On hurricanes, the Universe, fan mail, and a song

Wow, it's September already. It's been a busy few days and now I'm getting ready to retire to the living room and watch the Republican debacle, but I thought I'd share a few snippets first.

Farces of nature
Hurricane Gustav has come and mostly gone, and fortunately didn't decimate New Orleans, although he was responsible for nearly a hundred deaths in the Caribbean. I am sure that the Hurricane Whisperer herself, Phoenix/Spirit Diva, aka Lynn Marks, who has claimed to be successful in calming numerous 'canes, will soon be taking credit for helping to talk Gustav out of being more awful than he was. Phoenix/SD led a telephone meditation for this very purpose a few nights ago; I was invited to join but had other plans. Anyway, I'm looking forward to reading the message Phoenix channeled from Gustav. As of now, her most recent channeling is from Hurricane Dolly, whom I mentioned here a couple of weeks ago. Here's part of what Dolly had to tell us:

Peace is your birthright.
Peace is the fertile soil for love to spring forth.
Everything has its natural life cycle.
Me, you and even those levies [sic] in Texas
As they were in New Orleans.

I can't wait to hear the words of love and wisdom from Gustav.

All this talk of hurricane taming puts me in mind of an excellent suggestion that my new pal Mojo shared in her comment to one of my recent posts. In response to my breaking the news that the sun is going to explode next July unless a large enough group of like-minded folks get together and stop it, Mojo suggested this:

Start a movement to get everyone together to think Good Thoughts and "attract" the sun into NOT blowing up next July. Sort of like that hurricane lady, only instead of calming tropical storms you can calm stellar explosions.

You can also take a page from Blair Warren [his classic "Mr. Amazing's Magic Rocks"] and sell magic sun-explosion-preventing rocks... Thus keeping with the fine self-help tradition of just ripping your schtick off from other people. Or as I prefer to call it, "standing on the shoulders of giants", or however that one goes. (It all just kind of mushes into one big vat o' poo after a while, don't it?)

I KNOW this will work, because I myself am the proud possessor of the world's first "make the sun rise every morning" rock. Every evening I meditate and praise my rock for doing such a good job, and sure enough the next morning it works again! And I'm open to joint ventures and affiliates, so long as I don't have to do any work...

The great thing about selling "keep the sun from exploding" rocks is, unlike those other SCAM rocks YOU can offer a money-back guarantee. "If the sun explodes at ANY TIME during your ownership of this rock, merely ship it back to us postage due (That's RIGHT! We are so confident of our rocks WE PAY THE SHIPPING!) and your money will be cheerfully refunded. No questions asked!"

Thanks to helpful readers such as Mojo, I am getting closer and closer to actually finding a good scam. Which seamlessly leads us into our next snippet...

Mr. Fire 'splains the workings of the Universe
If you've ever wondered how the Universe really works, you're in luck. I found this scientifical illustration on the site advertising Joe Vitale's new Romance Attractor "subliminal" CD set:

How the Universe Works

So y'all can forget all those stuffy astrophysicists and other "experts" with their real Ph.D.'s, and you can forget all of those episodes of Nova, and those books by the late Dr. Carl Sagan. All you really need to know about the Universe is that it is in direct communication with your unconscious mind, and vice-versa. The deal is, no matter what you consciously think, say or believe, the Universe bypasses all of that and goes straight for the part of you that is totally inaccessible – inaccessible, that is, unless you buy certain books/DVDs/subliminal products/coaching services, etc., which Mr. Fire just happens to sell.

If you don't shell out your money for these products and/or services, then your unconscious and the Universe will continue to be in cahoots against you. Your unconscious will talk about you behind your back, sending secret messages up to the Universe about you, giggling at your failures, telling jokes at your expense, and so on. And the Universe will say, "Wow, what an unworthy dweeb!" and it will keep on sending you things and people and events that you don't like, and/or failing to send you things and people and events that you do like. And you will have only yourself, or, rather, your unconscious, to blame.

If you do buy the helpful products and/or services, you have a chance of beating your unconscious into submission (otherwise known as "clearing") so that it only says nice things about you to the Universe, and the Universe is obliged to finally start rewarding you with things and people and events that make you happy.

The drawback is that since it's your unconscious, you'll never be completely aware of what's really going on there, so bad things might continue to happen to you, because your unconscious exists to sabotage you and will keep on doing so, unless you keep it thoroughly "cleared."

Fortunately there are always more products and/or services to buy, and you can just keep on buying and buying and buying until good things start happening in your life. Even then you will probably still need to keep on buying for the rest of your life in order to ensure that the good things keep happening. It's kind of like being an insulin-dependent diabetic, except you probably won't actually die if you don't continue to buy those scientistical selfish-help products; you'll just be unhappy for the rest of your life and wish you were dead. Or maybe a better analogy would be the one that Mark Victor Hansen so smugly used when putting Steve Salerno down on Anderson Cooper's show a few years back (and I'm paraphrasing here): you need to take a shower every day in order to stay clean and non-smelly, and you need to keep buying selfish-help crap frequently in order to stay selfishly helped.

And that's the way the Universe works.

PS added Saturday 6 September:
I got this in from Whirled Musings' resident poet, HHH, who is also an artist and, obviously, a man who understands how the Universe really works. Or at least the New-Wage/selfish-help Universe:

Another couple of fan letters
I received these kind words the other day, in response to a post I wrote in May of 2007 regarding up-and-coming hustledork Chris Howard (and some of his more clueless affiliates):

Anonymous said...

