Based on scientology and post-World War II America, society is uneasy, beliefs are missing, everyone has wounds that need to be healed, and they are lost and don’t know the way forward. The protagonist Freddie's father died early, and his mother was in a mental hospital. Although he was demobilized after the war, he belonged to the drifting sea and was a bird without feet. He drank heavily, indulged in sexual fantasies, and was jealous of others' comfortable life, but he couldn't control his violent emotions, and he met the master by accident. He admires him and trusts him, but deep down he has doubts (the words of the son, the words of the editor, the outburst in the Philadelphia prison). He seems to have found his place and his beliefs, but in the end he chooses to turn around and find his own way, with trauma, urges, and desires, to complete sexual intercourse instead of fantasies.
The master also has self-doubt in his heart, and he also needs a kind of recognition and trust that "mother-in-law" family members and believers cannot give. So it's hard to say that he saw himself in freddie and simply liked him, but at least part of it was out of a need (boosting at first, then following) that in prison he told freddie that only he liked him This kind of words for some mind control purposes.
On the one hand, THE CAUSE emphasizes self-control, inhibition of impulses and animal instincts, and on the other hand, it advocates finding the root of trauma from the "previous life", knowing the cause, and thus being healed. From the touch object training and "hypnosis" training that freddie has conducted, more broadly speaking, it is to free people from the constraints of time and space. The philosophical logic behind it should be the opposite of existentialism. Like Magnolia, it emphasizes causality rather than chance, but from the perspective of psychotherapy/analysis, it is like Sartre's claim that people have the freedom to recognize the past.
The female characters in the film are very interesting. Peggy's existence is the master behind the master, and a group of female believers seem to be insignificant to the master. They are blurred existences and naked flesh in the eyes of freddie.
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