Lego My Logos

All things fall and are built again
And those that build them again are gay.
-Yeats, "Lapis Lazuli"

The exoteric Lego Movie is clever, entertaining, and full of pop culture references. The esoteric Lego movie is a Gnostic myth informed by Freemasonry and Kabbalah. Spoiler alert for both.

The hero/fool Emmet Brickowski is the perfect citizen of a happyface dystopia, where Everything is Awesome (abandon all hope ye who click that link), everyone works together, and everyone follows the "instructions." Everything in its right place and a right place for everything. Headed by President Business, the Octan Corporation (reference to "octane" and thus the petrodollars that run our own dystopian world, also no coincidence that Business is voiced by Will Ferrell, who had the best and most notorious George W. Bush impression) makes and monopolizes everything, from buildings to television shows to history books. One day after hours at his construction site Emmet follows a woman he sees snooping around, whereupon like Alice following the white rabbit, he falls down a hole and his world is changed forever. He discovers a strange block, which gives him visions when he touches it. This turns out to be the "Piece of Resistance," the one thing which can stop President Business (known in his archonic aspect as Lord Business) from destroying the world by freezing it in place with a superweapon called the "Kragle" (Krazy Glue). Emmet, it seems, is the "Special," a savior prophesied by the wizard Vitruvius, who leads a kind of rebel alliance known as the "Master Builders."

Weapon of Mass Construction

But this drama itself is only the playing out of a drama which exists on another level of reality, in accordance with the hermetic maxim "As above, so below." It exists in the imagination of a young boy named Finn who is playing with the massive Lego city built by his order-obsessed father. For Finn, the blocks are instruments of creativity, meant to be played with freely, endlessly taken apart and reassembled. For the Father, the lego set is a meant only to build a great imposing edifice, based on its instructions. It is a massive accomplishment of "hierarchitecture," a monism in which change, freedom, and individuality are evil.

William Blake, The Ancient of Days (1794)

The Father/Lord Business is clearly the Demiurge, which many Christian Gnostics identified with the fierce father-god Yaweh of the Torah. He is referred to by the Master Builders as "The Man Upstairs," i.e. God. Often Gnosticism sees the Demiurge as a creator god, creator that is of a prison world meant to trap sparks of the true divinity in matter, ruled over by a determinism gnostics call "heimarmene." (Greek for "fate," heimarmene in Gnosticism is both material causality and man-made law. I identify The Lego Movie's "instructions" with heimarmene. The visionary Gnostic poet William Blake wrote that "Jesus was all virtue, and acted from impulse, not rules.") Both the world created by the Demiurge and the Demiurge's claim to being the One True God are false, and seeing through the illusion is gnosis. In Emmet's gnostic initiation by the secret society of Master Builders (Free-masons), it is revealed that beyond Bricksberg there exist a plurality of worlds. The most Gnostic of the canonical gospels is John (this is controversial), in which it is declared "In my father's house are many mansions." The various worlds are elaborated to an often dizzying degree in Gnostic cosmology. The "many mansions" doctrine is also an extremely important doctrine for Mormon cosmology, (which syncs and yet diverges from Gnosticism in interesting ways, more on which in a forthcoming post) in which the God of our world has created other worlds as well.

Emmet's story most strongly recalls that of Luke Skywalker in Star Wars, and Neo in The Matrix. The former is the Hero With a Thousand Faces, the latter a Gnostic Christ. Wyldstyle is the Sophia avatar responsible for the initiation of the hero's journey (and more importantly his gnosis of who he is really is, where he has come from, and where he is going), just like Princess Leia in Star Wars and Trinity in The Matrix. The wizard-prophet Vitruvius (voiced by Morgan Freeman, "so" close to Freemason, named after an architect who theorized ideal human proportions, the Vitruvian Man we met in my previous post, which is related to the occult problem of squaring the circle) is also Obi-Wan Kenobi and Morpheus, and all three are incarnations of John the Baptist, an extremely important figure in the esoteric tradition. The Knights Templar, among other sins like sodomy and desecrating crosses, were accused of worshiping John the Baptist as the true savior. Vitruvius, like John the Baptist, is beheaded.

"Master Builder" is the actual name given to the people who build sets for the Lego company, so why do I say they are Freemasons? One giveaway is where the Master Builders hold court: in Cloud Cuckoo Land, inside a dog's head, next to a giant eye. (You can see both briefly near the end of the video below.)