I agree with you…
You should never attend one of Chris Howard’s seminars.

You are far too negative and closed minded, plus very egotistical to attend anything that just may show you up as being self-centered and opinionated.

Carry on with your one eyed comments in your own little world in blogger land. Where you reign supreme and get your jollys off with pathetic comments from like minded closed minded people like you.

5:36 AM

Anonymous said...

oh how pathetic, you're the only one to gets to say what you want to say... any blog moderated is a waste of time reading or commenting on

5:37 AM

To which I replied:

Anon, you obviously feel very strongly about Mr. Howard, as evidenced by the fact that you felt compelled to write not once, but twice.

FYI, I will publish any comment that is not overtly profane or in some way actionable (i.e., libelous).

And no, moderating blogs is not a waste of time. If this blog weren't moderated, then the aforementioned profane or actionable comments would be automatically published, along with spam messages about online gambling and penis enlargers. We do try to stay on topic here. :-)

Anyway, it's obvious that my post strongly affected you. Believe me, I do understand that disillusionment is never easy, and I only hope you didn't shell out too much money on your hero.

I thought I'd do Anon a favor and bring this up to the front page.

Why do the chickens have human arms?
And finally, here is a plaintive little song to carry you into the weekend. I know, I know, it's not the weekend yet, but it will be before you know it. (Warning: if you are at all offended by use of the "f" word or by references to recreational drug use, do NOT follow this link.)

* * * * *

And that's it for now. I hope to soon have an update on the ongoing saga of the Blunder From Down Under, David Schirmer... plus a thoughtful and well-researched post about a serious social problem... and oh, so much more. So much to blog about, so little time to blog.

For now, I'm off to the living room to watch that big spectacle in Minnesota, and get in some quality yelling-at-the-TV time. Apparently Mitt Romney just finished telling everyone that liberals/Democrats are to blame for our government getting too big for its britches. I suggest you hop on over to Steve Salerno's blog for some engaging discussions about that carnival/soap opera we call an American presidential election.

Tuesday trifles

I'm on the run again, but wanted to share a few snippets.

Davie in Disneyland: the abundant life
Talk about rising from adversity: David Schirmer, Aussie star of The Secret, has been to Disney World and back – and to hear him tell it, he's living a more abundant life than ever, despite the naysayers and negative Nellies who tried to bring his empire down with contrived scandals. He's living high on the hog and having the time of his life – a true example of the Law Of Attraction in action. Furthermore, he says he's proud to be portrayed chumming around with the likes of Mickey and Goofy, as he considers them to be fine role models for success in business.

He even borrowed a doctored image from yours truly to promote his latest seminar, which is to be held at one of Australia's swankiest hotels. Do I mind that he borrowed without giving me credit? No, not a bit, especially since I borrowed from him in the first place to get an image of his face, and from Disney for the rest of the picture. In fact, I'm delighted to have been able to help out, and as it happens, I have created some other images that he is welcome to borrow and use as well.

What can I say? I believe in sharing.

Year of the Kat
I'm still getting feedback on the Kat-and-Clara controversy that was first introduced on this blog a couple of months ago. Kat is a channeler who made her channeling debut on The Secret forum, but soon decided to go off on her own. I've been a bit snarky about Kat and her pal Clara. One defender of Kat has sent me the same comment a couple of different times in the past few days, but has asked that I not publish it, so I won't. But the essence of the message is that Kat is the real deal, because she has never been wrong about anything yet, according to this person. This individual also expressed the opinion that I am mean, nasty, childish, and downright unfair, not only to Kat but to all abuse victims, for suggesting that Kat's channeling might be the product of a troubled mind caused by abuse in her past.

Just sharing another opinion from the other side...

Official song of Whirled Musings is now in outer space!
The Beatles' song "Across The Universe," which happens to be the official song of this blog, by virtue of being one of my favorite songs of all time, celebrates its fortieth (!) birthday this year. And what greater way to celebrate this momentous occasion – and my exquisite taste in music – than for that song to be blasted off into deep space! In a further nod to my blog and me, the movie Across The Universe, a musical tribute to The Beatles and the late 1960s, will be released on DVD in the U.S. today.

I like the Beatles' version of "Across The Universe," of course, but I also like some of the more recent versions, both of which I've provided links to previously. The first is Fiona Apple’s cover of the song, which was featured in the soundtrack of one of my favorite movies, Pleasantville.

Then there is Rufus Wainwright’s version.

Play them both together backwards, and you'll find a secret message about Paul and a dead walrus. Or something like that.

Nothing's gonna change my Whirled!

Beast meets West, Part 1

The Journey to the East in search of truth had been around since Herman Hesse. But the high profile Beatles gave tens of thousands of hippies the dream that their answers were to be found in the East – just follow the nearest Indian with a long beard and funny mantra.
~ Roadjunky: The Beatles Travel To India

What a difference a span of four decades fails to make.

At roughly the same time the Summer Of Love was morphing into an endless summer and heading out (so to speak) from San Francisco into the culture at large, The Beatles were bringing a little bit of India to the West. In the late 1960s they discovered Transcendental Meditation, or TM, and briefly became followers of TM’s great popularizer, the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. While isolated Western thinkers and writers have long turned to the East for enlightenment or inspiration, it took the Fab Four, those huge influencers of the baby-boomer generation, to ignite the spark that really spread India fever to the masses in the West. (Coincidentally – or is it a coincidence? – Newsweek has recently published a story about this very topic.)

