“Toto, I’ve a feeling
we’re not in
Kansas any more. We must be over the
rainbow!”—Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz
Kansas any more. We must be over the
rainbow!”—Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz
What if you were in Dorothy’s shoes? First, you run away
from home to save your dog from being destroyed by the sheriff.
Then, you get amnesia from being knocked on the head by a window
frame. Next, you’re swept up by a storm and carried far
away from home. Finally, you crash-land in an alien world. How
would you feel?
Many of us, like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz, feel as though
we have crash-landed far, far from our own, personal home; far
away from the place in our hearts or in our dreams where everything
is just exactly the way we want it to be; a place where
there is no trouble. We don’t quite know what happened to
our home or how we ended up where we are now, but we have a vague,
fleeting feeling, that our home is still there, waiting for us
to come back.
Is there really such a place?
Is it just a dream?
If such a place exists, how do we get there from here?
Who are we?
How did we get here?
Where is here?
These are primordial questions—original, fundamental questions
about the mysteries of life and universes which have existed
since the beginning of time. One method of figuring out the answers
to questions is to compare an unknown subject to one that is
similar, but already known. The comparison of two similar things
is called an analogy. Storytelling, teaching, explaining things
to young children, and scientific research all use analogies
as a tool for better understanding. Thus we begin our journey
into The Wizard of Oz as an Analogy to the Mysteries of life.
The MGM motion picture based on L. Frank Baum’s popular
children’s book of 1896, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, is
familiar to nearly everyone in Western society and is possibly
the most widely seen and loved motion picture ever made. During
the filming of the motion picture in 1932, years after the author’s
death, a psychic connection between the book and the movie occurred.
Frank Morgan, the actor who played the parts of Professor Marvel
and the Wizard in the movie, wore a coat for the part which had
been purchased at a second-hand clothing store in Chicago by
the studio wardrobe department. Quite by accident, the actor
turned out one of the pockets and, to his astonishment, found
the name, “L. Frank Baum” sewn on the tailor’s
label in the lining. It was soon verified by the author’s
widow, and by the tailor who made the coat, that it had indeed
belonged to the Royal Historian of Oz himself. The allegorical
story of The Wizard of Oz and its timeless
characters is an appropriate vehicle through which to learn more
about the mysteries of life.
Humanity is a lot like Dorothy. She was searching for the way
back to Kansas. We are also searching for the way back to our
own “Kansas”. There are questions many of us would
like answered. But, since we have no Munchkins, beautiful witches
or wizards to show us the way, we will have to rely on logic—that
is, our own ability to reason—to find our own Yellow Brick
Road that leads to solving these mysteries. Earthly wizards,
or scientists, have been unable to discover a contiguous record
of man’s history on Earth. The pieces of evidence, which
present themselves as clues to the enigma of the origin of man,
are broken, scattered and missing. The origin and motive of life
remain largely unexplained by the various scientific disciplines.
Too many questions remain unsolved or ignored to provide us with
conclusive answers to the mysteries of our past, present and
future existence.
By their own admission, Earth scientists are still unable to
answer, among others, the following basic questions:
How were the first living cells formed?
What animates life organisms?
Where did Man come from?
How did the dinosaurs suddenly become extinct?
Who are we?
How did the universe begin and how will it end?
How did particles of matter and energy form?
Why are there galaxies, and why do they have spiral arms?
In a universe, which end is up?
Why have these questions never been answered?
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WHICH IS THE WAY BACK TO KANSAS? “I’d give anything to
get out of Oz altogether, but which is the way back to Kansas?
I can’t go the way I came.”
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One of the questions Dorothy was trying to answer in The Wizard
of Oz was, “which is the way back to Kansas?” Trying
to figure out the answers to the mysteries of life here on planet
Earth is even harder than Dorothy trying to get back to Kansas—none
of us have a broomstick to ride, we don’t have a good witch
to ask for directions and there is no Yellow Brick Road to follow.
So, we’re stuck here having to figure it out for ourselves,
logically, using the information we have in our environment.
To begin at the beginning, the Land of Oz is a type of Universe.
According to Webster’s Dictionary, a universe is defined
as: “an area, province or sphere, as of thought or activity,
regarded as a distinct, comprehensive system or world.”
The physical reality we all share on Earth and everything throughout
the surrounding space is called the Physical Universe (PU). On
the other side of reality is your own imagination, your personal
perceptions, viewpoints, dreams, hopes, desires, and creations,
which comprise Your Own Universe (YOU).
