On March 21, 1963 three hundred and two inmates, guards, and staff vanished in the night and started to reappear today.
“The Ames Brothers” and “Sonney Burnette” were both two rather dark and philosophically complicated episodes exploring Religion, Spirituality, Science and the pursuits of man. Even though I think we would have benefited from seeing episode 1x08 “Clarence Montgomery” first, I can understand the importance of having these episodes back to back.
“Spirituality is for those seeking understanding. Religion is for those seeking rewards.”
Spirituality Vs Religion:
Herman Ames makes himself heard to Edwin Jmaes in a 1960’s flashback, as he and his brother, another inmate Pinkey, and a guard named Donovan, plan not to escape, but seek out Civil War Gold hidden behind another mysterious door somewhere deep underneath Alcatraz also referred to as “the Dungeon”, all why disrupting a Christian sermon given to the inmates on behalf of the beliefs of Edwin James. Herman accuses James of being such a man “seeking rewards“, suggesting that James and perhaps his Religion is fraud to enlightenment, because one could argue that the word reward in this context suggests greed, but this is ironically rich coming from a group of people looking for gold, rather than seeking refuge or escapism.
Edwin James has been a character who is put into a very complicated light. He seems old world, yet worldly. He has been continuously quoting scripture and lititure often dealing with good and evil. He is also at times associated with objects relating himself with the American Civil War, in which Alcatraz itself has much history, as the Island has been a type of prison and military arsenal for a good chunk of it’s United States historical existence. I often wonder if James himself is from the Civil War Era.
But the real context of what is “understanding” and what is a “reward” comes more to surface when we get into the flashbacks of Sonny Burnett’s episode.
Survival of the Fittest: Predetermination Vs Adaptation.
Sonny Burnett’s episode gives us wind of a battle or disagreement between Tiller and James. When we first see Sonny in the outdoor recreation area, we see a business man looking to protect himself, by telling some big guy named Hicks, that he has money buried to pay for Hick’s protection, suggesting that Sonny recognizes the hierarchy of Alcatraz in hopes to buying himself with the “in” crowd. -Unfortunately Sonny’s girlfriend, was the only other person who knew were the money was buried and took it before Hick’s outside sources could get to it. The whole dilemma turned Hicks against Sonny, that lead to conversation between Tiller and James about survival of the fittest in which James proclaims that everyone is as they are, survivors or not survivors, things in life are “predetermined”, while Tiller suggests that adaptation can change us and make us survivors.
The scene is further explored by James commenting to Sonny in the infirmary, “You died son, and brought back to life.” The rest of the episode explores Tiller’s proposal . The biggest reveal in the episode was that some of the inmates’ blood were being modified with a colloidal silver and replaced back into their bodies. Later Beauregard in modern day comments to Hauser that this colloid silver is helping the inmates recover from their wounds MUCH faster than what traditionally occurs…
But going back to Herman Ames comments, we get into a grey area with words such as “understanding” verses “rewards”. On one hand it seems reward suggests someone who has not accepted their life for what it is, instead they seek to gain power. --But, if we look at it from a scientific and philosophical perspective we can argue that coming to understand is the pursuit of knowledge, and the pursuit of knowledge is to help us better survive, and isn’t being able to better survive a kind of reward for coming to understand. Perhaps the argument is really about seeking happiness and where to draw the line.
But then the waters get further muddied when we try to configure James belief in prederminism verses Tiller's adaptation. -It comes down to what James believes predetermination is, in conjunction to physical laws. --He could very well mean he knows what could happen, because it happened to him. Hinting to the audience that he is stuck in his own kind of arrested development and these things that they do to others, have been done to him too.
It could also mean he is trying to not let Tiller onto his secrets, by trying to cover up the fact that conditioning to “win” is part of some grand divine plan...whether his own or God’s remain to be seen. -The divine plan is about letting survival of the fittest work itself out, or that the divine plan is about immortality and cheating death, or escaping judgment day…But ultimately the act of disagreeing with Tiller, pushes Tiller a certain way too. And we could take the argument to man’s existence in the universe and to what pursuit and/or degree of action, for what purpose is “acceptable”?! But the scene at the end of the second episode, in the case of Sonny Burnett, James had won. Beauregard comments that there is NO colloidal silver in his blood, and reminds Hauser that not all of the inmates were apart of the experiment. It is suggested then that Sonny wasn't deemed worthy of colloidal silver...but yet he still come back to modern day and seeks revenge...
The Tree of Life: Rejuvenation
The Tree of Life is something used metaphorically time and time again in philosophy, religion, and science as means to exploring harmony, cycles, and/or levels of life as we know it. To some the tree of life is also the tree of knowledge, associated with the likes of Biblical scripture, the of eating it’s forbidden fruit, the making of sinners, that is the tale in which Adam and Eve tragically fall out of God’s good graces and into the life of forgiveness on Earth as stated in Genesis. But for some, the Tree of Life is also reflective of the meaning of life, and again we get into the idea that man must explore in order to know themselves. Additionally in New Age concepts The Tree of Knowledge: Of Good and Evil, may also reflect thinking in dualism, in both a physical plane and/or spiritual, ethereal, or “sub conscience” plane of existence.
