The alien in the castle: Giger and Gruyères

Note: The content of this post may not be appropriate for young readers.

Gruyères is basically a castle on a hill with a walled village attached. There is really not much else, besides rolling hills where cows graze, and a large cheese factory where robot nurses tend thousands of wheels of nascent Gruyere cheese as it ages to perfection.

Our couchsurfing host Slass lived directly across from this cheese factory. He was a DJ and master of the art of mixing music and beats from his stacks of vinyl records. I noticed a poster in his entryway of a Salvador Dalí painting in which long-legged elephants marched over an eyeless, contorted head and a host of other oddities in shades of blue.

The morning after we arrived, with the rain

having set in, I decided to go tour the castle—one of the most beautiful and fairytale-like I had ever seen. Quaint shops and restaurants lined the cobbled main street leading up through the walled city to the castle itself. Curiously, just a few doors down from the castle, on the right, I was surprised to find a large and imposing museum of the Swiss artist H. R. Giger, who became most famous for his Oscar-winning contributions to the 1979 Alien movie directed by Ridley Scott. A skeleton-like winged creature made of rusty metal hung over the door. Across the street was a bar of the same theme, with giant spinal columns for arches and chairs that fused creature and machine. As far from my personal taste as Giger’s art is--perhaps even because that distance--I felt curious to know what he was really about, and what message lay beneath his nightmarish “biomechanical” aesthetic.

The reception desk at the castle offered a discounted ticket to tour both the castle and the museum, so I went for it. I was taken by surprise again in the castle gift shop to find all sorts of bizarre fantasy paraphernalia roughly clustered around fairies.

This odd theme of the bizarre inhabiting the beautiful continued as I toured the castle grounds. One alcove featured a glass case containing the severed hand of a mummy, apparently plundered from Egypt during the middle ages. A large upper room was full from floor to ceiling with contemporary art inspired by the castle. Strange fairies and giants intermingled with images of the castle and surrounding landscape. On the other hand, another room was full of masterful 19th century paintings of pastoral landscapes and women in flowing dresses. In another were four massive tapestries depicting biblical scenes from the life of Samson. Balconies looked down on pristine, vibrant gardens framed by the surrounding hills and forests. At the main gate were two massive bronze shields by Patrick Woodroffe themed after Mars and Venus, both disturbing in their depictions of violence and sexuality, respectively.


All this made me even more curious about the Giger museum. Was there some connection between all the different bizarre art? What did it mean, and what could I deduce from its dark contrasts with the more traditional and religious remnants of the castle and town? The bronze shields reminded me of books and poetry written by two good friends, Michael Ward and Malcolm Guite, both C. S. Lewis scholars who helped me understand the dual natures of planetary mythology. Each planet’s influence--its unique nature--could be either for good or for evil. Today Mars is often thought to represent the brutality of war, but it also represents the stalwart nobility of chivalry. Venus, likewise, is usually associated with unbridled sexuality, and the objectified female form. But Venus is also the morning star--the pure, untainted power and beauty from which Satan fell. Venus represents motherhood, and even divine love. In his book Planet Narnia, Ward highlights Lewis’s description of Venus as a powerful, nearly terrifying virtue in That Hideous Strength: “It was charity, not as mortals imagine it, not even as it has been humanised for them since the Incarnation of the World, but the translunary virtue, fallen upon them direct from the Third Heaven, unmitigated. They were blinded, scorched, deafened.” How different this image was from cartoon-like nudes wrapped around each other and evocative sea snails.

The reception desk at the Giger museum sat under a canopy of black creatures part serpent, part skeleton, part bat. The way their wings touched created an uncanny resemblance to the Ark of the Covenant. As I walked up the stairs into the exhibit, one of the first pieces I came across was a large cement panel full of babies packed together in rows and bound with belts across their bodies. It reminded me of the scene in The Matrix that shows thousands of humans confined in artificial pods to provide energy for the machines growing them.

