- In August, during a family holiday on the Mexican
Riviera,
British Prime Minister Tony Blair and his wife, Cherie, went through a
"rebirthing ritual."
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- According to a report in the Dec. 15 edition of the
Times of London, the Blairs stayed at the very swanky Maroma Hotel near
Cancun, where rooms fetch as much as $1,800 Cdn a night. While there,
they underwent the hybrid New Age/Mayan ceremony.
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- Dressed only in bathing suits, Britain's first couple
stood outside a brick pyramid on the hotel's grounds and bowed toward
each point of the compass while chanting to each of the four winds.
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- The spiritual leader of the ceremony encouraged them
"to feel at one with Mother Earth," the Times reported, and
to "experience inner feelings and visions."
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- The Blairs then moved around the outside of the pyramid,
one façade at a time, praying first to the Mayan symbols of the
sun and baby lizards, signifying spring and childhood. They then prayed
to another wall, on which a bird was painted, representing adolescence,
summer and freedom. One a third was a crab for maturity and autumn, and
finally a serpent for winter and transformation.
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- Moving inside, Tony and Cherie immersed themselves in
the herb-infused mist of a Mayan steam bath to sweat the physical and
spiritual impurities from their bodies and to "balance their energy
flow."
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- Mayan holy songs were incanted as they meditated and
attempted to conjure up visions of animals in the steamy air. The
celebrant
explained the meaning of each of their hallucinations.
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- Before emerging from the pyramid, the Blairs were
instructed
to give voice to their hopes and fears (they said a prayer for world
peace),
and then undergo a "rebirth."
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- This involved smearing one another with papaya and
watermelon,
then with mud from the Mayan jungle outside, the Times explained.
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- Finally, while exiting the womb-door of the pyramid,
"the Blairs were told to scream out loud to signify the pain"
of birth. They then walked hand-in-hand to the beach for a dip in the
Caribbean.
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- I'm sorry. I know we live in a non-judgmental age in
which no one's spiritual practices and beliefs are to be pronounced better
or worse than those of any other (more on this in a minute), but this
is just downright flaky. It is not just the antithesis of Christianity,
but antipodal to the beliefs of all the world's major monotheistic
religions,
Judaism and Islam as well.
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- It's just kooky. Any visions or spiritual ecstasy the
Blairs experienced were psychosomatic, created by their own brains from
their imaginations because of their need to say they saw something.
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- Mrs. Blair is said to be a devotee of all sorts of
similar
(and similarly goofy) alternative therapies and spiritualisms. She is
said to wear a "bio-electric shield" pendant filled with
"magic
crystals" to absorb the negative radiation of cellphones and computer
terminals. She studies with a New Age guru and officially opened a
holistic
medical centre in November.
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- Hillary Clinton, of course, while her husband Bill was
President of the United States, famously met on numerous occasions in
a conservatory at the White House with a mystic who helped her channel
the spirit of Eleanor Roosevelt.
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- Aline Chretien, the wife of our own prime minister,
was so devoted to the advice of psychic Jo-Jo Savard, that she once wrote
a testimonial letter that figured prominently in television ads for
Savard's
psychic hotline.
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- And, lest you think I am picking only on the wives of
liberal politicians, Nancy Reagan, the wife of former U.S. President
Ronald
Reagan, was well known for her routine consulting of a West Coast
astrologer
for advice on when Ronnie should fly or hold press conferences.
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- Now back to my point about this being a tolerant,
non-judgmental
age.
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- I know I will be in the minority, at least within the
chattering classes, for suggesting that the Blairs' enthusiastic
participation
in a rebirthing might raise questions about his intellectual fitness to
preside over the British government.
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- But now imagine the Blairs had instead joined in an
ecstatic, full-immersion Christian baptism. Be honest, would you be as
tolerant of them then as you are of their dabbling with Mayan
paganism?
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- If they had professed to have spoken in tongues, as
many charismatic Christians do, would you be as tolerant and non-judgmental
as you are of the Blairs' hallucinations in the basil and tarragon
humidity
of the Maroma Hotel's pyramid?
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- Stockwell Day was deemed too dangerous to govern Canada
by virtue of his fundamentalist Christian beliefs; why then is it any
different to wonder if Tony Blair is too dangerous to govern Britain by
virtue of his New Age spirituality? I am not a fundamentalist Christian.
Yet I am curious why nearly every other faith or spirituality gets the
benefit of the tolerance doubt, but not Christianity?
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- Just asking.
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- ___
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- Lorne Gunter lgunter@powersurfr.com
Columnist, The Edmonton Journal Editorial Board Member,
The National Post
780 916-0719
780 481-4735 fx
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