[Note: This was posted at 5:38pm, CST, on 3/5/09. A brief Addendum was attached to the end of this posting at 11:44am, CST, on 3/6/09.]
SAFE & SECURE, WITH LAFLEUR:
EGYPTIAN BANGLES, KARMA CHAMELEONS,
AND THE COMING BATTLE FOR HOLLOW EARTH?
(Spacetime Walk) Like An Egyptian: Karma Chameleon Redux-
Here we go again.... From time travel, back to karmic recycling/recursion.... The ankh symbol worn by Paul around his neck symbolizes eternal life:
"The
ankh was the
Egyptian hieroglyphic character that read "
eternal life", a triliteral sign for the consonants
ˁ-
n-
ḫ.
Egyptian gods are often portrayed carrying it by its loop, or bearing one in each hand, arms crossed over their chest. It is also known as the key of life, the key of the Nile, or as
crux ansata,
Latin for "
cross with a handle".
Of course, online speculations regarding the breadth and depth of Egyptian connections to Lost extend back to the first season of the series. Doc Jensen, Joley Wood and others, for example, have posted some intriguing surmises riffing on The Egyptian Connection, including links to Isis and other ancient gods. Curiously enough, Isis has been linked to the ankh symbol by some scholars:
"
E. A. Wallis Budge postulated that the symbol might have originated as the belt-buckle of the mother goddess
Isis, an idea joined by Wolfhart Westendorf with the notion that both the ankh and the
knot of Isis were used as ties on ceremonial girdles."
Indeed, my own surmises to date have explored possible connections among various conceptions of life, the afterlife, and karmic recursion. (Please see my prior writings in these regards, especially my piece from nearly two years ago, "Karma Chameleons".) Along the way, I've examined some scientific (and magical) implications of the island's powers to heal for insights into: (1) How it might be possible to slow or even stop aging, i.e. a 'Richard Alpertian' fountain of youth that would make Ponce de Leon jealous; and (2) How it might be possible to leverage the island's powers to be 'reborn', with the island as a recycler of 'lost' souls (nod to Babylon 5's notion in War Without End, of Minbari souls reborn into human bodies... more on this, below....)
More recently, I've examined possibilities focused on the island as a form of organic, matter- and energy-enabled sentience, existing in a symbiotic relationship with its inhabitants, perhaps even such a close mind and body symbiosis that the island is able to literally 'plug' our bodies into itself, at some neural node located deep within the recesses of its catacombs.... Extensions of this 'science meets magic' approach might include the ability of the island to offer us immortality through leveraging its unique energy properties and casimirically projecting a material application of our 'real body', creating a tangible, corporeal 'copy' of our self (body), through which Richard Alpert and Others can appear to exist as real entities when, all the while, they are really ancient beings who continue to live only through their symbiotic connections-- their hard- and wet-wired existence-- with the island.... One way in which we may see science and magic meeting in future Lost episodes, to reveal who Alpert and the Others are, why they do not appear to age, what the secret to island immortality truly involves, and what the source of those annoying whispers in the jungle (voices in the wilderness) really entails....
A second possibility, riffing on the eternal life ankh theme, is that somewhere in the recesses of the island, within its yet-to-be-fully-revealed catacombs, is a veritable, literal 'fountain of youth' comprised of a glowing pool of energetically-charged liquid, casimirically-infused, able to take the island's demonstrated healing powers to the nth level, through.... regenerating the Others and quite possibly even reanimating dead bodies. How interesting to consider, in this context, the links among the ankh and special forms of water:
"Egyptian academics, particular those at the University of Cairo, that the ankh has been over-interpreted, and that it represents the pivotal role of the Nile in the country.. The oval head represents the Nile delta, the vertical mark represents the path of the river, while the East and West arms represent the two sides of the country and their unification.... The Ankh and the Djed (pillar) are both symbols for the same thing. This Ankh with the imbedded Djed is a clue that they have the same meanings. The Djed that grows under the Cedar and the Ankh which is symbolic for the mushroom and the cross as well as meaning waters and life, or "The waters of life", the juice extracted from the mushroom. The Ankh is often displayed as being poured out of vessels, in streams of ankhs, which are interpreted as water. However,it is not just any water. It is the water which has the magical properties of eternal life." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ankh
Hmmm.... Might this be one of the central reasons Richard Alpert wanted to bring back Paul's body.... So he could add another person to the group of 'hostiles' through reanimating Paul? Or, was his plan to use Paul's body as a corporeal 'host' vessel, into which yet another Lost soul would be placed....?
