THE FILMS OF CHRISTOPHER NOLAN part 1

[SPOILERS below]

BATMAN BEGINS
The main antagonist in this movie is Ra’s Al Ghul and the League of Shadows. Who are they and what do they want?

PURPOSE

“The League of Shadows has been a check against human corruption for thousands of years. We sacked Rome, loaded trade ships with plague rats, burned London to the ground.  Every time a civilization reaches the pinnacle of its decadence, we return to restore the balance.” - Ducard/Ghul 

“Gotham’s time has come. Like Constantinople or Rome before it…the city has become a breeding ground for suffering and injustice. It is beyond saving and must be allowed to die. This is the most important function of the League of Shadows. It is one we’ve performed for centuries.” -Ra’s Al Ghul

“You’re going to destroy millions of lives.” - Wayne

“No. Billions of lives. Gotham is just the beginning. The world will watch in terror as the greatest city falls. Anarchy and chaos will spread…mankind will ravage itself, the species will be culled and the balance of nature restored. The planet will be saved for all species.” -Ducard/Ghul

“Gotham is helpless without you. That’s why I’m here.” -Ducard/Ghul

“To kill me?” - Wayne

“To bring you back to us, Bruce. The world will need great men like you-” -Ducard/Ghul

“To take power.” - Wayne

“This is not about power…this is about saving the planet before man destroys it with his greed, with his pollution, with his weaponry…” -Ducard/Ghul

At first it sounds like TLOS are anarchists, but I'm not so sure about that. They still use "government," a form of fascism, which is more clear in The Dark Knight Rises. But I think TLOS has a lot of aspects of a secret society, because it's a bunch of guys with an agenda, hidden in the mountains, being mystical and educated, and infiltrating society by coopting and pretending to be a part of it.

The character of Ra's Al Ghul was created in the '70's, a time where several historians, investigators, politicians, military men, and whistleblowers have talked about plots to take over the world, or the "new world order," although definitely not the first nor last.  I wrote about George Lucas, having made Star Wars in the '70's, talking about the NWO. I believe this theme is a key part in why these movies are successful and resonate with audiences, in addition to of course the film craft.

Like TLOS, secret societies tend to favor harmony and balance of the environment over the value of human life, as seen in their dark occult and pagan practices like in the Thule and Tooley societies influencing the Nazis (i.e. the expedition to the Himalayas, similar to the place where Bruce Wayne finds TLOS) and the Fabian and Theosophical societies influencing the Labor Party. Many are influenced by mystics, having traveled to the east and brought back mystical knowledge and eastern cultural views.

Secret societies meet and share the knowledge of the world; discuss how things have gone in the past, and where things should be in the future. They consist of the most influential people in society and thus arrogantly believe they know what's best for the rest of us. Eugenics was actually sort of popular a hundred years ago. They talked of culling the population. Basically a forced Darwinism. If you can't justify your existence, you're useless and deserve to die. Thankfully, not all "globalists" see eye to eye on ways and means (Japanese assassins are something interesting; talked about as vigilantes of sorts against the NWO globalists). But call them what you will. The Jacobins (Freemasons) and the French Revolution, Thule Society and the Nazis, the Illuminati in various coopted forms such as the Freemasons and the US, and of course the Bilderberger Group and the world. At the height of a corrupt civilization, they just go and crash the party, but the cost is usually human lives. The stakes are the absolute highest; which is why it makes for good drama.

INFILTRATION
“You are defending a city so corrupt we have infiltrated every level of its infrastructure.” -Ducard/Ghul
“When a forest grows too wild, a purging fire is inevitable and natural. Tomorrow the world will watch in horror as its greatest city destroys itself.  The movement back to harmony will be unstoppable this time…Over the ages, our weapons have grown more sophisticated. With Gotham, we tried a new one: Economics. But we underestimated certain of Gotham’s citizens…such as your parents. Gunned down by one of the very people they were trying to help. Create enough hunger and everyone becomes a criminal. Their deaths galvanized the city into saving itself…and Gotham has limped on ever since. We are back to finish the job…” -Ducard/Ghul

So, TLOS isn't solely "shoot-em-up" destructive. Ducard/Ghul mentions they've used economics. If TLOS saw the charitable Waynes as in their way, TLOS must have been creating the poor and desperate to destroy Gotham. How? My guess, debt, taxes and bailouts transfer wealth, outsourced jobs, restrict growth, etc. (here's a great recent Bill Moyer's show). Create poverty, and when people are desperate, they turn on each other (which is why real modern day protests around the world were predictable. 1,2,3). They’ve manipulated the economic system, creating classes, then class warfare ensues, which is TDKR. So, TLOS attacks from both fronts; pressure from above and below. We eat each other up. The Wayne's tried to voluntarily spread their wealth, almost bankrupted them in the process, but it inspired the city to follow good example.

In the Batman Begins script, Ducard says, “When Gotham falls, the other cities will follow in short order.”

The global domino effect of protests was predictable. We are all interconnected [1,2,3,4]. What is the establishment's solution to protests? Martial law. Which is why martial law has already been set up, ready to go.

THE DARK KNIGHT RISES
Jonathan Nolan says the The Dark Knight Rises story was conceived before "Occupy," and was actually influenced by Charles Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities. I haven't read it, but the class-warfare divide-n-conquer method plays itself throughout history, so its MO is predictable if you learn the stages. Nolan could be tapping into the cyclical nature of these stages civilizations go through. America today has similarities to the economic collapse of Weimar Germany before fascism came in.


