Now that Twin Peaks The Return is over here’s a few thoughts about the symbolism. Lynch and Frost invite the viewers to try to firewalk our way through Twin Peaks.
Firewalking is the shaman’s ability to walk between the worlds. There are multiple ways to view the world. There is the witness state where one is an observer. It requires meditation. We see Cooper do this. There is superconscious where one sees from the universal mind. The Fireman for example is there on an island in the unconscious sea, deep within the mind, and another dimension. There are advanced interdimensional entities with great control, like magicians and sorcerers but they are not necessarily supraconscious. There is the individual consciousness, the characters living out their lives in a dream cut off from the awareness of larger reality. There is a way of viewing things as revealed through Dr Jacoby wearing red and blue-lensed glasses. One lens suppresses emotion and the other suppresses logic. The truth may be seen somewhere between the two.
The firewalker exists outside of the dream because he sees the different worlds at once. Those within the worlds are the dreamers. Enlightened masters describe people as sleeping. People called Buddha “The Awake One.” Firewalking is to be awake.
Twin Peaks is dealing in archetypes and the subconscious. A a hint through the design of the Great Northern Hotel. The interior of the hotel is covered in symbols of North West Coast Native American art. The symbols represent form-line deities, forces at work in nature and the community that are so large they can only be alluded to by symbols. Nature exists within them. The room key from the Northern Hotel that Cooper is given lets him open the door to firewalk. He is looking from a perspective outside of time where past and future and multiple dimensions converge.
One of the best questions in Twin Peaks is, “Is it about the bunny?” The bunny is a seemingly insignificant thing that almost goes unnoticed. The cosmic answer is, “Yes, in a way it is.” It is about the fabric underlying the material world. One has to firewalk to sense t and glimpse its effects. Lynch is showing us an event so cosmic in scope that it can only be described by looking at it symbolically, through meditation like a Shaman, and from multiple dimensions. The atom is a small thing, invisible to the naked eye, but it has monumental effects.
We see the symbol of the atomic explosion on the wall in Gordon Cole’s office at the FBI. Lynch plays the part of Gordon. I am guessing that the central symbol he wants us to focus on is the splitting of Prima Materia, the atom. Years ago I studied Alchemy, Kundalini, and Aleister Crowley (Moonchild Ritual) among other obscure esoteric things. These came in handy to understand Twin Peaks.
The 3 goals of Alchemy are:
"The Creation and Destruction of Primordial Matter”
"The Killing of the Divine King”
"The Bringing of Prima Materia to Prima Terra”
See here: http://www.ctrl.org/essay2/MCIJFKA3.html
“There are 33 segments in the human spinal column which according to occult lore is the vehicle of the fiery ascent of the Kundalini serpent force which resides in the human body. 33 is the highest degree of Scottish Rite Freemasonry. Near the Trinity Site a derelict shack was symbolically dubbed "MacDonald House." The Creation and Destruction of Primordial Matter occurred exactly on the Trinity Site, the "Place of Fire," with the explosion of the first atomic bomb, culminating untold thousands of years of alchemical speculation and practice [by secret societies, Lodges].” –Hoffman
The bomb’s impact is revealed through various layers/dimensions of Twin Peaks. The splitting the atom was an electrical, alchemical chain reaction of events. Consciousness and nature were forever changed. It was not just a physical event that came and went. It was a chain reaction going off in multiple dimensions, occurring all at once and resounding through infinity.
Nature was disturbed and intimate relationships lovers and the nuclear family were disturbed because karma does not just affect an individual. It effects the whole. It even effects Cherry Pie, whether it is great or just ok. The impact of the energy and electricity is not to be seen as just a 3 dimensional event of atoms splitting. It is a cosmic event, a cosmic trigger.
