Gnosticism in the Cult Film - The Homepage of Dr. David Lavery

Gnosticism
in
the
Cult
Film
In
our
new
myths
we
begin
to
deny
once
and
for
all
the
existence
of
what
we
once
believed
both
possible
and
good.
We
proclaim
our
grief‐
stricken
narcissism
to
be
a
form
of
liberation;
we
define
as
enlightenment
our
broken
faith
with
the
world.
.
.
.
It
is
a
condition
one
can
find
in
many
places
and
in
many
ages,
but
only
in
America,
and
only
recently,
have
we
begun
to
confuse
it
with
a
state
of
grace.
Peter
Marin,
"The
New
Narcissism"
The
particular
form
of
contemporary
myth
we
now
call
the
"cult
film"
would
seem
to
be
an
especially
adept
medium
for
recording
the
unearthly,
Gnostic
condition
Peter
Marin
describes
here,
as
I
will
try
to
make
apparent
with
the
help
of
1
a
thought
experiment. In
an
important
essay
on
the
cult
film,
semiotician
Umberto
Eco
declares,
in
the
best
postmodernist
prose,
his
semiotic
faith
that
all
"works
are
created
by
works"
and
"texts
.
.
.
created
by
texts,"
that
"all
together
they
speak
to
each
other
independently
of
the
intention
of
their
authors."
The
cult
movie
in
particular
he
takes
to
be
definitive
"proof
that,
as
literature
comes
from
literature,
cinema
comes
from
cinema"
(198).
This
probe
was
inspired,
however,
by
a
different
faith:
that
in
tracking
down
the
intellectual
roots
of
the
memes
inherited
and
displayed
in
the
cult
film
we
perform
a
worthy
piece
of
intellectual
detective‐work,
one
equal
in
value
to
the
often
ahistorical
and
apolitical
solipsism
of
our
contemporary
obsession
with
signs
and
signifiers.
This
probe
was
inspired,
however,
by
a
different
faith:
that
in
tracking
down
the
intellectual
roots
of
the
memes
inherited
and
displayed
in
the
cult
film
we
perform
a
worthy
piece
of
intellectual
detective‐work,
one
equal
in
value
to
the
often
ahistorical
and
apolitical
solipsism
of
our
contemporary
obsession
with
signs
and
signifiers.
1
I
want
to
acknowledge
my
imaginative
debt
in
the
following
pages
to
David
Macaulay's
Motel
of
the
Mysteries,
a
book
whose
method
I
have
stolen
for
my
own
thought
experiment.
The Collected Works of David Lavery 2
Eco
speaks
of
a
cult
film
like
Casablanca
as
"a
palimpsest
for
future
students
of
20th
century
religiosity."
Picking
up
on
Eco's
hint,
allow
me
if
you
will
to
imagine
such
a
latter‐day
student
of
the
cult
film,
not,
however,
with
the
postmodernist
intent,
advocated
by
Eco,
of
merely
conducting
"semiotic
research
into
textual
strategies,"
but
of
pursuing
what
might
be
called
a
"memetic"
investigation
into
the
2
possible
premodern
cultural
origins
of
the
contemporary
cult
film. Eco
would
have
us
believe
that
in
the
"cosmic
result"
the
cult
film
we
can
sometimes
miraculously
overhear
the
"cliches"
(that
is,
the
"archetypal"
signs)
"talking
among
themselves,
celebrating
a
reunion."
We
are
struck
by
the
impression
that
"Nature
has
spoken
in
place
of
men"
(209).
I
want
to
argue
that
the
voices
we
hear
in
the
cult
film
are
not
the
work
of
some
cosmic
ventriloquist
but
have
identifiable
human
and
historical
origins.
A
Thought
Experiment
You
are
a
cultural
anthropologist
from
a
future
century
(say,
the
late
twenty‐second)
participating
in
the
excavation
of
a
site
believed
to
have
been,
in
the
late
twentieth
century,
a
public
place
known
as
a
shopping
mall.
