The Gnostic Theory of Lost by Red Eagle

Like a lot of people, I was somewhat dissatisfied by "Across the Sea" when I first watched it. However, just today, certain things dawned on me that could be the answers to the questions raised by this episode, and also explain certain things about the series as a whole.

I have come to believe that Gnosticism ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gnosticism ) has been a major influence on the mythology of "Lost". Gnostic beliefs were a major theme in Philip K. Dick's "VALIS", which Ben was shown reading in "Eggtown" and "The Other Woman". Moreover, in "316", Ben told Jack the story of the apostle Thomas- the purported author of one of the Gnostic Gospels.

Below are some core Gnostic beliefs that I have come to see as relevant to "Lost":

* The two main figures in Gnostic cosmology are the Demiurge (a malevolent entity that wrongly sees itself as the one true God) and Sophia (a goddess-like personification of wisdom who seeks to free humanity from the corruption and limitations of the material world, and help us evolve into purely spiritual beings). The Demiurge, moreover, is aided by beings known as the Archons, whose role is to corrupt and manipulate humans.

* Human souls are "Divine Sparks" from a higher plane of existence that have become trapped inside material bodies. According to some versions of the Gnostic creation myth, the Demiurge originally created humans as soulless creatures, but Sophia intervened and endowed us with Divine Sparks.

As to the specific relevance of these ideas:

* The Source is the same font of divine energy that Sophia used to give humans souls, and if it "went out", then all human beings would lose their souls.

* When a person is infected with the Sickness, they start to become possessed by an Archon, which begins to extinguish their Divine Spark.

* When Jacob threw the MIB into the Source, it separated MIB's soul from his body and turned him into a powerful spiritual being. However, since MIB had adopted such a selfish, arrogant worldview, his new form came out as a force for evil rather than good.

There also the question of why the statue of Tawaret and the Egyptian hieroglyphs in the Frozen Donkey Wheel chamber apparently didn't exist until *after* Roman times. One possible explanation lies with the Rosicrucians ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosicrucianism ), a secret society active during the Renaissance, who were believed by some to be guardians of mystic knowledge from both the original Gnostics and the ancient Egyptians. Sometime prior to 1867, a sect of Rosicrucians (or a like-minded secret society) came to the Island seeking to help protect the Source. They built the statue of Tawaret and the Temple, and also finished the Frozen Donkey Wheel- not for the same reasons MIB had started to build it, but as a last-ditch defense mechanism that would obscure the Island and the Source from those who threatened them.