Uncontrollable Ergotism - Shrooming and The Shining

Interior designer David Hicks' orange, brown and red hexagonal carpet design is instantly associated with Stanley Kubrick's 1980 film The Shining. Recent films "Room 237" and "Ready Player One" have kept Hicks' iconic motif in the forefront of the minds of Kubrickologists everywhere. But what about the other not-quite-as famous carpet design featured in The Shining? The lurid, green and purple carpet in Room 237?

A photograph of the actual fungus Claviceps Purpurea, the source of LSD. These are the fruiting bodies, small, dark purple microscopic mushrooms growing on the sclerotia of a rotting rye grain.

Several Kubrick scholars have noted the scene in The Shining where Jack Torrance requests a bourbon in the Gold Room Bar, but is given a whiskey instead. Why? Maybe rye is why.

The Jack Daniels that Jack Torrance drinks is made from 70% rye, did you catch that?

The strange ghost woman in Room 237 shows signs of gangranous ergotism during her memorable apparition. Jack's ergotism was decidedly more convulsive, for better or worse.

Kubrick may have also been paying a bit of tribute  to H.G. Wells' short story "The Purple Pileus", another tale about an isolated man in an isolated environment, over-imbibing and wreaking havoc on a small family. Mr. Coombes, the protagonist of The Purple Pileus, has a violent outburst towards his wife after consuming wild mushrooms, in a desperate bid to not be  "dull":  

"Something had happened, but he could not rightly determine what it was. Anyhow, he was no longer dull--he felt bright, cheerful. And his throat was afire. He laughed in the sudden gaiety of his heart. Had he been dull? He did not know; But at any rate he would be dull no longer."

Wendy reads about Rye

FROSTY THE QUATERNITY

Frosty the Snowman is one of the most beloved Holiday/Winter songs of all time. Released in 1950, the song features lyrics by Jack Rollins and music by Steve Nelson.

The well known lyrics feature an  alchemical recipe for the creation of a snow-man. The aspirant will need a corncob pipe, a button (made of bone, horn, pearl or shell), 2 pieces of coal, and a silk top hat. And of course, snow fashioned into a snow-man shape.

The alchemical key to the snow-man. The union of the plant, mineral, animal and human worlds.

The corncob pipe- Pipes are often used in shamanic and magickal ceremonies, the corncob is the plant world. The button nose- When Frosty the Snowman was released in 1950, most junk-drawer buttons that would be used in the creation of a snow-man would be made from an animal product, such as bone, horn, pearl or shell. The button nose is the animal world.

Two eyes made out of coal. Coal is for  the mineral world.

Magick silk hat. The hat represents the human world. "For when they placed it on his head, he began to dance around." It is the human touch, the placement of the hat on the snow-man's head that completes the union of the four worlds.  Silk also represents transformation, as silk is harvested from the larvae of insects that undergo transformation.

"The Snowman Quaternity" A vision for a quaternity overlay on the Frosty the Snowman song after dancing and reading Carl Jung's thoughts on the creation of mandalas as a key to understanding wholeness.

"Thumpety-thump thump, thumpety thump thump, over the hills of snow!"