Mere Anarchy

To Err Is Humanto Float, Divine Gasping for air, my life passing before my eyes in a series of wistful vignettes, I found myself suffocating some months ago under the tsunami of junk mail that cascades through the slot in my door each morning after kippers. It was only our Wagnerian cleaning woman, Grendel, hearing a muffled falsetto from beneath myriad art-show invitations, charity squeezes, and pyrite contest jackpots I'd hit that extricated me with the help of our Bugsucker. As I was carefully filing the new postal arrivals alphabetically in the paper shredder, I noticed, amongst the profusion of catalogues that hawked everything from bird feeders to monthly deliveries of sundry drupe and hesperidium, there was an unsolicited little journal, banner-lined Magical Blend. Clearly aimed at the New Age market, its articles ranged in topic from crystal power to holistic healing and psychic vibrations, with tips on achieving spiritual energy, love versus stress, and exactly where to go and what forms to fill out to be reincarnated. The ads, which seemed scrupulously articulated to insulate against the unreasonableness of Bunco Squad malcontents, presented Therapeutic Ironisers, Vortex Water Energizers, and a product called Herbal Grobust designed to implement volumewise madam's Cavaillons. There was no shortage of psychic advice either, from sources such as the "spiritual intuitive" who double-checks her insights with "a consortium of angels named Consortium Seven," or a babe ecdysiastically christened Saleena, who offers to "balance your energy, awaken your DNA and attract abundance." Naturally, at the end of all these field trips to the center of the soul, a small emolument to cover stamps and any other expenses the guru may have incurred in another life is in order. The most startling persona of all, however, has to be the "founder and divine leader of the Hathor Ascension Movement on Planet Earth." Known to her followers as Gabrielle Hathor, a self-proclaimed goddess who is, according to her copywriter, "the fullness of source manifested in human form," this West Coast icon tells us, "There is a quickening of Karmic feedback. . . . Earth has entered a spiritual winter which will last 426,000 Earth years." Mindful of how rough a long winter can be, Ms. Hathor has started a movement to teach beings to ascend to "higher frequency dimensions," presumably where they can get out more and play a little golf. "Levitation, instantaneous translocation, omniscience, abil- ity to materialize and dematerialize and so on become part of one's normal abilities," the come-hither spiel lays on the unwary with a trowel, proclaiming that "from these higher frequency dimensions, the ascended being can perceive the lower frequencies while those on the lower frequencies cannot perceive the higher dimensions." There is a fervid endorsement by someone named Pleiades MoonStara name that would cause no end of consternation for me if I were told at the last minute it belonged to my brain surgeon or pilot. Acolytes in Ms. Hathor's movement must submit to "a humiliating procedure" as part of a routine to dissolve their egos and get their frequencies jacked up. Actual cash payments are frowned upon, but for a little abject fealty and productive labor one can score a bed and a dish of organic mung beans while either gaining or losing consciousness. I bring all this up because coincidentally, later that same day I was emerging from Hammacher Schlemmer, laid waste by obsessive indecision over whether to buy a computerized duck press or the world's finest portable guillotine, when I bumped like the Titanic into an old iceberg I had known in college, Max Endorphine. PAllen, Woody is the author of 'Mere Anarchy ', published 2007 under ISBN 9781400066414 and ISBN 1400066417.