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A quick guide for the novice entering New Age spirituality.
A is for ACUPUNCTUREACUPUNCTURE is an ancient Chinese medical technique of healing people by sticking them with needles. Western doctors have recently discovered Acupuncture and find it similar to their more modern technique of sticking patients with large medical bills. The AKASHIC RECORDS are a great big VCR in the sky that records everything that ever happens, particularly about you. (Yes, even that time when you thought you were all alone in your room is there). The Akashic Records are sometimes confused with Santa Claus' files which, of course, tell him if you've been "naughty or nice." They are not the same. With Santa's records, you at least stand a 50% chance of getting goodies. The Akashic Records are Cosmically Impartial - no prezzies. AURAS are fields of energy around our bodies which most of us can't see. All genuine New Age people believe in Auras, although few can see them. Auras have different colors. You can tell how highly evolved people are by the color of their auras. However, there are so many different theories about Auras that people are confused about which colors are better than others, which of course is very important to New Age People. Everybody does agree that having any color of Aura is better than having no ne at all. Here is the final definitive, scientific rating of Aura colors:
B is for BARDOBARDO is the Tibetan word for the place where we go after death and before rebirth . Christians call this place Purgatory. It is a kind of Cosmic Waiting Room where souls hang out before their next assignment to a new physical body. Some people claim the Bardo is boring because there is nothing to do except be with yourself. Others say it is terrifying because there is nothing to do except be with yourself. They all agree it's not a lot of fun. The only cure is to get enlightened which evidently makes the Bardo easy to put up with. This, unfortunately, requires spiritual work in this lifetime, which is awfully inconvenient when there's so much good stuff on television. C is for CHANNELINGCHANNELING is what Channels do. A Channel is a person who does channeling. Is that clear? Let's try again. Suppose someone is dead (or at least highly-evolved and not in a body) and wants to talk to people who are still alive (or at least hanging out in a body). Okay, one more time. Suppose higher entities want to talk to us lower entities. They can't talk directly to most of us because our minds are too busy to listen. So they find someone whose mind isn't as active to act as a channel. This person channels information from the higher entity to us lower entities. Naturally the channel charges for this information, but that's only so the channel can continue to provide this valuable public service. Channeling is very popular these days. It seems the other dimensions are filled with entities with something to say. In fact, so many of us lower entities are becoming channels ourselves that soon we may all be channels. Everybody will talking and nobody will be listening. C is for CONSCIOUSNESSCONSCIOUSNESS is what all good New Age People are concerned with. Some are trying to raise it, some are trying to clarify it, some are trying to get more of it, others are trying to expand it, and most are still trying to figure out what it is. One thing New Age People are sure about is that their Consciousness is better than the stuff everybody else has. C is for CRYSTALSCRYSTALS are pretty rocks. They are considered to be better than other pretty rocks because they vibrate. Of course vibrators vibrate too. But they're used for different purposes. It used to be that you could buy pretty rocks like crystals for a few cents. Now they go for $10 and up. Way up. People use crystals to make contact with higher intelligences. People who pay that kind of money for rocks obviously need contact with higher intelligences. D is for DON JUANDON JUAN is an old man in Mexico who was discovered by a man in California named Carlos Castaneda. It is not quite clear if Carlos is a writer dreaming he is a sorcerer's apprentice or a sorcerer's apprentice dreaming he is a writer. His publisher has always thought Carlos is great stuff, and doesn't much care who is dreaming what. Carlos' books on Don Juan have continued to be very popular. They have made their readers very suspicious of everything they thought was real. E is for ENLIGHTENMENTENLIGHTENMENT is what all Genuine New Age People are after. Nobody really knows what it is, but everyone agrees it must be better than being unenlightened, which is what we've got now. People believe that if you are Enlightened you will never have any problems again. You will have all the money and things you need (although you won't care about them) and you can spend the rest of your life (or lives) just grooving with Nature and God. G is for GODGOD is the One who started it all. Many people still carry a grudge about that. He is also the One who made all the rules. This upsets many people who would rather make their own rules. These people have decided that God doesn't exist. Fortunately for them, He hasn't done the same. Many New Age People want to find God, although they have a hard time explaining how they lost Him in the first place. According to most reports, God would not be easy to misplace. Perhaps people figure it's more fun to look for Him than to find Him. G is for GURUA GURU is a person who teaches you things. It has been said that everyone is your Guru. This of course implies that you are everyone else's Guru as well. Have you been shirking your responsibilities? You better get on with it. Being a Guru is a serious business. At least most of the better-known Gurus are serious about their business. Just ask their accountants. H is for HOLISTICHOLISTIC means "encompassing the whole." It is a favorite word of New Age People and there's no end to the fun ways you can use it. Like "holistic healing," "holistic education," "holistic nutrition," and "holistic relationship." Of course "holistic" is always used with words that make it redundant.
