In the annals of cinema, 2001: A Space Odyssey and The Dark Crystal stand out as exceptional works of art. Considered the magnum opus of filmmakers Stanley Kubrick and Jim Henson, both filmmakers have translated the secret alchemical knowledge of human transformation into the art of cinema. As Jay Weidner eloquently explained in his 1999 article Alchemical Kubrick, “Within the tradition of the Great Work of alchemy is the idea that the initiations, explanations and rituals of alchemy are embedded into many great works of art” (Weidner, 1999). Initiates of this sacred knowledge stem throughout history, including the likes of Homer, Plato, Leonardo Da Vinci, and William Shakespeare. As explained by the French alchemist Fulcanelli, “They wrote their immortal works, not so much to leave to posterity the imperishable monuments of human genius, as to instruct it in the sublime knowledge of which they were depositories, and which they ought to transmit in their integrity” (Fulcanelli, 2021, p.252). In this report, I will analyse and outline the Alchemical, Gnostic, Kabbalistic and Astrological themes embedded into these two films.
Part I: 2001: A Space Odyssey
Like all great alchemical works, Stanley Kubrick divides 2001: A Space Odyssey into four parts: The Dawn of Man, Future, Jupiter Mission and Beyond the Infinite. These four sections correspond to the four realms of the Tree of Life in the Kabbalah. The Dawn of Man sequence corresponds to Malkuth, the earthly realm where humanity dwells. The Future section, where Haywood Floyd goes to the Moon, represents Yesod, or the realm of the Moon. The Jupiter Mission sequence represents Tiperoth, the realm of the Sun, but it can also be substituted for Saturn in the Kabbalah. Finally, the Beyond the Infinite sequence represents both Daat for the light show sequence and Kether for the final sequence where David Bowman (Keir Dullea) transforms into the Star Child. As stated by Jay Weidner, “Kubrick has brought the viewer of the film through the four realms of the Tree of Life, all brilliantly evoked in the right pattern with enough intricate knowledge of the Kabbalah to give one a long pause for consideration” (Weidner, 1999).
According to Arthur C. Clarke, Stanley Kubrick originally planned for the film to be about a voyage to Saturn rather than Jupiter. However, the special effects department could not make Saturn's rings look realistic enough, which is one reason why Jupiter was chosen instead (Clarke, 2018, p.xvi). Jupiter and Saturn have deep astrological significance to the themes in 2001: A Space Odyssey. First, Jupiter is named after the king of the gods in Greco-Roman mythology, representing teaching and beneficence. As stated by Shakti Carola Navran, “His interest is in philosophy, religion, and the deeper meaning of life” (Navran, 2008, p.36). Second, Saturn is the father of Jupiter in Greco-Roman mythology and was the furthest planet from the Earth known to the ancients. The Mystery Schools taught that “Saturn is the guardian of the threshold…between the material and the spiritual world, where eternity becomes time and space” (Melville, 2002, p.80). Saturn represents restriction and inhibition and can cause turmoil and chaos until we master ourselves. This could be one of the possible meanings that the Beyond the Infinite sequence is saying, as David Bowman (Keir Dullea) finds himself trapped in the hotel room, representing the world of illusion.
The name of the astronaut who undergoes this initiation, David Bowman, has deep astrological significance. Bowman refers to the constellation Sagittarius, which was represented as a centaur with a bow and arrow aiming at the stars. According to Manly P. Hall, Sagittarius stands for two distinct principles: the spiritual evolution of man and aspiration, “for as the centaur aims his arrow at the stars, so every human creature aims at a higher mark than he can reach” (Hall, 2007, p.139). Indeed, the constellation of Sagittarius is located right next to the centre of the Milky Way Galaxy, where Sagittarius shoots his arrow right into the galaxy's heart. This brings us to what the celestial images in the Beyond the Infinite sequence refer to.
