One of the greatest things about this set, at least for a geek like me, was the little mini-posters that came with the tapes. They were tiny little things, about 3.5"x5", just pieces of cardboard really, but I loved them. I still do. These posters already have some big syncs attached to them, some of which I've written about on HappyCreatures.
In the writing I did for Happy Creatures, I touched on the similar themes of the three posters nearest to my grandfather's WTC hardhat. I never really thought much about them again in terms of sync data. They were just cute little mementos that brought me joy.
Fastforward.
We're currently in the middle of a Kubrick sync storm, with everybody and their mother finding new clues and digging back into all the great works.
Jay Weidner calls him CubeBrick. The name play seems to evoke Legos, where one cube fits on top of another brick. There is an implied stackability.
Bill Klaus, one of the two recent additions to the Mask of God, has played with this idea as well--creating a fascinating work well worth checking out, called the Kubrick Transformer, where he has overlayed 2001 with the Shining.
Perhaps all of these influences twisted my mind in such a way that, while looking at my old Kubrick mini-posters the other day, I happened to see a strange correlation. **I should point out that I purchased every VHS released in that set, but only 8 of them came with mini-posters.**
1) 2001 & Paths of Glory
I noticed that the ship leaving the spacestation seemed to align with the explosion behind Kirk Douglas. A simple photoshop overlay reveals the alignment to be spot on.
The ship as shekinah "bombshell" - looking almost like a dive-bombing Dove. . . . The fall of cosmic consciousness, the fall from heaven, "exploding into the no-man's land"?
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| The falling flash and the Paths of Glory |
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| HAL: "This mission is too important for me to allow you to jeopardize it." |
2) Barry Lyndon & Clockwork Orange
One poster shows the lower half of a man and his left hand, the other shows the top half of a man and his right hand. The shapes also stack together well.
There are numerous obvious correlations between the rise and fall of both Barry and Alex that spring to mind, but I'd like to dig deeper.
3) Lolita & Full Metal Jacket
We see Lolita's forehead and hat have been washed out to make room for the text. The Full Metal Jacket poster has a helmet but no head. Let's put them together...
Note the oral sex innuendo with "Blow" and "Sucks" as well as the lollypop.
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| (33) "Me sucky sucky. Me love you too much." (33) |
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| Lolita between the pillars (The Mason and the Third Degree) |
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| Born to Kill |
Beardsley, Aubrey (Vincent): [Lolita] The name of Humbert and Lolita's college town serves as Nabokov's tribute to Vincent Beardsley (1872-1898), the English illustrator of the late Victorian era. After Oscar Wilde, he was the major figure in the Aestheticism movement. Over the course of his lifetime he provided artwork for such pieces as Wilde's Salome, and Malory's Morte d'Arthur . . . (Nabokov A-Z)
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| (The Secret Sun) |
"Semiramis, that ancient queen who was the first person to castrate male youths of tender age . . ."
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| . . . on a platter |
4) Dr. Strangelove & The Shining
Doctor Strangelove and Danny Torrance as "Doc"
I'll admit that I wouldn't have put these two together so quickly, but they were the last two posters left and I figured there was something less obvious. The first thing that sprang to mind was the highlighted "T" shape on both posters.
But something a bit more involved happens when you combine the name "Stephen King" with the red phones of "the hot-line suspense comedy". I believe an old Sync Whole post connected the red phone of Strangelove with the red phone of the StephenKing/RichardBachman parallel novels.
The Regulators is a novel by Stephen King under the pseudonym Richard Bachman. It was published in 1996 at the same time as its "mirror" novel, Desperation. The two novels represent parallel universes relative to one another, and most of the characters present in one novel's world also exist in the other novel's reality, albeit in different circumstances. Additionally, the hardcover first editions of each novel, if set side by side, make a complete painting, and on the back of each cover is also a peek at the opposite's cover.
Here I note further entanglement because the red phone on The Regulators cover also has a cowboy hat, echoing one of the most iconic scenes of Strangelove.
