Category Archives: Immortality

WARNING: THIS IS NOT A VIDEOGAME NOR A INTERACTIVE COMMERCIAL MOVIE.Can't even say if this is a movie. Well maybe technically? I don't know.WARNING: THIS IS NOT A VIDEOGAME NOR A INTERACTIVE COMMERCIAL MOVIE.Can't even say if this is a movie. Well maybe technically? I don't know. Once defined this , I could say if you expect something related to obamaflix blackhomo crap streaming something its not the case either.This is more a concept ,artcinema, performance, theater, related. Is like a bunch of very short films just related to the main actress somehow that varies from boring to odd to eerie ,with a lot of symbolism. The interaction with this short firms is quite odd too and lead to anothers and cannot be accessed in a main menu or something. But this is a part of the whole experience.This is not for everybody besides art lovers , actor and director students and related.I cannot rate this production as Im not an expert in the area so I just throw a 7 just giving the benefit of their work. Expand

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Immortality for PC Reviews - Metacritic

Netflix began offering video games to its subscribers last year, but this added benefit hasn't caught on. The streaming service has a new game available, and it happens to be one of the best games of 2022.

Immortality is an interactive film video game from game designer Sam Barlow that Netflix subscribers can download onto their iPhones and iOS devices. The game has been available for PC, Xbox and Playstation platforms since August, and it's received nominations for best game direction andbest narrative for the upcoming Game Awards.

To access the game, Netflix subscribers need to launch the streaming app on their iOS devices. Tapping on the game will open the App Store, where the title can then be downloaded to your device. Opening Immortality will require a Netflix log-in and will take more than 12GB of storage.

Immortality takes a unique approach to interactive film. Players control a video editing device, where they can view footage from three movies featuring fictional actress Marissa Marcel. It's up to the player to solve the mystery after reviewing various clips, which link to other clips.

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Netflix Subscribers Can Download Immortality Game for iOS Devices

Need to know

What is it? An immersive interactive movie where you are the editor and the film might be haunted.

Expect to pay: $20 (Also on PC Game Pass)

Developer: Sam Barlow, Half Mermaid

Publisher: Half Mermaid

Reviewed on: AMD Ryzen 5 3500U, Radeon Vega Mobile Gfx 2.10 GHz, 12 GB RAM

Multiplayer? No

Link: Steam (opens in new tab)

Where does art come from? What makes creating a film different from writing a letter or inventing the toaster? Does it come from within us, or is it, sort of, all around us, y'know? This is the realm of cultural philosophy that Immortality (rather more eloquently) delves into as you unravel its FMV-led mysteries.

Immortality is presented less as a game and more as a collectors edition Blu-Ray box set of forgotten (and fictional) French model and actor Marissa Marcel's filmography. Players begin with a question posed in the "Short History of Marissa Marcel," helpfully written by Immortality director Sam Barlow: What happened to the actor? Why has she been absent for 20 years? Why were none of her movies released? Where is she now?

Luckily, the answers may lie in the "large cache of film" Barlow and his crew serendipitously found back in 2020. "After carefully collating and scanning the footage," Barlow writes, "we have created this piece of computer software in an attempt to preserve this work and share it so that Marissa may live again in the hearts of audiences."

"The image is never a simple reality," wrote philosopher Jacques Rancire. Likewise, the images in Immortality are rarely ever just what they seem. They hide things, distort their meanings, and play with the players expectations.

Part of how Immortality hides things is through restraint. Unlike previous Barlow-helmed games, players do not have immediate or comprehensive access to the entirety of the available footage. Instead, they start with a single interview from a 60s-era late night talk show, and are expected to organically branch out from there. This is where the game's first major mechanic comes in: the match cut.

Match cuts are a commonly-used editing technique to build visual clarity for moviegoers. In Immortality, the technique is used to find similarly-composed images across different movies and other media. By pausing the scene, players can examine small aspects of it and, like a point-and-click adventure game, click on whatever they are interested in. This will teleport them to another scene with the same actor or a similar object in it. As players teleport around, they add the scenes they find to their library, and gradually, the true (or 'true') story emerges. The match cut here acts like its cinematographic counterpart by creating narrative, instead of visual, continuity for the player.