Christopher Nolan declines to say if he’s right or left wing, but says “the films genuinely aren’t intended to be political,” and “I love when people get interested in the politics of it, when they see something in it that moves them in some way. But I’m not being disingenuous when I say that we write from a place of ‘What’s the worst thing our villain Bane can do? What are we most afraid of?’ He’s going to come in and turn our world upside down. That has happened to other societies throughout history, many times, so why not here? Why not Gotham? We want something that moves people and gets under the skin.”

C'mon, Nolan. The whole movie was basically a modern day political drama -- there were hardly any superheroes in it. At any rate, hey, it's my blog. Having said that, I feel it's good to view things in a historical context -- these are not necessarily ever left or right issues, in TDKR movie or real world. There isn't any reason to pigeonhole into either, as mainstream media does, because this is just the ways things go.

I think what Nolan is saying, is that this movie brings up a lot of issues, and it does so epicly. It seems complex, but as a whole, straight forward. It has you think about them and recognize them in their various guises and say, "Y'know, I would hate for America to turn out like that Gotham City police state. It was brutal." There are historical precedents and patterns, the rise and fall of the great republic civilizations, I follow in it, but there’s not a one-to-one correlation here in TDKR, and that makes it so interesting to me. It's like someone saying they want to make a book/movie about buddhism and called it Fight Club. I say that's great art.

The trailers may make it seem like Bane is an anarchist and his army resembles the “Occupy” movements, beating up the rich 1-percenters. He says he's giving the city back to the people, but that's a politician's rhetoric. You see, the way TLOS controls the city is fascist, statist. How?

The movie starts off with the Dent act, a sort of USAPATRIOT act. Put into law, based on a lie, it seems to create peace. But is it really? How big did the prison population get? But this is the thing that constitutionalists warn about -- even if you think you’re current leadership is wonderfully perfect and has good-intentions, the successor may not be. Once overreaching laws become legal, it’s hard to reverse. Damn near impossible without a revolution. So, who’s the next guy in charge? Bane and TLOS.

Well, it looks like Occupy protestors, you say. It sounds like Occupy rhetoric. But it is fascism. It's control by fear. The whole city is corralled to control it better. The fear that any citizen has the detonator (a lie), that everyone’s a suspect, makes everyone complicit in allowing more security, welcoming this goddamn martial law police state. There’s no due process by Crane/Scarecrow -- he’s the judge, jury and executioner. It’s certainly not democracy. Not anarchy. We don't want poor old Com. Gordon tried under the same justice system. We don't America to be like that, but it's heading that way [1,2,3,4,5]. The government even complies to lock Gotham down. There’s a great scene on the bridge where Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s character challenges the cops to let the kids on the bus through, but the cops are establishment stooges and fire on him. There are watchtowers like they have today. It perfectly represents when police and military blindly obeys their orders because they don’t know what’s really going on. However, there are a growing number who will disobey, as Com. Gordon rallies people who don't buy into the lie (the security theater on citizens), and actually protect the citizens from tyranny, like the valiant knights are supposed to. And then there are people who just don’t act, cowards like Mathew Modine’s character, so they are just as complicit in allowing tyranny in.

Bane's stock market crime scene was just a literal stealing of wealth, I suppose, whereas the real world Wall St. crime was more subtle [1,2,3,4,5]. Also, TLOS leader Talia al Ghul was a rich 1-percenter. So the TLOS had money. If the Occupy movements coopt anything from this movie, then they clearly didn’t understand the movie.

So, ultimately, my take is that it's a secret society coopting an impressionable movement (isn't that always the case?). And it is dangerous and brutal when the majority of people don't get it.

So, is forced redistribution of wealth the answer to a failed civilization, like Gotham? Stealing from the rich? Hey, the corrupt rich should of course be punished, but all people, indiscriminately? Or is the charitable rich an answer? Like the Wayne family. Allowing liberty and freedom to decide. Ralph Nader talks about trying to convince the rich to put their money where their mouth is. It seems like Nolan likes this idea. In Inception, the goal is to change the mind of the heir to one of the largest energy monopolies and break up his empire. And speaking of energy, The Prestige brings up the rivalry between Edison and Tesla, said to have made free energy. TDKR has a free energy device. I can't wait for Nolan's next.

[updated 7-24-12] This issue of surveillance is brought up in The Dark Knight as Batman takes Lucius Fox's sonar technology and expands it. Our hero is desperate, but fallible. Indeed it is the older wiser figure, Fox, saying that this is wrong and ultimately shuts it all down. It is a dilemma, but it does not become normalcy. In real life, the NSA listens to everything, and there are many opposed to this. [1,2,3,4,5,6]

Also, all Batman's gadgetry, especially ones made with military contracts, of course seem so wonderful and useful -- in the right hands. But in the wrong hands, uh, bad. Fox's whole consolidation of military projects in TDKR gets stolen right from under them, literally, by Bane. The energy core gets stolen by Bane. In BB, TLOS steals Wayne's water vaporizer machine. What's with Lucius Fox doing all these military projects and he lets it all get stolen? Technology being both useful and lethal is explored well, and I guess, I'll leave it at that.