Bowman leaves the Discovery in a space pod and falls through a web of geometry and colours, representing Daat or the hidden sephiroth between Tiperoth and Kether. This is the abyss that the initiate must cross in the Tree of Life before reaching the ultimate state of consciousness. However, the correlation between astronomical images and Gnostic mythology is of more importance. The core of the galaxy exploding symbolises the singularity that arises within the realm of the Pleroma, which astronomically is located at the centre of the galaxy. This is followed by the formation of an embryo in a nebula, which symbolises the projection by Sophia and Thelete of this singularity, the Anthropos, into the galactic arms and its nesting in the Orion Nebula. The projected spore possibly symbolises Sophia’s fall from the Pleroma, leading to her transformation into the Earth, which Bowman witnesses in the sequence with the planet’s colours and hues gone wild. As stated by Jay Weidner, “This is humanity’s initiation. Bowman is our representative in this process” (Weidner, 1999).
One of the most famous and iconic images of 2001: A Space Odyssey is the Star Child, which appears at the film's end. In the Gnostic myth about the formation of the Earth, the Goddess Sophia shames the Demiurge and invokes the immortal child of light who will overcome all the works of the Archons. This dialogue is quoted in Not In His Image by John Lamb Lash, which says:
“You are mistaken, blind one. There is an immortal Child of Light who came into this realm before you and who will appear among your duplicate forms in your simulated world…Humanity exists, and the offspring of the human strain exists…And in the consummation of all your works, its entire deficiency of truth will be revealed and dissolved by this luminous Child” (Lash, 2006, p.196).
Sophia seems to be saying that the Anthropos, or Humanity, is superior to the Demiurge and the Archons and will achieve final victory over them. This is anticipated in 2001 with Bowman’s victory over the computer HAL. According to John Lamb Lash, the word HAL is a Coptic word that means “simulation” or “virtual reality” and was the greatest power of the Archons, who could only imitate what the Aeons had emanated from the Pleroma. As explained by Lash, “The Demiurge fashions a heaven world copied from the fractal patterns of the eternal Aeons…His construction is celestial kitsch, like a fake Italianate villa of a Mafia don complete with militant angels to guard every portal” (Lash, 2006, p.284). This is the meaning of the final scene in the hotel room, with the laughing voices on the soundtrack representing the Archons who have trapped Bowman in their simulation. It is only by the intervention of the monolith that Bowman transforms into the Star Child and escapes the hotel prison.
The Star Child also represents the Superman [Not to be confused with the DC comic book hero – BB] of Friedrich Nietzsche’s book, Thus Spoke Zarathustra. In the book, the main protagonist, Zarathustra, declares to the reader:
“I teach you the Superman. Man is something that should be overcome. What have you done to overcome him? All creatures hitherto have created something beyond themselves: and do you want to be the ebb of this great tide, and return to the animals rather than overcome man?” (Nietzsche, 1969, p.41).
In 2001, Richard Strauss’ musical score Thus Spoke Zarathustra evokes Friedrich Nietzsche's writings and appears three times in the film: the opening scene, the ape-man sequence, and the final scene where Bowman transforms into the Star Child. Kubrick seems to be saying that his film invokes the words of Zarathustra, who taught the secret knowledge of human transformation from the mundane to the angelic. John Lamb Lash says in Not In His Image that the followers of Zarathustra originated in Persia (modern-day Iran) around 6000 BCE and were the ancestors of the Gnostics who taught in the Mystery Schools before the rise of Christianity (Lash, 2006, p.147). According to Manly P. Hall, “The Mysteries were organized for the purpose of assisting the struggling human creature to reawaken the spiritual powers which, surrounded by the flaming ring of lust and degeneracy, lay asleep within his soul” (Hall, 2007, p.37). The Mysteries themselves were aimed towards consecration to Sophia and the Great Work by fostering the spiritual potential of the human species through coevolution with nature.
