In Part 1 of this series we focused on the world being seen as false, or unreal. The Lesser world, or Underworld, being revealed for what it is and the Greater world, Eternity, facilitating this realization by itself appearing to the Journeyer. These worlds blend together, each found within the other, until they are indistinguishable and something new and transcendent is birthed from their union.
Today we’re going to examine the Anabatic encounter with the Shadow of God, or the Nameless God. The apparently all-powerful authority within the Lesser world, yet one which has the shape of Divinity without any of it’s true qualities.
In a Katabasis this would be the threshold at which Death is realized as an experience and transcended. Following this, the Goddess is redeemed. In Anabasis, as one climbs the mountain the light at its apex casts shadows which are taken to be reality. Encountering the Shadow of God itself is the threshold where the highest conception of the Underworld breaks down such that the entire context of the Journeyer’s apparent reality inverts, dissolving the illusion of separation between the Greater and the Lesser and producing a completely new world.
The following will contain spoilers, and I’m presuming you’ve already seen the film.
Ghostbusters
Before the film even begins, the Columbia Pictures logo brings the central theme to the forefront.
Ghostbusters is a journey of those who carry the Light of the Divine within the world.
At first glance, it may seem like a science vs religion movie where religion gets its ass handed to it, but this is to fall for the Shadow of God and misunderstand what Divinity is.
I’m not saying this is the only way to read this movie, but we will be following a specific esoteric understanding for this analysis.
We open looking at a lion, a symbol of Aion, God of Eternity. Around it are birds, messengers of the Divine, and it stands before a library, repository of knowledge. We’re in the Underworld, the Lesser world, yet the reflections of the Greater are already surrounding us.
A librarian gathers loose books to return them to the basement shelves. She barely notices books floating between shelves behind her and rounds a corner. Catalog cards fly out of drawers and she runs in fear.
We start in the Lesser world, the Underworld. We’re already surrounded by the dead and spirits.
The “ghosts” in the film are not all deceased humans. Some are, but many are their own class of entity which never was a living person. They are the already present reality into which we are incarnated as the story begins.
Dashing between the shelves, a brilliant light scares the Librarian and we see the title screen as the theme begins playing. The first stage of Enlightenment is often described as becoming aware of the light of a passing stranger.
Who You Gonna Call?
The Lesser World
In our previous article we discussed how a journey can be recontextualized such that it seems what is true at the end is true the whole time, and this is the fashion in which we are going to approach each of the Ghostbusters.
The theme song describes them as individuals one calls upon when something seems wrong. When a ghost shows up and causes fear.
This is the purview of the Divine: the management of spirits. One calls upon Angels or Gods to command demons, shadows and shades, or ghosts. From the very start we’re introduced to the Ghostbusters as agents of the Greater world already manifest within the Lesser.
We stand behind the statue of Athena at Columbia University in New York City.
Athena is the Goddess of Wisdom, Strategic Warfare, and Crafts. She is the Patron of Heroes and Inventors. A perfect fit for the Ghostbusters, who from the very start already are filling roles similar to Greek demigods or angelic figures.
In Hermetic, Kabbalistic, and Christian mystical traditions there are four Archangels who represent the way the Divine becomes manifest and present within the world:
- Raphael – Commonly thought of as the Archangel of Healing, Raphael is truly the process of Reconnection, Restoration, or Unification. He is the glue that binds the world together.
- Michael – Wielding a flaming sword, Michael is thought of as a Warrior of Justice, but he is the process of Differentiation: the ability of the intellect to separate truth from falsehood. Understanding, intelligence, and communication. He is that which thinks and comprehends.
- Gabriel – The Archangel of Revelation, Gabriel is the process of Reception: how the unknown becomes known. Faith in Intuition. He is that which experiences and processes emotion.
- Uriel – The Inner Light, Uriel is the process of Illumination, the way in which Continuity provides meaningful understanding of the present. He is the grounding force that keeps one in the moment.
We will see their roles reflected in each of the Ghostbusters, both in their intra-team actions and their grander position within the story.
The film begins to introduce us to our Heroes. They all work in the same university office, labeled “Paranormal Studies”, with Venkman being called out to “Burn in Hell”: an indication that the students subconsciously recognize they are within the Underworld.
Dr. Peter Venkman tests two students with Zener cards, yet ignores meaningful execution of his experiment to flirt with the female student, giving electric shocks to the young man.
Peter is our Raphael archetype in this film. He will both hold the team together, as well as later facilitate inversions which allow the worlds to unify. His dry sarcasm is itself a power of inversion, creating an opposite effect from what would be expected by his literal words.
Here, we find out he has a low opinion of the paranormal and the work he is doing. It seems to just be a magic trick to him, and beneath his attention. A thing of the Underworld.
Dr. Ray Stantz enters the room as the male student, sick of electric shocks, storms out. He announces “This is it!”
Ray is the Gabriel archetype. He’s already announcing a discovery in this scene, and searching for material with which to record that which is hidden. He is the emotional heart and center of the team, ready to receive whatever messages are available.
