All Episodes
Previous Next
April 21, 2015 - The Unexplained - Howard Hughes
01:10:26
Edition 202 - Cinema Symbolism

Author and theologian Robert W Sullivan on his latest research...

| Copy link to current segment

Time Text
Across the UK, across continental North America and around the world, on the internet, by webcast and by podcast, my name is Howard Hughes and this is The Unexplained.
In the springtime, London looking really beautiful today as I record this.
Temperatures around about 68 Fahrenheit, about what is that, 20 Celsius in European temperatures, beautiful crystal blue sky, and spring has arrived here.
And I for one, I'm saying, yippee, thank you very much indeed for all of your emails.
Going to do some shout-outs on this show.
If you want to get in touch with me, send me a message or a guest suggestion, you can go to the website now.
It's theunexplained.tv, www.theunexplained.tv.
And there you can follow the link and send me an email.
And if you can, please make a donation to the running of this show.
Thank you to Adam Cornwell, my webmaster at Creative Hotspot in Liverpool, for his continued hard work on the site.
Couldn't do any of it without Adam.
The guest on this show is Robert W. Sullivan.
Second visit to The Unexplained from him.
This time we're going to talk about cinema symbolism.
He's written a book about that and done a whole lot of research.
The signs, indications, and symbols that we see or are buried and hidden in popular entertainment.
Think you're going to like this one with Robert W. Sullivan on this edition from the U.S. Shout outs, though, first.
Aaron in Burnley and your dad listening to The Unexplained.
Nice to hear from you.
Agnes in Long Island.
Thank you.
And you say that I saw a UFO and nothing that large and wingless could move like the thing I saw.
Fascinating how so many people experience these things, Agnes, don't they?
Evan Demari or Demarie, thank you very much.
Paul says, the biggest mystery of all, you know, Howard, is human beings and politicians.
Why do we vote for them?
Well, this is very interesting because we're in the middle of a long and protracted election campaign here.
They used to be three weeks long.
They're now six weeks long.
And I think some of us are starting to feel just a little bit jaded by it all and by them.
I don't know what you might think about that.
Maybe you'll email and tell me.
Kirvin, nice to hear from you.
Tom in Wisconsin, some good ideas.
Frank Raffer from Sound Sensation DJs in Pennsylvania.
Nice email.
Sue, who listens on the long, long drive down from Liverpool to Essex.
Nice to know you're there, Sue.
We get around, don't we, Scousers?
Jonah in Long Beach, heard an odd voice on the show that I did with Barry John, thinks it was an EVP.
I'll have another listen.
Alex Sewell says, congratulations on 200 shows.
Quite a few of you have said that.
Thank you very much.
We're now on 202.
Dr. Linda Salvin, psychic and healer in Los Angeles, telling me about herself.
Linda, can you tell me a little bit more, if you can?
Christine in Ashland, Oregon, very interesting email.
Thanks, Christine.
Paul, a fellow scouser in Perth, Western Australia.
Lovely, lovely place.
Tim Erickson, good to hear from you from Funk, Nebraska.
Roy Barber in Sydney, fantastic email, Roy, thank you.
And your kind offer of somewhere to stay if I can ever afford to get back down under.
Peter in Weymouth, Dorset, kind thoughts, thank you.
Eric, can you tell me more about your music, Eric?
Be grateful to hear from you about that.
Kellen in Greenville, South Carolina, thanks for your email.
David in Coventry, thanks for yours.
Richard Pace, regular listener, nice to hear from you.
Same for Elliot in Birmingham and Lindsay in Glasgow.
And hello to Frederick in Sweden.
Mel in Arlington, Texas, some good thoughts about financing.
Thank you for that, Mel.
Nathan Zander in New York City, thank you.
Hayden in the US, thank you.
Ben Jazerski, good to hear from you.
Eric in Dublin, ditto.
Matthew says Nigel, that's Nigel Hembest, the astronomer, and Heather Cooper, are scientific snobs.
Not everybody loves them, but a lot of you did.
They were on Edition 200.
Sorry about that sniffle, by the way.
A little bit of hay fever now.
Can you believe that?
Paul Dubois in Florida, who's a park ranger.
I love it when you tell me about your lives and what you do.
Living among the gators, the skunk and the apes, he says.
Fantastic.
Dr. Kate Wolf, Kate Wolfe May, thank you.
Jeff in Sydney, the fish restaurant that I mentioned on a recent show is Doyle's at Rush Cutters Bay.
Lovely place.
Fantastic food.
And that's another reason for me wanting to go back to Sydney.
You have to use one of those water taxis to get to it.
But wow, what an experience.
Phil Ripley in Cheshire, nice to hear from you.
Alex Dalsanto, thank you for your email as well.
And that's just a flavor of recent emails.
If you want to get in touch, you know how to do it.
Go to www.theunexplained.tv and thank you for your support.
Okay, let's get now to Robert W. Sullivan in the United States.
So we're going to talk about cinema symbolism.
Rob, thank you very much for coming back on the show.
Thank you, Howard, for having me on.
It's my pleasure to be here with you.
I got a lot of very good, very mixed feedback about the last show we did, which was to do with the Royal Arch of Enoch and a lot of symbolism to do with Freemasonry and that sort of stuff.
It seems to me that people are more and more intrigued by this.
Oh, I agree with you.
It's definitely a subject matter that seems to have been gaining interest.
It seems to me, just on my point of view, that the interest really began to grow with the esoteric symbolisms, Freemasonry, the philosophies, really with the birth of the Internet and really even beyond the birth, really until the mid-2000s, I would say around 2005, 2006, was really when this material, and again, this coincides with the release of things like the Da Vinci Code and National Treasure.
But for me, I remember at this point in time was when, I think I may have mentioned this the last time, I had an old MySpace page.
And I kind of posted some blogs about the symbolism, some photo galleries, and I received overwhelmingly positive responses for this.
And this was what sort of started me in the process of writing the Royal Arch of Enoch.
I was contacted by a Masonic friend of mine who had seen the page and said, hey, this is really great material.
Rather than just messing around on social media, commit pen to paper and memorialize it in a book, which eventually I did, which was my plan to begin with anyway.
The Royal Arch of Enoch was what came out of it.
Explain to me why this is more than just a conspiracy theory.
What, Masonic symbolism?
Yes.
You know, there is definitely some truth in this in this whole idea that a lot of the, you know, especially when you get into the United States, a lot of the foundations, the founding fathers were Freemasons.
So you'll find a heavy Masonic influence in the creation of this government.
And even after 1800, people like DeWitt Clinton using Freemasonry as a vehicle to formulate policy.
Then again, you get into both the architects and the architecture of the United States.
A lot of the guys behind this were Freemasons.
So you'll find this esoterica in things like the architecture of the federal district.
I mean, this is all very well documented.
I talk about it in the book in Baltimore, Maryland, and the Erie Canal was a Masonic undertaking.
And I guess when you start investigating this and you just start seeing this over and over again, I understand, oh, a couple of times, it would be a coincidence or there's nothing to this or it's just happenstance.
But when you just see this being repeated over and over again, you realize you are well beyond the realm of superstitious conspiracy talk or coincidence.
And there is definitely something going on to this.
Okay, well, last week I saw one of these Discovery Channel type programs about symbolism and its appearance in so many different places.
One of the symbols, and of course we know this because we've seen it, that appears in place after place is the all-seeing eye.
And I wondered to myself when I saw this, and the guy who was on there, I forget who it was, was making a pretty convincing case for this being some kind of, you know, some kind of tool of a cabal somewhere.
But then I thought, well, maybe this is just to do with art.
You know, artists tend to work, some of them, along fashion lines.
