or, Through the Looking-Glass Via Theoretical Physics — Not in Portland... In Starboardland
Some physicists have argued that a complete universe needs to have two sides — two sides that exist in parallel but are normally invisible (or dark or black) to each other — two sides where the matter operates in the same way, but where stars and planets formed in different patterns. The two sides are different according to "mirror reflection symmetry," where, basically, left and right are reversed on the very small scale of particle physics. Our side (Portland) has "left-handed" particle interactions, and the other side (Starboardland) has "right-handed" particle interactions. In the words of Locke in Episode 1: "... Two sides... One is light... One is dark." Note which hand each stone is in.
Right-handed matter is also known as mirror matter. This theory proposes that the island is on a small chunk of mirror matter that crashed into Earth millions of years ago and developed alongside Earth into an inhabitable world. It's a tiny world "on the other side of Earth," as the producers suggested recently. Because the two types of matter interact only "weakly" (gravity matters, but there is little friction between the "sides"), the chunk of matter is anchored only loosely near the surface of the earth. The island is invisible to those on Earth and Earth is invisible to those on the island; Ben Linus is supposed to be on the right-handed "moon" because because Benjamin means "son of the right hand" and Linus was a son of Apollo; and John Locke is the savior of this little "new world," as suggested by the cross formed by his right eye and the cut he received when he arrived on the island.
The super-short version is: It's a show about dark matter, that trendy science stuff you saw on the Discovery Channel. Of course, that's not quite right. Below is the geeked-out, super-expanded, way-too-much-information version. (Hardcore fans like me need specific answers to everything.) It's not what would be shared directly with the audience. On the actual show, I think we just need two elements to be explained: (1) the idea of mirror matter or dark matter and (2) a visual like what's above. [Auf Deutsch? Hier — Vielen Dank, simutiger!]Carlton Cuse: ... from Marvelo815: "So I was thinking… Does the island move? How does Eko's short range plane … go from Africa to somewhere near Australia? Maybe the island is forever moving..."
Damon Lindelof: I think that's a fascinating thought. And I couldn't possibly answer that question 'cause if we were to reveal something so ginormous as the fact that the island was moving … they would fire us instantly. And also, it would be much cooler if we would reveal something like that in the show. [from the LOST Podcast, Nov. 6, 2006; Thanks to Soother17 for finding this gem]
This has just been greatly simplified — believe it or not — to more closely match what we've learned. The just-prior version (which has the same ideas, but incorporates a constantly moving island) is here. I'm continuing to revise it. On a separate note, you might find the Kerr metric fascinating. Regardless of the explanation for the show, I continue to think the apparent arrangement of wormholes (the bearing nonsense) is inspired by that type of space-time anomaly. Please feel free to add your thoughts in the comments. Cheers and happy reading — Mike
Oh, and if the crazy stuff in the finale spoiler turns out true, this might just morph into a theory about a crashed organic spacecraft (a small planet-ship, if you will), with a core designed for spacetime travel, but misunderstood by the Egyptians and explored by Dharma.
Cheat Sheet. I don't want to leave anything out, so I continue to add details (usually points of circumstantial evidence) as they arise and as the show continues. So this is long and will only continue to lengthen. Here is the connective tissue and some key elements.  Light vs. Dark sets up:
 Mirror Symmetry sets up:
 A moon of mirror-matter solves the geo-spatial problems:
 Mirror Matter explains really bizarre elements and comments:
 Dark = Black = Island = Right = Mirror Matter (~Dark Matter)Light = White = Earth = Left = Our Matter If you just read that, you'll miss the finer points. For those, keep reading. |
Mirror Matter
Mirror matter (aka shadow matter or Alice matter, after Lewis Carroll's works) is a hypothetical form of matter that is not antimatter, though it may account for what we call "dark matter." While mirror stars and planets have been proposed, we would hardly be aware of their existence without the aid of careful measurements. The key is that "our" matter and mirror matter don't interact all that much, which allows mirror matter to exist in an almost parallel universe, and mirror matter is invisible to the eye (unless the eye is composed of mirror matter).The particle interactions of mirror matter are "right-handed," whereas the particle interactions of our matter are "left-handed." So the two types of matter don't talk too much, save for a couple of exceptions, the most interesting of which allows the electromagnetic force to be felt across the "worlds" through the sharing of photons. Gravity, however, transcends the two opposing forms of matter, and so gravitational fields are shared across the two "worlds."
