Psychic Lens
+3 3 Votes
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By ProfOzone
- Psychic Lens
- Created: Mar 23, 2007
- Last updated: Aug 13, 2008
- After episode: 3.9: Stranger in a Strange Land
- Status: Current
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This theory is based on A “best guess” as of 3.10 by ProfOzone. You may wish to read it before continuing.
Once the desires of each person are properly focused, then the island will function like a great lens, converging all of the psychic energy in such a way as to bring about the reality that the powers that be desire.
— ProfOzone
In Arthur C. Clarke’s “Childhood’s End”, alien beings who look like devils visit Earth to warn humans of the planet’s imminent demise. The narrative gives an easy explanation for why these good-hearted visitors from space have the appearance of demons. It is because each human mind that has ever existed is like an island. The water between the islands represents how each of our minds is separated in time and/or space. But the truth lies beneath the water. The islands are joined together by earth; they are not truly separate. The minds that would eventually experience the horned harbingers of doom sent something back to the minds that lived in antiquity. Something that haunted their dreams and became the superintendent of their Hell.
Likewise, in the world of Lost, the island is a place that has always been destined to play a critical part in the fate of humankind. Whether its electromagnetic properties have been brought about by its destiny or its destiny has been brought about by its properties is probably a meaningless question.
It seems clear that humanity has been interacting with the island for centuries, and perhaps millennia. Doubtless, parapsychological phenomena have always been a feature of the island. And during that entire time the people who lived there may have sensed the importance of the place. But in the island’s recent past humanity has tried to make a scientific study of its secrets and, in so doing, has uncovered the depths of its sinister purpose.
Thankfully, at the same time humanity discovered and/or perfected the methods of steering that purpose. At some point in Earth’s history a few individuals will be responsible for delivering humanity to its fate. When that time comes, those individuals will be able to focus their “collective will” upon attaining a less destructive reality and such a reality will, in fact, come to pass.
(There can be many complex scientific explanations for how such a thing can work, with quantum physics involved and “multiple realities” and esoteric theories of time. Perhaps now that the rest of the world is cut off from the island, the rest of the world has become a great Schrödinger’s Box and now Ben has to get everyone in the right frame of mind before opening the lid in order to ensure that the world is found alive inside. But… I’m guessing it will suffice in the show… perhaps even HAVE to suffice in the show… for it to work according to “parapsychological principles”.)
These individuals have been nurtured in the field and finally brought to the island by way of the plane crash. Now it is the job of “the powers that be” to steer each of those individuals to focus upon the right thing (whatever that thing is… it could be different for each person). Once the desires of each person are properly focused, then the island will function like a great lens, converging all of the psychic energy in such a way as to bring about the reality that the powers that be desire (presumably the one that preserves the existence of humanity).
It could be that any person, in theory, could tap the powers of the island and “make things happen”, but some people will be more adept or better attuned (or more easily trained) than others, and these people are especially valuable to the powers that be. So they are taken or otherwise given special attention.
But the more people the better, so long as each can achieve the proper focus. Those who cannot must be eliminated in order to cut out their “psychic static”.
Every human life depends upon those who live on the island wanting “the right thing”. Perhaps only Ben knows precisely what that thing is for each person.
Similar theories
| Title | Author | Cmnts | Votes | Rating |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| The Man From Tallahassee | ichiro | 14 | 5 | +5 |
| The key is seeing the signs… | ProfOzone | 9 | 1 | +1 |
I think what Ben was telling Locke was that the island has the power to help people bring about their greatest desires. It isn’t magic, though. Ben has used Jack arriving on the island as an example of what the island can do. The only magic anyone might see in Jack arriving on the island is the fact that he survived the crash. But that speaks to another important point. Like in Clarke’s book, an inevitable crossroads in the future of humanity sends shock waves or, as I prefer to think of it, gravity waves back in time. As the event itself approaches, it draws people and objects unto itself, creating a host of what we might consider strange and compelling coincidences. But they aren’t coincidences at all. They have a purpose. Even the clever names of some of the characters might be explained in this line of reasoning… for the parents or guardians who chose the names, destiny tugged on their brains and tongues in the choosing. (Many cultures accept this as something that happens whenever a name is chosen for a child.)
I think the island simply amplifies human potentials that already exist, but that means, I think, that people who are already in touch with their “gifts” before they arrive will be the ones most skilled in tapping the power of the island.
I guess I should have noted somewhere that key to these ideas is the episode that showed Rose’s back-story. She had terminal cancer, then visited a place of electromagnetic power that was known to heal many, but it couldn’t heal her because it wasn’t “attuned” to her. The island, however, did heal her, and she also had a mystical sense that she would see her husband again. She is, obviously, attuned to the island, but not everyone is.
:-D
Careful… you might be my half-sister!
hmmm, just had a thought—do you think “Rose” might be not the noun but the past tense of “rise,” as in “lift it up”?
wow, you posted this back in March. Have you always been this precocious?
Childhood’s End—great story. Reminds of a short story I read once (which almost comes across like a joke in that it has a punchline)—the story is about researchers trying to communicate with dolphins; they are finally successful and then these aliens appear and say something along the lines of, we’ve been waiting for you to learn to speak to another species—it’s the rite of passage to join the interstellar community. And of course, they are speaking to the dolphins.
and hey, since we’re all cousins I don’t think we have to be all that careful ;-)
very cool. Now it makes even more sense to me why the cast is so diverse. +1
jaz: Interesting thought, jaz. Don’t know. But I’ve never thought of myself as being precocious. Mmm…
Stip: Precisely. :-)