Meat the Master: in which Cosmic Connie witnesses a real miracle

Dear Ones, I have something to confess to you. Most of you know me as a snark who scoffs at many things, including and especially the entire idea of miracles. But the truth is – and some of you more savvy readers have read between the lines and have detected the yearning soul who trembles beneath this snarky cloak – I long for tangible miracles in my life. Why, I even wrote about this longing years and years ago, on my old Cosmic Relief web site, during the heyday of Millennial madness when many feared that the world, or at least civilization, would end at the stroke of midnight on January 1, 2000. Here is what I wrote (and I hope you will pardon the royal-"we" affectation):

THESE are the days of miracles and wonders? Oh, we only wish. Either we've led a really wicked life, or the recently* discovered "God module" in our temporal lobe is severely underdeveloped. Or maybe it's just that we never did hallucinogenics.
Whatever the cause, the unhappy truth is that angels don't whisper in our ear, deities don't dictate sacred texts to us, and dead spiritual masters refuse to use us as a mouthpiece.
To add insult to injury, the dolphins at Sea World treat us with disdain, the Weeping Jesus picture just rolls its eyes at us, The Face on Mars stuck its tongue out at us, and the statue of Ganesh laughed so hard at us that the milk squirted out of its nose...er...trunk.
Worst of all, aliens from UFOs have never taken us into their vessels to poke at our naughty bits (oh, but we keep hoping...)
Life, alas, is just so mundane for us. All of the tortillas, billboards, cinnamon buns, and porch lights we've ever encountered are just tortillas, billboards, buns, and porch lights. No face of the Lord, no nunly visage, no apparition of the Virgin, no secret signs of the End Times. (Okay, on one of our quests we did find a misshapen dog-turd that bore a striking resemblance to the face of evangelist Pat Robertson -- pious smirk and all -- but we just couldn't get the media interested.)

The Millennium came and went and, as far as we... I mean I can tell, the world didn't end. Eventually I created my own Whirled. It was fun from the get-go, but still something was missing. My life remained bereft of the type of miracle that draws bored reporters and long lines of desperate believers to one's front door. Except for some isolated experiences with statues, which I wrote about a few years ago, discernible miracles have been few and far between in my life.

Of course I pretended not to care. On the surface I was a happy snarker – a livid one, as one of my snargets has described me – but beneath it all flowed a deep, deep river of discontent. I still felt so... well... left out. Overlooked. Utterly under-appreciated by the Higher Power(s).

And then, and then... last night... Something Happened. 

It was so wondrous that it shook my Whirled. 

It made me re-examine my entire life.

It made me want to write one-sentence paragraphs.

Or even one-word paragraphs.

Really.

Here's the deal: Last night Ron took me into the Big City (that would be Houston) for dinner at a restaurant that I will not name for reasons that will soon become apparent. We'd been there numerous times before and had always enjoyed superb food and service. 

But last night was over the top.

Being in a carnivorous frame of mind and feeling a bit extravagant, I decided to go all out with one of the most expensive steaks on the menu. I was famished and couldn't wait to dig into it when it arrived.

But something stopped me. On that succulent piece of meat I beheld a Face, clear as could be. It was an oddly familiar mug with a toothsome smile. At first I thought it was a demon. Then it kind of looked like an obnoxious ex-boyfriend of mine. And then I realized that it was...oh, my Goddess, the Face of the Master.

It was... it was... Himself. It was The Big T. As in Tony Robbins. The undisputed king of the selfish-help industry.

I gasped.

"What's wrong, sweetheart?" Ron asked, his mouth full of New York strip steak. Speechless, I pointed to The Face. 

Ron's eyes widened.

He put down his fork, whipped out his cell phone and began snapping photos.

By then a small crowd had gathered around our table. Most people instantly recognized The Face. Many were astounded; some were crying. People were Tweeting and Facebooking about it. A reporter from a local TV station happened to be dining at a table near us and contacted her producer, and before I knew it there were camera crews and bright lights in my face. I became a minor celebrity for a while. I signed autographs, did a couple of mini-interviews, even landed a book contract.

Finally, I had the miracle I had been waiting for. In spades. Well, in a steak, anyway.

But the fact remained that I was still hungry and feeling more fiercely carnivorous than ever. So instead of preserving that wondrous cut of beef, I scarfed it down, much to the dismay of some of the miracle seekers who were still crowded around us. Others, however, cheered me on. They said this was the ultimate self-empowering thing for me to do. They assured me that there was no better way to Awaken the Giant Within than to consume an image of The Giant himself.

I noticed that the steak tasted a little "off," but I didn't care; I was that famished.