The Beatles’ love affair with India, or at least with TM, was short-lived, as they soon grew disillusioned with the Maharishi**. Their disenchantment had much to do with what they perceived as his hypocrisy; it seemed that this alleged celibate, this altruistic man of peace, was in truth a horny guy who acted on his lustful impulses, and he was a money-grubber to boot. And it also seemed that he was using The Beatles’ fame to promote himself. But their momentary infatuation did help spawn some silly fashions (think Nehru jackets and endless strands of beads) and, more significantly, some really cool music. "Across The Universe" remains one of my favorite songs of all time, as may be evident on the tag line to my blog, and John Lennon himself said the lyrics were the perhaps the best and most poetic he’d ever written. Whatever poetic, spiritual, or mystical significance the song may have, I like it because it seems infused with the ambience of a prolonged blissed-out (or perpetually stoned) state that I have never actually experienced, and don't particularly want to, but have often wondered about. Jai guru deva om!

Even more importantly, and relevant to this post, the Beatles’ and other influential celebrities' fascination with India planted seeds that sprouted all over the cultural landscape and now are everywhere. Forty years later, aging hippies, as well as fresh new generations of Western seekers, are still looking Eastward, ever Eastward, to find the keys to enlightenment that Western philosophy and religion – at least in and of themselves – don’t seem to offer. Those who can’t afford to or don’t want to make the physical journey to distant shores simply glom onto the guru-of-choice’s teachings via the Internet. Or they’ll set their starry eyes on a Stateside New-Wager who has trained with that guru, or merely claims to be certified or trained in the guru’s techniques, or even just has a passing familiarity with Eastern/Hindu concepts and practices.

Not that I’m dismissing the value of Eastern thinking, or even of meditation in its various forms, transcendental or not. I can well understand the appeal, and I think that for me to categorically trash all things Eastern would make me as closed-minded as the Secretrons have accused me of being. But I cannot help being amused by the many ways that Eastern thought, particularly in its simplistic and sometimes vulgar Western incarnations, has contributed to New-Wage thinking (or lack thereof). And I suppose I still find it somewhat amazing that allegedly sophisticated, educated Westerners are just as easy to dupe as the poorest and most under-educated Easterner.

Before I go any further with this, let me tell you I am acutely aware of being quite a bit out of my league with this entire topic, having only a superficial understanding of Eastern philosophy and culture (though I do have a fair working knowledge of Indian cuisine, which I LOVE). I leave the informed criticism to people such as Jody Radzik and his delightful Guruphiliac blog. As evidenced by the very name of his blog, the subject of gurus is much more Jody’s bailiwick than it is mine.* Also useful in this area are John Knapps’ TranceNet and TM-Free Blog. And then there’s always the Rick Ross Institute.

But if you want a shallow, smart-alecky, and fairly ignorant treatment of these topics – and an exploration that (with apologies to my friend Gregory) doesn’t go much beyond the cult of personality – then by golly, you’ve come to the right blog. So stick around till you get bored, or until I do.

One Eastern practice that has taken a bit of a hold in the West in recent years is the yagya, a Hindu prayer ritual. This isn’t some sort of simple deal where you get together in your living room with some friends and pray about something, or you ask your church group to pray for you or with you, or you request that everyone on your email list say a prayer on your behalf. No, a yagya must be performed by professionals, and apparently it’s very rarely free; it can cost hundreds or even thousands of dollars. The Maharishi himself has had his own yagya scam business for years and years.

Actually the Maharishi is a man of many enterprises, and at one time New-Wage writer / speaker / healer Deepak Chopra was one of his business partners. I still remember the stir that Chopra created more than fifteen years ago, when the Journal of the American Medical Association (!) published an article of Chopra’s that was favorable to the Indian healing system of Ayurveda. At that time, Chopra had a few fingers in the Maharishi Ayurveda pie, a fact he conveniently failed to disclose to the JAMA. You can still read about "The Maharishi Caper" here.

As the linked article explains, JAMA was not the only mainstream medical publication to be duped by the Maharishi:

In August [1991], Johns Hopkins Magazine published an uncritical profile on Nancy Lonsdorf, MD, medical director of the Maharishi Ayur-Veda Medical Center in Washington, DC. Lonsdorf is the physician who, in a fund-raising letter distributed to members of the TM community, is described as having recommended a $11,500 yagya for a patient with a serious health problem. The Maharishi's yagyas are Hindu ceremonies to appease the gods and beseech their help for ailing followers.

Despite the extraordinary costs of these ceremonies, patients do not take part or even get to see them performed. (Chopra and Lonsdorf both deny that they recommend yagyas. Chopra insists that yagyas are not part of the Maharishi Ayur-Veda program. Nevertheless, I have a copy of another patient's health analysis from Chopra's center in Lancaster, Mass. that recommends the performance of not one but two different yagyas.)

In more recent years, New-Wage author and entrepreneur Joe "Mr. Fire" Vitale has become a yagya true believer as well. He credits a yagya performed on his behalf for the breakthrough that led to the publication of his book, The Attractor Factor (released in hardcover in the spring of 2005, and in paperback in October of the following year). He tells the story of this miracle in The Attractor Factor.

 The book actually began life as Spiritual Marketing, which outlined five powerful steps anyone can take to create the life of his or her dreams. The steps were: (1) Know what you don’t want; (2) Select what you would like to have, do, or be; (3) Get clear; (4) Feel how exciting it would be to have, do, or be what you want; and (5) Let go. Simple, huh?