There are a few bad apples, and they even can corrupt true white knights like Dent, but the majority of us are good noble people, as the two ferries in TDK proved when they didn't blow each other up. I think only one ferry voted, democracy didn't work (yes democracy is a fallacy), so good noble spirit prevailed. Like a herd mentality, the majority have their heads up the asses of the establishment status quo controlled by the elites. The majority can get to the point where it can be wrong, and the ones that are heroes may seem like rebels to establishment, like Harry Potter and his school and Luke Skywalker and the Empire, for they stand up for goodness and what's right. Blake/Robin literally throws away his badge after his standoff with the stupid cops blocking the bridge. Batman needs to be outside the system and be like the American patriots who rebelled against their British rulers. Our heroes stand for truth, basic human rights, and IMO common sense, regardless of a badge or not. Because the TSA has a uniform, does not make what they do right. Because cops at Occupy are in riot gear and have mace, does not make what they do right. Because we have such ingrained paradigms, the controversy over whether Batman is a good guy or criminal rebel will continue.

THE HARRY POTTER SERIES [part 2]
(11.18.11)

SPIRITUALITY
After seeing HP:The Deathly Hallows:part2, I came away thinking it was very “eastern.” Then again, most people would say “What? It’s very western.” On the surface, of course, it’s western (Anglo, European) with the British accents and the castles and production design, but why did I think eastern?

For me, it seems that eastern religions are kind of internal; like Ghandi, “Be the change you want to see in the world” and Buddha sitting under a tree and finding enlightenment by meditating. Whereas western religions are external, relying on an external god to save you, and pushing their religion on others. I’m not sure eastern religions imperialistically go to other countries, spreading their religion to other populations. A school like Hogwarts internalizes; hides away to a castle, has secret transportation systems to get there, keeps its secrets and knowledge from muggle eyes. As in the previous post, the Fellowship of the New Life, many whom were Theosophical Society, wanted to set an example in the industrial age, work on the internal, whereas the Fabians were more external and sought to change things more politically. Isn’t that always the case? A grassroots, well-intentioned, spiritual, creative group always gets coopted and infiltrated by the corrupt and control-freaks. Author Michael Tsarion talks about the Theosophical Society being coopted by Fabians, who were “pushers of left-wing socialistic philosophy,” having connections to the British royalty and political establishment. Tsarion is big on clearing up misconceptions.

A good overview documentary that explains this is Secrets of the Occult. The occult doesn’t mean devil worship -- it means things that are hidden. All witches aren’t evil -- there’s white magic and black magic. Helena Blavatsky wasn’t an evil witch -- it was other people coopting her ideas and work. Secret societies initially were not evil -- they were coopted. I also think mystery religions like early Christians were coopted by the political elite. George Washington believed aspects of freemasonry were coopted by illuminati. The Ministry of Magic was coopted by Death Eaters. The Ministry coopted Hogwarts. Yet, there would be ones who would break away and start anew, small grassroots and back to basics, like The Order of the Phoenix and Dumbledore’s Army.

Organized religion aside, I think there is a spiritual quest in the Harry Potter saga (and for the atheists, there’s a science angle I’ll get into later). It’s not just a boy having a rite-of-passage to become an adult. It’s boy to adult to friggin enlightenment. Most so-called adults are not mature at all, and Rowling wants to show that many of us has got a long way to go. Rowling has carried us through the life of Harry Potter in his quest to find his purpose in life, and it comes down to The Deathly Hallows.

Before I get to that, Harry Potter deals with good and bad choices throughout -- free will -- all along the way.

FREE-WILL
Around Prisoner of Azkaban, when Harry Potter got increasingly angry, I had thought Harry Potter’s scar and Voldemort’s piece of soul within him was just Rowling saying it was a metaphor for the raging hormones of adolescence. Then, by Deathly Hallows, I realized it was about free will, the good and bad within all of us. Sirius Black says, “We’ve all got both light and dark inside of us. What matters is the part we choose to act on. That’s who we really are.” Dumbledore also says, “It is not our abilities that show what we truly are. It is our choices.” The sorting hat may place you…wherever, but it’s up to you and your choices in life. Just like Star Wars’ Jedi -- anybody can be corrupted and use the dark side. Use dark magic, but it’s up to you. Even the seemingly incorruptible Dumbledore admits he can be tempted, when he followed Grindelwald in his youth.

So, these ideas are about an internal change or power struggle within us. The west, as in the Judeo-Christian-Islam religions, believe mankind is just plain born bad, and only by external grace that a external god can save mankind. They would say this mentality makes us lose our big stumbling block: our pride. Although, some would say it makes us slave-like, a subservient people. I.e. we are, by nature, a pitiful sinful lot, and our only hope of salvation is to be saved from an outside force. The guilt-trip is suppressive, makes one submissive (quite the powerful tool for a church-state, if one so chose to coopt a religion...). I don’t see much about an external god in the Harry Potter saga, but I do see a lot of internal struggle and internal strength. And there is strength in numbers, and the cooperation of other humans.

If Star Wars is more like Jesus, with Anakin being conceived by midichlorians, then Harry Potter is more like Buddha. Someone with human parents, who lived his life with everything basically handed to him until the end. To gain enlightenment, he had to give up everything, any attachments, his life -- an unbelievably selfless act. He mastered the patronus charm, a Buddha-like blissful state. He would attain a sort of nirvana, a cessation of the struggle to survive, and a sort of enlightenment and mastery of being able to choose to come back to physical life. Hmm… well then Harry is like Jesus -- sacrificing himself, destroying the sin in him (represented as the part of Voldemort’s soul within him) so that others may live. Well, then Rowling is combining east meets west. Yeah, she is a globalist.

