The Forest Dark

Developed in the early 17th century the Laterna Magica, an early form of the slide projector, not only influenced the development of the Gothic Novel in significant ways, but had an impact on philosophical thought. Visitors of 18th century Laterna Magica shows took the “Phantasmagoria”, the ghostly effects created by the Laterna Magica, sometimes for real. In Germany the Laterna Magica was also called “Schreckenslaterne”. What if there is in some other plane of reality a “Lantern Of Fear” projecting supernatural phenomena into our world to put us into appropriate behavior?

If we look at the Laterna Magica as a model it might be a possibility how to understand some “real” supernatural phenomena. Some apparitions and phenomena are often reported in a way as if it were recordings from another dimension. And yes, if we read reports of sightings or close encounters it is like these people have seen kind of a video clip. Apparitions are often repetitive in a way.

Perhaps we are in the same situation like the early viewers of the laterna magica spectacles or people who witnessed the first projection of motion pictures who didn’t understand the mechanism. They didn’t understand what’s really going on.

The other way around the invention of the laterna magica and all its successors – in some way IMAX is the contemporary version of the laterna magica – makes not only use of a natural phenomenon – it could be in some way a human made imitation of a secret mechanism used in another plane of reality beyond our everyday world but affecting our world:

Jacques Valleé suspected that we are like viewers in a movie theatre and that there is somewhere a projector (It’s a bit like saying that we are the actors in the “Truman Show” where the poor protagonist is confronted with effects created behind the studio set he never could understand).

This projector generates some of the Ufo phenomena and more. Valleé also raised the most interesting question: if there is somewhere a projector showing us strange things we only can interpret as supernatural – who is the projectionist?

It would be good if we could meet some day in the future the projectionist who is behind this laterna magica.

Particularly if we look into the history of the laterna magica in the 17th and 18th century some very interesting questions come up:

If we think of a show or a contemporary movie we see it as entertainment but early reports of lantern projections indicate that they were intended to scare the audience. Wikipedia mentions one of its inventors, Athanasius Kircher, a German Jesuit scholar. „According to legend Kircher secretly used the lantern at night to project the image of Death on windows of apostates to scare them back into church“ (Wikipedia: Magic Lantern).

However, there is evidence that the Magic Lantern was used for all kind of subjects. Later there were traveling lanternists called “Savoyards“, and it certainly was a more sophisticated entertainment when the Lantern Shows inspired the dark romanticism with its Gothic Novels.

Nevertheless it’s interesting to come back to Kircher – why would an educated man want to scare his audience with some fake supernatural effects? „Scare them back into church“ means to do something to people to put them back to some proper behavior.

What about our projectionist safely hidden in a different plane of reality uses his „lantern of fear“ to scare us from time to time? We can only speculate what he wants us to do, but mostly it seems it’s always about our belief system.

Traditionally it is the Gods, who are the projectionists creating any kind of wonders to control men. But the magic lantern is in some ways similar to Prometheus’ fire. We stole what belongs to the Gods. In the long way from the Jesuits using the Laterna Magica to educate their audience to modern cinema we learned to become like the Gods showing deeply impressed spectators mindblowing effects like miracles and control their belief system.

However maybe the Gods are still there and control what we should see or what we not should see – even in the movies.

“They go towards it. The LIGHT FLICKERS, they are full of hope”(The Forest Dark).

Lights usually indicate hope. But sometimes lights can be the source of evil like Stephen King’s “Deadlights”. In his novel IT the deadlights are what pennywise the murderous clown actually is. “It is an orange light that mesmorizes those that are afraid. when mesmerized, IT can feed. IT wakes up every thirty years and IT feeds. It is what is behind the clown” (Urban Dictionary)

Dangerous lights have been already mentioned here in different cases. The fictional deadlights are more then this. The unknown entity which is the “deadlights” has a mythological background in Stephen Kings universe. It stems from the macroverse , a mysterious void outside the universe, and can manifest in the form of your worst fears or it can create any kind of illusion. It destroys you literally and mentally: “Coming face to face with the deadlights drives any living being instantly insane”.

The interesting part comes with “It’s natural enemy is “The Turtle,” another ancient Macroverse dweller who, eons ago, created our Universe and possibly others. The Turtle appears in King’s series The Dark Tower…The series suggests that It, along with the Turtle, are themselves creations of a separate, omnipotent creator referred to as “the Other’” (http://stephenking.wikia.com/wiki/It_(creature)).

