Kubrick was making fun of the conspiracy theorists
After the theory that Kubrick directed the moon landing became well-known, what if he was just making fun of the theorists with The Shining with the Apollo 11 sweater Danny wears and the fact that he himself made sure that EWS came out on the same week the Apollo 11 landed on the moon?Plus, the ritual in EWS is so over the top, that it looks like a parody to me.Now, I'm not saying that these things do not happen, because they do, but Kubrick surely wanted to joke around a bit. After all, it's possible that a man of his intelligence and sardonic sense of humor was just trolling us.- The film does have a surprising sense of humour so honestly I can believe it. Kubrick could have also just wanted to leave behind a mystery to keep people guessing for a long time, he probably knew he'd die at some point and maybe even thought "Let's see if people seriously think I'm dead because of this movie"
Some, if not most, of the guests at Ziegler's Christmas party, excluding Bill and Alice, are the cultists/orgy participants later in the film.
Considering that we see a rather sizeable amount of people at Ziegler's party near the start of the film, it wouldn't be such a large stretch to assume that some or most of the guests seen in the opening party were some or all of the cultists/orgy participants later seen in the film, and the audience isn't aware of it. We know that Ziegler was at both, and if he's telling the truth, Mandy (the woman who ODs in the bathroom) was also there. It could be possible the gentleman that dances and hits on Alice, as well as the two women who were hitting on Bill prior to Ziegler to calling him to his bathroom, were all there at the orgy. Alice was at the orgy
It seems awfully on-the-nose that Alice had a dream where she was gang-banged, with Bill watching, on the same night that Bill went to the orgy. Maybe she was there? Maybe she was one of the women? Possibly someone from the cult entered Bill and Alice's apartment and put that mask on the pillow—or maybe Alice put it there. Trailer symbolism?
In the unrated original trailer, the only one made by Kubrick himself shown at the showfest convention which featured only the famous scene where Nicole Kidman takes away her earrings completely naked and then Tom Cruise arrives and start kissing her, we repeatedly see the words "Cruise" "Kidman" "Kubrick" one after another, and at the end they're shown again but with the movie title too. "Cruise" is written in red, "Kidman" in yellow, "Kubrick" in blue and the title in yellow again. Well, this MUST mean something.