While "Cloud Cuckoo Land" is not especially Masonic, it does relate to the Utopian projects attributed to Masonry and other secret societies (especially that ubiquitous yet ever-elusive Illuminati). It originated in Aristophanes' comedy The Birds, circa 414 BC. A perfect city built in the clouds (talk about some master building!), it has entered our lexicon as the name of any kind of idealism or unrealistic notion. It's the dog that's really key. The "dog star," or Sirius, is part of the Canis Major constellation, and an occult object of worship from the Dogon tribe to Freemasons, Theosophists, and other "societies with secrets." An article from The Vigilant Citizen identifies the Dogstar with the Blue Fairy in Pinocchio:

In Disney's Pinocchio, based on a story by Freemason Carlo Collodi, Gepetto prays to the brightest star in the sky to have a "real boy." The Blue Fairy (her color is a reference to Sirius' light-blue glow) then descends from the heavens to give life to Pinocchio. Throughout the marionette's quest to become a boy (an allegory for esoteric initiation), the Blue Fairy guides Pinocchio towards the "right path." Sirius is therefore represented as a source of life, a guide, and a teacher.

Pinocchio's personality and journey is similar to that of Emmet, and they both recall another occult myth we will encounter momentarily.

Piece de Resistance

Given that the heroes of this movie are Freemasons, my first thought was that the Piece of Resistance (in "reality" the cap to a bottle of Krazy Glue) was the Masonic Cornerstone or Stone of Foundation (since I'm not an adept at Masonic symbolism, it's not yet clear to me whether they are the same thing). But the Cornerstone is supposed to be a perfect cube, while the Piece of Resistance is oblong. What it resembles most is the monolith from Kubrick's 2001. Both are catalysts for initiation and producers of visionary experience (gnosis). According to one article:

When the Lego figurines slowly begin to rebel against Lord Business, building new things brick by brick, their enlightenment is a reference to that of the apes in 2001: A Space Odyssey, according to Lord and Miller’s screenplay.

A stone is somewhat overdetermined as a symbol (there is also the alchemical philosopher's stone, among many other magical stones which abound in the occult), and this is also true, as we shall see, of Emmet himself. If there is a Cornerstone in the movie, it's Emmet, since he is the stone that the Master Builders refuse at first, only to become the foundation of their salvific project. As a personality, Emmet is a perfect "square," someone who conforms all too well to his social environment.

Not only does Emmet's profession (construction worker) and surname (Brickowski) make him almost literally a mason (though not a free one), but his clothing is also reminiscent of masonic vestments. He has a V-shaped blue collar, with the double-meaning that he is a worker (blue as opposed to white-collar) and that he is of the "Blue Lodge," the North American term for the first three Masonic degrees (known elsewhere as Craft or Ancient Craft Lodges). Emmet's journey may therefore track that of Masonry itself from its origin as a guild of craftsmen to a more "illuminated" type of order.

Mackey's Encyclopedia of Freemasonry explains the significance of the color blue:

This is emphatically the color of Freemasonry. It is the appropriate tincture of the Ancient Craft Degrees. It is to the Freemason a symbol of universal friendship and benevolence, because, as it is the color of the vault of heaven, which embraces and covers the whole globe, we are thus reminded that in the breast of every brother these virtues should be equally as extensive. It is therefore the only color, except white, which should be used in a Master's Lodge for decorations. Among the religious institutions of the Jews, blue was an important color.

Among the Druids, blue was the symbol of truth, and the candidate, in the initiation into the sacred rites of Druidism, was invested with a robe composed of the three colors, white, blue, and green.

(Blue as symbolic of the "vault of heaven" also recalls the blue-eyed Luke Skywalker with his blue lightsabre.)

At the start of the film, Emmet believes he has "universal friendship and benevolence," but it is only after he undergoes a severe trial that he actually attains it. This is the same process undergone by Pinocchio to become a "real boy."

As "animated" toys, Emmet and Pinocchio both recall the golem of Jewish occult lore, but Emmet does so explicitly due to his name. The word "Emet" (or "emeth") was written on the golem's forehead. It means "truth" in Hebrew. A golem could be killed by erasing the first letter, the aleph, leaving "met" (or "meth"), which means "death." While it's not on his forehead, Emmet does have his name-tag on at all times. Usually a golem is speechless, which is decidedly not true of Emmet, though he does share some (at first) of the dim and uncreative aspects of the golem. The Wikipedia entry on the golem states that "The Mishnah uses the term for an uncultivated person," and "In Modern Hebrew, golem is used to mean 'dumb' or 'helpless.'" Just as Emmet's initial difficulty is that he can only build from instructions, golems "are not intelligent, and if commanded to perform a task, they will perform the instructions literally."

