Bells, Duality, Metaphysics, schrodingers Cat Oh my!

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My name is Lucas Saul Comments? Email me @ molemedicine@gmail.com
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"The fact is, nothing is separate everything's connected."-John Schwinn aka Mr. Wizard

PLEASE READ: In Order to get the most out of this reading experience, depending on what kind of computer you are using and\or your internet connection,it may be necessary to reload the page you are reading more than once if images don't load the first time. Especially on pages with GIF's. Just a tip for your reading pleasure!


First off. This thread is not intended for the casual fan, but for people who are very familiar with "this thing of ours" aka "The Sopranos". If you have never watched the Entire show from start to finish, I encourage you to go back and do that before reading this. This Analysis is meant for those who have a reference for all the nuances and who have seen the whole arc of the show in its entirety. It makes a lot more sense to those with that frame of reference. 86 hours of your life, go......This thread will be my attempt to further explore the themes initially explored in my analysis of the final scene. This thread is NOT AN ATTEMPT TO FIGURE OUT WHETHER TONY LIVES OR DIES, The last scene is without a doubt in my mind, something deeper than the finite answer to that question. This analysis will cover almost exclusively content from Seasons 5 and 6a\6b. The related themes explored will be Kubrick, Lynch, 2001, 9\11, The Beatles, Osiris, Bells, Cats, Egyptian knowledge, Hunchbacks, JFK, Quantum physics, Catholicism, and general Subliminals\metadata connected to "The Sopranos". The idea for this thread came to me through the revelation that there was an entire metaphorical subplot going on in the last 2 seasons of the show, one involving dreams, quantum physics, death, life, and reincarnation. I always knew it was there but never really took the time to actually dissect it. This will be an effort to understand the messages underlying the dialogue and visuals on the show by using knowledge of spirituality, the occult or hidden knowledge, and quantum physics. By revealing this layer of the story, I believe it will forever enhance and alter the viewers experience in such a way they will want to watch the entire series over again. This is a massive 10 page analysis, so please "Bear with us".....
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[Long Pause] I’ll say this: The [spiritual]question [that the final scene asks] is, to be really pretentious, what is time? How do we spend our really brief sojourn here? How do we behave, and what do we do? And the recognition that it’s over all too soon, and it very seldom happens the way we think. I think death very seldom comes to people the way they think it’s going to. And the spiritual question would be: “Is that all there is?”-Chase, in a 2014 interview with The Daily Beast
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Well, geez, the hardest part, is, well..., where do we even get started here? This was a dilemma I was having at first but came up with a passable solution. We will start as the show always does. With a song. Not just any song though but the song used to start Season 6 part a as it is almost like a key if you will to much of what we will be exploring in this thread.


The Seven Souls Montage
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The music, "Seven Souls" by Material, begins the opening narration, a shortened version of a spoken word essay ("The ancient Egyptians postulated seven souls...") by William S. Burroughs from his novel The Western Lands. It is very interesting to note that Chase had originally tried to use this song for the pilot episode of The Sopranos back in 1997-1998. It finally ended up being used on the show in this episode, in the opening montage of the premiere of the final season, 8 years later. This to me is very significant to where Im going with this whole analysis. This full circle\duality\life\death\reincarnation theme. Lets take a look at the lyrics and how they correlate to the series, especially season 6 itself.
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The ancient Egyptians postulated Seven Souls. (The Bell at Holstens rings 7 times)
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Part 1 Ren

Top soul, and the first to leave at the moment of death, is Ren, the Secret Name. This corresponds to my Director. He directs the film of your life from conception to death. The Secret Name is the title of your film. When you die, that's where Ren came in.