Another more recent and relevant link is found in the 1994 movie Stargate, starring Kurt Russell, James Spader, and Jaye Davidson, with the latter playing the powerful role of Ra. Scrunitizing the following plot excerpts will reveal several elements speaking to the key issues at hand-- healing/regeneration, reanimation, and eternal life:
"The Air Force decides to show Jackson the stone ring or Stargate; Jackson identifies the seventh symbol and the sequence is entered into the Stargate, creating a wormhole. A probe sent through the Stargate reappears on a planet at the other end of the universe. Images sent by the probe reveal that the Stargate on the alien planet has a different set of symbols on it, making a return to Earth impossible unless the symbols on the other Stargate are translated. Jackson convinces the military to send a team through the Stargate and let him go with them, as he will be able to translate the symbols on the other Stargate.... During the storm, a huge alien craft lands on top of the pyramid. The team members inside the pyramid are attacked and captured by unknown soldiers. In the city, O’Neil locates Jackson, who manages to translate the hieroglyphs in the catacombs. The writing reveals that the Egyptian god Ra was actually an alien life-form, the last of his kind, who was attempting to extend his own life. Ra traveled to Earth and encountered humans, whom he enslaved with his advanced technology. Ra used a young boy as a host body and appointed himself ruler of Earth. Humans were transported from Egypt to the other planet through the Stargate and used to mine the mineral on which all of Ra’s technology is based, including the Stargate. The humans on Earth rebelled when they discovered Ra was not a god and buried the Stargate. Fearing the same thing would happen on this planet, Ra outlawed reading and writing to prevent the humans there from learning the truth. After explaining this to the others, the team locates a center stone similar to the coverstone on Earth that has symbols from the other Stargate on it, but the seventh symbol is eroded away. O’Neil orders the team to return to the pyramid, where they are attacked by soldiers and taken to the pyramidal craft. O’Neil and Jackson are escorted to the throne room, where they meet Ra, who reveals he has O'Neil's hydrogen bomb. Despite wearing fearsome armor, Ra's gods and servants are humans. O’Neil attempts to disarm the guards and kill Ra, but relents when Ra uses his children courtiers as human shields. Jackson is killed during the altercation. O'Neil is thrown into a dungeon with the captured team members, while Jackson is regenerated in a sarcophagus. Ra reveals that he intends to send the bomb, with its destructive capability enhanced by the mineral, through the Stargate in retaliation for the rebellion on Earth."
How interesting to note the intriguing implications of parallel plot elements among Stargate and Lost.... In a future episode of Lost, will we learn that as in Stargate, the power of the buried Jughead hydrogen bomb will be impressively and horrifically magnified by the black rock (magnetite?) mineral comprising the very foundational base of the island? If this mineral helps generate, sustain, and propagate the island's admittedly amazing energy properties and powers, imagine what the effects of detonating the Jughead bomb might entail.... Is this the nuclear armageddon, the crisis that will rear its ugly head as we head into Season 6?
Hmmmm.... it would indeed be interesting to witness Faraday tachyonically transporting the Jughead bomb through a mini-wormhole, to explode at the portal on the other end, connecting us (the island) with the superior/alien race that may be threatening our continued existence as 'mere' humans, on this island Earth....
But back to the more pressing points at hand.... in some future Lost episode will we finally get some well-deserved (bad pun, I know!) glimpses of what lies beneath the surface of the island, especially with regard to just what it is that may be found in those dark and dank catacombs riddling the island's foundation, providing a handy-dandy transit system for good 'ol Smokey, and perhaps even leading to the (literal) nerve center of the island, a central nervous system lying at the core of the island's sentience....
Is this where we will find the island-equivalent to the regenerating/reanimating sarcophagus observed in the Stargate movie? Do Richard Alpert and the others periodically bathe in the eternally-regenerative waters of some functional equivalent to the Stargate sarcophagus, to ensure their continued Methuselaic health? (And will Alpert be able to expand his line of infomercial offerings beyond mere eyeliner, to include a range of anti-oxidant, anti-aging island-infused creams, ironically produced in association with his rag-tag band of captive, un-free radicals? I can see it now... Alpert on stage with that Oxy-Clean guy, hawking an 'ANKHST' line of designer creams....)
