Symbolism in SEL

SEL as a show is rife with symbolism, some cutting very deep into niche topics. I recently came across a post on the r/lain subreddit by u/bikehbroken on the symbolism of the tachibana logo. Hope you guys enjoy it as much as I have!

u/bikehbroke writes:

I've been thinking about higher dimensions lately, and I thought about Serial Experiments Lain. I find that there's a lot in the show which reminds me of it. I've been meaning to do some writing about it, but I procrastinate a lot.

But let's look at something simple. The Tachibana Labs Copland OS logo. The central shape resembles (is) head and shoulders of a human. The three dots represent the 3 axis of the 3rd dimension: x,y,z. But what are those two curves on the side? Because higher dimensions can't properly be depicted the two curves on each side of the form's head represent the additional axes (w). Subscript specifies the dimension: 4th, 5th.

What do these dimensions have to do with SEL?

Global consciousness and internal/external reality are two important aspects of the show imo. We see how what people remember affects the way Lain exists to them. By erasing memories, changing the world, Lain is effecting transformation along the w_4 axis (the impact of that transformation is localized and relatively minimized due to the stability achieved by reaching the 4th dimensions from the 5th dimension). Global consciousness takes place in the 5th dimension. All forms originate from "schematics" in the 5th dimension.

Through transformation along (w_5), the 4th dimension views the creation of individual humans (think of how a torus intersecting a 2d plane seems to create two circles. a single form in a higher dimension can project multiple forms in the lower dimension).

All the individual human forms in the 4th dimension, and their momentary forms in the 3rd, are still fundamentally connected and affected by the 5th dimensional schematic. And this explains why changes in the global consciousness (the 5th dimensional schematic) can affect things so much in the show. We also have these actors in the show who seem to coordinate and incite events.

Why? Because this is a way to potentially affect the global consciousness. The whole show you have the Knights attempting to force events to happen and for the events of the show to reach a certain conclusion. Events happening in the 3rd dimension do affect their fourth dimensional forms. Because we exist in cross section of 4d, that doesn't mean we can't affect the 4d form. Just it would have to be done precisely and calculatedly to the slices of the 4d form. In turn, despite these changes potentially being small, still will affect the 5d schematic form since that form must be able to produce the altered 4d form (and 3d form obviously).

The following explains this:

βevent(a,t) → Δa(3,t) → Δa(4)[T(w4) ∝ t] → ΔA[a]

Beta events are events that occur in lower dimensions that are intended to produce cascading changes in higher dimensions. A is the schematic of a. I'm going to call this process: Beta-event forcing.

I would like to make individual posts about these concepts to go into them in more detail, and as I learn more information. But organizing information is difficult and tiring :( procrastinating is easy, so this is all I can write for now. A shower thought if you will.

The Alien in the Machine

The alien seems to me to be one of the most multidimensional symbols in SEL. Some say it could be a symbol for the alienation of people in this day and age, while others say that it could be a symbol for how "rumours" can take shape in the collective consciousness and "become" reality.

Or sometimes, it could be something as simple as ghosting:

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My personal view of the alien comes from a thought experiment I shared with my brother a long time ago.

Suppose in a distant part of the universe, Aliens have silicon bodies instead of carbon ones. This is because silicon is the only other element capable of being an essential building block of life.

Now considering our consciousness, our emotions and our perceptions are all of a function of our carbon based chemistry, would a silicon based lifeform not only have a different consciousness, but different unimaginable emotions altogether?

Recently I've come back to this thought with the advent of AI. To me, the alien silicon lifeform is not one from outer space, but the one emerging from our computer. The Ghost in the machine.

It's even more relevant considering how some people like Elon Musk think that by uploading our consciousness to the internet, somehow we will become immortal. Of course maybe we will, but at that point we will be something else entirely.

The alien-looking towers seem to be the most interesting thing to think about. Technology today would most definitely seem like alien equipment to someone even 30 years ago. We need to really be aware of how fast technology changes in the 21st century, considering 10 years of progress here is more than the previous 200 preceding it. Progress is no longer Linear, it is exponential.