Self-published as a print book and an e-book, Spiritual Marketing was widely distributed and widely read, but it never reached the level of success that Joe had hoped for. A physician friend of his, Dr. Marcus Gitterle, was a big believer in yagyas and apparently got Joe excited about them. Joe contacted http://www.jyotish-yagya.com, had them do a yagya on behalf of his book, and voila! As Joe tells it, in short order a senior editor at Wiley, a respectable and influential trade publisher, sent an email to him, and before he knew it Spiritual Marketing was being revamped and expanded and sent out into the world again as The Attractor Factor.

The five powerful steps were reworked a bit and a lot of filler material was added…oops, I mean the book was "greatly enriched." And so was Joe, for, as the legend goes, The Attractor Factor became a bestseller, even outselling Harry Potter on Amazon for a few bright shining moments. (Here's good news: Your book can be an Amazon bestseller too!) Later Rhonda Byrne got hold of The Attractor Factor and decided Joe should be in The Secret. And that, arguably, is what propelled Joe to his current lofty heights in the New-Wage stratosphere.

Although it is not his newest book, Joe is still getting a lot of mileage out of The Attractor Factor, as indicated on a recent appearance on CNBC’s showcase for the aggressively motivated crowd, The Big Idea.

Now, I realize some of you might have been operating under the belief that Joe’s success was due to Ho’oponopono. And some of you probably thought it was the Law Of Attraction, as outlined in The Secret. Some may have believed that the secret to Joe's success was The Missing Secret, or even that it might have been a tapping teleseminar with master tapper Brad Yates. 

But I ask you to consider the possibility, Dear Ones, that it was a yagya that really started the success ball rolling. (Early this year, there was an interesting discussion about The Attractor Factor on one of Steve Pavlina's discussion forums. On one thread, a commenter named Velvet expressed the opinion that there was too much promo and marketing hype in the book, and in a subsequent comment added, "I find it off-putting to be told 'here's the Law of Attraction, but if that doesn't work, go to this website and pay this acquaintance of mine $4,000 to do some vedic chanting for you.'")

Joe also credits a yagya for saving a close friend of his from death a few years ago. One version of that story, written some time in 2004, appears on the testimonials page of the Jyotish Yagya web site. A slightly expanded version of this story is in The Attractor Factor, although in the book the friend is not named. Entrepreneur and investment adviser Gary Scott published an article on his web site that quoted the relevant passage from the book at length (scroll down to the section titled, "Saved From Death").

What the passage does not mention is that the friend in the anecdote passed away in October of 2004. What it also doesn’t mention is that this is the same friend Joe wrote about in another chapter in The Attractor Factor, "The Shocking True Story Of Jonathan." He had only briefly mentioned Jonathan’s fate at the end of Spiritual Marketing, saying only, "The thing is, Jonathan is no longer available. He has taken time off to do personal things." He did not mention that "Jonathan" was not even the guy’s real name, though he does mention this in The Attractor Factor, where he goes into painful detail about Jonathan's shenanigans.

Perhaps the editors at Wiley failed to notice this, or perhaps they just figured that Joe’s readers wouldn’t be able to put two and two together and discern that the best friend who’d been "healed" by the yagya was the same deceased friend who had been sexually abused by the great healer "Jonathan Jacobs." That really wouldn’t make for a very happy story.

Even if one is willing to consider the possibility that the yagya did extend this woman’s life by a few months, it seems disingenuous at best to present this case as a "happy-ever-after" tale, when, judging from the "Jonathan" story, it seems clear that it was anything but that.

But forget that. It’s old news. And Joe’s adventures continue, as he remarks at the conclusion of the shocking Jonathan story in The Attractor Factor.
Meditation also plays a starring role in The Attractor Factor – specifically, something Joe calls Intentional Meditation, or IM, which is an idea that apparently came to him as he was writing The Attractor Factor. If IM seems to be merely a rip-off of TM, perhaps that is because Joe drew his inspiration from a book called Permanent Peace: How to Stop Terrorism and War – Now and Forever. The author is Robert Oates, a senior policy fellow with Maharishi University of Management's Institute for Science, Technology and Public Policy in Fairfield, Iowa.

On The Attractor Factor web site is a bulleted list of some of the topics discussed in the book, and several of these mention meditation. One item in particular caught my eye: "The Beatles meditated – and look how rich they are! Why not you?"

Never mind that The Beatles were rich several years before they discovered meditation. Never mind that it was arguably the influence of meditating and the Maharishi that helped lead to the Beatles’ breakup. (Here’s another article that echoes that opinion.) And never mind that the Fab Four were supposedly meditating for peace and nonviolence, not wealth, since they were, as I just noted, already wealthy.

For those are just details, and perhaps not very important ones at that. Many of Joe’s younger readers may have only a dim awareness of who The Beatles were, and to heck with that old boomer music anyway; just bring on the money and the cars and the hot babes! Besides (for those who care about such things) Joe claims that IM, like TM, can be used to create peace as well as wealth.

Even so, there seems to be a big emphasis in The Attractor Factor on creating riches for yourself (and maybe, as an afterthought, for the world). According to the promo page, The Attractor Factor explores:

• The amazing moneymaking and peace producing IM technique. Page 205
• How to meditate yourself rich. Page 206
• The 3 easy steps to meditate yourself rich. Page 208

At the time The Attractor Factor was released, Joe also announced his decision to create a global set of "wealth hubs" where people would learn how to mediate to intentionally attract wealth. "The idea is simple," he wrote. "The more you help yourself the more you help those around you. And as you help those around you — you help the planet."

