Talkin' 'bout my (re)generation

It's hard to believe that it has been three whole years since Ron and I made the Big Move from city life to country life -- from Houston to The Edge of Nowhere, Texas. (You can read about the transition, if you care to do so, here and here and here.) There are only a few things I really miss about the big city, most notably, the proximity of diverse restaurants, particularly Asian, and real supermarkets. But all of that stuff is still within fairly easy driving distance. And fortunately we don't suffer from the absence of our Houston friends, because they love coming out to see us at The Ranch.

Still, country life isn't perfect. One of the things sorely lacking out here is the selection of wackadoodle freebie New-Wage rags that, in larger urban areas, can be found in the free-publication bins at cafes, bookstores, and a number of other retail outlets.* This lack is actually a little surprising, since there are New-Wage healers and centers even way out here in the boonies.

Dorothea Cangelosi, formerly of the Yellow Brick Road Healing and Learning Center in Houston, is one such New-Wager whose presence out here I recently discovered. Years ago, Ron and I wrote a brief piece about her and her center for a now-defunct online city guide. Back then she was in Houston's trendy Inner-Loop area, but the Yellow Brick Road apparently led her to The Land of Oz Wellness Ranch in our rural neighborhood, where Dorothea offers everything from crystal bowl meditations to various sorts of healing to labyrinth walks to firewalks to...yikes...sweat lodge ceremonies. There's even an Angel Landing Strip, but I guess you have to have reached a certain state of initiation or enlightenment in order to read the information about it; all I know is that it looks like a blank page to me. I'll give Dorothea a pass, though, because she is also apparently a rescuer of unwanted animals, a cause dear to my heart.

Despite the proximity of The Land of Oz Wellness Ranch, our local newsstands here in the sticks don't reflect any sort of New-Wage influence. We have plenty of free publications, of course, but there's nary a metaphysical magazine or newspaper to be found. So when Ron and I traveled into Houston recently and had lunch with our friend Michael at one of our fave Inner-Loop restaurants, I eagerly grabbed a couple of New-Wage periodicals on the way out, hoping to see what was new in the Bayou City's conspicuously enlightened community.

Not much was new, as it turned out. The mags were the same monochromatic creations I remembered from way back when (one was printed in teal, the other in dark blue), produced as they have been for many years on cheap paper and cluttered, as they have also been for many years, with prosaic, sometimes amateurish ads for intuitive healers, life coaches, psychics and psychic fairs, spiritual "counselors," angel therapists, clairvoyants, animal communicators, Reiki practitioners, Goddess gatherings, massage therapists, naturopathic docs... well, you get the drift. They have actually changed very little from the publications that inspired my BLP (book-like product), Cosmic Relief, more than fifteen years ago. Oh, there were a few new modalities** added to the mix, including something called Nu-Reiki, but if I hadn't seen the dates on the publications I would have feared I had been zapped back to 1991.

I was almost disappointed to discover that H-Town's metaphysical mags hadn't progressed to the point where they were slick four-color publications such as Austin All Natural, which, though oozing with the same types of offerings from New-Wage dilettantes, at least is gorgeous to look at.
Nevertheless something did catch my eye as I was thumbing through one of the Houston publications. It was a half-page ad whose headline read:

ORGAN REGENERATION WORKSHOP -- REGROW LIFE!

In the center of the ad was a barely readable 2002 graphic titled "USA National Patient Waiting List Statistics," which depicted a sort of Visible Man figure showing various bodily organs and the number of desperately ill Americans waiting for transplants. In the year 2000, according to the graphic, 5,794 people died because they did not receive transplants in time. (More current US stats can be found here.)

But now comes some astonishing news: Those desperately ill patients no longer have to wait for medical science to save them. They can simply grow their own new organs as needed. And if this means what I think it means, amputees will no longer be obliged to struggle with expensive and clumsy prosthetics. Now they can take matters into their own hands, and if they don't have hands, well, by golly, they can simply grow them. Indeed, it seems anything is possible, and the even more astonishing news is that those possibilities are not just limited to bodily parts.

"What would you like to change?" asked the ad copy for the Organ Regeneration Workshop, and followed with a bulleted list of choices:

• hair
• teeth
• height
• skin pigment
• organs
• better home
• better car
• better relationships
• happier family
• eyes
• weight
• bones
• strength
• systems
• cells
• more $$$

The copy continued:

As Ann Graydon indicated, "I don't know if my artificial eye will transform into a seeing eye but so far my eye and the muscles around it are shifting and moving in ways never before and both eyes are equally located in the center of the sockets and at the same depth, which has not been the case before we arrived at the workshop. I am happy with what has transpired so far and am fine even if nothing else happens and yet I am open for more to transform."

