The 1957 film The Incredible Shrinking Man is widely regarded as one of the best science fiction films of the 1950s. The film is considered significant due to its ending, which touches upon important themes, principally metaphysics and humanity’s place in the cosmos. Indeed, the themes expressed, such as the relationship between the macrocosm and microcosm, have parallels with the ancient philosophy of Hermeticism, which is the foundation of Western esotericism. In this essay, I will focus primarily on the Hermetic concepts touched upon in the film’s ending.
The Incredible Shrinking Man is based on Richard Matheson’s 1956 novel The Shrinking Man. To understand the film’s ending, it is important to first outline the overall plot narrative. The film begins with Scott Carey (Grant Williams) and Louise Carey (Randy Stuart) enjoying their holiday on Scott’s brother’s boat. While Louise goes below deck to fetch her husband a beer, Scott encounters a radioactive fog that coats his body in mist. Six months later, he notices that his clothes don’t fit him and refers himself to a doctor, who confirms that he is shrinking. Scott is referred to a medical research institute and seeks seclusion inside his home as the media cover his condition and reporters and curiosity seekers gather outside. Eventually, an antidote is discovered, but his doctors tell him that he will remain three feet tall for the rest of his life unless a cure is found. Emotionally devastated and with his relationship with Louise deteriorating, Scott befriends a carnival worker named Clarice (April Kent), who encourages him to continue his journal, only to discover one day that Scott has started shrinking again.
Soon, Scott is small enough to live in a dollhouse that Louise has bought for him to live in. When Louise goes out to do an errand, their family cat, Butch, attacks Scott, who manages to escape, only to fall into the house basement. When Louise returns, he finds a bloody scrap of Scott’s clothing and assumes Butch has eaten him. Meanwhile, Scott attempts to navigate the basement while waiting for help. When the water heater bursts, Louise and Scott’s brother Charlie (Paul Langton) go down to investigate but do not hear Scott’s cries for help. After Louise finally moves out of the house, Scott battles a large spider in his search for food and shelter. He ultimately kills the spider with a straight pin and collapses in exhaustion. When he awakens, he finds that he is small enough to escape the basement through one of the netting squares of a window screen. As he shrinks into the micro-universe, he loses his fear of shrinking and accepts his fate, stating, “To God, there is no zero. I still exist” (Arnold, 1957).
Let us examine this profound statement by looking at the ending itself. While the Hermetic themes will be elaborated on later in this essay, it is important to describe what Scott Carey says at the climax of The Incredible Shrinking Man. Here is his profound statement:
“So close the infinitesimal and the infinite. But suddenly, I knew they were really the two ends of the same concept. The unbelievably small and the unbelievably vast eventually meet like the closing of a gigantic circle. I looked up as if, somehow, I would grasp the heavens. The universe: worlds beyond number. God’s silver tapestry spread across the night, and in that moment, I knew the answer to the riddle of the infinite. I had thought in terms of man’s own limited dimension. I had presumed upon nature that existence begins and ends is man’s conception, not nature’s. And I felt my body dwindling, melting, becoming nothing. My fears melted away, and in their place came acceptance. All this vast majesty of creation, it had to mean something, and then I meant something, too. Yes, smaller than the smallest; I meant something, too. To God, there is no zero. I still exist” (Arnold, 1957).
This philosophical ending almost never made it into the final film. Test audiences who watched prerelease screenings felt that Scott Carey should have returned to normal size at the end, following studio policies at the time of having a happy ending. Mrs. Dawson of the MPAA wrote, "The fate of diminishing into and [sic] infinitesimal part of the cosmos is an idea difficult for most people to grasp, impossible to explain to children…and incompatible with certain religious beliefs held in this country and abroad” (Bohus, 2020, p.115-16). As we will see, this view is not untenable within the framework of Hermeticism, which I believe is what the film’s ending conveys.
