Saturday, July 27, 2013

Paddy Chayefsky and the Wonders of the Invisible World Part III

 
Welcome to the third installment in my examination of the final two film projects involving legendary playwright and screenwriter Paddy Chayefsky, Network and Altered States. Despite Chayefsky's involvement in either film they are rarely linked together by the public and not without reason: Chayefsky himself disowned his involvement in the latter film, being credited for the screenplay under the pseudonym of Sidney Aaron (Chayefsky's real first and middle names), while the respective plot lines of either picture are seemingly worlds apart. Altered States is a cult drug movie while Network was one of the most critically acclaimed films of its era, winning multiple Oscars for its jet black satire of the television industry.


And yet Howard Beale (Peter Finch), the principal character in Network, goes through a transformation that is every bit as strange as anything found in Altered States. As discussed in the second installment of this series, Beale seemingly begins to simultaneously go mad and become endowed some type of mystical insight --In point of fact, he shows the characteristics of individuals who have experienced a sudden period of illumination after undergoing some type of supernatural or high weirdness-laden event, in terms of both the madness and the insight he displays.

Beale

And indeed the change in consciousness Beale undergoes was spurred by an encounter he claims to have had with a disembodied voice that requests that Beale become a vessel through which it can speak to the American public via television. Certainly Network is ambiguous as to whether or not this encounter is real but Chayefsky would also incorporate such a notion --that the abnormal states of consciousness the insane occupy, specifically schizophrenics, are not merely hallucinations --into Altered States, his next project.

Paddy

While Altered State is primarily concerned with the effects that entheogens and sensory deprivation  have on consciousness the lead character, Edward Jessup (William Hurt), first becomes interested in such things due to visions he experienced as a child laden with Christian symbolism. Upon the death of his father of cancer Jessup ceased having these visions at the age of seventeen but developed a keen interest in the altered states of consciousness the insane, specially schizophrenics, occupy. As the film opens Jessup has even begun to wonder if the visions of schizophrenics are merely hallucinations, or a glimpse into some type of metaphysical state.


Such a notion --that schizophrenics are both mad and visionaries simultaneously --was not a new concept. Insanity, especially varieties such as schizophrenia, were treated as cases of possession in countless ancient cultures. More recently the Surrealist Movement toyed with the notion that schizophrenia offered profound insights into altered states of consciousness. In the 1970s at least one prominent psychiatrist pondered whether madness and profound spiritual transformation at times worked hand-in-hand.
"The surrealist perspective is echoed in that of Scottish psychiatrist R. D. Laing who, in his controversial and thought-provoking essay The Politics of Experience, makes many of the same points concerning schizophrenia and the possibilities of spiritual growth through madness. It should be noted that Laing also began his medical career in the army, in this case the British Army, where he worked as a psychiatrist before going to the Tavistock clinic. Laing agrees with the surrealist when he states that '... we are bemused and crazed creatures, strangers to our true selves, to one another, and to the spiritual and material world --mad, even, from an ideal standpoint we can glimpse but not adopt,' and, 'We are potentially men, but are in an alienated state, and this state is not simply a natural system.' The Politics of Experience includes a final section, entitled 'The Bird of Paradise,' that would have satisfied many a surrealist, as it seems to be a free-association account of a journey into and out of madness. Concerning the voyage into madness, Laing is unequivocal:
We can no longer assume that such a voyage is an illness that has to be treated... Can we not see that this voyage is not what we need to be cured of, but that it is itself a natural way of healing our own appalling state of alienation called normality?
In other times people intentionally embarked upon this voyage.
Or, if they found themselves already embarked, willy-nilly, they gave thanks, as for a special grace.
"Thus Laing, more than forty years and a World War after the first Surrealist Manifesto, is seen endorsing what is really a surrealist agenda, except he is doing so as a trained, experienced, and respected member of the psychiatric profession and not as an artist. He recognizes that 'in other times people intentionally embarked upon this voyage,' the condition of voluntary madness that is a hallmark of poets like Rimbaud and Artaud, as well as of occultists and shamans, and people like Breton, Masson, Ernst, Duchmp and so many others. The energy of the surrealist movement perhaps finds its accumulation and Laing; we are certainly living now in a state of the denouement in which the ideas of Laing have been discarded or ignored by a profession that seems to have found its savior in chemical therapies that treat symptoms, and make the neurotic and psychotic more productive members of an increasingly unhappy and alienated society."
(Sinister Forces Book III, Peter Levenda, pgs. 100-101)  
R.D. Laing

Altered States takes place at the tail end of Laing's era, in which psychonauts like Timothy Leary and John C. Lilly were briefly given significant university/financial backing to pursue a host of bizarre and incredible fields (frequently under the auspices of the US intelligence community). Altered States is almost like a sampler of virtually every major fringe theory the scientific and mental health professions pondered in the 1960/1970s era even as it foresees the "market-driven" philosophy the Reagan revolution would bring to countless fields.

The Edward Jessup character is in some ways a stand-in for the fading idealism of that age. I can't help but feel that Jessup is also a stand-in for Chayefsky himself, who seems to have moved on to entheogens and other "derangements of the senses" after crafting the "mad prophet of the airwaves." As we shall see, this was in many ways a logical progression of interests. Before going any further, however, I feel I should first address the issue of Chayefsky's involvement on the film.

Because of Chayefsky's disownment of the film and how radically different it is from the scribe's prior work more than a few movie buffs have wondered over the years if director Ken Russell had made significant changes to the screenplay. After all, the adaptions of Chayefsky's prior scripts had all been directed in a rather dry, almost documentary-like fashion. Reportedly Arthur Penn was initially attached to direct Altered States and his style would certainly be in keeping with prior Chayefsky films. But Penn ultimately dropped out (as did reportedly over twenty other directors, some of them big-name types) and British filmmaker Russell (who was best known at the time for The Devils and the adaptation of The Who's Tommy and who went on to direct the cult classic Liar of the White Worm) ended up getting the nod.

Russell
Russell was a director who was known both before and after Altered States for his surreal, sensual and at times horrific visuals but with the significant financial backing that came with the Altered States gig he was able to indulge himself on a scale he would never again be able to. Where as all prior Chayefsky films had been driven by dialogue Altered States was a total special-effects driven visual tour de force. Thus, some have wondered if Russell altered Chayefsky's script significantly, a charge the director has long denied.

Despite the visual nature of the film the dialogue is most definitely Chayefsky's while the profound philosophical questions the scribe no doubt wished to be at the center of the film still shine through. Reportedly the major dispute between Russell and Chayefsky was not over changes to the script, but rather how Russell was directing the actors to recite Chayefsky's dialogue. The New York Daily News notes that the "writer apparently despised the way Russell directed the actors to speak his dialogue in a hyper-caffeinated manner."

Given the complex philosophical and spiritual topics discussed in the dialogue it's easy to see how this direction changed the nature of the film. No doubt Chayefsky envisioned many of the chief exchanges to be more drawn out so that the audience could better contemplate the ideas examined in the film with the voyages into inner space briefly puncturing this contemplation. Russell takes the opposite approach, opting to rely on the visuals to convey the film's rich philosophy as much as the dialogue. For practical purposes I believe Russell had the right idea as many of the concepts Chayefsky explores in his script would be a little too far out for general audiences to take seriously in an overly dramatic fashion.


So much for the feud between Chayefsky and Russell. Let us now briefly consider the chief characters of the film, specifically in terms of their symbolic and synchronicist associations. The last name of the lead character, Edward Jessup, is a variation of the name Joseph. The name Joseph is of course highly significant in Christian mythology. The patriarchal Joseph, the most beloved son of Jacob (Israel) and the founder of one of the legendary twelve tribes, is the most well-known. Dreams and the interpretations of them played a major role in Joseph's life. He was sold into slavery by his brothers after he told them of two dreams he had, the second of which they interpreted as a vision of Joseph's eventual lordship over them. His brothers received twenty pieces of silver for this act (Judas later received thirty after betraying Jesus).

Joseph being sold into slavery
Joseph became a slave in Egypt and was eventually thrown in prison after being falsely accused of trying to rape his master's wife. During his stay in prison Joseph encountered the chief baker and cup-bearer for Pharaoh. Joseph masterfully interpreted their dreams for them and some years later, when Pharaoh was troubled by his own dreams, the cup-bearer recommended Joseph to his master after all of his wise men had failed to interpret the dreams. Joseph succeeded and spared Egypt from a terrible famine as Pharaoh's dreams proved to be visions of things to come. For this not only was Joseph granted his freedom but he was also made the Vizier of all of Egypt.

