In addition to being the 33rd episode, it is also the 9th episode of Season 2 ( 9+2=11) with an original air date of 11/30/2010.
[Sync Note]: The GLEE logo contains Jupiter Finger/Severed Hand symbology (see "Talk to the Disembodied Hand").
*SPOILER ALERT* (watch the show on Hulu)
Storyline #1:
The Glee Club's director Will Schuester is bummed when he learns his teacher crush Ms. Pillsbury has gotten married.
This means she can no longer come with him to sectionals to be the team's lucky charm (he literally refers to her as both a lucky charm and a talisman).
Later in the show, Artie gives his girlfriend Brittany a "lucky comb" to help her perform at sectionals, another reference to a magical charm/talisman.
[Sync Note: The classroom model of planet Jupiter is hanging directly over Artie's head in this scene].
Storyline #2:
The Glee Club is missing a member since Kurt Hummell left to attend the all-boys school Dalton Academy and joined their rival chorus The Warblers.
Kurt was seduced by The Warblers' apparent sense of tolerance and fairness.
But soon he realizes that the group operates just like a Secret Society adhering to old traditions, initiation rituals, and a group-think mentality.
For his initiation Kurt is given a caged canary (that represents his voice) and told to keep it alive.
But the Warblers are really identity-killers as evidenced by their logo with the arrow going through the canary. Kurt also has to endure successive humiliations in front of the group.
[Sync Note: Kurt makes a joke about using the canary to work in a coal mine, another masked reference to the Number 33 (i.e., the 33 miners trapped in Chile).]
Blaine, a senior member of the Warblers and their lead singer, advises Kurt to stop trying to stand out. (Interestingly Blaine seems to be one of the only major characters without a last name. This further signifies his lack of personal identity).
Kurt panicks when he thinks his canary is dying, symbolizing his fear of losing his individual voice.
But Blaine reassures him, "Oh he's just molting. He's growing a new coat of feathers so his body has to shut down a little. But don't worry about it. He's got food, water, and he seems to like his cage."
After his notions of individuality are successfully quashed, Kurt comes to an uncomfortable acceptance and falls into line with the other soldiers Warblers for the sectionals competition.
More notable Anti-Individualism scenes include:
- Schuester chastising the Glee Club, saying "There's too much me talk around here."
- Rachel musing that "Being part of something special makes you special."
Storyline #3:
Meanwhile, Schuester charges Puck with the task of recruiting a new 12th member to replace Kurt and save the team.
Enter our Jewish Noah/Jesus resonator, Noah "Puck" Puckerman.
- In mythology Puck is a mischievous nature sprite. The name is derived from the Old English word "puca", also the the origin of the term Phooka.
- In Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream the character Puck utters the famous line: "Lord, what fools these mortals be!"
Puck ends up getting trapped in a Port-a-Potty for 24 hours. Until finally, he cries out, "Buddha...Allah...Satan help me!".
Only then does the potty door open to reveal his Savior, fellow student Lauren Zizes (pronounced like ZYE-SIS = Isis; the Z may also be a reference to Oz).
Her big glasses alert us to the fact that Lauren/Isis is also a Easter Bunny/Phooka resonator.
Together, she and Puck will be the ones to escort us down the Rabbit hole.
Lauren/Isis offers Puck a deal. She asks for:
- A carton of Cadberry Easter Eggs, thus confirming her identity as the Rabbit/Phooka.
- "7 minutes in heaven" with Puck in exchange for her agreeing to become the 12th member of Glee club to help them win at sectionals.
Puck agrees to the deal and the team ties at sectionals, sharing the win with the Masonic-resonating, soldier-robot/hive-minded Warblers.
[Sync Note: This reminded me of Neo striking a deal with the Machine God in The Matrix trilogy.]
The Warblers/Secret Societies were clearly already down with the Machine God. Now the Glee Clubers have partnered up as well, giving up their individual identities to join to the greater hive-mind.
They have become like Bees.
