[betty boop]

C.S. Lewis on reality (paraphrased): "Everything is real. The question is, are they real snakes or real delerium tremons?"

Exactly, logos. Voegelin makes much the same point. Wish I could quote him here (it's a very amusing insight), but the source is at home.

The jist of what he said is that even the visions of a psychopath are real enough, in that they enter into empirical reality.

But to the extent that they are "deformations of reality," and thus deformations of the truth of reality, they enter into the world as sources of disorder: What starts out as personal disorder finally, ineluctibly translates as a source of social disorder.

I think this may be the case with Schrader. As you note (fairly I think), "in his case reality is illusion and illusion is reality."

[Ronzo]

Thanks for the ping betty...

But to the extent that they are "deformations of reality," and thus deformations of the truth of reality, they enter into the world as sources of disorder: What starts out as personal disorder finally, ineluctibly translates as a source of social disorder.

Hitler. Stalin. Pol Pot. Most of Hollywood. Clinton. Etc.

[unspun]

Wish I had more time....

BTW I concur: I'd be quite worried if anyone who sees this movie isn't disturbed.

Words and meanings such as 'sword,' 'whirlwind,' 'brake/crush,' 'woe,' and the tribulation (shaking) of the earth sufficient to make crooked places straight and rough places plain, are used in Scripture. God is not mocked.