# Predator, a Shaman's view

[original link](http://www.indiayogi.com/content/mythology/f_predator.asp) |
[archive link](https://web.archive.org/web/20021224053512/http://www.indiayogi.com/content/mythology/f_predator.asp)

*Predator* is one of the best action films ever made. In India it is also
one the most popular movies that ever played. The distributors regularly
re-release the movie and there is always an audience for it many years
after it was first released and also after it has been shown to death
on cable TV. This popularity cannot be explained only by the fact that
it is a very exciting movie. People who do not even know the language
go in to see it many times over. There is something else at work here
and this essay is an attempt to uncover the subliminal context of the
Predator film. As more than one great commentator has said we must ask
ourselves what things mean, not just what they say.

I submit that the movie is subconsciously talking about something that
has become very popular today, the breakdown of consciousness that
constitutes the call of the shaman. *The film deals with an interior
collapse of the psyche, which then reintegrates itself into a new man,
healed of traumas*. In Jungian terms the film is about how man has to
confront and transcend (not conquer) his Shadow side if he ever hopes
to become an integrated person. I do not mean that the director or
scriptwriter consciously planned to do so. They unconsciously accessed
an archetype called the Shaman's Journey in New Age literature.

This was easy because the director John McTiernan is well versed in the
tradition of dramatic structure in classical narrative as witnessed by
his other great film, *Die Hard*. The stages of dramatic structure parallel
the Shaman's Journey to an eerie extent.

The five stages (sometimes six stages) of Dramatic Structure are:

- Exposition
- Complication
- Crisis
- Denouement
- Conclusion
- Epilogue (this is rare).

In the Shaman's Journey the stages are:

- Darkness
- Descent
- Death
- Dismemberment
- Rejuvenation
- Return

These stages overlap each other quite extraordinarily and may explain
why all shamans all over the world have such a remarkable flair for
the Dramatic.

The exposition or **darkness** stage of the film is when the team
of commandos lead by Major Dutch Schultz prepare to rescue a bunch of
hostages in a tropical rain forest somewhere in South America. *The forest
has always represented subconscious fears of mankind, the unraveling
of the mind because of the terrors that lurk in the gloom (a word that
represents both darkness as well as depression incidentally) of the
unconscious*. The plot details are really irrelevant. The country they
are going to invade is their mind and what they are going to confront
is their own Shadow.

They are ripe for a deep psychological crisis to come upon them. All
of them are in the prime of life, robust physical specimens, the living
epitome of *Andros*---man as a physical being. They are the best at what
they do, but what they do is not very nice. They kill and destroy to
rescue people and the contradictions inherent in such behavior have been
festering for a long time in the mind. All of them are elite professionals
but they have chosen to become supreme in something that is essentially
a very unhealthy way to be. Rudimentary aspirations to good prevent them
from becoming outright assassins, they have just refused to assassinate
Libya's leader when the film begins, but they are stone cold killers
when the need arises. So the distinction is really superfluous and seems
contrived to convince themselves that they are still good guys.

So merged are they in a group consciousness that they really seem to have
no role and no life beyond that of their respective combat roles. One
guy is the scout, the other operates the radio, a third is the NCO
keeping the unit in order, while yet another operates the mother of all
light machine guns, chillingly nicknamed "Painless." They are what the
elite Ninja strike teams would call a *dantai*---a team that has become
so welded together that they literally have a single consciousness and
all of them are aware at all times of the others as well as what they
are experiencing. This extends to feelings and physical sensations like
pain too. *They are in a grim way the ultimate Modern Men, successful at
manipulating technology in a manner that guarantees success and at the
top of their profession. In other words they are just ripe for a mental
breakdown*. The emotions and issues they have carefully locked away, the
Shadow they have systematically denied in the climb up the greasy pole,
is now waiting to unleash itself upon them. That Shadow is the Predator.

They **descend** into the jungle with the cocky assurance of professionals
in mid-season form. However there is a warning that the rules are
changing. The intelligence man is a bit rusty and makes noise in sliding
about. Whereupon the sergeant tells him, "I don't care who you were *back
in the real world*. [Emphasis added.] Do that again and I will kill you." They come upon
murdered and literally skinned bodies of another crew of elite soldiers
like them, the standard warning posts that litter the shaman's descent.
Much speculation follows but they shrug and get on with it. They are not
going to get caught napping like that. Their belief in training and
equipment and skill is unshakable. Nothing exemplifies this attitude
better than the famous line spoken by Jesse Ventura when it is pointed
out that he is bleeding: "I ain't got time to bleed." Elite professionals
have no weaknesses, none that can be publicly acknowledged, any
limitations, or so they fondly hope. They are about to realize the extent
of their delusions.