So…let’s talk about Judy (Jiao De). In Twin Peaks vernacular Judy is a diabolical energy that ravages creation. Jiao in Chinese means, “to call.” Laura Palmer’s reaction to Judy is to call out, scream. “De Jiao” is a Chinese term that means “the teaching of virtue.” It is the supreme ethics that transcends Taoism and Confucianism. It is the moral order, the moral fabric of society. I am not sure if this is what Lynch was meant but let’s consider that it might be. The fact that the De Jiao is reversed as Jiao De is Lodge speak. It would mean that Judy is the decay of morality, the ripping apart of the moral fabric of society. Twin Peaks in part a morality play.
Sarah Palmer said, “It’s a God damn bad story. Isn’t it Hawk?” The “Story of the girl down the lane (Sarah Palmer)” is nothing less than the story of the Fall of Man. Sarah is a microcosm, a casualty of a cosmic event that resulted in innocence lost and destruction. A great evil came to Earth by either creating the Atom Bomb to tear a hole in our dimension (The Moonchild Ritual Working of Aleister Crowley to bring about the AntiChrist, a souless being, The Destroyer to Earth) or it was just used it as opportunity to for evil to come into our dimension. The Moonchild Ritual required the tearing down of the walls of space/time, the breaking down the gates between Earth and Hell. I won’t get too much into it but let’s just say the GreyLodge (an actual lodge) gave it a try on Earth in reality.
In the Biblical Fall when creation was new and sleeping on the 6th day Satan sowed tares (demons) among the creation. In Twin Peaks the Return, a great evil interjected itself between the young lovers’ first kiss and consummation of their love and thereby entered the creation. The idea that the past affects the future is repeated throughout Twin Peaks. The only hope of fixing future events is to deal with the past. We see Jeffries give the location of Judy. Her location is the infinity symbol with a ball (the bomb?) traveling back and forth around the bottom and going through the center.
From the first kiss something went wrong…
On Sarah and Leland’s date they kissed for the first time. It was perfect innocence but when Sarah was resting, Judy went into her mouth, corrupted her, and eventually corrupted her husband Leland. Laura was the White Lodge counterbalance to Judy (who was inhabiting Sarah) and Bob her offspring (who was inhabiting Leland). The family that should have been a happy family was torn apart like atoms splitting.
We see the specter of the White Horse (death) in White Sands after the bomb tests, in the Palmer household in Sarah’s dream when Leland is about to rape Laura, and later as a figurine on Carrie Page’s (Laura’s) mantle in her home in Odessa. The end result is Laura Palmer’s screams echoing through the forest and through multiple dimensions of creation.
Bob is a microcosm of the Atomic bomb expressed as a circular figure. The Fireman sent Laura to put of the spiritual fire by absorbing its energy and discharging it. When Bob enters the human world, what should have been innocence became perverse. The love of a mother for her the daughter became destruction. A father’s protection of his daughter became rape and murder. A child’s trust of her parents became fear and horror. The Palmer family is a microcosm of the splitting and destruction of the nuclear family. When their family split, it caused a chain reaction in the town of Twin Peaks. It affected everyone and everything. It is the web of life that was affected.
We see the fatal kiss replayed between Bob and Diane. When Bob raped Diane it was to tear apart 2 lovers. The real Diane and Cooper understood that it was vital for them to kiss. Naido backwards is “O Dian.” Oh Diane… Diane and Cooper made an intentional point to kiss 3 different times. Their kisses were a way to restoring the natural order, the affinity between lovers, bringing together what was split. When they kissed as their true selves something went right in the cosmic order. They chose to not allow rape by Bob to destroy their love.
Their kiss and sex was an act of reparation. During sex Cooper allowed Diane to be in control and work through the emotions of rape, separation, horror, love and respect. The memories were so traumatic that she could not look at her lover’s face. She had to cover it and stare at the ceiling but Cooper stayed with her through the whole process. Love is salvation after The Fall. It is through the cosmic act of love that the moral fabric of the world is restored, relationship by relationship.
We see the damage done to nature in the form of the forest. The portal in the forest to the White Lodge looks like a crater from a bomb that hit the Earth. We saw the 2 drug addicted lovers in the forest and they kiss. The young man shoots himself because has gone mad and there is a sound that echoes through the forest. When Lara screams it is echoes through the forest.