This theory is on some levels inspired by hard science, but it's absolutely science fiction. The one book aimed at making mirror matter understandable is by Australian physicist R. Foot. That book seems to be the key source of info for the show. A review article covering the real, un-doctored physics can be found here.
Possible depictions of parity transformation (matter to mirror matter and vice-versa) on Dan's blackboard.
The idea is that the inhabitable moon — a small planet if you're more comfortable — has only ocean, the island, and the little island with the Hydra station. That's it. Juliet: "So they have a boat — sailing in circles will keep them busy." A moon also gives a reason for the Apollo Bars made of dark chocolate.
That reversed yin-yang thing is Iapetus, a weird moon of Saturn with a light and dark region. Interestingly, there's speculation that it's the best candidate for a mirror matter body in our solar system (the visible exterior would be a coating over the mirror matter interior). The moon proposed here would look more like a tiny Earth.
Historically, wormholes are thought to let you pass into a mirror universe. The ideas are not really the same, but the evidence seems to be converging on wormholes. The island has a natural Casimir effect, which is probably sci-fi shorthand for "expect wormholes between the island and Earth to be a central part of the story." Plus, Lewis Carroll used an early version of the concept when devising his "looking glass" world.
It's like a spacecraft entering the Earth's atmosphere. If you enter the atmosphere at too steep an angle, you'll burn up; if you enter it [at] too shallow an angle you'll bounce off and back into space. And I think that that analogy is a good one for how you have to get on or off the island. [from the producers]
It seems DHARMA figured out how to exploit the Casimir effect to better control the formation of wormholes. I'm not sure if the moon will be moved to Tunisia or if Ben was able to dial-in coordinates in space and/or time. I like the first idea because it forces Ben to use the location of the moon, instead of zapping himself directly to a preferred location. The Orchid could be used to get off the island. You might be out of luck in getting back so easily.
Previously, this theory had a very involved description of the moon in constant rotation and orbit through the interior of Earth (around Earth's center of gravity). It now makes more sense if the moon is currently stationary near Fiji, but can be de-anchored from its position (left to drift and then re-attach). How? You somehow alter the weak electromagnetic coupling between the two worlds — you turn it off temporarily, perhaps with a pulse of some sort from the Orchid. Interesting note: If you calculate the time it would take for a frictionless object to fall through the earth from one side to the other, you get 42.23 minutes. (That quick calculation does make some questionable assumptions, like that the "moon" is of negligible mass.)
The Moon
The idea is that the inhabitable moon — a small planet if you're more comfortable — has only ocean, the island, and the little island with the Hydra station. That's it. Juliet: "So they have a boat — sailing in circles will keep them busy." A moon also gives a reason for the Apollo Bars made of dark chocolate.The sun in the sky? It would be Nemesis or another mirror matter star at roughly the same location as our sun. In fact, there's a video by Speaker (a LOST insider) that features a dark sun.
The march of time is identical — time is synchronized. According to the rules of our show, a communication between sat phones is not affected by temporal distortion, but if you were to send a radio broadcast and/or a telegraph message, it would be affected by temporal distortion. [from the producers in an interview in Popular Mechanics]
That quote tells us that there is minimal, if any, difference in the "present" on and off the island. The difference between the events learned over the sat phone are probably no more than a 48 hours off from the events described over morse code. It seems the time distortion is due to something that happens when you cross between worlds. Perhaps a better argument is that it was learned eventually over the sat phone that the helicopter arrived. If island present were somehow shifted, it could never catch-up with the helicopters arrival. Island time could be jiggling a bit, but there's nothing in science to hang that idea on, making it a hard sell.
That reversed yin-yang thing is Iapetus, a weird moon of Saturn with a light and dark region. Interestingly, there's speculation that it's the best candidate for a mirror matter body in our solar system (the visible exterior would be a coating over the mirror matter interior). The moon proposed here would look more like a tiny Earth.Magnetic Fields and the Moon's Core
A moon capable of supporting life would need a lot of things going for it, including an outer core of molten rock to sustain electric currents and provide a protective magnetosphere. The electromagnetic fields of the moon would necessarily be different from those on Earth.
It's long been thought in pseudo-science circles that magnetic fields have healing powers (remember the guy Isaac that Rose visited in Australia?). The field might also explain the birth problems. For example, fetuses might develop too fast for the womb to manage, making the the fetus more and more unrecognizable to the mother's body.