Other areas of the museum contained the type of Alien franchise paraphernalia I had expected to see--sculptures of the famed alien and other creatures, even a mechanical head from the movie showing the internal controls that would have moved its jaws and facial features. What I did not expect to see was the amount of sexually and satanically oriented art. Nearly every type of deviant and disturbing fusion of creature and machine was represented somewhere, in some way. Bear with me. My goal is not to stoke criticism against Giger, but to explore earnestly what can be concluded from his art.

The third floor of the museum housed Giger’s own private collection of other artists, giving an interesting peek at not what he makes, but what he is drawn to in the work of others’. The pieces there continued roughly the same theme, in a more varied aesthetic--a bronze skeleton spider, a splayed-skin book, and images of violence and reproductive aberrance.

Although I still didn’t feel I could honestly answer the question of whether Giger was criticizing or glorifying these terrors, I did feel that the ambiguity left an uncomfortable amount of room for much of his fanbase to follow them further into the darkness he portrayed, rather than out of it. Disappointment followed me out of the museum, and I began searching online for the opinions of more well-informed critics.

A fascinating piece entitled “H. R. Giger and the Zeitgeist of the Twentieth Century" came up by a psychologist and M. D. named Stanislav Grof. "It is easier for many people to see Giger's images as an expression of his personal depravation, perversion, or psychopathology,” Grof writes, “rather than recognize in his art, elements that we all carry in the depths of our psyche.” He quotes from a conversation with filmmaker Oliver Stone in which Stone says, “I do not know anybody else who has so accurately portrayed the soul of modern humanity. A few decades from now when they will talk about the twentieth century, they will think of Giger.”

Grof’s take on the art is that Giger has tapped into an important vein of psychology Grof calls the “perinatal unconscious”--essentially the embedded memories of the traumatic sensations of the biological birth process. “As the ultimate master of the nightmarish aspect of the perinatal unconscious, which is the source of individual and social psychopathology and of much of the suffering in the modern world, Giger has no match in the history of art,” Grof says.

It’s clear from Grof’s biographical anecdotes of Giger that Giger is depicting things he strongly fears and detests, not things he finds perversely attractive. He studied industrial design in Zurich and first began to paint as a form of art therapy for his own troubling night terrors.

Grof outlines convincing interpretations of Giger’s striking portrayal of confinement dark and womb-like passages, and violent sexual imagery according to the perinatal theme.

“Giger has been in touch with the perinatal domain of his unconscious since his childhood. He has always been fascinated by underground tunnels, dark corridors, cellars, and ghost rides. Many of his nightmares spawned by his memory of the birth trauma have given him a deep understanding of the symbolism of the perinatal process, particularly its difficult and challenging aspects. He knows intimately the agony of the embryo in a hostile or toxic womb, as well as the suffering of the fetus during the arduous passage through the birth canal. And he is fully aware of the fact that the source of this knowledge is his own memory of birth.”

I had to agree that this interpretation made a lot of sense of what I’d seen. It caused me to begin casting about in my own thoughts for some logical way to engage and continue the philosophical conversation. The first thing that came to mind was a passage from an ancient hymn I’ve heard recited that says of Christ “...thou didst not abhor the virgin’s womb.” It’s a rather curious passage, but is a pivotal point of doctrine from 4th-century Christendom that countered the gnostic and platonic idea that God could never take on flesh, let alone undergo the human birth process, which was considered by some utterly unclean, if not spiritually detestable. In many times and places in history, sexuality was a necessary evil to be given up later in life by the morally devout and enlightened. To this dualistic philosophy that God is spirit, and flesh is evil and temporary, the Incarnation would have felt like a dirty slap in the face. But what difference does that make to Giger’s art?

