Brooklyn Birch, a puppet, symbolizes for me the use of enchantment in its role of distancing the mind from discouragement and demoralization. These states of mind, too often drive individuals, sadly, into emotionally driven acts bereft of artistic design. Comedic ventriloquism may act to symbolize the common struggle against demoralization and despair, against uncertainty, that confusion that may cause depression, a dysfunctional existence destructive to the self and to others. 

Brooklyn Birch at the gates of heaven.

“Brooklyn Birch approached the gates of heaven. Just outside the gates stood St. Peter. "Are these the gates of heaven?” asked the wooden puppet. “Yes, they are. “How can I get in" the puppet continued. "To make an acceptable entrance you must demonstrate humility." said; St. Peter. The puppet, Brooklyn Birch, thought himself immediately back to earth and to show humility wished for a slow, reliable means of transport back to the gates of heaven. St. Peter heard laughter from the angels. He turned. There parading up the path from planet-side, riding between the lines of souls waiting their turn was the puppet. He smiled and bowed from his perch on the back of a giant turtle. "Wake up" said Mr. Russ. The ventriloquist cut into the puppet’s reverie. “The band is playing our music, That’s our Que. The man carried Brooklyn Birch from the dark wings of the theater out to the microphone behind the footlights. He sat Brooklyn Birch on his velvet covered puppet stand. “How humiliating.” thought the puppet.

The Enchanted Loom. The Mind...an enchanted loom where millions of flashing shuttles weave a dissolving pattern, always a meaningful pattern though never an abiding one; a shifting harmony of sub-patterns." -Sir Charles Sherington Man On His Nature.

"What is the ultimate truth about ourselves? Various answers suggest themselves. We are a bit of stellar matter gone wrong. We are physical machinery -puppets that strut and talk and laugh and die as the hand of time pulls the strings beneath. But there is one inescapable answer. We are that which asks the question." - Sir Arthur Eddington

Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking-Glass the White Queen says, "Why, sometimes "I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast." I find this interesting, this common ability of people to entertain beliefs that may be contrary to fact. In fact; I believe this very same ability, often mocked by some, plays a role in a person's ability to adjust and to adapt to their ever changing circumstances.

I for one believe guided imagery that sees healing as its goal is one of nature’s ways of causing a like process inside of us. Guided imagery is what drives the content of our media, our stories, music, and myth. Entertainment that makes us feel good is structured to counter the bad with a good outcome and these thought energies enter us through our senses. We look at a screen and see the antagonists in our favorite westerns, hateful destroyers of who and what we love, and were they metaphor for cancer cells who attack our protagonists, we are relieved of our dread as we experience a happy ending. The enemy, (cancer, the antagonist) is defeated. Guided imagery in entertainment is created to suit our natural cycles I believe. According to a recent article in The Huffington Post, guided imagery will become, more and more, a major tool in the future of the doctor’s treatments of our resistance against disease.