Joseph in Egypt after being reunited with his brothers

An interpreter of visions is certainly an apt description of Edward Jessup. According to the legendary poet and mythologist Robert Graves the Tribe of Joseph was also associated with the introduction of orgiastic rituals into the ancient Israeli spring festival now known as Passover.
"The Passover appears to have been a Canaanite Spring festival which the tribe of Joseph adopted and transformed into a commemoration of their escape from Egypt under Moses. At Carmel, the dance with a lamp must have been sympathetic magic to encourage the appearance of the God with a bull's full of who was armed, like Dionysus, with a torch. 'Baal' merely means 'Lord'. The annalist refrains from mentioning his real name; but since the priests of Baal were Israelites it is likely to have been 'Jah Aceb' or 'Jacob' --the Heel-god. Jah Aceb seems to have been also worshiped at Beth-Hoglah --'The Shrine of the Hobbler' -- a place between Jericho and the Jordan south of Gilgal and identified by Epiphanius with the threshing floor of Atad, mentioned in Genesis... as the place where Joseph mourned for Jacob. Jerome connects this place with a round dance, apparently performed in honor of Talus the Cretan Sun-hero --Hesychius says that Talus means 'Sun' -- to whom the partridge was sacred. In Athenian legend Talus was thrown down by Daedalus from a height and transformed into a partridge while in the air by the Goddess Athene. The Arabic word for 'hobble' which gives its name to Beth-Hoglah is derived from the word for partridge; the deduction being that the dance was a hobbling one. The partridge is a Spring migrant, sacred to the Love-goddess because of its reputation for lasciviousness (mentioned by Aristotle and Pliny) and the dance must have mimicked the love dance of the cock-partridge which it carries out, like the wood-cock, on a regular dancing floor. It is a war dance, performed for a hen audience: the cocks flutter around in circles with a hobbling gait, one heel always held in readiness to strike at a rival's head. The hens look on, quaking with excitement. The proverb quoted by Jeremiah: 'The  partridge gathers young that she has not brought forth', means that Jewish men and women were attracted to these alien orgiastic rites."
(The White Goddess, pg. 327) 
Jacob and his Ladder
While Jessup doesn't exactly introduce orgiastic rites to academia they are none the less incredibly mystical and most certainly heretical. But it is a another biblical Joseph --specifically Joseph of Arimathea --to which Jessup has the strongest linkage. Those of you familiar with the Grail myths are well aware that Joseph of Arimathea is an integral part of one of the most mystical (and frankly pagan) strands of Christianity. For the uninitiated, here is a brief recap of Joseph of Arimathea's involvement in the Grail mythos:
"According to legend, the body of the Christos (the Spiritual Law) was given into the keeping of two men, of whom the Gospels make but brief mention. These were Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea, both devout men who, though not listed among the disciples or apostles of the Christos, were of all men chosen to be custodians of his sacred remains. Joseph of Arimathea was one of the initiated brethren and is called by A. E. Waite, in his A New Encyclopedia of Freemasonry, 'the first Bishop of Christendom.' Just as the temporal (or visible) power of the Holy See was established by St. Peter (?), so the spiritual (or invisible) body of the faith was entrusted to the 'Secret Church of the Holy Grail' through apostolic succession from Joseph of Arimathea, into whose keeping had been given the perpetual symbols of the covenant  -- the ever-flowing cop and the bleeding spear.
"Presumably on being instructions of St. Philip, Joseph of Arimathea, carrying the sacred relics, reached Britain after passing through many and varied hardships. Here a site was allotted to him for the erection of the church, and in this manner Glastonbury Abbey was founded. Joseph planted his staff in the earth and it took root, becoming  a miraculous thorn bush which blossomed twice a year and which is now called the Glastonbury thorn. The end of the life of Joseph of Arimathea is unknown. By some it is believed that, like Enoch, he was translated; by others, that he was buried in Glastonbury Abbey. Repeated attempts have been made to find the Holy Grail, which many believe to have been hidden in a crypt beneath the ancient abbey. The Glastonbury chalice recently discovered and by the devout supposed to be the original Sangreal can scarcely be accepted as genuine by the critical investigator. Beyond its inherent interest as a relic, like the famous Antioch chalice it actually proves nothing when it is realized that practically little more was known about the Christian Mysteries eighteen centuries ago than can be discovered today."
(The Secret Teachings of All Ages, Manly P. Hall, pg. 588)
Joseph of Arimathea
This is of course but one variation on the myths surrounding Joseph of Arimathea. Other popular accounts have him founding his church in France and not Britain, for instance. But virtually all such quasi-mystical accounts of the life and times of Joseph of Arimathea portrayed him as the founder of some type of esoteric order centered around the Grail. For our purposes here this is especially interesting as more than a few researchers have suggested that the actual Grail was a psychedelic mushroom and not a chalice.
"The central image the myth deals with is of course the vessel itself, whether chalice or dish, which also supplies the most obvious fly agaric correspondence: the fully mature mushroom becomes a literal cup (if it is deep) or dish (if it is shallow). If the cap gets wet at this stage rivulets of red run down the cup's interior and pull at the bottom. It looks like a chalice of blood mixed with water. Even without water the mushroom gives the impression of being a cup of blood... Joseph survived imprisoned by eating a 'host'  placed in the cup by a dove. The dove and the cup both correspond to a mature fly agaric specimen, and the host corresponds to a dried mushroom. Putting it in the cup as the dove did symbolizes that the host became a liquid and is drunk.
"Joseph left the Middle East and went to Europe, where the fly agaric is found in abundance. Once there he started a cult centered around the mysterious cup of blood, taking great pains to identify it with the story of Jesus. The details of the mystical 'mass' celebrated by the participants were kept secret; an empty seat representing Judas was to remind everyone what happens when the cult secrets are made public or revealed to authorities. The images of the Rich Fisher and Fisher King are a clear tie to Jesus but may also represent dried fly agaric bobbing in the water like so many fish. With these mushrooms one person can feed many.
"The Grail was considered a source of food and with good reason. Actual cups or chalices never produce food or drink on their own, and certainly no one would ever consider eating a cup or chalice. The mushroom-cup, however, contains both food and drink and is itself edible. Not only this, but when it is eaten one becomes 'full,' that is to say one becomes temporarily anorexic, full physically as well as spiritually, and perfectly content with the food afforded by the mushroom."
(Magic Mushrooms in Religion and Alchemy, Clark Heinrich, pg. 157)

While I've been unable to determine when exactly the Grail was first linked to entheogens it seems highly probable that such an association would been made by the time that Chayefsky began to work on Altered States. At least two groundbreaking works that had linked Christianity to entheogens, John Allegro's The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross and to a lesser extent Andrija Puharich's The Sacred Mushroom: Keys to the Door of Eternity, had already been published by the time Chayefsky had begun working on the Altered States project. This combined with the obvious visual similarities between the mythological Grail and fly agaric certainly make such a deliberate association possible. And indeed Jessup threatens to become the founder of a most heretical academic strand throughout the picture, not unlike the Gnostic cult attributed to Joseph of Arimathea that clearly dealt in the "derangement of the senses."



Such rich symbolism does not seemingly appear in the name of the character of Emily Jessup (Blair Brown), Edward's wife and possibly the hottest anthropologist in the world at the time. According to Wikipedia the name Emily derives from the Latin name Aemilia, one of the legendary patriarchal noble families of the Roman Republic. Two major roads, the Via Aemilia and the Via Aemilia Scauri, were named after this clan during the Republic. Probably the most well-known member was Marcus Aemilius Lepidus, a member of the Second Triumvirate who was distinctly the weakest party behind Mark Antony and Octavian (soon to be Augustus Caesar). Despite the fame of the Aemilia they did not seemingly contribute many legendary figures in the ancient Republic.

Marcus Aemilius Lepidus
In some translations the name Aemilia means "rival," but this may be the result of a folk etymology. This would be the most synchronicistic interpretation, however. Emily Jessup is in several ways involved in rivalries with Edward. For one, she is also brilliant (their first encounter involves them comparing their whiz kid credentials) and capable of matching his intellect. After their marriage she also finds herself in a rivalry with Edward's work for his attention. In several instances of the film's religious imagery Emily is depicted as Eve to Edward's Adam (and possibly even the Scarlet Woman to his Jesus, but more on that later). Ultimately it is Emily's willingness to compete with Edward's spiritual quest that saves his life (or at least his material form).