And last, but certainly not least, as some have surmised in their prior postings, in some future Lost episode will we learn (as in the Stargate movie), that in Lost there is no love lost between: (a) some form of a superior race (aliens? the Nephilim? or?), and (b) our 'inferior' race, since they view us simply as hosts for their souls/minds, and as slaves existing to serve their needs and ultimate purposes? More on this, below, heh-heh-heh....!
Paul Ankh-a: Having My Baby, Or Am I Your Baby?
Ok... I know what you're thinking.... In addition to the Lost creative combine using the ankh symbol to 'record skip' the attention of us audience members away from time travel, back to themes associated with rebirth, karma, and eternal life, what about the very real and literal (albeit magical) prospects of Amy and Horace's baby boy actually being... the reincarnation of Paul?
Imagine the sheer size of the raid on the DHARMA liquor stores, and the resultantly humungous drinking binge, if Horace were to find out that the seed of his loins, his one chance for karmic recombination with Amy, were instead thwarted by the island karmic recycler, using the unborn baby as a 'host' for a Lost soul, in this case.... Paul! Will we learn that Paul actually is Amy's baby, at least in terms of Paul's soul being placed in the body of the baby, while still in Amy's womb? (Or, how freaky this would be.... Amy and Horace decide to name their bouncing baby boy.... JACOB!)
And, of course, might this mean that young Charlie Hume is the reincarnated soul of Charlie Pace? Will this turn out to be some small penance to help ease the pain for Desmond's ongoing existential angst? Time will tell.... If Charlie Hume displays some measure of musical talent, that might seal the deal, indeed....
Hmmmm.... Will we learn in some future Lost episode that, among other things, the island serves two key functions associated with ankh, or eternal life, serving both as a repository and a (karmic) recycler of Lost souls. And per the above, I would not be surprised to learn that no small percentage of these souls are associated with 'superior' or 'alien' beings who are using the island as a spacetime portal, gaining access to our world and our bodies, for their own self-serving ends (self-survival and preservation of the species).
And how interesting to consider, in the context of these points, the problems Juliet and the Others experienced in successfully delivering babies on the island in the early part of the 21st Century. As we learned in last night's episode, what was possible in the 1970's was (apparently) impossible in the 2000's.... Here I concur with Sawyer's response to Juliet's concern:
Juliet: "Don't you understand that every time I try to help a woman on this island give birth, it hasn't worked!"
Sawyer/LaFleur: "Well, maybe whatever made that happen, hasn't happened yet..."
And just what might that be... the 'whatever made that happen', that is....? Like many of you, I turned to consider a range of events on the island which may have effected a pronounced shift in the degree and nature of the ambient energy profile. Timing is, of course, crucial to these considerations. Since Juliet was already on the island at the time of Desmond's 'turnkey' Swan hatch implosion/Flight 815 crash, that one won't work....
After Locke stopped the 'record skipping' effect, our spacetime castaways found themselves headache- and nosebleed-free, on the island in 1974. Juliet helped Amy gave birth to a baby boy three years later, in 1977. During the intervening years (1974-1977), I strongly suspect that while Sawyer/LaFleur, Miles, and Jin were playing DHARMA rent-a-cop security guards, searching grid-by-grid for Locke and their lost compadres, Faraday was getting himself assigned to, and subsequently engaged in working for, the DHARMA crew focused on the task of excavating the dirt-filled well, the future site of the Orchid hatch.... And this is, in fact, where/when we saw him at the start of Season 5, witnessing the DHARMA drill team losing bit by bit in their effort to probe further toward that cold cavern containing the fabled FDW!
What will we learn about Faraday's role and activities during this time, in future Lost episodes? Among other things, we may see how Faraday actually played a key role in the design and installation of the Orchid hatch, especially with regard to the part of the hatch focused on channeling the island's powers to leverage the Casimir Effect to enable spacetime travel, as documented in the 'double-bunny' Orchid hatch film. Moreover, I would not be surprised to learn that Faraday also played a central role in the design and installation of the Swan hatch....