The ad did not reveal who Ann Graydon is, but the implication seemed to be that she had her artificial-eye breakthrough as a result of soaking up the wisdom of the person who will be delivering the Organ Regeneration Workshop: one "Dr. Vetter," whose first name was not mentioned in the ad. But there was a web site link, which I followed, after which I did some additional Googling, and it wasn't difficult to find out more about Ann Graydon and, more importantly, Dr. Vetter.

One of the first things I discovered was that the quotation in Vetter's ad was from an account Ann Graydon had shared during an organ re-growth seminar held in Thailand last year. I think this is the seminar in question, and if so, it's an ongoing monthly affair in which participants are taught not only Organ Regeneration but many other amazing skills as well, e.g., "Changing of Events, Changing of the Past," "Norming of health and control of events with Geometric Shapes," "the energetic cleansing of rooms," and much, much more.

My information search also led me to Wendy Down, whom I mentioned in passing in my previous post. Wendy is very busy not only with her "Youthening" schemes but also with Organ Regrowth and Regeneration, all of which you can read more about on this post and on the rest of her blog. Anyway, it seems Wendy had attended the Thailand seminar Vetter mentioned, and she's the one who spoke to Ann about her eye miracle. "Dr. Vetter," aka "Houston Vetter," aka "Doc Houston," was apparently just trying to grab a little of that glass-eye glory to promote his own upcoming workshop.

Doc Houston also calls himself "Doc Results" and has a web site around the latter handle. As is the case with Wendy Down, his Organ Regeneration shtick is derived, at least in part, from something called "Russian New Knowledge" or "New Knowledge for the New Age."

The fact that it is Russian should come as no surprise to those of you who have been on my Whirled for a while; as I've noted before, those Russians are always up to something cutting-edge. And it seems there's a venerable history, as well as a wealth of scientifical and McSpiritual research, behind organ regrowth and regeneration. As Doc Houston/Results 'splains on one of his blog posts about his upcoming workshop:

Since the 1980s there has [sic] been many mentions of organ regeneration in the channeling of such entities as Kryon, Ramtha, Abraham, Saint Germain and others, as something to be expected. In the early 1990’s some Russian “spiritual-scientists” began work on regenerating or replacing organs and teeth. Initially with electronic devices then, more lately through changes in consciousness with proven results. This workshop combines and builds upon the techniques made available to provide flexible “tools” for the healer to use and to teach to others.

Wow... Ramtha! Abraham! If some of the leading lights in the Imaginary Friends industry say Organ Regeneration is legit, can there be any doubt? (I wonder if the famous dead Russian Rasputin whispered anything about Organ Regeneration to Access founder Gary Douglas back when the two of them were tight.)

The DocResults web site features several stirring videos about the regeneration of organs, mostly centered around the work of Russian "scientist" Arcady Petrov, who has been at the forefront of research about these matters. Doc Houston may very well be in on the ground floor with the Petrov craze, at least in the English-speaking world; currently it appears that most of the online info about Petrov is in Russian or German. But here's a small snippet of information about Petrov and fellow researcher Igor Arepjev; scroll down to "Russians can regenerate organs and teeth -- The eternal fountain of youth" etc. And on yet another site, this one sponsored by a woman who claims to be "a neurologist, homeopath, and clairvoyant," we're told that the Russian healers "are known for their effective, practical methods of clairvoyance and healing, including regeneration of whole organs, such as gallbladder, uterus, fingers and even teeth." All righty, then!

The idea of using top-seekrit methods to regenerate organs and cure diseases is not confined to Russian quacks, of course. To name just one other example among thousands, Michael Beckwith famously claimed in The Secret, "I've seen kidneys regenerated. I've seen cancer dissolved. I've seen eye sight improve and come back." The clear implication there is that people who regenerate kidneys, dissolve cancer, and improve their eyesight are practicing the Law of Attraction, as taught in The Secret.

As it happens, regeneration does occur in nature, even among beings that presumably have never watched The Secret and have never attended a Doc Houston Organ Regeneration workshop. Planaria (flatworms, so beloved by the late Dutch graphic artist MC Escher) can be sliced in two and will regenerate into two separate individuals, which is nice to know, although I am not so sure I would want to hang around people who make it a habit to go around slicing up flatworms. Some species of fish can regenerate injured hearts, and starfish can regrow lost limbs. Salamanders can regrow limbs as well, and many lizards regrow missing tails.