In Regulators/Desperation, the red phone connects the two parallel universes and at one point a call is made from one book to the other. In Strangelove, the red phones are connecting the two parallel superpowers.
With the mini-posters, we are connecting Strangelove and the Shining, not just Stephen King. However, it is important to note that The Regulators is about an autistic boy who has access to telepathy and shaping his reality and who is in communication with spirits. Again, that's Regulators we're talking about. I know it sounds like the Shining but... Oh hell, let's just see what King has to say about his red phone...
From The Regulators:
Enough light seeps through the cracks in the door to see what’s on it-not a Hummel shepherd or milkmaid but a red PlaySkool telephone. . . .He glances toward the PlaySkool phone-what Aunt Audrey calls the Tak-phone-longingly for a moment, but of course he doesn’t need a telephone, not really; it was always just a symbol, something concrete to help the telepathy flow more easily between them, as the switches and telltales are simply tools to help him concentrate his will.
From The Shining:
"Do you know how l knew your name was Doc? You know what l'm talking about, don't you? l can remember when l was a little boy my grandmother and l could hold conversations entirely without ever opening our mouths. She called it "shining." And for a long time l thought it was just the two of us that had "the shine" to us. Like you probably thought you was the only one. But there are other folks though mostly they don't know it, or don't believe it."
"Tony, do you think Dad'll get the job?"
"He already did. He's going to phone Wendy up in a few minutes to tell her."
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| More awesome Shining/ToyStory images from Kyle Lambert |
There's another tangent waiting here. In The Regulators, the kid with the psychic abilities manifesting themselves accidentally brings his favorite tv show and his toys to life, and it's these monsters from the id that start to kill everyone in his town. Of course, the tv show made real is a theme at the heart of the 2001 moviescreen stargate and much has been written on the subject, but the idea of toys made real hints at a connection between the Shining and ToyStory3 that I only learned of last week when David told me.
Other references in ToyStory1:
The Doors final album while Morrison was alive was titled 13;
This is what it looks like playing over The Shining if it is started after Pink Floyd's Wish You Were Here and then The Doors An American Prayer
The Shekinah ×©×›×™× ×” was made into the Whore of Babylon in her exile; all rests and depends on the 13th square and all derives it's energy from Her.
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| Dictionary of Christian Biography |
'While in collaboration, Fusari compared some of her vocal harmonies to those of Freddie Mercury, lead singer of Queen. It was Fusari who helped create the moniker Gaga after the Queen song "Radio Ga Ga". Gaga was in the process of trying to come up with a stage name when she received a text message from Fusari that read "Lady Gaga." He explained, "Every day, when Stef came to the studio, instead of saying hello, I would start singing 'Radio Ga Ga'. That was her entrance song" and that the text message was the result of a predictive text glitch that changed "radio" to "lady". She texted back, "That's it," and declared, "Don't ever call me Stefani again." -wiki.... The video for Radio Gaga contains imagery from the silent film Metropolis. A film centering around the 'Whore of Babylon', thus GAGA=BABYlon=Our LADY=the Scarlet Whore that rides upon the Beast of the Apocalypse.
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| The Beast |
"The Whore"
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| Real Whoreshow |
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| Lolita Ga Ga |
(Sue LYON / Bab YLON)
“In his essay on the uncanny, Das Unheimliche
http://www-rohan.sdsu.edu/~amtower/uncanny.html, Freud said that the uncanny is the only feeling which is more powerfully experienced in art than in life. If the genre required any justification, I should think this alone would serve as its credentials.” – Stanley Kubrick
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| Dolly Haze |
'When we proceed to review things, persons, impressions, events and situations which are able to arouse in us a feeling of the uncanny in a particularly forcible and definite form, the first requirement is obviously to select a suitable example to start on. Jentsch has taken as a very good instance ‘doubts whether an apparently animate being is really alive; or conversely, whether a lifeless object might not be in fact animate’; and he refers in this connection to the impression made by waxwork figures, ingeniously constructed dolls and automata. To these he adds the uncanny effect of epileptic fits, and of manifestations of insanity, because these excite in the spectator the impression of automatic, mechanical processes at work behind the ’ordinary appearance of mental activity.'