The forest log tried to right the wrongs for the forest and for humanity through the Log Lady. The Log Lady said that she was dying, that the log was turning gold. In alchemy gold is the color of transmutation, the changing of one thing to another. The Log Lady was speaking for herself and for the forest. We see the forest in the lodge is alive but there is the crater in the ground from the nuclear bomb. We see the trees alive and then we see the trees are dead. The lovers, Cooper and Diane are there too. We see the curtains behind them. Another word for curtains is death. Life was lost and love was lost. The question is can the damage be repaired? Will it be the lovers and the forest that is alive at the curtain call or will it be moral decay and bombs going off? Will love prevail after all?
When Freddie hits Bob (the bomb) with the green glove (the color of the forest), Bob goes into the ground like a microcosm of the A-Bomb, and the fire arises. Bob is then split apart and sent out of the Earth dimension back to the Lodge. The damage to the ground disappears. The Log Lady said to “Look for the one under the moon on Blue Pine Mountain.” Cooper found Laura on a mountain in the moonlight. He took her hand and therefore she never emerged from the darkness of the forest to meet her death. Instead, Cooper tried to take her back home, like Judy Garland in the Wizard of Oz and Alice in Wonderland.
When Laura and Cooper got to the Palmer house the person who opened the door identified her herself as Alice Tremond but she pronounced it as “Trumond.” I read her name as a clue. Her first name is Alice as in Alice in Wonderland and True Monde (Monde is the French word for world). The name means “Alice in the True World.” Laura was home. The conversation between Gordon and Monica, the French woman at the café was about the dreamer so it makes sense to use a French word to wrap up the dream sequence. When Laura screamed in reaction to Judy the electricity in Judy’s house went out. Laura may have successfully shut Judy down in the true world by discharging the energy through screaming and therefore transmuting it.
As a dreamer who did a little firewalking through Twin Peaks I am choosing to see our cosmic situation through the lenses of hope and personal integrity, by digging my way out of the shit with the golden shovel of transmutation. There is hope that we will repair the damage and moral decay in our society. It requires going back in time to repair things, right our wrongs, and do better as Dr. Jacoby suggests. Cooper is clear that there is no going forward if we do not deal with the past. The past always affects the future. If we go back, psychically and emotionally, things will be different and hopefully better.
Anything is better than moral decay but it will not be an easy fix. It really does matter if we forgive, if we do not sell out. There is more work to do and it is a daunting task from the look on Cooper’s face at the end. There are more dimensions where Judy still exists. It was the cherry pie that saved our hero after all. It was damn good cherry pie and the coffee wasn’t too bad either. It is the small things we take time out for, the things we do with integrity, and love that we share that saves us.
Great work that is well thought out. I always believed to understand Lynch/Frost we would have to exam their areas of studies and beliefs. Sounds like you may be on the right track. Let me ask this, do you think that Judy is the Moonchild? And when the frogmoth enter the girls mouth, could it have been creating the "butterfly nest?" I thought that the Fireman might have put Laura into Sarah's womb to keep the butterfly nest from catching the Moonchild.
That is an interesting and complex question. I’ll take a poke at it. This explanation is long in case people not familiar with Crowley want to understand your question. I'll start with Babalon Working Ritual to give context to the the Butterfly Net question you're asking.
According to Aleister Crowley the Gates of Hell cannot be opened from Hell but must be opened from Earth. The lock is on our side. The keys however are not on our side. The gates are held shut by the 4 Watchtowers of Earth, the 4 Archangels of heaven. The keys to unlock the gates are Enochian, angelic keys that govern legions of spirits.
John Dee 1582-1587 supposedly received keys from Enochian angels that would allow humans to open Earth to other dimensions. The angels led Dee to believe that a portal could be opened for human purposes and then closed before the barrier was completely breached. Dee believed that the gates could not be completely opened until a time initiated by God alone.