The game itself is structured like a Moviola editing machine, and combined with the match cut mechanic, the player is able to put together their own "supercut" based almost entirely on vibes. While I imagine most players will use it for its specified purpose, theres a lot of room for goofing off here. Want a montage of bowls of fruit? Go for it, why not. Some wall art catch your eye? Here's some more. It's very satisfying to go down these rabbit holes on your way to solving the mystery at the heart of the game, and the sense that you are actively participating in this created world is bolstered by the presence of excellent background music by Nainita Desai that intensifies as you jump from scene to scene.

As a note, while there are full mouse and keyboard controls built in, the devs do recommend use of a controller, which we discovered added haptic feedback when we used one in our playthrough. Additionally, players will want to scrub back and forth through scenes, as hints and insights can sometimes be found running the footage backwards.

With his previous games, Barlow has worked with established actors to create moments of intense drama and intrigue across hours of footage. What sets Immortality apart is that the fictional trilogy of movies at its core (Ambrosio, Minsky and Two of Everything, all shot over a span of 30 years in the story) are essentially real movies, around an hour each, with different writers, actors and production crews for each of them, all shot in the style of the time period they're purported to be from.

But these movies are not the sole space players get to move around in. A lot of the behind-the-scenes footage features Marissa, director John Durick (played by Hans Christopher) and an assortment of other actors and crew running through rehearsals, scouting locations, hanging out with famous time-period figures like Andy Warhol, and spending intimate time together. In these moments we see tension, we see catharsis, we see regular people trying to make art while ignoring what that attempt at creation is doing to them.

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And we see the ugly side of the film industry, as well. If this game is a critique of anything, it is a critique of auteur theory, of the way the industry chews up and spits out talented people, and above all, it is a slam against the industry's rampant and violent misogyny, past and present. While discussing this further would constitute a spoiler, do be aware that there is a list of content warnings in the menu, and it includes sexual assault and abusive relationships among them.

Immortality is a remarkable game. It picks freely from several eras of cinema to deliver a genuine exploration of what it means, and what it costs, to make great, meaningful art. The game's actors are giving the performances of their lives, both as the 'real people' they're playing and in their various in-game movie roles. The aesthetics of each movie are so true-to-life that its easy to suspend disbelief and accept the fiction that these are movies from 1968, 1970, and 1999. While initially daunted by Immortality's sweeping, sometimes-cosmic scope, I found that instead of being inscrutable it was eager to show new facets of the mystery. It wanted to be played.

Immortality may draw comparisons to films by Alfred Hitchcock or David Lynch, or even past Barlow-penned titles like Telling Lies and Her Story. That is maybe unavoidable. But as a game, it goes much further beyond anything it might be compared to. Immortality is Sam Barlow's best, most thought-provoking game so far, and a barnstorming debut for Half Mermaid.

Immortality: Price Comparison

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Immortality review | PC Gamer

Following an Xbox Series X/S and PC release this past summer, Immortality, the latest project from Her Story creator Sam Barlow, is now available on Android and iOS via Netflix. Provided you subscribe to the streaming service, you can download the game at no additional charge and experience one of the most highly acclaimed titles of 2022.

Like Barlows past projects, Immortality is a love letter to the full-motion video games of the 90s. The game tasks you with finding out the fate of fictional actress Marissa Marcel. Youll need to piece together what happened to her by watching clips from three unreleased films and behind-the-scenes footage. Barlow recruited Allan Scott and Amelia Gray, best known for their work on Queens Gambit and Mr. Robot, to help write the story of Immortality. So if youre a sucker for a good story, this one is worth checking out.

All products recommended by Engadget are selected by our editorial team, independent of our parent company. Some of our stories include affiliate links. If you buy something through one of these links, we may earn an affiliate commission. All prices are correct at the time of publishing.

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'Immortality,' the latest game from 'Her Story' creator Sam Barlow ...

After the Nike Zoom GT Cut 2 and Cosmic Unity 2 both indulged in an aesthetic fit with the clean-cut stones and gems, the Giannis Immortality 2 is establishing its own unique print graphic, imploring a multi-color floral illustration throughout its latest on-court proposition.

