The Prisoner (1955) - The New Number 2
The Interrogator:
Who do you think you're dealing with?
Some mad, sadistic moron in the Gestapo,
who has power to play with flesh and blood
for his own lust?
I was a doctor, before ever I was a lawyer.
Your body is sacred to me.
The Cardinal:
No drugs... no torture...
What can you hope for?
The Interrogator:
Conversion. It's Your Mind we want.
The Cardinal:
….for the first time since I've come
into Your Prison - I'm afraid.
Barbelith is the name of the “placenta” for humanity; a satellite-like object located on the dark side of the moon. It recurs throughout the story as a supernatural moon seeming both intelligent and benign. Barbelith’s role is like that of a placenta in that it connects the hologram of our subjective reality to the realm outside of our space-time, the domain of the magic mirror, and helps humans to realize their true nature beyond the subjective concept of “self”.
Prior to contact with Barbelith, most characters undergo some sort of trauma or intensity- an alien abduction or shamanic initiation, for example. A sort of cosmic “stoplight” is also present in some instances, though also seems to precede any sort of contact with the “healthy” dimension of The Invisibles binary-based paradigm; the realm of the Invisible College.
The word first appeared on a sign post in House of Heart’s Desire, a short story published in 1989 within the pages of A1, with art by Dom Regan. It has also cropped up in other comics Morrison has written. Doom Patrol #54 in particular goes into more detail.
Grant Morrison describes its origins as follows: “The word ‘BARBELiTH’ is derived from a dream I had when I was about 20 or 21 and coincided with my first structured ‘magical’ experiences and a minor nervous breakdown (in the dream, BARBELiTH was the name of some higher dimension or alternate reality).”
Barbelith is inspired by the Philip K. Dick novel VALIS in which the titular satellite, VALIS, appears as a sort of Gnostic information-satellite for humanity.
You're getting the same treatment as everybody else.
That's why I'm going to appeal.
I appeal against unfair treatment.
Why? Why?
Why did I resign?
(Rambles madly)
Why did you resign?
For peace.
For Peace?
Let me out.
You resigned for Peace?
Let me out.
You're a fool.
For peace of mind.
What?
Peace of Mind!
Why?
Because too many people know too much.
Never.
I know too much!
Tell me.
I know too much about you.
You don't.
I Do.
I know you.
Who am I?
You are An Enemy.
I'm on your side.
Why did you resign?
You've been told.
Tell me again.
I know you!
You're smart.
In my mind...
In my mind, YOU're smart!
Why did you resign?
You see?
Why did you resign?
Know who you are? A Fool.
No, don't...
Yes! An idiot!
I'll kill you.
I'll die.
You're dead.
Let me out.
Dead!
Kill me.
Open it.
OPEN IT!
OPEN THE DOOR!
Kill...
- Kill! Kill!
- Get up.
Kill me... lying down.
- Get up, you fool.
- Can't.
- In the war, you killed.
- Yeah.
- For fun!
- For peace.
- Do as I say.
- I do as I was told.
(Number Two)
Twelve seconds to zero.
Stand by to release. All set?
Set.
- 1 1 , 1 0, 9, 8, 7, 6...
- 1 1 , 1 0, 9, 8, 7...
- Six? Six! Six! Six! Six! Six!
- Five. Five. Five. Five! Five!
Fiiiiiive!
- 3, 2, 1 ...
- 3, 2, 1 ...
Zero... Zero, zero, zero, go, go, go.
Overshot, you fool, wake up!
Turn around! Let them go.
Stand by.
Standing by.
Let go... now.
Bombs gone.
Good boy. Bull's-eye!
We're hit! Bale out! Bale out!
(Speaks German)
(Speaks German)
I do not wish to kill.
(Speaks German)
The aircraft was hit.
I had to BALE OUT over your territory.
If wasn't my fault!
I cannot help baling out!
(Speaks German)
I have to tell you nothing.
(Speaks German)
- Zero... go!
- How dare you?
- GO! Go, go, go, go!
(Laughs)
Zero... zero... go!
I'm a friend.
Why did you resign?
I'm a friend.
Eight, eight... six?
Why?
- Six?
- Yeah, four.
- No...
- Two? One?
- Zero, go?
- No...
I'm hungry.
What would you like?
Supper.
You knew the only way to beat me
was to gain my respect?
- Correct.
- Then I would confide?
I hoped you'd trust me.
- This is a recognised method?
Yes.
The patient must trust his doctor.
Sometimes they change places.
Essential in extreme cases.
Also a risk...
A grave risk...if The Doctor
has problems :
I have!
That's why it's known
as Degree Absolute.
It's you or me.
Why don't you resign?
(Laughs)
You're very good!
You're very good at it!
(Tuts)
(Sad organ)
Play something cheerful.
I'd like to know more.
You will, before we're through.
Join me.
- There we are.
- Straight?
100%.
No additions?
- My word of honour.
- Cheers.
Mind if I, er... look round?
Not at all! Let me show you round!