Inside
one
of
the
stores,
a
nearly
destroyed
building,
you
unearth
six
small,
black,
plastic
boxes
containing
some
kind
of
tightly
wound
plastic
tape.
Thanks
to
your
knowledge
of
the
material
culture
of
the
twentieth
century,
you
know
that
these
boxes
are
in
fact
videocassettes,
containing
films
(as
the
labels
indicate)
from
the
late
1970s
and
1980s—twenty
years
into
that
period
which
history
has
come
to
call
"The
Space
Age."
Excited
by
this
unique
find,
you
secrete
them
away
from
the
dig,
anxious
to
study
them
in
private.
Reputations,
you
know,
are
made
from
such
discoveries,
and
anthropologists
and
historians
have
long
sought
a
better
understanding
of
the
mad,
paradoxical,
decadent,
period
to
which
the
artifacts
you
now
hold
may
provide
a
key.
The
display
case
in
which
they
were
housed,
you
recall,
had
been
marked
"Cult
Film,"
though
nothing
in
your
reference
books
enables
you
to
understand
precisely
what
such
a
designation
might
mean.
Other
shelves
in
the
store
likewise
bore
the
names
of
the
kinds
of
films
housed
there—for
example
"Children's,"
2
Memetics,
of
course,
is—or
rather
will
be—the
study
of
the
genesis
and
propagation
of
memes
over
time
and
within
and
between
cultures:
the
equivalent
in
intellectual
history
of
genetics
in
biology.
The Collected Works of David Lavery 3
"Science
Fiction,"
"Horror,"
"Action/Adventure,"
"Drama"—all
categories
whose
basic
natures
are
clear
enough,
familiar
as
you
are
with
the
concept
of
"genre
films"
in
the
latter
half
of
the
twentieth
century.
(Genre,
you
recall,
refers
to
a
particular
grouping
of
movies
sharing
a
common
set
of
conventions
and
expectations
either
as
the
result
of
a
film's
authorship
or
because
of
its
audience's
anticipation
of
certain
recognizable
meanings
that
result
from
its
close
relationship
to
other
films
of
its
type.)
"Cult
film,"
however,
is
a
classification
unknown
to
you.
A
computer
bibliographical
search
discloses
that
several
books
and
articles
were
in
fact
published
on
cult
films
in
the
1980s
and
1990s,
but
none,
it
seems,
still
exists.
In
the
absence
of
more
precise
knowledge,
you
therefore
conclude
(1)
that
"cult
film"
is
also
the
name
of
some
genre
or
recognizable
(in
its
day)
type
of
film;
(2)
that
this
genre,
whatever
its
form
and
content,
must
have
been
an
ephemeral
one
and
did
not
endure
long
enough
to
"go
down
in
history";
(3)
that
such
films
may
have
been
intended
for
special
audiences,
made
to
appeal
to
one
or
more
of
the
many
cults—
religious,
psychological,
and
scientific/technological—known
to
have
proliferated
in
the
1960s,
1970s
and
1980s,
a
period
famous
for
its
efforts
at
producing
a
counterculture.
Fortunately,
you
know
where
to
find
an
ancient
but
still
operative
video
cassette
recorder
on
which
to
play
back
the
videotapes.
With
utter
fascination,
you
watch
the
six
"videos,"
studying
them
carefully
with
an
anthropologist's
eye,
hoping
to
learn
about
the
culture
of
the
period.
(Next
to
garbage
dumps,
the
received
wisdom
of
your
discipline
teaches,
films,
even
inferior
films—often
revealingly
called
"trash"
in
the
twentieth
century—are
thought
to
be
excellent
mirrors
of
popular
attitudes
and
"life‐
styles"
of
the
time
and
place
of
their
making.
A
popular
art
like
the
movies,
you
understand,
can
in
fact
be
a
fascinating
revelation
of
the
often
unconscious
controlling
metaphors
of
a
culture,
of
its
mythological
self‐
understanding.)