Here is the gist of what I believe led to: (1) a profound amplification of the island's unique energy effects, (2) a dramatic increase in male fertility (Jin's tonic), (3) an increase in the island's healing effects, and (4) the start of the problems observed in carrying babies full-term, with fatal effects on the mothers: The DHARMA-led explorations of the island's energy properties led them to discover at least two distinct 'pockets' of concentrated energy and, consistent with their practice on the mainland (see the Lamp Post station1) they designed and built stations at each of those active energy pockets (the Swan and Orchid hatches.) In short, the startup, operation, and subsequent use of these stations by DHARMA in a range of experiments served to amplify and distort the island's energy field, producing the range of effects identified above.
One strong candidate for a post-1977/pre-2004 event dramatically amplifying the energetic and material effects of the island is the famed "Incident" noted on the Swan hatch blast door. Although the details of this incident have yet to be revealed, the thick concrete encasement at the Swan hatch, and the profound magnetic field emanating from within that 'bunker' suggest that an event or incident may have occurred during the excavation and exploration of the Swan hatch site, producing effects warranting massive enclosure in concrete, with the very real and dire potential that the event may have magnified the degree and extent of the island's healing powers, inadvertently creating Jin's tonic of enhanced male fertility (now THAT would be something Alpert could bottle and sell on an infomercial!) and, paradoxically, leading to an odd instance in which the fetus is growing so strong and vibrantly that it actually starts consuming the life force of its host/mother. 2
Earlier this year I identified a second potential mechanism through which a Swan hatch island-energy-amplifying incident may be creating problems in carrying babies to term. Here I explored the symbiotic relationship among the island and its inhabitants, with particular emphasis on the effects of spending quality(!) time together, in initiating and sustaining a process of mutual spacetime tuning in which our defining energy/matter configurations in superstrung space (our 'Good Vibrations') begin to converge with those of the island, resulting in increased spacetime tuning or vibrational synchrony among island and inhabitant, as a function of time spent on the island. Viewed from this perspective, it may be possible that it takes less time to 'tune' sperm (ask Jin!), and that when 'tuned' sperm and eggs are combined, the resulting life is 'super-tuned' to the island's superstrung vibrational signature, producing a life form that is so in sync with the island that its sheer power (aligned directly in sync with the island's unique energy profile) and powerful signature create a fatal form of spacetime sickness in the host mother.... In short, the growing fetus in the womb may not only be rejecting the mother by sucking the life force out of her, but it may also be generating a spacetime sickness syndrome through inadvertently disrupting the mothers quite literal 'song of life', namely the patterned 'Good Vibrations' constituting her self/existence in a superstrung universe....
A third possibility was suggested by the LaFleur episode, riffing on the ankh/eternal life/karmic recycling themes catalyzed therein: The Swan hatch incident, or some other such event that amplified the island's post-1977/pre-2004 energy profile, created a condition in which the island's ability to 'properly' store and recycle souls was profoundly disrupted. Given the timing involved in the deaths of the mothers on the island, we may learn that this stage in the development of the fetus has always served as a crucial breakpoint in the transfer of lost souls from the island 'reservoir' (hive mind?) to the bodies of the new human hosts, still in their mother's wombs. It may be possible that the 'incident' effected a deleterious change in the ability of the island to 'properly' store and/or recycle these souls, and the effect of this abortive attempt was to kill the mother precisely at the SOULSTICE, i.e., the spacetime breakpoint at which the transfer of the soul was to occur.... Time will tell if this was, indeed, the case....
Cleanup In Aisle 5.8! Preparing For Another Spacetime Journey With Faraday-
Time to cover a few quick points of interest in Episode 5.8, before heading out on the next big spacetime journey with Faraday..... Yes, it was indeed very cool to see the rest of the figure (albeit from the back) of the fabled 'four-toed' statue! While at first glance the head appeared to possess a shape not unlike that of an ancient Egyptian pharoah, on second thought, it reminded me of the head of the 'sphinx' sitting atop the building found in the distant future by time-traveling Rod Taylor in that 1960 classic The Time Machine. 3
And how interesting to observe the temporal parelleling between the 'record skipping' castaways and the passengers on the Ajira flight, both involving time-travel spanning a 30-year period. The castaways traveled from 2004 to 1974, with Jack, Kate, and Hurley traveling from 2007 to 1977. While I'm sure others will be exploring this parallel for deeper meanings, I must admit that the question at the top of my mind is whether or not any or all of these temporal shifts coincided with the occurrence of an Autumnal Equinox which, per my "Faraday's Travels" posting, is associated with significant energy effects from the sun, known as Sun Outages.
