Note: Here we look at what the Disney experience can offer as insights for ITC (instrumental transcommunication) groups to consider…that is, international teams of afterlife researchers intent on establishing a sustained communication bridge with spirit groups for the broadening consciousness of humanity and the betterment of our world… based on the early successes of INIT (1995-99).

For this article I use the term “Disney” to represent the vast network of people and products that evolved from the life and the mind of Walt Disney… including:

• Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio that was formed in 1923 by cartoonist Walt Disney (then 22) and his big brother Roy, 30, who decided three years later to rename it The Walt Disney Studio… later to become Walt Disney Productions, and finally The Walt Disney Company, headquartered at The Walt Disney Studios.
• Mickey Mouse, Snow White, Cinderella, Bambi, and the many other enchanting cartoon characters inspired directly or indirectly by Walt Disney’s imagination,
• The many movies and TV programs, both animated and live-action, produced by the Disney studios,
• Disneyland and Disney World in the USA, and the other family-oriented theme parks and resorts in Tokyo, Paris, Hong Kong, and Shanghai… all sprouting from a seed planted in Walt’s mind one day when, as a young father sitting on a park bench watching his daughters ride a carousel, he imagined there should be a park where entire families could enjoy rides together,
• The Disney ocean cruises,
• The Disney family, including Walt’s wife and two daughters and grandkids, and Roy’s wife and son (also named Roy) and four grandkids… and the family dramas that spun behind the scenes, including…
  • The brotherly huff between Roy and Walt surrounding Walt’s family foundation, WDI a.k.a. WED Enterprises a.k.a. Retlaw (Walter spelled backwards),
  • The tragic death of the two brothers’ elderly parents,
  • Money squabbles among Walt’s grandkids, and
  • Nephew Roy’s campaign to “Save Disney” from what he saw as a shift in focus from a source of family enchantment into a “rapacious, soul-less” company seeking a “quick buck.”

Readers interested in the rich Disney history can find various versions here…  and   here…  and  here….

Mission and Motivation

Walt Disney was a patient, playful family man and doting dad who seemed to have a lifelong drive to spread the happy-family reality far and wide. From everything I’ve researched about the man and his creations, I’d say the Disney mission is…

• To enrapture children with delight while providing wholesome family entertainment,
• To create a worldwide network or infrastructure to spread that scenario, and
• To make a lot of money to fund and support it all.

Walt Disney was also a visionary. Here’s his 1957 sketch of the vision he saw for his company.

What ITC groups could learn from the Disney mission is to have a clear vision of what’s to be formed, sustained, and accomplished. Various researchers who were involved with INIT in the late 1990s, or people who’ve studied our results, probably have some ideas about how an overall ITC vision should look, now that we’ve learned so much about the opportunities and challenges of working directly with the other side.

I have some ideas about an ITC vision, but they’ve been scattered around on this website as they’ve evolved. In the future, I (we… serious ITC researchers everywhere… ) should probably pull the ideas together (mine, theirs, everyone’s…) into a clearer picture… all based on what we’ve learned from our spirit friends about how ITC actually works.

Ideally, forging and maintaining an ITC vision will be a team effort among people who can get along.

When my wife Regina and I go to the same place at the same time—a restaurant, a movie… —it’s usually one of the bright spots of my life. We get along well, she’s my best friend, and our joint mission is to sustain a happy marriage.

On the other hand, it can be frustrating when we’re going to the same place at the same time for different reasons, for example when she’s at the kitchen sink filling her water bottle under the trickling water filter and I’m standing behind her with dirty dishes in my hand, waiting to rinse them.

What to do?

I suppose I could reach around her impatiently, place them noisily in the sink, and grumble. That’s one option.

Or, I could take the Walt Disney approach… stand behind her patiently… and maybe try something playful and imaginative to lighten the moment.

I suspect that’s where personalities and egos come into play when people are moving in the same direction for different reasons. In any human relationship of any size, be it a family or a multinational corporation, the personalities and egos of the members can support the mission or undermine it at various times.

