NEVERLAND: THE UNFULFILLED PROPHECY

Editorial Avenue : No. 09, 15th June 2024 

One could certainly make a parallel between the freedom to grow and the free will of growth. Yet, there lies a marked difference between the two. In the first instance, the lost boys of Neverland choose when, how and in which direction to grow – if ever. This is an ideal presentation of what true free will should look like. In the second instance, growth is the one factor that has its hooks into human realities and human beings must simply abide by the natural will of growth, which, symbolically, is representative of the natural cycle of the universe. This deterministic approach posits that human actions and karmic consequences to these actions are ultimately determined by preceding actions or the naturalness of things. The intriguing question that arises about Neverland is: Were the Lost Boys ever masters of the fantasy world they lived in or were they puppets in a universe with a predetermined path, specifically the path of never growing up?

The answer to that seems to lie in the notion of free will...

Though the Boys are blessed with agency (masters of their own environment where they can have their own rules and norms for living), they must also survive through constraint (Neverland is the ruler of their minds and their understanding of reality is shaped by their daily experiences within the confines of the island). Interestingly, the nature of the Boys would not exist without Peter’s nature. The rules and norms of Neverland shapeshift to match with Peter’s vision and whims. The more mischievous he becomes, the more his comrades willingly follow in his footsteps and adventures. Have they as such ever been free? If they have neither the freedom to grow nor the free will of growth, what constitutes meaning for their existence? The freedom to grow is about allowing one’s childhood to be and letting the maturation of the normal cycles of existence to happen organically.  Nothing is ever forced, and no one ever falls into the trap of disillusionment. Having rejected the free will of growth for the purpose of maintaining roots in a fantastical world, the lost boys teach us a lot about what it means to seek that which is not necessarily aligned with our greatest potential. Despite living in a world of fulfillment of their ego-personality self, none of them could have survived without the masculine leadership of Peter and the feminine nurturing of Wendy. In fact, they needed it for maintaining the status quo at all times.

As such, Neverland’s family symbolism of Peter as the father, Wendy as the mother and the boys as the children brings awareness on how energy can get transferred through our lineage, ancestral history but also the history of the culture and civilisation that surrounds us. Human beings after all do not exist within a void. Each one of you has been shaped through the initial thoughtform of a desire which once manifested within your parent’s energy reality whether this manifested consciously or subconsciously. The born child is woven out of a rich tapestry of the parents’ free will to grow. In 2008, Dolto-trained Psychoanalyst Willy Barral, argued for example that the symptoms of ill-ease (illness and disease) in a child’s body was a syndrome of the unfulfilled wishes or the stagnant, unmanifested expressions of consciousness of her/his parents. Getting rid of the ill-ease involved following the energy to its source. In the field of psychoanalysis, this takes place through the medium of speech and the technique of free association which in turn generates a collective past history and the corresponding emotions to the unfolding puzzle. Barral refers to this as disguised language meant to pinpoint the unresolved conflicts and hidden wishes that exist energetically within the parents’ consciousness.  This then brings us to the more complex questions of why even do Peter, Wendy and the Lost Boys exist in our narratives today? Why does Neverland also exist in our imagination? And lastly, what was occurring in the consciousness of author J.M. Barrie for him to produce this phantasmagorical storyline that not only touched the hearts of so many but also created a sense of belonging. So many of us to this day not only like but embody the Peter Pan syndrome of refusing to allow the free will of growth to move through us. Could this be said to be the source of the unresolved conflicts within humanity’s collective history?

The cycle of Life dictates: That which is energised shall expand itself exponentially and make more and more of its “self” expressed through the realms of creation. The freedom to grow is about the preservation of the uniqueness of our identity within a body that grows and matures, the preservation of sacred ideas within a consciousness that evolves and transforms and finally the preservation of the Soul-Self within an individualised physical self that seeks, finds and yields to the journey that physical life prepares one for on Earth.  Peter Pan as a narrative device challenges our fundamental understanding of destiny but also amplifies the ethical complexities inherent in altering established timelines. The characters’ ability to manipulate the only constant of Time known as the free will of growth disrupts the presumed inevitability of the natural cycles of existing. It also leads to a storyline that keeps on pointing to the problem of having a never-ending fantasy. As explored through the deterministic perspective, even if the boys had been mere puppets under the influence of the energy of the planet they were on, how many of their choices were an expression of something that needed to come out and break free?

If we go beyond Peter Pan’s mask of happiness, we stumble upon reality. Reality in this context is that which the self-aware reader perceives of him as the character. Peter Pan is the one in the illusion. The reader is the saviour who, through their emotional experience of the characters, allow them to either break free or to live freely in the collective imagination. Peter is not representative of a boundless joy that everyone aspires to. He is the sad expression of a child coerced into staying playful but also immature forever. Neverland is as such an unfulfilled prophecy for the boys as they never undertake the path of surrendering to the free will of growth and therefore figuring out the greatness that they were meant to achieve by flying freer and higher than their imagination could ever conceive. This concept is entirely different from what is currently perceived to be free will. Neverland is not only the boys’ unfulfilled prophecy. It is the one that was made for all that are currently under the veil of enchantment. Through the power of language and manifested thought, our reinterpretation of the stories that mark us is what will allow the awareness of that which lies beyond to appear to our consciousness again… and therefore save us.

Neverland: The Unfulfilled Prophecy

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