We have much to learn from foreigners. “International magical cooperation” as Hermione says. When east meets west, you combine each others notes, share technology and knowledge. The crusades brought back technology from the arabs and asians. The US got technology from the Nazis. Blavatsky traveled the world many times and brought back eastern religions. The coming together and breaking apart of knowledge has been on a repeat cycle for thousands of years. Hogwarts definitely knew this. How?

Let’s go back a couple thousand years. In the Egyptian/Greek times, there were mystery schools and ancient texts, like those attributed to Thoth and Hermes (the Hermetica) and others, that had all this ancient knowledge (that modern scientists would get inspiration from today) about astrology, alchemy, medicine, math, spirituality, etc. Buddha and Jesus traveled the world learning from gurus and collecting ancient knowledge. Christianity would be coopted as the Christian rulers suppressed all the the mystery school stuff, called it all heretical, to keep people dumb and controlled. It became occult, hidden. However, the east kept it. The west had their Dark Ages. Then the crusades traveled the world, brought back Arabic and Asian technology, and there was a resurgence of art and science in the 15th century, the Renaissance. Why do you think the east was more technologically advanced than the west? Fuck Darwin -- mankind didn’t advance in a linear fashion. The ancients and magicians already knew this knowledge. The west just suppressed it for political reasons, to keep its own people down. Ancient texts are under lock and key in the Vatican, no doubt. What’s also important is the theological renaissance, and that threatened the rulers of the west even more. Secret societies had to be formed to keep and maintain all this knowledge, but time and again, as stated before, they are infiltrated and coopted to be discredited. Knight's Templar, Freemasons, Hermetical Order of the Golden Dawn, the Theosophical Society, the Fellowship of the New Life. Time and again, there would arise a new theological and even artistic renaissance, trying to break free. The Victorian Age occult craze, the 60’s new age, and today. Ancient mystery school knowledge and spirituality are what the secret societies are about. This is what Hogwarts is. Why do you think people in the Harry Potter world look like they’re stuck in the Renaissance or the Victorian age? Because those were high points in the renewed interest in occultism and secret societies. Modern technology is all influenced from the ancients. Galileo and Isaac Newton‘s scientific ideas were influenced by the Hermetica and occult ideas. Thomas Edison was a Theosophical society member. Probably everything in your house is from alchemy. Carl Jung says alchemy “is the basis of our modern way of perceiving things.” I find it interesting that modern Russian scientists are making modern pyramids as healing centers.

THE VEIL
The Veil in the Ministry of Magic is an ancient stone arch with a veil in between the living and dead dimensions. It seems the only people who has seen death can see the veil and hear the voices behind it, and also see thestrals, like Harry and Luna. The others can’t yet. This seems similar to people who have been close to death and have had NDE’s (near death experiences) and have come back with increased intuition and psychic abilities, as studied by a Dr. Jeffery Long. And the veil, in various religions, is the barrier between the living and the dead dimensions, or between knowledge. Also in Kabala, it’s called Veil of Paroketh, or portal of soul to body, or Veil of Illusion. In Buddhism and Hinduism the veil is the barrier people have from realizing that our experiences is an illusion of the physical and mental world; the struggle is to pierce the veil, understand you’re one with everything, or god, and always have been. A confusing thought to westerners who strive and strive for something, but the east believe we need to realize we already are. “Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?” Dumbledore says.

Some say the veil is thinnest around Samhain and Beltane, Halloween and May Day (hmm, what political events happened on May Day… Ritual perhaps?). The witnessing of ghosts can be thought of as the barrier, veil, portal flicker between the 2 dimensions.

The study of the veil is the quest for the meaning of life. In the tree of life our soul knew everything at the higher levels, then passed down through the veil to forget our memories, and fell into our physical bodies at the lower levels to this earthly experience and go through the test of free-will. For if we knew everything and love was automatic, we would be robots. The test of life is remembering our power.

As in eastern thought, visualizing what you want, you already have -- the universe time and space reconfigures itself and makes it so. Western thought is to pray and pray and wish for external help. It’s a dangling carrot you’re always striving for because you’ve willed it to be out there and not within you. Like in Fight club, “The gun is in my hand.” Maybe this is similar to Harry Potter visualizing the Philosopher’s Stone and getting it. Or Harry being the one deserving of obtaining all 3 Deathly Hallows. The twist Rowling adds is that he deserved those powerful objects because he would be at a point to understand his role in life and death, have a natural acceptance, instead of constant desire.

THE DEATHLY HALLOWS
The Deathly Hallows symbol seems very similar to the unofficial illuminati symbol of the eye and pyramid. Why? As in the previous post, it seems secret societies (Theosophy, Hermetica, freemasons, illuminati) were/are keepers of occult and spiritual knowledge, forced underground from the mainstream west, having many famous members who have spawned the most famous classic fantasy, sci-fi, and children’s books (Tokien, Lewis, Baum, Wells). From these books, the readers are groomed with these occult (simply meaning hidden) ideas already, planted with pieces to the puzzle of the universe, like parables containing huge wisdom and lessons of life. However, it's only a few people, only those smart enough to put all the pieces together, that reach an epiphany, an enlightenment, an illumination. Ron and Hermione both have heard of the The Tales of Beedle the Bard and The Tale of the Three Brothers, but Harry would be the one to live through its life lesson and actually become enlightened from it. The 3 Deathly Hallows would give great power to the wizard who had all 3, but the true possessor deserving of it would welcome death, would not fear it, when it truly came down to it. Would Hermione and Ron have done the same?

