» Continued from Part 3

=== Alternative Healing
39. Reiki -- soul food for Asia's largest prison
40. Alternative medicines: Science or magic?

=== Noted
41. Deepak Chopra Discusses His Mystical Life
42. The Bakker Family Discusses Living Through Scandal and Personal Tragedy

=== The Monks Around The Corner
43. Rock'n'roll monks defy Greek church


=== Alternative Healing

39. Reiki -- soul food for Asia's largest prison
The Financial Express (India), Feb. 1, 2001
http://www.financialexpress.com/
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Eyes tight shut and sitting cross-legged on the floor in Asia's largest prison, Tihar Jail in New Delhi, Mr Satyanarayan Chauhan slowly brings his outstretched palms close to his heart and tries to ''think of things good and godly.''

In a compound bound by stern iron grills, softened by the soothing saffron sheets covering them, Mr Chauhan is among a select set of 25-30 Tihar prisoners getting their first Reiki lessons. Call it soul food, if you please. For, this time Reiki (Japanese for ''universal life force energy'') - a natural mind-healing meditation technique that has gained much ground in Indian metros - is targeting prisoners, ''a bunch of people desperately trying to fight guilt, depression and a sense of isolation.'' ''Changing their thought patterns'' is what the Indian branch of the U.S.-based International Center for Reiki Training (ICRT), run by world famous Reiki master, Mr William Rand, which organised the session at Tihar, hopes for.
(...)

Ms Faye Kozikott, one of the three Reiki teachers at the session, agrees, ''I was apprehensive and a little nervous about having to teach Reiki to convicts. But surprisingly, I found the inmates extremely receptive.'' Given Tihar's history of jail reforms though, it shouldn't come as a surprise, with the jail, which houses 10,625 inmates, having introduced meditative practices way back in the early 90s. ''It brings a tremendous change in their (prisoners') attitudes, no doubt,'' says deputy superintendent, Mr BS Jarial, who has been posted in Tihar for 20 years.

''Though, of course, the more educated ones are more receptive,'' he points out.
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40. Alternative medicines: Science or magic?
Australasian Science, Jan. 1, 2001
http://beta.yellowbrix.com/
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Hugh Crone visits the Mind Body Spirit festival to see why the public seeks New Age alternatives despite the great technical achievements of the modern age.
(...)

Herbal medicine certainly has an element of logic in it, but why not use the carefully examined and proven pharmaceutical products rather than a crude preparation of dried plant matter of unknown potency and effect? The very broad claims for herbal medicines destroy their credibility; it is hard to believe that one decoction is good for many ills. The useful aspects of traditional herbal medicine have been corrupted by misuse and sweeping claims.

Reflexology and iridology are plain nonsense. Reflexology is little more than a foot massage that supposedly treats ills in other parts of the body, while iridology involves examination of the eye to detect disease elsewhere in the body. However, reflexologists and iridologists offer no proof that these practices work even though ''numerous scientists and doctors'' have supposedly researched the topic.

These scientists and doctors must have had a hard time connecting ids patterns with health because of the vague definitions of health outcomes. One leaflet I collected claimed that iridology reveals the health level, the quality of nerve force, nutritional and chemical needs, and the acid/catarrh level in the body, but nothing more specific than these poorly defined conditions was offered. Strangely, the leaflet also states that iridology ''cannot tell pathology''. I would have thought that the condition of the nervous system or the location of environmentally obtained toxic accumulations (another claim in the leaflet) were pathological topics.

Iridology and reflexology are not magical. They do not call on the supernatural. They are just plain nonsense marketed in pseudoscientific jargon.

This leaves us with those practices that clearly call on supernatural powers, such as spiritualism, psychic readings and witchcraft. Some of these are dressed up in more modem guise as magnetic forces or other physical forces that no physicist has been able to measure. All of these simply demand belief; they have no rational explanation.

The authority used is to support these claims is ancient belief: Ayur-Veda from India, various Chinese cults, wicca from Europe and a universal belief in the spirit as an accessible entity. These practices can justifiably be classed as magic. Since the spirits and forces cannot be detected in the natural world of the scientist, they are clearly supernatural. Magic is alive and well.