Moving a little higher up on the evolutionary scale, mammals, particularly adult mammals, generally don't fare so well in the regeneration game -- maybe they just have a negative attitude -- although a strain of mouse known as Murphy Roths Large, or MRL, was discovered some years back to have remarkable tissue regeneration abilities. The MRL mouse is now being studied, as are other species that exhibit regeneration, to see if the processes can be duplicated in humans.

Humans do have limited regenerative capacities; the human heart, liver, and kidney have been known to regenerate, (the liver seems to have the most remarkable regenerative abilities). Brain tissue can be regenerated too. Research about these processes is ongoing and shows some promise for future applications, though I imagine it's a tricky area; when you're tinkering with cell growth (or re-growth), there can be unintended consequences. After all, what is cancer but growth gone awry? But...and I know this will come as a shock, Dear Ones...it would appear that the most promising work with organ regeneration, including stem cell research, is being conducted by real scientists and practitioners of science-based medicine rather than Secret-style magickal thinkers. I know; I didn't want to believe it either. But please don't shoot the messenger. I just felt that you deserved to know the truth.
Anyway, judging from the information on his web site, Doc Vetter will be focusing on the "research" from Russia. He shares more about his Organ Regeneration Workshop here and here. 

What the good doc does when he's not regenerating organs
In true New-Wage dilettante fashion, Doc Vetter dabbles in numerous other enterprises besides teaching Organ Regeneration, including a proprietary gimmick called Matrix Energetics, which is actually the brain(less)child of a chiropractor named Richard Bartlett, who, among other amazing achievements, once had his picture snapped with Rhonda Byrne. So you know he's the real deal. But that's probably worthy of its own blog post; suffice it to say for now that Doc Vetter apparently leads a weekly "Matrix Energetics Study Group" at CenterPoint Mind, Body, Spirit Center in Houston. It seems there are quite a few folks involved in Matrix Energetics who, like Vetter, are also into Organ Regeneration. (Here's yet another one.)

In January of this year Doc Vetter delivered a "Healing and Transformation Demonstration" at CenterPoint. It was advertised as free, though "love offerings" were accepted, of course. On the listing for the event, which appears on his Achieve Your Potential site, Vetter presented an inventory of recent successes, presumably his:

Transformations in August...
Two people recovered their hearing
Two people had high levels of pain one was eliminated the other greatly reduced
One person lost weight
One person's financial issues disappeared
Transformations in September...
Stomach problem resolved
Relationship issue resolved
Hip pain eliminated
Financial Blessings given and received
Transformations in December...
Headaches removed
Back pain gone
Cancer removed
Money worries removed

In case you are wondering about that "Doctor" title, no, Doc Vetter is not a medical doctor, despite that cancer removal and those pain resolution cases. Nor, apparently, is he a financial adviser, despite his apparent knack for helping people get rid of their money worries, or at least their money. His credentials are spelled out in detail on his "I Love Me" page on the Achieve Your Potential site. And here's what it says on the Amazon page for his book, Train Your Thinking (more on that below):

Houston is the Managing Director of FBI-Feel Better Institute doing one on one coaching and counseling for personal, professional and private issues. He is a Business Intuitive and he is the main speaker and presenter for Accelerated Success Strategies, Inc. [aka ASS? ~ CLS] a seminar and Workshop Company working with small to large businesses internationally. Houston has PhD's in Comparative Religions, Psychology, Sports and Energy Psychology.

He shares more information about his background on his ThisOneSecret site (and I'll have more on that below as well):

As a modeler of excellence I've gone so far as to spend money to learn and test everything possible to find what works. I even spent the time, energy, effort and money to earn three, count 'em, three Piled Higher and Deepers (PhDs), and in addition, to that I've studied and received certificates and Master level proficiency in over 33 different change, healing and transformation modalities. I was even a pastor of a 5000 member non-denomination church for about 8 years, back when 5000 members was a lot of members.

This modeler of excellence and master of more than 33 modalities teaches people how to train their thinking to realize success, and he has a web site devoted to same, as well as a book, which I mentioned above. The price of the print book is $31.00 and the Kindle version is $29.00. That must be some super-valuable knowledge, considering that the Kindle versions of mainstream bestsellers are going for an average of $9.99, while you can get new print releases of same for $15.00 or less. Doc Vetter also expounds on the train-your-brain motif on various online article sites.

