Cloud Atlas (2012) – Esoteric Analysis

October 30, 2012 4 Comments

Film poster. “Everything is Connected.”

The Gospel of Illuminism

By: Jay

Cloud Atlas (2012) was an interesting film on several levels. Fans of both the Wachowskis and Tom Tykwer will quickly recognize the fingerprints of all three, especially philosophical elements of the Matrix trilogy.  From the perspective of moral assessment, there is much in the film that I object to, but artistically speaking, I think it was excellent.  On a deeper, symbolic level, the film also has a wealth of beautiful imagery that alone made it worth watching, while on an even deeper, esoteric level, it is clear as to its meaning: metempsychosis and gnostic deification.  The history of western esoterism has long been obsessed with the notion of reclaiming lost knowledge and technology, all the way back to Plato’s Timaeus, and its legends of Atlantis.

Though I have not read the novel, I can divine its meaning from the film.  While audiences the land over appear to be bewildered, the knotted yarn can easily be untangled.  Early on, we are clued into a reference to Nietzsche’s ”eternal recurrence,”  a shooting star birthmark that recurs in characters over different generations, and a highly significant musical piece being written, known as the “Cloud Atlas.”  In total, six different time periods with a handful of reincarnated persons all interconnect, leading from 1846 to 2346.  The other element that stands out is that each of these periods includes some system of oppression.  The first, 1846, involves slavery and human trafficking, with a good Christian man helping save the life of a good-hearted slave.  In the next, a Cambridge University gay couple battles the system of post-Victorian era “sexual oppression,” which leads to one of the two writing the ”Cloud Atlas” musical piece.

From there, a hot 1970s journalist Halle Berry interacts with one of the gay lovers who has documentation to expose a large nuclear facility that is planning on a false flag event to make nuclear power look bad, for the benefit of big oil.  Next, we are introduced to a publisher in 2012 London who engineers an escape from an old folks’ home, and from there, we move to a dystopian Korean future where a one world government known as “Unanimity” rules with technocratic iron fist.  In this timeline, Sonmi-451 is a genetically engineered clone that works as an acolyte in the religion of the future: Fast Food.  From there, we move to a post-apocalyptic unknown continent that has been destroyed by what appears to be a nuclear disaster or war of some kind, in which the future future Tom Hanks must guide a future future Halle Berry to the location of a Sonmi “temple,” which is actually the technology to go offworld.

Without getting bogged down in the details of the non-linear narrative, and exactly how they connect, the viewer should understand that the story is told in a non-linear fashion to associate the viewer with the idea of eternal return.  The narratives are non-linear like the philosophy: each character is thus reincarnated into different roles and forms, based upon the decisions and roles made in the last life.  Death, as Sonmi-451 (the film’s prophet-philosopher), explains, is just a doorway to the next life.  The decisions you make in this life, determine the birth in the next, she explains.  This is metempsychosis, and the ancient transmigration of souls taught by Plato and the Eastern mystery religions.  The wheel of birth and death can only be transcended by enlightenment and right living, the general philosophy goes, which will lead to the recovery of the lost gnosis, or in this case, and in some of western esoterism, lost technology. Read more of this post

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Blood Meridian as Gnostic Tirade: A Response to Harold Bloom and Leo Daugherty

December 9, 2011 4 Comments

Cormac McCarthy's "Blood Meridian"

  

By: Jay

     Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian is considered by many critics to be one of the best novels of the last century, ranked by many with Moby Dick and Absalom! Absalom!, while some have called McCarthy the heir apparent to William Faulkner and Flannery O’Connor.  Blood Meridian is certainly not your average book, and as such, many find it difficult and inaccessible.  As Harold Bloom notes, it is a modern great, and in may respects resembles Homer or Dante.   However, Blood Meridian is also more than a novel: it is a statement about many things, the most crucial of which is McCarthy’s gnostic tirade against life as it is.