He continues his revelatory role and explains to Peter that 10 people have seen a ghost at the New York Public Library. “We’re close on this one, I can feel it”. Effectively, Ray is announcing that the Ghostbuster’s mission is to Enlighten the world: by proving that ghosts are real they are effectively publicly revealing that the apparent reality is the Underworld, and they are doing so by using tools of the Greater world.
Peter takes a moment to lie again while setting an inappropriate date with his student, then he and Ray head to the library. He complains that all the efforts of Ray and Egon haven’t led to anything, and that they are going about things the wrong way.
Ray argues that his witnessing of an unexplained mass sponge migration counts, yet Peter is unimpressed by the distance covered by said sponges.
Dr. Egon Spengler is introduced next, already at work within the Library as Peter plays a prank by slamming a book on the table while making “ghost” noises.
Egon is the Michael archetype. He collects and analyzes the data they uncover, explains the reality of their theories, and arms the group with Divine Fire.
He is already convinced a thing of the Underworld is present where they are. Peter reminisces on Egon attempting to drill a hole into his own head, which would have worked if Peter hadn’t stopped him.
Here, in their first group meeting, a library administrator approaches and reveals that they’re not here on their own accord: even now they’ve been called here to investigate. Summoned as agents of the Divine into a representation of knowledge such that they witness firsthand that they are within the Underworld. Asked to take up a priest’s, magician’s, or angel’s task: deal with the spirits present.
Interviewing Alice (also the Actress’s real name), the librarian from the opening, she describes the human form of the ghost she saw. Peter asks her if she or any of her family has a history of mental issues. She explains that her uncle thought he was Saint Jerome. Jerome of Stridon was known for translating the Bible into Latin, and is the patron saint of librarians, translators, biblical scholars, and students.
The administrator complains about Peter’s personal questioning, to which he responds “Back off man, I’m a scientist.”
Science within this film is the stand-in for Eternity, or the Greater World. Knowledge is repeatedly, though subtly, linked with Divinity. Epistemic truth is what grants authority over the Underworld and the spirits which dwell within, and is what reveals the nature of the apparent reality. The Ghostbusters are agents of the Divine, wielding a Promethean power.
Descending into the basement of Knowledge, they begin to gather evidence that crystalizes their understanding of being within the Underworld.
“Listen! Do you smell something?” Ray is receptive to the information present on an intuitive level, despite the confusion of his senses. He films the entire exercise.
Egon wants a sample of the ectoplasm on the catalog to analyze, asking Peter to gather it. He’s asking for an understanding of something which has violated the ordering of knowledge, both in a physical and in a symbolic sense.
A bookshelf falls behind the group, surprising them and Peter uses a small amount of humor to break the tension and keep the group unified.
Rounding a corner, they come face to face with the undeniable proof that they are within the Underworld: a ghostly librarian floats before them. Realizing they are uncertain of what to do, Peter has them retreat to form a plan, again keeping them cohesive.
Ray suggests Peter tries to speak with the entity, but he is only shushed by it.
Realizing this doesn’t work, Ray, acting only on emotion, brings the group closer and closer before screaming “Get her!”.
Running in fear the Ghostbusters rush out of the library scaring away the pigeons, both sets of Divine agents now fleeing the revelatory event.
Peter teases Ray who confesses that he just got excited, while Egon explains that the readings he got mean that they are able to catch a ghost and hold it indefinitely. Peter gives him a Crunch bar.
Returning to the university, they find the Dean present and that they are being evicted, their grant terminated.
The university, a center of knowledge and learning, is a shadow of the knowledge center that the Library represented. It is the institutionalized, conformist form of learning where one only hears the thoughts of others. The library contained direct experience of a universal truth: the world they exist within is the Underworld, and so as the Ghostbusters wish to reveal this truth they are not allowed to stay at Columbia.
Nearing separation, Peter is able to hold the group together by suggesting the go into business for themselves. Getting a third mortgage on Ray’s house, Peter explains that they will be Professional Paranormal Investigators and Eliminators.
Here they are again explicitly linking themselves with the powers of the Divine. Exorcisms, ways of expelling spirits or demons from a person or location, are traditionally performed by priests in the name of God. Their Divine power is the knowledge they have gained, specifically the experiential knowledge that they are within the Underworld. An Awakening.
Needing a new place to stay, they now associate themselves with firemen.
Prometheus, a Titan in Greek Mythology, is credited with stealing fire from Olympus and giving it to humans. This fire is is the Divine fire of Eternity, arriving in humanity in the form of intelligence and technology.
In Magia we can think of the Fire as a substance of the Divine, the process of Awakening or Enlightenment itself. It is what makes the Lesser world possible by casting shadows from the Greater world, and everything experienced is just appearances in the Fire. The Light of this Fire is also contained inside humans who function as a Lamp within the Underworld, as the Ghostbusters do, and is the source of their power.
