Category Archives: THE OZ FACTORS

“The Oz Factors” is a book which reveals the 12 common denominators of civilization that prevent mankind for discovering workable solutions to the problems of life. The Oz Factors was written by Lawrence R. Spencer and published in 1999.

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LOGIC IN THE LAND OF OZ

April 21, 2026 LRS

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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.”–Dorothy

“The only person who might know would be the great and wonderful Wizard of Oz himself. He lives in the Emerald City and that’s a long journey from here. Did you bring your broomstick with you?“–Glinda, the Good Witch of the North

“No, I’m afraid I didn’t.“–Dorothy

“Well then, you’ll have to walk. It’s always best to start at the beginning and all you do is follow the Yellow Brick Road.”–Glinda in ‘The Wizard of Oz’

One of the primordial 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, a 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 directions 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 the Yellow Brick Road and Munchkinland, they are certain that it leads to where the Great Oz lives.

Most would agree that a certainty is better than an assumption. When one has no familiarity based on personal experience or observation, it is best not to assume that one knows the correct directions. So, one asks for information from someone one believe knows–like a scientist, for example–who is supposed to be familiar with the area or subject in question.

Do 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, who 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 her house into Munchkin City and inadvertently killed a wicked witch.

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 proposed by the Good Witch of the North 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, which underlies the assumption that is the basis of Glinda’s scientific theory:

SKY equals VERY FAR equals STAR equals KANSAS.

This kind of reasoning process could be called “Everything Logic”; i.e., 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”.

___________________________________________

— Excerpted from the book THE OZ FACTORS by Lawrence R. Spencer

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YOU’VE ALWAYS HAD THE POWER

April 13, 2026 LRS

Republished by Blog Post Promoter

“You’ve always had the power to go back to Kansas”–Glinda

“Oh Dear! That’s too wonderful to be true!”–Dorothy

“Now those magic slippers will take you home in two seconds. Just close your eyes and think to yourself, ‘There’s no place like home’.”–Glinda

“Then why didn’t you tell her before”?–The Scarecrow

“Because she wouldn’t have believed me. She had to learn it for herself.”–Glinda

“If I ever go looking for my heart’s desire again, I won’t look any further than my own back yard, because if it isn’t there, I never really lost it to begin with.”–Dorothy in ‘The Wizard of Oz”

Like Dorothy in ‘The Wizard of Oz’ we are creatures of our own design. We live in universes created by our own agreements and imagination. We are inside the Physical Universe looking out to find the origin of our being. We long for a place we feel certain must exist; a place where there is no trouble. We wait for wizards and witches to show us the way home. Yet we fear to close our eyes and click our heels to see the Universe Within.

Our journey home begins at the source of the rainbow; shining light upon our own eternal, ethereal selves.

The history of mankind seems blanketed in a simultaneous state of amnesia and deja vu. The ruins of ancient civilizations whisper a reminder that we have forgotten everything we knew.

A multitude of gods have shown themselves like shadows in the halls of history. We know not yet, except by our own observation and decision, which of them is real. We are betrayed by those who teach us that we must trust the Wizards of the West. While pretentious politicians defend the castles of the Witch, the media monkeys swarm to spin perverted lies to cover up their covert tricks.

The voiceless bones of wonderful wizards have dissolved to mortal dust once more. Their words have vanished in the smoke of sacred libraries, searing our souls with the stupefying stench of wisdom lost forever in their flames. From day to day the timeworn treadmill of survival forces us to worship at the soulless bankers’ shrine. Gold is still the god of the great and powerful Oz.

We have crash-landed in a twisted alien landscape of pain and mortality, far away from our home Universe. As a race we have amnesia. We are repeatedly bumped on the head by the recurring cataclysmic upheavals of a planet whirling in space like a farmhouse in a tornado.

The future is an extension of the present. We must live our lives in the present in a manner which will create the greatest good for the greatest number of beings in the future. If we are aware of our own past lives, we must also be aware that we are creating our own future by our present actions. We will inherit our own legacy.

