Heresiarch - Thanks for posting this OZ analogy which goes beyond the Star Trek model in terms of recognizing deficiencies and then, activating their fulfilmment. Quite brilliant, actually (I am also heavily biased towards the Oz meta-structure which was used in one of my feature films, "Under a Shipwrecked Moon").

The only part I disagree with or rather, feel compelled to provide an alt-ending for would be the interpretation of the Good Witch. I find the "reversion to mysticism" defintion a bit too simplistic and suggest another more harrowing fate for our beloved, socially-challenged Dorothy.

The Good Witch seems too good to be true and more likely to represent a warm, shiny usher into Chapel Perilous, than a one-way ticket back to larvaeland which would end our story with a thud. And I want more for our Dorothy.

Though it certainly appears as if Dorothy has been returned to her earthbound family and cozy mundane life, I think it would be more fun to see this time and place as an illusion of reality, rather than as any "real" reality. A shift that opens the towering arched doors to Chapel Perilous.

In my book, ANGEL TECH, the chapter on Chapel Perilous finds itself wedged between 4th and 5th circuits as a kind of virtual interpol zone of hungry ghosts and disembodied souls wandering that bardo in a search for re-entry and re-embodiment. And often, without knowing it. As I re-imagine Dorothy returning to her old familiar life as a virtual hologram model, the Chapel Perilous alt-ending makes startling sense.

As a result, this story is not over. Will our Dorothy awaken to this illusion of reality, a time and place she assumed was real and which continues to appear so very real ? Or will she wander endlessly in her bardo of blind faith and unchecked assumptions ?

Interestingly, I've seen this in some recent popular TV shows and can't help but wonder if I'm just fitting my map to the territory of if "hollywood" had adapted it as a forumla for success...

Witness:
Sex & the City
Carrie - obsessive neurotic
Charlotte - emotional romantic
Miranda - intelligent lawyer
Samantha - liberated sex-pot

Desperate Housewives:
Susan - obsessive neurotic
Bree - heavily emotionally repressed, has to deal with emotinal issues of loss of husband, homosexual son.
Lynette - intelligent business woman
Gabrielle & Edie - sex pistols

I've never seen an episode of the Sopranos, but I can't help but wonder if they fit a 4 circuit map, too.

How about The Simpsons:

Homer: first circuit bio-survival, obsessed with food, etc.
Bart: second circuit territorial brat
Lisa: third circuit brainiac
Marge: fourth circuit social caretaker/nag

Notice the feminist subtext.

I'd thought about the Wizard of Oz thing before. Other observations: We are introduced to each circuit in descending order: Dorothy (4th) (who is deficient socially, btw, because she's displaced from her home), Scarecrow (3rd), and so on. You have to be broken down before transformation can take place.

Other symbols: Toto = Sirius (black/dog/guide of sorts). Notice the Wizard's idealized image of himself is virtually identical to Aleister Crowley's "idealized self-portrait" (here: www.hermetic.com/crowley/c...ning.jpg). The yellow brick road is the "golden spiral", the tornado is a black hole, etc. Basically I think the whole film is an allegory of the technological nervous system becoming self-aware. That or the filmmakers (or Baum) were were initiates, having fun at the expense of ignorants. Oh and the munchkins are DMT elves... I could go on, lol.