Emily
The name of the character Arthur Rosenberg (Bob Balaban), by contrast, has some quite striking synchronicistic associations. The name Arthur of course immediately brings to mind the legendary British king who was closely associated with both the Grail and Glastonbury Abbey (which in some traditions was founded by Joseph of Arimathea, as noted above). The mythological figure of Arthur has a great degree of esoteric significance as well.
"In the personality of Arthur is to be found a new form of the ever-recurrent cosmic myth. The prince of Britain is the sun, his knights are the zodiac, and his flashing sword may be the sun's rays with which he fights and vanquishes the dragons of darkness or it may represent the Earth's axis. Arthur's Round Table is the universe; the Siege Perilous the throne of the perfect man. In its terrestrial sense, Arthur was the Grand Master of a secret Christian-Masonic brotherhood of philosophic mystics who termed themselves Knights. Arthur received the exalted position of Grand Master of these Knights because he had faithfully accomplished the withdrawal of the sword (spirit) from the anvil of the base metals (his lower nature). As invariably happens, the historical Arthur soon was confused with the allegories and myths of his order until now the two are inseparable. After Arthur's death on the field of Kamblan his Mysteries ceased, and esoterically he was borne away on a black barge, as is so beautifully described by Tennyson in his Morte d'Arthur. The great sword Excalibur was also cast back into the waters of eternity -- all of which is a vivid portrayal of the descent of cosmic night at the end of the Day of Universal Manifestation. The body of the historical Arthur was probably interred at Glastonbury Abbey, a building closely identified with the mystic rites of both the Grail and the Arthurian Cycle."
(The Secret Teachings of All Ages, Manly P. Hall, pgs. 590-591)
 
The last name of Arthur Rosenberg is a Germanic one likely meaning "mountain of roses." The rose is also symbolically associated with the Holy Grail.
"In Christian iconographic, the rose may be either the chalice into which Christ's blood flowed, or the transfiguration of those drops of blood or, again, the symbol of Christ's wounds. A Rosicrucian symbol depicts five roses, one at the centre and one on each of the four arms of the Cross. This conjures images of the Grail or else the 'Heavenly Rose' of the Redemption. In the Rosicrucian context, it should be observed that its emblem sets a rose in the very centre of the Cross, that is, where the Sacred Heart, Christ's heart, is located."
(Dictionary of Symbols, Jean Chevalier & Alain Gheerbrant, pg. 813)
While the character of Arthur Rosenberg does not exactly live up to such lofty symbolism he is nonetheless a mostly faithful companion of Jessup and ultimately follows him on his quest. In some traditions King Arthur was a follower of the cult founded by Joseph of Arimathea centered around the Holy Grail (which itself was possibly symbolic of entheogens) and so too does Arthur Rosenberg ultimately relate to Jessup.

Emily (left) and Arthur (right)
And last but not least there is the character of Mason Parrish (Charles Haid). It goes without saying that this character's first name has quite a bit of symbolic significance. His last name, however, also has religious associations, a parish being the name of a church territorial unit. Sometimes congregations are called parishes. In general the concept of the parish is a very ancient one within Christendom, likely even predating it.

And now on to the first name, which brings a certain secret brotherhood to mind immediately. Some strands of Freemasonry claim its origins lie with mythological builders, masons, of ancient times.
"The checkerboard floor upon which the modern Freemasonic lodge stands is the old tracing board of the Dionysiac Architects, and while the modern organization is no longer limited to workmen's guilds it still preserves in its symbols the metaphysical doctrines of the ancient society of which it is presumably the outgrowth...
"The Roman Collegia of skilled architects were apparently a subdivision of the greater Ionian body, their principles and organization being practically identical with the older Ionian institution. It has been suspected that the Dionysians also profoundly influenced early Islamic culture, for part of their symbolism found its ways into the Mysteries of the dervishes. At one time the Dionysians referred to themselves as Sons of Solomon, and one of the most important of their symbols was the Seal of Solomon -- two interlaced triangles. This motif is frequently seen in conspicuous parts of Mohammedan mosques. The Knights Templar -- who were suspected of anything and everything --are believed to have contacted these Dionysiac artificers and to have introduced many of their symbols and doctrines into medieval Europe. But Freemasonry most of all owes to the Dionysiac cult the great mass of its symbols and rituals which are related to the science of architecture. From these ancient and illustrious artisans it also received the legacy of the unfinished Temple of Civilization --the vast, and visible structure upon which these initiated builders have labored continuously since the inception of their fraternity. This mighty edifice, which has fallen and been rebuilt time after time but whose foundations remain unmoved, is the true Everlasting House of which the temple on the brow of Mount Moriah was an impermanent symbol.
"Aside from the operative aspect of their order, the Dionysiac Architects had a speculative philosophic code. Human society they considered as a rough and untrued ashlar but lately chiseled from the quarry of elemental Nature. This crude block was the true object upon which these skilled craftsmen labored --polishing it, squaring it, and with the aid of fine carvings transforming it into a miracle of beauty. While mystics released their souls from the bondage of matter by meditation and philosophers found their keenest joy in the profundities of thought, these master workmen achieved liberation from the Wheel of Life and Death by learning to swing their hammers with the same rhythm that moves the swirling forces of Cosmos. They venerated the Deity under the guise of the Great Architect and Master Craftsman who was ever gouging rough ashlar from the fields of space and truing them into universes. The Dionysians affirmed constructiveness to be the supreme expression of the soul, and attending themselves with the ever-visible constructive natural processes going on around them, believe that mortality could be achieved by thus becoming a part of the creative agencies of Nature."
(The Secret Teachings of All Ages, Manly P. Hall, pgs. 573-574)

And yet the character of Mason is the least metaphysically inclined of the three academics (the other two being Jessup and Arthur). Mason is a literal craftsman with little interest in speculative things, being chiefly concerned with his own career advancement. He ridicules and mocks Jessup's quest to discover the "First Self" throughout the film yet finds himself drawn in eventually. One suspects that he opts to join Jessup in his examination of inner space in the name of grant money as much as out of genuine curiosity. Jessup is the true speculative mason with Arthur as a reluctant partner and Mason as the increasingly dreary "voice of reason." They make quite the trinity indeed.

On a deeper level the name of the Mason Parrish character can also be read as a comment on the abandonment of entheogens by both mainstream as well as alternative religions. After all, much emerging New Age-type spiritualism desperately tried to disassociate itself from drug culture after the collapse of the counterculture in the 1970s. In general, it would not be until the 1990s that more philosophical discussions of entheogens would once again become semi-acceptable in polite and respectable society.

Mason
Altered States itself was also a last hurrah for this type of subject matter, at least in terms of big budget productions, for many decades. The X-Files would occasionally wander into Altered States's Technicolor landscape of derangement of the senses, entheogens, ancient religions, and science fiction but such elements would not be given series bucks or series treatment at any length again until the launch of Fringe in 2008 (at least to the best of this author's knowledge). Naturally, as fans of the J.J. Abrams' produced series are probably already well aware, Fringe heavily incorporated elements of Altered States (including actress Blair Brown, who played key character Nina Sharp on the series) wholesale into several of its plotlines, especially during the first season. Even Walter's isolation tank seems to be modeled after the one used in Altered States' final act.


Blair Brown on Fringe (top) and the show's isolation tank (bottom)

And it is here that I shall wrap things up for now. In the fourth installment I shall break down the highly symbolic and synchronicistic plot line of Altered States. Stay tuned.


Saturday, July 20, 2013

Paddy Chayefsky and the Wonders of the Invisible World Part II

 
Welcome to the second installment in my series examining the films Network and Altered States, both of would sprang from the pen of screenwriter Paddy Chayefsky. Despite this connection these films are rarely linked together, and not without reason: Chayefsky famously disowned the adaptation of Altered States, even going so far as to have his name removed from the film and replacing it with the pseudonym Sidney Aaron (his real first and middle names respectively). Beyond that, the plot lines of either film are seemingly worlds apart: Network is a brutal depiction of the news media and television in general while Altered States revolves roughly around experiments with, and the spiritual implications of, entheogens.
 

And yet both films ultimately involve altered states of consciousness. I already began to examine how this relates to the film Network in the first installment of this series by breaking down the symbolic and archetypical nature of several of the major characters, but for our purposes here I want to focus in on one of Network's key plot points (those of you unfamiliar with the storyline are advised to read part one where I gave a brief synopsis or check out the Wikipedia entry on it as I'll be working from the assumption at this point forward that readers are aware of it) and its implications of altered states of consciousness: the disembodied voice that instructs Howard Beale (Peter Finch) to become a prophet on television.

This encounter comes at a time when Beale's fortunes are fading after the media sensation that was caused initially by his threat to commit suicide live on air and his later rant about everything being "bullshit" are wearing off. UBS opted to keep Beale on the air for his "mad prophet of the airwaves" routine but he does not seem up to the task of performing it day in and day out after those inspired initial outburst. Then one night, just as Beale's then-boss Max Schumacher (William Holden) is about to go back to "straight" news, Beale wakes from his sleep and seemingly stares wide-eyed into the emptiness of his bedroom. He then asked something to speak up and a moment later says "okay."

