Metaphysical Subjects and Paramount Movies (1990s)

  

This article presents some commentary about my orientation to metaphysical subjects during the 1990s when I worked as a publicity department staff writer at Paramount Pictures.  Among the movies with storylines encompassing supernatural aspects that I helped publicize during this period are "Ghost," an unexpected big box office hit in 1993; "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade" with a storyline involving the 'Holy Grail'; "Leap of Faith" about an occurrence of miraculous healing; and the 1989 rerelease of "The Ten Commandments" first released in 1956 and including scenes of the Burning Bush and Moses receiving the Commandments on the mountain.  In my previous job as a talent agent, two clients were aging stars of this movie: Yvonne De Carlo and John Carradine.  The corporate principality of Paramount has a logo featuring the symbols of a mountain and stars.  
 

I remember seeing "Ghost" during a rough cut screening with many studio staff members in attendance before the special effects work had been completed.  Having throughout my life regularly read books about diverse aspects of paranormal phenomena and mysterious aspects of life, I was a bit startled by some of the plot developments in the movie.  One nonfiction book by a psychic author that shows some parallels with the plot of "Ghost" is The Wheel of Eternity (1974) by Helen Greaves.  This book is the subject of three previous blog articles.  (1, 2, 3)  Many articles offer perspectives of life in the ascended realm of existence offered in documented cases of transcendental communication.  (incl. 1, 2, 3)  In 2001 when I was an exhibitor for my Oracle Press book Testament at the Lifeways Psychic Expo at the Masonic Temple in Pasadena, I met a psychic named Alan Schwartz who mentioned that he'd been a technical advisor for "Ghost."  This was something I hadn't known when writing the production information for the movie.

"Dead Again" was released in North America on August 23, 1991.
 

Many people's orientation to reincarnation is based upon how the subject is presented in the mainstream popular culture through the commercial media of news telecasts along with fictional movies and TV shows.  Evidence for reincarnation is presented in many previous blog articles (incl. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6).  A mainstream studio movie involving reincarnation is "Dead Again" (1991).  When I wrote the press kit production information for the movie, it seemed important to address the subject of reincarnation for the press and public.  "Dead Again" generated enthusiastic word-of-mouth and was a commercially successful movie at the box office, being the No. 1 film in the United States and Canada during the second and third weeks in release.  The following are some exemplifying quotes from the production information about the 'unknowable' realm of past life experiences.

Screenwriter Scott Frank:

"It's a great narrative device."

Actress Emma Thompson:

Emma Thompson says, "I know I believe in ghosts because I have had direct experience with that," and she feels she could entertain the idea of "the recycling of the soul through different people."

Actor Andy Garcia:

"If you already believe there's a heaven, you believe there's a spirit alive and therefore, why can't the spirit come back in someone else's body?  I believe it's very possible.  It's a fascinating subject, anyway."

Actor Derek Jacobi:

"While there is a huge amount of skepticism in me, there is just a little area that would like to believe that death is not the end.  Actors live by their imagination and my actor's imagination would like to imagine that there is something else."

Producer Lindsay Doran:
 

"I seem to work on movies that have a theme of resurrection," producer Lindsay Doran points out.  "'Ghost' was a project I had developed as an executive at Paramount.  'Field of Dreams' was something I had worked on before that.  I'm fascinated by the theme of what happens afterwards — is it possible for the soul to continue on?  Is it possible for true love to continue?  In 'Dead Again' that idea, the idea of eternal love, love that is stronger than death, was a great idea to me."

Director/Actor Kenneth Branagh:

"If you love someone, the thought can't help but run through your mind — what if they die?  'Dead Again' is about the nature of love.  One's belief in reincarnation is a manifestation of one's belief in the power of love.  I think if you want Roman and Margaret, or Mike and Grace, to be with each other because you believe in the power of their affection for one another, then you want to believe in reincarnation so that the whole cosmic love tangle is resolved."

 

"The Butcher's Wife" was released in North America on October 25, 1991.

 

A fringe benefit of working on press materials for “The Butcher’s Wife”—a ‘comedy’ about a clairvoyant wife starring Demi Moore following her “Ghost” success—was a free psychic consultation with Maria Papapetros, an advisor on the film.  When I met Maria in Burbank during a special evening when media were allowed to visit the set during filming, she told me that she saw someone by the name of Michael was going to be responsible for getting my project done.  This was when Michael Ovitz and Michael Eisner were considered the two most influential men in the business yet I also considered the possibility that my twin brother could be the instrumental ‘Michael’ whom Maria mentioned.  At my ensuing session with the psychic, a lot of what she said seemed nebulous and some was rather blunt, such as my joining a fitness club.  Some statements would be viewed in retrospect to be absolutely correct with certain statements open to interpretation.  The psychic was sharing diverse ideas spontaneously, some conforming with common expectations.  What becomes clear upon considering case studies of psychics and mediums is that they are interpreting ideas communicated in a variety of sensory ways — it’s the Source of these ideas where there’s absolute knowledge.

In my consultation with Maria, I was most interested in receiving information about my writing career.  She said that she saw a book.  Among the things she said that later did occur in my life was, “I see a European person.  Light.  And this person’s coming up fast . . . You will live with someone . . . dark hair, small.”  As I was preparing to leave, the pendulum that Maria held began swinging wildly and she said this was a very positive sign of spiritual guidance.  The people indicated can only be my webmaster for the Internet edition of my book, Lumir, and my mother, who had dark hair and moved in with me in 1996 when she became ill.

