Body, Mind and Psychic Expo

Today, my wife and I went to the "Alternate Living" expo. I went primarily to experience something different--dare I say alternative.

I have a deep mistrust of people selling a belief and a healthy skepticism for those that deal in the spiritual world. I am not, however, a disbeliever of there being something else out there.

I have very strange dreams and I've had more than my fair share of strange, unexplainable incidents to not think something beyond what we understand, is "out there". Now this something could simply be the vast areas of the human brain, and the even bigger human mind, that has yet to be fully mapped by science. Or it could be a whole other world. The writer in me likes to think it's the latter.

So we paid our $12 each to get in and wandered around the stalls. We stayed for about an hour, maybe 90 minutes. The array of merchandise on sale was amazing. Every fourth or fifth stall was a fortune teller of some sort. One would be a standard reader of palms, another astrology, wax drawings, animal spirits, native American Indian guides, coffee grounds, auras, tarot or numerology. The exchange to the spirit world must have been log-jammed from all the activity!

Then there were the healers. Water, self, ice/heat, touching, non-touching and massage areas by the dozen. I'm guessing nearly everyone that entered the pavilion, had a massage (or two).

I bought a book a while ago called "Animal Messenger" by Scott Alexander King. I brought it in case I ever wanted to use that type of imagery in a story, I'd have a ready made resource waiting. I heard the author speak today. What a load of rubbish! He gave it away when he pointed to a woman in the crowd and said he saw bats hanging above her. They were restless. He went on to explain what that imagery meant. Fair enough. Then he had a joke as he pointed back to where the bats were supposedly hanging, and a number of heads within the audience turned to look at the bats he was pointing out. He thought it was a great joke that they couldn't see the creatures, but took his word for it that, "there were three or four of them there."--well, which is it Scott? Are there three or four of them? You can see them after all; it isn't difficult to count to three or four surely? I walked away in disgust.

The whole experience left me saddened. Some of those there, the witches in their plunging neck lined dresses, the hot dog sellers and the Chinese massage practitioners, probably believed in what they were peddling. All the rest are preying on the hopes and dreams of others.

I remember when I was nursing. If a death occurred during the night, it was usually the male nurses (if they were around) who were asked to help with the rolling of the deceased so they could be washed and prepared for loved ones to say their final goodbyes, or for their trip down stairs. I remember the feel of those rooms. I remember the distinct feeling that I wasn't alone in there. I could feel the patients essence still hovering around.

Now if you have a whole bunch of psychic practitioners in one place, a few spiritual mediums and the odd ghost whisperer (I kid you not, that's what they called themselves), then a person who is attuned to feeling the presence of those that have passed, would feel it strongly in their midst. I'm not a medium, or psychic, but I have had a lot of weird experiences and what some (not me) would call visitations--and I felt nothing.

Beliefs being sold and hope being preyed upon...sad.

We won't be going again.