I found this enlightening piece, "Is [sic] Critical Thinking and Moral Values A Bunch of Crap?" on the submityourarticles.com site, under the "Religion and Faith Articles" category. More recently he published "The Real Secret The Movie The Secret Didn't Tell You" on the Articlesbase.com site. Glancing at another Houston Vetter site, Secret Success, I noticed that he has written several other books on achieving success using little-known methods. You can download three of 'em for only $49.00. 

As also noted above, Doc Vetter delivers one-one-one coaching by phone and in person. "One phone call with Houston changed my personality," said Eric L. of Osaka, Japan, according to the testimonials column on the Secret Success site. How much will this personality-changing, paradigm-shattering coaching set you back? Well, that depends. If you're really interested you can set up a free 15-minute consultation with the Doc, as noted on the Contact The Doc page on his Achieve Your Potential site. Yes, that's right: Doc Houston will take time out from his busy schedule as a Personal Performance Coach who helps people achieve their potential right now, in order to consult with little ol' you. The purpose of the freeee 15-minute evaluation is for him to determine if you have enough money to make you worth his while... I mean, to figure out whether or not he can fit you into his very busy schedule, and also to determine how much to charge you.

As any professional in any field, he can not assess your investment, cost or charge until after he has diagnosed you and the problem. Just as an athletic coach must see you perform before giving you a spot on the team, or a mechanic or any health professional must diagnose the problem before quoting the repair cost, so must Dr. Vetter. The difference is you don’t have to pay a $90-$125 first Doctors office visit fee; you get to talk directly with the Doc for FREE.

So you want a range? Some sort of idea… OK! If Dr. Vetter does decide to work with you personally and privately one-on-one it could be as little as $250-$300 and it goes up from there… If you prefer to do it on your own, if you do not need the private personal one-on-one attention of a highly respected internationally known Personal Performance Coach and Spiritual Transformationalist that is ok you can still take advantage of his Self-Help Package of Tools known as The Forgotten Fundamentals of A Successful Life for a lower monetary investment to achieve your potential.

The link in that last graph leads to the Secret Success site, mentioned above. Presumably your "lower monetary investment" is a mere forty-nine bucks.
But the really, really exciting news is that Doc Vetter has discovered a secret: the aforementioned This One Secret, and it is a secret that will change your life forever. It, too, is only $49.00. (Didn't he get the memo from the IM Syndicate that frauduct prices are supposed to end in the number 7?) Writes The Doc:

Because of "This One Secret"...

• I'm getting to my idea [sic] weight without trying, and you can too...
• I'm getting richer (more money) without even trying, and you can too...
• I'm getting healthier and fitter without me trying, and you can too...
• Relationships are getting better without me trying, and they will for you too...
• Everything is more harmonious without me trying, and you can feel it too...
• Life is working with ease and flow
• And so much more...

Well, so much for the recent spate of New-Wage-guru disclaimers that, contrary to what The Secret implied, success really requires action and hard work. That doesn't seem to be the p.o.v. of Doc Vetter, who reveals:

I'm telling you this is so amazing and so very, very simple.

• It requires no physical action
• It requires no action plan
• It requires no help from anyone
• You can do it all by yourself
• Takes very little time
• Can be applied in seconds

This is the fundamental operation, the ultimate answer, the hidden knowledge, the simplest secret, the Skelton Key, that unlocks the core of all power and it is yours and I'll show you how to use it.

The Skelton Key? Could this be an arcane reference to the the famous late comedian Red Skelton? Could This One Secret be the key to opening up your clown chakra? Ah, the mystery deepens.

Whatever it is, it must be working. Doc Vetter has gathered a few highly credible video testimonials for This One Secret, which you can watch if you visit the site. Here's what some folks are saying about the miracle that is This One Secret:

"This One Secret" is the bottom line for everything. ~M.C. H., Houston TX
If you want to be a better person, "This One Secret" will make it happen. ~Jerry H., Houston TX
"This One Secret" will let Conservatives, Liberals, Democrats and Republicans get what they want without being mad at the other. ~Bill K., The Woodlands TX
"This One Secret" makes me a better spouse, parent, employee, and Christian. ~Marina G., Cypress TX
"This One Secret" was even more valuable than my diploma from Treadway University. ~ Dr. Clem Kadiddlehopper ***

As if all of the above weren't enough, Vetter has also been involved in the MLM company Eniva, which offers "life-enhancing opportunities and products to the global community" (notice that the flopportunities get top billing). On the "Nutritional Health" page on his Achieve Your Potential site he writes that everything from Alzheimer's to bird flu to cancer to menstrual cramps to stress can be traced back to the lack of cellular nutritional health. Fortunately he sells just the potion to take care of all of these problems, VIBE juice, which is described in detail here.