Yes, the explosive fun Horace had through dynamiting trees was indeed reminiscent of the Smokey Monster's predilection for popping trees out of the ground.... And, although I did thoroughly appreciate Sawyer's/LaFleur's 'eyeliner' comment (poor Richard), I must admit that I was more intrigued by the thematic mirroring or paralleling achieved through showing LaFleur's 'security' team rescuing Horace from his explosive 'tree popping' escapade. This structural homage to (parody of?) good ol' 'security-system' Smokey racing along his subterranean catacombical highways, in search of soul food, was one of the jucier embedded highlights of the episode.
I'm sure I'm not alone in wondering, now, if Smokey might actually be an epiphenomenal, ethereal, and magical mystery manifestation of our dearly departed Horace Goodspeed's soul.... How funny that would be... Smokey is Horace, still having fun blowing up trees.... Of course, this surmise ignores the strong likelihood that Smokey is far more than the Horace's mouth; indeed, Alpert's comment about the sonic fence keeping some things out, but neither himself nor his people, might reasonably be construed as evidence supporting the existence of Smokey prior to Goodspeed's death..... Still, it was a fun image to entertain for a while..... And the dark ring left in the ground, in the aftermath of Horace's tree-killing spree, reminded me of the 'black oil' extradimensional portal to Bob's Place, in that classic TV series Twin Peaks....
But I've saved the best for last, here.... Through the course of the series to date, we've come to know and love not only the memorable characters of Lost, but also the fine attention to detail the writers have devoted to crafting the show's dialogue.... So quite naturally I was intrigued to note that once Sawyer convinced Richard Alpert that he was not a member of DHARMA, Alpert's followup query was not framed in terms of WHO Sawyer was, but rather he inquired as to WHAT Sawyer was....! Per my discussions below, I believe this points to a key theme that will undergird the final season of the series....
Faraday's Travels, Part Deux: It's A Hollow World, After All?
In my "Faraday's Travels" posting from last week, I offered a series of surmises regarding the nature of Faraday's 'Manhattaneque' travels through time, a backstory that I strongly suspect will move to the forefront during the second half of Season 5 and the final year, in Season 6. While thinking about the potential 'whenwheres' of Faraday's travels backward and forward in spacetime, a flash of Jungian synchronicity hit me as I considered: (1) additional World War II-era possibilities for Faraday's travels (in addition to the electromagnetically-enabled 'cloaking' of the USS Eldridge in 1943, a.k.a. The Philadelphia Experiment), and (2) Richard Alpert's query to Sawyer regarding WHAT he was (not who).
Hmmm.... You may know where this is headed.... Per the above, one variation on the theme of eternal life is for superior beings to use 'inferior' beings like us, as hosts/bodies. The notion of WHAT someone is, can certainly call to mind such a distinction. Certainly Alpert was curious about the nature of Sawyer... WHAT he was. One HEMAtic interpretation is that Alpert may have been wondering if Sawyer was actually, tangibly, corporeally real, or if instead Sawyer was merely some 4-dimensional projection (Material Application), perhaps a projection of an extradimensional being into our 4-dimensional reality, enabled by the island's unique energy properties. This interpretation is consistent with Faraday's comment to the effect that Charlotte disappeared-- she has 'moved on'-- the implication being she has moved on to another plane of existence, perhaps in higher order dimensions, within a superstrung universe.
Another less exotic HEMAtic interpretation is that Alpert is aware of, and referring to, the existence of two or more classes or 'levels' of beings, with the higher order or 'superior' class of being able to more fully leverage and manipulate the island's energy, to achieve desired material applications, through thought (H->E->MA). History is rife with a range of different schemes for classifying different orders or levels of beings. Indeed, the notion of John Locke visiting a range of different 'saintly' geographic waypoints-- Santo Domingo, Santa Clara, Santa Rosa, etc., per my "Bentham" posting-- in his attempts to round up and bring back the Oceanic 6 to the island, ring some resonantially angelic chords....
Angels and humans.... Fallen angels.... The Nephilim.... Is Alpert asking Sawyer if he (Sawyer) is an angel? Will the impending war Charles Widmore so ominously warned Locke about involve a cataclysmic Earth- and Universe-spanning epic struggle between good and evil... Between angels and fallen angels... Like the Nephilim, have the Others been going after human women (recall the raid by Others on the beach tents, and the thwarted attempt by others to steal Amy away, after they had killed Paul) to produce hybrid offspring:
"The story of the Nephilim is chronicled more fully in the
Book of Enoch (part of
Ethiopian biblical canon). Enoch, as well as
Jubilees, connects the origin of the Nephilim with the
fallen angels, and in particular with the
Grigori (
watchers).