The visitors to this exhibition were not New Age dropouts or oddballs. They looked like any of the usual crowds around the city. This indicates that the patrons of pseudoscientific nonsense and magic are the ''public'', the norms of society. These people claim various degrees of benefit from the procedures and potions on display while simultaneously consulting practitioners of orthodox medicine. They are quite eclectic, ready to hold beliefs simultaneously in doctrines that scientists consider mutually exclusive.

Eclecticism can occur among scientists. One of the greatest of them all spent a lot of time pursuing studies that we now would regard as illogical. Isaac Newton practised alchemy, which has an obligatory occult root, for many years.

Non-scientists have even less difficulty in picking concepts from different doctrines to form their own composite belief systems.
(...)

In summary, scientists have to understand a public attitude in which a continual search or quest for a meaning in life leads to the parallel adoption of scientifically logical and completely illogical beliefs into single, very personal belief systems. It is not a choice between science or magic; it is whatever the individual feels he or she needs from either.

Hugh Crone is a retired biochemist and author of Chemicals and Society and Banning Chemical Weapons.
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=== Noted

41. Deepak Chopra Discusses His Mystical Life
CNN/Pinnacle, Jan. 27, 2001 (Transcript)
http://www.cnn.com/
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DEEPAK CHOPRA, FOUNDER AND CEO, THE CHOPRA CENTER: I have the appearance of a wave coming towards me.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: According to (inaudible), it's going to be a group.

CHOPRA: Depending on your perspective, you may think we are sages, or you might think we're psychotics, you might think we are geniuses. But it all is up to how you view us. We are OK with any interpretation. OK? We think we are a motley group of sages, psychotics, and geniuses.
(...)

SCHUCH (voice-over): Deepak Chopra is talking about his growing band of fellow seekers on an eternal quest for the meaning of life. In addition to the thousands of world followers and students of meditation, Chopra's own inner journey has taken him on a career as a respected doctor of endocrinology to what some have called one of the most influential spiritual leaders of the 20th century.

CHOPRA: At the moment, I seem to be riding the wave.

SCHUCH: A prolific writer, he shares his collected wisdom with celebrities and common folk alike in a series of best-selling books, tapes, and lectures. He recently inked a two-book, seven-figure deal with Putnam to pursue the answers of science and spirituality.
(...)

SCHUCH: Seemingly by accident -- and he doesn't believe in accidents -- he stumbled onto a path that led him away from traditional Western medicines to rediscover ancient Eastern traditions, from healing to mystical poetry.

CHOPRA: ''I'm an astounding, lucid confusion. I'm your own voice, echoing off the walls of God.''

SCHUCH: The ''lucid confusion'' named Deepak is forwarding a message of ancient wisdom made modern. His great discovery is that what used to be thought of as mystical is really just another way of looking at physics, cause and effect. What you give out, you get back.
(...)

SCHUCH (voice-over): To know himself, Deepak, along with much of India in those days, was looking to the West for enlightenment, setting aside ancient native philosophies. Chopra became a well- trained Western doctor, eventually teaching at Boston University and Tufts Medical Schools. But his success in the West left a void he tried to fill with unprescribed vices.

(on camera): At what point, then, after you made this commitment to quit smoking and drinking and all, did you find meditation and Ayurvedic philosophy and your roots again?

CHOPRA: I happened to meet Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, who was the founder of the TM movement worldwide. And he asked me to look into Ayurveda.

SCHUCH: Ayurvedic, what's the definition of Ayurvedic?

CHOPRA: Originally the word meant science of life. It deals with every aspect of life, relationships, love, romance, art, music.

SCHUCH: Was there, like, an Aha! moment of stark realization, or was it a cumulative effect?

CHOPRA: It was a synchronistic experience. I was in a conference in Washington, D.C., that Maharishi was at, and he said, ''Have you ever looked into Ayurvedic medicine?'' I said no. He said, ''You should look at it.'' And I was polite, I said I would, perhaps, one day.

After I left the conference, I was at the airport. I ran into a friend of mine who was from medical school. And he gave me a book on Ayurveda. And I thought that was an interesting coincidence. I read the book on the flight from Washington to Boston, and then I didn't go home, I took the flight back to Washington. I went back to the hotel. I went to Maharishi, and I said, ''Can you introduce me to some experts?'' And he said, ''Sure.''

SCHUCH (voice-over): Since then, Deepak has spread the practice of Ayurveda, meditation, and synchrodestiny through his writings and lectures and from his headquarters at the Chopra Center for Well-Being in La Jolla.
(...)