Remember that Emmet is not simply an animated toy, but a toy that has been given life by the imagination of a real (or "real") boy, Finn, playing with his father's things. Using the Father's (Yahweh's) tools of creation is what has always given the golem myth its cautionary-tale aspect (the tale was adapted for the gentile world as the "Frankenstein" story, though Shelley's novel also draws upon the analogous myths of Faust and the homunculus). The anti-gnostic philosopher Eric Voegelin relates the golem legend to the modern "Murder of God," drawing upon one version of the story told by Gershom Scholem:

Philippe Semeria, Golem

The prophet Jeremiah busied himself alone with the Book Yetsirah [kabbalistic "Book of Creation"]. Then a heavenly voice went forth and said: Take a companion. He went to his son Sira, and they studied the book for three years. . . . and a man was created to them, on whose forehead stood the letters YHWH Elohim Emeth ["God is Truth"]. But this newly created man had a knife in his hand, with which he erased the aleph from the emeth; and there remained: meth. Then Jeremiah rent his garments and said: Why have you erased the aleph from the emeth? He replied: I will tell you a parable. An architect built many houses, cities, and squares, but no one could copy his art and compete with him in knowledge  and skill until two men persuaded him. Then he taught them the secret of his art, and they know how to do everything in the right way. When they had learned his secret and his abilities, they began to anger him with words. Finally, they broke with him and became architects like him . . . So God has made you in His image and in His shape and form. But now that you have created a man like Him, people will say: There is no God in the world beside these two! 

God's divinity in this view is derived from his being the only when who can build. Hence Commandment ("instruction") Number One, "you shall have no other gods before me." From the first, Gnostics pointed out the contradiction between the proclamations that Yaweh was the only God and that his children should not follow other gods. The issue as it plays out in the Lego Movie is not so much that someone other than the Father builds as it is how he builds (though Finn is clearly in forbidden territory): that is, with the free play of the imagination, from impulse and not rules, as Blake said. But the two are really the same. Once there are two architects, then Pandora's box is open, people will cease to worship the Demiurge Lord Business and everyone will be constructing their realities as they see fit. Once the Father decides it's okay that Finn plays with his toys, Finn discovers to his horror that this means his sister can also play with them.

In The Lego Movie's twist on the golem legend, the golem becomes a savior of his people, and helps Finn to overthrow the tyrannical rule of the Father. Emet never becomes met. Which brings us to the true hero of The Lego Movie, who is not Emmet but Finn (or rather, Emmet is Finn at another level of reality). Who is Finn?

 . . . the poor old sod who’d built the world and carried the hod.-Ewan MacColl & Peggy Seeger “Seven Days of the Week”

Bygmester Finnegan, of the Stuttering Hand, freemen’s maurer, lived in the broadest way immarginable . . . and during mighty odd years this man of hod, cement and edifices in Toper’s Thorp piled buildung supra buildung pon the banks for the livers by the Soangso. . . . Oftwhile balbulous, mithre ahead, with goodly trowel in grasp and ivoroiled overalls which he habitacularly fondseed, like Haroun Childeric Eggeberth he would caligulate by multiplicables the altitude and malltitude until he seesaw by neatlight of the liquor wheretwin ‘twas born, his roundhead staple of other days to rise in undress maisonry upstanded (joygrantit!), a wallworth of a scyerscape of most eyeful hoyth entowerly, erigenating from next to nothing and celescalating the himals and all, hierarchitectitiptitoploftical, with a burning bush abob off its baubletop and with larrons o’toolers clittering up and tombles a’buckets clottering down.