This delightful residence is known as The Embryo Room.
In it... you can relive... from the cradle... to the grave.
Seven Ages of Man - William Shakespeare.
"Last scene of all,
That ends this
strange eventful history,
Is second childishness
and mere oblivion...
Sans eyes, sans teeth,
sans taste, sans everything."
There's no way out until our time is up.
If we solve our problems, that will be soon.
Take my word for it.
Naturally, I would.
Let me show you... to the door!
We are protected from intrusion.
No one can interrupt us.
Totally encased in finest steel.
Behold the clock!
FIVE MINUTES!
Set to open on a new phase of our relationship...
That is, if we're still here.
Are we likely to move?
It's possible!
Somewhere nice?
Built-in bars.
Also self-contained.
Kitchen, bathroom, air conditioning,
food supplies for 6 months.
You could go anywhere in it.
It even has a waste disposal unit.
It moves?
It's detachable.
What's behind it?
Oh, steel, steel.
(Laughs madly)
- He thinks you're Boss, now!
I am.
I'm Number Two.
I'm The Boss... Open the door.
Number 1 is The Boss.
NO!
Three minutes. You're scared.
No!
- Take it.
- FOOL! (Kicks door)
Yes, A Fool... not a rat.
- YOU're scared!
- Want me to come in?
- Keep out!
- Let you out?
- Stay...
- Want to come out?
- Keep out!
- You're mine.
- STOP HIM!
- Two minutes...
- Stop him!
- Two minutes.
- You're free.
- No, I'm Number Two.
- You are number nothing.
- I'm Number Two!
One minute, thirty-five seconds.
- Why did you resign?
- I didn't accept. Why did you?
You resigned.
You accepted before you resigned!
- I rejected... you!
- Why me?
- You're big.
- Not tall.
- Humpty dumpty...
- All the king's horses...
- All the king's MEN...
- Yes.
...couldn't put Humpty together again.
Who? What?
(Ticking)
One minute to go...
59 seconds...
- 58 seconds.
- I'm big!
57, 56, 55, 54, 53...
- You're for me.
- 52, 51 ...
50, 49, 48,
- Why?
- 47, 46...
- Why resign? Tell me!
- 45, 44...
- Trust me.
- 43, 42, 41 ...
- 40, 39, 38, 37...
- I'll tell.
- Still time!
- 36...
(Ticking)
- 35.
- Still time!
- Not too late!
- For me?
- For me!
- You snivel and grovel.
- I ask.
- You crawl.
- Yes.
- To ask?
Why?
Ask on.
Ask yourself!
- Why? Why?
- 1 5.
Please.
Don't say please.
- I say it!
- Don't.
Please, I plead!
- Nine.
- Too late.
- Eight.
- Seven.
- Six.
- Six...
- Die, six!
- Five... (Fast heartbeat)
- Die. Die!
- Four...
- Die. Die.
- Three...
- Die!
- Two...
- Die!
- One...
- Die! Die!
- The end...
(Heartbeat stops)
Congratulations.
We'll need The Body for evidence.
What do you desire?
Number 1.
I'll take you.
("Twinkle, Twinkle,
Little Star" plays)
BILL MOYERS: Let me ask…let me try to be specific about it. The shaman becomes some person in a society who is drawn by experience from the normal world into the world of the gifted?
JOSEPH CAMPBELL: That’s right.
BILL MOYERS: Most of us think of shaman as a magician, but they play a much more important role than simply being a trickster.
JOSEPH CAMPBELL: Oh, no, they play the role that the priesthood plays in our society.
BILL MOYERS: Ah. These are the first priests?
JOSEPH CAMPBELL: Well, there’s a major difference as I see it between a shaman and a priest. A priest is a functionary of a social sort. The society worships certain deities in a certain way, and the priest becomes ordained as a functionary to carry on that ritual. And the deity to whom he is devoted is a deity that was there before he came along. The shaman’s powers are symbolized in familiars, deities of his own personal experience, and his authority comes out of a psychological experience, not a social ordination. Do you understand what I mean?
BILL MOYERS: And the one who had this psychological experience, this traumatic experience, this ecstasy, would become the interpreter for others of things not seen?
JOSEPH CAMPBELL: He would become the interpreter of the heritage of mythological life, you might say, yes.
BILL MOYERS: And ecstasy was a part of it, very often, in the shamanic tradition.
JOSEPH CAMPBELL: It is ecstasy, there’s no doubt about it.
BILL MOYERS: The trance dance, for example, in the Bushman society.
JOSEPH CAMPBELL: Now, there’s a fantastic example of something. The little Bushman groups, the whole life is one of great, great tension. The male and female sexes are, what we say, in a disciplined way, separate. The men have a certain field of concerns, their weapons and the poisons and the hunt and all that, and the women have a certain field of concern, bringing up the children, the nourishing of the children, and so forth and so on. Only in the dance do the two come together, and they come together this way. The women sit in a circle or a group, and they then become the center around which the men dance. And they control the dance and what goes on with the men through their own singing and beating of the thighs.