As
you
watch,
enthralled,
you
take
special
note
of
the
following:
In
the
first
film:
A
man
appears
mysteriously
in
the
American
Southwest.
In
one
early
scene,
he
slides
down
a
long
hill,
battling
the
scree
unsuccessfully
as
if
being
pulled
toward
the
valley
below.
You
learn
that
this
stranger,
Thomas
Newton,
is
actually
an
alien
who
has
journeyed
to
Earth
from
a
drought‐ridden
planet
in
search
of
water.
Using
his
own
The Collected Works of David Lavery 4
advanced
technology,
he
succeeds
in
making
hundreds
of
millions
of
dollars
in
worldly
business
ventures,
money
he
hopes
to
use
to
finance
a
rescue
mission
for
his
native
planet.
His
attempts
to
do
so
are
constantly
frustrated,
however,
by
human
avarice,
government
interference,
personal
betrayal,
and
his
own
loss
of
motivation.
In
flashbacks,
Newton
dimly
recalls
his
apparently
happy
life
with
his
family
on
his
desert‐covered
home
world.
At
one
point,
Newton
decides
to
reveal
his
true
form
to
his
girlfriend,
Mary
Lou.
Removing
his
disguise—contact
lenses,
fake
nails,
artificial
nipples,
a
wig—he
finally
stands
before
her
as
he
truly
is,
naked,
no
longer
masquerading
as
an
Earthling.
She
is
horrified.
Though
fabulously
wealthy,
Newton
more
and
more
becomes
an
eccentric
recluse.
Seduced
by
the
world,
he
turns
to
alcohol,
sex,
and
television
to
numb
his
guilt
over
his
failed
mission.
In
the
second
film:
A
mad
scientist,
a
colleague
of
the
man
who
developed
a
weapon
called
a
"neutron
bomb"
and
himself
the
victim
of
a
frontal
lobotomy
(an
operation
he
recommends
to
others),
drives
all
over
the
American
Southwest
in
an
automobile
called
a
"Chevy
Malibu"
with
a
kidnapped
dead
alien
in
its
trunk.
His
motives
are
obscure,
but
he
seems
intent
on
making
public
the
extraterrestrial's
existence
against
the
wishes
of
the
government.
When
the
car's
trunk
is
opened,
the
radiation
emanating
from
the
alien
causes
anyone
looking
on
to
disintegrate
immediately.
The
story's
main
character,
a
young
man
named
Otto,
takes
a
new
job
stealing
cars
professionally
for
the
"Helping
Hand
Acceptance
Corporation,"
a
company
that
engages
in
an
inexplicable
activity
(from
which
the
film
gets
its
name)
known
as
"automobile
repossession."
Before
joining
this
new
group,
and
occasionally
thereafter,
Otto
"hangs
out"
with
a
crowd
whom,
thanks
to
your
knowledge
of
the
period,
you
readily
identify
(by
their
purposely
repugnant
dress
and
violent
behavior)
as
belonging
to
a
cult
known
as
"punk
rockers."
A
veteran
car
thief
(Bud)
takes
Otto
under
his
wing
and
teaches
him
the
ethics
and
mores
of
his
new
profession.
He
also
initiates
him
into
some
of
the
secret
knowledge
of
the
group:
for
example,
when
to
take
drugs
known
as
amphetamines
(all
the
time)
and
the
meaninglessness
of
day
and
night.
The
following
dialogue
between
Bud
and
Otto
occurs:
The Collected Works of David Lavery 5
BUD
There's
going
to
be
some
bad
shit
coming
down
one
of
these
days.
OTTO
Yeah,
and
where
are
you
going
to
be?
On
the
moon?
BUD
No,
I'm
going
to
be
right
here,
doing
110
flat
out.
Bud
and
Otto,
along
with
many
other
repo
men,
frantically
search
for
the
above‐mentioned
Malibu,
on
which
a
$20,000
reward
(roughly
equivalent
at
the
time
to
a
year's
living
wage)
has
been
offered.
