(no subject)

[tibetanmethod]

General overview of the plot of the series is here.

There are forces in the world that Cooper comes from that are evil, and that feed off of pain and suffering. The Black Lodge is a source for the manifestations of these forces, and these manifestations -- Bob, Mike, the Man From Another Place (the midget who wears red), Mrs. Tremond and her grandson -- can go out in the world and cause pain and suffering, and feed.

Dugpas -- dark sorcerers, essentially -- attempt to control these forces, imperfect courage or no, in order to gain access to the Black Lodge.

It's easy to get into the Black Lodge. It's not as easy to make it into the White Lodge, because you have to be incredibly pure -- to have perfect courage. To get to the White Lodge, you have to pass through the Black Lodge. It's very Jungian.

In terms of Sandman canon -- reincarnation, as seen in Season of Mists, is an option. Where Twin Peaks canon comes into it is with the Tibetan Book of the Dead, which is a canonical text for Twin Peaks. The Black Lodge is a concretization of a bardo state. In order to move on the path to perfection, you have to have control over your mind. To possess perfect courage.

As for Cooper: his dreams make him particularly susceptible to the lures of the Black Lodge and from this evil -- especially the evil that has gathered in the woods around the town of Twin Peaks. The nature of his dreams is an inherited thing -- his mother had dreams that featured the same kind of doorway to other worlds. Things trying to get in, to attack -- and it's a little telling, isn't it, that she died of an aneurysm, after a fall of particularly bad dreams. In a way, Cooper's dreams are far more real than what goes on in his reality; he listens well and closely to his dreams, and understands that the apparitions who come to him are messengers from other worlds, other planes of reality.

So, essentially, Cooper has prophetic dreams repeatedly throughout the series, and he can enter the Black Lodge unscathed in his dreams. (If we're going on the premise that the Black Lodge is one of Nyarlathotep's realms, Dale Cooper seems to be able to travel in certain parts of the Dreaming.) The representatives of the White Lodge, however, come to him. He also appears in the dreams of others as a kind of representative of the White Lodge, but he doesn't remember it -- it's not a shared dream. Instead he can get certain facts about the person -- generalities. Sex, hair color, a personal habit or two -- never name or location.

(Windom Earle -- a villain -- summarizes the Black Lodge and White Lodge as follows: "Once upon a time, there was a place of great goodness called the White Lodge. Fawns gamboled there amidst happy laughing spirits. The sounds of innocence and laughter filled the air. When it rained it rained sweet nectar that paralyzed the heart with the desire to live one's life in truth and beauty. (beat) Generally speaking, a ghastly place reeking of virtue's sour smell, engorged with the whispered prayers of kneeling mothers, mewling newborns, and fools young and old compelled to do good without reason. But, I am pleased to note, our story does not end in this place of saccharine excess. For there is another place, its opposite, of almost unimaginable power, chock full of dark forces and vicious secrets. No prayers dare penetrate this frightful maw. Spirits there care not for good deeds and priestly invocations. They are as like to rip the muscle from our bones as greet you with a happy g'day. And, if harnessed, these spirits, this hidden land of unmuffled screams and broken hearts, will offer up a power so vast that its bearer might reorder the earth itself to his liking. This place I speak of, is known as the Black Lodge. And I intend to find it."

Hawk, on the Black and White Lodges: "Cooper, you may be fearless in this world. But there are other worlds. Local legend. The White Lodge is a place where the spirits that rule man and nature here reside. They say it exists only on the spiritual plane. There is also a legend of a place called The Black Lodge: the shadow self of the White Lodge, a place of dark forces that pull on this world. A world of nightmares: shamans reduced to crying children; angry spirits pouring from the woods; graves opening like flowers. The legend says every spirit must pass through there on the path to perfection. There you will meet your own shadow self. My people call it the Dweller on the Threshold. But it is said that if you confront the Black Lodge with imperfect courage, it will utterly annihilate your soul."

Windom Earle, on dugpas: "... these evil sorcerers, dugpas, they call them, cultivate evil for the sake of evil and nothing else. They express themselves in darkness for darkness, without leavening motive. This ardent purity has allowed them to access a secret place of great power, where the cultivation of evil proceeds in exponential fashion. And with it, the furtherance of evil's resulting power. These are not fairy tales, or myths. This place of power is tangible, and as such, can be found, entered, and perhaps, utilized in some fashion. The dugpas have many names for it, but chief among them is the Black Lodge.")