The Funny Code in the film "Jewel Thief"

I saw the film JEWEL THIEF, released in 1967, a few weeks ago.

It was a nostalgic experience. I must've seen the film after about 20 years or so.

We grew up in the awe & wonder of these great Bollywood filmstars, mesmerized by these songs, chatting to glory about these films.

Seeing it after so many years, thoughts & feelings were considerably different.

We're more critical & observant now, and demand more, out of films.

The hazy rosy cloud of glamor that once surrounded these movie stars, and made them larger than life, has dissipated.

We see them as flawed if talented human beings.

I usually do not enjoy the films we were crazy about, as children.

Jewel Thief almost made me burst out with laughter, in some places ... the ludicrous plot-twists, the hopelessly improbable situations, the total lack of logic, the cheesy cinematography ... not that films nowadays are logical or convincing ... or make any sense whatsoever ... but this was just bad!

Anyway, that's a different issue.

It was still fun in its own way. 

There was something simple, honest, & graceful, in that era, which seems irretrievably lost, today.

Well, I noticed something very odd while watching the film.

There's a scene (followed by a song) in which the actress -- one of India's best -- the great Vyjayanthi Mala -- is dressed in a peculiar saree.

The saree is a scarlet-ish red ... but it had these absurd clumps of cotton stuck all around it.

Basically, it looked awful 

But then it struck me suddenly that this was eerily reminiscent of something else.

Look at the saree itself: 

Weird, isn't it?

It neither looks elegant or comely -- neither classy nor homely.

It simply looks ridiculous.

With that absurd tuft of hair our heroines of the 1960s used to wear on their heads (to make them look taller, perhaps more slender), the stunningly beautiful & elegant Vyjayanthi Mala looked rather comic (very lovely, nevertheless!).

But that's when I realized something else is going on here.

Below is a picture of is the famous AMANITA MUSCARIA, or the Fly Agaric Mushroom, rendered infamous by the British author JOHN ALLEGRO, which was the background of my previous blog-post.

This is the mushroom that Allegro locates at the root & center of both historical Judaism & Christianity (& other religious cults of the world, but especially those of the Middle East).

This is the mushroom around which, according to him, the fabric of both Judaism & Christianity were woven.

Notice the colors, the texture, the whole look of the mushroom.

The mushroom is in itself red (to deep scarlet), and is covered with clumpy bits/chunks of the volva of the mushroom.

Basically, Jesus IS the mushroom, and more specifically, the Amanita Muscaria.

Now compare the design of Mala's saree, with the Amanita Muscaria dermis (so to speak).

(Right Click on above image, to enlarge)

Well, I was startled 

Do notice that the film director (or whoever conceived of this saree), makes it a point to recreate the tufty, lumpy chunks of the white volva which stick to the mushroom cap once it has broken out of the volva.

Apart from this uncanny semblance, the ludicrous cotton clumps on the scarlet-red saree make no sense.

Vyjayanthi Mala's whole saree is a symbolic AMANITA MUSCARIA.

She literally IS, the mushroom.

(Right Click on the above image, to enlarge)

From Allegro's book:

“The mushroom has always been a thing of mystery. 

The ancients were puzzled by its manner of growth without seed, the 

speed with which it made its appearance after rain, and its as rapid disappearance. 

Born from a volva or “egg” it appears like a small penis, raising itself like the human organ sexually aroused, and when it spread wide its canopy the old botanists saw it as a phallus bearing the “burden” of a woman’s groin. 

Every aspect of the mushroom’s existence was fraught with sexual 

allusions, and in its phallic form the ancients saw a replica of the fertility god himself.

It was the “son of God”, its drug was a purer form of the god’s own spermatozoa than that discoverable in any other form of living matter. It was, in fact, God himself, manifest on earth.

To the mystic it was the divinely given means of entering heaven; God had come down in the flesh to show the way to himself, by himself.

To pluck such a precious herb was attended at every point with peril.

The time — before sunrise, the words to be uttered — the name of the guardian angel, were vital to the operation, but more was needed.

Some form of substitution was necessary, to make an atonement to the earth robbed of her offspring. 

Yet such was the divine nature of the Holy Plant, as it was called, only the god could make the necessary sacrifice.

To redeem the Son, the Father had to supply even the “price of redemption”.

These are all phrases used of the sacred mushroom, as they are of the Jesus of Christian theology.”

While it's difficult to see a woman as a mushroom, or a phallus, or God's own Spermatozoa, Allegro is close enough.

And there is a lot more to the mushroom than what Allegro reveals in his book.

His job was to open up a new path of investigation, which he did, successfully.

(Right Click on the above image, to enlarge)

It is amazing that the film JEWEL THIEF was made THREE YEARS BEFORE John Allegro's book was published (in 1970) , or even before Gordon Wasson's 1968 book Soma: Divine Mushroom of Immortality.

I am not sure when the idea of the Amanita Muscaria was introduced and by whom: the most popular theories seem to date from Allegro himself.

But it's possible the idea was in circulation before 1968.

This is how codes are encrypted into films & art. 

