Henry Liddell's (pseudonym Lewis Carroll) books
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865) and
Through the Looking Glass (1871) are both classics. The allusion to a
Wonderland or a land of wonder hints that the story is about
imagination and wanting to have an
adventure or entertaining
experience. The stories seem to me to parallel Gnostic teachings of the fallen goddess of wisdom,
Sophia. Both fell because of desire and
curiosity as a result of wishing to create their own world. Alice eventually gets so tired of all the
chaos and
nonsense that she uses reason or
wisdom to
wake up and return home.
The first book was purportedly written three years after the author went on a boat ride down the river Isis (Thames) with his three daughters, one named Alice, and a Reverend who told the story of a
bored and drowsy Alice desiring to go on an
adventure. The journey began at
Folly Bridge and ended at Godstow (God's tow).
The story is a metaphor for how this nonsensical world or dimension we are living in is a
dream, an
illusion made of
reflections and the
opposite of what true reality is. It is a search to find one's self. Alice says, “Who in the world am I? Ah, that's the great puzzle.” Her world is
illogical: “If I had a
world of my own, everything would be
nonsense. Nothing would be what it is, because everything would be what it isn't. And contrary wise, what is, it wouldn't be. And what it wouldn't be, it would. You see?” “Contrariwise,' continued Tweedledee, 'if it was so, it might be; and if it were so, it would be; but as it isn't, it ain't. That's
logic.”
Alice is
lost and must find her way back
home. But her
intention is not
focused and doesn't have enough
will power at first. Alice: "Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?" The Cheshire Cat: "That depends a good deal on where you want to get to." Alice: "I
don't much care where." The Cheshire Cat: "Then it doesn't much matter which way you go." Alice: "...So long as I get somewhere." The Cheshire Cat: "Oh, you're sure to do that, if only you walk long enough.”
For Alice to return home she
realizes that
nothing is impossible. The Door: “Why it's simply impassible!" Alice: "Why, don't you mean impossible?" Door: "No, I do mean impassible. (chuckles)
Nothing's impossible!”
The whole story is very psychedelic (strange creatures, talking doorknobs, talking animals. talking flowers, talking teapots, etc..) as a metaphor that we are
hallucinating this reality. Everything in that world is anthropomorphic. There are no inanimate objects. Everything is alive, sentient, intelligent and can speak.
The question is raised as to whose dream it is: Alice's or the King's (i.e. authoritative figure, god?). In fact, the last chapter in Through the Looking Glass is named "Which Dreamed It?" and ends with Alice asking her cat after she wakes up: “Now, Kitty, let’s consider who it was that dreamed it all. This is a serious question, my dear, and you should not go on licking your paw like that—as if Dinah hadn’t washed you this morning! You see, Kitty, it must have been either me or the Red King. He was part of my dream, of course—but then I was part of his dream, too! Was it the Red King, Kitty’? You were his wife, my dear, so you ought to know—Oh, Kitty, do help to settle it! I’m sure your paw can wait!” But the provoking kitten only began on the other paw, and pretended it hadn’t heard the question. Which do you think it was?"
The book ends with this poem:
"...Still she haunts me, phantomwise, Alice moving under skies Never seen by waking eyes.
Children yet, the tale to hear, Eager eye and willing ear, Lovingly shall nestle near.
In a Wonderland they lie, Dreaming as the days go by, Dreaming as the summers die:
Ever drifting down the stream— Lingering in the golden gleam— Life, what is it but a dream?"
Is the stream alluded to the stream of consciousness?