'I will relate an instance taken from psycho-analytic experience; if it does not rest upon mere coincidence, it furnishes a beautiful confirmation of our theory of the uncanny. It often happens that neurotic men declare that they feel there is something uncanny about the female genital organs. This unheimlich place, however, is the entrance to the former Heim [home] of all human beings, to the place where each one of us lived once upon a time and in the beginning. there is a joking saying that ‘Love is home-sickness’; and whenever a man dreams of a place or a country and says to himself, while he is still dreaming: ‘this place is familiar to me, I’ve been here before’, we may interpret the place as being his mother’s genitals or her body. In this case too, then, the unheimlich is what was once heimisch, familiar; the prefix ‘un’ [‘un-’] is the token of repression'.
'Apparent death and the re-animation of the dead have been represented as most uncanny themes. But things of this sort too are very common in fairy stories. Who would be so bold as to call it uncanny, for instance, when Snow-White opens her eyes once more? And the resuscitation of the dead in accounts of miracles, as in the New Testament, elicits feelings quite unrelated to the uncanny. Then, too, the theme that achieves such an indubitably uncanny effect, the unintended recurrence of the same thing, serves other and quite different purposes in another class of cases. We have already come across one example [p 237] in which it is employed to call up a feeling of the comic; and we could multiply instances of this kind. Or again, it works as a means of emphasis, and so on. And once more: what is the origin of the uncanny effect of silence, darkness and solitude?'
'The joyful necessity of the dream-experience has been embodied by the Greeks in their Apollo: for Apollo, the god of all plastic energies, is at the same time the soothsaying god. He, who (as the etymology of the name indicates)is the "Shining One," the deity of light, is also ruler over the fair appearance of the inner world of fantasy.' -Nietzche, from the Birth of Tragedy
'This is Major Tom to Ground Control'
'There's a Snake in my boot'
"The Shekhinah dwells over the headside of the sick man's bed" Talmud Shabbat 12b
In Poltergeist, when the spirits first enter the home from the television the time is clearly shown to be 2:37
SPIRITS
'There is one more point of general application which I should like to add, though, strictly speaking, it has been included in what has already been said about animism and modes of working of the mental apparatus that have been surmounted; for I think it deserves special emphasis. This is that an uncanny effect is often and easily produced when the distinction between imagination and reality is effaced, as when something that we have hitherto regarded as imaginary appears before us in reality, or when a symbol takes over the full functions of the thing it symbolizes, and so on. It is this factor which contributes not a little to the uncanny effect attaching to magical practices. The infantile element in this, which also dominates the minds of neurotics, is the over-accentuation of psychical reality in comparison with material reality — a feature closely allied to the belief in the omnipotence of thoughts.'
'Over coffee (and a coffee urn that moves by itself), the parapsychologists explain to the Freelings the difference between a poltergeist and a haunting. They determine that indeed, it is a poltergeist they are experiencing.
It turns out that the spirits have left this life but have not gone into the "Light." They are stuck in between dimensions, watching their loved ones grow up, but feeling alone. Carol Anne—born in the house and only 5 years old—gives off her own life force that is as bright as the Light. It distracts and confuses the spirits, who think Carol Anne is their salvation. Hence, they take her. (A different explanation was given in the second film).
What is also in the other dimension is a malevolent spirit, what the parapsychologists call "The Beast". It likes that the spirits are confused and lost, and uses Carol Anne as a distraction so they cannot move on into the Light. After witnessing a paranormal episode where they hear Carol Anne talking to Diane through the TV, see spirits, and hear the pounding footsteps of the spirit, the parapsychologists leave, admitting they need more help. When they return, they bring a spiritual medium, Tangina Barrons (Zelda Rubinstein), who informs Diane that her daughter is "alive and in this house." She also explains the malevolent spirit in the house to Diane, saying "it lies to her and tells her things only a child can understand. To her, it simply is another child. To us, it is the BEAST."