I brought this issue up with my friend David who is a counselor and scholar in the theology of aesthetics. He said he has wrestled fruitfully with the question, “What do we fear?” On the one hand, we must admit that not all of our fears are imagined. The world is full of real suffering, real sexual atrocity that drags mind and soul into bitter, seemingly inescapable torment. The horror genre fascinates us, whether we want it to or not. It depicts a dangerous world--dangerous people and creatures and places that can harm us, and there is no end to what we can imagine along those lines.

Death is one of the most powerful forces in any story, regardless of the genre. The biblical picture addresses this in an unexpected way--not by mitigating evil, but by portraying a form of good that’s even more terrifying. We hear about fearing God, which has always been a difficult concept for me since God is also our protector and provider. However, when I had nightmares as a little kid, I couldn’t have felt safe with my dad protecting me unless he were the kind of dad I knew could beat somebody up. A weakling dad isn’t much of a comfort, but neither is an evil dad, who is powerful but not good. I needed (and had) one with that stalwart chivalry from the light side of Mars. I think about Moses and Elijah both falling down in terror like dead men when confronted with the presence of God. And then, hundreds of years later, that same terrifying God became human…

On the second floor of the Giger museum, in one of the black rooms just above the doorway in the corner I noticed a kind of fresco that hadn’t been covered in black paint like the rest of the space. I had to take a flashlight and lean over a barrier to be able to make out the figure of Christ on the cross. I wondered if it could have been something Giger orchestrated intentionally; not far away was a glass table in the middle of the room supported by half a dozen figures of the crucified Christ. But there was no plaque or description acknowledging the tiny fresco’s existence among the other museum pieces, and it clearly wasn’t Giger’s hand that did it. Up in the castle, at the bottom of a spiral stairway not far from the severed mummy hand was a similar but larger fresco, and nearby a faded Greek inscription dated 1685, also narrowly spared obscurity by centuries of new paint. Translated in the castle information leaflet, it read, “The cross will flood and light the world.” No other information existed about its origin.

Should we fear what is outside of us, or within us? I wondered. There’s a fascinating irony in how Christendom answers the question. We find in ourselves if we look honestly the infection of sin that makes us our own worst enemies. Like Frankenstein--another piece of Swiss cultural heritage--we humans are perhaps the worst monsters there are. The name “Frankenstein” never referred to the grotesque monster, but to the doctor who created him in a lab. The book Frankenstein was a modern retelling of the myth of Prometheus, notably also the title of the latest installment of the Alien franchise.

We do have reason to fear the evil within us. But there is something else, too, worth fearing. Scripture says, “Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell.” This isn’t Satan, believe it or not, it’s God! We’re told we have great reason to fear him like Moses and Elijah, but right away he tells us not to be afraid. The very next sentence reads, “Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground outside your Father’s care. And even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. So don’t be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows.”

Somehow baby Jesus is the very same terrifying pillar of fire and Christ of the Apocalypse, and the only reason, the only reason, we need not fear is because He loves us dearly. We don’t think much about how dangerous He actually is--Aslan the lion who is “not safe, but good.” The irony, I thought, is that the most terrifying being in the universe was not something “out there” to fear, but someone who came to live inside a young virgin, and later inside many billions of others, to be a force to conquer evil from the inside out.

In Prometheus the movie, an alien parasite infects and grows inside the womb of a woman who saves her life by performing an emergency C-section on herself. She ends up being the sole survivor. It’s almost like the Christian redemption narrative was crafted as a response to this very notion of evil hanging about outside trying to get at us, especially the form Giger envisions. The most terrifying thing in the world, it turns out, is the good come to inhabit us, and the very reason we need not fear it because it is also “searing, deafening” love. It’s the light side of both Mars and Venus--the good and powerful warrior, the loving mother, the pure womb and the flesh Christ redeemed from the inside out by becoming flesh.

