Post #3

My mum is very much new age and into spirituality. She used to do tarot card readings for one of those phone services, believing that she is psychic. Although she knows I am sceptical, and unfortunately confuses this with cynicism, we have been quite successful at avoiding arguments. We did get a little heated over alternative medicine, a personal hate of mine, but the argument was halted before it went too far.

Her boyfriend is also spiritual so I have been keen to engage in discussion with him rather than my mum. He does make some bizarre claims like how crop circles are supernaturally caused, probably by extraterrestrials, and were not created by a couple of English blokes as a prank.
He also claims that the government are covering up the fact that aliens have visited in order to avoid the mass hysteria when all religions are subsequently proven false. I offered that Scientology may still survive but the joke fell flat. Any reference to Scientology should be regarded as a joke.

My mum and her boyfriend met at our friendly, local spiritual church. A spiritual church is just like a regular church but with less Jesus and more new age. They have meditation (prayer), a speaker (sermon) then meditation healing (prayer healing). On one occasion when my mum had kindly invited me along, instead of hymns they sing pop songs like From a Distance.

The church features a different speaker each week who talks about their own experiences with spirituality and new ageyness. The woman I had the displeasure of hearing told some stories about seeing doorways and bright lights while walking down the street. She also made claims about seeing things while driving down the freeway, which is really scary because I drive on that freeway and I want her to concentrate on things that are really there like my car.

Something else that stood out is that she filled the gaps of her stories that spaned years with, “I then went to…” or “Later, I…”, sounding exactly like she was reading a book. Turns out she is in the middle of writing one.

to be cont'd...