Top 10 Journeys to the Center of the Soul

By John Brooks

The classic Jules Verne novel, "Journey to the Center of the Earth," has captured the imaginations of would-be adventurers for nearly a hundred and fifty years.

July 11th sees the latest Hollywood update of the story: a thrilling, contemporary version starring Brendan Fraser and presented in vivid 3-D! But "Journey to the Center of the Earth" is more than just an adventure. It is also a metaphor for the inner, personal journeys we all take that allow us to grow as people and spiritual beings.

So we thought we'd mark the occasion of the film's release by looking at the top ten stories that have explored these themes in creative, memorable, and often timeless ways. Click here to start the gallery.

Robinson Crusoe (1719)

Daniel Defoe's classic is now synonymous with "adventure story." The inspiration for stories ranging from "The Swiss Family Robinson" (and by proxy "Lost in Space") to the 2000 Robert Zemeckis film "Cast Away," the 1719 novel remains popular almost 300 years later less because of its epic sweep and rich analysis of moral relativism in British colonialism, and much more because of its universal, timeless account of self-discovery. In the course of his ship-wrecked adventure, Crusoe goes from directionless to homeless to faithful to self-described "King" of his own makeshift domain. Only by swearing to survive in isolation in alien surroundings does Crusoe come to understand his place in the world of the mainland.

The Wizard of Oz (1900 - Novel; 1939 - Film )

Both L. Frank Baum's beloved 1900 novel, "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz," and the equally beloved 1939 film, "The Wizard of Oz," tell the story of Kansas farm girl, Dorothy Gale, and her adolescent adventures in the magical, mysterious, and sometimes dangerous fantasy land. A tornado rattles Dorothy's quiet, provincial existence and when she wakes up in Oz, she has one thing on her mind: getting back home. When she finally does, we are led to believe it may all have been a dream. But that's not the point. Dorothy's real journey is an internal one, and she learns that whether you find yourself on the yellow brick road or along the dirt paths of Kansas, the real adventure is life itself.

The Truman Show (1998)

Ingeniously reversing the "stranger in a strange land" formula, Peter Weir's 1998 film "The Truman Show" picks up with its protagonist, Truman Burbank, unwittingly having lived his entire life "down the rabbit hole." The slyly-named Truman's whole existence has been a premeditated lie, the subject of a mammothly popular "reality" TV show of which he is the unaware star. When tears in the fabric of that lie begin showing, he starts looking for a way out. The fantastic journey for Truman is not to a place of dinosaurs, dragons, and talking animals, but rather to what we all know as "the real world." Only by conquering his fears and daring to breach the unknown does Truman finally free himself and begin his real life.

Journey to the Center of the Earth (1864)

Author Jules Verne is largely considered the founding pioneer of science fiction, and his "Journey to the Center of the Earth" is not only one of the most influential books in the genre, but also a template for what the genre could and should represent: allegories of self-discovery, masked by sweeping spectacle. The story of a professor and his nephew descending into the heart of the planet, only to discover hidden secrets beyond their imagination (like, for instance, dinosaurs) is a rousing, timeless adventure. But "Journey to the Center of the Earth" ultimately presents a timeless message: that only when we dare to venture into the heart do we discover the riches and marvels hidden below the surface.

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865)

Lewis Carroll's mind-bending adventures, featuring his young heroine Alice, have captured the imagination of readers for almost 150 years, and it has come to all but define the very idea of the personal spiritual journey. In fact, the term "down the rabbit hole" comes from the name of the first chapter of this, the first "Alice" book. Alice's adventures seem fantastic, sometimes bordering on the macabre, and readers and scholars have come up with endless theories about the underlying meaning of Alice's journey. But it all comes down to the story of a girl searching her soul and becoming a woman and dealing with the frightening, sometimes heartbreaking prospect of leaving childhood behind.

Contact (1997)

"Contact" is notable largely because its science-minded protagonist, Ellie Arroway (an alter-ego for the scientist Carl Sagan, who wrote the novel upon which the movie is based) is so dismissive of spirituality, which lands her in hot water when she is vying to be chosen for a unique mission that may have been the design of aliens, and thus the representative for the entire human race. Unfortunately, most of that race believes in God, and Ellie does not. As it turns out, Ellie's journey proves to be a spiritual awakening. In a provocative twist, no evidence of her journey survived and it appeared to observers that she never left Earth at all. So Ellie is forced to ask her fellow man to have faith in her story...despite the complete lack of tangible, scientific evidence.

Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back (1980)

The symbolism-obsessed "Star Wars" movies have their shining moment somewhere in the middle of "The Empire Strikes Back," the second entry in the original trilogy. All three movies ultimately tell the tale of the spiritual journey of their protagonist, Luke Skywalker, as he learns his true identity and his place in the universe. But the true turning point comes when Luke, on the planet Degobah and under the tutelage of the Jedi Master Yoda, literally faces his biggest fear, the evil Darth Vader, inside Degobah's mysterious "tree cave." What he discovers when he looks at the fallen Vader's mask is his unsettling and surprising: his own face. Luke then learns his last major lesson before coming into himself as a Jedi.

The Lord of the Rings (1954 - Novel; 2001 - Film)

The most popular novel of the 20th century, J.R.R. Tolkien's story is a rich tapestry of deeply-realized interconnected characters, working together for a common goal: to rid the world of the presence of evil once and for all. But the original novel and Peter Jackson's marvelous film adaptation both use the quest to reach Mt. Doom and destroy the ring of power as metaphor for the internal journeys of its central characters-- primarily the hobbits Frodo, Sam, Merry, and Pippin, and the human king-in-waiting Aragorn. When all is said and done, each hero comes into his own, and Tolkien's timeless epic teaches us not just of the limitless potential of the faithful individual, but also that nothing is impossible when we have faith in each other.