Their
search—and
the
equally
energetic
efforts
of
an
unnamed
government
agency
likewise
secure
the
vehicle—constitute
the
basic
"plot"
of
the
video.
Throughout,
you
take
note
that
labels
on
goods
sold
in
stores
and
consumed
in
people's
homes
are
singularly
nondescript
(for
example:
"Food,"
"Good,"
and
"Drink"),
while—oddly
enough—many
of
the
characters
themselves
have
taken
on
the
names
of
what
you
know
to
be
actual
commercial
products
of
the
period
(all
of
them
types
of
an
alcoholic
beverage
known
as
"beer"):
"Bud,"
"Miller,"
"Oly,"
and
"Lite."
A
janitor
named
Miller—rumored
to
have
taken
too
many
hallucinogenic
drugs
back
in
the
1960s
and
convinced
that
"everybody's
into
weirdness"—explains
his
faith
in
the
"lattice
of
coincidence"
that
unites
all
events.
He
proselytizes
to
Otto
on
behalf
of
his
theory
that
all
missing
persons
have
been
abducted
and
carried
away
to
the
future
by
flying
saucers,
which
(he
believes)
are
in
reality
time
machines.
The
same
philosopher
insists
(presciently)
that
he
refuses
to
learn
to
drive
a
car
because
"the
more
you
drive
the
less
intelligent
you
are"
(a
hypothesis
that,
of
course,
you
now
know
to
be
absolutely
true).
When
the
Malibu,
having
turned
white‐hot
and
nearly
translucent
from
radiation,
becomes
unapproachable
by
interested
scientists,
this
same
philosopher
is,
for
some
reason,
the
only
one
able
to
enter
it.
("Just
going
for
a
little
spin,"
he
explains.)
The
Malibu—now
containing
Otto
as
well,
who
boards
it
on
Miller's
invitation—ascends
into
the
heavens,
levitating
straight
upward,
cruises
over
the
Los
Angeles
skyline
("This
is
intense!"
Otto
observes,
as
he
looks
down
upon
the
city
of
confusion
below),
and
then
attains
warp
speed
and
disappears
from
the
screen
in
a
flash
of
light
in
the
film's
last
image.
In
the
third
film:
A
tiny
flying
saucer,
less
than
two
feet
in
diameter,
lands
on
a
ledge
overlooking
the
New
York
City
apartment
of
a
fashion
model
(Margaret).
(In
The Collected Works of David Lavery 6
one
frame—a
kind
of
"still
life"—we
see
the
saucer
settled
unobtrusively
beside
a
plastic
crate
and
empty,
discarded
bottles
of
something
called
"Perrier.")
The
saucer
contains
a
tiny
alien
(looking
something
like
an
eyeball)
who
has
journeyed
to
Earth
hoping
to
fuel
a
heroin
habit.
A
German
scientist,
who
has
come
to
the
United
States
to
study
UFOs,
explains
to
a
friend
that
aliens
have
been
discovered
in
specific
subcultures—among
punk
rockers,
for
example.
The
fashion
model
and
her
lesbian
roommate
(a
musician
and
drug
dealer)
you
tentatively
identify
(by
their
shockingly
unorthodox
clothes,
apartment
decor,
music,
drugs,
and
hairstyles)
as
belonging
to
yet
another
cult
of
the
period
known
as
"New
Wave"—a
sect
about
whose
actual
beliefs
almost
nothing
is
known.
The
alien
soon
discovers
that
its
heroin
need
can
be
satisfied
through
acquisition
of
an
endorphin
produced
in
the
human
brain
at
the
moment
of
sexual
climax.
(At
the
time
the
film
was
made,
the
existence
of
endorphins
had
only
recently
been
discovered.)
In
securing
its
fix,
however,
the
alien
kills
the
individual
involved.