Fellow seekers of the Deathly Hallows wear the symbol or mark their stuff with it as a sign to recognize others who also follow the Hallows. Like the media's portrayal of a kooky conspiracy theorist, Xenophilius Lovegood is portrayed as a wacko. As if all people who believe in the illuminati are wacko nutjobs, so too are the seekers of the Deathly Hallows. But that's all proven wrong when well-respected professionals like Dumbledore bears the symbol in his letters, and ultimately in the end, the Deathly Hallows are true and do exist. I think George Washington was well-respected when he acknowledged the illuminati's infiltration in freemasonry.

In his youth, Dumbledore meets Gellert Grindelwald and they seek to possess the 3 Deathly Hallows. Talking to Harry in limbo, Dumbledore says, “I had proven, as a very young man, that power was my weakness and my temptation. It is a curious thing, Harry, but perhaps those who are best suited to power are those who have never sought it. Those who, like you, have leadership thrust upon them, and take up the mantle because they must, and find to their own surprise that they wear it well.”

Like the reluctant hero, who struggles with the idea of being the hero, only to not just eventually accept it, but to “wear it well.” It is only when we stop seeking or struggling, that we find. Maybe it’s Buddhist or Hindu (I’m mixing it all up, who cares) thought that we always have this struggle to survive so much, but we can realize we don’t have to struggle at all. Nirvana. Maybe it’s similar to when you struggle to think of a good idea or solution to your problem, only to come up with the best ideas later, sitting on the john, out for a walk, almost sleeping, or thinking about something else.

“I open at the close,“ reads the inscription on the golden snitch that holds the Resurrection Stone. It’s a similar thought to the acceptance of life and death. Consider the 3 ways in which the Peverell brothers died. The first brother was murdered -- a life lesson cut short, may have to start again and reincarnate. The second was a suicide -- life cut short and obviously didn’t want to play. The third, after living a full life lesson, willingly exposed himself and died naturally. Dying voluntarily, letting go of the thought of your physical self, knowing your physical body is vessel, that there is a higher dimension souls attain to, gaining an enlightenment of sorts. Harry’s tasted death as a baby, seen the ghosts of his family and friends, so he knows there is an afterlife. Knowledge is one thing. Actually doing it is another. True character is revealed when you’re truly tested to your limits, at your limits.

Harry would be responsible with power. Dumbledore would be tempted to abuse it, in his youth. “I was unworthy to unite the Hallows, I had proved it time and again…Maybe a man in a million could unite the Hallows, Harry…I was fit to own the Elder Wand, and not to boast of it, and not to kill with it. I was permitted to tame and to use it, because I took it, not for gain, but to save others from it…But the cloak, I took out of curiosity, and so it could never have worked for me as it works for you, its true owner. The stone I would have used in an attempt to drag back those who are at peace, rather than to enable my self-sacrifice, as you did. You are the worthy possessor of the Hallows.”

“I was scared that, if presented outright with the facts about those tempting objects, you might seize the Hallows as I did, at the wrong time, for the wrong reasons…You are the true master of death, because the true master does not seek to run away from Death. He accepts that he must die, and understands that there are far, far worse things in the living world than dying.” Just as the last Percival brother, Harry Potter would depart this life with Death, “as equals.” I believe being equals to mean the enlightened person would know as much with the higher consciousness because he would reunite with that higher consciousness, or god, or whatever you choose to call it, passing on back up through the veil.


So, imagine the superiority complex that would arise in the type of power hungry people who would believe they had all this powerful occult knowledge. They would believe that people who are not as illuminated as they are would be considered inferior. Consider the definition of fascism.

COMING SOON IN part3: Voldy and Fascism and The Wizarding World.

THE HARRY POTTER SERIES [part 1]
(revised 11.06.11)

Harry, Hermione, and Ron are like young detectives, always asking a lot of questions. Who’s Nicholas Flamel? What’s the Chamber of Secrets? Who’s the Half-Blood Prince? Who’s RAB? What’s the Deathly Hallows? Always question. Always be curious. Why not? No one else is doing it. Someone has to.

In this blog, I’m not trying to dig dirt up on JK Rowling. I love the Harry Potter series and like to research about it. Though, there are some surprising and very interesting things.

Many aspects of society would love to claim Harry Potter as an allegory for them, their religion, their oppressed peoples, etc. Or some even accuse their opposition group for being like Harry Potter -- so they discourage their kids from reading the books. Some Christians like it, and some hate it. Same with politicians (the left, the right). So, which is it? What does JK Rowling say? It could be all that, but then also quite specific. The point is that the Harry Potter story is about the repetitive cycle of the power struggle over humanity that people should understand and recognize signs so that when it rears its ugly head, as already it has, to do something about it and here‘s how -- here‘s how Harry Potter did it. Use love and cooperation. Like George Lucas, Rowling molds it into a tale aimed at kids -- for kids are the future. They/we would grow up as the Harry Potter characters grow up, and therefore be exposed to the harsh adult world as the characters are. Such as the creep of socialism and fascism. It's a repetitive and obvious MO, and you'd have to be living under a rock or be an idiot to not see the tale of a controlling tyranny told time and time again in fiction and in real life.

So, what does JK Rowling say?

