BODY MIND PSYCHIC EXPO —
MEET THE "NEW AGE"

(Investigator 49, 1996 July)


Cancer treatment for $35; Tarot readings $10; Firewalking $60; a copper-tubing pyramid $600; Aura reading $30. All this and much more was available at the Mind-Body Psychic Expo on April 13-14 at Adelaide's Morphetville Racecourse.

Entry to the Racecourse with access to 150 stalls on three floors of the Function Centre cost $8. There the visitor could try out or find out about computer aided meditation, Reflexology, Palmistry, Numerology, plus 30 different New Age methods of healing and be, "Zapped With Energy To Heal Mind Body And Soul."

Outside at ground level visitors could buy crystals, gemstones, candles, massage oils, incense, books, prayer wheels and vegetarian meals. Juggling lessons with three balls were free and a "Gondwana Sweat Lodge rite of purification" in an Indian Tee-Pee cost $10.

The Sunday firewalk was cancelled. Stephen Darke, former TAFE computer and accountancy lecturer turned firewalker, explained: "Anybody could do it. It's about empowering and going past your fears. I've done it 200 times."

Mr Darke said he uses hardwood including iron bark which burns at 1200 degrees. "I used to be a negative person but now I'm happier. Often I don't know where my next meal will come from but the Universe has never let me down."

He told about a lady partly paralysed from stroke who held on to two other firewalkers but was so "empowered" she then did the walk again — by herself.

Mr Darke said, "Mother Earth is in dire straits due to pollution and destruction of forests." He explained that firewalks and other New Age activities make people aware, "Eventually everyone will put mother Earth first."

A firewalk can be two metres or four metres. "I tell people to walk normally," Mr Darke said. "But it can be done running, jumping, dancing or whatever. There is no limit to the potential length of a firewalk."

Mr Darke is from Grafton, NSW. "Some of my relatives still think I'm strange," he said.

On the next two floors up were stalls, demonstrations, workshops and free pamphlets on everything from aura photography and Buddhism to Telepathy and vegetarianism.

I counted about 30 New Age methods of healing — Absent Healing, Aromatherapy, Biochemic Tissue Salts, Bowen Therapeutic Technique, Chiron Healing, Color Healing, Chromo Therapy, Crystal Therapy, Drum Healing, Essence Therapy, Expressive Therapy, Bach Flower Remedies, Ghost Healing, Foot Reflexology, Homeopathetic Meridian Science, Kinetic Energen, Metabiotics, Multi-Dimensional Healing, Neuroskeletal Dynamics, Ortho-Bionomy, Past Life Regression, Psychodynamic Bodywork, Quantum Healing, Reiki, Self Empowerment Healing, Touch Therapy.

Issue 1 of The New Age Guardian was free. One article on Past Life Regression told about chronic sore throat cured after the person was taken back 200 years and saw himself in a previous life speared in the throat!

"Reiki" involves "hands on healing" with "hands tuned to convey divine energy" which flows both ways. I exchanged healing energy with one demonstrator, Jane, who placed her palms on my shoulders for ten minutes. "Injuries which my kids used to need a week to recover from, heal in one day with Reiki," she claimed. "I used to be very irritable and my husband found it hard to live with me. Then he saw the change in me and now he too studies Reiki."

She said that Reiki made vaccinations and most other orthodox treatments unnecessary and could even cure cancer.

A clairvoyant, Wendy Becker, 46, recuperating in the seat next to me joined the conversation, "I never get sick. I refuse to accept sickness. I will it away." She said that her sickness-free life will continue as long as she lives. She added, "I can tell everything about you and I know you need a consultation. I can help you."

Meditation methods at the Expo included sitting, with eyes closed, in a "Star Tetrahedron" also called a "Merkaba". This consists of two copper-tubing pyramids with triangular rather than square bases, and one pyramid inverted over the other.

According to the lady promoter the Merkaba activates energy fields which can take a person's mind to other dimensions. Just one pyramid by itself (= a Tetrahedron Pyramid) can, she claimed, purify polluted water, accelerate healing, slow the ripening rate of fruit and reduce a person's need for sleep.
    
"Did you experience anything?" she asked after my 5-minute meditation. I had felt hot, which she called "One effect", but which I attributed to embarrassment.