He added, "That’s the noble purpose of the Intentional Meditation Foundation. It is a non-profit organization designed to teach a specific meditation technique to people all over the globe. The purpose of this meditation is to lower violence and increase wealth wherever it is practiced." As Joe explains on The Attractor Factor web site:

In the last chapter of The Attractor Factor I reveal my colossal plan to change the world. People will become wealthy. Crime will reduce. Violence will go down. Prosperity will come not only to those who join but also to people around the planet.

 I announced my plan on a radio show one night not long ago. To my amazement people from Africa, India, Ireland, New Zealand, Australia and all over the United States volunteered to help.
He also mentioned this mission in a 2005 article that came out before The Attractor Factor was published.

Whenever I read of someone’s noble plans to make the world wealthy, I always wonder, What would it be like to live in a world where everyone was wealthy – or, for that matter, if everyone who signed up for some hustler’s how-to-be-a-millionaire course actually became a millionaire? I get a kick out of seeing how other average everyday folks have explored this question. I found an interesting link discussing this very matter. On another related discussion one contributor wrote this:

In a way, this has already happened in the west. Although most of us are not rich by the new standards being set, most medieval peasants would consider the average American worker to be wealthy. In fact, a medieval lord might even envy the average working Joe's diet.
So poverty, once you get past a certain comfort line appears to be a relative question. If all were wealthy, we would still be envious of the one person more wealthy than we are. This is how contemporary capitalism seems to work: Basic needs have been filled a long time ago. Now the art of producing more seems to be based on creating envy, on making sure people are dissatisfied with what they have.

I’m getting off topic again (or maybe not, come to think of it). At any rate, maybe Mr. Fire’s plan to change the world is not quite as scary as the "Invincible Germany" plot that we just discussed here the other day, but it does sound a lot like the Maharishi’s shtick. Curiously enough, I haven’t really heard anything else about those "wealth hubs," nor can I find a web site for the Intentional Meditation Foundation. But if any of y’all have any information, feel free to share it with me!

As for that old coot the Maharishi, who is ninety years old, he is still going strong, or at least his organization is, with its tentacles spread far and wide all over the world. Unlike his imitators and wannabes, the Maharishi does have an amazing network of "hubs," or spiritual terrorist cells, or whatever you want to call them. However noble the idea of spreading world peace may be, and however sincere and well-meaning most of his followers might be, I am left with the feeling that there is something rotten at the very core of the Maharishi’s cult of bliss. But don’t take my word for it. Ask someone such as Jody at Guruphiliac, who has written scads of posts about the Maharishi.
On my own blog, I’ve been getting some interesting comments in response to my post about the recent Berlin debacle with David Lynch and the Maharishi minion who calls himself the "Raja of Germany." Gregory, for example, quoted the late French essayist and poet Charles Péguy: "Everything begins in mysticism, and ends in politics." And then there’s this, from another one of my favorite commenters, "hohahe":

This [the Berlin spectacle] is a great example of how things can go wrong, how genuine bliss is not a replacement for common sense. Lynch is totally sincere about the bliss he has found, and is naturally grateful to those who helped show him. It is a very strange thing that those who are the best at helping plug people back into their own bliss are often highly manipulative or drivel talkers.

It’s obvious that for a very long time the Maharishi has been interested in much more than just teaching people to meditate (duh). And there are many reasons that the idea of a world government based on the Maharishi’s ideas (or even a Maharishi-inspired political party, with a quantum physicist as "president") are somewhat frightening to me. For those same reasons, I find the legions of copycats who "want to change the world" to be a little bit scary as well.

But mostly, I find them all amusing.

So that’s it for now. If I haven’t completely bored you to tears with this, or even if I have, I’ll conclude my journey East in my next post.

PS ~ I recently found out about a free e-book called Stripping The Gurus: Sex, Violence, Abuse and Enlightenment, by Gregory D. Falk. You can download it here. I have, and I can’t wait to read it.

PPS ~ If you like "Across The Universe" as much as I do, you’ll enjoy these two videos. The first one is Fiona Apple’s cover of the song, which was featured in the soundtrack of one of my favorite movies, Pleasantville.
And here’s Rufus Wainwright’s version (yes, he’s the son of Loudon "Dead Skunk In The Middle Of The Road" Wainwright III).
One You-Tuber suggests you play both videos at the same time, for kind of a yin-and-yang experience. Nothing’s gonna change my world!

* And for any of you Jody-detractors out there who wish to ply me with "shocking facts" about him, save your energy. I’ve heard it all. I don’t care if he has indulged in recreational substances. So have most of the people I know. I don’t care if he is a devotee of Kali. I have a dog named Kali; whom do you think she’s named after? I don’t even care if Jody claims to be "self-realized" when, in your opinion, he’s really not. To me the value of his blog is that he is documenting and offering opinions about the bad behavior of folks who claim to be spiritual leaders.

** [Added November 2009:] Opinions differ about whether it was the Beatles who grew disillusioned with the Maharishi or vice-versa. Here's Deepak Chopra, the Maharishi's former JV partner, in a February 2008 piece that 'splains things from another p.o.v.

* * * * *

Now more than ever, your donation is needed
to help keep this Whirled spinning.
Click here to donate via PayPal or debit/credit card.
If that link doesn't work, send PayPal payment directly to
scrivener66@hotmail.com
or to cosmic.connie@juno.com
If PayPal, be sure to specify that your contribution is a gift. Thank you!

