Tuesday 10 April 2001

Pic of the day: Me, mostly.

Glimpses of New Age

I had written a longish essay about New Age and spiritual matters, and was rather satisfied with it. But then I reconsidered just before uploading. I felt that it was too superior. I came across as too good, or at least too wise. I am not quite so wise. Perhaps I should start over and write something simpler. I do that sometimes.

Yesterday I chatted on Internet with someone about eastern religions, briefly. Afterwards, I looked up a couple websites. One of those intrigued me. It was New Age. Now, I hold to the rule of thumb that any English-speaking person who can spell "chakra" should be classified as New Age unless proven innocent. Doubly so if they eat rare vegetables. It doesn't help to live in California either. But this particular site, which I for now will spare the humiliation of linking to, was not just New Age. It was Brand New Age, if I may coin a phrase. It was to New Age what New Age is to a vague sense of religiousity.

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Good fiction should be able to suspend disbelief for the time you read it. The same goes for advertising. I think you have to be truly dyed in the wool New Age to not disbelieve when people offer to initiate you to the mysteries of several religions with an immediate and lasting effect if you would only show up at one of their classes along with at least 1 other student. Messages from the rulers of various well known star systems don't exactly help either, if you ask me.

I found myself thinking that it would make for good fiction, though, if I toned it down a little. If I could space it out a bit, making it into a long trek through the spiritual landscape. Now, regular readers know that I am hopeless at fiction writing, because I always start to write a whole novel but never finishes it. This may actually be a good thing. If I ever sold any of my works, I would probably be insufferable. More so than now, I mean.

But say, wouldn't it truly be cool if we had coarser and subtler bodies that existed in parallel on 7 different planes of existence? Wouldn't it be cool if our future self alreay existed in the probability field surrounding us? And what if we really could store vast amounts of energy and shape energy fields like some kind of superheroes? Wow!

The pathetic thing is that while I cannot draw an ink bottle while looking at it, I still "see" these vague images in my mind. My mind can make some pretty cool comics, but my hand can no more draw them than if it was attached to some other person. At best I can make a sheep look like a sheep, but it is quite limited what spiritual super hero comics you can make involving only one sheep, one tractor, a pig seen from the front and a skull and crossbones flag.

Writing is somewhat better, but it does not do justice to the glitter inside. I can see in my mind a sketch of the multiple-dimension body as I write this, and the energy fields and the spiritually charged chakras ... but it's gonna die with me. (I am in no hurry for that to happen, though.) Incidentally, I have it the same way with music, but that's for another day, if ever.

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Luckily, some people have the gift of drawing comics and a clarity of the mind's vision as well. In case you have not already bookmarked Ozy & Millie, you are now free to go there and enjoy the serenity of Zen and the art of childhood fun.