Dominated by a deep cyan hue that treats the entirety of the forefoots mesh construction and synthetic heel counter fit with raised perforated padding, the molded sole unit underfoot, embroidered eye stays and heel tab all render the presiding shade. Further accented by Sky Blue hits bearing the mudguard and lace overlays whereas bubblegum pinks emanate from the sock liner, medial side insignia and along the stitching of both the pull tab and midfoot. In stark contrast from the treads cream and grey build, the midfoots reverse Swoosh and upper tongue flaunt the boisterous splatter-paint graphic filled with floral hues before the established dark cyan returns to outfit the threaded 34 and Giannis emblem.

For a closer look at the Giannis Immortality 2 Floral, enjoy official images of the pair below while we await further release details as theyre made available by the Beaverton-based brand.

In other news from The Swooshes wheelhouse, the latest Zoom GT Cut 2 comes fit with aiming crosshairs.

Where to Buy

Make sure to follow @kicksfinder for live tweets during the release date.

Mens: N/AStyle Code: FD0213-400

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Nike Giannis Immortality 2 "Floral" FD0213-400 | SneakerNews.com

The fantasy began to consume me at the turn of the millennium.

Id always felt like a half-being, a cyborg of incompatible substances: gringa daughter of a Puerto Rican MD and a long-unemployed Mexican man with addiction issues. Native or alien. Nerd or rebel. I was white and not white but thought I had to choose.

No wonder, then, that the greatest ambition of my youth was to achieve digital immortality, or uploading my mind to the metaverse. Goodbye, flawed body. Hello, god-self.

Opinion Columnist

Jean Guerrero

Jean Guerrero is the author, most recently, of Hatemonger: Stephen Miller, Donald Trump and the White Nationalist Agenda.

A playful interaction with my father in the 1990s had primed me. He was showing me the Macintosh Plus, our first computer: a beige box with a rainbow apple logo. Papi guided my hands over the keyboard, causing me to poke one letter of my name at a time until there I was in the box: j-e-a-n. He clicked file, save, X, and my name disappeared. It frightened me. Papi turned off the computer, ignoring my protests. Watch, he said. He powered it back on and clicked through folders. Suddenly, there I was again, resurrected: j-e-a-n.

Inside the apple box, I could live forever.

The fantasys premise, which Id contemplate in later years, was that I was reducible to code: 0s and 1s. This view of life and data as interchangeable spread long before social media.

At USC in 1988, two philosophy students launched the journal Extropy. The opposite concept, entropy, is a law of physics: The universe tends toward chaos. Extropians saw this disorder as the supreme enemy. Their journal, whose contributors were overwhelmingly white and male, nurtured a cult of technology-worshiping immortality seekers.

They were early transhumanists, the pseudo-intellectual offspring of eugenicists, with their hubristic quest to breed a master race and all of its consequent horrors: from the Holocaust to the forced sterilization of tens of thousands of people, mostly women of color and others labeled defective. Eugenicists thought there was such a thing as a perfect body; transhumanists went a step further to say perfection lay in select minds, which could transcend bodies altogether.

Transhumanists preach that a command of technology can liberate humans from the limits of mortal flesh. Human destiny is to leave our puny Earth and colonize the stars. Extropians argued that this agenda required rejecting morality, which could interfere with the rapid expansion of technologies that might, oops, destroy the Earth. (No biggie when the goal is infinity!)

In the early 90s, Wired magazine glamorized the Extropian cultists as hard-partying, psychonautic intellectuals. Slowly, transhumanism grew into a global movement now trending with some of the worlds most powerful people, including the richest, Elon Musk. Its twin cult is longtermism, which says we should prioritize positively impacting humanity in the faraway future: not just in the next few generations, but thousands or millions of generations from today. That philosophy also has Musks support and that of others such as Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz and cryptocurrency billionaire Sam Bankman-Fried, a top Biden donor.

Ultimately, this isnt about biological humans. The father of longtermism, Nick Bostrom, a transhumanist and Oxford philosophy professor, has been trying to push into the mainstream the idea that the futures hypothetical digital people matter more than the billions of humans alive today because there will be at least 1058 of them. Thats a 1 followed by 58 zeroes the number of human simulations he calculates we could run using the stars computing power.