The Land of Oz can be considered to be
a Universe dreamed up by Dorothy, as conceived in the mind of
L. Frank Baum, the author of the book. (It has been speculated
that the author created the “Land of Oz” after glancing
at his file cabinet. The two file drawers were labeled “A-N”
and “O-Z”. Dorothy could just as easily have been transported
by the author’s pen into the imaginary “Land of AN”.)
In the movie version of the story, Dorothy creates the Land of
Oz in a dream, induced by a knock on the head, using remnants
of Kansas in the Physical Universe mixed together with creations
from her own universe—which, for Dorothy,
existed over the rainbow in the Land of Oz.
Every Universe seems to be made up of its own peculiar set of
Laws. The Physical Universe, for example, is built on a set of
agreed upon Laws. A few examples of these Laws are:
The Law of Motion: “For every action, there is an equal
and opposite reaction.”
The Food Chain Law: “In order for one life organism to live,
another life organism must die.”
The Law of Gravity: “Whatever goes up, must come down.”
The Law of Time: “Time marches on.”
Most of us take the Laws of the Physical Universe for granted
because everyone seems to agree with them. However, such laws
leave a lot to be desired when compared to the Laws of a Universe
we might create for ourselves! In Your Own Universe you can create
any set of Laws, or have no Laws at all. You can make them, change
them or break them. The Laws of Your Own Universe can be anything
or nothing, limited only by your imagination. In Your Own Universe,
everything you wish comes true, because you are the “wizard”
of Your Own Universe! In Dorothy’s universe, Scarecrows
and trees can talk, witches can be beautiful and fly in magic
bubbles, Munchkin girls join the “Lullaby League” and
Munchkin boys have a “Lollipop Guild”, horses can change
their color, and Dorothy can dye her eyes to match her gown.
Dorothy’s first awareness of the particular universe she calls the Land of Oz is the realization that she is definitely not in Kansas. When she opens the door to her farmhouse, which has just crash-landed in Oz, Dorothy compares her past experience in Kansas with her present experience in Munchkinland. The Technicolor flowers, a good witch in a flying bubble, all the little brightly dressed people, the Yellow Brick Road, etc., are definitely not similar to anything she has ever seen in Kansas.
The Land of Oz is an example of what Earth scientists would call
an anomaly. For Dorothy, the anomaly is a departure from the
usual arrangement of things as compared to her past experiences.
In the universe of Oz, everything is so completely different
from the universe Dorothy is familiar with in Kansas that she
thinks she is lost. How do you find the way back home when you
are lost? One way is to ask someone for directions. Of course,
if you’ve ever been sent on a wild goose chase by a stranger,
the experience taught you that it is a good idea to be somewhat
selective as to whom you ask for directions. So, how do you
know who is a reliable source of directions or information?
Perhaps it would be a good idea to find out something about the
person from whom you are asking directions before you act upon
what they tell you. Right? (Or, is it left?) In our example,
should Dorothy be asking for directions back to Kansas from the
local natives, the Munchkins? The main reason one would ask a
local resident for direc-tions is that one makes the assumption,
otherwise known as an hypothesis (which is the first step in
creating any scientific theory), that someone who lives in the
area will be a reliable source of information and will give correct
directions. Well, in Dorothy’s case, the Munchkins have
lots of familiarity with the Land of Oz, but they have no familiarity
with Kansas. Fortunately for Dorothy, they are honest enough
to tell her that they don’t have a clue where Kansas is,
and they pass the buck to the Wizard of Oz, who they believe
knows everything. And, based on their familiarity with Munchkinland,
they are certain that the Yellow Brick Road leads to where the
Great Oz lives.
Most would agree that certainty is better than assumption. When
one has no familiarity based on personal experience or observation,
it is best not to assume that one knows the correct10 answers.
So, one asks for information from someone one believes knows—like
a scientist, for example—one who is supposed to be familiar
with the area or subject in question. Did the local Munchkins
or local scientists of Oz give Dorothy the correct directions
to help her get back to Kansas?
When Dorothy crash-landed her house in Munchkin City, the Munchkins cowered under the bushes and flowers in terror of retribution for the death of the Wicked Witch of the East from her mean, nasty, ugly sister, the Wicked Witch of the West. Their benevolent, all-powerful protector, Glinda, the Good Witch of the North, whom the Munchkins trust implicitly, is not much help in solving Dorothy’s problem, either. To begin with, Glinda does not have all the information regarding the situation because she was not even there when Dorothy crashed. Undaunted by her lack of factual information, the first thing Glinda does after coaxing the Munchkins out from their hiding places is to sing them a song about her assumption, or hypothesis, regarding Dorothy’s crash-landing. She sings:
“Come out, come out, wherever you are, and meet the young
lady who fell from a star. She fell from the sky, she fell very
far, and ‘Kansas’ she says, is the name of the star.”
