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Contributed by The Ghost

Movie Review: Avatar (2009)

by The Ghost

(Note: This is not a typical movie review. It focuses primarily on propaganda content (“cinemalogical warfare”) and may contain spoilers.)

First off, this is an amazing film. Over fifteen years in the making and costing more than a quarter of a billion dollars to produce, Avatar has revolutionized modern cinema and overtaken Titanic to become the highest-grossing film of all time. As a theatrical production it is a dazzling and spectacular feast for the senses. In short, aesthetically it is a masterpiece. However, in every other respect it is essentially the complete opposite. Philosophically and politically, Avatar is an anti-individualist, anti-capitalist, anti-military, strongly anti-American piece of illuminist garbage.

James Cameron, who wrote and directed the film, has openly admitted the altruistic/environMENTAList biases contained within it. Speaking on NBC’s Today show, Cameron agreed with the host that the plot focuses on how “greed” and “imperialism” “tends to destroy the environment” and said that the human characters in the movie “are doing the same thing on another pristine planet that we’ve done on Earth.” Not only does Cameron produce blockbuster Green propaganda, he has gone so far as to openly endorse environmental terrorism. The following remarks are part of an interview which appears in the January 22 issue of Entertainment Weekly:

Entertainment Weekly: “Avatar is the perfect eco-terrorism recruiting tool.”

James Cameron: “Good, good. I like that one. I consider that a positive review. I believe in eco-terrorism.”

Blue Aliens, Green Forests, Red Propaganda

The heroes in the movie may be blue, and the setting may be green, but the story at the heart of this saga is red. Don’t take my word for it, listen to the words of Bolivian Comrade-President Evo Morales. Morales is the leader of a political party called the Movement for Socialism (Movimiento al Socialismo, or MAS) and in 2009 was named “World Hero of Mother Earth” by the United Nations General Assembly. As reported by the Latin American Herald Tribune, Morales heaped praise on Avatar as “a profound example of resistance to capitalism and the fight for the defense of nature.” The long-time communist revolutionary “found the plot of ‘Avatar’ in line with ‘the fight for the protection of Mother Earth and against capitalism.’” For the record, anyone who hasn’t been heavily imbibing the Kool-Aid is going to draw that same conclusion. This is included merely to point out that socialists clearly recognize and embrace this movie for what it is. Russian communists are even “calling for an international arrest warrant against [James Cameron] for, ‘the theft and misappropriation of socialist intellectual property – the contents of books and films of Soviet science fiction.”

The Golden Age

Beyond the somewhat obvious political implications, Avatar contains powerful esoteric symbolism. This film portrays the mythical Golden Age in a stunning and absorbing manner unlike anything ever seen. This ancient fantasy is brought to the big screen in the form of the planet Pandora and its humanoid alien inhabitants, the mystical and communitarian Na’vi (who, in blatantly socialistic fashion, refer to themselves as “The People”).

Displayed in spectacular 3D imagery, Pandora is a breathtakingly beautiful, incandescent utopian world. It truly has to be seen to be believed. The “energy network” of the planet is worshipped by the inhabitants as their Mother Goddess, with which they commune through luminous trees, and every living being is “one” with their surroundings. The glorious beauty and transcendent harmony of this fictional paradise is so compelling that it is actually inducing acute depression in some viewers due to the culture shock of emerging from this dreamland into the real world and realizing that “Pandora” will never exist. According to a report by CNN, some fans of the movie have contemplated suicide and “expressed feelings of disgust with the human race and disengagement with reality.” Obviously that is not the normal response for most people, but it certainly serves to underscore how powerful this film is. Not only that, but those who study such trends are predicting that there is going to be a surge in people naming their children after characters in the movie. The damn thing has even killed a person. The China Times reported that the death of a 42-year-old Taiwanese man “was the first death linked to watching James Cameron’s science-fiction epic Avatar.”

The Day Pandora Stood Still

In the movie, it is the year 2154. The RDA Corporation has come to Pandora to mine a rare substance called “Unobtainium.” Since the natives have turned hostile and begun violently resisting the “Sky People,” RDA is employing the Marine Corps for “security.” (Again, just as in The Day The Earth Stood Still, it is made perfectly clear that individualists, capitalists and the U.S. military – and by implication the United States of America – are the villains.) Scientists working for the RDA Corporation (who are portrayed as enlightened and superior and look down their noses at the Marines) have developed genetically-engineered replicas of the giant blue-skinned natives which they call “avatars.” The avatars are “driven” remotely by humans through a brain link which transfers the person’s mind into the new body. By inhabiting these alien Golems, the scientists interact with the native population, study them and the planet, and attempt to win hearts and minds.

World Savior

When one of the scientists dies, his twin brother, a Marine, is assigned to take his place and “drive” his avatar. This Marine forms a relationship with one of the alien women and is accepted by the “tribe.” He eventually goes completely native and gradually becomes “enlightened.” That is to say, he embarks on the path of revolution towards “primitive communism.” The audience witnesses first-hand his “ascension and transfiguration” from a mere human being into a mystical “world savior.” This, folks, is the entire point of this whole quarter-billion dollar spectacle. It is a perfect dramatization of the ancient illuminist dream of the evolution and “perfection” of humankind and his return to a “natural” state of communal existence.