But it appears to me that in order to purchase a bottle of VIBE you have to buy into the MLM, which will set you back $99.90 US. For that you get one-count-em-one 32-ounce bottle, 10 promotional fliers, and 20 one-ounce samples so you can recruit more suckers into the scheme. Hey, anything to bring the money in. But maybe it doesn't bring so much money in for Doc Houston; I found this undated piece on the WorldWideScam web site, which mentions both Vetter and his Feel Better Institute.

Nearly three years ago the Houston Press' Craig Malisow blogged about Houston Vetter, whose first name, Malisow noted, is actually Gerhard. Malisow was puzzled about a talk that Vetter was scheduled to deliver at CenterPoint titled, "Bust Loose From Poverty." The cost was $25 in advance and $30 at the door. Malisow asked Vetter why he was charging people to bust loose from poverty, and Vetter's first response was, "You're thinking...from the concept that money's real and that money's limited."
Spoken like a true New-Wage guru wannabe!

Money may not be real, but these days Vetter is charging more of it, at least for his Organ Regeneration Workshop, which takes place March 19-20, 2011 in Houston in something called a Scalar Wave Chamber at a "holistic treatment" venue called The Enhancement Institute, and which will set you back at least $250.00 Or, as the ad mentioned above puts it, "Normal Appreciation is $395, but through March 4, appreciation is only $250. "Appreciation" is Doc Vetter's spiritually-correct word for "fee" or "cost," the rationale being that money, though not real, is a method to express appreciation for the value delivered by New-Wage crackpots. As Vetter said on one of his web sites:

There is a lot of information for you on our different websites. Some of it is free, and some of it asks you to appreciate with money.

And the more money you give him, the more Doc Vetter will appreciate it.

But seriously now...
It appears to me that Doc Vetter -- like virtually all of the folks who advertise in the hundreds of regional metaphysical rags across the US -- is a little tadpole in a very large, very crowded, and frankly brackish pond, scrabbling to make a living by trying out one shtick after another in hopes that eventually something will turn him into a frog, so he can catapult himself right out of that congested pond and onto the banks of The New-Wage Big Time, where the Princess of Fortune will kiss him and transform him into a prince, so he can finally take his place at the banquet table with those who have hit The New-Wage Really Big Time. Jeez, I thought that metaphor, and that sentence, would never end. Sorry about that.

Doc Vetter continues to promote his numerous products and workshops, while attempting to engage marginal Big-Timers such as Joe "Mr. Fire" Vitale, on whose blog he recently posted a comment that suggested he possesses a greater depth of understanding than Joe does. Despite Doc Vetter's attempt at spiritual oneupmanship, Joe expressed appreciation for the comment, which, I suppose, is understandable in light of the contributions of a critical participant named Robert T and another named Linda, both of whom were cutting Joe no slack. (Here is Linda's response to the Vetter-Vitale exchange.) Matter of fact, Doc Vetter has been fairly active recently on Joe's blog, posting praise for Joe's wisdom while slyly promoting himself, as in this comment where he plugged "his" organ regeneration techniques.

Actually Doc Vetter and Joe go way back in the blogosphere. A little over four years ago, when Joe was apparently just beginning to be aware that some folks had issues with The Secret, he wrote a post on his old blog, Beyond Marketing, that pretty much set the tone for Law of Attraction apologists for an extended interval until the furious backpedaling began. Joe started the post by noting that critics had come "flying out of their dark hiding places," though he apparently did not realize or at least was not acknowledging that some of us had been hiding in plain sight from the beginning. Joe groused that critics of The Secret and the Law of Attraction were taking it all out of context by using dismal examples such as the poor people in Africa, or children dying of diseases, to prove that The Secret was a lie. Wrote Joe:

My own take is that The Secret will work for anyone who will apply it.

What about the people in Africa?

Well, do you think they know The Secret?

Hardly.

What about children dying?

Well, do you think they know The Secret?

Hardly.

And what if someone who knew The Secret ended up in Africa or with a disease?

Obviously (as the movie points out), they could change themselves and their situation.

That's the whole point of knowing The Secret.

Rather than condemning the movie by citing examples where people don't even know the principle let alone practice it, I think a wiser stance is to find how The Secret works, demonstrate it in your own life, and let your life be a model for others to be inspired by.