Beale being awakened from his sleep by the voice

The next day he goes on air and explains this episode to his viewers thusly:
"Last night, I was awakened from a fitful sleep, shortly after 2 o'clock in the morning by a shrill, sibilant, faceless voice. I couldn't make it out at first in the dark bedroom. And I said, 'I'm sorry, you will have to talk a little louder.'...And the Voice said to me: 'I want you to tell the people the truth, not an easy thing to do because the people don't want to know the truth.' And I said, 'You're kidding. What the hell should I know about the truth?' But the Voice said to me: 'Don't worry about the truth. I will put the words in your mouth.' And I said, 'What is this, the burning bush? For God's sake, I'm not Moses.' And the Voice said to me: 'And I'm not God. What has that got to do with it?'  
"And the Voice said to me: 'We're not talking about eternal truth or absolute truth or ultimate truth. We're talking about impermanent, transient, human truth. I don't expect you people to be capable of truth, but god-dammit, at least you're capable of self-preservation!' And I said, 'Why me?' And the Voice said: 'Because you're on television, dummy! You have 40 million Americans listening to you and after the show you could have 50 million. For Pete's sake, I'm not asking you to walk the land in sackcloth and ashes preaching the Armageddon. You're on TV, man.' So I thought about it for a moment, and then I said, 'Ok.'"
This is one of the major turning points in the movie for from here on out Howard Beale becomes a bona fide phenomenon after initially appearing simply as an aging and unstable man who caught lightning in a bottle with his suicide pledge and "bullshit" rant afterwards. Beale is suddenly capable of keen and perceptive insights and at one point even seems poised to spur an actual populist revolt.

Thus, a pertinent question emerges: Is Beale simply insane and having a breakdown or did he have an actual encounter with some type of entity? The film itself is coy on this matter --director Sidney Lumet shoots the encounter as though Beale is merely talking to himself while none of the characters (except for possibly Arthur Jensen [Ned Beatty], but more on that later ) seem to seriously believe that Beale heard anything. And yet the perception and magnetism that Beale suddenly possesses is undeniable even as his actions become more and more unstable.

Beale "listening" to voice

Could it then be possible that Beale is both going insane and actually communing with an entity? Certainly more than a few schools of thought over the years (some of them very ancient) have believed that madness is a doorway into altered states of consciousness and that the insane are simply more in tune to those things beyond our everyday perception of reality. Indeed, in many traditional societies a period of madness is necessary for anyone wishing to walk the path of the shaman.
"For modern psychiatry, every mental breakdown -- every mental illness, every mental disorder -- has its origins somewhere in the patient's life. A person does not go insane for reasons that are not part of his personal history... How could a person go insane -- how could his personality disintegrate to that extent --due to an external influence? There is either an organic reason (such as a hormonal imbalance or some other chemical reason, or physical trauma of some sort, such as a blow to the head), or there is a precipitating cause in the patient's immediate environment. Yet, in the context of shamanism, the precipitating cause is the summons of a spirit. Even more threatening, the shaman is a person who has gone 'through' madness and has become 'cured' without the benefit of modern psychiatric techniques. Even more astonishing, this person who had once been mad is now a valued and even a revered member of his society, and all due to the fact of his madness and subsequent cure.
"The controversial Scottish psychiatrist... R. D, Laing wrote in 1967, and The Politics of Experience,
When a person goes mad, a profound transposition of his place in relation to all domains of being occurs.... Nevertheless, he can often be to us, even though his profound wretchedness and disintegration, the hierophant of the sacred. An exile from the scene of being as we know it, he is an alien, a stranger signaling to us from the void in which he is foundering, a void which may be peopled by presences that we do not even dream of. They used to be called demons and spirits.... Madness need not be all breakdown. It may also be breakthrough.
"Madness and psychic disintegration (dissociation?) leading to... spiritual breakthrough, psychic powers, attainment, illumination: the shaman, the medicine man, the magician."
(Sinister Forces Book III, Peter Levenda, pg. 55)
the highly controversial psychiatrist R.D. Laing

Howard Beale does in fact become a valued and even revered member of his society, much to the shock and horror of individuals such as his old friend Max Schumacher. And yet this was historically how the mad who had displayed perception, insight, and even visions had been treated, a prospect that seems the definition of madness in our modern world. Certainly it adds to the incredible air of surrealism running throughout Network's second half.

Incidentally the Surrealists were one of the chief modern movements to value madness, especially schizophrenia, as offering some type of profound insight into the world. Edward Jessup, the lead character of Altered States, becomes interested in entheogens after becoming convinced that some schizophrenics are experiencing states of consciousness that are as real as "our waking states," but more on that in the next installment.

Beyond the fact that Paddy Chayeksky would incorporate such concepts into the project that followed Network there are other indications that he means for us to take Beale's experience with the disembodied voice seriously. Consider the description Beale gives of his state of mind to Schumacher after making the faithful broadcast in which he reveals his encounter:
"This is not a psychotic episode. This is a cleansing moment of clarity. I'm imbued, Max. I'm imbued with some special spirit. It's not a religious feeling at all. It's a shocking eruption of great electrical energy. I feel vivid and flashing, as if suddenly I'd been plugged into some great electromagnetic field. I feel connected to all living things. To flowers, birds, all the animals of the world. And even to some great, unseen, living force. What I think the Hindus call prana. But it's not a breakdown. I've never felt more orderly in my life. It is a shattering and beautiful sensation. It is the exalted flow of the space-time continuum, save that it is spaceless and timeless and... of such loveliness. I feel on the verge of some great, ultimate truth."

This is consistent with the descriptions individuals have given of the sense of illumination that overtakes them after completing some type of occult initiation or surviving an experience seeping with High Strangeness.
"Illumination is basically a sudden, overwhelming insight into the whole structure of the cosmos and man's relationship to it. Suddenly, for a few brief seconds, the percipient understands everything with incredible clarity. In some cases the process occurs over a long period in the form of short flashes of insight that gradually add up. In others it takes place instantaneously with the percipient seemingly bathed in a reddish glow or caught in a beam brilliant white light cast down from the skies (thus we have the ancient phrase, 'He has seen the light').
"No one is ever exactly the same after an illuminating experience. Mediocre men become great leaders, preachers, statesman, scientists, poets, and writers overnight! Others divorce their spouses, quit their jobs, and embark on new careers that catapult them into unexpected prominence. Some fear for their sanity at first because the experience is so overwhelming. Some are unable to cope with that and disintegrate into various kinds of fanatics."
(Our Haunted Planet, John A. Keel, pg. 201)
Sudden, unexpected illumination, the type of which that frequently follows some type of supernatural experience or even UFO encounters, can be especially destructive as the recipient is unprepared for it. Christopher Knowles recently speculated that encounters with the legendary Men in Black may not in fact be sinister in nature but are in effect a type of warning for individuals who are too unstable to survive in the Fortean realms without succumbing to madness or worse. Amusingly, Howard Beale even begins to dress like a Man in Black once his nightly news programs transforms into The Howard Beale Show.



But back to the matter at hand: If Beale did in fact have a genuine encounter, then with what pray tell? According to Beale, the entity itself said to him: "And I'm not God. What has that got to do with it?" Nor does the entity claim to be an angel or anything commonly associated with the Christian realm. Indeed, Beale's encounter more closely resembles descriptions of entities known as daimons in the ancient world. Daimons are Trickster-like beings which, from early times, were understood as manifesting bother externally (i.e. the physical world) as well as internally (psychologically). Unsurprisingly, these creatures were eventually incorporated by Jung into his concept of Archetypes.
"The great authorities on the intermediate world of psychic reality were the Neoplatonists who flourished from about the middle of the third century A.D. to the middle of the sixth. Following Plato's most mystical dialogue, the Timaeus, they called the intermediate region the Soul of the World, widely known in Latin as Anima Mundi. Just as the human soul mediated between spirit and body, so the world-soul mediated between the One (which, like God, was the transcendent source of all things) and the material, sensory world. The agents of this mediation were called daimons... who, as it were, populated the Soul of the World and provided the connection between gods and men.
"Christianity later, and unjustly, pronounced the daimons demons. But originally they were simply the beings who thronged myth and folklore, from the Greek nymphs, satyrs, fauns, dryads, etc. to elves, gnomes, trolls, jinn, and so on...
"Daimons were essential to the Gnostic-Hermetic-Neoplatonic tradition of philosophy --which was more like psychology (in the Jungian sense) or a mystical discipline than the logical exercises philosophy became. But the daimons of myth evolved into a sort more suited to these philosophies, whether angels, souls, archons, thrones, or powers -- many of which later infiltrated Christianity. Ever-flexible, the daimons changed their shape to suit the times, even becoming abstractions when necessary (the Neoplatonic henads, for example) but preferring if possible to remain personified. Jung's cast of archetypal personages --Shadow, anima/animus, Great Mother, Wise Old Man -- placed him firmly in this tradition.
"Never quite divine nor quite human, the daimons erupted out of the Soul of the World. They were neither spiritual nor physical, but both. Neither were they, as Jung discovered, wholly inner nor wholly outer, but both. They were paradoxical beings, both good and bad, benign and frightening, guiding and warning, protecting and maddening. Plato has Diotima described them in the Symposium, a dialogue devoted to the most neglected of topics and modern philosophy --love...
"Jung was clearly just a man. In his terms, the daimons are archetypal images which, in the process of individuation, conduct us towards the archetypes (gods) themselves. They did not have to convey messages; they were themselves the message. The Greeks understood from early times that daimons could be psychological, in Jung's sense. They attributed to daimons 'those irrational impulses which arise in a man against his will to tempt him --hope, for instance, or fear.' Daimons of passion or jealousy and hatred still possess us, as they always have, causing us to cry forlornly: 'I don't know what got into me. I was beside myself.' But while daimonic activity is most noticeable in irrational, obsessive behavior, it is always quietly at work behind the scenes."
(Daimonic Reality, Patrick Harpur, pgs. 35-36)  
an early depiction of a daimon

