Lost Without a Clue:

Searching for a Way to Escape

"The Blair Witch"

 

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There is horror galore in the new independent film "The Blair Witch Project" - nearly everybody can agree on that. There are even reports of "audience members rushing out of theaters, deathly sick." (IMDB) What has not yet been clearly discerned, however, is where the horror in the film really is. In other words, is the horror inside the film or is it actually in the associations that audiences are drawing subconsciously from the film - associations that have extremely dire implications?

 

Just as with The Titanic a couple of years ago, people are flocking to see a disaster film. They may seem on the surface to be very different films, coming from different ends of the economic and artistic spectrum. However, both films are really relating the same information, which, in turn, resonates deeply within people and re-surfaces as terror, shock, depression, etc.  And these are still mild reactions, compared to what is really at stake!

 

The student filmmakers in the film accurately represent a major portion of society today (or else the film could not be so popular). They become lost in the woods while trying to film a documentary on the Blair Witch legend. But, looking back on the film, when weren't they lost? Reminiscent of Jack Nicholson's performance in "The Shining", the evil can be seen from the very beginning of the film in the principle characters themselves. Their constant abuse of the language, their propensity towards lying, their (particularly Heather's) ambition: all are clear evidence of the weakness and malformation of the spirit core within each person. The spirit in this miserable, malnourished state cannot connect to higher and purer realms and becomes subject to the dangers of the Darkness. In the case of a healthy human spirit, this could never happen because its higher connections keep it from going astray. Hence, an impure pursuit like the nature of the Blair Witch Project itself could never be undertaken, if the students themselves were not lost (disconnected) in the first place.

 

Stated simply, a human being is lost when he or she is no longer striving for higher, purer and nobler aims (this, by the way, has nothing to do with religion or being religious). The three student filmmakers in the film are using the gift of cinema to enthusiastically pursue the Darkness. When you play with fire, you get burned. However, it is never the fire itself, which is to blame; it is the reckless individual, who bears all the responsibility. Impure pursuits will always lead to impure happenings - sometimes the consequences are immediate, sometimes they take awhile to manifest - but these consequences are ALWAYS justifiable. Every tragedy, even amongst the good and the young, can be traced back to a point in their lives (including past lives) when the person did something to upset the balance of Creation and bring on their horrible fate. Being unaware of this is true horror. Not being able to become conscious enough to change our fate as individuals and as a world is true horror. Making the same mistakes (in different guises) over and over again, lifetime after lifetime (and suffering worse and worse consequences because of it) is true horror.

 

In reality, what film could possibly provoke "deathly sick" responses in an audiences, unless it triggered some profound, terrifying truth within the individual itself: that they themselves are spiritually lost and in grave danger; that they have been merely going in circles, year after year, lifetime after lifetime. Indeed, the same truth applies to the whole of humanity (regardless of whether they admit they are lost or not), which has completely abandoned itself to its self-created and self-perpetuated darkness. And the maps (i.e. religious texts, philosophy, mysticism, etc.) that are there to supposedly help people find the way out of the Darkness have become distorted, unreadable, indecipherable, "useless!" This is the desperate, cold reality that sets in during a film like "The Blair Witch Project": that there is no way out and that time is also running out!

 

Never once did the student filmmakers in the film turn their gaze imploringly upwards. Never once did they shut up long enough to listen to their "inner-voice" - then the higher guidance, even in these conditions, could still have been granted, if only they would have listened within and changed their behavior. To begin with, they needed to change their abuse of the language (which automatically repulsed all help from the Light from them and automatically connected them with the forces of the Darkness), secondly they needed to become humble and to appeal to a Higher Power for help (quietly and inwardly). But instead they screamed, cried, swore, smoked, filmed, swore, shivered, complained, swore, and died - without even once attempting to appeal to their Creator for help. This is surely the worst possible horror.

 

The search for a way to escape "The Blair Witch" begins with the honest recognition that one is truly lost himself/herself. This is the only good thing that can come from a film like this. The next step is to seek for the One True Map of Creation. This alone can provide the right kind of assistance to the human spirit.