Lets Pause here and take a deeper look at the meaning of Ren in Egyptian mythology
Ren - The true name, a vital part to man on his journey through life and the afterlife, a magical part that could destroy a man if his name was obliterated or could give power of the man if someone knew his Ren - naming ceremonies in Egypt were secret, and a child lived his whole life with a nickname to avoid anyone from learning his true name. Dollinger (2003) states that, "The name, (MdC transliteration rn), is the foundation of a being as an individual. Only when it has a name, when it can be addressed and related to, does it begin its proper existence ... An important part of ensuring the continued existence after death was the perpetuation of the name"(my emphasis added).
Skip ahead to the next episode, "Join the Club", we see Tony having an existential crisis while in a coma involving his identity or his name being confused with the name Kevin Finnerty, to which as he says the name in the bar for the first time another patron says, "He drives a Lexus, you know, Lexus? Infinity?" Kevin Finnerty has the anagram INFINITY hidden in it. More on this later. But the point here is about the name, because Tony wasn't Finnerty therefore wasn't going to the after life as Finnerty either. Even though the show might confuse us to think this part is about Vito, Janice, and Bobby as they are the characters we see on the screen as the lyric plays. I think what these scenes imply is that Tony is THE DIRECTOR of each of their lives on some level, being the boss and all. Last thing of note here, the first time the bell rings at Holstens, its Tony who enters.....
You know, Vito called me “skip” the other day. Slip of the tongue, no doubt. But I noticed he didn’t correct himself.

Re: Bells, Duality, Metaphysics, schrodingers Cat Oh my!

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Part 2 Sekem
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Second soul, and second one off the sinking ship, is Sekem: Energy, Power, Light. The Director gives the orders, Sekem presses the right buttons.
Sekhem - This was the incorporeal personification of the life force of man, which lived in heaven with the Akhu, after death. The Bunson describes the sekhem as, "the vital force of a human being" The word means "to have mastery over something".
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The camera shows Janice Soprano is breast feeding her and Bobby Baccalieri's daughter Domenica Baccalieri; Eugene Pontecorvo and his wife become joyous after reading an inheritance letter, while Bobby has taken up model railroading as a hobby as the lyric plays.


So we see the energy is the point here. It obviously takes energy to propel the model trains, The breastmilk is the manna or lifeforce, and the inheritance money is also a form of life force. This idea plays out through the arc of each of these stories of the people connected. I did forget to mention how this also connects to Vito whose Columbian heist ends up being the money that literally pays for Tonys life. Columbia is another goddess of Egypt\Athens. You've seen her in the logo and in the statue of liberty, which is predominately featured on the cover for the season six part 1 DVD, no coincidence here.

Heres an interesting quote from chase to further the connection being established here:
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"When I was going to Stanford University graduate film school, 23 years old, I went and saw "Planet of the Apes" with my wife. When the movie was over I said, "Wow, so they had a Statue of Liberty, too." So that's what you're up against." -David Chase
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Looks like Chase got his "statue of liberty" after all, and we missed it....
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She is a ancient representation of Isis, another Egyptian deity and connected to death\life\rebirth

And lets not forget the lighthouse from the "Coma"
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You know, Vito called me “skip” the other day. Slip of the tongue, no doubt. But I noticed he didn’t correct himself.

Re: Bells, Duality, Metaphysics, schrodingers Cat Oh my!

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Part 3 Khu

(this is from the original lyrics of the song, they edited parts out for the show. I thought I would include them to add to our understanding)
Number three is Khu, the Guardian Angel. He, she, or it is third man out...depicted as flying away across a full moon, a bird with luminous wings and head of light. Sort of thing you might see on a screen in an Indian restaurant in Panama. The Khu is responsible for the subject and can be injured in his defense - but not permanently, since the first three souls are eternal. They go back to Heaven for another vessel.
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Akhu (A'akh, Akh, Khu, Ikhu) - This was the immortal part, the radiant and shining being that lived on in the Sahu, the intellect, will and intentions of the deceased that transfigured death and ascended to the heavens to live with the gods or the imperishable stars. The Akhu came in to being after the deceased passed judgement after death, and the Ka and Ba united. Bunson notes that the akhu "could assume human form to visit the earth at will"
This alludes to three different times in season 6 where Meadow acts like a guardian angel, all three times were when Tony was really close to death. First time was when he awoke from his coma for the first time, when he asks "who am I? where am I going?" Meadows the first face he sees before focusing on Carmelas face.
Second time is when he's about to enter the house where the dead live. She's calling "daddy" from the trees.

