True Blood

[Andro]

This is a thread where I'd like to share/discuss the deeper layers and possible Alchemical implications of the (IMO) brilliant series 'True Blood'.

I'm a big fan of the show, as I know are a few others on this forum .

The 6th season is currently airing, and there is a 7th season scheduled for next year.

So, if you've been following the show, we can do some alchemical fan-talk here - so come out of your coffins!

If you plan to watch the show but haven't yet, you'd better stay away from this thread, because there will be spoilers

I'm just testing the waters with this opening post, to see if there are any takers.

Oh, and here's a taste :

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The series was created by Allan Ball, who also created Six Feet Under (more on those special 'six feet' later & elsewhere ).

Allan Ball also wrote American Beauty.

 

[Seth-Ra]

I have known of the show for a while, watched an episode a good while back while visiting family in arizona (they were fans of the show).

Having watched that snippet you posted, i am now watching it from scratch. Will chime in again when im caught up.





~Seth-Ra

 

[Ajnavajra]

I watch the show without fail and yes, find it full of alchemical underpinnings: life isin the blood, life consumes life, we're all part of an alchemical Golden Chain, and if we eat those "below" us, then don't complain if you also are seen as food; that there's an older order, Lillith based, with lost knowledge, but we could be initiated or born into it, but first must die to this human life. Plus the intercession and intersection into this dimension of creatures from other planes such as Faery who carry more prana. The alchemical school of Roger Carot was based on spirit helpers; Carot had one, Kamala Jnana, and without that helper, his Stone would not have completed. The talented but hubris bitten Nick ******** also had many spirit adventures, so it can be dangerous to play with. But these are the formative forces of Nature we want to direct

 

[Andro]

A scene with Vampire Queen Sophie-Ann and Bill Compton. Some very interesting insights:

Bill Compton: I need to know how to kill a maenad.

Sophie-Anne: A maenad, in Bon Temps? That's random.
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Bill Compton: So, how do I kill it?

Sophie-Anne: You can't. She's convinced herself she's immortal and so she is... William surly you know everything that exists imagined itself into existence.

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Sophie-Anne: Never under-estimate the power of blind faith. It manifests in ways that bend the laws of physics or breaks them entirely.

Sophie-Anne: Maenads are sad, silly things... the world changed centuries ago and they're still waiting for the God who comes.

Bill Compton: Does 'he' ever come?

Sophie-Anne: Of course not. Gods never actually show up, they only exist in humans' minds, like money and morality.

Bill Compton: If I can't kill her, how do I get her to leave Bon Temps?

Sophie-Anne: She has to believe she successfully summoned forth Dionysus in hope he will ravage her and quite literally devour her until she is lost into oblivion.

Bill Compton: So she seeks death? The true death. The only thing she has evolved beyond.

Sophie-Anne: You know they're really not that smart, these maenads.

Bill Compton: So how does she summon this non-existent god of hers?

Sophie-Anne: I never said he was non-existent. I just said he never comes. She believes if she finds the perfect vessel, sacrifices and devours part of him or her, plus surrounded by the magic of her familiars then her mad god will appear. At that point when she willingly surrenders herself to him...

Bill Compton: That's the only point she can be killed.

 

[Andro]

Update: Season 7 (and apparently last) just started airing.

 

[Seth-Ra]

Yep. Watched the first episode last night.

 

[Andro]

From John 6:

53. Jesus said to them, “Very truly I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.
54. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day.
55. For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink.
56. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in them.
57. Just as the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so the one who feeds on me will live because of me.

 

[Florius Frammel]

From John 6:

53. Jesus said to them, “Very truly I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.
54. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day.
55. For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink.
56. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in them.
57. Just as the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so the one who feeds on me will live because of me.

On your way to become a christian, eh?

The Christ-Lapis analogy is stressed throughout many texts.
And alchemy imo gives a sensible interpretation of the holy communion too (I wonder whether fundamentalists really want to become cannibals). The whole process seems to be about the wine (red or white, blood, liquid) and the consecrated host (salt, flesh, solid). According to the bible Jesus came to earth as gods incarnation (atheists would probably say from 'nowhere') through the help of (the materially graspable) mother Mary.

Christ then (eventually also materially graspable) gets tortured and put to the cross (with three iron nails), where his blood is collected in the holy grail, before he resurrects and eventually (completly!) returns to his source, not until to free all men and women from their original sin and pave their way to heaven as well.

Especially the "completly" part is interesting, as several churches claimed to posess Jesus' foreskin. And there used to be a big discussion in the past whether this is even possible when the whole man went to heaven completly.

Motives not that different to the descriptions of the origins, use and end of the philosophical stone, at least according to many texts..

 

[Andro]

On your way to become a christian, eh?

Any day now... Hold your breath, I'm almost there...

Anyway...

In the series 'True Blood', there is a 'Testament', known as the 'Original Testament', which precedes the 'Old Testament' and is also referred to as the 'Vampire Bible' or the 'Book of the Vampyr'. It says that the first created being, Lilith, was created in the true image of god, because god is also a vampire. This 'Testament' also states that the 'Adamic' (human') race is meant to serve as food/nourishment for the vampires.

According to the Book of the Vampyr, Lilith was created by God in His own image: a vampire. Adam and Eve were created to sustain her, beginning the natural order of humans existing to service vampires.

"And their flesh shall nourish yours, their blood shall flow within you, for as the beetle nourishes the lark so shall human nourish vampire."

In the True Blood Universe, there are other supernatural species, such as faeries. The faeries are creatures of light and natural enemies of vampires, but the two species also have a seemingly obsessive attraction for each other.

So the Alchemical recipe that I would derive from 'True Blood' is as follows:

Gather a decent amount of (gold-colored) fairy dust and imbibe it with (red) vampire blood. They will fight at first, but eventually (Dissolve & Coagulate) they will end up in an inseparable union

The end product should not be red, but deep purple/violet.

Ingest and transcend. Voila.

 

[Florius Frammel]

It's not the first time here I read about a fight between two groups of entities on the astral plane.

If I remember correctly just recently someone compared them with the Jedi and the Sith.

Do books exist, where something is written about these entities fighting (Can't remember reading something about it in Monroe's book for example. My first guess would be Franz Barton, trust I'm not doing him injustice), or is that something yet to be written about and can only be experienced on your own when there?

 

[Andro]

Gather a decent amount of (gold-colored) fairy dust and imbibe it with (red) vampire blood.

When burned, sulfur melts to a blood-red liquid and emits a blue flame.