As firemen and exorcist-exterminators they are not set against the fire, but rather as mediators of the fire such that it is applied safely within the Lesser world, lest it burn the whole thing away. Shadows cannot exist in direct light.
Shadows of the Mountain
The Greater World
Within Magia we describe the cosmology regarding the Stages of Enlightenment as the journey up and down a Mountain surrounded by a forest.
55 Central Park West in Manhattan is right next to Central Park, and serves as the physical representation of the Mountain within this story.
From the very start however, we see that it is a parody of the Mountain. Already shown to host demons and devils made of the stone of the Underworld upon its heights.
Dana Barrett, fulfilling the role of the fallen Goddess, a Sophia analog, lives within this dark mountain. Her rescue and redemption becomes a driving force for the Ghostbusters’ Anabasis. However, remember that while in Katabasis one is called to Divinity, in Anabasis one calls Divinity to themselves.
Louis Tully lives on the same floor. His role is a syzygy with Dana. He is the dormant Logos, the child-like unawakened Son to be paired with the Goddess. Because this story is an Anabatic encounter with the Shadow of God, each of them are in their fallen-role and experience a counterfeit hieros gamos, a parody of sacred marriage that births only chaos, a shadow of true Divinity.
He seeks Dana’s attention, but in their current forms its not possible for them to be paired. He invites her to a party, and points out his kindness of turning up his own T.V. because a neighbor complained that hers was too loud. She comments that she didn’t remember turning hers on before shutting the door in his face.
Her apartment is 2206, which in Hebrew Gematria aligns with the phrases “The secret of the way things are“, “Things are about to get very Biblical” and “Demon soldier breaks down the Goddess’s door“.
Louis finds himself locked out of his apartment.
The Ghostbusters have produced a commercial, asking for those who need professional paranormal extermination services to call them. This is their Anabatic call for the Divine to come find them.
Turning off the T.V. and moving to put away her groceries, Dana’s eggs pop out of their shells and begin cooking on the counter, next to the foreshadowing of Stay-Puft Marshmallows.
Eggs, being a symbol of fertility, new life, and potential, popping and cooking supernaturally here are highly symbolic of Gozer’s imminence: Their coming manifestation is their unnatural birth into the world. The latent pressure of its arrival mirrors the later destruction of the containment unit.
A growl emanates from the refrigerator, and Dana opens it to reveal a vision of an extra-dimensional temple structure and demonic creature. It calls out “Zuul”.
The pyramid shown is a dark parody or shadow of the Holy Mountain which is climbed in Anabasis, and an unnatural light tops it here. The stairs represent the ascent up the mountain where the guardian of the gateway, a Terror Dog, waits to open the passage. This whole place is an even darker microcosm of the Underworld version of the Mountain, nested within it and awaiting to pop out in manifestation, just like the eggs on the counter.
Dana screams and shuts the refrigerator.
Outside the firehouse, Peter comments on their new Ghostbusters sign as Ray arrives with a new car. A Cadillac Miller-Meteor, commonly used as either an ambulance or hearse. It needs quite a bit of work, but will soon become the Ecto-1. As their conveyance through the Underworld, it is one component of their Mercurial Divine support.
Janine Melnitz is next introduced, the Ghostbuster’s secretary. As the firehouse is essentially their Temple, set against the Shadow of Gozer’s hidden within and atop the false Mountain, she is a Steward of the Flame, tending the hearth while the Ghostbusters take care of other business. Controlling the communications systems and ordering their work, she is the other half of the Mercurial support.
She confirms they currently have no work to Peter, and Egon crawls from beneath the desk where he was setting up her computer. They discuss common interests, and there is an attraction seen between them. She considers herself an intellectual and he collects spores, molds, and fungus. On the Tree of Life the Sephirah Hod is associated both with the planet Mercury and with the archangel Michael, and they share quite a few aspects and roles.
Dana arrives at the firehouse while Ray is working on the car. Janine greets her, and Peter nearly trips jumping over a swinging door to meet her. This is Divinity responding to their call.
She explains the experience she had, and the Ghostbusters begin speculating on what might have been going on.
Peter asks for theories from the group. Egon, using Michael’s ability of Differentiation, confirms that she’s telling the truth, his brilliant light temporarily blinding Peter.
Ray’s theory aligns with his role as Gabriel, theorizing it might be a past-life experience being revealed. Egon’s matches Michael, focusing on thoughts in various forms being the reasons. Dana says she doesn’t believe in these things, and Peter, as Raphael, tries to keep a unified cohesion to the group by agreeing with her and suggesting a path forward where he checks her out checks out her apartment.
For the first time we get a closeup of the Mountaintop. We see there is a false-fire in the form of a brazier-statue which doesn’t match anything in the rest of the skyline, as well as huge reliefs depicting the fridge-pyramid with a figure descending from it.
Peter and Dana arrive at the bottom of the Underworld, in her apartment within the false Mountain, and he puts on a show of investigating the place. Playing part of the soundtrack on her piano, he samples the air with one of his “little toys” while hitting on her.
