Transformers 3 - Dark Night of the Soul

“To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the hidden manna, and will give him a white stone, and in the stone a new name written, which no man knoweth saving he that receiveth it.” ~ Revelation 2:17

Transformers – Dark Side of the Moon, offers a revelatory look at both the intermediate stages of the creation of the Philosopher’s Stone and the interior conflict that ensues at this critical juncture. It provides us with an understanding of the mystical experience commonly referred to as the “dark night of the soul”, and gives us a comprehension of how to be with this trial of consciousness. Let us begin our analysis.

In the year 1961, an escaped Cybertronian vessel crash-lands on the far side of the moon. Adding the digits of this year yields the numbers 17 and 8. Illustrated by the Tarot keys The Star (meditation) and Strength (kundalini) respectively, this condensed date sets the preconditions for the greased, slow motion, showdown that follows. Meditation inevitably terminates in the awakening of the kundalini force, which, when activated, moves through the body as the “corporeal intelligence” invoking both equilibrium and the catharsis necessary to support the emerging balance. The moon is the third eye, the ajna chakra and, more subtly, the hidden sephirah, da’at (knowledge). These correspond on a physical level with the pineal gland. What is especially relevant here is that a seemingly “alien” influence (the Cybertronian space ship called the Ark and its passengers), on that portion of esoteric anatomy responsible for “orientation,” is the source of the conflict known as the “dark night of the soul”.

Jack Engler, in Practicing for Awakening, writes on this fearful event, “the night is dark because it is overwhelmingly clear that neither God nor the soul nor the self as we knew them are any longer to be found. There is instinctive recoil and withdrawal: nothing seems sufficiently worth doing or caring about without them.”

The Ark is the last ship to have escaped the war-wrecked planet Cybertron. Its pilot is the Prime, Sentinal. Its cargo is the five “Pillars”, a soteriological solution to the Cybertronian dilemma. This dilemma is between tyranny (the Decepticons) and freedom (the Autobots). It is symbolic of the conflict between demons and angels, which simultaneously precedes and directly impacts our world. Sentinal Prime is symbolic of the “witness” state, and the five “Pillars” symbolize the five major religions that have most notably influenced humanity’s concepts of “God, the soul, and the self” throughout recorded history. These are Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism. Neither the self-conscious witness, nor religious techniques for cultivating “witness” consciousness are native to the human condition. They represent a false ceiling and the final lie before spiritual autonomy. Nevertheless they must be remediated during the “dark night of the soul”.

On Earth, the crash of the Ark is detected by NASA. The numerical value of NASA is 8, reinforcing the symbolism of the kundalini, and pointing to the truth that the stimulus to rise and discover the “moon center” is typically a reaction to the splinters of self-consciousness and cultural influence.

President John F. Kennedy authorizes the mission to put a man on the moon as a cover to investigate the crash. The numerological value of “John Fitzgerald Kennedy” is 21, which correlates with The World (the administrative intelligence) of the Tarot deck. This key is associated with the interior star Saturn (muladhara chakra) at the base of the spine, from whence the kundalini uncoils. To recap, President Kennedy (the root chakra) sends NASA (the kundalini) to the moon (brow chakra) to investigate a UFO crash observed in 1961 (meditation). This initiates the “space race”, which could be construed as a period of sadhana between the years ’61 and ’69, culminating in the 1969 landing of Apollo 11 (the balancing influence of the Heart/Sun) on the surface of the Moon.

The sum of the digits 1, 9, 6, and 9 is 7. Tarot key 7 is The Chariot, which brings us to our wheeled and wieldy protagonists, the Transformers, and the occult relevance of the taglines “more than meets the eye” and “robots in disguise”.

One can become whatever one wants to be (if one constantly contemplates on the object of desire with faith). ~ Bhagavad Gita 17.4

The year is now 2011, and the Autobots, while having forged a military alliance with the United States, largely act independently in stopping humans from destroying themselves. They exhibit all the characteristics of guardian angels. They hide, protect, teach, and reveal themselves only to the initiated.

