented when an extraterrestrial named Klaatu (Michael Rennie, 1909-1971) along with a giant robot named Gort (Lock Martin, 1916-1959) lands in President’s Park Ellipse in Washington, D.C announcing themselves to the world in The Day the Earth Stood Still.   Klaatu represents inhabitants of other planets or a plurality of worlds sent to earth to stop the earthlings from destroying themselves.  Klaatu’s mission is to enlighten the earthlings about how peaceful his world is and that he, and those he represents, are bemused that all the earthlings want to do is engage in tribal warfare.  He is distressed that the humans will soon be consumed with their new found power - atomic energy - and admonishes them to learn to live in peace or face dire consequences, the annihilation of planet earth.  The passwords that activate Klaatu’s mute robot Gort, “Klaatu barada nikto” appear in the film Army of Darkness (1992, a/k/a Evil Dead 3) that Ash (Bruce Campbell) has to speak them in order to retrieve the Necronomicon (cf. H. P. Lovecraft) from an ancient cemetery.  Klaatu serves as an ambassador for a confederacy of peaceful planets that appear to represent a socialist, quasi-communistic, Soviet styled Shangri-La that Klaatu insists the earthlings must strive towards.  Alien invasions allegorize the Soviet threat during the Cold War; fears relating to newly found atomic power are replete in films from this same genre.

Fears emanating from the overuse of nuclear power can be seen in films featuring giant, oversized insects and human abnormalities.  These creatures become mutated from being accidentally (or in some cases intentionally) exposed to nuclear radiation or atomic energy of some kind.  Giant ants beleaguer the countryside in Them! (1954), an enormous tarantula terrorizes in Tarantula (1955), mutated crabs wreak havoc in Attack of the Crab Monsters (1957), and Béla Lugosi portrays the misunderstood Dr. Eric Vornoff who plans to create a race of perfected atomic supermen to conquer the world in Bride of the Monster (1956).  Space men radiate news reporter Nancy Archer (Allison Hayes, 1930-1977) turning her into a female colossus in Attack of the 50 FT. Woman (1958), an atomic blast in the artic unfreezes a hibernating dinosaur which tramples New York City in The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms (1953), a contaminated cloud miniaturizes Robert Carey (Grant Williams, 1931-1985) forcing him to live in a doll house in The Incredible Shrinking Man (1957), and a radioactive octopus harasses the world in It Came From Beneath the Sea (1955).  Exposure to radiation births The Amazing Colossal Man (1957), while nuclear fallout resurrects corpses causing them to leave their graves becoming cannibalistic zombies in The Night of the Living Dead (1968).  Mutated brains attack the living in Fiend Without a Face (1958), nuclear testing awakes a Paleosaurus, a prehistoric gargantuan dinosaur in The Giant Behemoth (1959), and a mutated reptile named Godzilla (1954, Toho Studios) forever plagues Japan.  Godzilla symbolizes Japan’s anxieties resulting from the United States nuclear bombings on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 that ended the Pacific theater of combat during World War II.  A general theme of angst relating to the advancement of science can also be seen in films such as Glen or Glenda (1953) which explores societies disdain over a surgically performed sex-change and its first cousin transvestism.  Aversion to teleportation can be found in The Fly (1958) and consternation over the study of the human brain and its chemical operations is presented in Donovan’s Brain (1953).  The last of the traditional “Universal” monsters in the vein of Dracula, the Wolf Man, and Frankenstein’s Monster is the Creature From the Black Lagoon (1954).  Creature and its related sequels represent the fear of the sea, rivers, and lakes and their undiscovered mysteries such as undines which is the name given to the family of water elementals, mermaids, water sprites, potamides,[169] and krakens[170] all of which are under the aegis of Neptune or Poseidon, the King of the Sea.  Although not considered a traditional monster, Robert Louis Stevenson’s (1850-1894) novella the Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1886) encroaches on the fears of modern psychiatry and the birth of psychoanalysis anticipating the works of Eugen Bleuler (1857-1939), Sigmund Freud (1856-1939), and Carl Jung (1875-1961); it was Bleuler who coined the terms “schizophrenia” and “schizoid”.  The novella is about a London lawyer named Gabriel John Utterson who investigates strange occurrences between his old friend, Dr Henry Jekyll, and the evil Edward Hyde the latter symbolizing the Jungian shadow-self.  The work is commonly associated with the rare mental condition often spuriously called split personality referred to in psychiatry as dissociative identity disorder.  Dissociative identity disorder occurs when, within the same body, there exists more than one distinct personality.  In Stevenson’s story there are two personalities within Dr. Jekyll representing completely opposite levels of morality.  The three most famous cinematic versions of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde are those of 1920 (John Barrymore, 1882-1942), 1931 (Fredric March, 1897-1975), and 1941 (Spencer Tracy, 1900-1967).  Anxieties related to humankind’s destructive nature can be found in the film Planet of the Apes (1968) where, after a nuclear war, evolution reverses.  In the future simians, not man, rule planet earth as the dominate race.  The simians are divided into the distinct species which are the apes, the orangutans, and the chimpanzees.  Each species has its own purpose; the apes are the militaristic police, the orangutans are the philosophic law makers, and the chimps are the rationale scientists.  All three species idolize and “worship” an orangutan Lawgiver who is comparable to the Hebrew Moses.

As a result of the Women’s Liberation Movement of the 1960’s and 1970’s, a counter-feminist novel and movie welcomes the doldrums and boredoms of suburbia and domestically.  The Stepford Wives (1975) tames the radicalism of the Woman’s Movement transforming liberal, bra burning free-thinking women into sexually submissive, un-opinionated brain-dead housewives.  The protagonist, Joanna Eberhart (Katherine Ross) worst fears are realized when she discovers that the members of Stepford’s boorish Men’s Club are replacing their spouses with robotic counterparts who are nothing more than dull mindless sex-slaves.  The Stepford Wives deflates the Women’s Liberation Movement implying that the robotic versions of the woman are what men truly desire and not free thinking, opinionated female philosophers.  The terror of Satanic Cults preying on suburbia was brought to life in 2009’s The House of the Devil where babysitter Samantha (Jocelin Donahue) is victimized by Mr. And Mrs. Ulman (Tom Noonan and Mary Woronov), a seemingly normal couple who are in league with infernal spirits.  Finally, the fear of death is allegorized in 1979’s Phantasm where instead of journeying to the peaceful afterlife your corpse and soul may fall prey to the nefarious and mysterious Tall Man (Angus Scrimm).  The Tall Man demonically exclaims, “You think when you die, you go to heaven. You come to us!”[171]  The Tall Man is an inter-dimensional being who robs graves transforming the recent dead into evil dwarf henchmen who are transported back to his world to serve as slaves.  The victim’s soul is placed into a lethal mechanical flying silver orb that protects the Tall Man and his ghoulish activities.  The Tall Man personifies a Lovecraftian pan-dimensional entity (cf. Cthulhu) who wants to destroy and enslave the human race.

Random concealed symbolisms appears in various horror and mystery thrillers.  For example, in 1999’s The Ninth Gate the image of the Devil appears in a unique yet appropriate place.  The Devil, who is twined with Lucifer is played by actress Emmanuelle Seigner and her visage can be seen on a stamp placed on a postcard near the end of the film. When Dean Corso (Johnny Depp) is sitting in a French pub trying to locate where Boris Balkan (Frank Langella) has disappeared to, he pulls out a postcard that he retrieved from Baroness Kessler’s (Barbara Jefford) library.  The image is of a castle titled La Tour Du Diable (“The Devil’s Tower”) which is where Balkan plans to unlock the mystery of the Nine Gates.  Balkan in fact mailed the postcard to Kessler taunting her, “Sorry Frieda I saw it first! Boris” which can clearly be seen written on the card.  On the upper back right side is a red postage stamp featuring the face of Lucifer qua Satan which is metaphorically apropos since the card is The Devil’s Tower.[172]  She bears the esoteric light that Balkan seeks since Lucifer in Latin is Light Bearer or the bringer of true enlightenment (cf. the sun) within the Masonic occult vernacular.

At the start of the horror thriller Evilspeak (1981), the seventeenth-eighteenth century Satanic Dominican Friar Father Esteban (Richard Moll) is being banished from Spain warned never to return.  Esteban is an extreme version of Dominican Friar and Neo-Platonic astrologer Tommaso Campanella (1568-1639) who wrote the astral and esoteric novella The City of the Sun in 1602 (Italian version) shortly after Campanella’s imprisonment for heresy and sedition.  Although not a horror film, the Devil also appears in the gangland movie The Warriors (1979).  Luther (David Patrick Kelly), the leader of the gang the Rogues, shoots and kills Cyrus (Roger Hill) during a massive gangland meeting in the Bronx.  Cyrus’ arms are outstretched resembling a crucified martyr when Luther guns him down; Luther manically shouts that the Coney Island gang the Warriors are the killers, “There he is! That’s him! That’s... the Warrior! He shot Cyrus! …He’s the one! He’s the one! The Warriors did it! The Warriors did it! The Warriors did it!”  Cyrus led New York City’s largest gang, the Gramercy Riffs, who immediately put the word out for the other gangs to hunt down and kill the Warriors.  Shortly after the Warriors escape from the another gang named the Turnbull AC’s, Luther is seen and heard speaking on a payphone.  Based on Luther’s dialog it is obvious that he is speaking to his master the Devil.  Luther says smirking, “Yeah, how are you? …Just checking in …Yeah it was a real mess up there …This guy Cyrus had an accident …They did? …Well that’s o.k. …These guys, The Warriors, they deserve it. …Yeah we will. …Take care of yourself.”  After getting off the phone with the Prince of Darkness, Luther explains that they are safe telling his Rogue lieutenant Cropsey (Joel Weiss), “We’re set alright.  Somebody should pick their asses up.  The Riffs sent out the word. They want ‘em alive. We don’t.”  The deceased Gramercy Riffs’ leader Cyrus embodies Cyrus the Great of Persia (c. 600 BC or 576 B.C.E.-530 B.C.E.) who was the founder of the Achaemenid Empire.  Both leaders want to consolidate and control: Cyrus wants to unite all the gangs of New York under his banner while Cyrus the Great embraced and unified all the previous civilized states of the ancient Near East.  The latter eventually conquering most of southwest and central Asia as well as the Caucasus.  Finally, the Devil symbolically incarnates as Lloyd the ghostly bartender (Joe Turkel) in 1980’s The Shining directed by Stanley Kubrick (1928-1999).  Lloyd seduces Jack Torrance (Jack Nicholson) with alcohol precipitating his mental and spiritual breakdown leading to him killing hotel employee Dick Hallorann (Scatman Crothers, 1910-1986) with an ax while trying to murder his wife and son.  Lloyd the bartender not only allegorizes the Devil but American architect and interior designer Frank Lloyd Wright (1867-1959).  Lloyd Wright inspired the design of the Gold Room within which the ghostly Lloyd presides. The real life Gold Room can be found in the Biltmore Hotel, Phoenix, Arizona, which is of Wright design and influenced Kubrick.  The Overlook’s Gold Room (cf. the sun) is where Jack Torrance falls from grace transforming him into the fallen angel Lucifer.  Lucifer in Latin means the Light Bearer or Bringer and refers to Venus or the son of the morning star which arises in the morning hours in the east before the sun as an emblem of false, negative light.  Being false light, Lucifer is the name given to the chief fallen angel in John Milton’s (1608-1674) epic poem Paradise Lost of 1667.  In Torrance’s case, he experiences anti-apotheosis and anti-enlightenment in this “solar” Gold Room beginning his fall from grace and changing him into a demonic entity.  Torrance’s Luciferian downfall is further fostered by a malignant female ghost who haunts Room 237.[173]  If one adds 2+3+7 one gets the number twelve which symbolizes the twelve houses of the zodiac which are ruled by the sun.  Our golden sun passes through each house on an annual basis ruling it for approximately thirty days.  In The Shining, solar rulership is presented negatively and is metaphorically or even dualistically reversed.  Jack Torrance is a fallen, lost, or “false sun” villainous archetype that presides over the entire hotel paralleling the sun’s mastery of the zodiac.  In other words, Jack Torrance is Lucifer in the Miltonian or Christian tradition personifying an evil presence that forever oversees the Overlook Hotel whilst serving it at the same time; he is anti-gnosis.  This is explained to Torrance by the ghost of Delbert Grady (Philip Stone, 1924-2003) who informs him, “I’m sorry to differ with you sir, but you are the caretaker. You’ve always been the caretaker. I should know sir.  I’ve always been here.”  The long, never ending corridors of the Overlook and its imposing staircases create an interior, claustrophobic labyrinth.  A labyrinth is a solar emblem explained by Masonic philosopher Albert Pike,

“The celebrated Labyrinth was built in honor of the Sun; and its twelve places, like the twelve superb columns of the Temple at Hieropolis, covered with symbols relating to the twelve signs and the occult qualities of the elements, were consecrated to the twelve gods or tutelary genii of the signs of the Zodiac. The figure of the pyramid and that of the obelisk, resembling the shape of a flame, caused these monuments to be consecrated to the Sun and to Fire.  And Timaeus of Locria says: ‘The equilateral triangle enters in the composition of the pyramid, which has four equal faces and equal angles, and  which in this is like fire, the most subtle and mobile of the elements.’ They and the obelisks were erected in honor of the Sun, termed in an inscription upon one of the latter, translated by the Egyptian Hermapion, and to be found in Ammianus Marcellinus, “Apollo the strong, Son of God, He who made the world, true Lord of the diadems, who possesses Egypt and fills it with His glory.”[174]

The Overlook’s interior allegorizes a somber solar-like maze.  Since the sun is “dead” in the winter months the forces of darkness are naturally exalted.  This could never have been more true than within the Overlook Hotel.  The Torrance family is the Overlook’s winter caretakers and it is during a blizzard that Jack Torrance finally snaps spiritually and mentally succumbing to the demons and ghosts that haunt the hotel.  Torrance attempts to kill his wife and son with an ax during a psychotic, demon possessed episode.  Danny Torrance, Jack’s son, seeks and finds salvation away from the Overlook’s dark and brooding interior maze.  Danny finds sanctuary in an outdoor, natural labyrinth where his maniacal father is unable to find him.  Unable to escape this labyrinth, Jack Torrance freezes to death.  The Overlook’s Gold Room aside, Frank Lloyd Wright’s architectural design can be seen in another famous horror film.  The exterior of Wright’s Ennis House serves as the façade of 1959’s The House on Haunted Hill staring Vincent Price.  Wright used textile block design in a series of Mayan revival houses he built in Los Angeles in the 1920s.  The Ennis House is a residential dwelling in the Los Feliz neighborhood south of Griffith Park.  The home was designed by Wright for Charles and Mabel Ennis in 1923 and built in 1924.

The Overlook Hotel also represents the dark side or alchemical nigredo (cf. Jung’s shadow) of the United States of America.  It is explained that the Overlook Hotel was, “built over an Indian burial ground” paralleling the United States which was established on what was once native Indian land.  The establishment of the United States allegorically and literally “buried” the Indian Nations.  Symbolizing the United States, the Overlook is opulent and upwardly mobile; “Four Presidents, movie stars. ... All the best people,” have patronized the Overlook according the hotel’s manager Stuart Ullman (Barry Nelson, 1917-2007).

Likewise the specters that haunt it are extravagant and elegant yet evil.  Being the Overlook’s only inhabitants during the film, serving as its wintertime custodian, the family of Jack Torrance, his wife Winifred or Wendy (Shelley Duvall), and their son Danny (Danny Lloyd) are often seen wearing red, white, and blue clothing emblematizing the United States flag and American patriotism. Red, white, and blue color schemes are prevalent in The Shining.  An American flag conspicuously sits atop Mr. Ullman’s desk; Jack Torrance and Delbert Grady kibitz in a stark red and white men’s room and Grady’s twin ghostly daughters appear wearing blue dresses with white knee high socks.  The gallons of red blood that empty down the Overlook’s corridors symbolize alchemical rubedo to be discussed in this author’s next book, Cinema Symbolism II: More Esoteric Imagery from Popular Movies.

*      *       *       *       *

Famous serial killers are also personified in film.  The Silence of the Lambs’ killer Jame “Buffalo Bill” Gumb (Ted Levine) is a composite of three real life serial murders: Ed Gein (1906-1984), Theodore “Ted” Bundy (1946-1989), and Gary Heidnik (1943-1999).  Lambs’ other serial killer, the impassive HAnnibal Lecter (Anthony Hopkins) is analogous to the emotionless, logical, and systematic computer system HAL 9000, or Heuristically programmed ALgorithmic computer from Arthur C. Clarke’s 2001: A Space Odyssey.  Clarke’s (1917-2008) 2001 was turned into a motion picture directed by Stanley Kubrick in 1968.  Both Hannibal Lecter and HAL 9000 epitomize logic and genius symbolized by their intellectual monotone voice.  Edward Theodore “Ed” Gein (1906 - 1984) was an American murderer and body snatcher.  His crimes, committed around his hometown of Plainfield, Wisconsin, gathered widespread notoriety after authorities discovered Gein had exhumed corpses from local graveyards and fashioned trophies and keepsakes from their bones and skins.  Theodore Robert “Ted” Bundy (born Theodore Robert Cowell, 1946-1989) was a serial killer, rapist, kidnapper, and necrophile who assaulted and murdered numerous young women and girls during the 1970s. After more than a decade of denials he confessed shortly before his execution to 30 homicides committed in seven states between 1974 and 1978. Gary Michael Heidnik was a psychopath who kidnapped, tortured, and raped six women and kept them prisoner in his Philadelphia, Pennsylvania basement.  The Silence of the Lambs’ Jame Gumb is a composite all three killers being Gein-like since adorns himself with human flesh. Gumb is making himself a suit out of skins taken from his female victims.  Gumb embodies Bundy echoing Bundy’s ruse of feigning injury by wrapping his arm up in an Ace Bandage.  Bundy would struggle trying to move something near his car which would lure women into providing assistance thus entrapping them.  Buffalo Bill fakes having an injured arm successfully ensnaring Senator Ruth Martin’s (Diane Baker) daughter Catherine Martin (Brooke Smith) into helping him move a sofa.  Gumb is comparable to Heidnik since, like Heidnik, Gumb imprisons and tortures women in his basement-dungeon.

The characters of Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins, Psycho, 1960), Leatherface (Gunnar Hansen, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, 1974) are also based on the exploits of Ed Gein.  Norman Bates, like Gein, was devoted to making his mother happy.  Ed Gein dug up the graves of recently buried middle-aged women who he thought resembled his mother taking the bodies home where he tanned their skins to make his morbid paraphernalia.  Norman Bates has his share of sick Gein-like paraphernalia.  Norman keeps his mother’s mummified corpse in her upstairs bedroom where she sits in front of a window forever watchful over the Bates Motel.  In Psycho, Bates dresses up as his mother, impersonates her voice, and kills young ladies that upset mother by making her jealous.  Bates’ “mother”, which is Norman’s shadow self, detests flirtatious and vivacious young woman that excite her son causing “mother” to go into a psychotic rage.  Norman is a true split personality who is both mother and son, shadow and conscious ego.  Norman’s shadow self aside, Psycho’s director, Alfred Hitchcock (1899-1980), executes concealed symbolism with regard to Marion Crane’s (Janet Leigh, 1927-2004) shadow personality in the film.  This is emblematized by her lingerie.  Prior to her stealing the money she is seen in white underwear representing her innocence and conscious ego.  However, after the theft she is seen in black lingerie symbolizing her shadow self and her new found commitment to evil.  Marion Crane, like Norman Bates, has two contrasting sides to her personality.  In the end, Bates punishes Crane’s shadow persona by dressing up as jealous mother and stabbing her to death while she takes a shower.

The chainsaw wielding Leatherface of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre symbolizes the exploits of Gein since Leatherface’s abode is festooned with human remains and other fetishes of the macabre.  Leatherface himself wears a mask made out of human flesh.  Chainsaw opens with a narration given by John Larroquette,

“The film which you are about to see is an account of the tragedy which befell a group of five youths, in particular Sally Hardesty and her invalid brother, Franklin. It is all the more tragic in that they were young. But, had they lived very, very long lives, they could not have expected nor would they have wished to see as much of the mad and macabre as they were to see that day. For them an idyllic summer afternoon drive became a nightmare.

The events of that day were to lead to the discovery of one of the most bizarre crimes in the annals of American history, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre.”

Near the beginning of the film Pam, one of the five youths, reads Franklin Hardesty’s horoscope which foreshadows the horrors to come.  She reads, “Hey, listen to Franklin’s horoscope. ‘Travel in the country, long-range plans, and upsetting persons around you, could make this a disturbing and unpredictable day. The events in the world are not doing much either to cheer one up,’ …Oh, no. Capricorn’s ruled by Saturn. ‘There are moments when we cannot believe that what is happening is really true. Pinch yourself and you may find out that it is.’”  Saturn rules the sign of Capricorn (21 December - 20 January) when the sun is at its lowest demarcation in the northern hemisphere.  It is during this time that the sun is weakest or “dead” thus Saturn always associates itself with death and darkness.  In The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Saturn is an ill omen heralding the tragic deaths of four of the five teenagers at the hands of the sadistic and crazed Leatherface.

Like Leatherface, Michael Myers stalks the Celtic festival of Samhain or modern day Halloween as evil personified in 1978’s Halloween.  The mask Myers wears is none other than William Shatner or Captain James T. Kirk of television show Star Trek. The mask was painted white and the hair was matted to present a diabolical and emotionless appearance.

Halloween was seen as a time when the door to the other-world opened enough for the souls of the dead and other beings to enter into our dimension.  Feasts were had at which the souls of dead kin were beckoned to attend with a place set at the table for them. Halloween has thus been likened to a festival of the dead.  People also took steps to protect themselves from harmful spirits which is thought to have led to the custom of guising oneself and placing lit jack-o-lanterns outside their homes.  In the American tradition the lit pumpkin represents a death’s head intended to ward off unwelcome spirits on Halloween night.  However, the jack-o-lantern’s history is more occult and ominous.  The movie Halloween opens with a candlelit glowing jack-o-lantern with John Carpenter’s unmistakable and malevolent musical score playing.  In folklore, the burning jack-o-lantern is a phosphorescent light seen in marsh or swamp areas which is either the manifestation of a malicious lost soul or a death omen.  It is known as “will-o’-the wisp” and “corpse light” in England and is called “fairy light” and “fox fire” in Ireland.  In Ireland children who are caught outdoors after dark are told to wear their jackets inside-out in order not to be lured astray by a jack-o-lantern.  The jack-o-lantern also appears in American Indian and Appalachian folklore. The Penobscot Indians call it the “fire demon” which has lighted fingertips which it spins in a wheel and skims the milk at dairies during the night.   In the Appalachians, mysterious fire-like balls of light appear floating in the hills at night moving and bobbing about the countryside.  In Africa, the jack-o-lantern light is called a “witch-fire” and is believed to be the witch herself flying through the air or a light sent by the witch to scare wrongdoers.  Halloween’s chief competition in the so-called “slasher genre” is 1980’s Friday the 13th where Pamela Sue Voorhees (Betsy Palmer) stalks and kills the teenage stewards and councilors of Camp Crystal Lake on the infamous date.  Friday the 13th, being a day of misfortune, originates from the arrest of the Knights Templar on Friday October 13th, 1307 forever linking the day of Friday the 13th with bad luck.[175]

Although the film has nothing to do with Michael Myers, Halloween III: Season of the Witch incorporates occult iconography.  A Druidic Warlock named Conal Cochran (Dan O’Herlihy, 1919-2005) pilfers one of Stonehenge’s trilithon stones in an effort to harness its magical and arcane properties.  Cochran runs a Halloween mask-making and novelty company called Silver Shamrock Novelties. Cochran has imbedded a tiny piece of the trilithon stone in back of the Silver Shamrock trademark and tagged it to the back of three of his most iconic Halloween masks: a witch, a pumpkin, and a skull.  Children are instructed to wear their masks and watch the “Big Give Away” advertisement on Halloween night.  The “Big Give Away” is nothing more than a flashing Silver Shamrock icon that appears on screen activating the piece of trilithon stone in the mask’s trademark causing plague.  The mask and consequently the child’s face are ravaged by bugs, spiders, bees, snakes, and other parasites.

The Druidic Stonehenge is steeped in mystery and occultism thus the stones that create it must be imbued with supernatural powers. More specifically, the concept of a trilithon stone possessing mystical abilities is borrowed from Arthur C. Clarke’s 2001: A Space Odyssey and 2010: Odyssey Two (published 1982); the latter novel turned into a film titled 2010: The Year We Make Contact in 1984. A foremost icon of these stories and their related films are the black, rectangular, trilithon-like indestructible Monoliths.  The Monoliths in 2001 and 2010 are extraterrestrial in nature containing information about the origins of intelligence and human evolution.  The first monolith appears in the beginning of the film 2001 which is set in prehistoric times.  It is discovered by a group of hominids and somehow magically triggers a considerable shift in evolution starting with the ability to use tools and weaponry.  The first monolith discovered in the modern age was uncovered on the moon at the site of an unnaturally powerful magnetic field near Tycho Crater which is named after Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe (1546-1601).  It is at first dubbed the Tycho Magnetic Anomaly 1 or “TMA-1” before the monolith was actually discovered.  After its physical discovery by earthlings the monolith is found to be a genuine alien artifact, its name is changed to Tycho Monolith Anomaly 1, still “TMA-1”.  Soon afterwards a second, larger monolith is discovered orbiting Jupiter which was named “TMA-2”.  A few centuries in the future a third monolith is discovered buried on Earth in rocks which were clearly millions of years old and is surrounded by primitive human artifacts.  This one is retroactively named “TMA-0” as opposed to “TMA-3” since it had been the first monolith to be discovered by Neanderthals during prehistoric times.  These Monoliths symbolize ancient pre-historic trilithon stones because, like ancient stone monuments and structures, seem to contain and preserve the true yet mercurial extraterrestrial origins of the human race.

Returning to Halloween III, Silver Shamrock Novelties’ logo - a silver shamrock - is of symbolic importance.  The color silver is linked to the moon which associates with the goddesses Diana and Hecate who are the patronesses of witches.  To the Druids the shamrock symbolized the spring equinox and the resurrected sun.[176]  The shamrock emblematizes the Celtic sun wheel which was used at spring and summer sabbats.[177]  A trefoil is correctly tied to the magical number three or the tripartite goddess Hecate and the caduceus or magical wand of Hermes Trismegistus who is the thrice greatest god of magic and wisdom.  However, Cochran has employed the mysteries of Druidism for darker purposes.  The Silver Shamrock trademark symbolically identifies Conal Cochran as a warlock (male witch) who is using the dark side of Druidism to carry out his evil plan.  Cochran conjures harmful magic while his motivations and timing are based on astrology and astronomy which were part of the Druidic Mysteries.  Cochran explains himself to Dr. Daniel Challis (Tom Atkins), “Halloween, the festival of Samhain. The last great one took place three thousand years ago, when the hills ran red with the blood of animals and children. … It was part of our world, our Craft.  …To us it was a way of controlling our environment.  It’s not so different now.  It’s time again.  In the end, we don’t decide these things you know. The planets do. They’re in alignment, and it’s time again. The world’s going to change tonight doctor.  I’m glad you’ll be able to watch it. And, happy Halloween.”  Although he is killed, Cochran’s demonic plan succeeds when one of the television stations refuses to pull the “Big Give Away” commercial at the film’s climax.

This chapter concludes with the concealed imagery of George Romero horror classic The Night of the Living Dead (1968).  This cinematic masterpiece is a metaphor of America’s consternation of having to come to terms with the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s.  Ben (Duane Jones, 1937-1988), the film’s hero, is an African American who is calm, cool, and collected.  He rationally deals with the hysterics of white people who are trapped, like him, in a house besieged by zombies.  Ben slaps the frantic Barbra (Judith O’Dea) to calm her down, he shoots the crazed father of a sanctimonious Caucasian family determined to hide in the fruit cellar, and exiting the farm house as the only survivor of the ordeal, Ben’s gallantry is rewarded by being shot down by white-trash militia.  The character of Ben single-handedly revolutionized the presence of African Americans in cinema presenting them for the first time as the hero-savior archetype.  Furthermore, Ben’s tragic fate parallels the assassinations of civil rights leaders Martin Luther King Jr. (1929-1968), Medgar Evers (1925-1963), and Malcolm X (1925-1965) who, like Ben, were martyred.  The overall negative and unproductive interactions between the main characters of The Night of the Living Dead are reversed in one of its sequels titled The Return of the Living Dead which was released in 1985.  Instead of the protagonists being paranoid and working against one another, the different cliques of teenagers all work in unison and with the adults.  The punks Scuz (Brian Peck), Trash (Linnea Quigley), and Suicide (Mark Venturini) are friends with the new-wavers Chuck (John Philbin) and Casey (Jewel Shepard) and an African American rebel nicknamed Spider (Miguel A. Núñez Jr.).  All of them in turn are best friends with the preppies Tina (Beverly Randolph) and Freddy (Thom Mathews).  These seemingly opposing archetypes form an “anti-Breakfast Club” who interact with the adults Burt Wilson (Clu Gulager), Frank (James Karen), and undertaker/cremation expert Ernie Kaltenbrunner (Don Calfa) to problem-solve without acrimony.  The name “Ernie Kaltenbrunner” is a hidden reference to real life Ernst Kaltenbrunner and, by default, to the dreaded SS that ran Nazi death camps such as Auschwitz and Triblinka where the dead were disposed of via crematoriums.  Kaltenbrunner (1903-1946) was an Austrian-born senior official of Nazi Germany during World War II.  Between January 1943 and May 1945, he held the offices of Chief of the Reichssicherheitshauptamt (RSHA, Reich Main Security Office), President of Interpol and as a SS-Obergruppenführer Waffen-SS he was the highest ranking Schutzstaffel (SS) leader to face trial at the first Nuremberg Trials.  He was found guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity and was hanged on 16 October 1946.  Within Ernie’s embalming room in The Return of the Living Dead one can see a picture of Eva Braun (1912-1945) appropriately hanging on the wall.  Eva forges a nexus to the historic Kaltenbrunner as Ernie’s true namesake.  A photo of Criswell the Psychic sitting in his coffin can also be seen on the background wall in a couple scenes symbolizing Ernie’s highly eccentric personality

Thus concludes horror film symbolism.  These films go beyond the pale of good verses evil instead raising universal questions regarding the nature of light and dark and the nature of the soul.  In Frankenstein, the good doctor is trying to prevent death yet creates an abomination.  In Dracula, an evil vampire is hunted for finding his soul mate across the centuries.  To enter these dark abysses is to leave sanctimonious reality for the true, to discover the annihilating darkness from which light forms anew.  The next chapter shines light into the deepest depths of the entire Star Wars saga, from Episode I to Episode VI, uncovering its occult symbolism. Everything from “hokey religions” to “ancient weapons” will be explored.  Chapter VIII opens with 1977’s A New Hope which was the first Star Wars film to be released but the fourth in the series.  Now, “A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away.…”

Chapter VIII

May the Force be With You

The Star Wars Monomyth

“As you see my Jedi powers are far

beyond yours. Now, back down.”

- Count Dooku/Darth Tyranus, Star Wars:

Attack of the Clones, 2002.

“You will not stop me!

Darth Vader will become more

powerful than either of us!”

- Darth Sidious, Star Wars:

Revenge of the Sith, 2005.

“Some day you’re gonna be wrong, I just hope I’m there to see it.”

- Princess Leia Organa, Star Wars:

The Empire Strikes Back, 1980.

“Don’t try to frighten us with your sorcerer’s ways, Lord Vader.

Your sad devotion to that ancient religion

hasn’t helped you conjure up the stolen data tapes

or given you clairvoyance enough to find the rebels’ hidden fortress--”

- General Motti, Star Wars: A New Hope, 1977.

“Kid, I’ve flown from one side of this galaxy to the other,

and I’ve seen a lot of strange stuff, but I’ve never seen

anything to make me believe that there’s one

all-powerful Force controlling everything.

‘Cause no mystical energy field controls my destiny.

It’s all a lot of simple tricks and nonsense.”

- Han Solo, Star War: A New Hope, 1977.

“Stopped they must be; on this all depends.

Only a fully trained Jedi Knight, with the Force

as his ally, will conquer Vader and his Emperor.

If you end your training now - if you choose

the quick and easy path as Vader did -

you will become an agent of evil.”

- Yoda, Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back, 1980.

An entire generation grew up watching and emulating the Star Wars films, thus their influence upon material culture is undeniable.  An invention of George Lucas, the entire saga is filled with interesting characters, technologies, allegories and symbolism, dualistic notions relating to religion, and the oldest story of all, light versus dark or good against evil.  Released on May 25th, 1977, George Lucas’ Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope launched the franchise and its subsequent sequels and prequels.  As of the writing and publishing of this book, it is rumored that Star Wars episodes VII, VIII, and IX are being planned and are in pre-production.  In order to understand the esoterica contained in these films a brief plot description must be given of each since the storylines themselves are of symbolic importance.  This is also true of the Matrix Trilogy and The Lord of the Rings.  This chapter follows the chronological order in which the Star Wars films were released.

Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope

As John Williams musical score booms, Episode IV begins with opening lines explaining that the galaxy is in a state of civil war and that spies for the Rebel Alliance have stolen plans to the Galactic Empire’s dreaded Death Star, a heavily armed and armored space station capable of annihilating an entire planet.  Rebel leader Princess Leia Organa is in possession of its computerized blueprints, but her ship is captured by Imperial forces under the command of the sinister Sith Lord Darth Vader (David Prowse, voiced by James Earl Jones).  Before she is captured Leia hides the plans in the memory of an Astromech droid called R2-D2 (Kenny Baker) along with a holographic recording of herself.  The small droid flees to the surface of the desert planet Tatooine with protocol droid C-3PO (Anthony Daniels). C-3PO and R2-D2 provide comic relief throughout the entire saga personifying other comedic duos such as Laurel and Hardy,[178] Abbott and Costello,[179] Martin and Lewis,[180] and Amos ‘n Andy.[181]

The droids are quickly captured by indigenous Jawa traders who sell the pair to moisture farmers Owen (Phil Brown) and Beru Lars (Shelagh Fraser) and their nephew, Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill). While Luke is cleaning R2-D2 he accidentally triggers part of Leia’s holographic message in which she requests assistance from Obi-Wan Kenobi (Alec Guinness). The only “Kenobi” that Luke knows of is an old hermit named Ben Kenobi who lives in the nearby hills.  The next morning Luke, upon finding that R2-D2 has escaped during the night to seek Obi-Wan, goes searching for the droid with C-3PO.  Skywalker is attacked by Tusken Raiders (a/k/a “Sand People”) who are scared off by a shadowy hooded scarecrow-like figure in the distance. Coming-to, Luke meets the hooded person who is Ben Kenobi.  Kenobi then reveals himself to be Obi-Wan.  Obi-Wan Kenobi tells Luke of his days as a Jedi Knight.  The Jedis are a sect of mystical warrior monks who served as galactic peacekeepers but were destroyed by the Empire. Contrary to his uncle’s statements, Luke learns that his father Anakin Skywalker fought alongside Obi-Wan as a Jedi Knight before he was betrayed and killed by Vader who was Obi-Wan’s former pupil.  Vader was seduced by the dark side of the Force becoming a Sith Lord.  Ben then gives Luke his father’s lightsaber weapon.

Obi-Wan views Leia’s complete message during which she begs him to take the Death Star plans to her home planet of Alderaan for her father to retrieve and analyze.  The Death Star is a moon-like battle station capable of annihilating a planet.  Ben then asks Luke to accompany him and learn the ways of the Force.  Luke initially refuses, but changes his mind after discovering that Imperial Stormtroopers have destroyed his home and killed his aunt and uncle in search of C-3PO and R2-D2.  Obi-Wan and Luke hire pirate and smuggler Han Solo (Harrison Ford) and his Wookiee first mate Chewbacca (Peter Mayhew) to transport them on their ship, the Millennium Falcon. Han agrees but only after negotiating an exorbitant fee.  Upon being questioned if the Falcon is a fast ship, Solo brags that it “made the Kessel Run in less than twelve parsecs.”

Upon the Falcon’s arrival at Alderaan, they find that the planet has been destroyed under the orders of the Death Star’s commanding officer Grand Moff Tarkin (Peter Cushing, 1913-1994) to pressure Leia into revealing the hidden base of the Rebellion. Leia identifies Dantoonine as the location of the secret rebel base.  Tarkin nevertheless demonstrates the Death Star’s fire power ordering the destruction of Alderaan.  Tarkin and Vader soon realize she lied prompting Tarkin to order her immediate execution.  Meanwhile the Millennium Falcon is caught by the nearby Death Star’s tractor beam and brought into its hangar bay.  While Obi-Wan goes off to disable the tractor beam, Luke discovers that Leia is imprisoned and with the help of Han and Chewbacca, rescues her. After several harrowing escapes they make their way back to the Falcon but Obi-Wan sacrifices himself in a lightsaber duel with Vader allowing the rebels to flee. The Falcon escapes the Death Star but the Empire has placed a tracking device on the ship to follow them to the rebels’ hidden base on Yavin IV.

The rebels analyze the Death Star plans, disclosing a vulnerable exhaust port leading to the station’s main reactor.  Luke joins the assault team, but Han collects his reward for the rescue and intends to leave despite Luke asking him to stay.  Han is in debt to the gangster Jabba the Hut and wishes to pay him off.  The rebels suffer heavy losses after several failed attack runs leaving Luke as one of the few surviving pilots.  Darth Vader, escorted by two TIE (Twin Ion Engines) Fighters are about to destroy Luke’s X-Wing, but Han Solo returns at the last moment and destroys the TIE Fighters with the blast sending Vader spiraling away.  Luke then successfully destroys the Death Star seconds before it can fire on the rebel base.  Luke, Han, and Chewbacca are subsequently awarded medals by Princess Leia for their heroism.

The original Star Wars Trilogy (Episodes IV-VI) was born out of the works of Joseph Campbell.  Campbell was an American mythologist, writer, and lecturer who is best known for his work in comparative mythology and religion.  His most famous work is The Hero with a Thousand Faces originally published in 1949.  On Campbell and Hero George Lucas has stated, “In the three decades since I discovered The Hero with a Thousand Faces, it has continued to fascinate and inspire me.  Joseph Campbell peers through centuries and shows us that we are all connected by a basic need to hear stories and understand ourselves.”[182]  As will be seen much of Campbell’s philosophies are contained in Star Wars Episode IV.  Campbell’s description of the hero’s mythical journey can be seen in the Matrix movies, The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and the Harry Potter books and films.  This journey is taken by the hero archetype and features elements that are universal. It is not only an adventure, but a Gnostic-like spiritual quest.

The hero’s journey begins with what Campbell describes as the call to adventure.  In The Hero with a Thousand Faces Campbell explains,

“This first stage of the mythological journey - which we have designated the ‘call to adventure’ - signifies that destiny has summoned the hero and transferred his spiritual center of gravity from within the pale of his society to a zone unknown. This fateful region of both treasure and danger may be variously represented: as a distant land, a forest, a kingdom underground, beneath the waves, or above the sky, a secret island, lofty mountaintop, or profound dream state; but it is always a place of strangely fluid and polymorphous beings, unimaginable torments, superhuman deeds, and impossible delights. The hero can go forth of his own volition to accomplish the adventure, as did Theseus when he arrived in his father’s city, Athens, and heard the horrible history of the Minotaur; or he may be carried or sent abroad by some benign or malignant agent as was Odysseus, driven about the Mediterranean by the winds of the angered god, Poseidon. The adventure may begin as a mere blunder ...or still again, one may be only casually strolling when some passing phenomenon catches the wandering eye and lures one away from the frequented paths of man. Examples might be multiplied, ad infinitum, from every corner of the world.”[183]

Campbell borrowed the term monomyth from Joyce’s Finnegans Wake which was first published in 1939.  In Episode IV: A New Hope Luke Skywalker receives his call to adventure when he discovers, by way of a blunder, the holographic message to Obi-Wan Kenobi from Princess Leia.  Skywalker stumbles upon it as he is trying to clean R2-D2.  This starts Luke’s numinous journey beckoning him to a higher purpose.  Luke seeks and finds Kenobi setting up the concept of what Campbell describes as supernatural aid and refusal of the call.  Luke Skywalker, the saga’s chief protagonist, is a solar hero-archetype following in the footsteps of Apollo, Horus, Jesus, Mithras, Bacchus, Attis, and Dionysus.

The name Luke originates from the Latin Lux meaning light, his last name Skywalker when combined with his first means the light that walks across the sky which is the sun.  Tatooine, the home planet of Luke and his father Anakin, has two suns allegorizing its two favorite sons.  This identifies Luke as the solar heir to his father who was considered to be the Jedi messianic “Chosen One”.  Thus Tatooine’s two favorite sons are symbolically represented by two suns.

Skywalker receives spiritual aid and gnosis from Obi-Wan Kenobi.  On this synthesis Campbell says,

“For those who have not refused the call, the first encounter of the hero journey is with a protective figure (often a little old crone or old man) who provides the adventurer with amulets against the dragon forces he is about to pass.

…What such a figure represents is the benign, protecting power of destiny. The fantasy is a reassurance - promise that the peace of Paradise, which was known first within the mother womb, is not to be lost; that it supports the present and stands in the future as well as in the past (is omega as well as alpha); that though omnipotence may seem to be endangered by the threshold passages and life awakenings, protective power is always and ever present within or just behind the unfamiliar features of the world. One has only to know and trust, and the ageless guardians will appear. Having responded to his own call, and continuing to follow courageously as the consequences unfold, the hero finds all the forces of the unconscious at his side. Mother Nature herself supports the mighty task. And in so far as the hero’s act coincides with that for which his society is ready, he seems to ride on the great rhythm of the historical process.”[184]

In Star Wars Episode IV, the old man or hermit is Obi-Wan and the amulet that Kenobi gives Luke is his father’s lightsaber.  Kenobi tells Skywalker, “This is the weapon of a Jedi Knight.  Not as clumsy or random as a blaster - an elegant weapon for a more civilized age.  For over a thousand generations the Jedi Knights were the guardians of peace and justice in the Old Republic. Before the dark times, before the Empire.”  The lightsaber symbolizes the sword of the Samurai who, like the Jedi, were a chivalric order of warrior mystics and philosophers becoming the military nobility of medieval and early-modern Japan.  Both are immediately identified with elegant swords or sabers.  Ben “Obi-Wan” Kenobi, the hermitic sage of Episode IV, symbolizes Thoth Hermes Trismegistus who is the keeper of hidden truths, esoteric knowledge, and magic.  In this case Kenobi knows the truth about who Luke’s father truly is but is reluctant to divulge the information.  Ben is also aware that Luke has a twin sister but again keeps the knowledge to himself.  Campbell mentions the notion of refusing the call to adventure, which Luke does initially saying, “Listen, I can’t get involved.  I’ve got work to do. It’s not that I like the Empire; I hate it, but there’s nothing I can do about it right now.  It’s such a long way from here.” Kenobi admonishes Skywalker, “That’s your uncle talking.”  The work or labor that Luke refers to is assisting his uncle with the harvest.  Luke’s temporary refusal ultimately leads to the death of his aunt and uncle at the hands of imperial forces.  Luke then accepts his fate and embraces his destiny saying to Obi-Wan, “I want to come with you to Alderaan. There’s nothing for me here now. I want to learn the ways of the Force and become a Jedi like my father.”

The Force is a mystical energy field that binds and unites everything.  Kenobi explains, “The Force is what gives a Jedi his power. It’s an energy field created by all living things. It surrounds us and penetrates us. It binds the galaxy together.”  The Force is dualistic having both a positive side and a negative side, light versus dark, or good contrasting evil.  This concept of good against evil or more appropriately light against dark is lifted from the religion of ancient Persia called Zoroastrianism.  Within Zoroastrian theology, Ahura Mazda (light) powers are negated by Angra Mainyu or Ahriman (darkness) who is the Zoroastrian equivalent of the Devil who is assisted by a host of demons.  Zoroastrian eschatology contain elements that would clearly enter Christianity: a perfect kingdom, the coming of a Messiah, the resurrection of the dead and life everlasting. Within the Star Wars saga, the positive energies of the Jedi are negated and in forever conflict with the negative Sith.  The term Sith originates from name of the Egyptian god Set or Typhone.  Set is a god of the desert and storms in the ancient Egyptian religion.  In later myths he is also the god of darkness and chaos.  In Ancient Greek the god’s name is given as Sēth (Σήθ) hence the Sith Lords who are connoisseurs of darkness and controlled chaos.  The Jedi Knights, “… Being purely good, so that it became necessary to set up another power as his adversary, called Seth, Babys, or Typhon, to account for the injurious influences of Nature.”[185]  The struggle of light against the dark side of the force, Jedi versus Sith, is the prime construct of the entire Star Wars monomyth.  There is a seductive lure associated with the dark side of the Force since it offers a faster pathway to absolute power and thus an easier way to obtain supernatural powers.

According to Campbell, the next phase of the hero’s journey is crossing of the first threshold.  This is occurs when the hero leaves behind his or her world of familiarity and enters the realm of the unknown.  Campbell elucidates,

“With the personifications of his destiny to guide and aid him, the hero goes forward in his adventure until he comes to the ‘threshold guardian’ at the entrance to the zone of magnified power. Such custodians bound the world in four directions - also up and down - standing for the limits of the hero’s present sphere, or life horizon. Beyond them is darkness, the unknown and danger; just as beyond the parental watch is danger to the infant and beyond the protection of his society danger to the members of the tribe. The usual person is more than content, he is even proud, to remain within the indicated bounds, and popular belief gives him every reason to fear so much as the first step into the unexplored.  Thus the sailors of the bold vesselsof Columbus, breaking the horizon of the medieval mind - sailing, as they thought, into the boundless ocean of immortalbeing that surrounds the cosmos, like the endless mythologicalserpent biting its tail - had to be cozened and urged on like children,because of their fear of the fabled leviathans, mermaids, dragon kings, and other monsters of the deep.”[186]

In Episode IV: A New Hope, Skywalker along with Kenobi and the droids, leave Tatooine with Han Solo and Chewbacca in Solo’s “bold vessel” the Millennium Falcon.  Luke ventures off his home planet for the first time.  Luke Skywalker thus crosses the threshold by leaving behind Tatooine’s horizons which have been his reality for his entire life.  Han Solo is an adventurer, pirate, smuggler, and a pilot who’s sidekick is a giant sasquatch-like familiar named Chewbacca.  “Chewie”, which is Solo’s nickname for him, is a Wookie.  Solo’s dark personality plays off of Skywalker’s innocence, yet Solo becomes the hero that Luke yearns to be.  Bill Moyers and Joseph Campbell discuss Luke Skywalker and Han Solo in the book The Power of Myth,

“Moyers: In George Lucas’ Star Wars, Solo begins as a mercenary and ends up a hero, coming in at the last to save Luke Skywalker.

Campbell: Yes. There Solo has done the hero act of sacrificing himself for another.

Moyers: Do you think that a hero is created out of guilt? Was Solo guilty because he had abandoned Skywalker?

Campbell: It depends on what system of ideas you want to apply. Solo was a very practical guy, at least as he thought of himself, a materialist. But he was a compassionate human being at the same time and didn’t know it. The adventure evoked a quality of his character that he hadn’t known he possessed.

Moyers: So perhaps the hero lurks in each one of us when we don’t know it.?

Campbell: Our life evokes our character. You find out more about yourself as you go on. That’s why it’s good to be able to put yourself in situations that will evoke your  higher nature rather than your lower. ‘Lead us not into temptation.’

Ortega y Gasset talks about the environment and the hero in his Meditations on Don Quixote. Don Quixote was the last hero of the Middle Ages. He rode out to encounter giants, but instead of giants, his environment produced windmills. Ortega points out that this story takes place about the time that a mechanistic interpretation of the world came in, so that the environment was no longer spiritually responsive to the hero. The hero is today running up against a had world that is in no was responsive to his spiritual need.”[187]

Solo and Skywalker parody the hero persona only in different ways.  Solo begins the adventure dark and mysterious while Luke is young and inexperienced.  However, over the course of the films a dualistic change occurs.  Solo sacrifices himself for his friends becoming the savior archetype while Luke discovers and explores both the light and dark sides of the Force.  In Episode IV’s sequel Luke is forced to confront his shadow self while he undergoes Jedi training.

Campbell describes the next part of the hero’s quest as the belly of the whale.  This embodies the hero’s separation from the familiar while undergoing a symbolic metamorphosis. Campbell explains,

“The idea that the passage of the magical threshold is a transit into a sphere of rebirth is symbolized in the worldwide womb image of the belly of the whale. The hero, instead of conquering or conciliating the power of the threshold, is swallowed into the unknown and would appear to have died.

…This popular motif gives emphasis to the lesson that the passage of the threshold is a form of self-annihilation. Instead of passing outward, beyond the confines of the visible world, the hero goes inward, to be born again. The disappearance corresponds to the passing of a worshipper into a temple- where he is to be quickened by the recollection of who and what he is, namely dust and ashes unless immortal. The temple interior, the belly of the whale, and the heavenly land beyond, above, and below the confines of the world, are one and the same. That is why the approaches and entrances to temples are flanked and defended by colossal gargoyles: dragons, lions, devil-slayers with drawn swords, resentful dwarfs, winged bulls. The devotee at the moment of entry into a temple undergoes a metamorphosis.  Once inside he may be said to have died to time and returned to the World Womb, the World Navel, the Earthly Paradise. Allegorically, then, the passage into a temple and the hero-dive through the jaws of the whale are identical adventures, both denoting in picture language, the life-centering, life-renewing act.”[188]

This plays out in Star Wars: A New Hope when Han, Luke, Kenobi, Chewbacca, and the two droids descend into the bowls of the Empire’s Death Star - which crawls with menacing imperial storm troopers - to rescue Princess Leia.  Kenobi separates himself from them in an effort to deactivate the space station’s tractor beam. The heroes, after freeing the Princess from her cell, find themselves in  the Death Star’s belly which is a tiny trash compactor inhabited by a hideous monster.  The jaws of the whale tighten when the trash compactor becomes operational and its walls close in.  Moyers and Campbell once again discuss,

“Moyers: My favorite scene was when they were in the garbage compactor, and the walls were closing in, and I thought, ‘That’s like the belly of the whale that swallowed Jonah.’

Campbell: That’s where they were, down in the belly of the whale.

Moyers: What’s the mythological significance of the belly?

Campbell: The belly is the dark place where digestion takes place and new energy is created. The story of Jonah in the whale is an example of a mythic theme that is practically universal, of the hero going into a fish’s belly and ultimately coming out again, transformed.

Moyers: Why must the hero do that?

Campbell: It’s a descent into the dark. Psychologically, the whale represents the power of life locked in the unconscious. Metaphorically, water is the unconscious, and the creature in the water is the life or energy of the unconscious, which has overwhelmed the conscious personality and must be disemboweled, overcome and controlled. In the first stage of this kind of adventure, the hero leaves the realm of the familiar, over which he has some measure of control, and comes to a threshold, let us say the edge of a lake or sea, where a monster of the abyss comes to meet him. There are then two possibilities.  In a story of the Jonah type, the hero is swallowed and taken into the abyss to be alter resurrected - a variant of the death-and-resurrection theme. The conscious personality here has come in touch with a charge of unconscious energy which it is unable to handle and must now suffer all the trials and revelations of a terrifying night-sea journey, while learning how to come to terms with this power of the dark and emerge, at last, to a new way of life. The other possibility is that the hero, on encountering the power of the dark, may overcome and kill it, as did Siegfried and St. George when they killed the dragon.

But as Siegfried learned, he must then taste the dragon blood, in order to take to himself something of that dragon power.

When Siegfried has killed the dragon and tasted the blood, he hears the song of nature. He has transcended his humanity and resonated himself with the powers of nature, which are the powers of our life, and from which our minds remove us.

You see, consciousness thinks its running the shop. But it’s a secondary organ of a total human being, and it must not put  itself in control. It must submit and serve the humanity of the body. When it does put itself in control, you get a man like Darth Vader in Star Wars, the man who goes over to the consciously intentional side.

Moyers: The dark figure.

Campbell: Yes, that’s the figure that in Goethe’s Faust is represented by Mephistopheles.”[189]

The concept of the solar hero consumed in a whale is both astrological and Astro-theological.  This is best symbolized by the Jonah and the Whale story from the Bible.[190]  Jonah is a metaphoric stand in for the sun and the “whale” that swallows the sun is the constellation Cetus.  Cetus refers to a great sea monster in Greek mythology although it is often called the whale today.  Cetus is located in the region of the sky that contains other water-related constellations such as Aquarius, Pisces, and Eridanus.  In the film Excalibur, King Arthur (the sun) played by Nigel Terry, is baptized or knighted in a river symbolizing the constellation Eridanus by Uryens (Keith Buckley).  In the Christian Mysterion, Eridanus is the astral river that Jesus Christ (the sun of god) is baptized in while John the Baptist himself represents the house of Aquarius.  The Baptizer or Aquarius pours out his invigorating water at the end of January/start of February announcing the coming spring rains when the earth is regenerated or born again. The beheading of John the Baptist is also Astro-theological.  According to the Bible (Mark 6:14-29 and Matt. 14:1-12), Herold Antipas orders John’s execution to satisfy his young stepdaughter Salome.  In the Catholic Church the decollation of John was recognized as having occurred on August 29th.  Aquarius or “John the Baptizer” is close to disappearing below the horizon on August 29th at midnight.  At this time the sun exits Leo the Lion and enters Virgo the Virgin. Also of symbolic importance is the name Regulus which is the brightest star in the constellation Leo; Regulus which is Latin for little king.  From these analogies it is clear that the John’s execution is allegory.  Aquarius’ full torso beneath the horizon makes the water bearer’s head appear bodiless or decapitated.  King Herod is the star Regulus anthropomorphized who is not an emperor but a lesser monarch making him a little king.  Virgo the Virgin symbolizes Salome who is Herod’s youthful virginal stepdaughter.  Thus at the behest of the waxing virgin or Salome, the little king or Herod cuts off the head of Aquarius who symbolizes the Baptizer who in turn was beheaded.

As a solar-astral allegory, Jonah spends three days in the whale’s belly which symbolizes the three winter months emblematized by the constellations Capricorn, Aquarius, and Pisces when the sun is “dead”, being at its lowest demarcation in the northern hemisphere.  During the winter months the sun is weak allegorically being consumed within the belly of the “whale of winter”.  The sun is resurrected from the winter months when the stone of winter is rolled away at the vernal equinox (March 20th-22nd) when the days start becoming longer.  The Jonah and the whale myth contains even more occult solar symbolism predating Judaic-Christianity.  Perhaps the earliest sun myths are those founded in the phenomena of its rising and setting. The ancient dwellers by the seashore believed that at nightfall, when the sun disappeared in the sea, it was swallowed up by a monster.[191]  In the morning the monster disgorged its prey in the eastern sky.[192]  The story of Jonah is thus thought to be of solar origin and his adventure with the whale bearing a striking analogy to the daily mythical fate of the sun.[193]  Luke Skywalker is a solar avatar who is consumed by the darkness of a mechanical and menacing whale or the Death Star.  Luke and his friends escape only after the self-sacrifice of Obi-Wan Kenobi.

*      *       *       *       *

The next part of Campbell’s monomyth is the hero’s rite of initiation or the road of trials which are tasks and ordeals the hero must overcome.  For example, the hero Hercules had twelve trials that he must navigate; Hercules is a solar heroic archetype and his twelve trials symbolize the twelve houses of the zodiac that the sun negotiates annually.  On these tests Campbell writes,

“Once having traversed the threshold, the hero moves in a dream landscape of curiously fluid, ambiguous forms, where he must survive a succession of trials. This is a favorite phase of the myth-adventure. It has produced a world literature of miraculous tests and ordeals. The hero is covertly aided by the advice, amulets, and secret agents of the supernatural helper whom he met before his entrance into this region. Or it may be that he here discovers for the first time that there is a benign power everywhere supporting him in his superhuman passage.

…The original departure into the land of trials represented only the beginning of the long and really perilous path of initiatory conquests and moments of illumination. Dragons have now to be slain and surprising barriers passed - again, again, and again.  Meanwhile there will be a multitude of preliminary victories, unretainable ecstasies and momentary glimpses of the wonderful land.”[194]

This portion of the monomyth surfaces in Star Wars: A New Hope when the heroes rescue Princess Leia but costs Obi-Wan Kenobi his life when he is cut down by Darth Vader.  After Kenobi’s defeat Luke hears Obi-Wan’s phantom voice who is now his apotheosized supernatural mentor.  Obi-Wan orders Skywalker to run and escape the clutches of the Death Star.  Kenobi’s death puts Luke Skywalker on the perilous path that will lead to illumination.  For Skywalker, he can no longer turn back.  He must defeat the Empire and will come to realize that he must also have atonement with his father in the process.  The Galactic Empire itself symbolizes the Third Reich.  The Third Reich refers to Germany during the period from 1933 to 1945 when its government was controlled by Adolf Hitler and his National Socialist German Workers’ Party, more commonly known as the Nazi Party.  Under Hitler’s rule Germany was transformed into a totalitarian state where nearly all aspects of life were controlled by the state. Nazi Germany ceased to exist after the Allied Forces defeated the Wehrmacht (German Army) in May 1945 thus ending the European theater of combat.  Emperor Palpatine (Ian McDiarmid), also known under the Sith name of Darth Sidious, symbolizes Adolf Hitler.  Palpatine is the Galactic Empire’s megalomaniac ruler or its allegorical Demiurge.  Darth Vader, who is the Emperor’s apprentice and dark sorcerer, personifies both Heinrich Himmler (1900-1945) and Rudolph Hess (1894-1987) who were Hitler’s henchmen and disciples of the occult and the dark arts.