Unaware
of
what
is
actually
going
on,
the
fashion
model
kills
several
lovers,
at
first
believing
the
cause
to
be
her
own
sexual
power.
"I
can't
have
all
these
bodies,"
she
complains,
"Please,
no
more
bodies."
From
then
on
her
victims
(six
all
told)—including
her
former
college
professor
and
a
man
who
had
previously
raped
her—instantaneously
and
conveniently
disappear.
Since
each
dies
with
a
tiny
arrow
in
the
back
of
the
head,
Margaret
calls
her
invisible,
admired
collaborator
"Indian"
and
comes
to
think
of
him
as
living
on
the
Empire
State
Building
(visible
outside
the
window
of
her
apartment).
When
Margaret
finally
discovers
the
alien
on
her
roof,
she
pleads,
"You
can't
leave
without
me!"
and
injects
herself
with
heroin
as
a
gift.
Transformed
into
a
beam
of
light,
she,
too,
disappears,
united
in
a
moment
of
mystical
transcendence
with
her
alien
savior/lover.
In
the
fourth
film
(a
Spanish
language
film
with
subtitles):
A
strange
man
named
Rantes
appears
at
a
hospital
for
the
insane.
Though
he
seems
to
have
no
identifiable
past,
the
man
claims
to
be
an
emissary
from
another
world,
one
of
many
sent
to
Earth
and
placed
in
mental
hospitals
in
order
to
study
humankind.
The Collected Works of David Lavery 7
The
stranger
spends
many
hours
standing,
facing
southeast,
in
an
almost
catatonic
trance.
To
his
fellow
patients,
he
becomes
a
saintly,
ascetic
figure,
capable
of
a
terrible
empathy
for
the
human
condition.
A
sympathetic
but
personally
troubled
psychiatrist
(Dr.
Denis)
engages
the
stranger
in
a
movie‐long
dialogue
about
his
past,
the
doctor's
own
life,
and
humanity's
Finally,
Denis's
inability
to
either
believe
Rantes's
story
or
cure
him
of
his
delusion
causes
him
to
resort
to
psychopharmacological
treatment.
The
drugs
that
he
forces
on
Rantes
destroy
his
spirit,
and
he
dies
a
broken
man.
Whether
Rantes
was,
in
fact,
an
alien
or
a
schizophrenic
remains
a
mystery.
In
the
fifth
film,
a
movie
apparently
made
in
Australia
(and
set
in
Melbourne
in
1978,
as
an
opening
title
indicates):
A
group
of
strange
young
people,
both
men
and
women,
live
together
as
"hippies"
(a
little
known
tribe,
first
identified
in
the
1960s)
in
a
filthy,
trash‐strewn
old
house
in
a
poor
area
of
town,
their
only
apparent
connection
to
one
another
being
their
interest
in
a
punk
rock
group
called
"Dogs
in
Space."
The
center
of
the
"household"
appears
to
be
a
young
man
named
Sammy
and
his
girlfriend
(yet
another
fashion
model).
Both
are
heroin
addicts
who
frequently
"shoot
up"
during
the
course
of
the
film.
By
its
end
both
are
dead
from
a
bad
dose.
All
of
the
film's
characters
engage
in
anarchic
and
wild
behavior,
all
seemingly
obeying
the
maxim
scrawled
on
the
wall
of
the
house:
"Boredom
is
counter‐
revolutionary."
They
"party,"
smoke
marijuana,
engage
in
anonymous
sex
with
perfect
strangers,
set
fire
to
television
sets,
and
the
like.
Interspersed
throughout
the
film,
scenes
from
documentaries
about
space
exploration
counterpoint
the
bizare
behavior
of
the
characters.
We
see
the
dog
Laika
which
the
Russians
sent
into
orbit
in
Sputnik
2;
we
watch
as
an
astronaut
demonstrates
the
joys
of
zero‐gravity,
effortless
movement;
we
listen
to
a
history
of
Spacelab,
an
American
satellite
that
plummeted
to
Earth
in
1978
(on
the
radio
the
hippies
listen
with
interest
to
a
radio
station's
announcement
of
a
$1000
award
to
anyone
who
finds
a
piece
of
it—"I
wonder
how
much
heroin
that
would
buy?"
asks
one
of
the
characters).