JK ROWLING’S WORDS
From Entertainment Weekly, Rowling explains, “…Dumbledore says, “Differences of habit and language are nothing at all if our aims are identical and our hearts are open.” That is my view. It is very inclusive, and yes, you are right: I am left-wing…There is a certain amount of political stuff in there. But I also feel that every reader will bring his own agenda to the book. People who send their children to boarding schools seem to feel that I’m on their side. I’m not. Practicing wiccans think I’m also a witch. I’m not.”

In an article in The Guardian, Rowling says, “New ageism leaves me completely cold…”

At a Carnegie Hall talk, she says, “It was conscious. I think that if you’re, I think most of us if you were asked to name a very evil regime we would think Nazi Germany. There were parallels in the ideology. I wanted Harry to leave our world and find exactly the same problems in the wizarding world. So you have the intent to impose a hierarchy, you have bigotry, and this notion of purity, which is this great fallacy, but it crops up all over the world. People like to think themselves superior and that if they can pride themselves in nothing else they can pride themselves on perceived purity. So yeah that follows a parallel. It wasn’t really exclusively that. I think you can see in the Ministry even before it’s taken over, there are parallels to regimes we all know and love. [Laughter and applause.] So you ask what lessons, I suppose. The Potter books in general are a prolonged argument for tolerance, a prolonged plea for an end to bigotry, and I think it’s one of the reasons that some people don’t like the books, but I think that it’s a very healthy message to pass on to younger people that you should question authority and you should not assume that the establishment or the press tells you all the truth. [Loud applause.]”

From Dateline NBC, “Well, it is a political metaphor. But…I didn’t sit down and think,”I want to recreate Nazi Germany,” in the wizarding world. Because -- although there are -- quite consciously overtones of Nazi Germany, there are also associations with other political situations. So I can’t really single one out.”

JK ROWLING’S INFLUENCES
The idea of Harry Potter just popped into her head during a train ride. She had father issues, school experiences, mother died. You’ve heard it before. What might you have not heard?

Rowling often sites author Jessica Mitford as a big heroine and influence (1,2). Rowling is close friends with former British PM Gordon Brown and wife Sarah. (1,2,) She supports the Labour Party. What is the significance of these things?

Let’s start at the Fellowship of the New Life (1,2), founded 1883, the precursor to the Fabian Society, which is precursor to the Labour Party. The name Fellowship of the New Life sounds a lot like the Order of the Phoenix. A fellowship is an order. New Life is what a phoenix does. Influenced by Henry David Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson, the Fellowship wanted to create a living example of perfect character for others to follow, including pacifism, vegetarianism, and simple living. They wanted to slow down an industrial age society growing too fast and put more thought into it. Then, some of them wanted to become more political; external rather than internal. And they formed the offshoot Fabian Society, a more socialist bunch, influenced by Karl Marx. It was not necessarily agreed with by all Fellowship founders. Fellowship dissolved in 1898, and Fabian Society grew.

From the Merriam-Webster Dictionary about the Fabian Society, “Socialist society founded in 1883-84 in London, to establish a democratic socialist state in Britain. The name derived from Fabius Maximus Cunctator, whose elusive tactics in avoiding pitched battles led to victory over stronger forces. Fabians believed in evolutionary socialism rather than revolution, and used public meetings and lectures, research, and publishing to educate the public. Important early members included George Bernard Shaw and Sidney and Beatrice Webb. They helped organize a separate party that became the Labour Party in 1906, and many Labour members of Parliament have been Fabians.” Like Pius Thicknesse as Minister in the Ministry of Magic, the Death Eaters have slowly politically influenced and infiltrated the ministry and school system.

Fabian Society’s founders and members include Sydney Webb, husband of Beatrice Webb, aka Beatrice Potter who wrote Soviet Communism - A New Civilization (not children's author Beatrix Potter), father Richard Potter wrote occult children’s books. Others include H.G. Wells, who wrote a book on The New World Order, George Bernard Shaw, eugenicist who admired Hitler and Mussolini, and Virginia Woolf, and E. Nesbit. Fabians are probably responsible for minimum wage, universal health care, and unemployment. However, their idea to benefit workers was more about so they’re not depressed slobs and would produce better. (1,2,3,4)

Rowling admired Fabian Society founder E. Nesbit. Author Nesbit was an alleged member of The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, along with C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, Bram Stoker, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, William Butler Yeats, and Aleister Crowley (Freemason, occultist, mystic, astrologer, sex magik fiend, allegedly called himself the Great Beast/666 -- basically a Voldemort influence). The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, founded by Freemasons, taught Hermetic Qabalah, astrology, tarot divination, geomancy, scrying, astral travel, alchemy, etc. (1,2,3)

Fabian Society members were also in the Theosophical Society, a society combining occultism, Qabalah, eastern religions, sciences. Author of the Wizard of Oz books L. Frank Baum was a notable theosophist. According to the Merriam-Webster Encylcopedia, theosophy is a “Religious philosophy with mystical concerns that can be traced to the ancient world…It is characterized by esoteric doctrine and an interest in occult phenomena.” It was about comparative religion, philosophy, and science and sought to “investigate the unexplained laws of nature and the powers latent in man.” The society groomed Jiddu Krishnamurti to be a great teacher. Krishnamurti would later teach writer Joseph Campbell (The Hero with a Thousand Faces, Power of Myth). The society was founded by Madame Helena Blavatsky, possibly the inspiration for the Harry Potter book‘s character called Cassandra Vablatsky, seer and author of Hogwart’s divination books. Blavatsky, ancestor of a diplomat Sergey Grigor’yevich Dolgoruky, traveled the eastern world and her findings and occult writings are highly influential. She also talked about Atlantis and an Aryan Root Race.