Daimons have also long been associated with nature-spirits commonly referred to as Elementals.
"Just as visible Nature is populated by an infinite number of living creatures, so, according to Paracelsus, the invisible, spiritual counterpart of visible Nature (composed of the tenuous principles of the visible elements) is inhabited by a host of peculiar beings, to whom he has given the name elementals, and which have later been termed the Nature spirits. Paracelsus divided these people of the elements into four distinct groups, which he called gnomes, undines, sylphs, and salamanders. He taught that they were really living entities, many resembling human beings in shape, and inhabiting worlds of their own, unknown to man because his undeveloped senses were incapable of functioning beyond the limitations of the grosser elements...
"The Greeks gave the name daemon to some of these elementals, especially those of the higher orders, and worshiped them. Probably the most famous of these daemons is the mysterious spirit which instructed Socrates, and of whom that great philosopher spoke in the highest terms.
(The Secret Teachings of All Ages, Manly P. Hall, pgs. 329-330)
the elementals

This is of course just scratching the surface --Much more information on daimons can be found here. But back to the matter at hand: While daimonic beings were hardly the stereotypical demons of Christianity many students of the arcane have advised against communing with such entities and not without reason.
"Those who sought to control elemental spirits through ceremonial magic did so largely with the hope of securing from the invisible worlds either rare knowledge or supernatural power. The little red demon of Napoleon Bonaparte and the infamous oracular heads of de Medici are examples of the disastrous results of permitting elemental beings to dictate the course of human procedure. While the learned and godlike daemon of Socrates seems to have been an exception, this really proves that the intellectual and moral status of the magician has much to do with the type of elemental he is capable of invoking. But even the daemon of Socrates deserted the philosopher when the sentence of death was passed.
"Transcendentalism and all forms of phenomenalistic magic are but blind alleys --outgrowths of Atlantean sorcery; and those who forsake the straight path of philosophy to wonder there and almost invariably fall victim to their imprudence. Man, incapable of controlling his own appetites, is not equal to the task of governing the fiery and tempestuous elemental spirits."
(ibid, pg. 317)
Socrates and his daimon

While Hall is perhaps to sever in his judgment most accounts I've read on such beings suggest that their motives are frequently to unfathomable for the human mind to comprehend. Thus, those who form a bond with such beings are frequently led to ruin and this is exactly what happens in the case of Howard Beale. While Beale seems to acquire incredible understanding and wisdom he also begins to have a full-blown mental breakdown (if one was not already occurring), leading to increasingly erratic behavior.

Not that this adversely affects Beale's ratings --in point of fact, it's totally in keeping with the revamped Howard Beale Show where the mad prophet is joined by such nightly regulars as Miss Mata Hari and her skeletons in the closet, Jim Webbing and his "It's-the-Emmes-Truth-department" and of course Sybil the Soothsayer (who prophesied to Diana [Faye Dunaway] of her coming relationship with Max). Beale begins each show behind the backdrop of a strange symbol: four circles forming a cross with four more circles in a similar cross-like pattern within each of the initial circles. At the center of the larger four circles is another circle featuring what appears to be in eight-pointed flower within it.


It's tempting to link this symbol to the Rosy Cross of the Rosicrucians (and many other orders, both real and imagined) but there is little resemblance between either. In point of fact, the "Beale cross" does not seem to overtly echo any occult symbol that I have been able to uncover. Probably the most curious aspect of it is the eight pointed flower at the center. Eight arrows arranged in a radial pattern has been adopted as the Symbol of Chaos in recent times, certainly fitting for the character of Howard Beale. The number eight is also highly significant in Crowley's Thelematic tradition where it is linked to the Trickster figures of Hermes, Thoth and Mercury (all of them "messenger" gods of antiquity).
"Cheth is the number Eight, which is the Seal of Hermes-Thoth-Mercury, the God of Magick. The figure 8 is, by shape, the Caduceus of Mercury and the emblem of Infinity. In The Book of the Law, Hadit (or Set) declares 'I am eight, and one in eight'. The identification is with Sothis the manifestator of the Seven Stars of Polaris (the Great Bear constellation which symbolizes the Dragon-Nuit). She is the Mother of the Primal Gods, and her formula of Change, or Magick, is manifested in One, her Son, i.e. Sothis or Sirius, who, in his occult character symbolizes the Son behind the Sun.
"Magick is spelled with a 'k' because Cheth, its Hebrew equivalent, is the number of the Great Work, and the letter of Hermes, or Hermetic Science.
"Cheth (8, 418), 'k', being the number of the Great Work, is a formula used by occultists, as well as alchemist, to denote the consummation of the marriage of individual and cosmic consciousness..."
(The Magical Revival, Kenneth Grant, pgs. 22-23) 
Hermes and his Caduceus

A "marriage of individual and cosmic consciousness" is certainly a fitting description of Howard Beale at this point in the movie, for clearly his consciousness has been altered by his encounter/bonding with the daimonic being that came to him that faithful night. His road to ruin is also assured at this point but if it is folly to follow daimonic beings then it is complete and utter madness to turn the ideology of corporate titans into a philosophy, as Beale attempts to do after his encounter with UBS/CCA head Arthur Jensen.

Strangely, Jensen is the only character in the film who seems to have any appreciation for the transformation that Beale has undergone. Beale's longtime friend Max Schumacher simply sees his transformation as a mental breakdown when it is clearly not that simple while Diana Christensen and her boss, Frank Hackett (Robert Duvall), only pay lip service to the metaphysical implications of Beale so long as it is necessary to keep him on the air and out of the nuthouse. But Jensen, almost immediately upon meeting Beale in person, seems to have accurately sized up his magnetism as well as how to manipulate him.

Jensen

Indeed, throughout the legendary encounter between the CEO and the mad prophet of the airwaves  Jensen comes off as being nearly as "eccentric" as Beale himself. Many have long wondered if Jensen is simply "acting" during his encounter with Beale (Jensen begins by saying: "I started as a salesman. I sold sowing machines and automobile parts, hair brushes and electronic equipment. They say I can sell anything. I'd like to sell something to you.") in order to get through to the unhinged news anchor or if the CEO is something of a freak of nature as well.

Upon escorting Beale into his boardroom, which Jensen refers to as "Valhalla," the CCA head dims the light so that he appears to be engulfed in a spotlight (as well as giving the effect of being in a cave, the site of countless types of occult initiations the world over) and informs Beale that he has tampered with the "primal forces of nature" and that he must "atone" (this meeting occurs after Beale stopped CCA's deal with an Arab conglomerate after he urged his viewers to flood the White House in telegrams demanding that the deal be stopped). Jensen then goes on to outline the corporate globalism that will bring utopia on earth:
"You get up on your little twenty-one inch screen and howl about America and democracy. There is no America. There is no democracy. There is only IBM, and ITT, and AT&T, and DuPont, Dow, Union Carbide, and Exxon. Those are the nations of the world today. What do you think the Russians talk about in their councils of state, Karl Marx? They get out their linear programming charts, statistical decision theories, minimax solutions, and compute the price-cost probabilities of their transactions and investments, just like we do. We no longer live in a world of nations and ideologies, Mr. Beale. The world is a college of corporations, inexorably determined by the immutable bylaws of business. The world is a business, Mr. Beale. It has been since man crawled out of the slime. And our children will live, Mr. Beale, to see that... perfect world... in which there's no war or famine, oppression or brutality. One vast and ecumenical holding company, for whom all men will work to serve a common profit, in which all men will hold a share of stock. All necessities provided, all anxieties tranquilized, all boredom amused."

While we, the little people, can reasonably dismiss Jensen's musings as a complete crock of shit in the twenty-first century there are undoubtedly any number of globetrotting CEOs (and other members of the so-called global 'Super Class') still drinking this particular brand of Kool-Aid as well as their mouthpieces on network and cable news. It is to the latter group that Beale becomes a fully converted member of after his encounter with Jensen, which ultimately proves to be even more mind blowing (and destructive) then his daimonic experience.

