Psychic Consultants and Spiritual Healers – LA Mysticism

WHENEVER I STROLL along the sidewalk to make a beer run to Bristol Farms, I often pass by a strange little store conspicuously wedged between the oil smeared lot of an automotive shop and an upscale crepe and coffee shop. The neon sign posted on the side mirrors of the store advertises its prophetic claim of what its services can achieve – an insight into your future. When I pass by this shop I’m reminded of David Fine’s comments of the psychics and radical spiritualists that have come to form LA’s unique, if not strange, spiritual landscape and its part in constructing LA’s identity:

“One would be hard pressed to find a Los Angeles novel written between the 1920s and the 1960s without the inclusion of a bizarre cult, spiritualist, prophet, or medical quack. While it is tempting to exaggerate their significance in the city’s history . . . their centrality to the city’s fiction cannot be denied. Spiritualists and ‘psychic consultants’ (Raymond Chandler’s term) have been permanent and conspicuous residents in the fiction about Los Angeles…In the literary construction of the city, the charlatans and cults signal the fusion, or confusion, of reality and illusion, fact and fantasy, that has been one of the recurring themes of Los Angeles fiction.”

This elicits several philosophical questions to debate and consider. Is LA a city that is starved and deprived of traditional forms of spirituality that it indulges itself in the world of mystics? same mystics and spiritualists gave rise to so many different religious cults that prospered in the LA area such as Theosophy movement and the Four Square Gospel? Or is it a city that likes its spirituality peddled to them like everything else is on large billboards and page long ads in the paper? After all Miss Cleo was not the first or the last psychic that offered services to those desperate to seek out an answer, an epiphany, a secure knowledge of their future. This shop is but one among many that are no doubt strewn across the city of Los Angeles as sites that often blur the lines between illusion and reality.

If I was a psychic consultant, I wonder what would my sales pitch be?

“Are you uncertain about life’s big decisions? My crystal ball has all the answers.”

“A doctor can heal your body but I can heal your soul…for a small fee.”

“You want to find the love of your life? No pain. No hassles. No time wasted. I can help you find the one.”

“I can guide you to your utopia.”

--Thomas Kim

Celebrity Prom

DAVID FINE discusses the rise of 'unreality' in his Imagining Los Angeles. In the 1920s, studio back lots started to seep into daily life and turn the city into a massive theme park that did little to separate fantasy from reality.
Perhaps, the most disturbing part of the Oscars to me was the film clipdiv>

Let's discuss this theme park's favorite holiday: The Oscars. I knew it was going to be an interesting night when a friend arrived at my door with a case of Blue Ribbon and said "I thought I should bring this....since James Cameron is involved." In the style of theme park, the show opened with Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin flicking Avatar creatures across the screen, which was less than impressive to George Clooney, whose countenance spoke loudly. It featured a series of break dances to the nominees for best score, which definitely looked like a part of that bad show you try to avoid at Disneyland while eating your twenty dollar hamburger. Steve Carell, a natural funny man, looked like he had been told someone just died. And a poor old man in some obscure category was cut off before he could even begin his speech with the swell of the Oscar music.

that they chose to associate with the film Precious: a very large Gabourey Sidibe steals a bucket of fried chicken and runs down the street with it, fat flowing out everywhere. And the audience laughed. This one clip managed to miss the genius of this monumental film.

Fine talks about "fiction that played , at times obsessively, on themes of unreality, masquerade, and deception." The Oscars, to me, can often be that place of unreality, where the interviewers have to act like Miley Cyrus has a chance in hell at winning an Oscar one day.

We still live in this "fantasy world", and for some odd reason, I don't hate it. I think that we've found a happy medium in that we can appreciate these unrealities for what they are and still fun of them at the same time. Precious was not acknowledged properly, but Mo' Nique still received an Oscar, even after admitting she would ditch the after party to binge eat at El Pollo Loco. Ben Stiller was allowed to go on as an Avatar creature gone wrong. Tyler Perry was allowed to announce onstage that he feels he literally has no place at the Oscars. And Woody Harrelson could be called out openly for being blazed out of his mind. Though in L.A. we still always feel like we're interning on a back lot, we're allowed to make fun of ourselves in the process. Slowly but surely, the industry is starting to become a place where reality meets the early makings of L.A. fiction that Fine describes. The Oscars are that place where we can find a happy medium of making fun of celebrities with friends, learning about striking new fiction, and celebrating genuine talent in the most ostentatious manner imaginable.

-- Thea Green
(photo caption: ferris wheel
photo credit: puttal, flickr creative commons)