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The third time is, well, as she's running into Holstens before Tonys "black out". So that makes 3 times....But before I finish let me add this little tidbit I found while reading another analysis on masterofsopranos.com that I remember going around the internet
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So the last shot of the series is from Tony’s POV. Tony does not hear the bullet as it was shot from close range and traveled faster than the speed of sound (i.e. the bullet hit his brain before his brain could process the sound). Tony never heard it coming. No chance to reflect or react. The bullet shattered his brain and there was instantaneous death. Just a void of blackness and nothingness. Worse, his family was there to be bear witness to his murder. The viewer experienced death through Tony’s eyes and it was jarring. Upon further inspection we see that Chase set up this moment by deliberately planting the “never hear it concept” into the viewer throughout the final 9 episodes.
*One last note on the POV sequence/Blackout. Just after the finale aired, blogs on the internet contained numerous posts from viewers swearing they saw Meadow walk through the door just before the abrupt cut to black. The question arose whether Chase had two different versions of the final scene shown across the country. One with Tony’s face as the last thing we see before the blackout and the other being Meadow walking into Holsten’s before the famous cut to black. We now know that there was only one version shown. Surely someone would have recorded this alternate version if it existed. There is actually a simple explanation for this misconception and it all has to do with the POV sequence explained above. The POV pattern caused the viewer to expect to see who was coming through the door from Tony’s POV. When the bell rang, Tony looked up. Our brains were conditioned by Chase to think that we were going to see Meadow. In a sense this was a Pavlovian type response. The fact that so many thought the last shot was Meadow is a tribute to David Chase and how effective his POV pattern really was.
One final dinner: In the final episode, Tony’s dinner with Meadow foreshadows Tony’s death. Tony has dinner with Meadow in New York City and Meadow asks Tony why they’re having dinner, Tony answers that “We used to have dinner all the time, you’re gonna get married and my chances are flying by me.” This would be the last time Tony has dinner with Meadow as she never makes it to the booth at Holsten’s before Tony is killed.
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there is a number of times Meadow inadvertently "saves" Tony.The first is in "College" when Tony is helping a drunken Meadow to her motel room. Seeing Tony with his daughter, and then the two old people, causes Febby to hesitate and call off the hit.
The second is in "Another Toothpick." Meadow takes the FBI bugged lamp from the Sopranos' basement and brings it to her dorm room. There's a good chance the feds would have gotten something on Tony, given that he would discuss serious mafia business in his basement.Another interesting nugget I found that resonated with this theme is the time in the Pilot episode Tony takes a very angelic looking Meadow to see the church his grandfather built when he first came to the U.S. from Avellino.
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You know, Vito called me “skip” the other day. Slip of the tongue, no doubt. But I noticed he didn’t correct himself.

Re: Bells, Duality, Metaphysics, schrodingers Cat Oh my!

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Part 4 Ba

(once again the original lyric is being presented here, which is a little bit longer but helps us fully understand)
Number four is Ba, the heart - often treacherous. This is a hawk's body with your face on it, shrunk down to the size of a fist. Many a hero has been brought down, like Samson, by a perfidious Ba.
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quote from wikipedia"Curto unexpectedly died of a stroke in his FBI handler's car, in 2006 while giving potentially damaging information to Agent Sanseverino about Tony (Curto indicated he had a poor sound quality tape of Tony discussing a murder). Curto was handled by both Agent Sanseverino and Agent Grasso. Curto has the distinction of being the longest-tenured "rat" in the series, and for never being caught or suspected as such. In fact, at Curto's funeral (in "Members Only"), the other mobsters lauded him for being a model "stand up guy." The one exception was Eugene Pontecorvo, who, when Agent Sanseverino told him in the episode "Members Only" that the FBI had lost a major asset, asked if Curto had been an informant. How much damage, if any, Curto caused the Soprano crime family was never determined during the run of the show."
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I would add to that an anecdotal quote from one of the FBI agents to Eugene (who is wearing a "members only" jacket), "You're our main hitter." which the word "hitter" has a double meaning. One is an obvious reference to baseball the other is the mafias use of the word. Of course the FBI would be fully aware of the ambiguity of using that term, so its not just some cheeky metaphor. Add to this the storyline of how Eugene ends up whacking a guy named Teddy Spirodakis. Heres a teaser for later. Take that name and break it down for a second, like we did with Kevin Finnerty for example. Teddy for example is an obvious reference to Bears, like the one Tony\Finnerty saw in the broken elevator with the "please 'bear' with us " sign. If you take the Spiro- portion of Spirodakis you find one definition of the word is Spiro compound, a class of organic compound featuring two rings joined at one atom (emphasis added)I will get into this more later in my analysis in the Quantum Physics section.
So if he's the "main hitter" for a guy with the initials TS in a diner booth while wearing a members only jacket, you can see where I'm going with the duality stuff. Heres one last photo sample of the idea. Comparing Eugene with the "Guy in members only jacket" in Holstens.
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I will repeat the lyric one more time just for good measure with emphasis added this time so you know what to look for here
Number four is Ba, the heart - often treacherous. This is a hawk's body with your face on it, shrunk down to the size of a fist. Many a hero has been brought down, like Samson, by a perfidious Ba.
You know, Vito called me “skip” the other day. Slip of the tongue, no doubt. But I noticed he didn’t correct himself.