Each of the Archangels we’ve discussed has an elemental association: For Uriel it is Earth, Gabriel Water, Michael Fire, and for Raphael, Peter, it is Air, so his tool of choice is appropriate.
Moving through the apartment, they come to the kitchen where the cooked eggs remain on the counter. Peter checks the refrigerator, but finds only junk food. Dana insists on the experience she had, but Peter says he’s getting no reading, but he doesn’t think she is crazy.
His seeming indifference to the paranormal here is central to the role he is playing. Rather than the apartment his attention is mainly focused on Dana, and it is a correct reading of the situation that she is what needs his investigation, as she is the target of Zuul. His humor and dismissiveness inverts the horror of the paranormal events to mundane normalcy, restoring things to their proper order. His casual usage of his tools contrasts the spectacle which was conjured in the refrigerator. He drains any power the shadows have here by simply not being part of the drama they are causing.
He confesses his love for Dana, and is then thrown out of the apartment. Even this contrasts the power of the growing shadow, as his confession is an offering of himself and the rejection is freely accepted whereas the Terror Dog will soon forcibly take possession of her.
He asks to prove himself to her, which is again an inversion of the shadow’s power, as it is asking her to base an opinion on evidence rather than faith and spectacle. Only the opportunity to do so is what is asked for, as a free choice, and this is the same as the gift offered by the true Divinity within the Greater world which he represents.
Louis, since he inhabits the same location in the Underworld, has to be present too, and here we find him once again locking himself out of his own apartment. Symbolically, he lacks harmony with the place in which he exists, a sign that he doesn’t truly belong in the Underworld and that something is wrong with the structure of reality.
Divine Fire
Back in the firehouse, the Ghostbusters toast to their first and only customer. Now at a low point, they find themselves out of money.
A call comes in, and Janine answers. After assuring the customer that they are indeed serious, she takes the address and slams her hand onto the fire alarm.
The mood is immediately different from Dana’s arrival. Whereas she was answering their call for Divinity to come to them, this is them being asked to fulfill their role as representatives of the Divine within the Underworld.
Lighthearted music plays, describing their duty, as they slide down the fire pole, suit up, start up the Ecto-1 for the first time, and head out into the Underworld.
They arrive at the Sedgewick Hotel.
Hotels are spaces of liminality. They follow a strict structure as an ordered transitional space, and a haunting is a common feature of such a location. A place where identity is temporarily housed inside a system it does not belong to, they are a microcosm of the Underworld itself.
The stressed manager arrives as they enter, providing background lore about the disturbances on the 12th floor. Things have been quiet for years, but something began happening two weeks ago. A sign of the growing shadow that is Gozer’s approach.
For the first time the Ghostbusters are seen wearing all of their equipment. Personalized suits, tool belts, and Ray wears Ecto-goggles allowing him to reveal what others cannot see.
As they wait for an elevator, while interacting with a hotel guest, Peter identifies them as exterminators. Again, his humor and sarcasm inverting the situation’s horror, and diffusing the power the Underworld has, asserting the correct hierarchy where it has no control over them.
Ray comments on not yet having a fully successful test of the equipment, Egon blaming himself. Peter points out that they are each wearing “an unlicensed nuclear accelerator” on their backs.
Here, we see revealed the manifestation of the Ghostbuster’s power. Egon, wielder of the flaming sword, or Divine Fire, as Michael, has invented a portable cyclotron which collides positrons, electrons with a positive charge, a form of antimatter, to annihilate the electrons in hydrogen atoms which creates both light and a stream of protons which are fired out of the front of the particle thrower. This device interacts with the negative ionization of ghosts to hold them in place wherever the particle beam is directed. The earlier data gathered had proved to them that ghosts were physical things within this world.
In this movie, its never actually called a “Proton Pack”, which is a name that arrives in the cartoon and then is used in the second film.
Not only is the device the result of Divine Gnosis in order to be created, Prometheus’s gift to humanity, it is directly associated with godlike power. The splitting of the atom, resulting in the creation of the atomic bomb, caused Oppenheimer to quote Lord Krishna revealing his Divine form in the Bhagavad Gita: “Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds”.
They are literally bearers of a Divine Fire which takes the form of beams of Light which they cast out.
Arriving upstairs, in a moment of overreaction and fear Ray and Egon blast the cart of a hotel maid, Peter stopping them and apologizing that they thought she was someone else. He deems it a successful test, as she tries to spray the fire out with a bottle of cleaner.
The group splits up to be able to cause more damage.
Dispersion is a necessary step of the Divine incarnating into the Underworld. It is only in the Greater reality of Eternity where it is One, and so to act within the Lesser world it must first apparently separate from itself.
Ray, the agent of revelation, is the first to encounter the ghost (commonly called Slimer). An agent of gluttony, it gorges itself on room service cart. His shot misses, and the ghost escapes through the wall.
Egon does not directly encounter the ghost, instead his readings leading him to a solid member of the Underworld: a hotel guest. Effectively, this is the same thing: as a denizen of the Underworld an individual person is a member of the dead. A ghost, or a shade. But instead of finding something which is an illusion, his intellect leads him to something real.
