- From where do artists "get" their ideas? Life
experience, practice, and natural born talent are all critical factors
in the development of the imagination. But many people have wondered if
artists of every kind are able to tap into a collective wellspring, where
ideas are not so much invented as discovered. Perhaps this could explain
the apparently unintentional ability of certain artists to predict the
future in their respective works.
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- In lieu of recent events in the USA, the writings of
George Orwell seem particularly prescient. Other fiction writers who may
have successfully predicted the future include Stephen King (who foretold
of the reality TV craze in his books The Long Walk and The Running Man),
and HG Wells (who is said to have predicted the invention of everything
from tanks, to nuclear war, to industrial robots.)
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- Strangely accurate predictions and synchronicites can
also be found in Hollywood movies. From the late 90s to early '01, I have
noticed at least three chilling synchronicities relating to the terror
attacks of 9/11.
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- Many members of the "9/11 Truth Movement" point
to the 1998 film "Enemy of the State" as the most important film
ever made about the "coming police state" (e.g. the Patriot Act.)
"Enemy" tells the story of a lawyer (Will Smith), who unwittingly
comes into possession of a videotape which shows the murder of a prominent
senator by the NSA Deputy Director of Operations, Thomas Reynolds (Jon
Voight.) The NSA utilizes highly invasive, cutting-edge technology to track
Smith's character and locate the damning tape.
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- Smith's character eventually finds an ally in a disgruntled
former NSA spook (played by Gene Hackman). The two men join forces, and
in one scene, they perform a computer background search on the NSA's "Reynolds."
They pull up his bio, and on the screen, we see his date of birth. It reads:
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- 9/11/40
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- "Reynolds," the Deputy Director of an insidiously
evil, rogue element of the NSA, symbolizes everything that privacy activists
have come to fear. How ironic is it that this character's date of birth
is September 11th?
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- Another strange coincidence (?) is found in the 2001
film, "Traffic." The Steven Soderbergh-directed flick generally
argues that the drug war is an exercise in futility. In the film's opening
sequence, a drug-van is pulled over and seized. When the boxes of drugs
are removed, we see the same three digit number written on each of them:
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- 911
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- Still another coincidence (?) is in the 1999 film Fight
Club. This is the story of discontented young men who form an underground
boxing club, and begin engaging in increasingly serious "terrorist"
activity. In the final sequence of the film, the protagonist (known only
as the Narrator) blows up several high rise buildings housing major credit
card companies. The image of these buildings crumbling in great plumes
of smoke is eerily similar to the images of 9/11.
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- In the aforementioned Stephen King (aka Richard Bachman)
book The Running Man, there are numerous coincidences (?) relating to recent
events, including 9/11. The protagonist is Benjamin Richards, an out of
work breadwinner for a family of two, unemployed in a barren economy and
forced to risk his life on a macabre game show called The Running Man.
Richards' task is to elude capture for 30 days from law enforcement and
a group of trackers called The Hunters. Citizens are told that Richards
is a criminal, and will receive cash rewards as "patriots" if
they turn him in. If Richards remains free for 30 days, his prize is a
billion dollars. If he gets caught, he gets executed in the most violent
manner imaginable on national television.
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- The world of the Running Man is worse than an Orwellian
nightmare. Huge chemical companies have poisoned the atmosphere so severely
that young children are dying of lung cancer. Only the wealthy can afford
to breathe healthy air, provided by "nose filters" which run
at several thousand dollars a pop (the secret is, nose filters can be made
by anyone for a few dollars of cheap material.)
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- At the end of King's tale, Richards faces a choice of
either joining the Network which poisons the air and broadcasts the Running
Man...or he can die and kill some of his enemies. He hijacks a plane and
flies it into the Network's corporate headquarters, the tallest tower in
downtown New York.
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- The final paragraph of The Running Man brings unpleasant
goose pimples to my arms:
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- "Heeling over slightly, the Lockheed struck the
Games Building dead on, three quarters of the way up. Its tanks were still
better than a quarter full. Its speed was slightly over five hundred miles
an hour.
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- "The explosion was tremendous, lighting up the night
like the wrath of God, and it rained fire twenty blocks away."
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- Numerous other chilling coincidences (?) surrounding
9/11 have been documented on various websites. In the article, "The
Strange Pop Culture Coincidences of 11 September 2001," we learn of
a shocking synchronicity involving the rap group The Coup. From http://septterror.tripod.com/coincidence.html:
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- "(The Coup) was set to release an album in September
2001 called Party Music....
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- "Party Music's cover displays this 'prophetic' popular
culture. Boots Riley, a known radical activist through his lyrics and attitudes,
had previously released three albums with commentaries on the oppression
of the poor by a callous wealthy class. The Coup worked with graphic artists
in May and June of 2001 to create a cover to continue the symbolism.
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- "The result was Riley and band member DJ Pam the
Funkstress celebrating a bombing of the World Trade Center south tower.
Riley is hitting a guitar tuner rigged as a detonator, while Pam is waving
two conductor's batons as if to give this destruction violent rhythm. Behind
them, orange flames and smoke issue from 2 World Trade Center.
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- "It looked way too much like real life, especially
since thousands of photos were taken at the very moment United Airlines
Flight 175 hit WTC 2."
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- The Coup eventually released its album with a revised
album cover, sans burning buildings.
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- These coincidences (?) may not count as hard evidence
of the collective unconscious or psychic phenomena, but that does not mean
we cannot learn anything from them. As sci-fi author Frank Herbert once
said, "The function of science fiction is not always to predict the
future but sometimes to prevent it."
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