Dark Knight Of The Soul

 

When I saw the breaking news ticker tape on TV that actor Heath Ledger had died, my first thought was ‘who?‘

Having ignored the whole Brokeback Mountain media spin I still couldn’t place him…not until someone online mentioned ‘A Knight’s Tale’ did it finally click.

In a period of hotel hopping in Asia  a few years ago I was forced to watch this film numerous times, as it seemed to be the only in-house DVD they had on the entire continent. So  A Knight’s Tale and I are like old friends…

Reading more about Heath I learned that he had just completed filming  The Dark Knight,  the latest Batman movie. Being a person sensitive to synchronicity, the word Knight appearing twice in his films piqued my interest. Especially when news about a frenzied attack on a young girl in Chorley was also making the news – Jessica Knight 14 was left for dead after being stabbed up to 30 times as she walked in a park on Monday night.

Jessica is the latest in a long line of young teenagers who have been attacked by other young people for what seems to be no reason. If this epidemic of attacks and murders was a virus like SARS or Bird Flu the authorities would be falling over themselves to quarantine people or vaccinate them – because they would have a detrimental effect on business and nothing can be allowed to drive share holders profits down.

As it stands a young life is apparently worth little to both attacker and those that represent us. But make no mistake this is a  virus as dangerous and insidious as any bacterial equivalent. But whats this got to do with Heath?

One of the ways I believe this virus spreads through the minds of young people is via the media – music, film and the 24 hour news channels especially.

If you become aware you notice clusters, themes and words that seem to act like triggers. Since studying hypnosis I have been staggered at the extent to which we are all already hypnotised to one degree or another and how business and governments use this to their advantage. A great demonstration of how easy this is can be seen in this video by Derren Brown

 This weeks theme/meme has been suicide. The week started off with repeated speculation that Heath Ledger killed himself  with pills/drugs.  Suicide? Suicide? Suicide?

As that faded away we had the trial in Greece of  John Hogan, the man who tried to kill himself and his two children by jumping from a balcony whilst on holiday. His son was killed and Mr Hogan’s trial for his murder was reported to us  every few minutes throughout the day, the facts being repeated over and over…how Mr Hogan tried to commit suicide and how his two brothers had committed suicide before him. Suicide! Suicide! Suicide!

The week ended with the news of a spate of suicides involving young people in Brigend, Wales. Originally standing at 7 in the last year the number has now been revised  upwards to the superstitious number 13.

Phillip Walters, Coroner for Bridgend and Glamorgan Valleys, has said that in an 11-month period in 2006 he was seeing one case of suicide a week.Following publicity about the seven deaths, thought to be linked to the Bebo website, it is reported that a dozen local schoolgirls have told their teachers they were considering suicide.Suicides! Suicides! Suicides!

We can’t see this virus, but we can see its effects.

Back to Heath and that Batman movie: Heath apparently prepared for his role as the Joker in Dark Knight by spending hours alone in his apartment trying t0 formulate the character’s posture, voice and psychology -  a character he described as ‘a psychopathic, mass murdering, schizophrenic clown with zero empathy’.  He even kept a diary, in which he wrote the Joker’s thoughts and feelings.

As a writer I have become painfully aware of the need to be careful when ‘trying on feelings’ : Last year in Thailand I was absorbed in writing a fictional story in which the drama begins when a woman’s home is burgled. I spent five days trying to capture the character’s feelings as I’d never experienced being broken into and robbed. Ten days after beginning the story my husband woke me up in a panic at 4.00am telling me we had been burgled whilst asleep in bed…  

In the 19th century, the famous horror writer, Egdar Allan Poe, wrote a book called ‘The narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym’. It was about four survivors of a shipwreck who were in an open boat for many days before they decided to kill and eat the cabin boy whose name was Richard Parker. Some years later, in 1884, the yawl, Mignonette, sank, with only four survivors, who were in an open boat for many days. Eventually the three senior members of the crew, killed and ate the cabin boy. The name of the cabin boy was Richard Parker

 So here we have Heath trying to think, feel and act like an insane psychopath in order to play the part authentically. As a result it seems he developed insomnia and was prescribed the sleeping pills found near him. You have to wonder what he opened his mind up to? If you believe in a dark force, the dark side, if you will, it makes you wonder if he almost willingly  and unwittingly opened himself up to a form of possession that he couldn’t control.

The images from Dark Knight make disturbing viewing in light of this weeks events:

I’ve never liked clowns. These images reminded me of another famous person who died in similar circumstances to Heath not long ago.

Anna Nicole Smith shortly before her death, in a really strange video.

Heath was also recently working on another film Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus, again a film with what seems to be a dark theme in essence, even if portrayed in a benign way. It’s a story about the leader of a traveling theater troupe who, through a deal with the Devil, takes audience members through a magical mirror to explore their imaginations.

This image from this film taken in December is really disturbing:

Heath’s character seems to have the Illuminati pyramid with the all-seeing eye on his forehead and the symbol for phi on the left. If we return to some of the poor young victims of suicide in Wales, the image becomes more resonant:

Dale Crole, 18, from Porthcawl, went missing Sept 2006, body found Jan 2007

David Dilling, 19, Pyle, found hanging near home, Feb 2007

Thomas Davies, 20, North Cornelly, found hanged, Feb 2007, friends with Dale and David

Zachary Barnes, 17, Bridgend, found hanged

Liam Clarke, 20, Bridgend, found hanged in park, friend of Dale

Gareth Morgan, 27, Bridgend, found hanged at home, knew Liam

Natasha Randall, 17, Blaengarw, found hanged at home, friend of Liam

If Heath got so into character as the Joker that he actually became possessed by the psychopathic personality he conjured up or brought to life, what is it, or who is it that young, vulnerable minds will see on screen in July? I fear that due to his death, the Joker will  inadvertently become an anti-hero, the complete antithesis of what our children  so badly need now.

If it had such an effect on him, at a time when he was emotionally vulnerable, with his guard down, what effect will it have on young minds, many of whom are equally as vulnerable – especially as they have now been primed to really pay attention to his performance due to his untimely death?

One clue as to what we may see, as this virus spreads can be found here, a disturbing site which documents the idea and results of the Copycat Affect

Bearing in mind all that I just said…take a look at the publicity site for Dark Knight

That’s the statue of Christ in Rio behind him. More images of people dressed as the Joker (remember Batman is supposed to be the hero) at landmarks around the world can be found here.

Update: Having re-read this post I realised that the above statue was in the news on February 2nd in a way that gives me the shivers

 

Update: An excellent and thought provoking synchromystic piece on Heath Ledger at Atlantean Times