Crowley believed himself to be the reincarnation of Edward Kelley who worked with Dee to obtain the keys. He saw himself as the guardian of the Apocalypse. He believed that the beginning of the Apocalypse is the same date as the successful completion of the full ritual working of the 48 Enochian Keys. According to him, the date is not predetermined but rather determined by the free will actions of a single human being called the Antichrist. Crowley believed that the Antichrist does not accomplish this alone. He needs the help of the Scarlet Woman, Babalon to do the ritual working to open the gates. The King needs a Queen.
BAB = gate
AL = God
ON = On
Balalon is the “Gate of the God On.”
“The 19th Enochian Key, for whom Babalon’s bed is his dwelling place.
The Dragon whose eighth head reigns in Daäth is identical with the Beast 666. The male half is Shugal (333), the howler in the Desert of Set; the female half is Choronzon (333) or Typhon, the prototype of Babalon, the Scarlet Woman.” --Aleister Crowley
In The Vision and the Voice (Liber 418) Crowley was told that the number of Choronzon was 333 in his skrying of the 10th Æthyr.
A perplexing aspect of Babalon Working ritual is that although the sexual ritual occurs between the Beast and Babalon the child is not necessarily conceived by her in the physical sense. The child could be born anywhere. The ritual gives it entrance to incarnate into our dimension. It opens the gate.
If we follow Crowley’s logic, Judy and Bob need a woman to do the ritual working. Bob is only ½ of the equation. This alchemical marriage would not simply be for Bob to become immortal on Earth and thereby quench his lust for sex and blood. Those were his personal goals. It would also be the marriage of Antichrist and the Scarlet Woman, Babalon, which would affect world consciousness. The Aeon of Horus is the duration of the apocalypse, that period when Coronzon rules over the cosmos and visits destruction upon mankind.
The ritual would require the Kundalini fire rising during the act of sex. Crowley used Babylonian sex rituals to tear the fabric of space/time to create his initial portal in 1918. The ultimate goal, The Great Work, was to tear down the interdimensional walls to bring hell to Earth. Some alchemists and lodges saw the Atomic Bomb as the perfect opportunity to help breach the barrier and fulfill their alchemical goals.
The Masons have a saying, “32 degrees is just thawing out.” My interpretation of that phrase is an inert power like water frozen at 32 degrees Fahrenheit becomes an active power at 33 when it thaws out. It is also refers to longitude and latitude coordinates.
The Atomic Bomb tests at White Sands, NM Trinity Site, July 16th 1945, were accompanied by ritual workings by Masons from what I have read. To sum it up, a 32nd Degree Mason ordered Atomic Bombs to be dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki on August, 6, 1945. Hiroshima is 34.2 degrees latitude and Nagasaki is 32.4 degrees latitude. 33 degrees goes right through them. On October 19, 1945, President Harry Truman was given the Masonic 33rd degree of the Supreme Council of the Scottish Rite. The lodges believe coordinates are important in opening/ closing portals as is time.
* I am not interpreting the meanings of the actual events but simply stating this because of its presence in Twin Peaks.
That brings me to your question about the Butterfly Net. In Twin Peaks did the Black Lodge set off the Atomic bomb in order to breach the barrier and thereby force the White Lodge to send an angelic being into incarnation to stop the breach? Whether they did it intentionally or just benefited from the breach it appears that they attempted to capture Laura’s soul in a Butterfly Net so she could be used as Babalon.
I think the Palmer house was used by the Black Lodge as a Butterfly Net for Laura’s soul. Carrie Page’s house also appeared to be part of the net. I say that because of the appearance of the white horse of the Apocalypse in both locations. The dead body was also an ominous sign. The address of the Palmer residence is 708. It probably has some alchemical significance but I am not sure of exactly what it is.
In Crowley’s Moonchild Ritual, the number 9 (which is sacred to the moon), was used along with its square of 81. If memory serves correctly when Jeffries shows Cooper and Mike Judy’s location the 8 infinity symbol turns in a circle and in doing so becomes the #1 when viewed from its profile.
Crowley’s story of the Moonchild Ritual took place at a villa nicknamed The Butterfly Net. The villa was an occult temple based on sacred geometry. This ritual was designed to manifest a woman who is an individual incarnation of the archetypal divine feminine called Babalon, the Scarlet Woman of Revelation. In my opinion the net could also be trapping an untrained mind in a dream world.