In the 1951 animated Disney movie
Alice in Wonderland, Alice is in a
paradise setting with green grass receiving a
history lesson and she
falls asleep. She is looking at her
reflection in the water (a mirror or looking glass) and says, "If I had a world of my own, everything would be
nonsense..." She sings: "I keep
wishing it could be that way because my world would be a
Wonderland." With her hand she sends ripples (waves) out into the water. She sees a white rabbit with a pocketwatch who's late for a party, a very "important" date, running into a rabbit hole (tunnel). The rabbit is one of the trickster figures of Native American folklore. She follows it into the rabbit hole and says, "We haven't been invited and
curiosity often leads to trouble." She falls downward into the hole. It's a crazy, nonsensical mad world of
chaos.... time is important there and illusions are numerous. It's an
upside down world. Alice frets, "What if I should fall right through the center of the earth... oh, and come out the other side, where people walk
upside down.” She goes into the Hall of Many Doors that progressively become smaller and smaller and exclaims, "
curioser and curioser". She drinks a bottle that makes her very small so she can enter further into that dimension. The door is locked so she has to eat something that makes her big again. The door guard was worried that she was "going out altogether like a candle" (reference to nirvana or the void perhaps?) In the Garden, Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dee represent
ying and yang as the
sun and moon images are shown side by side. They recite to her the poem
The Walrus (Satan?)
and the Carpenter (maker/creator/god?) The Walrus plays his cane like a flute and leads the oysters on land (against the elder oyster's advice to stay) like the pied piper (Devil). The Walrus and Carpenter prepare to eat "oysters on the half-shell". The oyster is very symbolic in Gnostic tradition as can be seen in
The Hymn of the Pearl describing the exile and redemption of the soul.
The White Rabbit calls Alice Mary Ann... MARY = ISIS/VENUS = SOPHIA? Bill the Lizard is the gardener with a ladder and says he's been down many chimneys.... chimney cleaning is similar to Mary Poppins and this metaphor may be about the kundalini fire that goes up the spine toward awakening. The lizard is afraid because Alice is a huge monster so he starts running away. A Dodo bird says "You're passing up a golden opportunity. You can be Venus!"
In mythology, Aphrodite/Isis/Venus holds a
mirror or looking glass. The Caterpillar sitting on a mushroom smoking a hookah (i.e. getting stoned) keeps asking Alice "whoooo r u?" The Caterpillar becomes a butterfly and flies away, giving her helpful hints: "One side will make you grow taller and the other side will make you grow shorter." Alice asks, "The other side of what?" "The mushroom, of course!" The smiling Cheshire Cat tells her to ask the Mad Hatter which way the White Rabbit went. He tells her
everyone's mad there and says he's not all there himself. She attends the Mad Hatter's mad tea party which is "
silly nonsense". She gets tired of all the chaotic nonsense and says, "
I've had enough nonsense --I'm going home, straight home. That rabbit -- who cares where he's going anyways. If it hadn't been for him I'd....
no more nonsense. If I came this way then I should go back this way." "It would be so nice if something would
make sense for a change".
The 'mome raths' form an arrow pointing to a path which she takes. She says, "Now I should never get out. When one's
lost I suppose it's good advice to stay where you are until someone finds you, but who'd ever think to look for me here?" The crescent moon appears in the sky, but it's the smile of Cheshire Cat who is sitting atop a tree. Alice says, "
I wanna go home, but I can't find my way." Chesire Cat tells her about the Queen's way, opens up a door in a tree which leads to a hedge labyrinth and a royal castle. Alice enters inside the
maze to the royal procession. A procession is a march. "March" was on the calendar. The "March" Hare. Now there is a march of playing cards. Pips on playing cards represent us, the pipsqueaks and energy. The Red Queen or Queen of Hearts is in charge of the playing cards. The Queen wants to play a
game with her. She asks Alice if she
plays croquet. "
Let the games begin".... "Off with their heads.".... "Let the trial begin"..... Alice is a
prisoner of this world now. In court, Alice is wrongfully charged with enticing the Queen into a game, willingly teasing, tormenting and annoying her causing the Queen to lose her temper. "Are you ready for your
sentence?" (before a verdict is even given). Alice runs away leaving the way she came, through a tunnel, looks through the keyhole of the door. Alice sees herself outside still
asleep and tells herself, "Alice,
wake up. Please wake up." She wakes up and recites her lesson. They cross a bridge over water (toward a castle / clock tower?).
