I realize this post may be controversial for those who do not have the faith that I have. If that’s you, then you can take a pass on this is post, BUT let me say that I care about your soul and that I don’t wish for anyone to spend their eternal life in hell. I pray that everyone comes to know Jesus as I do, but it is a personal choice.
The Movie “Wicked”, in theaters now, is based upon the Broadway play of the same name which is based upon the characters of L. Frank Baum. There is much most of us don’t know about these books and this man that we ought to know. For most of us our knowledge stops at the 1939 movie “The Wizard of Oz” starring Judy Garland. The movie is a mixture of song, dance, charm, a bit of eerie fear, and a heartwarming ending. But the author and these books carry a much darker and more evil foundation.
L. Frank Baum and his wife Maude were members of a religious sect called Theosophy. Theosophy is a religious and philosophical system that originated in the United States in the late 19th century. It is based on the writings of Russian mystic Helena Blavatsky and draws upon the European philosophies like Neoplatonism and Asian religions like Hinduism and Buddhism. Theosophists believe in a deeper spiritual reality that can be accessed through meditation, intuition, or revelation. 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. They believed in reincarnation, karma, and did not believe in Satan.
Further, the Baums believed that mans time on earth was but one step on the path towards enlightenment which passed through many states of consciousness and many universes. Baum believed in essentially a religion of nature. He believed each element: water, earth, fire, air could be broken down further—Air, sylphs; Water, nymphs or undines; Earth, gnomes; Fire, salamanders, for example. Then each of these could be broken down into smaller categories based upon the four states of matter: gas, liquid, solid, and energy. In his writings, science and magic are one and the same.
Women played a critical role in the belief systems of the Baums. Mrs. Baum and her mother, a radical feminist named Matilda Gage, often had seances and clairvoyants in their home. Mrs. Gage was so radical that she believed the suffragettes of her day were too conservative and she created her own suffrage organization, The Women’s National Liberal Union. Mrs. Gage was also interested in palm reading and astrology.
The Land of Oz was composed of 4 triangular pyramid shaped countries pointing inward like a Mason rose croix or a Rosicrucian cross. The “Emerald” color may have been chosen because it was Baum’s birth stone or because it is considered by some to be a stone of prophecy, which leads to another interpretation of the story. This interpretation suggests that the journey to the Emerald city is simply a journey to the center of ourselves because the Emerald City was the center of Oz. It was here that Dorothy, the Tin Man, the Scarecrow, and the Cowardly Lion would find the answers they were looking for. When the Wizard gives his trinkets to the travelers, he tells them that they had the answers all along, they just had to “look inside themselves”.
Unlike the newest adaptation of the story, Wicked, which revolves around the witches—The Wicked Witches of the East (the Black Witch) and West and the Good (White) Witch of the North and South known as Glinda, the original book is quite different. The MGM movie also took some liberties with the story. For example, there was no Professor Marvel in the book. As we know from the original story, Dorothy kills the Wicked Witch of the East when her house lands on her upon her arrival in Oz. The Black Witch represents the darkness of humanity which exists in all of us. Dorothy is then challenged by the Wicked Witch of the West who wants to retaliate and avenge her sister’s death. Glinda helps Dorothy to navigate around her sister along the yellow brick road to arrive safely in Emerald City to see the Wizard so that she can ask the Wizard to go home. But the Wizard requires that she first kill the Wicked Witch of the West and bring him her broom. Dorothy does as he ask by showing courage and standing up to the Wicked Witch and throwing water on her.
The story behind Wicked, however, attempts to portray a different perspective to these witches and was not written by Baum. This adaptation was based upon Gregory Macguire’s novels and it is complete rewriting of the story of the witches in an attempt to make them more relatable and likable, as if we need to like and relate to witches. The main character is the Wicked Witch of the West, now known as Elphaba. The story aims to explain the contentious relationship between Elphaba and the Wizard. The Good Witch of the North and South starts out in this story as “Galinda”, and the two are neither sisters nor friends.
Elphaba has a chip on her shoulder because of being green and being treated differently because of her green skin. Galinda, on the other hand, is considered beautiful and the popular girl in the college of magic. The revelation comes when the Wizard is discovered to be an evil man out for himself to the detriment of the green people. He manipulates the Ozian people to discriminate against the green people leading them to become called “wicked”. This all sounds like a treatise on systemic racism in America set to music, doesn’t it?
Like with most movie adaptations much from the books have been left out, and it should. The books written by Macguire are not for children, if they’re really for anyone. USA Today’s review of the books had this to say,
“The “Wicked” book by Gregory Maguire has key adult differences from the stage adaptation. One of the opening scenes is puppets having sex. When we first meet Elphaba in the book, she’s a feral infant who is muzzled after biting off people’s appendages. The book contains drinking, drugs, sexual assault, prostitution, crime and wild sex parties between humans and animals.”
There are so many problems with the Oz stories and the Baums, but what made me walk away from the stories and movie was when I discovered its connection to the CIA’s Project MK-Ultra. MK-Ultra is the CIA’s program to create various methods of mind control. One of these methods was using trauma. Trauma based mind control, also known as Monarch Programming, uses horrific mental, physical, sexual, and emotional abuse to cause mental disassociation which then would create a mind controlled slave. It creates an amnesia barrier between the person’s ordinary identity and the new identity or other personality. While the CIA claims that the program ceased, there are those who believe it continues covertly under a new name.
Almost all documentation relating to MK Ultra mentions the importance of the movie Wizard of Oz in the creation of mind control objectives. One of the ways they supposedly used the Wizard of Oz to control people was to dress was the victim according to the programming use on them. To trigger a victim, they could put red shoes on someone. This would cause the victim to enter a dissociative state. Dissociation is known as “going over the rainbow”.
In the process of traumatizing the victim, drugs like LSD, cocaine, and opium were also used to aid in the dissociative process. Some people consented to the drug testing through programs at universities and in hospitals in the United States and Canada. Others were tested on without their knowledge or consent, like prisoners. Some like Cathy O’Brien have openly spoken about their expenses in this program. I recommend this YouTube video with Cathy. https://youtu.be/-ouRmUm7cM8?si=Nr9yZTIC3Bd2Y1h7 There were 144 subprojects under the MK-Ultra Project at the CIA. It would be difficult to almost impossible to know if all had been disbanded or if some continue to this day.
Knowing that stories like the Wizard of Oz and Wicked incorporate demonic and occult themes, that they have been used to torture people and children is enough for me to stay away. My father always told me that “you get out what you put in.” If you open yourself up to evil, you’re likely to get evil out at some point. That isn’t a risk that I am willing to take for myself and certainly not for my children. I hope you will stay away as well.
Author. Political Analyst. Family Historian 
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