At first their self-belief seems justified. They attack the terrorist
camp in the sort of high-octane blast usually reserved for the climatic
sequence. The terrorists are blown away with ease, a literal walk in
the park. This seems to be a game for them and mythologically a game has
different connotations from that of mythic combat. In a game both parties
start from a state of artificial equilibrium, and the contest ends with
one clear winner. The entire structure is thus artificial and designed for
specific purposes. The mythic combat however is more true to the structure
of the universe, beginning as it always does when the times are out of
joint and it never ends with a clear winner, but the universal harmony
or equilibrium is restored at the end of it. *Psychologically speaking
the mythic combat alone can heal you, while games may lead you further
down the path of self-delusion or confirm and reinforce your errors
of behavior and thought. It is not by accident that we say people are
playing games with themselves*.

At the moment of yet another inevitable success, their victory turns
to ashes in their mouth. For they had been set up by the intelligence
man, and what they were rescuing turned out to be military plans,
not hostages. The sense of betrayal deepens when they are refused an
airlift out of the combat zone as it is too dangerous. Their world
has suddenly turned out to be full of treachery and slimy mindsets,
not the clean-cut professionally motivated job-sphere they thought it
was. Their organizations and superiors deceive them, but they have
actually been deceiving themselves all the while that their mode of
life was meaningful. All of their certitudes have suddenly come under
attack and it is a full-scale crisis of not only conscience but also of
consciousness. The intelligence operative laughs at them, he has cynically
accepted this reality. But cynicism is a crumbling defense at best against
the imperatives of a psychological crisis as will be proved later. They
cannot continue to function in the old way, but it is the only way they
know. At this point, their collective Shadow, personified by the Predator,
pounces on them and literally proceeds to tear them apart.

The team enters the **death** and **dismemberment** stage but they have a Shaman's
Assistant in the only survivor of the attack on the camp, a young native
girl. The Shaman's Assistant has useful advice on the terrors to be
overcome, but he/she cannot participate with you or accompany you to the
conclusion of your journey. The script casts the girl's role in classical
fashion. Death, or the psychological disintegration, comes suddenly to
them one at a time and the team is increasingly traumatized. Combined
with the bewilderment is the unspoken humiliation of being so easily
defeated. They are the best, and they are getting torn apart at will. They
continue to view the Shadow attack as a competition, a game to be won and
offence to be retaliated against, without realizing that they desperately
need to move into Mythic combat mode.

In one of the bravura set pieces of the movie, they retaliate against
the Predator-Shadow with the full power of their rational external
personas. They bring all their professional expertise to bear upon the
problem facing them, but the trouble is that it is merely more of the
same behavior that got them into this psychotic stage to begin with. I
refer of course to the extended firefight, where they shoot everything
they have at the Predator in a literally unbelievable sequence. They rip
the forest apart but only succeed in mildly wounding the Shadow. This
behavior is denial at its peak. They refuse to admit that there is a
situation that they cannot solve and they throw the entire weight of
their skills and technology at it in the hope that they can bury it in
bullets. To compulsively deny anything is wrong and aggressively carry on
"as usual" is one of the subtler forms of insanity.

(It is also rather delightful that the entire sequence can also be read
only too obviously to mirror the modern invasive surgical practices
that are practiced when disease is sought to be cut out, or burnt out
in chemotherapy, rather than cured. The "cancer" is only wounded and
comes back with greater virulence after a mild regression-recuperation.)

This posturing and cranking up of normal behavioral patterns is to no
avail. They continue to be killed and skinned one by one. There is even
a delightful episode where they lay a trap for the Predator and a pig
stumbles into it, which they kill. This too is psychologically astute. If
you are in denial, you will perform some showy action that "proves" to
your entire satisfaction that you have "solved the problem" and proceed
in your usual unhealthy fashion. The Predator is inherently unkillable as
long as they approach it in the standard manner. For every technological
flourish in guns they wave about (phallic symbols of virility and power)
the Predator has something infinitely more deadly. They have Painless
but the Predator has a laser-shooting weapon and like all good Shadows
is practically invisible. It comes into sight only at the moment it
strikes you down.