Looking at the castle’s towers and forests and flowers, I didn’t want to make an aesthetic judgment of pretty versus ugly. It’s probably the cute aesthetic of cherubs and precious moments many Christians adopt that rightly repels those of more sophisticated and discerning taste. Good must be something stronger than evil, but somehow that’s so much harder to imagine, at least to imagine well. Grof quotes artist and friend of Giger, Ernst Fuchs: “[When we experience Giger’s art]…despair and craving for manifestation of new heaven and new earth have begun to fight for our soul. Yes, even the hope that we will once again see the celestial blue of the sky becomes a complementary wishful image, as if in this negative had to be hidden a positive. I have long suspected the existence of this element and believe that I have discovered traces of it in Giger’s art.”

Grof continues, “In general, however, the transcendental potential of the perinatal process has so far received little of Giger's attention. It would be interesting to speculate about the possible reasons for it. The great American mythologist Joseph Campbell once commented that the images of hell in world mythology are by far more intriguing and interesting than those of heaven because, unlike happiness and bliss, suffering can take so many different forms. Maybe Giger feels that the transcendental dimension has been more than adequately represented in western art, while the deep abyss of the dark side has been avoided. It is also possible that Giger’s own healing process has not yet proceeded far enough to embrace the transcendental dimension with the same compelling force with which it has engaged the Shadow.”

Back at the cheese factory I watched the robots pull giant wheels of Gruyere from their slots and bathe them in saltwater to help them cure. Once you delve into the shadow world, it’s easy to see it everywhere and make everything creepy. But that didn’t last long for me. The mountains were too great, too spectacular and overpowering, and I could feel the toxic fear slowly diluting and percolating out of my system.

The next morning Whitney and I split off our separate ways. I had a few days to work back toward Geneva, and she had a few more to kill in Switzerland before heading to Germany for Oktoberfest. I spent an hour or so walking before getting to roads busy enough to hitchhike. “Bonjour!” an old man shouted from behind his wooden fountain and I hoofed along the road from Gruyères. “There goes the baker with his tray-like-al-ways…” I heard in my head. It was so Beauty and the Beast. The problem is getting a song like that in your head when you’re walking for a long time. It never goes away.

Finally, a woman picked me up on the road west of Bulle. She spoke hardly a word of English, but I gathered that she had seen me walking four or five miles back, in Gruyères. A guy with a guitar and leather jacket whisked me on to Lausanne in no time, from which I took a train to Nyon. My friends the Luedtkes had volunteered to host me for a few days till I had to fly out. I had to make a business call that afternoon, and it gave me particular satisfaction to walk into a ritzy coffee shop, drop my paraglider, and pull out a solar charger to power up my phone for the call. I didn’t feel bad drawing looks from the suits around me, because I paid $5 for my coffee just like them.



Paul picked me up from the swank coffee place and showed me his sailboat down at the marina, which we probably would have taken out if the wind had been good the next few days. Instead, we hiked up in the hills behind Nyon to where I could see all the snowy peaks of Mont Blanc across the lake, over in France. Paul had decided he wanted to hike the Appalachian Trail, so we started talking tents and packs and ultralight campcraft like two nerds at science camp. He’d just bought a tent you set up with trekking poles, so we tried it out in his back yard and weighed his gear. Becky took me to the Knie circus performance that was going on. I didn’t know what to expect, but it was an honest-to-goodness, blow-your-mind kind of performance with elephants, camels, and some stunts even I could hardly watch. One man climbed up a rope to the top of the tent, probably 60 feet over the ground and proceeded to swing around by his feet with no net below him whatsoever. One mistake and we would have witnessed death. Six boys stacked themselves three-high on two unicycles and juggled between each other while riding.One more amazing thing I never could have planned, I thought.

The last day before my flight home, Paul was preaching at a church on the east side of the lake, which I discovered was very close to L’Abri, the study center started in 1955 by Francis and Edith Schaeffer. I’ve wanted to see L’Abri ever since my time at Trinity Forum Academy, which was the brainchild of several people who hitchhiked to L’Abri in the 60s only to have the course of their lives changed forever. It seemed fitting that I complete the circle. Paul agreed to swing by with me.



