"To Infinity and Beyond: The Buzz Lightyear's Gnosis

The Toy Story trilogy explores a rich sacred symbols whose origins are in antiquity with Theurgy Alchemy and Gnostic involving the relationship with the human simulacra (dolls and puppets, and in modern times, automatons, androids and replicants). However, in an ambiguous way in which the Gnosis is dominated by Episteme.

Once Prof. Marcelo Tassara, one of the lessons of the Master in Communication Anhembi Morumbi University, spoke about the ability of the animations NorthAmerican, directed for children, making fun themes tragic, heavy and adults.

From Bambi (where the protagonist loses her mother in a cruel way) until Wall-E(Science fiction dark and cynical) animations of American studios exercise this ability to make children laugh at the cruel and tragic.

The Toy Story trilogy is no different. Toys desperate not to loselove and attention from their owner Andy (the mythical plot Freud's relationshipchild and the mother in infancy), sadistic children that displacecruelly toys (another Freudian plot, the drama of child cruelty unresolved oedipal) and a character, Buzz Lyghtyear, who believesfully inserted in the script in its chip industry's manufacturers, theidentity of intergalactic hero. Buzz does not think a toy, but a hero within a spatial narrative epic.

Until, a sequence rich in symbolism, Buzz sees himself (or morea copy of his series) on television advertising, where the manufacturerBuzz Light year announce the product to your specifications, packaging and discoursepre-programmed to Buzz repeats as their own. Featured in a commercial phrasedecisively that deconstructs Buzz: "This product does not fly." Perplexed,

disappointed and impotent, yet Buzz attempts to fly by jumping from a high ladder to esburrachar then. A sad sequence, as well as loss of childhood innocence, forced a metalanguage that every childwill have to do to find that the scripts of their children's games are contained in a world bigger and incomprehensible.

Toy Story explores an archetypical symbolism of dolls and puppets, ie the symbolism of the mystical and sacred human simulacra where, in actuality, we continued with Replicants, cyborgs and human characters hybrids. An essentially gnostic symbolism where man projects in its simulacrum, their own condition as a prisoner in the physical reality created by a Demiurge or puppeteer. In popular culture of the twentieth century have increased the fascination with dolls and automatons with the appearance of the puppet-master concept (Human or divine) inserted into a Gnostic cosmology relations between human-robot and human / god. This fascination with robots or puppets within that scheme Gnostic symbolize the way in which we can evaluate

human experience, ie how we see ourselves as prisoners within a hostile cosmos.

Theurgy and Alchemy

The human fascination for dolls, puppets (which would later become children's toys) and other human simulacra have their origin in the Hellenistic philosophers and priests. Plato spoke of a being called the Demiurge, creator of the visible world, a character widely used in antiquity to explain the origin of the human soul from a Divine form and Original: Anthropos. World of Forms Anthropos descended to the material world, causing the man.

Despite being a lower form, human beings have within themselves divine sparks of their origin (Anthropos). Therefore, objective of its existence would climb the steps to do so to return to their divine origins. We humans do not pass by the simulacra of Human Primal, and the world of our senses is a simulacrum of the World of Forms. Through self-knowledge or gnosis could then return to the Light is eternal life possessed by Antropos, this essential human.

Theurgy arises in the Hellenistic world as the first way to achieve this through the manipulation of matter where, just as the Demiurge, we can give life and soul to make a material and bottom. If you have within us a part of the Anthropos, he can return to exercising the same skills reserved for gods: imitatio dei by generatio animae, imitate God by creating life.

For Victoria Nelson ("The Secret Life of Puppets") that's the secret origin of the timeless fascination for dolls and puppets throughout history. For the author, is the alchemy that we have this meeting decisisivo between gnosis and episteme, between experimental science and religious practice through successive operations that reproduce the steps of creating the physical cosmos by the Demiurge to the redemption of matter represented by the creation of the "Stone Philosopher "or" child / homunculus "(" little man ", also known as" mannikin ").

In modernity, these sacred origins are relegated to the world of childhood and, in literature and film, the genre of horror: Frankenstein, murderous dolls and puppets that come to life itself and dominate its creator, voodoo dolls, etc..

In the merger between the toy and infant child, where the soul of the object absorbs the best qualities of its owner (tenderness, kindness, courage, etc.). We have this timeless symbolism of the sacred dimension of human simulacra. If the adult world to espisteme represses gnosis (rationality overcomes the Sacred), will be in childhood and the last stronghold of that dimension transitional lost.

As we saw in previous post, are children's games in which the child laughed Evil (random, random, accident) present in the physical cosmos. Likewise, the update of the manipulation of human simulacra in childhood is the survival of these myths theurgical and alchemist of old. Fusion doll / child (the projection in inanimate matter of the manifestations of the particles of divine light within each one of us) repeats, for viewing adult, so childish and irresponsible, the whole drama of mythic steps to take to ascend in order to gnosis.

Human Simulacra in the Entertainment Industry

Returning to the sequence in which Buzz Light year finds itself as one toys, Toy Story and updates explores this fascination by Gnostic human simulacra: Just as in Gnosticism the starting point of gnosis is the discovery that the real world is nothing but a veil of illusions , Buzz discovers that his entire existence was merely a pre-manufactured by the toy industry.

But there is an ambiguity in this gnosis of Buzz Lightyear.

We know that since Toy Story, 1995, of the screenplays Wall Studios Disney animations are driven by so-called "Memorandum of Vogler": a corporate memo written by Christopher Vogler proposing a structure of formulas for a roadmap for success based on the ideas of the historian Joseph Campbell Myths as a solution to overcome the studio the successive failures of the animation studio in the '80s. From there originated the successful "Paradigm Disney" screenplay based on the archetypal "Hero's Journey."

But just that does not support a structure-cliche of an entertainment product. It takes more: archetypal contents speaking background to the human soul. Like Buzz gnosis which brings the timeless fascination of the drama dolls and puppets that fight for freedom (see, for example, in Blade Runner - 1982 - and Being John Malkovich - 1999).

In fact governed by a gnosis episteme (all the technology of producing digital images and cliché-structure of the scripts). If the Theurgy Alchemy and Gnosis, Episteme and seek a meeting here in the entertainment industry we have the submission of Gnosis, the Sacred and the whole mystical dimension to the Episteme: seeking financial results for the studio, the scientific calculation of the emotional reactions of the public etc. . Toys that are no longer manufactured by the child, but by the entertainment industry that, like the Drama of Buzz, the script requires a child's fantasy.

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Disney XD Freestyle Football: There is a Techgnostic Project for Football?

A techgnostic project hovering over the football. The video of the channel Disney XD which has undergone a football telemetry reflects an imaginary regressive project which aims to confine the Game and Play within a technology that aims to eradicate the Evil (error, failure, chance) as a human weakness. It's what lurks behind every claim for sport technologisation every error of soccer judges.

