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Saeid Behbahaninia abstract


Abstract

In this thesis, an explanation of psychedelic experience will be compared with The Holy Mountain in order to investigate if this film resembles a psychedelic experience, what Jodorowsky also suggests himself as what he asks of films in general. A psychedelic experience, based on Leary, Metzner, and Alpert’s The Psychedelic Experience, is divided into three phases: complete transcendence (period of ego-loss or non-game ecstasy), self or external game reality (period of hallucination), and return to routine game reality and self (period of re-entry). The Holy Mountain, presumably the psychedelic experience itself, reflects these phases in its theme and story, its picture and sound, and in breaking the fourth wall at its stunning ending. This thesis focuses on a few of the many connections in these phases. Alongside this, one scene of the film is compared with The Ontogenesis of the Interest in Money by Sándor Ferenczi and traditions of alchemy to back its supposed attempt to be valid. This thesis briefly attends to its countercultural elements, also associated with psychedelics.