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“IT REALLY WAS NO MIRACLE”
“She brings you good news. Or haven’t you heard? When she fell out of Kansas, a miracle occurred.”–Glinda
“It really was no miracle. What happened was just this …”–Dorothy in ‘The Wizard of Oz’
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 a 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.
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, superstitions, 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 MYSTERY 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”.
Lawrence R. Spencer, excerpted from the book THE OZ FACTORS
Printed book