While typed one more posting to this blog Secret Cinema, my son watched the Disney XD channel. Among the many ads which litters the intervals of the program (and as there are breaks in cable TV!) a caught my attention and I stopped typing. The video is titled "Disney XD Freestyle Football ", alluding to the event's World Cup in South Africa (Watch the video at the end of that post).

In the video we see a teenager juggling and juggling with a ball football. With clipped editing features, it appears teenager successively in several urban environments (soccer field, court sports, etc. within a deposit.) continuing their maneuvers with the ball.

Suddenly, a feature clearly inspired metalinguistic games in the computer: the movements of the player are shown in slow motion and trajectory of the ball and player movement are scanned by rows geometry as a kind of telemetry, showing the degrees of the angles and curvatures. The ball did not fall once, no failures, the telemetry lines show the perfection of movements. In the latest plan gives the player a teenager a powerful shot into the air, the ball goes up and the camera follows the movement showing the high, the player jumping with fists clenched like a winner in a packed stadium and a shower of shredded paper.

Of course the skill of the adolescent is the result of assembly of successive plans, giving an illusion of continuity of actions. But for a child, still oblivious to the technical capabilities of editing and assembly of a video, the effect realistic is obviously strong. More than the illusion created by editing and assembly, there is something deeper and significant in that video. A paradigm shift for football, reflecting a trend involving all media: the rationalization and neutralization Evil

As already discussed in previous posts, from the standpoint of the Gnostic cosmos physical, since its inception, consists in essence by The Evil manifestations of this ontological nature of evil are in chaos, random, imperfection, "symbolic reversibility" (cf. Baudrillard: Peace tends to War, the Good the Bad, the move to entropy etc..) Accident.

As stated by Stephan Hoeller (in the book "Gnosticism: the hidden tradition"), the scientific breakthroughs like the Chaos Theory and Uncertainty in the field of Physical confirmed thesuspicion of the Gnostics in relation to the physical cosmos: the field of imperfection and evil, a sort of chaotic order and symmetry and non-linear, where each act results in an opposite effect on dimensions exponential.

Certainly the game is in play, in Fantasy and erotic nature that manifests itself clearly. It is these fields that experience a pleasure ironic and paradoxical pleasure in error, at fault. Explaining the pleasure the game is not in maximized performance that eliminates all possibilities of errors, resulting in full transparency. Rather, pleasure is on the road, in danger, the unexpected must be bypassed, exceeded or not.

But the entire complex media or entertainment industry refuse to accept that the nonlinear nature of the game and Recreation. Rationalize and counteract the presence of evil through idols who never fail, skilled stars in 100% of the time.

"Performance Principle" and "Total Whiteness"

Reflected two thinkers, each starting from different assumptions about this media trend: the German Herbert Marcuse and Frenchman Jean Baudrillard.

Starting from the benchmark call Critical Theory of the Frankfurt School, Marcuse thematized in the 60's ideology of "performance principle" that was behind the apparent liberation of sexuality in the culture of late capitalism. Sexuality was not being released from his own terms (fantasy, eroticism, gambling, etc..), But the principles from the world of work and merchandise: effectiveness, efficiency, productivity, result, rational world of logic and linearity . Sex hyperbolized, maximized, steroids (penis size, number of orgasms achieved, and so on). The field of playful and erotic sex jumps to the field of performance and maximizing linear.

Jean Baudrillard part of references Gnostic Cathars and Manichaeism (as explicitly stated in interviews near his death) to denounce the media's tendency to create a kind of "total white": a world de-symbolized, without errors, crashes, dirt, waste . Through a progressive technologization create a world with full transparency, sterilization and cleanliness. Denying the "symbolic reversibility", where every act produces its opposite: the transparency of Evil

A Techgnostic Project for football?

Returning to the sticker Disney XD, we have entered into this video the aspiration of the denial of evil in the game: football extract its most playful (the fault, mistake, accident) through the imaginary technology (telemetry lines of an imaginary). Football leaves the field of play to insert themselves in performance and "total whiteness."

Maybe an ongoing project tecnognóstico (in the sense cabalistic and alchemical not - on this important distinction within Gnosticism see links below) for football. The growing protests by the specialized press cons "flaws" of the arbitration and the claim by technology in football (chips or sensors on the ball, referrals for videos etc..) Certainly express this anti-trend to play the sport. Aspiration kabbalistic Tecnognose to impose on the world ugly and chaotic binary code to impose an authoritarian order, linearity, predictability, a cosmos, in its essence is exactly the opposite.

But the pleasure of every game is the opposite: pleasure in circumventing the telemetry that the Demiurge wants to impose its flawed cosmos and laugh ironically, every failure, every accident. Or, as spoken by the Heath Ledger' s Joker: "Why so serious?".

Related Posts:

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• In the Beginning was the Crisis: the ontology of Evil in the Gnostic Film

Disney XD Freestyle Football:

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A Brief Gnostic History of the Spontaneity in the Entertainment Industry (Part 2)

After the Star System, Celebrities, pin ups, children and animals, the entertainment industry will seek the spontaneity in more invasive and pernicious ways in which the private perversions are transformed into public virtues.

We finished the first part of the post about the entertainment industry and spontaneity approaching the trap that the media themselves ended up creating for themselves: the vicious cycle of pseudoeventos. Celebrities and political and economic events replicate images, themes and languages developed by the media, creating a huge effect that authors such as Baudrillard would call hyper: the reality starts to copy images, ie the precession of the images on all present and real events future (the falls of the towers in the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 did nothing to materialize the imagination of Hollywood disaster on New York - after all, how many times New York has already been destroyed in the movies?)

The result of this vicious cycle is boredom in front of the media who can no longer show spontaneous events, but people producing events, gestures, attitudes to attract the attention of the media, following scripts and languages developed by themselves.

Stars, celebrities, pin-ups, children and animals in film, TV and advertising no longer sufficient to inject something spiritual and spontaneous structures cliche of the various media genres.

But something new was on the horizon of culture with the literary tradition of American realism. F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway have presented their works in the intellectual rebellion with the disillusionment caused by wars and economic depression: characters who experience the splendor and despair as in "The Great Gatsby" by Fitzgerald, and Hemingway, tough players (soldiers, bullfighters, athletes) and intellectuals disillusioned.

This search for authenticity and realism flows into the blossoming of the individual in American literature with names such as Tennessee Williams and Allen Ginsberg. Emotional disorders within the family in Williams and "spontaneous bop prose" of Ginsberg with reports of wandering lives, characters and tuned at the same time mystical and reject the conventions fired the imagination of young readers, preparing the ground for the counterculture in the decade to come 60.

These changes of the cultural scene make the entertainment industry look at the spontaneous "authenticity", no longer in the representation of emotions, but on "authentic emotions," "gross" and hampering all paradigms of the Star System and celebrities. Perhaps the embryo of this paradigm shift is in the famous "Method" of the Actors Studio.

