βΆ Dispatches From the Unseen: Red Buttons, Magic 8-balls, and the Alchemy of choice β
On moral passageways, psychic tolls, and the Great Work.
Some stories donβt stay contained to the screen.
They root themselves in you, waiting for the moment you can finally see them for what they are.
Richard Kellyβs The Box and Bob Galeβs Interstate 60 are two such movies.
To most, theyβre unrelated curiositiesβa moral thriller and an early 2000s road movieβbut together they reveal an alchemical journey from temptation to transcendence.
After allβ¦ once youβve lived inside cinema long enough, you start to recognize the same frequency running beneath the plot: the loops, the archetypes, the strange fingerprints that donβt belong to mere coincidence.
These two movies arenβt any different.
Theyβre dispatches from the same hidden source, fragments of a long, slow transmission Iβve been unknowingly tuned into since the nights I lingered in Family Video to stay out of the blast radius at homeβpulling titles from shelves without realizing I was stockpiling pieces of a message I wouldnβt decode until years later.
What follows is my attempt to trace that message: an exploration of the occult and mythic resonances running through both films, the shared archetypes they conceal, and the ancient patterns they echo.
Beneath their surfaces lies a structure older than cinema itselfβone that only reveals itself if youβve been watching closely for a very long time.
π The Box (2009): forbidden fruit in suburbia
The premise of Theβ―Box is deceptively simple.
In December 1976 a financially stressed NASA engineer named Arthur Lewis and his wife Norma find a mysterious wooden box on their doorstep.
A disfigured man named Arlington Steward delivers a key and a chilling offer: press the red button and receive $1 million, but at the cost of a strangerβs life.
The couple debate the morality of the situation while grappling with financial hardship (Arthur fails his astronaut psych exam and the school where Norma teaches ends their sonβs tuition discount).
Norma eventually presses the button, setting off a chain of supernatural occurrences.
It soon becomes clear that the box is not simply a deviceβit is a moral test conducted by mysterious forces.
The test is also repeated: every time someone presses the button, the offer will be presented to another couple.
Kelly adapted the film from Richard Mathesonβs short story βButton, Buttonβ.
In the original story, Matheson envisioned the button as a simple ethical dilemma: would you kill a stranger for money?
The film, however, expands this into a cosmological experiment.
Steward reveals that the test is being carried out by higher powers to judge whether humanity is worth preserving.
This twist moves the film away from a mere thriller into an eschatological allegory: pressing the button becomes akin to taking the forbidden fruit, and the consequences ripple through the cosmos.
π Eve, Pandora and the Serpent
The choice to press the button resonates strongly with the story of Eve and the Tree of Knowledge.
Movieguide notes that it is always the woman who presses the button, an βobvious reference to the story of Adam and Eveβ.
In Genesis, Eve takes the fruit and brings death into the world.
In Kellyβs film, Normaβs impulsive act unleashes sufferingβnot only a strangerβs death but eventually her own tragic demise when Arthur must shoot her to save their blind son.
Another myth hovering in the background is of course Pandoraβs box.
In Hesiodβs tale, Pandoraβs curiosity leads her to open a jar, releasing every form of trouble into the world; only Hope remains inside.
The myth mirrors Eveβs transgression and emphasizes that a single act can unleash irreversible chaos.
A modern take on Pandoraβs box describes it as a metaphor for endless complications arising from a simple miscalculation.
Kelly merely literalizes this metaphor by turning the βboxβ into a moral device with global repercussions.
The serpent who tempts Eve corresponds to kundalinΔ«, the yogic life force depicted as a coiled serpent at the base of the spine.
When awakened, this energy rises through the chakras to bring enlightenment.
In esoteric tradition, the serpentβs awakening symbolizes individuation: the moment we recognize ourselves as separate from the All.
The Boxβs temptation thus forces Arthur and Norma to confront their ego (their sense of separateness) and triggers a painful initiation into a world of synchronicities.
They are shown that every choice they make echoes throughout the collective psyche.
π Trials of the heart: Odysseusβ Bow and the Bullet
Late in the film, Steward imposes a terrible choice on Arthur: kill Norma or let their son remain blind and deaf.
The scene recalls the trial of the bow in Homerβs Odyssey.
When Odysseus returns in disguise, Penelope announces a contest: she will marry the man who can string Odysseusβ bow and shoot an arrow through twelve axeβheads.
Each suitor tries and fails until Odysseus strings the bow with ease and regains his place.
Kelly mirrors this mythic trial: Arthurβs bullet must pierce his wifeβs heart to restore his sonβs sight, a dark inversion of the heroic feat.
Instead of winning a bride, Arthur loses his beloved but secures his childβs future.
The bullet, like the arrow, becomes a rite of passageβviolence that leads to a strange salvation.
