Through the Looking Glass: An Occult Review of Gattaca
A Film about Saturn and the Devil Card
The first time I watched Gattaca, I was probably 11 or 12 years old. I was and always have been a huge sci-fi fan, and to my 12 year old mind, Gattaca was extraordinary in every way. First and foremost the cinematography was beautiful. The elegant and minimalist retro-futuristic spaces in the film were imbued with a certain grainy nostalgia. It is the kind of picture that feels dream-like even while you are watching it, instantly metamorphosing into pure archetype. Gattaca is philosophical in the way that all good sci-fi is; it holds a mirror darkly to our humanity and lets us have a good look. The story is well written, intellectual without resorting overly to futuristic technology, lending it a timeless feel that has aged exceedingly well since its release in 1997.
Have you seen it? No? Go watch it, I’ll wait. Otherwise the rest of this might be a bit of a spoiler. I’ll recap for those who might need a refresher.
The film begins with the main character, Vincent narrating our introduction to a world where virtually all people are engineered before birth. In this world, people are born with genetic guarantees of perfection in every way — physically, mentally and intellectually. Unfortunately for our protagonist, his parents did not choose his traits before birth, opting to have him naturally and leave his genetics to fate. Scanned at birth, he is shown to have a myriad of physical and mental predispositions towards illness, with high risk of heart complications and a projected lifespan of only 30.2 years.
After Vincent’s failure to be predestined for anything other than an early grave, his parents decide to have a second child, Anton, a son that was engineered to have a much better chance at a future. It becomes quickly evident that Anton surpasses Vincent in almost every way even though he is younger. Physically, he quickly becomes taller and stronger than Vincent. As children they tested their abilities by swimming out into the ocean, a test that Vincent loses consistently. On one of these swims, far out from shore, Anton falters and begins to drown, only to be saved by his weaker brother Vincent. It is after this turning point that Vincent leaves home to strike out on his own.
The world is not friendly to those unlucky enough to carry what their society sees as inferior genetic material. Called in-valids, people who lack genetic integrity are largely inheritors of a future where they fill menial physical labor jobs such as cleaning and groundskeeping. High profile jobs are reserved for those with superior genetics, referred to as valids. As one might expect, society has become caste based, not due to how one looks, but instead whether or not a person has the genetic engineering to be considered a functional part of society.
Vincent is not happy with his lot in life, relegated to a janitorial job cleaning the offices for the Gattaca Space Agency. Since childhood he has dreamed of going into space, though there is no chance of ever being able to do such a thing. Desperate for a chance at a future, Vincent contracts with a genetic broker who arranges for him to rent the identity of a valid in return for a portion of his future earnings. Here we are introduced to Jerome, a wheelchair bound valid who was destined for greatness, but fell short and ended up paralyzed from the waist down due to a tragic accident. Jerome enters into an agreement with Vincent; Jerome provides his identity including skin cells, urine and hair, and Vincent pays Jerome 25% of his lifetime earnings for the service. Vincent then becomes Jerome, assuming his identity completely. Jerome insists he be called by Eugene, his middle name, since Vincent is now for all intents and purposes, Jerome.
After the deal is made, Vincent finds it easy to raise in the ranks at Gattaca and becomes a high ranking member slated to be part of a mission to Saturn’s largest moon, Titan. With just a few final weeks until the Titan launch, the Director of the mission is brutally murdered, putting the Titan mission in jeopardy. In a sweep of the crime scene, investigators find an errant eyelash of Vincent’s, making it clear that an unregistered invalid is on the Gattaca premises and is now the prime suspect. Vincent knows it is only a matter of time until he is caught. Another employee, Irene, begins to suspect not all is as it seems with who she knows as Jerome. Through unavoidable circumstance, Vincent must eventually reveal his secret to Irene, who choses to help hide his true identity from the detective. It becomes clear that the investigator closing in on Vincent’s identity is in fact his brother, Anton. As the movie closes, Vincent prepares to leave Earth for his Titan mission, leaving behind Irene and Eugene. The final scene leaves us with Eugene committing suicide as Vincent launches towards Saturn.