George Orwell (1984, Animal Farm), aka Eric Blair (not sure if he’s related to former PM Tony Blair), would later join the Independent Labour Party, opposing fascism. His childhood friend Jacintha Buddicom, a poet and astrologer, mapped horoscopes with Aleister Crowley. Orwell was also taught French by Aldous Huxley (Brave New World).

From the Fabians came the Labour Party, and sprouted many British leaders, including Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, and leaders of countries under British rule; third world countries like India, Nigeria and Pakistan. JK Rowling refused to endorse the Labour Party under Tony Blair. After Gordon Brown became PM, she gave L1million to the 2008 Labour Party Annual Conference. Rowling named her son Gordon Rowling-Murray after Gordon Brown. Rowling was first at the hospital for their son's birth. She aided Sarah Brown in writing children’s stories called “Magic” for a charity, One Parent Families, where Rowling is president. Gordon Brown talks about global unity, “I think a new world order is emerging with the foundation of a new progressive era of international co-operation.” (1,2,3,4)

I admit I digressed a bit, linking so many other people, but my point was that most of the great and popular fantasy children’s literature and movies all seem to use knowledge and associations from the secret societies dealing with occult and ancient religions. These same societies shape world politics whether you like it or not.

THE MITFORD SISTERS (1,2,3)
The Mitford sisters gained notoriety for having split political views. J.K. Rowling has read everything by and is heavily influenced by author and socialist Jessica Mitford (1917-1996), aka Decca. Rowling’s daughter is named Jessica Rowling-Arantes after her. Labor lawyer Doris “Dobby” Walker (possible source of the name Dobby) introduced Jessica to the Communist Party USA. Jessica fought for civil rights like Hermione Granger would fight for the rights of house elves. Jessica fought against Nazism and fascism, which led to division with sisters Unity and Diana, and father, who were fascist supporters. Unity was personal friends with Hitler. Diana Mitford’s husband and former Labour Party member Sir Oswald Mosley founded the British Union of Fascists, using the lightning bolt as their symbol. The sig rune, among other ancient symbols, are used heavily in fascist imagery. Does Harry Potter’s lightning bolt scar symbol symbolize Voldemort’s potential in him? Much like, does Luke Skywalker have potential for the light and dark side of the force? Do we all? The Mitford sisters political division are much like Rowling’s the Black family, where some joined the Death Eaters and some the Order of the Phoenix.

On what happened to the Hogwart’s education system in relation to the deterioration in the western world’s education system, I’d direct you to Norman Dodd. Dodd worked was chief investigator in the 1953 investigation of tax-exempt foundations. He claimed foundations like the Ford Foundation, Rockefeller Foundation, and Carnegie Endowment spent excessively on projects and institutions to basically steer education towards a socialist America, merging into a world order. Also, Former Senior Policy Advisor in US Department of Education Charlotte Iserbyt is a whistleblower on the US-Soviet and Carnegie-Soviet Education Education Agreements. What’s this soviet education stuff about? Like when Dolores Umbridge takes over Hogwarts, it’s Pavlovian type of dog training. Writing lines over and over, and tyrannical punishment. Training, instead of thinking critically. (1,2,3)

In a nutshell, based on Rowling’s relationship with the Gordon “New World Order” Brown and her love of Jessica Mitford, is Rowling an insider of the real globalist agenda, disclosing it in a fictional story in the same way as George Orwell? You are free to speculate, but IMO, yes, from their own works and if you reread her interviews above, I believe she and Orwell are against tyrannical fascism, but want to disclose that it’s a planned reality, attempted time and time again throughout history. Which is why it is healthy to question the establishment, as Harry Potter does.

The more I research, the more I’m convinced that in order to create an insanely popular work that reaches global phenomena, it needs to resonate in the very bones of humanity, universally. There needs to be some serious basis on real history and real esoteric knowledge. There needs to be knowledge of many “-ologies“ and how they fit together in the big picture. Theosophy, astrology, alchemy, history, etc. One could say it could be Joseph Campbell’s hero myth stuff repackaged over and over in different stories, like Star Wars, but I think it's more concrete than that. Information is available at your fingertips if you choose to delve into it.

COMING SOON in part 2: Spirituality, Voldy and Fascism, and The Wizarding World.

THE TREE OF LIFE
Many movie reviews of Terrence Malick’s The Tree of Life have no idea what this movie means or what the plot is. Literally, they say it. I’m not making a judgment of them. They say they don’t understand it.

Here’s my take on it. I believe I understand it, in my own way, but it’s a very abstract movie, perhaps one of the most abstract movies I’ve ever seen. I think there is indeed a plot and character arcs, which is basically a world transitioning between nature and grace. I’d like to explain it in terms of topics, separately, and then if and when you see the movie again, perhaps these topics will come together.

KABBALAH, as one example.
Many ancient cultures have the “tree of life” as a story or symbol. I haven’t looked into them all, but this one in particular seems fitting. In the basic tree of life in Kabbalah, there are about 10 things on the basic tree of life diagram called sephirot that break down where you are in life and what everything means in the big picture. Two of the sephirot in the middle left and right represent kindness (loving grace, mercy, inspiring vision) and severity (strength, judgment, intention, withholding, disciplinary). Perhaps the mother and father characters in the film are representative of something like this. Where they meet in the middle is a sephirot called truth and beauty. Meaning, because of free-will you may sway between the kindness and severity and lean towards one of them, but when you understanding how to balance, you’ve found your own truth, and that’s a beautiful thing. That being said, it all sounds simple in a chart, but I think we all have to go through it, individually and as a species, to fully understand it, feel it, know it, I think. The film makes it relatable in the form of the main boy Jack torn between his father and mother‘s ways, but it’s really a story of the way everything in the universe is like that, too.

