The ‘Splainer: Don Draper’s good vibration

(RNS) Was the finale of AMC's "Mad Men" really a lesson of American religious history in disguise? Let us 'splain.

Jon Hamm as Don Draper in
Jon Hamm as Don Draper in "Mad Men." Photo courtesy of Justina Mintz/AMC

Jon Hamm as Don Draper in “Mad Men.” Photo courtesy of Justina Mintz/AMC

The ‘Splainer (as in, “You’ve got some ‘splaining to do”) is an occasional feature in which RNS gives you everything you need to know about current events to help you hold your own at a cocktail party.

(RNS) Sunday’s series final of AMC’s “Mad Men” brought to a close the shaken-not-stirred story of Don Draper, 1960s ad-man extraordinaire. But Don’s last word — one word — seemingly had nothing to do with advertising and everything to do with religion. And in that one word, the lauded series brought viewers more of what it has delivered for seven seasons — this country’s cultural history as seen through the smoldering bedroom eyes of Don Draper. Let us ‘Splain …


Truth in advertising: Spoilers galore ahead.

Q. What was Don Draper saying in the final shot of him in “Mad Men”?

A: Don was chanting the word “om.” Less a word — it doesn’t really have a definition — and more a sound, “om” comes from Hinduism, perhaps the world’s oldest religion. “Om” represents the sound of creation, the vibration of the universe, the sound of all that is. Before the sound “om,” there was only silence, only void, only a vast nothingness.

In the final scene, Don is shown using “om” as a mantra. A mantra is a sacred word or utterance used to channel focus in meditation — clearly what Don and his cohorts were up to on that cliff at sunrise. Don has a lot of predecessors in his practice — scholars say the oldest Hindu mantras are 3,000 years old.

Q: So does that mean “Mad Men” ends with Don becoming a Hindu?

A: Only to the extent that many thousands of Americans “became” Hindus at that time. The final scenes of “Mad Men” take place in the fall of 1970, just as Hinduism and other Eastern philosophies were taking root in the U.S., especially on the West Coast. Hinduism was widely introduced here in 1893 when a handful of Hindu “swamis,” or holy men, traveled from India to Chicago to attend the first World’s Parliament of Religions. There, Swami Vivekenanda delivered a speech on the nature of Hinduism that by some accounts had attendees on their feet and roaring support. Vivekenanda’s subsequent tour of the U.S. introduced Hinduism to audiences in Boston, New York and Detroit.

By the time of “Mad Men,” Hinduism had become even more popular in the U.S. Other swamis followed Vivekenanda and set up ashrams (retreats) in places such as California, Virginia, Oregon and New York. Then, when the Beatles went to India in 1968 to study with Maharishi Mahesh Yogi – a trip notable for both some really great music and some really bad personal boundaries – interest in Hinduism rose even more, especially with the flower-child set that peopled much of the final episode of “Mad Men.”

Q: So does Don end up at some ashram? Is that why he is sitting and meditating on a cliff over the ocean?

A: No. Again, this where the show’s creator, Matthew Weiner, brings some real American religious history into the story. We are told Don is at a “retreat” that is “up the coast” from Los Angeles. This being 1970, it’s a good bet the setting is the Esalen Institute at Big Sur. Esalen was founded in 1962 on the cliffs above the Pacific Ocean about 140 miles south of San Francisco. Another clue: Esalen has a famous hot spring — the site of many a naked nighttime pool party — and Don is shown standing next to a sign directing people to a mineral spring.

And the types of programs Don is seen attending are typical of what Esalen touted at the time. Esalen was at the vanguard of the Human Potential Movement — a sort of spiritual form of humanism that employed meditation, yoga and “encounter groups” like the ones Don suffers through in the final episode. It drew a lot upon Eastern religious philosophy like Hinduism and Buddhism. Some of Esalen’s early teachers were hippie spiritual gurus, including Timothy Leary (“Turn on, tune in, drop out”) and Richard Alpert (aka Ram Dass). The Human Potential Movement holds that human beings have great untapped power to foster social change through self-knowledge and improvement.

Q: So what does it all mean? Did Don become a hippie and a yogi? Or are we supposed to believe his path to enlightenment led to the famous 1971 “I’d Like to Buy the World a Coke” commercial that “Mad Men” concludes with?

A: Well, that ‘s kind of a human-potential litmus test for viewers. Remember, Weiner is an alum of HBO’s “The Sopranos,” whose enigmatic ending still has viewers squabbling about it nearly 10 years later. Is “The Real Thing” the hippies in the Coke ad are singing about the inner peace Don seems to find at Big Sur? Or are we to think his “real thing” is the idea for the iconic commercial and he returns to New York and advertising? That, unfortunately, is beyond The ‘Splainer’s powers to ‘splain with certainty.


KRE/MG END WINSTON

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