During a mission to Chernobyl at the request of the Ukrainian government, Optimus Prime (leader of the Autobots) discovers a fuel cell from the Ark that the Soviet Union attempted to use as a power source, resulting in the Chernobyl disaster. This fuel cell has awakened Shockwave, a cycloptic Decepticon, who commands a Cybertronian drill akin to a gaggle of intertwined Dune sandworms wrapped in buzzsaws and razor wire. Here again the “third eye” and kundalini imagery exhibits, but the destructive nature of this interaction indicates that we are moving into our “dark night of the soul”, wherein the work of the kundalini is to press against our shadows and appears altogether malignant. Here the benign, soft-spoken, dulcet whispers of spiritual fruition are replaced with the stark reality of radical rebirth as the outworn is cast off. This Plutonian undertow is, from a Sentinel perspective, all part of the process, but it is experienced as the dukkha nanas (knowledges of suffering) in the Buddhist vipassana tradition, and begins with bhanga nana (knowledge of dissolution). The Moon center must be articulated on the way to the One, but it is a veritable Pandora’s box.

With this knowledge, Optimus launches his own mission to retrieve the Pillars and revive Sentinel Prime. Optimus, like Sentinel, is a Prime. In mathematics a prime is a natural number that has exactly two distinct natural number divisors: 1 and itself. Examples of prime numbers are 1, 2, 3, 5, and 7. The word optimus is Latin for “noble”, and is the etymological root of such words as optimal and optimistic. He is the archetype for the highest and best in us. He is also a symbol of faith, specifically the faith required to endure the dark night of the soul and complete the Philosopher’s Stone.

Only five Pillars remain on-board the vessel. The Pillars are the means for establishing a mobile space bridge between two points and transporting matter through. The matter that Sentinel Prime and the Decepticons hope to draw through the space bridge is the planet Cybertron itself.

I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God…

~ Revelation 21:2

Exoteric religion seeks external redemption. In this it enslaves its believers to an outer addiction, while turning them away from their inner power. This inner power is demonstrated most effectively by Optimus Prime, who utilizes the Matrix of power to jumpstart the dormant Sentinel Prime into function.

Meanwhile the everyman, Sam Witwicky is frustrated with his life. Having helped to save the world twice, he has graduated from college and yet cannot obtain gainful employment. Accredited education, just like religious merit, is ultimately empty if it has not served to bolster inner character and wisdom. He takes his frustrations out on his girlfriend, Carly Spencer, who handles him by handing him a stuffed white rabbit. Sam is our Alice and the rabbit-hole is the undulating path that he must follow to truly know Carly.

The numerical value of the name Sam Witwicky is 12. The numerical value of the name Carly Spencer is 13. Sam Witwicky, as 12, signifies both the karmic ramifications of the zodiac and the suspension of mental activity (Samadhi) necessary to transcend them. Carly Spencer, as 13, signifies grace, and this is why she bestows upon Sam the white rabbit, which he must follow beyond the stars into the white light of Primal Will beyond. Carly is the Philosopher’s Stone. She is the pineal gland reconstituted. She is the ehben (אבן) of the Rosicrucians. (Refer to my esoteric analysis of The Road.)

Carly gives Sam the white rabbit for luck, and it is by this luck that he may transcend the limitations of cosmic law and implode into limitless grace, where the miraculous is ordinary. Indeed their very relationship appears to be miraculous grace. Carly is sleek, long, and elegant, and she dismisses her rich and powerful doting playboy boss, Dylan Gould, for the spastic, jobless Sam.

Sam is finally hired by a coyote John Malkovich for the mailroom of a massive company. One of his co-workers, a conspiracy theorist named Jerry Wang, begins harassing Sam. Referring to himself as “a tiger”, he passes information on to Sam about "the dark side of the moon" before he is assassinated by the Decepticon, Laserbeak.