So if there is a fashion for depicting the all-seeing eye, then one artist will copy another, will copy another, one designer will copy another.
And there's nothing sinister in that, is there?
Oh, I don't disagree with that.
I mean, I think when you get into the symbolism and the idea of the architecture and things like that and the all-seeing eye, yeah, I mean, I mean, the guys who are doing it, I mean, you know, you get into traditions of the Renaissance, Ars Noatia, Ars Notoria, the art of memory, buildings being symbolic memory temples, divine symbols, the all-seeing eye, the eye of God, the eye of providence.
You know, it gets misinterpreted in that, oh, this is evidence of this vast demonic conspiracy.
But, you know, a lot of times it's actually the exact opposite.
It's supposed to be emblematizing divinity.
You know, when you have these astral alignments, it's the idea is that the stars are closer to God than we are.
So by doing this, you're symbolically drawing down God to earth.
But yeah, I mean, it gets a negative rap.
But no, I tend to agree.
I don't think in most instances, if not all, the motivating factor of it is sublime and perfection and the idea that you're creating a perfected building or that you're using these symbols as emblems of divinity and even what you would want to call positivity, things like that.
But again, a lot of people see it as this dark side to it.
And I certainly understand it.
But I think when you look at the things of the symbolism of the Washington, D.C. or Baltimore, for example, I mean, clearly there is this template that's being used, and people see it.
And people who are unfamiliar say, oh, this is this evidence of this vast Masonic conspiracy where the guys who are perpetrating it, yes, they're Freemasons, but they're just drawing on the symbols from Freemasonry, the teachings of Freemasonry, the philosophies of Freemasonry, which again come out of the Enlightenment, the Renaissance, things like that, which are supposed to have to be positive, not negative.
So how much of this do we need to be concerned about, if indeed we need to be concerned at all?
Well, I think if you want to look at it in, you know, I think it's an interesting study, and I think it's, you know, a fascinating subject matter.
For the common person, I would say probably they're not aware of it, but I would say, you know, if you want to say that this architecture and this symbolism, you know, I would basically write it off as somewhat benign would be the word that would come to my mind.
I mean, I know a lot of people out there say this is this evidence of this control matrix and things like that.
And I think when you become aware of it, it's really interesting to see the lengths that some of this, and, you know, and again, this is kind of what we were going to talk about today with the movie stuff.
You know, the lengths that these guys will go to to incorporate this arcana, you know, whether it's in a building, you know, or alignment to the solstices or a certain saw, you know, constellation or things like that.
But, you know, again, I don't really see a sinister motive behind it.
And there is always the thing that people might depict various symbols or use various gambits just to show that we're part of a particular club.
Like, for example, the Beatles included backwards audio in some of their more psychedelic tracks and little references that various people would get within their lyrics.
There was nothing, well, as far as we know, unless you believe those people who believe that Paul McCartney was replaced, there was nothing sinister about that.
It was just kind of showing that we're in the same club.
And if you understand this, then you're one of us.
Well, absolutely.
That's absolutely true.
And what also must be borne in mind when it comes to symbolism is, and this is constantly worth repeating, that if one society like Masonry uses a certain symbol and then another society uses that exact same symbol, the two can operate outside of each other where the symbol has different meanings.
I guess the point I'm making is the symbol has a meaning in one circle and it can have a deeper meaning or an alternative meaning in another group.
I mean, for example, I mean, you know, you'll find this in history with the swastika, where obviously it's an emblem of evil in Nazi Germany.
And of course, you show it to somebody, that's the first thing that jumps to their head.
But I mean, this symbol predates, you know, Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party.
I mean, you'll find it by a substantial degree.
And it was used in India, wasn't it?
But it was used in reverse.
Yeah, absolutely.
You'll find it in India.
You'll find it actually, believe it or not, you'll find it in Jewish synagogues in the Middle East.
You'll find it in Buddhist temples.
You'll find it in American Indian cave dwellings.
It's a symbol of the sun, basically.
But yeah, I mean, that's an example of this.
And the one, of course, that, you know, when you get into like Freemasonry, the symbol that you'll find is the pentagram.
I mean, again, this ties into things of Pythagoras, you know, you know, the mastery of the five elements.
But of course, you know, The Church of Satan also uses the pentagram.
And, you know, you'll hear people say, oh, well, this is evidence that the Freemasons are satanic.
No, it means that the Church of Satan is using the same symbol for alternative meanings.
And you'll find this throughout history.
I guess the point I'm just making is just because one society uses a symbol and then another society or group uses it for something else, don't assume there's a nexus between the two.
And the Nazis chose to bastardize the swastika.
It became synonymous with their terrible crimes around the world.
Have you ever, I've never read, and perhaps you have in your researches, why did they choose to reverse that symbol?
Was there some meaning in that?
Yeah, no, yeah, I actually have reversed this to an extent.
My understanding is that when Hitler wanted an emblem of this Third Reich, the symbol, I believe, and the concept of what ultimately became the Nazi banner, you know, with the schwastik on the white disc with the red around it, was submitted to him by a dentist, I want to say.
Hitler liked it.
The traditional swastik, as you're absolutely correct, is the other way.
The wheel is going the other way.
And he reversed it.
And my understanding of his, he wanted it to be different.
He wanted it to be different than the way it was being used, like you said, in India and in Tibet and places like that.
And then the idea was, if you, my understanding, and, you know, obviously symbols can have different meanings.
It's an ancient symbol for the sun in motion was what the swastika is one of the esoteric interpretations of the swastika.
It's a solar emblem.
And you'll find it with the Nazi flag being put on the white circle.
And it's a solar emblem, basically.
Now, Hitler would say that the white was the purity of the Aryan race, and then the red around it was the blood of the martyrs who died in the putsch of, I think it was, what, 23, 24, 25.
So that's really the origin.
But Hitler had, and I also, if you read, I believe Hitler talks about this in Mein Kampf also, that when he was a child in Austria and when he would go to a Catholic service on Sunday morning, that even in the Catholic church, this emblem was on the wall, and he had seen it there.
So, I mean, it's an ancient symbol used for the sun.
And, you know, Hitler had claimed to have seen it in a church and just used it.
I think my understanding is that he wanted to reverse it to separate his symbol or the schwastika from the other ways it was being used.
And we have to remember that Hitler was an artist.
One thing that he was in Austria was a failed artist.
Oh, absolutely.
Yeah.
I mean, you know, his paintings, you know, usually of architecture, scenes, buildings, things like that.
He had a real difficult time drawing human beings.
You know, I guess that may be a reflection of his personality.
But, yeah, I mean, he was an artist, and he designed that Nazi flag with some help, of course.
And I mean, obviously, like you correctly said, I mean, you show that to anybody.
I mean, there's no question as to what jumps into a person's head.
I mean, it's without question become probably one of the emblems of evil of the 20th century, you know, now, if not of all time.
Rob, you're back on the show to talk this time about cinema symbolism, the subject of a lot of research that you've done ongoing, and the book, of course, which has been out for about a year now.
Are you talking here about symbolism by deed or symbolism by depiction?
In other words, signs and phrases and uniforms and that sort of thing.
And the reason I ask this is because a lot of people saw symbology within, for example, things like Neil Armstrong's appearance on The Frasier Show in America, where it is claimed that he said something that alluded to the fact that aliens may be real or something like that.
And everybody read tremendous symbology in his words.
Whether that was right, I suspect it wasn't.
It made a story.
Is that the kind of thing you're also talking about here?
Well, it's really a cross-spectrum of things that I delve into the book.
We get into concepts in cinema symbolism, which you're right, just my latest book.