Dreaming-Bear speaks of Burning Man, fails to mention Hanging Man

The desert must surely be among the cruelest of places in which to be abandoned, with the unrelenting sun beating down upon tender flesh, searing the heart, inflaming the very soul.

"What am I doing here?" the half-naked* man asked himself again and again, but the unforgiving sun did not reply, nor did it ease up on its relentless assault. Merciful night, with its cold reflected light and its billion burning stars, was still many hours away.

Oh, the anguish. Oh, the (in)humanity!
"I, a boy from Maui, used to the rain forests…what am I doing in this desert, burning my butt off?" the man cried out.

I could have answered that question, had I been in that desert, which, thankfully, I was not. I would no doubt have pointed out to the "boy from Maui" that he had chosen to be at Burning Man, along with nearly fifty thousand other hedonistic, self-infatuated SNAGs** and SNAG-ettes, all engaged in various forms of "radical self-expression."

And while I was at it, I would have mentioned that Dreaming-Bear Kanaan, Whirled-class pseudo-mystic, ersatz American Indian, phony Poetry Man, and genuine poseur, is not technically from Maui, having lived all over the U.S. and in other parts of the world – according to his bio information, anyway. Maui, that enchanted island, is merely his current home base. But accuracy doesn’t matter when it comes to any tale told by Dreaming-Bear, who is so authentically, sincerely phony that he is perhaps best described as a New-Wage lounge lizard – a contemporary pseudo-spiritual version of Nick The Lounge Singer, Bill Murray’s character from a long-ago era on Saturday Night Live. The main difference between him and Nick is that D-B mostly talks (more melodiously than Nick sings; I will give him that), and usually wears a white towel or a loincloth, if that much, instead of a leisure suit. And whereas Nick played to smoke-filled rooms, the smoke most often present at a D-B performance is that which he blows up the apertures of his devoted audiences as he attempts to "kiss them into consciousness."

Still, Dreaming-Bear’s desert drama makes a pretty good made-up story. In any case, our tattooed lounge lizard survived that arid hell and slithered back to his regularly scheduled monologue "Teleseminar Communion" this past week, apparently even more in love with himself than ever. He might have burned his butt off in the desert, but he grew a brand-new tale in the process. And he gladly shared it all with listeners of his weekly "Communion," which is hosted on Wednesday evenings (9pm EST / 6pm PST/ 3pm HST) by a New-Wage clearinghouse/crap processor called Blue Diamond Pachamama.
Burning Man is an annual eight-day festival that takes place in a makeshift city in Nevada’s Black Rock Desert. The event is most famous for art and nudity, making it the sort of affair that you could no more keep Dreaming-Bear away from than I can keep my dachshund away from the Kitty McNuggets in the cat boxes.

Some call Burning Man a peaceful celebration of music and art and other forms of self-expression. Some call it a cult. Call it what you will, but it definitely does not seem like my idea of a good time, for the very reason that suffering, in one way or another, seems to be part of the experience. Yet that suffering is, for the most part, something deliberately chosen, a mortification of the flesh or spirit in order to reach some greater level of enlightenment, or at least the illusion thereof.

And so our hero Dreaming-Bear ventured into the desert to suffer, to be naked, and to inflict his art on others. After his week of anguish, he returned to his virtual throne on September 5, attended to by several doting female fans.

The September 5 program was the first D-B Teleseminar Communion that I have actually listened to in its entirety, and I did so for a very specific reason. I wanted to see if D-B had any words of wisdom or comfort to share about a tragic event that took place at this year’s festival. So I clicked the link, sat back, and listened. To spare you having to suffer through the program yourself, I will give you a rundown.

It begins with an intro from Blue Diamond Pachamama’s Linda Pannell, who describes D-B as "inspiration and passion personified." Linda is a faithful keeper of the D-B mythos, explaining that he is "of Cherokee and Palestinian descent; raised in both worlds."

Right off the bat Dreaming-Bear alludes to the torment he endured at Burning Man, describing it as "seven days of sheer, absolute desert-like conditions…I was challenged on every level." Yet, he reveals, it was through this egregious suffering that he rediscovered "the same amazing truth that has come to every soul from Moses to Michael Jackson." And you just know that he is prepared to elaborate upon that truth at great length.

But first, the poetry – the invocation, the call to worship. D-B proceeds to recite an original poem inspired by "my experience of absolute anguish on the desert floor, wondering why I had been abandoned." The name of the poem is, "There is no cure in this insane love game" – not to be confused with "Ain’t No Cure For Love," penned by real poet Leonard Cohen.

The poem over, he holds forth on the meaning of Burning Man, which he says is all about passion and rebirth. And he’s off and running with a mix of metaphors about flames and the desert and the Phoenix – and, of course, passion – whipping it all into a frothy foam. The verbal effluvium spills out over his adoring female listeners, who can be heard in the background purring, mewing, and occasionally giggling. D-B does not speak so much as he spews – the verbal equivalent of projectile vomiting. (He’s not the only one who knows how to overdo it with the metaphors, you know.) I must warn you, though, that if you follow the link to this Teleseminar, prolonged listening may result in projectile vomiting of your own.

D-B reveals many things about his favorite subject: himself. At one point he says he is not comfortable with being labeled an actor; he would rather be thought of as "an authentic being." He prefers to think of himself not as being "onstage" but rather as being "in a center of authenticity." He claims not to care about what others think of him, and suggests that we should all be similarly immune to the world’s judgment. "I’ve come to the place where I am no longer apologetic for who or what I am…We can never apologize for being beautiful… we can never kowtow to people who can’t appreciate beauty…" (Later in the program he humbly admits to being "the most imperfect person on the planet! I had to say that to myself over and over this last week!")