The New York Times, the New Yorker and other media have given longtermism fawning coverage this year with little or no mention of its deranged core. The global fad and media frenzy are almost understandable at this moment in history. It truly is hard to watch: climate change, war, migration crises, economic instability, political regression into nativism, fascism and dictatorships. Its not science fiction but current events that inspire the quest for an escape path from planet Earth.

Longtermism is often framed as a way to protect Earth. But its architects care less about ecosystems than about making sure nothing stops humanity from reaching what Bostrom calls technological maturity. Thats a nice way of characterizing that moment when people turn into bits.

Last year, mile P. Torres, a philosopher who studies existential threats and has extensively investigated longtermism, warned that the traction longtermism is gaining makes it the most dangerous secular belief system in the world today.

Leading longtermists have arrived at abhorrent conclusions, such as that philanthropy should focus on saving and improving wealthy peoples lives more than poor peoples because thats a more direct way to ensure the innovation needed to launch us into space.

Douglas Rushkoff, author of Survival of the Richest: Escape Fantasies of the Tech Billionaires, argues that the only way to reduce carbon emissions and salvage the Earth is to reduce consumption. Longtermism is a way for [tech giants] to justify not looking back at the devastation theyre leaving in their wake, he told me. Its a way for them to say it doesnt matter all the damage Im doing now because its for a future where humans will be in the galaxies.

Whether its Musks plan to colonize Mars or Mark Zuckerbergs promise of a Metaverse, these billionaires visions of escape via more industrial tools, more mass-produced technologies, can be seductive. At least Icarus hubris cost only his own life.

As a preteen, Id never heard of the transhumanists, the longtermists or the Extropians. But their early members were pumping propaganda into the culture, including the possibility of escaping our human forms, which they depicted as weak, vulnerable, stupid. This perspective infected me at a time when I was frightened of my body of its origins and its uncertain future.

The chaos and doom that Extropians and their heirs saw in the Earth and its mortal vessels, I sensed in myself. Years later, when I heard Musk talking on a podcast about human bodies as hideous sacks of meat that we must ditch for robot encasements, I remembered my teen self and the pain I harbored. The tech supremacists promised a clean escape. I wanted one.

I thought I couldnt possibly matter as much as what those men might make out of me.

::

In the early 2000s, I spent hundreds of hours trying to upload my mind to the web. Id sit at our computer in the evenings by this time a stylish blue iMac G3 and type every detail I could recall of the past 24 hours into a blog. I believed if I captured enough of my thoughts and experiences online, eventually some kindly engineer, long after my death, might revive me in the form of an algorithm. Id be immortal.

It was a teen girls techno-futurist fantasy, a twist on the Snow White fairy tale. I imagined nature as the poisoned fruit; the engineer was my savior. But the real poison was the fantasy.

For years, I was reckless with my body. I swallowed dangerous pills and pursued relationships with violent men. There were highs in all of that. Like the transhumanists, I came to believe that humans contain value only insofar as they experience pleasure, high intellect and other properties as defined by thinkers almost exclusively white and male.

For a time, I suspected Id inherited something from my father, who abandoned us amid a deluge of his own abnormal thoughts that my mother called schizophrenia. In studying neuroscience at USC, I caught a glimpse of myself in The Divided Self, a psychiatry classic. In it, R.D. Laing argues that the root of mental illness lies in mind-body dualism, which splits self from others. [The] body is felt as the core of a false self, which a detached, disembodied, inner, true self looks on at a divorce of self from body deprives the unembodied self from direct participation in any aspect of the life of the world.

I was watching myself as I maneuvered my body toward risks. I wasnt her. I was the mind.

Or so I thought. That escape from the self and the present is the false promise of longtermism. It was never true.

My journey to regain my sense of my body was long and circuitous. I was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder in my 20s after a near-death experience in a drug cartel zone that I was touring for adrenaline. I developed an autoimmune condition in my 30s. My body, by revolting against my abuse, guided me back to it.