BILL MOYERS: What’s the significance of that, that the woman is controlling the dance?
JOSEPH CAMPBELL: Well, the woman is life, and the man is the servant of life, and during the course of this circling, circling, it’s a very tense style of movement the men have, suddenly one of them will pass out. He’s in trance now, and this is a description of an experience.
“When people sing. I dance. I enter the earth. I go in at a place like a place where people drink water. I travel a long way, very far. When I emerge, I am already climbing. I’m climbing threads. I climb one and leave it, then I climb another one. Then I leave it, and I climb another. When you arrive at God’s place, you make yourself small. You come in small to God’s place. You do what you have to do there. Then you return to where everyone is. You come and come and come and finally you enter your body again. All the people who have stayed behind are waiting for you. They fear you. You enter, enter the earth, and you return to enter the skin of your body. And you say A-a-i-i-e-e That is the sound of your return to your body. Then you begin to sing. The ntum-masters are there around. They take hold of your head and blow about the sides of your face. This is how you manage to be alive again. Friends, if they don’t do that to you, you die. You just die and are dead. Friends, this is what it does, this untum that I do, this untum here that I dance.”
This is an actual experience of transit from the earth through the realm of mythological images to God, or to the seat of power.
BILL MOYERS: It becomes something of the other mind of us.
JOSEPH CAMPBELL: It is exactly the other mind. And the way God is imaged, God is transcendent finally of anything like a name of God. As the Hindus say, “Beyond names and forms.” Beyond damarupan, beyond names and forms. “No tongue has soiled it, no word has reached it.”
BILL MOYERS: But Joe, can Westerners grasp this kind of mystical trance theological experience? It does transcend theology, it leaves theology behind. I mean, if you’re locked to the image of God in a culture where science determines your perceptions of reality, how can you experience this ultimate ground that the shamans talk about?
JOSEPH CAMPBELL: The best example I know in our literature is that beautiful book by John Neihardt called Black Elk Speaks.
BILL MOYERS: Black Elk was?
JOSEPH CAMPBELL: Black Elk was a young Sioux or Dakota, as they are often called, boy around nine years old, before the American cavalry had encountered the Sioux. They were the great people of the plains. And this boy became sick, psychologically sick. His family…I’m telling the typical shaman story. The child begins to tremble, and is immobilized, and the family’s terribly concerned about it. And they send for a shaman who had had the experience in his own youth, to come as a psychoanalyst, you might say, and pull the youngster out of it. But instead of relieving him of the deities, he is adapting him to the deities, and the deities to himself, you might say. It’s a different problem from that of psychoanalysis. I think it was Nietzsche who said, “Be careful, lest in casting out your devil, you cast out the best thing that’s in you.” Here, the deities who have been encountered the powers, let’s call them are retained. The connection is retained, it’s not broken. And these men then become the spiritual advisers and gift-givers of their people.
Well, what happened with this young boy, he was about nine years old, was he had a vision, and the vision is described, and it’s a vision prophetic of the terrible future that his tribe was to have. But it also spoke of the possible positive aspects of it. It was a vision of what he called the hoop of his nation, realizing that it was one of many hoops which is something that we haven’t all learned well enough yet and the cooperation of all the hoops and all the nations and grand processions and so forth. But more than that, it was an experience of himself as going through the realms of spiritual imagery that were of his culture, and assimilating their import. And it comes to one great statement, which for me is a key statement of the understanding of myth and symbols. He says. “I saw myself on the central mountain of the world, the highest place. And I had a vision, because I was seeing in a sacred manner, of the world.” And the sacred central mountain was Harney Peak in South Dakota. And then he says, “But the central mountain is everywhere.” That is a real mythological realization.
BILL MOYERS: Why?
JOSEPH CAMPBELL: It distinguishes between the local cult image, Harney Peak, and its connotation, the center of the world. The center of the world is the hub of the universe, axis mundi, do you know, the central point, the pole star around which all revolves. The central point of the world is the point where stillness and movement are together. Movement is time, stillness is eternity, realizing the relationship of the temporal moment to the eternal not moment, but forever -is the sense of life. Realizing how this moment in your life is actually a moment of eternity, and the experience of the eternal aspect of what you’re doing in the temporal experience is the mythological experience, and he had it. So is the central mountain of the world Jerusalem, Rome, Banaras. Lhasa, Mexico City, you know? Mexico City, Jerusalem, is symbolic of a spiritual principle as the center of the world.
BILL MOYERS: So this little Indian was saying, there is a shining point where all lines intersect?
JOSEPH CAMPBELL: That’s exactly what he said.
BILL MOYERS: He was saying God has no circumference.
JOSEPH CAMPBELL: God is an intelligible sphere, let’s say a sphere known to the mind, not to the senses, whose center is everywhere and circumference nowhere. And the center, Bill, is right where you’re sitting, and the other one is right where I’m sitting. And each of us is a manifestation of that mystery.
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