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{"id":31624,"date":"2015-09-25T06:40:16","date_gmt":"2015-09-25T10:40:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/exploringourmatrix\/?p=31624"},"modified":"2015-09-25T06:40:16","modified_gmt":"2015-09-25T10:40:16","slug":"doctor-who-image-of-the-fendahl","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2015\/09\/doctor-who-image-of-the-fendahl.html","title":{"rendered":"Doctor Who: Image of the Fendahl"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Image of the Fendahl<\/a> $\"\"$ is a great episode for those interested in the show\u2019s exploration of religion. It also has a moment which may be alluded to and revisited in\u00a0a great episode from the Peter Capaldi era.<\/p>\n

$\"\"$ <\/a> $\"\"$ The\u00a0episode begins with the discovery of a skull, 8 million years (based on potassium-argon dating) before a human-like skull should have been on Earth.<\/p>\n

The episode features many details that relate to \u201cthe old religion\u201d \u2013 a coven and pentagrams, and the suggestions that every haunted house has a time fissure, and that astral projection could be a race memory.<\/p>\n

The episode also features humans seeking power \u2013 Max Stile says that he \u201cshall be a god,\u201d and that whether he allows others to live will depend on whether he enjoys having them worship him.<\/p>\n

The enemy turns out to be\u00a0the Fendahl \u2013 beings whose planet the Time Lords destroyed, subsequently covering up the fact.<\/p>\n

The Doctor\u00a0says at one point that\u00a0most people used to believe that the Earth was flat, and so most people believing something doesn\u2019t make it true.<\/p>\n

We thus find the same uneasy relationship between religion and science, magic and skepticism. On the one hand, the skeptical are not to mistake aliens and science for magic. On the other hand, the skeptical who say that these things cannot be real are apparently too skeptical. Once again, science is said to be the reality rather than the supernatural \u2013 and yet mythological stories turn out to be truer than the skeptical should find acceptable.<\/p>\n

My earlier mention of something that might connect with the Peter Capaldi era had in mind the Doctor\u2019s reference to having been frightened in childhood by a mythological horror, too frightened to think clearly. Could the writers of the episode \u201c Listen<\/a> $\"\"$ \u201d have taken their inspiration from that detail?<\/p>\n

The Doctor refers to the TARDIS as \u201cshe\u201d and sentient, which also connects up with the episode \u201c The Doctor\u2019s Wife<\/a> $\"\"$ .\u201d<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"