Trees have made some mild appearances in a few episodes. Poisonous trees, Trees on a street sign, and the Twin trees of Mt. Sutro bring me to the physical idea of “pruning”…Sometimes trees, shrubs, or plants go through a phase of their lives in which the edges of their twigs or leaves are ragged or weak, - in the process of decay. Humans have found that by trimming some of those dead or weak parts off, or back, will case the tree to rejuvenate much stronger and healthier limbs and ultimately make the plant stronger.
When James told Sonny he was dead and brought back to life, whether he meant this medically, literally, or figuratively, I realized that death is the only place where these inmates were going, that if not for the beliefs in such crazy experiments, that these people had no real future left one way or another.
I then thought about their repeated behavior from past to present, and thought about a tree rejuvenating it’s limbs…you literally would cut it back to certain point and to some degree at first, the first parts of the tree regrowing itself may be nearly identical to it’s previous limbs, but then the limbs may manifest and take off in a new direction, and breath in a new life. It leads me to believe that this is the philosophy and or effects of the experiments on the inmates. Their minds literally “reset” and perhaps if given a chance to get beyond a certain repeated point, might be able to “take off” and be more super human…
But fear of death or being born a new must be part of the deeper human plot of Alcatraz. These episodes again also mention beliefs of Ancient Greek mythology, both as the properties of the colloid silver in relation to rejuvination according to Beauregard went as far back as Hippocrates and Edwin James brought up the much written about mythical Elysiam Fields
From Wiki:
Elysium or the Elysian Fields (Greek: ???s??? ped???, Elýsion pedÃon) is a conception of the afterlife that evolved over time and was maintained by certain Greek religious and philosophical sects, and cults. Initially separate from the realm of Hades, admission was initially reserved for mortals related to the gods and other heroes. Later, it expanded to include those chosen by the gods, the righteous, and the heroic, where they would remain after death, to live a blessed and happy life, and indulging in whatever employment they had enjoyed in life. The Elysian Fields were, according to Homer, located on the western edge of the Earth by the stream of Oceanus. In the time of the Greek oral poet Hesiod, Elysium would also be known as the Fortunate Isles or the Isles (or Islands) of the Blessed, located in the western ocean at the end of the earth. The Isles of the Blessed would be reduced to a single island by the Thebean poet Pendar, describing it as having shady parks, with residents indulging their athletic and musical pastimes.
The ruler of Elysium varies from author to author; Pindar and Hesiod name Cronus as the ruler. While the poet Homer in the Odyssey describes fair-haired Rhadamanthus dwellingIt gives ideas that our Island might be like this divine paradise and that it relies on a “ruler”. Or that escaping Alcatraz would be a way to get somewhere "better".
Finding A Silver Lining:
Keeping in with immortality and life extension, and things pertaining to a spiritual plane of knowledge, or sub conscience, I commend the idea of this collide silver being engineered into the blood as at least one magor facet in the life extending, age preventing aspect to the criminals.
Some interesting facts and history of Silver and Colloidal Silver
From Wiki:
Silver ( /'s?lv?r/ sil-v?r) is a metallic chemical element with the #HYPERLINK "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemical_symbol"chemical symbol Ag (Latin: argentum, from the Indo-European root*arg- for "grey" or "shining") and atomic number 47. A soft, white, lustrous transition metal, it has the highest electrical conductivity of any element and the highest thermal conductivity of any metal. The metal occurs naturally in its pure, free form (native silver), as an alloy withgold and other metals, and in minerals such as argentite and chlorargyrite. Most silver is produced as a byproduct of copper, gold, lead, and zinc refining.
Silver has long been valued as a precious metal, and it is used to make ornaments, jewelry, high-value tableware, utensils (hence the termsilverware), and currency coins. Today, silver metal is also used in electrical contacts and conductors, in mirrors and in catalysis of chemical reactions. Its compounds are used in photographic film, and dilute silver nitrate solutions and other silver compounds are used asdisinfectants and microbiocides. While many medical antimicrobial uses of silver have been supplanted by antibiotics, further research into clinical potential continues.
Silver ions and silver compounds show a toxic effect on some bacteria, viruses, algae and fungi, typical for heavy metals like lead or mercury, but without the high toxicity to humans normally associated with these other metals. Its germicidal effects kill many microbial organisms in vitro, but testing and standardization of silver products is difficult.
Hippocrates, the "father of medicine",wrote that silver had beneficial healing and antidisease properties, and the Phoenicians stored water, wine, and vinegar in silver bottles to prevent spoiling. In the early 20th century, people[where?] would put silver coins in milk bottles to prolong the milk's freshness. Its germicidal effects increased its value in utensils and as jewellery. The exact process of silver's germicidal effect is still not entirely understood, although theories exist. One of these is the oligodynamic effect, which explains the effect on microorganisms, but would not explain antiviral effects.
