My first ever thread on this forum! This is inspired by the following post by Crikey on another thread:
But if you really want to find some moral of the story - look to The Wizard of Oz's "There's no place like home". Simply because the collection of works colloquially known as the Bible started at "The Beginning" in Genesis and concludes in Revelations after humankind has come full circle, right back where they started, just like Dorothy returning to Kansas after her amazing adventure.
I think The Wizard of Oz is one of the most interesting movies ever made. It’s much more than just a fairy-tale children’s movie. Frank Baum, the author of the Oz books, was a Theosophist, and theosophical ideas are all over this movie. It’s really an allegory of the spiritual journey, but one that goes beyond any particular religion’s sectarian view. Instead, it gets beneath the surface and presents the spiritual journey that is at the core, more or less, of pretty much all major religions.
The story begins in Kansas. Dorothy is tired of her humdrum life and longs for something greater “Over the Rainbow”. The film starts out in black and white, rather than color, emphasizing the bleakness of Dorothy’s existence. This is how it is for most people. The first step in the search for “God” or meaning is a longing for something more.
The seven colors of the rainbow, in theosophy, represent the seven “rays”, or the sevenfold path of service to humanity, the greater whole. So we see in this that whatever this spiritual journey is about, it’s ultimate goal is to end up in service to the whole.
A crisis entails. A tornado sweeps Dorothy into the heavens. This is the crisis that for so many people triggers the spiritual experience. It’s sort of like the new birth in Christianity. It represents one’s initiation into the “mysteries”.
Dorothy’s house lands in the land of Oz, with all it’s strange little munchkins. Now the film is in color, not black and white, which of course is no coincidence. As it happens, it lands directly on top of the wicked witch of the east, killing her. There are two witches in Oz, the witch of the west and the witch of the east. The meaning of this is that already, just by stepping into the spiritual journey, you have already defeated a major enemy. You are already halfway there! The experience of initiation, in whatever form and whatever religion, is a major milestone, but it’s just the beginning.
Dorothy immediately wants to get back home. Strange isn’t it that when she was in Kansas she longed for something more. Now that she’s in Oz, she wants to go back to Kansas! The grass in always greener on the other side. But to do that, she first had to make an arduous journey to meet the great wizard, who may be able to help her. The key to finding that wizard is to follow the yellow brick road. This, of course, is the “middle way” of Buddhism or the “straight and narrow path” of Christianity. Just stay on the path, and don’t veer off it, and you’ll be okay.
The path begins as a spiral. This is significant, in that the spiritual path is often symbolized by a spiral. The spiral is also seen in the conical tornado that Dorothy was swept up in. And, although it doesn’t come across in the movie, in the books the Palace of the wizard of Oz is located in the very center of the land of Oz, and the yellow brick road goes in a circular spiral path, going round and round, gradually getting closer to the palace in the center. The spiral path is best represented as a conical spiral, with the wide end at the bottom and the peak at the top. The spiral is a symbol of the evolving self, portraying the way people move beyond and then return to certain core issues as they develop. As you go up the spiral you return to the same issues again and again. As you go up, they are at more refined levels of experiences. Familiar difficulties occur, but at higher level on the spiral. So Dorothy sets out on the spiral path, the yellow brick road, and brick by brick gradually gets closer to the goal.
The journey though is fraught with perils, and it will be difficult. You can’t do it alone. You need help, and help is there in the form of the scarecrow, tin man, and cowardly lion. These are not intended to represent external realities, but internal qualities needed to complete the journey, and their relative importance is signified by the order in which Dorothy encounters them. First, the scarecrow, representing the mind, reason, or intelligence. Second, the tin man, representing the heart. Third, the lion, representing courage. Mind, heart, and courage, in that order, are needed to successfully complete the journey. There are witches and demons along the way. These should be understood metaphorically as lower forces of ego which are always trying to drag us backwards. Christians, of course, would generally externalize these and see these as Satan and demons, and Glinda, the good witch, as a guardian angel. I prefer to look at these downward-pulling and upward-pulling forces in less literal categories.
Without going into the allegorical interpretation of all the Dorothy’s adventures, I’ll just mention one. Towards the end of the journey, in sight of the goal (the wizards palace), they come across a beautiful field of poppies. The beauty and aroma of the poppies tempts Dorothy off the path. She enters the field of poppies, not realizing that the wicked witch will use these poppies to entice her into slumber. The symbolism is clear. When things are difficult and challenging, we tend to stick closer to the path. But when things are easy and beautiful, we wander from the path and fall asleep. Maybe that’s why most Christians in rich western countries are really no different than anybody else. Without suffering and struggle, there is no drive to overcome and grow spiritually.
When Dorothy finally reaches the wizard, he turns out to be really, really mean and nasty, sort of like the Yahweh of the Old Testament. He instructs Dorothy that she still has one more task to undertake before he can help her return home – she has to slay the other witch, the wicked witch of the west. I guess it’s not good enough to partially overcome one’s demons to reach “enlightenment” (or whatever word you want to use). You need to slay them all!
Skipping ahead, Dorothy eventually does slay the wicked witch, and she returns to the Wizard of Oz with the witches broom in hand – proof that she had accomplished the task. But she is in for a rude surprise. The wizard she sees is not the real wizard, but an intimidating projection of the wizard, along with flames of fire and all around scariness. But then Toto, her dog, pulls back the curtain, revealing, not some terrifying godike figure, but an ordinary frail man. The Wizard of Oz (God) was a fake, a fraud.
But all is not lost. Glinda, the good which who represents Dorothy’s own spiritual intuition, comes through. She tells Dorothy that all she has to do is click her heels together and repeat “there’s no place like home”. She does this, and instantly she’s back in Kansas in her bed. This is reminiscent of meditation in eastern religions, with their repeated mantra.
Dorothy has come full circle. She looked for God "out there", only to find, in the end, that what she was seeking was within her the whole time. She is back in her black-and-white world, but she is different. She has changed.
This, to me, is true religion. It's an internal awakening, not external doctrines or dogmas. One doesn't even need a religion at all to make this journey. All one needs is one's own internal sense of goodness and wholeness, and the goal is to get in touch with that, see it clearly, and eventually externalize it.
Gotta love that movie!
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