The meeting with the goddess and the woman as the temptress are the next phases of the monomyth.  In Star Wars: A New Hope this is represented by Princess Leia and her interactions and relationships with Luke, Han, the droids, and other rebel freedom fighters such as Lando Calrissian (Billy Dee Williams).  Campbell provides,

“The ultimate adventure, when all the barriers and ogres have been overcome, is commonly represented as a mystical marriage of the triumphant hero-soul with the Queen Goddess of the World. This is the crisis at the nadir, the zenith, or at the uttermost edge of the earth, at the central point of the cosmos, in the tabernacle of the temple, or within the darkness of the deepest chamber of the heart. …The meeting with the goddess (who is incarnate in every woman) is the final test of the talent of the hero to win the boon of love (charity: amor fati), which is life itself enjoyed as the encasement of eternity. And when the adventurer, in this context, is not a youth but a maid, she is the one who, by her qualities, her beauty, or her yearning, is fit to become the consort of an immortal. Then the heavenly husband descends to her and conducts her to his bed - whether she will or not. And if she has shunned him, the scales fall from her eyes; if she has sought him, her desire finds its peace.

…The crux of the curious difficulty lies in the fact that our conscious views of what life ought to be seldom correspond to what life really is. Generally we refuse to admit within ourselves, or within our friends, the fullness of that pushing, self-protective, malodorous, carnivorous, lecherous fever which is the very nature of the organic cell. Rather, we tend to perfume, whitewash, and reinterpret; meanwhile imagining that all the flies in the ointment, all the hairs in the soup, are the faults of some unpleasant someone else.

But when it suddenly dawns on us, or is forced to our attention that everything we think or do is necessarily tainted with the odor of the flesh, then, not uncommonly, there is experienced a moment of revulsion: life, the acts of life, the organs of life, woman in particular as the great symbol of life, become intolerable to the pure, the pure, pure soul. …The seeker of the life beyond life must press beyond (the woman), surpass the temptations of her call, and soar to the immaculate ether beyond.”[195]

The meeting of the goddess of Star Wars Episodes IV-VI is Princess Leia herself.  She is the leader of the rebellion against the Galactic Empire and the twin sister of Luke Skywalker.  Since Luke symbolizes the sun, it is only natural that Leia embodies the moon or Artemis/Diana who is Helios/Apollo’s lunar sister.  There prevails an almost universal belief that the physiological life of women is linked to the moon. Those who have studied the subject believe that there is statistical evidence to confirm that the cycle of human ovulation approximates to the lunar month, a fact which is preserved in the term “menstruation” signifies “monthly” because it occurs every lunar month.  Leia, like Diana, personifies the positive attributes of the moon … as well as independence, self-esteem, and fierce aggressiveness.[196]  A virgin goddess and maiden warrior, she is the eternal feminist owned by no man and beholden to none.[197]  Princess Leia is the embodiment of the lunar heroine archetype: she is independent repeatedly barking orders at Han Solo.  Leia the warrior handles a blaster as well as any of the male heroes.  Thus, in Star Wars: A New Hope, Leia wears a lunar white robe emblematizing the silver light of the moon’s surface.  Leia, in keeping characteristics of the archetype, resists the boon of love for only so long eventually falling in love with Han Solo at the saga’s conclusion in Return of the Jedi (1983). Star Wars: A New Hope also contains the woman as temptress component.  In this step, the hero faces those temptations, often of a physical or pleasurable nature, that may lead him or her to abandon or stray from his or her quest which does not necessarily have to be represented by a woman.  Woman is a metaphor for the physical or material temptations of life, since the hero-knight was often tempted by lust while on his spiritual journey.   In Episode IV, Han Solo claims his reward money and leaves the rebels to fight alone over the objections of Leia.  Han temporarily embraces materialism over spiritualism and friendship.  Leia implores Han, “It’s not over yet,” to which Solo says, “It is for me, sister. Look, I ain’t in this for your revolution, and I’m not in it for you, Princess. I expect to be well paid. I’m in it for the money.”  Leia berates Solo, “You needn’t worry about your reward. If money is all that you love, then that’s what you’ll receive. (turning to Luke) Your friend is quite the mercenary. I wonder if he really cares about anything, or anybody.”  In the end, Solo heeds Leia’s criticism triumphantly returning to the quest and saving Luke’s life.  Solo ascends to the hero archetype by thwarting Vader’s oncoming TIE Fighter attack thus allowing Skywalker to destroy the Death Star unimpeded.

Finally, Episode IV contains the monomythic element of apotheosis. When someone dies a physical death, or dies to the self to live in spirit, he or she moves beyond the pairs of opposites to a state of divine knowledge, love, compassion and bliss. A more mundane way of looking at this step is that it is a period of rest, peace, and fulfillment before the hero begins the return. On this Campbell explains,

“Those who know, not only that the Everlasting lies in them, but that what they, and all things, really are is the Everlasting, dwell in the groves of the wish fulfilling trees, drink the brew of immortality, and listen everywhere to the unheard music of eternal concord. These are the immortals. The Taoist landscape paintings in China and Japan depict supremely the heavenliness of the terrestrial state. …Sages, with craggy bodies but spirits eternally young, meditate among these peaks, or ride curious, symbolic animals across immortal tides, or converse delightfully over teacups to the flute of Lan Ts’ai-ho.”[198]

In their epic lightsaber dual, Obi-Wan allows Darth Vader to strike him down thus passing on to become part of the everlasting Force.  Kenobi’s sacrifice allows the rebels to escape the clutches of the Empire fleeing in the Millennium Falcon.  Obi-Wan Kenobi is now immortal; he is now a spiritual force and a bona fide adept of the Gnostic Pleroma.

Luke, Han, Leia, C-3PO, R2-D2, and Chewbacca form what is called a “sacred band” which is a group of friends who have different and even conflicting personalities yet unite putting their differences aside for the betterment of the quest.  This group of friends form a sacred fellowship that cannot be broken.  The concept of an enlightened crew of eccentrics can be found in the Matrix Trilogy and the works of J.R.R. Tolkien and C. S. Lewis (1898-1963) while it appears on the small-screen as the “Scooby Gang” on Buffy the Vampire Slayer. A band of brothers goes back to the Pythagorean Mystery School and more specifically to the followers of Pythagoras. Pythagoras “…gathered around him a small group of sincere disciples whom he instructed in the secret wisdom which had been revealed to him, and also in the fundamentals of occult mathematics, music, and astronomy, which he considered to be the triangular foundation of all the arts and sciences.”[199]  Edouard Schure, in his Pythagoras and the Delphic Mysteries, relates the following incident as illustrative of the bond of fellowship uniting the members of the Pythagorean School: “One of them had fallen upon sickness and poverty was kindly taken in by an innkeeper. Before dying he traced a few mysterious signs (the pentagram, no doubt) on the door of the inn and said to the host, ‘Do not be uneasy, one of my brothers will pay my debts.’ A year afterwards, as a stranger was passing by this inn he saw the signs and said to the host, ‘I am a Pythagorean; one of my brothers died here; tell me what I owe you on his account.’”[200]  The Galactic Empire recognizes the threat that a small yet united band of rebels pose to it.  In Episode VI, Emperor Palpatine says to Skywalker in a re-built Death Star, “Perhaps you refer to the eminent attack of your rebel fleet? Yes, I assure you, we are quite safe from your friends here.”  Luke responds saying, “Your overconfidence is your weakness,” to which the Emperor retorts, “Your faith in your friends is yours.”

Star Wars Episode V:

The Empire Strikes Back

Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back was released on May 21, 1980 and is a dark sequel contrasting the hope of Episode IV.  The movie begins with an opening scrawl explaining that three years after destroying the Death Star, the Rebel Alliance has suffered setbacks in their struggle against the Empire.  Princess Leia now leads a contingent that includes Han Solo and Luke Skywalker from a hidden base on an icy planet of the Hoth system.  A probe droid, one of many sent by Darth Vader throughout the galaxy in hopes of finding Luke and the other rebels, lands on Hoth.  Luke goes to investigate but is ambushed by a monstrous Yeti-like creature known as a Wampa. While Han Solo searches for him, Luke frees himself from the Wampa’s cave with his light saber but soon succumbs to the freezing temperatures of the snowy wasteland.  The spirit of his late teacher, Obi-Wan Kenobi, appears before him and instructs him to go to the planet Dagobah to train under Jedi Master Yoda.  Han manages to find Luke and uses the warmth of his dead tauntaun mount to keep him alive while they await rescue.

While Luke recovers the Imperial fleet, having been alerted to the location of the Rebel base by the probe droid, launches an attack using gigantic AT-AT (All Terrain Armored Transport) Walkers. The Rebels mount a strong defense with Luke bringing down a walker single-handedly after his fighter is disabled, but the base is nonetheless captured.  Han and Leia escape on the Millennium Falcon with C-3PO and Chewbacca but their hyperspace drive malfunctions and they seek sanctuary in an asteroid field.  Luke escapes with R2-D2 in an X-Wing Fighter and crash lands on Dagobah.  He is soon found by the diminutive Yoda (voiced by Frank Oz) who at first pretends to be a simple swamp inhabitant in order to test Luke’s patience. After conferring with Obi-Wan’s spirit, Yoda accepts Luke as his pupil.

Han and Leia end their bickering and grow closer, but their courtship is interrupted when they must flee a giant asteroid worm.  They avoid capture again by attaching the Millennium Falcon directly to the side of a Star Destroyer in Vader’s fleet.  Frustrated at having lost them, Vader hires several notorious bounty hunters including Boba Fett (Jeremy Bulloch) to track them down.  Meanwhile, Luke begins a brief period of intense training during which his power in the Force grows exponentially.  He suffers a setback when he fails a test and sees a vision of his own face inside Darth Vader’s helmet.  Luke is not aware that Vader is his father hence he is not yet able to confront the dark reality that is his father’s tragedy.  Luke then becomes troubled by premonitions of Han and Leia in pain and, despite Yoda and Obi-Wan’s disapprovals, he leaves to save them promising to return and complete his Jedi training.  Kenobi’s ghost warns Skywalker, “Luke! Don’t give in to hate. That leads to the Dark Side.”  Yoda echoes this by saying, “Strong is Vader. Mind what you have learned. Save you it can.” With the death of Obi-Wan Kenobi in the previous episode, Yoda now takes on the mantle of Hermes Mercurius Trismegistus.  Yoda is the Gnostic master and the keeper of wisdom and hidden truths. Like Kenobi, Yoda knows the true identity of both Luke’s father and twin sister.

Having escaped detection, Han lets his ship float away with the Star Destroyer’s garbage and sets a course for Cloud City which is a floating gas mining colony in the skies over the planet Bespin.  Boba Fett secretly follows the Millennium Falcon to Cloud City and arrives just before Han, Leia. Chewbacca, and the droids.  Cloud City is run by Han’s old friend Lando Calrissian who betrays him by turning the group over to Darth Vader to prevent an Imperialistic takeover of his city.  Over Calrissian’s objections, Vader uses them as bait to lure Luke into his trap.  In the meantime C-3PO is blown apart for trespassing but his parts are found by Chewbacca who attempts to re-assemble him.  Darth Vader intends to hold Luke in suspended animation and selects Han Solo as a test subject for the process. Han and Leia profess their love for each other after which Han is frozen in a block of carbonite perfectly hibernating him.  Reneging on his deal with Lando, Vader gives Han’s hibernating frozen body to Boba Fett who plans to present the prize to Jabba the Hutt in return for a bounty.  Jabba has put a price on Han’s head for not paying a debt that he previously owed him.  Lando frees Leia, Chewbacca, and C-3PO who try to stop Boba Fett from escaping with Han.  With Lando seemingly in charge, they pursue Boba Fett in the Millennium Falcon.  Before departing, Calrissian orders the evacuation of Cloud City.

While all this is happening, Luke arrives at Cloud City just as Darth Vader planned. Skywalker and Vader engage in a lightsaber duel that leads them over the central air shaft of Cloud City.  Vader severs Luke’s right hand disarming him and reveals that he did not kill Luke’s father but actually is Luke’s father.  This is symbolized by the word “Vader” or “Vater” means “father” in German; Darth Vader literally means dark father.  Horrified by this revelation, Luke refuses Vader’s offer to join the dark side and rule the galaxy by his side, choosing instead to throw himself down the air shaft.  He slides through a tube system and is ejected but catches onto an antenna under the floating city.  Luke makes a desperate telepathic plea to Leia who senses it and persuades Lando to return for him.  When its hyperdrive is finally repaired by R2-D2 the Millennium Falcon escapes.  Aboard a Rebel medical frigate Skywalker is fitted with a robotic artificial hand. With Luke, Leia, R2-D2, and C-3PO looking on from the medical center, Lando and Chewbacca set off in the Millennium Falcon to rescue Han from Boba Fett and Jabba the Hutt.

Suffering setbacks, the story opens on a frozen planet since the rebels are in their symbolic “winter of discontent” referencing the first two lines of William Shakespeare’s Richard III, “Now is the winter of our discontent / Made glorious summer by this sun [or son] of York,”.  Concepts of the monomyth already discussed in A New Hope re-appear in Episode V.  For example, Luke receives supernatural aid from the spirit of Obi-Wan who tells him to seek out Yoda.  Han and Leia find themselves in the belly of the whale when they are trapped inside the asteroid worm.  They re-emerge from the allegorical belly transformed since they are now in love with one another.  On the swamp planet Dagobah, Luke must undergo another road of trials when Yoda puts Luke through a series of tests and tribulations to teach him the ways of the Force transforming him into a Jedi Knight.  Luke must move objects via telekinesis, understand that “size matters not”, navigate an obstacle course, and symbolically confront his Jungian shadow.  Leia again serves as a temptress only this time to Lando Calrissian who abandons his servitude to the Empire by joining Leia, Chewbacca, the droids, and Luke on a mission to rescue Solo.  Calrissian is infatuated with the lunar Princess saying to her, “You look absolutely beautiful. You truly belong here with us among the clouds.”  Lando, like Han in Episode IV, forgoes earthly materialism in favor of spiritual personal enlightenment and gnosis.  He joins the Rebellion freeing himself from the shackles of the Empire’s imperialistic, mechanical  conformities.

One of the important element of Joseph Campbell’s monomyth is Atonement with the Father.  This element materializes in The Empire Strikes Back and concludes in Return of the Jedi.  In this step the person or the hero must confront and overcome whatever holds the ultimate power in his or her life.  In many myths and stories this is the father or a father figure who has power over life and death.  This is the center point of the journey. All the previous steps have been moving into this place, all that follow will move out from it. Although this stage is most frequently symbolized by an encounter with a male entity; it does not necessarily have to be a male, just someone or something with incredible power.  On this Campbell elucidates,

“Atonement consists in no more than the abandonment of that self-generated double monster - the dragon thought to be God (superego) and the dragon thought to be Sin (repressed id). But this requires an abandonment of the attachment to ego itself, and that is what is difficult. One must have a faith that the father is merciful, and then a reliance on that mercy. Therewith, the center of belief is transferred outside of the bedeviling god’s tight scaly ring, and the dreadful ogres dissolve.

It is in this ordeal that the hero may derive hope and assurance from the helpful female figure, by whose magic (pollen charms or power of intercession) he is protected through all the frightening experiences of the father’s ego-shattering initiation. For if it is impossible to trust the terrifying father-face, then one’s faith must be centered elsewhere (Spider Woman, Blessed Mother); and with that reliance for support, one endures the crisis - only to find, in the end, that the father and mother reflect each other, and are in essence the same.

…The problem of the hero going to meet the father is to open his soul beyond terror to such a degree that he will be ripe to understand how the sickening and insane tragedies of this vast and ruthless cosmos are completely validated in the majesty of Being. The hero transcends life with its peculiar blind spot and for a moment rises to a glimpse of the source. He beholds the face of the father, understands - and the two are atoned.”[201]

This begins in Empire when Luke learns that Darth Vader is Anakin Skywalker, his biological father.  Vader is a tragic figure who falls fallen victim to the dark side of the Force in a failed effort to master nature or, as will be seen, to stop loved ones from dying. Luke must confront the terror and understand his father’s situation and his tragic fall from grace that led to him to become Darth Vader.  This is the central focus of the trilogy; all things have been leading to Luke confronting Lord Vader.  After their lightsaber battle, Vader, who is now master of life and death, informs Luke, “There is no escape. Don’t make me destroy you. …If you only knew the power of the Dark Side. Obi-Wan never told you what happened to your father. … No. I am your father. …Search your feelings, you know it to be true! …Luke, you can destroy the Emperor. He has foreseen this.  It is your destiny.  Join me, and together we can rule the galaxy as father and son.”  The reclamation of Darth Vader combined with it the defeat of the Empire is now Luke’s sole mission.  Vader must atone and return to the light or positive side of the Force with his son thus becoming Anakin Skywalker once again.  In The Power of Myth, Bill Moyers and Joseph Campbell explore the concept of humanity against the machine;

“Campbell: Darth Vader has not developed his own humanity. He’s a robot. He’s a bureaucrat, living not in terms of himself but in terms of an imposed system.  This is the threat to our lives that we all face today. Is the system going to flatten you out and deny you your humanity, or are you going to be able to make use of the system to the to the attainment of human purposes? How do you relate to the system so that you are not compulsively serving it? It doesn’t help to try to change it to accord with your system of thought. The momentum of history behind it is too great for anything really significant to evolve from that kind of action. The thing to do is to learn to live of history as a human being. That’s something else, and it can be done.

Moyers: By doing what?

Campbell: By holding to your own ideals for yourself and, like Luke Skywalker, rejecting the system’s impersonal claims upon you.

Moyers: When I took our two sons to see Star Wars, they did the same thing the audience did at that moment when the voice of Ben Kenobi says to Skywalker in the climatic moment of the last fight, “Turn off your computer, turn off your machine and do it yourself, follow your feelings, trust your feelings.” And when he did, he achieved success, and the audience broke out into applause.

Campbell: …When Ben Kenobi says, “May the Force be with you,” he’s speaking of the power of the energy of life, not of programmed political intentions.”[202]

Luke rejects the mechanized preprogrammed inhumane doctrines of the Empire and escapes Vader by jumping down an airshaft.  Underneath Cloud City he clings to an antenna for life.  He is then assisted by the helpful female figure Leia , his twin sister, whom he magically reaches out to via psychic communication.  Before Luke confronts his father for a second and final time, he and the rebel coterie must first rescue their friend Han Solo.

Star Wars Episode VI:

Return of the Jedi

The final film of this trilogy was released on May 25th, 1983.  It was originally titled Revenge of the Jedi but George Lucas changed the name to Return because he felt that Revenge was not in keeping with the meditative philosophies and serene traditions of the Jedi Knights.  The opening introduction informs the viewer,

“Luke Skywalker has returned to

his home planet of Tatooine in

an attempt to rescue his

friend Han Solo from the

clutches of the vile gangster

Jabba the Hutt.

Little does Luke know that the

GALACTIC EMPIRE has secretly

begun construction on a new

armored space station even

more powerful than the first

dreaded Death Star.

When completed, this ultimate

weapon will spell certain doom

for the small band of rebels

struggling to restore freedom

to the galaxy…”

Skywalker initiates a plan to rescue Han Solo from the crime lord Jabba the Hutt with the help of Princess Leia, Lando Calrissian, Chewbacca, C-3PO and R2-D2.  The two droids appear before Jabba the Hutt in his palace on Tatooine.  R2-D2 plays a message for Jabba in the form of a holographic image of Luke Skywalker.  Jabba the Hutt is a giant slug who has the eyes of Wonderland’s Cheshire Cat.  The hologram of Luke Skywalker tells Jabba that C-3PO and R2-D2 are gifts from him as a token of goodwill in an effort to win Captain Solo’s freedom.  Jabba remarks that he will not give up his favorite decoration which is, of course, Han Solo who is hanging on the wall encased in the carbonite block.  Princess Leia then infiltrates Jabba’s fortress disguised as the bounty hunter Boushh and presents Chewbacca to Jabba requesting a reward.  In the dead of night Leia releases Han from his hibernation but she is captured and enslaved in a sexy, skimpy outfit forced to beside Jabba.  Luke arrives soon afterward and allows himself to be captured.  After Luke survives a battle with the Rancor Monster, Jabba sentences Luke, Chewbacca, and Han to be executed by being thrown into the Sarlacc Pit.  They are taken to the Great Pit of Carkoon where they are to be cast into the Sarlaac; however, as they are about to be thrown in, Luke breaks free and a large battle erupts during which Leia strangles Jabba to death.  Han knocks Boba Fett into the gaping maw of the Sarlaac and Luke explodes Jabba’s sail barge.  The rebels, with the assistance of Lando Calrissian, escape Tatooine.  While Han, Lando, and Leia meet with the other rebels, Luke returns to Dagobah only to discover that Yoda is dying.  With his last breaths Yoda confirms that Darth Vader is Luke’s father and also mentions another Skywalker.  The spirit of Obi-Wan Kenobi appears revealing that the “other Skywalker” Yoda spoke of is Luke’s twin sister who Luke discovers is Leia.  Obi-Wan tells Luke that his father was once Anakin Skywalker who was consumed by the dark side of the Force changing him into Darth Vader.  Kenobi tells Luke that he must confront Vader again in order to defeat the Empire.

The Rebel Alliance learns that the Empire has been constructing a new Death Star and hatches a plan to destroy it.  Both Vader and the Empire’s ruler, the demonic Emperor Palpatine, are aboard supervising its completion.  Han leads a strike team to destroy the battle station’s shield generator on the forest moon of Endor which will allow a squadron of starfighters to enter the incomplete superstructure and destroy the station from within.  The strike team, with Luke in tow, travels to Endor in an Imperial shuttle but Vader senses Luke’s presence on the shuttle yet lets them through so that they will be ambushed by Imperial forces lying in wait on Endor.  Sensing Vader’s presence, Luke now fears he is endangering the mission.

On Endor, Luke and his companions encounter a tribe of Ewoks (miniature Wookie-like creatures) and form an alliance with them.  Later Luke confesses to Leia that she is his sister and that Vader is their father.  Luke tells her he is leaving to confront the Sith Lord and that once captured he will try to turn Vader back to the positive side of the Force.  Luke is captured but is unable to convince Vader to turn from the dark side of the Force.  However Vader, intent on turning his son to the dark side, takes Luke to the Death Star to meet his master, Emperor Palpatine or Darth Sidious.

Palpatine boasts that the Death Star is fully operational and that the Empire is now set to destroy the Rebellion.  On Endor, Han’s strike team is captured by Imperial forces but a surprise counterattack by the Ewoks allows the rebels to launch a counter attack.  Meanwhile, Lando leads the rebel fleet in the Millennium Falcon to the Death Star only to find the station’s protective shield is still up and the Imperial fleet is waiting for them.  Palpatine tempts Luke to give-in to his anger and turn to the dark side of the Force.  This results in Luke and Vader engaging in a lightsaber duel.  Vader telepathically discovers that Leia is Luke’s sister and threatens to turn her to the dark side.  Luke snaps and attacks Vader severing his father’s right hand.  Palpatine entreats Luke to kill Vader and take his place; Luke steps back from the brink and refuses to turn to the dark side declaring himself a Jedi.  Luke has abandoned his conscious ego hoping that his father will do the right thing and turn from darkness to light.  An enraged Palpatine attacks Luke with Force Lightning from his fingers.  Unable to watch his son suffer, Vader mercifully becomes Anakin Skywalker once more turning on Palpatine.  Anakin picks him up and throws him down a reactor shaft to his death.  In the process Anakin is mortally wounded by powerful blasts of Palpatine’s lightning.  With his dying breaths the redeemed Anakin asks Luke to remove his mask so he can look on his son, just for once, with his own eyes instead of through the mask.  Removing Vader’s mask and helmet Luke symbolically holds his father’s face in his hands; Anakin instructs Luke to tell Leia that there was still good left in him after all.

Back on the forest moon, the strike team with the help of the Ewoks, defeats the Imperial forces and blows up the shield generator allowing the Rebel fleet to launch a final assault on the Death Star.  Lando leads the remaining ships into the station’s core and destroys the main reactor.  Luke escapes on Palpatine’s shuttle with his father’s body while Lando flees in the Falcon just before the Death Star explodes.  After the battle, Han Solo tells Princess Leia that he knows she loves Luke and offers to step aside.  Leia then informs him that Luke is her brother and embraces Solo.  That evening Luke returns to Endor and cremates his father’s armor and body on a funeral pyre.  The Rebels celebrate the end of the Empire with Luke seeing the spirits of Obi-Wan, Yoda and Anakin Skywalker watching over them from the Pleroma.

Return of the Jedi features two key elements of Campbell’s monomyth.  The first is atonement with the father which is linked to the component which Campbell calls ultimate boon; the latter is the achievement of the goal of the quest.  The boon is the reason the person went on the journey in the hopes of achieving.  All the previous steps serve to prepare and purify the person for this step.  In many myths the boon is something transcendent like the elixir of life, a plant that supplies immortality, the finding of the Golden Fleece, the recovery of the Lost Word of a Master Mason in the Royal Arch ceremonial, or the discovery of the Holy Grail. Campbell describes the ultimate boon,

“The gods and goddesses then are to be understood as embodiments and custodians of the elixir of Imperishable Being but not themselves the Ultimate in its primary state. What the hero seeks through his intercourse with them is therefore not finally themselves, but their grace, i.e., the power of their sustaining substance. This miraculous energy-substance and this alone is the Imperishable; the names and forms of the deities who everywhere embody, dispense, and represent it come and go. This is the miraculous energy of the thunderbolts of Zeus, Yahweh, and the Supreme Buddha, the fertility of the rain of Viracocha, the virtue announced by the bell rung in the Mass at the consecration, and the light of the ultimate illumination of the saint and sage. Its guardians dare release it only to the duly proven.”[203]

This culminates at the conclusion of Jedi when Luke defeats the Emperor in a way that neither Palpatine nor Vader anticipate.  Vader abandons his Vader persona and  resurrects Anakin Skywalker and kills the Emperor by throwing him down a reactor shaft.  Luke has atoned with his father by turning him back to the positive side of the Force.  The ultimate boon is achieved when Darth Vader is finally exorcised from Anakin Skywalker’s being.  Anakin kills the Emperor thus returning balance to the force.  Anakin Skywalker can now die with dignity with his soul at rest because the since the boon is complete.  With the death of the Emperor and the destruction of the second Death Star, the Galactic Empire is eradicated.  The hero’s journey is finished since Luke’s quest is now concluded: his father is now apotheosized and Luke has achieved ascensio by becoming a Jedi Knight.  There are other aspects of Campbell’s monomyth which are not part of the original Star Wars Trilogy or its prequels.  That notwithstanding, some of these elements can be found in The Matrix Trilogy and J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings.  These include what Campbell calls master of two worlds, freedom to live, and rescue from without.

Star Wars Episode I:

The Phantom Menace

The Phantom Menace premiered on May 19th, 1999, sixteen years after the last Star Wars film Return of the Jedi was released.  The movie’s opening scrawl states that the Galactic Republic is in a period of decline over the last few years.  In response to taxation on trade routes, the Trade Federation organizes a blockade of battleships around the planet of Naboo.  Supreme Chancellor Finis Valorum (Terence Stamp) dispatches two Jedi Knights Qui-Gon Jinn (Liam Neeson) and his padawan (apprentice) Obi-Wan Kenobi (Ewan McGregor) to negotiate with Trade Federation Viceroy Nute Gunray (Silas Carson) to end the blockade.

However, the Trade Federation’s secret adviser Darth Sidious (Ian McDiarmid), a Sith Lord, orders the Viceroy to kill the Jedi and invade Naboo with an army of battle droids.  The two Jedi escape by stowing aboard landing craft and escaping to Naboo.  There Qui-Gon saves Gungan outcast Jar Jar Binks (voiced by Ahmed Best) from being crushed alive by a Federation tank.  Indebted to the Jedi, Jar Jar leads them to the underwater Gungan city of Otoh Gunga; there the Jedi unsuccessfully attempt to persuade the Gungans to help Naboo though they are able to obtain a transport to reach the Capital city of Theed on the planet’s surface.

The Queen of Naboo, Amidala (Natalie Portman), is captured by the Federation army but is rescued by the Jedi.  The Queen escapes Naboo with the Jedi on her personal starship which is damaged on its way through the blockade surrounding the planet forcing them to land on the desert planet Tatooine for repairs. Qui-Gon ventures into the settlement of Mos Espa with Jar Jar and the astromech droid R2-D2 to a junk shop to purchase a new hyperdrive generator.  The queen tags along with them posing as the handmaiden Padmė, after having switched places with her decoy Sabė (Keira Knightley) prior to leaving Naboo.

While walking around the city they meet a nine year old slave child named Anakin Skywalker (Jake Lloyd) who is a gifted pilot and engineer having created his own protocol droid named C-3PO.  C-3PO helps Anakin and his mother around with the house chores.  Qui-Gon senses a strong presence of the Force within the boy suspecting him to be the Chosen One of Jedi Prophecy or the one who will bring balance to the Force.  Jinn takes a sample of Skywalker’s blood and when analyzed by Kenobi indicates that Anakin has an unusual high amount of midichlorians which act as a symbiotic conduit of the Force.  Qui-Gon makes a bet with Anakin’s owner Watto (voiced by Andy Secombe) to enter him in a podracing tournament with the condition that if Anakin wins he will be freed.  Anakin wins the race and joins the group to be trained as a Jedi but he is forced to leave his mother Shmi (Pernilla August) behind.  They are then attacked by Darth Sidious’ apprentice Darth Maul (Ray Park) who was dispatched to capture the Queen.

Having escaped the attack, the Jedi escort Queen Amidala to the Republic’s capital planet of Coruscant so she can plead her people’s case to the Galactic Senate.  Qui-Gon informs the Jedi Council about his recent attack on Tatooine and suspects of his attacker being a Sith.  Qui-Gon also asks to train Anakin as a Jedi, but the Council, concerned that the boy’s future is clouded by fear, refuses to admit him into the order.  In the meantime Senator Palpatine (Ian McDiarmid) of Naboo convinces the Queen to make a motion of no confidence in Valorum in attempt to vote for a stronger Chancellor who will help end the conflict.  She pushes such a vote but grows frustrated with the corruption in the Senate ultimately deciding to return to Naboo with the Jedi Knights.

Back on Naboo, Padmé reveals herself to be the real Queen Amidala, the other “Queen” having been a decoy.   Padmé manages to convince the Gungans to form an alliance against the Trade Federation.  While Jar Jar leads his people in a battle against the droid army, the Queen tries to capture Gunray in Theed.  Anakin pilots a vacant starfighter by accident and joins the fight against the Federation droid control ship in outer space.  Trying to find a way to leave the battle, Anakin accidentally ventures into the ship.  He blasts through the ship and disables the sensors and the ship’s engines destroying the craft thus deactivating the droid army down on Naboo.

Meanwhile Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon encounter Darth Maul once more and engage him in a lightsaber duel.  Despite Darth Maul’s enormous skill Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon gradually force him to give ground.  However Obi-Wan is delayed when Maul knocks him off a platform.  When Kenobi catches up to them a temporary energy barrier prevents him from rejoining the duel.  Facing Qui-Gon alone Darth Maul stabs him through the chest mortally wounding him.  Obi-Wan arrives and in a fit of rage cuts away half of Maul’s double-bladed lightsaber.  Maul wears him down and disarms him trapping him on the edge of an abyss.  While Maul gloats Obi-Wan calms himself; leaping out of the pit and summoning Qui-Gon’s lightsaber he cuts Maul in half knocking him down into the abyss.  Before Qui-Gon dies he asks Obi-Wan to train Anakin and become his teacher.  Senator Palpatine is elected as the new Supreme Chancellor of the Republic and Gunray is sent to stand trial for his crimes.  Obi-Wan is made a full-fledged Jedi Knight and the Jedi Council accepts Anakin as Obi-Wan’s Padawan learner.  However, the Jedi are still mystified by the recent reemergence of the Sith, and even at Qui-Gon’s funeral Yoda and Mace Windu (Samuel L. Jackson) are left to wonder if Darth Maul was the Sith master or merely the apprentice.   The Sith are dualistic since there are only two of them and two of them only.  One is the sublime master and the other is the willing apprentice.  At a festive ceremony Padmé presents a gift of appreciation and friendship to the Gungans and Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace concludes.

Although most likely not intended, some of the characters in Episode I are controversial.  For example, the Gungan Jar Jar Binks, although placed in the film for comedic relief, personifies Stepin Fetchit (Lincoln Theodore Monroe Andrew Perry, 1902-1985).  Perry parlayed the Fetchit persona into a successful film career eventually becoming the first black actor millionaire in history and the first to receive a screen credit.  Perry’s typical film persona and stage name have long been contentious and seen as illustrative of negative stereotypes of African Americans.  Seen through a modern lens, Perry’s “laziest man in the world” character can be painfully racist but also subversive.  Binks is a genuine lazy idiot who speaks with a hackneyed African American accent.  Jar Jar is ignorant and oblivious to his surroundings serving as a general annoyance throughout the entire film.  Likewise the characters associated with the Trade Federation,  mainly Viceroy Nute Gunray, represent the avarice of the Japanese and their egotistical economy.  Most of those in the Trade Federation speak with a Japanese accent and are only interested in the acquisition of money by way of the economic blockade of Naboo.  They blindly follow the orders of Darth Sidious paralleling the Japanese people’s blind obedience to Imperial General of the Japanese Army Hideki Tojo (1884-1948) and Emperor Hirohito (1901-1989) during World War II.  Finally the character of Watto symbolizes a greedy Jewish shylock or merchant.  Watto is a mean-tempered Toydarian and owner of a second-hand goods store in Mos Espa on the planet Tatooine.  Among Watto’s belongings are the slaves Shmi Skywalker and her son Anakin. He acquires them after winning a podracing bet with Gardulla the Hutt and he puts them both to work in his store qua pawn shop.  He speaks with an obvious Hebrew accent and is a purveyor in goods and services and appears to only be interested in financial gain.  The prices are set by him and he operates on his own terms preferring not to barter or negotiate lower prices for his wares.

Concealed symbolism can be found in the character of Shmi Skywalker and the actress who portrays her.  The Phantom Menace reveals that her son Anakin was, like Jesus Christ, virgin birthed.  Qui-Gon Jinn specifically questions Shmi about the identity of Anakin father.  She responds, “There was no father. …I can’t explain what happened.”  Her virgin birthed son Anakin is not God but God-like thereby fulfilling the Jedi Prophecy of being the Chosen One.  On the virgin birth Moyers and Campbell discuss,

“Moyers: What about the virgin birth? Suddenly, the Goddess reappears in the form of the chaste and pure vessel chosen for God’s action.

Campbell: In the history of Western religions, this is an extremely interesting development. In the Old Testament, you have a God who creates a world without a goddess. Then when you come to Proverbs, there she is, Sophia, the Goddess of Wisdom, who says, ‘When He created the world, I was there, and I was his greatest joy.’ But in the Hebrew tradition the idea of a son of God is repulsive, it is not considered at all. The Messiah as the son of God is not actually God’s son. He is one who in character and dignity is worthy to be likened to the son of God. I’m sure there’s no idea of a virgin birth in that tradition. The virgin birth comes into Christianity by way of the Greek tradition.  When you read the four gospels, for example, the only one in which the virgin birth appears is the Gospel according to Luke, and Luke was a Greek.

Moyers: And in the Greek tradition there were images, legends, myths of virgin births?

Campbell: Oh, yes - Leda and the swan, Persephone and the serpent, and this one and that one and the other one.  The virgin birth is represented throughout.”[204]

The prophecy of the Chosen One was an ancient Jedi legend that foretold the coming of a being who would restore balance to the Force. The idea of a “Chosen One” also identifies Anakin as a Christ-like savior archetype.  Anakin Skywalker has much in common with Christ Jesus; Anakin was immaculately conceived and, like Jesus, was prophesized to come. Anakin like Jesus, is powerful and like a messianic archetype he is rejected by Jedi Temple Leaders echoing Jesus who was the cornerstone that the builders or the Temple Elders reject.  Anakin, paralleling Jesus, wants to save souls and prevent death via magical abilities and Anakin is truly born again or resurrected becoming Darth Vader.  Anakin, embodying Jesus, storms a temple while paralleling the Christian savior that if you are not with him, you are against him.  As Jesus said at John 14:6, “….I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.”  Although Jesus never transforms into a dark lord he nevertheless descends into Hell to liberate Noah and his family (who are virtuous pagans) according to some Apocrypha texts.  This is mirrored in Revenge of the Sith when Anakin descends into Hell or the volcanic Mustafar System  heralding his transformation into a disciple of the Egyptian dark lord Set qua Satan thereby making him a Set or Sith Lord.   It is no coincidence that Pernilla August, the actress who plays Shmi Skywalker, also portrayed the Virgin Mary in Mary, Mother of Jesus, a made for T.V. movie which was released in 1999 which is the same year she appeared as Anakin’s virgin mother in The Phantom Menace.  August’s portrayal as the Virgin Mary and as Anakin Skywalker’s virgin mother clearly identifies Anakin Skywalker as a messianic savior archetype.

The idea of balancing the Force, a central tenet of the Jedi Order, refers to the ideal state in which the Force existed in nature namely encompassing the light side. According to Jedi dogma the presence of the dark side corrupted and destroyed this natural balance which the Jedi sought to restore.  Qui-Gon senses the Force is strong with Anakin and believes him to be the Chosen One.  Instead it will be Anakin who turns to the dark side of the Force becoming Darth Vader and eliminating the Jedi Order.  Interestingly, Qui-Gon Jinn is the one responsible for bringing Skywalker to the Jedi creating a paradox since it is Anakin that will betray and finish them.  The last name of Qui Gon is Jinn and implies the Jinn which are 72 demons who were under the command of the wise patriarch King Solomon.  According to Ars Goetia or The Lesser Key of Solomon the King, the 72 Jinn were encased by King Solomon in a vessel of brass.  The Jinn’s imprisonment in a sealed vessel gives birth to the genie in the bottle lore.  A genie is an allegorical demon who can be friend or foe.  As such freeing the Jinn from the brass vessel is like opening a Pandora’s Box of hell and bad luck, thus Qui-Gon Jinn’s surname esoterically suggests that bad things lie in store for the Jedi Order.  It is Jinn who brings Anakin Skywalker into the Jedi’s fold and this singular act ultimately leads to their downfall.  The history of the Jinn confined to a brazen vessel by King Solomon recalls the story of The Fisherman and the Djinn in The Arabian Nights (first English edition 1706).  In this tale there was only one jinn or djinn encased in a vessel of yellow brass and its lid was covered with a leaden protective seal.  This djinn tells the fisherman that his name is Sakhr or Secar.  The first part of his name Qui-Gon  also implies Cervantes’ Don Quixote (real name Alonso Quijano) who is a naïve hidalgo who reads so many chivalric novels that he decides to revive knighthood, chivalry, and themes of nobility.  Don Quixote recruits a simple farmer, Sancho Panza, to be his squire who often employs unique and contrasting witticisms in dealing with Don Quixote’s rhetorical orations on antiquated knighthood.  This esoterica is paralleled in The Phantom Menace when the noble Qui-Gon naively recruits a slave, Anakin Skywalker, whom he genuinely believes to be the Jedi savior or the Chosen One.  Paradoxically, Jinn sincerely thinks that young Anakin will finally balance the Force yet Skywalker is the antithesis of Qui-Gon.  Unlike Qui-Gon, Anakin philosophically rejects the mystical theology of the Jedi Knighthood and their lack of material attachments whilst always questioning and doubting the Jedi Council and their decision making processes.  Anakin, frustrated at the Jedi Council’s antiquarianism and denial of attachment, finally disregards the Jedi secretly marrying and impregnating Padmé Amidala fulfilling his physical desires whilst slowly turning to the dark side of the Force.  In other words, Anakin reveals himself overtime to be the polar opposite of the philosophic Qui-Gon Jinn.  Anakin Skywalker embodies all characteristics that the Chosen One should abhor and rejects the tenets that the Chosen One should embrace.

Episode I does not explore the traditional elements of Campbell’s monomyth with the exception of the call to adventure and the meeting with the goddess.  The former occurs when Anakin decides to leave Tatooine and the familiarity of his home by entering the Jedi priesthood and the latter is fulfilled when he encounters his future wife Padmé.  That notwithstanding, concealed symbolisms are present in The Phantom Menace.  Gnostic themes of duality relating to the quality of having two parts or two sides are evident in Menace.  Occult notions of dualism is a dominate theme in the subtext of the entire Star Wars monomyth. For example there is the good side and the dark side of the Force, the conflict of the Galactic mechanical Empire versus the small natural or organic Rebel Alliance, and in the relationship shown between technology and humanity.  The Phantom Menace explores duality more thoroughly and explicitly than Episodes IV, V, and VI.  The benevolent and benign Senator Palpatine is in reality the tyrannical and malevolent Darth Sidious, Sith Lord and future dictator.  Palpatine is a master of manipulation and duplicity.  His goal is for the Sith to destroy the Jedi and take control of the galaxy.  Palpatine cannot accomplish this openly or by sheer force especially since there can only be two Sith Lords at time, but he believes he can do it through deception.  Palpatine has chosen to play the game of politics to achieve his dark purposes.  He has cultivated a persona as a credible and powerful senator, a position he can ultimately use as a springboard to the Supreme Chancellorship.  From there he subverts the Republic into his own fascist empire.  Dualistically there are always two Sith, the master and the apprentice which is, in Menace, Darth Sidious the master and his student Darth Maul.  It is not until Episode III, Revenge of the Sith, that Anakin Skywalker becomes Sidious’ apprentice transforming into the evil and robotized Darth Vader.  In Phantom Menace, the youthful and innocent boy that is Anakin Skywalker is dualistically contrasted by his future self.  It is hard to image the child Anakin, who refers to his future wife as an angel, will morph into the mechanical terror Darth Vader, a kabbalistic machine that is “twisted and evil” to use Kenobi’s own terminology.  The dualism of Anakin Skywalker’s wife Queen Amidala of Naboo is readily apparent in Episode I, she is both the cold-mannered stoic monarch and the compassionate handmaiden Padmé.  Whereas Anakin represents the duality of good and evil, Amidala demonstrates the inner self versus the external self and emotion against social protocol.  Amidala relies on her office as Queen to solve the problems she faces when the Trade Federation invades Naboo.  She has willingly surrendered her individuality to the pomp and circumstance and the aloof demeanor prescribed by Naboo tradition, confident that her adherence to custom will make her a stronger leader.  But when her plea for help from the Senate proves ineffective, Amidala is forced to confront the limitations of her position.  She learns that is not enough just to be the Queen, rather she must looks towards self for gnosis.  She has to instead find a solution and looking deep within herself and to truly be herself.  Thus her Padmé persona is ostensibly a disguise that Amidala adopts for security reasons.  But we come to discover, most likely at the same time Amidala does, that the opposite is true; the painted face and the ever-changing ceremonial raiments are the real disguise or the real security measures and that Padmé is her true persona.  She combines Queen with Padmé unifying the two dualistic personas to save Naboo from the army of the Trade Federation.  At the meeting with Boss Nass (voiced by Brian Blessed) of the Gungan High Council, Amidala dispenses with the monarchical face paint, garb, and the secret identity since she is now ready to act as Queen on her own terms.  Sickened by the politics and duplicity of the Republic, Amidala no longer has any use for decoys and pompous affectations rejecting her own tricks and guises of deception unifying her two selves into a decisive leader.

Her trip to Coruscant has taught the Queen the value of being true to her own personal convictions and being honest to those around her.  She has seen that the Republic no longer functions and she is determined to be a better leader than corrupt politicians such as her own Senator Palpatine.  Through this seeming contradiction she unifies the Gungans with the people of Naboo forming a dualistic symbiotic alliance defeating the Trade Federation and in turn the Sith Lord Darth Sidious.  This victory is only temporary and will last only for a short time.

Star Wars Episode II:

Attack of the Clones

Released on May 16, 2002, Attack of the Clones was one of the first motion pictures to be shot completely on a high definition digital 24-frame system.  The film begins with an introduction explaining that ten years following the invasion of Naboo by the Trade Federation, the Galactic Republic is in turmoil.  Anakin Skywalker (Hayden Christensen) is now an apprentice to Jedi Knight Obi-Wan Kenobi.  Former Jedi Knight Count Dooku (Christopher Lee) and the Trade Federation have allied and organized a Separatist Movement against the Republic with the Galactic Senate debating a plan to create an army for the Republic to assist the Jedi against the Separatist threat.  Senator Padmé Amidala, the former queen of Naboo, returns to Coruscant to vote. Upon her arrival she escapes an assassination attempt causing Supreme Chancellor Palpatine to assign Obi-Wan and Anakin Skywalker to be her bodyguards.  Obi-Wan and Anakin subdue the assassin, Zam Wessell (Leeanna Walsman), during another assassination attempt.  However, before she can give them any information, the assassin is killed by her employer - a bounty hunter - with a poisonous dart.  Obi-Wan learns that the dart was manufactured on the remote ocean planet of Kamino and is assigned to investigate.  Anakin is assigned to escort Padmé back to her home planet of Naboo where he and Padmé fall in love.  While investigating the location of Kamino, Obi-Wan discovers that it has been removed from the navigation maps of the Jedi archives. Yoda reveals that such a thing could only have been done by a Jedi suggesting that a conspiracy is afoot.

Obi-Wan travels to Kamino where he discovers that an army of clone troopers is being secretly produced for the Republic using a bounty hunter named Jango Fett (Temuera Morrison) as their genetic template.  Realizing that Jango is the assassin’s employer, Obi-Wan tracks Jango and his son Boba (Daniel Logan) to Geonosis, a rocky planet where a new droid army is being created.  Meanwhile on Naboo, Anakin becomes deeply troubled by premonitions of his mother Shmi in pain.  Against Obi-Wan’s direct orders Anakin and Padmé travel to Tatooine.  After meeting his new stepfather Cliegg Lars (Jack Thompson) as well as his stepbrother Owen (Joel Edgerton), Anakin realizes that Shmi was kidnapped by Tusken Raiders some weeks earlier.  Anakin arrives at the tribe’s campsite to rescue her only to discover he is too late; she dies in his arms as a result of her torture.  After Anakin kills everyone at the Sand People campsite, he returns with Shmi’s body and reveals his crime and rage to Padmé who attempts to console him.

Having learned that Count Dooku authorized the assassination attempt on Padmé and that the Separatists are developing a new battle droid army, Obi-Wan relays this information via hologram to Anakin who passes it on to the Jedi Council.  However Obi-Wan is captured by Dooku mid-transmission.  Dooku unsuccessfully attempts to make an ally of Obi-Wan and reveals to him that the Republic is being secretly controlled by a Sith Lord named Darth Sidious.  While Anakin and Padmé head to Geonosis to rescue Obi-Wan, Palpatine is granted emergency powers to organize the clone army and send them into battle.  Shortly after arriving on Geonosis, Anakin and Padmé are captured by Jango Fett and ordered to be publicly executed along with Obi-Wan.  Anakin and Padmé profess their love before being led into a large gladiatorial arena where they and Obi-Wan are pitted against gigantic beasts.  Shortly thereafter Mace Windu arrives with a strike team of Jedi Knights providing a defense against the beasts and the Separatists.  During the battle Windu kills Jango Fett but then the Jedi find themselves outnumbered by the Separatists’ droid army.  Count Dooku demands their surrender but Yoda arrives with the clone army from Kamino.  A battle erupts between the Republic’s new clone army and the Separatists’ droid forces with Obi-Wan and Anakin following Dooku to try and halt his escape.  In a lightsaber duel Count Dooku, who is also a Sith Lord named Darth Tyranus, Dooku defeats them both injuring Obi-Wan and severing Anakin Skywalker’s right arm.  Yoda arrives in time to save them and challenges Count Dooku/Darth Tyranus himself.  Unable to defeat Yoda, Dooku flees in his ship to Coruscant taking the blueprints for a super weapon - the Death Star - with him.  Dooku is met by Darth Sidious who states that everything is going according to plan now that the galaxy is at war.  The Jedi gravely acknowledge the start of the Clone Wars and Palpatine supervises the launching of several battalions of clone troopers.  The movie ends with Anakin, who is now fitted with a robotic artificial arm, and Padmé secretly marrying on Naboo with C-3PO and R2-D2 as witnesses.

Attack of the Clones is more about murky foreshadowing than it is concealed symbolism.  Anakin Skywalker, now a young man and padawan learner under the guidance of Jedi Knight Obi-Wan Kenobi, is seen wearing dark costumes and even black leather predicting his turn to the dark side and transformation into Darth Vader.  Kenobi even remarks, “Why do I get the feeling you’re going to be the death of me?” hinting at his own death at the hands of Vader in Star Wars: A New Hope.  Even Anakin’s wife Padmé Amidala is seen in dark and lustful garments.  She too wears black leather while sitting in front of a smoldering fireplace alone with Anakin implying the dark delights of forbidden sexual relations even flirting with sadomasochism.  Both Anakin and Padmé yearn to explore their Jungian shadows.  Padmé proudly flaunts her sexuality while insisting on a platonic relationship, a contradiction.  She appears to be subtly and unconsciously encouraging and wooing Skywalker’s dark turn while consciously being repulsed by it.  Anakin welcomes his shadow self when he wipes out an entire encampment of Tusken Raiders including the women and child who are responsible for the death of his mother.  This clearly foreshadows his coming Sith persona and diabolical mechanized transformation.

Since there are always two, Darth Maul is now replaced with Darth Tyranus better known as Separatist leader Count Dooku.  Tyranus/Dooku is Darth Sidious’ new apprentice maintaining the dualistic paradigm of there only being two with alter egos (i.e. Sidious is Palpatine and Tyranus is Dooku).  That notwithstanding, Dooku entices Kenobi to become his apprentice so they can combine their strengths and overthrow Darth Sidious and rule by default.  This foreshadows Vader trying to lure Luke to the dark side in The Empire Strikes Back so they can topple Emperor Palpatine (Darth Sidious) and rule the galaxy as father and son.

“Those analysis droids only focus on symbols. I should think you Jedi would have more respect for the difference between knowledge, and wisdom,” is spoken by chef Dexter Jettster in a Coruscant diner to Kenobi while examining the poisoned tipped dart that killed assassin Zam Wessell.  Jettster advises Kenobi that the dart originates from Kanino.  Dexter informs Obi-Wan that the Kaminoans are “cloners” and damn good ones at that.  In an effort to track down the assassin’s employer, Kenobi sojourns to Kamino which is a planet steeped in esoteric symbolism.

Kamino is a water planet that rages with storms and breaking waves, however its interior facilities are calm and sterile.  Its watery surface, tumultuous weather, and never-ending rain represents the pain and throes of the female birthing process.  A women’s water breaks before she gives birth, likewise the child comes down her birth canal implying water.  This is contrasted with Kamino’s interior which is stale, calm, and dull epitomizing the artificial birthing process of cloning.  Their sterile, self-contained cities allow the Kaminoans to perform their cloning operations in a scientific and emotionless atmosphere unhindered by the planet’s natural elements howling their fury outside.  The clones are genetically engineered fodder since they are emotionless, base, unfeeling duplicates of their host, the bounty hunter Jango Fett.  The clones are genetically designed to be docile following any order given to them by a recognized superior.  The clones are motherless; as such Jango Fett feels considerable pain during the cloning process paralleling a woman’s anguish during the labors of childbirth.  The Kaminoans and their cloning process represents the literal and figurative repression of femininity.  Using genetic material donated by Jango Fett, the cloners have generated thousands of human beings who have only one parent, a father. The cloning process has usurped the power of the feminine principle and rendered it irrelevant for the task of reproduction.  The clones will become the Empire’s stormtroopers who obediently follow without question.  Thus, both symbolically and thematically, the Kaminoans assist the Republic in divesting itself of its humanity and the sacred feminine (cf. Sophia). The grand army of the Republic is in reality emotionless imbeciles or empty soulless shells reflecting the hollow promises, stagnation, and bureaucracy of the Galactic Senate.  This leadership void will be filled by the promises of Palpatine who offers security and peace with the formation of a new world order or the Galactic Empire.  In order to achieve this, the Galactic Empire fully divests itself of the sacred feminine; the Stormtroopers are motherless while no female holds political or military rank within the Empire.  The dark side truly reigns supreme within Emperor Palpatine’s imposing and menacing Empire.

Jango Fett, on the other hand, represents the emerging triumph of the masculine principle.  As a “simple man trying to make his way in the universe,” he is a warrior who lives by a code of violence and personal gain.  Jango has also fulfilled the base male fantasy of spilling his seed freely and siring a vast number of sons (no daughters) to prove his virility without the burden of being tied down to his progeny or their mothers. Point of  fact, Jango is the first father we have encountered in the Star Wars films other than foreboding Darth Vader.  The clones aside, Jango does have one true son, Boba Fett, who is a clone that remains genetically unaltered.  Boba Fett, like his father, will become a bounty hunter who will eventually track down and capture the renegade smuggler Han Solo.  The Star Wars saga concludes with Episode III which sees dark triumphant over light.

Star Wars Episode III:

Revenge of the Sith

Released on May 19, 2005 Revenge of the Sith is the third and final Star Wars film as of the writing of this book.  It is considered the best of the three prequel films setting up Episodes IV, V, and VI.  The film begins with an opening scrawl explaining that the Galactic Republic has suffered major setbacks against the Separatists during the Clone Wars.  The movie opens with Jedi Knights Anakin Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi infiltrating the flagship of the cyborg Separatist commander General Grievous (voiced by Matthew Wood) to rescue the abducted Supreme Chancellor Palpatine.  However they are confronted by Darth Tyranus, who engages the Jedi in a lightsaber duel.  After Tyranus defeats Kenobi rendering him unconscious, Anakin fights and kills Dooku at Chancellor Palpatine’s urging.  Following a skirmish with Grievous who then flees, the Jedi crash-land the ship on the planet Coruscant.  There Anakin reunites with his wife Padmé Amidala who reveals she is pregnant.  Although initially excited, Anakin now begins to have premonitions of Padmé dying during childbirth.

Palpatine places Anakin on the Jedi Council as his representative, but Anakin is denied the rank of Master and is in turn ordered to secretly monitor the Chancellor by the Council.   Frustrated at being denied this rank and thereby excluded in their decision making, Anakin begins to lose faith in the Jedi and becomes more attached to Palpatine who informs him that the dark side of the Force holds the power to prevent death.  On the planet Utapau, Obi-Wan engages and kills General Grievous. When Palpatine reveals himself as the Sith Lord Darth Sidious, Anakin reports his treachery to Jedi Master Mace Windu.  In the ensuing lightsaber duel Windu subdues Palpatine by deflecting his opponent’s Force Lightning back at him.  Anakin intervenes on Palpatine’s behalf which allows Palpatine to kill Windu.  Desperate to save Padmé, Anakin becomes Palpatine’s apprentice and is re-christened Darth Vader, his Sith identity.  Skywalker now refers to Darth Sidious as Master.

Palpatine executes Order 66 which instructs the Clone Troopers to kill their Jedi masters and sends Vader and a legion of clone troopers to kill everyone in the Jedi Temple. Vader then travels to the volcanic planet Mustafar to assassinate the Separatist leaders hiding there.  Palpatine addresses the Senate and reforms the Republic into the Galactic Empire declaring himself Emperor.  Discovering Anakin’s treachery, Obi-Wan and Jedi Master Yoda split up to confront Vader and Sidious. Unable to convince Padmé that Anakin has turned to the dark side and is now an agent of evil, Obi-Wan stows away on her ship when she travels to Mustafar.  When Padmé discovers what Vader has done, she tries to take him back, but Vader accuses her of betraying him and uses the Force to choke her into unconsciousness.  Vader and Obi-Wan engage in a fierce duel that ends with Obi-Wan severing Darth Vader’s legs and left arm.  Vader falls down to the volcanic river’s edge and is immolated.  Taking his former apprentice’s light saber, Obi-Wan goes to help Padmé.  Yoda confronts Emerpor Palpatine but is forced to retreat when their duel reaches a stalemate.

