National Review, Dec 22, 1997

Center for the New Age, Sedona, 1997 © Andrew Stuttaford

Sedona, Arizona

It was time, explained the man in touch with an angel, to follow the joy and the excitement. I could take the sensible approach and leave by the door or I could choose excitement.

Why not scramble out through the window? Why not choose joy? Because I write for NR, that's why. I used the door.

Besides, he was exaggerating. We were in Sedona. And in Sedona it sometimes seems that there's nothing much that's very sensible. But that's unfair. Roughly halfway between Phoenix and the Grand Canyon, it is a nice little town with plenty of Norman Rockwell trimmings: an Elks lodge, air cadets, even a good diner or two. People come here to retire. At an elevation of 4,500 feet, Sedona enjoys a pleasant climate. It also boasts long meandering canyons, punctuated by massive sandstone outcroppings. Permeated with rust, their colors shift through the day, turning a deep red as the sun sets.

It is the red rocks that draw the tourist crowds. And not only tourists. Back in the early 1980s there was a revelation. The rocks were exposed. They were not just lumps of rusty sandstone. They were vortices! There had been rumors before. But the full details are reportedly given to a Page Bryant, a psychic, by "Albion," a being. A vortex is a "power spot," a point where you can plug into the earth's electro-magnetic field and boost your own psychic energy. Got it? Many did, and they came to live in Sedona. There have been disappointments, of course. Bell Rock was supposed to float off to Andromeda in 1987. It is still here.

And so is the New Age community. In force and, some say, backed up by spaceships. Vortex energy is UFO catnip. This is a place where Contact is old news and Men in Black is a home movie. Naturally, a saucer crashed here (in 1994, apparently) but this is no mere Roswell. That town has two paltry UFO museums and some scrub masquerading as a crash site. No aliens have come calling since 1947. Perhaps they prefer Sedona —and not just for the vortices. The Arizona town can offer better scenery and a metaphysical infrastructure that supports more than ufology.

Red Planet Diner, Sedona, 1997 © Andrew Stuttaford

So, if you want to visit a vortex, there will be someone to help. As an earthling, it is best to go on an inspirational tour. You can circle a medicine wheel, and chant thanks to the Great Spirit. It doesn't matter if you don't know the words. Everyone else seems to. "From Pagan Worship," explained a friendly lady from Indiana, matter-of-fact!y. Souvenirs? Sedona is a spiritual supermarket. There is enough here for the most demanding of metaphysical shoppers. Books, of course, and psychic tchotchkes for every purpose—candles for that meditative moment, crystals for healing, an inner-self manifestation bowl for, er, inner-self manifestation. The approach is ecumenical. You worship it and they will sell it. A statue of Ra? Or a pair of Birkenstocks? No cult is too strange.

Or need too obscure. In Sedona there's a "lightworker" for every purpose, someone to tell your future and find your past (life, that is). And auras can be photographed (mine was red, slept too near a vortex).

In a way, this is just an updating of an old tradition, nothing more sinister than the old gypsy woman telling fortunes. But the New Age is now. It echoes and reinforces our pancredulity. When everything is OK and people believe that nothing can really be proved one way or the other, that's not much of a challenge. Our entrepreneurial mystics know this. They understand their market. They flatter our self-esteem.

While feeling our pain. The gypsy's caravan has become a clinic. This is a New Age for victims. The hocus-pocus has to "heal." Witches must be Welbys, psychic Kildares tending our inner children. And sorting out our cholesterol, while they are at it. There's a lot to do, but angels apparently can help out. Even the dolphins will have a go.

But, if Flipper flops, don't panic. Sedona is on your side.

Center for the New Age, 1997 © Andrew Stuttaford

There's Alpha Body Relaxation Therapy, Aromatherapy, Axiationa! Therapy, Color Therapy, Cranio-Sacral Therapy, Regression Therapy, Reiki Therapy, Trager Therapy, Trigger Point Therapy, Vibration Therapy, and Coning. Coning? Used in Atlantis, apparently. Cotton strips are dipped into an herbal beeswax mix, rolled into a cone, and left to harden. The broad end of the cone is then set on fire. Smoke spirals down the cone and out through its tip, which is in the patient's ear. The idea is to draw physical and emotional debris (which, this patient noted, was black and gooey) out into the cone.

And why not? Atlantean medicine may have had a lot going for it. It is, after all, ancient. And that plays well in the New Age. Science doesn't. The New Age prefers the old ways. Particularly if they can be traced back to cultures where people wore robes or, best of all, were Native Americans. Except for an enlightened few (steps forward, lightworkers!), modern Americans find it difficult to accept this. Or so it is argued. Luddite, elitist, self-importantly self-hating. And where have we heard this tone before? Did anyone say EPA?

Carol Browner would fit in here. As a priestess perhaps, worshiping the Earth (or Gaia, as she is more respectfully known). For the New Age will be feminist. Judging by Sedona, at least, its psychics and its shoppers are mainly female. Women, we learn, are especially caring, intuitive, spiritual; all around better people than another sex I could mention. But then, in an era of soccer matriarchy, this is little more than conventional piety.

To be sure, Sedona can also be guaranteed to see some unconventional piety. But nothing too onerous. At a women's spirituality conference this past fall, there was plenty of ritual and ceremony, but also, as advertisements made clear, a focus on "optional nurturing activities"such as . . . "shopping, napping etc."

Napping? Someone should keep awake in case the Goddess shows up. That's the Goddess to you, figurehead of a supposedly "woman-centered" prehistory. Some say she may be returning to her domain. Far-fetched? Not if you believe that a small town in Arizona is built near the site of a great Lemurian city. Is the Goddess Gaia? Perhaps. But there is another candidate, a woman of great influence. And strange powers. A woman who can communicate with dead First Ladies.

Bill, be very, very careful.

Into the Vortex

National Review, Dec 22, 1997

© Andrew Stuttaford, 2024.