The movie begins and ends with this song: "Alice in
Wonderland, How do you get to Wonderland? Over the hill or underland? Or just behind a tree? When clouds go rolling by They roll away and leave the sky. Where is the land
behind the eye That people
cannot see? Where can you see? Where do stars go? Where is the crescent
moon? They must be somewhere in the
sunny afternoon. Alice in Wonderland, Where is the path to Wonderland? Over the hill or here or there... I
WONDER where."
In the 1985 TV movie,
Alice in Wonderland (1985), Cheshire Cat tells Alice she's
lost in time and there's
no way home, but Alice says, "
There must be a way home and I'll find it".
Through the Looking Glass (1998) -- Alice is going to read the story to her daughter. Her daughter asks, "What is a
looking glass?" and Alice tells her a
mirror like that one there. The daughter says she's seen that room through the mirror and it's
completely different. Alice goes to look in the mirror, but says she can only see her
reflection. "You're not looking hard enough. You've got to
believe it before you can see it." She tries again and then goes through the mirror.
The Red Queen takes Alice to the top of a hill where she can see the world. Alice says, "There's a great
big game of chess being played all over the world.
I wish I was one of the players." Alice is a
pawn in the game. When she gets to the 8th square she'll be a queen. When she becomes a queen she needs to "
remember who you are". Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dee take her to see the Red King who is asleep. They tell her he's
dreaming now. If he woke up she would be nowhere because she is "only just a sort of thing
in his dream" and if the king were to wake up she'd disappear. They tell her, "
You're not real." She says if she wasn't real she wouldn't be able to cry real
tears. She meets a woman who lives her life
backwards. Alice says, "One can't
believe impossible things". The woman tells her she can. She practices a half hour everyday. She tells her to "draw a long breath and close your eyes." "Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast." The monstrous Jabberwocky must be slain. Alice is a
prisoner, but will be queen once she crosses the next brook.
She says, "
I can't stand this any longer", then
wakes up. The ending poem is read aloud:
"...Still she haunts me,
phantomwise, Alice moving under skies Never seen by waking eyes. Children yet, the tale to hear, Eager eye and willing ear, Lovingly shall nestle near. In a Wonderland they lie,
Dreaming as the days go by, Dreaming as the summers die: Ever drifting down the stream— Lingering in the golden gleam—
Life, what is it but a dream?"
Alice Through the Looking Glass (2016) -- Another Disney feature, starring Johnny Depp as the Mad Hatter.
The Demiurgic figure in this version is the personification of
Time, a male
villain who wants to keep Alice from traveling back in time in a time machine called the Chronosphere.
Chronos =
Saturn/Satan = Father Time. This is a metaphor for leaving a timeless place and traveling into a world bound by time or traveling through time. Alice is a sea captain sailing on her ship, The
Wonder. "
The only way to achieve the impossible is to believe it is possible."... "Time is a thief and a villain" "I once believed I could do six impossible things before breakfast."
Ending:
Hatter: "In the gardens of
memory, in the palace of
dreams that is where you and I will meet."
Alice: "But
a dream is not reality."
Hatter: "But who's to say
which is which?"
Friends: "You did it, Alice:
An impossible thing."
Alice's mother: "Alice can do whatever Alice
chooses and so can I."
In summary, the
Alice in Wonderland series of books and movies pretty much detail our story. We were in a paradise setting and were
bored. Due to our
curious nature we
desired adventure and a world of
wonder so through wonder or
imagination we created and
fell into this world of
chaos, resulting in a lower frequency and a drowsy consciousness. We
forgot who we are and are seeking a way to
return home. When we tire of all this
nonsense down here we will regain our senses and
reason, and through
wisdom become
focused enough to
wake up from this dream -- whether we are dreaming it ourselves or are just characters playing various roles in
God's dream -- and
return home. We must
believe in the possibility of an all good world even though it seems impossible right now in this
duality. **