Judith Collins, a "spiritual healer" who claims to channel information for Saint Jerome, was at the Expo. For $35 she conducted "Healing workshops on cancer and chronic illnesses." Her Autumn '96 Newsletter offers "intensive healing for...terminal illness" for $45.

There were organically-grown foods for sampling at one stall. Vegetarian substitutes for meat and hamburgers at another. "Green Goodness" from powdered leaves of wheat and barley at a third. A small container of leaves costs about $30 and lasts for a month. Said the male attendant, "To get the equivalent in vitamins from the chemist or supermarket you'd spend $500."

Onward to the stall for "Nutri Metrics" — the brand name for a range of skin care products and food supplements. There was a roulette wheel where spinning a winning number won a discount. There were 18 winning numbers out of 36 and losers were urged to try again!

A bit further and an attractive lass named Lyndall tried to get me to sign up for a $350-weekend of "Trantric Bodywork" at the "College of Mind, Breath and Body" where she studies.

At the Rebirthing stall, chemical-engineering degree holder Mark Harris offered to teach breathing techniques which release "stored emotional and mental tensions" from which "all illness originates."

At another stall Harrison Anderson placed a finger of her left hand between the third and fourth knuckles of my right hand. She appeared to concentrate while motioning with her right hand. The procedure is part of a system or skill called Kinesiology.

Finally she scored my immune system at six out of ten and my general health also at six. She told me to drink more plain water and gave me pamphlets on "Kinetic Energen" a healing system which she said combines Homeopathy, Acupuncture and Kinesiology. Ms Andersen said it involved round patches, with a silver optic fibre containing a homeopathic, placed over acupuncture points. This would, she said, treat the body's electrical system, and improve my love life and general health and immune system.

One of the pamphlets supplied by Ms Andersen answered a question about cancer with: "Any disease can be treated by restoring the body's energy to its correct frequency." The concession rate is $20 per treatment and about six visits are usual. Two patches each visit cost $3 each and herbs for $12 are also needed.

Another Expo attraction was palm reading costing $10 for 20 minutes. Mark, a young bearded gentleman, said he deciphered people's major traits from lines on their hands. "People often tell me I was spot on. Sometimes I get into a bit of counseling."

Asked whether he would tell me which of two women to marry by comparing their hands with mine he said he wouldn't to that. Nor can he tell how long people will live, "A short lifeline can mean other things besides a short life."

The Expo had plenty for the spiritually minded. There were stalls advocating self mastery and mysticism with the Rosicrucians; the "light of God" with Elkaner; insight from Kryon the "magnificent channeled magnetic master"; the "Science of Spirituality" from Indian mystic Sant Rajinder Singh Ji; "The Key of Immediate Enlightenment" by Master Ching Hai; Tai Chi exercises; etc.

Petite, dark-haired, Lisa F., practices Transmission Meditation to transmit and direct energies which improve the world. Lisa follows Benjamin Crème — spokesman for Maitreya who is Christ returned. She expects Maitreya to reveal himself to the whole world via television within about ten years. She attributes crop circles, UFOs, angel manifestations, weeping statues and other reports of paranormal events to Maitreya's gradual "emergence".

"'Christ' is an office and is currently held by Maitreya," Lisa explained. "He lives in London. His appearance can change but he travels using a normal passport."

Lisa's role is to advertise Maitreya's "emergence" with pamphlets, by word of mouth, and on this occasion via the stall at the Expo. "Three years ago I was depressed," she said. "I sat on my bed and prayed to God for guidance. Later a friend took me to a meditation meeting."

Lisa, formerly a Catholic, has three children aged 9, 13 and 15.

The Body-Mind Psychic Expo was broad in scope. Collectors could gather 200 different tracts, pamphlets, leaflets, cards, magazines, books and newspapers.

These can be a springboard to discovering:
The Expo entry fee of $8 applied to people aged 12 and older. About 7,500 attended — 1% of Adelaide's over-11 population.

Other similar recent events in or near Adelaide include:
Golden Age Pathways, an advertising brochure for New Age offers, has a circulation of 15,000 in Adelaide.

John Foley, secretary of the South Australian skeptics, commented by phone: "Natural health colleges in South Australia have 110 to 120 students on Austudy. Taxpayers are paying for these students to learn to be quacks. If Judy Collins' offer to treat cancer for $35 is valid why does the Government train oncologists for six years?"
(BS)

[The Body-Mind Psychic Expo has continued as an annual event in Adelaide — Ed]

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