πInterstate 60 (2002): the Road that Doesnβt Exist
If The Box is about succumbing to temptation, Interstate 60 explores the inward journey that follows.
The film follows Neal Oliver, a young man torn between becoming a lawyer (his fatherβs wish) and pursuing art.
After a head injury, he is given a mysterious assignment: deliver a package along Interstate 60, a highway that does not exist on any map.
During his journey he encounters O.W. Grant, an immortal trickster who can grant wishes but mostly enjoys messing with people.
Grant gives Neal a magic 8βball that always answers correctly and directs him toward his true desire.
On the road, Neal meets people who have lost their way through money, sex, drugs and other indulgences.
Each encounter is an allegory about perception and will.
One of Grantβs sayingsββSome people just donβt know what to wish forββcaptures the theme: the heartβs desire is often obscured by societal expectations.
As the journey progresses, Neal becomes more certain about what he wants to do with his life.
Bob Gale wrote and directed the film, and critics note that it shares the βcharm and lifeβaffirming themesβ of his Back to the Future screenplay.
π€‘ Tricksters, Guides, and Alchemical Pathways
Grant is an archetypal trickster.
He smokes a broken pipe and hints that to recover oneβs heart (symbolized by the pipe/phallus) one must return what has been lostβa mythic motif reminiscent of the Osiris myth.
The package Neal delivers at the end turns out to be a replacement pipe for Grant, meaning the quest itself was arranged so that the seeker could return the creative spark to the divine source.
This circular logicβGrant giving Neal the task of returning his own pipeβshows that the Great Work is an ouroboros: the beginning is the end.
But Grant isnβt the only guide.
Ray (Christopher Lloyd) appears as a godlike figure who introduces the concept of βblack heartsβ and the alchemical Black Sun.
He sets Neal on his path and thus plays the role of deus ex machina.
The filmβs world teems with synchronicitiesβmagical road signs from the βGreeneβ company, characters with colorβcoded names (Neil Oliver, Lynn Linden), and repeated number symbolsβmirroring the way Kelly fills The Box with recurring patterns.
Both films, though made by different creators, form a dialogue.
In The Box the test begins in suburbia, where a couple is confronted with an external temptation.
In Interstate 60 the test becomes an inner journey.
The mysterious highway is an βinner stateβ, a pun on Interstate that hints at travelling through the psyche.
Where Normaβs finger on the button unleashes karma in the Box, Nealβs finger on the magic 8βball guides his intuition.
The Box shows what happens when we act from fear.
Interstate 60 shows what happens when we follow the call of the heart.
Together they present a synchromystic map of the soul.
πThe Alchemy of Choice, Synchronicity, and the Great Work
As weβve already briefly touched upon, the pressing of the button in the Box is the equivalent to awakening the kundalini.
It forces the initiates to confront their own shadow and the collective consequences of their desire.
With that in mind, the subsequent journey down Interstate 60 is the raising of that energy through the chakras, meeting archetypes, and dissolving the ego.
In hermetic terms, the path moves from solve (dissolution of the old self) to coagula (reintegration of the new self).
Arthur and Norma must dissolve their egoic attachment to money.
Neal, on the other hand, must coagulate his creative desire.
Both narratives are also saturated with βcoincidencesβ.
In The Box, the couple notices βagentsβ everywhere: every stranger seems to know what they did.
In Interstate 60, Neal encounters towns built around obsessionβlaw, lust, addictionβthat mirror his own temptations.
These events illustrate Carl Jungβs notion of synchronicity, where internal psychological states are mirrored by external events.
The Boxβs cosmic test and Interstate 60βs imaginary highway both function as alchemical laboratories that reveal the seekerβs inner condition.
π§΅Conclusion: Pressing the Button, Taking the Road
Richard Kellyβs film asks us whether we would press a button if no one we knew would suffer.
Bob Galeβs film asks what we would do if given the chance to ask any question.
One story deals with guilt and sacrifice; the other with desire and selfβdiscovery.
Yet both lead to the same realization: the universe is responsive to consciousness.
The box appears because the coupleβs financial fears have made them susceptible to temptation.
The highway appears because Neal asks for an answer.
The serpent awakens either way, and its journey up the spine can be heaven or hell depending on our choices.
Myth tells us that Eveβs apple, Pandoraβs jar, Odysseusβ bow and the kundalinΔ« serpent are all expressions of a single archetype: the moment of choice that transforms us.
Kelly and Gale disguise this archetype in suburban living rooms and on mythic highways, but the pattern is the same.
Inner state 60 is not a place on any map: it is the road within each of us.
When confronted with our own red buttons, we must choose whether to remain in ignorance or to begin the alchemical journey of becoming whole.
