Spiritual Journey in The Magnus Archives (student choice, Elizabeth White)

 Spiritual Journey in The Magnus Archives


Spoiler Warning: Major spoilers for season five of The Magnus Archives. 

The Magnus Archives is a weekly horror podcast by Rusty Quill started in 2016. It was completed in 2021 with five seasons and two hundred episodes. This week I finally finished season five and was surprised at how similar the main character’s journey in the final arc is to the idea of the spiritual journey from our class. I know it is not exactly a film, but it uses immersive audio and dialogue in ways that have related to the films we've discussed. Also, I wrote this before I realized it is not actually a film. The immersive storytelling and description is so good that I genuinely forgot it is not a visual medium. The show is about the inner workings of The Magnus Institute, “an organization dedicated to researching the esoteric and the weird'' (Rustyquill.com). The main character, Jonathan Sims, is the head archivist of their extensive and disorganized library of statements from victims of supposed supernatural occurrences. Jon is a skeptic and his job is to organize the statements by recording them read aloud. 

Initially, the statements are not related to each other. Other than the frame story of the various characters occasionally chatting, the statements are just separate creepy horror stories. Over the course of five seasons, things slowly begin to connect together. It turns out that all of the statements relate to different “entities,” such as The Slaughter (born from the fear of pain, violence, and war) or The Lonely (born from the fear of isolation), who are feeding on human fear and suffering. The Magnus Institute was created by a worshiper of The Eye (born from the fear of being watched/exposed) who plans to enact a ritual to give the entities total power of the world. At the end of season four, his plan succeeds. Jon has been groomed into accidentally kickstarting the apocalypse where he is forced to be a sort of God, chosen by The Eye, to witness the fear of the humans trapped in their own personal fearscapes and feed his patron with their “statements.” Obviously, Jon is not okay with this. Him and Martin (a former research assistant at the Institute, prior to the apocalypse, now romantic partner) go on a spiritual journey to banish the fears from their world. The narrative offers two possible ways to analyze Jon’s spiritual journey depending on how you view his motivations throughout the series. The first is that Jon’s ultimate journey is ascending to The Eye. Now that I have learned about the journey, there is an argument to be made that Jon’s journey might not actually be to save the world, but to attain power. I have chosen to analyze the second option though, as it's just as compelling.

The first aspect of the spiritual journey given in our class lecture is “challenge or reproof by a young woman, frequently with an aura of supernatural prophecy to her words.” This one does not fit exactly, but there are several supernatural female characters in the story. Jon’s journey begins after he is reminded of the tragic deaths of his former colleagues. The former head archivist (who was murdered prior to Jon’s hiring), Gertrude Robinson, has a sort of all knowing prophetic weight to her words. It is her recordings, and the recordings of other murdered colleagues, that inspire Jon to try and set things right. The second aspect is “guidance from a wise old man or woman, often a hermit or monk.” In episode 180, Jon and Martin happen upon a safe zone. A bubble created by Mikaele Salesa, an old man who used to work in the trade of supernatural objects, which the fears cannot touch. The characters are able to stay there and recover. Salesa tells them his story and eventually they go back on their way to save the world. The third aspect, “instances of wandering seen as sin and a diversion from the quest or pilgrimage,” is represented in the other avatars of the Entities. One such character, Helen, attempts to trick the characters off their path several times. She often succeeds in pulling Jon and Martin away from their quest and deeper into the fearscape. This is a bit of a simplistic take on her character, but it fits well enough. 

The next is “the necessity of a test of one’s spiritual powers and/or resolve to continue the journey.” Jon is constantly tested throughout season five. Each fearscape is a new set of horrors he must face and leave behind to reach on the next stage of his journey. Over his journey, Jon has to make decisions on who to trust and who to kill if he has any hope of helping the victims of the apocalypse. He also struggles with his personal desire for the power and knowledge The Eye gives him. This culminates in a final moment where Jon is given two paths to save the world. One where he banishes the fears to other dimensions, possibly dooming them to their fate, and one where he assumes the role of The Eye’s prodigy and attempts to remake the world in a better image with his new powers. Jon chooses to become a god and must absorb the knowledge of literally the entire world and survive. The “precious object and/or person to be found” is probably the restoration of the human world. This one bends the rules a bit as it is not a literal object, but the goal of his journey is to save the world. The “guardians of the object who must be overcome” are the avatars of the Entities, such as Helen or Jonah Magnus himself. Alternatively, Jon’s lust for power is its own barrier to saving the world that he must conquer. 

There are a myriad of helpers, most of all Martin, but he could have his own analysis as a hero of his own sacred journey, so I won’t focus on him. Characters like Basira Hussein, Georgie Barker, and Melanie King all provide safe haven and/or aid along the journey. Some of the other aspects of the journey that The Magnus Archives uses are the narrative form of a pilgrimage (Jon and Martin are going to London, the center of The Eye, from Scotland). They wander along the way. This is significant because the rules of geography and time don’t apply in the apocalypse world. Jon says at various points over the season that their journey does not have a set distance, but a set of experiences they must witness or conquer to get to their destination. In the finale, Jon must ascend the tower literally. It is very tall and has a lot of stairs. Jon does not save the world in the typical heroic journey sense. He succumbs to his desire for power and chooses to become a god (although, it was kind of an impossible choice to begin with). In a series of complicated events, Martin has arranged for Plan A to be executed without Jon knowing, resulting in Jon (as the new god) being banished to the alternate dimensions. In order to complete the ritual, Martin must kill Jon. They disappear along with the Entities and the world returns to normal. The story does not confirm what happens to Jon and Martin after they disappear. I hope it went well for them, though. 

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