On the planet Polis Massa, Padmé Amidala Skywalker dies after birthing twins Luke and Leia Skywalker.  In the meantime Palpatine finds Vader barely alive on Mustafar and brings him back to Coruscant rebuilding his apprentice’s ruined body with cybernetic limbs and a respirator.  Tormented by the discovery of Padmé’s death at his own hands Vader screams, the last vestige of humanity driven from him. As Darth Vader supervises the Death Star’s construction with Grand Moff Tarkin (Wayne Pygram), a funeral is held for Padmé with her body dressed to continue the illusion of pregnancy.  Knowing that the twins must remain hidden from the Empire, Senator Bail Organa (Jimmy Smits) adopts Leia and takes her to Alderaan while Luke is to be taken to his stepfamily on Tatooine.  Organa allows the droids C-3PO and R2-D2 to remain aboard the Tantive IV and has C-3PO’s memory erased.  Yoda informs Obi-Wan that he has discovered a form of necromancy that allows him to commune with the dead.  Yoda has spoken to the spirit of Qui-Gon Jinn and wants Kenobi to learn this sorcery.  Yoda goes into exile on Dagobah while Obi-Wan takes the infant Luke to Tatooine where he intends to watch over him until the time is right to challenge the Empire.

“Joined the dark side Dooku has.  Lies, deceit, creating mistrust are his ways now,” are spoken by Jedi Knight Yoda at the end of Attack of the Clones anticipating the darkness, villainy, plot design, and symbology of Revenge of the Sith.  The dark metaphors and allegories contained in Revenge of the Sith are more overt and obvious thus they are not really hidden but are still worthy of discussion.  With the death of Tyranus at the film’s outset, Sith Master Darth Sidious is now without an apprentice which suggests Anakin’s turn to the dark side.  It is Skywalker himself who kills Tyranus and will emerge as the frontrunner to become Sidious’ new dark apprentice.  Anakin is lured to the dark side of the Force by the promise of immortality with a device to cheat or escape death.  With the death of his mother Shmi, Anakin now fears that he will lose his wife during childbirth.  While attending an opera with Chancellor Palpatine, Skywalker is told the tale of Darth Plagueis the Wise, a Sith Master, who learned the occult secrets of thwarting death.  Darth Sidious/Senator Palpatine was in fact Plagueis’ Sith apprentice.  Sidious relates the legend to Skywalker, “Did you ever hear the tragedy of Darth Plagueis the Wise? …I thought not. It’s not a story the Jedi would tell you.  It’s a Sith legend.  Darth Plagueis was a Dark Lord of the Sith who was so powerful and so wise that he could use the Force to influence the midichlorians to create life.  He had such a knowledge of the dark side, he could even keep the ones he cared about from dying. …The dark side of the Force is a pathway to many abilities some consider to be unnatural. …He became so powerful, the only thing he was afraid of was losing his power, which eventually, of course he did. Unfortunately he taught his apprentice everything he knew, and then his apprentice killed him in his sleep.  It’s ironic that he could save others from death, but not himself.”  With this dark mysticism in mind, Anakin turns to the dark side of the Force.  During their lightsaber dual, Anakin Skywalker disables Jedi Knight Mace Windu allowing Darth Sidious to kill him.  Anakin is then baptized Darth Vader by Sidious and is accepted into the Sith priesthood.  Sidious promises Vader that together they will unlock the melancholic mysteries of Darth Plagueis.

Anakin Skywalker has made a Faustian styled pact with Chancellor Palpatine/Darth Sidious qua Mephistopheles;  Anakin allegorizes Dr. Faust while Sidious is the Prince of Darkness himself.  In literature, Dr. Faust is a highly successful scholar yet he is dissatisfied with his life; he therefore makes a pact with the Devil exchanging his soul for unlimited knowledge and worldly pleasures.  The Faust legend has been the basis for many literary, artistic, cinematic, and musical works that have reinterpreted it through the ages.  Faust and the adjective Faustian imply a situation in which an ambitious person surrenders moral integrity in order to achieve power and success for a delimited term.  Christopher Marlow’s (1564-1593) and Johann Wolfgang Goethe’s (1749-1832) Dr. Faustus (or Faust) forges a contract with Mephistopheles in order to gain esoteric wisdom, thus Skywalker makes a pact with Sidious motivated by the desire to gain mystical Sith wisdom in order save his wife Padmé from dying while giving birth.  Thus Anakin has become Faust while Sidious is Mephistopheles the latter the keeper of the secrets of black Sith sorcery.  However it will be Darth Vader, not Sidious, who embodies  the Mephistopheles villainous archetype in Episodes IV through VI as the bane of the Rebellion.

Anakin leads a squadron of clone troopers on a nocturnal attack upon the unsuspecting Jedi Temple.  Skywalker kills all Jedi in the temple including the younglings and padawan learners.  Daylight shows the Jedi Temple engulfed in destruction with ominous smoke streaming out of it paralleling the imagery of the September 11th, 2001 attack on the World Trade Center’s Twin Towers.  Skywalker, consumed by his Vader shadow self, travels to Mustafar located in the Outer Rim.  Mustafar is a volcanic planet overflowing with lava, ash, and gloom.  After Vader kills the Separatist leaders, Vader confronts Obi-Wan on Mustafar truly metamorphosizing - both physically and spiritually -  into Lord Darth Vader.  Vader loses his limbs at the hands of Obi-Wan’s lightsaber attack and is horribly burned forever requiring him to wear the black robes, helmet, and breathing apparatus that epitomizes Darth Vader.  Vader’s hatred towards Obi-Wan and the Jedi engulfs him when he screams, “I hate you!” at Kenobi.  The infernal heat of Mustafar creates a toxic fume paralleling Tolkien’s dark realm of Mordor where evil “does not sleep”.  Anakin’s humanity is literally burned away and Darth Vader is born who becomes Mustafar’s favorite son.  “Even Hell has its heroes,” is correctly if not mockingly spoken by bibliophile Pablo Ceniza in The Ninth Gate.  Skywalker’s burnt remains are equipped with an aqualung and grafted with robotic limbs cloaked in his infamous black suit, cape, and distinguishable helmet.  Vader rises from the operating table paralleling Boris Karloff’s  portrayal of Frankenstein’s Monster rising from the slab in James Whale’s classic film Frankenstein.  Anakin Skywalker is dead and is replaced by a mechanical, kabbalistic golem-like evil monstrosity named Darth Vader who is “more machine now than man” to quote Obi-Wan Kenobi.  Vader is greeted by his creator, Darth Sidious, just like Karloff’s Monster who is excitedly welcomed by his master Dr. Frankenstein.  Anakin Skywalker has not brought balance to the Force, at least not yet.  At the climax of Return of the Jedi,  Anakin Skywalker lets go of the dark side of the Force forever abandoning his Dark Vader persona killing Emperor Palpatine/Darth Sidious thus simultaneously saving his son and annihilating the Sith at the same time.  In the end, Anakin Skywalker fulfills the Jedi prophecy and returns balance to the Force.

The Star Wars saga is much more than a series of science fiction films, rather it is a retelling of old stories set in the future with re-branded archetypes.  Beneath the surface of Star Wars’ special affects and memorable characters lies concealed the monomyth or the hero’s journey which is a key component of ancient lore and mythology.  The monomyth, as defined by Joseph Campbell, is so engrained upon the collective unconscious it is all but part of our daily lives providing the inspirational raw material that allows us supersede the mundane with the fantastic.  Elements of the monomyth appear in the next cinematic trilogy to be symbolically interpreted which is the Matrix films.  The monomyth can also in found the works of celebrated English author and mythologist J.R.R. Tolkien.  But before traveling with the Hobbits, Gandalf, Gimli, Aragorn, and the Elves into Middle-earth it is time to venture with Morpheus, Trinity, Neo, and the crew of the Nebuchandnezzar into the “desert of the real”.

Chapter IX

Welcome to the Real World

The Matrix Trilogy

“A déjà vu is usually a glitch in the Matrix.

It happens when they change something.”

- Trinity, The Matrix, 1999.

“If you’d told us the truth, we would’ve told you to

shove that red pill right up your ass.”

- Cypher, The Matrix, 1999.

“Never send a human to do a machine’s job.”

- Agent Smith, The Matrix, 1999.

“We are looking for the Keymaker.”

- Morpheus, The Matrix Reloaded, 2003

“I am the Architect. I created the Matrix.

I’ve been waiting for you. You have many questions,

and although the process has altered your consciousness,

you remain irrevocably human. Ergo, some of my answers

you will understand, and some of them you will not.

Concordantly, while your first question may be the

most pertinent, you may or may not realize

it is also the most irrelevant.”

- The Architect, The Matrix Reloaded, 2003.

“You don’t get it. I built this place.

Down here I make the rules.

Down here I make the threats.

Down here, I’m god.”

- The Trainman, The Matrix Revolutions, 2003.

“The program Smith has grown beyond

your control. Soon he will spread through this city,

as he spread through the Matrix.

You cannot stop him. But I can.”

- Neo, The Matrix Revolutions, 2003.

The three Matrix films incorporate elements of Campbell’s monomyth, elements of the esoteric and the occult, and concepts of Gnosticism and mysticism.  The Matrix is also known for popularizing a visual effect known as “bullet time” in which the heightened perception of certain characters is represented by allowing the action within a shot to progress in slow-motion while the camera’s viewpoint appears to move through the scene at normal speed. The first Matrix movie was released in 1999 and its two sequels, titled Reloaded and Revolutions, were released in 2003.  Like Star Wars before it, there is a solar hero, a sacred journey, and a meeting with the goddess.  Cinema Symbolism now enters the real world and explores the Gnostic netherworld that is The Matrix.

The Matrix

The Matrix is an American-Australian science fiction action film written and directed by the Larry (now Lana) and Andy Wachowski that stars Keanu Reeves, Laurence Fishburne, Carrie-Anne Moss, Joe Pantoliano, and Hugo Weaving.  It depicts a dystopian future in which reality, as perceived by most humans, is actually a simulated reality called the Matrix created by sentient machines to subdue an unconscious human population, while their bodies’ heat and electrical activity are used as an energy source.  Thomas Anderson (Reeves) is a computer programmer who maintains a double life as the hacker who goes by the handle “Neo”.  He is driven to learn the meaning of cryptic references to “the Matrix” that appear on his computer.  Infamous hacker Trinity (Moss) contacts Neo in a nightclub and informs him that a man named Morpheus (Fishburne) can tell him what the Matrix is; however three Agents led by smooth speaking Agent Smith (Weaving) arrest Neo to prevent this.  It is during this interrogation - approximately 17 minutes into the film - that the viewer is exposed to dark esoteric symbolism.  While Agent Smith questions and taunts Anderson, one will get a glimpse of Anderson’s passport.  Thomas Anderson’s (Neo) passport indicates that he was born on September 13th, 1971.  This date symbolizes the New York state police and National Guardsmen raid of Attica Prison on September 13th, 1971.  It was on this date that the government-police raid suppressed a prison revolt whist this same date paradoxically announces the birth of Neo or the One who will liberate mankind from the cyber penitentiary that is the Matrix.  Neo is the savior that will free humanity, which is being held captive in a controlled reality they cannot see, thus awakening and freeing them from their computerized jailor.  Anderson’s birth-date thus has an esoteric dualistic meaning allegorizing both suppression and liberation.  Even more curious is that Anderson’s passport expires on September 11th, 2001 which cannot be coincidence nor can it be passed off as mere happenstance.  To this author this qabbalistic date allegorizes the start of the Age of Aquarius and the eschatological conclusion of the old Age of Pisces thus announcing a new order of the ages birthed by the pains of destruction, death, and turmoil as, according to the Bible, all new ages begin.[205]  Anderson’s passport expires so too does the Age of Pisces; Anderson will become Neo, the savior archetype, whose nickname means “new” thus announcing the new solar age.

Despite Agent Smith’s warning, Neo meets with Morpheus and confirms that he wants to learn more about the Matrix by choosing an offered red pill.  He is also offered a blue pill which, if taken, will end his experience with Morpheus returning back to a state of unconsciousness and his banal “Thomas Anderson life”.  After swallowing the red pill, crew member Cypher (Pantoliano) tells Neo to “…buckle your seatbelt Dorothy, cause Kansas, is going bye-bye”.  A mirror melts in front of Neo swallowing him causing him to pass out; however, Neo abruptly awakens in a liquid-filled vessel.  His body is pierced with cables that connect him, along with billions of other people, to an elaborate computerized electrical network. Neo has now awakened in the real world.  He is rescued by Morpheus and brought aboard his levitating ship, the Nebuchadnezzar.

Once aboard Morpheus tells Neo that humans are fighting against intelligent machines that were created in the 21st century and have since taken control of the Earth’s surface. Humans polluted the sky to cut off the machine’s ability to use solar power, but the machines adapted by using human bioelectricity as a power source.  Enslaved humans are kept docile within the Matrix which is a computerized simulation of the world as it was in 1999.  Neo has lived in this simulated world since birth while in reality the year is closer to 2199.  Morpheus explains that he and his crew belong to a group of free humans who “unplug” others from the Matrix and recruit them to their rebellion against the Machines.  They can hack into the Matrix and re-enter the simulated reality where their understanding of its true nature allows them to manipulate its physical laws granting them superhuman abilities.  Neo undergoes virtual combat training learning various styles of kung fu.  He is warned that fatal injuries within the Matrix will also kill one’s physical mind and body, and that the Agents he encountered are powerful sentient programs that patrol the Matrix and eliminate threats to the system.  Morpheus believes Neo is the One who is a savior prophesied to end the war between humans and machines while restoring consciousness to humanity at the same time.

After Neo’s combat training, the Nebuchadnezzar’s crew enters the Matrix to visit the Oracle (Gloria Foster, 1933-2001), a female prophet who predicted the emergence of the One.  The Oracle implies that Neo is not the One, and warns he must soon choose between his own life and that of Morpheus.  While the group prepares to exit the Matrix, they are ambushed by Agents - led by Smith - and tactical police that leads to the death of a crew member nicknamed Mouse (Matt Dorin).  Morpheus allows himself to be captured in order to allow Neo and the rest of squad escape.  The rest of the group are about to exit the Matrix when they learn that Cypher has betrayed them.  Disillusioned with the real world, Cypher had arranged to hand Morpheus over to the Agents in exchange for being returned to a comfortable life within the Matrix; Cypher will be re-plugged back in with his memory erased.  Cypher’s betrayal manifests within the Matrix when Neo sees a black cat glitch before him; a black cat has long been a omen of misfortune since time immemorial.  Aboard the Nebuchadnezzar, Cypher murders crew members Switch (Belinda McClory), Apoc (Julian Arahanga) and Dozer (Anthony Ray Parker) before he is killed by Dozer’s brother Tank (Marcus Chong).  The crew of the Nebuchadnezzar resembles a sacred Pythagorean band much like Han Solo, Luke Skywalker, Leia Organa, Chewbacca, and the droids from the original Star Wars trilogy.

Inside the Matrix, the Agents interrogate Morpheus to learn his access codes to the mainframe computer in Zion which is the last human city-fortress in the real world.  Neo returns to the Matrix with Trinity and rescues Morpheus and in the process Neo gains confidence in his ability to manipulate the Matrix performing physical feats on a par with the Agents.  Morpheus and Trinity exit the Matrix but Neo is ambushed by Smith before he can leave.  In the real world, Sentinels (destructive robotic killing machines) converge on the Nebuchadnezzar while inside the Matrix, Agent Smith kills Neo.  However, back on board the Nebuchadnezzer, Trinity whispers to Neo that the Oracle told her she would fall in love with the One.  She kisses Neo which revives or resurrects him inside the Matrix.  He displays the power to perceive and control the Matrix effortlessly destroying Smith.  Neo exits the Matrix and the ship’s EMP (Electro Magnetic Pulse) weapon disables the attacking Sentinels.  Back inside the Matrix, Neo makes a telephone call promising the Machines he will show their prisoners a world where anything is possible. He ends the call and flies off into the sky.

*      *       *       *       *

“Welcome to the real world,” says Morpheus to Neo welcoming him aboard the Nebuchadnezzar.  It is a interesting paradox that a character named Morpheus brings Neo out of his dream-like state awakening him to reality since in mythology Morpheus was the god of dreams.  The god Morpheus appears in Ovid’s (43 B.C.E. - 17-19 C.E.) Metamorphoses (“Transformations”).  It is also not the first time that a Laurence Fishburne character spoke these words in a movie.  Fishburne, playing Professor Maurice Phipps, welcomes students with this exact same line to his political science class at the fictitious Columbus University in 1995’s Higher Learning.  The Matrix, in a nutshell, is a Gnostic fable.  However, to better understand the Gnostic and occult iconography of this film, the elements of the monomyth must first be explored.  The call to adventure occurs when Thomas Anderson receives a phone call from Morpheus imploring him to escape his dreary office life and come see him thereby initiating adventure.  Morpheus, like Obi-Wan Kenobi and Yoda, embodies Thoth Hermes Trismegistus since he is cognizant of the true nature of the Matrix yet only divulges it on a need to know basis.  Morpheus is also a firm believer in the prophecy of the chosen one.  Refusal of the call is satisfied when Neo refuses to take Morpheus’ advice and is captured in the office building by Agents.  Anderson (or Neo) meets with the goddess finding Sophia or Trinity in a nightclub.  Trinity is Neo’s soul-mate providing love, wisdom, and guidance throughout the trilogy.  Neo crosses the first threshold when he takes the red pill not the blue leaving  the false world for reality.  Neo awakens in a mechanized pod or the belly of the whale only to discover all of mankind asleep in cyber mechanized bondage.  His former reality personified by Thomas Anderson was nothing more than a counterfeit computer simulation.  Upon discovering the truth, the machines flush Neo down an allegorical toilet.  Aboard the Nubuchadnezzar, Neo is provided supernatural aid when he is taught numerous forms of kung-fu including Jujitsu, Kempo, and Drunken Boxing.  He undergoes combat training from a neural computer program and learns these techniques in an incredibly short period of time.  Neo begins the road of trials when is challenged by Morpheus in a dojo to test his kung fu, to leap from rooftop to rooftop within the Matrix, and warned about the uncanny, shape shifting abilities of Agents.  Later, Neo and Trinity infiltrate the Agents’ headquarters facing endless foes and Agents while Neo dodges bullets in a grand effort to rescue Morpheus.  Neo achieves apotheosis when he is killed in the Matrix only to be resurrected as the One who is now god-like being able to fully manipulate the Matrix and defeat Agents.  These elements are, of course, Gnostic and reflect the concept of the “solar” savior archetype or the dying yet resurrected sun gods who are Osiris, Hiram Abif within Blue Lodge Freemasonry, and Jesus Christ.  Once resurrected, Neo has a true self awakening - the divine spark now ignited - thereby ascending to true gnosis, consciousness, and revelation.  Neo realizes that is the one to enlighten mankind providing knowledge of their enslaved benighted condition.  Neo now intends to liberate them from Demiurge-inflicted bondage and ignorance becoming their new age messianic savior.  He dies yet is born again incarnating as the One who is now the Zen Buddhist Master.  Neo is all wise and knowing ready to both serve and save mankind from the omnipresent Architect who is the Matrix’s Demiurge-like creator (see The Matrix Reloaded).  The machines and computers are the masters of the Matrix’s false reality in which they control and manipulate mankind in a constant effort to drown humankind’s consciousness.  If the Architect is the Demiurge, then the Agents personify the Archons.  In antiquity the term “Archon” was used in Gnosticism to refer to several servants and henchmen of the Demiurge who was the lesser craftsman or creator god which stood between the human race and a transcendent God that could only be reached through gnosis.  In this context they have the role of the angels and demons of the Old Testament.  At The Matrix’s conclusion, Neo has conquered the Agents (cf. Archons) ascending to a Gnostic-like master of manipulation and illusion.  Neo, paralleling Jesus Christ, ascends into the heavens (cf. Pleroma) during the film’s final moments.

The Matrix’s opening sequence introduces the audience to Sophia, wisdom personified, the sacred feminine, who is Trinity.  Trinity is a lunar heroine archetype that will bring Neo to the light or truth regarding the Matrix’s true nature.  During the course of the film, it will be Trinity’s lunar presence both reflects and resurrects Neo’s solar light transforming him into new age savior freeing humanity from the confines of the Matrix.  As her name suggests, she opens The Matrix in room 303 of the Heart O’ the City hotel, the two threes an obvious reference to her tripartite name.  Trinity is the first member of Morpheus’ crew that Neo encounters and it is Trinity who introduce Neo (as Anderson) to Morpheus thus placing Neo on the spiritual and numinous path towards apotheosis and ascension towards becoming the One.  Trinity’s name, symbolizing Sophia, can be founding the Nag Hammadi library[206] Sethian text Trimorphic Protennoia which identifies the Gnostic trinity as God the Father, Sophia the Mother, and Logos the Son.  Gnostically, the name Trinity identifies her with divine Sophia paralleled in Christianity with the trinity of “Father, Son, and Holy Ghost”.  Trinity and Neo naturally fall in love echoing the marriage of the sun and moon or alchemy’s albedo and citrinitas.

Solar iconography and occult foreshadowing surround Neo from the film’s start as well.  Neo is awakened by a knock on his door by a fellow computer hacker Choi (Marc Gray) who wishes to purchase a computer program.  He pays Neo who retrieves the program’s disk from a hollowed out book titled Simulacra and Simulation.  This is a 1981 philosophical treatise by Jean Baudrillard (1929-2007) which seeks to interrogate the relationship among reality, symbols, and society which is a dominate and reoccurring theme in the Matrix trilogy.  Baudrillard claims that our current society has replaced all reality and meaning with symbols and signs, and that human experience is of a simulation of reality, a matrix.  Baudrillard’s theory parallels The Matrix’s simulated reality which is not real but a program designed to deceive and enslave.  Simulacra and Simulation also contains the phase, “desert of the real” which is spoken by Morpheus to Neo.  When Neo opens Simulacra and Simulation, the chapter turned to is titled On Nihilism.  Nihilism - from the Latin nihil, nothing - is the philosophical doctrine suggesting the negation of one or more putatively meaningful aspects of life.  Most commonly nihilism is presented in the form of existential nihilism, which argues that life is without objective meaning, purpose, or intrinsic value.  Nihilism can also take epistemological or metaphysical/ontological forms, meaning respectively that in some aspect, knowledge is not possible or that reality does not actually exist.  Within the Matrix simulation, human consciousness or reality is an illusion and is nonexistent; one must escape it to “wake up” thus gaining true gnosis and enlightenment of their condition.  This symbolism foreshadows Neo’s fate that he is the One who will exit the Matrix and bring a sublime Gnostic revelation to mankind.

Neo gives the program to Choi who responds, “Hallelujah. You’re my savior, man. My own personal Jesus Christ,” foreshadowing Neo ascension into a heliocentric Gnostic warrior and the savior archetype.  Neo has been advised via his computer - Trinity’s hacking - to follow the white rabbit which he sees tattooed on Choi’s girlfriend’s shoulder.  He goes with them to the nightclub where he meets the sacred feminine or Trinity thus beginning his messianic journey.  The white rabbit suggests Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland since by following the white rabbit one is placed the pathway of spiritual and esoteric enlightenment and development.  In Carroll’s tale, Alice follows the rabbit into Wonderland thereby initiating her into a spiritual and arcane journey towards self.  Trinity next takes Neo to meet Morpheus in a dilapidated hotel that features a black and white checked floor.  The floor pattern is unmistakable and is of symbolic import.  This is a Freemasonic device and its esoterica relates to Gnostic notions of dualism namely good and evil.  On the mosaic floor, Masonic historian Albert Mackey writes,

“The Masonic tradition is that the floor is that the floor of the Temple of Solomon was decorated with a mosaic pavement of black and white stones.

….There was, therefore, a part of the Temple which was decorated with a mosaic pavement. The Talmud informs us that there was a such a pavement in the conclave where the where the Grand Sanhedrim held its sessions.

….The mosaic pavement in an old symbol of the Order.  It is met with in the earliest rituals of the last century.  It is classed among the ornaments of the lodge along  with the indented tessel and the blazing star.  Its party-colored stones of black and white have been  readily and appropriately interpreted as symbols  of the evil and good of human life.

…To the Mason the Mosaic symbolism is very significant, because from it Freemasonry has derived and transmitted for its own uses many of the most precious treasures of its own symbolic art.”[207]

Neo, who is a symbolic Entered Apprentice or Neophyte, enters the sacred temple to meet Morpheus.  Allegorizing an Entered Apprentice who is initiated into the mysteries of Freemasonry, so too is Neo about to be initiated into the mysteries of the Matrix.  He is about to learn the true secrets of good and evil symbolized by the black and white checkered floor that hides within and without the Matrix.  Neo has to make a symbolic choice: he can either enter the Masonic Blue Lodge or jump straight to the kabbalistic higher or red degrees of occult Freemasonry.  This is allegorized when Neo is offered a blue pill or a red pill.  Taking the blue ends the story and returns Neo back to his apartment and his banal life as Thomas Anderson.  Taking the red pill brings esoteric knowledge and epiphany of reality while exposing the falsehoods of the Matrix.  The blue pill represents Blue Lodge exoteric Masonry while the red pill symbolizes the occult and more esoteric higher rites of the Masonic Order known as the Red Capitular Degrees.  On this difference, Masonic magus Albert Pike elucidates,

“If you have been disappointed in the first three Degrees (Blue Lodge), as you have received them, and if it has seemed to you that the performance has not come up to the promise, that the lessons of morality are not new, and the scientific instruction is but  rudimentary, and the symbols are imperfectly explained, remember that the ceremonies and lessons of those Degrees have been for ages more and more accommodating themselves, by curtailment and sinking into commonplace, to often limited memory and capacity if the  Master and Instructor, and to the intellect and needs of the pupil and Initiate; that they have come to use from an age when symbols were used, not to reveal but to conceal; when the commonest learning was confined to a select few, and the simplest principles of morality seemed newly discovered truths; and that these antique and simple Degrees now stand like the broken columns of a roof-less Druidic temple, in their rude and mutilated greatness; in many parts, also, corrupted by time, and disfigured by modern additions and absurd interpretations. They are but the entrance to the  great Masonic Temple, the triple columns of the portico.”[208]

On the kabbalistic nature of the high degrees Pike further expounds,

“The Occult Science of the Ancient Magi was concealed  under the shadows of the Ancient Mysteries: it was imperfectly revealed or rather disfigured by the Gnostics: it was guessed at under the obscurities that cover the pretend crimes of the Templars; and it is found enveloped in enigmas that seem impenetrable, in the Rites of the Highest Masonry.”[209]

In other words, the true mysteries of occult Freemasonry are reserved for the adepts of the high degrees (cf. red pill) known as the Scottish and York Rites, while the Blue Lodge (cf. blue pill) allegorizes Masonic mysteries but to a lesser extent.  Blue Lodge Freemasonry’s innocuous emphasis on community and increasing lodge membership  profanely appeals to one’s base perception of society.  This is contrasted by the Red Capitular degrees wherein Freemasonry’s true esoteric and enlightened doctrines can be uncovered by the initiate.  Symbolically, to take the blue pill is to never leave the Blue Lodge; it is mundane Freemasonry symbolizing a return to average, everyday life.  However, consuming the red pill exposes one to greater Masonic kabbalisitic mysteries and occult secrets.  Dualistically, the pills also represent the conflict of conformity versus rebellion.  The red pill is rebellion against the banalities of life while digesting Morpheus’ blue pill returns one to their perfunctory and unconscious state within the Matrix.  The red pill induces one to consciously awake at the cost of discovering painful truths, while the blue pill keeps one submissive but “ignorance is bliss”.  The color blue, as a melancholic device to keep one docile, is borrowed from the 1980 film Saturn 3.  In Saturn 3, one of the characters is advised to take a “blue dreamer” which is a blue pill that induces a hypnotic sleep and unconsciousness while in outer space.  This symbolism is also present but less noticeable in 1997’s The Fifth Element (Chapter XI).

Neo takes the red pill and, like Alice, goes through the looking glass quite literally.  In a sublime contradiction echoing notions of Gnostic dualism, Neo fuses with a mirror transporting him to the real world while, in Through the Looking Glass, Alice passes through a mirror or looking glass to enter a fantasy realm.  Neo awakens in a pod and is immediately disconnected by the machines and disposed.  In a sewer system Neo is rescued by Morpheus and his crew who are on board the Nebuchadnezzar.  In a crucified state and with the ship’s blinding light escaping the open portal, Neo is raised towards the ship symbolically bringing him to the light of truth heralding Neo’s ascensio and apotheosis.  Morpheus’ ship is named after Nebuchadnezzar II (ca. 634-562 B.C.E) who was king of the Neo-Babylonian Empire who reigned circa 605 B.C.E - 562 B.C.E.  According to the Bible, he conquered Judah and Jerusalem sending the Hebrews into exile.  He is credited with the construction of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon and for the destruction of the First Temple.  Unlike Solomon’s Temple, the Matrix program is itself a false center of worship created by the Demiurge and the god-like machines, paralleling Nebuchadnezzar’s sacking of the Temple of Solomon so too will Morpheus and the Nebuchadenzzar’s crew destroy the duplicitous Matrix.

Neo is a Gnostic solar hero archetype prophesized to be the One who will bring wisdom or enlightenment to humanity via an occult awakening from their current stasis and Matrix induced unconsciousness.  This is symbolically confirmed by the Nebuchadnezzar’s manufacture’s plate which is seen when Neo tours the craft with Morpheus.  The plate reads: Mark III No. 11; Made in the USA; Year 2069.  The serial number is a reference to the Biblical verse Mark 3:11, “And unclean spirits, when they saw him, fell down before him, and cried, saying, Thou art the Son of God.”  The unclean spirits are the Agents who are the Archon-like dragoons of the computerized machines (cf. Demiurge) while Neo is the Gnostic Son/Sun of God who will liberate mankind from darkness and servitude.  Neo is the One who has experiencing gnosis being aware of what the Matrix really is.  Neo is equipped with the knowledge that the Matrix is a false reality; knowing this he is able to defeat it thus making the machines and Agents “fall down before him”.   The date of 2069 symbolizes the house of Cancer.  The number 69, when turned on its side, is the astrological symbol for this zodiac house.  It is under this sign in the northern hemisphere that the summer solstice occurs when the sun is strongest because the days are longer and darkness is weakest.  Thus the Nebuchadnezzar’s plate welcomes Neo on board as the world’s solar Gnostic messiah whilst heralding the defeat of the Matrix, the Agents and the Architect (The Matrix Reloaded) or the Archons and the Demiurge.

Morpheus, as a hermetic delivery man, takes Neo to see the Oracle who is a priestess who foretells future events from inside the Matrix.  The Martix’s Oracle symbolizes the historical Oracle of Delphi.  Delphi was the site of the Delphic seer, the most important oracle in the classical Greek world, and became a major site for the worship of the god Apollo after he slew Python, a dragon who lived there and protected the navel of the Earth.  Python (derived from the verb pythein, “to rot“) is claimed by some to be the original name of the site in recognition of Python which Apollo defeated.  The Delphic Oracle inhaled the fumes from Python’s decaying corpse causing her to frenzy and prophesize while the Oracle within the Matrix holds secrets and mysteries only to be divulged on a need to know basis.  The Forecourt of the Temple of Apollo at Delphi contained its motto Temet Nosce (or Gnothi seauton) or “Know Thyself” which can been seen over the Oracle’s kitchen entrance.  Just like the Oracles of Delphi, the Matrix’s Oracle can prophesize while offering advice about one’s specific destiny.  Neo, who is the solar hero archetype or Apollo, is simply visiting his own temple to discern his fate.  The Oracle tells him that he is not the One (when in reality he is) which is another dualistic contradiction.  The Oracle is not a soothsayer per se, rather she appears to manipulate the characters to act in accord with some grandiose design that she herself cannot fully comprehend.

Being a solar avatar, like Jesus Christ, Hiram Abif, and Orsiris, Neo is betrayed by the sign of Scorpio the Scorpion (October 23-November 21).  This astrological betrayal occurs when the sun enters this house after the autumnal equinox plunging the sun into death, decay, or winter.  In Christianity, Scorpio embodies Judas Iscariot who betrays Jesus, in Egyptian mythology Scorpio is Typhone (Set) who turns against Osiris, and in Blue Lodge Freemasonry Scorpio is Jebulo, Jebula, and Jebulon who are the assassins of Hiram Abif.  In The Matrix, Scorpio is Cypher who makes a villainous pact with Agent Smith delivering Morpheus to him in return for re-insertion into the Matrix becoming a person of importance and wealth.  Cypher deceives the crew of the Nebuchadnezzar killing them all except for Neo, Trinity, Morpheus, and Tank the latter who kills Cypher thereby ending his treachery.  Cypher’s betrayal is not without dire consequence since it forces Neo and Trinity to enter the Matrix and rescue Morpheus.  In doing so, they have to confront Agents which results in the death of Neo (the sun) at the hands of Smith.

The Matrix’s finale sees Trinity and Neo return to the Matrix to save Morpheus from the Agents who are interrogating him in order to learn the access codes to Zion.  Zion is another name for the holy city Jerusalem thus Zion is the last sacred refuge for humanity against the machine terror.  Neo and Trinity rescue Morpheus and Trinty and Morpheus escape the Matrix but before Neo can do so he is confronted by Agent Smith.  After engaging in an epic kung-fu battle, Neo attempts to flee the Matrix.  He goes to the Heart O’ the City hotel and enters room 303, the same room that Trinity opens the film in, but Agent Smith is waiting for him inside.  Agent Smith shoots Neo several times killing him inside the Matrix.  Neo dies but Trinity, on board the Nebuchadnezzar, tells Neo that she loves him which was foretold to her by the Oracle.  Neo then resurrects inside the Matrix; he has achieved apotheosis and can now manipulate the Matrix according to his will (cf. Crowley’s Do what thou wilt mantra).  Neo can now stop bullets and defeat Agents.  Two unclean Archons or Agents, upon seeing the destruction of Agent Smith by the hands of Neo, acknowledge Neo’s divine-like ascension running from him realizing he is truly the One, “Thou art the Son of God” of Mark 3:11.  Thus Neo is killed yet resurrected fulfilling Gnostic themes of apotheosis and epiphany.  Neo is the reawakened hero archetype whose divine spark is ignited firing his consciousness.  The Gnostic concept of a savior sun-like figure spawns a philosophy during the third century Common Era (C.E.) called Neo-Platonism which attempts to comparatively reconcile the pagan mysteries with Christianity.  Just as Christ emerges from the tomb on day three, so too is Neo resurrected outside room 303 by Trinity; the number three esoterically omnipresent symbolizing Neo’s Christ-like apotheosis.  Neo now fulfils another element of Campbell’s monomyth called master of two worlds.  For a human hero it may mean achieving a balance between the material and spiritual.  The person has become comfortable and competent in both the inner and outer worlds.  For Neo, he has mastered the power of both the false reality and that of the real world or that of the inner and the outer.  Neo is both the mircocosm and the macrocosm; Campbell writes,

“Freedom to pass back and forth across the world division, from the perspective of the apparitions of time to that of the causal deep and back - not contaminating the principles of the one with those of the other, yet permitting the mind to know the one by virtue of the other - is the talent of the master.

The Cosmic Dancer, declares Nietzsche, does not rest heavily in a single spot, but gaily, lightly, turns and leaps from one position to another. It is possible to speak from only one point at a time, but that does not invalidate the insights of the rest. The individual, through prolonged psychological disciplines, gives up completely all attachment to his personal limitations, idiosyncrasies, hopes and fears, no longer resists the self-annihilation that is prerequisite to rebirth in the realization of truth, and so becomes ripe, at last, for the great at-one-ment. His personal ambitions being totally dissolved, he no longer tries to live but willingly relaxes to whatever may come to pass in him; he becomes, that is to say, an anonymity. The Law lives in him with his unreserved consent.”[210]

Neo, through prolonged psychological disciplines (i.e. acclimation to the Matrix) and total divestment of materialism, has been reborn into two worlds.  He has shed off his personal limitations, hopes and fears confronting the Agents (cf. Archons) and emerging victorious.  For Neo, defeating Agent Smith is his “at-one-ment”.  At the end of The Matrix, Neo is a dualistic Manichean master of both the real and the computerized pseudo simulation and is able to pass between them at will.  Neo speaks to the Matrix explaining his apotheosis, “I know you’re out there. I can feel you now. I know that you’re afraid … you’re afraid of us. You’re afraid of change. I don’t know the future. I didn’t come here to tell you how this is going to end. I came here to tell you how it’s going to begin. I’m going to hang up this phone, and then I’m going to show these people what you don’t want them to see. I’m going to show them a world without you. A world without rules and controls, without borders or boundaries. A world where anything is possible. Where we go from there is a choice I leave to you.” Neo hangs up the phone and, like an apotheosized Christ, ascends into the heavens.

The Matrix Reloaded

The Matrix Reloaded was released in theaters on May 15, 2003.  It was filmed in conjunction with the third Matrix film called Revolutions.  Reloaded begins six months after the events of The Matrix and opens with Morpheus receiving a message from Captain Niobe (Jada Pinkett Smith) of the Logos calling an emergency meeting of all of Zion’s ships.  Zion has confirmed the last transmission of the Osiris that an army of Sentinels is tunneling towards Zion and will reach it within 72 hours. Commander Lock (Henry Lennix) orders all ships to return to Zion to prepare for the onslaught.  Morpheus asks a ship to remain in order to contact the Oracle in defiance of the order.  The Caduceus (the name of this ship is not identified in the film) receives a message from the Oracle and the Nebuchadnezzar ventures out so Neo can contact her.  One of the Caduceus’ crew, Bane (Ian Smith), encounters Agent Smith who takes over Bane’s avatar.  Smith then uses Bane’s likeness to leave the Matrix gaining control of Bane’s real body.

In the seemingly impenetrable Zion, Morpheus announces the news of the advancing machines to the people.  The de-facto leader of Zion is Councillor Hamman played by Anthony Zerbe.  Neo receives a communication from the Oracle and returns to the Matrix encountering her bodyguard Seraph (Collin Chou) and after a brief fight he leads Neo to her. After realizing that the Oracle is part of the Matrix, Neo asks how he can trust her to which she replies that it is his decision. The Oracle instructs Neo to reach the Source of the Matrix by finding the Keymaker (Randall Duk Kim), a prisoner of the Merovingian (Lambert Wilson).  The Oracle warns Neo about earlier programs that are now rogue explaining, “Every time you’ve heard someone say they saw a ghost, or an angel. Every story you’ve ever heard about vampires, werewolves, or aliens, is the system assimilating some program that’s doing something they’re not supposed to be doing.”  These deceptive programs are subject to deletion and are also targeted by the Agents.  As the Oracle departs, Agent Smith appears telling Neo that after being defeated he refused to be deleted.  Smith is now a rogue program the like of which the Oracle just warned Neo about.  He demonstrates his new ability to clone himself using other people, including Agents, as hosts inside the Matrix.  He then tries to absorb Neo as a host but fails prompting a battle between Neo and Smith’s numerous clones. Neo manages to defend himself but is forced to retreat from the increasingly overwhelming numbers.

Neo, Morpheus, and Trinity visit the Merovingian in his restaurant Le Vrai (The Truth) and ask for the Keymaker, but the Merovingian refuses.  The Merovingian provides safe haven for deleted programs which are humans who can assume vampire, wolf, and ghostly forms.  In other words, these rogue programs provide the raw material that creates the lore surrounding these supernatural entities.  The Merovingian’s wife Persephone (Monica Bellucci), tired of her husband’s poor attitude, betrays him and leads the trio to the Keymaker.  In order to gain access to the Keymaker’s cell, Persephone kills a werewolf who is watching a vampire movie with a gun loaded with silver bullets.  The Merovingian soon arrives with his men including the ghostly Twins played by Neil and Adrian Rayment.  Morpheus, Trinity and the Keymaker escape with Neo holding off the Merovingian’s servants.  Morpheus and Trinity try to escape with the Keymaker on the highway facing several Agents and the Twins.  Morpheus defeats the Twins and Trinity escapes and Neo flies in like Superman to save Morpheus and the Keymaker.

In the real world, Zion’s remaining ships prepare to battle the oncoming machines.  Within the Matrix, the crews of the Nebuchadnezzar, Vigilant and Logos help the Keymaker and Neo reach the door to the Source.  The crew of the Logos must destroy a power plant to prevent a security system from being triggered and the crew of the Vigilant must destroy a back-up power station.  The Logos is successful but the Vigilant is bombed by a Sentinel in the real world killing everyone on board.  Although Neo requested that Trinity remain on the Nebuchadnezzar, she enters the Matrix to replace the Vigilant crew and complete their mission.  However her escape is compromised by an Agent.  Neo, Morpheus and the Keymaker try to reach the Source but the cloned Agent Smiths appear and try to kill them.  The Keymaker unlocks the door to the Source, allowing Neo and Morpheus to escape, but the Keymaker is killed in the process.

Neo encounters a computer program called the Architect (Helmut Bakaitis) who is the creator of the Matrix. Being the inventor and master of the false computerized reality, the Architect reveals himself to be the Matrix’s Demiurge.  The Architect is the constructor of lies making him the supreme manipulator of mankind.  Keeping mankind in bondage and unconscious, the Architect stands between humanity and their ability to achieve sublime gnosis, reawakening, and thus ascensio.  The Architect explains that Neo is part of the design frame of the Matrix and unless Neo returns to the Source to reboot the Matrix and pick survivors to repopulate the soon-to-be-destroyed Zion, the Matrix will crash killing every human being connected to it.  The Architect explains that the machines would find a way to survive this calamity while humanity would be doomed.  The Architect states that this is inevitable because “Neo” is a computerized systemic anomaly.  Neo is not the first “One” rather he is a reoccurring cycle - a symbolic Ouroboros - that can not be mathematically prevented nor eliminated.

[211]

The Architect informs Neo that Zion has been destroyed five times before.  This will be the sixth time the machines have destroyed it.  The Architect then informs Neo that there have been five other “Ones” before him.  In other words, given that the only remaining humans - after Zion’s destruction - remain in the Matrix, failure to enter the door to the Source will lead to an eventual catastrophic system crash of the Matrix effectively annihilating humanity.  The Architect instructs Neo to select a small number of humans for the purpose of rebuilding Zion.  However Neo learns of Trinity’s situation and chooses to save her instead exiting the door that leads back to the Matrix.  As Trinity falls off a building, Neo flies in and catches her landing safely.   Neo then removes a bullet from her body and restarts her heart.

Back in the real world the Sentinels destroy the Nebuchadnezzar. Neo displays a new ability to disable the machines with his thoughts but falls into a coma from the effort. The crew is picked up by another ship, the Hammer.  Its captain Roland (David Roberts) reveals the remaining ships were wiped out by the machines after someone activated an EMP too early and Bane - infected by Agent Smith - is revealed to be the only survivor.

*      *       *       *       *

There is one example of Cambell’s monomyth in Matrix Reloaded.  Atonement with the father occurs when Neo meets the Architect.  Since Neo is part of the Matrix being a reoccurring systemic anomaly, and the Architect is its creator, Neo and the Architect are symbolically father and son.  The Architect reveals that Neo will not perish rather he will save mankind and rebuild Zion while at the same time keeping the machines and the Matrix viable and conscious.  The Architect is a paternal guardian of Neo who is the One yet without the reoccurring anomaly the entire system will crash destroying the machines while killing all the humans connected to the Matrix.  Neo and the Architect form a mathematical symbiotic relationship where one cannot exist without the other.  In atoning with the father, Neo abandons his conscious ego deciding to save Trinity thereby potentially risking the destruction of mankind.  The Architect in turn shows Neo mercy by allowing him to make a conscious decision or choice.

The ships that inhabit the real world all have symbolic names of importance.  For example, Osiris is the name of the craft that initially transmits that an army of Sentinels is tunneling towards Zion.  Osiris is a murdered Egyptian sun god who is ultimately resurrected by his virgin wife Isis.  Osiris’ death is paralleled in The Matrix Reloaded where crew of the ship that bears his name is destroyed - murdered - after getting out the warning about the approaching Sentinel attack on Zion.  According to the Osiris’ transmission, the Sentinels will reach Zion in 72 hours and the number 72 suggests the 72 demons of Ars Goetia.  Ars Goetia or The Lesser Key of Solomon the King (Clavicula Salomonis Regis) is a grimoire that provides sigils, symbols, and infernal Solomonic incantations to raise these 72 infernal principalities.  Some of the demon’s names are Orobas, Bael, Eligos, Zepar, Belial, and Decarabia.  The evil, demonic Sentinel machines will reach Zion in seventy two hours echoing the seventy two unholy (and potentially destructive) demons of Ars Goetia.

Niobe’s ship is named the Logos.  Logos is Greek for Word or God to which reference is given in John I: 1-5,

“In the beginning was the word (Logos), and was with

God, and the word was God; the same was in the beginning

with God: all things were made by him, and without him

was not any thing made that was made; in him was life, and the

life was the light of men: and the light shineth in darkness,

and the darkness comprehended it not.”

The name of her ship allegorizes the light of men suggesting gnosis and revelation.  Logos, which to the Gnostics is the light that brings enlightenment and wisdom, Logos manifests in the messiah or Neo.  It is no coincidence that it will be the Logos that delivers Neo to Deus ex Machina in The Matrix Revolutions to negotiate peace.  In The Matrix Revolutions, the luminous savior archetype is brought to the mechanical Demiurge representing the light of men personifying conscious reawakening.  Neo successfully barters the fate of mankind with Deus ex Machina becoming humanity’s dying savior.  Finally, upon entering Zion, Neo and Trinity are greeted by a crone who mentions that her son Jacob is stationed on a ship called the Gnosis.  The symbolism of this ship’s name should be obvious to the reader at this point.  The Gnosis symbolizes the overall Gnostic plot, design, and themes of the entire Matrix trilogy.

Sensuality and the human condition are portrayed differently in Matrix Reloaded.  In the first Matrix film all references to sex occur only in the Matrix or in the human mind.  Mouse, the young techno-whiz, creates a fantasy woman dressed in sexy red as part of a computer training program that introduces a neophyte to the complexities of the Matrix. Matrix Reloaded presents an earthier version of sex in the real world which is seen in the human city of Zion.  Gone is the black vinyl, tight outfits, and leather. Neo and Trinity, whose passion was previously much colder, make love under an arch or a metaphoric rainbow.  The rainbow is a masculine symbol explained by Masonic polymath Albert Pike,

“There are three principal colors or rays in the

Rainbow, which by intermixture make seven.

The three are the blue, the yellow, and the red.

The Trinity of the Deity, in one mode or another,

has been an article in all creeds. He creates,

preserves, and destroys. He is the generative power,

the productive capacity, and the result.

The immaterial man, according to the Kabalah, is

composed of vitality, or life, the breath of life;

or soul or mind, and spirit. Salt, sulphur, and

mercury are the symbols of the alchemist. To them

man was body, soul, and spirit.”[212]

Neo, who is the Gnostic savior embodies the trinity of vitality, breath of life, and spirit.  Neo is also the alchemical masculine of sulphur, mercury, and salt; Neo is the generative power.  He makes love to the sacred feminine, Sophia of the Gnostic Trinity, her name, Trinity.  Thus Neo and Trinity unify the masculine and sacred feminine, the alchemical citrinitas and albedo, the sun and moon, Osiris and Isis, and the Sun and Venus or Jesus and Mary Magdalene (as Mary Lucifera) within the Gnsotic-Christian Mysterion.  The film interrupts their lovemaking with scenes of the earthy, sensual Zionites celebrating their community to the beat of tribal drums. They are loosely garbed in earth toned colors, mostly tans and browns, and are tattooed and sweaty. The vast population jumps up and down undulating in a sweep of ecstasy that seems to serve as a connection to the earth.  Sex and sensuality are concrete in the real world while in the Matrix they are illusions (cf. woman in red) like everything else.

The Merovingian is named after the Merovingian dynasty of Frankish royalty who ruled a region known as Francia in Latin for 300 years from the middle of the 5th century, their territory largely corresponding to ancient Gaul as well as the Roman provinces of Raetia, Germania Superior and the southern part of Germania Magna. The Merovingian dynasty was founded by Childeric I (ca. 457-481) the son of Merovech, leader of the Salian Franks, but it was his famous son Clovis I (481-511) who united all of Gaul under Merovingian rule.  Within the Matrix the Merovingian’s wife is Persephone who is named after Persephone the Greek goddess of renewal and companion of Hades, Greek god of the Underworld or Hell.[213]  More specifically in Greek mythology Persephone is the daughter of Zeus and the harvest-goddess Demeter.  Once abducted by Hades, Persephone became queen of the underworld.  The Merovingian has the role as the guardian of the virtual afterlife where exiled programs, such as The Trainman from Matrix Revolutions, can seek refuge from deletion.  Appropriately the Merovingian owns a nightclub named “Club Hel” which is a reference to the Nordic guardian of the afterlife, Hel.  As will be seen Club Hel is also a symbolic Hades or Hell itself wherein human vices are extolled.

Lastly, there is a unique piece of casting from Matrix Reloaded that creates a hidden dualistic cinematic paradox.  The de-facto leader of Zion is Councillor Hamman played by Anthony Zerbe.  In one scene Hamman philosophizes with Neo about mankind’s relationship to the machines and vice versa.  Hamman suggests that the humans in Zion must rely on machines for heat and water purification while the machines rely on humans wired to the Matrix for energy, a sublime irony.  Councillor Hamman is the protector of Zion which is the last bastion of mankind.  Interestingly, Anthony Zerbe additionally played the antagonist mutant-zombie leader Matthias in 1971’s The Omega Man (literally The Last Man).  Matthias is the leader of the Family[214] whose sole purpose is the destruction of humanity’s last bastion which is Dr. Robert Neville (Charlton Heston, 1923-2008), who is the sole human non-mutated survivor.  Since they are albinos Matthias and the mutants can only come out at night.  As such Neville spends his days patrolling the deserted city hunting and destroying members of the Family.   At night, when the Family is free to roam, Neville lives atop a fortified apartment building equipped with an arsenal of weaponry but he is nothing more than prisoner in his own home.  The Family wants to kill him believing him to be a last remnant of the old and corrupted culture that was responsible for the plague.  Similar to the Matrix trilogy, Robert Neville seeks refuge in his Zion-like holdout while combating the villainous nocturnal mutants from his impenetrable “honky paradise”.  Anthony Zerbe, who plays Matthias, tells his acolytes that the mutated zombie Family is “one”.  Matthias noticeable calls the family one while Neo is referred to as the One in the Matrix trilogy.  Thus the casting of Anthony Zerbe as a savior archetype in The Matrix Reloaded is a perfectly executed concealed dovetailed paradox contrasting his villainous Matthias. Zerbe’s Matthias wants the one Family to destroy mankind in The Omega Man whereas in Matrix Reloaded, Zerbe’s Councillor Hamman, along with the One (Neo), want to deliver it.  Anthony Zerbe’s casting by the Wachowskis Brothers in the Matrix sequels cannot be coincidence rather it speaks to a hidden hand of esoteric prowess and genius.

The Matrix Revolutions

The final film of this trilogy was released simultaneously in sixty countries on November 5th, 2003, six months following the release of Matrix Reloaded.  Gloria Foster (The Oracle) died during the filming of the last two Matrix films and was replaced by actress Mary Alice in Revolutions.  The film opens with Neo and Bane lying unconscious in the medical bay of the ship, the Hammer.  Meanwhile in the Matrix, Neo finds himself self trapped in a virtual subway station that serves as a transition zone between the Matrix and Machine City.  In the subway station he meets a family of programs including a girl named Sati (Tanveer Atwal), whose father tells Neo the subway is controlled by the Trainman (Bruce Spence), an exiled program loyal to the Merovingian.  When Neo tries to board a train with the family, the Trainman refuses and overpowers him.  The Trainman is Mobil Avenue Station’s Demiurge telling Neo that down here he is god. Mobil Avenue Station entraps Neo since is unable to leave it; Mobil is an anagram for limbo.  Mobil Avenue Station keeps Neo static serving as the Matrix’s version of Purgatory.

Seraph contacts Morpheus and Trinity on behalf of the Oracle who informs them of Neo’s confinement.  Seraph, Morpheus, and Trinity enter Club Hel, where they confront the Merovingian and force him to release Neo.  Troubled by visions of the Machine City, Neo visits the Oracle who reveals that Agent Smith intends to destroy both the Matrix and the real world.  She states that “everything that has a beginning has an end,” and that the war will soon conclude.  After Neo leaves a large group of Smiths assimilates Sati, Seraph, and the unresisting Oracle thus gaining her powers of precognition.

Back in the real world the crews of the Nebuchadnezzar and the Hammer find and reactivate Niobe’s ship the Logos. They interrogate Bane who claims to have no memory of the earlier massacre. While the captains plan their defense of Zion, Neo requests a ship to travel to the Machine City.  Motivated by her encounter with the Oracle, Niobe offers him the Logos.  Neo departs accompanied by Trinity but Bane, who has stowed away on the Logos, takes Trinity hostage.  During the confrontations Neo realizes that Bane has been assimilated by Smith.  Bane cauterizes Neo’s eyes with a power cable blinding him, however Neo discovers an ability to perceive the world as golden, solar light.  Neo kills Bane with Trinity piloting them onwards to the Machine City.

Niobe and Morpheus set out for Zion with the Hammer to aid the human defenses against the Sentinels.  Meanwhile in Zion, the fatally wounded Captain Mifune (Nathaniel Lees) instructs Kid (Clayton Watson) to open the gate for the Hammer.  When it arrives it discharges its EMP disabling the Sentinels but also Zion’s remaining defenses.  The humans are forced to retreat and wait for the next attack which they believe will be their last stand.  Neo and Trinity are attacked by machines causing them to crash the Logos into Machine City.  Trinity perishes in the crash landing. Neo enters the Machine City and encounters the Deus ex Machina (Harry Blasingame), the deistic machine leader.  If the Architect is the Matrix’ Demiurge personified, Deus Ex Machina is its mechanical real world version.  Neo, warning that Agent Smith plans to conquer both the Matrix and the real world, offers to stop Smith in exchange for peace with Zion.  The god of the machines agrees and the Sentinels stop attacking Zion.  The Machines provide a connection allowing Neo to enter the Matrix.  Once inside, however,  Neo finds that Smith has assimilated all its inhabitants. The Agent Smith with the Oracle’s powers steps forth claiming to have foreseen his victory.  After a protracted battle Neo baits Smith into assimilating him. Deus ex Machina sends a burst of energy into Neo’s body in the real world causing all the Smiths in the Matrix to be destroyed.  The Sentinels withdraw from Zion as Neo’s body is carried away cruciform by the machines emblematizing mankind’s dying savior while Morpheus and Niobe embrace.  The Matrix reboots and the Architect encounters the Oracle in a park.  They agree that the peace will last as long as it can, and that all humans will be offered the opportunity to leave the Matrix.  The Oracle tells Sati that she thinks they will see Neo again and with that line the sun rises transforming Neo into a resurrected or rising sun announcing the start of a new (neo) era or age for humanity.  Seraph asks the Oracle if she knew this would happen.  The Oracle replies that she did not know but she believed.

*      *       *       *       *

Two components of Joseph Campbell’s monomyth exist in Matrix Revolutions. Neo once again achieves apotheosis when he is wounded by Bane, who is possessed by Agent Smith, and loses his sight but gains consciousness of the “gold world.”  This equips Neo with heliocentric vision allowing him to see that Bane is in fact Agent Smith. Neo is now aware of all things perceiving reality more adroitly and differently than everyone else.  Like in Matrix Reloaded, atonement with the father occurs when Neo meets with Deus ex Machina in the Machine City.  Deus ex Machina (Latin: God of the Machine) is a mechanized god that Neo atones with by way of negotiating peace between the humans and the machines fulfilling his destiny as the One.  Neo is able to reach Deus ex Machina with the assistance of Trinity.  Thus Neo derive hope and assurance from the helpful female figure, Trinity, by whose magic he is protected through all the frightening experiences of the father’s ego-shattering initiation.  Neo must have a faith that the God of the Machine is merciful, and then rely and act on that mercy.  Based on that reliance, Neo sacrifices himself in order to save Zion and mankind.  Finally, Matrix Revolutions contains an element of Campbell’s monomyth not found in the Star Wars films.  It is freedom to live or transcendent mastery which leads to freedom from the fear of death which in turn is the freedom to truly live. This is sometimes referred to as living in the moment while neither anticipating the future nor regretting the past. Campbell writes,

“The hero is the champion of things becoming,

not of things become, because he is.

‘Before Abraham was, I AM.’ He does not mistake apparent

changelessness in time for the permanence of Being,

nor is he fearful of the next moment (or of the ‘other thing’),

as destroying the permanent with its change.