As Professor Marvel points out with simple eloquence, “There are no other wizards…”

We are apparently the only wizards there ever were and the only wizards that ever will be. We are each a part of a time track of the past, present and future of our own creation, individually and collectively.

If we let the Wicked Witches run the culture now, they will be in charge of the place when we come back. Just as we are the descendants of past generations, you and I may very well become, through reincarnation, the children of our children–we are the future generations who will inherit the environmental and cultural conditions of the future which we ourselves are creating today.

Man has apparently been searching the stars for a way to leave the Earth and go “over the rainbow” to a place where there is no trouble.

Since before the beginning of our own dim primordial prehistory, we have been looking into the depths of our own immortal selves for a way “over the rainbow” back to YOUR OWN UNIVERSE–our own identity, simplicity and power as spiritual beings. This has been the dream of many religious philosophers throughout the ages.

We still have not solved many of the mysteries of the physical universe. However, we can CHOOSE to see what’s in it. We can CHOOSE to disagree with what we see. We can CHOOSE to agree to the creation of a new and better universe.

Dorothy and her friends have taught us a valuable allegorical lesson: Dorothy got herself into the Land of Oz, and she got herself back to Kansas, but she would not have made it without the help of her friends. If ever there will be a Yellow Brick Road, if ever there will be an Emerald City of which we can be proud, we must build it ourselves. “

— Excerpt from THE OZ FACTORS, written by Lawrence R. Spencer

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VESTED INTERESTS

April 8, 2026 LRS

Republished by Blog Post Promoter

“The river of human history is clogged with the putrid refuse of unworkable solutions to the mysteries and problems of Life: war, ruined civilizations, insanity, mental anguish, drugs, despair, murder, disease, criminality and starvation. We are victims of our individual and collective inability to find workable solutions to these unwanted conditions.

Our humanity has long since been exceeded by the power of the wicked witches of science and government to destroy all life with nuclear weapons, alter our DNA and control our minds with psychotropic drugs and our lives with media lies.

Our thoughts and conjectures about life and the universe are often based on assumptions, unproven theories, hearsay, rumors and misinformation. Decisions we make in life may be based on ancient attitudes and archaic practices. Marketing spin replaces honesty when the financial, political or religious vested interest of wizards and witches are more important than freedom, sanity and survival.

There are 12 common denominators that prevent observation, understanding, and workable solutions to problems of existence. How do each of these “Oz Factors” influence our history, science, philosophy, our lives and our future? We can chose our own Yellow Brick Road. We can pull back the curtain of rhetoric and dogma. We can build a better Emerald City for ourselves and our children.

Do you really want to go back to Kansas?”

Definition: Vested Interest–1/ a survival or non-survival plan or agenda which has been “clothed” to make it seem like something other than what it actually is; 2/ any person, group or entity which prevents or controls communication to serve their own purposes.

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Example: Governments control communication between the people of their country. You must get a passport to travel to another country. You must pass through a customs’ inspection in order to enter the country. You must pay taxes (money is a form of communication). You must get a license to get married or go into business.

Example: Religions prevent and control communication between people and the gods, saints and spirits. You have to pay the priest money for him to “bless” you or to “absolve” you of “sin” as a supposed representative of the god(s).

Example: A husband usually tries to prevent communication between his wife and other potential lovers.

What would happen if you could safely communicate with everything and everyone?

Political, religious and financial vested interests, typically, DO NOT want people to answer this question. The reason is simple: if you could safely communicate with anyone or anything, they would be out of business!

Such institutions very frequently determine what we are allowed to believe by feeding us their version of “the truth”. Our “belief” in their version of “the truth” is usually backed up by the threat of death, imprisonment, excommunication or bankruptcy.

All human beings have flesh bodies. Flesh bodies require food, shelter, clothing and as many other goods and creature comforts as one can buy, borrow or pillage. This seems to be a common denominator of survival. It is also a source of illogical thinking which has tended to clog the water mains of our minds with all manner of unspeakable refuse: namely, our vested interest in survival.

