Holy cow. My mind is blown. Everything from the title, to the director dying 5 days after submitting the final cut, to the location chosen to film the cult party. These links are a long read but a great explanation of the movie.
So many unbelievable things that I've come across in this group are confirmed by this movie. I saw someone mention it in a comment months ago and glad I finally came around to watching it. It was very strange in the beginning, but you have to remember you're not watching a regular movie, you're watching someone trying to show you what's going on without explicitly saying it. After reading the above articles I am just blown away.
This was a great read at the time from 2000.
"I'm sure you are aware of the extremely grave potential for social shock and disorientation caused by this information. We can't release it without proper conditioning" - Heywood Floyd
https://rense.com/general7/alchemkubrick.htm
Was Kubrick a WhiteHat at his core?
He was an artist deeply involved with the filth of Hollywood and probably even higher up (NASA) who probably found them repellent and sent the world messages about it in the best way available to him at the time: deeply symbolic films.