Jensen shows not the slightest trace of humility when he says "You just might be right, Mr. Beale" after Howard proclaims he has seen the "face of God" while gazing at Jensen. But then again, their encounter ultimately takes on the trappings of the most solemn of rituals: Death and rebirth. Of course the experiences of death and rebirth are the cornerstone of countless occult initiations.
"... I have undergone a number of occult initiations and have become aware of the basic similarity of such rituals in all traditions. This is the pattern of death-rebirth which even today appears symbolically in the Roman Catholic mass and the Masonic 'raising' ceremony. The Investigators is betraying no secret when we say that, in serious occult orders, such performances are not mere rituals but real ordeals. Insofar as possible within the law, the candidate is often brought to a state of terror similar to the emergency condition of the nervous system in near-death crises. What occurs then, and is experienced as rebirth, is a quantum jump in neurological awareness.
"Obviously, the first shamans had no teacher; they simply went through the illness-rebirth transition accidentally, as it were. Later, schools of shamans developed techniques (psychedelics, rituals of terror, yogurt, etc.) to catapult the student into such experience. In most of these schools there is great reliance upon an entity or entities of superhuman nature who aid in the initiatory process, sometimes for years. ('A real initiation never ends,' Crowley said once.)"
(Cosmic Trigger Volume I, Robert Anton Wilson, pg. 139) 
Clearly Beale went through this "traditional" type of initiation inadvertently during his encounter with the daimon but then appears to go through a similar process again with Jensen. Beale is "reborn" from his encounter with Jensen not unlike he was reborn after his encounter with the daimon. So to is Paul Hackett, the UBS head who compared himself to a sun god when he thought the axe was about to come down over the Arab flap. Beale is reborn to become Jensen's mouth piece while Hackett is reborn to more precisely impose Mr. Jensen's will (after the Jensen encounter Hackett seemingly has no moral qualms about plotting Beale's murder other than preventing the network from being implicated). Of course, the results of such "resurrections" can only be an abomination for Jensen has no interest in initiation or illumination beyond how such things can enhance his bottom line.

Jensen seemingly puts Beale in the same type of trance-like state the daimon put him in

Beale's ratings begin to plummet immediately upon his taking up the mantle of Jensen's corporate cosmology. Not long after Diana Christensen, Hackett, and the Ecumenical Liberation Army (who have Beale as a lead into the Mao Tse-Tung Hour, the equivalent of ratings suicide) conspire to assassinate Beale live on air after Jensen refuses to allow him to be taken off. The plan goes through and brings things full circle by enabling Beale to die on air, the prospect of which being the catalyst to all of the high weirdness that he eventually experienced. It is also as fitting a depiction of how those of incredible wealth and power use and ultimately destroy the sincere and gifted in a perpetual pursuit of greater profits as ever there was.


And it is here that I shall wrap things up for now. In the next installment I shall begin my examination of Altered States. Stay tuned.

Friday, July 12, 2013

Paddy Chayefsky and the Wonders of the Invisible World Part I


Over the years I've become convinced that the films Network and Altered States are, if not quite companion pieces, linked to one another in some way. While both films originated from scripts written by legendary playwright and scribe Paddy Chayefsky they are rarely connected in the minds of movie buff and not without reason: Chayefsky famously denounced the latter film, having his name removed from the final credits and replacing it with the moniker of Sidney Aaron (his real first and middle names).

Paddy

Beyond that the subject matters of both films are, to the mind of normal viewers, worlds apart. Network is famously a scathing sendup of network news and television in general while Altered States delves deeply into some of the most far out theories concerning entheogens the first modern psychedelic era produced. So to were the public responses: Network is almost universally held as one of the landmark films of its era and still remains incredibly beloved (especially amongst the conspiratorial right) while Altered States was a commercial failure upon its initial run but has since gained a cult following as a campy stoner artifact of the 1980s.



And yet both films share something else in common besides Chayefsky's involvement: plot lines revolving around altered states consciousness. This is of course rather obvious in the film Altered States but many often forget that the chief character in Network, newscaster Howard Beale, becomes convinced that some type of entity instructed him in becoming a "prophet" of the airwaves.

Over the course of this series I would like to consider this similarity that both films share, beginning with Network and then moving along to Altered States in the next installment. With these perimeters established let me now briefly break down Network for the uninitiated: The network of the title is the floundering Union Broadcasting Systems (UBS), which has recently been acquired by a mega-media conglomerate known as Communications Company of America (CCA). Howard Beale (Peter Finch) is the aging news anchorman of UBS who is informed by his boss and longtime friend Max Schumacher (William Holden) that he has been fired from the network. During one of his final broadcast Beale promises to commit suicide live on national TV and becomes the center of a media spectacle.

Max
After being let back on the air to apologize for the prior outburst Beale brazenly proclaims that everything is effectively "bullshit" and that he has run out of it, tapping into the seething anger of Americans everywhere in the process. This leads an ambitious network executive, Diana Christensen (Faye Dunaway), to conceive of Beale as a kind of "mad prophet" of the airwaves and insist that he continues to be put on the air. Beale, who has seemingly begun to have an actual breakdown, agrees and the show goes on.

Diana
Initially Beale falters in his new role but then he claims to have had a prophetic experience in which a disembodied voice instructs him to stay on the air so that it can impart its message through Beale to the American public. This leads to Beale's legendary "I'm madder than hell and I'm not gonna take this anymore" monologue and the media storm that comes with it.

Beale is a hit while Christensen becomes one of the hottest executives at UBS, developing a reality series-like show involving a faux left-wing terror outfit modeled upon the Symbionese Liberation Army called the Mao Tse-Tung Hour. She also begins an affair with Schumacher, who has since been fired from the network.

Beale and the Mao Tse-Tung Hour revitalize the network but the newscaster ultimately falls afoul of CCA head Arthur Jensen (Ned Beatty) when he disrupts a deal that Jensen's conglomerate is negotiating with an even bigger Saudi Arabian conglomerate. Beale is brought to Jensen, and has another prophetic experience before the CEO and becomes a converted disciple of globalism in the process. Beale then sallies forth to spread Jensen's "corporate cosmology" and ratings promptly tank. Christensen and her boss, Frank Hackett (Robert Duval), attempt to remove Beale but Jensen believes that Beale's message is important and insists that he remains on the air regardless of ratings. Eventually they conspire with the Ecumenical Liberation Army (the Symbionese knockoff) to murder Beale live on TV, thus fulfilling his initial desire to die on air.



Needless to say, this film is certainly rich in symbolism, synchronicities, and twilight language. First let us briefly consider several of the leading characters, all of whom are highly rich in symbolism, beginning with Howard Beale himself. The name Beale has long fascinated the more onomatology-minded conspiracy theorists out there, most especially the legendary and highly controversial James Shelby Downard.

No doubt some of you are cringing simply at Downard being mentioned but he is especially apt in this case as he and the Howard Beale character share a few similarities. Both were effectively granted incredible insights via the madness that afflicted them respectively but their insights were also tainted: Beale by the age from which he grew up in (where the printed word was the end all in legitimacy) and later the corporate globalism of Arthur Jensen; Downard by the Masonic/Talmudic/Communistic conspiracy theories whose modern American incarnation largely originated from a cabal of far right military officers (one of whom we shall briefly address at the end of this article, bringing the Downard/Beale linkage somewhat full circle).

