Let Me Adjust My Amulet/Clear My Throat

I actually find these guys pretty endearing.

Being a responsible consumer of metaphysical information ain’t always easy, peeps. I’ve noted in the last several years an abundance of TV programs that if viewed uncritically, can really make you wonder why you’re not having dramatic exciting paranormal experiences like, say, being lightly scratched by demons on the regular. Or being chased by Bigfoot.

I’m including a TV guide-of-sorts to deciphering the idiotic from the sublime, the real from the fake, and the weird from the really weird. Or something.

FAKE: Any plot device on Mountain Monsters or Alaska Monsters or pretty much Monster-anything.

REAL: Redneck ingenuity. That shit is real. The traps and contraptions they build are pretty clever despite the fact that all they ever seem to catch is, well, themselves. A bunch of colorful characters carting their big asses around the backwoods in a goddamn golfcart, a-whoopin’ and a-hollerin’ is a bollocks way of trying to catch an elusive creature, but is far more interesting to watch than a bunch of people sitting quietly for hours on end up in deer stands.

FAKE: Members of the cast or crew becoming possessed by eeeeevil forces, mysteriously and suddenly.

REAL: Experiencing headaches or strange sensations while on a monster or ghost quest, which are often subconsciously self-induced. Yeah, I said it. You’re all jazzed about capturing good evidence but you’re all jacked on Mountain Dew, holding your breath and trying not to fart audibly, which, let’s face it, is a great way to freak yourself the fuck out.

FAKE: Mediums, psychics, intuitives and the like getting 100% of the details correct, 100% of the time. If it looks or sounds like this, it’s editing. Most intuitives have their truly great moments, but it’s certainly not all the time.

REAL: Getting about 80% of the details correct, most of the time.

REALLY RUDE AND PROLLY FAKE: Walking up to randos in public and telling them you have a message from their dead relative right damn now. Really? This is a massive boundary problem, both with the living and the dead, and really fucking immature. What if they’re not okay with you telling them Aunt Myrna says that the money is in the banana stand?

REAL AND SOCIALLY LESS STANKY: Getting a strong feeling, deciding if it’s worth annoying someone just trying to do their grocery shopping, and skipping the dramatic reveal in the middle of the frozen vegetable aisle. Context is everything here - if you see folks doing this type of reveal, it’s because their director told them to, or because they have a really strong need for attention. Ethical folk avoid making people uncomfortable, especially in public.

REALLY WEIRD: As part of a paranormal research team, declaring that unusual phenomena in a home or around a person is omg akshully a daymin, without any sort of medical, neurological, or psychological assessment, to say nothing of a good plumbing, electrical and structural assessment of the dwelling. This seems to be happening more frequently of late; when paranormal shows first gained traction in the early aughts, the topic of demonic bidness never came up. Nowadays, it seems like Ole Nick’s minions are, like, everywhere.

LESS WEIRD: After carefully weighing the evidence, attempting to first rule out alternate and far more parsimonious explanations such as seizure disorders, psychosis, high EMF fields due to power line proximity, dissociative identity disorder, delirium, toxin exposure/drug abuse.

I mean really. A very high percentage the shit you see on these reality shows ain’t even close to reality. It’s doctored, edited, and dramatized, and just really really scripted, y’all. In many cases I suspect there’s a lot of off-camera staging of sounds, voices, knocks, you name it.

She gets to dress like this because olden times.

You wanna know what really paints my ass red? The sensitives, spirit mediums, and intuitives who show up wearing a gothy ren faire ensemble. OH MY LORDT.

You do not want to go skulking around some ancient prison or abandoned hospital in a velvet ballgown or Sith Lord cape unless you want to end up rolling around in the dirt like some kind of fool. Madame Blavatsky you are not. Which is good, because honey she’s dead.

I once quit working in a metaphysical bookstore because I couldn’t deal with the drama there, drama which included what I can only describe as costumed staff sort of flapping around in Ren Faire attire and waving their hands a lot as they assessed your “energies”. Hoo golly. (Sure, I see dead people sometimes, but I really don’t think that going full-on Stevie Nicks is the best way to facilitate the ensuing convo.) I would show up in my black Adidas Sambas, drainpipe jeans, Boondock Saints hoodie and giant hoop earrings, because that’s mostly what I wear when I’m not seeing patients, and immediately get shaded. It took me months before I realized that it was because I was violating an unspoken airy-fairy, woo-woo dress code.

Ewps.

Often in consultations, it becomes apparent that a client is really gifted for intuitive work. What saddens me is that just as frequently, they will then express fear or hesitancy in developing these abilities further. And you know what, I can hardly blame them. When all you’ve been exposed to in terms of metaphysical pursuits is people who run around on the daily like they’re auditioning for the role of the warlock in, well, the movie Warlock, or who cannot seem to talk about anything other than overtly magickal topics…it tends to discourage further development.

Intuitive work simply doesn’t require a performative stance towards your client or case. Wearing costumes 24-7 or using overly a lot of arcane terms connotes a fundamental inauthenticity, a difficulty in being real, and I tend to distrust things that aren’t real. Most practicing shamans and readers I respect have a day job, and while they might adorn themselves with a few tchotchkes, they don’t roll out of the house clad in head-to-toe Hello Look At Me I Haz Powers ensemble every day. While I greatly enjoy playfulness and self-expression through fashion, there’s a limit here, and it exists at that point where people find the crafted persona more interesting than the message being relayed.

So. All that said, it’s time to jam out to DJ Kool.

Peace.