In Alchemical Kubrick, Jay Weidner identifies the monolith as the Philosopher’s Stone, an alchemical term for love and spiritual enlightenment. In 2001: A Space Odyssey, the monolith always appears when there is an alignment of the Sun and Moon: In the opening title scene, when it appears to the ape-men, on the moon, and in the Beyond the Infinite sequence. In alchemy, the Sun represents the masculine principle while the Moon represents the feminine principle, with their sacred union creating the Philosopher’s Stone and allowing it to manifest on the physical plane. This is why Hermes Trismegistus says in The Emerald Tablet, “Its father is the Sun; its mother the Moon” (Melville, 2002, p.19). The two main gifts of the Philosopher’s Stone are total gnosis (knowledge) and the soul's immortality, which are both achieved by the end of the film in the person of David Bowman.
In regards to how the monolith intervenes in human history, Weidner explains:
“Superficially, he is telling us that the monolith is not all that great because it was the cause of the first killing. On a deeper level he is also saying that the gift of the stone is a very great spiritual and evolutionary event” (Weidner, 1999).
He goes on to say:
“Kubrick is not going to let us get away with a black and white view of history here. He is telling us that their is a strange juxtaposition going on here. We have outside intervention that causes us to shed the limited view of reality which we had before. But this shedding also increases our capacity for violence and control. How can this be? How can a great spiritual and evolutionary leap forward also be the cause for murder and violence? Isn’t that diametrically opposed? No, says Kubrick. One must go hand in hand with the other” (Weidner, 1999).
There is a logical explanation for this seemingly contradictory statement. In Thus Spoke Zarathustra, the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche states that those on the path to spiritual enlightenment are like a tree, “The more it wants to rise into the heights and the light, the more determinedly do its roots strive earthwards, downwards, into the darkness, into the depths – into evil” (Nietzsche, 1969, p.69). In other words, our darkness provides the fertile soil for the seeds of our higher consciousness.
This juxtaposition can also be explained by the Law of Polarity, which states that “Everything is Dual; everything has poles; everything has its pair of opposites; like and unlike are the same; opposites are identical in nature, but different in degree; extremes meet; all truths are but half-truths; all paradoxes may be reconciled” (Three Initiates, 2012, p.18). However, it is essential to distinguish between split-source duality and two-source duality. According to John Lamb Lash, split-source duality asserts that “good and evil are absolute and autonomous principles that arise from the same source” (Lash, 2006, p.405). This view, found in Persian and Judeo-Christian religion (and later expressed through the Star Wars films), was refuted by the Gnostics, who denied that good and evil came from the same source. Instead, they taught that it was the duality of human intention rather than cosmic absolutes. In other words, evil arises within the human experience when an error goes undetected and beyond the scale of correction.
In The Secret Teachings of All Ages, Manly P. Hall wrote, “Harmony is a state recognized by great philosophers as the immediate prerequisite of beauty” (Hall, 2007, p.215). This means that goodness acting according to its own nature is harmony, and beauty is harmony manifesting its true nature in the world of form. Evil arises when the scale of polarity is pushed towards deformity and disharmony within the individual and the outer world. It is often asked why many people hide love and express hatred so openly. My answer to this question is that people fear that what they love most will be criticized, abused or perverted, and thus, due to a perceived lack within themselves, seek to take from others through violence, hatred and revenge. All domination and abuse stem from a prior wounding, and I see the human task as creating a society where we are free to love whomever and whatever we want. To quote Stanley Kubrick, "However vast the darkness, we must supply our own light" (Weidner, 1999).
Part II: The Dark Crystal
“Another world, another time, in the age of wonder” (Henson & Oz, 1982). These words spoken by the narrator are designed to show the relationship between The Dark Crystal and the great fairy tales of old. As explained by Rene-Lucien Rousseau, the words “once upon a time”, which the opening narration strongly mirrors, “belong to a magic rite that transports us outside space into a timeless realm of the tales, a sanctified world in which everything is possible” (Roger, 2015, p.3). In other words, fairy tales are alchemical metaphors that contain the secrets and symbols of human transformation. As we shall see, Jim Henson is not hiding this in any way.