allegedly Downard

But back to the matter at hand. In Downard's (unstable) mind the name Beale was closely linked to the Kennedy and Bouvier clans.
"Mrs. Edith Bouvier Beale was the sister of John Bouvier, the father of Jacqueline. Mrs. Beale and her daughter Edith (Edie) lived in a state of wretchedness and destitution in a decaying mansion in East Hampton, Long Island. Eviction proceedings against the Beales were initiated because the women were discovered to be living in total squalor amid piles of empty pet food cans, newspapers and assorted filth. For some reason, Madam Onassis permitted a film crew to record the degradation of her aunt and niece, and anyone viewing Grey Gardens will certainly attest to the "House of Usher" eccentricities of the pair. As an anthology of control, it is interesting to note that a peculiar rapport occasionally exist between owners and domesticated animals, and that the Beale mansion reflects a reversal of roles in the master-pet relationship.
"John F. Kennedy was born on May 29, 1917 at 83 Beals Street, Brookline, Massachusetts. Beals-Beale-Beal are names associated with the Kennedys through the magic and mystery of words. Beale onomatology is rendered thus: El-Bel-Baal-Be al-Beal-Beale. El is said to be one of the Hebrew names of God, signifying the 'mighty one.' It is the root of many other divine names and therefore, many of the sacred names in Masonry. Approximately one mile from Lindisfarne (the 'Holy Island'/'Holy House') is a barren place known as Beal. Lindisfarne is associated with Heredom, and the legends of King Arthur, the Round Table, Merlin, and other Camelot stories, as well as the Scottish Black Watch."
(Secret and Suppressed, "Sorcery, Sex, Assassination and the Science of Symbols," James Shelby Downard, pgs. 67-68)
Baal
The name Beale's association with the ancient god Baal is most interesting in the context of altered states we shall be working in throughout the series. Before the revisions of the Christian era, Baal was associated with prophecy and possibly the taking of psychedelics.
"... Jehovah was not yet a transcendental God but lived, like Boreas, in a mountain to the far north; he was, in fact, the white bull-god Baal Zephon ('Lord of the North') who had borrowed his title from his goddess mother Baaltis Zapuna, a name attested in an inscription from Goshen where the tribe of Joseph was once settled. The Canaanites worshiped him as King of the Northern Otherworld and the Philistines of Ekron had taken over the cult; he was a god of prophecy and fertility. Another of his titles was Baal-Zebul, 'the Lord of the Mansion [of the North]' which named the tribe of Zebulon: they worshiped him on Mount Tabor. When King Ahaziah of Israel consulted his oracle at Ekron... he earned Elijah's reproach for not consulting the native Israelite oracle, presumably on Tabor. I suspect that Baal Zabul was an autumnal Dionysus, whose devotees intoxicated themselves on amanita muscaria, which still grows there; the Biblical name of these toadstools being either 'ermrod' or 'little foxes'. By the time of Jesus, who was accused of traffic with Beelzebub, the Kingdoms of Israel and Philistia had long been suppressed and the shrines of Ekron and Tabor destroyed; and Baal-Zebul's functions having been taken over by the archangel Gabriel, he had declined to a mere devil mockingly called Baal-Zebub, 'Lord of the Flies'. Yet the Levite butchers continued the old ritual of turning the victim's head to the north when they sacrificed."
(The White Goddess, Robert Graves, pg. 440)
Baal-Zebub, more commonly known as Beelzebub
In this context the association of Baal with the Howard Beale character is particularly appropriate --beyond either's association with prophecy there is also a perception of both being messengers of a bygone era. Baal was later replaced by Jehovah during the rise of monotheism while Beale, a relic of a generation that grew up prior to the advent of television, becomes the spokesman for a state of reality that is well on its way to becoming obsolete.

Thus Beale is very much a archetypical prophet but also a Trickster --A fact UBS/CCA learns the hard way during the Saudi debacle. The combination of Beale's wisdom and madness is a potent brew and make it difficult to determine whether he is the real deal or simply an opportunist. The movie itself does not even seem to know by the final credits. But enough about Beale for now --In the next installment I shall breakdown his prophetic journey in depth. For now, let us finish considering several of the other key characters.

The character of Diana Christensen also has an especially symbolic name. Diana was of course the name of one of the chief Roman deities.
"On August 13th, the pre-Christian feast the Mother Goddess Diana, or Vesta, was once celebrated with cyder, a roasted kid spitted on hazel-twigs and apples hanging in clusters from a bough. Another name of this Goddess was Nemesis (from the Greek nemos, 'grove') which in classical Greek connotes divine vengeance for breaches of taboo. In her statues she carries an apple-bough in one hand, and the fifth-century Christian poet Commodianus identifies her with Diana Nemorensis ('of the grove') whose followers 'worship a cut branch and call a log Diana'. But both Nemesis and Diana Nemorensis are associated with the deer, not the goat, cult. Nemesis carries a wheel in her other hand to show that she is the goddess of the turning year, like Egyptian Isis and Latin Fortuna, but this has been generally understood as meaning that the wheel will one day come full circle and vengeance be exacted on the sinner. In Gaul she was Diana Nemetona, nemeton being a sacred grove; and was represented with an apple-bough, a cyder-bowl with Aethiopians on it, and a lion-eagle griffin to denote the season of her feast."
(ibid, pg. 255)
Diana
Diana, who is more commonly associated with the Greek goddess Artemis, was also a manifestation of the Triple or Threefold Goddess as well as a Mother Goddess.
"She was the Lady of Wild Things, Huntsman-in-chief to the gods, an office for a woman. Like a good huntsman, she was careful to preserve the young; she was the 'protectress of dewy youth' everywhere. Nevertheless, with one of those startling contradictions so common in mythology, she kept the Greek Fleet from selling to Troy until they sacrificed a maiden to her. In many another story, too, she is fierce and revengeful. On the other hand, when women died a swift and painless death, they were held to have been slain by her silver arrows.
"As Phoebus was the Sun, she was the Moon, called Phoebe and Selene (Luna in Latin). Neither name originally belonged to her. Phoebe was a Titan, one of the older gods. So too was Selene -- a moon-goddess, indeed, but not connected with Apollo. She was the sister of Helios, the sun-god with whom Apollo was confused.
"In the later poets, Artemis is identified with Hecate. She is 'the goddess with three forms,' Selene in the sky, Artemis on earth, Hecate in the lower world and in the world above when it is wrapped in darkness. Hecate was the Goddess of the Dark of the Moon, the black nights when the moon is hidden. She was associated with deeds of darkness, the Goddess of the Crossways, which were held to be ghostly places of evil magic."
(Mythology, Edith Hamilton, pgs. 31-32)
Hecate in her threefold nature
And yet, despite the incredibly strong association her name has with the Goddess, her last name literally means son of Christen, a sideform of Christian. This then connects Diana Christensen's name to both major Matriarchal and Patriarchal deities. And yet her character is about as far from anything resembling spirituality as can be. In point of fact, she is essentially nothing but a walking calculator constantly processing her ratings share. She is, by her own admission, inept at everything except her job, as she diligently explains to Max during their first date:
"I was married for four years, and pretended to be happy; and I had six years of analysis, and pretended to be sane. My husband ran off with his boyfriend, and I had an affair with my analyst, who told me I was the worst lay he'd ever had. I can't tell you how many men have told me what a lousy lay I am. I apparently have a masculine temperament. I arouse quickly, consummate prematurely, and can't wait to get my clothes back on and get out of that bedroom. I seem to be inept at everything except my work. I'm goddamn good at my work and so I confine myself to that. All I want out of life is a 30 share and a 20 rating."

Indeed, during sex with Max Diana even climaxes (quickly) while contemplating the ratings boost the FBI filing charges against the network over the Mao Tse-Tung Hour will generate, certainly a fitting (and just) personification of their affair. At one point Max even goes so far as to compare Diana to "television incarnate" while observing that she has brought nothing but ruin and chaos to those around her. Given the religious characteristics of her name I suppose her character is a kind of observation on the deification of television on some level. In this context at least, Diana lives up to an aspect of her goddess name sake --As Hecate Diana was a death goddess and so to is Diana Christensen, though perhaps Kali would have been a more apt alter ego for Diana than Hecate.

the chaos-bringing Hindu goddess Kali

In general the character of Max Schumacher is every bit as pathetic as his name implies: Max is short for Maximilian, adapted from the Roman name Maximilianus, a derivative of Maximus. Maximus in turn means "greatest" while Schumacher is a German occupational surname denoting a shoemaker. Thus, "Greatest Shoemaker," certainly a apt description of Max.

Max's life is riddled with hypocrisy. He attempts to take Howard off the air on the basis of concern for his old friend's health even as one senses that he is spiteful of Diana's superiority over him as a division head --She is the one, after all, who recognizes the incredible ratings potential Howard Beale possesses. Naturally Diana ends up with Max's job, but this doesn't stop him from having an affair with her (one of which he started while she was already eyeing his job). In fact, he moves out of his home with his long-suffering wife and moves into her apartment for a time. Max eventually ends back up with his wife, but after suffering more indignities at Diana's hands (i.e. their sex life, such as it is) that few would endure for the time he does.


Frank Hackett is every bit the hatchet man his name implies. According to Wikipedia (granted not always the most reliable source) the name Hackett is of Norman origins and first appeared in England in the wake of the Norman Conquest. This is fitting, as Frank Hackett's company (CCA) has recently conquered UBS and is subjecting it to increasingly hostile rule. Hackett is the new breed of media corporate overlord: a totally morally bankrupt hack that will seemingly stoop to any level to ensure that the profits flow. The only real poetic moment he has in the entire film stems from the Saudi debacle where he waxes about being a "sun god at CCA" four hours prior but now seemingly a "man without a corporation." Ah, but like all sun gods, he is (along with Beale) reborn again. But more on that later.