Samyaza, an
angel of high rank, is described as leading a rebel sect of angels in a descent to earth to have sexual intercourse with human females... According to these texts, the fallen angels who
begat the Nephilim were cast into
Tartarus/
Gehenna, a place of 'total darkness'. However, Jubilees also states that God granted ten percent of the disembodied spirits of the Nephilim to remain after the flood, as demons, to try to lead the human race astray (through idolatry, the occult, etc.) until the
final Judgment."
While these connections to Lost are undeniably intriguing, another interpretation of Alpert's query to Sawyer sheds some additional, and perhaps even more interesting, light on this discussion.... Here it is.... And I would SO love to see this 'reveal' show up in the latter half of Season 5, or in Season 6.....
While helping the DHARMA Initiative excavate the energy pockets that would eventually become the Swan and Orchid hatches, Faraday comes across a buried relic, perhaps a coin, a ring, a piece of paper, a torn piece of uniform.... displaying a Swastika!
Yes, in addition to The Philadelphia Experiment, the other World War II-related Lost connection that would indeed be fascinating to see them make and explore is the well-documented fascination of Adolph Hitler with the occult, especially the NAZI connection to occult beliefs, secret societies, and their explorations of Tibet and ANTARCTICA, in search of access points to the Hollow Earth, with one of the driving goals being to find their way inside the hollow Earth, to the Lost City of SHAMBHALLA/SHAMBALLAH....!
Hmmmm.... Per the Foucault Pendular tracings on the floor of the Lamp Post DHARMA station, the island sppears to have been moving across the ocean surface, tracing spacetime arcs across the breadth and depth of a region spanning Fiji, Tahiti, Guam, Australia, and Antarctica. 4
So perhaps Penny Widmore's Antarctic 'research station'-based rescue mission was not so far off the mark, after all, as the island may indeed have been tracing a spacetime arc in relatively close proximity to that station, at the time the message was intercepted....
Although the Hollow Earth theories have been widely discredited, how interesting to note the eerie parallels contained in the following information, between Adolph Hitler's occult-related agenda, his search for AGHARTA, Land of Advanced Races ('superior beings'), and Lost:
"The
Thule Society, which was closely known by Adolf Hitler, reported much about Tibetan myths of openings into the Earth. There is even the theory that Hitler ordered a research journey for such an opening in Antarctica, based on a speech of
Admiral Dönitz in front of the German submarine in 1944, when he claimed "The German submarine fleet is proud of having built an invisible fortification for the Führer, anywhere in the world." During the Nuremberg Trials, Dönitz spoke of "an invisible fortification, in midst of the eternal ice."
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollow_earth
Hmmm.... I wonder how close the Penny Widmore-funded research station in Antarctica may have been located to the 'invisible fortification' purportedly erected by the Nazis, for der fuhrer, his own veritable fortress of solitude.... Will we learn, in a future episode of Lost, that a submarine flying the flag of the Third Reich inadvertently discovered the island during the course of efforts to find an Antarctic opening into the Earth, under Hitler's orders? And did these sub-mariners study the island's unique energy properties and powers, extract a cache of the black rock magnetite and other exotic energy materials, and carry this back to erect an invisible fortress for Hitler, on the Antarctic continent?
Is this fortification still in operation and, if so, what are its effects in 2004 and what role will it play as the series winds its way to the series finale at the end of Season 6? And, in an upcoming episode, will we serve witness to Faraday clad in Nazi uniform aboard a U-boat, sailing amidst a field of icebergs at the South Pole, then subsequently taking part in a landing party once the U-boat has penetrated the island's outer shell of negatively-charged exotic matter?
Time will tell....
Dr. Todd J. Hostager
P.S. Moving Along In A Groovy World: The Island Space(time) Needle?
The literal 'record skipping' image in the Season 5 opener tipped us off to the perilous (neurally short-circuiting and nasally exsanguinating) spacetime shifts suffered by our cherished band of castaways on the island. While viewing the pointed pendular ball sweeping in broad arcs across as the map on the floor of the Lamp Post DHARMA station, it struck me that in addition to serving in the role of a functional spacetime tuner, in a figurative sense, the island is not unlike a spacetime STYLUS.