‘Nothing retains its own form;

but Nature, the greater renewer,

ever makes up forms from forms. Be sure there’s nothing

perishes in the whole universe; it does but vary

and renew its form.’ Thus the next moment is

permitted to come to pass.”[215]

Neo is free to live when Trinity dies.  Neo, who is no longer afraid of his own demise or what lies ahead, confronts Deus ex Machina and sacrifices himself for mankind.  The Matrix is now forever changed.  Neo is the champion of things becoming; the Matrix reboots and the Oracle prophesizes the return of Neo (cf. return of Christ) one day as a great re-newer.  In the end, Neo is forever revolutionized into a rising sun or a new age Aquarian heroic archetype.  Neo is now freed from the bonds of time and space symbolically transforming himself into a timeless messenger reflecting Enoch, Elijah, and Khidr; the two formers being the biblical patriarchs who never experienced physical death and the latter who is the immortal prophet of the Sufis.

The Matrix Revolutions feels more like a non-stop action movie more than a symbolic work of art.  It is clear that the Wachowskis have exhausted all the esoterica they could think of in the previous two films.  There is one interesting metaphor in the final film. Matrix Revolutions portrays the Merovingian’s underground Club Hel as a sadomasochistic paradise.  Its patrons take pleasure in whips, chains, nylon, masks, vinyl, and leather.  The club suggests Dante’s circles of hell from Inferno in which sinners receive various tortures and punishments.  Here, the Wachowskis present the idea that the simulation of punishment, the sensations of various materials, bindings, masks, and the assumption of various roles of domination and submission can be a liberating and sensual experience. What Dante Alighieri condemns as debauchery, lust, and sin becomes an entertaining party to Persephone and the Merovingian.  In Revolutions, we now see Persephone for her true demonic self exalted and revamped as Hades‘ infernal queen.  Gone is her demur, natural, and earthy white dress from Matrix Reloaded which is now replaced by tight red vinyl suggestive of never-ending sexual delights, unholy fetishes, the glories of Hell and the all consuming pleasures of the flesh.

Thus concludes all three Matrix films.  When watching these three Gnostic films, pay attention to the number 101 which appears often.  This number is symbolically important on numerous esoteric levels.  First, 101 is binary for 5, which to a computer is the sixth number since computers count from 0, and the events of the three films take place in the six computer iteration of the Matrix.  Neo is the sixth One and it is the sixth time the machines have destroyed Zion. This is revealed during the dialog between Neo and the Masonically nuanced Architect.  Second, the number 101 is also a direct reference to George Orwell’s (1903-1950) 1984.  Room 101 is the torture chamber in the Ministry of Love in which the Party attempts to subject a prisoner to his or her own worst nightmares, fears, and phobias.  In the Matrix trilogy two different “Room 101s” are depicted.  It is Neo’s (Thomas Anderson) apartment number; the small single-room unit where Neo starts of this quest for the answer to his driving question “What is the Matrix?” foreshadowing his transformation into the sixth One.  Neo’s miniscule apartment is his symbolic jail cell that keeps him in a state of servitude, unconsciousness, and darkness.  The second Room 101 appears in The Matrix Reloaded when Morpheus, Neo, and Trinity first go meet the Merovingian whose restaurant and hideout are on Floor 101.  When Trinity, Neo, and Morpheus enter the elevator, Trinity presses the elevator button to reach Floor 101 which is located at the top of the skyscraper.  In keeping with 1984 symbolism, Floor 101 metaphorically transforms the Merovingian’s headquarters into George Orwell’s Room 101 quite literally.  The Merovingian’s henchmen (anomalous programs that seek safe haven from deletion) are the things that go bump in the night or mankind’s fears, phobias, and nightmares personified; the Merovingian’s coterie are werewolves, vampires, and ghostly apparitions (The Twins).  Third and finally, the number 101 pre-dates the Matrix trilogy and links evil with an indestructible, omnipresent machine.  The Number 101 is mechanized fear and anxiety incarnate in 1984’s The Terminator.  Cyberdyne Systems Model 101 is a cybernetic organism that is incapable of death while being devoid of pity, remorse, and compromise.  Model 101 (Arnold Schwarznegger) is an emotionless Orwellian robot that endlessly stalks its human prey, Sarah Conner (Linda Hamilton) and Kyle Reese (Michael Biehn), not fearing moral or legal consequence or its own destruction while terminating all in its wake.  Cyberdyne Systems Model 101 anticipates the sovereign computerized malignant false reality of the Matrix Trilogy.  Synchronizing to the title date of Orwell’s dystopian novel, it should come as no surprise that The Terminator was released in 1984.

Chapter X

The Lord of the Rings

Saturn and the J.R.R. Tolkien Universe

“For sixty years, the Ring lay quiet in Bilbo’s keeping,

prolonging his life, delaying old age. But no longer, Frodo.

Evil is stirring in Mordor. The ring has awoken.

It’s heard its master’s call.”

- Gandalf, The Fellowship of the Ring, 2001.

“My lord, Gandalf the Grey is coming.

He’s a herald of woe. He’s not welcome.

…Late is the hour in which this conjurer chooses to appear.

‘Lathspell’ I name him. Ill news is an ill guest.”

- Grima Wormstongue, The Two Towers, 2002.

“The stars are veiled.

Something stirs in the East.

A sleepless malice. The eye of the

enemy is moving. He is here.”

- Legolas Greenleaf, The Return of the King, 2003.

“In the place of a Dark Lord you would have a Queen!

Not dark but beautiful and terrible as the Morn!

Treacherous as the Seas! Stronger than the foundations

of the Earth! All shall love me and despair!”

- Galadriel, The Fellowship of the Ring, 2001.

“I wish the ring had never come to me.

I wish none of this had happened.”

- Frodo Baggins, The Fellowship of the Ring, 2001.

“What is this new devilry?”

- Boromir, The Fellowship of the Ring, 2001.

J.R.R. Tolkien’s masterpiece or Legendarium known as The Lord of the Rings contains three separate novels documenting the adventures of Frodo Baggins and his coterie in Middle-earth.  These three stories were turned into three motion pictures directed by Peter Jackson and bear the same names of Tolkien’s books.  They are 2001’s The Fellowship of the Ring, 2002’s The Two Towers, and 2003’s The Return of the King with the latter winning the Oscar for best picture.  This author has watched the director’s cut blu-rays of all three movies in order to write this chapter.  As of the writing of Cinema Symbolism, the trilogy’s prequel - The Hobbit - is currently playing in theaters; the first part titled An Unexpected Journey was released December 14th, 2012.  Since these movies are still coming out the Hobbit films will not be subject to a symbolic analysis in this book.  Tolkien’s book The Hobbit, or There and Back Again sets up the Rings trilogy which incorporates esoteric elements and concepts.  This author intends to include an analysis of The Hobbit in the sequel to this book titled Cinema Symbolism II: More Esoteric Imagery from Popular Movies.  Before a symbolic interpretation The Fellowship of the Ring is presented, a little on its creator is in order.

John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, CBE (1892-1973) was an English writer, poet, philologist, and university professor.  He served as the Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon at Pembroke College, Oxford, from 1925 to 1945 and Merton Professor of English Language and Literature at Merton College, Oxford from 1945 to 1959.  Tolkien was a close friend of C. S. Lewis (author of The Chronicles of Narnia) both being members of the informal literary discussion group known as the Inklings. The Inklings also included mystic and occultist Charles Williams (1886-1945) who was a member of A.E. Waite’s Masonic-like Fellowship of the Rosy Cross secret society.  Williams exerted a mystic influence over the Inklings especially upon Lewis which this author will discuss further in Cinema Symbolism II.  J.R.R. Tolkien was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth II on 28 March 1972.

After his death, Tolkien’s son Christopher published a series of works based on his father’s extensive notes and unpublished manuscripts including The Silmarillion. These, together with The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, form a connected body of tales, poems, fictional histories, invented languages, and literary essays about a fantasy world called Arda, and Middle-earth within it.  Between 1951 and 1955, J.R.R. Tolkien applied the term Legendarium to the larger part of these writings.  While many other authors had published works of fantasy before Tolkien, the great success of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings led directly to a popular resurgence of the genre. This has caused Tolkien to be popularly identified as the father of modern fantasy literature or, more precisely, of what is termed “High Fantasy”.  In 2008, The Times of London ranked him sixth on a list of “The 50 greatest British writers since 1945”.  Forbes ranked him the 5th top-earning dead celebrity in 2009.

The Fellowship of the Ring

In the Second Age, the Dark Lord Sauron (Sala Baker) attempts to conquer Middle-earth using his One Ring of Power.  In battle against Sauron, Prince Isildur (Harry Sinclair) cuts the Ring from Sauron’s hand with his father’s broken sword Narsil destroying Sauron’s physical form.  However, Sauron’s life force or spirit is bound to the Ring allowing him to survive as long as the Ring also endures.  Isildur, corrupted by the Ring’s power, refuses to destroy it by throwing it into the fires of Mount Doom.  When Isildur is killed by Orcs the One Ring is lost in a river for 2,500 years. The Ring is found by a Hobbit named Déagol (Thomas Robins) while fishing with his cousin Sméagol (Andy Serkis).  Sméagol demands the Ring as a birthday present and when Déagol refuses he is garroted by Sméagol.  The Ring corrupts Sméagol transforming him into the creature Gollum who possesses it for five hundred years until it is found by the hobbit Bilbo Baggins (Ian Holm) of Hobbiton.

Sixty years later Bilbo is celebrating his 111th birthday or eleventy-first as it is called in the Shire.  Bilbo leaves the Ring and his home to his nephew, Frodo Baggins (Elijah Wood), since he has decided to retire to Rivendell.  Upon learning the Ring belonged to Sauron, the Wizard Gandalf the Grey (Ian McKellen) warns Frodo that Sauron’s forces will come for him causing Frodo to leave the Shire accompanied by his friend Samwise Gamgee (Sean Astin). Gandalf rides to Isengard to meet with the head of his order, Saruman the White (Christopher Lee), who tells Gandalf that Sauron’s servants, the Nazgûl or Ringwraiths, have been dispatched to capture the Ring.  Saruman reveals himself to be in service to Sauron and imprisons Gandalf atop his tower.  Sauron - via a seeing stone or Palantír - commands Saruman to construct weapons of war and produce a new breed of Orc fighters: the Uruk-hai.  The Palantíri are seven ancient seeing-stones or crystal globes that show visions while communicating secret information to Sauron.  The Palantír itself symbolizes the distinction Tolkien draws between esoteric knowledge and wisdom; the Palantír offers knowledge and a glimpse of the future to those who look into it, but this knowledge comes at the price of direct communication with Sauron who is the embodiment of evil in Middle-earth.  Thus it is not wise to use the Palantír even though one’s motives maybe pure.

While traveling to the town of Bree to meet with Gandalf, Frodo and Sam are joined by Hobbits Meriadoc “Merry” Brandybuck (Dominic Monaghan) and Peregrin “Pippin” Took (Billy Boyd) and are nearly captured by the Nazgûl.  The four reach Bree and meet the mysterious ranger Aragorn (Viggo Mortensen), who hides them from their pursuers and agrees to lead them to Rivendell - an enclave of the Elves - since Gandalf has not yet arrived.  The group rests at Weathertop where they are attacked by the Nazgûl and Frodo is wounded by a Morgul-blade, but Aragorn arrives and scares off the Nazgûl. A Morgul-blade is a magical poisonous sword or dagger used by Ringwraiths. After it tastes flesh the dagger breaks leaving a shard of the blade in its victim. The remaining blade soon turns to dust while the shard works its way through the body to the heart. If the shard of the blade stays in the victim for too long the victim becomes a wraith. Frodo is saved by the Elf Arwen (Liv Tyler) who uses her white magic to summon a surge of water that sweeps away the pursuing Nazgûl.  Arwen takes Frodo to Rivendell where her father, Elrond (Hugo Weaving), heals him.

Gandalf escapes Saruman’s tower with the aid of Gwaihir the eagle and travels to Rivendell.  Elrond calls a council of the races still loyal to Middle-earth to decide what should be done with the Ring.  He reveals that the Ring can only be destroyed by throwing it into the fires of Mount Doom in Mordor where it was forged.  Frodo volunteers to take the Ring to Mordor, accompanied by Sam, Merry, Pippin, Gandalf, and Aragorn who is revealed to be Isildur’s heir. They are joined by the Elf Legolas Greenleaf (Orlando Bloom), the Dwarf Gimli (John Rhys-Davies), and Boromir (Sean Bean), a man of Gondor; together they form the Fellowship of the Ring.  The Fellowship has nine members to pit against the nine Ringwraiths.

Hindered by Saruman’s sorcery the Fellowship is forced to travel through the abandoned subterranean Dwarven city of Moria.  Moria, more commonly known as the Mines of Moria, is a giant city fortress that lies beneath the Misty Mountains.  Inside the mines the Fellowship is ambushed by Orcs and a Balrog the latter of which is an ancient demon of fire, smoke, and shadow.  Gandalf confronts the Balrog allowing the others to escape, but after a brief fight both Gandalf and the Balrog fall into an abyss.  Mourning Gandalf’s apparent death the group flees to the forest of Lothlórien where they are sheltered by its rulers the Elves Galadriel (Cate Blanchett) and Celeborn (Marton Csokas).  That night Galadriel informs Frodo that it is his destiny to destroy the Ring.  Meanwhile Saruman assembles a force of Uruk-hai to hunt the Fellowship.

After arriving at Parth Galen, Boromir, after hinting that the ring should be used as a weapon to fight against Mordor, eventually gives in to the Ring’s corruption and tries to take it from Frodo believing it is the only way to save the people of Gondor.  Heeding Galadriel’s warning that the Ring will eventually corrupt the other members of the Fellowship, Frodo escapes by the Ring’s power of invisibility and decides to continue his journey alone.  The Uruk-hai arrive and Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli attempt to hold them off while Frodo escapes.  Merry, Pippin, and a remorseful Boromir lead the Orcs away from Frodo.  Boromir is shot fatally by the Uruk-hai’s leader Lurtz (Lawrence Makoare), while Merry and Pippin are captured by the rest of the Uruk-hai.  Aragorn slays Lurtz and Boromir dies with Aragorn, Gimli, and Legolas by his side. The three set out to rescue Merry and Pippin while Frodo lets Sam join him in his journey to the dark land of Mordor.

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Similar to the Star Wars and the Matrix films, elements of Joseph Campbell’s monomyth are present in this trilogy as well.  The call to adventure opens the Ring trilogy when Gandalf, after discerning the true nature of Bilbo’s ring, informs Frodo’s that he must take the ring out of the Shire. This begins Frodo’s hero-journey or sacred quest. The crossing of the first threshold can be seen when Samwise stops in the middle of a field and says to Frodo, “If I take one more step, it’ll be the farthest away from home I’ve ever been.”  Sam and Frodo are now leaving home and venturing into the great unknown.  Fearing the power of the One Ring, refusal of the call occurs when Frodo offers Sauron’s Ring to Gandalf for safekeeping who declines to accept it.  Later at Rivendell, Frodo attempts to remove himself as the Ring Bearer.  Frodo realizes it is his responsibility and destiny to take the Ring into Mordor and cast it into the flames of Mount Doom.  Once Frodo accepts his fate, Gandalf forms a sacred Pythagorean fellowship to assist Frodo on his journey.  Supernatural aid is initially provided while in Rivendell when Bilbo gives his nephew his mystic sword Sting, an ancient blade made by Elvish weapon-smiths in Gondolin.  Its blade glows blue when Orcs and maleficium are near.  Bilbo also supplies Frodo with a mithril mail shirt.  Mithril is a mineral found only in the mountains of Moria where it was mined by the Dwarves; it is stronger than steel but much lighter in weight.  Finally Frodo is given more supernatural aid when Galadriel gives him the Phial of Galadriel which brings light to dark places.  Galadriel is a wise Sophia-like elf whose wisdom transcends all of Middle-earth; Gandalf, Saruman, and Lord Elrond seek her counsel in The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (2012).  Without this last gift Frodo and Samwise would have been unable to pass through Shelob’s lair in Return of the King.  Frodo is in the belly of the whale when he is stabbed by one of the Ringwraiths; he is trapped in a comatose state and almost dies but is saved by Lord Elrond and the cabalistic magic of the elves.  The road of trials forces the Fellowship to fight their way through the Mines of Moria while Gandalf is lost combating a Balrog.  Frodo meets the goddess when he encounters the beautiful and royal elf Galadriel.  She personifies woman as temptress when Frodo attempts to offer her the One Ring since he believes in her magical supremacy and that she will be able to resist the Ring’s corrupting influence.  However, Frodo declines when he sees what the Ring will do to her.  Sauron’s Ring transforms the majestic Galadriel into a demonic, monstrous goddess who incurs fear not love.  Other elements of the monomyth or the hero’s journey can be found in Two Towers and Return of the King.  But first the mythological components of Fellowship of the Ring will now be presented.

Although these films are devoid of numerological and hidden symbols, the cinematic versions of Tolkien’s work are not without arcane and occult allegory.  From the film’s opening sequence the audience is introduced to Sauron who is Middle-earth’s evil lord of darkness.  The film explains that three rings were given to the Elven-kings, seven rings went to the Dwarf-lords in their halls of stone, and nine were given to men who are easily corrupted.  But Sauron forged a sublime master ring in secret - the Ring of Power - in the fiery chasms of Mount Doom in Mordor; this one ring rules all the others thus making Sauron the ring lord.  Sauron thus epitomizes the planet Saturn which is the astrological ruler of darkness and the astronomical ring lord; the name Sauron and Saturn are almost phonetically identical.  Saturn associates itself with darkness and death since it rules Capricorn which is exalted in the northern hemisphere from approximately December 22nd to January 19th.  During this time frame the sun is in a state of symbolic death being at its lowest demarcation in the northern hemisphere announcing the commencement of winter.  Since the sun is at its weakest in the house of Capricorn, the planet Saturn associates itself with death and decay.  Since Saturn is the planetary lord of the rings, the dark lord Sauron becomes Middle-earth’s true and only Lord of the Rings.

Sauron is depicted in Fellows of the Ring, Two Towers, and Return of the King as a giant evil eye atop the castle-fortress Barad-dûr watching constantly over the black land of Mordor.  The eye is the spiritual force of Sauron that survived even after the Ring of Power was cut from his hand by Prince Isildur.  Sauron’s spirit endures in the form of a giant lidless eye as long as the Ring of Power survives; the two are forever linked as one.  The all seeing eye of Sauron reflects the Celtic myth of Balor of the Evil Eye (sometimes spelled Balar or Bolar) who was a king of the Fomorians, a race of giants.  Balor was a cyclops who viewed all and everything with his evil eye.  According to mythologist and folklorist Alexander Hagerty Krappe (1894–1947), Balor was related to Kronos who was known as Saturn to the Romans, this allegory further synchronizes Sauron and Saturn as lords of darkness and lords of the rings.  It was mentioned earlier in this tome that the Wicked Witch of the West, from Baum’s novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, is also a cyclops.  Like the Eye of Sauron that purveys Mordor from the dark tower of Barad-dûr, the western witch can observe the land of Oz from the tall tower of her castle thereby paralleling Balor of the Evil Eye as well.  If Sauron is the dark lord or Middle-earth, then it stands to reason that there must be a lord of light who embodies the Thoth Hermes Trismegistus archetype.  Like Obi-Wan Kenobi, Yoda, and Morpheus, Trismegistus incarnates in Lord of the Rings as the wizard Gandalf the Grey.  He is the wise, old, magical gray-beard who possesses the occult and arcane wisdom and knowledge but is reluctant to divulge it.  Gandalf is also a member of a Masonically styled magisterium known as the White Council of Wizards from which he oversees Middle-earth.  Embodying Hermes, Gandalf is cognizant of the true nature of the One Ring and he is also the driving force behind the Fellowship.  Gandalf’s spiritual and hermetic light combats darkness in the form of a demonic Balrog.  The Old Norse name Gandalfr incorporates the words gandr meaning “wand”, “staff” or (especially in compounds) “magic” and álfr means “elf”.  Thus Gandalf is J.R.R. Tolkien’s Merlin the Magician and is Middle-earth’s one and only Hermes Mercurius Trismegistus.  Tolkien, a devout Catholic, also writes of three ages of Middle-earth which are syncretic of the three ages of Christian mystic Joachim von Fiore (1135-1202 C.E.).  Fiore’s three ages are that of the Father, the Son, and a new spiritual age of the Holy Ghost.  Sauron’s defeat, according to Middle-earth lore, will usher in a new, progressive fourth age for Middle-earth.  Middle-earth itself represents Europe’s lost yet legitimate history; it is the source of all legends, folklore, superstitions, and myths.  Although Tolkien denied being influenced by Richard Wagner’s (1813-1883) Der Ring des Nibelungen (The Ring of the Nibelung) operas, there are notable similarities between the two.  For example, a ring that gives its owner mastery of the world and that works to corrupt the minds and wills of its possessors is a dominant thread in both works.

The Fellowship itself is a sacred Pythagorean band whose mission is to protect Frodo thereby allowing him to secretly enter Mordor and destroy the One Ring and the Sauron along with it.  To this end Frodo is assisted by a dwarf named Gimli.  The representation of the dwarves in the Tolkien universe was influenced by his own selective reading of medieval texts regarding the Jewish people and their history. The dwarves’ characteristics of being dispossessed of their ancient home Erebor (The Lonely Mountain) and their center of industry Moria or Khazad-dûm[216] parallels the Jewish people being divested of their homeland until 1948 when the state of Israel was established.  Like the Jews, the Dwarves are seen living among other groups whilst retaining their own culture, which is derived from medieval images of the Hebrews living in Christianized Europe.  In turn the Dwarves warlike nature stems from accounts in the Hebrew Bible where the Jews are militaristic defenders of their Holy Land.  The Dwarfs are also stereotyped as Semitic misers since they only seem to care about mining precious metals, gold, and other riches while caring little about the troubles of others.

Hobbits represent hearth and home of the common folk who work and till the land while the elves are Middle-earth’s nobility serving as warrior philosophers.  Both Hobbits and Elves symbiotically dwell in Middle-earth tending to it as if it were a living, natural organism.  Contrastingly the Orcs, evil creatures that were once Elves, disregard Middle-Earth’s natural habitats and resources.  The Orcs form an allegiance with the wizard Saruman the White who successfully crossbreads Orcs with Goblins to create a fighting race of monsters called the Uruk-hai.  The Orcs burn the ancient and stoic trees around Saruman’s fortress Isengard and its tower of Orthanc pillaging some of the trees from nearby Fangorn Forest.  The Orcs, following the instructions of Saruman, create a giant industrial open hearth furnace in the caverns of Isengard.  The destruction of the forests in favor of industry symbolizes the incursion upon nature by the Industrial Revolution in the nineteenth century.  The Orcs, Goblins, and Uruk-hai represent the lowly proletariat who have been villainized by the races of men, dwarves, and elves.  The Orcs, Goblins, and Uruk-hai seek to supplant and remove the nature loving Hobbits, Dwarves, Men, and Elves who are Middle-earth’s bourgeoisie.  Saruman muses aloud, “The old world will burn in the fires of industry.  Forests will fall. A new order will rise. We will drive the machine of war with the sword and the spear and the iron fist of the Orc.”  Saruman personifies Karl Marx since he will unify all the “workers” - Orcs, Uruk-hai, and Goblins - under the banner of his white hand in an effort to overthrow Middle-earth’s middle and upper classes.  Saruman’s scheme mirrors the Marxist doctrine of, “Workers of all lands, unite”.

If the Orcs, Uruk-hai, and Goblins are downtrodden laborers, and the Dwarves, Elves, Men, and Hobbits are Middle-earth’s aristocracy, then the gangle creature Gollum allegories the bane of materialism that plagues both groups.  Originally a Hobbit known as Sméagol, he was corrupted by the One Ring and later named Gollum after his habit of making a horrible swallowing noise or cough in his throat.  He is obsessed with the Ring which he always refers to as my precious or precious; the Ring extends his life far beyond natural limits.  Under centuries of the Ring’s influence, Gollum had come to love and hate the Ring, just as he loves and hates himself.  Throughout the story Gollum was torn between his lust for the Ring and his desire to be free of it.  In philosophy, the theory of materialism holds that the only thing that exists is matter or energy and that all things are composed of material and all phenomena (including consciousness) are the result of material interactions. In other words, matter is the only substance, and reality is identical with the actually occurring states of energy and matter.  The only thing that exists to Gollum is the Ring which is the purpose of his existence and even his consciousness, possessing it is the only thing that matters to him.  Gollum cannot live without the Ring as it is the base of his materialistic reality and identity.  The Ring of Power owns him, he does not possess it; in Fight Club Tyler Durden warns of the dangers of materialism commenting, “The things you own, end up owning you.”

The esoterica of The Fellowship of the Ring is now complete the second film of the trilogy can now be explored.  The themes and legendary histories presented in Fellowship of the Ring continue into the next film - The Two Towers - while new characters, philosophies, and mythologies are introduced.

The Two Towers

Gandalf the Grey sacrifices himself in battle against the Balrog, giving the Fellowship of the Ring time to escape from the Mines of Moria.

Weeks later Frodo Baggins and Samwise Gamgee continue their journey towards Mordor to destroy the One Ring and, with it, the dark lord Sauron.  One night they are attacked by the ring’s former owner Gollum.  The pair captures Gollum but Frodo takes pity on him understanding the burden of the Ring.  Frodo persuades Gollum to guide them to Mordor.  Sam immediately distrusts Gollum and warns Frodo that Gollum will eventually betray them.

In the land of Rohan, Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli pursue the Uruk-hai who have taken Merry and Pippin prisoner.  In the meantime Rohan’s King Théoden (Bernard Hill) has been entranced and physically weakened by Gríma Wormtongue (Brad Dourif), who is secretly in the service of Saruman the White.  Saruman has his Orcs and the Wild Men of Dunland lay siege to the lands.  Théoden’s nephew Éomer (Karl Urban) accuses Gríma of being a spy opening the door for Gríma to banish him.  Éomer travels the countryside to gather the remaining men of the Rohirrim which is another name for the inhabitants of Rohan.  Éomer’s army later ambush and kill the Uruk-hai holding Merry and Pippin captive.  Merry and Pippin flee into Fangorn forest and meet Treebeard (voiced by John Rhys-Davies), the oldest of the Ents.

Frodo, Sam, and Gollum traverse the Dead Marshes evading a Nazgûl.  Upon reaching the Black Gate they find it closed and heavily guarded by Orcs.  Gollum convinces the pair that he will lead them to an unguarded, secret entrance.  After learning of Éomer’s ambush, Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli discover Merry and Pippin’s trail.  The trio is confronted by Gandalf who has achieved a form of apotheosis; he has been reborn like a resurrected Christ and is now Gandalf the White. Gandalf joins with the trio sojourning to Edoras, the capital of Rohan.  After arriving, Gandalf uses white kabbalistic magic to free King Théoden from Saruman’s dark spell and informs the king of his son Théodred’s (Paris Howe Strewe) death.  Théoden moves his people to the mountain stronghold Helm’s Deep for safety.  Fearing Helm’s Deep will not survive, Gandalf leaves to find Éomer.  A banished Gríma flees to Orthanc tower and informs Saruman of a weakness - a small culvert - in the outer wall of Helm’s Deep.  Saruman dispatches his vast army to the castle-keep with the intent of wiping out all of Rohan and Aragorn with them.

Meanwhile Gollum dualistically struggles between his loyalty to Frodo and his materialistic lust for the Ring.  When Sam and Frodo are captured by Rangers of Ithilien, Frodo reveals Gollum’s presence to spare his life but Gollum nevertheless feels betrayed and begins plotting against Frodo. While Théoden’s forces and the Rohirrim travel to Helm’s Deep they are attacked by Saruman’s Warg riders. A battle ensues with Aragorn being thrown over a cliff to his apparent death in a raging river.  In Rivendell, Elrond convinces his daughter Arwen to abandon her love for Aragorn and leave Middle-earth with her fellow Elves. As all this is going on Éowyn (Miranda Otto) - Théoden’s niece - nurtures a growing affection toward Aragorn.

Learning that Frodo has the Ring, the Rangers’ Captain Faramir (David Wenham), who is also Boromir’s brother, orders that it be sent to Gondor.  In Rohan the barely-alive Aragorn washes up on the river bank.  He makes his way to Helm’s Deep and warns Théoden that he has seen Saruman’s army heading towards the fortress.  Théoden gathers his men to fight against Saruman’s vast army of Uruk-hai.  When night falls a battalion of Elves arrive to re-enforce the men of Rohan.  In Fangorn Forest Merry, Pippin, Treebeard and other Ents hold a council to decide on the role of the Ents in the war with Saruman.

The battle of Helm’s Deep commences between the Uruk-hai and Rohirrim. The Rohirrim, allied with Aragorn and his companions, initially fend of Saruman’s Uruk-hai army.  Explosives are used against the weakness in the wall allowing the Uruk-hai to breach the fortress.  In Fangorn Forest, Treebeard and the other Ents initially refuse to get involved in the war until Pippin shows them that Saruman has decimated the forest; an enraged Treebeard commands the Ents to seek vengeance.  Aragorn leads Théoden, Legolas and the remaining Rohirrim to attack the Uruk-hai allowing the Rohirrim’s women and children to escape into the mountains.  The breaking dawn sees Gandalf appearing on the horizon as a triumphal rising sun now accompanied by Éomer and his men.  The combined forces cause the Uruk-hai to flee into Fangorn where the Ents and their Huorn (trees that can speak) allies attack them.  At Isengard, the Ents defeat the Uruk-hai and break the river dam drowning the surviving Orc defenders flooding Isengard and its blast furnaces thus stranding Saruman in Orthanc tower.

Faramir has the Hobbits taken to the war-torn city of Osgiliath where they are attacked by Orcs led by a Nazgûl.  Frodo succumbs to the Ring’s sinister influence and attacks Sam but comes to his senses when Sam tearfully reminds him of their friendship.  The Nazgûl is defeated and flees and Faramir, now understanding the dangers associated the Ring, frees the Hobbits and sends them on their journey joined by Gollum.  Gandalf remarks that Sauron will seek retribution for Saruman’s defeat stating that hope now rests with Frodo and Sam.  At that same moment Gollum vows to reclaim the Ring by having her kill Frodo and Sam.

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The actual symbolism of two towers comes from the Tarot appearing on card 18 of the Major Arcana of the Tarot.  On its symbolism Richard Cavendish writes, “The two towers stand at the entrance to our world, but they also conversely the gateway opening out of it into the unknown land of night beyond.”[217]  The tower of Orthanc which is Saruman’s dwelling and the tower of Barad-dûr which is Sauron’s abode symbolize night and the darkness that conceals the unknown of Middle-earth; the Eye of Sauron is mercurial spiritual malignancy while Saruman himself personifies corporeal evil.  Saruman explains this, “The world is changing. Who now has the strength to stand against the armies of Isengard and Mordor? To stand against the might of Sauron and Saruman and the union of the two towers? Together, Lord Sauron, we shall rule this Middle-earth.” Saruman represents physical despotism associated with industry over-running and encroaching upon natural habitats.  Sauron is a spiritual cancer that survives as long as his evil ring remains in  Middle-earth.  Thus Middle-earth’s mystical and material evil is symbolized by the two towers of Sauron and Saruman.  The two towers metaphorically conceal the melancholia that permeates Middle-earth while forcing its inhabitants to confront the darkness that lies both within and without.

Tolkien’s Middle-earth embraces the Gaia hypothesis which proposes that organisms (i.e. Men, Hobbits, Elves, Dwarves) interact with their organic and inorganic surroundings to form a self-regulating, complex system that contributes to maintaining the conditions for life.  Two Towers thus injects animism into Middle-earth which is the religious worldview that natural physical entities, including animals, plants, and often even inanimate objects or phenomena, possess a spiritual essence.  This is clearly seen in relation to the trees of Fangorn Forest that are actually alive in Two Towers.  There are tree shepherds known as the Ents who move and speak while the Huorns are trees that too can speak.  Both the Ents and Huorns are capable of movement and locomotion.  The trees are clearly imbued with personalities, eccentricities, and traits that originate from their divine souls.

Two Towers also presents a race on men known as the Horse Lords of Rohan also known as the Rohirrim.  The Rohan itself is grassland which lies north of its ally Gondor and north-west of Mordor; Rohan is also referred to as Riddermark or simply the Mark.  The Horse Lords of the Mark are based upon Norse-Viking history and culture since both are an agrarian war-like race of nobles.  The capital of Rohan is Edoras which sits atop a mountain from which its king rules from a Golden Hall denoting rightful solar rulership.  The king of Rohan is Théoden who is under the sinister influence of Gríma Wormtongue who is in league with Saruman.  Gríma serves as an archetypal sycophant, flatterer, liar, and manipulator.  Appropriately the name “Gríma” derives from the Old English or Icelandic word meaning mask or spectre indicating shadowy duplicity.  It is also possible to link the name to the English word  grim which among other characteristics means ugly in Old English.  The chapter concludes with an analysis of The Return of the King.

The Return of the King

While on a fishing trip, Sméagol’s cousin Déagol finds Sauron’s One Ring in a river.  Sméagol kills Déagol claiming the Ring and flees into a cave transforming into the creature Gollum.  Five centuries later, Gandalf, Aragorn, Legolas, Gimli, Théoden, Gamling (Bruce Hopkins), and Éomer meet up with Merry, Pippin and Treebeard at Isengard.  Gríma kills Saruman who returns the favor and Saruman plunges off Orthanc tower.  The group returns to Edoras where Pippin gazes into Saruman’s recovered Palantír causing the Eye of Sauron to invade his mind’s eye, however Pippin is able to conceal Frodo’s quest from Sauron.  From this event Gandalf deduces that Sauron is planning to attack Minas Tirith, the heavily fortified capital of Gondor.  Gandalf rides with Pippin to find Denethor, the Steward of Gondor, to whom Pippin swears his service in repayment of Boromir’s death.  Gandalf urges Denethor to call Rohan for aid but Denethor declines fearing Aragorn and Gandalf plan to depose him. The Morgul army, led by the Nazgûl, drives the Gondorians out of Osgiliath.  Denethor sends his son Faramir on a suicide mission to reclaim the city.  Under instruction from Gandalf, Pippin evades city guards to light the distress beacon signaling Théoden and Aragorn to assemble the Rohirrim for battle.

Elrond informs Aragorn that Arwen did not go to the Undying Lands rather she is now dying.  Believing their forces to be outnumbered by Sauron’s, Elrond mends the broken blade Narsil and gives it to Aragorn to acquire the service of the Army of the Dead who owe allegiance to the heir of Isildur.  Narsil, now reforged, is called Andúril and can only be wielded by the Heir of Isildur.  Éowyn confesses her love for Aragorn and asks him not to go.  Aragorn reaffirms his love for Arwen but goes off to war instead.  Accompanied by Legolas and Gimli, Aragorn ventures into the Paths of the Dead near Dunharrow and gains the loyalty of the King of the Dead and his men, also known as the Dead Men of Dunharrow or Oathbreakers, by brandishing Andúril thus proving himself to be the Heir of Isildur.  At Dunharrow, Théoden rides off to war unaware that Éowyn and Merry have secretly joined his forces with Éowyn disguising herself as a man.

Sauron’s armies lay siege to Minas Tirith led by the Witch-king of Amgmar, the leader of the Ringwraiths. Believing a grievously wounded Faramir to be dead, Denethor tries to burn his son and himself alive, but Gandalf intervenes saving Faramir but Denethor commits suicide.  Just as the Gondorians are about to be overrun, the Rohirrim army arrives and counter-attacks in a massive cavalry charge led by Théoden.  This turns the tide of the battle and the Orcs begin to retreat.  However the Haradrim - a race of men from Harad in the region of Middle-earth directly south of Gondor - arrive and join the Orc army reversing Théoden’s onslaught.  The Witch-king kills Théoden only to be wounded by Merry and finished off by Éowyn.  On the verge of defeat, the Rohirrim are saved when Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli arrive with the Army of the Dead and overwhelm Sauron’s forces ending the battle.  By acknowledging that their debt has been paid, Aragorn frees the Army of the Dead and their souls transmigrate.

Meanwhile Frodo, Sam and Gollum travel to Minas Morgul.  Minas Morgul, situated in the Mountains of Shadow, is the home of the Ringwraiths.  They plan on entering Mordor via a hidden route.  While the hobbits are asleep, Gollum tosses their precious food supply over a cliff hoping to throw blame on Sam.  While talking to himself, Sam overhears Gollum’s plan to murder them and retake the Ring of Power.  Gollum persuades Frodo that Sam wants the Ring for himself and Frodo angrily orders Sam to go home.  A heartbroken Sam leaves but discovers Gollum’s treachery by finding the discarded food; Sam now realizes that Frodo is in peril and follows after them.  Gollum betrays Frodo abandoning him in the lair of the giant spider Shelob who paralyses Frodo with her stinger.  Sam returns in the nick of time and drives Shelob away.  However, an Orc patrol captures an unconscious Frodo and takes him to Sauron’s fortress.  Sam rescues Frodo from the tower and they continue their journey to Mount Doom.

Aragorn leads his remaining men to the Black Gate of Mordor, distracting Sauron and his forces thereby allowing Sam and Frodo to enter Mount Doom.  Sam carries the weakened Frodo up the volcano but Gollum attacks them.  Standing on a precipice inside Mount Doom, Frodo succumbs to the Ring’s power refusing to cast it into the fiery chasm.  Gollum attacks Frodo and bites his finger off seizing the Ring for himself.  An enraged Frodo attacks Gollum and they both fall over the edge.  At the last second, Frodo grabs onto the ledge leaving Gollum to fall into the lava taking the Ring with him. As the Ring melts in the volcano, Sauron is obliterated and the land of Mordor collapses destroying most of his forces.

Frodo and Sam are saved from the rising lava by Eagles led by Gandalf.  In the aftermath, Aragorn is crowned King heralding a new age of peace and marries Arwen.  The four hobbits are bowed to by all of Gondor for their courageous efforts.  The four Hobbits then return home to the Shire where Sam marries his childhood sweetheart.  Four years later Frodo leaves Middle-earth for the Undying Lands with Gandalf, Bilbo, Elrond, Celeborn, and Galadriel leaving his account of their quest to Sam to finish.

Tolkien’s masterpiece ends integrating one element of Joseph Campbell’s monomyth which is rescue from without.  The saga’s hero, Frodo, may need guides and assistants,  the Fellowship and Samwise, to set out and aid them on the quest.   Oftentimes though he or she must have powerful guides and rescuers to bring them back to everyday life especially if the person has been wounded or weakened by the experience.  Campbell elucidates,

“The hero may have to be brought back from his supernatural adventure by assistance from without. That is to say, the world may have to come and get him. For the bliss of the deep abode is not lightly abandoned in favor of the self-scattering of the wakened state. ‘Who having cast off the world,’ we read, ‘would desire to return again? He would be only there.’  And yet, in so far as one is alive, life will call. Society is jealous of those who remain away from it, and will come knocking at the door. If the hero - like Muchukunda -is unwilling, the disturber suffers an ugly shock; but on the other hand, if the summoned one is only delayed - sealed in by the beatitude of the state of perfect being (which resembles death) - an apparent rescue is effected, and the adventurer returns.”[218]

By the time Frodo reaches Mount Doom he is emotionally, physically, and psychologically scarred.  Frodo has cast off the world he knows, the Shire, to see the quest through.  He has been stabbed by a deadly Morgul-blade and poisoned by Shelob.  Inside the chasm of Mount Doom, Gollum bites off his finger in order to retrieve the One Ring.  Frodo is rescued from the precipice inside Mount Doom by Samwise.  Once outside the cavern both Frodo and Sam are saved by Gandalf and the Eagles of the Misty Mountains.  The adventurer is returned to Minas Tirith where he and his Hobbit companions are symbolically beatified.  Frodo has cast off his reality, navigated the supernatural quest, and has returned home, however it is not without a price.  Frodo can not re-acclimate to every life lamenting, “How do you pick up the threads of an old life? How do you go on, when in your heart you begin to understand there is no going back? There are some things that time cannot mend, some hurts that go too deep, that have taken hold.”  Although he has been rescued from without, Frodo departs Middle-earth with Gandalf, Bilbo, and the Elves for the Undying Lands since he is unable to resume his simple, everyday life of the Shire.

During the film’s prologue, Sméagol demands the Ring of Power as a birthday tribute and when Déagol refuses Sméagol murders him.  This is barrowed from Norse mythology and appears in Richard Wagner’s Ring Cycle Operas where Fafner kills his brother Fasolt to gain a supernatural ring.  In Norse mythology, Fáfnir (Old Norse and Icelandic) or Frænir was a son of the dwarf king Hreidmar and brother of Regin and Ótr.  Fáfnir appears as Fafner in Richard Wagner’s epic opera cycle Der Ring des Nibelungen (1848-1874) although he began life as a giant rather than a dwarf.  In the first opera, Das Rheingold (1869), Fafner and his brother Fasolt win a massive hoard of treasure from Wotan, the king of the gods, in exchange for building the castle Valhalla. The treasure includes the magic helmet Tarnhelm and a magical ring. When they divide the treasure Fafner kills Fasolt and takes the ring for himself paralleling Sméagol’s murdering of Déagol seizing Sauron’s Ring for himself.  Other elements of Norse legends are also present. Éowyn is known as a shieldmaiden of Rohan; a shieldmaiden was a woman who had chosen to fight as a warrior in Scandinavian folklore and mythology.  She disguises herself as a male warrior and battles the forces of Sauron killing the evil Witch-king.  Éowyn also the embodiment of warrior-like maidens known as Valkyries which were thought to be based on the lore of shieldmaidens.  In Norse mythology a Valkyrie - from Old Norse valkyrja or chooser of the slain - is one of a host of female figures who decide which soldiers die in battle and which survive.  Selecting among half of those who die in battle, the valkyries bring their chosen to the afterlife hall of the slain, Valhalla, ruled over by the god Odin or Wotan.  The other half go to the goddess Freyja’s afterlife field Solvang.  Valkyries also appear as lovers of heroes and other mortals where they are sometimes described as the daughters of royalty, occasionally accompanied by ravens, and sometimes connected with swans or horses.  Wagner’s second opera in his famed ring cycle is Die Walküre or The Valkyrie which premiered at the Königliches Hof-und National-Theater in Munich on 26 June 1870.  “The Ride of the Valkyries” (German: “Walkürenritt” or “Ritt der Walküren”) is the popular term for the beginning of Act III and is one of the most recognizable pieces of music in history.

Components of the Arthurian legend are also incorporated in Return of the King.  The blade Narsil is mended by Elrond and is now called Andúril and can only be wielded by the Heir of Isildur who is Aragorn.  Andúril symbolizes the scimitar Excalibur which can only be drawn from the stone and wielded by the legendary King Arthur.  Because King Arthur is an anthropomorphized version of the sun, Excalibur naturally symbolizes a sun ray or solar energy thus Arthur is the only one who can brandish the sword.  The concept of a sword belonging to a specific individual denotes solar leadership.  King Arthur is injured he is taken to Avalon to recover from his wounds inflicted by Mordred after the Battle of Camlann.  Avalon is a legendary island and resting place where his sword Excalibur was originally forged.  In Return of the King, Avalon becomes the Undying Lands which is a mystical and numinous island that serves as a safe haven or afterlife.  The Undying Lands are referenced in the entire Lord of the Rings Trilogy and Return of the King concludes with a ship departing from the Grey Havens port to the Undying Lands.

*      *       *       *       *

Aragorn recruits the Army of the Dead or the Dead Men of Dunharrow to join in the fight against Sauron.  The Army of the Dead were the ghosts of deceased Men of the White Mountains cursed to remain in Middle-earth by Isildur after they abandoned their oath to fight with him in the War of the Last Alliance (opening scenes of The Fellowship of the Ring). They haunted the caverns beneath the Dwimorberg and the valley of Harrowdale that lay in its shadow.  The Dead Men of Dunnharrow were said to appear in the valley only in times of turmoil or death.  They were led by the King of the Dead who was the most fearsome and terrifying of the whole Dead Army.  Since the line of Isildur had ended after a couple of hundred years, no one could call upon the Dead Army to aid them in their hours of need because they would only respond to an Heir of Isildur.  The Army of the Dead symbolize souls trapped in Purgatory since they are neither in Heaven nor Hell but caught in between.  They are offered redemption by Aragon which they accept.  They fight for him and honor their oath thereby freeing their souls.

Finally, although they are supporting characters, the sacred feminine and divine Sophia are personified in Tolkien’s Middle-earth: the wise philosopher Hypatia of Alexandria-like elf Galadriel, the tender and loving Arwen Undómiel (or Evenstar) who is willing to suffer death for her true love Aragorn, and the shieldmaiden Éowyn who fights for what she believes in.  These three women personify the wisdom goddess archetype in cinema who is both positive and negative, light and dark, loyal and deceiving, loving and spiteful. Chapter XI introduces the goddess in film.

Chapter XI

Obscured Perfection

The Goddess in Cinema

“However cleverly you sneak up on a mirror

your reflection always looks you straight in the eye.”

- Louis Cyphre, Angel Heart, 1987.

“And what mean all these mysteries to me

whose life is full on indices and surds?

X2 + 7X + 53 = 11/3”

- Lewis Carroll on dualism.

“Because everything Beth does comes

from within, from some dark impulse.

I guess that’s what makes her so thrilling to watch.

So dangerous. Even perfect at times.

But also so damn destructive.”

- Thomas Leroy, Black Swan, 2010.

“A boy’s best friend is his mother.”

- Norman Bates, Psycho, 1960.

“There’s a storm coming, Mr. Wayne. You and your friends

better batten down the hatches, because when it hits,

you’re all gonna wonder how you ever thought

you could live so large and leave so little for the rest of us.”

- Selina Kyle, The Dark Knight Rises, 2012.

“Grandma Lynn predicted I would live a long life

because I had saved my brother.

As usual, Grandma Lynn was wrong.”

- Susie Salmon, The Lovely Bones, 2009.

“It’s about a girl who gets turned into a swan

and she needs love to break the spell,

but her prince falls for the wrong girl so she kills herself.”

- Nina Sayers, Black Swan, 2010

This chapter divides the complexities of the female archetype into three sections.  The first portion deals with the female lead as wisdom or Sophia personified.  This has been alluded to earlier in this book incarnating as Dorothy Gale in The Wizard of Oz, the “Bond Girl” in James Bond novels and films, Trinity in The Matrix movies, and Galadriel in The Lord of the Rings.  Part two of this chapter explores the nebulous role of the mother figure in film.  Finally, the chapter explores the dark side of female sexuality which is perfectly depicted in 2010’s Black Swan and 1986’s 9 ½ Weeks.  Black Swan also presents characters who are “living Tarot cards” or archetypes whose personalities originate in the Major and Minor Arcana of the Tarot.  Black Swan also contains the trickster female persona who is Lily played by Mila Kunis.  But first the cinematic presentation and portrayal of Sophia.

Wisdom Personified: Sophia, Minerva, and Pallas Athena in Cinema

A female lead in a film does not automatically transform her into Sophia.  Sophiology is a philosophical concept regarding wisdom, as well as a theological concept regarding the wisdom of the biblical God.  Plato, following his teacher Socrates and it is likely, the older tradition of Pythagoras, understands philosophy as philo-sophia, or literally a friend of wisdom. This understanding of philosophia permeates Plato’s dialogues especially The Republic. In that work, the leaders of the proposed utopia are to be philosopher kings or rulers who are friends of Sophia or wisdom.  Sophia is one of the four cardinal virtues in Plato’s Protagoras.  “To see Minerva (or Athena) is to become blind, to be wise through her is to be foolish, for she is Sophia, Wisdom itself, beautiful as the moon, great as the sun, terrible as marshaled rank of armies, pure because nothing of defilement can touch her, honorable because the image of goodness itself, powerful because being one she can do all things, kind because she visit’s the nations that are sacred to her and makes men friends to God and prophets.”[219]  “For Philo, as for the Gnostics, Sophia is the ‘Mother of the Logos.’ The central role given to the Divine Feminine by the Pagan philosopher, the Hellenized Jews of the inter-testamental period and later by the Gnostics, is strong evidence for a direct line of evolution linking these three traditions together.”[220]  Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland title character embodies Sophia who achieves gnosis by undertaking and passing an initiatic occult experience.

Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland parallels The Wizard of Oz (Chapter V) in that it too depicts a Gnostic quest towards ascensio. Carroll’s work has been made into several films including the Walt Disney animated version of 1951 and 2010’s live action version starring Mia Wasikowska as Alice, Johnny Depp as the Mad Hatter, Anne Hathaway as the White Queen, and Helena Bonham Carter as the Red Queen (note that in the novel it is the Queen of Hearts).  Alice, like Dorothy Gale, is transported to a magical world via a winding staircase emblematized within Freemasonry’s by Jacob’s Ladder also known as the Ladder of Minerva.  The ladder was an important symbol in the Mithraic Mysteries representing the gaining of esoteric wisdom and enlightenment via ascension.   In Dorothy Gale’s case, the winding ladder of ascension is violent tornado while for Alice’s it is represented by a spiral rabbit hole that she tumbles down while pursuing a white rabbit.  The rabbit is always hurried and constantly complains that he is running late.  Like Oz, there is no “earth time” in Wonderland rather time appears to stand still or be totally absent.  Alice experiences concepts and characters related to Gnostic wisdom, enlightenment, the mystical, and dualism.  Lewis Carroll was well versed in the occult having been a member of the Society for Psychical Research which investigated the supernatural and the paranormal.  Carroll pays homage to fellow mathematician and mystic Dr. John Dee; the arcane symbology of the kabbalistic “rose tree” having been explained in Chapter VII.  Carroll’s work contains other concealed themes and esoterica.

For example, Alice takes a potion that makes her small and eats a cake that makes her large mirroring alchemical change of physical matter.  Alice encounters twin brothers named Tweedledum and Tweedledee who personify Gnostic ideas relating to the dualistic nature of the universe.  Being twofold, Tweedledum and Tweedledee represent opposites in perpetual conflict (cf. Manichean cosmology, light versus dark, good against evil) since they want to battle each other but never do so.  These two odd characters first appear in 1871’s Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There.

The most famous character in the entire Lewis Carroll mythos is the Mad Hatter.  He speaks in riddles yet his dialog seems to contain arcane and occult truths.  The Hatter opines, “If I had a world of my own, everything would be nonsense. Nothing would be what it is, because everything would be what it isn’t. And contrary wise, what is, it wouldn’t be. And what it wouldn’t be, it would. You see?” and “People who don’t think shouldn’t talk.”  The Hatter takes him name from what is called mad hatter syndrome.  Mad hatter disease is a commonly used name for occupational chronic mercury poisoning among hat makers whose felting work involved prolonged exposure to mercury vapors. The neurotoxic effects included tremor and the pathological shyness and irritability characteristic of erethism.  Interestingly the use of mercury suggests the Roman god of wisdom Mercury who is the Greek Hermes and, as has been explained, when fused with the Egyptian Thoth becomes Hermes Trismegistus.  Carroll’s Mad Hatter also echoes Theophilus Carter (c. 1825-1904).

Carter was an eccentric British inventor and furniture dealer most famous for his combination of an alarm clock and a bed, and thought to be an inspiration for the illustration by Sir John Tenniel of the Mad Hatter in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Hatta (same character) in Through the Looking-Glass. Tenniel (1820-1914) was a British illustrator, graphic humorist, and political cartoonist whose work was prominent during the second half of England’s 19th century. Tenniel is considered important to the study of that period’s social, literary, and art histories. Tenniel was knighted by Queen Victoria for his artistic achievements in 1893.  The Mad Hatter is not the only character in Wonderland that dispenses occult wisdom fused with nonsensical riddles.  The Cheshire Cat and the Caterpillar speak in conundrums; the former has the power of invisibility whilst the latter seemingly smokes mind alternating substances from a hookah while sitting on a “magic” mushroom.  Speaking to Alice, the Caterpillar personifies the occult science of alchemy which, allegorically, is the transformation of ignorance (base metal) into occult wisdom (gold) reflecting a caterpillar’s metamorphosis from pupa into a beautiful butterfly.  Before crawling away the Caterpillar tells Alice that one side of the mushroom will make her taller and the other side will make her shorter.  She breaks off two pieces from the mushroom and eats a piece that causes her neck to grow high into the trees, where a pigeon mistakes her for a serpent.  The serpent is a emblem of gnosis confirmed by Jesus speaking to the Apostles at Matthew 10:16 “…be ye therefore wise as serpents…”.  It is a serpent that brings wisdom or Gnostic truth to Eve and eventually Adam in the Garden of Eden taking shape as a Sephirotic apple.  Dovetailing Gnosticism and Alice-as-Sophia iconography, it is important to be cognizant that the name Alice etymologically originates from the ancient Greek word alethéia which means truth.  Alice, through her adventures and various interactions in Wonderland, attains ascensio and true spiritual revelation epitomizing Sophia, Minerva (or Athena) who are the goddesses of wisdom and mysterious truths; Alice is thus recognized as a serpent.  In the Harry Potter novels and films, the wizard Albus Dumbledore’s female equivalent at Hogwarts is an aged witch named Minerva McGonagall played by Maggie Smith.  McGonagall is the Gnostic archetypical Sophia being the personification of female enlightenment and wisdom. As her first name implies, McGonagall-as-Minvera is the perfect female counterbalance to Dumbledore-as-Trismegistus.

Alice’s adventure in Wonderland concludes with a kangaroo court where the Knave of Hearts is accused of stealing the Queen’s tarts.  The jury is composed of various animals including Bill the Lizard while the White Rabbit is the court’s trumpeter and the judge is the King of Hearts.  During the proceedings Alice finds that she is steadily growing larger.  The dormouse scolds Alice and tells her she has no right to grow at such a rapid pace and take up all the air.  Alice scoffs and calls the dormouse’s accusation ridiculous because everyone grows and she cannot help it.  Meanwhile, witnesses at the trial include the Mad Hatter who displeases and frustrates the King through his indirect answers to the questioning.  Alice is then called up as a witness to testify.  She accidentally knocks over the jury box with the animals inside them and the King orders the animals be placed back into their seats before the trial continues.  The King and Queen order Alice to be gone, citing Rule 42 which is that, “All persons more than a mile high to leave the court”, but Alice disputes their judgment and refuses to exit.  She argues with the King and Queen of Hearts over the ridiculous proceedings eventually refusing to hold her tongue.  The Queen shouts her familiar, “Off with her head!” but Alice is unafraid calling them out as just a pack of cards just as they start to swarm over her. Alice’s sister wakes her up for tea brushing what turns out to be some leaves - not playing cards - from Alice’s face. Alice leaves her sister on the bank to imagine all the curious happenings for herself.  Alice is now Minvera, Athena, or Sophia personified.  Her travels underground have led Alice to the Queen of Hearts who is a false messiah (like the Wizard of Oz) that rules out of fear and intimidation; the Queen is a Gnostic Demiurge.  Alice has passed all the initiatic trials put in front of her obtaining gnosis of self along the way thereby equipping her with the fortitude to confront the Queen and expose her as a charlatan who is nothing more than a mere playing card.  The Queen and her cards are not real but material falsehoods since the cards are nothing more than falling leaves.  Alice must ponder her gnosis alone since her profane and uninitiated sister would not understand nor comprehend esoteric wisdom or divine truths emanating from a spiritual deity.  Echoing the Ancient Mystery Tradition, Carroll’s novel is adeptly divided into twelve chapters.  This division represents the twelve houses of the zodiac which divide the solar year into twelve months.  Like the twelve apostles who follow Jesus Christ, the sun of god, so too does the sun preside over the twelve signs of the zodiac.  Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland is thus a tale of enlightenment echoing Gnostic theology and the Mystery Tradition.  Alice’s journey through a magical realm has ignited or awakened her divine “solar” spark in keeping with concepts of initiatory rites of passage that brings one from ignorance to sublime ascensio.

*      *       *       *       *

Sophia, Gnostic ideas, and elements of Lewis Carroll’s masterstroke can also be found in the film The Lovely Bones (2009).  The movie, directed by Peter Jackson, is based on the novel by Alice Sebold which was first published in 2002.  The film documents a deceased girl’s journey towards gnosis becoming a goddess-like manipulator of the ethereal plane, a Purgatory-like wonderland, while influencing and affecting the living.  The movie contains anagogic and metaphysical elements while incorporating components of Campbell’s grand monomyth.  In order to understand this kabbalism better, the film’s plot must first be presented.

In December 1973, Susie Salmon (Saoirse Ronan), a 14-year-old girl living in rural Pennsylvania with her parents, sister, and brother, dreams about becoming a photographer someday. One afternoon Ray Singh (Reece Ritchie), a boy Susie has a crush on, approaches her at her locker and slips a note into her textbook asking her out the following Saturday.  As Susie walks home through a cornfield she runs into her neighbor, George Harvey (Stanley Tucci), who lures her into an underground den beneath the cornfield.  The secret vault was built by Harvey who is an expert in carpentry and woodworking.  Inside Susie becomes uncomfortable in Harvey’s presence and attempts to leave.  Harvey restrains her and the scene fades until she is seen rushing past classmate Ruth Connors (Carolyn Dando). Connors seems to be able to see the phantom-like Salmon.

