O
Luna, folded in my sweet embrace
Be
you as strong as I, and fair of face.
One of the wonderful benefits of
hiding alchemical messages within parables and fables is the inventiveness
that ensues. Entertaining tales sweep us away while subliminally we might
receive important messages. And as we ask to have the same story told to
us again and again because of its sheer enjoyment, the tale of how to break
free of suffering-based ignorance etches ever-deeper into our psyche.
The presentation of each Rosarium woodcut within different storylines adds to
more than a cohesive map of the spiritual journey; it allows the imagination
full sway to buffer difficult teachings through memorable images. How many ways
can writers present the first full dive into the unconscious realm? How far
down the rabbit hole can a reader stray and not lose sense of the story?
Is it difficult to see the correlation between depictions of radical shifts
found in common stories and the Rosarium’s fifth woodcut with the copulating
king and queen fully immersed in liquid? After all diving into any bottomlesss
liquid leaves a person confused, without a base of familiarity. Along with the
stark imagery, the woodcut’s caption, beseeching the secondary realm become
equal to the primary, also demands a thorough shift of the hero’s perception to
begin.
A storyline depicting a person walking upside down in a zero-gravity
environment appears to fit quite well in our acceptance of this stage of the
archetypal journey.[1] Our collective psyche easily allows
another story’s depiction of a chamber containing thousands of incubated human
infants used as sources of energy.[2] Not only does the hero set off on
an adventure but one of the most confusing parts of the journey appears at this
early stage. In plunking their heroes in such radical environments and then
squarely facing this upset, some writers of classic movies may replicate
upheavals depicted 100 years earlier in literary classics.
Imitation, in these cases, may not only indicate sincere flattery but could
also denote a precise positioning within the archetypal journey. At this
juncture the hero confronts a revolution in his fundamental world-view. Some
stories quickly skip to this action-packed stage of the hero’s journey. Baum’s
Dorothy enters her new world almost as quickly as Lewis Carroll’s Alice enters
Wonderland. Some stories kick off with the upset and share preceding stages
through recollections. Shakespeare chose such a technique in The Tempest, the
tale of his last hero.
When Dorothy’s 1939 movie is first viewed, her decision to return to the Gale
farm provides no more deviation of her surroundings than in previous scenes.
The Kansas landscape remains dull, sepia if not grey in color. However, the
young heroine’s earlier decision to leave her place of belonging signals the
mechanisms of destiny. Fate takes over and this depiction of Dorothy’s helpless
confusion correlates with the Rosarium couple’s complete immersion into a
liquid realm. While the alchemical imagery uses liquid to symbolize the
unconscious realm, a powerful wind sweeps Dorothy to her new realm as the
film’s creators take liberties with Baum’s ‘cyclone’ to give a new spin on a
classic metaphor.
Wind played an important part in directing the nautical course and ease for
early sea-travelers along mythological journeys. Storytellers employed
unleashed bags of wind and changes in prevailing air currents to depict how the
gods, and not the hero, determines the next course of the journey. Even
landlocked cultures with no knowledge of sailing ships, such as American
Indians, used whirlwinds to portray Fate’s power. And so, while Dorothy
makes every concerted conscious effort to find security and take shelter in the
farm’s root cellar, she fails. She now has no protection from the grip of the
unconscious realm, represented by a frighteningly-large tornado.
Dorothy’s tornado comes out of left field, literally. Each clip that forms the
memorable scene portrays the huge twister bearing down on the Gale farm from
the left of the screen. In classical representation the left indicates a
sinister aspect. In the early Rosarium images the feminine, or secondary,
figure proffers the flower with her left hand while masculine, or primary,
figure uses his right hand to perform the same action. But with the fifth
Rosarium image, the offering of bodies replaces the offering of flowers. And
full submersion in the Mercurical world supplants the left hand as symbolizing
the sinister aspect of the unknown realm.
Alchemy-expert McLean focuses on the conjunction of the human figures found in
the fifth image, describing it as the “inner union of the male and female
forces of the soul,”[3]. But the obvious lack of containment found in
this woodcut also demands primary interest. McLean interprets woodcuts 4-9 in
the Rosarium series as stages leading to the attainment of “the White Stone,
the inner mastery of the lunar force.” Culminating in the Empress Stage
of woodcut 10, the hermaphrodite figure displays the many gifts acquired during
previous stages of inner work. However, while woodcuts in this integration
process depict sepulchers, whether six-sided or four-sided, only woodcut 5
fails to provide a container for the conjugal couple.