Rocked by the unfolding events, Sam contacts his old friend Seymour Simmons (“see more” and “hear more”). He realizes that the Decepticons are killing everyone connected to the American and Russian space missions. This is our initiation into the Vipassana stage known as bhaya nana (knowledge of fearfulness). Jumping at shadows, they locate two Russian cosmonauts who fled to America after the Soviet space program was shut down. The cosmonauts have photos taken by Soviet satellites that clearly show hundreds of Pillars being stockpiled on the Moon. The endless lies one can follow at this point along the path are now acknowledged, and Sam is wise to keep his intention on the white rabbit. We now enter into the “knowledge of misery” (adinava nana) or the “knowledge of the contemplation of disadvantages”, wherein the meditator becomes aware of impermanence, unsatisfactoriness and nonself.

Sam learns that the Decepticons raided the Ark decades prior and are luring the Autobots into a trap. Unable to revive Sentinel Prime, they had left him and five Pillars (including the Master Pillar) for the Autobots to find. The Master Pillar represents the essential motivation of all exoteric religion, namely Fear of the Unknown. Dogma is the attempt to see in black and white the gray of life. It is this absolutism that breeds the tyranny the deceitful Decepticons thrive upon. The spiritually autonomous Autobots understand that all answers and the power to meet life’s challenges come from within. Their devotion to the Matrix shows this. It is easy to surrender our power to what is outside of us. It is an act of supreme faith to take full responsibility for our circumstances by surrendering to what is within us.

Sam contacts the Autobots and reveals that Sentinel Prime is being targeted by the Decepticons. However, Sentinel has made a deal with the Decepticons and betrays both the Autobots and the humans, destroying their base and fleeing with the Pillars. Here is the inevitable fall of the witness into subjectivity and manipulation. It is the corruption of consciousness and represents the next stage of Vipassana meditation called nibbida nana (knowledge of disgust, or knowledge of dispassion), wherein “some lose their attachment to formerly desired fame and fortune. They become bored realizing that all things are subject to decay. All races and beings, even the angels and gods, are likewise subject to decay. They see that, where there is birth, old age, sickness and death prevail. So there is no feeling of attachment. Boredom therefore sets in, together with a strong inclination to search for nibbana.” It is in search of nibbana that the Prime, Sentinel, uses the Pillars to establish a space bridge with the Moon, where hundreds of Decepticons have lain in wait for many years. Boredom breeds spiritual ambition, and spiritual ambition makes of heaven, hell.

Dylan Gould (Carly’s boss) is the Decepticons' agent on Earth. He forces Sam into finding out Optimus Prime's plans for retaliation against Sentinel Prime and the Decepticons. The Autobots are exiled from Earth via a decommissioned Cybertronian spacecraft. The Decepticons destroy the Autobot rocket upon launch, and take control of Earth. Here we enter into muncitukamayata nana (knowledge of desire for deliverance). With Gould's help, they establish themselves in Chicago and fortify the city. Gould kidnaps Carly and explains to her that the Decepticons intend to rebuild Cybertron, strip-mining the Earth for resources and using humans as slave labor. In order to do this, the Decepticons have placed Pillars (religions) around the world to call Cybertron (the New Jerusalem) itself through the space bridge.

Angered at the betrayal, Sam finds USAF Chief Robert Epps, whose name’s value is 8, symbolic of the recalibration of the kundalini toward the originally intended end of liberation. The two re-form Epps' disbanded NEST team to go into Chicago and rescue Carly. They are nearly killed before they are rescued by Optimus Prime, Bumblebee, and the Autobots. In surprise twist, we learn that the Autobots escaped the explosion of their shuttle by hiding in one of the booster rockets, disengaged before the Decepticon attack. With this renewed vision we enter into the knowledge of re-observation (patisankha nana).

The woods are lovely, dark, and deep,

But I have promises to keep,

And miles to go before I sleep

~ Robert Frost

Sam, the Autobots and NEST advance on Gould's penthouse to rescue Carly and disable the Master Pillar before Cybertron appears in the sky. After battling through the city, NEST destroys the Decepticon leaders (including Shockwave – the demented perception of kundalini as demonic) while Carly convinces Megatron that he will answer to Sentinel Prime once Cybertron is restored, instead of leading the Cybertronians himself. Here the Carly (the Stone) appeals to the base instincts of Megatron by saying, “You’ll always be Sentinel’s bitch”, and this is accurate in that no demon or angel has any ultimate power over the witness state. While the witness is a strange permutation of human dialectic, it is ultimately master over all astral entities, in that it is beyond good and evil.