Other people, by caring about me in the depths of my self-destruction, taught me empathy for my embodied self: yes, I am a mind, but I am also belly, blood, wrinkled palms. Im as much a writer as I am the woman who dances on longboards. Im the books Ive written and Im my heritage of bad hombres. Native and alien. Nerd and rebel.

Human beings can maintain ambiguity over time, Rushkoff told me. They can hold onto contradiction. Machines cant do that. Machines resolve. Its this versus that. Whatever is uniquely human is in that in-between space they cant record.

The spark of human consciousness cant be uploaded in 0s and 1s. It can, however, be studied.

The Brain and Creativity Institute at USC is using brain scans and other tools to demonstrate that feelings sprout from the soil of our bodies and are central to consciousness.

Its really extraordinary that something that for so long was considered sort of peripheral to our lives feeling is in fact the very beginning, the foundation, the inaugural event of what becomes consciousness, said Antonio Damasio, an international leader in neuroscience who runs the institute with his wife, Hanna Damasio, an expert in brain imaging.

In his acclaimed book Descartes Error, he challenges French philosopher Ren Descartes famous saying, I think, therefore I am. Its more like I feel, therefore I am.

Our minds can conceptualize a self only because theyre receiving input from the rest of the body, through hormones, heartbeats, gurgling guts.

Thats why transhumanisms ideal of freeing the self from the body will never be achievable, and why longtermisms story of uploading future generations will remain just science fiction. Our minds are inseparable from the meat of us, with its unsolvable mysteries.

I sympathize with the desire to think otherwise. That siren song of immortality once lulled me into reckless risks, and I was lucky to survive. Now its spreading on a larger scale.

Mars and Metaverse are not the future. We must save the one planet that we have. Its the source of our miraculous bodies, which are far greater than any machine.

@jeanguerre

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Guerrero: I once fell for the fantasy of uploading ourselves. It's a dangerous myth - Los Angeles Times

GRAND RAPIDS, MI - Landmarks across Grand Rapids will be lighting up Thursday to help raise awareness for metastatic breast cancer (MBC) and the need to increase funding for research.

The fourth annual METAvivor Research and Supports global landmark campaign, #LightUpMBC, is again shining a light on this disease also known as Stage 4 or advanced breast cancer, in recognition of National Metastatic Breast Cancer Awareness Day on Thursday, Oct. 13. There is no cure for the disease.

Grand Rapids landmarks will join over 200 landmarks across the U.S., Canada and Ireland in lighting up with the metastatic breast cancer colors of teal, green and pink. McKay Tower, Blue Bridge, Amway Grand Plaza Hotel and the former UICA building in downtown Grand Rapids will proudly highlight the MBC colors.

Every year, more than 685,000 people worldwide die from metastatic breast cancer, according to a METAvivor news release. Metastatic cancer refers to when cancer cells move to other parts of the body and into normal tissue, according to the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services.

#LightUpMBC Michigan Ambassador Allison Bannister said she volunteered for METAvivor when she was diagnosed with metastatic breast cancer in early 2019, just a few months before her 50th birthday.

I quickly became committed to working with organizations that raise funds directly toward programs and research to advance and improve treatment options for those with MBC, Bannister said.

While the color pink has primarily represented early-stage breast cancer awareness, pink alone does not resonate with the advanced-stage MBC community. Designed and trademarked by METAvivor, the tri-color ribbon of teal, green and pink symbolizes hope, immortality, healing and spirituality.

The big thing with October is that youre bombarded with all these pink campaigns, and a lot of it has to do with awareness and early detection, Bannister said. These things are important, absolutely, but we are at the point now where we need action, not awareness.

To highlight the importance of the diagnosis, Grand Rapids Mayor Rosalyn Bliss issued a proclamation making October 13 Metastatic Breast Cancer Awareness Day in perpetuity.

Its a big deal, Bannister said. Its not something that they do often. Her agreement to do it seems like a small thing, but it isnt when youre kind of in the shadows like we are. I think people just dont understand MBC, and this helps us be seen and recognized.

The mayors proclamation cites the organizations efforts saying, METAvior funds critical state IV metastatic breast cancer research, educates the public about metastatic breast cancer, and raises awareness of the significant lack of funding for state IV treatments.

