notes on The golden Compass and the trilogy

I have read all three of Pullman’s Books and although he states it is a book of fiction it is clear from his other writings that he actually believes many concepts therein. Therefore, it is like, let us say, a historical novel where what he sees as fact is carefully woven into fiction in order to gain access to the mind so the readers beliefs can be influenced and changed. As he quotes Byron on page 291,  ‘I hate all things fiction… there should always be some foundation of fact….’

 

We should listen very seriously to Pullman when he declares that the aim of the trilogy is to undermine the basis of Christianity. On p464 of the Amber Spyglass he writes  ‘The Christian Religion is a very powerful and convincing mistake. That’s all’

 

My faith is very strong but I still felt quite uncomfortable about his hidden ‘facts’. I have indicated not exclusively, those concepts that he actually believes with a #. You can check this out by simply Googling Pullman + the key words in the concept. My opinions are indicated with ^.  

 

If my faith had not been strong and my knowledge of scripture been less than it is I would have been sent into some degree of confusion. Is it not our duty to advise the young in faith? It is not about stopping people from reading things like some kind of book burning regime. It’s about warning people. Would you send your children across a minefield without telling them where the mines are? 

 

This report is not intended to be a literary work of art but an attempt by an ordinary working guy who does not find reading easy, to help you find those parts of the book that I believe are like a subtle knife! I hope the pages are in the same order in the edition you read. They are my notes, not originally intended to be passed on so some of it may not make sense. The first two books I read from were soft back and the last one was hard back. I bought the first one then repented and borrowed the other two.

 

Paul Blowers

 

The film The Golden Compass is this book minus many references to the Church because of the offence it would cause to the church, mainly our Roman Catholic brothers.

 

My notes on this book are sparse. It so happens that most of the mines are in the other books after the reader has been groomed in the first.

 

Lord Asriel hated priors, monks and nuns. The late pope John Calvin was the head of the church. The seat of the Papacy was moved to Geneva. The Magisterium consists of the courts, colleges and councils. This includes the College of Bishops, Consistorial Court of Discipline, The Oblation Board and the Office of Inquisition. The ‘gobblers’ came from the Oblation Board and took children away for experimentation often leading to their deaths. Mrs Coulter, Lyra’s mother came from the Oblation Board and was one of the Gobblers.

 

p128 Father Coram, one of the giptians seemed to know God.

The church is portrayed as bad. Witches are portrayed as nearly always good.

 

p369 A whole section of the bible is quoted word for word and then altered and added to to give a very different meaning.

 

Dust is good and means maturity, coming of age, freedom, enlightenment, self-determination, etc. Church is portrayed as against all these things.

 

Witches fighting for good against the bad church.

 

p52 Church wants to stifle and thwart all good feelings – to stop mankind coming of age#. Dust is all about enlightenment and fulfilling your potential#. The church castrates boys and girls and tries to stifle every natural impulse. All churches are the same in all history – to control, destroy, obliterate every good feeling#.

 

Lord Asriel wants to find and destroy God and kills a child in order to go to another world (dimension) to find him. Church wants to cut off peoples daemons (Pullman’s name for soul) and turn all into zombies.

 

Lyra, one of the two main characters, portrayed as good, liked it when Will told her he had murdered someone.

 

p95 Dr Mary Malone used to be a nun but was now a physicist researching shadow particles. Dark matter / shadow particles have consciousness#.

 

p99 Mary, a character portrayed as good, believes in and uses I Ching, a Chinese form of divination.

 

p132 Fun is made of a holy picture showing the death of a saint saying that when he died he would have nothing but oblivion. A follower of Jesus is described as having the Martyr’s palms.

 

p165 7 167 A negative reference to people with titles.

 

p182 Did something happen in Pullman’s childhood to influence his attitude towards forms of authority e.g. the Church?^.

 

p261 Angels are structured dark matter and intervened in human history about 30,000 years ago as vengeance against God who with his angels beat them in a battle. There is a clear implication here that the angels who were beaten were the good ones thus implying that Satan is good and God is bad. All will be revealed!

 

p262 I Ching and hexagrams mentioned again.

 

p268 Graphic and gory display of witches spells.

 

p286 One of the names of the Authority, ie God, is the creator. Lyra is called Aesahaettr which means God destroyer.

 

p328 Mrs Coulter wants to destroy Lyra who is her daughter described as Mother Eve, to prevent another fall as in Adam and Eve.

 

p329 ‘Her, the witch, senses had lied to her …. living was hateful and death was no better’ Mrs Coulter was able to command the spectres.

 

p331 At the top in total darkness, Will felt his fathers grip on his arm. There was a struggle and his father cured his wound.

 

p334 There is a war coming boy. The greatest war that ever was. something like it happened before and this time the right side will win. we’ve had nothing but lies and propaganda and cruelty and deceit for all the thousands of years of human history. It’s time we started again, but properly this time.   ……defeat the tyrant, the Authority, god. The rebel angels fell because they didn’t have anything like the knife.