The entertainment industry will create the most invasive and damaging to prospect and capture the spontaneity: the blurring of boundaries between public and private

Built in New York in 1947, from a particular reading of the theory of Stanislavsky actor in the Actors Studio creates the proposal that the actor must not only represent, but being the character itself from a complex method consists of physical exercises or psychological. To give authenticity to the genuine spirit and thought-forms which are characters, the actor should boot from your psyche several archetypal personas. The brilliance and magnetism revolutionary Marlon Brando and James Dean (graduates of the Actors Studio) in the 50 expose a kind of animism of the actor: as in Spiritualism is called animism interference of the spirit and feelings of the medium in communication (in fact, are the personas that speak of the medium and not a spirit), we see movies in theaters and characters whose strength comes from the actor's own psyche. We have here the model of the binding energies Gnostic soul ("productive spontaneity") by moving to the thought-forms and structures created by the Demiurge.

The result can be both schizophrenic behavior of the actor (the identity is diluted in the range of archetypal personas needed to give life to different characters) or the actor who plays himself.

The entertainment industry creates the most invasive and damaging to prospect and capture the spontaneity: the blurring of boundaries between public and private, fiction and reality. Henceforth, private perversions will be transformed into public virtues. If the scheme of celebrity scandals events were designed to methodically gain visibility in the media, these scandals now earn spontaneity and authenticity: when interpreting themselves, actors, presenters, and different characters to extend media fiction to privacy.

For example, actors like Jack Nicholson (also graduate from the Actors Studio), Juliette Lewis and Mickey Rourkey extend privacy problems of misfit characters and potentially psychotic experienced by them on screen (and are keen to expose this on channels like E! Entertainment ). Or is it the opposite, the "authenticity" of their performances fiction being fed by the dark aspects of their psyches?

Reality Show: The Last Frontier

In 1991 NASA put into practice the Oracle project. This experiment consisted of putting in huge glass hangar, built in an area in Tucson, Arizona desert, four men and four women, 3,800 plant and animal species and simulations of the five major biomes of planet Earth. There he stayed for two years monitored for two thousand electronic sensors and attended by 600 000 payers.

This experiment fired the imaginations of the entertainment industry. It is the embodiment of Gnostic mythology that narrates the Demiurge trapping the man in reality artificially constructed to monitor it, scrutinize it, to systematically monitor the expression of spontaneous and authentic (particles of light) to seduce him, and finally isolate it and exploited it.


Themed films critically as Gnostics City of Ember (Dark City, 1998) and Truman Show (Truman Show, 1998) the rapid growth of Realities Show (and variations such as "MythBusters," "VCR" or "The People Speak "), inspired by the Oracle design expands the trend of merging public / private, fiction / reality: scan all perversions to expose publicly how private virtues, authenticity, spontaneity. Compulsion, impulsivity, hypocrisy, alienation, paranoia, psychosis, etc.., Emerging media of individuals in environments artificially created, is the spiritual spontaneity (particles of light) converted into productive and regressive ways to maintain the entertainment industry.

The complex media is ultimately the cheapest solution, fast and profitable to capture the spontaneity: no actors, methods or complex strategies scenic or theatrical. Pick up ordinary people or celebrities and candidates in confined environments or artificially constructed and exposed on camera, caught by surprise.

In the end, the audience is identified and laughs sardonically these situations because, after all, is the materialization of all the Gnostic mythology of the human condition in this world, exiles and prisoners, observed by a Demiurge that seduces with the possibility of purchasing power who withdraws from the situation.

Spontaneity or Sensationalism?

The traditional criticisms of the entertainment industry as "sensationalist" and "unethical" are that way, moralists and innocuous. The hype is nothing more than to become productive spontaneity, that is contained in structures or cliche scripts predefined. The sensationalism tends to turn on the spontaneous and genuine grotesque. Should become regressive and perverse to encourage thought-forms that make us laugh at ourselves, to confirm something we already suspect about our existence: we are prisoners in a giant cosmic reality show. The irony is that this confirmation does not back criticism or outrage, except sardonic laughter.

Ethical spontaneity would be free themselves in the game and play. But that would explode the logical structures of entertainment designed to channel these energies to a spiritual purpose and lucrative market. Perhaps, as provocatively claimed the French critic Jean Baudrillard, in actuality the only spontaneity is in absolute terror for political or strategic futility of these acts: do not seek the seizure of power, not to be to attract the concentric waves of media blasting (literally) scripts of the motivations of rational policy.

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Carthography and Topography of Mind: From "Vanilla Sky" to Tim Burton's "Alice in Wonderland"

A set of films of this new century is going to "Vanilla Sky" to the recent version of Tim Burton for "Alice in Wonderland" shows that current cinema reflects a new techno-scientific agenda: psychocartographies and psychotopography. The mobilization of the neurosciences and cognitive sciences for Mapping the mind and consciousness. Mapping of imaginary worlds is not a novelty in the history of culture. But in actuality, these tropes have a more practical purpose: control and social engineering.

What does the movies "Vanilla Sky" (2001), "Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind "(2004)," The Good Night" (2007) "Science of Sleep (La Sceince Des Rêves, 2006)," Alice in Wonderland (2010) Tim Burton's, "Inception" (2010) and the series TV "The Prisoner" (2009) have in common? The latest discussions presented in this blog about this whole film seems to point to two Gnostic tendencies of the film in the beginning of new century:

First, the end of the model of Gnosticism pop that marked the end of the century past in films like The Matrix and The Truman Show: the protagonist prisoner in a reality that is actually a counterfeit technology, a world manufactured, virtual. It's the classic tale of a Gnostic world created by a Demiurge (the technology) to trap human beings. We see an explicit and dramatic confrontation of the divinity of man against a power-crazed spiritual and technological. In the beginning of new century, the Gnostic narrative (Fall, imprisonment and redemption) is brought into the protagonist: the I demand a true hidden trapped or lost by forgetfulness, in a parallel world dream or limitations that prevent the self-knowledge.

Second, all these movies seem to undertake a mapping, a mapping and topography of the mental world. A real allegory of geography mental processes (dreams, daydreams, thoughts, emotions, etc.).. For example, seen in Vanilla Sky, near the end of the movie, the revelation that the David Aymes protagonist lives in a "lucid dream" created from a mapping of affective and emotional references made within the repertoire His imagery: favorite movies, music, rock bands and fragments many of pop culture. The "lucid dreaming" as the protagonist would be a sentimental journey through his memories.

In "The Prisoner" a true mapping the collective mind of people that need to be "fixed" through a radical technique neuroscience: the Ego to carry a parallel reality consensual ("The Village "). All have a double life: while their "egos" conscious inhabit real world, while its "egoss" unconscious living everyday life bucolic village. Thus their "egos" unconscious are "fixed" in The Village through a values agenda "positive" carried out by the leader of city.

In the movie "Inception", we have developed a topography of mental geography: different levels of dreams overlap, each with its own time zone separate, producing an architecture similar to a hypertext narrative or a computer game with several levels as steps.