But despite the success of the center, you won't find Chopra franchising his philosophies.

CHOPRA: I think we would dilute ourselves if we do -- if we spread out, and even -- you know, we only have about 18 people, maximum, here in a week. Now, theoretically we could have 50 and make a lot of money. But it wouldn't serve the purpose. You can't give people the kind of attention they need if you make it a factory.

SCHUCH: Although his workshops can run in the thousands, the profit engine is his books. At last count, Deepak's written 27 books. Five are best-sellers. And his lectures can run up to $50,000 each.

Annual estimates for the Chopra empire are about $15 million, but don't ask him.
(on camera): You don't know?

CHOPRA: No, I don't, because what happens is, you know, this might be difficult for you to believe, but I've never looked at a bank statement. My assistant, Carolyn, she signs all my checks. And long time ago, I convinced myself that if you know how much money you have, then you're not rich. And if you have no concern about it, then you're very rich.
(...)


SCHUCH (on camera): When was the last time you saw God?

CHOPRA: I'm sitting right next to God.

SCHUCH: Well, that'll score you a lot of points.

CHOPRA: God is the infinite, unbounded, eternal intelligence that orchestrates the information, energy, and the whole fabric of spacetime and all these universes, and...

SCHUCH: OK, what does that mean?

CHOPRA: What does that mean? Well, if I look at a little flower, it is the confluence of rainbows and sunshine and earth and water and wind and space and the infinite void and the whole history of the universe in a rose petal. That's God.

SCHUCH: Is that what your book says, ''How to Know God''?

CHOPRA: My book ''How to Know God'' says that as you expand your own awareness, it ultimately becomes unlimited. And the essential human is one of ambiguity, that at the depth of our being we are sinners and saints, we are divine and diabolical, we are sacred and profane.

SCHUCH: And is science just a more primitive form, then, of spirituality?

CHOPRA: Yes. If -- when scientists make great discoveries, they are filled with a sense of reverence and awe and a feeling of the sacred. Didn't Einstein once say, I want to know how God thinks, everything else is a detail? That's what Einstein said, because the laws of nature are the thoughts of God.

SCHUCH: What is the soul?

CHOPRA: The soul is a confluence of meanings, contexts, relationships, interpretations, memories, desires, all born of karma. Now, it takes two books to explain that.
(...)

SCHUCH: Deepak's 29-year-old daughter, Mallika, is combining business and Eastern Indian practices. This January, she launched My Potential, a Web site counseling people on leading fuller lives.
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42. The Bakker Family Discusses Living Through Scandal and Personal Tragedy
CNN/Larry King Live, Jan. 30, 2001
http://www.cnn.com/
[Story no longer online? Read this]
LARRY KING, HOST: Tonight, he's the son of a controversial preacher man. Jay Bakker, who's telling all about surviving front- page scandals.

And with him in New York, his mom, Tammy Faye Messner. According to him, they're two of a kind.

And then joining us from Bonifay, Florida, his father, Jim Bakker, now ministering through a camp called ''Hope,'' and Jim's wife, Lori, author of ''More Than I Could Ever Ask.'' They're all next on LARRY KING LIVE.

The Bakkers have assembled, and it's all regarding Jay Bakker's new and very controversial and very outgoing book called ''Son of a Preacher Man: My Search for Grace in the Shadows.''
(...)

KING: All right. Was it tough to bring this all up again? I mean, I know writing can be a catharsis, but was it hard?

JAY BAKKER: It was nearly impossible. I had to go to a lot of 12-step meetings and a lot of late nights. It was -- it was a very hard thing to do, yeah.
(...)

KING: Jim, we have seen now these things happen to famous people -- to the president of the United States, to Jesse Jackson and the like, all in varying degrees. That has to be -- how do you deal with it? How did you deal with it?

JIM BAKKER: Well, the first time Jamie and I talked about it -- Jay -- really to talk about it was when he was 16 and he came to see me in prison. And I told him everything about it, everything that he wanted to know, and talked to him about his own girlfriend and the birds and the bees. And that was really the first time that we had to sit down and really talk about these kinds of intimate details.

But it devastates the children when the father is a public figure and has sinned in their lives. Just now we're hearing more things in the news right now about, you know, public figures. And I look at these others and I really empathize with them. I really understand.