One interpretation of this noteworthy lack of containment could be seen as the
heroine having no conscious control during this stage of the spiritual journey.
Dorothy makes strenuous conscious effort to find safety as the threatening
tornado looms toward the Gale farm. But when the killing wind finally hits, the
house-bound girl falls into the grips of the unconscious as a sheared-off
window frame strikes a hard blow to her head. With this head injury, the unconscious
realm rules with Dorothy at its mercy.
Although Baum’s Dorothy suffers no such injury, creators of the cinematic
heroine draw upon a stock storytelling component for the journey’s continuation
into unknown realms. As she reels from the window-frame’s blow, Dorothy lands
on her bed, suggesting a sleep-motif. In placing their heroine in such a
position, the film’s creators replicate earlier writer’s techniques. Both
Baum’s Dorothy and Carroll’s Alice fall asleep before entering their respective
new dream worlds. Yet Shakespeare’s final hero, Prospero, speaks of dreams
occurring far beyond the realm of nocturnal sleep when stating “We are such
stuff As dreams are made on; and our little life Is rounded with a
sleep.” [4] Whether presented as dreams
enveloping an entire life or as sleep-induced visions or as an impairing head
wound, the archetypal symbol of dreams, indicating the unconscious realm, remains
strong.
As previous authors dropped hints indicating how to
best maneuver quickly in this stage so the screen-writers of Dorothy’s movie
leave clues in their imagery. Baum’s original cyclone is now a funnel-shaped
tornado. The shape and movement of the life-threatening force may be an
indication where the next stage of the seeker’s journey leads. While cyclones
come in a variety of shapes, tornadoes appear as long funnels. And a twisting
long-necked shaft of destructive wind allows the movie’s creators to present
yet another of the Buddhist symbols for the cause of suffering.
Buddhists explain the three major reasons for suffering as desire, anger and
ignorance. The Tibetan Buddhist symbol for ignorance is the pig and Dorothy has
already escaped one encounter with porcine family members, Duroc hogs. Further
Buddhist symbolism includes a rooster representing desire while a snake denotes
anger. A life-threatening snake showing up in the Kansas plains presented the
need for creative imagery for the1939 movie screenwriters.
The movie’s special effects crew faced a similar challenge in constructing a
snake-like image able to sweep up buildings in its tornado-pathway. Yet the
problem was solved using ladies’ hosiery. The resulting image gives the
impression of a swaying snake, a weaving cobra as it emerges from a charmer’s
basket. Just as audience members’ eyes lock helplessly in the cobra’s hypnotic
gaze so Dorothy also seems powerless in this stage.
Yet in a deleted portion of this scene, Dorothy’s
representative of her secondary realm, Uncle Henry, takes charge. Crossing the
line from urgency to anger Dorothy’s uncle yells “Doggone it, Hickory” as he
directs the farmhand to stop his workings with a wind-controlling machine. The
more pressing need of setting horses free from the barn weighs on the
farm-owner’s mind. In following the Rosarium storyline, Uncle Henry’s reversal
from meekness to anger may indicate the best action for a seeker at this juncture
of their life’s journey.
A reader of this deleted script, with the curiosity of an alchemist, would
question these three symbols – the wind-machine, the horses and the snake-like
tornado. Symbols and metaphors are the life-blood for the alchemist. Not only
do they provide the means to hide valuable information but promote the
open-minded questioning of the perennial philosopher. Fables and parables, the
Rosarium’s favored means of hiding esoteric information, depend on metaphors. If
read or viewed in only a literal sense, the story’s hidden meanings remain
untapped.
Arguably Baum used Eastern symbolism in his original tale. Yet the
turn-of-the-century author may have had misgivings in using blatant symbolism.
But as Baum first introduced his Kansas heroine to readers, another young
Indian hero made his debut, surrounded by Eastern symbolism. Following the
immense popularity of Rudyard Kipling’s Kim, Dorothy’s cinematic
creators may have felt their Western audience primed and ready to take on new,
yet ancient, symbols in their tale of adventure.
Although best known presently for his Jungle Book series,
while living, Kipling’s most popular children’s story was Kim. Set in
India, like many of Kipling’s stories, the story centers on a street urchin who
befriends, not a Hindu saint or holy man, but a traveling Buddhist abbot.
The devout pilgrim from Tibet does not know his way around India yet intends to
take in many of the historical sites connected with Buddha’s life and travels.
Kim’s street-savvy aids the old man and in return the presence and teachings of
a spiritual master bless the young Indian boy.