In short order he’s back to his metaphors of fire and flame, explaining that the purpose of his excess verbiage is to awaken the Divine in his listeners. "I am nudging, ever so gently, those fires… I am stoking those holy coals…" He speaks of reaching a point at which "passion takes on a quantum meaning." (You don’t think any New-Wage lounge lizard worth his pretentious indigenous bangles and beads would fail to mention the word "quantum" at least once, do you?)

Nearly half an hour into the teleconference, D-B apologizes to his hosts – well, in a manner of speaking – for his garrulousness. "After all, this is supposed to be a dialogue," he acknowledges. But, he explains, there’s a good reason for his monopoly of the show thus far: "Truth falls like honey from one’s lips when one has been kissing the Divine…" And then he’s off and running again, with nearly another half hour of projectile verbiage. His speech is rife with spiritually erotic references, such as, "Getting naked with God," and "soulgasm," references that never fail to evoke a female titter or two.

For all you single gals who might be wondering if D-B is attached, I am sorry to inform you that he is married, sort of. "I married my soul to Truth," he says, failing to mention that he is apparently a faithless husband who is cheating on Truth with Self-Love and Unmitigated Bulls--t. Or perhaps he and Truth have an open marriage, in which his soul makes love mainly to his own B.S. (while his body boinks as many of his female followers and students as he can get away with), and Truth slinks away to find solace in miserable dives like this blog.

More than forty minutes into the broadcast he says he is going to open up the show for the input of others. This time, though, he is not repentant for having spent so much time gabbing. "I don’t apologize for the time I’ve taken." After all, he says, a fire doesn’t apologize for the time it takes to burn; it just burns, and when it is burned out the smoke rises like a prayer.

More interminable minutes follow in which D-B spews many more words, finally wrapping up his monologue – sort of – by reciting another original poem called, "The Milky Way." It starts out being about the stars and the universe, but quickly morphs once more to images of the flesh: "suckling from the sweet breast of truth," and the like. His female listeners sigh and swoon as he recites his immortal words about "gentle sucking," and "milking, milking, milking"…and… well, you get the drift.

And then, finally, he "opens this sacred space" to others who might have something to say. Not that they haven’t been participating anyway, he hastens to assure them. One does not have to talk in order to participate, he says. The truth, he asserts, is that anyone hearing his voice has been participating on a spiritual level all along.

Host Linda pipes in, saying that people have criticized her quavering voice. D-B assures her that hers is the voice of God.

Then a participant named Shauna makes a forceful entry through D-B’s barrier of words, saying she has written to D-B (apparently he has not responded). She is, she explains, a lifelong free spirit whose family and friends criticize her free-spiritedness. D-B gamely tries to give her the validation that she seems to be so desperately seeking, but she has more talking to do. She speaks of how her family of Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses didn't accept her freeform spirituality, and D-B responds that members of his own family were shocked when he abandoned Islam for whatever it is he embraces now. But when it comes to gabbing, Shauna gives D-B a run for his money; he has trouble getting a word in edgewise over her rambling self-analysis.

The show is running into overtime now, but Linda the host quaveringly begs D-B’s indulgence and reads a letter from another doting female fan who attended a recent D-B performance and began her spiritual journey that very night as a result.

At this story, the female listeners murmur their approval. You can just feel the love, and it is really kind of icky. Once again, as was the case with an interview last year between The Secret creator Rhonda Byrne and Anna Darrah of the Spiritual Cinema Circle, I am reminded of Molly Shannon and Ana Gasteyer on the old "Delicious Dish on NPR" skit on Saturday Night Live ("Good times....mmmm. Good times.").

And then – finally! – D-B utters his closing words, assuring his listeners that they are the Resurrection of the Christ, the Golden Buddha, Mother Theresa, Martin Luther King, and maybe even a bit of Osama Bin Laden. Which is to say that we are all a bit of the sublime and the evil. The show concludes – yes, this time for real – with Shauna still interjecting with her on-the-fly analyses of her problems.

Good times....mmmm. Good times.

I’ll tell you about someone who probably isn’t having "good times" right now – the family of the young man who apparently committed suicide at Burning Man. On Thursday, August 30, a 21-year-old Colorado man was found hanging in a two-story tent located in the festival’s Comfort & Joy Theme Camp. He evidently had been hanging there for about two hours before anyone in the large tent had the presence of mind to take him down. According to Mark Pirtle, special agent in charge for the Bureau of Land Management, "His friends thought he was doing an art piece."

This was the first known suicide in the festival’s 21-year history (if you don't count the slow suicide the festival itself seems to be committing), and for the most part, the party went on as usual. You could, of course, chalk the whole tragedy up to the impaired thinking characteristic of young stoners. But you could also look upon it as a metaphor for the dark side of New-Wage culture: self-centeredness imperfectly disguised as introspection, bad behavior masquerading as creativity or free-spiritedness, all combined with a fierce mandate to avoid negative judgments about anything or anyone. I’m thinking Crack Emcee at The Macho Response blog would agree with the New-Wage metaphor assessment.

