Erasing the Head | Film Interpretation
In this episode, I welcome Rebecca, my wife, to discuss her article on David Lynch's cult classic Eraserhead. Through a psychological interpretation of the movie, we attempt to answer the cryptic question of "Why is there a pencil factory in Eraserhead?"
Read "A Shamanic Initiation and Transformation through Horror: An analysis of David Lynch’s Eraserhead (1977)" at
https://quaily.com/chymical-mycelia/p/shamanic-initiation-transformation-horror-analysis-david-lynchs-eraserhead
Living Symbols homepage at https://www.dionysophy.earth/living-symbols
Learn more about Dionysophy at https://www.dionysophy.earth/
Dionysophy on X at https://x.com/dionysophy
Send a dream for interpretation at https://tally.so/r/wkpQ8r
Show notes and timestamps
4:55 - Raised By Wolves article, https://dreamsanctuary.net/raised-by-wolves/
9:15 - Uzumaki video, https://youtu.be/b2ujPkkdbak
10:05 - Socrates as Midwife, https://www.faculty.umb.edu/michael_lafargue/104/204/plato/readings/midwife-misolog.htm
11:10 - Angel's Egg (1985), by Mamoru Oshii, https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0208502/
13:50 - "We thus have a good reason to believe that the core of the human personality is either erotic or religious, or both. . . .
Religious and erotic terminology are notoriously interchangeable. The visions of the mystics abound in erotic imagery and, on the other hand, the language of lovers is often religious. ... The religious attitude and the mature erotic attitude are essentially one. The religious or centroverted attitude relates reverently to the inner source of life, to God. The mature erotic attitude relates with equal respect and significance to fellow humans." (Edward Edinger, Science of the Soul, The Transference Phenomenon)
23:10 - “Eraserhead is my most spiritual movie. No one understands when I say that, but it is. Eraserhead was growing in a certain way, and I didn’t know what it meant. I was looking for a key to unlock what these sequences were saying. Of course, I understood some of it; but I didn’t know the thing that just pulled it all together. And it was a struggle. So I got out my Bible and I started reading. And one day, I read a sentence. And I closed the Bible, because that was it; that was it. And then I saw the thing as a whole. And it fulfilled this vision for me, 100 percent. I don’t think I’ll ever say what that sentence was.” (David Lynch, Catching the Big Fish: Meditation, Consciousness, and Creativity, 2006)
25:10 - "The psyche is part of the inmost mystery of life, and it has its own peculiar structure and form like every other organism. Whether this psychic structure and its elements, the archetypes, ever “originated” at all is a metaphysical question and therefore unanswerable. The structure is something given, the precondition that is found to be present in every case. And this is the mother, the matrix-the form into which all experience is poured. The father, on the other hand, represents the dynamism of the archetype, for the archetype consists of both—form and energy." (Carl Jung, Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious, CW 9, par 187)
27:00 - “A man’s head bouncing on the ground, being picked up by a boy and taken to a pencil factory. I don’t know where it came from.” (Greg Olson, David Lynch: Beautiful Dark, 2008)
32:50 - Gardenback, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Lynch%27s_unrealized_projects
33:20 - The Grandmother (1970), by David Lynch, https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0065794/
36:50 - Madonna–whore complex, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madonna%E2%80%93whore_complex
37:00 - Marie-Louise von Franz - Men With A Split Anima Due To A Mother Complex, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C30CoJenqPc
39:45 - Child archetype, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_archetype
44:25 - “The soul is then a “worm” like the “fiery serpent,” a “larva” and a “monster.”’ (Carl G. Jung, Psychology and Alchemy, par 215)
48:20 - Vesica piscis, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vesica_piscis, Mandorla, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandorla
50:45 - Beheading as the unio mentalis, or the first stage of the coniunctio. See Carl Jung, Mysterium Coniunctionis, CW 14, par 730.
59:15 - "Dismemberment is a practically universal motif of primitive shamanistic psychology. It forms the main experience in the initiation of a shaman. Cf. Eliade, Shamanism" (Carl Jung, Alchemical Studies, CW 13, par 91, infra 4)
1:07:00 - The Elephant Man (1980), by David Lynch, https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0080678/
1:09:10 - Jennifer Lynch on Reddit, https://www.reddit.com/r/davidlynch/comments/1ldbcec/comment/my7shsi/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button