We get into concepts of movies containing veiled emblems, symbols in the background, numbers that imbue the movie with deeper meaning, deeper esoterica, things rolling out of Young's collective unconscious, astrology, magic, sorcery, ancient religions that sort of turn the movie into a perfected living piece of artwork.
You know, you can have characters as representations of mythological characters.
You will have political allegories, historical allegories, religious allegories in films, references to historical peoples, numbers that can convey meaning.
Phrases that have been used that repeat to convey meaning.
So it's really a vast study of colors that can be used to convey meaning, that can be used to convey alchemical transition.
You will find, believe it or not, in some circumstances, you will find actors and actresses who have been cast in movies that turn up for hidden meanings or used for occult significance.
You will actually find in some instances, I can document this in one, where a movie has actually been released on a specific date that has astrological, astrotheological meaning.
So it's really a vast study of just this arcana turning up in movies.
It really was, I don't want to belabor this too long, it was really the final chapter of the Royal Arch of Enoch delved into this where I talked about, in the Royal Arch of Enoch book, the final chapter dealt with what I would best describe as Masonic, Enochian, solar symbolism in movie.
And I talked about movies such as the National Treasure films.
And there's a lot more going on this than meets the eye, things like Da Vinci Code, things like that.
And I was really fascinated with this subject matter because I was seeing it.
And when I do this, and especially when you're delving into this subject with the movies, really, you have to live and die by the mantra of when in doubt, throw it out.
So when I was doing this, I was really only doing movies that I was certain I was seeing it in because I was seeing it over and over again.
And really, when Royal Arch came out, I continued on with this book, Cinema Symbolism, because it was really a continuation of this final chapter.
And obviously, Royal Arch couldn't go on forever.
And this movie delves into themes that are not necessarily Masonic.
They are in some instances.
But again, we're dealing with numerology, Germatria, Kabbalah, astrology, ancient religion.
And cinema symbolism was born out of that.
And like I said, it was just dealing with movies and films that I was really certain that this was going on in.
Now, are we talking here about directors, film producers, people who appear in movies getting involved in these things because they think they're cool?
For example, Madonna had, for all I know, she may still have an interest.
I don't think she does, but maybe she does in the Kibbana.
Are we saying that people are doing this because it happens to be cool and of the moment, or there is something more to it than meets the eye?
Oh, I think it's a little bit of both.
I think it's an interesting subject matter for these directors, writers and producers, and even actors.
You know, you go back in time, Howard.
I mean, you will find this.
You know, I talk about in the movie, in the movies of modern day, you will find this in Hollywood of the golden era.
You will find this availed in things like Wizard of Oz, in the Universal Horror movies, which again are movies based on stories of the occult, Dracula, Frankenstein's Manchester.
Talk to me about The Wizard of Oz, because I've always felt that The Wizard of Oz works for different people in different ways.
It works for children.
I first saw it when I was a kid, and so did my mom.
It was her favorite movie.
It works for kids on one level, and it's always seemed to me that actually, just like some books like Gulliver's Travels, there's another narrative going on there.
Oh, there's three narratives going on in The Wizard of Oz.
You have what you would call the base storyline.
This would be sort of what you would call what you would call sort of your profane explanation, which is this girl who lives on a farm, gets whisked away to a magical land, has an adventure, goes home to the end, have a nice day.
You have two other deeper levels of allegory and symbolism going on within The Wizard of Oz.
Number one, and this is probably more known than the second one, is you have a very deep political allegory going on in The Wizard of Oz.
The Wizard of Oz is a symbolic tale of the political, socio-economic culture in the United States from around 1895 to 1905, where you have different characters, different things in the movie symbolizing different things.
For example, you have the Wizard of Oz, who is clearly a rendition of William McKinley, who was the president at the time, who wanted to use the gold standard to back paper money, green money.
So this is why you have the yellow brick road or the gold standard leading to the Emerald City, which is green, symbolizing the forthcoming movement of green currency.
And then you have things like the Scarecrow, who is the farmer, the American farmer.
Then you have Tin Man, who is the American laborer.
You will notice in the book, in the film, that the Tin Man is immobile when they meet him.
He can't move.
And this is representing the Depression of 1896, where American laborers were laid off in droves and were basically immobile and worthless.
And did the people who created the movie, Rob, did the people who created the movie before it was actually committed to celluloid, were they aware of this whole narrative, or was that simply imposed on it later by people who analyzed it?
No, it actually comes out of the world of L. Frank Baum, who wrote the novel.
Baum was a political commentator and author at the time.
And you will find, I mean, you know, these political allegories going on in The Wizard of Oz that turn up in the film coming off the book.
You'll find this often where the author of a book, you won't find it all the time, of course, but you'll often find this where the author of a book is incorporating esoterica into his work, and then it turns up in the film.
And you also have the idea that the filmmakers are aware of it and are incorporating it intentionally.
Or you can also craft an argument that it's there because it's in the story and the filmmaker incorporated it unknowingly or knew it was there and incorporated it intentionally.
Just briefly, going back to The Wizard of Oz, you have this political allegory going on.
But then on another level, you have this concept of what I would best describe as a Gnostic theme in The Wizard of Oz, what I would best describe as sort of an initiation into the mystery tradition.
And we know this is going on in this because the man who wrote the book, the novel, L. Frank Baum, was a member of Madame Blavatsky's Theosophy movement.
And you will find these very deep theosophical themes in The Wizard of Oz, themes of epiphany, themes of ancient religion, Gnosticism, where the wizard is the evil ogre who rules over the beautiful land, which is symbolic of the Gnosticism.
This is called the Demiurge.
So you will find a very deep Gnostic Theosophical theme in The Wizard of Oz, and this is something else I talk about in the book.
And why, and I'm asking you to speculate really for a moment here, Rob, why would somebody want to incorporate, we haven't, I know this is the second interpretation, there's a third one, but why in the case of The Wizard of Oz would somebody want to incorporate all of that, knowing that it's mass entertainment and it will be seen by the audience and by kids just on the surface level, and it will only be a very few people who will read into the minutiae of it.
So why would you want to go to that trouble?
My take on this, on this, is that the reason you would do this, and this seems to be borne out, is that by placing this arcana, things coming out of ancient religions, the archetypes, astrology, magic, religion, by placing this esoterica into your work, you're transmuting the work, the film, or the book, into basically a living mythology, a piece of mythology, your mythology making.
So your movie or your book is basically taking on the characteristics of ancient mythology that taps into the human being's collective unconscious, and they get hooked on it.
And this is very documentable with things such as the Star Wars trilogy, the Matrix movie, Harry Potter, the Harry Potter books and films, where you will basically all but find the same story repeating itself.
You have the same sort of archetypical protagonist.
You will have an antagonist who is this dark lord.
You will have a mystical adventure where inevitably certain things happen to the souljourner on the trip, on the adventure.
And you read the works of people like Sigmund Freud, Carl Gustav Jung.
They talk about how this is just an inherited part of the human soul's, the human psyche's collective unconscious.
So to me, it's really an instance of placing it in there.
It's really turning your work into a piece of mythology.
But then I also think, and I mean, this has to be borne in mind as well, that by doing this, you're almost presenting the person who's reading the story or the movie with a challenge.
It's almost like, hey, I'm using this ancient mythology.
Can you find it?
You know, it's like almost, I've been on other shows and I've been asked similar questions to what you just asked me.
And for me, when I was doing Royal Arts, just to backpedal real quick, it was really a product of 20 years of writing and research.
And what I did was I took that and turned it on Hollywood.
So for me, when I watch these movies and I start seeing this material, for me, really, it's almost like playing a game of chess with these people, with people like Darren Aronofsky or Stanley Kubrick, just to find the lengths that they will go to incorporate this esoterica into their films.
