SPIRITUAL SURF: a weekly scan of news and links about pop culture, politics and people with a Soul’s Code spin

Betting against Obama fatigue

By now it’s clear that former President Elect Barack Obama’s image can sell just about anything, from puppy sweaters to phony commemorative coins. But he can also sell your cause — any cause — as discovered by Care2.com. On its “Yes You Can Challenge” petitions page — where you can create and circulate your own petition electronically — the site boasts a picture and an inspiring quote from the new prez. Piggy-backing an inspiring brand to inspire people is a natural strategy for self-help sites — as long as the brand lasts. Some were already claiming “Obama fatigue” before last year’s election.

That’s general Chopra to you

It just never stops with everything-guru, Deepak Chopra. If he’s not warning us about “diabolical science,” he’s on about Bush. Now, the author of The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success and Manifesting Good Luck has decided that, when you’re at war, being the nation’s foremost doctor of alt-med is not enough. In his lastest syndicated column, Chopra, along with co-writer, former U.S. Army Ranger Ken Robinson, laid out his strategy for winning the so-called War on Terror:

Any solely military solution to terrorism is doomed to fail . . . The jihadist movement is endemic in the extremist sects of Islam. It exists from neighborhood to neighborhood, dinner table to dinner table, across a vast swath of the globe . . . and once an idea seeps into people’s brains, bombs and mortar attacks won’t defeat it.

The good doctor certainly practices what he preaches when it comes to recycling, even with his writing. This prescription sounds eerily like a concurring second, or even third, opinion.

Will that dog hunt?

Following last week’s allegations in the National Enquirer that Dr. Phil was verbally abusive to female subordinates (using such un-PC terms as “stupid bitch”), the pop culture site, Radar, notes that Dr. Phil’s ratings are down and appear to be headed for the crapper, “especially [among] women age 18 to 49,” noted the site. Ratings for the Dr. Phil show have fallen 27% compared to last season, and the show has lost one third of women in the 18-49 demo.”

Harried Haggard, gay, straight, or just human?

On her Living Sexuality blog, clinical sexologist, Becky Knight, picks apart fallen Christian evangelical Ted Haggard’s recent Oprah interview. Haggard, you will recall, was defrocked in 2006 for ripping speed rails with the male prostitute he had solicited. During the interview, Haggard disclosed that during therapy, he discovered that he was not in fact, a homosexual per se, but rather heterosexual with “homosexual attachments,” though evidently not the kind that can be purchased on the Internet. He also said that he didn’t want to be pigeon-holed into either a ‘homosexual’ or a ‘heterosexual’ category, although it seems that everyone (on both sides of the debate) is trying to do just that.” Knight goes on to say, “What was missing from the conversation was the awareness that sexual orientation exists on a spectrum.” Here at Soul’s Code, it did not occur to us that the idea that sexuality, like spirituality, exists on a spectrum should be news to anyone.

Prop 8’s toxic faith

While Ted Haggard ponders his sexuality, some spiritually minded Californians are pondering Prop 8, which writes a ban on same-sex marriage into the state’s constitution (and the sort of thing evangelicals like Haggard used to preach). Writing on Examiner.com, veteran spiritual counselor, Tosha Silver, asks, “how we went from California, the land of forward-thinking, progressive values, to California, the land that voted against gay marriage?”

She goes on to say, “Prop 8 is a good index of the difference between genuine spirituality and its toxic mimic, conservative religion.  Heart-centered spirituality sees us all as spirit, consciousness, love. From a larger metaphysical perspective a soul may incarnate countless times, returning to earth again and again  in a variety of genders, races, nationalities. What matters is  the love, forgiveness, and acceptance…” Amen, sister.

—Michael Mattis

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