You know, we expect our leaders not to have feet of clay. We expect them to somehow be better than the average person, and we find out they've made mistakes. Sometimes the media and sometimes the society is a little bit judgmental.

But I believe that the message that Jamie Charles has in this book is what I have to live and I have to receive. And it's the message of mercy, a message of grace: that God forgives.

The great man of the Bible, David, which the Bible says, you know, God said he was a man after my own heart, after God's heart. This man committed adultery. This man made many, many, many mistakes, but yet -- and in the end, God is talking to his son, Solomon. And he tells Solomon: ''I want you to do as your father did. I want you to be a man after my own heart, a man of integrity.''
(...)

KING: When your father loses PTL, here's what you write. ''He almost went catatonic. He would lie curled up in a fetal position at the end of the couch listening to ministry tapes of pastors preaching and gospel musical recordings.'' Were you worried about him?

JAY BAKKER: I was terrified. I had never saw my father like that. I mean, he was -- he was blaring these preaching tapes and just sitting there. I was -- yes, I was terrified. I thought my dad may have lost his mind. And I knew something had happened. And I -- at that point I realized that PTL and Heritage U.S.A. and everything my family had ever known was gone. So it was one of the scariest days of my life.
(...)

QUESTION: What reaction do you have to the sale of Heritage U.S.A?

JIM BAKKER: Well, we're still looking at that, seeing what's happening there. Needless to say, it's sad for us.

We still have hopes of returning Heritage to the lifetime partners, and that is my lifetime goal.
(...)

KING: Jay, when everything falls apart, you write: ''I had just lost everything I'd ever known. There was no one I could turn to. My sister was gone. My parents were too mired in their own nightmare to help me deal with mine.'' So what did you turn to? How did you pull through? You had rough teen years.

JAY BAKKER: Yeah. I basically just emerged myself into my friends, and basically drugs and alcohol -- I mean, the typical teenage thing to do -- and just tried to find acceptance amongst my peers at the time. And that's what I dove into.

MESSNER: And Jim was gone. Of course, Jim was in prison. I had -- I was a -- I became a minister at a church, which was not my calling -- calling to be a pastor. And I was trying to take care of Jamie Charles, and I had no idea what the signs of drugs were, what those signs were at all. So I didn't catch on.

JAY BAKKER: It was -- one of the difficult things was is all through that time it wasn't the church reaching out. It wasn't pastors reaching out. They were few and far between.

KING: Yeah.

JAY BAKKER: But it was the kids reaching out. It was the people reaching out who were -- they were all hurting, too. Their parents were going through divorces, too. They just weren't publicized.

KING: Yeah.

JAY BAKKER: And so those were the people that reached out. It wasn't the church.

KING: So (UNINTELLIGIBLE) help don't. And the -- yeah.

JAY BAKKER: Yeah. It was the punk-rock kids, you know? It was crazy.
(...)

KING: Jim, were you surprised when the church didn't come to your help or to Jay's help or to Tammy Faye's help?

JIM BAKKER: You know, I've worked through all the forgiveness of everyone, but -- so what I'm going to say is -- may sound like I'm bringing up some things that are bitter. But, you know, Larry, you have wonderful, beautiful children, and people can hurt you. But when they touch your kids, I mean, that's a different situation.

And the thing that probably broke my heart as much as anything is when Jay went back to Heritage USA. and the religious leaders that were then in charge and had taken it from us to a different situation, they had made a decree that no one was to have anything to do with a Bakker -- the Bakker, and then anybody that loved a Bakker, they called ''Bakkerite.''

But -- so when Jamie went back to see his friends -- his little friends, I mean, 10, 11-year-old kids were saying, ''We can't play with you. We can't be seen with you.'' And the cruelty that we put upon innocent children is one of the sins that -- you know, God speaks of that if we offend one of the little ones, that we've offended God. And so that's part of the heartbreak to me.

And I must say, when I lost everything, one of the very first people, if not the first one, to call me was Billy Graham. I mean, Billy was there on the phone. And Oral Roberts called me on the phone. And Robert Schuler called me on the phone. But, you know, after the weeks went by, isolation really set into the family. And I know this is what Jamie feels in his heart today.
(...)

KING: We're back. Let's talk about things more current. What, Jim, do you think of Jay having tattoos and wearing an earring? Now, 10, 15 years ago you'd have gone nuts.

