I Really Enjoyed Going to a Body Mind and Psychic Expo
Shôn Ellerton, Jun 1, 2024
What was I expecting at my first Body Mind and Psychic Expo? Here’s what I discovered.
Let’s take a trip to the crazy world of psychics, crystal healers, mediums, healers, and all that strange and transcendental stuff that relates to the paranormal.
Yes! My first trip to Adelaide’s annual Body Mind Psychic Expo at the Showgrounds.
I went with a mate who makes it every year without fail and said that I will not be disappointed. And disappointed I was not! The sixteen-dollar entrance fee proved to be a bargain.
I stood in the queue to purchase my ticket half expecting the others to be weirdly dressed in something like multicoloured hemp clothing, festooned with tattoos, or having brightly-coloured hair. Yes, there were a few of those, but turned out that, in general, they looked like pretty normal people. Funny how often we get our preconceived notions all wrong.
In any case, I went with an open mind. I understood there were to be various lectures throughout the show purporting some pretty weird ideas, but I was not there to pass judgment or challenge them. I just wanted to sit back and enjoy listening to them.
The first thing that struck me when entering was a kiosk selling oil from hemp apparently guaranteed to relieve you from sore joints and aching muscles. It was also here one could book a free consultation with someone who can prescribe cannabis for medicinal reasons. It never fails to surprise me why we don’t make it more of an industry to make materials out of hemp like clothing, paper, and even structural components for buildings. Despite hemp being an incredibly useful and far more ecologically sustaining material than wood, our society is so hung up on its use as a recreational drug, we frown upon it and make it illegal in most of the Western world. However, our conservative views on hemp are slowly dwindling in favour of a more relaxed approach, which is a good sign.
We then made our way to a kiosk selling homemade distilled liqueurs infused with various herbs and roots, the top one being made with ginseng. I’ll add here that throughout the expo, one could get just a little wasted on all the tastings. The liqueurs came in beautifully presented bottles with intricately designed labels harking back to the time of Arthurian legend. The liqueurs, themselves, were actually, pretty good.
There were plenty of other kiosks selling organic wine and herbal drinks, but truth be known, I did not come across any wine that was joyfully palatable. One can easily become spoiled with the quality of South Australia’s wines!
There were a few kiosks selling books, mainly on such subjects like meditation, the afterlife, dreaming, crystals, religion, the occult, UFOs, veganism, and secret societies including, of course, Freemasonry. This tickled me because, being a Freemason myself, the esoteric and the mysterious hold a special place for many of us. I’ve said it many a time in other writings. We cannot progress with technology and science unless we have an open mind with being exposed to phenomena that we cannot explain.
The expo had its fair share of free health checks and wellness assessments, all with the intention of getting you to sign up for a more comprehensive assessment for a fee. One health check involved standing on two separate scales to measure one’s weight balance. I tried it out myself. During the check, the exhibitor came up with an elaborate diagnosis based on a crude measurement of how differing my shoulder heights were. I might have made a mental note of my posture, but beyond that, I couldn’t make any more sense of the assessment. I declined on the offer of going in for a full assessment and went to another kiosk.
There were so many exhibits, each one trying very hard to sell something to benefit the body and mind. Another one advertised the benefits of something called Theta Healing undertaken by someone called an intuitive medium. There were exhibits in which crystals were held at close distance to the body to expunge some unwanted miasma or do something like aligning one’s chakras with magnetism. This is where I draw the line. I’m sorry. Suspending a piece of quartz, a metamorphic rock with a very stable and inert molecular structure, over one’s body is not going to anything except look incredibly stupid. As for magnetism, the human body is affected, but you need quite a big dose of it, such as that found from an MRI machine which has enough magnetic flux to rip apart staplers and mangle office chairs. Don’t believe me? Check out some demonstrations on YouTube!