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| "I saw a woman sit upon a scarlet coloured beast, full of names of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns . . ." |
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| ". . . having a golden cup in her hand full of abominations . . ." |
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| "For as thy blood is mingled in the cup of BABALON, so is thine heart the universal heart." |
Man isn't a noble savage, he's an ignoble savage. He is irrational, brutal, weak, silly, unable to be objective about anything where his own interests are involved—that about sums it up. I'm interested in the brutal and violent nature of man because it's a true picture of him. (Stanley Kubrick)
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| The Three Degrees of Freemasonry |
(Pillars of Severity)
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| (Jerold J. Abrams, The Philosophy of Stanley Kubrick) |
'The theme of the ‘double’ has been very thoroughly treated by Otto Rank (1914). He has gone into the connections which the ‘double’ has with reflections in mirrors, with shadows, with guardian spirits, with the belief in the soul and with the fear of death; but he also lets in a flood of light on the surprising evolution of the idea. For the ‘double’ was originally an insurance against the destruction of the ego, an ‘energetic denial of the power of death’, as Rank says; and probably the ‘immortal’ soul was the first ‘double’ of the body. This invention of doubling as a preservation against extinction has its counterpart in the language of dreams, which is found of representing castration by a doubling or multiplication of a genital symbol. The same desire led the Ancient Egyptians to develop the art of making images of the dead in lasting materials. Such ideas, however, have sprung from the soil of unbounded self-love, from the primary narcissism which dominates the mind of the child and of primitive man. But when this stage has been surmounted, the ‘double’ reverses its aspect. From having been an assurance of immortality, it becomes the uncanny harbinger of death.'
http://kdk12.tumblr.com/post/11287238775/does-the-carpet-match-the-currans
(The lost girls)
(Persephone)
(De raptu Proserpinae: The driftwood sculpture is seen being abducted to the underworld below the cornfield.)
(Persephone is the Monomyth. It's always about her.)
http://kdk12.tumblr.com/post/11287238775/does-the-carpet-match-the-currans
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| The Rue Morgue |
"I pressed her thigh and Death smiled" -Jim Morrison
(The lost girls)
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| Jacob's Ladder |
(Persephone)
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| (KDK12) |
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| "The small aliens in the film were played by local girls aged between 8 and 12 years old." |
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| The Middle Pillar . . . |
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| . . . is a piece of driftwood, sitting on a horizontal Monolith in the middle of the room |
(De raptu Proserpinae: The driftwood sculpture is seen being abducted to the underworld below the cornfield.)
(Persephone is the Monomyth. It's always about her.)
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| Ruby slippers |
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| "And the Lord God called unto Adam, and said unto him, Where art thou?" |
Is the MURDER written on the door in red lipstick there to shame Jack for ‘killing’ potential children in the act of self-gratification? Think of the spilling of egg-based cocktail advocaat and what happens in the Gold Room bathroom — Jack’s lusty reactions to being wiped off by Grady. Think of Jack reading Playgirl magazine on his first day of work. Think of Jack’s ultra-repetitive novel — “All work and no play make Jack a dull boy.” He is so furious at Wendy for interrupting his writing … but is ashamed of it and hides it from her. (KDK12)
. . .
I hand him a letter written by a fan and addressed to Arthur C Clarke. He forwarded it on to Kubrick and wrote on the top, "Stanley. See P3!! Arthur."And yes, Mr. Sam Laks did figure it out.
Jan turns to page 3, where Clarke had marked, with exclamation marks, the following paragraph:
"What is the meaning behind the epidemic? Does the pink furniture reveal anything about the 3rd monolith and it's emitting a pink colour when it first approaches the ship? Does this have anything to do with a shy expression? Does the alcohol offered by the Russians have anything to do with French kissing and saliva?"
"Why do you think Arthur C Clarke marked that particular paragraph for Kubrick to read?" I ask Jan. . . .