DHARMA Initiative
DHARk MAtter Initiative? And the true center of the Dharma logos? The yin-yang, perhaps the most universally known symbol of opposing, yet complementary, light (yang) and dark (yin) elements.
On a different world you have different physical constants. DHARMA's mission was two-fold: Ensure the moon has long-term habitability (tweak weather patterns, adjust the ecosystem with predators, exploit the geothermal activity for a sustainable power source, etc.); and, try to address the Valenzetti equation on a world with different constants.
The Namaste gesture symbolizes a peaceful meeting of the left and right hands. However, as Ben said, "one side had to go."
Entry and Exit from the Moon Through Little Wormholes
Historically, wormholes are thought to let you pass into a mirror universe. The ideas are not really the same, but the evidence seems to be converging on wormholes. The island has a natural Casimir effect, which is probably sci-fi shorthand for "expect wormholes between the island and Earth to be a central part of the story." Plus, Lewis Carroll used an early version of the concept when devising his "looking glass" world.I'm not thinking of big swirling tubes, but rather small windows, which the chopper could have passed through when it passed through the storm cloud. In the process, matter flips to mirror matter or vice-versa. There might also be certain locations in the EM field (or would it be the Casimir field?) of the moon that are most likely to spontaneously open such windows.
If you're within the moon's atmosphere, a wormhole could form briefly like a net and shift you to the moon (hopefully not 2,000 feet above the water). There wouldn't be much shifting in space here, but rather just shifting from one "side" to the other.
What there seems to be, however, is a bit of temporal messiness. Perhaps the mouths of the wormholes can be dragged around a bit before collapsing, allowing for a bit of random time shifting when you enter or leave the moon. Clearly, whatever is happening, Daniel is struggling to understand it.
It's like a spacecraft entering the Earth's atmosphere. If you enter the atmosphere at too steep an angle, you'll burn up; if you enter it [at] too shallow an angle you'll bounce off and back into space. And I think that that analogy is a good one for how you have to get on or off the island. [from the producers]
It seems DHARMA figured out how to exploit the Casimir effect to better control the formation of wormholes. I'm not sure if the moon will be moved to Tunisia or if Ben was able to dial-in coordinates in space and/or time. I like the first idea because it forces Ben to use the location of the moon, instead of zapping himself directly to a preferred location. The Orchid could be used to get off the island. You might be out of luck in getting back so easily.Perhaps Adam and Eve are Penny and Desmond, finally reunited, only to find themselves in the past and dying at the time of their conception on Earth.
Previously, this theory had a very involved description of the moon in constant rotation and orbit through the interior of Earth (around Earth's center of gravity). It now makes more sense if the moon is currently stationary near Fiji, but can be de-anchored from its position (left to drift and then re-attach). How? You somehow alter the weak electromagnetic coupling between the two worlds — you turn it off temporarily, perhaps with a pulse of some sort from the Orchid. Interesting note: If you calculate the time it would take for a frictionless object to fall through the earth from one side to the other, you get 42.23 minutes. (That quick calculation does make some questionable assumptions, like that the "moon" is of negligible mass.)Presumably the moon was originally anchored in the earth's surface near Egypt (explaining the hieroglyphs), and has since been moved several times. The movement can explain how the island can collect people and objects from locations around the earth, like the small drug plane, the Black Rock, Desmond, Flight 815, etc. It makes sense, too, that a move to a new location made the island difficult for Widmore to find, and another move will make it hard to find yet again.
[Thanks to lostmio for pointing out the flash animation on oceanicflight815.com; the glow in the screenshot nicely captures the atmosphere of the moon, and the animation captures the idea of a moon in motion within Earth]
The show seems to follow an arc like a Shakespearean tragedy: rising to a high point in the middle and then descending toward despair. There seems to be such a midpoint at the transition between Seasons 3 and 4. [Thanks to HearingVoices and jane_eris for throwing out very similar ideas.] And there is other evidence that the midpoint of the series is a turning/reversal point:
- The flash-forwards suggest the high point of the characters' lives was before the call to the freighter — it's certainly going downhill. Is it all downhill from here?
- Flash-forwards began replacing flash-backs at the very end of Season 3
- Forward is the name of the guy who introduced the term 'mirror matter'
- Finale of Season 3 was titled, "Through the Looking Glass"
- Premier of Season 4: Hurley crashed into a set of mirrors (seriously?!)