This trend observed in recent Gnostics films seems to reflect the a techno-scientific agenda of this new century: the agenda tecnognóstica the multidisciplinary effort involving the neurosciences and cognitive sciences to unravel one of the last great mysteries of science: the functioning of human mind and the nature of consciousness. At the end of last century, the film reflected Gnostic, critically, the rise of notions of cyberspace, virtual reality and simulated worlds by through computational models, design tecnognóstico Today is another: Looking for a simulation, a computational model, a graphical interface that allows not only to understand the dynamics of mental processes and consciousness, but mainly, manipulate it and control it.

Where is the "soul"?

If the philosopher Descartes in the seventeenth century, formulated this question (epigraph that opens the film "Souls for Sale," a film that critically thematizes tecnognóstica this agenda - see links below), now the search for the answer to that question (the "soul" is replaced by the word "consciousness") is taken to its ultimate consequences if the endeavor to produce a true or a psychocartographies psychotopography.

Maps, mapping and topography of imaginary lands are not new in the history of culture. Maps as "ThePilgrim's Progress" or "Map of the Various Paths of Life" (see figures on the side - click on them to enlarge them) of the nineteenth century are allegories of symbolic events, metaphysical, as the trials of faith of a pilgrim or paths of life from birth to death. These strange looking old maps serve as personal guides to help rationalize and understand the psychological and religious phenomena. Can be considered the forerunners of a techno project initiated by the rationalism of Descartes and that in actuality, blossoms with computer technologies.

The book "Alice in Wonderland" by Lewis Carroll can be considered an example of the zeitgeist of the nineteenth century where the development of maps of imaginary countries wanted to make an allegory about the real. As in Plato's allegory of the cave (the world as a simulacrum of the perfect ways of the world of Ideas), Carroll will create the allegory of "Wonderland" to search for the origins of metaphysical simulacrum of reality. The real-life Alice in England would be nothing more than a copy of distorted or impoverished Wonderland. In this imaginary land the paradoxes, ironies, absurdities and nonsense would be more explicit than in the real world where the ultimate nature is hidden or distorted by rationalism.

In the Alice in Tim Burton have a new kind of allegory, tecnognóstica: Alice crosses the territory of a Wonderland that is no longer the allegory of Carroll. The path is made by Alice through a mental map for self-knowledge, the pursuit of real Alice and not a metaphysical reflection of reality. His interest is instrumental: self-knowledge and motivation to take his father's business and be a courageous entrepreneur.

The Wonderland Tim Burton is a reflection of this agenda tecnognóstica: creating mappings, models and interfaces to visualize the mental processes as a geography of the mind. Each region (the ante-room entrance to Wonderland, the Red Queen's castle, the mountains surrounding it, the queen's castle located on a plain white, the giant chess board at the sea where the final battle is done so on. ) is an allegory of mental processes, psychological and cognitive.

For example, the monster has Jaberwocky his severed head on top of a ruined palace on the edge of the sea. It's like Alice from deleting their fears, ghosts and restrictions that prevent it from being the real Alice. It is the yearning of all the technologies of the mind (self-help, motivational techniques) to eliminate the constraints that prevent the development potential of I. If Freud wanted to understand the symbols, with the Allegories is easier: cut up their heads!

Wonderland is no longer an underground kingdom as envisioned by Carroll. Now are memories. Memories that need to be mapped, charted, so that we can locate the regions inhabited by the memories "bad" areas (Trevose, swamps, palaces in ruins - unfinished works that have turned rubbish - meanders in landlocked mountainous areas etc.). Not to understand them, but to delete them, like in the movie "Eternal Sunshine ..." where from a graphical scans of the brain, could track the bad memories that should be deleted to make customers more light, assertive, without guilt or indecision that hinder the goals of the Self

The Map of "The Prisoner"

In the television series "The Prisoner" (The Prisoner, 2009), remake the U.S. channel AMC Cult of the British series of the '60s, we have the flagship creation of an interactive map of the "Village". Results of a technology of social control ("Social Engeneering") undertaken by the company Summakor, "The Village" is another one of these imaginary places, a mapping of mental life made to "fix broken people." Upon induction by heavy drugs, the Village is building a "consensual hallucination" (defined as the writer William Gibson gave to cyberspace) where they are sent to the Selfs of people with dysfunctional social order (paranoid, angry, depressed etc. ..) There they live in a village in pastels in a routine idyllic, simple and innocent.

One product of this series is an interactive map on the site of the station where AMC can make a visit to various institutions and neighborhoods in the Village (and prohibited areas virtuous). Mapping ironic mind of the characters in the series, but, basically, is a reflection of contemporary techno-scientific agenda (click here to visit the map).

"There are maps´to anywhere: chromosomes, galaxies, the brain, the cell, the spaces between atoms, cracks in the double helix, the edges of time. If maps invitations travels, these new maps inspire journeys of an altogether different, more associative sort. At the same time, they still connect to our traditional geographies, and are potential destinations of the orientating process; They lend themselves to a form of bushwhacking that is more interior, philosophic, imaginative" " (HALL, Stephen. "I, Mercator, IN: HARMON, Catherine. You Are Here: Personal Geographies and Other Maps of the Imagination. New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2004, p. 17.)

As allegory, the maps have that capability Neoplatonic or Gnostic philosophy of a journey or imaginary, by taking the reality backwards, as it did in the lands of Lewis Carroll's Wonderland. But the project tecnognóstico is much more practical and instrumental: to make the map match the territory, be a guide to procedures, a control panel as icons on a desktop. When we click them control mental processes, psychological and cognitive. In the end, a techno project control, management, engineering, social and psychological.

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"Alice in Wonderland" and Sophia: The Gnostic Hero's Journey

"Perhaps Alice and Sophia are just the main characters in the story of the archetypal hero's journey as part of the security of the home towards foreign lands that make little sense, but eventually offer great lessons. The difference is that Carroll and the Gnostics dare use of women as protagonists. "

Reproduced below the post for Michael Conner Aeon Byte Gnostic Radio blog where the author (apressentador weekly radio program in Chicago "Radioshow on Gnosticism") is not only a Gnostic reading of the classic "Alice in Wonderland" as Also, the author Lewis Carroll's connections with occultism and with all the esoteric stream which dominates the conservative societies in the nineteenth century Victorian. These connections explain the deep symbolism associated with the mythical archetype of Alice Sophia, the applicant hero's journey that Gnostic Fullness and Fall of reach, finally, the Resurrection and Renewal.

Alice in Wonderland and the Occult

Miguel Conner

The success of Tim Burton’s adaption of ‘Alice in Wonderland’ should come as no shock. 'Alice in Wonderland' (and its sequel ‘Through a Looking Glass’) has mesmerized both children and adults for over a century and a half, never going out of print and continuously recycled in almost every form of media.

There has also been much written about the adventures of Alice, but very little on its Occult leanings and those of its creator, Lewis Carroll (real name Charles Dodgson). This is shocking considering 'Alice in Wonderland' is one of the most mystical and surreal works in all of literature. Beyond its impact on modern culture and art, the book has influenced the Occult (Aleister Crowley required that his magicians read both ‘Alice in Wonderland’ and ‘Through a Looking Glass’).