In the back of my mind, I wondered whether this paragraph was marked because the writer of the fan letter - Mr Sam Laks of Alhambra, California - had actually worked out the secret of the monolith in 2001. (Jon Ronson, "Citizen Kubrick")
(Major Kong the Beast rides the Whore of the Nuclear Apocalypse)
The fact that the all-American blonde Lolita is the Shekinah bomb ("Shock and Awe") and Russia (the Collectivist Consciousness) is the brunette Miss Foreign Affairs again hints at the Betty and Veronica duality explored in a recent MoG post . . .
Betty the Blonde Bombshell always wears patriotic clothes; the quintessential All-American Girl Next Door. Veronica is a Natasha Fatale, the Dark Mother Russia, land of enchantment and Initiation. Cheryl Blossom is the elusive Middle Pillar.
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| Veronica demands sacrifice |
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| Dr. Har. Ford vs. the Russian Monolith |
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| "She's rich." |
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| Into the black |
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| Encountering the Collectivist Unconscious |
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| Throwing darts in lovers' eyes |
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| EXIT |
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| The way home |
And for this is BABALON under the power of the Magician, that she hath submitted herself unto the work; and she guardeth the Abyss. And in her is a perfect purity of that which is above; yet she is sent as the Redeemer to them that are below. For there is no other way into the Supernal Mystery but through her, and the Beast on which she rideth . . . (The Cry of the 3rd Aethyr)
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| "In fair Verona, where we lay our scene . . ." |
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| The Gold Room |
Note the hexagram behind Ripper: Tiphareth is the 6th sephiroth on the Tree of Life--a 6-pointed star.
The next sphere reached by the aspirant is named Beauty, numbered 6, and referred to the heart, to the Sun, and to Gold. Here he is called an "Adept". The secret Truth in this place is that God is Man, symbolized by the Hexagram, (in which two triangles are interlaced).
In the last sphere he learnt that his Body was the Temple of the Rosy Cross, that is, that it was given him as a place wherein to perform the Magical Work of uniting the oppositions in his Nature. Here he is taught that his Heart is the Centre of Light. It is not dark, mysterious, hollow, obscure even to himself, but his soul is to dwell there, radiating Light on the six spheres which surround it; these represent the various powers of his mind. This Book now appears to him as Gold; it is the perfect metal, the symbol of the Sun itself. He sees God everywhere therein.
To this sphere hath the aspirant come by the Path called Temperance, shot as an arrow from a Rainbow. He hath beheld the Light, but only in division. Nor had he won to this sphere except by Temperance, under which name we mask the art of pouring freely forth the whole of our Life, to the last spilth of our blood, yet losing never the least drop thereof. (Crowley)
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| (Jeffrey Scott Bernstein) |
We see from Room 237 that it is indeed "dark, mysterious, hollow, obscure even to himself," for the Mystery there apprehended is the sacrificial death of a Goddess.
The Overlook was built on her grave. Jack's (Osiris') soul is in disarray; the girl has been chopped into pieces.
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| Mal? |
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| (KDK12) |
But observe the similar scene in A Clockwork Orange where Alex encounters the Writer--the emblem over on the right side of the image clearly shows that this action takes place, as Joseph Campbell would always say, "within the darkness of the deepest chamber of the heart."
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| (Jerold J. Abrams, The Philosophy of Stanley Kubrick) |
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| The Flim-Flam Man as the Great Deceiver |
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| The Beast / Babalon |
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| Lolita dwells in the light; Quilty the Magician stands on the other side of the Veil with the movie camera |
Clare Quilty in Lolita is the play writer; i.e. the hidden force behind the Monomyth. In order to extract himself from the movie in which he is trapped (Kubrick's film), Humbert must kill Quilty. Quilty has written the Hunted Enchanters play; as the maker of illusions, the Hollywood Hierophant, the subject of the play is Humbert himself, the "rearsome bucky goat" whose horns are removed by the nymphet. Humbert at this point does not understand the Truth encoded in the narrative, perceiving only the Shadows on the Wall of Plato's Cave. Not only does Quilty resemble Kubrick, but his speech patterns are modeled on Kubrick's.