I is for INDIAINDIA is where all Genuine New Age People go to find Truth. India has the Truth because it is a very spiritual country. People in India are so spiritual, they even die spiritually. Millions of them every year. KARMA is what happens when you do something. If you do something nice, you get nice back. If you do something wicked, you're up a creek. Of course you may not get it until another lifetime, at which time you'll probably have forgotten how it started and ask "Why me?" Karma is a Cosmic Law. That means you can ignore it all you want but there's no way you can get away from it. But keep on trying if you like. It passes the time. K is for KUNDALINIKUNDALINI is a serpent of energy curled up at the base of the spine which rises when one meditates on it. When one gets really good at it, the Kundalini comes all the way up the spine, frazzles the brain, and leaps out the top. This is considered very desirable by people who practice Kundalini. Lots of people practicing Kundalini have been so successful that they are now living in nice, quiet places where they can be with others like themselves. LEVITATION means defying the law of gravity and floating above the ground. There are now people who will teach you how to levitate. Apparently the method involves relieving yourself of certain unessential encumbrances (tens, twenties, fifties) thereby lightening your essential self. Levitation, incidentally, is how the Egyptians built their pyramids. People often wonder how they carried those big stones up the steps of half-finished pyramids. They didn't. They built them from the top down. M is for MEDITATIONSome people say that Meditation, like Valium, works best taken twice a day in small doses. Others say that you should do it more often than that. They think you can cope much better with the world if you spend all of your time sitting on a cushion staring at a blank wall. O is for OMOM is a New Age Word. In fact, it is a Very New Age Word. When someone chants Om, that person becomes One With The Universe. Because it is a very powerful word, you should not repeat Om more than 1728 times at one sitting. If you do, you might become so One With The Universe that you will never....ever....come...back. You've been warned. O is for OUT OF BODY EXPERIENCEAn OUT OF BODY EXPERIENCE is known in the New Age trade as an OBE. (This is not to be confused with the OBE that the Queen of England hands out. That is an Order of the British Empire which is usually given for a totally different kind of experience.) An Out of Body Experience is when you go someplace, but your body doesn't. Now if you think you are your body, this probably sounds confusing. But it doesn't confuse a New Age Person. When you have an OBE, you leave your physical body behind and travel in your Astral body. This is also called Astral Travel. Your physical and astral bodies are connected by a silver cord. Be very careful not to break this cord, or you will never get back in your physical body. This could be very inconvenient if you still have plans for that body. P is for PYRAMIDSPYRAMIDS are pointy things made out of stone. They are found in Egypt and many other parts of the world. After several thousand years people have discovered that the Pyramids were built for something other than dead Pharaohs. Pyramids sharpen razor blades, make cigarettes milder, improve the taste of wine, and make for better sex and meditation, which pretty much offers something for everyone. Pyramids are obviously a great substitute for hard work and patience, so many New Age People are very fond of Pyramids. REINCARNATION means that after we die we come back in a new body for another lifetime, then we die, then we come back again and so on, over and over. All these bodies are human bodies. Some people think Reincarnation means coming back as an animal. That is called Transmigration and is very, very unusual. It will happen only if you Really Screw Up. As long as you don't commit the One Cardinal Sin, you'll be all right. (You're not committing it, are you?) Supposedly we keep reincarnating until we learn our lessons, whatever they may be. Since most of us are a little slow at catching on to things, we've been doing this for millions of years. This is called being on the Wheel of Karma. Some people think Reincarnation is a great excuse for waiting till the next lifetime to do anything. Others, who have gotten bored with the whole thing, figure they'd just as soon get off the Wheel of Karma now. They might not be in such a hurry if they knew what the next Wheel is like. S is for SPIRITUALITYSPIRITUALITY is something you either have or you don't. People who have it are On The Path and Closer To God. These people are called New Age People. The ones who don't have it are called The Rest of Humanity, or "Them" for short. S is for SUFIA SUFI is a very mysterious person from the Middle East. Some Sufis turn around in circles, others tell stories which make absolutely no sense. Still others just sit around and smile. Sufis do these things because they are Sufis. Other people do these things because they want to be Sufis. Still others do them who have been put in special places where they won't hurt anybody. Experts have trouble telling which group is which. Only the Sufis know. Maybe. T is for TANTRATANTRA is a special kind of sex which is done for spiritual reasons. It naturally appeals to most, who have all been brought up believing that Sex is dirty. With Tantra we can all fuck ourselves to Higher Consciousness. God is good. The THIRD EYE is the one in the middle of your forehead which you might not have noticed yet, but which all New Age People want to open. They figure if they can see two dimensions with one eye, and three dimensions with two eyes, just imagine what they might see with three eyes! One supposed method of opening the Third Eye is by drilling a hole in the forehead. This has not been a popular technique. Another way is through meditation. Still another way is to say nice things to it and coax it open. Once you get your Third Eye open, we'll tell you about Cleaning the Third Ear. Y is for YIN/YANGYIN/YANG is an ancient Oriental concept. Because it is very ancient, it is automatically considered to be very profound by New Age People. There's nothing like ancient wisdom to impress the hell out of New Age People, and Yin/Yang is about as ancient as wisdom can get. Yin/Yang means that everything has its opposite within it. Every Yin has a little Yang inside, and every Yang contains a little Yin. What this means to New Age People is that everything that seems one way is really kind of the other way too. And that opposites aren't really opposed because in some way they're already like their opposition. Therefore, since nothing is really what it seems -- and generally more like what it doesn't seem -- there's not much sense in worrying about anything because it's not what we thought it was anyhow. Don't you find this ancient wisdom reassuring? Z is for ZENZEN is everything. It is the indefinable made manifest. (Or is it the manifest made indefinable? Zen can be very confusing.) Anyway, in addition to being everything, Zen is also nothing. Therefore it is not necessary to do Zen. Nevertheless, there are special places called Zen monasteries where people do Zen, which of course they were already doing even when they weren't doin g Zen. If all this makes sense to you, you are a True New Age Person
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