The Dark Crystal is set on a planet known as Thra, which Jim Henson originally called “Mithra” in his first script. This references Mithraism, a Mystery Cult that competed with Christianity in the Roman Empire during the first three centuries of the Common Era. Mithra was usually portrayed as a masculine solar deity, but according to Manly P. Hall, it also had a feminine side, with the everyday world being her symbol: “She represents Nature as receptive and terrestrial, and as fruitful only when bathed in the glory of the solar orb” (Hall, 2007, p.43). Thra orbits three suns: The Great Sun, the Rose Sun and the Dying Sun. This solar trinity symbolises the Creator's supreme authority and the three phases of life: rising, midday, and setting, or growth, maturity and decay (Hall, 2007, p.117). Therefore, it seems that Mithra, in his masculine form, represents the active principle embodied in the Solar Trinity, while in his feminine form, it represents the receptive principle embodied as the planet on which the events of The Dark Crystal take place.
At this point, it is crucial to identify the figure of Aughra, who plays a prominent part in the history of Thra. According to Mat Auryn, Aughra is the living embodiment of the Anima Mundi, or World Soul, described by Plato and the Neoplatonists as the self-awareness and intelligence of the planet embodied in all physical life (Auryn, 2018). In The World of the Dark Crystal, Aughra explains her presence by stating, “Of the race of Aughra, I, Aughra, am alone, the first and last. Born from the need for rocks and trees for an eye to see the World” (Llewellyn, 2019, p.17). In Gnosticism, the Anima Mundi was equated with the Goddess Sophia, who turned into the Earth after falling from the Pleroma, the dwelling place of the Aeons [In Gnosticism, the Pleroma was located at the centre of the Milky Way Galaxy and was the primary home of the Aeons (gods and goddesses) – BB]. The name Sophia means “Wisdom” in Greek, and Aughra exemplifies this through her desire to gain wisdom of the celestial bodies at the expense of everything else. In the Gnostic myth, the outcome of Sophia’s correction is determined by her relationship to the human species, or Anthropos. Similarly, Aughra developed a strong relationship with the Gelflings and prophesied that a Gelfling would heal the Crystal of Truth and end the rule of the Skeksis over Thra.
In The Initiatory Path in Fairy Tales, Bernard Roger explains that Fairy Tales are also known as “Old Wives’ Tales” due to their connection to the Great Goddess worshipped by our prehistoric ancestors. Roger asks, “How far do we have to go to find the oldest wife and storyteller? Wouldn’t it be the “Mother of the gods,” the extremely ancient goddess known as the Great Mother, the above ground and underground Mother Nature herself?” (Roger, 2015, p.9). Aughra represents this archetype, who shared the world with the Gelflings during the Age of Innocence. In her masculine form, she also represents the Norse god Odin, who exchanged one of his eyes to acquire magical powers and poetic knowledge at the roots of Yggdrasill, the world tree. Like Odin, Aughra loses one of her eyes while observing the first Great Conjunction of the Three Suns at the end of the Age of Innocence. Old Wive’s Tales were also called “one-eyed stories” due to the assumption that people who had lost one of their eyes were witches and in league with the devil. Both Aughra and Odin were seen as leaders and hermits obsessed with gaining more and more wisdom at the expense of everything else.
Like the great masters of old, Aughra studied the movements of the stars, suns, and moons to understand better the passage of time and the events that occur on Thra. One of the main tenets of alchemy and astrology is that planetary and celestial conjunctions cause great changes to occur on the Earth. Indeed, when the ancients said that the “end of the world” was near, they were actually referring to the end of an astrological age in which the sun no longer rose in the vernal equinox in the zodiac’s constellation (Settegast, 1987, p.223). As Aughra tells Jen in The Dark Crystal, “The Great Conjunction is the end of the world…or the beginning. End, begin. All the same. Big change. Sometimes good, sometimes bad” (Henson & Oz, 1982). The Great Conjunction is marked by the alignment of the Three Suns, equated with gold and the threefold nature of all creation.