JIM BAKKER: I hate that you'd asked that question because it's -- I really don't like tattoos. I'm sorry, but I'm of a different generation that, when I was a kid, tattoos was a real rebellion and drugs were really way out. And so, you know, but I love my son and I love him so much that I look beyond what I see as something I don't necessarily agree with. But I love him. But I'm not really into tattoos.
(...)

KING: Now, Jay, what do you think of mom's makeup?

MESSNER: It's kind of colorful and pretty.

JAY BAKKER: Well, I actually really look up to my mom for her makeup because so many people have made fun of her, and given her such a hard time. And she's just said basically, ''Screw it, I'm going to be me.'' And to put it bluntly, she said, ''I'm going to be, and I'm not worried about the opinions of other people.''

And that's allowed me to be myself. And through that, I've been able to reach a group of people and say, ''Don't change. God loves you just the way you are.'' You don't have to change. You can have purple hair. You can have spiked bracelets. You can have whatever. You can have a three piece suit. However you are, God loves you and God accepts you and you don't have to change for him. And for some reason, we've made people believe that they have to take off their makeup, change their hair color and comb their hair before they come to church. And that's just a lie and it's a lie from hell.
(...)

KING: As you -- I want to get your thoughts, Jim. What do you think -- anything about Jay's book you don't like?
(...)

JIM BAKKER: Well, you know, it's not -- the awesome thing about it is, you know, it's not the kind of book you say, ''Wow, this is a fabulous book,'' because it's a rough, tough story. He tells it like it is, stuff that you don't want to talk about.

But the awesome thing about this book is what Jamie's done to our whole family and to me. When I was dying on that farm I -- when I got out of prison, I wasn't going off the farm anymore. But he called me on the phone as he learned about a grace, amazing grace, we call it. But he really has taught us all about grace.

And that's what this book is about. And that's why I love my son, tattoos, whatever, earrings, whatever he does. And I -- I mean, we're right here at Camp Hope right now, and this is where -- we're at the lodge. And we have kids coming that are all coming off crack cocaine and still on crack cocaine, kids with tattoos. And what Jamie's taught me, and I always knew this, but he's brought me to another level of grace. And that's what this book is about. It's about, hey, there's hope for all of us.
(...)

KING: By the way, February 6th is Ronald Reagan's 90th birthday. We have a very special show with an exclusive interview with Nancy Reagan. That's February 6th. Make a note of it, Ronald Reagan's 90th birthday.
Jim, did you expect a pardon?

JIM BAKKER: I didn't ask for one. You have to apply for a pardon. So, I didn't ask for one. Ronald Reagan's show coming up with you, I spent many, many hours with that man. And, oh, my heart just aches because I'd just love to see him walk out one more time.

KING: Yes. Why haven't you asked for a pardon?

JIM BAKKER: Well, I don't live in the past anymore. Like doing a show like this is very difficult for me because it's dredging up the past and I'm trying to look for the future, and I don't even think about a pardon. I'm happy being where I am. I really don't need that to have vindication. The people I deal with, street people and inner city kids, they don't know who I am anyway. So, all they know is about love.
(...)

KING: Jim, do you miss television?

JIM BAKKER: I'm actually making plans to go back on television. I haven't announced it. It's not too many weeks away. We may be making our debut. A very different type of format for me than I've done in the past.
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* Son of a Preacher Man : My Search for Grace in the Shadows
by Jay Bakker

=== The Monks Around The Corner

43. Rock'n'roll monks defy Greek church
The Age/Guardian, Feb. 2, 2001
http://www.theage.com.au/
[Story no longer online? Read this]
[...more offbeat news...]
A group of 15 black-robed Greek monks, who catapulted to fame last year with a best-selling pop record, have defied an order from their church's ruling body to abandon their ''scandalous'' ways.

The monks, from the Saints Augustine and Seraphim Sarov monastery, in the mountains of central Greece, struck a chord with young people with their catchy rock tunes and religious-inspired lyrics.
(...)

When the Holy Synod ordered the monks to return to a more contemplative existence, the monastery's abbot, Father Nektarios, who doubles as the monks' manager, declared independence from the Greek church, saying that the monastery would change its status to that of a brotherhood, comprising of lay people as well as clerics. The pop career was inspired by a call to attract young people to the church.
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