- One definition of Kahana, the freighter, is 'turning point'
- Premier of Season 4 was titled, "The Beginning of the End," suggesting Seasons 4-6 really are the second half of the story
Smoke Monster — Mirror Monster
In short, it's a life-form that developed on this little world while humans developed on Earth. And, running with the theme, it mirrors. It explores and learns, building a repertoire of behaviors, sounds, and appearances that mimic what it experiences. Because it evolved on a world with a dominant electromagnetic field, it perceives electromagnetic fields. Hence, it mimics the shape of the fields it encounters and is at home among the rich sources of electromagnetism in the core of the island.
On different occasions, the monster has behaved in ways that remind me of a deep-sea sub and ROV, an excavator, a giant squid, and an eel.
Why mimic these things that are typically (or always) found underwater or underground?
Well, much of the moon probably is underwater or underground in our world much of the time. (In fact, provided wormholes don't allow water or matter to "seep in," the moon could actually be anywhere inside of the earth.)
And, Foot proposes a way for the two types of matter to interact... "kinetic mixing" via the exchange of photons:
"If there is a photon-mirror photon transition force, then now an ordinary electron can actually interact with a mirror electron. ... The net effect of the transition force is to make mirror electrons interact slightly with ordinary electrons."
We can spin this to say that the electromagnetic fields of creatures and objects on Earth's side (in the left-handed world) can be perceived by the monster, particularly if they produce light. For example, the "tentacles" at the sonar fence move like the two tentacles of a giant squid, but only the tentacles are visible. In real life, only the tentacles of another type of giant squid are illuminated.
Some ROV and Squid "Footage"
These are all wrong in many respects (wrong type, wrong depth, wrong speed, wrong lighting; fake squid), but I thought it would be fun to include some videos. Hopefully, you can imagine at least some overlap with the monster experiences on the show.
In the Philadelphia Experiment, in a nutshell, generators usually used to discharge the magnetic field that built-up on metal ships were cranked way up, and the ship and crew shifted through "hyperpace" to a different place and time for a period of time before shifting back.
Take the Swan and Desmond. The magnetism in the Swan needed to be periodically discharged. Only a brave soul would turn the key, however, because it could (and did) result in a discharge powerful enough to send anyone very close on a temporary Philadelphia Experiment-like trip through hyperspace. Now we know that it was just his consciousness and was a prelude to him being unstuck like Ms. Hawking.
When the Swan released the enormous burst of photons, the electromagnetic force interactions between the worlds jumped momentarily.
Psychics Fooling Around on the Other SideThe big picture is that we have two worlds, with each world acting as a "spirit realm" for the other. People can be "psychic" or "special" because they are attuned to electromagnetic fields and can access the moon because of its extraordinary field. This may sound out there, but realize that we have evidence of "psychic activities."
"Wet Walt" is Walt presumably projecting himself from underwater in our world to the island. Notice how Wet Walt and "older Walt" (who appeared before Locke) wear white shoes. The crashing birds are likely a result of Walt changing the EM field around himself. (Many migratory birds rely on EM fields for geomagnetic navigation.)
Jacob is probably doing the same thing. Notice how we only see the left eye of people in Jacob's cabin. That might suggest he's projecting from our left-handed world to the island. [Thanks to jcarlson34 for some related thoughts]
Jacob is dressed like a guy from at least 100+ years ago. So let's assume he is a guy from 100+ years ago projecting from somewhere in our world. In fact, I like to think Jacob is Carl Gustav Jacob Jacobi, the mathematics god who gave us Jacobian matrices. Being in the past but able to communicate with Ben in the future could permit Jacob to take actions that affect the present. For example, he could set in motion events that remove the source of Rachel's cancer, curing her by preventing her from developing it in the first place. What else other than magic could Juliet trust would work? Jacob could also set in motion events that steer certain people that Ben has vetted to the island. Jacob would be scared of light and/or EM fields because they facilitate interaction between his world and the island, and allow the situation to become frightening and slip out of his control.Note that Jacob sat in a wooden chair at a table, and "is a man who summons you," according to Ben. Who else fits that description? Richard Malkin, the psychic in Australia. In fact, it's a stereotype of people who exercise psychic powers.
So we have Jacob projecting, summoning the dead, and manipulating island dwellers by speaking through their dead relatives for the sake of what? A utopia? An ark of sorts?
