21st Century Snake Oil

It's a windy and wet Sunday and I am hungover. I am going to the Darebin Performing Arts and Entertainment Centre for the Melbourne Psychic Expo. I am not full of faith. I am tired and cranky, but I want to give this thing a fair chance. I sit in my car with the heater on and repeat to myself, 'Keep an open mind. Keep an open mind.' I walk to the entrance and pay the five dollar admission. The smell of incense, which hits me like a perfumed brick, is a bad omen. I start poking around the foyer to see what I'm in for. The first stall I see is full of crystals and cast iron dragons. A woman (the customer) sits at a table. She holds a crystal, while a man (the seller) waves his hands over the top. He wears a sombrero and a pair of Adidas button-down trackpants. He augurs. I can smell something else in here besides the incense. I think it might be bullshit.

There are a bunch of free talks going on so I check the timetable. I've missed 'An Introduction to Witchcraft', which sucks, and nothing else really grabs my attention. I walk through the foyer to the main expo room where psychic's stalls are set up in a big circle. Each psychic has their own particular divination style; tarot, palmistry, astral readings, etc. I do the lap a few times. Every stall, from Aura Photography to Zodiac Charts, is occupied, apart from the lonely Scientologist's. Bad press seems to have followed Scientology even into this spiritually yearning, New Age crowd. I stop and take stock of what I see.

Common Words: Crystal, Reiki, Healing – esp. in it's noun form, and then always preceded by a noun adjunct, e.g. Crystal Healing or Reiki Healing. Ancient Master (Free was an almost completely absent word. It's sole appearance was for the 'Free Stress Tests' at the lonely Scientologist's stall.)

Identifiable Types:

The Hippy – dreadlocked, paisley patterned.
The Gypsy – headscarved, heavily eyelined, costume bejewelled.
The Suit – only one, lended him an air of authority until I saw the Phrenology bust on his table. Quack.
The Viking – never actually dressed like one, but their stalls were always cluttered with dragon (dragyn?) statues serpentinely curled around crystals.
The Christian – never actually promoting Christ, but superficially informed by the Christian aesthetic, i.e. angels, demons, etc.

A lot of these Identifiable Types were mixed. It wasn't uncommon to see a Viking/Christian or Hippy/Gypsy. The rest, who made up about a third, were cliché free. I sit down at a Gypsy fortune teller's stall. I choose her because she seems the tackiest and therefore most entertaining. After sitting down at her table I see that she charges $40 for fifteen minutes. Choking a little bit with surprise, I say, 'You charge $40 for fifteen minutes.'

'Yes,' she says.

There is a long pause as I process this information, during which a few awkward glances are shared. I get up quickly and keep walking.

I ask myself how  McDonald's is different from this expo, and why does this expo annoy me more?

I pause for a little while and look out the window at the Bell Street McDonald's. I start to process what this expo is all about. The five dollar entry fee, the $40 psychic readings, the quackery, the crystals, the hope. All these things have added up in my mind to tell me that this expo is all about commerce. Commerce is the engine that drives this entire thing. I see the McDonald's across the road and I draw a parallel with it. I ask myself how the McDonald's is different from this expo, and why does this expo annoy me more? It doesn't take me long to realise that I am annoyed because this expo is selling things for people to believe in. The McDonald's across the road sells food, a basic human need. And let's just say that belief is another human need. Then this expo is a place for people to sell belief, but should belief be sold like this? Can hope be commercialised? The customers here have laboured for their dollars, dollars that are now being spent on the quest for spiritual meaning, but spirituality isn't something that you can pay for, spirituality is something that needs to be cultivated. Spiritual growth takes time and consideration to develop, it can't be bought or traded. And that's what really rubs me, here at the psychic expo. The crystals, the prayer beads, the aura photographs; these things are just as hokey as that pseudo-gypsy fortune teller. They're meant to represent the soulful awareness of the purchaser. But they don't. What they do represent is the purchaser's desire to be perceived as soulfully aware. But in reality it comes across as cheap fakery. It's the spirituality industry.

I feel I'm being a bit black and white here. Just to clarify, I believe that there are things in the universe that are way beyond humanity's grasp or our capacity for understanding. For this reason I'm hesitant to completely write off things like extra-sensory perception or even foreknowledge. I don't have all the answers and I'd be a fool to think that the world can be reduced to only the material and measurable. I remember going to the Mind, Body, Spirit expo with my Mum. I would've been seventeen at the time, and in deep, pubescent need of guidance and reassurance. I went to see a (free) psychic there, and she told me that I was on my path and that I should invest in myself more, which encouraged me. And maybe encouragement and self-discovery and belief are enough of a benefit to justify this industry.

I do another lap of the stalls and land again at the Scientologist's table, the only stall that offers a free service. I sit down and chat to the guy. His name is Mark and he builds verandahs for a living. Mark mans the Scientology stall on Sundays for a few bucks an hour. I grab the e-meter and we start talking. He tells me about the analytic and reactive minds. He asks me questions. He doesn't preach, he doesn't push, he doesn't ask anything of me in return. We just shoot the shit for twenty minutes. He is a nice guy.