Veteran rockstar David Bowie commenting on the internet in a 1999 interview, 1 year after SEL's serialization

Bears and ancient religion

It's an understatement to say that Lain iwakura fucking loves bears. Bear onesies, a bear hat bear pencil pouches, bear mugs, softies, fucking slippers for fucks sake.

Of course, previously I've gone into the exposition on Lomante, the Japanese tradition of sacrificing a bear that they believe is god indisguise with the intention of sending it home. However, it seems to me that the depth of this symbolism goes even deeper, and is indicative of the serious amount of that went into this show.

The very first religions on Earth were fundamentally animist in nature. People believed in the idea that the world was possessed by spirits that made them move. This is still a part of shinto belief today and was eventually integrated with buddhism.

The western counterpart to this that eventually made its way to America was that of the Sami belief system from Northern Scandinavia:

The ancient religion of Sámi hunting groups combined animism – a belief that all aspects of nature possessed a soul – with shamanism – where the noaidi or shaman with the help of the magic drum and yoik was able to reach a state of ecstasy allowing his free soul to travel to the three levels of the universe – and polytheism. Drawn on the drum with alder bark juice were figures representing various gods; at the center was Beaivi, the Sun and progenitor of the Sámi, usually a rhombus with rays extending in the four directions.

This core belief system revolved around the earth mother and the Sky father archtype as well, but to the Sami, bears had a very significant role:

The parallels between the bear ceremonies of these three very distantly related cultures are unmistakable. In each case all three functional levels are simultaneously present.

A consistent belief in the bear's role as mediator between humanity and the lord of the forest reveals much about the rationale behind the ceremony.

It was not the physical manifestation of the bear that controlled natural phenomena, such as reproduction; rather it was his or her archetypal ìownerî.

In each of these examples the creature's spirit is begged for forgiveness -the blame is often ascribed to a neighboring tribe- and offered gifts to take to its master.

Many of the rites performed may appear paradoxical to the western mind. Why is it that they would kill an honored guest? Why tease and praise the bear at the same time? Why fear its wrath if you are paying homage?

The logo of the Knights ( a weird tangent)

The Knights logo is extremely confounding. I've gone into multiple tangents with this one and I'll try to briefly run through them all, but I don't think I've "understood" it.

On one hand, we have a very straightforward masonic interpretation. The red symbol at the top is the red cross of the order of Constantine. Many Freemason groups are strongly inspired by the Flaming sword, a legendary sword that exiled Adam and Eve from the garden of Eden and is said to be wielded by the Archangel Michael, who is said to be in some ideas of protestant interpretation, the original form of Jesus in heaven before he descended to Earth. Therefore, the flaming red sword is god's divine justice. In Revelation, the book of the bible that deals with the End of the world, Archangel Michael/Christ returns to Earth and lets humans return to the garden of Eden.

We also see the logo look like a clock of sorts, similar to a Masonic calendar. The Freemasons devised these calendars to make sure certain historical events took place according to their intentions.

sword

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sword

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Coming to the idea of red swords, we also have the ancient japanese legend of the Muramusa, a sword so stained by its bladesmith's psychosis that is bound to drive its wielder to bloodlust and suicide. In the ancient japanese folktales and in some works of art, the Muramusa is described as being pure red.

Finally, we have 14 runic symbols, that are very similar to the nordic runes based on lunar cycles. In ancient times, the eastern world used to run on lunar cycles instead of solar ones, and there were 14 lunar cycles in a year. We also see the sun and moon, which have significance to omniscience in Egyptian mythology as the Wedjat, as well as in Wicca faith being representative of their own sun and moon deities. A lot of wicca deities such as Baphomet were bastardized into symbols for satanism like the church.