One thing I did try for the first time was a sound bath. I was laid out on the floor with arms and legs outstretched while metal resonating bowls of various sizes were laid out all around me. One particularly large one was between my legs which gave off quite a vibrational stir around my nether regions when the young lady it with a soft mallet. It’s a good thing she didn’t miss! Throughout the experience, she kept tapping on various bowls around me which is supposed to induce a sense of peace and calm. Unfortunately, in the kiosk next door, a loud and overbearing Aboriginal drumming and didgeridoo session just commenced, so the experience was somewhat marred.
The ‘Jesus brigade’ were out on full force as well which, in a way, surprised me, because these sort of expos generally tend to attract spiritual seekers rather than religious zealots. Being game to trying anything out, I approached a kiosk manned with, what I assume, to be retirees, each wearing a blue shirt saying ‘Jesus Heals’ in large white letters. They enthusiastically beckoned me to come forward and tell me what physical ailment is troubling me. I said my shoulder hurt and, as I was explaining the symptoms in more detail, one of them directed to me to sit on a chair, while a second one held a hand to my forehead, while the third was praying fervently to Jesus. Containing myself, I held back any impulse to explain that the pain was in my shoulder, not my forehead. After a minute of praying, I was told to stand up and they enquired if I still had any pain. I could sense all of them were shaggy dog-eyed anxiously awaiting for me to say that the pain disappeared. They were just too friendly and nice and I didn’t have the heart to say that the pain was still there, so I said something in the lines of the pain not being there for the moment. They all said amen and I made my merry way to the next exhibit, which was, I have to say, the complete antithesis of the last one.
The next exhibit, quite a large one at that, was a paradise for those wishing to decorate their house for Halloween. Within was a couple, both dressed in black cloaks with Dracula-like collars and a variety of interesting pendants dangling off their necks. On a closer examination of the contents, one can find magic spell and witchcraft books, a very large collection of anything to do with pentagrams, sculptures and trinkets of dragons of lore, black cats, Beezlebubs, Ouija boards, and, I kid you not, a dildo set with some sort of a sex spell included with it. To cap it off, fronting this shop exhibit was a black billboard in the shape of a coffin with the words, “Have a Hextra Special Day”.
There were a few other exhibits which kept some of the younger kids more interested such as the live snake enclosure and a trapeze artist. Within the snake enclosure were a few Eastern Brown and Red-Bellied snakes amongst a few cute-looking thorny dragon lizards. Apparently, they get along with each other just fine. A young woman was casually wandering around the snakes and making cooing sounds about how cute the snakes are when they are coiled in a shoe and a little cardboard box and how they stick their head out to see what’s going on. Standing off to the side was an older gentlemen who looked quite official next to the first aid kit should something not go as planned. We were educated that Eastern Brown snakes, despite their very strong venom, generally do not deliver venom when they bite. Contrary to popular opinion, we were also informed that baby Browns do not release their venom with every bite.
And, of course, there were the lectures which were given throughout the day in 45-minute slots within a separate area. Not many turned up to listen to them, which seemed a pity, because there were some really interesting ones along with a few wacky ones.
We turned up to three of them.
The first one given by a chap called Jeff Lloyd who tried to explain that our physical soma beings are mere caricatures in a greater cosmos in which our mind is attached through silver and golden cords to our other energosoma, psychosoma and mentalsoma alter egos. He was on about out-of-body experiences and the consciousness vehicles of manifestation, most of which, made little or no sense. I understand the concept of lucid dreaming, something which I know how to do, but the concept of out-of-body and near-death experiences is pushing the boundary for me somewhat.
The second lecture we attended was by a guy called Etienne de Lavaulx who talked about meditation and detoxing the mind. His lecture made quite a lot of sense demonstrating that the art of meditation is beneficial for both the mind and body. We even tried it out during the lecture.
However, the third lecture was centred around utter nonsense and a seemingly bottomless pit of conspiracy theories. His name is Gerard Bini who makes a regular appearance at these sort of shows. His subject matter was 5G and the COVID vaccine. Having worked in the mobile telco industry for more than twenty years, I buckled myself in for the ride.