Hermeticism was an ancient set of beliefs based on the teachings of Hermes Trismegistus, whom the Egyptians identified with the god Thoth. While sceptics regard this claim with suspicion and date Hermetic philosophy to the late Hellenistic and Roman periods (200 BCE-300 CE), alchemists believe these teachings date back to ancient Egypt in 3000 BCE. Indeed, according to Manly P. Hall, “Among the arts and sciences which it is affirmed Hermes revealed to mankind were medicine, chemistry, law, art, astrology, music, rhetoric, Magic, philosophy, geography, mathematics (especially geometry), anatomy, and oratory” (Hall, 2007, p.82). These sacred teachings were passed down from teacher to student in the Mystery Schools that stemmed from Ancient Egypt and eventually spread to Greece, Rome, Mesopotamia, Persia, India, and China. As stated by the initiates, “In all the ancient lands, the name of Hermes Trismegistus was revered, the name being synonymous with the “Fount of Wisdom” (Three Initiates, 2012, p.12). To this day, Hermetic ideas can be found in many world religions, including Gnosticism, Hinduism, and Taoism.
The core of the Hermetic teachings was kept secret because the Hermetics understood that only those initiated into the Mysteries could truly understand the significance of the wisdom handed down from Hermes Trismegistus. As stated by the initiates, “There are certain Hermetic Teachings, which, if publicly promulgated, would bring down upon the teachers a great cry of scorn and revilement from the multitude” (Three Initiates, 2012, p.9). For example, the Law of Gender has been interpreted in a literal sense to refer to phallicism [The worship of the sex organs and sexual intercourse - BB] when, in fact, the sacred union between the masculine and feminine principles is not “sexual” in the physical sense of the term. On the physical plane, it manifests as sex, but on the mental and spiritual planes, it takes on higher forms of expression. As stated by the Hermetics, “To the pure, all things are pure; to the base, all things are base” (Three Initiates, 2012, p.22). This axiom means that the pure sees love and beauty in the things they value, while the base sees only lust and negativity in things they fear and don’t understand. 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).
One of the most famous Hermetic texts is a book called The Kybalion. Formally published in 1908 by three anonymous people who called themselves the Three Initiates, The Kybalion contains the secret doctrines passed down from ancient Egypt. The book espouses seven laws that govern the metaphysical universe: Mentalism, Correspondence, Vibration, Polarity, Rhythm, Cause and Effect, and Gender [For a short summary of these seven principles, see Appendix – BB]. While there is no room here to elaborate on all these principles in detail, it is worth pointing out that the purpose of The Kybalion was to “give to the students a statement of the Truth that will serve to reconcile the many bits of occult knowledge that they may have acquired, but which are apparently opposed to each other” (Three Initiates, 2012, p.7). In this essay, I will focus on the Laws of Mentalism, Correspondence, and Cause and Effect.
Let us now begin to examine and analyse the main Hermetic concepts contained within the ending of The Incredible Shrinking Man. The first concept is the Law of Correspondence and the ancient theory of the Macrocosm and Microcosm. The Law of Correspondence states that what manifests on one plane of being and life corresponds with the laws and phenomena of a higher or lower plane. Hermes Trismegistus sums up this truth in The Emerald Tablet by stating, “That which is above is as that which is below, and that which is below is as that which is above” (Melville, 2002, p.19). This famous axiom, shortened to “As above, so below”, is also found in the New Testament with Christ saying in the Lord’s Prayer, “Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven” (Matthew 6:10 TNIV). By this law, the Hermetics believed that the human being was made in the image of God, the microcosm reflecting the macrocosm, and that “Everything in creation finds its reflection in humans, who therefore have at their disposal all the tools that they need to achieve their divine destiny, should they choose to accept it” (Melville, 2002, p.18).
The second Hermetic concept is the Law of Mentalism, which in Carey’s discourse is synonymous with that of God, or what the Hermetics called “The All” [Not to be confused with the Judeo-Christian God, whom the teachers of the Mystery Schools, the Gnostics, called the Demiurge – BB]. It is called the All because it is infinite, not confined, bound, limited, or constricted by space and time. As stated in The Kybalion, “Under, and back of, the Universe of Time, Space and Change, is ever to be found The Substantial Reality – the Fundamental Truth” (Three Initiates, 2012, p.27). This substantial reality, also known as the Originator, Brahman, and Tao, is infinite because nothing exists outside it. However, the All is not identical to its creation in the same way that the characters and images in the mind of an artist are not identical to the artist. As stated in The Kybalion, “The Spirit of my Creator is inherent within me – and yet I am not HE!” (Three Initiates, 2012, p.48). This is the esoteric meaning of the passage in the New Testament where Saint Paul states that “God may be all in all” (1 Corinthians 15:28 TNIV). The Mystery Schools taught that while humans are endowed with divine intelligence, which the Gnostics called nous, we are not divine in terms of our identity but rather through knowing as the gods know through elevated cognition and heightened awareness (Lash, 2006, p.133).
