HOLY SMOKE

For years the public schools and government universities have been undermining the political and religious heritage of Western Civilization, England, Australia, and the United States of America. It is no wonder then that we are now living in a confused era where Hollywood, the entertainment capitol of the world, is producing and promoting movies with an occult bent, like THE SIXTH SENSE, or with a New Age Hindu bent, like HOLY SMOKE.

HOLY SMOKE is the new movie by feminist Australian director Jane Campion, the director of THE PIANO and ANGEL AT MY TABLE. Harvey Keitel stars as P.J. Walker, a cynical middle-aged cult deprogrammer hired to “deprogram” a young Australian woman named Ruth, played by Kate Winslet of TITANIC. Ruth has become the follower of a Hindu guru in India after the guru gives her a strange Hindu vision which the movie suggests really does happen. Ruth returns to Australia, partly under false pretenses. Ruth’s family convinces P.J. to “cure” their daughter, even though the assistant they arranged for him couldn’t join him (a violation of his usual rules). P.J. takes Ruth to an isolated hut in the Australian desert, where a humiliating series of sexual power games eventually starts, leading to P.J.’s own breakdown and his own Hindu vision of Ruth as a multi-armed Hindu goddess. Wracked by guilt about what happened, Ruth comforts a silently whimpering P.J. One year later, a more normal and less cynical P.J. has returned to his girlfriend to raise a happy family, and Ruth and her mother are happily working for the Red Cross in India. “I love you from afar,” Ruth writes to him, and P.J. writes back thanking her and telling her that Carol has forgiven him.

HOLY SMOKE is a neo-Jungian feminist worldview. Psychologist Carl Jung believed that relationships between men and women are also a spiritual, psychological struggle within their souls. He advocates becoming aware of this spiritual, psychological struggle so that people can use that information not only to improve their relationships with the opposite sex but also to become a better human being. Thus, in HOLY SMOKE, Ruth’s spiritual vision relies on her contact with the male Indian guru, who touches the “third eye” of her forehead in a burst of light. Conversely, P.J.’s vision revolves around an image of Ruth as a goddess. These visions, and their psychological battle in the desert wilderness, allegedly improves both their lives.

The story in HOLY SMOKE is also feminist because it relies on sexual power games. Ruth turns the tables on P.J. by eventually humiliating him. Although Campion recognizes the humiliation inherent in the feminist movement, it still results in positive growth for both Ruth and P.J. at the end of the movie. This feminist conceit is part of the irrational psychobabble of the confused nomenclatura of our age.

HOLY SMOKE is also a New Age Hindu worldview. First, the only religious visions the movie accepts as real are Hindu ones. Secondly, after the movie depicts the positive growth of P.J. and Ruth, its soundtrack plays a joyful, worshipful refrain celebrating the Hindu concept of “maya,” an impersonal pantheism rather than a personal monotheism. Finally, at an important point in the story, the movie mocks a Christian recitation of the Lord’s Prayer by Ruth’s mother and P.J.’s betrayed girlfriend Carol. The message here seems clear: trust in Hindu visions and concepts rather than pray to the One True God.

In reality, of course, neo-Jungian feminism is an example of politically-correct identity politics. The radical left uses identity politics to destroy the conservative principles of America’s political heritage and the Christian teachings on which that heritage is based. Furthermore, unlike all other religions, especially Hinduism, Christianity is historically verifiable because it is based on the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ which took place in a specific time and historical place and which were witnessed by people who could tell the difference between a phony miracle and a true one. Man’s unaided reason cannot comprehend the nature of God, but the Bible never says that Man’s reason is always unaided. Thus, the division that this kind of movie makes between faith and reason is an erroneous one coming from a faulty, anti-Christian worldview. Unlike Hinduism, Christianity is an historically verifiable religion that doesn’t require its followers to put their brains on hold.