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| Crucified between two thieves |
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| (Jerold J. Abrams, The Philosophy of Stanley Kubrick) |
The light at the top of the screen is the Eye of the Pyramid--and the projector. Quilty, the movie director and master of Fate, has demonstrated his power over Humbert and cheated him of his "redemption."
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| The Great Magician |
This is the magical theory, that the first departure from the Infinite must be equilibrated and so corrected. So the "great Magician," Mayan, the maker of Illusion, the Creator, must be met in combat. Then "if Satan be divided against Satan, how can his kingdom stand?" Both vanish: the illusion is no more. . . . And this path is symbolised in the Taro under the figure of the Magus, the card numbered 1, the first departure from 0 . . . And this Magus has the twofold aspect of the Magician himself and also of the "Great Magician" . . . (Crowley)
It is that which is written: "In my Father's house there are many mansions"; and if the house be destroyed, how much more the mansions that are therein! For this is the victory of BABALON over the Magician that ensorcelled her. (The Cry of the 2nd Aethyr)
Twenty and two are the mansions of the House of my Father, but there cometh an ox that shall set his forehead against the House, and it shall fall. For all these things are the toys of the Magician and the Maker of Illusions, that barreth the Understanding from the Crown. (The Cry of the 3rd Aethyr)
. . . After Alex DeLarge leaps from the Tower, his name changes to Alex Burgess; he has dethroned the Writer (Anthony Burgess, author of A Clockwork Orange) and becomes master of his own destiny, rather than merely a pawn of others.
And there is a curse: having killed the old master of illusions, he must himself become the new maker of them--it is for this reason that Stanley Kubrick became a movie director. His films are nothing if not covertly autobiographical. (The symbolism throughout all of this is that one becomes the Beast by conquering the Beast.)
There are 21 Major Arcana in the Tarot, plus the Fool. It is held that they represent all of the possible archetypes that one will encounter during one's life--an ever-recurring Monomyth. Revelation of the life lived as contrived narrative.
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| (size_of_light) |
Through parallel shots, the Monolith is revealed as being identified with the 21 photographs (plus one candle holder) on the wall of the Overlook, showing that the Monomyth is interchangeable with the Tarot. After his resurrection as a Star Child, Dave Bowman is forced to re-enter the two-dimensional movie screen.
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| Solve et Coagula, kids |
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| "Kill the father, fuck the mother . . ." |
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| The European canon is here |
After Leon Vitali (Lord Bullington) fulfills his Oedipus complex and symbolically kills the Father and marries the Mother (attains the priesthood of the Goddess) in Barry Lyndon, he goes on to play Red Cloak in Eyes Wide Shut--the Hero becomes the new Hierophant.
Now once again the adept aspires and comes to the sphere called the Crown numbered 1, referred to the God Ra-Hoor-Khuit himself in man [the Star Child, or Danny Torrance?] . . . Now to this sphere came he by the Path called the High Priestess; She is his Silent Self, virgin beyond all veils, made free to teach him, by virtue of this third ordeal wherein, passing through the abyss, he has stripped from him every rag of falsehood, his last complexes, even his phantasy that he called 'I'. And so he knows at last now the soiled harlot's dress was mere disguise; naked in Moonlight shines the maiden Body! (Crowley)
Dave Bowman ("shot as an arrow from a Rainbow") is here "passing through the abyss" . . .
. . . And stripping away the phantasy of "I" (note that the memory modules look like the letter "I").
(Rainbow Fashions is next to BOWMAN . . .)
Beware, therefore, O thou who art appointed to understand the secret of the Outermost Abyss, for in every Abyss thou must assume the mask and form of the Angel thereof. Hadst thou a name, thou wert irrevocably lost. Search, therefore, if there be yet one drop of blood that is not gathered into the cup of Babylon the Beautiful: for in that little pile of dust, if there could be one drop of blood, it should be utterly corrupt; it should breed scorpions, and vipers, and the cat of slime. (Crowley)Stanley did something clever here: Traditionally the Devil card (Sandor Szavost) would come at this point in the film, but he has swapped it with the Hierophant. This is why Red Cloak appears at the Masked Ball. But we know the real Hierophant is Stan Kubrick himself.
