More 'Lost'... And More 23Other Lost Posts:
>: Hurley's Numbers Intepreted As i-Ching Hexagrams
>: 4 8 15 16 23 42 aka The Ba Gua in Desmond's Hatch
Damon Lindelof, Lost co-creator and executive producer, recently made some comments on E! Online about "the numbers." I won't give away the whole of his comments, you can read them yourself on the prececding link, but one particular thing he suggested was to look at the number 23 in the context of Robert Anton Wilson. I certainly can't summarize RAW's vast mythology here, but after reading this, I pulled my copy of Illuminatus! off the shelf and opened it to page 23. What I found was particularly interesting in light of the newly revealed i-Ching connection (see previous post). Here's the passage that begins on page 23 of my edition:
Hagbard Celine's gigantic computer, FUCKUP -- First Universal Cyberkinetic-Ultramicro-Programmer -- was basically a rather sophisticated form of the standard self-programming algorithmic logic machine of the time; the name was one of his whimsies. FUCKUP's real claim to uniqueness was a programemd stochastic process whereby it could "throw" an i-Ching hexagram, reading a random open circuit as a broken (yin) line and a random closed circuit as a full (yang) line until six such "lines" were round. Consulting its memory banks, where the whole tradition of i Ching interpretation was stored, and then cross-checking its current scannings of that day's political, economic and technological eccentricies, it would provide a reading of the hexagram which, to Hagbard's mind, combined the best of the scientific and occult methods for spotting oncoming trends. On March 13, the stochastic pattern spontaneously generated Hexagram 23, Breaking Apart." FUCKUP then interpreted:
This traditionally unlucky sign was cast by Atlantean scientist-priests shortly before the destruction of their continent and is generally connected with death by water. Other vibrations link it to earthquakes, tornadoes and similar disasters, and to sickness, decay and morbidity as well. The first correlation is with the unbalance between technological acceleration and political regression, which has proceeded earthwide at everwidening danger levels since 1914 and especially since 1964. The breaking apart is fundamentally the schizoid and schismatic mental fugue of lawyer-politicians attempting to administrate a worldwide technology whose mechanism they lack the education to comprehend and whose gestalttrend they frustrate by breaking apart inot obsolete Rennaisance nation-states.
World War III is probably imminent and, considering the advances in chemicalbiological warfare in conjunction with the sickness vibrations of Hexagram 23, the unleashing of plague or nervgas or both is as probably as thermonuclear overkill.
General prognosis: many megadeaths.
Given the quarantine sign on the inside of the hatch, Desmond's medicine cabinet with the numbers on his injection vials, the rather ancient computer (Illuminatus! was first published in 1975) and the i-Ching logo detailed elsewhere, I'd say a theme is starting to emerge.
(By the way, this isn't supposed to be an "All-Lost" blog, I'm just going where the spirit is moving me, for the moment.)
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Posted by J.M. Berger || Permalink
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5 Comments:
Please don't stop, this is fantastic!!!!
You may recall that Locke types in
4 8 15 16 23 32 at the end of the last episode.
Jack arrives before he presses "execute" and tells him the last number is 42.
In the i ching, the interpretation of #32 reads:
"Avoid recklessness and listen to the advice of others."
Locke does and disaster is averted, for now....
^ Nice catch... Don't worry, I can't imagine I will stop any time soon...
Very, VERY kewl my fellow writer/radio friend!
This is SO much up my alley.
Heya...
with your site on chaos, what do you think of the show "Threshold"?
Neat stuff in it but I think it needs more. If they were smart and did like "Lost" with clues and web sites it could grow.
When Jack & Locke have the stand off & the #'s count down to 0's, was it just me or did anyone else hear an explosion in the distance? This is just moments before the red hyrogliphs start rolling.
If it was, where is it that it detonated?
Walt says that the #'s are bad, when he visited Shannon. (You need to play it in reverse to hear it)
What's the go there?
Thanks for your gr8 work, this is fan-bloody-tastic.
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