High-ranking in the Masonic Order, Kipling knew the importance of symbolism.
And as a Nobel prize-winner novelist Kipling adhered to the literary convention
of not presenting the teachings of the abbot outright. In weaving a story
around Kim and his adventures Kipling left no overt directives but instead
inserted clues geared to help the spiritual work of astute readers.
The popularity of Kipling’s works and his heavy use of eastern symbolism may
have encouraged Dorothy’s cinematic creators to take the same approach nearly
forty years later. In those intervening decades a World War and a Depression,
each deserving of their capitalized designations, brought about a collective
maturity to an otherwise adolescent America. And now another large scale war
loomed. Perhaps believing their audience primed for a hard-hitting message,
Dorothy’s film-creators leaned heavily on archetypal imagery from Eastern and
esoteric Western teachings to present the perennial philosophy behind the
children’s story.
Yet there are dangers in using symbols and metaphors.
Interpretations vary with the cultural upbringing of readers and viewers. Even
an extremely popular author like Kipling had to bow to a shift in cultural
interpretation when the Hindu swastika symbol he used to denote good luck in
the printings of his books, needed now to be removed as the same symbol was
adopted by Nazi Germany.
Another problem in using symbolism to address a message in a story is the
prejudicial foundation of the reader. The symbolism in Baum’s book led early
readers to interpret Dorothy’s creator used her story to make statements
against the political system in turn-of-the-century America. This
interpretation gained such credibility as to lead to theater renditions of
Baum’s book peppered with political jibes.
The same tendency to set Dorothy’s story into the realm of American politics
took hold when viewers of the 1939 movie saw it as accusatory commentary
against socialist-leaning policies of the New-Deal. And still other
interpretations of the film were based in such diverse camps as it being
Hollywood’s hit against Nazi Germany as well as a later interpretive
endorsement of gay/lesbian lifestyles.
A recent series of spiritual interpretations of The Wizard of Oz [5] not only provides weight endorsing
such a viewpoint but also addresses a prominent perspective of this new
century. Book publishers, in the business to make money, increase the marketing
in this field of spiritual viewpoints, applying it to published works on
spirituality affecting relationships, business, sports and financial success.
Bookstores handle this influx of spiritual writings by sporting entire sections
devoted to New Age and other writings influenced by Eastern philosophies and
teachings.
That there should be a rise in spiritual interpretations of Dorothy’s story
should not be surprising. Yet there are as many versions of The Wizard of Oz as
there are viewers. Each person brings with them a unique perspective as they
watch Dorothy’s story unfold. The same person can bring yet another radically
altered perspective when watching this children’s classic decades later with
their own children nearby. What gives credibility, however, to a
spiritual-mapping of the symbolism found in this near-mythic movie is not only
arguable imagery but also the prevalence of newly-introduced Eastern teachings
finding homes in Hollywood’s early years.
In the previous century ambassadors from spiritual India came to America and
other Western nations. Finding eager audiences in New York, some teachers
traveled west sharing their foreign philosophies across the country. Yet the
climate of southern California agreed most favorably with the Indian masters.
In the two decades previous to the filming of Dorothy’s 1939 story meditation
centers, religious communities and national headquarters for Hindu orders found
homes in Hollywood and surrounding areas. While the average American may not
have recognized Eastern symbolism in Dorothy’s cinematic tale, Hollywood
writers may have found jumping on the bandwagon of Eastern influence hard to
resist.
Some semblance of constancy must be maintained, however, in interpreting
symbols to help clarify the journey’s map. If the map’s key includes the symbol
of a snake and the map-reader is familiar with only orthodox symbolism of the
snake found in Western religions, great confusion might ensue. In Dorothy’s
story, the snake-shaped tornado may represent a force far beyond the reach of the
young girl’s present conscious development. And yet this force is vital to the
continuation of her story. If the tornado does indeed represent a snake, a
question arises. To paraphrase one of the movie’s more memorable lines a person
might ask “is it a good snake or a bad snake?’
In orthodox view of Auntie Em’s Christian stance, anger, if indeed represented
by a snake, is to be repressed. In certain orthodox imagery, holy figures step
on a snake to depict such a viewpoint. The orthodox view also cleaves to the
Genesis story wherein a serpent represents the capital deceiver in Adam and
Eve’s story of expulsion from their paradise home. The orthodox belief in the
West maintains that without the serpent and all it symbolized, humanity would never
have suffered a continuance of this banishment.