So, where did Glinda get the idea that Dorothy came from a star?
Dorothy never said that she came from a star. But, somehow this
all seems very logical to the Munchkins. Even Dorothy doesn’t
object to Glinda’s false statement! In our analogy, Glinda’s
assumption that Dorothy fell from a star could be called a scientific
theory.
The theory she proposed is that Kansas is a star. This theory is based on an assumption derived from an apparent anomaly as measured against her own personal experience and by information received from the Munchkins who are supposed to be a reliable source, but, who did not actually see the house crash because they were all in hiding. In truth, none of them have any familiarity with Kansas or cyclones or farm houses or dogs or little girls, either! To complicate matters further, Glinda has to put on the appearance that she knows what she’s talking about in front of all her Munchkins followers, even though she is really just making a wild guess. After all, she has a very good job being the protector of the Munchkins, who appear to be utterly defenseless against their enemies, the Wicked Witch sisters.
Anyway, Glinda is a good witch, which means she is probably really
trying to help, so, they all believe her scientific theory that
Dorothy has fallen from a star. In their cute little minds, the
Munchkins have accepted, without question, the logic that underlies
the assumption that is the basis of Glinda’s scientific
theory:
SKY = VERY FAR = STAR = KANSAS
This kind of reasoning process could be called “everything
logic”; that is, everything equals everything. This sort
of logic might also be the definition of stupidity. Example:
If KANSAS equaled SKY equaled STAR, one could theoretically gaze
up into the heavenly firmament to watch Kansas cattle grazing
on the twinkling prairies in the stars above. Unfortunately,
much of what we call “science” on planet Earth is based
on “everything logic”.
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In the dialogue from the movie, Glinda, the Good Witch of the North, and Dorothy begin a “scientific” investigation into Dorothy’s mysterious arrival in the Land of Oz. They start by making some assumptions based on what they have observed, or failed to observe, about what has happened. To the misfortune of us “Munchkins” here on planet Earth, assumptions are all too often the basis for a scientific theory. In truth, many “scientific theories” are based on assumptions which could also be called “personal viewpoints”. What is the difference between “personal viewpoint” and “scientific theory”?
1) Personal viewpoint: If you don’t know what is hap-pening,
you take in whatever information you can get from the immediate
environment and make an assumption based upon that information
which seems to explain the situation. This is your personal viewpoint.
Example: Dorothy assumes that all witches are ugly. Therefore,
her personal viewpoint is that neither Glinda, nor she herself,
is a witch.
2) Scientific theory: If you are a scientist and you don’t
know what is really happening, you can make an assumption and
call it a scientific theory. Example: If witches are ugly (according
to Dorothy), and Dorothy is a witch (according to Glinda), then
Dorothy (and Glinda) should be ugly. There seems to be no difference
between personal viewpoint and scientific theory! So, let’s
examine the scientific theories and personal view-points found
in the story of The Wizard of Oz as an analogy to our own efforts
to resolve the primordial mysteries of life and
universes.
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Whether an event is a miracle or not is relative—it depends on the person you talk to. What is their understanding of the events or evidence presented to them? What is their level of technology? How diverse and sophisticated is their own experience?
The Munchkins seem to agree with Glinda, that compared to their
own experience, a house falling from the sky, which happens to
kill the Wicked Witch, is a miracle. They know that the Wicked
Witch of the East is dead and Dorothy was in the house that killed
her. So, to them, Dorothy is a heroine. She is given a heroine’s
welcome parade, a bouquet of flowers, a huge lollipop, and she
inherits the Ruby Slippers. It’s not exactly a road map
back to Kansas, but at least the natives of Munchkinland are
appreciative of her inadvertent help.
As outside observers, our point of view on this rather pathetically
illogical misinterpretation and misrepresentation of events is
quite different. We have seen the beginning of the movie. We’re
not afraid of witches because we don’t live in Munchkinland.
We also know it’s just a movie, and that we can get up and
go home after the show. As a result, we are more reliable sources
of information than the Munchkins, or the Good Witch of the North,
for the following reasons:
1) We have an external viewpoint to the Oz Universe.
2) We have no vested interest in the Land of Oz.
3) We are familiar with both Kansas and Munchkinland.14
4) As the audience, we also have the experience of viewing the
black and white beginning of the film, so we know that Dorothy
is using real-life characters to play fictional parts in the
creation of her own Technicolor universe.
