I'm Keeping Score (In The "Spirituality" Olympics,...)

So let's see: 

I warned you Rebecca Brooks and her sleazy husband are NewAgers, and now they're charged in England's phone hacking scandal.

I also predicted bad things once Newsweek was sold to yoga master (and former California politician) Jane Harmon - and now it's going digital only in what Drudge is calling "the death of print."

But I'm wrong about Romney and the Mormons? We'll see. I keep telling you cultism's a great clue to everything - because it touches everything - and, alas, it ultimately destroys everything it touches.

BTW - for the billionth time - we wouldn't have to witness the death of print (or journalism) if the editorial boards would simply report on NewAge accurately. There's a great story here - how the West has been fooled into killing itself - that could easily fuel sales into the next century. But it will never happen, because it requires those same editorial boards to out themselves as complicit in the deception, and they'll never do that.

So it may be the death of print after all,...

 

How Can You Deny You're A NewAger If Nobody Can Even Define What The Damn Word Means?

O.K. - don't be afraid - I'm just giving you the links early today, in hopes you'll pass them around over the course of the day. And I'm beginning with a little lesson on NewAge. What's the lesson? It goes like this - here's what a "psychic" sells:

Bu this is what a psychic is:

One more time. Here's what a psychic sells:

But this is what a psychic is:

Got it? Psychics sell lies. As far as their so-called "powers" are concerned, here's yet another story about yet another "psychic" who should've seen yet another bust coming:

A Lafayette woman who claims to be a "master clairvoyant" and offered psychic readings out of her homes on South and Main streets is being investigated for allegations of welfare fraud and theft, court documents reveal.

Judge Randy Williams of Tippecanoe Superior Court 1 signed off on a search warrant Friday that allowed investigators to further look into Patricia Johns and her business, Astrology Gallery.

The warrant was requested by a special agent with the Social Security Administration's Chicago Field Division, Indianapolis office.

According to a probable cause affidavit included in the warrant request, Johns has received supplemental security income benefits since 2001 for affective disorders.

She's accused of never reporting employment with or income from Astrology Gallery.

Johns' telephone listing for her psychic services went straight to a recorded message on Monday, and a message could not be left because the voicemail box was full.

Her website, www.astrologygallery.com, also was down on Monday.

According to a Twitter account that reportedly belongs to Johns, @FREE_psychic, she posted on March 22 that she is now in Dallas and available for readings there.

Here's what prompted the Social Security Administration investigation, according to the affidavit:

The special agent read a story in February by Indianapolis television news station WTHR about Johns and former clients who believed they had been scammed by her services.

The four victims -- three in Lafayette and one in Frankfort -- paid Johns a combined $181,432 in goods and money. The "goods" included a Rolex watch and crystals.

The special agent then contacted Lafayette police and decided to check Johns' name in the Social Security Administration database, which showed that she has received $67,012 in supplemental security income benefits since November 2001.

Now that's how you fight fraud in this country. Watch - I'm going to follow this story and, I'll bet you, this investigation will lead to other crimes being exposed. These "psychics" are all criminals, and they work together, and I know getting to one's computer files will yield information on the others. Flipping over the rocks they hide under, and exposing them to the light, that's how we stop what they do.

Stay tuned.

Here's something else I know - remember this?

"She always protested that she was not New Age. You've heard that one before, for sure. 'Who me? Oh, I'm not New Age!' We've all heard it. Only terminal cases ever admit to the proclivity. Maybe the last gasp of those people who recently died in James Arthur Ray's Sedona sweat lodge was 'Oh fuck, I guess I am New Age!' But of course, we'll never know if, even then, the denial was finally overcome. When you get right down to it, nobody wants to be seen as New Age because nobody wants to be seen as irreparably stupid.

Prophetic. That's from Chris Locke at the Mystic Bourgeoisie, but TMR's related message is, when anyone else can deny a NewAger is a NewAger, it's such an embarrassment that's what they're going to do, too! Listen to the friends and family of Kirby Brown, who died in James Arthur Ray's Sedona sweatlodge:

She was a free-spirited adventurer who lived in Mexico in an octagonal art-filled house on "Gringo Hill," overlooking the Sea of Cortez. Her high-end interior painting business was taking off. And on many mornings, she shared the waves at Old Man's break with the legends of long board surfing.

As summer faded into fall in 2009, Kirby Brown stood at a crossroads. Although her bohemian lifestyle in San Jose del Cabo was the envy of her friends, she felt something was missing.

At 38, she was still searching for her one true love. She craved financial stability. She wanted children. And so, her family and friends say, she dedicated herself to introspection and self-improvement.

"Trying to find that bigger meaning was important to her," said her brother, Bobby Brown.

To that end, she lived "a self-styled life," added her sister Jean Brown, who admired Kirby's ability to set priorities and create "a wonderfully abnormal life."

She constantly tried new things, and when she found something she liked, it became a part of her. So, it was no surprise to the people who knew Brown that when she turned her light inward, she gave it her usual "135%."

She was "not overly 'New Agey,'" said her longtime friend and confidante, Emily Forbes, "just looking outside the box."

