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February 2004

"Superman's Problem Part I"

Smallville: "Slumber" episode written by Drew Greenberg, WB network, Oct. 22, 2003

With so many "powers" how could a super-person have any real "problems?" (other than kryptonite of course?)

I just saw the Smallville episode "Slumber" which is about the young Clark Kent being drawn into the dreamscape of a girl who is in an artificially induced coma. She is facing her own penultimate fear. Clark presents us with the adolescent male’s penultimate fear-fascination (sex). And in a parallel story about Lex Luthor capitulating to his father and moving to work at Luthorcorp, we see Lex facing his own penultimate fears (psychiatrists, his father’s games).

You can be an utterly powerless victim, a superman of vast power just developing, or born among the ultra-rich and urbanely powerful, and still have the same bone-chilling, gut-wrenching, paralyzing fears that we ordinary folks have.

But when a person has power – any kind of power including magickal power – deep subconscious fears can distort the expression of that power so that its use becomes abuse.

In Smallville this season, we saw Clark Kent under the influence of red kryptonite, becoming a hired thief and thug. He amassed quite a fortune doing that, and only direct confrontation with the root of the fear that drove him to flee into the drunkenness of red kryptonite let him find himself again. And what was the root of that fear?

His human father. His family. His love for his family that he had betrayed, damaged beyond repair, and abandoned under the influence of his biological father.

Most of us have parental issues. Many can understand fearing to disappoint a parent. Many others can understand fearing even a parent simply because they have power.

Lex Luther confronts his father and resolves his fear of psychiatric examinations that will be reported to his father by "dealing from a position of strength" because his father would not respect anything else.

Clark resolves his fear when his father presents himself fearlessly, willing to sacrifice his life to save Clark. His father does not deal from a position of strength but of love. Clark, influenced by Red Kryptonite, confronts his fears with power, violence and strength. He believes he has the upper hand – and discovers that love is more powerful still than any amount of physical force. And he discovers he is loved, even when he’s gone mad with power and abuses it.

Like most of the excellent tv shows I review here, Smallville has solid scripts with storylines that interact on a thematic level and is well worth studying. Kryptonite is the facile excuse for people acquiring odd powers, but ignore that and focus on what a given personality uses power for.

Smallville has a finger on the pulse of the nation. Lately, a lot of our national decisions have involved fear of what some nearly powerless groups would do given the power to do extreme harm.

Every day, the news carries stories of deaths caused by the powerless who are in extreme pain because of how they perceive the actions of those in power. They grab whatever weapons they can and lash out with all their might at the threat they perceive and fear the most.

Standing outside their situation, we can criticize and oppose their actions. But really – what would you do in such a situation? If you were hurting – badly – and someone handed you the power to make the hurting stop, or to hurt your tormenter back, what would you do? Really?

This is not a rhetorical question. It is the core question that every Initiatory Order has to answer about every new candidate. In Occultism, one is responsible for the actions of one’s student, and of course the student is likewise totally responsible for his/her actions. And the student eventually becomes the Initiator which is really scary.

How do you find out the answer about yourself before you grab that weapon and do something you’ll regret in a future lifetime? How do you know you aren’t better off without any power to solve your problems?

Among all the various actions, studies, disciplines practices and Initiations aimed at discovering how you respond to being afraid, and what you do when confronted by fear – or how you go about confronting fear – (Tarot, Astrology, Iching, etc.) I find an indispensable tool is reading fiction – almost any fiction, but sf/f really tops the list because it can deal directly with the kinds of power which are essentially "magickal". Intangible power.

From the stack of books I have just read recently, I have more than 6 excellent examples of books for those seeking to discover what their own fear-triggers are, and what their personal responses are, what they want their responses to be, and maybe a clue as to how to become the kind of person who doesn’t need to destroy that which they fear.

Reading the Bones by Sheila Finch is a short novel, the expanded form of her Nebula Award Winning novella. The "Nebula" is the top award of the Science Fiction Writers of America – and in this case, richly deserved.

Humans attempting to colonize a planet which has an indigenous species move in to establish their colony taking their welcome at face value. Even the best xenologists don’t quite understand these strange aborigines. And one day, the inevitable happens – that which the wisest humans have feared, occurs. The natives revolt, destroying the colony.

The key to understanding what’s really going on lies in the Power of Language, especially the written language. This is an sf novel set in Finch’s extremely popular Xenolinguist – Lingster series. And we all know the magical Power of Words. As fear draws tight around the heart, what words come out of your mouth?

Strangled Intuition is the second in a new Mystery series aptly named the Karma Crime Series featuring the detective Cally Lazar. This series mixes the Occult, telepathy, clairvoyance etc. with the crime-drama format. A lot of sf/f writers moonlight in mysteries under other names because the money is better, and the techniques are very much the same. Some just don’t bother trying to write sf, and start out writing mysteries though what they really want to do is write occult fantasy novels like Dion Fortune’s.

Cally Lazar, a clairvoyant energy worker has no ambition to be a karmic detective. But she keeps finding dead bodies. With her bevy of New Age friends who draw her to the most – interesting – parties. She can tell who is not a murderer by their aura – but finding out who is a murderer is a lot harder.

She’s also very bewildered by her various budding talents. She can’t solve mysteries on purpose. The harder she tries, the worse it gets, which leads to comedic situations and she tries hard to keep her sense of humor working.

Now here’s where I cheat. I have exchanged a number of emails with the author, and I know that the dizzying bewilderment this poor heroine is experiencing has been deliberately described in detail – because there are some really interesting developments coming in future books.

So I would advise you to get hold of the prequel, Body of Intuition if you can. If it’s not available, read Strangled Intuition anyway – it stands alone very well. Then watch for the next Karma Crime novel.

In the October 1993 column here I reviewed a Kate Jasper mystery titled Murder Most Mellow.by Jaqueline Girdner (note she spells Jaqueline without the C!), and that series has continued to be a best seller though I haven’t touched on it since. Murder on the Astral Plane is the latest, and very much worth your attention if you like your sf/f in the mystery format spiced with ghosts and confusing auras. This series is set in contemporary Marin County California, in the San Francisco Bay area, with a cast of characters that rings oh-so-true if you’ve ever lived there!

Kate Jasper has lately noticed that when she’s in a room with a small group of people, someone in the room dies. She’s becoming a recluse for fear that she may be causing this phenomenon, and considers herself karmically impaired. Ride with her and her psychic sidekick on this investigation where the psychic powers so casually relied upon often fail.

How do ordinary, not terribly athletic, women look upon a big, strong man who might – maybe – be a murderer and know that these women know? What position of strength can they deal from?