Sam reaches the Master Pillar and battles Gould, who is electrocuted by the Pillar, which Bumblebee destroys. Being trumps fear all day. This disrupts the connection with Cybertron and the appearing planet collapses. Our external salvation is dissolved, and we are left now with the final battle between Faith (Optimus Prime) and the Witness (Sentinal Prime). Here faith must win for the witness is the glass ceiling of the mind, and faith engages with perseverance to shatter that ceiling so that Consciousness may go beyond into the No Thing that is our true nature.

During the fight Optimus loses an arm and nearly his life to Sentinel; however, Megatron, swayed by Carly, attacks Sentinel. Optimus musters his strength and rips Megatron's head and spine from his body, enunciating the complete sublimation of the ego to Consciousness. He then executes Sentinel, for in this state of transcendence the witness is no longer necessary and only the flow of grace remains.

Sam (Samadhi) and Carly (Stone) are now united. With Cybertron gone, the Autobots are free from the tyranny of exoteric religious beliefs and cultural conditioning. Earth is now their only home. The kingdom of spirit is embodied in my flesh.

“Who's gonna tell you when, it's too late
Who's gonna tell you things, aren't so great
You can't go on, thinking nothing's wrong
Who's gonna drive you home tonight”

~ The Cars

Green Lantern - Central vs Peripheral Will

Green Lantern is primarily a story about Will as harnessed by Cosmic Administration for effective intercession on behalf of creation. The movie’s cosmology presupposes two conflicting forces of entropy (Fear) and enthalpy (Will) vying for the destruction and exaltation of the manifest galaxy.

From the film: “Billions of years ago, a group of immortals harnessed the most powerful force in existence: the emerald energy of willpower. These immortals, the guardians of the universe, built a world from where they could watch over all of existence: the planet Oa. A ring powered by the energy of will was sent to every sector of the universe to select or recruit. In order to be chosen by the ring, one had to be without fear. Together these recruits formed the intergalactic peacekeepers known as the Green Lantern Corps...”

This “emerald” energy is regarded in occult Qabalah as the Intelligence of Will, which, when mastered, “acquaints one with the laws of perpetual motion” and “positions one to demonstrate the quadrature of the circle”. We shall see here shortly how this acquaintance and orientation expresses through our hero Hal Jordan, through his initiation into the Green Lantern Corps and his mastery of the heirloom ring. The Intelligence of Will is most handily shown in the 9^th key of the Tarot, namely The Hermit, who stands on high and “shines white light and wants to show how everything still turns to gold.”

Vital to note here is that following initiation, demonstration is the heroic action that redeems both humanity and earth. In this Hal Jordan is not unlike any genius that has ever graced the world of men. He is a brother to Leonardo de Vinci who demonstrates the quadrature of the circle through The Vitruvian Man, a model frequently mimicked by Hal in orb throughout the film. And it is in orb that many of the members of the Green Lantern Corps travel through space. Great merkabian chariots cut between stars on their missions to uplift the galactic symphony and crush the yellow fear wherever it arises, for Will is the creative urge of the Cosmos, and Fear stalls and stifles it.

The Bene Gesserit Littainy against Fear” found on page 19 of Dune by Frank Herbert reads:

“I must not fear.
Fear is the mind-killer.
Fear is the little death that brings total obliteration.
I will face my fear.
I will permit it to pass over me and through me.
And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path.
Where the fear has gone there will be nothing.
Only I will remain.”

Our hero, Hal Jordan, is a test pilot whose father was killed in an accident when he was a boy. A numerological analysis of the name gives us the number 38/11: Force, manifest through man’s image-making faculties, produces justice (or dynamic equilibrium). This dynamic equilibrium is the demonstration of the quadrature of the circle, from which all creative potential arises.