And it's like a code breaking.
I mean, and code breaking and deciphering is a form of entertainment at the end of the day and is important.
And finding out the roots of these movies, I think, is an important study.
So you have, you know, and of course, you know, Hollywood is, you know, let's not forget the economics of this.
They're printing money off this material.
So you have a lot of motivation for incorporating this material into a book or film or script or TV show or music video.
To me, this is irrefutable.
You've made me think about it in a whole different way, Rob.
So I'm glad we had this conversation today.
So we can maybe summarize it this way.
Ancient civilizations painted things on cave walls, and you can walk into the cave.
There are caves here in the UK where you can do exactly that.
And you can see what they've daubed on the wall.
And you can say, what a nice picture.
Or if you think about it a bit more deeply, you can read more into it.
You can see the symbolism.
You can get some handle on their beliefs.
Ditto, for the modern age, people who create movies, people who create music videos and television shows, they're thinking, because they're intelligent people, yes, we want to make a profit off this.
Yes, this is popular entertainment.
But underneath this, we want something that's going to last longer than the duration that this movie is making money at the box office.
I totally agree with you.
I mean, and you know, you know, we talk about movies.
There's two points to be made on this, and I agree.
Number one is we were talking about movies and, you know, TVs and things, TV shows and things like that.
You know, least we forget that you will find this esoterica and this themes going on in the works of people, like I said, that predate Hollywood, people like Bram Stoker, people like, you know, Mary Shelley.
We get into, you know, music videos today.
You go back to the works of Richard Wagner, which incorporates a lot of Germanic Norse occultism in it.
You go to the works of Mozart, Magic Flute, which has Illuminati, Egyptian themes in it.
You go to the works of William Shakespeare, which has a lot of astrological, you know, mythological references in it.
Twelfth Night, Midsummer Night's Dream.
So yes, I mean, this has been going on for a while.
The point I'm trying to make is this is nothing new to Hollywood or the entertainment industry.
Second of all, and I agree with this, is, you know, I mean, I was born in 1971, so I'm in my early 40s.
And, you know, the movie, you know, and this is sort of a point I make in the book, you know, I mean, I grew up with Star Wars.
And, you know, most people my age, you know, I mean, those movies have long been out of the movie theater, obviously.
But, I mean, you know, there isn't a person my age who isn't familiar with Star Wars in some shape or form.
And look, political, when they have political polls here and they ask people to define themselves politically, they had one recently and a lot of people defined themselves as a Jedi Knight.
No, but it wasn't politics.
It was religion.
Sorry, it was the other great divider of people.
It was religion.
And they asked people to name their religion on an official form and the people said Jedi Knight.
Well, there you have it.
You know, I mean, I mean, here is a movie, you know, the Star Wars movies.
I mean, this is, I have a whole chapter of this in the book where you're dealing with these very deep esoteric themes.
I mean, all six of them, really.
The first three Star Wars movie, I'll just talk on this briefly.
I mean, we could do the rest of the show on Star Wars.
But you have in the first three, you have the, you know, and this again deals with ancient mythology, ancient symbolisms, the collective unconscious, where you have the first three Star Wars movies.
I'm talking Star Wars, you know, A New Hope, Empire, and Jedi, coming out of the world of Joseph Campbell, who was an American mythologist and a symbolist.
And what he documents in his magnum opus called The Hero with a Thousand Faces is what's called the solar journey.
You know, and in Luke, you know, in Star Wars, it's the journey of Luke Skywalker.
I mean, you know, Luke Skywalker is a solar allegory, a solar avatar.
Luke comes from the name Lux, light, Latin, skywalking, what light walks across the sky, the sun.
You know, in mythology, the sun is Apollo.
Well, who's Apollo's sister?
Diana, well, who's Luke Skywalker's sister?
Leo, who wears the white robes of the moon.
All right, hold that thought, Rob, because I want to go back to, people will ask me, and I don't want to lose it, the third meaning that is the less common one of the Wizard of Oz.
We talked about the three interpretations, the basic one, the political one.
You said there was a third.
Just before we get on to Star Wars, which I'm itching to do, talk to me about that.
No, absolutely.
Then with, just to backpedal, no, that's fine.
With Wizard of Oz, and this ties into the guy who wrote the story, Baum.
L. Frank Baum was a member of Madame Blavatsky's Theosophy movement.
Blavatsky was a Russian mystic who created the society called Theosophy.
And just to give your listeners just a backdrop, and I'm painting with massive broad strokes right now.
It was basically a 19th century neo-Gnostic movement.
And Baum and his wife were very heavily involved with this.
So you have this very Gnostic theme and initiation into the mystery religion going on in Wizard of Oz.
We have the girl taken away to the magical land.
She goes up the tornado.
This would be the winding staircase of Jacob, the winding staircase of Freemasonry, the ladder of Mithras or Minerva, where they go up to receive Gnosis or Revelation.
This is the Jack and the Beanstalk story where Jack climbs the beanstalk to go to the magical land that's ruled over by the evil ogre, which is the demiurge.
This is the same, which is this lesser god, this lesser material god.
This is the same thing in the Wizard of Oz.
She goes up the tornado, lands in the magical land.
It's ruled over by the evil, you know, demiurge monster, the wizard, who's a false messiah.
Dorothy walks on the golden path of religion, hoping to find salvation.
What does she find?
You know, the false god.
This was a Gnostic teaching that organized religions lead to a false messiah.
You have Matt Blavatsky said, in order to be initiated into the mystery religions, you have to have intelligence, fortitude, and courage.
This is why Dorothy is assisted with the three travelers who are seeking a brain, courage, and a heart.
And you have this very, you know, you have the two in the book.
You have the two witches who use the white magic.
They're of the north and south, symbolizing ascension on the ladder of wisdom.
You move upwards as you get wiser.
The two women who oppose her, so only the one woman, the one is killed right off the bat, are of the west and east.
And these are the women who use the black magic.
And they're representing stagnation, inactivity, because you can't receive gnosis or enlightenment by moving left and right.
You only can receive it by moving upwards or downwards.
That's why the positive witches are of the north and south.
So you have this very deep Gnostic theme going on in the Wizard of Oz.
And of course, for Dorothy, she achieves Gnosis.
She achieves revelation, which is for her, that there's no place like home.
And then, of course, when she finally gets back home, everybody scoffs at her, but she's a much wiser person.
And basically, what Baum is trying to show you is she's been initiated, she's woken up, she's awakened, but the people around her, the farmhands, are still basically part of the multitude of the unseen masses, basically, which was what theosophy and Gnosticism somewhat taught.
So you have this very deep in The Wizard of Oz, very Gnostic theme going on alongside the political allegory.
And then, of course, you have just the adventure story on the surface, which if you get into the study of it, really, the political allegory is somewhat more well-known, not so much the Gnostic and religious themes going on in that film and book.
And the great celebration when the wicked witch dies.
What's the message in that?
Well, you have the whole idea with this is, again, one of the women who opposes Dorothy's Gnosis, her enlightenment.
So you have the two women who are evil of the West and East.
And of course, by the time she defeats the, you know, in order to obtain Gnosis, she has to rid herself of the evil influence, the left and right, you know, side.
So she gets rid of the East.
She gets rid of the one witch right away.
Then she gets rid of the other witch.
It's after that that she can obtain Gnosis, receive revelation, which she does.
This is at the end of the movie when she finds out there's no place like home.
You will notice that at this point in time, the Demiurge has been exposed as a false god, that he's nothing more than a charlatan.
And again, this ties into the, this is in the book, and it's also in the movie, that he's going to take her home in a hot air balloon.
And then again, this ties into the idea that religions are nothing but hot air.