And
in
the
sixth
(and
by
far
the
strangest)
film:
A
bizarre
young
man
named
Henry,
living
in
a
twentieth
century
industrial
wasteland,
fathers
a
hideously
deformed,
The Collected Works of David Lavery 8
seemingly
inhuman
baby,
which
by
the
end
of
the
film
dies
a
horrible
death
after
his
father
unraps
the
bandages
which
cover
its
entire
body.
All
the
film's
characters
are
grotesque
and
abnormal.
Many
(in
addition
to
the
baby)
are
physically
or
psychologically
deformed.
A
strange
girl
with
swollen
cheeks
lives
in
Henry's
radiator
and
apparently
redeems
him
after
the
death
of
the
monster
baby.
The
behavior
of
Henry,
his
betrothed,
and
her
parents
all
seem
neurotic
if
not
psychotic.
In
the
film's
opening
sequence,
we
see
a
deeply
cratered
planet;
floating
around
it,
in
orbit,
is
a
horizontal
image
of
Henry.
We
then
see
shots
of
a
brooding,
physically
scarred
being,
staring
from
on
high
out
a
window.
Gradually
we
realize
that
he
is
observing
Henry,
and
when
he
sees
a
worm‐like
creature
emerge
from
Henry's
gaping
mouth,
he
pulls
mightily
on
a
lever
at
his
side.
As
the
result
of
his
action,
the
worm
falls
toward
a
pool
of
water
and,
after
it
breaks
the
surface,
plummets
deeper
and
deeper
until
it
passes
through
an
opening
filled
with
light,
an
entrance,
evidently,
to
our
world,
revealing
in
the
process
the
first
shot
of
the
earthly,
paranoid
Henry,
nervously
looking
about
him.
You
look
again
at
the
titles
of
the
six
films:
The
Man
Who
Fell
to
Earth
(1976),
Repo
Man
(1984),
Liquid
Sky
(1983),
Man
Facing
Southeast
(1987),
Dogs
in
Space
(1987),
and
Eraserhead
(1978).
The
first
four,
you
recognize,
could
be
classified
as
The Collected Works of David Lavery 9
science
fiction
films,
concerned
as
they
are
with
alien
beings
visiting
our
world—a
staple
of
the
genre.
Yet
all
were
categorized
in
the
video
stores
as
"cult"
films.
Why?
Working
on
the
assumption
that
even
such
bizarre
cultural
phenomena
as
these
films—each,
it
would
seem,
completely
eccentric—must
nevertheless
have
identifiable
historical
sources
and
be
part
of
the
intellectual
tradition
of
the
civilization
that
produced
them,
you
make
use
of
your
knowledge
of
the
sister
discipline
of
memetics
in
order
to
trace
their
genealogy.
A
special
data
base
in
your
computer
enables
you
to
identify
a
given
cluster
of
memes
exhibited
by
a
religion,
a
philosophy,
a
social
trend,
or,
for
that
matter,
a
movie,
and
then
to
ask
that
such
a
configuration's
likely
historical
genesis
be
identified
as
specifically
as
possible.
Since
they
are
"cult
films,"
you
naturally
seek,
as
one
of
your
parameters,
to
identify
their
cultic
origin.
You
attempt
to
track
down
the
memes—extreme
self‐indulgence,
world‐weariness,
alienation—all
of
which
you
know
to
be
symptomatic
of
a
troubled
period
in
human
history,
espoused
in
their
secret,
vatic,
almost
idiolectic
language.
Familiar
with
A.
O.