Peter next encounters the ghost. His immediate reaction is to attempt to unify the team by calling for help on the radio.
The ghost baptizes him in slime, an exaggeration of his first contact with ectoplasm in the NYC Public Library. Ray arrives to provide support, and Egon on the radio asks (again mirroring the Library) that some is saved for him and calls the team downstairs as he has located the ghost in a ballroom.
The Ghostbusters assure the manager that they’ll take care of everything while requesting he wait outside. The Divine Fire which they wield is dangerous to the uninitiated. To a world of shadows it can be incredibly destructive. They lock the doors.
The Ecto-goggles worn by Ray reveal the ghost circling the chandelier of the ballroom, like a moth drawn to a false light. Peter identifies it as the same which attacked him.
Together, they blast the chandelier, destroying the false illumination with their true light, and it slams down onto a table.
Egon now gives important information about wielding this Divine Fire: “Don’t cross the streams”. It would be bad. All life stopping instantaneously and every molecule in one’s body exploding at the speed of light. “Total protonic reversal.”
The Divine Fire is at least somewhat safe to be wielded at an individual scale, like a warrior with a sword, but the combined power of their Unified Divinity is so great that it would potentially destroy the entirety of the Underworld. Shadows cannot stand up to direct exposure to light.
The group splits again, yet remains unified, spreading out into the room to deal with the spirit as it chugs a bottle of wine. Peter directs their efforts, tiring the ghost out and damaging the room. Outside the hotel manager is concerned.
They flip a table to put down the “trap”. Peter performs an Underworld magic trick with a table cloth as Ray centers the trap under the ghost.
This time Ray directs their efforts as they finally wrangle the ghost.
As the trap opens, we see again their power is a Divine Light. Ray warns not to look directly into it. (Rumor claims that doing so risks pulling your soul out of your body through your eyes). However, Egon looks at it but suffers no ill effects as far as we can tell. As carriers of this Divinity, the Ghostbusters are not harmed by their own devices. They are creatures made of the stone of the Earth, the substance of the Lesser world, but which are translucent such that they let the Divine Light through. Lamps in the Underworld.
As the trap is closed, the ghost is pulled inside. It is not possible for such a being to resist moving towards the light. A tunnel of light is commonly described in Near Death Experiences, as the transition between worlds, and those passing over are told to “head into the light”. It is the natural state of beings of the Underworld to approach such a thing.
The ghost caught, Egon subtly works with Peter to charge the hotel manager $5000. Despite his initial protests, he pays for the exorcism services, and the group leaves.
Light and Shadows
As light grows brighter, shadows grow longer and more prominent.
Now publicly revealed, the Ghostbusters are shown in montage fixing supernatural trespasses, both individually and as a team. Their popularity skyrockets, but this causes one to question why ghosts are suddenly a problem in the city. Dana watches from her apartment.
Ray dreams of sexual contact with a ghost. The upcoming possession sequences are a shadow of this joining of worlds, parodying and perverting it.
The success of the Ghostbusters pushes them to hire more staff.
Winston Zeddemore arrives for an interview. Unlike the other members of the team, he is not a professor with PhDs, instead representing the everyman worker. Here, the Archangel Uriel finally arrives, grounding the Ghostbusters from the lofty heights they are reaching.
Janine quizzes him on his beliefs, and as Uriel he is only concerned with the present, believing anything she asks him to as long as there is steady pay involved, a thing of the Earth.
Ray and Peter walk in, and when Ray hears that Winston is hear about the job he immediately recognizes him as their missing team member and hires him on the spot, putting him to work.
Peter and Dana meet outside her job in the symphony, where he shares the information he has gathered for her so far:
“Zuul refers to a demigod worshipped in 6000BC by the Hittites, Mesopotamians, and Sumerians. Zuul was the minion of Gozer.”
This is a bit anachronistic, as the Hittites and Sumerians would have come thousands of years later, even if we assume he meant 6000 years ago (4000BC). What was there at this time was the Ubaid culture.
We don’t know much about the Ubaid’s beliefs. The earliest religions we can describe in detail are the Ancient Mesopotamian Religion practiced by the Sumerians and Akkadians and the Ancient Egyptian Religion, both starting in the 3000s BC. However, we do know the Ubaid had some form of religion as they had temples and priestly roles in their society.
Essentially what Peter is saying here is that this entity and its god are from the very beginning of religion as we know it.
He uses this as an opportunity to invite Dana on a date. After some playful banter, she agrees.
Now that Winston, as Uriel the Archangel of Earth, is here the storage location for the captured ghosts can be revealed: Within the Earth itself. In the basement of the firehouse, embedded in the wall, is the storage facility.
Janine, annoyed and overworked, announces a member of the EPA has arrived to speak with Peter.