There's nothing to them.
So, you know, you have the defeat of the evil women.
Dorothy can obtain Gnosis.
She finally goes home a much wiser person than she was before she went.
You will find these themes paralleled in works of Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland.
You will also find them in the Lovely Bones movie with the little girl navigating heaven to obtain heaven, to obtain divine enlightenment.
So you will find this theme going on in other works as well.
But The Wizard of Oz, I document it much more in the book, has these very interesting Gnostic theosophical themes on them alongside the political allegory.
This may be very tangential to your research, Rob, and maybe it's not something you've given a lot of thought to.
But what about those occasions when movies have appeared to predict the future?
Like all of those people who said that 9-11 was predicted by a movie that was released before.
And there have been a number of instances where movies have come out and then real life has actually aped the fantasy.
And a lot of people have said, how can that be?
I talk about this and it is very difficult to reconcile.
The best way I can talk about it is you're dealing with the idea of movies being a prophetic device and whether this is coming out of the collective unconscious that the movie makers are just unconscious of this and there's some sort of deeper unconscious realm that our psyche, the past, present, and future is tapping into and we're not aware of it.
Or the whole idea, Rob, of the popular media, the mass popular media being used to seed the populace with ideas, to prepare them for things which are to come.
Whether the movie makers are doing that consciously or unconsciously, well, it's maybe not for us to know.
It's very possible.
I mean, you can look at it two ways.
You can say that it's intentional.
You can say that it's just a fragment of the collective unconscious and the human psyche being in a state of past, present, and future.
You will clearly have movies that are being used to announce something and prepare the world for it.
This can be documented with one of the Transformer movies.
I forget which one it is.
It's either the second or the third one where the robots, the Transformers are fighting on the Great Pyramids at the very end.
The John Tuturo character, who is the man in black character, calls up this Navy ship and says, arm the weapon.
And the guy says, I don't know what you're talking about.
He says, you damn well know what I'm talking about.
Make a long story short, out comes the railgun on this Navy ship, and they shoot the electromagnetic pulse at one of the robots or one of the transformers fighting on the Great Pyramid.
Well, six months later, the Navy comes out and says, oh, yeah, that was real.
Here's the railgun on the Navy ship.
We developed it.
And, you know, and yes, we use that movie to announce it to the world.
So you will clearly, you know, you will find this.
Then you get into some cases that it's really, really, you know, spooky almost that, you know, these movies seem to be prophetic in ways.
I mean, there are movies that obviously, you know, I mean, I get into this where, I mean, I can't buy into the 30 years before 9-11 that movie makers or the government somehow knew that was coming down.
But then you will find clearly in the Matrix movie, in the first one, which came out approximately two years before 9-11, you will find Neo's passport, Keanu Reeves' passport, which expires on November 11, 2001, which is very hard to reconcile, especially when you're dealing with the nature of that movie.
And, you know, the idea of the end of one reality, the start of a new one.
You know, You get into the whole thing with 9-11, the end of one potential solar age and the start of a new one.
So you get into these very oddball concepts of movie.
I mean, I talk about it in other movies where, I mean, there's this one movie, and again, is it a coincidence?
I mean, it's hard to reconcile.
I can't imagine that it's not.
But there was this movie that came out in 1990, excuse me, 1982.
I was on talking a show about this.
I was asked this exact same question.
I mean, it's just one of those screwy things that's just hard to reconcile.
In 1982, a movie was released here in the United States called Hanky Panky that starred Gene Wilder and Gilda Radner.
And the movie was basically kind of this quirky adventure comedy of this train ride across country that evolved this murder mystery.
Kind of went unnoticed.
I don't think it was a box office smash.
But at any rate, the character in the movie, the Gene Wilder protagonist, was called, his name was Michael Jordan.
And Michael Jordan was from, of all places, Chicago, Illinois.
Two years later, you have the Chicago Bulls drafting Michael Jordan, a go figure.
And I've documented things like this in other movies.
So, you know, you have these weird oddball coincidences going on.
And, you know, how you justify it.
In some cases, it appears to be tensional.
In other places, it seems to be coincidence.
And maybe in a third, it's a combination of both.
In some instances, it's hard to say.
Many, many years ago, when I was a boy, my father took me down from Liverpool for a day trip to London.
In those days, you could get cheap rail tickets that would allow you to travel for a day to London.
I'm not sure whether they're so available now.
We walked past a big cinema, a big movie theater in London, the Dominion Tottenham Court Road.
It had the biggest poster in the world outside saying Star Wars.
This was Star Wars 1.
I don't think any of us had an idea at that time that Star Wars would become such a big franchise, but you're saying it's much more significant than just mere entertainment.
Oh, absolutely.
This is without question.
The entire Star Wars movies, and I'm talking, like you said, I'm talking really the first three, not the chronological first three, but episode four, which was A New Hope, Empire and Jedi.
These are clearly based on the works of a man named Joseph Campbell, who was an American mythologist and symbolist.
In fact, this is really no state secret here.
On my copy of the book that I have here, there's actually a testimonial inside the dust jacket from George Lucas, who actually says that this is the book that I base Star Wars on.
And what Campbell is talking about with this story, it's not a work of fiction.
It's called The Hero with a Thousand Faces, and the hero that he's talking about is the sun, and how the sun goes on this archetypical journey and has certain things happen to him.
And you'll find, and basically what Lucas did was he took these components, this archetypical journey, and turned it into a movie with Luke Skywalker being the solar protagonist.
Then, of course, he faces the lords of darkness or night, which are the Sith Lords.
And this is Darth Vader and the Emperor.
And you will find this coming straight out of Egyptian mythology where we talk about Luke being the solar protagonist.
In the Egyptian mythology, Horus was the sun god who battled the Lord of Darkness known as Seth.
Hence, you have the Sith Lords.
And then what Campbell talks about is on this adventure, you have these different elements and components that happen to the hero.
So for example, just to give a couple, you have the idea of supernatural aid.
And this is where the hero, the solar figure, meets the old wizard, the old hermit, and the hermit provides him with knowledge or some sort of piece of information that helps him along the journey.
And of course, in Star Wars, this is when Luke gets the lightsaber from Obi-Wan.
Then you have another component where it's like, you know, where Campbell talks about being trapped in the belly of a whale, which is the hero has to fight himself out of a situation that seems insurmountable.
So you'll find this in Star Wars with the Trash Compactor Death Star scene.
You will find these components in other movies as well that echo Campbell's monomyth.
So, you know, you know, we're talking about Star Wars, but you'll find it in The Matrix.
Or let's say a better one is the Lord of the Rings trilogy, Tolkien.
You're in England.
So we have Frodo Baggins being the solar savior of Middle-earth.
And then, of course, he gets the magical aid from Gandalf.
And he meets the Hermit, which is the Gandalf who leads him to Rivendale, where he gets the Mithril from his uncle.
And then you'll find this in Harry Potter.
It's the Dumbledore figure.
I mean, you'll notice all these guys all look alike.
It's always the old hermit, the old sage character.
And what Campbell is talking about is that it's basically this solar journey coming out of the collective unconscious, coming out of mythology that we're all tuned into on a subconscious level that is very powerful.
And you'll find these components in Star Wars and in these other epic pieces that incorporate these same elements from Campbell's monomyth, The Matrix, Harry Potter, Star Wars, The Lord of the Rings, things like that.
And in Star Wars, I get into much more detail how these components are turning up both in Star Wars, in Empire, and in Jedi.
And then I even get into the first three movies, which also has this Christ religious, very unique subtext to it, with Anakin Skywalker being this Jesus Christ character who ultimately turns to the dark side.
It's an interesting study.
