Hello Rosarytrad,
I never heard of Infinite Jest; but just now read the wiki article on it.
It seems extremely satirical and a dark social commentary. Basically the visual media is a weapon of mass destruction. So true!
Since you like this thread, how about we do a little more “interpretation of narrative?” :)
Going back to dualism:
- ying-yang shooters: Yearick-Crooks
- ying-yang SS: Male-Female
- ying-yang politics: R and D – Left and Right
Now I’d like to look at the mysterious ladder clue we’ve received from Central Casting.
Do you remember looking at scary movies and pictures as a child? There would be a very powerful and mixed sensation of fear and avid curiosity. It’s one of the oldest emotions in the book. When I became an adolescent, I graduated to creepy books. The big standout for me was Vincent Bugliosi’s Helter Skelter. Bugliosi was the LA prosecutor who handled the Charles Manson, et. al. trials. His report was gruesome, detailed, dark, and addictive. Reading that book gave me the same creeps and excitement. Even now I can get that feeling if I concentrate.
When I first saw the photos of the ladder Crooks was supposed to have climbed to reach the roof, I had the same creepy, scary movie feeling - albeit milder. Just a touch, you might say. I give this no real import, except to note it as a sensation produced by looking at one of their creepy images.
Here are a couple of pics of the ladder ( I suppose in the first pic, that's the dead guy circled on the roof).


Now what follows is pure, amateurish speculation. My purpose in looking for meaning in the symbology, is 1) to fashion for myself a lens through which to view upcoming events; and 2) to see if the symbolism fits my gut hunch that the whole thing is pure fake and agenda, from soup to nuts. It seems to me that if one can find an intelligible and coherent narrative running through everything placed before our eyes, the more reason we have to believe they faked us out. The more it looks like a stage production (read: satanic ritual), the more fake, goes the reasoning.
Thus, thinking that the ladder is a big clue, I looked up what, if any significance ladders have in Fɾҽҽmαsσɳɾყ. Sure enough, I learned that the ladder symbol is introduced at level one - Entered Apprentice – and stays with the poor deceived slob through all the ranks he climbs, until he dies his miserable death. The masonic ladder is his guardian devil, if you will. It’s the black vaporous cloud that floats always above his head.
Newbie masons are given the ladder as part of the trestle board for their degree. Their instruction consists of a line of bull a mile long, about how this ladder is Jacob’s Ladder, from the Bible; and how it represents the glorious civic virtues of the enlightened, masonic man.
Here’s a mason explaining this pollution: “In Masonry, the Entered Apprentice (EA) is first introduced to the imagery of Jacob’s Ladder in the First Degree. Remember that the EA is not expected to ascend the ladder at his initiation; it is depicted on the Tracing Board and the means of ascent are partially explained to him.” [ See:
https://masons.au/news/Jacobs-ladder/#:~:text=The%20symbolism%20of%20Jacob's%20Ladder,communication%20between%20earth%20and%20heaven. ]
Another mason explains further – and I had to paraphrase because the website would not let me cut and paste; though I give the link to the entire article – a doozy if one has the patience:
- The masonic ladder is a unique symbol in the sect, because it can be traced back to the Sacred Scriptures. No other masonic symbol is thus distinguished. As with all masonic symbols, the masonic ladder has a much deeper esoteric symbolism which underlies the literal sense given in the degree lectures.
- Most commonly the masonic ladder has three or seven rungs. The exoteric meaning of the three rungs is the cardinal virtues of "faith, hope, and charity;" or, alternatively, youth, manhood, and old age.
- The esoteric meaning of the ladder relates not to the virtues at all (surprised?), but to “cosmology” and “spiritual evolution.”
- The esoteric sense relates to the hierarchy of being, the hierarchical ordering of the universe, the “great chain of being.”
- The masonic ladder corresponds to the kabalistic “tree of life,” which is composed of three pillars, each of which contains a sphere, representing the three “emanations of God”: the masculine, the feminine, and the synthesized uni-sex or “wisdom.” [See:
http://www.freemasons-Fɾҽҽmαsσɳɾყ.com/masonic_ladder.html ]
Now here is a direct quote from another article, which elaborates:
“Masonry, then, in exhibiting to them a simple ladder offers them a symbol the significance of which is calculated to open widely the eyes of their imagination. It is true that in the Instruction lecture the ladder is expressly referred to that of Jacob in the familiar biblical episode, and that that ladder is then given a moral significance and made to suggest the way by which man may ascend from earth to heaven by climbing its symbolic rungs, and especially by utilizing its three chief ones representing the virtues Faith, Hope and Charity. This moral interpretation is warranted and salutary. But it is far from exhaustive, and conceals rather than reveals what “Jacob’s ladder” was really intended to convey to the perspicuous when the compilers of our system gave it the prominence they did. We may be assured they had a much deeper purpose than merely reminding us of the Pauline triad of theological virtues.
“The ladder, then, covertly emphasizes the old cosmological teaching before referred to. It is a symbol of the universe and of its succession of step-like planes reaching from the heights to the depths. It is written elsewhere that the Father’s house has many mansions; many levels and resting places for His creatures in their different conditions and degrees of progress. It is these levels, these planes and sub-planes, that are denoted by the rungs and staves of the ladder.” [See:
https://sanpedromasons.org/2017/12/esoteric-ladder/ ]
to be cont……..