It would appear the writer of the script deliberately chose specific names for the characters, and thus we learn a little about the archetypes at play by investigating these names. Vincent comes to us from the Roman name Vincentius, and means to conquer, perfectly setting up his character’s modus operandi. Jerome is from the Greek Ἱερώνυμος, Hieronymos, meaning Sacred Name. This plays out quite literally, as it is Jerome’s name that allows Vincent to conquer against all odds. When Jerome relinquishes his name, he is called by his middle name, Eugene, a name from the Greek Εὐγένιος, Eugenios, meaning well born. Irene stems from Eirene, the Greek goddess of peace whose Roman equivalent was Pax. The inner peace found through self knowledge results from the struggle to conquer the limits imposed upon us through our incarnation into the material.
The influence of Saturn is evident throughout the film from start to finish, literally and figuratively. Watched with magician’s eyes, we can see the visual minimalism, traditional values and dress of the society pictured in the film, and the emphasis on social hierarchy all are Saturnian manifestations. The film was shot on the location of the Marin County Civic Center, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright and completed in 1957. The architecture of the place conveys a very abstract and minimal mood, organic but sparse and monumental in scope.
Saturn in the sign of Capricorn deals with the physical limitations matter by way of the earth sign in which he rules. In the tarot, this is the Devil card, Atu XV. This card is the card of Capricorn, but also the Hebrew letter ע Ayin, which means an eye. The numerical value of ayin is 70, which will be come important later. In the Book of Thoth, Crowley writes on the Devil card,
The sign of Capricornus is rough, harsh, dark, even blind; the impulse to create takes no account of reason, custom, or foresight. It is divinely unscrupulous, sublimely careless of result. "thou hast no right but to do thy will. Do that, and no other shall say nay. For pure will, unassuaged of purpose, delivered from the lust of result, is every way perfect." AL. I, 42-4.
Visually, the Devil card of the Thoth deck features a goat standing in front of a phallus shaped pillar, horns reminiscent of spiraling DNA. Below the goat are people inside spheres that visually reference dividing cells, filled with chromosomes. Matter, incarnation and the limitations of our biology are key themes both in the Devil card and in the film itself.
Another vector for Saturnian visuals comes from the prominent ocean theme. It is the ocean that the brothers test themselves in, an analogy for Vincent’s struggle between the authority and self determination. The ocean is Binah, the third sphere on the Tree of Life. Binah is the great and terrible mother, related to Kronos and Saturn. It is through this sphere that the force coalesced from the nothingness of Ain Soph Aur in Kether, and set into motion in Chokmah are thus bound into form and manifestation. Binah in the tarot relates to the 3 card in each suit, just as we have three main players in the film: Vincent, Irene and Jerome.
Every number mentioned in the film refers back to the Devil/Saturn theme. When Vincent is born, the nurse reads out his projected lifespan, just over 30 years. The orbit of Saturn around the sun completes in about 29.5 years. Recall the number of ayin is 70, and that the mission director states that the window for launching to Saturn’s moon Titan is a once in a 70 year window.
Saturn represents restriction in all its forms. As incarnate beings, we are restricted to material bodies, subjects to the forces of nature and time. Scientists believe all life sprung from the ocean eons ago, when the primordial basis for cellular life arose from the soup of molecules present in Earth’s primitive oceans. In the story of Gattaca, restriction is based on the physical aspect of each person’s biology, fate at a cellular basis, and all systems of control spring from that one factor, denying any other measure of value. On face value, it seems utterly inescapable, all consuming and omnipresent, but is it?
The Devil as adversary requires us to resist authority, while Saturn implements authority and restriction. It is a curious case of each thing inherently containing its opposite that we see so often in the esoteric. Ultimately we must each undergo the ordeal of finding true self knowledge through struggle against preconceived ideas of who we are and what our Work is. Do we believe in free will, or do we simply live the life that is given to us without question? Do we let the forces and elements shape us, or do we do the shaping? Are we just the product of our cells? Remember, thou hast no right but to do thy will.
Praxis
What does the duality between authority and self determination look like in your life? What sort of power do you give to restrictive authority, and why? As humans living amongst others, we are bound to have encountered situations where we were limited in the past, told a thing was impossible or had our selfhood framed in a way that was limiting. Think about what gave power to those limitations, and what can break that power. Write it down on a piece of paper, and on the day and hour of Saturn, burn it.