A virtual Light Up MBC benefit will begin at 9 p.m. Thursday that will include MBC patient stories from illuminated landmarks around the country.

Katie Edick, who also has metastatic breast cancer and has fought alongside Bannister since the Light Up MBC campaign started in 2018, shares the same push for action.

I think another part of the Light Up campaign is to try and get allies, even people who may not have breast cancer but perhaps have been affected by it, said Edick, noting the importance highlighting how low funding for research for MBC to get more investment.

Thats why we have the colors of green, pink, and teal because were trying to show that its more than just pink because it has spread to other parts of the body. And so as a collective of women and men with metastatic breast cancer, were trying to raise our voices and kind of show people the research where the money needs to go. And one of the ways that its being done is through this Light Up for MBC campaign.

For more information about Thursdays event or to donate and view a list of participating landmarks, visit http://www.metavivor.org/LightUpMBC.

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Grand Rapids landmarks to light up Oct. 13 to raise awareness for metastatic breast cancer - MLive.com

Pickleball is one of those neo-sports that seems to have infected every sleepy suburban community all at once, spreading with its loud rhythmic thwacking sounds and tiny paddle wielders with unstoppable enthusiasm. Where did it come from? No one knows. It is the kudzu of casual sports. Its also the basis for the latest celebrity competition on CBS.

According to The Wrap, Stephen Colbert will host the special with Dierks Bentley, Will Ferrell, Emma Watson, Daniel Dae Kim, Max Greenfield, Luis Guzman, Sugar Ray Leonard, Tig Notaro and Kelly Rowland among those competing for pickleball immortality. Its for charity (Comic Relief), so its tough to rag too hard on it, but nonetheless its maybe a signal that weve reached the end, full stop, of culture itself.

If you love pickleball and you love celebrities and you love helping people, youre going to love watching these celebrities help people by playing pickleball, Colbert said in a statement.

It was previously thought that wed reached the end of culture with the immense popularity of Lip Sync Battle, but it turns out we had just a little bit more art to squeeze through the sieve to turn into content. Pickled will premiere November 17th on CBS and Paramount+, and Colbert will sing the National Anthem in a duet with Kenny Loggins. This event comes as news broke about Tom Brady buying a professional pickleball team, offering the rare phenomenon that makes you question whether youre too young or too old to understand it.

If theres a reason to be optimistic about any of this unrelenting Pickleball madness, its that Tom Brady has now jumped on the bandwagon, and we all know what he did to Bitcoin.

(via The Wrap)

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Make It Stop: Colbert Will Host Celebrity Pickleball Show - UPROXX

Interview with the Vampire - Jacob Anderon and Sam Reid

Interview with the Vampire is the new hit show from AMC which is setting all sorts of records on the network's streaming platform, AMC+. Adapted from the legendary work of author Anne Rice, the series is a departure from the Neil Jordan movie of the same name. Some, this author included, may even say that it is an improvement on the erstwhile adaptation because of its depth.

SK POP was part of a roundtable with Jacob Anderson of Game of Thrones fame, who plays Louis de Pointe du Lac in the series, and Australian actor Sam Reid, who portrays Lestat de Lioncourt. Fans can catch the critically-acclaimed show only on AMC and AMC+.

While the show may be rooted in fantasy, it also tackles more hard-hitting questions like whether immortality is a boon or a curse. The cast, intelligent and well-spoken, relayed their feelings about the series to this journalist, who almost felt like Daniel Molloy, sitting across from Louis de Pointe du Lac with a recording device.

As fond as the Interview with the Vampire cast is of the movie, they referred to the books instead for the 2022 adaptation. According to actor Sam Reid, Rolin Jones' adaptation is based on the books rather than the films:

Jacob Anderson echoed his co-star's words:

The Interview with the Vampire cast has certainly spent a long time pondering upon immortality since it is the central theme of the show. Anderson addressed the same as:

Sam Reid recognizes how integral immortality is to the plot of Interview with The Vampire. He elaborated upon the same as:

Adopting a more light-hearted tone, Interview with the Vampire star Reid also explained the curse of immortality - losing everyone you love over the course of many years.