When interviewing Maria, I asked her about people’s reaction to finding out that she was psychic.  She said, “Sometimes when I meet someone who hears I’m psychic, they say read my palm and I can sense the nervousness right away.  That is a way to say yes, you are psychic and I’m afraid of you, and so they ask me to read their palm.  I have nothing to do with palms.”

Years later I participated in one of Maria’s group sessions encouraging participants to become aware of their innate psychic ability.  She declared that everyone is psychic yet not everyone has developed this ability.  Working in pairs, students were encouraged to engage in an exercise where they should feel uninhibited and forge ahead by making spontaneous guesses concerning events in the lives of the person seated next to them.  It was amazing how much proved to be correct in this interchange.  For example, during the weeks just prior to the psychic workshop various acquaintances of mine had mentioned plans for going to Las Vegas so one of my ‘guesses’ was that my partner in the exercise would soon be traveling to Vegas.  In response, she said this trip was something already scheduled as a relative lived there.  I recall one of my workshop partner’s predictions was that I would soon encounter a large shaggy dog and it was surprising to me when this did indeed occur a few days later.  A pivotal understanding that allows one to use one’s intuition effectively is that this usually happens in an effortless way — for example, the timing of my recollection about acquaintances going to Las Vegas.

The poster for "Fire In The Sky" (1993) incorporates the expression "alien abduction."  The grotesque horrors associated with the extraterrestrials depicted in the movie are an example of the extent that creative liberties may be taken while promoting something as based on a true story.  It is sad to think of the impression fostered on people who know nothing about UFOlogy and contactee accounts.  I was able to conduct a telephone interview with Travis Walton while I was working on the press kit production information for “Fire in the Sky.”  Although I’d read many books about UFOs over the years, none of them had mentioned Walton’s case.  I’d seen the telefilm “The UFO Incident” based on the Barney and Betty Hill case that aired on October 20, 1975 and the interlude reported by Walton was said to have taken place on November 5 that same year.  My favorite UFOlogy author at the time was Jacques Vallee after having read seven of his books.  Whenever possible I also watched TV documentary shows such as "Sightings," "The Extraordinary," and some episodes of "Unsolved Mysteries" and "In Search Of."  (1991 video example of Rendlesham UFO interviews)  
 
My first priority when interviewing Walton was to get a few quotations relevant to publicity goals.  I also interviewed several prominent UFO researchers along with “Fire in the Sky” screenwriter Tracy Tormé and co-producer Nilo Rodis-Jamero, who’d worked with the film’s director, Robert Lieberman, to conceptualize the film’s scenes utilizing special effects.  The filmmakers didn’t intend to remain faithful to Walton’s written account and the discrepancies wouldn’t be noted in the production information provided to media as the publicist’s goal is to only provide data that presents the film in the most positive perspective.

Walton's narrative was distorted for the movie because fear is a boxoffice draw and people often operate from an assumed imperative essentially preoccupied with financial profit while employed within a corporate principality.  Concerning the expression 'alien abduction,' if this was a valid term the experiencer wouldn't be back on Earth.  In 1993 like most people I hadn't been acquainted with the published accounts of the flying saucer 'contactees.'  In comparison, Walton's case as described doesn't encompass audible spoken communication.  Some blog articles about UFOlogy include "Adventures in UFOlogy", "The Early Days of Modern UFOlogy", "Flying Saucers: Top Secret", "The Maureen Puddy Case", "Reflections about UFOlogy" and "Some UFOlogists Are at an Impasse". 

In 2004 I reread portions of Walton’s account that are available without charge at http://www.traviswalton.com.  Walton attested that he encountered two types of beings.  The first type consisted of several humanoids less than five feet tall with disproportionately large bald heads and five fingers without fingernails on their hands.  Similar beings had been shown in “The UFO Incident.”  The second type of being witnessed during his encounter were several people wearing “velvety blue uniforms,” one with a helmet and three without — men with a similar muscularity and masculine good looks along with a woman who “also had a face and figure that was the epitome of her gender,” each blemishless without moles, freckles, wrinkles or scars.  (This description is a correlation with contactee memoirs.)  The filmmakers of “Fire In The Sky” omitted the second type group altogether from inclusion in the film. 

I can’t say I believed or dismissed Walton’s account when I was working on the production information for “Fire in the Sky.”  Since that time, I’ve read about or heard interviews with other so-called ‘contactees’ and found a few cases where unexpected nuances offer a form of ‘proof’ that people from elsewhere are capable of contacting us; however, in some instances the ‘proof’ that has been documented is seldom mentioned in UFOlogy news articles (such as Truman Bethurum's letters from aboard a flying saucer). 

Here are some quoted statements of Travis Walton from the press kit production information for "Fire In The Sky."

"At first I was angry at people's disbelief, even outraged," remembers Walton.  "Back then, a lot of that had to do with the fact that there were so many falsehoods being told.  I've gotten more philosophical about the skepticism of people.  It's not such an unnatural reaction.  It's an incredible thing (that happened).  What gets me upset is when people refuse to examine the facts or to even look at things."


Travis Walton's viewpoint [about UFO phenomena] is that "It's a physical phenomena.  I don't think there's anything supernatural about it . . . I have resisted drawing conclusions because it's all so speculative — just fragments of memory.  I was missing five days and six hours, but I can only remember a short period of that time.  It's so much like a piece of something more that I hesitate to venture speculation on what it all means."

In early 1996 after beginning work on Testament, I stopped devoting time to watching movies and TV shows, which are predominate commercialized traditions in society.  Movies, TV, pop music or video games are pleasant pastimes unless there is too great a focus placed upon them that distracts one from developing spiritual and metaphysical understanding.  Yesterday one news article was published with the headline "'The true religion of America': Why one TV mogul is going all in on sports."