Re: Bells, Duality, Metaphysics, schrodingers Cat Oh my!

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Part 5 Ka
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The original song lyric says
Number five is Ka, the Double, most closely associated with the subject. The Ka, which usually reaches adolescence at the time of bodily death, is the only reliable guide through the Land of the Dead to the western Lands.
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AJ is shown in the montage now attending college and snapping a selfie of himself sticking out his tongue, resembling his aunt Janice's tattoo, the rolling stones tongue. Im unable to find a screen capture, but if you watch the scene you will notice he makes a very similar face to the tattoo shown earlier in the montage whiles she's breastfeeding. I don't have a pic of the breastfeeding either but I do have this pic that shows you the tattoo just for reference.
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Just for more symbology shits and giggles lets take a look at how the Rolling Stones got the idea for this design. Emphasis added to important info. Let us also note the entomology of the word Kali. We have (KA)-LI.
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It won’t be wrong to say that the “red big mouth” represents the rebellious and passionate mouth of Mick Jagger, the key band member. It is originally an ovation to the Hindu goddess Kali, the goddess of everlasting energy, and glorifies the strength of free expression in rock ‘n’ roll music. The Rolling Stones logo stands out from the rest of the rock band logos due to its mirth, uniqueness, and the way it brings out the emotions while listening to the music.
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So let us continue, AJ is clearly portrayed here as Tonys Ka or, double. While Tony is a Coma Carmela remarks to Ro at one point something like "Whenever he talks about his father he refuses to call him anything but Anthony Soprano." This goes back the notion of the importance of ones name in connection to the soul. SO it makes sense that his double, AJ, would be cautious in using his real name while he's in the coma\purgatory, especially since Tony is having the Finnerty idenity crisis. AJ is keeping his name, as protection from the land of the dead. Such is his role as the Ka or double. This is done very subtly and cleverly if you pay attention closely while watching. It also explains why AJ wants to kill JR, he's still out to protect Tony. So let us repeat one more time the lyric, this time with emphasis added.
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Number five is Ka, the Double, most closely associated with the subject. The Ka, which usually reaches adolescence at the time of bodily death, is the only reliable guide through the Land of the Dead to the western Lands.

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You know, Vito called me “skip” the other day. Slip of the tongue, no doubt. But I noticed he didn’t correct himself.

Re: Bells, Duality, Metaphysics, schrodingers Cat Oh my!

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Part 6 Khaibit

The lyric of the song continues

Number six is Khaibit, the Shadow, Memory, your whole past conditioning from this and other lives.


Adriana La Cerva is remembered by a worrying Carmela Soprano at her spec house (where a lot of people have presumed as the location where Sil shot Adriana) who shares a cigarette with her ghost.
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Also add to that this little tidbit. The appearance of Adriana La Cerva's ghost to Carmela in the spec house recalls Adriana's statement to FBI Agent Robyn Sanseverino in "Watching Too Much Television": "Why don't you go haunt a house or something"?
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So clearly the memory of Adriana is what ends up haunting Tony and Christopher throughout the whole season. We see this haunting go all the way into the "Cleaver" movie where Adriana and Tonys supposed affair is dramatized for all to see. Heres some more info off of wikipedia about it
In the Season 6 episode "The Ride", Carmela Soprano runs into Adriana's mother, Liz La Cerva, who tells Carmela that she believes Christopher killed Adriana, and that the FBI came to her with questions about her. When Carmela tells Tony about their conversation, he dismisses her fears, explaining that if Christopher had killed Adriana then her body would have been found by now. Furthermore, he reminds Carmela that if the FBI really suspected Christopher, then they would have arrested him.
While in Paris, Carmela dreams of seeing Adriana in a park, but a policeman tells her Adriana is dead. Carmela is intent on finding her, especially after Liz La Cerva tries to commit suicide. However, Tony and Silvio pull some strings and Carmela is able to continue construction on her spec house, and the distraction keeps her from investigating the matter further.
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more from wikipedia
One night in Paris, Carmela dreams of Adriana walking her dog, Cosette, by the Eiffel Tower. In the dream, a gendarme with an American accent asks Carmela to tell Adriana that she is dead.
So the story of the character Adriana clearly fits this role perfectly and it was foreshadowed. Finally we hear Carmela remorsefully say in "Kennedy and Heidi"
"He could never let himself take her life. Why are we so quick to blame? What is the attraction in that?"
You know, Vito called me “skip” the other day. Slip of the tongue, no doubt. But I noticed he didn’t correct himself.

