The Ninth Gate

Because we're coming up on Halloween, there are lots of horror films on TV this month. I watched most of The Ninth Gate last night, although I bailed before the end. I've seen it before. 

Polanski is a talented director, so it's a quality film with some masterful brushstrokes. Excellent cast. Classy settings. That said, the film is something of a dud. It begins somewhat promisingly, but never catches on, and the ending is anticlimactic. Maybe Polanski has lost his touch. It's certainly no match for Rosemary's Baby.

The basic premise of the plot involves the pursuit of a book (actually, three editions of the same book) that's ghostwritten by the devil. To the one who owns a copy and can decrypt the message, the book promises worldly success. A variant on the Faustian bargain.

Although the basic idea has some dramatic potential, there'd be a more interesting way to develop that theme. Say there's a book "inspired" by the devil. Throughout the centuries, power-hungry men and women pursue the book. They travel to far-flung places to track it down. They murder to steal the book. All because the book promises its owner worldly success. 

Only there's a catch. You will go mad if you read the book. The book passes through many hands. Each owner was widely successful and powerful. Yet each owner became insane as his mind was drawn into the labyrinth of the book's fiendish symbolism and numerology. Owner's lose their way, and lose their minds, in their effort to break the code. The code is a trap. A lure.

Although The Ninth Gate is fictional, there are real candidates for books inspired by the devil. Automatic writing is a prima facie case. It's possible that automatic writing as a natural psychological explanation. But given how it typically takes place in an occult setting, that certainly invites a demonic interpretation.

Swedenborg is another example. Swedenborg was a notable apostate: the son of a Lutheran bishop. Swedenborg himself was a brilliant man of polymathic interests. 

However, in his early fifties, he says he engaged in astral travel to heaven and hell, where he communicated with angels, demons, and ghosts. He wrote voluminously about his encounters. 

I don't know if he was possessed, mentally ill, or both. Certainly possession results in mental illness. If he was possessed, then this would be another case of diabolically inspired literature. 

Jonathan Livingston Seagull, a New Age blockbuster by Richard Bach, is another example.

To take a final example, in his Occult ABC, Lutheran exorcist Kurt Koch has a section on the apocryphal Sixth and Seven Book of Moses. To judge by his description, this is a book containing magic imprecations. How to curse your enemy. According to him, the spells work. But, of course, the owner pays a terrible price, for he himself comes under a terrible spell. 

I notice that in googling the title, there are copies floating around the internet. Needless to say, I never read it, since it's reputedly a very dangerous book to read. I mention this as a warning to the curious. Even though The Ninth Gate is fictional, it has real-world counterparts. Literature "inspired" by the dark side, which–if you own it and read it–will have disastrous effects on you and those around you.