In the Chinese internal martial arts (neijia) this effect is called “sung”. By definition sung is “a state in which muscles are relaxed, not limp, but not tense. There is sufficient muscular activity to maintain posture. There is also a slight extension of each joint in the body so as to open the joint, almost as though separating the bones. This creates a ‘connectivity’ essential in establishing peng jin (uprooting power). When done correctly there will be an increased flow of blood throughout the body...”

This “sung” is a poised alertness that facilitates spontaneous creativity. Cultivated through Zhan Zhuang (pole standing) alongside formwork (such as taijichuan’s long form or baguazhang’s walking circle) this state becomes the well of Will from which martial actions arise. Practitioners of these methods have no preconceptions of reaction in combat. They create at Will under the pressures of circumstance. The power of the Green Lantern is the same. Hal Jordan is granted this power to create instantly, at Will, instinctively or intuitively, in accord with the cosmic directive. He is chosen to become a theurgist, that is, to work as God works in the interest of justice. His will becomes unified with the Primal Will to good, which eternally creates and sustains the universe.

To fully understand Hal Jordan’s initiation as a member of the galactic executive branch, we much engage him at his origin. Our first glimpse of Hal is over the shoulder of a naked, sleeping beauty, symbolic of Nature and Nature’s Laws. She also reveals to us Hal’s orientation on the Qabalistic Tree of Life within Netzach (Victory), whose assigned color is green. Netzach is the world of desire, or ratzon (רצון) in Hebrew. This “desire” is identical with willpower, the quality of which is determined by the quality of the consciousness willing. Ultimately all will is the One Will; however, the expression of that will, and the role that will plays in the great scheme of cosmic unfolding, is contingent upon how closely aligned the individual will is with the Will of Divinity. In other words, our will may be “central” or “peripheral”.

Peripheral will is personal will detached from the One Will permeating all of creation. It is dispensable and temporal, and as such it creates a gnawing sense of isolation and fear in the hearts of those that wield it. Such is the will of the entity Parallax who challenges the Green Lantern Corps and defeats Abin Sur of Sector 2814.

In physics, a parallax is an apparent displacement or difference in the apparent position of an object viewed along two different lines of sight. It is measured by the angle or semi-angle of inclination between those two lines. The term is derived from the Greek παράλλαξις (parallaxis), meaning "alteration". The entity Parallax was conceived when one of the ten Guardians on Planet Oa, named Krona desired to control the yellow essence of fear, and ultimately became the embodiment of fear itself.

Yellow is not the color of fear, but rather the color of the sephirah Tiphareth (Beauty) that serves the messianic role of mediating between the upper sephiroth and the lower sephiroth on the Tree of Life. The story of Krona is the crisis that ensues when one believes himself to be a separate individuated will and, through this false identification with temporal form, faces death. All fear is fear of death, and, in the end, it is Hal’s surrender to death that allows Parallax to be drawn past him into the Sun, where “death is swallowed up in victory (netzach).” (I Corinthians 15:54) It is time (Chronos/Krona) that gives birth to the illusion of death (Parallax) and subsequent fear, for through the passage of time all things undergo dissolution in entropy.

A dualistic alteration in perception is born when time attempts to control the Self at the heart of creation. This immortal Self is the singular “I” behind our eyes. It is free from time, but enters into time to experience itself. When time eclipses our immortal nature through misidentification, the false perception of death occurs and gives rise to fear. It is this fear and the perversion of false perception that creates the illusion of entropy.

The tenth Guardian, Krona, represents the sephirah Malkuth. This is the material world - the world of the senses. Problematically, Krona acted on his own accord without consent of the other Guardians representing the higher sephiroth of Yesod through Kether. It is when we view the material world outside the context of the other worlds that we lose perspective and fall prey to the misperception of death as an ending rather than a transformation.