Beyond what appears to be a vibrant metaphor for a child’s view of the alien and often illogical world of adults, could Carroll have hidden Occult ideas in his classic?

It is documented that Carroll was a member of the Society for Psychical Research, an organization founded by Anglican clergyman for the study of spiritualism, ESP, clairvoyance and all type of paranormal activity (members of its American branch included William and Henry James).

In ‘The Annotated Alice’, Martin Gardner states that Carroll was a strong proponent of ESP and Psychokinesis. Carroll himself wrote that the mind could break through into the supernatural realms:

‘All seems to point to the existence of a natural force, allied to electricity and nerve-force, by which brain can act on brain. I think we close on the day when this shall be classed among the known natural forces, and its laws tabulated, and when the scientific skeptics, who always shut their eyes till the last moment to any evidence that seems to point beyond materialism, will have to accept it as a proved fact in nature(p.53).’

This is clearly echoed in ‘Alice in Wonderland’ where the caterpillar is able to read Alice’s mind.

In ‘Through a Looking Glass’, Alice suddenly takes out a pencil and begins writing unintelligible words in a book before The White King. Gardner claims this scene was included because Carroll supported Automatic Writing (when a disembodied spirit is believed to seize the hand of a psychic) (p. 147).

This could possibly be the esoteric secret of Carroll’s famous riddle ‘Why is a raven like a writing desk?’ After all, ravens are symbolical messengers of the dead while Automated Writing (performed on a desk) is also communication with the dead.

Lastly, Carroll is reported to have owned a large collection of books on the Occult (p. 53).

It’s surprising there is even this amount of evidence about his mystic interests and how they influenced his writings. Carroll was a Deacon for the Anglican Church, as well as a very private man who never granted interviews. And there is the mystery concerning the disappearance of his extensive diaries.

There doesn’t seem to be anything overtly Gnostic about ‘Alice in Wonderland’ until one recognizes some of the major themes dealing with the heroine herself.

The saga of Alice has striking parallels to the myth of the fall of Sophia, as told in some Gnostic accounts:

--Both, out of boredom, curiosity and disobedience, are thrown into an existentialist dimension (Alice--Wonderland/ Sophia--The Chaos).

--Both often lose their direction and their very senses until aided by trickster beings (Alice--The Cheshire Cat/Sophia--The Cosmic Christ).

--Both seem to create bizarre creatures they must overcome (Alice—various entities but the dragon-like Jabberwocky is the most famous example/Sophia—Jehovah, who appears to her in a dragon-like form).

Both must pass tests of emotion and will so they can return to their primordial home (Alice—England; Sophia—The Pleroma).

--Both represent the Gnostic quest of the fallen soul in search for self-knowledge that will bring about restoration and release from corrupted matter (Alice must solve several riddles and often reflects on her own nature/Sophia must discover and utter the right prayers to understand herself and her place within The Eternal Realm she originated from).

--Both realize they are part of the living dream of an ultra-Supreme Being (Alice--The Red King/ Sophia--The Virgin Spirit/Bythos).

--Both have names that represent great human virtues (Alice means ‘truth’/Sophia means ‘wisdom’).

Even the greatest Gnostic Gospel of recent times, 'The Matrix', alludes to ‘Alice in Wonderland’. This solely happens when Morpheus (the god of dreams) teaches Neo (the Gnostic Jesus) that he must not only wake up from all false realities but also confront them:

‘I imagine that right now, you're feeling a bit like Alice. Hmm? Tumbling down the rabbit hole?’

‘This is your last chance. After this, there is no turning back. You take the blue pill - the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill - you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit-hole goes.’

Perhaps Alice and Sophia are simply the main characters in the archetypal story of the hero’s journey from the safety of home to foreign lands that make little sense but eventually offer great lessons. The difference is that Carroll and The Gnostics dared to use females as their protagonists.

To what extent Carroll used his knowledge of the Occult will never be fully known. It is simply accepted that the Anglican deacon and mathematician wrote stories to impress a young girl who inspired him.

What is known is that Carroll joins a prestigious list of artists who despite living in conservative societies dipped into the stream of The Esoterica and drew out the timeless waters of mystic creativity. Whether or not ‘Alice in Wonderland’ was consciously injected with Gnosticism is not truly important. As Bishop Stephan Hoeller once said, ‘Any serious artist is already half a Gnostic.’

Such insights might actually add new dimensions to reading Gnostic texts, which Lewis Carroll never lived to see. This is a pity because both Carroll and The Gnostics enjoyed puns, wild interpretations, brisk fantasy landscapes and meanings that had no meaning unless one possessed the Sophia of a child or the wit of a philosopher-poet. And there is that eternal connection among those who dip into that stream of The Esoterica for those timeless waters of mystic creativity.

A fun example Carroll might appreciate could be found in The Gospel of Philip that states ‘Truth (Alice) did not come into the world (Wonderland/The Matrix) naked, but it(she) came in types and images. The world (Wonderland/The Matrix) will not receive truth (Alice) in any other way.’

Or would Carroll believe, like with Alice and Sophia, that the Gnostics had simply tumbled down a rabbit-hole?

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The New Tim Burton's "Alice": Enterprising Entrepreneurial

The version of Alice in Wonderland by Tim Burton has the clear moral and ideological framework of Disney: it reduces the whole complexity occult and gnostic (transcendent) of the book by Lewis Carroll a psychological journey of Alice in his memoirs where only the demand reconciliation with the order of this world: to seek self-knowledge and self-confidence that will help transform it into a entrepreneurial businesswoman.

Published in 1865 by Lewis Carroll, more than a statement of alleged love the little girl Alice Liddell (then 10 years old), the book Alice in Wonderland Wonderland is an episodic narrative, full of symbolism theosophical, occult and Gnostic (as we saw in previous post - see links below). Alice is a protagonist who does not fit the company belongs. A story with dialogue full of puzzles and language games leading to logic, physics and mathematics to extremes, to the point where all rationality achieves the opposite: the surreal, nonsense and anarchy.

A character so screwed up as Alice would be perfect for director Tim Burton, a filmmaker who often faces fantasy universes and cumbersome and complex narratives with progress.

Despite this seemingly perfect marriage, the filmmaker's version emerges with a conventional narrative that reduces the complexity and ambiguity of the text original.

Tim Burton's adaptation to the saga of Lewis Carroll's Alice behind two novelties: first, he merges elements of two books "Alice in Wonderland "and" Alice Through the Looking Glass. " The second novelty, the principal is Alice found that a fully grown and about to be married by the imposition Lord family with a son of his partner's father (deceased). Not to give "Yes" at a party organized by the families to be purposefully announced their engagement, Alice ran off by the huge gardens of a mansion, to find a strange rabbit vest and watch. Pursue him to enter a hole that reveals the entrance to a strange underworld.

