from The Weekend Shaman..and other dodgy New Age types
by Gerry Thompson Illustrations by Anne Ward
WARNING: YOU MAY NEVER BE ABLE TO TAKE PERSONAL TRANSFORMATION SERIOUSLY AGAIN…
An honest, no-holds-barred guide to the ever-extending sphere of mind-body-spirit stuff, All the dodgiest players are affectionately exposed – the colonic irrigationist, the wounded healer, lax vegetarian, past-life obsessive, decadent guru, sadistic acupuncturist and instant Feng-Shui master – plus many more.
It's a richly illustrated gallery of freaks, frauds, charlatans, deviants, eccentric posers and slime-balls, lovingly portrayed in all their faddishness, hypocrisy and mediocrity.
Here you'll find everything you need to spot these low-life specimens – their characteristic environment, their identifying dress code and life-style, their habitual jargon and beloved cliches, and all of their irritating weaknesses. You're sure to recognise someone you know here – and probably dislike.
EXTRACT...
"The Celestine Prophet..."
The Celestine Prophet is an enigmatic figure who leads an intriguing double life. Officially, he's a nice regular-guy kind of therapist, quietly minding his own business in a sleepy backwater in the deep south of the USA. But in the other half of his Jekyll-and-Hyde existence he is a jet-setting New Age Indiana Jones type, who secretly takes off on high adventures among the rainforest and lost cities of the Peruvian mountains. He intrepidly engages in life-and-death pursuits by the military and church authorities. He searches for 9,000 year old manuscripts which contain insights that reveal the universal truths of life and unravel the mysteries of the universe itself. After he succeeds on this mission of destiny – chiefly by going with the flow and not doing very much of anything – he returns to his sleepy backwater, and self-publishes his adventure as a metaphysical thriller, which becomes an instant cult hit and worldwide bestseller. Nobody knows whether it's true or not, so it gets to the top of fiction and non-fiction lists.
His cover is now well and truly blown. The material goes on to generate a spin-off industry that includes more books, videos, courses, tee-shirts and further insights. So now everyone in the world possesses these 'secret' perceptions, namely: that life consists of a series of meaningful coincidences; that everything is composed of energy, including us; that we should all be nicer to each other, or else something terrible will happen; that we all eventually disappear; and that you can't make an omelette without breaking eggs.
So that's all there is to being a Celestine Prophet; it's as simple as that. It could happen to anyone – or so that nice therapist guy from the deep south would have us believe.
Email: gerrythompson@hotmail.co.uk
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