Symbolism in Severance

Some things others may have missed

The Apple TV+ series, Severance, is a brilliant psychological sci-fi thriller that’s full of mystery, intrigue, and symbolism. Unfortunately, I’ve noticed that with all the “theories” and “explained” videos I’ve watched, they seem to miss a lot of the symbolism that I’ve seen.
Now, this could be because I’m so far off track that I’m wrong, or it could be because nobody else is as afflicted with conspiracy brain as me.
Bear with me for a few minutes, and let me explain a few of the themes that I’ve noticed. Heavy spoilers for Severance Season 1 follow.

The Tree

Severance is full of references to birth and death, but one symbol that seems to be recurring (at least when it pertains to Mark S.) is the tree. Let’s start with what Mark actually does at Lumon.

Mark works in the Macrodata Refinement department, along with 3 other coworkers. Mark takes numbers that evoke certain feelings, and categorizes them into smaller pieces.
In other words, he is creating a tree of data. Not just any tree, though. An inverse tree. Remember that for later.

Trees are extremely significant to Mark. Innie Mark has never seen a tree before, and yet when he’s in the wellness session with Ms. Casey, he sculpts a tree out of clay. (SPOILER) Ms. Casey is revealed to be Outtie Mark’s (thought to be) deceased wife. She was apparently killed when she crashed her car into a tree. We see Outtie Mark visit the very tree where his wife, Gemma, was killed. He lays a hand on it and weeps.

But that’s not all. When Mark is visiting his sister at the birthing center, he plays with a small tree decoration while talking to her. As we hear the cries of Devon’s newborn child, we see Mark hugging his legs and sitting on the dock outside… right after the camera shows a tree front and center in the establishing shot. Mark is plagued by the sound of Devon’s newborn, and simultaneously, visions of Petey’s death.

For Outtie Mark, the tree represents both life and death. Mark visits the tree where his wife died just after Petey’s funeral.
There’s more. The computer screen where Mark and his fellow Innies refine data briefly shows an image of Ms. Casey/Gemma. On the inverted tree.

In the season finale, when Dylan is logged into the security computer, there are a number of options which can be accessed with the function keys. One of them is “tree”.

We’ll be ignoring the other options for now, although there’s a lot to glean from them. Other people have done a great job with that, and I want to focus on what other people haven’t talked about.

Lucifer

I think the writers and visual artists behind Severance have had quite a bit of fun playing with Masonic imagery. I don’t mean that in the Satanic panic sense, I mean they’re doing it intentionally as a hint to the audience about what they’re trying to say with the show. For the purposes of this article, I’m lumping Freemasonry, The Illuminati, and Luciferianism into one big pile.

Normally, you can go way off track by looking too deeply into minute details of TV shows. Severance is not like that. Severance seems to invite the viewer to freeze-frame everything and examine it closely.
Language and double-speak play a huge part in this show, and the writers are clearly well-versed in the topics I’m about to bring up. They’ve probably read Secret Teachings of All Ages, and they’re probably familiar with Discordianism, and they’ve probably read the Illuminatus trilogy.

I will lay this out plainly: Kier Eagan is Lucifer. Or at least, an allegory for Lucifer.

This was made clear to me in the last few episodes, especially the part with the “waffle party”. Let me explain.

When Dylan finishes his waffles, he’s directed to go to Kier Eagan’s bed. After he dons the Kier mask and takes the whip, the dancers representing the 4 tempers come out and perform. Upon what are they dancing? A checkerboard floor. That’s not really that unusual, since checkerboard tile floors are pretty common in rich people houses. But wait a minute. That particular checkerboard floor is laid out specifically like the floor in a Masonic temple.

I could be wrong, but I believe Dylan is sitting in the east and facing the west. This would put the bust of Eagan in the north. The northern side in freemasonry is called the “place of darkness”.
This brings me to Kier Eagan’s name. The showrunners likely did not pick the name because it sounds kinda cool and sinister. There’s a lot of wordplay and double meaning going on in Severance, so I think it goes deeper than that.
Kier (according to some cursory google searches) means “Dark, swarthy, the dark one”. Eagan means “Little fire” or “Bright eyed one”. It’s derived from a name which means “Son of fire”.

So we have “Dark little fire/son of fire”. The writers must be having a blast coming up with all the symbolism.

What is the philosophy of Lumon? Mark says “Illumination above all”. Irving corrects him: “Illumination beyond all”.

Lucifer means “The morning star” and “the bringer of light”.

Going back to words having two meanings, there’s that painting that Burt and Irving look at which depicts Kier Eagan meeting his wife while he was a “stewman at an ether factory and she was a swab girl”.

This is important in a lot of ways. Obviously there’s the pharmaceutical side. Ether was used as an anaesthetic. It put people to sleep. There’s also the concept of the Ether. That non corporeal spiritual space. What is Ether? It’s a distilled spirit. Kier is a spirit in the ether.

I believe that Kier Eagan, with his cultlike following, his town named after him, his goat imagery, is an allegory for Lucifer, just like the “below” is an allegory for both corporate and real hell. Mr. Milchick and Ms. Cobel are the fallen angels or demons which inhabit this corporate hell.

Is it any coincidence that Helly, a descendant of Kier Eagan was sent down to hell to save the severed from banishment by government regulation?

Remember the inverted tree? One of the slogans often associated with freemasonry/the illuminati/luciferianism is “as above, so below”. The tree for regular people represents life. The tree in the below represents death. For Mark, who occupies both, it represents both life and death.

From all of this, I infer that Macrodata Refinement is working on resurrecting Kier Eagan, but they have to resurrect others along the way to perfect the process. Gemma Scout seems to be one of those people.
We’re only one episode in Season 2, so maybe all of my theories here will be shattered. Regardless, the symbolism and associations stand.