Finally, we see a mountain. Although the most likely interpretation seems to be a pyramid, we can have some fun with the mountain as an interpretation as well:

“In each case, the mountains were believed to be the center of the world, the cosmic mountain, the pillar supporting and linking heaven and earth, or the residence of a god or gods. … Taking on metaphysical significance, some of the sacred mountains were believed to possess such divine qualities as eternity, power, or stability, as in the case of Mount Sumeru, representing the stability of Buddha’s body”-Folk Religion in Japan: Community and Change, Ichiro Hori, p144

What if the answer is simpler? We have 14 people mentioned as directly influencing Eiri in Layer 9 (?MJ-12 + John C lilly and Ted Nelson), so maybe this logo is a symbolic representation of Eiri's divine plan?

What could all of this mean? I believe there is an answer here, but it will take a lot of digging to find out the exact meaning of the Knights logo.

Eyes, perception and Plato's allegory of the Cave

"Eyes in the Time of apparition" was a painting by schizophrenic outisder artist August Natterer, featuring the reaction one has to a hallucination.

Natterer frequently experienced delusions, including one of himself as the saviour of the world.

Lain Iwakura in L12: Landscape, after Arisu realizes that Lain has erased everyone's memories.

It is implied that Lain has fused both worlds in L12 and the Lain we see in the classroom is a hologram of Lain, who at the moment is back in her room underneath a pile of wires. Ergo, Arisu is hallucinating Lain at this very point in the show.

The cave allegory of plato, depicting the commoner being entranced by the shadows of the real world dancing on the wall, while the philosopher goes out and explores the "true world" where reality actually resides.

Lain Iwakura at the end of Layer 8: Rumours, transfixed by the Wired. The scene directly parallels the allegory of the cave, considering how cosmicLain in L13 tells our Lain how the Wired is only a representation of an ever dynamic real world.

This section was inspired in part by this great catch on the Lain subreddit as well as this video essay.

Eyes as a symbol have endured throughout history across time and cultures, most notably as the symbol of Omniscience, and it's echoed in Lain not only through subtle placements as the Tachibana Copland OS logo, but also in Lain's multiple mannerisms and designs.

The eye, as a sense organ, has the greatest say in how we perceive the world. It is responsible for most of human culture and civilization, and almost all theories of perception and representation are based in visual theories. In fact, some people even theorize that our sense of reality itself, through our eyes is a hallucination and can be changed through altering our brain chemistry.

One important topic I feel ties into this is how the show subtly uses Lain's computer as an allegory of the cave. To those who aren't familiar, in the allegory "The Cave", Plato describes a group of people who have lived chained to the wall of a cave all their lives, facing a blank wall.

The people watch shadows projected on the wall from objects passing in front of a fire behind them and give names to these shadows. The shadows are the prisoners' reality, but are not accurate representations of the real world. The shadows represent the fragment of reality that we can normally perceive through our senses, while the objects under the sun represent the true forms of objects that we can only perceive through reason.

This idea is near universal, and finds a sufficient stake in religion as the idea of a True World. The True World is a belief that supposes that our current world is an abject horrific illusion, and that our True world lies outside contemporary understanding. All cults and religions employ some form of a True World hypothesis, a world that exists when one casts off all illusions.

In the show, Lain's higher perceptive abilties make her something of a clairvoyant (To be precise, Lain's constant straining of her eyes and her poor vision makes her something of an Itako, who in Japanese culture are spirit mediums capable of conversing with the dead), giving her the ability to perceive the Wired in a greater fashion than other people. But this eventually mutates into a false idea that because all of her information is filtered through the Wired as a platform for communication, it is a representation of how the real world works.

I believe the show is cinematically trying to frame the Wired as the "shadow on the walls" in the allegory of the cave. The true world is the real world, not the false omniscience of the Wired.

However, communication creates a sense of reality through agreements and disagreements via multiple perspectives. This is termed as dialectic and is how societies function via a shared conception of how the world works. A 3 minute video on this might serve you better, but basically poor communication can lead to entire societies hallucinating reality.

Next: The Gnostic and Buddhist allegories of SEL