I think when Coop leaves the Red Room and enter the lodges he's in the white lodge since he is looking for Annie, his love.

Once he comes across Laura's doppleganger and sees Earle, it turns to the black lodge and stays that way until he comes across his body and Caroline's.  Once it turns into Annie's, he calls for her, using his love for her, brings him back into the white lodge.

And again, once Earle appears he's back in the black lodge.

I believe since Earle is manipulating the lodges is why it can switch back and forth.

 

I do not think I am way off.

Since we're never actually told Coop is in either lodge, we just assume he is when he leaves the red room, which looks exactly like the lodge.  Which makes it seem that the lodge isn't just a place but a state of mind, somewhat like purgatory.

Windom Earle went into the lodge to try to harness it's power.  Bob may have let Windom think he had control but waited for the right moment where he could take Windom's soul, knowing he was going after Coop no matter what. Thus getting 2 souls out of the deal.

So I believe Windom had some control of the lodges which is why Coop saw a few images of him.

Also Coop entered the lodge not because of fear but for his love for Annie.  I do believe it said love opens the white lodge.

At the end of FWWM, we assume it's the white lodge, but we cannot really see much of the room since it's dark, so the floor and curtains may be hidden to us.  Plus darkness and strobe lights were present in the end of the series and the end of FWWM.

 

i like what you said here:
"Which makes it seem that the lodge isn't just a place but a state of mind, somewhat like purgatory."

but this conversaton is quite convoluted.
actually, we see three versions of the red room. first off, the white lodge, or more precisely a denizen of the WL. at one point after briggs disappered, Hawk tells coop that his people believe in a long standing darkness of in the woods. if one meets the dweller on the threshold(the shadowself(i.e.the doppleganger)), with imperfect courage, youre sould will be alienated(re:black lodge) all of which we see in ep29, and are characteristics of the black lodge portrayed on TV and film.
after coops walks through those red cutains in glastonbury, he is in the waiting room. as he has been there before in the dream in ep.2
as for earle, i believe hes being manipulated BOB as a way to eventually take possesion of coop. earle has no power to the black lodge, hes fooled into thinking his does.
And if cooper enters the lodge with love, why is he in the black lodge? not the white one?.
because one must pass through the BL to get to the WL.
in fact, we clearly see the white lodge at the end of FWWM. laura's angel returned and helped her escape bob, even if that meant having to die.
and lastly, the waiting room, the red room, the black lodge, and the white lodge all have stiking similarities furniture, light, floor, curtains, etc.
i think you should watch these parts a few more times. and it not as obvious as one would think.
and remember, this is my interpetation, i speak for no one else.

Ben:  "We've laid in a gala reception for your fair-haired boys tonight.  All of Twin Peaks' best and brightest."

Jerry: "We're holding it in a phone booth?"

"Hawk:    My people believe that the White Lodge is a place where the spirits
         that rule man and nature here reside.
Truman:  Local legend.  Goes way back.
Hawk:    There is also a legend of a place called the Black Lodge... the
         shadow-self of the White Lodge.  The legend says that every spirit
         must pass through there on the way to perfection.  There, you will
         meet your own shadow-self. My people call it "The Dweller on the
         Threshold." 
"

So we assume the way to perfection means the way to the white lodge?

I don't think it does.  I think it just means that's how you get out of the black lodge and not be trapped.

I stand by my statement that the lodges are moreso a state of mind than an actual physical place, it's what you make it to be.

 Unless told by David Lynch (or even Mark Frost) we can only make assumptions of what lodge he is in.  I strongly believe Coop entered the White Lodge but Windom's meddling turned the lodges into a chaotic state.

If love is how you get into the white lodge, why is Laura in it at the end of FWWM?  What love got her there?  I do believe it's the white lodge she is in the white lodge but just wondering the actual way she got there. 
 

 

Theosophy incorporates many ideas from Buddhism, including the Bardo World, which is a place that puts your soul through trials on your way to the next life. Reading The Tibetan Book of the Dead to a dying person is supposed to give them tool to guide their soul into this realm. Cooper reads a passage of this from memory to Leland when he's dying. It is a journey-- not a back and forth-- that ends in either merging with the universal consciousness (White Lodge) or reincarnation.

Besides, Earle's power in the BL is questionable. Why him and not BOB or the MFAP pulling the strings in the vision?

If you read the whole of rest of the Book of the Dead, a lot of it sounds like what is seen in ep 29. The text a guide through an altered state to "keep the fear from your mind" in an utterly confusing (thus terrifying) altered state.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bardo_Thodol

Thus, Cooper is just taking a confusing trip through his mind and all he fears, including that he got Annie killed as he had Caroline. The trip is a means to an end only: reincarnation or the soul's final resting place, with all the other energy of the universe. You can't bounce back to the Bardo once your soul has merged with the all. It just doesn't work like that.

BOB is not interested in Cooper's soul. BOB wants his body (and his Garmonbozia, symbolized in the bleeding aorta.)

Looking at it that way, Cooper's love for Annie could be what delivers his soul safely to the White Lodge (the ultimate end of the soul's journey in Buddhism,) where Laura is.

D'oh, fixed. Was up all night when I wrote that, brain misfire.

Who is to say that the places in our mind don't become real just by imagining them? This is the primary argument for the justifying the validity of faith in general. (ie If you believe it, and feel you have evidence enough for yourself it is real, it is real to you- be it God, unicorns or Santa Clause.)