Walter Peck is waiting in Peter’s office. He questions Peter’s authority, quizzing him about his PhDs (Parapsychology and Psychology) and about catching ghosts. He wishes to see the storage facility because he does not believe that ghosts are real. He see the Ghostbusters as conmen who are harming the public and the environment.
Peck is the shadow of Egon. Egon as Michael has the intellect of differentiation, seeing truth in the falsehood, and Peck follows this same process. However, as a shadow the Light of the Ghostbusters light represents the idea that his worldview is wrong, so he is incapable of seeing it. He operates from the inverted logic of the Underworld: the things the Ghostbusters are doing cannot be real and so they must be harmful and dangerous.
Peter sets himself against Peck, threatening a lawsuit.
Meanwhile, in an inversion within the basement, Egon begins to explain the true danger: A Twinkie 35 feet long weighing 600lbs.
His data is showing that the psychokinetic energy of the city is reaching a sort of critical mass. The containment grid is filling up, and readings of such a high rate suggest something big will be happening soon. The precursor Shadows to the manifestation of the Shadow of God, Gozer.
We’re again shown the Mountain, this time in darkness.
The stone creatures of the Mountaintop are revealed to be the Terror Dogs of Dana’s refrigerator vision.
This shows exactly what they are: things manifest from the Underworld itself. Coming from the Lesser world, they are Shadows, not things of the Greater world or the Divine.
As they are the minions of Gozer, we can infer just from this that Gozer is also a Shadow, though one of greater stature than Zuul or Vinz Clortho.
As a storm thunders outside Dana tiptoes past Louis’s party. She apologizes for not being able to attend, as she has a date with Peter. Louis locks himself out of his party while saying that she can bring Peter along.
In her apartment her mother calls while she changes clothes. Her bedroom door is illuminated from within as it rumbles from clawed hands reaching through it. Swinging open to reveal Zuul, she is held down by demonic hands as her chair is pulled through the door.
We’re shown that the Terror Dogs are no longer present in their statues on the roof.
Meanwhile in Louis’s party he greets and introduces his guests, and then is shocked by a growling from the coat room.
The second Terror Dog, Vinz Clortho, chases him out of his apartment and across the street to the Tavern on the Green where the diners are so absorbed in their own worlds they are unable to even consider what is happening to him outside.
Peter arrives for his date with Dana, carrying flowers, and is confused by the destruction outside.
Now possessed by Zuul, she asks if Peter is the Keymaster and claims to be the Gatekeeper, a pair needed for the ritualized Sacred Marriage to bring about Gozer. This itself is a parody or inversion of Divine power: two lesser shadows, created things, joining to create a larger one, an apparent god, as opposed to God’s love resulting in Creation.
Peter attempts to contact Dana, but the possessed body claims that there is no Dana, only Zuul. He attempts to assert his authority over it, and in response the creature begins levitating above the bed. Again, this is a parody of true Divinity, a magic trick of the Underworld where the body is physically lifted, opposing the idea of being spiritually lifted to realize Divinity.
Louis, also now possessed, identifies himself to a horse as Vinz Clortho, and reveals he is seeking the Gatekeep. He says to “wait for the sign and our prisoners will be released.”
Police at the firehouse reveal they are dropping off, instead of picking up, and turn Louis over to Egon and Janine. Egon reveals he doesn’t believe Louis to be human, and his instruments confirm the same as the Terror Dog is seen on the video screen.
Janine reveals to Egon Louis’s real name and that he lives in Central Park West, the same place as Dana. Asking what sign he is waiting for, Vinz reveals:
“Gozer the Traveler! He will come in one of the pre-chosen forms. During the Rectification of the Vuldronaii, the Traveler came as a large and moving Torb! Then, during the Third Reconciliation of the Last of the Meketrex Supplicants, they chose a new form for him, that of a giant Sloar! Many Shubs and Zuuls knew what it was to be roasted in the depths of a Sloar that day, I can tell you!”
Janine says she has a bad feeling that something is wrong with Louis and that Egon is going to die. They are interrupted by a phone call from Peter, explaining what is happening with Dana. We ignore why he might have had 300cc of Thorazine with him to put her to sleep. This is an anti-psychotic medication, a gentle application of science (divine power) to suppress the instability of possession by a shadow of the Underworld.
True to his nature as Raphael, he says they should bring the two together, but Egon explains that this would be extraordinarily dangerous.
Winston and Ray are driving back to the firehouse from a remote bustin’ gig. Ray is looking over the blueprints of 55 Central Park West and noticing something strange about them. Winston asks Ray if he believes in God, to which Ray responds that he’s never met him. Winston says that he does, and that he loves Jesus’s style.
This is not a denial, it is a refusal of the premise of the question. Faith is not a matter troubling Ray, as he is an agent of Revelation. He has experienced the paranormal constantly within the Underworld, yet has not had a direct experience of a God here. The only God he’s a participant in is completely silent, revealed through the Ghostbuster’s actions. This is his confession of a Hermetic epistemology. The only God which could be encountered here is the Shadow of God.
