Is Wonder Woman Your Therapist?

By Kenny Paul Smith

In his superb study of superhero comics, graphic novels, and films, Jeff Kripal notes that, “contemporary American culture is awash in myth, magic, and the supernatural.” 

He has a point. Take a quick glance at the most profitable Hollywood films and TV shows over the past twenty years: alternate realities abound (e.g., Narnia, Middle Earth, Pandora, Westeros, Hogwarts, Brakebills University, Bon Temps (Louisiana), a galaxy far far away); mythical figures are everywhere (e.g., Aslan, Gandalf, Dumbledore, The Red Woman, The White Witch, The Beast, Godric, Stephen Strange, Sith, Jedi); and pretty much any paranormal experience you can imagine is had in one imaginary or another. 

While there will always be debate as to why this or that fantastical narrative resonates so profoundly with the zeitgeist, it is the work the magical dimension is doing in all of this that catches my attention. Take, for instance, the first Wonder Woman film. Released in 2017, it ranks in the top 100 (#93) in terms of box office receipts. Alissa Wilkinson, writing for Vox, points out that this film is something of a game-changer, featuring a female protagonist (as well as a female director) and appealing to nearly as many men (48%) as women (52%). I would add that it also contains considerable wisdom and insight (something not always associated with superhero flicks). In her epic battle with Aries, the god of war, who seems determined to deliver to humanity all that its terrible behavior across the ages warrants, Diana Prince (a.k.a. Wonder Woman), responds with a simple, authentic, heartfelt truth, “it’s not about deserve!” because human beings are all of that bad stuff, but far more as well. 

 

But if the success of the film is explained by these factors, then why all the magical stuff? Wonder Woman’s backstory supplies a logic as to where her paranormal abilities originate. They were bestowed upon her by the gods: beauty from Aphrodite, strength from Demeter, wisdom from Athena, speed and flight from Hermes, the skills of a hunter from Artemis, and the ability to discern the truth from Hestia. But why should the story of a character with these sorts of divinely-given abilities appeal so powerfully to us?

Kripal’s Mutants and Mystics is helpful here too. We love stories that show us a Super version of what human beings can be, he tells us, because this is where human evolution is currently headed, and entertainment is the only way we can get our heads around this idea. He has a point here too. I’d like to push it further.

There is a wealth of evidence demonstrating that all human beings (and probably all forms of life) possess any number of micro-powers, that is, paranormal abilities we aren’t supposed to have, at least according to our still-prevailing public worldview, but which function at such a subtle level that they are easily overlooked. One example, demonstrated literally millions of times over three decades at Princeton University’s PEAR lab, is the ability of mind or consciousness to impose a subtle but measurable order upon the external world solely through one’s focused intention. PEAR researchers, lead by Dr. Robert Jahn, Dean of the College of Engineering, derived all sorts of creative experimental protocols to tease out this ability, such as the use of random number generators (RNGs). When research subjects were asked to intend or desire that a given number show up more frequently, the RNG’s output was reliably skewed in precisely that direction, though careful statistical analysis was required in order to see this higher order of coherence in the data.

So, we have micro-powers, in this case, the capacity to create small amounts of coherence in the world around us. But what happens if this micro-power, which most of us do not even know we possess, blows up into a macro-power, either in us rather suddenly or more gradually in the generations which follow? Should this come to pass without the necessary social, spiritual, ethical development, it could all go horribly wrong. The fictional video below, We Are From The Future, plays out this scenario rather elegantly: all of a sudden, our thought and intention yield instant and powerful results, but we use these new found abilities like we have everything else over the past 5,000 years, to dominate, control, destroy, and…BOOM!, we self-destruct our world in the maelstrom of psychic forces!!

But it could also go incredibly well, which too is suggested in the video – that we manage to navigate this treacherous psi-dominated near-future, discover an objective and sacred imperative sewn into the foundations of reality, and ultimately reach backwards in time to assure us in the past (i.e., our present) that, “we are from the future; everything’s going to be alright.”

Given the reality of our still-largely-invisible-to-us-micro-powers, and the likelihood that they are even now emerging into macro-powers, it stands to follow that that we are doing a lot more than merely watching magical, mythical, paranormal stories unfold before us on our screens. We aren’t just watching, we’re processing! Where might such powers come from? Gifts from deities, evolution, genetic mutation, scientific experimentation, government manipulation, the intervention of extraterrestrial civilizations? How, exactly, might they be activated, blown up into macro-powers? Meditation, entheogens, interaction with forms of non-human intelligence, exposure to higher-dimensional energies? What would I do with them? What would others do?  What kind of world could, and would, we create, and what would life in such a world mean?

I suspect that magical forms of popular entertainment, even when they’re not very good (I won’t offer such a list, though I could!), but especially when, like the 2017 Wonder Woman, their provocative message is beautifully conveyed, represent a kind of group therapy for a deeply disenchanted culture. We’re working through, together and quite unconsciously, what could happen as humanity 1.0 goes Super! If so, entertainment of this sort represents far more than a passing fad, but rather a vital existential resource, and we should expect the Super-dimension, Kripal’s shorthand for the mythical, magical, supernatural, paranormal, as it shows up in what we do and experience, will find its way into virtually every corner of our popular culture! Get ready, a constellation of enormously varied therapists are soon to be arriving on your screens!!!