TV + Movies

Prison Planet Theory Perfectly Explains The Silly Finale Of ‘Severance’

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The Prison Planet theory, popularized by metaphysician Robert Monroe, suggests that Earth is a prison designed to harvest negative human energy, known as “loosh,” to sustain interdimensional beings.

The prison planet theory originated with the idea that Earth is essentially a prison, created or controlled by beings who placed humanity here for confinement, punishment, or spiritual learning.

Severance contains striking parallels to this concept and the prison planet theory might be key to understanding all the weirdness (and let downs/flaws) in the finale, and all the other episodes. Let’s explore.

Prison Planet, Summarized

If Lumen is a prison, it’s a strange, dream-like idea of imprisonment, not one you can logically explain.

The far-out theory, as recorded in the book Alien Interview, goes like this. After the Roswell crash, the government had an interview with an extraterrestrial being named “Airl” and they communicated that Earth is a prison planet where immortal souls are trapped in a cycle of reincarnation​. Here is what Airl said:

We’ve been using Earth as a ‘prison planet’ for a very long time… when the body of the IS-BE dies they… are captured and ‘ordered’ by hypnotic command to “return to the light.” The idea of ‘heaven’ and the ‘afterlife’ are part of the hypnotic suggestion – a part of the treachery that makes the whole mechanism work.

While the validity of this interview is highly contested, with many believing it was entirely fabricated, it has significant cultural resonance and is taken with a grain of salt but also rather seriously in paranormal and UFO circles.

In any case, the point is this: Earth is here either to imprison certain kind of souls or even work as a kind of cosmic jail, and this seems to perfectly overlay with what is going on in Severance.

Prison Planet / Severance Connections

Prison planet theory says humans are deliberately placed in cycles of emotional experience, including suffering, to generate energy or appease another interest of aliens. This connects perfectly to the feeling of “tempers” Macrodata Refinement mines all day.

Lumen Industries serves as an omnipresent entity, similar to the “Archons” described in ancient Gnostic texts, who monitor and manipulate human existence to keep them trapped in the Prison Planet. Lumen is portrayed as highly cult-like, encouraging worship of its founder as a deity. This directly aligns with the Prison Planet theory’s idea that false gods and belief systems are intentionally provided to ensure human compliance and perpetuate reincarnation.

The meaningless but enshrined protocols established throughout Lumen create an illusion of purpose, concealing the true goal of energy harvesting.

Many people on Reddit and social media have also noted the following similarities:

  • Elevator descent symbolizes reincarnation into this prison world.
  • Lumen Industries mirrors controlling factions (“Archons”) in prison planet theory.
  • Founder worship in Severance symbolizes false gods used to maintain control.
  • Break room reflects karmic punishment and soul review, encouraging reincarnation.
  • The meaningless numbers game represents humanity’s illusion of purpose.
  • Mark’s reintegration parallels spiritual awakening and reconnection to a higher self.

But I’m actually most interested in how prison planet might explain the final scene where Adam Scott turns away from his wife and runs back into Lumen where it seems like he’ll surely be killed or punished.

Severance’s Horrible Ending, Explained

Yeah… Well… Making Severance into an art project isn’t going to help. But honestly Ben Stiller has done so much for us; he deserves to make whatever kind of shows he wants.

Okay, so to be clear, I thought the finale of Severance was a complete mess. I really just to got the feeling Ben Stiller and all the other writers on the show were just having the time of their lives, making a highly esoteric art project. And I was very much like, just entertain me. This is a commercial TV show backed by Apple! Not a Matthew Barney film.

It makes no sense. Why does Lumen not have real guards? You can have a whole musical department of 30+ people dedicated to Choreography and Merriment, but not a single person in your security department?

How is this a reasonable or even romantic decision?

Even if we forgive this, Mark’s innie vs. outtie battle is boring. Lumen literally tried to murder him. No matter how much he loves Helly, the will-to-survive instinct should override it, especially considering his outtie also has a love interest. This is just not compelling drama because the stakes aren’t relatable.

Call me crazy, but if I was about to be murdered by Lumen—and I knew my outtie would die too—I’d sacrifice my innie life for my outtie life to be with the love of his life. I don’t know that math seems simple to me.

But if you stop thinking about Severance as a TV show with a plot, and start thinking about in the context of metaphysical theories, the ending makes sense. My first thought was that really all of this is not a reality at all; and it’s some kind of Divine Comedy journey for Mark. But inside the theory of death of Prison Planet is an even more intriguing idea.

Don’t go into the light.

John Lear

The phrase “DON’T GO INTO THE LIGHT” comes from flipping the usual near-death experience idea. It became popular in the 1980s within UFO and paranormal groups. John Lear was the first to explicitly say it and did so in the context of his prison theory. He claimed the soothing “light” described by near-death experiencers was a deliberate deception by extraterrestrial or interdimensional entities to recycle human souls back to Earth repeatedly.

Even for Severance and Lumen, this scene defies all logic.

So if we assume — and yes this is a big assumption — that everything that happens Mark Scout is some kind of metaphysical journey that has no real resemblance to terrestrial Earth, then whatever logical concerns we lay over his journey shouldn’t make sense. The whole show unfolds less like a story and more like an acid trip where logic and reason don’t have any currency.

The iconic cover of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band emphasizes the surreal logic of psychedelic trips and the weird ensemble that unfolded after the completion of Cold Harbor.

So why is there no security, yet there is a marching band? Because this feels more like the trippy psychedelia of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band than Ben Stiller’s hyper-realistic prison drama Escape at Dannemora. We ain’t in real reality at all.

In this inversion of all logic, perhaps the heroic thing for Mark Scout to do is not to go into the light, but to turn around and die. The light of Gemma Scout is a trick designed to further empower Lumen, and by resisting it and turning away, he actually frees himself from the prison of all of this.

Or he just got tricked, and Mark’s going be tortured a lot more than that those goats were.