And you'll find it clearly embedded in these movies by Lucas.
You talked about Harry Potter.
Of course, those movies here in the UK are massive because they're British products, although known around the world.
Are you absolutely sure in yourself that J.K. Rowling knew the significance of all of this symbolism when she was creating this movie?
Or was she using a template?
And the oldest template in the world is the battle between good and evil.
And everybody's interested in magic and mysticism.
Was she just using an old template to create something exciting and new?
I think it's a combination of both.
I think she's using an old template to create something new, but I think that she must have had some sort of knowledge of this.
I mean, she clearly knows who some of these people were, who some of these mystics were, people like Nicholas Flamel, Paracelsus.
I mean, these are people she identifies in the stories.
So, I mean, clearly, she must have had some knowledge of this.
If you want to craft the argument, and I talk about this in the book, I mean, and certainly you can document it the other way around, and I do document it, where there is an artist out there who has no knowledge of this material, yet you will find these mythological themes in their work, where you can clearly demonstrate that the creator, the artist, not aware of this.
You will find that.
And then at that point, you kind of are into the area, the more nebulous area of the collective unconscious.
And like you said, this old ancient template, light versus dark, good versus evil, not themes of Gnostic dualism, male and female, the unification of the sun and moon, things like that, just these ancient templates being part of our collective unconscious, and they just come out of us artistically.
I think with Rowling, it's probably most likely a little bit of both.
I think she's clearly aware of this, but she's clearly also, without doubt, putting mysticism in these books that she must have been aware of.
I mean, you just don't wake up every morning knowing who Paracelsus and Nicholas Flamel are.
I mean, these were real people, you know, or at least Paracelsus was.
Flammel, it's somewhat debatable.
But, I mean, he's a mythological figure, no matter what.
So she clearly must have done some research into this.
You know, I mean, and then you will find this, you know, the old sage archetype, you know, the Hermes Trismegistus character, Dumbledore, Gandalf, Obi-Wan, Kenobi, Yoda, Morpheus.
This is sort of the wizard character who possesses, I mean, he's the same character.
I mean, it's the same thing.
They all look alike by and large.
You know, it's the old gray beard, and they all act the same.
They all have powers, and they all have knowledge, but they only give it out to the hero in bits and fragments on a need-to-know basis.
They never tell the whole story.
They just tell it as the hero needs to know it.
So, you know, you will find this, you know, it's again, it's really this ancient template that I do believe is being reinterpreted.
That being said, I think there is some conscious knowledge on the artist as to what he or she is doing.
Right.
And the fascinating point about all of this, and really the nub and the crux of this conversation, is that if you're creating popular art, you have a tremendous responsibility.
The messages that you put across it, you have to be accurate, and of course you have to be entertaining because you've got people putting money into movies, and they want to see that money back if they can possibly get it.
But there's much more to it than that.
If movies are used to feed the public with ideas, then they're a very powerful tool.
And they're a very powerful tool that propagandists and others who make movies could use to devastating effect, couldn't they?
Oh, sure.
I mean, absolutely.
I mean, you know, we're talking about, you know, Hollywood, you know, I mean, and even there's even some circles who will tell you, you know, that a Hollywood movie, by and large, is a form of mind control.
I mean, I guess, you know, with subliminal placement of things, I mean, I guess on a real much deeper, darker conspiratorial level, you could see it that way.
It's not my interpretation of it, but I understand the argument.
But then, I mean, you get into the idea, if you want to talk about, I mean, this is just more of a hypothetical conversation, you know, of the power of the television set and the power of a movie.
I mean, you know, you always hear, think of what Adolf Hitler could have done if he had TV or the internet.
I mean, you know, and it's a scary thought.
I mean, you know, could he have dragged the war on longer, having people, more average, you know, citizens going to fight and die for him?
And, you know, you hear this as well.
You know, what if Jim Jones, you know, you know, on another level, a person like Jim Jones or one of these cult leaders, you know, had the internet or something?
You know, would Jonestown have been, instead of 700 people dying, which was bad enough, you know, been 14,000 people dying?
Who knows?
So yes, I mean, it's like anything else in this world.
You know, usually, and even with symbology, there is no symbol on planet Earth that is 100% positive and 100% negative.
It's really only shades of gray of both and how the artist intends to use it, you know, whether it's being used for a negative purpose or a positive purpose.
But yes, I mean, it can be used for a negative purpose.
I wouldn't come on here and say otherwise.
Television is a powerful medium.
Of course it is.
And we've had the same thing that you've had in the U.S. You've had it more than we've had, but we follow you.
Television has become fractionated.
We have a lot of channels now on free-to-air television.
We have even more on satellite television and cable television here.
There's a multiplicity, but a lot of it's all the same.
And a lot of the messages we're putting out there, it seems to me, and I'm sure people are starting to write about this now, but if you look at a lot of big-time television, it's either contests or it's reality TV shows, game shows, that give the impression that somebody young with a bit of talent,
if they enter the machine and they go on the show, can become a massive success and get a million-dollar record contract without having to do the things that artists in the past have done, like go around busking and play gigs in bars and the rest of it.
I wonder if there's some kind of, and I know it's not necessarily what we're talking about, but I've often thought that there is some kind of narrative being placed by somebody there, perhaps the people who control the big media organizations and the big corporations behind those media organizations who want it this way.
Yeah, I mean, I mean, you know, you get into, you know, TV.
It's something I touched on in the book.
I mean, but you're right.
I mean, you know, you can look at it either way.
I mean, you can just look at it as it's an innocuous game show or is there, you know, some sort of, you know, subliminal, you know, beneath the surface message going on on game shows.
I mean, and even on television shows.
I mean, you know, there have been exposés written, you know, on shows.
I mean, I know this is a very big pop, you know, I know it's a product of America, but I know it was a very popular show in the UK.
I know that because I was living over there at the time.
Was the X-Files?
And, you know, was the X-Files, you know, and I've heard this, was it just a TV show based on the old Nightstalker TV show with Darren McGavin?
Or was this a CIA-based TV show that was trying to, you know, lessen the blow of, you know, the government's involvement with extraterrestrials and things like that.
So, you know, the book is primarily on movies, but I'm not naive either.
I do talk about some of the symbols.
I mean, believe it or not, you know, we talked about some of this arcana, you know, in these movies.
You'll find it in TV shows as well.
You'll find the X-Files using little references in the background, which are kind of clever.
So, yeah, I mean, you know, when you're delving into the world of television, I mean, you know, this is still coming out of Hollywood.
So, yeah, you will find this symbolism going on inside of TV shows as well.
I mean, you have the one TV show with, I believe it was Patrick Magoo, the prisoner.
Now, the prisoner, I could talk to you a long time about.
I've been to Port Marion in Wales, where they filmed this thing.
Patrick McGoon was a very intelligent guy.
He understood every level on which that show was working.
Lou Grade, the television millionaire who allowed him to go away and create this for independent television in the UK, he didn't really see it on any level other than entertainment.
And it's taken us, unfortunately, the show bombed in the UK because nobody understood it at the beginning.
It's only now that people like me buy the box sets and start understanding what Patrick McGooen meant in that show.
Right.
Well, I mean, right, absolutely.
I mean, that whole show is, again, very Gnostic.
You have the guy who's in the false reality and he knows it.
And this is, again, the Neo character in The Matrix, the guy who's in the false reality and knows it.
If you want to see this again, it's the Truman show with Jim Carrey, who knows something's wrong with this reality.
And, you know, he's in the false reality controlled over by Christoph the Demiurge, the lesser God, the creator of the material world.
It's Fight Club, the narrator, the Ed Norton character who knows something's wrong and is doing everything he can to destroy materialism and the social world.
