The modern fascination with the spiritual, the supernatural, and other worlds can be witnessed in our most common art forms— television and film—spanning the past 40 years or so. They show that we’re thinking about all of this since that’s the way we choose to entertain ourselves. Bewitched, I Dream of Jeannie, The Ghost & Mrs. Muir, Medium, Ghost Whisperer, Charmed, Angel, Touched by an Angel, and Supernatural are only some of the most popular ways that we’ve stayed connected to the potential “otherness” in life and to Spirit.

The wild success of books such as The Da Vinci Code and the Harry Potter  series speak loudly to the modern world’s need for new stories and myths as we question our old ones. C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien made us all believers in Narnia and Middle-Earth and kept the wonder of the beauty of Christian myths—and of the continuing battles between the Light and dark—alive in our hearts. Books like The Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley remind us to look to the past for the forgotten spiritual treasure of the Divine feminine. Remember, there’s a Goddess to the God, or at least there once was. Time to bring her back, I’d say.

We need to know that there’s magic in the world. We need to know—not just hope—that good will one day overcome evil. We all want to have our own “prophecy jars” like the glass bubble that contained a prophecy for Harry Potter; we long for something to speak to us like that. We’d love to know that unicorns still roam the forest. How wonderful to be chosen by an animal companion like the way Hedwig the owl chose Harry. And we all want the soul contracts drawn between the daemons (or visible portions of the human spirit, appearing as animals) and their human counterparts in The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman.

Even in the romance-novel genre, there has been an increase in bestsellers with paranormal story lines. In them, not only can the heroine pray for an angel to guide her, but she can fall in love with him when he shows up. And yes, angels even give up their wings to marry these women—after they’ve gotten rid of the bad guys. In many of these popular new novels, the characters have knowledge of ancient sacred traditions of divining, which they use to help them in their adventures—and in greater service to all of humankind.

We need these stories to reflect symbolically where we are in the forever-evolving relationship between our mortal selves and the place where our immortal souls reside. Inherently, we have a sense that we belong to a greater living Spirit, which connects us to the earth and all other living things, even if our world keeps us focused on fear and separation. Deep within us, we know that we’re sleeping and that the frozen ground of winter is waiting for the thaw of spring. Then we can wake up and be lucid and present to the beauty of the soul’s experience.

So however we create an environment to maintain contact with Spirit and the ensouled world—whether it’s through fanciful fiction or deep philosophical inquiry—it’s a sign that we want to remember what we forgot. It’s a sign that something important is stirring within us, even if we’re unsure of where to begin to look for our missing link. It indicates that we’re longing to be awake to our Divine nature and in a sacred conversation with Spirit.

What can help us connect to our inner oracular consciousness and find our answers and good guidance? How can we recognize when Spirit aligns events, people, and experiences in Divine synchronicity? What in the natural world still speaks to us and invites us to see with clearer and more vivid vision? Even if we don’t receive some deep, great mystical revelation, perhaps it can just tell us that deciding against a trip was a good idea or that it’s in our family’s highest good to send our child to another school. It’s in the minute details of mundane life that we play out our greater archetypal personal destinies. Consider that those seemingly tiny, insignificant moments are the things that Spirit cares about.