Richard Malkin, and his daughter, could be related to Jacob or else merely special. I have no doubt that when he told Claire she mustn't allow her baby to be "raised by another," he really said "raised by an Other," but we were biased to interpret it the first way. Malkin was presumably practicing "remote viewing" of the island when he did the "reading" for Claire and saw a "sort of a blurry thing." His daughter was presumably able to communicate with Yemi's spirit because she has a gift like her father and was visiting the island, which, again, would serve as the spirit realm for Yemi (assuming he died before his plane crossed-over).
Whispers of Migrating Souls and Ghosts Doing Stuff in Respective Spirit Realms — needs revising
Bodies buried on the wrong side seem to be at unrest...
The shoes seem to give the side of death away. Ben's mom, Jack's dad, etc., wear white shoes (they died on the light side); whereas Charlie (so far) wears black shoes (he died on the dark side).
Self-Reflection as a Principle Form of Character Development
Producer Carlton Cuse: We are interested in exploring how good and evil can be embodied in the same characters and the struggles we all have to overcome the dark parts of our souls.
It's as though the island forces you to look at your true self in the mirror. [Thanks to poster HearingVoices for communicating this with elegant clarity.] The characters are forced to confront their inner demons. Examples: Hurley and his food, hallucinations, and belief he is cursed; Jack and his failure to be a great man by the standards of his father; Sawyer dealing with "Sawyer;" Boone acknowledging his love for Shannon; Desmond and Charlie and their sense of worthlessness; etc.
Locke interestingly, gave up his left kidney, and then had it murdered by Sawyer. Later on, this "left side" sacrifice saved him.
Further Evidence for Mirror Matter
If you're a fan of the show, you've surely seen a billion references to mirrors, reversals, inversions, and Alice in Wonderland (mirror matter is also known as Alice matter, in reference to Lewis Carroll's works)...
- The gigantic foot (after R. Foot)
- The Looking Glass — the idea obviously being that you typically enter this world of Alice matter through the Looking Glass station
- The black and white stones
- Charlie crosses with the opposite (and wrong) hand before dying
- Backward speech
- Rabbits, chess games, episodes entitled "White Rabbit" and "Through the Looking Glass"
- The city reflection in the Season 4 posters
- Ana Lucia's shirt is white before the crash (when presumably on the "light side") and mysteriously changes to black after the crash (when presumably on the "dark side") [Thanks to jane_eris and others for catching this]
- There's that single white shoe in the opening scene. Sounds silly, but could it be a "light" shoe for the left (light) foot? (Andyo_uk also makes a decent argument for an unusual obsession with shoes in the show. He has a couple of lists in the comments.)
- Hurley crashes into a collection of mirrors in the opening of the 3rd season.
- Part of the summary of "Valis" from Philip K. Dick's site: "an ancient, mechanical intelligence orbiting Earth..." It's a central reveal in the book. More here.
- [more coming]
Beyond the Show Proper:
- In a broadcast by DJ Dan, there was a taped interview with a student working on a project, apparently for the Widmore Corporation (likely responsible for the people on the freighter):
- Interviewer: "So, uh, then what are the possible applications of this research?
- Student: "Pretty much, we were asked to simulate an electromagnetic pulse strong enough to knock a space-borne body out of its recurring orbit."
- Interviewer: "Uh, space-borne body. Like what, exactly?"
- Student: "Like the moon."
- [Transcript courtesy of Lostpedia]
- So it might be fair to assume the primary objective might be to destroy the island... or, to correct its orbit after the EMP from the failsafe in the Swan knocked it out of its orbit
- In an ABC interview, Damon Lindelof said:
- "Somewhere just outside the Crab Nebula is where it will all end, geographically."
- Take a look at the cover of Foot's book on mirror matter. The title and Foot's name are just outside the Crab Nebula. ;-)
- "Bad Twin," the book by Gary Troupe in the Lost Experience includes two twin brothers who are identical except for their handedness (regular handedness, but also the direction in which their hair curls, etc.). Matter and mirror matter are identical except for their handedness (left-handed corresponding to "our" matter, right-handed to mirror matter). [Thanks to poster Konstantin for bringing this nearly perfect Easter Egg to my attention.]
- The Whitman poem in the online game leading up to Season 4 is poem # 180 in "Leaves of Grass."
- The Compass logo for the Maxwell Group has left and right (East and West) reversed. Reversals of left and right along a mid-line are arguably the allusions most specific to mirror reflection symmetry in the show.