The history of Thra is divided into four ages of 1,000 years each. Each of the four ages marks a different quality of time and ends with a Great Conjunction of the Three Suns. In the First Age or Age of Innocence, the Gelflings lived in harmony with each other and the natural world in a time of great peace. The Second Age, or Age of Harmony, saw the UrSkeks descend to Thra and oversee the peak of Gelfling civilisation. The Third Age, or Age of Division, saw the UrSkeks split into the Skeksis and Mystics, with the former overseeing the near-complete genocide of the Gelfling race during the Garthrim Wars. The age ends with the Crystal of Truth restored, the Skeksis and Mystics reunited into the Urskeks, and Thra restored to its former beauty and splendour. This new age, known as the Age of Power, saw the restoration and dominion of the Gelfling race across Thra, who became the new guardians of the Crystal of Truth.
What is fascinating is that these Ages of Thra have parallels with the four ages described in alchemical lore. In the ancient Mystery Schools, the alchemists and astrologers divided the precession of the equinoxes into four ages: the Golden, Silver, Bronze and Iron Ages. During the Golden Age, there were no wars and humans “lived like gods without sorrow of heart, remote and free from toil and grief” (Hes. WD 115). According to Greek mythology, this age ended with the war between the Gods and Titans. During the Silver Age, human civilisation reached its height on the island of Atlantis while feminine values predominated in other parts of the world. During the Bronze Age, wars became more frequent and saw the split in the Order of Magi, who were the guardians of the Sacred Alchemical Mysteries. Finally, during the Iron Age, war and strife became commonplace, with humanity dominating the Earth at the expense of other races and life forms. According to the Brahma Kumaris of India, the end of the Iron Age is followed by a period of transition in which the world of truth is restored, and the true history of humanity is revealed (O’Donnell, 1996, p.82).
Chiliasm was a hermetic doctrine stating that after 1,000 years, "a new existence, a new spiritual reality, supersedes our flawed common reality at the end of time" (Weidner & Bridges, 2003, p.5). According to Jay Weidner and Vincent Bridges, the Gnostics taught, "This transformed world would be free of sin, a virtual paradise of sensual delights, feasts, and weddings" (Weidner & Bridges, 2003, p.37). While Christian theologians interpreted chiliasm as spiritual nourishment from Christ, the Gnostics taught that it would be a transformed, physical paradise on Earth. As Jay Weidner has pointed out, this parallels the Kabbalistic concept of Tikkun. In Secrets of Alchemy, he explains:
“The Kabbalists tell us that at the end of time, there is what is known as the Tikkun, or the restoration of the world. Through the performance of right action, holding to the truth, integrity and compassion, each individual assists in the great spiritual effort in which all opposites are reunited, and perfection is restored. The sacred sparks of the divine, the angelic powers that have been weighted down as the four ages progress, are released and reunited with the divine source. The paradise that was lost to Adam and Eve is restored. Humanity’s exile from the garden is over, and a state of harmony and perfection returns again” (Weidner, 2004).
This is the world created at the end of The Dark Crystal. Jen's bravery and heroism in restoring balance to the crystal transforms the planet back to its former beauty and glory, thereby fulfilling the Great Work.
In alchemy, the two pillars of the Great Work are Art and Nature. These two mediums are embodied in the respective talents of Jen and Kira: Jen is a master of music, while Kira can communicate with animals. In his book Healing Sounds, Jonathan Goldman says, “There are legends that before there was a spoken language of words, there was a harmonic language. This language allowed humankind to communicate with all the creations of nature” (Goldman, 2002, p.53). According to the French alchemist Fulcanelli, the artist is “the imitator of Nature and of the divine Great Work” (Fulcanelli, 2016, p.14), while the Greek philosopher Pythagoras taught that music has a special power over the soul, which allowed the initiate to understand all aspects of nature. Pythagoras based his music theory on sacred geometry, specifically the tetractys, which consisted of the first four numbers, all adding up to 10, considered the most perfect number in the Mysteries. In The World of the Dark Crystal, Aughra says, “Numbers are at the heart of the world, the measure of the dance of the heavens; number is music crystallized” (Llewellyn, 2019, p.70). This is exactly what Pythagoras and the Mystery Schools taught two thousand years ago.