The only hitch was that we heard a car race was taking place that afternoon on the very road through the study center, so we had to get in and out before the race started. Each curve of the road was jammed with hay bales. When we pulled into the center and began walking around, a huge procession of old exotic cars zinged, popped, and roared down the road. One more amazing thing…

The main building was a big, beautiful four-story chalet donated to the cause half a century ago. As soon as I opened the door and walked in, someone shouted “Graham!” It was Mckenzie, a friend from Oregon I’d last seen when I was sailing with my buddy Josiah on the Lady Washington. Familiar faces in faraway places is about the most fun surprise you can have when traveling, and it seems to happen to me a lot--if not faces, at least close connections. Mckenzie gave us a tour, and I met some very fine young people delving into the big questions of life, the universe, and everything.

We raced down the hill just in time to get out and tried not to get any traffic tickets on the way back. My journey home took exactly 24 hours door-to-door. I walked in the door to have my two nephews shout "Welcome home Uncle Graham!" and come running to wrap themselves around my legs. If planes flew any faster I think we’d get thrown into a dizzying bewilderment at the contrast of places and people across this wonderful world. Yet I like the contrast when its just enough to keep that wonder kindled. I like the week or two when I still have two currencies in my pocket, and the month or two when I can still see why the mountains around my valley are just right, not too tall or jagged, but not too little either. I enjoy being fluent when I speak, knowing a good price without mental calculation, smelling familiar smells I’ve known all my life. Most of all I enjoy being known, and what’s infinitely greater, being loved by those who really know me. Before the year passes, the little problems and differences I perceive in my little town will appear to grow bigger and wider, and what’s “home” will begin to feel foreign at times. We all deal with it in different ways, but for me that’s when my feet will start to itch. Faraway lands will call with wonder. I used to think it’s because they had something I didn’t have here at home, but after so many travels I see that that’s not really it. More than adventure, I probably go away to make home home again, and remind me what closeness and commonality I have with even my more distant friends.

George Eliot wrote, "A human life, I think, should be well rooted in some spot of native land, where it may get the love of tender kinship for the face of earth, for the labors men go forth to, for the sounds and accents that haunt it, for whatever will give...that early home a familiar, unmistakable difference amidst the future widening of knowledge: a spot where the definiteness of early memories may be inwrought with affection, and kindly acquaintance with all neighbors, even the dogs and donkeys, may spread not by sentimental effort and reflection, but as a sweet habit of the blood."



This really has nothing to do with scary aliens. I suppose, though, that the common denominator is a good God, which is the theme of the hymn I mentioned. It’s called “Te Deum”:

We praise thee, O God
we acknowledge thee to be the Lord.
All the earth doth worship thee the Father everlasting.
To thee all Angels cry aloud the Heavens, and all the Powers therein.
To thee Cherubim and Seraphim continually do cry,
Holy, Holy, Holy Lord God of Sabaoth;
Heaven and earth are full of the Majesty of thy glory.
The glorious company of the Apostles praise thee.
The goodly fellowship of the Prophets praise thee.
The noble army of Martyrs praise thee.
The holy Church throughout all the world doth acknowledge thee;
The Father of an infinite Majesty;
Thine honourable, true and only Son;
Also the Holy Ghost the Comforter.
Thou art the King of Glory O Christ.
Thou art the everlasting Son of the Father.
When thou tookest upon thee to deliver man
Thou didst not abhor the Virgin's womb.
When thou hadst overcome the sharpness of death
Thou didst open the Kingdom of Heaven to all believers.
Thou sittest at the right hand of God in the glory of the Father.
We believe that thou shalt come to be our Judge.
We therefore pray thee, help thy servants
whom thou hast redeemed with thy precious blood.
Make them to be numbered with thy Saints in glory everlasting.