substitute

1. The Enlightenment Card is here! It's a Visa credit card that gives you points as you buy towards... enlightening things. I want to tell the Dalai Lama about it so I can get one of those long cheerful Tibetan laughs out of him.
   
   
2. Holistic dentistry as a general concept is probably a great idea, because dentists so often are the ones who see medical problems first. However, I'd avoid the madman with the extensive psychoceramic chart (270k jpg) showing how your teeth control your lungs, liver, and everything else.
   
   
3. Do you need an exorcist? Why no, I don't. I especially don't need one who uses Comic Sans. Considering their client base, though, they're wise to demand the $300 up front. Customer service must be a bitch there.
   
   
4. There is an ad for a psychic clairvoyant medium named Zack Havoc. I don't want anyone who identifies with "Havoc" messing with the spirit world. That's a name for a late 1990s extreme sports/fake punk DJ guy, not a medium. His Corporate Reading services include "Product Placement." Does that mean he will put your product in his readings? Also "Employee Moral" and "Theft of Services." His political services include "demographic populace" and "legislative zeitgeist." Okay I'm done now.
   
   
5. Energy Healing for Pets. Yes, the url is psychicvet.com. There is a kind of Pet Tarot for sale there, too. Are we really this rich? I guess we are.

The rest of the ads are mostly for unlicensed psychotherapy via loopholes like "life coaching" and "psychic counseling. There are also ads for fraudulent medicine of various kinds, including a claim for total herbal cure of diabetes; that's lethal. There are also quite a few pyramid schemes, including ones that produce more of the fake psychotherapists by using counseling to recruit more counselors. The smell of brimstone is evident.

I found one really cool thing in the entire magazine. There is an Organic macrobiotic Japanese food lunch truck roaming Los Angeles. Okay, that's just awesome, having a lunch truck pull up outside your job and getting edamame, soba noodle salad, some gyoza, and a hot cup of genmai-cha. Salut! Or whatever you say in Japanese.

From: etheraealnetrlji@edirect-broadcast.com
Subject: The Moon And The Planets, Virtually
Date: January 28, 2006 10:56:40 AM PST
To: conrad@fringehead.org

The Galactic Government in exclusive partnership Ethereal Network Solutions. and utilizing their registration and registry systems (http://www.etherealnet.com) and the Lunar Embassy (www.lunarembassy.com), have entered into a historic agreement.

THE WORLD'S FIRST EXTRATERRESTRIAL INTERNET

( TELL ME MORE! )

See my latest post in psychoceramics for the strange and wonderful life of Mikko Jack, Julie Andrews' forgotten firstborn son, Finnish royalty, and central figure in the deep and dangerous mysteries of the last century. He's also a stevedore.

I wish I could get hold of the 14-hour video he sent to Blake Edwards.