As, I believe, would others, such as some of the folks participating in a discussion on Gawker. A person with the moniker "Sanfranlefty" wrote:

The Burning Man crowd is a bunch of trustafarian hipsters who don't work and yuppie dot-comers who design websites, who are thinking that spending a lot of money for the right to be someplace "money-free" in BFE Nevada where they have to barter sex for water bottles is some sort of big life-changing artistic statement.
What a bunch of tripped out losers to not realize they needed to cut the guy down for two hours. Poor guy…

And then there was this one, from "Truculent":

Talk about the ultimate self-criticism. And yes, Burning Man has no deeper meaning tha(n) getting naked, rolling in the mud with strangers, being wasted and dehydrated (which heightens the effect) and pooping into plastic bags. The downside is you are forced into intimate contact with loons, psychopaths, boors and other people who you would never, ever associate with in real life.

At any rate, I really should have known better than to think that Dreaming-Bear would devote any part of his weekly "Divine Dialogue" to such a bummer of an event as some young dude's suicide. After all, D-B barely survived his own agonizing stint at Burning Man.

So maybe I should just cut him some slack.

For the benefit of those foolhardy souls who have decided they want to listen to the actual program and hear Dreaming-Bear expounding upon the meaning of Burning Man – but don't feel up to digging for the link in the mound of prose up above – here it is again. But don't say I didn't warn you.

* Or, more than likely, fully-naked man – I don't know and I don't want to know.
** SNAG: Sensitive New Age Guy

* * * * *

Now more than ever, your donation is needed
to help keep this Whirled spinning.
Click here to donate via PayPal or debit/credit card.
If that link doesn't work, send PayPal payment directly to
scrivener66@hotmail.com
or to cosmic.connie@juno.com
If PayPal, be sure to specify that your contribution is a gift. Thank you!

"You’ve never metaphysician like me!"

I’ve lived in Houston nearly all my life, but until last night I had never had the pleasure of seeing one of the Bayou City’s greatest musical treasures, Beans Barton and the Bi-Peds, in action. Dale "Beans" Barton is both a performance artist and a visual artist, but that simple description doesn’t even begin to do justice to the madcap live performances of Beans and his band. He refers to these performances – which are enhanced by a captivating tribal belly-dance troupe, assorted loony characters and his own manic narrative – as "rock and role" shows. And the emphasis is on the rock as much as the roles, because mixed in with all that craziness is some damn fine music.

It’s all for a good cause, too (beyond the eminently noble one of having a bloody marvelous time): during each show Beans creates a painting, which is auctioned off at the end of the performance, with all proceeds donated to the Houston Food Bank.

Last night was Beans Barton and the Bi-Peds’ 21^st anniversary concert at Dan Electro’s Guitar Bar in Houston. The Rev thought it would be good therapy for the two of us after the rough week we’ve had dealing with my mother’s hospitalization, frantic work deadlines and other problems. And he was right.

The theme of the show was "In The Feet Of The Night" – eerie, since my mom just had a foot operation. Plus, I hate shoes, and go barefoot as often as I can. In fact I immediately kicked off my flip-flops as soon as I settled onto my bar stool, and I spent most of the night barefoot. Well, as they say in the New-Wage world, there are no coincidences. Some might speculate that the "Feet" theme might have had something to do with the fact that Beans' band is called The Bi-Peds, but I know better. It was all about me, and what's going on in my life. After all, as they also say, when the student is ready, the teacher will appear.

Even if he shows up in a larva costume.

One of the main things most people notice about Beans is his curious obsession with the insect world, which is kind of odd, considering that insects are hexapeds, not bipeds. But once again I believe this has something to do with me, since my first career aspiration as a child was to be an entomologist. As a kid I was crazy about bugs of every variety. I was especially fascinated with larvae of all kinds. I don’t like insects so much anymore, with the notable exceptions of click beetles and a few other insect families, but there are definitely bugs in my background.*

But enough about me. Let’s talk for a moment about Beans, who is famous for slithering and dancing his way onto the stage in a huge larva suit, under which are several squirming belly dancers and other members of the troupe. Last night he did not disappoint, and he gleefully carried the insect theme through the performance; the first song of the set was what seemed to be a moth's suicide warning ("I might bite the light tonight!").

Now, lest you think I’ve veered way off topic with this post, hold on. There is a connection, after all, ’tween Beans and my little Whirled, for at one point during his frenzied narrative, Beans (or a character he had assumed) announced that he is a metaphysician.

"You’ve never metaphysician like me!" he added.

And I have to admit he was right.

Today's world, as you know, is full of metaphysicians,** many of whom offer a wide range of products and services and workshops and sessions that could very well set you back thousands and thousands of good American dollars. I'm not saying these people aren't very, very good at what they do;*** I'm just saying that some of them are rather costly. By contrast, the session with Houston’s craziest metaphysician only cost $10.00 per head.

And I came out of it feeling better than I’ve felt in a very long time. Thank you, Beans, and most of all, thank you, Ron.

PS – Ron and I were honored to attend the Beans bash with two other musicians and good friends of ours, Bill and Kathleen Gibson. Bill is a member of the Citykings and Kathleen does backup vocals and percussion for the band. I am still rooting for the Citykings' reggae-influenced "Some Guy Out On The Street" to be a theme song for a TV series or movie someday soon. It’s a catchy tune and I can’t get enough of it! David E. Kelley or Jerry Bruckheimer, are you reading this?!?

Click here to hear more song samples and buy the Citykings album, Four Lifetimes.

Y'know... Houston may not be Austin, but as long as we have the Citykings and Beans, I’m in heaven.

*And some would say there are bats in my belfry too. But I'm sure it's just an inner-child issue.
** As well as many opportunities to purchase the degrees that will allow you, too, to become a metaphysician!
*** Such as getting you to give them your money.