So the stage is set for our dashing, mustang-driving, high-flying, “fearless”, maverick, protagonist Hal Jordan’s small wrecked life on Planet Earth, as he outmaneuvers droid planes and trades in his job to keep his ace ego intact. His employer Ferris Aircraft loses their lucrative contract with devious government, and he is displaced. His disorderly conduct and intimacy handicap leave him jobless and alone. It is in this bereft state that the ring sweeps him up in an orgonic whirlwind and delivers him to the dying Abin Sur, who bestows upon him the ring and the lantern, instructing him, “The ring, it chose you. Use its power to defend our universe. Become one of us... become a Green Lantern.”

To become a Green Lantern is to join one’s personal will to the One Will of the cosmic administration, whose sole purpose is to uphold galactic justice. This is not some pathetic self-donation whereby one surrenders personal ambitions to an ideal, which, of course, is always an attempt to glorify and immortalize the ego by identifying with some perceived outer all-powerful egregore in the form of cause, government, religion, philosophy, or a god or god-man. Initiation into the Green Lantern Corps is to be chosen and to embrace that destiny with courage and grit. It is the heroism of ancient myth as opposed to the relatively modern Dionysian self-sacrificial varieties.

While Hal Jordan is undergoing his verdant metamorphosis, his polar opposite undergoes his own transformation. Hector Hammond is infected by the yellow fear while examining Abin Sur’s corpse. In short time his mercurial proclivities are exaggerated to splendorous proportions as the alien DNA infiltrates his genes. Hector becomes hideously intellectual, albeit enslaved to the shadow of Tiphareth (Parallax). That Parallax reflects this holy shadow is indicated by its confinement to sector 666 at the beginning of the film. No number is inherently good or evil; however, the numeral 666 has become commonly identified with the vices of the Sun, namely pride and rebellion. The Sun is holy when it knows itself to be a vessel and a channel for light. The Sun is demonic when it believes that it is the source of that light.

“How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! How art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations! For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north: I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High. Yet thou shalt be brought down to hell, to the sides of the pit.” ~ Isaiah 14:12-15

This fall is spiritual isolation. It is erotic exile, and is the secret of the 26^th Path of Wisdom on the Tree of Life and the 15^th Tarot Key: The Devil. It is called the Renewing Intelligence, and he who masters it “forces nature to make him free at his pleasure”. This is the power descending from Tiphareth to Hod, wherein the intellect is given the cleverness to circumvent natural processes. Technology, at large, is the dim light the devil shines, but that unholy glow often illuminates the universal mystery only enough to breed arrogance and self-importance amongst humans. In this they become blind to the fact that this knowledge is provisional and destructive without the higher lights of consciousness, wisdom, understanding, mercy, justice, and beauty.

In his bloated state of delusion, Hector manipulates Hal by threatening to inject Carol Ferris with the yellow genetic material from Parallax. Carol Ferris is Hal’s true love and symbolizes the supportive flow of shefa from the sephirah Chesed (blue Mercy) to Netzach (green Victory) via the 21^st path on the Tree of Life, associated with the Wheel of Fortune and the Intelligence of the Desirous Quest, which, when mastered, allows one “to change into gold not only all metals, but also the earth itself, and even the refuse of the earth”. It is Carol Ferris whose merciful influence changes Hal Jordan’s heart to merit wearing the Green Lantern ring. Once a philandering scallywag, she teaches him the value of intimacy and relational integrity. She teaches him the true meaning of courage, as the ability to “feel the fear and do it anyway”. And she inspires him towards the Beauty that awaits him beyond his fear of death. In all this, Hal becomes worthy of the ring he wears. Love makes us heroes.

Hal defeats Hector, as desire always trumps intellect, and lures Parallax away from Earth and into the Sun. He is nearly spent when his colleagues arrive to pull him from its gravitational pull. Hal has been reborn. He has conquered death and hell (or variations on those themes), and has earned the respect of the Green Lantern Corps. He is the first human to join their ranks, and in so doing ennobles his entire species in the eyes of the galactic administration.

^“And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me.” ~ John 12:32

Go Green for the Win!