This blog post is a continuation of sorts of the one dedicated to the colours of Diane’s nails. It goes deeper into the analysis of Besant and Leadbeater’s book Thought-Forms (1901), as it appears that the book bears many links to the third season of Twin Peaks, if not for anything else due to its title, which is of course connected to Tulpas.
The book is an analysis of the various images (obtained either via photography or painting) of subtle forms from the astral/mental planes surrounding people, that express their inner emotions: “emotional changes show their nature by changes of colours in the cloud-like ovoid, or aura, that encompasses all living beings“. The process is not easy because “there are some serious difficulties in our way, for our conception of space is limited to three dimensions, and when we attempt to make a drawing we practically limit ourselves to two“.
Since we are dealing with four-dimensional images in the case of thought-forms, reducing them to two dimensions is of course very limiting: “To paint in earth’s dull colours the forms clothed in the living light of other worlds is a hard and thankless task; so much the more gratitude is due to those who have attempted it. They needed coloured fire, and had only ground earths“. These are to be understood as “sections” of Thought-Forms.
These Thought-Forms are produced as follows: “Every thought gives rise to a set of correlated vibrations in the matter of this body, accompanied with a marvellous play of colour… We have then a thought-form pure and simple, and it is a living entity of intense activity animated by the one idea that generated it. If made of the finer kinds of matter, it will be of great power and energy, and may be used as a most potent agent when directed by a strong and steady will… Each definite thought produces a double effect, a radiating vibration and a floating form. The thought itself appears first to clairvoyant sight as a vibration in the mental body, and this may be either simple or complex. If the thought itself is absolutely simple, there is only the one rate of vibration, and only one type of mental matter will be strongly affected. The mental body is composed of matter of several degrees of density, which we commonly arrange in classes according to the sub-planes… this radiating vibration conveys the character of the thought, but not its subject… Such a thought or impulse becomes for the time a kind of living creature, the thought-force being the soul, and the vivified matter the body… they speak of the thought-form as “an elemental.”
The book then lists the general principles that underlie the production of all Thought-Forms:
1- Quality of thought determines colour.
2. Nature of thought determines form.
3. Definiteness of thought determines clearness of outline.
In the post dedicated to Diane’s nails, I included the table of colours used by the authors to describe the meaning attached to each of them. This is used for the analysis of a series of paintings representing various emotions, some of which bear striking links to The Return.
The image called “The Logos Pervading All” (Fig.42) is of course highly reminiscent of the various golden balls seen in the series, from the one that appears after the nuclear explosion in New Mexico to the seed used to create Tulpas.
Here’s what the book has to say about the use of yellow: “pale luminous primrose yellow is a sign of the highest and most unselfish use of intellectual power, the pure reason directed to spiritual ends”. It is clear in Twin Peaks that the golden ball born from the fire of atomic fission and the seed used to create new Tulpas are akin to the gold of alchemy, with its connection to immortality. Interestingly, gold is produced in the Universe by cosmic explosions such as Supernovae or, recently observed, star collisions (these explosions are to be linked to the nuclear blast from episode 8): “Researchers are witnessing a distant heavy-element factory synthesizing “maybe hundreds of Earth masses’ [worth] of gold” (link to an article about the collision of two neutron stars).
The antithesis of these golden balls can be found in the shape of BOB’s greyish placenta, itself reminiscent of the grey atomic mushroom depicted above.
The meaning of the colour grey fits perfectly with what BOB (and the woodsmen) represents in Twin Peaks: “hard dull brown-grey is a sign of selfishness, a colour which is indeed painfully common; deep heavy grey signifies depression, while a livid pale grey is associated with fear“. Selfishness, fear and depression – this is a pretty good summary of everything associated with these trans-dimensional beings.
This fearful greyness can also be found in the next figure from the book (n°34) labelled “At a Funeral”, with two opposed thought-forms: a grey one expressing “profound depression, fear and selfishness” (the person who generated this thought-form did not know Theosophy and its promise of a “super-physical” life); the other, a colorful peak, with the pink of affection, the violet of a noble ideal and the blue of devotion, the golden stars symbolizing spiritual aspirations (this person was obviously familiar with the teachings of Theosophy). Difficult not to connect these images to the purple peak from The Return and to the creature that vomits the eggs in episode 8, both of which appear for the first time after the nuclear explosion which can be understood as a funeral of sorts, as a victory of death over life.
One can also wonder if some elements from the new season of Twin Peaks might not be linked to another book by Leadbeater entitled Man Visible and Invisible (1900) in which the author also describes the type of aura surrounding people depending on their emotions. The sequence in which we discover Diane’s true face, through the shell of Naido (which of course can be understood as a reference to eggs and golden geese, a constant theme in David Lynch’s universe), is also reminiscent of the ovoid shape which the aura is supposed to have according to the book.
Last but not least, the Fireman’s first warning to Cooper (“Listen to the sounds”) could also very well be connected to Thought-Forms. Indeed, the book claims that “many people are aware that sound is always associated with colour—that when, for example, a musical note is sounded, a flash of colour corresponding to it may be seen by those whose finer senses are already to some extent developed. It seems not to be so generally known that sound produces form as well as colour, and that every piece of music leaves behind it an impression of this nature, which persists for some considerable time, and is clearly visible and intelligible to those who have eyes to see. Such a shape is perhaps not technically a thought-form—unless indeed we take it, as we well may, as the result of the thought of the composer expressed by means of the skill of the musician through his instrument“.
Several examples of these sound-forms are then given. The drawing below, for example, is supposed to depict the forms created by the music of Wagner played on a church organ.
Finally, one can wonder: what does Laura’s aura look like? Is she the Logos pervading all things in Twin Peaks?
TWIN PEAKS - Unwrapping the Plastic 