The Spirituality of Twin Peaks

The Spirituality of Twin Peaks May 22, 2017

On April 8, 1990, I was twelve years old. For whatever confluence of events, I tuned in to watch the pilot of Twin Peaks on ABC. The uncanny, surrealist, dream-state quality of the show was unlike anything I had ever seen, a glimpse into how much more was possible beyond the standard-fare network television of the time. The first season transfixed me. The second season confused me.

When the show ended after two seasons, I never expected that twenty-five years later, we would get 18 more hours in the world of Twin Peaks. And not the dwindling-in-quality second season of the show (when David Lynch was focused on making the film Wild at Heart),  but a whole new run that in its entirety is written by Mark Frost & David Lynch and directed by David Lynch.

(If you want to catch up on the original Twin Peaks, I recommend watching the full eight-episode first season—then only watch the episodes that David Lynch directed in season two: episodes 1, 2, 7, and 22. But be forewarned: this series dives deeply into some dark, repressed, twisted sides of human nature.)

Regarding the timing of this revival, Laura Palmer says “I’ll see you again in 25 years” in both “season 1, episode 3” and “season 2, episode 22” (the original series finale) of Twin Peaks. I would wager that David Lynch did not consciously intend those words literally. Yet, here we are, twenty-five years later back in the Twin Peaks universe.

TwinPeaksSo far, I loved the first two episodes of the new Twin Peaks. I am often bored with predictable, formulaic television plots—although certainly I enjoy the occasional mindless television series at the end of a long day. But—without spoiling anything major—what I love about David Lynch is perfectly visualized in a clear-glass box in the new version that a young employee is paid to sit and watch: I too am just sitting there watching, with no clue as to what will happen, ready to mainline a glimpse into the dream-like “collective unconscious” that is Lynch’s mind.

Lynch’s art is meant to be experienced more than understood. As the scientist J. B. S. Haldane said about the implications of quantum mechanics: “The universe is not only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we can suppose.” Lynch is open to exploring beyond the rational in the spirit of the Neil deGrasse Tyson quote that, “The Universe is under no obligation to make sense to you.” Thus, Lynch’s art is under no obligation to make sense to you. 

Relatedly, the psychologist Carl Jung taught: pay attention to synchronicities (“meaningful coincidences”) during the day and to dreams at night. In many ways, Lynch’s creativity feels channeled from the unconscious through synchronicities and dreams. One of the most helpful metaphors I have found for understanding Jung is to imagine our ego (the part of ourselves that we are consciously aware of) as the tip of an iceberg that is floating above the surface of the ocean. An equally important part of ourselves is our individual unconscious, the much larger part of the iceberg that is beneath the surface of the water. In Jung’s terminology, the ‘collective unconscious,’ is the ocean: “the sea of mind and being out of which the individual psyche, that is, the person, ‘freezes’ into hard form and and comes into existence, at least for a time, before it is melted back into the ocean…” (Kripal, Comparing Religions 369, 380).

For further study, I recommend:

The Rev. Dr. Carl Gregg is a certified spiritual director, a D.Min. graduate of San Francisco Theological Seminary, and the minister of the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Frederick, Maryland. Follow him on Facebook (facebook.com/carlgregg) and Twitter (@carlgregg).

Learn more about Unitarian Universalism: http://www.uua.org/beliefs/principles


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