The number of Skeksis and Mystics in The Dark Crystal is also symbolic. Originally, there were ten of each, but by the film's end, there were eight, making up sixteen individuals. As mentioned in the previous paragraph, the Mystery Schools believed that 10 was the most perfect number, with 9 being considered imperfect. In the Mystery Schools, initiation cells comprised eight men and eight women lying in a circle around a rosette, comprised of interior and exterior petals. According to John Lamb Lash:
“The inner petals of the double rosette at Eleusis represent the initiates dedicated to retaining and developing the instructions received by repeated encounters with the Mystery Light, while the outer petals represent the eight initiates dedicated to interpreting, translating, and externally transmitting those instructions” (Lash, 2006, p.217).
In the film, the Mystics coalesce around the interior while the Skeksis stand around the exterior of the Crystal, which turns white after Jen heals it. In Tibetan Buddhism, the invocation of the goddess Tara involves visualising a white eight-spoke wheel at the centre of the heart chakra. This image appears from a flood of white light when the practitioner unites with Tara, just like when the Mystics unite with the Skeksis.
As narrated in the film, the Skeksis and Mystics were originally one race known as the Urskek before the Dark Crystal cracked one thousand years ago and separated them into two races. This has deep Kabbalistic significance relating to the Tree of Life, with the Urskeks representing the path of harmony, located in the middle of the tree, and the Skeksis and Mystics representing the left and right paths of the tree, respectively. As stated by Jordan River:
“The Skeksis become the path of severity, being cruel, intense, sharp, and violent. The Mystics become the path of Mercy, who lives in a dream of natural peace, rehearsing the old rituals with forgetfulness, and the ancient wisdom is almost lost” (River, 2020).
The division of the Urskeks into the Skeksis and Mystics also parallels the Magian Order's historical division into the Illuminati and the Gnostics during the sixth millennium BCE. The Magian Order was based in what is now northwestern Iran and was the ancestors of the Gnostics. Its most famous member was the prophet Zarathustra, who, according to Mary Settegast, “has been described as a primitive ecstatic, a kind of “shaman”, at the other, as the worldly familiar of Chorasmian kings and court politics” (Settegast, 1987, p.215). According to John Lamb Lash, around 4000 BCE, some Magi chose to apply their initiatory knowledge towards statecraft and social engineering. Lash explains, “The intention of the dissident Magians to run society by covert controls was based on the assumption that human beings are not innately good enough, or gifted enough, to create a humane world” (Las, 2006, p.148). This assumption was refuted by the Gnostics, who avoided politics and instead sought to produce skilled, well-balanced and enlightened individuals who could create a society good enough that it didn’t need to be run by external rules and controls [In other words, Gnostics believed in the fundamental goodness of humanity and taught that humans would naturally do the right thing without being pressured into conforming to the System – BB].
The Skeksis and Mystics also represent our dark and light sides that must be balanced to evolve spiritually. If we are too grounded in our dark side, it can lead to madness, suffering and harm towards others. However, if we are too grounded in our light side, we do not have the fuel, so to speak, to develop enlightenment, and this can make us passive towards people and situations that threaten our sovereignty and free will. The experience of love is the sign of balance between our light and dark sides, with the Urskeks representing this union of our lower and higher selves united in the heart.
Conclusion
At this point, it is worth highlighting and summarising what this is all about. Both 2001: A Space Odyssey and The Dark Crystal are films about the Philosopher’s Stone and the ancient alchemical knowledge of human transformation. In 2001, the Stone is represented by the monolith, which in Greek means “One Stone”, while in The Dark Crystal, the Stone is represented by the Crystal of Truth. The process by which the alchemist achieves the Philosopher’s Stone is known as the Magnum Opus or Great Work and refers to spiritual transformation and the attainment of immortality rather than turning base metals into gold. Indeed, the greatest works of art are all attempting to do what Stanley Kubrick and Jim Henson have done with their respective films because, as explained by Jay Weidner, the transformation of the human spirit can only occur through great works of art (Weidner, 1999). With this knowledge in mind, Kubrick and Henson take their place alongside Fulcanelli and J.R.R. Tolkien as two of the greatest alchemist artists of the twentieth century.
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