Metaphysical Media

I was one of the many fans of the show Joan of Arcadia and I still miss it. Yes, the writing was a but cheesey at times, but a strong cast helped to overcome the occasional heavy-handedness. I do enjoy The Ghost Whisperer (which took Joan's place at 8pm on Friday, CBS) and not only because it features the darling Jennifer Love Hewitt. Although I'm a big fan of stuff like The Seth Books by Jane Roberts, (so-called "channeled" material) I've never been much into ghosts or mediums or talking to departed spirits. Nevertheless, I recently found myself reading a couple of books on those topics after a trip to the library. One of these was called Walking in the Garden of Souls by George Anderson and the other was a work by James Van Praagh , whose work was the basis for the Ghost Whisperer program. I was also a fan of the short-lived program Wonderfalls, which began at the same time as Joan of Arcadia (fall of '04 on Fox) but only lasted four episodes. I subsequently got the Wonderfalls DVD which included the entire season of 12 episodes. Wonderfalls was a quirky, funny show without the serious overtones of Joan and the G-Whisperer, but with some similarities in that the female protagonist of Wonderfalls (Jaye Tyler) was spoken to by normally inanimate animal figures such as a wax lion or a stuffed fish. The messages she received were generally cryptic, though seemingly intended to guide her in helping those around her to fulfill their destiny. The creators of Wonderfalls included Joss Whedon of Buffy fame and some of the creative folks in his circle. Not long ago, I stumbled across a DVD of a show called Miracles (from '03 I think?) which also did not last long, but looks a bit like a more spiritually-themed X-files kinda thing. Thats all for right now but stay tuned for more on why I think this stuff is important and some other media such as Lime.com (formerly Wisdom Media) and some films which tackle some of these same themes.