Re: Bells, Duality, Metaphysics, schrodingers Cat Oh my!

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Part 7 Sekhu

The final lyric of the song tells us that;
Number seven is Sekhu, the Remains.
We see Carmela laying face up in bed as the word "remains" are said. Pointing out the fact to us that after Tony is dead, Carmela is what remains. As we hear the lyric end we see Tony shoveling out a hole, but we assume the remains have something to do with him and JR. Heres the dialogue. Emphasis added to what I believe the idea of "the remains" refer to here. They refer to remaining beef between Tony and Junior about the Pussy Malanga thing.
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Tony Soprano: (digging with shovel) Halfway ta China...there's nuthin' here.
Uncle Junior: Forty thousand I had. My share of the Bohack's haul from the seventies.
Tony Soprano: Did you wrap it right? It gets moldy...it could've disintegrated.
Uncle Junior: Wrap what?
Tony Soprano: The money.
Uncle Junior: He knows I need that money for my fuckin' retrial.
Tony Soprano: Who?
Uncle Junior: You know who.
Tony Soprano: No I don't know who, that's why I asked you.
Uncle Junior: Malanga.
Tony Soprano: Will you stop with that. Pussy Malanga's dead...six years now. I should dig him up already!
Just in case we forgot Pussy Malanga, the man Uncle Junior was convinced is after him and whom he eventually mistakes Tony for is the same mobster Uncle Junior wanted to kill in Artie Bucco's first restaurant in the pilot episode. Ahhh, so then Tony IS digging him up in a way isn't he? Thats the little wink double meaning going on here. But let us DIG even deeper here to the real meaning going on here. Tony is metaphorically digging his own grave. After this scene in which Tony is digging we slowly see it play out over the whole season, Tony digging his own grave. Chase is showing this metaphor early on here to set the theme. Just for some history jerk off, Heres an explanation of what Bohacks refers to from wikipedia. Obviously Junior is digging up an era long dead....
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Bohack's was a chain of grocery stores located in the New York City area that opened in 1887 and closed in 1977 that was headquartered in Maspeth, Queens. The founder, Henry C. Bohack, opened the first store on Fulton Street in Brooklyn
Heres an excerpt from a paper I found on the internet that goes into a appropriate correlation of Sekhu and all the other parts.
The first soul is Sekhu , the body or spirit body. Sekhu seems to most closely parallel the Christian soul. Egyptian texts pertaining to the journey to Tuat are told from the point of view of the Sekhu. The Ka, or OdoubleO is the most important of what I will call the Osecondary soulsO. The Ka is with a person throughout his or her life and serves as a guide on the journey to Tuat. Kings and gods are said to send forth their Ka as messengers to their subjects (Breasted). The depictions of the deceased on route to Tuat often show him (the majority depict men) with his Ka beside him.

The Ba is interpreted as KaOs soul or heart soul. The Ba often dwells with the Ka but is free to travel separately. Just as one might send out oneOs Ka, the Book of the Dead (chap. 29) states:

Their Bau come forth upon earth to do the will of their Kau...

Contained within the Ba and the Sekhu is the Ab or heart. The Ab is the seat of the passions and a record of good and evil done by its Sekhu. Budge numbers the Ab among the souls. The Book of the Dead however, discusses the Ab as a thing to be protected, and there is no mention of the Ab coming and going of its own volition, a quality shown by the other souls. The nature of the Khaibit, or OshadowO is unclear but it is something that the deceased is instructed to protect.