And what a ride it was.
Gerard talked about the dangers of 5G. Not because they are switched on and used for radio telephony, but for the fact that 5G installations are hidden within street lighting and, get this, not turned on, but rather that the arrays within the transmitter are creating an electromagnetic ground current which intentionally brainwashes the thought processes of those living nearby, but only those who were vaxxed because the vaccine has some graphene compound in it. There were a few others listening and I turned my head to look at the expressions on their faces. Most looked quizzical and curious, but some looked genuinely concerned.
Gerard Bini also had his own exhibit which was a minefield of bullshit. However, I have to commend the man for his business acumen insofar that he boasted during his lecture that his company has an annual turnover of two million dollars. After the lecture, I wandered over to his exhibit to get an understanding what sort of snake oil this guy is selling to the gullible.
My jaw dropped when I saw what he was selling.
His exhibit was centred around selling products that absorb so-called harmful personal and household RF protection. One of his products, called the Stellar Dome, are little rubber coloured mounds, with glittery stuff inside of it, and being the size of a palm of a hand. Apparently, having a couple of these in a home will protect your household from harmful electromagnetic radiation. Unbelievably, they were being sold for a staggering $215 apiece. However, there was a special price at the expo for ‘only’ $160!
It didn’t end there either.
There were a myriad of other useless products claiming to rid your house of unwanted harm like the Geoclense, which, essentially is a block of resin which you plug into your wall socket for the retail price of an astonishing $215. Gerard Bini claims that this product neutralises electromagnetic radiation, radio frequencies and, lest we forget, cosmic energy. All of which can sap your energy, rob you of sleep and drain your life force!
And finally, Gerard offers a consulting service to check out whether your home is in dire need of electromagnetic radiation dampening. People were lining up to see him as he tapped in the details of where people lived and then offering advice on what now needs to be done to mitigate the ongoing damage of the apparent damaging radiation in which they are being exposed to.
Unbelievable.
Again, I’ll say the man has done well in his business, but there are moral and ethical limits which, I believe, he has exceeded for his own unscrupulous gains. Moreover, it is people like Bini that create such a bad rap and create ill reputation for those who think alternatively and away from the mainstream.
To finish off, I really enjoyed the expo. It was such an interesting mix of everything which the hard-nosed mainstream analyst or technician would abhor. I daresay that I’ll get a far more engrossing and scintillating conversation from someone who attends one of these expos rather than one attending a trailer or camping expo. I love the esoteric, the occult and the mysterious. I also like the conspiracy theory stuff as well. Sure, there’s a lot of bullshit out there, but there’s also a lot of really cool things to discover. I’m sure the hell, do not want to live in a world where we don’t have kooky people doing weird things, as long as they do not intentionally harm others. Case in point, I’m sure there are quite a lot of kooky people working for various governments around the world to develop stuff which does exactly that.
There are some out there who decry and ridicule the work of others simply because what they have been working on has not been proven without reasonable doubt through extensive peer reviews or other exhaustive processes. We don’t want to live in an Alphaville world, a movie depicting a world based on technocracy, in which the government is in control of society through an elite of technical experts. A world where art and unfounded ideas are frowned upon or even punished. It would be grim indeed, just like what was portrayed in that movie.
We should have an open mind when attending such an expo. I enjoyed myself. I respected others. I might be tempted to ask a challenging question on a subject which has absolutely no basis in fact, but preferred to do it one-on-one rather than in front of others. I nearly got riled up with Bini’s exhibit selling bits of resin for $215, but then I thought. Well, he has set up shop in a Mind Body Psychic expo, which, at face value, represents a lot of alternative stuff, much of it being snake oil. To challenge Bini’s exhibit would be no better than challenging the health benefits of homeopathy and acupuncture, both of which have no hard scientific evidence of promoting better health either.
So, let sleeping dogs lie, and simply enjoy the colours, the weirdness, the scents and aromas, the tastes, the sounds, and the show itself.
