For several years, I had been interested in doing a lesson on The Wizard of Oz. One day, while watching the movie for the umpteenth time, a thought crossed my mind: “Who wrote this and what were they thinking?”

The reason for my curiosity came from the realization that the story is very similar, metaphorically, to the parable of the prodigal son. In fact, for Unity, this similarity can be extended even further to the overall concept of the Bible being representative of our spiritual journey. These ancient stories involve the classic telling of a hero's journey which begins "at home", in a place of comfort, then ventures out into an unknown land. That unknown land is always filled with many adventures for the hero: some happy, some not so happy. The protagonist nevertheless presses on and eventually he or she ultimately returns home. In the case of the Bible, that home is heaven. In the Wizard of Oz, that home is Kansas.

So, who wrote this story? It was L. Frank Baum, and in my search, I learned he was a devout Theosophist, a term I was unfamiliar with. As it turns out Theosophy is somewhat similar in its views to Unity because they were both "born" in the same relative time period/consciousness and both by women. Perhaps because of this influence, The Wizard of Oz contains a very interesting spiritual overtone which I would like to explore this week.