Only the American Indian tracker in the unit, Billy, knows that they
are not facing up to a normal man and consequently he cannot be killed
normally. Billy's insight however is no use for him as he is paralyzed
with superstitious fear. He drops away the cocoon of technology that
he is encased in and fights the predator with a knife. The combat is
merely a gesture however for he is too fearful to win. In real terms
his Shadow devours him. Only Major Dutch Schultz, the leader and soul
of the *dantai* remains. He is chased by the Predator who deliberately
toys with him and it ends with his going over a cliff into a pool of
crystal-clear water. This is the ritual purificatory bath that many
mystery cults insist upon before they reveal the final mysteries. *In the
Shaman's Journey it is almost taken for granted that you will have to
plunge into a body of water at some time or the other, but especially
at moments of approaching crisis/significance*.

Curiously after this bath, the major has to crawl through the mud on the
banks of the pool. He is a filthy mess but he is too tired and grateful
to be alive to resent it. This acceptance of filth, symbolic of his inner
darkness or mess is the first step towards healing. This is what he is,
no disguises, no external constructs of persona, no self-deluding images
of strength and valor in shining uniforms. *This embracing of the muck is
a coming to terms with what you really are and always the most difficult
stage of psychological maturity*. All of us would like to think we are
shining heroes and we do not like the swamp of unconscious motivations
and desires and regrets and denials that fill up the psyche. Recognizing
this, accepting this, and not being destroyed by it are vital processes
in healing. This is the **rejuvenation** stage.

The mud saves the major's life, as he has become invisible to the
Predator. As long as he thought of himself as separate from the Shadow
it could wreak havoc. As soon as he accepts his reality, all the demons
of the unconscious no longer have power over him. The major does not
realize it at first. He thinks he is going to die and accepts that. This
recognition of the possibility of death and an acceptance of it is a
vital part of the Shaman's Journey. Without coming to terms with death
you cannot go ahead. The rejuvenation is now complete. He could slink
away and "save" himself but he recognizes that will not help him. Each
death in his unit was like his own and he owes it to all of them to
overcome this inner foe.

Now he actually challenges the Predator to come after him. He is stripped
down to the bare-bones essence of a human being now, and there is nothing
more powerful and dangerous than that. Gone are the trappings of success
and professionalism and artificiality. The major rediscovers the old
warrior credo, "It's not the weapon, but the man." There is nothing
here but what is inside, he has discovered the inner man, the real man,
and everything operates from that incredible state of awareness. He
literally becomes a part of his surroundings and his tools and weapons
are those fashioned by the mind and ingenuity of a man functioning at
this peak, not factory produced. Bows and arrows, slingshot and boulders
and spears and fireballs replace the high tech. He moves into the realm
of mythic combat, no longer functioning in the competition-game mode. *He
assaults the Shadow as a fully aware, totally integrated personality, not
as somebody with a fractured psyche. The victory restores psychological
equilibrium*, though he well knows there will be devastation all round as a
consequence. But that is temporary and worth the price. It is the Predator
who now makes the mistakes, relying on technology instead of awareness
and he is crushed by a boulder set up for that purpose by the major.

The dying Predator has a final nasty surprise (a mini-nuke) up his
sleeve, the last kick of a Shadow that is fighting for survival and
resists integration. The major wisely runs from this, it is not good
to stay too long in the realms of the unconscious, especially when you
have done your job. In choosing so he shows his fresh maturity, there
is no false macho posturing any more. Major Dutch Schultz has finally
made the transition from being merely *Andros*, a man as a physical
being, to becoming *Anthropos*, Man in his wholeness. The experience,
like all shamanistic transformations, has scarred and transformed him
and he maintains an ominous silence even when the civilized world's
helicopters finally pick him up. No Arnold Schwarzenegger wisecracks
punctuate this finale of the **return** to the real world. It is a fair guess
that he will retire from "rescue missions." He is a new man now and the
old ways do not apply. It seems to me that the fascination of the movie
lies in the spectacle of watching this Shaman's Journey. We are all
vicarious participants and at some deep level we feel the archetypal
resonances too deeply not to be moved. This explains why *Predator*
does not seem dated either nor is there any real likelihood of it ever
becoming irrelevant, unlike its sequel which was pretty bad.