Through the ritual a higher being would incarnate on Earth, be captured spiritually, and there would be ritual workings even before conception to try demonize the child. The child (Laura) would then exist in a Butterfly Net (Palmer House) where it would undergo rituals (sex with Bob and other things that happened at the Lodge) designed to bring about a change in her nature towards evil. We see a fight going on inside Laura through the Guardian Angel picture on her wall at the Palmer residence. At one point, the angel disappears.
We also have to consider Audrey Horne in this scenario. Bob appears to have had sex with her when she was in a coma. She then gave birth to Richard. Was Richard part of couple “Richard and Linda?” in one of the timelines/dimensions? Possibly. It may have also been Cooper and Diane or their doppelgangers (or a combination or real Cooper with doppelganger Diane or vice versa).
Audrey’s dance occurred in front of what looked like red Lodge curtains and then she woke up somewhere else. What happened to her soul? The Lodge appears to have targeted more than 1 young woman for the job. It appears that they had backups. It think that is why they did the Twin Peaks beauty pageant, Plan B. I believe that Laura was Plan A. Audrey also knew the story of the little girl down the lane.
An answer to the puzzle may be found in the poem from the Black Lodge. Audrey was given part of it. Also the female archetype/ goddess is sometimes seen as a triple goddess, 3 aspects of 1 goddess.
https://www.sheepproductions.com/tps/quotes/poems.htm
In Plan A we see that both of Laura’s parents were prepared from childhood. The images of Leland as a boy, with the jumping man mask (a symbol of possession in my opinion). There was the scene with the arm (the man in red). He said, “With this ring I Thee wed.” The Arm was wed to Leland. Leland’s face shows him as a boy, the Jumping Man (Possession), and the monkey (Judy). I believe that Judy and Bob were Laura’s parents not Sarah and Leland. I believe Mike attempted to warn Laura that Bob was her father in the scene in Firewalk With Me when he drove a truck in circles around their car she was in with Leland/Bob.
It appears that although the Black Lodge has more of a presence on Earth in Twin Peaks, the White Lodge has more skill at manipulating time. We see how confused Bob was when the Fireman was able to change times and places and Bob ended up at the police station instead of the Palmer residence. It seems like the factor the Black Lodge could not control is that Laura’s soul was the pure white light from the White Lodge. I think the White Lodge placed an indestructible soul into the ritual working. When Laura took off her mask for Cooper her essence was pure white light as opposed to what we see when Sarah Palmer removes her mask to show us Judy. It appears that the White Lodge did an interception of sorts. They interjected a soul that the Black Lodge could not take.
Bob sought to possess Laura and he failed. We see this when she died and Bob is screaming. She resisted him and he lost her soul. He could only kill her body. We see Laura and Cooper after her physical death in the Lodge and the Angel comes to her.
Towards the end of Twin Peaks The Return it appears that Judy lost the round and it was a total knockout by the White Lodge. I originally thought Sarah Palmer’s meltdown the convenience store was the fear of the Black Lodge residents coming back. In retrospect, I now wonder if it was Judy fearing Mike and Cooper walking into the dimension, up the Convenience store stairs, to do a smack down. The men that were coming may have been the good guys. Judy knew something in the dimension had shifted when she saw the Lodge symbols on the Beef Jerky and Turkey Jerky .Turkey Jerky was added the mix.
I have to point out an obscure thing Laura said the night she died. She referred to herself as “long gone like a turkey in the corn.” Corn is the symbol of fertility (female archetype) according to Hawk’s map. The corn can be positive or negative. It depends on whether or not the Female Archetype affecting creation is positive or negative. Judy may have realized that the men were coming with Laura (positive female archetype). Judy freaked out. Backups came to the Palmer house and that is why we hear them rummaging around the kitchen when Hawk is at the door. My guess is they may have been the bearded men or some other type of Lodge entities.