In the meantime, the Salmon family becomes worried when Susie fails to return home.  Her father Jack (Mark Wahlberg) leaves to search for her while her mother Abigail (Rachel Weisz) waits for the police.  In town Susie sees her father but he does not respond to her calls.  Susie then runs home to find Harvey soaking in a bathtub. After seeing her charm bracelet hanging on the sink faucet near a bloody shaving razor, Susie realizes that she never escaped the den and was actually murdered by Harvey.  Screaming, she is pulled into the Wonderland-like In-Between that is neither Heaven nor Hell.  The In-Between is a Purgatory of Susie’s own creation.  From there Susie watches over her loved ones unable to let go despite her new afterlife friend, Holly (Nikki SooHoo), urging her spirit to move on.

Investigating Susie’s disappearance with Detective Len Fenerman (Michael Imperioli), Jack thinks Susie was murdered by someone she knew.  He begins obsessively researching neighbors including Harvey who he begins to suspect is the killer.  But after interviewing Harvey, Fenerman is unable to find any evidence that would pinpoint him as a suspect since he cleaned up everything lining him to the killing before the police arrived.  Susie’s sister Lindsey (Rose McIver) comes to agree with her father’s suspicions but their casework takes an emotional toll on Abigail.  In order to ameliorate the growing tension, Jack invites her alcoholic mother, Lynn (Susan Sarandon), to move in with the family.  Feeling alienated from her husband, Abigail leaves for California to work in a vineyard.  In her afterlife, Susie inspects a lighthouse and discovers that Harvey, who has now targeted Lindsey to be his next victim, has murdered seven other girls including Holly, and that he stuffed Susie’s body into a safe in his basement. Susie is now beginning to experience atonement with the father since Susie has opened her soul beyond terror to such a degree that he will be ripe to understand how the sickening and insane tragedies of this vast and ruthless cosmos are completely validated in the majesty of Being.  Susie has come to accept the terrifying and sad reality that she has been murdered and that her killer has gotten away with it.

One night Jack, carrying a baseball bat, trails Harvey into the cornfield.  However Jack accidentally stumbles across Susie’s friend Clarissa (Amanda Michalka). Her boyfriend Brian (Jake Abel), who mistakenly thinks that his girlfriend is being assaulted, nearly bludgeons Jack to death while Harvey watches from a hiding spot nearby.  As Jack recuperates Lindsey breaks into Harvey’s house looking for evidence. Upstairs she finds a notebook containing a sketch of the den, a lock of Susie’s hair, and news articles about Susie’s disappearance.  Harvey returns home but Lindsey manages to escape and rushes back home to discover that her mother has returned.  Not wishing to spoil the happy reunion of her parents, she hides the book from them and gives it to her grandmother. Fearful of being apprehended, Harvey flees the area taking the safe with Susie’s remains with him.

The realm in Susie’s afterlife begins expanding into a larger Heaven and she is greeted by Harvey’s other victims near a large tree.  She resists Holly’s urging to enter Heaven along with the others, claiming she has one final thing to do.  Meanwhile Ruth and Ray are present when Harvey drives up to dispose of the safe at a sinkhole dump site on the Connors’ property.  Susie returns to Earth and enters Ruth’s body causing her to faint. Ray rushes to Ruth’s aid only to realize she has become Susie. They share a kiss, completing Susie’s last wish and she returns to Heaven, while Harvey drives away.  The safe containing Susie’s mortal remains is seen tumbling down the sinkhole before disappearing into the muddy water.

Sometime later Harvey meets a young woman outside a diner and offers her a ride, but she rejects him and leaves.  A large icicle falls from an overhead branch hitting Harvey on the shoulder.  He loses his balance on the ice and falls backward over a cliff to his death.  Time passes and Susie sees that her family is healing which Susie refers to as “the lovely bones” that grew around her absence.  The film concludes with Susie finally entering Heaven telling the audience, “My name is Salmon, like the fish; first name, Susie. I was 14 years old when I was murdered on December 6th, 1973.  I was here for a moment and then I was gone. I wish you all a long and happy life.”

Although Susie is not a savior archetype like Neo and Frodo Baggins, elements of Joseph Campbell’s monomyth are still distinguishable in The Lovely Bones.  Salmon is a heroine archetype who achieves her own salvation by pursuing her killer from the afterlife while restoring normalcy to her grieving family.   In the case Susie Salmon, she is tragically called to adventure when she is murdered by Harvey thereby beginning her Gnostic-like mystical journey in the afterlife.  Susie’s In-Between is a pseudo wonderland Purgatory styled state of being of her own creation echoing Alice’s Wonderland and Dorothy’s Oz.  The In-Between is a metaphor of the Hebrew Merkabah of Hekhalot literature (sometimes transliterated Heichalot) where the mystic (cf. Susie Salmon) would enter into the celestial realms and journey through the seven stages of mystical ascent to  the Seven Heavens and Seven Throne Rooms.  Susie soon discovers that such a journey is fraught with great danger.  The adept, in the Hebrew occult tradition, must not only have made elaborate purification preparation but must also know the proper incantations, seals and angelic names needed to get past the fierce angelic guards.   The adept must also know how to navigate the various forces at work inside and outside the palaces.  Interestingly, Susie’s little brother Buckley (Christian Ashdale) draws a picture of the In-Between that features a rainbow and shows it to Grandma Lynn.  The rainbow has seven colors allegorizing the seven esoteric stages of ascension that Susie’s soul must pass through within the Hebrew Merkabah.  The crayon drawing also shows a rising sun above the rainbow allegorizing the solar, divine, and astrological chariot of the numinous Ma’aseh Merkabah of Ezekiel’s Biblical vision at Ezekiel 1:1-3:27.  In sum, in order to reach deity Susie Salmon must successfully navigate the afterworld and pass its tests in order to achieve gnosis and ascensio.

When Susie realizes she is dead in Harvey’s bathroom, she crosses the first threshold entering the afterlife.  She is now beyond the parental watch and the protection her family having entered the mysterious unknown.  While in the In-Between Susie receives supernatural aid in the form of advice and spiritual guidance from Holly.  Although a spirit, Susie’s physical body is forever trapped in the belly of the whale or confined to George Harvey’s mechanical, tomb-like safe.  The safe and Susie’s remains are an important plot device since Harvey keeps them close by at all times.  Harvey is forced to leave the area upon fear of the safe’s (and its contents) discovery.  Susie is able to have atonement with the father when see reaches out to her father Jack by making a red flower bloom in his hand.  This not only serves to identify Harvey as her killer, but also serves notice to her father that she has survived her death and is now part of the spiritual realm.  Atonement is concluded when Harvey is killed allowing Susie’s soul to pass into Heaven.  Susie’s death is finally avenged while her family, and especially her father, are able to move on without her thus retuning a karmic balance to the universe.  Upon entering Heaven, Susie is now master of two worlds being at peace in the afterlife while influencing and connecting with her loved ones who remain alive.  Susie Salmon, like Alice and Dorothy before her, has passed her rites of initiation and has been reborn as  Sophia.  Susie Salmon has passed the trials found in the Merkabah-like In-Between, her spirit has survived her own death, she has shed off the material world and all its attachments and found oneness with the universe.

Mysterious and concealed themes are present in The Lovely Bones.  For example, Susie gains information about the true nature of her killer by entering a lighthouse in the In-Between.  A lighthouse illuminates the night allowing ships to navigate through darkness thus the lighthouse in the In-Between provides light as knowledge or gnosis that guides Susie on her mystical quest.  It is in the lighthouse that Susie uncovers Harvey’s demonic nature and his future intentions.  Susie’s transformation into a Gnostic Sophia occurs when she finally enters Heaven which is heralded by a giant tree representing the kabbalistic Sephirotic Tree of Knowledge (or Life) as a manifestation of accomplished sublime wisdom and virtue.  The tree represents Susie’s gnosis and ability to finally divest herself of her prior life.  Susie’s last name, “Salmon”, is a fish emblematizing the dying or waning Piscean Age and Susie’s death is a metaphor for the end of the Piscean Age and the start of the Aquarian.  From the outset of The Lovely Bones it is apparent  that Mr. George Harvey - Susie’s murderer - is evil and villainy incarnate.  Susie is coaxed into going into an underground hideaway with Harvey beneath a cornfield.  Within mythology, this scene mirrors the abduction of the youthful goddess Persephone by Hades who was the ruler of the underworld.  In Classical Greek art Persephone was often depicted carrying a sheaf of grain while her mother Demeter was the goddess of corn and the harvest.  In The Lovely Bones, Susie is trapped beneath a harvested cornfield echoing the Persephone-Demeter Greek legend.  This same art also depicts Persephone being abducted by Hades thus the name “Harvey” phonetically parallels “Hades” almost perfectly.  Harvey, personifying Hades, traps Susie in his self-created underworld beneath the cornfield and later consigns of the safe containing Susie’s remains to a sinkhole or a dark Hell-like abyss.  Upon immediately entering the In-Between, Susie is overwhelmed by water symbolizing that she - as her surname suggests - is a divine vestige of the dying and watery Age of Pisces.

*      *       *       *       *

The fifth card of the Major Arcana of the Tarot is the Pope of Hierophant and its symbolism was analyzed in relation to the first Back to the Future film in Chapter IV.  This card esoterically corresponds to the fifth sephirot of the Kabbalistic Tree of Life called Geburah or Gevurah meaning power or occult opposition toward resolution.  Its feminine - not masculine - kabbalistic interpretation is that, “Guvurah … is designed to balance the flow with judgment, establishing what is worthy and what is not, what is good and what is bad.  It is like the riverbanks that hold the waters in its proper channel.”[221]  Its importance within the Ancient Mysteries is undeniable.  On the occultism of this cryptic fifth element Manly P. Hall writes, “The elements plus the monad (God) equals the pentad.  The Pythagoreans taught that the elements of earth, fire, air, and water were permeated by a substance called ether - the basis of vitality and life.”[222]  The four elements of earth, fire, water, and air are esoterically mastered by an ethereal fifth element which is symbolized by a pentacle star.  On this Cornelius Agrippa explains, “A Pentangle, also, as with virtue of the number five hath very great command over evil spirits, so by its lineature, by which hath within five obtuse angles, and without five acutes, five double triangles by which it is surrounded. The interior pentangle contains in it great mysteries, which is also so to be enquired after, and understood.”[223]  On this French Freemason and occultist Eliphas Levi further expounds,

“The Pentagram expresses the mind’s domination over the elements and it is by this sign that we bind the demons of the air, the spirits of fire, the specters of water, and the ghosts of earth.  It is the Star of the Magi, the burning star of the Gnostic schools, the sign of intellectual omnipotence and autocracy.  Its complete comprehension is the key of two worlds - it is absolute natural philosophy and natural science.  Its use, however, is most dangerous to operators who do not completely and perfectly understand it. …All mysteries of magic, all symbols of the gnosis, all figures of occultism, all kabbalistic keys of prophecy, are resumed in the sign of the Pentagram, which Paracelsus proclaims to be the greatest and most potent of all. It is indeed the sign of the absolute and universal synthesis.”[224]

Sophia is a representation of the sacred and divine feminine, is it no wonder that she incarnates as a magical, Gnostic mysterious fifth substance - ether - thus balancing out evil with good while saving the human race in 1997’s The Fifth Element.  The movie opens in 1914 Egypt where a new archeological discovery is made.  By interpreting the hieroglyphs, an archeologist (John Bluthal), uncovers a secret history which reveals that evil descends upon earth every five thousand years bringing darkness.  The hieroglyph that represents this evil is a serpent allegorizing the serpent in the Garden of Eden.  The four elements of air, earth, water, and fire when unified unlock a mystical Fifth Element or divine light that counteracts this darkness.  A priest arrives and attempts to poison the archeologist to prevent this secret information from becoming public.  However the archeologist tosses out the poisoned water and proposes a toast with wine.  His assistant Billy (Luke Perry) pulls out of a knapsack a bottle of wine which has a label that prominently displays the god Bacchus or Dionysus who is the god of wine and revelry.  Etymologically, the word debauchery originates from the name of the god Bacchus.  The horned Bacchus or Dionysus supplies a great deal of the imagery associated with the Christianized Devil. The wine label is an emblem of a Devil-like entity foreshadowing the evil force that will eventually return to earth.

At this point a race of extraterrestrials known as the Mondoshawans arrive to retrieve the Fifth Element from inside a concealed antechamber in the temple and the four Elemental Stones that activate it.  They know that war is coming (cf. World Wars I and II) and want to keep the Fifth Element safe promising to return with it when the proper time comes.  The Mondoshawans resemble giant Egyptian scarab beetles in keeping with the film’s opening Egyptian panorama.  Upon leaving, the key that unlocks the antechamber is handed to the priest with the instructions from a Mondoshawan to keep it secret and pass on the occult knowledge to another priest and so on down through the ages.  This represents the handing down of arcane wisdom and hermetic knowledge of secret societies from one generation to the next.

The film now jumps to the mid-23rd century and the Great Evil appears in deep space in the form of a giant ball of black fire and destroys an Earth battleship.  The current holder of the Mondoshawan key, priest Vito Cornelius (Ian Holm), informs global President Lindberg (Tom Lister, Jr.) of the history of the Great Evil and the weapon that can stop it.  Holding true to their promise, the Mondoshawans return to Earth with the Fifth Element but are ambushed by the shapeshifting Mangalores.  The Mangalores are remnants of an outlawed warlike alien race who have been hired by the industrialist Jean-Baptiste Emanuel Zorg (Gary Oldman) who was himself recruited by the Great Evil to dispose of the Elemental Stones.  The Mondoshawan’s spacecraft is destroyed and the only thing Earth scientists recover is the hand of the Fifth Element which they use to construct a humanoid woman known as “Leeloo” (Milla Jovovich).  Terrified of her unfamiliar surroundings, she escapes confinement jumping off a ledge to land in the flying taxicab of Korben Dallas (Bruce Willis), a former major in the Special Forces.  The name Leeloo parallels the name Lilith who is a trickster goddess most commonly associated with demons and malignancy usually depicted as a dark haired beauty.   Lilith loosely associates herself with the Gnostic Sophia since both are wisdom goddess.  Lilith possessed, or alternatively destroyed in some legends, the secret name of God or the Tetragrammaton which is the ultimate source of wisdom while in early folklore Lilith-as-Sophia was associated with the serpent and the owl.  Lilith further identifies herself with owls at Isaiah 34:13-14, “And thorns shall come up in her palaces, nettles and brambles in the fortresses thereof: and it shall be an habitation of dragons, and a court for owls. The wild beasts of the desert shall also meet with the wild beasts of the island, and the satyr shall cry to his fellow; the screech owl also shall rest there, and find for herself a place of rest.”  The serpent and the owl are emblems of wisdom with the latter being sacred to the goddess Minerva.  An owl is considered wise because it can see things in the dark or in other words an owl can view things that the profane, uneducated, and uninitiated cannot see.  Leeloo is Sophia personified being a Gnostic savior archetype that will deliver mankind from the approaching evil.  Being the vehicle of the divine light, Leeloo’s orange hair represents the sun and its brilliant life giving rays.

Dallas delivers Leeloo to Cornelius and his apprentice, David (Charlie Creed-Miles), whereupon Cornelius learns that the four Elemental Stones were entrusted to Diva Plavalaguna (Maïwenn Le Besco) an opera singer. Because the Mangalores failed to obtain the stones, Zorg kills them but their compatriots attempt to obtain the Elemental Stones for themselves.  Upon learning from the Mondoshawans that Plavalaguna has the stones, General Munro (Brion James), Dallas’ former superior, re-enlists Dallas and orders him to travel undercover as a rigged radio contest winner to meet the Diva on a luxury cruise liner in space known as Fhloston Paradise.  The publicity of the contest attracts the Mangalores and Zorg to the spacecraft that is about to depart for Fhloston Paradise.  Dallas takes Leeloo with him while Cornelius instructs David to prepare the old Egyptian temple and stows away aboard the vessel.  On board the vessel the female flight attendants put the passengers to sleep for their voyage to Fholston Paradise.  The stewardesses all wear light blue uniforms symbolizing the “blue dreamer” pills of Saturn 3 which, once ingested, places one in a comatose state.  The blue outfits also anticipate The Matrix’s blue pill which returns one back to the Matrix asleep and unaware of their true unconscious and benighted condition.  It is at this point in the film that the mischievous god Pan incarnates in the persona of radio host Ruby Rhod (Chris Tucker). appears and his physical appearance and antics.  Pan, a horned god, was a lusty leader of the satyrs who chased nymphs while playing his panpipes through the lush green woodlands and forests.  Rhod’s hair forms a single, phallic horn protruding from the front of his head and, like Pan, plays a metaphoric panpipe or elongated microphone from which he broadcasts his radio talk show.  Rhod lusts after the nymph-like flight attendants and has sex with one of them.  Rhod also overuses the slang term “green” representing the green woodlands and forests that Pan oversees.  It is from the god Pan that the word pandemonium - meaning chaos - originates and conforms to Rhod’s hectic and chaotic personality.  The word pandemonium is a fusion of the words Pan and Demon, thus Ruby Rhod’s nickname for Dallas Korbin is “D-Man” or phonetically Demon.  Etymologically the word demon comes from daemon or daimôn which are Latinized versions of the Greek δαίμων referencing the daemons of ancient Greek religion and mythology and later Hellenistic religion and philosophy.  Daemons are good or benevolent nature spirits with the same disposition of both mortals and gods and are similar to ghosts, chthonic heroes, spirit guides, forces of nature or the gods themselves.  Dallas Korbin as a benevolent protector, deified human, or a “D-Man” heroically escorts and protects the Fifth Element - humanity’s divine weapon against darkness - to the Egyptian occult temple readying her for battle.  An evil spirit being a “demon” is a Judaic-Christian invention beginning around the fifth century Common Era.

The Diva is killed when the Mangalores attack and take over Fhloston Paradise but Dallas retrieves the Elemental Stones from the Diva’s body.  He fights the Mangalores to liberate the ship killing their leader.  Zorg searches for the Elemental Stones and he shoots and seriously wounds Leeloo before finding their carrying case.  Assuming the stones are inside he takes the case and leaves behind a time bomb that causes the liner’s occupants to evacuate.  Zorg departs on his spacecraft but discovers the case to be empty so he returns continuing to search for the stones.  He deactivates the bomb but a dying Mangalore activates his own bomb which blows up Fhloston Paradise killing Zorg while Dallas, Cornelius, Leeloo, and Rhod escape with the four Elemental Stones aboard Zorg’s spaceship.

The four return to the hidden chamber inside the Egyptian temple just as the Great Evil approaches earth.  The group prepares and arranges the four stones, but Leeloo has become disenchanted with humanity after having come to witness the brutality of war and violence that mankind has engaged in over the years.  Leeloo refuses to release the divine light but Dallas confesses his love and kisses her.  In response, Leeloo combines the power of the four stones and releases divine light or energy turning the Great Evil into a dormant new moon.   Korbin and Leeloo have performed the alchemical webbing or the unification of the masculine with the sacred feminine (cf. Sophia, Minerva), the sun and moon, Osiris and Isis, Arthur and Guinevere, Jesus and Mary, to defeat works of darkness.  The unification that transforms Leeloo into a sacred weapon actually turns the Great Evil into a new second moon which is appropriate since the moon associates with the feminine.  Earth scientists assure President Lindberg that the Great Evil is dead.  Korben and Leeloo are brought in by scientists and placed together in a healing tank to recuperate. When the President arrives and demands to see them one of the scientists informs him that “they need ... five more minutes”, as Korben and Leeloo have begun consummating their love.  Sophia’s personification as a luminous warrior goddess combating darkness can be also seen in the heroine of Ellen Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) who battles evil aliens known as Xenomorphs in the Alien movies.  Ripley is a heroine archetype who dies in Alien 3 (1992) yet is Gnostically resurrected (cf. ascensio and apotheosis) in the appropriately titled Alien: Resurrection (1997) transforming her into savior figure.  Ripley’s esoteric awakening dates back to the first Alien (1979) film when Ripley receives gnosis from the emotionless Hal-like computer system appropriately named “Mother”.  Mother reveals the painful truth to Ripley which is that the entire purpose of the spacecraft Nostromo is to retrieve a living Xenomorph at all cost notwithstanding the lives of the spaceship’s crew.  In other words, so long as the Nostromo returns to their corporate employers with a living Xenomorph, the Nostromo’s crew are expendable.  The only other crewmember aware of Mother’s true motives is the android Ash (Ian Holm) who, like Mother, is emotionless, devoid of pity, and wishes to satisfy Mother and complete the mission.  Ash’s loyalty to Mother reflects Norman Bates’ devotion to his “mother” since both Ash and Norman are willing to kill to keep mother happy.  In an earlier scene, Ash and Ripley bicker before Mother whose computer screen is topped with a winged solar disk allegorizing the Egyptian sun god Horus symbolizing solar light or enlightenment.  This foreshadows Ripley’s Gnostic “spark” or revelation when the true purpose of the Nostromo is explained to her by Sophia-like know it all computer Mother.  Once enlightened and armed with Mother’s hidden modus operandi, Ripley attains ascensio taking control of the situation confronting Ash in order to confirm (or deny) what she has just learned.  The confrontation, however, leads to Ash’s destruction.  Ripley, now a conscious and awakened Gnostic master, battles and jettisons the Xenomorph from the airlock into outer space killing it.  The name of the spacecraft in Alien - Nostromo - is lifted from the 1904 Joseph Conrad novel Nostromo which is Italian for shipmate or boatswain and the character of “Nostromo” in Conrad’s novel is known for his incorruptibility and fortitude.  Ellen Ripley parallels Nostromo since she stoically combats and kills the Xenomorph thus foiling Ash and Mother’s grand plan. The spaceship that carries Ripley is appropriately named since it epitomizes her heroism, bravery in the face of danger, and ethical personality.

On the other end of the spectrum, the trickster goddess Lilith-as-warrior is best personified in Batman’s antagonist Catwoman who is a jewel thief and master manipulator.  She both fights and seduces Batman at the same time and one never knows if she is hero or villain.  Catwoman has been played and voiced by numerous actresses the most recent being Anne Hathaway in 2012’s The Dark Knight Rises.  The goddess Lilith being an evil, malignant force can best be seen in the film The Ninth Gate in the persona of Liana St. Martin-Telfer (Lena Olin)  whose first name Liana closely echoes Lilith.  Lilith (Hebrew: לילית, lilit, or lilith) is a Hebrew name for a figure in Jewish mythology, developed earliest in the Babylonian Talmud, and who is generally thought to be in part derived from a class of female demons in Mesopotamian texts of Assyria and Babylonia.  In general mythology Lilith is a female demon of the night who nocturnally searches for newborn children in order to kidnap or strangle them; she is mythologically thought to be female evil incarnate.  Lilith gives rise to the name Leyla (Arabic: ليلى‎) which is an internationally-used Arabic feminine name originating in the Semitic languages. The name is derived from the tri-consonantal root ל-י-ל (Lamedh-Yodh-Lamedh) L-Y-L or ليل, a root shared with the Hebrew name לילה which transliterated sounds like Laila and means Night; over time it has been taken to mean Born at Night, Dark-haired Beauty or Dark Beauty.  Liana St. Martin-Telfer is a voluptuous, long legged, raven haired seductress who meddles in black magic and sorcery.  Liana is head of the Order of the Silver Serpent which is a coven that combines diabolical rites with sex magic(k) in an effort to summon Lucifer qua Satan paralleling the demonism associated with Lilith.  As will be seen the demon goddess Lilith appears in 2010’s Black Swan as Lily portrayed by Mila Kunis.  But first the role of mother in film.

No Wire Hangers:

The Figure of the Mother in Film

The most famous mother in history - whether real or not - is Mary the mother of the savior Jesus.  However there are other mother goddesses in mythology.  Not only a plagiarized version of the Egyptian Isis, Mary herself incorporates attributes associated with the goddesses Rhea and Cybele.  Rhea was the Titaness daughter of the masculine sky god Uranus and the feminine earth goddess Gaia in Greek mythology.  In early traditions she was known as the mother of gods and was therefore strongly associated with Gaia and Cybele who had similar functions.  The classical Greeks saw her as the mother of the Olympian gods and goddesses, but not as an Olympian goddess in her own right.  The Romans identified her with Magna Mater - the Great Goddess - their form of Cybele who was known to the Egyptians as Isis the virgin companion of Osiris and mother of solar messiah Horus.  Cybele (Phrygian: Matar Kubileya/Kubeleya “Kubeleyan Mother”, perhaps “Mountain Mother”; Lydian Kuvava; Greek: Κυβέλη Kybele, Κυβήβη Kybebe, Κύβελις Kybelis) was an originally Anatolian mother goddess.  Little is known of her oldest Anatolian cults other than her association with mountains, hawks, and lions. She may have been Phrygia’s state deity; her Phrygian cult was adopted and adapted by Greek colonists of Asia Minor and spread from there to mainland Greece and its more distant western colonies from around 6th century B.C.E.   In Greece, Cybele met with a mixed reception.  She was partially assimilated to aspects of the Earth-goddess Gaia, her Minoan equivalent Rhea, and the Corn-Mother goddess Demeter.  The Virgin Mary representing Rhea-Cybele-Isis births a sun god named Jesus Christ (cf. Horus, Mithras), and in the Christian Mysterion is associated with the constellation Virgo the Virgin.  Mary qua Virgo clutches a sheaf of wheat emblematizing Demeter, known to the Romans as Ceres, heralding the autumn harvest.  Her solar sun/son Jesus was “birthed” in Bethlehem which in Hebrew means “House of Bread” (cf. wheat-Virgo symbolism).  Shmi Skywalker virgin births a messianic Jedi savoir named Anakin who will, unlike the Nazarene, turn to the dark side.  The Terminator’s Sarah Conner (Linda Hamilton), like the Virgin Mary, births the savior of mankind John Conner (played by Edward Furlong, Nick Stahl, and Christian Bale) who battles and defeats cyborg terminators, machines, and Cyberdyne Systems in the not too distant future.

Alas, in most movies the mother is portrayed with some form of psychosis who seeks revenge against either those who have wronged her or one of her loved ones.  Sometimes she is eccentric bordering on sheer lunacy.  Normal, tender-loving mothers are a true rarity in Hollywood; to see a wholesome mothers, who are interested in their child’s well-being, this author refers the reader to view Sally Field as Mrs. Gump in 1994’s Forrest Gump or Lynn Sear (Toni Collette) from 1999’s The Sixth Sense.  The latter’s child, Cole Sear (Haley Joel Osmett), can see dead people and being seer or an oracle he can view the deceased and, in some instances, expose or alter the future.  This ability makes Cole a seer of the future or a soothsayer hence his symbolic surname Sear.  Mothers who are young, beautiful, pregnant, and are genuinely concerned about the world their child sometimes harshly dealt with.  The beautiful, conscious, and pregnant Tracy Mills (Gweneth Paltrow) is decapitated by a serial killer John Doe (Kevin Spacey) who mails her head to her husband.  She begs for her life and that of her unborn child but is shown no mercy.  Kate Coleman (Vera Farmiga), the mother in 2009’s Orphan, cares about her adopted child not realizing she is a psychopathic middle-aged killer.  On the other hand, the mother who is malevolent is prevalent.  “Mother” is the computer in Alien who conspires with the robotic Ash to conceal the true purpose of the mission which is the sacrifice of the Nostromo’s crew in order to capture a live Xenomorph.  The idea of a vengeful and cruel mother figure comes out of mythology in the form of a vicious goddess named Nemesis.  In Greek mythology, Nemesis (Νέμεσις) also called Rhamnousia/Rhamnusia (“the goddess of Rhamnous”) at her sanctuary at Rhamnous, north of Marathon, was the spirit of divine retribution against those who succumb to hubris or arrogance before the gods.  Another name for her was Adrasteia meaning the inescapable.  The Greeks personified vengeful fate as a remorseless goddess who endlessly pursued retribution. The name Nemesis is related to the Greek word νέμειν meaning “to give what is due”.  The goddess Nemesis is Joan Crawford (Faye Dunaway) in the movie Mommie Dearest (1981) which portrayed Crawford as an emotionally unstable, vengeful misanthrope.

The movie was based on Crawford’s adopted daughter Christina’s account of Crawford as an abusive and manipulative mother described in the book with the same name.  “I am the beginning. The end. The one who is many. I am the Borg,”  was spoken by the Borg Queen (Alice Krige) in Star Trek: First Contact (1996).  The emotionless Borg Queen wants humankind to assimilate becoming mindless slaves because resistance is futile.  The Borg are a collection of species that have been turned into cybernetic organisms functioning as drones of the Collective, or the hive with the Queen as master.  Nemesis is brought to life as Pamela Voorhees (Betsy Palmer) in Friday the 13th (1980).  Voorhees pursues and murders teenage counselors at Camp Crystal Lake out of retribution for allowing her son to drown years earlier.  Pamela’s hydrocephalic son Jason cries for help were ignored causing him to drown while the counselors partied and fornicated during the night.  Pamela Voorhees even impersonates her son while stalking and exacting revenge, saying in an un-natural high voice, “Kill her, Mommy! Kill her! Don’t let her get away, Mommy! Don’t let her live!”  Norma Bates - although dead - symbolizes Nemesis and acts to punish lustful temptresses through her son Norman in Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho.  Norman Bates, who is a split personality, keeps his mother’s preserved yet decaying corpse in her bedroom window purveying the Bates Motel while Norman impersonates his mother’s voice and dresses up as her.

The mother being a controlling Nemesis-like manipulator who gives what is due can be further seen in 1942’s Now, Voyager.  White-haired society battle-axe matron Mrs. Vale (Gladys Cooper, 1888-1971) bullies her spinster daughter Charlotte (beetle-browed Bette Davis, 1908-1989) into a nervous breakdown until the intervention of poetry spouting Dr. Jaquith (Claude Rains, 1889-1967).  Rehab and a cruise bring about Charlotte’s romantic awakening complemented with a Dior wardrobe. The audience is never sure what makes Mrs. Vale so vindictive; however, Charlotte is a late child born in her Mrs. Vale’s forties.  This fuels a sexual jealousy and paranoia that seems to consume Mrs. Vale, just watch her rigid body language whenever she is in a room with Charlotte.  Keeping your child sexually repressed is one thing, brainwashing them for global control is another.  Mrs. Eleanor Shaw Iselin (Angela Lansbury) attempts just this in 1962’s The Manchurain Candidate.  Iselin is a domineering red-baiter who accuses anyone who disagrees with her right-wing reactionary views of being a Communist.  Mrs. Iselin herself is actually a Communist double agent with a plan intended to secure the United States Presidency under red influence.  Mrs. Iselin is the American operator responsible for controlling her son Raymond (Laurence Harvey, 1923-1973), who was conditioned in Manchuria to be an unwitting assassin whose actions are triggered when he sees a Queen of Diamonds playing card.  She even tricks her son into shooting his new wife through the head.  Grace Stewart (Nicole Kidman) appears to be a devoted protector shielding her two photophobic children in an isolated mansion in Jersey, England just after the Second World War.  But is she ill, simply manipulative, or worse? The Others (2001) is full of occult clues: her husband went off to the war but never returned, the servants mysteriously keep leaving, and the mansion is haunted by “ghosts” that will not leave. Grace tells the children stories about the undead trapped in eternal limbo but do the yarns she spins contain hidden truths?  Kidman is stunning as the ultra-religious blonde perfectionist stifling her offspring with her maternal care.  It is revealed at the film’s end that Grace is a malicious murderess. Grace, having learned of the death of her husband, suffocates her children with a pillow and then commits suicide.  Margaret White (Piper Laurie) is a shrill, delusional redhead who spouts scripture but she’s a devil of a mother to Sissy Spacek’s Carrie (1976).[225]  A teenaged outcast, Carrie is shut out of high school social circles and is a shut-in at home. To control the curse of blood, Margaret condemns her menstruating daughter to an extreme form of chastity or forced solitary confinement in a cramped closet.  This afterlife obsessed helicopter mom[226] soon meets her maker courtesy of Carrie’s telekinesis and a few flying kitchen knives.  As a demonic Mary, Mo’Nique personifies Nemesis in 2009’s Precious.  Getting her groove on in front of the television, Mary gyrates through a ghastly aerobic workout.  Her lurid physical fitness regimen also includes heaving frying pans and television sets at victimized daughter Precious (Gabourey Sidibe). Rather than defend this damaged child from evil, she nurses a displaced sense of jealousy and joins in to inflict further damage. Mary is a noxious, evil, vengeful creature with so much convincing rage that the character and actress will forever be intertwined.  In 1971’s A Clockwork Orange, Mrs. DeLarge (Sheila Raynor) raises a psychopath named Alex (Malcolm McDowell). Alex enjoys listening to Beethoven and engaging in ultra-violence. After Alex is taken away and experimented on by the State, she rents his room out and essentially adopts the tenant as a surrogate replacement son.  A mother raising and protecting a psychopathic murderer appears in 1983’s The Dead Zone where Henrietta Dodd (Colleen Dewhurst, 1924–1991) shelters her son Frank (Nicholas Campbell) while knowing he is a serial killer who sadistically murders innocent women.  The harmful mother - the goddess Nemesis - is truly a favorite in Hollywood.

On the small screen the goddess Nemesis appears on HBO’s Boardwalk Empire in the most evil mother of them all: Gillian Darmody who is played by Gretchen Moll.  She has incest with her son Jimmy (Michael Pitt) and vengefully encouraging him to lead a mafia styled revolt against his surrogate father Enoch “Nucky” Thompson (Steve Buscemi).  Jimmy loses the battle against Nucky and in doing so kills his biological father Commodore Louis Kaestner played by the incomparable Dabney Coleman at the behest of Gillian.  Gillian seeks retribution against the Commodore for sexually abusing her as a child.  Nucky eventually shoots and kills Jimmy and his body goes missing.  In order to claim Jimmy’s estate, which now includes the Commodore’s posh mansion, Gillian poisons a man who resembles Jimmy and uses his body as a surrogate in order to inherit the Commodore’s property while becoming the legal guardian of Jimmy’s son Tommy (Brady and Connor Noon).  Gillian insists that Tommy call her “mother” in an ongoing effort to erase the memory of Tommy’s biological mother Angela (Aleksa Palladino).  Gillian transforms the Commodore’s mansion into a brothel - The Artemis Club - in which she raises the impressionable Tommy.  The name of her whorehouse is a cruel irony: the Greek goddess Artemis (whose Roman equivalent is Diana) is the protectress of young women and their virginity while in The Artemis Club adolescent women become prostitutes losing their virginity and innocence.

Black Swan’s Erica Sayers, portrayed by Barbara Hershey, is one of the most mean spirited, sexually frustrated, and jealous mothers to appear on the big screen.  However, the movie Black Swan features much hidden symbolism and needs to be analyzed on its own.  This chapter concludes with a symbolic study of this film and dark female sexual esoterica.

The Great Masturbators:

Black Swan and 9 ½ Weeks

Negative aspects of occult dualism and Jungian psychology are on full display in 2010’s Black Swan directed by Darren Aronofsky.  Aronofsky conceived the premise by connecting his viewings of a production of Tchaikovsky’s (1840-1893) Swan Lake with an unrealized screenplay about understudies and the notion of being haunted by a double, similar to the folklore surrounding doppelgängers.  In fiction and folklore, a doppelgänger - German for look-alike, literally a double goer - is a paranormal double of a living person.  Aronofsky also cites Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s (1821-1881) The Double as another inspiration for the film.  Black Swan displays the main character’s other side or darker halves exploring what psychiatrist and psychotherapist Carl Jung described as the shadow self.  The protagonist of Black Swan is Nina Sayers (Natalie Portman) who is a sexless and celibate 20-something who lives a perpetual child-like existence symbolized the gallery of stuffed animals in her bedroom.  The toys in her room are a symbolic chastity belt that keeps in her in a state of frustration, sexual repression, and dejection; she eventually disposes of them when her dark fantasies begin to envelope her.  In order to free of herself from her suffocating and pensive reality, Nina probes her dark and repressed carnal passions by mutilating herself and by masturbating.  Her desire for erotic pleasure is so great that Nina goes so far as to masturbate before her mother and, as will be seen, fondling herself in public.  Masturbation, as a vehicle for exploring and experiencing the dark side of feminine sexuality, can also be seen in the movie 9 ½ Weeks where Elizabeth (Kim Basinger, sometimes billed as “Elizabeth McGraw”) sexually gratifies herself while watching surrealistic artwork achieving a new pleasurable aesthetic.[227]  She views a slideshow featuring artwork of illogical, demonic, and strange scenes causing her to blissfully masturbate delighting in her black stockings which symbolize her darkest sexual fantasies.  Further, Elizabeth yearns to imitate some of the artwork she is viewing which features images of women pleasuring themselves.  Black and white lingerie, as a token of female sexual fetishism and dualistic notions of good and evil, comes straight out of the cinematic world of Alfred Hitchcock (Chapter VII).  Elizabeth’s dark stockings are her fetish that she wears throughout the film typifying her autoerotic unconscious Jungian shadowy desires.  This wicked feminine esoterica is mirrored in 2001’s Mulholland Drive which sees Betty Elms/Diane Selwyn (Naomi Watts) viciously masturbates in a masochistic self-destructive manner trying to erase her sexuality.  Regan Teresa MacNeil, while possessed by the demon Pazuzu (cf. the Christian Devil), violently masturbates with a crucifix in order to destroy herself in The Exorcist.  Self-loathing India Stoker (Mia Wasikowska) humiliates and shames herself boringly caressing her dour flesh while taking a shower in Stoker (2013).

Like the mother and daughter tandem of Evelyn and India Stoker, Erica and Nina Sayers also appear to have an unhealthy sexual relationship with each other. Lee Holloway (Maggie Gyllenhaal) also explores this dark female sexual symbolism; she is a “submissive” who pathetically fondles herself in a lowly toilet stall in a failed effort to suppress her sadomasochistic yearnings in 2002’s Secretary.  These women masturbate in a failed effort to free themselves of the conformities, anxieties and doldrums of society and the conscious ego.  Elizabeth, Nina, India, Diane, and Lee use masturbation as a virulent mechanism that both embraces yet restrains their shadow selves leading them to venture over the precipice of sanity.  For example in 9 ½ Weeks, Elizabeth suffers a nervous breakdown while pushing her dark pleasure principles to the limit.  Diane Selwyn commits suicide and India Stoker becomes a vicious murderess stabbing a sheriff with pruning shears.  As will been seen, Nina Sayers’ excessive and miserable masturbations will change her, both physically and emotionally, into a hideous yet whimsical Black Swan.  However it is not without a deadly cost; Nina’s sexual metamorphosis and new found paradise will consume her in the end.[228]  The antithesis of these feminine shadow archetypes can be seen in 2008’s Mamma Mia![229] which sees Donna Carmichael née Sheridan (Meryl Streep) freeing herself of all her fears, depression, negative thoughts, and anxieties while signing and performing ABBA’s “Dancing Queen”. Donna gleefully dances with her friends reminding the viewer to have fun in life and not let life’s conformities bother you exclaiming, “screw ‘em if they can’t take a joke.” In terms of Epicureanism, Donna and her confidants Tanya Chesham-Leigh (Christine Baranski) and Rosie Mulligan (Julia Walters) have attained the happy, tranquil life characterized by ataraxia - peace and freedom from fear - and aponia - the absence of pain - by living a self-sufficient life surrounded by loved ones.  In a Gnostic twist it cannot be coincidence that Donna, being a living symbol of liberation, light, and freedom, has a daughter whose name is feminine gnosis personified.  Donna’s child is named Sophie (Amanda Seyfried) mirroring holy wisdom (cf. Sophia) and Donna’s Epicurean lifestyle.

*      *       *       *       *

Nina Sayers is a young, shy, and fragile ballerina in a prestigious New York City ballet company who lives with her domineering mother Erica who is a former dancer. The company is preparing to open the season with a new visceral interpretation of Swan Lake. The director Thomas Leroy (Vincent Cassel) has to cast a new principal dancer after forcing Beth Macintyre (Winona Ryder) into retirement.  Leroy wants the same ballerina to portray the innocent and fragile White Swan as well as her dark sensual twin, the Black Swan.  Nina auditions for the part performing flawlessly as the White Swan, but not quite able to emulate the characteristics of the Black Swan.  Although Nina does not do well during her audition, she approaches Thomas and asks him to reconsider her as the lead role.

He tells her she is the ideal dancer to cast as the White Swan, but she lacks the passion and sexuality needed to correctly interpret the Black Swan.  When Thomas forcibly kisses Nina, she displays a change of character and bites him convincing him to cast her as the Swan Queen.

An intoxicated Beth angrily confronts Thomas and Nina in front of a black demon-like statue of Swan Lake’s antagonist, the sorcerer Rothbart.  Beth is later hit by a car and seriously injured in what Thomas suspects is a suicide attempt.  In an effort to imitate Beth’s dark personality, Nina steals some of her belongings including Beth’s lipstick and earrings.  Nina begins to witness strange happenings; for example she comes out of a bathroom stall to find the word “WHORE” written mysteriously across the mirror with Beth’s lipstick that Nina previously stole . This symbolizes Nina’s descent into darkness which now sees her shadow shelf beginning to emerge. Thomas, meanwhile, becomes increasingly critical of her frigid dancing and advises her to stop being a perfectionist and to lose herself in the role.  Thomas encourages Nina to masturbate telling her, “I got a little homework assignment for you. Go home and touch yourself. Live a little.”  Nina attempts masturbation only to be interrupted when she realizes her mother Erica is sleeping in her bedroom.  Thomas now points to Lily (Mila Kunis), another dancer in the company whom he describes as lacking Nina’s flawless technique but possessing an uninhibited quality that Nina has not shown.  Lily is Nina’s Jungian shadow shelf - a murky doppelgänger - that Nina secretly admires and desperately tries to emulate.  While taking a bath Nina masturbates once again only to be stopped by a eerie vision of herself staring back at her from above the bath water.

The relationship between the two dancers is tense because of Lily’s indiscretions and coquettish attitude, that notwithstanding Lily invites Nina to a night out.  Nina is hesitant at first but decides to go against her mother’s wishes.  At a restaurant that evening Lily offers Nina a capsule of ecstasy to help her loosen up.  Though reassured its effects will only last a few hours, Nina turns it down.  Lily later slips it into her drink at a nightclub while she is absent.  Nina dances in the club with Lily altering between herself and the Black Swan symbolizing that Nina cannot distinguishing reality from fantasy.  She returns home late, fights with her mother, barricades herself in her room where Lily performs cunninglingus on a submissive Nina.  Nina climaxes and Lily finishes her off by smothering her with a pillow.  The following morning Nina wakes up alone and late for rehearsal.  When Nina arrives at the studio she finds Lily dancing the Swan Queen.  A furious Nina confronts Lily and asks her why she did not wake her up that morning. After Lily tells her she spent the night with a man whom she met at the nightclub, Nina realizes the sexual encounter with Lily was nothing more than a masturbatory fantasy.  Lily humiliates Nina saying she experienced a “lezzy” wet dream fueling Nina’s sexual frustration and paranoia.  Lily’s torments have also awakened Nina to the fact that she is a closet lesbian.

Nina’s hallucinations become stronger when she sees Thomas and Lily fornicating in a backstage area and, while visiting her in the hospital, Beth stabbing her face with a nail file which Nina incidentally drops bloodied in the elevator.  Nina visions are compounded by her penchant for masochism. Throughout the film, Nina incessantly scratches her back and at one point painfully clips her fingernails too close which seems to give her pleasure.  This all culminates when Nina has a violent argument with her mother after which her eyes turn ghastly red and, while standing before her mirror, she sprouts a black feather from her shoulder.  Nina’s knees buckle like that of a swan’s hind leg causing her to fall and hit her head on her bed’s iron frame knocking her unconscious.  Concerned about Nina’s erratic and strange behavior, her mother tries to prevent her from performing on opening night. Enraged, Nina stands up to her mother and forces her way out of the apartment.  Since her mother had called the ballet company to say Nina was sick, Thomas assigned understudy Lily to take over but reluctantly gives way when Nina insists on performing while making threats of blackmail.

The first act goes well until Nina is distracted by a hallucination during a lift causing her partner, playing the Prince, to drop her.  A distraught Nina returns to her dressing room and finds Lily there.  Lily humiliates her again by announcing she is to play the Black Swan.  Nina’s anger boils over and she shoves Lily into a mirror, shattering it. Lily seems dead but then she wakes up and strangles Nina who grabs a shard of glass and stabs her rival in the stomach, killing her.  Consumed by hatred Nina’s eyes glow a bitter red symbolizing her angst and sexual frustration; she is now the Black Swan exalted saying perversely, “It’s my turn!”  Nina conceals the body in the closet and returns to the stage to dance with passion and sensuality.  While waiting backstage to take her turn as the Black Swan, Nina is overcome with autoerotic arousal. Her masturbation sessions having paid off, she sprouts feathers transforming her arms into black wings and dances the Black Swan flawlessly.  Nina, now consumed with shadow, morphs into a physical and erotic Black Swan.  Nina has forsaken her conscious ego and has become the dark goddess archetype; she is now Lilith perfected.  As the lights shine on Nina Sayers victorious, her shadow behind her is that of the Black Swan. This symbolizes the exaltation of her Jungian shadow suggesting that she has finally achieved her dark ascensio receiving a standing ovation.  Offstage, Thomas and the rest of the cast congratulate her on her stunning performance.  Her shadow self now dominate, Nina takes Thomas by surprise and kisses him.  Back in her dressing room, but before the final act, Nina is congratulated by Lily.

Lily, the embodiment of the trickster goddess Lilith, has somehow deceived her.  Nina now realizes that that their fight was purely imaginary and that her shadow self was fighting her conscious ego with the shadow winning.  The mirror, however, is still shattered; Nina removes a shard from her own body and realizes she has stabbed herself.  In other words, the fight with Lily was a metaphor for two opposing sides of Nina’s personality, shadow versus conscious ego, with the darker side emerging victorious.  Dancing the last scene in which the White Swan throws herself off a cliff, Nina spots her mother weeping in the audience. As the sun sets behind her, Nina falls backward onto a hidden mattress while the theater erupts in thunderous applause. Thomas and the cast gather to congratulate her only to find that she is severely bleeding.  The white ceiling lights, symbolizing the light bearer Lucifer, envelop her and she whispers, “I felt it. Perfect. It was perfect.”  In her final moments, Nina experiences a Luciferian epiphany.  Nina finally achieves gnosis by embracing her shadow-self fueled by her masturbatory and masochistic pleasures becoming the Lilith archetype.  Yet in accepting her dark side, Sayers is also Sophia personified.  In other words, Nina Sayers is now a beautiful goddess of love and light (cf. enlightenment) paradoxically and dualistically motivated by her self-destructive and lustful desires that she cannot consciously control.  Succumbing to her unconscious dark side Nina forfeits her life, yet she has achieved ascensio since she was perfect.

Dualistic elements relating to what Carl Jung generally referred to as the shadow shelf are unequivocally present in Black Swan.  In Jungian psychology, the shadow or shadow aspect may refer to an unconscious aspect of the personality which the conscious ego does not recognize in itself.  Because one tends to reject or remain ignorant of the least desirable aspects of one’s personality, the shadow is largely negative. According to Jung the shadow, in being instinctive and irrational, is prone to projection or turning a personal inferiority into a perceived moral deficiency in someone else.  This is seen in the Aronofsky’s use of mirrors throughout the entire film.  In Black Swan, the mirror is used to reflect, quite literally, the dominance and emergence of the shadow self.  The mirror is a dualistic device that symbolizes the abandonment of the conscious persona and the exaltation of the shadowy archetype.  Within folklore and occultism, mirrors often contained magical properties.  Dr. John Dee and Edward Kelley used a black mirror to scrye demons and angels while Snow White’s Evil Queen summons a supernatural entity in her mystical mirror.  The basic principles of mirror magic can be clearly recognized in our surviving popular superstitions, the best known being the fear that breaking a mirror will be followed by some type of disaster ranging from general misfortune, sickness, seven years bad luck, and even death.  Linking demons to reflective devices is a relic of the ancient concept that evil spirits dwell in a pools of water, thus the idea that mirrors house malefic beings.  Smashing a mirror’s glass was a sure way to incur the wraith of an evil spirit since it will always take revenge upon the one who damaged its home.  It is also a common belief that if anyone looked long enough in a mirror the face of the Devil would materialize.

All of the four main female characters and Thomas Leroy are introduced through their reflections in mirrors.  Waking from her dream, where Nina dances with Swan Lake’s villainous Rothbart, Nina is introduced via her reflection in a mirror while her mother moves around in the background like a nebulous phantom.  While Nina takes the subway to the ballet production company she sees Lily’s reflection in the train’s glass window for the first time.  Thomas Leroy is introduced via his reflection descending down a staircase while Beth Macintyre is welcomed into the movie by smashing a mirror out of frustration and disappointment.  The introduction of all these characters by way of their reflections represent their archetypical darker Jungian shadows.  The mirrors of Black Swan both symbolize and reflect their darker selves that will overpower their conscious egos in the film.  In the case of Nina Sayers, her shadow self will annihilate her conscious ego.  Nina finally transforms, not only mentally but physically, into an evil Black Swan-like entity symbolizing that her shadow persona is now dominate.  Nina’s wholesome and innocent conscious ego is gone and the Black Swan is now rampant.  This transformation costs Nina her life when she stabs herself with a broken piece of mirror exemplifying her dualistic turn to the dark side.  Echoing occult metaphors relating to mirrors, Nina Sayers actually transforms into a monstrous demon whilst staring into a mirror with her eyes glowing blood red.  While looking into the mirror Nina observes a hideous black feather sprout from her shoulder.  Mythologically speaking, Nina personifies the Greek Goddess Atë who was beautiful yet the embodiment of misfortune, disillusionment, and sexual frustration.  Paralleling Atë, Nina who is destroyed by succumbing to her hubris and dark sexual pleasures while becoming a tragic figure - a suicide.  Nina is seduced by  Lily who allegorizes the malevolent goddess Lilith from Isaiah 34:13-14 and the Babylonian Talmud.  Being a negative force and emissary from the shadow realm, Lily willingly assists Nina’s ruinous behavior.  Lily is constantly tricking, teasing, and tormenting Sayers with her open sexuality and lust and Nina ultimately comes to believe that she may lose the Swan Queen role to the free-spirited yet imprecise dancer.

As the embodiment of Lilith, Lily’s back is covered with two ominous tattoos symbolizing black demonic wings.  Lily always wears black clothing and lingerie reflecting her dark personality while Nina wears virginal whites and light colors throughout the film symbolizing her innocence and inexperience; Lily is the Jungian shadow to Nina’s pure and wholesome conscious ego.  Nina’s mother Erica personifies the mean spirited goddess Nemesis since Erica is an overbearing, domineering, and sexually frustrated recluse.  She spends her days egotistically painting herself and Nina but her art resembles morbid corpses rather than vibrant life-like portraits.  Erica forcibly undresses her adult daughter in the bathroom and is present in Nina’s room while her daughter masturbates.  The scene parallels 1992’s Single White Female because it provides a glimpse into private sexual female revelations: there is a disturbing scene in which Allison Jones (Bridget Fonda) voyeuristically watches her roommate Hedra Carlson (Jennifer Jason Leigh) masturbate allegorizing Jones’ own disappointment and sexual angst.  This grim neo-noir continues in 9 ½ Weeks; Elizabeth is a voyeuristic sex-goddess who pleasures herself while starring at peculiar surrealistic images echoing Salvador Dali’s (1904-1989) The Great Masturbator oil painting.

Elizabeth’s exalted masturbation session is a Luciferian autoerotic experiment into sexual and sensual existentialism transforming her into an erotic piece of living artwork.  Elizabeth rejects panties and pantyhose in favor of a garter belt and stockings which allow instant access to her clitoris while her firm breasts are not suffocated under a restrictive bra.  A long-sleeved blouse of ivory silk, a grey slip, luxurious black stockings, a black garter belt, black high heels, candy apple lipstick and nail polish, hooded eyes, blonde hair, and a black pencil skirt all provide Elizabeth with the bewitching magical tools via the Law of the Forbidden[230] transforming her into exquisite masturbator.  While watching her hypnotic and surreal slideshow, Elizabeth continually fidgets crossing and uncrossing her legs.  She becomes enticed and aroused by her sheer black hosiery causing her to fondle herself, drool and sweat profusely, all while experiencing autoerotic ecstasy and finally rapture.  The Eurythmics’ “The City Never Sleeps” lyrics seem to admonish Elizabeth that her masturbatory pursuits are just a feeling and to be wary of overindulging her lustful appetites.  Elizabeth’s compulsive fetish for wearing black lingerie, appearing on screen near or with fish, and her sexual encounters will be further dissected in Cinema Symbolism II.  Cinema Symbolism II: More Esoteric Imagery from Popular Movies also includes an alchemical analysis of both 9 ½ Weeks and Black Swan.  This concealed imagery is simply too copious to be presented here and would increase the length of this tome substantially.

Black Swan’s Erica Sayers perversely addresses her adult child as “sweet girl” and routinely tucks her into bed at night.  At one point Erica orders Nina to remove her shirt off so she can inspect and examine her tender yet mutilated flesh.  These disturbing scenes depict Nina’s total submission to her mother and suggest an unhealthy sexual familiarity between the two.  It appears beneath the surface that Erica and Nina are incestuous and that Erica, like her daughter, is a lonely masturbator.  In Greek tragedy, Atë was an avenger of evil deeds and thus was similar to Nemesis and the Furies.  Thus Nina embodies the goddess Atë while Erica is the goddess Nemesis and the two are symbolically intertwined in Black Swan becoming a twisted mother and daughter tandem.  When Nina falls to her death at the film’s conclusion, a crying Nina makes eye contact with her weeping mother in the audience.  It is almost as if two lovers are saying goodbye.

There are other esoteric elements present in Black Swan that pertain to these characters.  Black Swan’s dramatis personae are Jungian archetypical personifications of trumps and pips of the Tarot.  For example, Erica Sayers is the Queen of Swords reversed (turned upside down).  Since Erica is a minor character in Black Swan she is represented by a lesser card of the Tarot.  When Nina admonishes her mother saying, “I’m the Swan Queen! You’re the one who never left the Court,”[231] Nina implies that Erica’s dreams as a ballet dancer were unfulfilled because Erica never advanced to the role of the Swan Queen instead remaining an insignificant dancer in the Swan Queen’s court.  Erica thus is represented by a card of the Minor Arcana. The Queen of Swords archetype is Erica’s personality exemplified: the Sword Queen is highly perceptive and omnipresent seeing all.  This dovetails Erica perfectly since she constantly wants to know where her daughter is at all times.  Further, there is no lock on Nina’s bedroom door thus allowing Erica access to her daughter at any given moment while depriving Nina of any modicum of privacy.  The Queen of Swords is female unhappiness, sterility, and deprivation while the card reversed symbolizes an evil woman, a prude who is both cruel and treacherous.  This description once again harmonizes to Erica perfectly.  Erica is a domineering woman who lives in a self-imposed solitary confinement who invites unhappiness upon herself.  She maliciously wants to throw away a cake she labored over when Nina refuses a piece and is jealous when Lily invites Nina out for drinks.  Erica cries and laments while she paints her amateurish and emotionless artwork symbolizing her self-loathing and overall lack of contentment.  Erica holds sway over her Nina’s libido by being present in her bedroom while she masturbates causing her angst and embarrassment.  Erica also manipulates and controls her daughter by pilfering Nina’s bedroom doorknob so she can not leave.  Erica forcible undresses Nina in their bathroom and later wishes to examine her delicate skin; Erica’s depraved craving for her daughter’s virginal flesh appears to be an unnatural form of sexual gratification.

