This post is dedicated to Jon Kidd, and to the other theorists out there who have the bravery to admit that they are probably wrong about everything. The great Robert Anton Wilson comes to mind, so do Kotze and Todd Campbell and my old pal JB, although he has been mostly quiet these days. I strive to be a part of this group. In a recent comment, Jon was critical of my work and it is this criticism that catalysed the horrific and wondrous new discoveries I have made since posting Killing Time.
As I writer, I have taken a deliberately pompous and bombastic tone. This is nothing more than a literary device. For the purpose of this particular article, I am going to drop the use of my favored style because I think the ideas are far and away the most important I have touched upon. I will supply specific details to support these ideas so readers need not have seen any of the sources I cite. It doesn't matter if you haven't seen the movie!
I am currently working on a complete rundown of the Kubrick opus, but herein I will confine most of the emphasis to one scene from The Shining. The main thesis is as follows. That the films of Kubrick, from Dr. Strangelove and onward, depict a post-apocalyptic dream world and an ongoing psychic war. There are several levels to this idea.
First, it could be that the symbols I have discovered are no more than literary motifs. Secondly, the themes I will discuss may be components of a mind control system built into Kubrick and other media. Third is the possibility that these deeply hidden cues are meant, in some way, perhaps on the level of sigil magick, to precipitate a real time apocalypse that has yet to happen. Fourth, that Kubrick's post JFK era ouvre tells the real story of the End of the World, and of the psy-war that follows the Strangelove Apocalypse. Finally, that The Wrong Way Wiz is plum loco. You must decide. Maybe it is all of the above.
Here is a list of key references
- The Bear
- The USSR/Russia
- The East/West Nuclear Standoff
- Psy-Ops (Mind Control) programs run by both the US (Monarch) and Russia
- The Apocalypse
- Cannibalism
- Castration and Circumcision
- Strangulation
And a list of sources
- Peter Hyam's 2010
- Peter Greenaway's Drowning by Numbers
- Todd Field's Little Children
- The HBO series Carnivale
- Dr. Strangelove, 2001, Eyes Wide Shut
- The Ballad of Davey Crockett
- one scene from The Shining
Dr. Strangelove is the beginning of the thread. The Dr. is constantly choking himself with a gloved hand. Carry this idea forward into General Ripper's obsession with holding back his seminal essence. Every kid knows the vulgar idiom choke the chicken. So, in Strangelove, Kubrick has linked the themes of Strangulation and Masturbation.
This theme is varied ever so slightly by Greenway in Drowning by Numbers. A pre-teen boy called Smut circumcises and later hangs himself. I choose this example because it is striking. There are many other such examples from literature and art of many genres, that pair the ideas of strangulation, masturbation and circumcision/castration.
The theme is repeated by Kubrick in 2001. Frank Poole is suffocated when HAL severs his air supply. Later Bowman goes with out a helmet in an airless environment. The helmetless Bowman entrains a circumcised penis. The twin identities of Bowman/Poole have been elucidated at length by other researchers.
In EWS the motif is subtle. Dr. Bill caresses the throat of a boy child, as he asks first 'Are you looking forward to Christmas?', quickly followed by 'Does this hurt?' The boy answers 'yes'. This exchange should be heard as a single question and answer: Does looking forward to Christmas hurt your neck? Yes, Doc, it does. Pagan myths often find Christ at his fate on the gallows and not a crucifix. This matters because the Hebrew letter Tau, which shape is the frame work of a gallows, means cross.
To appreciate this scene in the light of ritual circumcision requires a bit more digging. In The Divine Comedy, Dante explains that the crucifixion of Christ took place at the geographic bottom of the World. This gives the symbol of a cross fixed to the bottom of a sphere. In two dimensions this symbol becomes the planetary glyph for Venus. 
Venus is called the Morning Star, and at the end of Revelation Ch. 22, Christ declares himself The Morning Star. Now the symbol for Venus is well know to represent the divine feminine. The connections here may indicate that menstruation is precipitated by cosmic circumcision and that the bloody crucifixion of Christ is the source of all living blood. Viewers of The Shining should be all too aware of the importance of blood to this thema.It is here that we can begin to assert the lynch pin of my theory.
Danny is paired with the bear throughout The Shining. Examined by the lady Doc, he lies upon a big bear pillow with a wide red mouth. Note the similarity in shape between the bears eyes and the floor indicators on the blood room elevator. The Danny is seen screaming with eyes wide mouth, in a way that mimics both the elevator and his pet bear. In Wendy's vision, the bear is seen fellating the party guest. I think this particular bear also represents Danny.