To emphasize this fact, our Rabbit Phooka-resonating Lauren/Isis shows up in the final scenes of the show dressed in a Yellow and Black-striped "Bee" sweater.
[Sync Note: Other cast members are also shown throughout this episode wearing either stripes or yellow and black colors.]
After giving up on Love (exemplified by her break up with Finn), Rachel also dresses for the occasion. She wears an Oz/Dorothy short blue dress outfit complete with the Red Ruby Slippers.
There is also an Alice in Wonderland sync wink when Rachel throws away a calendar in her locker depicting her and Finn as Cheshire Cats.
[Sync Note: The actress who plays Rachel, Lea Michele, was the voice of Dorothy in the 2010 animated movie Dorothy of Oz].
To celebrate their joy at having been assimilated by the machine, the whole gang aptly rocks out to "The Dog Days are Over" by Florence and the Machine.
[There's enough crazy symbology in that video to warrant its own post. But we'll just stick to the song's lyrics for now]:
The Dog Days are over
The Dog Days are gone
The Horses are coming so you better run
Run fast for your mother run fast for your father
Run for your children and your sisters and brothers
Leave all your love and your loving behind you
Can't carry it with you if you want to survive
And I never wanted anything from you
Except everything you had
And what was left after that too
In Ancient Rome, Dog Days occured when Sirius (the "Dog/God Star) rose just before or at the same time as the Sun.
The Romans sacrificed a brown dog to appease the rage of Sirius, believing that the star was the cause of the hot, sultry weather.
In the context of Glee, I see Dog Days (DD=44) as referring to the current time period, the era of the oversight of the 44th U.S. President Obama, a brown man whom the Powers That Bee hope to sacrifice/replace with the Machine.
If you want to make it out of this shitty world alive you'd better get with the Machine God before it's too late.
This Hive Mind/Machine-as-Savior Meme is similar to Star Trek's Borg concept.
It promises no further need for religion (signified by the deities of the (3) major religions---Jesus, Buddha, and Allah) nor the use of magic's lucky charms and talismens. Membership in the collective has its privileges, but it's gonna cost you yourself.
In the The Secret Sun's blog post Transhuman Apotheosis/Transhuman Apocalypse he wrote that Transhumanism is becoming its own religion.
Looks like he was right.
UPDATE: Teaming up with the Machine really paid off for Glee-clubber Artie Abrams (AA=11 and RT=18+20=1+8+2=11).
On this next episode Santa/Satan brings him some brand new Robot legs (a new technology called The ReWalk made in Israel).
Thus, the Machine God gives the miracle of making the lame walk, symbolically upstaging both humanity and spirituality/faith healers.
This was very interesting, as I was just writing about how fiction often reveals some insight into the structure of the occult secret societies. Birds are emblematic of the soul, and references to mines tend to be allusions to alchemy, where one "mines" the "mind" for spiritual gold.
ReplyDeleteAnd the phenomenon of the Warblers is something I have noticed as well. "Every man and woman is a star," but you wouldn't know it from talking to most occultists (Thelemites, Freemasons, etc.), who often exhibit some of the worst forms of groupthink imaginable. The Warblers are all dressed in black, like the Nigredo (this corresponds to the Outer Order of the Golden Dawn, the OTO, etc.)--but where is the Albedo (the A∴A∴)? In order to reclaim his True Self, he will need to break the chains that still bind him to the community and discover the true meanings behind the empty and symbolic magical rituals.
Blaine = Blank?
In the movie The Prestige, there's a magic trick where a canary is killed, while the magician pulls out another bird to create the illusion that it survived. Later, Hugh "Jack-Man" performs the same trick with a duplicator machine shaped like a capstoneless pyramid (invented by David Bowie), literally killing himself after each performance. A metaphor, but for what?
Just like Dante in the Divine Comedy, Puck has to go through Satan to reach God...the Stone is buried in the dung.
Zizis' weight also seems to recall Hathor, the cow goddess, who was often combined with Isis. The rabbit is a symbol of volatile Mercury, and Isis is the lunar Mercury--perfect!