The last of the secondary souls is the Ren or name. It is a common belief among ancient peoples that oneOs name holds great power. How can one be introduced to the gods if he or she has no name? (Budge) This could help explain the practice of the pharaohs and nobles to cover walls and columns with their names and the later trend to cover old kingOs names with oneOs own; possibly to gain the power of othersO Ren.

In addition to the Sekhu and four secondary souls, the Egyptians believed in two immortal souls; the Khu and Sekhem. The Khu is translated alternately as OsoulO, OspiritO or Ospirit-soulO. A more appropriate name for Khu would be Odivine soulO. The Khu leaves the body and goes to dwell with the Khu of the gods as soon as the first prayers are said over it. The Khu will unite with the Sekhu, Ka, and Ba in Tuat if they survive the journey. The last soul of the Egyptians is the Sekhem or power. It is equivalent to the New Age vernacular OenergyO; the life force which sustains the Khu and possibly Sekhu.

As was stated above, immortality was not guaranteed to the Egyptians. Immortality was secured only by complex measures taken in the physical world and knowledge of the proper courses of action on the journey to the Western Lands. Out of these perceived necessities developed some impressive technological achievements.
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As Junior shoots Tony he says "Cazzata Malanga!" (" Stupid move, Malanga!")

Junior also tells Tony that Pussy Malanga is prank calling his house.Tony says they will get FBI director J. Edgar Hoover to investigate.

It appears that some of what else is being referred to as "the remains" are the remains of Jr's hard feelings about the Malagna botched hit from the Pilot episode.
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You know, Vito called me “skip” the other day. Slip of the tongue, no doubt. But I noticed he didn’t correct himself.

Re: Bells, Duality, Metaphysics, schrodingers Cat Oh my!

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Excellent work and fantastic contributions, Silvio, both this thread and the "it's all there, I get it". Thank you very much for sharing.
I've only sampled some so far and hope I can indulge more soon. I appreciate your writing style and approach, as well as the in-depth, thoughtful analysis. As you've written, you're expanding on some elements which others have touched and incorporating more in a ground-breaking fashion. This is important work you've done and could be the best written and most insightful well explained perspective yet. More than worthy of mass publication and acclaim.
Again, thanks for your generosity, effort and genius.
Bill

Re: Bells, Duality, Metaphysics, schrodingers Cat Oh my!

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2001: A “Chase” Oddity....
David Chase and Stanley Kubrick

If you’ve made it this far through this, first of all thank you for hanging in there. Before I go any further I want to stop and take a closer look at a couple of things to establish a pattern of influence on this “thing of ours” in order to show you that it truly is "All in there" like Chase said, its just about knowing where to look…. In order to do that I want to take a closer look at the creator of the show itself and his influences. A couple of influences specifically. I did some “digging” myself and I want to share these nuggets you may or may not have noticed. I don’t claim to have made these discoveries on my own. Through the power of google I was able to find that some people had done a lot of the work already. I want to credit these people as to not imply Im taking any credit or plagerising the work of others. Im merely using it in a attempt to further connect dots. So I want to thank TheOTherForever,(of Sopranoland forum fame)MasterofSopranos(formerly richieaprile in this forum),DetectiveHunt and his analysis from this forum, TheAVForum,Sopranoland, Reddit Forum, The Chase Lounge, and of course, FlyonMelfiswall all respectively for their massive amounts of work on the subject and I will do my best to credit their work when I use it. This would not be possible without it. I do this in an attempt to add to their already epic pieces of work on the subject. Salut!
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"You can look at a painting, you can stop looking at it, go away, look at something else and never come back. But music and movies, theoretically to really get it, you’ve got to start at the beginning and go through it. How many beats, how many bars and then at the end, it comes to an end. And I think that’s interesting. That the two are so…a friend of mine was telling me recently that Stanley Kubrick said that movies have a lot more to do with music. They’re more like music than they are like literature.”-David Chase
"Was I trying to extend the narrative? I was probably trying to amplify it or nail it down or give it a roundness, give it an overview…. That's what I started to feel was possible. At the same time, other people were doing it too. Stanley Kubrick is another guy who doesn't use orchestral scores; he uses existing music. And that's the way it was with The Sopranos."-David Chase
While digging in Juniors backyard looking for his “share of the Bohack heists”, I stumbled into this rabbit hole here. The one involving “this thing of ours” and its deep and strange synchronicity with Kubricks classic “2001" and many others as we shall explore.