Lovejoy's
characterization
(in
The
Great
Chain
of
Being
of
"otherworldiness"—the
"belief
that
both
the
genuinely
'real'
and
the
truly
good
are
radically
antithetic
in
their
essential
characteristics
to
anything
to
be
found
in
man's
natural
life,
in
the
ordinary
course
of
human
experience,
however
normal,
however
intelligent,
and
however
fortunate"
(25)—you
immediately
classify
the
films
in
question
as
otherworldly
in
tone
and
content.
Familiar
too
with
the
hypothesis
of
Elias
Canetti,
in
Crowds
and
Power,
that
any
"sudden
suppression"
of
a
cult
results
invariably
in
the
"revenge"
of
secularization,
and
conversant
with
the
work
of
Max
Weber,
you
begin
to
wonder
what
hidden
cultural
streams,
what
dormant
memes,
might
have
given
rise
to
the
strange
belief
systems—radical
alienation,
the
reenactment
of
an
age‐old
longing
for
escape
from
Earth
and
eternal
union
with
the
heavenly
powers,
the
"otherworldly
hedonism,"
the
psychically
numb,
"far‐out,"
unearthly
narcissism—portrayed
in
such
cult
films.
Along
with
general
observations
on
the
governing
ideas
that
appear
to
inform
both
films
and
the
essential
historical
facts
of
their
making,
you
input
basic
descriptions
of
the
key
incidents
of
each,
asking
the
computer
to
search
its
meme
index
for
the
particular
configuration
present
in
the
three
specimens.
And
the
computer's
response
is
unequivocal.
Probable
Origin:
Early
Christian
Gnosticism.
Subsequent
research
into
the
heresy
known
as
Gnosticism
supports
the
validity
of
the
computer's
hypothesis.
Though
seemingly
strange
bedfellows,
their
T h e C o l l e c t e d W o r k s o f D a v i d L a v e r y 10
memetic
similarities
are
unmistakable.
The
cult
films
in
question,
you
conclude,
can
unequivocally
be
described
as
Gnostic.
For
reasons
unclear
to
you,
the
dormant
memes
of
Gnosticism
experienced
a
resurgence
in
the
later
twentieth
century.
(According
to
Oswald
Spengler's
morphology
of
historical
eras
in
The
Decline
of
the
West),
the
early
Christian
era
and
the
twentieth
century
were,
after
all,
contemporaneous.)
And,
truly,
many
of
its
scholars
appear
to
have
felt
a
strong
resonance
with
the
movement.
"The
concerns
of
gnostic
Christians,"
Elaine
Pagels
had
concluded,
"survived
only
as
a
suppressed
current,
like
a
river
driven
underground"
(179).
Similarly,
Hans
Jonas
observed
that
Gnosticism,
considered
in
historical
perspective,
must
be
judged
"a
profoundly
new
attitude
whose
heirs
at
a
far
remove
we
[twentieth‐century
humankind]
are
still
today"
(264‐65).
Revealingly,
all
the
significant
extant
scholarship
on
the
sect
dates
from
that
time.
Judging
from
your
data,
Gnosticism
must
have
manifested
itself
as
well
in
the
forms
of
expression
of
the
period.
The
enigmatic
nature
of
these
films
must
certainly
have
been
decipherable
only
by
those
who
possessed
the
necessary
gnosis
to
read
their
hidden
messages.
Only
twentieth
century
followers
of
the
cult
could
have
understood
The
Man
Who
Fell
to
Earth,
Man
Facing
Southeast,
Dogs
in
Space,
and
Eraserhead
as
Gnostic
allegories
of
the
entrapment
of
an
"autochthon
of
another
world"
by
the
snares
of
Earth
and
the
body;
only
a
fellow
Gnostic
would
have
recognized
the
tragic
poignancy
of
the
plight
of
each
film's
"planetary
detainees."
And
only
those
in
the
know
could
have
grasped
that
Repo
Man,
Liquid
Sky,
and
Eraserhead
are
in
reality
stories
of
the
liberating
grace
of
alienation,
of
the
realization
of
the
"divine
spark"
within,
and
the
heeding
of
"the
call"
to
surmount
the
"stupendous
mistake"
of
this
world.