There is a familiarity about this concept: It might be not so much an invention but taps into the gnostic tradition. We see the good/evil and light/dark dualism and the idea of the creator god and the more evil demiurge at work in Stephen King’s mythology.

Even “deadlights” also strongly resembles some Lovecraftian creatures (IT has been here for aeons) it is a gnostic idea. A godlike creature is behind the manifestations of evil. Hope lies with a superior god but that god is far away and not engaged in human affairs. However there is the divine spark or a “good side of the force” which could help against the “deadlights”.

Thus there would be at least a theological background in the idea of the deadlights. It has to be mentioned that “Gnosis” is not one single straightforward theological concept. It’s more a collection of traditions and ideas. For a long time we knew very little about this religion which emerged in the ancient times, until a spectacular archeological discovery, the Nag Hammadi library.

We don’t know if Mr. King was inspired by these ideas or if it is some knowledge which is in some way familiar to everyone.

The most interesting aspects of deadlights is the shape-shifting quality and the manipulative power of the entity. Furthermore there is an otherworld, a realm beyond our universe where these forces come from.

If we look at some phenomena connected with supernatural events in the woods and many stories in particular, we see some similarities: often a light is reported in the first place in stories about strange encounters. Even these lights often have not a harmful character there are many examples of deadly lights, like the chupas in Brazil .

And there is one thing which is often reported in connection with strange lights: the loss of sanity. Looking into the lights is as extremely dangerous as the deadlights which flicker in Pennywise’ eyes. Furthermore there is often a masquerade: the sightings of monstrous beings, witches and phenomena appear more like a simulation rather then real things. Deadlights can manipulate reality. The historical “Happy Camp Case” comes to mind where a small town was fooled by UFO’s, unknown entities and mysterious strangers. In reports about “Haunted Forests” also often a broad variety of weird sightings appear which sound like a huge manipulation of reality. A typical case it the Freetown-Fall River State Forest.

Furthermore the aspect of “vampirism” is interesting: “When mesmerized IT can feed”. This is what we also hear in many stories about close encounters – victims were mesmerized and felt weakened for a long time.

Stephen Kings “Deadlights” is another example of a fictional concept with a truth behind it. There is something very real about these ideas, a reality which is also part of the Forest Dark Movie Project. The Gods hide between many masks and what else is the “Deadlights” as an ancient daimonic force mentioned in many myths, stories and contemporary events? Perhaps Pennywise walks among us right in this moment.

“Dick Hallorann: Some places are like people: some shine and some don’t.” (The Shining) Dick Hallorann explains a supernatural ability and phenomena to Danny shortly after the Torrance family arrives in the Overlook Hotel. The “Shining” is a concept introduced by Stephen King in the novel. In the famous scene between Dick Hallorann and Danny the cook sounds very convincing. Perhaps the “Shining” is a very real thing.

The “Shining” is not the same like clairvoyance. The interesting thing in the movie scene from the famous Kubrick feature film is that it revers both to places and to people. On one side the “Shining” appears like an energy but not a formless energy. It is more like some living being. On the other side it is an ability. It’s an ability to see or to receive information from another plane of existence.

As a metaphor we could say that some people are like a very strong W-lan device. But even more they have a certain understanding of the hidden nature of things.

And if there are places which “shine” there are definitely forests that shine. Some shine some don’t. And these forests are like characters; perhaps there are some very wicked people among them. The “Shining” is a very good model how some haunted forests could be seen.

If it comes to such places there is always the question why does that place shine? Often an old legend is mentioned. The Overlook hotel is supposedly built at the place of a massacre. The very real Freetown-State forest is a place of injustice against the indigenous people. This is the classic ghost house concept – some guilt or some terrible event in the past. However there are many places without such legends. It seems more that some places have a special quality, they are the places where our world connects with another realm of a different reality.

“The Shining” is a quality of a place.

People who shine not only can sense or receive disturbing images at these places, they can also work like a catalyst, especially in a forest. They could activate the energy in a forest which was always there. In the best of all cases these people could understand the real nature of a place. Things about the forest are revealed to them. Perhaps this is also another background of the stories of witches in the forest. They were the people who understood, their secret meetings with the fairies were encounters with another realm. But even more the “places that shine” could reveal some inner truth. They tell us about our true nature. And even more they can make us do things. This could also be a background for many strange stories about people who did rituals or strange things in the forest. “The Shining” is a real power which still needs to be explained.