     Critic Leo Daugherty’s thesis is thus only partially correct: that the novel is a “gnostic tragedy,” and this is precisely what endows the novel with its elevated style and inaccessibility.  Daugherty’s thesis is too weak: to those steeped in the theological discourse of the early patristic period, including the polemical tracts of the early fathers such as Irenaeus of Lyon, it is quite clear that Blood Meridian is brimming with gnostic themes and ideas on virtually every page, and is fact is a gnostic polemical tirade.  Daugherty is correct about it being gnostic. However, there are many elements he misses and misinterprets.  My purpose is to respond to his statements, as well to Bloom’s claim that it is incorrect to see the Judge as a gnostic figure or archon, but rather that he should be cast as more of an enigma. Bloom claims:

     The citations and references to the work of Jacob Böhme, who is, after all, a very specific type of Kabbalistic Gnostic… I think you would have to say that they’re something of an evasion of the themes in Blood Meridian. McCarthy knows exactly what Gnosticism is, and he could have made Judge Holden into an explicitly Gnostic figure if he’d wanted to. He wants to keep Judge Holden completely inexplicable. Saying that he is a sort of Gnostic demiurge is too facile for McCarthy’s portrayal of him.[1] Read more of this post

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Tron Legacy: Esoteric Analysis

January 9, 2011 11 Comments

Notice the pyramidal structure of the black on bottom and top, from which light emanates. This symbolizes the gnostic version of as above, so below - dualism. Its "Just a Game" because its an illusory world.

By: Jay

I hate to always harp on gnosticism, but it’s undeniably the recurrent theme of most sci fi and fantasy/cult films. Gnosticism is the ancient perennial tradition that descends from Egypt and (possibly) older civilizations. In its modern form, it comes to us from the Nag Hammadi documents recently discovered, whose tradition was passed down in the secret societies and occult orders, of which Freemasonry is a good example. I am not saying that Freemasonry is actually a lineage from Egypt, but that there is a similarity of doctrine that has come down through the ages. 

By the first century, the gnostic traditions flourished, rivalling and challenging other sects, becoming a force of its own. To put it simply, gnosticism posits that the present creation is a subordinate, evil one, wherein evil is given a substantial existence as the created order itself. Religions such as Manichaeanism are perfect examples of this trend, where a dualism is sometimes posited between a “good” God who is far away and unknown, identified with thought or light, and an evil deity or demiurge, identified as the Creator of this world. In the time of the rise of Christianity in the first three centuries of the Church, the gnostics were the chief opponents of the God presented in the Law and prophets of the Israelites, and charged God with Himself being evil.  Texts such as the Hypostasis of the Archons and The Gospel of Thomas are prime examples.

The gnostics instead proffered that “Jesus” was thus a revolutionary reformer who tossed away all traditional concepts of Jewish theology, and brought in the new gnosis, or knowledge – the Gospel of salvation through enlightenment. It is to such patristic commentators like Irenaeus of Lyon and Tertullian of Carthage that we get an indepth glimpse into 2nd century gnosticism, from figures like Marcion.  But gnosticism is not just a reaction against the God of the Bible, it also shares many commonalities with ancient eastern religions like Hinduism and Buddhism, and thus exemplifies syncretism.  Themes such as pantheism and/or dualism, many gradations of archons, or gods or avatars that rule this kosmos, etc., all recur in gnosticism. In this regard, gnosticism is in many ways the inheritor of the ancient pagan religions, and particularly Egypt.  So with that said, we can now analyze the kind of symbolic scheme that is put forth as an image of our world as presented in Tron Legacy.  

Daft Punk, who did the soundtrack and appears in the film, performs here atop the pyramid.

Central to gnosticism is the theme of redemption or salvation from this world through special knowledge, which constitutes the “gnosis.” Generally, this is knowledge that has been lost, and must be recovered, often symbolized in literature or film by some magical object or memory, etc. In Tron, Flynn’s (Jeff Bridges) son, Sam, must “save” his father from the “grid,” or matrix, where he has become enslaved, having more or less forgotten his family in the real world. Sam, of course brings to mind “Sammael,” another name for Satan in the biblical tradition, and this makes sense, given that Tron presents Sam Flynn as the savior of the feminine archetype, “Quorra.”  This also mirrors gnostic themes, where the feminine principle, the Pistis Sophia is one of the archons of gnostic salvation.  Wikimedia notes of Quorra:

Quorra, the Pistis Sophia, revealer of mysteries and the psyche of the (cpu) world

“Prior to the conflict between the Basics and ISOs, Quorra was friends with Radia. She witnessed Clu’s betrayal when he attempted to kill Tron and Flynn, and when Clu declared war, she – with the help of a prototype security program named System Monitor – attempted to warn Radia and the ISO’s about him as well as combat the viral program Abraxas.” Read more of this post

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Dark City (1998) – Esoteric Analysis

October 12, 2010 4 Comments

Director's Cut Poster Showing the Head "Stranger" or Architect

By: Jay

I hate to harp on the same old thing, but the same old thing always manifests in films, and deserves to be harped on. Often what is considered to groundbreaking and avant garde is really just the same old gnostic themes repackaged with different dressing. It seems that there is actually a lack of creativity when it comes to matters Hollywood. The Knowing was also reviewed here, an Alex Proyas film, but Dark City deserved a review as well, in my estimation, since it is particularly interesting in this regard.