Winston asks if Ray remembers something in the Bible about the last days, when the dead would rise from the grave. Ray says he remembers “Revelations 7:12” (which in actuality is Revelation 6:12, and as Gabriel of course the book he’s able to quote is Revelation) :
“And I looked, and he opened the sixth seal, and behold, there was a great earthquake; and the sun became as black as sackcloth, and the moon became as blood.“
Winston finishes “And the seas boiled, and the skies fell.“
Together: “Judgement Day”.
Ray says that every religion has its myth about the end of the world, to which Winston corrects that the reason they’ve been so busy is that the dead have been rising from the grave.
The Sign
The Blending of Worlds
Gozer is referred to as a god, and is described as one from the very beginning of organized religion. An angry and destructive one which has no true form and changes names. The happenings surround it are explicitly linked to a Biblical end of the world. The role which fits this description is that of the Shadow of God.
So what is the Shadow of God, or the Nameless God?
It is the apparent highest ruler of the Underworld. The summit of the inverted Mountain. The idea of what a god is as seen through separation and time. The shape of Divinity but without its essence or nature. It is authority without love, power without creation. It has no being of its own and only exists because Eternity shines beyond it. Because it is a shadow, a true name for it cannot be revealed, as its real name would show the truth of its non-being and it would disappear, and so it hides behind false names.
Walter Peck approaches the Ghostbuster’s firehouse.
Janine tries to stop him, and he serves her a warrant. They head down into the basement with Egon and Vinz, Peter arriving shortly after. Peck is trying to shut down the containment grid, now with legal backing, and will not listen to reason. After a short argument, he shuts the grid down.
As the shadow of Michael, Peck is only able to borrow or parody the Divine Fire. The roof of the Ghostbuster’s firehouse is blown off in an explosion as the light, and ghosts, within the containment grid escape.
This is the sign Zuul and Vinz Clortho were waiting for, and the release of the “prisoners”. When Vinz was questioned as to what the sign was that he was seeking, it wasn’t one that indicated Gozer would be coming, he said it was “Gozer”. The sign itself.
We’re looking at a blending of Divine Light and the things of the Underworld being released together. The light erupts from beneath the earth instead of coming from Eternity to meet it. Ghosts (shadows) and Light together end up creating a shadow of a shadow, and at such a scale that it creates the Shadow of God. This is Gozer before any physical manifestation of them, formless and nameless, they are already present. It is a parody, or inversion, of the Blending of Worlds, and the one which the Ghostbusters are here to set right.
Ray and Winston arrive with Peter and Egon, and Peck has them arrested. Even with confronted with the direct truth, he cannot see what is happening in front of him.
Here the pushback begins. The Underworld and its Nameless God attempt to assert their authority as ultimate.
Ghosts invade the city, Zuul wakes, and Vinz Clortho wanders the streets.
In jail, the Ghostbusters go over the strange construction of 55 Central Park West. Egon says that the roof-cap is the same type of structure NASA uses to identify dead pulsars in deep space. Esoterically, this is like saying it is a telescope to find dead gods. Ray claims the whole building is an antenna to concentrate spiritual turbulence.
Egon designates the building as a door for something terrible which is about to enter the world. Ivo Shandor, architect of the building, was a surgeon who performed unnecessary surgeries and started a secret society of Gozer worshippers. After WWI he decided society was too sick to survive and conducted rituals, with his thousand followers, on the roof intended to bring about the end of the world.
The architecture of 55 Central Park West is the physical expression of the Nameless God’s theology: a civilization deliberately oriented toward death because it mistakes the highest point of the Underworld as the tallest peak one could climb. A dead god is the Shadow of God, as the shadow is a thing with no life of its own. The skyscraper is confirmed here as the shadow of the Holy Mountain, a Temple to Shadows built by its false prophet.
Vinz Clortho and Zuul, Keymaster and Gatekeeper, finally reach each other in a parody of Katabasis. The fallen demigod descends into Underworld of the Underworld to find the fallen demigoddess within, and their ritualized Union produces the manifestation of the Shadow of God.
Confronting the Shadow of God
The Fruit
The Ghostbusters are called into the Mayor’s office, where Peck is waiting for them.
Peck is still unable to see the truth of reality before him. The Ghostbusters attempt to explain what is actually happening.
The Mayor’s desk says “Be Not Afraid”, a phrase uttered by biblical angels. His officials enumerate the unexplainable happenings of the Underworld around them. The archbishop arrives to agree that the happening is a “sign from God”, explicitly linking Gozer to the Biblical God once more, along with the Ghostbuster’s own description of the coming mass hysteria.
The Mayor tries to make a decision, but is swayed by Peter pointing out that he’s saving millions of registered voters, appealing to his sense of unity. He kicks Peck out of the room, choosing to trust rather than deny his experiential reality, and offers to support the Ghostbusters.
A police and national guard escort drives them to the building, while a dark cloud forms around it, parodying the light at the top of the Holy Mountain.
The Ghostbusters, beacons of hope in the darkness arrive to cheering crowds and look at the structure they are about to climb.