From the best-selling author Caroline Myss, who blends mysticism, spirituality and healing, Brown learned, "We are in charge of our happiness," said Forbes, her best friend since their freshman year at the State University of New York at Geneseo.

But Brown remained a healthy skeptic. "I don't think she got too hung up on the different chakras."

She was drawn more to the practical approach of James Arthur Ray, whose seminars challenged participants to shed fears and old baggage and build "harmonic" lives with personal and financial success in balance. Believing the so-called "mystical millionaire" could coach her on how to "live impeccably," as he put it, Brown ponied up $9,695 -- her life's savings -- for Ray's Spiritual Warrior seminar in Sedona, Arizona, in October 2009.

Folks, when you've got a "free-spirited adventurer" leading a "bohemian lifestyle" involving "introspection and self-improvement" (any thing with the word "self" in it, really, like "self-help") who's "trying to find that bigger meaning" in her "abnormal life" by "constantly" trying "new things" to fill the emptiness - and those things involved words like "mysticism, spirituality and healing" and a desire for "happiness" in an attempt to "shed fears and old baggage" (which probably means they're depressed) in an attempt to achieve "balance" - I don't care what you say, only an idiot would buy any story the person you're discussing is a skeptic and "not overly 'New Agey'".

Anyway, let's cut to the chase here, on this typically dissatisfied NewAge nut:

"She was constantly looking for ways to make herself better, even though she already was an amazing person," said Billy Dahly, a commercial real estate appraiser from Denver, and one of her surfing friends in Mexico.

So she headed to Sedona's mystical red rocks in search of enlightenment. There, she would be asked to get a buzz cut, go without sleep and fast for 36 hours before squatting in her bikini on the dirt floor of a makeshift sweat lodge.

At the end of the five-day seminar, Kirby Brown's life wasn't enriched. It was over.

And, if you ask me, that's the most NewAge thing she could've done.

And finally, Sidney Harman - who bought Newsweek for a dollar and whose wife is political yogi (and former Congresswoman) Jane Harman - has died. He was 92 and, as far as I know, it didn't happen in a sweatlodge.

Somebody should keep an eye on Jane now:

At times like this, the vultures will be circling,....

Jane Harman: One Less Worry To Worry About

Great news - a California yogi is leaving Congress:

U.S. Rep. Jane Harman (D-Venice), a leading congressional voice on anti-terrorism issues, plans to resign from Congress to head up the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, a senior congressional source confirmed Monday, setting up a special election to choose her successor in a coastal district that stretches from Venice into the South Bay.

Now, we're sure, some folks have bought the BS about yoga, and how it's such a calming influence on people, helping them to become "balanced" and better decisions makers. But the real world evidence has always suggested otherwise. From 2009:

Jane Harman is so shrill and angry today.  She sounds like some sort of unhinged leftist blogger.  As The Washington Post's Dana Milbank so insightfully asked this week, what could any Democrat possibly have to be angry about?  After all, they won.

Yea, what? Especially in Harman's case, since she talks to her yoga instructor about national issues and all.

Maybe the truth is what we've been saying all along - that NewAgers and other "self-help" types have problems, which is why they do these things, but treating themselves doesn't help - they need to be under the care of a professional.

And a professional yoga master don't cut it.

Silly us, we'd think anyone elected to public office would know that.

Newsweek: A Magazine That Can't Get A Break

So The Washington Post has sold Newsweek Magazine to the husband of yoga master (and Democratic politician) Jane Harman.

In other words, "out of the frying pan,..."

Stretch, Bitches: You'll Never Touch That Flag

"SANTA MONICA, Calif. — The yogis arrived toting their mats and towels and SIGG water bottles. Some had waited a half hour before being allowed to claim tiny plots of floor just inches from one another. They jostled and chatted while setting up their spaces, some kicking up into handstands to loosen up.

It was 9 a.m. on a recent Saturday. The decibel level rose to that of a rowdy cocktail party. The crowd was a mix of Type-A careerists and tattooed freelancers who mold their work schedules around their yoga practice — or professionally accessorize their Lululemon outfits with heavy engagement rings. Today everyone seemed relatively calm; in the past, eruptions of mat rage have led to tears.

And then the teacher walked in. He had a gray crew cut, a message-free tank top and shorts, without a Buddhist bead or Sanskrit phrase visible anywhere.

'Come on people, let’s get started,' he said in a New York accent, as if leading a conference call.

Then he cranked up 'Misty Mountain Hop' by Led Zeppelin and led the students through a warm-up of sun salutations. Soon he had them stretching into a difficult split pose.

'Didn’t you see the torture memos this week?' called out Jane Harman, a 63-year-old devoted student in the front row, who also happens to be the United States Representative for the South Bay region of Los Angeles County.

The teacher responded, 'That’s why I’m doing this.'"

-- Deborah Schoeneman, putting the lie to how calm and peaceful yoga makes people ("eruptions of mat rage have led to tears") and further exposing the Democrats as a party of cultists (Jane Harmon!) and allowing us to remind you, once again, it's already old news the newspaper of choice for NewAge presented-as-normal-thought coverage is The New York Times.