Thread: The Do's and Don'ts of New Age Groups (a bad experience!)

(Scroll below to see the do's and don'ts, the first part retells the experience of my mom in a new age group)

Far the past year or so my mom has been meeting up with local people primarily to learn meditation, energy healing, and all sorts of other new age topics. (I didn't intend because they were all old farts ). I was always skeptical of moms meetups, mostly because at least half the people there claimed to be a master of something.

I knew something was definitely wrong when, mom came home and claimed that her teacher told her that she could be a reiki master in a short period of time. Something like a year. Eh...that doesn't sound right.

I didn't want to lecture mom, I mean, if these meetups were giving her something more important, like friendship, who am I to stop her?

One day mom came home excited about a new product that she was given at the meeting. Not only was she given a new product, but she was offered a business proposition to sell it - in that annoying as hell amway style. Mom, who's been a saleswoman for years, thinks this is a win-win situation. As always, I approach the product with a biiiiggggg open mind. And since I hate - LOATHE - sales marketing, my open mindedness was being stretched to its limit.

The product claimed that you just put this little strip on one of the energy points of your body. That the strip, with its sacred geometry, and holographic image contained within it an energy meant to heal that specific energy point. Thus, becoming a do-it-yourself acupuncture. The product claimed that you could feel measurable results within three days time.

Mom was already wearing a strip gleefully. That seemed kinda silly. But - holding to my open mind approach I thought the least I could do was put on a strip and see how I feel with it on. But before I can even put the sticker on, I was annoyed!! The product claimed to be using sacred geometry as part of its healing.

And sure enough the shiny sticker had a pyramid, which is an awesome holy symbol. But right over the pyramid was their shitty logo! They were ruining the integrity of the symbol with their logo. No one who honestly believes in sacred geometry would ever do that!

Next I wanted to know, what is this claim that they used some sort of technology to imbue energy in it? I couldn't find anything on their website demonstrating that. After doing some research, I find out the CEO of this product is already well known for being a charlatan, creating false energy healing products that for reason have fooled many athletes and business people.

It was hard to break the news to mom, and honestly I was pissed that an asshole would combine authentic spiritual beliefs (energy healing and sacred geometry) to take advantage of people who are honestly interested in either.

Though mom was pissed that she was fooled, she continued to join the meetups and meet stranger people. Finally today she came home and confessed she had enough of it. There were so many tell-tell signs from early on, that mom ignored at first.

One day her reiki teacher told them, that last night she communed with angels. But before she could do that, she had to eat an entire pizza. Literally. She even explains "If I see an entire pizza, I have to eat the entire pizza". And because she ate the entire pizza by herself, she also spent the entire night throwing up, and she did all of this before communing with an angel - before coming to class. She also claimed that the energy of her students was making her dizzy (how about throwing up all night??) That's when mom realized HOW CRAZY SHE IS! And she left class right then and there. Her friends, did not.

Her new friends start to drive her crazy as they now claim to be reiki masters. They offer to do reiki on her, to heal her, and bring her back into their deluded circle. Mom is convinced their energy would be harmful to her body and she tells them "NO THANK YOU!"

Mom met all sorts of healers. And she tells me, she couldn't stop staring at them for one reason or another. One man who claimed that his oils bring health to the body and hair, was mostly bald and had a crusty scalp. Other healers were morbidly obese, with obvious tell-tell signs of either stress or depression.

Mom also met acclaimed psychics, who she says, don't like her because she didn't buy their service. She was upset to see her friends buy their psychic services without even asking for anything to back up their claims. Even mom, who's native language is spanish, was still able to pick up that these psychics were only playing with words. Other messages, were just completely negative - drenched in fear. Her friend was told by the psychic that her son was cursed, because he fell down and scratched his knee (he's like ten, go figure). This psychic never had anything good to say, everything was doomsday.

It was normal for the groupies to ask the psychics important life questions. Mom was hesitant to ask anything.

Not all of the groupies were having a good time, many left pissed. The ones who left pissed, were the ones who actually had credentials in their specified fields!

Mom came home angry and confused today. Because she believes, but doesn't believe in them. So she asked me, how can she trust other people? How can she ever believe them? I helped out my mom with the do's and don'ts of new age groups.

Do's and Don'ts of New Age Groups

Energy Healers
The ancient art of energy healing, whether its chinese, hindu, native american, ect, is the art of bringing the entire human being into balance, wellness and harmony. This includes the : the energy body, the physical body, the mind and the heart/spirit. To be an energy healer means that you have first HEALED YOURSELF, and have brought your entire being into balance and wellness.

Therefore, a true energy healer will LITERALLY physically appear: healthier and happier than the average person. Their face should be relaxed, not stressed or with tell tell signs that they haven't slept in days (stress = imbalance). How they respond to situations should display they don't have an anger management issue (imbalance) nor are they over sensitive to criticism (imbalance), nor should they be morbidly obese!! (eating disorder = emotional/mental imbalance!!)

While you shouldn't generally judge people by their outer appearances, health and happiness is written on peoples faces. If your energy healer doesn't look healthy AND happy, DO NOT let them touch any of your chakras! (unless you want unbalanced unhappy energy )

Psychics
Most of us, even new agers, have a knee jerk reaction to roll our eyes when someone claims to be a psychic. Our relationship to acclaimed psychics is poor because of so many charlatans who take advantage of innocent/naive people. That said, there are still psychics out there that genuinely mystify us even a hundred years later. Try to always respect someone who claims to be born a psychic, as you never know how they were treated growing up. Many acclaimed psychics feel misunderstood and alone.

That said, people also dislike psychics because to claim you are a psychic is to also claim that you are 'special'. A little bit of science can go a long way to bring back some humility to the claim of being special.

Science tells us that all humans are psychic to a small degree. We can all subconsciously respond to future events. Dreaming of future events is also extremely common. Everyone is "psychic" then, no one is more special than the other.

Listen to Yourself! None Other!
The new-age-baby-boomer generation was obsessed, OBSESSED with psychics, and channelings, and gurus. Stop asking a master or a psychic important life questions! Meditate and follow your intuition. SERIOUSLY! Moms group was filled with people who want psychics and gurus to give them their lifes answers. Sorry, it doesn't work that way.

Charlatans
New age charlatans are a bummer for everyone, not just the skeptics, but for genuine teachers and healers as well. How can a new age group avoid charlatans? By transforming their group into a sangha. As a sangha, you are family. Offer your services for free! Too many money grubbing people ruined my moms meetup group.

If your sangha seeks to learn something from a teacher who is charging money, they better have some sort of accreditation to back them up. Yoga teachers for example, must be certified. These certifications are in place to maintain the integrity of what they teach, and to trace back the lineage of teachers. Seek out certified teachers/healers when applicable.

Non certified teachers/healers should be able to present their personal history as a healer/teacher. It would be even better if these teachers/healers only take donations based on the satisfaction of their student/heelee.

And seriously, just keep an open mind - but don't shut out intuition or vibes! If someone gives you a bad vibe, pay attention!

Not that many of you here will be a part of a new age meetup . But I just felt like writing this. I might write up some written rules for my mom if she plans to start a new meetup group.