Beth Macintyre epitomizes the Tower card of the Major Arcana of the Tarot.  The Tower is destruction and the punishment of pride and overconfidence.  Macintyre, who Leroy nicknamed “little princess”, opens the film smashing a mirror heralding her own misfortune and devastation.  Now the former Swan Queen, a drunk Macintyre confronts Nina and accuses her of engaging in oral copulation with Leroy in order to get the part.  Macintyre clearly demonstrates that she believed that the role was always hers and is now in disarray after being forced into early retirement.  Beth, embodying the Tower archetype, tries to destroy herself by throwing herself in front of a car, a failed suicide attempt.  Beth, wallowing in self-pity, also mutilates her face with a nail file while recovering in a hospital in front of an apologetic Nina.  Beth, by referring to herself as “nothing”, firmly illustrates the Tower card and its associated negative arcana perfectly.  If Beth is the Tower, then Nina Sayers’ personality encompasses the Moon card of the Major Arcana which, like the moon, reflects Nina’s Jungian shadow shelf and her dark desires.  The Moon’s negative (reversed) attribute is madness (lunar, from whence the word “lunacy” originates) and associates itself with fear, horror, hidden dangerous related the emergence of an evil-self beast seen in humans turning into wolf-like monsters during a full moon.  While looking in a mirror, Nina’s eyes turn dark red and a black feather grows out of her shoulder signifying her madness while transforming her into a swan-like demonic creature.  Losing control of her mental faculties, Nina also mutilates her skin by incessantly scratching it for no apparent reason.  Nina’s evil visage stares back at her from a mirror grinning with masochistic delight while she inflicts pain upon herself by sadistically clipping her fingernails too close.  Nina Sayers, like the Moon card’s symbolism, is distorted reality or a self-created allusion.  Nina sees herself looking down at her while underwater in her bathtub and while riding in the back of a cab Nina hallucinates that Lily is sitting beside her.  In the back of the cab, Lily’s hand fondles Nina’s crotch when in reality she is fantasizing unable to distinguish illusion from reality.  She thinks Lily is gently caressing her when in reality Nina is satisfying a dark fantasy by performing the strange act of masturbating in public.  Returning home from a nightclub an inebriated Nina confirms her lunar attributes.  When questioned by her envious mother, “Where have you been?” Nina answers, “To the moon and back.”  Nina runs to her bedroom where the image of Lily appears in a mirror suggesting that she is nothing more than illusion.  Nina’s sexual encounter with the Lily, or the demon Lilith, is pure hallucination.  The sober reality is that Nina is alone in her room masturbating with Erica attempting to get in.  Unable to enter, mother at least wants to listen to her daughter’s autoerotic euphoria.  The characters of this film, representing Jungian archetypes embedded in the Tarot, is confirmed during the end credits which sees the actors billed in a unique and distinguishable way.  Natalie Portman is cast as “The Swan Queen” who sublimely embodies the White Swan since Nina is nothing more than the  reflection of the lunar surface (cf. Moon Tarot card archetype).  Mila Kunis is credited as “The Black Swan” who is Lily or the demon trickster Lilith.  Barbara Hershey is listed as “The Queen” who portrays Erica and is the personification of the malicious Queen of Swords.  Winona Ryder is identified as “The Dying Swan” emblematizing the overwhelming negative force of the Tower card that epitomizes Beth’s egotistical, toxic, self-loathing, and self-destructive temperament and personality.

The master manipulator of all these women is Thomas Leroy who embodies the Devil card (XV).  The Devil card represents the supreme executive, the black magician, the man - Thomas Leroy - as a brute unwavering force, cruel and lustful.  Embodying the Devil card, Leroy’s apartment and office are stark black and white symbolizing evil and good.  Leroy has no problem employing either one to enforce his will and achieve his ends.  The Devil is intelligence and a creative force culminating with wickedness thus Leroy is the maniacal creative master behind his visceral new version of Swan Lake.  He manipulates the three women to get what he wants irregardless of the consequences.  Leroy is more like a negative form of enlightenment, a Mephistopheles, than he is the Christianized Devil.  Personifying this Jungian/Tarot manipulator archetype, he encourages Nina to masturbate and to be more promiscuous while praising Lily’s sexually loose behavior despite the fact that she is only an average ballerina.  Leroy thoroughly embarrasses Nina asking David (Benjamin Millepied), one of the male dancers, “Honestly, would you fuck that girl?” referring to Sayers.  Leroy answers his own question, “No. No one would.”  These harassments cause Nina to succumb to her dark side which eventually overwhelms and kills her.  Although her secretly lusts after her referring to her as his “little princess”, Leroy fires Beth causing her to throw herself in front of an oncoming vehicle attempting suicide.  When he is introduced in the film, Leroy’s reflection appears descending down a flight of steps like a demonic fallen angel.  The Devil descends into Hell, so too does Leroy walk down a staircase when he confirms that Lily is to be Nina’s alternate much to Nina’s chagrin.  Soon thereafter Nina’s reflection comes to life in mirror behind her symbolizing that her shadow self is now taking over.  This will culminate into her physical transformation into a sexual yet tragic Black Swan.  In sum, Leroy is the Devil archetype who brings out the dark sides of his ballerinas imitating the psychology of Jungian shadows and negative concepts of the dualistic nature of self.  When the movie ends and the credits role, Vincent Cassel is billed as “The Gentleman” since the Devil is often depicted in folklore and legend as a wise polymath or a stoic Faustian Mephistopheles.

Darren Aronofsky’s use of mirrors and reflections in numerous scenes are a constant reminder of Nina’s altered perception of reality paralleling lunar symbolism relating to the Tarot. The mirrors in Black Swan are often misleading since Nina’s reflections seem to have a life of their own.  In other words, Nina Sayer’s reflection is alive moving on its own and not in accord with her motions indicating that her darker self is coming to life.  The mirror world of Black Swan represents a Jungian shadow reality wherein the unconscious shadow archetype is in control while the conscious self is subservient.  In Black Swan, Nina Sayers’ ascensio is assisted by the erotic and sensual Lily who typifies the demon goddess Lilith.  Paradoxically, it is through Lily that Nina’s shadow self is finally able to emerge transforming her into a Sophia-like entity.  A long the way Nina suffers a dark enlightenment realizing that she is a repressed lesbian who compulsively  masturbates in order to both suppress and free her shadow self.  Unable to cope with her shadow identity that she so desperately wants to release, Nina is transformed both emotionally and physically into a Black Swan.  Dualistically, Sayers’ alchemical transformation allows her to finally achieve gnosis yet it is circumvented at the exact same moment with ruination.  Jungian psychology will be further explored along with mythology in the next chapter which details Gnostic and hermetic themes and icons in popular cinema.

Chapter XII

Thoth Hermes Mercurius Trismegistus and Gnosticism in Popular Culture

“Alas, how terrible is wisdom when it brings no profit

to the wise Johnny?” - Louis Cyphre, Angel Heart, 1987.

“Fight Club was the beginning, now it’s moved out

of the basement, it’s called Project Mayhem.”

- Tyler Durden, Fight Club, 1999.

“A little nonsense now and then is

relished by the wisest men.”

- Willy Wonka, Willy Wonka & the Chocolate

Factory, 1971.

“Quite an experience to live in fear, isn’t it?

That’s what it is to be a slave.”

- Roy Batty, Blade Runner, 1982.

“Now they will know why they are afraid of the dark.

Now they learn why they fear the night.”

- Thulsa Doom, Conan the Barbarian, 1982.

“Even Dumbledore didn’t see this coming.

Harry, if it’s anyone’s fault, it’s ours.”

- Hermione Granger, Harry Potter and

the Order of the Phoenix, 2007.

“They have returned. And this time they are not alone.

Egg Shen is with them. Little bastard sorcerer has

brought them through the Bog of the Dead Trees.”

-       David Lo Pan, Big Trouble in Little China, 1986.

-

This chapter explores the figure of the old sage or the mercurial hermit in popular films.  This is the “Hermes Trismegistus character” who is often depicted as the old gray-beard and is the keeper of wisdom yet is reluctant to share it.  He is usually a solitary figure often keeping to himself with an air of aloofness about him.  Hermes Trismegistus is Mr. Spock in the Star Trek saga and HAL 9000 artificial intelligence in 2001: A Space Odyssey.  Hermes is Gandalf in The Lord of the Rings, Ob-Wan Kenobi in Star Wars: A New Hope, Yoda in The Empire Strikes Back, and Morpheus in The Matrix, as presented earlier in this book.

These icons of popular culture assist the hero on his journey divulging their wisdom on a need to know basis.  This chapter presents Hermes in other films while incorporating elements of the Ancient Mysteries, Gnosticism, and mythology in general. Concepts of the evil Hermes figure, Hermes as self and self-awakening (gnosis, acensio, and apotheosis), and esoterica contained in the film Fight Club (1999) and the Batman and Gotham City universe will be dissected.  Lastly the reader will go beyond The Matrix and explore Gnostic and occult themes incorporated in the movies Blade Runner and The Truman Show.

Trismegistus, Harry Potter, Hermione Granger, and Ron Weasley

In one of his most recent incarnation, Hermes Mercurius Trismegistus appears in the Harry Potter books and films becoming the wise old wizard Albus Dumbledore.  Professor Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore, portrayed by the late Richard Harris (1930-2002) and Michael Gambon, is the headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry where young men and women go to learn the Craft.  He is a force for good and is always on the lookout for evil and employs white magic and sorcery to keep it at bay.  Dumbledore is the arch-enemy of the dark Lord Voldemort and his followers known as the Death Eaters.  One of his greatest allies at Hogwarts is Professor Minerva McGonagall whose first name, Minerva, is female wisdom personified.  Since Hermes is a god of gnosis and enlightenment, Dumbledore’s female equivalent is named after a female wisdom goddess.  The hermetical and secretive Dumbledore knows the occult truth about Harry Potter’s scar, the Horcruxes, Potter’s connection to Voldemort, and the secret relationship between Harry’s mother Lillian and Professor Severus Snape (Alan Rickman). Yet throughout the saga Dumbledore provides information only when he deems appropriate or at times when it is self-serving.  Potter (Daniel Radcliffe) and his friends Hermione Granger (Emma Watson) and Ron Weasley (Rupert Grint) excho a sacred band who repeatedly turn to Dumbledore for advice and aid during their adventures.  In other words, Dumbledore is their prime source of light or kabbalistic (or cabalistic/qabalistic) wisdom.  Harry Potter, who is a dying and resurrected messianic figure like Neo from The Matrix, is a Gnostic hero or savior.  Potter dies and is reborn or resurrected defeating the dark Lord Voldemort (Ralph Fiennes) in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part II.  Paralleling the mystic theology of Gnosticism, Potter’s mother’s name is Lily allegorizing the goddess Lilith-as-Sophia since Lilith associates herself with sacred wisdom; in lore Lilith possessed the all-powerful Tetragrammaton.  Epitomizing the dark Lilith archetype, Lily Potter née Evans is an outcast child whose only friend is the equally mysterious and imposing Severus Snape.

Like Neo from The Matrix, Harry Potter is balanced out by the sacred feminine.  Both Ginnie Weasley (Bonnie Wright) and Hermione Granger play important roles in Potter’s sacred Pythagorean Band with the former eventually becoming his wife.  However, there is more than Gnosticism in the Harry Potter series.  The franchise’s creator, J.K. Rowling, includes several astral references throughout the saga.  Many of the characters are named after constellations and specific stars like Draco, Sirius, Bellatrix, and Regulus.  In some instances they are the Jungian archetype personified.  For example, the villainous Draco Malfoy, whose first name “Draco” is the great dragon-serpent constellation in the far northern sky, personifies the enemy archetype contrasting Potter and his sacred band of friends.  Malfoy,  being the living embodiment of this serpentine archetype, is correctly placed in Slytherin House at the beginning of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone.  Slytherin House was founded by warlock Salazar Slytherin who could speak to snakes - a Parselmouth - thus Slytherin House’s coat of arms is a serpent.  In the sequel to this book, Cinema Symbolism II, this author will go more in depth and further explain the alchemical and astral allegories, esoterica, kabbalism, and occultism of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2002), Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004), Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2005), Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (2007), Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (2009), and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows parts I and II (2010, 2011).

Hermes Wants You!: Fight Club and the Batman Mythos

The section examines the idea of Hermes actually being one the with the protagonist.  In most cinematic features the hermit is a separate figure that provides advice and gnosis to the hero and his friends.  The idea of Hermes actually being the hero is best seen in the film Fight Club.  Based on the novel by Chuck Palahiuk, Fight Club documents the protagonist, billed as “The Narrator” (Edward Norton, who also calls himself “Jack”), rebellion against society by forming a secret society called Fight Club.  Fight Club attracts members from all walks of life and from every occupation eventually challenging the materialistic modicums of society.  Fight Club transforms into what is called “Project Mayhem” which is the destruction of modern day society and all its conformities and regularities. In terms of Jungian psychiatry, Fight Club is the shadow in conflict with conscientious societal norms.

The Narrator is aided in his quest by an eccentric hermit named Tyler Durden played by Brad Pitt.  Durden provides wisdom and insight to the Narrator encouraging him to form Fight Club, to rebel against his boring job and obnoxious boss, and to elevate Fight Club to new and dangerous levels.  Durden is an expert at both making soap and crafting explosives; he is the de-facto leader of Fight Club being highly intelligent who constantly spitting out clever one liners.  Hermes Mercurius Trismegistus aside, Durden also personifies the Greek philosopher Diogenes of Sinope (ca. 410 B.C.E. - 323 B.C.E.) who is the godfather of cynicism.  For the Cynics, the purpose of life was to live in virtue and in agreement with nature. As reasoning creatures, people could gain happiness by rigorous training and by living in a way which was natural for humans, rejecting all conventional desires for wealth, power, sex, and fame. Instead, they were to lead a simple life free from all possessions.  Durden, like Diogenes, was an eccentric who lived in squalor and attacked, using any means necessary, the morals of society; Tyler Durden’s sole purpose is the destruction of the egotistical material world and everything associated with it.  Diogenes engaged in strange behavior such as walking around in daylight with a lantern for a honest man, living on a diet of onions, sleeping in a giant jar, urinating on those that insulted him, and masturbating in public.  Likewise Durden is a miscreant who makes soap out of human waste which he pilfers from liposuction clinics, he is a waiter at the luxurious Pressman Hotel who farts on crème brulee, sneezes on braised endive, and ejaculates into cream of mushroom soup.  Durden describes his mission as a “spiritual war” which he initiates when he destroys all of the Narrator’s material belongings.  Even “Jack”, who originally believed that his items defined him as a person, comes to realize they are nothing more than “flaming shit”.  It is at the film’s conclusion that the truth is finally revealed: Tyler Durden does not exist instead Durden is a projected apparition reflecting the Narrator’s Jungian shadow self.  On other words Tyler Durden is a figment of the Narrator’s dark imagination.  The hermit and the hero, or in Fight Club’s case the antihero, are one and the same persona.  The Narrator is guided on his mission by his darker hermetical self.  Fight Club proposes that both the Narrator and Tyler Durden - despite their destructive behavior - are forces of good combating the duplicity and narcissism of modern society which demands conformity to the normal dictates of society or enslavement to the conscious ego.  In Durden’s eyes, society and materialism is a metaphor for the Gnostic Demiurge worthy of destruction.

Hermetically speaking, Fight Club itself is a Masonic styled esoteric order.  Its member work in secret and carryout monkeyshines that undermine society and its mores.  In order to gain admission one must stand outside the Fight Club temple or dojo for three days without food, shelter, or encouragement.  The candidate is constantly berated and harassed by Tyler Durden to go away.  The three days one must wait outside parallels the first three degrees of Blue Lodge Freemasonry, once inside the neophyte or “Space Monkey”, representing a Masonic candidate, is initiated into the mysteries of Fight Club.  Interestingly the name “Tyler Durden” mirrors a Masonic lodge officer titled Tyler (or Tiler) whose duty is to guard the entrance of the lodge from outside intrusion.  Hence Tyler Durden serves as both Fight Club’s gatekeeper and the guardian of its mystical secrets and modus operandi.  Similar to Masonic oaths, tokens, and passwords, one does not talk about Fight Club.  Members, and only members, of Fight Club can receive true gnosis paralleling the Gnostic philosophies of Valentinus (ca. 100-160 C.E.).  Valentinus philosophized that there were three kinds of people: the spiritual, psychical, and material; and that only those of a spiritual nature (his own followers) received the gnosis that allowed them to return to the divine Pleroma, while those of a psychic nature (ordinary Christians) would attain a lesser form of salvation and that those of a material nature (pagans and Jews) were doomed to perish.  Valentinus’ philosophy is part of the mysteries of Fight Club since its members are considered enlightened “Space Monkeys” while the conformists and adherents of societal materialism are doomed to nothingness.  The Narrator or Tyler Durden finds his Sophia who incarnates in the form of the highly eccentric Marla Singer played by Helena Bonham Carter.  The Narrator/Tyler Durden dualistically unites with Marla; masculine and sacred feminine, sun and moon, the alchemical citrinitas and albedo, or what the Rosicrucians describe in the treatise The Chymical Wedding of Christian Rosenkreutz which was composed by Rosicrucian Johannes Valentin Andreae (1586-1654).  This treatise is an allegoric romance divided into Seven Days, or Seven Journeys, like Genesis, and tells us about the way Christian Rosenkreuz was invited to go to a wonderful castle full of miracles in order to assist the Chymical Wedding of the king and the queen, that is, the husband and the bride, the sun and moon.  At Fight Club’s conclusion, Marla and Tyler (or the Narrator) observe financial buildings collapsing around them allegorizing the destruction of the material world.  They witness this from an upper level of a skyscraper symbolizing their Gnostic ascensio.  They are now fully conscious having experienced self-awakening and epiphany; Marla and Tyler now free of the bane of societal materialism.  They have embraced their Jungian shadow and have been reborn as Manichean Gnostic masters.  Fight Club’s rendering of the Narrator’s concluding epiphany imitates the psychology of Valentinus that the illusion of matter or material is all in the mind.  It is the focus on the Narrator or Jack’s pre-Tyler Durden melancholy or “the shit job, fuckin’ condo world, watching sitcoms” that gestures towards the tragic dualism of Mani.  The Narrator has been aided on his spiritual yet nihilistic journey by Hermes Trismegistus, only Hermes or Tyler was part of his persona the entire time.

The idea and notion of Hermes as self can be seen in the mythology and legend surrounding the hero Batman and his other identity Bruce Wayne.  The name “Bruce Wayne” is a play on the name of the man that created Batman, Gotham City, and Batman’s villains, Bob Kane (1915-1998).  Bruce Wayne, like the Narrator from Fight Club, is his own Hermes Trismegistus.  Wayne is a genius who is skilled in various forms of martial arts.  At night Wayne dons a bat-costume becoming a vigilante combating the forces of evil in the fictitious Gotham City while the members of Batman’s rouges gallery are infamous.  Some of Batman’s more known villains are the Joker, the Penguin, Catwoman, Two-Face, the Scarecrow, the Riddler, Killer Croc, Bane, Poison Ivy, and Harley Quinn among others.  One could successfully argue that they are as popular as Batman himself.  The Batman mythos has been fully presented by DC Comics and Batman himself has been a star of both the small and large screen.  In the 1960’s Adam West portrayed Batman on television while in recent movies Batman has been played by Michael Keaton, Val Kilmer, George Clooney, and most recently by Christian Bale.

Gnostic themes of dualism oversee Bruce Wayne and his alter ego Batman since they are both agents of justice that combat the forces or elements of darkness.  In daylight Bruce Wayne is a philanthropist while his Batman alter-ego is a Sherlockian Hermes who is wise, the inventor of gadgets and technologies that he uses to neutralize evil, a skilled fighter, physicist, chemist, detective, and philosopher often providing advice to Gotham City Police Commissioner James Gordon.  In Batman Begins (2005), we get to see Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale) craft and construct some of Batman’s gadgets and wizardry.  Gordon, in order to contact Batman, shines a beacon into the night sky called the Bat Signal which is a token of light and is a symbol of good.  Mythologically, Wayne and Batman epitomize vampires and vampirism.  Wayne, the mild mannered human persona by daylight, transforms into a powerful and imposing vampire-like bat a night.  In other words, Batman is the Hyde archetype or the shadow shelf to Bruce Wayne’s Dr. Jekyll which is his conscious ego.  Some of Batman’s villains have Gnostic and mythological ties as well.  Batman’s premier female villain is Selina Kyle whose dualistic alter ego (cf. Jung’s shadow) is Catwoman. Catwoman is the mischievous goddess Lilith who usually evades Batman by pretending to be his alley while often turning out to be his enemy.  The most dualistic nemesis in Gotham City is Two Face who was once Gotham’s District Attorney whose real name is Harvey Dent.  Two Face is horribly scarred on one side of his face and is known for flipping a coin to determine decision making.  If the clean side of the coin turns up, Two Face is inclined to do the right thing but if the damaged side of the coin appears Two Face is evil incarnate.  Two Face thus embodies the dual headed Roman god Janus who presided over the beginning and ending of conflict or war and peace. The doors of his temple were open in time of war and closed to mark the peace; the Romans named the month of January (Ianuarius) in his honor.  Harvey “Two Face” Dent can be peaceful or incredible war-like depending on whether the door is “opened” or “closed” symbolized by what side of the coin is face-up after he flips it.

Batman’s arch antagonist is the Joker who is the trickster god Loki.  In Norse mythology Loki, Loptr, or Hveðrungr is a god or jötunn or both. Loki is the son of Fárbauti and Laufey and the brother of Helblindi and Býleistr. By the jötunn Angrboða, Loki is the father of Hel, the wolf Fenrir, and the world serpent Jörmungandr.  Loki is attested to in the Poetic Edda compiled in the 13th century from earlier traditional sources including the Prose Edda and Heimskringla written in the 13th century by Snorri Sturluson, the Norwegian Rune Poems, the poetry of skalds, and in Scandinavian folklore.  Loki may be depicted on the Snaptun Stone, the Kirkby Stephen Stone, and the Gosforth Cross. Loki’s origins and role in Norse mythology can best be described as a trickster god.  The Joker, a demonic living playing card, is a malicious trickster whose pranks and gags kill, wound, terrorize, and maim.  The Joker is evil personified or a polar dualistic opposite to Batman; the Joker is Jung’s shadow battling Batman or Wayne’s conscious ego.

In 2008’s The Dark Knight the Joker (Heath Ledger, 1979-2008) explains to Two-Face that the entire purpose of life is to bring order out of chaos echoing themes of occult Freemasonry.  To the Joker, the more one destroys the more one is liberated.  While Batman is motivated by his desire to see justice done, the Joker’s criminal acts are random and seemingly without provocation.  The Joker, like all of Gotham’s costumed criminals, are housed in Arkham Asylum which is named after H.P. Lovecraft’s fictitious town of Arkham, Massachusetts which is home to the darkly mysterious Miskatonic University.

In one scene in The Dark Knight, Ledger’s Joker transforms into his Jungian Tarot archetype.  The Joker is captured at the movie’s conclusion by Batman’s grappling hook as the Joker is plummeting off a semi-completed building.  Batman hoists the Joker up by one leg turning the Joker into a hanging or hanged man. It is card number twelve; book dealer Bernie Ornstein (James Russo) from the film The Ninth Gate dead body is displayed in the exact same occult posture becoming an emblem of the Satanic Mysteries that are contained in the grimoire Nine Gates of the Kingdom of Shadows.

The hanged man’s head is surrounded by divine sun rays allegorizing solar “Chrisitian” light thus the card reverses Christian and Catholic dogma. Albert Pike writes that the Divine Comedy best explains this occult “reversed” Christian theology, “Commentaries and studies have been multiplied upon the Divine Comedy, the work of DANTE, and yet no one, so far as we know, has pointed out its especial character. The work of the great Ghibellin is a declaration of war against the Papacy, by bold revelations of the Mysteries. The Epic of Dante is Johannite and Gnostic, an audacious application, like that of the Apocalypse, of the figures and numbers of the Kabalah to the Christian dogmas, and a secret negation of every thing absolute in these dogmas. His journey through the supernatural worlds is accomplished like the initiation into the Mysteries of Eleusis and Thebes. He escapes from that gulf of Hell over the gate of which the sentence of despair was written, by reversing the positions of his head and feet, that is to say, by accepting the direct opposite of the Catholic dogma; and then he reascends to the light, by using the Devil himself as a monstrous ladder. Faust ascends to Heaven, by stepping on the head of the vanquished Mephistopheles. Hell is impassable for those only who know not how to turn back from it. We free ourselves from its bondage by audacity. His Hell is but a negative Purgatory. His Heaven is composed of a series of Kabalistic circles, divided by a cross, like the Pantacle of Ezekiel. In the centre of this cross blooms a rose, and we see the symbol of the Adepts of the Rose-Croix for the first time publicly expounded and almost categorically explained.” (See Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry, page 822.) As such true light is esoterically reversed becoming an allegorical hanged man.  The Joker symbolizes the Tarot card Hanged Man; in keeping with this villainous archetype, “…the card in the old packs are the Thief and the Traitor, and the old popular interpretation of the Hanged Man identified him not with Jesus but with Judas, the arch traitor, ….He sacrifices himself to recover something hidden or lost in his own depths.” [232]  Batman’s Joker could care less about his own well-being and is always willing to sacrifice himself so long the there is a sardonic punch line.  The Joker is Batman’s true arch nemesis and dualistic polar opposite; the Joker is Judas to Batman’s Christ, darkness to his light, ruination to his ascensio.  This  symbolism is apropos since Batman is often portrayed not only as a dark hero, but as Gotham City’s sole messianic savior.

To this point Hermes Trismegistus has been presented in movies as a gnosis bearing sage who provides various types of assistance to the hero and his (or her) sacred band.  The assistance can be supernatural, esoteric wisdom, advice, a skill set, or all of these.  One must now ask if there has been an “Evil Hermes” in film?  Now we look at the villainous wizard or Hermes in cinema who is the cunning sardonic figure that possesses the knowledge that enables him to thwart the hero if only temporarily.  This section of Cinema Symbolism opens with the villain-wizard Thula Doom (James Earl Jones) from 1982’s Conan the Barbarian.

Evil Hermes in Film: Thulsa Doom, David Lo Pan, Kung Fu Movies,

and Willy Wonka

The evil or villainous Hermes Mercurius Trismegistus (Thrice Greatest) figure in film is generally a popular character and is sometimes called an antihero.  This character possesses knowledge and wisdom the hero seeks but the evil Hermes figure will not divulge the occult wisdom rather he usually takes it to the grave.  The hero or heroine attempts to extract this mystical wisdom resulting in the evil Hermes’ death or retreat.  In these stories the hero is not out to save the world or the galaxy from some malicious Demiurge but rather is motivated by self-exploration, the love of a woman, revenge of a loved one or loved ones, money, or a combination of all or any of these.  Evil Hermes embodies famed wax-figure creator Professor Henry Jarrod (Vincent Price) who possesses wax-working mysteries to sculpt sublime wax mannequins in 1953’s The House of Wax.  Jarrod’s secret is that he murders people and uses their bodies as templates to create his life-like wax figures.  Another example of the evil Hermes persona is Hannibal Lecter who possesses the true name and identity of the serial killer Buffalo Bill (see Chapter VII) yet psychologically torments and shames heroine Clarice Starling (Jodie Foster) into confessing her deepest secrets forging with her a Luciferian-Faustian Pact.  Starling, in an effort to rid herself of sinister thoughts and dreams termed “the silence of the lambs”, reveals her furtive past to Lecter who slowly and surely provides the information and clues that will lead Starling to Jame “Buffalo Bill” Gumb.  What separates Lecter from the other demonic Hermes figures is that Lecter poses no threat to Starling stating that the world is much more interesting with her in it.  Evil Hermes is Louis Cypher (Robert De Niro) who is Lou-Cypher or Lucifer and knows the true identity of private detective Harry Angel (Mickey Rourke) in Angel Heart.  Cypher hires Angel to locate missing nightclub crooner Johnny Favorite who has breached a contract with Cypher.  Cypher provides gnosis to Angel along the way leading Angle to discover that he and Johnny Favorite are one in the same person.   Angel finally uncovers the painful truth and that Cypher possessed the knowledge the entire time.  Cypher was the architecture of the Satanic conundrum that Angel fell victim to.  In the end, Angel finally solves the Luciferian riddle but it costs him his soul.  Angel Heart ending credits are intercut with stark images of Harry Angel symbolically descending into Hell via an elevator.  Louis Cypher aside, the most clear cut example of the villainous Hermes or Mercury character can be seen in Thulsa Doom from the motion picture Conan the Barbarian.

Thulsa Doom is lord of a serpent, sex magic, cannibalistic cult called the Temple of Set that has wantonly murdered the parents of Conan (Arnold Schwarzenegger).  Doom appears to be the sole possessor of what is called the Riddle of Steel.  Conan seeks to avenge the death of his mother and father at the hands of Thulsa Doom and his henchmen while at the same time discovering what the arcane Riddle of Steel actually is. Conan the Barbarian is joined in his quest against Doom by the female warrior Valeria (Sandahl Bergman) and the archer Subotai (Gerry Lopez).  The three warriors form a Pythagorean crew while Conan searches endlessly for the answer to the Holy Grail-like Riddle of Steel while at the same time worshipping a God of War deity named Crom.  On Crom and his related mysteries Conan remarks, “Crom is strong! If I die, I have to go before him, and he will ask me, ‘What is the Riddle of Steel?’ If I don’t know it, he will cast me out of Valhalla and laugh at me.”  Crom, like Odin or Wotan, is a grim, gloomy, and unforgiving deity forever watching from atop his misty mountain ready to pass a disapproving judgment on any and all that displease him.  The god “Crom” is named after the harsh puritanical English general and military dictator Oliver Cromwell (1599-1658).  Cromwell, nicknamed “Old Ironsides” after his stern personality, was leader of the Parliamentarian Forces better known as the New Model Army during the English Civil War of 1642-1651.  During the Civil War, Cromwell and his New Model Army battled against and ultimately defeated King Charles I and the Royalist armies; Cromwell was one of the signatories of Charles I’s death warrant.  Charles I, after being tried and found guilty of treason, was beheaded on 30 January 1649.  Cromwell was next selected to take command of the English campaign in Ireland in 1649-1650. Cromwell’s forces defeated the Confederate and Royalist coalition in Ireland and occupied the country bringing to an end the Irish Confederate Wars.  During this period a series of Penal Laws were passed against Roman Catholics (a significant minority in England and Scotland but the vast majority in Ireland), and a substantial amount of their land was confiscated.  Cromwell also led a campaign against the Scottish army between 1650 and 1651.  On 16 December 1653, Oliver Cromwell was invited by his fellow Parliamentarians to rule as Lord Protector of England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland making him military dictator.  As supreme ruler, he executed an aggressive and effective foreign policy and ruled England with an iron fist.  After his death in 1658 he was buried in Westminster Abbey but after the Royalists returned to power in 1660 they had his corpse dug up, hung in chains, and beheaded.

Thulsa Doom, as a deceptive wizard, wantonly kills people while demanding his followers be completely subservient to him and his whims. At one point he orders one of his acolytes to jump off a cliff to certain death.  Additionally, Thulsa Doom possesses the solution to the occult Riddle of Steel and, being the sole keeper of esoteric knowledge, Doom’s emblem reflects Hermes Trismegistus.

His symbol, which can be seen on his battle standard, is the sun representing Gnostic and hermetic light surrounded by hermetic two serpents.  Doom, personifying an evil Hermes Trismegistus archetype, heads a serpentine (cf. caduceus) spiritual-wisdom cult from the Mountain of Power while his local temples are appropriately known as the Towers of Set.  In the Egyptian Mysteries, Set was also known as Typhon who was the murder of the solar deity Osiris.  Comparatively, Typhon is Python the Serpent in the Greco-Roman Mysteries who was defeated by the sun god Apollo.  Over the caverns that housed Python’s decaying corpse the famed Temple of Delphi was constructed which was dedicated to the sun god Apollo. The decaying corpse of Python emanated fumes which were inhaled by the famed Oracles of Delphi causing them to frenzy and prophesize.  This symbolism forges a nexus between Doom as Set, Python, and Hermes (cf. serpentine caduceus) who is able to perform black sorcery that transforms him into a giant snake.  The wily Doom possesses the answer to the Riddle of Steel but will not divulge it.  Conan finally penetrates Doom’s Mountain of Power and confronts Doom questioning him about the occult enigma.  Doom will not reveal what it is but hints that the Riddle of Steel has more to do with human flesh than weapon making.  Thulsa Doom, after flailing Conan, orders him crucified; the barbarian is strapped to the Tree of Woe to die a slow death.  Dead, the crucified Barbarian is resurrected by the necromancy of a bastard-peasant sorcerer billed as “The Wizard” played by Mako (1933-2006). Conan the Barbarian is another dead yet resurrected cinematic messianic solar figure in keeping the mystery tradition.  Conan, now an agent of resurrected solar divine light, finally defeats the forces of Thulsa Doom or darkness.  Doom is beheaded at the film’s conclusion by Conan who never discovers the mystery of the Riddle of Steel; the dark Trismegistus keeps his secrets.  In defeating the evil Hermes or Mercury, the hero is often assisted by a peasant magician or sorcerer whom himself possesses knowledge of the esoteric arts.  This peasant magician is not on the level of the diabolical Hermes the Trice Greatest yet the lay sorcerer is somehow able to help the hero topple the treacherous wizard. Conan the Barbarian is resurrected by a bastard wizard allowing him to achieve ascensio and go on and destroy Thulsa Doom and his serpent cult.  This cinematic theme continues in John Carpenter’s Big Trouble in Little China.

In Big Trouble in Little China, the heinous and supernatural David Lo Pan (James Hong) holds sway over San Francisco’s mystical Chinatown as a demonic warlord and smuggler.  Lo Pan is an ancient warrior-wizard that requires marriage to a girl with green eyes in order to break a curse placed upon him.  Being a diabolical representation of Thrice Greatest Hermes, Lo Pan commands three shadowy warrior sages known as the Three Storms who are Thunder, Rain, and Lightning.  Lo Pan is well versed in Chinese sorcery and black magic; he is a spirit-like entity who has been alive for two thousand years.  He is a genuine manipulator of the netherworld who is able to switch between corporeal and spirit form making him the master of life and death.  The two heroes of the film are restaurant owner Wang Chi (Dennis Dun) and truck driver Jack Burton (Kurt Russell), the latter who dispenses wisdom and advice over his walkie-talkie in a program he calls “The Pork Chop Express”.  Wang Chi is motivated to move against Lo Pan because Pan has kidnapped Chi’s green eyed fiancé Miao Yin (Suzee Pai) whom he intends to execute in order to break his curse.  Lo Pan must marry a girl with green eyes to satisfy the Ching Dai the God of the East and then sacrifice her to satisfy the first sovereign emperor Qin Shi Huang.  Once sacrificed, Lo Pan will be master of the Pleroma and rule the universe from beyond the grave!  Burton’s motivation is purely monetary; Wang owes Burton money stemming from a gambling debt that Wang will pay off triple if Burton agrees to help in the rescue.  Burton cares about money and money only, even at the movie’s conclusion Burton walks out on love interest Gracie Law (Kim Cattrall) after he has been paid off by Wang.  Burton and Chi are aided - both spiritually and supernaturally - against Lo Pan by a “dime store” sorcerer named Egg Shen (Victor Wong) who is a local authority on Lo Pan and Chinese wizardry.  Shen employs low black and white magic that helps the two heroes defeat David Lo Pan and his Three Storms; at one point Wang and Jack drink a magical potion concocted by Shen that opens their third eye chakras elevating them to a higher consciousness.  John Carpenter, the director of Big Trouble in Little China, is lifting these concepts from 1970 Kung Fu movies most notably those produced by the Shaw Brothers.

The idea of a “Walmart wizard” comes straight out of Kung Fu action movies of the 1970s and 1980s produced by the famous Shaw Brothers Studio.  Two of their most famous Kung-Fu films are Executioners from Shaolin (1977) and Fist (or Clan) of the White Lotus (1980).  The former features a priest and master of Kung Fu named Pai Mai (Lieh Lo, 1939-2002), who uses an internal occult kung-fu technique that shifts his “pressure point” or chi around to different parts of his body.  The hero Wen-Ding (Yue Wong, 1955-2008), after years of studying his mother’s crane style kung fu and his father’s tiger fist, combines them with acupuncture and is able to defeat Pai Mai.  From his father Wen-Ding has discovered Pai Mai’s weakness which is that he is vulnerable between one and three o’ clock.  Wen-Ding’s parents are grass-root “Walmart wizards” who are able to teach their son the hermetical arts that enable him to defeat the evil Mercury-like Pai Mai.  Through his parents, Wen-Ding combines both his mother and father’s kung fu styles with acupuncture to perfect “Tiger-Crane” style fighting with an emphasis on locating and piercing pressure points.  The hero, unlike Luke Skywalker and Neo, is not out to save the world but to avenge his father’s death at the hands of Pai Mai.  The fictional Pai Mai is based on the real life Bak Mei (pinyin: Bái Méi, literally “White Eyebrows”) who is said to have been one of the legendary Five Elders who were survivors of the destruction of the Shaolin Temple by the Qing Dynasty imperial regime (1644–1912).  Bak Mei, according to some accounts, betrayed the Shaolin Temple to the imperial government.  As such Pai Mai is always depicted with having large, overgrown white eyebrows.

Fist of the White Lotus features a Pai Mai type character known as the White Lotus Chief (again Lieh Lo) who claims to be Pai Mai’s classmate and uses the exact same mystic kung fu technique.  White Lotus Chief, embodying evil Hermes, utilizes Pai Mai’s arcane fighting style which seemingly cannot be defeated or countered.  In this film White Lotus Chief has a hidden vital nerve that must be pierced in order to neutralize and finally kill him. This movie is essentially a remake of Executioners from Shaolin where the hero, Hung Wen-Ting (Gorden Liu), hermetically combines Crane and Tiger fighting styles with embroidery/acupuncture kung fu the latter of which he learns from his wife.  Once these techniques are combined Wen-Ting is able to defeat White Lotus Chief.  Again the hero’s motivation is vengeance and he is not a savior figure.  Wen-Ting uses oddball fighting techniques that the White Lotus Chief cannot quite figure out.  In Fist of the White Lotus the hero perfects his unusual fighting techniques on cheap papier-mâché dummies.  The idea of a novice learning a bastard - often referred to as drunken style - kung fu from a lonely peasant-hermit in order to thwart an expert Hermes-like rogue is a dominate plot device in numerous kung fu films.

Kung fu movies aside, the villainous Thoth Hermes Trismegistus entity is also echoed in eccentric chocolate maker Willy Wonka. Based on the novel by Roald Dahl (1916-1990) titled Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, the film Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory tells the story of an odd chocolate and candy manufacturer named Willy Wonka.  Portrayed in the 1971 movie by Gene Wilder and more recently by Johnny Depp, Wilder’s and Depp’s Wonka is an evil pied piper who engages in hermetic monkeyshines and loves seeing malicious, mean-spirited children get their just desserts.  Being Hermes-like, Wonka is the keeper of occult chocolate and candy making techniques while the evil Arthur Slugworth (Günter Meisner, 1926-1994) wishes to get his hands on Wonka’s latest creation called the Everlasting Gobstopper.  Charlie Bucket’s (Peter Ostrum) Grandpa Joe (Jack Albertson, 1907-1981) describes Slugworth as the worst of Wonka’s rivals telling Charlie that he was one of those who sent his spies in dressed as one of Wonka’s plant workers to steal his arcane recipes.  Slugworth has enticed the five children visiting Wonka’s factory to get their hands on an Everlasting Gobstopper at all costs.  Charlie Bucket - like the other four children - is presented with an Everlasting Gobstopper from Willy Wonka.  At the end of the movie, when Wonka denies Charlie a lifetime supply of chocolate berating him for his antics within the factory, Grandpa Joe threatens to give Slugworth the Everlasting Gobstopper.  However, Charlie can’t bring himself to betray Wonka’s trust and returns the Gobstopper to him.  Willy Wonka then explains that the man is not Slugworth but a fellow Wonka employee named Mr. Wilkinson and that his offer was a test of moral character.  Wonka redeems and reveals himself turning out be a true Hermes Trismegistus after all; he tells Charlie that he wants to will the entire Chocolate Factory to him and his family.  This chapter concludes with a presentation of the Gnosticsm and mysticism of Blade Runner and The Truman Show.

Beyond The Matrix: The Gnosticism of Blade Runner and The Truman Show

This final portion goes beyond The Matrix and explores the occult and Gnostic themes in Blade Runner and The Truman Show.  Blade Runner is an American dystopian science fiction thriller film directed by Ridley Scott starring Harrison Ford, Rutger Hauer, Sean Young and Edward James Olmos. The screenplay, written by Hampton Fancher and David Peoples, is loosely based on the novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick (1928-1982). Blade Runner opens in Los Angeles, California, in November 2019 where retired police officer Rick Deckard (Harrison Ford) is detained by officer Gaff (Edward James Olmos) and brought to meet with his former supervisor, Bryant (M. Emmet Walsh).  Rick Deckard, whose job as a “Blade Runner” is to track down bio-engineered beings known as replicants and retire them (euphemism for the termination of replicants), is informed by Bryant that several of them have come to Earth illegally.  Being Tyrell Corporation Nexus-6 models, they have only a four-year lifespan and may have come to Earth to try to extend their lives.  The Nexus-6 models in fact have divine souls, and their four year life span esoterically conceals this.  Pythagoras maintained that the soul of tetrad, the four powers of the soul being mind, science, opinion, and sense.[233]  The tetrad connects all beings, elements, numbers, and seasons; nor can anything be named which does not depend upon the tetractys.[234]  It is the Cause and Maker of all things, the intelligible God, Author of celestial and sensible good.[235]  Thus the four years that the Nexus-6’s remain alive symbolize the four powers of the soul as mandated by God.  Deckard watches a video of a Blade Runner named Holden (Morgan Paull) administering the Voight-Kampff test designed to distinguish replicants from humans based on their empathic response to questions.  The subject of the test is Leon (Brion James) who shoots Holden after he asks about Leon’s mother.  Bryant wants Deckard to retire Leon and three other Nexus-6 Models who are Roy Batty (Rutger Hauer), Zhora (Joanna Cassidy) and Pris (Daryl Hannah). Deckard refuses, but after Bryant ambiguously threatens him, he reluctantly agrees.

Deckard is sent to the Tyrell Corporation to ensure that this test works on Nexus-6 models. There he discovers that Dr. Eldon Tyrell’s (Joe Turkel who is also Lloyd the Ghostly Bartender from The Shining) assistant Rachael (Sean Young) who is an experimental replicant who genuinely believes herself to be human.  Rachael’s consciousness has been enhanced with false memories to provide an emotional cushion and, as a result, a more extensive test is required to determine whether she is a replicant.  Meanwhile Roy and Leon go to the eye-manufacturing laboratory of Chew (James Hong) to try to find a way to meet with Tyrell.  He is unable to provide them with information, but in fear for his life, he divulges the identity of J.F. Sebastian (William Sanderson), a gifted designer who works closely with Tyrell.  Rachael visits Deckard at his apartment to prove her humanity by showing him a family photo, but after Deckard tells her that her memories are only implants taken from a real person, she drops the photograph and leaves his apartment in tears.  Pris gains the confidence of Sebastian at his apartment where he lives with manufactured companions.

While searching Leon’s apartment, Deckard finds a photo of Zhora and a synthetic snake scale that leads him to a strip club where Zhora works. Deckard retires Zhora and shortly after is told by Bryant to add Rachael to his list of retirements because she has disappeared from the Tyrell Corporation headquarters. Deckard spots Rachael in a crowd but is attacked by Leon. Rachael kills Leon using Deckard’s gun, and the two return to Deckard’s apartment where he promises not to hunt her.  Later they share an intimate moment; Rachael then tries to leave but Deckard physically restrains her.  Arriving at Sebastian’s apartment, Roy Batty tells Pris that the others are dead.  Sympathetic to their plight, Sebastian reveals that because of a genetic disorder that accelerates his aging, his life will also be cut short.  Sebastian and Roy gain entrance into Eldon Tyrell’s secure penthouse where Roy demands more life from his maker.  Dr. Tyrell tells him that it is impossible. Roy confesses his guilt that he has done “questionable things” which Tyrell dismisses praising Roy’s advanced design and his accomplishments.  Roy responds with the line, “nothing the god of biomechanics wouldn’t let you into heaven for” and kisses Tyrell and then kills him.  This allegorizes Judas Iscariot kissing Jesus Christ heralding the Christianized solar Piscean savior’s astrological crucifixion and ultimate apotheosis and ascension into Heaven. As will be seen, Batty also personifies the savior archetype. Sebastian runs for the elevator followed by Roy who then rides the elevator down alone.

Upon entering Sebastian’s apartment, Deckard is ambushed by Pris but manages to kill her just as Roy returns. Roy fights Deckard without using his full strength against him, instead chasing him through the building and arriving on the roof.  In an attempt to escape, Deckard tries to jump to another roof but ends up hanging from the rooftop.  Just as he is about to fall, Roy saves him becoming Deckard’s Gnostic savior.  In one of cinema’s most memorable scenes, Roy Batty delivers a soliloquy about his mortality explaining that his memories are about to be lost - like tears in the rain - as his life expires.  Batty laments,

“I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe.

Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion.

I watched c-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate.

All those moments will be lost in time,

like tears in rain. Time to die.”

Batty, his right hand pierced with a nail and holding a dove, dies in front of Deckard who watches silently.  Batty references Orion, which, as has been explained, is an important constellation in the Egyptian Mysteries signifying death, resurrection, and apotheosis.  Gaff arrives and referring to Rachael shouting at Deckard, “It’s too bad she won’t live, but then again, who does?” Deckard returns to his apartment to find Rachael sleeping in his bed; as they exit Deckard finds a small tin-foil unicorn which is a calling card left by his origami-making partner Gaff (Director’s Cut).  Depending on the version, Deckard and Rachael - a transhuman Sophia - either leave the apartment block to an uncertain future or drive through an idyllic pastoral landscape having found their Pleroma.

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Roy Batty is a Gnostic Christ-like figure.  He is not a human being but a Nexus-6; Batty is a manmade creation thus making him a literal Enochian Son of Man.  The concept of a Son of Man predates the Bible; Enoch is identified as an eschatological redeemer or the Son of Man at 71:14[236] in I Enoch.  Like Jesus Christ,  Batty has his adherents who are Leon, Zohara, and the neo-punk Pris.  Batty expires with his right palm pierced or wounded by a nail symbolizing the crucifixion of Christ who was allegorically nailed to a wooden cross.  Batty, a Luciferian light-bearing messiah, provides gnosis to Deckard at the film’s conclusion.  Explaining his own mortality and life experiences, Deckard is now conscious and awake understanding that the replicants have a right to life and are similar - if not better - than their human creators.  Throughout the film the Nexus-6’s are more philosophical and esoterically wise than their human counterparts.  Batty laments that his memories will be lost forever once he dies which is a condition that all humans will eventually confront.  When Batty’s life runs out, he releases a dove mirroring the baptism of Jesus Christ by John the Baptist in the Jordan River.  At Matthew 3:16-17 it is explained, “When He had been baptized, Jesus came up immediately from the water; and behold, the heavens were opened to Him, and He saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting upon Him. And suddenly a voice came from heaven, saying, ‘This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.’”[237]  The dove is an emblem of Christ thus Batty releases a dove when he mechanically dies emblematizing  his own holy spirit; the dove flies up into the sky announcing Batty’s ascensio.  The dove or Holy Spirit descends upon Christ when is baptized in the Jordan River which is contrasted in Blade Runner when Batty perishes in rain and the dove (symbolizing his divine soul) ascends into the heavens.  The falling rain suggests the baptismal waters of John the Baptist or Aquarius in which one is symbolically “born again” or brought to new life.

The landscape of dystopian Los Angeles is dominated by pyramidal architecture symbolizing the Egyptian Mysteries notable those of the Osiris, Horus, Isis, and Amun Re or Ra representing the notions of the dying yet resurrected sun.  Once resurrected, the sun-man is allegorically brought from darkness to light, gnosis, or the death and re-awakening to true consciousness and revelation.  The Blade Runner himself, Rick Deckard, receives gnosis from Batty when he is about to fall off the building to his death but is saved by Batty.  Deckard now esoterically understands that the Nexus-6’s are not evil nor even an enemy, rather they are more human than the humans and have a right to life just like the rest of mankind.  They are imbued with a soul and like humans have memories that serve to create their own individual personalities and idiosyncrasies.  Batty dies becoming a savior archetype releasing the dove thereby setting his god-given spirit free.  The name “Rick Deckard” echoes and suggests French philosopher René Descartes (1596-1650).  Descartes has been bestowed with the title “Father of Modern Philosophy” and much subsequent Western philosophy is a response to his writings which are studied closely to this day.  In particular his Meditations on First Philosophy (1641) continues to be a standard text in most university philosophy departments. Descartes’ influence in mathematics is equally apparent; the Cartesian coordinate system allowing reference to a point in space as a set of numbers, and allowing algebraic equations to be expressed as geometric shapes in a two-dimensional coordinate system - and conversely, shapes to be described as equations - was named after him.  Descartes is credited as the father of analytical geometry, the bridge between algebra and geometry, crucial to the discovery of infinitesimal calculus and analysis.  Descartes was also one of the key figures in the Scientific Revolution, who along with Sir Francis Bacon (1561-1626), genius thought modernized the world.  Rick Deckard parallels René Decartes in that Deckard’s gnosis revolves around notions of the soul - its divine spark - and creation.  Descartes frequently sets his views apart from those of his philosophic predecessors. For example in the opening section of the Passions of the Soul, a treatise on the early modern version of what are now commonly called emotions, Descartes goes so far as to assert that he will write on this topic “as if no one had written on these matters before”. Many elements of his philosophy have precedents in late Aristotelianism, the revived stoicism of the 16th century, or in earlier philosophers like Augustine (354-430 C.E.).  In Descartes’ natural philosophy, he differs from the schools on two major points: first he rejects the analysis of corporeal substance into matter and form and second he rejects any appeal to ends - divine or natural - in explaining natural phenomena.  Descartes’ theology insists on the absolute freedom of God’s act of creation.  Allegorically in Blade Runner, Deckard qua Descartes learns about the true nature of the soul and that deity may endow a manmade creation with a spirit or divine spark irregardless of their maker’s intention or desire.  In other words, a Nexus-6 (cf. kabbalistic golem) created by the hands of a human “god of biomechanics” may still be imbued with a divine spirit and emotions from a higher power.

The origami unicorn left by Gaff at the film’s finale combined with Decker’s unicorn dream suggests to the audience - and to Deckard himself - that Gaff knows about Deckard’s dream in the same manner that Deckard knows about Rachael’s implanted memories; the only explanation is that Rick Deckard is a replicant.  The unicorn itself is steeped in mysticism.  Masonic magus Manly Palmer Hall writes,

“While the unicorn is mentioned several times in Scripture, no proof has yet been discovered of its existence. There are a number of drinking horns in various museums presumably fashioned from its spike. It is reasonably certain, however, that these drinking vessels were really made either from the tusks of some large mammal or the horn of a rhinoceros. J. P. Lundy believes that the horn of the unicorn symbolizes the hem of salvation mentioned by St. Luke which, pricking the hearts of men, turns them to a consideration of salvation through Christ. Mediæval Christian mystics employed the unicorn as an emblem of Christ, and this creature must therefore signify the spiritual life in man. The single horn of the unicorn may represent the pineal gland, or third eye, which is the spiritual cognition center in the brain. The unicorn was adopted by the Mysteries as a symbol of the illumined spiritual nature of the initiate, the horn with which it defends itself being the flaming sword of the spiritual doctrine against, which nothing can prevail.”[238]

Thus the unicorn is an emblem of Rick Deckard’s occult awakening - gnosis - his third or inner eye now open.  Deckard is willing to accept the divine nature of the Nexus-6 models because he, in fact, is one.  Blade Runner’s unicorn sequence is part of the Director’s Cut, however there is other evidence that Deckard is a replicant.  Deckard’s apartment (its motor court is the Ennis House from 1959’s The House on Haunted Hill) is full of photographs but none of them are recent or in color.[239]  Replicants have a taste for old photographs since it provides a tie to a non-existent past.  The scene in which Rachael asks Deckard whether he has passed the Voight-Kampff test himself to which she receives no answer.  The fact that Gaff, who had shown no sympathy for Deckard throughout the film, tells him, “You’ve done a man’s job, sir!” implying that Deckard is not human.  After Roy expires, Gaff lets Rachael live and does not intervene when she and Deckard leave his apartment.

Given the Nexus-6’s superhuman abilities, their identity as created beings by Tyrell, and their “fall from the heavens” back to earth makes them analogous to Enochian fallen angels or “The Watchers” from the Book of Enoch.  In this context, Roy Batty shares occult similarities with Lucifer - as a fallen angel - because he prefers to reign in Hell (Earth) rather than serve in heaven.  This connection is also apparent when Batty deliberately misquotes the Gnostic poet and artist William Blake (1757-1827) saying, “Fiery the angels fell…” while Blake wrote “Fiery the angels rose…” in America, A Prophecy (1793).

The Nexus-6’s personifying Enochian Luciferian fallen angels is also symbolized by Zhora’s gunshot wounds because they are both on her shoulder blades.  The end result makes her look like an angel whose wings have been cut off denoting angel who have fallen from grace.  Zhora makes use of a serpent that, “once corrupted man” in her exotic stage performances at Taffey’s Bar.  According to Genesis, the Luciferian serpent brought light and knowledge to man and womankind in the Garden of Eden.  The serpent also symbolizes the dual snakes that form the caduceus of Hermes who is a light or an occult wisdom keeper; the name Zhora means light in Hebrew.  This coincides with Ridely Scott’s use of owl symbology sporadically throughout the film with the owl being the emblem of Tyrell Corporation.  The owl is the sacred totem of the wisdom goddess Minerva who herself is a reflection of the Gnostic Sophia and Lilith.  In Ridley Scott’s Director’s Cut, the owl’s eyes flicker red indicating that it is a replicant created by Tyrell.  Not only is Tyrell Corporation the creators of Nexus-6 models, but it is the bestower of wisdom as well.  This suggests that their inventions are not soulless robots rather they are divinely inspired.  On a deeper esoteric level this identifies Tyrell Corporation as Luciferian bearers of light and revelation; Tyrell is not god-like rather it is God.  Thus the cinematic evidence is overwhelming: Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner is a Gnostic-Biblical fable of self-awakening and rebirth into true light or hermetic gnosis.  Like James Whale’s (1889-1957) Frankenstein, Blade Runner forces the viewer to confront the eternal questions of science contrasting religion, man’s relationship with God, mortality and the nature of the soul, death and resurrection, and ascensio and apotheosis.

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Manichean Gnostic themes of sublime consciousness and epiphany are depicted in 1998’s The Truman Show.  The movie documents the life of a man who is initially unaware that he is living in a constructed reality television show broadcast around the clock to billions of people across the globe.  Truman, the story’s protagonist, becomes suspicious of his perceived reality and embarks on a quest to discover the truth about his life.  Truman Burbank (Jim Carrey) is the unsuspecting star of “The Truman Show”, a reality television program in which his entire life, even before his birth, is filmed by thousands of hidden cameras airing 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a years and broadcasts live around the world.  The show’s creator and executive producer, Christof (Ed Harris), is able to capture Truman’s real emotion and human behavior when put in certain situations.  Truman’s hometown or port of Seahaven is a complete set built under a giant arcological dome in the Los Angeles area. Truman’s family and friends are all played by actors allowing Christof, who calls himself “the Creator”, to manipulate every aspect of Truman’s existence thereby making him the Demiurge.  To prevent Truman from discovering his false reality, Christof has invented means of dissuading his sense of exploration including “killing” his father in a violent sea storm.  This was initiated by Christof while a young Truman and his father were on a fishing trip in order instill the fear of the water in Truman.  During his everyday life, Christof makes sure Truman is exposed to news reports and commercials about the dangers of traveling while featuring television shows about how great it is to stay at home.  Despite Christof’s control, Truman manages to behave in unexpected and unpredictable ways.  Truman falls in love with an extra, Sylvia (Natascha McElhone) known to him as Lauren, instead of Meryl (Laura Linney) who is intended to be his wife.  When Truman infatuation with Sylvia deepens, she is quickly removed from the set by her television “father” who arrives in a station wagon and accuses his “daughter” of insanity.  As he hurries Sylvia away, he yells to Truman that she is moving away forever, to Fiji.  Truman marries Meryl but continues to secretly pine for her.  Daily meditating on Sylvia and his desire to travel to Fiji - markers for Sophia and the Pleroma - Truman lives a double life torn between the two principles of the cosmos: the real world intimated by Sylvia and the terra incognita where she ostensibly lives, and the fake one embodied by Meryl and his Seahaven surroundings.[240]  In reality Sylvia becomes part of a “Free Truman” campaign that fights to liberate him from the show and the clutches of Christof.

During the thirtieth year of The Truman Show, Truman notices certain aspects of his near-perfect world that seem out of place.  A theatrical light falls from the artificial night sky constellations, nearly hitting him which is quickly passed off by local radio as an aircraft’s dislodged landing light.  Further, Truman’s car radio picks up a conversation between the show’s crew tracking his movements.  Truman also becomes aware of more subtle abnormalities within his regular day-to-day life such as the way the same people appear in the same places at certain times each day and Meryl’s tendency to blatantly advertise the various products she buys and uses.

Truman’s supposedly deceased father then reappears on the set dressed as a homeless man and is whisked away as soon as Truman notices him.  In a deleted scene Truman gives a sandwich to a wheelchair-bound man and then sees him jogging two days later.

Despite the best efforts of his family and his best friend Marlon (Noah Emmerich) to reassure him - the latter being fed lines of comforting dialogue by Christof through a wireless earpiece - all these events cause Truman to start wondering about his life realizing that the world seems to revolve around him only.  Meryl grows increasingly stressed by the pressure of perpetuating the deception and their marriage unravels in the face of Truman’s increasing skepticism and attendant hostility towards her.  Truman Burbank attempts to leave Seahaven but is blocked by his inability to arrange flights, bus breakdowns, sudden traffic jams, a forest fire and a nuclear meltdown which Truman becomes skeptical of when the policeman - whom Truman had never met before - addresses him by name.  After Meryl emotionally breaks down and is taken off the show, Christof officially brings back Truman’s father hoping his presence will keep Truman from trying to leave.  However he only provides a temporary respite; Truman soon becomes isolated and begins staying alone in his basement after Meryl leaves him.  One night Truman fools the cameras and escapes the basement undetected via a secret tunnel forcing Christof to temporarily suspend broadcasting of the show for the first time in its history.  This causes a surge in viewer-ship with many viewers including Sylvia cheering on Truman’s escape attempt.

