"Masons are supposed to be engaged in a search for "light" (Ahura-Mazda is the "spirit of light") with all of their "heart, mind, and strength." In L. Frank Baum's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, the tin man wants a heart, the scarecrow a mind, and the lion wants strength or courage (the master Mason uses the "strong grip of the lion's paw"). In the occult, the heart represents the female (or emotion), the mind represents the male (or reason), and strength stands for action.
L. Frank Baum (possibly a Buddhist) was interested in Theosophy (which he and his wife joined in 1896), and The Wonderful Wizard of Oz is on page 36 of the Theosophical University Press 1989-90 catalogue, which features "the principle source-writings of the modern Theosophical movement and seeks to provide a...comprehensive presentation of the ancient wisdom-tradition."
Concerning Theosophy, Baum pronounced, 'God is Nature, and Nature God," and in the Aberdeen, South Dakota Saturday Pioneer (January 25, 1890) he wrote of "an eager longing to penetrate the secrets of Nature -- an aspiration for knowledge we have thought is forbidden." the Theosophists are "searchers for truth" and "admit the existence of God -- not necessarily a personal God." He believed in the theory of elementals (invisible, vapory beings) popularized in Madame Blavatsky's Isis Unveiled (1877), and like the Rosicrucians' belief in the combining of God and nature, and not unlike William Butler Yeats' (Mason and Fabian) search for a new mysticism.
Baum believed in reincarnation, in karma, that there was no devil, and "that man on earth was only one step on the ladder that passed through many states of consciousness, through many universes, to a final state of Enlightenment," according to Michael Patrick Hearn in his book, The Annotated Wizard of Oz (1973). Hearn is also quoted in Children's Literature Review (CLR), vol. 15, as saying "The author of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz was...well read in the occult sciences...Paraclesus, the sixteenth century Swiss alchemist and physician, divided all spirits into....
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http://www.balaams-@#$.com/journal/home ... zardoz.htm
president monson is said to have quotes from wizard of oz in his conference discourses, might have been contemplating under some agenda....let someone search/reseach those talks, might find some hidden aspect, hurry times up....
:-B