I think that's what the teachers in the movie, including myself, are trying to do.

Ah, yes, what inspiring models some of those teachers have turned out to be. Do follow that link, and be sure to read all of the comments that cite James Ray -- whose manslaughter trial officially starts tomorrow in Camp Verde, Arizona -- as a shining example of The Secret's effectiveness. Especially noteworthy is this comment from someone named Vicki Kunkel, who describes herself as "a nationally recognized expert in mass appeal," although the Blogger profile to which she links reveals that she has had a grand total of four or five views of her profile. Seriously, you have to read that comment. I'll wait.

As for the other inconsistencies, leaps of logic, or deliberate obfuscation in the aforementioned Mr. Fire blog post (and you'll see several more examples if you read the entire post), those have been discussed endlessly over the past few years. But I don't want to digress too much. The point is that our good Doc Vetter piped in with a comment that was the perfect mix of New-Wage wisdom and condescension towards the critics:

Joe,

I so enjoy allowing others not to allow. I find it interesting that most criticism comes from people who only take a surface look at something that has much more depth.

If someone has a problem with LOA I'd be fascinated to see what they have to say about the Law/Art of Allowing.

In keeping with the best practices followed by those who engage in "the magic circle jerk of mutual self-admiration," as my friend Chris Locke once put it, Joe wrote an endorsement that appears on Doc Vetter's Secret Success web site. I'm guessing this provided a momentary thrill and perhaps a small and brief surge in sales (at least if it was accompanied by one of Joe's emails to his list), but that it wasn't sufficient to get Doc Vetter out of the crowded pond, to say nothing of get him to the banquet table. Oh, good Goddess, it appears that I am being pursued by a really bad metaphor. Someone please help me.

I would surmise that the odds of making the Big Time, much less the Really Big Time, are against Doc Vetter, no matter how many Secret stars he kisses up to or how many throwaway endorsements he can get from them. In that respect Vetter is no different from the great majority of the dabblers who peddle their wares and services on the pages of New-Wage rags, and try to earn points, or at least attention, by playing the sycophant to the industry's rock stars.

I suppose I should have a little more compassion for the lot of them than I seem to be displaying here. After all, most are just trying to make a living without doing any real work, and isn't that what most of us are trying to do too? Seriously, that's my highest goal these days. Furthermore the overwhelming majority of New-Wage wannabes will never come close to achieving the lofty heights of success, fame, and power that allow a James Ray to be an agent of death; or a Kevin True-dough to be a multimillionaire serial scammer; or an obnoxious LGAT like Landmark Forum to worm its way into every corner of modern life; or a destructive cult like Scientology to be able to afford to run slickly produced ads on prime-time TV every night. Most of the wannabes, probably, are just harmless cranks.

And maybe I'm completely wrong about Doc Vetter; perhaps he doesn't care about fame and fortune at all and is driven by a genuine desire to help people. (Okay, that was a little over-the-top. Stop snickering.) Maybe he is just peddling the New-Wage stuff as a hobby or because he's bored. Or perhaps he's secretly every bit as snarky and cynical as I am but is merely engaged, for his own amusement, in testing the limits of what people are willing to believe (and what they are willing to pay). I keep thinking I should do that too, and even wrote some song lyrics to that effect (still waiting on the music, though).

At any rate, it's time for me to get back to my Real Work for a while. I'll be back here soon, and meanwhile, do feel free to appreciate my Whirled all you want; there's a handy button on the upper left-hand side that will make it easy and effortless to do just that. It's almost like...magic. And I am willing to bet that you'll find it to be much easier than re-growing teeth, fingers, or gallbladders.

PS ~ I know I mentioned it above, but it bears repeating: the trial of James Arthur "Death" Ray begins tomorrow, March 1, 2010, in Camp Verde, Arizona. It will be televised live on the cable/satellite channel In Session (formerly known as CourtTV).

* Houston (the city), as you may know, has long been a hotbed of metaphysical activity; this piece is from my old Cosmic Relief site (scroll down to "Why we love our hometown... Eat your heart out, Berkeley, Houston is Spaced City").
** In case you haven't figured this out by context, "modalities" is a popular euphemism for New-Wage gimmicks, most of which are ancient beliefs and superstitious rituals dressed up in modern scientifical garb, often presented by dilettantes with made-up credentials.
*** I might have made that last one up. Not only am I being pursued by a really bad metaphor, but I have also been possessed by a fake-testimonial-writing demon.

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