Christof orders every actor and crew member to search the town even breaking the town’s daylight cycle to help in the search.  They find that Truman has overcome his fear of the water and has sailed away from Seahaven in a small boat named Santa Maria.  Santa Maria was the name of the largest of the three ships with which Christopher Columbus sailed to the New World.  In turn, Truman is fleeing the false world for the real or “new world” in a ship named Santa Maria.  After restoring the broadcast, Christof orders the show’s crew to create a large storm to try to capsize the boat, prompting a heated debate with his superiors over the morality and legality of killing Truman in front of a live global audience.  Like Johan in reverse, a prophet released fear of his violent God, Truman screams over the waves to the roiling sky - “Is that all you’ve got?”[241]  He has recognized that faces and must now overcome his lifelong foe, his pernicious maker, the dark god.[242]  Responding, Chrsitof cues a stronger storm that knocks Truman to the deck.  Lying in the position of the crucified Christ - and thus resembling the savior that revised the laws of the ignorant father - Truman bears the weight of matter, the chaos of the world.[243]  Truman almost drowns but his determination eventually leads Christof to terminate the storm and the sun returns.  While Truman recovers, the boat reaches the edge of the dome and its bow piercing through the dome’s painted sky.  An awe-struck Truman then discovers a flight of stairs nearby leading to a door marked EXIT.  As he contemplates leaving his world Christof speaks directly to Truman via a powerful sound system trying to persuade him to stay and arguing that there is no more truth in the real world than there is in his own artificial world.  In a gentle fatherly voice, he comforts Truman, telling him it is okay to converse with his maker.[244]  Christof confirms to Truman that he is the creator of a television show in which Truman is the “star” that “gives hope, joy, and inspiration to millions.”  Truman asks the Demiurge, “Was nothing real?” Christof responds that he was real and then explains that deceit and lies prevail inside and outside of Seahaven there is little difference between the television world and the realm beyond.[245]  Truman must now decide to return to the conformities of Seahaven or, in terms of The Matrix, take a “red pill” and rebel against the Demiurge obtaining gnosis of the real world in the process.  Truman - after a moment’s thought - delivers his catchphrase, “In case I don’t see you, good afternoon, good evening, and good night, ” and bows to his audience and steps through the door and into reality.  The assembled television viewers excitedly celebrate Truman’s escape and Sylvia quickly leaves her apartment - exiting through a door - to reunite with him.  A network executive orders the crew to cease transmission. With the show completed members of Truman’s former audience are shown looking for something else to watch.

*      *       *       *       *

The full name of the protagonist, Truman Burbank, has symbolic meaning.  His first name “Truman” designates him as a true man seeking consciousness, gnosis, while searching for the meaning of his life.  His last name “Burbank” allegorizes the section of Hollywood that produces television programs.  Truman, like Neo in The Matrix, lives in a false world created by the Demiurge.  Truman’s Demiurge is the god-like Christof who monitors and controls Truman’s life and decision making.  The name Christof obviously refers to Christ Jesus and presents the Christian savior as an overbearing deity that wants to control and manipulate humanity out of fear of damnation.  Christof as Christ thus uses fear and intimidation, notably the threat of water, against Truman to keep him in static bondage.  Christ - as explained - is the Piscean Age solar avatar thus it is metaphorically apropos that Christof qua Christ uses Truman’s fear of water against him.  Like the sea god Poseidon or Neptune (ruler of Pisces), Chrsitof unleashes a violent sea storm attempting to prevent Truman’s gnosis.

Truman Burbank - like The Matrix’s Thomas Anderson - becomes increasingly aware that he is dwelling in a false paradigm.  In order to learn the truth, Truman escapes in a sailboat heading into the great unknown.   The idea of journeying in a boat to discover yourself and earthly purpose originates in Druidism. On these particular mysteries Albert Pike writes,

“The ceremonies commenced with a hymn to the sun.  The candidates were arranged in ranks of threes, fives, and sevens, according to their qualifications; and conducted nine times around the Sanctuary, from East to West. The candidate underwent many trials, one of which had  direct reference to the legend of Osiris. He was placed in a boat, and sent out to sea alone, having to rely on his own skill and presence of mind to reach the opposite shore in safety.  The death of HU was represented in his hearing, with every external mark of sorrow, while he was in utter darkness. He met with many obstacles, had to prove his courage, and expose his life against armed enemies; represented various animals, and at last, attaining the permanent light, he was instructed by the Arch-Druid in regard to the Mysteries, and in morality of the Order, incited to act bravely in war, taught the great truths of the immortality of the soul and future state, solemnly enjoined not to neglect the worship of Deity, nor the practice of rigid morality; and to avoid sloth, contention, and folly.”[246]

Truman is willing to risk his life in order to experience true awakening.  Once at the edge of Christof’s dome Truman’s is met by the voice of  the Demiurge who attempts to sway him back to his false television reality.  Truman ignores Christof and decides to enter the real world.  He climbs a staircase representing the numinous ladder of ascension; on this symbolism Manly P. Hall explains, “Thus the ascent of the ladder and the climbing of the knotted cord are both emblematic of man’s ceaseless climb toward Self. …the natural ascent of wise to wisdom, …The ladder is the bridge of reason, the ways of the gods.”[247]  Anticipating Neo’s heavenly ascent at the end of The Matrix, Truman climbs a heavenly staircase symbolizing his new found Gnostic enlightenment.  Truman steps into reality thereby fulfilling the first stage of the Campbell’s monomyth of crossing of the first threshold.  Truman Burbank, having decided to free himself from the falsehoods of Seahaven, is now exchanging the familiar for the foreign, Meryl for Sylvia (cf. Sophia), his fantasy realm for the Pleroma.  Truman Burbank’s life adventure is now beginning, not ending.

Finally, one is right to ask: does a comedic Thoth Hermes Trismegistus ever turn up in film?  This author can only think of one example which is Professor Auguste Balls from the Pink Panther films.  Professor Balls, who has been portrayed by both Harvey Korman (1927-2008) and Graham Stark, is an oddball shop owner who supplies Inspector Clouseau[248] with his numerous disguises and costumes of his own genius invention.  Professor Balls alone possesses the occult mysteries of cloak and dagger costume making.  Balls is a Hermes Trismegistus figure since he gives Clouseasu - just like Q equips James Bond - ingenious and perfected disguises containing gadgets, eclectic devices, and camouflaged nuances that are designed to help and assist Clouseau’s criminal investigations.  Instead Balls’ screwy outfits and gadgets always backfire with humorous results.  For example, the “hunch” in a hunchback custom over-inflates causing Clouseau to float out a high story window in 1976’s The Pink Panther Strikes Again.  A phony parrot, as part of a pirate guise, keeps deflating despite Clouseau’s best efforts to keep it upright in 1978’s Revenge of the Pink Panther.  Upon this Chapter XII now segues into Chapter XIII which is titled, Hey Whitey, Where’s Your Hat? Comedies, B-Movies, and Beyond....  These films, while not as esoterically nuanced as some of the movies already analyzed in Cinema Symbolism, are still important and worthy of discussion.  Most movie fans always rank a comedy or two on their list of favorites films, so this author feels it would be a mistake to leave this chapter out of this book.

Chapter XIII

Hey Whitey, Where’s Your Hat?

Comedies, B-Movies, and Beyond....

“Gozer the Traveler. He will come in one of the

pre-chosen forms. During the Rectification of the Vuldronaii, the Traveler came as a large and moving Torb.

Then, during the Third Reconciliation of the Last of the

Meketrex Supplicants, they chose a new form for him,

that of a giant Sloar! Many Shubs and Zuuls knew what it was to be roasted in the depths of the

Sloar that day I can tell you.” - Vinz Clortho,

Ghostbusters, 1984.

“I have to go shopping. We’re running out of everything;

cat food, fish food, ant spray, rat poison.”

- Violent Newstead, Nine to Five, 1980.

“From all I’ve seen tonight guns won’t do any good.

Clay’s dead, and we buried him. How are we gonna kill someone

who’s already dead? Dead! And yet there he stands!”

- Patrolman Kelton, Plan 9 from Outer Space, 1959.

“Only the infinity of the depths of a man’s

mind can really tell the story.”

- Dr. Alton, Glen or Glenda, 1953.

“Learn to see the ‘worst’ films, they are sometimes sublime.” - Adonis Kyrou,

Le surréalisme au cinéma, 1952.

“This is U.S. History, I see the globe right there.”

- Jeff Spicoli, Fast Times at Ridgemont High, 1982.

Cinema Symbolism: A Guide to Esoteric Imagery in Popular Movies concludes with an analysis of some Comedies, B-Movies, and assorted esoterica.  Comedies are always popular and some of the most memorable scenes and dialogue are spawned by comedies.  B-Movies, especially those produced, written, and directed by cult figure Edward D. Wood Jr. are too worth mentioning.  His films, especially Glen or Glenda, Bride of the Monster, and Plan 9 from Outer Space are so surreal, idiosyncratic, and downright bizarre that often the viewer - especially the first time viewer - will have trouble believing what they are seeing.  Wood’s films break down the barrier between real and make believe leaving the viewer confused and often wondering, “Is this a real movie I am watching?”

The 1980 comedy Nine to Five contains characters that are archetypes representative of the zodiac. The three female protagonists are the three fire signs of the zodiac while their misogynistic and antagonistic boss is the water sign Scorpio; water is the polar opposite of fire.  The three women, Violet Newstead (Lily Tomlin), Doralee Rhodes (Dolly Parton), and Judy Bernly (Jane Fonda) work in an office ruled over by Franklin M. Hart, Jr. (Dabney Coleman).  Hart exploits and mistreats his subordinates regularly and takes credit for Violet’s efficiency proposals whilst refusing to promote her on the basis that, “clients would rather deal with men when it comes to figures”. He cruelly yells at and threatens Judy on her first day after an equipment malfunction.  Hart sexually harasses Doralee and spreads false rumors that they are having an affair damaging her credibility with her coworkers.  Finally, Hart casually fires a worker named Maria over an overheard discussion on salaries.  Newstead, believing she has accidentally poisoned Hart kidnaps his “corpse” from the hospital assisted by Rhodes and Bernly.  However they soon realize the body is not his and return it to the hospital.   Hart turns up alive the next morning much to the shock of Violet, Doralee, and Judy.  During a break in the ladies’ room the three speculate on what could have happened and then vow to forget the night’s troubles, but Roz Keith (Elizabeth Wilson) - Hart’s office spy - hiding in one of the stalls overhears them and relates the conversation to her boss.  He confronts Doralee with the information he has just learned and demands that she spend the night at his house or he will have all three of them prosecuted for attempted murder.  Hart refuses to believe it was an accident, so the three kidnap him, with Judy firing at him with Doralee’s gun and Doralee tying his hands and legs with a phone cord.  Unsure of how to prevent Hart from alerting authorities, the three bring him to his Tudor-style mansion keeping him prisoner in his bedroom while they decide to try to find something with which to blackmail him so that he will not have them arrested.  The ladies discover that he’s been selling company property behind its backs and keeping the profits for himself.  To prove the crime, they need to wait several weeks for the accounting documents to arrive. In the meantime the women fashion a special bondage device to allow Hart to move around but keep him confined to his home.

In Nine to Five, the fire signs appear in their feminine archetypical versions.  Violent Newstead, being the de-facto solar leader of the trio, embodies Leo the Lion which is ruled by the sun. Ambition, leadership, and reform are all exemplified under the rulership of Leo and dovetail Violet sublimely.[249]  Violet is in charge of the trio and is a zealous reformer who completely enhances the productivity of Hart’s office in his absence drawing the attention of Russell Tinsworthy (Sterling Hayden, 1816-1986), the Chairman of the Board.    Doralee Rhodes corresponds to Aries the Ram; its decans are an adventurous spirit, desire, initiative and courage.[250]  Rhodes is sexually desired by Hart, she is an adventurer who encourages the other two women to fantasize about torturing their boss, and is the initiator behind the kidnapping of Hart.  Bernly personifies Sagittarius the Archer, the final fire sign whose hallmarks are devotion, a search for new fields to conquer, and engaging in work of definite importance.[251]  Bernly, a divorcee and former “kept wife” is forced into the new field of employment becoming a secretary.  Bernly is devoted to her female accomplices and is their devoted ally come hell or high water.  She assists the other two while engaging in work of importance by rehabilitating Hart’s office environment transforming it into a family friendly, energetic experience.  Hart is Scorpio which is ruled by Pluto or Hades in Roman and Greek mythology.  This archetype is the ruler of the underworld and parallels Hart who manages his office with a tyrannical and undermined hand.  By reason of Scorpio being a water sign, Hart is opposed by three fire signs.

This idiom is reversed in the 1984 comedy Ghostbusters.  Here, three masculine water signs or archetypes battle an evil feminine fire goddess.  The Ghostbusters are a paranormal investigating company that provides ghost elimination for customers who are experiencing supernatural and poltergeist activity. The company is founded by three scientists who are fascinated with the occult and the paranormal: Dr. Egon Spengler (Harold Ramis, 1944-2014), Dr. Peter Venkman (Bill Murray), and Dr. Raymond Stantz (Dan Ackroyd).  They battle and capture ghosts however evidence points to an inter-dimensional cross fold rift allowing an ancient demonic god named Gozer to enter earth’s dimension and destroy it.  Gozer, also known as Gozer the Gozerian, Gozer the Destructor, Volguus Zildrohar, Gozer the Traveler, and Lord of the Sebouillia, is the demonic antagonist.  According to the film, Gozer is a numinous, ancient, ultra-powerful malignant entity from another dimension who was summoned to New York City to destroy the world; Gozer was originally worshiped by the Hittites, Mesopotamians, and the Sumerians around 6000 B.C.E.  Gozer, played by Slavitza Jovan and voiced by Paddi Edwards (1931-1999), is genderless though it first appears female during the film’s rooftop finale.  In modern times, the Sebouillia Lord was worshiped by the powerful Cult of Gozer atop a New York Apartment complex.  Gozer has two trusted minions - themselves worshiped as demigods - that are harbingers of destruction and the primary agents for its coming, Vinz Clortho the Keymaster and Zuul the Gatekeeper.  The spirit of Vinz Clortho comes to possess Louis Tully (Rick Moranis) while Zuul inhabits Dana Barrett (Sigourney Weaver).  In an effort to annihilate New York City and the world, Gozer takes final shape becoming a giant-sized caricature known as the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man who, of course, symbolizes the Pillsbury Doughboy.  The Ghostbusters - now aided by a forth named Winston Zeddmore (Ernie Hudson) - destroy Gozer by crossing the laser beams fired from their Proton Pack Nuclear Accelerators thereby closing the pan dimension gateway and torching Mr. Stay Puft in the process.

Drs. Egon Spengler, Peter Venkman, and Raymond Stantz are the three water signs in their masculine versions.  The three scientists are Jungian archetypes; Spengler is Pisces the Fishes, Venkman is Scorpio the Scorpion, and Stantz is Cancer the Crab.  Pisces are seekers of truth via mystical means, psychic esoteric researchers, and detectives of the highest order.[252]  Egon Spengler exemplifies these decans since, of the three, he is the true exert on the occult and the arcane.  Towards the end of the film, Spengler exposes the true nature of Gozer worship and what its implications are.  Spengler, the truth seeker, is the first to discover that Louis Tully is possessed by the demigod Vinz Clothro.  When the Ghostbusters are looking to buy their future headquarters - a dilapidated firehouse - it is Spengler that detects the building’s flaws and structural failures.  Dr. Venkman is a living representation of Scorpio; its decans are self-centeredness, finishing what it sets out to accomplish, strong passions for good or bad, and great personal magnetism.   Venkman is the creative force behind the Ghostbusters realizing early on that it will be a success over the skepticism of the other two.  Ghostbusters does in fact become a prosperous under his command yet Venkman is vehemently outspoken incurring the wraith of Walter Peck (William Atherton) of the Environmental Protection Agency.  Venkman insults him and denying him access to their Ecto-Containment System while threatening legal action against him (wrongful prosecution).  The Ghostbusters will come to rue that day since Venkman’s grandstanding causes Peck to obtain a court order allowing him to disable the Containment System unleashing the Biblical End of Days.  Of the three, Venkman is the only one with a girlfriend.  After the Ghostbusters take her on as a client, Dana Barrett is unable to resist Venkman’s charisma and witty charm.  Finally, Ray Stantz typifies the Cancer archetype; its hallmarks are strong emotions, dramatic expression, and research and revelation.  Stantz strongly wants to purchase the abandoned firehouse over the concerns of the other two, he poetically recites verses from the Book of Revelation to Zeddmore, and he is always investigating the esoteric and paranormal.  Stantz is always the first to understand what his fellow occult researcher, Egon Spengler, is talking about.  In Ghostbusters II, Raymond Stantz is the owner of a bookshop called “Ray’s Occult Books”.  The three water signs combat an evil fire-like goddess named Gozer appearing at the film’s climax as a feminine hell-raiser who attacks by releasing lightning from her fingertips.  Gozer, an emissary from an infernal dimension, reigns down fire and brimstone upon New York City while standing before an Egyptian styled pyramid.

The Ghostbuster’s high voltage incarceration Ecto-Containment System or laser protection grid derives from Masonic-Solomonic lore and magic; the third degree Masonic ritual centers on the construction of King Solomon’s Temple.  According to the Testament of Solomon, the wise patriarch employed 72 demons to assist in the construction of the first temple.  King Solomon controlled these demons via a signet ring - featuring a pentagram, hexagram, or both depending upon the source - that was given to him by the Archangel Michael.  The 72 demons eventually rebelled against him causing him to imprison them in a brass vessel sealed by magic and protective occult sigils.  The grimier, Ars Goetia or The Lesser Key of Solomon, gives instructions on building a similar brass vessel and using the proper magical formulae to safely summon these demonic principalities; the “genie in the bottle”[253] and Pandora’s Box legends stem from this lore.  The Ecto-Containment Systems parallels Solomon’s brass vessel since both contain or imprison ghostly and demonic entities.  When Walter Peck orders the Containment System shut down, Peck is symbolically opening Solomon’s brass vessel and letting the genie -or jinn - out of the bottle thus causing all hell to break loose.  This allows Gozer to enter this world from a secret Egyptian-themed temple located on top of Dana Barrett’s and Louis Tully apartment complex located at 55 Central Park West.  Spengler explains that this is no coincidence.  Consulting blueprints of Barrett’s and Tully’s apartment building, the Ghostbusters learn that a mad doctor and cult leader named Ivo Shandor was responsible for the temple.  Claiming that humanity was too sick to survive the horrors of World War I, Shandor designed the building and temple to be a gateway to summon Gozer and bring about the Apocalypse.  The name Shandor mirrors the middle name of Church of Satan founder Anton Szandor LaVey (1930-1997) thereby twining Ivo Shandor’s Gozer sect with LaVey Satanism and black sorcery.  The numeric address of the apartment complex, 55, is symbolic of the pentagram or five pointed star.  An inverted pentagram - two points up and one down - is a general emblem of maleficia used by the Church of Satan appearing both in their literature as well as being used extensively in their dark rituals.

*      *       *       *       *

When it comes to B-Movies of a highly bizarre nature, nothing comes close to the movies written, produced, and directed by Edward D. Wood, Jr.  Wood is the King of the B-Movie and one will never mistake a film made by Wood with a feature made by someone else.  Wood’s unsuccessful career and camp approach has earned him and his bizarre films a cult following.  Following the publication of Rudolph Grey’s biography Nightmare of Ecstasy: The Life and Art of Edward D. Wood, Jr. (1992), Wood’s life and work have undergone a public rehabilitation of sorts, leading up to director Tim Burton’s biopic Ed Wood (1994), a critically acclaimed film which earned two Academy Awards.  The Best Supporting Actor Oscar went to Martin Landau for his portrayal of Béla Lugosi.  Wood has been much maligned and lambasted for his use of cheap and economical special effects that appear in his films, yet in reality Wood never used special effects instead relying on symbolic effects in his surreal movies.  Ed Wood could not afford main stream studio effects because he could not afford them; Wood’s movies were made on the smallest of budgets often interweaving idiosyncratic stock footage between scenes voiced over with often meaningless or confusing narration.  For example, in his magnum opus Plan 9 from Outer Space, Wood could not incorporate proper flying saucer special effects like one would see in The Day the Earth Stood Still or This Island Earth.  Instead, Wood uses paper plates, hubcaps, or toy models to symbolize flying saucers; he puts on the screen a symbol of what he wants the viewer to see rather than the actual effect.

Wood’s eccentric movies often contain scenes or references of cinematic importance but Wood was most likely unaware of it.  For example, Plan 9 from Outer Space’s Colonel Edwards (Tom Keene, 1896-1963) actually refers to the Illuminati calling them the Higher Echelon.  According to Edwards, the United States government classifies and keeps secret the existence of extra-terrestrial life at the behest of this “Higher Echelon” which suggests the conspiratorial workings of the Illuminati, the Central Intelligence Agency, Bilderberg Club, and Council on Foreign Relations.  In Glen or Glenda, Béla Lugosi’s Scientist character - a Gnostic Demiurge - performs alchemy with a junior chemistry set with a skull present transforming him into a pseudo-representation of St. Jerome (ca. 347 - 420 C.E.) contemplating in his study.

This mystic imagery is depicted in the famous engraving by the German artist Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528).  In the print, Saint Jerome is shown sitting behind his desk engrossed in work.  The table, on the corner of which is a cross, is typical of the Renaissance.  An imaginary line drawn from Jerome’s head passing through the cross would arrive at the skull on the window ledge, thus contrasting death and the Resurrection.  Jerome’s head is surrounded by solar light esoterically symbolizing the dying and resurrected sun, enlightenment, or gnosis.  Lugosi’s Demiurge is cold yet sympathizes with transvestites and a pseudohermaphrodite blaming himself that “mistakes are made” and that he must “pull the string” to correct these errors of nature.  His alchemy transforms a male pseudohermaphrodite named Alan into a woman named Ann and attempts to alter society’s general attitude towards transvestites from negative to positive.  Lugosi’s Demiurge oversees humanity and demands conformity insisting that everyone must “Dance to that which one is created for.”  Wood, himself a transvestite, appears in the title role of “Glen-Glenda” credited under the stage name “Daniel Davis” because Davis was Wood’s middle name.

Wood also turns the science fiction classic The Day the Earth Stood Still on its head in his quasi remake titled Plan 9 from Outer Space.  In The Day the Earth Stood Still an alien ambassador named Klaatu lands in Washington, D.C. to warn the crude inhabitants of earth to learn to live in peace and cease atomic proliferation or else they will be harshly dealt with.  Klaatu is cool, calm, and collected causing the earthlings to fear him while admiring him at the same time.  Klaatu’s extraterrestrial gnosis demonstrates how much more sophisticated and superior his alien civilization is when compared to those of earth.  To Klaatu, earthlings want nothing more than to engage in tribal warfare and pollute the environment.

Ed Wood turns Klaatu into a hyperactive numbskull in Plan 9.  In Plan 9 from Outer Space the visiting alien named Eros, played by Dudley Manlove (1914-1996), comes to earth to warn humans to stop developing explosives because they will soon discover the Solarinite or the actual explosion of the sun’s rays.  This, Eros fears, will lead to a creation of a Solarinite Bomb that when detonated will destroy earth and explode the universe with it.  In order to stop the humans, Eros along with his female sidekick Tanna (Joanna Lee, 1931-2003), begin to institute “Plan 9” which is the resurrection of the earth’s dead in order to scare the humans out of discovering Solarinite.  Eros and Tanna manage to re-animate three of the earth’s deceased: Inspector Daniel Clay (Tor Johnson, 1903-1971), Maila Nurmi (1922-2008) billed as Vampira playing “Vampire Girl” and Lugosi credited as “Ghoul Man”.  Plan 9 was Béla Lugosi’s last movie and most of his scenes were filmed with a stand-in named Thomas R. Mason (1920-1980) who was a chiropractor by trade.  Eros’ demeanor  substantially differs from that of Klaatu’s since when he finally is confronted by the humans, Eros is more scared, unnerved, and generally freaked-out by them than they are of him.  His reaction to the earthlings is to accuse them of having “stupid, stupid minds,” prompting the earthling response which is to punch Eros out and call him a jerk.  This author can think of no other scene that resembles this and it resonates with oddity and weirdness.  If one wishes to view surrealism, symbolic effects, and existentialism in film, Plan 9 from Outer Space should be at the top of one’s list.  The cinema of Edward D. Wood Jr. manages to achieve high art through sheer ineptitude.

*      *       *       *       *

The mythological god of mischief - Loki - appears in comedies often.  He is not an agent of darkness per se but an eccentric goofball who succeeds without trying; this archetype fails upward.  In other words, the cinematic Loki often defeats his opponent almost without even trying.  Loki transforms lovable loser Stanley Ipkiss (Jim Carrey) into a devilish sophisticated and debonair man-about-town in 1994’s The Mask.  When Ipkiss dons the mask of Loki, it turns him into a superhero named “The Mask” who is a  grinning, magically-powered trickster uninhibited by anything including physical reality.  Loki’s mask molds itself to the wearer’s face turning it bright green symbolizing the Green Man.  The Green Man is pagan deity also known as “Green Jack”, “Jack-in-the-Green”, and “Green George” who - like the beholder of Loki’s mask - is endowed with supernatural abilities.  Mischievous Loki appears as the man-boy John “Bluto” Blutarsky (John Belushi, 1949-1982) in 1978’s Animal House; Blutarksy is overweight drunken degenerate at Faber College with a 0.0 grade point average.  That notwithstanding, Animal House’s epilogue reveals that Blutarsky eventually became a United States Senator.  Loki is Al Czervik (Rodney Dangerfield, 1921-2004) who menaces the White-Anglo establishment at Bushwood Country Club in 1980’s Caddyshack.  Czervik’s arch antagonist is conformist and reactionary Judge Elihu Smails (Ted Knight, 1923-1986) who is the embodiment of the Protestant “old money” who seeks to protect Bushwood Country Club while Czervik and his “new money” wants to buy it and turn the golf course into condominiums.  Smails is a cinematic archetypical “WASP” or White Anglo-Saxon Protestant thus the name of Smails’ dinky yacht is The Flying Wasp.  From afar Czervik observes Smails trying to christen his yacht causing Czervik to drive his oversized boat named Seafood all over the harbor causing Loki-like chaos and mayhem.  Loki possesses Jeffrey Goines (Brad Pitt) who is a mischievous, mentally challenged eccentric misfit that James Cole believes wants to bring about Armageddon by releasing a virus mysteriously linked to 12 Monkeys or The Army of the 12 Monkeys.  Contrary to what Cole believes, Goines’ actual plan is to liberate animals from the Philadelphia Zoo.  Interestingly, Goines’ operates out of “The Freedom for Animals Association” (FAA) located at 2802 N. Kensington Avenue in Philadelphia which doubles as the secret base of The Army of the 12 Monkeys; add 2+8+0+2 to get the number 12 confirming this film’s  number 12 motif.  Loki is also brought to life by Jeff Spicoli (Sean Penn) who is a pot smoking miscreant that harasses the social fabric of Ridgemont High School in the correctly named Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982).  Spicoli has a penchant for disrupting classes especially Mr. Hand’s (Ray Walston, 1914-2001) history class.  Spicoli causes a disturbance in Hand’s class when he has a pizza delivered to him; Hand questions Spicoli “Am I hallucinating here? Just what in the hell do you think you’re doing?”  The completely disinterested Spicoli allegorizes Loki’s mischievous nature while Mr. Hand represents the displaced and out-of-touch former United States President James Earl “Jimmy” Carter.  Professor Hand is a totally confused relic who does not understand or connect with the younger, 1980s “new wave” MTV generation.  Hand, like President Carter and his feeble administration, is a discombobulated curio that no one pays attention to.  President Ronald Reagan is personfied on screen by Emmett “Doc” Brown from the Back to the Future trilogy (Chapter IV).  Both Ronald and Nancy Reagan incarnate as Man (Everett McGill) and Woman (Wendy Robie) who maintain an incredibly bizarre household symbolizing the 40th President’s administration’s suppression the American working class who are termed The People Under the Stairs (1991).  The forty-second president, William Jefferson “Bill” Clinton, comes to life as Forrest Gump (1994) whose historical journey through the 50s, 60s, 70s and 80s represents that of the baby boomer generation.[254] Bill Clinton was the first baby boomer United States President and Clinton, like Gump, are both southern bumpkins who rise to power despite their humble upbringing.  The forty-forth president, Barack Obama, embodies airline pilot Whip Whitaker (Denzel Washington) from the 2012 film Flight.  A commercial plane that is about to crash killing all on board, Whitaker is able to steer and successfully land the plane - SouthJet Flight 227 - by turning it upside down symbolizes Obama’s guiding the United States economy through a downward spiral often term the Great Recession. Like Obama, Whitaker carries a dark secret; he is an alcoholic and drug user paralleling the controversial notion that Barack Obama has a dark, hidden secret.  Obama is shadowed by the fact that he may not have been born in the United States which would preclude him from becoming Chief Executive under the United States Constitution.[255]

The thirty-sixth president Lyndon B. Johnson (1908-1973), is represented on screen in the guise of Rooster Cogburn in 1969’s True Grit.  Johnson, like Gogburn, are both heartless, unemotional red-neck machines that will pursue causes irregardless of consequence and body count.  Reuben “Rooster” Cogburn was born on July 15, 1825. Cogburn was a veteran of the American Civil War who served under Confederate guerrilla leader William Quantrill, where he lost his eye. He was twice married, first to an Illinois woman who left him to return to her first husband after bearing Cogburn a single, extremely clumsy son (of whom Cogburn says, “He never liked me anyway”), and second to a Texas woman who wanted him to be a lawyer.  Cogburn is described as a “fearless, one-eyed U.S. marshal who never knew a dry day in his life.” He was “the toughest marshal” working the Indian Territory (present-day Oklahoma) on behalf of Judge Isaac Parker known to history as the infamous Hanging Judge.  Lyndon Johnson, echoing  Cogburn, was a heavy drinker who endlessly and coldheartedly pursued the Vietnam War costing him a chance at re-election; LBJ did not seek nor except the Democratic Party’s nomination for President in 1968.  Johnson’s successor to the Presidency, Richard M. Nixon (1913-1994), is the nefarious Judge Benjamin Caulfield (Hal Holbrook) from 1983’s The Star Chamber. Echoing Nixon and his secret White House Plumbers, Caulfield leads a secret cabal or a modern-day Star Chamber.  Caulfield presides over a group of judges who identify criminals who fell through the judicial system’s cracks and then take actions against them outside the legal structure. Caulfield’s Star Chamber symbolizes the White House Plumbers, sometimes simply called the Plumbers, who were a covert White House Special Investigations Unit established July 24th, 1971 during Nixon’s presidency.  Its task was to stop the leaking of classified information to the news media.  Its members branched into illegal activities while working for the Committee to Re-Elect the President, including the burglary of the office of Daniel Ellsberg[256] and the Watergate break-in and its ensuing cover-up.  In turn Caulfield’s Star Chamber condones and enforces its own illegality outside the American judicial system often ordering the killing of those guilty individuals freed on a technicality.  The historical Star Chamber (Latin: Camera stellata) was an English court of law that sat at the royal Palace of Westminster from the late 15th century until 1641 being dismantled by Oliver Cromwell and the Long Parliament.  It was made up of Privy Councilors as well as common-law judges and supplemented the activities of the common-law and equity courts in both civil and criminal matters.  The court was set up to ensure the fair enforcement of laws against prominent people or those so powerful that ordinary courts would never convict them of their crimes. Court sessions were held in secret with no indictments and no witnesses. Evidence was presented in writing. Over time it evolved into a political weapon, a symbol of the misuse and abuse of power by the English monarchy.  A cinematic Star Chamber can be viewed at the beginning of Superman (1978) where Jor-El (Marlon Brando) prosecutes the criminals General Zod (Terrance Stamp), Ursa (Sarah Douglas) and Non (Jack O’Halloran) before Kryton’s judges who appear mysteriously in the background as giant faces.  The three criminal are without attorneys, there is no evidentiary procedure, nor is there any form legal nomenclature.  Jor-El states, “This is no fantasy, no careless product of wild imagination. No, my friends. These indictments that I have brought to you today, specific charges herein against the individuals. Their acts of treason, their ultimate aim of sedition. These, are matters of undeniable fact. I ask you now to pronounce judgment on those accused.”  Without even deliberating, Krypton’s Star Chamber pronounces them guilty and Zod, Ursa, and Non are immediately sentenced to the prison dimension known as the Phantom Zone.  There is no appellate process once confined to the Phantom Zone nor is there any chance for parole.

Teaching neophyte law enforcer Eliot Ness (Kevin Costner) about the “Chicago way” in 1987’s The Untouchables, the hermetic police-sage Jim Malone (Sean Connery) concludes with the line, “Here endeth the lesson.”  Chapter XIII is now complete, Cinema Symbolism: A Guide to Esoteric Imagery ends, the curtain falls.  Since this chapter explored the esoteric cinematic world of Ed Wood, this author believes that Criswell’s final soliloquy from Wood’s erratic Plan 9 from Outer Space should appropriately end this chapter. Criswell prophesies, “My friend, you have seen this incident based on sworn testimony. Can you prove that it didn’t happen? Perhaps on your way home, someone will pass you in the dark, and you will never know it, for they will be from outer space. Many scientists believe that another world is watching us this moment. We once laughed at the horseless carriage, the aero-plane, the telephone, the electric light, vitamins, radio, and even television. And now some of us laugh at outer space. God help us in the future.”

Conclusion

“I knew Leo G. Carroll was over a barrel

when Tarantula took to the hills.

And I really got hot when I saw Janet Scott

fight a Triffid that spits poison and kills.”

- Lyrics from Science Fiction Double Feature, 1975.

“‘I know I can do it,’ Todd Downey said, helping himself

to another ear of corn from the steaming bowl.

‘I’m sure that in time, every bit of her will be gone and

her death will be a mystery...even to me.’”

- Mort Rainey/John Shooter, Secret Window, 2004.

“I am a small man, a humble man. Being poor I have had

to do much that I did not want to do. But so long as the great

Dr. McFarlane comes to my whistle, that long am I a man.

If I have not that then I have nothing. Then I am only a

cabman and a grave robber. You’ll never get rid of me Toddy.”

- John Grey, The Body Snatcher, 1945.

“My dear I really can’t say.

No doubt he’s at the grave

hobnobbing with your great aunt,

getting her side of the story.”

- Sylvia Grantham, Creepshow, 1982.

“As God is my witness, as God is my witness they’re

not going to lick me. I’m going to live through this and

when it’s all over, I’ll never be hungry again. No nor any

of my folk.  If I have to lie, steal, cheat or kill. As God

is my witness, I’ll never be hungry again.”

- Scarlett O’Hara, Gone with the Wind, 1939.

“The only thing in this world that gives orders is balls.”

- Tony Montana, Scarface, 1983.

“Witches… All of them witches.”

- Rosemary Woodhouse, Rosemary’s Baby, 1968.

Just as all books have an introduction and conclusion so too all films have a beginning and an end.  One can only hope that the story may continue in a sequel or sequels.  This is often the case if the movie is a financial success, however if it is an economic disappointment sequels are seldom made and if they are it is usually a “direct to video” release.  There are some movies that are mega hits at the box office yet a sequel would be impossible such as 1997’s Titanic.  It would take a miracle to resurrect Jack Dawson (Leonardo DiCaprio) from the depths of the North Atlantic Ocean.

From The Exorcist and the Satanic workings of The Omen Trilogy, from the Egyptian mysticism of time traveling in a DeLorean to Joseph Campbell’s monomyth, from Edward D. Wood to an attacking bunny that guards a darkened cave against intruding Arthurian knights, from Thulsa Doom to Ellen Ripley, from a computer simulated reality to the mystical terrains of Middle-earth, Cinema Symbolism has unveiled much of the concealed imagery contained in popular movies.  This author now hopes that the reader of this book will now be able to spot occult icons and hidden symbolisms in upcoming films including movies that this author has not analyzed in this tome.  Make no mistake, hidden icons and concealed esoteric imagery are embedded in these movies.  Sometimes they are placed there intentionally, sometimes they appear by way of Carl Jung’s collective unconscious psychological mechanism, but often times a mystical synthesis occurs linking the conscious with the unconscious and the intentional with the unintentional.  This hidden imagery thus becomes an integral part of the film irregardless of the film maker’s overall design.  In other words, the latent images and themes found in these films are as important to the plot and characters because they reveal its parallel underlying story.  This occult undercurrent (or story) is as critical, if not more so, than what appears on the film’s surface since it reveals and preserves the true mythological and archetypical symbols, metaphors, and occult allegories that breathe life into a motion picture.

Cartoon character Porky Pig - voiced by Freemason Mel Blanc (1908-1989) - is fond of saying, “Th-th-th-that’s all folks!”  But this is not the end rather it is only the beginning.  Facing their own demise, Gandalf the White comforts Pippin in The Return of the King eulogizing, “ End? No, the journey doesn’t end here. Death is just another path. One that we all must take.  The gray rain-curtain of this world rolls back, and all turns to silver glass. And then you see it.” Despite the fact that you have finished reading this book, know that more is on the way; this author has already begun working on its sequel.  And soon you will see it.

Coming Soon

from

Robert W. Sullivan IV, Esq.

Cinema Symbolism II:

More Esoteric Imagery from Popular Movies

C.S. Lewis and the Inklings

Ravenclaw, Gryffindor, Sytherin,

and Hufflepuff: The Harry Potter Universe

The Wonderful Occult World of Walt Disney

The Illuminati in Film

The Arcane Noir of David Lynch

Alan Moore and the Occult Mysterion: From Hell, V for Vendetta, & The Watchmen

Venus, Aphrodite, & Lucifer: The Bewitching

Sex Goddess and much, much more.

And Rob’s first work of fiction,

A Pact with the Devil:

The Story of Elizabeth Burnblack and her Involvement with the Occult, Black Magic, and the Dark Arts.

Filmography

Alice in Wonderland. Directed by Clyde Geronimi and Wilfred Jackson. Cast: Kathryn Beaumont, Ed Wynn, Richard Haydn. Walt Disney Productions, 1951.

Alice in Wonderland. Directed by Tim Burton. Cast: Mia Wasikowska, Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter. Walt Disney Pictures, 2010.

Alien. Directed by Ridley Scott. Cast: Sigourney Weaver, Tom Skerritt, John Hurt.  Brandywine Productions, Twentieth Century-Fox Productions, 1979.

Alien: Resurrection. Directed by  Jean-Pierre Jeunet. Cast: Sigourney Weaver, Winona Ryder, Dominique Pinon. Brandywine Productions, Twentieth Century-Fox Productions, 1997.

The Amazing Colossal Man. Directed by Bert I. Gordon. Cast: Glenn Langan, Cathy Downs, William Hudson.  Malibu Productions, 1957.

Army of Darkness. Directed by  Sam Raimi. Cast: Bruce Campbell, Embeth Davidtz, Marcus Gilbert. Dino De Laurentiis Company, Renaissance Pictures, 1992.

An American Werewolf in London. Directed by John Landis. Cast: David Naughton, Jenny Agutter, Joe Belcher. PolyGram Filmed Entertainment, Lyncanthrope Films, 1981.

Angel Heart. Directed by Alan Parker. Cast: Mickey Rourke, Lisa Bonnet, Robert De Niro, Charlotte Rampling. Carolco Entertainment, 1987.

Animal House. Directed by John Landis. Cast: John Belushi, Karen Allen, Tom Hulce.  Universal Pictures, Oregon Film Factory, 1978.

Attack of the Crab Monster. Directed by Roger Corman. Cast: Richard Garland, Pamela Duncan, Russell Johnson. Los Altos Productions, 1957.

Attack of the 50 Foot Woman. Directed by Nathan Juran (as Nathan Hertz). Cast: Allison Hayes, William Hudson, Yvette Vickers.  Woolner Brothers Pictures Inc., 1958.

Back to the Future. Directed by Robert Zemeckis. Cast: Michael J. Fox, Christopher Lloyd, Lea Thompson. Universal Pictures, Amblin Entertainment, 1985.

Back to the Future II. Directed by Robert Zemeckis. Cast: Michael J. Fox, Christopher Lloyd, Lea Thompson. Universal Pictures, Amblin Entertainment, 1989.

Back to the Future III. Directed by Robert Zemeckis. Cast: Michael J. Fox, Christopher Lloyd, Lea Thompson. Universal Pictures, Amblin Entertainment, 1990.

Batman. Directed by Tim Burton. Cast: Michael Keaton, Jack Nicholson, Kim Basinger. Warner Brothers, 1989.

Batman Begins. Directed by Christopher Nolan. Cast: Christian Bale, Michael Caine, Ken Watanabe. Warner Brothers, 2005.

The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms. Directed by Eugène Lourié. Cast: Paul Hubschmid, Paula Raymond, Cecil Kellaway. Jack Dietz Productions, 1953.

The Beast Must Die. Directed by Paul Annett. Cast: Calvin Lockhart, Peter Cushing, Marlene Clark. Amicus Productions, 1974.

Being There. Directed by Hal Ashby. Cast: Peter Sellers, Shirley MacLaine, Melvyn Douglas. BSB, CIP, Lorimar Film Entertainment, 1979.

Big Trouble in Little China. Directed by John Carpenter. Cast: Kurt Russell, Kim Cattrall, Dennis Dun. 20th Century Fox, 1986.

The Black Cat. Directed by Edgar G. Ulmer. Cast: Boris Karloff, Béla Lugosi, David Manners. Universal Pictures, 1934.

Black Swan. Directed by Darren Aronofsky. Cast: Natalie Portman, Mila Kunis, Vincent Cassel. 20th Century Fox, 2010.

Blade Runner. Directed by Ridley Scott. Cast: Harrison Ford, Sean Young, Rutger Hauer, Darryl Hannah. Ladd Company, 1982.

The Blob. Directed by  Irvin S. Yeaworth Jr. and Russell S. Doughten Jr. (un-credited). Cast: Steve McQueen, Aneta Corsaut, Earl Rowe. Fairview Productions, Tonylyn Productions Inc., 1958.

The Bride of Frankenstein. Directed by James Whale. Cast: Boris Karloff, Elsa Lanchester, Colin Clive. Universal Pictures, 1935.

Bride of the Monster. Directed by Edward D. Wood, Jr. Cast: Béla Lugosi, Tor Johnson, Tony McCoy, Loretta King. Rolling M. Productions, 1955.

Caddyshack. Directed by Harold Ramis. Cast: Chevy Chase, Ted Knight, Rodney Dangerfield, Bill Murray. Orion Pictures Corp., 1980.

Carrie. Directed by Brian De Palma. Cast: Sissy Spacek, Piper Laurie, Amy Irving.  United Artists, 1976.

Casino Royale. Directed by Val Guest and Ken Hughes, Cast: David Niven, Peter Sellers, Ursula Andress,  Columbia Pictures Corporation, 1967.

Casino Royale. Directed by Martin Campbell. Cast: Daniel Craig, Eva Green, Judi Dench. Columbia Pictures, 2006.

A Christmas Story. Directed by Bob Clark. Cast: Peter Billingsley, Melinda Dillon, Darren McGavin. MGM, 1983.

Citizen Kane. Directed by Orson Welles. Cast: Orson Welles, Joseph Cotten, Dorothy Comingore. RKO Radio Pictures, 1941.

Clan of the White Lotus. Directed by Lieh Lo. Cast: Chia-Hui Liu, Lieh Lo, Lung Wei Wang. Shaw Brothers, 1980.

A Clockwork Orange. Directed by Stanley Kubrick. Cast: Malcolm McDowell, Patrick Magee, Michael Bates. Warner Brothers, 1971.

Conan the Barbarian. Directed by John Milius. Cast: Arnold Schwarzenegger, James Earl Jones, Max von Sydow. Universal Pictures, 1982.

Creature from the Black Lagoon. Directed by Jack Arnold. Cast: Richard Carlson, Julie Adams, Richard Denning. Universal Pictures, 1954.

Curse of the Werewolf. Directed by Terence Fisher. Cast: Clifford Evans, Oliver Reed, Yvonne Romain. Hammer Film Productions, 1961.

Damien: Omen II. Directed by Don Taylor and Mike Hodges (unaccredited). Cast: William Holden, Lee Grant, Jonathan Scott-Taylor. 20th Century Fox, 1978.

Dante’s Inferno. Directed by  Francesco Bertolini and Adolfo Padovan. Cast: Salvatore Papa, Arturo Pirovano, Giuseppe de Liguoro.  Milano Film, 1911.

The Dark Knight. Directed by Christopher Nolan. Cast: Christian Bale, Heath Ledger, Aaron Eckhart. Warner Brothers, 2008.

The Dark Knight Rises. Directed by Christopher Nolan. Cast: Christian Bale, Tom Hardy, Anne Hathaway. Warner Brothers, 2012.

The Day the Earth Stood Still. Directed by Robert Wise. Cast: Michael Rennie, Patricia Neal, Hugh Marlowe. 20th Century Fox, 1951.

The Dead Zone. Directed by David Cronenberg. Cast: Christopher Walken, Brooke Adams, Tom Skerritt. Dino De Laurentiis Company, 1983.

Diamonds are Forever. Directed by Guy Hamilton. Cast: Sean Connery, Jill St. John, Charles Gray. Eon Productions, 1971.

Donovan’s Brain. Directed by Felix Feist. Cast: Lew Ayres, Gene Evans, Nancy Reagan.  Dowling Productions, 1953.

Dracula. Directed by Tod Browning and Karl Freund (un-credited). Cast: Béla Lugosi, Helen Chandler, David Manners. Universal Studios, 1931.

Dracula. Directed by Francis Ford Coppola. Cast: Gary Oldman, Winona Ryder, Anthony Hopkins. American Zoetrope, Columbia Pictures Corporation, 1992.

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Directed by John S. Robertson. Cast: John Barrymore, Martha Mansfield, Brandon Hurst.  Famous Players-Lasky Corporation, 1920.

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Directed by Rouben Mamoulian. Cast: Fredric March, Miriam Hopkins, Rose Hobart. Paramount Pictures, 1932.

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Directed by Victor Fleming, Cast: Spencer Tracy, Ingrid Bergman, Lana Turner. MGM, 1941.

Dr. No. Directed by Terence Young. Cast: Sean Connery, Ursula Andress, Bernard Lee. Eon Productions, 1962.

Earth vs. the Flying Saucers. Directed by Fred F. Sears. Cast: Hugh Marlowe, Joan Taylor, Donald Curtis. Clover Productions, 1956.

Ed Wood. Directed by Tim Burton. Cast: Johnny Depp, Martin Landau, Sarah Jessica Parker. Touchstone Pictures, 1994.

Excalibur. Directed by John Boorman. Cast: Nigel Terry, Helen Mirren, Nicolas Clay, Cheri Lunghi, Nicol Williamson. Orion Pictures Corp., 1981.

Executioners from Shaolin. Directed by Chia-Liang Liu. Cast: Kuan Tai Chen, Lily Li, Lieh Lo. Shaw Brothers, 1977.

The Exorcist. Directed by William Friedkin. Cast: Linda Blair, Max von Sydow, Ellen Burstyn, Jason Miller, Kitty Winn. Warner Brothers, 1973.

Fast Times at Ridgemont High. Directed by Amy Heckerling. Cast: Sean Penn, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Judge Reinhold. Universal Pictures, Refugee Films, 1982.

Fiend Without a Face. Directed by Arthur Crabtree. Cast: Marshall Thompson, Terry Kilburn, Kynaston Reeves.  Producers Associates, Amalgamated Productions, 1958.

The Fifth Element. Directed by Luc Besson. Cast: Bruce Willis, Milla Jovovich, Ian Holm. Gaumont, 1997.

Fight Club. Directed by David Fincher. Cast: Brad Pitt, Edward Norton, Helena Bonham Carter. Fox 2000 Pictures, Regency Enterprises, 1999.

Flight. Directed by Robert Zemeckis. Cast: Denzel Washington, Nadine Velazquez, Don Cheadle. Paramount Pictures, 2012.

The Fly. Directed by Kurt Neumann. Cast: David Hedison, Patricia Owens, Vincent Price. 20th Century Fox, 1958.

Forrest Gump. Directed by Robert Zemeckis. Cast: Tom Hanks, Robin Wright, Gary Sinise. Paramount Pictures, 1994.

Frankenstein. Directed by James Whale. Cast: Colin Clive, Mae Clarke, Boris Karloff. Universal Pictures, 1931.

Frankenstein. Directed by Kenneth Branagh. Cast: Robert De Niro, Kenneth Branagh, Helena Bonham Carter. TriStar Pictures, 1994.

Friday the 13th. Directed by Sean S. Cunningham. Cast: Betsy Palmer, Adrienne King, Jeannine Taylor. Paramount Pictures, Georgetown Productions Inc., 1980.

From Russia with Love. Directed by Terence Young. Cast: Sean Connery, Robert Shaw, Lotte Lenya. Eon Productions, 1963.

Ghostbusters. Directed by Ivan Reitman. Cast: Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Sigourney Weaver, Harold Ramis, Rick Moranis, Ernie Hudson. Black Rhino Productions, Columbia Pictures Corp., 1984.

The Giant Behemoth. Directed by Douglas Hickox and Eugène Lourié. Cast: Gene Evans, André Morell, John Turner. Artistes Alliance Ltd., Diamond Pictures Corp., 1959.

Glen or Glenda. Directed by Edward D. Wood, Jr. Cast: Edward D. Wood, Jr. (as Daniel Davis), Béla Lugosi, Lyle Talbot, Delores Fuller, Conrad Brooks, Timothy Farrell. Screen Classics, 1953.

Godzilla. Directed by Ishirô Honda. Cast: Takashi Shimura, Akihiko Hirata, Akira Takarada. Toho Film (Eiga) Co. Ltd., 1954.

GoldenEye. Directed by Martin Campbell. Cast: Pierce Brosnan, Sean Bean, Izabella Scorupco. Eon Productions, United Artists, 1995.

Goldfinger. Directed by Guy Hamilton. Cast: Sean Connery, Gert Fröbe, Honor Blackman. Eon Productions, 1964.

The Golem. Directed by Carl Boese and Paul Wegener. Cast: Paul Wegener, Albert Steinrück, Ernst Deutsch.  Berliner Union-Film Studio, 1920.

Halloween. Directed by John Carpenter. Cast: Jamie Lee Curtis, Donald Pleasence, Tony Moran. Compass International Pictures, 1978.

Halloween III: Season of the Witch. Directed by Tommy Lee Wallace. Cast: Tom Atkins, Stacey Nelkin, Dan O’Herlihy. Dino De Laurentiis Company, Universal Pictures, 1982.

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. Directed by Chris Columbus. Cast: Daniel Radcliffe, Richard Harris, Emma Watson, Rupert Grint, Alan Rickman, Maggie Smith. Warner Brothers, 2001.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2. Directed by David Yates. Cast: Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, Rupert Grint, Evanna Lynch, Ralph Fiennes, Alan Rickman, Bonnie Wright. Warner Brothers, 2011.

Häxan: Witchcraft Through the Ages. Directed by Benjamin Christensen. Cast: Benjamin Christensen, Elisabeth Christensen, Maren Pedersen. Aljosha Production Company, 1922.

Horror of Dracula. Directed by Terence Fisher. Cast: Peter Cushing, Christopher Lee, Michael Gough. Hammer Film Productions, 1958.

The Hound of the Baskervilles. Directed by Terence Fisher. Cast: Peter Cushing, André Morell, Christopher Lee. Hammer Film Productions, 1959.

The House of the Devil. Directed by Ti West. Cast: Jocelin Donahue, Tom Noonan, Mary Woronov, Greta Gerwig. MPI Media Group, RingTheJing Entertainment, 2009.

House of Frankenstein. Directed by Erle C. Kenton. Cast: Boris Karloff, Lon Chaney Jr., John Carradine. Universal Pictures, 1944.

House on Haunted Hill. Directed by William Castle. Cast: Vincent Price, Carol Ohmart, Richard Long. William Castle Productions, 1959.

The Howling. Directed by Joe Dante. Cast: Dee Wallace, Patrick Macnee, Dennis Dugan.  AVCO Embassy Pictures, International Film Investors, Wescom Productions, 1981.

I Married a Monster from Outer Space. Directed by Gene Fowler Jr. Cast: Tom Tryon, Gloria Talbott, Peter Baldwin. Paramount Pictures, 1958.

Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome. Directed by Kenneth Anger (as Anger). Cast: Samson De Brier, Marjorie Cameron, Renate Druks, Joan Whitney. 1954.

The Incredible Shrinking Man. Directed by Jack Arnold. Cast: Grant Williams, Randy Stuart, April Kent. Universal International Pictures, 1957.

Invaders from Mars. Directed by William Cameron Menzies. Cast: Helena Carter, Arthur Franz, Jimmy Hunt. Edward L. Alperson Productions, 1953.

Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Directed by Don Siegel. Cast: Kevin McCarthy, Dana Wynter, Larry Gates. Allied Artists Pictures, Walter Wanger Productions, 1956.

It Came from Beneath the Sea. Directed by Robert Gordon. Cast: Kenneth Tobey, Faith Domergue, Donald Curtis.  Clover Productions, 1955.

It Came from Outer Space. Directed by Jack Arnold. Cast: Richard Carlson, Barbara Rush, Charles Drake. Universal International Pictures, 1953.

It Conquered the World. Directed by Roger Corman. Cast: Peter Graves, Beverly Garland, Lee Van Cleef. Sunset Productions, 1956.

Jaws. Directed by Steven Spielberg. Cast: Roy Scheider, Robert Shaw, Richard Dreyfuss. Zanuck/Brown Productions, Universal Pictures, 1975.

Live and Let Die. Directed by Guy Hamilton. Cast: Roger Moore, Yaphet Kotto, Jane Seymour. Eon Productions, 1973.

The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring. Directed by Peter Jackson. Cast: Elijah Wood, Ian McKellen, Christopher Lee, Viggo Mortensen, Orlando Bloom. New Line Cinema, WingNut Films, 2001.

The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers. Directed by Peter Jackson. Cast: Elijah Wood, Ian McKellen, Christopher Lee, Viggo Mortensen, Orlando Bloom. New Line Cinema, WingNut Films, 2002.

The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King. Directed by Peter Jackson. Cast: Elijah Wood, Ian McKellen, Viggo Mortensen, Orlando Bloom. New Line Cinema, WingNut Films, 2003.

The Lovely Bones. Directed by Peter Jackson. Cast: Rachel Weisz, Mark Wahlberg, Saoirse Ronan, Stanley Tucci. DreamWorks SKG, 2009.

Mamma Mia! Directed by Phyllida Lloyd. Cast: Meryl Streep, Pierce Brosnan, Amanda Seyfried. Universal Pictures, 2008.

The Man with the Golden Gun. Directed by Guy Hamilton. Cast: Roger Moore, Christopher Lee, Britt Ekland. Eon Productions, 1974.

The Manchurian Candidate. Directed by John Frankenheimer. Cast: Frank Sinatra, Laurence Harvey, Janet Leigh. M.C. Productions, 1962.

The Mask. Directed by Chuck Russell (as Charles Russell). Cast: Jim Carrey, Cameron Diaz, Peter Riegert. New Line Cinema, Dark Horse Entertainment, 1994.

The Masque of the Red Death. Directed by Roger Corman. Cast: Vincent Price, Hazel Court, Jane Asher. Alta Vista Productions, 1964.

The Matrix. Directed by Andy Wachowski and Larry/Lana Wachowski (as the Waschowski Brothers). Cast: Keanu Reeves, Laurence Fishburne, Hugo Weaving, Carrie-Anne Moss. Warner Brothers, 1999.

The Matrix Reloaded. Directed by Andy Wachowski and Larry/Lana Wachowski (as the Waschowski Brothers). Cast: Keanu Reeves, Laurence Fishburne, Hugo Weaving, Carrie-Anne Moss. Warner Brothers, 2003.

The Matrix Revolutions. Directed by Andy Wachowski and Larry/Lana Wachowski (as the Waschowski Brothers). Cast: Keanu Reeves, Laurence Fishburne, Hugo Weaving, Carrie-Anne Moss. Warner Brothers, 2003.

Mommie Dearest. Directed by  Frank Perry. Cast: Faye Dunaway, Diana Scarwid, Steve Forrest. Paramount Pictures, 1981.

Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Directed by Terry Gilliam and Terry Jones. Cast: Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Eric Idle, Michael Palin, Terry Gilliam, Terry Jones. Michael White Productions, National Film Trustee Company, 1975.