Back at home a few hours later, I bitterly regretted my choice to eat the miracle meat. I became violently ill, and am only just now recovering. Some may call that poetic justice or instant karma for destroying the evidence of a miracle, and perhaps they're right. But I really didn't destroy anything. After all, I still have those photos. The miracle lives on and continues to unfold in my life in mysterious ways. Now I am seeing The Face everywhere. What does it all mean? Stay tuned...

* Well, the discovery of the God module was "recent" in 1997, anyway.

* * * * *

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The bright, bold colors of SUCCESS

Dear Ones, I have been inspired. I have dared to dream, and I am now pursuing my passion! My life was changed in one incredible instant when I discovered Madeleine Kay, whose latest book is entitled, Serendipitously Rich...How to Get Delightfully, Delectably, Deliciously Rich (or anything else you want) in 7 Ridiculously Easy Steps. And you just know that this book delivers exactly what it promises, because it has a Foreword by one of the most credible people in the New-Wage industry, a man well-known for telling nothing but the truth and avoiding hype and exaggeration at all costs.

Madeleine's web site and other books are as colorful as the title of her newest opus. She appears to be following in the fine tradition of inspirational artist Sark, except without quite so much illegible scribbling...er...creative calligraphy. However, Miss Madeleine is not afraid to use fonts that resemble childish handwriting, just in case you miss the point that she is filled with childlike wonder and bubbling enthusiasm.

The description on her bio page is also colorful: "Adventurist, unconventional success and motivation coach, and maverick entrepreneur." There sure are a lot of mavericks running around these days. ("Yes! We are all individuals!") Miss Madeleine has also lived on three continents, has been an international fashion model on two of them*, and has enjoyed stints as a university instructor, an ad agency owner, and an actor in film, TV and a music video. And she speaks four languages. [Turn-ons are fast cars, walks on the beach, world peace, and, of course, adverbs. Turn-offs: Negative thoughts, meanies.**]

She has also been listed in Who's Who of American Women and Who's Who of the World.*** But most important of all, she is considered America's leading expert on serendipity, which is the art of having good luck, especially of the unexpected kind. Apparently you can learn to have unexpected good luck by purchasing certain books or other products.

I was utterly blown away by the colorfulness and originality of Madeleine Kay's tag line: "Everything is possible." Wow. Just wow. How did she ever come up with that one?

So far the Amazon reviews of Miss Madeleine's latest work are overwhelmingly positive. Burbles one reviewer named Karen, "This is the best of her books. I recommend it to anyone but especially to my friends who want to be Rich!" Perhaps Karen will come back in a few months and tell us whether or not she or her friends to whom she recommended the book actually got rich using Miss Madeleine's advice.

In keeping with the trend of marketing New-Wage material to younger generations as well (e.g., Rhonda Byrne's soon to be released teen version of The Secret), I think Miss Madeleine should create a version of Serendipitously Rich, or some of her other books, for the juvenile market. Or would that be redundant?****

You pop psycho-analyzers out there have probably already figured out that what is really fueling my post today is envy, which stems from my own chronic underachievement. Yup, busted again, I am. So far, THIS is the only bubble-ectably splendicious, gloriously enthusifying, passion-igniting, joyfully outrageous and outrageously joyful creation I've come up with (and I've even included a link to a more readable version if you need it). And that was YEARS ago. (And now there's someone else using the name "FARK," to boot. But I swear I came up with "Fark," which is of course a play on "Sark," years before I ever heard of Fark.com.)

At any rate, I have tons of catching up to do, cuteness- and colorfulness-wise. So I'm off to buy a jumbo box of crayons!

PPS ~ Here is a superchargedly fantastical shopping source for Miss Madeleine in case she runs out of adverbs for future book titles.
PS ~ Don't get me wrong. I really am a believer in Serendipity, and am not at all ashamed to say that I adore it and enjoy it every year around Christmas time.

* I don't like to brag, but I am an international model as well – a model of gratuitous snarkiness, that is – on not one, not two, but almost certainly more than two continents. I know for a fact that there are Whirled Musings fans in the UK and Australia, and probably a few here in the US too. But as I said, I don't like to brag. (Come to think of it, the pic of Miss Madeleine that is on her web site looks kind of like me in some pics an ex-boyfriend took of me a few years back. (I left my hat on too.))
** I just made up that part about turn-ons/turn-offs.
*** I was invited to be in Who's Who of American Women, but didn't have the bucks to pay for a listing. Still, it was nice of them to think of me. But as I've said, I don't like to brag.
*** And might there be a bit of brand confusion with Stephen Cosgrove's painfully cute series?

The more things change...

I have a collection of old Reader's Digest magazines that I found in my grandmother's basement years ago. Though it's not a complete collection by any means, the issues, which range from 1937 to 1967, provide some fascinating insights into the things that preoccupied America and the rest of the world in decades past. Magazines can do this in a way that books can't. That's why I am hopelessly hooked on old magazines, even the musty ones that make me sneeze and wonder if I am in danger of getting some gawd-awful ailment from ancient mold spores. It's a risk that we diligent researchers have to take sometimes.