Anderson also compared the struggle of the immortal Interview with the Vampire beings to the one that we as human beings go through everyday- the struggle to make it to the next day.

Captivating, funny, nostalgic, and thought-provoking, Interview with the Vampire is a show you can sink your fangs into if you want to satiate both your fantasy and philosophical cravings.

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Interview with the Vampire stars Jacob Anderson and Sam Reid on the "endurance and acceptance" of immortality (Exclusive) - Sportskeeda

Religious and spiritual cults work in mysterious ways. Most of these groups are either created in the service of another higher being (evidently other than God almighty) or achieve immortality (become God) through their rituals and sacrifices. In The Midnight Club, we are made privy to one such cult that operated from the basement of Brightcliffe Hospice. The Paragon cult was founded by Regina Ballard, and it used the symbol of an hourglass as their sigil. Ilonka had seen the hourglass multiple times, and she knew that it symbolized the collective consciousness of the members of the Paragon Cult. She had seen the symbol engraved on the trunks of the trees. She had seen it on the outer cover of Athenas diary, and after thinking about it for quite some time, she also realized that the same symbol was carved below the buttons of that creepy elevator too, which led them to the basement. The basement was probably the epicenter of all the evilness. Maybe it also served as a portal between the two worlds. Maybe the sigil of the Paragon cult, i.e., The Hourglass, was also symbolic of that intersection. Somewhere you feel that the cryptic symbolization of the Hourglass had a direct relation to the ghost of the old man and the old lady that Ilonka and Kevin saw quite frequently.

The two glass bulbs of the Hourglass probably symbolized the two different realms, i.e., the mortal realm in which we live and the realm of the dead. It was seen that one bulb of the Hourglass was painted black. The two bulbs (realms symbolically) converged at one particular point. Maybe that intersection point signified a sort of doorway through which evil spirits could enter the mortal realm. Maybe the Paragon cult used the symbol of the Hourglass as their sigil because they had realized that the intersection point lay in the basement of the Brightcliffe Hospice. Even Julia Jayne had realized that a mysterious power existed in the compounds of the hospice, and she was seen mentioning the same to Ilonka. She said that there were legends that the Brightcliffe woods had some sort of healing power. She says that often airplanes and other electronic devices used get glitches when passing through that area. She had started her company, Good Humor, in such close quarters because she wanted to harness that magical power.

The black and white bulbs of the Hourglass could also be said to represent a sort of duality. It represented the notions of good and bad, God and Devil, Dead and Undead, etc. This duality was also visible in almost all the stories that the residents told. Be it Anyas story, where she made a pact with the devil to create her clone, or Ilonkas story, where the character of Imani could see the future in the reflection in the pond, the duality that existed inside them was evidently visible. Even in Kevins story, we are made privy to a character named Dusty, who could see the dead people whom he had murdered. The stories were nothing but an extension of the fears, inhibitions, desires, vulnerabilities, and needs that existed inside the characters. It could be speculated that somewhere deep down, Ilonka and Kevin didnt negate the possibility that the undead could come to the mortal realm and have an impact on their lives. Maybe that is why Ilonka believed that the Paragon ritual would cure Anya.

It could be possible that the ghosts of the old man and the old lady were entering the real world through that doorway. But the question arises as to why they were only visible to Kevin and Ilonka. Why couldnt the others not see them? Well, it is possible that the ghost of the old man and the old woman (who probably were Stanley Oscar Freelan and Vera Freelan) wanted to find a vessel in the mortal realm. It could also be possible that both Kevin and Ilonka wanted to believe in the fact that there existed some powers that were beyond their understanding and were not too skeptical about it like the others. Maybe they subconsciously believed in the duality of life, as mentioned earlier. But nothing could be said for sure, as the first season of The Midnight Club refrains from clarifying our doubts.