Moonraker. Directed by Lewis Gilbert. Cast: Roger Moore, Lois Chiles, Michael Lonsdale. Danjaq, Eon Productions, 1979.

Mulholland Drive. Directed by David Lynch. Cast: Naomi Watts, Laura Harring, Justin Theroux. Les Films Alain Sarde, Asymmetrical Productions, 2001.

Night of the Living Dead. Directed by George A. Romero. Cast: Duane Jones, Judith O’Dea, Karl Hardman. Image Ten, Laurel Group, Market Square Productions, 1968.

9 ½ Weeks. Directed by Adrian Lyne. Cast: Kim Basinger, Mickey Rourke, Margaret Whitton, Christine Baranski. MGM, 1986.

Nine to Five. Directed by Colin Higgins. Cast: Jane Fonda, Lily Tomlin, Dolly Parton, Dabney Coleman. IPC Films, 20th Century Fox, 1980.

The Ninth Gate. Directed by Roman Polanski. Cast: Johnny Depp, Lena Olin, Frank Langella, Emmanuelle Seigner. Araba Films, 1999.

Nosferatu. Directed by F.W. Murnau. Cast: Max Schreck, Greta Schröder, Ruth Landshoff.  Jofa-Atelier Berlin-Johannisthal, 1922.

Now, Voyager. Directed by Irving Rapper. Cast: Bette Davis, Paul Henreid, Claude Rains. Warner Brothers, 1942.

The Omega Man. Directed by Boris Sagal. Cast: Charlton Heston, Anthony Zerbe, Rosalind Cash. Walter Seltzer Productions, 1971.

The Omen. Directed by Richard Donner. Cast: Gregory Peck, Lee Remick, Harvey Stephens. 20th Century Fox, 1976.

Omen III: The Final Conflict. Directed by Graham Baker. Cast: Sam Neill, Lisa Harrow, Rossano Brazzi, Don Gordon. 20th Century Fox, 1981.

On Her Majesty’s Secret Service. Directed by Peter Hunt. Cast: George Lazenby, Diana Rigg, Telly Savalas. Eon Productions, 1969.

Orphan. Directed by Jaume Collet-Serra. Cast: Vera Farmiga, Peter Sarsgaard, Isabelle Fuhrman. Dark Castle Entertainment, 2009.

The Others. Directed by Alejandro Amenábar. Cast: Nicole Kidman, Christopher Eccleston, Fionnula Flanagan. Cruise/Wagner Productions, 2001.

The People Under the Stairs. Directed by Wes Craven. Cast: Brandon Quintin Adams, Everett McGill, Wendy Robie. Alive Films, Universal Pictures, 1991.

Phantasm. Directed by Don Coscarelli. Cast: A. Michael Baldwin, Bill Thornbury, Reggie Bannister, Angus Scrimm. New Breed Productions Inc., 1979.

Plan 9 from Outer Space. Directed by Edward D. Wood, Jr. Cast: Gregory Walcott, Vampira, Tom Keene, Conrad Brooks, Criswell, Tor Johnson, Paul Marco, Mona McKinnon. Reynolds Pictures, 1959.

Planet of the Apes. Directed by Franklin J. Schaffner. Cast: Charlton Heston, Roddy McDowall, Kim Hunter. APJAC Productions, Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation, 1968.

Precious. Directed by Lee Daniels. Cast: Gabourey Sidibe, Mo’Nique, Paula Patton. Lionsgate, Lee Daniels Entertainment, 2009.

Psycho. Directed by Alfred Hitchcock. Cast: Anthony Perkins, Janet Leigh, Vera Miles.  Shamley Productions, 1960.

Pumpkinhead. Directed by Stan Winston. Cast: Lance Henriksen, Jeff East, John D’Aquino. De Laurentiis Entertainment Group (DEG), Lion Films, 1988.

Re-Animator. Directed by Stuart Gordon. Cast: Jeffrey Combs, Bruce Abbott, Barbara Crampton. Empire Pictures, 1985.

The Return of the Living Dead. Directed by Dan O’Bannon. Cast: Clu Gulager, James Karen, Don Calfa. Hemdale Film, Fox Films Ltd., 1985.

The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Directed by Jim Sharman. Cast: Tim Curry, Susan Sarandon, Barry Bostwick. 20th Century Fox, 1975.

Rosemary’s Baby. Directed by Roman Polanski. Cast: Mia Farrow, John Cassavetes, Ruth Gordon. William Castle Productions, 1968.

Salem’s Lot. Directed by Tobe Hooper. Cast: David Soul, James Mason, Lance Kerwin, Bonnie Bedelia. Warner Bros. Television, 1979.

Saturn 3. Directed by Stanley Donen and John Barry (un-credited). Cast: Farrah Fawcett, Kirk Douglas, Harvey Keitel. Incorporated Television Company (ITC), Transcontinental Film Productions, 1980.

Secretary. Directed by  Steven Shainberg. Cast: James Spader, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Jeremy Davies. Slough Pond, TwoPoundBag Productions, 2002.

Se7en. Directed by David Fincher. Cast: Morgan Freeman, Brad Pitt, Kevin Spacey, Gwyneth Paltrow. Cecchi Gori Pictures, New Line Cinema, 1995.

7 Faces of Dr. Lao. Directed by George Pal. Cast: Tony Randall, Barbara Eden, Arthur O’Connell. George Pal Productions, 1964.

The Shadow. Directed by Russell Mulcahy. Cast: Alec Baldwin, John Lone, Penelope Ann Miller. Universal Pictures, 1994.

Sherlock Holmes. Directed by Guy Ritchie. Cast: Robert Downey Jr., Jude Law, Rachel McAdams. Warner Brothers, 2009.

The Shining. Directed by Stanley Kubrick. Cast: Jack Nicholson, Shelley Duvall, Danny Lloyd. Warner Brothers, 1980.

The Silence of the Lambs. Directed by Jonathan Demme. Cast: Jodie Foster, Anthony Hopkins, Scott Glenn. Orion Pictures Corp., 1991.

Single White Female. Directed by Barbet Schroeder. Cast: Bridget Fonda, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Steven Weber. Columbia Pictures, 1992.

Silver Bullet. Directed by Daniel Attias. Cast: Gary Busey, Everett McGill, Corey Haim.  Dino De Laurentiis Company, 1985.

The Sixth Sense. Directed by M. Night Shyamalan. Cast: Bruce Willis, Haley Joel Osment, Toni Collette. Hollywood Pictures, Spyglass Entertainment, 1999.

The Spy Who Loved Me. Directed by Lewis Gilbert. Cast: Roger Moore, Barbara Bach, Curd Jürgens. Danjaq, Eon Productions, 1977.

The Star Chamber. Directed by Peter Hyams. Cast: Michael Douglas, Hal Holbrook, Yaphet Kotto. Frank Yablans Presentations, 20th Century Fox, 1983.

Star Trek: First Contact. Directed by Jonathan Frakes. Cast: Patrick Stewart, Jonathan Frakes, Alice Krige, Brent Spiner. Paramount Pictures, 1996.

Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace. Directed by George Lucas. Cast: Ewan McGregor, Liam Neeson, Natalie Portman. Lucasfilm, 1999.

Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones. Directed by George Lucas. Cast: Hayden Christensen, Natalie Portman, Ewan McGregor. Lucasfilm, 2002.

Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith. Directed by George Lucas. Cast: Hayden Christensen, Natalie Portman, Ewan McGregor. Lucasfilm, 2005.

Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope. Directed by George Lucas. Cast: Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher. Lucasfilm, 20th Century Fox Film Corp., 1977.

Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back. Directed by Irvin Kershner. Cast: Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher. Lucasfilm, 1980.

Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi. Directed by Richard Marquand. Cast: Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher. Lucasfilm, 1983.

The Stepford Wives. Directed by Bryan Forbes. Cast: Katharine Ross, Paula Prentiss, Peter Masterson. Fadsin Cinema Associates, Palomar Pictures, 1975.

Stoker. Directed by Chan-wook Park. Cast: Mia Wasikowska, Nicole Kidman, Matthew Goode. Fox Searchlight Pictures, 2013.

Superman. Directed by Richard Donner. Cast: Christopher Reeve, Margot Kidder, Gene Hackman. Dovemead Films, 1978.

Superman II.  Directed by Richard Lester and Richard Donner (un-credited). Cast: Christopher Reeve, Margot Kidder, Terence Stamp, Gene Hackman. Dovemead Films, 1980.

Tarantula. Directed by Jack Arnold. Cast: John Agar, Mara Corday, Leo G. Carroll.  Universal International Pictures, 1955.

Target Earth. Directed by Sherman A. Rose. Cast: Richard Denning, Kathleen Crowley, Virginia Grey. Abtcon Pictures, Herman Cohen Productions, 1954.

The Terminator. Directed by James Cameron. Cast: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Linda Hamilton, Michael Biehn. Hemdale Film, 1984.

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Directed by Tobe Hooper. Cast: Marilyn Burns, Gunnar Hanson, Edwin Neal, Allen Danziger. Vortex, 1974.

Them! Directed by Gordon Douglas. Cast: James Whitmore, Edmund Gwenn, Joan Weldon. Warner Brothers, 1954.

The Thing. Directed by Christian Nyby and Howard Hawks (un-credited). Cast: Kenneth Tobey, Margaret Sheridan, James Arness. Winchester Pictures Corporation, 1951.

This Island Earth. Directed by Joseph M. Newman. Cast: Jeff Morrow, Faith Domergue, Rex Reason. Universal International Pictures, 1955.

300. Directed by Zack Snyder. Cast: Gerard Butler, Lena Headey, David Wenham. Warner Bros., Legendary Pictures, 2006.

Time Bandits. Directed by Terry Gilliam. Cast: Sean Connery, Shelley Duvall, John Cleese. HandMade Films, 1981.

Trilogy of Terror. Directed by Dan Curtis. Cast: Karen Black, Robert Burton, John Karlen. ABC Circle Films, Dan Curtis Productions, 1975.

True Grit. Directed by Henry Hathaway. Cast: John Wayne, Kim Darby, Glen Campbell. Paramount Pictures, 1969.

The Truman Show. Directed by Peter Weir. Cast: Jim Carrey, Laura Linney, Ed Harris. Paramount Pictures, 1998.

Thunderball. Directed by Terence Young. Cast: Sean Connery, Claudine Auger, Adolfo Celi. Eon Productions, 1965.

12 Monkeys. Directed by Terry Gilliam. Cast: Bruce Willis, Madeleine Stowe, Brad Pitt. Universal Pictures, Atlas Entertainment, 1995.

2001: A Space Odyssey. Directed by Stanley Kubrick. Cast: Keir Dullea, Gary Lockwood, William Sylvester. MGM, 1968.

A View to a Kill. Directed by  John Glen. Cast: Roger Moore, Christopher Walken, Tanya Roberts, Grace Jones. Danjaq, Eon Productions, MGM, 1985.

The War of the Worlds. Directed by Byron Haskin. Cast: Gene Barry, Ann Robinson, Les Tremayne. Paramount Pictures, 1953.

The Warriors. Directed by Walter Hill. Cast: Michael Beck, James Remar, Dorsey Wright. Paramount Pictures, 1979.

Weird Science. Directed by John Hughes. Cast: Anthony Michael Hall, Ilan Mitchell-Smith, Kelly LeBrock. Universal Pictures, 1985.

The Witches of Eastwick. Directed by George Miller. Cast: Jack Nicholson, Cher, Susan Sarandon, Michelle Pfeiffer. Warner Brothers, 1987.

The Wizard of Oz. Directed by Victor Fleming and George Cukor (un-credited). Cast: Judy Garland, Frank Morgan, Ray Bolger, Billie Burke. MGM, 1939.

Wolf. Directed by Mike Nichols. Cast: Jack Nicholson, Michelle Pfeiffer, James Spader, Kate Nelligan. Columbia Pictures Corporation, 1994.

The Wolf Man. Directed by George Waggner. Cast: Claude Rains, Warren William, Ralph Bellamy, Lon Chaney, Jr., Evelyn Ankers. Universal Studios, 1941.

The Wolfman.  Directed by Joe Johnston. Cast: Benicio Del Toro, Anthony Hopkins, Emily Blunt. Universal Pictures, Relativity Media, 2010.

Yellow Submarine. Directed by George Dunning. Cast: The Beatles, Paul Angelis, John Clive.  Apple Corps, King Features Production, 1968.

You Only Live Twice. Directed by Lewis Gilbert. Cast: Sean Connery, Akiko Wakabayashi, Mie Hama, Donald Pleasence. Eon Productions, 1967.

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Index

A New Hope, see Star Wars

Abbey Road, XII

Abif, Hiram, see Freemasonry

Agrippa, Heinrich Cornelius, 81, 83, 110, 157-158,  285

Alchemy, XXXVII, XLI-XLII, 27, 72, 87, 98,

99, 110, 158, 160, 232, 278, 353

Alice in Wonderland, 118, 233, 276-279

Alien, 290-291, 293

The Amazing Colossal Man, 164

The Amazing Criswell, 161-162, 178, 359

An American Werewolf in London, 148, 151

Angel Heart, 325-326

Anger, Kenneth, 308

Animal House, 355

Army of Darkness, 163

Aronofsky, Darren, 297-298, 305, 313

Ars Goetia, 213, 245, 351

Attack of the Clones, see Star Wars

Attack of the Crab Monster, 163

Attack of the 50 Foot Woman, 163

Back to the Future Trilogy, XXXVI, XLV-XLVI,

see Chapter IV, 35-58

Bacon, Sir Francis, see Scientific Revolution

Baphomet, 141-142, see also Goat of Mendes

Batman (Batman Movies), XXVII, 291, 315, 317, 320-324

Baum, L. Frank, see Wizard of Oz

The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms, 164

The Beast Must Die, 151

Beatles, The, XII, XIV,

Being There, VIII, XXVI

Big Trouble in Little China, XLVI, 328-329

The Black Cat, 114

Black Swan, XLVI, 106, 275, 292, 298-313

Black Mass, 115, 144,

Blade Runner, XLVI, 315, 331-339

Blake, William, 338

Blavatsky, H.P., XXVII, XLII, 60, 72-73, 127-129

Bleuler, Eugen, 164

The Blob, 162

Boardwalk Empire, 296-297

The Bride of Frankenstein, 155, 158-159

Bride of the Monster, 163, 347

Bundy, Ted, XXVII, 171

Burnblack, Elizabeth, 362

Cabala, see Kabbalah

Caddyshack, 356

Campbell, Joseph, see Monomyth

Carmichael, Hoagy, 92

Carrie, 296

Carroll, Lewis, 117-119, 234, 276-280

Casino Royale, 79-80, 98, 105

Charles I, 326

A Christmas Story, VIII

Citizen Kane, XII

Clan of the White Lotus, 330

Clinton, William J., 357

A Clockwork Orange, 296

Conan the Barbarian, 324, 326-328

Creature from the Black Lagoon, 164

Criswell, see The Amazing Criswell

Cromwell, Oliver, 326-327, 358

Crowley, Aleister, XIV, XLII, 43, 52, 85-91, 95, 114, 116, 123, 142, 239

Curse of the Werewolf, 151

Cyrus the Great, 167

Dalgren Chapel, 5

Dali, Salvadore, see The Great Masturbator

Damien: Omen II, see The Omen Trilogy

The Dark Knight, see Batman

The Dark Knight Rises, see Batman

The Day the Earth Stood Still, 162-163

The Dead Zone, 296

Dee, John, XXXIX, 6, 81-85, 110, 117-118,

160, 276, 305

del Rio, Martin, 117

Diamonds are Forever, 79, 94, 105-106

Diogenes of Sinope, 318

Donovan’s Brain, 164

Dracula (Dracula Movies), see Vampirism

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, 165

Dr. No, 79, 102-106

Duvalier, François “Papa Doc”, XXVII

Earth vs. the Flying Saucers, 162

Ed Wood, XV, 352

Egyptian Mythology, XXXVIII, XXVII,

XXXIV-XXXVI, 14-15, 21-22, 26, 36-40, 44, 46, 48, 53, 54, 103, 106,129, 231, 238, 241-246, 290, 292, 327, 335, 334

The Empire Strikes Back, see Star Wars

Ennis House, 169-170, 338,

Evers, Medgar, 177

Excalibur, VIII, XLIV, 26, 28, 191

Excalibur (the Sword), 272

Executioners from Shaolin,329-330

The Exorcist, see Chapter I, pages 1-10, 299

Fast Times at Ridgemont High, 356

The Fellowship of the Ring, see Lord of the Rings

Fiend Without a Face, 164

The Fifth Element, 236, 285-289

Fight Club, XLVI, 263, 318-320

Fleming, Ian, 79-112, 123, see also Chapter VI

Fleming, Victor, 60

Flight, 357

The Fly, 164

Forrest Gump, 293, 357

Freemasonry, IX, XX, XXII, XXVII,

XXXVI-XXXVIII, XLI-XLII, 56, 75, 77,

94-95, 231, 231, 234-236, 238, 276, 319, 322, 324

Frankenstein, 119, 139-161, 178, 224, 339

Freud, Sigmund, XVI-XVIII, 164

Friday the 13th, 174, 294

From Russia with Love, 79-80, 97

Gargamel, XIII

Gein, Ed, 171-172

Gematria, XLIII, 7, 84, 96

Ghostbusters, 349-351

The Giant Behemoth,  164

Glen or Glenda, XXXIV, 23, 152, 164, 353

Gnosticism, VIII-IX, XXX-XXXVI, XLI, XLVI, 26, 75, 110, 118, 227, 232, 278, see Chapter XII, 314-345

Goat of Mendes, 61, 62, 147

Godzilla, 164

GoldenEye, 80, 106

The Golden Dawn, 87, 122-123, 128

Goldfinger, 79, 93, 97-102, 105

Golems, 139, 154, 159, 161, 224, 337

Goring, Hermann, 92, 103

The Great Masturbator, 308

Greek Mythology, 20, 74, 97, 99, 191, 247, 348

Halloween (movies and holiday), 173-176

Hand of Glory, 117

Harding, Gerald Lankester, 3

Harrison, George, see The Beatles

Harry Potter, 160, 183, 278, 316-317

Häxan, 149

Heidnik, Gary,

Hellfire Club, 116

Hermes Trismegistus, XLI, 99, 110, 133,

137, 176, 185, 231, 277, 315, 320, 324, 327, 331, 345

Himmler, Heinrich, 194

Hitchcock, Alfred, 172, 295, 298

Hitler, Adolf, XXXVII, 93, 98, 103, 193-194

Hopkins, Matthew, 143

Horus, see Egyptian Mythology

Hound of the Baskervilles, 22-23

The House of the Devil, 165

House of Frankenstein, 151

House on Haunted Hill, 169, 338

The Howling, 151

I Married a Monster from Outer Space, 162

Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome, 308

The Incredible Shrinking Man, 164

Invaders from Mars, 162

Invasion of the Body Snatchers, 162

Isis, see Egyptian Mythology

It Came from Beneath the Sea, 164

It Came from Outer Space, 162

It Conquered the World, 162

James Bond, see Chapter VI, 78-112

Jaws, XII

Jesuits, see Society of Jesus

Johnson, Lyndon, 358

Jung, Carl G., XV, XVI-XVIII,

XXXVI-XXXVII, XLI, 9, 100, 164, 169,

298, 305, 321-322, 361

Kabbalah, XXXVII-XXXIX, 7, 30, 42, 72, 111, 127

King, Martin Luther Jr., 177

Kircher, Athanasius, XXXV, 2, 3, 160

Kubrick, Stanley, 167-168, 171

LaVey, Anton, 351

Led Zeppelin, 88

Lennon, John, 115, see also The Beatles

Lilith, XLIV, 140, 287, 291-292, 303-307, 311-313,

316, 321, 339

Live and Let Die, 79, 106-107

Loki, see Norse Mythology

Lord of the Rings, Chapter X, 264-273

Lovecraft, H.P., 160, 163, 166, 322

The Lovely Bones, 280-284

Lucas, George, 180, 183, 188, 203

Lucifer, XXV-XXVI, XXVII, 88, 97, 104,

168, 246, 292, 305, 308, 325, 338,

Lycanthropy, 137, 140-152

M, see James Bond

Magdalene, Mary, XXV-XXVI, XXXII, 103, 246

Mamma Mia!, 300

The Man with the Golden Gun, 79-80, 93, 105

The Manchurian Candidate, 295

Mani, 138

Manson, Charles, XXVII

Marx, Karl, XIII, 263

The Mask, 355

The Masque of the Red Death, 85, 118

Masturbation, XXXVII, XLVI-XLVII,105, 149,

298-313, 318

The Matrix Trilogy, see Chapter IX, 226-253

McCartney, Paul, see The Beatles

McKinley, William, see Chapter V, 59-77

Melusine, XII

Melville, Herman, XII

Milton, John, 168

Miskatonic University, 160, 322

Moby Dick, see Melville, Herman

Mommie Dearest, 294

Monomyth, XLIII, XLVI, 24, 184-260,

270, 280, 282, 345, 361

Monty Python and the Holy Grail, see

Chapter III, 25-35

Moonraker, 79, 93, 101-102, 106, 108

Mulholland Drive, 298

Nag Hammadi Library, 232

Nemesis, 293-296, 307, 309

Night of the Living Dead, 164, 167

Nihilism, 233

9 ½ Weeks, XXVI, XLVI-XLVII, 275, 297, 300, 307-309

Nine to Five, 347-348

The Ninth Gate, VIII, 61, 115, 166,

224, 291, 323

Nixon, Richard, 358

Norse Mythology, 271-272, 322

Nosferatu, see Vampirism

Now, Voyager, 295

Obama, Barack, 357

The Omega Man, XXXIII, 247-248

The Omen Trilogy, see Chapter II, 11-24

Osiris, see Egyptian Mytholgy

On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, 79, 110, 112

Orphan, 293

The Others, 295

Ouija Boards, 5-6

Page, Jimmy, 88

Papa Smurf, XIII

Paracelsus, XLII, 81, 146, 157-160, 285

Pentagram, 61-62, 146-149, 197, 285, 351-352

The People Under the Stairs, 357

Phantasm, 166

The Phantom Menace, see Star Wars

Pink Floyd, 77

Plan 9 from Outer Space, 161, 347, 352,

354-355, 359

Planet of the Apes, 165

Pleroma, XXX, 197, 206, 232, 319, 329, 334, 340,

345

Poe, Edgar Allan, XXXIX, 84, 114

Polanski, Roman, 13, 114

Precious, 296

Presley, Elvis, XXVII-XXIX

Psycho, 295, 308

Pumpkinhead, 154

Q, see James Bond

Qabalah, see Kabbalah

Reagan, Ronald, 41, 356

Re-Animator, 160

Return of the Jedi, see Star Wars

The Return of the King, see Lord of the Rings

The Return of the Living Dead, 177-178

Revenge of the Sith, see Star Wars

The Rocky Horror Picture Show, VIII

Roosevelt, Theodore, 65, 70

Rosicrucianism, XXX, 118,

Rosemary’s Baby, 13, 114-115

Salem’s Lot, 129

Salem Witch Trials, 117

Samurai, 185

Saturn 3, 236

Scientific Revolution, 152, 156-157, 336

Secretary, 299

Se7en, XX

7 Faces of Dr. Lao, XX

The Shadow, XXXVII

Shaw Brothers, 329

Shelley, Mary, see Frankenstein

Sherlock Holmes, 87

Sherlock Holmes, 22-23, 136

The Shining, 167-170, 333

The Silence of the Lambs, 171

Single White Female, 307

Silver Bullet, 151

The Sixth Sense, 293

Society of Jesus, XLIII, 3-4, 9-10

Sophia, XXXII, XLIV, 76, 95-96, 98, 104, 106, 110, 118, 138, 211, 220, 231-232, 246, 259, 273, 275-276,

278-291, 300, 305, 313, 316, 319, 334, 339-341, 345

The Spy Who Loved Me, 79, 101

Starbuck’s Coffee, XII

The Star Chamber, 358

Star Chamber, 358-359

Starr, Ringo, see The Beatles

Star Trek: First Contact, 294

Star Wars, see Chapter VIII, 179-225

Startling Stories, 354

The Stepford Wives, 165

Superman, 359

Stoker, 299-300

Stoker, Bram, 101, 119-122, 128, 137

Tarantula, 163

Target Earth, 162

Tarot, XVIII, XXXVII, XXXIX-XLI, 42,

52, 84, 87, 95, 105-108, 111, 117-118, 149, 161, 266, 275, 285, 309-313,323-324

The Terminator, VII, 253, 293,

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, 171-172

Them!, 163

Theosophy, see Blavatsky, Madam

The Thing, 162

This Island Earth, 162-163, 352

300, XXIV, XXXIII, 61

Thunderball, 79,

Time Bandits, XXXI, 26

Transvestism, XXXIV, 152, 164, 353

Trilogy of Terror, VII

True Grit, 357

The Truman Show, XLVI, 315, 331-332,

339-345

12 Monkeys, XXXI-XXXII, 356

2001: A Space Odyssey, 171, 175, 315,

The Two Towers, see Lord of the Rings

Valentinus, 319-320

Vampirism, 119-140, 321

Venus, see Lucifer

Vietnam War, 358

A View to a Kill, 106

Voodoo, 105-107

Voynich Manuscript, 160

Wagner, Richard, 261, 271

The War of the Worlds, 162

The Warriors, 167

Weird Science, 160

Welles, Orson, XII

Whale, James, 119, 139, 152, 224, 339

Wheatley, Dennis, 89, 91, 95, 103, 116

Witchcraft, 4, 32, 89-91, 107, 117, 137,

140-150, 316

The Witches of Eastwick, 87, 114

The Wizard of Oz, see Chapter V, 59-77

Wolf, see Lycanthropy

Wolf-Man, see Lycanthropy

Wood, Edward D. Jr., VII, 161, 352, 355, 361

Wright, Frank Lloyd, 169

X, Malcolm, 177

Yellow Submarine, XIV

You Only Live Twice, 79, 105, 110

Zemeckis, Robert, 35

Zoroastrianism, 186

About the Author

Robert W. Sullivan IV is a philosopher, historian, antiquarian, jurist, theologian, writer, and lawyer; Cinema Symbolism: A Guide to Esoteric Imagery in Popular Movies is his second published work. Cinema Symbolism originates as an extension of the final chapter of his first book, The Royal Arch of Enoch: The Impact of Masonic Ritual, Philosophy, and Symbolism (2012).  Mr. Sullivan received his B.A. (History) from Gettysburg College in 1995 having spent his entire junior year studying European history and philosophy at St. Catherine’s College, Oxford University. He received his J.D. from Widener University (Delaware Campus) in 2000.  Mr. Sullivan is a Freemason having joined Amicable-St. John’s Lodge #25, Baltimore Maryland in 1997; he became a 32nd degree Scottish Rite Mason in 1999, Valley of Baltimore, Orient of Maryland.  A lifelong Marylander, he resides in Baltimore.

www.robertwsullivaniv.com

www.twitter.com/RWS4TH

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[1]   Welles, Orson, and Peter Bogdanovich, This is Orson Welles, Page 49.

[2]  Hieronimus, Dr. Robert R., Inside The Yellow Submarine: The Making of The Beatles’ Animated Classic, page 57.

[3] Hill, Douglas and Pat Williams, The Supernatural, pages 25-26.

[4]  Pike, Albert, Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite, pages 58-60.

[5] Olcott, William Tyler, Sun Lore of All Ages, page 35.

[6]  Ibid.

[7]  Ibid, page 36.

[8]  Sullivan, Robert W. IV, The Royal Arch of Enoch: The Impact of Masonic Religion, Philosophy, and Symbolism, pages 94-97.

[9] The word Lucifer is taken from the Latin Vulgate which translates הֵילֵל as Lucifer meaning “light-bringing” or “bearer”.

[10]  Synchronicity is the experience of two or more events as meaningfully related, where they are unlikely to be causally related. The subject sees it as a meaningful coincidence, although the events need not be exactly simultaneous in time. The concept does not question, or compete with, the notion of causality. Instead, it maintains that just as events may be connected by a causal line, they may also be connected by meaning. The concept of synchronicity was first described by Carl Jung in the 1920s.

[11] Hall, Manley Palmer, The Secret Teachings of All Ages, page 57.

[12]  Pike, Albert, Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry, page 375

[13] Cavendish, Richard, The Tarot, pages 64-65.

[14] Ibid, page 65.

[15] Ibid.

[16] Sullivan, Robert W. IV, The Royal Arch of Enoch: The Impact of Masonic Ritual, Philosophy, and Symbolism, pages  9-11.

[17] Cavendish, Richard, The Tarot, page 9.

[18]  Hall, Manly Palmer, The Secret Teachings of All Ages, page 425.

[19] Cavendish, Richard, The Tarot, page 45.

[20] Yates, Frances, Girodano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition, page 150.

[21]  Sullivan, Robert W. IV, The Royal Ach of Enoch: The Impact of Masonic Ritual, Philosophy, and Symbolism, page 545.

[22] Macoy, Robert, A Dictionary of Freemasonry, pages 181-182.

[23] Guiley, Rosemary Ellen, The Encyclopedia of Witches and Witchcraft, page 114.

[24] Hill, Douglas and Pat Williams, The Supernatural, page 64.

[25]  Ibid.

[26] Ibid, page 139.

[27] Ibid.

[28] Pike, Albert, Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry, page 822; see also Chapter XII.

[29] Hill, Christopher, Antichrist in Seventeenth Century England, page 20.

[30] Ibid.

[31] Pike, Albert, Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry, pages 87-88.

[32] Case, Paul Foster, The True and Invisible Rosicrucian Order, page 47.

[33]                  Mackey, Albert, Encyclopedia of Freemasonry, Vol. II,  pages 682-684.

[34] Pike, Albert, Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry, page 455.

[35] Hall, Manly P., The Secret Teachings of All Ages, page 221.

[36] Sullivan, Robert W. IV, The Royal Arch of Enoch: The Impact of Masonic Ritual, Philosophy, and Symbolism, page 543.

[37] The Zodiacs are considered 30 degrees wide and of 30 days in duration. But with Cancer add five or so degrees on either side to get forty degrees or days altogether

[38] Apollo 11 Technical Air-to-Ground Voice Transcription, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, p. 181.

[39] Jesus Christ transforms water into wine which is borrowed from the mysteries of Dionysus and Bacchus who were the gods of wine and able to perform the same miracle; wine is an important component of the Eucharist.  Jesus victoriously rides a donkey which is also lifted from the Dionysian Mysteries.  As part on his solar journey Dionysus rode two donkeys in search of a cure from his madness which is a reference to the stars Asellus Borealis, the northern donkey and Asellus Australis, the southern donkey.  These two stars are part of the constellation Cancer.  Within the Christian Mysterion they would be transformed into an ass and a colt, the foal of an ass at Matthew 21:5 that the sun (as Jesus - the King) rides when God’s sun/son is at its strongest (most northern demarcation) in the sign of Cancer  which is the house that the summer solstice occurs on June 21/22.  See Robert W. Sullivan IV’s The Royal Arch of Enoch: The Impact of Masonic Ritual, Philosophy, and Symbolism, Chapter III.

[40] Hall, Manly P., The Secret Teachings of All Ages, page 591.

[41] Ibid.

[42] Mackey, Albert, Encyclopedia of Freemasonry, Vol. I., page 233.

[43] Sirius is sacred to Isis, but associates itself with Anubis the dog headed god because Sirius is part of the constellation Canis Major or the Great Dog - Anubis within the Egyptian pantheon.

[44] Pike, Albert, Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry, pages 375-377.

[45] Hall, Manly Palmer, The Secret Teachings of All Ages, page 218.

[46] Crowley, Aleister, The Book of Thoth, pages 78-80. This analysis is based upon Crowley’s interpretation of Egyptian Tarot.

[47]  Pike, Albert, Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry, page 634.

[48]  In 1885 Doc Brown and Marty McFly rescue school teacher Clara Clayton (Mary Steenburgen) whose carriage is about go over the precipice into Shonash Ravine causing her death.  This is suppose to happen according to the correct time-line causing the ravine to be renamed “Clayton’s Ravine” in her honor; this is averted when Brown and McFly save her manipulating the space-time continuum.

[49] Cavendish, Richard, The Tarot, pages 83-85.

[50] As McFly turns onto the highway, he passes a sign identifying Peabody’s property as the Twin Pines Farm.

[51] When Lorraine and Marty attend the Enchantment Under the Sea dance towards the film‘s conclusion, Lorraine is surprised to see that Marty is repulsed by her advances causing Lorraine to state “This is all wrong. I don’t know what it is. But when I kiss you, it’s like I’m kissing... my brother. I guess that doesn’t make any sense, does it?”  Baines - qua Isis - is obviously confusing Marty (as Horus) for George as Osiris.

[52]  The chariot - four-wheeled vehicle - is driven by four hayyot (“living creatures”), each of which has four wings and the four faces of a man, lion, ox, and eagle.  The symbols represent the four fixed sign of the Zodiac: Aquarius, Leo, Taurus, and Scorpio that the sun traverses annually. (See The Royal Arch of Enoch by Robert W. Sullivan IV, Esq.

[53] Biff Howard Tannen was born on March  26, 1937.

[54]   Hall, Manly Palmer, Freemasonry of the Ancient Egyptians, pages 63-63.

[55]  Crowley, Aleister, The Book of Thoth, page 254.

[56]  Cavendish, Richard, The Tarot, page 62.

[57] Scottish Rite Southern Jurisdiction.  In the Northern Jurisdiction this degree is known as Knight of the Ninth Arch. Fore more on this degree see Sullivan’s The Royal Arch of Enoch: The Impact of Masonic Ritual, Philosophy, and Symbolism.

[58] The Name of God.

[59] The time is actually 8:20 a.m. Pacific Standard Time (PST) since Brown has set all his clocks to run twenty five minutes slow.

[60]  This line is ranked number 4 in the American Film Institute’s list of the top 100 movie quotations in American cinema.

[61]  Garret Hobart was McKinley’s first Vice President. Hobart died in office on November 21st, 1899.

[62]  In 1899 a great faction fight erupted in the ranks of the Socialist Labor Party pitting a right wing faction against Marxist theoretician Daniel Deleon (1852-1914) and his allies for control of the party apparatus. The SLP Right, pejoratively called “Kangaroos” by their political opponents, fought bitterly for control of the Socialist Labor Party over the issue of dual unionism.

[63] Hearn, Michael Patrick, The Annotated Wizard of Oz: the Wonderful Wizard of Oz, page. 271.

[64] This occurs in the film only and not the book.

[65] Editorial in Lucifer Theosophical Magazine, vol. 9.

[66] de Plancy, Collin, Dictionary of Demonology, page 79.

[67] Hall, Manly P., The Secret Teachings of All Ages, page 127.

[68] Mackey, Albert, Encyclopedia of Freemasonry, Vol. II, page 784.

[69] The Most Distinguished Order of Saint Michael and Saint George is an order of chivalry founded on  April 28th, 1818 by George, Prince Regent, later George IV of the United Kingdom, while he was acting as Prince Regent for his father, George III.  It is named in honor of two military saints: St. Michael and St. George, the latter who famously slays the Dragon.

[70] Royal Navy Volunteer Reserve.

[71] Macintyre, Ben, For Your Eyes Only, page 90.

[72]  In the film version she was played by Daniela Bianchi and voiced by Barbara Jefford.

[73] Chancellor, Henry, James Bond: The Man and His World, page 97.

[74] Ibid, page 96.

[75]  French, Peter, John Dee: The World of an Elizabethan Magus, pages 1-2.

[76] Hancox, Joy, The Byrom Collection and the Globe Theatre Mystery, pages 222-226.

[77] Yates, Frances A., Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition, pages 148-150.

[78] Yates, Frances, The Occult Philosophy in the Elizabethan Age, page 170.

[79] Ibid.

[80] Levi was initiated on March 14, 1861, in the Lodge Rose of Perfect Silence, Grand Orient of France.  The ceremony took place in the presence of a considerable number of brethren.

[81] Crowley’s mother lodge was Anglo Saxon #343, Grand Lodge of France which was founded in 1894 due to a rift with the Grand Orient of France. Anglo Saxon #343 was and still is a regular Blue Lodge, working the three principal degrees of Freemasonry in English, in full accordance with ancient practice and accord with the ancient Landmarks. Its membership then as now is composed chiefly of English and American expatriates living in Paris. Anglo Saxon #343 was at that time under the obedience of the Grand Lodge of France, which was then, the only regular jurisdiction in France. The Grand Lodge of France was never “officially” recognized by the United Grand Lodge of England (U.G.L.E.) the body that charters Masonic lodges. When Crowley was living in New York, the Grand Lodge of New York recognized the Grand Lodge of France, and that Crowley had occasion to visit a number of Blue Lodges, as well as other high grade bodies in the U.S. His membership is attested in an Ark Lodge then active in New York City in this era. In 1947 another Grand Lodge was chartered in France under the instigation and guidance of U.G.L.E. It is called the Grand National Lodge of France. This new French Grand National Lodge was formed to rectify the recognition and regularity problems that existed with the Grand Orient and Grand Lodge of France. In 1958 a committee of Grand Lodges in the U.S. began meeting to study the recognition problem regarding French Grand Lodges. Their report was read in Grand Sessions of U.S. Grand Lodges in 1964. It recommended that the U.S. Grand Lodges that had recognized the two main Grand Lodges in France, de-recognize them and recognize only U.G.L.E.’s surrogate: the Grand National Lodge of France. All U.S. jurisdictions now recognize the Grand National Lodge of France, its dependent bodies including Anglo Saxon #103 (f.k.a Anglo Saxon #343) and thus ipso facto recognize Aleister Crowley’s initiation and membership in Freemasonry.  No longer the subject of debate it is clear that Crowley’s initiation, passing and raising as a Freemason was fully regularized and is technically recognized by Masonic code in every U.S. jurisdictions. Even in Crowley’s time, the vast majority of Freemasons in the U.S. would have considered his initiation regular with the recognition of the Grand Lodge of France, unrecognized until WWI but certainly at no time either clandestine or irregular. Aleister Crowley was for a great part of his life a regular Freemason and his life and work reflect the great lessons taught in Freemasonry. His magick, his work in the Golden Dawn, A:.A:. and O.T.O., including The Book of the Law reflect Masonic ideas and ideals; his work cannot really be fully understood without the context of Freemasonry. See David Richard Jones’ online article titled Aleister Crowley Freemason? Revisited.

[82] Magick, in the context of Aleister Crowley’s Thelema, is a term used to differentiate the occult from stage magic and is defined as the “Science and Art of causing Change to occur in conformity with Will” including both mundane acts of will as well as ritual magic.

[83] Babalon, also known as the Scarlet Woman, Great Mother or Mother of Abominations, is a goddess found in the mystical system of Thelema.  In her most abstract form, she represents the female sexual impulse and the liberated woman; although in the Creed of the Gnostic Mass she is also identified with Mother Earth, in her most fertile sense.  At the same time, Crowley believed that Babalon had an earthly aspect in the form of a spiritual office, which could be filled by actual women - usually as a counterpart to his own identification as To Mega Therion (The Great Beast) - whose duty was then to help manifest the energies of the current Aeon of Horus.

[84] The Goetia is a grimiore that documents rituals , incantations, and sigils necessary to summon demons.

[85] A-Z of Led Zeppelin, Herald Scotland. November 10, 2007.

[86] Spence, Richard, Secret Agent 666: Aleister Crowley, British Intelligence, and The Occult, pages 230, 241-242, 249.

[87] Cited in Encyclopedia of Magic & Superstition, page 247.

[88] Macintyre, Ben, For Your Eyes Only, page 51.

[89] Ibid, pages 68-69.

[90] Chancellor, Henry, James Bond: The Man and His World, page 54.

[91] Macintyre, Ben, For Your Eyes Only, page 50.

[92] Ibid, page 90.

[93] Ibid.

[94] Ibid, page 88.

[95] Ibid, page 90.

[96] The name “Felix” comes from the middle name of Fleming’s friend Ivor Bryce, while the name “Leiter” was the surname of Fleming’s friend Marion Oates Leiter Charles, then wife of Thomas Leiter.

[97] Ian Fleming interview with The New Yorker, 21 April 1962; Geoffrey T. Hellman’s Talk of the Town section.

[98] Hall, Manly Palmer, The Secret Teachings of All Ages, page 308.

[99] Cavendish, Richard, The Tarot, page 72.

[100] Hall, Manly Palmer, The Secret Teachings of All Ages, page 308.

[101] Case, Paul Foster, The True and Invisible Rosicrucian Order, page 41.

[102] Ibid, page 141.

[103] Yates, Frances A., The Rosicrucian Enlightenment, pages 42-44.

[104] Pike, Albert, Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Rite of Freemasonry, pages 821-822.

[105] Ibid, page 291.

[106] Sullivan, Robert W. IV., The Royal Arch of Enoch: The Impact of Masonic Ritual, Philosophy, and Symbolism, pages 438-439.

[107] Yates, Frances, Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition, page 150 citing K. Seligmann’s History of Magic, pages 128-129.

[108] When James Bond speaks of  Goldfinger’s Rolls-Royce as a “Phantom Three Thirty-Seven” he was referring to it by its type and year, a Phantom 3, ‘37 (1937) as there is no Phantom “337” model.

[109] In the novel Auric Goldfinger intends to steal the gold reserve.

[110] Pike, Albert, Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry, page 777.

[111] Solo was created by Fleming as a television version of Bond. He appears as a bit villain in Goldfinger.

[112] The Man from U.N.C.L.E. aired from 1964 to 1969 featuring Robert Vaughn as secret agent Napoleon Solo.  The name “U.N.C.L.E.” stands for United Network Command for Law Enforcement as a quasi MI6/CIA espionage agency.  Solo (along with Russian agent Illya Kuryakin, played by David McCallum) battles THRUSH or Technological Hierarchy for the Removal of Undesirables and the Subjugation of Humanity which parallels SPECTRE. THRUSH is described as having been founded by Colonel Sebastian Moran after the death of Professor James Moriarty at the Reichenbach Falls in the Sherlock Holmes story “The Final Problem”.

[113] Vlad II ( a/k/a Vlad Dracul, d. 1447), Duke of Wallachia, reigned from 1436-1442. Vlad II received the surname Dracul in 1431, after being inducted into the Order of the Dragon, founded in 1408 by the King Sigismund of Hungary (later the Holy Roman Emperor), as part of a design to gain political favor from the Catholic Church and to aid in protecting Wallachia against the Ottoman Empire. His son  Vlad III (1431-1476) was known as Vlad Dracula or “Son of the Dragon” and serves as the historical personage for Bram Stoker’s Dracula.

[114] Sinatra, Mike, Dualism & Its Symbolism Within Freemasonry, Scottish Rite Journal, January-February 2013, page 24.

[115] Pike, Albert, Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry, page 272.

[116] Benson, Raymond, The James Bond Bedside Companion, page 231.

[117] Sullivan, Robert W. IV, The Royal Arch of Enoch: The Impact of Masonic Ritual, Philosophy, and Symbolism, page 157.

[118] Pike, Albert, Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry, page 800.

[119] Hall, Manly P., The Secret Teachings of All Ages, page 537.

[120] Hieronimus, J. Zohara Meyerhoff, Kabbalistic Teachings of the Female Prophets, page 363.

[121] Known as Shekhinah (often associated with the Ark of the Covenant) to Hebrew Kabbalists.

[122] Her name was changed to Dominique “Domino” Derval in 1965’s Thunderball and changed again to Domino Petachi in 1983’s Never Say Never Again which was a remake of Thunderball.

[123] From the film of the same name, Octopussy, 1983. Octopussy was played by Maud Adams.

[124] Founded 1837, Tiffany & Company - known colloquially as Tiffany or Tiffany’s - is a luxury American multinational jewelry and silverware corporation, with headquarters in New York City. Tiffany sells jewelry, sterling silver, china, crystal, stationery, fragrances, personal accessories, as well as some leather goods.

[125]   This theme appears in the film not the novel.

[126] Cavendish, Richard, The Tarot, page 128.

[127] Macintyre, Ben, For Your Eyes Only, page 74.

[128] Griswold, John, Ian Fleming’s James Bond: Annotations and Chronologies for Ian Fleming’s Bond Stories, page 47.

[129] Hieronimus, Robert, Founding Fathers, Secret Societies, page 111, quoted in Ovason, David, Secret Symbols of the Dollar Bill, page 177.

[130]  Pike, Albert, Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry, page 767.

[131] Guiley, Rosemary Ellen, The Encyclopedia of Witches and Witchcraft, page 51.

[132] Masello, Robert, Raising Hell, page 82.

[133] Ibid.

[134] The movie Angel Heart is based on the novel Falling Angel by William Hjortsberg.

[135] Guiley, Rosemary Ellen, The Encyclopedia of Witches and Witchcraft, page 150; see also A.E. Waite’s The Book of Black Magic, page 306.

[136] Waite, Arthur Edward, The Book of Black Magic, page 307.

[137]  McNally, Raymond T. and Radu Florescu, In Search of Dracula: A True History of Dracula and Vampire Legends, pages 9-10.

[138] Basarab III cel Bătrân (“the Old“), also known as Laiotă Basarab or Basarab Laiotă was domnitor of the principality of Wallachia in the 1470s, repeating the achievement of his father Dan II in being elected by the boyars as Prince on five different occasions.

[139] Hill, Douglas and Pat Williams, The Supernatural, page 283.

[140] Common mythology dictates that a seventh son of a seventh son has magical abilities but is not a vampire; see Introduction.

[141] McNally, Raymond T. and Radu Florescu, In Search of Dracula: A True History of Dracula and Vampire Legends, pages 146-150.

[142] Ibid, page 150.

[143] Summers, Montague, The Vampire, page 231.

[144] Frazer, J.G., The Golden Bough, page 388.

[145]  Ibid.

[146] The 1932 Universal Horror film The Mummy starring  Boris Karloff as Ardath Bey parallels Dracula.  Ardath Bey is an alias; Bey is really the undead Egyptian High Priest Imhotep.  The Mummy is essentially a remake of Dracula instead featuring Karloff - Imhotep - who seeks to corrupt Helen Grosvenor (Zita Johann) who is really a reincarnation of  Imhotep’s long lost love Princess Ankh-es-en-Amon.

[147]  Quoted in MacNally, Raymond T. and Radu Florescu In Search of Dracula: A True History of Dracula and Vampire Legends, pages 179-180.

[148] Quoted in McNally, Raymond T., Dracula Was a Woman: In Search of the Blood Countess of Transylvania, pages 12-13.

[149] Ibid, page 129.

[150] Ibid, page 128.

[151]  “Wisdom hath builded her house, she hath hewn out her seven pillars” - Holy Bible, King James version.

[152] Wilson, Eric G., Secret Cinema: Gnostic Vision in Film, page ix.

[153] Ibid.

[154]  Ibid.

[155] Guiley, Rosemary Ellen, The Encyclopedia of Witches and Witchcraft, page 21.

[156] Ibid.

[157] Ibid.

[158] Hall, Manly Palmer, The Secret Teachings of All Ages, page 316.

[159] Ibid.

[160]  Hill, Douglas and Pat Williams, The Supernatural, page 270.

[161]  Ibid, pages 270-274.

[162]  Hall, Manly P., The Secret Teachings of All Ages, pages 326-327.

[163] Russell, Jeffrey Burton, A History of Witchcraft, page 48.

[164] Ibid.

[165] Jackson, Robert, Witchcraft and the Occult. page 25.

[166] Ibid.

[167] Grafton, Anthony, Natural Particulars: Nature and the Disciplines in Renaissance Europe, pages 328-329.

[168]  A fifth column is a group of people who undermine a larger group, such as a nation or a besieged city, from within. The activities of a fifth column can be overt or clandestine.

[169]  Potamides were a type of water nymphs of Greco-Roman mythology. They were assigned as a class of nymphs of fresh water known as naiads, and as such belonged to a category that presided over rivers and streams.

[170]  Krakens are legendary sea monsters of giant proportions said to dwell off the coasts of Norway and Greenland. The legend may have originated from sightings of giant squid that are estimated to grow to 40-50 feet in length, including the tentacles.

[171] Phantasm II, 1988.

[172] For more on The Ninth Gate and its related Symbolism see Chapter XV of The Royal Arch of Enoch: The Impact of Masonic Ritual, Philosophy, and Symbolism by Robert W. Sullivan IV.

[173]  In Steven King’s novel it is Room 217

[174]   Pike, Albert, Morals and Dogma of the Scottish Rite, pages 459-460.

[175] Hieronimus, Robert, The United Symbolism of America, page 95.

[176] Guiley, Rosemary Ellen, The Encyclopedia of Witches and Witchcraft, page 316.

[177] Ibid.

[178]  Stan Laurel (1890-1965) and Oliver Hardy (1892-1957)

[179] William “Bud” Abbott (1895-1974) and Lou Costello (1906-1959).

[180] Dean Martin (1917-1995) and Jerry Lewis.

[181] Freeman Gosden (1899-1982) and Charles Carrell (1890-1972).

[182]  Book jacket, The Hero with a Thousand Faces, see Bibliography.

[183] Campbell, Joseph, The Hero with a Thousand Faces, page 48.

[184] Ibid, pages 57-59.

[185]  Pike, Albert, Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry, page 588.

[186]  Campbell, Joseph, The Hero with a Thousand Faces, page 64.

[187] Campbell, Joseph with Bill Moyers, The Power of Myth, page 159.

[188] Campbell, Joseph, The Hero with a Thousand Faces, pages 74-77.

[189]  Campbell, Joseph with Bill Moyers, The Power of Myth, pages 180-181.

[190]  2 Kings 14:25, Matthew 12:38-41, 16:4; and Luke 11:29-32. See also the Book of Jonah.

[191] Olcott, William Tyler, Sun Lore of All Ages, page 57.

[192]  Ibid.

[193] Ibid.

[194] Campbell, Joseph, The Hero with a Thousand Faces, pages 81- 90.

[195]  Ibid, pages 91-102.

[196]  Guiley, Rosemary Ellen, The Encyclopedia of Witches and Witchcraft, page 102.

[197]  Ibid.

[198] Campbell, The Hero with a Thousand Faces, page 142.

[199] Hall, Manly Palmer, The Secret Teachings of All Ages, page 193.

[200] Ibid, quoted on page 194.

[201]  Campbell, Joseph, The Hero with a Thousand Faces, pages 107-108, 125.

[202] Campbell, Joseph with Bill Moyers, The Power of Myth, pages 178-179.

[203] Campbell, Joseph, The Hero with a Thousand Faces, page 155.

[204] Campbell, Joseph and Bill Moyers, The Power of Myth, pages 216-217.

[205]  See Matthew 24: 3-8.

[206]  The Nag Hammadi library is a collection of Gnostic texts discovered near the Upper Egyptian town of Nag Hammadi in 1945. Twelve leather-bound papyrus codices buried in a sealed jar were found by a local farmer named Mohammed al-Samman. The writings in these codices comprised fifty-two mostly Gnostic treatises, but they also include three works belonging to the Corpus Hermeticum and a partial translation/alteration of Plato’s Republic.

[207] Mackey, Albert, An Encyclopedia of Freemasonry and its Kindred Sciences Vol. II,  pages 493-494.

[208]  Pike, Albert, Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry, page 106.

[209] Ibid, page 839

[210]  Campbell, Joseph, The Hero with a Thousand Faces, pages  196, 204-205

[211] Original airdate: February 2, 1997.

[212]  Pike, Albert, Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry, page 57.

[213]  The Christian concept of hell is more akin to and communicated by the Greek concept of Tartarus, a deep, gloomy part of Hades used as a dungeon of torment and suffering.

[214] The identification of a destructive cult named the Family allegorizes Charles Mason whose murderous cult was known as “The Family”.

[215] Campbell, Joseph, The Hero with a Thousand Faces, page 209.

[216]  The name given to Moria by the dwarves; it means Delving of the Dwarves.

[217]  Cavendish, Richard, The Tarot, page 128.

[218] Campbell, Joseph, The Hero with a Thousand Faces, pages 178-179.

[219]  Yates, Frances, Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition, page 311.

[220]  Freke, Timothy and Peter Gandy, The Jesus Mysteries, page 182.

[221]  Hieronimus, J. Zohara Meyerhoff, Kabblistic Teachings of the Female Prophets, page 139.

[222]  Hall, Manly Palmer, The Secret Teachings of All Ages, page 218.

[223] Case, Paul Foster, The True and Invisible Order Rosicrucian Order, page 140; quoting Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa, Of Occult Philosophy (London, Gregory Moule, 1651), page 252.

[224]  Ibid, quoting Eliphas Levi, The Mysteries of Magic (London: Kegan, Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co., 1897) pages 189-191.

[225] As of the writing of this book,  a remake of Carrie starring Julianne Moore and Chloë Grace Moretz as Margaret and Carrie White respectively.

[226] A helicopter parent is one who pays extremely close attention to a child’s experiences and problems particularly at educational institutions.

[227] It is suggested that Elizabeth’s masturbation session is the result of an expensive gold watch given to her by John (Mickey Rourke) who instructs her to use it to think about him at 12 p.m. She takes this imperative even further by masturbating at her workplace at the designated time. However, on a deeper esoteric level, Elizabeth is clearly aroused by the artwork she is viewing.  Further, the artwork foreshadows and suggests esoteric elements featured in the film. As Elizabeth begins to fondle herself, one will see that it is not twelve o’clock rather the time on her watch is 7:50 a.m. or 7:50 p.m.

[228] See also Solitary Sex: A Cultural History of Masturbation by Thomas W. Laqueur.

[229] Based on the stage musical of the same name, Mamma Mia! debuted in 1999 and has been seen by over 50 million people grossing more than a billion dollars worldwide.

[230]  Lavey, Anton, The Compleat Witch or What to do When Virtue Fails, page 165. Lavey’s  Law of the Forbidden  is the woman’s exploration and revelation of her own sexual fetishisms and desires.  This would include, but not limited to, wearing stiletto heels, stockings, garter belts, revealing bras and shadow makeup. See The Compleat Witch pages 140-144.

[231] It appears that Nina may say the word “Corps” instead of “Court”; either way she is humilating her mother stating that Erica is envious of Nina’s advancement in the ballet company.

[232] Cavendish, Richard, The Tarot, page 107.

[233]  Hall, Manly P., The Secret Teachings of All Ages, page 217.

[234]  Ibid.

[235]  Ibid.

[236]  “And the angel came to me and greeted me with his voice, and said to me “This is the Son of Man who is to righteousness, and righteousness abides over him, and the righteousness of the Head of Days forsakes him not.”

[237] Matthew 3:16-17, Holy Bible, King James version.

[238]  Hall, Manly Palmer, The Secret Teachings of All Ages, page 287.

[239]  The interior of Deckard’s apartment was created at Warner Brothers; Deckard’s arrival at the motor court was actually shot at the Ennis House.

[240]  Wilson, Eric G., Secret Cinema: Gnostic Vision in Film, page 43.

[241] Ibid, page 44.

[242] Ibid.

[243]  Ibid.

[244]  Ibid, page 45.

[245]  Ibid.

[246] Pike, Albert, Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite, pages 429-430.

[247] Hall, Manly P., Lectures on Ancient Philosophy, pages 425-426.

[248] Peter Sellars, Alan Arkin, Roger Moore and Steve Martin have all portrayed the French Inspector.

[249] Devore, Nicholas, Encyclopedia of Astrology, page 366.

[250]  Ibid, page 363

[251]  Ibid, page 371.

[252]  Ibid, page 374.

[253]  Comparatively Pandora’s Box in Greek Mythology.

[254] Baby Boomer: a person who was born during the demographic post World War II baby boom between the years 1946 and 1964, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.  The term “baby boomer” is also used in a cultural context. Therefore, it is impossible to achieve broad consensus of a precise definition, even within a given territory.

[255]  U.S. Const. art. II, sec. 1, pa. 5: No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any Person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States.

[256] Daniel Ellsberg (b. 7 April 7 1931) is a former United States military analyst who, while employed by the RAND Corporation, precipitated a national political controversy in 1971 when he released the Pentagon Papers, a top-secret Pentagon study of U.S. government decision-making in relation to the Vietnam War, to The New York Times and other newspapers.  The plumbers broke into his office in an effort to discredit him.

Table of Contents

Contents

List of Illustrations

Preface

Introduction

Chapter I

Chapter II

Chapter III

Chapter IV

Chapter V

Chapter VI

Chapter VII

Chapter VIII

Chapter IX

Chapter X

Chapter XI

Chapter XII

Chapter XIII

Conclusion

Coming Soon

Filmography

Bibliography

Index

About the Author

Table of Contents

Contents

List of Illustrations

Preface

Introduction

Chapter I

Chapter II

Chapter III

Chapter IV

Chapter V

Chapter VI

Chapter VII

Chapter VIII

Chapter IX

Chapter X

Chapter XI

Chapter XII

Chapter XIII

Conclusion

Coming Soon

Filmography

Bibliography

Index

About the Author