Today while I was in the...um...reading room, I was flipping through a copy of the October 1967 Digest, and came across an article condensed from Today's Health, a general-readership magazine from bygone days (it was published by the American Medical Association). The article was titled, "The Menace of Mail-Order Medicine," penned by one Ralph Lee Smith. I would imagine that this is the same Ralph Lee Smith who wrote the 1960 book, The Health Hucksters: The Shocking Story of How Food and Drug Advertising Exploits Your Health. He also authored a 1969 book called At Your Own Risk: The Case Against Chiropractic, which several Amazon reader-reviewers said was biased and outdated. (Wrote one indignant reviewer: "The author was paid by the AMA to right [sic] this Third Reich dribble. Enough said.")

But this post isn't about chiropractic (and by the way, if you want one contemporary MD's view on chiropractic (among other "alternative" practices), click here). Nor is this about whether or not Ralph Lee Smith was paid off by those Nazis at the AMA. This is about an enterprising fellow who went by the name of Sri Dr. (or Dr. Sri) Abn Donahnji. You won't find much about him by Googling, but a few decades ago he was doing quite a brisk business helping people find health and happiness.

The good Sri Doctor placed a lot of ads, such as the one you see above, in the back pages of magazines. One of these ads caught the attention of a deaf-mute Georgia couple. For those who are offended, I'm sorry, but that's the way they were described in the article. Back in 1967 it wasn't politically incorrect to refer to people as "deaf" or "mute" or even "dumb." The copy that attracted the hearing-and-speech-impaired couple read, in part:

Dr. Abn Donahji, Yogi Healer and Clairvoyant Reader, will solve your problems.

Full of hope, the two wrote to Donahji, explaining that the wife was suffering from cancer and asking if Donahji could help. Well, of course he could! Donahji told the couple that he had cured many people of cancer through his psychic powers; for a $5 weekly "donation" he would cure the ailing wife.

And so the couple promptly began sending him their weekly payments of five bucks, the equivalent of thirtysomething bucks a week in today's dollars. In return, they would periodically receive letters from Donahji assuring them that "the vibrations are building up favorably."

Alas, within a year the woman died of cancer anyway.

Though the Digest article isn't clear about whether the subsequent investigation into Donahji's affairs was in direct response to a complaint by the grieving widower, the fact remains that postal inspectors did at some point begin investigating the mysterious "healer." They discovered that "Sri Dr. Abn Donahji, Ph.D., D.D.N.S."* had actually been born Donald Van Dyke Wilson in Des Moines, Iowa. At one time he had been an assembly-line worker in Detroit, but then he moved to El Lay, where he hit upon the idea of becoming a healer. Changing his name and donning a turban, he studied a bit of esoterica and picked up enough of an "occult vocabulary" to fool Californians. Now, we know that Californians are harder to fool than just about anyone anywhere, so this guy must have been really, really, really good.

The new Sri-Doc set up shop in a house that he renamed "Brmhayati Temple," and hung out his shingle as a spiritual healer, prophet, and marriage counselor. Before long he had acquired a local following, and ads placed in various occult and astrological publications brought him a nationwide clientele. As author Smith put it, "The swami from Des Moines was soon living in a fine house and cruising around in a gold Cadillac."

After an exhaustive investigation, which revealed the extent of his mail-order "medical" practice, Donahji/Wilson was indicted for mail fraud. His files were impounded by postal inspectors and US marshals, who uncovered correspondence with 4,000 people from coast to coast. These folks had been paying Wilson for services such as treatment of cancer, heart disease and multiple sclerosis – treatments that consisted essentially of "setting up vibrations." In addition, he sold his "patients" copper bracelets with "health-giving properties" for prices ranging from $18 to $76 each. (The wholesale cost of the bracelets was a mere 37 and a half cents.) In all, he had brought in about $400,000, which, in 1967 dollars, was equivalent to more than $2,500,000.00.

He was convicted and sent to jail, and, as far as I can Google, never heard from again.

All I can say is, thank goodness we're all far more sophisticated today, and a phony "healer" like Sri-Doc Donahji/Wilson would never be able to fool so many people for such a long time. And if by some odd chance he did manage to get away with it for a while (and he was working in the US), the Federal Trade Commission or some other government agency would come down hard on him and throw him in the slammer, especially since we have much more stringent consumer protection laws now than we did back in the prehistoric 1960s. And once he'd been to prison, the scammer's reputation would be forever ruined, and he would never be able to scam people again.

I'm truly grateful to be living in more enlightened times.

* Presumably Sri Doc's "degrees" were phony. Thank Goddess people can't get away with THAT these days either.