In Killing Time, I establish the use, in The Shining, of the Grecian Mythical theme of Uranus and Cronus. My basic supposition is that Danny, who represents Apollo, takes revenge upon Cronus (also called Saturn) for Cronus's murder of Uranus by castration. Since this is poetic justice, Danny/Apollo bites off his fathers penis. It is this act that combines the themes of cannibalism and castration/circumcision. Through cross comparison with 2001 and EWS we can add the act of strangulation to this theoretical plexus.In The Shining comes a key thread that ties these examples together. When Danny enters the Colorado Rm. and interrupts Wendy and Jack, his neck is bruised as if he has been choked. Wendy embraces Danny and accuses Jack. Here emerges a direct reference to Dr. Strangelove. Danny's nickname is Doc. Strangelove is a portmanteau of Strangle and Love. This gives us Doc, Strangle and Love. A poster at Rob Ager's collative forum called Treefrog makes a breathtaking discovery. The word BEAR appears in the railing above Jack's head. This is exactly synchronized with Wendy's embrace of Danny. So we have a kind of chain. Doc, Strangle, Love and Bear.
The addition of bear to this chain is where my theory takes off.
First, some generalizations. It could be very well stated that all of the Torrance's are in someway bears. Wendy is queried by Halloran that she might be '..a Winnie'. Winnie the Pooh lumbers to mind. The railing banner BEAR above Jack's head could imply that he is also a bear. The Shining could be seen as a looking glass parody of Goldilock's and the Three Bears with the Torrance's as the bears and the twins as Goldilocks. Yet I have the opinion that this term , BEAR, actually refers to Kubrick, via the characters of Danny and Jack, onto which Kubrick superimposes his own persona.
The aforementioned overlay of Kubrick, Jack and Danny is not my own idea. It is pilfered straight from Rob Ager's Mazes, Mirrors and Deception. I must add, though, that I don't think that Mr. Ager thinks too highly of me or my ideas. Nevertheless, I recommend reading his work for an excellent foundation to the mysteries of The Shining and other Kubrick films.
Now, as this key scene from The Shining continues, we follow Jack into the Gold Ball Room where he meets Lloyd the bartender. As unraveled in Killing Time, I think that Lloyd is a direct manifest of Danny's shining. Remember that the actor who plays Danny is called Danny Lloyd.
We must examine more bear parallels to proceed. Take a listen (or just trust me) to The Ballad of Davy Crockett. Pay special attention to the colloquial slurring of the word bear into b'ar. 'Kilt him a b'ar when he was only three'.
Who remembers Todd Field as Nick Nightingale in EWS. Todd has become a film maker who seems quite interested in the themes, right out of Kubrick, that we discuss. Four key themes in Todd Field's Little Children.
- the bar
- the bear
- twinning
- castration
In Little Children, when we meet Brad, played by Patrick Wilson, he is pushing a dual stroller. In one side sits his annoying little son and in the other his pet teddy bear. This authenticates the Kubrickian themes, especially from The Shining, of the bear and twinning. To add, Brad has a problem: he can't pass the bar exam. Bar,b'ar, bear. By the time that Little Children ends we are treated to an literal castration as well. Ronnie, played by Jackey Earl Haley, is a man trapped in the same type of Oedipal cycle as Danny Torrance. He has an interfering mother. As the film concludes, he castrates himself, probably to death.
Now, as Jack Torrance confronts the bartender Lloyd, could it not be said that he confronts this same bar (bear) and moreso in the light of the symbolic self castration Jack faces later on? Like Little Children's Brad, Jack can not pass the bar.
It just so happens that Todd Field also directed an episode of the HBO series Carnivale. The word Carnivale itself conceals a hint of cannibalism, which we have touched on as a component of cosmic self-castration. But what is important about this connection is that Carnivale is the story of polarity of the US vs. The Ussr/Russia with a special emphasis on the extra-sensory powers of these special groups. Basically Carnivale is the story of a psy-war between the US and Russia, that ends in nuclear apocalypse. In Carnivale, the bear is also featured as a key symbol and probably represents The Great Bear of Russia.
Ok, here's where we get to the real meat. Because of the special effort Kubrick makes, revealed in Rob Ager's anaysis of The Making of the Shining, of superimposing himself onto Jack and Danny, I aver that Kubrick is also the Bear and in specific The Great Russian Bear. This discovery leads quickly to my hypothesis, sketched out by the connections we have explored, that Kubrick's post Strangelove world is a post apocalyptic world of psychic warfare and that this world, so lovingly constructed by Stan, may actually be our real world.
To leave you with a doozy, feast yer eyes on this.
I propose that the magazine title TIME and the title banner WAR are meant to be read as a single term: TIME WARP.S. I would like to draw attention to some threads at collative forum that deal with the above stated ideas in more detail, found here, here, and here.
And check out this t-shirt design, here.
Pax to all ye crusty vagabonds.
