The second part in understanding the seemingly esoteric series is understanding who is paying the bills – in this case ABC / Disney. Like Dan Brown’s Da Vinci Code, it is fun to draw upon the canon of esoterica and mysticism to seemingly substantiate the boundless pathways to intrigue necessitated by a weekly one-hour high-budget drama based on anything outside the run-of-the-mill police procedural, teen coming-of-age drama or Yuppie comedy. That does not mean that it is any deeper than the respective minds of its viewers.

All of which is not to say that I disliked the show. Read my previous post about season 6 episode 16 to get a better idea of why I loved the series as much as I did, and then read the following as to why I don’t think it is much more than that:

On a Facebook thread dated March 24th, 2010 I wrote:

I told you in season one it was Purgatory.

The quick reply was:

The producers debunked the “purgatory” theory a few years ago. Sorry, it’s not that simple.

So I felt I needed to extrapolate my theory:

“ABC loves doing shows that are just Biblical parables – I wondered if they might manage to escape that pattern with Lost, but given how close this is seeming to the whole afterlife concept, I would be really amazed if they can escape its gravity and pull off something way more quantum. Nonetheless, I loved the episode last night – for sheer production value alone. And yeah Jacob and Smokey, Hugo the medium, Ricardus – wonderfully metaphysical and all those Mcguffins about the Devil! Can’t wait to see how this ends up having nothing to do with a biblical afterlife.

Granted the Egyptian references are ubiquitous as are all other manner of esoterica – good stuff to draw from in building a canon of mythological symbolism to take us down the rabbit hole, but in the end, whether or not it is literally a retelling of Job, it is about sitting in limbo (not the kind populated by unborn babies, but, well purgatory) and asking whether or not we can transcend our fate and find absolution.

Christiany co-opted everything before it anyway, so the Egyptian thing doesn’t throw that off course. (The Virgin Mary is mentioned more in the Quran than in the entire New Testament.) In fact the very horned image of the devil that we know is the product of the battle between Templars who may have bastardized the name of of Islam’s prophet into Baphomet (so as to disempower its influence, it was literally demonized).

The Devil is the figure who was short-changed and cast out of Heaven and whose function is to tempt you away from certainty. “Think you are ready? Need anything? Can I help you with something” the Devil asks. If you concede that you in fact require a favor, or help from the Devil then he will grant it but you will be in his debt and unprepared for the Kingdom of Heaven. Smokey has always been this way (and although Jacob may appear to do this, he never makes such offers and in fact is totally loathe to intervene lest he become devil-like). “If you let him (Flocke) talk to you, then it is already too late.”

See where I am going with this? Doesn’t matter what you call it – it is still a parable about purgatory in the biblical sense.”

I think it is only fair, however, to point out that the value of the subject matter in LOST became greater than the sum of its parts in no small way due to the input of the cast and their performances, the highly active fan base and the questions it posed to the creators and the people behind the scenes that put the show together; there was an incredible vitality to the end product that ultimately led to many questions and emotional quandaries for which the writers simply couldn’t be accountable. The show outgrew its concept and will stand the test of time, in my estimation, as one of the great television storytelling events.

At its best, LOST’s final episode summoned one of my favorite and most underrated films: Final Approach. It also took the avant-garde trapdoor from Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey and I guess The Sixth Sense. Interestingly, 2001 was a major inspiration for the ending of The Sopranos, a parallel in ambiguity that Lost’s producers were quick to parody on the special episode of Jimmy Kimmel that followed their final episode.

I refrain from addressing specific plot points and story lines out of respect to those who are just now discovering the series or haven’t completed the final season. But I would love to get into them with you. See my invitation below.

So long, LOST, and thank for all the fish, which is another way of saying, thanks for giving us a new opportunity to consider ourselves, what we are doing, and what it all means from something like outside the box, one more time.

I would love to discuss salient points with you further – feel free to post your comments, reactions, questions and challenges in the comments section of this post.

The post LOST Series Finale and What It All Means appeared first on TheCulturepin.com.

As South Park eloquently illustrated, she is this year’s sacrificial lamb, whom they wait to execute in the town square so they can move onto their next virgin. Hannah Montana anyone? The druids did it because they wanted to please the gods, but what do we gain from this mania other than to stuff the holes in our psyches, those perturbed emotions and over-stimulated nervous systems, than junkie-level distraction?

But I turn this lens around on you now: how ya feelin? Little kooky?

If you want to know how to scratch that itch, check out nature. Try silence. Take a vow of silence for a week – don’t comment, don’t talk, don’t attempt to mitigate. Just focus on impartial awareness. If you embark upon this, I further recommend at least temporarily discontinuing exposure to the noise – of the radio, the internet, the television, the game console. Check in with your self and register What’s Up. This will be hard. It will feel like you are going crazy for a day or two or three as your mind grasps for something to satisfy its insatiable hunger for information. And then something will shift. You will begin to detox your nervous system and perhaps even, in recognizing your aversion to the mental clutter, begin to abhor it the way an ex-smoker abhors cigarette smoke.

I am not presenting anything here that you do not already know. I am simply substantiating that it is going on. Here. Now. Here. Again. Now. Like knitting. Loop in. Now here. Loop in. When you have reconnected to the immense richness of all the things around you in the present, your junkie-mode for all the attention grabbing drivel of the mainstream media will begin to appear as it really is – a desperate and petulant child crying out for your attention. You can either feed it, or let it exhaust itself and restore some equilibrium and have a good life.

And from that place, you will create. You will become a source. And then, I will blog about you.

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I am attending the National Association of Broadcasters convention this week. This year’s conference has a heavy focus on content creators. I am interested in hearing with what they want to populate the multiplicity of broadcast “solutions.” I do not have any disdain for the content creators; they have stories to tell and they need your attention to get the funding to tell them. some will bail out and fall prey to sensationalism. some will figure out a way to transcend that and win you over by virtue of a virally active word of mouth based on merit and innovation/genius. I look forward to reporting back to you.

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