Survival requires stuff, and stuff costs money and money takes work. This often means that we must each pretend to “like” someone or “believe” in something–that we could actually care less about–for the sake of “earning a living”.

— Lawrence R. Spencer, from The Oz Factors

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COSMIC CLOCK

April 5, 2026 LRS

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“Time is a subject that is far from absolute. The measurement of time is the activity of monitoring the movement of matter or energy particles through space. In order to establish the passage of time, one must establish an agreed-upon reference point for beginning the period of time to be measured. Then, the increments of measurement must be uniformly consistent throughout the period of time being quantified. This set of qualifying factors, however, applies only to the Physical Universe.

Does time (as the Munchkins would say) morally, ethically, spiritually, physically, positively, absolutely, undeniably and reliably actually, really exist?

Imagine that you are completely isolated, unable to observe any physical motion whatsoever–no sun, moon and stars, night or day. If you were isolated from your own body such that you could not detect any breathing rhythm or heartbeat or cellular motion of any kind to use as a reference point, would time exist?

People who have been locked in solitary confinement, whether in a prison or in an isolation chamber, have experienced the phenomenon of “no time”.

Since many people seem to have an innate, built-in time sense, or a “biological clock”, there may be a subjective awareness of time. But, even so, time is determined by measuring some motion in the physical universe.

How can the dates of something for which you have no starting point be measured? How can the age of our planet, our galaxy, or the entire physical universe be determined? How can the age of something which does not exist in the physical universe, such as a spirit, be calculated?

Logically, an arbitrary unit of measurement must be chosen. Then a particle or object which can move through space must exist. This particle would have to travel at a uniformly predictable rate of speed. The unit of measurement would depend on the magnitude or size of the motion of the particle relative to a fixed point in space, or a fixed point of view.

Here is a simple example: let’s imagine a theoretical COSMIC TIME CLOCK in which ONE SECOND equals ONE EARTH YEAR.

If you counted the ticks of the second hand of this cosmic clock in “normal” time increments of 24 hour days, every day, how long would it take you to measure the recent history of planet Earth?

2 years and 22 days ago would equal the end of the Dinosaur Age (75 million BC)

1 hour, 14 minutes,6 seconds ago equals 2,450 BC– Egyptian Pharaoh Khufu

53 minutes, 36 seconds ago equals 1220 BC–Moses’ Exodus from Egypt

42 minutes 39 seconds ago equals 563 BC–Buddha is born

33 minutes 16 seconds ago equals “year zero” the calendar in use throughout most of the world, sponsored by Pope Gregory XIII in 1582

8 minutes 24 seconds ago equals 1492 AD, Columbus “discovers” America

3 minutes 40 seconds ago equals 1776 AD, the United States of America is founded

One human average lifetime (70 years) equals 1 minute, 10 seconds on the Cosmic Time Clock.

Time is a relative measurement of the motion of particles in the Physical Universe. The order of magnitude of the unit of measurement may vary according to the point of view of the observer.

To venture a guess as to the age of the physical universe, based on a supposed decay of matter is another example of “scientific theory” based on assumption and personal viewpoint.

According to some authorities, mainly from the non-physical sciences, such as philosophy, there is reason to believe that the physical universe may have existed for many trillions of years or perhaps for a nearly infinite period of time. However, since time is a relative factor, it’s importance as a tool for evaluating other information is also relative.”

— Excerpt from THE OZ FACTORS, by Lawrence R. Spencer

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OVER THE RAINBOW

March 28, 2026 LRS

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“Now, Dorothy, dear, stop imagining things. You always get yourself into a fret over nothing. Now, you just help us out today and find yourself a place where you won’t get into any trouble.”–Aunt Em

“Some place where there isn’t any trouble. Do you suppose there is such a place, Toto? There must be. Not a place you can get to by a boat or a train. It’s far, far away–behind the moon–beyond the rain, somewhere over the rainbow…”–Dorothy in ‘The Wizard of Oz’

Most children enjoy playing games. Since Dorothy is trying to be helpful by staying out of the way of grownups, she makes a new game for herself called “finding a place where there isn’t any trouble”. However, every game contains problems. In fact, solving problems is a game. A problem is a barrier to reaching a goal. Every game has players. Each player has a purpose for playing a game. Every game has a goal and barriers to reaching the goal. The goal of the game is not necessarily known to the players.