And it's getting the prisoner, you know, the guy who has the splinter in his head, who knows something is not right here.
So, yeah, I mean, you will find this, and, you know, the prisoner is a great example of this.
You know, you will find this arcana, this ancient religion, these themes in television.
And again, you know, and it comes to the back to the whole, you know, we come full circle with this.
You know, is this material, I mean, I guess somewhat it's a subjective question and answer.
Is this material being placed there for sinister motives or is it a form of enlightenment or both?
Or is it, you know, an entertainment or coincidence?
Well, they finished filming The Prisoner at Port Marion 48 years, I think ago.
It was made, 1967, one of the first series like that to be made in full colour.
Patrick Magoon, because he was a big star with the television company ATV here, as it was, a big export earner for the UK, he was given total control over that.
But when you watch that now, and I watch it many times and I never tire of it, he stands there and he swings his fist on the beach and he says, I am not a number, I am a free man.
How the messages in that show speak to us today about the life that we are living and the technology in that show.
I mean, the observation technology, it was all entertainment when we watched it first.
And I was only a little kid when it was first on the TV here, so I didn't understand it.
I just thought, oh, well, there's a place where there are TV cameras everywhere.
Now we live in a society where there are TV cameras everywhere, and we are constantly being watched.
Yeah, absolutely.
Absolutely.
I mean, you know, when you fast forward with this, with The Prisoner, you go back to the mid-1990s, you know, there was a movie that came out that stars Sandra Bullock called The Net.
And this was, you know, in the mid-1990s.
And I mean, in this completely prophesied, you know, this whole thing of the internet with intrusion on privacy, how people are watching you, how the internet can be turned against you, how everything you do is now online.
And again, this movie came out in 1996.
I want to say that.
I've still got that movie, and I still like that movie, but how prophetic that was.
Yeah, absolutely.
I mean, here we are, you know, in 2015 and how everything, you know, almost 20 years ago was spot on the money world.
So we come back to the idea, Rob, that somewhere, whether it's the collective unconscious or whether it is some kind of Illuminati, somebody perhaps knows what the game plan is and is trying to use popular entertainment as a way of implanting seeds of the future and seeds of the way that life is configured and ordered within the ordinary populace, those who can expand their horizons wide enough to be able to understand it.
Yeah, I mean, it's very possible.
I mean, you definitely have, I mean, I do believe, I mean, like I said, I wrote a book about it, and I'm actually so impressed with this material that I'm actually writing its sequel called Cinema Symbolism 2 right now, where I'm taking on a whole new slew of movies.
But I mean, you're right.
I mean, you have these movies that are prophetic, that seem to predict the future.
You can argue it both ways.
You could say, well, Hollywood makes so many movies that they're bound to get something right here and there.
But again, you just find these themes being used over and over again.
I mean, and not only is the prophetic thing, but I mean, you watch some of these movies that have these very alchemical themes to them, transition of the self.
So, I mean, to me, it's like you are well beyond, you know, any sort of argument of coincidence here.
And I do believe that these movies are just being used as these vehicles to impose, not necessarily impose, but to implant and draw upon these ancient religions, collective unconscious.
But I think in doing so, become, in some instances, not all instances, you know, these prophetic devices where things are coming true in them.
I mean, you can look, you know, like I said, we just talked about the net and the prisoner.
You can look at the 9-11 reference in the Matrix movie.
You know, I talked about the earlier one with the athlete.
You know, you look at the railgun in Transformers.
I mean, that was clearly intentional.
I mean, the Army came out and admitted it.
So, I mean, you know, it's a fine line as to what's coincidence, what's by accident, what's collective and conscious.
But, I mean, I do believe with 100% certainty that I can say that there is clearly something to this.
And probably my two favorite movies are not current movies by any standard, but I've seen both of them many, many, many times over and have them on every format there is.
One is Cool Hand Luke and one is The Shawshank Redemption.
And both of those, to me, carry the subplot that power and the people who exercise it are sometimes deeply corrupt.
Oh, absolutely.
Cool Hand Luke, I have not seen for a while, but I'm very familiar with Shawshank.
Yeah, absolutely.
I mean, Shawshank, you know, you have the entire prison system where the guy is falsely accused.
That's interesting because, and this seems to be intentionally done.
If you remember, in Shawshank Redemption was a reference, oh, excuse me, it was written by Stephen King.
It's a novella by Stephen King, the horror author.
If you think back to the movie The Shining, which was Stanley Kubrick made the movie from King's novel, in the book, in the actual novel of The Shining, this is just one that's paying homage.
This really, I don't think, is a dark conspiracy or anything.
Although the reasons Kubrick uses it has meaning.
In the book The Shining, the haunted room, I believe, is room 213.
Kubrick changed it to room 237.
There's many reasons for this.
But if you remember in Shawshank, they pay homage to 237.
The Morgan Freeman character, Red, is in jail cell 237.
So there's a reference there to the old haunted room of 237 from Stephen King's earlier novel, The Shining, which you'll find turning up in Shawshank as Red's jail cell 237.
So that's an interesting thing there.
But again, we're not going to have time, but The Shining by Kubrick, and a lot of his movies are just overloaded with occult and esoteric themes and symbols.
The Shawshank Redemption being my favorite movie, probably, I never quite understood why, and I think I'm right here in the book, which I never read, I have seen the movie.
The man who knows the truth about our hero and knows that he didn't commit the terrible crime and kill his wife.
In the movie, because I suppose it's easy for time, he's shot by the evil prison governor.
Whereas in the book, I think he's transferred to another prison and just disappears.
That's interesting the way the fact that, I mean, it's nothing to do with symbolism or symbology, but interesting the way that he's going to be able to do it.
The original killer in the movie, I haven't read the book either.
The killer in the movie was housed with the guy who gets housed with Tim Robbins, the young guy.
And then Tim Robbins goes and tells him the story that the guy had made a confession to him.
And then Robbins goes to the warden, and the warden poo-poos it because he doesn't want Tim Robbins getting out to expose the fraud and the embezzlement that's going on.
And that's when the warden has the young kid killed and basically punishes Tim Robbins and basically says, you're never getting out of here.
And that's, of course, I don't want to, you know, well, the movie's been out for so long when Tim Robbins makes a decision to escape through the hole in the wall.
Yeah.
Brilliant movie.
It's great.
Which is why we'll be talking about Hollywood movies, I think, for as long as both of us are drawing breath.
Just give me a flavor of book two, then.
What sorts of movies will you be looking at?
Well, right.
When I was doing book one, just to give a little bit of a backstory, when I was doing book one, I did these three, these massive movie series.
In order, I did Star Wars, The Matrix, and The Lord of the Rings movies dealing with the symbolisms and the mono-myth.
My original plan was, after those three chapters, I was going to do the Harry Potter material, which I want to say is eight movies.
But I remember sitting there in front of my computer screen thinking, there's just no way.
I mean, there's just no way.
I mean, this book will never end.
So I thought, okay, rather than do the Harry Potter here, let me continue on with the material that I was originally going to put in, finish Cinema Symbolism, and I'll do the Harry Potter movies in another book, which I'm writing right now.
So, yeah, I mean, we're doing Cinema Symbolism 2 right now.
Some of the movies that are going to be taken on in this are the Harry Potter films, of course.
I'm doing the C.S. Lewis material.
Again, this ties into some of the Tolkien ideas of the monomyth with Campbell as well.
A guy who you're probably familiar with over there in England, Alan Moore, you know, the disciple of Aleister Crowley in Gnosticism.
You'll find very veiled themes of this and not veiled in some instances in things like From Hell, V for Vendetta, and Watchmen.
So those are movies that I'm taking on.