The characters and the overall structure of the narrative documents are maintained by Tim Burton. However, it is the subtle changes and adjustments that shows that the director (Author of radical films like Swenney Todd) had to bow to the Studios Disney and synchronize Alice's narrative as to what are called "agenda tecnognóstica "(see links below). No wonder that many critics have noted a Tim Burton's "lazy" with a conventional narrative.

The first thing that stands out is the strategy of breaking-the-order- return-to-order narrative. In the original literary version, the misfit Alice plunges into a vibrant metaphor for the lack of meaning behind rationality of the adult world and the story ends ambiguously and challenging the reality principle: the end of "Alice Through the Looking Glass" the protagonist does not know if it was all a dream or if it was part of the dream Red King (Gnostic suspicion that reality could be a fiction produced by a God who does not love us (the Demiurge).

In this version, instead, that ambiguity is removed: breaks the order Alice (marriage imposed by the conventions of society) runs throughout the course of a dream "movie dream" and, after the final battle with the dragon Jabberwocky returns to the society to assume a new role: not as clueless now as a member of the firm who would be his future father in law. Alice returns to his responsibilities. All your adventure through Wonderland served as a motivational self to believe in themselves and ultimately take over his father's business.

More than an authorial work of filmmaker Tim Burton's "Alice in Wonderland" is a product of Walt Disney Studios with its traditional framework for morality current running through all their products: cultured entrepreneurship, motivation, self-confidence and a constellation concepts associated with corporate imagery and literature of self-help.

This is symptomatic when, in the final sequences, Alice comes to his senses and realizes that everything she is going through this subterranean world is not a dream, but memories. During her childhood she attended the universe that often grow up into oblivion by rationality and conventions of the adult world. If the original version of Carroll's Wonderland is the very real world of Alice in inverted form, paradoxical and metaphorical, here in the version of Burton/Disney is a journey of self-knowledge.

Alice in tune with Techgnostic Agenda

Here, the film syncs with the "Techgnostic Agenda" in effect in productions that converge primarily to fictional genres such as fantasy, sci-fi and suspense.

As we saw earlier, the recurrence of this agenda is present at the beginning of this century from movies like Vanilla Sky to the recent "Inception" (2010). They are films whose scripts and arguments are influenced by the "technologies of the mind" (neurosciences, cognitive sciences, etc. Memetics.) Tools to attract keen interest from the entire complex corporate-media-advertising: a project that aims to map ( like in the movie "Vanilla Sky" where the archetypal imagery of the protagonist's life are the raw material for the manufacture of "lucid dreaming" imprisons him that), one cartography (as in "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" - 2004 - where the technology of memory erasure produces a labyrinthine vision of the mind and departmentalized with local street corners, cross roads etc..) and a topography (the different levels of dreams as in the "Inception"). Objective: To create three-dimensional models of the dynamism of the mind to enter no more ideas (slogans, ideologies or discourses - that ultimately result in a slight effect), but "memes" that would later be transformed into ideas.

The whole saga of Alice, his characters, the geography and topography of Wonderland, the "Oracle" (a temporal map of all past and future events) presented by the caterpillar to Alice blue smoke narguillé, becomes, in this new version, in an inner journey to overcome the constraints that block the potential for Alice. Just like the movie "The Source" where the image of Cobb's wife (Leonardo DiCaprio) is a projection of his guilt, "Alice in Wonderland" all the characters would be projections of several "Alices" interior and in the end Jabberwocky dragon would be the projection of its fears and ghosts. Alice cuts off the dragon's head, get confidence and takes the company's late father.

All riddles, puzzles and paradoxes with which Alice was confronted in the version of Lewis Carroll, this reduces to just one question: is it the real Alice? Sure, she became an adult, let the playful innocence of childhood and the mindset. The inhabitants of Wonderland can not therefore recognize it. Your challenge is to reconnect with that lost Alice. Therefore, dialogue is Alice solipsist, ie there is nothing more than his own experience. All the fantastic characters of the underworld would be nothing more than projections of the "Alice" intimate interiors in a battle of self. Alice does not pass "Through the Looking Glass." It reflects on him. There is a transcendent experience, but only immanence: Wonderland as a rite of passage for future responsibilities as adults.

The deep symbolism of Alice, associated with the archetype of the Gnostic Sophia, filtered and translated into the postmodern heroin entrepreneurial. If Alice, as Sophia, depart for foreign lands that make little sense in pursuit of new lessons in the current version of Alice is a solipsistic journey of no transcendence but the peaceful acceptance of reality (the Mad Hatter in the film - Johnny Depp - calls Alice in Wonderland to stay. In response, Alice speaks of his obligations and things to do, refusing the invitation.)

Version Burton/Disney reduces the complexity occult and gnostic (transcendent) of the original version of Lewis Carroll in an inner journey that only seek reconciliation with the order of this world: seeking energies that motivate us to move forward on our obligations and duties .

Credits:

• Title: Alice in Wonderland
• Director: Tim Burton
• Screenplay: Linda Woolverton (based on the books of Lewis Carroll's "Alice in Wonderland" and "Alice Through the Looking Glass")
• Cast: Johnny Depp, Mia Wasikowska, Helena Bonham Carter, Anne Hathaway, Crispin Glover.
• Production / Distribution: Walt Disney Pictures
• Year: 2010
• Country: USA

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A Brief Gnostic History of the Spontaneity in the Entertainment Industry (Part 1)

If the Entertainment Industry repeats the same cosmic drama described by the Gnostic mythology (the Demiurge imprisoning human beings in an attempt to draw us to the particles of light by moving a fallen cosmos from the beginning) we need to trace the same trajectory inside the media . Find ways to make a story of how entertainment tries to capture and retain the spontaneity of an instrumental.

In previous posts (see links below) addressed the issue of spontaneity in the entertainment industry by Gnostic point of view. Our thesis is that the quest for spontaneity by the entertainment industry to make it productive in the structures, clichés (giving "life" or "feeling" empty and inert forms that tend dangerously to entropy - the apathy of the public) reproduces a micro-scale cosmic drama described by the Gnostic mythology: the struggle of the Demiurge to imprison the human being to extract from it the particles of light that animate the ethereal forms from which the physical cosmos was built. Because it is an imperfect copy of the Fullness (Pleroma), from the moment that was "built" and not "originating", tends to inertia or entropy.

Well, it is now draw a short history of spontaneity in mass culture, trying to map out the stages and strategies by which the spontaneity of the public is properly represented in the products and

But before that, we must define what we mean by "spontaneity." For the Gnostic mythology is the way in which the particles of light (memories of our true origins not in this cosmos, but in the Pleroma) are manifested in daily life: happiness, good faith provision, brightness, vitality, confidence, etc.., Ie , feelings and dispositions that set in motion our lives not in an instrumental sense (in terms of goals, objectives, efficiency, or "positive thinking", as recommended by the literature of self-help). Rather, we take the spontaneity in the aspect of "game" and "playful."