The Hourglass could also be said to be a personification of time itself. The rituals in the cult were always aimed at defying death. It was aimed at reversing the course of nature. Obviously, it had some consequences, but the greed to stop the inevitable from happening was so great that it overpowered everything else. The Hourglass also signified the endless loop of life and death, among many other things. To make it the sigil of the cult clearly indicates that the cultists were aiming at attaining a kind of salvation, to end the cycle of life and death and lead an immortal life. It was imperative to turn the Hourglass in order to allow the sand to seep inside the other bulb. To reap the benefits of immortality, one needs to make a lot of sacrifices. Though the intersection point had been found in the basement and evidently had been opened too, one needed to constantly feed the dead to make the effects last for a longer period of time. Towards the end of The Midnight Club, we see that Julia Jayne wanted to conduct the ritual once again, maybe because the effects of the ritual she conducted in 1968 had dissipated over the period of time. But what if a cult member had found a way to make it last? What if a cult member knew that the Hourglass was merely a representation of the amount of time an evil spirit had before it had to replenish itself once again by feeding on a human soul (like a vampire drinking human blood to energize itself)? What if the grains of sand were like a stopwatch that informed the evil spirit about when to change the vessel it had occupied? What if there was somebody who was operating from the shadows and orchestrating this whole facade?

In the 5th episode of the Midnight Club, Natsuki says something while the group is celebrating the Death Day party with Amesh on the beach. She entertains the possibility (though just for fun at that time) that Dr. Georgina Stanton could be an evil spirit and was trading their souls to feed the dead? Natsuki also shares a native Japanese story titled Toshi no Taberu Hito, which could be translated as the Eater of Years. Natsukis mother used to tell a story about a spirit that used to eat the years of its victims and was generally found at a place where people were going to die. What if that was the sole motive of Dr. Stanton behind opening the Brightcliffe Hospice, where terminally ill patients came, and it was no less than a feast for an evil spirit that wanted to siphon the souls of the people or maybe use the physical body as a vessel? It could be possible that Dr. Stanton had realized that though she had opened the intersection point of the Hourglass and allowed the sand to seep inside, i.e., opened the doorway to another realm, she needed to constantly feed the dead, which in this case was the old man and the old woman.

It was often not known what happened to the bodies of the patients who didnt survive. Whenever somebody died, we always saw a man making the bed sheets and keeping the pillows in a very undiscerning manner. He had a very suspicious demeanor, and you only saw him whenever someone died. Maybe he was the personification of Charon (from Greek mythology), who carried the souls of the deceased. Though in this case, he might be working for the devil and not for the gods. Maybe he was responsible for taking the deceased bodies of terminally ill patients and leaving them in the basement for the dead to feed upon.

Another theory that could be formulated based on certain clues and hints is that Dr. Stanton was not feeding the dead, i.e., she herself was feeding on it as she was one of them. Maybe Vera Freelan had not died and was still present during the time when Regina Ballard started the cult. Maybe she had found a sustainable way to keep the dead satiated and reap the benefits of immortal life. We make this assumption because she had a framed picture of Stanley Oscar and Vera Freelan in her bedroom, and she had also framed the article from the Washington Journal that was published back in the year 1898 and covered the unveiling ceremony of the Freelan Mansion, which later came to be known as Brightcliffe Hospice.

The suspicion arises because it is not natural for somebody to have a picture of a couple in their bedroom if they are not in it, or if they do not share a close relationship with them. Also, Stanley Oscar and Vera Freelan were probably quite proud of their mansion, as the people back then considered it a marvel of architecture. Maybe Dr. Stanton was Vera Freelan in reality. The Freeland couple were quite proud of the fact that they had been able to create something so magnificent back in the day, and maybe thats why Dr. Stanton still had that newspaper clip displayed on one of the walls in her bedroom. According to different mythologies, the devil could always shapeshift and dwell inside different vessels. Maybe Dr. Stantons physical body was just being used as a vessel by Vera Freelan. Something about Dr. Stanton tells us that she was an old soul. The way she looked at things, it felt like there was something that she was hiding behind her scientific and logical sensibilities. It felt like she was bluffing everyone and using everybody for her own interests. Though nothing concrete was revealed in the first season of The Midnight Club, we might get a more plausible explanation pertaining to the identity of Dr. Stanton in Season 2.

See More: The Fictional Stories Of The Midnight Club Explained In-Depth

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What Was The Significance Of The Paragon "Hourglass" Symbol? Was Stanton Feeding The Dead Patients To The Ghosts? | DMT - DMT