Silver is widely used in topical gels and impregnated into bandages because of its wide-spectrum antimicrobial activity. The antimicrobial properties of silver stem from the chemical properties of its ionized form, Ag+. This ion forms strong molecular bonds with other substances used by bacteria to respire, such as molecules containing sulfur, nitrogen, andoxygen. When the Ag+ ion forms a complex with these molecules, they are rendered unusable by the bacteria, depriving them of necessary compounds and eventually leading to their death.
Silver compounds were used to prevent infection in World War I before the advent of antibiotics. Silver nitrate solution use continued, then was largely replaced by silver sulfadiazinecream (SSD cream), which generally became the "standard of care" for the antibacterial and antibiotic treatment of serious burns until the late 1990s. Now, other options, such as silver-coated dressings (activated silver dressings), are used in addition to SSD cream. However, the evidence for the effectiveness of such silver-treated dressings is mixed, and although the evidence is promising, it is marred by the poor quality of the trials used to assess these products. Consequently, a systematic review by the Cochrane Collaboration (published in 2008) found insufficient evidence to recommend the use of silver-treated dressings to treat infected wounds.
Silver has been used for thousands of years for ornaments and utensils, for trade, and as the basis for many monetary systems. Its value as a precious metal was long considered second only to gold. The word "silver" appears in Anglo-Saxon in various spellings such as seolfor andsiolfor. A similar form is seen throughout the Germanic languages (compare Old High German silabar and silbir). The chemical symbol Ag is from the Latin for "silver", argentum (compare Greek ???????, árgyros), from the Indo-European root *arg- meaning "white" or "shining". Silver has been known since ancient times. Mentioned in the book of Genesis, slag heaps found in Asia Minor and on the islands of the Aegean Seaindicate silver was being separated from lead as early as the 4th millennium BC using surface mining.
Recorded use of silver to prevent infection dates to ancient Greece and Rome; it was rediscovered in the Middle Ages, when it was used for several purposes, such as to disinfect water and food during storage, and also for the treatment of burns and wounds as wound dressing. In the 19th century, sailors on long ocean voyages would put silver coins in barrels of water and wine to keep the liquid potable. Pioneers in America used the same idea as they made their journey from coast to coast. Silver solutions were approved in the 1920s by the US Food and Drug Administration for use as antibacterial agents.
The medical uses of silver include its incorporation into wound dressings to treat external infections, and its use as an antiseptic and disinfectant in medical appliances. Silver is also promoted within alternative medicine in the form of colloidal silver, although it has not been proven to be safe or effective.
The silver ion (Ag+) is bioactive and in sufficient concentration readily kills bacteria in vitro. Silver also kills bacteria in external wounds in living tissue, so physicians use wound dressings containing silver sulfadiazine (Ag-SD) or silver nanomaterials to treat external infections. Wound dressings containing silver are increasing in importance due to the recent increase of antibiotic-resistant bacteria, such as MRSA. The disinfectant properties of silver are used in medical applications, such as urinary catheters and endotracheal breathing tubes, where the silver content is effective in reducing incidences of catheter-related urinary tract infections and ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP), respectively. Silver is also used in bone prostheses, reconstructive orthopaedic surgery and cardiac devices, as well as on surfaces and fabrics to reduce the spread of infection.
Since the 1990s, "colloidal silver", a liquid suspension of microscopic silver particles, has been marketed as an alternative medicine, often claiming impressive "cure-all" qualities. The effectiveness of these products has never been scientifically proven, and in some jurisdictions, it is currently illegal to include such claims in product advertisements. Medical authorities and publications advise against the ingestion of colloidal silver preparations, because of their lack of proven effectiveness and because of the risk of adverse side effects, such as argyria.
Historically, colloidal silver was also used as an internal medication to treat a variety of diseases. Their use was largely discontinued in the 1940s, due to the development of safe and effective modern antibiotics and concern about adverse side effects.
Argyria (ISV from Greek: ??????? argyros silver + -ia) is a condition caused by improper exposure to chemical forms of the element silver, silver dust, or silver compounds. The most dramatic symptom of argyria is that the skin becomes blue or bluish-grey colored. Argyria may be found as generalized argyria or local argyria. Argyrosis is the corresponding condition related to the eye.
Additionally found this from Silver Colliods: Definition http://www.silver-colloids.com/Pubs/Monatomic-Myth.html
(Where is the FRINGE Smoke Glyph photo when you need it?! And not mention the Fringe Episode, "Concentrate and Ask Again"--tying into this theme of having a choice or not -I wonder if we will see "blue" people...)
The Myth of Monatomic Colloidal Silver
Monatomic colloidal silver is claimed to be colloidal silver that consists of particles that are single atoms of silver suspended in water. It is further claimed that because the silver particles are so small these products do not exhibit a Tyndall effect and the result is a product that is as clear as water.
Tyndall effect (TE) - The scattering of light as is passes through a medium containing small particles. If apolychromatic beam of light is passed through a medium containing particles less than about one-twentieth of the wavelength of light, the scattered light appears blue. This accounts for blue appearance of tobacco smoke. At higher particle diameters, the scattered light remains polychromatic. The effect is seen in suspensions and metal colloids. For comparative purposes, Tyndall effect can be quantified by measuring the sample turbidity . Named after John Tyndall (1820-1893).
To Be Continued in Pt. 2...