Like a needle at the end of the arm on a phonograph, the island is moving not just in time along the surface of the Earth: due in no small part to its unique energy properties, the island is also moving like a spacetime stylus along the 'record' of spacetime vibrations, and when Ben threw the FDW/ phonograph off balance, the result was an inability of the island to properly track through the record of past/present/future spacetime vibrations (nod to Minkowski and superstring theory.)
Are the island's movements along the surface of the Pacific Ocean influenced by the interaction of: (1) the energy field projected by the island, and (2) the physical and energy profiles of the environment surrounding the island, including characteristics of the ocean floor, the seawater, the moon (and other heavenly bodies/influences)? If not, I wonder what might be causing the island's movements to be (apparently) restricted to the Pacific Ocean, tracing arcs from Guam to Australia, etc. Are the island arcs occurring within a restricted range (area) due to the existence and effects of energy pockets/vortices bounding and defining its range of motion along the surface of the Earth? And what would happen if the island spacetime stylus were to become 'stuck' in the deep physical 'worldgroove' comprising the Mariana Trench, near Guam?
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ENDNOTES:
1. Don't be surprised when we learn in a subsequent episode that DHARMA has another mainland, off-island station, this one located on the continent of Australia, at the Uluru/Ayers Rock site, where Rose and Bernard visited a healer played by Wayne Pygram of 'Scorpius' fame in the Farscape series.
2. Please see the following site for more information on the strange but eerily fascinating cult film, Lifeforce:
3. For more information on the 1960 movie The Time Machine, please consult:
4. How interesting to consider that all along the island has been moving in space and time, but only in three of the four dimensions we perceive in our conventional view of orthogonal, locally flat spacetime.... Given the information provided to date in the show, it appears that the island is moving through time (time= 1 dimension), across the surface of the Pacific Ocean (breadth and width= 2 dimensions of orthogonal, locally flat space). What about depth/height, the missing third dimension of orthogonal, locally flat space?
In addition to traveling through time, across the breadth and width of the surface of the Pacific Ocean, can the island also travel upward, out of the ocean, through the stratosphere, into space? If so, this would unlock a range of intriguing plot twists.... Decoupling the island worldline from the Earth would enable those on the island to escape an impending, apocalyptic doom, as in the case of an asteroid hurtling toward our planet.
Scientists agree that thousands of Near Earth Orbit objects now pose legitimate threats to our continued existence as a species on this planet. And this is not the first time such an extinction has happened; current wisdom places the fall of the dinosaurs squarely on the shoulders of an asteroid. In short, it is only a matter of time before another large asteroid crashes into our Earth.
In addition to traveling upward, hollow earth theorists would also wonder about the extent to which the island can travel downward, protected by its outer shell of negatively-charged exotic matter. Is Guam significant not just as a destination on the Ajira flight, but also for its proximity to the famed Mariana Trench? In particular, hollow earth theorists would want to know if it is possible to ride the island downard, into the trench, to make the trip through the earth's crust and arrive at the fabled City of Shambhala....
[11:44am, 3/6/09 Addendum] Naaaaah..... A Mariana Trench trip by the island to inner Earth is too far out (in?).... Pour that Ice-T out, and cue Bowie's "Under Pressure." However, it certainly would be interesting to learn more about Miles' afterflash comment that it felt like an earthquake... While I'm sure this was meant to signal that they had experienced the final 'flash' of actualbacks, as Locke reset the FDW and thus restored the integrity of the island's spacetime tuning harmonics, how intriguing it would be to learn that when Miles and gang saw the complete 'four-toed' statue back in earlier times, the island was not located in the Pacific Ocean at that time, but was instead located in the Atlantic Ocean, per my prior surmise that the island was Atlantis, then spacetime shifted (flashed) to the Pacific to become Lemuria.
Was the more profound 'flash' of earthquake proportions that Miles et al. experienced a result of this Atlantic-to-Pacific shift by the island? Or, was Miles feeling the more literal reality of a move by the island associated with an actual earthquake? Was the island the true, literal incarnation of the City of Shamballah, located on the inside of a hollow Earth for eons, only to be abruptly dislodged and shifted to the outer surface of the planet as a result of some cataclysmic ancient earthquake? And is this ancient earthquake the reason the 'four-toed' statue broke apart and toppled into the ocean?