I think you also have to look at how it was altered in production.  The White/Black Lodge was the next mystery Frost came up with -not sure how involved Lynch was in it.  Hawk's dialogue is in setting up something Lynch threw out the window when filming the last episode.  And the Lodges were dramatic stark black and white isolated hallways of the Great Northern.

Lynch worked more organically based on how he was feeling and what the actors were giving him in terms of how he approached the written text.  He for example might not even had seen Hawk's scene or remembered it or cared -or Major Briggs stone throne vision. 

sorry, JFK didn't see your post.

beautifully put.

.

thanks a ton audrey. one question-are you the same audrey over at dugpa? i love your work if you are. 

one thing has always bothered me-
at the end of ep.27. we see bob emerge from the BL at glastonbury grove, first just his hand trembling(like the folks in TP were doing during the episode(i believe pete, the lady at the counter of the double RR, and someone else i cant recall at the moment)), then he fully emerges and the camera cuts to the ground at the center of the circle of trees where there is another circle made of rocks and a fluid that looks like the oil the log lady brought to cooper at the beginning of ep.29. and in the reflection of the liquid we see the red drapes of the red room(at this point still not explicitly the BL) and the 'dance of the dream man' music that the man from another place dances to.
now, if the original script of 29, which was written without lynch, had radically different imagery, even to the point of BOB and some sort of dentist office tableau, and it wasnt until lynch began filming that the BL took on the form as we know it, WHY in ep.27 do we see the BL when the red room image wasnt meant to be the BL? the only answer i can think of is that in post-production, after the series had ended, they added that last shot of 27 to prefigure the BL of 29. i know they aired quite some time apart, and ep28 and 29 were shown back to back, but does anyone know the timing of the production? its seems odd that they would add that touch in 27, only to throw it away for the script for 29. and then to return to it for the filming.

yup, jfk, I am.   "one and the same."

I think we talked about this also over at dugpa in the changes thread.  We didn't find an answer but assumed it was altered in post production.  I might just be imagining and have to go check the scripts, but I think in the original 2.20 ending, BOB actually say, "I'm out." 

i figured it was you.

but is the reflection of the red drapes mentioned? to me thats the most important part. we already knew BOB was somewhere after leland died becasue of some weird early90s owl imagery, but in the scene in question, we only see BOB's hand reaching out in spotlight, then his whole body. no moving through super-imposed drapes like in ep.29. the red drapes are only shown in the reflective pool in the middle of the twelve trees, and its the only emperical(however much thats worth in a show like this) proof that not only is the red room from ep.2 an aspect of the lodges, but that BOB absolutely comes from there. to me thats a huge point, and considering how the finale was changed going from script to shooting, im really curious when and why that way put in. thanks for the support audrey. keep up your already outstanding work.

sorry, here it is -no red curtains...

32. EXT. MONTAGE/ WOODS - NIGHT

Suddenly: a series of IMAGES, fast-paced, accompanied by the appropriate music, the sounds of owls, raging wind.

JOSIE screams, trapped within the drawer pull.

CAMERA POV races madly through the woods, headed toward the Black Lodge.

Then, in an instant, quite jarringly - SILENCE, a grove of trees, the air still and calm. An eerie beat. An ARM coalesces in midair, inch by inch, now reaches about testing the cool night, fingers prodding. The wind begins to rise. Satisfied, the arm recedes, disappears.

A beat. BOB'S disembodied HEAD follows. Fierce winds blow, shaking the trees with mighty force. Bob's floating head peers about, now snaps back into a feral HOWL. Then Bob VANISHES in a BLINDING FLASH OF LIGHT.

The winds recede. All is calm again. Save for the patch of SCORCHED earth below.

but they do explicitly say "black lodge". interesting. thanks for finding that.

Shocked and Violated,

I felt shocked and violated by the last episode of TwinPeaks and that little skirmish in the bathroom...

I`d been with Cooper 100% of the way right from the start,...

I couldn`t believe it...

I was absolutely gutted !!!!!

Myowl

sure i was scared/wierded out at the time, i was 11.
now, it makes me laugh. not haha, but my evil laugh, at just the audacity of the final scene, after the brilliant first season, and a second season that started brilliant, got bogged down, and then got brilliant again.
and really, coop/BOB laughing at the end i thought was just a fuck you to the network.
but also, if TP could only have 29 episodes and a pilot, there was and is no better way to end the show.

TwinPeaks in many ways ...or the ethereal dimensions enthreaded into it is God,sacred or privelliged territory accessed or stumbled upon by the curious and searching,

Like I say, I was Cooper basically rtight through the first viewing of it whole, but kind of like,it was perfect because -because of that -it retained its sacred value to this day...

Nobody beat it...

Nobody got it sussed...

It never gave the game away,

It retained its Mysterious/sacred value because of that ending...

but at the time and on first showing I was shocked/thrown out totally by it...

Like I say, I was a Cooper man back then...

(the first time around)

Myowl

Just think of the Black Lodge as the Judgement Halls of Ancient Egypt and Bob as Osiris (Lord in perfect black and `life after death` Judge of the quick and the dead)

I know I`ve said this before,but it really is more or less the same deck of playing cards, and why I`ve always felt so close to Peaks,Bob,Lynch etc

That`s my Avatar and that`s my domain,

Somebody`s `pegged` Osiris !!!!!

Myowl