To return to this paradise, the orthodox view is to
subdue the snake and all it symbolizes. In Auntie Em’s view ‘a good Christian
woman’ must repress her anger . Unleashed anger is socially unacceptable
and would strike against the laws issued for the good of the community. To
Dorothy’s provincial aunt, as to most of the movie’s initial audience of
church-going American Christians, it would ‘go against the law’ to assert such
anger.
However, interpretations of a snake’s image varies greatly throughout the
world’s religions, cultures and mythologies. As Joseph Campbell noted, “The
usual mythologolical (sic) association of the serpent is not, as in the Bible,
with corruption, but with physical and spiritual health, as in the Greek
caduceus.”[6]
While a coiled snake can denote the Western symbol of physical healing, the
caduceus, its coiling the staff of Mercury can denote further healing. McLean
likens the first woodcut’s fountain “Mercurial” and feels the “watery vessel
[is]… the inner ever flowing Mercury of the soul”. Mercury’s staff is
incomplete without a snake curling around it. As such, interpretation of the
coiled snake as a beneficial ingredient of spiritual transformation gains
validity.
Interpretation of any symbol is a tricky endeavor, especially in alchemy. The
snake depicted in the Rosarium’s woodcut 10 curls around the hermaphrodite’s
left arm. Encircling the left arm, we can surmise that the snake symbolizes
something unorthodox, or “sinister”. Yet the coiling motif signals good
health. As in the caption found beneath the Rosarium’s first woodcut states,
its mysterious helpful aid is, also, “full of poisons”. Of the many
possible interpretations for what a poison-filled snake could symbolize, anger
as both detrimental and beneficial seems as plausible an interpretation as any
other.
In the caption of the Rosarium’s fifth woodcut Sol addresses Luna, calling
forth strength and might from the secondary realm. In the quick snippets of the
Gale farm before the tornado hits, an astute viewer notes that Uncle Henry,
representative of Dorothy’s secondary realm, begins to live up to his given
name and shows signs of truly being ‘ruler of the house’. Yet while Uncle Henry
takes charge before the gale-force winds fully descend on the Kansas farm, the
Mercurial realm, or the realm of the unconscious, takes over once the tornado
hits. The head-injured Dorothy wakes to an unreal world of the Mercurial realm
where the unconscious directs the dream. Unless trained in the discipline of
lucid dreaming, the average person loses all sense of conscious control upon
entering Mercury’s domain.
The movie’s creators use their particular version
of violent winds to introduce Dorothy’s dream. And though tornadoes can easily
lift houses off foundations, tear trees from the ground and toss smaller items
miles away, this tornado provides strange visions as well. When Dorothy wakes
from receiving her nasty window-frame blow, the amazed girl finds a variety of
people, animals, trees and furniture flying past her bedroom view. Mythical
interpretation of these images would take up an entire book of explanations and
seems better left to personal investigations.
Yet stage direction provides anomalies in this dream sequence. In this movie’s
original script, two cows fly separately past the bedroom’s opening. Yet in
both cases stage direction has Toto darting under the bed. An inquiring mind
wonders what these cows represent that would elicit such a fear-filled response
in the otherwise fearless dog. Does this out-of-the-ordinary response
provide a clue as to a way out of the disturbing, groundless stage and into
more stability?
Dorothy’s tornado experience ends with a vision that causes the girl to finally
go beyond wonder and into fright. Almira Gulch, riding her bicycle past the
window, morphs into a vision of a witch wearing a robe and pointed hat. Her
bicycle also changes, turning into a broomstick that the cackling witch easily
maneuvers. As the figure flies near the opening Dorothy covers her eyes.
And as the house spins apart from the tornado and descends rapidly Dorothy
screams many times, holding her beloved Toto close.
There is safety to be found by the end of this stage, however. In the movie,
its’ creators interpret this stage of the spiritual journey ending harmlessly
even as the whirling house crashes to the ground. Unlike the house, its
inhabitants remain unharmed as they are cushioned by the bed where they lay. A
dream-like trust takes over as Dorothy picks up her ever-present basket, opens
the front door, and leaves the frightening episode behind. Yet also left behind
is her familiar world. She cannot return the way she came. And so fate forces
the young traveler to journey further.
[1] 2001 A Space Odyssey
[2] Matrix
[3] The Rosary of the
Philosophers p124
[4] William Shakespeare The Tempest Act
IV, scene i
[5] The Zen of Oz; The Wizard of Oz as
a Spiritual Journey
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