Up and down the Kabbalah tree of life are sephirot that go from base vegetable level to animalistic tribal to human soul to upper godlike and spiritual. It’s like the Hindu chakra system. Here’s a better explanation.

A lot of Terrence Malick’s films are about the loss of innocence, so I think that works with this idea as well. First, the boys are boys; innocent. Then the main boy, Jack acts out and does some not-so-innocent things, and he narrates that’s he confused and wrestles with the father and mother figures, and that he wants to “get back.” Getting back to innocence, perhaps.

MATRIARCHAL vs. PATRIARCHAL
Take ancient Egypt. Carmen Boulter’s The Egypt Code suggests the Egyptians were matriarchal and then became patriarchal. “Matriarchy is not the opposite of patriarchy, with women dominating and controlling men. It is based on balance between the masculine and feminine and harmony with nature.” Men of high status had women’s wigs, men and women together side by side with woman’s arm around the man. It was more of a rule of equality. I think we, humans, have been used to and only seen patriarchal ways since the times of patriarchal Egypt, and it’s coming to a head. Today's global society is so service-to-self and war-mongering that I think the reaction pretty soon will be more matriarchal, not as in there being a woman president or something necessarily, but more service-to-others, more cooperation, consideration of others -- a grace. I think Malick knows this grand ebb and flow of humanity throughout time. Things go in cycles.

TIME/SPACE AND HISTORY
You probably would have to buy into the theory that time/space isn’t linear - that past-present-future exists all at once. Maybe that’s why the film’s structure is a little out of order. But even a Tarantino film is out of order and still makes sense. We tend to think in our day to day activity and count the minutes going by. The ancient civilizations like the Mayans and Egyptians thought bigger, much bigger. They made stone structures that would last thousands of years, longer than their own lifetimes. Can we put our head around that? But our tendency is to think mini, not macro. We need a paradigm shift. There will be a paradigm shift.

When you learn and do research into many different topics (knowledge that the vast libraries the mystery schools and secret societies, and knowledge mankind is slowly "re-discovering" today), it becomes clear that everything is interconnected. The universe is made with a purpose. From the planets to people -- planetary alignments affect earth changes. You know the sun and moon affects the tides. Planetary alignments affect human behavioral cycles. I think ancient civilizations all over the world knew this, and tracked the stars and planets with their stone monuments and structures. Learn about yugas. Learn about the Age of Aquarius, not just a song. All the cosmic activity going on in the movie is affecting human behavior and society. From a generation to the next, one might see a change. A generation in the ‘50’s are different from the next generation.

Polarity, like positive and negative in electricity, like pistons on a machine, ebb and flow, a revolutionary movement is a reaction against what came before, the universe is cyclical, but also spiral. We repeat behaviorial cycles, but we learn slightly more if we learn from our mistakes, if we all learn history, and aim towards perfection. I think the mass consciousness of the world is coming to a head. I think, I know, the ones who aren’t asleep, the ones who gain knowledge about the way the world really works will come to a beautiful truth.

THE “ENDING”
Brad Pitt's character says, "Someday we'll fall down and weep, and we'll understand it all -- all things."

In “western” culture, we don't look at all things. We should. We’ve mostly have been brought up to see things as literal, grounded in the physical world, things only exist in what we can see, touch, taste, feel, etc. A lot has to do with the “western” society’s way of imposing a way of thinking and interpretation of religion and science, as opposed to true inner spirituality and creativity in science. Religion is political; they all believe theirs is the right one. Spirituality is macro. Spirituality, I think, was more evident in “eastern” or native american or other such ancient cultures. I think ancient cultures came from a time when their planetary alignment made them able to understand things more abstractly, more other worldly, interdimensionally. Scientists are "re-discovering" that now. When we learn from our past, when we learn all there is to know about EVERYTHING, we can take the next step through the door to next step to human society, human evolution. They say Buddha did it. They say Krishna did it. They say Jesus did it. I think a few have paved the way to show that every human can be capable of it -- enlightenment. The mother is floating in the air. Older Jack goes through a door. Everyone is together reunited on the beach. Heaven? The rapture? Ascension to multiverse. Reuniting with pure consciousness. Unified field. It’s your truth. You find it. Do I believe it? Doesn't matter. It's what I think the film is about. Also, David Lynch.

I think the reason why this film won Cannes Palme d’Or is that a lot of the rich and elite are masons, Kabbalah, or one or another of the many offshoot secret societies [that are keepers of knowledge of the ancient mystery religions, mystery school teachings, the Egyptians, druids, Mayans, essenes, Indians, etc (I’m talking pre-judeo-christian-islam)]. It’s that so much of it is there on screen, the same way 2001: A Space Odyssey is. They completely understand these concepts. (see my 2001: A Space Odyssey decon below) And they will continue to give it more awards. Personally, I think the film's heart was in the right place, but it was a little too pretentious, a little too "Malick," but that's my movie review opinion. The idea of it was brave. It was challenging. It will be influential.