This is how "messages" are passed on: nobody ever notices, nobody ever knows, nobody ever comprehends the real meaning 

Added 19th July, 2023:

P.S. 1.

I need to correct myself.

The whole mushroom needn’t be seen as masculine-phallic, in Allegro’s view.

He does interpret the stalk of the mushroom as phallic-masculine, and the canopy, as feminine.

From that point of view, the talented & peerless Vyjayanthi Mala – with her white-speckled, red saree – can be seen as the cap of the mushroom, rather than the whole mushroom itself.

So the film-makers haven’t made any egregious error.

Allegro applies this dual integrated perspective in attempting to trace the names of the Grecian Twin-Brother Gods Castor & Pollux to the Sumerian language:

“... To go back to Pollux: he represents the phallic side of the mushroom figure, the support to the upper half of his brother Castor’s “womb”.

For when the mushroom canopy is fully spread, a new picture emerges, and one of particular importance for New Testament symbolism.

This spread canopy was the upper half of the volva, so it was natural to envisage the stem as a human phallus supporting the open groin of the woman.

In other terms, the shaft had been driven home into the axe- head...

This configuration of an upright supporting an apex or fork came to have a profound sexual significance.

The upright was the strong arm or erect penis supporting the “burden” of the womb.

The very word “burden” in Sumerian GUN, came down through Latin cunnus into our presently impolite designation of the female genitals, “cunt”.

The “organ of burden”, AR-GUN, appears dialectaily in the name of Mount Hermon, the Canaanite version of Olympus, supporter of the heavenly arch.”

I do not quite agree with his specific etymological deductions, but that’s not the point.

The point is that the speckled red cap of the Amanita Muscaria can be seen as the feminine half or aspect, of the mushroom.

 

P.S.2

I have read Gordon Wasson’s book, though I don’t think I got beyond the first few chapters, or remember when I read it.

Needless to say, I disagree with what I read.

He did not exhibit a speck of knowledge about, or interest in, the metaphysics behind Ṛg Vedic hymns, and the bases of his theory are just a couple of verses here & there, and a ton of assumptions.

To take every word of any ancient text literally is to commit a fundamental blunder, making it impossible to understand any one of them.

The texts were not meant to be understood by outsiders, or by any random curious person.

They were all deliberately written in such a way, as to befuddle everyone expect the authors, the transmitters of the knowledge, and those who they thought were fit recipients of that knowledge.

That is why there was an established community of teachers, a very specific & carefully framed method of instruction, and very specific systems & curriculums in place, to train students in comprehending the cryptic, mysterious passages of these texts.

Those who have never stepped foot into such an institution, or know anything about the system & method of education, are incapable of understanding what was being taught.

Yet, in modern world, with what material is left to us, we are compelled to speculate.

Given our unhappy ignorance & our pathetic situation, everyone has some doubts regarding the actual physical rituals involved in the ceremonies of those times – and the Soma plant must’ve existed – and has never been identified satisfactorily.

I feel Gordon simply is not qualified, to write about Vedic literature, nor has he been serious, or consistent enough, in his approach.

I found it very superficial & frivolous.

But it was a couple of years ago, and I’ll have to read his book again, to actually comment on it.

Allegro avoids Wasson’s theory that initiates of those times used to drink each others’ urine, after consuming the Amanita (if I remember correctly, Wasson claims that the Vedic seers drank each others’ mushroom-laced piss!) – and simply talks about ingestion of the mushroom itself.

A much more sensible view.

In the ultimate analysis, I respectfully disagree with both.

But, as I said earlier, their achievement was to open a line of investigation, and this will definitely take us closer to the truth.

It made the world notice the presence of mushrooms in Ancient Art, and examine the innumerable connections which emerge from a legitimate perspective of analysis.

And mushrooms do seem to be important in the Meso-American cultures.

That the mushroom must’ve been crucial in the orgiastic rites of the fescenine & wild Ancient Sex cult crushed (but not entirely obliterated) by the so-called “Patriarchal” creeds, is certainly believable.

 

P.S. 3

The song is “Dil pukaare aa re aare”.

It can be watched on YouTube.

 

P.S. 4

Apart from everything else – despite all my serious disagreements – I like Allegro :)

He’s audacious, he’s innovative, he’s a master of language & words, he’s mental , he’s a freethinker.

All freethinkers, despite their conflicting or crazy views, have my respect.

They break out of the stagnant, the fossilized, the routine, the mundane, the banal – and open our minds to new possibilities, new ideas, and new perspectives.

They vex, they harry, they discombobulate – they threaten the status quo, they ruffle the placid waters of the pond, they harshly crow in the golden peace of the morn, they disturb our sense of complacency – but we wake up, we move, we are shaken into awareness of something new & different, we look around, our minds are exercised by the mere fact of trying to counteract them, our faculties sharpened in simply trying to argue & prove them wrong.

This itself makes them terribly interesting & endearing.

Besides, Allegro writes beautifully: one experiences absolutely no strain in reading his book.

The waters saw Thee, Lord,

The waters saw Thee, they were afraid;

The depths also trembled.

... 

Thy way is in the sea,

Thy path in the great waters,

And thy footsteps are not known...

-- Psalm 77: 16,18