In The Incredible Shrinking Man, Scott Carey compares the relationship between the microcosm and macrocosm to “the closing of a gigantic circle" (Arnold, 1957). This is a direct reference to the ouroboros, symbolised in Hermetic texts as a serpent biting its tail. Francis Melville says, “The ouroboros symbolizes life on every level – the macrocosm and the microcosm, the universal and the individual" (Melville, 2002, p.33). It is essentially the eternal, self-sustaining cycle of life embodied in the All. In the Tao Te Ching, Lao Tzu refers to this in Chapter 25: “There was something formless and perfect before the universe was born. It is serene. Empty. Solitary. Unchanging. Infinite. Eternally present. It is the Mother of the universe. For lack of a better name, I call it the Tao" (Dyer, 2008, p.53). The ouroboros thus represents “the unity of all things, material and spiritual, which never disappear but perpetually change form in an eternal cycle of destruction and re-creation" (Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2024). Indeed, the insight that existence goes on in endless cycles is stated in both The Incredible Shrinking Man and Richard Matheson’s novel, with Scott Carey realising that “He would never disappear, because there was no point of non-existence in the universe" (Matheson, 2014, p.200).
Scott Carey’s insight into the eternal nature of existence is crucial to Hermetic thought. In the Mystery Schools, it was taught that the Universe is eternal and that "There is no moment when it arose, nor will there ever be a moment when it ceases to be" (Lash, 2006, p.167). This contrasts with the modern, scientific view of the origins of the Universe, the Big Bang, which postulates that the Universe began expanding from a single point 13.7 billion years ago. The Hermetics taught that the All does not create like the Judeo-Christian God. Instead, the All creates through emanation, which is associated with dreaming in Australian Aboriginal culture. John Lamb Lash defines dreaming as “The timeless act of emanation in which the formative forces of the cosmos pervade and shape the processes of the natural world [and] the human psyche" (Lash, 2006, p.391). Because nothing exists outside of the All, it cannot create by using outside materials or by reproducing itself. Therefore, mental creation is the only way the All can create the Universe in the same way humans create their universe through the faculty of imagination. The Kybalion states, “The Universe is Mental – held in the Mind of THE ALL" (Three Initiates, 2012, p.33).
Despite the seeming disparity between the Hermetic and Scientific cosmological viewpoints, there is a point of reconciliation between the two. According to the Hermetics, the All established the material foundation of the universe by contemplating the beginning of creation and manifesting the process of evolution towards higher states of complexity and consciousness: “Thus the upward movement begins – and all begins to move Spiritward" (Three Initiates, 2012, p.50). In The Phenomenon of Man, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin called this process the Law of Complexity-Consciousness and posits that humanity and the universe are evolving towards the Omega Point, representing the focal point of convergence between the material and spiritual world. The Omega Point is synonymous with the All and is infinite in space and time, meaning that it is not subject to the Law of Entropy. As stated by Teilhard, “To satisfy the ultimate requirements of our action, Omega must be independent of the collapse of the forces with which evolution is woven" (Teilhard de Chardin, 2008, p.270). According to Friedrich Nietzsche, spiritual evolution is directly felt by human beings as aspiration, which is why the teachers and initiates of the Mystery Schools referred to themselves as telestai, or “those who are aimed.”
In The Great Book of Movie Monsters, Jan Stacy and Ryder Syvertsen wrote that Scott Carey is a “Symbolic representation of man’s innate imagination and ability to overcome and survive all obstacles” (Stacy & Syvertsen, 1983, p.153). In one scene in The Incredible Shrinking Man, Scott Carey, realising his confinement inside the basement, vows to himself “that as man had dominated the world of the Sun, so I would dominate my world” (Arnold, 1957). In Hermetic philosophy, everything that exists is governed by the Law of Cause and Effect, with many individuals being carried along by outside influences, such as their environment and the wills and desires of others. However, The Kybalion states that certain individuals can rise above this by dominating their own moods, characters, qualities, and powers, thereby becoming movers instead of pawns in the game of life. As stated in the book, “The Masters do not escape the Causation of the higher planes, but fall in with the higher laws, and thus master circumstances on the lower plane” (Three Initiates, 2012, p.85). Through this realisation, Scott Carey is liberated from his fear of the unknown and enters the micro-universe with curiosity and newfound faith in the forces governing the universe.