The Shining with Stephen King, with Stanley Kubrick, excuse me.
This is a movie that I touched on in cinema symbolism, but I wanted to go much more in depth in cinema symbolism too, so I'm doing that.
I'm doing some of the lost history and some of the esoterica that's kind of, it's not, I don't know if I necessarily say it's a cult.
It is in a way, but a lot of the lost history of this Martin Scorsese movie called Gangs of New York that has some very interesting things going on in it.
Very, very deep movie, that one.
Yes, I know that movie.
Oh, yeah, absolutely.
That has some very interesting symbolism in it and some very interesting history in it that I don't think most people are aware of.
So I'm getting into that.
Then again, we get into the esoteric themes of things like Tarot embodiment and Jungian archetypes and Hebrew Kabbalah.
We find these themes in movies like Black Swan with Natalie Portman.
This was a movie that I took on in Cinema Symbolism.
You will find these themes being paralleled with the Robin Hood characters, these archetypical themes going on in Robin Hood.
So you'll find this in the movie with Errol Flynn, these sort of tarot card archetypes going on.
So these are all movies that, again, I'm picking on in Cinema Symbolism 2.
This is being written by me right now.
Truth be told, it's probably still a year away, but I'm real happy with the way it's progressing.
And what would you say to somebody who might say, and I'm just assuming somebody might say this, that this is all a little obsessive.
It's like those people who love to spot continuity mistakes.
In fact, we've got a whole TV series in the UK about continuity mistakes in movies where a guy's wearing the watch on his left wrist in one second and then the next second it moves to his right wrist.
What would you say to people who might say this is just a bit of an obsession?
Oh, I don't think it's an obsession with me.
I think it's very interesting.
And what it really stems from, what it really is in it for me was, is the interest, is the level of detail these guys.
I mean, I'm familiar with continuity mistakes.
I know the one movie with Juliet Roberts, Pretty Woman, has a ton of them.
I'm not really interested in that so much.
But what I am interested in is these movie makers and these producers veiling these themes and movies and the level they'll go to to put this stuff in.
It's uncanny in some movies.
And like I said, I've watched, I mean, just for an example, I've watched Black Swan a number of times, and it is just astounding to me that just about everything in that movie has some sort of esoteric Meaning.
Black Swan was a movie I took on in cinema symbolism, and it has a lot of tarot embodiment and archetypical themes going on in it.
Characters based on Tarot cards, Tarot personalities, I would say.
But you also have a very deep alchemical theme going on in that movie.
And the 2D drive, it was like trying to tell the same story twice.
So I excised out the alchemical story, and I'm putting that in cinema symbolism too.
When I was writing this, I went back and rewatched the movie, and I actually found more symbolism that I actually could have put in Symbolism 1, but the book had already come out.
So I thought, Aronofsky, you know, you got me again.
You snuck things past me.
So, I mean, you know, to me, it's really like a challenge.
And it's a fascinating subject matter.
Like I said, when I was doing the Royal Arch of Enoch, when I was writing it, I was watching the National Treasure movie.
I mean, on the surface, you'll find these very Masonic Knights Templar themes.
But on a deeper level, that entire movie, the first National Treasure movie, is a Masonic ritual.
It's the Royal Arch of Enoch ceremony on screen.
It's the restoration or the recovery of the Masonic treasure beneath the holy ground in a subterranean vault.
So it's really, you know, and you just reach a point with this where, you know, I don't know, I wouldn't go so far as an obsession.
It's just a real deep interest with me at the levels that these guys, and it's fun spotting it.
For me, it's fun spotting it.
It's fun watching these movies.
And it's great to write about it.
And I enjoy doing it.
I'm doing Cinema Symbolism 2 right now.
I'm also working on another book on Freemasonry, and I'm actually writing my first work of fiction.
So it's all good, and I enjoy doing it.
I think you should take this a step further, and you should try contacting people like J.K. Rowling and just see if they're willing to talk with you.
Yeah, I've never actually reached out to any celebrity or anything like that to find.
I've seen interviews with celebrities.
I mean, I know Lucas.
I've seen, you know, I have one of the box Star Wars sets here, and I know they always give you the bonus material.
And I know that Lucas has talked about, you know, in interviews about using the Campbell material.
I know for a fact I have the Blu-ray of DaVinci Code here, and I know there's an interview in it with Ron Howard, who is the director.
And Ron Howard talks about, he says in the interview, he says, well, we play certain things in this movie intentionally that draw upon the Priory of Zion and this conspiracy going on.
And I know one of them is, you know, where he goes to the Louvre, you'll see the ad for Les Miz, which was Victor Hugo, and Victor Hugo was supposed to be involved with the Priory of Zion or something like that.
I love all of this stuff.
I do.
But then he says, but here's what gets funny.
He says, he says, and then there's another code in this movie.
He said, and I'm not aware of it.
He said, but I know that the producers and the writers told me that there's another code going on.
And you'll find this in this movie where I talk about it in Royal Arch where every time they need wisdom or knowledge, the number 13 pops up on screen.
And again, this is drawing off this Royal Arch of Enoch ritual where it's the recovery and restoration of all wisdom.
And you'll find that the Mona Lisa is kept in Hall 13.
And when the key stone, which holds the Royal Arch together, is in the back of the van, the time on the driver's watch is 112.
1 plus 12 is 13.
So you'll find all this veiled symbolism going on, Masonic symbolism going on in DaVinci Code, in National Treasure.
If you're interested in that, check out Royal Arch of Enoch and to further the study of cinema symbolism.
So check out both books.
And I've never reached out to a celebrity, but I've heard him talk about it.
Remarkable research, and I think you need to at least fire off a couple of emails or try and find the publicity agents of those people.
You know, you're a published author.
They might do it.
You never know.
As a journalist, I've always thought you've got to try because sometimes you're going to win.
Amazing stuff, Rob.
Lovely to talk with you.
The hour always passes very quickly.
If people want to know more about your work, where do they go?
Well, thank you, Howard, for having me on The Unexplained.
I thought it was a fascinating show.
I thought it was fantastic.
And again, thank you for having me.
Yes, if you're interested in me and my books, the easiest way to find me is my website, which is www.robertwsullivaniv.com.
My name is Robert W. Sullivan IV.
So the easiest way, my website is Robert W. Sullivan IV.
It's the letter I, the letter V.com.
Again, www.robertwsullivaniv.com.
From there, you can purchase the books.
Links to my social media, Twitter, YouTube channels to listen to other radio shows I've done.
There are Facebook fan pages, Google Plus, information about me, information on how to purchase the books.
Again, it's just all right there, www.robertwsullivaniv.com.
It's very easy to navigate.
Which all means that you and the stuff you do are thriving.
Rob Sullivan, pleasure to talk with you again.
We've got to do this in the future one more time.
Rob, thank you very much and give my regards to Baltimore, Maryland.
Thank you, Howard.
I will.
The voice of Rob Sullivan, Robert W. Sullivan, there on Cinema Symbolism.
Your thoughts on this show, as ever.
Welcome.
If you want to get in touch, go to the website at theunexplained.tv.
That's where we are.
And you can send me an email or a donation to the show.
Thank you to Adam Cornwell for making the website happen and for getting this show out to you.
Adam is at Creative Hotspot in Liverpool.
Thank you to you for your support.
The nice things you say for keeping me on the straight and narrow.
Couldn't do any of it without you.
Wherever you are.
Please tell me about yourselves, your lives, the things you'd like to hear on these shows and how I can do them better.
My name is Howard Hughes.
I'm in London.
This has been The Unexplained.
And until next we meet here, please stay safe, stay calm, and stay in touch.
Thank you.
Take care.
▲
Export Selection