Only
they
would
recognize
the
man‐on‐high
who
damns
Henry's
to
incarnation
as
the
evil
demiurge
who
rules
the
world.
Only
fellow
Gnostics
would
have
understood
the
omnipresence
of
the
ersatz—
in
food,
dress,
religion—in
the
six
films
as
a
symbolic
description
of
the
world's
immersion
in
illusion,
or
would
have
accepted
the
libertine
immersion
in
drugs
and
sex
of
Newton,
Otto,
Margaret,
and
Sammy
as
legitimate
responses
(though
unsuccessful
in
the
cases
of
Newton
and
Sammy)
to
the
falsity
of
the
world.
Only
the
insight
granted
by
membership
would
have
made
it
possible
to
see
that
Otto's
and
Margaret's
pursuit
of
absolute
experience
has
prepared
them
to
detach
themselves
from
"the
real."
The
contempt
of
the
original
Gnostics
for
earthly
T h e C o l l e c t e d W o r k s o f D a v i d L a v e r y 11
existence
did
not,
after
all,
inevitably
lead
to
asceticism.
Some
Gnostics,
it
is
true,
preached
and
practiced
the
avoidance
of
"further
contamination
by
the
world."
But
others
believed
that
libertinism
was
the
proper
response:
that
the
"privilege
of
absolute
freedom"
could
lead
to
transcendence.
For
these
"the
first
task
was
therefore
to
use
up
the
substance
of
evil
by
combating
it
with
its
own
weapons,
by
practicing
what
might
be
called
a
homeopathic
asceticism.
Since
we
are
surrounded
and
pulverized
by
evil
[these
Gnostics
would
say],
let
us
exhaust
it
by
committing
it;
let
us
stoke
up
the
forbidden
fires
in
order
to
burn
them
out
and
reduce
them
to
ashes;
let
us
consummate
by
consuming
(and
there
is
only
one
step,
or
three
letters,
between
'consuming'
and
'consummating')
the
inherent
corruption
of
the
material
world"
(Lacarriere
76).
For
a
time
the
two
seemingly
incompatible
strains
of
Gnosticism—the
ascetic
and
the
hedonistic—existed
side
by
side.
Evidently,
you
conclude,
they
still
did
at
the
time
the
films
were
made—in
the
Space
Age.
And
only
a
Gnostic
would
have
recognized
that
the
dissonant,
absurd,
illogical,
spacy
form
of
the
films
is
in
fact
intended
as
a
faithful,
indeed
realistic
record
of
the
world's
"noise."
What
forces
brought
the
memes
of
Gnosticism
back
to
cultural
life
in
the
1970s
and
1980s,
you
cannot
say
with
any
real
certainty;
the
era
is
too,
too
obscure,
too
much
a
historical
conundrum.
The
only
hint
you
can
discern
is
in
the
inexplicable
juxtaposition
of
images
of
debauchery
in
Dogs
in
Space
with
snippets
of
the
history
of
space
exploration.
Judging
by
a
quite
inadequate
knowledge
of
early
cinematic
language,
such
contiguous
editing
might
have
beeen
intended
to
imply
some
sort
of
causal
relationship.
Those
of
us
who
have
actually
lived
during
the
years
that
witnessed
the
creation
of
the
cult
films
so
puzzling
to
my
imaginary
anthropologist
recognize
than
the
mystery
of
their
origin
is
not
so
esoteric
as
he
might
think.
For
we
know
what
he
does
not:
that
these
cult
films
are
more
mimetic
and
less
symbolic
that
he
could
imagine.
We
know
that
they
are
films
worthy
of
being
put
in
a
time
capsule
as
record
of
the
contemporary
psyche.
We
know
that
if
they
are
Gnostic
it
is
because
we
have
become,
in
our
spaciness,
in
"our
broken
faith
with
the
world,"
increasingly
New
Gnostics
ourselves.