Yet, without an external observer to step into the movie to give
her advice, Dorothy is still stuck in the Land of Oz. So, the
inexperienced Munchkins, and their guardian witch in a flying
bubble, tell Dorothy that she has to take a hike on the Yellow
Brick Road to look for some wizard who they all seem certain
will know how to get back to Kansas. On Earth, the average scientist,
who is trying to figure out the answers to the primordial questions
of life, the history of planet Earth, the origins of life forms,
global ecological and environmental problems, etc., has even
more disadvantages than Dorothy:
1) An Earth scientist hasn’t been on Earth since the beginning
of “the movie”.
2) An Earth scientist is one of the “Munchkins” himself.
This means that he or she is subject to the fears, super-stitions,
economic pressures, personal viewpoints and lies told by the
wicked witches of Earth.
3) An Earth scientist doesn’t have a Yellow Brick Road to
follow or Ruby Slippers to protect him from wicked witches who
care only about their own vested interests
(such as big corporations and governments with lots of money
to spend on advertising and flying legal monkeys).
4) There is no Wizard in the Emerald City of Earth to solve problems
for them.
A logical method of evaluating whether or not we are on the right
road to finding our way back home, or to answering the primordial
questions of life, could be summed up as follows: A scientific
theory or a personal viewpoint is only as useful as it can be
demonstrated to solve the mysteries or the problems it addresses.
When the theory or viewpoint can be demonstrated to solve the
problems of the subject it addresses, it is no longer a theory
or viewpoint. It is a “workable solution”. Let’s
apply this to our search for a workable solution to finding our
way “back to Kansas” and to solving the primordial
questions of life.
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IS PROFESSOR MARVEL A SCIENTIST, OR WHAT?
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The sign on the side of Professor Marvel’s gypsy wagon says
that he is “Acclaimed by the Crowned Heads of Europe”
as a “Fortune Teller, Juggler and Slight of Hand Artist,
and
Balloon Exhibitionist”. Most interestingly, the sign
says that he can read your “Past, Present and Future”
in his crystal ball! These credentials give Professor Marvel
the three pre-requisites that would qualify him as a modern-day
scientist on planet Earth:
1) An Academic Title
2) Government Endorsements
3) An Air of Mystery (we’re not sure what he really does
for a living, but, since we don’t understand it, we assume
that he must be doing something important).
Mystery is very much like Mythology. The word “mystery”
comes from the Greek word “mysterion” which means the
secret worship of a deity or a secret thing, something unknown
or kept secret. The word “myth” also comes from a Greek
concept which means “a traditional story of unknown author-ship,
ostensibly with an historical basis, but serving usually to
explain some phenomenon of nature, the origin of man”. As
we shall see, much of what we call science is merely an attempt
to solve a mystery by creating a new mythology.
The dictionary defines “science” as: (from the Latin
word scientia); to know, which originally meant the state or
fact of knowing, systematized knowledge derived from observation,
study and experimentation carried on in order to determine the
nature or principles of what is being studied. Okay, so a science
is a body of knowledge about a subject. Then, what is “knowledge”?
The dictionary says it is: familiarity, awareness, understanding
of all that has been perceived. The dictionary says that the
word “perceive” comes from the Latin word “precipere”
(to take hold of, to feel, to com-prehend). By definition then,
anything that calls itself a science should be able to determine
the principles of, and comprehend, a subject
through observation.
We can extend our definition of science
to include the following: Observation and knowledge for its own
sake would be a waste of time unless the knowledge were applied
to finding a workable solution—in this case, a workable
solution to primordial questions. Science obviously does not
always find workable solutions, and very often fails to accurately
and systematically observe, perceive and understand a subject.
Witness the fact that the same problems with which humanity has
been confronted since the beginning of time continue to exist
today: war, insanity, violence, drugs and criminality. Apparently,
there are certain unknown factors that stand in the way of the
ability of science to truly comprehend the
nature and principles of life on Earth. Since we’re using
the study of the Land of Oz as an analogy through which to find
workable solutions, we will call these barriers to observation
and understanding The Oz Factors.
THEORIES FROM CHAPTER ONE
Theory: Beings, individually and collectively, create
Universes.
Theory: What is true in Your Own Universe is true for
you.
Theory: Laws that apply to the Physi-cal Universe do not
necessarily apply to Your Own Universe.
Theory: You create, alter and destroy the Laws of Your
Own Universe.
Theory: A miracle is proportionate to the ability of the
observer to under-stand and/or cause the miracle.
END OF CHAPTER ONE