For his part, James Cameron has made statements that indicate he is fully aware of this core element of his cutting-edge fairytale. In a 2007 interview with Time magazine, he was asked, “What is an avatar, anyway?” Cameron stated, “It’s an incarnation of one of the Hindu gods taking a flesh form. In this film what that means is that the human technology in the future is capable of injecting a human’s intelligence into a remotely located body, a biological body.” While that seems reasonable enough to satisfy the uninitiated, it is merely an exoteric explanation. The term “avatar” has a far greater esoteric significance. To explore this deeper significance, let us turn to the initiates themselves, those “illumined” disciples of the Secret Doctrine – the Arcane School of the Lucifer Trust.

The text which follows is excerpted from an address given by a member of the Headquarters staff of Lucifer Trust at the Festival of Pisces in London in February of 2008:

Transcendence

Good evening friends and welcome. It is said in the Secret Doctrine that Pisces “shines as a symbol of the past, present and future spiritual Saviours.” This reference indicates Pisces ability to confer the energy of sacrifice and complete transcendence of the human condition to those who are ready and willing to accept and make use of it. Pisces is the twelfth house, the final sign of the zodiac that ultimately sees the glorious ascension and transfiguration of the human being into a world saviour. … In the case of the individual aspirant to the spiritual path, the requirement is to transcend the desire for physical existence as expounded by the Buddha in the four noble truths, to learn the meaning of the four gospels, to understand the significance and purpose of the four elements – earth, water, fire and air, and, esoterically speaking, to finally pass as a Saviour through the four kingdoms. While we will only truly understand this at the fourth initiation, it is inspiring to know that when this is done, we can say:

“Desire holds me not, with freedom now I stand. I desire all and nothing. I live and die, am offered up and rise again: I come and go at will. Earth lies beneath my feet and water laves my form. The fire destroys that which impedes my way, and master of the air am I. Through all the world of forms my feet have passed. All now exists for me and I, the servant of the whole, persist.”

We are told that for the human race as a whole transcendence of a lower order lies ahead in the not-so-distant future and that this is one of the things that the coming Avatar will reveal. What this might involve we can only imagine, but transcendence has been described as “the innate capacity to pass beyond so-called natural law.” An exciting prospect to say the least, marking as it will, the next major phase in the manifestation of divinity in human form. It signifies domination over the physical plane and humanity’s imminent triumph over the forces that have for so long held it to the earth. While the intellectual achievements of humanity appear to have given it a certain measure of mastery over the elements, we can see by the sad, polluted state of the planet that it is largely at the expense of the other kingdoms of nature. Transcendence will ultimately give humanity powers to work with natural law rather than under its control, and to direct the physical forces of the planet to the benefit of all its kingdoms without exception.

In the meantime, as one initial phase of this major transcendence, we can now see an awakening to the crisis of planetary mismanagement and the disastrous consequences that are likely. The resulting state of panic is not without its beneficial side however, for the race is now engaging in more holistic thinking in awareness that the planet’s resources must be shared and used wisely if we are to avoid disaster in the near future. War, disease, famine and environmental degradation amongst other things are driving an already steep learning curve and making plain the necessity for transcending greed and selfishness. Each limitation conquered is affording a new perspective as this vision of a shared, inter-related future now begins to be realised. This forms a significant part of the process of transcendence – in this case the transcendence of ignorance. … The call of discipleship is reaching many ears in the world today, with the opportunity to know one’s essential transcendent nature whilst yet living and moving in the transient world of form. The spirit of discipleship is always to achieve illumination on behalf of others in order to lift and save and this is reflected in the keynote of Pisces, I leave the Father’s Home and turning back, I save. Through transcendence, each and every one of us becomes a saving force to some degree right up to the universal state that Avatars express. An Avatar is described as a “Being Who – having first developed His Own nature, human and divine, and then transcended it – is capable of reflecting some cosmic Principle or divine quality and energy which will produce the desired effect upon humanity, evoking a reaction, producing a needed stimulation and, as it is esoterically called, ‘leading to the rending of a veil and the permeation of light.’ This energy is called forth by a demand or massed appeal, and evokes response and consequent changes in the life activity, the culture and the civilisation of mankind.”

The Avatar of Synthesis

This begs the question: exactly what “response and consequent changes in the life activity, the culture and the civilization of mankind” are these “enlightened disciples” so hell-bent on bringing about?

32° Freemason Foster Bailey, husband of Theosophical Society President Alice Bailey (“the mother of the modern form of the New Age movement”), gave an indication of what this “change” entails when he described a key element of the above symbol as follows: “At the top of this new and unique triangle stands the Avatar of Synthesis, whose direct influence is now identifiable in the human consciousness in emerging trends. He is the most potent…in relation to mass consciousness at this time. His permeating influence hastens the realisation by humanity that, in fact, we live in one world as one humanity with a common destiny.”

The true goal (the “common destiny”) espoused by these silver-tongued high priests of the New Age is, and always has been, to bring about a great “synthesis” – a leveling of civilization, an eradication of individualism and western religion, the “perfection” of mankind and the amalgamation of all life on Earth into a collectivist world state which, they claim, will usher in a thousand years of peace in a new utopian Golden Age. That is the essence of “the Plan.” This is the disturbing reality behind their cryptic talk of harnessing mystical energies to “increase the potency of the objectives of world unity, peace and progress which the United Nations hold before the eyes of men as a true vision of the Plan.” “These constructive, synthesising energies,” they say, “should have the effect of transforming the theory of unity into practical experience so that the word ‘united’ may come to hold a true significance and meaning for all nations. Today a will-to-synthesis is slowly generating within the General Assembly of the United Nations under the inspiration of the forces of reconstruction and the Avatar of Synthesis.”