By referring this concept to this world, immediate recall of children's play, where even spontaneity expresses itself freely. But we play the game and not in the sense that the adult does as "irresponsible happy" or "something not serious." Richard Sennett for the game is serious business:

"(...) Is the principle that leads the child to invest a lot of passion in a situation driven by impersonal rules and consider the expression in this situation as a matter of redoing and refine these rules to give pleasure and promote a greater sociability with other "(Sennett, Richard. The Decline of Public Man, S. Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 1988, p. 384.)

In the game children invest a lot of passion in absolutely impersonal rules, create a fantasy world to create pleasure and sociability. Serious about the game not in the sense of seeking instrumental or tactical victory methodically trying to understand the rules to understand the mechanics of the game and never lose. In the game we accept the experience, whether good or bad, win or lose. The passion is the development of rules (where the longer the game more fun) and not the ultimate goal Unlike the adult experience denies hiding in structures or strategies that will keep you protected from the threat of the experiment (uncertainty, loss , etc..) Hidden in the cliche to escape the unpredictable and dangerous.

Entertainment and Spontaneity

Defined the notion of spontaneity, let's move on to the history of its relations with the entertainment.

For Neal Gabler in his book "Life: The Movie" as the entertainment industry and more than that, as a phenomenon that will structure the experience itself, appears in the U.S.. Like Swiss chocolate exports tulips and Holland, the U.S. will export entertainment.

Its origins are perhaps deeper in evangelical Protestantism, whose religious practice was in itself quite amusing: faithful taken by fits of catalepsy, convulsions, visions, explosions of laughter and singing, and sermons full of bizarre stories, reports of murders and deformities to that the faithful feel the bones themselves hope, conviction and guilt. These stories later massed in tabloids and popular literature, would be the extent of this religious phenomenon typically American.

Here, the entertainment is associated with sensations: the unusual, the bizarre, the unexpected. These spontaneous demonstrations of daily life are associated with the Fantastic, the Mystery. Parks and circuses of varieties that exposed human strains will be the basis of the archetypes and iconography of modern horror movies and suspense that will move the structures cliche these genres.

With the coming of photography, film and later TV, this potential sensational imagery and theatrical entertainment takes place technologically. In this first phase of visual and audiovisual means, when there was still a structured language for business, we have the presence of spontaneous yet the relationship "awkward" or "dysfunctional" man with new technology then.

For example, in photographs of the nineteenth century people seem to be more clumsy than the current photos of them still have not in mind the notion of posing and lighting. Indeed, most pictures were spontaneous than the present.

In the cinema there was still room to director-actor relationship is not codified by the pace of the assembly line. For example, in the autobiography of actress Mae Marsch she gives an account of instructions given by director DW Griffith in a scene in which she would represent fear and panic. A conventional director would say "Scream".

"Mr. Griffith, by contrast, asked me if I had ever felt in life fear or fright. Yes, I said. 'What did you do then,' asked me to follow. 'I started laughing,' I replied. He knew immediately what it was (...) I believe the hysterical laughter was far more expressive than the eyes or turning back the tears. "(Quoted by PROKOP, Dieter." The Working with Stereotypes: the films of DW Griffith "In: MARCONDES SON (ed.) Dieter Prokop. Colection Greats Social Scientists, New York: Attica, p.64.)

With the consolidation of the entertainment industry as from the early 30th and final adjustment of man and the new technology we are developing a language (structure-cliche) specific for each medium and genre, resulting in the increasing need for exploration of spontaneity from the public.


The first strategy was the creation of the Star System or the promotion of actors as "stars" (to the Gnostic view of the expression is not mere coincidence: it expresses the secret desire to catch the light, "star" shine, to put into motion the entertainment). The producers soon realized that the public recognize their favorite actors and gave them affectionate nicknames (Mary Pickford "Girl of clusters" - see photo opposite - Jane Harlow to "venus platinum). Soon these players turn into stars while exploring the public's fascination with the idiosyncrasies or spontaneous or unique features, turning them into gods of Olympus, that is, "Olympians."

Celebrities and the Vicious Cycle of the Entertainment Industry

The second strategy was the creation of "celebrities". The exposure of the stars becomes deeper when looking at them everyday scandals, foibles, unusual hobbies, everything that gives spontaneity to actors who already bored the public. Once the stars have realized that the mechanism producing the constant exposure in the media and were deliberately, through public relations or journalists, to produce events or events to achieve ever greater media spaces.

This will create a vicious cycle, a trap for the entertainment industry in the quest for spontaneity:

"The result was to transform society into a gigantic Heisenberg effect, in which the media were not reporting what people did, he was reporting what people did to get media attention. In other words, as the life was being lived increasingly to the media, this was increasingly covering itself and its impact on life "(Gable, Neal. Life, the Movie. São Paulo: Companhia das Letters, 1999, p. 97).

A celebrity is tautological, as defined in the 60 Daniel Boorstin in his seminal book The Image: a guide of pseudoevents in America ":" Celebrity is a person who is characterized by its reputation. " It is famous because it is well known!

In fact, celebrities, with their poses, like playing the hair, mouths with lips between open-etc., Will play the cliche imagery of cinema and advertising.

If the film explored the spontaneity through the Star System, the advertising will get the spontaneous eroticism, children and animals. When Marilyn Monroe, perhaps one of the first celebrities, exposed himself with his fri appeal to capture the attention of cameras and lenses, have replied faces and, once spontaneous repertoire of advertising imagery pin ups.

The entertainment industry creates a trap for itself, an unexpected side effect: every effort to capture the spontaneity of everyday situations in film and advertising (as in images of Norman Rockwell trying to capture snapshots of the routine life style on the covers of the U.S. " Saturday Evening Post ") resulted in a repertoire of iconography, true tactics to attract the attention of reporters, producers and promoteurs. And not just in the field of shallow celebrities. Political and economic events occurring in exaggerated tones to match the script of fictional dramas and attract the attention of the media. The terrorist events are those that best demonstrate this thesis.

The practice journalist more concerned with "language" than the fact demonstrates this: the reporter becomes a stage director, leading the interviewee or the fact to make it more "newsworthy", "telegenic" or "exciting".

As a result, the spontaneity disappears and the entertainment industry reaches dangerously out of boredom, inertia and loss of interest. It was necessary to renew the search strategies for new media types, situations, sensations and snapshots. But that is subject to the next post.

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"Because we know you have something special", says the Demiurge

The contest of children's television channel Discovery Kids is emblematic. The contest seeks new presenters for their programs. Your emergency and recruitment tone seems to denounce the secret needs of the entertainment industry: just as the Demiurge in the cosmic field, the Archons in the field of micro media seek spiritual light and energy of each of us to put into motion a flawed design and static.

The Gnostic mythological narratives see the man as an expatriate or a foreigner in a cosmos that is hostile to him, governed by a Demiurge who does not love him but that the traps inside his creation with a single objective: the power to imprison the man contains (Spirit or Light).

Originated from a Anthropos that fell in this material universe in time immemorial as tragic result of a cosmic battle between the realms of Light (Pleroma) and the Demiurge, the man is constantly seduced by the illusions created by the Archons materials.

