The Spiritual Framework of Twin Peaks-Brett

 

The idea of a spiritual battle between “good” and “evil” as concepts is an idea found in many real-life spiritual frameworks. However, the spiritual battle I would like to focus on in this post is one whose origins are not in real-life religious dogma, but rather in a fictional television show. Created by David Lynch and Mark Frost, the groundbreaking television series Twin Peaks transcends the traditional boundaries of a mystery/detective show by explicitly diving into concepts about the supernatural under a very complex spiritual framework. Two of those said concepts are the White Lodge and the Black Lodge. These two realms are the centerpieces for the show’s depiction of spiritual war as they represent the shows perceptions of “good” and “evil”, respectively. 

Although we never get a definitive look at the white lodge as a realm in the show, it has received plenty of descriptive explanations through the show’s characters. As they describe it, the white lodge is the domain for all of the spirits responsible for what is good and beautiful in the world. In contrast, the black lodge serves as the domain for the spirits responsible for all the world’s evils. We do not see any supernatural entities which come from the White Lodge, but we see plenty of entities who originate in the black lodge such The Giant, MIKE, and BOB. Not all of the spirits that come out of the black lodge are purely evil beings, as a matter of fact The Giant serves as a rather helpful figure to the show’s main character Dale Cooper and his investigation into the death of Laura Palmer, and MIKE, after having a religious epiphany, devoted the rest of his life to stopping his former partner in crime, BOB. But when we get to the “evil” supernatural entities that come from the black lodge, the evil actions that they do are not solely blamed on them in the universe of the show. 

As with many of Lynch’s works, the definitive explanation for BOB is up to the audience’s interpretation, but it is more concrete than one would think. In season 2 episode 9 of the show, the characters discuss what BOB could be, and during this conversation, one interpretation from the character Albert Rosenfield which many fans have accepted as an explanation in accordance to what the show establishes in its universe, which is that BOB is “the evil that men do”. BOB’s most well known host is that of Leland Palmer, the father of Laura Palmer who abused her sexually for years before ultimately killing her. In the film prequel to the show, Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me, Leland is shown to commit acts of abuse towards Laura, which the film implies are not the works of BOB, and near the end of the film there is a certain line of dialogue which I don’t want to spoil for anyone which shows that Leland is aware of the fact that BOB is inside of him and is doing the evil acts that he is doing. This makes it so that BOB is not an evil entity who forces others to do wrongdoings but is rather a force which preys upon those already doing wrong and makes them worse. Therefore, the war between “good” and “evil” in the show’s spiritual framework is entirely fought in the material realm, and the spirits which inhabit both the White lodge and the Black Lodge can be thought of as mere administrators or agents subjugated to whatever humanities actions are. The latter interpretation is a very interesting role reversal as to what many evangelical Christians believe the spiritual war to be. 

 

My analysis here only scratches the surface of the show’s spiritual framework and the theories it provides about “good” and “evil” as concepts. So, I’m just going to end this post with encouraging everyone to watch the show in any way they can. Trust me, it’ll be worth it.