Hackett
Laureen Hobbs (Marlene Warfield), an associate of the Ecumenical Liberation Army clearly modeled upon famed Communist activist Angela Davis, also has a symbolic surname. The name Hobbs has long been associated with Robert and Robin, which oddly links it to both the mythological figures of hobgoblins and Robin Goodfellow, specifically through the figure of Puck. Puck was famously depicted in Shakespeare's A Midsummer's Night Dream where one of Titania's fairies describes him as thus:
"Either I mistake your shape and making quite;
Or else you are that shrewd and knavish sprite
Call'd Robin Goodfellow: are not you he
That frights the maidens of the villagery;
Skim milk, and sometimes labour in the quern
And bootless make the breathless housewife churn;
And sometime make the drink to bear no barm;
Mislead night-wanderers, laughing at their harm?
Those that Hobgoblin call you and sweet Puck,
You do their work, and they shall have good luck:
Are not you he?"
Puck
Robin Goodfellow was in turn associated with Robin Hood in mythology.
"... Merddin, by this time Christianized as 'Robin Hood,' apparently a variant of Merddin's Saxon name, Rof Breoht Woden, 'Bright Strength of Woden,' also known euphemistically as Robin Good-Fellow. In French the word Robin, which is regarded as diminutive of Robert but is probably pre-Teutonic, means a ram and also a devil."
(The White Goddess, Robert Graves, pg. 396) 

As the character of Laureen Hobbs proves to be every bit the capitalist lackey that Diana Christensen is it's pretty safe to assume that this association (if it was in fact intentional) is meant to be highly ironic.

Hobbs
Of course, it's impossible to address the Hobbs character without also addressing the Ecumenical Liberation Army of whom she is the spokesman for (and seemingly the mastermind behind). As noted above, the Ecumenical Liberation Army was surely modeled upon the Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA), a group that has been the subject of countless conspiracy theories since practically its inception.
"The SLA was a bizarre revolutionary militant group, whose claim to fame was the kidnapping of publishing heiress Patty Hearst on February 4, 1974... and it has been a favorite subject of conspiracy theorists for decades, who believe that the SLA was a front for a domestic CIA operation. The mere fact of the kidnapping itself, with Patty Hearst being subjected to brainwashing by the SLA cadres and then sent out to help them rob a bank, was headline-grabbing news for weeks, even though many people could not understand what it all represented...
"Much was happening between 1973 and 1975. Donald DeFreeze, the commander of the SLA, had earlier been a prisoner at the Vacaville facility that was used by the CIA as part of their mind-control experimentation program. At Vacaville, an organization was set up to raise black consciousness -- the Black Cultural Association, or BCA -- which was under the direction of Professor Colston Westbrook. Westbrook has since been identified as a former intelligence officer who served in the Far East during the 1960s and, in fact, worked for AID...  Westbrook had been a psychological warfare officer in Vietnam, Japan and Korea. At Vacaville, he may have been involved in the MK-ULTRA testing and manipulation of violent inmates...
"DeFreeze himself was a police informant who spent very little time in prison, even though he had a record of arms-dealing, and other felonies. When he left prison, he simply walked out, leading many to assume that his escape was an inside job. This was after prolonged contact with known intelligence officer Colston Westbrook. Although the SLA was painted in the worst possible colors as a violent revolutionary group, the record as violent revolutionaries is rather weak. They make so mistakes, and revealed themselves to so many people during the course of their life 'in hiding,' losing large quantities of arms and ammunition at various poorly-disguised safehouses, that it is possible to view their actions those of agents provocateurs and not as genuine revolutionaries."
(Sinister Forces Book II, Peter Levenda, pgs. 204-207) 
the SLA
The Ecumenical Liberation Army also has their own fictional celebrity comrade-in-arms, Mary Ann Gifford (played by Kathy Cronkite, daughter of legendary newscaster Walter). And given their rather blatant commercial interests even before coming into contact with Diana Christensen, describing them as agents provocateurs would hardly be a stretch. Indeed, UBS barely faces any legal fall out from giving a terror outfit their own prime time show (indeed, the potential of such even brings Diana to orgasm, as noted above). Perhaps then there are even darker implications behind the ELA's murder of Howard Beale during the film's final scene?



Patty Hearst during her SLA days (top) and Kathy Cronkite as Mary Ann Gifford (bottom)
Finally we come to the figure of Arthur Jensen, the head of CCA, the conglomerate that owns UBS. Of course his first name is most apt as Arthur is certainly a kingly name and immediately brings to mind the Arthurian cycle. Jensen means "son of Jens" while Jens is a derivative of Johannes. Johannes in turn originated from the Hebrew word Yehochanan, which means "Yahweh is gracious." This is especially amusing as at one point during a meeting with Howard Beale, the newscaster proclaims "I have seen the face of God" to which Jensen replies "You just might be right, Mr. Beale." But more on that in the next installment.

Jensen (fictional)
To my mind, however, the most curious thing about Jensen's name is the fact that it is exactly the same as that of the famed and highly controversial U.C. Berkeley psychologist. The real Arthur Jensen was already well-known and quite notorious by the time Network came out in 1976 thanks to the publication of his work "How Much Can We Boost IQ and Scholastic Achievement?" in 1969. By this time Jensen, along with his good friend William Shockley (a physicist based out of Stanford University), had become the chief proponents of "scientific" racism in America.
"Shockley's most ambitious and most expensive mailing effort was designed to market the work of Berkeley educational psychologist Arthur Jensen in an attempt not only to sway public opinion about racial differences but also to bring pressure on the NAS to adopt his agenda. Although Shockley himself had conducted no empirical studies on cognitive abilities, he was instrumental in persuading Jensen, an active researcher in the field, that blacks were genetically less intelligent than whites and recruiting him into the Pioneer circle. Early in his career, Jensen had believe that racial differences in intelligence test scores were 'due to environmental rather than to genetic factors,' but his position changed dramatically after he spent the 1966-67 year as a fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences on the Stanford campus, where he engaged in regular discussions with Shockley, the two scientists working so closely together that, when Shockley was out of town, Jensen answered mail addressed to the physicist...
"In 1969, Jensen produced the article that would become the centerpiece of Shockley's campaign to impose his views on the NAS and the public. In this lengthy and inflammatory work -- the longest publication in the history of Harvard Educational Review, taking up almost the entire winter issue --Jensen argued that minority schoolchildren were hampered neither by discrimination or deprivation; their poor educational performance was a consequence of teaching methods that had been appropriate for white middle-class students but not for minorities, who did not respond to conceptual explanations because of the genetic limitations in their intelligence but who could nevertheless be taught by relying on their ability for association rather than understanding. Obviously reflecting the influence of his discussions with Shockley, Jensen also expressed concern that 'misguided and ineffective attempts to improve [the] lot' of blacks through social programs would only lead -- in the physicist's favorite phrase -- to their 'genetic enslavement' unless accompanied by 'eugenic foresight.' The conclusions of Jensen's article thus were both educational and social: rote memorization to improve the skills of low-IQ black children unable to appreciate abstract principles and some sort of eugenic intervention designed to reduce their numbers."
(The Funding of Scientific Racism, William H. Tucker, pgs. 147-148)
Jensen (real)
Jensen was the longtime golden boy of the Pioneer Fund, the notorious nonprofit organization that has long been linked to eugenics and racist diatribes such as The Bell Curve. Securing Jensen in the 1960s, a highly reputable scientist, was one of the biggest scores in the history of the Fund, which continued to generously subsidize Jensen's work throughout his career.

The Pioneer Fund was in turn founded by Colonel Wickliffe Preston "Daddy Warbucks" Draper, who surely must be high in the rankings of the most vile and treasonous human beings to ever call themselves an American. Draper was a textile magnate who came from one of the oldest and richest families in New England from his father's side, a clan whom John Bevilaqua alleges played a major role in developing the concepts of the company town and child labor in America. His mother was a descendent of the Wickliffe and Preston clans, two old houses in the Kentucky "aristocracy." Draper's maternal grandfather had been William Preston, a state senator, ambassador, and general in the Confederate Army during the Civil War; another relation was Charles A. Wickliffe, the wealthiest planter and largest slave holder in Kentucky during his era.

Draper spent all of his life and much of his considerable fortune backing any number of far right and frequently racist causes throughout the years. The character of Arthur Jensen in Network seems to be a little too refined to be a stand-in for Draper, but one imagines the Colonel, while objecting to more than a few points, ultimately would have found much to applaud in Jensen's "corporate cosmology."

the Colonel
Whether or not Chayefsky meant the Jensen character to be an allusion to the real one or even Pioneer Fund/Draper is difficult to say. Jensen was relatively well known by the time Network was released but Pioneer did not start to gain notoriety until a few years later while the Colonel and the extent of the evil he has wrought upon this country has only begun to become apparent in recent years beyond a relatively small circle of researchers. But regardless of whether the Arthur Jensen name was deliberate or not it is certainly apt, for both the real and fictional Jensen are the elegant fronts of the vile agenda men like Draper have bankrolled for years.

And it is here that I shall wrap things up for the time being. In the next installment we shall focus in on Howard Beale's disembodied voice and the dueling revelations given to him by the voice and Jensen. Stay tuned.