The Archons, or "small regents" as described in the Gnostic narratives, are malicious angels created by the Demiurge to assist, through the arms of evil and deception, to keep the man trapped inside the circles of matter. They have the ability to dodge through religion, science or reason and the ability to seduce through the sensuality or the symbols of power.

All because the creation of the Demiurge is an incompleteness in the architecture of cosmic creation: it does not create the world directly, but only one model ethereal, lacking the energy for this building that the anime: the Spirit or Light He is looking for element that animates the material cosmos, the Light that is mixed with darkness. Originated in the realms of heights (the Pleroma), the mixture is light in darkness because the human being, unconsciously, the holds. Therefore, the Demiurge attempts to apprehend them to extract from it the element which was organized by the principles of the physical cosmos corrupted, complete the gap in its creation.

The media and the entertainment industry seem to play in this micro-macro cosmic incompleteness. As another tool of the Demiurge (after all, the media and entertainment industries are the perfect fusion between Religion and Science, Technology and Sorcery - or fetishism), it is pure form, cliche, stereotype, merchandise. It's just a template that requires something the anime, which put into motion: the energy, spontaneity, innocence, etc.. In other words, you need the particles of light, or what makes each of us unique, brilliant and spiritually connected to our ancestral origins, the Pleroma.

The slogan of the contest of children's channel Discovery Kids "because we know you have something special" is very suggestive and gives food for thought in these terms Gnostics. The tone of the event on Discovery Kids is convening and urgent: "We are looking for presenters like you." The name of the competition is enticing: "Join the contract Turn to Star."

More than seduce through the imaginary narcissistic-exhibitionistic-voyeuristic (become a "star"), the entertainment industry looking for different ways to recruit people who have touched the spiritual energy necessary to give life to the empty forms and static products cultural.

This spiritual energy or particle of light in each one of us is manifested in daily life by spontaneity, innocence and good faith, kindness, compassion, joy, devotion and integrity of purpose. Gnosis was the inner search for spiritual meaning of these daily manifestations of the particles of light that animate the spirit. Understand that through gnosis means confrontation with the physical cosmos in which we are imprisoned, since these energies transcend or may not be contained by the roles or social norms or policies.

But the whole process seductive entertainment industry is to convince us that this truth is already present in every one of us are not enough. You must turn in the media image. Just as for many parents the child is not enough owls only exists, but states that its existence to become in-picture (turn the child into advertising model, upload videos to websites or children eagerly waiting to appear on TV channels). It is indeed the manifestation that the entertainment industry need to channel these energies to enliven the cliches and stereotypes.

Many researchers in the line of Critical Theory have realized this perverse dynamic. For example, Theodor Adorno understood the dynamic between the standardized forms of cultural industries and spontaneity required to give motion. Mainly in their analysis of popular music, Adorno understood the tension between the potentially emancipatory standard (the leitmotif and melody in music) and elements potentially spiritual, or transcendent energy (the atonal, the counter-point, etc...) So much so that your final project (abbreviated by death), represented by the book "Negative Dialectics", would be to scrutinize the spontaneity present in the masses, beyond the static models of the cultural industry.

The German Dieter Prokop tried to continue this insight of Adorno on the discussion of "boredom and fascination in cultural products". This passage is very interesting reflection on our Gnostic thinking:

"Fascinating is a certain carefree independence in certain representations and actions of men and women singers of hits: a sincere pleasure to represent, a firmness, a contentment with himself, a failure, acts of self-representation demonstrated unwavering narcissistic in a way that arouses admiration and envy (PROKOP, Dieter. Dieter Prokop, Large Collection Social Scientists, New York: Attica, 1987, p. 150).

In summary, it is fascinating to see a star that we know, beforehand, be more of the same, but with elements of spontaneity and carefree innocence.

The contest of Discovery Kids is emblematic. Your emergency tone and seems to denounce the secret recruitment needs of the entertainment industry: just as the Demiurge in the cosmic field, the Archons in the field of micro media seek spiritual light and energy of each of us to put into motion a flawed design and static. Fascinated, we are seduced by the stars as if they were special people, chosen and anointed, not knowing that in each of us also have this "anima". However, we are led to believe that we are empty and dependent on that energy transmitted by the media, when in fact we have exactly the opposite.

The exploration of innocence and naivety

I believe one of the most accurate translations filmic reality is that in the film "Mad City" (1997) from director Costa Gavras. Known for movies with plots of strong political overtones in this movie she puts the media in question, but not only in the most immediate political aspect: it goes further, exploring metaphysical dimensions.

Sam Baily (John Travolta), desperate to have been fired from his job as a security guard, returns to his place of employment (Museum of Natural History) to try to enter into an agreement with her employer (the curator of the museum Mrs. Banks - Blythe Danner ). Intending to intimidate her, and Sam comes armed with a bag full of dynamite. Max Breckett (Dustin Hoffman - a journalist at a low after being punished by the TV network where he worked with the downgrade to a regional station) is in the museum when she accidentally Sam fires his gun hitting another security that comes staggering into the street. In response, Sam takes everyone hostage at the museum (children visiting the museum at the time and Mrs Banks). Max has a handy scoop that you can do it again to return to journalism's national broadcaster.

Since then, Max will do anything to drive the story to national impact, creating a media circus around the museum. Sam, a naive and common resident of a typical country town, finds himself enmeshed in a web of interests that has the media as the center of everything.

Why the media is interested in personal drama of Sam Bailey? At 35 years and without a job feels finished and no prospects. Hidden wife's job loss, trying to solve it yourself. Melancholy and impotent before the facts of life (and no study has not found intelligent or smart), sees in the media (personified by the "news of the boy," Max Breckett) the only way for an exit. Max says he is popular and friendly to the public. For Sam, Max becomes his personal agent. Think of a book on the history, a TV movie and even a show about fishing, "Sam's Fishing Corner." Like Max, Sam is betrayed by the game media. Sam is naive and spontaneous, raw material required in any media to show, then this inner essence to be corrupted by the script and protocols of the fictional script.

Max: why not study?
Sam: I had no money ... and it seems that was not very smart
Max: I did not study too ... could not afford
Sam: How is that done to be so smart?
Max: say thanks to my charm ... is something you have
Sam: charm?
Max: charm, personality
Sam: in this case could spark a television program?
Max: Why not? It is even famous!
Sam: yes, but famous in the wrong direction
Max: It does not matter in television. They know who he is.

The ingenuity and spontaneity of Sam is the media that seeks the Demiurge, which makes his telegenic drama. Max directs Sam to follow a script, or a kind of protocol, the media and public opinion expect at events like this assumes the character of Sam hijacker gets the sympathy of public opinion and to think of a future program on TV. As in the Gnostic mythology Demiurge creates the form but not the content of existence (in need of raw material to liven the human creation), just as the media needs to capture and exploit the spontaneous and naive to give movement to the cliche of his universe.

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