Dark City presents a dream world, wherein a group of alien-like archons or angelic rulers/daemons known as the “Strangers” control manufactured city by “tuning” it every night, meaning the city is re-created and it’s rat-like inhabitants are implanted with new memories. They are able to conform physical reality by will alone (“tuning”), and one of their subjects, John Murdoch, eventually attains this ability. Immediately, we realize the basic theory of “magick” at work, which is the act of conforming reality to your will. However, the Strangers do it by telekenesis, and eventually so does John Murdoch.

“Dark City,” we discover, has perpetually been in a state of darkness – it is always night, and no one can recall when it was daytime. So we have the gnostic theme of demiurge(s) who have trapped a world in base darkness, where they lack their true godpowers.  We see in the beginning a movie theater where films are playing named ‘The Evil” and “Nightmare,” cluing us into the fact that we are watching a movie that is essentially a nightmare. We see a hotel in which John Murdoch, the protagonist awakes nude in a bathtub, apparently being framed for a murder. However, this night is different, as it is Murdoch’s “awakening,” and from this point on, as he is chased by certain “Strangers,” Murdoch is able to “tune,” but this power is not yet under his control.

A cop is put on his case, Detective Bumstead, who picks up where a former cop had been working who went mad. His madness turned out to be a form of intense paranoia linked to a realization that all their reality was an illusion, and that they were the experiment of gnostic daemons.  John decides he must find out about his origins, since he cannot recall his past, either. For him, this is a quest to find Shell Beach, where he grew up. The entire city is a circular spiral, it turns out, and Murdoch discovers Shell Beach did not exist, and that Dr. Schreber had been aiding the Strangers in implanting fake memories in people. Rather than interpreting this as some form of “Illuminati MKULTRA mind control programming,” which most “conspiracy” writers would do, what makes more sense is a cabalistic or Platonic notion of metempyschosis or transmigration of souls, wherein we must “remember” the state of deity from which we have come. Murdoch, Dr. Schreber tells him, has evolved to the point where  he can tune reality at will.  The reality in which they exist is like The Matrix, and is a giant machine that can be manipulated by telekenetic will. Similarities with the Matrix Trilogy will be apparent here. Read more of this post

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Angels and Demons: Or, How the gods Are Real

April 6, 2010 1 Comment

By: Jay Dyer

A couple years ago I wrote a note about the reality of the spiritual realm and that it was far more diverse than we tend to assume in modern western Christianity. Judaism and Eastern Christianity, in their mystical traditions, share an understanding of this diversity. What is often ascribed to superstition is simply what others have overlooked. Not always, of course, but frequently this is so. I’m not going to argue for the inspiration or inerrancy of the texts – I am assuming that to be the case. Instead, I’m going to make a case for some deeper issues that are rarely, if ever, mentioned.

To begin with, I think the only sensible and honest view of the text in Genesis 6 is that there is a real interchange between the bene Elohim, the sons of God, and the daughters of men. The traditional Augustinian idea of the ‘godly line of Seth’ is the least coherent and most textually odd. Nowhere in the OT is bene Elohim used of men and there is no reason to assume ‘giants’ means anything other than giants. Further, later books like Deut., Numbers (13:33) and Joshua (12:4, 17:15) make it clear that descendants of these half-breeds continue somehow even after the flood. We are told in Deut. 3:18 that Og king of Bashan’s bed was the equivalent of about 20 feet. Goliath is said to be a descendant of these giants, too. Thus, the Rephiam and Nephilim somehow continued to be ‘produced’ even after the flood. It’s more likely that the angel/god/entities were able to continue to do this somehow after the flood than that half-breeds somehow survived the flood. Further, this matches up perfectly with the ancient myths of the Titans. Read more of this post

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