 

p335 Every advance in human life, every scrap of knowledge and wisdom and decency we have has been torn by one side. every little increase in human freedom has been fought over ferociously between those who want us to know more and be wiser and stronger and those who want us to obey and be humble and submit.

 

p339 Angels come to get Will and take him to Lord Asriel.

 

This book says that in all universes, always, in all times that:

The church, God and un-fallen angels are bad and that the Devil, his angels and witches are good. Clearly Pullman is trying to get children to believe this.

 

 

p32 Metatron, a name used in Jewish writings for enoch, is the Authority’s Regent. Yahweh, Father has never been the creator.

 

p33 He was the 1^st and most powerful angel formed out of dust. Dust is what happens when matter begins to understand itself#. Matter loves matter, it seeks to know about itself and dust is formed. Angels condense out of dust. a female angel wiser than the Authority was banished. This is Satan, portrayed here as good^. The world of the dead is a prison camp set up by the Authority.

 

p60 The Magisterium is composed of the Consistorial Courts of Justice and the Society of the Work of the Holy Spirit – both portrayed as bad.

 

p71 If Lyra (Eve) is tempted and falls then dust and sin will triumph. This is portrayed as good^.

 

p82 Dr Mary Malone is the temptress. Again portrayed as a good thing^. spectres are frightened by her. Dust, shadow particles talks to her and had told her to find the boy and girl and play the serpent. 

 

p82 – 85 Narative of Mary malone meeting and befriending wheeled creatures. This narrative is designed to make the reader feel warm to mary Malone and thus agree with her moral standpoint^.

 

p123 The Church is portrayed as the clear evil enemy trying to stop the fall of Lyra into temptation instigated by Mary Malone.

 

p176 Body, soul and spirit is in this trilogy body, daemon and ghost.

 

p219 A senior angel Xaphania of the group that rebelled long ago against tyranny and cruelty.

 

p223 The aim is to have free citizens of the republic, not kingdom, of heaven.

 

p234 Mary explains the revelation that shadow particles are conscious.

 

p235/6 Talks about a change in human evolution that occurred 30 to 33,000, a change in the human brain that made it conscious. this is equivalent to the fall of Adam and Eve as the acquired shadow particles, dust, dark matter^. theme so far is that the Church does not want humans to have dust / consciousness / self determination, ie the fall.

 

p236 Story of a snake enlightening our early ancestor. ‘You will become wise’ ‘the oil entered her foot’ p236 / 7 Rough copy of the Fall in Genesis.

 

p275 Lyra & Will in the suburbs of the dead – told by Peter that everyone has a ‘Death’ that is with them from birth and when you die it takes you in a boat across a lake into the mist.

 

p282 Your daemon will vanish in the air and the body vanishes underground when you die.

 

p304 A harpy at the gate of the dead.

 

p308 The harpies cry of Liar sounded like liar when he detected that Lyra was in fact lying – something she did often and took great pride in it.

 

p335 / 6 Extremely obvious attack on Christianity. saying it is all a lie, especially eternal life. The truth is that when we die, whether the Almighty traps us in a horrible place or not, like our daemons and body, we just disperse into the universe as an extremely low or zero, oblivion, state of consciousness.

 

p336 ‘Spend years in solitary prayer while all the joy of life was going to waste around us’

 

p342 “My daughter is now 12 years old. Very soon she will approach the cusp of adolescence”. When does Philip Pullman think that it is okay for children to have physical passion for one another?

 

p344 Mrs Coulter talking about God as an ageing old maybe rotten hulk.

in chapter 31 God is described as a really old aged angel worn out who turns to dust when exposed to the air. the kingdom of heaven is now run by Metatron – Enoch, 6^th generation from Adam, somehow turned by some degree into an angel who can be overpowered physically by Lord Asriel and Mrs Coulter.

 

p464 ‘The Christian Religion is a very powerful and convincing mistake. That’s all’

 

p465 Jesus is mentioned.

 

p469 ‘I didn’t know whether god had died or whether there never had been a god at all’

“I took the crucifix from around my neck and threw it into the sea”

 

p476 Dust came into being when living things became conscious of themselves. matter loved dust.

 

p497 Tells us that the passionate physical desire of 2 twelve year olds for each other that they consummate to some extent not stated, has made everything in the universe well again.

 

p506 Xaphania and the rebel angels said that all the history of human life has been a struggle between wisdom and stupidity. Xaphania and the rebel angels have always tried to open minds but the Authority (God) and his churches have always tried to keep them closed.

 

p507 ‘My soul, do not seek eternal life’

 

Philip Pullman is trying to convince the reader that there is no God, that the Church is bad and that there is no such thing as eternal life and we should be content with oblivion when we die as this is a very fulfilling way to go!

 

Some things we might want to challenge about right and wrong behaviour between 12 year olds.