Mind Control X-File #1

The X-Files was one of my favourite shows growing up, being very young I never watched it from the first season to the last which is something I have been doing lately (partly to get psyched for the new movie) and has been an interesting experience picking up on the numerology, symbolism and mind control themes contained within it that would have obviously gone completely unnoticed as a kid (and to the symbol illiterate masses). I will be doing sporadic posts on random episodes (probably go back and forth between seasons too, nice to keep things as consistently disorganised as the rest of my blog ^^) that have mind control and occult symbolisms in them, such as the one I will be analyzing today (the one just before this is also very interesting, with Jack Black and another recognisable actor), "Clyde Bruckman's Final Repose" season 3, episode 4. It is quite an off-beat episode and I do not intend on outlining the plot, the themes described are somewhat chronological but it does go back and forth a bit.

The above motif is known as the "Hand of Fatima" (or Eye of Fatima or Hamsa), and is used as a means of protection against evil. But, as we know the eye is used in mind control, having it on the hand could symbolise the total control they have over the person's senses (sight and touch, as in their thoughts and their actions). An eye is also shown in every intro sequence of the X-Files, when "Created by Chris Carter" (333) is shown.

The above crystal ball (focused on as he is killing her) is smashed (described in the episode), so we have labyrinthian style crystal ball/sphere mixed with shattered glass symbolism (shattered mind), the shard of glass is used to gauge the fortune teller's eyes out, the kind of occult ritualistic activity seen in mind controlled murders.

As these eyes and intestines are shown, the woman over the APB wire says "Unit seven. Unit seven." (77) This is 3 days after the original scene (the murder, seen below just before it), you can read this episode's transcript here by the way.

The camera pans to the left, revealing this purple line as he says the below words. The killer has no name, he is simply known as "puppet", see wikipedia.

We see the fortune teller towards the beginning as the killer (MK victim, "puppet") asks her: "Why am I going to be doing the things I'm going to be doing? ... I think I've somehow caught a glimpse of my own future, my self... and I see me doing things that just seem so out of character for me, these are things that not only do I not want to be doing but I cannot even imagine myself being capable of doing and yet, there I am doing them."

Just before this, the episode's first shot is an ultra-close up of a famous psychic (whose abilities, Mulder is skeptical of), perhaps this symbolises the fragmented mind of an MPD/MK victim because the image is made up of thousands of small dots, rather than one whole. Peter Boyle (Everybody Loves Raymond, always going to the "lodge") won an Emmy for his performance in this (he appeared in Joe, Susan Sarandon's first movie, more on her in a future post) and he plays a man whose psychic ability is seeing how people will die (this kind of thing is seen in Smallville Season 3, episode 12).

Peter Boyle (R.I.P) gives him the name "puppet" when he is in a fortune teller's (he only kills fortune tellers, probably because he has no control over his own future, or he has simply been programmed to) home who obsessively collected dolls, note the number of her house is 66, spin it 180 degrees and you get 99 so we have the 9/6 mirror reversal thing mixed in with dolls and dollhouses, don't forget the eyes and the phallic/tentacle-like intestines on the floor too! Quite the Mind Kontrol Mashup!

Peter Boyle with a dollhouse and dolls. The show Dollhouse (show blatantly about mind kontrol slaves) airs in January by the way.

Anyway, he says "He sees [se|es] himself as some kind of a puppet." Then looks at the various dolls and picks one out that his mind sees as having a grotesque face (which turns out to be a depressed looking 'little miss beauty queen').

A tarot card reader (who "Puppet" is most impressed with, showing the legitimacy of tarot over the other methods) is killed near the end, in his room is a crystal(?) that has been split in two, which has the obvious symbolism of a split mind and mirror symbolism.

You find out they had taken him right to the killer who is working at the same hotel that they took him to stay at, Scully realizes this and says "It's the bellhop!" before rushing back to the hotel where they Scully eventually shoots him dead (puppet).


The episode ends, first with Scully watching Laurel and Hardy, a double act, here they have heads but only skeleton bodies, then she switches to the TV psychic, the camera zooms in on his eyes and she throws the telephone at it. Also note the butterflies in the floral pale green wallpaper and the numbers on his lotto ticket (13, 37 etc.). Peter Boyle played Frankenstein in a Woody Allan mock-feature (Young Frankenstein, 1974) according to wiki. This episode won an emmy for its writing too, interesting writer and director of this episode.

This does not put me off the X-Files at all, I cannot wait for the movie to come out on August (8) 1st 2008 (for me in the UK), despite it probably being full of mind control themes and symbols (which just gives the film another interesting layer of symbolism in my opinion). I wrote this one in a rush as I have to be up early tomorrow for social obligations so have not had time to check this through properly, will do it when I return tomorrow night. Alternate interpretations/ theories are welcomed, cheers.