So the first strange thing I noticed was when I did a simple google search of “2001 and the Sopranos”. This is what came up. I thought Id start here to show you just how deep the rabbit hole goes……..

A click on a wikipedia article about the 2001: A Space Oddity album reveals that the title of the second track and THE most important song in the movie is named

"Requiem for SOPRANO, Mezzo-SOPRANO, 2 Mixed Choirs and Orchestra – György Ligeti, The Bavarian Radio Orchestra, Francis Travis"
Now just to emphasize the importance of this song in relation to the movie 2001 heres another tidbit from wiki media about the songs use in the movie.
V. Ligeti's Requiem is heard three times, all of them during appearances of the monolith. The first is its encounter with apes just before the Zarathustra-accompanied ape discovery of the tool. The second is the monolith's discovery on the Moon, and the third is Bowman's approach to it around Jupiter just before he enters the Star Gate. This last sequence with the Requiem has much more movement in it than the first two, and it transitions directly into the music from Ligeti's Atmosphères which is heard when Bowman actually enters the Star Gate. NO MUSIC is heard during the monolith's much briefer final appearance in Dave Bowman's celestial bedroom which immediately precedes the Zarathustra-accompanied transformation of Bowman into the Star-Child.
So notice the connections here. Also, Chase has not been shy in the media about his affection for the movie 2001:A Space Odyssey.
“Dropping acid and seeing 2001: A Space Odyssey was the best times of my life.”-David Chase
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In his filming style for the episode “Made in America” we see in interviews Chase admitting to paying homage to the Monolith scene, the one set to the SOPRANO song that appears 3 times and the 4th time it appears NO MUSIC, just like the ending at Holstens…
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Chase: Filmically, that show [Made in America] had a lot to do with our favorite scene in 2001 when the astronaut wakes up, that episode was believe it or not sort of based on that.

Terrence Winter [writer/producer]: [you mean] seeing himself in the frame.

Chase: Projecting himself into his own future.
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AND
“Tony, all the way through [the final episode] would come somewhere, see the person he was going to talk to, cut back to him and then cut to him walking into his own point of view and he would then arrive and start talking. And that time got shorter and shorter and shorter. Janice was the longest and then there was another one that I don’t recall and then there was Junior which was even shorter. Then it went from Tony looking at Tony, back to Tony seeing himself. I sort of got that from 2001.”
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(The OTHER scene chase refers to I can't find a high quality photo to post, but its at the very beginning when he meet Agent Harris with Paulie. As he approaches Harris's car, this is the first time this pattern is established.)
Could it be that Tony represents the Monolith? This is just the beginning of how deep this rabbit hole goes my friends. Hold on if you think this is a revelation to you, theres a plenty more to be found down in here. Now that we have established a connection directly between these two movies\episodes, lets take a look at some more interesting tidbits. Hold on to your Cannolis……


Heres an interesting Observation made by a blogger who goes by Theotherforever on another Sopranos blog.
Sopranos (General)-
A. Bobby Bacala likes to hunt with a bow and arrow.
B. AJ goes into the pool.
C. Janice's son is named Harpo/Hal.
D. Hal Holbrook plays John Schwinn, formerly of Bell Labs.
E. Tony Soprano's breathing patterns are very noticeable.
F. AJ appears wearing his Dad's bathrobe.
G. Meadow is late due to her switching Birth control.

Compare the above to Stanley Kubrick's 1968 film-
"2001: A Space Odyssey"

A. One astronaut is named "Bowman."
B. Another astronaut is named "Poole."
C. HAL9000 is the name of the space ship's computer.
D. HAL was made to "speak" at Bell Labs.
E. Bowman's breathing is also very noticeable as he tries to rescue Poole.
F. Astronaut Bowman sees himself wearing a bathrobe.
G. A Star-Child is BORN.
Coincidence? Not! You catch my drift? Good lets keep going then, because there is so much more. (Credit note: The majority of the remaining material I will present on this subject will is based on observations originally made by theotherforever 8 years ago. After realizing a 2001 Kubrick connection and google searching to find out more, theotherforever was the one with the most compiled observations, so Kudos for the soldier work. I decided it was more relevant than I ever noticed before and deserved to be looked at. )
You know, Vito called me “skip” the other day. Slip of the tongue, no doubt. But I noticed he didn’t correct himself.

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