- Svalbard? The only connection to Svalbard in recent memory is "His Dark Materials" [Thanks to tdciago for pointing this out]
Further Evidence:
- The constellations have been edited. For example, the Big Dipper has had two stars removed. What better way to suggest that constellations are mirror matter constellations and not our own. [Credit to poster jane_eris and others] And, while Carl and Alex could make up names for the constellations, it's more compelling to make up names when the constellations really need to be named.
- The species are different, as noted by Arzt. Sure, the EM field might contribute to this; but whenever someone speculates about mirror matter worlds they mention how the species would be different.
- Mikhail has only one eye. Here's part of R. Foot's description of Miros, a fictitious mirror matter world:
- "Miros is a planet made of mirror matter — atoms composed of mirror electrons and mirror protons and mirror neutrons. Miros is somewhat different from Earth though. It's a bit smaller with deeper oceans, but there is life on Miros. The people of Miros are a bit strange, they have very large feet and only have one eye ... Thus, Miros isn't much like Earth which just illustrates that microscopic symmetry of particle interactions does not translate into a macroscopic symmetry."
- The "Hatch Painting" in the Swan depicted: (1) 2 figures of opposite polarity (a normal Penny and inverted Desmond?), (2) A collection of right-side-up stick figures above the waves and upside-down figures below the waves, (3) a trajectory that corkscrews to the right (like a diagram for a right-handed, mirror matter particle) apparently representing Des' path as he fell from the boat, (4) houses beneath the waves, (5) prominent celestial bodies.
- Boone — not a philosopher, but the BooNE experiment(s) at Fermilab regarding dark matter
- Chapter 1, page 1 of Foot's book features a quote from Hawking's "A Brief History of Time."
- [more coming]
Wrap-Up
LOST begins with an opening right eye. [Thanks to blacklodge for pointing this out]Will it end with an opening left eye back on Earth or a closing right eye when the island is destroyed?
Or absolutely neither? After all, this is just a proposal. It could be 100% wrong. Even though it is inspired by theoretical science and pseudo-science (mirror matter and a mind–electromagnetism connection), some elements (like gravity) are clearly not depicted in a way that would fit with this. The initial estimate of the size, for another example, seems ridiculously small. I could fill another tome with violations of physics necessary to pull this off. Then again, there's a cabin that jumps around the island... It's a sci-fi TV show. And that implies the inclusion of magic and also a unique form of constraints (which this theory might or might not violate). Lost exists in another reality. It's a judgment call as to how different that reality can be.
I'd love your feedback, positive or negative, specific or general.
I owe a great debt to posters on The Fuselage and DarkUFO, who have, at the minimum, given these ideas some resonance and offered amazing and intelligent feedback.
Thanks for reading. I spend a little free time here and there tweaking this. You might want to check back to see how the theory thrives or dies as the show continues.
Mike
P.S. — I can't help but recommend an excellent and different theory based on mirror matter by Big Mouth.
P.P.S. — "Because he's in space.
As in outer space. As in orbit. As in one of a handful of human beings who have the unique distinction of not being on the fucking planet."
Is everyone on the island from planet Earth? Damon Lindelof: If an island is defined by land mass surrounded by water, they are on an island. Carlton Cuse: Right. That's good. DL: Right. CC: Yeah, I don't think we should say anything more than that. DL: Yes, that's how that's... CC: That's right. DL: This is about definitive answers. We have defined the term 'island'. We have confirmed that they are in fact on one. CC: And it's surrounded by water. DL: It is. CC: But everything beyond that is kind of up for grabs. [from the producers; thanks to Mark and Lostpedia] What's great about those worlds [Narnia, Oz, and Wonderland] is they're all worlds on the other side of Earth. That is to say they're not fantasy realms like in Star Wars. Narnia is actually connected to the world that we know and so is Oz, as is Wonderland... as is our island. Malkin, the psychic: Every day I meet people lookin' for a miracle, desperate to find one. But there are none to be had. |
The idea is that, mythologically, the island is the underworld, it is the looking-glass world, it is the spirit realm, it is Hell, it is the Dark Side, it is the Other Side, it is humanity's chance at rebirth, it is the destination of mariners and aircraft that disappear... but it's really just a chunk of mirror matter. [Jim — how's that? lol]
PLEASE NOTE: This is a new blog post. Your wonderful comments are here (the just-prior version) and here (an even earlier version).