Personalities and Egos

It might be fun, for someone intimately familiar with key Disney people over the years, to see how everyone correlates with the “Big Five” personality types that we explored in earlier installments… and then, on a more whimsical note, maybe to see how they all correlate with the “little seven” personality types introduced by the Disney people themselves… you know, grumpy, happy, dopey….   🙂  Meanwhile…

It’s evident that Walt Disney’s strong personality and ego provided the patience, playfulness, and perseverance to manifest the Disney mission (above).

Other Disney decision-makers who succeeded Walt (Michael Eisner, Walt’s nephew Roy Disney, Stanley Gold, George Mitchell, Judith Estron, John Bryson… ) had to contend with personality conflicts at various times for various reasons. A few of the obvious ones:

• Different Disney personalities placed different emphasis on different aspects of the mission (enchanting kids and families, making money, sustaining and spreading the Disney infrastructure… ).
• And there was envy… the old compare-and-despair aspect of humanity. The Disney decision-makers were probably all making good money, but it’s human nature to fret over whose gross is greener… and the Disney people did.
• When the Disney mission and profits faltered at some point, fingers began pointing… again, human nature.

Here, an ITC group could learn from Disney the same things it could learn from most other human groups: There will always be personalities and egos to contend with. Short of channeling Walt, there are a few things we can do to get along better with other people, such as…

• Smile,
• Ask appropriate questions ,and
• Remember names.

And beneath all of the many charm tips like these rests the key to boosting our character and raising our spiritual vibration… the key to fine-tuning our personalities and egos:

• Foster your noble side…

Management and Direction

Disney management is based on four core concepts and ten management principles that could enhance any organization:

Core concepts:

• Dream
• Believe
• Dare
• Do

Those concepts reflect the famous quote that is usually attributed to the German writer and statesman Johann Goethe:

Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it.
Boldness has genius, power and magic in it!’

Management principles:

1. Make Everyone’s Dreams Come True
2. You Better Believe It
3. Never a Customer, Always a Guest
4. All for One and One for All
5. Share the Spotlight
6. Dare to Dare
7. Practice, Practice, Practice
8. Make Your Elephant Fly
9. Capture the Magic with Storyboards
10. Give Details Top Billing

Disney management is explored in the book, The Disney Way (Bill Capodagli and Lynn Jackson).

For a concise summary, read more here….

A meatier Harvard article on Disney management can be found here….

While these management principles could benefit most worldly institutions, it’s a bit more complicated for spiritual groups that deal with other-worldly principles, for example, concerning the third item in the list that involves being open and welcoming to the public.

The public and mainstream media are often uncertain, maybe even leery of spiritual groups, so there will be mixed emotions toward a viable ITC group that has succeeded in opening and sustaining a high-tech communication bridge with the other side.

As happened with INIT, much of the information that comes through the bridge probably will reflect truths about the spiritual realms that are at odds with the basic beliefs and assumptions that we develop while living on this noble-savage physical planet. Those finer truths are often difficult for us carnal humans to reconcile and digest. (Examples here…  and  here….)

Funding and Support

From Google…

How much is The Walt Disney Company Worth? In 2012, the Walt Disney Company held assets worth a total of 74.9 billion US dollars.

How much is the Disney family worth? All three (grandchildren of Walt Disney) already lived comfortably…. Per the terms of their combined trusts (today worth about $400 million) Walt Disney’s grandchildren were to receive 20 percent distributions, a good portion of it in Disney stock.

When did the Walt Disney Company Go Public? The Walt Disney Company was founded in 1923 as a movie studio, and its iconic Mickey Mouse character appeared for the first time five years later. In 1955, Disneyland Resort opened in Anaheim, California, and the company went public two years later.

When a group becomes steeped in spiritual principles, wealth is often at odds with the other-worldly mission, and spiritual groups that become overly focused on the need for finances are often accused of being in it for the money. That happened to INIT, as we’ll explore in the final article in this series.

Finally…

One thing that Disney (and the rest of the world) could learn from ITC is the importance of overcoming the fear of death through spiritual understanding… something that seems to have had an unfortunate impact on Walter Elias Disney. (Read more… )

Other articles in this series:

1 intro   –  2 Prologue   –  3 Saturday Night Live   –  4 The United Nations   –  5 Spy agencies  –  6 Disney  –  7 Religion  –