We see Sarah Palmer sitting drunk in front of the TV and a boxing match is underway. A boxer keeps getting knocked out. The scene is on a loop. Later I think the Judy knockout came to pass when the White Lodge intercepted Laura by having Cooper go into the past to stop her murder.
We see Judy’s reaction in the Palmer house aka the Butterfly Net. The butterfly ,Laura’s soul, escaped. Judy is shown stabbing the picture of Laura, which I see as representation of Laura’s soul ,the same image we saw of her in the White Lodge before she came to Earth. Laura’s soul behaves like Teflon. The glass breaks all around the image but the image, the essence which is her soul, remains unscathed and in fact appears to bounce back. The Black Lodge lost that round and Judy was howling.
It appears that a total knockout may have happened when the lights in the Palmer House went out. I almost wonder if Judy was caught in the net herself at that point. The web she made for Laura might have snared Judy in the end. Laura was full of secrets from the White Lodge. The scene of Cooper and Laura in the Lodge in the final scene of Twin Peaks Return may have been the past when Laura whispered in his ear. I wonder if she was telling Cooper the secret of how to defeat Judy.
There is the question of Diane (Diana).
Her red hair and lodge colors at the end cannot be overlooked.
Crowley examined the Tarot in The Book of Thoth (032). Of the Empress card he said "She combines the highest spiritual with the lowest material qualities" (033). Crowley identifies the Empress as the "Great Mother", and indeed on her robe are bees (034), the traditional symbol of Cybele. Crowley is not alone in the belief that different cultures give different names to the same deities. The worship of Cybele goes back to at least 3,000 B.C. She entered Greek culture as Artemis and to the Romans was Diana, the huntress. Crowley also identified the Empress with the Hindu goddess Shakti (035), and the Egyptian goddesses Isis and Hathor. Crowley directly identified Isis with Diana (036). More usually, Crowley called the Empress by the name Babalon (037).
In my opinion, Cooper and Diane were doing a reverse ritual.
Cooper was unemotional in the exchange. I think he had to be because if a person remains unemotional, they’re safe from psychic invasion of the Black Lodge. The Black Lodge feeds off negative emotions. Cooper’s personality was a bit altered and here is why I think it was. When Cooper used the key to firewalk he did the firewalking with Mike. Mike and Cooper were shown flashing back and forth, merging in my opinion. So some of Mike wore off on Cooper just like Bob affected the doppelganger Bad Cooper. There is a blending of consciousness between the human and the Lodge entity. It is not necessarily permanent but was done out of necessity to stop a bigger problem.
I am not sure how to interpret the Richard and Linda doppelganger. They might have been Linda and evil Richard (Bob’s son) in a timeline before Richard died. They could have been Diane and Cooper in a different dimension/timeline, doppelgangers, or combinations of real and doppelganger.
Rocket fuel scientists/occultist, Jack Parsons, and L Ron Hubbard, founder of Scientology, attempted the Babalon Working in real life based on Crowley’s work. They did the ritual with a red haired woman. This ritual was based on Crowley’s sex magick ceremonies and included sexual encounters between Jack Parsons and Marjorie Cameron. Cameron was not the intended vessel for the child that the rituals aimed to conjure. According to Parsons, the Antichrist was to be born nine months after the ritual but was to be immaculately conceived elsewhere without the participation of Parsons, Hubbard, or Cameron. Oddly Cameron’s name came up in the Mantauk (time travel) conspiracy theories. Aleister Crowley was never directly involved in these rituals and thought Parsons and Hubbard were louts as he called them.
There is a book called "Montauk Revisited: Adventures in Synchronicity" featuring synchronicity between the Montauk Project, Aleister Crowley, and the Wilson Clan, with particular focus on Marjorie Cameron, Jack Parsons, and L. Ron Hubbard.
There are many good points made about the alchemy in Twin Peaks. I am just skimming the surface.
If you want to go further into the alchemy of Twin Peaks here is a good article: http://zoraburden.weebly.com/the-esoteric-symbolism-of-twin-peaks.html
Fire walk with