Dark clouds and lightning upon the summit evokes explicitly Mt. Sinai imagery. A shadow darkens the face of the mountain as Gozer arrives even before it’s manifestation does.
In a feat of demiurgic biblical power the Ghostbusters fall into a rift created by an earthquake at the base of the skyscraper.
Unharmed, they climb out to the crowd cheering their name.
Climbing the structure, it seems to be an infinite ascent into darkness. Yet another parody of the Anabatic journey.
Zuul and Vinz Clortho, having completed their congress, watch as the lightning strikes the roof again.
The Ghostbusters, now having reached what is the threshold of what is paradoxically the lowest point of the Underworld, find that it is adjacent to the highest point, and make their final ascent to the top.
Zuul and Vinz Clortho return to their Terror Dog forms as they open the gate to allow Gozer’s manifestation to cross into reality.
They take their positions as they watch Gozer’s manifestation take form. In an androgynous guise, this is an inverted theophany where it pretends to appear as unified opposites. Holding the team together, Peter calls for Ray to “Go get Her”, referring back to Ray’s original plan in the Library.
Ray steps forward and addresses Gozer, ordering it to leave.
“Are you a God?” Gozer asks.
“No” is Ray’s response.
“Then, Die”.
Gozer responds with lightning, another deific power.
Gozer’s question is one demanding ontological classification within it’s hierarchy. It accepts that other things like itself can exist, but cannot conceive of things higher than itself. Ray’s answer is honest: he is not the thing which Gozer thinks that it is. As a human, he is a thing made of the substance of the Underworld, but containing the fullness of Divinity. This is not the same thing as being a “God” in the way Gozer is questioning, and his answer is a refusal to participate in such a taxonomy.
To Ray, or any of the Ghostbusters in this moment, if something is God then everything is God. There cannot be separation into “a” God or multiple Gods.
Gozer’s lightning, a supposed power of a God, pushes them but does not kill them. One would think that if it truly was a God and the Ghostbusters subject to it, they would not have survived.
Winston’s response here “If someone asks you if you are a God, you say yes” is a grounding factor. He’s saying that if they are going to participate in interaction with Gozer, they have to do so via it’s context.
This is directly followed by the Ghostbusters directly attacking Gozer with their proton beams, taking Winston’s advice.
Gozer first dodges, and then disappears.
If it were a true Divinity the power which the Ghostbusters wield would pose no threat to it, and there would be no purpose in dodge. The light causes its currently manifest form to vanish, a shadow unable to stand up to light.
In another biblical parody, Gozer is now just a voice from the clouds. It lists the many names it hides behind, demanding the Ghostbusters submit to it by choosing a form to destroy themselves. It has no true form of its own, and so must borrow one created for it by actual Divine beings.
Anabasis is a return to the Source, a journey into the past to discover where one has come from, and in this moment Ray reveals a more innocent time, a place of safety and security, which is then parodied to a ridiculous extent.
They’ve now reached the culmination of their Anabatic ascent. The Nameless Shadow of God is now given form representative of its authority in the Underworld. Death and Destruction condensed from natural-disaster style raw power into a monster wearing the face of innocence.
They attack Stay Puft with each of their proton beams, but it is ineffective except to start fires. The creature and its threat remain, returning their fire to them.
Egon, wielder of the Divine Fire, suggests that they “Cross the Streams”. By directing the proton beams into the gateway pocket dimension, they can cause it to explode, thereby destroying the monster before them.
However, what this is really suggesting is Unity. To defeat the Shadow of God, what they must do is realize Eternity within the Underworld. The fullness of the Divine Fire brought forth, and done so by joining together rather than working separately.
This is the top of the Holy Mountain in their Anabasis. The mountain is one pointed, unified. They realize their carried Divinity as one and the same with each other. As their roles of Archangels, they are Divinity divided into 4 parts to create the world, and are completely capable of returning to unity.
This is the complete dissolution of separation itself. The undifferentiated Divinity dissolves the entire concept of its own shadow. The shadow can only exist through separation.
In a Katabasis, the existential threat passed is that of the End of the Self. Death, or the End of Time. This is also the End of the World, as when one’s own consciousness stops experiencing it is effectively the meaning that there is nothing else to experience. Anabasis has the existential threat of only the Underworld existing. That Eternity is inverted such that it is the false reality, and the Underworld being the real one, the only one. This is the Shadow of God which is surpassed by the realization of Unity at the top of the Mountain, Awakening from the dream, or Enlightenment.
Returning to the experience of the Underworld, they find the fallen Goddess and fallen Logos trapped within the remains of the Terror Dogs and release them from the stone in which they are trapped. The world is bathed in marshmallow, an undifferentiated and uniform remains of the dissolved shadow, a baptism in ectoplasm for the whole of the Underworld.
They drive away as heroes, having dissolved the Shadows of the Nameless God by the reintegration of what was never truly separate, leaving only the quiet recognition that Eternity was never absent from the world, only divided in appearance.
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