Games may or may not have rules that are known to the players. Every game has a beginning, middle and end. Too many barriers make an unplayable game. A game without a goal or worthwhile purpose makes a game not worth playing.

Solving a problem or winning a game are similar actions. However, a Dorothy soon discovers, creating a new problem in order to solve an existing problem does not usually lead to the winning of a game or to a workable solution to the original problem.

A workable solution is solving a problem toward the attainment of a goal which serves the greatest good for the greatest number of those playing the game.

Example: Melting the Wicked Witch with water proved to be the greatest good for the greatest number of players in the Wizard of Oz Game.

Simply identifying the parts of a game or problem will often give us an external viewpoint from which to discover a workable solution to a problem.

Here are some of the goals, purposes, problems and solutions that Dorothy and Toto played in The Wizard of Oz:

Goal: no troubles.

Purpose: to live in a trouble-free environment.

Game: finding a place where there isn’t any trouble (namely, no miss gulch or wicked witches).

solution: flying “over the rainbow” to Munchkinland.

Dorothy solves the problem of miss gulch by hitching a ride in a farmhouse on a tornado which carries her out of Kansas into the land of oz. However, this proves not to be a workable solution to the problem when she crash-lands her farmhouse and kills the sister of the wicked witch. This gives Dorothy all kinds of new problems!

Solution to the new problem: get out of oz altogether to escape from the wicked witch by going back to Kansas.

all of this results in a totally new game with a new purpose and a new goal and new problems, namely:

New game: find out which is the way back to Kansas.

New goal: get back to Kansas.

New purpose: find another place where there isn’t any trouble (which is the same old problem all over again!).

Problem: solve the problems of a brainless scarecrow, a heartless tin man and a cowardly lion in addition to getting herself back to Kansas.

Problem: get the broomstick of the wicked witch for the wizard so he’ll tell her how to get back to Kansas.

Problem: avoid being killed by the wicked witch and her flying monkeys.

Problem: make the great and powerful oz keep his promise to her friends.

Problem: the wizard is a very good man, but not a very good wizard and a very inept balloonist who can’t get her back to Kansas after all.

Workable solution: Dorothy discovers that she always had the power to get back to Kansas.

As a result, Dorothy is able to end the game.

Games are a vast and complex subject. There are libraries full of books dedicated to the subject of games and solutions. Our entire existence is occupied in the playing of games, for survival or for pleasure, or just for the sake of having a game to play.

A game is ended when one reaches the goal or solves the problem posed by the game.

There are many types of games but in the physical universe there are two basic types of games:

1/ Survival Games

These are games that promote survival for the greatest number of beings.

2/ Non-survival Games

These are games that inhibit or prevent survival for the greatest number of beings.

Survival and non-survival are relative to what one conceives to be the highest attainable level of survival–infinite survival.

Like Dorothy, a game that many beings play is to find a place where there is no trouble. However, doesn’t it seem that beings sometimes CREATE TROUBLE for themselves in order to have a GAME to play?

Beings often play a non-survival game simply because they think there are no other games to play. Apparently, many beings think that ANY game is better than NO game, even non-survival games.

We can each create our own games to play in our own universe. These games can be above and beyond mere survival. One need only decide upon a goal and take on the purpose of solving the problems or overcoming the barriers to reach that goal.

Historically, Wicked Witches and the great and powerful Ozes of the world are very poor game makers or goal setters, as they often serve the vested interests of the few at the expense or pain of the many.

War, taxation, physical and spiritual enslavement are examples of non-survival games which have resulted from creating a NEW problem in order to solve an existing problem. These do NOT lead to workable solutions to the original problems.

Obviously, atomic bombs are not a workable solution to any problem. This is a game which no one can win.

Games are won with workable solutions.”