He cannot remain indefinitely an Exempt Adept; he is pushed onward by the irresistible momentum that he has generated. Should he fail, by will or weakness, to make his self annihilation absolute, he is none the less thrust forth into the Abyss; but instead of being received and reconstructed in the Third Order, as a Babe in the womb of our Lady BABALON, under the Night of Pan, to grow up to be Himself wholly and truly as He was not previously, he remains in the Abyss, secreting his elements round his Ego as if isolated from the Universe, and becomes what is called a "Black Brother". ("The Ordeal of the Abyss")
The Path from Binah, the Primal Mother, to Geburah the Sphere of Mars, is by Tarot "The Blasted Tower" and it is attributed to the Planet Mars. Here we see another aspect of Horus as the God of War and Vengeance.
The G.D. Ritual says: "It represents a Tower struck by a lightning flash proceeding from a rayed circle and terminating in a triangle. It is the Tower of Babel. The flash exactly forms the Astronomical Symbol of Mars. It is the power of the Triad (concentrated in Binah, 3) rushing down and destroying the Column of Darkness (the Pillar of Severity, also the Dark Tradition). The men falling from the Tower represent the fall of the Kings of Edom."
"On the Right Hand side of the Tower is Light and the representation of the Tree of Life by Ten Circles, on the Left Hand is Darkness, and eleven Circles symbolizing the Qliphoth." (Frater Achad)
The "Dark Tradition" = the Masked Ball occultists. Binah = the Mysterious Woman who sacrifices herself for Bill.
(Sleeping Beauty awakens . . .)
Go Ask Alice, I think she'll know
Go Ask Alice, I think she'll know
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| Isis Cream |
(These cups resemble breasts, as it is written:
“the milk of the stars from her paps; yea, the milk of the stars from her paps”).
The Universe is here resolved into its ultimate elements. (One is tempted to quote from the Vision of the Lake Pasquaney, “Nothingness with twinkles. . . but what twinkles!”) Behind the figure of the goddess is the celestial globe. Most prominent among its features is the seven-pointed Star of Venus, as if declaring the principal characteristic of her nature to be Love. (See again the description in Chapter I of the Book of the Law). From the golden cup she pours this ethereal water, which is also milk and oil and blood, upon her own head, indicating the eternal renewal of the categories, the inexhaustible possibilities of existence.
The left hand, lowered, holds a silver cup, from which also she pours the immortal liquor of her life. (This liquor is the Amrita of the Indian philosophers, the Nepenthe and Ambrosia of the Greeks, the Alkahest and Universal Medicine of the Alchemists, the Blood of the Grail; or, rather, the nectar which is the mother of that blood. She pours it upon the junction of land and water. (Crowley)
(Seeking the Elixir . . .)
Jackpot?
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| Winnie the Pooh-bear |
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| Kubrick the Russian bear |
The identification of Russia with the "bear" shows its relationship to the feminine unconscious (Miss Foreign Affairs) that will be symbolically invaded by the masculine consciousness, represented by the Am-erican Ego. Note the bear symbolism in The Shining: Stanley Kubrick himself looks like a bear, and early in the film we see Danny sitting inside of a bear. I think the implication here is that Stanley is saying that he is the "bearer" of Danny, the Star Child, like Saint Christopher in Christian legend. (Yogi bear?) But even though his inner, spiritual life may be centered around Danny, in his outer life he must be Jack, and thus divide his time between two worlds.
This scene occurs at the end of Eyes Wide Shut, and like Danny on the bear, communicates the idea that Alice, having been well and truly filled with the light of the Sun, is now "bearing" the Solar Child. Note the red hair, referring to the red tincture of the alchemist:
But this, too, comes with a curse, and we see that the Barbie doll (the Kabbalistic Princess) is symbolically trapped within the box, like Dave Bowman and Jack forever trapped within the Monolith-Monomyth . . . they are forced by Fate to return to Earth.