In a way, Scott Carey’s journey is an initiation into a deeper understanding of the mysteries of the universe. According to Bernard Roger, initiation is “to put on a path, to introduce someone into a way” (Roger, 2015, p.22) and “the re-creation of the individual and his or her greater receptivity toward the interior world and the inner self” (Roger, 2015, p.25). This personal journey is apparent in Richard Matheson’s novel and the 1957 film. In the novel, Scott Carey starts out being governed by the lower impulses of anger and lust while denying any idea of spirituality, stating, “It was rubbish” (Matheson, 2014, p.37). Later, he realises that the power of his mind can be his salvation as much as his handicap, and when he finally kills the spider, which represents “every anxiety, insecurity, and fear in his life given a hideous, night-black form” (Matheson, 2014, p.156), he loses his fear of death and nonexistence. Thus, Scott’s initiation takes him through the three planes of correspondence - physical, mental, and spiritual – and transforms him into an enlightened being.
Scott Carey’s realisation that he still exists is also consistent with the French philosopher Rene Descartes’ (1596-1650) argument in his Meditations on First Philosophy. According to Descartes, the one thing that a person can be certain of is the fact of one’s existence, summarised in the famous edict “I think, therefore I am” (Stokes, 2010, p.73). As explained by Descartes, “I am, I exist, is necessarily true each time it is expressed by me, or conceived in my mind” (Descartes, 1968, p.35). In other words, the infallibility of our existence is the one truth that is not subject to the Law of Polarity [The Law of Polarity is one of the seven metaphysical laws contained in The Kybalion. It states that everything has two poles and that all truths are half-truths with opposites identical in nature, but different in degree – BB]. The source of Descartes’ profound insight was probably the Rosicrucian manifestos circulated in Germany from 1614 to 1620 when Descartes was a soldier in the Habsburg army during the Thirty Years War (Yates, 2002, p.151). These writings contained the essence of Hermetic philosophy, although Descartes would go on to establish his own school of philosophy known as Cartesian Dualism, which separated mind and matter and reduced the universe to mechanistic forces.
As we approach the end of this essay, I would like to take Descartes’ philosophy one step further and argue that his argument also proves the immortality of the human soul. Following the Law of Mentalism, which states that everything in the universe is a mental creation of the All, I argue that because we think and therefore exist, we always will exist in some form or another because even when we can imagine nothingness, that is still something being observed. In an interview with Tom Weaver, Randy Stuart expressed her belief that death is not the end:
“I’m convinced, along with many other people, that there’s a lot out there that we can’t see…a lot more than we’re aware of…a lot more than we even want to talk about. It’s true that there is not a nothing…in terms of God, there is no such thing as a vacuum, there is no nothing” (Bohus, 2020, p.116).
I would also argue that regardless of whether there is an afterlife or not, we are all privileged to be alive due to the number of events that happened to bring us into the world. Because of this, we should make the most of our time here on this planet.
The Incredible Shrinking Man is regarded by critics and fans alike as one of the best science fiction films made during the 1950s. Its reputation is due to its philosophical ending, which touches upon metaphysics and humanity’s relationship with the divine. These themes are consistent with that of Hermeticism, which taught both the immortality of the soul and the correspondence between the universe and human beings. This makes The Incredible Shrinking Man one of the most innovative and thought-provoking science fiction films ever made.
Appendix: The Hermetic Principles
The following is a summary of the seven Hermetic Principles contained in The Kybalion. Read Chapter II: The Seven Hermetic Principles in the book for a more detailed explanation of these metaphysical laws.
1. Mentalism: THE ALL IS MIND; The Universe is Mental.
2. Correspondence: As above, so below; as below, so above.
3. Vibration: Nothing rests; everything moves; everything vibrates.
4. Polarity: 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.
5. Rhythm: Everything flows out and in; everything has its tides; all things rise and fall; the pendulum-swing manifests in everything; the measure of the swing to the right is the measure of the swing to the left; rhythm compensates.
6. Cause and Effect: Every Cause has its Effect; every Effect has its Cause; everything happens according to Law; Chance is but a name for Law not recognized; there are many planes of causation, but nothing escapes the Law.
7. Gender: Gender is in everything; everything has its Masculine and Feminine Principles; Gender manifests on all planes.
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