-James Joyce, Finnegans Wake 

Adam Kadmon as Androgyne

Joyce's massive novel is about the long sleep and final waking or redemption of humanity itself. It begins with the bricklayer Finnegan, drawn from Irish folklore. The song "Finnegan's Wake," from which Joyce took his title, is about a man named Tim Finnegan who falls from a ladder and apparently dies, only to be revived during his raucous wake. Joyce's Finnegan is described as a "primordial giant" by Donald Phillip Verene, whose corpse is laid out as a meal for his mourners, though it soon disappears. (Verene says that Finnegan "awakes as the modern family man and pub owner H.C.E." H.C.E is the "protagonist" of Finnegans Wake, most frequently called "Humphrey Chimpden Earkwicker," though the name comes in dozens of variations, the most important of which I would argue is "Here Comes Everybody." Finnegan's body is thus the body of the everyman & every man.) The composite Finnegan recalls Jesus here, but he is more specifically the Adam Kadmon of the Kabbalah, the "original man," whose body is representative of the whole of creation, or rather is creation in microcosm. Finnegan's fall is into a sleep which is at the same time all of human history. (Blake's prophetic books have an analogous character called Albion, a common poetic name for England: "Albion, our Ancestor, patriarch of the Atlantic Continent, whose History Preceded that of the Hebrews & in whose Sleep, or Chaos, Creation began.") In Joyce's previous novel, Ulysses, Stephan Dedalus (whose name recalls another demiurgic creator or craftsman, inventor of the labyrinth and fashioner of Icarus' wax wings) declares that "History is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake." Finnegans Wake represents that nightmare and the waking. Its title, without the expected apostrophe, could be read as a command: all of us Finnegans or Adams must awake from the dream that is human history under the rule of the demiurge. Fall from the ladder into sleep, descent into the basement of dreams. The Lego Movie's Finn also creates a world populated with characters through his "dream" or imagination, one of which, Emmet, actually wakes out of this dreamworld.   

I also found another odd Finnegans Wake connection in this article:

 Fun fact: The Master Builder is also a play by Henrik Ibsen. Both he and the Lego corporation have Scandinavian roots; Ibsen was Norwegian, while Lego is a Danish company.

Finnegans Wake also incorporates a great deal of Scandanavian culture and language, in tribute to Ibsen, who was one of Joyce's heroes and an early literary model, but also as a kind of elaborate pun on its own title.

Just as its golem is ultimately benign, in contradistinction from most traditional stories, the end of The Lego Movie resolves the conflict with the Demiurge in a different way than much of Gnostic myth. Indeed it is quite the opposite than Voegelin's garment-rending over the "Murder of God." The Father is born by becomine reconciled with the Son. By showing the Father an image of himself in miniature, as the great totalitarian prick Lord Business, Finn becomes responsible for the Father's own self-understanding. According to the speculations of the medieval Catholic mystic and heretic Joachim of Fiore, history has three stages: the Age of the Father, the Age of the Son, and the Age of the Holy Spirit. (Ages like to come in threes, and the third is always immanent.) The first was an age of rule-following, while in the second man develops a more personal relationship to the divinity, and in the final there is a kind of antinomian realm of pure freedom (realization of Cloud Cuckoo Land). In the Lego Movie, the second age passes very quickly into the third. That this comes about through the Father's self-realization thanks to the Son is an idea that straight out of the Hermetic tradition, as developed by Protestant mystics such as Jakob Boehme. Glenn Alexander Magee describes these ideas as influential on Hegel's theory of history (which of course becomes secularized in Marx's theory of history) in Hegel and the Hermetic Tradition:

"The crucial shift is from the idea of all reality as moving toward God to the idea of God himself as part of the movement of reality as well." (Magee, p.38)

--History, Stephen said, is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake.
     From the playfield the boys raised a shout. A whirring whistle: goal.
What if that nightmare gave you a back kick?
--The ways of the Creator are not our ways, Mr Deasy said. All human history moves towards one great goal, the manifestation of God.
    Stephen jerked his thumb towards the window, saying:
--That is God. 
(Joyce, Ulysses, p.28)

In short, the "other" is necessary for God's self-consciousness. Without self-consciousness God would not be God, for His knowledge would be incomplete. The other "limits" God; by "othering," God limits Himself, giving Himself discernable "boundaries." (Magee, p.38)

Standing as an intermediary between God and creation is Wisdom (Sophia). It is referred to by Bohme as the "mirror" of God (recall Eckhart's mirror, and Hildegard's many mirrors). The mirror reflects God back to Himself, but in sensual, imagistic form, as the created world. (Magee, p.43)

The line changes into a circle: paradoxically, in the philosophy of Jakob Bohme, the Son gives Birth to the Father. (Magee, p.43)

Robert Fludd, Let There Be Light (1617-21)

Esoteric Christianity conceives the relationship between God and creation as dynamically interactive. God needs humanity as much as humanity needs God, whereas the orthodox conception is that creation is a gift which contingent beings such as we are, rotten misbehaving little kids, hardly deserve. The Lego construction of Bricksberg in the basement is the "sensual, imagistic" mirror of the city in which the businesslike Father probably works as some kind of builder for a soulless corporation (an out-of-control golem if there ever was one). He comes home and recreates as his own freedomless life as a mirror-image in the way he governs his children. His own image as a tyrant created by his Son initiates the Father's understanding of himself. The Son also tells him that it doesn't have to be this way. What a shockingly pathetic (in the true sense of pathos) image: the blind idiot god, unaware of his own freedom.